Oswald had only seconds to decide whether to take that early shot and the choice he made isn't going to necessarily be the one you would have made had you been in his situation. The only risk to taking that first shot is it would have alerted the protection detail and if they had reacted quicker than they did, Oswald might not have had a clear follow up shot. Again, Oswald could very well have made a different judgement call than you would have. He knew he had four rounds in his rifle and a limited time to fire them so he might very well have decided to get in as many shots as possible in the limited window of time available to him.

Again, Oswald could very well have made a different judgement call than you would have.


Yes, and the same applies to your thinking.

DVP:

The testimony of the Connallys has always clashed with the WC narrative.

Connally: I was knocked over, just doubled over by the force of the bullet. It went in my back and came out my chest about 2 inches below and the left of my right nipple. The force of the bullet drove my body over almost double and when I looked, immediately I could see I was just drenched with blood. (1 HSCA 42)

Gov. JBC described himself as immediately incapacitated after he was shot.

The WC narrative is that JBC was struck by the same slug that hit JFK ~Z-221.

But JBC is bolt upright after Z-221, then looks over his right shoulder, eventually makes a near 180-degree in seat (you can see the left profile of JBC's face in the Z-film), begins to turn forward, and appears to be struck and pushed forward ~Z-295.

JBC shows no sign of incapacitating injury until after Z-295. I can well believe being shot though the chest would immediately incapacitate a man. I find it unlikely that JBC, after being shot through the chest, then made a 180-degree turn in his seat to check on JFK.

JBC being shot at Z-295 also lines up with the "bang...bang-bang" cadence described by so many witnesses.

I have reasonable doubts a lone gunsel, armed with a single shot per bolt action rifle, could perp the JFKA as revealed in the Z-film.

Caveat emptor, and draw your own conclusions.

Why do you have to make up crap. JBC never said he was incapacitated by the shot that hit him. That's ludicrous. No wonder you come up with such goofy ideas. You lie to yourself about the facts.

JFK’s trip to Dallas was known even before Oswald went to Mexico City. There were surely umpteen locations along the route from which the JFKA could have been carried out. I think there is a tendency to reason backwards: Oswald was in fact working in the TSBD, the sixth floor provided an excellent perch, the limousine slowed to a crawl when it turned onto Elm, and the JFKA was in fact highly successful – ergo, this must have been “the plan” from the get-go. But this is not true at all. How do we account for Oswald pretty clearly scouting the Allright Parking Garage just a week before the JFKA?

What evidence is there that Oswald was "pretty clearly scouting the Allright Parking Garage just a week before the JFKA.".

Here is my Common Sense take on the issue.

The single best argument against Oswald being part of a conspiracy is that he got his job at the TSBD well before anyone knew a presidential motorcade would be going right past that building in late November. Whether one postulates Oswald was a shooter as part of a conspiracy or patsy chosen to take the fall, the plotters couldn't have known that the job at the TSBD would give Oswald a the perfect perch to shoot JFK from. Even if they knew JFK was coming to Dallas, they would have to have specific knowledge that there would be a motorcade and that it would pass directly in front of the TSBD.

The CTs might counter that the conspirators just took advantage of the situation when they discovered their shooter/patsy was at a workplace overlooking the parade route. The question then becomes, why would they have selected Oswald for either role if they didn't know in advance of the golden opportunity his employment at the TSBD would present. Why would these conspirators select an average USMC marksman to do the biggest contract killing in American history? It makes no sense. It is also a bit far-fetched to think they had already contracted with Oswald to do the shooting and just got lucky when the motorcade route was announced. What are the odds of that happening.

Then the CTs might ask, didn't Oswald just get lucky when he learned of the motorcade route. Yes he did, and if Oswald was the only mentally unbalanced person in the country with a rifle and a propensity to commit such a heinous act, it would have been a remarkably bad piece of luck. But the fact is there might have been dozens of such people in the country, maybe hundreds, who would have done what Oswald did if given the opportunity. Given the fact we had a President who traveled all over the country and had a fondness for riding in slow moving motorcades in an open top car, it's not at all surprising that he eventually might cross paths with one of them. The key word here is "opportunity". This was a crime of opportunity. Oswald won the assassin's lottery when JFK's motorcade was routed right past his workplace and he took full advantage. Maybe if another site for the luncheon had been selected we would have never heard of Lee Harvey Oswald. Maybe it would have been another assassin in another city at another time who was dealt such an opportunity or maybe it would never have happened at all. Life can be that random. Who could have guessed that the choice for the site of the luncheon would have such devastating consequences, but that is what happened.

