Online trolls who try to discredit my election fraud analysis say that I am a JFK Conspiracy nut. I must be doing something right. For those who are interested, this is a quick JFK conspiracy course.
It takes just ONE of the following to prove that the Warren Commission was a Hoax and Oswald was framed….
One witness killed to prevent him or her from talking.
One witness killed to keep others from talking.
One bullet more than the three the WC claimed were fired.
One brain of JFK to be missing.
One eyewitness who definitely heard shots from the Grassy Knoll.
One eyewitness who definitely saw a shooter at the Grassy Knoll.
One person to order that Dallas police stand-down.
One person with fake Secret Service credentials at the Grassy Knoll.
One journalist to lie about JFK’s head movement.
One government agency to withhold evidence from investigators.
One person with the power to control the investigation.
One photo of Oswald in front of the TSBD at 12:30 to be tampered with.
One Zapruder frame to be switched or deleted to hide the limo full stop.
One conspirator on his death bed (EH Hunt) to claim Johnson was responsible for the “Big Event”.
One Parkland doctor describing entrance wounds in the neck and 5.5 inches below the collar in the back.
One of 44 Parkland and autopsy witnesses describing a massive exit wound in the back of the skull.
One fingerprint of LBJ hit man Mac Wallace on the TSBD 6th fl.
One cop (Roger Craig) to identify a 7.65 Mauser on the 6th fl.
One cop (Baker) seeing Oswald on the 2nd floor with a coke just 90 seconds after the shots were fired.
One Oswald note to the Dallas FBI (Hosty) destroyed because it may have revealed a plot to kill JFK.
One set of Dr. Humes original autopsy notes description of JFK’s wounds.
One autopsy photo tampered with to hide JFK’s exit wound.
One meeting on Nov. 21 in Dallas attended by Hoover, Johnson, Hunt, Murchison, Nixon, etc.
One photo of Poppy Bush standing in front of the TSBD.
One photo of Gen. Landsdale walking near the three tramps.
One witness (Carolyn Arnold) claiming Oswald was on the first floor of the TSBD at 12:25pm.
One WC member (Ford) to admit he raised the location of JFK’s back wound 5.5 inches.
One HSCA chairman (Sprague) fired for wanting to subpoena the CIA.
One HSCA chairman (Blakey) to admit a CIA cover up years later.
One WC lawyer (Specter) forced to create the physically impossible Single Bullet Theory.
One paraffin test to show that Oswald did not fire a rifle on Nov. 22.
One mob-connected friend (Ruby) of the Dallas police to silence Oswald.
One Dallas police chief (Fritz) to fail to record Oswald’s interrogation.
One Sheriff (Craig) to hear that Tippit was shot at 1:06pm on the radio.
One tampered photo of Oswald’s face superimposed on another body.
One Johnson mistress to claim LBJ said JFK would be taken care of.
One retired Police chief to say: “We don’t have any proof that Oswald fired the rifle, and never did. Nobody’s yet been able to put him in that building with a gun in his hand”.
One eyewitness (Sylvia Odio) to testify that she and her sister identified Oswald as one of three men who came to her Dallas home on Sept. 25 .
One JFK limo with a bullet entry hole in the windshield.
One Oswald girl friend (Judyth Baker) hired by leading cancer expert Dr. Alton Ochsner to document working with Oswald (“Me and Lee”) and David Ferrie (“David Ferrie”) in New Orleans on a secret project to kill Castro.
The cover of Reclaiming Science: The JFK Conspiracy shows a graph displaying probabilities of unnatural witness deaths assuming 1500, 2000 and 2500 witnesses over a range of 0 to 50 unnatural deaths. Of the 122 suspicious deaths in the JFK Calc spreadsheet,78 were ruled unnatural (34 homicides, 24 accidents, 16 suicides, 4 unknown).
The x-coordinate of the peak in each curve is the EXPECTED number of unnatural deaths given the number of JFK-related witnesses.
The graph illustrates the power of SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS to display how a target variable (the probability) changes as input variables change in value. In the JFK Calc spreadsheet, the calculation is given by the Poisson function.
THE PROBABILITY CALCULATION
Given:
N= 1500 = JFK-related witnesses (the universe)
n= 78 officially ruled unnatural deaths
T= 15 years (1964-78)
R= 0.000822 = average national unnatural mortality rate (unweighted)
We need to calculate E, the expected number of unnatural deaths: E= N*R*T = 18.5 = 1500 * 0.000822 * 15
Now we can calculate P, the probability of 78 unnatural deaths: P= POISSON(78, 18.5, false) = 4.15 E-25 (1 in 1 TRILLION TRILLION)
UNNATURAL DEATHS The graph shows the probability of
30 unnatural deaths; 1500 witnesses: 0.0034 (1 in 300)
40 unnatural deaths; 2000 witnesses: 0.0011 (1 in 1000)
50 unnatural deaths; 2500 witnesses: 0.0003 (1 in 3000)
The probability of 78 unnatural deaths for
1500 witnesses: 4.15 E-25 (base case: 1 in a trillion trillion)
2000 witnesses: 5.00 E-18 (1 in a 200,000 trillion)
2500 witnesses: 3.92 E-13 (1 in 2 trillion)
Note: The JFK-weighted unnatural rate is 0.000247 (weighted by official cause of death). Using this rate, the probabilities of the unnatural deaths are much lower than the above unweighted probabilities of 1 in trillions. So why bother?
HOMICIDES
In 1964-78, there were at least 34 officially ruled JFK-related homicides. A statistical estimation of the expected cause of death indicates that approximately 50 officially ruled accidents, suicides, heart attacks and sudden cancers were likely homicides (at least 80 homicides among the 122 suspicious deaths).
Given the average 0.000084 homicide rate for 1964-78, the probability of
34 homicides; 1500 witnesses: 1.4 E-30 (1 in a million trillion trillion)
50 homicides; 2000 witnesses: 3.7 E-46 (1 in a billion trillion trillion trillion)
80 homicides; 3000 witnesses: 6.7 E-75 (1/trillion^6)
80 homicides; 1500 witnesses: 3.7 E-98 (1/trillion^8)
Triple the average homicide rate to 0.000252.
The probability of
34 homicides; 1500 witnesses: 5.4 E-16 (1 in 2,000 trillion)
50 homicides; 2000 witnesses: 1.7 E-24 (1 in a trillion trillion)
80 homicides; 3000 witnesses: 5.0 E-40 (1 in a trillion trillion trillion)
80 homicides; 1500 witnesses: 1.3 E-61 (1/trillion^5)
JFK Calc: Sensitivity Analysis Tables
SIMKIN JFK INDEX
Of the 656 JFK-related individuals, 70 died suspiciously
(44 were ruled unnatural, including 22 homicides).
The probability of…
44 Unnatural deaths: 5.50E-19 (1 in one million trillion)
22 Homicides: 5.89E-24 (1 in 100 billion trillion)
JFK Calc: Simkin JFK Index
WARREN COMMISSION
552 testified, 31 suspicious deaths, 16 ruled unnatural. Unnatural deaths; probability
16; 1.89E-09 (1 in 500 million)
18; 8.81E-11 (1 in 10 billion)
21; 1.43E-13 (1 in 7 trillion) Homicides; probability
4; 4.92E-03 (1 in 200)
10; 3.77E-11 (1 in 30 billion)
17; 3.11E-18 (1 in 300,000 trillion)
JFK Calc: Called to Testify
DEALEY PLAZA
20 Suspicious deaths: 13 unnatural, 14 testified at Warren Commission
Witnesses; Probability of Unnatural Death
300; 3.60E-10 (1 in 2.7 billion)
400; 1.06E-08 (1 in 90 million)
500; 1.36E-07 (1 in 7 million)
600; 1.02E-06 (1 in 1 million)
JFK Calc: Dealey Plaza
HSCA – 1977
Suspicious deaths of 7 FBI officials called to testify in a 6 month period in 1977.
