summer patriot, winter soldier: the jfk assassination .... conspiracy ....

fifty years ago president john f. kennedy was murdered by lee harvey oswald.

kennedy was shot by a rifle chambered in the 6.5mm carcano, wielded by oswald from a 6th floor window in the texas school book depository building in dallas, texas as kennedy traveled in an open car in a motorcade.

this really is not open to contention. oswald was employed by the school book depository, and other employees put him in the building contemporaneously with the shooting. the rifle was found in the building, and it was covered in oswald's hand prints. the bullet that killed kennedy was found to have been fired from oswald's rifle.

the grassy knoll. the bullet that entered kennedy's head was fired from behind. it was not fired from "the grassy knoll" as many have conjectured, and asserted. in an excellent pbs program, an episode of nova, forensic examination of the medical records, to include x-rays of kennedy's skull and drawings of the injuries to his brain, and other evidence at the national archives, determine that as physical fact the bullet entered the rear of his skull and exited the front. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/cold-case-jfk.html .

more importantly, in absolutely eliminating a shooter on "the grass knoll" theory, the bullet did not enter the right side of kennedy's head, as there is almost no damage whatsoever to the left side of kennedy's skull or his left brain, as would have occurred had the bullet struck him on the right side of the head.

and, there is the little matter of a hole in the right back of his skull that grassy knoll enthusiasts have to contend with.

kennedy was killed by a bullet striking the back of his head, fired by lee harvey oswald from the 6th floor of the book depository. the rifle, the prints, and three empty shell cases establish that. period. end of discussion.

the magic bullet. those who would debunk the warren commission report contend that another shooter must have been involved, in order to "explain" the wounds suffered by texas governor john connoally. they say, almost poetically, that in order for the same bullet to have struck both kennedy and connoally, it would have had to have "magically" taken two "right turns" to have followed that bullet path.

or else, connoally would have had to have been in line with the bullet's path as it exited kennedy's head. since connoally is described as sitting in the middle of the car, and kennedy on its right & behind connaolly, this seems pretty reasonable to me.

could the same bullet have killed kennedy and wounded connaolly, passing through both of them? well, yes it could, and quite easily, as a matter of fact.

the 6.5mm carcano cartridge was adopted as the italian service round in 1891. it shot a 159-160 grain bullet at something around 2100 fps at the muzzle. it is very similar to the 6.5mm mannlicher schoenauer cartridge, adopted by the greek army in 1903, again firing a 159-160 grain bullet around 2100 fps from the muzzle, more or less. update: i've seen other sources list the velocity of both the carcano and the mannlicher-schoenauer at around 2400 fps from the service rounds, but, i am a bit dubious that either would have achieved such velocity given the relatively low pressures at which both operated. end update.

william maitland dalrymple bell was an adventurer, perhaps the greatest ivory hunter of all time. he used, for the most part, a rifle firing the 7x57mm mauser cartridge, firing 173 grain bullets at a muzzle velocity of 2400 fps or so. he often went on safari in the african interior a year or more at a time in search of large bull elephants, because they had the largest tusks, ... , and, he wanted to collect large tusks, because they earned him more money.

he killed in the neighborhood of 12 or 1300 bull elephants, the majority of them with the 7x57mm mauser, and toward the end of his career w/ the .318 westly richards. but, here is the point of this little passage. at the beginning of his career, he also used the 6.5x54mm mannlicher schoenauer to kill elephants, with results sufficiently sure that he was himself not killed in these endeavors.

his preferred shot was to "brain" the elephants, which involved being able to send a bullet into the brain case of the bull elephant from as many angles that he could: he studied elephant skulls at the various british natural history museums to learn the anatomy of the skull, and its weakest points that would allow the bullet's passage to the brain.

i will simply note, that if a 6.5mm mannlicher schoenauer has enough oomph to penetrate to an elephant's brain, (and we are talking very large bulls here, that were carrying 100 lb. tusks, yielding 200 pounds of ivory per bull), then most certainly the 6.5mm carcano, of almost identical power, could have penetrated the bodies of both kennedy and connoally.

