Reelz Channel

The Reelz Channel is apparently airing a documentary featuring my favorite alternate theory of what really happened to JFK in Dallas.

I haven't seen the documentary in question, but it basically is about the Bonar Menninger theory set forth in Mortal Error: The Shot That Killed JFK.

The Reader's Digest version of the theory is that a secret service agent in the car following JFK grabbed an AR-15, and accidentally fired off a round when the car lurched. The shot is the one that blew up Kennedy's head.

Many here think the premise is hogwash. I've read the book and found it convincing. Your mileage may vary.

Show is scheduled for November. Enjoy the coming debates.

Interesting, I will be sure to watch that.

Then what happened to the third shot that Oswald fired?

Where was the damage to the car behind them? Wouldn't the bullet have had to go through their windshield? Why didn't any witnesses describe a high powered shot coming from a car behind Kennedy? Why did the publisher settle with the Secret Service Agent they accused in his libel lawsuit rather than fight it in court and prove their theory.

This theory has more holes in it than Governor Connally.

I don’t think the photographic evidence supports this theory unless Hickey was a quick draw expert supreme with an AR-15. The famous Altgens photo shows him looking at the SBD seconds after the “magic bullet” and seconds before the mortal head shot



An even later photo shows him just turning back toward the President just before the mortal headshot with no AR-15 visible:



Sometime between this photo and the motorcade emerging on the other side of the Triple overpass, Hickey did have an AR-15 pulled out, but based on the last photo, my bet is it was after the headshot.

So at the same time a shooter was shooting from the SBD window a SS agent misfires into the back of JFKs head? Yikes!

Anyone else here watch the documentary The lost JFK tapes where they play the Radio and TV news feeds from November 1963 before during and after the event.

Every time Oswald emerges from the interrogation room he is more and more beaten to a pulp before he secured a lawyer if I remember right.

What a chaotic event to be sure. Some of the comments throughout were interesting and some angles of footage I have never seen.

Sounds very interesting.
I hadn't heard about the SS Agent AR-15 theory before.

http://jfkfacts.org/assassination/news/stupidity-goes-viral-lame-jfk-conspiracy-theory-spreads-around-the-world/#more-5659

[This message has been edited by AgCynic2 (edited 8/1/2013 3:03p).]

From AgCynic's link, Hickey's lawsuit link

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/complaint.txt

If you scroll through the lawsuit, it has excerpts from the book that give a pretty good synopsis of the theory.

It posits that bobby kennedy went along with the coverup to protect the secret service. Right

my own theory, conceived after many years of research and surreptitious visits to dealey plaza with my .22 is that it was a hit arranged jointly by the CIA, FBI, anti castro groups, pro castro groups, right wing texas oilmen, the military industrial complex and the illuminati working in conjunction with the Kilgore Rangerettes and they fired over 700 rounds and not one hit the president, who was killed by Joe Dimaggio, who was still pizzed off about the way the Kennedy boys treated his ex wife.

This is just a theory.

Huisache:

You are completly glossing over the Elvis connection.

you caught me; he was the organizer of the failed 700 shot attempt.

huisache's theoy is garbage. There's no way DiMaggio would have missed two of three shots.

If only there had been an assault weapons ban,.... Then this terrible accident of an "evil " AR-15 would not have happened....

So basically, someone pulled a Vincent Vega and shot the President in the face and the CIA's Wolf found Oswald to take fall.

Having seen the President and shaken his hand that morning, I find this latest theory pure hogwash.

And as one who has shot at a deer in hilly terrain shooting downhill, I got off three shots and hit with two in the same time frame that Lee Harvey Oswald had. And he was sitting down, and had a gun rest. I was walking in loose brushy terrain, and taken by surprise, and firing freehand without a scope.

Socialism is the worst form of economics, because it demands sacrifice without end.

It is also the most effective form of tyranny, because it demands sacrifice without end.

When you shot the deer, did it violently move toward you before it died?

No, it went back....and to the left.

Hollywood...I read a book about this theory years ago.
Interesting read, but I don't recall the title.

it has been fifty years and I don't really care who shot him anymore; but I do wish somebody would look into the Lincoln assassination again. The story that an actor shot him and then was killed under suspicious circumstances a few days later before he could even get lawyered up is pretty ridiculous and fit only for the gullible.

