Which JFK Assassination Conspiracy Theory Do You Prefer?

de Mohrenschildt’s fatal mistake was telling journalist Edward Jay Epstein at a Palm Beach hotel that his sponsorship of the Oswalds had been sanctioned by the CIA. Dallas CIA agent J. Walton Moore and George de Mohrenschildt had had ongoing contact for years. "The Baron" (de Mohrenschildt’s nickname) received a $285K contract with Haitian dictator "Papa Doc" Duvalier to do a geological survey in Haiti. Of course no survey was ever done, but the Oswald's were looked after until The Baron had eased them into the hands of Michael & Ruth Paine. He held a party in February of 1963 that served the purpose of an opportunity for Marina Oswald to meet Ruth Paine. She was introduced as a student of the Russian language and expressed excitement about meeting someone she could practice with.

By April 1963, the Paine's had become the Dallas sponsors of the Oswalds and the Baron left for Haiti (by way of Washington D.C. where he met with the CIA and Army intelligence).

This Is The Meat And Potatoes Of This Post!!

Who WERE the Paine's???

From JFK and the Unspeakable:

"It was as if de Mohrenschildt had handed off the Oswalds to the Paines like a football in a reverse end run. When the Dallas play-action began, the Oswalds were being carried by a prominent White Russian anti-communist. As de Mohrenschildt with CIA assistance left the Dallas action for Haiti, the Oswalds were suddenly in the hands of a Quaker-Unitarian couple who belonged to the ACLU. If it was in fact a handoff, one trick play in a larger game plan, its sleight of hand was so successful that when the game was over, hardly anyone even remembered this one critical play."

When this all began to soak in, I was in shock for a day or two. We have SO MUCH of the puzzle pieces now that I wanted to scream this from my rooftop!!!

After Kennedy was dead, the de Mohrenschildt-Paine connection was a major source of worry for FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. Had everything gone public, the revelation would have blown the credibility of the Warren Commission right out of the water.

On October 23 1964, Hoover wrote to J. Lee Rankin, head Warren Commission counsel stating in the strongest terms that he should not release certain FBI "reports and memoranda dealing with Michael and Ruth Paine and George and Jeanne de Mohrenschildt. Making the contents of such documents available to the public could cause serious repercussions to the Commission."

Stop and think about the aftermath of the assassination of President Kennedy... Who shaped America's opinion of Lee Harvey Oswald? Who made the most d*mning comments? Ruth Paine, the woman who was keeping a roof over Marina Oswald and her child's head. She was portrayed as a mousey woman all alone. In fact, she was still married to Michael but they were separated and he had his own apartment. They both agreed to the CIA role-playing with the Oswalds.

Now...

It would be easy to quickly become confused (I was), so I'll start with Michael Paine.

When the Paines assumed sponsorship of the Oswalds Michael and Ruth were seperated and he was living at his own apartment. He was employed as a research engineer with Bell Helicopter in Fort Worth, Texas, a very important defense contractor. When testifying before the Warren Commission, he acknowledged that his job required a security clearance but said, "I don't happen to know what the classification is." What is of vital interest is that his stepfather, Arthur Young, was the inventor of the Bell Helicopter (a fact that only became known 30 years after the assassination thanks to JFK researchers). So we have a man here who not only had ties to the CIA but literally had family ties to the military-industrial complex!

Michael's mother AND wife were both named Ruth...

His mother, Ruth Forbes Paine Young, had close ties to former CIA director Allen Dulles. Ruth's family were the blueblood Forbes of Boston and she was the lifelong friend of Mary Bancroft. Bancroft was the woman who had worked as the partner of Allen Dulles as spies in Switzerland in WWII and became his mistress for the rest of his life. There is an oral history interview in which Ms. Bancroft stated that she "knew the mother of Michael Paine where Oswald stayed. She was Ruth Forbes, a very good friend of mine."

