Here, you conspiracy freaks: the Build-A-Burger chain controls the world! Happy?
Posted on 11/25/2003 1:51:37 PM PST by veronica
I paid no attention to the many television programs broadcast this past week on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of President Kennedy’s assassination. The reason for my lack of interest was that the questions about the assassination that had obsessed me all my life—and not only the factual questions, but the deeper moral and emotional issues left by Kennedy’s killing—were resolved for me by Gerald Posner’s 1993 book Case Closed. Here is a letter I wrote to Posner about his book ten years ago, shortly after the 30th anniversary of the assassination: December 15, 1993
Dear Mr. Posner:
I would like to tell you how deeply grateful I am to you for your magnificent book, Case Closed.
Over the years, I had shared the general sense that we did not have the truth about the Kennedy assassination. While I never gave credence to the various wild conspiracy theories, I did feel that there was probably a second gunman, and perhaps Mafia involvement. But it seemed impossible ever to get closer to the truth. A year or two ago there were new television programs and articles about the assassination with some interesting information, but trying to follow the issues that were raised only led one into a morass of confusion.
One of the problems was that, while the conspiracy proponents seemed a contemptible bunch (especially Oliver Stone, who I think is truly evil), the defenders of the Warren Commission report, such as David Belin, also seemed fishy. They just went after the most obvious weaknesses in the conspiracy theories while blandly and self-righteously insisting on the “total correctness” of the obviously flawed Warren report. (It was that same sort of bland defense of the Warren report, the glossing over of its many troubling flaws and gaps, that had helped set off the conspiracy paranoia, along with the general suspicion of our government, back in the mid 1960s.) The Warren defenders never responded to the hard questions that continued to trouble me and everyone else who thought about the issue; and they never seemed to appreciate the fact—which you certainly bring out in your book—that there were many odd events surrounding the assassination that could reasonably give rise to suspicions of a conspiracy. It was all terribly, deeply frustrating. It seemed that this mystery would last forever, and that there was no point in even trying to figure it out.
Then one day this past September, at the National Airport in Washington, D.C., I picked up the U.S. News and World Report with the long excerpt from Case Closed. Reading the article on the shuttle flight back to New York, I experienced an epiphany. The clarity of your presentation, your story of Oswald, the fascinating new information about the timing of the shots and many other things all added up to an account that for the first time in all these years had the ring of truth. The magazine excerpt, of course, did not answer all my questions (I had to wait to read the book for that), but it did satisfy me that Oswald did it alone. Oswald emerged as a totally believable, real person, not this shadowy figure upon whom the conspiracy theorists could cast any fantasy they wanted.
There is another, perhaps unintended, benefit of Case Closed. Reading it made me realize that for years, all the bedeviling issues surrounding the assassination had blocked the assassination itself—the horror and tragedy and poignancy of it—from full consciousness. The conspiracy theories had become the main historical event, not Kennedy’s terrible death and what it did to the country. But your account, by clearing away those questions, has restored the assassination itself as an event in my experience and I think our collective experience as well. It was as though I began feeling the trauma and the meaning of Kennedy’s death afresh, undiminished after three decades.
Apart from the tragedy of the event itself, it was truly a fateful turning point in our country’s history—but, I believe, in a sense exactly opposite to what Oliver Stone imagines. Rather than marking the rise of Stone’s fictional militaristic right-wing to national power, it marked the rise to influence of a left-wing culture of alienation typified by people like Oliver Stone himself. These members of the adversary culture, unable to absorb Kennedy’s murder as the terrible event it was, chose to see it as a confirmation that America itself was evil, that America would always block the exaggerated hopes for unlimited individual fulfillment and social progress that Kennedy seemed to personify for many people. It was shortly after Kennedy’s death that the deadly notion became current that the “system” was blame for everything, thus turning Americans against their own country. Of course, the rise of black rage, the Vietnam war and so on were also important parts of this historic catastrophe, but the Kennedy assassination was crucial.
