Perception of Reality

[John Mytton]

I agree.  It is not just that Oswald became a communist sympathiser and styled himself as an anti-fascist. Oswald acted on his twisted notions. 

How many Communist sympathizers actually moved to Russia?  How many of those stayed there long enough to learn how to speak and write Russian and get married? How many supposed anti-fascists (ironic, because Oswald's behaviour was fascist-like) actually identified a specific target, bought a gun and tried to assassinate that target?

How many Communist sympathizers actually moved to Russia? How many of those stayed there long enough to learn how to speak and write Russian and get married?

That's right Andrew, not many Anybody But Oswald aficionados will confront the 6 ton elephant in the room and those that do will try and claim that Oswald was a US Government agent and was on a secret mission that happened to include self mutilation, working in a factory doing menial labour and having children with a Russian wife. Oswald was not the full quid and according to Marina, Oswald said assassinating a Government figure to bring about political change was part and parcel of being a responsible citizen.

Mr. RANKIN. Did he tell you why he had shot at General Walker?
Mrs. OSWALD. I told him that he had no right to kill people in peacetime, he had no right to take their life because not everybody has the same ideas as he has. People cannot be all alike. He said that this was a very bad man, that he was a fascist, that he was the leader of a fascist organization, and when I said that even though all of that night be true, just the same he had no right to take his life, he said if someone had killed Hitler in time it would have saved many lives. I told him that this is no method to prove your ideas, by means of a rifle.

JohnM

[Andrew Mason]

Mason can't help himself. Right out of the Defense Attorney Playbook that, thanks to Mark Lane and the like, polluted just about every forensic fact to do with the Kennedy assassination. In this case, Young Andy re-framed what I said into something I did not say.

Jerry, you seem awfully defensive.  I just asked you why you think Hickey made up his statement about seeing the second shot NOT hit JFK. He said that the hair on the right side of his head flew up at the time of the second shot and did not appear to hit anything.  Hickey did say that in his Nov. 30/63 statement (CE1024, 18H762):

"The first shot of the second two seemed as if it missed because the hair on the right side of his head flew forward and there didn't seem to be any impact against his head. The last shot seemed to hit his head and cause a noise at the point of impact which made him fall forward and to his left again."

You now accuse me of lying in pointing out what he said. You said:

"And stop lying that it's where Hickey saw Kennedy's hair fly away. The only place Hickey could see the President's hair fly away is the head shot.
You lie because you need the tiny hair flutter for your Pet Theory's Z272 shot."

How is it a "lie" on my part to quote you saying that Hickey did not see the hair fly up on the second shot before the head shot, and ask you why you think that Hickey, a career Secret Service Agent, would state that he did see the hair fly up on the second shot, before the head shot if, indeed, he had not seen that, in which case he would have known he had not seen that when he gave his statement.

You say that you 'did not "suggest" Hickey "made up his story"'.  Yet you continue to assert that Hickey, in recalling seeing JFK's hair fly up at the time of the second shot but no damage being done to JFK, was stating that he observed something that he did not observe:

Here what I wrote:

    "Hickey seems to have heard the rifle report of the head shot and the impact on
     the head as two separate sounds ("there seemed to be practically no time
     element between them")."

I will just add a couple of comments: 

"Practically" is a big word.  It means there was a time element between the last two shots but it was short. 

Hickey did make it clear that he could distinguish between the two shots. He did not describe the impact to the head as occurring before the sound of the shot, which is what would he would have heard if there had been just one shot. The sound of impact would have arrived at his ears about 1/10th of a second before the sound wave-front from the muzzle blast arrived.  Why would he mistake that for two rifle shots? He distinguished between the impact sound and the muzzle blast but still counted that as one shot - the head shot.  The second shot was a different shot, according to Hickey.

You then assert:

I have a "theory" that Hickey made up something he did not see? LOL! National Day for Truth and Reconciliation is tomorrow, but it's going to be wasted on you.

So are you conceding that he saw what he said he saw: "the hair on the right side of his head flew forward and there didn't seem to be any impact against his head" and "The last shot seemed to hit his head and cause a noise at the point of impact" ??  Or are you still saying that I am lying in saying that Hickey actually said those words? 

What time frame? Hickey said "Perhaps 2 or 3 seconds elapsed from the time I looked to the rear and then looked at the President." Hickey's head is turned completely around in the Altgens photo at Z255, one second before the hair flutter in the Z270s. Even if Hickey began turning forward in Z256, he has to locate the President, perceive him "slumped forward and to his left" and observe the President "straightening up to an almost erect sitting position as I turned and looked." Then -- "At the moment he was almost sitting erect I heard two reports" -- Hickey sees what he calls "the hair on the right side of his head flew forward". Seems a lot to take in within one second, if Hickey got it all done by the Z270s.

