Educating An Australian 'Bloke' On Basic Precepts of Truth & Authenticity Re: The JFK Hit

Good grief! It appears the virulent, mind -numbing, truth - perverting infestation spawned by the likes of  John McAdams has insidiously and collaterally crept into the brain of a certain Aussie.  After Richard Charnin posted my takedown of a recent McAdams' snipe  on Google groups, an Aussie named Tim Brennan (from Sydney) scribbled a terse response that read as follows:

"Stahl is probably some bloke who makes regular blurtations on Global  Warming as well.

Can't see how his expertise on solar matters makes him some kind of JFK  expert."

Timmy, Tim, Tim!  Seriously? "Blurtations on global warming?" If you mean posts showing how it is supported, and by a majority of REAL climate scientists  i.e.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2010/12/carbon-isotope-ratios-and-climate.html

Then yes indeedy, I stand accused! But only insofar as attempting to dispel the gigabytes of denier nonsense making the rounds, viz.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/04/newsmaxglobal-warming-is-22-billion.html

 And evidently infecting susceptible brains like yours. But considering the whole denial gestalt, perhaps it is no coincidence you share denial of anthropogenic global warming and denial that there was a conspiracy in the murder of JFK. The memetic underpinnings are extremely similar and in both cases basic physics is rejected in favor of transparent codswallop masquerading as science.

Re: your not being able to see how my expertise on solar matters "makes him some kind of expert on JFK."  Well, that was why you needed to read the content in the link provided by Mr. Charnin - where you would have found:

2) I am most certainly a bona fide expert on the JFK assassination having already written one of the most extensive books of analysis ever: 'The JFK Assassination- The Final Analysis' based on more than 35 years' research.

See the book link here:

http://www.lulu.com/shop/philip-a-stahl/the-jfk-assassination-the-final-analysis/paperback/product-21532732.html


Brennan  also goes on to babble:

And yet here IS WC XVII 261-262, showing hits to the head... http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh17/html/WH_Vol17_0144a.htm

X marks the spot where SENIOR OIC member Mark Lane lied!

Stop the LIES! Oswald INSIDE!! Disband the OIC!!!

Oh really? Stop the LIES? Seriously?  How about the Warren Commission's LIES on its assorted exhibits, maestro? Though not included at the time of the WC Report as an official exhibit,  the fake autopsy photo -image (left -below) did surface at the time of the House Subcommittee investigation ca. 1979 - when the actual autopsy image also did. (Gerald R. Ford prevented the release of any autopsy photo- even the fake one -  as an official Warren Report exhibit because he believed them too graphic.)  However, this false image did conform with the drawing fiction of how the WC believed the head shot ought to have occurred, e.g. http://jfkassassination.net/russ/infojfk/jfk1/1p255f68.jpg

The reference to "used in Warren Commission" then, doesn't  mean as any official exhibit - but as a dummy mold or 'model'  from which the 2D fictional head shot drawing was rendered.  The critical aspect being the phony basis for a rear shot as opposed to a frontal shot.(The fake construction was done before the WC sketch was made part of the WC exhibits)

Then there were the WC exhibit photos of Oswald holding a rifle

http://jfkassassination.net/russ/infojfk/jfk1/1exhf179p124.jpg


which I have already exposed as fakes, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/11/analysis-of-pixel-diffusion-in-oswald.html

Then there was the WC exhibit of the fake FPCC handbills. In respect to these, Military Science Professor John Newman in his 'Oswald and the CIA' refers to[1]:

"evidence that was deliberately falsified at the Government Printing Office during the publication of the Warren Commission Exhibits."

But let's not stop there!

In respect of the Warren Commission  CE399 exhibit, Dr. Joseph Dolce, a consultant in wound ballistics to the Army, stated he was given 100,  6.5mm bullets, by the Warren Commission, to fire at cadavers. (Documentary, 'The Single Bullet Theory'). In no case,  he went on, did any of the bullets come out pristine as CE 399 showed. In fact, all showed significant deformity. In his own words (ibid.):

No, it (CE399) could NOT have caused all the wounds. Our experiments here show beyond any doubt that merely  shooting a wrist deforms the  bullet drastically. In every instance, the front or tip of the bullet was smashed. It's impossible for a  bullet to strike a bone, even at low  velocity and still come out with a perfectly normal tip.

