Jfk The Assination Essay, Research Paper

Athena

Mrs. D

English III

May 19, 2000

The JFK Assignation: An American Conspiracy

On a clear sunny day in Dallas Texas, November 22, 1963 to be exact, at about 12:30pm, the President’s car rounded the curve in front of the Texas School Book Depository building and proceeded on to Main Street throughout Dally plaza. Shots rang out and the President was rushed to the nearby hospital and was declared dead at 1pm. The Vice President took the oath of office and flew back to Washington with the slain leader. The accused assassin was arrested, charged and then executed on national television in front of millions. Three days latter, the Texas officials in charge of the investigation declared the case closed and the new President set up a hand picked committee to investigate. The committee, which reported directly to the new President, concluded that the assassin was a lone nut with no motive for killing the President.

While it may seem that this is all wrapped up and that this is ancient history with no real meaning. There are still many questions one of which you maybe thinking is, “Why is this so important?” “ Why does it even matter, it was over 36 years ago so why do people still obsess over it?” Well, there may really be nothing here worthy of all this but if the President was killed by a conspiracy plot against him, if that is the case. Than yes, it does become very important, because it shows just how much power our government has to cover up something of this proportion that maybe it shouldn’t have. It still matters because no one should have that much power, to be out side the realm of the law. This reminds me of a few years ago when our current President’s “friends” who were associated with the white water scandal were dropping like flies. No one likes to lose faith in their government and we all wish to just believe that this was just coincident and maybe it was, but is our President really accountable for his actions? Can we really believe that? How can we if in 1963 the Vice President wasn’t even held accountable?

I think that it is Extremely important for the American people to know that there can be the overthrow of government, that there can be a coup d’ etat in America, and that, that in fact (it) did happen with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. In order to prevent that kind of thing from happening again in order to expose the forces that were responsible for the murder and the cover-up that has ensued… it’s necessary to expose them, otherwise we can have the same thing happen again… If they were able to do it to John F. John F. Kennedy in 1963, they could do it to some other president in the future. (1)

I think that this paragraph sums up the entire spirit of those who continue to research, write about, and study the John F. Kennedy assassination; it has come to phenomenal proportion over the last 36 years with over 2,000 books written on the subject and one Hollywood movie. The theories range from the bizarre such as retaliation from the aliens, to Elvis, to the official conclusion of the Warren Commission that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin. The most common of the conspiracy theories include, Castro, communist, mob, CIA, the North Vietnamese and others. Before we can even start to draw a conclusion on to who was behind the John F. Kennedy assassination we must first prove whether or not there was a conspiracy. First, lets take a look at the official Warren report on the events leading up to and those that took place on that fateful day in Dally Plaza.

First, Lee Harvey Oswald ordered a cheap Italian Mannlicher-Carcano bolt-action riffle and an $8 dollar plastic scope under an assumed name from a catalog. He went to work at the School Book Depository building that morning with the unassembled rifle wrapped in a package under his arm. During his lunch break he moved 25 boxes weighing approximately 50lb each in 5 minuets, and set up his snipers nest. He then watched as the President’s motorcade drove down Main street and faced him and then slowed down to 10mph to make a right turn on to Houston street in front of him. Then, only after the shot was blocked from his sight by a tree, the motorcade started to speed up, turning away from him, and coming out from behind the tree, did he shoot.

He shot off 3 shots with a bolt-action rifle in 5.6 seconds. The first shot missed and hit a bystander, the second shot often referred to as the miracle built, went through John F. Kennedy’s neck, through Governor Connally’s right shoulder coming out of this chest, then went straight though his wrist and finally landing in his thigh. It was found on a stretcher in the hospital where no one connected to the assassination, including John F. Kennedy or Governor Connally had been, when they found the built it was less damaged than most bullets that have been fired into a box of cotton batting, and the third shot was the fatal headshot. Oswald then wiped off the gun, wrapped it, ran down 4 flights of stairs, went to the 2nd floor lunch room and was buying a coke, all in 90 seconds, when a Dallas police officer spotted him and didn’t notice anything suspicious and his employer identified him as a employee. Oswald then he left he building from the front exit and went back to the boarding house where he stayed.

