JFK Assassination Forum

Secret Service, FBI, CIA, DPD, LBJ and probably others - they all had CYA reasons for a post-JFKA cover-up of one degree or another.

Another one of my little epiphanies is a quote from Gerry Patrick Hemming (of all people): "I know for a fact there were plans to assassinate JFK. Maybe Oswald just beat 'em to it." I think it's entirely possible that what the best CT researchers (like Hancock) are uncovering were indeed assassination plots at one stage or another of seriousness. Researchers encounter difficulty in fitting Oswald and Dealey Plaza into such plots BECAUSE HE WASN'T PART OF THEM. He may have even been aware that talk of an assassination was in the air - but when Fate handed him an opportunity on a golden platter, he "just beat 'em to it."

I could buy that except for the timing of the shots and the shallow angle between the back and throat wounds (regardless of whether or not the bullet went on to hit JBC). While eyewitness testimony is not reliable, many recall two of the shots being much closer together than the third shot. There is disagreement as to whether the first two shots or the last two shots were close together but it was noted even by law enforcement officers. When the Discovery Channel recreated the SBT, the shot emerged from JFK’s chest as shown by their own highlighting of the trajectory and the ersatz autopsy drawing they made up to be evaluated by an independent forensic examiner who concluded there were two shooters. However, a shot from a lower floor of the Dal-Tex building looks like it would have worked.

I think it’s possible Oswald gave one of the shooters access to the TSBD and perhaps acted as a lookout. Could he have left the building so soon afterwards to deliberately draw attention to himself and away from someone else? A deliberate “patsy”? If he was put up to it by pro-Castro Cubans, could he have been promised refuge in Cuba? Maybe they had no intention of honoring that promise and he was supposed to be killed but he was captured first.

[...]

There are oodles and gobs of doubts, but there are no rational doubts for the simple reason that they all have plausible explanations.

To think otherwise is to accept the ludicrous idea that oodles and gobs of evil, evil, bad guys planned the assassination, "patsied" the "patsy," planted the evidence, did the shooting, pulled off the getaway, and are STILL covering it all up after 60-plus years.

It is worth noting that in his ARRB interview in 1996, Dr. Humes was shown the lateral JFK autopsy skull x-ray and was asked to identify the EOP-to-right-eyebrow fragment trail described in the autopsy report. After a pause and with an embarrassed look on his face (per Doug Horne, who was present), Humes admitted he could not, and he acknowledged he could see fragments higher on the skull on the lateral x-ray:

Q. I'd like you to see if you could identify where you understand the entrance wound to have been on the skull, looking at this lateral X-ray.
A. Well, back in this area [pointing to the EOP].
Q. You're referring to the very low back of the cranium. . . . Do you see any fragments, stellate or otherwise, that would be consistent with an entry wound in that point?
A. Well, there's no fragments there. There's fragments or what appear to be fragments up higher towards the vertex in this picture. (Deposition of Dr. James Humes, ARRB, February 13, 1996, pp. 216-217)

Humes was asked about the vanishing fragment trail and the rear head entry wound's location because these had already been issues for years. They caused major contention between the autopsy doctors and the HSCA's medical panel (FPP). WC skeptics had understandably cited these issues as raising questions about the authenticity of the autopsy evidence.

In contrast, nearly all lone-gunman theorists have always uncritically and vacuously assumed that the autopsy doctors simply erred in their descriptions of the entry wound and the fragment trail, as if these errors were minor and understandable. A notable exception is Dr. Larry Sturdivan, a former HSCA wound ballistics consultant and physicist. In his 2005 book The JFK Myths, Sturdivan rejects the cowlick entry site and argues that the autopsy doctors were correct in locating the entry wound near the EOP.   

Dr. David Mantik, a radiation oncologist and physicist who has done numerous optical-density measurements of the autopsy skull x-rays at the National Archives, argues that the 7x2 mm fragment above the right orbit on the x-rays is likely a remnant of the EOP-to-right-eyebrow fragment trail, although no other trace of the trail appears on the x-rays:

The autopsy report describes a fragment trail from the EOP to the right parietal bone to the right supraorbital ridge. This trail is not present in the extant X-rays, but perhaps such a trail did exist before these fragments were removed, i.e., perhaps Humes told the truth in his autopsy report. It is even possible, if not likely, that the 7x2 mm metal fragment above the right orbit was part of that trail. (JFK Assassination Paradoxes, 2022, p. 92)

Dr. Mantik makes the key point that the 7x2 mm fragment cannot be associated with the high fragment trail:

It [the high fragment trail] is truly inconsistent with the location of the 7x2 mm fragment above JFK’s right eye. . . . This 7x2 mm fragment lies well off the debris trail (Figure 6). (p. 91)

Just keep in mind that if the EOP site is correct, this means, among other things, that the bullet could not have been fired from the sixth-floor window. The WC's experts could only make the EOP site line up with the sixth-floor window by assuming that JFK was leaning well over 50 degrees forward when the bullet struck. No photo or footage shows him leaning anywhere near that far forward when the head shot occurred. 

Or a bullet that had tumbled 180 degrees.
Striking the wrist bone could affect the rotation of the bullet.
When did I say the bullet went through the wrist bone?

Ok. So in what non-Newtonian universe does an object impact something hard, not penetrate it, and continue around it rather than deflecting away from it?

My 90 year old grandmother could have reacted faster than the secret service. They had to cover their asses.

Secret Service, FBI, CIA, DPD, LBJ and probably others - they all had CYA reasons for a post-JFKA cover-up of one degree or another.

Another one of my little epiphanies is a quote from Gerry Patrick Hemming (of all people): "I know for a fact there were plans to assassinate JFK. Maybe Oswald just beat 'em to it." I think it's entirely possible that what the best CT researchers (like Hancock) are uncovering were indeed assassination plots at one stage or another of seriousness. Researchers encounter difficulty in fitting Oswald and Dealey Plaza into such plots BECAUSE HE WASN'T PART OF THEM. He may have even been aware that talk of an assassination was in the air - but when Fate handed him an opportunity on a golden platter, he "just beat 'em to it."