Last Second in Dallas

[Bill Chapman]

You can't really be that gullible. No one could've possibly known for certain within 48 hours of the assassination that no one else was involved.

The Katzenbach memo and all other actions taken by the Johnson administration were due to politics and national security concerns, not a good faith effort to find all the facts about what led up to JFKs murder.

The memo basically admits that Oswald's background is suspicious and invites conspiracy speculation. Duh.

Assuming that Katzenbach, Johnson, and other insiders knew about Oswald's trip to Mexico City weeks before the assassination, I don't buy that he was totally convinced that Oswald acted alone so soon after 11/22/63.

Even if Katzenbach assumed that all the shots were fired by Oswald only, it couldn't be ruled out within 48 hours that a guy who lived in the USSR and had recently traveled to the Cuban and Soviet embassies in Mexico had no accomplices.

Katzenbach, Johnson, and others were concerned about the politics, not the truth. This is confirmed by Johnson admitting years later that he didn't believe Oswald acted alone:

"Johnson expressed his belief that the assassination in Dallas had been part of a conspiracy. “I never believed that Oswald acted alone, although I can accept that he pulled the trigger.” Johnson said that when he had taken office he found that “we had been operating a damned Murder Inc. in the Caribbean.” A year or so before Kennedy’s death a CIA-backed assassination team had been picked up in Havana. Johnson speculated that Dallas had been a retaliation for this thwarted attempt, although he couldn’t prove it".

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/08/lbj-oswald-wasnt-alone/309486/


RFK, Gerald Ford, and Nixon all expressed similar sentiments in private. Johnson was the only one to say it publicly.

There has never been a bullet in history that did what CE399 did and came out looking as clean.

Joe Rogan says it best:

Tell us why Rogan does not show the butt end of the bullet
Same old, same old with you lot

[Jerry Freeman]

Tell us why Rogan does not show the butt end of the bullet
Same old, same old with you lot

"The butt end" 
If you fired any bullet into the air and it landed safely on top of a cloud it would look like CE 399.
Explosions from gunpowder does that to the ends of bullets.....duh 

[Jerry Organ]

In his memo, Katzenbach cited only two conspiracies concerning "speculation about Oswald's motivation" he thought should be "rebutted":

• The Dallas Police assertion that the assassination was a communist conspiracy
• The Iron Curtain press assertion that the assassination was a right-wing conspiracy

Neither "conspiracy" had any facts behind them; they were just pulled of their respective asses. Certainly no legitimate facts about a conspiracy or suspects other than Oswald emerged over the weekend and into the following month. With all the evidence that was developed over the weekend, why shouldn't people like Katzenbach and Hoover, and the US networks, allow themselves to believe it appeared to be the wok of a lone-assassin?

That didn't mean they were going to close off any conspiracy leads that developed or that a potential Presidential Commission would be limited in scope. In later describing what his memo intended, Katzenbach said as much.

Detectors to the USSR have been loners. Traveling to Mexico City and visiting foreign consulates and embassies can be done by individuals. Those ties to Oswald does not automatically mean conspiracy. I figure most of America didn't even see conspiracy in Ruby's slaying of Oswald; it was frontier justice than the Americans were into at the time with all the Westerns on TV and the "New Frontier" with its take personal responsibility for your actions. If you kill someone, expect to be killed.

Of course, most would prefer due process but given what happened, many didn't like Oswald and figured by Sunday he had done the killings that Friday. Blabbermouth Jack Ruby was about the least likely person to bring into a conspiracy to silence young Oswald.

[Jon Banks]

In his memo, Katzenbach cited only two conspiracies concerning "speculation about Oswald's motivation" he thought should be "rebutted":

• The Dallas Police assertion that the assassination was a communist conspiracy
• The Iron Curtain press assertion that the assassination was a right-wing conspiracy

Neither "conspiracy" had any facts behind them; they were just pulled of their respective asses. Certainly no legitimate facts about a conspiracy or suspects other than Oswald emerged over the weekend and into the following month. With all the evidence that was developed over the weekend, why shouldn't people like Katzenbach and Hoover, and the US networks, allow themselves to believe it appeared to be the wok of a lone-assassin?

