Talk:Assassination of John F. Kennedy/Archive 18

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Archive 18

Claim that agent Hickey shot the president by accident

An editor or two have tried several times to include information about the claim that Agent Hickey, in the follow-up car to the presidential limo, accidentally discharged his weapon and fired the shot which killed Kennedy.

This has been removed by me and others on several occasions, and there are several good reasons to keep this out.

1- this is a fringe theory, and has been widely debunked by other researchers. This page isn't the place for fringe theories.

2- photographic evidence shows Hickey seated and therefore not in a position to fire the shot (photos immediately after the assassination show the follow-up car's windshield intact - a shot would have had to pierced the windshield to have hit Kennedy.)

Contrary to the claim of the poster, there indeed IS photographic evidence - in the Bronson film - which shows Kennedy at the moment of the fatal shot AND Hickey still seated in his car. Canada Jack (talk) 17:36, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Agreed. Theory is covered John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories. Joegoodfriend (talk) 17:49, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

I looked at the distant and blurry Bronson film shot with a shaky handheld 8mm amateur camera and it did not prove anything as far as I can see. If you visit the JFK-Donahue Theory webpage - http://jfk-donahue.weebly.com/the-bronson-film.html - and read its contents you will see that this (and single images extracted from this film) cannot reasonably be used as evidence that Hickey did not shoot JFK, while the accidental discharge theory is entirely plausible as Hickey is the only other person known to be in possession of a rifle in Dealey Plaza when JFK was shot and was in close proximity and behind JFK when he was shot in the head.

The overwhelming majority of witnesses reported hearing three shots, with the majority of witnesses also saying that the second and third shots were fired in close succession so could not both have been fired by Oswald who was using a bolt action rifle - http://jfkthelonegunmanmyth.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/misrepresenting-shooting-sequence.html These witness testimonies are backed up by the Dictabelt recording from an open police microphone - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq-ZJ99qaCc

Thus the theory is entirely plausible, as can be seen by watching the documentary 'JFK: The Smoking Gun'?' by Colin McLaren - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2945784/ - and not a ludicrous fringe theory like he was killed by Nazis who wanted revenge for losing WW2, or a plot by time travelling aliens, neither of which have any supporting evidence whatsoever. Where are the images that supposedly "prove" that Hickey did not shoot JFK? There are none that I have found but feel free to correct me. I would also like to know if editors who oppose any reference to this theory in this Wikipedia article have seen McLaren's documentary. CodeBadger (talk) 05:11, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

• Your sources aren't reliable, and your original research not appropriate in an encyclopedia. Nor is this talk page a forum to discuss a fringe theory. Thank you, Drmies (talk) 05:13, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time to reply. Odd that you don't think a published book ('JFK-Smoking-Gun'), a documentary based on the book with the same name that was co-commissioned by the Special Broadcasting Service (a government funded broadcaster in Australia), and the dictabelt evidence "aren't reliable" in your mind, but apparently have an altogether different view about a blurry 8mm film that no reasonable person could present as evidence of anything. Wikipedia states that "articles should be based on reliable, published sources" and I provided a reliable published source in the form of the book published by Hachette Australia which the documentary is based on. You assert that the accidental shooting theory is a "fringe theory", but Wikipedia states that "fringe theories are ideas which depart significantly from a prevailing or mainstream theory", in this case that there was a lone assassin, but the accidental shooting theory does not change the mainstream theory that Oswald was likely the only person who tried to kill JFK. As a matter of interest, have you seen the documentary or read the book? CodeBadger (talk) 06:18, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

I looked at the distant and blurry Bronson film shot with a shaky handheld 8mm amateur camera and it did not prove anything as far as I can see. Others disagree. Close analysis of Bronson's film shows Hickey not yet standing at the moment of the fatal shot, but rising shortly afterwards, therefore the theory is not only unlikely, it's impossible.

The overwhelming majority of witnesses reported hearing three shots, with the majority of witnesses also saying that the second and third shots were fired in close succession The witnesses who actually saw the sniper in the TSBD window report he fired those last two shots. The shots may have been "closer in succession," but given the testimony about the actual sniper, since he was seen doing it obviously could be done. Further, the vast majority of witnesses heard shots coming from a single direction, again casting doubt on the plausibility of the Hickey shot - we'd expect a good number of witnesses to report shots coming from several directions, especially witnesses who were between Hickey and the TSBD - and there were many.

For this and other reasons it is indeed a "fringe" theory. And it certainly was not part of the Warren Commission or HSCA findings.

Besides all that, this page is a general overview of the assassination centred around the major findings of the two main investigations. Even if the theory is on its face plausible (though not proven), it is one of only perhaps 100s of theories about what "really" happened. Unless a new investigaion concludes that, indeed, Hickey fired the fatal shot, or a shot at all, it resides on the fringe theory page. Otherwise, we'd be giving more credence to this theory than to an explanation as to why the Warren Commission thought Oswald shot Kennedy, surely a more fundamental aspect of the assassination than this pet theory of a few, so the "weight" policy also applies. Canada Jack (talk) 16:11, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. You cling to the blurry 8mm film which is not evidence of anything, and the handful of witnesses who allegedly saw Oswald fire two shots, which does not mean Hickey did not fire the third shot. It is notoriously difficult to tell which direction gunfire came from in an urban situation due to buildings which can greatly impact the perception of where a gunshot originated from. As noted above, Wikipedia states that "fringe theories are ideas which depart significantly from a prevailing or mainstream theory", in this case being that there was likely a lone assassin, but the accidental shooting theory does not change the mainstream theory that Oswald was likely the only assassin as Hickey is only claimed to have accidentally shot JFK so is not a "second assassin" because there was not criminal intent to assassinate JFK. As a matter of interest, have you seen the documentary or read the book? CodeBadger (talk) 06:18, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. You cling to the blurry 8mm film which is not evidence of anything, Actually, it is. It's been closely analyzed by many and shows Hickey still seated at the time of the fatal shot, which makes the theory impossible. He only rose AFTER the fatal shot, which matches witness testimony.

and the handful of witnesses who allegedly saw Oswald fire two shots, which does not mean Hickey did not fire the third shot. You imply these witnesses who saw a sniper were lying? Several witnesses SAW the TSBD sniper fire the final shots, period. Brennan, who the CT crowd like to dismiss owing to his refusal to ID Oswald initially, nevertheless stated he saw the sniper take his final shot, as did Amos Lee Euins who heard the first shot, and saw the sniper fire the 2nd and 3rd shots. These two witnesses did not hear shots from elsewhere.

It is notoriously difficult to tell which direction gunfire came from... Sure, but you'd have us believe that a shot from a completely different location than the TSBD would be perceived as coming from the same direction the other shots came from (95% said shots came from one direction), yet fired from the middle of Elm Street, no less. THAT is not credible. Further, NO WITNESSES - NONE - claim a shot came from the trailing vehicle, NO ONE says an agent fired his rifle - surely someone would have noticed this? Like the agents in the car itself? Someone watching the motorcade from behind as it went down Elm? (You may note I used the same "one direction" argument against the knoll theory, but the virtue of the knoll claims is there are multiple witnesses who at least claim to have heard shots from there, unlike the Hickey theory.)

As for your comments on fringe theories - which is in the end the main reason why this theory should not reside on this page - you argue that this theory would not be different from the WC/HSCA conclusions as Oswald was the assassin and Hickey's actions were accidental, therefore there was no criminal intent. No, that doesn't wash. The theory is that Hickey killed the president, whether by accident or whatever is neither here nor there, because this notion is completely absent from the conclusions of both the WC and the HSCA. And while it is not a "conspiracy theory," it is still a fringe theory as it reaches a far different conclusion than the main investigations.

Don't be misled by the notion that a "fringe theory" is some intrinsically ridiculous or implausible scenario. It for the purposes of wikipedia stands for a theory which stands outside the mainstream understanding of the subject, in this case, the official interpretation of what happened that day in Dallas. Putting aside the objections I made, and assuming for the sake of argument that the case that Hickey shot JFK is airtight and clearly correct, the theory would STILL not be allowed on this page until it can be shown that this has become the mainstream official explanation of the assassination (or the generally accepted accurate explanation, supplanting some of the conclusions of the other investigations). This theory is nowhere near that threshold, even if accurate.

As a matter of interest, have you seen the documentary or read the book? No. Canada Jack (talk) 00:06, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. Much appreciated. You made some excellent points. I had hoped you will watch the documentary ‘JFK: The Smoking Gun’, as I would like your views on the accidental shooting theory by Bonar Menninger and Colin McLaren’s expansion of this theory with his evidence of this accident being covered up.

I accept that most people consider the accidental shooting theory a “fringe theory” so should not be noted in the main article as this would give this theory far too much weight. I shall merely note this theory in the ‘Fringe theories’ subsection. As the accidental shooting theory is not a conspiracy theory it cannot be placed in a ‘Conspiracy theory’ subsection, so I renamed this subsection rather than add a separate ‘Accidental shooting theory’ subsection which would have given too much weight to the accidental shooting theory. The ‘Fringe theories’ subsection will allow other non-conspiracy theories to be noted, not just the accidental shooting theory, along with conspiracy theories. CodeBadger (talk) 04:26, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

This material has been removed again. I believe this is number 6 or 7 for CodeBadger alone, and [removed] by at least 4 different editors. It's not a question of whether it should be go in as a realistic theory, or labelled as a conspiracy theory or as fringe theory, it's a question of whether it should be in this article at all. Based on the number of times it has been removed, the number of different editors who have done so, and the comments above by other editors it appears there is no consensus to include it. There is an article devoted to fringe and conspiracy theories and this material is already covered there. Meters (talk) 09:36, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. As a matter of interest, have you seen the documentary 'JFK: The Smoking Gun'? CodeBadger (talk) 01:53, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, this is getting tiresome. In terms of weight, this theory carries very little, at least in comparison to some of the main conspiracy theories which is why, if we are to include it here, it warrants a sentence at most, NOT a separate section AND a photo of the agent (both of which I earlier removed). There are literally HUNDREDS of theories of what "really" happened, which is why on this page we focus on the conclusions of the two major investigations, and mention that there are conspiracy theories, without delving into them in any detail. To include a photo AND a separate section on this is wildly out of proportion to the prominence of this theory, at least in comparison to, say, claims of a knoll assassin or involvement by the mafia/CIA etc. As I said above, even if for the sake of argument this theory was obviously correct and iron-clad in its conclusions, it would only warrant inclusion if many sources said as much. Canada Jack (talk) 19:34, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. In hindsight it was not a good idea to include a separate subsection and photo for the accidental shooting theory as it gives this theory too much weight, so I will only include a short reference to it in a single sentence in the Conspiracy theories section as you suggested. As a matter of interest, will you watch the documentary 'JFK: The Smoking Gun'? CodeBadger (talk) 01:53, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

I've removed it. As I said in your talk page edit warring warning Don't restore this material in any form unless you get consensus on the talk page that it should be in this article. I don't see consensus to include this. Meters (talk) 02:19, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

I and Canada Jack think a short reference to the accidental shooting theory in the Conspiracy theories section should be included. Thus unless somebody else supports you then the consensus (2 to 1) is that it should be included. CodeBadger (talk) 02:37, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

This has been removed multiple times by several different editors. I don't see User:Canada Jack's comments above as agreement that this should be included. Let's let him say what he means, and let's let the other editors who have removed the material comment. Meters (talk) 02:46, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. Good point. CodeBadger (talk) 02:40, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

@CodeBadger: Please be aware of a few points about the way Wikipedia works. Don't try to bolster your argument by speaking for another editor. You run the risk of misrepresenting that editor, and I believe that is exactly what you did. Other editors can speak for themselves; they don't need you trying to speak for them. Secondly, consensus is not a vote. Please carefully read both pages that I just linked. Even if there were another editor here who entirely agreed with you (and there is not), that alone would not constitute a consensus. Furthermore, as a participant in this discussion, you do not declare consensus. That is for an uninvolved editor to do. Read that page as well. Sundayclose (talk) 03:25, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. You made some excellent points while the 'consensus' and 'not a vote' articles were eye opening. CodeBadger (talk) 02:40, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

I put this note below - should be here. I'll repeat what I said yesterday.

I just want to clarify something here. At best, the claim that Hickey accidentally shot the president deserves a brief mention, not what was here for a while - a separate section, and an image showing Hickey with the rifle shortly after the assassination. However, looking at what exists now in the conspiracy section, all we have is a mention of the people and/or groups often cited as being behind the assassination, and a photo of the knoll with a reference to the fact many believe a shot or shots came from there. That's it for conspiracy (other than the HSCA dictabelt conclusion). Given that, it's hard to justify including this Hickey information which details a specific allegation when NONE of the other allegations are detailed. It therefore more properly resides on the conspiracy theories page. An adjustment to the lede there could readily mention that, while not a conspiracy theory, the claim the assassination was in part an accident has also been made. Again, until such time as this theory becomes a more generally accepted explanation for the fatal wound, to include it violates wikipedia's undue weight policy. Canada Jack (talk) 18:34, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. Much appreciated. As the accidental shooting theory is not a conspiracy theory it seemed to me it needed its own section or a brief reference in a Fringe theories section. That said, one could make a brief reference to it in the Conspiracy theories section as McLaren asserts that there was a conspiracy to cover up the accidental shooting, along the lines of the following:

Many conspiracy theories posit that the assassination involved people or organizations other than Lee Harvey Oswald. Most current theories put forth a criminal conspiracy involving parties as varied as the CIA, the Mafia, Vice President Johnson, Cuban President Fidel Castro, the KGB, or some combination of those entities.{144-Summers} Some conspiracy theories claim that the United States government covered up crucial information in the aftermath of the assassination, including facts that would have supported the theory that the fatal shot to the head was from driver Agent George Hickey’s AR-15 rifle which they claim accidentally discharged.{145-Menninger}{146-McLaren}

Thank you for taking the time to consider this. CodeBadger (talk) 02:40, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

I see no reason to continue this discussion. Over the last two weeks one editor is repeating the same ideas and requests again and again in the face of opposition by several editors. It's time to drop the stick. I ask that an uninvolved editor close the discussion. Sundayclose (talk) 03:43, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. You might like to consider if referring to the person you are replying to in the third person and describing me as "uninvolved" is disrespectful in light of the fact that I want to improve the article in question, thus a violation of the Wikipedia's civility and polite discourse policies. CodeBadger (talk) 00:29, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

@CodeBadger: Look again. I asked that an uninvolved editor close the discussion. That wasn't directed at you. And the last time I checked, use of third person in English is not disrespectful. What IS in fact disrespectful is violation of Wikpedia policy, which you have done, as well as misrepresenting what others say here. Sundayclose (talk) 02:17, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. Sorry about the misunderstanding about the "uninvolved editor". If you don't think a reply in which you refer to the person you are responding to in the third person is not disrespectful you are either ignorant or dishonest. CodeBadger (talk) 05:25, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Agreed. Codebanger, the Hickey mention does not warrant inclusion on this page for the reasons cited. The insistence on including a specific allegation outside of the HSCA/WC conclusions when NONE of the far more well-known allegations are detailed is attaching far too much weight to this theory, as few subscribe to this theory in comparison to the many who subscribe to the various conspiracy theories. Whether it is or is not a "conspiracy theory" per se is completely beside the point. Canada Jack (talk) 15:26, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

You make some good points. Rather than mention the accidental shooting theory directly it might be best to just note that that there are theories that involve people who unintentionally helped Oswald kill JFK, which would include the accidental shooting theory without mentioning it specifically, as follows:

Many conspiracy theories posit that the assassination involved people or organizations other than Lee Harvey Oswald who intentionally or unintentionally helped Oswald. Most current theories put forth a criminal conspiracy involving parties as varied as the CIA, the Mafia, Vice President Johnson, Cuban President Fidel Castro, the KGB, or some combination of those entities.

Thank you for your time. CodeBadger (talk) 00:29, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

What's the point of suggesting a paragraph that is already in the article in exactly that wording, and has been there in almost identical wording for at least 18 months? Stop wasting our time. Meters (talk) 00:53, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. Sorry for wasting your time. CodeBadger (talk) 05:25, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

CodeBadger (sorry about the unintended spelling error above), you are missing the point. There are literally A THOUSAND-PLUS authors etc who claim the CIA/Mafia/whomever were behind a conspiracy to kill the president. In contrast, there are, what? FIVE who claim Hickey did it? A very tiny number, whatever it is. To change the line to "many conspiracy theories posit [others] ...who intentionally or unintentionally helped Oswald" is not only grossly exaggerating the reality of what's being claimed (virtually NONE claim anyone "unintentionally" helped Oswald) AND... it's simply not true that "many" conspiracy theories posit others helped Oswald - very few in fact claim Oswald actually fired any shots! Likely something like 90% of the conspiracy theories claim Oswald had nothing to do with it!

Your attempts to gain a consensus to include the Hickey information have failed, so it's time to stop beating that dead horse. Canada Jack (talk) 03:39, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time to reply. Two authors (Menninger and McLaren) claim in their books that Hickey accidentally shot JFK in the head, thus unintentionally helped kill JFK. As this accidental shooting theory is not a conspiracy theory, where in Wikipedia do you think it would be appropriate to note this fringe theory by these two authors? A fringe theories page relating to the JFK assassination that incorporated all fringe theories including conspiracy theories and the accidental shooting theory? CodeBadger (talk) 05:25, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Please stop. We have an article that covers fringe theories. The article already covers Menninger's theory. You know this because you replied to User:Joegoodfriend's post saying htat and linking to the article almost three weeks ago in this same thread. Again, stop wasting our time. Meters (talk) 05:38, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. You are right that a Wikipedia article covers fringe theories including the accidental shooting theory - John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories. I will stop making comments in this thread as requested. CodeBadger (talk) 00:38, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Suggestion for those who want this section closed: If only one editor comments from this point forward, it is easier for an uninvolved editor to close the discussion. The more back-and-forth beating the dead horse there is, the longer a pointless discussion stays open. Just a thought. Thanks. Sundayclose (talk) 14:56, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

I know this is three months late, but I want !vote opposed to inclusion of the accidental discharge theory. Between Mortal Error and Colin McClaren, this theory has more than enough coverage in Wikipedia. That is all. - Location (talk) 01:39, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Notice

Related article is being discussed here:

Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard#CIA_Kennedy_assassination_conspiracy_theory

--David Tornheim (talk) 15:10, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

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Michael Parenti

Material cited to conspiracy believer Michael Parenti's website has been added multiple times.[1][2] The material from that website states:

Sociologist David Simone compiled a study of the books published on the Kennedy assassination, some 600 titles, and found that 20 percent of them blamed either a lone assassin or the mafia or the Cubans or Russians. The other 80 percent ascribed the assassination to a conspiracy linked to U.S. intelligence agencies, some of these also saying that mobsters were involved at the operational level. Ignoring this 80 percent of the literature, publications like the New York Times and Washington Post have listed the various theories about the JFK assassination as follows: (a) lone assassin, (b) mafia, (c) Cubans/Soviets, and (d) the "Oliver Stone movie theory." In other words, they ignore the existence of a vast literature from which the movie is derived and ascribe the critical theme presented within the film solely to the imagination of a film maker. The press would have us believe that the notion of a state-sponsored assassination conspiracy and coverup came out of a movie--when actually the movie was based on a rich and revealing investigative literature.