Official cause of death: 5 heart attacks, 2 accidents
Called ; Probability
8 ; 8.72E-18 (1 in 100,000 trillion)
20 ; 5.22E-15 (1 in 200 trillion)
50 ; 3.07E-12 (1 in 300 billion)
100 ; 3.68E-10 (1 in 1 billion)
LONDON SUNDAY TIMES ACTUARY
Calculated a 1 in 100,000 trillion probability of 18 material witness deaths (13 unnatural) in the three years following the assassination (actually over 40).
Weighted average unnatural mortality rate: 0.000209
Witnesses; probability of at least 13 unnatural deaths
454; 9.83 E-18 (1 in 100,000 trillion)
600; 3.36 E-16 (1 in 3,000 trillion)
800; 1.25 E-14 (1 in 80 trillion)
1000; 2.00 E-13 (1 in 5 trillion)
1200; 1.89 E-12 (1 in 500 billion)
1500; 2.85 E-11 (1 in 35 billion)
2000; 8.76 E-10 (1 in 1 billion)
5000; 1.99 E-05 (1 in 50,000)
10000; 7.07 E-03 (1 in 140)
8. The HSCA ignored 100 Convenient Suspicious and Unnatural Deaths. The HSCA statistician testified that the witness universe was “unknowable”. But we KNOW that there were 552 Warren Commission witnesses. We can ESTIMATE the number of witnesses called to testify at the Garrison/Shaw trial, the Church Senate Intelligence hearings and HSCA. https://richardcharnin.wordpress.com/2013/12/31/jfk-witnesses-a-closer-look-at-the-hsca-list-of-21-deaths/
9. Simkin JFK Index: Includes 656 JFK-related important figures, witnesses and possible conspirators. Seventy died suspiciously. Forty-four deaths were ruled unnatural, including 22 homicides. http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKindex.htm
15. Roger Craig (Dallas sheriff): The Warren Commission ignored his testimony that he saw Oswald get into a Rambler at 12:45. Captain Will Fritz lied when he testified that Craig was not in his office when Oswald confirmed that the Rambler was owned by Ruth Paine. The WC contrived the fiction that Oswald left the TSBD three minutes after the assassination and got in a bus and cab. http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/WTKaP.html
18. Carolyn Arnold: A TSBD employee, was never interviewed by the Warren Commission. She stated in an FBI interview that she saw Oswald on the first floor of the TSBD at 12:25, five minutes before the assassination. http://22november1963.org.uk/carolyn-arnold-witness-oswald
19. Mary Moorman’s “Badgeman” Polaroid photo
Polaroid photos were harder to forge and alter than other films because of their instantaneous development. The Moorman photo serves as a Rosetta Stone which has allowed researchers to determine whether the Zapruder, Nix and Muchmore films depict altered frames. The photo contradicts the Zapruder Film and shows it has been altered. The field of view shows her to be in one place while the Zapruder film has her in another place several feet away.https://jfkplayersandwitnesses.wordpress.com/2013/08/05/the-mary-moorman-photo/
Favorite Books
Evidence
Inside the ARRB
Crossfire
Hit List
They Killed our President
Survivors Guilt
Who’s Who in JFK Assassination
Reclaiming Science: The JFK Conspiracy
Classics
Rush to Judgment
Forgive My Grief
On the Trail of the Assassins
JFK and the Unspeakable
The Last Investigation
Accessories After the Fact
Best Evidence
Last Word
Cover-up
History
JFK: The CIA, Vietnam and the Plot to Assassinate JFK
The Man Who Killed JFK
LBJ: The Mastermind
David Ferrie
Dr. Mary’s Monkey
Me and Lee
Mary’s Mosaic
Echo from Dealey Plaza
Oswald and the CIA
Reclaiming Parkland
The Men on the 6th floor
Into the Nightmare
Girl on the Stairs
Nightmare in Dallas
Having just started reading Richard Charnin’s new book, Reclaiming Science: The JFK Conspiracy, I can say I am already delighted on seeing the depth of the analyses to come, and the focus on science, making the book a nice complement to Prof. James Fetzer’s Assassination Science. Because science is what we need here to counter the flood of disinformation that first arrived with the Warren Commission Report – not to mention the efforts of all its apologists to defend it.
“Reclaiming Science” is an apt title because it entails reclaiming the content that has hitherto been obfuscated and distorted under the specious science (or what I call pseudo-science) of the Warren Report as well as the apologists like Gerald Posner (‘Case Closed’) and Vince Bugliosi (‘Reclaiming History’) who have sought to reinforce that pseudo-science. I showed much of that in my FAQ (Part 5) addressing the bullets and wounds back in November of last year, e.g.
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A major section of the Skeptics Society pamphlet I referenced yesterday is headed ‘Top 10 Ways to Test Conspiracy Theories’ – which like the dime store psychology content (on p.4), ends up as just useless The authors could as well ask readers to use tea leaves.
4) The conspiracy involves large numbers of people who would all need to keep quiet about their secrets.
Dispensed easily, along the lines of dispensing (3). Again, who is to say what constitutes “large numbers of people” ? If 75 was enough to make Iran –Contra work to the extent it did was that too much? Hardly! Was 94-95 too much to make the Kennedy assassination work – as it has for over 50 years now – thanks to the many useful idiots in the media and beyond who make up rationalizations to try to explain it away?
As for keeping secrets, killing witnesses is an excellent way to achieve that end which is why Richard Charnin’s book (analyzing JFK witness deaths) and website material is so important to disabuse those who opt to don the pseudo-skeptic robe. In other words, learn before bloviating about what limits you believe attend to the claim!
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I asked Stahl if he would comment on a post I had written in response to a blog post by quantum physicist Scott Aaronson. He posted the following four articles:
“How do we know that our own rational rejections of conspiracy theories are not themselves infected with beliefs so strong that they are, in effect, conspiracy theories too?” – Matt Ridley in ‘Maybe We’re All Conspiracy Theorists’, The Wall Street Journal, Sept. 10-11, 2011
Scott Aaronson seems to believe that because he’s a quantum physicist that he’s also knowledgeable enough to make intelligent comments – in his blog – on the JFK assassination. He isn’t. He comes across as yet another overconfident, under-informed proxy “expert” (using his quantum physics bona fides) but who probably couldn’t tell Oswald’s OS-351- 164 file from his 201- 289 248 CI/SIG file or his 74-500 file. All as reported in the Appendices of Military Science professor John Newman’s book, ‘Oswald and the CIA’ – from freedom of information act documents.
But this is the typical BS that serious assassination researchers have to put up with – because these semi-educated (on the assassination) critics only serve to clutter the blogosphere with yet more disinformation and ignorance when some of us are attempting to educate our countrymen as to what really went down – based on actual documents released on the basis of the JFK Records Act – not half-assed speculations or conjectures.
I now examine Scott Aaronson’s “20 Reasons” to assert Lee Oswald was the lone gunman in the JFK assassination, based on what he calls “general principles” but which I call out as slacker principles: do as little as possible- avoid any details, attend to the worst possible “investigators” (Gerald Posner), and in general let ignorance trump facts at every turn. Basically, Aaronson brings to bear a smug laziness that he’d never use if he wanted to publish a paper, say in the Physical Review (one of its fine journals). He does this because he treats JFK assassination research akin to a kiddie hobby or pastime.
