Last Second in Dallas

[Jon Banks]

We have beat this one to death.  Bottom line: even if you conclude that it was premature to rule out a Communist conspiracy to assassinate JFK back in the first days after the assassination, we now live nearly six decades after that time.  And there is still no such evidence.  Thus, EVEN if your premise is correct, it makes absolutely no difference as to the relevant fact.  There was no conspiracy involving Russia or Cuba to assassinate JFK.

Before you entered the conversation, the point was that someone implied that the Katzenbach memo wasn't intended to discourage investigating conspiratorial leads.

What you believe decades later isn't relevant to what people feared or speculated in the first 48 hours after JFK's assassination...

[Martin Weidmann]

This CIA document show how much was known about Oswald's Mexico City sojourn by 0700 on Sunday (the 24th). ( Link )

Doesn't seem to be any sign of conspiracy; just Oswald trying to get to Cuba and photos of a man tentatively "believed to be Oswald" not being Oswald.

Since Friday, American intelligence stations around the world were assessing their files and contacts for anything to do with Lee Harvey Oswald, and not one sign of conspiracy was obtained, just signs of a malcontent who hated his country. Those high up in the government, like Katzenbach, could look at the weak non-existent evidence of "conspiracy" weighed against the growing lone assassin evidence, and make a preliminary evaluation.

So, let's see if I understand you correctly.

The President of the United States is assassinated and instead of conducting a full blown investigation into all possible theories, the men in charge decided, within 48 hours, to reject the possibility of any kind of conspiracy and decide to focus only on the lone nut theory.

And you see nothing wrong with that picture?

Is that what you are saying? Really?

[Jon Banks]

This CIA document show how much was known about Oswald's Mexico City sojourn by 0700 on Sunday (the 24th). ( Link )

Doesn't seem to be any sign of conspiracy; just Oswald trying to get to Cuba and photos of a man tentatively "believed to be Oswald" not being Oswald.

People involved with the Mexico City investigation in 1963 and 1964 disagreed that there was nothing to see or no reason to be concerned:

"Although the spy agency assured the commission in 1964 that there were no surveillance photos of Oswald in Mexico, CIA Station Chief Scott, in his memoirs, strongly suggested that there were photos, and other CIA officials later told congressional investigators in the 1970s that they recalled seeing the pictures. CIA and FBI records, meanwhile, show that the agencies never tried to track down or interview key witnesses who had encountered Oswald in Mexico.

Slawson is also convinced that someone blocked him from seeing a top-secret June 1964 letter from Hoover to the commission in which Hoover revealed that Oswald may have openly boasted about his plans—“I’m going to kill Kennedy”—while in Mexico, apparently at the Cuban embassy. Slawson believes the CIA was desperate to shut down any investigation in Mexico City out of fear the Warren Commission might stumble onto evidence of the spy agency’s long-running schemes to murder Fidel Castro. (Mexico City had been a staging area for some of the plots.) "

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/03/jfk-assassination-lee-harvey-oswald-mexico-116195/


LBJ and Hoover certainly seemed to be concerned about Oswald's Mexico City trip:

"At 10:00 am on Saturday, November 23, President Johnson asked FBI Director Hoover if there was anything new concerning Oswald’s visit in Mexico City (it’s unclear when Johnson first had learned of the Mexico City visit). It was at this point – just 22 hours after the assassination– that Hoover told Johnson about the Kostikov link and that it was not Oswald’s voice on the tape; he had been impersonated..."

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/oswald-the-cia-and-mexico-city/


Sorry but there's no way to honestly claim that the FBI and White House could rule out a potential conspiracy within 48 hours given the murkiness and concerns about Oswald's visit to Mexico City.

And rather than investigate to get to the bottom of what Oswald did while in MC, they instead engaged in a cover-up.

[Jerry Organ]

So, let's see if I understand you correctly.

The President of the United States is assassinated and instead of conducting a full blown investigation into all possible theories, the men in charge decided, within 48 hours, to reject the possibility of any kind of conspiracy and decide to focus only on the lone nut theory.

And you see nothing wrong with that picture?

Is that what you are saying? Really?

No. Of course that's not what I'm saying. The Katzenbach memo itself urged the forming of a Presidential Commission. Such a Commission would not be under the control of anyone and would be charged with investigating all the evidence, including "Speculations and Rumors".

Most investigations start with the first-day or 48-hours evidence: the recovered rifle (on Friday, Day thought he had a match of Oswald's fingerprint on the trigger-guard housing), Oswald's flight from the crime scene, his slaying of Officer Tippit; Oswald's obnoxious demeanor and hatred towards authority, the autopsy report with neck transit and two shots fired from above and behind, the limousine with damage and metal fragments forward of where Kennedy sat, the Governor wounded by a shot from above and behind.

Whatever actual conspiracy leads (not "gut feelings" and thoughts) were found on the weekend, let us know.

CTs think the Warren Commission should have started with their "conspiracy leads", "ballistic analysis" and zany "insights" into the Zapruder film developed after the Commission disbanded.

[Jon Banks]

No. Of course that's not what I'm saying. The Katzenbach memo itself urged the forming of a Presidential Commission. Such a Commission would not be under the control of anyone and would be charged with investigating all the evidence, including "Speculations and Rumors".

Most investigations start with the first-day or 48-hours evidence: the recovered rifle (on Friday, Day thought he had a match of Oswald's fingerprint on the trigger-guard housing), Oswald's flight from the crime scene, his slaying of Officer Tippit; Oswald's obnoxious demeanor and hatred towards authority, the autopsy report with neck transit and two shots fired from above and behind, the limousine with damage and metal fragments forward of where Kennedy sat, the Governor wounded by a shot from above and behind.