First, Michael Parenti is not a reliable source for information on the assassination of JFK. This particular section is Parenti's attempt to support the "state within a state" conspiracy. Second, the material is self-published. Third, the only hits I can find for a sociologist named "David Simone" are linked to Parenti's writings. -Location (talk) 22:28, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

Renaming "fringe theories"

"Fringe theories" is not at all appropriate as the section title. I think it should be renamed to "conspiracy theories". usernamekiran (talk) 23:39, 20 January 2017 (UTC) usernamekiran (talk) 23:39, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Renamed the section to "Conspiracy Theories", as "fringe theories" was not an appropriate title for this section. usernamekiran (talk) 20:04, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

The name was changed from 'Conspiracy theories' to 'Fringe theories' because a conspiracy theory is a type of fringe theory but not all fringe theories are conspiracy theories. That said, I have added a 'Conspiracy theories' subsection within the 'Fringe theories' section which might be more to your liking. CodeBadger (talk) 06:14, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you CodeBadger. I really appreciate what you did. Now i understand he difference between fringe and conspiracy theories. I also feel a little guilty cuz of the efforts you had to take for making he changes. I was not trying to get it to become as per my liking. I was simply trying to make it more encyclopaedic : - ) Thanks a lot again! usernamekiran (talk) 00:39, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

I hope you will support me and Canada Jack in the 'Claim that agent Hickey shot the president by accident' thread above about including a short reference to the accidental shooting theory in the Conspiracy theories section that is opposed by Meters. Thank you for your time. CodeBadger (talk) 02:36, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

As some editors don't want a Fringe theories section the accidental shooting theory should have its own section as it cannot be placed in the Conspiracy theories section as it is not a conspiracy theory (other than a brief mention in relation to there allegedly being a conspiracy to cover us this alleged accidental shooting). So I had wondered if there was consensus to have a short Accidental shooting theory section under the Conspiracy theories section along the lines of the following with an image box showing Hickey with the AR-15 rifle (which is relevant to this section and entirely fair as the Conspiracy theories section has an image box). It is short as I don't want to give this fringe theory undue weight as most fringe theories are conspiracy theories. CodeBadger (talk) 03:14, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

As I said in the thread above, It's not a question of whether it should be go in as a realistic theory, or labelled as a conspiracy theory or as fringe theory, it's a question of whether it should be in this article at all. Trying to rehash this issue in a thread about what to call the section is not appropriate. If you wish to discuss whether this material should be in the article then do so in the thread that's actually discussing that issue. I have removed your proposed section form this thread. Meters (talk) 06:20, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

My bad. Thanks for your reply. CodeBadger (talk) 01:53, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

I just want to clarify something here. At best, the claim that Hickey accidentally shot the president deserves a brief mention, not what was here for a while - a separate section, and an image showing Hickey with the rifle shortly after the assassination. However, looking at what exists now in the conspiracy section, all we have is a mention of the people and/or groups often cited as being behind the assassination, and a photo of the knoll with a reference to the fact many believe a shot or shots came from there. That's it for conspiracy (other than the HSCA dictabelt conclusion). Given that, it's hard to justify including this Hickey information which details a specific allegation when NONE of the other allegations are detailed. It therefore more properly resides on the conspiracy theories page. An adjustment to the lede there could readily mention that, while not a conspiracy theory, the claim the assassination was in part an accident has also been made. Again, until such time as this theory becomes a more generally accepted explanation for the fatal wound, to include it violates wikipedia's undue weight policy. Canada Jack (talk) 03:25, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

CodeBadger: Given the 1978 finding of the US Congress that multiple shots were fired during the assassination, accompanied by its distancing statements regarding the indeterminability of any specific details regarding whatever deadly circumstances or level of conspiracy may have been attached to the event, in the face of the usual impossibility throughout the years of getting that Congress to commit itself to any controversial dicta about anything at all -- including the obvious and serious flaws and omissions of its previous finding, The Warren Report -- can any reasonably and logistically plausible theory about the assassination's mechanics that doesn't involve obvious idiocy like yahoos from other realms of space & time or like entities, really be casually called or classified as a "fringe theory," with the phrase's inescapable connotations of absurdity, ridiculousness, and irrational speculation (when its not discussing the tailoring of rugs or draperiess) be appropriate for a supposedly "neutral" article? As I teach my university classes on argumentation, neutrality is completely impossible when it uses & thereby accepts as appropriate the use of rhetorical and logical fallacies as this kind of loaded language essays. I don't mean to be trivial when pointing this out, as I am aware through many years of studying the various theories surrounding it on an academic level, that many of them seem unfounded in their logical truths, and others seem more intent on sensationalizing things in an attempt to cash in on the seemingly-going-dormant phenomena of speculation about the event, but to use a prejudicial categorical in a realm of facts, however satisfying its application may be, can never be an error on the side of truth. The most important way to treat such unexplained events may indeed be to disclaim certain proposed narratives, but ridiculing them has the unfortunate effect of closing off discourse on their very subject matter, as Gerald Posner so notoriously did in his book "Case Closed" (given his previous bibliography), itself an obvious attempt to cash in on the assassination, once the great majority of people had come to believe it was of course a conspiracy -- by offering up a theory claiming it was not. (I once taught a quite lively junior/senior-level university course on the fictions [specifically, novels] generated by the assassination, and while we did not, of course, treat the "theories" contained in our course texts as truthful, the examination of their construction was quite beneficial to thinking clearly and critically about situations such as surround the JFK assassination, with the more unbelievable examples just as necessary to the matter as the more believable arguments). Now I am quite aware that the heading "fringe theories" has been removed, and rightly so. My purpose here is merely to help you develop a more complete idea of what constitutes a "fringe theory" about an unexplained evert, and what does not. In most cases the phrase is best applied to handbooks on constructing draperies and rugs. Thank you for reading. Rtelkin (talk) 20:53, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

A few comments on the above. ...the usual impossibility throughout the years of getting that Congress to commit itself to any controversial dicta about anything at all... Yet that same Congress concluded there had been a likely conspiracy. While they did not indentify any specific players, there was a good reason for that - there was no compelling evidence to tie any of the usual suspects to Oswald and the events of Dealey Plaza. So, this is not a case of a wishy-washy timid committee afraid to get too controversial: it was a case of a committee making the intellectually honest decision that the evidence was not strong enough to make any conclusion on who the culprits were.

As for the general comments about the flaws of the Warren Commission and the HSCA itself, this ignores the fact that whatever happened that day in Dallas wasn't altered by the incompentence or what have you of those investigative bodies and others involved in the events. The Bethesda autopsy surgeons may have been out of their depth, for example, but subsequent panels of experts all agree that they came to the correct conclusions, given the evidence.

As for what makes a theory "fringe," that's not so nearly subjective as Rtelkin likes to pretend it is. It is not merely a denial of what the "official" theories conclude; it is a rejection of most of the evidence with which those conclusions have been made, indeed of the very basis of standard detective work and forensic investigations. The Hickey claim is a case in point. This is a "fringe" theory not merely because it is at odds with what the WC/HSCA conclude, but because it requires one to reject - or simply ignore - the reams of evidence and testing done which concluded that the fatal bullet was indeed fired from Oswald's rifle and fired from the direction of the TSBD. IOW, it makes a claim without addressing countervailing evidence, very strong countervailing evidence, I might add. Further, it is "fringe" as it makes a claim with no other evidence other than it seemingly occured to someone that, hey, maybe the shot came accidently from a trailing vehicle. There were no witnesses who claimed Hickey fired the shot, indeed I am aware of ZERO reports of claims the shots were heard from the direction of that vehicle, or any other evidence, for that matter, which suggests that the shot came Hickey. A claim with zero evidence backing it up is rightly considered "fringe," especially given all the other evidence establishing a different trajectory for the fatal shot which doesn't match the purported Hickey shot. Further, the authors seemingly think the onus is not on them to show the veracity of the theory, anticipating the objections, but on the critics to prove their theory wrong, another hallmark of "fringe" theories.

And this applies to nearly all of the claims which are considered "fringe." But they often go further. When presented with the evidence that establishes a single sniper, no other snipers, and shots from the rear hitting Kennedy, the fringe theorists often dismiss this evidence as forged or planted. If they had evidence for these claims, they might have a case, but they don't and these claims of forgery and tampering are more reasonably seen as explaining away rather than addressing counter-evidence. Indeed, more often than not, claims which have been thoroughly examined and found wanting - say, that the photos of Oswald with the rifle were forged - are nevertheless STILL repeated as being "ignored" by the very bodies which have long since debunked them.

"Fringe" theories are considered as such for ignoring the evidence which firmly establishes the scenarios spelled out by the WC and HSCA. ANd while both investigations have rightly come under withering scrutiny, their basic conclusions (save for the dictabelt evidence) has withstood the test of time. "Fringe" theories promote scenarios which often lack any evidence at all, while ignoring countervailing evidence, and most often make conclusions on the basis of what group stood to gain from Kennedy's death instead of how said groups were actually connected to Oswald and/or the events of that day in Dallas. Canada Jack (talk) 16:56, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

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Puff of smoke

Earl of Arundel has inserted several times text which seeks to buttress S.M. Holland's claim he saw a puff of smoke arise from the grassy knoll. As it stood, the text has him saying he saw a puff of smoke arise from the grassy knoll area, and when he ran around the corner to the back area of the fence he saw no one running from that area. Fine as it stood.

But to expand this section with supposedly corroborative testimony falls apart when it is realized multiple witnesses saw smoke... but either non-specified or from in front of the TSBD, not the grassy knoll, including one of the very witnesses Earl used to corroborate Holland!

One witness Earl cites is Austin Miller. But says he saw a puff of "smoke or steam" "coming from a group of trees north of Elm off the railway tracks." This could be at any point along about 100 yards of Elm Street. And his WC testimony makes no mention of the smoke/steam. This does not corroborate a claim the smoke came from the area of the grassy knoll.

Another witness cited, James Simmons, while explicit at the Clay Shaw trial in 1969 that the smoke came from the knoll, told the FBI at the time of the assassination that the smoke was from the embankment in front of the TSBD, which sounds like the pergola.

Finally, he also cites Nolan Potter. But Potter said this to the FBI: "POTTER said he recalls seeing smoke in front of the Texas School Book Depository Building rising above the trees." Potter was one of many witnesses who Mark Lane took liberties with, suggesting he said smoke came from the knoll even though he didn't say that.

Naturally, not mentioned at all is another witness, Clemon Earl Johnson, who also said he saw "white smoke" from "near near the pavilion," which likely is the pergola in front of the TSBD, but he felt this was from a motorcycle exhaust.

So, of three witnesses cited, two said the steam was in front of the TSBD (though one changed that testimony 6 years later), and the other wasn't specific.

Given the above, there is no "corroboration," therefore the line "Other witnesses also recounted seeing smoke from from this area." is not substantiated by the links as one specifies another location, a second is non-specific and the third while saying "knoll" in 1969 initially said another location. And this is without going into the utter implausibility of seeing smoke from a modern rifle on a blustery day from 75 yards or so. Canada Jack (talk) 00:24, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

@Canada Jack: The "Aftermath in Dealy Plaza" section appears to present undue bias to a conspiracy angle by mentioning that police and spectators ran to the knoll and the fence in search of gunmen while failing to mention that others were running to the TSBD. It fails to mention that Officer Baker went into the TBSD and met Truly. The only thing the article states about Truly is that he later reported Oswald missing. -Location (talk) 18:06, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

True. Since the only sniper seen that day was firing from the TSBD, and most witnesses heard shots from that direction, the section should start with the witnesses who saw the sniper, Baker etc going to the building, then follow with the others who went to the knoll where no one was seen firing. As I have frequently noted, logically, if virtually every witness reported ALL the shots coming from a particular direction but the only sniper seen was the one in the TSBD, then others who thought ALL the shots were fired from someplace else were confused by the acoustics of the plaza. If not so, how could those who said the ALL shots came from the knoll NOT have heard the shots we know - as we have multiple witnesses who actually saw the TSBD sniper firing - were fired from the building? Canada Jack (talk) 20:37, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Oh come now, CJ! You're correct in saying that smoke from a modern rifle couldn't be seen from that distance, but he could have been firing a musket. You shouldn't rule anything out on an assumption. --Pete (talk) 22:09, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

You are aware of my Yosemite Sam grassy knoll sniper theory, are you not, Skyring? Canada Jack (talk) 13:59, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

That's simply not consistent with the available evidence. Sam typically carried two smoking pistols. I have seen an image of Sam carrying a blunderbuss (i.e. image), but I'm skeptical he could have made the shot given that it is a weapon of limited range and he was a very poor marksman. -Location (talk) 19:01, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

I totally agree with Location. Sam is also known to be sort of clumsy, and short tempered; making him a bad "secret" assassin. So there are very thin chances of anybody hiring him. Unless he was there on his own initiative. But i cant imagine why he would want to assassinate JFK. I still think it was Leonardo DiCaprio. He was even seen in Dealey Palaza on that day. —usernamekiran(talk) 20:54, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Yuri Nosenko's interviews disclosed

As per the JFK act, Nosenko's interviews related to JFK assassination were released 2-3 days ago. If anybody is interested, the files can be found at https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/2017-release —usernamekiran(talk) 01:28, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

President Trump`s decision to allow declassification of investigation files

Not a forum or a conspiracy site. Patience. This is an encyclopedia.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
According to President Trump`s twitter message, he will allow release of files. This is scheduled for the day after tomorrow (26th October, 2017), and consists of thousands of pages of redacted documents and fully witheld documents, currently protectively marked, Secret, (Top Secret?), classified, etc,etc, and should stimulate significant and wholesale improvements to the wikipedia articles. It will be certainly interesting to see what is in those documents, but don't hold your breath if you are expecting some "smoking gun" here in terms of a conspiracy. We may instead, in addition to seeing how spooks operated in the era, and who was spying for them, see an indication that the CIA, for one, saw in Oswald a threat on the ground, but in terms of the agency, a dismissal of that threat. So, much like the 1975 FBI revelation that a threatening note from Oswald was delivered to the Dallas FBI shortly before the assassination, we are most likely if anything to see a greater level of interest in Oswald reflected at the time that has not been revealed before, and the resultant after-the-fact questions as to why the CIA so incompetenly did nothing. While some say THAT would be an indication of conspiracy, it most likely would come down to simple incompetence. But, this is all idle speculation... maybe there will be a memo akin to the famous one Condie Rice dismissed before 9-11 describing a plot to slam planes into buildings... Something like "Marxist Oswald tells Cubans he will kill Kennedy for them," with some CIA guy saying this is an idle threat... Canada Jack (talk) 20:53, 24 October 2017 (UTC) Without speculation, it is time to end (the practice of so-called "free-press" aquiescing to) Nuclear ambiguity. About Cuba, the only thing that comes to mind is marX-rays must have taken effect on the US Embassy staff, or it was ACID from Rafi Eitan`s extensive citrus plantations, some of which are located on land which Meyer Lansky had interest in (yes, in Cuba) prior to donating the mobs Cigarette boats to the fledgling israeli state. But hey, hollywood makes blockbusters, and wikipidia`s article on JFK was not written with a full deck, or a bunch of nuts huggling in a camp X`ing or tripping out at Bugsy flying around. Whoever did the deed did it so well, that after it was done all that remained about Oswald was either double-vision or blurred-vision, or just smoke and mirrors that still get whoever tries to really look into it really dizzy to this very day, almost 55 years later. And then also, whatever happened there, got tidied up and cleaned up so well by J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI after it was done, that there is not much new anymore that can ever be discovered about it. No, the American obsession with Castro's Cuban revolution that led to the deed being done in the first place, was just replaced with the obsession about Oswald and conspiracies that will linger on until the end of the American "century," whenever that is. warshy (¥¥) 21:51, 24 October 2017 (UTC) Intersting point warshy , I will give it though while i review the diclosure dossier, hopefully have a presentable new section on "2017 Disclosure" for your approval within the fortnight. Canada Jack `s suggestion has already been considered extensively, although it remains to be seen (baited breath) whether there will be any goodies about Oswald or Bugsy and Lanskey; who knows, could be a whole new take on an Israeli Missile Crisis. The dossier has been disclosed, I see that Wikipedia has decided to pretend it is not real.24.181.175.144 (talk) 05:32, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

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"To Be a Conspiracy or Not To Be" Suggestion

How is it that it was determined that there was no conspiracy multiple times, and yet Shaw was tried for conspiracy in the assassination? I think a section on this might be useful.

Also, there is documentation showing that it was a Mafia hit. Please reference the book "Paddy Whacked" by T.J. English which details, in the chapter "The Patriarch", the series of events that put Joe Kennedy in close connection with the Mafia since at least Prohibition (he made part of his fortune smuggling booze from Canada to the Mafia), then later with Joe using the Mafia to get JFK elected, then double-crossing the Mafia, followed by both Bobby and John going after the Mafia and then the inevitable assassinations. In that chapter, and later in the book, there are quotes from former Mafia members which first hint at and then admit to it as having been a hit for the betrayals and the (deserved) witch hunt of the Mafia. I have the book and can provide the quotes if someone wants to make use of this source.ReveurGAM (talk) 01:38, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

First of all, Clay Shaw was acquitted. Secondly, Shaw was prosecuted by Jim Garrison, an irresponsible conspiracy theorist. As for T.J. English, he seems to be hinting these days that it was Cuban organized crime figures who killed JFK, not the Mafia. Which is it, in English's imagination? Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 01:50, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

I heard Hillary did it. Right after he came down from Mt. Everest. O3000 (talk) 02:05, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Even if a description of this conspiracy theory is warranted, it would not be on this page, but on the John_F._Kennedy_assassination_conspiracy_theories page. There is an entire section devoted to various Mafia/organzied crime theories. Canada Jack (talk) 16:36, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

suggested changes to opening sentence

• From John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, was assassinated on Friday, November 22, 1963, at 12:30 p.m. in Dallas, Texas, while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza.
• to Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, took place on Friday, November 22, 1963, at 12:30 p.m. in Dallas, Texas, while he was riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza.

• what do you folks think? —usernamekiran(talk) 07:30, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

It seem to me that this is an attempt to force the article title into the first sentence of the lead. That is fine if it lends itself to natural, readable prose. In this case, it results in prose that is strange and stilted, so I oppose this change. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 07:40, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

@Cullen328: now that i read it for a few times again, it does look odd. It would look natural/not odd if we remove "the 35th President of the United States". But i don't think that would be a good idea. I think we should leave it as it is. This change came to my mind because of this edit. —usernamekiran(talk) 07:57, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Notice to IP and Newly Registered Users

Due to persistent long term disruptive editing I have reluctantly protected this article so that only WP:auto-confirmed editors may edit here. If you wish to contribute to this article please consider signing up for a WP:ACCOUNT. Otherwise you may request edits here on the talk page. I apologize for any inconvenience. -Ad Orientem (talk) 00:58, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 18 November 2018

Change

"John F. Kennedy"

to

<a href="/wiki/John_F._Kennedy" title="John F. Kennedy">John F. Kennedy</a>

in deaths section 24.228.152.64 (talk) 22:09, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

 Not done We do not use html but rather wiki markup.
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 22:16, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

JFK Assassination Files Disclosure

The conspiracy theory section is not an appropriate place to mention the October 26th, 2017 release of new information. The entire article needs to be rewritten in light of the new facts present. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.181.175.144 (talk) 05:26, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any new fact disclosed which would change any of the conclusions presented on this page. Perhaps you could be more specific? Canada Jack (talk) 14:03, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Paragraph 4, sentence 2 states "The Committee was not able to identify any individuals or groups involved with the possible conspiracy." This sentence appears to be false, as the HSCA specifically identified Carlos Marcello and Santos Trafficante as having the means, motive, and opportunity to assassinate JFK, stating "The committee found that Trafficante, like Marcello, had the motive, means, and opportunity to assassinate President Kennedy." (Source:) These HSCA findings were supported by alleged confessions from Marcello in 1985 to an FBI informant and Trafficante in 1987 to his attorney, Frank Ragano. (Sources: )

It seems that paragraph 4, sentence 2 should be updated to "The Committee found that Carlos Marcello and Santos Trafficante had the means, motive, and opportunity to assassinate president Kennedy." (Source:) Nopoliticsatthetable (talk) 06:19, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Saying someone had motive means and opportunity to carry out the assassination is an entirely different thing than saying these people were involved in the actual assassination. Any competent judge would say "okay, Carlos wanted him dead, and had the means to carry it out. But where is the evidence that he actually had him killed?" Besides, the committee did leave the door open for the possibility that individuals in some of the organizations many have claimed may have had a role.

