The procession and the shots

At 11.40am on November 22, 1963, the Air Force One of the President of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, landed at Dallas’ Love Field Airport.

Kennedy’s trip to Texas was motivated not only by the desire for an official visit to an electorally unfriendly state, but also by the need to resolve some controversy within the Texan Democratic Party, in view of the following year’s elections.

The President was accompanied by his wife Jackie and a party including Texas Governor John Connally and Senator Ralph W. Yarborough, among others.

Vice President Johnson had landed five minutes earlier with Air Force Two.

After welcoming a welcoming committee, and after indulging in the handshakes of a throng of enthusiastic spectators, John Kennedy and the First Lady took their seats in the presidential limo for the planned march through downtown Dallas. 45 minutes had been calculated to cover the approximately 16km distance from the Trade Mart, where the President and his entourage were expected for lunch.

The column, consisting of 15 cars and 3 buses, left Love Field shortly after 11.50am.

At the head of the motorcade was a Dallas police car, driven by Department Chief Jesse Curry, and also occupied by Secret Service agents Sorrels and Lawson, and Dallas County Sheriff JE Decker. The second car was the presidential limousine, driven by SS Special Agent William Greer with colleague Roy Kellerman at his side. In addition to John Kennedy and Jacqueline, Texas Governor John Connally and his wife Nelly took their places. The President’s Lincoln was tailed by the escort’s car, followed by the Vice President’s and another Secret Service agent’s car. The rest of the parade included, in order, 5 more cars for the authorities, 3 for the press photographers, 2 for communications, 1 coach for the White House staff members,

Traveling at speeds of 40-50 km / h, the procession passed through a sparsely populated area of ​​the Dallas suburbs, where, at the instruction of the President, the limousine stopped twice. The first time to satisfy the request for a handshake, and the second time to speak to a nun and a group of children.

As the procession approached the city center, the crowd increased more and more, giving John Kennedy an extraordinary, and perhaps unexpected, welcome. The large number of people forced Officer Clinton Hill, on several occasions, to leave the spare car and ride in the back of the limo, while Officer Bannet tried to keep the crowd at some distance from the President’s car.

According to plan, the procession proceeded downtown on Main Street to the intersection with Houston Street. Turning right from Main onto Houston, the caravan of vehicles entered Dealey Plaza, heading towards the Texas School Book Depository, an old building on the northwest corner of the intersection of Houston Street and Elm Street. A few hundred meters more and the procession would have passed a triple railway underpass, beyond which, after exiting the Dealey Plaza and the city center, it would soon reach the Trade Mart.

But seconds after the turn into Elm Street, the first of a series of shots is heard. The tragedy is consumed in a few moments, and the limo, amidst general disbelief, accelerates towards Parkland Hospital. JFK was also shot in the head, and his condition immediately looked desperate. At around 1pm, the sad news of his death will be given to America and the world.

The capture of the alleged murderer

When the shooting, which lasted a few seconds, began, the Hertz clock on the roof of the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) read 12.30. Some eyewitnesses had seen a rifle in a high-floor window of that same building, and at least one of them reported the fact to the police immediately after the shooting ended. But the attention of almost everyone present in the Dealey Plaza initially focused on the grassy knoll, a hill located west of the Book Depository, towards which, immediately after the shooting, dozens of people headed in search of the one who had exploded the strokes. At the same time, a single policeman, suspicious of the flight of pigeons from the roof of the warehouse, with the gun in his hand, broke into the building, thinking that this was the source of the shots.

Yet it was 40 minutes after the shooting ended before three shells were discovered behind the window in the southeast corner of the sixth floor of the Texas Building at exactly 1.10pm. Later, at 13.22, still on the sixth floor, but well hidden under the boxes of books, an Italian-made Mannlicher-Carcano rifle was found. The serious delay in surrounding the building, immediately blocking access and searching it, was perhaps the first in a long series of anomalous behaviors that fueled dark suspicions about the whole affair, and that indelibly stained the history of the Dallas police.

However, at about the same time the three shells were found, a policeman, JD Tippit, was killed with four gunshots in Oak Cliff, a suburb of Dallas. At 13.50, inside the Texas Theater, which was not far from the crime scene, a 24-year-old young man whose name was Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested.

On the evening of that same day, after being subjected to some questionable American confrontations, Lee Oswald was charged with the murder of Officer Tippit. At 1 am the next day, November 23, he too was officially accused of the assassination of President John Kennedy.

The murder of the alleged killer

On the morning of November 24, after two days of unregistered or recorded interrogation, Oswald was taken, handcuffed to two policemen, to the basement of the police station to be loaded into the car that would transport him to the Dallas County Jail. In the presence of dozens of policemen whose job was to safeguard the prisoner’s safety, and on live television, Lee Harvey Oswald was killed, with a single shot, by a shady character linked to the underworld, named Jack Ruby.

This serious episode, in addition to further upsetting the American people, justified the suspicion that Lee Oswald had been eliminated for the sole purpose of silencing him forever.

Ruby’s murderous gesture, coupled with the need to silence other uncomfortable rumors about the Kennedy assassination, convinced President Lyndon Johnson to set up a commission of inquiry to unify investigations into the tragic events in Dallas into a single body.

The government inquiries and the official thesis

On November 29, 1963, President Lyndon Johnson, in order to concentrate the investigation of the facts in a body with the broadest national mandate, appointed a commission that was to ascertain, evaluate and report the facts related to the assassination. The reluctant Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, was chosen as chair of the commission, known from the outset as the “Warren Commission”.

The other six members were two Senators, Richard Russell and John Sherman Cooper, and four members of the House of Representatives; Hale Boggs, Gerald Ford, John McCloy and Allen Dulles, the latter a former director of the CIA. The commissioners in turn appointed J. Lee Rankin as General Counsel, who would lead a group of 14 Assistant Counselors and an additional team of 12 young lawyers. Throughout the ten months of the Commission’s investigations, it was the staff of lawyers under Rankin’s who actually collected all the testimonies and worked on the drafting of the Report. The commission itself admitted that his assignment was not carried out by its most prestigious, but distracted and committed, members. From the words of the Warren Report we learn that it was the staff who undertook the work of the Commission with great profusion of legal and investigative experience.

It was the legal staff who sorted out the information received from the various agencies and recommended further investigations into the unresolved issues. In short, the illustrious members of the Commission limited themselves to sporadic appearances. it was the staff of lawyers under Rankin’s who actually collected all the testimonies and worked on the drafting of the Report. The commission itself admitted that his assignment was not carried out by its most prestigious, but distracted and committed, members. From the words of the Warren Report we learn that it was the staff who undertook the work of the Commission with great profusion of legal and investigative experience. It was the legal staff who sorted out the information received from the various agencies and recommended further investigations into the unresolved issues. In short, the illustrious members of the Commission limited themselves to sporadic appearances. it was the staff of lawyers under Rankin’s who actually collected all the testimonies and worked on the drafting of the Report.

The commission itself admitted that his assignment was not carried out by its most prestigious, but distracted and committed, members. From the words of the Warren Report we learn that it was the staff who undertook the work of the Commission with great profusion of legal and investigative experience. It was the legal staff who sorted out the information received from the various agencies and recommended further investigations into the unresolved issues. In short, the illustrious members of the Commission limited themselves to sporadic appearances.

From the words of the Warren Report we learn that it was the staff who undertook the work of the Commission with great profusion of legal and investigative experience. It was the legal staff who sorted out the information received from the various agencies and recommended further investigations into the unresolved issues. In short, the illustrious members of the Commission limited themselves to sporadic appearances. From the words of the Warren Report we learn that it was the staff who undertook the work of the Commission with great profusion of legal and investigative experience. It was the legal staff who sorted out the information received from the various agencies and recommended further investigations into the unresolved issues. In short, the illustrious members of the Commission limited themselves to sporadic appearances.

On September 24, 1964, Earl Warren delivered an 888-page report, better known as the Warren Report, into the hands of President Johnson. The main and reassuring conclusion it contained was that Oswald had assassinated the President by doing everything himself. Two months after the issue of its Report, the Commission published a massive appendix, consisting of as many as 26 volumes containing thousands of pages of testimonies and artifacts, on which the conclusions reached by the investigation were based. Immediately after its publication, the Report met the overwhelming consensus of the major national newspapers. The triumphal reception, judged objectively, was in fact a blatant example of irresponsible journalism,

However, the Warren Report, which had been presented to the public as the final and final word on the assassination, would very soon be seriously questioned; a national controversy was about to break out in which the Warren Commission, its Report, its evidence and all its work, would have been the target of a harsh challenge by careful and documented critics, who highlighted more and more over the years , the omissions, contradictions and inconsistencies inherent in the work and subsequent conclusions of the Warren Commission. A large part of the public was now convinced that Oswald, even if he had shot, could not have been the only bomber.

The spokespersons of the official theory Diego Verdegiglio

A comment on “Here is who killed John Kennedy” the book by Diego Verdegiglio

In Italy, the only consequence of the book “Case closed” by Gerald Posner, of which I have written extensively, was the contribution to the publication of “Here is who killed John Kennedy”, whose author, Diego Verdegiglio, honestly admitted that he inspired by the work of the New York lawyer.

Some time ago, in a different context, I analyzed Verdegiglio’s book, highlighting not only its errors and omissions, but its basic conception itself. “Here is who killed John Kennedy”, in fact, does not bother to investigate and analyze in an impartial way the documentation available on the assassination of the President, but focuses his attention on the useless effort to demonize or discredit some characters who, in roles and different ways, they severely contested the conclusions reached by the committees of inquiry. A bit like almost all politicians do by now, who instead of asking the consent of the voters by worrying about proposing valid programs, try above all to discredit the work and projects of their opponents.

The 600 pages of the book were very often presented as if this issue alone could guarantee detailed analysis and great preparation by the author on the official documentation. But if we took away from the volume the 140 pages of notes and indexes, and the first 95 that do not talk about the attack, the great book would already be reduced to insufficient dimensions to contain an accurate and detailed examination, worthy of the complexity of the case in question.

Then there are 50 pages of opinions from various experts, such as medical pathologists and ballistic experts, who should make a technical, scientific and medical legal contribution to the theses supported by Diego Verdegiglio, whose main purpose is to demonstrate the sustainability of the theory of single bullet. Now, apart from the fact that Verdegiglio decided the selection of experts and questions, I point out that the doctors who saw, and in Connally’s case, treated the wounds of the victims, limited themselves to admitting the possibility of the “single bullet ”, Only following pressing hypothetical questions posed to them by lawyers for the Warren Commission. But Dr. Shaw, for example, once he saw Exhibit 399, practically intact,

At this point, what meaning can we attribute to the opinions of the doctors interviewed by Verdegiglio, who could in no way be more informed and, therefore, more qualified than their colleagues who intervened directly to assist the victims of the Dallas tragedy?

As for ballistic experts, how qualified can experts who have never seen and tried Oswald’s rifle be able to answer?

What sense does it make that these people recognize the Mannlicher-Carcano’s potential to cause the damage attributed to it by the Warren Commission, when the experts at the time who examined it testified that that rifle was defective?

And when three of the best shooters in the world, after fixing him, could not even remotely match the performance attributed to Oswald, although they fired at fixed targets, from shorter distances and from shorter heights than the alleged killer?

Verdegiglio experts say the x-rays show the direction from behind of the bullet that hit Kennedy’s head. Let’s see what someone certainly more informed said than the doctors interviewed by Verdegiglio, who, as far as I know, have never examined the original radiographs.

