Post by Greg C. on May 31, 2007 14:32:50 GMT -5
The following is a compilation of different articles:
BACKGROUND
A number of theories exist with regard to the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Such theories began to be generated soon after his death, and continue to be proposed today. Many of these theories propose a criminal conspiracy involving parties such as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the KGB, the Mafia, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director J. Edgar Hoover, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Fidel Castro, George H. W. Bush, Cuban exile groups opposed to the Castro government and the military and/or government interests of the United States.
In 1964, the Warren Commission concluded that there was no "persuasive" evidence Lee Harvey Oswald was in a conspiracy to assassinate the President. Almost immediately, critics began to question the official government conclusions and wrote books attacking the Commission and its findings. Among them was Mark Lane — a lawyer who briefly represented Oswald's mother, and who authored the critical book Rush to Judgment.
In the decades that followed, a dedicated group of independent researchers published literally dozens of different, and sometimes contradictory theories.
In 1967, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison arrested local businessman Clay Shaw and charged him with being part of a conspiracy to kill Kennedy. Shaw was acquitted in less than an hour after a lengthy and controversial trial. Garrison's investigations attracted researchers from around the country who provided Garrison with information and theories. In turn these researchers were aided by the access afforded to a District Attorney. The most notable example of the latter was Garrison's subpoenae of the Zapruder film which allowed jury members to see it first-hand. Bootleg copies were quickly circulated and it was shown on television for the first time in 1975.
In 1976, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) was formed by Congress to investigate the killings of Kennedy, his brother Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.. The HSCA investigated many theories put forward by assassination researchers and criticised some of them.
The HSCA concluded in 1979 that Oswald was the assassin and were about to conclude that he acted alone when a Dictabelt recording – purportedly recorded during the assassination – then surfaced. Based on over 20 witnesses who heard shots from in front of Kennedy and scientific analysis of the recording by a group of scientists, the committee concluded that there was a fourth shot and hence a second gunman, and that Kennedy was probably killed as a result of a conspiracy. Researchers – who for years had called into question the Warren Commission's finding that a lone gunmen was responsible for the assassination, and had posited a conspiracy theory – felt vindicated by the House report.
The accuracy of the Dictabelt analysis was questioned and an opinion by others argue that all the impulses believed to have been shots "happened about a minute after the assassination" based on verified crosstalk.[1] The Congressional Committee's panel of scientists then received further support that a conspiracy existed by D. B. Thomas – in 2001 – who concluded, based on further crosstalk on channel II, it was 95% likely there was a fourth shot. However, Thomas, like the HSCA, assumed the tape on channel II ran continuously; analysis by Michael O'Dell indicates this was not the case.
Director Oliver Stone's 1991 film JFK, which was based on the HSCA findings and books by Garrison and Jim Marrs – was what Stone called a "counter-fiction to the Warren Commission's fiction". This controversial film portrayed an extensive plot to kill the President and presented many of Garrison's allegations as fact. The revived interest in the assassination due to the film led to the formation of the Assassination Records Review Board, to gather and declassify all unreleased US Government records regarding the assassination. In the wake of Stone's film, efforts were made to refute many conspiracy theories, such as Gerald Posner's Pulitzer Prize-nominated book Case Closed and the ABC documentary Beyond Conspiracy, hosted by Peter Jennings.
Many doubts still remain in the minds of the public regarding the official government conclusions. An ABC News poll (in 2003) found that 70% of American respondents "suspect a plot" in the assassination of President Kennedy.
LONE GUNMAN THEORY
-Howard Brennan, a 45-year-old steamfitter, while waiting across the street from the Texas School Book Depository for the presidential motorcade, noticed a man at the southeast corner window of the sixth floor of the Depository. Just after the President's car passed, he heard what he thought was a firecracker or an explosion. He looked up at the window again and saw the man with a gun, aiming and taking a final shot. Within minutes of the assassination, Brennan described the man to the police. He later testified that Lee Harvey Oswald, whom he viewed in a police lineup on the night of the assassination, was the man he saw fire the shot
-Bonnie Ray Williams and two co-workers watching the motorcade from a fifth floor window of the Depository heard three shots come from the floor above, and reverberations shook plaster from the ceiling onto his head
-Governor and Mrs. Connally and the two Secret Service agents in the presidential limousine all testified that the shots came from the direction of the Texas School Book Depository
-Charles Hester, Emmett Hudson and Marilyn Sitzman, the only witnesses on the Grassy Knoll who gave testimony about the direction of the shots, all said the shots came from the direction of the Texas School Book Depository
-In the ABC documentary Beyond Conspiracy, using a close-up frame-by-frame analysis, computer analyst Dale K. Myers points out a previously-unnoticed incident on the Zapruder film. As the limo carrying Kennedy and Connally emerges from behind a road sign in Dealey Plaza, the lapel of Connally's suit coat appears to "pop out" as if pushed from within by an unseen force. Myers theorizes that this is the moment when the bullet from Oswald's rifle strikes Connally in the back and exits through his chest. A moment later, as Kennedy emerges from behind the road sign, his hands move up to his throat, indicating that he has been hit. Myers points out that both Kennedy and Connally react simultaneously to being wounded on the film.
