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Silencers, CIA, and paranoia


Pat Speer

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At the urging of Larry Hancock, I've decided to come forward with something I've been thinking about.

In 1997, the CIA declassified a number of documents related to the 1954 coup in Guatemala. I've recently spent some time pouring through these documents, Among them are redacted lists of purported communists who were to be assassinated (how do we know they weren't?) after the coup took place. On the cover note on one of these lists is the name Rip, which is listed as being illegible on the National Security Archive, but which is clearly a reference to Rip Robertson. On an earlier report, most likely prepared by Albert Haney, co-ordinated with Tracy Barnes, there is a logistics list including a mention of 21 .22 caliber rifles with silencers. Also included in the documents is a CIA STUDY of ASSASSINATION, found in the training file of the Guatemalan operation. This is the manual one would have to assume was used by Robertson and David Sanchez Morales while training the exile army of Carlos Castillo-Armas. The manual says, in part:

f) Silent Firearms

The sound of the explosion of the proponent in a firearm can be effectively silenced by appropriate attachments. However, the sound of the projective passing through the air cannot, since this sound is generated outside the weapon. In cases w here the velocity of the bullet greatly exceeds that of sound, the noise so generated is much louder than that of the explosion. Since all powerful rifles have muzzle velocities of over 2000 feet per second, they cannot be silenced.

Pistol bullets, on the other hand, usually travel slower than sound and the sound of their flight is negligible. Therefore, pistols, submachine guns and any sort of improvised carbine or rifle which will take a low velocity cartridge can be silenc ed. The user should not forget that the sound of the operation of a repeating action is considerable, and that the sound of bullet strike, particularly in bone is quite loud.

Silent firearms are only occasionally useful to the assassin, though they have been widely publicized in this connection. Because permissible velocity is low, effective precision range is held to about 100 yards with rifle or carbine type weapons, while with pistols, silent or otherwise,

are most efficient just beyond arms length. The silent feature attempts to provide a degree of safety to the assassin, but mere possession of a silent firearm is likely to create enough hazard to counter the advantage of its silence. The silent pisto l combines the disadvantages of any pistol with the added one of its obviously clandestine purpose.

A telescopically sighted, closed-action carbine shooting a low velocity bullet of great weight, and built for accuracy, could be very useful to an assassin in certain situations. At the time of writing, no such weapon is known to exist.

END QUOTE

This is significant in that the CIA is asserting that rifles firing a sub-sonic charge are still accurate up to 100 yards. More importantly, on the logistics list they specifically request .22 caliber rifles, when they have their pick of rifles with a much-larger caliber. This indicates that there were advantages to a .22. Since the .22 was the rifle requested and was given to the Guatemalans along with the Study in Asssassination, it only makes sense that the "100 yards" comment apllies to the .22. This is in direct contradiction to the writings of Al Carrier, who insisted a .22 firing a sub-sonic charge would be essentially worthless as a sniper rifle. While Carrier may have been right, the CIA undoubtedly led their assassins-in-training to believe otherwise.

Shockingly, elsewhere in the assassination manual it states "public figures or guarded officials may be killed with great reliability and some safety if a firing point can be established prior to an official occasion. The propaganda value may be very high."

This brings up the question of who in the CIA were the propaganda specialists for the Guatemalan operation. And we have our answers in the names of E. Howard Hunt and David A Phillips. So here we have Robertson, Morales, Hunt, Phillips, and Barnes all tied up in this. J.C. King proposed assassinations as part of his original plan PBFORTUNE. so he's tied up in it as well.

On the CIA's own historical review of the assassination plots, declassified in 1997, it notes that "According to (a four letter name's) draft memorandum, after creating a story that BLANK (obviously Arbenz) was trying to oust the communists, he could be eliminated."

