Enigma (eBook)

The JFK Assassination

Nov 22,1963

(For Millennials)

Air Force One touched down at Dallas Love Field at 11:38 AM Dallas Time. The President had less than one hour left to live.

Nearly three miles away at a six-story brick building, an enigmatic and disgruntled employee had read in the newspaper just that morning, that the Presidential motorcade was going to pass by his workplace. He immediately decided to kill the President, since he wasn’t too busy that day. The employee, named Lee Harvey Oswald was unusual in that he had defected, at one time to the Soviet Union and later defected back to the United States, at the height of the cold war between those two nations. It was most unusual, but our Government assured us that he wasn’t connected with the U.S. Government in any way.

Having decided to kill the President, Oswald then grabs his trusty rifle, a 6.5 mm Mannlicher-Carcano. It is Italian-war surplus and is widely regarded by gun experts as one of the worst production rifles ever made. Oswald’s gun is even worse with its badly mis-aligned telescopic sight. The FBI firearms expert would later, add two metal shims to the mount in order to get the scope even close to alignment with the boresight of the rifle. The rifle is initially mis-identified by the two policemen who discover it at the crime scene. They state that it is a 7.62mm Mauser (a very well-known rifle) even though both are very familiar with firearms and the type is stamped on the barrel.

Oswald then boards a public bus for the two-mile trip to his workplace. Now, one might think that someone riding on a public bus carrying a rifle to an area where the President of the United States is appearing might arouse some suspicions, but no. The Government later manufactured a young couple who thought they might have seen Oswald on the bus and one of them thought he remembered that Oswald was carrying a package that he thought was a curtain rod. It’s fortunate that they were never subjected to cross-examination because neither of them could positively identify the curtain-carrying bus passenger from photographs.

Oswald arrived at his workplace, known locally as the Texas School Book Depository. He sets up his snipers’ nest. He knows, from the newspaper that the motorcade is going to come south on Main Street and then turn right onto Houston St. It will proceed for about 100 yards on Houston and then turn left onto Elm St passing directly in front of the book depository. The turn onto Elm St. is slightly more than ninety degrees and the long vehicle will have to slow to nearly a stop as it negotiates the turn. The perfect time to start shooting would be as the motorcade turns onto Houston St. It can’t back up so, the only way out would be to get closer to the shooter. When the vehicle slows even more to turn left onto Elm, it would be like shooting fish in a barrel.

But Oswald isn’t too smart, so he doesn’t arrange his snipers’ nest in this fashion. Instead he orients it facing south on Elm street. Eschewing the easy kill shot, Oswald has elected instead to take a very difficult shot as the motorcade moves away from him. Additionally, the route is partially blocked by a tall tree, which the Warren Commission later decided didn’t obstruct Oswald because it was autumn and the tree was free of leaves. Photographs at the time of the shooting dispute this but, no matter.

Oswald isn’t smart enough to set the ambush properly but he out-witted the most lavishly funded, highest-rated team of bodyguards in the world with no real plan at all. Secret Service agents would later admit that they had made numerous mistakes that day.

The plan comes off almost flawlessly. The Secret Service agents are deployed so poorly that there was no way that they could intervene if the President’s life was in danger. Oswald’s first shot, which he had the most time to prepare for, misses and ricochets off the sidewalk. His next shot is the so-called magic bullet which changes course in mid-air twice, wounds Kennedy twice and then goes on to nearly kill Governor Connelly, who was sitting in front of Kennedy. The bullet was later recovered from a hospital gurney that an orderly thought Governor Connelly MIGHT have been on previously. The bullet was proven to have been fired from the rifle belonging to Oswald. After all the twists and turns and wounds that it caused, it winds up not embedded in Governor Connelly’s body but laying on a gurney. Almost as if someone had planted it there. Fortunately, after doing all that damage it was still in relatively good condition so that ballistics experts could prove that it came from Oswald’s rifle. It’s a good thing because that provided the only physical piece of evidence that connected the rifle to the shooting.

