Talk:Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories/Archive 1

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Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on December 16, 2005. The result of the discussion was keep.

What is the policy on people who have confessed to the murder? In his (ghost-written) autobiography "Bound by Honor" (1999) a retired mafia consigliere Bill Bonanno writes that he shared a prison with Johnny Roselli, who there confessed to being the real shooter of JFK, supposedly positioned in the storm drain on Elm street. Since he is already mentioned in the article I thought this would be interesting to say outright. Also since the "Mafia&CIA theory" is one of the more credible ones anyway.

http://crimemagazine.com/03/richardnixon,1014.htm contains references to pretty recent White House recordings and adds Nixon as a conspirator.

Hingo 17:15, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)


The presidential limo was immediately cleaned and repaired instead of being secured as ballistic evidence.

Ok, I have a question, where is this information from. I remember hearing that this is an urban legend. I do recall hearing that the X-100 was flown to Washington in the Air Force C130 cargo plane that had taken the car to Texas the day before. From Andrews Air Force Base, it was driven to the Secret Service garage and covered in plastic until an examination could be conducted. A thorough examination by Secret Service and FBI agents removed every metal and skull fragment, recording their location. The X-100 was totally photographed inside and out.

The windshield, splintered from a non-penetrating fragment strike, and the dented chrome molding are today stored in the National Archives.

An independent task force -- not Lyndon Johnson -- recommended the X-100 be rebuilt. The project, called the "Quick Fix," began after the Warren Commission had released the car. The rear compartment was retrimmed, replacing the spoiled seat and carpets. The windows were replaced by fixed bullet-resistant glass panels. By the time the Secret Service re-created the assassination in Dealey Plaza in May 1964, the X-100 had a permanent transparent top and was undergoing tests at Ford facilities in Dearborn, Michigan, making it unavailable.

I have seen photographs showing the fragments and dents etc., so it lends credence to the above story. Unless, of course, those pictures are fake.

The History Channel... BluesX 20:50, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] "conspiratorial" theories?

I question the use of the adjective "conspiratorial" to refer to theories, because the implication is that the theories themselves are "characteristic of conspirators."

A conspiratorial theory would be a theory that several individual conspirators "conspired" (agreed) to promote.

Here's an analogy to illustrate my point: a theologian who writes about sin is not (at least not necessarily) advancing a "sinful" theory.

The preferred form seems to be "conspiracy theory."

The Oxford English Dictionary offers an addendum:

Add 4. Special Combs. conspiracy theory, the theory that an event or phenomenon occurs as a result of a conspiracy between interested parties; spec. a belief that some covert but influential agency (typically political in motivation and oppressive in intent) is responsible for an unexplained event; so conspiracy theorist.

160.253.0.248 01:36, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)


How is it that the CIA is not mentioned here, when most Kennedy assassination researchers believe the CIA was directly involved?

Who REALLY controls "Wikipedia"? How can this article be so factually inaccurate??

If you think something is inaccurate or incomplete in this article, please correct it. Gamaliel 01:18, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Single Bullet Theory Tested

There was a show that aired tonight on the Discover Channel (Oct. 16 at 9 p.m. pacific time) entitled "JFK: Behind the Magic Bullet" which put the Single Bullet Theory to the test; and it was concluded that it is entirely possible for a single bullet to have caused all seven of those wounds. Although the bullet in the end was majorly deformed, moreso than the actual bullet belonging to the assassination of Kennedy, and also did not manage to pierce it's final target (the thigh), the bullet had actually gone through two artificial ribs in the test, causing the bullet to have deformed unintentionally and also slowing it down, so that it was not able to pierce the artificial thigh. Unfortunately, there was not a second test conducted, but the results did show that it was entirely possible for a single bullet to have hit all seven wounds. I just think that the show's findings and their results may add to this article.

[edit] Is There any Support for the the Protection of Kennedy being Reduced ?

One of the reasons given for a conspiracy is that the presidential protection on the Dallas trip was reduced:

The two official government investigations have confirmed that the security around Kennedy's motorcade had been considerably reduced from its customary levels. The lack of security suggests to some that the CIA, Secret Service and/or some other agent, rogue agent(s), or agencies were actively involved in the assassination, rather than simply exhibiting an act of negligence.