The unresolved assassination puzzle also fed the alienating notion that truth is indeterminable, that all we can know are self-serving narratives. This idea opens the gates to all kinds of viciousness. For example, the egregious Stone could present his paranoid fantasy as a revelation of “hidden truth” to a mass audience of millions of unformed, suggestible minds, and at the same time cover himself with the elites by saying that his movie was a mere “counter-myth,” not intended to be a factual presentation. Thus he got to convince millions of people that horrible lies were the truth, while denying that that he was doing anything of the kind. With Case Closed, you have not only uncovered the specific truth of the assassination; you’ve demonstrated that truth itself exists and can be known.
But for me, what is most remarkable about Case Closed is that this old festering sore of uncertainty and discouragement surrounding the assassination, which I never expected to be cured, has been cured. In bringing the truth to light out of all that confusion, you have performed not only a great public service, but a heroic act.
Sincerely yours,
Lawrence Auster
Well, I don't know about that. We had Nellie Connally on the radio here in Abilene last week and she recounted the events of that day. She reiterated what this testimony says. John Connally did not get hit with the shot that went through Kennedy's throat area. Whether or not there was a conspiracy, her testimony makes the single bullet theory untenable.
Mrs. CONNALLY. In fact the receptions had been. so good every place that I had showed much restraint by not mentioning something about it before.
I could resist no longer. When we got past this area I did turn to the President and said, "Mr. President, you can't say Dallas doesn't love you."
Then I don't know how soon, it seems to me it was very soon, that I heard a noise, and not being an expert rifleman, I was not aware that it was a rifle. It was just a frightening noise, and it came from the right.
I turned over my right shoulder and looked back, and saw the President as he had both hands at his neck.
Mr. SPECTER. And you are indicating with your own hands, two hands crossing over gripping your own neck?
Mrs. CONNALLY. Yes; and it seemed to me there was--he made no utterance, no cry. I saw no blood, no anything. It was just sort of nothing, the expression on his face, and he just sort of slumped down.
Then very soon there was the second shot that hit John. As the first shot was hit, and I turned to look at the same time, I recall John saying, "Oh, no, no, no." Then there was a second shot, and it hit John, and as he recoiled to the right, just crumpled like a wounded animal to the right, he said, "My God, they are going to kill us all."
I never again----
Mr. DULLES. To the right was into your arms more or less?
Mrs. CONNALLY. No, he turned away from me. I was pretending that I was him. I never again looked in the back seat of the car after my husband was shot. My concern was for him, and I remember that he turned to the right and then just slumped down into the seat, so that I reached over to pull him toward me. X was trying to get him down and me down. The jump seats were not very roomy, so that there were reports that he slid into the seat of the car, which he did not; that he fell over into my lap, which he did not.
You can see the sequence in the Zapruder film. Everything she says is true. http://www.jmasland.com/z_color/
Here, you conspiracy freaks: the Build-A-Burger chain controls the world! Happy?
Well, that simple explanation makes sense, of course. But if you think about it; the difference between the success and failure of the 'perfect crime' ususally hinges on a 'devil of a detail'.
Man/made disasters (fires in California for example) have been the result not a great plan gone awry or for that matter a 'mission accomplished'; but rather the devastation hinged on the most stupid/selfish/inane of choices. That is life.
We almost lost a couple of states to fire a few years ago. The existence and magnitude of this fire seemed to deserve a reason at least equally grand - an 'act of God' or an act of evil would have been more acceptable than the reality.
As it was, we had to accept the petty truth - a woman Forest Ranger decided she would feel better if she burned her boyfriends love letters in the mountains they used to enjoy together.
But the fact that the 'great' can often be generated by the extremely simple; does not make it a 'law of the universe'.
Conspiracies DO happen. The conspiracy can be as reasonably planned to create a horrific event, as they can be reasonably assumed afterward.
