They Killed Our President
Page 5
As critics have rightly observed—including other Secret Service agents who have analyzed the security parameters that were not in place—the Secret Service had to have been aware of the fact that the new route was insecure, which was evidenced by the many areas along that route which were completely unprotected by law enforcement officials.87
Lynn Meredith of the Secret Service conducted an examination of the security failures in Dallas and these were the conclusions of that study:
I have always believed that the following adverse situations
all contributed to the unfortunate and unnecessary death of President Kennedy. . . . No Secret Service agents riding on the rear of the limousine.. .Inadequate security along the entire ten-mile motorcade route from the airport to downtown Dallas that day, particularly in the buildings along the route of travel. . . . The motorcade route published several days in advance. . .88
As Professor James Fetzer noted in his study of the security precautions in Dallas:
Secret Service policies for the protection of the President were massively violated during the motorcade in Dallas.89
And those violations were numerous and serious:
More than a dozen Secret Service policies for the protection of the President seem to have been violated during the motorcade in Dallas, including no protective military presence; no coverage of open windows; motorcycles out of position; agents not riding on the Presidential limousine; vehicles in improper sequence; utilization of an improper route, which included a turn of more than 90 degrees; limousine slowed nearly to a halt at the corner of Houston and Elm; the limousine came to a halt after bullets began to be fired; agents were virtually unresponsive; brains and blood were washed from the limousine at Parkland, even before the President had been pronounced dead; the limousine was stripped down and being rebuilt already Monday, the day of the formal state funeral; a substitute windshield was later produced as evidence.90
Especially when you factor in the point that there was hard evidence that President Kennedy was being stalked by conspirators for earlier attempts on his life in Chicago and Florida; especially when you consider that those serious threat levels were just prior to his trip to Texas—it’s absolutely incredible to me that protection for President Kennedy was reduced in Dallas rather than increased! Maybe that’s why Robert Kennedy, the Attorney General of the United States, had active plans to take over the responsibility for presidential protection from the jurisdiction of the Secret Service and place it under the direct control of his own Attorney General’s office.91 Because he didn’t trust the Secret Service either!
So let’s list this to make it clear.
The main changes that enabled the assassination were the following:
• The re-directed motorcade route;
• Advance publication of the insecure route in Dallas newspapers;
• The change to an inadequate motorcycle formation around the President;
• Agents being ordered off direct protection on the riding platforms of the President’s limousine.
• The Vince Palamara study assigns the responsibility for the above changes to the following people92:
Emory Roberts, who was the Shift Leader of the White House Secret Service Detail in Dallas;
Winston Lawson, the Special Agent who was in charge of the Advance Detail of the Secret Service in Dallas;
Floyd Boring, who was a higher-ranking Secret Service supervisor in Washington;
George Lumpkin was an Assistant Police Chief in Dallas and also a Colonel in Army intelligence who rode in the pilot car of the motorcade. In addition to being involved in the route change, he was also the man who, right after the assassination, ordered that the Texas Book Depository building be sealed off; and also the man who selected the Russian interpreter for the interrogation of Marina Oswald, the accused assassin’s Russian wife;
And Cliff Carter, a top aide to Vice-President Lyndon Johnson, who was involved in many of the plans for the Dallas trip of President Kennedy.
• To that list we should also add Bill Greer, driver of the presidential limousine, via his grossly negligent slowing of the vehicle to look back twice at JFK, thus disobeying the direct order from his superior seated right next to him, Agent Roy Kellerman, who had immediately screamed at Greer to “Get us out of line!” after the shooting began—meaning to floor it, evasive action to get the target out of the line of fire. Instead, Greer just froze, following human nature instead of his training. As Kellerman later said, “Greer then looked in the back of the car. Maybe he didn’t believe me.”93
I’m not saying that they were part of the conspiracy that killed Kennedy. Maybe their actions were controlled by other people; maybe some just acted ineffectually. I don’t know that and I’m being up front with you about it. But I am saying that it was the actions of those individuals which altered the protection in Dallas and thereby enabled the assassination of Kennedy to take place. It was their actions which eliminated the necessary protection and left the 35th President of the United States totally exposed to the cross-fire potential that turned Dealey Plaza into an open kill zone.
86 Ibid.
87 James H. Fetzer Ph.D., Murder in Dealey Plaza: What We Know Now that We Didn’t Know Then (Open Court: 2000); Carrier, “The United States Secret Service: Conspiracy to Assassinate a President”; Palamara, Survivor’s Guilt; James H. Fetzer, Ph.D., 2001, “‘Smoking Guns’ in the Death of JFK”: jfkresearch.com/prologue.htm
88 Palamara, Survivor’s Guilt.
89 Fetzer, Ph.D., “‘Smoking Guns’ in the Death of JFK.”
90 Fetzer Ph.D., Murder in Dealey Plaza.
91 David Talbot, Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years (Free Press: 2007).
92 Palamara, Survivor’s Guilt
93 Vince Palamara, email to author, 15 April 2013; Palamara, Survivor’s Guilt.
9
Too Many Bullets
The Warren Commission said that only three shots were fired at Dealey Plaza. Three shots, huh? Well then how come there is proof of at least two more and likely even three?
