Mark Stapleton Wrote:How could Greer have shot JFK without Nellie Connally or Jackie seeing it?
The first shot would naturally have come as a complete surprise, as none of the occupants would have had the slightest inkling of the SS detail's intentions. Thereafter, I have no doubt the two wives understood perfectly well what had happened.
Do we know what was said in private at Parkland, or on the plane back to Washington? No. Do we have an unexpurgated transcript of Jackie's actual testimony to the WC*? No. We do, though, have a very curious piece of jiggery-pokery by the compilers of the WC, which I'll return to in a later post.
In a footnote to chapter 3, Execution, of Murder From Within (Probe, 1974), Newcomb and Adams write as follows:
Quote:Mrs. Kennedy unsuccessfully tested David F. Powers on this area. Powers was in the follow-up car immediately behind the limousine. Apparently he failed to see the driver. “On the Thanksgiving weekend after the President’s funeral, when Dave was visiting Jackie and her children at Hyannis Port, he showed her the color pictures of herself on the back of the car taken at the scene by Abraham Zapruder’s movie camera and published in that week’s Life…’Dave, what do you think I was trying to do?’ she asked. Dave could only suggest that maybe she was searching for the President’s doctor…” (Kenneth P. O’Donnell and Dave F. Powers with Joe McCarthy, Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye, p. 29.)
In her brief testimony before the Warren Commission (about ten minutes), she said she didn’t “…recall climbing out on the back of the car.” (v. 5, p. 181.) In this way, she avoided answering the obvious question of why she did climb out on the trunk.
On the day Mrs. Kennedy testified, June 5, 1964, leaks from the Warren Commission to the press were sufficient to indicate that the investigation was complete. She told the Commission, “…I read the other day that it was the same shot that hit them both.” (v. 5, p. 180). As with most important witnesses, she had read about the “lone assassin” as the official version. In effect, this curtailed spontaneous testimony.
The Warren Commission deleted her reference to wounds (v. 5, p. 180). The General Counsel for the Commission, in a letter of Dec. 10, 1964, explained the removal “…as a matter of good taste and because it could contribute nothing to the inquiry.”
During a Commission meeting of Dec. 16, 1963, Commissioner John McCloy suggested that the Commission ought to question Mrs. Kennedy before her memory faded. He said, “She’s got it very definitely in mind now, and I’m told she’s physically in a position where she can do it, but I don’t have that at first hand. She may not be the chief witness as to who did the job. She’s the chief witness as to how those bullets hit her husband.” Chief Justice Warren replied, “I wonder if the report we get from the Secret Service wouldn’t pretty much clear that up. If it doesn’t, Good Lord, what can they report to us on, that will help us. They were there, right at the car, and know exactly what happened.” (Document Addendum, op. cit., p. 55.) As Epstein noted, “On June 5 Mrs. John F. Kennedy testified before the Chief Justice at home. She was the last witness to testify on the assassination itself.” (Inquest, p. 25.)
Around January 1965, Mrs. Kennedy told Mary Gallagher to “be careful” about transportation in cars. She said, “You should get yourselves a good driver so that nothing ever happens to you.” (Mary B. Gallagher, My Life with Jacqueline Kennedy, p. 351.) A caption in Ms. Gallagher’s book of group photograph at the White House mess refers to “…Roy H. Killerman [sic]…” (Ibid., photo section, unpaginated.]
Mrs. Kennedy later sent William R. Greer, the driver of the Presidential limousine, a handwritten note. It said, “For Bill Greer, whom the President loved, and who was with him until the very end. Thank you.” (New York Times, July 2, 1966, p. 10.)
Lyndon Johnson also believed that a good driver was important and readily indicated the matter was both urgent and of great significance. According to Youngblood, “A few days after he became President, LBJ held a conference with me. ‘I’ve got a lot of important things to do, Rufus, and I’m gonna assign one of the most important projects to you. Get Norman [Edwards, a Senate employee who Johnson had as a driver during his term there] for me. I need him as much as I need you and Lady Bird.’” (Youngblood, 20 Years, p. 154.)
