JFK Conspiracy Theories IV: The One With The Whales

[HSienzant]

Alert: Tonight on the History Channel, 10/9 Central, Tracking Oswald

http://www.history.com/shows/jfk-de...de-1/jfk-declassified-tracking-oswald-preview

I'll keep an open mind, but they had to have known that the National Archive would be dumping the rest of the JFK files this summer, so the show will be working with limited information...not that this ever stopped anyone.

I enjoyed this crew's previous effort, Finding Hitler, where they didn't find Hitler, but managed to detail the massive S.S. escape routes out of Europe into South America.

The show looks like they're taking the more productive route leaving LHO as the lone shooter, and looking into the possibility of others behind him (which is where a real conspiracy would be found if there ever was one).

Arrgh... they are making claims to build up the mystery, but the claims aren't true.

Nine minutes into the episode airing tonight, one man makes the claim:
"Oswald's six days in this city [Mexico City] are absolutely crucial. They were never looked into by the Warren Commission, because they didn't want to know."

That's a load of horse manure.

Oswald's six days in Mexico City were looked into extensively by the Warren Commission.

For example, in Chapter 6, "Investigation of Possible Conspiracy", they dealt with Oswald's time in Mexico City here: https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/chapter-6.html#contacts

They also dealt with his six days in Mexico City in a separate portion of appendix 13 in the Warren Report. https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/appendix-13.html#mexico

It appears they are going to cover the same ground covered 53 years ago by the Warren Commission but reach a different conclusion. Thus far, I've seen no revelations, and their preview suggests they uncovered some startling new information in that Oswald met with KGB agent Kostikov in Mexico City, but that was known to, and mentioned by the Warren Commission as well.

"Information produced for the Commission by the CIA is to the effect that the person referred to in the letter as "comrade Kostin" was probably Valeriy Vladimirovich Kostikov, a member of the consular staff of the Soviet Union in Mexico City. He is also one of the KGB officers stationed at the Embassy. It is standard Soviet procedure for KGB officers stationed in embassies and in consulates to carry on the normal duties of such a position in addition to the undercover activities."

Note as well that while the program is trying to make the case that the CIA concealed all this from the Warren Commission, the Commission itself credits the information above as coming from the CIA.

==========

Double Arrgh!

To make things appear more sinister, and to make it appear they are uncovering new information, 20 minutes into the episode they show page 733 of the Warren Report, but it is heavily redacted.

They did the redacting, for effect only. It was not published that way, and was never redacted.

Here's the way the page was published in 1964 by the Government Printing Office:
http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wr/html/WCReport_0379a.htm

If you've taped the episode, or can view it on demand, compare the above page to the image on the screen 20 minutes into the episode.

It's a crock.

Hank

 

[No Other]

We've both been to Dealey Plaza, there's no place for a second gunman. Hell, people even saw Oswald setting up in his window to take the shot.

There were 11 witnesses that noticed something/someone on the 6th floor yet not one of them got the clothing correct. As for LHO "setting up in his window to take the shot." Please provide where the person or persons identified LHO as the man setting up at the window.

You'd think if there was another gunman he would have been seen too.

Carolyn Walther, a witness, was interviewed by the FBI on December 4, 1963. The FBI provided the following statement:

"Shortly after the ambulance left, she looked back toward the TSBD Building and saw a man standing on either the fourth or fifth floor in the southeast corner window. … This man had the window open and was standing up leaning out the window with both his hands extended outside the window ledge. In his hands, this man was holding a rifle with the barrel pointed downward, and the man was looking south on Houston Street. The man was wearing a white shirt and had blond or light brown hair. … In the same window, to the left of this man, she could see a portion of another man standing by the side of this man with a rifle. This other man was standing erect, and his head was above the opened portion of the window. As the window was very dirty, she could not see the head of this second man. She is positive this window was not as high as the sixth floor. This second man was apparently wearing a brown suit coat, and the only thing she could see was the right side of the man, from about the waist to the shoulders."

This can be found at Warren Commission Hearings, vol.24, p.522 Commission Exhibit 2086

The Warren Commission did not call her as a witness but her observation challenged the Lone Gunman theory.