Since this was in 1953, this could have been King, who in 1953 was still over-seeing the project, but it could also be Hunt, since he was admittedly involved in seeking out support for Armas' upcoming coup around this time. Intriguingly, Castillo-Armas himself was assassinated by someone who was immediately identified as a communist, but with evidence so flimsy even Allen Dulles was skeptical. While the real story was never unveiled, the man who rose to power shortly thereafter, Miguel Ydigoras Fuentes, was the U.S.'s main ally in the training of the Bay of Pigs, an operation run by the same CIA men involved in the 1954 coup and the CIA study in assassination. Jake Esterline, the operational planner for the Bay of Pigs, told a CIA interviewer in 1977, when discussing Carlos Alejos' suggestion that the CIA deal with the growing unrest in the training camps by either shipping them or shooting them, "and if you shoot them, bury them deep," said "that is how Ydigoras controlled his position for forty years, so he must have buried them deep. I think he buried that piece of paper, too, along with (word missed--Basset's barking.)" If the word purportedly missing is Castillo-Armas, then we have a CIA agent with extensive experience in Guatemala stating his belief that Ydigoras Fuentes killed Castillo-Armas. That Castillo-Armas was in the process of throwing the gambling interests ouf of Guatemala when he was killed, and that he was killed in a manner that would implicate the communists, along the lines of a CIA plan to kill his predecessor, and that the co-ordinated message of the U.S. media and the Guatemalan military was that his assassin was a communist, makes this whole incident disturbing. One might rightfully wonder if a rogue element of the CIA in league with the gambling interests didn't help Fuentes gain power.

So far this has been a history lesson. Now comes my application of these facts to the JFK mystery.

For those familiar with my seminar, it should not be a shock that I believe a bullet striking Kennedy in his hairline at 224 went down his neck and quite possibly hit Connally after its exit. It struck me that both of Kennedy's wounds, the wound in the hairline as measured by the autopsists, and the neck wound as measured by Dr. Perry in Dallas, were smaller than should be expected for a 6.5 mm bullet traveling at 1800 fps. It occurred to me that perhaps this was in fact a sub-sonic

.22 bullet fired from a similar trajectory as the TSBD, most probably from the roof or upper floors of the Dal-Tex. It occurred to me as well that such a bullet would lack the energy to create both JFK's and Connally's wounds. So I decided to look into .22 automatic rifles available in 1963, as a silenced burst of gunfire could account for both wounds, and found that the only one widely used, by the U.S. Special Forces in Vietnam, no less, was the M-16.

In reading about the M-16 and silencers I came across the creepy coincidence that much of the early research on M-16's and silencers took place at Edgewood Arsenal, the home of both the Warren Commission's ballistics expert Alfred Olivier and the HSCA's ballistics expert Larry Sturdivan. The bullet wound expert present at the autopsy, Dr. Pierre Finck, was also an Edgewood employee, although his stint there seems to have come shortly after the assassination.

Even creepier, when reading about the history of the M-16 in Mortal Error, I came across a photo of the exhibit list of Sturdivan's HSCA testimony and it showed that exhibit number 114 was of an "m-193 bullet at 800 fps velocity." M-193 is the cartridge used in M-16s. Since Sturdivan testifed that exhibit 113 was of an m-16 bullet travelling at 3000 feet, which would be the speed of an M-16 bullet upon impact with Kennedy, it seems clear that an 800 fps bullet would be a test of a subsonic m-16 bullet striking Kennedy after being fired around 1000 fps, just under the sound barrier.

My paranoia set in however when I realized that the official list of this exhibit lists it as 800 MPS, not fps, and that Sturdivan's testimony is 800 mps, not fps. Mps would be meters per second, a reference neither Sturdivan nor his predecessor Olivier ever use anywhere else in their testimony. Combined, they make well over 30 references to fps, however. I then noticed that the exhibit list on the McAdams website mislabels both 113 and 114 and completely disguises that they represent gelatin blocks fired into by an m-16. Upon studying the wound ballistics of an M-16, I found that it does the most damage after becoming instable and that this usually occurs at 2700 fps, and that bullets travelling in the range of 2500-2700 fps may or may not become instable. Since 800 mps is 2625 fps, I momentarily thought it was all just a misunderstanding. But, after staring at 113 and 114, I found myself unable to accept that 113 represented a bullet releasing only 20 percent more energy. (Since energy is mass X speed squared and the mass is the same between the two then the only difference is the percentage difference in speed being squared .) It looks to me more like the 15 times or so more energy that would be the difference between a 3000 fps and an 800 fps bullet.