1. Conspiracy theorizing represents a known bug in the human nervous system. Given that, I think our prior should be overwhelmingly against anything that even looks like a conspiracy theory”.
This is not a reason but an assertion, that needs to be proven, demonstrated. Aaronson really ought to know better than to trot such bollocks out for public consumption, as if he’s even an expert in the human nervous system. Where has this been published? (He puts out a link to a cartoon -as if any intelligent person would accept that) In what peer-reviewed journal of neurobiology? Further, the fact this is psycho-babble is patently clear by the fact he puts all possible conspiracy examples under the same umbrella – from faked lunar landings to Joe Klein’s example (in the recent TIME – see Part I) of the feds buying up ammo to raise the prices so gun owners can’t afford it – to the JFK assassination. In this way, he demeans the event and insults the people who’ve done serious research including Peter Dale Scott, James Douglass (‘JFK and the Unspeakable’), Mark Lane and many others. In this way he actually insults the memory of the 35th President.
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We now continue as I rebut more of quantum physicist Scott Aaronson’s 20 specious reasons that Oswald was the lone gunman in the JFK assassination:
5. A half-century of investigation has failed to link any individual besides Oswald to the crime.
True, but that is because it wasn’t one “individual”. All the evidence amassed so far from the existing files (especially Oswald’s CI/SIG files, the Staff D connection) shows the hit was an executive action masterminded by the CIA probably in collusion with NSA assets. That no individual has been identified isn’t surprising at all to any who have examined the detailed documents in depth – as Peter Dale Scott has published in his most recent book, cited in Part One.
The original plan, gleaned from multiple documents- interviews, was to kill Kennedy, link Oswald to Castro, and use this as a pretext to invade Cuba. Note the parallels here to the October, 1962 Missile crisis- when the Joint Chiefs tried to get Kennedy to invade Cuba on the basis of the Soviet missiles there. JFK refused, and in so doing put another nail in his coffin, while his enemies looked for other ways to achieve their goal- ending up at assassination of Kennedy – by a Castro dupe. Or so the CIA hoped people would believe. Former CIA accountant James Wilcott, however, noted the phony link to Castro could not be established firmly enough to hold and hence the need to brand Oswald as the lone assassin.
In other words, the CIA aimed for a ‘trifecta’ – blaming the USSR as an accomplice, invading Cuba and killing Kennedy, but they ended up with only one of the three – but to be sure a huge one – as it’s distorted this nation’s history ever since. (Along with shattering all confidence and trust in gov’t – given the government still hold to the phony Warrenite story.)
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We now pick up at Aaronson reason No. 16, as we try to wade through more of his codswallop:
16. JFK was not a liberal Messiah. He moved slowly on civil rights for fear of a conservative backlash, invested heavily in building nukes, signed off on the botched plans to kill Fidel Castro, and helped lay the groundwork for the US’s later involvement in Vietnam.
This one shows glaringly how out of touch Aaronson is with JFK and the politics of the time. It also shows him to be either a know-nothing or troll regarding JFK. As James Douglass has clearly shown (Chapters 1-3, in JFK and the Unspeakable’) the Cold warrior shtick was purely a political ruse to ward off Nixon‘s expected attacks – and it worked! JFK was elected, not Tricky Dick. JFK was, in fact, perhaps the most liberal president of the past 50 plus years. Aside from creating the Peace Corps (which I served in for four years) he also created the Alliance for Progress to deliver low interest loans to South American nations – for which he was pilloried by the financial press. In case Aaronson forgot, he also signed the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in August, 1963 which had all the right winger military types going nutso – including when anti-missile systems were banned as well.
—————————————————————————————————– “Beware Conspiracy Theorists?” No – Beware Those Who Are Part of the Unspeakable!
Media personality Michael Smerconish in his Op-ed in today’s Denver Post, advises one and all (based on his header) to ”Beware Conspiracy Theorists”. We are supposed to be the bane of national existence, sowing paranoia with our every blog post, and hey – we are little different from the generic nuts who fret over UN helicopters and FEMA concentration camps. In this way, lumped in with whackjobs, all manner of conspiracies are instantly consigned to the dumpster of history.
Nevertheless, it appears those like Michael Smerconish are quite happy to go on killing hope for change in the world multiple times over, as they seek to dissuade the citizen from examining the facts of the conspiracy behind the Kennedy assassination.
Smerconish begins his sarcastic attack by singling out Jesse Ventura’s book: They Killed Our President: 63 Reasons to Believe There Was A Conspiracy to Assassinate JFK. So Smerconish gets Ventura in an interview and asks the question: “Who is ‘they’?” Ventura, honest as he is, responds that he doesn’t know. The ‘they’ employed was generic, and could apply to any of the conceivable forces – or all – that had it in for Kennedy, but especially his national security state. Besides, Ventura could have told Smerconish if he really knew who ‘they’ were he likely wouldn’t be alive to say so! As per Richard Charnin’s excellent graphical proof of conspiracy based on the death of witnesses at the times of the two main investigations. https://richardcharnin.wordpress.com/2013/10/14/jfk-witness-deaths-graphical-proof-of-a-conspiracy/
—————————————————————————————————– Frequently Asked Questions on the JFK Assassination:(Pt.7): The HSCA Investigation
Why was the House Select Committee on Assassinations launched and who headed it? What general standards did they apply? Why indeed would such severe impediments be imposed to prevent an honest and forthright investigation as Richard Sprague wanted?
The obvious reason is that there was way too much at stake for the ones that killed Kennedy – a clandestine branch of our own government, embedded in the CIA. Most likely run out of CIA Staff D and the ZR/Rifle program – then mutated into Executive Action against Kennedy. People can toss up hands and put fingers in ears and sing “lalalala’ all they want but there it is! Why else forge such consistent impediments against an open investigation? The only reason would be to protect the interests, people that did it – and who up to now have gotten away with it, including the murder of dozens of key witnesses any time a trail was revived for an investigation. Don’t believe me? Then look at Richard Charnin’s stats of witnesses killed around and at the time of the HSCA investigation. https://richardcharnin.wordpress.com/2013/10/01/jfk-witness-deaths-7-fbi-officials-due-to-testify-at-hsca/
—————————————————————————————————– Even Liberals Can Be Victims of Conspiracy Phobia
It’s really distressing to the critical thinker to behold the extent to which crappola continues to be spouted on the JFK assassination, particularly the media’s consistent disparaging of the whole notion of conspiracy. And while most Europeans think we’re idiots for believing that one lone nut killed Kennedy, in America that meme is just fine and dandy. After all, it keeps the hoi polloi in their comfort zones so they can tweet, play fantasy football, and watch ‘Survivor’ without being bothered.
Guest Walter Mears, a former AP reporter, and evidently on the verge of Alzheimers is no better, trying to peddle the baloney that “Oswald was the perfect guy for conspiracy theories” then reciting all kinds of idiocy such as “he defects to Russia, went to Mexico City, kicked out of the Marines, etc.” failing to distinguish actual actions from those that emerged from the false defector program I described 3 blogs ago. Mears goes off the beam, trying to be sardonic or sarcastic, as when he blabs: “I covered Washington well enough to know that if you have a conspiracy and three people are involved, one of them is going to blow the whistle.”
