MTG--

Verily, I posted a couple times at EF-JFKA how JFK authorized the anti-Diem coup, despite being told it would likely result in the Diems' assassinations, and the complete lack of Kennedy Administration efforts to extract the Diems. Indeed, CIA inquiries about extracting the Diems were ignored---Lodge appeared to not want a government-in-exile situation, preferring the Diems dead.

There is a recorded conversation between Ambassador Lodge and JFK, in which Lodge lays this out, and many other warnings.

JFK responds, in part, by calling Madame Nhu a "bitch" and a lesbian (she appears to have been heterosexual).

There were different standards at play in 1963, and JFK tried to have Castro assassinated several times, and more-or-less authorized the Diems' assassinations. That is part of the historical record.

People forget that JFK was deeply instrumental to the founding of South Vietnam, and he committed 16,000 military personnel to SV to help it survive against communist terrorism---and JFK himself called it terrorism. Cardinal Spellman was an influential figure as well, and close to the Kennedy family.

JFK may have wanted to modestly reduce US presence in SV in late 1963, but he was not going to abandon SV.

President LBJ wondered out aloud if the Diems or Castro assassinations or attempts led to blowback.

Yeah, gun powder smells like exhaust fumes. The odor of gun powder was noticed right after the shots were fired. I see no way that the gun powder could have come all the way down from the sixth-floor window so quickly, especially given the size of the area in which witnesses smelled the odor.

Keep in mind, too, that a number of witnesses also saw gunsmoke coming from a certain area right behind the picket fence on the knoll, and a cloud of apparent gunsmoke is visible in this vicinity in the Wiegman film. It could not have been exhaust fumes, nor could it have come from the steam pipe some 100 feet behind the fence.

As for a diversion, I think it's more likely that the sixth-floor window was the diversion. The gunman made no effort to conceal his presence from outside viewers. Five witnesses saw a gunman in the sixth-floor window. The gunman could have stood farther back from the window, which would have made it harder to see him and would have somewhat reduced the sound of his rifle firing.

There's no credible reason to doubt that the two men seen fast-walking up the extension in the Gerda Dunkel zoomed slow-motion Couch/Darnell clip are Lovelady & Shelley...The men are right where they were supposed to be according to testimony...Lovelady has the same dimension geometric plaid pattern as he is seen wearing in other photos and same bald spot...And Shelley has his body shape, black suit jacket, white shirt collar, and Duck's Ass hair doo...And he pulls up and talks to Karan Hicks as she goes by...

Anything less strikes me as deliberate misinformation designed to confuse...

This is evidence enough for persons truly seeking correct identification...

I believe the obtaining and enhancement of the 6th Floor Museum 1st generation copy of Darnell will show Molina as the man being called Lovelady on the steps...