If Hickey turned his head from z255 to z273, which is a full second, he could have easily heard a shot and seen JFK's hair fly up, which occurs from z273-276.  Why could that not have happened?  He said: "Perhaps 2 or 3 seconds elapsed from the time I looked to the rear and then looked at the President." so it could not have been much later than z255 that he turned.

Hickey said he observed JFK's hair fly up on the right side of his head BEFORE the head shot.  I have carefully examined the zfilm, as have you, and the only place that JFK's hair flies up between z255 when Hickey is looking rearward until z313 is from z273-z276.  How could he possibly have known that this occurred if he had not seen it?  It is obviously before the head shot.  How do you explain that?  Just a good guess? That is a really big question that you seem to be avoiding......

And, while you are at it, how is it that this hair movement, which Hickey said coincided with the first of the last two shots, fits perfectly with a shot that is 2.3 seconds before the head shot?  That just happens to fit with Oswald firing the last two shots as quickly as possible. Just a coincidence, I suppose..... 

What about Hickey's other statement:

    "Nothing was observed and I turned around and looked at the President's car. The President
     was slumped to the left in the car and I observed him come up. I heard what appeared to be
     two shots and it seemed as if the right side of his head was hit and his hair flew forward."

Hickey certainly associates the hair flying forward with the head shot.

In his Nov. 22/63 statement he described two shots and their effects.  On one shot, he observed the right side of JFK's head being hit and on the other he observed that JFK's hair flew forward.  Hey, and guess what: that is exactly how he explained it in his more detailed statement on November 30/63!!

Hickey was not standing in the Queen Mary; he was propped against the front side of two cases that were laid flat and stacked on his side of the back seat. I figure Hickey had his feet on the car floor because if he sat on the top of the upper case, he would go sliding off the cases at the first turn. My 3D model took into account the height differential and street slope.

You KNOW he was not standing?  Why would his legs when facing rearward be in the same position when he was facing forward?  Think Jerry. That makes absolutely no sense.  When facing the rear, he would have been able to kneel against the seat as he appears to be doing in Altgens 6.   But that was not possible when facing forward.  Why would he not be standing when he faced forward? What evidence do you have that he was not fully standing when he faced forward?

At least it appears that you would agree with me that he would be able to easily see the top of JFK's head if he was fully standing when facing forward.  You can see from Altgens' 6 that Clint Hill was able to see the top of JFK's head.  Hickey's eyes would have been even higher if he was fully standing.

Hickey could see some of the top of the President's head but not the right front. In the Z270s, Kennedy's head is tilted forward such that the tiny hair flutter was out of Hickey's sight. I posed Kennedy as he was in Z272 and I placed Hickey as he was in the Queen Mary. One is sitting in a car; the other is braced with his feet on the floorboard. I even had Hickey facing forward though I very much doubt Hickey reeled his head fully around in the one second between the Altgens photo and Z272.

This seems to once again come down to your non-comprehension of parallax and perspective. It would be like me taking on your legal work for a month.

Jerry, grade 5 students understand parallax and perspective.  That is not the issue.  The issue is whether Hickey saw what he said he saw.  You say he could not.  I say, there is no reason to believe that he made a false statement and every reason to believe, since what he said he observed actually appears in the zfilm, that his statement is not false.

[Andrew Mason]

 Jerry, you keep repeating yourself and it makes no sense.  You say that Hickey could not have seen what he said he saw: no damage just hair flying forward on the second shot followed by a third shot that struck his head. It is obvious that you are saying his statement that he saw this was a false statement ie. not a true statement.  And you keep accusing me of lying when I point this out!!

So I ask you how you know that Hickey was not standing when he looked forward, which is obviously what you are basing your allegation that his statement was false. I am not sure you even tried to answer that. You just said that he never stood up before. That is your answer?  Are you serious?

But you can't even answer a simple question: how do you explain how the very thing that Hickey described seeing just prior to the headshot is exactly what we see in the zfilm? How could he possibly have known that this occurred exactly as he described if had not seen it? Simple question. I'll bet you will keep avoiding it.

[Jerry Freeman]

  Whether it is the main stream media’s bias or Oliver Stone’s bias (in his movie JFK) showing only one view in order to promote their bias can be misleading. Sadly, it happens every day.