To which all the guests laughed like idiots, unable to grasp how many witnesses were taken out one by one, not only at the time of the Warren Commission, but at the Garrison Investigation and the House Select Committee on Assassinations (1978-79). Indeed, author Richard Charnin has proven – to a mathematical certainty, these witnesses could not have been offed by “coincidence” or some other claptrap. https://richardcharnin.wordpress.com/2013/10/14/jfk-witness-deaths-graphical-proof-of-a-conspiracy/
Interestingly, Mears did get the key part of the JFK conspiracy right when he blurted: “And if two are involved, it will keep if one of them dies”. But in the JFK “Witness Death project” – likely carried out by CIA contract hit men (such as killed William Bruce Pitzer), it obviously will also “keep” if dozens are killed – one by one as they are called to testify before any given investigation. (See Charnin’s link and proof) Mears actually nailed the reason for the lack of evidence he claimed not to see, but was too dumb to understand how or why. After all, even a broken clock is right twice a day!
Even Kornacki, an otherwise intelligent MSNBC host on most issues, fell down here, displaying more ignorance and historical cluelessness than insight. He made the embarrassing remark: “Yeah, that’s the other part here. We talk about the government as this sort of bumbling, bureaucratic mess. To pull off something as wide scale as in the Oliver Stone movie (‘JFK’) you try to reconcile that with the government we know.”
—————————————————————————————————– The Southern Poverty Law Center: Still In Over Its Head On the JFK Assassination
But I could go through the whole list of those killed and make similar points. What has the SPLC got to show for it? Only its naïve acceptance of assorted “official” stories which do not jibe with Richard Charnin’s demonstrated statistics. These, when the false filters are removed, show there were at least 96 unnatural deaths (80 homicides, 5 suicides, 8 accidents, 3 unknown).
Charnin notes on his link: “There are 122 suspicious deaths listed in JFK Calc. Seventy-eight (78) were officially ruled unnatural (34 homicides, 16 suicides, 24 accidents, 4 unknown). Forty-four (44) were ruled natural (heart attacks, cancers, other). But since many accidents, suicides and natural deaths were likely homicides, the number of unnatural deaths was adjusted to 96 (including 80 homicides).”
These adjustments would have taken into account aberrations such as I noted in the case of Pitzer and Ferrie. The attempted SPLC rebuttal (to Richard Belzer) then goes on to state: “In addition, the story pointed out that a large number of people who did testify have had normal life spans”
Of course they did, because their testimonies did not detract from or contradict the false Warrenite narrative of one lone nut! So there’d have been no reason to deal with any of these “witnesses” – many of whom (e.g. Julia Anne Mercer, Jean Hill et al) later admitted that they surrendered to pressure put on them by so-called “authorities”, including the FBI and Secret Service. The ones that had to be dealt with were mainly the material witnesses whose testimonies would have rocked the boat and exposed the Commission for the fraud it was!
Lastly, the SPLC has continued its manifest blindness to Operation Mockingbird assets with this twaddle:“just as many reporters who were skeptical of the Warren commission account were not murdered.”
Again, the contrarian reporters would only have been murdered if they were material witnesses, like Dorothy Kilgallen. There’d be no need at all to go after mere skeptics because anything they wrote could be easily neutralized (or simply ignored for publication) by the entrenched Mockingbird CIA assets. How difficult can this stuff be to grasp? Evidently, it’s like fractal calculus for the good folks at the Southern Poverty Law Center, who one would have thought would have their hands full with racial animus and hate groups without taking on the Kennedy assassination.
The SPLC piece by Elias – as well as the recent follow-up, also illustrates another irritating aspect of the Left’s conspiracy phobia: running from anything that smacks of “anti-government” sentiment, despite the fact we have reams of documents, files to support the need for a critical wariness of anything government claims (as Edward Snowden’s files have disclosed).
—————————————————————————————————– Rachel Maddow Again LIES About Lee Harvey Oswald and His Rifle
Rachel Maddow appears to be a compulsive liar, at least where Lee Harvey Oswald is concerned. But this ought not be too surprising, given that non-serious, superficial researchers and talking heads (who may only deal with the assassination once or twice a year) are often bound to insert their feet into their foolish mouths. And so Rachel did it again last night, as she did back in March last year,
This was in conjunction with a segment last night on a gun reform law (S. 3714) that JFK had proposed: “to exclude from importation or re-importation into the United States arms or ammunition originally manufactured for military purposes.”
In this context she specifically mentioned the Italian made 6.5 mm Mannlicher-Carcano, and showed an ad for it in the “American Rifleman” magazine along with photostat copies of receipts proving Lee Oswald purchased it. She then added, emulating a Neoliberal know-nothing: “Lee Harvey Oswald bought the gun in March, 1963. He killed President Kennedy with it that November.”
Interested people may also wish to process that, in 1995, after President Clinton ordered release of most of the pertinent files to do with the JFK case (as requested by the Assassinations Archives Review Board) the FBI immediately filed an appeal to prevent the release of any files. One is therefore left to wonder why now, they would be so eager to cooperate – since obviously they’d have had to supply Farid with his source photos for analysis.
In Farid’s case, one is left to wonder what exact photo he has proven genuine- since there were four in all. One of those featured small irregularities including that the telescopic scope was absent, because a technician had accidentally retouched it. WHY has Farid not picked it up with this elite software, when it was openly admitted by the management of LIFE magazine? Or, was Farid not given the retouched photo? If not, why not? Perhaps to prevent him from saying that ONE photo at least was a fake?
Then there is the “Oswald ghost” photo recovered at Dallas PD headquarters some time after the assassination. It is shown above, next to another backyard photo. As one can discern, the “ghost” is a cutout into which another image can be pasted-superposed. The cutout image, many of us conclude, was obtained using a Dallas cop stand –in, which photo was also found in Dallas Police files, along with the ghost image. That photo is also shown (Fig. 2). As noted by researcher Jim Marrs (Crossfire, p. 452) photo specialist Robert Hester was called on 22 November, 1963 to help process assassination -related photos for the FBI and Dallas police. Hester reported (and his wife Patricia confirmed) that he saw an FBI agent with a color transparency of one of the backyard photos with NO figure in the picture. This has to be the same Fig. 2. Was the FBI in on the manipulation of images and photos? We don’t know, but given Farid’s connection to the FBI in funding his lab, can we really trust his work? Can we trust he analyzed the actual source photo? And if so – which?
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Lastly, for what it’s worth, I reiterate Harrison Livingstone‘s remark that “only an idiot” would accept or believe that the truth or falsity of conspiracy rests exclusively on the acoustic record. (Harrison Edward Livingstone: 1995, Killing Kennedy and the Hoax of the Century, Carroll & Graf Publishers) There is simply too much supplemental supporting evidence, i.e. including from the ballistics, the additional films taken that day, e.g. Nix film, and the actual autopsy photos, as well as skull radiographs and the negative test results from the purported Oswald weapon by a team of sharpshooters appointed by the Warren Commission. Not to mention the inordinately improbable deaths of witnesses, see:https://richardcharnin.wordpress.com/2011/04/08/a-probability-analysis-of-witness-deaths-within-one-year-of-the-jfk-assassination/
Warren Commission defenders and the Corporate Media avoid the evidence and continue to promote the bogus Single Bullet Theory, claiming that Oswald was the lone shooter, despite overwhelming evidence that he was not on the 6th floor of the Texas Book Depository. In fact, he was photographed standing on the first floor watching the motorcade.
The mainstream media has lost all credibility and must be considered complicit in the ongoing 50 year cover-up.