Within 48 hours of the assassination and hours after LHO had been murdered live on TV while in police custody, no one at any level of government could honestly know if there was a conspiracy or not. People were not "idiots" or "crazy" for suspecting that there was a conspiracy under those circumstances.

Speculation about conspiracy was totally legit at that time but not good politically for Johnson, who would've had to act militarily if a conspiracy involving the Soviets or even the Cubans were confirmed. 

That didn't mean they were going to close off any conspiracy leads that developed or that a potential Presidential Commission would be limited in scope. In later describing what his memo intended, Katzenbach said as much.

It has been claimed by diplomats, intelligence agents, and even some police investigators that they were discouraged from looking into conspiratorial leads shortly after the assassination.

See this story about Ambassador Thomas Mann for example:

Only hours after shots rang out in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963, U.S. Ambassador Thomas C. Mann told colleagues in the American embassy in Mexico that he was certain Lee Harvey Oswald had not acted alone in killing JFK...

Back at the State Department, however, a baffled Mann hit a brick wall. No one in Washington seemed interested in his suspicions, he would later complain to colleagues. And within days of the assassination, the ambassador received an astonishing top-secret message directly from Secretary of State Dean Rusk. According to Mann’s testimony years later to congressional investigators, Rusk ordered the embassy to shut down any investigation in Mexico that might “confirm or refute rumors of Cuban involvement in the assassination.” No reason was given for the order, the ambassador said.

Mann told the congressional investigators that he was under the impression that the same “incredible” shut-down order had been given by the CIA to the spy agency’s station chief in Mexico, Winston Scott...

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


I've seen similar stories about FBI agents and others who were part of the initial investigations. So I don't think we can reasonably conclude that there were no orders to "stop looking into conspiratorial leads".

Detectors to the USSR have been loners. Traveling to Mexico City and visiting foreign consulates and embassies can be done by individuals. Those ties to Oswald does not automatically mean conspiracy.

I agree that those facts alone don't prove conspiracy. However, normal people don't get taught Russian in the Marines before doing a FALSE defection to Russia (he never completed the process of giving up his US citizenship).

And normal people don't hang out with or come into contact with people who were working with or for the CIA as often as Oswald did in his short life.

So either Oswald had a peculiar instinct for identifying and locating people connected to intelligence world, or he had intelligence handlers directing him.

And I've said previously that even if it's true that Oswald was some sort of intelligence asset, it doesn't mean he couldn't have acted alone in killing the President. However, one can be forgiven for suspecting a conspiracy involving domestic or foreign intelligence services given the circumstances of his bio...

I figure most of America didn't even see conspiracy in Ruby's slaying of Oswald; it was frontier justice than the Americans were into at the time with all the Westerns on TV and the "New Frontier" with its take personal responsibility for your actions. If you kill someone, expect to be killed.

You could be right but Ruby carried himself like a mobster, had mob ties, and several people associated with organized crime viewed Ruby's involvement as a sign that organized crime was involved with JFK's assassination.

Also, it was confirmed later that Ruby was an FBI asset who had took some trips to Cuba (nothing suspicious about that right?). So he too had associations with people who were working with the CIA at that time.

http://mafiahistory.us/a001/f_ruby.html

Maybe I should assume that it's totally coincidental that the JFK assassination involved two lone nuts who happened to have links to intelligence spooks and other shady characters who hated JFK.

[Jerry Organ]

Within 48 hours of the assassination and hours after LHO had been murdered live on TV while in police custody, no one at any level of government could honestly know if there was a conspiracy or not.

Again, the Katzenbach memo didn't rule every possible conspiracy. Read the memo and there's reference only to two "conspiracies" that, by Sunday, were indeed based purely on speculation.

• The Dallas Police assertion that the assassination was a communist conspiracy
• The Iron Curtain press assertion that the assassination was a right-wing conspiracy

Unless you're telling me those "conspiracies" were indeed factual.

By Sunday, what actual evidence of a "conspiracy" was found? Even getting "murdered live on TV while in police custody" doesn't have to mean a conspiracy.

People were not "idiots" or "crazy" for suspecting that there was a conspiracy under those circumstances.