And we do know that the Secret Service was very active at Parkland in attempting to ascertain what Nellie et al had taken in; and in urging reticence.
Quote:AP (Dallas), “Connally no longer in danger,” Saturday (morning), 23 November 1963, section 1, p.1: “Mrs. Connally was questioned by Secret Service agents attempting to reconstruct the assassination.”
Jim Bishop. The Day Kennedy Was Shot (Toronto: HarperPerennial, 1992 reprint), p.224: As Huber** left the hospital, “Two Secret Service men took the priest by the arms. ‘Father,’ one of them said, ‘you don’t know anything.’ He understood.”
As for Connally, it's worth taking a look at who provided his bodyguard during his 1980 run for the presidency. It sure as heck wasn't the SS, for, as a relative of his explained on a Houston radio station at the time, he didn't trust them!
* Another footnote from MFW's chapter 3, Execution:
Quote:Recently declassified portion of Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy’s testimony before the Commission, obtained by Paul Hoch from the National Archives.
When Hoch compared the official transcript with the published version, he found a total of 23 substantive changes in Mrs. Kennedy’s testimony. For example, in the published version, she said that if she been looking at the President when the first shot hit, “…then I could have pulled him down, and then the second shot would not have hit him.” (v. 5, p. 180.) The transcript reads: “…then the second shot would have gotten Governor Connolly.” In another instance, the published version has her saying, “But I do not remember, just as I don’t recall climbing out on the back of the car.” (v. 5, p. 181.) The transcript has, “But as I don’t recall climbing out, like those pictures.” Just who authorized these changes in the record is unknown.
** Huber told at least one pressman as he left the hospital that there was a wound above Kennedy's left eye. He thus shared the verdict of most of the Parkland doctors who treated or had occasion to observe the President: the head entrance wound was in the left temple.
Paul Rigby Wrote:Charles Drago Wrote:But the Greer theory, like the umbrella gun/dart theory and so many other JFK-related red herrings, has been promoted...in the main by forces aiding and abetting the cover-up.
Dulles to Humes: “Just another question. Am I correct in assuming from what you say that this wound is entirely inconsistent with a wound that might have been administered if the shot were fired from in front of or beside of the President: it had to be fired from behind the President?” [2WCH360].
Someone, CD, and not just a little ole anyone, was mighty concerned by the notion that Greer did it.
More concern from the fanatical truth-seekers of the WC for our intellectual well-being:
Quote:Specter to Clint Hill: “…do you now or have you ever had the impression or reaction that there was a shot which originated from the front of the Presidential car?”
Paul,
Again you're grasping for a phantasm.
Specter is setting up the negative response, and indeed filling the official record with like responses to questions regarding shots from any direction except the rear of the Lincoln.
Clearly, "from the front of the Presidential car" is NOT "from the front seat of the Presidential car."
You're seeing winks and nods that most of us on the side of truth simply do not see.
Charles Drago Wrote:Paul,
Again you're grasping for a phantasm.
To the contrary, CD, I'm pointing to a flesh-and-blood assassin, as opposed to chasing spectres on the knoll, divining the presence of demons in drains, or, indeed, ghosts in the Daltex.
Charles Drago Wrote:Specter is setting up the negative response, and indeed filling the official record with like responses to questions regarding shots from any direction except the rear of the Lincoln.
Clearly, "from the front of the Presidential car" is NOT "from the front seat of the Presidential car."
You're seeing winks and nods that most of us on the side of truth simply do not see.
Again, CD, quite wrong: I'm merely reading what's before me, and doing justice to the context. Here's the lead up to the Specter question at issue:
Quote:Mr. Specter: And did you have a reaction or impression as to the source of point of origin of the second shot that you described?
Mr. Hill: It was right, but I cannot say for sure that it was rear, because when I mounted the car it was--it had a different sound, first of all, than the first sound that I heard. The second one had almost a double sound--as though you were standing against something metal and firing into it, and you hear both the sound of a gun going off and the sound of the cartridge hitting the metal place, which could have been caused probably by the hard surface of the head. But I am not sure that that is what caused it.