The 1973 film Executive Action disclosed that an actuary engaged by the London Sunday Times calculated a one in 100,000 trillion probability of eighteen material JFK-related witness deaths in the three years following the assassination. The calculation was mathematical proof of a conspiracy. After all, a professional actuary who has passed difficult mathematical exams would be expected to come up with a good estimate of the odds; that is what he does for a living.
In 1978 the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) dismissed the actuary’s odds, stating the odds were invalid because the universe of witnesses was “unknowable”. But there were 552 Warren Commission witnesses and approximately five hundred others who were sought to testify at the Garrison trial, Church senate hearings and the HSCA. The HSCA did not consider unnatural deaths which comprised the majority of suspicious deaths; it noted just 21 suspicious deaths. But when there were at least 122 by 1978. The actuary’s identity and methodology was never revealed.
In 1989 Jim Marrs published Crossfire in which he listed 103 convenient JFK-related deaths. Along with Jim Garrison’s On the Trail of the Assassins, Crossfire was the basis for Oliver Stone’s historic JFK. In 2003, using Marrs’ list, I calculated the probability of at least 15 unnatural witness deaths in the first year, essentially confirming the actuary’s calculation. My analysis is referenced in Marrs’ updated 2013 edition of Crossfire.
In 2014, I wrote Reclaiming Science: the JFK Conspiracy. It is a comprehensive statistical and reference analysis of unnatural JFK-related deaths, Dealey Plaza eyewitness observations, medical, acoustic and photographic evidence. Reclaiming Science challenges the corporate media to let scientific and JFK experts present the facts and debate Warren Commission apologists in full public view.
10. Carolyn Arnold, a TSBD secretary, saw Oswald on the FIRST floor at 12:25pm. She was not interviewed by the Warren Commission. Oswald told Will Fritz he was out with Bill Shelley in front (the FIRST floor entrance) at 12:30. Oswald was seen by policeman Baker and TSBD manager Truly at 12:31pm holding a coke on the SECOND floor.(3), THIS IS ABSOLUTE PROOF THAT OSWALD COULD NOT HAVE BEEN ON THE 6TH FLOOR AT 12:30. http://22november1963.org.uk/carolyn-arnold-witness-oswald
An actuary engaged by the London Sunday Times calculated 100,000 trillion to one odds against 18 JFK material witnesses dying in the three year period ending in Feb. 1967. The odds were displayed in the 1972 film Executive Action
“In the three-year period which followed the murder of President Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald, 18 material witnesses died – six by gunfire, three in motor accidents, two by suicide, one from a cut throat, one from a karate chop to the neck, three from heart attacks and two from natural causes”.
The calculation has been the source of much controversy. Assuming the data and calculation methodology were essentially correct, then it was clear proof of a conspiracy and refuted the Warren Commission conclusion that Oswald was the lone assassin. Penn Jones was the first independent researcher to investigate unnatural deaths: https://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=IB5JGfxIxFk&feature=endscreen
The Poisson Probability Function
The actuary’s odds are matched assuming N=454 witnesses (the CIA claimed 418 testified in person at the Warren Commission). A total of 552 testified (including depositions). There were n=13 unnatural deaths among the 18 material witnesses. We will ignore the five suspicious natural deaths.
The expected number E of unnatural deaths is based on N=454,T=3 years, R=0.000209 the weighted unnatural death rate: E = N*T*R= 0.285 = 454*3*0.000209 P = Poisson (13, E, false)
P = 9.83E-18 = 1 in 100,000 trillion
There were at least 10 unnatural deaths among the 418 witnesses who testified in person at the Warren Commission in the three years ending Feb. 1967. The probability is:P= 2.4E-15 = 1 in 400 trillion
There were 20 unnatural deaths among the 552 total witnesses in the 15 years from 1964-78. The probability is:P= 6.35E-16 = 1 in 1500 trillion
In 1978, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) investigated the allegation (based on the actuary) that a statistically improbable number of individuals with some direct or peripheral association with the Kennedy assassination died as a result of that assassination, thereby raising the specter of conspiracy.
The HSCA declared that the actuary’s calculation was invalid, claiming that the universe (number of witnesses) was unknowable. Warren Commission defenders (Bugliosi, McAdams, Posner, etc.) have questioned the relevance of witness connections to the assassination. The HSCA made a number of errors in coming to that conclusion, It did not cite the
1. suspicious deaths of anti-Castro, CIA, mafia, Dallas police
2. unnatural witness deaths, the key statistic in the analysis
3. known universe of 552 Warren Commission witnesses
4. 500+ called to testify by Garrison, Church and HSCA
5. identity of the actuary
6. methodology used by the actuary
7. 100+ suspicious deaths
8. deaths of Oswald, Ruby, DeMorenschildt, Ferrie, Craig etc.
9. 7 FBI officials due to testify at HSCA died in a 6 month period in 1977.
In order to calculate the probability of a given number of unnatural deaths in a given group, we must first determine the expected number (E) of unnatural deaths.
E= N*T*R, where N is the size of the witness universe, T the time period under study in years, and R the average unnatural mortality rate.
Let H = the number of homicides, A = accidental deaths, S = suicides.
The actuary’s 13 unnatural deaths consist of:
H=8 homicides, A=3 accidents and S=2 suicides.
The corresponding average mortality rates for the period from 1964-66:
HR= 0.000061, AR= 0.000658, SR = 0.000128
The total unnatural rate (unweighted):
RT = HR+ AR+ SR = 0.000847
The total number ET of expected unnatural deaths:
ET = 1.15 = 454*3*0.000847
Only one unnatural death would be expected! But there were 13.
The weighted average mortality rate R is:
R = (H*HR + A*AR + S*SR)/ (H+A+S)
The average weighted unnatural rate:
R = .000209 = (8*0.000061+ 3*0.000658+ 2*0.000128)/13
The expected number E of unnatural deaths is based on the weighted rate:
E = 0.285 = 454*3*0.000209
The Poisson Probability Function
The Poisson function calculates the probability of 13 unnatural deaths in three years assuming 454 witnesses to match the actuary’s odds. P = Poisson (13, 0.285, false)
P = 9.83E-18 = 1 in 100,000 trillion
If the 3 accidents and 2 suicides were actually homicides, then applying the 0.000061 average homicide rate, we have 13 homicides among 454 witnesses over three years.
E= 0.083= 454*3*0.000061 P= Poisson (13, 0.083, false)
P = 1.33E-24= 1 in 750 million trillion
Data Source
The reference Who’s Who in the JFK Assassination contains information on 1400+ JFK-related suspects, victims, witnesses,Law Enforcement officials and investigators. Approximately 100 died suspiciously in 1964-78 and are listed in the JFK Calc spreadsheet database.
HSCA Testimony
The chief of research of the HSCA, Jacqueline Hess, testified: http://jfkassassination.net/russ/jfkinfo2/jfk4/hess.htm Our final conclusion on the issue is that the available evidence does not establish anything about the nature of these deaths which would indicate that the deaths were in some manner, either direct or peripheral, caused by the assassination of President Kennedy or by any aspect of the subsequent investigation.
One, to compute valid actuarial statistics, one must be able to determine to a reasonable degree of specificity, the universe of individuals to which the specific group is being compared. In other words, we would have to determine the total number of individuals who exist in each of the categories into which those individuals who have mysteriously died, fall. This means that we would need to establish the number of individuals who in any manner could be considered witnesses to the assassination of President Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald, the number of individuals who had any contact with Oswald or Ruby or with Ruby’s nightclubs, the number of individuals who professed to have material knowledge of the case or of the major figures in the case, all news reporters who had expressed interest, taken interviews or investigated the case, and all Members of Congress who sought to introduce legislation concerning the investigation of the case. This, as you can imagine, would have been an impossible task.