Nor do they have their heads in the sand or are tools of the "conspiracy" or Secret Power Group if they decide the evidence by Sunday strongly supported Oswald as the Lone Assassin. Which it did; read "JFK First Day Evidence". And in the almost 60 years since November 1963, what compelling conspiracy case has been made?

Speculation about conspiracy was totally legit at that time but not good politically for Johnson, who would've had to act militarily if a conspiracy involving the Soviets or even the Cubans were confirmed. 

You know that, do you? By Sunday, it was increasingly farfetched that Oswald was less a James Bond sleeper agent and more what he actually was: a disgruntled wife-beating malcontent who hated America.

It has been claimed by diplomats, intelligence agents, and even some police investigators that they were discouraged from looking into conspiratorial leads shortly after the assassination.

See this story about Ambassador Thomas Mann for example:

Only hours after shots rang out in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963, U.S. Ambassador Thomas C. Mann told colleagues in the American embassy in Mexico that he was certain Lee Harvey Oswald had not acted alone in killing JFK...

I see. Another "gut feeling".

Back at the State Department, however, a baffled Mann hit a brick wall. No one in Washington seemed interested in his suspicions, he would later complain to colleagues. And within days of the assassination, the ambassador received an astonishing top-secret message directly from Secretary of State Dean Rusk. According to Mann’s testimony years later to congressional investigators, Rusk ordered the embassy to shut down any investigation in Mexico that might “confirm or refute rumors of Cuban involvement in the assassination.” No reason was given for the order, the ambassador said.

To you, "rumors" are as good as facts.

Mann told the congressional investigators that he was under the impression that the same “incredible” shut-down order had been given by the CIA to the spy agency’s station chief in Mexico, Winston Scott...[/i]

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


I've seen similar stories about FBI agents and others who were part of the initial investigations. So I don't think we can reasonably conclude that there were no orders to "stop looking into conspiratorial leads".

When the Warren Commission was established were they told that? Was the FBI? Not every conspiracy claim or "gut feeling" will prove out and should be exposed as rumors.

I agree that those facts alone don't prove conspiracy. However, normal people don't get taught Russian in the Marines before doing a FALSE defection to Russia (he never completed the process of giving up his US citizenship).

Oswald was taught Russian by the Marines? And his defection to Russia was "false"? LOL. His suicide attempt was staged to cement the charade. The embassy in Moscow sat on Oswald's passport against Oswald's demands.

And normal people don't hang out with or come into contact with people who were working with or for the CIA as often as Oswald did in his short life.

JFK had a connection to Sam Giancaca. His father knew lots of Mafia guys. DeMohrenschidt knew Jackie Kennedy when she was a young girl. Lots of coincidental ties. And what CIA officials did Oswald have a close personal relationship with?

So either Oswald had a peculiar instinct for identifying and locating people connected to intelligence world, or he had intelligence handlers directing him.

Thanks for the insight into the windmills of your mind.

And I've said previously that even if it's true that Oswald was some sort of intelligence asset, it doesn't mean he couldn't have acted alone in killing the President. However, one can be forgiven for suspecting a conspiracy involving domestic or foreign intelligence services given the circumstances of his bio...



You could be right but Ruby carried himself like a mobster, had mob ties, and several people associated with organized crime viewed Ruby's involvement as a sign that organized crime was involved with JFK's assassination.

Also, it was confirmed later that Ruby was an FBI asset who had took some trips to Cuba (nothing suspicious about that right?). So he too had associations with people who were working with the CIA at that time.

http://mafiahistory.us/a001/f_ruby.html

Maybe I should assume that it's totally coincidental that the JFK assassination involved two lone nuts who happened to have links to intelligence spooks and other shady characters who hated JFK.

Oswald and Ruby were two loners easily provoked into violence and rash acts. Nothing to assume there. The assumption is solely with their "links to intelligence spooks and other shady characters who hated JFK." It's getting on for six decades; how about some proof rather than aping the CT mantra?

[Martin Weidmann]

Again, the Katzenbach memo didn't rule every possible conspiracy. Read the memo and there's reference only to two "conspiracies" that, by Sunday, were indeed based purely on speculation.

• The Dallas Police assertion that the assassination was a communist conspiracy
• The Iron Curtain press assertion that the assassination was a right-wing conspiracy

Unless you're telling me those "conspiracies" were indeed factual.