     To fix ideas and clarify,  the images of CE399 (A) and also one of the bullets tested by Dolce (B) are shown below:

As for the 'X' marks the spot baloney Brennan cites, it conforms with the falsity of the other exhibits cited.  What we behold is a boxlike mold in separate scenes,  with presumed projections of "hits" but no indications of exactly where the hits struck in terms of cranial morphology.  (Rendering the 'X' more like a cartoon joke that seeks to confer credibility where none exists.) It's all of the same deceptive piece as the fake FPCC handbills Newman exposed, the fake autopsy photo (though not a formal exhibit - the WC's top guiding honcho (LBJ)  did authorize its creation at Bethesda), the fake Oswald rifle exhibit, and the CE399 fake.  Close inspection of the images in the exhibit frames shows nothing of any value or anything specific in terms of  relating shot precision to the exact anatomical positions in the absurdly configured  "head". We have a word for such bollocks - it's called a "Macguffin".

The fact of the matter is that a trained team of expert marksmen was unable to replicate Oswald's alleged feat! Oswald was presumed to have fired from the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository, so effectively six stories up or 60’ in altitude. However, the experts were allowed to fire from a tower only half this altitude (30’)[2]. In addition, while Oswald had to have fired at a limousine moving at 11 mile per hour, the experts fired at stationary targets. Anyone who's ever fired a high powered rifle will tell you it's much easier to hit a stationary target than a moving one!

The target area was also magnified for the experts, to the whole upper torso of the target prop’s body – while Oswald was limited to the head and neck. The latter according to the WC, though in fact, no bullets struck the neck - it was the upper back- level with 3rd thoracic vertebra. Gerald Ford altered the autopsy notes to read 'base of neck' because otherwise the single bullet nonsense wouldn't work, e.g.


More to the point, the rifle was altered away from the one Oswald used. The rifle sight itself was rebuilt and “metal shims were fitted to provide a degree of accuracy previously absent’. When Ronald Simmons, the Chief of the Infantry Weapons Evaluation Branch of the Army’s Ballistics Research Division was asked about this he replied: “Well, they could not sight the weapon in using the telescope" (Op. cit. ,Vol. II, p. 250.)

Thus, even IF the images depicted in Brennan's WC Exhibit link were authentic one would still not be able to conclude that there was a faithful replication of the shooting - on account of the manipulation of the scope!  But don't take my word!  Simmons himself added that the aiming apparatus had to be rebuilt by a machinist with two shims added, one to adjust for the elevation, the other for the azimuth.

 In other words, had they actually used the rifle in the same condition Oswald was alleged to have had it, then they’d likely not have hit the side of a barn. (Maybe one reason the Italians dubbed their Norma Mannlicher-Carcano 6.5 mm bolt action rifle that Oswald was supposed to have used as "the rifle that never killed anyone")

At the end of the test trials, these Master Marksmen each fired two series of three shots each (18 rounds in all) at 3 stationary targets placed at distances of 175’, 240’ and 265’ (the last coming nearest to the distance from the Texas School Book Depository to the head shot). Even Chief Simmons admitted that the targets were not placed where they ought to have been to emulate conditions on November 22, 1963.

Just one of the three expert riflemen was able to get off three shots in under 5.6 seconds – the designated time interval for total shots declared by the Warren Commission. And most to the point: none of the total 18 shots fired struck the targets in the head or the neck. In other words, from a technical standpoint of duplicating Oswald’s alleged shots- this trio of experts failed. Another key aspect: for the duration of the 18 rounds, two of the “master” riflemen were unable to reload and fire at the stationary target as rapidly as Oswald purportedly did for the moving limo.

These are the facts, but alas, it is doubtful Brennan would accept them any more than he does the facts of anthropogenic global warming - which he dismisses as "blurtations".  Alas, he fails to see his off the cuff, inane response to Charnin's post was the real "blurtation":  blurting, brainless and an irritation.

---

[1] John Newman: 1995 Oswald and the CIA, Carroll & Graf, p. 307.
[2] The Warren Commission Report, p. 137.

Frequently Asked Questions on fhe JFK Assassination (Pt. 6): Oswald's Rifle and The WC Rifle Tests

We continue now with frequently asked questions to do with Oswald's Mannlicher-Carcano Rifle, alleged to be the weapon used to kill JFK, and the rifle tests the Warren Commission used.


   Exactly how good a rifleman was Oswald-   any measures or testimonies?

