Towards A Simple, Plausible Yet Explanatory Conspiracy Theory

[Tony Krome]

10 hours ago, David Andrews said:

Were the TSBD shooter and the Grassy Knoll team intended to be the fake, near-miss assassination provocateurs, while additional, piggybacked teams are firing lethal shots?

• ·         The team on the Grassy Knoll are very visible, and fire rounds that leave a smoke cloud.  They are the team that puts a gunpowder scent into the Plaza air
• ·         The TSBD team leaves weapons behind to be found – part of the original near-miss plan
• ·         If we accept that JFK took a survivable low shoulder hit and the slug exited a shallow wound, might that have been a low-powered round specifically used by the TSBD team, to wound JFK but not kill?
• ·         The idea of multiple teams jibes with Tosh Plumlee’s account of being part of a team sent to spot shooter teams in the plaza – multiple interests are in play

David, the above is very close to what I've got.

Re Grassy Knoll team: The noise and smoke is pure distraction. There is a tower that overlooks this area, and of course they were aware that the tower was occupied by a person who observes. Yes, the gunpowder smell came from this area 100%. A noise came from this area 100%. The grassy knoll team drew people and law enforcement to that area, and that was their intention exactly.

Re TSBD team: Again, distraction, right down to parading a rifleman in plain sight and sticking a barrel out the window as seen by Couch etc. Before the sniper nest was vacated, they had to know how many shells to leave on the floor, so they had some form of communication with them. If the Stemmons sign "Cuban" guy had of signalled a successful first kill shot, there was never going to be additional risky and quickly successive shots. Why risky? Of course Jackie was expected to react ... and she did. She held her husband and moved close. Those additional shots were the work of seperate and very competent back-up professionals.

I have the shots coming from the least photographed area, and a place where people and police did not converge.

 

 

Edited April 9, 2021 by Tony Krome

[Greg Doudna]

Benjamin Cole--intriguing scenario. The piggybacking and small number of participants are appealing. Yet the devil is in the details, so some questions that come to mind. The fake-assassination attempt blamed on Castro makes a lot of sense in principle in keeping with known Cold War m.o. (Northwoods proposal, etc.), and also makes sense in how operatives could be part of it for patriotic reasons who would not knowingly be party to assassination of a president.

-- the objection, however, is "no one talked"--meaning here a witness of accepted credibility, or a document--of such a false-flag fake attempt. Would not someone close to the situation, among fellow agency employees or friends or family members, if not a participant personally, have learned what happened and talked? Yet no one of accepted credibility seems to have done so, nor does it seem any document of accepted credibility has turned up saying this. Is this a major objection or a minor objection? 

-- there is the difficulty, perhaps not insurmountable, but difficulty, of imagining the logistics of how an outsider, who does not belong in the TSBD, could both get to the 6th floor, and then exit, without being noticed by a single TSBD employee all of whom were questioned by the FBI concerning this very point, none of whom reported seeing anyone suspicious who did not belong in the building, anywhere near the 6th floor, that morning or at the time of the shooting. Thinking on this point has caused me to consider whether there was at least one more "inside man" in the TSBD apart from Oswald. Not necessarily as a shooter or himself seen in a 6th floor window, but as one who could assist in logistics, cover for Oswald, help smuggle in a firearm or a shooter or a person who was seen in the 6th floor window (if that is not to be explained solely by Oswald himself).

-- If as you assume Oswald was a CIA (or other agency) asset, do you have a conjecture on who Oswald reported to? Although there are other possible answers, one possibility might be someone inside the TSBD. 

-- But if there was more than Oswald, inside the TSBD, involved in a plot to fake an assassination attempt, this almost necessarily involves pre-planning to have Oswald obtain that job in the TSBD, rather than find employment somewhere else. (If Oswald was carrying out such a plot as the only one in his workplace, without a second man accomplice in the building, then all that would need to be assumed would be that Oswald arrange to find employment at any building on the likely parade route, not TSBD specifically.)

-- But if there was premeditated intent to place Oswald in the TSBD before he was there, how would that work exactly? It would again almost require supposition of a second "inside man" in the TSBD, one in control of hiring, on the TSBD end of it. The TSBD was owned by absentee owner Byrd said to be friends with LeMay (side question: is that friendship in fact verified?). But the on-site person of interest in this line of thinking might be Truly, who was not simply a hired manager but was on the board of directors. A lot of attention has been focused on Ruth Paine's phone call to Truly with some thinking that Ruth Paine must therefore have been knowing and witting of a plot, but that fails to explain how and why Linnie Mae Randle, that very Monday morning, would on her own initiative come over to where Ruth and Marina and other women were drinking coffee before Ruth called Truly, and Linnie Mae suggested that maybe Marina's husband could get a job where her brother Wesley had recently been hired, at the TSBD, following which Ruth made her phone call to Truly. If there was premeditation to have LHO employed in the TSBD, how is Linnie Mae's initiative to walk over and suggest just that, which both preceded and prompted Ruth's phone call, accounted for? If there was prior intent or premeditation at work in Lee ending up at TSBD, the logic would seem to lead more logically instead to what David Talbot asks in his book on Dulles, The Devil's Chessboard, whether the mechanism was to have the TSBD-employment idea suggested from Byrd/TSBD to Linnie Mae, prompting Linnie Mae to suggest that to Marina and Ruth. (Talbot considers Ruth not witting of anything other than what Ruth testified.) Furthermore, if Ruth had never made that phone call to Truly--if no more had happened following Linnie Mae's walking over and suggesting the TSBD employment idea to Ruth and Marina, than that either Marina or Ruth simply told Oswald of the TSBD job possibility and Oswald had followed through, Oswald would still have been hired by Truly anyway (no phone call from Ruth necessary at all)--according to Buell Wesley Frazier's book just out in which Frazier says Linnie Mae had told him, Wesley, of the situation with Lee's unemployment difficulty that same day, and Wesley says he himself the next day at work (Tue AM) asked his supervisor, Shelley, if Oswald could be hired at TSBD, and Shelley spoke to Truly and Shelley got back to Frazier later that day with a green light message from Truly to have Oswald come in for an interview. This is what Frazier says in his current book. So either Oswald's hiring at TSBD was the random accident usually assumed, or, if there was premeditation and intent concerning Oswald's placement there, the focus of interest would most logically be on Linnie Mae Randle, outside the TSBD, and inside the TSBD, Truly. (Then there is the freak accident that Linnie Mae Randle herself amazingly appears on a DPD document listing her as an employee of TSBD--although she did not commute physically to the building and there is no other sign she worked there--and that has another explanation as a mistake.) Do you have thoughts on this question Benjamin, of the mechanics of Lee's TSBD employment and whether that was preplanned or accidental at the time of Lee's hiring, in terms of how it works with your scenario?

