The JFK Assassination: What Didn't Happen, Part One
Eliminating Impossibilities in the Medical and Ballistic Evidence
In the two preceding articles in this series on the Kennedy Assassination: JFK and the Doorways to Perception Part One and Part Two, a basic narrative frame comparison was established by which to open doorways of understanding in the Kennedy Assassination. Evidence suggesting that Lee Harvey Oswald was framed for Kennedy’s murder was presented through examination of the backyard photos. Evidence for multiple shooters was presented in a brief examination of the Zapruder Film of Kennedy’s assassination, and Jack Ruby’s assassination of Oswald raised questions about whether Ruby may have been a conspirator in the Kennedy Assassination (and whether Oswald was killed in order to curtail investigative efforts that would have exposed the plotters and shooters).
Having established this basis for questioning the prevailing official narrative of the Kennedy Assassination (that Lee Harvey Oswald killed Kennedy, acting alone), the next step is to begin the process of narrative frame comparison in earnest by seeking to narrow the field of what might have happened in the JFK assassination and check these possibilities against each other. Through this approach, we hope to eliminate impossibilities in the case: to sharpen the scope of narrative possibility by eliminating narrative frames proven in impossible by reliable evidence and evidentiary requirements. This will eventually yield conclusions about what must have happened.
In the words of Arthur Conan Doyle, author and creator of the famous fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains—however improbable—must be the truth.”
The truth, of course, cannot actually be improbable. If a discovered truth was deemed improbable prior to its discovery, it merely indicates that our view of the world—our prior narrative framework—was inaccurate. Through the process of eliminating impossibilities, a whole host of truths once considered improbable are no longer regarded as such. Our understanding of the world is sharpened. We begin to see through deceptions before they have a chance to skew our view of the world further.
This is one of the primary benefits of reaching clarity on the Kennedy Assassination. It brings an understanding of organized criminality, official corruption, and realpolitik machinations that are applicable to a vast array of political and media events. We become less susceptible to organized deceptions that preyed upon our previous beliefs. Circumstances and events that once seemed improbable are now incorporated into a deeper understanding of the world.
The narrative frames we are working with can be summarized as follows:
1. Oswald killed Kennedy and acted alone. If true, the backyard photos must have been authentic (despite apparent impossibilities), evidence of multiple shooters (shots fired at Kennedy from in front as well as behind) must be incorrect, and Ruby’s motivations for assassinating Oswald must have been irrational and disorganized (i.e., Ruby must have been a “lone nut” who killed Oswald, another “lone nut”).
2. Kennedy was killed by one shooter, but it wasn’t Oswald. If true, there may or may not have been a conspiracy supporting that one shooter. Oswald may have been framed by that conspiracy, or maybe he was just conveniently scapegoated by law enforcement, seeking to wrap up the case neatly.
3. Multiple Shooters fired upon Kennedy, and Oswald was one of them. If true, there was a conspiracy to kill Kennedy, and Oswald was a member of that conspiracy. In this scenario, Ruby’s assassination of Oswald was likely done to prevent Oswald from revealing the identities of these co-conspirators.
4. Multiple Shooters fired upon Kennedy, and although Oswald was not one of them, he was a conspirator in the plot. This one is not that different from scenario 3, but it leads to questions about how the shooting was pinned on Oswald, and the extent to which the other conspirators were active in doing so.
5. Multiple Shooters fired upon Kennedy, and Oswald was innocent of involvement in the plot. If this scenario is true, our investigation will seek evidence regarding whether Oswald was framed by the plotters, and whether we can identify those plotters by examining Oswald’s activities and associates.
In an approach to these narrative frames that seeks to eliminate impossibilities, the following questions will serve as initial guides:
· Can we determine whether or not there were multiple shooters?
· Can we determine whether or not Oswald was a shooter?
· Can we determine whether or not Oswald was framed—and if he was, was it prior to or after the assassination occurred?
The figure of Oswald is of central importance. By studying him, we might be able to determine whether or not he was a shooter. We might be able to determine whether or not he was a member of a plot to assassinate Kennedy and get leads on who his conspirators were. Or we might be able to determine whether or not he was framed for the crime, and get leads on the conspirators by studying his activities and associates for clues about who framed him and how.
The Lone Gunman Narrative Hinges on the Rifle
In considering competing narrative frames, the “Oswald Acted Alone” hypothesis endorsed by the Warren Commission and other institutional entities is supported by its unitary nature. With the exception of minor disagreements around the edges, there is only one possible “Lone Gunman” narrative. This lends strength to those who support it, and they in turn draw strength from the governmental and media institutions who have endorsed this narrative.
In contrast, no unitary narrative is available for those who maintain Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy. The evidence is this case can only be described as a total mess. The witness testimony, the physical evidence, and the documentary evidence are all replete with contradictions and impossibilities. This leaves proponents of the Multiple Gunmen thesis to sort through the mess in search of an answer to what really happened, inevitably leading to a wide variety of interpretations.
Despite this challenge, the state of the evidence is precisely where the Multiple Gunmen narrative finds its strength. A combination of official corruption and inaccurate witness testimony (submitted under strong pressure to conform to the official narrative promoted by the Federal authorities) is able to account for most of the evidentiary contradictions and impossibilities. The Lone Gunman narrative is unable to adequately account for these glaringly numerous instances of evidentiary conundrums. In addition, the very strength of the unitary nature of the Lone Gunman thesis also contains a glaring weakness: If this single narrative can be eliminated as impossible, the entire narrative frame of a Lone Gunman falls apart. I will demonstrate why by describing the key narrative necessities in question.
According to the Lone Gunman narrative, Dallas police apprehended Lee Harvey Oswald about an hour and twenty minutes after Kennedy’s assassination having received tips that a suspicious man had entered the Texas Theater (a cinema in the Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas) without paying for a ticket. Tippit was killed less than an hour earlier, several blocks away. These tips suggested the man entering the theater could be a suspect in the police officer’s murder. By this time the Dallas Police had found a rifle and shell casings on the sixth floor of the TSBD (Texas School Book Depository). They had subsequently became aware that Oswald, an employee of the TSBD, had left his place of work after the assassination and they wished to locate him for questioning. When they discovered the man they had arrested in the Texas Theater was Oswald, he immediately became their prime suspect. Their investigation of Oswald as Kennedy’s assassin proceeded accordingly.
By the following morning, the FBI traced the serial number on the rifle found on the 6th floor of the TSBD to Klein’s Sporting Goods in Chicago, and located microfilm images of an order form for the purchase of the rifle and an accompanying envelope postmarked March 12, 1963. Both the form and the envelope listed the address of the post office box Oswald had been renting at the time, along with the name “A Hidell.” Having found a fraudulent selective service card in Oswald’s wallet bearing Oswald’s photograph and the name of Alek J Hidell, it was determined that Oswald had purchased the rifle found in the TSBD in March using his Alek Hidell alias.
