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What Are the Correct Questions to Ask About the JFK Assassination?


Jon G. Tidd

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I struggle to answer the question I pose.

The Socratic method of teaching, which has been used in law schools, is for the professor to ask questions, not supply answers. The method teaches the student to ask himself or herself correct questions. Learning to ask oneself correct questions leads one to be one's own teacher while continuing to be a student.

A correct question demands a discrete answer, An answer one can defend.

So, what are the correct questions to ask about the JFK assassination?

Here are three I believe:

1) What was the nature of JFK's skull according to JFK's autopsists?

2) What is the life history of the person accused of killing JFK? Not the psychological profile. The facts.

3) Did Marina testify honestly about her husband to the Warren Commission?

The answers to these questions won't tell who killed JFK or why. The answers may suggest other correct questions.

Again, correct questions are those that can be answered and defended.

I may not have posed correct questions. I struggle to frame my questions about the assassination. What are your questions the answer to which is obtainable and furthers one's grasp of the JFK assassination?

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Jon G. Tidd said:

What are your questions the answer to which is obtainable and furthers one's grasp of the JFK assassination?

Two good questions off the top of my head....

1. Did Lee Harvey Oswald lie (repeatedly) to the authorities after his arrest on 11/22/63?

2. Did Lee Harvey Oswald take a shot at General Edwin A. Walker on April 10, 1963?

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I believe the answer to both of the above inquiries is a resounding (and provable) Yes.

And if we can all agree that Question #2 should be answered in the affirmative, then a very important fact about Lee Oswald emerges in the process -- the fact that he was willing, seven months before JFK's trip to Texas, to attempt to kill a human being by shooting him with a gun.

That's an important thing to know about Lee Harvey Oswald, in my opinion.

Edited by David Von Pein
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Your second question is, in my opinion, not a a correct question. It is not answerable with certainty.

The evidence against Oswald in the Walker murder attempt is, indeed, circumstantial in nature. I'm not denying that fact. Of course it's circumstantial. But it's also fairly solid circumstantial evidence, in my view. And in some ways it is the best kind of circumstantial evidence you could get, because Commission Exhibit No. 1 (the note Lee left behind for Marina on the night of 4/10/63) was written by Lee Harvey Oswald himself. It wasn't written by somebody else. It was written by Lee Oswald. So Lee is telling us, in his own words, that something's not quite normal on the night of April 10th, 1963.

Jon, why do you think Lee Oswald wrote the note we find in CE1? If it wasn't written just prior to Lee taking a potshot at General Walker, then why did Lee write such a strange "If I am alive and taken prisoner" note to his wife? He must have been planning something pretty serious in order to use those words. Right, Jon?

http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh16/html/WH_Vol16_0013a.htm

Edited by David Von Pein
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David,

My question is, does the factual record support clearly that the person history knows as Oswald wrote the writing known as C.E. 1?

I would say Yes. Without a speck of a doubt.

But regardless of any psychological evaluation or "historical analysis" you may wish to perform on Mr. Oswald, the clear FACT remains that the handwriting (in Russian) we see in Commission Exhibit No. 1 is positively the handwriting of Lee Harvey Oswald and no one else's (per the various handwriting analysts who have examined that document for the Warren Commission and the HSCA).

Do you want to call into question the conclusions reached by ALL of those handwriting experts, Jon?

Bottom Line --- Lee Harvey Oswald wrote the words we see in CE1.

There's no good (or reasonable) escape hatch for conspiracy theorists in this regard. Which is why I said previously that CE1 is just about the best type of "circumstantial evidence" you can get. Because it is, in effect, Lee Oswald himself telling us that he's about to go out and do something of a criminal nature on the night of April the 10th, 1963. What other kind of activity could possibly explain these words written by Lee Oswald in that CE1 document?:

"If I am alive and taken prisoner..."

"You can either throw out or give my clothing etc. away."

"The Red Cross will help you."

"I left you as much money as I could."

If ever a note reeked with a person's guilt, Warren Commission Exhibit Number One is it.

Edited by David Von Pein
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David,

My question is, does the factual record support clearly that the person history knows as Oswald wrote the writing known as C.E. 1?

I would say Yes. Without a speck of a doubt.

But regardless of any psychological evaluation or "historical analysis" you may wish to perform on Mr. Oswald, the clear FACT remains that the handwriting (in Russian) we see in Commission Exhibit No. 1 is positively the handwriting of Lee Harvey Oswald and no one else's (per the various handwriting analysts who have examined that document for the Warren Commission and the HSCA).

Do you want to call into question the conclusions reached by ALL of those handwriting experts, Jon?

Bottom Line --- Lee Harvey Oswald wrote the words we see in CE1.

There's no good (or reasonable) escape hatch for conspiracy theorists in this regard. Which is why I said previously that CE1 is just about the best type of "circumstantial evidence" you can get. Because it is, in effect, Lee Oswald himself telling us that he's about to go out and do something of a criminal nature on the night of April the 10th, 1963. What other kind of activity could possibly explain these words written by Lee Oswald in that CE1 document?:

"If I am alive and taken prisoner..."

"You can either throw out or give my clothing etc. away."

"The Red Cross will help you."

"I left you as much money as I could."

If ever a note reeked with a person's guilt, Warren Commission Exhibit Number One is it.

Is it possible that Oswald shot at General Walker but didn't shoot at JFK?

--Tommy :sun

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Besides changing the statements into the questions Why would LHO leave a note saying "If I am alive and taken prisoner"; Why would he instruct Marina to give or throw away his clothes; Why would he instruct her to utilize the Red Cross for help; and Why would he leave her as much money as he could, extend the questions beyond CE1: Why would LHO on the morning of November 22 leave most of his cash on the dresser along with his wedding ring? What does the repetitive actions suggest about LHO's mindset that November morning?

Dave

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"How could any reasonable person possibly come to such a conclusion based on the evidence that exists that shows Oswald shot JFK?"

That is a question I have always assumed you had undertaken. To arrive at such firm conclusions as you have would require that exercise.

Many reasonable, educated people have examined the evidence and determined it inconclusive. For those individuals, Jesse Curry for one, more is needed.

For those like you who draw inferences that point to Oswald, that is understandable, too. And many scholars and reasonable people have taken that solid stance.

A bit more of the picture must be developed before anyone can definitively state that their inferences are beyond a reasonable doubt the correct ones.

Dave

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David,

Questions about the "Walker note":

1. Who found the note?

2. Where was the note found?

3. When was the note found?

4. Who translated the note?

5. Did the person who translated the note make any comments about the grammatical quality of the note? Or about the formation of certain characters?

6. Is it odd in your view that the note is not signed or dated?

7. Is it odd in your view that there are no Oswald fingerprints on the note?

8. Did Marina upon first being presented the note by U.S. Government officers acknowledge that she recognized the note?

9. Is it possible in your view that someone other than Oswald prepared the note?

10. How skilled, in your view, was Oswald at speaking Russian? Not very? Highly? Some other degree?

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