Mr. Specter: Are you describing this double sound with respect to what you heard on the occasion of the second shot?
Mr. Hill: The second shot that I heard; yes, sir.
Mr. Specter: Now, do you now or have you ever had the impression or reaction that there was a shot which originated from the front of the Presidential car?
http://www.jfk-assassination.com/warren/...age144.php
Hill describes the closeness of the sound of the shot and its impact on its target ("the surface of the head," no less). So which one of us does violence to the context, I who invoke a shooting from within the presidential limousine or you who would have us believe Specter was talking about a shot from somewhere much further to the car's front? Which scenario does justice to the close proximity of firing and impact? The question is, of course, rhetorical.
And this is both the singularity and sadness of the case for an in-car assassin: It unfailingly brings out the worst in those one likes and otherwise admire.
Paul
Paul Rigby Wrote:Charles Drago Wrote:Paul,
Again you're grasping for a phantasm.
To the contrary, CD, I'm pointing to a flesh-and-blood assassin, as opposed to chasing spectres on the knoll, divining the presence of demons in drains, or, indeed, ghosts in the Daltex.
Really? Based on what (other than wishful misinterpretations of the mother tongue)?
Paul Rigby Wrote:[Charles Drago Wrote:Specter is setting up the negative response, and indeed filling the official record with like responses to questions regarding shots from any direction except the rear of the Lincoln.
Clearly, "from the front of the Presidential car" is NOT "from the front seat of the Presidential car."
You're seeing winks and nods that most of us on the side of truth simply do not see.
Again, CD, quite wrong: I'm merely reading what's before me, and doing justice to the context. Here's the lead up to the Specter question at issue:
Quote:Mr. Specter: And did you have a reaction or impression as to the source of point of origin of the second shot that you described?
Mr. Hill: It was right, but I cannot say for sure that it was rear, because when I mounted the car it was--it had a different sound, first of all, than the first sound that I heard. The second one had almost a double sound--as though you were standing against something metal and firing into it, and you hear both the sound of a gun going off and the sound of the cartridge hitting the metal place, which could have been caused probably by the hard surface of the head. But I am not sure that that is what caused it.
Mr. Specter: Are you describing this double sound with respect to what you heard on the occasion of the second shot?
Mr. Hill: The second shot that I heard; yes, sir.
Mr. Specter: Now, do you now or have you ever had the impression or reaction that there was a shot which originated from the front of the Presidential car?
http://www.jfk-assassination.com/warren/...age144.php
Hill describes the closeness of the sound of the shot and its impact on its target ("the surface of the head," no less). So which one of us does violence to the context, I who invoke a shooting from within the presidential limousine or you who would have us believe Specter was talking about a shot from somewhere much further to the car's front? Which scenario does justice to the close proximity of firing and impact? The question is, of course, rhetorical.
"Closeness" is implied nowhere in Hill's response, but only in your fevered imagination. He just as easily describes two nearly simultaneous shots, or shots from distances significantly different as to confuse his perceptions (there's that pesky speed of sound business again).
Do you seriously contend that what for all intents and purposes would have been a point-blank shot from the front seat would have been distinguishable by the human ear -- let alone the human psyche under stress -- from the sound of its inches-away impact?
Further, you cannot selectively bless Hill's responses and expect to be taken seriously. If he's right about an ultra-close proximity shot/hit, then he's right about the metallic nature of the target -- which he then, in desperation not unlike your own, attempts to ascribe to JFK's skull. Now maybe I've missed something, but nowhere in the medical evidence with which I'm familiar is there mention of a steel presidential calvarium.
And those are the least of the problems with your position.
Paul Rigby Wrote:[And this is both the singularity and sadness of the case for an in-car assassin: It unfailingly brings out the worst in those one likes and otherwise admire.
Steady, Paul. The "worst" in me? Or are you referencing your own unsupported, illogical, significantly counter-productive championing of an absurd-on-its-face hypothesis, the creation of which, intentionally or not, has furthered the conspirators' agenda by sowing confusion and dissension within the ranks of truth-seekers?