Oswald’s third shot is the kill shot. It hits Kennedy so hard from the rear that his head is pushed in the direction of the shot instead of away from it as the laws of physics would suggest.

The Rifle is sent to FBI Headquarters in Washington D.C. where the best fingerprint lab in the world is unable to find any prints belonging to Oswald. The weapon is then sent back to Dallas where the Dallas Police Department’s fingerprint specialist is able to lift a partial print belonging to Oswald. Asked by the Warren Commission where this expert learned the technique that he used; he tells them that he learned it at the fingerprint section of the FBI in Washington DC. The same lab that was unable to find any Oswald prints. In fact, the course was taught by the same FBI expert that could not find any prints on the rifle; quite remarkable. This was important because the Warren Commission had an obviously “doctored” (we would say “photoshopped”) photograph of Oswald holding the Carcano rifle in one hand and a newspaper in the other. (It’s just that kind of photo that so many people take). The magic bullet tied the rifle to the murder and the fingerprint and the photo linked Oswald to the weapon.

Kennedy is then raced to Parkland Hospital where doctors try to save his life, but it is to no effect. At 1 PM, the President is pronounced dead. Secret Service agents have been busy cleaning the limousine and inadvertently destroying evidence. Even the most casual television crime drama watcher knows that the vehicle is part of the crime scene, but the highly trained Secret Service Officers seemed unaware of that. The car really was a mess.

The local coroner wants to perform an autopsy as Texas state law requires, but Secret Service agents brandish their guns and quickly take Kennedy’s body away. A doctor who had never performed an autopsy before would conduct this one and he would destroy all his notes before sending his conclusion to the Warren Commission.

One of the Doctors at Parkland Hospital would write a book years later in which he disputes the condition and location of the wounds on the President but, by the time it comes out, it’s old news and no one payed much attention to it.

Immediately after the shooting a Dallas Police Officer enters the book depository. He sees Oswald casually sipping a soda in a second-floor breakroom and is told that Oswald works in the building. Surprisingly, Oswald didn’t appear to be out of breath or uneasy after he had just murdered the President of the United States and raced down four flights of stairs to the breakroom.

Oswald leaves the building a few minutes later and goes to his home to retrieve a handgun. He then somehow gets into an altercation with a Police Officer named Tibbets and Oswald murders him too. Minutes later, the manager at the Texas Theater, which is nearby calls the police to report that a man has entered the theater without paying the $1.50 for a ticket.

The Dallas Police Department responds with three armed units to apprehend the gate crasher and Lee Harvey Oswald is placed under arrest at around 1:50 PM. The Dallas Police Force solves the “Crime of the Century” in less than 3 hours. There was no manhunt because they had their man. Ironically, Oswald could have avoided the call to the police if he had just paid for his ticket. It’s a little puzzling because he had more than enough money with him and he had to pass by the ticket window when he went into the theater. Maybe he was saving for a rainy day.

The Director of the FBI announces the case closed in less than 24 hours.

The Warren Commission told us that Oswald did it because he wanted to be famous, yet he denied that he was guilty even after being beaten by Dallas Police.

Jack Ruby was just an ordinary citizen with no connections to organized crime. The FBI Director even denied that there was such a thing as “organized crime” in America. Phone records showed that Ruby had dozens of conversations with known Mafia figures in the month prior to the shooting. Unfortunately, The Warren Commission didn’t think to look at Ruby’s phone records.

Jack Ruby murders Oswald two days later. The Dallas Police were going to transfer Oswald to a more secure county facility. They knew that there were threats against Oswald, and they put up the tightest security that they could devise. The departure was delayed for nearly three hours and still, Ruby walked right into the underground garage at precisely the right moment; - walked straight up to Oswald and shot him in the stomach on live national TV. Security was so tight in the...