It is also true, that people are more comfortable with the known vs the unknown. Putting a name on it - being able to 'wrap your mind around it'; allows many unacceptable or confounding elements of life to be dealt with efficiently.
For some that comfort is the 'Warren Report'; for others, there is more comfort in the reasonable challenge of the 'conspiracy'.
I won't pretend to have any answers, but I have a whole lot of questions. Maybe they might seem "irrelavent" to some people, but details are my job, so I guess I'm just wired that way....
One thing that just doesn't seem right...there were three shell casings found by the window on the 6th floor by the open window. Oswald was supposed to have fired three shots in about 8 seconds, stash the gun, and get the hell out of there. If he was in such a hurry, and knew that his third shot took the president's head off, why did he bother to eject the third spent shell casing?
I don't know if there was a conspiracy. What I do know is that Nellie Connally's testimony and the Zapruder film make the Warren report's sequence of events impossible. Read Nellie Connally's testimony as I have posted. Then look at the Zapruder sequence on the site that I have shown. Here is the link Zapruder sequence
What I do is click on the first frame to show it in my browser, then I change the frame number one by one until I get the seqeunce I want. Then it is easy to use the backspace key and the forward button to go forward or backward at the speed I wish. Yes it is evident that Kennedy's head does go forward a few inches as the head shot impacts. However, the head also torques to the right and down as his chin goes into his chest. As this happens his body is thrown backwards and up into the seat. It appears as if he is lifted up out of the seat. His right arm flails limply up then collapses down. He got shot from the front.
And why do you think it's important that Connally is holding his hat in his RIGHT hand? If you think that he dropped his hat after getting hit, you're wrong. The testimony from his wife is that he held onto his hat in his RIGHT hand all the way to the hospital.
In 1976 the Itek Corporation, specialists in photographic analysis examined the film and five photo analysts all concluded independently that somewhere between Z-223 and Z-226 there are signs of the beginning of a significant change in the governor's position and appearance.
Thus your argument that Connally reacts a full two seconds after Kennedy is shot has no basis in fact.
The basis in fact is that the wrist wound was the least of Connally's problems. He had a golf-ball sized hole blown in his chest. He had a sucking chest wound. His wife saved his life unwittingly. As she drew him down out of the line of fire she pulled his arm over the chest wound. She also placed her arm over her husbands arm and thus sealed the open wound. She did not know to do this, it was just an accident of the event. She was clear. She saw Kennedy's hands at his throat, later she heard the shot that hit her husband. Now rifle bullets travel faster than sound, but she had already heard the shot that hit Kennedy as this was what caused her to look back at him. In any event a sucking chest wound is not something one can ignore. Look at the film. While Kennedy has his hands at his throat Connally is turning forward. He faces forward then turns back to his right. It is some time into this turn that he is hit, as described by his wife. The film shows exactly that sequence.
That is known as an assertion. I believe otherwise.
But his hand has to be in his lap for the bullet to hit him in the wrist.
I'll let an expert from Itek answer (from their 1976 report):
"I observe a rotation of the Governor's body from right to left beginning at frame 223. It isn't obvious that this is significant relative to the study objective, however I also observe what I would consider an involuntary and unusual motion of his right hand and arm at 225. Before 225, his hand is hidden from Zapruder's view, down below the edge of the door. At 225-226 it can be seen to travel repidly upward until it is about level with his chin in 228. From 228-230 he flips his hat rapidly. At 229 it appears upside down in his hand with the thin edge of the brim extending toward Zapruder. By 230 the hat has flipped so that one can now see into it. This all takes place within less than 1/3 of a second so it would appear to be somewhat unusual."
The point is that at 224 we don't know if Connally's hand is in his lap or not. We know that at 224 it located below (not above as you claim) the edge of the door and moves quickly upward at 225-226. Thus your argument doesn't have any basis in fact.
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