61 years ago, a great American president was brutally mowed down by assassins’ bullets.
Yes. You read that right. John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963) was assassinated by two shooters.
This goes against the official conclusion of the Warren Commission that investigated his demise, concluding that it had been the work of one shooter, Lee Harvey Oswald. Incidentally, he would be arrested, deny his involvement, and be killed while in custody by nightclub owner, Jack Ruby, in the basement of the Dallas PD Headquarters.
If it reads like a John Grisham novel, that’s because it does sound like one.
Consider this, POTUS was shot and killed on November 22, 1963. Oswald bought it on the 24th.
Now, Oswald had enough time to give several statements to the police, all of which claimed he had been set up. By whom? And why? The man was actually a patsy, a front man, a dude who was selected to act as the fall guy, and even then, the powers that be couldn’t trust him alive, so he would not be long of this earth. Enter Jack Ruby, club owner with Mob connections, stage left.
Now many people, including one sensationalist William Manchester (1922-2004), who wrote a book conflating his Pacific wartime experience with episodes he never experienced, treated the subject of JFK’s assassination.
A great deal of people came down in favor of the single shooter conclusion. A lot!
But not one of them was right. All were wrong. And this is why.
The Patsy
Lee Harvey Oswald was a foolish discontented red-blooded American, raised in a dysfunctional family. As a result, the troubled minor escaped it by joining the US Marine Corps in 1956. He was 17.
Oswald fared rather well in the Marines, becoming a radar operator. He also tested in shooting, scoring 212. Wikipedia, this fulcrum of human knowledge, dixit that this score made Oswald a sharpshooter. It also informs us that by 1959, his score had gone down to 191, which downgraded him to a marksman.
I have serious doubts the man was either. Let me explain myself.
Oswald was a competent radar technician, with the emotional intelligence of a starved dog.
- In the summer of 1959, he was court-martialed after shooting himself accidentally in the elbow with a contraband .22 caliber handgun.
- Afterwards, the man picked himself up and decided his sergeant was responsible for his punishment. Consequently, Oswald was demoted and imprisoned.
- The Corps, in its infinite wisdom, decided to ship him out to the Philippines, where while on sentry duty, he proceeds to discharge his rifle into the jungle.
It was now, Oswald was discharged from active military service.
He then decides to pick up Russian, emigrates to the USSR, where he proclaims his love for Marxism, and convinces the Russians to let him try Communism for a change. After 2 years behind the Iron Curtain, he changes his mind, and returns with his pregnant wife to Texas. It is 1962.
Freshly returned from the ‘joys’ of Communism, Oswald fails life. Just like he failed soldiering.
Undismayed, he starts purchasing firearms and takes potshots at right-wing Army generals, from 30 yards, wounding but not killing them. Relentless in his failed pursuits, he travels to Mexico to apply for a new USSR visa. As if that ship hadn’t already sailed once before. It is 1963.
The man was a moron, with the attention span of a nincompoop. Even the Cubans and Russians were taken aback by this useful idiot.
In an interesting turn of events, the FBI starts watching him as a Soviet “plant” just as the KGB puts him on a list of potential American spies. So, in a sense, his determination earns him a place on both nations’ watchlists.
In October 1963, Oswald returns to Dallas, where he finds a job with the Texas School Book Depository. It is October 14, 1963.
The Gun
But the man is nothing but adamant. He buys an old Italian bolt-action Carcano rifle for the equivalent of $200, and a revolver for another $300 (2024 prices).
He starts to practice with a WW2 Italian made and used in battle, 6.5 x 52 mm rifle. Worn out bore.
Also, this rifle has a 21″ barrel, which makes it wholly inadequate for long range precision fire.
It can still hit a man-sized target, especially in trained hands, but hitting a human head at 80-140 yards, on a moving platform doing 25-40 mph, that requires a different implement.
The Location
To recap, in October 1963, Oswald is working at the Book Depository in Dealey Plaza.
On November 22, 1963, shortly before lunch, President (POTUS) John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Texas governor John Connally, their spouses, and a Secret Service detail, hop on the 1961 Lincoln Continental limousine at the Dallas Airport. The motorcade heads downtown.
