David Von Pein

"Riddled"? I beg to differ. Some early reports mentioned the "knoll", yes. Which is understandable, since many witnesses were tricked by the sounds of Oswald's three shots from the TSBD. But note that NOBODY in the early news footage said they thought shots came from TWO different directions. jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2010/09/dealey-plaza-earwitnesses.html And there was a very early inaccurate report about "a man and a woman" possibly firing a rifle from a "walkway overlooking the underpass". (But does anyone here believe that happened?) And Jim Hagerty, as Kathy pointed out, does go on his network (ABC) and decides to put all of his common sense on hold when he utters the totally irresponsible and unfounded comment about how he thinks "this must have been a planned conspiracy". But Hagerty had no information or hard evidence that would suggest any such thing when he said those words on live TV on 11/22. He just blurted out that crap like a ninny who didn't give a damn about backing up what he was saying. It was nothing more than a completely unwarranted and blatantly irresponsible personal comment coming from one of the head men at ABC (no less). But when all of the reports are totalled up, it's fairly easy to see that the initial reports and bulletins are referring to a ONE-GUNMAN shooting that takes place from ONE single location (first thought by many to be the Knoll; but the SINGLE location was very quickly amended to the TSBD when other facts became known, such as the discovery of the shells and rifle in the building). If anyone watches any of the 11/22 first-day coverage and comes away with the sense that up to THREE gunmen were involved and that more than three shots were fired, you must be watching Oliver Stone's film instead. Because there's virtually nothing like that in the hundreds of hours of radio and TV first-day broadcasts that I have collected in the last several years.