-- final comment: I am not quite as certain as you that officials of a powerful spy agency of the US government would not knowingly burn an asset, considering him expendable in the service of greater Cold War interests, especially if his effective usefulness was over. Would that be considered any more morally objectionable in internal spook reasoning than generals sacrificing some foot soldier's life to win a battle in a war?      

Anyway thanks for your essay.

[Cliff Varnell]

11 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Thanks, Cliff. 

I cannot prove anything. My gut tells me the plot to kill JFK had to be small, very small in terms of knowing participants. 

That said, I do not regard my scenario as the be-all, end-all. It is a description of how a plot could be very small, and dovetails with certain undisputed facts about the case. 

 

 

The five guys who organized the JFKA (so I speculate):

Averell Harriman

George H.W. Bush

Carl Jenkins

Henry Hecksher

Charles Siragusa (perhaps unwitting)

The names of the shooters, spotters, communication specialists, observers, misdirection artists -- lost to history.

The five guys who organized the LHOA (sis)

Harriman

Bush

David Phillips

Edward Lansdale

Jack Ruby

The names of potential back-up patsies are found in the roster of usual suspects, most especially Allen Dulles.

[Benjamin Cole]

4 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

Benjamin Cole--intriguing scenario. The piggybacking and small number of participants are appealing. Yet the devil is in the details, so some questions that come to mind. The fake-assassination attempt blamed on Castro makes a lot of sense in principle in keeping with known Cold War m.o. (Northwoods proposal, etc.), and also makes sense in how operatives could be part of it for patriotic reasons who would not knowingly be party to assassination of a president.

-- the objection, however, is "no one talked"--meaning here a witness of accepted credibility, or a document--of such a false-flag fake attempt. Would not someone close to the situation, among fellow agency employees or friends or family members, if not a participant personally, have learned what happened and talked? Yet no one of accepted credibility seems to have done so, nor does it seem any document of accepted credibility has turned up saying this. Is this a major objection or a minor objection? 

-- there is the difficulty, perhaps not insurmountable, but difficulty, of imagining the logistics of how an outsider, who does not belong in the TSBD, could both get to the 6th floor, and then exit, without being noticed by a single TSBD employee all of whom were questioned by the FBI concerning this very point, none of whom reported seeing anyone suspicious who did not belong in the building, anywhere near the 6th floor, that morning or at the time of the shooting. Thinking on this point has caused me to consider whether there was at least one more "inside man" in the TSBD apart from Oswald. Not necessarily as a shooter or himself seen in a 6th floor window, but as one who could assist in logistics, cover for Oswald, help smuggle in a firearm or a shooter or a person who was seen in the 6th floor window (if that is not to be explained solely by Oswald himself).

-- If as you assume Oswald was a CIA (or other agency) asset, do you have a conjecture on who Oswald reported to? Although there are other possible answers, one possibility might be someone inside the TSBD. 

-- But if there was more than Oswald, inside the TSBD, involved in a plot to fake an assassination attempt, this almost necessarily involves pre-planning to have Oswald obtain that job in the TSBD, rather than find employment somewhere else. (If Oswald was carrying out such a plot as the only one in his workplace, without a second man accomplice in the building, then all that would need to be assumed would be that Oswald arrange to find employment at any building on the likely parade route, not TSBD specifically.)

-- But if there was premeditated intent to place Oswald in the TSBD before he was there, how would that work exactly? It would again almost require supposition of a second "inside man" in the TSBD, one in control of hiring, on the TSBD end of it. The TSBD was owned by absentee owner Byrd said to be friends with LeMay (side question: is that friendship in fact verified?). But the on-site person of interest in this line of thinking might be Truly, who was not simply a hired manager but was on the board of directors. A lot of attention has been focused on Ruth Paine's phone call to Truly with some thinking that Ruth Paine must therefore have been knowing and witting of a plot, but that fails to explain how and why Linnie Mae Randle, that very Monday morning, would on her own initiative come over to where Ruth and Marina and other women were drinking coffee before Ruth called Truly, and Linnie Mae suggested that maybe Marina's husband could get a job where her brother Wesley had recently been hired, at the TSBD, following which Ruth made her phone call to Truly. If there was premeditation to have LHO employed in the TSBD, how is Linnie Mae's initiative to walk over and suggest just that, which both preceded and prompted Ruth's phone call, accounted for? If there was prior intent or premeditation at work in Lee ending up at TSBD, the logic would seem to lead more logically instead to what David Talbot asks in his book on Dulles, The Devil's Chessboard, whether the mechanism was to have the TSBD-employment idea suggested from Byrd/TSBD to Linnie Mae, prompting Linnie Mae to suggest that to Marina and Ruth. (Talbot considers Ruth not witting of anything other than what Ruth testified.) Furthermore, if Ruth had never made that phone call to Truly--if no more had happened following Linnie Mae's walking over and suggesting the TSBD employment idea to Ruth and Marina, than that either Marina or Ruth simply told Oswald of the TSBD job possibility and Oswald had followed through, Oswald would still have been hired by Truly anyway (no phone call from Ruth necessary at all)--according to Buell Wesley Frazier's book just out in which Frazier says Linnie Mae had told him, Wesley, of the situation with Lee's unemployment difficulty that same day, and Wesley says he himself the next day at work (Tue AM) asked his supervisor, Shelley, if Oswald could be hired at TSBD, and Shelley spoke to Truly and Shelley got back to Frazier later that day with a green light message from Truly to have Oswald come in for an interview. This is what Frazier says in his current book. So either Oswald's hiring at TSBD was the random accident usually assumed, or, if there was premeditation and intent concerning Oswald's placement there, the focus of interest would most logically be on Linnie Mae Randle, outside the TSBD, and inside the TSBD, Truly. (Then there is the freak accident that Linnie Mae Randle herself amazingly appears on a DPD document listing her as an employee of TSBD--although she did not commute physically to the building and there is no other sign she worked there--and that has another explanation as a mistake.) Do you have thoughts on this question Benjamin, of the mechanics of Lee's TSBD employment and whether that was preplanned or accidental at the time of Lee's hiring, in terms of how it works with your scenario?

-- final comment: I am not quite as certain as you that officials of a powerful spy agency of the US government would not knowingly burn an asset, considering him expendable in the service of greater Cold War interests, especially if his effective usefulness was over. Would that be considered any more morally objectionable in internal spook reasoning than generals sacrificing some foot soldier's life to win a battle in a war?      

Anyway thanks for your essay.

Greg D-

Thanks for reading, and asking such trenchant questions. 