On November 17, 1993, testifying before John Conyers, chairman of the National Security and Legislation Subcommittee, Randolph Robertson, a radiologist from Tennessee, stated that he had conducted a thorough examination of John Kennedy’s original skull x-rays at the National Archives. , and that the material showed that JFK had been hit in the head by two bullets that exploded at the same time, one coming from the front and the other from behind.

Robertson may well be wrong, of course, but then how can we trust the opinions of experts who have never dealt with the original medical records?

It is therefore clear that the words of the experts questioned by Verdegiglio cannot have any value, regardless of their professionalism and competence. Therefore, we have eliminated another 50 pages.

About 300 remain, which include a chapter devoted to newspaper reports of the time and the opinions of personalities and journalists who had no idea of ​​the official documentation, and whose opinions add nothing of interest to the discussion of the murder.

In Verdegiglio’s book, even Mino D’Amato, the television journalist, managed to earn a double quote. Not to mention Frank Sinatra, Kevin Costner, and Sophia Loren. But if you look for the name of Troy Eugene West, or some excerpt from Mary Bledsoe’s testimony, you will find nothing. And I’m talking about witnesses who might have been instrumental in an eventual trial against Oswald. If you would like to know something about Lillian Mooneyham  (see CE 2098)  or are curious to see the photo taken by a certain  James Powell , you will not find anything in Verdegiglio’s book. And also in this case I have cited witnesses who could have supported the innocence of the alleged killer of Kennedy with heavy indications. And these are just a few examples of the many possible.

But, evidently, Oswald’s defense, and therefore an objective assessment of the case, are not aspects that particularly interested the author.

In judging the remainder of the book, and little remains, I could speculate on both trivial and serious inaccuracies of Verdegiglio, or on the ridiculous calculation errors relating to the timing theorized in the reconstruction of the shooting, but I do not want to repeat myself, also because I would have to repeat much of what I have already written in the articles dedicated to Massimo Polidoro and to the johnkennedy.it site.

The message I intend to send to Verdegiglio is, in essence, an invitation to considerably resize his conviction of having solved, with the help of “Case closed”, the mystery of Kennedy’s death. His book, like Posner’s, does not do the truth a service, nor does it represent a correct attempt to seek it.

Giuseppe Sabatino

The spokespersons of the official theory Gerald Posner and his “Case Closed”

In late 1993, just before the 30th anniversary of Kennedy’s assassination, a New York lawyer, Gerald Posner, began promoting his new book titled Case closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the assassination of JFK. in which he boldly announced that the case of the century had been solved. Televisions, radios, newspapers and periodicals were happy to conform en masse to the perfected “one killer” theory, embracing the new spokesperson for those who supported the Warren Commission’s conclusions. After all, most of the media had long supported Posner’s revived theory, despite the 80-90% of Americans who were convinced of a conspiracy.

Was Posner able to change the minds of the majority of public opinion? No not at all.

As had already happened with the Warren Report, as soon as we began to examine its contents, we realized that “Case closed” was leaking everywhere. And as had already happened after the publication of the Warren Report, the first critic to report on Posner’s manipulations and omissions was the one who we can define, without any doubt, the greatest researcher on the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy; I refer naturally to Harold Weisberg, who immediately responded to Posner’s falsehoods with the publication of  “Case open: the omissions, distortions and falsifications of Case closed”.  It would be enough to take a look at Weisberg’s book to realize the dishonest alterations made by the dozens of those who were under the illusion of closing the JFK question.

Below I report the opinions of some of the many documented researchers who have examined and ascertained the unreliability of Posner’s book:

Russ Paielli  – “We now have a new Messiah, a hitherto unknown attorney named Posner, who distorts mock trials and brazenly takes us back to the glorious days of the Warren Commission. The idea that Posner could be the leading expert on the Kennedy assassination, or even just one of the top 50, is an insult to the intelligence of the American people. ”

James Folliard  – “Case closed is an intellectually dishonest work”.

Wallace Milam  – (1) “In light of Posner’s persistent methodology, I suggest a new word for our language. POSNERIZE: ignore, distort or manipulate evidence in order to achieve the desired end (see MISLEAD) “.

(2) “Posner’s book is fundamentally dishonest”.

Peter Dale Scott  – “In Case closed, some of the weaker arguments of the Warren Commission have been consolidated with suspicious methods and even with falsehood. The systematic use of this way of operating calls into question the good faith of the entire book “.

Stewart Galanor  – “Posner’s presentation of the evidence of the murder is contrived and deceptive.”

David Wrone  – “Posner’s book is a stellar example of irresponsible publication.”

But if anyone doubts that the aforementioned opinions are simplistically the result of a conspiratorial position, just go and read Posner’s book and compare it with the official documentation. Once this is done, you will realize that there is very little room to challenge the heavy judgments on the content of Case closed and on the person who wrote it. Here are a few examples of how Posner selects, twists or ignores evidence, starting with the controversial location of JFK’s head injury.

Probably one of the most nauseating aspects of Posner’s book is the attempt to discredit the claims of most of the doctors at Parkland Hospital. Most of the doctors at the Dallas hospital reported seeing a large wound in the back right of Kennedy’s head. The position and proportions of the wound described were absolutely compatible with a frontal shot, as the sequences in Zapruder’s film clearly imply. But wanting to support the shooting from behind theorized by the Warren Commission, Gerald Posner finds himself forced into the desperate task of having to convince his readers that those doctors, all of them, were wrong, and that the wound, in fact, was in the top of the head. To support this “group error” Posner begins by saying that,

On page 308 Posner writes: “… .. it is questionable whether to rely on some of the statements of the doctors at Parkland Hospital regarding the head injury. By their own admission, they did not examine it in detail ”. Nothing more mystifying and misleading. In all cases, the inaccurate examination of the wound does not necessarily imply that doctors could not even correctly establish the position. Indeed, it is completely irrational to believe that those doctors had not bothered to look at the head wound, when it was evident that the only reason that could have frustrated their attempts to save the President was precisely the extent of that wound.

On page 309 we read a statement by Dr. Marion Jenkins, released to Posner himself:  “We were trying to save the President’s life, and no one had time to examine the head wound.”

But in his most credible testimony (under oath) before the Warren Commission, Jenkins’ words had been quite different:  “… … I had time to pay more attention to the head injury … … and then my attention returned to the wound in the head. head …… my assessment of the neck injury was somewhat overwhelmed by the awareness of the head injury …… “

Also on page 309 Posner reports a statement made to him by Dr. Baxter:  “When we saw that the President was dead, none of us had the courage to examine the head wound in the presence of Mrs. Kennedy.”

But Baxter to the Warren Commission said:  “… .. we had the opportunity to observe the head injury, and it was clear that there could be no hope ….”.

As for the location of the head injury, according to Posner’s interviews, both Jenkins and Baxter said they never said that the wound was in the back of the head.

But Exhibit 392 of the Warren Commission contains the statements made on November 22, 1963 by the two doctors:

Baxter  “A part of the skull in the right occipito-temporal area was missing, and the brain was scattered on the operating table.”

Jenkins  “There was a large tear in the right side of the head (temporal and occipital).”

After having specified that the occiput is located in the back of the head, let’s see, then, if we can find some confirmation of Posner-thought, from the testimonies of other interested parties:

Mr. SPECTER.  What did you observe of the President’s head wound?

Dr. PERRY.  I saw no other wounds other than the one I was telling you about earlier. It was a large wound in the right occipito-parietal area, but I did not do a thorough examination of the head (6 H 11).

………………… ..

Mr. SPECTER.  Dr. Perry, what did you observe about his condition?

Dr. PERRY.  Yes, there was a large avulsive wound in the right back of the skull. I cannot determine the measurements since I did not examine it,  but I noticed the presence of torn brain tissues (3 H 368)

Comment:  Posner may be lashing out like a vulture over these claims from Dr. Perry. However, even though Perry didn’t examine the wound in detail, he saw perfectly where he was. In fact, on at least two occasions, the doctor had no doubts about where to place the wound. And coincidentally he placed it where all his colleagues had seen it.

… ..And then let’s see what other doctors said….

Mr. SPECTER.  Before going on to describe your work in relation to the tracheostomy, can you give us a broad description of his observations regarding the head injury?

Dr. McCLELLAND.  After positioning myself at the head of the operating table, to aid in the tracheostomy,  I was in a position to EXAMINE the head wound VERY CLOSE, and I noticed that the right back of the skull had been destroyed (6 H 33).

Mr. SPECTER.  When she arrived, what did you see of the President’s condition?

Dr. CLARK.  ………… ..  at this point I EXAMINED the wound in the back of the head. It was a large open wound in the right back,  with damaged and exposed brain tissues …… (6 H 20).

Comment : after the words of McClelland and Clark (the latter was even a neurosurgeon) I challenge anyone to say that no doctor had examined the wound, or that they did not correctly establish its position.

Mr. SPECTER Can you  describe as precisely as possible the nature of the President’s head injury?

Dr. CARRICO.  It was a large open wound  located in the right occipito-parietal area. I would say that it measured from 5 to 7 cm., More or less circular,  with avulsion of tissues of the scalp …. as I have already said there were shreds of brain and cerebral tissues …. (6 H 5-6).

Comment:  if Carrico was even able to evaluate the proportions of the hole, and all the other horrendous details, it is very difficult to say that he had given only a quick glance, and that he was not able, therefore, to indicate the exact location of the wound. .

Mr. SPECTER.  Did he observe any wounds?

Dr. JONES.  We initially noticed a small wound in the central part of the neck, which probably measured no more than 6-7mm in diameter. There was also a large wound in the back of the head.

Mr. SPECTER.  Would you like to describe exactly the nature of the head injury?

Dr. JONES. There was a large hole in the back of the head … ..

Mr. SPECTER.  What did you observe about the nature of the President’s injury?

Dr. PETERS.  As I said, the tracheostomy had already been done from the neck wound when I arrived,  but I noticed the head wound, and from what I remember there was a large hole in the occiput.

Mr. SPECTER.  What did you notice in the occiput?

Dr. PETERS. It seemed to me that in the right occipito-parietal area there was a large hole. There were bones and brains scattered here.

Mr. SPECTER.  Did you notice any other holes under the occiput?

Dr. PETERS.  No, at that moment we pondered the number of shots that had hit the President, as we saw  the entry wound in the throat  and noted  the large wound to the occiput, and it is known that high velocity bullets cause small entry wounds and large outgoing wounds…. 

Mr. SPECTER. Did he observe any wounds when she first saw him?

Dr. AKIN.  There was a wound in the center of the neck, under the Adam’s apple. It measured about 1 to 1.5 cm in diameter, but when I saw it it had been enlarged to perform the tracheostomy. The right back of the head, in the occipito-parietal area, was destroyed, with cerebral matter leaking … ..

But we also have the impressions of a nurse….

Mr. SPECTER. In general, what did you observe regarding President Kennedy’s condition?

Miss DIANA BOWRON  (nurse). She was very pale, and lay on Mrs. Kennedy’s lap. When I went to the other side of the car I saw the condition of her head.

Mr. SPECTER.  Did he see the condition of his head?

Miss BOWRON. The back of her head.

Mr. SPECTER.  In what condition was he?

Miss BOWRON. Very bad.

Mr. SPECTER.  How many holes did you see?

Miss BOWRON. I saw only one large hole. (6 H 136)

… .. and a secret service agent….

Mr. SPECTER.  What did you observe about the President’s condition after arriving at the hospital?

