JFK: The Smoking Gun

I have had a casual interest in the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy since I was a small child and saw the great (as I remember it) documentary/'trial' of Lee Harvey Oswald in "On trial: Lee Harvey Oswald" (I'll call him "LHO" from now on). Even though the details of that documentary now escape me, I do recall my disbelief that that jury for the trial of Oswald found that he was solely responsible for the assassination. It would be interesting to revisit that documentary in the wake of this definitive documentary. Lastly, I also remember seeing Oliver Stone's "JFK" but the details of that escape me too. Yet again, it would be interesting to revisit that drama in the wake of the puzzle being solved by this current documentary.

So, as a casual observer of this conspiracy theory laden event par excellence, I have to say that "JFK: The smoking gun" is either the starting point or the end point for anyone who wants answers to the mystery of "Who shot JFK?". For some, definitive proof will never be enough, so this documentary should start as a jumping off point for them...as in they MUST heed the findings here, lest they seem obstinate. For example, I think it was in "On trial: Lee Harvey Oswald" where I first heard of "the magic bullet theory". The effect of this theory is to lead one to suppose that any scenario where LHO's bullet is supposed to have hit the targets it was meant to is so ludicrous as to be ruled out of hand. "JFK: The smoking gun" proves that the bullet DID in fact do what it was supposed to have done and it only seems "magic" if the assumptions that you make about the layout of the car are false. So, assuming that the layout presented in "JFK:TSG" is correct, there's just no way in the world you can credibly dismiss that bullet as having "magic" properties. It's just ludicrous to assert that it is anymore.

"JFK:TSG" is presented by an Australian former detective Colin McLaren. He treats the assassination as a 'cold case' and goes through The Warren Commission's report, in the wake of reading a theory by Howard Donahue (a ballistics expert) documented in Bonar Menninger's book "Mortal error: The shot that killed JFK". In the wake of JFK's assassination, Donahue was involved in a TV network's recreation of the assassination to ascertain whether LHO could indeed have fired off three shots in under six seconds. Donahue could...but after three attempts...suggesting that LHO is unlikely to have done so, seeing as he only had one attempt to do this. So, in essence, McLaren's documentary is basically overkill for those for whom ballistics science is inadequate...for whatever reason. McLaren presents testimony to support Donahue's theory.

The basic findings of this documentary are as follow:

01) LHO fired two shots at JFK. His first missed the target BUT, via a ricochet, JFK was hit by debris, which prompted his comment of "My God, I'm hit".

02) LHO fires off his last shot. It hits his target and also injures Governor Connally. Due to the seating layout, the ballistics stack up such that there is nothing "magic" about the bullet's trajectory. It fits.

03) In a car behind JFK, Secret Service agent George Hickey, arming himself with a rifle in the wake of the (potentially) non-lethal shot on JFK picks up an automatic rifle in order to respond to the would be assassin but is knocked back by his car accelerating away, accidentally firing off a shot...the shot which impacts with devastating results on JFK's head.

04) The Secret Service, knowing full well that one of its own killed JFK, systematically covers up this truth at each and every opportunity.

05) The Warren Commission also is a whitewash, with Assistant Counsel Arlen Spector actively derailing any opportunity for the truth to become known about the Secret Service's involvement.

I would add here that what I outline here ties in neatly with LHO famously claiming "I'm just a patsy". He'd know full well that the lethal shot was not fired by him.

Where there is scope for the conspiracy theorists, I'm sure, is the extent to which the Secret Service's killing of JFK was accidental, as well as the usual stuff about who LHO was involved with. This documentary does not answer those questions...it assumes - probably quite rightly - that the lethal shot was accidental and does not delve into who LHO was involved in...perhaps due to that being so murky as far as definitive answers go.

I'm satisfied that the account presented here is accurate and best fits the facts...the ballistics evidence and the testimony of the time all reinforce the account...in ways which the Warren Commission's findings don't. It was staggering to see how unprofessional the Secret Service agents were on the morning/day of the assassination and it's an open question as to how justified their cover-up was in the wake of this tragedy. An implication that I would draw is that the Secret Service would in fact have reason/motive to want LHO dead before he could testify.