Anyhow, I've come to suspect a silenced automatic weapon was fired at Kennedy from the DAL-TEX and that our government for purposes of National Security has been covering it up, perhaps unwittingly. The book Silencer History and Performance by Alan C Paulson makes note that there are many things associated with silencers which are still considered classified information bv the government. Perhaps Sturdivan unwittingly entered something into evidence whic was "classified." Or perhaps someone knew the significance of the 800 fps M-16 bullet and "silenced" it from his testimony.

I'll come back and edit this and maybe add some links but I just wanted to get the word out before I get side-tracked. I think this could be an important area of research. Maybe John Ritchson or Al Carrier can chime in with their impressions of 113 vs. 114?

Edited by Pat Speer
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Pat, your post should certainly give everyone a lot to think about and there's not much I can offer to go along with it - except two misc. "factoids"

1) One of the expert civilian markesmen who participated in the attempts to duplicate Oswald's supposed shooting performance eventually wrote a book in which he put forth the thory that one of the SS agents accidentally shot JFK when he picked up an AR-15 (as I understand it, a similar weapon to the M-16). He felt that Oswald had taken a shot but that the SS man actually killed JFK by accident in picking up the weapon and accidentally loosing a round. There are lots of things wrong with that, he got sued and lost etc. However one of the things that convinced him was the similiarty of the fragment pattern and X-Rays to that produced by AR-15 ammunition. You might pick up a copy of his book just for that as he goes into great detail and certainly had professional credentials in that area.

2) Interesting that you mention "That Castillo-Armas was in the process of throwing the gambling interests ouf of Guatemala when he was killed, and that he was killed in a manner that would implicate the communists, along the lines of a CIA plan to kill his predecessor". Roselli's biographers spend a chapter on his work in Guatamala at that particular time, probably connected to gambling interests but also apparently doing some "consulting" work for one of the Fruit companies (perhaps with an intro. from Marcello) which involved rebel raids and activities which ended up hurting the competing Fruit Company.

-- Larry

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At the urging of Larry Hancock, I've decided to come forward with something I've been thinking about.

In 1997, the CIA declassified a number of documents related to the 1954 coup in Guatemala. I've recently spent some time pouring through these documents, Among them are redacted lists of purported communists who were to be assassinated (how do we know they weren't?) after the coup took place.  On the cover note on one of these lists is the name Rip, which is listed as being illegible on the National Security Archive, but which is clearly a reference to Rip Robertson. On an earlier report, most likely prepared by Albert Haney, co-ordinated with Tracy Barnes, there is a logistics list including a mention of 21 .22 caliber rifles with silencers.  Also included in the documents is a CIA STUDY of ASSASSINATION, found in the training file of the Guatemalan operation.  This is the manual one would have to assume was used by Robertson and David Sanchez Morales while training the exile army of Carlos Castillo-Armas.  The manual says, in  part:

f)  Silent Firearms

The sound of the explosion of the proponent in a firearm can be effectively silenced by appropriate attachments. However, the sound of the projective passing through the air cannot, since this sound is generated outside the weapon. In cases w here the velocity of the bullet greatly exceeds that of sound, the noise so generated is much louder than that of the explosion. Since all powerful rifles have muzzle velocities of over 2000 feet per second, they cannot be silenced.

Pistol bullets, on the other hand, usually travel slower than sound and the sound of their flight is negligible. Therefore, pistols, submachine guns and any sort of improvised carbine or rifle which will take a low velocity cartridge can be silenc ed. The user should not forget that the sound of the operation of a repeating action is considerable, and that the sound of bullet strike, particularly in bone is quite loud.

Silent firearms are only occasionally useful to the assassin, though they have been widely publicized in this connection. Because permissible velocity is low, effective precision range is held to about 100 yards with rifle or carbine type weapons, while with pistols, silent or otherwise,

are most efficient just beyond arms length. The silent feature attempts to provide a degree of safety to the assassin, but mere possession of a silent firearm is likely to create enough hazard to counter the advantage of its silence. The silent pisto l combines the disadvantages of any pistol with the added one of its obviously clandestine purpose.

A telescopically sighted, closed-action carbine shooting a low velocity bullet of great weight, and built for accuracy, could be very useful to an assassin in certain situations. At the time of writing, no such weapon is known to exist.