Mr. CLINT HILL  (Secret Service Special Agent). The right back of his head was gone.  She was scattered in the back seat of the car. His brain was open. There was blood and small pieces of brain all over the back of the limo. Mrs. Kennedy was completely covered in blood. There was so much blood that I can’t tell if there were any other wounds besides that large opening in the back of her head. (2 H 141)

Comment:  When Officer Hill went to the morgue with the express intention of looking at the wounds, he once again reported seeing a large wound in the right back of the skull.

I think it is clear enough that the doctors at Parkland Hospital did, indeed, examine the head injury. And they precisely defined its location. Posner’s unsustainable objections are the best example of the total failure of his book. But let’s move on.

Page 12  – The author offers us some evidence of Oswald’s psychological potential to become a murderer, citing the psychologist Renatus Hartogs, a discredited witness who appeared before the Warren Commission. Hartogs stated that Oswald exhibited well-defined traits of danger.

Commission attorney Wesley Liebeler disputed that claim, revealing that in his 1953 report he made no reference to an alleged dangerousness of the boy.

Hartogs then retracted his statement, and Liebeler requested that the actual text of the report signed by the psychologist in 1953 be added to the documentation.

Page 13  – Posner uses false information to attack the credibility of the late Sylvia Meagher, highly respected author and researcher on the JFK case. Meagher concluded that there was no reason to claim that Oswald was insane. Posner, in addition to Hartogs, contrasts the reports of two Soviet psychiatrists, evidently not knowing that one of those reports defines Oswald as “not dangerous”, and the other speaks of a “completely normal” person. This is just one of several examples of quotes that prove the exact opposite of what Posner would like to argue. A so-called “Posnerism”.

Page 127  – Posner writes that on May 29, 1963, Oswald went to the Jones Printing Company to order 1000 pro-Cuba leaflets. His reference is an FBI report from Special Agent John McCarthy, concerning the latter’s interview with Myra Silver. When she was shown a picture of Oswald the woman she did not recognize him as the man who had ordered the flyers.

Again, to support his claims, Posner cites a testimony which, on the contrary, contradicts them.

Page 224  – According to Posner, on the morning of the murder, Linnie Mae Randle saw Oswald carrying a package in such a way that one end was held under his armpit while the other nearly touched the ground. This classic and even somewhat dishonest Posnerism is nothing more than the combination of two testimonies; Randle’s and her brother Wesley Frazier’s. The aim is to make the reader believe that Oswald’s package was long enough to hold a rifle. In fact, both Randle and Frazier repeatedly reconstructed the length of that package to dimensions that did not exceed 70cm. The longest piece of the dismantled Mannlicher-Carcano rifle measured 88 cm.

Page 225  – Posner’s worst abuses, with regard to testimony, we appreciate them in reference to Oswald’s position shortly before the shooting. Posner reports an alleged sighting of Oswald, saying that Bonnie Ray Williams claimed to have seen her colleague at 11.40 am on the east side of the sixth floor near the windows overlooking Dealey Plaza.

What Posner guilty does not say is that Williams had changed his version at least twice. He had declared to the FBI, on November 23, 1963, that he saw Oswald on the fifth floor, around 11.30. He had sworn to the Dallas police, a few hours after the assassination, that he had never seen Oswald again after 08:00 in the morning.

Page 227  – Posner places unjustified trust in witness Charles Givens, who declared, in his testimony to the Warren Commission, that he saw Oswald on the sixth floor shortly before noon. In the statement issued to the Dallas police on November 22, 1963, Givens makes no reference to Oswald. Same goes for the deposition to the FBI the day after the assassination, and for the one released to the FBI on March 18, 1964.

On April 8, 1964, when Givens, in the presence of the CW attorney Belin, said that at 11.55 am on November 22 he had met Oswald on the sixth floor of the warehouse, it was the first time he had spoken of that incident. Even the excuse of his return to the sixth floor, namely the recovery of forgotten cigarettes, was a circumstance never mentioned before. Belin asked him if he had ever told anyone he saw Oswald, reading a newspaper, in the Domino Room on the first floor, around 11.50. Belin’s very specific question only made sense because the attorney was aware that Givens had testified to the FBI for exactly that circumstance. But Givens, surprisingly, said no, retracting a pro-Oswald statement after almost 5 months from the facts, replacing it with another that, on the contrary, reinforced the accusation against the alleged murderer. Charles Givens, who was being watched by the police for drug-related offenses for which he had previously been arrested, evidently had no major problems in dressing up as dishonest and falsifying.

But the gravest aspect of this story is that, despite the Warren Commission’s awareness of the unreliability of Givens’ words, Givens’s testimony was used by the Commission itself to aggravate Oswald’s situation. Unfortunately for those gentlemen, the shameful omission from the Warren Report was discovered by the talented researcher Sylvia Meagher, who unearthed the FBI report on the original Givens statement.

Gerald Posner doesn’t even think about giving his readers all this information, so we are faced with the usual two alternatives. We are forced to choose between a dishonest Posner, at least as much as Givens, and one who is absolutely ignorant of the facts connected with the case he claims to close. To the admirers of him the arduous task.

Page 233  – Posner claims that no Secret Service agent traveled attached to the rear edge of the limousine. Also in this case the author demonstrates the lack of confidence with the official documentation, ignoring the testimony of agent Clint Hill. However, a film uncovered by the Assassination Record Review Board confirms Hill’s statements, showing that the agent at certain moments of the march positioned himself, by no means comfortably, in the back of the presidential car.

Page 247  – Posner accepts witness James Worrell, who claimed to have seen what he could define as a small flare followed by smoke. Posner embraces this description uncritically, as it hands him a witness who claims to have seen a rifle fire from the window where Oswald allegedly was. Also, Worrell soon afterwards declared that he had not seen, but had heard, a fourth shot. Even in an earlier affidavit, Worrell had referred to a fourth shot. Posner, obviously, confirming the tendency to select the testimonies, or the parts of them, which are functional to his theories, is careful not to report the fact that Worrell had also heard a fourth blow. But the best is yet to come.

In his book Posner, categorically stating that modern ammunition does not produce smoke, tries to discredit those witnesses who claimed to have seen, during the shooting, smoke coming out from under the trees of the grassy knoll. Apart from the fact, evidently ignored by Posner, that HSCA experts thought it very possible that in 1963 the firing of a rifle could produce smoke, why did the author of “Case closed” not contest the smoke seen by Worrell?

Page 251 Referring to controversial witness Jean Hill, Posner writes: “Zapruder’s film shows Hill stood still and said nothing when the President passed, and was not even looking at the moment Kennedy was first hit.” Whether or not Jean Hill was a credible witness, Posner’s claim is surprisingly wrong for an author whose book was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize (!). In fact, the Hill appears only starting from frame Z287, while the first shot was exploded, according to Posner himself, around frame Z160. But while wanting to believe that Posner tripped over one of the many “distracting” errors and was actually referring to the blow to the head, we inform him that at Z313 Hill was looking towards the President.

Page 256 – In an attempt to explain why some people smelled gunpowder, Posner says that on the day of the assassination, a strong north-south wind blew. When we try to understand on which sources his observation is based, we realize that the mythical Gerald is performing another of his spectacular contradictions, while ignoring the findings of one of the investigative commissions. In fact, of the 5 witnesses cited by Posner, two confirm the theory of the north wind, two do not indicate any direction, and another contrasts the first two by stating that the wind was blowing from the south. However, the House Select Committee on Assassinations found that the wind was blowing from the west on November 22, 1963. This means, assuming that the shots were fired from the Book Depository, that the occupants of the cars in the march could not smell gunpowder. The real direction of the wind, on the other hand, confirms and supports the possibility of shots coming from the area of ​​the grassy hill.

Page 393  – Addressing the problem of how Jack Ruby had entered the basement of the police station (where he had then fired the fatal shot at Oswald), Posner writes that it was never clear whether the door near the elevators was well closed or not, and offers no reason to contest Agent Patrick Dean’s claim that that door was not closed. Like the Warren Commission, Posner concludes that Ruby entered the vehicle ramp, although there is no evidence to confirm this, but as many as eight witnesses rule out that Ruby slipped into the basements off the Main Street ramp.

Once again Posner ignores a major HSCA discovery, and thus the evidence of a cover-up by the Dallas police.

One could go on for hours with this type of listing, given the vast repertoire of insults to the truth contained in “Case closed”. Certainly the job of presenting facts incorrectly or dishonestly was not invented by Posner. Probably much of the history we learned in school does not accurately and objectively describe the events of the past. But whoever needs to understand the concept of “disinformation” can safely and confidently refer to the volume written by Gerald Posner. From this point of view it is certainly an excellent example.

The spokespersons of the official theory johnkennedy.it

The spokespersons of the official theory – Kennedy Conspiracy Bruxelles

The omissions, fantasies and inaccuracies of johnkennedy.it

Since November of the current year 2007, the johnkennedy.it site has given itself a new graphic design, significantly modifying the textual contents, although, obviously, the basic theses remain the same as always. The administrator of that site, however, has almost completely eliminated all the ideas that have led to the criticisms exposed in this page of mine dedicated to the analysis of jk.it errors. Who knows if Federico Ferrero will ever admit the fact that these criticisms of mine have considerably influenced some of the contents of his umpteenth version of johnkennedy.it. If you decide to do so, this page will be deleted from my site.

In my opinion, apart from the obvious, almost nothing can be shared about what we read on the johnkennedy.it site, and it could not be otherwise, given that the main sources of reference are the books of Verdegiglio and Posner. However, the author must be honestly recognized a dialectical ability thanks to which someone could also believe that the proposed conclusions are reliable.

But when the moderator of jk.it attempts an in-depth study of the fundamental aspects of the murder, and must try to convincingly support his theories, the qualities of a communicator suddenly turn into an exposition of the facts that could not be more confusing and senseless.

To better understand this unedifying introductory judgment, I will immediately go to examine the way in which jk.it reconstructs the dynamics of the attack. Let’s clarify immediately that, in this case, jk.it rejects the explanations offered by the two official investigations, of which, however, unconditionally appreciates the conclusions.

The shooting in Dealey Plaza

The author does not take long to offer us the first questionable affirmation, given that he attributes to Zapruder’s film the merit of having clarified with relative certainty what happened on November 22, 1963. Of course, that short film clarifies very well the colossal lie that investigates it. officers told the American people. Without Zapruder, the Warren Commission would not have faced any major obstacles in supporting the logic of the lonely madman, and I wouldn’t be here criticizing a site that probably wouldn’t even exist. Therefore, Zapruder’s film does not at all corroborate the official thesis, as jk.it tends to lead us to believe, but on the contrary, and without any doubt, demolishes it.

Since the author is perhaps aware that his reconstruction of the shooting will not be very reliable (euphemism), he needs to support it preliminarily with three clarifications that correspond to as many falsehoods:

1. It is false, in fact, that a bullet was found on Governor Connally.
2. There is also no evidence that a bullet was found on Connally’s stretcher. It took an abuse of office by the lawyer Arlen Specter to turn into evidence what was only a functional deduction to the hypothesis conceived by the imaginative lawyer of the Commission.
3. Although the FBI experts concluded, not without uncertainty, that the entire bullet and larger fragments found in the limo had been fired by the Mannlicher-Carcano, it is absolutely false that the connection of the Italian rifle with the fragments extracted from the bodies has been scientifically proven. by Kennedy and Connally, as jk.it would have you believe. The Warren Commission did not consider it necessary to make public the results of the spectrographic analysis, which the FBI conducted to compare the fragments found in the limousine to those recovered from the victims’ wounds. The founder of jk.it will certainly want to explain to his readers why the CW decided to hide documents that would certainly not compromise national security, and which in theory should have confirmed Oswald’s guilt.