Interestingly, George Hickey waited two years before suing Menninger over the contents of his book. It was dismissed due to the statute of limitations. When the book was later re-released in paperback, he sued again. The publisher etc. settled out of court...Hickey had ground out a 'win' for himself. I'm not sure that 'victory' is good for history. I hope that Jackie Kennedy knew the truth of what happened too and that it was 'only' the public who were 'protected' from this awful truth.

Of all the theories that have come and gone through the years, this film is the most believable. In fact, I think it is as accurate an account as one will find. Surely, if Oswald's first shot had not gained the notice of George Hickey and set him to retrieve the AR15 on the back floor inside the car where he sat behind JFK's limo; had he not taken the safety off, and was not forced backwards by the movement of the vehicle, Oswald would have surely sent another bullet into JFK that may or may not have killed him; but, unfortunately, it was Hickey's truly hapless accident that blew out the skull of the President with an explosive round of ammo, not the sort of bullet that penetrates through the target as Oswald used.

Plus, with all the loss of evidence by the huge number of Secret Servicemen around the autopsy process, with numerous of them making demands for photographic film, the President's brain, and even insisting that a piece of metal be attached to an xray, the weight of evidence against the SS in conspiring to cover-up their involvement is abundantly staggering.

Why would the SS not want the real truth to be known? First of all, they had a suspect, Oswald, that could be held as the culprit in all three shots; and secondly, they feared for their jobs. A huge investigation regarding the competency of that service would have taken decades to complete. After all, there weren't any computers in those days to help sort out all that information, as the Warren Commission discovered when they tried to assimilate what they could of all the testimonies into their half-baked conclusion. Stacks of information were never touched, especially that which indicated by bystanders the smell of gunpowder at street level.

Finally, I know the truth. I recall the day it happened, and the week following. The entire nation was in mourning. My grandmother, who was staying at our house while Mom was in the hospital, had all four of us kids sit quietly in front of the TV as if we were in a funeral parlor, while she sobbed. It was like losing a member of the family to us. I did grow to greatly respect JFK over the next couple decades after I read his book, watched PT109, and learned about the Cuban missile crisis.

He was a good man who suffered terribly with Addison's disease and did the best he could for our country. What a solemn spot his grave site is, in dedication to an American, who, despite his challenges, faced them well.

This documentary explores another theory of the JFK assassination.

In this theory, there were two shooters, Lee Harvey Oswald and a Secret Security agent named George Hickey in the other car.

I can't say whether or not it's any truer than anything else, but I'll say this. These documentaries always make compelling stories. Why? Because they take a moment, a statement, a situation, and make a decision about it, usually that it has an ulterior motive, and build a conspiracy theory around it.

For instance, at the hospital in Dallas, the Secret Service would not allow the doctor there to perform the autopsy. They demanded the body be returned to Washington. EVIL COVER-UP. Give me a break. This is the President of the United States, and they're going to let a local doctor do the autopsy?

Here's another one -- There were all these photographs taken by various people who were there that day, and the Secret Service took the photos and never returned them. HELLO. This was the assassination of a U.S. President, not May Day photos of children dancing around a pole with flowers. OF COURSE they took the photos, every single photo had to be examined.

My favorite - eyewitness accounts that fly in the face of what was said by other witnesses who testified at the Warren Commission hearings. Ever asked a bunch of witnesses of a crime what the culprit looked like? You're telling me that shots were fired, people hit the ground, screamed, and then are able to give reliable testimony? They counted the shots? They watched someone stand up in a car?

Here's another and it was mentioned constantly. All the chaos in the room at the hospital, all the yelling, all the people, the jostling. RIGHT. THE PRESIDENT HAD JUST BEEN SHOT. You're expecting total silence while people are trying to find out if he's alive or dead, make arrangements to swear in Johnson, get some sort of announcement together for reporters, keep news from getting out before there are definitive answers, keep people who don't belong there away from the body? Chaos. Gee, wouldn't have expected that with the President's body there.