The chain of evidence linking Oswald to the rifle creates an important narrative inflection point: an instance of narrative frame divergence that delineates distinct and mutually exclusive possibilities in the narrative frame comparison process. The narrative frames that diverge from these inflection points are central to the process of eliminating possibilities. By holding and testing competing narratives that flow from a narrative inflection point, considerable progress can be made in the search for truth.
Here are the possible narrative frames that flow from this inflection point:
1. Oswald’s rifle was used by Oswald to assassinate Kennedy
2. Someone else used Oswald’s rifle to assassinate Kennedy. This could have been done by someone obtaining and using Oswald’s rifle to frame him, or by a conspirator of Oswald’s with Oswald’s witting assent.
3. The rifle was not Oswald’s, but was planted at the TSBD, supported by a fabricated paper trail in order to frame him. This fabrication could have been conducted by the plotters ahead of time, by law enforcement officials after the fact, or both. In this case, the rifle may or may not also have been used to fire upon Kennedy.
Only the first narrative frame is compatible with the Lone Gunman/no conspiracy narrative—unless one and only one person managed to appropriate Oswald’s rifle and shoot Kennedy. Even in this Lone-Gunman-but-not-Oswald scenario, no shots fired at Kennedy’s motorcade can be attributed to any other weapon. As a result, not only does any Lone Gunman narrative for the assassination require that all of the shots in the assassination originated from the TSBD (behind Kennedy), those shots are required to have originated from that specific rifle.
The Rifle and the Shots
The official record asserts that the rifle found by Dallas Police was a 40 inch bolt-action Italian carbine called a Mannlicher Carcano. The “bolt action” in the phrase above refers to the rifle’s loading mechanism: each bullet enters the chamber of the rifle one at a time. After firing a round, the shooter must slide a bolt to advance a fresh round from the clip and then slide the bolt back to load that bullet into the chamber before firing again. The FBI (and others) have determined the minimum time needed to complete this action and re-aim is 2.3 seconds. Less time is needed merely to work the bolt and fire again without aiming.
This is important due to evidence regarding the sequence and timing of the shots, which can be gauged using Abraham Zapruder’s film of the event; his camera was found to advance at an approximate rate of 18.3 frames per second. Using the Zapruder film as a guide, the fatal head shot that killed Kennedy clearly occurs at Zapruder frame 313 (Z313). From frames Z-209 to Z-225, a road sign (the Stemmons Freeway sign) obstructs Zapruder’s view of Kennedy. When he emerges from behind the sign at Z-225, he is clearly reacting to a shot that has already hit him. (This shot hit either Kennedy’s back or his throat).
The Warren Commission determined that between Z-167 and Z-210, foliage from an oak tree obstructed the view of the limo from the 6th floor TSBD window Oswald is supposed to have fired from. For that reason, and because Kennedy showed no signs of being hit before that time—they concluded that Kennedy could not have been shot until Z-210 at the earliest. If Connally had been hit by a separate shot from the Carcano, this could not have occurred until 2.3 seconds later at the earliest. This would correspond to Z-252 (42 frames after Z-210, given a film speed of 18.3 frames per second).
But Connally is clearly seen reacting to the shot that hit him earlier than Z-252 (Z-232 at the earliest and Z-240 at the latest). These two shots could not both have originated from the Carcano. They would either have to have come from two different guns (eliminating the Lone Gunman thesis) or have come from a different rifle that could be aimed and fired more quickly, (which, as will be demonstrated, also eliminates the Lone Gunman thesis). Moreover, Governor Connally was always clear and consistent in his testimony—he had not yet been hit at the time Kennedy was first hit. He had time to turn to his right and then turn back to his left, and was struck by a bullet during this turn to the left. The Zapruder film verifies Connally’s testimony.
In addition to the constraints posed by the timing of the shots, the Warren Commission was limited by the presence of just 3 shell casings found on the 6th floor of the TSBD. With one shot striking a street curb far past the location of the limo at the time of the shots (a fragment of which struck bystander James Tague in the cheek), and Kennedy’s fatal head shot accounting for a second bullet, all of the additional wounds suffered by Kennedy and Connally had to have come from the third remaining bullet—unless more bullets were fired.
The auditory evidence provides some clarification regarding how many shots were fired and from where. Regarding the source of the shots, the most common responses given by witnesses were the Grassy Knoll and the TSBD (cited about equally among witnesses). A smaller percentage of witnesses guessed either that shots came from both the Grassy Knoll and the TSBD, or that the shots had come from a different location entirely. Over 50 witnesses did describe two of the shots as occurring in close sequence—almost simultaneous—certainly with less than 2.3 seconds between them. This testimony alone eliminates the possibility of all shots coming from the Carcano—unless each and every one of these 50 these witnesses was mistaken.
The number of gunshots heard by witnesses in Dealey Plaza ranged broadly between one and eight, with three as the most common witness response. This evidence demonstrates that (unless eight shots were indeed fired) some people heard more shots than were fired and some people heard less. Two guns fired at about the same time might sound like one shot to one person and two shots to another. If silencers were employed on some of the rifles, this might reduce the sound of the gunshot enough for it to remain audible for some listeners but not all. The HSCA (House Select Committee on Assassinations) determined four shots were audible in their analysis of a radio channel left open during the shooting. Two of these identified shots occurred in rapid succession at the time of the fatal head shot—comporting with witness reports referenced above.
Contrasting with the later determinations of the HSCA and the 50 auditory witnesses, the Warren Commission was committed to a conclusion that three and only three shots were fired. This conclusion corresponded to the number of shell casings found on the 6th floor. It could have been argued that for some reason only three shell casings were left behind at the window and a shell casing from an additional shot went missing somehow (unlikely as that may seem). But this argument was not attempted by the Commission—likely because the Lone Gunman theory remains impossible unless all of the wounds to President Kennedy and Governor Connally (prior to the fatal head shot) came from a single bullet.
If more than one bullet accounted for those wounds, all of the shots could not have been fired from the Carcano (due to the timing issue). The Lone Gunman narrative therefore requires that only three shots were fired—corresponding to the three shell casings. This is why the official narrative is stuck arguing for what is called “The Single Bullet Theory” (or the “Magic Bullet Theory” by detractors).