From the records available, Oswald's highest rating was achieved on Dec. 20, 1956, not long after entering the Marines. This was 'sharpshooter'. Three grades are used in all: expert marksman, sharpshooter, and marksman. The shots made in Dallas on 22 November, 1963 - if made by one person and on the moving targets specified - would have required a 'master expert marksman' level of skill, or  the 'best of the best'. In other words, the caliber associated with the three experts enlisted by the Warren Commission (to try to simulate the shots) but as we  will see (below) none of them were able to hit the head or the neck in 18 rounds, and for a stationary target and rifle with its sight fully reconstructed!

 

By the time Oswald was discharged from the Marines, he was barely able to qualify in any defined shooter category - with a 191 score (or Marksman). Corporal Nelson Delgado, the marine most familiar with Oswald's skills, referred to his being tagged with the label of 'Maggie's Drawers', meaning he was a lousy shot. In effect, what we see is just the opposite of what one would expect for the alleged assassin. His shooting skills never adequate to begin with, then deteriorating over time, as opposed to improving!

Logically, also, bear in mind that regular practice would have been required in the Marines and Oswald deteriorated in skill even in this environment. It is rather illogical, therefore, to suppose that in an environment ('civilian') which required no regular training (and for which no evidence of any extraneous 'practice' exists)  Oswald's skills would have significantly improved to the level of being able to make the shots attributed to him on Nov. 22, 1963. At best, therefore, his skill rating would've been no greater than 'marksman', if that.

 

 

 

What about the rifle tests that the Warren Commission used to try to duplicate Oswald’s alleged shots? How reliable or authentic were they?

Let’s go through this in some detail, covering each aspect, including: a) who was recruited for the tests, b) How the tests were conducted, c) the results.

 

a)     Who was recruited?

 

A first guide for the accuracy of selection would have been to choose riflemen at or just barely above Oswald’s last calibrated grade. That would have been ‘Marksman’. But instead of this, the Warren Commission enlisted three “master marksmen” also professionals, and members of the National Rifle Association[1]. This would have meant they had frequent practice.   The bottom line is that the choice of these three (two of whom were civilian gunners in the Small Arms Division of an Army Ballistic Research Laboratory, the other regular Army) was not a faithful replication of the human factor.

 

b)     How were the tests conducted?

 

Oswald was presumed to have fired from the 6^th floor of the Texas School Book Depository, so effectively six stories up or 60’ in altitude. However, the experts were allowed to fire from a tower only half this altitude (30’)[2]. In addition, while Oswald had to have fired at a limousine moving at 11 mile per hour, the experts fired at stationary targets[3].  The target area was also magnified for the experts, to the whole upper torso of the target prop’s body – while Oswald was limited to the head and neck.

More to the point, the rifle was altered away from the one Oswald used.  The rifle sight itself was rebuilt and “metal shims were fitted to provide a degree of accuracy previously absent’. When Ronald Simmons, the Chief of the Infantry Weapons Evaluation Branch of the Army’s Ballistics Research Division was asked about this he replied: “Well, they could not sight the weapon in using the telescope”[4]. He added that the aiming apparatus had to be rebuilt by a machinist[5], with two shims added, one to adjust for the elevation, the other for the azimuth.

 

In other words, had they actually used the rifle in the same condition Oswald was alleged to have had it, then they’d likely not have hit the side of a barn.

 

Again, the replication was contrived, and unfaithful to the facts of the case as claimed by the Warren Commission. If they were invested in those facts, and they were as invested in the truth, they ought to have emulated the conditions exactly, not fudged them for hopeful success.

 

a)     What was the outcome?

 

These Master Marksmen each fired two series of three shots each (18 rounds in all) at 3 stationary targets placed at distances of 175’, 240’ and 265’ (the last coming nearest to the distance from the Texas School Book Depository to the head shot).  Even Chief Simmons admitted that the targets were not placed where they ought to have been to emulate conditions on November 22, 1963.

 

 

Just one of the three expert riflemen was able to get off three shots in under 5.6 seconds – the designated time interval for total shots declared by the Warren Commission. And most to the point: none of the total 18 shots fired struck the targets (ibid.). in the head or the neck. In other words, from a technical standpoint of duplicating Oswald’s alleged shots- this trio of experts failed. Another key aspect: for the duration of the 18 rounds, two of   the “master” riflemen were unable to reload and fire at the stationary target as rapidly as Oswald purportedly did for the moving limo! (The Mannlicher-Carcano had a bolt action recycling time of 2. 33 secs)

More explicitly, in terms of the fatal head shot, the Mannlicher-Carcano fires full-metal jacketed bullets and would not likely have left the 'lead snowstorm' seen in the radiology photos . Forensics expert Vincent DeMaio, MD also noted that "military bullets, by virtue of their full metal jackets, tend to pass through the body intact, thus  producing less extensive injuries than hunting ammunition."

