HUNT BLAMES JFK HIT ON LBJ

LBJ was so corrupt I put nothing past him.

Yeah, and Jackies head moves forward too.

Who shot her?

_____

Of all the crackpot theories you espouse on this thread, I think "There's no way GourmetDan can get any dumber"

And then with this last post--YOU TOTALLY REDEEM YOURSELF!!

Thank you Dan, you continue to amuse and astound, now whip me up my Eggs Benedict ;))

That's a crack in the windshield from the inside.

I'm not so sure LBJ orchestrated the assination, but I do think he knew about it, and happily looked the other way.

I have read many books on the subject, and one had a pic of the swearing in of LBJ on AF1, with one of his aids in the background grinning like a Cheshire cat.

I'd love to find that picture again, just like the one with JFK, RFK, and Marilyn Monroe huddling in conversation at a function shortly before she died.

Wish I could find either of them on the net. If any else can, please ping me.

Superman aint that old and oswald was a piss poor shot.

He missed two out of three times and the longest shot was at 88 yards. A boy scout could have made that shot. Instead, a Marine sharpshooter made it and 8.4 seconds is plenty of time to recover from medium recoil and fire two more shots. Simple.

A tempting theory, but no.

JFK was killed by a loser armed with a junk rifle.

Shocking, I know. It seems that a president should not be murdered by anything less than a grandiose conspiracy, but the facts all point to Oswald.

For those who think he could not have made the shot, I say that I could have done it. Anyone who had Marine Corps training in marksmanship could have done it.

Only a nutjob like Oswald would have done it.

Ladybird had money from her family but she and LBJ made big money together. She bought the land on Clear Lake just in time to sell it to NASA. I remember when that happened...

I recall that the publicly stated line on this was: The NASA land had been donated by Rice University.

I don't doubt that there is a story behind the story regarding Texas and U.S. politics.

This theory - true or not - makes a lot more sense that the "grassy knoll" or the "magic bullet".

As someone said, "Follow the money...".

A tempting theory, but no.

JFK was killed by a loser armed with a junk rifle.

So why, then, did Johnson set up the Warren Commission as a whitewash job, and FBI Director Hoover cooperate even to the extent of intimidation of witnesses and destruction of evidence? Had Oswald acted alone, the truth would have better sufficed to convict him with unsurmountable evidence. But attempts to erase his connections to others and build a false case against him, to include the use of manufactured evidence, indicates otherwise. The guilty flee when none pursue....

For those who think he could not have made the shot, I say that I could have done it.

I think *maybe* he could have made two of the shots *IF* had had used a Garand with iron sights [USMC issue at the time, and what LHO had barely qualified with, firing on non-moving targets] instead of a bolt gun with a non-zeroed scope. But the foiled attempt in Chicago involved a former Marine with a M1 who was to fire on the presidential motorcade from an upper-story apartment window [sound familiar?] on 02 November 1963, and when an uncorrupted Secret Service agent and Chicago police disrupted that operation, the use of a Garand again in Dallas would have been a little too obvious.

And, it seems that Oswald wasn't even coordinated enough to be able to drive a car. You CAN drive a car, can't you, particularly a early-1960s era probable stickshift?

Could Oswald have shot Kennedy? What kind of a marksman was he? Was he known as a skilled rifleman by those who saw him shoot? Or, was Oswald in fact a rather poor shot who was incapable of doing what the Commission claimed he did, as many researchers have concluded? Let us now answer these questions.

------Oswald's Marine Rifle Scores------

Even after weeks of practice and intensive training, Oswald barely managed to qualify at the level of "Sharpshooter," the middle of three rifle qualification levels in the Marines. He obtained a score of 212, two points above the minimum for the "Sharpshooter" level. In other words, even after extensive training and practice, and even though he was firing at stationary targets with a semi-automatic rifle and had plenty of time to shoot (even during the so-called "rapid-fire" phase), Oswald narrowly missed scoring at the lowest possible qualification level.

The next time Oswald fired for record in the Marines, he barely managed to qualify at all, obtaining a score of 191, which was one point above the minimum needed for the lowest qualification level, "Marksman." To put it another way, he came within two points of failing to qualify.