Do you remember the name Roy Kellerman? He was the Secret Service agent in charge on the ground in Dallas. He was the guy sitting right in front of President Kennedy; the one who screamed at the driver to get them out of the line of fire. He was the guy who knew what was going on better than anybody; the Special Agent-in-Charge of the White House Secret Service Detail.94
The official testimony of Roy Kellerman blew the doors off of the Warren Commission. He basically looked right at ’em and told them that once the limousine had gone into the kill zone of Dealey Plaza that he knew they had driven right into an ambush, taking fire from all over the place, that “a flurry of shells came into the car” and that they were definitely wrong about their gunshot total because “There had to be more than three shots, gentleman.”
As you might imagine, Roy Kellerman was not a real popular guy with members of the Warren Commission. They minimized his testimony as much as they could, even though, quite admirably, Mr. Kellerman refused to buckle under to the obvious pressure and would not conform to the official government version. He told the truth instead.
Mr. Kellerman was, of course, correct. The evidence proves that there were more than three shots.
One shot missed. Even the Warren Commission acknowledged that missed shot. It hit the street, creating sparks and is probably the shot that wounded bystander James Tague. One bullet hit President Kennedy in his back, four inches below the nape of his neck and to the right of his spine. That shot was fired from the rear of the limousine. There’s a hole in the back of his clothing that proved it. Then there was the throat shot. It hit President Kennedy in his throat from the front, just as the emergency room doctors in Dallas described it. The doctors observed the wound and described it as a “wound of entry” which they then utilized in order to make their tracheotomy incision. That was probably the same bullet that went through the windshield of the car and was a bullet from
the front. Some people think that the windshield shot was separate. But let’s be very conservative here and say that it was the same one that hit Kennedy in the throat. So that’s already three.
There was at least one shot, and in all likelihood two, that hit Governor John Connally. The Governor always held to his testimony that he was positive the first bullet that hit him was a separate bullet from the one that struck the President in the throat. After Connally had heard gunfire and turned around from the front seat to look at Kennedy, that’s when the governor first got hit . . . which now makes four.
But the extensive wounds that Connally suffered—if you look at the angles and what that bullet would have had to do—make it difficult to think a single shot was all that struck him. It pierced him, came out his nipple, broke his ribs, went through his wrist, and ended up in his left thigh? A “magic bullet” indeed! Here’s another very damning reason: A bullet can’t grow in size from the time it leaves the rifle and hits the target, can it? But that “magic bullet” could not possibly account for the amount of shrapnel that was found in Connally’s body. So if I’m right about this, then that’s five so far.
Then there was the head shot. That one hit President Kennedy from the front, entering at his right temple, and causing a massive blowback exit from the right rear of his skull, forcefully driving his head and entire body backward and to his left.95
That’s six, double the number of shots that Oswald supposedly fired from the sixth-floor window. So you can see why all the Washington lawyers panicked and had to invent a preposterous story about a “magic bullet” that went through Kennedy and then also caused all the wounds in Connally. Because the simple fact of the matter is this: If there were too many bullets, the shooting could not have been done by one “lone assassin,” and the whole official government version comes falling down like the house of cards it truly is.
We’ll get to the invention of that “magic bullet” in the section on the cover-up. For now, just remember that number. Six probable shots in Dealey Plaza! And some tireless researchers believe there were more than that—as many as nine!
94 Palamara, Survivor’s Guilt
95 Belzer & Wayne, Dead Wrong, 106–107, based on work of: Walt Brown, Ph.D., Wim Dankbaar, Robert Groden, Harvard Science Center, Douglas Herman, William Orchard, Craig Roberts.
10
Acoustic Evidence at Dealey Plaza
The acoustic evidence from Dealey Plaza revealed the existence of more than three gunshots, disproving the official government version. And again—that’s not my opinion. That was the Congress of the United States. Basically, the government disproved the original government version.
When the U.S. House of Representatives appointed the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1976, their investigation revealed that there were actually “acoustic fingerprints” of the assassination of President Kennedy. A Dallas police motorcycle that day had a Dictabelt recorder that had been left in the ‘on’ position and had inadvertently recorded all the audio of the assassination, especially the gunshots. The House Select Committee determined from scientific analysis of that tape that more than three shots were fired and that they came from two different locations; one being the rear of the motorcade and the other being the grassy knoll. This information led to their conclusion that it was a probable conspiracy:
Scientific acoustical evidence establishes a high probability that two gunmen fired at President Kennedy.96
It probably comes as a shock to many people to read that statement above, as most people are unaware that the most recent official conclusion in the JFK assassination is actually that it was a conspiracy! Everybody, including most of the people I’ve known in the government, think that the official version is still the Warren Commission . . . but it’s not! That was the United States Congress. Even they say it was a conspiracy. Here are their exact words, direct from their own final report:
The Committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as the result of a conspiracy. The committee was unable to identify the other gunmen or the extent of the conspiracy.97
That’s an official finding of the United States Government!
