Wednesday 25th February, 2012
7.20 pm
Drenching rain, and some surly solar activity that kept interrupting Obama’s State of the Union speech, an election-winning performance that Fox News tried to mitigate, the way they do, with long-held cutaways of the ugliest people in the room.
A lot of traffic on the blog about the Kennedy piece, and a remarkable unveiled website of all of Lee Oswald’s witnessed words from the moment of his arrest until his murder; with the omission, of course, of the thirteen hours of transcribed interrogation that the dog ate, or the cleaning lady stoked the boiler with, or whatever, and was never seen again. Like the film of the President’s autopsy.
What’s potentially most absorbing about it is Lee names, or seems to name, the true assassin; or one of them anyway. Here is what he said.
‘There was another rifle in the building. I have seen it. Warren Caster had two rifles, a 30.06 Mauser, and a .22 for his son.’
Was Warren Caster questioned? Who was he? Where was he at the fatal moment? Why did the cops, or the Warren Commission, or the FBI, not interrogate him?
The Mauser 30.06 was used as a primary weapon by the US Army from 1906 to the early 1970s. It had a range, wikipedia says, of a thousand yards. It was the rifle most favoured in those years by army snipers, because of its accuracy. What a coincidence.
Why was it in the building? Is Warren Caster alive now? How about his son?
Worth questioning, surely.
9.39 pm
A vigilant respondent, pitying my ignorance, put me on to the Warren Commission’s tepid interrogation of their namesake. He was forty-eight and ran a small publishing concern in the building. He bought the two rifles on Wednesday, November 20th, two days before the assassination, and showed them to some of the Depository’s employees, including Oswald, in the hallway, then put them back in his office, which had a window view of the motorcade from the second floor.
He then, he told the Warren people, took both guns home that night, the .22 a Christmas present for his son, and did not bring them back to the office, ever; and was out of town, by coincidence, ‘on business’, on the fatal historic world-changing Friday. He cited no alibi witness, and was not asked for one, or made to say say where he lodged, or what the trip was for.
Given the ‘pristine bullet’, and some said it was placed in the stretcher long after the shooting, and the confusion over the make of the rifle, and the inaccuracy of the Mannlicher, with which Oswald, a poor shot, allegedly pulled off a miraculous feat of speed, changed focus and bullseye precision, and the accuracy of the Mauser, I think we have our man; or one of them.
I will chase up some more, and get back to you.
11.46 pm
It is just possible we are witnessing the genesis of the Karl Rove Big Texas Lie here. In the same way as George’s brother Jeb disfranchised black voters in Dade County, enough for George to win with, just because he could, another native Texan, Lyndon Johnson, organised the shooting, in a town he controlled, of his President in broad daylight in front of a thousand witnesses, and had himself sworn in as President with Jackie, in her brain-spattered pink dress, standing traumatised beside him, we now see the hired assassin Warren Caster showing his murder weapon to the man he was framing, Lee Oswald, outside the room he fired from, just because he could; and the naming of the only left-winger in Dallas as the murderer within fifteen minutes of the crime, and the annoucing of the murder of Tippett fifteen minutes before it occurred, just because they could; and the showing to Oswald of the forged photo of him and the rifle, and the destruction of the transcripts, and the shooting of Oswald in broad daylight on live television during Kennedy’s funeral boastfully, just because they could: see what we’re getting away with, we’re Texans, we do things supersize down here; in the same way as we execute more prisoners than any other ten states put together.
The audacity of it. Imagine if Joe Biden had invited Obama to Delaware and had him shot in the head there and invited Michelle to stand beside him, covered in blood, while he was sworn in on Air Force One. That’s how daring it was. But maybe not as daring as all that. Sometimes the obvious is the best camouflage. No-one dared suggest Johnson was behind it because it was just so obvious he had to be. He was the greatest beneficiary, so it couldn’t be him.
