Moderated JFK conspiracy theories: it never ends III

[Ranb]

Was Oswald A Poor Shot?

Back to this link. It contains the following;

The impossibility of Oswald's alleged shooting feat was what led former Marine sniper Craig Roberts to reject the lone-gunman theory. Roberts explains as he recounts the first time he visited the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository:

I have have Craig Robert's book, Kill Zone: A Sniper looks at Dealey Plaza. Thankfully it only cost me $3 not the $85 he claims it is selling for elsewhere.

I only had to read a small portion of the beginning to figure out that he thinks everyone reading it must be a complete idiot if they believe what he claims. Or maybe it is some sort of parody? I hope he never really was a sniper; I'd weep for those who trained him if he was as he claimed.

Roberts describes the scene from the TSBD; making many errors. He describes Houston street as perpendicular to the wall (east wall?) of the TSBD and claims it runs directly to the window just to the right of the one LHO allegedly used to shoot from. Actually Houston street does run perpendicular to the south side wall of the TSBD but does not point directly towards the building at all, it passes the building to the east. He also calls Houston street his second choice as a zone of engagement.

He calls the engagement zone on Elm street his third choice as he claims it moves at a drastic angle to the right from the window. If a person simply takes a look at a map of Dealey Plaza they can see that the small angle of Elm street from the sixth floor corner window is less than that of Houston street.

Roberts says his first choice of an engagement zone would have been directly below the sniper's nest window as the target would be moving at its slowest pace. While a limo may be moving slow, it would also be moving directly across the shooter's field of view, not at the slight angles it was on Houston and Elm streets. Roberts first choice would be my last partly because the shooter would have to lean farther out the window and expose them self. I'm no trained sniper but I know how to shoot a rifle.

He claims Houston Street was perfectly aligned with the sniper's nest; not true.

He describes Elm street as "winding" and obscured by trees when in fact trees block only part of the view and is fairly straight where JFK was shot.

He describes the 6.5mm cartridge as unpredictable when in fact it was and still is an effective and reliable cartridge used by shooters since it was adopted by the Italian military in 1891.

He describes the scope as misaligned (probably true), non bore sighted (no evidence that it wasn't), with defective optics (no evidence this is true) with a loose mount (also no evidence). The field of view through the scope is described as almost non-existent; a very poor choice of words. Why can't he at least tell us what the field of view actually is?

Roberts makes a big deal about a high-low formula and a minute of angle rule and suggests that the shooter would miss by up to a foot. Actually the maximum range was about 265 feet (88 yards) with the sniper's nest about 60 above the ground. With a BC of .275 and a muzzle velocity of 2100 fps, the bullet would take about .133 seconds to move 265 feet if fired flat. If the target was moving 10 mph at 10 degrees across the field of view, the shooter would have to lead 4.1 inches to hit the center. Check out any online ballistics calculator for these figures. Based on my reading the effect of height on the trajectory would be less than an inch at the very short range between the limo and the TSBD sixth floor. See here; http://www.exteriorballistics.com/ebexplained/5th/33.cfm

Roberts claims it takes a minimum of 3.3 seconds to fire, work the bolt then fire again. No evidence of course to support this claim.

Roberts claims that the stripper clip should have fallen to the floor, but sometimes they stick, my Carcano clips do. He also claims that the Carcano can't function without the clip, a very stupid claim to make as all it takes is loading the cartridge into the chamber by hand.

In my opinion Roberts must think that you, I and anyone else reading his book is a complete idiot and unable to research anything for themselves. Try to do better the next time you link to something supporting your arguments.

Ranb

 

[BStrong]

Back to this link. It contains the following;

I have have Craig Robert's book, Kill Zone: A Sniper looks at Dealey Plaza. Thankfully it only cost me $3 not the $85 he claims it is selling for elsewhere.

I only had to read a small portion of the beginning to figure out that he thinks everyone reading it must be a complete idiot if they believe what he claims. Or maybe it is some sort of parody? I hope he never really was a sniper; I'd weep for those who trained him if he was as he claimed.

Roberts describes the scene from the TSBD; making many errors. He describes Houston street as perpendicular to the wall (east wall?) of the TSBD and claims it runs directly to the window just to the right of the one LHO allegedly used to shoot from. Actually Houston street does run perpendicular to the south side wall of the TSBD but does not point directly towards the building at all, it passes the building to the east. He also calls Houston street his second choice as a zone of engagement.