That evidence is contested—one later scientific study disputed the original findings.98 Then yet another scientific study disputed that study, re-confirming the original results.99 Then, further studies included additional findings relative to the acoustics.100 An excellent examination of all the flip-flopping back and forth on the acoustic forensic evidence is an article by William E. Kelly that’s available online, “Dealey Plaza Echo Analysis-Acoustical Forensics 101.”101 The whole thing is best summed up by G. Robert Blakey, who was Chief Counsel to the House Select Committee on Assassinations:
They just want this thing to die. They want to cloud it with enough uncertainty and questions that it will not continue to be a matter that is of concern to people.102
And in addition to seeing through all their damn B.S., Chief Counsel Blakey also saw the bigger point:
“There was a conspiracy to kill my president, and yours, and for some reason that entirely escapes me, people don’t want to investigate it further.”103
So there’s another example of where our government stands on this case—the authorities refuse to apply highly advanced technologies which are now available, such as the latest enhanced forensic resources at the federal Lawrence Livermore Laboratory.104 But then they also refuse to release thousands of pertinent JFK documents they still have under lock and key even though they rightfully belong to the American people, so why should that surprise us?
96 United States House of Representatives, “Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations, U.S. House of Representatives, Ninety-fifth Congress, second session” 1979: archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/
97 Ibid
98 Committee on Ballistic Acoustics, National Research Council, “Reexamination of Acoustic Evidence in the Kennedy Assassination,” November, 1982: jfk-records.com/NRC_Science/science.htm
99 Dr. Donald Byron Thomas, Hear No Evil: Social Constructivism and the Forensic Evidence in the Kennedy Assassination (Mary Ferrell Foundation Press: 2010): ctka.net/reviews/hay_ review.html
100 Michael T. Griffith, “The HSCA’s Acoustical Evidence: Proof of a Second Gunman?,” 2013: mtgriffith.com/web_documents/hscaacous.htm and Michael O’Dell, “The Acoustic Evidence in the Kennedy Assassination,” retrieved 16 April 2013: mcadams.posc.mu.edu/odell/index.htm
101 William E. Kelly, “Dealey Plaza Echo Analysis-Acoustical Forensics 101,” November 22, 2010: jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2010/11/dealey-plaza-echos.html
102 Ibid.
103 Ibid.
104 Talbot, Brothers, 407.
11
Three Rifle Shots in Six Seconds
To get to the bottom of this once and for all, I actually test-fired the exact same rifle that they say was used to kill President Kennedy. I know rifles, I know shooting, and I know combat, as well as being a qualified expert marksman with both pistol and rifle. When I was Governor of Minnesota, I tested and I still qualified expert marksman. In my test-firing of the weapon, I used the same rifle and the same ammunition as the official version. Here’s my conclusion in a nutshell: It’s a totally unprofessional piece of junk, and it’s absolutely impossible that all that shooting was done with that rifle. It was such a joke that I posted the video clip of my reenactment on the Internet because I felt like people just had to see it: youtube.com/watch?v=qSWSgcuYqDo.
As you’ll hear me say on that clip, “The Mannlicher is so cheap and hard to work, there’s no way Oswald could get off three shots that fast.”105 Other professional shooters have tested the same rifle and come to the same conclusion that I did—not possible.
Back when I was in the United States Military, Carlos Hathcock was a legend—and he still is a legend today. He was a combat sniper extraordinaire who, for many years, held the record for the most confi
rmed kills. When a shooter thinks about good shooting, they think about Carlos Hathcock. He wasn’t just “good”—he was as good as it gets.
So I was very excited when I heard that Carlos was looking into the specifics of the JFK assassination. In fact, he wasn’t just looking at it. They set up an exact replica of the specs on the assassination, and then they tried to duplicate the shooting that was attributed to Oswald—with that shooting duplication done by none other than Carlos Hathcock himself. They did that right at Quantico, the Marine Corps base where Carlos was Senior Instructor at U.S. Marine Corps Sniper Instructor School.
Let me tell you what we did at Quantico. We reconstructed the whole thing: the angle, the range, the moving target, the time limit, the obstacles, everything. I don’t know how many times we tried it, but we couldn’t duplicate what the Warren Commission said Oswald did.106
Carlos Hathcock draws a big conclusion from that re-enactment, and it’s the correct conclusion, too:
Now if I can’t do it, how in the world could a guy who was a non-qual on the rifle range and later only qualified ‘marksman’. do it?107
So, the point is, one shooter could not have done it. Other researchers have already diagrammed out the exact problems with the alleged shooting from the professional assessment of two military combat snipers:
Logistic Professional Assessment Degree of Difficulty
Weapon A C2766 bolt-action 6.5 mm Mannlicher-Carcano is an extremely unprofessional choice. After the first shot, potential for succeeding fire is severely limited. Implausible
Location The 6th floor window of Book Depository Building is a terrible choice for a professional shooter to set up. The angles are very poor. Sniper’s choice would be the Dal-Tex Building. Highly Implausible