I will have to re-read your thoughtful reply a few times, and then gin up a response. 

Sadly, I have a day job even at my age, so wait for the week-end. 

[Benjamin Cole]

3 hours ago, Cliff Varnell said:

 

The five guys who organized the JFKA (so I speculate):

Averell Harriman

George H.W. Bush

Carl Jenkins

Henry Hecksher

Charles Siragusa (perhaps unwitting)

The names of the shooters, spotters, communication specialists, observers, misdirection artists -- lost to history.

The five guys who organized the LHOA (sis)

Harriman

Bush

David Phillips

Edward Lansdale

Jack Ruby

The names of potential back-up patsies are found in the roster of usual suspects, most especially Allen Dulles.

Obviously, I cannot refute your scenario.

I have only offered what I think is a credible scenario. 

I still tend to lean to "fewer is better" in terms of pre-event JFKA believability. 

After the event, complicity was a patriotic (and ruling class) duty. 

 

[Ron Bulman]

7 hours ago, Tony Krome said:

David, the above is very close to what I've got.

Re Grassy Knoll team: The noise and smoke is pure distraction. There is a tower that overlooks this area, and of course they were aware that the tower was occupied by a person who observes. Yes, the gunpowder smell came from this area 100%. A noise came from this area 100%. The grassy knoll team drew people and law enforcement to that area, and that was their intention exactly.

Re TSBD team: Again, distraction, right down to parading a rifleman in plain sight and sticking a barrel out the window as seen by Couch etc. Before the sniper nest was vacated, they had to know how many shells to leave on the floor, so they had some form of communication with them. If the Stemmons sign "Cuban" guy had of signalled a successful first kill shot, there was never going to be additional risky and quickly successive shots. Why risky? Of course Jackie was expected to react ... and she did. She held her husband and moved close. Those additional shots were the work of seperate and very competent back-up professionals.

I have the shots coming from the least photographed area, and a place where people and police did not converge.

 

 

I can't dismiss the GK.  Why chance a long shot to be sure/back and to the left.  Throat shot was small caliber, I. E. not a  long shot, likely from the same area?  Just speculating base on readings. 

[Tony Krome]

8 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

I can't dismiss the GK.  Why chance a long shot to be sure/back and to the left.  Throat shot was small caliber, I. E. not a  long shot, likely from the same area?  Just speculating base on readings. 

The "throat" entry shot, which was the failed first shot, was not a long shot. If that first shot had been a successful head kill shot as intended, one shell would have been placed on the sniper nest floor. After the first shot came the gap or pause in the shooting, then 2 quick rounds by the back-up team.

Back to the first shot: it was simultaneous with the firecracker sound everyone heard by the grassy knoll. That noise was cover for the first shot. At this point, the grassy knoll team were out of there. Also done at this point was first shooter.

The gap or pause: This is when the limo slowed down to a crawl and Jackie was moving very close to her husband. JFK had already slumped forward and to the left before the back-up team let loose.

The kill shot: Two successive shots rang out .... clap clap, or how Kellerman described ... Mr. KELLERMAN. Let me give you an illustration, sir, before I can give you an answer. You have heard the sound barrier, of a plane breaking the sound barrier, bang, bang? That is it. The second of these shots entered JFK's right temple and exploded out the rear occipital area.

 

Which means this shot came from the GK right? Wrong!

Mr. TRULY. I heard an explosion, which I thought was a toy cannon or a loud firecracker from west of the building. Nothing happened at this first explosion. Everything was frozen. And immediately after two more explosions, which I realized that I thought was a gun, a rifle of some kind.
The President's--I saw the President's car swerve to the left and stop somewheres down in this area.

 

and Truly told Baker that he saw the limo swerve left and stop;

 

Mr. BELIN - What other officers did you talk to and what did they say that you remember?
Mr. BAKER - I talked to Jim Chaney, and he made the statement that the two shots hit Kennedy first and then the other one hit the Governor.
Mr. BELIN - Where was he?
Mr. BAKER - He was on the right rear of the car or to the side, and then at that time the chief of police, he didn't know anything about this, and he moved up and told him, and then that was during the time that the Secret Service men were trying to get in the car, and at the time, after the shooting, from the time the first shot rang out, the car stopped completely, pulled to the left and stopped.
Mr. BELIN - The President's car?
Mr. BAKER - Yes, sir. Now, I have heard several of them say that, Mr. Truly was standing out there, he said it stopped. Several officers said it stopped completely.

 

After the first failed shot the limo swerved left and exposed JFK to the back-up team.

The witnesses tell the story.

 

Edited April 9, 2021 by Tony Krome

[Cliff Varnell]

6 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Obviously, I cannot refute your scenario.

It's an exercise in parsimony, no matter what your theory of the case is.

Let the evidence fill in the blanks:  I have to expand my list of probable perps.  I think Paul Helliwell was the paymaster of the JFKA; assistant Dallas County district attorney Bill Alexander filled out the LHOA team.

6 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

I have only offered what I think is a credible scenario. 

I still tend to lean to "fewer is better" in terms of pre-event JFKA believability. 

Absolutely.  That's why I don't think Dulles, Angleton, or Harvey were involved in the JFKA.  They didn't have their hands in the drug trade like other Agency guys did.

And I don't think there was an oligarchic star chamber that decided to whack JFK.  I think one guy pushed the button.

 

[Denny Zartman]

6 hours ago, Tony Krome said:

The "throat" entry shot, which was the failed first shot, was not a long shot. If that first shot had been a successful head kill shot as intended

How do you know for sure the throat shot was the first shot? How do you know for sure that was intended to be a successful head kill shot?

6 hours ago, Tony Krome said:

After the first shot came the gap or pause in the shooting, then 2 quick rounds by the back-up team.

What about the witnesses that heard more than three shots? What about the witnesses that saw bullets hitting the street? What about the bullet hole in the top of the limo windshield trim?

6 hours ago, Tony Krome said:

After the first failed shot the limo swerved left and exposed JFK to the back-up team.

And if it had stayed straight or turned right it wouldn't have exposed JFK to the back-up team? What kind of professional operation would that be, leaving something that important up to absolute chance?

[Benjamin Cole]

On 4/7/2021 at 1:38 PM, Richard Booth said:

I have to say here that your "piggyback" theory is incredibly compelling. I think it is a perfect analysis of how the plan was carried out by a small group at the very top, a plan that allowed them to both utilize the full force of the CIA without underlings knowing that their actions were in furtherance of a conspiracy to assassinate the president. 