A SHORTCUT TO BECOMING A LONE-ASSASSIN BELIEVER.... ---------------------------------------------------------------- To those JFK conspiracy theorists who seem to favor the Oliver Stone-like or Robert Groden-promoted assassination scenarios (that feature a minimum of three gunmen and anywhere from 6 to 15 gunshots being fired at President Kennedy in Dallas' Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963) -- I always suggest to them that they ought to dig up some of the originally-aired "As It Is Happening" live TV or radio broadcasts from that dark Friday in American history. After performing that exercise of watching a few hours of the November 22 television coverage of the assassination (in real time), or listening to some of the radio broadcasts in real time (which works just as well) -- I challenge anyone to then arrive at the same conclusion that was slapped up on the big theater screen in 1991 via Director Oliver Stone's blockbuster, conspiracy-laden motion picture "JFK". Watching the day's events unfold "live" in front of you (or listening to them unfold on the radio as it was happening) should, in my opinion, provide everyone with a good general idea of how utterly impossible a task it would have been to have "faked" so much stuff that was being IMMEDIATELY reported to the world on live television and radio within minutes and hours of the President's assassination (and within a very short space of time following Police Officer J.D. Tippit's murder as well). Via those original live TV/Radio broadcasts, you're not going to hear a SINGLE report that resembles anything close to the Oliver Stone/Jim Garrison-endorsed nonsense of: "Three gunmen fired six shots at President Kennedy's motorcade today here in Dallas!!" What you will hear, instead, is live coverage, as it happened, of a ONE-GUNMAN assassination taking place from where the majority of witnesses said it took place (the Texas School Book Depository Building), with no more than three shots having been fired by THE SINGLE SHOOTER, which is a shot count that over 91% of the witnesses concur with -- including the small percentage of witnesses who heard only one or two shots, who are witnesses that certainly don't do Mr. Stone's "6-shot ambush" theory any favors. http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/shots.htm Upon evaluating virtually ALL of the TV networks' live assassination footage from November 22nd, 1963, there is no possible way that a reasonable person could arrive at a conclusion that JFK was shot by three assassins, firing from both front and rear. Let alone arriving at an even more-cockeyed conclusion, as purported by Mr. Groden and some other CTers, which is an outlandish conspiracy-flavored scenario that has John Kennedy and John Connally being shot by way more than just the two Warren Commission-backed Mannlicher-Carcano bullets from Lee Harvey Oswald's rifle. Very nearly all of the information being reported on TV and radio that November day favored a "Lone Assassin" shooting scenario (including the info concerning the Tippit murder in Oak Cliff), with very little evidence and information to support any type of a "conspiracy" whatsoever. This is quite a telling "One Killer" fact. Because, in my view, if a vast conspiracy and subsequent "cover-up" had been in place on November 22nd (given the immense amount of TV and radio coverage, with reporters scrutinizing everything coming across their desks and digging hard for any type of case-solving clues during those first hours and days after JFK and J.D. Tippit were killed), I think that at least SOME pieces of the conspiracy would have leaked through to the sweeping television and radio coverage surrounding the two Dallas murders. And I'm guessing that every reporter and newsman in the country would have loved to dig up some "conspiracy"-oriented angle during that weekend in November of '63. Being the person who uncovered such a huge story would certainly be a feather in that reporter's cap, to be sure. But, as it turned out, nothing of that nature occurred....and has yet to occur all these many years later. To think (as many theorists do) that these conspirators were so smart and so quick to have had the capabilities to immediately eliminate virtually every last scrap of information leading to a conspiracy plot of some kind, making sure that none of the "multi-gunmen shooting event" details seeped through to the media (multiplied by TWO separate murders as well, counting Tippit's!), is to think that any such evil-doers had powers similar to "Superman". For example -- Almost every one of the initial reports concerning the number of gunshots heard by witnesses stated "3 shots". And while it's true that the very first report of the shooting from UPI's Merriman Smith (which was broadcast over all the television networks) stated "Three shots were fired...", it's also worth noting that Smith's initial bulletin was not the ONLY "three-shots" account that was reported during those early hours just after the shooting. For instance, Jay Watson of ABC affiliate WFAA-TV in Dallas (who happened to be in Dealey Plaza during the shooting and nervously reported the first bulletins to the unaware Dallas TV audience) is heard multiple times on November 22 saying he heard "3 shots" fired. Plus, several other members of the media are also on record stating their own PERSONAL beliefs that exactly three shots were fired by the assassin, including Robert MacNeil, Jack Bell, Bob Clark, Jerry Haynes, and Pierce Allman, among still others. Could these ultra-clever conspirators have somehow managed to "manipulate" several reporters who were relaying the news live to the world immediately after the event, and have them ALL report on hearing just "three shots" (or, in a few cases, hearing just TWO shots, which is a number that certainly does not favor a "Multi-Shooter Conspiracy Plot")? Or did the plotters just happen to get really, really LUCKY when virtually all of the news reports favored the "Three Shots Fired" conclusion? With this 3-shot scenario matching the precise number of bullet shells that were found on the 6th Floor of the Book Depository after the shooting; and also perfectly matching the exact number of shots heard by TSBD witness Harold Norman, and also perfectly matching the precise number of bullet shells (3) that Norman heard hitting the plywood floor directly above his 5th-Floor location within the Depository. Which, per Oliver Stone's movie, would mean that a full 50% of the ACTUAL number of gunshots were somehow inaudible to the enormous majority (91%+) of the earwitnesses! And, remember, Oliver has NONE of the shots within his movie's six-shot assassination ambush being "synchronized" in order to merge together with the sound of some of the other shots. And yet, per Mr. Stone, we're supposed to actually believe that approximately 9 out of every 10 witnesses somehow missed hearing HALF of the gunshots fired that day! A reasonable thing to believe....or not? I ask you. Were these so-called conspiratorial shooters so good that they could make 4 to 10 shots sound like only three to the vast majority of witnesses scattered all throughout Dealey Plaza? Highly doubtful, to say the least. Again....watch the live TV footage....or listen to some of the surviving 11/22/63 radio tapes....and then try to find a multi-gunmen conspiracy lurking within any of those original broadcasts. This link offers up a great "Live" example of what I'm talking about. It contains over an hour's worth of footage from Dallas radio station KLIF, beginning at 12:35 PM (Dallas time) on the afternoon of Friday, November 22, 1963. I challenge anyone to try and locate even a hint of a multi-gun conspiracy within that radio footage. Do conspiracy buffs think that all of these KLIF news reporters were "in" on some kind of massive conspiracy plot and an IMMEDIATELY-IN-PLACE "cover-up" operation too? That would be a good question for conspiracists to ask themselves as they listen to that live radio coverage. David Von Pein December 2006 June 2010