Because the Warren Commission supported the “Oswald Acted Alone” narrative, it was also forced to support the Single Bullet Theory. This meant it was also forced to discount Connally’s insistence he was struck by a bullet after Kennedy had already been hit—and conclude that Connally had already been hit by the time of Z-225—even though he is shown sitting upright with no sign of having been shot until at least Z-232. The Lone Gunman theory requires us to ignore this evidence. Connally claimed when Kennedy was first hit, he turned to his right. He can be seen having already turned to his right in Z-225. Connally stated he was not hit until he had turned back toward center (seen above in Z-230). If you are curious to check the frame sequence for yourself, the Zapruder frames in question can be viewed here: https://sites.google.com/site/lightboxzframes/mpi-frame-sets/z207-z269.
The next problem with the Single Bullet Theory is with Commission Exhibit 399 (CE-399). This piece of evidence is a bullet that was supposedly found in an empty stretcher at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, where Kennedy and Connally were first taken for treatment after the shooting. Here is a photo of it:
The Warren Commission concluded that CE-399 must have been the Single Bullet that struck Kennedy in the back, exited his neck, struck Connally in the back, punctured his lung, fractured his rib, exited at his nipple, shattered his right wrist, and then continued on to penetrate his left thigh where it came to rest. This bullet is supposed to have fallen out of his thigh at the hospital before its belated discovery in an empty stretcher.
The biggest problem with this narrative is that CE-399 is entirely intact, as can be seen above. In fact, it was found to have lost only 2.4 grains of weight (at maximum) from its original condition. But more than 2.4 grains of bullet fragments were recovered from Governor Connally’s wrist and thigh. Additional bullet fragments were left in Connally’s thigh and never removed. This alone demonstrates that CE-399 could not have been the bullet that struck Connally’s wrist and then penetrated his thigh, let alone be the bullet that cause the additional wounds to both Kennedy and Connally.
Indeed, in tests of bullets fired into the wrist bones of human cadavers, every test bullet was severely deformed at its tip—and these bullets only hit the cadaver’s wrist—they did not also pass through a neck, then through an upper torso, then hit a wrist, and then hit a thigh. But from just the wrist, each bullet looked similar to the bullet shown in the photo below (one of the test bullets that struck a human wrist):
CE-399 might not even have been the original bullet found on the Parkland stretcher. The chain of evidence was broken on its journey from the Parkland employees who originally handled the bullet to the Secret Service, and then to the FBI. When O.P Wright, the Parkland security employee who originally submitted the bullet to the Secret Service, was confronted with a photograph of CE-399, he insisted the bullet he found had a pronounced pointed tip—unlike the decidedly rounded tip of CE-399.
In 2023, Secret Service Agent Paul Landis broke 60 years of silence and confessed that he retrieved a bullet from the limousine seat behind Kennedy once the limo reached Parkland Hospital and Kennedy was admitted for treatment. Landis claims he placed this bullet on a stretcher rather than submitting it as evidence because he was in a state of trauma shock and acted unthinkingly. If Landis is telling the truth, this could have been the bullet later found on an empty stretcher in Parkland.
One way or another, there are too many bullets at play to satisfy the Lone Gunman three-bullet narrative. Other bullet fragments were found in the limo and attributed to the head shot that killed Kennedy. If only three shots were fired from the Carcano, CE399 could not be one of those three. Unless the bullet was planted in the stretcher by a conspirator and/or switched out for a planted bullet by the FBI (which would by necessity disqualify the Lone Gunman theory) it would have to have been a fourth bullet.
The Wounds
The next problem with the Single Bullet Theory is the trajectory. The dubious trajectory required for a bullet fired from Kennedy’s right side, proceed to exit the center of Kennedy’s throat, and then strike Connaly in his right side can be set aside for this analysis. This is because the bullet that struck Kennedy in the back could not have exited his throat at all. His back wound was about 5 inches below his collar and fired at a downward angle (if fired from the 6th floor of the TSBD).
Warren Commission member and future President Gerald R. Ford gets credit for misconstruing the back wound as a neck wound in the Warren Report. He simply described the wound as being five inches higher than the autopsy report described. This altered location would have been necessary for the bullet to have exited at Kennedy’s throat. The true location of the back wound is verified by autopsy photographs of Kennedy’s back, the reports of doctors and other personnel present, and by the location of the bullet holes in Kennedy’s suit coat and shirt.
Lone Gunman proponents sometimes try to argue that Kennedy’s suit coat was bunched up five inches, as was his shirt—and this accounts for the placement of bullet holes five inches lower than where the bullet needed to have struck to exit his throat. It’s easy to demonstrate this is untrue by wearing a coat and seeing how high it slides up when bunched—no more than an inch or two at the most—less than that for a shit under the coat. A glance at the image of Kennedy’s suit coat above clearly shows the bullet hole could not have been aligned with the base of Kennedy’s neck—it’s simply not possible. The previously mentioned photographic, documentary, and witness evidence also confirms the location of Kennedy’s wound.
What’s more, as ordered by commanding military personnel in attendance, neither Kennedy’s back wound or neck wound were transected at his autopsy at Bethesda Naval Hospital. But the back wound was probed and found only to extend a few inches deep. FBI agents James Sibert and Frances O’Neill accompanied Kennedy’s body during the autopsy performed at Bethesda Naval Hospital and filed a detailed report on the proceedings. In this report, it is stated that Kennedy’s bullet wound in his back “was of a short depth with no point of exit.” Agent O’Neill later testified to the Assassination Records Review Board in 1994 that the wound only extended into Kennedy’s body about the length of half a finger. If an undercharged bullet struck Kennedy’s back and failed to penetrate his body, falling onto the limo seat behind him, this would comport with Paul Landis’s account of finding a bullet in that location.
Kennedy’s throat wound was widened by attending doctors in order to create a tracheostomy to assist his breathing. The three doctors who observed Kennedy’s original neck wound at Parkland Hospital described it as a clearly identifiable wound of entry: bullet-sized in diameter and relatively neat around the edges. All of this evidence indicates that the bullet that hit Kennedy’s back did not penetrate more than a few inches and could not have exited his throat. (It struck his back too low to have exited his throat in any case.)
The Warren Commission did not view the autopsy photographs, nor did they include them in their report. Instead, the commissioned cartoon illustrations depicting Kennedy’s wounds. The illustrator also never saw the autopsy photographs. Instead, she was simply given instructions by the commission of what to draw and how it should look—including the fradulent location of Kennedy’s back wound, moved up to his neck, as seen below:
As for the fatal head shot, numerous witnesses observed a gaping exit wound in the lower back of Kennedy’s head, including attending doctors, nurses, and support staff. A piece of skull was retrieved in Dealey Plaza by Billy Harper the day after the assassination. Three medical pathologists examined the fragment (dubbed the Harper fragment) and confirmed that it was an occipital skull fragment (from the lower rear portion of the skull), and freshly separated from the body—most certainly Kennedy’s. The fragment was turned over to the FBI. Photographs and x-rays were taken of the fragment before it mysteriously disappeared. The size and occipital location of the fragment is consistent with the size and location of the gaping exit wound in the back of Kennedy’s head as described by witnesses.
