The Assassination of JFK

[dderek123]

This thread reminds me of Jackie O



Here she is with the new president getting sworn in. She's still wearing the same clothes she wore when her husbands head exploded. A bit morbid but pretty honorable.


From this site:
"6. Following the assassination, Jackie refused to take off the blood-stained suit. She told Lady Bird Johnson, “Oh, no…I want them to see what they have done to Jack.”

"7. Jackie would not take off the suit until she arrived back at the White House the following morning."



http://www.buzzfeed.com/briangalindo...onic-pink-suit

[nysprod]

The conspiracy is not in the killing...Oswald acted alone...the conspiracy, if there was one, involved covering up how badly the Secret Service botched the job of protection, given that Oswald was a well known entity in U.S. intelligence circles.

[Ben]

[Stavros]

Ben, Oliver Stone has as much right as anyone else to give his version of American history, and he can as others have done, present plausible reasons why the assassination of JFK was the work of many hands -but in the case of the latter there has yet to be any conclusive evidence of who other than Oswald was involved, while his overall historical view of the US is flawed.

In JFK for example, towards the end, the implication is made that the 'military-industrial-complex' needed the war in Vietnam that Stone/Garrison claims Kennedy was going to scale down -you then see some statistics on the subsequent post-Kennedy increase in sales of helicopters to a privately-owned corporation with the suggestion that JFK was eliminated by the 'secret state' because he threatened their economic interests. What the film does not do is present a more honest picture of the predicament JFK was in throughout 1963 owing to the apparent failure of the 'Strategic Hamlet' campaign and the growing unpopularity in Vietnam of General Diem. Mr X tells Jim Garrison in the film of a 'secret' document authorising the withdrawal from Vietnam as if this was a spark that the corporate interests could not tolerate -yet Kennedy himself announced in public on the 31st October 1963 his intention to withdraw from Vietnam by the end of 1965 on the grounds that by then the US would have successfully trained the Vietnamese security personnel (cf Afghanistan) and US 'advisers' would no longer be needed -so where is the secret? Diem was so unpopular in the country he was murdered shortly before Kennedy -with or without the help of the CIA is a matter of controversy- but Kennedy also drew up policy options which did not become implemented, something most Presidents do anyway (you can read about this in Robert Dallek's Kennedy: An Unfinished Life, Ch 19).

But as the defence industry in the USA is privately owned, and as war is always good business for some, where is the controversy? If it had not been for the Second World War, described by most people as a 'just war', the US economy would not have recovered as it did from the slump following the Wall St crash, and the USA would not have been in a position to bankroll economic reconstruction in western Europe and East Asia to the long-term benefit of all, not just a few fat cats in American industry. Have a look at the balance sheets of the Seven Sisters and you will find they all prospered from the war, though it must also be said their staff, particularly on the oil tankers, did suffer along with armed forces personnel. As for the Cold War, which can be dated back to 1919 rather than 1945, it is true the USA intervened in the electoral politics of France, Italy, Greece and also Germany (not mentioned by Mr X in his roll call in the film) in the 1940s, yet did not intervene to prevent a landslide Labour victory in the UK which also returned to Parliament two Communist Party MPs (Phil Piratin and Sam Saklatvala). Are we supposed to be surprised? Shocked?

Stone makes it clear through Mr X that JFK had become a 'hated figure' inside the beltway because of his attitude to the CIA and the various sackings that took place as personnel were shifted this way and that - an even more darker period is said to have taken place during the Carter Presidency when the perceived failure in Vietnam also led to a critique of the military, the CIA, the FBI and in some cities corrupt police forces -yet Carter was not assassinated as a result.

Stone in the clip you show implies that Kennedy after the missile crisis was moving through Nuclear Test ban/treaties opposed by the military and may have gone on to a more creative form of detente at which point he compares Kennedy and the USSR to Reagan and Gorbachev which shows a staggering ignorance of the USSR at this time -it was less than 5 years after the assassination that the USSR invaded Prague -a virile response to Czech demands for more autonomy. Compare the difference -Gorbachev in the 1980s was in charge of an economy in meltdown, he was looking for ways to do the opposite in Russia of what Brezhnev wanted in the 1960s -it is simply absurd to compare the 1960s to the 1980s as if what was achieved in the latter was made impossible in the former because of a conspiracy against JFK which resulted in his assassination.

Stone wants to believe in a young radical president whose impact on America and the world was going to be as profound as FDR -yet the truth is that JFK in his brief time in office was cautious, even hesitant, not unlike Obama today. He wants to believe that real change was diverted by the shadowy powers that exist in Washington and the defence industry and on Wall St, even though Kennedy came from the same insider background as the people Stone argues were so threatened by him they could only kill him to get what they wanted.