I differ from your conclusions in that I believe the "piggybackers" -- those who knew the JFK hit was the ultimate goal -- were more than just 3-4 people. I suspect it was probably closer to 6-8 people and that the poison-pills injected into the plot (such as the WW3 virus) guaranteed that everyone at the agency would participate in a cover-up in order to protect themselves, protect their loyal officers, protect the country, protect the agency.

Catch-22: Containing Discovery of the Piggyback

The "poison pills" woven into the plot essentially guaranteed that anyone at CIA who was able to figure out that their various operations were hijacked or piggybacked upon would be forced to cover-up that fact to protect their own job, to protect their officers and assets, to protect the country, and to protect the CIA.

Inevitably, some in CIA would have figured out what happened. It was inevitable. However, many of these people were probably loyal intelligence professionals who loved their jobs, believed in the CIA, and supported their subordinates. They dare not share their concerns or speak up for it they did, they not only would likely have had little hard evidence to prove their suspicion, but they would commit career suicide if they spoke up, they would endanger the very agency they believed in and loved, and they would have destroyed what they believed was a necessary institution.

In short, speaking up would have in their view endangered the national security of the country. They would be in a Catch-22: "I know what happened here ... but if I talk about it, it could destroy the CIA and that in turn would gravely damage our national security and do more harm to this country than the KGB or Soviets could ever hope to achieve on their own." The would be stuck. No choice but to keep their mouth shut.  

Win Scott

I believe that Winston Scott is one of the people who did figure out that his station, his assets, and his personnel were used by the piggybackers. He figured it out. Probably rather quickly. It seems the most Scott did (as far as we know) about this was keep some evidence of this in his safe: holding onto recordings of the Oswald impersonator on the phone in Mexico and holding on to photos of Oswald (or an Oswald impersonator) in his safe. He probably kept these things for himself, a memento, a reminder, maybe ... more likely as "insurance" for himself.

Richard Helms said in the PBS Frontline documentary (about Scott having photos and audio of Oswald) "that's fine for Win Scott to say, but he doesn't have any evidence so what he is talking about?". 

What PBS Frontline left out is that Jim Angleton hopped on a plane--in such haste he forgot to even bring his passport--to Mexico where he confiscated the evidence from Scott's safe before Scott could even be buried. When you watch that PBS Frontline documentary, pause it when Richard Helms said "that's fine for when Scott to say ... but what is he talking about?" and then pick-up and read Jim DiEugenio's Destiny Betrayed chapter 16 "Mexico City and Langley." Then pick up John Armstrong's Harvey and Lee and read the chapter "1963, Mexico City- Pandora's Box" (page 614-706) -- regardless of what you may think about Armstrong's central thesis, his chapter on Mexico City serves as the best scholarship on what happened in Mexico City and is without equal in research in this case. It's that important.

The Piggybackers: Compartmentalization is the key

I believe that Angleton and Dulles were at the top of the plot. The WWIII virus and various other "poison pill" components of the plot were Angleton's handiwork. The key really is compartmentalization, where various people involved in things like setting up Oswald don't know they're participating in an assassination plot. All they know is they're handling a sensitive clandestine project. Maybe they think they're working on a Fair Play for Cuba Committee operation, maybe some think it's one of the Castro assassination plots, and more than likely many of the assets and agents utilized had no idea of the bigger picture, they only have very specific direct orders to do (A) (B) and (C) and they don't question why, they just do what they are asked without any need to know why.

Your analysis is astute, it's a very good analysis of the mechanics of how a compartmentalized operation can be carried out without key people in the operation knowing the bigger picture. I do disagree with some of the things you have suggested, however. Here are some of my thoughts on that:

Joannides

You mention a few times Joannides as a possible figure at the top who was part of the piggybacking -- I disagree there and think that Joannides was most probably/most likely participating in what he thought was a Fair Play for Cuba Committee operation where DRE, Ed Butler and INCA and all these assets were part of an operation designed to discredit the FPCC by linking it directly to Russia and Cuba, to try to show the organization was a front for the KGB and DGI. James McCord, however, I suspect may have been one of the people in the FPCC discrediting operation who might have also been aware of how the operation would be piggybacked. 

Once 11/22/63 happened, those DRE boys wasted no time taking advantage of the situation by sending their PR packet on Oswald to newspapers and radio stations to link the assassination to Castro. I view this as DRE being opportunists. They saw an opportunity to spin the assassination in a way that furthered their own goals in a way that aligned with their genuine beliefs. For example, I can see a situation whereby Bringuier or some of his DRE friends really did believe that Oswald was a Castro agent meanwhile Joannides knew better, knew that Oswald's "connections" to Castro were merely part of a legend being put together as part of the FPCC discrediting operation.  

David Phillips

I think he was aware of the piggybacking/assassination plot, and that he is central to the Mexico City stuff.

The things that happened in Mexico City look less like an operation targeting the FPCC than they do an operation designed to make Oswald look like a DGI/KGB assassin frantically seeking an escape route to Cuba for his upcoming starring role in "the big event." What happened in Mexico City makes little sense in terms of a FPCC discrediting operation ... though perhaps it was framed as one by Phillips to his subordinates and co-workers. 

The whole Kostikov and "Department 13" stuff, and the "Oswald trying to get to Cuba" stuff--all this makes sense only in terms of painting Oswald as a DGI/KGB assassination and sabotage agent who was quite clearly trying to seek some kind of escape route to Cuba.   

The Piggyback Players

I have my own suspicions who the 6-8 people aware of the JFK hit were, the "piggybackers" who designed and carried out the plan that Angleton put together. The compartmentalization allowed the piggybackers to have the entire agency at their disposal, every resource and department they needed. All it takes is one key figure in each necessary department. By having these 6-8 people within all these CIA departments not only do they have the full power of the CIA at their disposal to carry out the plan but they also guarantee that everyone in these departments is forced into the cover-up after the fact to protect their own jobs, their own departments, and personnel who contributed to operations that were "piggybacked."

For example, it can be shown that the piggybackers probably had people carrying out actions for them within: the Directorate of Operations, the Domestic Operations Division, the Domestic Contacts Division, Counter-Intelligence, the Office of Security, the Western Hemisphere Division, The Soviet Russia division, the Miami station, and the Mexico City station, just to name a few. 

In doing it this way, it also ensured that virtually every department in the CIA would be required to participate in the cover-up for all the reasons stated previously.