 

 Are there any other anomalies concerning these rifle tests?

 

Yes. The full results were not disclosed in the Warren Commission Report itself. The Commission was also surely prevaricating (based on the jury rigged conditions we’ve seen, i.e. above ) when they claimed the “weapon was tested under conditions which simulated those in the assassination”.

No way. Not when stationary targets are substituted for moving limos, and the whole rifle sight has to be reconstructed because sighting couldn’t be done with the telescope proper. Not when the altitude is only half of that of the purported shooter, and 18 rounds were needed to even get three shots off in the time, never mind none of the three struck where the Kennedy bullets did.
 

As for Oswald, I doubt he'd been able to get the same three shots off even benefiting from the same advantages as the three Army-NRA experts. The fact is he didn’t and couldn’t because their own failure proves more than anything else (except for the acoustic tests)  he wasn’t the shooter. Any shooter – at least in terms of an injurious shot. Former Justice Dept. Special Agent Walt Brown offers perhaps the most trenchant observation on Oswald’s alleged rifle (Brown, op. cit. p. 26):

 

"The Mannlicher-Carcano rifle was an anachronism even by the time its weary Italian users were surrendering them en masse in the 1940s. The gun had begun its production run in 1891 and can be seen today for what it was: a product of mass warfare concepts of its  time, in which huge armies charged each other, volleys were fired, and the bullets hit someone or something."

 

 

This may, of course, be one reason most Europeans believe Americans are idiots if they don't realize how useless this Italian rifle was, and especially if they think a lone assassin could have used it to make the world class shots (from a partially obstructed  6th floor window) on Nov. 22, 1963.

 

 

How come Vince Bugliosi (in 'Reclaiming History') insists critics  are wrong by saying that no rifleman has ever duplicated Oswald's feat?  He points to an example in the Warren Commission of a mysterious soldier named "Miller" (no first name given) who a commanding officer said actually bettered Oswald's feat.

 

How can I say this other than bluntly? Bugliosi is a LIAR  - as much or moreso than Gerald Posner. He also seems to have an even more active imagination than Posner. First, there never was any such person as “Miller”. He is a confection and nothing more, a red herring. The Warren Commission actually enlisted three master marksmen (professionals), and members of the National Rifle Association – NONE of whom had the name “Miller”. (Hearings Before the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, 1964: Vol. II, p. 243, Government Printing Office)
 

The notable bottom line (not Bugliosi's phantoms) is that the choice of these three expert marksmen  (two of whom were civilian gunners in the Small Arms Division of an Army Ballistic Research Laboratory, the other regular Army) was not a faithful replication of the human factor. That is, choosing riflemen with the same skill level, aptitude as Oswald, i.e. marksman - no higher.

 

 

This lie about "Miller" is but one example, and despite Bugliosi writing (Introduction, p. xxxix): "I will not knowingly omit or distort anything." 

 

Another example: Bugliosi (p. 1003) insists that one of the first critical authors of the Warren Commission , Mark Lane, never mentioned in his book Rush to Judgment, that Oswald had been arrested. Bugliosi’s exact words are: “He doesn’t even mention Oswald’s arrest”. 

 

But when I checked my copy of Lane’s book I found (p. 81) not only the details of the place of arrest but the time and the exact words:   “Oswald was arrested in the Texas Theater at approximately 1.50 p.m. that day” as well as other confirmations. 

 

The question that emerges is: If Bugliosi can lie with impunity about even a minor pro forma (generally accepted) event as concerns the critical pro-conspiracy community, how many larger events would he be prepared to misrepresent in the interest of his propaganda? 

 

 

There will be more to do with Bugliosi's bollocks and balderdash in another FAQ )

---

[1] Hearings Before the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, 1964: Vol. II, p. 243 (Government Printing Office)

[2] The Warren Commission Report, p. 137.

[3] Op. cit. p. 133.

---

[4] Op. cit. (Vol. II), p. 250.

[5] Ibid.