Is there any evidence that this is true? The main article states "Dallas police had prepared the most stringent security precautions in the city's history." This reference work should not have two apparently contradictory statements. They could both be correct but it looks bad and they both should be supported by some evidence. RPJ 16:54, 20 November 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Julius Caesar paragraph

What's the point of that? What is the conspiricy theory of that particular murder? It doesn't fit in at all with the rest of the article and the "reason" given for the assasination of Caesar is incorrect.

[edit] Exit Wound on Kennedy's Head

I deleted the supposed evidence supporting a high-level conspiracy that said the exit wound on Kennedy's head was on the back. That statement is totally preposterous. The Zapruder film very clearly shows the front of Kennedy's head being blown out. The source linked to was just a gif image with absolutely no description whatsoever. This is an encyclopedia, it may be appropriate to have an article on the theories surrounding Kennedy's assasination as a cultural phenomenon, but it is definitely not appropriate to make unfounded factual statements to promote any of the theories. —Tox 03:55, 29 November 2005 (UTC)


Contributor "Tox" believes the image of Kennedy's head being blown out in the back is "preposterous." But, the image was by Kennedy's treating physician at Parkland hospital.

"Tox" claims to have the real information and according to "Tox" the front of Kennedy's head was "blown out." Here is what purports to be a famous image of Kennedy after being assassinated. [1] Perhaps "Tox" can now tell us where the bullet went in and where it came out.

Blood spray in the front of kennedy's head would be from the bullet striking it near the front and by striking a closed container (the skull), at very high speed, it caused a back spray from the small bullet hole but then exited from the back of the head leaving a very large hole and taking with it over a third of the president's brain. RPJ 05:12, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] De-AFD

That this could even be considered for deletion is absurd. The Cunctator 00:46, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Speedy de-AFD'd. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kennedy assassination theories. -Ste|vertigo 18:50, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Format for the revamp of the page

Here is a format that would be helpful for the assassination theories. I realize that those that possess a religous type fervor relating to this case may not like it because because each theory will be discussed briefly with the same elements being addressed for each theory.

Note well: I am not putting in the sources to these fundemantal statements since I just want to see if there is a consensus on this type of approach, and not given to get into a debate over the evidence. Please do not explode with indignation if something appears that doesn't seem "right."

A number of theories exist with regard to the John F. Kennedy assassination.

The person or persons who murdered President Kennedy have never been caught or convicted, with the possible exception of Lee Harvey Oswald. He was arrested and charged with the murder of the President, but forever silenced by being immediately murdered himself while in police custody. Oswald denied murdering the president and claimed he was a "patsy" and claimed the evidence produced by the police of him holding the murder weapon was faked.

This lack of a criminal judgment(or even a civil judgment)leaves the matter of who murdered President Kennedy an issue open to debate. With a trial, the facts are established through a public trial with evidence that has been challenged for authenticity, and other evidentiary value. Opposing evidence can be presented, and arguments for and against guilt can be advocated and the case is conducted by an unbiased court and jury. None of this has occurred.

The major theories on who murdered John F. Kennedy are as follows:



--1 "Official" Theory Number One--

Lee Harvey Oswald murdered the president and committed the murder by himself. The main proponent of this theory is the Warren Commission.

Strong Points:

An eyewitness identified Oswald with a rifle at the scene of the crime. Oswald worked at the building and in the area where the eyewitnessclaimed he spotted him and his fingerprint was on a box nearby.


Weak Points:

The eyewitness was far away, and a positive identification didn't come from Brennan until later. He claimed he didn't tell everything he knew at first because he was afraid of a communist conspiracy.

Other witnesses saw him elswere immediately afterwards, and his finger prints would be expected to be on boxes that he handled at work.

Oswald had no motive.

Even if Oswald was one of the shooters the bullets appeared to come from two different directions, and the most damaging wound blew out the back of the president's head. Oswald was allegedly shooting from behind the President, not from in front of him. —the preceding unsigned comment is by RPJ (talk • contribs)

Watch Who was Lee Harvey Oswald? and tell me if you uncover a motive. His fingerprints were also on the rifle, which he purchased under an alias that he created fake ID for with his photo on it. An earwitness on the fifth floor also heard three loud shots from above. Furthermore I'm not too impressed with your understanding of balistics, and what a rifle bullet can do to a skull (both entering and exiting). If you need a refresher look at this still photo of an apple being shot. Notice the explosive force is not simply in the direction of motion; that the entrance also blows out. - RoyBoy 800 07:07, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Oswald appears to have no motive. Instead of suggesting a motive to murder the president, the suggestion is to watch a tv program. Here is a good test: Is this a motive that someone would be able to convince a judge or jury is true in the glare of a trial?

