JFK Assassination Forum

Anytime we ask ourselves what Oswald was thinking at any given time, we are speculating because he was the only one who knew and he took those secrets to his grave. If you believe in a hereafter and you go to the hot place, maybe you can ask him.

Obviously his decision to kill JFK was not done on the spur of the moment. That took planning and preparation. He made the bag for concealing the gun on Thursday at the latest. His traveling to Irving on a Thursday rather than his normal weekend trip is an indication he went there to fetch his rifle.

His actions post assassination are another matter. We have no idea what he was thinking from that point on. He probably knew he would be the subject of a manhunt and his decision to get his gun might well have been to arm himself against a cop(s). The fact he killed the first cop who encountered him and tried to kill the second is a strong indication he didn't intend to be taken alive. The cops would have been legally justified in killing him in the theater but chose instead to act with restraint.

At least in my view, any explanation - LN or CT - is more plausible if one can articulate a rationale that at least makes sense. As I've stated repeatedly, this is the problem with most CT theories - they simply do not make real-world sense; quite the opposite in fact. Many LNers, on the other hand, posit an Oswald who was almost a madman - something that I believe to be far from true. Or alternatively a madman and an inexplicable riddle (e.g., at Irving the night before). Or alternatively they take the position that "It doesn't matter why he did it or what he was thinking - HE DID IT!" Well ...

"He made the bag for concealing the gun on Thursday at the latest." This is pure speculation. There is evidence that what Oswald was carrying on the morning of the 22nd was not the bag found in the TSBD at all. This is surely one of the weakest links in the LN narrative.

"His traveling to Irving on a Thursday rather than his normal weekend trip is an indication he went there to fetch his rifle." But then you bump up against the behavior that suggests something quite different.

If I thought it was all as cut-and-dried as hardcore LNers make it, I'd have a hard time explaining to myself why I was wasting time at a forum such as this. Perhaps the LN narrative is some folks' version of a fundamentalist religion, and anyone who dares to raise questions is an infidel?

I’ve looked at some more of the Z-film frame by frame using the Costella edit which includes the area between the sprockets, and I’ve discovered that at Z212 2 SS agents beside and across from Clint Hill are still visible and they are looking forward.

Up to Z230, the SS agent behind Clint Hill is visible and at Z230 this agent is still looking forward.

The Willis girl has stopped and looks back by Z205 but 2 SS agents at Z212 haven’t turned their heads back and up to Z230, the SS agent next to Clint Hill had not turned his head back to look at TSBD.

Should there not have been some Clint Hill reaction from Z190-Z230 even if he was tasked with keeping his eyes focused on JFK?

So it seems to be a discrepancy in reaction time  by the SS agents up to at least Z230 versus the more immediate reaction of the Willis girl stopping running by Z200.

Plausible reasons  for this apparent discrepancy of reaction times between the SS agents and the Willis girl?

1. The SS agents were hung over from the Thursday night party and their nervous systems and senses were depressed?
2. The SS agents were desensitized by having heard occasional random motorcycle backfires occurring over the duration of the limo trip from the point of origin to entering Dealey plaza?
3. The Willis girl was reacting to something else other than a gunshot such as a motorcycle backfire?

While we can only speculate why some people did not recognize the first shot as a gunshot and some did, being hungover would be way down on my list. There is zero evidence the agents were hungover. Jackie only remembered hearing two shots. Do you think she was hungover too. By belief is that after slowing down for the sharp turn from Houston onto Elm, all the vehicles, including the motorcycles began to accelerate. Maybe it was the roar of the motorcycles that muffled the sound of the first shot. Maybe the fact the first shot happened while the motorcycles were accelerating caused some to believe the first shot was a backfire. Some witnesses said they thought it was a firecracker. What we do know is that Glen Bennett recognized the first sound as a gunshot and for whatever reason, Clint Hill did not. He only remembers hearing two shots. He erroneously believes there was a shot while he was running to the limo and before the headshot that he didn't hear. It was actually the first shot he didn't hear. The two agents on the right running board are shown looking behind them in Altgens 6  which was taken in the early Z250s. That doesn't tell us when they actually turned their heads. The fact remains that most of the witnesses in Dealey Plaza remember hearing 3 shots which corresponds to the spent shells in the sniper's nest.

JBC was adamant until the day he died that he heard a shot before the one that hit him in the back. Since we see JBC start to turn to look over his right shoulder at Z164, 60 frames before we see his jacket bulge out, that's pretty solid evidence the first shot was the missed shot. What we don't have is definitive proof of when that first shot was fired. We don't know how long it took JBC to react. I feel strongly the first shot was fired in the Z147-148 window although I felt strongly for years that it was fired at Z151. I could be persuaded to change again if I was presented with compelling evidence. So far nobody has provided me with any such evidence.

CBS-TV news summary from November 23rd, 1963:

(deleted)   

One of Tom Dillard's photos.

I hadn't heard about this, but this post at the McAdams forum suggests the damage was done by HSCA consultant SRI International: https://groups.google.com/g/alt.assassination.jfk/c/as_cdRN9yrk.

Note: on the Dillard Photos:The HSCA was requested by the SRI
International to be allowed at a cost of $5,000.00 to enhance by means
of state of the ark equipment to find possible hidden information within
the negatives of the Dillard photos....of the TSBD...Dillard had custody
of his original negatives, but he co-operated and turned over twelve of
the negatives..four eventually being processed....SRI would not accept
liability and made this clear...in early 78 the study resulted in the
findings above.
Unfortunately ,the negatives, particularly frame 24,
"........became detached from the agitation apparatus and the gelatine
was abraded during the time it was freely agitated without
support"....in otherwords they ruined it.....they blamed it on a
malfunction of equipment ...they extended apologies and regrets to the
Committee and Dillard....
Robert Groden who was the HSCA independent consultant was asked to
comment ..on the damage...He found that negative # 8 also had been
damaged by a coating not originally on the negative...but now
evident...negative # 24 suffered also from this problem...( this is the
negative that showed the 6th floor window ) also part of this negative
appeared to have had it's emulsion rubbed off from the film base....To a
lay person, the negative looks terrible .....the emulsion on the
negative appears to have run down and melted into a pool of taffy like,
a pool below.... The left side of the sniper's double window in badly
affected, though the lower part of the snipers window escaped serious
damage ...the whole negative looked like it was worn and crackled...and
in otherwords the negative also had a tear (hole) in it......Dillard in
1979 received back his damaged goods , and copies of the SRI report, and
a letter and the Groden comments...Blakely lamely wrote Dillard that the
Committee was assured the process was safe and regretted the damage...."
These two historically signifigant frames had been irreversibly harmed
by experts."....(12)

12: "Pictures of the Pain" Richard B Trask, 1994:p: 452 (note 38) p:469