Posted on 11/22/2019 9:52:46 AM PST by Hot Tabasco
early 1989, I was working as a business reporter in Washington, D.C., and interviewing a private investigator for a story about his company. At the end of our conversation, he casually mentioned he’d done some research into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
“Oh yeah?” I said, in an ironic, indifferent way. “So who killed him?” He said: “Well, I think this gunsmith in Baltimore, a guy named Howard Donahue, figured it out.” The private eye showed me a magazine article from 1977 and as I read it, my skepticism began to fade. Within a week, I was heading to nearby Towson, Maryland, to meet Donahue in person.
Donahue’s Dealey Plaza odyssey began 21 years earlier. The World War II veteran was a firearms specialist who’d testified as an expert witness in multiple shooting cases. He was also a well-known marksman. That’s why he’d been recruited to take part in a CBS News reenactment of the shooting in the spring of 1967.
The network wanted to know if Lee Harvey Oswald’s Italian military-surplus, bolt-action rifle really could have been fired three times with two hits on a moving target in less than six seconds. Donahue proved that it could. Of the 11 shooters participating in the experiment, only Donahue exceeded Oswald’s performance by scoring three hits in 4.8 seconds, well under the 5.6-second maximum....
(Excerpt) Read more at medium.com ...
My point? Oswald acted alone and Epstein didn’t kill himself.
For anyone who didn't have time to read this long article, here's a summary (as best as I can understand the article, anyway). If I misunderstood something, feel free to make a correction.
Who was Howard Donahue?
He was a WWII veteran, a marksman, and a firearms specialist who testified as an expert witness in shooting cases.
In 1967, he participated in a CBS News reenactment of JFK’s assassination. He helped to prove that Lee Harvey Oswald could have assassinated JFK with his “Italian military-surplus, bolt-action rifle” by firing “three times with two hits on a moving target in less than six seconds.”
Afterward, however, Donahue began investigating the case on his own, and he reluctantly reached a different conclusion about the final shot that killed JFK.
First, here are the findings of the Warren Commission:
Oswald’s first shot hit JFK and Texas Governor Connally.
Oswald’s second shot missed.
Oswald’s third shot hit JFK in the head.
Now here’s Donahue’s Theory:
Oswald’s first shot hit the pavement “behind and to the right” of JFK’s limo. Fragments ricocheted, hitting JFK in the scalp. (Witnesses also said the first shot hit the pavement, and according to the Warren report, the scope on Oswald’s rifle was not properly adjusted.)
Oswald’s second shot hit JFK in his back, exited his neck, and hit Gov. Connally in his right side.
A Secret Service agent in the car behind JFK picked up an AR-15 to return fire. As he stood and turned, the car braked suddenly to avoid colliding with the president’s limo. The agent lost his balance, and “his finger slipped off the trigger guard, and the weapon discharged.” The bullet hit JFK in the back of his head and exited the “right, frontal portion of his skull.”
The Secret Service and, later, government officials engaged in a cover-up of the accidental shooting. Because why damage the reputation of the United States and JFK’s legacy, and destroy the life of a Secret Service agent, when Oswald did shoot JFK and one of his shots could’ve been fatal?
Here's the supportive evidence for Donahue’s Theory:
Trajectory: In the fatal shot to JFK’s head, the bullet’s path was left to right at a “shallow angle.” (If Oswald had fired the shot, the bullet would’ve traveled right to left at a steeper angle.) The trajectory lined up with the agent’s position in the car behind JFK.
The Bullet: The bullet disintegrated into tiny fragments, consistent with a .223 round fired from an AR15. (Oswald’s rifle shot “solid rounds” designed not to fragment, but to pass cleanly through a human body, which is what Oswald’s second shot did when it struck JFK and Connally.)
The Wound: The entrance wound was 6 millimeters wide. Oswald’s bullets were 6.5-6.75 millimeters, but the AR15’s were 5.56 millimeters in diameter.
Many witnesses gave statements consistent with Donahue’s theory. One was a senator riding in a car behind the Secret Service agents. The senator said, “The third shot may have been a Secret Service man returning fire.”
Other Notes
Donahue believed the agent was a brave man who took action and the shooting was an accident.