There are a number of problems with these conclusions. The first one is that it does not line up with eyewitness testimony or common sense. Why for example would a ex-marine chose to buy a cheap riffle through a catalog and have it sent to a P.O. box that could be traced to him, when one was readily available at any number of gun shops for a fraction of the cost and there would be no record of him ever buying it? Why would he choose a weapon designed over 70 years ago that even when it was brand new it was not a comparatively good rifle? The Italian Mannlicher-Carcano bolt-action rifle was not a fast gun and it was never intended to be a snipers rifle not even when it was first created. There were a great deal of better, faster and more accurate guns available to Lee Harvey Oswald, so why did he choose an outdated one with a misalignment in the cheap plastic scope? Also, afterwards when Oswald was arrested, the police did test to see whether or not Oswald had fired a gun that day. His hands came back positive, but his cheek came back negative, which cast doubt on whether he shot a rifle that day. Lone gunman supporters say that maybe he rested the rifle against his hip rather than his cheek, but why then did he also order a scope that cost more than the $5 dollar gun did? This just does not make sense.

Lee Harvey Oswald was not stupid in fact he was a very intelligent man, and intelligent men do not just murder the president with out a motive and that was exactly the conclusion that the Warren Commission came to, that Lee Harvey Oswald had no motive. They had to come to this conclusion because they could find no evidence of a motive. In fact, there is quite a bit of evidence that he actually had motivation for not killing the president. On many occasions he was quoted saying how much he admired the president and supported his policies. Lee Harvey Oswald was a socialist and John F. Kennedy supported many socialist policies and was even accused of being a communist. Why then would a perfectly sane intelligent man who greatly admired the president try to kill him with an old outdated riffle with a misaligned scope? Does this make any since to you at all? The rest of the story is even more unbelievable. Super human strength and speed he supposedly possessed to move all those boxes in that amount of time. The stunning performance of that miracle built that made seven wounds and came out with no marks on it what so ever that was found on a stretcher in the hospital that was nowhere near either John F. Kennedy or Governor Connally had ever been, and the fact that the majority of eye witnesses at the scene of the shooting who were interviewed within 24 hours said that they heard 4-6 shots and quite a few said that they heard the shots coming from the grassy knoll. Among these were two police officers who immediately started running towards the grassy knoll as though they thought the shots were coming from there, and three other secret service agents also ran to the knoll because they thought that shots had been fired from there. Even though many reported that they heard shots from there, the area was never fully checked out and investigated by police or the secret service.

The simple fact of the matter is, that there was not as nearly as much security that day as there should have been. In most circumstances Oswald would never have been an issue because the army back up would have made sure that every window in all the buildings that line the parade route were shut and so even if Oswald had acted alone there is evidence of a conspiracy because of the lack of security that should have been there. So what happened that caused this blatant violation of secret services regulations according to L. Fletcher Proudly.

“… The crime of assassination is relatively easy to commit, provided normal Presidential protection has been relaxed. This is the second major factor in the crime of the century. I had worked on what was called “Presidential protection.” Select military personnel are trained for this duty in order that they might augments the limited strength of the Secret Service, when necessary. Among the most glaring oversights of the John F. Kennedy trip to Dallas in 1963 were the small number of Secret Service men on duty, and the total lack of military “Presidential protection” units. The President had almost no experience protection that day.” (Lain, xv)

Well, what happened to the military support that was supposed to be there? Well according to the 112th Military intelligence group in the fourth army area at Fort Worth, Texas, the units commander, Lt. Con. Rudolph M. Reich, offered his units services for the entire Texas trip, but was point blank refused by the secret service. Who could have had the power to order this down? Or was this just a deadly look over? Another mistake was the formation that the police escort rode in flanking the limo. According to officer J.B. Marshall who was driving the motorcycle just back of the left fender of the escort formation, at time of the shooting, said that the escort formation was highly unusual for escorting one who might need protection. In a standard formation you bracket the car with 4 motorcycles, one on each finder but they were given explicit orders that there was to be no front escort and that the tailing motorcycles were never to get ahead of the car’s rear wheels.

