Shots from inside the presidential limo

[Bill Miller]

Just to get the ball rolling:

Hugh William Betzner, Jr., 19WCH467: "I walked down toward where the President's car had stopped."

Roy Truly, 3WCH221: "After the first shot... I saw the President's car swerve to the left and stop somewheres down in the area..."

Yes Paul ... and even an airplane flying several hundred miles an hour will look to be stopped in midair when either viewed coming directly towards or away from you. Merriman Smith said that his car stopped as did the motorcade, but he states that the President's car only faltered. Playing with words and interpretations is a waste of time IMO. Had the limo actually stopped, then the cycles riding next to it would have shot past the car or had to stop as well - right! Name one cycle officer that said that he had to stop because the limo stopped? Name one officer that said he shot past the limo because it had stopped? Offer once reference to where a cycle officer riding next to the limo had to put their feet on the ground because they had to stop?? Name one person who was at the screening of the Zfilm after the assassination and/or at anytime throughout that weekend who said the initial showing showed the limo stopping??? You see, one of the smartest things Zapruder ever did was to have copies made of his film as he stayed right there on site as his film was processed. By Sunday, Zapruder's film had already been copied onto slides and frames had already been printed and published for the news stands. It wasn't until Monday afternoon that anyone even knew Marie Muchmore had filmed the assassination. This information alone without even getting into the aspects of what multi-generational films would look like causes big problems for anyone who could have wanted to alter Zapruder's film.

And have you ever stood in Dealey Plaza on the underpass, the steps leading up to the walkway, or the pedestal where Zapruder filmed from and watch the cars coming down the street? Altgens with camera in hand, the Franzen's, Hudson and/or the men next to him would have had a clean view right through the windshield and could have seen Greer shooting the President. If one wants to make Greer a culprit, then say he was involved by not reacting in the way one might think he should have, but claiming he pulled a nickel plated gun and shot JFK is simply silly IMO. And I must say that going even further over the edge and claiming the Zfilm may be faked so not to show Greer doing the deed with his left hand moving is just totally out there.

Bill Miller

[Paul Rigby]

C.B. Colby. Secret Service: History, Duties and Equipment (Putnam Pub Group, 1966), p. 20.

According to Merriman Smith, “All [agents on the White House Detail of the Secret Service] are crack shots with either hand. Their pistol marksmanship is tested on one of the toughest ranges in the country. The bull’s-eye of their target is about half the size of the one ordinarily used on police and Army ranges. They must qualify with an unusually high score every thirty days, and if any one of them – or any of the White House police, which falls under Secret Service jurisdiction – falls below a certain marksmanship standard, they are transferred. Agents must also qualify periodically firing from moving vehicles. This accounts for the requirement to shoot well with either hand. A right-handed agent might be clinging to a speeding car with that hand and have to shoot with the left.”

Timothy G. Smith (ed.), Merriman Smith's Book of Presidents. A White House Memoir. ( NY: Norton, 1972), p. 226.

Was this standard in effect in 1963 Paul, or was it imposed as a result of what happened in 1963?

Myra,

Judging by the content of the briefing given the Sunday Times' Insight team for its piece, "The Bodyguards...and the broken first commandment," 24 November 1963, p.6, the training outlined by Smith was standard stuff in 1963. According to this piece, "agents of the elite bodyguard are hand-picked," and as part of their bog-standard training, "learn judo," and become proficient with "revolver, sub-machine gun carbine, and riot pistol."

Oh, and they had an axiom drummed into them: "Never look at the President, he's not going to kill himself." They must have forgotten that, too.

Paul

[Paul Rigby]

Just to get the ball rolling:

Hugh William Betzner, Jr., 19WCH467: "I walked down toward where the President's car had stopped."

Roy Truly, 3WCH221: "After the first shot... I saw the President's car swerve to the left and stop somewheres down in the area..."

Yes Paul ... and even an airplane flying several hundred miles an hour will look to be stopped in midair when either viewed coming directly towards or away from you. Merriman Smith said that his car stopped as did the motorcade, but he states that the President's car only faltered.

Ta for the Zen philosophy, Bill. I trust there's no extra charge for these words of wisdom? Merriman Smith? Interesting character. Couldn't stand Kennedy or the New Frontier types he brought with him to Washington. Read Murder From Within - there's a couple of excellent extracts in the footnotes.

So, then, how long did the limo stop? According to a bunch of the earliest-cited and/or closest eyewitnesses, sufficiently long for one or more armed SS men to reach the presidential limo, presumably to check that the mission was accomplished:

Norman Similas: "I looked back at the car and a Secret Service man ran up with his gun drawn...The Secret Service man opened the car door and I saw the President slumped to the floor and falling towards the pavement," "Metro Man Eyewitness to History," Toronto Telegram, 23 November 1963.