His biographer Robert Caro believes it was him, and has for volume after volume delayed the moment of truth, which will come out, he plans, posthumously. Or so I hear tell. He’s terrified of what may befall him. Or so I hear tell. And so it goes.
Who gave Oswald the job in the Texas Book Depository? Who changed the autocade route to go beneath it? These two, plus Johnson, plus Caster, plus the two army snipers behind the fence on the hill, are all that need to have been in the conspiracy. Six people, plus four or five police and a CIA paymaster plus Hoover and Tolson. Not too hard to keep it secret.
A conspiracy theory? Oh yes. How absurd. We all know there are no conspiracies. We all know it was a lone madman that took out Osama Bin Laden and no-one else had a part in it. It was a lone madman too that took out Caesar, Socrates, Philip of Macedon, Jesus, Thomas A Becket, Richard II, Thomas More, Abraham Lincoln, Leon Trotsky, Anita Cobby and Victor Chang. How could we even think that anyone else was involved?
No, it was just Oswald and his miraculous boomerang bullets firing faster than any human being had fired before, changing focus between shots and potting two big men with one bullet because …
Because …
Look, he didn’t need to have a motive.
He was a lone madman.
Wasn’t he.
Name:
Just in case you haven’t seen it, Bob:
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/caster.htm
From the same website cited by Never Enough Ellis:
Anybody who wants to posit that CE 399 was faked and planted by conspirators needs to supply plausible answers to all of the following questions. Why did the conspirators . . .
Plant it in a location where it could easily have been lost?
Plant a bullet that was only “slightly” damaged if its role was to have passed through at least the President? Why not shoot up some livestock and get a bullet a bit more mangled?
Plant it before it could have been known how many other bullets would be recovered? How could they have known that CE 399 would not be the “one bullet too many” that would blow the whole plot?
Plant the bullet so it was found before it was known how much lead was in JFK’s neck/upper back? What if a big chunk of lead was found in JFK’s neck or upper back, a chunk too big to have come from CE 399?
According to Oswald, he was carrying a pistol for the hell of it, as one does. If so, the fact that someone else in the building was carrying a rifle would not be that remarkable. He could afford to do it and so he did. Point being, if it wasn’t Oswald then it doesn’t necessarily follow that the killer was more likely to be found in the Book Depository. What is the link between this guy who had a rifle and happened to work in the book depository and the direction of the shot/s? Where does the grassy knoll fit in?
Dealey Plaza was the only place the motorcade went through where concealable triangulated gunfire was possible. One of the shooters was in the Depository, one at least on the Knoll and one, it is said, shooting out if a storm drain on the right, very close to the car, from below.
All clear now?
Sorry, storing a rifle at work. It sounds like it could have been a status symbol thing if he kept it at work all the time. How long had he had it, it sounds like it was common knowledge.
Yes, like it was common knowledge LBJ came from Texas and JFK was killed there. Texans like to flaunt it. They’re not big on secrecy.
Bob, an unrelated wish: tell your web/blog design chap to concoct some button where new posts are recorded.
It is a nightmare going through each article to locate new comments.
Ta.
Look into it please.
Obvioulsy Texans are huge on secrecy if you posit the theory that LBJ was the man behind the JFK hit.
In an era of the Cuban Missile crisis, the Bay of Pigs, the Berlin Wall, it would have been of paramount importance and urgency in maintaining the chain of command for fear of the Ruskies launching a Nuclear attack in this moment of loss of the Commander in Chief. But the conspiracists would have thought of that and got a deal with Kruschev to hold off, because everything would later be ok with LBJ.
LBJ was a big, sly SOB stung time and again by the high-handed, cruel slurs of the Kennedys. Motive aplenty for rage but assassination ?? Bobby Kennedy thought the hastily arranged swearing in ceremony on the plane with Jackie positioned and duly photographed at Johnson’s side was unseemly. The Kennedys refused to refer to Johnson as the President. So plenty of bad blood there but Johnson lacked the confidence, the self belief to dream like this. The Kennedys humbled him and he took it.
