Oswald's shot-1 ricochet was at Z113 or Z105.

[Lance Payette]

Dear Lance,

Just curious:

1) Were there oodles and gobs of "two shots" earwitnesses who switched to "three shots"?

2) How many of them changed their minds because "the media" and/or "social pressure" convinced them that what they had originally assumed was a motorcycle backfire, a firecracker, a tire blowout, or a/an [fill in the blank] was actually a shot?

-- Tom

That would be for Jack Nessan to answer. I periodically purge my Kindle library and no longer have Phantom Shot.

I have no problem with a fragment of the head shot striking Tague. That's presumably what Phantom Shot concludes as well, although I don't recall.

As far as Rozelle and Searce - it's not "Roselle," Mr. Grammar Police - I will defer to the response of Dale Myers and his co-authors: https://jfkfiles.blogspot.com/2014/. Their salient points are that this is just another Rorschach-test interpretation, no more compelling than any other, less compelling than some, and agenda-driven like all of them. (They refer to the analysis of the Z film as "horribly flawed.") I find it and any early shot unlikely - not impossible, but unlikely - for the reasons pointed out by others on the McAdams' site I linked.

Let me guess: Your enthusiasm for Rozelle/Searce has something to do with Bagley, Solie and the KGB - yes? Did old Bagley slap his forehead and screech "It had to be an early shot!" to Blunt, spewing oatmeal all over the latter's yellow note pad?

[Jack Nessan]

Dear Lance,

Just curious:

1) Were there oodles and gobs of "two shots" earwitnesses who switched to "three shots"?

2) How many of them changed their minds because "the media" and/or "social pressure" convinced them that what they had originally assumed was a motorcycle backfire, a firecracker, a tire blowout, or a/an [fill in the blank] was actually a shot?

-- Tom

1) Were there oodles and gobs of "two shots" earwitnesses who switched to "three shots"?

YES

2) How many of them changed their minds because "the media" and/or "social pressure" convinced them that what they had originally assumed was a motorcycle backfire, a firecracker, a tire blowout, or a/an [fill in the blank] was actually a shot?

All the investigating committees of the assassination felt the witnesses inflated the number of shots and specifically stated it in their conclusions. It is that obvious.

WC Conclusion: "The eyewitness testimony may be subconsciously colored by the extensive publicity given the conclusion that three shots were fired"
 
HSCA Conclusion:  The buildings around the Plaza caused strong reverberations, or echoes, that followed the initial sound by from 0 .5 to 1 .5 sec . While these reflections caused no confusion to our listeners, who were prepared and expected to hear them, they may well have inflated the number of shots reported by the suprised witnesses during the assassination .  HSCA Earwitness Analysis Report, pgs 135-137
 
HSCA Conclusion: "The committee believed that the witnesses memories and testimony on the number, direction, and timing of the shots may have
been substantially influenced by the intervening publicity concerning the events of November 22 1963"   HSCA Final Report- pg 87

[Lance Payette]

As Lee Bowers observed, and as I and Jack Nessan have said we’ve observed, sharp loud noises in an echo chamber like Dealey Plaza can be extremely misleading. One may be prepared to swear on a Bible that they came from a direction the opposite of the one from which they actually did.

And here we’re talking about rifle shots from a location well-above ground level. Just Google “gunshot acoustics” and you’ll find any number of technical articles describing how many sounds a gunshot can produce and how difficult it can be to reconstruct the location and number of shots.

Then we have the reliability or unreliability of eyewitness and earwitness testimony. It’s not wholly unreliable, but the circumstances are important. Here, we have several hundred witnesses (see the “Dealey Plaza Witness Database,” https://www.maryferrell.org/DealeyPlazaWitnessDB.html) stretched along a route from the corner of Houston and Elm down to the triple overpass. They are there to watch the finishing stretch of a Presidential motorcade. They are surrounded by sounds – cars, motorcycles, kids, other onlookers. They are in a high state of anticipation and excitement: “There’s JFK! There’s Jackie!”

We can all agree, even by the most extreme estimates, that all shots occurred in less than 15 seconds. In those 15 seconds, and in those circumstances, the eyewitnesses and earwitnesses find themselves in the middle of a wholly unanticipated event of unimaginable horror – in a location where determining the source and number of gunshots would be difficult under the best of circumstances.