Michael's wife, Ruth Hyde Paine, was the daughter of William Avery Hyde. Before the Warren Commission, Ruth described her father as "an insurance underwriter;he composes the fine print."

Other than Marina Oswald, Ruth Hyde Paine was the government's key witness as to Lee Harvey Oswald having been the assassin of President John F. Kennedy. In October 1964, Michael Paine's father-in-law, William Avery Hyde, was the recipitant of a 3 year government contract with the Agency for International Development. From Oct. 1964 to Aug. 1967, Hyde was AID's Regional Adviser for all of Latin America. His job was described as providing technical assistance from the State Dept. to insurance co-operatives launched throughout the region. Hyde filed reports from Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Panama.

Former Ohio governor John Gilligan (a later AID director), admitted that AID's contemporaneous CIA function was: "At one time, many AID field offices [under the auspices of the State Department] were infiltrated from top to bottom with CIA people. It was pretty well known in the agency who they were and what they were up to... The idea was to plant operatives in every kind of activity we had overseas, government, volunteer, religious, every kind..."

When W.A. Hyde filed his AID end-of-tour report from Lima, Peru, on 8-8-1967, it not only went to the State Department but the CIA as well.

But wait, there's more...

Once again, information finally became available 30 years after the assassination of JFK.

Ruth Hyde Paine had been staying with her older sister, Sylvia Hyde Hoke, in 1963 in Falls Church, Virginia. A declassified CIA Security File Memorandum noted that Sylvia Hoke had been listed as a CIA employee in the 1961 issue of the Falls Church, Virginia, City Directory. It warned: "Since it is known that opposition intelligence services have in the past checked similar publications, it should be presumed that the indicated employment of Subject by CIA is know to other intelligence organizations."

What I find particularly insidious about this organization is the way not only do they have a job description that includes the given that they aren't under any compunctions as to giving a truthful answer to a duly authorized government investigation, but they have no regard for the lives and families of those who perform assigned services for them.

Ruth Hyde Paine didn't know that, by the time she was staying with her sister in 1963, she'd been working for the agency for 8 years. After her visit with her sister's family, Ruth Paine drove to New Orleans to meet with the Oswalds and drove Marina back to Dallas, so the very pregnant Marina could have a more stable, comfortable place to live while awaiting the birth of their second child. Shortly after Ruth left Falls Church, her brother-in-law left to work for the agency's AID front as her father would after the publication of the Warren Report.

Continued below...

Lest anyone get the idea that Ruth Hyde Paine was a good Samaritan in all this... On October 14, 1963, Mrs. Paine called the Texas School Book Depository and was told about a job opening. She told Oswald and he applied, was interviewed and had the job by October 16, 1963. The Warren Commission was aware of and asked Paine about the two calls her phone number received from Robert Adams of the Texas Employment Commission. He called on the 15th and spoke with someone there about a better job prospect than the TSBD. The job was a permanent position as a baggage or cargo handler at Trans Texas Airways with a monthly salary $100 more than the temporary job at the TSBD. He was told to leave a message and he asked Oswald to contact him. Having not heard from Oswald, he called again the next day and talked to someone who said Oswald wasn't there and was working at another job...

So here we have the "patsy" and his family up to their necks and surrounded in CIA operatives and positioned in a job in the soon-to-be (supposedly) sniper's nest.

But wait, believe it or not, there's more...

As somebody else has already said, if the term "conspiracy theorist" is fair game then "coincidence believer" should be, too!

On October 9, 1963, just a week before Oswald started the job that would make his name infamous, an FBI official in Washington D.C. took it upon himself to disconnect O swald from the FBI FLASH system which had flagged him shortly after his "defection" to the Soviet Union. It was supposed to be a BOLO (Be On the Look Out) for Oswald's re-entry into the country since his fingerprints and photo were part of his military record. It is virtually unbelieveable, but the agent who did this was Marvin Gheesling, supervisor of the Soviet espionage section at the FBI. The timing beggars belief. John Newman, author of "Oswald and the CIA", remarked that Gheesling literally "turned off the alarm switch on Oswald an instant before it would have gone off."