This was an incorrect statement. The universe of witnesses could be the four investigations in which at least 67 died suspiciously from 1964-78.
Two, in addition, for each of the individuals identified in the groups I have just listed, we would have to establish age, sex, race, occupation, geographical location, and any other extraordinary factors which have to be taken into consideration in order to compute mortality rates. Again, this was judged to be an impossible job.
Another incorrect statement. Natural mortality rates (heart attack, cancer, etc.) are age adjusted. Unnatural death rates are not age-related.
Three, we would need to determine the number of individuals in these categories who have, in fact, died and the number of individuals who, according to actuarial mortality rates, should have died.We had thus established the impossibility of attempting establish through the application of actuarial principles, any meaningful implications about the existence or absence of a conspiracy. Despite the fact that an inference of conspiracy, as here postulated by the critics, did not exist, we nevertheless decided not to dismiss the cited deaths out of hand, but rather, to look more closely at the nature of certain specific deaths to determine whether or not they could individually be considered mysterious or in some other manner a reflection of some sort of conspiracy.
Impossible to determine an approximate number of JFK-related individuals who died suspiciously? That is a canard. All the HSCA had to do was view the list of those called to testify in four JFK investigations – including the HSCA. It ignored 100+ deaths, including 7 top FBI officials who died suspiciously within 6 months in 1977, De Morenschildt and others who were due to testify at HSCA. Note: Hess noted 23 names, including two key Mafia figures (Sam Giancana and John Roselli). But the two were not included in the detailed report requested by the HSCA interrogator. Strange. http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/jfkdeaths.htm
Mr. EDGAR – Will you provide for the record a detailed listing of the 21 names and the evidence you have found relating to their deaths?
Ms. HESS – Yes. Do you want me to read them for the record?
Mr. EDGAR – It might be helpful.
Ms. HESS – Edward Benavides, Albert Guy Bogard, Hale Boggs, Lee Bowers, Jr., Bill Chesher, Nicholas J. Chetta, David Goldstein, Thomas Hale Howard, William Hunter, Clyde Johnson, Dorothy Kilgallen, Thomas Henry Killam, Jim Koethe, FNU Levens, Nancy Jane Mooney, Teresa Norton, Earlene Roberts, Harold Russell, Marilyn April Walle, a.k.a. Betty McDonald, William W. Whaley, James R. Worrell, Sam Giancana, John Roselli.
Mr. EDGAR – Thank you. I think it very helpful for the record that those names be included. Can you indicate why Mr. DeMohrenschildt’s name was not included?
Ms. HESS – His was one of those which deemed further investigation and became part of a great investigative effort.
Actuary – 18 material witness deaths
M=homicide, A=accident, S=suicide, H=heart attack, O=other
W = testified at WC
Note:* No anti-Castro; CIA; Mafia; Dallas police in HSCA list of 21 deaths
S 6402 BETTY MACDONALD W
M 6403 HANK KILLAM
H 6403 BILL CHESHER
M 6404 BILL HUNTER
M 6405 GARY UNDERHILL * CIA/Life magazine, predicted his death
M 6409 JIM KOETHE
H 6503 TOM HOWARD
M 6507 HAROLD RUSSEL W
A 6512 WILLIAM WHALEY W
H 6601 EARLENE ROBERTS W
S 6602 ALBERT BOGARD W
O 6606 FRANK MARTIN W * Dallas Policeman (sudden cancer)
A 6608 LEE BOWERS W
M 6610 WILLIAM PITZER * Navy autopsy photographer, near retirement
A 6611 JAMES WORRELL W
O 6701 JACK RUBY W * Connected to Dallas PD, mob (sudden cancer)
M 6702 DAVID FERRIE * CIA, knew Oswald
M 6702 ELADIO DEL VALLE * anti-Castro, knew Ferrie
Convenient deaths spiked in 1964 (Warren Commission) and 1977 (House Select Committee).
The 1977 House Select Committee on Assassination (HSCA) claimed that the London Sunday Times actuary’s 1 in 100,000 trillion probability calculation that 18 material witnesses would die (13 unnaturally) in the three years following the assassination was invalid. The HSCA claimed that the witness universe was unknown. But the HSCA did not consider Dealey Plaza witnesses or other knowable witness groups (Warren Commission, Garrison/Shaw trial, Church Senate hearings – and the HSCA itself).
It is an interesting exercise to calculate the probabilities of suspicious deaths of 28 Dealey Plaza witnesses. Of the suspicious deaths, 14 were officially ruled unnatural (5 homicides, 7 accidents, 2 suicides).
Assuming there were 600 Dealey Plaza witnesses, the probability of 14 ruled unnatural deaths during the period 1963-1978 is 1 in 230 million. But the nine accidents and suicides were likely homicides.
The probability of 14 homicides for 400, 600 and 1000 witnesses:
400: 1 in 900 trillion
600: 1 in 4 trillion
1000: 1 in 5 billion
Sixteen Dealey Plaza witnesses testified at the Warren Commission, 3 were sought to testify at the Garrison trial, 3 at the Church Senate hearings and 3 at the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA).
The probabilities of JFK witness deaths for various groups have been previously posted: Warren Commission, London Times actuary,Garrison/ Shaw, Church, HSCA, Simkin Educational Forum, JFK-related 1400+ witness reference “Who’s Who in the JFK Assassination”.
1 6311 Lee Harvey Oswald
2 6311 J.D. Tippit
3 6512 William Whaley
4 6606 Frank Martin
5 6608 Lee Bowers
6 6611 James Worrell
7 6701 Jack Ruby
8 6901 Charles Mentesana
9 6901 Buddy Walthers
10 7001 Merriman Smith
11 7008 Bill Decker
12 7101 Mac Wallace
13 7109 Roscoe White
14 7109 Cliff Carter
15 7309 Thomas E. Davis
16 7402 J.A. Milteer
17 7501 Allen Sweatt
18 7502 Ira (Jack) Beers
19 7505 Roger Craig
20 7509 Earl Cabell
21 7604 James Chaney
22 7608 Johnny Roselli
23 7703 Charles Nicoletti
24 7707 Ken O’Donnell
25 7801 Clint “Lummie” Lewis
26 7805 David Morales
27 7901 Billy Lovelady
28 8403 Roy Kellerman
I replied with a brief one paragraph comment which was not posted. This is a response to each of the twenty reasons.
Aaronson is a 33 year old quantum physicist who readily admits he is unfamiliar with the evidence and is new to the JFK assassination. But it is the detailed factual evidence which proves a conspiracy. Aaronson states opinions which rehash the standard disinformation playbook of myths contrived to frame truth seeking researchers as conspiracy theory (CT) buffs. His lack of knowledge of relevant historical events prior and subsequent to the assassination is apparent. One can only conclude that he has been brainwashed by a complicit corporate media and academia which has covered up the assassination evidence for fifty years.
Why would someone so disciplined in the scientific method fail to do his homework? He notes that his heroes Carl Sagan and Bertrand Russell were conspiracy believers. It may be that for the 50th anniversary of the assassination, Scott felt compelled to write something quickly – without getting into the wealth of inconvenient details and facts. But the devil is in the details.