He calls the engagement zone on Elm street his third choice as he claims it moves at a drastic angle to the right from the window. If a person simply takes a look at a map of Dealey Plaza they can see that the small angle of Elm street from the sixth floor corner window is less than that of Houston street.

Roberts says his first choice of an engagement zone would have been directly below the sniper's nest window as the target would be moving at its slowest pace. While a limo may be moving slow, it would also be moving directly across the shooter's field of view, not at the slight angles it was on Houston and Elm streets. Roberts first choice would be my last partly because the shooter would have to lean farther out the window and expose them self. I'm no trained sniper but I know how to shoot a rifle.

He claims Houston Street was perfectly aligned with the sniper's nest; not true.

He describes Elm street as "winding" and obscured by trees when in fact trees block only part of the view and is fairly straight where JFK was shot.

He describes the 6.5mm cartridge as unpredictable when in fact it was and still is an effective and reliable cartridge used by shooters since it was adopted by the Italian military in 1891.

He describes the scope as misaligned (probably true), non bore sighted (no evidence that it wasn't), with defective optics (no evidence this is true) with a loose mount (also no evidence). The field of view through the scope is described as almost non-existent; a very poor choice of words. Why can't he at least tell us what the field of view actually is?

Roberts makes a big deal about a high-low formula and a minute of angle rule and suggests that the shooter would miss by up to a foot. Actually the maximum range was about 265 feet (88 yards) with the sniper's nest about 60 above the ground. With a BC of .275 and a muzzle velocity of 2100 fps, the bullet would take about .133 seconds to move 265 feet if fired flat. If the target was moving 10 mph at 10 degrees across the field of view, the shooter would have to lead 4.1 inches to hit the center. Check out any online ballistics calculator for these figures. Based on my reading the effect of height on the trajectory would be less than an inch at the very short range between the limo and the TSBD sixth floor. See here; http://www.exteriorballistics.com/ebexplained/5th/33.cfm

Roberts claims it takes a minimum of 3.3 seconds to fire, work the bolt then fire again. No evidence of course to support this claim.

Roberts claims that the stripper clip should have fallen to the floor, but sometimes they stick, my Carcano clips do. He also claims that the Carcano can't function without the clip, a very stupid claim to make as all it takes is loading the cartridge into the chamber by hand.

In my opinion Roberts must think that you, I and anyone else reading his book is a complete idiot and unable to research anything for themselves. Try to do better the next time you link to something supporting your arguments.

Ranb

I've made reference to Robert's claims here a couple of times, and other than the fact that the book wasn't published until Hathcock's death, there's the fact that nobody - repeat - nobody has reported that Hathcock ever told them about this supposed TSBD Challenge at Quantico, and the NCOIC of the school when contacted reported that no records exist supporting Robert's story, and the Corps is as obsessed with record keeping as a military org can be - if the test was conducted there, there would be a whole slough of documentation from soup to nuts.

For my part, when I attended the Tactical Marksmanship Training 11 day class instructed by Hathcock the subject never came up, and the training and the live fire shooting, including firing on moving targets at some stages and was a hell of a lot more demanding than the shooting that LHO did in Dallas. It confounds me that someone like Roberts would make the claims that he did, but as I wrote earlier, maybe his book editor wanted more horsepower in the story.

As far as I know, Robert's may have been an LE sniper, but he was a rifleman in his tour in VN and was a "designated" sniper, read as, appointed to the position, not a graduate of the CONUS sniper school or the in-country program the Corps developed later on, long after Roberts went home.

 

[JayUtah]

Wow, I just looked into that a little deeper. And no, Roberts' physics is so mangled as to be laughable. He has absolutely no clue what he's doing or saying.

No doubt this is where bobtaftfan got his bizarre notion that Oswald would somehow have an insurmountable problem shooting at a downward angle. And maybe why bobtaftfan hasn't returned since having made such an amateur gaffe. One wonders why these supposedly adept finders-of-holes-in-stories keep falling for this demonstrable nonsense.

 

[carlitos]

back, and to the left.

 

[BStrong]

Wow, I just looked into that a little deeper. And no, Roberts' physics is so mangled as to be laughable. He has absolutely no clue what he's doing or saying.