------Three Marine Colleagues------

Nelson Delgado, Sherman Cooley, and James R. Persons served with Oswald in the Marines and saw him shoot. Here is some of what they had to say about his marksmanship ability:

* Nelson Delgado

Before the Warren Commission:

Q. Did you fire with Oswald?

DELGADO. Right; I was in the same line. By that I mean we were on line together, the same time, but not firing at the same position, but at the same time, and I remember seeing his [shooting]. It was a pretty big joke, because he got a lot of "Maggie's drawers," you know, a lot of misses, but he didn't give a darn.

Q. Missed the target completely?

DELGADO. He just qualified, that's it. He wasn't as enthusiastic as the rest of us. We all loved--liked, you know going to the range. (8 H 235)

In a filmed interview with attorney Mark Lane:

LANE. Sergeant, prior to your Warren Commission testimony, were you interviewed by agents of the FBI?

DELGADO. Yes, they came to my home in south Jersey to interview me. The first two visits, they came just to get my story--what I knew about Oswald, how close we were, and things like that. After that, the questions were tending [to try] to break my story down. . . .

LANE. When did you first meet Oswald?

DELGADO. Just prior to the Christmas of 1958, Lee Oswald reported into our unit. Oswald and I got along really good together. We were, like I say, working in the same job, involving aircraft and radar. We controlled them from the ground, and ran intercepts. We were about forty enlisted men who participated in this job.

All of us knew Lee, and he knew all of us. We got along fine. We had discussions, and, uh [stops].

LANE. Was Oswald interested in guns?

DELGADO. They [the Warren Commission] say he was a gun enthusiast, but I recall many instances where we stood inspections, and he was constantly being gigged for having a dirty weapon and for taking improper care of his weapon. He was always reminded when he had to clean the weapon. He never took it upon himself to do so.

LANE. Do you have personal knowledge of Oswald's ability with a rifle?

DELGADO. At the range he couldn't prove by me that he was a good shot.

As any person who has ever served in the armed forces could tell you, there's a part in the qualification that calls for rapid firing. This is done with ten shots, eight in the clip and two that you load by hand. They give you forty-five seconds to fire these ten rounds. Well, when you fire these, then you stand you stand away from your firing position, till everyone has finished firing. Then the targets are brought down and scored. The targets are run back up, and there are disks for the number that you have hit--fives, fours, threes, or misses.

Well, in Oswald's particular case, it was quite funny to look at, because he would get a couple of disks. Maybe out of a possible ten he'll get two or three Maggie's drawers. Now, these [the Maggie's drawers] are a red flag that's on a long pole, and this is running from left to right on the target itself. And, you don't see this on a firing line too often--not a Marine firing line. You can't help but noticing when you're seeing disks, round cylinder things, coming up and down, and farther on down the line you see a flag waving [i.e., a Maggie's drawer]. Well, that was gonna catch your eye anyway. And we thought it was funny that Oswald was getting these Maggie's drawers so rapidly, one after the other. And this is why I can't think that he could be a good shot, because a good shot doesn't pull this. He'll pull a three, but he won't pull a Maggie's drawer-- that's a complete miss.

LANE. How did the FBI react to your statement that Oswald was a poor shot?

DELGADO. They tried to disprove it. They did not like the idea when I came up with the statement that Oswald, as far as I knew, was a very poor shot.

LANE. Do you feel that the agents of the FBI actually tried to get you to change your statement that Oswald was a poor shot.

DELGADO. Yes, sir, I definitely do. (From the 1966 documentary RUSH TO JUDGMENT, produced by Mark Lane and Emile de Antonio)

* Sherman Cooley

Cooley said the following in an interview with former Rockefeller Foundation fellow Henry Hurt:

If I had to pick one man in the whole United States to shoot me, I'd pick Oswald. I saw the man shoot. There's no way he could have ever learned to shoot well enough to do what they accused him of doing in Dallas. (REASONABLE DOUBT, New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1985, p. 99)

* James R. Persons

Hurt reported on what Persons said about Oswald's coordination and shooting ability:

He [Persons] also remembers that Oswald possessed a lack of coordination that contributed to his being very poor in rifle marksmanship. (REASONABLE DOUBT, photo page 14, caption)

------Other Interviews and Statements------

In addition to Sherman Cooley, Henry Hurt interviewed over fifty other former Marine colleagues of Oswald's. Hurt reported the results of those interviews:

On the subject of Oswald's shooting ability, there was virtually no exception to Delgado's opinion that it was laughable. . . .