I'm unsure how answering hypothetical questions gets us anywhere. Yes, I believe so, but it rests upon character witnesses; how they would testify and react to that glare, and the glare of Oswald himself is obviously unknown. I've recommended an excellent documentary (not just some random TV program) because I have dealt with people who have firm beliefs before; its been my experience when I tell them things they are largely ignored and my time is wasted. When I point them to the corroborated and well assembled evidence I base my opinions on; their positions soften. Saying Oswald "appears to have no motive" indicates to me you need to do more research on the person who most likely killed the President. To not do that leaves a significant blind spot in your research.

Oswald's fingerprints on "the rifle" do not perclude a second shooter. This should have been an easy case to prove against Oswald, if he did it. May be he did, but the most important question now is whether there was a second shooter and others involved. If so, they are walking free on the murder.

If others are involved that is indeed important and the entire point of this article... however there is no need to emphasize the scant and misinterpreted evidence pointing to a second shooter. I will indeed tweak the little girl paragraph to something a little more robust.

It doesn't matter that three loud shots were heard from behind Kennedy. There is a consensus that at least one shot from the back hit Kennedy, so evidence of these shots is expected. It doesn't affect the evidence of shots from the front.

Apart from people thinking they heard a shot from the front; and one person, Dr. Donald B. Thomas (no this isn't a battle of the experts), disputing the NAS acoustic analysis of there being no fourth shot... there is no substantial evidence of a shot from the front; if there was a fourth shot it would be confirmed by witnesses, it was not. There was also no need for a fourth shot to kill the President. Shot 1: Missed, little girl turns. Shot 2: Magic bullet passes through Kennedy's throat and the other guy. Shot 3: Head shot kills JFK. No fourth shot needed. I elaborate below.

Oswald's creation of a fake ID with his picture on it doesn't tend to prove there was no second shooter. On the other hand, (if it is true) that J. Edgar Hoover told LBJ that someone appears to have been impersonating Oswald in Mexico shortly before the shooting indicates a possible frame up of Oswald and a possible conspiracy.

Oswald (who did go to Mexico City) trying to defect to Cuba, and was being watched by the CIA (as any American visiting the Cuban consulate would be); it has absolutely nothing to do with an assasination. I invite you to watch chapter seven here. Mr. Hoover was mistaken if he believed there was an impersonation; he wasn't there, neither were you and I, but the people who were there saw Oswald... not the guy in the released CIA photo, which was a mistake. Are they hiding something (audio tapes, photos?) – hey they're the CIA – of course they are hiding something! :"D But this doesn't change the fact Oswald went to Mexico.
I should clarify that by meaning he wasn't impersonated in person where Oswald didn't going to Mexico. As this demonstrates someone impersonated him on the phone and linked him to a assassin Valery Kostikov. This is what US officials were discussing; not Oswald being framed by a CIA agent walking around pretending he was Oswald. - RoyBoy 800 07:10, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

These are matters of simple logic where some evidence tends to establish that something happened or didn't happen and then other evidence that doesn't address the issue at all. In court, one makes simple offers of proof: An attorney tells the judge I'm going to offer evidence that Mr. Jones ran the red light. That evidence, if true, might be very relevant in a tort case alleging an auto accident be irrelevant to proving whether Mr. Jones breached a contract to build a house. The judge would certainly ask for a position on relevancy.

Are you a lawyer and/or law student? Because I'm wondering about the relevancy of all these court references. An appeal to authority? Stop making them as your evidence (and lack thereof) wouldn't hold in court.

Watching a an apple get blown apart by a gunshot has what relevance? Merely to show that some back spray will develop when a high velocity bullet strikes an object with a high water content? What relevance is this law of physics to the case? Is a bona fida expert going to give the counter intuitive opinion that the five inch diameter hole in the back of Kennedy's head is the result of an entry wound from a bullet? I don't think any such theory has been proposed by anyone.