American history is complex and fascinating and always does and will continue to divide opinion, I am not persuaded by Stone, and remain to be convinced of a conspiracy to kill the President. The link below is a more considered critique of Stone/Kuznick:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/arch...ion=false#fn-3

[Odelay]

I have to admit that I fear for our current President. There are a lot of nutcases out there, just like Oswald. And it does seem that the lone nutcases act on this impulse, i.e. John Hinckley, Squeaky Fromm, etc. I thought the far left had some pretty severe hatred for Reagan and George W, but it doesn't compare to the hatred the far right has for Obama.

[trish]

True. Conservative nuts are way nuttier.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...t-Service.html

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/1...nt-In-History#

[Stavros]

The conspiracy is not in the killing...Oswald acted alone...the conspiracy, if there was one, involved covering up how badly the Secret Service botched the job of protection, given that Oswald was a well known entity in U.S. intelligence circles.

As I have said, I remain to be convinced that the plausible conspiracies actually happened. Where you are spot on is in the inept handling of the event. The crime scene, far from being sealed off was swarming with people in the crucial first 48 hours. The day after the event, someone found a white object on the grassy bank in the middle of the road, and it turned out to be part of JFK's skull. In the haste and panic that followed the shooting, JFK's clothes were thrown into the trunk of a car, and the question of a throrough autopsy was answered no by both LBJ and the Kennedy family who were terrified that the autopsy would reveal just how physically unfit JFK was. So much time and effort had gone in to making him appear a young, virile man when the truth is he not only had severe spinal problems and wore a back-brace (which is why his movements in the car when being shot may have compromised his life), he suffered from Addison's Disease and had been taking steroids and a cocktail of other drugs at the time (which may also account for his sexual appetites). Compared to the two Bush Presidents, Clinton and Obama JFK was a weakling. The fact that so much detail and forensic evidence was lost in the first 48 hours, due to panic, cock-up and perhaps conspiracy -eg, the Kennedy's conspiring to prevent the truth about Jack's health emerging- makes a truly sober assessment of crucial moments difficult if not impossible.
Peter Ling has a short but interesting article on this in the current History Today.
http://www.historytoday.com/peter-li...-and-cover-ups

[Gillian]

An interesting documentary on the assassination aired in the UK last night. 'JFK's Secret Killer - The Evidence'.

We hear the expression "cock up or conspiracy" a lot but last night's programme suggested both. Like the documentary I mentioned before, it too explained the "magic bullet" as perfectly explainable once everyone was positioned correctly. However, based on the size of the fatal headshot's entry wound at 6mm (per the autopsy report), too big for Oswald's 6.5 mm rounds, and the fact that the final shot fragmented, which a full metal jacketed round like Oswald's wouldn't do, it concluded there was another shooter.

They lined up the entry and exit wounds on JFK's head with his position at the time of the shot and concluded it came from the direction of the secret service car immediately behind the JFK's car.

Published photographs show a secret service agent raising the (one and only) AR15 assault rifle as the shooting began, looking like he's about to swing round in the direction of the book depository. This documentary postulated that as the cars accelerated, the agent accidentally let a round off that hit the president in the head. Obviously a bit of a cock up !!

What followed were largely successful attempts by the Secret Service and possibly other agencies to cover up this dreadful accident. The inconsistencies these cover ups exposed have inevitably fuelled the conspiracy theories but the program certainly made a convincing case from my point of view citing, amongst others, the following ...

Several witnesses at the Warren Commission mentioned smelling gunpowder at street level which could only have come from a car shot and not the depository

The SS agents on duty that day were seen out drinking at a club until 5.00 am the night before and the suggestion is that the agent with the AR15 would usually have been on driving duties. Curiously he was never called before the Warren Commission and his statement was easily contradicted.

Add in all the inconsistencies at the autopsy, the fact that many written records and films from it have disappeared and the programme painted a very plausible argument that the authorities went into overdrive trying to cover up this dreadful accident.

Whether true or not, it seemed to me to be the most plausible alternative to the "Oswald only" explanation ...

[Stavros]

Shelf, I saw the programme too, but I don't recall any mention of the book Mortal Error, the 1992 book which first made the claim that the Secret Service agent Hickey accidentally pulled the trigger on the President. Nor did it mention that when the paperback version came out Hickey successfully sued the publishers and settled on undisclosed terms -he waited too long when the first edition was published and had to sue them twice.

What the programme also failed to ask is 1) why none of the other agents in the car with Hickey or the motorcycle riders or anyone else even heard the shot...? and 2) JFK's head when the third bullet struck was not upright but at an angle and tests have shown the bullets from the rifle Oswald used could have shattered into fragments...

Plausible, but not conclusive -cf:
Mortal Error: The Shot That Killed JFK - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/Sh...t_Kennedy.html

[martin48]

Reminds me the headline

"Archduke Franz Ferdinand found alive. World War I, a mistake."

LOL at Seanchai and at Trish.

Actually I did it... I confess. I also killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Gavrilov Princip was framed!