No doubt this is where bobtaftfan got his bizarre notion that Oswald would somehow have an insurmountable problem shooting at a downward angle. And maybe why bobtaftfan hasn't returned since having made such an amateur gaffe. One wonders why these supposedly adept finders-of-holes-in-stories keep falling for this demonstrable nonsense.

That book pretty much cemented his status as persona non grata in our circles.

BTF embraced both Roberts and Donahue, and neither can be viewed as reliable sources

 

[Ranb]

I've made reference to Robert's claims here a couple of times, and other than the fact that the book wasn't published until Hathcock's death, there's the fact that nobody - repeat - nobody has reported that Hathcock ever told them about this supposed TSBD Challenge at Quantico, and the NCOIC of the school when contacted reported that no records exist supporting Robert's story, and the Corps is as obsessed with record keeping as a military org can be - if the test was conducted there, there would be a whole slough of documentation from soup to nuts.

I've never read any other source that identifies Hathcock as a critic of the lone shooter theory. I would have brought it up but on this forum having anything complementary to say about a sniper opens one up to insults.

For my part, when I attended the Tactical Marksmanship Training 11 day class instructed by Hathcock the subject never came up, and the training and the live fire shooting, including firing on moving targets at some stages and was a hell of a lot more demanding than the shooting that LHO did in Dallas. It confounds me that someone like Roberts would make the claims that he did, but as I wrote earlier, maybe his book editor wanted more horsepower in the story.

In my opinion Roberts is prostituting himself with his book and opinion that a trained shooter could not hit a slowly moving target at close range from the sixth floor of the TSBD.

Ranb

 

[dudalb]

Amazed me that somebody who was claims to be a expert rifle shot would write pure crap like what Roberts wrote.
Fact is, for a expert marksman..which Oswald was...the shots were not the difficult to make.
But the bit that really gets me is the whole idiotic idea that it was impossible to get off that many shots with a bolt action rifle. Anybody who has actually used one can tell you that is crap.

 

[swright777]

...
I've shot both balls ...

Ouch!!

 

[BStrong]

Ouch!!

And I still have a deep voice

 

[RoboTimbo]

And maybe why bobtaftfan hasn't returned since having made such an amateur gaffe.

This is typical bobtaftfan behavior. He'll make a gaffe, be called on it and then not show up for months.

We seem to have lost our Jango, too, since finding himself in an untenable position.

 

[Willy Ekerslike]

This is typical bobtaftfan behavior. He'll make a gaffe, be called on it and then not show up for months.

We seem to have lost our Jango, too, since finding himself in an untenable position.

Any guesses what tack they'll be taking when they inevitably reappear. We haven't had the Backyard Photo runaround for a while. Maybe we can look forward to our 40+ Medical Witnesses?

 

[turingtest]

Any guesses what tack they'll be taking when they inevitably reappear. We haven't had the Backyard Photo runaround for a while. Maybe we can look forward to our 40+ Medical Witnesses?

Whatever temporary tack they take, it'll be the same general heading of denial of evidence resulting in the same fringe resets that haven't changed in fifty years. CTists never change course in the face of confrontation, which is what differentiates their "theories" from actual theory, and makes them so predictable.

 

[pgwenthold]

I don't know what they mean with the "no one is able to exactly reproduce what LHO is claimed to do" stuff.

What are they trying to reproduce? Are they saying that no one is able to hit JFK's head in that situation given three shots at it (actually, 4, because IIRC there was another bullet available)?

Or are they insisting on missing the second shot in the same way that LHO did? If so, that's really silly, because LHO wasn't trying to do that either.

The question that needs to be asked is, could you hit him in the head given 4 bullets? I hope the answer is yes, or these guys are pretty incompetent.

 

[Allen773]

1. And what? There have been several investigations but not a whole bunch of information sharing after 50 years. But that's nothing to be concerned about at all, is it? You, like so many other people, believe that the government isn't hiding anything, that the lack of transparency over 50 years is inconsequential. You also fail to take into account that for actual progress to be made that it would require many levers of our society, like the government itself and our media, to broadcast the change in their 50+ year peddled narrative.