END QUOTE

This is significant in that the CIA is asserting that rifles firing a sub-sonic charge are still accurate up to 100 yards.  More importantly, on the logistics list they specifically request .22 caliber rifles, when they have their pick of rifles with a much-larger caliber.  This indicates that there were advantages to a .22.  Since the .22 was the rifle requested and was given to the Guatemalans along with the Study in Asssassination, it only makes sense that the "100 yards" comment apllies to the .22.  This is in direct contradiction to the writings of Al Carrier, who insisted a .22 firing a sub-sonic charge would be essentially worthless as a sniper rifle.  While Carrier may have been right, the CIA undoubtedly led their assassins-in-training to believe otherwise.

Shockingly, elsewhere in the assassination manual it states "public figures or guarded officials may be killed with great reliability and some safety if a firing point can be established prior to an official occasion.  The propaganda value may be very high."

This brings up the question of who in the CIA were the propaganda specialists for the Guatemalan operation.  And we have our answers in the names of E. Howard Hunt and David A Phillips. So here we have Robertson, Morales, Hunt, Phillips, and Barnes all tied up in this.  J.C. King proposed assassinations as part of his original plan PBFORTUNE. so he's tied up in it as well.

On the CIA's own historical review of the assassination plots, declassified in 1997,  it notes that "According to (a four letter name's) draft memorandum, after creating a story that BLANK (obviously Arbenz) was trying to oust the communists, he could be eliminated."

Since this was in 1953, this could have been King, who in 1953 was still over-seeing the project, but it could also be Hunt, since he was admittedly involved in seeking out support for Armas' upcoming coup around this time.  Intriguingly, Castillo-Armas himself was assassinated by someone who was immediately identified as a communist, but with evidence so flimsy even Allen Dulles was skeptical. While the real story was never unveiled, the man who rose to power shortly thereafter, Miguel Ydigoras Fuentes, was the U.S.'s main ally in the training of the Bay of Pigs, an operation run by the same CIA men involved in the 1954 coup and the CIA study in assassination. Jake Esterline, the operational planner for the Bay of Pigs, told a CIA interviewer in 1977, when discussing Carlos Alejos' suggestion that the CIA deal with the growing unrest in the training camps by either shipping them or shooting them, "and if you shoot them, bury them deep," said "that is how Ydigoras controlled his position for forty years, so he must have buried them deep.  I think he buried that piece of paper, too, along with (word missed--Basset's barking.)"  If the word purportedly missing is Castillo-Armas, then we have a CIA agent with extensive experience in Guatemala stating his belief that Ydigoras Fuentes killed Castillo-Armas. That Castillo-Armas was in the process of throwing the gambling interests ouf of Guatemala when he was killed, and that he was killed in a manner that would implicate the communists, along the lines of a CIA plan to kill his predecessor, and that the co-ordinated message of the U.S. media and the Guatemalan military was that his assassin was a communist, makes this whole incident disturbing.  One might rightfully wonder if a rogue element of the CIA in league with the gambling interests didn't help Fuentes gain power.

So far this has been a history lesson.  Now comes my application of these facts to the JFK mystery.

For those familiar with my seminar, it should not be a shock that I believe a bullet striking Kennedy in his hairline at 224 went down his neck and quite possibly hit Connally after its exit.  It struck me that both of Kennedy's wounds, the wound in the hairline as measured by the autopsists, and the neck wound as measured by Dr. Perry in Dallas, were smaller than should be expected for a 6.5 mm bullet traveling at 1800 fps.  It occurred to me that perhaps this was in fact a sub-sonic

.22 bullet fired from a similar trajectory as the TSBD, most probably from the roof or upper floors of the Dal-Tex.  It occurred to me as well that such a bullet would lack the energy to create both JFK's and Connally's wounds. So I decided to look into .22 automatic rifles available in 1963, as a silenced burst of gunfire could account for both wounds, and found that the only one widely used,  by the U.S. Special Forces in Vietnam, no less, was the M-16.

In reading about the M-16 and silencers I came across the creepy coincidence that much of the early research on M-16's and silencers took place at Edgewood Arsenal, the home of both the Warren Commission's ballistics expert Alfred Olivier and the HSCA's ballistics expert Larry Sturdivan.  The bullet wound expert present at the autopsy, Dr. Pierre Finck, was also an Edgewood employee, although his stint there seems to have come shortly after the assassination.