To start with, anybody could put on some makeup and act like they are John Booth. Anybody. And then in a theater full of soldiers and the president's guards, he just runs off with a broken ankle. Right.

Who did do it is intriguing. Of course, Mrs. lincoln was a known head case and was also, until recently, an owner of slaves. I smell a conspirator there. Stonewall Jackson could have impersonated Booth and shot Lincoln. Before you say he was already dead, keep in mind that that could be just a cover story. Have you ever seen the body? Didn't think so.

THey had secret trials for the conspirators and then hanged them all. Have you read any of their confessions? How convenient is all of this?

Who killed Lincoln?

Huisache:

Booth didn’t die he lived as David George in Oklahoma and committed suicide in Enid in 1903.

Here is his death photo:


Or wait he was killed in the warehouse (Garret barn) after running from a theater and his mummy then went on tour. Here it is:



Oh heck, this is very twisted, I think you are correct it is a conspiracy.

The British mafia killed Lincoln for stopping their cotton smuggling enterprise. Notice that none of the accounts of his death mention the lack of crumpets in his mouth. Thus, he HAD crumpets stuffed in his mouth as a warning to the next president. Clearly a conspiracy.

Actually BQ 78 (and Huisachel)......You guys are both wrong..Booth was killed in the barn! Recent research has uncovered that Stanton and Maj. Henry Rathbone set up the mass assassination plot. Booth (pretending to be a racist) had been hanging out with both of them and had infiltrated the plot. He went to the box to inform Lincoln....but Rathbone suddenly pulled Booth's own derringer that Clara Harris was able to get from Booth a few days earlier in a moment of passion...Rathbone shot Lincoln and then Booth pulled his knife and slashed Rathbone. The Major pushed Booth out of the box and Booth fell to the stage! Realizing he was "just a patsy"....Booth held up the knife and said: " Szar napom van" (Hungarian for: "Im having a shi**y day!") He fled to Virginia and Stanton hired Boston Corbett from New York to silence him!
Footnote: many years later Clara Harris was about to tell all, and Rathbone killed her and pretended to be insane!
Footnote: both Boston and New York wanted to claim Corbett as their "hero"....and as baseball was just beginning this set off the famous Red Sox vs. Yankee feud!!

Big is on to something here and I wish he would tie it into the Garfield assassination somehow.

Garfield? Probably the lasagna cartel.

Whomever took that "fatal" shot did a helluva job. The impact was awesome as evidenced by the Zapruder film.


[This message has been edited by terata (edited 8/19/2013 2:20p).]

Canyon,

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I haven't seen the documentary in question, but it basically is about the Bonar Menninger theory set forth in Mortal Error: The Shot That Killed JFK.

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Wow. I haven't see that mentioned since the early 1990's.

quote:

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Many here think the premise is hogwash. I've read the book and found it convincing. Your mileage may vary.

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I DID at the time, too. It finally made sense of the flatfooted behavior of so many agencies in the wake of it, and accounted for the reasons for the possible cover-ups in ways that didn't suppose bad intent.

At the time, it seemed to reconcile the "six seconds in Dallas" forensic stuff with the the film footage.

It still remains a somewhat enticing possibility, but it seems that Posner had effectively shown that all lines up once your time the photo and film evidence accurately. That is something can relate to.

The JFK assassination still fascinates me if for no other reason as the aftermath is so bizarre that it is a conspiracy theorist wet dream.

1) The supposed perpetrator renounces his US citizen ship and defects to Russia.
2) He changes his mind after a couple of years and wants to come back to the US. The state dept says "sure, have a do-over". Really?
3) He loves him some Cuba and Castro
4) He shoots JFK.
5) A guy with mob connections (Ruby) offs him.

So: The masterminds could be:
A) The Russians
B) Our own government
C) The mob
D) LBJ...just because he was one crooked SOB.
E) Castro

And on top of that, the JFK assassination is a Rorschach test for your political beliefs:

1) If you are a liberal then it is the mean old conservatives, (Clint Murchison), military industrial complex and God knows who else that had JFK killed. The movie JFK supported this theory.
2) If you are conservative, it could have been Russia or Cuba
3) If you like mobster movies, it was the mob

Anyway. It is fascinating all around.