 

[traxy]

There were 11 witnesses that noticed something/someone on the 6th floor yet not one of them got the clothing correct. As for LHO "setting up in his window to take the shot." Please provide where the person or persons identified LHO as the man setting up at the window.



Carolyn Walther, a witness, was interviewed by the FBI on December 4, 1963. The FBI provided the following statement:

"Shortly after the ambulance left, she looked back toward the TSBD Building and saw a man standing on either the fourth or fifth floor in the southeast corner window. … This man had the window open and was standing up leaning out the window with both his hands extended outside the window ledge. In his hands, this man was holding a rifle with the barrel pointed downward, and the man was looking south on Houston Street. The man was wearing a white shirt and had blond or light brown hair. … In the same window, to the left of this man, she could see a portion of another man standing by the side of this man with a rifle. This other man was standing erect, and his head was above the opened portion of the window. As the window was very dirty, she could not see the head of this second man. She is positive this window was not as high as the sixth floor. This second man was apparently wearing a brown suit coat, and the only thing she could see was the right side of the man, from about the waist to the shoulders."

This can be found at Warren Commission Hearings, vol.24, p.522 Commission Exhibit 2086

The Warren Commission did not call her as a witness but her observation challenged the Lone Gunman theory.

Carolyn Walther likely saw a portion of a tall stack of boxes Oswald had positioned around the snipers nest window and mistook it for a person.

 

[No Other]

Nine minutes into the episode airing tonight, one man makes the claim:
"Oswald's six days in this city [Mexico City] are absolutely crucial. They were never looked into by the Warren Commission, because they didn't want to know."

That's a load of horse manure.

Oswald's six days in Mexico City were looked into extensively by the Warren Commission.

For example, in Chapter 6, "Investigation of Possible Conspiracy", they dealt with Oswald's time in Mexico City here: https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/chapter-6.html#contacts

They also dealt with his six days in Mexico City in a separate portion of appendix 13 in the Warren Report. https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/appendix-13.html#mexico

The WC did cover the "Mexico Trip" extensively but not conclusively. Here is an example... The FBI (the investigative body for the WC) provided a list of all Mexican tourist cards issued from New Orleans, the same day LHO's was issued, the name right before LHO was eliminated and the comment "No record of FM 824084 found" was provided as a note. In 1975 the document was declassified and the name revealed was George Gaudet a C.I.A. agent for 20 years responsible for a Latin American newsletter. If the name was left alone and not taken off, coincidence could be used but instead a lie was created and further suspicion is piled on to other piles of suspicious coincidences. By the way, Gaudet knew LHO and his dealings in NOLA, could this be the reason why his name was not provided by the FBI? Read Anthony Summers, Not in Your Lifetime (New York: Marlowe & Co., 1998), pp. 254-256

 

[No Other]

Carolyn Walther likely saw a portion of a tall stack of boxes Oswald had positioned around the snipers nest window and mistook it for a person.

I believe you just provided 2 conjectures, I am not saying you are incorrect but why couldn't Carolyn Walther be correct and where is the evidence for saying "Oswald had positioned ..."?

 

[HSienzant]

There were 11 witnesses that noticed something/someone on the 6th floor yet not one of them got the clothing correct.

How do you know what the *correct clothing* was, and how did you determine that? A lot of them got the floor wrong too, but we both know how that happened. The first floor had a façade and counting up, many people started counting with the first floor of windows visible to people on the street, which was the second floor.

As for LHO "setting up in his window to take the shot." Please provide where the person or persons identified LHO as the man setting up at the window.

Numerous people gave a description fitting Oswald. And as he was the only person to leave a rifle behind on the sixth floor, he appears to be the most likely candidate for the person in the window - unless you can name some other more likely candidates.

Robert Edwards:
Today, November 22nd, 1963, I was with Ronald Fischer, and we were on the corner at Elm and Houston, and I happened to look up there at the building, the Texas School Book Depository Building, and I saw a man at the window on the fifth floor, the window was wide open all the way; there was a stack of boxes around him, I could see. Bob remarked that he must be hiding from somebody. I noticed that he had on a sport shirt, it was light colored, it was yellow or white, something to that effect, and his hair was rather short; I thought he might be something around twenty-six, as near as I could tell.

