Oswald had help, ex-agent says

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URL: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/state/article/0,1299,DRMN_21_2445221,00.html

Oswald had help, ex-agent says

Coloradan convinced that more than one

By Ellen Miller, Special To The News
November 21, 2003

GRAND JUNCTION - Lee Harvey Oswald didn't act alone when he killed President John F. Kennedy, and the president died because Secret Service agents failed at their jobs, a retired agent says.

"Officially, the answer to Oswald when somebody asks - because we were ordered to say it - is that the Warren Commission found that he acted alone," retired agent Jerry O'Rourke said. "But was there more than one gunman? Yes, personally I believe so. And my personal opinion about Jack Ruby is that he was paid to kill Oswald."

O'Rourke grew up in Telluride and attended Western State and Regis colleges, then spent 22 years in the Secret Service. Now retired and back home, he spoke this week to the downtown Grand Junction Rotary Club.

O'Rourke said his group of about 10 agents had protected Kennedy the morning of Nov. 22, 1963, at a breakfast speech in Fort Worth. Then the group left by air for Austin, the next stop planned on the president's Texas tour.

"We got the word (of the assassination) in the air, and we didn't believe it at first," he said. "Most of the agents had tears in their eyes. Agents believed in Kennedy, and we knew we failed our job in Dallas."

After his White House tour ended during Johnson's presidency, O'Rourke spent a year in the Secret Service intelligence division, which offered him glimpses into the investigation of Kennedy's death.

Those glimpses, and the accounts of other agents, have convinced O'Rourke that Oswald didn't act alone.

He cited several reasons:

• Kennedy had a number of enemies, any of whom could have plotted against him. They included people angered by his insistence on civil rights; organized crime; labor unions unhappy with investigations of them by Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy; Cuban dissidents angry over the failed Bay of Pigs invasion; and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.

• The shots attributed to Oswald were impossible to make. O'Rourke learned to shoot as a boy and trained as a military marksman. He said his visits to Oswald's perch at the Texas Book Depository have convinced him that no one could have fired a rifle three times so quickly, hitting the president and Texas Gov. John Connolly.

• The trajectory of one of the shots could not have been made by a gunman on the sixth floor of the Texas Book Depository. The shot entered Kennedy's body at his lower back and traveled up, to exit near his throat.

• The circumstances of the autopsy were irregular. Texas law requires autopsies to be done in state, but agents, acting on the orders of White House, took Kennedy's body back to Washington, D.C. The autopsy was performed at Bethesda Naval Medical Center under secrecy that prevails to this day.

• Evidence was destroyed. O'Rourke said that on the day of the assassination, one agent was ordered to clean out the cars used in the motorcade, getting rid of blood and other evidence. The agent told O'Rourke that he found a piece of skull, asked the White House doctor what to do with it, and was told to destroy it.

• Instructions were given to lie. The agent in charge of motorcade protection told O'Rourke that he was told by the Warren Commission during his testimony that he did not hear a fourth shot and did not see someone running across the grassy knoll. But the agent insisted that his account was accurate.

• Evidence about the shots is in conflict. An open microphone on a motorcycle in the motorcade picked up four shots, not three.

"In my opinion, Hoover wanted the commission to find that Oswald acted alone," O'Rourke said.

"The complete file won't be released until 2027, and the reason for that is most of us will be dead by then."

Copyright 2003, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved.

[Hildy]

This guy is totally discredited. If he has ever...ever read the timeline of how Ruby ended up in that garage with Oswald, he could never say that.

[Lancey Howard]

This guy is totally discredited. If he has ever...ever read the timeline of how Ruby ended up in that garage with Oswald, he could never say that.

I don't think he's saying that Ruby handled his job "professionally", just that Ruby was paid to go after Oswald, and that Ruby did not go after and kill Oswald simply because....
I forget - - what do the "magic bullet"/"lone assassin" tin-foilers say was Ruby's reason for killing Oswald? Just because he was mad at him for killing Kennedy? LOL!!

[Hildy]

Well, you obviously don't know what you're talking about either.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

As I recall the news at the time Ruby said he did it to spare Mrs. Kennedy the agony of having to re-live the events at a trial.

Much was reported about Ruby's background. I for one thought Ruby's reason was B.S.

I am livid to this day that the liberals of that era used the assassination to attack conservative criticism of JFK and liberal feeeeeeeeeeelings claiming that the criticism caused Oswald to kill the President. JFK/LBJ liberals began a campaign of FCC "Fairness Doctrine" complaints that pretty much shut down conservative talk on radio for more than twenty years (until the mid-80s).

[Poohbah]

Much was reported about Ruby's background. I for one thought Ruby's reason was B.S.

