Oswald has been shot

December 18, 2007 3:55 PM

An archiveof raw footage and news reports concerning the assassination of JFK and the guy most people think that did it, Oswald.
posted by zzazazz (29 comments total)

This is a great resource. However, this station's account of Oswald's shooting is far from the most compelling. Reporters such as Ike Pappas were much closer and saw immediately not only what had happened, but recognized Jack Ruby, since he liked to chum around with reporters. In fact, the night before, he had brought snacks to one of the local radio newsrooms.
posted by evilcolonel at 4:31 PM on December 18, 2007

The Kennedy assassination is one piece of the puzzle and it fits like a key with the stolen elections in 2000 and 2004. The fix is in and we can’t beat it. That’s why Gore wont run again.
posted by Huplescat at 4:41 PM on December 18, 2007 [1 favorite]

I saw a great site that dissected the Zapruder footage. Or was it some other footage? Shadows doing strange things. Light poles moving. All sorts of carry on.

ps: A passenger jet DID NOT hit the Pentagon. Get a dogupya.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 4:47 PM on December 18, 2007

Huplescat: The Kennedy assassination is one piece of the puzzle and it fits like a key with the stolen elections in 2000 and 2004. The fix is in and we can’t beat it. That’s why Gore wont run again.

Yeah, but that's because the fuzz got there first; and the long and short is that we probably don't see the half of it on the boob tube. Some joker is probably clowning around, hoping for a bigger piece of the pie, but the joke's on him, because when the boys from downtown come goose-stepping in lockstep down easy street, they're likely to find that, not only has their train left the station; their ship has sailed, and the chicken probably flew the coop, too.
posted by koeselitz at 4:58 PM on December 18, 2007 [6 favorites]

they're likely to find that, not only has their train left the station; their ship has sailed, and the chicken probably flew the coop, too.

Wink wink? Nudge nudge? Say no more?
posted by rokusan at 5:03 PM on December 18, 2007

clearly, koeselitz is Thomas Friedman.
posted by Henry C. Mabuse at 5:10 PM on December 18, 2007 [2 favorites]

Ouch. That smarts.
posted by koeselitz at 5:17 PM on December 18, 2007

clearly, koeselitz is Thomas Friedman.

I was thinkin' a composite of Chief Wiggum and Snake. I certainly found myself reading it "in character".

Close but no cigar, piggy!
posted by uncanny hengeman at 6:00 PM on December 18, 2007

The Kennedy assassination is one piece of the puzzle and it fits like a key with the stolen elections in 2000 and 2004. The fix is in and we can’t beat it. That’s why

Your paranoia is amusing, please post more often.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:34 PM on December 18, 2007

Huplescat: "The fix is in and we can’t beat it."

Pope Guilty: "Your paranoia is amusing, please post more often."

*blink*

Are we honestly still beating this dead horse?

We are ALL partially responsible, and we'll never be able to answer for that, or do anything to change it, or get some kind of closure, or anything. I say all this and I wasn't even born yet. Quit looking for blame. Just accept it.

JFK's dead. Humanity killed him.

Let it go. Sheesh!
posted by ZachsMind at 8:59 PM on December 18, 2007

The parallax view
posted by hortense at 9:13 PM on December 18, 2007

Humanity killed him.

No, somebody or bodies killed him with a rifle. Even if he wasn't the president, and even if one theory of his murder didn't indicate a true danger to our democracy, if would still be worth finding out who killed him because he was a person.
posted by spaltavian at 9:38 PM on December 18, 2007

A couple of radio shows from the summer before the assassination, featuring Lee Oswald. The second one includes peppy vintage ads.
posted by gubo at 9:48 PM on December 18, 2007

Hundreds of books have been written about this event.

I am skeptical of all conspiracy theories. Except this one.

The fact that all subsequent presidents evinced a substantial interest in the facts about the case and the fact that most foreign governments had concluded that it was an inside job are convincing indicators that a tinfoil hat is not a prerequisite to suspicions about the Warren Report.

Occam's razor notwithstanding, this case continues to be mighty suspicious.
posted by kozad at 10:18 PM on December 18, 2007

Maybe the best archives on the subject, Mary Ferrell
posted by hortense at 11:38 PM on December 18, 2007

My mother was watching the TV when Ruby shot Oswald. Dad refused to watch, knowing what was probably coming. (Dad told me this later -- I was a toddler then.)