That's CT Myth No. 149. And it's just flat-out wrong. "In actuality, the distinct possibility exists that John B. Connally went to his grave with a mere TWO tiny bullet fragments left in his whole body (one in the thigh and one in his wrist)." -- DVP; Dec. 18, 2011 More.... jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2010/06/connally-bullet-fragments.html

Prudhomme, Go gripe to Sturdivan. I'm not the "wound ballistics expert/researcher". He is. And he said it on Page 118 of his book. If you think you know more than a ballistics expert, great. CTers ALWAYS think they "know better" than every expert ever connected to this case. Big effing deal. What else is new? But I'll stick with Larry, thanks.

See pages 118 and 144 of Larry Sturdivan's 2005 book, "The JFK Myths". Sturdivan, a wound ballistics expert and researcher, tells us on those pages that his research indicates the bullet (CE399) struck Governor Connally's right wrist at a velocity of only 500 feet per second (plus or minus 100 fps), and a bullet will not suffer any deformation if it is travelling less than 1400 to 1700 fps when it strikes bone (depending on whether the bullet is travelling "point first" or "sideways"). So, according to Sturdivan's figures, CE399 could have hit John Connally's wrist at a speed of 1399 feet per second and the bullet still would not have been deformed. Should we now add wound ballistics expert Larry M. Sturdivan to your growing list of "liars", Mr. Prudhomme?

Yet another myth, Greg. CE399 is not "pristine"....

Great. Another xxxx added to Prudhomme's never-ending list of liars. Quoting Fackler himself concerning his bullet test: "The bullet actually made a slightly greater hole than the one in Governor Connally's wrist. That's because the experiment bullet was actually going a little faster than the 900 feet [per second] that CE399 was travelling. The test bullet was non-deformed. It was not flattened in the least and had nowhere near the damage of CE399." [End Quote.] Fackler made those statements about his bullet test on August 10, 1992, during the American Bar Association's mock trial of Lee Harvey Oswald.

Greg, The difference, as you should know quite well, is the SPEED at which CE399 was travelling when it struck Connally's wrist. Why do CTers constantly avoid the critical "Bullet Speed" issue when discussing the SBT? Bullet 399 had been severely slowed down by the time it hit JBC's wrist and everybody knows it. And a bullet that has lost velocity has also lost its capability to become more severely deformed. Hence, CE399 remained intact. And so did the 6.5 Carcano bullet pictured below, which is a bullet that was fired into a human wrist at 1100 feet per second by Dr. Martin Fackler in 1992. It's in perfect shape--and this bullet broke a wrist bone....

Why would I believe something dumb like that? And why do CTers always ignore all the various tests done by different people over the years that prove that a Carcano bullet can and will behave just like the two bullets behaved that hit JFK's body on 11/22/63? From John Lattimer's book..... "This bullet [a 6.5mm Mannlicher-Carcano missile like CE399] can penetrate four feet of solid wood or three pine telephone poles side by side and come out looking completely undeformed. On the other hand, if it is fired into the thick bone of the back of a human skull, the jacket and core of the bullet will separate, releasing a myriad of additional fragments of many different sizes." -- Dr. John K. Lattimer; Page 277 of "Kennedy And Lincoln" [illustration from the book below]