So did the Secret Service guy fire a third shot? The theory here is that it was friendly fire and they wanted to cover up that fact. Others on this board think it wasn't an accident, he was aiming at the President.

Now, if he was aiming at the President, they really needed to terminate him and put him in prison. Why wouldn't they have done that? All the Secret Service hated JFK and wanted to see him dead? What is the point of covering up what this guy did, if he did it?

Covering it up to the public -- okay, yes, I can see that. We pay their salaries. But why close ranks to help a traitor? Also, do we honestly think this was the fatal shot? I'm sorry, the poor man was hit in the back and the head before this third shot. Not sure if he would have survived and if he had, I doubt he would have been able to hold the office of President.

I go into this type of thing skeptical because there are so many conspiracy theories about absolutely everything, and it seems like someone can go through the literature and come up with an alternate idea of what happened.

It's always the same thing: Elvis is alive and living over a bowling alley; JFK survived and is probably living with him; Hitler survived; Princess Diana was murdered; we didn't get the real story of 9/11; etc. Meanwhile, try to get your doctor's office to fax something, or ask an office to find the fax you've sent five times, or have someone read your email correctly and give you the info you asked for -- how can you have a conspiracy when everybody is always screwing up?

Do I think the Warren Commission gave us the real story? No, of course not. We are much more savvy today and we know that the government lies, and whatever the commission couldn't explain, it pretended it didn't happen. Eighty witnesses say 65 different things, you go with the fifteen who said the same thing.

Do I believe that the Dallas police really cared if anyone shot Oswald? Obviously they were hoping someone would come along and kill him while they were meandering through a parking space on the way to a truck that was obviously not close to where they came from.

This theory is just as viable or ridiculous as any other one. We won't ever know what happened. It's a tragic time in history, people find the different investigations compelling, I loved the movie JFK, but in the end, we're all just spinning our wheels. See Four Days in November, have yourself a good cry, and watch these documentaries with a skepticism and detachment.

So after Oswald fired his first shot, Hickey identified that JFK was shot, looked up at the 6th floor, reached down for the AR-15, lifted it from his car floor, released the safety, turned the rifle toward JFK rather than the 6th floor, and accidentally shoots JFK.

And he does all this in under 6 seconds! Yeah, right.

The movie also doesn't talk about the type of bullet the AR-15 fires and if there is any indication of that bullet entering the back of JFK's head at the proper angle. This theory is so bad that I suspect it is a deliberate fake that can be proven wrong. I'm sure the assassination was a conspiracy, but not this.

These documentaries are CIA-approved and thus worth very little. They use paid actors for reenactments and "experts" on ballistics and so forth, but they always operate within predefined limits. One sacrosanct principle that can NEVER be questioned in any of these productions is that Lee Harvey Oswald was one of the gunmen and was on the 6th floor of the Book Depository at the time of the shooting. They refer to Warren Commission findings, as if by repeating them, the viewing public will never question them. But the Warren Commission is legally discredited, as any lawyer worth his or her salt will tell you. The Warren Commission was not a court or even a proper investigative body. It was a stitch-up.

There is no material evidence that Oswald was on the 6th floor - no fingerprints, no eyewitnesses, no forensics of any kind. So a documentary like this that hypothesizes that Oswald "could not have fired the fatal head shot" isn't really that useful. A shot from behind and to the left, as this film asserts, seems "new," but it doesn't really matter, does it? The kill shot probably didn't come from that direction, considering the massive EXIT WOUND at the back of JFK's head on his right side. It most likely came from the right side, or from inside the sewer drain on Elm Street. Who cares? Thinking, informed people already know Oswald didn't fire that shot. This whole film is meant to divert and distract. It posits a conspiracy at cover-up by the Secret Service, a small agency, not the CIA? Give us a break. What rubbish.

At the end of the day, thinking people know that the JFK assassination was a coup d'etat by the national security state. Nothing this documentary says makes a whit of difference to that. So this film is just another addition to the garbage heap of mainstream media commentary on this tragic event.