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"Reason does not always appeal
to unreasonable men."
-- President John F. Kennedy; November 16, 1961
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"What a sickening irony it is that this man
who came through so much should die
at the hands of a man worth so little."
-- Alex Dreier; ABC News; November 22, 1963
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"After forty-four long years, not one CREDIBLE word, not one syllable has ever surfaced about any conspiracy to kill [President John F.] Kennedy. .... The reason why not the slightest trace of a conspiracy has ever been uncovered, of course, is that no such conspiracy ever existed.
When we add...the allegation by conspiracy theorists that a SECOND massive conspiracy existed--by the Warren Commission and its leading assistant counsels to suppress the truth about the assassination from the American people--and not one word has ever leaked in over forty years of the existence of THAT conspiracy either, the only reasonable conclusion is that only people who subscribe to rules of absurdity, not rules of life, could possibly believe that a conspiracy to kill Kennedy ever existed.
The conspiracy argument in the Kennedy assassination requires the belief that for over forty years a great number of people have been able to keep silent about the plot behind the most important and investigated murder of the twentieth century. In other words, it requires a belief in the impossible."
-- Vincent T. Bugliosi; Pages 1441-1442 of "Reclaiming History:
The Assassination Of President John F. Kennedy" (2007)
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"Waiting for the conspiracy theorists to tell the truth is a little like leaving the front-porch light on for Jimmy Hoffa."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page xiv of "Reclaiming History"
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"The Warren Commission critics and conspiracy theorists have succeeded in transforming a case very simple and obvious at its core--Oswald killed Kennedy and acted alone--into its present form of the most complex murder case, by far, in world history.
Refusing to accept the plain truth, and dedicating their existence for over forty years to convincing the American public of the truth of their own charges, the critics have journeyed to the outer margins of their imaginations. Along the way, they have split hairs and then proceeded to split the split hairs, drawn far-fetched and wholly unreasonable inferences from known facts, and literally invented bogus facts from the grist of rumor and speculation.
With over 18,000 pages of small print in the 27 Warren Commission volumes alone, and many millions of pages of FBI and CIA documents, any researcher worth his salt can find a sentence here or there to support any ludicrous conspiracy theory he might have. And that, of course, is precisely what the conspiracy community has done."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page xxvi of "Reclaiming History"
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"Though there are some notable exceptions, for the most part the persistent rantings of the Warren Commission critics remind me of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; November 1986
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"Perhaps the most famous...of the "other" assassins are the "three tramps". The fact that there never was any evidence at all of their guilt is irrelevant to the conspiracy theorists. To the buffs, there was one big piece of incriminating evidence against the tramps: THEY WEREN'T LEE HARVEY OSWALD! And in the balmy and unhinged conspiracy universe, no evidence of guilt is stronger against someone than that he isn't Lee Harvey Oswald."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 929 of "Reclaiming History"
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"The more one learned of him [Lee Harvey Oswald], the less probable a conspiracy seemed to be."
-- Jean Davison; November 1983
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"Regardless of how much evidence is presented which indicates Lee Harvey Oswald's guilt in the two murders he was charged with committing in Dallas on November 22, 1963, the members of the Anybody But Oswald club will find some way to disregard that evidence. .... President Kennedy's assassination has been falsely shrouded in mystery and cloaked within a web of perceived 'conspiracy' for fifty years. But the contents of this book will demonstrate that Lee Harvey Oswald murdered President John Fitzgerald Kennedy and will also demonstrate that conspiracy very likely played no part in Oswald's actions on that terrible Friday in Dallas back in 1963."
-- David Von Pein; Pages iii-v of "Beyond Reasonable Doubt: The Warren Report
And Lee Harvey Oswald's Guilt And Motive 50 Years On" (2014)
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"Not ONE SPECK of any bullets, bullet fragments, or bullet shells OTHER THAN THOSE CONCLUSIVELY FROM OR CONSISTENT WITH LEE HARVEY OSWALD'S MANNLICHER-CARCANO RIFLE were discovered anywhere in Dealey Plaza, the limousine, the Texas School Book Depository, Parkland Hospital, or in the victims.
This fact, to me, is simply impossible for conspiracy advocates to overcome, IF there had been (as some claim) up to three gunmen and 4 to 10 shots fired in Dealey Plaza on November 22nd, 1963.
HOW could every single scrap of ballistics evidence be completely eradicated from the two (or more) non-Oswald weapons almost immediately after the event? Couldn't have been accomplished by even Kreskin!"
-- David Von Pein; July 2003
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"The conspiracy-happy Mega-Kooks of this world will choose ANY silly option to account for JFK's and John Connally's wounds, just so long as they don't ever have to face the Occam's-like solution called the "Single-Bullet Theory".
The kooks would rather starve themselves to skeletons and sleep on the benches in Dealey Plaza for the rest of their days before admitting that the SBT is the correct shooting scenario.
No matter how stupid and retarded their theory might be, it's never TOO stupid or retarded for the anti-SBT Mega-Kooks of planet Earth. ....
This, of course, is similar in nature to the "Anybody But Oswald" disease that many conspiracists suffer from. As long as Lee Harvey Oswald can escape with his skirts tidy and clean, then the kooks are happy."
-- David Von Pein; December 7, 2007
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"To kooks, all the Dallas Police are suspects in the conspiracy also. The world vs. the patsy."
-- "Bud" (a very astute Internet newsgroup participant); April 27, 2006
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"Only a kook would use the time estimates to attempt to debunk the KNOWN FACT (by way of OTHER things) that
Lee Harvey Oswald killed J.D. Tippit. But I suppose many of the conspiracy-hungry people of the world figure it's their duty to be kooks and ignore the overriding "Oswald's Guilty" evidence."
-- David Von Pein; August 15, 2006
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"Not the smallest speck of evidence has ever surfaced that any of the conspiracy community's favorite groups (CIA, mob, etc.) was involved, in any way, in the assassination. Not only the Warren Commission, but the HSCA came to the same conclusion.
But conspiracy theorists, as suspicious as a cat in a new home, find occurrences and events everywhere that feed their suspicions and their already strong predilection to believe that the official version is wrong."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page xlii of "Reclaiming History"
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"You [a conspiracy-happy kook] think that one piece outweighs all the other evidence. The WC [Warren Commission] didn't. Their opinion mattered, as they were tapped to investigate this matter. The opinions of kooks are immaterial."
-- Bud; October 27, 2005
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"Several factors make it clear that Kennedy and Connally WERE struck by the same bullet. There's absolutely no evidence of the existence of any separate bullet hitting Connally."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; 1986
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"Focusing on the most reliable evidence violates the collector's instinct of conspiracy theorists. They collect evidence assiduously, and whoever has the biggest collection is the best researcher—just as the best stamp collector is one who has the largest number and the rarest stamps."
-- John McAdams; Page 157 of "JFK Assassination Logic:
How To Think About Claims Of Conspiracy" (2011)
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"Would it matter to kooks if the deformation of [the] bullet in the test [performed in the 2004 TV Special, "JFK: Beyond The Magic Bullet"] looked exactly like CE399? They'd find some reason to disregard it. The people conducting the tests did a fair job of replicating the wounds, though.
Perhaps you can give a better explanation for them, maybe tell what the bullet that struck Connally hit that caused it to enter his back sideways if it didn't hit Kennedy first.
Even when it is painstakingly shown how this thing happened, you kooks reject it, opting instead to cling to this fantasy you've nourished."
-- Bud; October 21, 2005
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"And the SBT [Single-Bullet Theory], in addition to being grounded in the known evidence surrounding the case, is also based on a whole lot of regular, ordinary common sense as well. No "Anti-SBT" scenario has ever come close to matching the Warren Commission's Single-Bullet Conclusion in the "Evidence" department. Nor has any alternate theory come close to equalling the SBT in the "Reasonable", "Workable", "Believable", and "Common Sense" categories as well.
The Single-Bullet Theory FITS. The Single-Bullet Theory WORKS. The Single-Bullet Theory is RIGHT."
-- David Von Pein; March 2007
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"Regardless of what exact Zapruder Film frame the SBT equates to, the point is: There is a Z-Frame (somewhere on that film) that does equate perfectly to the SBT. There is no way there's not such a Z-Frame given the totality of the evidence regarding the initial wounding of both victims."
-- David Von Pein; May 23, 2005
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"Lee Harvey Oswald murdered Officer J.D. Tippit. The Dallas cops believed it. The newspapers reported it. The Warren Commission made it official and the House Select Committee on Assassinations reaffirmed it."
-- Dale K. Myers; Page 17 of "With Malice: Lee Harvey Oswald
And The Murder Of Officer J.D. Tippit" (1998)
Book Review -- "With Malice"
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"It's a straight line....it [the Single-Bullet Theory] is the only way it COULD have happened."
-- Dale K. Myers; 2004
www.jfkfiles.com
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"You call it the theory; I call it the conclusion; it was a theory until we found the facts; that's why I refer to it
as the Single-Bullet Conclusion."
-- Arlen Specter; 1967
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"Almost sixty years later, all anti-SBT scenarios that have been placed on the table by conspiracy theorists have been embarrassing failures. And the reason for that is quite simple: It's because the Single-Bullet Theory is so obviously the correct solution to explain the double-man wounding of Kennedy and Connally on 11/22/63."
-- David Von Pein; September 2, 2022
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"Even if we were to make the assumption that Lee Oswald WAS acquainted with the various "New Orleans" characters that many conspiracy theorists think LHO was acquainted with in the summer of 1963 (e.g., Clay Shaw, David Ferrie, and Guy Banister).....that would still be a million miles away from proving that ANY of those New Orleans characters had ANY INVOLVEMENT, IN ANY WAY, WITH THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT KENNEDY IN DALLAS ON NOVEMBER 22, 1963.
And the reason the above paragraph is the truth is because (once Perry Russo's lie is tossed aside, as it must be) there isn't a shred of evidence that CONNECTS any of those New Orleans individuals to the planning and/or carrying out of the murder of John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas. No evidence whatsoever.
Everything Lee Harvey Oswald did on 11/21/63 and 11/22/63 indicates that he was a LONE ASSASSIN in Dallas. And that fact would still be true even IF Oswald had been pals with ALL of the three previously-named New Orleans-based people (Shaw, Ferrie, and Banister).
In other words -- Where is the BRIDGE and/or UMBILICAL CORD that allows conspiracy theorists to make the grand leap from this:
LEE HARVEY OSWALD KNEW CLAY SHAW, DAVID FERRIE, AND GUY BANISTER....
....to this:
SHAW, FERRIE, AND BANISTER WERE CO-CONSPIRATORS IN THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT KENNEDY?
Given the physical and circumstantial evidence that exists of ONLY OSWALD'S GUILT in the assassination of JFK, such a monumental leap of faith like the one suggested above is, to put it bluntly, monumentally ridiculous."
-- David Von Pein; July 31, 2009
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"Not one scrap of evidence has ever emerged that on February 24 [1967], the day [Jim] Garrison announced that he and his staff had "solved the case," he had any evidence connecting anyone, in any way, with the assassination.
If there were nothing else at all, this alone, by definition, would be enough to prove beyond all doubt that Garrison had no personal credibility with respect to this case."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 1365 of "Reclaiming History"
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"There is absolutely no question at all as to how many times the President was shot in the head (once, from behind)....and via the BEST EVIDENCE (the autopsy doctors, the autopsy report, and the autopsy photographs and X-rays), there is also no question at all as to where on John Kennedy's head the entry and exit wounds were located (small entry wound in the back of the head; large exit wound above the right ear).
No matter how many witnesses say otherwise, the above paragraph is the OFFICIAL TRUTH of the matter concerning President Kennedy's fatal head wound."
-- David Von Pein; December 5, 2007
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"While one of the pieces of physical evidence could conceivably have been faked by an expert, there is no possibility that an expert, or team of super-experts, could have fabricated the perfectly coordinated whole.
This brings to mind the recurrent theme in most conspiracy books. All the officials alternate between the role of "Keystone Kops", with the inability to recognize the implications of the most elementary evidence, and "Evil Geniuses", with superhuman abilities to fake physical evidence that is in complete agreement with all the other faked evidence."
-- Larry M. Sturdivan; Page 246 of "The JFK Myths:
A Scientific Investigation Of The Kennedy Assassination" (2005)
Book Review -- "The JFK Myths"
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"The fact remains (and no doubt always will remain) that the only physical evidence that exists in the official record with respect to the JFK and J.D. Tippit murder cases is evidence that leads straight to the guilt of one single person -- Lee Harvey Oswald. And anyone who insists otherwise is simply living in a dream world filled with shadowy, never-proven conspiracy theories that are helmed by never-seen conspirators."
-- David Von Pein; October 11, 2008
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"The "Oswald Did It Alone" scenario is rooted in rock-solid facts, just like it's always been since the day the assassination occurred.
Conspiracy promoters just don't want to believe it. Simple as that. But the hard evidence hasn't changed a bit since '63. We still have Oswald's guns (including the Tippit murder weapon), Oswald's bullets and shells, Oswald's prints, and Oswald's many, many lies.
And if all of that stuff adds up to "OSWALD IS JUST AN INNOCENT PATSY", then miracles are indeed truly possible after all."
-- David Von Pein; April 18, 2007
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"Most of my book ["Reclaiming History"], if you want to say it, is devoting myself to rebutting silliness."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; June 7, 2007
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"Amazingly, conspiracy theorists don't feel the slightest twinge of discomfort or uneasiness when they dump in the trash the conclusions reached by all of these entities --- the Warren Commission, the HSCA, the Clark Panel, and the Rockefeller Commission.
Per the CTers [Conspiracy Theorists], EVERY SINGLE ONE of the above organizations dropped the ball and/or just flat-out LIED about the assassination of JFK. ALL FOUR of those outfits got it wrong, according to the all-knowing CTers.
Even the conspiracy-seeking HSCA got it totally wrong, too, per the CTers....because virtually all conspiracy believers think that JFK was hit in the head from the FRONT, which is not what the HSCA determined.
To borrow some more verbiage from Vince Bugliosi --- "Arrogance thought it already had a bad name. That was before it met Oliver Stone [and virtually all other JFK conspiracy theorists who are more than willing to dismiss virtually everything uttered by ALL FOUR of the Governmental committees and commissions mentioned above]"."
-- David Von Pein; July 28, 2009
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"This bullet [a 6.5mm Mannlicher-Carcano missile like Warren Commission Exhibit 399] can penetrate four feet of solid wood or three pine telephone poles side by side and come out looking completely undeformed.
On the other hand, if it is fired into the thick bone of the back of a human skull, the jacket and core of the bullet will separate, releasing a myriad of additional fragments of many different sizes."
-- Dr. John K. Lattimer; Page 277 of "Kennedy And Lincoln:
Medical And Ballistic Comparisons Of Their Assassinations" (1980)
Book Review -- "Kennedy And Lincoln"
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"The conspiracy theorists have converted Katzenbach's and Warren's desire to squelch RUMORS that had no basis in fact into Katzenbach's and Warren's desire to suppress the FACTS of the assassination.
But how could Katzenbach and Warren have known way back then that they had to spell out that ONLY false rumors, rumors without a stitch of evidence to support them, had to be squelched for the benefit of the American public?
How could they have known back then that there would actually be people like Mark Lane who would accuse men like Warren, Gerald Ford, John Cooper, and so on...of getting in a room and all deciding to deliberately suppress, or not even look for, evidence of a conspiracy to murder the president...or that there would be intelligent, rational, and sensible people of the considerable stature of Michael Beschloss and Evan Thomas who would decide to give their good minds a rest and actually buy into this nonsense?"
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Pages 367-368 of "Reclaiming History"
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"In a (lone) nutshell.....
Number 1: Lee Harvey Oswald, in my opinion, had it WITHIN HIMSELF the desire to shoot President Kennedy.
Number 2: The physical evidence positively indicates that Oswald's very own Mannlicher-Carcano rifle WAS the one and ONLY weapon used to kill JFK.
Those two things go together like bread and butter. When adding #1 to #2 above, it's pretty clear that Lee Oswald was not the "innocent patsy" that so many conspiracy theorists seem to want to believe he was. Instead, numbers 1 and 2 above, when merged, are telling the world that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin of President John F. Kennedy."
-- David Von Pein; February 2006
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"When kooks look at the evidence, anything involving Oz's culpability is "almost, but not quite". He can almost make this shot, but not quite. He can almost make it downstairs from the 6th floor in time to encounter Baker, but not quite. He can almost make it to 10th & Patton from the boardinghouse in time to shoot Tippit, but not quite. So close, but yet so far, as kooks judge things."
-- Bud; June 18, 2006
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"After assessing the facts in the Tippit case, any person who can state the blatant falsehood that the evidence surrounding Oswald's guilt in the Tippit crime is weak or inconclusive (as many CTers often do claim) is a person who obviously WANTS to have Oswald innocent of killing Officer J.D. Tippit (no matter how much evidence exists to say he was guilty)."
-- David Von Pein; April 7, 2006
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"With respect to the second shot fired in Dealey Plaza, the "single-bullet THEORY" is an obvious misnomer. Though in its incipient stages it was but a theory, the indisputable evidence is that it is now a proven FACT, a wholly supported conclusion. .... And no sensible mind that is also informed can plausibly make the case that the bullet that struck President Kennedy in the upper right part of his back did not go on to hit Governor Connally."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Pages 489-490 of "Reclaiming History"
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"The [Sixth Floor] Museum has NO position, just history. .... Oswald ordered a Carcano, got one, let others see it, had himself photographed with it, used it to try to kill someone but failed, then used it again to kill and injure. That’s what history says and no amount of whining and question asking [by conspiracy theorists] changes any aspect of that. There is simply no significant evidence that has changed that history, at least so far."
-- Gary Mack; August 6, 2012
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"In 1994, Dr. John K. Lattimer and three colleagues...attempted to verify Dr. Robert Piziali’s findings [regarding Governor Connally's "lapel bulge"] by duplicating the shooting in Dallas as closely as possible. .... The experimenters fired Western Cartridge Company 6.5-millimeter ammunition (from the same lots used by Oswald) through an identical model Mannlicher-Carcano rifle. ....
Sure enough, as the bullet tumbled and plowed into one of the [simulated] ribs...it exited at a point compatible with the exit wound in Connally’s right chest. ....
Dr. Lattimer and his associates discovered that the suit coat bulged out about six inches in one-tenth of a second, snapping back shortly thereafter.
Of particular importance is the fact that subsequent test rounds that were fired directly into the mock-up of the governor without first passing through the mock-up of Kennedy’s neck produced no bulge of the jacket. Without the tumble caused by the bullet’s passage through the simulated neck, there was no billowing of the jacket.
According to Lattimer and his colleagues, the bulge of Governor Connally’s jacket, starting at Z224, “does indeed establish, beyond any shadow of a doubt, the exact moment when bullet 399 went through him.” (Lattimer, Laidlaw, Heneghan, and Haubner, “Experimental Duplication of the Important Physical Evidence,” pp.517–522)"
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Pages 326-327 of "Reclaiming History" (Endnotes)
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"Lee Harvey Oswald was a first-rate, bona fide kook. And he killed President John F. Kennedy, by himself, when he was afforded the perfect opportunity on November 22, 1963.
Knowing Oswald ([who] we know for an absolute fact had murder in his veins, via the attempt on General Edwin Walker's life 7 months earlier), it would probably have been criminal (from Oswald's POV) to have allowed such a golden opportunity to pass him by when the President of the country he hated conveniently drove right by the Texas School Book Depository at 11 MPH.
How often does a chance like that drive by your workplace doorstep (in an open-top convertible, no less)? It's almost as if Oswald was daring HIMSELF to take those shots at the President."
-- David Von Pein; September 11, 2007
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"Correcting kooks is a full time job that not many are willing to take on. I'm not, that's for sure. .... Ultimately, kooks will believe what they want to believe."
-- Bud; January 15, 2006
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"Question --- How many brain-dead plotters does it take to rub out just one simple-minded patsy before the bastard can talk?? Answer --- A good-sized number, per the CT-Kooks. [Marrion] Baker failed, [Gerald] Hill failed, [Jack] Ruby failed on his first attempt (probably).
The Patsy Crew finally had to go with Plan 9 From Kooksville, and kill the bum in the police station on LIVE TELEVISION. THAT did the cover-up a lot of good, huh?"
-- David Von Pein; February 19, 2007
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"The only thing more horrifying to me than the assassination [of President Kennedy] itself is the insidious, perverse notion that elements of the American Government, that my own Agency, had some part in it. I am determined personally to make public or to expose to disinterested eyes every relevant scrap of paper in CIA’s possession, in the hope of helping to dispel this corrosive suspicion."
-- CIA Director Robert Gates; May 12, 1992 [ARRB Final Report; Chapter 8; Page 146]
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"No credible evidence has ever emerged that Lee Harvey Oswald or David Ferrie was associated in any way with the CIA or any other U.S. intelligence agency. And the only connection Clay Shaw had with the CIA was not as an agent or operative, but as one of well over 100,000 prominent Americans who traveled regularly in foreign countries (as Shaw did as the managing director of the New Orleans International Trade Mart) and who, upon their return to the states, furnished information about these countries to the Domestic Contact Service (DCS) of the CIA, a nonclandestine operation.
As the HSCA said, “Such acts of cooperation should not be confused with an actual Agency [CIA] relationship” (HSCA Report, p.218)."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Pages 808-809 of "Reclaiming History" (Endnotes)
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JOHNNY CARSON -- "Now, you say 'the fact remains' again....as if it IS a fact.
You keep saying 'we know' and 'the fact is'....but that's not a fact, is it?"
JIM GARRISON -- "Yes."
JOHNNY CARSON -- "What makes it a fact? Because you say so?"
-- Via Johnny Carson's interview with Jim Garrison
on "The Tonight Show" (NBC-TV)(January 31, 1968)
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"In truth, Jim Garrison, and hence the Oliver Stone movie, has been discredited by these documents [released by the ARRB]. If you read them, you see he did not have a case. He had nothing to build it on. .... He simply didn't have a case. And for that reason, I think you can discard that conspiracy."
-- Anna K. Nelson (Board Member; Assassination Records Review Board); October 10, 1998
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"Of ALL people to paint as a hero in the vast landscape of JFK-related lore, Oliver Stone picked Jim Garrison! That's simply unbelievable to begin with!
And Stone knew full well, of course, that his "blockbuster" film (which was based on a bogus case against an innocent man [Clay Shaw], a case that even Stone himself must surely have known had been engineered by a total kook--Jim Garrison) would be seen and embraced by millions of gullible movie-goers all around the globe.
That type of behavior is just flat-out irresponsible, in my opinion. And it's even MORE irresponsible since Mr. Stone HIMSELF, on television and elsewhere, has sung the praises of Kook Garrison over and over again since 1991.
In short, Oliver Stone shouldn't be given a free pass for putting up on the movie screen a whole bunch of stuff that any reasonable and knowledgeable person has got to know is just plain bullshit."
-- David Von Pein; March 1, 2010
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"One would have to be a brain-dead moron to believe [Oliver] Stone's movie was an honest account of the events. It was nothing more than a potpourri of all the popular myths and factoids from almost three decades of CT circle jerks.
The real aftermath of Ollie's movie is that a whole lot of people who probably didn't even know the date JFK died and couldn't tell you on a bet who people like Howard Brennan, Marrion Baker, [and] Helen Markham were, just to name a few, suddenly thought they were experts on the subject of the assassination. Uninformed people are easy to manipulate, which is the only thing Stone's movie proved."
-- John Corbett; January 28, 2012
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"Over the years Mr. [Abraham] Zapruder had recurring nightmares, the whole grisly shooting event so often coming to him in his dreams. In a rare 1966 interview, Zapruder commented about his witnessing the assassination that, "It's left in my mind like a wound that heals up, and yet there's that same pain left as to what had happened."
Zapruder never wanted to personally possess a copy of his film and remained reluctant to talk about the events to anyone. He was particularly sensitive that the horrible head shot frame (Z313) should never be published.
His son once related of his father that after the assassination, "...he never looked through a camera again.""
-- Richard B. Trask; Pages 149-150 of "National Nightmare On Six Feet Of Film:
Mr. Zapruder's Home Movie And The Murder Of President Kennedy" (2005)
Book Review -- "National Nightmare On Six Feet Of Film"
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"It's my very firm belief--I'm very, very confident--that no reasonable, rational person --- and let's underline those words 'reasonable' and 'rational' --- no reasonable, rational person can possibly read this book ["Reclaiming History"] without being satisfied beyond all reasonable doubt that Oswald killed Kennedy and acted alone."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; April 30, 2007
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"We have shown, by carefully controlled experiments, that a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle CAN be fired more rapidly and accurately than the [Warren] Commission believed.
Now these points strengthen the Warren Report's basic finding. They make it MORE likely that Oswald shot the President. They significantly weaken a central contention of the critics....their contention that Oswald could NOT have done it because he did not have enough time to fire.
It is now reasonable to assume that the first shot, fired through a tree, missed its mark....and that it was this shot that Governor Connally heard. The Governor has insisted all along that he was not struck by the first shot. It now appears he was correct. Now we can answer all our secondary questions ---
Did Oswald own a rifle? .... He did.
Did Oswald take a rifle to the Book Depository Building? .... He did.
Where was Oswald when the shots were fired? .... In the building, on the sixth floor.
Was Oswald's rifle fired from the building? .... It was.
How many shots were fired? .... Three.
How fast could Oswald's rifle be fired? .... Fast enough.
What was the time span of the shots? .... Seven or eight seconds.
Did Lee Harvey Oswald shoot President Kennedy? .... CBS News concludes that he did."
-- Walter Cronkite; CBS News; Via the 1967 TV Special, "A CBS News Inquiry: The Warren Report"
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"Any assassins who would have needed only Oswald fingered for the two murders on 11/22/63 must have all (to a man!) been under the influence of large quantities of hallucinogenic drugs when they decided to place a variety of different shooters throughout Dealey Plaza (and on 10th Street for Tippit's killing), as many CTers advocate.
And these powerful drugs they must have been on I guess must have had a crazy type of "Miracles Are Possible" effect on all of the shooters and behind-the-scenes schemers -- because only a "miracle" could have rescued such an inane multi-shooter "Patsy" plan from certain failure on that 22nd day of November back in '63."
-- David Von Pein; April 7, 2006
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"Anyone can use reason, you [a conspiracy theorist named Ben Holmes] just opt not to because it is a hindrance to your silly hobby. I've given examples time and time again on the correct way to look at things, you reject them all. How can "back and to the left" be an argument of substance that requires a rebuttal when no argument for the idea has ever been made? When has anyone attempted to show that Kennedy's movement after being shot is inconsistent with a shot from behind? How did "the shadows in the BY [backyard] don't look right to me" become an argument of substance? Scientists and experts are wasting time and money trying to assuage the suspicions of idiots who haven't made valid arguments for their ideas in the first place. It is all a shifting of the burden. Your charges of cowardice are simply a ploy to leverage people into playing your silly games. Your whole silly hobby is a house of cards of speculation. All of your "this must mean this" constructs are nothing more than speculation backed up by empty claims. You don't actually show anything, you assume the evidence shows what you say it does."
-- Bud; January 1, 2020
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"The skill of these three photographers [Cecil Stoughton, James Altgens, and Jim Murray] and their ability to locate themselves at the right place at the right time allows us to experience as close to first-hand as possible one of the seminal events of 20th century history. On that day in Dallas, American history was changed forever."
-- Richard B. Trask; Page viii of "That Day In Dallas" (1998)
Book Review -- "That Day In Dallas"
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"OLIVER STONE, IN HIS MOVIE "JFK", NEVER SAW FIT TO PRESENT FOR HIS AUDIENCE'S CONSIDERATION ONE SINGLE PIECE OF EVIDENCE THAT OSWALD KILLED KENNEDY!
So a murder case (the Kennedy assassination) where there is an almost unprecedented amount of evidence of guilt against the killer (Oswald) is presented to millions of moviegoers as one where there wasn't one piece of evidence at all. There oughta be a law against things like this."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 1386 of "Reclaiming History"
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"I just watched the two-hour version of Oliver Stone's "JFK Revisited" documentary early this morning. .... In my opinion, there is certainly nothing in that documentary that could be considered definitive proof that a conspiracy existed to end the life of President Kennedy in 1963. And there was nothing in that broadcast that would warrant the bold declaration that was uttered at one point by the show's director, Oliver Stone, when he said that "conspiracy theories" have now been turned into "conspiracy facts". I would vigorously argue just the opposite, Mr. Stone. Your "conspiracy facts" belong in the same categories that they have belonged in for these last 58 years—the categories reserved for "speculation", "guesswork", "conjecture", and "wishful thinking"."
-- David Von Pein; December 19, 2021
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"There's not a thing "dubious" about C2766 (except in a conspiracy kook's mind, of course). The "Mauser" mis-identification was fully explained by Deputy Boone and others. "Mauser" = A generic-type term for "bolt-action rifle". And before it was moved, CE139 looked like it might have been a Mauser to Boone and Weitzman. Big deal. It wasn't. And no one can deny that C2766, in general terms, and from a distance, resembles a Mauser.
There's certainly not a shred of a doubt that Oswald owned Rifle C2766. Do the kooks think that the virtually impoverished Oswald dished up $21.45 for a rifle to give to somebody else? The Warren Commission determined that Oswald DID pay for the rifle.
Only a goofball who is bent (at all costs) to let Oswald slip through the smallest of cracks would suggest that C2766 was NOT owned and possessed by Lee Oswald from March 1963 thru 11/22/63."
-- David Von Pein; August 21, 2006
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"Buff assumptions don't control history. .... Do you [a conspiracy theorist named Robert Harris] think you have the right to treat anybody you merely SUSPECT as a criminal, in the absence of evidence?"
-- John McAdams; August 23, 2009
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"A conspiracy theorist believing that somebody (or some group) was up to no good is meaningless. What the CTers need is some kind of proof that people were conspiring with each other to do the following:
1.) Kill JFK. ... 2.) Make Oswald the patsy. ... 3.) Whitewash ALL of the various post-assassination investigations so that everybody would think Oswald (and Ruby) did it alone -- including the DPD's initial investigation on the weekend of November 22-24, 1963, plus the Warren Commission's investigation, plus the HSCA's probe into the murder.
And to believe that ALL THREE of those individual investigations into Kennedy's murder were "whitewash" jobs is just too ridiculous a thought to consider for more than two seconds.
And yet, a goodly number of conspiracy theorists think that ALL THREE of those investigative agencies were, indeed, part of a "cover-up". Such thinking is silly beyond all tolerance.
To date, none of the above three things have been proven by the CTers of the world. And they never will be proven, because none of the extraordinary things that conspiracy theorists think happened in this case really happened. Nor could they have happened in the real world in which we live."
-- David Von Pein; January 13, 2010
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EDDIE BARKER (CBS NEWS) -- "What kind of gun did you think it was?"
SEYMOUR WEITZMAN (DALLAS SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT) -- "To my sorrow, I looked at it and it looked like a Mauser, which I said it was. But I said the wrong one; because just at a glance, I saw the Mauser action....and, I don't know, it just came out as words it was a German Mauser. Which it wasn't. It's an Italian type gun. But from a glance, it's hard to describe; and that's all I saw, was at a glance. I was mistaken. And it was proven that my statement was a mistake; but it was an honest mistake."
-- Via the CBS-TV Special, "A CBS News Inquiry: The Warren Report" (June 1967)
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"Very few people are more critical than I. And I expect incompetence wherever I turn, always pleasantly surprised to find its absence. Competence, of course, is all relative, and I find the Warren Commission operated at an appreciably higher level of competence than any investigative body I know of.
It is my firm belief that anyone who feels the Warren Commission did not do a good job investigating the murder of Kennedy has never been a part of a murder investigation."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page xxxii of "Reclaiming History"
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"Obsessing about conspiracy, and seeing evidence of conspiracies everywhere, has become a major part of many people's lives. .... None of these things have anything to do with whether Oz took his rifle to work and shot JFK. I could give far more examples of unstable human beings doing unstable things than you could ever produce examples of conspiracies."
-- Bud; August 23, 2004
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"Another point regarding any miraculous "3 Shots Line Up Perfectly To Seem Like A SBT" bull that the CTers wish to believe----I've yet to hear EVEN ONE CTer explain the likelihood of THREE DIFFERENT GUNMEN AND THREE SEPARATE BULLETS causing the wounds in Kennedy and Connally and miraculously having ALL of these wounds LINE UP to perfection in order to (apparently, per CTers) "fool" Specter and the Warren Commission into just THINKING that maybe these THREE separate shots by THREE gunmen (2 rear; 1 in front) were actually caused by just a single missile fired by Lee Harvey Oswald.
The odds of the above occurring if three riflemen had performed this amazing CONNECT-THE-WOUNDS feat is so low as to be totally dismissed after one second of thought time. ....
And CTers actually think this THREE GUNMEN & THREE BULLETS CAUSING A PERFECT "SBT RUSE" makes MORE logical sense than just one bullet traversing JFK & JBC [John B. Connally]. Absolutely incredible idiocy!"
-- David Von Pein; April 6, 2005
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"The plain fact is that it is absolutely necessary to the findings of the Commission to determine whether the same bullet that pierced the President's throat also caused Governor Connally's wounds. Otherwise, where did that first bullet go?
Governor Connally was simply wrong in his testimony, just as President Johnson was wrong in some of his observations, and just as almost every witness to a sudden and startling event is incapable of being completely accurate."