I remember reading in Manchester’s book that JFK had been aware of some death threats hailing from the staunchly Republican Texas. Death threats should always be taken seriously. But it’s one thing to threaten my grandmother and mother in Romania, where 1% own guns, and quite another in Texas, where 45% do. Besides, JFK ain’t grandma. Just saying, eh! Goes to credibility.
But the Navy and Marine recipient of two medals, the only POTUS to have earned these honors for conspicuous bravery under enemy fire, JFK could not be convinced to alter his travel plans.
If he had, he would have lived to see another day.
Fact is that at 12:30 pm, his motorcade received 3 shots discharged in quick succession. Two of them hit both JFK and governor Connally, killing the former and severely wounding the latter.
The Distance
The official narrative, espoused by the Warren Commission detailed by President Johnson to shed light on the circumstances of the shooting, and repeated ad nauseam by the Manchesters of the world, said that it was entirely possible for a single shooter (i.e., Oswald) to discharge 3 aimed shots, starting at 80 yards and finishing at 150-170 yards, which is where the triple underpass obscured his view of the motorcade.
The evidence examined by the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations comprised of the Zapruder film, who detailed this atrocious assassination.
FBI marksmen reenacting the episode, concluded that the “minimum time for getting off two successive well-aimed shots on the rifle is approximately 2 and a quarter seconds”, or 41 to 42 Zapruder frames.
That means that the timer started at T-zero with shot #1, which was btw grossly off target (limo was closest to Oswald at 80 yards), hitting an innocent bystander, James Teague. Teague was standing at the moment 6 yards from its point of impact on the Main Street curb pavement, which was 8 yards from the underpass.
Distance of point of impact from Depository: 160-170 yards.
Distance of point of impact from motorcade: 80-90 yards.
Two and a quarter seconds later (T-one), an undismayed Oswald, cycled the action of his bolt-action, taking careful aim at a target that was now at 115-125 yards, and discharged shot #2, which was the ‘magic bullet’ that severely wounded both POTUS and the governor.
Distance of point of impact from Depository: 120 yards.
Another two and a quarter seconds later (T-two), a cool-headed Oswald, repeated the steps before, taking another careful aim at a target that was heading at increased speed (cca. 40 mph) towards the safety of the underpass. Shot #3 tragically connects with POTUS’ cranium, exploding it.
Distance of point of impact from Depository: 156 yards.
Remember, folks. Oswald was not a shooting luminary. He was a nervous train wreck, a washed out Marine, who had actively practiced with an old beat-up bold-action rifle, but who was not in control of his emotions. He took three shots within 5 seconds at a moving target heading away, below him, from a distance of 80 to 150 yards.
Two of his shots allegedly killed JFK and wounded Texas governor Connally.
Are we to believe that the hand of God guided his motions that fateful day?
Are we to disregard the fact that FBI experts at the top of their game achieved these results under no pressure to perform?
Were the exalted occupants of the Lincoln Continental so unlucky that a single shooter could take them out within five seconds of coming under fire?
Or is it possible that the third shoot and possibly even the second one were discharged by a different shooter taking careful aim and syncing his fire with Oswald’s Shot #1?
Consider this, ladies, and gents.
The Alternative
A second shooter need not have acquired the target simultaneously with Oswald. He would have only had to sync his shot with the man. A second shooter would have started his sniping long before, using a longer rifle, better scoped, with target ammunition, and a pristine bore to boot.
And most importantly, he need not have waited for the motorcade to be at a sufficiently long distance to make his connecting with the target a lucky endeavor.
A second shooter would have shot JFK/Connally directly after the report of Oswald’s Shot #1. The limo would have been at less than 100 yards or 91 m from Oswald’s vantage point.
He would have been able to discharge a second shot (Shot #3) at a moving car, by carefully following through and allowing for its increased speed and windage, before the Lincoln had passed the 130 yards mark. Such a shot would have still been doable even though at the upper limit of possibility for that caliber/weapon combo, and circumstances.
I will not say it because I do not believe in it but I do not think there were more than two shooters involved in JFK’s assassination.