The full HSCA summary spells this out: Based on the evidence available to it, the committee could not preclude the possibility that individual members of anti-Castro Cuban groups or the national syndicate of organized crime were involved in the assassination. There was insufficient evidence, however, to support a finding that any individual members were involved. The ramifications of a conspiracy involving such individuals would be significant, although of perhaps less import than would be the case if a group itself, the national syndicate, for example had been involved. Canada Jack (talk) 18:52, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the response Canada Jack. I think we agree that the 1979 HSCA found insufficient evidence, at the time, to support a finding that any individual member was involved in a conspiracy to assassinate JFK. But paragraph 4, sentence 2 specifically states "The Committee was not able to identify any individuals or groups involved with the possible conspiracy." The HSCA did identify individuals such as Marcello and Trafficante that were involved in the "possible conspiracy", but did not have enough evidence at the time to find that they were involved in an actual "conspiracy" to assassinate JFK. That is why the sentence appears to be misleading/incorrect.

In response to your question "Any competent judge would say "okay, Carlos wanted him dead, and had the means to carry it out. But where is the evidence that he actually had him killed?". As stated earlier, these HSCA findings were supported by alleged confessions from Marcello in 1985 to an FBI informant and Trafficante in 1987 to his attorney, Frank Ragano.

Sources list which were wrapped in ref tags earlier:

https://apnews.com/80182423bc7a738bde2714580b1ba911 https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-684-19568-1 https://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/images/c/ce/Pict_legacyofsecrecy_marcelloconfession.jpg http://jackvanlaningham.com/bio.html

Note - The 1985 Marcello confession FBI report image is hosted at https://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/images/c/ce/Pict_legacyofsecrecy_marcelloconfession.jpg given that the National Archives does not yet have an online link for this operation CAMTEX FBI report. According to Legacy of Secrecy co-author Lamar Waldron, the document can be found in person at the National Archives as record DL 283A-1035-Sub L. Jack Vanlaningham confirmed that he was the undercover FBI informant that recorded Marcello's confession and many other conversations with Marcello over a 2 year period in Texarcana prison, sometimes sharing a prison cell with him.

Nopoliticsatthetable (talk) 19:35, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

The problem here is you are trying to characterize the HSCA conclusions in a way they don't characterize it. The line at issue says: "The Committee was not able to identify any individuals or groups involved with the possible conspiracy." So is that a fair characterization of what the committee said? They said: "The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. The committee is unable to identify the other gunman or the extent of the conspiracy." And... "The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that anti-Castro Cuban groups, as groups, were not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy, but that the available evidence does not preclude the possibility that individual members may have been involved.... The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that the national syndicate of organized crime, as a group, was not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy, but that the available evidence does not preclude the possibility that individual members may have been involved."

What you are doing is trying to elevate the part about "means, motive and opportunity" in regards to Trafacante etc to something that negates the very conclusions of the report. They quite clearly say that "on the basis of the evidence available to it, that anti-Castro Cuban groups, as groups, were not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy, but that the available evidence does not preclude the possibility that individual members may have been involved.... and "The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that the national syndicate of organized crime, as a group, was not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy, but that the available evidence does not preclude the possibility that individual members may have been involved."

IOW, this is a POV assertion - YOU are claiming they have "identified" possible players, despite the fact the conclusions of the report state the precise opposite while saying evidence doesn't preclude the involvements of certain individuals. If this was not so, then why not mention in the conclusions that the committee had identified players who were possibly involved? Because, as the committee stated, they lacked the evidence and "means, motive and opportunity" is not evidence of anything.

As well, here is what the HSCA actually said: "(6) Carlos Marcello.--The committee found that Marcello had the motive, means and opportunity to have President John F. Kennedy assassinated, (263) though it was unable to establish direct evidence of Marcello's complicity." and... "The committee found, in the context of its duty to be cautious in its evaluation of the evidence, that it is unlikely that Trafficante plotted to kill the President, although it could not rule out the possibility of such participation on the basis of available evidence."

"As stated earlier, these HSCA findings were supported by alleged confessions from Marcello in 1985 to an FBI informant..." And therein lies your error. The original quote characterizes the conclusions of the HSCA, while you are citing a confession made years after the report which is, obviously, not part of the report. The relevant question is: Does the line fairly represent the conclusions of the HSCA? I have shown it does, this despite what years later may have been said. Canada Jack (talk) 20:54, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

This wikipedia article claims to be about the "Assassination of John F Kennedy" and doesn't mention Carlos Marcello or Santos Trafficante a single time, even in the expanded section on the HSCA. It definitely doesn't mention their alleged confessions in 1985 and 1987. The article isn't only about the HSCA conclusions, and leaves out these later confessions that support some of what the HSCA found in 1979 regarding Marcello and Trafficante's potential involvement (Also, I never asserted the 1985 and 1987 confessions were part of the 1979 HSCA report, only that it's findings were later supported by these confessions).

You stated "The relevant question is: Does the line fairly represent the conclusions of the HSCA? I have shown it does, this despite what years later may have been said."

This is incorrect. The relevant question is "Does this article truthfully describe what is publicly known about the assassination of JFK?" The answer is no. Even if the question were "Does the line fairly represent the conclusions of the HSCA?", the answer would still be no, as it leaves out critical information from the HSCA's own report and related updates that weaken the validity of the Warren Commission report.

The next question is who has the ability to correct a locked down article such as this one with misleading/incorrect information in it?

Nopoliticsatthetable (talk) 23:33, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

"The relevant question is 'Does this article truthfully describe what is publicly known about the assassination of JFK?' The answer is no." Ah, so I've shown how you were incorrect by posting the relevant omissions you made from the HSCA report and now you move the goalposts. But in terms of what is "publicly known" about the assassination, we on this page simply go by the conclusions of the two major investigations on the assassination, with reference to the fact that claims of conspiracy have been around since nearly day one. It is not the function of this page to insert all that is "publicly known" about the assassination as in so doing the page would have to be 10 times longer.

One huge aspect not even touched on is how Oswald was tied to the crime, besides the rifle. By your logic, it is more important to include this stuff about the mafia guys then to spell out the case against Oswald. Huh? In the end, the page is more of a narrative than a breakdown of the various theories, so a) the event is described; b) the immediate aftermath and charging of Oswald and his subsequent murder; c) the various investigations and their conclusions.

"Even if the question were "Does the line fairly represent the conclusions of the HSCA?", the answer would still be no, as it leaves out critical information from the HSCA's own report and related updates that weaken the validity of the Warren Commission report."

I will post what the report said about Carlos Marcello or Santos Trafficante again, as you obviously are being fed things without actually reading the report: "(6) Carlos Marcello.--The committee found that Marcello had the motive, means and opportunity to have President John F. Kennedy assassinated, (263) though it was unable to establish direct evidence of Marcello's complicity." and "The committee found, in the context of its duty to be cautious in its evaluation of the evidence, that it is unlikely that Trafficante plotted to kill the President, although it could not rule out the possibility of such participation on the basis of available evidence."

Maybe I should highlight the conclusion again on Trafficante: "The committee found... that it is unlikely that Trafficante plotted to kill the President."

"The next question is who has the ability to correct a locked down article such as this one with misleading/incorrect information in it?" Who is being misleading? You made it sound like the HSCA basically accused the two of being involved when in fact they did not, just that it couldn't be ruled out, a massive difference.

But, again, the page functions more as a narrative on the assassination, its aftermath and the various investigations' conclusions, with links to expanded pages. There is a TON of information on this very subject, the role of the mafia/members, describing Blakely's conclusions behind Marcello's involvement. Even if we were to follow your idea and start listing those other players who may have been involved... well Bugliosi notes that by 2007, 82 individuals have been identified as having fired shots at the president. Further, as any student of the assassination would tell you, while the mob was seen as the perpetrator by many researchers in the 1970s and the 1980s (certainly by many on the HSCA), the shift now has been towards rouge elements of government agencies, LBJ, and the military-industrial complex. Canada Jack (talk) 02:06, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Since you start almost every post falsely claiming that you've proven me incorrect or accusing me of moving goalposts, I'm going to stop responding to that type of argument. But for the record, you are the one who has moved the goalpost and are incorrect (See how easy that is to say in argument, declaring yourself correct means nothing.). You asked for supporting evidence which later supported the HSCA's prior suspicions about Marcello and Trafficante, and I provided it with sources. Now you want to limit the article to what the Warren Commission and HSCA found, and only include the information that supports the Warren Commission narrative? If you want to accurately cite the HSCA, the sentence should read "The Committee was not able to identify any individuals or groups involved with the possible conspiracy, but found that Marcello and Trafficante had the means, motive, and opportunity to assassinate president Kennedy. The HSCA noted that they believed it unlikely that Trafficante plotted to kill the President" It seems you are not open to the possibility that the article needs to be updated. Therefore, we should involve other moderators and reach some kind of consensus on the issue instead of essentially debating the meaning of the word "is" and then declaring yourself correct at the end of each post. Nopoliticsatthetable (talk) 04:34, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Well, I did show you were incorrect. Not only did you misleadingly omit pertinent material about the two from the HSCA report ("The committee found... that it is unlikely that Trafficante plotted to kill the President") but you are attempting to add to a page which is basically a narrative of the assassination nonsense allegations as if they were the gospel truth. Again, on a page which barely even discusses why Oswald was seen as complicit why do the allegations about these two - and not the many dozens of others who were accused - rise to the level of inclusion not only onto the main page but into the lede itself? What makes these claims special above the many others? This logic is besides the obvious wikipedia requirement of a reliable source. And citing an author or ex-lawyer in a newspaper doesn't count as a "reliable source."

As for the claims themselves, I'm pretty amazed you are buying into b.s. that has been discredited even within the conspiracy crowd for decades. With Marcello's, one truly has to wonder how this supposed jailhouse confession would be made to someone who was apparently a complete stranger when for months in 1979 and 1980 he was under constant surveillance and even when the HSCA report was released (in 1979) he said nothing that indicated any involvement, even while he complained about RFK who "threw me out to the dogs." So, he'd lie to his close associates for months on end while under surveillance but spill his guts to someone he just met in a jailhouse yard? If you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn for you. And, may I note, Jack Van Laningham seems even less credible given the fact that the "evidence" in regards to Hoffa/JFK he secured from Marcello did not result in any charges or followup. Surely, the HSCA would have a field day with this guy's evidence. Did they? Need I say more? Indeed, if you ignore the obvious typos and factual errors on the guy's page ("In 1960, Attorney General, Bobby Kennedy came down hard on the Mob..." for example) his attempt to paint who at the time was perhaps the smallest (literally and organizationally) mob bosses in the U.S. as the guy who ruled the south and Cuba, then you have to ask: Is this guy trying to sell a screenplay? Viola! Leonardo de Caprio stars as Jack!

Ragano. So, he claims he relayed a message from Hoffa - who was under constant FBI surveillance at the time - to Marcello and Trafficante whom (at least in Trafficante's case) he had not even met a request to kill the president. Just a second - if they carried out the assassination as claimed, Ragano's own actions constitute involvement in conspiracy! He was exposing himself to a potential murder charge! (There's no statute of limitations for murder.) Further, don't the mob have that code of honour - surely if he spilled the beans on something as big as this, he'd be a dead man? (He died in his sleep six years after these claims were published at the age of 75.) Of course, Ragano would have nothing to worry about if his story was complete fiction, which it obviously was. Doesn't seem that logic and common sense operate much in conspiracy land. Even Anthony Summers, one of the leading pro-conspiracy authors, thinks he's full of it, and investigated the "deathbed confession" claim. He found that Trafficante wasn't where he claimed he was (he was in North Miami Beach, not Tampa as claimed, not been there for months); none of the family saw Ragano when he claimed he saw them when he picked Traficante up from the house, which couldn't have happened, as already mentioned, as he hadn't set foot in it for months; that the three others he said who could corroborate the claim he has refused to identify. Gee, was this guy trying to sell a book, perhaps? Yup!

So, in the end your request to add text about Marcello/Trafficante fails to gain muster for three basic problems with it. This isn't "moving the goalposts" as you accused me of doing - it is pointing out you have multiple goalposts here and you fail at each one: 1) The page offers an overview and narrative of the assassination, discussing the conclusions of the main investigations with links to other articles such as one that describes conspiracies. It does NOT discuss the numerous claims and counter-claims over who "actually" ordered/carried out the assassination, other than a brief listing within the "conspiracy theories" section, so this sort of detail is beyond the scope of the page, let alone worthy of being included in the lede; 2) putting aside that fundamental issue, what you sought to insert was factually incorrect and misleading. Beyond the obvious point that the HSCA saying someone has "means motive and opportunity" is pretty meaningless in any legal sense (the same could be said for perhaps 100s of government spy and military agents who had some personal beef with the president, let alone a near-infinite number of foreign players), the full HSCA text indicates the HSCA felt they didn't do it. And this is from the pro-conspiracy HSCA who many accused of zeroing in on the mob in the first place; 3) even putting that aside, the claims themselves do not hold water. Sources for these claims are either not identified or are from people who stand to gain from their sensational claims, Ragano was caught lying about basic facts surrounding the supposed Trafficante "death bed" confession, and refused to supply the names of the three who could corroborate, while all surveillance and other evidence gathered by agencies found nothing which linked these two to the crime, as the HSCA found in 1979 and which the ARRB also found - after investigating Ragano's claims - in 1998 (he had claimed, for example, to have made contemporaneous notes of his meetings. He was subpoenaed for them but the notes he produced he admitted he may have written for the book).Canada Jack (talk) 03:43, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

CIA Withholding of JFK Assassination Related Information

Copy/paste from primary source by a series of sockpuppets
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
In a declassified September 2013 article published in the CIA's "Studies in Intelligence" by CIA Chief Historian and author of "John McCone as Director of Central Intelligence, 1961-1965", David Robarge describes former CIA Director John McCone as having taken part in a "benign cover-up". "McCone did have a place in a "benign cover-up," or what also has been termed "a process designed more to control information than to elicit and expose it" The protective response by McCone and other US government officials was inherent in the conflict between the Warren Commission's stated purpose-ascertaining the facts of the assassination---and implied in its mission defending the nation's security by dispelling unfounded rumors that could lead to destructive international conflict." "The DCI was complicit in keeping incendiary and diversionary issues off the commission's agenda and focusing it on what the Agency believed at the time was the 'best truth': that Lee Harvey Oswald, for as yet undetermined motives, had acted alone in killing John Kennedy." "Under McCone's and Helms's direction, CIA supported the Warren Commission in a way that may best be described as passive. reactive. and selective...CIA produced information only in response to commission requests-most of which concerned the Soviet Union or Oswald's activities while he was outside the United States--and did not volunteer material even if potentially relevant-for example, about Agency plans to assassinate Castro. Helms told the House of Representatives' Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978 that be "was instructed to reply 'to inquiries from the Warren Commission for information from the Agency. I was not asked to initiate any particular thing." "When queried, "[I]n other words. if you weren't asked for it you didn't give it?," Helms replied, "That's right". "Examining the assassination in a different political climate, the Senate's Church Committee concluded in 1976 that the Agency's inquiry was "deficient" in examining Oswald's contacts with pro-Castro and anti-Castro groups before the assassination, and that senior CIA officials "should have realized that the Agency's Cuban operations "needed to be considered" by the commission. In 1979, the House assassinations committee levied a similar criticism: "The CIA acted in an exemplary manner in dealing with the Warren Commission regarding its narrow requests for information. In another area, that of Cuban involvement and operations, the CIA's actions might well be described as "reluctant"." "Moreover, the DCI shared the administration's interest in avoiding disclosures about covert. actions that would circumstantially implicate CIA in conspiracy theories, and possibly lead to calls for a tough US response against the perpetrators of the assassination. If the commission did not know to ask about covert operations against Cuba, he was not going to give them any suggestions about where to look." "In 1976, in response to a freedom of information suit, the CIA declassified a State Department cablegram received from London on November 28, 1963. It read: On 26 November 1963, a British Journalist named John Wilson, and also known as Wilson-Hudson, gave information to the American Embassy in London which indicated that an "American gangster-type named Ruby" visited Cuba around 1959. Wilson himself was working in Cuba at that time and was jailed by Castro before he was deported." "In prison in Cuba, Wilson says he met an American gangster-gambler named Santos who could not return to the U.S.A. ...Instead he preferred to live in relative luxury in a Cuban prison. While Santos was in prison, Wilson says, Santos was visited frequently by an American gangster type named Ruby. (65) Several days after the CIA had received the information, the Agency noted that there were reports that Wilson-Hudson was a "psychopath" and unreliable. The Agency did not conduct an investigation of the information, and the Warren Commission was apparently not informed of the cablegram. The former staff counsel who directed the Commission's somewhat limited investigation of organized crime told the committee that since the Commission was never told of the CIA's use of the Mafia to try to assassinate Castro from 1960 to 1963, he was not familiar with the name Santos Trafficante in 1964. (66)" "Finally, the committee developed corroborating evidence that Ruby may have met with Trafficante at Trescornia prison in Cuba during one of his visits to Havana in 1959, as the CIA had learned but had discounted in 1964. (310) While the committee was not able to determine the purpose of the meeting, there was considerable evidence that it did take place.(311)" "McWillie testified before the committee that he had visited another detainee at Trescornia during that period, and he recalled possibly seeing Trafficante there... McWillie further testified it was during that period that Ruby visited him in Havana for about a week, and that Ruby tagged along with him during much of his stay. (74)"

This section is beyond the scope of the page and has been removed. If you want it included, discuss reason why we should have a section on the CIA which exceeds in length the description of the assassination itself. Canada Jack (talk) 22:00, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

References

Photograph of assassination site needs a scale

The Section "Shooting in Dealy Plaza" contains a photograph of Elm Street and the Texas School Book Depository. The photo also contains an arrow that points to the exact spot in the road where President Kennedy was struck by the bullets. One of the first rules of photography is to have a scale in the photograph. The photo gives the appearance that Dallas is a ghost town. There should be at least one person and one vehicle in the picture to provide a scale. If I lived in the Dallas area, I would take a better picture—with signs of human activity—of the assassination site, delete the existing picture, and upload the new photograph.Anthony22 (talk) 21:37, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure that a scale is really needed. We see the multiple stories in several buildings so we get an idea of the sizes involved, plus the photo above shows the TSBD and cars for scale anyway. That being said, I don't think the photo adequately shows Dealy Plaza, scale or not. Something more like the photo near the top from the Warren Report, an aerial shot, would be much better in showing the layout of the crime scene. Canada Jack (talk) 17:15, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Mistaken report of the second fatality at Dealey Plaza

I was just watching archival footage of Walter Cronkite's initial reports of the assassination, and just a few minutes before reporting the official confirmation of Kennedy's death, he reported that a secret service agent had also been killed. I wonder if this should be mentioned. I'm reminded of the 9/11 coverage that included erroneous reports of a car bomb exploding outside the Capitol. I wonder if it's also possible the "secret service" agent mentioned could have been an erroneous reference to Officer Tippit. Cronkite, though, reports the supposedly killed agent was shot during the assassination itself. 50.66.121.20 (talk) 22:29, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

I do not think that this needs to me mentioned. Broadcast news operations regularly make major mistakes in the immediate aftermath of shocking events. After the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan in 1981, several networks reported that Reagan was not hit by a bullet (he was) and that Jim Brady was dead (he wasn't). Here is coverage in the Smithsonian magazine. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 22:51, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Abrupt head-turn of JFK, Jackie and Connally at Zapruder frame ~160

I just reverted a change to a section of the description of the assassination on the missed shot of Zap frame ~160. I believe the editor in good faith misunderstood the point of the passage, which discusses the evidence for a missed initial shot, as the editor inserted material about JFK's reaction to being struck by frame 207, which virtually no one claims. However, in doing so, we are left with a lack of reference to the claim of the evidence for a missed shot being the sudden head movement of the three mentioned. I have one source for this, but it may not pass muster: http://www.jfk-online.com/jfk100shot6.html as it may not rise to the level of "reliable source," so I will later check to see if Buglioisi discussed this in detail suitable for the cite (I believe he did). Canada Jack (talk) 19:05, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, I did indeed misplace the timing of JFK's reactions. I was just looking to cite the official HSCA report which does indeed say that JFK's reacts to being struck by frame 207. Isn't this the last government word on when Kennedy was shot in the back? Anyway, I've removed JFK from the sentence for now. Please feel free to put him back in when you find the Bugliosi citation. Epideme12 (talk) 07:53, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Well, Bug speaks of Connally and Kennedy - but not Jackie. The above-mentioned source mentions all three. But the caveat is that JFK's turn may be to acknowledge the crowd as his demeanor doesn't change, while Connally of course lived to describe his turn upon hearing the shot. The testimony of the girl who said she stop running when she heard the first shot also matches the time frame. As for the HSCA's placement of the first shot "by 207," that interpretation has been discredited in favour of the later strike at 223/224, when high-resolution versions of the Zapruder film became available some 20 years later.