-- David Belin; Page 347 of "November 22, 1963: You Are The Jury" (1973)
Book Review -- "November 22, 1963: You Are The Jury"
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"The reader [of pro-conspiracy books] will understand the difficulty these writers have sidestepped if he or she tries to invent a story that explains why an INNOCENT Oswald went to Irving for 'curtain rods', left his wedding ring behind the next morning, brought a package into the Depository, and so on.
Because the evidence against Oswald is strong, any detailed reconstruction that argues a frame-up will inevitably sound less plausible than one that argues his guilt."
-- Jean Davison; Page 276 of "Oswald's Game" (1983)
Book Review -- "Oswald's Game"
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"DiIdiot [James DiEugenio, that is] said it best when he wrote...
"...Jean Davison's book looks today like a smoking pile of rubbish. Useless to anyone except maybe
David Von Pein or John McAdams."
So, it is useless for a conspiracy retard but just fine for reasonable and rational people. An excellent endorsement."
-- Bud; September 24, 2015
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"Are we just left with conjecture to reach a conclusion on the issue of how Ruby entered the police basement? No, there is evidence, common sense, and Ruby's knowledge of events that prove he entered through the Main Street ramp. ....
The virtual proof that Ruby came down the Main Street ramp is that within a half hour of his arrest, and right after he was taken from the basement to the jail on the fifth floor (which was long BEFORE [DPD officers] Pierce, Putnam, Vaughn, and Maxey had been interviewed and given their statements), Ruby told Dallas police detective Barnard Clardy and other detectives that he had entered through the Main Street ramp and had seen Pierce driving out of the ramp.
How could Ruby possibly have known this if he hadn't, in fact, been at the entrance to the Main Street ramp? I mean, Pierce himself didn't even receive instructions to drive out of the Main Street ramp until around 11:15 a.m., just six minutes before Ruby shot Oswald."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Pages 108-109 of "Reclaiming History" (Endnotes)
How Did Jack Ruby Get Into The Basement?
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"Jim [Garrison], aren't you taking inconsistencies in testimony during the emotional time, even self-contradictory testimony, from even sometimes the most truthful of witnesses....and using THAT as tainting everything else that is very well explained?"
-- Johnny Carson; January 31, 1968
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"Remarkably, even sensible, intelligent people, such as HSCA chief counsel Robert Blakey, who personally believes [Carlos] Marcello was behind Kennedy's assassination, unthinkingly invoke the buffs' A-B-C reasoning to support their position. On Frontline's 1993 show "Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?" Blakey said, "When you find David Ferrie, who is an investigator for Carlos Marcello, being a boyhood friend to Lee Harvey Oswald, and with him that summer, and with Carlos Marcello at that very point in time, you have an immediate connection between a man [Marcello] who had the motive, opportunity, and means to kill Kennedy and the man [Oswald] who killed Kennedy."
What?!? Although common sense alone should tell conspiracy theorists that knowing someone or even being friendly with him is no evidence of a connection to his criminal activity, that you have to show the two were involved with each other in the same enterprise, there is another fascinating phenomenon that the conspiracy theorists must be aware of but seem determined not to acknowledge.
I'm referring to the curious but undeniable reality that virtually any two people chosen at random can be connected to each other by the interposition of a very small number of mutual friends or acquaintances. ....
To dilute the connection even further, Ferrie was not an investigator for Carlos Marcello. He was an investigator for lawyer G. Wray Gill, and Gill had Ferrie work on an immigration lawsuit against Marcello in which Gill was representing Marcello.
Also, there is no credible evidence that Ferrie was ever a boyhood friend of Oswald's or was with Oswald in the summer of 1963. But even if these assertions were true, so what? They certainly don't add up to a conspiracy to commit murder."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 981 of "Reclaiming History"
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"He [Lee Oswald] seemed to hit her [Lee's wife Marina] harder and with greater anger than ever before. .... Oswald flew into a rage over Marina's inability to cook a Southern dish, red beans and rice, which he demanded for dinner. The fight ended in their bedroom, with Oswald choking her and threatening [her]."
-- Gerald Posner; Page 101 of "Case Closed:
Lee Harvey Oswald And The Assassination Of JFK" (1993)
Book Review -- "Case Closed"
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"It is my belief....my conviction....no one but Lee was involved --- period. .... He had problems at home. He had problems on his job. He was completely frustrated about what was going on around him. This is not EXCUSING what he did. This is UNDERSTANDING what he did.
He wanted to be somebody. And this opportunity came about coincidental. Nothing planned. Nothin' organized. It HAPPENED that way. It's one of those happenstances of history."
-- Robert Oswald (Brother of Lee Harvey Oswald); 2003
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"I have seen too many biological and physical variations occur in forensic pathology to say that it would have been impossible. I say that it is quite unlikely; I say that it is difficult for me to accept....but I would have to admit that it is a possibility that his [JFK's] body could have moved in that direction [toward the gunman] after having been struck by a bullet that hit him in the back of the head."
-- Dr. Cyril H. Wecht; 1967
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"That one brief video clip of Jack Ruby breaking down and crying over President Kennedy's death in front of the news media, two months after the assassination, just might be the single best piece of anti-conspiracy evidence there is when it comes to the subject of: Why did Jack Ruby shoot Lee Harvey Oswald?
Because if Mr. Ruby was merely putting on a show of fake emotion in the video clip presented below, then he
should have won the Academy Award for Best Actor of 1964 instead of Rex Harrison."
-- David Von Pein; March 9, 2014
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"[Conspiracists] pretend they know exactly when [Police Officer Marrion] Baker confronted Oz [Lee Harvey Oswald]. They're crazy that way. The reason nothing like what you suggest happened could happen is because each person is a variable whose actions couldn't be predicted. You and the other kooks plug in things knowing how people reacted. There are only millions of other ways they could have, ways unknown by any planners.
If the floor-laying crew goes back to the 6th floor (as Jarman thought they were going to), any planning of planted evidence on that floor is out the window (the bag, shells, etc). Who knows who was going to do what, when, where, most of the people themselves didn't know. But Oz had the huge advantage of being able to monitor movements and intentions. Could an outsider?"
-- Bud; July 29, 2005
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"One of the CT Mottos seems to be -- Why believe anything in the official report...when you could just as easily believe in crazy stuff that shall forever remain unprovable (and crazy-sounding)? Good motto....if you're a kook."
-- David Von Pein; August 19, 2006
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"I can tell the readers of this book that if anyone in the future maintains to them that Oswald was just a patsy and did not kill Kennedy, that person is either unaware of the evidence against Oswald or simply a very silly person. .... Any denial of Oswald's guilt is not worthy of serious discussion."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 969 of "Reclaiming History"
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"You know like I told you earlier...he [Lee Oswald] didn't take his lunch [on 11/22/63] because I remember right when I got in the car I asked him where was his lunch and he said he was going to buy his lunch that day."
-- Buell Wesley Frazier; Via Warren Commission Testimony; 1964
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"The evidence (overwhelmingly) shows Lee Harvey Oswald to be guilty of two 1963 murders. Therefore, the opinion of a person who thinks Oswald didn't shoot anybody on 11/22/63 cannot possibly be a "reasonable" opinion. The evidence shows that the Warren Commission was right. Maybe more CTers should learn to face the reality of that fact. It's either facing that unchangeable reality or remaining super-glued to the silly and unprovable notion that all this stuff was faked."
-- David Von Pein; October 6, 2019
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"[Dr. Vincent] Guinn's data, which is the most representative set available for WCC/ MC bullets, show that the probability of an accidental match to one of the two groups of fragments from the assassination (i.e., a fragment from another shooter) is 2% to 3% at best, and orders of magnitude less under more-expected circumstances (i.e., the other shooters using some other kind of lead).
In other words, Kennedy and Connally were hit by two and only two bullets, both fired from Oswald's rifle. If there were other shooters, they missed and left no trace of themselves. The question about what a given metallurgist thinks about these documented data is a side issue at best."
-- Professor Kenneth A. Rahn; September 23, 2007
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"If CE399 had been plucked from inside Connally's or Kennedy's body, the CTers would still find some reason to bark "No way; it was PLANTED there!"."
-- David Von Pein; March 4, 2006
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"Perhaps the clearest visual evidence of the fact that the entrance wound in the [President's] back was definitely above the exit wound in the throat appears in one of [the] autopsy photos taken of the left side of the president's head as he is lying on his back, his head on a metal headrest.
Only the wound to the throat is visible, not the wound to his upper right back. However, it couldn't be clearer
from this photo that the wound to the back was definitely ABOVE the exit wound in the throat."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 424 of "Reclaiming History"
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"He [Lee Oswald] said he didn't have any kind of a package but his lunch. He said he had his lunch and that is all he had, and Mr. [Buell Wesley] Frazier told me that he got out of the car with that package, he saw him go toward the building with this long package. I asked him [Oswald], I said, "Did you go toward the building carrying a long package?" He said, "No, I didn't carry anything but my lunch"."
-- Dallas Police Department Captain J. Will Fritz; Via Warren Commission Testimony; 1964
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"When the [test] bullet [simulating CE399 and the SBT] traversed an experimental neck, it was slowed down, tumbled, and did not shatter the leg bone [of a simulation of Governor John Connally].
Since Connally's leg bone was NOT shattered [during the actual shooting event on 11/22/63], the bullet that hit him must have hit something else first, such as Kennedy's neck, to slow it down."
-- Dr. John K. Lattimer; Page 273 of "Kennedy And Lincoln"
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"In any political assassination, ladies and gentlemen, almost as inevitably as death and taxes, there is always a chorus of critics screaming the word 'conspiracy' before the fatal bullet has even come to rest.
The evidence that will be presented at this trial will show that there is no substance to the persistent charge by these critics that Lee Harvey Oswald was just a patsy, set up to take the fall by some elaborate conspiracy.
We expect the evidence -- ALL of the evidence -- to show that Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, was responsible for the assassination of John F. Kennedy."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; July 23, 1986; "On Trial: Lee Harvey Oswald" (Television Docu-Trial)
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"Lee Oswald has been repeatedly identified here as the President's slayer. He is never "alleged" or "suspected" or "supposed" or "surmised"; he is the culprit. Some, intimidated by the fiction that only judges may don the black cap and condemn, may disapprove. ....
But enough is enough. The evidence pointing to his guilt is far more incriminating than that against [Abraham Lincoln's assassin John Wilkes] Booth. .... He is the right man; there is nothing provisional about it. ....
From the instant he dropped his mail-order rifle on the top floor [actually the next-to-top floor] and fled down the enclosed stair well--leaving a tuft of fibers from his shirt wedged in the butt plate and a profusion of finger and palm prints on the weapon, on the paper bag which he had used to conceal the gun during the drive from Irving with Wesley Frazier, and on one of the cartons he had stacked as a gun rest--there could be no doubt of his ultimate conviction. ....
Because of Oswald's epic stupidity--and his panic; it is highly likely that he lost his head when Officer Tippit beckoned to him--the assassin's movements after the murder can be reconstructed with precision."
-- William Manchester; Pages 278-279 of "The Death Of A President" (1967)
Book Review -- "The Death Of A President"
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DAN RATHER -- "Is there any doubt that the wound at the back
of the President's head was the entry wound?"
DR. JAMES J. HUMES -- "There is absolutely no doubt, sir."
-- Via the CBS-TV Special, "A CBS News Inquiry: The Warren Report" (June 1967)
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"In 1963, we proved at the autopsy table that President Kennedy was struck from above and behind by the fatal shot. The pattern of the entrance and exit wounds in the skull proves it, and if we stayed here until hell freezes over, nothing will change this proof. It happens 100 times out of 100, and I will defend it until I die. This is the essence of our autopsy, and it is supreme ignorance to argue any other scenario. This is a law of physics and it is foolproof--absolutely, unequivocally, and without question. The conspiracy buffs have totally ignored this central scientific fact, and everything else is hogwash. There was no interference with our autopsy, and there was no conspiracy to suppress the findings."
-- Dr. James J. Humes; April 1992
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"Coming up with a believable and reasonable conspiracy-endorsing alternative to the Warren Commission's single-bullet conclusion is something that simply cannot be done. And that's mainly because the SBT is obviously the truth. And when you try to dismantle the truth and replace it with some kind of half-baked, incoherent "alternative theory" (such as the "TWO BULLETS WENT INTO JFK AND NEVER EXITED AND THEN DISAPPEARED" claptrap), you're not likely to find the alternative to be nearly as compelling (or reasonable) as the truth."
-- David Von Pein; September 1, 2010
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"Once we clear away the factoids that a generation of conspiracists have slathered over the subject, we find that the single bullet theory is the prudent theory. The one most worthy of belief. The one that doesn't require you to have a lot of implausible notions buzzing around in your head like a swarm of bees."
-- John McAdams; Page 246 of "JFK Assassination Logic"
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"If you want to hear [Linnie Mae] Randle's voice saying the bag was about "two and a half feet" long, get out that 1964 documentary narrated by Richard Basehart. You know the one, "Four Days in November" or something like that. That's 30 inches. Try fitting THAT under your armpit!"
-- Jean Davison; August 11, 2005
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"Who is more likely to have used Mannlicher-Carcano rifle #C2766 on 11/22/63 (or any other day of the year)? The owner of the gun (Lee Harvey Oswald)? Or some stranger who didn't purchase the weapon?
Based on those "odds", alone, the Anybody But Oswald kooks are cooked. And when we start adding in all the other stuff that incriminates Sweet Lee, it's Katie, bar the door (e.g., Oswald leaving the building immediately; Oswald killing Tippit; Oswald's actions and statements within the Texas Theater, which practically amount to Oswald confessing to some horrible act; plus those fingerprints on the rifle's trigger guard, identified as being Oswald's prints
by Vincent Scalice in 1993).
This case is a prosecutor's wet dream."
-- David Von Pein; September 18, 2012
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"If the conspiracy to kill Kennedy was as obvious as conspiracy theorists want us to believe, how then could the Warren Commission members have had any confidence that the conspiracy’s existence would not have surfaced in the future?
Moreover, if we adopt the cover-up theory, did all seven Commission members, on their own, decide to suppress the truth? Or was there a ringleader or architect of the cover-up, like Warren?
If the latter, how was he able to get the other six members (and, necessarily, a significant number of the Commission’s assistant counsels and staff) to go along with his nefarious scheme? Indeed, not knowing what their response might be, wouldn’t he have been deathly afraid to even approach them with such a monumentally base and criminal proposal? The whole notion is too ridiculous to even contemplate.
Adding a touch of humor to it all, as Commission member Gerald Ford said, “The thought that Earl Warren and I would conspire on anything is preposterous”."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Pages xix-xx of "Reclaiming History"
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"If there is a suspicious fire, the kooks would investigate the firemen who respond, and ignore the guy
with the wicked grin that smells of gasoline."
-- Bud; November 22, 2007
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"Conspiracy Kook Rule #16B applies here, which states -- "When all else fails, just say something is 'fake' or 'phony' or 'doesn't look quite right', and the CTer is off the hook".
As Vince Bugliosi would say -- You can tell when someone has a very weak physical-evidence case....because they'll start arguing impossible-to-prove theories regarding evidence manipulation or contamination or cover-up, etc. This invariably occurs when there simply is nothing else for the defense TO argue.
Attempts to deflect attention away from the basic core of ballistics (and other) evidence in the JFK case (which all leads inexorably to Lee Oswald) by crying "It's All Fake" is a sign of a patently weak case with which these kooks try to combat the physical evidence.
And, I'm sorry, but the "Nothing Is What It Seems To Be" argument with respect to virtually everything surrounding the JFK assassination is about as likely to be true (and provable) as a blizzard in Phoenix."
-- David Von Pein; January 11, 2007
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"True to form, you tried to hide from the person who could best demolish your fabricated case. .... Once again I challenge you, Mark Lane, to thirty minutes on film -- that is all I need to demolish your manufactured case."
-- David Belin; Via a 12/23/66 letter written by Belin to Mark Lane
(Re-printed in Belin's 1973 book "November 22, 1963: You Are The Jury")
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"Has any conspiracy theorist in history ever made this basic observation?....
Boy, those assassins were sure a bunch of lucky sons of bitches when the guy who shot JFK in the throat from the front managed to hit Kennedy in exactly the right spot on his body so that (later on) the official investigators could utilize that entry wound in the throat as the point of exit for the SBT bullet. And then the multiple assassins got even luckier when the upper-back bullet and the bullet that entered the throat both decided not to exit the body and then both of those bullets vanished into puffs of smoke before either of those bullets (which obviously were still inside JFK's body when he was inside Trauma Room No. 1 at Parkland Hospital) could be seen by any non-conspirator.
Can anyone truly believe that such incredible good fortune could possibly have existed amongst the (alleged) multiple shooters who were (allegedly) firing bullets at President Kennedy on 11/22/63?
And yet CTers have the gall to tell me that I am the one who believes in "Magic Bullets". Oy vey!"
-- David Von Pein; July 1, 2018
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"Way too much attention has been given to conspiracy theorists and Warren Commission critics. CTer [web] sites aren't worth reading because they have nothing to say. Once you question that Oswald shot Kennedy, you've identified yourself as someone not worth listening to."
-- Bud; July 16, 2010
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"If you were put in charge of framing your lone patsy on 11/22/63, would you have placed three gunmen all throughout Dealey Plaza? Or would you have fired from ONLY the Sniper's Nest in the TSBD using only your patsy's gun?
And would you allow your patsy to wander around in the lunchroom at 12:30, where he's quite likely to be seen by people AT LUNCHTIME?
What if Oswald had called in sick on November 22nd? What then? Would the plotters have re-routed the motorcade to have it pass by Ruth Paine's home in Irving?"
-- David Von Pein; April 2007
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"I have never understood the importance of the Mexico City trip other than to show Oswald was still the angry young man who had first defected to the Soviet Union. I can't imagine that anyone had manipulated him into doing anything. No one could have possibly anticipated the random circumstances that would bring JFK into rifle range of Oswald's work place. I think it is hindsight to say that the CIA and the FBI could have done more to prevent this. It's easy to say after the fact that they should have kept a closer watch on him, but prior to 11/22/63 what reason was there that Oswald would stand out more than any of the other oddballs on their watchlists? These agencies did not have unlimited manpower and I see no reason Oswald should have been a priority with either of them."
-- John Corbett; August 11, 2015
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"Nobody could figure him [Lee Oswald] out. .... He didn't want you to get too close to him. .... I thought he was a psycho; I really did."
-- Julian Evans (who knew Oswald when Lee was a youth)
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"I do think for the historical record it's important that people understand that Lee [Oswald] was a very ordinary person -- that people can kill a President without that being something that shows on them in advance."
-- Ruth Paine; July 1986; Via "On Trial: Lee Harvey Oswald"
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"I categorically deny that the investigation of the assassination was deficient. The Church Committee concedes directly or by implication that the [Warren] Commission's conclusions based on available evidence were correct. To date, I have seen no new evidence that would change my views as a former member of the Commission."
-- Gerald R. Ford; 1978 (HSCA Testimony)
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"A six-year-old can easily debunk any of the silly Zapruder Film alteration theories. The only thing that that six-year-old has to do is ask conspiracy theorists like Doug Horne and Jim Fetzer the following unanswerable question:
IF THE ZAPRUDER FILM HAS BEEN ALTERED IN ORDER TO HIDE ALL SIGNS OF A FRONTAL GUNSHOT (AND WHAT OTHER CONCEIVABLE REASON UNDER THE MOON COULD THERE BE FOR ANYONE TO WANT TO FAKE THE Z-FILM, OTHER THAN TO GET RID OF ALL OF THE VISUAL THINGS IN THE FILM THAT MIGHT LEAD PEOPLE TO THE IDEA THAT THERE WAS A "CONSPIRACY" INVOLVED IN JFK'S DEATH?)....THEN WHY DOES THE CURRENTLY-AVAILABLE ZAPRUDER FILM CONTAIN FOOTAGE OF PRESIDENT KENNEDY'S HEAD MOVING VIOLENTLY BACKWARD AND TO THE LEFT AFTER THE FATAL HEAD SHOT?
No loopy conspiracy theorist has ever once come up with even a halfway-reasonable answer to the question I just asked. And they never will be able to provide any kind of a reasonable or logical or rational answer to that question I just now asked--and that's because there is no reasonable answer to that inquiry from the point-of-view of the silly alterationists like Douglas P. Horne and James H. Fetzer, et al.
Or do the alterationists like Horne and Fetzer REALLY want people to believe that the technicians who supposedly altered the Z-Film didn't think that the "back and to the left" motion of Kennedy's head in the film was an important enough thing to get rid of completely (even though, as we all know, that very same "back and to the left" motion in the film is certainly the NUMBER-ONE thing that causes most people to shout "He was shot from the front!")?
Or maybe Horne and Fetzer (et al) think that the film-fakers really thought that the rear head snap would be a GOOD thing to leave in the altered version of the film.
Or, as another alternative (based on Fetzer's theory of the Z-Film being "wholly fabricated"), perhaps the people who were "wholly fabricating" the film thought it would be a good idea to ADD IN the rear head snap, thereby causing millions of Americans to think that the FABRICATED-FROM-WHOLE-CLOTH film was really revealing the exact thing that the film-fakers were (supposedly) attempting to cover up -- A CONSPIRACY TO MURDER JOHN F. KENNEDY.
Isn't it time for common sense to take center stage in the debate concerning Zapruder Film fakery?"
-- David Von Pein; April 5, 2010
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"I'm not a ballistic expert, but I believe if there were shots that were coming by my right ear, I would hear a different sound. I heard shots coming from--I wouldn't know which direction to say--but it was proven from the Texas Book Depository. And they all sounded alike; there was no different sound at all."
-- Abraham Zapruder; June 1967
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"What difference does it make what made Kennedy snap back like he does? Once a bullet is ruled out as the cause, it's really trivial. The bullet that struck Kennedy in the head was gone before he started backwards. Bullets that are gone can't be the cause of that movement."
-- Bud; July 12, 2013
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"In the [John F.] Kennedy case, I believe the absence of a conspiracy can be proved to a virtual certainty."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 973 of "Reclaiming History"
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"No conspiracy theorist on Earth can supply any evidence to substantiate their continuing claims of evidence manipulation in the JFK case.
The theory that CE567 and CE569 are fake or planted bullet fragments almost certainly MUST be a theory that a lot of conspiracy theorists endorse, whether they know it or not. Because if those two bullet fragments from the limousine are legitimate pieces of evidence in this case, it positively means that OSWALD'S RIFLE was being fired at President Kennedy in Dealey Plaza.
And those two bullet fragments, in conjunction with Oswald's own actions and all of the other many things of a physical nature, go a long way toward incriminating the owner of the rifle that was conclusively linked to those two front-seat bullet fragments. And that owner's name was Lee Harvey Oswald.
The CTers can't possibly even begin to prove that those fragments weren't really found in the front seat of JFK's car. And those fragments indicate a very important thing -- they indicate that the rifle owned by Lee H. Oswald was the weapon that killed President John F. Kennedy.
And that's a stubborn fact that many conspiracy theorists just simply do not want to accept. And they never will."
-- David Von Pein; September 23, 2011
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"The conspiracists' methods produce a surreal world. Every discrepancy is interpreted as a crack in the official stone wall through which one may glimpse the ugly truth of what happened. Behind the wall are disconnected scenes, each with its own set of conspirators. On close examination, many of these scenes evaporate."
-- Jean Davison; Page 277 of "Oswald's Game"
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"If there's NOT a Single-Bullet Theory, then how on Earth did a SEPARATE gunshot to John Connally's back end up striking the Governor in pretty much the same location where such a wound would be located if a SBT did exist? Odds of [this] occurring without a SBT? Can anyone hazard a guess?"
-- David Von Pein; January 22, 2007
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"Unbelievably, [Doug] Horne said that the depositions taken by the ARRB caused him to conclude that there were two (not one) supplemental brain examinations following the autopsy, and the second one--are you ready?--wasn't on the president's brain, but on another brain from some anonymous third party. ....
I suppose it is a given that there will be other Doug Hornes who will breast-feed the conspiracy loonies for generations to come with their special lactations of bilge, blather, and bunk."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Pages 435 and 444 of "Reclaiming History"
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"Dr. David Mantik doesn't care about Occam and his handy (and usually accurate) razor. Instead of applying some measure of logic and common sense (and Occam) to the controversial matters surrounding JFK's murder, Dr. Mantik (and you [Doug Horne]) would rather peddle impossible-to-prove theories for years on end.
And, of course, there will always be somebody out there in fantasy-land who will be ready to listen to the impossible-to-prove theories of conspiracy theorists like Doug Horne and David Mantik. Such is the way with the world."
-- David Von Pein; December 19, 2009
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"There is a simple fact of life that Warren Commission critics and conspiracy theorists either don't realize or fail to take into consideration, something I learned from my experience as a prosecutor; namely, that in the real world--you know, the world in which when I talk you can hear me, there will be a dawn tomorrow, et cetera--you cannot be innocent and yet still have a prodigious amount of highly incriminating evidence against you. That's just not what happens in life. .... But with Lee Harvey Oswald, everything, everything points towards his guilt."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 952 of "Reclaiming History"
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"What really happened on November 22, 1963 (sans the creative imaginings of conspiracy promoters), is that a man named Oswald (a man who we know had MURDER RUNNING THROUGH HIS OWN VEINS, via his attempt to kill General Walker) saw the perfect opportunity to kill the President from his own working establishment, using his own rifle. And, of course, he succeeded at doing just that....making up for his failure to kill his other victim (Walker) in April.
It's remarkable to me that so many people can actually believe Lee Oswald wouldn't (or COULDN'T) have killed JFK, even with the Walker shooting staring them in the face.
Let me ask just a general type of question that relates to Oswald, the Walker shooting, and the JFK assassination:
How many people do you personally know who have literally tried to KILL ANOTHER HUMAN BEING?
I'm guessing that almost everyone would answer the above question with this number: Zero.
But whether conspiracy theorists like it or not, Lee Harvey Oswald WAS indeed a person who attempted to murder another human being PRIOR to 11/22/63. Oswald's attempt on Walker's life is extremely important. It's very powerful circumstantial evidence that can be used against Oswald in the JFK shooting. The guy had already tried to murder a political figure before November 22nd. How can anyone possibly just toss that fact aside and say it doesn't mean a darn thing when trying to connect Oswald with JFK's death? Of course it MEANS something. In fact, it's one of THE most important pieces of circumstantial evidence there is against Oswald in the President's slaying.
Because, I'll ask again, how many people do you know who have taken a gun and pointed it at somebody's head and then pulled the trigger?
Do conspiracists REALLY think Oswald was set up as a patsy for the Walker shooting attempt in April 1963 too? Really? That's crazy talk."
-- David Von Pein; November 19, 2011
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"You [Jim Garrison] are asking us and the American public to believe that a team of seven gunmen carried this out with precision, firing from various points that day in Dallas, which is a remarkable feat in itself, and disappeared into thin air, with no witnesses who ever saw any other gunmen or getaway vehicles....and a gigantic conspiracy in which nobody seems to have yet proved anything. You ask us to believe that....I find that a much larger fairy tale than to accept the findings of the Warren Report."
-- Johnny Carson; January 31, 1968
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VINCENT BUGLIOSI -- "Well, Doctor, by definition, it seems to me that you are saying,
that if the other eight pathologists [on the HSCA's Forensic Pathology Panel] disagreed with you -- and they
did -- is that correct...?"
DR. CYRIL WECHT -- "Yes."
VINCENT BUGLIOSI -- "Okay. Seems to me, Doctor, that by necessary implication they are
either hopelessly and utterly incompetent, or they deliberately suppressed the truth
from the American public. Is that correct?"
DR. CYRIL WECHT -- "There is a third alternative, which would be a
hybrid to some extent of the deliberate suppression, sir..."
VINCENT BUGLIOSI -- "So, of the nine pathologists, Dr. Wecht, you're the only one that had
the honor and the integrity and the professional responsibility to tell the truth to
the American people....is that correct, Doctor?"
DR. CYRIL WECHT -- "I'll prefer to put it this way....I'm the only one who had the
courage to say that the King was nude, and had no clothes on....yes."
VINCENT BUGLIOSI -- "No further questions."
-- Via "On Trial: Lee Harvey Oswald" (1986)
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"By far the best evidence to determine if the head shot was a REAR shot or a FRONTAL shot is the autopsy of President Kennedy. And the autopsy (plus the testimony of all three autopsy surgeons) leaves no doubt about the direction of the head shot -- it entered JFK's head FROM BEHIND. The autopsy, plus the photos and X-rays, confirm that fact beyond all doubt. The back of JFK's skull was bevelled in such a way that eliminates the possibility of any frontal shot striking Kennedy's cranium. Why do so many conspiracy theorists simply ignore the bevelling on JFK's skull? Why?
The President was struck by two bullets and only two bullets, and both of those missiles entered his body from behind. That's a provable fact. And anyone who says otherwise is just flat-out ignoring the best evidence in the case concerning John F. Kennedy's bullet wounds."
-- David Von Pein; January 17, 2012
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"A cloud hangs over [JFK's] murder and our nation because we refuse to accept what is so clearly the truth -- that his assassination was a simple act of murder, committed by a man [Lee Harvey Oswald] who left evidence proving his guilt. .... The case is solved."
-- Mark Fuhrman; Page 217 of
"A Simple Act Of Murder: November 22, 1963" (2006)
Book Review -- "A Simple Act Of Murder"
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"Oswald did it. And probably did it alone. And all reasonable people who have examined the case for several years know that fact.
Plus, it might surprise a lot of the conspiracy crowd to know just how far in the extreme MINORITY they are with regard to the question of "WAS LEE OSWALD A GUNMAN IN DEALEY PLAZA?"
Per the latest major poll (in November 2003), when asked a specific question about whether or not Oswald was a "GUNMAN" on 11/22/63, only 7% of the 1,031 people polled were of the opinion that Oswald was "Not Involved" AS A GUNMAN in Dealey Plaza.
That's quite revealing and interesting, IMO. (Especially when we consider how many "Anybody But Oswald" conspiracy nuts are populating the Internet, circa 2009.)
Now, I'm not saying that the majority of those 1,031 ABC News Poll respondents are well-schooled in the details of the JFK case. Most people aren't. But, still, it shows a general feeling among over 1,000 Americans that Oswald was certainly not the "innocent patsy" that so many "Anybody But Oswald" theorists want to pretend he was."
-- David Von Pein; July 20, 2009
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"The assassins choose bullets that inflict non-lethal, 1-inch-deep wounds? Instead of feeding JFK to lions, they decided to nibble him to death by ducks?"
-- Bud; April 1, 2006
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"The early DPD radio bulletin about President Kennedy's killer being armed with a "30-30 rifle" is exactly the same kind of erroneous initial information that was supplied by one or more persons following the shooting of Officer Tippit, who thought Tippit's killer was carrying an "automatic" pistol. But when better and more complete information comes to light, then the truth emerges.
Many conspiracy theorists, however, seem to want to perpetually accept the earliest erroneous reports and treat those early reports as absolute facts -- with the "automatic pistol" error being a prime example of this.
It would appear to be a manifestation of the "Anybody But Oswald" disease that those CTers are afflicted with. Therefore, ANY information that they can utilize to support their false notion that Lee Oswald was innocent of shooting anyone is information they are eager to prop up -- even when the CTer has got to know it is wrong information he is propping up....such as the "automatic" at the Tippit murder scene.
Deep down, the conspiracy promoters have certainly got to know that the person who shot and killed J.D. Tippit did NOT use an automatic weapon. And there are many things that prove that Tippit's slayer was using a non-automatic revolver (besides even the best physical evidence of the bullet shells themselves) -- such as the fact that multiple witnesses saw the killer (Oswald) dumping shell casings out of his gun BY HAND (something that is not required at all if an automatic pistol was being used).
Plus, there's the fact that all of the spent shells were found AT THE CORNER of Tenth & Patton, indicating that an automatic was certainly NOT the murder weapon, because if the killer had shot Tippit with an automatic, then all of the spent cartridge cases would have been RIGHT NEXT TO TIPPIT'S PATROL CAR, instead of up the street in the yard of Barbara and Virginia Davis.
Do CTers want to pretend that somebody shot Tippit with an automatic (with the shells being automatically ejected from the gun near Tippit's police car), and then the killer picked up the shells and scattered them in the Davises' yard as he fled? That's nuts.
Or do CTers want to pretend that all of the witnesses were wrong when they all said they saw the gunman shoot Tippit while the killer was standing RIGHT NEXT TO THE POLICE CAR?
So, given the totality of evidence in the case, we can realistically see that the conspiracists who continue to believe that an "automatic" killed Tippit have nowhere to go with their theories. Such theories reside only in their imaginations."
-- David Von Pein; January 9, 2010
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"In the final analysis, the validity of the HSCA's acoustic evidence collapses under the weight of its own requirements. The HSCA presented no photographic or testimonial evidence that any police motorcycle with an open microphone was at the point on Houston Street where such a motorcycle would have had to be at the time of the assassination for its hypothesis to be possible.
More importantly, the very police Dictabelt recording that the HSCA relied on to conclude that a second gunman fired at the president proves beyond all doubt that the impulse sounds committee members thought were gunfire were recorded at least one minute after Oswald shot Kennedy in the head.
In addition, common sense tells us the fourth-shot acoustic evidence must be wrong since it is completely incompatible with the overwhelming evidence in this case that only three shots were fired in Dealey Plaza, and those three shots came from the sniper's nest.
That, of course, is not what conspiracy theorists would have you believe. In the best of worlds, they would prefer that the question of conspiracy remain open. How else can they continue the charade that more than one gunman murdered the president?"