This was done without the knowledge of director Hoover and the day before the CIA's October 10, 1963 message to the FBI that Oswald (or an impersonator) had attempted to contact the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City.

When Hoover found out (after the assassination of JFK), he was apoplectic. Gheesling was ordered censured and relocated to Detroit serving in a much less important position.

My sincere hope is that someone takes the trouble to read all this and understand why I say oversimplified answers to the assassination leave too many things unexplained without meaning any disrespect to the person posting...

What a great series of posts by CornShucker This one quote caught my attention:

(April 23, 1962, the president's words directly after the 4 -10 -'62 meeting with Mr. Blough were printed in the New York Times. "My father always told me that all businessmen were sons-of-b*tches, but I never believed it until now!")

originally posted by: SayonaraJupiter
What a great series of posts by CornShucker

This one quote caught my attention:

(April 23, 1962, the president's words directly after the 4 -10 -'62 meeting with Mr. Blough were printed in the New York Times. "My father always told me that all businessmen were sons-of-b*tches, but I never believed it until now!")

Thanks. The section in the book by Douglass is to long to quote, but Kennedy (as he had done many other times) tried to diplomatically walk back his remark once the dust had settled. He had made some permanent enemies, though.

The 1800 page, five volume book by Horne on the ARRB was a tremendous education. It's pathetic that, had he not written it, the things declassified and made public would still be basically unknown. You have to make an appointment and go to the national archives to view any of it. I was flabbergasted that something like the JFK records act could have been passed and the ARRB could have come and gone yet I heard about by accident last year!

As Douglass says on the cover of his book, "He Chose Peace And They Marked Him For Death." I have learned more in the last year about the assassination than I have in the last 50! It's a bummer to know that the Z-film is not the "Gold Standard" it was thought to be. If you haven't seen my posts earlier in the thread, you might want to check it out. I understand, now, why that "glide" down Elm always felt unreal and greasy to me...

I've been planned to add another post. Apparently, the trip to Mexico to sheep-dip Oswald just before the assassination also had the serendipitous effect of getting his FLASH status cancelled by the FBI. As in so many other cases, it took years to come to light but we now know the name of the CIA agent that Oswald(or his stand-in) was in line behind when he got his visitor's visa to Mexico.

If I remember correctly, aren't you the one who recommended the movies "Executive Action" (I think that's right) and "True Believers"? I thoroughly enjoyed both and had on H*ll of a belly laugh at the end of "TB".

originally posted by: CornShucker
If I remember correctly, aren't you the one who recommended the movies "Executive Action" (I think that's right) and "True Believers"? I thoroughly enjoyed both and had on H*ll of a belly laugh at the end of "TB".

Is this the thread you were thinking about?

Mark Lane and Executive Action (1973)

www.abovetopsecret.com...

There is a name in JFK conspiracy lore that I don't hear mentioned too much and that name is Mae Brussell. Hopefully you are familiar with her ground breaking research, her audio archives and her influence in the JFK assassination research community.

It comes down to control of the narrative. Who has control of the narrative on JFK? The powers that be take for granted that they can control the historical by placing certain players in certain positions. But what if a new narrative began to coalesce out of the fragmentary research that we do here on ATS? Sometimes I wonder if ATS is just a joke.

originally posted by: SayonaraJupiter

originally posted by: CornShucker
If I remember correctly, aren't you the one who recommended the movies "Executive Action" (I think that's right) and "True Believers"? I thoroughly enjoyed both and had on H*ll of a belly laugh at the end of "TB".

Is this the thread you were thinking about?

Mark Lane and Executive Action (1973)

www.abovetopsecret.com...

There is a name in JFK conspiracy lore that I don't hear mentioned too much and that name is Mae Brussell. Hopefully you are familiar with her ground breaking research, her audio archives and her influence in the JFK assassination research community.