BS...

When Katzenbach wrote;

"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."


he ruled out any kind of conspiracy.

Or do you think that Oswald could have a conspiracy without any "confederates who are still at large"?

[Jon Banks]

By Sunday, what actual evidence of a "conspiracy" was found? Even getting "murdered live on TV while in police custody" doesn't have to mean a conspiracy.

Are you joking or being intellectually dishonest? Hoover, Johnson, and Katzenbach were aware of the Mexico City issue by Sunday:

"Memos were circulating at the highest levels of government concerning Oswald, Kostikov and the latter’s role in KGB assassination operations.30 And over at the FBI the documentary record within the first 24 hours was already considerable. There were those lower down in the FBI who had listened to the tapes, and there were memoranda circulating among the top four men in the FBI and Secret Service Chief James Rowley.31 The situation at CIA was similar. Besides personnel at the CIA Mexico City station, memoranda about the voice comparisons began circulating among senior officials at headquarters by Sunday, November 24th, two days after the assassination. 32

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


The case was open. The Mexico City stuff hadn't been fully investigated at that point and people in the National Security community were suspecting a connection between Oswald's Mexico trip and the assassination.

Clearly, they had reasons to suspect that others might have been involved and it's unreasonable to argue that they ruled out a conspiracy "based on the evidence within the first 48 hours". They hadn't even confirmed Oswald's palm print on the rifle at that point.

You know that, do you? By Sunday, it was increasingly farfetched that Oswald was less a James Bond sleeper agent and more what he actually was: a disgruntled wife-beating malcontent who hated America.

None of which precludes the possibility that he was a patsy or part of a conspiracy.

People who live and work in the intelligence spook and organized crime world are often not as likable in real life as the Hollywood actors who portray spies and contractors in the movies.

For example, many of the Cuban Exiles who participated in the CIA's covert ops against Cuba became contract killers and drug traffickers.

https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/cocaine-cowboys-gave-drug-money-cia-tied-plot-kill-castro-article-1.3532426


I don't assume that anyone who engages in that world is a choir boy. They're not all bad or immoral people but there are lots of shady characters.

I see. Another "gut feeling".

To you, "rumors" are as good as facts.

Diplomats are intelligence agents. They're basically spies but not undercover. Ambassador Mann was in Mexico City at the time. He knew more about the cloak and dagger stuff that was going on down there than you will ever know. You may not like his testimony but you can't easily dismiss it because he was in a position to know about Oswald and the places he visited in Mexico City. 

President Johnson saying that he NEVER believed Oswald acted alone isn't a rumor. He said it in an interview. That proves that some who initially endorsed the Warren Commission did so for political expediency.

Historical Context matters.

When the Warren Commission was established were they told that? Was the FBI? Not every conspiracy claim or "gut feeling" will prove out and should be exposed as rumors.

The CIA admits that they hid stuff from the Warren Commission. Other agencies likely did as well. The fact that some agencies hid stuff from the Warren Commission is no longer a conspiracy theory, it's a conspiracy FACT.

The Katzenbach memo was the origin for what the Warren Commission was intended to do.

JFK had a connection to Sam Giancaca. His father knew lots of Mafia guys. DeMohrenschidt knew Jackie Kennedy when she was a young girl. Lots of coincidental ties. And what CIA officials did Oswald have a close personal relationship with?

I didn't say "CIA officials". I said people with connections to the "intelligence world". The intelligence/spook world is far broader than just the CIA. It includes, the FBI, diplomats, intelligence assets (DeMohrenschildt), contractors (David Ferrie), exile groups financed by the CIA (Carlos Bringuer and the DRE), and foreign intelligence agents.

Throughout his life from his time in the Marines til his death, the intelligence connections are numerous. Far more than your average joe in Texas at that time. In spite of all that, he might've acted alone. I don't assume that the dots connect between those things but there's a lot of smoke.

[Jon Banks]

BS...

When Katzenbach wrote;

"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."


he ruled out any kind of conspiracy.

Or do you think that Oswald could have a conspiracy without any "confederates who are still at large"?

Arguing that the Katzenbach memo didn't intend to shut down conspiracy speculation requires some skilled mental gymnastics.