Earl Cabell: "...there was confusion in the presidential car - activity. The Secret Service men ran to that car," 7WCH479

Robert Baskin: "The motorcade ground to a halt. There was a good deal of activity round the President's car, with Secret Service men running about," Dallas Morning News, 23 November 1963, p.2.

Policeman D. V. Harkness: "...some of the agents piling on the car," 6WCH309.

Anonymous reporter: "Secret Service men bounded out...one with a sub-machine gun at the ready," Newsweek, 2 December 1963, p.21.

Policeman Marion Baker, citing Chaney's account: "...during the time that the Secret Service men were trying to get into the car," 3WCH266

There we have one of the reasons why Chaney wasn't called to testify by those fearless truth-seekers on the Presidential Commission.

[Bill Miller]

Ta for the Zen philosophy, Bill. I trust there's no extra charge for these words of wisdom? Merriman Smith? Interesting character. Couldn't stand Kennedy or the New Frontier types he brought with him to Washington. Read Murder From Within - there's a couple of excellent extracts in the footnotes.

So, then, how long did the limo stop? According to a bunch of the earliest-cited and/or closest eyewitnesses, sufficiently long for one or more armed SS men to reach the presidential limo, presumably to check that the mission was accomplished:

Norman Similas: "I looked back at the car and a Secret Service man ran up with his gun drawn...The Secret Service man opened the car door and I saw the President slumped to the floor and falling towards the pavement," "Metro Man Eyewitness to History," Toronto Telegram, 23 November 1963.

Earl Cabell: "...there was confusion in the presidential car - activity. The Secret Service men ran to that car," 7WCH479

Robert Baskin: "The motorcade ground to a halt. There was a good deal of activity round the President's car, with Secret Service men running about," Dallas Morning News, 23 November 1963, p.2.

Policeman D. V. Harkness: "...some of the agents piling on the car," 6WCH309.

Anonymous reporter: "Secret Service men bounded out...one with a sub-machine gun at the ready," Newsweek, 2 December 1963, p.21.

Policeman Marion Baker, citing Chaney's account: "...during the time that the Secret Service men were trying to get into the car," 3WCH266

There we have one of the reasons why Chaney wasn't called to testify by those fearless truth-seekers on the Presidential Commission.

Paul,

Your responses get harder to make sense out of them with each one. We know Clint Hill ran to the limo ... makes sense that someone saw that. Agents piling onto the car and SS agents running around with machine guns ... these are all single statements that had they been true ... it would have been all over the news and many witnesses would have described it. I mean, none of that junk is seen on the assassination films, so is it your position that all those things you mentioned must have been removed from the assassination films??? Did anyone at the initial showings ever mention agents piling onto the car?

I really cannot follow your way of thinking unless I was purposely trying to make CT's look inept when it comes to deductive reasoning.

Bill Miller

[Tim Gratz]

I do understand that Greer did not approve of Kennedy's womanizing.

But let me tell you Paul in the Christian morality murder is seen as a far worse crime than adultery.

If Greer objected to "womanizing" on moral grounds no way would he stoop to murder.

So what is your actual premise re the motivation of Greer and Kellerman to commit murder most foul? I don't think you have shared that so far.

And Bill is right, the insanity of this entire thread plays into the hands of VB and his ilk who would brand the entire assassination research community as nuts and fruitcakes. I know. I have been reading his book. That is a large part of his modus operandi.

[Tim Gratz]

I do understand that Greer did not approve of Kennedy's womanizing.

But let me tell you Paul in the Christian morality murder is seen as a far worse crime than adultery.

If Greer objected to "womanizing" on moral grounds no way would he stoop to murder.

So what is your actual premise re the motivation of Greer and Kellerman to commit murder most foul? I don't think you have shared that so far.

And Bill is right, the insanity of this entire thread plays into the hands of VB and his ilk who would brand the entire assassination research community as nuts and fruitcakes. I know. I have been reading his book. That is a large part of his modus operandi.

[Chuck Robbins]

Greer's left hand position between Z312 and Z314. Any sign of him holding a gun or that there was any recoil in those 3/18s of a second - I don't see any.

Bill Miller

Don't see a gun anywhere.

I can't see what is casting that shadow seen on the top of the bench seat between the two agents either.

The shadow seems to be too small to have been cast by Greer's head.

We can argue until the cows come home and we still have no absolute proof either way.

I'd like to thank our wonderful Justice Dept. for exhausting every resource in the performance of its' top notch investigative work while searching for any and all possible conspirators....