Could it be that those analyzes would have shown the exact opposite of what the Commission expected?
The answer is “YES”, at least based on recent studies carried out on those finds.

The first shot

The examination of the first shot immediately highlights the author’s tendency to very personalized interpretations. It is claimed that the first shot arrives at frame Z160, only to admit some doubts, and correct the shot by widening the range to Z160-Z166. No source is cited to confirm the validity of the temporal location of the shot, but a rambling pseudo-theory is supported, which we can call “going backwards”, according to which the moments of the second and third shot would demonstrate, in themselves, the accuracy of the placement of the first. This is certainly a very unique way to reconstruct a shooting, and it is fortunate that this system does not apply in the real world. Also, it is noteworthy that, prior to the recent site redesign, jk. en claimed that the first shot had arrived between frames Z166 and Z190, and later, with a puzzling mathematical inference, he hypothesized the second bullet arriving 3.4 seconds after the first, when he had just claimed he didn’t know exactly when the first shot had been exploded. I am sure that the abstruse counts have been corrected thanks to my criticisms in the jk.it forum, from which I was excluded, and not thanked. But let’s move on. and not thanked. But let’s move on. and not thanked. But let’s move on.

Since the first shot was unsuccessful, and the author has to explain to us how the sniper could have missed the target (and all 14 square meters of the limo) from a distance of only 35 meters, here is the umpteenth magic attributed to ammunition. by Oswald. According to jk.it the bullet hit a branch of the oak tree below the killer’s window, and changing its trajectory in an improbable way came from the parts of James Tague, who was smeared in the left cheek by a shrapnel, after the bullet had hit the sidewalk nearby. In support of this absurdity, which officially, it is obvious, does not even boast the semblance of a clue, the author offers us a sketch that portrays the deviation in question, and which shows us the bounce of the bullet on the oak, almost as if the crown of the tree had been a slab of marble or steel. A trajectory incompatible with the position of JFK, which was still visible at Z160-166, is drawn incorrectly. And even if the sniper had accidentally fired immediately after the President disappeared behind the oak, the bullet would have hit the northeastern part of the oak, and would have had to go through the whole tree without hitting any other branches, before embarking on the long journey. (150 meters) towards Tague. Furthermore, the convenient perspective of the sketch does not convey the idea of ​​the extraordinary hypothesized deviation, the occurrence of which would have needed the impact on a large branch, which in turn would have greatly reduced the speed and energy of the bullet. But the branches are the thicker the closer they are from the trunk, and since it is unthinkable that the sniper could have fired in the middle of the oak, we must assume that the bullet hit the periphery of the tree canopy. and then struck a branch that was certainly subject to flex or break more than the bullet was subject to undergo the inconceivable deviation sustained by jk.it.

In short, jk.it tries to give us something that goes beyond the boundaries of the imaginable, and which is even more incredible than the theory attributed to what according to jk.it was the second bullet. Naturally, I am referring to the “magic bullet”, a topic that we deal with in a specific section.

Thus, johnkennedy.it bases its conclusions on science fiction behavior, not of one, but even of two bullets. This propensity for the “unsustainable” will very often oblige the author to hide behind the innocent inability of science to prove the implausibility of the theories supported. In practice, according to the “principles” espoused by jk.it, we must not doubt too much that donkeys can fly; science may fail to prove their inability to do so.

In addition, with a nice cheek, the founder of jk.it has the courage to quote “Occam’s razor”, writing: “When there are alternative explanations for the same phenomenon, Occam says, it is better to choose the simplest by eliminating all those assumptions that are not strictly necessary. In other words, before formulating extraordinary theories it is necessary to verify whether a certain phenomenon cannot be interpreted with ordinary theories “.

Therefore, according to jk.it, the theory of the single bullet, the theory of collision with the branch, and the other theory that considers possible a movement of the head contrary to the direction of the bullet that hit it, would be the “simplest way and ordinary ”to explain the JFK case. Things from the other world !!

Finally, as regards the blue trajectory of the drawing, which should contribute to the discrediting of conspiracy theories, I will limit myself to saying that we are faced with the usual nonsense of those who ignore reasonable arguments.

The second shot

If we read the reconstruction of the old jk.it we notice that the second shot reaches Z221. In fact, the moderator of jk.it, in a brief exchange of views with myself in the forum of that site, definitely contested my belief in a bullet hitting Governor Connally at Z224. Here is the summary of the comparison:

Giuseppe S. – “… ..and I refer to the instant in which Governor Connally is hit, which we can, without a shadow of a doubt, place in correspondence with frame Z224”.

jk.it – ​​”The reconstruction is invalidated by the fact that the moment in which one is hit by a bullet, as mentioned several times, does not necessarily coincide with the moment in which one reacts”.

Giuseppe S. – “…… ..the subjectivity of the reactions has nothing to do with Z224. Indeed, Connally does not react, but is literally displaced by the violent impact of the bullet. If Connally had been hit by a car at Z224, we would not have sought his reaction to understand the exact moment of the accident. I think I made it clear, but you continue to climb mirrors ……. ”

jk.it – ​​”There is no evidence or study in the world that gives credence to such a distinction, I have no idea how one can infer whether a movement is caused by a voluntary movement or by a ball entering a body. I’m sorry but we are in the field of pure inventiveness “.

Magically, as magical is the bullet we are examining, jk.it changes its mind, and now positions the arrival of the second shot at Z224.

Now, as if by magic, the author points to the collar of the governor’s jacket, to demonstrate what he decisively denied in the answers given above.

It may seem unimportant to have changed my mind about the location of the shots. A few frames actually represent only a few fractions of a second. But in this case, the uncertainty of jk.it on a fundamental point of the whole affair, highlights a very poor clarity of ideas, and therefore the inability to credibly support their theories.

Jk.it also allows itself the luxury of judging Michael Griffith’s intelligent remarks wrong, stating that at Z224 Kennedy hasn’t started to react at all, but is simply lowering his right hand, after having stopped waving. On the other hand, the amateur and distracted analyzes of the moderator of jk.it are wrong.

In fact, the HSCA’s conclusions, that JFK was shot before disappearing behind the road sign, are absolutely acceptable, especially since anyone can verify them by carefully examining the Zapruder frames. Jk.it should be able to notice that at Z204-Z205, Kennedy’s right arm begins to move unnaturally, and suddenly, he is no longer looking towards the crowd but in front of him. The Z202 frame coincides with the instant immortalized by Phil Willis in the famous photo of him n. 5, whose click was the instinctive response to the sound of a shot. And not only is it precisely in this frame that Kennedy’s reaction begins to show itself, but at frame Z205 it is possible to observe the two policemen on the motorcycles turning suddenly and simultaneously to the right. Returning to frame Z224, it is evident that the position of JFK’s arms and hands is practically identical to what we see at Z225. Since there is no doubt that in this last frame JFK has already been hit, we cannot but conclude that his reaction to Z224 had already begun. Just over a second.

Evidently, from the reconstructions of which he completely relied on the Verdegiglio-Posner duo, we could not expect better.

The third shot

There always comes a time when you have to recognize the merits of your opponents. In fact, jk.it “has precisely identified” the moment of the shot in the head of JFK. The only problem is that at this point we are at least on the fifth shot, not the third.

The head injury

Few times as in this case the author gives in completely to a false exposition of the events. In fact, rather than referring to the testimonies of the doctors of Parkland Hospital, who, for about 20 minutes, saw the President’s wounds at close range, dozens of people who attended the march or who were part of it are cited, stating that none of these he had seen a back injury to the head.

It is evident that those witnesses could never have described exactly the nature of the injuries, simply because they did not have the possibility, both in terms of position with respect to the victim, and because they did not have enough time to observe them in detail, and because they weren’t qualified to do it nor did they expect to have to. It is truly amazing the way in which one tries to analyze the problem of the position of the head injury, ignoring the statements of those doctors who were the only people qualified to examine and describe the injuries suffered by John Kennedy, precisely because they tried desperately to save. the life of the President. We prefer to refer to witnesses present in the Dealey Plaza, almost as if they could offer, on the head wound, more accurate and credible information from Parkland Hospital doctors. This bizarre search for truth is astounding.

However, as the author seems poorly informed on the content of the testimonies of the Parkland doctors, and especially on the number of doctors who placed the head injury in the back of the skull, I invite him to read this article, which concerns one of his favorite authors.

The wound in the throat

Again, the omissions of johnkennedy.it are alarming. Heading an article “Dallas Doctors Not True to Front Shot Hypothesis” means not knowing what you’re talking about, or worse, lying in order to misinform. The author should know that, before the tracheostomy was performed, the size of Kennedy’s throat wound was not only highly compatible with an entry hole, but according to the doctors’ testimony, the diameter of the wound was perfectly spherical and even seemed smaller than the diameter of the bullet that allegedly caused the injury. So that wound could have been anything but an exit hole.

To discredit the possibility that it was an entry hole, jk.it does not find better than to report the transcript of the press conference of Dr. Malcolm Perry, trying to highlight some doubts of the doctor about the location of other possible wounds, which they might have somehow been connected to the hole under the Adam’s apple. But, consistently with the author it refers to, jk.it incurs what we could define as “Posnerism”, but which we like to call “Ferrerismo”.

In fact, in that press conference, Perry says that the wound seemed to be entrance, and without any hesitation he speaks of the bullet’s “frontal” provenance. Thus, even the one example that the author unhappily attempts to put forward, in fact corroborates the theory he seeks to demolish.

But, as we said at the beginning, it is the omissions that are the most evident of the way in which jk.it tries to deal with the issue of JFK’s throat injury.

It must be clear from the outset that all the doctors who saw that wound before the tracheostomy, and even those to whom the wound was described, believed that the hole in the throat was caused by an incoming bullet, and this is enough in itself to prove that they supported the shot from the front. The fact that these doctors were later informed by the competent authorities that the bullets had been fired from behind may certainly have influenced their views on the wound, and some may even have been convinced that they had made an error of assessment. Below, however, we see an excerpt from Dr Carrico’s report, which undoubtedly represents the thoughts of all those doctors, and of all the nurses who observed that wound.

CE 391 – It is an excerpt from the handwritten report by Dr Charles Carrico in the afternoon of November 22, 1963. Underlined in red we read: “… .one small penetrating wound…” (… a small entrance wound….).

But not everyone was “intimidated” or “convinced” by the men of the secret service.

A few months later, here’s what Dr Peters testified before the Warren Commission:

Mr. SPECTER . Did you notice any other holes under the occiput?

Dr. PETERS . No, at that moment we pondered the number of shots that had hit the President,  as we saw the entry wound in the throat  and noted the large wound to the occiput, and it is known that high velocity bullets cause small entry wounds and large outgoing wounds….

But here are also some statements by nurse Margaret Hanchliffe, always in the presence of the lawyer Specter:

Mr. Specter.   Did he see a wound anywhere else on his body?

Miss Henchliffe.   Yes, in the neck.

Mr. Specter .   Describe it, please.

Miss Henchliffe .   It was a small hole in the center of her neck.

Mr. Specter.   About how big was the hole?

Miss Henchliffe.   It was as big as  the end of my little finger.

Mr. Specter .   Had he had any experience with bullet holes?

Miss Henchliffe . Yup

Mr. Specter . And what did that hole seem to be?  

Miss Henchliffe.   It looked like  the entry hole of a bullet.

Mr. Specter.   Could it have been an exit hole?