Well, for Pete sake, Ray, what did you expect the report to say? The Olivier report couldn't possibly go any further than a "could be". If they had gone further and said "definitely did", I can just hear the CTers bitching about that wording. But many conspiracists insist that the 6.5mm. Carcano ammunition couldn't possibly have caused the type of head damage that JFK sustained. However, the above excerpt from the Olivier/Dziemian report totally demolishes crackpot observations like the one quoted below.... "The weapon, which was not even a rifle [???], could not have fired the bullets that killed the president. .... The [Mannlicher-Carcano] bullets, which were standard copper-jacketed World War II-vintage military ammunition, could not have caused the explosive damage. .... This kind of ammunition...does not explode. .... [An] X-ray of the President's head...displays a pattern of metallic debris as effects of the impact of an exploding bullet, which could not have been caused by ammunition of the kind Oswald was alleged to have used, thereby exonerating him." -- James H. Fetzer jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2010/06/16-smoking-guns-or-16-misfires.html In short, Dr. Fetzer and all other conspiracy theorists who have advanced similar theories about Oswald's rifle and bullets do not have the slightest idea what they are talking about. Enough said.

The Edgewood Arsenal "Wound Ballistics Of 6.5-mm. Mannlicher-Carcano Ammunition" report is very interesting reading. More conspiracy theorists should look at it. Here it is. Every single test performed between April 1964 and October 1964 by Dr. Olivier and Dr. Dziemian at Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland is consistent with the Warren Commission's ultimate conclusions. I.E.: Per the Edgewood Arsenal ballistics tests with Lee Harvey Oswald's rifle, that exact rifle was capable of causing all of the wounds that were inflicted on President Kennedy and Governor Connally on 11/22/63. Quoting directly from the Edgewood report: "Experiments were performed with the 6.5-mm Mannlicher-Carcano assassination rifle, serial no. C2766, and 6.5-mm Western Cartridge Company, lot WCC 6000, Mannlicher-Carcano ball ammunition to reproduce the conditions occurring at the time of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on 22 November 1963. The results indicated that the wounds sustained by the President and by Governor Connally, including the massive head wound of the President, could be produced by the above type of bullet and rifle." -- From the Edgewood Arsensal Report, Page 3

And the only possible way you, Jon, can "win" some of your arguments is to steadfastly and stubbornly remain married to your "Rules of Evidence" that only apply inside a courtroom. But the FACT remains that those three bullet shells WERE fired in Oswald's C2766 Carcano (and, yes, it most certainly WAS "Oswald's" Carcano, as Waldman #7 clearly proves)..... MELVIN EISENBERG -- "After receiving the cartridge cases, did you examine them to determine whether they had been fired in Commission Exhibit 139?" ROBERT A. FRAZIER (FBI) -- "Yes, sir." MR. EISENBERG -- "And what were your conclusions, Mr. Frazier?" MR. FRAZIER -- "I found all three of the cartridge cases had been fired in this particular weapon." http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/frazr1.htm ------------------- And I can hear the laughter in the courtroom, Jon, if you tried to float the idea that the three shells found under the window really WEREN'T fired at the time of the assassination. The prosecutor would, of course, hammer home to the jury the fact that Harold Norman heard shells falling to the floor DURING the assassination itself. And the prosecutor would also mention the little fact about the two large bullet fragments FROM THE SAME GUN owned by Oswald being found in the President's car. And the fact that Oswald's rifle was also found on that very same sixth floor. And then Jon Tidd would get up and plead with the jury for them to just IGNORE all of the above facts because Jon thinks the shells might have been planted (even though he has no hard evidence to back up such an assertion). Reminds me of the O.J. Defense. Same thing exactly. Try to get the jury to concentrate on things that could not possibly have happened in the real world, all the while getting the 12 jurors to throw into the trash the cold hard facts in the case.