Here are my nominees for the Piggyback Players -- those who knew the JFK was the target and who exploited other "legitimate" operations to that end:

• Allen Dulles -- no longer DCI but still having meetings with key piggybackers who were still at CIA
• James Angleton -- I believe he was the leading figure who put the entire plan together 
• David Phillips -- key to Mexico City and in hijacking Joannides' FPCC operation from New Orleans by telling subordinates in Mexico City that what they were doing there was just an extension of the FPCC operation
• William K. Harvey -- I haven't figured out his role but suspect it relates to sourcing shooters 
• Howard Hunt -- a piggybacker embedded in multiple areas at CIA. He was chief of covert operations in Tracy Barnes' Domestic Operations Division, he was "on-loan" to Mexico City Station when the Oswald stuff went down, and he was also embedded into the Soviet Russia division by Angleton. (see Creating the Oswald Legend – Part 5 by Vasilios Vazakas) I believe Hunt was a central person for the piggybackers and served several different roles. He was no "bench warmer" like he claimed in his limited hang-out deathbed confession which curiously omits James Angleton, while absurdly accusing Cord Meyer and LBJ.
• Sergio Arcacha-Smith 
• Eladio Del Valle 
• Herminio Diaz Garcia

Much of this is speculation, but when you have all of the information surrounding these people and their actions, the puzzle pieces begin to fall together.

A plot like this can be carried out with even a dozen people being aware that JFK was the target, basically because the "poison pill" (or "virus" as Newman called it) was embedded into the plot in several different forms which essentially guaranteed that everyone would be forced to participate in the cover-up in order to ensure that the entire CIA wasn't destroyed. Anyone and everyone at CIA who might have figured out what happened was left in a compromising position by having their own officers and departments unknowingly--in many cases--carry out central parts of the plot.

The Most Secret CIA "Family Jewel"

When Angleton's replacement, George Kalaris came on board, he commissioned former CIA officer Cleveland Cram to come out of retirement to do a study of Angleton's reign from 1954 to 1974 to "find out what in hell happened. What were these guys doing."

Cram took the assignment and was given access to all CIA documents on covert operations. The study, entitled History of the Counterintelligence Staff 1954-1974, took six years to complete and was finished in 1981. Cram produced twelve legal-sized volumes, each three hundred to four hundred pages.

Cram's approximately four-thousand-page study has never been declassified.

It remains locked in the CIA's vaults.

I often wonder if Cram put together what happened on 11/22/63, figuring out James Angleton's most egregious, sinister, and successful operation and that this study will never be declassified, so we'll never know. 

However, as Grover Proctor said, I think that the case has been figured out. It has been solved: "Who says that it hasn't come out already?" The marketplace of ideas has been flooded with an enormous number of opposing and contradictory "solutions," some by well-meaning and hard-working researchers, and some which are obvious and blatant attempts at disinformation. Who is to say that, somewhere in that morass of opinion and deception, the real answer hasn't already been revealed?"

I believe that it has been figured out, and this post by Benjamin Cole fits squarely within that description.

IMHO of course.

 

Richard Booth:

Well, our viewpoints have a lot in common, and a few variances, but that's OK. I almost like your viewpoint better. 

That is amazing stuff about the Cram History. 

Call me naive, I find it hard to swallow that many people, in official positions, in fact planned the assassination of a sitting US President.  

Maybe I am like Robert Blakey and just can't believe people could be so foul. Blakely wised up part-way, and maybe I will too some day. 

I am prepared to believe complicity was rife after the JFKA, and that someone fairly high in the CIA or intel operated with the Mob to get LOH shot. 

But thanks for reading, and I look forward to more discussions about this, the best detective story ever written. 

[Benjamin Cole]

16 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

Benjamin Cole--intriguing scenario. The piggybacking and small number of participants are appealing. Yet the devil is in the details, so some questions that come to mind. The fake-assassination attempt blamed on Castro makes a lot of sense in principle in keeping with known Cold War m.o. (Northwoods proposal, etc.), and also makes sense in how operatives could be part of it for patriotic reasons who would not knowingly be party to assassination of a president.

-- the objection, however, is "no one talked"--meaning here a witness of accepted credibility, or a document--of such a false-flag fake attempt. Would not someone close to the situation, among fellow agency employees or friends or family members, if not a participant personally, have learned what happened and talked? Yet no one of accepted credibility seems to have done so, nor does it seem any document of accepted credibility has turned up saying this. Is this a major objection or a minor objection? 

-- there is the difficulty, perhaps not insurmountable, but difficulty, of imagining the logistics of how an outsider, who does not belong in the TSBD, could both get to the 6th floor, and then exit, without being noticed by a single TSBD employee all of whom were questioned by the FBI concerning this very point, none of whom reported seeing anyone suspicious who did not belong in the building, anywhere near the 6th floor, that morning or at the time of the shooting. Thinking on this point has caused me to consider whether there was at least one more "inside man" in the TSBD apart from Oswald. Not necessarily as a shooter or himself seen in a 6th floor window, but as one who could assist in logistics, cover for Oswald, help smuggle in a firearm or a shooter or a person who was seen in the 6th floor window (if that is not to be explained solely by Oswald himself).

-- If as you assume Oswald was a CIA (or other agency) asset, do you have a conjecture on who Oswald reported to? Although there are other possible answers, one possibility might be someone inside the TSBD. 

-- But if there was more than Oswald, inside the TSBD, involved in a plot to fake an assassination attempt, this almost necessarily involves pre-planning to have Oswald obtain that job in the TSBD, rather than find employment somewhere else. (If Oswald was carrying out such a plot as the only one in his workplace, without a second man accomplice in the building, then all that would need to be assumed would be that Oswald arrange to find employment at any building on the likely parade route, not TSBD specifically.)