Even creepier, when reading about the history of the M-16 in Mortal Error, I came across a photo of the exhibit list of Sturdivan's HSCA testimony and it showed that exhibit number 114 was of an "m-193 bullet at 800 fps velocity." M-193 is the cartridge used in M-16s.  Since Sturdivan testifed that exhibit 113 was of an m-16 bullet  travelling at  3000 feet, which would be the speed of an M-16 bullet upon impact with Kennedy, it seems clear that an 800 fps bullet would be a test of a subsonic m-16 bullet striking Kennedy after being fired around 1000 fps, just under the sound barrier.

My paranoia set in however when I realized that the official list of this exhibit lists it as 800 MPS, not fps, and that Sturdivan's testimony is 800 mps, not fps.  Mps would be meters per second, a reference neither Sturdivan nor his predecessor Olivier  ever use anywhere else in their testimony.  Combined, they make well over 30 references to fps, however.  I then noticed that the exhibit list on the McAdams website mislabels both 113 and 114 and completely disguises that they represent gelatin blocks fired into by an m-16.  Upon studying the wound ballistics of an M-16, I found that it does the most damage after becoming instable and that this usually occurs at 2700 fps, and that bullets travelling in the range of 2500-2700 fps may or may not become instable.  Since 800 mps is 2625 fps,  I momentarily thought it was all just a misunderstanding.  But, after staring at 113 and 114, I found myself unable to accept that 113 represented a bullet releasing only 20 percent more energy.  (Since energy is mass X speed squared and the mass is the same between the two then the only difference is the percentage difference in speed being squared .)  It looks to me more like the 15 times or so more energy that would be the difference between a 3000 fps and an 800 fps bullet. 

Anyhow, I've come to suspect a silenced automatic weapon was fired at Kennedy from the DAL-TEX and that our government for purposes of National Security has been covering it up, perhaps unwittingly.  The book Silencer History and Performance by Alan C Paulson makes note that there are many things associated with silencers which are still considered classified information bv the government.  Perhaps Sturdivan unwittingly entered something into evidence whic was "classified."  Or perhaps someone knew the significance of the 800 fps M-16 bullet and "silenced" it from his testimony.

I'll come back and edit this and maybe add some links but I just wanted to get the word out before I get side-tracked.  I think this could be an important area of research.  Maybe John Ritchson or Al Carrier can chime in with their impressions of 113 vs. 114?

Pat,

Very interesting post! What you are confusing here is a .223 and a .22. A .223 will be in the range of 50-69gr and have velocities ranging in 2200-2600fps. A .22 will be in the range of 37-50gr and have velocities in the range of 800-1400fps. An AR-15 is a semi-automatic M16 basically and there are AR15s chambers for .22. The standard chambering of the AR15/M16 is a .223.

Growing up in Iowa, I spent a great deal of time hunting as a youth. This was my initial orientation into firearms. My favorite hunt was red squirrel with my .22 Remington squirrel rifle that I could take a squirrel out of a tree at 50yards with iron sights with no problem. But we are not talking about squirrels here. Several years ago I responded to a shooting at a residence and upon arrival, I found a subject laying on a kitchen floor in a pool of blood with a small hole in his forehead. I bent down to check vitals and he opened his eyes and spoke to me. Needless to say, I nearly soiled my pants. The subject had been shot in the forehead with contact shot from a .22 pistol that fired a bullet with a muzzle velocity of 1100fps. The bullet had entered and deflected, travelling around the exterior of the skull, under the scalp and lodged in the back of his head, outside the skull. He had a fractured skull at the point of impact, but it did not penetrate due to the downward angle of the bullet on impact.

In dealing with a light bullet, we are subjected to the issue of a low end sustained velocity through penetration. Even in flight, once the velocity begins to drop, it drops quickly. With penetration of a foreign body, the energy is quickly released and the velocity is quickly lost. With a .22, we are dealing with a low range velocity to begin with. Penetration is in the low end and energy dispersion into the cavity is confined to initial penetration is minute in nature compared to most other calibers.