Many of the Marines mentioned that Oswald had a certain lack of coordination that, they felt, was responsible for the fact that he had difficulty learning to shoot. They believed it was the same deficiency in coordination responsible for his reported inability to drive a car. (REASONABLE DOUBT, pp. 99-100)

Anyone who had Marine Corps training in marksmanship could have done it.

You think you're better than Gunny Carlos Hathcock and Craig Roberts?

Monty Lutz, an expert rifleman and ballistics expert who served on the firearms panel of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, conceded during a 1986 mock Oswald trial that to his knowledge no marksman had duplicated Oswald's supposed shooting feat. Lutz made this admission when he was cross-examined by leading trial attorney Gerry Spence:

Spence: Would it be true that in the history of the whole world, to your knowledge, nobody has ever duplicated what Lee Harvey Oswald is supposed to have done with that supposed rifle from the sixth floor of the Texas Book Depository? That's true, isn't it?

Lutz: I don't know of any test that has been done from the School Book Depository in an attempt to duplicate it.

Spence: You don't know of anybody that's even duplicated that anywhere, do you? School Book Depository or elsewhere. You didn't, did you?

Prosecutor: Wait a minute, he didn't answer your first question.

Judge: We've got two questions.

Spence: Let's do this right. You don't of anybody that has ever duplicated what Lee was supposed to have done, do you?

Lutz: I do not.

Spence: Not even master marksmen. Isn't that true?

Lutz: I do not.

Lutz, an expert shot himself, also testified that he conducted his own rifle test but that he FAILED to duplicate Oswald's supposed shooting feat.

The impossibility of Oswald's alleged shooting feat was what led former Marine sniper Craig Roberts to reject the lone-gunman theory. Roberts explains as he recounts the first time he visited the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository:

I turned my attention to the window in the southeast corner--the infamous Sniper's Nest. . . . I immediately felt like I had been hit with a sledge hammer. The word that came to mind at what I saw as I looked down through the window to Elm Street and the kill zone was: IMPOSSIBLE!

I knew instantly that Oswald could not have done it. . . . The reason I knew that Oswald could not have done it, was that *I* could not have done it. (KILL ZONE: A SNIPER LOOKS AT DEALEY PLAZA, p. 5)

Retired Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Hathcock is likewise skeptical of Oswald's alleged shooting feat. Hathcock is a former senior instructor at the U. S. Marine Corps Sniper Instruction School at Quantico, Virginia. He has been described as the most famous American military sniper in history. In Vietnam he was credited with 93 confirmed kills. He now conducts police SWAT team sniper schools across the country. Craig Roberts asked Hathcock about the marksmanship feat attributed to Oswald by the Warren Commission. Hathcock answered that he did not believe Oswald could have done what the Commission said he did. Added Hathcock,

Let me tell you what we did at Quantico. We reconstructed the whole thing: the angle, the range, the moving target, the time limit, the obstacles, everything. I don't know how many times we tried it, but we couldn't duplicate what the Warren Commission said Oswald did. (KILL ZONE, pp. 89-90)

------A Valid "Oswald" Rifle Test------

As mentioned, no rifle test has ever included all of the factors under which Oswald would have fired. What would, therefore, constitute a valid "Oswald" rifle test? What would a test need to include in order to qualify as a genuine simulation of Oswald's alleged shooting feat? Such a test would include the following conditions:

* The riflemen cannot have scored above the level of "Sharpshooter" in the Marines (or in the Army).

* The riflemen must have little target practice during the forty days prior to the test.

* The riflemen must have been known to be somewhat uncoordinated while in the Marines (or in the Army).

* The riflemen cannot have any "practice shots" on the day of the test.

* The riflemen must use the alleged murder weapon itself, or another Carcano with a difficult bolt and an odd trigger pull.

* If a different Carcano is used, it must be established, by expert shooters who fire the rifle just to see how fast it can be operated (with or without minimal accuracy), that the weapon cannot be fired faster than 2.3 seconds per shot.

* The target silhouette must be mounted on a car.

* The car carrying the target must be the same size and shape as Kennedy's limousine.

* There must be a tree that is the same size as the oak tree in Dealey Plaza on 11/22/63 and that is in the same position in relation to the window and the road on which the target car is moving.

* The riflemen must fire from a window that is open by no more than 15 inches.