So you admit that there is a lame stream media bias... I certainly agree. But you are very much mistaken about the direction of that bias.
That day and in the December time that followed the assassination we had Uncle Walter Cronkite [whom everybody trusted heart and soul] reading the teleprompter like a puppet and the two other networks [the only ones around] followed suit. Who wrote those words for them to parrot? Who controlled the information? That control has never changed.
The case against the accused assassin was prosecuted via TV. Any questions were squelched...any doubts were belayed.
Regarding the movie 'JFK'...most people regard it as a film with an all star cast that is for the most part...too depressing...but does raise many questions. So what was wrong with that? There were productions along the way like 'The men who killed Kennedy' but they are regarded more as a novelty than anything else.

[Charles Collins]

So you admit that there is a lame stream media bias... I certainly agree. But you are very much mistaken about the direction of that bias.
That day and in the December time that followed the assassination we had Uncle Walter Cronkite [whom everybody trusted heart and soul] reading the teleprompter like a puppet and the two other networks [the only ones around] followed suit. Who wrote those words for them to parrot? Who controlled the information? That control has never changed.
The case against the accused assassin was prosecuted via TV. Any questions were squelched...any doubts were belayed.
Regarding the movie 'JFK'...most people regard it as a film with an all star cast that is for the most part...too depressing...but does raise many questions. So what was wrong with that? There were productions along the way like 'The men who killed Kennedy' but they are regarded more as a novelty than anything else.

I (and apparently many other people) have requested that Ken Burns, the acclaimed documentary producer, make a documentary about the JFK assassination. One of the reasons that I specified in my letter to him was to provide a counter viewpoint to the Oliver Stone movie. Sadly the response from him stated that he already had many projects in the pipeline and was too busy to do one on the JFK assassination. Ken Burns is very well known and I think is uniquely qualified to make a documentary based on what is known (instead of “raising more questions “) that would appeal to a wider audience than just the students of the case. His techniques typically can “transport” an audience to the period of time in history and the events that are the subject of the documentary. It would be a much needed antidote to Oliver Stone’s movie, if he would only make it.

[Andrew Mason]

You're re-framing what I said just like you've re-framed what Hickey said. Here's his original statement again:

    "Nothing was observed and I turned around and looked at the President's car. The President
     was slumped to the left in the car and I observed him come up. I heard what appeared to be
     two shots and it seemed as if the right side of his head was hit and his hair flew forward."

The head is struck and the hair then flies away. Even his later report has those two shots intertwined:

    "At the moment he was almost sitting erect I heard two reports which I thought were shots
     and that appeared to me completely different in sound than the first report and were in
     such rapid succession that there seemed to be practically no time element between them.
     It looked to me as if the President was struck in the right upper rear of his head."

Here he doesn't say only one of the two shots (or sounds he thought were shots; one could have been the impact on the head or the windshield frame being struck) struck the President's head; he says both "reports" occurred during the head shot event. Only then does Hickey break it down (much to the benefit of cherry-pickers):

    "The first shot of the second two seemed as if it missed because the hair on the right side
     of his head flew forward and there didn't seem to be any impact against his head. The last
     shot seemed to hit his head and cause a noise at the point of impact which made him fall
     forward and to his left again. -- Possibly four or five seconds elapsed from the time of
     the first report and the last."

Because this is the only point at which Hickey could have seen hair "fly forward", he must be talking about the head shot.

But HE IS CLEARLY NOT TALKING ABOUT THE HEAD SHOT. He is talking about the first shot of the second two which appeared to miss because he observed the hair on the right side of his head fly forward with no impact on the head.  There is no way that he is describing the head shot. 

By your Theory, Hickey would be describing a span of more than two seconds as "there seemed to be practically no time element between them".

Jerry, my "theory" is that Hickey did not make it up.  My "theory" is that he saw what he said he saw. 

Here's what I said: "And stop lying that it's where Hickey saw Kennedy's hair fly away. The only place Hickey could see the President's hair fly away is the head shot."

Jerry, he said he saw JFK's hair fly up on the right side on the first of the last two shots and nothing else happened.  You say that Hickey could not have seen what he said he saw.  I am just saying that, since the only place Hickey could have seen JFK's hair fly up BEFORE the head shot, which is unquestionably what he described, was the only place his hair flew up while he was looking forward, which is z273-76.  And you accuse me of "lying" for saying this!!!  It is you who is accusing Hickey of uttering a falsehood. I did not utter a falsehood by pointing out the evidence.

Calm down, fellow. I'm sorry your lamebrain Pet Theory is in the Ash Heap of History. So now the defense attorney is resorting to charges of evasion, even though I worked up his Hickey claim in 3D three years ago, and more recently explained that since Hickey can't physically see to the tiny hair flutter in the Z270s, he must have been talking about the head shot, where hair does fly forward in a memorable way plus being visible to Hickey.