Autopsy photographs and x-rays, hidden from the public until the late 70s, show the back of Kennedy’s head and skull as still intact. However, autopsy photographers have testified that these are not the same photographs they took. These photographers confirmed having seen the gaping exit wound, and confirmed that the photographs they took captured this image. In addition, Dr. David Mantik has analyzed the autopsy x-rays and pointed to optical density measurements showing the back of Kennedy’s skull in these x-rays had been subject to alteration. His analysis of bullet fragment patterns in the skull x-rays also show a trail of fragments originating at a common origin point from a frontal location and fanning out backwards through the skull, consistent with a frontal entrance wound. The fragments also increase in size the further back they are found—also consistent with a frontal entrance wound.
Premature Narrative Foreclosure and Splitting the Difference
The evidence compiled above demonstrates that the Lone Gunman theory of the case is not compatible with the medical and ballistic evidence. It shows that Kennedy and Connally were fired upon by separate shots too close together for both shots to have originated from the Carcano. Kennedy’s back and throat wounds must have come from two different shots—neither of which hit Connally. Although some have argued that Kennedy’s throat wound might have been caused by shrapnel instead of a bullet—in contravention of the observations of Kennedy’s attending Parkland doctors—the medical evidence summarized above shows the shot that destroyed Kennedy’s head came from the front.
This evidence aligns with the strong backward and movement of Kennedy’s body seen in the Zapruder film—along with the spatter of tissue projected backward from Kennedy. Testimony confirming the size and location of the rear head wound is corroborated by over 20 doctors and more than 30 additional witnesses. It is also corroborated by the testimony of dozens of Dealey Plaza witnesses who heard or saw evidence of at least one shot from the grassy knoll in front of Kennedy.
The medical evidence also shows that Kennedy’s autopsy evidence—including the photographs and x-rays—were tampered with. Indeed, other instances of evidence tampering at the autopsy also occurred. The destruction of evidence started early, when Commander Humes, chief pathologist at Kennedy’s autopsy, burned his original autopsy notes in his fireplace on November 23. As noted above, the Harper fragment of Kennedy’s skull disappeared. So did President Kennedy’s brain. Eyewitnesses to the state of Kennedy’s brain have stated that one-third of that brain was completely destroyed—no longer present at all. But autopsy records claim his brain weighed about 1500 grams, about 200 grams more than an average adult male brain. The brain, which was submitted to the National Archives for storage, was unable to be re-examined to study this discrepancy because… the National Archives lost the brain! They have never been able to account for how this happened.
Here, we run into one of the primary headaches of the JFK Assassination debate. The Lone Gunman narrative of the case requires that the medical and ballistic evidence be interpreted in ways that are viewed as utterly implausible by Multiple Gunmen proponents—to the point of impossibility. This understanding of the evidence irrevocably leads to a determination of corruption in the official record—including evidentiary suppression, misconstrual, alteration, and even fabrication on the part of institutional officials. In parallel, these conclusions of official corruption supported by Multiple Gunmen proponents is viewed as utterly implausible by Lone Gunman proponents—to the point of impossibility.
As near as I can tell, Lone Gunman proponents reject this evidence due to other beliefs they hold regarding this case. These beliefs can roughly be summarized as follows:
1. The evidence implicating Oswald in the crime is overwhelming.
2. It is not believable that bad actors in official institutions like the FBI and the military could have distorted evidence on the scale necessary to frame Oswald and cover up for the conspirators in this case.
3. It is even less believable that these bad actors would have been morally corrupt enough to have done so, or that the leaders of the United States in the government and media would also have been complicit in covering up this crime.
This set of beliefs establishes a phenomenon I call premature narrative foreclosure, when a frontloaded narrative is presumed true from the outset. Premature narrative foreclosure invariably leads to the logical fallacy of begging the question: Since all evidence in the case is viewed through a presumptive lens, all evidence in the case will necessarily demonstrate the truth of the presumed conclusion. In this case, any demonstration of corrupted evidence in the case will be met with the following response: “There must be something wrong with what you’ve demonstrated to me because the prospect of glaring official corruption in the Kennedy Assassination is not believable to me.”
The combination of premature narrative foreclosure and begging the question leads to a number of absurdities in approaching the case, including the burden of proof fallacy: the insistence that one’s own frontloaded narrative must be accepted and presumed true by others unless and until it can be disproved. If opponents take the bait and put forward an argument to disprove the narrative, the disproval can be waived away as long as some possible fact pattern can be postulated in which the disproval would not hold. It makes no difference how utterly implausible that postulated fact pattern is.
If I point to a witness who disproves the narrative, that witness must be lying or mistaken. If I point to a document that disproves the narrative, the document must be inaccurate. If I point to evidence showing that a document in support of the narrative is fraudulent, it is claimed that the document couldn’t possibly be fraudulent, regardless of that evidence. If I show that the presumed narrative requires us to believe a key people (or physical objects) in the narrative have behaved in ways that make no sense or are impossible, I am reminded that it’s possible for people to act in ways that do not make sense, and that I would be surprised at what is actually physically possible.
This process continues over and over again, point by point. Coincidences are stacked on top of coincidences—implausibility stacked atop implausibility. The fallacious technique of piecemeal analysis is used to avoid confronting how monumentally absurd the presumed narrative has become. For instance, suppose I have more than one witness whose testimony refutes the narrative—suppose I have 40 such witnesses. Each witness will be dismissed as lying or mistaken one at a time in piecemeal fashion. Although it is exceedingly unlikely that 40 corroborated instances of witness testimony are uniformly false, it is believable that one witness may be lying or mistaken. By dismissing each witness in compartmentalized isolation from the others, the implausibility of the resulting narrative is obfuscated.
The narrative reasoning fallacy of piecemeal analysis can be applied to 40 corroborating witnesses or documents. It can be applied to 400, or 4000 pieces of evidence. There is no limit, because each piece of evidence is disregarded one at a time, in isolation from the other evidence. How can this spurious line of reasoning be justified? By reverting to the conclusions that flow from premature narrative foreclosure: Since official evidentiary corruption and cover up in the assassination are regarded as unbelievable, any level of otherwise unbelievable coincidences and implausible occurrences become believable. They are, in fact, insisted upon. If official evidentiary corruption is impossible, the official evidentiary findings and narrative must be accepted as true—because the officials endorsed these findings.