* The window from which the riflemen shoot must have two pipes to its left on the inside. These pipes must be positioned so that they inhibit the riflemen from firing markedly to their right. To get an idea of the degree to which the pipes would have inhibited a sharply rightward shot, see Jim Marrs, CROSSFIRE, New York: Carroll and Graf, 1989, seventh photo page, and Robert Groden, THE KILLING OF A PRESIDENT, New York: Viking StudioBooks, 1993, p. 125; cf. Harrison Livingstone, KILLING THE TRUTH, New York: Carroll and Graf, 1993, second page of second photo set.)

* The riflemen must fire from an elevation of 60 feet.

* The riflemen must score at least two hits out of three shots in less than 6 seconds ON THEIR FIRST ATTEMPT.

* If the riflemen are given 8.4 seconds to fire, then they must so mis-aim their first shot that they COMPLETELY MISS the target car.

* If the riflemen are given 8.4 seconds to fire, not only must they completely miss the target car with their initial shot, but they must also score at least two hits out of their next two shots ON THEIR FIRST ATTEMPT.

* If the riflemen are given 8.4 seconds to fire, they CANNOT deliberately miss the entire target car with their first shot (or with any shot, for that matter), but must miss the whole car without trying to do so.

* The target car must travel the same speeds that the limousine was traveling, and at the appropriate points, from frames 140-313 of the Zapruder film.

No "Oswald" rifle test has ever included all of these conditions. On this basis alone it can be said that no rifleman, no matter how skilled, has ever duplicated Oswald's supposed shooting feat.

The conditions listed above are entirely factual and will not be disputed by anyone familiar with the assassination. Personally, I would add the following two factors, which, though supported by good evidence, are disputed by lone-gunman theorists:

* The riflemen must have a shield of boxes behind them that allows them no more than 30-32 inches in which to kneel and fire. (Photos of the supposed sniper's nest show that a gunman would have had no more than 30-32 inches in which to kneel.) * The riflemen must fire two of their shots in no more than 1.5 seconds. (Numerous witnesses, from all over the plaza, said that two of the shots came so closely together that they were almost simultaneous. Some witnesses even said they sounded like a single burst from an automatic rifle.)

In closing, I quote from an internal Warren Commission memo that was written by Commission attorney Wesley Liebeler. Liebeler was commenting on the various rifle tests that were done for the Commission, on the marksmen who took part in them, and on the way in which those tests were being cited as "evidence" that Oswald could have done the shooting:

The fact is that most of the experts were much more proficient with a rifle than Oswald could ever be expected to be, and the record indicates that fact. . . . To put it bluntly, that sort of selection from the record could seriously affect the integrity and credibility of the entire report. . . . [These] conclusions will never be accepted by critical persons anyway. (James DiEugenio, DESTINY BETRAYED, Sheridan Square Press, 1992, p. 106; 11 HSCA 231-232)

I have read many books on the subject, and one had a pic of the swearing in of LBJ on AF1, with one of his aids in the background grinning like a Cheshire cat.
I'd love to find that picture again, just like the one with JFK, RFK, and Marilyn Monroe huddling in conversation at a function shortly before she died.

Wish I could find either of them on the net. If any else can, please ping me.

That tall fella in the background was Rep. Albert Thomas of Houston. I've always thought the look on Lady Bird's face was more like that of a cat. Looking like it had just eaten a canary. This is the nice, cropped newswire version of somber LBJ, all business, the way he's supposed to be remembered.

And here's your pic of LBJ receiving Al Thomas' *wink*:

And for desert: over Jackie's sholder, note also Future congressman Jack Bascom Brooks, former UT classmate of Malcolm Wallace, also the former editor of the UT Daily Texan. (1943) Brooks and Wallace were both members of MICA as well as members of the executive council at UT.

I'd love to find that picture again, just like the one with JFK, RFK, and Marilyn Monroe huddling in conversation at a function shortly before she died.

I believe that was backstage at New York's Madison Square Garden, from the formal JFK birthday party affair [on 19 May 1962, JFK's birthday actually falling on 29 May] the occasion on which JFK in-law Peter Lawford introduced a tardy Marilyn as *the late Marilyn Monroe.* He was trying to be funny, no doubt. Prints turn up on e-bay every now and again.

