"These people who say that we ought to withdraw from Vietnam are wholly wrong because if we withdrew from Vietnam the communists would control Vietnam. Pretty soon Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Malaya would go and all of southeast Asia would be under the control of the communists. Another domination of the Chinese. Then India, Burma would be the next target. So I think we should stay." --- JFK to Walter Cronkite, September 2, 1963.

Again: "So I think we should stay."

Was JFK lying to the American people about this? Was he going to run on a promise - and need - of staying and then after re-election withdraw? If so then the JFK conspiracists are describing one of most duplicitous people ever to be President (up to that point). They don't even seem to realize it.

From what I've read, JFK didn't want to send combat/infantry troops to Vietnam; in fact, he was adamantly against it. But he also didn't want to see it fall to the communists. As he said above, it would affect all of southeast Asia. But not intending to send troops is not the same as intending to withdraw. Again, as he said above, those advocating withdrawal were "wholly wrong." Not a little wrong, or a lot wrong; but wholly wrong.

Go to the 14:30 mark to hear the above:

Whenever MTG is faced with something for which the explanation is unknown, his knee jerk reaction is to assume a sinister explanation, i.e. one with conspiratorial explanations. MTG's limited ability to think critically prevents him from asking himself a few simple questions. If these three cars were connected to a conspiracy, why was it necessary to send three cars into the parking lot and why did they leave the area without dropping somebody off there.

MTG has been give two plausible reasons for these cars to show up in the parking lot but they are not to his liking because they don't point to a conspiracy. It could have been people looking for a parking place or it could have been plain clothes law enforcement officers doing a security check prior to the arrival of the POTUS. It could have some other explanation that none of us have thought of. No, that's no good for MTG. His mindset is to assume every unexplained even is evidence of a conspiracy.

Given the massive length of this post from MTG, which might record setting, I'm going to pass on responding, or even bothering to read the rest of it. It's just past 9:00 am in the eastern time zone and college football games begin at noon. I don't want to miss the start of these games.

In conspiracy world the same Bowers who is not credible because he was supposedly threatened to change what he said he saw behind the fence becomes suddenly credible about what he saw about other matters, e.g., the cars. When he said he didn't see anyone behind the fence he is a liar forced to dissemble by sinister forces who threatened him. When he mentions three cars going through the parking lot (and leaving?) he is truthful; the sinister forces disappear (well, they're driving the cars). Bower is both credible and not credible, honest and not honest, believable and not believable. The sinister forces come and go (and not just in cars); they appear and disappear. It all depends on whether it supports a conspiracy or not. Nothing else matters.

Bowers' account is a textbook example of conspiracy thinking. It's Jim Garrison at his finest. There are many other example but it's one of the better cases. In conspiracy world evidence that doesn't show a conspiracy, that goes against a conspiracy, is turned upside down into evidence there *was* a conspiracy. Because that evidence is faked, phony, staged, false or in the case of Bowers coerced. So evidence of "A" is really evidence of "not A." Evidence there was no gunman behind the fence is really evidence there was a gunman behind the fence.

Bowers said he saw no one behind the fence at the time of the shooting. He said he heard three and only three shots. He said all of the shots sounded like they came from either end of Elm Street, either the TSBD or the underpass. He heard no shots from behind the fence. He saw no one with a rifle. He saw two men "towards the mouth of the underpass". He didn't see them leave. He said they stayed in the area when the police officer (Haygood) went up the knoll/incline.

This is evidence there wasn't a gunman behind the fence. No shots were heard, no rifle was seen, the two men stayed around.

In Michael Griffith's conspiracy world where up is down and down is up this is all evidence there was a shooter behind the fence. This is the deranged thinking of Jim Garrison who said you must think "up is down and down is up."

Most participants on the JFK internet are organized around avoiding the evidence for conspiracy and not exposing it...

Burnham is discussing his interview with Krulak where Krulak admitted Kennedy intended to withdraw from Viet Nam...Krulak also admitted he and Mendenhall wrote the McNamara Report that was flown to Hawaii to the SECDEF and CJCS briefing...


MTG and Wilkinson are almost upset that Burnham came up with the goods and proved DiEugenio's point...You can see Wilkinson is almost reluctant that the evidence bore out the withdrawal...


Simple proof that Kennedy intended to withdraw from Viet Nam is shown in the fact he was assassinated for it...

Hi Tim.



JohnM

What these photos and videos show is that the top of JFK's jacket would bunch and then unbunch depending on how he was positioned at any given point in time. What we don't have is definitive proof of whether or not the jacket was bunched at the time the single bullet struck because JFK was behind the sign when that happened. Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn't.

I have tried to sync the Croft photo to the Z-film and the best I can do is put it in the Z160-170 time frame when JFK briefly put his hand down after waving to the crowd. By Z180 his right hand was up again.