The Murder of a President; The murder of a president and the death of a constitution

As we approach the anniversary of the assassination of John F Kennedy, and subsequently suffer the deluge of documentaries and retrospectives which always accompany such a date. I am struck, not so much by the facts of the crime in question, but rather the public response to it and the subsequent cover-up. Now, for myself, I don’t remember that day in Dallas, mostly because I wasn’t alive at the time (having been born almost three years later), but like all Americans of my generation and later, I have spent a lifetime seeing it in film, reading about it in books, and hearing the endless stories that old people (well, old-er people anyway) tell of "The Day Kennedy was Shot".

The basic facts of the case are simple, on November 22, 1963, John F Kennedy 35th president of the united States of America was shot dead in Dallas Texas. The president’s death was the result of a lone assassin until 1979 when the House Committee on Assassinations determined that the death was the work of a conspiracy of persons unknown. One 6.5mm Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, fitted with a 4x optical sight, fired all three bullets used in the shooting, including the "Magic-bullet" that made three 90degree turns (and stopped at least twice in flight to meet the time-line) while inflicting seven wounds on the president and Texas governor John Connally, finally coming to rest on a stretcher in Parkland Hospital, at least according to the Warren commission report (I don’t remember if officialdom changed their mind on that one later). Lee Oswald, the reputed assassin, was seen six floors below the window where the fatal shot was reportedly fired about two minutes afterwards, calmly drinking a Coke-a-Cola, having ditched the rifle on the opposite side of the room from the window used to shoot from . . .

The list is endless, evidence was ignored, proper police procedure was neglected at all levels, forensic evidence was either never gathered, lost, stolen, corrupted, or dismissed. Add to that the seeming propensity of witnesses to drop dead of heart attacks, one vehicle crashes, and other less than common causes. All the evidence is sealed, except for the stuff like JFK’s brain which was lost/stolen from the national archives in 1965\66, or destroyed like the bloodstains in the limo which were washed away by the Secret Service while they waited outside Parkland Hospital. Even the eyewitnesses, the people who saw the shooting, the doctors who attempted to save the president, the people who put the body in the coffin, the people who unloaded it at Walter Reed Hospital and assisted with the autopsy, all agree that the governments’ story (or at least significant parts thereof) is bullshit and most Americans agree.

So what have we done about it? Nothing. Oh sure, people bitch and write books and call for the government to release the information it has and conduct a full and complete investigation. Investigate who? Why the people involved with the assassination of course, the Cubans, or maybe the Mafia, or was it the CIA, or LBJ and his clique of right-wing oil barons, or whoever is the villain-de jour this month (my money is on LBJ and the barons). Or how about the people who covered it all up, you know, the people who have been lying to us about the whole mess. People like Lyndon Johnson, J Edger Hoover, Gerald Ford, Allan Dulles, sure they are all dead now but we can still dig up the dirt right? I’m sure that people like Senator Arlan Spector (inventor of the ‘Magic-Bullet’ theory) will be happy to admit that the Warren commission was actively involved in a criminal conspiracy to cover up the facts of the murder of an American President. Hey, I bet Edward Kennedy will be happy to stand up and demand that the facts come out, he’s probably just waited thirty years because it might bring up bad memories (this is probably the reason he said nothing about the cover-up of his brother Robert Kennedy’s murder too), I’m sure he is over all that by now.

Well, I could go on trying to be funny about it, but I won’t. The fact of the matter is that we, the American people have been lied too for forty years, and we all know it. It doesn’t matter who pulled that trigger or triggers in Dallas, because the important part is that members of the US government and it’s agents and agencies have participated in a conspiracy to cover it up. The FBI, the CIA, the US Military, or at least the higher ups in these organizations at the time, helped to carry out a coup in this country, and we all know it. The downfall of our constitution happened on the day that the president died. The welfare/warfare state created by LBJ and the others who assisted in this crime persists to this day and drags us all ever closer to total slavery, and America knows it.