8X10 GLOSSY PHOTOGRAPH RECENTLY PRINTED FROM NEGATIVE . A REAL PHOTOGRAPH "NOT A DIGITAL PRINT". Rare image.This photograph is at the after party at Arthur and Mathilda Grimm's apartment,after she sang Happy Birthday to the President. Taken on May 19,1962 ,just nine weeks before her death.This was her last public apperance. Earl Blackwell wrote in his Book "Mr Celeberty" 1991.I was asked to assist with President Kennedy's Birthday Party at Madison Square Garden.My duty was to invite celebrites to appear.Jack Benny and Jimmy Durante were there.Maria Callas came in from Paris.When I called Marilyn in Hollywood and asked her if she'd come sing "Happy Birthday,Mr President," her first question was "Is Bobby Going To Be There?" Obviously,she had a school girl crush on him before she ever met him.After the big celebration at Madison Square Garden,there was a small intimate dinner given at the town house of Matilde and Arthur Krim.That was where Marilyn met Bobby for the first time.They sat together in a corner and laughed and joked all night.It was the begining of their friendship.Many photographs were taken that evening of Marilyn with the President and also with Bobby,but I later learned that orders from the White House said they must be destroyed.This is the only known photograph of the three of them together that has survived. HER WHITE-BLONDE BOUFFANT IS SWEPT INTO A SIDE FLIP BY KENNETH,HER HAIR STYLIST . SHE IS WEARING THE HOLLYWOOD DESIGNER JEAN LOUIS ,SECOND SKIN RHINESTONES-SPANGLED NUDE SOUFFLÉ CHIFFON GOWN.On May 19, 1962, Marilyn Monroe helped to celebrate John F. Kennedy's 45th birthday at a spectacular party in Madison Square Garden. JFK's joke about Monroe's "sweet and wholesome" rendition of "Happy Birthday" was inspired not only by her scorching delivery, but also by the skin-tight dress into which she had been sewn for the occasion. The original cost of the dress in 1962 was $12,000 In 1999, the dress fetched over $1.26 million at a New York auction. The explanation for this fantastic price lies partly in the fact that Monroe wore it in her last important public performance, and partly in the fact that it has come to be seen as symbolic evidence of her sexual relationship with Kennedy. While nothing about this affair appeared in print while Monroe and Kennedy were alive, it is now routinely reported as certain in biographical accounts of both figures. This is the only known photograph of Marilyn Monroe with President Kennedy and his brother Bobby Kennedy.Monroe made her entrance at a party given by theater magnate Arthur Krim. After an hour, President Kennedy pulled the actress away from the other guests and into a corner, where they were soon joined by Robert Kennedy.The three stood talking for approximately 15 minutes. Bobby seems amused at what is being said.

Including my uncle, a Secret Service agent who was there that day.
He was never asked to testify to anything he knew, saw, or believed to the Warren Commission or to the later Senate investigation.

Can you share a bit?

Maybe a little.

Oswald killed Kennedy

Not alone he didn't.

That's a crack in the windshield from the inside.

Another hit from the *magic bullet*? Or another shot? Let's see, the first JFK hit that brought JFKs hands up to his throat, a following one that supposedly hits JFK and Connolly, the one [or fragment thereof] that hits the inside of the windshield, the one that hits the inside frame of the windshield, [yes, THAT one is from inside/behind, no doubt] the Tague Bullet that struck the south Main Street curb in Dealey Plaza during the shooting, hitting about 25 feet from James Tague, who was standing next to the triple underpass. It made a visible scar in the curb, with the mark was immediately recognized by those who saw it as a fresh bullet mark. [The mark might have been made by a sizeable fragment from a bullet that struck nearby, but it was probably caused by a bullet] More:

Dallas policeman J. W. Foster, who was positioned on top of the triple underpass, saw a bullet strike the grass on the south side of Elm Street near a manhole cover, about 350 feet from the TSBD. He reported this to a superior officer and was instructed to guard the area (Shaw and Harris 72-75; Marrs 315).

Journalists and bystanders were kept at a distance from the spot where the bullet landed. An unidentified blond-haired man in a suit was photographed bending down, reaching out his left hand toward the dug-out point on the ground as if to pick up something, standing back up, apparently holding a small object in his hand, and then putting his hand in his pocket (Shaw and Harris 73-74). The hole made by the bullet was even photographed, and the picture appeared in the FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM on 11/23/63

In his Warren Commission testimony, Officer Foster denied a bullet was recovered from near the manhole cover, though he did not explain what the man in the suit picked up and put into his pocket. Foster did, however, say that a bullet "had hit the turf there at that location [near the manhole cover]."