I don't know if you can actually read, Jerry.  He distinctly said he was talking about a shot BEFORE the head shot!!  He was not talking about the head shot.

Show one motorcade-underway picture where Hickey is standing with his head level with Clint Hill.

Unfortunately, there are none.  But there is one of Powers standing up in the QM taking movies. It is clear from your photo below that Powers is higher up than Clint Hill and the other agents on the running board.  How tall was Hickey? Do you know?

Surely, Agent Hickey must have stretched his legs once in a while.

Why? What does it matter if he didn't or if there is no photo of it? How does that bear on the issue: whether he was standing when he said observed the President at the time of the last two shots?

Dave Powers standing

Dave Powers' view

Dave Powers was more to the behind of Kennedy than Hickey. Powers wouldn't be able to see to the hair flutter when Kennedy's head was sharply tilted forward and tilted a bit toward Jackie.

You are just making that up!  How on earth can you know that?  JFK's head would have been at his shin level 20 feet away. He could see his whole head. And he said he saw the hair on the right side of his head fly forward. You are really grasping at straws.

BTW, a tiny amount of hair in the Z270s bounces up 1/2 inch for one frame and then falls downward. You really think a 1/18th second event made this much of an impression on Hickey: "the hair on the right side of his head flew forward".

Hickey obviously thought so because he recalled it and wrote it in his statement.

[Dan O'meara]

But HE IS CLEARLY NOT TALKING ABOUT THE HEAD SHOT. He is talking about the first shot of the second two which appeared to miss because he observed the hair on the right side of his head fly forward with no impact on the head.  There is no way that he is describing the head shot. 

Jerry, my "theory" is that Hickey did not make it up.  My "theory" is that he saw what he said he saw. 
Jerry, he said he saw JFK's hair fly up on the right side on the first of the last two shots and nothing else happened.  You say that Hickey could not have seen what he said he saw.  I am just saying that, since the only place Hickey could have seen JFK's hair fly up BEFORE the head shot, which is unquestionably what he described, was the only place his hair flew up while he was looking forward, which is z273-76.  And you accuse me of "lying" for saying this!!!  It is you who is accusing Hickey of uttering a falsehood. I did not utter a falsehood by pointing out the evidence.

I don't know if you can actually read, Jerry.  He distinctly said he was talking about a shot BEFORE the head shot!!  He was not talking about the head shot.
Unfortunately, there are none.  But there is one of Powers standing up in the QM taking movies. It is clear from your photo below that Powers is higher up than Clint Hill and the other agents on the running board.  How tall was Hickey? Do you know?
Why? What does it matter if he didn't or if there is no photo of it? How does that bear on the issue: whether he was standing when he said observed the President at the time of the last two shots?You are just making that up!  How on earth can you know that?  JFK's head would have been at his shin level 20 feet away. He could see his whole head. And he said he saw the hair on the right side of his head fly forward. You are really grasping at straws. Hickey obviously thought so because he recalled it and wrote it in his statement.

"Jerry, my "theory" is that Hickey did not make it up.  My "theory" is that he saw what he said he saw."

"He was slumped forward and to his left, and was straightening up to an almost erect sitting position as I turned and looked. At the moment he was almost sitting erect I heard two reports which I thought were shots and that appeared to me completely different in sound than the first report and were in such rapid succession that there seemed to be practically no time element between them. It looked to me as if the President was struck in the right upper rear of his head. The first shot of the second two seemed as if it missed because the hair on the right side of his head flew forward and there didn't seem to be any impact against his head. The last shot seemed to hit his head and cause a noise at the point of impact which made him fall forward and to his left again."

So, according to your "theory" Hickey saw JFK " straightening up to an almost erect sitting position".
This is not shown in the Zapruder footage yet Hickey still saw it.
How did Hickey see something that didn't happen?

According to your "theory" JFK "was almost sitting erect" when Hickey saw the headshot.
This is not shown in the Zapruder footage yet Hickey still saw it.
How did Hickey see something that didn't happen?

More interesting is what Hickey doesn't see.
The most striking aspect of this whole case is JFK's head exploding yet Hickey doesn't see this.
JFK's head flies backwards and to the left yet Hickey doesn't see this, instead he sees JFK fall forward as a result of the headshot.
This is not what the Zapruder footage shows.
It shows JFK's head flying "back and to the left"

Multiple witnesses describe JFK's hair flying up as a result of the headshot.

If your "theory" is that Hickey is describing what he actually saw then it's a sh&t theory as it is totally and completely contradicted by the Zapruder footage.

But that's never put you off before.