It comes down to control of the narrative. Who has control of the narrative on JFK? The powers that be take for granted that they can control the historical by placing certain players in certain positions. But what if a new narrative began to coalesce out of the fragmentary research that we do here on ATS? Sometimes I wonder if ATS is just a joke.

Yeah, that's the one. I watched a bit on YT and decided immediately that it deserved to be seen on DVD. Thankfully, Netflix had it. The film left me with a bunch of conflicting emotions. It's very well done and feels as if it might as well be considered a documentary.

Until recently I'd only seen the "Evidence of Revision" as previews on YT. It's finally available on Amazon and I bought it (a 3 DVD pack). Mark Lane even popped up in relation to Jonestown. He does have a way of appearing when the speedbumps in history come along.

I've made a not of Ms. Brussell's name and will look into her work.

If only it were possible to be taken seriously when trying to explain to those who call themselves skeptics with pride in their voice that the term conspiracy theorist is a term that the CIA settled on after trying a few others as a way to discredit Americans who were unconvinced by the Warren Commission. In the last volume of Horne's book he expresses contempt for the way JFK's assassination is treated like a parlor game these days. I agree. A Man Died That Day!

a reply to: CornShucker

There seems to be a localized memory loss amongst modern JFK reviewers when Mae Brussell's name is mentioned. If you haven't heard Mae Brussell's radio show tapes then you have missed an important source of contemporary JFK research. She was broadcasting from the Nixon era. Her tapes are a message from the past that are critically ignored in modern reviews of the JFK assassination.

Check out the Worldwatcher archive
www.worldwatchers.info...

And please visit my thread MAE BRUSSELL Happy Birthday Conspiracy Queen
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Mae shares the same birthday as JFK. Go ahead and look that up. It's May 29.

a reply to: CornShucker

It's a bummer to know that the Z-film is not the "Gold Standard" it was thought to be.

The Z-film basically comes down to chain of custody and in your version of the narrative NPIC is involved. What if I were to say to you that NPIC was closely involved with the chain of custody with the Apollo pictures? Wouldn't that blow your mind?

originally posted by: SayonaraJupiter
a reply to: CornShucker

It's a bummer to know that the Z-film is not the "Gold Standard" it was thought to be.

The Z-film basically comes down to chain of custody and in your version of the narrative NPIC is involved. What if I were to say to you that NPIC was closely involved with the chain of custody with the Apollo pictures? Wouldn't that blow your mind?

Don't take this as confrontational, it isn't my version of the narrative. It was documented during the course of Horne's work with the ARRB. The hurt and disappointment on Mr. B's face sure looks genuine to me...

As far as the Apollo pics, I would very much appreciate whatever info you've come across. Feel free to give me some links in a U2U. My curiosity was piqued when I worked my way through several pages of a site that lays out some pretty good circumstantial evidence that Kubrick did studio work for NASA in parallel with the filming of 2001. It makes sense, in a way, that they would create a safety net of some sort in order to have something to show America and the rest of the world. Not saying I'm one of those who believes the landings were fake, but, as a life-long fan of magic and illusion, I know you can't always trust what you see.

Horne speaks of the two NPIC events.

ETA:
As I said earlier in this thread, the most tedious part of Horne's magnum opus is the section on the Z-film. At times Mr. Horne comes across as a bit OCD, but on a subject this important, I believe it's justified. I've exercised a certain amount of restraint in my comments about that section. There are some aspects of the connection to Life magazine that could ruffle a few feathers and I've already gotten one person upset with me in this thread, already. Similar to "Best Evidence", reading and then trying to make sure that I understood what I'd read was a labor of love as far as the section on the Z-film. This Fall-Spring has brought with another string of cluster headaches and some days a sentence or two was all it took to convince me to come back later. If I understood correctly, there should have been NO 16mm version of the Z-film by the time Mr. Zapruder and his entourage finished their lengthy process of getting his film developed and copies made.

originally posted by: SayonaraJupiter
a reply to: CornShucker

There seems to be a localized memory loss amongst modern JFK reviewers when Mae Brussell's name is mentioned. If you haven't heard Mae Brussell's radio show tapes then you have missed an important source of contemporary JFK research. She was broadcasting from the Nixon era. Her tapes are a message from the past that are critically ignored in modern reviews of the JFK assassination.