-- But if there was premeditated intent to place Oswald in the TSBD before he was there, how would that work exactly? It would again almost require supposition of a second "inside man" in the TSBD, one in control of hiring, on the TSBD end of it. The TSBD was owned by absentee owner Byrd said to be friends with LeMay (side question: is that friendship in fact verified?). But the on-site person of interest in this line of thinking might be Truly, who was not simply a hired manager but was on the board of directors. A lot of attention has been focused on Ruth Paine's phone call to Truly with some thinking that Ruth Paine must therefore have been knowing and witting of a plot, but that fails to explain how and why Linnie Mae Randle, that very Monday morning, would on her own initiative come over to where Ruth and Marina and other women were drinking coffee before Ruth called Truly, and Linnie Mae suggested that maybe Marina's husband could get a job where her brother Wesley had recently been hired, at the TSBD, following which Ruth made her phone call to Truly. If there was premeditation to have LHO employed in the TSBD, how is Linnie Mae's initiative to walk over and suggest just that, which both preceded and prompted Ruth's phone call, accounted for? If there was prior intent or premeditation at work in Lee ending up at TSBD, the logic would seem to lead more logically instead to what David Talbot asks in his book on Dulles, The Devil's Chessboard, whether the mechanism was to have the TSBD-employment idea suggested from Byrd/TSBD to Linnie Mae, prompting Linnie Mae to suggest that to Marina and Ruth. (Talbot considers Ruth not witting of anything other than what Ruth testified.) Furthermore, if Ruth had never made that phone call to Truly--if no more had happened following Linnie Mae's walking over and suggesting the TSBD employment idea to Ruth and Marina, than that either Marina or Ruth simply told Oswald of the TSBD job possibility and Oswald had followed through, Oswald would still have been hired by Truly anyway (no phone call from Ruth necessary at all)--according to Buell Wesley Frazier's book just out in which Frazier says Linnie Mae had told him, Wesley, of the situation with Lee's unemployment difficulty that same day, and Wesley says he himself the next day at work (Tue AM) asked his supervisor, Shelley, if Oswald could be hired at TSBD, and Shelley spoke to Truly and Shelley got back to Frazier later that day with a green light message from Truly to have Oswald come in for an interview. This is what Frazier says in his current book. So either Oswald's hiring at TSBD was the random accident usually assumed, or, if there was premeditation and intent concerning Oswald's placement there, the focus of interest would most logically be on Linnie Mae Randle, outside the TSBD, and inside the TSBD, Truly. (Then there is the freak accident that Linnie Mae Randle herself amazingly appears on a DPD document listing her as an employee of TSBD--although she did not commute physically to the building and there is no other sign she worked there--and that has another explanation as a mistake.) Do you have thoughts on this question Benjamin, of the mechanics of Lee's TSBD employment and whether that was preplanned or accidental at the time of Lee's hiring, in terms of how it works with your scenario?

-- final comment: I am not quite as certain as you that officials of a powerful spy agency of the US government would not knowingly burn an asset, considering him expendable in the service of greater Cold War interests, especially if his effective usefulness was over. Would that be considered any more morally objectionable in internal spook reasoning than generals sacrificing some foot soldier's life to win a battle in a war?      

Anyway thanks for your essay.

Greg D.--

1. No one talked about the false flag fake assassination attempt. Indeed! To do so would be to admit a CIA op backfired with horrid results. That makes Keystone Kops look smart. I think the number of people who knew about LOH as a false-flag shooter would have been Phillips, and one superior at CIA. Then the two guys Philips brought in to help LOH. If they were Del Valle and Hermininio, they were dead by 1967. Phillips sort of talked about it. 

2. A "stranger" getting into the TSBD. My understanding is some of the offices inside the TSBD were rented out to non-TSBD businesses. Then you have the usual ruses of looking like a delivery man, etc. Maybe the true assassins even got in the night before, simple lock-and-key job. 

3. I think at the time, LOH was reporting to Phillips. I doubt anyone inside TSBD knew anything. There is the curious fellow Shelley. 

4. Getting LOH the job inside the TSBD. That's a tough one. LOH seems to have several  jobs with "connected" companies, that is companies linked to the National Security state. Did Angleton turn some gears to get LOH inside the TBSD? I don't know. Perhaps it was happenstance. 

One could posit if LOH had not gotten a job at the TSBD, then he would have shot at JFK from the top of the Dal-Tex building. He was not supposed to hit anyway. The false-flag fake assassination attempt does not need the TSBD.  

5. Intentionally killing LOH, as part of a real JFKA planned by CIA high-ups. Well, maybe. I contend CIA higher-ups did have LOH executed, by their Mafia buddies. But more likely they wanted him to disappear, show up in Cuba, after a false flag attempt. 

I will tell you or anybody another strange part of the story: 

LOH's wallet was found at the scene of the Tippit murder. 

So, of the hundreds (maybe thousands) of street murders in the US in 1963, only in the Tippit case did the murderer helpfully leave behind his wallet at the scene of the crime. 

Or, it was planted after the fact.

The planting seems more likely. So who planted LOH's wallet at the Tippit shooting? That adds (likely) another participant in the JFKA. 

 

 

 

 

[Tony Krome]

2 hours ago, Denny Zartman said:

How do you know for sure the throat shot was the first shot? How do you know for sure that was intended to be a successful head kill shot?

What about the witnesses that heard more than three shots? What about the witnesses that saw bullets hitting the street? What about the bullet hole in the top of the limo windshield trim?

And if it had stayed straight or turned right it wouldn't have exposed JFK to the back-up team? What kind of professional operation would that be, leaving something that important up to absolute chance?

The first shot caused JKF to raise his hands towards his neck then he slumped left as noted by witnesses. Example:

Mr. SPECTER - And what reaction, if any, did he have at the time of the first shot?
Mrs. HILL - As I said, I had yelled at him and he had started to raise his head up and I saw his head start to come up and all at once a bullet rang out and he slumped forward like this [indicating].
Mr. SPECTER - Lurched or slumped, as you say, to the left? 
Mrs. HILL - Yes.
Mr. SPECTER - Did his head drop down?
Mrs. HILL - Yes; he was just, you know, slumping down like this.

Note in the above testimony how the President was raising his head just as the witness heard the first shot (the GK noise). If the sniper was aiming at JFK's forehead as JFK was looking down with Jackie towards the middle of the seat as Hill previously described, and he depressed the trigger just as JFK raised his head to Hill's yelling, the bullet impact would be lower than anticipated. A failed kill shot.

There were more than 3 shots, many more. I have alluded to the noise from the GK that was a cover for the first shot. In other words, people heard that sound but not the sound of the sniper weapon. I also have Decker's mate Weatherford as a possible rear shooter that let off a round at the same time. This may be the Tague shot.

I'm not convinced on the chrome trim. To me, it looks like a uniform impression rather than a bullet hole.

Regarding the limo exposing JFK: I have Greer down as complicit.

Edited April 9, 2021 by Tony Krome

[David Andrews]

Col. Jose Rivera to Adele Edisen, spring 1963: "Remember, the first time it [the assassination] happens, it isn't real."

Anecdote begins c. 2:33:00 in Len Osanic interview podcast with Adele Edisen on BlackOp Radio (older show, repeated in new show #1037):

http://blackopradio.com/archives2021.html

If interested, you'll need to listen to Edisen's story in context to see if this remark is applicable to a false-flag, near-miss scenario, perhaps in a city other than Dallas.

https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKrivera.htm

Edited April 9, 2021 by David Andrews

[Richard Booth]

6 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Call me naive, I find it hard to swallow that many people, in official positions, in fact planned the assassination of a sitting US President.  

It is a hard proposition to swallow, that is for sure. However, when you consider the nature of some of the key suspects and consider that they were riding high on 5-10 years of very successful regime changes outside the United States, you have to consider just how much these people might have considered it no big deal.