I often challenge CT arguments on the basis “That simply makes no sense.” Honesty and my own nagging doubts about the LN scenario compel me to acknowledge three CT scenarios at which this challenge can’t be leveled: (1) Oswald as a dupe in a Mafia plot; (2) Oswald as a dupe in an anti-Castro plot; and (3) Oswald as a willing participant in a pro-Castro plot. To make sense, I believe all three would have to be tight, minimalist conspiracies, and number (3) would have to involve pro-Castro types little more sophisticated than Oswald himself (i.e., nothing official).

For any of these, Oswald with his pro-Castro high profile could have been on the radar screen long before the JFKA. He would have been on the radar screen for numbers (1) and (2) because he would have been an almost too-good-to-be-true patsy. He would have been on the radar screen for (3) because he was an in-your-face Castro supporter (and god knows what wild things he may have said in New Orleans or Mexico City). To be on the radar screen would not have required anyone to know in advance that he would be working in the TSBD or the exact motorcade route.

JFK’s trip to Dallas was known even before Oswald went to Mexico City. There were surely umpteen locations along the route from which the JFKA could have been carried out. I think there is a tendency to reason backwards: Oswald was in fact working in the TSBD, the sixth floor provided an excellent perch, the limousine slowed to a crawl when it turned onto Elm, and the JFKA was in fact highly successful – ergo, this must have been “the plan” from the get-go. But this is not true at all. How do we account for Oswald pretty clearly scouting the Allright Parking Garage just a week before the JFKA?

I don’t say that any of the three CT scenarios I posit is anywhere near as likely as the LN scenario. To tilt the scales would require either or both of (1) really compelling evidence that there was such a plot and that it involved Oswald and/or (2) really compelling evidence that the LN scenario – probably meaning the SBT – is not a plausible explanation for what occurred in Dealey Plaza.

I do say, however, that none of the scenarios is nonsensical or subject to the charge “That simply makes no sense.” If we’re going to be intellectually honest and accuse CTers of making no sense when that charge fits, I think we have to be careful to distinguish between genuine “common sense” and mere “LN salesmanship.”

One bit of common sense that I think is very difficult for any CT scenario to overcome is: In any conspiracy, it is hard to imagine a gunman hitching a ride with a coworker to retrieve his disassembled $20 rifle the evening before the assassination. That's a toughie, hence the CT propensity to say "That's not what happened."

I would agree that a missed first shot makes no sense unless it was accidental.  Although it still makes no sense why he would not be in position with his rifle pointing down Elm St. a few seconds before the car was in position for the first shot.  But if there was evidence of a sudden movement of the rifle between the first and second shots, that would be compelling evidence that the first shot was made at a very different direction than the last two.

What do you make, then, of the evidence from the witnesses who saw the rifle pointing out of the window after the first shot: Howard Brennan, Amos Euins, James Worrell and Mrs. Cabell?  None of them mentioned seeing any change in rifle position.

Mrs. Cabell said she looked up upon hearing the first shot and saw something sticking out of the window.  Amos Euins said he saw a metal rod sticking out of the window before the shots and looked up after hearing the first shot and saw a man with a rifle in the same window and watched him fire the last two shots. Howard Brennan looked up after the first shot and saw the rifle in the window and saw him fire the last two shots and calmly withdraw the rifle from the window.  James Worrell looked up at the window after hearing the first shot and saw the end of the barrel and a few inches of the wooden stock sticking out of a window and watched as it fired again.

Although it still makes no sense why he would not be in position with his rifle pointing down Elm St. a few seconds before the car was in position for the first shot.


The Hughes film shows the window as the limo is rounding the sharp corner onto Elm Street. This is just a few seconds before the limo would appear beyond the tree into the kill zone. There is no discernible rifle or shooter in the window. I suggest that LHO simply stayed sitting upright and therefore out of sight of the Secret Service agents until the very last seconds. Then he simply needed to raise the rifle from his lap and assume his shooting position. This would take only a second or two. It is during this time and motion that I believe an accidental discharge could have happened (due to interference from the window box or the vertical pipe adjacent to the window).


What do you make, then, of the evidence from the witnesses who saw the rifle pointing out of the window after the first shot: Howard Brennan, Amos Euins, James Worrell and Mrs. Cabell?  None of them mentioned seeing any change in rifle position.

I underlined “after the first shot” for emphasis. The change in rifle position may have happened before they looked up there. Plus, if any of them did look up in time, the amount of change in the rifle position may not have been discernible from their positions and/or a detail that they didn’t remember.