Whatever actual conspiracy leads (not "gut feelings" and thoughts) were found on the weekend, let us know.

CTs think the Warren Commission should have started with their "conspiracy leads", "ballistic analysis" and zany "insights" into the Zapruder film developed after the Commission disbanded.

I'll say it again,

"Oswald's guilt" and "a conspiracy plot against JFK" aren't mutually exclusive. You can conclude that he was guilty and still speculate about others being involved.

Johnson admitted that he never believed Oswald acted alone.

The LN community should address these facts:

- The FBI admits it destroyed or manipulated some evidence

- The CIA admits that they didn't tell the Warren Commission everything that they knew at the time

- Members of the Warren Commission admit that they were lied to or kept in the dark about some things

While it's true that in spite of all those things, Oswald may have acted alone, how can anyone still argue that it was a thorough investigation?

[Martin Weidmann]

No. Of course that's not what I'm saying. The Katzenbach memo itself urged the forming of a Presidential Commission. Such a Commission would not be under the control of anyone and would be charged with investigating all the evidence, including "Speculations and Rumors".

Most investigations start with the first-day or 48-hours evidence: the recovered rifle (on Friday, Day thought he had a match of Oswald's fingerprint on the trigger-guard housing), Oswald's flight from the crime scene, his slaying of Officer Tippit; Oswald's obnoxious demeanor and hatred towards authority, the autopsy report with neck transit and two shots fired from above and behind, the limousine with damage and metal fragments forward of where Kennedy sat, the Governor wounded by a shot from above and behind.

Whatever actual conspiracy leads (not "gut feelings" and thoughts) were found on the weekend, let us know.

CTs think the Warren Commission should have started with their "conspiracy leads", "ballistic analysis" and zany "insights" into the Zapruder film developed after the Commission disbanded.

The Katzenbach memo itself urged the forming of a Presidential Commission. Such a Commission would not be under the control of anyone and would be charged with investigating all the evidence, including "Speculations and Rumors".

That doesn't add up with what Katzenbach wrote in the same memo;

"The public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin; that he did not have confederates who are still at large; and that evidence was such that he would have been convicted at trial."


Not only did he rule out any kind of conspiracy ("without any confederates who are still at large") but he also clearly intended to  limit the scope of such a Commission's investigation.

Most investigations start with the first-day or 48-hours evidence:

Yes indeed, and very often the first day evidence does not tell the whole or correct story. I don't know of any murder investigation, other than the JFK case, in which investigators discarded a possible line of enquiry within 48 hours. Do you know one?

the recovered rifle (on Friday, Day thought he had a match of Oswald's fingerprint on the trigger-guard housing),

What Day thought was most certainly not known to Hoover on the 24th when he declared Oswald to be the lone gunman, and Katzenbach didn't know it either when he wrote his memo. All they knew about the rifle was that Klein's had sold it to somebody named Hidell.

Oswald's flight from the crime scene, his slaying of Officer Tippit;

Those are conclusions made long after the first 48 hours were over. Sure, Oswald was arrested as a suspect in the killing of Tippit, but that alone did not connect him in any way to the murder of JFK.

Oswald's obnoxious demeanor and hatred towards authority,

Even if true, it would be totally irrelevant for the investigation.

the autopsy report with neck transit and two shots fired from above and behind, the limousine with damage and metal fragments forward of where Kennedy sat, the Governor wounded by a shot from above and behind.

None of this was known within 48 hours.

Whatever actual conspiracy leads (not "gut feelings" and thoughts) were found on the weekend, let us know.

I have no idea. It's a bad faith question. In order to make such a determination, I would first need to know for sure that all the evidence collected has indeed been shown to the public. But, it's BS argument to begin with, because absence of evidence is not evidence of absence and the mere fact that no leads pointing to a possible conspiracy were found with 48 hours does not mean there wasn't one. You don't call of an investigation into a possible conspiracy within 48 hours after the crime just because you haven't found any leads yet!

CTs think the Warren Commission should have started with their "conspiracy leads", "ballistic analysis" and zany "insights" into the Zapruder film developed after the Commission disbanded.

I'm not really interested in what you think CTs think. My point of view is that they should have conducted a full investigation into all possible theories, but they clearly didn't. LBJ desperately wanted to avoid a war over the assassination and it seems he was willing to ignore the possibility of a conspiracy for fear of what they may find. Far easier to blame it on the lone nut and present a weak case based so much on assumptions and conclusions not justified by the evidence that it failed to convince most of the people.

[Richard Smith]

Before you entered the conversation, the point was that someone implied that the Katzenbach memo wasn't intended to discourage investigating conspiratorial leads.

What you believe decades later isn't relevant to what people feared or speculated in the first 48 hours after JFK's assassination...

That's right!  Wisdom comes at last grasshopper.  What we know with the benefit of 60 years of hindsight trumps whatever real or imagined shortcomings might have occurred in the first 48 hours.  And in this case the conclusion that Oswald committed this act all by his lonesome has not been contradicted by any credible evidence in nearly 60 years.

[Martin Weidmann]

That's right!  Wisdom comes at last grasshopper.  What we know with the benefit of 60 years of hindsight trumps whatever real or imagined shortcomings might have occurred in the first 48 hours.  And in this case the conclusion that Oswald committed this act all by his lonesome has not been contradicted by any credible evidence in nearly 60 years.