Aaronson states: I also started dipping, for the first time in my life, into a tiny fraction of the vast literature about the JFK assassination. The trigger (so to speak) for me was this article by David Talbot, the founder of Salon.com. http://www.salon.com/2013/11/06/the_jfk_assassination_we_still_dont_know_what_happened/.
I figured, if the founder of Salon is a JFK conspiracy buff—if, for crying out loud, my skeptical heroes Bertrand Russell and Carl Sagan were both JFK conspiracy buffs—then maybe it’s at least worth familiarizing myself with the basic facts and arguments.
But another reason is that I’m skeptical that anyone actually comes to believe the JFK conspiracy hypothesis because they don’t see how the second bullet came in at the appropriate angle to pass through JFK’s neck and shoulder and then hit Governor Connally.
RC: JFK was hit in the back 5.5 inches below the collar by a bullet on a downward trajectory which did not exit. I am more than skeptical – actually dumbfounded- that anyone actually believes the Single Bullet Theory. There are three possibilities: the believer is a) unfamiliar with the evidence, b) familiar with the evidence but is dumb as rocks, or c) a JFK disinformationist.
Aaronson never considered the following facts and analysis before claiming to believe the Warren Commission report that Oswald was the “lone nut” assassin.
This is a summary of Aaronson’s twenty reasons followed by my comments.
1. Conspiracy Buff Psychology
Conspiracy theorizing represents a known bug in the human nervous system. Given that, I think our prior should be overwhelmingly against anything that even looks like a conspiracy theory.
RC: History has taught us just the opposite. People conspire all the time.
2. Ruby: Genesis of Conspiracy thinking
The shooting of Oswald by Jack Ruby created the perfect conditions for conspiracy theorizing to fester.
3. Historical Lone Nuts
Other high-profile assassinations to which we might compare this one—for example, those of Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, RFK, Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, Yitzchak Rabin…—appear to have been the work of “lone nuts,” or at most “conspiracies” of small numbers of lowlifes. So why not this one?
RC: You don’t know that they were killed by “lone nuts”. Did it ever occur to you that the targets were all liberals who wanted change? JFK was a liberal who wanted to change things.
4. LHO the psychopath
Oswald seems to have perfectly fit the profile of a psychopathic killer (see, for example, Case Closed by Gerald Posner).
5. No evidence of others
A half-century of investigation has failed to link any individual besides Oswald to the crime. Conspiracy theorists love to throw around large, complicated entities like the CIA or the Mafia as potential “conspirators”—but in the rare cases when they’ve tried to go further, and implicate an actual human being other than Oswald or Ruby (or distant power figures like LBJ), the results have been pathetic and tragic.
RC: Oswald never had a trial. Even Posner admits he would never have been convicted as there is no evidence that he was on the 6th floor of the TSBD at 12:30. The Altgens6 photo is strong evidence that he was on the first floor watching the motorcade. Conspirators included Clay Shaw, Jack Ruby, David Ferrie, Hunt and the Cubans, et al. You call the Shaw trial “pathetic and tragic”, but even though he was acquitted, the jurors said that they were convinced it was a conspiracy. Shaw was a contract CIA agent who lied at his trial. CIA Director Helms admitted Shaw was a CIA operative in 1979. David Ferrie was murdered shortly after he was named as a witness. Garrison’s case was sabotaged. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hqo2c_SxQag
6. Gen. Walker shooting
Oswald had previously tried to assassinate General Walker—a fact that was confirmed by his widow Marina Oswald, but that, incredibly, is barely even discussed in the reams of conspiracy literature.
7. The Tippit canard
There’s clear evidence that Oswald murdered Officer Tippit an hour after shooting JFK—a fact that seems perfectly consistent with the state of mind of someone who’d just murdered the President, but that, again, seems to get remarkably little discussion in the conspiracy literature.
RC: LHO did not shoot Tippit. It was physically impossible. LHO was seen standing at a bus stop near his rooming house at 1:04pm. According to 10 witnesses, Tippit was shot at 1:06. The Warren Commission ignored all witness testimony. The WC claimed Tippit was shot at 1:15. They had to do this to give Oswald enough time to get to the scene. It was impossible for Oswald to travel one mile in two minutes. The world’s fastest milers need just under 4 minutes. The bullets recovered were from an automatic and did not match Oswald’s revolver. Eyewitnesses saw two shooters. Let’s end this crap. http://www.assassinationresearch.com/v1n2/tippit.pdfhttp://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=12745
8. Oswald a violent, pathological liar
Besides being a violent nut, Oswald was also a known pathological liar. He lied on his employment applications, he lied about having established a thriving New Orleans branch of Fair Play for Cuba, he lied and lied and lied.
RC: Thriving branch? That’s a joke. Oswald was working for Guy Banister (FBI) to distribute leaflets to stage a fake altercation. Oswald was CIA and an FBI informer.
9. Oswald attitude in custody
According to police accounts, Oswald acted snide and proud of himself after being taken into custody.
RC: That is untrue. When will you provide specifics? See the testimony of Detective Will Fritz. Oswald could not reveal his ties to the FBI and CIA. He was calm, cool and asked for legal representation.
10. Conspiracy Theories are wildly inconsistent
Almost all JFK conspiracy theories must be false, simply because they’re mutually inconsistent.
RC: Cite the theories and the inconsistencies. Can you provide specifics? Yes, some theories are false, created by disinformationists to confuse the public (such as the REELZ “Smoking Gun” fiasco).
11. Witnesses are unreliable
The case for Oswald as lone assassin seems to become stronger, the more you focus on the physical evidence and stuff that happened right around the time and place of the event. To an astonishing degree, the case for a conspiracy seems to rely on verbal testimony years or decades afterward—often by people who are known confabulators, who were nowhere near Dealey Plaza at the time, who have financial or revenge reasons to invent stories, and who “remembered” seeing Oswald and Ruby with CIA agents, etc. only under drugs or hypnosis. This is precisely the pattern we would expect if conspiracy theorizing reflected the reality of the human nervous system rather than the reality of the assassination.
RC: There were 200 witnesses in Dealey Plaza. Over 90 said they heard shots from the Grassy Knoll; about 45 at the TSBD. Were they all liars or mistaken? Were they inventing stories? What about the Parkland doctors who all said the throat wound was one of entrance and the head wound an exit? You are sadly misinformed about one-sided witness testimony which indicates at least one addition shooter at the Grassy Knoll. Why do you avoid specifics? https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjAk1JUWDMyRdDFSU3NVd29xWWNyekd2X1ZJYllKTnc#gid=65
12. Assassination motive
If the conspiracy is so powerful, why didn’t it do something more impressive than just assassinate JFK? Why didn’t it rig the election to prevent JFK from becoming President in the first place?
RC: JFK had many enemies: Big Oil, Military Industrial Establishment, anti-Castro Cubans, mobsters, Joint Chiefs. The public execution gave a message to all future presidents.
13. Who hired the shooters?
Pretty much all the conspiracy writers I encountered exude total, 100% confidence, not only in the existence of additional shooters, but in the guilt of their favored villains (they might profess ignorance, but then in the very next sentence they’d talk about how JFK’s murder was “a triumph for the national security establishment”).
RC: 100% confidence is justified by ballistic, video, acoustic and eyewitness evidence which all point to at least one more shooter behind the picket fence at the Grassy Knoll.
14. Too big to cover up, someone would have talked
Every conspiracy theory I’ve encountered seems to require “uncontrolled growth” in size and complexity: that is, the numbers of additional shooters, alterations of medical records, murders of inconvenient witnesses, coverups, coverups of the coverups, etc. that need to be postulated all seem to multiply without bound.