The motorcade route was planned only 2 weeks before the trip the only people involved in the planning of the trip were John F. Kennedy, Governor Connally and Lyndon B. Johnson. John F. Kennedy left the details up to Governor Connally and Lyndon Johnson because this was the long time friend’s home state so John F. Kennedy decided they would know the most approved routes and so forth. When the secret service saw the plans for the motorcade route they demanded that it be changed because they said that there was a possibility that the President’s life might be put in danger, but Lyndon Johnson and Governor Connally refused to change the route and the luncheon sight which was highly unusual. It is very rare for the planners of presidential trips not to change their plans to accommodate the President.

Another important thing to consider is that if there was indeed a conspiracy, than there has to be a cover up and maybe by revealing those who where behind the cover up, we can reveal those behind the conspiracy. The cover up that ensued in Dallas in what must have been one of the worst blotched murder investigations ever. I’m not sure whether the police just messed up very badly or if it was because the FBI and the CIA were so mixed up with the initial investigation that it slowed down the whole process and so files were lost. All the leads weren’t checked out and a conclusion was drawn as to who killed the President within only three days, that contradicted eyewitness testimony at almost every single point. After the case was considered closed by the officials, Lyndon B. Johnson appointed the Warren Commission who reported directly to him started to sift through the important pieces of information it almost seems as if they started with the assumption that Oswald was guilty and only looked for those pieces of information that support that claim. Anything that might have contradicted the three shot theory, no matter how sound this theory was, was picked apart by so called “experts” that really had nothing to do with that area of expertise. Such important areas of study such as the Presidential limo and the clothes that the victims were wearing were immediately destroyed or refurbished within days of the assassination not even letting someone examine these pieces of evidence. The limo for example, which was immediately sent back to Detroit to be totally striped and refurbished, was ordered by Lyndon B. Johnson. Another area were gross amounts of mistakes were made was the autopsy, which varying reports from just about every nurse or doctor on duty that day exist, about what really happened. The medical records being sealed away, this is still the subject of much debate among researchers. One thing is sure; procedures for such a case weren’t followed. In a head wound such as John F. Kennedy’s, the proper thing to do was to shave the head so that the wounds could be fully examined. This was never done, also in a shooting incident it is usually the doctor in charge of the autopsy that determines the path of the built that went through the corpse and the doctors that day indeed tried to do that but were stopped by the secret service. In fact the secrete service were impeding every single aspect of it and in fact the entire investigation. Over the years there have been numerous reports that the Written reports taken for the Warren commission are in most cases are forgeries taking the people out of context twisting there words to make them look like fools. This questioning had to have been either so confusing that the witnesses can’t remember what they said, or something was behind this that wanted to discredit and humiliate those who went agents the official report. When warren comity went to reenact the motorcade events that happened in 1963 It actually ended up proving the exact opposite of what the Warren Commission is trying to prove, That Lee Harvey Oswald couldn’t have shot John F. Kennedy it just can’t be done, not in the amount of time he hade between the murder of John F. Kennedy and the time he was found, spotted by a police officer.