Miss Henchliffe. I don’t remember ever seeing an exit hole like that.  

Following these statements by Miss Henchliffe, Specter made every effort to discredit the nurse’s knowledge and experience. If the latter had instead confirmed the prejudices of the Commission, speaking of an exit forum, we tend to believe that the lawyer Specter would not have worried so much about the medical-ballistic competence of the witness.

In all cases, the words of Dr. Peters and Nurse Hanchliffe take on enormous significance in light of the fact that they were pronounced long after the facts, that is when it was now assumed that the killer was Oswald and that, therefore , the shots had come from behind. The two witnesses were so convinced that Kennedy’s neck wound was an entry hole, that, in a sense, those statements can be interpreted as their personal belief in the existence of a second shooter, and therefore of a conspiracy. .

It is very serious that jk.it tends to make us believe that the only one to speak of an entry hole was Dr. Perry. Is it bad faith, or unpreparedness?

Why does he fail to report the opinions of the remaining medical staff, not informing his readers that no one had ever talked about the exit hole, at least so that the alleged source of the shots was not disclosed?

The theories expounded by jk.it, both in reference to the head injury and to the throat wound, are nothing more than a copy of those falsely adduced by Gerald Posner. The truth, and correct information, are values ​​that we just cannot find in the subjects just mentioned.

Oswald knew how to shoot

Jk.it states that Nelson Delgado was, of all the respondents, the only fellow soldier of Oswald to testify that the alleged murderer of JFK was incapable with a rifle in his hands.

Why doesn’t jk.it mention the names of “all” the others interviewed?

Only one would be enough. Only one comrade of Oswald who can testify to the latter’s great skill as a shooter. As usual, the documentation in this regard is ignored, and precisely Delgado’s long testimony. At no point in his deposition before the Warren Commission did Nelson Delgado mitigate or alter his belief that Oswald was a smack with a shotgun. And he had not changed his mind even following the real persecution suffered by the FBI, which questioned him four times, and always on the subject of Oswald’s poor skills with the rifle.

Delgado testified to the CW that he felt that the Bureau did not like his assessment very much, and that the agents did not behave correctly during those interviews.

Delgado was the only one who, during his military service, managed to establish a friendship with Oswald. The two remained together for about a year at the base in Santa Ana, California, and this period was enough for Delgado to acquire, as evidenced by his testimony, a good knowledge of the alleged future killer. Delgado’s statements referring to Oswald’s inability with the rifle are absolutely reliable.

The fact that Colonel Folsom defined Oswald as a “decent-mediocre shooter” speaks volumes about the significance of the scores obtained by Oswald himself during the two exercises in question. Delgado further stated that it would be possible to alter the test results with the rifle, and it was his opinion that Oswald had made “corrections” to his scores, obviously improving them.

Other than heavy evidence of Oswald’s skill !!!

Nelson Delgado

Conclusion

Also in the case of johnkennedy.it a series of trivial errors could be cited, but not acceptable, for a site whose author certainly cannot be defined as a champion of modesty. To argue that the famous photo of Tom Dillard was taken before the shooting is, in fact, an example of unforgivable “distraction”. Claiming that the presidential procession turned “left” from Main Street onto Houston Street is another gem generously offered by jk.it. But I think the analyzes on the important aspects of the dynamics of the shooting, and of the location of JFK’s injuries, may be enough to understand that johnkennedy.it. it cannot be a point of reference for those who wish to read up on the tragic events that occurred in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

The spokespersons of the official theory Massimo Polidoro

Massimo Polidoro and the “Great mysteries of history”

Another representative of the spokespersons of the Warren Commission, of which we believe it is useful to provide some news, is the national secretary of CICAP, Massimo Polidoro.

A few years ago, a book entitled “Great mysteries of history” was published by Polidoro, in which the author dedicates a chapter, of about 100 pages, to the mystery of the assassination of John Kennedy.

The volume is presented as a “historical and scientific investigation”, and Polidoro closes the space dedicated to the death of the President, writing:

“If the historian cannot be neutral, he can at least try to be objective. And this is what we hope to have done here, presenting the facts as they appear from the first-hand documentary elements… .. ”.

After this misleading ending, those who have read the book without having a minimum of knowledge, or only superficially informed of the events that took place in Dallas, may also have believed that Polidoro’s conclusions are the result of a great preparation on the subject, and of a careful consultation of the official documents on the assassination of JFK.

Such an assessment, deceptively induced by the self-conferral of the title of historian and by the alleged examination of the documentary elements, could obviously not be more distant from reality.

Polidoro’s book represents an offense to all those who, conspirators and non-conspirators, have dedicated part of their existence to the attempt to shed light on the enigma of Kennedy’s death, seriously analyzing and studying all the documentation available to the public. Polidoro would certainly have rendered a greater service to the community if he had used the time spent in “solving” the JFK case in a different way.

Believing to be able to explain the complexity of that historical event in just 100 pages, under the illusion of having solved the mystery, is a more unique than rare presumption, especially if the author, unlike the proclamations, demonstrates an unpreparedness on the subject. even the last of the neophytes shudder.

An example?

While the mistake is not in itself important, to say that Oswald was killed “three” days after Kennedy is too serious a platitude for someone who presents himself as a historian and believes he has conducted a scientific investigation. However, if the inaccuracies were limited to the one just mentioned it would also have been excusable and understandable, but Polidoro does not limit himself, and continues to provide details that are often so invented as to leave one puzzled.

Here are further examples of the “historical-scientific” investigation:

Page 174 –  “Baker runs up the stairs followed by the director of the book deposit …… .. On the second floor he noticed a man moving rapidly”.

Correction –  Baker runs  BEHIND  Depot Manager Roy Truly, and the latter sees no man moving quickly and no doors closing, despite having made it to the second floor before the cop. But, apart from the unforgivable basic errors, this episode, for the purposes of correct information, alone deserves the 100 pages of the entire chapter, and not quickly dismissed as did Polidoro’s “historical and scientific” analysis.

Page 175 –  “….…. A short distance (from the shells) there is a long cardboard pack ……

Correction –  This might seem like an insignificant detail too, but turning a paper sack into a cardboard package is a bit like saying that President Kennedy was killed with two gunshots. But, beyond the importance that the considerable difference between paper and cardboard could have, Polidoro’s error confirms the evident lack of preparation on the case.

Page 175 –  It is decided to gather all the employees on the first floor. The only one absent is Oswald. The identikit of Oswald is broadcast via radio and all agents are ordered to look for him.

Correction –  Oswald wasn’t the only one absent, there was no real appeal, and until after Tippit’s death the police still didn’t know who Oswald was. Polidoro in “consulting the documentary elements” forgot to read Roy Truly’s testimony. Copying costs little effort, but you risk the same ugly figures as copied ones, dear Massimo.

Page 210 –  “The autopsy allowed us to identify, on the back, the entry hole of a bullet that came out of the chest, and on the nape of the neck, the hole of the other”.

Correction – To  err so grossly about the location of JFK’s injuries and to have presented the chapter as an expression of the documentary elements, is equivalent to saying that you have attended the final of the ’82 World Cup and claim that Germany won 2 to 0.

In fact, according to the official thesis, the bullet entered the back came out of the throat and not from the chest. And the other, according to “the most recent official conclusions”, would have entered from the top of the back of the head, and not from the nape of the neck.

Page 189 –  “The first shot was fired between frames Z161 and Z166. At least 3.5 seconds pass and the second shot arrives at the Z223-Z224 frames ”.

Correction –  Since Polidoro is inspired by the Posner-Verdegiglio-jk.it-McAdams quartet, subjects for gratitude mentioned in the chapter, his mathematical performances, regarding the temporal location of the shots, could only be significantly disastrous. Since we are talking about “at least 3.5 seconds” of time elapsed between the first and second shot, I point out to Polidoro that his interval corresponds to over 64 frames ( “at least” , he says) of Zapruder’s film. By subtracting 64 from Z223-Z224 we get Z159-Z160 as the moment of the first shot, and not Z161-Z166.

Polidoro’s investigation, which appears to me less and less historical, now also appears to me to be very unscientific.

Page 245 –   “Oswald didn’t have much time to prepare his action. After the shooting done in secret, he had only four bullets left, and not having time to buy new ones, he only takes those to the depot ”.

Correction –  But does Polidoro realize how far-fetched his claims are?

To begin with, shooting in secret is a fantasy of the author, evidently not available in the official documentation. Perhaps Polidoro discovered it during a séance.

But the claim that Oswald had done his utmost in shooting at the risk of running out of ammunition, and that he hadn’t had time to buy more, and of such humor that the reader might even feel taken for a ride.

Page 222 –   “In the Marines Oswald is trained to use the rifle and, after three weeks of training, he qualifies as the second most skilled marksman in the military corps”.

Correction –  I believe that in this case Polidoro has really hit rock bottom. Official documentation informs us of 2 shooting tests performed by Oswald during his military service in the Marines. Here are the results from the words of Harold Weisberg:

“During his service with the Navy Fusilier Corps, Oswald was tested twice in target practice. The first time he came out of a prolonged period of training, under the direction of instructors of exceptional skill, equipped with an excellent weapon of which he knew every secret and ammunition of absolutely superior quality. After having fired at least 250 shots, he had barely managed to achieve the qualification that is so mistakenly called “precise shooter”. It is actually one of the three qualifications used by the armed forces to designate the skill in firearm shooting: that of “accurate marksman” is only the intermediate designation, the maximum being that of “expert rifleman”. And that time Oswald managed to place himself in the middle of the list, but far from the top. In a later test, in an era of less intense training, the results were decidedly meager; he barely he placed himself at the bottom of the lowest level ever reached by any fellow soldier, placing a single bullet above the absolute minimum limit of the target. Colonel AG Folsom Jr. stated that the “precise marksman” qualification meant “fair” ability, and that Oswald’s history with firearms tended to indicate that the best placement he achieved was likely the result of a fluke. And so Oswald at the peak of his military career was nothing more than a discreet shooter, while at the end of his stoppage he was a mediocre shooter ”. he barely got to the bottom of the lowest level ever reached by any fellow soldier, placing a single bullet above the absolute minimum target. Colonel AG Folsom Jr. stated that the “precise marksman” qualification meant “fair” ability, and that Oswald’s history with firearms tended to indicate that the best placement he achieved was likely the result of a fluke. And so Oswald at the peak of his military career was nothing more than a discreet shooter, while at the end of his stoppage he was a mediocre shooter ”. he barely got to the bottom of the lowest level ever reached by any fellow soldier, placing a single bullet above the absolute minimum target. Colonel AG Folsom Jr. stated that the “precise marksman” qualification meant “fair” ability, and that Oswald’s history with firearms tended to indicate that the best placement he achieved was likely the result of a fluke. And so Oswald at the peak of his military career was nothing more than a discreet shooter, while at the end of his stoppage he was a mediocre shooter ”. and that Oswald’s history with firearms tended to indicate that his best placement was probably the result of a stroke of luck. And so Oswald at the peak of his military career was nothing more than a discreet shooter, while at the end of his stoppage he was a mediocre shooter ”. and that Oswald’s history with firearms tended to indicate that his best placement was probably the result of a stroke of luck. And so Oswald at the peak of his military career was nothing more than a discreet shooter, while at the end of his stoppage he was a mediocre shooter ”.

According to Polidoro, however, Oswald was even the second best marksman in the military corps. And we hope that by saying this the author does not intend to refer to all the Marines of the United States, but only to those of the base where Oswald served.