For forty years we have been dragged through Vietnam, the war on (some) drugs, radical environmentalism, the oil crises, welfare, inflation, the loss of our constitutional rights at all levels and we have done nothing. We have not rioted, we have not risen up, we have not hanged any congress-critters, refused to pay taxes, refused to sit on juries, refused to keep feeding the juggernaut that is grinding away the ideals that are America. Oh sure, a few people have acted, and too many of us applauded as these malcontents were dealt with by the minions of law-enforcement. Most of us however have sat on our butts, whining about the injustice of it all as we watch our money being stolen from us, our kids indoctrinated and our rights ignored. Why, because we all know that no matter how much we believe in the power of the individual, no matter how dedicated we are to freedom, we also know that raw physical force is one thing that is cumulative and it’s on their side, not ours.

So we sit, and we cry, and we curse the cowards that have stolen our land and we hope that one day the world will change because we wish it. I just wish I had the guts to change it myself, but I doubt it.

Well, I guess I wanted to see it then, because it sure looked good to me. Are you saying that the Gordon fellow was lying about being there?

I am not an assassination nut, but when you listen to the Parkland Hospital doctors say that the medical evidence that they saw on the ER table was different from what made it to Washington,what do you make of that? Were they lying too?

Did you see the photo analysis of the photo of the grassy knoll showing the shooter--badge man-- and the railroad worker to his left; and then the young soldier [witness] off to the left of the picture?

No. I'd be interested in checking it out if you can supply a link.

. . . slowing of same in front of the Dealey Plaza.

I do think it looks odd on film, as if they slowed down to allow better shots. If you were driving and heard sudden, unexpected reports, what would your reaction be? I think they slowed down when the first shot was heard. Then as more shots ensued they understood the gravity of the situation.

Are you saying that the Gordon fellow was lying about being there?

Absolutely. There is photo coverage of the spot he claimed to be in. He's not there. He is not the first person to come forward with a falsifiable story to get some attention. You need to be as skeptical about these conspiracy claims as they want you to be about the Warren Commission.

They don't say that. In the 80's the NOVA program took them to the Archives to see the autopsy photographs. The doctors came out and said they showed what they saw in Dallas.

One of the most interesting parts of this article to me was this part: The welfare/warfare state created by LBJ and the others (redacted clause)persists to this day and drags us all ever closer to total slavery, and America knows it.

This is true whether or not LBJ was in on it, or LHO acted alone.

Dry firing is working the action and trigger without ammunition. The bolt stop is a flange on the magazine follower that sticks up to keep the user from inadvertently closing the rifle on an empty chamber, similar to the M-16 and M-14 bolt hold open devices. Mauser clones have a notch in the side of the receiver so that the non-firing hand can use the thumb to depress the magazine follower (the part that pushes up the rounds in the magazine) to let the barrel close. This is necessary for working the action when no round is in the chamber. This is not needed for the British Lee-Enfield, since the magazine can simply be removed.

For rapid fire on the lee enfield, there is a mode that manipulates the bolt with thumb and index finger of firing hand, and pulls the trigger with the middle finger of the firing hand.

To practice dryfiring and working the action with rounds in the chamber, you can use dummy rounds, and never mind the bolt stop. Dry firing really gets you accustomed to the trigger. Jeff Cooper, who famously knows rifles and pistols very well, still spends at least a month dryfiring every night before his TV before making a Safari. I am teaching my daughter to shoot, and dryfiring is an essential part of that.

I'm not sure I agree with the premise that the death of JFK was a key milestone in the death of the Constitution but it is still an interesting article.

Consider it in light of the possibility that it was supposed to happen three weeks earlier in Chicago, coincidentally with Diem's removal in Vietnam, where Chicago police and Secret Service personnel instead arrested the planned assassin, a former Marine with a history of mental health treatment who was going to shoot JFK from an upper-story window of a building. Sound familiar?

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