“While the Commission went to desperate lengths to “prove that Oswald killed John F. Kennedy with the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle” it in fact proved the contrary. On November 27,1963 the FBI conducted the Initial series of rifle test with the alleged assassination weapon. As part of the test the FBI determined that because John F. Kennedy was moving away in the limousine Oswald had at most 5.6 seconds to fire the three shots that allegedly killed him. This time range conclusion was based on the observations from the southwest corners of the 6th floor in the Texas School Book Depository in comparison to films and photographs of the murder. It was established that Oswald’s vision of the target was blocked for a time by a large tree. As a result, while the motorcade did travel for almost a full block on Elm Street in front of Oswald, from Oswald’s position it was agreed that he had less than 6 full seconds to fire the three shots at the target when it was in view. To prove that this was possible and that Oswald was the lone assassin, the FBI started out by having three master marksmen using Oswald’s rifle rapidly fire a series of three shots at a stationary targets located only 45 feet away. The three experts each fired 3 shots within 9 seconds, 8 seconds and 6 seconds respectively. In this test none of the marksmen were physically capable of firing the three rounds within the 5.6 seconds requirement. Also, not surprisingly, all the marksmen’s shots were high and to the right, missing the targets located only 45 feet away.” (Zirbel, 47)

Also the shots that Oswald was supposed to make were very difficult.

“When the Commission gave the defective weapon and scope to the world class marksmen to test it for accuracy, none of the top professionals were capable of hitting anything. And, this occurred after the commission let its experts rebuild the rifle scope, correcting the rifle’s sighting and alignment defects, and then fire it with the aid of a professional gun rest. With all theses additional aids and corrections that Oswald didn’t have, none of the top test marksmen were capable of accurately hitting even a fixed target. The commission therefore scientifically proved that it was not possible for world class riflemen using the same rifle that Oswald allegedly had used, but rebuilt to there benefit, to accurately hit a fixed target. Again, common sense should have told the commission that Oswald could not possibly have been the appointed assassin.” (Zirbel, 43)

So as you can see it would have been a very difficult thing for an expert shooter to shoot the President the way that they said Oswald, who in the marines scored only 1 point above the qualification level needed to achieve the lowest scaled rating, in other words, “a rather poor shot”(Zirbel, 45) was accused of shooting the President.

So it seems almost certain that the President was killed by some sort of conspiracy although we’ll probably never know for sure what really happen that day in 1963. We must make sure though that it can never happen again. We must make sure that those writing the laws must live under them and that our country stays a true democracy. With freedom and Justice for all.

Athena .

Mrs. D .

English III .

May 19, 2000 .

The JFK Assignation: An American Conspiracy

On a clear sunny day in Dallas Texas, November 22, 1963 to be exact, at about 12:30pm, the President’s car rounded the curve in front of the Texas School Book Depository building and proceeded on to Main Street throughout Dally plaza. Shots rang out and the President was rushed to the nearby hospital and was declared dead at 1pm. The Vice President took the oath of office and flew back to Washington with the slain leader. The accused assassin was arrested, charged and then executed on national television in front of millions. Three days latter, the Texas officials in charge of the investigation declared the case closed and the new President set up a hand picked committee to investigate. The committee, which reported directly to the new President, concluded that the assassin was a lone nut with no motive for killing the President.

While it may seem that this is all wrapped up and that this is ancient history with no real meaning. There are still many questions one of which you maybe thinking is, “Why is this so important?” “ Why does it even matter, it was over 36 years ago so why do people still obsess over it?” Well, there may really be nothing here worthy of all this but if the President was killed by a conspiracy plot against him, if that is the case. Than yes, it does become very important, because it shows just how much power our government has to cover up something of this proportion that maybe it shouldn’t have. It still matters because no one should have that much power, to be out side the realm of the law. This reminds me of a few years ago when our current President’s “friends” who were associated with the white water scandal were dropping like flies. No one likes to lose faith in their government and we all wish to just believe that this was just coincident and maybe it was, but is our President really accountable for his actions? Can we really believe that? How can we if in 1963 the Vice President wasn’t even held accountable?

