Larry Hancock's JFKA Blog

[Lance Payette]

Ben, I'm not violently arguing with you. I simply insist on approaching any CT scenario with the threshold question "What sense would that have made, assuming the conspirators were at least minimally rational?"

The overwhelming best evidence is that Oswald did fire from TSBD6. Hence, LNers and CTers alike are stuck with this scenario. Some CTers insist it wasn't Oswald but someone else on TSBD6, which vastly complicates things but is basically the same scenario.

While TSBD6 and Dealey Plaza may seem "ideal" because that's where the JFKA in fact occurred, they were actually far from ideal. I don't think rational conspirators would have chosen Dealey Plaza at all, but I'll let that go. Assuming Dealey Plaza, the minimally risky locations would have been (it seems to me) the roof of the Dal-Tex building and/or the County Records building. Because it was the lunch hour, Oswald could have been in either of those locations, blended into the chaos thereafter, and been back in the TSBD before the lunch hour was over.

We have to ask ourselves whether rational conspirators would have chosen the interior sixth floor of a building with numerous employees and offices, including a floor-laying crew on the sixth floor, and absolutely no ability to predict or control what comings and goings there might be before, during and after the JFKA. It would have been fantastically risky, in the abstract and in comparison to what I suggest in the paragraph above.

You keep saying "because that's where Oswald was located." But he didn't have to be - that's my point. If there had been a conspiracy planned even mere hours before the event, why would rational conspirators have chosen Oswald in the TSBD6 and a diversion on the GK - all fantastically risky - versus Oswald (or a more proficient gunman with a more likely weapon who had less screamingly obvious connections to Russia and Cuba) in a far safer location like the roof of the Dal-Tex building? I happen to think Oswald chose this location because he wasn't thinking in terms of escape at all (and perhaps wouldn't have attempted the assassination if TSBD6 was not empty at the time).

If there were solid evidence of a conspiracy, I would be forced to say "OK, that's the plan they came up with, even though it doesn't seem rational to me." As it is now, however, it seems to me that CTers are stuck with Oswald in the TSBD6 and Dealey Plaza and thus are engaging in ad hoc speculation as to how that unlikely scenario still might have been a conspiracy.

The only one that really "works" for me at all is (1) a Mafia pro on the roof of the Dal-Tax building with a sabot (i.e., an insert so the rifle could fire an M-C sized bullet) and (2) patsy Oswald thinking he's part of a pro-Castro conspiracy and doing everything the LN scenario says he did precisely because the Mafia wants him to be caught and lead to the conclusion that Castro was behind the assassination. As it happens, there is at least minimal "evidence" (such as the statements attributed to Marcello) for this scenario, but I'm damned if I can figure out how it actually would have worked.

[John Corbett]

Ben, I'm not violently arguing with you. I simply insist on approaching any CT scenario with the threshold question "What sense would that have made, assuming the conspirators were at least minimally rational?"

Your problem is you assume there were conspirators. Don't you think it would make more sense to establish that first.

[Benjamin Cole]

LP--

I guess we are talking past each other.

1. For me, there is a fortuitous circumstance: The JFK motorcade passing right by the TSBD, in fact making a hairpin turn in front of the building. The exact route disclosed in advance by three days (Nov. 19, newspapers). The stockade fence-GK provided the venue for a diversionary smoke-and-bang show. That's a pretty good assassination format to chance upon by luck. In fact, it worked.

2. Upper floors of the TSBD often unoccupied. LHO had legitimate entry, could secret in weapon(s). Even hide the weapons in boxes. Again, a near-perfect set-up.

3. A known Marxist sympathizer, LHO, who had met with KGB and G2 in MC, and made extreme statements regarding JFK. A Marxist seeking passage to Cuba. I suspect LHO was in some ways a mentally ill person---he had taken a potshot at Gen. Walker too. He was prone to suggestion, and shooting at public figures. 

4. In the US, any number of Castro sympathizers were embedded into the Cuban exile community. G2'ers who wanted revenge on JFK for multiple assassination attempts on Castro, and also for booting Russians off the island. Zealots. There was an Alpha-66 house on Harlandale in Dallas. LHO got on the G-2 radar down in MC, or even in NO.

5. On three days notice (from Nov. 19), what sort of JFKAC could be plotted out? LHO had military experience, and likely the G-2'ers also, they were good with guns, but they had limited resources. They devised a good plan, under the circumstances. In fact, the plan worked.

6. Sure the plan was risky.  In the old days, guys would rob banks; it was risky. The JFKAC planners were zealots, men of action, but with limited resources. In addition, they may have regarded accomplishing the JFKA as primary, and escape as secondary. Like the Puerto Rican nationalists who shot up the Congress and also tried to assassinate Truman.

7. On three days notice, a couple G-2'ers with guns, and LHO and his M-C, no other real resources in Dallas, what better plan could have you come up with?

8. In fact, the JFKAC worked. Even LHO could have escaped, had he only a motorcycle to his name. Boats were leaving from the Mexican coast for Cuba routinely (this is assuming the G-2'ers would not have waxed LHO too). The Mexico-US  border was 1,800 miles long and wide open.