An indifferent, at best, ex-Marine "marksman" with a crappy rifle, subsequently eliminated in a highly convenient fashion? I'm with "most foreign governments" and kozad on this one.
posted by pax digita at 4:43 AM on December 19, 2007

I think that Ay had Tutankhamun killed.
posted by XMLicious at 4:56 AM on December 19, 2007

I think Oswald acted alone. It's the simplest explanation, you have to believe in a massive X-Files-worthy conspiracy otherwise. Small-scale conspiracies don't work, with all of the evidence fakery and witness tampering that would be involved.
posted by gubo at 6:45 AM on December 19, 2007

gubo ftw.
posted by grubi at 9:20 AM on December 19, 2007

Lot of dissonant evidence around. Plus retconning through technology. Saw a show about how the Zapruder footage was wrong, when it's computer enhanced it turns out there's a different period of time to make the shot. Which, if true, I'd buy (there's no way Oswald made the shot(s) he did given the previously believed time). Although as a shooter myself, I still don't buy why he'd make the shot through a tree, while Kennedy's driving away, etc etc.
(And who would use the weapon he used - for anything? Not to mention why buy it through the mail? Because it was so hard for a white man to just go and buy a firearm at a gun store circa 1960s Texas?)
I saw a photo somewhere - computer enhanced - that has Oswald in the doorway of the School Book Depository as the motorcade passed not in the window of the sixth floor. Which strikes me as just as true (given the technology) as computer enhancing the Zapruder footage.
So I tend to focus on the fiddly bits, the unexplainable intangibles, like losing the president's brain (the key piece of evidence in one of the most important criminal cases in history. Yeah, uh, whoops).


"...are convincing indicators that a tinfoil hat is not a prerequisite to suspicions about the Warren Report."

That and the comparative bullet-lead analysis done by the FBI which, y'know, actually linked Oswald to the shooting (before a mob connected night club owner* who hated Kennedy took it upon himself to 'spare Jackie' the hardship of seeing her husband's killer on trial...er, no, wait, he changed that, it was because he was crazy, yeah, crazy, that's it.) wasn't worth dick.

Weird that RFK got killed too while mounting an investigation into the assassination. Just another lone nut. Seems like a lot of lone nuts were gunning people down then. I don't question why. I just wonder why they stopped.
(Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action)


(*Joe Kennedy built his fortune from bootlegging. There's a lot of evidence that JFK stole the election with the help of the mob (at least in Cook County). Funny enough, Jack Ruby ran bootlegging in Chicago for Capone when he was young.)
posted by Smedleyman at 11:33 AM on December 19, 2007

I just wonder why they stopped.

More/better security? A lone nut also shot McKinley before the CIA was created (as far as we know).

However; A lone nut shot Wallace when it looked like he might actually be the candidate that could upset Nixon's strategy of Republican takeover in the South. A lone nut shot RFK when he looked like the guy that could unify the DNC in '68. A lone nut shot JFK after he beat Nixon by a handful of questionable votes. We already know Dick was the kind of fucker that would hire a dipshit like Liddy to perform a burglary on the pitifully losing DNC offices and to steal records from a psycyatrist's office to smear a reporter. We already know he was the kind of kook that would use the CIA to prop up the Shah in both the 50's and the 70's so who wouldn't put it past him to be the sort of rat fucker that would knock off his enemies? This is the kind of guy that would propose on tape that they firebomb the Brookings Institution, would popping a cap in George Wallace be that be a stretch for him?
posted by Pollomacho at 11:46 AM on December 19, 2007

According to this op-ed from last month's New York Times, Zapruder stopped his camera between frames 132 and 133, and they speculate that Oswald fired the first shot before Zapruder turned the camera back on.

Although as a shooter myself, I still don't buy why he'd make the shot through a tree, while Kennedy's driving away, etc etc.

Why wouldn't Oswald have shot him as the limousine was driving down Elm Street toward the Book Depository? (There's a shot of Elm Street from the sixth floor in Oliver Stone's JFK that makes it look easy. Granted he's biased and I don't know how accurate the shot was.) It seems like it'd be easier, and after the first shot they'd have to keep coming, or stop and turn around.
posted by kirkaracha at 12:19 PM on December 19, 2007

Crap, I guess it was Houston Street, not Elm. I read the map wrong.
posted by kirkaracha at 12:19 PM on December 19, 2007

Anyone who thinks Oswald acted alone is a fool.

