Kevin Balch

How can you say this?

So he was approximately 1 mile north of Dealey Plaza. With the origin of the TSBD/DalTex shots being partially shielded and the wind blowing from west to east, that is not surprising.

Yet none of the claims or the basis for the claims are refuted. Did Israel deliberately attack the USS Liberty? Did Israel divert highly enriched uranium from a US plant owned by a devout zionist that did work for the US Navy? They also left a contaminated site for US taxpayers to pay for the cleanup. Does Israel spy on the US and has given military secrets and technology to enemies of the US? Doesn’t Israel steal prohibited nuclear weapons components from the US? As with other theories about the JFK assassination, the case for Israeli involvement is largely circumstantial. If Israel would deliberately attack a US Navy vessel in international waters, what wouldn’t they do if they thought it was in their interest?

He does appear to talk into his radio (but it as after the assassination when he is still sitting down) but it could also be just a regular radio receiver and he is trying to listen to it over the noise of the crowd. Umbrella Man and DCM are in a dangerous location if there was a shooter from the south knoll.

The book Rise and Kill First by Ronan Bergman is about the history of Israeli “targeted assassinations” going back to even before the founding of the modern state of Israel. I am surprised that no JFK assassination researchers have seemed to have read it. The Israelis had a Palestinian captive who they tried to program as a Manchurian Candidate with the intent of releasing him and having him kill a PLO leader. When they thought he was ready, the Israelis released him, he waved goodbye to them and that was the last they saw of him. So they claimed. When I read this, I immediately thought of the RFK assassination. Did RFK ever do anything to investigate the JFK assassination or offer any encouragement to those who questioned the Warren Commission and were investigating it? His pal Walter Sheridan certainly didn’t help. The threat of a Deep State in the background with no hesitation to kill certainly never discouraged the Kennedy family from running for office. When asked if he supported Israel, RFK Jr. was silent for an uncomfortably long time before answering in the affirmative.

Wasn’t Stemmons Freeway traffic held up during the motorcade, along with railroad traffic? Someone on the other side should have heard shots even though they were almost directly upwind from the source. Dan Rather claimed he was on the other side of the railroad overpass to catch any film from the CBS cameraman in the motorcade to bring it back to KLRD for development. He claims he didn’t hear the shots but sensed something was wrong when the limo sped by him so he walked over to Dealey Plaza, saw the crowd was obviously distraught and instead of doing the obvious and asking someone what happened, went directly to KLRD. For what it’s worth as there is no photographic evidence to corroborate his claim. A rifle shot will make sound from the muzzle discharge and the sonic boom of the bullet, assuming it is supersonic which the MC ammunition was. The cone of the sonic boom will reach people at times quite differently than the muzzle blast which could be perceived as echoes.

I agree that JFK almost singlehandedly peacefully resolved the Cuban Missile Crisis. Almost singlehandedly. Early in the crisis, it was Adlai Stevenson that overtly pushed the idea of a trade of the Jupiter missiles for the Soviet missiles in Cuba. JFK was quick to grasp the value of the idea. After the crisis, JFK kind of threw Stevenson under the bus and an article written by Charles Bartlett shortly afterward with JFK’s cooperation, minimized Stevenson’s contribution. To his credit, JFK was really the only one on the EXCOMM that thought about WHY the Soviets placed the missiles in Cuba. Incidentally, the deployment of the Jupiter missiles in Turkey and Italy was a proposal of the Eisenhower administration in response to the Soviet launch of Sputnik. It was believed that this undermined the credibility of the US nuclear umbrella with NATO as the US would not have an operational ICBM for several years. The Jupiters would temporarily fill in the perceived gap. The missiles were actually deployed during JFK’s administration by which time not only were they unnecessary but also obsolete as the US had an operational ICBM (the Atlas) as well as a submarine launched ballistic missile (Polaris). One of the major stumbling blocks to removing the Jupiter missiles was fear of causing division within NATO, particularly with the Turks. So not only were the missiles deployed to reassure NATO, NATO considerations also delayed their removal leaving NATO essentially causing and prolonging the crisis. The situation in Ukraine shows we haven’t learned a thing. Something else I thought was interesting was RFK proposing a “Remember the Maine” incident (actually using that phrase) right out of Operation Northwoods to give cover for an invasion of Cuba. It makes me wonder how much of Operation Northwoods was thought of by the military and how much was the military echoing back suggestions of RFK to get him off their backs. No one ever talks about it and there is only the RFK narrative in Thirteen Days that has become the standard account. In addition to the excellent Martin Sherwin book mentioned above, I’d also recommend The Other Missiles of October by Philip Nash and Averting the Final Failure: John F. Kennedy and the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis Meetings by former JFK Library historian Sheldon Stern who was the first to listen to all the recordings made with JFK’s tape recording system.

Could he have been involved with railroad or construction work? You would think someone involved in assassination activity would be more discrete or at least collapse the antenna.

In a good, slow-motion magnified version of the Z-film, you can see DCM is actually waving with his hand open.

We shouldn’t have to “believe” what happened. There are ways to calculate the implications of the limo stopping based on basic physics, test data on passenger response to deceleration, response times of skilled drivers and some reasonable assumptions that if not precisely accurate, are not likely to be off significantly. I am astonished that none of those researchers who have masters or PhDs in physics haven’t done this.

I used the Don Roberdeau drawing to line up the proposed shot. No way is it practical. Not worth spending any more time on.

I don’t. But it’s a question those who claim or believe she was should have asked themselves. It’s against human nature to ask critical questions about one’s theories that are designed to prove them false. But it prevents a lot of bad ideas from emerging from the crib and if the theory survives the questions, it is more stronger for having done so. That’s why ideas like Zapruder filmed at 48 frames per second or that Greer had the brakes to the floor to make a complete stop survive and lead people down rabbit holes.

Shouldn’t there be residue on the right sleeve or in the pocket of the the discarded jacket found under the car during the pursuit of Tippit’s killer? Maybe it has been dry cleaned out during conservation.

Why doesn’t Abraham Zapruder mention that his wife was there?

I was thinking of how he got across the border (each way) with the rifle.