the 6.5mm carcano, was, after all, designed as a military caliber capable of dispatching those soldiers who met italians on the battlefield. the bullet & cartridge were designed to be predictably lethal, to humans. and, they are, to this day. period.

the matter of conspiracy. i believe that lee harvey oswald was a lone shooter that day, and that he alone shot at john f. kennedy.

does it follow, based on that singular fact, that no conspiracy to kill kennedy existed? does logic mandate that if we can say with some degree of conviction that no shot was fired from "the grassy knoll" that no conspiracy existed to kill john kennedy?

to my mind, that fact that lee harvey oswald was a lone shooter does not preclude the existence of a conspiracy to kill kennedy.

and, i think that it is quite likely that more people were involved in kennedy's assassination than just oswald.

let me put it this way.--

whenever i hunted elk, i went to the mountains where the elk were likely to be. (that was the plan, anyway.) and, if you are in the business of assassinating political figures, you have to be where they are. or, are likely to be.

lee harvey oswald was hired by the texas school book depository on october 16, 1963. he was hired because a family friend, by the name of ruth paine, told him of the job at the school book repository. that is what she told the warren commission, at any rate. ruth paine also is the person that drove oswald from new orleans, louisiana to texas, from which he left to travel to mexico city and visited the russian embassy attempting to get approval & the necessary documents to travel to russia via cuba.

he was unable to gain that permission.

it was announced that john f. kennedy would visit dallas in september of 1963.

the exact motorcade route that he would take through dallas, texas was determined on november 18, 1963 and announced a few days later, a couple of days before kennedy was shot.

lee harvey oswald was in place. he had managed to find himself in the exact place that john f. kennedy would be on friday, november 22, 1963 and with a commanding view of the whole affair as the motorcade moved down houston street, thence onto elm street, through dealy plaza.

it was then that oswald shot and killed kennedy.

timeline of the assassination -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_John_F._Kennedy_assassination

lee harvey oswald -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Harvey_Oswald

read these two articles, very closely. the matters discussed in this blog post are found in the text of the articles. read closely, and see what you think.

ballistics -- the hornady handbook of cartridge reloading, vol. 1, published 1991. pages on the 6.5mm carcano and 6.5mm mannlicher schoenauer.

before lee harvey oswald shot and killed john f. kennedy he made an attempt upon the life of retired general edwin walker, who also resided in dallas. the attempt failed, with walker being slight injured in the matter. but, the point i wish to make is that almost certainly others knew of this attempt to kill walker, to include his wife, marina, and family friends. they did not seem very bothered by what he had done. perhaps they were in sympathy.

no one reported oswald to police authorities.

conclusion on the matter of conspiracy. somehow, oswald got himself to the place where kennedy would be. and, where he would be vulnerable to attack by a skilled rifle shot.

i do not much believe in coincidence as a causal explanation of things.

i strongly suspect that if conspiracy is to be found, if would be found by looking for a connection between those who either planned or had knowledge of the planning of the motorcade route through dallas, texas in september of 1963. that knowledge seems to have been passed on to friends and assciates of oswald, and then to oswald himself. it seems reasonable to me, for instance, that lee harvey oswald wanted to plan an escape route to russia after the assassination of kennedy: and, that he had determined to use that route before he went to mexico.

if this is true, and this is a very big "if," then oswald was planning the assassination and his escape just days after the plan was formulated by john kennedy and his handlers to visit dallas, and well before the matter was made public.

if a conspiracy existed, then it also seems very likely to me that those who knew of the motorcade route communicated this fact to those who secured employment for oswald at the texas school book repository in october of 1963, just a little bit over a month from the time that john kennedy would be in dallas, texas. again, if a conspiracy existed, then the school book depository was chosen early on as the point from which to launch the assassination attempt.

it just seems logical.

i would look for some sort of connection between the planners of the route through dallas, and ruth paine, who got oswald his job at the warehouse. if a conspiracy existed, and it were to include planning john kennedy's assassination, then a logical nexus between the various planners is to be found w/ lee harvey oswald's employment at the texas school book repository.