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 217 of "Reclaiming History" (Endnotes)
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"The fact of the matter is there are no missing words and there is no missing time on the Dallas police Dictabelt recording—a recording that was relied upon by the HSCA to reach their conclusion of conspiracy and which, over the course of better than fifty years, has been the only hard, scientific evidence ever offered to support a conspiracy in the assassination of President Kennedy. And anyone arguing that the HSCA’s acoustic evidence is alive and well doesn’t know what they’re talking about."
-- Steve Barber; August 11, 2018
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"I'm just curious to know HOW MANY pieces of evidence conspiracy theorists require in order for the SUM TOTAL of those pieces to become the equivalent of "proof"? Does such a number exist? Or could there EVER be enough pieces of evidence against Oswald that would convince a CTer? I truly wonder."
-- David Von Pein; August 5, 2015
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"The murder of John Kennedy was a totally meaningless act, on the part of—this may sound cruel, but I think it's fair—on the part of a meaningless person. It was not a political act. .... Oswald had no reason for killing John Kennedy. .... It was the senseless act of a senseless man."
-- David Brinkley; September 1964
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"Just having Lee Oswald in the general area of the [Tippit] crime, with a gun, and acting "funny" and obviously avoiding the police is a good hunk of circumstantial evidence leading to his guilt right there. Where does the road of common sense take a reasonable person when JUST the above after-the-shooting activity of Lee Harvey Oswald is examined objectively? It sure doesn't lead to total innocence, I'll tell ya that right now. (Especially when the stuff that went on inside the movie theater is factored in as well.) In a nutshell, this murder boils down to the following concrete fact (based on the overall weight of the evidence that surrounds the crime): If Lee Harvey Oswald didn't kill J.D. Tippit -- then J.D. Tippit wasn't killed at all. Maybe it was all some kind of "Bobby Was In The Shower" type of dream or something instead."
-- David Von Pein; October 2006
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"Combinations of human skull tops and melons were tested, and, again, all fell backward off the stand toward the shooter. No melon or skull combination ever fell AWAY from the shooter.
Human skulls were then packed with solid melon contents and taped and sewed tightly together with strong tape and thread to simulate the scalp. We fired into these at the same point and at the same angle as the President was struck.
The skull wounds produced were strikingly similar to Kennedy's. Again, the skulls fell or jumped off the stand toward the shooter, and large fragments of the top of the skulls flew upward and forward for distances of forty feet or more, just as fragments of Kennedy's skull can be seen to have done in frames 313 through 318 of the Zapruder movie."
-- Dr. John K. Lattimer; Page 251 of "Kennedy And Lincoln"
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"Unfortunately for the CTers who embrace the silly notion that Oswald's trip from the sixth to the second floor was "impossible" to accomplish in the allotted timeframe, the verifiable evidence proves that those conspiracy believers are 100% wrong when it comes to this aspect of the assassination timeline. Because it was easily a doable trek for Oswald, or anybody else with two legs who wasn't walking on crutches."
-- David Von Pein; September 2006
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EDDIE BARKER (CBS NEWS) -- "Is there any doubt in your mind that Oswald was the man you had seen shoot Tippit?"
DOMINGO BENAVIDES -- "No, sir; there was no doubt at all. Period. I could even tell you how he combed his hair and the clothes he wore and what-have-you and the details....and if he'd had a scar on his face, I could have probably told you about it. You don't forget things like that."
-- Via the CBS-TV Special, "A CBS News Inquiry: The Warren Report" (June 1967)
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"The great thing about my stance as far as ALL of the JFK case evidence is concerned is the fact that I, as a "Lone Nutter", don't require ANY liars within the Dallas Police Department (or the FBI, or the Secret Service, or the Warren Commission, or the HSCA, etc., etc.). Whereas, many conspiracy theorists, if their various theories about the evidence being tainted are true, require MANY different liars within all of the above-named law enforcement agencies and investigative organizations. They require at least FOUR liars within the DPD with respect to just this "paper bag" issue alone (Studebaker, Day, Montgomery, and Johnson).
But, in my opinion, when a theory requires so many alleged liars and "cover-up" agents, I think it might be time to consider abandoning the Conspiracy ship. But it seems that many CTers adhere to a policy that is just the opposite. They seem to like the motto: The More Liars, The Better. (Go figure.)"
-- David Von Pein; March 19, 2018
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"Based on the evidence analyzed, the [Warren] Commission has concluded that the shots which killed President Kennedy and wounded Governor Connally were fired from the sixth-floor window at the southeast corner of the Texas School Book Depository Building. Two bullets probably caused all the wounds suffered by President Kennedy and Governor Connally.
Since the preponderance of the evidence indicated that three shots were fired, the Commission concluded that one shot probably missed the Presidential limousine and its occupants, and that the three shots were fired in a time period ranging from approximately 4.8 to in excess of 7 seconds."
-- Page 117 of "The Warren Commission Report" (1964)
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"The Commission has found that Lee Harvey Oswald (1) owned and possessed the rifle used to kill President Kennedy and wound Governor Connally, (2) brought this rifle into the Depository Building on the morning of the assassination, (3) was present, at the time of the assassination, at the window from which the shots were fired (4) killed Dallas Police Officer J.D. Tippit in an apparent attempt to escape, (5) resisted arrest by drawing a fully loaded pistol and attempting to shoot. another police officer, (6) lied to the police after his arrest concerning important substantive matters, (7) attempted, in April 1963, to kill Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker, and (8) possessed the capability with a rifle which would have enabled him to commit the assassination.
On the basis of these findings the Commission has concluded that
Lee Harvey Oswald was the assassin of President Kennedy."
-- Page 195 of "The Warren Commission Report" (1964)
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"Based upon the investigation reviewed in this chapter ["Chapter VI" of the Warren Commission Report], the Commission concluded that there is no credible evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald was part of a conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy. Examination of the facts of the assassination itself revealed no indication that Oswald was aided in the planning or execution of his scheme. ....
The Commission discovered no evidence that the Soviet Union or Cuba were involved in the assassination of President Kennedy. Nor did the Commission's investigation of Jack Ruby produce any grounds for believing that Ruby's killing of Oswald was part of a conspiracy.
The conclusion that there is no evidence of a conspiracy was also reached independently by Dean Rusk, the Secretary of State; Robert S. McNamara, the Secretary of Defense; C. Douglas Dillon, the Secretary of the Treasury; Robert F. Kennedy, the Attorney General; J. Edgar Hoover, the Director of the FBI; John A. McCone, the Director of the CIA; and James J. Rowley, the Chief of the Secret Service, on the basis of the information available to each of them."
-- Page 374 of "The Warren Commission Report" (1964)
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"I challenge anyone to look at the Zapruder Film clip linked below a few times in a row and arrive at the following conclusion:
There's NO WAY that President Kennedy and Governor Connally were struck by the same bullet! No way!
Anyone who could utter the above words after watching this Z-Film segment [shown below] must either be blind or closely related to Oliver Stone."
-- David Von Pein; April 23, 2010
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"There was, of course, no "patsy" at all. Merely a very strange man named Oswald (who had already established himself
as a would-be political assassin in April of '63 when he tried to kill Edwin Walker) and who owned a rifle and realized on November 19th or November 20th that he would have a perfect opportunity to smuggle his own gun into his own place of employment on the day when JFK came to town in order to make an attempt on the life of yet another political figure.
No "sheep-dipping" required. No "conspirators" required. No Grassy Knoll gunmen required. Just a guy named Lee
and his very own Carcano weapon (plus a couple of "curtain rod" lies told to Buell Frazier)."
-- David Von Pein; November 7, 2022
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"The conspiracy community regularly seizes on one slip of the tongue, misunderstanding, or slight discrepancy to defeat twenty pieces of solid evidence; accepts one witness of theirs, even if he or she is a provable nut, as being far more credible than ten normal witnesses on the other side; treats rumors, even questions, as the equivalent of proof; leaps from the most minuscule of discoveries to the grandest of conclusions; and insists that the failure to explain everything perfectly negates all that is explained."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page xliii of "Reclaiming History"
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"Even in a 'perfect conspiracy world', how in the heck could these covert "plotters" possibly have thought (on November 21st, the day before such a nutty plan would be taking place) that it was a GOOD idea to utilize three different assassins, who would ALL be drilling JFK's body (potentially) with many bullets in just a short 6-to-8-second time period -- with several of these missiles coming from OBVIOUS non-Oswald (non-"Patsy") locations?
Were these conspirators of the opinion (somehow) that JFK would be pronounced "dead" right there in the limousine, right there in Dealey Plaza, and would then be driven IMMEDIATELY to some "Conspiracy Morgue" someplace where ALL the wounds that have just been inflicted upon the President would be "controlled" by the same evil plotters who conceived of this plot?"
-- David Von Pein; June 2005
The "Patsy" Plot Silliness
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"IMO, the prayer man theory has the same fatal weakness as other JFK conspiracy theories: Instead of a narrative explaining how the evidence fits together to show what happened, we get a bunch of things that look “suspicious” and unseen plotters who plant evidence, suborn perjury, and do anything else necessary to frame the poor patsy.
The problem is that the masterminds are, as usual, all-powerful and yet incredibly stupid. They plant a weapon they’ve tied to Oswald yet somehow neglect to keep the patsy from wandering outside to acquire what should’ve been an ironclad alibi.
So now they have to get anyone who knew the truth to lie about it. But hey, no problem. With the right threats, who wouldn’t agree to help frame an innocent man in a president’s murder and keep quiet about it forever, right? Even better, Oswald doesn’t mention his alibi, either."
-- Jean Davison; May 1, 2016
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"On the basis of all the available facts, I have no doubt in my mind that Lee Oswald killed President Kennedy."
-- Marina Oswald; Warren Commission Testimony; September 6, 1964
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"I am not a psychiatrist...but living with a person for a few years you at least have some kind of intuition about what he might do or might not. I don't mean in every respect, but he [LHO] was not a very trustworthy and open person. So, personally, I seriously doubt that he will confide in someone."
-- Marina Oswald-Porter; HSCA Testimony; 1978
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"I was very nervous that day when I took the [backyard] pictures. I can't remember how many I took, but I know I took them and that is what is important. It would be easier if I said I never took them, but that is not the truth."
-- Marina Oswald-Porter; Early 1990s (Via Gerald Posner's book, "Case Closed")
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"The fact that we know beyond all doubt that Lee Harvey Oswald's manual, semi-crappy, bolt-action Mannlicher-Carcano rifle was being used in an assassination attempt against the 35th President of the United States is, in my opinion, very good circumstantial evidence that there was NO CONSPIRACY involved in President Kennedy's assassination in Dallas.
Why is that? --- Because if there had been anyone else involved in the murder attempt against the President, does anybody REALLY believe that this group of conspirators (which would have consisted of, presumably and logically, expert marksmen) would have utilized Lee Oswald's MANUAL BOLT-ACTION RIFLE to try and kill John Kennedy?
A "professional" hit on the President (circa 1963) would certainly have involved weaponry far better than Oswald's admittedly less-than-outstanding bolt-action rifle. If there's any room for logic here, then automatic weapons would probably have been used by the assassins to kill the President.
But there is absolutely no indication that JFK was being shot at in Dealey Plaza with any weapon OTHER THAN LEE HARVEY OSWALD'S SEMI-CRAPPY MANNLICHER-CARCANO BOLT-ACTION RIFLE!
That last paragraph--all by itself--is a fairly decent indication that NOBODY EXCEPT THE OWNER OF THAT MANNLICHER-CARCANO RIFLE was involved in President Kennedy's murder.
And if some conspiracy theorists want to argue with the above garden-variety logic regarding this matter and speculate that Oswald's rifle was "planted" in the TSBD to frame him, they're going to have to distort a whole bunch of ballistics evidence in the case in order to accomplish that "planted rifle" task.
What it boils down to is that when ordinary logic and common sense are applied to virtually every aspect of the JFK murder case, the end result is invariably a conclusion of: OSWALD DID IT ALONE.
In order to defeat those last four words, a conspiracy theorist has no choice but to pretend that every piece of physical evidence in both the JFK and Tippit murders is tainted in some way, which is a belief that no conspiracist can possibly prove in a million lifetimes."
-- David Von Pein; March 8, 2010
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"Some conspiracy theorists apparently think it makes a lot of sense to consider the idea that somebody was sticking a useless rifle out of the Book Depository's sixth-floor window and didn't fire any shots at all with that rifle. It's another
(of hundreds) of instances where conspiracists will isolate something separately and then fail to piece it together to make the "whole".
They will isolate the information about ONLY Howard Brennan being a witness to a rifle actually being FIRED from the southeast corner of the Depository's sixth floor.
But those same conspiracists also know, of course, that three spent bullet casings were found directly under that SAME window where other witnesses (besides Brennan) saw a gun. And Oswald's rifle was found on that same sixth floor.
Therefore, could a defense lawyer actually expect a reasonable jury to buy this argument:
"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, just because Amos Euins and Robert Jackson and Mal Couch and James Worrell saw a rifle sticking out of an upper-story window of the Book Depository, and just because physical evidence of a gunman was found on the sixth floor, this doesn't mean that you, the jury in this case, have to buy into the notion that ANYONE AT ALL was firing a rifle from that sixth-floor window. All the prosecution has got is Howard Brennan! And we all know what a liar that guy is, right? In other words, you must ALWAYS be willing to ISOLATE every witness, and you must never, NEVER, be willing to put these isolated pieces of evidence back together to form a cohesive whole. Never do that!
For, if you do, you'll be playing right into the hands of the prosecution...and into the hands of your own common sense. And I know none of you jurors would want that. I rest my case." [/Perry Mason off.] ....
And I'm still scratching my head and wondering how in this wide world a person with obviously above-average
intelligence the likes of the late Mr. Harold Weisberg could possibly be silly enough to make a statement like this one (which is a direct, verbatim quote from Weisberg's mouth) -- "I have no reason to believe that any of the shooting
came from the sixth floor." -- Harold Weisberg"
-- David Von Pein; October 9, 2011
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"He [Oliver Stone] did have three things right, and I got to hand it to Oliver...he had the date of the assassination correct--November 22nd, 1963; he had the victim--John F. Kennedy; and he had the location--Dallas. Beyond that, Oliver Stone's movie, "JFK", is one continuous lie. ....
Perhaps the best way of illustrating how bad that movie was, in "Reclaiming History" I set forth 53 separate pieces of evidence, all of which point towards Lee Harvey Oswald's guilt. And in Stone's movie, 3 hours and 8 minutes, Oliver just couldn't find the time to mention even ONE of those 53 pieces of evidence."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; April 30, 2007
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"Isn't it rather remarkable that the person sitting in front of JFK also had a bullet wound in his upper back? Plus the added facts of JFK having a bullet hole in his throat and JFK having no bullets in his body.
Conspiracy theorists who hate the Single-Bullet Theory never seem bothered in the least by those last observations I just mentioned. They'll simply add yet another bullet to the mix to account for John Connally's back wound.
The SBT will never be defeated by conspiracists. And that's because the SBT will always make more sense than any anti-SBT theory. The truth usually does make the most sense, of course."
-- David Von Pein; December 14, 2013
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"One can only wonder why so many [conspiracy theorists]...expend so much energy in inventing so many ways to try and exonerate a double-killer. A remarkably silly hobby, to say the least."
-- David Von Pein; April 28, 2008
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"One may wonder why [Jim] Garrison was beset by so many goofy witnesses. But as author James Phelan pointed out, "There are certain sensational cases that have a fascination for unstable people and fetch them forth in droves." ....
The difference between Garrison and most responsible prosecutors in these high-visibility cases is that the latter don't call the kooks to the witness stand. Garrison did.
Phelan says, "The Garrison case had a disastrously low threshold, across which trooped a bizarre parade of people eager to bolster his conspiracy scenario." And Garrison welcomed them with open arms."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 1374 of "Reclaiming History"
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"Gentlemen, I implore you not to make a mistake. This man [Clay Shaw] is as innocent as any one of you fourteen men sitting here on this jury. To find him guilty you have got to believe an admitted liar [Perry Russo], and I don't think you can do that. I am confident you can't. I ask you to vote your conscience, follow the law, and don't make a mistake. Thank you."
-- Irvin Dymond; February 28, 1969 (During closing arguments at Clay Shaw's trial in New Orleans)
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"Regardless of WHERE the large exit wound was located (which was in the right-front of [JFK's] head, of course), and regardless of how many degrees the bullet deflected after striking Kennedy's cranium, the basic ironclad fact of "Only One Bullet Hit JFK's Head From Behind" will never change, which makes all the arguments surrounding these sub-topics moot and rather meaningless when all is said and done."
-- David Von Pein; July 14, 2008
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"CTers are free to imagine all kinds of evidence that went uncollected that would have shown Oswald to be innocent. They just can't produce this evidence, but it seems that being able to imagine it is good enough for them."
-- Bud; June 21, 2010
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"We know that B. Davis, V. Davis, Markham, Scoggins, Guinyard, and Callaway all told the truth when they said it was Oswald (vs. those witnesses all telling a deliberate lie about it being Oswald when they knew it wasn't him they each saw) because the gun still in Oswald's hands when he was arrested was the Tippit murder weapon.
Can any "Oswald Didn't Kill Tippit" conspiracy theorist please tell me HOW Oswald can be innocent when we know he had the Tippit murder weapon IN HIS HANDS just 35 minutes after Tippit was slain?
Has any CTer ever answered the above question in a reasonable and believable fashion without having to pretend that the bullet shells were planted? I think not. Because that's impossible to do."
-- David Von Pein; June 12, 2013
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"On the basis of the investigation conducted by its staff, the [Rockefeller] Commission believes that there is no evidence to support the claim that President Kennedy was struck by a bullet fired from either the grassy knoll or any other position to his front, right front or right side, and that the motions of the President's head and body, following the shot that struck him in the head, are fully consistent with that shot having come from a point to his rear, above him and slightly to his right."
-- Page 264 of "The Rockefeller Commission Report" (1975)
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"There is no credible evidence that either Lee Harvey Oswald or Jack Ruby was ever employed by the CIA or ever acted for the CIA in any capacity whatever, either directly or indirectly."
-- Page 267 of "The Rockefeller Commission Report" (1975)
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"And so, three-and-a-half years later, there are people who still think some group of men are living somewhere carrying in their breasts the most explosive secret conceivable....knowledge of a plot to kill Mr. Kennedy.
These imagined men supposedly go about their lives under iron self-discipline, never falling out with each other, never giving out a hint of suspicion to anyone else.
And nearly three years after the Warren inquiry finished its painful and onerous work, there are not only the serious critics who point to the various mistakes of commission or omission....mistakes of a consequence one can only guess at, and of a kind that have probably plagued every lengthy, voluminous official investigation ever staged. There are also people who think the Commission itself was a conspiracy to cover up something.
In the first place, it would be utterly impossible in the American arena of the fierce and free press and politics to conceal a conspiracy among so many individuals who live in the public eye.
In the second place, the deepest allegiance of men like Chief Justice Warren, or of John McCloy, does not lie with any president, political party, or current cause. It lies with history....their name and place in history. That is all they live for in their later years.
If they knowingly suppressed or distorted decisive evidence about such an event as a Presidential murder, their descendants would bear their accursed names forever. The notion that they would do such a thing is idiotic."
-- Eric Sevareid of CBS News; Via the 1967 TV Special, "A CBS News Inquiry: The Warren Report"
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"I wonder what the odds are of Lee Harvey Oswald having carried a DIFFERENT brown bag into work from the one WITH HIS TWO IDENTIFIABLE PRINTS ON IT that was found by the cops in the Sniper's Nest on the 6th Floor?
The odds must be close to "O.J. DNA" type numbers (in favor of the empty brown bag that was found by the police on the 6th Floor of the Book Depository being the very same bag that Buell Wesley Frazier and Linnie Mae Randle saw in Lee Harvey Oswald's hands on the morning of November 22nd, 1963 AD).
I'm eagerly awaiting the logical and believable "conspiracy" explanation that will answer the question of why that 38-inch brown paper sack (which could house Oswald's 34.8-inch disassembled rifle), with Oswald's fingerprints on it, was in the place where it was found after the assassination -- the Sniper's Nest -- and yet still NOT have Oswald present at the SN window on November 22nd, 1963.
I, for one, cannot think of a single "Oswald's Innocent" explanation for that bag being where it was found after the shooting, and with Lee Harvey Oswald's fingerprints on it."
-- David Von Pein; May 2005
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"My inherent skepticism of governmental authority, be it civilian or military, was intensified as an outgrowth of my service with the Warren Commission. The autopsy physicians were very capable -- but by no means perfect. The FBI and Secret Service were very capable -- but by no means perfect.
And although, by and large, Chief Justice Warren and his fellow Commissioners did a creditable job in conducting a fair and impartial investigation, surely errors were made, such as the failure to allow the attorneys conducting the work of the Commission to see the autopsy photographs and X-rays."
-- David Belin; Page 361 of "November 22, 1963: You Are The Jury"
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"If [the evidence] points to Oswald (as the evidence in the JFK and Tippit cases certainly does), [conspiracy theorists] will find some way to dismiss ALL of it --- like the 4 bullet shells that Oswald was seen by multiple witnesses dumping on the ground near the corner of Tenth Street & Patton Avenue in the Dallas suburb of Oak Cliff just after he shot down Officer J.D. Tippit on 11/22/63. .... In short, anyone who knows the core evidence in the Tippit case in any detail at all who still attempts to defend Lee Harvey Oswald for J.D. Tippit's murder is a person who should not be trusted. Because that person is either a deceitful liar....or just flat-out stupid."
-- David Von Pein; February 27, 2017
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"The Warren Commission critics and conspiracy theorists display an astonishing inability to see the vast forest of evidence proving Oswald's guilt because of their penchant for obsessing over the branches, even the leaves of individual trees. And, because virtually all of them have no background in criminal investigation, they look at each leaf (piece of evidence) by itself, hardly ever in relation to, and in the context of, all the other evidence. .... Within a few hours of the assassination, virtually all of Dallas law enforcement already knew Oswald had murdered Kennedy. Indeed, it was obvious to nearly everyone, not just law enforcement. At 4:45 p.m. on the day of the assassination, NBC network news anchorman Bill Ryan reported that "all circumstantial evidence points to the guilt of the suspect Lee Oswald." Exactly what happened was THAT obvious within hours of the shooting."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Pages 952-953 of "Reclaiming History"
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"Lee Harvey Oswald bought the rifle so he could kill Retired General Edwin Walker with it. The Walker shooting is something that most conspiracy theorists want to totally ignore, or they want to pretend that Oswald, himself, didn't really shoot at Walker in April 1963, which is nonsense, of course, based on the paper trail that he left behind for Marina and Marina's own testimony concerning the matter.
But it's easy to see WHY those conspiracy promoters want to deny that Oswald shot at Walker--because if they were to admit to themselves that Sweet Lee Harvey HAD IT IN HIM TO KILL A HUMAN BEING (and a political figure at that!), then it would be much more difficult to paint Oswald as the completely innocent "patsy" when it comes to John F. Kennedy's murder.
The Walker shooting, IMO, has always been a vital key to understanding OSWALD HIMSELF. Because when Oswald took that gun and fired a shot at General Edwin Walker's head on April 10, 1963, it forever proved that the man who was charged seven months later with the murder of the President of the United States positively had it WITHIN HIMSELF the willingness to kill a human being.
In other words -- Oswald was, in effect, a POLITICAL ASSASSIN many months prior to November 22, 1963. And, in my view, that's a very important thing to know about Lee Harvey Oswald. And it's a part of Oswald's inner character that conspiracy theorists SHOULD (but don't) pay a lot more attention to, particularly the large number of conspiracists who currently reside in the silly "Anybody But Oswald" fraternity."
-- David Von Pein; February 13, 2010
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"The surgeons who conducted the autopsy on President Kennedy's body....plus ALL NINE --- even Wecht, even Wecht --- all nine forensic pathologists who reviewed the photographic evidence and the X-rays of the President's wounds for the House Select Committee on Assassinations agreed that the two bullets that struck President Kennedy were fired from behind....the upper-back wound and the wound to the rear of the President's head being ENTRANCE wounds."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; July 25, 1986; Via "On Trial: Lee Harvey Oswald"
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"A guilty man like Oswald (a man who knows he's guilty of two murders and who also almost certainly expected to be caught) doesn't really need to be nervous. He knows he's guilty...and he also knows that he's very likely going to get what's coming to him.
On the other hand, an innocent "patsy" is likely to be climbing the walls of the DPD jail. Was Oswald doing that?
In other words, did Lee Harvey Oswald act like a person who was unjustly charged with two murders he did not commit? Or did he act more like a guilty person who seemed very content and satisfied to just sit back and let the cops (as LHO himself said) "figure it out"?"
-- David Von Pein; May 28, 2008
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"When you come up with some evidence that anyone but Oswald killed Kennedy, please let us all know, Anthony [Marsh]. Until then, you're just wasting my time."
-- Dave Reitzes; July 20, 2007
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"As to why LHO elected to fire as early as approximately Z-Frame #160, nobody can know for sure. But there's one thing we pretty much know for certain -- he DID fire one shot before JFK's car had driven past that oak tree.
Why did Oswald fire at that time, even though he should have realized that the car would be clearing the tree in just a few more seconds? Beats me. Maybe we should dig Lee Harvey up and ask him. (Got a shovel?)"
-- David Von Pein; December 5, 2007
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"[Lee] Oswald increasingly spent time locked in his small study. There, unknown to Marina, he compiled a blue looseleaf folder, an operations manual for an action he was planning against [Retired General Edwin] Walker. It was filled with photographs of the general's house and a safe place to stash a rifle, as well as maps of a carefully designed escape route."
-- Gerald Posner; Page 104 of "Case Closed"
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"What do you think the chances are that a multi-gun conspiracy took place in Dealey Plaza, with bullets from more than just a single rifle striking the victims in President Kennedy's car....and yet, after the bullets stopped flying and the fragments and/or whole bullets were examined, NOT A SINGLE BULLET OR FRAGMENT from any non-Oswald gun turned out to be large enough to be tested in order to positively eliminate Lee Harvey Oswald's rifle as the source for ALL of the bullets and fragments that hit any of the victims on Elm Street?
Short of conspiracy theorists coming right out and calling Vincent Guinn a bald-faced liar when he revealed his NAA results in 1978 (and even taking into account the newer NAA studies that have been done since '78 that have cast doubt on the exactitude of Guinn's determinations), I cannot see how the conspiracists of the world can fight the above-mentioned "odds" problem."
-- David Von Pein; September 5, 2007
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"Keep heaping those witnesses on. A cast of thousands, cutting across all walks of life, all working against the poor patsy, all quiet to this day. Just because it can't happen won't stop kooks from insisting it did."
-- Bud; August 11, 2007
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"People who think ANY of Jack Ruby's actions on November 24th, 1963, spell out "I'M A HIT MAN FOR THE MOB AND I'M GOING TO SILENCE LEE OSWALD THIS MORNING" are simply not thinking straight, and are attempting to fit a square "Conspiracy" peg into a perfectly round "No Conspiracy" hole."
-- David Von Pein; November 12, 2009
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"The notion that LBJ would actually decide to have Kennedy murdered (or be a party to such a plot by others) is not one that, to my knowledge, any rational and sensible student of the assassination has ever entertained for a moment. But conspiracy theorists are not rational and sensible when it comes to the Kennedy assassination."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Pages 1274-1275 of "Reclaiming History"
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"Conspiracy theorists feel the need to point out and highlight (with zeal) every inconsistency and discrepancy surrounding the JFK and Tippit cases. But a reasonable person who knows the sum total of the evidence in the Tippit case, for example, knows that relying on an ESTIMATED time given by a witness is a fool's errand and is not 100% reliable. Such as the Markham and Bowley timelines, which are, of course, merely estimates and are not times that can ever be fixed in stone, e.g., Markham's "1:06" time for the Tippit murder taking place. That time isn't an established FACT and everybody knows it. But CTers act like there was a Naval Observatory clock hovering over Markham's head on 11/22/63, flashing the time of "1:06" when Tippit was shot. It's ridiculous."
-- David Von Pein; March 22, 2015
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"[Jim] Garrison's book ["On The Trail Of The Assassins"] is close to four hundred pages of fluff and nonsense in which he desperately tries to convince his readers of a conspiracy to murder Kennedy. An implied confession from [David] Ferrie to him and his assistants would have been the very centerpiece of his book.
The highly incriminating words of Ferrie in [Oliver] Stone's movie ("The shooters don't even know. Don't you get it?") are not to be found anywhere in Garrison's book because apparently even Garrison was unwilling to say that a man admitted complicity in a murder when he did not.
But Oliver Stone had no such reservation. .... Stone fabricated, for his audience, this dramatic admission by Ferrie of a conspiracy to kill Kennedy."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 1398 of "Reclaiming History"
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"The man Johnny Brewer pointed out in the Texas Theater (Lee Harvey Oswald) pulls a gun and tries to use it on more cops in the theater (after Oswald had already killed one officer in cold blood just 35 minutes earlier). Plus, Oswald exclaims one of two things (or maybe both) -- "It's all over now" and/or "This is it". Both statements are very incriminating unto themselves. Can you imagine a totally INNOCENT person uttering either of those things as the cops try to grab him?
Oswald just being in the area of J.D. Tippit's murder brandishing a pistol is extremely incriminating circumstantial evidence of LHO's guilt."
-- David Von Pein; May 11, 2009
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"An oval hole in our simulated back of Connally was caused by our test bullet that had first passed through a simulation of Kennedy's neck, causing that bullet to wobble and start to tumble end over end. Connally's wound of entry was elongated, like the one in the center of [the test] target.
The punctate round hole, with black margins, of the type that always occurred when our test bullets struck the Connally target without hitting something else first, can be seen to the right of Connally's outline in the photograph [via Figure 106 on Page 265 of "Kennedy And Lincoln"].
These bullets never wobbled or tumbled spontaneously; they were stable in their flight to the target unless they hit something else first, such as Kennedy's neck, whereupon they turned almost completely sideways."
-- Dr. John K. Lattimer; Page 265 of "Kennedy And Lincoln"
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"Since the evidence of Lee Oswald's guilt is so overwhelming, then any attempt to adjust or rearrange that evidence in an effort to take the gun out of Oswald's own hands at 12:30 PM on 11/22/63 is almost assuredly going to end up producing a theory that doesn't make much sense."
-- David Von Pein; October 17, 2024
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"Common sense tells us that seeing only the wound to the front of the president's neck [and not seeing the corresponding entry wound in Kennedy's back at any time], the Parkland doctors would instinctively have been more inclined to think of it as an entrance wound. Almost anyone would be so predisposed."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 414 of "Reclaiming History"
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"To my knowledge, [nobody] has ever explained how moving the back wound up to THE NECK supports the SBT. Nobody CAN support it, because moving the entry to the neck would destroy the WC's SBT trajectory, not strengthen it.
Again I'll refer you to CE 903. Although [Arlen] Specter didn't drill a hole in the stand-in's body and drive the rod through it, had he done so, the entry would be in the upper back, not in the neck.
There's a string on the wall above his hand that shows an angle of about 18 degrees -- that's the approximate angle measured by a surveyor during the re-enactment and the one the WC used for its SBT. If the rod is moved up to the neck, the bullet will exit well above the exit wound under JFK's Adam's apple. Or take a look at this photo of JFK.
Try drawing a line of c. 18 degrees backward from the knot in JFK's tie. Where does it come out? Upper back, right? The claim that [Gerald] Ford's change "strengthens" the WC's SBT is simply not true.
If I haven't made my point by now, I give up."
-- Jean Davison; January 2, 2007
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"As can be seen in Warren Commission Exhibit #903 [pictured below; captioned by DVP], the "Single-Bullet Theory" trajectory works just fine. In fact, it works absolutely perfectly. Which would be virtually impossible if MULTIPLE bullets had actually done the damage to the two victims (JFK and John Connally) that the Warren Commission said was very likely caused by only one single bullet (CE399).
And the pointer/rod in Exhibit 903 is just where the autopsy photo of John Kennedy's back shows the wound to be located, with the exit wound exactly at the tie knot, just exactly where JFK sustained damage from the flight of a bullet. .... In short: CE903 = S.B.T. PERFECTION!"
-- David Von Pein; March 26, 2007
The SBT Perfection Of CE903
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"The retards [i.e., conspiracy theorists] hate Occam's Razor, because in almost every case they opt for complex and fantastic explanations. Not once or twice. Not even dozens of times. HUNDREDS of times. This is why they won't put their ideas out there.
Think I'm exaggerating? Just look at one thing, the BY [backyard] photo. Two possibilities, fake or genuine. They opt for the fantastic one. Now "faked" comes with a whole truckload of fantastic subsets --- getting competent people on board, acquiring a suitable "head" to use, etc. Now there are two possibilities why it was among Oswald's possessions, a simple one, it was one of his possessions or a fantastic one, it was planted. Again, the tards opt for the complex fantastic one. Marina said she took a photo of Oswald holding the rifle. The simple answer is that this is true, the complex and fantastic one is that someone put her up to lying about this. Again the tards go for the fantastic. Before they are done with this single issue they have posited an impossibly fantastic scenario involving dozens of people."
-- Bud; June 30, 2018
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"The only possible way for Lee Harvey Oswald to be innocent of shooting J.D. Tippit is if the following idiotic situation occurred (which nobody could possibly even begin to believe happened on November 22, 1963):
Somebody other than Lee Oswald shoots Tippit with Oswald's revolver. This "non-Oswald" shooter (who looks just exactly like Lee Harvey Oswald, but really isn't him) then flees the scene of the Tippit crime, dumping four shells on the ground as he runs away. This non-Oswald shooter then meets up with the real Lee Oswald and hands off the Tippit murder weapon to LHO. Oswald then proceeds to the Texas Theater where he is arrested while in possession of the gun that somebody else used to kill Officer Tippit just 35 minutes earlier."
