Thing is there are a lot of bizarre tales around every event. You going to the store can be seen as a grand conspiracy by an outside agency if anyone had the desire to paint it that way. JFK was assassinated by a lone kook with a bolt action rifle.
Headed to church right now but I’ll try to tackle the rest later and provide references. RE: rifle everything concerning the acquisition of the gun is screwed up. Both guns actually iirc. With the rifle, the money order wasnt wired but was processed in Chicago the same day it was mailed out. The receipt of the money order that was mailed out show no stamps or markings that it was ever processed. The Carcano that was ordered wasn’t the one that Oswald recieved AND would have been illegal to deliver to the PO Box of Oswald when he used his alias of A. Hidell for the money order. I’ll get into the others and pistol acquisition later.
May I ask how so? Occums Razor is a useful and powerful logical tool, and I believe this is a usage of that tool. If I give you a big enough dataset, you can find all kinds of weird patterns that are non-causal, but look like they are. Far easier to believe a lone gunman shot a guy than some vast conspiracy involving governney agencies, the mob, the Cubans, and space aliens. As a PBS science channel that I watch says "It's never aliens, until it's aliens."
Because there is zero motivation for a powerful agency to conspire to send me to Kroger. A world changing event like the most powerful man on the planet being murdered is a tad different. You asked how it was even possible for people to believe in a conspiracy. Motivation would be there. Weird circumstances are there. I’d ask you why you find it so hard to even entertain the possibility?
Always been interested in the JFK assassination... Most people my age will know if mostly from the JFK movie and will have a whole bunch of different conspiracies jammed in their head from that one. It's interesting that this is being discussed as I was pointed to the following article a few days ago... I had never seen this analysis or testimony before... It's a long read.. https://richardcharnin.wordpress.co...on-the-1st-floor-minutes-before-the-shooting/
If it was 1973, I think it would be valid to possibly believe it. But it has been 55 years, and nearly everything about the JFK assassination has been vetted and pretty much proven as best as possible to be Oswald, Oswald alone, and that is that.
There are still strange circumstances that have never been fully explained. It doesn’t prove anything happened, but it could reasonably stir suspicion.
Exactly as a shot from the rear would produce. Ask any hunter / shootist about the difference in the explosive force of a shot as it appears at the entrance vs the exit wound.
The first necessary ingredient in any conspiracy theory is a desire for said conspiracy to exist, however small, subconscious and well-intended as it may be. For the most part, people cannot place JFK / the sitting POTUS on one side of the scale, and Oswald on the other and see how they balance - so they seek to put their thumb on Oswald’s side so as to add weight. The more weight they feel he needs, the grander, more elaborate and more insidious the conspiracy needs to be. And as an utterly sincere question - not playing gotcha - what are these “weird circumstances” which you believe exist. Maybe they won’t seem so odd, with more info and careful scrutiny. Or, maybe they will remain to be, and deserve to be considered. I find it impossible to believe in the conspiracy for two simple reasons - arrived at after decades of study (I was once an ardent conspiracy theorist), and reading / researching everything I can get my hands on - of all known and credibly provable evidence: 1. Everything singularly points to Oswald acting alone, and 2. The utter absence of even a scintilla of credible evidence to support any notion of a conspiracy. Is it possible that a conspiracy exists? Yes. Would I be willing to consider any fact, evidence or new discovery? Yes, and happily. Do I now believe that such exists? No. In fact, the much maligned Warren Report - and which is by no means inerrant - has only grown stronger over time, and with the distance of historical perspective and the advance of sciences.
The two major attempts to investigate the Assassination were thwarted in various ways. The first one was Garrison’s investigation of Clay Shaw being infiltrated by Richard Billings and Bernardo De Torres. Billings destroyed evidence and materials while de Torres sent them on wild goose chases and got rid of witnesses. The second attempt at investigating was the House Select Committee on Assassinations in ‘79. It was headed up by Richard Sprague and Robert Tannenbaum. Both resigned once the CIA refused to cooperate which put the incompetent Robert Blakey in charge who immediately began using George Joannides as his liaison to the CIA. Unbeknownst to Blakey, Joannides was a retired CIA director of propaganda that prevented any real glimpse into the CIA’s possible role with the assassination. More on Joannides here https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...nt-drags-final-files-await-release/435989002/
I look forward to it, as I’ve said, I enjoy and could talk about it all day, every day. I’ll offer these facts, on Oswald’s ordering the rifle, taken from a site which summarizes the relevant facts far better than I can type, and will link to it, below. Start here: A brief summary is this: 1. Oswald’s handwriting is all over the money order for the rifle. Dozens of handwriting analysis have been done, and he has been the singular match, and to the exclusion of any others. 2. Both that money order and the order form from Klein’s magazine ad were received by Klein’s, stamped and processed for order fulfillment and deposited into their bank. Is it possible that the USPS delivered a letter that didn’t have a stamp on it? Of course. I’d say this is happens hundreds of times a day, even now. But you know that Oswald had that magazine. You know that it’s his own handwriting in completing it and the envelope he mailed it in. And you know that Klein’s received both the order form and money order. There are even audited bank records which can trace that specific money order all the way through First National Bank of Chicago and into Klein’s account. 3. Saying, “Oswald didn’t get the gun he ordered” is a little disingenuous, at best. Using an ad in the February 1963 issue of American Rifleman magazine, Oswald ordered a 36” rifle. Due to the popularity of the ad which Klein’s was running, they ran out of that model gun in the 36” size, and began fulfilling received orders with the same type of gun, but which measured 40” size, instead. Every record at Klein’s supports that this was common practice, both before Oswald’s order was received / fulfilled and afterwards. 4. The Klein’s records on the order fulfillment of that rifle - and which the FBI retrieved on tbt day of the assassination - show the exact same serial number for the rifle they shipped to Oswald, and which was the same on the weapon which Marina (Oswald’s wife) said he held when she took the now famous picture of him in the backyard, and which was later found hidden behind some boxes that made a sniper’s nest on sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository immediately following JFK’s assassination and the same which had one set of finger and palm prints on them - OSWALD’S. We can talk about this, or anything, whenever you (or anyone else) wishes - I really, really enjoy it. EDIT - Sorry, forgot to provide the promised link: http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2014/12/oswald-ordered-rifle.html?m=1
I find Bugliosi’s comment from his masterwork on JFK’s assassination, “Reclaiming History” to be helpful in discussions such as these:
The two weird things I remember off the top of my head were the strange behavior from the secret service guys the day of and the changing of the motorcade route. It’s been a long time since I really looked at it or cares, though. I was more responding to the idea that the explanation I have accepted is the only possible way cuz Occam.
Jim Garrison was a lying, manipulative, untrustworthy, narcissistic self-aggrandizer who always threatened the border of psychosis. Both he and his ludicrous claims have been thoroughly, fully and fatally debunked dozens and dozens of times over. Oliver Stone may be worse and less reliable than Garrison. I just read an article a few weeks ago where a film festival rejected his submitted documentary, calling him wholly untrustworthy, and I think they cited or spoke to his film “JFK” as support for their decision. I can’t recall the exact details, but I do recall laughing about it for several seconds. It’s understandable that you’re calling the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) work into question - but not because their acoustic science hasn’t been thoroughly debunked and shown to be so egregiously errant as to be impossible, which it certainly has been - but because they have provided conspiracy theorists with their best and biggest bone in reaching the erroneous conclusion that it was “likely” that a conspiracy existed, although they had neither evidence of it, nor could refute the Warren Commission Report.