This dynamic leads to an impasse between proponents of the Lone Gunman and Multiple Gunmen narratives when it comes to considering the evidence in the case, particularly the ballistic and medical evidence. The interpretation of such evidence, by its nature, requires input and analysis from medical and ballistics experts. As presented in my previous article JFK and the Doorways to Perception Part Two, this opens the door to expert foreclosure and authoritative narrative allure. With experts willing to weigh in on both sides of the Lone Gunman/Multiple Gunman debate, the elimination of impossibilities through such evidence becomes a subjective proposition. When combined with authoritative veneer (the projection of credibility onto a source by virtue of that source’s perceived authority), expert interpretations bearing the stamp of approval from officialdom is unassailable. Unwavering trust in officialdom has already been accepted as a frontloaded narrative.
As a result, proponents of these competing narratives routinely talk past each other. Lone Gunman proponents continually employ the burden of proof fallacy, insisting that their narrative must be assumed true until proven impossible. When Multiple Gunmen proponents provide evidence of evidentiary corruption on the part of the authorities, Lone Gunmen proponents dismiss this evidence out of hand, holding to a frontloaded narrative that cannot accommodate the possibility of coordinated official corruption—at least not in the case of presidential assassination.
It goes like this: “Don’t trust your eyes regarding Kennedy’s body moving violently backward following the head shot—experts are on record saying that could happen in response to the rear. Don’t trust your eyes (or Governor Connally’s own testimony) when observing Connally after Z-225—he must have been remarkably non-reactive after being shot and also confused in his memory. There are experts on record who will say this. Kennedy’s throat wound really was an exit wound. Maybe the back wound really was higher. If not, the trajectory must have been possible anyway. Experts are on record who will say both things.”
We can keep going: “CE-399 really did cause all those wounds. Experts are on record saying it would be possible for a bullet to cause all that carnage and suffer almost no damage. The bullet fragments found in Connally’s body must have weighed less than you think. Experts are on record supporting the Single Bullet Theory despite those fragments. Every one of those 50-plus doctors and supporting witnesses must have simply been mistaken about Kennedy’s wounds. Experts are on record saying they must have been. The Harper fragment must really have been from a different part of Kennedy’s skull. Experts are on record saying so.” And so on—and so on.
This is the very same problem encountered through my examination of the backyard photos in my previous article, JFK and the Doorways to Perception Part Two. Believers of the Lone Gunman theory of the case are able to discount impossibilities shown by a visual analysis of the photos—because experts are on record saying the photos are authentic. Even Multiple Gunmen proponents often shy away from the evidence of forgery in the photos, cowed by the assertions of authorized experts and distrusting their own perception.
The temptation to split the difference with the backyard photos is often succumbed to: The backyard photos do not need to be fraudulent for multiple gunmen to have killed Kennedy. Their fraudulence is not even necessary in showing that Oswald was framed for the crime entirely. As a result, many Multiple Gunmen simply concede the authenticity of the photos so they won’t have to argue about it and can move on to other parts of the case.
I will make no such concession. As explained in the introductory article of this series, my interest in this case is an experiment in truth. In such an experiment, nothing is gained by admitting to impossibilities in order to coax fence-sitters into accepting larger, more pertinent truths one wishes to persuade them of. Oswald’s impossible lean is indeed impossible. So are the other anomalies evident in these photos.
Just to humor myself, here’s that photo again. If you haven’t attempted it yet, try to duplicate that pose in a mirror—just be careful and don’t hurt yourself when you start to fall over.
No one will ever be able to duplicate that pose. But the combined power of expert foreclosure and authoritative veneer is too pervasive to overcome this impossibility. This is the same problem facing the ballistic and medical evidence in the case. Allow me to provide one more example: Let us consult the ballistic evidence in hopes of proving whether any or all of the shots fired during the assassination originated from the Mannlicher Carcano rifle.
Official expert analysis concluded that all of the bullet fragments retrieved from the crime scene must have originated from Oswald’s rifle, relying on neutron activation analysis of the fragments. In contrast, expert critics contended that examination of the location and nature of the bullet fragments reveals multiple weapons must have been used. They further contended that neutron activation analysis is a flawed methodology that cannot actually determine whether bullet fragments originated from a particular rifle.
The FBI eventually reversed their position on neutron activation analysis and agreed it is not a reliable method of determining a match between bullet fragments as originating from the same bullet or the same set of bullets. But official expert analysts also concluded that CE-399 bears specific groove marks that prove it was fired by the Mannlicher Carcano to the exclusion of all other rifles. Meanwhile, expert critics have contended that the bullet could have been fired by a different rifle. Even if it was fired by that rifle, they also point to problems regarding the chain of evidence regarding this specific bullet. These problems open up the possibility that the FBI might have swapped out the original bullet found in Parkland Hospital for the bullet in evidence.
As with the other physical evidence in the case, this point is impossible to prove or disprove to the satisfaction of everyone due to the problem of expert foreclosure.
In other words, a narrative framework that implicitly trusts official authorities and their experts is able to argue that all the bullets and bullet fragments in question originated from the rifle in evidence. A narrative interpretation that does not implicitly trust official authorities and their experts is able to cite opposing experts and argue that the analysis of CE-399 and the bullet fragments (along the circumstances of the locations where these were found) show that multiple weapons were used, that perhaps none of the bullets were fired from the rifle in evidence, and even that CE-399 was likely planted into evidence.
Each of point of contention in the ballistic and medical evidence relies on expert analysis for its interpretation. As such, the problems posed by expert foreclosure are unavoidable. This impasse leads to another narrative reasoning pitfall I call splitting the difference (mentioned above in reference to the backyard photos). In an attempt to bridge the gap between the opposing perspectives, many researchers will incorporate contradictory conclusions or narrative elements from both sides of the divide. A prime example of this can be found in the conclusions of the HSCA. They concluded that Lone Gunman proponents were correct about Lee Harvey Oswald being Kennedy’s assassin and that all of President Kennedy’s wounds were caused by Oswald’s gunfire from behind—but it also concluded that Oswald was part of a conspiracy and a second gunman shot at the motorcade from the grassy knoll—mising the limo and its occupants entirely!
As one might guess, these conclusions satisfied no one and were rightly viewed as absurd on both sides of the Lone Gunman/Conspiracy divide. A likely explanation for their conclusion is that the congressional committee was unwilling to endorse evidence of official corruption on the part of the FBI, the Warren Commission, and other official bodies. But because they uncovered clear evidence of conspiracy in the case, they attempted to split the difference and produced an incoherent conclusion as a result.
This instance of splitting the difference also falls under the category of a limited hangout, in which an official entity admits to previously withheld truth, but only in limited areas. In protected areas, official corruption continues to be denied. The hope is that the public will split the difference and accept the new narrative as a compromise. When limited hangouts are accepted by members of the public and incorporated into their own narrative of events, I call this a limited hangon.