Edwards testimony filled out the description:
Mr. BELIN - Could you describe this individual at all? Was he a white man or a Negro?
Mr. EDWARDS - White man.
Mr. BELIN - Tall or short, if you know?
Mr. EDWARDS - I couldn't say.
Mr. BELIN - Did he have anything in his hand at all that you could see?
Mr. EDWARDS - No.
Mr. BELIN - Could you see his hands?
Mr. EDWARDS - I don't remember.
Mr. BELIN - What kind of clothes did he have on?
Mr. EDWARDS - Light colored shirt, short sleeve and open neck.
Mr. BELIN - How much of him could you see? Shoulder up, waist up, knees up, or what?
Mr. EDWARDS - From the waist on. From the abdomen or stomach up what,
Mr. BELIN - Was the man fat, thin, or average in size?
Mr. EDWARDS - Oh, about average. Possibly thin.
Mr. BELIN - Could you tell whether he was light skinned or medium skin or if you couldtell?
Mr. EDWARDS - No.
Mr. BELIN - Was the sun shining in or not, if you know?
Mr. EDWARDS - Don't know.
Mr. BELIN - Was the sun out that day?
Mr. EDWARDS - Yes.
Mr. BELIN - What color hair did the man have?
Mr. EDWARDS - Light brown.
Mr. BELIN - Light brown hair?
Mr. EDWARDS - That is what I would say; yes, sir.
...


Ron Fischer:
Today, November 22nd, 1963, I was with Robert E. (Bob) Edwards, we were standing on the corner of Elm and Houston, on the southwest corner; about thirty seconds before the motorcade came by, Bob turned to me and said that there was a man on the fifth floor of the Texas School Book Depository Building, at the window there, and I looked up and saw the man. I looked up at the window and I noticed that he seemed to be laying down there or in a funny position anyway, because all I could see was his head. I noticed that he was light-headed and that he had on an open-neck shirt, and that was before the motorcade rounded the corner. I noticed his complexion seemed to be clear, and that he was in this twenty's [sic], appeared to be in his twenty's [sic].

Ronald Fischer's testimony:
Mr. BELIN - Do you remember anything about the man? Could you describe his appearance at all? First of all, how much of him could you see?
Mr. FISCHER - I could see from about the middle of his chest past the top of his head.
Mr. BELIN - All right.
Mr. FISCHER - He was in the---as you're looking toward that window, he was in the lower right portion of the window. He seemed to be sitting a little forward.
And he had--he had on an open-neck shirt, but it-uh--could have been a sport shirt or a T-shirt. It was light in color; probably white, I couldn't tell whether it had long sleeves or whether it was a short-sleeved shirt, but it was open-neck and light in color.
Uh---he had a slender face and neck---uh---and he had a light complexion ----he was a white man. And he looked to be 22 or 24 years old.
Mr. BELIN - Do you remember anything about the color of his hair?
Mr. FISCHER - His hair seemed to be---uh---neither light nor dark; possibly a light---well, possibly a---well, it was a brown was what it was; but as to whether it was light or dark, I can't say.
Mr. BELIN - Did he have a thick head of hair or did he have a receding hair-line---or couldn't you tell?
Mr. FISCHER - I couldn't tell. He couldn't have had very long hair, because his hair didn't seem to take up much space---of what I could see of his head. His hair must have been short and not long. ...
Mr. BELIN - Now, what about being light-headed?
Mr. FISCHER - By "light-headed," I meant that he didn't have black hair. He didn't have dark--he didn't have well, when I say "dark," I mean black. He didn't have black hair. He didn't have blonde hair. When I said, "light-headed," I didn't mean blonde or I would have said that, but--uh.
Mr. BELIN - What color of hair did you mean? Did you say "light-headed"?
Mr. FISCHER - I believe I did say "light-headed"--because I didn't--like I say--I didn't want it to appear that he was dark.
Mr. BELIN - By "dark," what color do you mean?
Mr. FISCHER - Black.
Mr. BELIN - Well, once again, I'll ask you, to the best of your recollection, what color hair did he have?
Mr. FISCHER - Uh--like I say, it's too hard for me to---uh--to tell one way or the other. At the distance I was, uh--it's just- -it's just too hard for me to--I'm not going to say it because I don't know for sure, just exactly what shade of hair he did have. It wasn't blonde and it wasn't black. Somewhere in between. And it was a shade of brown that as to whether it was a dark brown, a light brown, a medium brown, or whatever you call it--I don't know.