Had there been, there is no doubt in my mind that JFK would not have had a single chance to get out alive from Dallas. As it happened, two shooters were enough to cut his life short.
What was impossible for one shooter of Oswald’s caliber, became entirely plausible for a couple. Three shooters would have sealed the deal.
My conclusion is unequivocally clear: the assassination was perpetrated by not one, but two shooters firing same-caliber rifles, albeit in different configurations.
The Magic Bullet
The single- or magic bullet theory is the official conclusion of the United States government. It proposes to explicate how Oswald was able to kill the sitting president and severely wound the governor of Texas, moving away from him in a speeding vehicle in a record time even for an expert rifleman. Which btw, Oswald had never been.
And because I am very detail-conscientious, you can check out the shooting scoring proficiency grid used by the US Marine Corps in the 1950s. In December 1948, the Parris Island Depot or headquarters of the Marine Corps saw the introduction of a 250-point rifle course. This was similar but not identical with today’s standards.
Lee Harvey Oswald would have had to undergo three weeks of rigorous shooting training to qualify as a Corps rifleman. He would have had to fire shots in the standing, sitting, kneeling, and prone positions at the 200, 300 and 500-yard lines for a maximum score of 250 points. This system remained in place until 2007.
Each level of the shooting profile is rewarded with marksmanship badges.
| Proficiency level profile | Score |
| Marksman medal | 190 points |
| Sharpshooter medal | 210 points |
| Expert rifleman medal | 220-250 points |
According to its proponents, shot #2 struck Kennedy in the back, exiting his throat, only to enter Connally’s body near the right arm pit, traversing his body, destroying his rib, shattering his radius bone, only to end up in his left thigh.
Quite an impressive feat for a 6.5 mm bullet fired from cca. 100 yards at two moving targets.
Especially considering the obstacles and hurdles it had to overcome along its path:
A. Back brace worn by JFK to support a back injured on PT-109 in the Pacific when a Jap destroyer split his torpedo boat in two on a bad night.
B. 15 layers of clothing – btw, the most modern bulletproof and quite a few of the first iterations of bulletproof vests feature several layers of textile pressed together. Just a thought for the most informed people to consider. For instance, if you shoot a handgun at 15 layers of compressed denim material, you will be surprised by the outcome. Hint: thick denim is your friend.
C. 15 cm of muscle tissue in two individuals, situated half a meter apart.
D. 10 cm of Connally’s rib – shattered. That’s one of the sturdiest bones in the body. It has to be, given its job is to secure the lungs and heart. But hey, maybe Connally’s suffered from a calcium deficiency. Who knows? Maybe he was brittle and old.
E. Connally’s radius bone – shattered. Just a wrist, right. You see how this adds up, right!
F. Finally, the ‘magic bullet’ reached his left thigh, where it was spent. Consequently, it dropped completely intact, on the governor’s gurney. The power of magic, eh!
To me, folks, this bullet story is more than magical. It is mystically fabulous. It is completely contrived.
Bullets hitting obstacles, high-velocity bullets travelling at 700 meters per second at that, do not go through bodies, bones, and fabric, coming out intact like this.
I am sorry but a small dent on the round tip does not constitute sufficient proof of being the magic bullet that sent two grown men into a hospital.
You want to see the reverse of the medal?
This is what happens when a 7.92 Mauser meets a .303 Lee Enfield bullet in midair. I took this picture at the Canakkale 1915 War Museum dedicated to the failed WW1 Gallipoli landings instigated and led by one uninspired Winston Churchill, then Lord of the Admiralty.
Now, JFK and Connally were not hit by spitzer tipped copper jacketed FMJ WW1 bullets. No. They were hit by round tipped Italian ogives from WW2. One would expect some deformation of the projectile after going through so many items of clothing, flesh, bone, and cartilage.
But the bullet was pristine.
One cannot expect full deformation or implosion or mushrooming of the ogive. But at least some nick or blemish or hint it hit something… not just thin air. Because JFK and Connally were not made of thin air either.
When bullets hit water at 700 m per second, they other go in like through butter, either dissipate into a hundred pieces, or at least get deformed. Depending on the angle of attack, any outcome is possible, including water ricochet. This is why gun safety is paramount when you go hunting on a lake. You don’t want to shoot at the water and hit the shore by way of ricochet.