Yeah, right.

[Tim Gratz]

Chuck wrote:

We can argue until the cows come home and we still have no absolute proof either way.

Sorry, Chuck, the word ought to be "any" not "absolute".

But arguing ad nauseum over silly, even lunatic, assassination theories has never stopped most Forum members before, so why start now? If nothing else I am sure this thread is giving VB a few hearty laughs!

[Paul Rigby]

Paul,

Your responses get harder to make sense out of them with each one. We know Clint Hill ran to the limo ... makes sense that someone saw that. Agents piling onto the car and SS agents running around with machine guns ... these are all single statements that had they been true ... it would have been all over the news and many witnesses would have described it.

They did - I quoted a couple of them. But such observations didn't fit the official narrative, so were never given the prominence they merited. You proceed as if key elements of that official narrative were not in place by the evening of 22 November. Demonstrably untrue. The official narrative was already set in stone, and insisting the attack was an external one, involved a rifle, fired by a Marxisant malcontent from high to the rear.

To illustrate the scale of the deception. Consider the media treatment afforded the Parkland doctors' first major press conference. It should have been given considerable prominence, but wasn't. Why? Because it had two doctors who had treated Kennedy insisting he had been shot twice from the front. What was the average US newspaper editor to do? Run with the doctors, or the official narrative? One was guaranteed to pay the mortgage - and it wasn't the former.

I mean, none of that junk is seen on the assassination films, so is it your position that all those things you mentioned must have been removed from the assassination films???

Absolutely. What you characterise as "junk" - the eyewitness testimony - is the foundation of the system of justice.

Did anyone at the initial showings ever mention agents piling onto the car?

I haven't got all the early reports - any chance you can get Mack to start sharing them?

[Myra Bronstein]

C.B. Colby. Secret Service: History, Duties and Equipment (Putnam Pub Group, 1966), p. 20.

According to Merriman Smith, “All [agents on the White House Detail of the Secret Service] are crack shots with either hand. Their pistol marksmanship is tested on one of the toughest ranges in the country. The bull’s-eye of their target is about half the size of the one ordinarily used on police and Army ranges. They must qualify with an unusually high score every thirty days, and if any one of them – or any of the White House police, which falls under Secret Service jurisdiction – falls below a certain marksmanship standard, they are transferred. Agents must also qualify periodically firing from moving vehicles. This accounts for the requirement to shoot well with either hand. A right-handed agent might be clinging to a speeding car with that hand and have to shoot with the left.”

Timothy G. Smith (ed.), Merriman Smith's Book of Presidents. A White House Memoir. ( NY: Norton, 1972), p. 226.

Was this standard in effect in 1963 Paul, or was it imposed as a result of what happened in 1963?

Myra,

Judging by the content of the briefing given the Sunday Times' Insight team for its piece, "The Bodyguards...and the broken first commandment," 24 November 1963, p.6, the training outlined by Smith was standard stuff in 1963. According to this piece, "agents of the elite bodyguard are hand-picked," and as part of their bog-standard training, "learn judo," and become proficient with "revolver, sub-machine gun carbine, and riot pistol."

Oh, and they had an axiom drummed into them: "Never look at the President, he's not going to kill himself." They must have forgotten that, too.

Paul

Thanks Paul.

[Tim Gratz]

So the criminal geniuses who rounded up the Zapruder film and faked it to remove evidence of Greer's gun forgot to remove the backward head shot frames that convinced so many there was a frontal shot? How clumsy of them! I would assume the conspirators in charge of the film alteration had to take a cut in pay over that bober! What do you think, Paul?

[Bill Miller]

So the criminal geniuses who rounded up the Zapruder film and faked it to remove evidence of Greer's gun forgot to remove the backward head shot frames that convinced so many there was a frontal shot? How clumsy of them! I would assume the conspirators in charge of the film alteration had to take a cut in pay over that bober! What do you think, Paul?

Sometimes I do not believe that Paul thinks things through thoroughly ... or at least he makes it appear that way for what ever motive he has for doing it.

Bill

[Paul Rigby]

Hugh William Betzner, Jr., 19WCH467: "I walked down toward where the President's car had stopped."

Roy Truly, 3WCH221: "After the first shot... I saw the President's car swerve to the left and stop somewheres down in the area..."

