Kennedy Assassination anniversary

[marlinspike]

50 years today since he was killed. I was a newborn at the time, but does anyone on here remember it?

I read several books about Kennedy and the assassination years ago, and whilst the conspiracy theories are fascinating, I am sure he was the victim of a lone gunman, Lee Oswald. There was a good documentary on the other night about the agents who were protecting him that day, the events, and the aftermath for them.

The famous Zapruder film has been cleaned up and is now on You Tube in slow motion and high def, though very graphic as you can see the incident much more clearly now.

 

[ChrisJ]

I was 5 years old, and I actually remember the images coming through on our old ferguson b&w telly can remember how sad and shocked everyone was.

 

[wookie]

Watched a documentary the other night and their theory was that he was shot at and injured by Oswald but that the Secret Service actually shot the fatal bullet.

To quote the film JFK...

Jim Garrison: All these documents are yours. The people's property, you pay for it! But because the government considers you children who might be too disturbed or distressed to face this reality, or because you might possibly lynch those involved, you cannot see these documents for another seventy-five years. I'm in my early forties, so I'll have shuffled off this mortal coil by then, but I'm already telling my eight-year-old son to keep himself physically fit, so that one glorious September morning, in the year 2038, he can walk into the National Archives, and find out what the CIA and the FBI knew! They might even push it back then, hell it may become a generational affair, with questions passed down from father to son, mother to daughter, but someday, somewhere, somebody will find out the damn truth.

 

[marlinspike]

I think a lot of the theories put forward in the JFK movie have been disproved by technological advances like computer modelling, such as being able to track the trajectory more precisely, enhancement of the audio recordings and so on.

I think if you see the enhanced hd film now, it really does look like he was hit from the rear with the third shot. I think if there is a conspiracy it will be more to do with that the CIA maybe already having had dealings with Oswald before the asssassination. I can see their contact with him after he returned from Russia being hushed up. It's all fascinating stuff though and it's been interesting to read the accounts of the people who were there.

 

[CompoSimmonite]

I remember teacher telling us at school what had happened - I'd be 6 at the time.

Paul H

 

[slim_boy_fat]

I was at an ATC meeting, the Squadron OC came and told us, having heard it on radio.

 

[eddie49]

I do remember it well. I was 14 years old. It was a Friday evening, 50 years ago today. I heard about the shooting on Radio Newsreel about 7 pm, and shortly afterwards the shocking news that President Kennedy was dead.

 

[Keith 66]

I was two years old so dont remember it. This song sums the event up for me, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRTWWWi3rYU,

 

[BeeJay99]

I was 17 and after a brief newsflash on the TV there was no information. I spent some time after that trying to find "Voice of America" on the radio to see if I could find out more.

 

[mangocrazy]

I was 13 years old and was woken up by my tearful mother telling me that a terrible thing had happened. It certainly makes you nervous when as a kid you see your parents upset.

 

[Wedg1e]

I was three months short of being born so I missed it, but by coincidence Friday was my 20th anniversary in this job

I think the two most telling bits of 'evidence' are the injuries suffered by the other occupants of the limo, insofar as they don't tally with the number of rounds supposedly fired, and the fact that archive pics of JFK's brain are allegedly not of HIS brain... as the damage would contradict the direction the shots supposedly came from.
Lots of stuff on Wikipedia that has an air of 'official line' about it...

 

[marlinspike]

There was a good show on the H2 channel last night - JFK Assassination: the Definitive Guide. It's on again tonight (Sunday) at 9pm. I have seen it before, but it is worth a watch as it debunks most of the conspiracy theories like the 'magic' bullet, wound inconsistencies and so on.

At one point they get an ex-Navy Seal to go up a water tower and make the same shot as Oswald would have had to make, using a rifle from the same batch, in the same minimum time that he had, and he does it pretty easily. I knew Oswald had been a sharp shooter in the services, but didn't realise this meant he could hit a 10in target which was 2 football field lengths away, without a scope. Doesn't seem that unlikely that he could hit a slow moving vehicle given that level of skill.

The inconsistencies about the wounds can be explained by more recent info about where the others were in the car. Gov Connelly was actually sitting in a jump seat, offset and lower than JFK. He wasn't directly in front of him.

I think a lot of the conspiracy accusations could have been avoided if things had been done differently. The autopsy was rushed and done by inexperienced service doctors who had never dealt with a gun fatality. Not releasing all the documents from the Warren Commission means people still think there is something going on.

Interesting that facts are still coming to light. I knew JFK had a back injury from the war and wore a brace. I didn't realise the brace accounted for why he didn't slump forward after the 2nd shot hit him. If he had, the third shot might have missed.