somebody in high places did not like the kennedy brothers. john f. kennedy, and then robert kennedy, were killed in turn. again, i don't believe in coincidence in such matters, and "coincidence" is not much of a substitute for causation.

i would look for motive. i would look for opportunity. i would start looking in the back pocket of lyndon baines johnson, or texas governor john connoally. they got kennedy to texas, and they planned the motorcade route.

i am not saying that they personally had anything to do with john f. kennedy's assassination. but they, or someone close to them politically, or working on their staffs, are the best place to start digging. to my way of thinking, someone there knew ruth paine. and, ruth paine knew someone who shot at other people.

update, same day as publication. my oh my, oh what an interesting web of intrigue the world weaves. i would write, "... when first we practice to deceive ... ," but it is very difficult indeed to see where truth ends and deceit begins in this world.

lee harvey oswald stayed at the home of ruth paine the night before he killed john f. kennedy at dallas, on november 22, 1963. he kept the 6.5mm carcano rifle he used to shoot kennedy in ruth paine's garage, and even showed her a picture in which he held the rifle, but she denies having had any knowledge that oswald possessed the gun before the assassination, and intimates she would not have allowed it in her house. she was a quaker, you see. (i would remind you, so was richard nixon, for whatever that is worth.)

ruth paine is related to john kerry. yes, that john kerry. the secretary of state, john kerry, and intimate and protege of the kennedy's.

it's all related here, w/ interesting pictures and links. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2501424/EXCLUSIVE-John-Kerry-relative-got-Lee-Harvey-Oswald-book-depository-job-disputes-secretary-states-doubts-assassin-acted-alone.html .

well, then, how could ruth paine have been a conspirator w/ oswald, if she held those sorts of convictions? sometimes, it ends up that things may not be what they seem, on the surface. that observation cuts many many ways in this tangle.

for, you see, ruth paine may not be all she seems, and ruth paine may not be all that there is about ruth paine. no, i did not garble that up, it is written as intended. ruth paine, after all, was related to michael paine, her husband. a reader of the article wrote in a comment section:

"Ok.....Lee Oswald had met Ruth Paine in February 1963 at a party in Dallas to which George de Mohrenschildt and his wife had brought them. Ruth Paine, wife of Michael Paine, an engineer designer who did highly classified work for Bell Helicopter, a major Defense Department contractor. Jim Garrison later suggested that Ruth Paine might have been involved in setting Oswald up as the "patsy". Garrison points out that Ruth Paine's father had been employed by the Agency for International Development, a cover op for the C.I.A. .... Hey Ruth Paine, did I leave something out? /s/ james"

in the post, ruth paine explains that she got acquainted w/ the oswalds because they were russians.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2501424/EXCLUSIVE-John-Kerry-relative-got-Lee-Harvey-Oswald-book-depository-job-disputes-secretary-states-doubts-assassin-acted-alone.html .

it is interesting to note that marina oswald knew of the fact that lee harvey oswald had made an attempt on the life of retired general edwin walker, and presumably ruth paine knew of this as well. (she may not have been as naive as she portrays herself.) and, it is interesting to note that marina oswald was the daughter of a high ranking soviet internal/external intelligence/espionage officer, and that she was accelerated in her studies and employment consistent with a person raised with the culture of russian intelligence operatives. this is doubly interesting given that the writer of the /comment/note above, "james," asserts that ruth paine's father was connected to the c.i.a. himself, and suggests in ruth paine, if not exactly an intelligence background, then one in which she might have had more than passing familiarity with the workings and goings on associated with the intel game.

there is, in short, the suggestion in all of this of there being far more to ruth paine than she sees fit to reveal. she does not seem to me to be a naif. at all. end of this update, 11.17.2013. and, thank you abe miller, for bringing this to my attention.

john jay @ 11.17.2013

p.s. in short, i just don't believe that lee harvey oswald just happened to be working in a building that looked over the parade route on the day that john f. kennedy visited dallas, texas and drove by that building. that stretches credulity, in my mind. past its limits.

he goes from new orleans to dallas, to mexico to visit the russian and cuban consulates, and works in the building, ... , all on happenstance? nah, it just doesn't compute for me.