I cite the above example as an illustration of the vested interest in concealing official corruption in the Kennedy case (and elsewhere). Yet one of the primary reasons the Kennedy Assassination is worth examining is for the precise purpose of confronting the trustworthiness of official institutions—and dispelling illusions about their trustworthiness if the evidence supports it. To do so, one must be prepared to let go of limited hangons and honestly consider the possibility of corrupted and fabricated evidence on the part of officials in this case.
It is difficult to confront evidence of official corruption when one’s baseline narrative framework does not account for that possibility—at least not when it comes to the endemic and widespread levels of official corruption revealed by Kennedy’s assassination. It is particularly difficult to confront the desecration and alteration of the medical evidence that occurred in President Kennedy’s autopsy. Indeed, this particular aspect of the crime was so ghoulish, it remains difficult to confront even after one has already determined that the facts of Kennedy’s assassination were actively covered up by agents of the Federal Government.
One must eventually do so, however. It is an integral part of the case, especially because the autopsy was performed under the direct command and supervision of generals and admirals in the US military. The case starts to make a lot more sense once their involvement is accounted for. But that level of corruption will be easier to assimilate if evidence of official corruption can be verified in other aspects of the case.
As such, having provided this necessary summary of the ballistic and medical evidence in the case, I will set aside the temptation to interrogate this evidence in further detail. There is, however, much more to explore in these areas, and I encourage readers to do so. I offer the resource guide I have compiled on the case as a starting point.
For a less time-intensive look at the medical evidence, I particularly recommend the four-part series on the assassination, JFK: Destiny Betrayed, which does an excellent job of presenting and explaining the medical evidence (and much else). I also reccomend the documentary film JFK: What the Doctors Saw. It provides an excellent opportunity to judge the credibility of the doctors who disputed the official record of Kennedy’s wounds, drawing from their own witness observations. If you do so, I believe you will conclude that these doctors are highly credible as witnesses—much more credible than the officials who produced and promoted the official medical record in the case.
A Summary of the Ballistic and Medical Evidence
Advocates of the Lone Gunman thesis are unable to prove that Kennedy was assassinated by one rifleman firing from behind, and they are unable to eliminate the possibility that Kennedy was fired upon by multiple gunmen, with at least one of these gunmen firing from the front. These are the most important conclusions to be drawn from the ballistic and medical evidence using a narrative frame perspective.
Evidence establishing that Kennedy was shot from both the front and the back exists in droves, eliminating the possibility of the Lone Gunman narrative—but only if it can be admitted that official authorities and the experts they relied upon distorted, suppressed, and dismissed relevant evidence in the case. Relying on expert foreclosure, Lone Gunman proponents deny or dismiss evidence of official corruption—believing the prospect of official corruption and cover up in the case is utterly implausible.
Depending on how strongly that narrative perspective is held, it is not possible for me—or anyone else—to disprove the Lone Gunman thesis of the case through physical evidence in the case. Such evidence requires expert analysis and interpretation. As long as there are experts willing to endorse an interpretation of that evidence in support of the Lone Gunman thesis, the combined phenomena of expert foreclosure and authoritative veneer lead to a narrative frame impasse.
This makes it possible for Lone Gunman adherents to completely dismiss the witness testimony of over forty medical personnel regarding Kennedy’s wounds, as well as over forty Dealey Plaza witnesses regarding the origin of the shots. It’s easy to know which witness testimony to dismiss in this way: It’s always the witness testimony that doesn’t fit with one’s frontloaded narrative.
Authoritative veneer is indeed a powerful drug. As an antidote to it, I will offer the following epigram by John Harrington, written over 400 years ago:
Treason doth never prosper, what’s the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.
These words were referenced in Oliver Stone’s film JFK. They artfully demonstrate how widespread official complicity in the cover up of Kennedy’s assassination (and other high crimes of state) could indeed be possible. It’s not only possible, it’s a predictable self-preservation response when confronted with a successful coup. If one projects sufficient virtue onto any given authority, it is also possible to continue seeing that authority as virtuous even after their crimes are exposed. It’s simply a case of redefining virtue. What used to be regarded as criminal behavior is reconceived as virtuous and justified. How are we to know that behavior is virtuous? Because the behavior is done by the authority.
Authoritative narrative allure, and its antecedent, authoritative veneer, are ever-present obstacles to the pursuit of truth in the Kennedy Assassination. When propped up by expert foreclosure, they are impenetrable. Consequently, the physical evidence in the case will not be enough to eliminate the possibility of the Lone Gunman narrative: not the ballistic evidence, not the medical evidence, not the backyard photos, and not the Zapruder film. So let us consider additional approaches to the elimination of possibilities in a narrative frame comparison of the Kennedy case.
Suspicious Deaths and Low-Hanging Cherries
In seeking to breach the impenetrable walls of credulity surrounding this case, some researchers point to the long list of suspicious deaths among the witnesses and persons of interest in the case. By some counts, this list includes more than one hundred untimely deaths. I personally find this body count to be a highly convincing and striking demonstration of conspiracy and murderous cover-up regarding the assassination. But it seems to be another aspect of the case easily dismissed by those not yet convinced that Kennedy was killed by a coordinated plot.
Only a small handful of these deaths need to be revealed as murders to show evidence of a deadly cover up. If Oswald really killed Kennedy and acted alone, there would be nothing to cover up and no one to kill. The problem is that Oswald himself was the primary person to be killed in this way, and Lone Gunman adherents already deny that Jack Ruby killed Oswald as part of the cover up. If they are unwilling to accept that murder as related to the cover up, then every single subsequent death will also be dismissed in piecemeal fashion—in compartmentalized isolation from the other deaths.
Dismissal through piecemeal analysis can be (and usually is) supplemented by the well-known tactics of cherry picking, hand waving, and whataboutism. Cherry picking refers to ignoring the totality of evidence and focusing only on a piece of evidence that seems strongest for one’s argument (or weakest for the opponent’s argument). In contrast, hand waving is a blunt dismissal of evidence without even attempting to justify the reasons for dismissing it. When that doesn’t work, whataboutism is deployed as a deflection tactic. When presented with evidence that is damaging to one’s argument, the evidence is avoided completely by saying “What about (insert distraction here)?” The distraction one deflects toward (if the tactic is performed well) is inevitably a cherry-picked piece of evidence one would rather talk about.
The Suspicious Deaths List in the Kennedy Assassination is a good example of an approach that is particularly susceptible to such tactics. The unconvinced Lone Gunman proponent will usually survey the list and zero in on the low-hanging fruit (evidence ripe for cherry picking) of the least suspicious deaths present on the list, such as untimely heart attack deaths. The Multiple Gunmen proponent might reply by pointing out that in the 1970s the Church Committee revealed that the CIA had developed dart guns with dissolving projectiles that introduced a serum into the victim’s body capable of inducing a heart attack.