Check out the Worldwatcher archive
www.worldwatchers.info...

And please visit my thread MAE BRUSSELL Happy Birthday Conspiracy Queen
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Mae shares the same birthday as JFK. Go ahead and look that up. It's May 29.

A huge THANKS for the intro. She is a very interesting lady. I will be spending many, many hours listening to the archived shows on YT. It is apparent that the assassination of John Lennon broke her heart. Glad you pointed the way. The vast range of topics she covered will give me hours and hours of something to take my mind off my crappy health lately.

A note to the mods: what my response the OP continues to evolve. I by no means intend to be responsible for thread drift. Anyone wishing to add an unexpected angle to the assassination builds on the credibility of the OP. I'm glad the thread was posted where it is because, after the JFK Act & the work of the ARRB, conspiracy in the assassination is no longer a "theory" but documented fact.

A note to: SayonaraJupiter
May be a day or two before I post again. You've given me an idea of how to tie a few facts together in a way that, hopefully, can add to the conversation without getting me flamed...

In the meantime, my wife is going to pick me up an MP3 player and earbuds so that I can lay down and still not feel I'm wasting my day. Ms. Brussell's archive that you linked to will be a blessing. I'm hoping I can find a reference in her early '70s shows to the Hendrix assassination. (That's what it was. He had no major drugs or alcohol in his system at death but his lungs were filled with red wine + rather than have him prone, neither face up or down, he was transported in the ambulance braced in an upright position.)

a reply to: CornShucker

Hey Corn, I did not intend to give you a head ache Get rest and come back when you are ready I'll be catching up on this article you posted www.lewrockwell.com...

Douglas Horne's analysis of the chain of custody is super. There was never anything so detailed for the Apollo negatives (at least I haven't seen it).

By the way, the NPIC guy on the Apollo pics was Richard Underwood. It was claimed on his obituary that he was "The first person to view every photo from the Gemini missions through the first 23 space shuttle missions."

Without bending this too far off-topic, Dick Underwood is a lot like Dino Brugioni and Homer McMahon, who both believed that they were working with the camera original films!

I am hoping to be back 100% by this weekend. Then I'm going to try to pull together info from four different sources to show why the American public knows so little about the assassination plot in Chicago shortly before Dallas and why it is so vitally important in taking an honest look at what came to pass in Dealey Plaza.

Be back soon.

a reply to: CornShucker

I did know about the plot in Chicago as well as the planning in Miami. I know people were arrested in Chicago, but it's been awhile since I have read about that. I think they had patsies set up in various cities as contingencies until things came together in an acceptable way to try to pull it off. Dallas was were it finally came together and Oswald, as fate would have it, was put there in place for his role in it. I'll be looking forward to your next installment, feel better soon!

There's 1 major flaw with the idea that the Zapruder film is a fake - how come it matches numerous other films and photos of the assassination? If zapruder film is a fake then they are aswell, and suddenly the task faced by the conspirators becomes vast and open-ended. There were potentially hundreds of people in desley plaza taking filme and photos, you'd have to somehow be sure you could Hoover up all of those films and alter them all in an identical way so as not to expose the deception. Nobody in their right mind would organise a plot where that was the plan because it's logisitscslly far too complex and complicated. It would only take one film or photo to slip through the net that showed something else and they'd be busted.