I think that it is Extremely important for the American people to know that there can be the overthrow of government, that there can be a coup d’ etat in America, and that, that in fact (it) did happen with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. In order to prevent that kind of thing from happening again in order to expose the forces that were responsible for the murder and the cover-up that has ensued… it’s necessary to expose them, otherwise we can have the same thing happen again… If they were able to do it to John F. John F. Kennedy in 1963, they could do it to some other president in the future. (1)

I think that this paragraph sums up the entire spirit of those who continue to research, write about, and study the John F. Kennedy assassination; it has come to phenomenal proportion over the last 36 years with over 2,000 books written on the subject and one Hollywood movie. The theories range from the bizarre such as retaliation from the aliens, to Elvis, to the official conclusion of the Warren Commission that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin. The most common of the conspiracy theories include, Castro, communist, mob, CIA, the North Vietnamese and others. Before we can even start to draw a conclusion on to who was behind the John F. Kennedy assassination we must first prove whether or not there was a conspiracy. First, lets take a look at the official Warren report on the events leading up to and those that took place on that fateful day in Dally Plaza.

First, Lee Harvey Oswald ordered a cheap Italian Mannlicher-Carcano bolt-action riffle and an $8 dollar plastic scope under an assumed name from a catalog. He went to work at the School Book Depository building that morning with the unassembled rifle wrapped in a package under his arm. During his lunch break he moved 25 boxes weighing approximately 50lb each in 5 minuets, and set up his snipers nest. He then watched as the President’s motorcade drove down Main street and faced him and then slowed down to 10mph to make a right turn on to Houston street in front of him. Then, only after the shot was blocked from his sight by a tree, the motorcade started to speed up, turning away from him, and coming out from behind the tree, did he shoot.

He shot off 3 shots with a bolt-action rifle in 5.6 seconds. The first shot missed and hit a bystander, the second shot often referred to as the miracle built, went through John F. Kennedy’s neck, through Governor Connally’s right shoulder coming out of this chest, then went straight though his wrist and finally landing in his thigh. It was found on a stretcher in the hospital where no one connected to the assassination, including John F. Kennedy or Governor Connally had been, when they found the built it was less damaged than most bullets that have been fired into a box of cotton batting, and the third shot was the fatal headshot. Oswald then wiped off the gun, wrapped it, ran down 4 flights of stairs, went to the 2nd floor lunch room and was buying a coke, all in 90 seconds, when a Dallas police officer spotted him and didn’t notice anything suspicious and his employer identified him as a employee. Oswald then he left he building from the front exit and went back to the boarding house where he stayed.

There are a number of problems with these conclusions. The first one is that it does not line up with eyewitness testimony or common sense. Why for example would a ex-marine chose to buy a cheap riffle through a catalog and have it sent to a P.O. box that could be traced to him, when one was readily available at any number of gun shops for a fraction of the cost and there would be no record of him ever buying it? Why would he choose a weapon designed over 70 years ago that even when it was brand new it was not a comparatively good rifle? The Italian Mannlicher-Carcano bolt-action rifle was not a fast gun and it was never intended to be a snipers rifle not even when it was first created. There were a great deal of better, faster and more accurate guns available to Lee Harvey Oswald, so why did he choose an outdated one with a misalignment in the cheap plastic scope? Also, afterwards when Oswald was arrested, the police did test to see whether or not Oswald had fired a gun that day. His hands came back positive, but his cheek came back negative, which cast doubt on whether he shot a rifle that day. Lone gunman supporters say that maybe he rested the rifle against his hip rather than his cheek, but why then did he also order a scope that cost more than the $5 dollar gun did? This just does not make sense.