In written statements to his superiors, the agent claimed he didn’t even cock the weapon until after Oswald’s last shot. But the Assistant Special-Agent-in-Charge in Dallas testified that the AR15 in the back seat was always “cocked and loaded,” “ready to go.”
Donahue and the writer tried to contact the agent, but he never responded. A few years after their book was published, the agent filed a lawsuit, and the publisher settled it, but the publisher “made no admission of guilt, did not issue a retraction,” and continued to sell the book. Both Donahue and the Secret Service agent have since passed on.
Interesting Information (Open Questions)
Medical staff (including a physician) at Parkland Hospital claimed two Secret Service agents rushed into the hospital after JFK was shot. One asked for two stretchers. The other was holding a “sub-machine gun.” An FBI agent then came running into the hospital, and the Secret Service agent(s) knocked him unconscious.
In the Kennedy family-authorized book about the assassination, Jackie Kennedy was quoted: “What was so terrible was the thought that it had been an accident, a freak, that an inch or two here, a moment or two there would have reversed history.”
Secret Service “mishaps” have been known to occur, including an accidental discharge near Iranian president Ahmadinejad.
The agent’s last name happens to be the maiden name of JFK’s paternal grandmother. The agent was age 40 when “Kennedy cleared the way” for him to be on the president’s personal protection detail, only four months before the assassination. At the time, the cut-off age for that detail was 30.
no
Jackie — and Ari.
AR 15 in 1963?
.223 in 1963?
Time travel?
Interesting theory but I’m not buying it.
Saving for more reading later. Read through 100 and part of the attached article.
Thanks for the thread, Hot Tabasco.
Live and learn:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArmaLite_AR-15
Didn’t realize how long it’s been around!
Wondering if it really was The secret service agent’s weapon that killed him, could that be why no President will release all the info to the public????
Read the man who killed Kennedy. Roger Stone.
AR-15. Colt patent 1959.
Before I visited Dealey Plaza I was skeptical about Oswald being able to pull it off all alone. The Plaza is small - really small. any deer hunter worth his salt would love to have had the shot Oswald made at JFK. Going away and a fixed speed with no variation in track. Chip shot. For a trained Marine? Easy peasy.
Still open to discussion, but I am way less skeptical about Oswald acting alone.
It certainly caught my attention and that's why I posted it.
Howard Donahue doesn't appear to be a conspiracy theorist but rather a very talented individual who took an interest in a very controversial event. I don't think anyone has ever heard of the guy before this author met him.
I have been aware of his theory for a while. Can’t remember how long but maybe about 15 years. It is as good a theory as any. The one flaw that I see is that an AR has a way different sound profile than a bolt action rifle. Seems like the sounds would be different from each other. That said the recording tech was pretty lousy compared to today’s standard.
As I understand bullet ballistics, entry wounds are smaller than exit wounds. Given that, what I can’t square in the Donahue theory is the final, mortal wound: going by the Zapruder film, it appears that the bullet entered the front of the head because bone and tissue fly backward, away from the front. If that wound is supposed to have hit the back of the head first, I would expect that material to be flying forward.
The theory also begs another question: was every round from that Secret Service agent’s weapon accounted for when it was returned to the armory?
I thought Keith Hernandez and his magic loogie killed JFK.
Open sights. Not a sniper. Standard qualification as I understand... Oswald barely did it. Not an expert marksman by any standard. Set back from the window on a carefully set up platform is easy. There would be no person seen.
I believe the original AR15 was designed strictly for a Southeast Asian military: full auto capability with few twists, allowing a violent tumbling of the bullet when it struct anything. If this were that early version, which the date may indicate it was, then Kennedy’s head would have fully disintegrated.
Googling “Frame 313’ brings up the critical instant from the Zapruder film. There appears to be a ruddy explosion at/on Kennedy’s forehead. If that’s the exit of the bullet taking place, then it answers my question. The entry was from behind. That opens the door for Donahue’s theory, but does not answer whether that agent’s ammunition was finally accounted for. It certainly supports the firer being Oswald as he’s the only one we know for certain who fired any shots.
>> “I thought Keith Hernandez and his magic loogie killed JFK.” <<
One of the best episodes of the show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBz3PqA2Fmc
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