I can't prove this scenario of G-2 and LHO. It just strikes me as the most plausible explanation of the JFKA.

I contend there had to be two gunsels due to the timing of JBC's wounds. I work from there.

Caveat emptor, and draw your own conclusions.

I take no umbrage at other viewpoints.

[John Corbett]

I can't prove this scenario of G-2 and LHO. It just strikes me as the most plausible explanation of the JFKA.

I contend there had to be two gunsels due to the timing of JBC's wounds. I work from there.

Caveat emptor, and draw your own conclusions.

I take no umbrage at other viewpoints.

All of JFK's wounds and all of JBC's wounds were caused by shots from behind them. A second gunman on the GK can't explain that and shoots down your contention that JBC's wounds happened when you claim they did..

[Lance Payette]

Your problem is you assume there were conspirators. Don't you think it would make more sense to establish that first.

Yet another kneejerk response that suggests you don't read posts with any care before flooding the forum with your responses. You exemplify in spades what I've characterized as the LNer who feels obligated to defend the LN narrative with such zeal that you seem irritated and offended that anyone would dare to think differently or expose the narrative to closer scrutiny. This is exactly what internet atheists do - they are offended and angry that anyone would believe in a deity. What do they - and you - care?

My "problem" - Do I have a "problem"?

If you read with any care and comprehension, you would know that I do not "assume there were conspirators." Over the years, including my time here, I must have accumulated at least 2000 posts making clear that I believe the LN narrative or something very close to it is the most plausible explanation. But it's not my religion.

Others, including some very smart and thorough researchers, disagree. I'm willing to entertain their views and play around with conspiracy scenarios of my own. It's an entertaining thought experiment: If I were organizing a conspiracy that included Oswald in the TSBD as either a participant or patsy, how would it have worked? Can I articulate one that makes any sense? If so, is there any evidence to support it?

Without a willingness to do this, the JFKA is, it seems to me, rather dull and boring. I have said that those LNers who feel compelled to defend the narrative with almost religious zeal, and who become offended and irritated by anyone who doesn't share their zeal, are a bigger mystery to me than the most fanatical CTer.

[John Corbett]

Yet another kneejerk response that suggests you don't read posts with any care before flooding the forum with your responses. You exemplify in spades what I've characterized as the LNer who feels obligated to defend the LN narrative with such zeal that you seem irritated and offended that anyone would dare to think differently or expose the narrative to closer scrutiny. This is exactly what internet atheists do - they are offended and angry that anyone would believe in a deity. What do they - and you - care?

On the contrary, I am amused by those who continue on this never-ending snipe hunt despite 60 years of futility.

As far as the existence of a deity is concerned, I am completely agnostic. I don't pretend to know how the universe came into being so I don't argue with people who pretend they do. Science can take us back to the Big Bang which as I understand it is estimated to have occurred 14.5 billion years ago. People a lot smarter than me have somehow figured that out and I don't dispute that. My question, which seems to be unanswerable it what came before the Big Bang and what triggered it. If science could answer that, I would probably be an atheist.

My "problem" - Do I have a "problem"?

If you read with any care and comprehension, you would know that I do not "assume there were conspirators." Over the years, including my time here, I must have accumulated at least 2000 posts making clear that I believe the LN narrative or something very close to it is the most plausible explanation. But it's not my religion.

I know Oswald killed JFK and I am puzzled as to why CTs keep hunting for the white whale of conspiracy.

Others, including some very smart and thorough researchers, disagree. I'm willing to entertain their views and play around with conspiracy scenarios of my own. It's an entertaining thought experiment: If I were organizing a conspiracy that included Oswald in the TSBD as either a participant or patsy, how would it have worked? Can I articulate one that makes any sense? If so, is there any evidence to support it?

If you could articulate a conspiracy theory that made sense, you would be the first.

Without a willingness to do this, the JFKA is, it seems to me, rather dull and boring. I have said that those LNers who feel compelled to defend the narrative with almost religious zeal, and who become offended and irritated by anyone who doesn't share their zeal, are a bigger mystery to me than the most fanatical CTer.

Again, I say, nothing the CTs do irritates or offends me. I simply point out their fallacies. It's the CTs who seem to be irritated by me and other LNs doing that.

[Benjamin Cole]

JC--

I have reasonable doubts that Gov. JGC maintained his grip on his Stetson hat in his right hand, after being shot through the right wrist by a slug that is 1 1/4 inches long and a quarter inch in diameter, and which "tumbled" inside his wrist, according to the WC. The projectile entered the dorsal side of his wrist, fractured bone, and existed through the ventral side.

Yet, we see JBC at Z-275 holding onto the hat, without apparent injury. The WC contends JBC was shot ~Z-223, by the same slug that first passed through JFK's neck.

For me, the WC version does not hold water.

For you, it does.

I take no umbrage at your views, nor do I denigrate your views.

We just have a different take on what happened.

It is possible to disagree without being disagreeable. Give it a try.