Lee Harvey Oswald was not stupid in fact he was a very intelligent man, and intelligent men do not just murder the president with out a motive and that was exactly the conclusion that the Warren Commission came to, that Lee Harvey Oswald had no motive. They had to come to this conclusion because they could find no evidence of a motive. In fact, there is quite a bit of evidence that he actually had motivation for not killing the president. On many occasions he was quoted saying how much he admired the president and supported his policies. Lee Harvey Oswald was a socialist and John F. Kennedy supported many socialist policies and was even accused of being a communist. Why then would a perfectly sane intelligent man who greatly admired the president try to kill him with an old outdated riffle with a misaligned scope? Does this make any since to you at all? The rest of the story is even more unbelievable. Super human strength and speed he supposedly possessed to move all those boxes in that amount of time. The stunning performance of that miracle built that made seven wounds and came out with no marks on it what so ever that was found on a stretcher in the hospital that was nowhere near either John F. Kennedy or Governor Connally had ever been, and the fact that the majority of eye witnesses at the scene of the shooting who were interviewed within 24 hours said that they heard 4-6 shots and quite a few said that they heard the shots coming from the grassy knoll. Among these were two police officers who immediately started running towards the grassy knoll as though they thought the shots were coming from there, and three other secret service agents also ran to the knoll because they thought that shots had been fired from there. Even though many reported that they heard shots from there, the area was never fully checked out and investigated by police or the secret service.

The simple fact of the matter is, that there was not as nearly as much security that day as there should have been. In most circumstances Oswald would never have been an issue because the army back up would have made sure that every window in all the buildings that line the parade route were shut and so even if Oswald had acted alone there is evidence of a conspiracy because of the lack of security that should have been there. So what happened that caused this blatant violation of secret services regulations according to L. Fletcher Proudly.

“… The crime of assassination is relatively easy to commit, provided normal Presidential protection has been relaxed. This is the second major factor in the crime of the century. I had worked on what was called “Presidential protection.” Select military personnel are trained for this duty in order that they might augments the limited strength of the Secret Service, when necessary. Among the most glaring oversights of the John F. Kennedy trip to Dallas in 1963 were the small number of Secret Service men on duty, and the total lack of military “Presidential protection” units. The President had almost no experience protection that day.” (Lain, xv)

Well, what happened to the military support that was supposed to be there? Well according to the 112th Military intelligence group in the fourth army area at Fort Worth, Texas, the units commander, Lt. Con. Rudolph M. Reich, offered his units services for the entire Texas trip, but was point blank refused by the secret service. Who could have had the power to order this down? Or was this just a deadly look over? Another mistake was the formation that the police escort rode in flanking the limo. According to officer J.B. Marshall who was driving the motorcycle just back of the left fender of the escort formation, at time of the shooting, said that the escort formation was highly unusual for escorting one who might need protection. In a standard formation you bracket the car with 4 motorcycles, one on each finder but they were given explicit orders that there was to be no front escort and that the tailing motorcycles were never to get ahead of the car’s rear wheels.

The motorcade route was planned only 2 weeks before the trip the only people involved in the planning of the trip were John F. Kennedy, Governor Connally and Lyndon B. Johnson. John F. Kennedy left the details up to Governor Connally and Lyndon Johnson because this was the long time friend’s home state so John F. Kennedy decided they would know the most approved routes and so forth. When the secret service saw the plans for the motorcade route they demanded that it be changed because they said that there was a possibility that the President’s life might be put in danger, but Lyndon Johnson and Governor Connally refused to change the route and the luncheon sight which was highly unusual. It is very rare for the planners of presidential trips not to change their plans to accommodate the President.