Arnold Rowland saw a man in the window about 15 minutes before the assassination. From his 11/22/63 statement:
This man appeared to be a white man and appeared to have a light colored shirt on, open at the neck. He appeared to be of slender build and appeared to have dark hair.

Rowland's testimony:
Mr. SPECTER - Describe, as best you can, the appearance of the individual whom you saw?
Mr. ROWLAND - He was rather slender in proportion to his size. I couldn't tell for sure whether he was tall and maybe, you know heavy, say 200 pounds, but tall whether he would be and slender or whether he was medium and slender, but in proportion to his size his build was slender.
Mr. SPECTER - Could you give us an estimate on his height?
Mr. ROWLAND - No; I couldn't. That is why I said I can't state what height he would be. He was just slender in build in proportion with his width. This is something I find myself doing all the time, comparing things in perspective.
Mr. SPECTER - Was he a white man or a Negro or what?
Mr. ROWLAND - Seemed, well, I can't state definitely from my position because it was more or less not fully light or bright in the room. He appeared to be fair complexioned, not fair, but light complexioned, but dark hair.
Mr. SPECTER - What race was he then?
Mr. ROWLAND - I would say either a light Latin or a Caucasian.
Mr. SPECTER - And were you able to observe any characteristics of his hair?
Mr. ROWLAND - No; except that it was dark, probably black.

A slender young (mid-twenties) white male with short brown hair is the general description. Sound like anyone you know who happened to leave a rifle behind in the Depository?

Hank

 

[HSienzant]

You'd think if there was another gunman he would have been seen too.

Carolyn Walther, a witness, was interviewed by the FBI on December 4, 1963. The FBI provided the following statement:

"Shortly after the ambulance left, she looked back toward the TSBD Building and saw a man standing on either the fourth or fifth floor in the southeast corner window. … This man had the window open and was standing up leaning out the window with both his hands extended outside the window ledge. In his hands, this man was holding a rifle with the barrel pointed downward, and the man was looking south on Houston Street. The man was wearing a white shirt and had blond or light brown hair. … In the same window, to the left of this man, she could see a portion of another man standing by the side of this man with a rifle. This other man was standing erect, and his head was above the opened portion of the window. As the window was very dirty, she could not see the head of this second man. She is positive this window was not as high as the sixth floor. This second man was apparently wearing a brown suit coat, and the only thing she could see was the right side of the man, from about the waist to the shoulders."

This can be found at Warren Commission Hearings, vol.24, p.522 Commission Exhibit 2086

The Warren Commission did not call her as a witness but her observation challenged the Lone Gunman theory.

Are we supposed to not notice you didn't respond to the point?

The person Carolyn Walther said she saw was not a second gunman, unless you think two people had room to shoot from the sniper's nest, both with their own weapons, or they shared the one weapon between them.

Where's the eyewitness testimony of a second gunman?

Walther's statement is quite clear about what she saw. She said she saw only a portion of a man behind the man with the weapon, and this second man was wearing a brown jacket, and she saw no head, no arms, and she described no movement by this second man. Now, no head, no arms, and no movement sounds a lot like boxes, to me. Your mileage may differ.

Now, since numerous people said they saw brown boxes behind the shooter or the man in the window, and when the police arrived at the sixth floor to secure the scene, they found brown boxes and no one wearing a brown jacket, the reasonable conclusion is Walthers saw some boxes and misinterpreted those boxes (which like Walthers' second man, had no head, no arms, and made no independent movement) as a man wearing a brown jacket that she could only see from the shoulders to the waist.

However, if you wish to cling to her eyewitness report, and insist she saw a second man there is no corroborative evidence for, I cannot stop you.

Regardless, however, it still doesn't address the argument made, that of a second gunman being seen.

Got any evidence of one?