Based on the issues of timing (had Oswald not held things up to get a sweater, Ruby would have missed meeting him by five minutes), and the fact that Ruby, a dog lover's dog lover, had left his dog in his car...I think that Ruby's act was impulsive, not premeditated. He didn't have a formed intention of killing Oswald when he entered the jail. It took an incompetent showboating defense attorney (Melvin Belli) to turn a simple manslaughter case against his client, Ruby, into a murder one conviction.

[LandofLincoln]

You are in debt to the mob for what was enough money to get you killed. The mob says that if you hit this Oswald guy, we will let you live. No jury will convict you for killing the NUT who killed JFK, you'll be out in six months, with your life intact, you'll be a hero ... Oh! and you do not owe us that money anymore. Remember one thing Jack, if you talk you die.

Now Mr. Senator, if you think that is a fairy tale, come to Chicago and I'll show you around town.

[tet68]

"The complete file won't be released until 2027, and the reason for that is most of us will be dead by then."

Oh my god, they've got it in for US too!

[justshutupandtakeit]

Apparently he was a Commie-hating American as well. However, he by all accounts had only good things to say about JFK.

[justshutupandtakeit]

I was speaking of assassins, not terrorists. Shall I add an insult too dumba**? Or is that the stock-in-trade of those unable to comprehend the subject under discussion?

[AmericanInTokyo]

Excellent.

Excellent.

Thank you.

What I have been saying all along. Great chart. Conspiracies exist in people's minds, more than anything else. Oliver Stone is a good example of historical FACT being twisted, bastardized and outright ignored, all in the effort to advance a political agenda on the back of a dead president (who is never coming back to life, no matter HOW HARD we continue to "theorize".)

[justshutupandtakeit]

It is even worse. Oswald's rifle's sight could NOT be properly sighted in since it was incorrectly attached by the mail order house. ONLY after the Army Ordinance Laboratory repaired it was it even capable of proper adjustment.

But these points are routinely ignored by those who disregard all contrary evidence even so called experts on arms.

[justshutupandtakeit]

I have that book but have yet to read it. Someday I will.

Carlos Hathcock, one of the US Army's greatest snipers, pooh-poohs the ability of Oswald to make those shots. He says if he, CH, couldn't do it no one else could. That is the most persuasive evidence on the improbability of the shots I know of and I will give his opinion more weight than anyone else.

[HitmanLV]

Wow, you feel the Unabomber is not an assasin, huh? I suppose he didn't kill people then. What a strange world you live in.

Be careful who you call names, Einsetin. You might resemble those remarks. In any case, you get more unimpressive with each new post.

[glwx]

The F.B.I. stated the first time you could seen J.F.K. after coming out from behind the oak tree was at Z-film frame 210. He was hit by frame 225.This gives you 7/10 of a second. Deduct 1/10 second for bullet time. Question? Can you aim and fire a rifle in 6/10 of a second? Hint- it took me 3/10 to squeeze the trigger.

[The KG9 Kid]

"... • Evidence about the shots is in conflict. An open microphone on a motorcycle in the motorcade picked up four shots, not three."

Untrue. The Dictabelt recording made from the poice motorcycle that had an open microphone counted three shots, not four. This was confirmed after the 1978 investigation by audio experts from the National Academy of Sciences after a private citizen from Ohio brought to the investigation evidence that the Dictabelt recording captures a moment after the assassination where the 'fourth shot' is allegedly heard.

Oswald was perfectly capable of making those three shots, because he did so.

Any 'help' Oswald had came from Ruthie Paine, a kindly Quaker lady who felt sorry for Marina Oswald and helped to get her loser Commie husband a job at the Texas School Book Depository.

[The KG9 Kid]

"... With a POS Italian WW-II Surplus bolt action rifle, probably only dropped once, with a cheap POS scope. It would actually have been easier without the scope to fire those rounds that quickly, because the FOV was so narrow that reacquisition would be more difficult."

All Mannlicher-Carcanos are thoroughly capable military rifles. It indeed was inexpensive bought as surplus, but that is by no means an indictment of it's suitability.

It was only an 54-88 yard shot. Even a 'crap' rifle will hit inside a 3-inch ring at that range.

[pepperdog]

"Oh my god, they've got it in for US too!"

~giggle~

[BluH2o]

Just the other evening I was channel surfing and came across yet another documentary on the Kennedy assassination in Dallas. It was either Discovery Channel or the History Channel. Anyway, with modern day forensics they did the sequencing of the shots, as well as the trajectory of the bullets and determined, conclusively, the shots were all fired from Oswald's perch in the Texas Book Depositary building. Which has been my belief for a number of years; bottom line, Oswald as an assassin got incredibly lucky that day.

[veronica]

Absurd.

[dfwgator]

No Oswald thread is complete without posting this picture.