-- David Von Pein; June 4, 2013
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"Our Warren Commission Report will stand the test of the final verdict of the jury of world opinion because it is basically accurate and because there are more than 6,500 footnotes in our 888-page Report, which are grounded in the 26 volumes of testimony and exhibits."
-- David Belin; Page 159 of "November 22, 1963: You Are The Jury"
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"As time goes on, there are more and more conspiracy believers who seem to want to smear just about everyone connected with the Kennedy assassination except the person to whom all of the evidence leads---Lee H. Oswald.
Ruth Paine, Michael Paine, J.D. Tippit, Buell Frazier, Linnie Randle, Roy Truly, Marrion Baker, Will Fritz, Gerald Hill, Captain Westbrook, and many others are branded with the label of "suspicious" by many CTers. While Lee Harvey Oswald, who was the owner of both of the 11/22/63 murder weapons (which is a provable fact no matter what any conspiracy theorist today wants to believe), is considered by many to be merely an innocent "patsy" in BOTH of those Nov. 22 murders, despite the pile of evidence that exists against him.
The logic of such thinking completely escapes me."
-- David Von Pein; July 14, 2022
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"The "Everything Was Fake" mantra used by conspiracy promoters is just a cop-out, and always has been.
It's a sign of pure desperation on a CTer's behalf.
In reality, it's the conspiracists, in a sense, who are constantly attempting to "alter" the evidence and pretend it adds up to something it most certainly does not add up to. And nobody has created any "myths" other than the conspiracy theorists (like these). But in the "CT" world, a myth can easily (and quickly) become a hardened fact. Fortunately, however, the "CT" world has no relationship to this "Real" world that most people reside in.
It's just too bad more people can't see through the parlor games engaged in by the conspiracy theorists for what they truly are---games being played by people who evidently have a strong desire to disbelieve every single piece of evidence that's on the table in the JFK and Tippit murder cases."
-- David Von Pein; February 21, 2015
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"The only "conspiracy plot" that's even remotely possible (given the evidence) is one that has Lee Harvey Oswald as a lone gunman in Dealey Plaza (and on Tenth Street for Tippit's murder) and an unseen, non-shooting "plotter(s)" that we currently have no knowledge of. ....
But even that kind of smaller "Oswald And One Other Guy Who Never Fired A Shot" conspiracy scenario is very unlikely, given the type of person Lee Oswald was. He was very much a loner. He shot at General Walker by himself, with no outside conspirators aiding him. And he very likely did the same on November 22nd, 1963.
Plus: If Oswald had had help from a friend, then where the heck was this "friend" when Lee Harvey needed him the most -- at 12:33 PM on 11/22/63 when Oswald was leaving the Book Depository after having just shot the President?
In that type of hypothetical smaller "plot", are we to believe that the "other plotter(s)" just simply got cold feet and abandoned their pal named Lee when the big moment arrived on November 22nd?
That's possible, I suppose, but I'd rather stick with the facts. And those facts (including Oswald's own post-assassination actions, which reek with guilt) undeniably spell out "OSWALD'S ON HIS OWN"."
-- David Von Pein; November 16, 2007
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"These experiments [involving the firing of MC/WCC bullets at a simulated JFK upper back and neck] confirmed beyond all of my doubts that the smallness of the exit hole in the front of Kennedy's neck was due to the fact that the skin was supported by a firm collar band, which restrained it from bulging and bursting open ahead of the exiting bullet.
If the bullet had not exited from the President's neck just AT the collar band, the exit wound might have been much larger."
-- Dr. John K. Lattimer; Page 239 of "Kennedy And Lincoln"
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"There is a clear and distinct PATTERN over many years of Oswald "using" people to serve his own needs and desires. This man Oswald was no brain-dead dupe....and would certainly have not been stupid enough to be suckered in to some assassination plot in November 1963, whereby he would willingly take his own rifle into his own workplace for the purpose of handing it over to some co-conspirator, who would in turn use it to kill JFK.
Conspiracists have too often (almost always, in fact) totally ignored the type of manipulative and scheming person Lee Harvey Oswald HIMSELF was in the months and years leading up to November 22nd, 1963.
After reading [Jean Davison's 1983 book] "Oswald's Game", it's very nearly impossible to NOT say to yourself dozens of times throughout that book's chapters: This guy Oswald was just EXACTLY the type of crackpot Marxist who just might want to take a potshot at the President of the United States if given THE GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY TO DO SO (which he was afforded -- on 11/22/63 in Dallas, Texas)."
-- David Von Pein; February 2006
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"When you start from a fantasy world, all your conclusions are going to be fantastic. The way to get around this is to ignore that the things you are suggesting and implying are fantastic. You just ignore how ridiculous it is to believe the autopsy photos, the autopsy x-rays, the z-film, the shell fragments in the limo, the shells at the Tippit scene, the bullet found at Parkland, the backyard photo, the bag found on the sixth floor of the TSBD, even JFK's body itself have been tampered with, switched, manufactured, etc. Complications and the fantastic are heaped on with abandon, with no regard for real world reasoning. The difference between us [Lone Assassin believers] and them [the outer-fringe conspiracy theorists] is that we think like adults and they think like children."
-- Bud; August 16, 2023
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"With respect to the HSCA's acoustics evidence, it really doesn't make any difference how many alleged "gunshots" were found on the police Dictabelt tape. The fact will always remain that the timing will always be off for any and all "shots" heard on the Dictabelt, because there was no motorcycle at the corner of Elm and Houston at the operative time when the HSCA said a cycle needed to be there. (Not to mention Steve Barber's 1979 "Hold everything secure" discovery.)
I guess the question that remains for me is:
How many wooden stakes through the heart does it take to kill the vampire known as "The Dictabelt Evidence"?"
-- David Von Pein; August 20, 2019
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"President Kennedy was the target of every half-baked extremist group in the nation. .... And what a sickening irony it is that this man who came through so much should die at the hands of a man worth so little."
-- Alex Dreier; ABC News; November 22, 1963
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"It should be pointed out (over and over again) to the conspiracy theorists that BOTH Darrell Tomlinson and O.P. Wright told the FBI in June of 1964 that Bullet CE399 looked like the bullet they each saw on 11/22/63, but they could not make a POSITIVE identification of the bullet because neither man put any mark on the missile. So, obviously, they could not POSITIVELY say that CE399 was THE exact bullet they saw, particularly due to the fairly undamaged state that
CE399 was in.
If the bullet had been badly deformed or had some other distinguishing mark or jagged edge on it that would make it look greatly different from any other Carcano bullet, then perhaps Tomlinson or Wright would have been able to confidently say something akin to: "Yes, that is definitely the bullet I handled on November 22nd--I can tell by this jagged edge over here".
But since 399 was, indeed, in such good shape (looking basically like any other UNFIRED Carcano FMJ bullet they could have been shown), then how could anybody expect either Tomlinson or Wright to come out and say (with certainty) that CE399 is definitely THE bullet they each saw on Nov. 22?
Actually, when you think about this topic for more than a few moments, it seems perfectly reasonable (and CORRECT) for both Tomlinson and Wright to have said they couldn't be positively sure that CE399 was the stretcher bullet. Because if they had said anything else, it would have seemed very phony and disingenuous on their part...because all other Mannlicher-Carcano bullets without the initials of Tomlinson and Wright would have looked pretty much exactly the same to
those two men."
-- David Von Pein; October 27, 2011
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"Unlike every other employee, Oswald just happened [to] be near the shooter's likely escape route
shortly after the shooting? Is that bad luck or what?"
-- Jean Davison; May 4, 2013
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"The "Motorcade Route Was Changed" allegation is pure malarkey....and provably so. (Unless the conspiracists who continually tout such an unsupportable theory actually believe, and can prove, that the Warren Commission somehow "faked" Commission Exhibits 1362 and 1363, which consist of photographs of two Dallas newspapers, both from Tuesday, November 19, 1963, which verify the finalized motorcade route, including the turn from Houston Street onto Elm Street, which is a turn that took JFK's car directly in front of the Texas School Book Depository Building, from where Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed President Kennedy.) ....
The people who continue to spout the crackpot "Motorcade Route Was Changed" balderdash should not even be discussing any aspect of the John F. Kennedy murder case in the first place...for it's obvious that such a person has no idea what he/she is talking about in so discussing."
-- David Von Pein; November 24, 2006
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"The [JFK conspiracy] kooks have all the advantages. They can attack our [lone assassin] position, because we have one. They don't. They can put shooters anywhere. We can't. They can exploit any discrepancies, errors, omissions, ambiguities, anything poorly worded, etc. We can't.
In a human endeavor like this case, a large amount of these things are bound to exist. They exist in anything humans do. Only in this case, a great effort has been made to exploit this inevitability. Wherever there is desire, this can be done. Whatever humans produce can be criticized (see the 9-11 conspiracy kooks for confirmation). ....
The problems of the case don't lie with the case itself, but with the kooks. That is where the focus needs to be, at the source of the problem, not at its many manifestations. .... More study needs to be done on the phenomenon of kookiness. That is the root. It can be seen all over the internet, and you can find some study on it, but they really just nibble around the edges. A real in-depth study needs to be done on personality types and the belief in stupid things. .... The question is, why are CT [conspiracy theorists] so devoid of common sense, and unable to think reasonably?"
-- Bud; June 11, 2006
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"Can anybody PROVE that various people were "plotting" or "conspiring" to kill President Kennedy down in Mexico City in late 1963? I know that author Gus Russo thinks he has been able to prove that very thing (via his 2008 book, "Brothers In Arms"). But he hasn't. Because the bottom line is still this (and always has been this since 1963):
Once the topic of the assassination returns to DALLAS and DEALEY PLAZA and the ASSASSINATION ITSELF and the PHYSICAL EVIDENCE in the case --- there is NOBODY BUT OSWALD. Period. And nobody has ever come close to proving otherwise."
-- David Von Pein; October 8, 2009
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"A point that conspiracy theorists have raised over and over in their books is that the entrance holes in the president's coat and shirt were more than 2 inches lower in the back than the actual entrance wound in his body. But even if there wasn't an explanation for this, so what?
Like virtually all criticisms by...conspiracy theorists, it doesn't "go anywhere." The typical critic just points out the discrepancy and then moves on. But the discrepancy would only mean something if one were able to thereby conclude that the president was shot twice in the back, once where we know the entrance wound in the back was, and once below that where the holes in the coat and shirt were.
But one can't conclude this because there is no evidence of a second entrance wound to the president's back, and no evidence of any holes to the back of the president's coat and shirt other than one to the coat and one to the shirt."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 241 of "Reclaiming History" (Endnotes)
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"If Lee Harvey Oswald was being "set up" to take the fall for JFK's murder (as many conspiracy theorists believe was the case), I'm wondering how in the world the plotters conveniently arranged Oswald's unusual Thursday night trip to Irving, Texas, on 11/21/63 to visit his wife at Ruth Paine's house, which is the location where Oswald's rifle was being stored?
And how did those very efficient plotters get Oswald to tell the lie about the curtain rods? And then how did those conspirators who were framing their patsy get Mr. Oswald to take a bulky brown package into the Depository
on November 22nd?
Unless Oswald was trying to set HIMSELF up as a patsy, it's rather difficult to find any logical or reasonable answers to the questions I just posed that would lead to a conclusion that Lee Oswald was completely innocent in the events of 11/22/63. Particularly when those questions are evaluated and assessed in conjunction with all of the OTHER things that incriminate Oswald in JFK's murder, e.g., the Carcano rifle, the shells, the bullets, the paper bag on the sixth floor, LHO's prints being all over the place where Kennedy's killer was located, etc.
In short -- Oswald's OWN ACTIONS on November 21, 1963, provide some extremely powerful circumstantial evidence to indicate that Lee Harvey Oswald was anything BUT an innocent patsy when it comes to the assassination of
President Kennedy."
-- David Von Pein; September 28, 2011
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"Just say "FBI" and [James] DiEugenio will wax on about corruption. Just say "CIA" and he'll but tell you they were the primary force behind the assassination. Just say "Dallas Police Department" or "Henry Wade" and the man will foam at the mouth. Just say "Warren Commission" and he'll giggle like a little school girl. At every turn, he accuses somebody of lying and covering-up.
DiEugenio has not rattled any cages. He's an oddity, and the fact that so many of you [conspiracy theorists] idolize him speaks volumes about how desperate YOU are.
Hell, many [conspiracists] have pet theories that completely run counter to many of the things DiEugenio asserts. But does that bother anybody in the conspiracy community? No! And why not? Because they all have one thing in common -- they're IN LOVE with a conspiracy. ANY conspiracy! It's the only glue that holds them together."
-- David Emerling; October 14, 2009
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GOVERNOR JOHN B. CONNALLY -- "The only way that I could ever reconcile my memory of what happened and what occurred, with respect to the One-Bullet Theory is....it HAD to be the SECOND bullet that might have hit us both."
EDDIE BARKER (CBS NEWS) -- "Do you believe, Governor Connally, that the first bullet could have missed, the second one hit both of you, and the third one hit President Kennedy?"
GOVERNOR CONNALLY -- "That's possible. That's possible."
-- Via the CBS-TV Special, "A CBS News Inquiry: The Warren Report" (June 1967)
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"What conspiracy theorists can't answer (logical or believably) is -- IF the Single-Bullet Theory is a piece-of-shit Specter-created LNer Wet Dream -- then HOW on this Earth did the Australian team of researchers (in 2004) manage to get so close to duplicating A SHOOTING SCENARIO THAT MOST CONSPIRACISTS BELIEVE COULDN'T HAVE BEEN ACCOMPLISHED BY OSWALD IN A MILLION YEARS?
Was it yet another "lucky break" for the Patsy-Framers (four decades later even)? Per many CTers, the THREE different shooters on 11/22/63 shot up the two victims with three guns (which are needed if the SBT is to be scrapped), but came SO CLOSE to mimicking a SINGLE-bullet shooting that (in 2004) a real Mannlicher-Carcano rifle bullet was able to come within INCHES of duplicating EXACTLY what Bullet CE399 is said to have done via the SBT.
Odds please? We must be talking "O.J. odds" here! 1 in 57-billion maybe? That number sounds familiar. Let's use that one, for starters."
-- David Von Pein; January 2007 (Revised October 2007)
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"When we started walking [toward the Texas School Book Depository on the morning of 11/22/63], Lee [Oswald] was just a few feet ahead of me, but he kept walking faster than me, and finally got way ahead of me. I saw him go in the back door at the loading dock of the building that we work in, and he still had the package under his arm."
-- Buell Wesley Frazier; Via Frazier's sworn affidavit, dated November 22, 1963
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"An important point that conspiracy theorists never seem to grasp is this one --- The bullet shells picked up in the Sniper's Nest (CE543, 544, 545) are CORROBORATIVE of other evidence found in TWO other locations (Parkland and the limousine).
In other words, everything fits together perfectly in those THREE locations, all coming back to Oswald's Carcano rifle.
So even if the conspiracists want to throw out the shells entirely from the evidence pile in this case, they've still got to deal with the fact that OTHER bullet evidence coming from Oswald's rifle was discovered in the hospital AND (even more importantly) in the President's limousine itself."
-- David Von Pein; October 21, 2013
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"We can have all the confidence in the world, by an examination of the physical evidence and the utilization of common sense, that [a single bullet wounded both President Kennedy and Governor Connally].
When you can establish the single-bullet theory by reference to evidence other than the [Zapruder] film, you necessarily know that the film itself cannot, by definition, show something else. Since we KNOW Kennedy and Connally were not hit by separate bullets, we know, before we even look at the film, that it CANNOT show otherwise."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Pages 457-458 of "Reclaiming History"
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"Conspiracy believers who think Oswald was a patsy on 11/22/63 will lose the "Evidence" battle every time. And that's because the evidence that exists in the JFK and Tippit cases will forever continue to prove that Lee Harvey Oswald was, in fact, a double-murderer."
-- David Von Pein; June 8, 2022
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"What Are The Odds ..... Of there actually having been somewhere between 5 and 10 audible gunshots (depending upon which crazy theory you wish to use) fired in Dealey Plaza and YET have 100% (or very nearly 100%) of the news-gathering people who were in a direct, and IMMEDIATE, position to report the shooting to the world (via newswire, TV, etc.) hear EXACTLY the number of shots that match the number of bullet shells found in the Depository, and the EXACT number of shots that the plotters need to have heard to hang their "Patsy"? Anybody got an "Odds" calculator to gauge the above things?"
-- David Von Pein; January 22, 2007
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"I truly think that the many, many conspiracy theorists who place their faith in a theory that has a frontal gunshot killing John F. Kennedy haven't really bothered to take inventory of all the many different items of evidence and official testimony from medical and photographic experts that those conspiracists have no choice but to totally ignore and/or toss out the window as being worthless. Things such as the multiple testimony sessions of the three autopsy surgeons and the conclusions reached by the 20+ members of the House Select Committee's Photographic Panel regarding the validity of the autopsy photos and X-rays."
-- David Von Pein; August 10, 2009
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"Some critics have contended that the four bullet fragments in Governor Connally are too many to be accounted for by the two grains of lead missing from bullet 399. In our experiments we were able to make forty-one such fragments from the two-grain piece of lead that extruded from our test bullet.
It can safely be said, therefore, that four fragments are by no means too many to be accounted for by the two grains missing from bullet 399."
-- Dr. John K. Lattimer; Pages 276-277 of "Kennedy And Lincoln"
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"Mafia contract killers are always selected with utmost care. I mean the one chosen to kill Oswald would be everything that Jack Ruby was not. He'd be someone who had a long track record of effectively carrying out murder contracts before for them. It would be a precise, unemotional, business-like, and above all, tight-lipped, killer for hire.
Another point HAS to be mentioned -- It is a well-known fact that throughout the years organized crime has consistently and religiously avoided killing public officials....if for no other reason, that they have enough heat on them already, without significantly INCREASING that heat by going after a public figure. They don't do it.
Going after the President of the United States -- of all people -- would be a suicidal act on their part....an act guaranteed to bring a heat upon them not too much less than the surface of the sun. When the Mob came to this country, they didn't leave their brains behind in Palermo.
The whole notion of sophisticated groups -- like organized crime, U.S. Intelligence -- getting Jack Ruby, of all people, to accomplish a job which, if he talked, would prove fatal to their existence is just downright laughable."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; July 25, 1986; Via "On Trial: Lee Harvey Oswald"
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"I, myself, think it's about time for the assorted JFK conspiracy nuts to either cook or get off the stove! That is to say -- the kooks who cry "conspiracy" at the drop of a hat need to come up with a verifiable, logical, workable, believable, reasonable, and (above all) COHERENT conspiracy-slanted scenario to show once and for all -- shot-by-shot -- how John F. Kennedy was assassinated by more than one gunman in Dealey Plaza on November the 22nd, 1963.
Then the CT-Kooks need to accomplish the daunting task of telling the world (again in a believable, reasonable, and non-laughable fashion) just how in the heck those amazing "plotters" who cooked up such a multi-shooter assassination scheme were able to somehow get rid of every last scrap of "non-Oswald" (i.e., non-Rifle #C2766) bullet evidence so that only bullets and fragments and spent cartridges from Lee Harvey Oswald's weapons were found and placed into the official record of JFK's murder case (including the J.D. Tippit murder as well)."
-- David Von Pein; September 2006
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"The argument that Oswald was the tool of a high-level conspiracy does seem plausible, until one tries to fit it into the context these theorists always leave out -- the personality and background of Lee Harvey Oswald, the individual."
-- Jean Davison; Page 25 of "Oswald's Game"
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"When a conspiracy theorist comes along and says something that makes some semblance of coherent sense, give me a call. To date, no CTer has come close to performing that task. And the reason is: Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK and no conspiracy existed at all. When you try to jam off-the-wall conspiracy tales into that equation, you end up looking silly."
-- David Von Pein; February/March 2015
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"The sheer number of extra bullets or confessions or spooky connections is evidence that none of them are strong evidence of anything."
-- John McAdams; Page 192 of "JFK Assassination Logic"
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"Is it really reasonable to believe that what is in evidence can exist and Oswald be innocent?"
-- Bud; June 22, 2013
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"Sometimes I'm inclined to think that conspiracy theorists have undergone some kind of oddball surgery that has removed their common sense altogether, because I rarely see any common sense being utilized by conspiracists when discussing the JFK assassination.
It seems that one of the main mottos of various JFK conspiracy theorists is this one: "Everything Is Possible (And Even Probable)". In other words, TO HELL WITH COMMON SENSE!"
-- David Von Pein; January 27, 2010
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"Just imagine the plotters deciding to frame Oswald from the rear and shoot the President of the United States from the front and THEN realizing the gargantuan lengths they would have to go to to cover up their crime. It is preposterous
and incredible—just like the conspiracy freaks. They are well-read imbeciles,
educating themselves into abject stupidity."
-- Dale H. Hayes, Jr.; September 26, 2015
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"Why is it that so many people who weren't charged with committing two murders (e.g., Billy Lovelady, Bill Shelley, Marrion Baker, et al) are accused of being liars in the JFK case, and the person who was charged with two murders is treated with kid gloves by so many conspiracists?"
-- David Von Pein; December 23, 2017
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"Recently a photography expert examined the BY [backyard] photos, and said he could find no indications they were fake. Did this cause the retards to rethink their positions regarding those photos? All the conspiracy kooks dismiss this expert's findings out of hand. Oswald said the photos were faked, that is good enough for the faithful.
I was recently thinking that it would be interesting if the FBI took another look at the evidence (maybe for the 50th anniversary [in 2013]), using modern techniques, to see if anything could be revealed. Like possibly a small hair left on the tape used to construct the paper bag. But then I realized that if a hair was found, and it was DNA matched to Oswald, you retards would just claim it was planted.
It isn't the case that is the problem, it is the retards, and no amount of books, articles or videos is going to solve that problem."
-- Bud; December 6, 2009
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"Vincent Bugliosi's book ("Reclaiming History") contains the truth of what happened in Dallas in 1963, and the current or future opinions of conspiracy theorists are of very little consequence or concern in the long run. Because facts are still facts, no matter how many silly conspiracists there are in the world who refuse to accept them."
-- David Von Pein; October 15, 2009
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"[On October 21, 1959, officials in the Soviet Union] stated that they had no interest in "American Citizen Oswald," and that "it was not advisable to grant him Soviet citizenship." The quickness of the reply can only be interpreted to mean one thing: they were so certain they would never have any interest in Oswald that there wasn't even any need to sleep on it, not even for one night."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 575 of "Reclaiming History"
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"If there is absolutely no evidence against Oswald (as many conspiracy theorists seem to think), then what made the Dallas Police Department decide to charge Lee Harvey Oswald with two murders before midnight on November 22, 1963?
Do people usually get officially charged with TWO murders by the police department if there is absolutely no evidence against them whatsoever?"
-- David Von Pein; September 28, 2013
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"The responsible U.S. media and general educational system acknowledge LHO killed JFK by himself, and most people haven't read too many (if any) JFK conspiracy books. .... Most people know very little about the case. .... Perhaps they saw [Oliver] Stone's movie, JFK. .... Take the first 100 people off the street who say they believe JFK was killed by conspiracy and point out the ironclad ballistic evidence, Oswald's lies, the lack of a conspiracy theory that makes any sense, etc. and you'll convert almost all of them to a pro LN [lone nut] position. They will move on with raising the kids, etc. and life will go on. Why? Because their conspiracy position is soft. .... The reason most of the media and academia believe LHO killed JFK with no help is that they've looked at the evidence. ....
The JFK "hobby" has become largely a hobby for old, white men...who in decades past would've been content to build model trains and collect stamps. .... When the Tom Rossleys and David Healys and Robert Grodens etc. of the world die, the JFK hobby will die, too. .... Enjoy your JFK hobby, Ben [Holmes], but be careful not [to] delude yourself into
thinking you're making a difference in exposing The Crime of the 20th Century.
People a lot more honorable than you figured it out 48 years ago."
-- Chuck Schuyler; September 8, 2011
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"The JFK case has a very curious effect on certain people (such as David Lifton of Los Angeles) -- They treat the evidence as if it's something that needs to be molded and crafted into something that it is not. In plainer terms, they simply IGNORE all the evidence of Lee Harvey Oswald's lone guilt in the assassination of the 35th President, and they expect the masses to fall at their feet and give thanks to these expert "researchers" like Mr. Lifton who have literally made a mockery out of the true evidence in this case."
-- David Von Pein; May 4, 2013
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"A defense counsel who was given free leave by the courts to invent any explanation which would account for the facts in this case and yet be consistent with his client’s innocence would have had a desperate task.
The best tribute to the solidity of the [Warren] report comes from its critics. It would, I should have thought, have been obvious even to an amateur that he could not make much impression on the structure of this report unless he had a charge of high explosives to put under some parts of it. But all that the critics seem to be doing is to clamber about on the surface, chipping away with a hammer and chisel as if the height of their ambition were to deface the exterior slightly.
It is no doubt distressing to the logical mind when after an immense investigation, two extraordinary murders occurring in the course of the same story are explained only as disconnected and senseless actions. But life is more distressing than logic. And what is the alternative? Perhaps one day the critics will produce one. If they can suggest one that is even faintly credible, they will deserve more public attention than they are likely to get by making charges of suppression that are more than faintly ridiculous."
-- Lord Patrick Arthur Devlin; 1964-1965
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"Vincent Bugliosi, of course, wrote the "Summary Of Oswald's Guilt" chapter of his book ["Reclaiming History"] for readers who AREN'T COMPLETE STUMPS. He wrote it for people who could easily figure out that Vince was talking about the reasonable conclusion that would be reached about Lee Oswald's guilt AFTER PUTTING THESE 53 THINGS TOGETHER AND NOT JUST LEAVING EACH ONE OF THEM ISOLATED FOREVER.
And the same "ADD 'EM UP" technique is what I was using when I created my "Oswald Is Guilty" website. It's not just one thing that makes Oswald the guilty assassin (and the "Sole" assassin), it's the SUM TOTAL of all the evidence that turns that trick."
-- David Von Pein; December 7, 2017
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"If only the conspiracy-happy fantasists could learn how to add things up. Just think of the heavy burden that could be lifted off of them if just once they could perform such a basic skill of addition when it comes to assessing the sum total of evidence in the JFK and Tippit murder cases. But, I guess it's just too much to ask. It's evidently a terminal anti-math disease that cripples all conspiracy fantasists."
-- David Von Pein; May 1, 2023
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"Mile-high mountains have been manufactured out of proverbial back-wound mole hills with regard to both Boswell's and Ford's "moving" of the wound location.
If Ford's (or Boswell's) "dots" are too high on the back, it's because BOTH of these men were estimating the wound, without having the benefit of measuring body landmarks on a chart to make the "dots" precisely accurate.
But, again, it really makes no difference at all where these unimportant "dots" are located -- because we still
have the "14-cm." notes to guide us on the back wound."
-- David Von Pein; 2005
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"He [Lee Harvey Oswald] told me that he was eating lunch with some of the employees when this happened. .... I also asked him why he left the building. He said there was so much excitement there then that "I didn't think there would be any work done that afternoon and we don't punch a clock and they don't keep very close time on our work and I just left"."
-- Dallas Police Captain J. Will Fritz; 1964 Warren Commission Testimony
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"If firing those shots at JFK from the sixth floor (while using the Carcano rifle) was so utterly "impossible" (as many conspiracy theorists seem to think it truly was)....and if a large part of the assassination "plot" was to frame Lee Harvey Oswald....then why were the architects of the "frame-up plot" so reckless? Did they think (on 11/21/63) they could make people believe Oswald could really do the impossible?
In reality, of course, the shots from Oswald's sniper's perch were not difficult shots at all. All of the shots were under 90 yards. And even if LHO didn't use the scope, so what? He was trained to use a rifle in the military. And he compiled some pretty decent shooting statistics (while firing at targets a lot farther away than 88 yards). And he certainly didn't have the benefit of a four-power telescope to aid him when he attained the ranking of Sharpshooter in the Marines in 1956. So why would shooting at a target that was barely in motion at all (JFK's head), from a distance of under 90 yards, be such an arduous chore for a former Marine like Oswald?
In short, the notion that Oswald's shooting performance in Dallas on November 22, 1963, was more difficult than building the Pyramids is yet another conspiracy myth that was disproven decades ago. And yet the myth persists."
-- David Von Pein; June 27, 2015
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"If we're to believe [conspiracy author Carl] Oglesby, our current federal government (as well as all previous ones since 1963) is engaged in a conspiracy to cover up the truth in the assassination.
Apparently, then, such distinguished Americans as Chief Justice Earl Warren [and] the [other] members of the Warren Commission, as well as the Commission's general counsel, J. Lee Rankin, and 14 prominent members of the American Bar (assistant counsels to the Commission), people of impeccable honor and reputation, got together in some smoky backroom and ALL of them agreed, for some ungodly reason, to do the most dishonorable deed imaginable--give organized crime, the CIA, the military-industrial complex, or whoever was behind the assassination, a free pass in the murder of the president of the United States."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page xix of "Reclaiming History"
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"Some of the angles/trajectories from the TSBD window to the victims ARE just "guesses". Educated guesses, but guesses to a certain extent. They've got to be. Can't be helped; and the same applies whether you're an LNer or a CTer.
The difference in angle from the car/victims to the SN window would be quite a small "difference" from Z210 to Z225 (less than 1 second in time; with the car moving at about 11.2 MPH). Obviously this is true, or the WC experts wouldn't have testified the angles could line up at EITHER point in time.
CTers must believe that the FBI's Robert Frazier, et al, were "locked" into the LN/SBT POV, and that these experts wouldn't have said anything outside of that "pre-determined" SBT/LHO/LN "box" even if a shotgun had been pointed at their temples. But that's a CT mindset that I cannot accept whatsoever."
-- David Von Pein; 2005
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"Our own view on the evidence is that it is difficult to believe the Single-Bullet Theory. But, to believe the other theories is even MORE difficult. If the Governor's wounds were caused by a separate bullet, then we must believe that a bullet passed through the President's neck, emerged at high velocity on a course that was taking it directly into the middle of the automobile, and then vanished without a trace.
Or, we can complicate matters even further--as some do--by adding a second assassin, who fires almost simultaneously with Oswald and whose bullet travels miraculously a trajectory identical with Oswald's and that second assassin, too, vanishes without a trace.
Difficult to believe as the Single-Bullet Theory may be, it seems to be the LEAST difficult of all those that are available.
In the end, like the Commission, we are persuaded that a single bullet wounded both President Kennedy and Governor Connally."
-- Walter Cronkite of CBS News; Via the 1967 TV Special, "A CBS News Inquiry: The Warren Report"
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"The "Two Bullets Never Exited And Yet They BOTH Disappeared Off The Face Of The Earth" fantasy is reason enough--all by itself!--to accept the Single-Bullet Theory. But no conspiracist on the planet (that I have encountered) will even entertain the idea of the SBT, despite the implausibilities that reside within their own "Two Bullets Never Exited" hogwash. (Go figure.)"
-- David Von Pein; April 22, 2017
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"Lieutenant J.C. Day of the Dallas Police Department properly marked the palmprint with his NAME, the LOCATION on the rifle where he found the print, and THE DATE WHEN HE LIFTED THE PRINT ("11-22-63").
I guess many conspiracy theorists must think that Lieutenant Day wrote the number "11-22-63" at some LATER time. In other words, those conspiracists believe that Commission Exhibit No. 637 is nothing but a total LIE. To that allegation, I'll offer up a solid two-word retort -- Prove it!
The palmprint known as CE637 was positively identified by fingerprint expert Sebastian Latona of the FBI as being the right palmprint of the owner of the gun from which the print was lifted--Lee Harvey Oswald.
In the final analysis, Lee H. Oswald is tied irrevocably to the murder of President John F. Kennedy seven ways to Sunday."
-- David Von Pein; January 1, 2010
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"What kind of a sick mind needs to contrive complex and fantastic explanations for every aspect of this case?"
-- Bud; April 26, 2017
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"That Jack Ruby fellow was sure a busy plotter that weekend, wasn't he? He had to do everything it seems. He had to deliver the rifle to the Knoll via his green pick-up truck (per Julia Mercer).....he was in Dealey Plaza running around the grassy slopes immediately after the shooting (per Jean Hill and Oliver Stone's movie)....he had to then scurry out to Parkland to plant a bullet on a stretcher....and then he had to rub out the patsy on Sunday. (Plus all of his glad-handing and sandwich-toting to and from KLIF and the DPD on Friday and Saturday.)
Whew! I hope he got paid TRIPLE the normal Mob fee for all that important stuff he did in November '63."
-- David Von Pein; March 4, 2014
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"Our experiments verified that the backward movement of the President's head was compatible with his being struck from the rear, and that it was certainly not necessary to hit the head from the front in order to make the head move toward the gun."
-- Dr. John K. Lattimer; Page 255 of "Kennedy And Lincoln"
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"The sum total of all the evidence in both the JFK and Tippit murder cases most certainly indicates that Lee Oswald was (beyond reasonable doubt, IMO) guilty of shooting both of those men with his own guns.
An attempt to place Oswald's Carcano rifle into the hands of some unknown shooter who fired that gun from the sixth floor of the Depository is a scenario that conspiracy believers can put forth if they so desire. But such a scenario is always going to be built on a foundation of nothing but speculation and guesswork, with no solid evidence to support it at all."
