JFK: The Smoking Gun

I watched the documentary JFK: THE SMOKING GUN and it was very disturbing. Yes, it was compelling and convincing that the bullet that explored JFK's head was from a different weapon other than the rifle LHO supposedly used. It was also very compelling that one of the secret agents in the car immediately following JFK fired that lethal shot. But to further say and conclude that the agent, George Hickey, did so "accidentally" is silly and an insult to normal intelligence. In that same show it was revealed that Robert Kennedy asked the agents, "Did you kill my brother?" Even RFK himself sensed this was an "inside" job.

McLaren's teary eyed and choking statement at the end that this really was a "tragic accident" was, to me, contrived and phony.

What was the premise and goal of this documentary? It only raised more questions than to put "closure" on the matter. If it attempted to shut out all conspiracy theories it failed. In fact it opened it up all the more.

One thing is obvious. If the project or action to assassinate JFK was to "kill" him, it blatantly failed. JFK is much more alive now than ever. That bullet in Dallas did not terminate him, on the contrary, it immortalized him, made him "eternal".

At first i thought, here we go again with another story of why Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK. But this documentary is well put together with facts & testimonies of the Warren commission. Colin Mclaren spent four years analyzing and studying these facts. And as a former detective, he looked at the facts and evidence in a non biased way. Howard Donohue's report of his ballistics analysis is very telling about a cover-up by the Secret Service by destroying documents that would implicate one of their own. The fatal shot came from behind from the ballistic expert, and probably was accidental, or may be worst, intentional by SS in the confusion of the moment.

Was it a conspiracy against JFK by SS , or the MOB wanting him dead with LHO being the shooter? We will probably never know but, you can't argue with forensics and ballistics specialists which prove that the third shot came from behind, with a hollow point round bullet like an AR-15 which the Secret Service had in their possession.

To bad it took many years for Donohue's report to come out, by that time people had already made up there minds about the shooting. I'm surprised that other ballistics experts have not come forward to support his claim.

There are two things that still bother me thought:

1- Mclaren says that the first shot missed and hit the pavement. So why not investigate the bullet shot, to see if there is a mark of the bullet that hit the pavement ?

2- When you watch the Zapruder film, you can clearly hear the first gunshots came from afar in the background, but the deadly shot to JFK's head, you can hear a much louder gunshot which mean it must have come from the agent's car from the back. I'm sure that a ballistic sound expert would agree.

Nonetheless, I recommend this documentary very highly for his accurate recount of that tragedy. M. Mclaren's findings are very well presented. His theory of the shooting merits consideration and it unveils hidden facts from the public. To this day it still divides a country about what happened. The truth is there, if we want to see it.

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.

This came to mind at end - Occam's razor!

"The explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is most likely to be correct."

What a fine and technical presentation of detective Colin McLaren 25 year quest into the JFK Dallas incident. I suggest to anyone who decides to watch this film to pay close attention to the details put before you. The trajectory math and eyewitness accounts of that day bring forth (in my opinion) the most believable recreation of what actually happened.

I've read many other JFK assassination theories and this one is the biggest eye opener.

Please watch this movie!