BACKGROUND
A number of theories exist with regard to the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Such theories began to be generated soon after his death, and continue to be proposed today. Many of these theories propose a criminal conspiracy involving parties such as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the KGB, the Mafia, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director J. Edgar Hoover, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Fidel Castro, George H. W. Bush, Cuban exile groups opposed to the Castro government and the military and/or government interests of the United States.
In 1964, the Warren Commission concluded that there was no "persuasive" evidence Lee Harvey Oswald was in a conspiracy to assassinate the President. Almost immediately, critics began to question the official government conclusions and wrote books attacking the Commission and its findings. Among them was Mark Lane — a lawyer who briefly represented Oswald's mother, and who authored the critical book Rush to Judgment.
In the decades that followed, a dedicated group of independent researchers published literally dozens of different, and sometimes contradictory theories.
In 1967, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison arrested local businessman Clay Shaw and charged him with being part of a conspiracy to kill Kennedy. Shaw was acquitted in less than an hour after a lengthy and controversial trial. Garrison's investigations attracted researchers from around the country who provided Garrison with information and theories. In turn these researchers were aided by the access afforded to a District Attorney. The most notable example of the latter was Garrison's subpoenae of the Zapruder film which allowed jury members to see it first-hand. Bootleg copies were quickly circulated and it was shown on television for the first time in 1975.
In 1976, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) was formed by Congress to investigate the killings of Kennedy, his brother Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.. The HSCA investigated many theories put forward by assassination researchers and criticised some of them.
The HSCA concluded in 1979 that Oswald was the assassin and were about to conclude that he acted alone when a Dictabelt recording – purportedly recorded during the assassination – then surfaced. Based on over 20 witnesses who heard shots from in front of Kennedy and scientific analysis of the recording by a group of scientists, the committee concluded that there was a fourth shot and hence a second gunman, and that Kennedy was probably killed as a result of a conspiracy. Researchers – who for years had called into question the Warren Commission's finding that a lone gunmen was responsible for the assassination, and had posited a conspiracy theory – felt vindicated by the House report.
The accuracy of the Dictabelt analysis was questioned and an opinion by others argue that all the impulses believed to have been shots "happened about a minute after the assassination" based on verified crosstalk.[1] The Congressional Committee's panel of scientists then received further support that a conspiracy existed by D. B. Thomas – in 2001 – who concluded, based on further crosstalk on channel II, it was 95% likely there was a fourth shot. However, Thomas, like the HSCA, assumed the tape on channel II ran continuously; analysis by Michael O'Dell indicates this was not the case.
Director Oliver Stone's 1991 film JFK, which was based on the HSCA findings and books by Garrison and Jim Marrs – was what Stone called a "counter-fiction to the Warren Commission's fiction". This controversial film portrayed an extensive plot to kill the President and presented many of Garrison's allegations as fact. The revived interest in the assassination due to the film led to the formation of the Assassination Records Review Board, to gather and declassify all unreleased US Government records regarding the assassination. In the wake of Stone's film, efforts were made to refute many conspiracy theories, such as Gerald Posner's Pulitzer Prize-nominated book Case Closed and the ABC documentary Beyond Conspiracy, hosted by Peter Jennings.
Many doubts still remain in the minds of the public regarding the official government conclusions. An ABC News poll (in 2003) found that 70% of American respondents "suspect a plot" in the assassination of President Kennedy.
LONE GUNMAN THEORY
-Howard Brennan, a 45-year-old steamfitter, while waiting across the street from the Texas School Book Depository for the presidential motorcade, noticed a man at the southeast corner window of the sixth floor of the Depository. Just after the President's car passed, he heard what he thought was a firecracker or an explosion. He looked up at the window again and saw the man with a gun, aiming and taking a final shot. Within minutes of the assassination, Brennan described the man to the police. He later testified that Lee Harvey Oswald, whom he viewed in a police lineup on the night of the assassination, was the man he saw fire the shot
-Bonnie Ray Williams and two co-workers watching the motorcade from a fifth floor window of the Depository heard three shots come from the floor above, and reverberations shook plaster from the ceiling onto his head
-Governor and Mrs. Connally and the two Secret Service agents in the presidential limousine all testified that the shots came from the direction of the Texas School Book Depository
-Charles Hester, Emmett Hudson and Marilyn Sitzman, the only witnesses on the Grassy Knoll who gave testimony about the direction of the shots, all said the shots came from the direction of the Texas School Book Depository
-In the ABC documentary Beyond Conspiracy, using a close-up frame-by-frame analysis, computer analyst Dale K. Myers points out a previously-unnoticed incident on the Zapruder film. As the limo carrying Kennedy and Connally emerges from behind a road sign in Dealey Plaza, the lapel of Connally's suit coat appears to "pop out" as if pushed from within by an unseen force. Myers theorizes that this is the moment when the bullet from Oswald's rifle strikes Connally in the back and exits through his chest. A moment later, as Kennedy emerges from behind the road sign, his hands move up to his throat, indicating that he has been hit. Myers points out that both Kennedy and Connally react simultaneously to being wounded on the film.
