Accidentally becoming a part of history
I was thinking about conspiracy theories last night. In the garden of the forking paths that is internet research, that led me to read up on the Kennedy assassination.
It’s not as though I was previously unfamiliar with the facts. I was alive back then and remember it well, plus I’ve read many articles and books on the subject since. But I’m not one of those people who’s memorized all the details, and so when I revisit them I often find there are interesting surprises, things I had forgotten or never really paid attention to in the first place.
One is them is the story of Johnny Calvin Brewer, a 22-year-old shoe store manager who was instrumental in the capture of Lee Harvey Oswald.
Brewer had heard the news of the Kennedy shooting as well as that of Officer Tippit, the latter occurring in the neighborhood where Brewer worked. Shortly thereafter, Brewer noticed a man in the foyer of the shoe store. He appeared to have ducked in there to avoid some police cars passing by, which Brewer thought was suspicious behavior.
The alert Brewer followed the man to a nearby movie theater, where his quarry entered without paying and Brewer asked the management to call the police. Meanwhile Brewer and another man guarded the exits to make sure Oswald didn’t leave, and then pointed him out to the police, who apprehended him after a struggle (see Brewer’s Warren Commission testimony).
Brewer has faded into such obscurity that I had forgotten he existed. But he had his moment in history, partly because of an accident of proximity and partly because he was smart enough and assertive enough to have a good hunch and follow through on it. But for his actions, would Oswald ever have been caught? We’ll never know; but just imagine the extent of the conspiracy theories that would have been hatched if he hadn’t!
Another person who was accidentally made famous by the Kennedy assassination was Abraham Zapruder. All he did was watch the motorcade—and take his movie camera along to film it:
Not originally intending to bring his camera to the motorcade, at the insistence of his assistant he retrieved it from home before going to Dealey Plaza.
Zapruder’s was not the only film record of the assassination, but it was by far the best, partly because of his vantage point and timing, partly because he stood on a slightly elevated concrete pedestal to get a better view—and partly because, as he said in an early interview, despite the carnage and his own upset, “I kept on shooting.”
Zapruder sold the rights to the film to Life magazine for what was then the fairly princely sum of $150,000, but he retained some say in the matter of how it would be shown to the public of the time:
The night after the assassination, Zapruder is said to have had a nightmare in which he saw a booth in Times Square advertising “See the President’s head explode!” He determined that, while he was willing to make money from the film, he did not want the public to see the full horror of what he had seen. Therefore, a condition of the sale to Life was that frame 313, showing the fatal shot, would be withheld.
Zapruder also distinguished himself by giving $25,000 of his fee to Tippit’s widow. His wishes about the film were respected until after his 1970 death, when in 1975 ABC (and none other than Geraldo Rivera) showed the film—with frame 313 included—to a shocked American public for the first time.
Now, of course, it’s on YouTube. Our delicate sensibilities have become a lot less delicate over time. What’s more, when history happens now, there are a million cell phone cameras to record it from every possible angle.
But extraordinary events still make heroes out of seemingly ordinary people. Flight 93 is an excellent example. No doubt those heroes, and their families, would have given almost anything to have not been selected for that task. But their fate was otherwise.
I urge everyone to visit the Flight 93 site. I was there a few years ago. The fact that it was a makeshift memorial manned by local volunteers made it even more moving. One of the little-known facts there was that there is an elementary school 2 1/2 miles away. If the aircraft had been in the air a few seconds longer…
FWIW, I consider Gerald Posner’s 1993 book, “Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK” to be the definitive work on the subject.
He goes into great detail (that he backs up) over the (perceived) inconsistencies like bullet trajectory, the “pristine” bullet (it wasn’t), Oswald’s being an innocent patsie (he had actually taken a shot at another political figue before, according to his own wife Marina), and many others.
“Forgotten in most recent studies of the assassination is Oswald.”
Posner remedies this, and it will be no surprise as to his verdict.
The book is a long read, but I highly recommend it.
(I doubt it’s on Oliver Stone’s favorite reading list, though.)
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Paul_In_Houston: I have praised Posner’s excellent book here and here.
I hadn’t known the full Zapruder story. What an honorable and admirable man. And how completely opposite to that worthless turd Geraldo Rivera.
Wasn’t there a janitor that spotted flashlights in the dark at the watergate hotel? And don’t forget Forest Gump, the most famous of the accidentally famous.
Geraldo, is there nothing he can’t do. Worse.