Hank

 

[HSienzant]

I believe you just provided 2 conjectures, I am not saying you are incorrect but why couldn't Carolyn Walther be correct and where is the evidence for saying "Oswald had positioned ..."?

Asking why couldn't Walthers be correct is the logical fallacy of shifting the burden of proof. You want to say she is correct, you need to provide the proof of that. No one needs prove your assertions incorrect.

As for the boxes being positioned, the last time I looked, those boxes were not capable of independent movement, so somebody moved them. Many of the boxes were moved to that area as Oswald's co-workers laid down a new plywood floor on the sixth floor. They moved boxes out of the area to be covered, put down the plywood flooring, and then moved the boxes back. It just so happened that man of the boxes were moved toward the southeast side as part of that re-flooring, so Oswald didn't need to move many boxes at all. Perhaps all he moved was the two small Rolling Readers that were stacked on the window sill as an apparent gun rest.

We'll never know exactly how many boxes Oswald moved, but since it was his rifle found on the sixth floor, and his weapon that inflicted the head wound on JFK (witness the two fragments found in the limo traceable to his weapon to the exclusion of all other weapons), we can presume Oswald was the one moving the boxes to build the sniper's nest.

Hank

 

[traxy]

I believe you just provided 2 conjectures, I am not saying you are incorrect but why couldn't Carolyn Walther be correct and where is the evidence for saying "Oswald had positioned ..."?

Hank pretty much covered it. The "man" Walthers said she saw had no visible head, no arms, did not move and was brown in color. There were man size stacks of boxes in front of the snipers nest area.

 

[HSienzant]

The WC did cover the "Mexico Trip" extensively but not conclusively. Here is an example... The FBI (the investigative body for the WC) provided a list of all Mexican tourist cards issued from New Orleans, the same day LHO's was issued, the name right before LHO was eliminated and the comment "No record of FM 824084 found" was provided as a note. In 1975 the document was declassified and the name revealed was George Gaudet a C.I.A. agent for 20 years responsible for a Latin American newsletter. If the name was left alone and not taken off, coincidence could be used but instead a lie was created and further suspicion is piled on to other piles of suspicious coincidences. By the way, Gaudet knew LHO and his dealings in NOLA, could this be the reason why his name was not provided by the FBI? Read Anthony Summers, Not in Your Lifetime (New York: Marlowe & Co., 1998), pp. 254-256

Your point is off the subject of the History Channel special, which special seems designed to suck people into believing Oswald had help from the Russians at this point in time by ignoring evidence and making it appear documents that weren't redacted were redacted.

Regarding Gaudet, he wasn't a "CIA AGENT" like you suggest but like thousand of other international travelers during the Cold War period, simply volunteered to furnish information to Domestic Contact Division of the CIA... they would debrief travelers to learn what they could. His most active period was 1948 - 1955, and from 1955 - 1961 he was an infrequent contributor. He had no contact with the CIA after 1961.

He didn't know Oswald, but said he saw him at the Trade Mart distributing literature, and didn't even travel to Mexico at the same time as Oswald. He left a week earlier, and only had a stop-over in Mexico because his destination wasn't Mexico but Central America.

Gaudet's name wasn't left off the FBI report that became Warren Commission Document 75 (CD75) prepared by FBI Agent DeBrueys on 12/2/63. You can see his name for yourself here: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10477#relPageId=577&tab=page

I'm not sure where you're getting your information, but much of it appears erroneous.

The HSCA investigated all this and you can find their conclusions here:
http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/report/html/HSCA_Report_0124b.htm

Hank

 

[Axxman300]

Arrgh... they are making claims to build up the mystery, but the claims aren't true.

Nine minutes into the episode airing tonight, one man makes the claim:
"Oswald's six days in this city [Mexico City] are absolutely crucial. They were never looked into by the Warren Commission, because they didn't want to know."

That's a load of horse manure.

....

Right off the bat Baer says "There's no way Oswald could have acted alone without support"

What kind of support did he need?

He already had the rifle, and it was a $13 job with a cheap Japanese scope, not some high-end Remington with a Zeis scope. The motorcade just happened to roll past his place of employment, so it wasn't like he needed fake credentials to access a building...and he didn't have a getaway car.