As an ancient Russian proverb – that distilled essence of the accumulated peasant wisdom of the millennia, no less – has it: “Beware of White Russians bearing cinematic gifts.” How very true. Once we move beyond the fake film and its motley supporting acts, we are obliged to fall back on one of our deepest and most primitive instincts – the desire to read. Strange things happen when we revert to nature: we find patterns. Here’s another of them:

Left Veer witnesses

From in front:

1. Railway worker Roy Skelton, who viewed the assassination from the overpass:

“then the car [the presidential limousine – PR] got in the right hand lane,” 19WCH496.

2. Policeman J.W. Foster, again situated on the overpass:

“immediately after President Kennedy was struck…the car in which he was riding pulled to the curb,” Warren Commission Document 897, pp.20-21.

From side on, 3) to the right of the limousine, 4) to the left of it:

3. Policeman James Chaney and other unnamed Dallas officers, as related by fellow motorcycle outrider, Marrion L. Baker:

“I talked to Jim Chaney…during the time that the Secret Service men were trying to get into the car…from the time the first shot rang out, the car stopped completely, pulled to the left and stopped…I heard several of them say that, Mr. Truly he was standing out there, he said it stopped. Several officers said it stopped completely,” 3WCH265.

4. Jean Hill: “Murder Charge Lodged,” Dallas Times Herald, 23 November 1963, p.8:

“The President passed directly in front of us on our side of the street,” Mrs. Hill said.

From the rear:

5. TSBD employee Mrs. Donald Baker (Virgie Rachley at time of shooting):

Mrs. Baker told Warren Commission attorney Wesley Liebeler that the stray bullet struck the middle of the south-most lane on Elm Street just behind the presidential limousine, 7WCH509-510:

Mr. LIEBELER. How close to the curb on Elm Street was this thing you saw hit; do you remember? It would have been on the curb side near the side away from the Texas School Book Depository Building on the opposite side of the street; is that right?

Mrs. BAKER. Yes.

Mr. LIEBELER. How close to the opposite curb do you think it was?

Mrs. BAKER. It was approximately in the middle of the lane I couldn't be quite sure, but I thought it was in the middle or somewhere along in there could even be wrong about that but I could have sworn it that day.

Mr. LIEBELER. You thought it was sort of toward the middle of the lane?

Mrs. BAKER. Toward the middle of the lane.

Mr. LIEBELER. Of the left-hand lane going toward the underpass; is that correct?

Mrs. BAKER. Yes.

Mr. LIEBELER. Where was the thing that you saw hit the street in relation to the President's car? I mean, was it in front of the car, behind his car, by the side of his car or was it close to the car?

Mrs. BAKER. I thought it was--well--behind it.]

6. TSBD supervisor & board member Roy Truly, who watched the assassination from in front of the TSBD:

“I saw the President’s car swerve to the left and stop somewheres down in this area…,” 3WCH220.

But it’s NOT in the films, went up the cry. Exactly. We either believe the films – or the spontaneous, uncoordinated testimony, for no conceivable gain, of six eyewitnesses observing from all four points of the compass. Take your pick. Make your choice.

The next question – is there any testimony or evidence that would support the contention that the presidential limo reached the south curb of Elm? Happily, there is.

[Tim Gratz]

Now wait a minute. If I read the above correctly, Truly testified the car swerved to the left and Skelton said it got in to the right hand lane.

Presumably both cannot be right.

Eyewitnesses make mistakes. Eyewitness identification often produces grave mistakes in criminal cases.

Moreover I do not recall that you posted a single witness who testified he or she saw Greer shoot the President--not a single one! With all the witnesses around, no one saw Greer pull out his gun? That's pretty hard to accept assuming Greer in fact shot JFK.

Nor have you ever posted your theory re why Greer did it and Kellerman conspired with him by keeping quiet about it.

[Thomas H. Purvis]

Now wait a minute. If I read the above correctly, Truly testified the car swerved to the left and Skelton said it got in to the right hand lane.

Presumably both cannot be right.

Eyewitnesses make mistakes. Eyewitness identification often produces grave mistakes in criminal cases.

Moreover I do not recall that you posted a single witness who testified he or she saw Greer shoot the President--not a single one! With all the witnesses around, no one saw Greer pull out his gun? That's pretty hard to accept assuming Greer in fact shot JFK.

Nor have you ever posted your theory re why Greer did it and Kellerman conspired with him by keeping quiet about it.

The simple fact that this discussion is even transpiring, is a "prime indicator" as to exactly why it is that no one who even professes to think rationally, gives credence to, or pays any attention to, those who keep yelling "WOLF/The Sky is Fallling"; etc; etc; and/or whatever.

So by all means, everyone write their State and Federal Congressmen/women, and inform them that the case is resolved and that Greer did it.

Whoever called this the "Educational Forum", lied!

The "rehashing" of pure BS is not in the realm of learning, within the content and context of education.