Well, Jon, here's another picture taken from that same sixth-floor Sniper's Nest, and this time there IS a box on the window ledge. And the line of sight to the automobile on Elm Street below is not obscured at all: And here are two still frames from the 1963 Secret Service re-enactment film, in which a Secret Service agent demonstrates the probable position and posture of the sixth-floor assassin as he fired shots at the President's car: And here's another still image from that same SS re-enactment film, with this picture illustrating the high likelihood that the sixth-floor sniper (Oswald, of course) must have changed his firing stance between shot #1 and shot #2, because the boxes on the ledge do, indeed, appear to be obstructing a clear shot down to the street around the time of Zapruder frame 160 (which is when I think Oswald squeezed off his first shot): But I don't see why anyone would claim that the above observation about Oswald having to alter his shooting posture between the shots positively means that Oswald could not have accomplished the assassination on his own from that sixth-floor sniper's perch. Even if Oswald had to stand up (instead of sitting or squatting) to fire his first shot at Kennedy's car around Z160, so what? We still have solid indications that THREE shots from Oswald's Mannlicher-Carcano rifle WERE fired from that very same sixth-floor location in the southeast corner. The THREE spent bullet shells on the floor [CE510] pretty much seal the deal on that point. Plus the huge percentage of witnesses who heard exactly THREE SHOTS fired during the assassination. And, as the picture directly above clearly shows, Oswald had a clear and unobstructed view of JFK's car on the street below for the last two shots as the rifle was placed over the top of the boxes situated on the window ledge. Granted, if Oswald had been sitting on the box in the corner as the Secret Service agent was doing during his reconstruction of the shooting, it appears that due to the configuration of the boxes in the window, JFK would have come into Oswald's sights just barely in time for him to squeeze off the "SBT" shot at Z224 (which is when I think that shot occurred). But we can never know what Oswald's EXACT posture and body position was when he fired each of his three shots at the President back in '63. Perhaps he was sitting on the box in the corner for some of the shots (as the SS agent demonstrated), but perhaps he wasn't. That is one of the "unknowables" in this case. But one thing we DO know for a fact is that these three spent cartridge cases from the rifle proven to be owned by Lee Harvey Oswald were found underneath the southeast corner window on the sixth floor of the Book Depository on November 22, 1963:

Yeah, Bart, I see what you mean. Just because 4 witnesses (not to mention Mrs. Cabell and James Worrell) saw a gun in the SN window, why would THAT little fact mean any shots were actually fired from the ONLY place in Dealey Plaza where any witnesses saw a rifle? (That rifle was probably just a prop, right? Consult David Lifton about that one.) jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2013/07/david-von-pein-vs-david-lifton.html And just because there were three SPENT rifle shells found right under that same window, should that fact mean I should think ANY shots were fired from that window? (After all, the shells could have been planted there by the patsy-framers, correct? Check Oliver Stone's movie for the plotters in their "Acme" uniforms for verification on this one. And Oliver wouldn't say anything that wasn't accurate, would he?) And just because Harold Norman heard shots from over his head and heard shells falling to the floor during the shooting, should that give us a hint as to the source of the gunman either? (Norman was probably just lying, right?) But just how much evidence and how many witnesses am I expected to totally ignore anyway?* Or is there any limit if you're a CTer married to the unrealistic notion that Lee Oswald never fired a shot? * And I'll pre-empt the defense here by saying that I have not "totally ignored" the many "BOH" Parkland & Bethesda witnesses. I've dealt with those witnesses and tried to explain what they saw in a reasonable manner, just as Vince Bugliosi did in his book and just as the HSCA did as well. There's better evidence that proves the "BOH" witnesses were incorrect. But what "better evidence" does any CTer have when it comes to trying to prove the preposterous theory that NO SHOTS at all were fired from the southeast corner of the 6th floor of the Depository? I'll answer that myself --- There is no such evidence. And there never has been.

Of course you don't. And you probably don't give a hoot about the fact that Bob Jackson, just like Couch and Brennan and Euins, saw the rifle in the SN window too.

Couch isn't the only one who said this. Bob Jackson said it too.

Yeah, Jon. This is just a TERRIBLE spot for a sniper to be located, isn't it?....