They did the assassination in public because they didn't care that it was filmed. And that means Zapruder is authentic.

originally posted by: theunredacted
There's 1 major flaw with the idea that the Zapruder film is a fake - how come it matches numerous other films and photos of the assassination? If zapruder film is a fake then they are aswell, and suddenly the task faced by the conspirators becomes vast and open-ended. There were potentially hundreds of people in desley plaza taking filme and photos, you'd have to somehow be sure you could Hoover up all of those films and alter them all in an identical way so as not to expose the deception. Nobody in their right mind would organise a plot where that was the plan because it's logisitscslly far too complex and complicated. It would only take one film or photo to slip through the net that showed something else and they'd be busted.

They did the assassination in public because they didn't care that it was filmed. And that means Zapruder is authentic.

Thought I'd check in for a sec. I respectfully disagree and so did Dino Brugioni. Go to the 35 minute mark and hear from the man who'd held the Z-film in his hands November 23, 1963. He saw the original kill shot and its aftermath. The extant Zapruder film is not authentic.




There is only one film depicting what the Z-film does in its entire existing representation. The only possible exception to that would be to find out who was doing the one-off viewings of an unaltered version on college campuses. Zapruder gave two copies to the Secret Service on loan but never got them back.

If you know of a film showing the sequence of events up to and including the (if you accept the validity of the Z-film) "Kill Shot" you would be doing not just me but the rest of America a huge service by pointing the way. I'm sure thousands would want to see it. Surely you are aware that one of the motorcycle escort to the left rear is on record as having been hit by so much body matter that he thought he might have been hit, too.

Almost before the presidential limo had passed from view, the plaza was being canvassed by police, FBI and others claiming to be Secret Service who confiscated film and photographs and cameras.

a reply to: CornShucker

Yes I've seen that film and it definetly provides the single best case for Zapruder film alteration, but I remain unconvinced.

He's talking about a short piece of film he saw briefly 50 years ago. His recollections just aren't strong enough to suggest it was radically altered.

Again, it comes down to the basic fact that the zapruder film matches the other films and photos. So if it's faked, they all are aswell.

originally posted by: theunredacted
a reply to: CornShucker

Yes I've seen that film and it definetly provides the single best case for Zapruder film alteration, but I remain unconvinced.

He's talking about a short piece of film he saw briefly 50 years ago. His recollections just aren't strong enough to suggest it was radically altered.

Thanks for the reply, we don't need to completely agree for this thread to provide some insight for readers who have only had a casual interest in the assassination until now.

Mr. Brugioni came across in that interview as anything but an elderly gentleman with an unreliable memory. In fact, he corrects the interviewer a couple of times. The look on his face as he describes watching the film (multiple times) with the Secret Service men leads me to take his word on what he saw. There is nothing ambiguous about his insistence that the Kill Shot made a much larger spray of body matter in the original and would most certainly have involved more than one frame.

Also, let's not forget that the statement came from our government's #1 man in analyzing the information at NPIC. If Dino Brugioni says that Hawkeye Works was the most sophisticated facility in the world and they could things that seemed impossible, I believe him.

And let's don't forget the NPIC employee on the following night who commented (as they were watching the 16mm film that shouldn't have existed) that JFK seemed to be reacting to as many as 7 or 8 shots, Secret Service Agent "Bill Smith" made it abundantly clear that he was there to do his job and not offer opinions.

As was said earlier in this thread, my gut feeling is that the Stemmons Freeway sign has been used in some way to provide a way to obfuscate something important. The Z-film and the Nix film look very different at the point I mentioned when that follow-up car almost rear-ends the JFK limo.

Again, it comes down to the basic fact that the zapruder film matches the other films and photos. So if it's faked, they all are aswell.

That's why my personal feelings are that NO photographic or video representations of the assassination should be presumed to be unadulterated. There are at least three different versions of the Nix film on YT. (The Nix camera was silent also. Ignore any added gunshots that you might hear.) In one version it looks like the follow-up car came dangerously close to rear-ending the presidential limo.