But let's say for the sake of argument that the media actually ponied up and used their resources to do some investigative journalism into JFK or any conspiracy with credibility behind it. Okay, so they're invested in finding out the truth. Now what? Can they force the government to hand over relevant documentation? Nope. Can they force government employees or cabinet members or Congressmen or Senators or the POTUS to give interviews and answer questions? Nope.

It's not gonna happen with JFK. Even if our media had a united front, nothing would change, except of course the media's relationship with the government. They would find themselves without access to the government. That would be bad for them just as it would be for a truly independent media to be as probing and unrelenting as it needs to be.

None of these realities fall on your radar.

2. Why waste your time? People do the same thing with other conspiracies. Invest all sorts of time dealing with counter theories while not looking at the theories with mainstream acceptance themselves. If people here question the WC as you claim, I have yet to see that.

Again with your half-baked sociopolitical speculation regarding the motives of "the government" or "the media." I noticed that your only piece of evidence (evidence" being used very loosely here) is "back and to the left." That red herring was debunked decades ago. I thought conspiracy theorists were supposed to be "cutting edge".

 

[Hellbound]

I thought conspiracy theorists were supposed to be "cutting edge".

THey are. While the rest of the world has moved on to plasma cutters, lasers, and so forth, they retain the cutting edge of their flint knives...

 

[JayUtah]

This is typical bobtaftfan behavior. He'll make a gaffe, be called on it and then not show up for months.

Indeed, I think this may be the longest sojourn he's done in the JFK thread for a couple years. Wasn't the last topic he stumbled over the notion that Oswald was a CIA contractor? Whatever it was, you can bet his next appearance won't pick up where any of his prior threads left off.

Granted, we have to respond in good faith to him every time he appears. but the pattern of appearance and subsequently rapid disappearance seems so very consistent with an overall plan to avoid any meaningful inspection for holes in his thesis.

We seem to have lost our Jango, too, since finding himself in an untenable position.

That's too bad, because I wanted him to see a good example of how these flimsy attempts at hole-poking inevitably go nowhere and then self-destruct.

Bobtaftfan gave us a Gish-gallop laundry list of reasons ostensibly to distrust the conventional narrative. As often happens, he explicitly disavowed any need to fit his marginalia into a more coherent narrative. But he did leave us enough that we can turn his own purported standard of proof back on him.

A couple of purported "plot holes" are lifted straight from Roberts, which we've already discussed at length. Far from being legitimate concerns, those allegations don't last very long after even a little study or experience. It takes only a little verification to realize Roberts is talking out of another orifice besides his mouth. His attempts at math are patently incompetent. His alleged expert judgment as a sniper is contradicted by other experts who can give good reasons. And he makes claims that are disputed by documentary evidence and witnesses. Hence we find much greater cause to question Roberts than the conventional story.

A few others are classic formulations of "complex questions" in logic -- that is, those that incorporate a hidden or unproven premise. A question of the type, "Why did this person do this thing that I think is improper?" is based on the inquisitor's begged suppositions. A good example is to suppose that Dallas police should have been grindingly and scrupulously methodical in light of the special victim. This is laid out as the only rational interpretation. No quarter is given to the pitfalls of having a major assassination suddenly thrown upon them with overlapping jurisdictions and heavy scrutiny. These straw men reveal that it is the conspiracist's thinking that is unacceptably narrow, not his critics'.

This is the caliber of hole-poking we are presented with.

A serious historian doesn't hide these sorts of premises, nor take pains to keep them from being discussed, nor run away when they are brought to the fore. Nor does a serious historian knowingly stoop to asking questions that have little value beyond laying rhetorical mines for unsuspecting critics. I don't agree that mere hole-poking without a follow-on alternative is a productive intellectual exercise. But bobtaftfan has failed even by his own (and Jango's) standards.

What was intended to show the weakness of the conventional narrative has been exposed as an even more dire weakness among conspiracy theorists and their approach. Not only has it been shown that they uncritically accept information and alleged expertise from whatever source seems to support their predetermined belief, it has been shown further than they load the dice, stack the deck, or however you want to characterize asking blatantly loaded questions to pad out their list of supposed plot holes.

