Book: HEAD SHOT (deals with JFK thing)

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Based on my personal experience with a Carcano carbine, I believe the shots were quite possible.
Mine is quite accurate at 100yds, and the bolt is very fast and smooth to operate.
They are are hardly the junk rifles portrayed in this thread.
I still believe there's more to the story than we will ever know.
 

I'd love to get my hands on the rifle set up just like the one Oswald used. But when I mentioned such a purchase to the little woman...


 
I'd love to get my hands on the rifle set up just like the one Oswald used. But when I mentioned such a purchase to the little woman...
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From www/gunsamerica.com
Italian Carcano 6.5x52mm
995471431


Italian Carcano in 6.5x52mm typical to better shape that I have seen in these rifles. Still a fair amount of grease on them. I will only accept USPS money orders. (read more)

$145.00
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MIDWEST - " ... Couple that with all the motives for shooting JFK; Mob, Cubans, Communists, CIA...it only added fuel to the fire that there was a conspiracy."
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Don't forget another conspiracy that is still floating around, that V.P. Lyndon B. Johnson had Pres. Kennedy killed so he could become President.

This conspiracy is based on the fact that according to those who grew up with him had claimed that when Johnson was a child even, he was obsessed with becoming President of the U.S., someday. He expressed this throughout his life. Those people who served in the Congress and Senate knew how obsessed Johnson was, and knew that Johnson was aware that if Kennedy ran for a second term, he, V.P. Johnson, was going to be booted off the ticket. (The Kennedys hated Johnson, and his being named as V.P. was nothing but pure politics because JFK had to have Texas for the 1960 election. Johnson, as his running mate, guaranteed Texas for JFK.)

If Johnson were kicked off the 1964 ticket, his lifelong dream would have exploded and he would never have been President after that, plus he no longer would have been the powerful Speaker of the Senate.. It was well known also just how uncontrollable was his temper, how truly vindictive and cruel Johnson could be with those who disagreed with him, or who thwarted him in some way or another.

I am not saying that I believe the "Johnson/JFK" conspiracy... but I know some people who do.

No matter, the history of Lyndon Baines Johnson is very interesting, revealing that he was a political genius, consumed with having his own way no matter who might be hurt or destroyed, a pathological liar, and a malevolent, venal, and disgusting man.

As others have said, I don't think we'll ever know if there were a conspiracy or not. But its lots of fun to speculate, huh? :)

L.W.
 
The thing I can't get past in it being a lone gunman is the last shot to hit JFK moved his head violently to the rear and to the left in the Zapruder film. In my opinion, just as I think the reaction would be if the shot came from the grassy knoll which was forward and to the right.
 
I believe the whole explanation for his rearward head movement involved the outward pressure of large exit wounds.

I have no opinion on if the whole thing was a conspiracy or not. All I know is the shots he made were not difficult.
 
I went to Dealy Plaza and the thing that struck me was on how close & easy shot it was.... Watching all the films on tv gave me the impression it was a long distance .... It hardly was unfortunately.


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parisite said:
The thing I can't get past in it being a lone gunman is the last shot to hit JFK moved his head violently to the rear and to the left in the Zapruder film. In my opinion, just as I think the reaction would be if the shot came from the grassy knoll which was forward and to the right.
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Physicist Luis Alvarez conducted some experiments shortly after the assassination in which he took a human skull, filled the braincase with a gelatin to mimic brain tissue, placed it on a stepladder and shot it from the rear, to recreate what happened.
The resulting films show the skull exploding, of course. Interestingly the skull moves backward -- toward the shooter's position.
Some people explain Kennedy's motion after being shot is the result of the brain sloshing around and bouncing backward, which moved the body back. Others point out that he had a backbrace on and that was possibly responsible for his motion.
There are WW2 films in which soldiers are seen being shot from known directions and they did not react as we would think they naturally would. They fall toward the shot, or perpendicular to the line of fire.
We're used to watching TV and Hollywood movies and watching people being shot and propelled through windows and whatnot. That's not real though it looks good in theater. Since, "for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction" (as a law of physics states) if firing a shot was powerful to shove a 200 pound human through a window, the shooter would also be propelled backwards in an equal manner.
So Kennedy did not move in the direction he did because the bullet shoved him that way.