I stand by what I have said before as a .22 would not be a caliber of choice for an assassin targeting the president in Dealey Plaza. It is accurate enough for these ranges, but the wound ballistics would not be considered for this feat.

Just because the CIA backed a specific weapon or procedure does not make it quality. Exploding clam shells, chemicals to make the beard fall out and other rediculous efforts to remove Castro were all backed by the CIA and are laughable. If you want to know how to eliminate a target, ask the military. That is who the CIA relied upon when they needed the job done.

Al

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In 1997, the CIA declassified a number of documents related to the 1954 coup in Guatemala. I've recently spent some time pouring through these documents, Among them are redacted lists of purported communists who were to be assassinated (how do we know they weren't?) after the coup took place.  On the cover note on one of these lists is the name Rip, which is listed as being illegible on the National Security Archive, but which is clearly a reference to Rip Robertson...

This brings up the question of who in the CIA were the propaganda specialists for the Guatemalan operation.  And we have our answers in the names of E. Howard Hunt and David A Phillips. So here we have Robertson, Morales, Hunt, Phillips, and Barnes all tied up in this.  J.C. King proposed assassinations as part of his original plan PBFORTUNE. so he's tied up in it as well.

I have also been looking at the links between these two operations. Other people who were involved in both operations included Richard Bissell, Jake Esterline, Gerry Droller (Frank Bender), William Pawley and Tommy Corcoran. As Esterline has explained, Bissell wanted the same people who had been used in Guatemala for the Cuban operation.

One of the things that has been missed is the prominent role that Pawley and Droller played in both operations. They also clashed a great deal. This mainly concerned political issues. Pawley was very concerned to get a right-wing government established in Cuba after the invasion. Droller, on the other hand, wanted people like Manuel Ray to be involved in the new government (as did JFK). Hunt agreed with Pawley but was Droller’s subordinate and could do nothing about it.

I have come across a document this morning concerning an investigation that was taking place on Droller’s activities in 1961. I believe this document might help to explain why the Bay of Pigs operation ended in failure. However, I do not want to change the direction of this thread and will start another on the mysterious case of Gerry Droller.

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Larry, the book about SS Agent Hickey accidentally killing Kennedy is Mortal Error, which is where I saw the photo of the exhibit list which fails to jive with the lists in the HSCA report. Although Howard Donahue's theory is wrong, it's still a helpful book in that he interviewed a number of forensic panelists and government experts, including Olivier and Canning. Trajectory expert Canning's misunderstanding of the Zapruder film is particularly enlightening.

And Al, your points about .223 and .22 are well taken. I think the larger than desired drop from shooting a subsonic bullet from an m-16 might help explain why the bullet hit Kennedy below the middle of his head near his hairline, as opposed to the middle of his head. I'm still curious as to your impression of Sturdivan's exhibits, and whether 113 shows the release of only 20% more energy than 114.

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Very good Pat, I'm glad you've seen Mortal Error, just one of those books I've had to purge from my library over time (and apparently my memory as well).

I did think it interesting that he seemed to have some pretty strong institutional support for his conclusions on the the fragment path and distribution. I would agree with Al that some of the CIA's choices in weapons are a bit far out but I can also see a lot of sense in the handbooks choice of .22's where some of their local assets may have been less than skilled or exceptionally well trained. And frankly I was just as interested in some of the points the manuel makes about picking and managing different types of patsies and the procedures for conducting"frames", particularly frames of in country "Communists".

Since most of their assassinations were being associated with political overthrows it gives them a different context and MO than simply taking out a target in military fashion. It wasn't enough for them just to get the kill since in most cases the actual sponsors/killers didn't just need to escape, they had to divert suspicion and blame to some other party. And I see that very relevant to November in Dallas.

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Ahhhh the good ol .22 :sun

I agree with Al on this, Dont get me wrong the .22 can be damn wicked at a short distance.

It would require multiple shots and I dont mean 3-4 either, it would be different if say someone unloaded a Ruger Mrk II into Kennedy's head as he drove by, which in a skilled persons hand could have been done easily but they would have been caught :D

I was talking to my father about this, he was a Homicide Det. for 17 years for the LAPD, He told me a story of how when he worked at I believe it was Newton division, back then called "shootin Newton" because they were always getting into shootouts (bad neighborhood) he talked about a close friend of his who parked his car across the street of Newton because they were doing construction on the parking lot.