I have no doubt Jim Angleton and Allen Dulles probably even considered it necessary and patriotic, they probably felt they were doing something that HAD to be done and that regular Americans had the luxury of not having to worry about the kinds of threats they were paid to worry about.

 

[Denny Zartman]

I can see that you put some thought and work into your article, Benjamin. You also have courage to share your theory of the case and subject it to scrutiny.

I personally find much of the logic flawed and/or not supported by the evidence at hand. Too much goes into unsupported assumptions, and many important witnesses and events seem to be ignored.

On 4/4/2021 at 2:30 AM, Benjamin Cole said:

Then it is asserted that Oswald had nothing to do with the murder of JFK.

No serious researcher asserts this.

Because someone doesn’t believe the evidence shows Oswald to be in the sixth floor snipers nest doesn’t mean that they believe he was a totally innocent bystander with absolutely no involvement on any level. He had a role to play during the shooting, even if it wasn’t as the sixth floor shooter.

On 4/4/2021 at 2:30 AM, Benjamin Cole said:

Moreover, does it make sense that the CIA or CIA assets chose to make the entirely uninvolved Oswald “the patsy” even though he had been a loyal asset for years?

Loyalty has nothing to do with expendability. A general would not refuse to send a soldier into battle simply because the soldier has shown loyalty to the military, any more than a general would send only disloyal soldiers into battle.

On 4/4/2021 at 2:30 AM, Benjamin Cole said:

Finally, why would the CIA betray Oswald, who might then reveal his past with the agency and raise an epic hornet’s nest?  

That’s why it appears that Oswald was to be killed during his apprehension. According to the official story, one officer (Tippit) had already drawn a weapon on Oswald, and another one hit Oswald in the face during his arrest. How do we know the handgun Oswald allegedly had on him (that either misfired and left a dent on the shell, or had the hammer come down on an officer’s hand and didn’t hit the shell at all) wasn’t one used by the police attempting and failing to shoot Oswald during the theater scuffle? More on that later...

On 4/4/2021 at 2:30 AM, Benjamin Cole said:

Importantly, no one has ever claimed to have seen Oswald at the very moment the President was gunned down in Dallas. As gunshots rang out, Oswald was invisible.

You might be aware of the story of Jerry Coley, employee of the Dallas Morning News newspaper, who took a photographer down to the plaza and photographed what they believed was a puddle of blood. The feds later came down to the newspaper offices, took the negatives, and told Coley and the others to keep quiet about it all. Intrepid reporter Hugh Aynesworth reported that the puddle was merely a puddle of red soda pop (complete with a nearby broken soda bottle, I believe.)

Now, if you believe Coley’s story, and that the feds would come down  and confiscate a picture and tell multiple newspapermen to keep quiet about a puddle of cherry soda, what do you think they would have done or said to anyone who claimed to have been standing next to Oswald at the time of the shooting?

On 4/4/2021 at 2:30 AM, Benjamin Cole said:

The JFK assassination scenario with Oswald as a totally clueless patsy has other logical flaws: For example, Oswald could hardly be made the trigger-man patsy if he had chosen to stand on the sidewalk staring at JFK—as he might easily have—shoulder-to-shoulder along with other TSBD employees and bystanders, very visible and photographed.

Oswald had a job to do. What that was, we do not know for certain. Because he was not seen by a reported witness at the time of the shooting does not automatically mean he was in the sixth floor sniper’s nest. He was seen on the first floor at 12:25 and again on the second floor at 12:32, and he reportedly said during interrogations that he was on the lower floors at the time of the shooting.

It’s not possible for someone in five minutes to run up four or five flights of stars, run the diagonal length of the floor from the northwest corner to the southeast corner through a maze of boxes, fire on the president, and then, in the next TWO minutes, again run the entire diagonal length of the sixth floor from the southeast corner to the northwest corner through a maze of boxes, stash the rifle, run down four flights of stairs (while not being seen by witnesses reportedly descending the stairs at the same time) and not be out of breath or noticeably sweating.

It’s just not possible. It’s really not. No matter how fanciful one’s imagination gets, it’s not possible to do all that in seven minutes and not be noticeably winded or sweating.

In my opinion, your theory breaks down there.

There are still more unanswered questions that arise from assuming Oswald was shooting from the sixth floor. You refer to Oswald as being fairly well-read and at least moderately versed in the art of intelligence and spycraft, as well as involved to a fairly high level in this particular operation as the designated fake shooter in your theory. Then please tell me why someone like Joseph Milteer could predict that Kennedy would be shot from an office building with a high powered rifle, and that someone would be picked up afterward to throw off the investigation, but Oswald could not?

Either Milteer knew it, which adds to your number of people wittingly involved, or Milteer guessed it. Milteer knew or guessed a patsy would be picked up, something that the comparatively worldly and more involved operationally Oswald did not know or could not guess. That’s very hard to believe, especially if Oswald is using his own rifle and carrying ID on him that links him to it.

So where was Oswald? Could he have been doing something like waiting on a phone call? He wouldn’t have gotten that call if he did. Apparently the power to the building went out just before the assassination and was restored just afterwards, disabling the phones and the elevators. According to Vincent Palamara’s “Honest Answers”, the power switch to the building was on the first floor, near the segregated lunchroom that Oswald often used and near an office. Could Oswald have been the one instructed to turn the power off and on? It would have kept him out of the public eye. And if he wasn’t the one who turned the building power off and on, who did? If it was someone else, doesn’t that just add to the number of conspirators involved?

And let’s not forget that there are a number of serious researchers out there that do believe Oswald was photographed outside the TSBD at the time of the assassination, so your assertion that Oswald was “invisible” at the time of the shooting is debatable to say the least.

On 4/4/2021 at 2:30 AM, Benjamin Cole said:

diversionary gunfire from the Grassy Knoll.

I just don’t follow this logic. Was the false flag intended to be blamed on multiple shooters? Then who was the intended patsy to be picked up and blamed for shooting from the knoll? Why would anyone want to divert attention from their false flag? Aren't flags intended to attract attention?

On 4/4/2021 at 2:30 AM, Benjamin Cole said:

In March of 1964, Warren Commission lawyer Arlen Specter appeared exasperated that Euins, summoned to Washington to be interviewed, declined to classify the shooter he saw as either a white or black man. Euins would only say that the shooter was “bald,” as revealed when the gunman leaned out of the window to get a look at his work.