 

 

 

Rachel Maddow Blows It On Her ‘Gun Reform’ Piece

Oswald "Ghost" photo  (TOP)- found at Dallas PD Headquarters. This is the photo assassination researchers believe was used to frame him using the bottom photos, one of which later appeared on a LIFE magazine cover and which Rachel Maddow displayed on her gun reform piece last night.


Well, it appears Rachel Maddow – one of our leading liberal lights - has disclosed she too is an imbiber of false history (or untold history) kool aid, buying into the codswallop that Lee Oswald assassinated JFK. This was in conjunction with an initial segment last night on a gun reform law (S. 3714) that JFK had proposed:
“to exclude from importation or re-importation into the United States arms or ammunition originally manufactured for military purposes.”


She then went on to name as one example the Italian 6.5 mm Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, which she noted with irony, was purchased by Lee Harvey Oswald in March, 1963 and used to kill Kennedy in November of the same year.  She even displayed photos of Oswald holding the rifle in an effort to tie him to it (already attempted nearly 50 years ago)

But no where in her piece did she note that its nickname during WWII was “the rifle that never killed anyone” . This was how badly the weapon functioned, or rather, how often it malfunctioned. We in the JFK assassination research community have been trying for now going on 48 years to relate to the American public that on no account would a serious assassin have chosen or used such a weapon. But over and over well-meaning people like Maddow, especially in the "liberal media", set us back!


Ok, as for the photo shots of Oswald holding said weapon, i.e. the photos that appeared in LIFE magazine, I have already exposed those as fakes, frauds --- likely put together by a team of CIA specialists using a splicing technique to superimpose Oswald’s head onto the body of another actually holding the weapon.
The full blog on the techniques can be read here: http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2009/11/hany-farids-pixelated-illusions.html

Therein I used a conceptual spaces analysis, in tandem with the known date on which the photo was taken, to show the shadow lengths did not match the solar position for the date. As it turns out, on March 31, 1963 (the documented date from FBI files for the backyard photo), one can compute (using a specialized computer program) the maximum solar altitude on the local meridian at noon (for lat. 32 deg 47’ 09” or Dallas, TX) as 57.0 deg. For example, in the LIFE photo, let x2 be the near edge of the 3rd fence picket and x1 be the position of the heel of Lee’s boot, and (x2 – x1) = 1.5 m. Let (y2 – y1) be the distance of Lee in front of the picket fence, or 3m.


Then the distance d1(x,y) ought to approximately yield the length of his shadow, in this case:

d1(x,y) = {3m)^2 + (1.5^m )2}^1/2 = 3.35 m.


We know from basic astronomy that the height of an object in the Sun is related to its minimum shadow length (L_s = d1(x,y)) by:

tan (a) = H/ L_s

where (a) is the altitude of the Sun. Thus:

tan (a) = (1.74)/ (3.35) = 0.464, or a = 24.8 deg

However, if d1(x,y) is off by 50% and therefore, d1(x,y) = 1.17 m instead of 3.35m then, the altitude of the Sun would be:

tan (a) = (1.74)/ (1.17) = 56.0 deg

Or, within 1 degree of the maximum solar altitude on the local meridian for noon (LMT)  at Dallas, TX on that date. This means that if the photo is legit, and conforms to the correct solar meridian crossing on that date, Oswald’s shadow can be no longer than 1.12m, which sets limits on how far he can be located from the picket fence. But estimated shadow measurements show a significant disparity (> 1m) - so the LIFE photo cannot be legit, but obviously confected to frame him.

In 1977, a Canadian Defense Dept. Photographic specialist: Maj. John Pickard,  noted a 99% probability the LIFE cover photo was a fake and that each photo was taken from a slightly different angle. When superpositions of the images are performed, e.g. one photo laid atop another in succession, it is found that nothing matches exactly. As Pickard observed:  "Yet, impossibly, while one body is bigger - the heads match perfectly."

Again, this can be explained using the same "spliced in head".


Adding to the weight for this claim was the discovery of what has come to be known as "the Oswald ghost photo" (see top image). This had been  recovered at Dallas PD headquarters some time after the assassination. As one can discern, the “ghost” is a cutout into which another image can be pasted-superposed. The cutout image, many of us conclude, was obtained using a Dallas cop stand –in, which photo was also found in Dallas Police files, along with the ghost image.