The HSCA went further and suggested that at about frame 190 is when an alignment of JFK and Connally allowed for the two to be hit by the same bullet. Virtually no one agrees with this interpretation of the evidence, and it seems that what the HSCA did here was align their interpretation of the Zapruder film with the acoustic evidence which had a pulse that aligned with the fatal shot's pulse if it was at that frame. Indeed, their own analysis indicates that if the fatal shot (of 4 identifiec) was the fourth shot, then the shot that hit JFK in the back would have been at frame 188-191, if the fatal shot was the third shot, then the other shot would have struck 205-208. [3]

So, it seems that though there was evidence for a strike as they emerged from behind the sign, they likely moved the single-bullet shot up as per the acoustic evidence, which was, of course, soon debunked. And while that "by frame 207" could remain here, it should be noted that subsequent research shows 224 to be the consensus as to when Connally and therefore JFK (per the SBT) was hit. IOW, a bit of a rewrite is in order.

One more comment and this is really just something I came up with, but one of the pieces of evidence the HSCA used to conclude a hit ~190 is that JFK's demeanor seems to change from cheerful to concerned, perhaps indicating he has been hit. But I think his reaction was to seeing a heckler. He may have seen the protester holding the umbrella in what JFK surely would have known was a dig against his father - "appeasing" Hitler with the symbol of that - Chamberlain and his umbrella. He sees that final insult and within a second or two, he is struck by a bullet. Canada Jack (talk) 18:40, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

To clarify, when I said "first shot" around frame 207/190, I of course meant the first shot to strike, the second shot overall. Canada Jack (talk) 18:51, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

I think that "subsequent research shows 224 to be the consensus as to when Connally" should be added to the article after the phrase "House Select Committee theorized that it struck exactly at Zapruder frame 190", but I'm not entirely sure how to source 'consensus'. Maybe citing both Posner and Bugliosi? Epideme12 (talk) 03:14, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Buglioisi would be a good source for that, yes. Though I'm not sure if the HSCA said it struck exacly at 190? They gave a range? The basic problem with the HSCA's conclusion, seemingly shoehorning the timing to match the audio evidence, is that the view from the TSBD is blocked for most of that sequence. But the text can read "the HSCA concluded the bullet struck ~190 or by 207, though most researchers now place it at ~224" (per Bug). Canada Jack (talk) 15:44, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

I have no intention of getting into the thick of the little print/little details of this matter at this point as the OP did above, since it is pretty much pointless at this time. But I just have to comment here that a supposed "consensus" on a detail between Bugliosi and Posner just means a bogus "consensus" between two of the greatest apologists of the Warren Commission Report ever to publish anything on the matter. I.e., what happened there is precisely whatever the WC Report says happened there and nothing else, which is also pretty much the view of WP on all the details of the assassination anyhow. And this point of view is scrupulously maintained as a matter of routine by the OP in this section, as well as across the board in WP on any article related to the matter. Nice job, once again. warshy ^(¥¥) 18:27, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Then obviously you've not read the Warren Report as the Warren Report did not state that JFK was struck at Z224, it instead gave a range of Z210-225. But you misunderstand at least my intention of quoting Buglioisi on this "consensus." He spells out what the current view on this is, based on what was not available to the Warren Commission - or to the HSCA - the high-resolution versions of the Zapruder film which only became available in the 1990s. If we go by what many who believe there was a cosnpiracy, then we have to start going down the rabbit hole of whacky where the Zapruder film is a forgery, this despite the rather obvious insane premise that "the conspirators" would prefer to do the enormously complicated task of forging this film, basically overnight, instead of going the obvious route (if it threatened to expose the "conspiracy) - i.e. destroying the film! Canada Jack (talk) 20:46, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Yes, as I said, keep up the good work of maintaining the conclusions of the Warren Report as explained, elucidated, and finally proven a last and final time by Posner and Bugliosi. I for one like reading your long expositions on every little detail that might come up for a new question every once in a while. The contortions eventually generated also make up for an interesting read, always. Cheers, warshy ^(¥¥) 21:30, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

"The contortions eventually generated also make up for an interesting read..." The case laid out by the WC actually makes sense and accounts for the evidence they had, so I have to conclude that you either have not read the Warren Report or you don't understand it. No "contortions" are necessary. It's called "laying out a case," which the conspiracy crowd routinely avoids doing after highlighting some "discrepancy." But if you want to really take on "contortions," read the claims from the conspiracy theorists on how the Zapruder film is a forgery; how the Couch film shows Oswald in the TSBD doorway despite the testimony of Truly, Baker and, indeed, of Oswald himself; how, despite the fact 95% of witnesses heard a maximum of three shots AND 95% of witnesses said the shots came from one, not two (or more) directions, the conspiracists routinely claim there were at least 4 shots and a shooter from the knoll in addition to one from the TSBD. I could go on and on, but the conspiracy crowd generally is not interested in rational discussion. Canada Jack (talk) 15:40, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for outlining the problems with the HSCA's conclusion. I agree that there can be no 'consensus' on such a controversial matter (i.e. where up to 80 percent of Americans suspected that there was a plot or cover-up). I would still like to know how the "current view" is defined, if that is why we are relying solely on bug. Epideme12 (talk) 04:57, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Narrowing down the bullet strike to Z224 isn't that controversial anynore as the high-resolution film shows a lapel flap and near-instantaeous shoulder collapse on Connally's part. I'll find the cite. Canada Jack (talk) 15:40, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

And, despite whatever the numbers are in terms of how many suspect a cover-up, whatever the WC concluded, whatever the HSCA concluded are there for the record. BTW, I changed the "190" line - the HSCA said "approxiamately" at that frame. Also, on the other page I made a few modifications. You correctly noted that the HSCA medical panel was often not unanimous on the findings - Wecht was a consistent dissenting vote on the 9-man panel. But the NAA no longe being used in forensics is misleading, owing to the fact that bullets made today are indistinguishable from one another via their composition, unlike bullets from the 50s/60s. And there are experts who make this precise point. So, this is not a case like with the parafin tests which are considered useless. The NAA is no longer used because of the changes in manufacturing processes, not because it couldn't distinguish bullet fragments. Also, while the head entry wound was moved, I put more neutral language to what you had - the HSCA panel, for example, did not see this discrepancy as having any material effect on the findings (well, with maybe one dissent...). But keep up the good work - there are details here you are catching that need to be corrected. Canada Jack (talk) 16:03, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. The entries should be as factual as possible and where there is excellent scientific proof that HSCA conclusions were wrong, it needs to be pointed out. NAA is a proven science, but CBLA is no longer used. According to https://www.nap.edu/read/10924/chapter/6#107, the fact that 'bullets made today are indistinguishable from one another via their composition, unlike bullets from the 50s/60s.' has absolutely no bearing on the reason why it is no longer used.

'Proper Assessment of the JFK Assassination Bullet Lead Evidence from Metallurgical and Statistical Perspectives' clearly states:

'a conclusion of material evidence for only two bullets in the questioned JFK assassination specimens has no forensic basis.' For that reason I suggest reverting back these links, but toning down the language about CBLA no longer being used. Epideme12 (talk) 00:02, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

I did a quick check - wasn't this debate somewhere already? Yes, on the single bullet theory page. What that page lacks is Sturdivan's rebuttal to the Randich/Grant paper. Canada Jack (talk) 03:03, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

That page has Sturdivan's rebuttal to the Randich/Grant paper. It even has Grant's re-rebuttal. BTW, What has Baker and Truly's testimony got to do with Oswald alledegly being in the doorway? **IF** Oswald was in the doorway, he could have easily made his way to the first floor rendezvous while Truly was shouting for the lift (there was another set of stairs that went to the first floor only). Epideme12 (talk) 03:32, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

BTW, What has Baker and Truly's testimony got to do with Oswald alledegly being in the doorway? Well, he might have gone back, but where is the evidence for that? Both Baker and Truly would have seen him in the doorway, wouldn't they? Baker for sure. And yet Baker confronts this man, pulling his gun, probably 30 seconds later, someone who he just had passed by. So why did neither mention seeing him in the doorway? It's much like the contortions made when Bower's testimony is addressed - if there was a sniper behind the fence, why didn't he mention it? Yet Bower is treated like some prime witness to the knoll assassin. Canada Jack (talk) 14:16, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

So Oswald can get down creaky stairs past 3 witnesses (Victoria Adams, Sandra Styles and Dorothy Garner) without being noticed, but not escape the notice or Truly and Baker who would have had their minds on other things? There is a wealth of circumstantial evidence that puts Oswald on the 6th floor, but the testimony of Truly and Baker is not part of it. Epideme12 (talk) 22:38, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Yes, a ton of circumstantial evidence places him on the 6th floor, but let not that imply that is "only" circumstantial evidence. Direct evidence also places him there, but that is the witness testimony of Howard Brennan, which in a court room would be far easier for a defence lawyer to dismantle than much of the circumstantial evidence - such as the devastating presence there of a rifle purchased by Oswald with his fingerprints.

As for the staircase, first off, we have around nine witnesses to the fact someone fired shots from that window, so if not Oswald, someone managed to escape the notice of the three mentioned, creaky steps notwithstanding - the assassin escaped the notice of everyone. (The only person who didn't have an alibi corroborated by others was Jack Doughtery, but I've never heard anyone claim he could have carried this out.) Secondly, whoever it was would have made a beeline to the exit, not so the others, who no doubt lingered for a few seconds - 15 or 20 was all Oswald (or whomever) needed to get past their floor. And, since we have Adams' testimony that she encountered Lovelady at the bottom of the stairs, that means Baker and Truly had already gone up. If they passed the floor while Baker and Truly were encountering Oswald, and failed to see them (how could they have NOT seen them if they "immediately descended"?) then that explains it and means that Oswald had time to descend before they did. Especially with the witness who says Baker and Truly ascended after Adams etc descended. What's the response from the conspiracy crowd? Lovelady is a liar and Adams was "told" to say she saw Lovelady. Right.

As for Baker and Truly, we can forgive Baker for not realizing that he had just seen Oswald, a stranger, as he entered the TSBD, but what about Truly? He surely would have seen Oswald in the doorway at some point before or during the assassination. He didn't. Indeed, neither did any of the other employees see him there, and we are talking about something like a dozen people, maybe more, who would have, within a few hours, been aware he was charged - yet none - NONE - came forward to say "I saw him in the doorway seconds after the assassination," or "I saw him come from the lunchroom immediately afterwards and stand in the doorway." Instead, the first sighting if him - besides Truly/Baker - is him walking through the offices with a bottle of Coke after that encounter. Canada Jack (talk) 17:58, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

Zapruder frame 224 - I checked Buglioisi as a potential source for the generally accepted stand that Z224 is the frame Connally was struck, but he didn't nail that down or say that that was generally accepted - so the text as it stands (HSCA ~190, WC 210-225 or whatever) is good. Canada Jack (talk) 18:00, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

Cool, thanks for checking. Even the Warren Commission regarded Brennan's subsequent testimony as not conclusive evidence that Oswald was the gunman in the sixth-floor window. Victoria Adams denies making the statement that she saw Lovelady at the bottom of the stairs and it is nonsense anyway because Lovelady was no where near that location for a considerable period. Oswald would have had to have hid the rifle and someone moved boxes at the sniper's nest at least 30 seconds after the shootings. OK, I'll give you Truly's testimony, but I do not think Baker's testimony places Oswald anywhere except for the first floor. Epideme12 (talk) 22:27, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

In regards to the Brennan evidence my point was to underline that circumstantial evidence is often better than direct evidence, even when the direct evidence directly implicates the person charged. I admit you may not have meant that "only" circumstantial evidence placed Oswald on the sixth floor, as if that is flimsy evidence by definition, but your response buttresses my point on the utility of direct evidence. We indeed have direct evidence of Oswald shooting JFK, but as you correctly point out the Warren Commission itself did not find Brennan's testimony probative in identifying Oswald - just that he saw someone who resembled Oswald, at the least - but his testimony WAS probative in terms of confirming a gunman fired from that window. Other witnesses also saw a man shoot from that window. The reams of other evidence - the rifle, the fingerprints, etc. - means identiying Oswald as the assassin was pretty well inevitable. And what happened to that gunman (if not Oswald) plays into this, as if we accept for the sake of argument that Oswald indeed was eating in the lunchroom during the assassination, that still leaves the problem of what happened to the gunman. He seems to have vanished into thin air!

Well, as for Adams, it seems that inconvenient evidence is again dismissed by the conspiracy researchers. Her testimony in front of the Warren Commission was quite detailed and specific - she even describes what she said to Lovelady. It's only "nonsense" that he was there if you accept as a given that Lovelady took too long to get there, but that is only if you accept as a given the scenario that they took the stairs almost straight away. So instead we have the dubious claim that her evidence was cooked up, her testimony to the commission inserted by others, the same with Lovelady's testimony where he was either coached to say he say her, or that was fraudulently inserted. Right.

For me, this is an example of the conspiracy crowd tying itself in knots to explain away inconvenient evidence, which is why their credibility is close to nil in most cases. The same goes for the arguments about how the paper bag holding the rifle was actually made by the police or whomever to incriminate Oswald (without credibly explaining how he got his prints on it), when the basic question of why the "conspirators" would feel the need to make a bag in the first place is never addressed, as Oswald could have snuck the rifle in on any occasion or took the bag in his jacket pocket when he left the TSBD and tossed it!

Anyway, the glaring hole in this Lovelady evidence, like with the conspiracy claims about the bag, is the fact that it makes no difference - why was it necessary to have them both falsely claim to have seen each other? The biggest hole in the scenario is not in seeing Lovelady, it's in not having seen (or heard) Truly and Baker! Not on the stairs, not on the dock. If Oswald, it is argued, could not have descended before Truly and Baker ascended, how could she have been down the stairs and out before their arrival? If the timing of her descent, as the conspiracy argument goes, meant they would have seen Oswald, then they would have ALSO seen Truly and Baker. Obviously, they had their timing wrong. Canada Jack (talk) 00:36, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your thought on this. It does make me pause and reconsider the evidence again. There is a lot more to the eye than people seem to think. So you are saying Barry Ernest is lying when he says that Victoria Adams denies saying (in the WC testimony etc.) that she saw Lovelady? We are also talking about the other witnesses. Dorothy Garner said she would have heard someone on the stairs and that she saw Truly and Baker run up after Adams went down. https://i0.wp.com/www.prayer-man.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Stroud-Letter-Victoria-Adams.jpg Epideme12 (talk) 00:13, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

I'm saying that the evidence we have suggests Oswald shot the president and ran down the stairs. I don't know if Barry Ernest is right or wrong here, but he wasn't there and Adams' testimony is quite specific on this, even down to what she said to Lovelady. I do think it is implausible that both Lovelady was instructed to lie and that Adams had her testimony altered. I think this is a case of a desperate attempt to suggest inconvenient evidence was altered or planted to paint a pro-Warren Report scenario. It also distracts from the main point that neither she nor Truly nor Baker saw each other, which puts a big hole in the claim that Oswald couldn't have made it down the stairs, as she surely would have encountered Truly/Baker at the least at the foot of the stairs if she went down before Oswald. IOW, why would her testimony need to be "faked" when seeing Truly and Baker was more critical to the timing issue?

I want to underline that point. If, as it is often claimed, Oswald did not have the time to descend the stairs before the encounter with Truly/Baker, then how was it possible for Adams etc NOT to have seen Baker/Truly as it would have taken even longer to reach the dock, where Baker/Truly tried to call the elevator? Even with the extra time needed for Truly/Baker to arrive (see below), they surely would have seen or heard Adams and vice versa by the dock.

What is most likely is that she started her descent AFTER Oswald, they'd only need to have paused 20 seconds or so before leaving the window to give Oswald enough time. Then he descends and makes it to the second floor. Truly and Baker come up the stairs and confront him, and Adams etc pass by without seeing them (none would have ssen each other if Baker was in the midst of confronting Oswald in the vestibule area by the Coke machine). By this time, Adams reaches the dock and sees Lovelady. And Baker and Truly ascend, seen by Garner. Recall that the only person who we believe to have been at the back of the TSBD at the time of the assassination was Jack Dougherty. Garner was watching the motorcade along with Adams etc., so was not in a position to possibly see Oswald if she, like the others, lingered for a moment by the window.

Further on the timing issue, the Couch film, the source of the "prayer man" claim, is also a record of when, exactly, Baker approached the TSBD, as it can be calibrated to other films, like Wegman's. Far from showing Baker reaching the door of the TSBD "within 10 seconds" of the fatal shot, as some claim, we last see Baker 18 seconds after the fatal shot, and it would have taken him about 13 seconds to reach the door, giving Oswald even more time than assumed to make it down the stairs.

It should also be noted that these witnesses - Adams, Lovelady etc - didn't think the real action was happening in the TSBD - they thought the shots came from elsewhere and were focussed on what was going on outside where all the action seemed to be. So not hearing footsteps on the stairs is less important when you realize they were more focussed on seeing what was going on outside and not on hearing an escaping assassin.

In short, to believe the Warren Report, one must only assume that Adams descended later than she thought. Everything else fits. But to believe the conspiracy claims, we need to believe a) Lovelady lied; b) Adams' testimony to the WC was changed; c) the "real" sniper disappeared without a trace, evading all people in the TSBD who would have noted a stranger; d) Adams not encountering Truly/Baker or even hearing them on the stairs is a non-issue even though not hearing Oswald is touted as some sort of proof Oswald wasn't on the stairs. Canada Jack (talk) 19:04, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Again you miss the other witness Sandra Styles, who when asked "whether she saw the Presidential limousine go into the underpass" to which she retorted "No, I don’t remember see that at all. That was when we left". So we are left with 2 implausible timelines: 1) The girls went down the stairs after Oswald, and somehow did not bump into or even see Baker and Truly (who was standing in a door and visible from the stairs). Baker and Truly encounter Oswald, but completely miss Vickie and Sandra and then go up the stairs and are seen by Dorothy. 2) The girls went down the stairs immediately after the 3rd shot and somehow got out before Baker and Truly arrived at the stairs.