RC: That’s because the evidence, which you are apparently unaware of, is overwhelming. Why do you ignore this evidence? There were over 100 material witness unnatural deaths. The probability is ZERO.
15. JFK the conservative
JFK was not a liberal Messiah. He moved slowly on civil rights for fear of a conservative backlash, invested heavily in building nukes, signed off on the botched plans to kill Fidel Castro, and helped lay the groundwork for the US’s later involvement in Vietnam. Yes, it’s possible that he would’ve made wiser decisions about Vietnam than LBJ ended up making; that’s part of what makes his assassination (like RFK’s later assassination) a tragedy. But many conspiracy theorists’ view of JFK as an implacable enemy of the military-industrial complex is preposterous.
RC: Yes, JFK moved slowly on civil rights, but then in 1962 he ordered integration at the Univ. of Alabama and gave the first great presidential speech for black equality. He did not seek to kill Castro; he was negotiating for peaceful coexistence with Castro and Khruschev behind the scenes. The CIA and the military were determined to force the issue, even after JFK ordered the anti-Castro camps shut down. He signed a memorandum to pull out of Vietnam by 1965 and the Test Ban Treaty with the Russians in 1963.
16. LBJ the liberal
By the same token, LBJ was not exactly a right-wing conspirator’s dream candidate. He was, if anything, more aggressive on poverty and civil rights than JFK was. And even if he did end up being better for certain military contractors, that’s not something that would’ve been easy to predict in 1963, when the US’s involvement in Vietnam had barely started.
RC: LBJ was NOT a liberal; he was forced to appear as one to placate the left and carry on JFK’s initiative on civil rights. LBJ gave the military the Vietnam War they wanted by staging the bogus Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964. He kept the oil depletion allowance for his Texas buddies.
17. Conspiracy buffs have a nervous system disorder
Lots of politically-powerful figures have gone on the record as believers in a conspiracy, including John Kerry, numerous members of Congress, and even frequently-accused conspirator LBJ himself. Some people would say that this lends credibility to the conspiracy cause. To me, however, it indicates just the opposite: that there’s no secret cabal running the world, and that those in power are just as prone to bugs in the human nervous system as anyone else is.
RC: What a ridiculous statement! Its just the opposite. So your heroes Sagan and Bertrand Russell suffered this disorder? Where is your logic? If anything, coincidence theorists like yourself suffer from massive propaganda disorientation. To believe everything the government claims is a severe attention disorder.
18. The intelligence agency incompetence canard
As far as I can tell, the conspiracy theorists are absolutely correct that JFK’s security in Dallas was unbelievably poor; that the Warren Commission was as interested in reassuring the nation and preventing a war with the USSR or Cuba as it was in reaching the truth (the fact that it did reach the truth is almost incidental); and that agencies like the CIA and FBI kept records related to the assassination classified for way longer than there was any legitimate reason to (though note that most records finally were declassified in the 1990s, and they provided zero evidence for any conspiracy). As you might guess, I ascribe all of these things to bureaucratic incompetence rather than to conspiratorial ultra-competence. But once again, these government screwups help us understand how so many intelligent people could come to believe in a conspiracy even in the total absence of one.
RC: It’s always incompetence, never venality. Sorry, the agencies are not incompetent. Total absence of a conspiracy? You ignore or are ignorant of the totality of evidence which proves a conspiracy.
19. Psychological need to call it a conspiracy
In the context of the time, the belief that JFK was killed by a conspiracy filled a particular need: namely, the need to believe that the confusing, turbulent events of the 1960s had an understandable guiding motive behind them, and that a great man like JFK could only be brought down by an equally-great evil, rather than by a chronically-unemployed loser who happened to see on a map that JFK’s motorcade would be passing by his workplace.
RC: Oh, really? We need a conspiracy to satisfy our need for excitement? Wrong. We need to learn the truth. You believe that only a Lone Nut would want to bring down JFK or RFK, or MLK, or John Lennon, or JFK,Jr, or Wellstone, or Gandhi, etc. It’s never a conspiracy. That is very naive. Newsflash! We live in a world of conspiracies. It makes the world go round.
20. Can’t Connect the Dots
At its core, every conspiracy argument seems to be built out of “holes”: “the details that don’t add up in the official account,” “the questions that haven’t been answered,” etc. What I’ve never found is a truly coherent alternative scenario: just one “hole” after another. This pattern is the single most important red flag for me, because it suggests that the JFK conspiracy theorists view themselves as basically defense attorneys: people who only need to sow enough doubts, rather than establish the reality of what happened. Crucially, creationism, 9/11 trutherism, and every other elaborate-yet-totally-wrong intellectual edifice I’ve ever encountered has operated on precisely the same “defense attorney principle”: “if we can just raise enough doubts about the other side’s case, we win!” But that’s a terrible approach to knowledge, once you’ve seen firsthand how a skilled arguer can raise unlimited doubts even about the nonexistence of a monster under your bed. Such arguers are hoping, of course, that you’ll find their monster hypothesis so much more fun, exciting, and ironically comforting than the “random sounds in the night hypothesis,” that it won’t even occur to you to demand they show you their monster.
RC
You avoid any and all analysis of the evidence. You make pompous claims which have no basis in fact and just perpetuate myths while admitting ignorance of the facts and evidence of the assassination. You employ Warren Commission apologist propaganda and parrot lies that have been promoted by the corporate media – who refuse to consider, much less debate, the evidence. Hear no evil; see no evil.
The Summary sheet in the JFK Calc Spreadsheet/database provides a convenient overview of key witness death information.
There are 126 JFK-related witnesses (122 from 1964-78) categorized by
1) Geographic Locations and connection.
2) Officially ruled unnatural deaths for 1, 3 and 15 years.
3) Unnatural death probabilities based on JFK-weighted and national rates.
4) Probabilities of 34-90 homicides (1400-5000 witnesses).
5) Likely homicides ruled as suicides, accidents, heart attacks, other illnesses.
6) List of witnesses called to testify by investigation.
Apologists claim that many of the 126 witnesses were not JFK-related, but
a) 97 are listed among the 1400+ in Who’s Who in the JFK Assassination
b) 50 witnesses listed in Hit List are included among the 126.
c) at least 70 were sought to testify in four investigations.
d) 70 of the 656 listed in the John Simkin JFK Index are included.
e) 51 deaths occurred in the Dallas area indicating a connection between them.
For those who maintain that there were more than 1400+ JFK-related witnesses, homicide probabilities are calculated in a matrix table of 1400 to 5000 witnesses and 34 ruled homicides to an estimated 90 actual. The 0.000253 homicide rate used for the calculations was triple the average national rate.
KEY STATISTICS:
1) The probability of 34 RULED homicides among 1400 witnesses from 1964-78:
P= 7.60E-19 (1 in 13,000 TRILLION).
2) The probability of 84 ESTIMATED ACTUAL homicides:
P= 1.24E-68 (1 in 1 TRILLION TRILLION TRILLION TRILLION TRILLION)
Note: An actuary engaged by The London Sunday Times calculated a 1 in 100,000 TRILLION probability of 18 material witness deaths (13 unnatural) in the 3 years following the assassination. The calculation is confirmed assuming 454 witnesses and 0.000209 weighted unnatural mortality rate. A total of 552 witnesses (418 gave testimony and 134 affidavits) were interviewed by the Warren Commission.
Deaths spiked in 1964 (Warren Commission) and 1977 (House Select Committee)
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