What kind of support did he think Oswald had?

Then the Mexico City thing was mostly a circus. Like you already said, the Warren Commission covered it as best they could. Baer assumes there was a secondary meeting based on the postcards Oswald brought back.

The post cards are interesting, Baer suggests they were given to Oswald by the Soviets as coded directions for a clandestine meeting for further discussion. It is possible that this part is true based on the simple fact that Oswald was not the sentimental type who would have wasted money on postcards, but would have kept postcards from the KGB for the same reason most of us would - they were from the KGB. But in his mind it made him an important person.

The problem is that the Soviets already knew Oswald from his defection, and could have had his background checked with a phone call back to Moscow - which certainly happened. So if there was a second meeting it happened because the KGB were bored, or they thought LHO was worth a second look.

I'm going with bored.

Anyway, it's nice to have something else to talk about instead of bad pathology and forensics.

 

[Axxman300]

There were 11 witnesses that noticed something/someone on the 6th floor yet not one of them got the clothing correct. As for LHO "setting up in his window to take the shot." Please provide where the person or persons identified LHO as the man setting up at the window.

The man with Oswald's rifle on the floor Oswald worked on, that floor?

Carolyn Walther, a witness, was interviewed by the FBI on December 4, 1963. The FBI provided the following statement:

blah,blah,blah

The Warren Commission did not call her as a witness but her observation challenged the Lone Gunman theory.

And yet her statement is IN the Warren Commission.

Here's the thing, there were two TSBD employees in the window below Oswald, and another one filmed the motorcade from a window below them, so you had a bunch of people in windows, but only one had a rifle pointed out.

And you said at least 11 people saw it. 11<1, you go with the weight of the evidence.

 

[OKBob]

Right off the bat Baer says "There's no way Oswald could have acted alone without support"

I noticed, too, how heavy-handed the question-begging was from the start, both by Baer and the voice-over. They took an inch of evidence and turned it into a hundred miles of speculation. And this will evidently be a multi-episode investigation.

There's a Time article available on the Internet today in which a reporter named Olivia B. Waxman interviews Baer. Baer repeats some of what he says in the program. Check out the rhetoric he uses in the interview: such-and-such "could have" happened (speculation); such-and-such "didn't make sense to me" (argument from incredulity); "my assumption is" and "I think" (more speculation). In the show itself, he even has Oswald meeting with conspiring agents in a bullfight stadium because (a) it's known that Oswald went to a bullfight while in Mexico, and (b) it's a venue where, according to Baer, Oswald would have been difficult to track and observe.

The Time reporter happily relates all this without ever questioning Baer on his speculations or checking what the WC Report said about Oswald in Mexico--no independent reporting at all. Surely this superficial treatment by mainstream media is one reason why JFK CT remains so popular with the public. Vince Bugliosi used to blame it largely on the barrage of CT itself. But the mainstream outlets--which CT folks often accuse of pushing a LN agenda--actually help fuel CT speculation by their passivity and their preference for controversy to substance.

 

[BStrong]

Did I say that I thought a subsonic bullet was tumbling or unstable when it hit Connally? No. That's the official version, but with a high-velocity tumbling bullet.

Connally's back wound was no more oval than Kennedy's small head wound.

I've already explained the implications of the "pin-the-entry-on-the-head game". At the very least, it shows how something that may very well be a hoax has become a major gatekeeper of the historical, legal JFK forensic evidence.

Man, you better hope nobody coming onto ISF and is interested in this subject enough to read through these threads, because you were bleating about sabot subsonic bullets within the last few weeks as being the answer as to why the documented evidence can only account for three rounds fired. You've also put forward speculation that the "X" number of (how many we'll never know if we wait for you to answer) shooters used "volley fire" to make the hit and a whole lot more wild ass speculations. I only know one guy irl that believes everything about every conspiracy. but he has the good sense not to put it into writing

You may have cut and pasted something somewhere, but not in this thread.

If you have addressed this question I'd be interested in you posting a link to that post.

For the sake of the masses, I've been asking MJ for an explanation of what the headwound location means in the larger context of the rifle (that was documented as being LHO's) being discovered in the building where LHO worked, where the shots were fired from along with a dead DPD officer and LHO being arrested with that murder weapon in hand.