However, here we are not faced with a different interpretation of the facts and documents, which within certain limits would be legitimate, but we are witnessing a real distortion of reality. I hope, for those people who have read the entire book of Polidoro, that the alleged “solution” of the mysteries treated in the other chapters was not a vehicle of absurdities similar to those that characterized the space dedicated to the death of John Kennedy.

I would like to close this page with an invitation and a reflection.

The johnkennedy.it site writes about Polidoro’s book:

“… ..The chapter concerning the assassination of JFK has been studied in detail and, finally, a researcher and popularizer who enjoys a considerable following on TV and in the newspapers had the courage to denounce the dishonesty of conspiracy theories. The Dallas affair was analyzed with impartiality and competence … .. ”

This surreal presentation demonstrates that there are no limits to “disinformation”. I believe that the only thing worthy of denunciation is the “intellectual dishonesty” of the moderator of jk.it, who, emphasizing non-existent merits, has given space to a book that represents, as best it could not, an insult to historical truth and memory of the assassinated President.

The invitation for the manager of jk.it, therefore, is to try to reflect, at least a little, on the unfortunate choice of having publicized the story of so many nonsense and falsehoods. As for the “researcher and popularizer who enjoys a considerable following on TV and in newspapers” I hope that the book analyzed here represents only an exception, and not the rule, in Massimo Polidoro’s way of working.

Reflection too, of course, arises from reading Polidoro’s book, and those to which the latter was inspired. I don’t know in what percentage, but it occurs to me that a large part of the volumes displayed on the shelves of libraries, in addition to responding mainly to market logic, base the expectations of success not so much on the professionalism and preparation of those who wrote them, but mostly on the ignorance of those who read them. This consideration, which can be extended to all print media, makes me feel a little less guilty for not being a great reader of books and newspapers, and in any case it will allow me to be much more selective when it comes to spending. some money in editorial products.

The Extraordinary Bullet – JFK Conspiracy Bruxelles

CE 399 and the theory of the “single bullet”.

Exhibit 399 of the Warren Commission, also known as a “magic bullet” by the critics of that investigation’s Final Report, is an almost intact bullet (see photo) that was found, on the afternoon of November 22, on a stretcher at Parkland Hospital. Quite arbitrarily, the CW decided it was the gurney that Governor Connally had been brought into the operating room. The placement of that bullet on the stretcher used for Connally was necessary for the purposes of a minimum sustainability of the “single bullet” theory, according to which a single bullet had caused all the non-fatal wounds suffered by the President and the Governor. Since Connally was sitting across from Kennedy, and the bullet was assumed to have come from behind, the theory was standing only proving that the bullet came from Connally’s stretcher. And the lawyer of the Commission, Arlen Specter , did the impossible to satisfy this urgent need, even if no witnesses interviewed by him confirmed his hypothesis. In short, the Commission decreed that that bullet, after having passed through Kennedy, Connally and the wrist of the latter, had finished its mad run by slipping into the Governor’s left thigh, from which it had subsequently escaped, going in some way to position itself on the stretcher.

But let’s try to understand what circumstances were at the origin of the bizarre theory, and why the Warren Commission was forced, despite widespread but  stifled dissent , to accept it as a “persuasive hypothesis”.

In early December 1963, less than two weeks after Kennedy’s assassination, the FBI delivered a report containing the results of the investigation into the attack to the already established Warren Commission. In it it was stated that the only responsible was Lee Harvey Oswald, who, from the sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository, had fired three shots, which “all” hit. The first had hit Kennedy in the back, the second had pierced Connally’s chest, and the third had hit the President full in the head.

If the dynamics of the shooting reconstructed by the FBI had been confirmed by the subsequent investigation, however, it would not have been easy to support the hypothesis that a mediocre shooter like Oswald could, with an old and defective rifle, hit the target three times out of three in very little time. time, obtaining the “extraordinary” results we all know. But to further complicate the investigative picture, in addition to Zapruder’s film, a circumstance initially ignored by the FBI investigation intervened.

James Tague, a man on Commerce Street, at the entrance to the railway underpass, had been struck in the left cheek by a sliver from the bullet, or from a sliver of the pavement that the bullet itself had struck near the point where which Tague attended the procession.

As there was no doubt that Tague had been wounded by a bullet that had missed the limo, and it was equally certain that another bullet had devastated the President’s head, wanting to claim the existence of only three bullets, it had to be concluded that the remaining one had caused the remaining  seven non-fatal injuries sustained by Kennedy and Governor Connally. In essence, the hypothesis of the single bomber was based exclusively on the theory that the same bullet had, in sequence, passed through Kennedy’s neck, then through Connally’s chest and right wrist, and finally went to subside in the left thigh of the man. governor. During his devastating journey, the nearly new bullet we see at the beginning of this page had crumbled a rib, and fractured Connally’s radius. It should be noted that the missing material on the tip of the bullet was removed to be analyzed, so the only small damage suffered by the bullet after “all that work” is represented by what we see at its base.

The extraordinary accuracy and trajectory of the bullet would also be sustainable aspects, if isolated from the general context, but the position and characteristics of the seven non-fatal wounds, the position of the alleged murderer at the sixth floor window of the Book Depository, the underlying oak that interposed between the weapon and the target, the poor skill of the shooter, the poor weapon, and the very short duration of the shooting, are some of the many details that together exclude the possibility of the prodigious performance attributed to that bullet.

At Bethesda Hospital, during the autopsy on the President’s body, the doctor who tried to probe the wound in his back said that the hole was so shallow that he could feel the end with his little finger, and that wound was not there. any bullet. As the autopsy doctors themselves speculated, the bullet was probably released as a result of the pressure exerted during the heart massage performed by doctors at the Dallas hospital. And that would have been the most obvious explanation, given the characteristics of the wound and the near integrity of the bullet found. Just as it would have been more logical to think that there could not have been a single bomber, given that, in addition to the aforementioned injuries and all the related problems, there was also a chipped windshield and a hole in the chrome plating.

Unfortunately, however, the reassuring solution offered by the “lonely madman” hypothesis required the sacrifice of logic and common sense. And the Warren Commission, perhaps believing that public opinion would passively accept his conclusions, consigned to history one of the greatest ballistic absurdities that man remembers: “the single bullet theory”.

Evidence of conspiracy on the second floor of the Texas School Book Depository

ost people in this world know what happened in Dallas on November 22, 1963. But only a very small percentage of them are aware of what happened, 90 seconds after the shooting, in the second floor mess hall of the Texas School Book Depository. Very few, besides the insiders, know in detail the possible circumstances that would have determined the meeting between the alleged murderer Lee Harvey Oswald, and the policeman Marrion Baker, who found themselves face to face in the mess hall, only a minute and a half after President Kennedy’s fatal blow to the head.
The Dallas police first, and the FBI later, convinced too soon of Oswald’s guilt, did not bother to consider that this episode could have represented an alibi for the alleged killer. The question that the two investigative bodies avoided asking themselves, in good or bad faith, is the following:

Could Oswald have fired three rifle shots from the sixth floor window, and found himself, 1 1/2 minutes later, in the second floor mess hall, before Cop Baker got there?

The Warren Commission was forced, pressured by some articles in the newspapers, to carry out timed simulations to try to answer the above question.

On March 20, 1964 the same policeman Baker, and the agent John Howlett of the secret service, who took the side of Oswald, tried with two separate reconstructions to repeat what had allegedly happened on November 22 of the previous year.

But before talking about the times resulting from those simulations, let’s see a bit of reconstructing the movements of the two protagonists, in particular those of the policeman Marrion Baker, whose behavior can be deduced not only from his testimony, but also from a video that he saw unwitting protagonist.

Baker testified to the Warren Commission that he heard the first shot after turning off Main onto Houston Street. Having noticed pigeons flying off the roof of the warehouse in front of him, he thought that the shots were coming from that building, and, almost simultaneously with the last shot, while he was about 60 meters from the Book Depository, he accelerated himself near the entrance. He parked the motorbike and ran to the entrance, where he found the manager Roy Truly who guided him inside the warehouse. They hurriedly crossed the building diagonally to the elevators on the northwest side, and after realizing they were stuck on the upper floors, they bolted up the stairwell to the roof of the building, where Baker declared his intention. to arrive. Since the main entrance to the depot was not at street level, but on a mezzanine that was considered the first floor, the two men had to climb only twenty steps of two flights of stairs to find themselves on the second floor landing. The first to arrive was Truly, just ahead of Baker.

At this point, instead of continuing to follow Truly towards the third floor, Baker left the door that led in a few steps from the landing to the mess hall, and inside it he saw Oswald. Pointing the gun at him, he asked who he was, but was immediately reassured by Truly, who told him that he was an employee of the depot. Baker and Truly then resumed their run to the upper floors. the two men had to climb only about twenty steps of two flights of stairs to find themselves on the landing of the second floor. The first to arrive was Truly, just ahead of Baker. At this point, instead of continuing to follow Truly towards the third floor, Baker left the door that led in a few steps from the landing to the mess hall, and inside it he saw Oswald. Pointing the gun at him, he asked who he was, but was immediately reassured by Truly, who told him that he was an employee of the depot. Baker and Truly then resumed their run to the upper floors. the two men had to climb only about twenty steps of two flights of stairs to find themselves on the landing of the second floor.

The first to arrive was Truly, just ahead of Baker. At this point, instead of continuing to follow Truly towards the third floor, Baker left the door that led in a few steps from the landing to the mess hall, and inside it he saw Oswald. Pointing the gun at him, he asked who he was, but was immediately reassured by Truly, who told him that he was an employee of the depot. Baker and Truly then resumed their run to the upper floors. instead of continuing to follow Truly to the third floor, Baker left the door that led in a few steps from the landing to the mess hall, and inside it he saw Oswald.

Pointing the gun at him, he asked who he was, but was immediately reassured by Truly, who told him that he was an employee of the depot. Baker and Truly then resumed their run to the upper floors. instead of continuing to follow Truly to the third floor, Baker left the door that led in a few steps from the landing to the mess hall, and inside it he saw Oswald. Pointing the gun at him, he asked who he was, but was immediately reassured by Truly, who told him that he was an employee of the depot. Baker and Truly then resumed their run to the upper floors.

3 – As we see in the map and in the images on the left, as soon as Truly and Baker emerged on the landing of the second floor they found themselves in front of the door indicated with the letter A at a distance of 5-6 meters. on the left, after a few steps, you enter the dining room. From the glass of door A the entrance to the refectory is not visible, for those arriving on the landing coming from the first floor, and since door A closes thanks to an automatic device, even before it can close, those who have crossed it it is no longer visible to anyone who comes out on the landing. Unless he stops right behind that glass. Since Roy Truly saw no one when he first arrived on the landing, nor did he notice that the door was closing, it is clear that when, a second later, Baker also reached the landing that door could only be closed. And if someone had crossed it before Truly arrived, this person, all the more reason, would not have been seen by policeman Baker. If, therefore, we discard the possibility that Oswald wanted to be seen by Baker by stopping behind that glass, we must consider the “fleeting vision” declared by Baker doubtful, or, alternatively, conclude that Oswald came not from the sixth floor but from the first, after being passed from the office area adjacent to the canteen.

Now let’s see what, presumably, Oswald had to do to get to that same landing after shooting Kennedy.