-- David Von Pein; October 16, 2024
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"[Mark] Lane...elevated to an art form the technique of quoting part of a witness's testimony to convey a meaning completely opposite to what the whole would convey. A perfect example occurs when he quotes part of Jack Ruby's testimony before the Warren Commission, in which Ruby literally begged Chief Justice Earl Warren to bring him to Washington to give further testimony.
[Quoting from Lane's 1966 book, "Rush To Judgment":] "Ruby made it plain that if the Commission took him from the Dallas County Jail and permitted him to testify in Washington, he could tell more there; it was impossible for him to tell the whole truth so long as he was in jail in Dallas," writes Lane. Lane gives the following excerpt from Ruby's testimony before the Warren Commission...Ruby: "But you [Warren] are the only one that can save me. I think you can." Warren: "Yes?" Ruby: "But by delaying, you lose the chance. And all I want to do is tell the truth, and that is all."
The unmistakable implication that Lane seeks to convey is that if Ruby were questioned in Washington, he would divulge the existence of a conspiracy. Yet the very next words that Ruby uttered after "that is all" were "There was no conspiracy." These four words, which completely rebutted the entire thrust of Lane's contention, were carefully omitted from Rush to Judgment."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 1004 of "Reclaiming History"
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"I've learned over a period of time that it's simply impossible to instill logic and common sense into the brains of individuals who have no capacity for absorbing such ordinary human traits when it comes to discussing the topic of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy."
-- David Von Pein; February 4, 2010
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"[Acquilla] Clemmons didn't see the [Tippit] shooting itself, and the first CT researchers to interview her in fall 1964 (George & Patricia Nash) wrote, "Her version of the slaying was rather vague, and she may have based her story on second-hand accounts."
[This] document also indicates that the FBI hadn't heard of Clemmons until the Nashes' article appeared.
Five witnesses were closer to the scene and saw only a shooter they IDed as Oswald, not a second man. Were they all lying or blind?
The FBI faked documents, got all the other witnesses to lie -- all to refute Clemmons? That's not plausible."
-- Jean Davison; June 2013
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"The whole issue of what stretcher the bullet [CE399] was found on, Connally's or some unknown person's, is a giant nonissue. Since we know that the bullet was fired from Oswald's Carcano rifle, and we know it wasn't found on Kennedy's stretcher, it had to have been found on Connally's stretcher."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 431 of "Reclaiming History" (Endnotes)
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"When you are desperate enough, and you scour the evidence thinking real hard how each thing could be fishy or suspicious, you will come to the conclusion that everything you look at is fishy and suspicious. It's inevitable."
-- Bud; June 21, 2010
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"Anybody who would be stupid enough to rely on the EYEwitness testimony of a man [Governor John B. Connally, Jr.] who WASN'T EVEN LOOKING AT THE PRESIDENT when the President was hit is obviously also stupid enough to take Mr. Connally's own unreliable words as the Gospel [when JBC said he was of the opinion that he was not hit by the same shot as JFK]. Connally's testimony in this specific regard is utterly worthless, and always has been."
-- David Von Pein; 2005
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"Ten days after his interview with Priscilla Johnson, Oswald wrote a second, remarkable letter to [his brother] Robert. .... He advised his brother of the following: 1. In the event of war I would kill ANY American who put a uniform on in defense of the American government -- any American."
-- Jean Davison; Pages 38-39 of "Oswald's Game"
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"When he was interrogated, Oswald, from his own lips, he TOLD us he was guilty....he told us he was guilty....almost the same as if he had said 'I murdered President Kennedy'....he told us. How did he tell us? Well, the lies he told, one after another, showed an UNMISTAKABLE consciousness of guilt.
If Oswald were innocent, why did he find it necessary to deny purchasing that Carcano rifle from the Klein's store in Chicago? Why did he even deny owning any rifle at all? Why did he find it necessary to do that if he's innocent?"
-- Vincent Bugliosi; July 25, 1986; Via "On Trial: Lee Harvey Oswald"
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"Mark Lane takes very great liberties with adding to my quotation. I never said that any shot came from here [pointing toward the Grassy Knoll in Dallas' Dealey Plaza] like I was quoted by Mr. Lane. Mr. Lane would like me to have positively identified what I saw fly over here as skull....although I told him I could not [identify it]....I did not examine [it]....I thought it was....but I could not.
So, he has added his interpretations to what I said, and consequently that's where the story comes from that I said that a shot come [sic] from up there [pointing toward the Knoll again]. No shot came from up there [the Knoll] at any time during the whole fiasco that afternoon."
-- Charles Brehm; 1967
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"I love that constant moving of the goalposts by CTers.
Since it couldn't be more obvious that the Hidell money order now has a proper path to legitimacy (and conspiracy theorists know it), we're now treated to more sheer crackpot speculation about how the LEGITIMATE money order (with Oswald's writing on it that was bought and handled by Oswald HIMSELF) was being used to frame Oswald anyway.
The CTer mind is a spinning whirlwind of ever-expanding and forever changing concocted claptrap.
In other words --- Whatever it takes to pretend Lee Harvey Oswald was a patsy on 11/22/63, an Internet CTer is ready and eager to do it -- even if the number of goalposts that must be moved reaches triple digits."
-- David Von Pein; March 4, 2016
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"One could safely say that David Lifton took folly to an unprecedented level. And considering the monumental foolishness of his colleagues in the conspiracy community, that's saying something."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 1066 of "Reclaiming History"
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"As a general rule, conspiracy theorists think that the testimony of eyewitness Howard L. Brennan is worthless,
but Mr. Brennan's 11/22/63 affidavit must be factored into the equation too.
The description of JFK's assassin in Brennan's affidavit, which was written by Brennan within hours of the assassination and months before he ever talked to anybody from the Warren Commission, can, indeed, be considered very general in nature, but it also can fit the person who owned the rifle found on the sixth floor of the Book Depository--Lee Harvey Oswald--especially when combined with Police Officer Marrion Baker's description of Oswald. And we KNOW Baker saw OSWALD, not somebody else, on the second floor.
Just look at the two descriptions below from Brennan's and Baker's November 22nd affidavits. One of these witnesses (Brennan) is describing the sniper on the sixth floor of the Depository; while the other witness (Baker) is describing a man he himself personally encountered--a person Baker was just inches away from in the second-floor lunchroom just two minutes or so after Brennan saw the man he describes in his affidavit. These descriptions are identical in several key respects, right down to each witness thinking the man they were describing was about 30 years old (and keep in mind that we KNOW Baker IS describing Lee Harvey Oswald here, not some mystery person whose identity is still unknown):
BRENNAN -- "White man."
BAKER ---- "White man."
BRENNAN -- "In his early 30s."
BAKER ---- "Approximately 30 years old."
BRENNAN -- "165 to 175 pounds."
BAKER ---- "165 pounds."
Do conspiracy theorists now want to claim that Marrion L. Baker wasn't really describing Lee Oswald at all in his above affidavit? Or did Marrion decide to just make up those descriptive details out of whole cloth in order to conform perfectly with the only witness in all of Dealey Plaza who actually saw the assassin firing a gun during the shooting of President Kennedy -- right down to the incorrect age and weight estimates?"
-- David Von Pein; April 24-25, 2013
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"The conspiracy alterationists are so incredibly zany that they have now gone beyond their allegation that key frames of the Zapruder film were altered by the conspirators to support their false story of what took place, to claiming that the conspirators altered all manner of people and objects in Dealey Plaza that couldn't possibly have any bearing on the president's murder. ....
The alterationists have even claimed that at some point after the assassination, all the curbside lampposts in Dealey Plaza were moved to different locations and/or replaced with poles of different height. ....
I know that conspiracy theorists have a sweet tooth for silliness, but is there absolutely nothing that is too silly for their palate?"
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Pages 506-507 of "Reclaiming History"
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"Instead of focusing on the important issue -- that Oswald in fact ordered the weapon that was delivered to his P.O. Box, the CTs focus on the "capillaries," nitpicking the P.O.'s faulty record-keeping."
-- Jean Davison; January 17, 2006
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"Waldman Exhibit No. 7 (which has never been proven to be a "fake" document by any conspiracy theorist in the world) proves for all time that Klein's received a paid-in-full rifle order from "A. Hidell" of Dallas, Texas (who was really Lee Harvey Oswald, as we all know) in March 1963, and Klein's shipped a rifle with the serial number C2766 on it to Oswald's Dallas mailing address on 3/20/63. Any other conclusion is pure speculation that is not supported by the known documentary evidence connected with the JFK murder investigation."
-- David Von Pein; March 11, 2011
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"The evidence is clear and unimpeachable -- Lee Harvey Oswald bought, owned, and handled the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle found on the sixth floor. And it was THIS weapon that was used to murder John F. Kennedy."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 804 of "Reclaiming History"
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"Conspiracists fail to outline the scenario that would be necessary for the bag to have actually been as short as Frazier and Randle describe it.
It would require that the "phony bag" be forged in absolutely record time, in exactly the right length, and carried from the Depository even before the Dallas cops in the Depository knew that Frazier was saying that Oswald had carried a bag in to work! And somehow they got Oswald's prints on it.
You've got to admire the foresight of those cops. They really lucked out when Frazier said that Oswald had carried a bag just like that into work that morning."
-- John McAdams; July 16, 2000
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"Could it be that you have no halfway plausible *alternative* to the thesis that Oswald carried that gun in to work that day in that bag? Remember, witness testimony is fallible, and we have every right to discount testimony that implies an absurd scenario.
So -- are you going to go with "curtain rods"? Or are you going to go with "lunch"? .... If you can't endorse either of those theories, you are stuck with "rifle"."
-- John McAdams; July 16, 2000
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"All [of the] post-assassination talk about the motorcade route is Monday-morning quarterbacking, of course. The Secret Service had taken JFK past tall buildings at slow speeds in an open car many, many times during motorcades preceding the Dallas parade, and there's no reason to think that the SS or the DPD felt there was anything remotely dangerous or unusual about taking the President around those two curves in Dealey Plaza on 11/22/63.
For heaven's sake, Kennedy's car even came to a complete stop on two occasions before reaching Dealey Plaza that day in Dallas, and yet I've never heard even one CTer ever balk or gripe about those two COMPLETE STOPS the President made.
The CTers don't seem to think that STOPPING the President's limo completely was the slightest bit out of line or a violation of Secret Service protocol, but many conspiracists do seem to feel that the hairpin turn from Houston onto Elm WAS a terrible violation of some Secret Service rule or regulation. Weird.
Do conspiracy theorists want to believe that the Secret Service should have been of the opinion (as of the morning of 11/22/63) that there was MORE danger to the President by taking him slowly through Dealey Plaza (moving at about 11 MPH) than there was during those two complete stops that JFK made in his open limo that same afternoon?"
-- David Von Pein; August 28, 2008
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"When Oswald got in the cab shortly after getting off the bus for the trip to Oak Cliff, and the cab drove off, the cabdriver [William Whaley], seeing all the police cars crisscrossing everywhere with their sirens screaming, said to Oswald, "I wonder what the hell is the uproar?" The cabdriver said Oswald "never said anything."
Granted, there are people who are very stingy with their words, and this nonresponse by Oswald, by itself, is not conclusive of his guilt. But ask yourself this: If a thousand people were put in Oswald's place in the cab, particularly if they, like Oswald, were at the scene of the assassination in Dealey Plaza and knew what had happened, how many do you suppose wouldn't have said one single word in response to the cabby's question?"
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Pages 959-960 of "Reclaiming History"
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"Conspiracy hobbyists can always dream up excuses to dismiss the damnng evidence against Oswald. It's what they do best. Of course they can never cite a legal professional who says any of the evidence would have been inadmissable in court if the case had gone to trial. They base their opinions on their own ignorance of rules of evidence. The Chief Justice himself said that it would have been an easy conviction which indicates he believed the evidence was not tainted. And this is the guy who led a Supreme Court that was famous for handing down rulings that invalidated evidence on technical grounds."
-- John Corbett; August 2, 2015
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"Instead of throwing [WFAA-TV cameraman] Tom Alyea out of the building (or at the very LEAST, make the guy STOP FILMING THE CRIMINAL ACTIVITY that you kooks think was occurring on that 6th Floor [of the Book Depository] that day), [DPD Captain J. Will] Fritz allows Alyea to not only stay at the crime scene, but he allows him to continue to film all of this covert shell-handling activity that CTers think was happening in the TSBD. Go figure the idiocy of that "Fritz Conspiratorial Mindset".
But, back in reality, since reasonable people know beyond a reasonable doubt that no such covert shell-planting activity was occurring on the sixth floor of the Book Depository on Nov. 22nd, it means that Fritz HAD NOTHING TO HIDE FROM ALYEA'S PROBING CAMERA LENS.
In other words -- Innocent people don't have to worry about covering their tracks....because there are no tracks (of conspiracy) to cover. Period."
-- David Von Pein; March 15, 2008
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"Oswald lied about the bag because the bag contained the rifle. These are unreasonable options: Curtain rods; camping equipment; no bag; an empty bag; and a bag containing anything except a rifle. Any alternative except the rifle can be eliminated on the basis of Oswald's actions."
-- Hank Sienzant (aka Joe Zircon); July 17, 2000
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"Was all of that physical stuff (which just screams "LEE OSWALD WAS HERE!") merely the work of quick-thinking "plotters" who wanted to frame poor innocent Lee Harvey as their "patsy" for the President's murder?
To believe that all of that "LHO Did It" stuff was manufactured by evil conspirators immediately after the shooting is akin to believing in Superman. In other words--believing in Oswald's innocence regarding the JFK assassination is just plain silly. ....
The evidence of Oswald's guilt (in TWO murders, including the killing of policeman J.D. Tippit) is ten miles deep, and only a total idiot would have the desire to summarily dismiss all of that evidence in favor of conspiratorial silliness (as Oliver Stone, Jim Garrison, Robert Groden, and many others have done since the November 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy)."
-- David Von Pein; September 12, 2009
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"An argument frequently heard in the conspiracy community is that Oswald could not have been convicted in a court of law because the "chain of custody [or possession]" of the evidence against him was not strong enough to make the evidence admissible in a court of law. ....
The first observation I have to make is that I would think conspiracists...would primarily want to know if Oswald killed Kennedy, not whether he could get off on a legal technicality.
Second, there is no problem with the chain of custody of much of the physical evidence against Oswald, such as the rifle and the two large bullet fragments found in the presidential limousine.
Third, and most important on this issue, courts do not have a practice of allowing into evidence only that for which there is an ironclad and 100 percent clear chain of custody, and this is why I believe that 95 percent of the physical evidence in this case would be admissible.
I can tell you from personal experience that excluding evidence at a trial because the chain of custody is weak is rare, certainly the exception rather than the rule. The typical situation where the chain is not particularly strong is for the trial judge to nevertheless admit the evidence, ruling that the weakness of the chain goes only to "the weight of the evidence [i.e., how much weight or credence the jury will give it], not its admissibility"."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 442 of "Reclaiming History" (Endnotes)
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"CTers = Theorize and accuse now; Prove never."
-- David Von Pein; October 2007
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"It couldn't have been more obvious within hours after the assassination that Oswald had murdered Kennedy, and within no more than a day or so thereafter that he had acted alone. And this is precisely the conclusion that virtually all local (Dallas), state (Texas), and federal (FBI and Secret Service) law enforcement agencies came to shortly after the assassination. Nothing has ever changed their conclusion or proved it wrong."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 984 of "Reclaiming History"
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"The evidence has been on the table since 1963. But the conspiracy theorists just refuse to accept it. It's as simple (and silly) as that.
Conspiracists will continue to twist in the wind and invent anti-SBT theories and other unsupportable works of fiction and fantasy to keep from facing the "Oswald Did It By Himself" truth, even though a perfectly good and reasonable "SBT" is already on the table, thanks to the Warren Commission's work.
The HSCA's Z190 timeline for the SBT is ridiculous, but at least they acknowledged the obvious fact that one bullet--CE399--wounded both JFK and John B. Connally, and that was the most important bottom-line conclusion for the House Select Committee to reach, regardless of the exact timing for that SBT shot.
Conspiracy promoters, of course, want to believe that not only did the Warren Commission get things all fouled up with respect to CE399 and the SBT, but the HSCA (14 years later and with a totally DIFFERENT group of investigators!) ALSO got it all wrong too, because the HSCA also said that that exact bullet--CE399--was THE BULLET that went through the bodies of both President Kennedy and Governor Connally.
How many official investigations would it take to convince any of the world's conspiracy kooks of the validity of the Single-Bullet Theory and Commission Exhibit No. 399? Four? Five? Six investigations perhaps? I wonder.
More conspiracy believers should really watch the first-day and second-day television coverage from November 22 and 23, 1963, because that TV coverage blows the various "multi-gun plots" to bits, and strongly suggests (to the point of virtual verification after Day One on 11/22/63) three very crucial things:
1.) Three shots (and only three shots) were fired during the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas' Dealey Plaza.
2.) There was only ONE person shooting at JFK.
3.) Lee Harvey Oswald was shooting at JFK.
The math's pretty easy when you've got all three of the above things staring you in the face. And the six interviews given by Chief Jesse Curry on November 22nd and 23rd (available to view HERE) pretty much seal the deal on Oswald's guilt, right down to Curry's November 23rd hallway announcement that the Dallas Police had just received word from the FBI that "the order letter" for the murder weapon (the C2766 Mannlicher-Carcano rifle) was filled out in the handwriting of "our suspect--Oswald".
Just 24 hours after the assassination, the Dallas Police Department and the FBI had Lee Oswald tied to the President's murder in various highly-incriminating ways.
Yes, indeed, more conspiracy theorists should take advantage of the videos available here, which show what was happening in Dallas and at City Hall--live, as it was occurring--on November 22 and 23, 1963.
If the cops were "covering up" a bunch of evidence in the murder cases of JFK and J.D. Tippit, and were engaging in a plot to frame an innocent patsy named Lee Harvey Oswald THIS QUICKLY on Friday and Saturday (as many conspiracy theorists seem to believe), then they did an outstanding job of "framing" him -- because just about every single thing we see in those videos is spelling out "Oswald is guilty of two murders"."
-- David Von Pein; May 4, 2010
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"You conspiracy kooks remind me of a homeless man that goes into a diner and orders food knowing that he can't pay for it. You look for the hair in the egg. Because you people don't want to believe that a lone assassin could kill JFK. So you people beat the innocence drum for the man that murdered him. Shameful, Pathetic."
-- Mike T.; August 19, 2016
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"The boxes in the Sniper's Nest (with multiple fresh LHO prints on them) are only insignificant to CTers who want to ignore all the other stuff (bullets, guns, shells, lack of an alibi, LHO-seeing witnesses, etc.) that elevates those prints (on boxes DEEP within the bowels of the Sniper's Nest) to higher levels of corroborative significance.
But, conspiracy theorists will keep dreaming up excuses anyway. One of these days those CTers might wake up and discover that the evidence in a murder case ACTUALLY means what it says it means, instead of exactly the opposite."
-- David Von Pein; November 2006
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"It's amazing how all the good stuff falls just out of range of photographic capabilities, always in the realm of interpretation and speculation. The conspirators must have just known that no camera was going to get a clear picture of all the stuff they were doing. In fact they were banking their lives on it. Yet they still left the person they put so much effort into framing stand out front with everyone during the assassination and had shooters all over in an area with plenty of cameras and home movies. Incredible guts and incredible luck, if conspiracy ideas have any merit."
-- Bud; August 12, 2012
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"It's quite humorous to read all of the lame excuses that conspiracists can come up with in order to deny the obvious truth about what we are seeing in Zapruder frames 225 and 226.
The average conspiracy theorist is so accustomed to rejecting the Single-Bullet Theory that even when confronted with toggling Z-Film clips like the ones below, those CTers will still pretend that what they are seeing with their own eyeballs in these movie clips must be the result of "something else" other than the two victims in the car reacting simultaneously to being hit by a bullet:
And most conspiracy theorists I've encountered over the years won't even allow for the remote POSSIBILITY of the Z224-Z230 reactions of President Kennedy and Governor Connally being the result of a single bullet hitting both men. And even the sudden "flinching" of Connally's shoulders at exactly Z225 is totally ignored by most CTers:
Instead, the conspiracy theorists will insist that other things must be considered first and given top priority. The SBT, in other words, is sort of a last resort, and should be avoided at all possible costs. And this is so even though those same CTers know full well that BOTH victims in that car WERE, indeed, struck in their respective UPPER BACKS by a BULLET at just about that same time on the Zapruder Film.
And yet, even though the CTers (save David Lifton, of course) will stipulate to the fact that both Kennedy AND Connally were hit by a bullet in their BACKS within about ONE SECOND of Z-frame #224, the simultaneous arm-jerking reactions exhibited by both JFK and John Connally starting at precisely Z226 are not, per the CTers, to be associated in any way at all with the bullet wounds in the BACK that each victim sustained on November 22, 1963.
That, my friends, is called Serious Denial."
-- David Von Pein; November 4, 2014
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"The Garrison devotees have apparently never been troubled by the question of why Shaw and Ferrie would select Oswald, of all people, as their hit man...or patsy when they had no way of knowing that the president would even come back to New Orleans, where Oswald lived at the time.
Or were they planning to finance Oswald as he traveled, Carcano in his violin case, all around the country stalking Kennedy for a good opportunity to kill him or be the patsy for someone else who would? If the latter, aren’t they troubled by the fact that we know, from Oswald’s known whereabouts, that he never did travel around the country?"
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 847 of "Reclaiming History" (Endnotes)
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"The next time you watch [Oliver Stone's 1991 movie, "JFK"], take notes and count the number of times where the evidence is presented in anything close to an "unbiased" manner. At the end of the 3-hour motion picture, you'll still be left with a blank piece of notepaper.
At the very least, the movie should have a disclaimer crawling along at the bottom of the screen every ten minutes while watching it. Something akin to .... "What you are watching is a fictional account of a true-life event. Handle with care; and with lots of salt"."
-- David Von Pein; June 2005
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"With respect to the Kennedy assassination, once you establish and know that Oswald is guilty, as has been done, then you also NECESSARILY know that there is an answer (whether the answer is known or not) compatible with this conclusion for the endless alleged discrepancies, inconsistencies, and questions the conspiracy theorists have raised through the years about Oswald's guilt."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 953 of "Reclaiming History"
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"Given the alignment of the two limo victims at the time of the shooting, plus the location of the only known shooter in Dealey Plaza, plus the fact that no bullets were found in JFK's body at all, plus the fact that a whole bullet which positively came out of the gun that was found on the sixth floor of the TSBD was found inside the hospital where the two victims were taken, plus the fact that the two injured limo victims reacted to an external stimulus at precisely the same moment in time on the Zapruder Film....I wonder how anyone in 2022 (or any other year or millennium) can be so blind as to not accept the Single-Bullet Theory as fact."
-- David Von Pein; September 28, 2022
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"Ain't it a shame that people like Jim Garrison, Oliver Stone, James DiEugenio, John Armstrong, and James Fetzer (et al) weren't a part of any official investigative body which looked into the JFK case? If they had been, we could now all be talking about the "Kook Version Of The WC And HSCA Reports", which would have undoubtedly been a version of those reports where conspiracy-tinged supposition, conjecture, and subjective analysis totally trump and invalidate the true facts and evidence associated with the events of November 22, 1963. My weak urinary bladder would have been given quite a workout had that version ever been published."
-- David Von Pein; November 12, 2009
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"Even if we were to assume the total invalidity of the polygraph test given to [Jack] Ruby, his willingness--in fact, his insistence--that he be given one is strong circumstantial evidence of his innocent state of mind and the truthfulness about everything he said.
Lay people, including Ruby, for the most part believe that lie detector tests can detect lies. It is a considerable stretch to believe that if Ruby were guilty of being involved in a conspiracy, he would insist on taking a polygraph test, supremely confident he could conceal his guilt and pass the test."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 645 of "Reclaiming History" (Endnotes)
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"Pert-near ALL of the Dealey Plaza witnesses (90%+) agree that the number of shots did not exceed three, with more than 75% of the earwitnesses agreeing that there were exactly THREE shots fired (and that includes virtually every person who was in a position to initially report the shooting to the world via television, radio, and wire services; e.g., Jay Watson, Pierce Allman, Merriman Smith, Jack Bell, Robert MacNeil, Jerry Haynes, Mal Couch, Jim Underwood, plus others).
And there's virtually no disagreement among the 200+ witnesses as to the number of DIRECTIONS those three shots came from -- it was 1. So we have a very large (almost unanimous) consensus on these two key points:
Number of shots -- 3.
Number of directions the shots came from -- 1.
And since we know beyond all possible doubt that multiple rifle shots were being fired from the Texas School Book Depository (to the REAR of JFK's limo), with the three shell casings from Oswald's Mannlicher-Carcano rifle that were left on the floor of the TSBD's Sniper's Nest confirming this fact beyond all possible doubt, then the math isn't overly difficult beyond this point.
Now, let's see the conspiracy theorists try and tackle those above two statistics and the above logic that resides in my last paragraph and come up with a coherent theory about how it was somehow impossible for Lee Harvey Oswald to have acted alone because of all those "Grassy Knoll" earwitnesses.
Yes, witness testimony (in general) is, indeed, the least-reliable form of evidence, I agree. But the two witness charts shown below are pretty overwhelming in the "3 SHOTS OR FEWER" and "1 DIRECTION" categories -- especially when we consider that the number of witnesses included in these polls is a triple-digit number."
-- David Von Pein; April 22, 2010
+--+Number+Of+Shots.jpg)
+--+Location+Of+Shots.jpg)
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"Fifty plus years of this nonsense. It never ends. They [the conspiracy theorists] stare at photos, read testimonies and statements ad infinitum and from that alone are able to figure out what happened that November day. Try to prove them wrong. You can't. How can you disprove what one imagines? It's a type of mental affliction, I think."
-- Steven M. Galbraith; December 24, 2019
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"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, if Lee Harvey Oswald had nothing to do with President Kennedy's assassination and was framed....this otherwise independent and defiant would-be revolutionary, who disliked taking orders from anyone, turned out to be the most willing and cooperative frame-ee in the history of mankind!!
Because the evidence of his guilt is so monumental, that he could have just as well gone around with a large sign on his back declaring in bold letters 'I Just Murdered President John F. Kennedy'!!!
Anyone...ANYONE who would believe that Lee Harvey Oswald was innocent, would believe someone who told them that they heard a cow speaking the Spanish language!"
-- Vincent Bugliosi; July 25, 1986; Via "On Trial: Lee Harvey Oswald"
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"Every single thing the conspiracy theorists insist was the result of "conspiracy" in the JFK case are things that Lee Harvey Oswald could quite easily have accomplished without any conspiracy entering into the equation whatsoever. E.G., ordering the rifle and revolver via mail order, getting his job at the TSBD, transporting the rifle to the Depository on 11/22/63, firing three shots at JFK with his Mannlicher-Carcano, and getting to 10th Street in time to kill J.D. Tippit.
Not a single thing Oswald did on Nov. 21st or Nov. 22nd required the intervention of "conspiracy" or the assistance of a single other human being (other than the use of Wesley Frazier, Cecil McWatters, and William Whaley as Lee's chauffeurs). Lee Harvey Oswald—alone—could easily have committed the two murders that the Warren Commission (correctly) says he did commit in November of 1963."
-- David Von Pein; March 6, 2016
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"It's always interesting to me to see what folks leave out of their posts in an effort to make a point. The "sophisticated" test the AEC did on Oswald's cast was, of course, not available to the DPD which conducted the first study. And why did DPD do the test to begin with? So they could intimidate Oswald by telling him, honestly, that they could run a nitrate test to see if he "fired a gun so you might as well confess."
Also left out is the very simple fact that there was no way [to] test the specific shooting circumstances by a nitrate or any other kind of test. Maybe the swirling wind at the Elm/Houston intersection blew any gases away from Oswald's cheek as he pulled the trigger? I don't know, nor does [Pat] Speer or J. Edgar [Hoover].
Those and other explanations (ink, urine or other chemicals on the skin) explain why Hoover properly deemed the paraffin tests unreliable. All one could reasonably hope to achieve was an indicator of some sort to be used as the investigation continued."
-- Gary Mack; June 8, 2015
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"A 5-year-old child could have solved the Tippit murder. Given the evidence, there's no human way for Lee Harvey Oswald to be innocent of killing Officer J.D. Tippit.
The only thing that conspiracy theorists can cling to in the Tippit murder case is their own silly imaginations -- such as when they pretend that all of the evidence against LHO was faked or manipulated by the evil DPD, which is a theory that's so ridiculous that another 5-year-old could see that it's nothing but pure desperation on the part of the conspiracists in their feeble attempts to exonerate a murderer named Oswald.
There's not a single conspiracy theorist in the world who can logically (and believably) answer the following question:
Why on Earth would the Dallas Police Department have had any desire whatsoever to want to frame and railroad an innocent Lee Harvey Oswald for the murder of one of their FELLOW OFFICERS AND FRIENDS, all the while not caring at all that they were allowing the real killer or killers of Officer Tippit to get off scot-free?
Conspiracy theorists have their imaginations and crazy assertions. Reasonable people, however, have the hard evidence. Lee Harvey Oswald murdered J.D. Tippit. And Oswald murdered John F. Kennedy too."
-- David Von Pein; December 18, 2009
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"My position with the assassination is much like my position on the existence of God. There may have been a conspiracy and God might exist, neither can be ruled out. But when all I see are bad arguments being made for either proposition then it becomes clear that what I am seeing is people who want to believe something is true, not people who can show something is true."
-- Bud; June 11, 2021
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"A favorite theme of conspiracy theorists [is that] documents and photographs [have been] "buried" in the National Archives or in the Warren Commission's 26 volumes of hearings and exhibits.
If we're to believe the theorists, it apparently never crossed the minds of the alleged conspirators who killed Kennedy to simply get rid of the evidence that could convict them.
Unlike nearly all ordinary conspirators, Kennedy's killers intentionally and knowingly left evidence behind in the archives and the Warren Commission volumes that could expose them -- evidence that only the conspiracists are smart and industrious enough to uncover."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 418 of "Reclaiming History" (Endnotes)
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"Is it possible that Oswald had one or more helpers who aided him in carrying out the assassination in Dealey Plaza? Yes, it's possible. .... But given Oswald's actions and movements and the manner in which he transported himself from one place to another on both November 21st and November 22nd, 1963, I think it's highly unlikely that Oswald had anyone at all helping him to plan and/or carry out the assassination of John Kennedy. His actions and movements on those two days in question certainly suggest that Lee Oswald was ON HIS OWN every step of the way in Dallas and Irving and on Beckley Avenue in Oak Cliff and on Tenth Street and on Jefferson Boulevard in front of Johnny Brewer's shoe store and any other place you can name where Oswald was located on November 21 and 22. To put it another way -- If Lee Harvey Oswald had a helper, that helper was of NO HELP to Lee whatsoever when he needed help the most."
-- David Von Pein; February 12, 2015
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"All of the metal fragments [visible in JFK's head via X-rays] were confined to the right side of the brain area and all the fragments were above an imaginary line drawn from the wound of entry through the top of the frontal sinus.
Their configuration was in keeping with the track of a bullet entering at the rear of the right side of the skull, near the midline, disrupting and exiting from the front of the head on the right. It was compatible with no other direction. There were no bullet fragments in the left side of the skull to indicate a transverse bullet wound, as from the front right."
-- Dr. John K. Lattimer; Page 214 of "Kennedy And Lincoln"
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"The commonly held belief that Lee Oswald was "placed" in the Texas School Book Depository by evil plotters prior to 11/22/63 is a desperate attempt by CTers to attach unprovable and unsupportable conspiratorial "strings" to a random event that involved several individuals...individuals whose collective and synchronized actions could not possibly have been foreseen and controlled by a group of behind-the-scenes conspirators."
-- David Von Pein; February 2006
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"The assassination of John Kennedy was neither an act of random violence nor a conspiracy. It was carried out as a result of Oswald's character and background interacting with circumstance."
-- Jean Davison; Page 297 of "Oswald's Game"
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"The "evidence" to show that Oswald was innocent of shooting Officer Tippit is NON-EXISTENT.
The ACTUAL "evidence" (as opposed to the "evidence" that only exists in a CTer's imagination) is providing the conclusive PROOF that Lee Oswald--and only Lee Oswald--was the killer of J.D. Tippit.
Only a freakish conspiracy theorist bent on mangling the true facts could possibly even begin to believe otherwise.
~Mark VII~
~Hammer stroke~"
-- David Von Pein; April 16, 2017
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"So we KNOW, not just beyond a reasonable doubt, we know beyond ALL doubt THAT OSWALD'S RIFLE WAS THE MURDER WEAPON!!
And it's obvious that Oswald carried that rifle into the building that day in that large brown paper bag. It couldn't be more obvious. As far as Mr. [Wesley] Frazier's testimony about Oswald carrying the bag under his armpit, he conceded he never paid close attention to just how Oswald was carrying that bag. He didn't have any reason to.
At this point if we had nothing else....NOTHING ELSE....how much do you need?....if we had NOTHING else....this would be enough to prove Oswald's guilt beyond all REASONABLE doubt. But there's so much more."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; July 25, 1986; Via "On Trial: Lee Harvey Oswald"
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"Dr. [Cyril] Wecht's pet theory regarding the damaged Warren Commission test bullets that were fired DIRECTLY into goat ribs and a cadaver's wrist is totally ridiculous. Because, as I just mentioned, those bullets were fired DIRECTLY into those objects without having first gone through either a simulated JFK neck/back or a simulated Connally torso.