__________________
 
I always thought the most curious events were the actions of Jack Ruby. A distraught, unstable patriot? I'm completely on board with one rifle, one rifleman.
 
Uh, quality control at Terni arsenal in 1940 was under P.Beretta; series 1891 model 1938 rifles made at Terni in 1940 (like Oswald's) are some of the better Carcanos made.

ADDED:
the three expended shells on the floor
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one live round in the firing chamber, one empty clip in the gun. Four rounds in a six shot clip. Spells lone nut loser to me. It also means the re-enactments should start with four rounds, not six, to dup the difficulty of firing 3 rounds in the 8.3 second time frame established by Failure Analysis Associates.
 
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I have an axiom about conspiracies: "Never presume conspiratorial motives when stupidity/ignorance is a viable possibility."

The Secret Service agent who started to wash the car interior? A trained man of action who has just watched his principal get shot in the head, an effective failure on the part of a protective detail. Perhaps cleaning was purely a means to expell frustration, unfortunately for forensics.

Jack Ruby: Mob hitman tying up loose ends? Or angry resident with a history of impulsive behavior, a gun, and a window of opportunity?

Lee H Oswald: Keystone of the greatest conspiracy of the 20th century? Or failed Marine, militant communist who briefly defected to the Soviet Union before pissing off his handlers and returning to America, egomaniac who saw killing Kennedy as a triumph for his cause and his ticket to becoming a hero?

Is there a big conspiracy? Possibly. But my experience is people who get away with something that big, find it hard to avoid bragging about it at some point...
 
IIRC Gerald Posner put the timing at about eleven seconds. This was derived from analysis of the Zapruder film; a slight "shake" as Zapruder physically reacted to the sharp, sudden report of the rifle, and the reaction of a few people in the film itself.
Zapruder was shooting a format called "Regular 8mm." The standard speed of this film was 16 frames per second. IIRC it was later established Zapruder's camera did not run at exactly this speed which is why most people say 18 frames per second.
Super 8mm., a format that came out a little later, used 18FPS as a standard running speed on silent films. This format used a small rectangular cassette to house the film and the cameraman never actually handled the film, unlike regular 8mm.
 
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OKAY, I misremembered. But the eleven seconds came from somewhere. Geeesh, I'm gonna have to trapse through all my Kennedy assassination books now...ugh.:uhoh:

You young guys better make good use of your memory while it's still works right!!!;):rolleyes:
 
BTW, Stephen Hunter's next book, due out in December, I believe, is titled THE THIRD BULLET, where Bob Lee Swagger tackles the Kennedy assassination. Steve put a HUGE amount of research into the book, so expect his usual informed viewpoints.

I just got my readers' copy, autographed, of course, and Steve told me it is in his opinion the best book he's ever written.

Michael B
 
Pete,Ruby was standing in a line at Western Union a short distance from the Dallas jail,sending a $25 MO to one of his strippers. We have the time stamp.

I don't think a man planning a hit would be doing this! 30 seconds longer in that line and Oswald would have left the jail basement alive.

It was an flash impulse on Jack's part,IMO.
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Maybe. Jack Rudy informed George Senator of his intent to kill Oswald. After being told, Senator phoned his lawyer 5 times in the hour before Oswald was killed.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKsenator.htm

That Ruby killled Oswald during the transfer may have been spur of the moment and fortuitous on the part of Ruby, but his intent to kill apparently wasn't impulse.

It is quite likely that Ruby didn't expect to get a chance to see the transfer, though the transfer timing was not kept secret nor the fact that it was supposed to be secure. Whether Ruby got in because of the poor security (possibly never challenged) or because he was let in as a person known to or friend of some officer(s) isn't clear.

Ruby had also made it into the hospital while Kennedy was there, another place he should not have been.

It was sort of ironic that the transfer location was supposed to be secure. However, there were press present who were not challenged for their credentials and some not even displaying press passes. There were off duty Dallas officers there to what the transfer, though they were not supposed to be there. Jack Ruby was well known to many of the Dallas Police officers at the time and had a reasonably good social relationship with many of them. He was also well know to the press. Maybe not a celebrity, but certainly well known in Dallas.

At the time, my pop was a Dallas Police officer. He had met Ruby on a few occasions and said that he had seen Ruby at the police station on several occasions well before any of this stuff occurred. That Ruby got into the prisoner transfer area did not surprise him.
 