Paul,
I've asked myself -- as I often do -- "What would George Michael say about all this?" The answer is important, I think, and I want to share it with you in the most heartfelt manner.
Your passion is commendable. So too is your willingness to defy convention and search outside the proverbial box for answers to the most vexing of questions.
Throughout my labors in our common vinyard I attempt to bring both of those qualities to the tasks at hand.
The trick, I think, is to be willing to abandon even those most dearly held assumptions if they are legitimately and definitively challenged.
And the challenges must include those arising from within.
My challenges to your hypothesis in this regard are the products of the best I have to offer. I did not reject it out of hand; rather, I subjected it to the most focused and informed critical analyses of which I'm capable.
Try as I might, I neither can discern credible supporting evidence nor avoid the conclusion that the entire scenario was born of an effort to defeat us.
So ... While I respect your courage, I reject your convictions relating to the argument at hand even as I encourage you to reinforce your willingness to stand proud as a minority of one (so to speak).
Charlie
Charles Drago Wrote:Paul,
I've asked myself -- as I often do -- "What would George Michael say about all this?" The answer is important, I think, and I want to share it with you in the most heartfelt manner.
Your passion is commendable. So too is your willingness to defy convention and search outside the proverbial box for answers to the most vexing of questions.
Throughout my labors in our common vinyard I attempt to bring both of those qualities to the tasks at hand.
The trick, I think, is to be willing to abandon even those most dearly held assumptions if they are legitimately and definitively challenged.
And the challenges must include those arising from within.
My challenges to your hypothesis in this regard are the products of the best I have to offer. I did not reject it out of hand; rather, I subjected it to the most focused and informed critical analyses of which I'm capable.
Try as I might, I neither can discern credible supporting evidence nor avoid the conclusion that the entire scenario was born of an effort to defeat us.
So ... While I respect your courage, I reject your convictions relating to the argument at hand even as I encourage you to reinforce your willingness to stand proud as a minority of one (so to speak).
Charlie
I have to agree with CD. This is one of the many [all too many] purposefully invented blind alleys for some of us to get lost in - and seed conflicting theories. No credible evidence exists that this ever happened - only a few glints of smoke and mirrors - all phony. Jackie and the Connellys would have known, people in the plaza would have known, the blood splatter patterns to various people and places don't fit this, the acousitic evidence would be different, even altered medical evidence would have to be different than it is, etc. Besides, you just don't run a covert op with the main event in plain sight anyway. This has been put to sleep so many times, but it keeps walking around....I suggest this one be laid to rest once and for all. On this one, I think there is no there there. This is a planted story - as are so many others.
Peter Lemkin Wrote:I have to agree with CD. This is one of the many [all too many] purposefully invented blind alleys for some of us to get lost in - and seed conflicting theories. No credible evidence exists that this ever happened - only a few glints of smoke and mirrors - all phony
.
Pete, Pete...this won't do. Witnesses with no conceivable ulterior motive described, and, in some instances, sought to interest the WC in, shots from within the presidential limo. They did so, in some cases, long after the official orthodoxy had been, after a faltering start, set in stone. Not a single official followed up with the questions that should have issued. None of this testimony was invented; nor was any pattern imposed by those who found it. It's there.
Peter Lemkin Wrote:Jackie and the Connellys would have known, people in the plaza would have known...
They did, Peter, they did. Among them were some of the closest eyewitnesses.
Peter Lemkin Wrote:..the blood splatter patterns to various people and places don't fit this...
Particularly after the Secret Service washed the presidential limo out...
Peter Lemkin Wrote:the acousitic evidence would be different, even altered medical evidence would have to be different than it is...
But which acoustic evidence and which wound patterns? The majority view among the Parkland doctors was, for the head wound, a left temple entrance/right rear exit - exactly as one would expect from a hand gun fired from the driver's seat!
Peter Lemkin Wrote:Besides, you just don't run a covert op with the main event in plain sight anyway.