Or if you are not a liberal, conservative, or mob guy, you can go for the old simplest solution is usually the right one, and say that a lone gunman killed the prez and then was killed by other lone gunman who thought he was righting a wrong.

LTC77

LTC77. A solid theory and also probably what happened. I have always thought it was Oswald acting alone. I have to say that this case has enough WTF moments to make something else possible. And I am usually allergic to conspiracy theories.

I have never subscribed however to the "some element in our own government has JFK killed" theory. It would have to be a pretty large conspiracy and almost by definition, something that large would have leaked out over the years.

The real problem is that they are all theories and there is really no way to test them. The facts are muddied by the passage of time and the death of the people involved. The facts that are available for review can be used to support a number of possibilities. None of which may be true, and I will be very surprised if the truth is ever agreed on by the liberals, conservatives, and the conspiracy believers.

As Indy said "we are concerned with facts - if its truth you want go down the hall to the philosophy department."

One, among several, questions I like to ask lone gunman theorists is this: if you were going to set up a hit on, in this case, Kennedy (hopefully SS friendly statement here), what kind of plan would you implement? How close would it look to what actually happened?

My guess is that if you knew what you were doing, it would look pretty damn close. Coincidence?

I think everyone who has a genuine interest in this topic should ignore most books and go right to the source: witness testimony from the Warren Commission (ignore the report itself), the Garrison investigation, and documents like affidavits and statements of various govt. employees.

91AggieLawyer,

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How close would it look to what actually happened?

My guess is that if you knew what you were doing, it would look pretty damn close. Coincidence?

I think everyone who has a genuine interest in this topic should ignore most books and go right to the source: witness testimony from the Warren Commission (ignore the report itself), the Garrison investigation, and documents like affidavits and statements of various govt. employees.

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That's a very interesting and fruitful line of argument. Couldn't agree more with "bypass interpretations" and go to the primary sources and evidence. Have direct experience of that in history.

One exception to "ignore most books" would posit is that books that discuss the evidence in a way that allows you to examine it yourself while making its case. To wit: Thomphson's "Six Seconds in Dallas" used the photographic evidence in careful and forensic way that helped frame questions while not having to force the conclusion. Always saw it as the `book to refute' for the one-gunman theory.

When Posner's "Case Closed" came along, and showed that a simple change in the interpretation of the film evidence, which could even somewhat demonstrate, and the `magic bullet' problem disappeared, this was rather convincing.

A neutral example is wrong interpretations of the film of USS Arizona exploding led to some mistaken ideas about the when and how of the magazine explosion cause. When a forensic re-examination found the impact was seconds sooner, it all changed.

Posner's book seemed to solve the Zapruder film puzzle and others.

Personally, I am open to the idea that Oswald was not so `random' even though he was likely (per Posner model) the lone gunman, or in proximity to a lone gunman. Might say believe the "one gunman" holds up.

The mystery remains if that one gunman was definitely, 100% certain to be Osawald, and whether Oswald or the culprit had `help' in the sense of being where they were at the time (in Oswald's case that silly business of being re-admitted into the country after known defection)

Interesting takes on the assassination. I know one of the arguments that conspiracy theorists use is that the shot from the school book depository to the Kennedy motorcade was a really difficult shot to make, and therefore unlikely. At a family reunion years ago in Dallas, we all went into downtown and spent time walking around on a Sunday morning We went to Dealy plaza and I stood in the street where the car was when Kennedy was shot. I looked up at the window Oswald supposedly shot from. To me, it didn't look like that difficult a shot for someone who was a reasonably good shot which I assume a former Marine (Oswald) was. I am guessing it was 75 to 100 yards at a target moving at 5mph away from you. Not easy but definitely doable.

I agree Titan, that Oswald might have had help or was directed or encouraged by someone to do it. That is where the Cubans, mob, etc might have a role in it.

a new book is dropping that places the audio recording of gunshots two miles away

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/john-f-kennedy-presidential-rating-poll-98330.html

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“The many inadequacies of the Warren Commission have condemned us as a nation to 50 years of unending suspicions and cynicism about the assassination,” Sabato said. While the American public was willing to pay whatever it took and wait as long as needed for the commission’s findings, “instead the Warren Commission’s shortcuts and hidden deceptions have led to a half century of second guessing and a cavernous credibility gap.”

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It's amazing it has taken basically 5 decades for mainstream figures to state something so obvious.