I found a Carcano just about identical to Oswald's @ cabelas, just lacking a scope. I only wanted it for it's resemblance of historical significance. but my wife wouldn't have been thrilled to see me walk through a door with it... so its gone now... :-(
 
6mm/6.5mm bullets

All these cartridges have a common use, 6.5 Swede, Cacarno, Japanese, and that is a high sectional density bullet, long and slender with a round nose designed to shoot through the sandbag parapet of an enemy trench, this design can really penetrate. On one of the shows about shooting JFK they shot a Carcano military bullet into the end of a wood beam and it went in over four feet.
 
Here are a few thoughts having read over 50 books on the subject including Posner's fiction which makes me knowledgable on the subject but hardly an expert.

I can say with a high degree of confidence that JFK was assassinated as a result of a conspiracy.

LHO did not knowingly participate in the assassination.

I've always discounted JFK's bodily movements after being shot as pretty meaningless, backwards, forward, whatever, the Zapruder film was more than likely altered, JFK had a back brace on, no conclusions can be drawn from his movement.

If Oswald did do it for the infamy, why did he vehemently deny it?

I think many of guilty looking parties only looked that way because they majorly screwed up and were just trying to CYA which doesn't negate the fact that is was a conspiracy, it just means not everyone was involved.

I walked all over the plaza, a good pistol shot could have hit him from the stockade fence.

History doesn't happen by accident.
 
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I've often wondered if Oswald chose the Carcano to create some plausible deniability. They aren't the last word in accuracy, but they're far better than their reputation. In a couple of ways, particularly the high sectional density/penetration of the round, and the speed with which the bolt can be cycled, a Carcano would have been an above-average choice. Conspiracy theorists make a big deal about how he bought a traceable gun via mail order instead of buying something superior and untraceable locally. He may have been thinking ahead to his defense: "How could I have made those shots with this inaccurate POS?" when he knew all along that he had a very capable weapon.

Just a thought.
 
Here are a few thoughts having read over 50 books on the subject including Posner's fiction which makes me knowledgable on the subject but hardly an expert.

I can say with a high degree of confidence that JFK was assassinated as a result of a conspiracy.
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That's funny, because the evidence is against it.

LHO did not knowingly participate in the assassination.
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Then what was he doing on the 6th floor of the School Book Depository firing on the president's motorcade? Sleepwalking?

I've always discounted JFK's bodily movements after being shot as pretty meaningless, backwards, forward, whatever, the Zapruder film was more than likely altered, JFK had a back brace on, no conclusions can be drawn from his movement.
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The Zapruder film wasn't altered. In 1998, a man named Roland Zavada, who was a product engineer from Kodak who led the team that invented Kodachrome II, examined the film at the request of the National Archives and concluded that the film was an “in camera original” and that there was no evidence of any alterations. He stated that any attempt to create a false "in camera original" by copying Zapruder's film would leave visible artifacts of "image structure constraints of grain; [and] contrast and modulation transfer function losses.…It has no evidence of optical effects or matte work including granularity, edge effects or fringing, [or] contrast buildup."

If Oswald did do it for the infamy, why did he vehemently deny it?
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Who says it was for the infamy? Oswald was a s#&%%y little loser who defected to the Soviet Union, then changed his mind and came back to the US, then attempted to assassinate General Edwin Walker, then attempted to go to Cuba to aid in the revolution there, and after much delay in getting his visa approved, did finally get it approved, but didn't go (this was eleven days before the Kennedy assassination). I don't even think Oswald himself knew what he really wanted, so how are we supposed to nail down his motivations and desires exactly?

I think many of guilty looking parties only looked that way because they majorly screwed up and were just trying to CYA which doesn't negate the fact that is was a conspiracy, it just means not everyone was involved.
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There's no evidence of a conspiracy. Every conspiracy theory out there ignores key facts. People see screw ups, inconsistencies, oversights, exclusions of evidence, errors, changing stories, or changes made to witness testimony, and they leap to the conclusion that this all means there was a conspiracy. All it really means is that there were screw ups, inconsistencies, oversights, exclusions of evidence, errors, changing stories, or changes made to witness testimony -- all things easily explainable by human error. Not nearly as well known as Occam's razor is Hanlon's razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
 
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