My point is this. Hitting human targets does leave a mark on the ogive. The velocity is imparted onto the target.
Neither the projectile nor the target escapes unscathed.
And, I am sorry, ladies and gents, but the bullet found on that hospital gurney in Texas looks like it was shot at a soft target from maximum distance.
That’s the only way it can end up like that. Bullets showing rifling grooves alone are shot in an arc that is supposed to land them as closely as possible to terminal velocity. And at 90 meters per second, after crossing 2 or 3 km, anything is possible, including just a small dent on its head.
Imagine trying to land the bullet softly on the ground instead of violently hitting a target. That is the only way you get such an ‘scrubbed’ bullet.
The Decoy
This is Lee Harvey Oswald’s US Marine Corps Rifle Score Book or Exhibit 239 used as evidence in the Warren Commission Report on the Assassination of President Kennedy.
Six years after his assassination, the grieving mother of the late patsy Lee Harvey Oswald decided to part with her son’s belongings. For the tidy sum of $35,000 in 1969 gold backed money, which is almost $300,000 in today’s worthless greenbacks, Marguerite Oswald took it to the bank literally.
When one examines the whole lot, a few things become apparent.
- Money has lost its value. US dollar is now worthless. Thank you, Tricky Dick, and the whole lot of useful idiots who’ve debased US currency into the ground.
- Grieving mothers make excellent salesmen. Marguerite made bank in 1969. The idiot who bought the lot in 2021 at auction spent $75,000 he won’t ever see back. The auction house recouped some of its original costs, but losses were incurred. Good! Tragedy should not be used for profit.
- Lee Harvey Oswald did not kill the President. Not with the old worn out Carcano, he didn’t.
- The man qualified in December 1956, almost 7 years prior to the assassination, on two of the finest implements of war ever designed: the U.S. Rifle, Caliber .30, M1 and its Carbine cousin M1A1. The acuity and precision of a man’s shooting differs between ages 17 and 24.
- To put it mildly, you give sufficient ammo to any man, who can control his trigger finger, sync his breathing, and has 20/20 vision, along with a brand new scoped M1A1 rifle/carbine combo, and I personally guarantee a score of 170-190. Just give me one week.
- To compare the ideal field conditions at Parris Island with those prevailing in Dealey Plaza on that November day, is an exercise unworthy of the academic mind. Marines do not train on moving targets doing 25-40 mph. Oswald was never an expert rifleman. And only such a person could reach out and hit the shoulder and head of the US President from more than 100 yards away, from 20 yards up, shooting at an accelerating vehicle heading away.
And yet, the controversy stands because the Warren Commission decided to take his scorecards at face value, validating its false conclusions “that Oswald was capable of assassinating President Kennedy alone. These scorecards can be found in Warren Commission Volume 16, pgs. 639-679, as Commission Exhibit 239. The results enabled the Warren Commission, in their single-volume final report (pgs. 18-19), to state: “The Commission has concluded further that Oswald possessed the capability with a rifle which enabled him to commit the assassination.”
Shameful and blatant logic fail from an eminent body of men charged with discovering the Truth.
The real culprits guilty of muddying the waters and poisoning the well with their lies are people such as William Manchester, who have made a name for themselves by ‘collecting’ data, ‘investigating’ matters while looking for their ‘truth’. This profit-driven man went all in by throwing his journalistic weight into the ring. Manchester took advantage of his personal relations to get access to the Kennedys and beyond, amassing such a trove of information that he came out with a blockbuster reveal-all storyline.
His sensationalistic approach proved too much for the people in power that they bought him out to secure his silence. His heavily redacted book came out in the late 60s and continued to be reedited all the way into the 80s and beyond. Still, he made a very big bang and got a lot of bucks out of it.
For all the many juicy details about JFK’s love life, and the blatant revelations about the US political elite, the Truth remained unexplored and unrevealed by Manchester. Epic fail.
Nowhere in his books could one find direct unequivocal evidence that Oswald was the only shooter.
In the end, it seems to me Truth is the first victim not just in wartime, but also in peace.
Götterdämmerung 