The story of Amos Euins is so amusing when you realize that there were two cars worth of press people crawling north on Houston street straight toward the south face of the TSBD. One press person even had the time to point out a shooter who, by some accounts, either slowly withdrew the rifle barrel after the shooting, or, in Euins’s account, actually leaned out the window to get “a look at his work” - yet somehow not one photographer managed to snap a photograph of a person that was leaning out the window so far a fifteen-year-old could see the top of his head. The southern face of the building was bathed in bright sunlight and there was the sound of firing weapons coming from it, and two cars of professional press people managed to talk about it but not one managed to take one picture.

So curious. So convenient.

On 4/4/2021 at 2:30 AM, Benjamin Cole said:

Perhaps Oswald heard multiple gunshots, yet he knew he had only fired once.

If Oswald only fired once in your scenario, who put down the other two shells on the floor?

On 4/4/2021 at 2:30 AM, Benjamin Cole said:

If Oswald was truly unwitting bystander on Nov. 22, why would he arm himself in the aftermath of the JFKA?

Again, this is a false dichotomy. The only two options are not "Oswald was firing in the sniper's nest" or "Oswald was a bystander completely uninvolved in any way." Most serious students of this case believe he was involved, just not necessarily the shooter.

On 4/4/2021 at 2:30 AM, Benjamin Cole said:

But if the “Oswald worked for Russian wet-operators” story line got out and was seized upon by US hawks, then war with Russia could result. That was the story line the CIA handed to President Lyndon Baines Johnson, in the immediate aftermath of JFK’s killing. 

What’s your source on this? My research indicates LBJ brought it up himself immediately after Kennedy’s death.

Quote

And it was shortly after, just a few minutes after one o’clock that Dr. Malcolm Perry told me that the president was dead. Well, I went up to Kenneth O’Donnell and I said, “Kenny,” I said, “we’re going to have to make an announcement, the President’s dead.” And he said “Don’t ask me.” He said, “Ask Johnson.”

And of course, he was right. After we got to the hospital, the Secret Service had spirited Johnson and put him into a treatment room right next to the trauma room to put him under heavy guard. His chief Secret Service agent, Rufus Youngblood, made sure of that. He was the one that jumped in Johnson’s car and pushed him down and put his body on top of Johnson’s, in that race to the hospital, because he was in that motorcade too, you’ll remember.

So, when we got, I went into the trauma room and I walked up to Lyndon Johnson, and of course I figured he knew the president’s dead. Well, I didn’t know what to call him, I wasn’t about to call him Lyndon, you just didn’t do that with Lyndon Johnson, I called, I came up to him, and I said “Mr. President.” And Lady Bird just kinda screamed, in an audible [gasp]. That was the first word, according to him, and according to me, the first word that he had that John Kennedy was dead, was the fact, was by my calling him Mr. President.

Bob Hensley: What did Johnson say to you?

Malcolm Kilduff: I said “I have to make an announcement of President Kennedy’s death.” And he looked just ashen white, and it was interesting to note, in retrospect, what his reaction was. You’ll recall that Adlai Stevenson had been to Texas a few weeks before that, and we had the far political right was very active, General Walker, and Adlai Stevenson had been belted with rotten eggs in Dallas. So, we all thought that this was some sort of a, you know, right, far right wing activity.

Lyndon Johnson was very cool, he said, “Well now, Mac,” he said, “before you make that announcement, we don’t know what kind of a communist conspiracy this might be.” He was thinking a Communist conspiracy.

Bob Hensley: He’s saying it was a conspiracy, he just wanted to know who was involved?

Malcolm Kilduff: That’s right, but he, he said “This could be a communist conspiracy, and I think the best thing for me to do is get back to Air Force One before you make that announcement.” And I said “All right.” He said “And then we’ll wait back there for what ever you’re going to do, and then, to go back to Washington.”

 

On 4/4/2021 at 2:30 AM, Benjamin Cole said:

Oswald was alive on Nov. 22, having been captured without real incident by remarkably restrained Dallas Police Department officers, in the Texas Theater.

Restrained? According to the official story, one officer had already drawn his weapon at Oswald, and another hit him in the face during the arrest. I’m also not convinced that Oswald was the one who pulled a gun and either had a misfire or had the hammer stopped. Either the shell had a dent or it didn't.

What’s more probable, that the worldly ex-Marine who was eventually killed with a handgun thought he was going to shoot his way to freedom, or that the DPD unsuccessfully tried to silence him for possibly the second time that day?

On 4/4/2021 at 2:30 AM, Benjamin Cole said:

some observers have asserted no serious organization would rely on such unstable people as Oswald and Ruby to fulfill such critical missions.

Obviously they did in Ruby’s case. And it seems Oswald did too, at least to how I’m hearing your theory.

On 4/4/2021 at 2:30 AM, Benjamin Cole said:

And in the false-flag JFKA  version of events, LOH may have only fired once, not three times.

Again, I just don't follow the logic that makes you come to this "Oswald fired once" theory. What are you basing it on, and who put down the other two shells reportedly found on the floor in the sniper's nest?

On 4/4/2021 at 2:30 AM, Benjamin Cole said:

However, as noted by researcher Pat Speer, “Another memo…notes further that paraffin casts were normally thrown out by the Dallas Police Department after testing, and that Louie Anderson, who'd analyzed the casts for the DPD, had washed them and taken them home, apparently as a souvenir.”

"Washed them"? That is, the cast of Oswald’s check had been “washed” before it was subjected to Guinn’s neutron activation tests. 

How do you arrive at the conclusion that the cast was washed prior to testing? Your quote from Pat Speer seems to indicate that the cast was washed and taken home after testing rather than thrown away as was custom.

On 4/4/2021 at 2:30 AM, Benjamin Cole said:

6) It sounds whimsical, but LOH could have put saran wrap, or possibly a sheet of paper, on his cheek when firing. 

Are we really going to entertain every possibility, no matter how farfetched? As a wise man once said, “Theoretical physics can prove an elephant can hang from a cliff with his tail tied to a daisy. But use your eyes, your common sense.” If you had a piece of paper with a curve on it found at the scene, or a piece of Saran Wrap found in Oswald’s pocket, or a witness that saw him washing his face with a garden hose, then maybe you could start to make a case for something like this. Without any evidence, it’s just fanciful talk that, IMHO hurts your theory rather than helps it.

On 4/4/2021 at 2:30 AM, Benjamin Cole said:

Any mix of the above explanations might result in a false negative, even for Guinn’s neutron activation tests. 

I’d be interested to see you cite a court case where nitrate evidence was thrown out because of swirling air. Lawyer Mark Lane said that the negative nitrate cheek test would have been court admissible evidence that Oswald did not fire a rifle that day. Until I hear a persuasive argument by another lawyer as to why it wouldn’t be considered legally admissible in a court of law, I’m going to have to go with Lane’s interpretation of the contemporary rules of evidence.