Even though this information about the Church Committee and the heart-attack guns is true, the Lone Gunman proponent will deride the Multiple Gunmen proponent as a paranoid and emotionally unstable conspiracy theorist who thinks everyone who dies from a heart attack or a one-car accident is the victim of an imagined elaborate plot. Later on, when backed into a corner, the Lone Gunman proponent may even bring the subject up again, combining whataboutism, low-hanging fruit, and cherry picking all at once, in a tactic I like to call What about this low-hanging cherry? An example of this is demonstrated below:
Multiple Gunmen Mona: “How can you believe in the Magic Bullet Theory when CE-399 lost less weight than the weight of the bullet fragments found in Governor Connally’s body?
Lone Gunman Luke: “Gee, that’s rich, coming from someone who believes Secret Service Agent Thomas Shipman was murdered by an induced heart attack 5 weeks before the Kennedy Assassination so he could be replaced as Kennedy’s driver by Bill Greer, who deliberately slowed the limo down so Kennedy would be sure to die on November 22nd. You’re such a tinfoil hat kook!”
To avoid scenarios like the one depicted above, this series of articles is mainly focused on evidence that can be corroborated and verified. Speculation is required to fill in the blank spaces at the edge of the map, but it remains speculation. The map itself must be (and can be) drawn using solid facts to discover where the edge of the map begins. If a person is not convinced that Kennedy was killed as the result of a coordinated plot in the first place, that person will be unwilling to consider that anyone else was killed as the result of the same coordinated plot, no matter how suspicious the circumstances.
The case of Roger Craig’s death is a good example. Craig was a sheriff’s deputy who refused to recant his own eyewitness testimony which, if true, would establish both conspiracy in Kennedy’s death and official corruption after the fact. (Craig was present at the finding of the rifle on the 6th floor of the TSBD and insisted it was a 7.65 Mauser, as initial reports indicated—not a Mannlicher Carcano.) In the years that followed, Craig lost his job, was shot by a bullet that grazed his head, and his car was forced off a mountain road by another car. He later suffered serious injury when his car engine exploded. Then he was shot by a stranger with a shotgun, but survived. Finally, he was found dead in his bedroom from a rifle shot to the chest.
Even though Craig’s body was found on the floor and the rifle was found on his bed—and even though Craig had a handgun available in his room he could used to kill himself more easily than with a rifle, his death was ruled a suicide. Craig recorded his story in a filmed interview before he died. Lone Gunmen proponents believe that Craig was either singularly unlucky or was pursued by adversaries for reasons unrelated to the Kennedy Assassination. His death might look suspicious at first glance—but because his death was found to be suicide by an official expert, we know it probably was a suicide. Those official experts simply don’t lie.
Back to the drawing board, then.
Foreknowledge and Prior Plots
Another possible approach to eliminating the Lone Gunman narrative would be to examine the evidence of those with foreknowledge of Kennedy’s assassination such as Joseph Milteer or Rose Cheramie. Milteer was a hard right political activist associated with racial terrorism in support of segregation. He wascaught on tape by a Miami police informant on November 9, 1963. When conversation turned to Kennedy’s upcoming visits to Miami and Tampa on the 18th, Milteer stated that Kennedy’s assassination was “in the works,” that the best way to do it would be from an office building with a high-powered rifle, and that the authorities would arrest a scapegoat for the crime within a few hours “to throw the public off.” This set of predictions proved remarkably prescient. Listen to Don Adams, the FBI agent assigned to investigate Milteer tell his remarkable story of FBI corruption and coverup in the Milteer case.
Rose Cheramie was treated in a Louisiana hospital for injuries on November 20, 1963 after an altercation with two men she had been accompanying on a road trip from Florida to Dallas. Prior to Kennedy’s assassination, Cheramie told hospital staff the two men, who had continued on to Dallas without her, were planning to kill President Kennedy. Cheramie also implicated Jack Ruby (whom she used to work for) in the plot. Witnesses later identified Sergio Arcacha Smith and Emilio Santana as the men she had been accompanying. Both men were Cuban exiles heavily involved in the anti-Castro Cuban movement. Rose Cheramie was run over and killed in September, 1965.
If evidence of foreknowledge is hand-waved away, another approach would be to examine prior plots to kill Kennedy. Evidence for at least two of these 1963 plots bear striking similarities to the plot in Dallas—the November 2nd plot to shoot Kennedy while his motorcade passed through Chicago, and the November 18th plot to shoot Kennedy while his motorcade passed through Tampa. Each plot featured a potential patsy like Oswald that came to the attention of investigators. In Tampa, Gilbert Policarpo Lopez was linked to the pro-Castro Fair Play for Cuba Committee—just like Oswald. He also had plans to enter Cuba by way of Mexico—just like Oswald was supposedly trying to do.
In Chicago, Thomas Arthur Vallee was a former marine who served at a U2 spy plane facility in Japan and was a known associate of anti-Castro Cubans organizing to liberate the island—just like Oswald. Vallee had also recently moved to the city where the attempt on Kennedy would be made, and had taken a job in a building overlooking Kennedy’s planned motorcade route—adjacent to a site along the route in which Kennedy’s limo would slow down considerably to make a sharp turn—again, just like Oswald. Much of the credit for bringing knowledge of the Chicago plot goes to Abraham Bolden, the first black Secret Service agent ever to serve on the Presidential security detail. Listen to his captivating story of racial prejudice in the Secret Service, how he was framed for bribery when he attempted to expose corruption in the Secret Service related to Kennedy’s assassination, and his survival of incarceration and forced medication in a federal psychiatric prison.
The summaries listed above constitute only a brief taste of the available evidence regarding foreknowledge and prior plots. But as with the evidence of suspicious deaths, the evidence of foreknowledge and prior plots is simply dismissed by Lone Gunman proponents as coincidental through piecemeal analysis. Regardless of how high the stack of coincidences are piled, the edifice of faith in the Lone Gunman narrative remains unshaken. Evidence of this nature may indeed be capable of swaying a person who is undecided—perched on the tipping point of belief. Otherwise, this evidence merely serves as confirmatory icing on the cake for researchers who are already convinced that Kennedy was killed as the result of a conspiracy.
Approaches that merely demonstrate the fantastic implausibility of the Lone Gunman narrative are unable to dislodge a frontloaded narrative that finds the prospect of coordinated official corruption and cover up to be utterly unbelievable. Only an approach that definitively eliminates the Lone Gunman narrative as impossible can do that. Law enforcement whistleblowers like Roger Craig, Don Adams, and Abraham Bolden can be dismissed by Lone Gunman stalwarts as unreliable. The medical and ballistic evidence is insufficient to the task because this evidence requires expert interpretation. Experts remain available who are willing to interpret this evidence in alignment with official narratives. Impossibilities must therefore be eliminated via other means.