Orville Nix's granddaughter has a website and I am quoting from Here:

He along with two of his brothers, worked for the General Services Administration as maintenance men. It was there that Orville befriended SSAIC Forrest Sorrels. In 1963, Orville was promoted to the Terminal Annex Building at the NW corner of Houston and Main Streets. On November 22, 1963, while waiting to meet his wife, daughter-in-law Elaine and granddaughter Gayle, he filmed what many consider to be a home movie of as great importance as the more familiar Zapruder film of the JFK assassination. Using a Keystone K-810 camera, his film shows the grassy knoll area throughout the assassination sequence. His film begins with the motorcade turning right onto Houston Street from Main Street. Realizing he could see more with his 6’6″ stature, he then moved to the south curb of Main about 20 to 30 feet west of Houston to film the most famous home movie of the grassy knoll in Dealey Plaza. His camera was an auto-zoom camera with a handle grip that he emotionally squeezed while watching the horror of the thirty-fifth president’s death unfold before him. He wasn’t sure until he had the film developed a week later that he had assassination footage, but he believed until his death on January 17th, 1972 that shots came from the “stockade fence” area now called the grassy knoll. The FBI kept his film for three days and his camera for over five months. When his film was returned he felt it looked “different” and when his camera was finally returned, it came back in pieces. The FBI had taken it apart to “study” it. He sold the copyright to UPI in 1963. It was subsequently returned to Gayle Nix Jackson and family in 1990.

It was at that time the family learned the camera original film was missing. Who has it? Why is it missing? What does it show? His story is one of an ordinary American who finds his life changed by the secretive and often ruthless powers of the government, the media and society due to his place in history. It is thought-provoking and passionate in its representation of how an unassuming patriotic man lived through years of lies, intimidation and threats only to become disillusioned with the idea of an America that no longer existed. It is a story that is long over-due. It is the story of everyman. It is the story of Orville Nix.

a reply to: CornShucker

Brugioni most certainly still has all his marbles and appeared sharp and convincing. But he's still talking about something he saw briefly one night 50 years ago. Nobody's memory is that good I'm afraid.

And it still boils down to one simple choice. Do we believe the conspirators were rational and clever or crazy and stupid?

If you believe the latter then it makes sense that they would arrange to have Kennedy killed in broad daylight with potentially hundreds of people filming it, and they'd do it in a way that's different to how their planned patsy would do it, so that they'd then have to undertake an almost mind-boggling complex operation to capture all the films and photographs and fake them so they all showed the same thing, which they do.

I can't understand why anyone in their right mind would do this. I believe the conspirators were rational and very clever people and would never do anything so silly and irrational. They'd clearly only ever agree to kill Kennedy in this manner if they didn't have to fake any of the films. Because obviously they'd arrange it so it looked like Kennedy had been shot in the same way they said their patsy had done it - eg all the gunman would have been behind.

And before anyone says the front shot was an emergency thing because the rear shot had failed, that scenario would never occur. Because if they wanted to be sure they'd kill him with the 'rear' shots they just have shot him as he came up Houston.

originally posted by: theunredacted
a reply to: CornShucker
-- snip --
And it still boils down to one simple choice. Do we believe the conspirators were rational and clever or crazy and stupid?
-- snip --

A good way of bringing it down to something we can work with and anyone keeping up on the thread can take in on a quick read.

While the players in the assassination were neither crazy nor stupid, they were surely pathological in their world-view and disregard for the rest of us that had to share the planet with them.

As I've continued to find more and more breadcrumbs that are out there now for everyone to see, the more I've begun to question the wisdom in playing the role of "aggregator". There is no threat to the status quo posed by multiple factoids scattered around, especially in a society that reads five or less books a year. To be the one pointing the way as to how the puzzle pieces fit may still be considered disloyal or in some way a threat. I certainly hope that's no longer true.

There's one bit of info I don't want to give up until I can put it in the proper context and that is still going to require a fair bit more work.

For now, I'd just add that while they may have been brilliant in their psychopathy, even THEY are subject to the whims of Fate...