Since no legible footprints were found on the Mannlicher-Carcano, allegedly the assassination rifle, and certainly none were found where they should have been, we must think that the killer took care to clean the weapon. After this operation Oswald, with a pace that was not audible to the people who were on the lower floor (the floor was made of wood), had to travel a few tens of meters to reach the northwest corner of the warehouse, hide the rifle very well between crates of books weighing 25 kilos each, go down four floors, and after having passed the 6 meters of the landing, and a door, enter the dining room on the left. All this while doing so as not to appear fatigued, or out of breath, to director Truly and policeman Baker. The latter, both,

Special Agent John Howlett, trying to imitate Oswald, carried a rifle from the southeast corner of the sixth floor, following the east facade, to the northeast corner. He set the rifle on the floor, near where Oswald’s rifle was actually found after the assassination. Then Howlett went down the stairs to the second floor landing and entered the refectory.

And now we come to the time of reconstructions.

In the first rehearsal, timed from the moment and point at which Baker heard the last shot, the latter entered the mess hall on the second floor after a minute and thirty seconds. In the other it took him one minute and fifteen seconds.

As for Howlett-Oswald, the first experiment performed at normal pace took one minute and eighteen seconds; the second, at a brisk pace, one minute and fourteen seconds. Neither after the first nor after the second experiment did Howlett appear out of breath.

Let’s recap. Considering Howlett-Oswald’s longest time (1 and 18) and Baker’s shortest time (1 and 15), Oswald would have arrived 3 seconds after the agent. In other words, Oswald would have had an alibi, based on the testimony of policeman Marrion Baker.

Even if we consider Howlett-Oswald’s shortest time (1 and 14) and Baker’s longest time (1 and 30), Oswald is only 16 seconds away, according to the Commission’s checks, to have this alibi. But by carefully examining a few points, the sixteen seconds that separate Oswald from a verdict of innocence can be reduced to zero. Here they are below:

1. Unlike Officer Howlett who, during the reconstruction, limited himself to placing the rifle in a point in the north-east area of ​​the sixth floor, Oswald, it is said, hid the weapon between, or under, some boxes weighing 25 kilos each.

2. In relation to the reconstruction of Baker’s longest time, namely the one that does not grant any alibi to Oswald, the Commission makes no mention of the policeman’s statement who stated that the pace had been slow (“we walked”) . It is quite unlikely that on November 22 Baker, who was excited enough to draw his gun and who, according to Truly’s claims, was fast enough to be at the TSDB entrance at the same time as the shooting ended, could have limited himself to “walking” .

3. From the dialogue between the representative of the Commission, Allen Dulles, and the policeman Baker, it appears that the reconstruction of Baker’s time was timed, incorrectly, until the moment when the policeman arrived at the refectory door, while the stopwatch was to be stopped at the first useful moment in which Oswald could be seen, that is, at the moment in which Truly, who preceded Baker, reached the landing of the second floor.

Leo Sauvage wrote:

“Should we congratulate the Warren Commission for examining the possibility that the condemned man might have an alibi? No, because it is far from having conducted this check with the objectivity that should have been expected and required of you.

It is a basic principle of American law, like the rest of modern law in general, that every hesitation, every uncertainty, every ambiguity must be interpreted to the advantage of the accused ”.

However, despite the inaccuracies in carrying out the reconstructions, the Warren Commission was able to demonstrate the real possibility that Oswald had an alibi.

But why, once he got to the second floor landing, instead of following Truly who was already halfway between the second and third floors, decided to go through the door that led to the mess hall?

“When Baker reached the second floor, – says the Warren Report – he was over twenty feet from the lobby door. He thought of continuing to turn to his left towards the staircase leading to the upper floor, but, from the glass of the door, he had a fleeting glimpse of a man crossing the hall towards the refectory ”.

We read again from Sauvage:

“The door between the landing and the atrium, which has a rectangular window at the top, is kept closed by a special device and is not exactly opposite the refectory door which, on the other hand, remains always open. The distance between the two doors, that of the atrium and the refectory, corresponds to about two steps. In order for a man who has already passed that same door to be seen by another man running from one staircase to the other from the window of the atrium door, it is necessary that, at the moment in which the man of the atrium moves the step that will take him away from the glass, the man on the landing has reached and not passed an extremely precise point on the landing.

While not wanting to exclude the possibility of such, umpteenth, coincidence, there is another detail that further complicates things. Since Baker was preceded by Truly, who Truly saw nothing, it follows that, if Oswald had just come down from the sixth floor, he had already passed the atrium door (which was already well closed) by the time Truly appeared on the landing. And given that it only takes one step in the foyer to get out of the already precarious view of a man who has just arrived on the landing, the possibility that Oswald was still visible by the time Baker reached the point on the landing from which he could see him is conceivable. only if you accept the unlikely hypothesis that Oswald stopped in the hall to be seen ”.

The difficulty is so obvious that the Warren Report cannot ignore it. Ending, as in other cases, to demonstrate the opposite of its conclusions, or at least to accept the improbable hypothesis just mentioned, the Report sets out the problem in these terms:

“Since the atrium door is only a few feet from the refectory door, the man had only had to enter the atrium a second or two before Baker reached the top of the stairs. And therefore he had had to walk through the hall door before Truly reached the last step, as Truly didn’t see him. If the man had passed from the hall to the refectory, Baker would not have been able to see him ”.

We can’t be mathematically certain that Oswald hadn’t just walked through that door, but logic, as well as timing, firmly tends to rule out the possibility that Oswald had just stepped off the sixth floor, and therefore had just shot the President.

Since there is no point in believing that Marrion Baker was lying when she reported the fleeting appearance of a man through the glass of the door on the landing, and since beyond that glass was only Oswald, an explanation that does not foresee the possibility is possible. that Oswald had just walked through that door?

Again, as in so many others, there is a much simpler and more probable solution than the twisted explanations proposed by the Warren Commission.

Some witnesses had seen Oswald, around noon, in the domino room on the first floor. Oswald himself claimed that he ate his meal there, and then went up to the second-floor refectory to get a drink from the vending machine. It is entirely possible that Baker saw Oswald behind that glass, but it is equally possible, if not probable, that Oswald was coming from the first floor and therefore had to walk down the corridor behind that door after passing Mrs. Reid’s office.

Some supporters of the official thesis claim that Oswald hid in the mess hall after hearing Baker and Truly climbing the stairs. But if that had been the case, why would Oswald have chosen to get trapped in the mess hall, when by turning to the right of the door on the landing he would have avoided the possibility of being seen, but above all he would have gained the opportunity in advance to exit the warehouse, making a a little earlier what he would do later anyway?

The only answer the Warren Commission was able to give to so many legitimate questions like this was the convenient presumption that Oswald was mentally unstable, that no logical interpretation based on his behavior was possible. But when she found it useful, the CW had no hesitation in rationally explaining Oswald’s behavior, if the inconsistent method of investigation could somehow condemn him as solely responsible for John Kennedy’s death.

Evidence of conspiracy in Zapruder’s film

If Abraham Zapruder hadn’t brought the camera with him on November 22, 1963, perhaps we would have simply remembered him as one of the many citizens present in Dealey Plaza in Dallas, a more or less reliable witness to the assassination of JFK. And today, almost certainly, all of us would have long since metabolized those official conclusions which even now legitimize the dissent of many serious and honest researchers, and of the majority of public opinion. In short, the theory of the “lonely madman” would have been much more easily served up to American citizens and to all those who immediately showed their distrust of the Warren Report.

But Zapruder, fortunately for him, and above all for the benefit of the truth, had the camera, and he managed to preserve for history 26 very important seconds of the reality of that dramatic day. A very short video that, with spectacularly chilling details, contains the entire shooting and the tragedy that followed.

All investigations into the JFK case could not ignore the Zapruder film. The two official inquiries, the Warren Commission and the HSCA, were forced into unspeakable interpretative contortions to evade the evidence displayed by those images. The House Select Committee on Assassinations, whose team of experts pointed out many illuminating details of that video, later found, with the conclusions of the investigation, a way to contradict the results of its own research.

But let’s come to the analysis of those frames, which in addition to being based precisely on the aspects highlighted by the HSCA experts, will mainly use what appears clearly even at a not particularly careful and professional examination.

Keep in mind that each frame corresponds to 1/18 of a second. In fact, Zapruder’s camera shot 18.3 frames per second.

The first shot

Between frames Z160 and Z180, ie in the time interval of one second, the Committee detected two distinct reactions which it interpreted as as many responses to something out of the ordinary; almost certainly a rifle shot. The protagonists of those reactions were John Connally and Rosemary Willis.

The first makes, between Z162 and Z169, a sudden, but unnatural, left-right movement of the head in just 4/10 of a second, while the girl suddenly brakes her run at Z180. To confirm that it was reactions to a gunshot there are the testimonies of several witnesses who claimed to have heard the shot immediately after the limousine’s turn on Elm Street. And as we can see by looking at the range of frames we’re looking at, the presidential car has just finished turning.

Based on Governor Connally’s significant reaction, having to allow the latter a minimum of time to enact the reaction itself, which began at Z162, we can reasonably conclude that that shot was fired around frame Z150.

Let’s see then what was the position of the limousine in correspondence of Z151, and what was at that moment the view of a sniper who had found himself at the sixth floor window of the book store. The images you see below indicate some reference points that allow us to establish this.

continue… POST Evidence of conspiracy in Zapruder’s film

Evidence of conspiracy on the grassy knoll

The procession and the shots

• After being shot for the first time, Kennedy brings her hands to her throat in a motion compatible with a bullet coming from the front.
• The doctors of the Parkland Hospital note, in fact, a small entrance wound under the Adam’s apple. The characteristics and dimensions of that wound could not have been the result of an exiting bullet.
• The bullet which, hitting him in the head, killed the President, caused an evident backward and leftward movement of the head. This is absolutely normal for a bullet coming from the front and from the right, that is “from the hill”.
• Also in the latter case there were those who interpreted the wound to JFK’s right temple as a hole caused by a bullet entered tangentially (see also  Kilduff’s press conference ).
• Dozens of witnesses, immediately after the shooting, rushed to the grassy knoll.
• Another witness who was with his wife and child at the foot of the mound claimed to have heard the bullets hiss overhead.
• The first policeman who arrived on the mound smelled like gunpowder.
• Senator Yarborough also smelled the same smell as he drove past the mound.
• Several witnesses saw  a puff of smoke come  out from under the trees of the grassy knoll
• Julia Ann Mercer, a woman who drove her car down Elm Street shortly before the march, stated in an affidavit that she saw a pickup truck parked at the foot of the grassy knoll. According to Mercer there was a man, in his 40s, stocky, sitting behind the wheel of the van. Another man took a container that appeared to be a rifle case from the back of the pickup truck and headed for the top of the mound.

The usual proponents of the official thesis might argue that no one saw a man shoot from the mound. And that would be “true enough”, although the bearers of this argument should then be reminded that, likewise, no one saw Oswald at the sixth floor window with a rifle in his hands. However, while there are no clearly revealing images of a shooter from the knoll, there is indeed something to ponder.

Who is he?

The figure we see on the left is the enlargement of the detail highlighted above with the small circle, in the famous photo n. 5 by Phil Willis. Jfk has just been shot, and is about to react by putting his hands to his throat.

It wasn’t just that man behind the white concrete embankment. To his left, a few meters away, there was also a station wagon. Both the man and the car will disappear immediately after the shooting ends, and nothing more will be known.

But the suspicious presences on that grassy knoll don’t end there.

Lee Bowers, a railway control tower attendant, had a good view of the area behind the fence at the top of the grassy knoll. Shortly before the shooting began he noticed the presence of two men behind that fence, and soon after the shooting he saw that one of them was still there. Even these two characters will never know the identity, as it will never be possible to understand who was the one who presented the credentials of the secret service to policeman Joe Smith, who had rushed to the hill immediately after the shooting. No Secret Service men were present in Dealey Plaza immediately after the shooting.