You have to understand a lot about Kennedy and the milieu at the time, however, before it becomes obvious.
posted by Henry C. Mabuse at 2:24 PM on December 19, 2007

Er, kirkaracha, you know Max Holland worked for the CIA, right?
posted by Smedleyman at 10:59 AM on December 20, 2007

Who's Max Holland?
posted by kirkaracha at 11:12 AM on December 20, 2007

Max Holland
posted by Pollomacho at 11:15 AM on December 20, 2007

Pollomacho - yeah, I heard the same kind of reasoning about why Bush the Lesser kept reading 'My Pet Goat' after he'd been (allegedly) informed about 9/11 (e.g. doesn't want to scare the children).
A lot of folks do this. Take something plausible and use it as a sort of mental shorthand. Nothing wrong with it. We'd crash our cars every day if we didn't do it.
But - given the video shows Bush being informed right then about 9/11, he doesn't get into the wind not because he doesn't want to scare the kids because, really, f'em if we're being attacked (and if that is the reason it makes it all the worse) but for reasons unknown.
I accept that we don't know. And I see how it plays into a 9/11 conspiracy thing, but I wouldn't base anything on it since yeah, it's an unknown (he could have been waiting for security to do whatever, but the last place I'd want him is in a room full of kids, it's not like terrorists aren't going to target him there.)

So, while better security might explain why there aren't more successful assassinations, it doesn't explain why there aren't as many (statistically) attempts.
(Someone lobbed a dud grenade at Bush in Georgia (er, the eastern one, not the one that makes Coca-Cola and peaches) doesn't really count)
Most particularly with the connections (social or otherwise) then - f'rinstnce Bush the greater and John Hinckley, Sr. were neighbors for years in Houston. Hinckley, Sr. contributed money to his campaigns, supported Bush against Readgan, when Hinckley's oil business was going under (Vanderbuilt Oil) Bush's Co (Zapata Oil - oddly 'Zapata' was one of the names of the ships used in the bay of pigs, the other was 'Barbara') bailed Hinckley's company out. With six dead wells the company made several million a year after Bush took care of him. Neil Bush (of S&L fame) was buying mineral rights for Amoco, he was the head of the Denver division. Scott Hinckley (John Jr's brother) was the head of Vanderbuilt's Denver business. The two were scheduled to have dinner the day after John Hinckley Jr. shot Reagan.
Did I mention Neil Bush lived next door to Hinckley Jr. in Lubbock in 1978? That Sharon Bush introduced Scott Hinckley to a girlfriend of hers and they started dating?
These people know each other.
(After the shooting Bush sr. said he didn't recognize the guy and the name didn't ring any bells)
Point being - there are these kinds of incestuous (organizationally/socially, not in the sexual-family sense) relationships in cases where someone supposedly flips out and kills someone for no reason at all. Which is the objective of 'lone nut' stories. Which I'll grant is extremely likely in the case of McKinley - Czolgosz,

Most people are murdered by someone they know. There are almost always motives even when the killer is alone and more or less delusional (e.g. Czolgosz's was an anarchist).

So why not kill a rival or someone in the way of you making millions of dollars especially when you know them? Statistically anyone is far more likely to be killed by someone who has some passion or stakes concerning them. Love/hate, etc. Or just plain profit.
Yeah, I see no reason why Nixon wouldn't ice someone in his way.
And political killings - political violence in general - has a long long history.
posted by Smedleyman at 11:39 AM on December 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

I said: Humanity killed him.

spaltavian: "No, somebody or bodies killed him with a rifle. Even if he wasn't the president, and even if one theory of his murder didn't indicate a true danger to our democracy, if would still be worth finding out who killed him because he was a person."

Honestly Spaltavian, if we (not the royal we but the 'mob mentality mankind' we) did not go so far out of our way to single out members of our species and place them on outrageous pedestals, they wouldn't become targets, and they wouldn't have so far to fall from grace.
posted by ZachsMind at 10:50 AM on December 23, 2007