Concrete Corroboration Exonerates Oswald
If physical evidence requiring expert interpretation will not suffice to eliminate possibilities in a narrative frame comparison of the Kennedy case, we must instead rely on evidence that does not require expert interpretation. It must also be evidence that cannot be dismissed as a coincidence. The best evidence of this kind is that which can be corroborated by an external condition.
Concrete corroboration is a term I use to refer to evidence that eliminates possibilities due to corroboration through universally accepted principles of time and space. Alibis are a perfect example of this kind of corroboration—a single person cannot be in two places at once. A single person cannot possess two different heights or have two sets of facial features at the same time. An event cannot happen both earlier in time and later in time than another event. Knowledge cannot be acquired before a person has had the chance to attain that knowledge.
Although arguments exist in support of psychic phenomenon such as prophecy and telepathy—I insist that a grounded analysis of fact in the Kennedy assassination should dismiss narratives that rely on the intervention of psychic phenomena for their veracity. In a grounded analysis we must conclude that a person with highly specific knowledge of future events either possessed information that allowed them to make an accurate prediction, or took part in causing the future event to happen—unless these possibilities can themselves be eliminated through concrete corroboration. A person in possession of secret knowledge must have gained this knowledge via access to another person or a document that transmitted this knowledge.
The Mannlicher Carcano is the primary piece of evidence implicating Lee Harvey Oswald. If the link placing the rifle in Oswald’s hands at the 6th floor window can be broken, the Lone Gunman narrative breaks in turn, and conspiracy is the only remaining possibility. Through concrete corroboration, it is possible to demonstrate that Lee Harvey Oswald could not have been present on the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository at the time the shots were fired. It is possible to demonstrate that the documents purportedly connecting him to the rifle in evidence do not actually do so.
It is also possible to demonstrate that conspirators selected Oswald as their patsy prior to the assassination and planted evidence ahead of time to frame him. It is possible to demonstrate that law enforcement officers planted and fabricated evidence to frame him. It is possible to demonstrate that Oswald could not have murdered Police Officer JD Tippit and that he was framed for that crime as well.
The nature of the methods used to set up Oswald as the patsy in the assassination conclusively show the work of many hands. If so, the question of how many gunmen shot at Kennedy is immaterial to establishing conspiracy in the case. Those who framed Oswald for Kennedy’s murder could not have done so without also knowing Kennedy was about to be murdered. Once conspiracy in Kennedy’s murder has been established—as well as corruption of evidence on the part of law enforcement—there is no longer any rationale in adhering to the frontloaded narrative frame of a single assassin. The evidence for multiple gunmen can now be confronted and confirmed with ease. The case can finally be pursued.
In Part Two of this article, the principle of concrete corroboration will be applied to test the evidence used to incriminate Oswald—and to the evidence exculpating him.
Relendra’s series of Kennedy Assassination Articles
While it is outside the scope of this series of articles to provide footnotes or citations for much of the evidence presented here, I have compiled a resource guide to encourage readers to verify the facts of the case for themselves: a compendium of the books, websites, podcasts, films, and methods of research available in researching or learning about the Kennedy case, complete with links.
An intro to the discipline and benefits of understanding the assassination of John F. Kennedy—with reference to its utility and applicability in understanding power dynamics and narrative reasoning on the macro scale of history and global politics, now and then, as well as in one’s personal relationships and spiritual journey.
An introduction to three images that open the mind to the Kennedy Assassination—and a guide to the process of encountering the doors of perception and the keys that unlock them.
A deeper exploration of the path beyond the initial doorways of the Kennedy case through narrative frame comparison, guidance in the use of narrative reasoning tools, and identification of reasoning pitfalls and narrative fallacies. The backyard photos and the circumstances surrounding them are held to particular scrutiny. The case for seriously questioning the official narrative of the assassination is firmly established.
An exploration of the medical and ballistic evidence in the Kennedy Assassination, using narrative frame comparison to eliminate impossibilities in two competing narrative frames: Kennedy was assassinated by a single gunman, or Kennedy was assassinated by multiple gunmen.
In continuing the process of eliminating impossibilities through narrative frame comparison, the evidence against Lee Harvey Oswald is examined in detail. Through this examination, the exoneration of Oswald is established. Oswald did not fire any shots at Kennedy, nor did he participate in the assassination. Multiple gunmen fired at Kennedy, but Oswald was not one of them.
Two men, Ralph Yates and Buell Frazier, both testified to transporting Lee Harvey Oswald to the Texas School Book Depository—and that Oswald bore a package with him he described as containing curtain rods. In examining the reports of both men through narrative frame comparison, it can be established that Yates did transport a hitchhiker claiming to carry curtain rods, but it wasn’t Oswald; and Frazier did transport Oswald, but Oswald didn’t carry a curtain rods package. The intersection of these stories provides strong evidence that Oswald was framed for Kennedy’s Assassination prior to its occurrence and that members Dallas Police Department assisted in framing Oswald, possessing foreknowledge of the plot.
A glossary of terms to aid in the process of contextual narrative reasoning. Includes descriptions of narrative fallacies and narrative reasoning tools, with examples and application to the Kennedy assassination case.
Relendra,
According to the Idea of History by RG Collingwood, historians must concern themselves with the nature, object, method and value of historical thinking. After having had experience of historical thinking, the historian must reflect upon that experience. Thus, the historian becomes a philosopher as well.
All scientific inquiries begin with the knowledge of our own ignorance. What are the characteristics of the evidence and how are these documents to be interpreted? The purpose of these journeys of discovery is so that we humans might gain knowledge of what makes us human - the nature of humanity.
I was excited to see you approach this emotive subject of the JFK assassination with such a scientific approach.
Removed from the emotions that the assassination provoked ( I was 4 years old and remember sitting on the floor in front of the television, my mother in tears behind me.) the evidence can be examined in a calm, progressive manner, building the case from the available evidence.
This methodology is a very useful tool for anyone wishing to examine any event in the near or distant past. A lens providing the user with the ability to see events more clearly and disengage somewhat from the restrictive chains of indoctrination and conditioning.
Perhaps a handbook might be forthcoming to help others apply these techniques in their quest to better understand how they interpret information and furthermore, the nature and capabilities of our humanity?
Thank you and blessings on your work.
I commend you on your impressively thorough examination of the JFK assassination. I'm looking forward to reading your other pieces on the topic. I imagine you've been following the Trump administration's JFK files drop. Have you or do you plan on investigating some of the major players behind the assassination beyond the CIA and Cuban exiles?