Finally Lovelady told the HSCA that it took him at least 20 minutes to get into the TSBD (supported by pictures and film). So the whole testimony about Adams and Lovelady meeting after the stairs descent is absolute nonsense and can be discounted. Whatever side of the debate you fall on (and I'm careful to stay neutral), something about these timelines is not right.Epideme12 (talk) 04:18, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

Styles didn't state how long they waited before they left the window. Adams did. "Mr. BELIN - How long do you think it was between the time the shots were fired and the time you left the window to start toward the stairway? Miss ADAMS - Between 15 and 30 seconds, estimated, approximately." If it was "30 seconds," that was more than enough time for Oswald to have descended before her.

The problem with them getting out of the building before Truly and Baker arrived is the inconvenient testimony of both Adams and Lovelady:

"Mr. BELIN - When you got to the bottom of the first floor, did you see anyone there as you entered the first floor from the stairway? Miss ADAMS - Yes, sir. Mr. BELIN - Who did you see? Miss ADAMS - Mr. Bill Shelley and Billy Lovelady. Mr. BELIN - Where did you see them on the first floor? Miss ADAMS - Well, this is the stairs, and this is the Houston Street dock that I went out. They were approximately in this position here, so I don't know how you would describe that. Mr. BELIN - You are looking now at a first floor plan or diagram of the Texas School Book Depository, and you have pointed to a position where you encountered Bill Lovelady and Mr. Bill Shelley? Miss ADAMS - That's correct."

That's quite detailed and specific. Lovelady also testified to seeing a "girl" though he wasn't as certain as she was as to her identity.

As for Adams claim that she got out of the building right away, what did she encounter when she "ran" to the first railway tracks (immediately adjacent to the TSBD)? A cop who was already stationed there who told her to turn back. But Lovelady, who had also ventured out to the same area described confusion and police arriving - clearly he had been there BEFORE Adams was - and reconstructions put the swarm of people there and subsequent police cordon at least 2 or 3 minutes after the fatal shot.

Finally Lovelady told the HSCA that it took him at least 20 minutes to get into the TSBD (supported by pictures and film). He also testified that "3 or 4 miniutes" after the shots, he and Shelly were on their way to the tracks when they turned and saw Baker encounter Truly on the steps. In fact, that encounter happened about 30 seconds, 45 seoonds tops, after the final shot. The trot over to the first set of railway tracks would have taken maybe 30 seconds - immediatley adjacent to the TSBD, then he entered from the west side of the building.

With all the efforts to discredit Lovelady, we have the inconvenient fact that Adams very specifically described an encounter with him and Shelley. So the conspiracy crowd is left with the implausible claims that a) Adams testimony was faked and b) Lovelady lied. The problem with the latter is Lovelady gave crazy times for how long everything took - AND he wasn't certain that the "girl" he saw was Adans. And some claim ths is coached testimony?

But again, we come back to the basic problem with what has been a bizarre fixation of clearing the man who clearly assassinated the president - Oswald. If it indeed was not Oswald up there in the sixth floor, what happened to the "real" assassin? How come no one saw him?

Putting aside what everyone claimed how long their actions took, we see a plausible reconstruction from all this testimony (with some actual calibrated time): The final shot is fired. Shelly and Lovelady probably within 20 seconds make their way along the stub of Elm. Eighteen seconds after the shot, the Couch film shows Baker moving towards the TSBD, it took him about 13 seconds to get to the door from the last frame of the film. Baker encounters Truly at the doorstep, which both Shelley and Lovelady testify to seeing as they are already halfway to the parking lot/railway tracks. Meanwhile, Oswald has stashed his rifle, having paused a beat or two after the final shot. He could have dashed from the window, placed the rifle and been at the top of the stairs in 10 seconds. He descends. Meanwhile, Adams and crew are still at the window, and go to the staircase, but likely would not have moved as quickly as Oswald did. Shelly and Lovelady get to the tracks, see confusion and shouting, the police arrive and they go back towards the TSBD. Truly and Baker have now entered the building, dashing to the elevator, they call it and after five seconds or so, start their ascent. Oswald has by now reached the second floor, he enters the vestibule and relaxes, headed to the Coke machine. Shelly and Lovelady are on their way to the dock, and Baker gets to the second floor, sees moovement and encounters Oswald. Adams at this point passes by, but does not see them. WHile Baker and Truly were focussed on Oswald, they wouldn't have noticed Adams - and if Adams wasn't looking down the hall towards the vestibule - why would she be? - she easily could have missed them. Lovelady and Shelley are now by the dock, and Adams arrives, briefly chats with them and goes to the railway yard, which is by now guarded by police.

The testimony of Lovelady and Adams destroy the premise that Oswald couldn't have made it down. Not only because Adams describes seeing Lovelady, but because Adams' testimony clearly indicates she was by the railway tracks well AFTER Lovelady and Shelley were. For whatever reason, Lovelady and Shelley inflated the estimates of the time everything they did took, and Adams etc minimized the time what they did took. The testimony of all involved clearly establishes that. Canada Jack (talk) 15:02, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

A brief note on the Baker/Truly encounter with Oswald - there were a series of doors - if the two had gone through to encounter Oswald by the Coke machine, they would not have been visible to Adams (there are numerous schematics that show this). There are two sets of doors they would have gone through. Not sure if the doors had windows but Adams would have only seen them if she was directly in line of sight (assuming windows on the doors). Canada Jack (talk) 15:53, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

So to be clear you are stating that Truly started to continue on up the stairway to the third floor, but did not hear 2 women running down the creaky stairs in high heels. He then leans into the vestibule door, where he would have been visible to anyone running down the stairs and yet the women fail to notice him. Truly and Baker then leave immediately and still do not see the girls. Can you understand why I find this implausible? Yes, someone was at that 6th floor window but all Truly and Baker's testimony does is give Oswald had a pretty good alibi and I've never understood how Oswald could have placed his rifle, moved boxes and got down to the second floor in time. No way could he have "been at the top of the stairs in 10 seconds". I also find it implausible that Oswald's rifle was used by someone else. This does my head in and is not as simple as some make it out to be. Epideme12 (talk) 23:15, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

I have a solution for you both. Arguing about the little split second details of eye witnesses accounts of what happened there will not solve the problem. The problem has no solution, it is an unsolved mystery. And that is also why anybody who cannot buy the conclusions of the Warren Report is called since a conspiracy theorist in American culture. That is the genesis of the concept "conspiracy theory" in contemporary American culture. An unsolved mystery will always produce unproven theories, from the very nature of the issue, because it is precisely that and nothing else: an unsolved mystery. The only way to "resolve" an unsolved mystery is through a theory that is by nature and definition unproven, since it tries to resolve an issue that is unsolved. Summers, following Warren himself, changed the name of his book, which contains everything one needs to know about the controversial details of this unsolved mystery, from "Conspiracy" to "Not in your lifetime." But the truth is that we will never know what exactly happened there and how it was done. All we know is the result. And the reason we will never know what exactly happened there and how it was done is because the basic conclusion of the Warren Report (that Oswald was communist lone nut who did it all just by himself, out of his own derangement) was already telegraphed by J. Edgar Hoover to all the involved FBI field offices less than 20 minutes after the assassination on November 22, 1963. The fact that it is an unsolved mystery is not even the fault of the Warren Commission, since its conclusions were dictated by the evidence it was supplied by the FBI under Hoover. That is all the evidence that was left in the FBI archives on this issue even before there was a Warren Commission, and the only conclusion possible from this existing evidence is the conclusion that Hoover himself had already telegraphed less than 20 minutes after the deed. Anything else is just a theory that cannot be proven for lack of evidence. Case closed. warshy ^(¥¥) 15:08, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

So to be clear you are stating that Truly started to continue on up the stairway to the third floor, but did not hear 2 women running down the creaky stairs in high heels.

Good question. First off, it doesn't seem he was asked the question, at least in front of the Warren Commission. Secondly, the encounter with Oswald was the thing he ended up focussing on, so when he heard Oswald had been charged, the only thing of relevance in his mind in all likelihood were the details of that encounter. Whether he did or didn't hear other footsteps would have been, in his mind, an irrelevant detail with no obvious importance, not something he'd likely clearly recall, as opposed to what he actually encountered and the task at hand - finding an elevator and getting to the roof. Hearing footsteps was not anything out of the ordinary that would stick in the mind.

Additionally, let's apply some common sense. The best way to hear footsteps on a staircase is to stop and listen. In both cases - Truly/Baker and Adams - they'd not likely hear other footsteps over their own, and in both cases there is no indication that they ever stopped and paused to see if they could hear others. That was certainly my experience when I lived in a 5-storey walkup in a warehouse with creaky wooden stairs. I could sure hear my footstaps, and sometimes when I'd pause I'd then hear someone else on the staircase above or below. And, let's recall, Adams wasn't paying attention to others on the staircase as she thought the gunshots were from outside the TSBD. For her, only a relavent detail in retrospect, and not something easily heard over her high heels, especially if Oswald did his best to descend as silently as possible. As for Truly and Baker, they were focussed on Oswald, Baker had drawn his gun.

He then leans into the vestibule door, where he would have been visible to anyone running down the stairs and yet the women fail to notice him. Not according to Baker. He said he confronted Oswald from the inside second doorway, and that Truly came up to his shoulder, so, per Baker, Truly did not simply "lean in," he was inside the vestibule, the first door presumably swung closed behind him. Also recall, Truly had just rushed by the door and failed to see Oswald through the window of the door, Baker, following, scanned the area, and saw him. Truly, like Adams, was focussed on the stairs, not on what was at each landing area. If Truly missed Oswald through the doorway, it is not surprising Adams also missed Truly and Baker through the same doorway. Besides, Adams was descending and was even less likely to have seen out of the corner of her eye anyone inside the vestibule, as it was not in her line of sight, as it might have been if she was ascending.

No way could he have "been at the top of the stairs in 10 seconds". He had about 30 metres to run, he was 24 and relatively fit. And he'd have had a very stong incentive to get to those stairs as quickly as possible. Further, the rifle was stashed almost at the last possible place on the way to the staircase. He'd only need to lean and push the rifle between the boxes, that would take all of three seconds. So, okay, maybe 15 seconds to get to the stairs. Still gave him plenty of time to descend and be past the 4th floor by the time the ladies headed to the stairs.

Besides, as I spelled it out, the sequences fit, and account for a) Oswald beating Adams to the stairs and not being seen, b) Oswald getting to the 2nd floor first, c) Adams not seeing Truly and Baker on the stairs, d) Lovelady and Adams encountering each other by the dock, e) Lovelady seeing chaos by the railline and f) Adams greeted by a police corden at the same location soon afterwards. All we have to assume is that people got their time estimates wrong. We know Lovelady did when he said it was "3 or 4 minutes" after the final shot that he saw Baker encounter Truly on the front steps of the TSBD, and we also know that with Adams when she had said she was at the tracks a minute or so after the final shot where she had the encounter with the cop, as we know that it was about 2 or 3 munites after the final shot that those police were in place.

On the other hand, we are required to throw out specific and detailed testimony to satisfy the other scenarios, in particular Adams describing seeing Lovelady and Shelley as it renders other scenarios unworkable. And, indeed, we see this evidence dismissed, as you have yourself with Lovelady's testimony, even though it confirms he preceded her to the railway. Canada Jack (talk) 19:37, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

The problem has no solution, it is an unsolved mystery. Actually, the sequence spelled out in the Warren Report makes sense, accounts for the evidence, and most of the questions raised by researchers in the subsequent years were answered by the HSCA. And there is no mystery as to why the controversy remains to this day - few have actually read the Warren Report or HSCA report and most people who read the claims of conspiracy theorists don't realize they are making claims that were in many cases debunked a half century ago, or are deliberatly misleading. Like the "changed route." Like the Mauser rifle. Like the "altered photos" of Oswald with the rifle. In terms of "deliberately misleading," my favourite is how Mark Lane, arguably the father of the conspiracy movement, interviewed Lee Bowers, the guy in the railway swtiching tower with an unobstructed view of the back of the stockade fence where Lane claimed there was a sniper (i.e. the Grassy Knoll sniper) and told Lane, on film, that when the motorcade passed, there was no one behind the fence! What did Lane do? He ommitted that key fact from his film and book, made a bundle peddling his conspiracy theory and had Bowers talking vaguely of a "commotion" going on on Elm Street. Fortunaltey for Lane's bank account, Bowers died in a car accident a few months after the interview and therefore was not available to set the record straight.

As for Hoover, I am aware he said something like that, but two days after the fact, not "20 minutes" after the assassination. And while a lot of hay has been made by authors over his apparent rush to judgement - or worse - at that point, it was pretty apparant that they had their man as not only did the suspect kill a cop in an apparent attempt to evade arrest, he was in the building where the shots were fired, his rifle was found at the scene with his fingerprints on it, and no other gunmen had been seen. On Nov 24 1963, it was a slam-dunk case and talk of "conspiracy" was something to be corrected. There is no indication that Hoover actually believed there was a conspiracy at that point. And, no, the Warren Commission did not rely soley on the FBI for their investigations, they used the resources of, I think, 14 agencies and did a lot of the interviews with their own counsels. As for any evidence hidden in the archives, we've yet to see anything of importance to emerge outside of the reluctance of agencies like the FBI to be more forthcoming but this was more to do with CYA than "cover that conspiracy" - like how a direct threat from Oswald to the FBI days before the assassination did not lead to him being more closely watched by the FBI. There was no conspiracy being covered up - there was incompetence being covered up, though. Canada Jack (talk) 20:02, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

You are entitled to your beliefs, which are abundantly clear for anyone who follows any issue related pages here. In the same manner, I hope I am entitled to mine, which I have stated already. For me the unresolved case is closed. I cannot prove my case to you as I explained, and I certainly do not accept any of what you call proofs as proofs either. Most of them do not stand to simple logic and common sense, in my view. You will certainly continue expounding your views at length, as you do, and no matter what I say anyhow. And I will continue reading your long demonstrations of the truth just for my own amusement too, as I already wrote. Enjoy yourself, and let's leave at that. Be well, warshy ^(¥¥) 21:23, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

•  Administrator note This is getting dreadfully bloated and WP:FORUMish. While I find the discussion interesting it might be best to migrate this to either a user talk page or a sub page. Thanks... -Ad Orientem (talk) 21:33, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

Requested move 17 February 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Not moved per WP:SNOW and the fact that the nom is the sock of a community-banned editor. Favonian (talk) 19:09, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

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Assassination of John F. Kennedy → Death of John F. Kennedy – For it to be WP: CONSISTENT with Death of Adolf Hitler, Death of Muammar Gaddafi, Death of Osama bin Laden, and many others, and according to some arguments made in Talk:Death_of_Osama_bin_Laden#Requested_move_8_January_2020, especially WP:NPOV. To reproduce one of the arguments, "Assassination" puts undue focus on the assassin and not on JFK. Guangzhou1 (talk) 11:49, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

• Strong oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. This is overwhelmingly described as an assassination. Timrollpickering (Talk) 14:20, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
• Strong oppose Adolph Hitler was not assassinated, at least as far as is known about the details of his death; Muammar Gaddafi was not assassinated. He was apparently killed spontaneously by the mob; Osama bin Laden was captured in a state planned military operation and his corpse was later disposed of. John F. Kennedy was assassinated, even though controversy remains about some of the basic facts of the deed. warshy ^(¥¥) 17:39, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
• Strong oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. Soon to be a snow close. O3000 (talk) 17:47, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
• Strong oppose per common name and all of the above. Randy Kryn (talk) 18:46, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
• Comment Originator of this RM has been CU-blocked. O3000 (talk) 19:03, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Ruby shoots Oswald.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 14:07, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 18 August 2020

X "when he was fatally shot by former U.S. Marine Lee Harvey Oswald " Y "when he was allegedly fatally shot by former U.S. Marine Lee Harvey Oswald " Arkons1947 (talk) 23:41, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

'Not done: Per the Warren Commission there's no "allegedly" about this. Meters (talk) 23:53, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

More appropriately: per the consensus of reliable sources. We wouldn't normally present an (admittedly somewhat controversial) assertion as flat fact merely because that's the position of a government report. EEng 01:04, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Yup. Pick your desired reliable sources. There's no "allegedly" about this. Meters (talk) 01:45, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Come again? EEng 02:41, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

I mean the reliable sources do not entertain any uncertainty here. Per the sources, Oswald shot Kennedy. Meters (talk) 05:07, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Oops, fixed horrible typo in my post. Meters (talk) 05:35, 19 August 2020 (UTC).

Oswald was accused, not convicted

I have a question about the designation of Oswald as the killer of Kennedy. Usually we make this kind of statement after a person has been convicted. But Oswald was never tried in a court of law. He was charged by the Dallas Police Department but never indicted. We are relying on a government commission—which did not hear all the witness testimony and has been shown to have manipulated or ignored evidence—for its "official" conclusion that Oswald killed Kennedy. It seems to me that Oswald should be referred to as the accused killer and that actions credited to him should be prefaced with allegedly in this and other articles related to the Kennedy assassination. Yoninah (talk) 11:18, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

See my response to your question at Talk:Lee Harvey Oswald. This has been dealt with many times, and there is longstanding consensus on the topic as written. Acroterion (talk) 11:32, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Britannica's YouTube channel has sourced the actual film

It needs to be known what is shown in the exact film. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6vwl8ow8J0 Potential Russian-like hacking to cover up what is in plain site on the video is uncalled for. Britannica is not at all an unreliable source.InsulinRS (talk) 00:35, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Lee Harvey Oswald

I propose an edit to the pages on JFK's murder as well as the biographical page on Lee Oswald, his alleged (though untried and unconvicted) assassin.

The Kennedy assassination page states declaratively that Oswald fatally shot the president. Given the longstanding controversy regarding the murder of the President in November, 1963, and the unassailable fact that Oswald was neither charged nor convicted of killing the President, I feel it is only appropriate to add the modifier "allegedly" or "alleged" as in "alleged assassin of Kennedy." Neither The Government nor anyone else has produced conclusive evidence of Oswald's guilt or involvement in the Kennedy murder and I feel pages referencing him should be so annotated. Lee oswald was denied due process by the vigilante actions of Jack Ruby. It is therefore improper to state that he was the assassin despite the conclusion of the Warren Commission. Ostormybear (talk) 23:36, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

There have been many long discussions already about this very topic, and not including "alleged" has been the consensus based on the evidence. One of those discussions is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Lee_Harvey_Oswald#Oswald_was_accused,_not_convicted Almostfm (talk) 16:09, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Captain Fritz to J. W. Fritz request

Can a confirmed user please link Captain Fritz to the orphan article J. W. Fritz, thanks 81.131.132.199 (talk) 23:52, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

Done. EEng 00:53, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 22 January 2021

97.116.116.213 (talk) 05:31, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Please make the page bigger.thank you.

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. It already has a lot of content. If there is something specific you want added, specify it and provide a source. RudolfRed (talk) 06:10, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 26 August 2021

Hi, the article here, to which the JFK main page redirects has a misleading first paragraph.

The paragraph states emphatically that "[Kennedy] was fatally shot by Lee Harvey Oswald, who was a former US Marine firing gunshots from a nearby building."

I would suggest:

"Kennedy was riding with his wife Jacqueline, Texas Governor John Connally, and Connally's wife Nellie when he was fatally shot by one or more gunmen."

In it is current form it is inaccurate and not consistent with existing evince, nor even internally consistent with statements elsewhere in Wikipedia.