Photo specialist Robert Hester was called on 22 November, 1963 to help process assassination -related photos for the FBI and Dallas police. Hester reported (and his wife Patricia confirmed) that he saw an FBI agent with a color transparency of one of the backyard photos with NO figure in the picture.  Hester has surmised and many researchers agree, that the blank photo was intended to deliberately set up Oswald. The mistake of the Dallas PD (which former Justice Dept. special agent Walt Brown ties into the plot as accessories, see his book, 'Treachery in Dallas' - Chapter 'Blue Death') was leaving incriminating evidence for their frame- up lying around. If they'd had any sense, they'd have burned it.

Let's also bear in mind the fact that a trained team of expert marksmen (assigned by the Warren Commission)  was unable to replicate Oswald's alleged feat! Oswald was presumed to have fired from the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository, so effectively six stories up or 60’ in altitude. However, the experts were allowed to fire from a tower only half this altitude (30’)[1]. In addition, while Oswald had to have fired at a limousine moving at 11 mile per hour, the experts fired at stationary targets. Anyone who's ever fired a high powered rifle will tell you it's much easier to hit a stationary target than a moving one!


[1] The Warren Commission Report, p. 137.

The target area was also magnified for the experts, to the whole upper torso of the target prop’s body – while Oswald was limited to the head and neck. More to the point, the rifle was altered away from the one Oswald used. The rifle sight itself was rebuilt and “metal shims were fitted to provide a degree of accuracy previously absent’. When Ronald Simmons, the Chief of the Infantry Weapons Evaluation Branch of the Army’s Ballistics Research Division was asked about this he replied: “Well, they could not sight the weapon in using the telescope" (Op. cit. ,Vol. II, p. 250.)


He added that the aiming apparatus had to be rebuilt by a machinist with two shims added, one to adjust for the elevation, the other for the azimuth. In other words, had they actually used the rifle in the same condition Oswald was alleged to have had it, then they’d likely not have hit the side of a barn. (Maybe one reason the Italians dubbed their Norma Mannlicher-Carcano 6.5 mm bolt action rifle that Oswald was supposed to have used as "the rifle that never killed anyone").

More interesting to me (and many others) is that in the immediate wake of the assassination, the actual rifle reported found at the Book Depository (i.e. by NBC News, in real time tapes) was a MAUSER. Now, THAT is a weapon that could have been used in an assassination, as opposed to the ridiculous Mannlicher-Carcano (which National Archives personnel won't even let researchers touch for fear it will far apart - as per a letter to Patricia Dumais who asked them to check the serial no.).  But if  a Mauser was used from the TBSD the shot would not have been the kill shot but rather the shot to the upper back. (Since in the real autopsy photos the entry wound was in the right front, the gaping exit wound in the rear, see e.g.
At the end of the test trials, these Master Marksmen each fired two series of three shots each (18 rounds in all) at 3 stationary targets placed at distances of 175’, 240’ and 265’ (the last coming nearest to the distance from the Texas School Book Depository to the head shot). Even Chief Simmons admitted that the targets were not placed where they ought to have been to emulate conditions on November 22, 1963.


Just one of the three expert riflemen was able to get off three shots in under 5.6 seconds – the designated time interval for total shots declared by the Warren Commission. And most to the point: none of the total 18 shots fired struck the targets in the head or the neck. In other words, from a technical standpoint of duplicating Oswald’s alleged shots- this trio of experts failed. Another key aspect: for the duration of the 18 rounds, two of the master riflemen were unable to reload and fire at the stationary target as rapidly as Oswald purportedly did for the moving limo.


Why has Maddow - bright woman that she is - evidently bought into the Oswald killed Kennedy myth? My take, similar to the case of Stephen King doing it in his novel ('11/22/63’ ) is that it was the easiest path to take. For King it made for an expediently written novel, as opposed to one with hidden complexities of plot, albeit that reflected history more faithfully (such as Don deLillo's excellent, 'Libra'.) For Maddow, it allowed her to hone her focus in light of the fact her attention was primarily on gun reform law history and not on the assassination. Hence, to veer from the official dogma and mention “conspirators” as opposed to Oswald, would have deflected attention from her piece and the need for current gun reform.