Contemporary press accounts reported that a bullet was retrieved from the dug-out hole in the grass near the manhole cover. For example, when the FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM published a photo of the hole in the grass, it included the following caption:

One of the rifle bullets fired by the murderer of President Kennedy lies in the grass across Elm Street. . . .

The next day the DALLAS TIMES HERALD, in referring to the hole in the grass, reported:

Dallas Police Lt. J. C. Day of the crime lab estimated the distance from the sixth-floor window . . . to the spot where one of the bullets was recovered at 100 yards.

Newsman Richard Dudman said the following about this miss and the recovered bullet in the 12/21/63 issue of the NEW REPUBLIC:

On the day the President was shot I happened to learn of a possible fifth [bullet]. A group of police officers were examining the area at the side of the street where the President was hit, and a police inspector told me they had just found another bullet in the grass.

Officer Foster also reported that a bullet struck the concrete part of the abovementioned manhole cover. It is not known if this was the same missile that made the dug-out hole in the grass a few feet from the manhole cover. The bullet might have skipped off the manhole cover and then imbedded itself in the grass. Or, the mark on the concrete could have been made by a separate bullet, and thus would represent another miss fired from the same approximate location. The sewer cover and the hole in the turf were about 3-5 feet apart, and the latter was farther down the side of Elm Street (that is, it was slightly farther away from the TSBD than was the sewer cover).

About two and a half hours after the shooting, Dealey Plaza witness John Martin came across the mark on the manhole cover. He immediately identified it as a bullet mark. He then told a policeman, "you better get your boss down here to check this thing out, because that will show where the bullet came from" (Trask 573).

Researchers have noted that the photo of the mark indicates it did NOT come from the TSBD. The mark can be seen on the twelfth photo page in the second set of photographs in Harrison Livingstone and Robert Groden's book HIGH TREASON. One can readily see that the angle of the mark does not line up with the Book Depository, but that it does line up with the County Records Building. It might be worth recalling that a 30.06 rifle shell casing was later found on the roof of the County Records Building.

* Just after President Kennedy's limousine passed the front steps of the TSBD, five witnesses saw a bullet strike the pavement on Elm Street near the right rear of the limousine. Witnesses saw this bullet kick up concrete toward the car (Weisberg 187-189; cf. Posner 324; Moore 198) (Posner attempts to explain this miss with his bullet-limb-collision theory.) [My bet: bullet fragments from this hit were the cause of the hit to the limo's windshield, and *maybe* also to the inside strike that dented the windshield frame.]

Clearly, the best witnesses to judge whether it was the first or second shot that struck the President would be those who were closest to him and looking at him when the shots were fired. If these witnesses happened to be trained law enforcement officers, with superior powers of observation, so much the better.

Therefore, some of the very best witnesses should be motorcycle officers Billy Joe (B. J.) Martin, James M. Chaney, Stavis (Steve) Ellis, and William G. (Bill) Lumpkin, who were all among the closest eyewitnesses to the President's murder. Yet only one of these men was deposed by the Warren Commission.

Let's see what these witnesses tell us.

Billy Joe Martin:

I was looking at the president when the first shot was fired. It missed. The second shot hit the president in the back, and the third hit him in the head.

Stavis Ellis:

That's when the first shot was fired. I was looking directly at the President, and I saw the concrete burst into a cloud of dust when that bullet hit the curb. . . . Then, while looking back at the President, I heard the second shot. The President became rigid and grabbed his neck.

Ellis had given this information to the House Select Committee the previous year. The Committee reports:

On August 5, 1978, the committee received information from former Dallas policeman Stavis Ellis that Ellis had also seen a missile hit the ground in the area of the motorcade at the time of the assassination. Ellis said he rode on a motorcycle alongside the first car in the motorcade, approximately 100 to 125 feet in front of the car carrying President Kennedy. Ellis said that just as he started down the hill of Elm Street, he looked back toward President Kennedy's car and saw debris come up from the ground at a nearby curb.

Compare this to the testimony of Royce Skelton, who "saw the motorcade come around the corner and I heard something which I thought was fireworks. I saw something hit the pavement at the left rear of the car . . . I heard two more shots."

