Lee Oswald, John Connally, and the Kennedy Assassination
Despite the fact that thousands of pages of JFK assassination material were released earlier this year by the Trump Administration, most objective observers would agree that no definitive smoking gun has emerged. With respect to the Kennedy assassination, the more things change the more they stay the same.
Warren Commission defenders still remain convinced that Oswald was the lone assassin and that there was no evidence of a conspiracy to kill the President or cover-up the crime. Assassination critics remain just as convinced that the Kennedy killing was a conspiracy; that nefarious intelligence agencies were involved in the planning, execution and cover-up of the crime; and that the purpose of the killing was to effect a “regime change.” Few in either research community appear willing to entertain the slightest notion that some of their most fundamental beliefs about the assassination might just be wrong.
UNSOLVED RIDDLES
Take, for instance, this curious riddle: If Lee Harvey Oswald wanted to kill President John F. Kennedy, why didn’t he just shoot at him as the motorcade approached the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) along Houston Street? That approach lasted almost 15 seconds and would have been the far easier shot from the 6th floor sniper’s nest. Kennedy was seated full-frontal in the open Lincoln and would have been getting closer (and larger) in the 4X power rifle-scope. Further, there were no tree branches or street-sign obstructions that would have compromised any shot. So why did Oswald (a good but not great shot in the Marines) ignore the easy shot and take the more complicated one as the motorcade sped away down Elm Street?
Or take this riddle: What possible motive did Lee Oswald have for wanting to murder President Kennedy? No credible motive ever surfaced in the 888 page Warren Commission Report or in the thousands of pages of witness testimony detailed in the Warren Commission Hearings. Indeed, there is ample testimony from relatives and acquaintances of Oswald that he frequently spoke well of the president and appeared to respect both the man and his policies. So why in the world would he want to kill him?
Now with respect to the first riddle, perhaps Oswald simply wasn’t ready to shoot as the motorcade approached the sniper’s nest. Or that waiting to shoot later when the motorcade was on Elm Street would put Kennedy in a deadly crossfire from the grassy knoll. Or that a shot as the motorcade approached would have made his own getaway more difficult. Perhaps.
And as to the second riddle, some argue that Oswald’s personal history indicates that he was an unstable malcontent who desired to go down in history for some extreme political act. Again, perhaps. But if that’s the case, why didn’t Oswald openly confess his glorious crime to both the Dallas police and then to the world in his several courthouse interviews? No; instead he did precisely the opposite. He steadfastly maintained his innocence of the murder, called himself a “patsy” and repeatedly asked for legal representation. Very strange.
There may be a more reasonable explanation for both riddles. But that explanation may also require a radical rethinking of the entire JFK assassination scenario. Ironically, that radical rethinking will have nothing whatsoever to do with mainstream conspiracy theory. It will NOT depend upon alleged shots fired from the grassy knoll or from any storm drain. It will NOT depend upon multiple casket entries into the Bethesda morgue or upon any alleged “pre-autopsy” surgery to alter JFK’s head wounds. And it will not depend upon the involvement of nefarious intelligence agencies in the assassination to accomplish “regime change, although some changes in foreign policy may have occurred as a consequence of the murder. In short, this alternative theory of the assassination may resolve both riddles without reliance on conspiracy theory while, at the same time, still be entirely consistent with the three-shot ballistic evidence accepted by the Warren Commission.
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TRAGIC TRUTH
In 2016, a retired IBM engineer by the name of Pierre Sundborg published a comprehensive 764 page volume on the assassination titled TRAGIC TRUTH (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform) which, unfortunately, has all but been ignored by Warren Commission defenders and critics alike. This particular volume was unique because it was the only one (among the many hundreds of books that have been published on the assassinatio
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LewRockwell.com is a libertarian website that publishes articles, essays, and blog posts advocating for minimal government, free markets, and individual liberty. The site was founded by Lew Rockwell, an American libertarian political commentator, activist, and former congressional staffer. The website often features content that is critical of mainstream politics, state intervention, and foreign policy, among other topics. It is a platform frequently used to disseminate Austrian economics, a school of economic thought that is popular among some libertarians.