I understand that, and appreciate it. But as we draw nearer to the 50th anniversary date, I do hope Maddow will have the courage to take on the real issues of the assassination, namely that JFK was murdered by a power cabal of big banking, intelligence and oil*, that couldn’t tolerate his assorted initiatives, whether pulling out of Vietnam in 1965 (by National Security Action Memorandum 263), or taking away the oil depletion tax allowance, or doing an end run around the Federal Reserve to issue $4.2 billion in U.S. Notes in place of Federal Reserve notes. See e.g. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/07/yes-those-us-notes-were-real.html


*The nexus of how these are interlinked is discussed at length in Donald Gibson’s book: Battling Wall Street: The Kennedy Presidency

"Reclaiming History".....OR REDACTING It?

Vince Bugliosi insists (via the title of his Magnum Opus on the Kennedy Assassination) that he is "reclaiming history" - but the fact of the matter is that it's more a case that - like Gerald Posner before him ('Case Closed', 1993) he is attempting to redact it.  As anyone who's ever requested files under the Freedom of Information Act knows, there are times when the file issuers know you're getting a tad to close to the truth and they redact the files. Well, it's not quite so transparent as this.....moomommmmmmom!  !    Oh, you can't read it? Okay, I wrote 'More LIKE THIS!'  Redacted then means all the expected communication or signal is blotted out. It's rendered inaccessible.

Now in a propaganda piece there are multiple ways to do that. One of them is distorting well known facts, statements of other authors or omitting key elements. Another is massive use of ad hominem or wholesale smearing the integrity of the source or sources by invoking all manner of deficiencies, including insanity, deficient intellect, lack of judgment or whatever. As a former prosecutor, of course, Bugliosi would be privy to the full array of  these.  No surprise then that these heavy-handed tactics show up throughout his book, which to a savvy and knowledgeable student of the assassination makes it appear he's trying to compensate with bluster and bombast - for his own deficient knowledge.

In this and the next blog I want to show readers why they saved a lot of money and time-wasting by NOT getting his cinder block book. And why, indeed, he is engaged in a massive enterprise to redact the real history of the JFK assassination rather than "reclaiming" it. (So, Vince, Posner's 'Case Closed' wasn't adequate to the task? I thought the case was CLOSED. So, what will the next title of these historical poseurs be? 'CASE RE-CLOSED - or Re-RE-CLAIMING HISTORY'? Jeebus, give me a break already.)

Anyway, let's go through the hit list of egregious Bugliosi bunkum:

1) Bogus Assaults on Critics:

Bugliosi states that the critics have always written that no rifleman has ever duplicated Oswald's feat at the Texas School Book Depository on 11/22/63. That is firing three shots, and getting two hits in the head and shoulder areas in less than six seconds. He says that this charge is not accurate. He then points to an example in the Warren Commission of a mysterious soldier named Miller (no first name given) who a commanding officer said actually bettered Oswald's feat.

Here, Bugliosi is factually wrong. First, there never was any such person as “Miller”. He is a confection and nothing more, a red herring. The Warren Commission actually enlisted three “master marksmen” also professionals, and members of the National Rifle Association – NONE of whom had the name “Miller”. (Hearings Before the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, 1964: Vol. II, p. 243 (Government Printing Office))

The bottom line is that the choice of these three (two of whom were civilian gunners in the Small Arms Division of an Army Ballistic Research Laboratory, the other regular Army) was not a faithful replication of the human factor.

Oswald was presumed to have fired from the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository, so effectively six stories up or 60’ in altitude. However, the experts were allowed to fire from a tower only half this altitude (30’). See Warren Commission Report, p. 137.
 
In addition, while Oswald had to have fired at a limousine moving at 11 mile per hour, the experts fired at stationary targets . The target area was also magnified for the experts, to the whole upper torso of the target prop’s body – while Oswald was limited to the head and neck.

More to the point, the rifle was altered away from the one Oswald used. The rifle sight itself was rebuilt and “metal shims were fitted to provide a degree of accuracy previously absent’. When Ronald Simmons, the Chief of the Infantry Weapons Evaluation Branch of the Army’s Ballistics Research Division was asked about this he replied: “Well, they could not sight the weapon in using the telescope" (Op. cit, Vol. 2, p. 250)
 
He added that the aiming apparatus had to be rebuilt by a machinist (ibid.) , with two shims added, one to adjust for the elevation, the other for the azimuth. In other words, had they actually used the rifle in the same condition Oswald was alleged to have had it, then they’d likely not have hit the side of a barn. Again, the replication was contrived, and unfaithful to the facts of the case as claimed by the Warren Commission
 
These Master Marksmen each fired two series of three shots each (18 rounds in all) at 3 stationary targets placed at distances of 175’, 240’ and 265’ (the last coming nearest to the distance from the Texas School Book Depository to the head shot). Even Chief Simmons admitted that the targets were not placed where they ought to have been to emulate conditions on November 22, 1963.