If anyone wants to make Mal Couch out to be a xxxx about seeing the rifle in the sixth-floor window, they're going to have to somehow manage to get around Couch's FIRST-DAY live radio interviews on 11/22/63, wherein he tells the audience that he saw the rifle in the TSBD window. Here is one of those interviews (and this was only about two hours after the assassination).... DVP-Potpourri.blogspot.com/2011/05/mal-couch.html

Incompetent or just plain ignorant (on this point anyway). Isn't that fact blatantly obvious? To me it is. BTW, this isn't a case of my being "loyal" to Vincent Bugliosi. I was a believer in the "cowlick entry" years before Vincent's book came out.

Oh for Pete sake, Pat. How can you not see the absurdity in your argument? You and I both know there's a bullet hole there on JFK's head SOMEPLACE. We can see what even YOU say "resembles a gunshot wound" [Pat Speer quote from 6/10/15]. And yet I'm supposed to IGNORE the Clark Panel AND the HSCA's FPP AND the thing that "resembles a gunshot wound" and start looking around for the "real" bullet hole---which cannot be readily seen at all in the photo? (Which makes me, again, wonder why that ruler is being placed next to that red spot if it really ISN'T the bullet hole? Was the person holding the ruler fooled too?) It's ridiculous. BTW, I'm going to start calling Pat Speer "Mister Analogy". Pat's got an analogy for all occasions. (Just an observation. Not an insult, mind you. I do that same thing a lot too.)

Yes, you're probably right. Good for NBC for using common sense. They got it right. Good job.

A "BOH"-RELATED NOTE: I recently added an interesting 1964 NBC-TV program to my JFK video collection. It's the 9/27/64 NBC program called "The Warren Commission Report", and I took note of something kind of strange--- While summarizing the evidence in the JFK case (and NBC did a very nice and succinct job of doing that, btw, in the limited time available during that 9/27/64 program), Robert MacNeil of NBC News shows us a hand-drawn diagram of JFK's head wounds [see the photo below], and the entry hole is placed fairly high on the head of the President: The diagram actually shows the entry wound from two different perspectives (a profile POV [which is not depicted above] and a directly from behind vantage point), with the "from behind" view depicting the entry hole in what looks to me like a VERY HIGH place on Kennedy's head. (The wound is shown too far to the right of the midline, but that's another story.) But the profile view shows the entry hole to be a bit lower on JFK's head (with the President's head also leaning forward way too far, but, again, that's another argument entirely). It could just be the angle, or maybe the illustrator of the sketch made an error somewhere, but I found it interesting that NBC-TV would be reporting that the entry wound in the back of President Kennedy's head was located fairly HIGH on his head (based on one of the views presented in that diagram anyway). I have no idea where NBC would have arrived at any HIGH entry point (as of September '64). They certainly didn't get that kind of information from the autopsy report or the just-released Warren Report. David Von Pein May 18, 2009

But Curry's "fired a gun" remark was still NOT totally accurate. And that's because Curry surely knew that paraffin tests were not reliable tests. Period. But via his remark, he left the impression that there was no doubt at all that Oswald HAD definitely "fired a gun" based on the positive paraffin result on LHO's hands. Can there be any doubt at all that after listening to Curry saying "it only shows he fired a gun", millions of people got the impression that the paraffin test was CONCLUSIVE and therefore had proven that Oswald HAD, indeed, "fired a gun" based on that test? Of course that's what anyone would think after hearing Curry's remarks to the press corps. How could they possibly NOT think such a thing (unless they worked in a police crime lab)?

While talking with Steve Barber on Facebook yesterday, he sent me some interesting audio clips featuring Vince Bugliosi from 2006 and 2007. These are taped telephone messages that Steve recorded on his answering machine. He's given me permission to post them wherever I like. There's one call that exemplifies Vincent's desire to get things right (and to get quotes right), in which he wants to confirm precisely what Steve heard when listening to the Dictabelt recordings in 1979..... Vincent Bugliosi Telephone Messages ====================================== jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2015/06/remembering-vince-bugliosi-1934-2015.html