When evaluating evidence, it is important to ask not only "What is this evidence of?" but also "Why is it evidence of that?" With this in mind, let's take a look at the Secret Service drivers who manifesto has discussed.
The death of Thomas Shipman is only evidence of a conspiracy to murder JFK if Shipman himself was murdered. If it was just a heart attack, then his death had nothing to do with a conspiracy. Here is what we know: he died at Camp David and the coroner claimed that he died of a heart attack (according to his obituary). This means, if his death points to conspiracy, the conspirators must have had a method of poisoning a member of the president's Secret Service detail at Camp David, a method that appeared to be a heart attack. You must also believe they used this method successfully and got away with it.
This raises an important question: why would a conspiracy with that kind of access and ability not use the same method to kill the president? Why resort to a shooting in broad daylight in front of hundreds of witnesses? You might respond that a thorough autopsy, which the president would surely have gotten, would reveal the truth. Yet you are already raising suspicion about the actual autopsy: specifically, claiming the doctors were ordered not to perform certain procedures (e.g. probing the wounds). If JFK had been poisoned, they would only have needed to prevent whichever tests would reveal the specific poison they used.
Further, Shipman's death is only evidence of a conspiracy to kill JFK if the conspirators needed him out of the way for some reason. You have proposed they wanted Greer in the driver's seat during the assassination, which is probably the most likely reason a conspiracy would murder Shipman (another possibility is Shipman was onto them). This can only mean they did not trust their snipers to hit JFK while he was moving. They wanted someone who would slow the limo to a stop and sit there until JFK was dead. If the conspiracy had good enough snipers, it would not matter who drove the limo, which needed to slow down to make the turn onto Elm street anyway. If the conspirators were willing to murder a Secret Service agent at Camp David just to get control of JFK's driver, they had no faith that their snipers could do the job.
But now think about what you're claiming Greer agreed to: he agreed to drive an open-topped limo that multiple snipers were going to shoot at. Multiple snipers that the conspirators did not trust to be accurate. He risked not only getting caught, but getting shot by the conspiracy, just for the chance to kill JFK.
Now the question of why they resorted to a shooting becomes much more serious. For your theory to work, Greer explicitly agreed to take part in killing JFK. So a man who was guarding JFK had agreed to actively help kill him. The conspiracy now had all kinds of access to the president, but the best they could come up with was a shooting in broad daylight from public places they did not control in front of hundreds of witnesses. A shooting from multiple directions, though for some reason they needed to claim shots came from only one direction. This is absurd. There is no coherent theory here.
But maybe the conspirators were completely insane. Even though it would have been thousands of times riskier than necessary, did it happen anyway? Are Greer's actions consistent with being in on the assassination? If he was in on it, the plan must have been that he would slow down so the snipers would have a good shot. If he had slowed down before the first shot, that might have been suspicious because we would have to wonder why he slowed down.
In reality, he only slowed down after the shooting started. Alvarez in his study of the Zapruder film concluded "The heavy car decelerated suddenly for about 0.5 sec (10 frames), centered at about frame 299, reducing its speed from about 12 mph to about 8 mph." (p. 825) Kennedy was first hit at frame 223, so this is well after the shooting started. We can also consider this list of testimony compiled by a conspiracy theorist who suspects Greer. The following witnesses explicitly claim he slowed down only after the first shot was fired: 5, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 17, 18, 20, 25, 27, 31, 47, 50, 51, 52, 58. None of the witnesses explicitly say he slowed before the first shot; the rest either just say Greer slowed/stopped at some unspecified time or say that he accelerated after the third shot, without saying he slowed down.
Here is what makes more sense: Greer noticed something was happening, but he was not sure what. He looked behind him, slowing down because now he was driving without looking where he was going. He looked back for approximately two seconds before seeing the president shot in the head. Then he sped away immediately because now he knew an assassination attempt was in progress (or because now Kellerman was shouting at him to do so).
You claim Greer's only job was to drive away at the first sign of danger. Does this mean he was required to slam on the gas every time he noticed something odd, without trying to figure out what was happening first? Every bang, every scream, every sudden move, he had to floor it and speed away? Maybe he should have, but it is not surprising he didn't. Greer spent a couple seconds looking around trying to figure out what was happening before speeding away. This is not suspicious.