Just one of the three expert riflemen was able to get off three shots in under 5.6 seconds – the designated time interval for total shots declared by the Warren Commission. And most to the point: none of the total 18 shots fired struck the targets in the head or the neck. In other words, from a technical standpoint of duplicating Oswald’s alleged shots- this trio of experts failed. Another key aspect: for the duration of the 18 rounds, two of the “master” riflemen were unable to reload and fire at the stationary target as rapidly as Oswald purportedly did for the moving limo! (The Mannlicher-Carcano had a bolt action recycling time of 2. 33 secs)

The full results were not disclosed in the Warren Commission Report itself, so Bugliosi is caught in a second lie. He then tries to qualify this by saying there may be references in the millions of pages on the subject that he simply never encountered. But how could he have missed this content on the expert marksmen if he makes the assertion all the critics are wrong? Either he deliberately omitted the details on their actual accomplishments in the attempted replications, or he’s lying.

2) More Lies and Distortions:

Bugliosi compounds this by writing (p. xxxix) "I will not knowingly omit or distort anything." But he has and did! Another classic mega-distortion inheres in his misrepresentation of the world famous forensic pathologist Dr. Cyril Wecht (highlighted in the documentary, ‘The Single Bullet Theory’). Dr. Wecht has long insisted the single bullet theory is malarkey and that two bullets struck Kennedy in the head simultaneously. (One bullet fired from the rear initiating a slight forward thrust and a second fired from the grassy knoll eliciting the backward head motion.)

In his chapter on Wecht, ‘A Conversation with Dr. Cyril Wecht’, Bugliosi concluded by insisting that Wecht “demonstrated there is no credible evidence whatsoever that any shots were fired from the president’s right side or right front” adding that “the conspiracy theorists’ main forensic expert cannot even hypothesize a shooting from the right side or right front that is intellectually feasible.”

But in fact, Wecht can and DID! (In the aforementioned documentary). Moreover he did it in meticulous detail including using anatomical sketches, and diagrams sowing the putative single bullet’s path and why it couldn’t work. In addition, Wecht hasn’t budged from this position since that documentary was completed ca. 1993! Indeed, when Wecht was confronted with Bugliosi’s words (‘Last Word’, 2011, by Mark Lane, p. 153) he responded that Bugliosi’s words were “inexplicable” since Wecht had “stated to Bugliosi that all the relevant evidence – including the medical evidence, the x-rays of the president that he had examined and the statements of the physicians, had long ago convinced him that a shot had been fired from the grassy knoll area.”

So why didn’t Bugliosi faithfully report Wecht’s words instead of lying about them and yes, distorting them? Because to do so would not have served his agenda of holding up the Warren Commission Report as the “Holy Grail” of the assassination and the last word! However, this misstep, like the hundreds of Gerald Posner in his ‘Case Closed’ – merely shows both to be in the service of disinformationists, most likely the CIA who in their own document 1035- 960 (marked ‘Psych’ for psychological warfare operations) clearly state under Sec. 3(b) ‘Propaganda assets’:

“To employ propaganda assets to [negate] and refute the attacks of the critics. Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for this purpose.”

And clearly  not merely reviews but whole (even 2,600 -plus page) books too! Since you may likely be able to count on the gullible such as Tom Hanks to help spread the word!

Other lies:

Bugliosi (p. 1003) insists that one of the first critical authors of the Warren Commission , Mark Lane, never mentioned in his book Rush to Judgment, that Oswald had been arrested. Bugliosi’s exact words are: “He doesn’t even mention Oswald’s arrest”.

Bugliosi must not think many readers have access to his book (which I finally located at a Colorado Springs library last year) or Lane’s, but he’s wrong. When I checked my copy of Lane’s book I found (p. 81) not only the details of the place of arrest but the time and the words “Oswald was arrested in the Texas Theater at approximately 1.50 p.m. that day” but other confirmations.

The question that emerges is: If Bugliosi can lie with impunity about even a minor pro forma (generally accepted) event as concerns the critical pro-conspiracy community, how many larger events would he be prepared to misrepresent in the interest of his propaganda?