It implies as known fact an assertion for which there is no proof and plenty of evidence to the contrary. Quinnjin78 (talk) 06:18, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

•  Not done Consensus appears to be against this edit (see for example talk page section #Lee Harvey Oswald above this one). DrKay (talk) 08:15, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Consensus of whom? The paragraph is plainly inaccurate. This is not a matter of debate. It is a matter of historical record. Oswald is unlikely to have been either the sole shooter, or the shooter who landed the fatal shot, in fact there is no conclusive evidence he made a shot at all. This paragraph is plainly misleading and needs addressing. It is also plainly inconsistent within wikipedia, where in the conclusions of the HSCA are mentioned. ( That there were 2 or more gunmen ) This plain error weakens wikipedia's integrity.

When even contemporary official sources are inconsistent, despite the political climate of the time, it is misleading to emphatically state that Oswald was the sole shooter.

This article should be flagged as misleading and in need of an upgrade.

I could suggest this edit instead:

"Kennedy was riding with his wife ...[and others]...when he was fatally shot, allegedly, according to contemporary investigation, by Harvey Lee Oswald from a nearby book depository, although this fact is widely disputed."

It doesn't really matter how it is worded. Only that it accurately reflects the widely accepted doubt regards the warren report's "sole gunman" narrative.

With all due respect, this is no longer a matter of debate. The Warren report is not considered trustworthy by authorities on the subject.

Quite frankly, in it's current form, the article is dishonest. Perhaps the consensus is the result of a handful of dishonest editors. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Quinnjin78 (talk • contribs) 05:34, August 28, 2021 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. It's up to you to get consensus before asking for the change. Suggesting that we are dishonest is not going to help you r case. Meters (talk) 05:41, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

While I accept that "personal attacks" are not productive, I attacked no one person and there was no personal attack. I had meant to edit my comment to a more acceptable and civil version but it was too late.

This mechanics of this forum are absolutely awful for any kind of reasonable discussion.

I meant no personal offence, and attempted to reword more appropriately, but to be a fair, this is a matter of simple logic. 1) The Paragraph is misleading and inaccurate. 2) Others have pointed this out. 3) Alleged is considered unacceptable. 3) Making mention of a gunman or gunmen but not a specific person is unacceptable. Conclusions: One of the conclusions that could be drawn is that this article is being prevented from being edited by a group who must reach consensus. Flowing from this is the conclusion that this group are resistant to editing the paragraph, which is in it's current form, at best inaccurate, and at worst, dishonest. This is a simple statement of fact.

Other conclusions that could be reached: the paragraph has not been changed because no one (and this seems unbelievable) has been able to come up with an edit that is acceptable. Really? On such an important topic? What exactly is going on here?

I suggest that somebody acceptable to those who have the vote on this article come up with an edit that is accurate. The current version is simply not acceptable.

I would again suggest yet another edit:

"His accused killer was Lee Harvey Oswald, a former U.S. Marine with alleged ties to soviet communism, though this is a matter of widespread debate."

Regardless, I would expect somebody qualified to suggest an appropriate edit acceptable to all parties.

Why this has not happened already beggars belief.

it would seem that others should be able to suggest revisions of a suggested edit of the offending sentence(s) until on eis reached that is acceptable, and a consensus is reached. As it stands, it's seems people take pot shots at edits until somebody comes up with one that is accepted. This is not a collaborative method. There is no constructive criticism.

I would point others to the Britannica article for inspiration for an acceptable work around.

Personally I see here a culture of stone walling and resistance to change, and a dearth of collaboration. I have given my suggestions. I suggest that somebody with the necessary gravitas take this up and get it sorted. As it stands it is simply unacceptable.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Quinnjin78 (talk • contribs) 07:48, August 28, 2021 (UTC)

Please sign your talk page posts.

And saying that you see a culture of stone walling and resistance to change, and a dearth of collaboration is not going to help your case either. Meters (talk) 22:46, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Consensus of whom? The paragraph is plainly inaccurate. This is not a matter of debate. It is a matter of historical record. Oswald is unlikely to have been either the sole shooter, or the shooter who landed the fatal shot, in fact there is no conclusive evidence he made a shot at all.

It has been the consensus of mainstream historians, based on the results of two exhaustive investigations that both concluded Oswald shot and killed JFK. Though I admit you can make the argument that this "consensus" is less so over the past 20 years or so, and lately as conspiracy theories have become more mainstream, and more "serious" historians have made the case for other players being involved.

As for Oswald, the mountain of evidence linking him to the crime makes me wonder: Have you read the Warren Report and HSCA report? While many authors have spun different tales about the CIA, the mafia, the anti-Castro Cubans, etc., the evidence linking Oswald to the assassination is pretty rock-solid, even if many authors pretend it doesn't exist.

But I at least partly agree with one part of the critique - though the bulk of the lede looks good - describing the conclusions of the two main investigations and the controversy which exists to this day, we had in the past framed the conclusion that Oswald did it around the conclusions of the two main investigations. So... "...when he was fatally shot by Lee Harvey Oswald..." should say something like "when he was shot by, as concluded by two major investigations, Lee Harvey Oswald..." Canada Jack (talk) 23:55, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

I might add that in my view, for the page, there should be a basic description of what happened, framed by "according to..." etc from the assassination, to the arrest of Oswald and his charging, to the investigations and their conclusions, to the controversies about those conclusions to the current day. As for the numerous conspiracy theories, the issue has always been... which one? Altering the focus to, say, the CIA being behind it raises the obvious objection that other players may have been behind it. So other than stating the conclusions of the investigations, we simply have a laundry list of the numerous conspiracy theories. Canada Jack (talk)

Jack Ruby's trial & mysterious death of Dorothy Kilgallen

How do I add link on Jack Ruby's trial & Dorothy Kilgallen's wikipedia page to this article? Here's my catch of the late -> https://law-n-order.quora.com/ Thanks... if I can remember how to do wiki-edit etc... /* WeChat Tencent - AllThingsGO wechat2 */ 19:41, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

This is covered in John_F._Kennedy_assassination_conspiracy_theories. EEng 20:36, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Yes I know this post isn't specifically about improving *this* article but it is so related...

Some of the regulars around here, please take a look at the Zapruder film article. It's ok, I'll wait.
.
.
.
Back? Sooooo...what do you think? The Wikipedia article about one of the most famous pieces of media associated with JFK's assassination - the film itself is mentioned in this article 12 times, the film's frames are mentioned 3 times and Zapruder the man is mentioned at least twice - but the Wikipedia article about the film is riddled with numerous maintenance templates plus an article banner and a section banner, numerous bare-linked YouTube references, links to blogs. etc.. And how about those citation needed templates - one of them dates to 2013...nine years ago, several are from 2017.
I happened to look at the film article in passing yesterday and was overwhelmed by, frankly, all the improvements it needs. I can't do anything in depth until sometime this next week...maybe Tuesday but if a bunch of interested editors get after improving it that would be awesome and helpful. Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 17:29, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

Investigation of Dictabelt evidence

The last sentence in the the fourth paragraph of this article is: "It was determined that the dictabelt recorded different gunshots which were fired at another location in Dallas and at a different time which was not related to the assassination." This is incorrect. The "acoustic impulses" recorded on the dictabelt, and mistakenly identified as the gunshots in Dealey Plaza by the House Select Committee, were not confirmed as gunshots at all. The sentence above should be reworded as follows: "It was determined that the dictabelt recorded different sounds which occurred at another location in Dallas and at a different time which were not related to the assassination." 71.171.16.215 (talk) 11:37, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Can you quote from a source giving this info? EEng 12:31, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

In the Exec. Summary of its report refuting the claim that the dictabelt evidence proves there was a second gunman, the source cited in note #8 (Report of the Committee on Ballistic Acoustics, National Research Council) states, "Since the recorded acoustic impulses are similar to static, efforts to attribute them to gunshots have depended on echo analyses; but in these analyses, desirable control tests were omitted, some of the analyses depended on subjective selection of data, serious errors were made in some of the statistical calculations, incorrect statistical conclusions were drawn and the analysis methods used were novel in some aspects and were untested at such high levels of background noise." The report also finds that the timing of the alleged gunshots does not match the time when the shots were fired in Dealey Plaza. Thus, in its conclusions, this report states, "The acoustic impulses attributed to gunshots were recorded about one minute after the President had been shot and the motorcade had been instructed to go to the hospital." The report does not say that these "acoustic impulses" were confirmed as gunshots, and in fact the report suggests that the earlier acoustical analysis on which the House Select Committee based its conclusions erroneously assumed that they were the sounds of gunshots. Some have speculated that the recorded sounds were releases of air pressure from the air brakes of a truck stuck in traffic that were recorded on the police motorcycle radio with the stuck mic. No one knows, but the sounds should not be described as "different gunshots which were fired at another location in Dallas." (71.171.21.52 (talk) 11:37, 4 December 2020 (UTC))

OK, I ambiguated it. EEng 16:54, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

I think the ambiguation now inserted is better overall than what was there before, and this version of the text should now stand. But the OP is mentioning one of the refutations, and there are several refutations and conter-refutations on this matter. In these scientific analyses, conclusions, refutations, and counter-refutations there is no "supreme court" that can edict a final verdict. And so, the final conclusion on these matters will always be a political one, based on the pre-determined views of the beholder. Thank you, warshy ^(¥¥) 17:10, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for making the requested change. I think the statement is now accurate. There is a Wikipedia page devoted entirely to the dictabelt recordings, including reference to all of the analyses conducted, with the various conclusions, refutations, counter-refutations, etc. The final paragraph of the introduction, while stating that the acoustic evidence did not definitively prove that a conspiracy existed, still leaves open the possibility of some conspiracy in the assassination.(71.171.17.4 (talk) 14:20, 5 December 2020 (UTC))

Yes, I agree. Unfortunately, "the possibility of some conspiracy in the assassination," as you put it, will always be there. This is mainly due, in my view, to the elimination of Oswald by Ruby less than 48 hours after the President was declared dead, and because Oswald was indeed the perfect "patsy": with him being named the sole assassin by the FBI, there was no need to create a major international Cold War confrontation against the Soviet Union and Cuba. Oswald's story, as presented by the FBI and later endorsed by the Warren commission, solved all the problems, international and domestic, all at once, in just one fell swoop. Case closed! And so it will remain also. All that will remain is a lingering suspicion, almost a wonder, that all the complex pieces on the momentous murder and elimination of an American President can fit so tightly and neatly together. It is almost like a James Bond movie, and by November 1963 only the first episode/film of the new series had just been released in the US. The second episode was released in London just a month or so before the events of November 22-24. warshy ^(¥¥) 23:27, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

The reason that there's always going to be "the possibility of some conspiracy" is that 58 years later, they intelligence agencies are STILL sitting on information and they only reason they would be hiding information, is that they were part of the conspiracy. Trying to figure out exactly what happened is kind of pointless, all you have to know is our intelligence agencies are withholding information. They are NOTORIOUSLY dishonest as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.31.75.102 (talk) 09:25, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

The vast majority of documents relating to the assassination were released decades ago; as for the rest, I seriously doubt there's a smoking gun in any of them. Wouldn't that just be destroyed? 2A00:23C7:99A4:5000:94ED:6AF6:618D:5A47 (talk) 05:59, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 11 September 2022

96.245.54.221 (talk) 19:06, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

file:///C:/Users/Jack/Downloads/henrykilledjfk.png

 Not done: That is an image on your computer which you have not uploaded, and judging from the file name it would not be suitable for Wikipedia. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 19:13, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 May 2023

i would like to add more info about this topic. espiecaly a tab on the conspiracy surrounding it. LuluBald (talk) 20:23, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: this is not the right page to request additional user rights. You may reopen this request with the specific changes to be made and someone may add them for you, or if you have an account, you can wait until you are autoconfirmed and edit the page yourself. Tollens (talk) 20:45, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

We have a separate article covering conspiracy theories concerning Kennedy's assassination. And it's an awful mess. The talkpage associated with that article is the best place to suggest improvements concerning Kennedy CTs. Acroterion (talk) 22:36, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

@LuluBald I would advise you to carefully read WP:FRINGE, WP:V and WP:RS before adding material pertaining to any alleged conspiracy. -Ad Orientem (talk) 22:37, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 2 July 2023

The following sentence is duplicated:

“ When searching the sixth floor of the Depository, two deputies found an Italian Carcano M91/38 bolt-action rifle.” 65.94.101.154 (talk) 21:12, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

 Done Duplicate text removed. General Ization ^Talk 21:15, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Featured picture scheduled for POTD

Hello! This is to let editors know that File:JFK limousine.png, a featured picture used in this article, has been selected as the English Wikipedia's picture of the day (POTD) for November 22, 2023. A preview of the POTD is displayed below and can be edited at Template:POTD/2023-11-22. For the greater benefit of readers, any potential improvements or maintenance that could benefit the quality of this article should be done before its scheduled appearance on the Main Page. If you have any concerns, please place a message at Wikipedia talk:Picture of the day. Thank you! --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 14:49, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

John F. Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963) was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the youngest person to assume the presidency by election and the youngest president at the end of his tenure. Kennedy served at the height of the Cold War, and the majority of his foreign policy concerned relations with the Soviet Union and Cuba. A Democrat from Massachusetts, Kennedy served in both houses of the United States Congress prior to his presidency. This photograph of Kennedy in his presidential state car was taken by Walt Cisco of The Dallas Morning News minutes before his assassination in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963.

Photograph credit: Walt Cisco

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Autopsy photos

There is no warning whatsoever to the autopsy photos featured in this article. Most webpages and social media sites hide or show a warning before showing any photo featuring a corpse (this includes for instance Reddit or Twitter). There are people like myself that are sensitive to this kind of photos, plus this is an important moment in US history, so many schoolchildren are probably reading this article and seeing those photos too. I know this article is about the death of a person, but I don't expect to see explicit photos of the corpse or the autopsy when I'm reading or watching a documentary about this topic. --200.73.224.236 (talk) 13:02, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

I agree. The actual autopsy photos were only added fairly recently, starting in January 2023. I have removed the most recent one and added a comment saying that this matter needs to be discussed on the talk page. Perhaps an RFC should be instituted... Shearonink (talk) 15:58, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

If there wasn't a separate Autopsy of JFK article I'd probably be arguing for inclusion here, but since there is such an article, it's appropriate there but unnecessary here. This is an easy case, no RfC needed.EEng 17:45, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Large-scale revisions

In hopes of promoting this article to FA so that it can appear on the homepage on the upcoming 60th anniversary, I've revised this article in my userspace. Any comments are welcome. Per the advice of EEng, I will be adding the revised sections individually, in piecemeal fashion. I will have subsections below for each section and discussion of any major concerns. ~ HAL333 18:21, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Ramsey Clark Panel

This section is the most brief and most cut and dry. ~ HAL333 18:21, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

I don't think you need to open an anticipatory thread for each changed section unless someone raises an issue. Just install a new section or subsection and wait to see what if any reaction you get. I'd do one a day for a few days, then pause a few days. Inevitably someone will show up to say they've been on vacation, didn't notice any of your edits, how dare you disturb things so arrogantly, and so on. Then the fun begins. EEng 22:52, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Roger. ~ HAL333 23:32, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Large scale no target errors

HAL333 I just wanted to make sure you realise that your changes have caused a large amount of no target errors. Are you planning of converting the whole articles referencing style? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 16:48, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

Yeah. It’s not great. I’ll try to fix it soon. The consistent style is used in the user box listed above. ~ HAL333 16:50, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

user box listed above? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 16:55, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

Nevermind, you mean your sandbox. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 16:56, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

Although I would note there are also no target errors on your sandbox, as well as dead anchor links (which don't produce any error messages). -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 16:57, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

Oops - sorry about that. I was typing on my phone while walking and wasn't fully focused. I've fixed all the target errors I could see. Did I miss any? ~ HAL333 17:31, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

There are as many as the last time I looked. Make sure you have the error messages on, see Category:Harv and Sfn template errors and then simply search the article for "no target". -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 17:39, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

I can't figure that out, but I still can't see any. Which ones are you referring to? ~ HAL333 17:48, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

You won't see anything unless you turn the messages on, and I don't suggest you work with them without the error messages on.

The following refs are broken #4, #5, #6, #7, #9, #15, #18, #19, #22, #27, #39, #45, #46, #65, #72, #86, #87, #88, #89, #91, #93, #97, #99, #102, #103, #104, #107, #108, #139, #142, #145, #153, #165, #166, #169, #170, #171, #182, #204.

1 -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 18:12, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

In addition to those, which are all no target errors. The following are anchor point refs that are broken (they never produce any error messages), #25, #121, #159, #160, #197. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 18:16, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

I haven't gone through all of them, but those don't appear to be from the sections that I added/overhauled. ~ HAL333 18:43, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

You've changed and/or removed the cites they rely on, and what you have done is incompatible between anchor point refs and {{sfn}}/{{harv}} templates. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 18:46, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm beginning to wonder whether getting this to FA by the 70th anniversary might be more realistic. EEng 18:56, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

How/where did I remove the cites? ~ HAL333 19:21, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

Ok just a couple of examples, if you look at the White 1965 cite is was:

* {{cite book |title=The Making of the President, 1964 |last=White |first=Theodore H. |location=New York |publisher=Atheneum Publishers |year=1965 |author-link=Theodore H. White |lccn=65018328 |url=https://archive.org/details/makingofpresiden00whit |url-access=registration }}

But you have change it to:
* {{cite book|last=White|first=Theodore H.|author-link=Theodore H. White|title=The Making of the President, 1964|publisher=Atheneum Publishers|year=1965|asin=B003SAGZMQ|ref=White}} For you anchor point refs to work the ref field must be "|ref=White" but for the short form refs to work it must be blank.
Secondly you also removed the cites for "Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy" appendix 13 and chapter 4. Honestly it's such a mess I can't see how to fix it without reverting most of your referencing work. Again you would see all this if you turn the error messages on. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 19:45, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

Part of the problem here, just to be clear, is that different editors see different levels of error-message specificity, depending on Preferences choices, javascript, stuff like that. ActiveDis, could I suggest you look at User:HAL333/sandbox/jfk to see whether you're seeing the same messages there? That would tell us a lot. EEng 19:52, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

As stated above the sandbox also contains no target errors and broken anchor point refs. All I can suggest at this point is that HAL333 activates the message for short form refs, and uses those instead of anchor point refs. That way they won't convert the articles citation style and cause so many referencing issues. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 19:58, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

I figured it out. The "Further reading" section was misleadingly titled and acts essentially as links for works cited. I've added it back. ~ HAL333 21:26, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

File:Yoda Fountain.jpg

"Unfortunately further reading is regularly used this was"

-EEng

Unfortunately further reading is regularly used this was, alongside bibliography and sources. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 14:34, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

@HAL333: Hey! I appreciate that you try to tackle highly-viewed topics, though I may be a buzzkill in saying that FA in a few months sounds extremely difficult, although seeing this makes me doubt my statement. Glad you're completely rewriting this piece, as the previous wording can't be the best summary of RS sources. A few things I need to mention:

• There seem to be contradictory CN-tags where there are references.
• The article has a strange shortage of JFK bios, which I think should be a sizeable portion of books cited, not to mention other high-quality academic books focused on the assassination. I searched on TWL (sorted by format, removed unreliable publishers and non-academic books) and got some interesting ones, all of which are on archive.org: The presidency of John F. Kennedy, John F. Kennedy: a biography, John F. Kennedy: his life and legacy, The Kennedy half-century: the Presidency, assassination, and lasting legacy of John F. Kennedy, The assassination of John F. Kennedy: a comprehensive historical and legal bibliography, 1963-1979. Some of the books are relatively old so take their content by a grain of salt if new conclusive information contradicts any of their points. Camelot and the cultural revolution: how the assassination of John F. Kennedy shattered American liberalism: This book has a controversial publisher, but is a good inclusion for the legacy section regarding conservative viewpoints, which seems to be widely discussed in some books. I also recommend the Cambridge Companion to JFK and perhaps any other quality work on the assassinaton.
• Nearly one third of all citations (107/326) are Bugliosi. Definitely an important author, but hopefully I see better ref variety when other authors are included.