As to Jango's approach, most conspiracy theories are ultimately predicated on an abstract distrust of the Powers That Be, and in that respect Jango is at least a little more forthright than others. He's going right for the general notion that government power is evil and that evil flows forth from it in the form of various misdeeds such as 9/11 or the JFK assassination. The usual argument is to plaster this ubiquitous central theme with a pseudo-intellectual coating of factoids from a particular conspiracy genre. These factoids appear to erode the conventional narrative. But while we see a little of it from Jango, that doesn't seem to be a high priority in his arguments. So let's at least give him credit for cutting to the chase, however insubstantial the chase is.

Whatever temporary tack they take, it'll be the same general heading of denial of evidence resulting in the same fringe resets that haven't changed in fifty years.

Indeed, the cyclical nature of conspiracy theories stands in stark contrast to the pattern in real history scholarship. In the latter, a proposition either progresses or dies. In conspiracism, a proposition enjoys a brief bit of discussion, meets with its refutation, and then merely goes dormant until the critics move on to other things. Then the same proposition timidly pokes its head above ground to try again.

It's aimed at ensnaring a new generation of credulous believers each time, rather than progressing a line of study from generation to generation. So fifty years later, we still get "back and to the left," thrown out as if it were some novel revelation. It makes all the more specious the insinuations that you would question the official story if you only knew what the conspiracy theorists have "discovered." Rather, it shows that the conspiracy theorists are likely quite aware of how unconvincing their claims are, and have to wait for a suitable lack of opposition in order to crow.

CTists never change course in the face of confrontation, which is what differentiates their "theories" from actual theory, and makes them so predictable.

It's certainly what distinguishes their methods from those of real historians and researchers. And conspiracy theorists never seem to realize just how overtly visible that difference is, and how unconcealed their apparent motives eventually become as a result.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Conspiracy theories work in the same way pseudo-science like Creationism does. In fact I literally consider Creationism a Conspiracy Theory taken to its (il)logical extreme. There's not much base difference in "Well the conspirators covered that up" and "God moves in mysterious ways." And they use many of the same base argumentative tactics.

1. Present it as a duality. Either the official story is 100% airtight true or the conspiracy is. Any thing you don't believe/understand about the official story can then be presented as evidence of the conspiracy.

2. Don't make any solid claims. Make a lot of backhanded vaguesations. Use the phrase "The evidence looks funny" or "That's awfully convenient" roughly 37 times a paragraph.

3. And, and let me tell you this is the best part, just make stuff up. You see it's a conspiracy so all the evidence for your side has been covered up and all the evidence against your side has been fabricated. Let me tell this is a nice state of mind if you can talk yourself into it.

4. The Conspiracy doesn't have to be logical or make sense.

I wish there was some way to chart the popularity of certain... well I guess you'd almost call them "memes" about JFK assassination and see which ones of them trailed off nearly completely only to be brought back to life by Stone's film.

 

[Allen773]

Here's an interesting article from November 2013 about Oswald's likely motives for killing JFK.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_spectator/2013/11/philip_shenon_s_a_cruel_and_shocking_act_stunning_reporting_in_new_book.2.html

Basically: He was a pro-Castro sympathizer who was so angry at the Kennedy administration for repeatedly trying to assassinate his hero (Fidel, that is) via the CIA (on top of a deeply personal hatred for the US government because of their restrictions for traveling to Communist countries, which only fueled his ideological disdain for the US government) that he became convinced that JFK deserved to be killed, and that he was the one to do the deed.

An excerpt:

Oswald was in Mexico City for almost a week. And yet we have had, until Shenon’s book, only occasional glimpses of his activities there.

According to one source, his troubles attempting to get visas put him in such a state of rage against American travel restrictions to Communist countries that he actually declared, in the presence of witnesses at the Cuban consulate, that he wanted to kill JFK.

The women gathered in front of a television “and became hysterical as they realized that they had seen the president’s assassin at a family party a few weeks earlier. ‘Yes, yes, that’s him, that’s him!’ ” they yelled.

That source: Fidel Castro himself. You didn’t know about this? Neither did the Warren Commission. But they should have—or so it seems from Shenon’s reporting, because in June 1964, when the commission was still investigating, J. Edgar Hoover supposedly sent them a letter reporting Oswald’s threat. The FBI had a super-duper double agent code-named SOLO (real name Maurice Childs) who’d managed to insinuate himself into the presence of a worldwide array of communist heads of state including Khrushchev and Castro. In any case SOLO emerged from a post-Nov. 22 confab with Fidel to say that Fidel told him Cuban consulate and Cuban intelligence people there in Mexico City had witnessed an enraged Oswald declare in the consulate that he wanted to kill JFK. According to SOLO’s account, Castro said they didn’t take him seriously enough to warn JFK. Make of that what you will.