If this is just more of MJ's (opps, I mean Sylvia Meagher's ) jive about what the "Worlds Best Snipers" and "Olympic Snipers" thought about LHO's skills, it'll be par for the course, but slack on the facts is something that doesn't apply to a poster that hasn't earned it. I believe I've seen posts from every active poster (including myself) in this thread when we screw up something about this or that fact, but you and more than a few other CTists over the years in this thread identified apples as oranges and rather than admit a mistake, went right down with the ship they were floating their nonsense on.

You do a particularly fine job of that anytime you post just about anything wrt firearms and everything else involved, including terminal ballistics.

Admitting to errors or omissions isn't a noted characteristic of CTist's.

Shall we start an informal pool on this question being answered with a coherent fashion that isn't cut and pasted from some one else?

Maybe that's been the causation of this problem all along with CTist's - as far as it is known, no other CTist on the assassination have ever come clean on their mistakes or the nonsense they have promoted, so since there isn't anything to cut and paste, the lot of 'em are at a loss for words.

 

[Axxman300]

I noticed, too, how heavy-handed the question-begging was from the start, both by Baer and the voice-over. They took an inch of evidence and turned it into a hundred miles of speculation. And this will evidently be a multi-episode investigation.

There's a Time article available on the Internet today in which a reporter named Olivia B. Waxman interviews Baer. Baer repeats some of what he says in the program. Check out the rhetoric he uses in the interview: such-and-such "could have" happened (speculation); such-and-such "didn't make sense to me" (argument from incredulity); "my assumption is" and "I think" (more speculation). In the show itself, he even has Oswald meeting with conspiring agents in a bullfight stadium because (a) it's known that Oswald went to a bullfight while in Mexico, and (b) it's a venue where, according to Baer, Oswald would have been difficult to track and observe.

The Time reporter happily relates all this without ever questioning Baer on his speculations or checking what the WC Report said about Oswald in Mexico--no independent reporting at all. Surely this superficial treatment by mainstream media is one reason why JFK CT remains so popular with the public. Vince Bugliosi used to blame it largely on the barrage of CT itself. But the mainstream outlets--which CT folks often accuse of pushing a LN agenda--actually help fuel CT speculation by their passivity and their preference for controversy to substance.

Baer's an interesting guy.

He left the CIA with an ax to grind which resulted in a pair of good books about his time with the Agency. The problem is he got sucked into the orbit of Hollywood consulting on films like "Syriana", and becoming a popular talking head on documentaries about the CIA, plus cable news as well.

I interpret this show as his way exploring his pet theory while milking the JFK CT at the same time. My main issue is that they could have covered everything they showed us in the first hour in about 10 minutes.

My other issue is that during the entire show Oswald's visit to the Cuban Embassy was not mentioned. Everyone knows he went, but my guess is that this will be played as some big "revelation", and then it's back to Mexico City. Next week they go to Russia to meet with guys who have already shown up on other documentaries, but that won't be mentioned. Plus, Russians get paid or they don't show up, so I don't know how productive this visit will be as far as new information.

My last though on the show is how Baer kept saying that Mexico in the 1960s was a hotbed of espionage...guess what? It still is, everyone has an operation in Mexico City: Russia, Cuba, Honduras, Colombia, Brazil, the UK, Germany, France, Italy, and others. The US has a number of operatives in the city from the CIA, NSA, and DEA. If spying was ended in Mexico City there'd be an economic recession.

 

[HSienzant]

Plus, Russians get paid or they don't show up, so I don't know how productive this visit will be as far as new information.

I'm sure the Russians could come up with new revelations if the pay is right. You know the adage, you get what you pay for. Whether those new revelations are true is another story entirely, one you'd also have to pay for.

Hank

 

[HSienzant]

Your point is off the subject of the History Channel special, which special seems designed to suck people into believing Oswald had help from the Russians at this point in time by ignoring evidence and making it appear documents that weren't redacted were redacted.