For now, I'm happy to copyedit, review, and watchlist this article. You're an absolute mad lad if you get this to TFA by your deadline! Good luck on your rewrite! Wretchskull (talk) 19:53, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

That is a fair point about Bugliosi, although Reclaiming History is, in my opinion, the most thorough and neutral work on the Kennedy assassination. I'll try to "disinvest" in Bugliosi with some of the above works. Thanks, ~ HAL333 20:08, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy

If anyone has missed my flurry of recent edits, I have overhauled most of this article and plan on nominating it for Featured Status very soon (after some minor copy editing and reference polishing). A second set of eyes would be appreciated to tell me if I've mucked up anything: grammar, prose, missing details, or anything else. If there are any major NPOV issues, please tell me so that we can address it now before the nomination. Thanks, ~ HAL333 18:51, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Hi. You stated above:

Reclaiming History is, in my opinion, the most thorough and neutral work on the Kennedy assassination.

This means that the planned Wikipedia 60th anniversary revision of this important story is still simply a rehash of all the basic conclusions of the Warren Commission as reported in the WC report. It is just kind of amazing to me that after 60 years American culture has not been able to advance even one inch beyond an official government report that was first published less than 2 years after the occurrence of the event. As Earl Warren himself predicted sometime in 1964, at the beginning of the work of his commission, no conclusions would be changed "in your lifetime." I was 11 years old at the day of the occurrence, and I've followed the developments since. As far as I am concerned, Warren's prediction proves to be correct once again. Thank you, warshy ^(¥¥) 21:24, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

If you read the article, you'd find that it isn't simply a "rehash" of the Warren Report. But I also advise that you visit WP:NPOV and WP:FRINGE. ~ HAL333 21:35, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Lee Harvey Oswald (2)

Given the new information revealed a few years back, this article should be edited. Oswald did NOT assassinate JFK. The fatal shot did NOT come from his gun. He could be accused of attempted murder, but not the murder itself.

New information reveals JFK was shot FOUR TIMES, two from the back, and two from the front (in a back-forward-back-forward pattern). Oswald was BEHIND the president, and fired the first shot. So, how can he be THE ASSASSIN/MURDERER?

"Newspaper clipping from the Dallas Times Herald. The clipped article states that there is evidence that four shots were fired at President Kennedy on November 22nd, 1963. New evidence suggested that a fourth shot was fired from the "grassy knoll" area." - https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth340486/

Evidence gathered, and ballistics expertise by Donahue: "Thanks to his understanding of ballistics--and some remarkable luck--Donahue was able to spot discrepancies in the evidence that had been missed both by the Warren Commission experts and by critics of the Commission's Report. So he kept digging, trying to understand. And finally Donahue pieced together the facts and came to a shocking conclusion: Lee Harvey Oswald could not have fired the shot that shattered Kennedy's skull" - Mortal Error: The Shot That Killed JFK

"Josiah Thompson makes another compelling argument for second gunman, based on what the United States House Select Committee On Assassinations concluded. He said, "They found that the last two shots were seven tenths of a second apart." Thompson demonstrates the Carcano Rifle's Bolt-Action: I pull the trigger. Now, I work the bolt, work the bolt. Now notice, I got to acquire the target in the scope. So, I've got to acquire the target then I've got to center the cross hairs before firing. There's no way anyone could fire two shots from that rifle within a second." - Josiah Thompson (Author: Six Seconds In Dallas and Last Second in Dallas)

Forget all the conspiracy theories, the evidence is clear, there was AT LEAST one more gunman, and the fatal shot was from front not back. Therefore Lee Harvey Oswald did NOT assassinate JFK.

Section and quotes added by: Diablo — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.205.242.197 (talk) 06:05, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Wow, we've never heard that one before. EEng 06:41, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

The bullets that hit Kennedy were balistically linked to Oswald's rifle, to the exclusion of all other rifles. The HSCA only reached their flawed conclusion based on the debunked dictabelt audio. The knoll was a terrible place to aim a shot from (the view would have been heavily obscured by road signs, a retaining wall and crowds of people), and Zapruder's secretary, who was standing near that spot, didn't hear a rifle being fired right next to her. Kennedy's head moved forwards after being shot: https://www.jfk-online.com/Closeup_312-313.gif 2A00:23C7:99A4:5000:94ED:6AF6:618D:5A47 (talk) 06:09, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

As mentioned earlier, the HSCA dictabelt evidence, which the newspaper refers to, was thoroughly debunked. (See earlier threads) Secondly, the autopsy and the photos of same show evidence consistent with shots from the rear. All the attendant autopsy surgeons confirmed the authenticity of the photos as did the forensic analysis of the images done by the HSCA. There is only evidence JFK was hit by two bullets, both from the rear.

While there are different tabulations of ear-witness reports, all report about 95% of witnesses heard a MAXIMUM of 3 shots. Virtually no witnesses reported 4+ shots. And, while much is made of the numbers of witnesses who claimed shots came from the Grassy Knoll, or at least from Elm Street, virtually all of these witnesses claim ALL the shots came from that direction. But multiple witnesses SAW a sniper fire shots from the Texas School Book Depository. NONE saw a sniper on the knoll. Since something like 95% of earwitnesses heard ALL shots (also according to multiple tabulations) from ONE direction, how could witnesses who claimed ALL the shots came from the Grassy Knoll not hear any come from the TSBD? Because of the confusing acoustics of the plaza. A tiny handful of witnesses reported shots coming from two or more directions, some of whom were in the motorcade itself. We'd expect large number of witnesses saying shots came from multiple directions if there were more than one gunman, but that is not what we have. For more than a half century, those who claim there were multiple gunman have failed to explain this glaring discrepancy in their claim - why did virtually no one hear shots from multiple directions?

The final nail in the Grassy Knoll coffin is the testimony of the one witness who was behind the knoll fence, looking at the back of it as the motorcade passed by. Lee Bowers told assassination researcher Mark Lane -on film - that no one was behind the fence when the motorcade passed. This crucial testimony was excised from the film Lane made as he pursued conspiracy theories and was not revealed until the 1990s, decades after Bowers' death.

As for JFK's head movement, despite how Hollywood depicts people being shot, the physics are rather straightforward - the amount of movement we'd see from a bullet of that size transferred to a body the weight of Kennedy's would be around an inch, not the near foot we see in the film. Any bullet big enough to knock someone over by a foot would also blow his head completely off. As earlier mentioned, we DO see the ~1 inch movement in the frame of immediate impact, as we'd expect. The backwards movement is most likely a neuromuscular reaction, as it is far too big a movement to be explained by a bullet strike. We didn't see Connally, for example, knocked to the floor after being hit in the back.

As for the "Mortal Error" claim - that an agent in a following vehicle mistakenly fired the fatal bullet - this has been debunked by film evidence which shows the agent in question seated at the moment of the fatal shot. He wasn't in a position to fire a clear shot at the president. Canada Jack (talk) 22:44, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

Lee Oswald acted on his own. There's no question about that, and that's what the investigation determined.--Vernel222 (talk) 10:48, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 10 September 2023

Change "single bullet theory" to "single-bullet theory" throughout the article.

Without the hyphen, the phrase "single bullet theory" could ambiguously refer to a single theory about a bullet, whereas the phrase actually refers to a theory about a single bullet. The Wikipedia page "single-bullet theory" correctly punctuates this phrase, and in fact "single bullet theory" redirects to that page. The Template:Assassination of John F. Kennedy at the bottom of this article also correctly uses the hyphen. Yet this article consistently (all five times) omits it, even in wikilinks (three of the five uses), where the phrase thus points to the redirect page rather than the actual page. (The phrase "single bullet" when not used as a modifier of "theory", on the other hand, should not have a hyphen, so the one appearance of that in this article is correct.) 2605:A601:AB56:CB00:8020:412D:F769:A09 (talk) 03:14, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Most RS use "Single bullet theory". Note that the cited Wikipedia arbitrarily doesn't hyphenate "magic bullet theory". ~ HAL333 03:42, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Actually, after looking at Posner and Bugliosi, I do think we should hyphenate it. ~ HAL333 14:50, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

 Done Redirecting wikilinks are usually not best practice, and the one quotation without the hyphen was incorrect (the book uses a hyphen throughout). I see no reason not to do this (given these reasons) so I boldly did this. -- Pinchme123 (talk) 03:55, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

 Undone: This request has been undone. I really don't care either way, but it looks here to be only one person objecting to this change, who has not provided anything other than a vague "most RS" statements without links, and a very shaky note about the only not-hyphenated term in the related wikilinked article. To be clear, wikilinks shouldn't go to redirected terms without a good reason, and there's no good reason here. But you all can fight about it. Just mark me down as supporting this change. Pinchme123 (talk) 04:07, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Resetting "answered" parameter to reflect that this isn't settled. If some sources punctuate in a way that renders the phrase ambiguous, then they're not reliable on that aspect, even if they're reliable on matters of fact. (Put differently, "reliable" doesn't mean "infallible".) Wikipedia should use unambiguous writing. 2605:A601:AB56:CB00:8020:412D:F769:A09 (talk) 04:27, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

• I know just the person to elucidate the subtleties and sub-subtleties here. EEng 05:22, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

  As usual, I would say: just follow MOS:HYPHEN and stop looking for 'my topic is magically special' exceptions to guidelines that apply regardless of topic. We have a style guide for a reason. Sources reliable for facts about an event (or facts about theories about an event, whatever) do not dictate how we write English for our audience, or we could not have a style guide at all. This should be "single-bullet theory", as with any other use of a compound adjective. The fact that somewhere on WP someone wrote "magic bullet theory" instead of "magic-bullet theory" just means we have another compound modifier to fix. And "the one quotation without the hyphen was incorrect (the book uses a hyphen throughout)" is smoking-gun evidence that someone's just trying to impose the hyphenless version for WP:ILIKEIT reasons, even to the point of falsifying the source material. So, to hell with that. For those who care about how the sources are writing this anyway, the hyphenated version is provably dominant [4].  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:52, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

  So there! EEng 07:00, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Since I was reverted, I don't feel comfortable reinstating my edit so quickly. But this looks like consensus in support of the proposed edit to me. If I don't see anyone else reinstate the proposed edit (and a self-revert by HAL333 would suffice), I'll go ahead and implement this tomorrow. My apologies to HAL333, I've just seen the revert. I've marked this as answered. --Pinchme123 (talk) 14:52, 10 September 2023 (UTC) updated 14:55, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

No worries at all. I myself should have actually checked the RS before my "rush to judgement". ~ HAL333 16:47, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Paul Landis

Should he be discussed more instead of only a brief mention?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66792977 2603:3016:403:BC00:B4FC:A557:83F1:5CEE (talk) 22:16, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure if much more is due, at least for now. As Wikipedia is not a newspaper, we should wait to see if this becomes a significant aspect of future works on the assassination (also see WP:RECENTISM). If it does, it may eventually merit its own subsection. ~ HAL333 19:09, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

JFK's age at death.

Article has John F Kennedy's age at the time of his death as 59. He was born as the article says in 1917. That would make him 46 at the time of his death in 1963. 38.87.97.112 (talk) 01:58, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

If you're referring to the "Date" listing in the infobox, what it actually says is that the assassination took place 59 years ago, not that that was Kennedy's age at the time. A. Randomdude0000 (talk) 02:35, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Inconsistent caption?

A caption reads: "Per the Warren Commission's single-bullet theory (top), one bullet caused Kennedy's death and Connally's non-fatal wounds."

This seems at odds with the description given in the adjacent text, i.e. that the bullet that wounded Governor Connally passed through Kennedy's neck without killing him, and the subsequent bullet was the fatal shot. This isn't a subject I know very much about, but a contradiction is apparent. Have I misunderstood?

Jean-de-Nivelle (talk) 20:19, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

Good catch Jean. Fixed. ~ HAL333 01:53, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Oswald's Route Home

The current article says Oswald took a bus from a location near Dealey Plaza to his home(under the paragraph "Oswald's Flight."

In Reclaiming History,2007 pp. 64-65 Bugliosi states that Oswald got off the bus shortly after getting on it and walked to the cab stand (at the Greyhound bus station) at Jackson and Lamar where he took a cab to Oak Cliff. After passing the house where he was renting a room, Oswald asked the cab driver to stop and Oswald got out off the cab.

The cab was driven by William Whaley who wrote down the fare in his notebook.

When leaving the bus Oswald obtained a paper transfer with a unique punch hole. This was later confirmed by police. 2600:1700:1681:D0:E8E0:9610:9C93:7B4F (talk) 14:55, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 November 2023

"; polls found that a majority of Americans believed there was a conspiracy."

This statement needs a source, what polls were done? Otherwise it should be removed. I found this poll done by the gallup that confirms this statement.

Article: https://news.gallup.com/poll/514310/decades-later-americans-doubt-lone-gunman-killed-jfk.aspx

pdf: https://news.gallup.com/file/poll/544358/2023_11_13%20JFK.pdf

This seems like a reputable source that should be added to support this statement. Capnhawkbill (talk) 12:36, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Source is already given in the Conspiracy theories section. However, it's a 10 years old version of the poll you gave and it would be a good idea to update this source. Alpha-LinDroid (talk) 13:25, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

 Done I added this source and rephrased the sentence to indicate what the Gallup article says, that it's been consistent for decades that Americans think more than one person was involved. -- Pinchme123 (talk) 04:02, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 24 November 2023

According to the original document, in the Church Committe section, the start "In 1976" would rather be "In 1975". Alpha-LinDroid (talk) 22:53, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

Wrong source my bad. Alpha-LinDroid (talk) 22:55, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

 Done Pinchme123 (talk) 04:05, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Add source for the Ramsey Clark Panel

To complete the sources of the Ramsey Clark Panel, we could add the original report released by the ARRB Master Set of Medical Exhibits.

The first link is a page-by-page scan and the second the full pdf, I don't know which is more adequate :

https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md59/html/Image00.htm https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/pdf/md59.pdf Alpha-LinDroid (talk) 11:03, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

URL where broken, here fixed :

https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md59/html/Image00.htm

https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/pdf/md59.pdf Alpha-LinDroid (talk) 11:05, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

But what more does this add? It's a primary source as well. ~ HAL333 15:28, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Well first, to indicate to interested readers where to get the document. For my case, I spent too much time to understand that the conclusions of this panel was in the Medical Exhibit 59 and that I can't get it on archives.gov, but instead on other hosts.

Second, the location of the original reports of the Rockefeller Commission, the Church Committee, the HSCA and the ARRB are also in the sources, so why not apply the same logic here ? Alpha-LinDroid (talk) 20:17, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

The other respective reports are included because they were cited. This is an encyclopedia article, not a bibliography. ~ HAL333 22:31, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Ok, I understand the reasoning, nothing to add. Alpha-LinDroid (talk) 13:48, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

No worries, cheers ~ HAL333 23:12, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

"Witnesses" [plural] "saw two conspicuous men"?

On November 30 I noticed this sentence in the article: "In March 1963, a bullet narrowly missed General Edwin Walker at his Dallas residence; witnesses observed two conspicuous men." Given that I have long known that only one witness, singular, Walter Kirk Coleman, ever said that he saw two such men on the night the shooting occurred I added citation needed at the end of the sentence, and said that the source needs to specifically give the full name of at least one other witness besides Coleman who made this claim. Since eight days later no such citation had been given, I removed the last four words of the sentence. The following day my edit was undone by someone claiming that the source (the one at the end of the following sentence apparently) does say multiple witnesses saw two suspicious men. But it does not say multiple witnesses saw two conspicuous men on the night of the shooting. Instead it says this: "There were no eyewitnesses, although a 14-year-old boy in a neighboring house claimed that immediately after the shooting he saw two men, in separate cars, drive out of a church parking lot adjacent to Walker's home. A friend of Walker's testified that two nights before the shooting he saw "two men around the house peeking in windows."" But this is on different nights, not both witnesses saying they saw two men on the same night. Also there is no evidence that the men seen two nights before the shooting were the same men that Coleman saw on the night of the shooting. The original wording of the sentence suggests that the witnesses, plural, both saw these men on the same night and that is misleading. At the very least that last part of the sentence should be changed to something like, "one witness saw two conspicuous men two nights before the shooting and another witness saw two such men on the night of the shooting." Caeruleo (talk) 15:20, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

Firstly, please keep your talk page comments concise. Secondly, you've been on Wikipedia long enough to know how it works. Please follow BRD and do not edit war. But as a compromise, how about changing "witnesses" to the singular "witness". The alternative wording is to clunky imo. ~ HAL333 16:24, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

The singular "witness" is fine with me. Caeruleo (talk) 16:50, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

Good stuff. We can also add a footnote elaborating further on this, if you want. This article is just so wide-ranging that it's very difficult to not get bogged down in the details and lose sight of summary style. ~ HAL333 17:10, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

It says he assasinated Kennedy. Shouldn't it say that he was suspected of assasinating Kennedy, rather than saying for a fact that he did it? He never stood trial.

i It states that Oswald assassinated Kennedy. Shouldn't it say he was suspected of assassinating Kennedy, rather than stating it as fact. He never stood trial. So, he was never convicted. Are you automatically guilty of a crime now because the Warren Commission says it is a fact. I think he did it but thinking it is true doesn't make it fact. 2600:8804:7208:D100:E570:DB11:3E7B:9C6D (talk) 04:59, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

This is a perennial misconception. Dying before you can be tried doesn't mean that investigations can't or don't establish culpability. John Wilkes Booth isn't called a "suspect" either. Acroterion (talk) 17:40, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

Same rolls with these bastards, who very much like Oswald were found guilty by a federal investigation. ~ HAL333 19:07, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

Doing clean-up... lots to do here...

I've not really gone over the page since the recent re-do, but I wish I had, as there are a lot of errors here - so I'm slowly going through it... like the glaringly wrong claim that the once-classified HSCA report on Oswald's activities in Mexico City - the so-called Lopez Report, released in 2003 - concluded an imposter visited the Cuban and Soviet embassies - when it in fact concluded almost the exact opposite - that it was most likely Oswald who in fact visited the embassy!

Any feedback is welcomed.... Canada Jack (talk) 00:31, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Grateful to you for the cleanup work. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 02:20, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Parkland doctors say neck wound was an entrance wound. Meaning more than one shooter

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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The "Shooting" section of the article needs to be updated with the info from here:

• Talk:John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories#Parkland doctors say neck wound was an entrance wound. Meaning more than one shooter.

There are many articles recently due to the Paramount+ original documentary, "JFK: What the Doctors Saw".

• Youtube: - JFK: What The Doctors Saw | Official Trailer | Paramount+. Posted Oct 30, 2023 at Youtube. See: JFK: What the Doctors Saw. IMDb.

--Timeshifter (talk) 09:42, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

The Parkland doctors were not involved with the autopsy and were only stating an opinion. The autopsy found evidence for only two bullets entering, both from the rear. Any bullet entering from the front would have had an exit round to the rear - there were none - or have turned up in the x-rays, still inside the president. None were present. The nature of the wound to the front of the neck was such that it would have not been possible to distinguish it from being an entrance or an exit wound by a quick visual examination, which is all the Parkland doctors had before performing the tracheotomy. But other evidence, in particular the damage done to JFK's tie, which the bullet passed through, indicates that it had to be an exit wound. Canada Jack (talk) 23:01, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

The autopsy has been thoroughly debunked from many reliable sources. The 7 Parkland emergency room doctors were there, and are experts, in that they see gunshot wounds all the time. See the other talk page. So this info should be in the article here, just like the debunked autopsy report. Let the readers decide what to believe. That is our way. WP:NPOV. We are not a cult of believers in everything people say. Including what the autopsy people said.