The article also notes that Oswald was being monitored by the US government at the time of the Kennedy assassination. As you can imagine, their failure to take him seriously made the FBI and CIA look extremely bad, in light of JFK being assassinated. Naturally, they tried to cover up their incompetence-in addition to wanting to cover up their (incredibly shady) plots to kill Castro.

Conspiracy? Nah, more like indirect blowback from a foolish Cold War foreign policy re: Cuba, and a lot of Cover Your Ass on the part of the bureaucracies after the fact.

 

[JayUtah]

That gives rise to a number of conspiracy theories, such as Oswald being hired by the Cubans to kill Kennedy, or simply that his blatant discontent made him perfectly believable as the patsy for the CIA, or LBJ, or whoever your suspect du jour is. But then again, if Oswald is believable as a malcontent, why couldn't he just have done it on his own? Parsimony does a facepalm when it sees all these unnecessarily complications the conspiracy theorists pile onto the facts.

But in terms of the investigation yes, there are good points. We've been asked here and elsewhere, "Is there a good reason to question the official investigation?" Well, in general, yes, but not necessarily those that require a farfetched conspiracy theory to explain. In the wake of 9/11 everyone wanted to know how the nation's defense had slipped up. That means explaining in retrospect all the stuff that got missed, and trying to make it seem like those who may have been legitimately complacent weren't really doing anything wrong.

Similarly, it may have been a legitimate question to the FBI etc. -- "Oswald!? I thought you guys were keeping tabs on him." No one wants to be the guy on duty when the bank got robbed. And there will always be ongoing shenanigans when something suddenly focuses attention on you. So yes, we have reason to suspect any official investigation of trying to sweep stuff under the carpet. It's just never the stuff you're really very interested in. You get the right answer, but you don't necessarily turn a harsh glare everywhere.

I see this all the time looking into accidents etc. as part of my job. The hydraulics on a lift fail, and in the course of investigating you discover one of the floor guys is dealing weed on the side. That's why he doesn't want you going through his locker, but that uncomfortable fact has nothing to do with the real cause of the hydraulic failure, which turns out to be worn hoses or fittings. You don't put the weed-dealing in your official report to the client. But someone following up later may decide to make something out of "Mr. Doe refused to allow a search of his locker," and concoct a scenario that he sabotaged the lift.

 

[Allen773]

That gives rise to a number of conspiracy theories, such as Oswald being hired by the Cubans to kill Kennedy, or simply that his blatant discontent made him perfectly believable as the patsy for the CIA, or LBJ, or whoever your suspect du jour is. But then again, if Oswald is believable as a malcontent, why couldn't he just have done it on his own? Parsimony does a facepalm when it sees all these unnecessarily complications the conspiracy theorists pile onto the facts.

Oh I seriously doubt that Oswald was actually hired by the Cubans (though in his demented mind, he might have thought he was acting on their behalf, if not their orders! ). Or that he was a "patsy" of anyone, for that matter. If Castro would seriously have tried to kill Kennedy I doubt he would have used someone as unreliable and peripheral as Oswald.

The article is not really a conspiracy theory per se, although some of it is admittedly speculative. It's more of a "here's a possible or probable explanation, given the (understandable) gaps in the official record."

This was at the height of the Cold War, so it's understandable that there were all kinds of shady shenanigans going on in the intelligence agencies of both sides of the conflict. And it's also understandable that the agencies weren't keen on revealing to the public what kinds of crazy Cold War plans they were up to (Though a lot of that came out in the 1970s with the Church Commission and other reports, of course).

Bobby Kennedy, for what it's worth, reportedly felt a level of responsibility (if not guilt) for his brother's death, considering that he had aggressively pushed for Castro's assassination. Again, not that Castro was responsible, but it's entirely plausible that an unstable ideologue/sympathizer (which Oswald was) felt that he was doing his "duty" as a Communist foot soldier-despite having been rejected by the actual Communists (ie. the USSR).

Anyway, some good points in your post!