And for the wrist shot, the bullet needs to go through not only a simulated Kennedy neck, but it needs to go through a simulated Connally TORSO/CHEST too. Which did not happen with the Olivier/Edgewood bullets.
So why in the world Dr. Wecht thinks that such test bullets are going to be expected to mimic CE399's condition is a real mystery.
Doesn't Wecht know what a silly argument he makes when he thinks that he can compare CE399 (a bullet that travelled through TWO bodies BEFORE hitting JBC's wrist) with the WC test bullet that was fired DIRECTLY into a wrist bone? It's just....silly."
-- David Von Pein; July 19, 2009
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"Even if the new findings were to render NAA [Neutron Activation Analysis], and hence [Dr. Vincent] Guinn's conclusions, invalid, we DO know that the stretcher bullet was fired from Oswald's rifle to the exclusion of ALL other weapons.
Since THAT is definite, what is the likelihood that a bullet found on CONNALLY'S stretcher, which we know was fired from Oswald's gun, is not the same bullet that deposited its missing fragments in Connally's wrist? Next to nothing.
In other words, when all is said and done, what difference does it make if it turns out that the NAA tests are completely invalid?
But there is a more important point to be made. Let's not forget that the NAA conclusions by Guinn...are COMPLETELY CONSISTENT with all the other evidence showing that Oswald was at the sniper's nest window and it was his Carcano rifle that fired the only bullets that hit Kennedy.
This other, independent evidence necessarily increases the likelihood that Guinn's separate NAA conclusions are accurate."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Pages 436-437 of "Reclaiming History" (Endnotes)
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"The "conspiracy" pieces only come together if you're willing to place your faith in some very stupid shit. E.G.: The autopsy doctors were all worthless liars. .... The Dallas Police Department was filled with lots of worthless liars and cover-up operatives. .... The FBI was filled with worthless liars and cover-up agents. .... The Warren Commission was filled with worthless liars and cover-up agents. .... The HSCA was filled with still more liars who wanted to pretend that only Oswald's bullets hit JFK and Governor Connally. .... Lyndon Johnson was part of the assassination plot and/or its subsequent cover-up. .... The Zapruder Film has been faked/altered. .... Lots of evidence was "planted", in order to frame Lee Harvey Oswald for TWO murders he never committed on 11/22/63. Even though there has never been one single person who has ever said they witnessed any of this "planting", and nobody has ever confessed to planting anything either--not even on their deathbeds. .... JFK was killed because he had the gall to WANT PEACE TO EXIST IN THE WORLD. (This one might be the silliest conspiracy theory of all. And Oliver Stone has many people believing it.)
And there are 1,647 additional really stupid things you'd have to believe (and many of them IN TANDEM) in order to believe that a large-scale conspiracy existed to end JFK's life, but I'll stop with those items listed above for now."
-- David Von Pein; February 7, 2010
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"Just as some people, like John F. Kennedy, seem destined for great accomplishments, others, like [Lee Harvey] Oswald, seem to spend their whole life preparing for their own destruction."
-- Mel Ayton; Page 293 of "The JFK Assassination: Dispelling The Myths
And Challenging The Conspiracy Theorists" (2002)
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"I want the listeners to start making a count of the number of people that, if you believe Jim [DiEugenio], had to be involved with faking evidence. What he said about [Silvia] Duran was just absurd. ....
I'm just sitting here doing a count of the number of evil conspirators in Jim's theory, and of course it includes all the autopsists, it includes everybody who worked for the House Select Committee and every other panel, and now it includes the Dallas Police.
For example, he talks about the paper bag. .... He doesn't mention that Oswald's palmprint and a fingerprint were found on that bag. So the [allegation of the] bag in evidence being different from the bag brought out from the Depository, I'm afraid that's just crackpot photo analysis along the lines that Jack White would probably do."
-- John McAdams; September 24, 2009
JFK Assassination Radio Debates With John McAdams
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"To a person like Jim DiEugenio, it seems the MORE evidence and corroboration there is of Oswald committing his crimes, the more INNOCENT Mr. Oswald becomes. And that's a very strange and illogical policy to live by, isn't it?"
-- David Von Pein; May 29, 2010
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"[Conspiracy theorists can] pretend all the evidence is fake if [they] want to. But, in my opinion, the evidence against Oswald could not possibly exist in the abundant quantities it exists in if Lee Oswald had been an innocent patsy.
In addition, Oswald's own actions are telling us a lot. Do [CTers] think Oswald's own actions and movements are "fake" too? Like when he twice lied to Buell Frazier about "curtain rods". And when he left the TSBD within minutes of JFK's shooting. And when he shot Officer Tippit within 45 minutes of JFK's murder. And when he fought like mad with the cops in the theater, while uttering things that drip with his guilt.
Those are actions I'm supposed to either ignore...or interpret as things that add up to Lee Harvey Oswald's INNOCENCE? Is that right? Come now. Nobody could examine Oswald's actions on BOTH November 21st and 22nd and come to the conclusion that Oswald was merely being used as a fall guy. Oswald's actions incriminate OSWALD, and no one else."
-- David Von Pein; February/March 2015
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"[It was] either Oswald alone, or thousands working to make it look like Oz did it alone."
-- Bud; January 19, 2007
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"Even from the point-of-view of Oswald being merely a "patsy" (as he is portrayed in Oliver Stone's 1991 movie), i.e., he knows SOMETHING about the assassination plot but Oswald, himself, wasn't one of the triggermen, his story about going UP to the second floor (a floor NEARER THE DEPOSITORY ASSASSIN) to get a drink at that critical time is totally unbelievable. Oswald was obviously telling a lie when he told the police he went UP to get a Coke."
-- David Von Pein; June 2007
Coca-Cola Vs. Dr. Pepper
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"Many of the conspiracy theories are appealing to the intellectual palate at first glance, but they do violence to all notions of common sense."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; April 6, 1997
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"Even though no picture of the bag was taken by the Dallas Police Department that shows the bag in the Sniper's Nest, there were multiple police officers who testified that they DID see a paper bag lying on the floor in the southeast corner window on the sixth floor before the bag was picked up. Four of those officers are:
J.C. Day [4 H 267];
L.D. Montgomery [7 H 97];
Robert Studebaker [7 H 143-144];
and Marvin Johnson [7 H 103].
It's fairly obvious, of course, why conspiracy theorists feel the need to distance themselves from the reality concerning that brown paper bag. Because if those conspiracists were to actually face the stubborn truth about the bag (with that truth being: it was Lee Harvey Oswald's homemade bag and Oswald carried his rifle, inside that bag, into the Book Depository Building), then those conspiracists would be forced to admit that their precious "patsy" had probably taken that gun to work in order to shoot somebody with it on the day President Kennedy came to town.
What other reasonable and logical conclusion could anyone come to after they've admitted to themselves the obvious truth -- that Lee Oswald did, in fact, walk into the Texas School Book Depository on November 22, 1963, with a rifle wrapped in brown paper?"
-- David Von Pein; October 3, 2012
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"Even though Oswald was caught red-handed with the Tippit murder weapon ON HIM in the Texas Theater, he still felt the need to distance himself from the revolver he used to kill Officer Tippit (just as he had done by continuously trying to distance himself from the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle he had used to assassinate President Kennedy)."
-- David Von Pein; June 2007
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"The very fact that [Oliver Stone's 1991 movie] 'JFK' adopts the lies of Oswald and asserts that the [backyard] picture was part of a frame-up is a vivid example of how a movie dedicated to the truth incorporates outright lies together with misrepresentations and omissions as the movie persuades its audience that Earl Warren and the Warren Commission covered up the truth. ....
The truth has a long fuse, and ultimately it prevails. Please help shorten the length of that fuse by digging the way journalists are supposed to dig and exposing the more than 100 major misrepresentations, omissions, and lies that have been perpetrated by Warner Brothers, [Kevin] Costner, and [Oliver] Stone. What they have done is just plain evil. And intelligent people who care for our country should not let them get away with it, particularly when they are now trying to invade our public schools with their lies."
-- David Belin; March 26, 1992
David Belin Effectively Bashes Oliver Stone's Movie
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"I think it's a good idea for an LNer (like me) to occasionally remind people of what the ACTUAL EVIDENCE is in the JFK and Tippit cases, and to spell it out in black and white. And that "actual evidence" isn't going anywhere anytime soon. OSWALD'S rifle and the pictures of OSWALD holding the Kennedy murder weapon and OSWALD'S lies and the eyewitness testimony to OSWALD murdering J.D. Tippit are always going to be there. And it's important to remind people about all of that "Oswald" stuff every now and again---so that the CTers don't get the silly idea that their preposterous "Oswald Never Shot Anybody" theories are the only theories on the table when it comes to Internet discussions pertaining to the Kennedy and Tippit murders."
-- David Von Pein; June 8, 2018
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"In my opinion, it's a package deal that fits together perfectly ---
Oswald's actions + the physical evidence = Oswald's undeniable guilt in two murders in Dallas, Texas, on 11/22/63."
-- David Von Pein; June 20, 2015
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"Anyone with a half-nut knows that [Oliver] Stone’s JFK, while fabulous and provocative filmmaking, doesn’t have anything to do with reality when it comes to the JFK assassination. For Stone to pretend that it does shows just how bankrupt the conspiracy crowd is when it comes to dethroning the case against Lee Harvey Oswald. That doesn’t stop them from trying though, does it?
For forty-six years we’ve been hearing about the big conspiracy that killed Kennedy and still we’ve seen not one shred of believable evidence that anyone other than Oswald was behind the deed.
And despite Stone’s claim that those in the media and academia are too afraid to risk their careers or positions of power to expose the truth about the Kennedy murder, numerous television networks, reporters, lawyers, and private individuals have done just that only to find Oswald alone in the sniper’s nest window.
Apparently, reality doesn’t set well with the Hollywood filmmaker. Denial is so much more comforting."
-- Dale K. Myers; January 25, 2010
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"The "One Patsy" theory (promoted by Jim Garrison, Oliver Stone, and thousands of other conspiracy theorists) is a theory that has a group of plotters planning JFK's assassination MONTHS IN ADVANCE of November 22, 1963. And these same plotters are also attempting to frame poor ol' Lee Oswald as the SOLE ASSASSIN OF PRESIDENT KENNEDY, MONTHS IN ADVANCE of the murder.
So, what do these brilliant and brazen plotters do on Game Day? They decide to use THREE gunmen to kill the President (according to Oliver Stone's fairy tale version of events)!
And on top of that bound-to-fail "One Patsy" plan, the plotters don't even keep Oswald on the floor of death (the sixth floor of the Book Depository Building) when the assassination is taking place at 12:30 PM!
Brilliant plot, isn't it? (Well, maybe if you WANT to have your conspiracy plot exposed right away, yes. Otherwise, it's just flat-out stupid.)
But the thousands of conspiracy theorists who have fallen in love with those two things (in tandem, no less!)--the "OSWALD WAS FRAMED AS THE LONE PATSY" theory and the "MULTIPLE GUNMEN WERE FIRING AT JFK" theory--don't seem to bat an eyelash when confronted with the internal incompatibility that exists between those two beliefs.
Common sense CAN go a long way toward solving the JFK assassination. Just don't expect to see much of it from conspiracy theorists."
-- David Von Pein; March 8, 2010
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"One of the principal frailties in the thinking processes of the theorists is that they rarely ever carry their suspicions, which are based on some discrepancy, anomaly, or contradiction they find, to their logical conclusion. .... For them, if something looks suspicious, that's enough.
Instead of asking, "Where does this go?"--that is, where does the discrepancy, contradiction, or whatever, lead them?--they immediately give their minds a breather and conclude that what they find is itself proof of a conspiracy (or proof that Oswald is innocent).
The discrepancy or contradiction is the ENTIRE story. And being the entire story, it by itself discredits the entire twenty-six volumes of the Warren Commission. Nothing else has to be shown or even argued."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 978 of "Reclaiming History"
Vincent Bugliosi On The JFK Assassination
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"No bullets were found in JFK. Nor any fragments [in his neck or back]. Nor any bodily damage that would explain TWO stoppages of 2 bullets from opposite directions entering Kennedy. Which means (logically) that ONE bullet passed clean through the man. Right? (What the hell else should we think given these unimpeachable parameters?)
Then we have the man sitting almost directly in front of the man who just had a bullet pass clean through him. If the bullet didn't hit John Connally, where did it go? (Did it catch the 12:30 bus to Fort Worth?)
The Single-Bullet Theory is so obviously true, only conspiracy kooks have to wrestle with it. Nobody else does. As Vince Bugliosi has said..."a child could author it" ["Reclaiming History"; Pg. 302 of Endnotes]."
-- David Von Pein; June 25, 2007 [Amended February 25, 2010]
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"Even if Ruby was at Parkland, to assume he was there to plant a bullet on Connally's stretcher to frame Oswald for Kennedy's murder, making Ruby a part of the conspiracy to murder Kennedy, is...too ludicrous for words.
The philosophy of the zany conspiracy theorists is that if something is theoretically possible (as most things are), then it's not only probable, it happened."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 450 of "Reclaiming History" (Endnotes)
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"Most conspiracy theorists have fooled themselves into believing that the wholly true and logical Single-Bullet Conclusion is nothing but a pile of Warren Commission-created excrement.
A shame indeed. But it's to be expected from the conspiracy-happy crowd, I suppose. They forever shun Occam's handy Razor in favor of unsupportable guesswork and a steady diet of their favorite food -- chaff.
It's always been that way. And my guess is--it will forever remain that way in the future."
-- David Von Pein; May 22, 2008
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"We have overpowering physical evidence of the bullet entering from behind in the form of the bevelled inward entry hole at the back of JFK's head. Plus, the two large bullet fragments in the front seat from Lee Harvey Oswald's very own gun, which was located to the REAR of President Kennedy during the shooting.
Everything, in its totality, indicates the high likelihood of ONE shooter firing three shots from behind using Oswald's Carcano rifle. And if that bevelled wound in the back of JFK's head—which, as Sherry Fiester has said, suggested an entry wound to the autopsy doctors—was really something other than an entry hole for Oswald's Mannlicher-Carcano 6.5 mm. bullet, then the person who really did fire the head shot from the front should take up permanent residence at the gaming tables in Las Vegas, Nevada — because that guy was one lucky SOB on November 22, 1963 — because the bullet he fired into the President's skull from the FRONT somehow was able to (incredibly) fool every pathologist since 1963 into thinking that frontal shot was fired from behind JFK's limousine.
With that kind of luck on their side, perhaps conspiracy theorists should reconsider the notion of the "Magic Bullet" in this case. Because if Sherry Fiester is right about John F. Kennedy's head wounds, then the true "magic" missile in the JFK assassination is the one fired by that frontal gunman in Dealey Plaza."
-- David Von Pein; September 8, 2015
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"Conspiracy theorists rank Oswald's second-floor lunchroom encounter with Dallas police officer Marrion L. Baker near the very top of the list of reasons to believe Oswald didn't kill Kennedy.
According to the critics, Oswald couldn't possibly have gotten from the sixth-floor sniper's nest to the second-floor lunchroom in the 90-second time frame estimated by the Warren Commission. ....
Once again, however, the critics have exaggerated and misrepresented the circumstances surrounding this encounter in their curious zeal to exonerate Oswald of the crime he so obviously committed."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 837 of "Reclaiming History"
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"The CTers who belong to the "Anybody But Oswald" club will pretty much believe anything except the actual evidence in the case.
Conspiracists seem to evidently enjoy spinning their wheels of fantasy--year after year. And they don't seem to care one bit that those wheels provide no traction at all. They are eternally stuck in the mud of a make-believe conspiracy to assassinate John F. Kennedy.
Kinda sad, isn't it? Not to mention a colossal waste of time."
-- David Von Pein; August 3, 2009
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"One can only wonder why Commission Exhibit No. 399 did not have any blood residuum on it. My only guess is that the blood traces that must have been on it were removed by someone early on...as a matter of course. In all the evidence bullets I handled in court in murder cases during my prosecutorial career, none had any visible blood on them. ....
Interestingly, [the FBI's Robert] Frazier testified that with respect to the two main bullet fragments found in the presidential limousine [CE567 & CE569], “there was a very slight residue of blood or some other material adhering, but it did not interfere with the examination. It was wiped off to clean up the bullet for examination”."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 425 of "Reclaiming History" (Endnotes)
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"The hardline conspiracy theorists on the Internet will never see Oswald's obvious guilt. They are blind to the
real evidence. They love their perceived "Conspiracy" too much. It will never end for them.
I look at it this way --- If the common sense (and 2800 pages!!) of Vincent Bugliosi can't convince the CTers,
then nothing ever will."
-- David Von Pein; July 6, 2017
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"It isn't a requirement that CTer theories make sense. Besides the conspiracy's magical ability to make anyone at any time say or do anything it requires, it is also incredibly lucky, in that it has Oswald visit the two lunchrooms at lunchtime and get no alibi witness.
And of course this omnipotent conspiracy always opts to do things the hard way: they elaborately kill Kennedy instead of torpedoing his presidency with scandal. They let Oswald run loose after the murder, and allow him to talk afterwards, instead of killing him at the scene of the crime."
-- Bud; January 5, 2010
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"As more and more time goes by, and as more and more convincing tests are produced that verify the factual nature of the Single-Bullet Theory (e.g., Dale Myers' excellent computer animation work and the 2004 Discovery Channel SBT re-creation in "JFK: Beyond The Magic Bullet"), it's my personal opinion that conspiracy theorists totally ignore the validity of the SBT merely because they think it's expected of them. They wouldn't be good "CTers" if they dared put any faith in anything Mr. Specter or Mr. Redlich or Mr. Belin said. So they are forced to discount the SBT as pure junk out of sheer habit.
But it certainly isn't out of necessity that the conspiracists scoff at the SBT. Not at all. For, the CTers can still pretend they see J.D. Tippit or some other "Badge Man" firing a shot from the Grassy Knoll...even WITH the Single-Bullet Theory intact."
-- David Von Pein; August 19, 2009
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"We already knew that ["Harvey And Lee" author John] Armstrong threw out logic and reason long ago with respect to his [double Oswald] fairy tale, but at least he had his insanity to fall back on.
The fairy tale loses even its “internal logic” insanity when he asserts that the CIA got someone to impersonate Marguerite [Oswald] who looked nothing like her. How much longer do we have to wait for Armstrong to inform us that it was a Kennedy imposter who was assassinated?
For those conspiracy theorists who feel I haven’t “done justice” to Armstrong by not mentioning every matter, issue, or witness Armstrong cited in his nearly one-thousand-page book--to do so would almost take a book in itself--if justice is giving something its due, the only justice for Armstrong’s book is to put it in a trash can.
Every word I wrote about this freaky book is one more word than Armstrong and his theory deserve. Here’s a book that at worst doesn’t deserve First Amendment protections (I’m being facetious) and at best is merely fun and games.
And yet, Walt Brown, a serious student of the assassination, while noting a few of the book’s absurdities, gives it a positive review in his publication, JFK/Deep Politics Quarterly, saying it is “required reading.”
When someone of Brown’s stature in the conspiracy community tells his readers to go out and “get the book and set aside...everything you previously read about what happened in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963” (JFK/Deep Politics Quarterly, April 2004, pp.3–10), he is doing nothing more than encouraging other Armstrongs to go off on similar delirious odysseys into the twilight zone."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 578 of "Reclaiming History" (Endnotes)
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"Some conspiracy theorists like to think that the motorcade in Dallas on 11/22/63 was totally different than ANY other previous JFK motorcade with respect to Secret Service agents (not) riding the back bumper of Kennedy's limo.
But this assumption is simply not true, and provably so by taking a look at the [many] pre-November 22 photos of JFK motorcades which depict NO AGENTS riding the back bumper of Kennedy's vehicle (and NO AGENTS even walking along side the car either). So WHY would anybody expect anything different regarding the specific "ride the bumper" procedures on November 22nd?"
-- David Von Pein; April 19, 2008
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"Now we've got kooks claiming the unfired bullets in Oswald's pants pocket were "planted". And for what possible purpose again? Oh yes, I forgot---the patsy framers got bored and decided to plant needless and useless unfired bullets in Oswald's trousers. Incredible."
-- David Von Pein; August 6, 2015
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"We are dealing with actual fanatics [i.e., conspiracy theorists on the Internet] who believe they are correct and possess knowledge that only they have and are saving the world for us clueless dopes. A more monstrous arrogance I can't conceive of."
-- Kevin T. Draiss; April 1, 2016
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"The more scientific and ballistics tests that are done (like the Discovery Channel's tests and Dale Myers' excellent computer animation projects relating to both the Single-Bullet Theory and the acoustic/Dictabelt evidence), the further and further away from a multi-gun conspiracy we get in the JFK case.
Shouldn't that make even the staunchest conspiracy theorist pause and ask -- I wonder how this can be...if JFK was really hit from the front and rear, like Oliver Stone, Jim Garrison, et al, insist he was?"
-- David Von Pein; November 1, 2008
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"To use an ice cream analogy, we LNers have vanilla and the CTers have every other flavor under the sun. So we are arguing that vanilla is better than chocolate, vanilla is better than mint chip, vanilla is better than rocky road, etc. The fact that there are so many challengers shows vanilla's supremacy, all contenders are split into different small factions who only share one trait, an aversion to vanilla."
-- Bud; June 19, 2015
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"Newsweek magazine reported that "some of [Jim Garrison's] staff became alarmed about his behavior. He would call meetings, then disappear into the men's room for awhile, emerge with a new theory and send aides to try to prove it."
Garrison found no problems with this reverse methodology. Charles Ward, who later became a judge on the Louisiana State Court of Appeals, was Garrison's chief assistant in the DA's office at the time and helped out in the [Clay] Shaw case. He told the New Orleans Times-Picayune in 1983 that "most of the time you marshal the facts, then deduce your theories. But Garrison would deduce a theory, then marshal his facts. And if the facts didn't fit, he'd say they had been altered by the CIA.""
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 1368 of "Reclaiming History"
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"The "truth" of the JFK assassination, of course, was arrived at in November of 1963. But when someone as rabid as a conspiracy-loving kook doesn't like the taste of something, they usually spit it out and place something in their mouth that's a little more tasty.
And "chaff" seems to be a conspiracy kook's delicacy of choice when it comes to things relating to the death of the 35th U.S. President (and has been their favorite food for 40+ years)."
-- David Von Pein; October 21, 2007
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"The bottom line is that evidence of Oswald's innocence in the Kennedy assassination is about as rare as hundred-dollar bills on the floor of a flophouse."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 844 of "Reclaiming History"
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"Conspiracists who favor any type of theory that has multiple gunmen HITTING John F. Kennedy with rifle bullets from more than one gun must certainly admit that those multiple gunmen sure as heck got mighty lucky when JFK's three autopsy surgeons attached their signatures to the document that contains the following paragraph:
"The deceased died as a result of two perforating gunshot wounds inflicted by high velocity projectiles. .... The projectiles were fired from a point behind and somewhat above the level of the deceased." -- FROM PAGE 6 OF PRESIDENT KENNEDY'S OFFICIAL AUTOPSY REPORT [Warren Report; Pg. 543]
After all, a MULTI-GUN, ONE-PATSY assassination plot like the one that a vast majority of conspiracy theorists seem to think was pulled off in Dealey Plaza in November '63 is the type of insane and needlessly reckless plot that you don't see many people/plotters get away with every day of the week.
And just think....per some conspiracy believers, James Files GOT AWAY WITH MURDERING THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, but then (many years later) he decided he wanted to GET THE CREDIT for murdering the President, instead of basking forever in the secure knowledge that he had actually killed JFK and gotten away scot-free. Go figure that mindset."
-- David Von Pein; December 7, 2009
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"Although the solutions proposed by [David] Lifton and [Michael] Eddowes are more farfetched than some, they use the same style of reasoning found in other conspiracy books. All these theories are based on unexplained discrepancies in the record. .... Alternative explanations and the overall pattern of the evidence are given little attention, if any."
-- Jean Davison; Pages 274-275 of "Oswald's Game"
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"[David S. Lifton's] book ["Best Evidence"] is a conspiracist's attempt to literally rewrite the history of John F. Kennedy's tragic death by taking the most important piece of physical evidence in the entire case -- President Kennedy's own body -- and postulating a conspiratorial cover-up scenario so full of implausibilities, complexities, roadblocks, and complications that even with God's own help from the heavens above, the plot theorized here would have still been an iffy proposition....at best.
In short, anybody who would accept as true the nonsensical theory of JFK's body being stolen off of Air Force One by evil plotters should check themselves into the nearest insane asylum and seek immediate treatment for "Conspiracy Theory Overdose"."
-- David Von Pein; January 2006 and March 2006
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"I'm 95% sure he [Lee Harvey Oswald] acted alone; and if you threw 85% of the evidence out the window, there would still be enough to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; January 1988
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"Show me a conspiracist who will stop promoting an already-debunked theory about the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and I'll show you a miracle for the ages."
-- David Von Pein; September 28, 2013
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"Even though there's no credible evidence that any shot was fired from the grassy knoll, one could still have shouting rights if one could at least argue that logic and common sense dictate that one or more of the three shots emanated from there. But when you have no evidence and no common sense on your side, isn't it time to put the "Closed" sign on your door and go home?"
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 858 of "Reclaiming History"
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"Who killed JFK has been determined for decades. What we have here on the side of conspiracy are children who don't like their carrots, and who will do anything to get out of eating them. Every so often they claim "I'm done!" (I've shown Oswald is innocent), but on examination you find they've thrown some under the table, packed some in their cheeks and spread the rest around the plate.
Other carrot-haters applaud this activity as progress, but anyone who is not retarded sees it for what it really is."
-- Bud; November 3, 2009
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"To many of the JFK conspiracy clowns of the world, the idea of pretending that every single piece of evidence is fake and/or fraudulent that links Lee Harvey Oswald to the murders of both President Kennedy and Officer J.D. Tippit is a much better and more rational idea than to accept the evidence for what it truly is -- evidence left behind by double-murderer Lee Oswald. After all, without EVERYTHING being faked, planted, and fouled up by the cops and evil FBI, a conspiracist's favorite patsy named Oswald is flat-out guilty. Simple as that."
-- David Von Pein; March 3, 2011
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"[New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison's] indictment only charged [Clay] Shaw, [David] Ferrie, and [Lee] Oswald with conspiracy to murder Kennedy, not with murdering him.
Garrison was thereby sending an important signal. Since under the law of conspiracy Shaw would be responsible for (and hence, guilty of) all crimes committed by his co-conspirators in furtherance of the object of the conspiracy, a charge of conspiracy to commit murder is virtually always accompanied by a separate charge of the murder itself.
If Garrison was sincerely convinced Shaw had conspired to murder Kennedy, why not do what 99.9 percent of all DAs would have done--also charge him with Kennedy's murder?
I don't know the answer to that question, but the only thing that makes any sense to me is that he knew Shaw was innocent or had very serious doubts about his guilt.
If Shaw had been convicted of murder, Garrison knew that under Louisiana law, the punishment had to be either life imprisonment or the death penalty. But conspiracy to commit murder was only punishable in Louisiana by imprisonment "at hard labor for not less than one nor more than 20 years."
So perhaps Garrison, knowing he was up to no good, only wanted to use Shaw up to a certain point. He didn't want to have Shaw's death or life imprisonment on his conscience for the rest of his life." ....
[A] benefit to Garrison of only charging Shaw with conspiracy is that under Louisiana law...when conspiracy alone is alleged, only nine out of twelve jurors must concur to render a guilty verdict.
So Garrison only needed nine jurors to convict Shaw. He couldn't even get one."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 1380 of "Reclaiming History"
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"[Lee Harvey] Oswald took a shot at General Walker in April 1963, showing his willingness to kill a political figure seven months before he tried it again (and succeeded) in Dallas."
-- David Von Pein; January 10, 2009
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"Conspiracy theorists have attacked the case against Oswald as being weak because it was "only circumstantial," the implication being that any case based on circumstantial evidence is not solid. .... But nothing could be further from the truth. ....
Not only was there PHYSICAL circumstantial evidence against Oswald [e.g., guns, bullets, and fingerprints traced to the defendant], but there was an enormous amount of non-physical circumstantial evidence, including the very most powerful in this category: his flight from the murder scene, his resisting arrest, and his telling one provable lie after another upon his apprehension, all showing an unmistakable consciousness of guilt."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 528 of "Reclaiming History" (Endnotes)
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"CE399 is a bullet which FITS TOGETHER WITH A LOT OF *OTHER* EVIDENCE CONNECTED WITH JFK'S ASSASSINATION. It's a bullet that came out of the VERY SAME GUN that is also positively linked to the bullet fragments found in the Presidential limousine and the very same gun that is also positively linked to the three cartridge cases found on the TSBD's sixth floor (the same floor where the weapon that was linked to all of these pieces of ballistics evidence was also found).
If CE399 had been the ONLY piece of ballistics evidence that was found after the shooting, then the CTers would have a much better argument for that bullet being "planted" or "substituted" or whatever.
But since there's so much OTHER stuff (bullet-wise and shell-wise) that links Oswald's Mannlicher-Carcano to the assassination, CTers who continue to want to believe that CE399 didn't really come out of Oswald's rifle when JFK's car passed through Dealey Plaza on November 22nd have a very large mountain to climb in order to advance the "399 Is A Fraud" conspiracy theory.
Because if CE567 and CE569 (the two front-seat bullet fragments linked conclusively to Oswald's rifle) are the Real McCoy (i.e., genuine evidence that wasn't tampered with in some manner)....and: if the three bullet shells that were found by the police underneath the sniper's window on the sixth floor are also genuine....then it's very, very likely that Bullet #399 is ALSO a "genuine" article as well, with that whole bullet exiting Lee Harvey Oswald's gun at 12:30 PM on 11/22/63 in Dealey Plaza.
And if the CTers wish to travel down the "ALL OF THE CARCANO (C2766) BULLET EVIDENCE IS TAINTED" road, then they've got THREE "This Evidence Is Tainted" mountains to climb -- the "CE567/569" mountain; the "Shells In The Window" mountain; and the large hill marked "CE399" too.
I hope those CTers are in good shape and are really good mountain climbers. Because getting to the top of just ONE of those three Mount Everests is likely to give an average (and reasoned-thinking) person a coronary."
-- David Von Pein; October 22, 2007
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"Apparently, Kennedy's assassin, instead of trying to...escape from behind the picket fence after shooting Kennedy, had much more important things to do -- mainly, climb over the fence (at which point he'd be in plain view of everyone on Elm Street) so he could beat up on that louse Gordon Arnold and take his film."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 888 of "Reclaiming History"
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"Why don't [conspiracy theorists] apply that same ["Beyond Reasonable Doubt"] standard to any of the other men who've been accused of killing Kennedy — LBJ, Dulles, and many more. Even people like Tippit and Dr. Burkley have been accused. What fair trial did they get? Ironically, the evidence points to Oswald alone, not anyone else. Yet he gets "reasonable doubt" among conspiracy theorists and they don't? I've never understood that."
-- Jean Davison; December 12, 2015
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"In a city of more than 700,000 people [Dallas, Texas], what is the probability of one of them being the owner and possessor of the weapons that murdered both Kennedy and Tippit, and yet still be innocent of both murders? Aren't we talking about DNA numbers here, like one out of several billion or trillion? Is there a mathematician in the house?"
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 964 of "Reclaiming History"
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"Where could a frontal gunman have possibly been located to have caused only the FAR RIGHT-REAR portion of Kennedy's head to be blown out by the bullet? Why isn't ANY of the LEFT hemisphere of JFK's head affected by a shot coming from (per most CTers) the "Badge Man"/Grassy Knoll area of Dealey Plaza?
That bullet sure did some crazy zig-zagging inside Kennedy's head, it would seem, if CTers want a wound caused by "Badge Man" to be present in THIS part of Mr. Kennedy's head."
-- David Von Pein; April 2007
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"To say, as conspiracy theorists do, that the backyard photo of Oswald...is a composite photo is to also say that
Marina Oswald was part of the conspiracy to frame her husband, since Marina says she took the photo.
But the notion that Marina was part of any conspiracy to frame her husband for Kennedy's murder is absurd on its face, so the argument that the backyard photo is a composite "doesn't go anywhere"--that is, unless you are willing to say that Marina was, indeed, part of said conspiracy.
If people want to use such absurdity and illogic as their guide in analyzing the assassination, I submit that they should not have a ticket into the theater of serious debate on the assassination. The price of admission to the debate, as it were, should be sense, not nonsense."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 979 of "Reclaiming History"
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"I was once a "conspiracy person", but after much research know that LHO alone killed JFK."
-- Jarvis Young; October 24, 2013
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"In light of all the rock-solid evidence that indicates beyond all reasonable doubt that the "backyard photographs" of Lee Harvey Oswald have not been tampered with, conspiracy promoters who continue to want to peddle the theory that the photos are fakes are merely living in a dream world....a world where their conspiracy-filled fantasies have somehow been able to trump the known facts."
-- David Von Pein; December 22, 2009
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"I truly think that most conspiracy theorists wouldn't believe the Single-Bullet Theory was the truth even if the bullet (CE399) could be physically seen in mid-air on the Zapruder Film as it made its way through each of the two victims.
And I can't help but also wonder what the odds are of a separate bullet going into Governor John Connally's back in a sideways manner and hitting the Governor in just about the spot where he would have been hit by the SBT missile?
I would guess the odds of that occurring would be mighty low indeed....especially when considering WHERE John Connally was sitting in the limousine, i.e., right in front of the OTHER man who was hit in the back with a bullet that Friday in November of 1963.