Yes, we have the Z film and other films and photos that can be correlated with the witness recollections. Yet all this evidence has generated sincere and scientific (or at least scientific-sounding) estimates that vary greatly in terms of the location(s) and number of shots. The supposed shot that missed is estimated to occur as early as Z124 and as late as after the head shot.

This is why it’s a Rorschach test: What one concludes about the shots is inevitably influenced, if not driven, by one’s theory of the case. In terms of the number of shots, I would tend to think the lower estimate of two would be more likely to be accurate than higher numbers precisely because of the acoustics of gunshots and the echo chamber nature of Dealey Plaza. And, as it happens, two shots is a tidy theory that is consistent with other evidence and eliminates some pesky problems like the dented shell, the "missing" (not) shot, and Oswald’s ability to fire the Carcano within the available time.

Indeed, any missed shot is a pesky problem given the fact that that the other two shots were rather stunningly accurate. Hence theories like Holland's, where the missed shot would have been just as accurate if it hadn't hit the arm of a pole.

I can certainly see why CTers reject the two-shot scenario – they want those problems! – but I’m puzzled as to why it doesn’t receive more attention from the LN community.

Putting myself in Oswald's shoes, if I'm going to pull off the JFKA I want the most stable platform from which to do it. I don't want to have to be moving around - standing and then squatting, raising or lowering the window frame, etc., etc. I want to be in place and ready to pull the trigger when the limo reaches the point at which I've decided I'm going to start firing. As DVP (I believe) pointed out on the Google discussion, the sniper's nest suggests this is exactly what Oswald did. As others suggested, this location made sure that his target's back was to him and the SS agents and onlookers were turned away from him. It all makes logistical sense, which an early missed shot does not.

[Tom Graves]

Let me guess: Your enthusiasm for [the] Rozelle/Searce [first, missing-everything shot at pseudo Z-124] has something to do with Bagley, Solie and the KGB - yes? Did old Bagley slap his forehead and screech "It had to be an early shot!" to Blunt, spewing oatmeal all over the latter's yellow note pad?

Dear Lance "Voice of Reason and Heartwarming Anecdotes" Payette,

I just now looked up "Oswald" in the index of Bagley's 2007 Yale University Press book, Spy Wars: Moles, Mysteries, and Deadly Games, to try to find out if Pete (whom I know was a "Lonenutter") subscribed to the idea that the self-described Marxist and former Marine sharpshooter / U-2 radar operator had a habit of keeping a spent shell in the chamber of his military surplus Carcano for dry-firing and corrosion prevention purposes, but all I found was this:

Oswald, Lee Harvey, 78-79, 283-84; as motive for CIA's "kidnapping” Nosenko in KGB fantasy [similar to the KGB's later fantasy that the CIA had kidnapped KGB Colonel Vitaliy Yurchenko in Rome in 1985], 216-17; Nechiporenko writes about, 211; Nosenko on, 83-86, 95-96, 177-78, 185-86, 189, 206, 249, 259-60, 264, 299n6

Homing in on pages 78-79 and 283-84, this is what I found (my comments are in brackets):

Pages 78-79:

My colleague Sid and I were returning from lunch at a restaurant in nearby McLean, Virginia. Like every American of a certain age I remember where I was at that moment. The date, to be graven in history, was 22 November 1963. 1 had one foot in an elevator in the CIA building in Langley. “Isn’t it terrible?” said Jerry, as he stepped out of the elevator. "Probably not as bad as all that, Jerry,” Sid said flippantly. Jerry stopped. "No, listen. Haven’t you heard?” he said, "The President has been shot in Dallas!” We rushed to our offices on the fifth floor where radios were on. Sickened, we talked in subdued voices, stirring each other’s hope for that brief moment before the sad, final news was flashed. Soon the radio announced that the assassin had been captured and, not long after that, identified him. A later news bulletin galvanized us: Lee Harvey Oswald was an ex-Marine who had defected to the Soviet Union in 1959 and had returned to the United States only a year and a half ago. The Counterintelligence Staff, with its established liaison with the FBI and other government agencies, was quickly designated as the Agency’s coordinating point for all Clandestine Services efforts to collect information on Oswald and his connections. Among the traces that James Angleton’s shop first uncovered was a recent report from Mexico City on Oswald’s contact with the Soviet Embassy when he applied for a visa to return to the USSR. The “consular officials” he met were both KGB officers. By itself this was no surprise, because the KGB occupied almost all consular slots throughout the world. But one of those whom Oswald met was Valery V. Kostikov, whom we knew [sic; "believed" would be a better word here*] to have been a member of the First Chief Directorate’s 13th Department, the one responsible for sabotage and “liquid affairs” abroad— murder. The Counterintelligence Staff handled the microscopic search of Agency files, but everyone stretched to make any possible contribution. It was Lee Wigren, our Counterintelligence section research chief, who made the sections first contribution. On his own initiative he leafed through the Agency’s photographic files on the remote chance that some detail of Minsk, where Oswald had lived, might assist in visualizing his environment in the Soviet Union. Photo in hand, Lee burst into my office. “Look at this,” he exclaimed. “I asked for pictures of landmarks and public buildings in Minsk and got this one of the opera house.” An American tourist had taken photos in August 1961 during a trip to the USSR and thinking they might be of some interest, he had turned them over to a CIA representative he knew. In due course, the snapshots were filed. Among them was the one in Lee’s hand, of the opera house in Minsk. "So, what do you think?” I thought as Lee did. Standing there, undeniably, was Lee Harvey Oswald himself. This useful confirmation of Oswald’s presence there was passed on to the investigators and later appeared in the Warren Commission Report on the assassination. 11 The circumstances— Oswald’s defection to the USSR, his return to the United States with a Soviet wife, his contact with Kostikov only two months before the assassination — opened the question of whether the Soviet government had had a hand in the assassination. It seemed entirely unlikely but could not be disregarded. Incredibly, it was only a few weeks later that I would be listening to a denial of any Soviet involvement in the assassination, delivered with rare authority by my [putative] agent at work in the USSR [KGB Major I mean Lt. Col. I mean Captain Yuri Nosenko].

. . . . . . . .

Pages 283-84 [in the Appendix section]:

Oswald, Lee Harvey: Assassin of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on 22 November 1963. Because he had defected to USSR in 1959 after service in the U.S. marines, then changed his mind and returned to the United States in 1962 with a Soviet wife, the question was raised as to whether the Soviets had a hand in the assassination itself. Within weeks, Yuri Nosenko* brought authoritative evidence that the Soviet government had had no interest in, or operational contact with, Oswald.

. . . . . . . .


*Note: The only reason Bagley thought Kostikov was Department 13 on 11/22/63 was because a Kremlin-loyal triple agent at the FBI's NYC field office by the name of KGB Major Aleksei Kulak (J. Edgar Hoover's shielded-from CIA FEDORA) had told the Bureau in 1962 that Kostikov's charge (pardon the pun) at the U.N., Igor Brykin, was Department 13.

Sorry, but Bagley says nothing about the Single Bullet Hypothesis, or the possibility that JFK's upper torso went back-and-to-the-left (after going forward and downward 2.25 inches between Z-312 and Z-313) was because the right side of his brain had been destroyed, [etc.], etc., etc.

I guess he had more important things to worry about.

Bummer, huh?

[Lance Payette]

Dear Lance "Voice of Reason and Heartwarming Anecdotes" Payette,

I just now looked up "Oswald" in the index of Bagley's 2007 Yale University Press book, Spy Wars: Moles, Mysteries, and Deadly Games, to try to find out if Pete (whom I know was a "Lonenutter") subscribed to the idea that the self-described Marxist and former Marine sharpshooter / U-2 radar operator had a habit of keeping a spent shell in the chamber of his military surplus Carcano for dry-firing and corrosion prevention purposes, but all I found was this:

Oswald, Lee Harvey, 78-79, 283-84; as motive for CIA's "kidnapping” Nosenko in KGB fantasy [similar to the KGB's later fantasy that the CIA had kidnapped KGB Colonel Vitaliy Yurchenko in Rome in 1985], 216-17; Nechiporenko writes about, 211; Nosenko on, 83-86,
95-96, 177-78, 185-86, 189, 206, 249, 259-60, 264, 299n6

Homing in on pages 78-79 and 283-85, this is what I found:

Pages 78-79:

My colleague Sid and I were returning from lunch at a restaurant in nearby McLean, Virginia. Like every American of a certain age I remember where I was at that moment. The date, to be graven in history, was 22 November 1963. 1 had one foot in an elevator in the CIA building in Langley. “Isn’t it terrible?” said Jerry, as he stepped out of the elevator. "Probably not as bad as all that, Jerry,” Sid said flippantly. Jerry stopped. "No, listen. Haven’t you heard?” he said, "The President has been shot in Dallas!” We rushed to our offices on the fifth floor where radios were on. Sickened, we talked in subdued voices, stirring each other’s hope for that brief moment before the sad, final news was flashed. Soon the radio announced that the assassin had been captured and, not long after that, identified him. A later news bulletin galvanized us: Lee Harvey Oswald was an ex-Marine who had defected to the Soviet Union in 1959 and had returned to the United States only a year and a half ago. The Counterintelligence Staff, with its established liaison with the FBI and other government agencies, was quickly designated as the Agency’s coordinating point for all Clandestine Services efforts to collect information on Oswald and his connections. Among the traces that James Angleton’s shop first uncovered was a recent report from Mexico City on Oswald’s contact with the Soviet Embassy when he applied for a visa to return to the USSR. The “consular officials” he met were both KGB officers. By itself this was no surprise, because the KGB occupied almost all consular slots throughout the world. But one of those whom Oswald met was Valery V. Kostikov, whom we knew [sic; "believed" would be a better word here*] to have been a member of the First Chief Directorate’s 13th Department, the one responsible for sabotage and “liquid affairs” abroad— murder. The Counterintelligence Staff handled the microscopic search of Agency files, but everyone stretched to make any possible contribution. It was Lee Wigren, our Counterintelligence section research chief, who made the sections first contribution. On his own initiative he leafed through the Agency’s photographic files on the remote chance that some detail of Minsk, where Oswald had lived, might assist in visualizing his environment in the Soviet Union. Photo in hand, Lee burst into my office. “Look at this,” he exclaimed. “I asked for pictures of landmarks and public buildings in Minsk and got this one of the opera house.” An American tourist had taken photos in August 1961 during a trip to the USSR and thinking they might be of some interest, he had turned them over to a CIA representative he knew. In due course, the snapshots were filed. Among them was the one in Lee’s hand, of the opera house in Minsk. "So, what do you think?” I thought as Lee did. Standing there, undeniably, was Lee Harvey Oswald himself. This useful confirmation of Oswald’s presence there was passed on to the investigators and later appeared in the Warren Commission Report on the assassination. 11 The circumstances— Oswald’s defection to the USSR, his return to the United States with a Soviet wife, his contact with Kostikov only two months before the assassination — opened the question of whether the Soviet government had had a hand in the assassination. It seemed entirely unlikely but could not be disregarded. Incredibly, it was only a few weeks later that I would be listening to a denial of any Soviet involvement in the assassination, delivered with rare authority by my [putative] agent at work in the USSR [KGB Major I mean Lt. Col. I mean Captain Yuri Nosenko].

. . . . . . . .

Pages 283-84 [in the Appendix section]:

Oswald, Lee Harvey: Assassin of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on 22 November 1963. Because he had defected to USSR in 1959 after service in the U.S. marines, then changed his mind and returned to the United States in 1962 with a Soviet wife, the question was raised as to whether the Soviets had a hand in the assassination itself. Within weeks, Yuri Nosenko* brought authoritative evidence that the Soviet government had had no interest in, or operational contact with, Oswald.

. . . . . . . .


*Note: The only reason Bagley thought Kostikov was Department 13 on 11/22/63 was because a Kremlin-loyal triple agent at the FBI's NYC field office by the name of KGB Major Aleksei Kulak (J. Edgar Hoover's shielded-from CIA FEDORA) had told the Bureau in 1962 that Kostikov's charge (pardon the pun) at the U.N., Igor Brykin, was Department 13.

Sorry, but Bagley says nothing about the Single Bullet Hypothesis, or the possibility that JFK's upper torso went back-and-to-the-left (after going forward and downward 2.25 inches between Z-312 and Z-313) was because the right side of his brain had been destroyed, [etc.], etc., etc.

Bummer, huh?

 

Well, phooey, that's no fun. I had so hoped that Bagley had weighed in on both the Huge Gates and the Early Shot Thing, and possibly even the Shipping Casket Thing. 

Since you enjoy my little anecdotes, I can tell you that I attended - kicking and screaming - two ballets at the Minsk opera house in 2007-2008. No, actually, they were quite enjoyable.

[Tom Graves]

Well, phooey, that's no fun. I had so hoped that Bagley had weighed in on both the Huge Gates and the Early Shot Thing, and possibly even the Shipping Casket Thing. 

Since you enjoy my little anecdotes, I can tell you that I attended - kicking and screaming - two ballets at the Minsk opera house in 2007-2008. No, actually, they were quite enjoyable.

I only went to one in Brno -- "Rusalka."