By Andy Ford
When John F Kennedy, President of the United States, was brutally gunned down on November 22, 1963, first the Dallas Police, and then the FBI, and finally the Warren Commission and the whole of the mainstream media, were quick to proclaim the guilt of one man, Lee Harvey Oswald, a ‘lone nut’, and move on. Nothing to see here! And when Oswald himself was killed a few days later by Mafia associate, Jack Ruby, the case was closed. At least it was for the American ruling elite.
But almost from day one, independent researchers have pointed out the inconsistencies in the official story. In fact it was plain impossible for Oswald to have shot the President.
The police test for gunpowder against Oswald’s cheek was negative; he had not recently fired a rifle.
The motorcade route was only printed that morning, yet Oswald was supposed to have taken his rifle to work that day – before he could possibly have seen the route that was to pass his workplace in the Texas Book Depository. The official version says, in feeble defence, that the route was the ‘logical’ one to Kennedy’s lunch at the International Trade Mart.
Two possible lunch venues for Kennedy
But the actual route was only set at the last minute. Even Texas Governor Connally did not know it until the day. And yet Oswald is supposed to have purposefully returned to the Dallas suburb of Irving, where he normally only stayed weekends, the night before the assassination, to get his rifle and come back the next morning ready to shoot JFK.
Kennedy’s visit was announced September 26. There were two possible lunch venues, and therefore two possible routes – the Trade Mart in the north-west of Dallas, in which case the route would go near the Book Depository and the other was the Women’s Building in the south-east. This latter venue would have entailed no motorcade at all.
The final decision was only made November 12. So how could Oswald have taken his job at the Book Depository with the aim of shooting JFK, when he only took that job on October 14? Kennedy finally approved the route on November 15.
And then, on the day, the route was varied from the planned version, by taking an odd and unnecessary detour right past the Book Depository and under the triple underpass. As a ‘lone nut’, Oswald could never have even known Kennedy would pass by his workplace. As the car detoured down Elm Street, it slowed to between 10 and 15 mph, according to Life and Newsweek estimates, not the recommended 25 mph, by the turning made necessary by the detour – ideal for a sniper attack.
This ideal sniper route still meant that at a distance of 85-100 yards, Oswald would have to hit the President, who was moving away from him at a speed of 25 mph or so.
Police Chief Curry knew instantly the source of the shots
Dallas Police Chief Curry, who was riding 40 feet ahead of the President, exhibited amazing powers that day. He instantly knew that the shots came from the Book Depository. According to his own testimony at a press conference, “Moments after the fatal shots were fired…Chief Curry said yesterday, he radioed instructions that the Texas Book Depository building be surrounded and searched…”
Curry was under a concrete bridge under a freeway, a hundred yards or more from the Book Depository, with people clapping, cheering and calling out all around the street behind. But somehow he still ‘knew’ it was the Book Depository? Even the Secret Service, riding in the car behind, testified that they did not even recognise the first shot as a shot and “had no idea where the shots came from”.
People actually in Dealey Plaza mainly stated that the shots seemed to come from in front of the car, from the famed ‘grassy knoll’
When the first officer into the Depository went climbing the stairs to the sixth floor, who did he meet on the second floor? Lee Harvey Oswald, calmly buying a coke in the canteen!
So according to the official version, Oswald shot the President of the United States, firing three shots from a bolt action rifle in six to eight seconds, with two of them hitting a moving target at 85 to 100 yards, rushed down four flights of stairs without getting out of breath, and then…decided to buy a coke from a vending machine. No assassin would behave that way.
An impossible two minutes schedule
Oswald then “ambled out of the room”, coke bottle in hand, and left the building at 12.35, less than five minutes after the assassination. Kennedy was shot between 12.30 and 12.31. The meeting with the police officer cannot have been later than 12.33. Two minutes to run from the window to the back of the building, clean the fingerprints off the rifle, hide it, run down four flights of stairs, find coins for the vending machine, wait for the bottle to dispense, and then turn calmly to meet the police officer. The story is ridiculous.
On leaving the building he caught a bus to make his getaway! This bus was in fact his usual one to get home after work. That bus route was due to go back to the site of the assassination at Dealey Plaza. Some getaway.
As you would expect, the bus got caught in the traffic jam that was part of the chaos resulting from the shooting. Oswald then stepped off the bus and walked two blocks south and hailed a taxi. After he got in the cab an old woman appeared and asked the driver to call another for her. According to the driver, Oswald then offered his cab – his getaway vehicle from the murder of the century – to the old woman. “You have this one”, he said. “No the driver can call it”, she said.
Once his taxi reached his given destination, which was not his lodging, being five blocks distant, Oswald walked to his rooms, went in and picked up his jacket, and, according to the Dallas Police, a pistol. His landlady, who cleaned the tiny room weekly, vigorously denied that any pistol had ever been in her house. Oswald cannot have carried it with him as he was in shirtsleeves only right from the time he left the Book Depository.
The landlady placed his return at “about 1 pm” but it cannot have been earlier than 1:06. He then went to another bus stop, waiting patiently for a bus. That cannot have been earlier than 1:09. After a short wait, he was observed to leave the bus stop, walking in the direction of Jack Ruby’s apartment. The police account next placed him at the scene of the murder of Patrolman Tippit, eleven blocks from the bus stop, at 1:18 – a physical impossibility. Contemporary newspaper reports reported that shooting as 1:15 – even more impossible.
But the key witness to Tippit’s killing, Mrs Markham, put the time at 1:06, which she swore to in her affidavit to the police. Further, her description of the killer does not fit with Oswald. She describes a “stocky man with bushy hair”, calmly talking to the officer through the window of the car. Tippit then got out, whereupon the unknown male shot him.
Various descriptions of Harvey’s arrest
Oswald is next to be found six blocks away at the Texas Theatre, where he was arrested at about 2 pm. No-one saw him between either the bus stop or the scene of Officer Tippit’s murder, and the movie house. Nothing would indicate that Oswald had any idea he was being hunted for Tippit’s murder.
The manager of a shoe store saw Oswald go into the theatre, and went to the cashier to ask if he had paid. She replied, “By golly, he didn’t” and at that point they decided this failure to pay was serious and decided to flag down the police. At 1:45, a call went out that the murderer of Tippit (not a non-paying cinema customer) was in the theatre and fifteen officers converged on the theatre.
Police officers variously described a vicious struggle, in which Oswald tried to shoot an officer in the head, or struck one with his fist, or gave himself up “without making too much trouble”. It is at this point that Oswald’s pistol appears in the police record, in a very confused manner. It could have been planted.
The official story of Oswald’s post-assassination movements, Tippit’s murder, and his arrest, simply does not hang together. Similarly, his actions and behaviour immediately after the assassination are not the actions of a killer who faced the electric chair if apprehended. They are much more the actions of a guy at work who begins to see a very confusing situation developing – “a patsy” to use the words of Oswald himself.
Next article – Who really was Lee Harvey Oswald?