Regarding Gaudet, he wasn't a "CIA AGENT" like you suggest but like thousand of other international travelers during the Cold War period, simply volunteered to furnish information to Domestic Contact Division of the CIA... they would debrief travelers to learn what they could. His most active period was 1948 - 1955, and from 1955 - 1961 he was an infrequent contributor. He had no contact with the CIA after 1961.

He didn't know Oswald, but said he saw him at the Trade Mart distributing literature, and didn't even travel to Mexico at the same time as Oswald. He left a week earlier, and only had a stop-over in Mexico because his destination wasn't Mexico but Central America.

Gaudet's name wasn't left off the FBI report that became Warren Commission Document 75 (CD75) prepared by FBI Agent DeBrueys on 12/2/63. You can see his name for yourself here: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10477#relPageId=577&tab=page

I'm not sure where you're getting your information, but much of it appears erroneous.

The HSCA investigated all this and you can find their conclusions here:
http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/report/html/HSCA_Report_0124b.htm

Hank

In researching this, I found an error by Bugliosi. It's a minor error, but an error nonetheless. He wrote, in his endnotes on Gaudet, [endnotes disk, p.386] that "The fact of his [Gaudet] being issued a fifteen-day tourist card in New Orleans on September 17, 1963, was preserved for posterity in Warren Commission document number 75, pages 573, 588, and 652, declassified by the FBI in 1975. And the list of people receiving tourist cards in this document, for some reason, omitted Oswald’s name, though Oswald having gotten a Mexican tourist card that day is in the Warren Report (WR, p. 730)..."

Actually, Oswald's name is not omitted, it's just listed separately.

You will note on this page that Oswald's name is omitted from the numbered listing of those issued visas on 9/17/63 (Oswald obtained visa 24085): https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10477#relPageId=577&tab=page and his name and info should appear after Gaudet's.

But the information on Oswald's tourist visa 24085 appears at the top of this page: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10477#relPageId=575&tab=page

Bugliosi missed that. This implies he was lying and thus part of the cover-up! I can't explain how or why, but we all know every error implies conspiracy.

Hank

 

[OKBob]

Hank's clever burlesque of CT rhetoric here--nicely done--glances at the common use of the word "lying" to characterize the views, perceived inaccuracies, or sometimes even simple mistakes of opponents in arguments. That glib charge is not confined to CTers, of course. It's common now in our culture, and plays a particularly corrosive role in contemporary politics.

It's very common in JFK CT rhetoric (less common, though not absent, in LN rhetoric, I think). A glance at the current food-fights at alt-assassination-jfk, where Robert Harris (known to participants here) features centrally just now, shows that accusations of "lying" are a dominant note and go-to strategy for rebuttal. In slinging these charges, CTers suggest that LNers (I dislike these terms, but they serve as shorthand) are somehow personally invested in the WCR--not just that LNers have been persuaded by the evidence compiled by the WCR and other official investigations.

This rhetorical tic tries to cast one's opponent, not as a polemicist on equal footing with oneself, but rather as a part of the alleged conspiracy itself (the "paid shill" ad hominem fallacy). Related to this use of "lying" is the tactic of claiming that one's opponent is simply offering "excuses" for the side one disagrees with. These words personalize the debate, cast an ad hominem pall over the entire discussion, and effectively negate any possibility of productive give-and-take. It is a demonizing use of language that has the ultimate effect of suggesting that there are no objective facts or analytical standards out there, just morally correct (or morally incorrect) subjective commitments.

 

[pgwenthold]

Wow, alt.assassination.jfk is still runnning? It's been a long time since I've looked into newsgroups...

 

[No Other]

The man with Oswald's rifle on the floor Oswald worked on, that floor?

I do not understand your question.

And yet her statement is IN the Warren Commission.

Her statement to the FBI is in the WC Report, she was not called to testify.

Here's the thing, there were two TSBD employees in the window below Oswald, and another one filmed the motorcade from a window below them, so you had a bunch of people in windows, but only one had a rifle pointed out.

And you said at least 11 people saw it. 11<1, you go with the weight of the evidence.[/QUOTE]What I said or at least meant to imply is that 11 people said they saw something on the 6th floor. Not one of them got the clothing correct, in summary, you have 11 people describing the clothes that were not worn by LHO. What evidence?