An admin at the other talk page said the info could go both here and there. It was up to the editors. It's obvious it belongs in both articles. Since if there was more than one shooter, then by definition a conspiracy is involved. So then the various conspiracy theories are of interest.

The info should go here since it is reliable info from reliable sources. --Timeshifter (talk) 01:12, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

"The autopsy has been thoroughly debunked from many reliable sources." Uh, not it hasn't. There were certainly many problems with it, but the HSCA's panel - which included Cyril Wecht, who believes there was a conspiracy - agreed that the fundamental findings were correct: Two and only two bullets struck the president, one entering the upper back/neck, the second entered the back of the skull. The conclusions were also verified by the earlier Ramsey Clark medical panel, and the autopsy photos and x-rays were verified and back up the conclusions of the original autopsy.

You and many others have been gaslit by conspiracy authors who point out the relative inexperience of those autopsy surgeons, and the generally rushed nature of the autopsy. But the fundamental issue is not what were the credentials of the surgeons and circumstances of the autopsy, but whether their conclusions correspond with the evidence or not. And since we have the x-rays and the autopsy photos, that determination can be made, and has been made - repeatedly. The president was struck by two and only two bullets, from behind.

The Parkland doctor claim has been made since 1963 - this isn't anything new - and what was true then is true today - the sort of wound to the neck we are talking about means whether it was a wound of entrance of of exit would not be determined by a mere quick visual glance. The test that proved the other wounds were entrance wounds - coagulation necrosis - wasn't done on that frontal wound, but we know that it could not have been an entrance wound because a) there was no corresponding exit wound; b) there was no bullet seen in x-rays; c) his tie which the bullet passed through shows it was exiting, not entering. Canada Jack (talk) 01:30, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

It would take hours to show how thoroughly the autopsy, xrays, and photos have been debunked. The 7 Parkland doctors were in agreement that the neck wound in front was an entrance wound. In the documentary and elsewhere they talked about the many flaws in the autopsy. For example, they say that the autopsy photos are not what they saw. Readers have a right to decide which debunking they believe. Anything else is censorship. See WP:NPOV. HSCA had dissenting votes too. Which by the way, the reasons for their dissent are not in the article either.

The documentary has many eyewitness testimonies. The Bethesda autopsy started at 635 PM. Eyewitnesses who were there talk on the video about the coverup. The brain was removed before the second autopsy at 805 PM. All metal was removed from the brain and body. And the brain was put back in.

There was actually another entrance wound witnessed and discussed at the autopsy, but never mentioned later. It also was from the front. On the right front of the head just above the hairline.

The entrance wound on the neck was above the shirt and tie. And let's not forget the entrance wound on the back. That is 3 entrance wounds. 2 of which are from the front.

John Connally is on video in the doc saying he does not believe in the single bullet theory for the bullet that hit him. President Johnson on audio talking to Senator Russell says the same thing. Russell agrees with Johnson.

In the doc there is video of eyewitnesses who saw the shooter on the grassy knoll as he used his gun to shoot the President's brains out. --Timeshifter (talk) 08:29, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

This will be my last post on this before I get my ass kicked again.... Sorry folks, here we go again...

Lots of problems here, first being this supposedly "new" information from the seven doctors sounds a lot like it came from a doc that came out in 2015 - eight years ago! Second, the "entry wound" claim has been being made since 1963, so this is old, long-debunked news. Why? Because the nature of a wound to the throat - a hollow pipe, not a mass of muscle/bone/tissue which would have expanded outwards - would have meant there was no way to tell by visual examination alone whether it was an entry wound or an exit wound! Further, as far as I know, Drs Carrico, Curtis and White were first there, closest to the president, and when Perry came in and took over, he saw the wound, and he observed that the tube down Kennedy's throat was not sufficient to allow him to breathe. Thinking the wound to the throat was an incision, he was told by Carrico it was in fact a wound, upon which he immediately made an incision and it was Baxter, McClelland and Peters who helped Perry insert the tracheotomy tube. Yet SIX other doctors, besides McClelland, claim they not only saw this wound but determined it was a wound of entry? How the hell could Jones, Goldstrich, Klein, Seldin, Salyer and Loeb tell? Did a total of TEN doctors hover over JFK's neck? Did they clean the gurgling wound and all closely examine it? Because that is what you'd need to do! McCelland WAS likely in a position to see, so his testimony seems more plausible, but the others? Outside of McClelland, NONE of those other doctors seemed to have actually attended to the president before the incision was made by Perry. Yet they all claim to have seen it in enough detail to tell it was an entrance wound?

But as I said before, other evidence goes against it, in particular the threads of the tie which indicate an exit wound, and with the rear wounds proven to be entrance wounds, we also lack an exit wound or embedded bullet for this purported extra wound of entrance. "The entrance wound on the neck was above the shirt and tie." No, it was below the Adam's Apple. Another reason to dismiss this as an entrance wound - no fibres embedded in the front neck wound. They also, some of them, claimed to have seen a gaping hole at the rear of his head - despite the fact JFK was laying on his back the entire time he was in the operating theatre.

This is why we have autopsies, so these issues can be examined and addressed. They were. So those who claim otherwise were mistaken. Period.

"Readers have a right to decide which debunking they believe. Anything else is censorship." If we use that argument for every claim made in this case, the page would be perhaps 1000x longer than it is currently. Seriously. EVERY aspect of the assassination is disputed. Which is why we have separate pages, such as a conspiracy page. And this is an old claim, first publicly made the day of the assassination.

"There was actually another entrance wound witnessed and discussed at the autopsy, but never mentioned later." No there wasn't. Another conspiracy claim. Why do we know this to be false? Because many of these claims have been around for a half-century, so the HSCA not only gathered some of the top pathologists in America, they also gathered top experts in the forensics of photography and x-rays, and examined the many claims such as these - the extra wounds, the wounds claimed to have been seen at Parkland, etc. That's because the WC relied on the testimony of the pathologists, not any of the physical evidence, and the other medical investigation in 1969, while examining the photos and x-rays, didn't authenticate the evidence itself. But even Cyril Wecht, who claims conspiracy and dismisses the single bullet theory, conceded at the HSCA that the possibility that a second shot to the head struck was a remote one. Mr. PURDY. "Dr. Wecht, does the present state of available evidence permit the conclusion that to a reasonable degree of medical certainty there was not a shot from the side which struck the President?" Dr. WECHT. "Yes, with reasonable medical certainty I would have to say that the evidence is not there. I have already said it is a remote possibility and I certainly cannot equate that with reasonable medical certainty." And because he has had an evolving view on whether there was a shot which entered JFK's neck from the front, Vincent Buglioisi got him to concede in two conversations in 1999 and 2000 that the bullet that entered his back "must have" exited the front of the throat where the WC and HSCA said it had. (p. 862 Bug.) The conclusion of the WR, verified by the HSCA? Two and only two bullets struck the president, one in the upper back/lower neck, the second at the rear of the skull. The only major difference was the precise location of the entry wound to the skull.

The problem with the HSCA's report, Timeshifter, is they examined the original negatives and reversible films of the autopsy, the original x-rays, did extensive photo and x-ray comparisons to determine that the individual in the photos and x-rays was indeed JFK, comparing with exemplars, noting physical landmarks etc., then did extensive analysis to determine if there was manipulation of the images themselves. And there was none detected. Manipulation was made exponentially more unlikely by the fact that many of the images were shot in pairs, meaning they could be viewed stereoscopically, making any superimposition exceedingly difficult, and no subterfuge was detected. Robert Groden, years later, tried to claim a wet part of JFK's hair was "manipulated," but this convinced none of the photographic experts.

In short, the conclusions the HSCA made in 1978/9 have stood the test of time, and those who claim otherwise have no basis to do so, as they haven't had access to the original negatives/slides or x-rays to make any relevant conclusions. I was a conspiracy theorist myself back then, though the HSCA didn't convince me as I didn't bother to read the report for something like two decades, though it was not exactly easy to obtain without effort. No one today has that excuse.

"John Connally is on video in the doc saying he does not believe in the single bullet theory for the bullet that hit him. President Johnson on audio talking to Senator Russell says the same thing. Russell agrees with Johnson." Connally famously believed they were struck by different bullets. But he was looking forward when struck and was in no position to know when JFK was hit. His wife claimed that too - but she was looking at her husband, not Kennedy when JFK was hit, so how would she know? And Johnson likely never read the report while Russel was famous on the WC for having the worst attendance and not bothering to show up for most of the testimony he didn't hear but nevertheless dismissed.

"In the doc there is video of eyewitnesses who saw the shooter on the grassy knoll as he used his gun to shoot the President's brains out." Like I said, even conspiracy theorist Cyril Wecht concedes there is no evidence with JFK's body to support this. And these "witnesses" said nothing for a half-century, so that's not very credible. A lot of people have made a lot of money off of a gullible public for more than a half-century now. How come Lee Bowers, behind the stockade fence in the railway tower told Mark Lane "no one" was behind the fence in a position to shoot the president when the motorcade passed? Canada Jack (talk) 01:20, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

The number of eyewitnesses in the documentary is extraordinary. Go look at it. Paramount Plus gives you one week free. Until you see it you will not believe or understand how it completely blows away almost everything you said. You've said you've changed your mind before. Give it a chance before you respond to me again please.

All the doctors explain exactly what they saw. One by one. The Parkland doctors all said the Bethesda x-rays and photos were bogus. In very obvious ways.

The most amazing eyewitnesses to me were the ones that have come out more and more concerning the TWO Bethesda autopsies. Whatever faith you have in the Bethesda xrays and photos will be destroyed after seeing the full documentary. And one of those Bethesda eyewitnesses talks about the 3rd entrance wound at the top right of Kennedy's head just above the hairline. And you'll get a laugh at how the doctor in the SECOND autopsy acts surprised that the brain came out so easily. It was because the connection to the neck part of the brain had already been cut in the FIRST autopsy. CUT, not severed by the bullet action.

The WC and the HSCA reports did not have these Bethesda eyewitness whistleblowers as far as I know.

The bullet nicked the tie. So when I heard one of the eyewitnesses say the neck wound was above the collar and tie it must have been after they loosened the tie when he first arrived. Unless I misheard. Which is also possible. I downloaded the whole Warren Report PDF.

• https://www.govinfo.gov/features/warren-commission-report-and-hearings - scroll down for PDF links for the whole report, or by volume.

In Firefox I did searches for necktie and tie. It says this about the tie on page 92: "The nick was elongated horizontally, indicating that the tear was made by some object moving horizontally, but the fibers were not affected in a manner which would shed light on the direction or the nature of the missile." --Timeshifter (talk) 02:49, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

JFK autopsy missing photos and x-rays

In the article, there is this line: "Some autopsy X-rays and photographs have also been lost."

I am trying to unravel this one, as there are a lot of claims in regards to those photos. First off, I can't find any reference to any X-rays having gone missing, so does anyone have any info on this? As for the photos, the best I can determine is though the 3 pathologists and photographer signed off on saying "all" images were there when transferred to the Archives in 1966, they separately claimed that photos showing the bevelling of the skull wound from the inside, and of the inside of the chest showing the lungs, adrenals etc, weren't part of that inventory. Bugliosi points out that the "bevel" photos in fact DO seem to be part of the inventory, though the chest shots are not there, though there is some uncertainty that they were in fact taken.

So, from what they say, it seems that one (or two) of the chest photos may be missing.

But then we get other claims, like from Saundra Spencer at the White House photo lab who seems to be talking about a second set of photos, either of the autopsy, or of the corpse "cleaned up" after preparation for embalming. These may have been taken by White House photographer Robert Knudsen. But this is very speculative, as are claims of photos depicting a metal probe. But John Stringer, the autopsy photographer, and others there, while recalling a metal probe, don't recall photographing this. On Knudsen - he claims to have been the autopsy photographer though Stringer indisputably was and no one recalls his presence at the autopsy. He claimed photos he took were confiscated and that when he saw the official photos, they weren't what he remembered.

Further, Joe O'Donnell, a photographer, claimed to have been shown autopsy photos taken by his friend Knudsen which showed different head wounds - like an entrance wound at the hairline in the front - but his claims don't match anything we see in the authenticated photos. Further, he made many strange claims - such as having taken the famous JFK jr "salute" photo which he didn't; demanding to talk to Jackie upon her return with the casket at Andrew's Air Force base, which was granted, and sitting in the ambulance with the coffin with her to tell her of JFK's desire to be buried at Arlington; claiming to have had a private viewing, just she and Jackie, to watch the Zapruder film together.

The Knudsen/O'Donnell claims seem too far out - and are wildly inconsistent - the wounds change in their recollections - but it was what a lot of conspiracy theorists seize on. Other claims, by Dennis David and Floyd Riebe don't hold water as David claims to be shown photos taken by someone who wasn't there, a memory recovered by hypnosis, and Riebe, while there, was remembered for taking photos of those present, only to pull the film out to destroy the exposures.

I propose we either omit the line, or mention that several of the chest photos may have gone missing. And remove the "x-rays" claim unless someone can confirm that there is a claim some of those have gone missing.

Canada Jack (talk) 00:49, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Canada Jack, which page in Bugliosi supports the brain being found missing, and which page supports the "either destroyed these materials..." bit? Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 02:17, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

The page in Bug where the brain is missing is 431; "either destroyed..." page 432. It cites 7 HSCA 32-33.

For a page with a "good" status I am surprised at how many glaring errors have crept into the page lately. "Two" surgeons performing the autopsy? And the claim that the brain was at the National Archives? That is not true - or at best highly misleading. The brain was kept in a facility at the Archives - but was under custody of the Kennedys. It was when they transferred the items to the Archives that Item - which included the brain - was not among the items the Kennedys previously had in their custody. But it was clearly the Kennedys who had these items removed. Canada Jack (talk) 02:59, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Should have said "...that Item 9 - which included..." Canada Jack (talk) 03:01, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 03:04, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 26 December 2023

Why not add the Zapruder film video file form commons? (Zapruder-Film- Original) 174.3.207.112 (talk) 03:16, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit semi-protected}} template. Given there are already still images from the Zapruder film in the article, this should at least be discussed before being implemented. HouseBlaster^talk 05:09, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

The file in question has now been deleted from Commons as a copyright violation. [5] AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:01, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Kennedy and Connally name mixup

In the caption under the images of the bird’s eye view of the bullet trajectory (black ink drawings with red markings) it reads “Kennedy’s non fatal wound and Connally’s wounds” when I believe it should instead read “Connally’s non fatal wound and Kennedy’s wounds”. Fixing this would improve readability of this very important article. I have never edited Wikipedia (or written on the talk page) before but I noticed this error and I thought it would be good to point out. Lightningbolt007 (talk) 23:10, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Kennedy was shot more than once, with fatal and non-fatal shots. Acroterion (talk) 23:16, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for clarifying. Lightningbolt007 (talk) 02:16, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

Information to real shooter of Kennedy Semi-protected edit request on 4 March 2024

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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2 different zapruder tapes are known to exist. The one you see used is highly edited as there is half a tree displayed and people missing from the shot. The second tape that wasn't edited, was able to be slowed enough that you see Bill Greer (JFKs driver) pull an electric gun and shoot Kennedy from the front. This correlates with why the back of Kennedys skull was the majorilty reflected damage. Had L.H.O been the killer, the bullet wound would have been in the larger in appearance at the front of his skull, not the back. The assassination was a coup designed for Lyndon Johnson to give control back to the elites since Kennedy had issued executive orders to get rid of the federal reserve.

YouTube video interview: https://www.facebook.com/share/r/BcLatuUGg5QoBgCM/?mibextid=oFDknk 24.235.148.150 (talk) 15:39, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

 Not done: You have not indicated what exact changes you would like to be made (e.g. "change X to Y"), nor have you provided a reliable source for your claims (a Facebook post of a TikTok clip of a YouTube video of a someone filming their TV is not a reliable source, see the Sagan standard). You also leave out the part where Seymour, the only person to have seen the supposed "real" tape, also says that both it and the version with the floating tree were fabrications created to discredit her. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 15:54, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

An electric gun seems so very James Bond. Wouldn't it have been easier just to poison JFK's coffee? EEng 02:41, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Very slight correction on Kennedy's Arrival in Dallas.

Hi I'm Sleep, I'm a Belgian final year student that has chosen the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy as my final year essay. I wanted to be as diligent as possible in the flight arrival hours so I searched for official documentation on such a precise thing as Kennedy's arrival in Dallas. I noticed that it shows as 11:40 on this page although official flight logs from the National Museum of the United States Air Force shows the arrival to be at 11:38. Here is the document. https://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Visit/Museum-Exhibits/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/579674/sam-26000-logbook/

I hope my correction doesn't come across as petty or irrelevant, I just want to contribute to improving what will be for most the go-to source of information on this subject. I lack sleep (talk) 11:22, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

It's not petty or irrelevant at all, but it does highlight yet another reason we prefer secondary to primary sources. No doubt there are many logs and records reflecting "arrival" -- pilots, Secret Service, airport tower, etc. Each may have its own definition -- wheels touched down, aircraft stopped at a designated disembarkation point, door opened, Kennedy appears at door, who knows? All these might be valid "arrival times". Plus in those days, everyone was just looking at his watch and writing down what it said. That's not the sort of thing we as editors can sort out, nor should be try.

Presumably the "11:40" figure you mention as currently being in the article comes from some reliable source which made a reasoned choice among the above. Perhaps that source took the figure from e.g. the Warren Commission, which itself found a center point among several records at slight variance. But in any event, we rely on secondary sources to do that for us.

Now, if there's conflict or controversy among secondary sources on this point, that might be worth bringing out in the article. But on this particular point I doubt there will be.

So while your attention to detail is laudable, it turns out that this is one of those places that we as editors make our lives easier by letting others do the work. EEng 02:35, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your answer, I understand. I lack sleep (talk) 10:29, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 2 May 2024

Change

“ Common culprits include the FBI, the CIA, the U.S. military,[277] the Mafia,[278] the military-industrial complex,[278] Vice President Johnson, Castro, the KGB, or some combination thereof.”

to

“ Common culprits include the FBI, the CIA, the U.S. military,[277] the Mafia,[278] the military-industrial complex,[278] Vice President Johnson, Castro, the KGB, Israel, or some combination thereof.”

with this source cited next to “Israel”: https://www.nsa.gov/portals/75/documents/news-features/declassified-documents/jfk/jfk00067.pdf Spiritedpause (talk) 15:11, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

 Not done: For several reasons. One, this is a primary source that's not necessarily neutral, see WP:PRIMARY specifically point four, which states Do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so. (emphasis in original). Two, the sentence in the article says "common culprits include", and one instance doesn't equal common. Three, the article states "Zionists" and not explicitly Israel. Bestagon ⬡ 16:59, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

CIA Involvement.

https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/release2022

Its been declassified and confirmed that the CIA had direct involvement in the JFK Assassination down to recruiting the shooter. So why hasn't this information been added to the page yet? Why has my query from last year been deleted from record... and why do you keep denying CIA involvement when they've confirmed it in black and white? 2A02:C7C:4CAE:6C00:4133:C91A:3A18:9B97 (talk) 14:47, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

You linked to a primary source of thousands of pages. What do you think we are supposed to do with this? Find a reliable secondary source WP:RSPRIMARY O3000, Ret. (talk) 14:52, 23 August 2024 (UTC)