Indeed the apple is only an illustration; but an effective one as the brain also has high water content. As to the "hole" being 5-inches, I invite you to conduct an experiment. Get a round hard (but not thick) ceramic bowl and shoot it with a sniper rifle. Or better yet get an egg and conduct some impact experiments. You will find a small sudden impact can collapse a significant amount of the surrounding structure; making the area effected by the impact large, even though the hole itself is small. The best everyday example I can think of is walking on thin ice, even when on your tip toes you can collapse a significant circle of ice around your foot. So in answer to your question, yes a "bona fida expert" would clarify how such a thing can – by comparing it to other head shot victims – indeed occur.

The Warren Commission posited a theory that Kennedy was facing directly towards the ground and a bullet clipped him in the back base of the skull and took off the back right hand side of his skull.

The Commission even drew a little cartoon diagram on how it could happen that someone could be shot in the head from behind and instead of having a gaping exit wound in the face, has a huge exit wound in the back of the skull.

No evidence supports that this happened in the way the cartoon depicted. It is as simple as that.

I haven't mentioned the Warren Commission... so, I agree. It was posited, and I can only assume, is a discarded theory that has little relevance here.

Therefore when going through all the arguments haphazardly thrown together in the article it finally just seemed best to point out that approaching it in an unstructered and unreasoned way just clouds the issues. This was the easieat way to point it out right in the article. Probably nobody reads the discussion pages. Probably no one should read the article in its presnt state.

RPJ 11:07, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I have been generally gruff with you as I find your rationale and evidence wanting, but I hope to also make clear that I realize you were trying to fix and question the article so that it could be improved. And that's great! Indeed I see you posted your message on the talk page some time ago and decided to be bold and fix the article yourself when you got no response.
I do not want to discourage your input as it certainly will help improve the article (like how you pointed out the girl turning is of little relevance, I inserted that into the article and you are right as to it being silly -- my bad). The thing is the article is live and as bad as it is... it does have some sort of structure, which was put in disarray by your notes. I will certainly refer to them further as the article is improved. I invite further dialogue as we move forward. - RoyBoy 800 17:29, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Also I wanted to specifically praise your edits to the lead, breaking off the CIA stuff into a seperate sub-section was a good move. I eventually got around to redoing your edit; although I did remove some stuff from the CIA sub-section which better fit in the lead... at least until we move the polls to their own section. - RoyBoy 800 06:45, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] dispute tag

I've revised the paragraph on the fingerprint theory, and that paragraph alone was so chock full of factual errors, incorrect assertions, and pov claims, that I fear for the rest of the article. We should make a thorough check of the whole article. Gamaliel 07:49, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

  • I agree, and thank Gamaliel for placing the dispute tag - I would have done it myself if it were not already here. The whole thing is a big mess and desperately needs structure and style revision. I absolutely think the article is necessary, because these conspiracy theories have permeated American culture - just about everyone has an opinion one way or the other, believing either 'conspiracy' or 'Oswald acting alone.' However, the article seems to be a laundry list of every theory ever mentioned anywhere on the web, instead of a thoughtful, structured, referenced overview of the case against the Warren Commission report. ddlamb 05:22, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Background impetus for publicized post-1950s assassination scenarios in United States

As previously described within other article discussion posts contributed at www.en.wikipedia.org, and within other America Online ISP websites, the effort to organize a formal investigation of a limestone monument shrine site in Degolia, Pennsylvania, has been grossly misinterpreted.

There is a tiny archaeological artifact evident beneath the monument, and a container -- some sort of jar or bowl possibly with internal moisture control dam -- is yet needed to protect the mucousal oracle bead chronicle and house it in a museum. Grass-cutters as a population of viewers would sight the first historical image of many preserved within the bead, at its surface.

Because there is an airport within regional proximity, some private speculation has always existed about the possiblity of foreign infiltration (and perhaps theft of the oracle bead itself). Members of the Kennedy family held positions within local manufacturing 'plants' and individuals are almost always routinely considered to be a potential candidate to be promoted to the title of 'company president' of one or the other local businesses. Both the shrine site and local factories are located near the city of Bradford, Pennsylvania.

Because the oracle bead chronicle is very tiny and appears to be an old dead egg wrongly placed beneath the limestone Smith monument, efforts to report about its discovery have been for the most part misinterpreted. Conjecture about the remote probability of assassination should the oracle bead and cemetery site be approached without appropriate paperwork was a mental exercise largely misconstrued; mental transmission of a discrete set of worldwide ('global') historical plant life which can be viewed within the bead, was the impetus to promote John F. Kennedy into the United States' Presidency as a political party action. 06:31, 5 January 2006 (UTC) 1/4/2006 beadtot