The House Select Committee notes:

In his Warren Commission testimony on April 8, 1964, Skelton said that he saw smoke rise from the pavement when the bullet hit. . . . Skelton also offered that the smoke he saw rising from the cement when the bullet hit "spread" in a direction away from the depository; he said the "spray" of flying cement went toward the west.

Compare it also to another eyewitness report, that of Mrs. Virgie Rackley Baker, who "reported that at the time she heard the first shot, she looked in the direction of the triple underpass and saw what she presumed to be a bullet bouncing off the pavement."

* Within a day or two of the assassination, Dallas resident Eugene Aldredge saw a dug-out, four-inch-long bullet mark in the middle of the sidewalk on the north side of Elm Street, which is the side nearest the TSBD. Aldredge did not tell the FBI about the mark until shortly after the release of the WARREN COMMISSION REPORT because he assumed, logically enough, that the mark had surely been noticed by law enforcement officials and would be discussed in full in the Commission's report. When he realized that the mark apparently had been "overlooked," he immediately contacted the FBI and told them about it (Weisberg 383-390). Aldredge related to the FBI that Carl Freund, a reporter for the DALLAS MORNING NEWS, had also identified the mark as a bullet mark.

Less than a week after Aldredge informed the FBI of the mark's existence and location, he took a friend to see it. They found the mark, but saw that it had been altered--it had been filled in. Said Aldredge,

. . . we went to the site and found the mark, [which was] formerly about 1/4 inch deep, had been filled in with what appeared to be a mixture of concrete and asbestos. . . .

A crude attempt had been made to make the altered mark appear to be weather-worn to match the surrounding concrete.

In its report on the mark, the FBI admitted to locating it and described it as being approximately 4 inches long, 1/2 inch wide, and "dug out." And why did the FBI dismiss the significance of this mark? Because, explained the Bureau, it could not have been made by a shot from the window from which Oswald allegedly fired. Just how fast could clumsy Lee Harvey Oswald crank the bolt on that Carcano again...?

Other documents released by the Assassination Records Review Board discuss a Johnson semi-automatic 30.06 rifle that was apparently found in Dealey Plaza soon after the shooting. The documents strongly link this rifle to two men who have long been suspected of being involved in the assassination plot, Loran Hall and Jerry Patrick Hemming. The files also reveal that the FBI took a strong interest in the history and ownership of this rifle within hours of the shooting. A man named Richard Hathcock, who lived in California at the time, had kept the rifle in his office for a while. The day after the assassination, an FBI agent questioned him about the weapon. Among other things, the agent wanted to know if Hathcock had an employee named Roy Payne, who apparently knew a great deal about the rifle. In one of the released files, we read that Hathcock said the following:

It's my opinion that the reason he [the FBI agent] wanted to see Mr. Payne was because Payne's fingerprints undoubtedly were all over that rifle from his having handled it many times. It's also my opinion that unless that particular rifle had been found [near the scene of the crime] or in some way involved in this whole thing [the assassination], that the FBI would have no interest in it. (HSCA 180-10107-10443)

This rifle had quite a history. It was used in CIA-connected anti-Castro raids in Cuba. Roy Payne said the weapon could "put a hole in a dime at 500 yards" (HSCA 180-10107-10440). Loran Hall and an unidentified Hispanic man took the weapon from Payne about a week before the assassination. Hall's associate, Jerry Hemming, is known to have been in Dallas on the day of the shooting, and Hall himself told Hathcock five days prior to the assassination that he had to catch a flight to Dallas (HSCA 180-10107-10440).

* In 1975 a maintenance man named Morgan, while working on the roof of the County Records Building in Dealey Plaza, found a 30.06 shell casing lying under a lip of roofing tar at the base of the roof's parapet on the side facing the plaza, according to his son, Dean Morgan. The shell casing is dated 1953 and marks on it indicate it was made at the Twin Cities Arsenal. One side of the casing has been pitted by exposure to the weather, suggesting that it was exposed on the roof for some time. The casing, which is still in Morgan's possession, has an odd crimp around its neck (Marrs 317; Roberts 80-81).

Former Marine Gerry/Jerry Patrick Hemming, early 1960s:

Um, yes he did, research a little harder.

No he didn't.

and this is my dog.