Bobby offered the Vice Presidency to Johnson pro forma knowing he’d reject it and he took it. Everyone wondered why he gave up the most powerful job in Congress, Majority Leader in the Senate, for the least.
After Dallas, they knew.
Bob, an unrelated wish: tell your web/blog design chap to concoct some button where new posts are recorded.
It is a nightmare going through each article to locate new comments.
Ta.
Bob, an unrelated wish: tell your web/blog design chap to concoct some button where new posts are recorded.
It is a nightmare going through each article to locate new comments.
Ta.
Where did it go?????
Mr Ellis, have you by chance read Tim Weiner’s ‘Legacy of Ashes’, which won the National Book Award a few years ago? It would be a comedy if it weren’t factal. He paints a picture of American intelligence as incapable, bumbling, paranoid and sometimes just stupid.
The notion that the CIA, or FBI or Dallas police (I went to Texas, their cops are seriously dumb. Got off a DUI by telling them Australains can drink all they like and drive, and they just cautioned me, even though I knew not where the road was) could be part of any conspiracy that WORKED is what makes me doubt many of the conspiracy theries that abound.
Only organised crime were capable of this. They are called ‘organised’ for a reason. I too have heard the LBJ theory, but given that Nixon couldn’t keep a lid on Watergate, Bush’s dirty tricks have all come to light, we know of every dame JFK shagged et cetera, I’d posit that the LBJ conspiracy - which must have involved many people (the navy surgeons, Dallas cops, FBI etc) would have come to light by now.
I think Mailer got the call right ..
Terrance, what on earth are we doing down here????
A conspiracy theory? Oh yes. How absurd. We all know there are no conspiracies, and it was a lone madman that took out Ronald Reagan, John Lennon, Olaf Palmer, Gabby Gifford, Utoya Island Massacre
And Osama Bin Laden. And Benazir Bhutto. And all the Munich massacre lads. And Mayor Cermak. And Martin Luther King. And the twenty-six attempts on Castro.
Whoever or whatever “Never enough Ellis” might be, he or it is determinedly supporting the perverse Warren Commission report and its perverted findings with an amazing vigour.
May we wonder why, in spite of significant evidence to the contrary?
Is it still the official or unofficial CIA policy to maintain the fiction of the Warren Commission findings and the fanciful autopsy report upon which it is based?
Will “Never enough Ellis” come clean and show its true colours?
You know Doug….I could never, never, really reconcile in my mind the notion that a young, self-avowed “Marxist” was able to swan out of the US, live for a while in the very bosom of THE BEAST, and then waltz back in…..visa’s cleared….at the exact moment the Cold War was but a pedestrian infringement away from glowing white hot.
I never could turn that fucker around in my mind.
Oswald realised the Kafkesque world he was in….too late.
His single cry “I’m a patsy” an eerie echo of Munch’s “The Scream”.
Tragic bathos in black and white.
I am not ““Never enough Ellis” by the way.
Ha! You may have multiple personalities, but defending the insupportable does not exist in your resume. Happy Australia Day.
‘Never enough Ellis’ may have to wait for July 4.
PS The supposed Marxist Oswald worked out of a CIA building in New Orleans, trying to infiltrate the Castro Cubans. They were having none of it; the Russians had the same view earlier. What to do with such a failed spy and a loose cannon? Hmmm . . .
What to do indeed Doug….what to do.
All the best on this day to you and yours as well
Oswald never swanned out of the US and certainly never waltzed back in, both the Russians and the Americans were suspicious as to which side Oswald was on.
“Swanning” is EXACTLY what I would call it.
The notion that Oswald was without the….patronage….ofthe CIA is a patent absurdity.
No other agency would have been able to facilitate such a return trip…..during those febrile years.
Oswald was a patsy.
An old fashioned Mafia fall guy.
Just ask my Uncle Jimmy.