Given that any conspiracy theory involving Greer is incoherent, combined with the fact that his actions fit better with an innocent explanation, we can safely dismiss the possibility he was involved.
The death of Thomas Shipman is only evidence of a conspiracy to murder JFK if Shipman himself was murdered. If it was just a heart attack, then his death had nothing to do with a conspiracy. Here is what we know: he died at Camp David and the coroner claimed that he died of a heart attack (according to his obituary). This means, if his death points to conspiracy, the conspirators must have had a method of poisoning a member of the president's Secret Service detail at Camp David, a method that appeared to be a heart attack. You must also believe they used this method successfully and got away with it.
This raises an important question: why would a conspiracy with that kind of access and ability not use the same method to kill the president? Why resort to a shooting in broad daylight in front of hundreds of witnesses? You might respond that a thorough autopsy, which the president would surely have gotten, would reveal the truth. Yet you are already raising suspicion about the actual autopsy: specifically, claiming the doctors were ordered not to perform certain procedures (e.g. probing the wounds). If JFK had been poisoned, they would only have needed to prevent whichever tests would reveal the specific poison they used.
Further, Shipman's death is only evidence of a conspiracy to kill JFK if the conspirators needed him out of the way for some reason. You have proposed they wanted Greer in the driver's seat during the assassination, which is probably the most likely reason a conspiracy would murder Shipman (another possibility is Shipman was onto them). This can only mean they did not trust their snipers to hit JFK while he was moving. They wanted someone who would slow the limo to a stop and sit there until JFK was dead. If the conspiracy had good enough snipers, it would not matter who drove the limo, which needed to slow down to make the turn onto Elm street anyway. If the conspirators were willing to murder a Secret Service agent at Camp David just to get control of JFK's driver, they had no faith that their snipers could do the job.
But now think about what you're claiming Greer agreed to: he agreed to drive an open-topped limo that multiple snipers were going to shoot at. Multiple snipers that the conspirators did not trust to be accurate. He risked not only getting caught, but getting shot by the conspiracy, just for the chance to kill JFK.
Now the question of why they resorted to a shooting becomes much more serious. For your theory to work, Greer explicitly agreed to take part in killing JFK. So a man who was guarding JFK had agreed to actively help kill him. The conspiracy now had all kinds of access to the president, but the best they could come up with was a shooting in broad daylight from public places they did not control in front of hundreds of witnesses. A shooting from multiple directions, though for some reason they needed to claim shots came from only one direction. This is absurd. There is no coherent theory here.
But maybe the conspirators were completely insane. Even though it would have been thousands of times riskier than necessary, did it happen anyway? Are Greer's actions consistent with being in on the assassination? If he was in on it, the plan must have been that he would slow down so the snipers would have a good shot. If he had slowed down before the first shot, that might have been suspicious because we would have to wonder why he slowed down.
In reality, he only slowed down after the shooting started. Alvarez in his study of the Zapruder film concluded "The heavy car decelerated suddenly for about 0.5 sec (10 frames), centered at about frame 299, reducing its speed from about 12 mph to about 8 mph." (p. 825) Kennedy was first hit at frame 223, so this is well after the shooting started. We can also consider this list of testimony compiled by a conspiracy theorist who suspects Greer. The following witnesses explicitly claim he slowed down only after the first shot was fired: 5, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 17, 18, 20, 25, 27, 31, 47, 50, 51, 52, 58. None of the witnesses explicitly say he slowed before the first shot; the rest either just say Greer slowed/stopped at some unspecified time or say that he accelerated after the third shot, without saying he slowed down.
Here is what makes more sense: Greer noticed something was happening, but he was not sure what. He looked behind him, slowing down because now he was driving without looking where he was going. He looked back for approximately two seconds before seeing the president shot in the head. Then he sped away immediately because now he knew an assassination attempt was in progress (or because now Kellerman was shouting at him to do so).
You claim Greer's only job was to drive away at the first sign of danger. Does this mean he was required to slam on the gas every time he noticed something odd, without trying to figure out what was happening first? Every bang, every scream, every sudden move, he had to floor it and speed away? Maybe he should have, but it is not surprising he didn't. Greer spent a couple seconds looking around trying to figure out what was happening before speeding away. This is not suspicious.
Given that any conspiracy theory involving Greer is incoherent, combined with the fact that his actions fit better with an innocent explanation, we can safely dismiss the possibility he was involved.