Common sense ALONE almost proves the Single-Bullet Theory to be true. And the OTHER stuff on top of the common sense cinches the SBT deal. I wonder why more people can't (or refuse to) see that?"
-- David Von Pein; October 24, 2007
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"If anyone ever had the psychological profile of a presidential assassin, it was Oswald. He not only had a propensity for violence, but was emotionally and psychologically unhinged. .... His alleged act was completely consistent with his personality."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 949 of "Reclaiming History"
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"No evidence plus no common sense equals go home, zipper your mouth up, take a walk, forget about it, get a life. Of course, the hard-core conspiracy theorists, who desperately want to cling to their illusions, are not going to do any of these things. ....
If these conspiracy theorists were to accept the truth, not only would they be invalidating a major part of their past, but many would be forfeiting their future. That's why talking to them about logic and common sense is like talking to a man without ears.
The bottom line is that they WANT there to be a conspiracy and are constitutionally allergic to anything that points away from it."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Pages 1437-1438 of "Reclaiming History"
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"During Sunday's interrogation Oswald slipped up and placed himself on the sixth floor [of the TSBD] at the time of the assassination. .... In his Sunday-morning interrogation he said that at lunchtime, one of the "Negro" employees invited him to eat lunch with him and he declined. ....
He said before he could finish whatever he was doing, the commotion surrounding the assassination took place and when he "WENT DOWNSTAIRS," a policeman questioned him as to his identification, and his boss stated that he was one of their employees. ....
WHERE WAS OSWALD AT THE TIME THE NEGRO EMPLOYEE INVITED HIM TO LUNCH, AND BEFORE HE DESCENDED TO THE SECOND-FLOOR LUNCHROOM? The sixth floor."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 957 of "Reclaiming History"
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"I find it rather interesting (in a "double standard" kind of way) that the conspiracy theorists are quick to run away from any official document that disproves their claims (like CE2011 does), but when they get ahold of an "official" document that they think tends to buttress their conspiratorial silliness, they're eager and very willing to prop up that official piece of paper for all to see. (The Katzenbach memo comes to mind, among other things.)
But, then too, that's why it must be so frustrating to be a JFK conspiracy theorist -- just when you think you've put together a good theory that has Oswald off the hook, then something called common sense (or a pesky official document that MUST be fake, per the CT mindset) comes along and clogs the works.
The theory of Oswald being set up as a lone patsy many weeks or months before November 22 comes to mind here -- which is a theory believed to be true by many CTers, with those same conspiracists also wanting to believe that multiple gunmen fired at JFK from both the front and rear.
But the built-in foolishness of believing that those two things could possibly CO-EXIST in the JFK murder case never seems to bother the staunch conspiracy-happy crowd one bit. They just ignore the illogic of such a plot -- just like Oliver Stone did. Amazing indeed."
-- David Von Pein; October 28, 2011
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"The following clip from the Zapruder Film is always worth posting several times a day. It's a moving two-frame picture of a man named John Connally who is IN DISTRESS at Z225:
Now, considering the fact that that same man (John B. Connally Jr.) was shot in the upper back by a bullet at just about this exact same time in Dealey Plaza, what are the odds of this reaction being displayed by Mr. Connally in the above Zapruder Film clip being the result of SOMETHING ELSE BESIDES THE RIFLE BULLET THAT HIT HIM IN THE UPPER BACK AT ALMOST THIS EXACT SAME INSTANT ON NOVEMBER 22, 1963?"
-- David Von Pein; April 26, 2010
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"From the [Top Secret U.S.] CONTINGENCY invasion [of Cuba] plan, conspiracy author Lamar Waldron (with coauthor Thom Hartmann) has produced one of the most empty, vacuous books ever written about the assassination [2005's "Ultimate Sacrifice: John And Robert Kennedy, The Plan For A Coup In Cuba, And The Murder Of JFK"]. Although it is well written, it makes incredible assumptions, the authors untroubled by the lack of support for these assumptions in the record. ....
Without bothering to present one tiny speck of evidence to support his allegation, Waldron says in several places in his book that [Mafia mobsters] "Marcello, Trafficante and Roselli planned the assassination" of JFK. ....
The source for all this? You guessed it: Lamar Waldron. You see, he was present during all these meetings [involving Mafia kingpins as they planned JFK's demise]...and was nice enough to pass on what he saw and heard. And apparently no editor of Waldron's book was about to tell Waldron that his book was supposed to be nonfiction, not fiction, so he would have to have a source for all of this other than his own silly mind. ....
One thing he [Waldron] knows. Oswald was innocent and just a patsy, Waldron totally ignoring the mountain of evidence against Oswald. ....
Waldron started his book with nothing to say, added a whole lot of nothing to it, and ended up with nothing. So why have I wasted my time and space in this endnote talking about nothing? Because of a few things. Waldron's book is one of the longest (904 pages) ever written on the assassination and...gives the outward appearance of being a scholarly work. ....
So to expose, as I believe I have, the ridiculous nature of a book like this demonstrates...the absolutely utter and total bankruptcy of the conspiracy movement in this country."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Pages 759 and 762-766 of "Reclaiming History" (Endnotes)
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"When he [Oswald] was asked [by police] to furnish all of his previous residences since his return from Russia...he gave all of them...with one notable exception. He omitted any reference to the Neely residence, the residence, of course, where he knew his wife had photographed him with the murder weapon in the backyard. .... Oswald flat-out denied ever living there."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 966 of "Reclaiming History"
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"Stumps like [conspiracy theorist] Ben Holmes can't figure out the easiest of the easy things connected with the
JFK and Tippit murders --- such as:
.... Oswald carrying his own rifle to work in a homemade paper bag on 11/22/63.
.... Oswald shooting and killing Officer Tippit on 10th Street.
.... Oswald purchasing his mail-order rifle from Klein's in March '63.
But if you're a Super Stump (like Ben Holmes), none of the above facts are to be considered "facts" at all --- even
though all 3 things above ARE, indeed, proven and provable FACTS, without a shred of a doubt.
LNers rely on the evidence.
CT Stumps throw all the evidence in the toilet and pretend it was all faked.
In other words, LNers live in the real world.
CT Stumps reside in a Fantasy Land where everybody was out to frame a total stranger named Oswald."
-- David Von Pein; September 7, 2023
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"James Douglass treads a familiar path in [his 2008 book] 'JFK And The Unspeakable'. It is yet another book that claims John Kennedy was killed because he had decided to withdraw from Vietnam. ....
The premise of Douglass’s book...is completely false. To be sure, what Kennedy would have done had he been in [President Lyndon] Johnson’s place at the critical juncture is an interesting question. Besides their different personalities and outlook, the calculations of a president in his second and last term, as opposed to one aiming to be re-elected in 1968, might have produced a different outcome.
But there is not one iota that connects U.S. intervention in South Vietnam and Kennedy’s assassination, unless one believes that Lee Harvey Oswald was further inured to the notion of inflicting political violence after the bloody spectacle of [Vietnam President] Diem’s overthrow. Douglass’s entire book is based on the most amateurish error a historian can make: after the assassination, therefore because of the assassination. ....
As bad as Douglass’s account of Kennedy’s foreign policy is, his depiction of a plot to murder JFK is worse--unspeakably bad, in fact. .... He is utterly uncritical of any theory, any witness, and any factoid, as long as it implies conspiracy. ....
Douglass’s America, ultimately, is not unlike Douglass’s Washington. The latter is riddled with treasonous Cold Warriors, intent on making war, and the former is awash with conspiratorial goings-on: multiple Oswalds, CIA spooks manipulating housewives who meet for coffee, and dozens of average Americans who get wind of the plot but do nothing.
For some minds, this may constitute an aesthetically compelling vision. The forces of evil are many and powerful, and the forces of righteousness few and beleaguered. But history should not be about an aesthetically compelling vision. It should be about what happened.
Douglass, fundamentally, doesn’t care about what really occurred."
-- John McAdams; December 11, 2009
Unspeakably Awful
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"The notion that major federal agencies of government (or even one such agency) would decide to murder Kennedy because they didn't agree with certain policies of his is sufficiently demented to be excluded at the portals of any respectable mental institution short of an insane asylum."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 987 of "Reclaiming History"
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"The "bracketing" of when the SBT bullet struck the two victims in the limousine, in fact, only further makes me think more highly of the Warren Commission and its detailed study of the assassination.
The WC and FBI did very detailed angle measurements in May '64, via a surveyor and "thru-the-Oswald-rifle-scope" determinations from the Sniper's Nest. And it was determined (as best as could be determined, circa 1964) that both victims were generally lined up in the limo to receive the "SBT" bullet from approx. Z210 through approx. Z225.
Conspiracy theorists scoff at this "bracketing", saying it can't be right. But those CTers are attempting to place an EXACTITUDE on the event that can't really be placed there. Some things MUST be estimated to a degree....and the WC did that. And did a damn good job at it too. Because "Z210-Z225" certainly encompasses the now-widely-accepted SBT Z-Frame of Z224 (a frame I fully endorse for many, many reasons).
In other words, the WC got it perfectly correct DECADES prior to the digital Z-Film copies fully backing up their findings of a SBT hit somewhere between Z210 and Z225. So what's the big gripe, is my question? The Warren Commission GOT IT RIGHT IN THE FIRST PLACE. Conspiracists just don't wish to accept the Occam's-like SBT scenario of one bullet transiting both victims.
Instead, conspiracy advocates would rather rely on pure guesswork, involving multiple disappearing bullets and an SBT-like alignment of wounds on two men (created by two or three gunmen!) that would make David Copperfield proud."
-- David Von Pein; April 8, 2007
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"It had been reported in the New Orleans newspapers a week before [Perry Russo's] second hypnotic session that Clay Shaw was at the San Francisco World Trade Center on the day of the assassination, so Russo added another nice little touch to his fairy tale.
[David] Ferrie, he said, told his co-conspirators that they'd have to "establish alibis" for themselves by being seen "in public" on the day of the assassination. Bertrand said he would "go to the coast on business" that day, per Russo.
You have to understand: Clay Shaw knew that he could only be seen in public in San Francisco, 2,500 miles away. Wherever he'd be in New Orleans...he apparently believed he'd be invisible to others and hence have no alibi.
Obviously, Russo couldn't even make up a good lie. If a conspirator, say Shaw, needed to establish an alibi, the very best way to have done so would have been to stay right at his desk at the Trade Mart in New Orleans, where everyone knew him, not go to a distant city where he was largely unknown."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 847 of "Reclaiming History" (Endnotes)
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"It doesn't make a bit of difference HOW the President's head behaves after being struck by the bullet. Why? Because it's a verified and proven-beyond-all-doubt scientific FACT that JFK was hit in the head by just ONE bullet--and that bullet entered from BEHIND.
Therefore, given this irrevocable fact, it doesn't matter if JFK's head were to have spun around 40 times after the bullet hit him...the end result would still be exactly the same -- One bullet entered John Kennedy's cranium FROM THE REAR. Done deal.
Plus, there's the further undeniable fact of JFK's head moving FORWARD at the most critical moment in the head-shot timeline--i.e., the INSTANT OF THE BULLET'S IMPACT.
And this is a "moving forward" fact that many conspiracy theorists still seem to want to deny (or ignore) even to this day....and even with crystal-clear PHOTOGRAPHIC evidence to show the head of the President being driven forward at impact (via the slo-mo Z-Film clip below)."
-- David Von Pein; May 2, 2008
.gif)
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"The dreadful illogic and superficiality of the conspiracy theorists' modus operandi has inevitably resulted in the following situation: Though they have dedicated their existence to trying to poke holes in the Warren Commission's findings, they have failed abysmally to tell us (if the Warren Commission was wrong) what actually did happen.
In other words, other than blithely tossing out names, they have failed to offer any credible evidence of who, if not Oswald, killed Kennedy. Nor have they offered any credible evidence at all of who the conspirators behind the assassination were.
So after more than forty years, if we were to rely on these silly people, we'd have an assassination without an assassin (since, they assure us, Oswald didn't kill Kennedy), and a conspiracy without conspirators. Not a simple achievement."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 982 of "Reclaiming History"
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"I am convinced that three shots were fired from the sixth floor southeast corner window of the Texas School Book Depository Building. ....
No convincing or compelling evidence from the photographs or films or from credible witnesses strongly supports the idea that a shot or shots were fired from the grassy knoll area. ....
Lee Harvey Oswald appears, from the evidence derived at the scene, to be the likely assassin. ....
From this specifically focused study, I cannot say that others did not conspire with or assist Oswald, or that others absolutely were not present at the scene the day of the assassination.
I can say, however, that the evidence of the sixth floor sniper, in all probability Oswald, is compelling."
-- Richard B. Trask; Page xx of "Pictures Of The Pain:
Photography And The Assassination Of President Kennedy" (1994)
Book Review -- "Pictures Of The Pain"
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"[Oliver Stone] wanted his movie, he wrote with towering arrogance in the January 1992 edition of 'Premiere' [magazine], to "replace the Warren Commission Report." Can you imagine that? A Hollywood producer wants his movie to replace the official and most comprehensive investigation of a crime in history. .... Arrogance thought it already had a bad name. That was before it met Oliver Stone."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 1358 of "Reclaiming History"
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"The vast majority of the witnesses on the various mysterious-death lists of the conspiracy theorists (e.g., Jim Marrs's book 'Crossfire' lists 104 witnesses) weren't connected with the case in any known way whatsoever, and had absolutely nothing of any known value to say about the case. ....
But of those who did have a connection -- such as Roger Craig, Earlene Roberts, Lee Bowers, and Buddy Walthers -- all of them, WITHOUT EXCEPTION, had already told their story, most of them on the public record, so what could possibly be achieved by killing them?"
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 1018 of "Reclaiming History"
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"According to many conspiracy theorists, the bullet that was used by the imaginary frontal gunman to kill John F. Kennedy somehow managed to NOT rip a hole THROUGH THE REAR OR LEFT-REAR SCALP OF JFK'S HEAD...and also (somehow, some incredible zig-zagging way) managed to NOT rip a hole in ANY PART of the left side of JFK's head either.
Incredibly and unbelievably (per many conspiracy theorists), that bullet from the alleged frontal shooter didn't cause any damage of any kind AT ALL to the left side of Kennedy's head.
Nor did that bullet leave a single solitary metal fragment in the left hemisphere of John Kennedy's head, even though (per most CTers) the bullet was fired from the Grassy Knoll and was on a definite "RIGHT SIDE OF THE HEAD THROUGH THE LEFT SIDE OF THE HEAD" trajectory when it hit President Kennedy's cranium at or very near Zapruder Frame #313. Talk about a "Magic Bullet".
Or maybe the CTers just don't care about that seemingly very odd lack of damage to both the left side of Kennedy's head AND the back of Kennedy's head in the autopsy photographs and X-rays.
Or: maybe all of the photos and X-rays are total frauds/fakes (despite what those dozen or so HSCA "experts" said about the pictures and X-rays being unaltered in any manner whatsoever).
But that's what is so terribly nice about being a conspiracy theorist, isn't it? You can just start spitting out theories and fall back on CTer Rule #4A: "If All Else Fails, Just Say That Something Is Fake".
LNers, thankfully, don't have such freedom with the evidence. And therein lies one of the major differences between a "CT" mindset and the "LN" mindset.....not every single thing has to be "suspicious" or "phony" to an "LNer" in order to arrive at the truth."
-- David Von Pein; October 28, 2007
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"The question is, if Kennedy's killers silenced [William Bruce] Pitzer to send a message to other autopsy witnesses to remain silent, why did they wait almost three years to do so? You mean they only started worrying about witnesses "talking" after over a thousand days had already passed?"
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 561 of "Reclaiming History" (Endnotes)
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"Do conspiracy buffs think that Karen Carlin was part of some kind of plot or ruse or "Mob hit on Oswald" too? .... If Jack [Ruby] hadn't made the decision to close his nightclubs for a few days (a decision that he made two days before he killed Oswald), then Karen Carlin would not have had a reason to have the cash [sent] to her [via money order] (she could have picked up the money at one of the nightclubs instead, had they been open).
The "happenstance" and "mere coincidence" trail is significant here. It's either happenstance, or the most remarkable hunk of conspiratorial coordination I've ever encountered (including little Sheba being left in the car to make things look spontaneous in nature)."
-- David Von Pein; March 2007
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"Some conspiracy theorists have, indeed, pointed an accusing finger of guilt at Karen Carlin. In fact, they are almost FORCED to point a finger of guilt at Carlin, because if they don't, and if Carlin was merely an innocent stripper who needed 25 bucks to pay her rent, then Jack Ruby's actions on November 24, 1963, begin to look more and more like exactly what they really were -- the spontaneous actions of a man (who happened to own a .38 snub-nosed revolver) who was distraught over the murder of a President he greatly admired, with those actions playing out in a manner that can only be deemed pure happenstance, not conspiratorial planning."
-- David Von Pein; November 15, 2009
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"Instead of referring to [Clay] Shaw (or "the defendant") a great number of times as he tried to connect him to the conspiracy and murder, as any prosecutor would do if he believed the person he was prosecuting was guilty, unbelievably [Jim] Garrison only referred to Shaw ONCE in his entire summation [to the jury at Shaw's 1969 trial], and then not to say that the evidence showed he was guilty.
NOT ONCE did Garrison tell the jury he had proved Shaw's guilt or that the evidence pointed toward Shaw's guilt."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 1380 of "Reclaiming History"
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"Three rifle shells were found in the building from where the SBT path lines up....Oswald's rifle was found in that same building....and that same building featured the only person who was seen firing a weapon at the President.
But if CTers feel there is some crime-solving advantage to be gained by PRETENDING that another shooting location existed on 11/22/63, then by all means...they should indulge themselves (and, of course, they have, big-time -- placing imaginary assassins in just about every building and Knoll and sewer lining Dealey Plaza).
We should never let the PHYSICAL EVIDENCE of "three shots only from the TSBD" get in the way of a good-looking, movie-theater-filling, kook-filled conspiracy theory. (That's always been my motto.)" ~wink~
-- David Von Pein; June 9, 2006
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"Even if [John Connally's] body were ever exhumed, the [bullet] fragments removed, and the tests conducted confirmed that they came from the stretcher bullet, and the combined weight of the fragments and those previously removed did not exceed 2.4 grains, this would satisfy, on this point, only responsible conspiracy theorists like [James] Lesar and Dr. [Cyril] Wecht.
It would in no way satisfy the bulk of conspiracy theorists who would develop a whole new set of suspicious circumstances and discrepancies surrounding the exhumation of the body and the testing and weighing of the fragments. The term 'ad infinitum', among others, is tailor-made for the conspiracy community."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 446 of "Reclaiming History" (Endnotes)
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"I guess it must be satisfying to be a conspiracy theorist like James DiEugenio--you can simply make up all kinds of unprovable garbage, such as placing unseen gunmen in various buildings around Dealey Plaza and moving the known gunman from the east side of the Book Depository's sixth floor to any other location you'd care to choose. ....
In reality, of course, it's thoroughly despicable and outrageous behavior. But try to tell that to a conspiracy theorist who thrives on imaginative tales and baseless suspicions. Try to tell that to Jim DiEugenio. What you'll likely get in return is a goofy giggle and another round of the kooky game known as "Let's Pretend Oswald Was Innocent"."
-- David Von Pein; February 13, 2010
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"We should all question that Booth assassinated Lincoln, Guiteau assassinated Garfield, and Czolgosz assassinated McKinley. And, of course, that Oswald assassinated Kennedy. All these silly books written on famous assassinations should be burned and new ones like [Rodger Remington's] "Biting the Elephant" taught in schools so that future generations will know the truth. History should be accurate, right? Let's all go into the light and get our logical, thinking heads out of the sand (or is it into the sand?)."
-- Rosemary Newton (Vincent Bugliosi's secretary); February 27, 2010
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"Only the rabid conspiracy kooks who are two theories away from the rubber room think that an automatic gun was used on Tenth Street. All of the witnesses (save Ted Callaway) described the general characteristics of a REVOLVER being used in Tippit's murder, not an AUTOMATIC....e.g.,
Oswald was seen physically shaking shells out of the chamber; and the fact that the shells were found many yards from where the ONE KILLER (Oswald) pulled the trigger indicates that an automatic couldn't possibly have been used....unless the killer decided to pick up the shells near Tippit's squad car and then toss them into the Davis yard down the street. Can anybody think of a single good reason for the killer to perform that task with his bullet cartridges?"
-- David Von Pein; February 2007
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"Johnny Brewer (an average Dallas citizen) saw Lee Harvey Oswald do something in the Texas Theater that can only add up to the conclusion that Oswald was guilty of something pretty terrible on November 22nd -- i.e., Brewer saw Oswald pull a gun on the police in the theater and attempt to shoot some people with that gun."
-- David Von Pein; September 5, 2011
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"There are no facts, as distinct from allegations and suspicions, that undercuts any of the major conclusions of the Warren Commission.
I find it incredible to believe that there was either a small closely-held conspiracy or a more widespread conspiracy of a cover-up that would have survived 28 years of examination and debate, media investigations, congressional investigations, and so forth.
It is my conclusion that until there are facts that come to light that the conclusions of the Warren Commission remain intact and valid."
-- Howard P. Willens (Assistant Counsel, Warren Commission); April 28, 1992
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"Oswald wasn't photographed pulling the trigger from the Sniper's Nest....but does that fact make him any less guilty (given the wealth of stuff saying he's a murderer)?
The paper bag was obviously left in the Sniper's Nest by a certain murderer named Lee Harvey. Lee's prints are on the bag....it was completely empty when found near the same window from where Oswald was seen firing a rifle....and Oswald was seen carrying a similar paper sack into the Book Depository that day.
Plus -- Oswald lied about the package he carried that day (telling police he only took his "lunch"
to work on November 22).
And we're supposed to toss all this stuff in the gutter just because there's not a snapshot
of the bag inside the Nest?? Nonsense.
I suppose Robert L. Studebaker is a dirty, lying scumbucket too (like all of the other cops whom many kooks believe had that strangely unified desire to frame a man for two murders on 11/22/63), when Studebaker said that he saw an empty paper bag "in the southeast corner of the building"....right?"
-- David Von Pein; February 2007
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"[Lee Harvey] Oswald was not responsible for all of the damage that has befallen American society since 1963, much as he would have wished to be. Some of that damage is the result of events related only tangentially to the assassination of President Kennedy.
But some of the injury can, with justice, be attributed to conspiracy theorists who have gone to superhuman lengths to avoid facing the truth. They have constructed wildly implausible scenarios, far-out, fictitious "conspirators," and have scandalously maligned the motives of Kennedy's successor, rather than take a hard look at the man who actually did it. They have, ironically, done more to poison American political life than Lee Oswald--with the most terrible of intentions--was able to do."
-- Priscilla Johnson McMillan; June 2007
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"The mere POTENTIAL for someone in authority to be crooked in some manner is enough of a springboard for certain conspiracy-loving kooks to make the leap-of-faith judgment that those individuals WERE, in fact, crooked individuals.
Go figure kooks."
-- David Von Pein; February 2007
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"Another new era? How many new eras does this make? We had one new era after charlatans like [Josiah] Thompson and [Mark] Lane began spewing false attacks on the Warren Commission.
Then we had the Jim Garrison era. Then there was the public release of the Z-film that was going to usher in a new era. Then we had the post HSCA era. Nothing much happened for about a decade. Then we had the Ollie Stone era followed by the ARRB era.
All of these eras brought the promise that we would finally get at "the truth". Well, all those eras came and [went] and nothing much happened. The CT's keep beating their dead horse hoping it will come back to life.
It ain't happening guys.
Where you are at is where you are going to remain. Hopelessly lost in the wilderness. It's over. Game, set, and match came a long time ago. You aren't going to change the outcome no matter how hard you try."
-- John Corbett; December 14, 2009
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"The evidence shows that those very fingers of Lee Harvey Oswald's touched gobs of stuff that the President's killer almost certainly touched, including:
1.) The gun used to murder the President.
2.) The paper bag that was almost certainly used to transport that gun into the TSBD/Sniper's Nest.
3.) And multiple boxes deep inside the Sniper's Nest that the killer almost certainly touched while constructing his hiding place.
But these prints, in total, mean zilch to the "KKK" (i.e., the "Konspiracy Kook Klan"). With some of the prints even presumed to have been planted by the cops.
A typical CTer motto -- If all else fails....just say 'It's Planted!'"
-- David Von Pein; 2007
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"The whole purpose behind the chain of possession requirement is to insure that the item being offered into evidence by the prosecution or defense is what they claim it to be. It is particularly important when there is no other evidence that the item is what it is purported to be. We don't have that situation here.
In addition to CE 399 being admissible because of the general practice during trials that I mention on page 442 of the endnotes, there is other evidence that is extremely compelling that CE 399 (even if, let's assume, it wasn't found on Connally's stretcher, but on Kennedy's stretcher or even on the floor) was, in fact, what it is purported to be--a bullet that passed through Kennedy's and Connally's bodies.
What is that evidence? Mainly that we know that CE 399 was fired from Oswald's Carcano rifle to the exclusion of all other weapons (3 H 428-429). This alone and all by itself (and certainly in conjunction with all the other evidence I set forth in "Reclaiming History", such as the orientation of Connally's body vis-a-vis Kennedy's, the ovoid configuration of the entrance wound to Connally's back, etc.), is highly persuasive evidence that CE 399 not only hit Kennedy but went on to hit and exit Connally's body."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; August 22, 2009
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"I'm wondering just exactly how much evidence needs to be shoved in a CTer's face in order for them to even begin to CONSIDER the notion that Lee Oswald took his own rifle to work on Nov. 22 and fired some shots at the President from
a deserted sixth floor at 12:30 PM that day? It's truly a shame that the "Anybody But Oswald" crowd seems to
be so popular on Internet forums. It could be, I suppose, that some of those CTers grabbed the baton from
their mentor, Harold Weisberg:
"I'm inclined to think that Oswald did no shooting at all, and I have no reason to believe that any
of the shooting came from the sixth floor. All of the evidence that tends to
indicate that is corrupted in one way or another." -- H. Weisberg
It's incredible. All of that evidence treated like nothing more than a few dozen Juicy Fruit wrappers, worthy of
only the gutter (according to Mr. Weisberg and Company). What a shame. And a crock."
-- David Von Pein; April 12, 2013
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"[Tippit murder witness William] Scoggins didn't see Oswald fire the shots but he saw him heading his way with a gun in his hand immediately thereafter. What, he's supposed to think Oswald dropped out of the sky with a S&W [Smith & Wesson]?"
-- Jean Davison; June 13, 2013
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"There is almost as much evidence that Oswald shot Kennedy as there is evidence that Kennedy got shot."
-- Bud; July 21, 2010
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"The fact that several witnesses HAVE, unquestionably, gone on record as to having heard ONLY SHOTS FROM THE FRONT OF THE LIMO is telling me something very important. That being: they cannot be totally correct; and are more-than-likely mistaken about the source of ALL the shots they heard (based on hearing ZERO of the MULTIPLE rear shots).
The echo patterns have made these "I only heard frontal shots" witnesses THINK they heard the shots from ONE place (the Knoll area) -- but we KNOW they are wrong, because there were shots definitely coming from the rear.
The very, very low percentage of witnesses who heard shots from MULTIPLE LOCATIONS (less than 5%) is another telling sign that reveals the likely fact that shots DID NOT come from more than one location."
-- David Von Pein; February 2005
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"This "two locations" number is exceedingly important. There is overwhelming evidence that at least some shots were fired from behind the motorcade. Several witnesses saw a shooter, or at least a gun in the sixth floor sniper's nest window. The medical evidence is clear that both Kennedy and Connally were hit from behind (regardless of whether either was also hit from the front).
Once we understand that at least some shots came from behind, it is hard to see how shots could also have come from the Grassy Knoll without more witnesses reporting shots from more than one direction. It begins to look like some were confused about THE direction of the shots."
-- John McAdams
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"Any jury who would buy into the all-inclusive "planting" notions in this [JFK] case would HAVE to reside in either the Twilight Zone or Fantasy Land. (Or had served on the O.J. jury, where all the valid, important evidence was also ignored in favor of an obviously ludicrous verdict.)
If only the people defending Oswald had ONE slim shred of evidence to support the planting of shells or CE399 (or perhaps the rifle as well). Plus, don't forget those Backyard Photos, too. The "planting" seems never-ending in this case.
If only one person had seen somebody acting hinky hanging around the 6th Floor of the TSBD shortly after the shooting. If only one person could testify that they saw some stranger entering the Paine home prior to 11/22 (to "plant" assorted articles).
Or if just ONE person had seen Jack Ruby (or whoever it was supposed to have been) hanging out next to John Connally's stretcher at Parkland Hospital on November 22nd (to support the notion that ANYBODY "planted" bullet CE399).
But there is NOTHING of this kind, regarding any of the many "planting" claims purported by CTers."
-- David Von Pein; February 2005
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"The totality of reliable physical evidence, supported by eyewitness accounts of his doing what the physical evidence shows he did, makes the case against Lee Harvey Oswald an open and shut case. He murdered John Kennedy and Officer Tippit and gravely wounded John Connally. The [Mark] Lane myth of 'Oswald as Patsy' and all similar conspiracy myths merit no serious consideration."
-- Larry Sturdivan; Page 246 of "The JFK Myths"
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"Lee Harvey Oswald's "Patsy" remark has launched a mile-high pile of additional conspiracy theories -- and I do think it was smart of Oswald to announce to the TV cameras "I'm just a patsy!" for the world to hear. A very smart move indeed. Because it accomplished exactly what he had probably intended for it to accomplish -- i.e., it diverted some attention away from Oswald himself.
That ONE single word out of Oswald's mouth ("Patsy!") has sent CTers scrambling in all directions looking for "connections" to a plot -- any plot. None of which has been verified to this day to have the slightest bit of truth in them (among the theories placed on the table to date).
Zero pieces of credible, verifiable, provable information have been unearthed to date that tie Lee Harvey Oswald to any of the various proposed conspiracy theories.
Oswald's actions on November 22, 1963, add up to the actions of one lone killer of President Kennedy and Officer Tippit. I.E.: A man, on foot, who tries desperately to flee the scenes of his two crimes and avoid capture, even attempting to kill yet another person along the way (but failing in that attempt before being handcuffed). ....
If conspiracy promoters choose to deny the fact that Oswald's post-12:30 actions on November 22nd could possibly be looked upon as the actions of ONE LONE KILLER, then I feel they are not being honest about what Oswald's actions truly reveal."
-- David Von Pein; March 2006
A Closer Look At Oswald's "Patsy" Statement
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"To frame Oswald for killing Tippit, they [the Dallas Police Department] need to allow Tippit's actual killer to get away with the murder, there is no other way. I've never seen anything anywhere in all my years that would make me believe cops would be okay with the killer of one of their own getting away scot free."
-- Bud; May 27, 2023
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"There is nothing new to be unveiled concerning the way John F. Kennedy died on November 22, 1963. JFK was shot by a lone loser named Lee Harvey Oswald. And that lone loser who hated America and its "representatives" just happened to own a cheap mail-order rifle and he also just happened to work in a building that overlooked the very last portion of President Kennedy's motorcade route through Dallas.
The combination of things I just mentioned above was a lethal combination. And it's also, whether you want to believe it or not, a combination of circumstances brought about by nothing except pure garden-variety coincidence and happenstance."
-- David Von Pein; January 2008
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"The Warren Commission was NOT boxing itself in to accepting the Single-Bullet Theory at all costs (due to James Tague's injury). How do we know they weren't boxed in? Because of Page #117 [of the Warren Commission Report], where it states in black-and-white that the WC was readily acknowledging the possibility that Tague's injury could have very well been caused by a fragment from the HEAD SHOT.
Therefore, via that "Tague Possibly Wounded By Head-Shot Fragment" scenario, the SBT is not a MANDATORY conclusion to reach to still arrive at the "LHO Alone" final conclusion. ....
I, myself, DO think that the SBT is mandatory in order for Lee Oswald to be the lone assassin of JFK. But the Warren Commission's collective opinion was NOT as strict and restrictive as my own on the SBT matter....and Page 117 of the Warren Report proves that fact."
-- David Von Pein; December 26, 2007
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"I have watched Robert Groden, Josiah Thompson, G. Robert Blakey and others come to Dealey Plaza. The first thing these writers and researchers always do is look up at that sixth-floor window. If they truly believe Oswald innocent of the assassination, why do they crane their heads to stare upward at the sniper's perch?
The answer is that, deep in the secret recesses of their minds and hearts, nearly all these people accept what will ultimately be history's verdict: Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, killed the President.
But to show that acceptance would be anathema to the critics, for they have too much at stake. Down the drain would go political causes they champion, money they stand to make, and their personal and professional reputations. Those are hefty reasons for keeping their voices shrill and their platitudes unreasonable."
-- Jim Moore; Page 208 of "Conspiracy Of One:
The Definitive Book On The Kennedy Assassination" (1990)
Book Review -- "Conspiracy Of One"
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"[John Connally's] hand that goes flying up and down in the space of just a very few Z-Film frames is the same RIGHT hand that is holding [his] white Stetson hat.
The hat is still in Connally's RIGHT hand (the same one that has just been hit by a bullet) several frames later on the Zapruder Film. And Nellie [Connally] stated that John C. held that hat in his hand all the way to Parkland. (And I kinda doubt he SWITCHED hat-holding hands after he was shot.)
The "He Couldn't Have Held His Hat" argument brought up continuously by conspiracy theorists is just another of the many pieces of piecemeal chaff that CTers love to toss up against the wall in the desperate hope that some of these things will stick and (somehow) prove the conspiracy they so desperately want to prove. Unfortunately for those conspiracists, none of that chaff seems to stick to the "CT wall" at all."