Another important thing to consider is that if there was indeed a conspiracy, than there has to be a cover up and maybe by revealing those who where behind the cover up, we can reveal those behind the conspiracy. The cover up that ensued in Dallas in what must have been one of the worst blotched murder investigations ever. I’m not sure whether the police just messed up very badly or if it was because the FBI and the CIA were so mixed up with the initial investigation that it slowed down the whole process and so files were lost. All the leads weren’t checked out and a conclusion was drawn as to who killed the President within only three days, that contradicted eyewitness testimony at almost every single point. After the case was considered closed by the officials, Lyndon B. Johnson appointed the Warren Commission who reported directly to him started to sift through the important pieces of information it almost seems as if they started with the assumption that Oswald was guilty and only looked for those pieces of information that support that claim. Anything that might have contradicted the three shot theory, no matter how sound this theory was, was picked apart by so called “experts” that really had nothing to do with that area of expertise. Such important areas of study such as the Presidential limo and the clothes that the victims were wearing were immediately destroyed or refurbished within days of the assassination not even letting someone examine these pieces of evidence. The limo for example, which was immediately sent back to Detroit to be totally striped and refurbished, was ordered by Lyndon B. Johnson. Another area were gross amounts of mistakes were made was the autopsy, which varying reports from just about every nurse or doctor on duty that day exist, about what really happened. The medical records being sealed away, this is still the subject of much debate among researchers. One thing is sure; procedures for such a case weren’t followed. In a head wound such as John F. Kennedy’s, the proper thing to do was to shave the head so that the wounds could be fully examined. This was never done, also in a shooting incident it is usually the doctor in charge of the autopsy that determines the path of the built that went through the corpse and the doctors that day indeed tried to do that but were stopped by the secret service. In fact the secrete service were impeding every single aspect of it and in fact the entire investigation. Over the years there have been numerous reports that the Written reports taken for the Warren commission are in most cases are forgeries taking the people out of context twisting there words to make them look like fools. This questioning had to have been either so confusing that the witnesses can’t remember what they said, or something was behind this that wanted to discredit and humiliate those who went agents the official report. When warren comity went to reenact the motorcade events that happened in 1963 It actually ended up proving the exact opposite of what the Warren Commission is trying to prove, That Lee Harvey Oswald couldn’t have shot John F. Kennedy it just can’t be done, not in the amount of time he hade between the murder of John F. Kennedy and the time he was found, spotted by a police officer.

“While the Commission went to desperate lengths to “prove that Oswald killed John F. Kennedy with the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle” it in fact proved the contrary. On November 27,1963 the FBI conducted the Initial series of rifle test with the alleged assassination weapon. As part of the test the FBI determined that because John F. Kennedy was moving away in the limousine Oswald had at most 5.6 seconds to fire the three shots that allegedly killed him. This time range conclusion was based on the observations from the southwest corners of the 6th floor in the Texas School Book Depository in comparison to films and photographs of the murder. It was established that Oswald’s vision of the target was blocked for a time by a large tree. As a result, while the motorcade did travel for almost a full block on Elm Street in front of Oswald, from Oswald’s position it was agreed that he had less than 6 full seconds to fire the three shots at the target when it was in view. To prove that this was possible and that Oswald was the lone assassin, the FBI started out by having three master marksmen using Oswald’s rifle rapidly fire a series of three shots at a stationary targets located only 45 feet away. The three experts each fired 3 shots within 9 seconds, 8 seconds and 6 seconds respectively. In this test none of the marksmen were physically capable of firing the three rounds within the 5.6 seconds requirement. Also, not surprisingly, all the marksmen’s shots were high and to the right, missing the targets located only 45 feet away.” (Zirbel, 47)

Also the shots that Oswald was supposed to make were very difficult.

“When the Commission gave the defective weapon and scope to the world class marksmen to test it for accuracy, none of the top professionals were capable of hitting anything. And, this occurred after the commission let its experts rebuild the rifle scope, correcting the rifle’s sighting and alignment defects, and then fire it with the aid of a professional gun rest. With all theses additional aids and corrections that Oswald didn’t have, none of the top test marksmen were capable of accurately hitting even a fixed target. The commission therefore scientifically proved that it was not possible for world class riflemen using the same rifle that Oswald allegedly had used, but rebuilt to there benefit, to accurately hit a fixed target. Again, common sense should have told the commission that Oswald could not possibly have been the appointed assassin.” (Zirbel, 43)

So as you can see it would have been a very difficult thing for an expert shooter to shoot the President the way that they said Oswald, who in the marines scored only 1 point above the qualification level needed to achieve the lowest scaled rating, in other words, “a rather poor shot”(Zirbel, 45) was accused of shooting the President.

So it seems almost certain that the President was killed by some sort of conspiracy although we’ll probably never know for sure what really happen that day in 1963. We must make sure though that it can never happen again. We must make sure that those writing the laws must live under them and that our country stays a true democracy. With freedom and Justice for all.