JFK Assassination Forum

LP--

Amen. We are in the dozens, if that. And where is Tom Graves?

In addition, there are now dozens of people on Facebook, Instagram and X, doing the JFKA thing, and splintering the audience.

Beyond all that, the bulk of JFKA-RFKA junkies appear to suffer from colic.

Jack Nessan really should pay me a royalty on every copy of Phantom Shot he sells, but I cannot help but be struck by the fact that Oswald manages to put two pretty precisely-placed bullets into JFK after supposedly having gone through all sorts of hypothetical gyrations and managing to miss the entire limousine - and no one can agree on exactly when he did that. Two shots seems to me to be favored by Occam's (or Ockham's) Razor, and Mrs. Occam agrees. I don't quite understand the near-desperation to preserve the three-shot scenario. There doesn't seem to be any reason the evidence demands this.

It seems to me that the best evidence, including the Gloria Calvery group, places the first shot just about where the three-shot narrative places the second shot. If the three-shot scenario were correct, it seems to me the second and third shots would be the bang-bang sequence that Bowers and others described. Is this perhaps the real motivation for insisting on an early missed shot?

I can certainly agree that there is way too much evidence against a missed first shot to make it even a remote possibility. A missed first shot is a fantasy.  There is also abundant, consistent evidence that the head shot was the last shot.  If the bullet through JFK’s neck went on to strike JBC it had to have happened on the first shot. The second shot SBT is a fantasy. 

But there is also abundant, consistent evidence that there were three distinct loud noises. And given the number of witnesses who reported hearing three shots (132 according to the HSCA study), many of whom reported hearing a shot a pause and then two more distinct shots, it is difficult to understand how they could have imagined a shot that did not occur. It is much easier to understand how a few witnesses might not have been counting the number of shots and  thought there were only two (17) or weren’t sure whether it was 2 or 3 (7).

I really am going on hiatus after this post. I just do not have this sort of time for the JFKA follies, much as I enjoy reading my own thoughts. 

All I'm doing here is thinking out loud - as one who has organized and presented cases, just thinking how I would assemble a plausible conspiracy scenario. If you live and breathe Harvey and Lee or think MTG is the epitome of rationality - please, go for it.

A plausible conspiracy can be described in which nothing takes place in Dealey Plaza other than what the LN narrative posits. It's hard for me to believe that sophisticated conspirators would entrust the entire operation to Oswald and his $20 M-C, or that the operation would have unfolded as it did, but it's possible.

Regarding the SBT and whatnot: I am certainly not going to enter THAT debate. For starters, I'm not qualified. I'm just thinking out loud - the stuff that has always nagged at me.

It has always seemed to me that the supposed "early shot" and the SBT were and are motivated in part to avoid a conspiracy, as opposed to being entirely evidence-based. I think an excellent case can be and has been made that Oswald fired only two shots. As Jack Nessan has pointed out, the LN narrative can easily accommodate this; there simply was no early shot - the SBT and the head shot were it. But then we have the witnesses who insist there were two shots that were almost simultaneous. Were these two shots the ones that the SBT has merged into one, definitely meaning two gunmen? Were they the head shot and a shot almost simultaneous with it, as I think Josiah Thompson believes - definitely meaning two gunmen? It does seem to me that the SBT has some implausibilities as I've described. I don't know how it all hashes out and don't feel obligated to try. I simply said that I would focus on this rather than other supposed (and more unlikely) "conspiracy" aspects of Dealey Plaza if I were assembling a conspiracy theory.

FWIW, John Orr's Mafia theory posits a shot by Oswald at Z204 that went through JFK's back and neck and exited the car. He posits a second shot by Oswald at Z236 that strikes JBC. He posits the head shot at Z312 by a different gunman, with a fragment causing JBC's wrist wound. He posits a third shot by Oswald at Z326 that strikes the pavement left of the car, but he admits this is tentative. Is this solid reasoning? I don't know. But it is what I'm talking about when I say a "plausible" conspiracy theory. You are free to scream "It's not plausible AT ALL!" Maybe it's not, but it's certainly an example of a tight, minimalist theory that is more plausible and well-thought-out than most of the CT stuff.

https://www.mountainrivercabins.com/JohnOrrReport.pdf

MTG:

Verily, Mossad perped the JFKA. Even Jeff Morley dog-whistled as much of Tucker Carlson's show.

Something ugly is happening on America's left-wing. You see Hasan Piker. The justifications for murdering healthcare industry executives, or Charlie Kirk.

The IRGC gets a pass; no one cares about 40k slaughtered in the streets of Iran.

The exoneration and valorization of Sirhan Sirhan, and the accusations against Mossad, in the RFKA and JFKA.

Caveat emptor, and draw your own conclusions.

Given that surveys have repeatedly shown that only 1/4 to 1/3 of the Western world believes the lone-gunman theory, you and your fellow WC apologists are the ones who need to focus on plausibility.

I find it so curious that you guys talk like you represent the mainstream, the majority, and that those who posit a conspiracy in the case are a fringe minority, when in fact your view is rejected by 2/3 to 3/4 of the Western world, when we now know that even three members of the WC did not buy the Commission's story, and when the last official U.S. Government investigation--the HSCA--concluded that the WC failed to follow up on evidence that indicated conspiracy, that two gunmen were involved, that four shots were fired, that one of the shots came from the grassy knoll, that Silvia Odio's account of an anti-Castro Cuban trying to frame Oswald for the assassination weeks before the event was credible, that Ruby had significant Mafia ties, that Ruby lied about how he entered the police basement to shoot Oswald, that Ruby lied about why he shot Oswald, etc., etc.