At this point, after all we have said and seen, can we reasonably conclude that this mound was the scene of suspicious movements that could have had a lot to do with the assassination of John Kennedy?

Is it logical and rational to think that all the elements described on this page are the result of persistent coincidences?

Of course, all those people who rushed to the grassy knoll, for example, could have been betrayed by an echo, or some other red herring, and thus made a group error. Mercer was perhaps mistaken in believing that the driver of the pickup truck looked like Jack Ruby, and perhaps the people she observed were simply two workers from an air conditioning company. It is possible, and we all know that testimonies are often fallacious.

But then the doctors see an entrance hole in the President’s throat; Jfk’s head moves violently backwards; some witnesses smell gunpowder on or near the hill; others even see smoke coming out from under the trees; we notice characters and cars mysteriously disappearing; etc.

Then those witnesses should not be considered as possible protagonists of a “mass oversight”, but rather as confirmation of many other heavy clues. And after all, how can you believe that the smell of gunpowder and the cloud of smoke, detected at the same time on the hill, are the result of imaginative testimonies, which describe effects so compatible with each other only by pure chance?

If only one witness had seen smoke, and at the same time, always on that hill, only one other witness had smelled the scent of oranges in bloom, these people would have described situations that cannot be connected to each other, and being single testimonies, their statements would be you are surely, and rightly, ignored.

But if more people see smoke in a certain place, and at the same time, other people, near that same place, smell cigarette smoke, 99% means that someone is smoking !!!

When too many elements converge towards the same explanation, we can be sure that that explanation represents what really happened. Even an official investigation, the House Select Committee on Assassinations, backed the plot by concluding that a shot had been fired from that mound, even though, according to the Committee, that bullet would not have hit the mark.

If, then, we add to all these alleged coincidences also the other jokes of the “case” supported by the Warren Report, such as, for example, the extraordinary performance of the bullets, the luck of the mediocre shooter and the killing of the latter, here is that the theory of the lonely madman turns into an untenable hypothesis that also offends the laws of mathematics, after having insulted those of physics.

I, unlike the HSCA, believe that two shots were fired from that hill, and that these, unfortunately, both hit the target.

Abraham Zapruder

The cineamatore witness

On November 22, 1963, this gentleman, a tailor by profession, was among the many citizens of Dallas who attended the procession organized for the visit of the President of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

With his amateur camera, after positioning himself in a very favorable spot in Dealey Plaza, he filmed one of the most dramatic events in American history: the assassination of JFK.

In just over 26 seconds, corresponding to 480 frames, the entire shooting that ended the life of the President was filmed. Other people that day also used amateur cameras, such as Orville Nix and Mary Muchmore, but none of them managed to film, with the same completeness and quality as Zapruder, the chilling event that took place on Elm Street.

All the investigations into the JFK case, governmental and non-governmental, are based in large part on the short video taken by the amateur Abraham. The United States government, to take possession of it, recently paid the heirs of Zapruder an amount that is around 30 billion of the old lire.

Jack Ruby

The (real) killer of the alleged killer

Jack Ruby, or more precisely Jacob Rubenstein, was born in Chicago on March 25, 1911.

Both parents were Polish, who emigrated to the United States in the early 1900s.

His father, Joseph Rubenstein, was a violent man and was frequently arrested for assault and various charges.

Jack at school created nothing but problems and worries, and for this reason, at just eleven, he was sent to a youth institution for psychiatric treatment. It was evident that the boy had not received the proper care and attention from his parents. Indeed, her mother was later diagnosed with psychoneurosis following which she was admitted to a nursing home.

In short, there were all the familiar prerequisites for Jack Ruby to become a person not perfectly stable from a mental point of view, but as we will see this will not be a credible reason to conclude that he killed Oswald as a direct consequence of these problems of his. In 1927, after dropping out of school, Ruby did various occasional jobs and was said to have even worked for Al Capone.

In ’43 Jack was called by the military, and served in America at various Air Force bases. His conduct was quite good, although on a couple of occasions he did not hesitate to fight with those who had commented on his being Jewish.

Ruby was honorably discharged on February 21, 1946.

Back in Chicago he worked selling small crates of cedar to his brother Earl’s company. In 1947 Jack moved to Dallas where he ran his sister Eva Grant’s “Singapore night club”, and in October of the same year he was arrested on drug issues.

The Dallas Sheriff alleged that Ruby had been sent by Chicago criminals to control the city’s illegal gambling activities. However, Ruby was eventually released.

Jack Ruby remained in Dallas and with the money borrowed from a friend bought the “Silver Spur Club”. He later acquired another western-style night club, but these businesses were unsuccessful and, in 1954, he became co-owner of the “Vegas Club”.

After further failures Ruby opens the “Carousel Club”, a name certainly more familiar in the context of the JFK case.

After this very quick summary of Ruby’s first fifty years, let’s take a look at the evidence that the House Select Committee on Assassinations brought to light regarding Jack’s activities and his relationships with organized crime characters.

Evidence available to the HSCA shows that Ruby had a significant number of direct and indirect relationships and contacts with elements of the organized crime. Part of these contacts referred to the most powerful leaders of the Cosa Nostra. Additionally, Ruby had ties to Dallas crime subjects.

The Committee ascertained Ruby’s relationships, during the 1930s – 1940s, with two professional Chicago organized crime killers, David Yaras and Lenny Patrick. Ruby had a telephone conversation with the latter during the summer of 1963.

Included among Ruby’s closest friends was Lewis McWillie, who moved from Dallas to Cuba in 1958 and worked in Havana’s gambling casinos until 1960.

In 1978 McWillie was working in Las Vegas. Official documents indicate that he was in business, and had close personal relationships, with the best known representatives of organized crime, including Meyer Lansky and Santos Trafficante.

In August 1959 Ruby was invited to visit Cuba by Lewis McWillie. At that time McWillie was supervisor of gambling activities at the Havana Tropicana Hotel. McWillie was later involved in the campaign for the overthrow of Fidel Castro, after the latter took power by ousting Fulgencio Batista.

The Committee discovered another Ruby trip to Cuba, this time lasting just one day, between September 11 and 12, 1959. Unlike the Warren Commission which viewed these trips as mere “vacations,” the Committee came to the conclusion that Ruby was most likely playing the role of courier serving gambling interests when she flew from Miami to Havana and back in a single day.

At that time Santos Trafficante was in prison in Cuba following the takeover of Fidel Castro. This fact cost him the loss of all the fortunes deriving from the management of gambling, and in any case everything related to his illicit business on the island.

In 1976, as a consequence of the Freedom of Information Act, the CIA unsecured a State Department cable it received from London on November 28, 1963.

It reads: “On November 26, 1963, an English journalist named John Wilson, also known as Wilson-Hudson, informed the American Embassy in London that, during 1959, a gangster-like American named Ruby , visited Cuba. Wilson himself was working in Cuba at the time and was arrested by the Castro regime only to be expelled. In prison, Wilson says, he met an American gangster named Santos, who was unable to return to the United States. According to Wilson, while he was in prison Santos was frequently visited by Ruby… ”.

The Committee was able to expand information confirming the fact that Wilson had been incarcerated in the same detention camp as Santos Trafficante.

The HSCA investigated other aspects of Ruby’s activities that might show a link to elements of organized crime. An extensive analysis of the cost records of her phone calls prior to Kennedy’s assassination reveals that Ruby made and received calls from individuals whose characteristics were compatible with those directly or indirectly involved with organized crime. Among these Irvin Weiner, Barney Baker, Harold Tannenbaum, Nofio Pecora, Murray Miller, etc. Eva Grant, Ruby’s sister, testified that Jack had spoken on more than one occasion about his telephone conversations with Larry Patrick, a well-known professional killer.

(For those who get along with English HERE you will find more detailed information on the various characters mentioned.)

But the real gem, to conclude on Ruby’s relations with the mafia, lies in the document you see below. This is an excerpt from Appendix IX of the HSCA report.

The character continuously underlined in red, Joseph Campisi, was considered number two in the Dallas Mafia hierarchy, and was in close relationship with the brothers of Carlos Marcello, the number one in the New Orleans Mafia.
In these lines we learn that Ruby, the day before the assassination of JFK, had lunch with “Mr.” Campisi, and that the latter had also bothered to visit Ruby in prison, staying for about ten minutes, and without, obviously, for the police to record the conversation.

But all this was not enough for the Committee, according to which “THERE WERE NOT ENOUGH ELEMENTS TO CONCLUDE THAT RUBY HAD LINKS WITH THE MAFIA”.

Crazy but true.

As for the much-discussed question of how Ruby got into the police basement perfectly in time to kill Oswald, the HSCA, while not leaning into definitive conclusions too penalizing for the Dallas police and the official theory in general, concludes that Ruby he had not entered the slipway onto Main Street, and that he had “probably” been “assisted” by some “bona fide” cop in finding a different access for his date with Oswald.

In short, the Committe also did not believe in Ruby’s fable who “accidentally” finds himself passing by and decides at the moment to look for a place in history.

Moreover, Ruby’s constant presence in the Dallas police premises could only confirm the premiditation of her murderous act.

On the side we see him in the corridor where Oswald often passed.

The images at the bottom right testify his presence at Oswald’s only very short press conference.

A last episode that I would like to point out is contained in the testimony of Nancy Perrin Rich, a woman who had worked in Ruby’s club, and who proves to know very well the killer of Oswald. Let’s start by saying that Nancy’s first husband, a certain Robert Perrin, had supplied weapons to the future dictator Francisco Franco during the Spanish civil war of the 1930s.

So we are not talking about the classic common man, or if you like, the classic “good person”.

After a brief separation, during which Perrin had worked as a bartender at Ruby’s club, the couple reconciled in July 1962. Since Robert Perrin had evidently not lost the habit of arms trafficking and smuggling, the woman happened to attend meetings in which he talked about plans to transport arms to Cuba and at the same time bring anti-Castroists to Miami. These meetings were attended by a colonel always in uniform, she and her husband, a certain Dave (Ferrie?), And some other seemingly Cuban men. Nancy P. Rich told the Warren Commission that during the second of these meetings, after hearing a knock on the door, she found herself facing Jack Ruby. The eyes met as if each of them were wondering what the other was doing in that place, but they both pretended not to know each other. Ruby withdrew with the colonel almost immediately, and after a brief conversation with him she left. Ruby’s only appearance at those meetings lasted about a quarter of an hour.

The Warren Commission will be careful not to mention this episode in its Report, even though it already had documents at its disposal confirming Ruby’s involvement in the arms trade to Cuba.

At the end of this page on Ruby, I want to point out the usual mystification of those who, supporting the official thesis, claim that Ruby was a poor man, half mad, who could never have been part of a conspiracy, particularly in that to kill a president.

Meanwhile, reading the contents of this page, the feeling is that Ruby was not a poor man, and not even half mad.

And then where is it written that Ruby was aware of the plot and therefore of the meaning of her gesture?

If, as is practically certain, Ruby was forced to do so, perhaps because he was indebted to some mafioso or for some other unknown reason, his participation in the plot would be absolutely unaware, and probably the one who gave the order to Ruby would not be too. he knew what the real dimensions of the conspiracy were.

In short, dear guilty friends would do better to update their debunking system, in case, first, they did not decide to give up and hand over their weapons.

James Files

John Fitzgerald Kennedy Conspiracy Bruxelles