 

[ronan]

I have to agree with marlinspike. I seen the programme on there a while ago that oswald only fired 2 shots. The third shell casing found by the police was used as a breech plug by oswald, and that the third shot (the gruesome final shot) actually came from one of the secret service men in a following car fumbling an ar15. This would explain the cover up by the secret service, they wanted to hide an embarrassing accident, and the simplist explanation is usually the correct one.
What kennedy was thinking, riding through a city known as the hate capital of the world in an open top car, as a catholic president who was trying to improve civil rights for black people, we'll never know.
The rifle question is an interesting one. Anyone who knows a bit about military rifles will know the 6.5 x 52mm carcano round is underpowered and not very effective, a friend in the gunclub with 40+ years of centrefire rifle experience was telling me he never shot a rifle that was as big a bucket of crap as the italian carcano, oswald as a former marine would have known this.

 

[Pete.]

Nor really care 50 years later. It was a big deal back then but I see no reason why it should be such a media event half a century down the road.

 

[PTvor]

I think a lot of the conspiracy accusations could have been avoided if things had been done differently. The autopsy was rushed and done by inexperienced service doctors who had never dealt with a gun fatality. Not releasing all the documents from the Warren Commission means people still think there is something going on.

It was after the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Warren Commission did not want it to be a found to be a conspiracy involving the Russians or the Cubans, even if it was. So there was an eagerness to put it down to a lone nut, which gave the impression that things were being concealed.

The other aspect that's caused problems is that Oswald was killed before he could stand trial, so his account was never examined in a court of law and his guilt or innocence established. A clever defence could well have established sufficient doubt for a jury not to convict. Then there's something about his being bumped off by this somewhat dubious character Ruby, which doesn't quite add up.

I was ten when JFK was shot and I remember hearing about it clearly. My impression was that here was someone who could and would change things for the better who'd been rubbed out. Now with what emerged later, not just the sexual intrigues, I'm inclined to wonder whether he wasn't just as cynical as the rest.

It was a curious choice of weapon and ammunition for a trained marksman, even one who was skint. Apparently, Oswald was implicated in the earlier unsuccessful attack on General Walker.

 

[PTvor]

Nor really care 50 years later. It was a big deal back then but I see no reason why it should be such a media event half a century down the road.

There have been four American presidents assassinated whilst in office; Lincoln, Garfield, Mckinley and Kennedy.

So why are Lincoln and Kennedy well known and the other two just footnotes in history?

I suggest it's because they were assassinated at times of change having presided over that change and they were looked to lead through that change and there is the temptation to believe that they could have done things better had they not been snuffed out. There's a difference between dying naturally in such circumstances, or living out their term of office and dying naturally, and being deliberately killed.

In Lincoln's case it was American Civil War, and the aftermath.

In Kennedy's case it was the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Cold War and the changes that took place in the USA through the 60s, the civil rights movement and all the rest.

 

[ronan]

Nor really care 50 years later. It was a big deal back then but I see no reason why it should be such a media event half a century down the road.

50 years ? bah thats nothing, sure they are still fighting and writing books on who murdered 8 unimportant prostitutes in whitechapel 125 years ago, with absolutely zero chance of finding out who it ever was. People love a conspiracy and a mystery.

 

[ronan]

It was a curious choice of weapon and ammunition for a trained marksman, even one who was skint. Apparently, Oswald was implicated in the earlier unsuccessful attack on General Walker.

I read a bit about general walker, an absolute nutter from all accounts, sounds like he fought on the wrong side in ww2.
The reason the kennedy killing was interesting , is that he was a young dynamic man, very different from the previous presidents, who was determined to change things, civil rights, the space programme, stopping the vietnam war, improving the lot of the poorer in america. A lot of american presidents seemed to do very little in their time, but kennedy seemed like a new broom.

 

[PTvor]

I read a bit about general walker, an absolute nutter from all accounts, sounds like he fought on the wrong side in ww2.

Walker was a well-known wingnut and utterly opposed to racial integration, at one stage being arrested for leading a riot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Walker

The reason the kennedy killing was interesting , is that he was a young dynamic man, very different from the previous presidents, who was determined to change things, civil rights, the space programme, stopping the vietnam war, improving the lot of the poorer in america. A lot of american presidents seemed to do very little in their time, but kennedy seemed like a new broom.

Yes.

Whether he would have such a place in history had he not been bumped off, is an interesting question.

 

[marlinspike]

It is. I suspect Kennedy's status is based more on the promise of those first two years and the fact that he did seem, as you say, a young, dynamic president, rather than on what he actually achieved or would have achieved. I know people complain about press intrusion, but it is disgraceful that he got away with being such a philanderer whilst in office, and you wonder if his administration would have eventually been brought down by scandal.

I also think that the Kennedys fulfilled a kind of glamorous role in the US that in the UK we reserved for the royal family. I read a couple of books about his death years ago and initially believed there was some sort of conspiracy, but I really do think now it was a lone nut. Hard to believe the CIA didn't interview Oswald when he came back from Russia, so there may be some cover ups of that, but I don't go for the 2nd gunman, grassy knoll theory anymore.