To Bob : You may have noticed that several of your re-posted articles have failed to attract much in the way of comments. The reaction (non-reaction?) of possible commenters seems to suggest that merely re-posting, however worthy the article may be, does not fire them in this instant gratification world.
Perhaps a rewrite (top and bottom only?) or an update, would be more effective? In a spirit of positive criticism, DQ
I live in the illusory belief that out there are humans who haven’t read my previous work.
Possibly there are, like those who have not seen Madonna’s tits (“A league of their own”)
But your faithful audience says to itself, “oh yes, I’ve seen that before, very nice” and passes on.
What do you mean by that?
I am agreeing with you, in a whimsical fashion.
I thought you said you were going to post the articles rejected by the Drum, ie ones that have not seen the light of day, as well?
What about the footage, or was it photo, of Kennedy after he was dead, face intact.
Let me say this to you all - almost all of you, Mr E included, can tell me why Oswald DIDN’T shoot JFK based on all this information you have read and seen that is in the public domain, but none of you can produce evidence (let me repeat that, evidence) as to who or whom did.
So you’ve got every bit of detail about guns and pistols and cops in cinemas and trajectories and this testimony and that testimony and he said this to that person and what do I deduce….
LBJ did it, no the CIA did it, no make that the Chicago mob, sorry, a couple of army snipers …
In all things, the simple explanation is often the right one: a dingo stole baby Azaria, Elvis’ heart gave in, Holt drowned, Oswald shot the President.
Physically impossible to shoot from the front, front right and rear right at about the same time. Not Oswald, not Superman.
I cannot produce any evidence to connect you to a shooter or shooters.
(Occam’s Razor Terrance, is by now….a blunt thing).
So, for me, the official report of Oswald as Assassin is pure fiction….
Another “Libra” by De Lillo.
Nothing more.
Oswald as the shooter is the least simple explanation. He lacked motive, weapons (he left his pistol at home), opportunity, time frame, firing skills, tape recording of his testimony, transcription of his testimony (mislaid, were they?) and any memory of killing anybody. He had two little daughters he was worried about. And he liked Kennedy, who was the best American friend the Russians ever had.
Why did he do it? Why did he do it?
If it’s that simple you should be able to guess.
Why did he do it?
Why did he do it?
Please answer this.
He could have been a nutbag! He was a failure at everything else in his life, couldn’t follow anything through, his wife had lost respect for him, both Capitalism and Communism had left him disappointed, and he was a Narcissist of the grand type. The only thing he had been good at, was as a marksman in the Marines, couldn’t make Sniper material, but close to it. On a good day as Mailer points out it may have been possible. I know you are gonna say but in such a limited time dead on target head shots, but how many times did he miss, and according to what I have read the time could have been as much as 8 seconds.
You skipped over General Walker, explain General fucking Walker Bob.
Why do you persist in this nonsense?
It does your credibility no good.
‘Never enough Ellis’ has fled back to his CIA desk job; as for Walker, he apparently ‘knew’ that Oswald had shot at him days before any shred of evidence had turned up, and within 24 hours of the JFK assassination. Curious, yes?
offered without comment.
Very funny. If it was not so wide of the mark it would even be interesting.
It does not address the difficulty of shooting from 3 directions at once.
It proves nothing except that Oswald was a plausible patsy.
He was the only presidential assassin to have children.
Why did he do it?
Some of the House of Representatives Committee (1979) findings :
(quote)
The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. The committee was unable to identify the other gunmen or the extent of the conspiracy.
* The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that the Soviet Government was not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy.
* The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that the Cuban Government was not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy.
* The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that anti-Castro Cuban groups, as groups, were not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy, but that the available evidence does not preclude the possibility that individual members may have been involved.
* The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that the national syndicate of organized crime, as a group, was not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy, but that the available evidence does not preclude the possibility that individual members may have been involved.
(end quotes)
Hardly an endorsement of the lone gunman theory, is it?
Hmmm?