-- David Von Pein; October 25, 2007
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"Lee Harvey Oswald took his rifle to his workplace and killed John F. Kennedy from there and conspiracy hobbyists have spent decades scrutinizing the utterances and actions of EVERYBODY ELSE."
-- Bud; March 12, 2016
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"Wes Frazier and Linnie Randle were wrong about their estimates of the bag's length. It's the only explanation that makes any "common" sense.
To believe otherwise is to believe that a DIFFERENT bag from the one that Frazier and Randle observed just happened to turn up in the Sniper's Nest -- empty and with Oswald's own prints on it, and a RIGHT palmprint, to boot! -- on the very same day that Oswald took a shorter, similarly fashioned homemade-style paper sack into the same building (as observed by Buell Frazier).
Is the latter explanation truly a reasonable alternative? I think not. In fact, it's just plain silly (regardless of what Frazier and Randle said about the dimensions of the bag)."
-- David Von Pein; December 12, 2007
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"For some reason, conspiracy theorists pretty much want to totally ignore Lee Harvey Oswald's own November 22nd post-12:30 ACTIONS and WORDS, which are actions and words (i.e., lies) that are not indicative of an innocent patsy who never fired a shot at anyone on 11/22/63."
-- David Von Pein; December 26, 2007
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"Lee Oswald took the only rifle he could get his hands on, namely his own (which makes perfect sense)...into the building where he worked (which would be easier than into a building where he does not work thus where he is not supposed to be), a building that, by pure chance, a presidential party would pass that day...to kill the representative of the Capitalist world that he despised (in his own words)...for the reason that he wanted to "help" the Castro cause and make a big name for himself in the History books. It does make sense."
-- François Carlier; August 2, 2009
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"Maybe [Mark Lane] thinks he has "debunked" things. But he hasn't. That's a common tactic employed by conspiracy theorists, too -- i.e., let's pretend we've "debunked" some piece of evidence and present it to the masses as "debunked" or worthless or suspicious or what-have-you -- even though, in reality, no such discrediting of the evidence has really been accomplished at all.
CE399 being a prime example of this tactic. CTers love to claim that that bullet couldn't have done this and couldn't have done that....but nothing about that missile has been "debunked" by the conspiracy community. Nothing. It's still THE ONLY WHOLE BULLET in the official record of the JFK murder case and always will be. And it's positively a bullet that was fired from the rifle of Lee Harvey Oswald.
Conspiracists think they've destroyed the authenticity of CE399 and the logicality of the SBT. But they haven't come close. Not even close. Common sense ALONE tells a reasonable person that the SBT is the correct solution. And when all the OTHER evidence and parameters are added to that common sense...the SBT is fact."
-- David Von Pein; August 23, 2007
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"JFK's stretcher was never located in the area of Parkland Hospital where the bullet was found by [Darrell] Tomlinson. Never. Nor was JFK's body ever in that area down the hall from Trauma Room 1.
Kennedy remained in ER-1 the whole time he was in Parkland. So it is physically impossible for any bullet from Kennedy's stretcher to magically appear down the hall.
And if you think the bullet was picked up in Trauma Room No. 1 and then deposited on a stretcher down the hall...ask yourself: What the fuck for??!!
Why on Earth would anyone even have the slightest desire to do something stupid like that? If there was actually a REAL bullet from LHO's gun that fell out of Kennedy's back (which there wasn't of course, I'm merely playing the silly "conspiracy theory" game for a moment here), then why would anybody bent on framing Oswald want to tamper with such great evidence that was already right THERE near Kennedy's own body and on HIS stretcher, in order to place it on a different stretcher down the hall? That's just nuts all around.
Plus: Even if some moron plotter thought it was a good idea to move the bullet, why plant it on the WRONG stretcher down the hall...or even on Connally's own stretcher? Why not plant it IN THE LIMO WHERE JFK WAS SHOT (which would nicely accompany CE567 and CE569, the fragments also from Rifle #C2766)?
Did any of the so-called "plotters" have a working brain on November 22nd?"
-- David Von Pein; December 4, 2007
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"Howard Brennan, open-mouthed, saw Oswald take deliberate aim for his final shot. .... Crooking his arm, Oswald drew a fresh bead with his Italian rifle. .... His target, startlingly clear in the cross hairs of his telescopic sight, was eighty-eight yards away. He squeezed the trigger."
-- William Manchester; Pages 157-158 of "The Death Of A President"
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"The rear head snap, as seen in the Zapruder Film, is certainly the #1 thing that led to the formation of the HSCA in 1976. Without doubt.
And yet many conspiracists seem to think that the film that Bob Groden showed to the world in March 1975 on ABC-TV is a FAKED FILM -- i.e., it's a film that was manipulated by conspirators long before 1975 in order to get rid of all notions that people might have that would suggest that President Kennedy was shot from the front!!
Those film-fakers were idiots, weren't they? There are only three letters left to write here: LOL."
-- David Von Pein; January 14, 2010
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"Many conspiracists enjoy screaming "Oswald's innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, and he never got that trial, so we must say he's officially innocent". ....
But it doesn't seem to bother some of these same conspiracy theorists when they point an accusing finger of GUILT (sans any trial) at many other non-Oswald people and groups who these CTers think were involved in the assassination. E.G.: The Mob, the Secret Service, the Dallas Police Department, the FBI, the KGB, the CIA, and even President Johnson himself!
Doesn't the PRESIDENT deserve the same benefit of the doubt that CTers say the LNers never give Lee Harvey Oswald (especially in light of the fact that it wasn't LBJ's rifle or shells or prints found on that 6th Floor on Nov. 22)?!
Or are the rules completely different once the tables are turned with respect to this "Innocent Till Proved Guilty" topic?
And, seeing as how all of the physical evidence DOES, indeed, point to Oswald, while no hard evidence points to any of the other people/groups I mentioned above, it seems to me that the CTers are in a boat with many more holes in it when it comes to this topic than are any lone-nutters.
If I were to hang a sign on that "CT boat" in question, the sign would
most certainly say: "Beware: Hypocrites On Board!" "
-- David Von Pein; July 23, 2007
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"The Dallas police certainly made their mistakes, including their critical lapse of failing to adequately protect Oswald from any possible assassin, resulting in his death. Still, by and large, Dallas homicide captain J. Will Fritz, in his dogged, taciturn way, had, within two days of the assassination, managed to build a very powerful case against Lee Harvey Oswald, a case that has stood the test of time.
The principal investigation of the assassination, by the Warren Commission, is, of course, unparalleled in history, not just in the sheer, staggering volume of information collected by the FBI and other federal agencies, but in its monumental thoroughness and attention to detail.
Likewise, the House Select Committee's modern scientific analysis of the hard, physical evidence in the case produced a corroborative foundation of fact that previous investigations couldn't have hoped to obtain, and thereby contributed appreciably to our knowledge of the case.
When taken as a whole...the body of evidence collected by these official investigations leaves ABSOLUTELY NO DOUBT that Lee Harvey Oswald murdered the president, and NO REASONABLE DOUBT that he acted alone."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 380 of "Reclaiming History"
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"CTs [conspiracy theorists] think these arguments make the evidence go away, but they don't. Even if Fritz picked up the shells, they still matched Oswald's rifle to the exclusion of all other weapons. And the oddball ATF testimony can't negate all the other evidence placing the rifle on the sixth floor.
Let's say Fritz picked up the shells, the window was wide open, and the rifle was found on a different floor. What do you think these anomalies MEAN? I think that if you spelled that out, it wouldn't make sense. Go ahead, give it a try!
It seems that CTs have no plausible alternative explanation for the evidence against Oswald. Most CTs won't even try to present one. That makes the Warren Commission's the default explanation, going on 50 years now."
-- Jean Davison; July 29, 2011
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"We can't really know exactly how long Lee Harvey Oswald stayed in his shoebox of a room on Beckley after rushing into the roominghouse at about 1:00 [on 11/22/63].
My theory is that he wasn't in that room any longer than 1 minute, tops. There was simply no reason for him to have been in there for longer than that, probably less even...and there was every reason for him to hurry in and out very quickly that day, and not twiddle his thumbs for 3-4 minutes.
Earlene Roberts' "3 to 4 minutes" estimate is exaggerated, IMO. Not on purpose, mind you. She was not lying. Not at all. It's just that people tend to stretch out time estimates to a longer time than they really are.
Take [Dealey Plaza witness] J.C. Price's timeline for the assassination as a good example -- after hearing the initial "volley" of shots, he said that perhaps "5 minutes later" he heard the final shot. LOL."
-- David Von Pein; July 20, 2007
In Lee Harvey Oswald's Room
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"The susceptibility of human nature to the mystique of conspiracy afforded a fertile field for assassination sensationalists. Through misrepresentation, omission and innuendo, they were successful in deceiving a large body of world public opinion for one reason: Few people objectively examined the overall evidence in depth the way a jury would, had there been an actual trial."
-- David Belin; Page 4 of "November 22, 1963: You Are The Jury"
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"If Lee Harvey Oswald had been in that Depository doorway at 12:30, he would certainly have SAID SO after his arrest. But he said NOT A WORD to the police about being outside on the TSBD steps when JFK was in the process of being murdered on Elm Street.
Nor did Oswald say a word about being in the Book Depository entranceway to the LIVE TELEVISION AUDIENCE EITHER, which he had ample opportunities to do, what with the cameras and microphones being shoved in his face several times as LHO was being paraded through the DPD corridors on both November 22 and November 23.
In point of fact, Oswald actually admitted to the reporters (and thusly to the live TV audience) that he was INSIDE THE BUILDING at the time Kennedy was being shot [when] a reporter asked him: "Were you in the building?" Oswald answered (somewhat sarcastically, after having just told the same reporters, "I work in that building"): "Naturally, if I work in that building, yes sir"."
-- David Von Pein; October 31, 2007
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"If one were to set forth the top-five allegations of the Warren Commission critics and conspiracy theorists in the Kennedy assassination, one of the five would most likely be that Kennedy's body was unlawfully spirited away from the Dallas authorities at Parkland Hospital (mainly, from Dr. Earl Rose, the Dallas medical examiner who physically resisted the appropriation of Kennedy's body by the Secret Service) to be taken to Bethesda for the autopsy. ....
The only serious problem with this is that ironically, and very unfortunately for the conspiracy theorists, they don't even have support for their argument from the very person whom they wanted to conduct the autopsy--Dr. Earl Rose. .... In 1978, [Rose] was appointed by the HSCA to be one of the nine forensic pathologists to review the autopsy findings. ....
[Via telephone interviews of Earl Rose on October 17, 2002, and March 18, 2005] Dr. Rose told me no one ever calls him regarding his one year on the HSCA forensic panel and he was "enjoying" his "anonymity."
My key question to Dr. Rose was this: "Were you satisfied from your review of the autopsy photos and X-rays that the autopsy surgeons reached the same conclusion you would have reached if you had conducted the autopsy back in 1963 in Dallas?"
Rose immediately and unequivocally answered, "Yes, there's no question their conclusions were correct. Two shots entered the president from behind, the entrance wound to the back exiting in the throat at the site of the tracheotomy and the entrance wound to the back of the head exiting in the right frontal temporal area."
The only place he said he disagreed with the autopsy surgeons is that they reported the entrance wound to the back of the head "too low. It was in the cowlick area.""
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Pages 388-389 of "Reclaiming History"
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"It's just silly as all get out to believe in [an Oliver] Stone-like scenario. Especially when so much OTHER stuff will already hang their proverbial "patsy" named Oswald, even WITHOUT planting CE399 in the hospital -- e.g., LHO's rifle, the paper bag, his prints all over the place where the TSBD sniper was located, the Tippit murder, the backyard pictures (also thought to be the product of the "conspirators"), etc. to near infinity.
Bottom line fact still is today what it was in 1963 --- CE399 was determined by BOTH major Government inquiries (WC and HSCA) to have been the "SBT" bullet which went through both John Kennedy and John Connally on November 22, 1963.
That is a fact of historical record. If conspiracists don't like that historical fact, maybe they should go about the awesome task of proving that the Warren Commission's and the House Select Committee's IDENTICAL DETERMINATIONS REGARDING CE399 ARE PURE FICTION. To date, such "proof" from the "planted/switched" camp has yet to surface."
-- David Von Pein; January 11, 2008
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"I've no interest in gaining converts. When Vince Palamara said he was swayed by Bug's book [Vincent Bugliosi's "Reclaiming History"] that Oswald shot Kennedy, my thought was "stay a retard Vince".
[Palamara] studied the case for years and years, and couldn't figure out Oswald shot Kennedy until Bugs wrote a book telling him it was so. ....
I want all the stupid people to stay on [the conspiracy] side of this issue. The world makes more sense to me that way. The general public gets a pass, because they have no idea of the evidence indicating Oswald's guilt in this case. ....
But the only way someone can study this case and not determine that Oswald killed Kennedy is if they are retarded."
-- Bud; December 6, 2009
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"It's going to take a whole lot more than what conspiracy theorists have offered up to date as "proof of evidence-planting" to convince a reasonable jury that evidence WAS, in fact, "planted" at the various MULTIPLE crime scenes associated with John F. Kennedy's murder.
Such extraordinary allegations suggesting such highly unlikely covert activity require equally EXTRAORDINARY PROOF to support the notion that such "planting" actually did occur in the JFK case. ....
Thus far, the CTers in the "Everything Was Planted" club haven't PROVED that a single piece of evidence in the JFK case was planted. The kooks only have their suspicions."
-- David Von Pein; November 13, 2007
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"The [Clay] Shaw jury’s swift not-guilty verdict showed they rejected [Perry] Russo’s fairy tale out of hand. ....
For all intents and purposes, [Jim] Garrison’s entire case had...been built around Russo, specifically Russo’s testimony at the trial that on one occasion at a party in [David] Ferrie’s home in September of 1963, he heard Ferrie, Shaw, and Oswald conspire to murder Kennedy.
Not only was Russo himself...devoid of all credibility, but also Garrison, during the trial, was unable to come up with one single witness to corroborate Russo’s fable. ....
If we are to believe the conspiracy theorists who still cling to Russo’s fable, apparently Russo needed truth serum and hypnosis to recall hearing three people plot to murder President Kennedy.
Without truth serum and hypnosis, the twenty-five-year-old insurance salesman had so many other things going on in his life that being witness to a plot to murder the president of the United States just wasn’t important enough to remember.
For instance, a mother asking him to try to get her son away from the amorous advances of David Ferrie was a much more important event than a conspiracy to murder the president, and this is why he could remember the former but not the latter."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Pages 850-851 of "Reclaiming History" (Endnotes)
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"In that car at 12:30 [on November 22, 1963], [Jacqueline Kennedy] obviously was in a panicked state....and she was trying to get the hell out of the way of the falling, bloody body in the back seat.
It was a perfectly natural reaction to climb up on that trunk. Mainly because there was NOPLACE ELSE SHE COULD HAVE GONE. She had no other immediate "escape" hatch. ....
But, in the final analysis, Jackie's trunk excursion is a lot to do about absolutely nothing. It means nothing. It solves nothing. It's a complete non-issue, and always was. It's only meaningful to a conspiracy-thirsty kook."
-- David Von Pein; December 17, 2007
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"Was Ronnie [Fuller] hit by a Mannlicher-Carcano bullet (or ANY bullet) on November 22, 1963? The "Fuller" argument goes nowhere, of course. It's quite obvious that Darrell Tomlinson was not paying strict attention to the stretchers when he retrieved Bullet CE399 from Connally's stretcher (i.e., the only stretcher, among the two available, that ANY bullet could have possibly come off of).
But some conspiracy theorists would rather rely on hazy human memories, instead of turning to Occam's, whose Razor is razor-sharp in almost all aspects of this murder case. (The constant obfuscation exhibited by CTers notwithstanding, of course.)
Conspiracy-hungry individuals love to complicate things, even when complicating things isn't necessary (or reasonable) in order to figure out what probably happened in a given situation. LNers, though, enjoy Occam's [aka Ockham's] company."
-- David Von Pein; December 4, 2007
There's No Room For Occam In A Conspiracist's World
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"There is only pretend evidence of conspiracy. Any real conspiracy would have to involve someone conspiring with the person who shot and killed Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald. Wake me when you can find real evidence of someone in cahoots with him."
-- Bud; February 19, 2012
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"There's another very good reason to know beyond all reasonable doubt that Lee Oswald was telling a whopper of a lie when he told Buell Wesley Frazier that he wanted to go to Irving on Thursday [11/21/63] in order to retrieve some "curtain rods".
That reason is --- Because Lee Oswald (via Marina's testimony) was very hopeful that he could convince Marina to move back to Dallas with him the very next day (November 22).
Therefore, it's fairly obvious that LHO had no intention whatsoever of remaining at his Beckley Avenue roominghouse very much longer at all. Therefore, he would certainly not be wanting (or needing) any curtain rods for a room that HE KNEW HE WOULD PROBABLY VERY SOON BE VACATING."
-- David Von Pein; April 28, 2008
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"I'm comfortable that all of the major investigations got this right. I can add nothing to what the FBI and Warren Commission, DPD, etc. did to reach a conclusion of Oswald's guilt. A simple reading of the Warren Commission Report is enough to figure out who killed JFK. It isn't perfect, but it's pretty darn good. ....
The physical evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of Oswald as the shooter that day. One needs to invent alternative scenarios, and claim all of the evidence is planted, forged, altered, destroyed, covered-up, and so on, to exonerate Oswald. ....
David Von Pein just schooled you [a conspiracy theorist] on JFK's back wound by linking to some HSCA evidence. Did it change your mind? I doubt it. Why? It doesn't fit in with your preconceived notion of what happened. ....
Bottom line? A man in a building shot a man (men) in a car."
-- Chuck Schuyler; January 16, 2008
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"I'm wondering why so many people who have adhered themselves permanently to the silly notion of a "JFK Conspiracy" think that their opinions (seemingly based on nothing but the direction of the wind, or a "motive" they think such-and-such a person might have had, or a hunk of pure speculation) are worthy of NOT being ridiculed? That's always had me scratching me head."
-- David Von Pein; September 14, 2007
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"Vincent Bugliosi did lots of "Ruby homework" too. To believe that Vince worked for 20+ years on his massive JFK book ["Reclaiming History"] WITHOUT having studied (in depth) one of the KEY figures in the November 22nd saga (i.e., Mr. Ruby) is just....mind-bogglingly silly. ....
Vince discovered that Ruby was about the last goof in Dallas that the "mob" would entrust with such an important "hit" as the Oswald "hit" that so many CTers think was pulled off by the mafia.
For one thing, Ruby was getting up early every morning for weeks shortly prior to the assassination and going to local Dallas department stores in order to try and sell his "Twistboard" exerciser gadget to local merchants.
Do Mob hit men usually have to supplement their salaries in such an odd fashion? Or do conspiracy theorists think that that was merely a clever "cover" being used by Ruby so that nobody would catch on to the massive "plot" that brewed all around him in late 1963?
Maybe it was similar to the "I'll Take My Dog Downtown To A Killing And Leave The Pooch In The Car While I Go In The Basement And Shoot The Patsy" type of ruse, huh?
Try reading Chapter 22 ("Ruby And The Mob") of Bugliosi's JFK book. It's one of the best chapters in the massive tome. .... It's a fabulous (and thorough) account of Jack Ruby's life."
-- David Von Pein; November 19, 2007
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"At that angle, no matter WHERE [the bullet] came from [that hit Governor Connally], it HAD TO PASS
THROUGH THE PRESIDENT'S BODY FIRST!"
-- Albert E. Jenner, Jr. (Assistant Counsel, Warren Commission); February 11, 1967
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"The late New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison was of the loony opinion that at least four gunmen were hiding in Dealey Plaza, probably a total of five, when we include the one guy whom Jimbo thinks (thought) was in the sewer.
And, of course, Garrison also admitted in numerous public appearances that Oswald was being "sheep-dipped" and being set up as the lone patsy well in advance of 11/22/63.
Imagine that uphill battle -- FIVE gunmen firing five separate rifles at JFK (and NONE of them firing Oswald's C2766 Mannlicher-Carcano, btw; that's another thing Garrison says in his public appearances) within the underlying framework of a "LET'S FRAME LEE HARVEY OSWALD AS THE LONE PATSY" plot.
It doesn't get too much funnier (or more ridiculous) than that. But, at least filmmaker Oliver Stone bought the whole Garrison package, which enabled millions more to also leave their common sense in the lobby of the movie theater prior to going in to see Mr. Stone's "JFK"."
-- David Von Pein; January 22, 2008
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"After 30 years of thousands of people looking at the evidence and talking to witnesses, we still don't have an iota of credible evidence to show us, in fact, there was a conspiracy to kill Jack Kennedy. .... As we approach the 30th anniversary of his death, the man responsible for it was one man, alone: Lee Harvey Oswald."
-- Gerald Posner; 1993
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"As an attorney, it [the murder of Dallas Police Officer J.D. Tippit] is one of the most open-and-shut cases I've ever seen. .... Thirteen eyewitnesses see Oswald either do the shooting or escaping from the scene. ....
He [Oswald], in fact, DID kill J.D. Tippit. He, in fact, DID shoot at General Walker. And he WAS the only person in Dallas, [on] November 22nd, 1963, on the 6th floor, in the southeast corner of the Texas School Book Depository -- not only with the motive to kill Jack Kennedy...but with the capability of doing it...with his OWN rifle which was found up there."
-- Gerald Posner; 1993
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"Per the disjointed theories they espouse, [many] conspiracy theorists have no choice but to believe on faith that an incredible "like-mindedness" existed between the "plotters" who were running around setting the trap for Oswald many days, weeks, and months before 11/22/63....and the police, Warren Commission, etc.
Yes, coincidences can, and do, occur in life. But isn't the following coincidence a little bit too spectacular and improbable even for most CTers? ---
The police (et al) wanted to frame the same INNOCENT man after the assassination that a different group of henchmen/plotters were trying to frame many days/weeks/months BEFORE the assassination. ....
It's especially idiotic to think that the Dallas Police Department would have had the SLIGHTEST desire to frame Oswald for the slaying of a fellow police officer (which, laughably, is a frame-up theory that is accepted as a fact by many conspiracy kooks)."
-- David Von Pein; January 17, 2008
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"It is remarkable that conspiracy theorists can believe that groups like the CIA, military-industrial complex, and FBI would murder the president, but cannot accept the likelihood, even the possibility, that a nut like Oswald would flip out and commit the act, despite the fact that there is a ton of evidence showing that Oswald killed Kennedy, and not an ounce showing that any of these groups had anything to do with the assassination.
It is further remarkable that these conspiracy theorists aren't troubled in the least by their inability to present any evidence that Oswald was set up and framed. For them, the mere belief or speculation that he was is a more-than-adequate substitute for evidence."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Pages 951-952 of "Reclaiming History"
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"W.W. Norton, the publisher, very distinguished publishing house...I was very honored when I was told that the 'old-timers' at W.W. Norton were saying that they were more proud of "Reclaiming History" than any other book that they had published in the history of that publishing house."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; November 4, 2007
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"If the so-called great Soviet conspiracy has to rest for its help upon such inadequate people as Lee Oswald, there is no hope of their achieving their aims. ....
I simply cannot believe that the FBI would find it necessary to employ such a shaky and inadequate person."
-- Ruth Paine; March 1964 (Warren Commission Testimony) [3 WC 108]
Lots More Ruth Paine Testimony
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"While her husband Lee went to sleep in Irving, Marina gave birth to Audrey Marina Rachel Oswald at 10:41 PM, Sunday night, October 20, 1963.
Rachel's place of birth was, ironically, Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas -- the same hospital where President John F. Kennedy would die 33 days later after having been shot in the back of the head by Rachel's father."
-- David Von Pein; April 2008
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"The "Anybody But Oswald" crowd should try to wake up out of their 45-year slumber and realize just how much covert maneuvering of the evidence and massive after-the-fact covering up and "keeping quiet" would have really been required from so many people in order to make the "Blame It All On The Patsy" plot a reality. Merely PRETENDING that Oswald was an innocent patsy is a far cry from making him one."
-- David Von Pein; April 10, 2008
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"There is no exculpatory evidence that outweighs the accumulated proof against him [Lee Harvey Oswald]."
-- Mark Fuhrman; Page 89 of "A Simple Act Of Murder"
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"How in the wide, wide world of Covert Patsy Plots did the conspirators talk their INNOCENT PATSY named Lee Harvey Oswald (who killed nobody, per many conspiracy theorists around the globe) into ACTING LIKE A GUILTY KILLER immediately after somebody ELSE shot John Kennedy AND J.D. Tippit on November 22, 1963?!"
-- David Von Pein; April 10, 2008
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"Conspiracy theorist Walt Brown [said that] Oswald's Mannlicher-Carcano was a "piece of junk" that "certainly lacked accuracy."
Even if Oswald's Carcano was the worst piece of junk in the world, this is an irrelevant argument since...firearms experts for the Warren Commission (FBI) and HSCA proved that it was, in fact, the weapon that fired three bullets in Dealey Plaza, two of which struck the president.
But in point of fact, the Carcano was not a piece of junk that lacked accuracy. Ronald Simmons, the chief of the Infantry Weapons Evaluation Branch of the Department of the Army, had his people test-fire Oswald's Carcano rifle...forty-seven times, and testified the rifle was "quite accurate"--in fact, just as accurate as the American military rifle being used at the time, the M-14.
Indeed, the exact type of rifle Oswald used to kill Kennedy was still being used at the time [in 1964] by the Italian NATO rifle team in competition."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 493 of "Reclaiming History"
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"Conspiracy theorists should wake up and face the obvious fact that Lee Harvey Oswald took his rifle out of Ruth Paine's garage, wrapped it up in a handmade brown paper bag, and took it into his workplace at the Book Depository on the morning of November 22nd, 1963.
The amount of CUMULATIVE evidence (both of the circumstantial and physical varieties) that indicates the fact that Oswald did take his rifle to work on November 22 is impossible for anyone to sidestep, skew, or overcome (although, as we all know, rabid conspiracy theorists WILL continue to ignore and/or mangle this cumulative evidence until the proverbial cows come home---or until the Devil's residence turns to ice)."
-- David Von Pein; April 16, 2008
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"The bullet [that exited JFK's throat] would have had to have been substantially deflected by passing through the President in order to miss the Governor. It seems almost inevitable that the Governor would be hit with the alignments that we have found."
-- Thomas Canning; HSCA Testimony; September 12, 1978
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"J. Edgar Hoover would not only NOT have wanted to pin the whole blame for the assassination on this guy named Lee Harvey Oswald (if Hoover had really believed Oswald was innocent)....but Hoover, instead, would have no doubt been desperately trying to CLEAR Oswald of any suspicion in Kennedy's murder, due to the fact that J. Edgar's own Bureau would, if Oswald were to be proven guilty, be frowned upon for all time for not keeping a more watchful eye on this bird named Lee Harvey on the day the President was killed.
In short, the theory that has J. Edgar Hoover and his FBI boys attempting to help frame an innocent Lee Harvey Oswald following President John F. Kennedy's murder is a theory that can best be described in one single word --- Ridiculous."
-- David Von Pein; April 27, 2008
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"It took a while, [but] the kooks have finally realized that Bugliosi's book has won the day. They just can't write a book using the known information and weave it into a coherant [sic] package. RH ["Reclaiming History"] commands the field, and will sit on bookshelves in libraries for decades, available for those folks interested in discovering the only real way this event could have occurred, and exposing all the conspiracy mongers as charlatans and frauds."
-- Bud; March 14, 2008
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""The Great Zapruder Film Hoax" -- TWENTY DOLLARS.
"Reclaiming History" -- THIRTY-TWO DOLLARS.
Watching a Kennedy conspiracy theorist fumble the ball time after time -- PRICELESS."
-- David Von Pein; May 5, 2007
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"While I went on broadcasting, a skinny young loner named Lee Oswald was killing John F. Kennedy barely more than a thousand yards away. I couldn't hear the three shots that echoed through Dealey Plaza."
-- Bob Huffaker; Page 5 of "When The News Went Live: Dallas 1963" (2004)
Book Review -- "When The News Went Live"
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"Lee Harvey Oswald told the police after he was arrested that he had encountered a "Secret Service man" outside the Book Depository just after the President was shot.
But, of course, we know that LHO didn't encounter any such "Secret Service man" at all -- he actually encountered either Pierce Allman of WFAA or Robert MacNeil of NBC (probably Allman).
Each man was wearing a press badge and a suit and tie, which made Oswald think (incorrectly) that the man he saw and directed to a telephone was a "Secret Service" agent.
Main point being: the very same type of confusion regarding the so-called "Secret Service agents on the Knoll" could have occurred with respect to other eyewitnesses just after the assassination too.
People thought (incorrectly) that they were seeing Secret Service agents when, in fact, we know they weren't. In the wild, frenzied confusion following the unexpected shooting of the President, such innocent mistakes and misidentifications are likely to occur.
We need to look no further than the real killer himself (Lee Harvey Oswald) for verification of what I just said above being true when it comes to people innocently mistaking other people for "Secret Service agents" immediately after the assassination of President Kennedy."
-- David Von Pein; May 23, 2008
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"The fact that Kennedy was a powerful public figure was very relevant to Oswald's motivation for killing him. On the other hand, murders of powerful public figures in America by the groups fancied by conspiracy theorists--the CIA, mob, FBI, and military-industrial complex--are absolutely unheard of. Show me a precedent."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 950 of "Reclaiming History"
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"Any reasonable person can obviously see how utterly impossible it is to "connect" all of these unconnected threads of SHEER HAPPENSTANCE regarding [Ruth] Paine, [Roy] Truly, [Wesley] Frazier, and [Linnie Mae] Randle in order to weave the magical type of "Oswald Was Planted In The TSBD" plot that conspiracy-loving kooks imagine took place.
But just because nobody has yet been able to come close to weaving that magic carpet of conspiracy involving all of those innocent people (like Frazier, Paine, and Truly), it won't stop conspiracy theorists from pretending that a massive pre-assassination "plot" involving those very people really did occur in 1963."
-- David Von Pein; July 1, 2008
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"The head exit wound was not in the parietal-occipital area, as the Parkland doctors said. They were wrong. Since the thick growth of hair on Kennedy's head hadn't been shaved at Parkland, there's no way for the doctors to have seen the margins of the wound in the skin of the scalp.
All they saw was blood and brain tissue adhering to the hair. And that may have been mostly in the occipital area because he was lying on his back and gravity would push his hair, blood, and brain tissue backward, so many of them probably assumed the exit wound was in the back of the head.
But clearly, from the autopsy X-rays and photographs and the observations of the autopsy surgeons, the exit wound and defect was not in the occipital area.
There was no defect or wound to the rear of Kennedy's head other than the entrance wound in the upper right part of the head."
-- Dr. Michael Baden; As told to author Vincent Bugliosi via telephone
conversation of January 8, 2000; Pages 407-408 of "Reclaiming History"
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"The wound on Governor John Connally's back was almost certainly caused by a bullet that HIT SOMETHING ELSE BEFORE IT STRUCK THE GOVERNOR OF TEXAS (per almost all of the expert witnesses who testified about this particular matter).
And the ONLY object that that "something else" could have possibly been was the body of President John F. Kennedy."
-- David Von Pein; August 25, 2008
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"Despite the constant nit-picking and evidence-mangling of conspiracists for the last 45 years, there is, indeed, a very satisfactory (and correct) "solution" affixed to the events of November 1963 -- i.e.: Lee Harvey Oswald, by himself, took his gun to work on November 22, 1963, and killed President Kennedy.
And no amount of Bugliosi-bashing and anti-Warren Commission critiques will ever change the irrevocable FACT that nobody, in more than 45 years, has been able to produce one single piece of physical evidence that would undermine and/or prove wrong the last paragraph I wrote above."
-- David Von Pein; July 23, 2009
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"[Jim] Marrs never met a conspiracy theory he didn't like. He's a silly person, and he has no credibility whatsoever."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; June 7, 2007
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"The physical evidence surrounding President Kennedy's assassination positively supports just one single gunman by the name of Lee Harvey Oswald. And this physical evidence (plus a boatload of circumstantial evidence as well) is just too overpowering in size and scope to merely be arbitrarily tossed into the trash can (as many conspiracy theorists seem to want to do).
And the act of casting doubt upon the validity of ALL of the "Oswald Is Guilty" evidence, sans proof of a large amount of foul play, is merely the cowardly act of hardened conspiracy buffs who simply cannot face the raw fact that the totality of evidence in the JFK murder case hangs Mr. Oswald as surely as the Pope is Catholic."
-- David Von Pein; February 2006
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"Conspiracy theorists have long struggled with reconciling their view of history with the truth. That, however, hasn’t deterred them from making false, baseless allegations in the hopes of perpetuating the myth of conspiracy and cover-up in the JFK assassination.
In the early days, it was done through books, magazine articles, and newsletters. Today, conspiracy buffs have the global reach of the Internet at their disposal. But no matter how the lies are broadcast, the song remains the same."
-- Dale K. Myers; May 26, 2009
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"The things a JFK conspiracy theorist believes couldn't possibly matter less in the long run. Lee Harvey Oswald will be forever identified (and rightly so) as President Kennedy's lone assassin by reasonable men and women everywhere."
-- David Von Pein; June 1, 2015
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"In the final analysis, our most
basic common link is that we
all inhabit this small planet.
We all breathe the same air.
We all cherish our children's future.
And we are all mortal."
-- President John F. Kennedy; June 10, 1963
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