His friend was dressed in plain clothes and walked across the street, a bus pulled up and some dirt bag jumped off and thought he would try and rob him with a bowie knife, by the time he pulled out his bowie and say "give me your"........he had 7 shots of .22lr in his face, dead before he hit the ground....It was found out this guy was just paroled and killed his mother in law 30 minutes before.

No recoil and great at short distance, but for the Kennedy assassination a .22 doesnt have the kenetic energy, velocity, penetration etc.

And the moral of this story, dont bring a knife to a gun fight, even if the guy only has a .22 :blink:

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Hey James,

Rain has stopped but were expecting a big storm with major flooding come Tuesday, I tell ya us California folks are just to use to sunshine LOL :ice

Lets see here,

The FAL is gas-operated, and fires from the closed-bolt position in both the semi- and full-auto. It has an operator adjustable gas regulator which works on a exhaust" principle. Under ideal conditions the major portion of the gas is passed through the regulator and out into the air. This system helps to reduce recoil.......

Chamberd in 7.62 nato which is a great round in which others are judged helps makes this rifle a accurate rifle with great ballistics.The problem with full auto in this caliber is its difficult to control, but we dont need to get into that because most of us know there was no full auto on that horrible day.

The only problem that I have with any semi auto used for the assassination is someone would be needed to "police up the brass" as the caseing would be sent flying after each shot is fired. Now for a "inside shooter" like some shooting from a building this wouldnt be that big of a problem as the brass only has a certain distance it could fly and the shooter would have "some" time to police up his brass.

Where is a outside shooter that brass can go anywhere, and if someone cares they will have to find that brass to keep the cover up in working order. Im sure if this was the scenerio, nobody wanted extra brass laying around.

Ive always wonderd about the possibilty of a semi auto being used, because of the last to shots witnesses heard were very close together, this could also mean two shooters firing simultaneously or one shooter realized the President was still alive and sent off a "double tap" in a panic in hopes of scoreing a hit.

If I have confused anyone im sorry, Im again sick with a bad cold, like I said us Californis folks are just to use to sunshine :D

Hope this might have shed some light to and gave you some answers to your question James.

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I've had the pleasure of firing a few rounds from an FAL.....nice.

Ryan, or anyone....I can't recall where I've seen them, probably an old Guns n Ammo....but isn't there some kind of "brass catcher"(?) available?

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Thanks, Ryan. As always very informative.

I asked because according to Rappleye and Becker in 'All American Mafioso - The Johnny Rosselli Story", William Harvey secured a bunch of FAL's which was part of his Executive Action blueprint where weapons could not be traced back to American agents. The FAL of course being the weapon used by the Cuban army.

I also hark back to the varied reports of other weapons being discovered after the assassination. According to a Dallas television station, a rifle was found in the fifth floor stairwell.

I'm wondering if indeed such a weapon existed, could it have been an FAL obviously planted to enhance the Castro did it story line. Pure speculation of course.

Thanks again, Ryan.

BTW, I guess that song, "It Never Rains In Southern California" is a cleverly crafted piece of disinformation? :ice

Get well soon.

James

Edited by James Richards
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Thanks, Ryan. As always very informative.

I asked because according to Rappleye and Becker in 'All American Mafioso - The Johnny Rosselli Story", William Harvey secured a bunch of FAL's which was part of his Executive Action blueprint where weapons could not be traced back to American agents. The FAL of course being the weapon used by the Cuban army.

I also hark back to the varied reports of other weapons being discovered after the assassination. According to a Dallas television station, a rifle was found in the fifth floor stairwell.

I'm wondering if indeed such a weapon existed, could it have been an FAL obviously planted to enhance the Castro did it story line. Pure speculation of course.

Thanks again, Ryan.

BTW, I guess that song, "It Never Rains In Southern California" is a cleverly crafted piece of disinformation?  :ice

Get well soon.

James

For those who are not familiar with the FAL, here is a photo. I work on them periodically as my nephews own them and some fellow officers. They are a bit finicky on ammo and the gas chamber settings is touchy.

Al

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