The assassination of RFK? MLK? Malcolm X? In fact, Pete, the contrary is true. Moreover, the American tradition is close range assassination by hand-gun. There is no precedent within that tradition for assassination by rifle from distance.
Peter Lemkin Wrote:This has been put to sleep so many times, but it keeps walking around....I suggest this one be laid to rest once and for all. On this one, I think there is no there there. This is a planted story - as are so many others.
At the heart of John Fitzgerald Kennedy's murder was a brute simplicity: I urge you to think again!
Paul Rigby Wrote:Peter Lemkin Wrote:I have to agree with CD. This is one of the many [all too many] purposefully invented blind alleys for some of us to get lost in - and seed conflicting theories. No credible evidence exists that this ever happened - only a few glints of smoke and mirrors - all phony
.
Pete, Pete...this won't do. Witnesses with no conceivable ulterior motive described, and, in some instances, sought to interest the WC in, shots from within the presidential limo. They did so, in some cases, long after the official orthodoxy had been, after a faltering start, set in stone. Not a single official followed up with the questions that should have issued. None of this testimony was invented; nor was any pattern imposed by those who found it. It's there.
Peter Lemkin Wrote:Jackie and the Connellys would have known, people in the plaza would have known...
They did, Peter, they did. Among them were some of the closest eyewitnesses.
Peter Lemkin Wrote:..the blood splatter patterns to various people and places don't fit this...
Particularly after the Secret Service washed the presidential limo out...
Peter Lemkin Wrote:the acousitic evidence would be different, even altered medical evidence would have to be different than it is...
But which acoustic evidence and which wound patterns? The majority view among the Parkland doctors was, for the head wound, a left temple entrance/right rear exit - exactly as one would expect from a hand gun fired from the driver's seat!
Peter Lemkin Wrote:Besides, you just don't run a covert op with the main event in plain sight anyway.
The assassination of RFK? MLK? Malcolm X? In fact, Pete, the contrary is true. Moreover, the American tradition is close range assassination by hand-gun. There is no precedent within that tradition for assassination by rifle from distance.
Peter Lemkin Wrote:This has been put to sleep so many times, but it keeps walking around....I suggest this one be laid to rest once and for all. On this one, I think there is no there there. This is a planted story - as are so many others.
At the heart of John Fitzgerald Kennedy's murder was a brute simplicity: I urge you to think again!
There are REAL attempts to hide SS complicity in the JFK Assassassination and I'd agree with most who think some [perhaps not all there that day] had some hand - witting or unwitting - in the non-protection of the President. That said, I can't find any evidence that Greer shot JFK nor even had a gun in his hand. Greer may well have been guilty as hell for slowing the car and other things that day...maybe even not moving on until the 'job was done' by those in the sewer/GN and other places - but shooting JFK....I vote no....sorry. Paul, I like you and like your general take on the fate of the Panet in the bloody hands of the worst humans, but on this we have to agree to disagree. I believe this is a psyop to divert. There have been many many others...in fact we have now postively identified about 40 of the 4 gunmen!
Peter Lemkin Wrote:[quote=Paul Rigby] Paul, I like you and like your general take on the fate of the Panet in the bloody hands of the worst humans, but on this we have to agree to disagree. I believe this is a psyop to divert. There have been many many others...in fact we have now postively identified about 40 of the 4 gunmen!
The respect and affection for shared stances on any number of issues is reciprocated. Nor do I for one moment believe I have the full story. But I do insist that the kernel of this plot comprises a very simple, traditional and straightforward action -a man with hand-gun firing from close range at surprised and unprotected target. As Rabin and Benazir Bhutto were to discover to their cost.
Part of the problem, I suspect, lies in an unvoiced and unexamined assumption among even the best of the critics - that the plot's core was as sophisticated and nuanced as both their own personalities, and the cover up. (The latter was all that and more.)
We have been steered, deliberately and with consumate skill, down a series of miserably narrow and predetermined channels - let's break out of these ruts, and look again at where we're going, and how.
Paul