There are a bunch of videos on YouTube about the Kennedy assassination http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR_YLW_NHhw&feature=related.
Be warned that if you start watching all the episodes, you will get hooked.
Given the rifle allegedly used by Oswald, the trajectory from the book depository, and the seconds of target availability; its difficult to believe Oswald or anyone could have accurately fired the shots that killed JFK and wounded Connelly. Then there is the LHO assassin Ruby mysteriously gaining access to LHO. I rarely buy into conspiracy theories but the JFK assassination is unresolved IMO.
Parker: read Case Closed.
neo-neocon: watch Evidence of Revision.
Be warned though, it’s laden with facts, so it won’t fit the Posner version very well.
Nope, I’ve read the people who attempt to debunk Posner’s book, and they are laughable. People give up conspiracy theories hard; some never will. But the facts dictate the conclusion that Oswald killed Kennedy, alone.
But the facts dictate the conclusion that Oswald killed Kennedy, alone.
Agreed.
I read Posner’s book about five years ago and I concur with neo, Paul in Houston, and OB. It’s definitive, beyond a reasonable doubt.
I am reluctant to believe a conspiracy can remain a secret for very long which is why I am skeptical of conspiracy theories. BUT, if LHO was such a great marksman (which would be required in this situation, although his Marine records show he was a mediocre marksman at best) why would he chose a two bit Carcano to do the job?
Why not use a Mosin-Nagant which he might have been familiar with during his time in the USSR? Or a 1903 Springfield, or any model of Enfield or Mauser, or better yet a M1 Garand given his years in the Marines? In the early 1960s there were plenty of equally inexpensive and far more accurate rifles available to everyone in the USA than the lowly Carcano. So why would such a supposedly accomplished marksman choose a Carcano which is known to be a less than desirable (accuracy wise) rifle given the other, numerous alternatives?
I’m not saying LHO was not the shooter, I’m merely saying it remains a mystery to me because no one that I know of, including Posner, has adequately addressed the issues that seem important to me. Tools rule. Craftsmen use good tools, especially if they want to get off numerous & accurate shots in the span of a few seconds. A marksman would not use a Carcano given the other options that were readily available.
Parker:
Maybe Lee Harvey Oswald just got lucky…
Has happened before.
I make no claim to be an expert on Oswald and his hobbies, and have zero interest in digging into the topic, but here’s my off-the-cuff theory as to why he used the notably inferior Carcano rifle: he didn’t know any better. To wit, assuming it’s true that Oswald was at best a mediocre shot, it follows that he didn’t spend much time at the rifle range once the Marines kicked him out, nor does it seem likely that he extensively researched the relative accuracy of the dizzying array of choices available in center-fire rifles, which could be tedious in those pre-Internet days. What I think: he saw the ad for the scoped Carcano for a good price, and he went for it. Unfortunately for JFK, he got one that shot true. If anyone out there knows differently, please feel free to shoot this theory full of holes. But to carry over an analogy, I’m a car guy, and can argue Ford vs. Chevy vs. Mopar or Benz vs. BMW vs. Audi for hours. My b-i-l, on the other hand, can’t tell a camshaft from a carburetor. But he still drives and buys cars. Maybe the same for Oswald and the murder weapon?
There have always been “conspiracy theories” but, I think that the number of such theories will continue to grow in our era and here in the U.S. because–more and more–people are becoming aware that our MSM is not the relatively objective army of intrepid detectives, ferreting out and fearlessly reporting “the Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth” to the public that they say they are but are, instead, the Left’s “Ministry of Truth,”
We are being very systematically, comprehensively, and constantly lied to.
We have a MSM that will spike any story, ignore any evidence, lie, cover up, twist, completely turn on its head, smear and slander, mock and belittle any information or anyone, if doing so will advance the cause of the Left; the picture that the MSM paints, the “reality” that they report to us each day is, in fact, a manufactured, manipulated, artificial, twisted and false “reality.”
Plain and simple, the MSM has become a Leftist propaganda machine, a pack of political hacks, liars and con men, and no more to be looked to for the Truth or to be trusted in anything than were the old directors, managers, editors, and reporters of the U.S.S.R.’s PRAVDA (TRUTH).
Plain and simple, the Left, the whole Obama administration, and the Democratic Party are a massive attempt to hijack American Democracy and our individual Freedoms and to frog march us towards some form of Socialism/Fascism/Marxism, and the Truth be damned, and the MSM is their disinformation arm, that provides the concealing cover for this operation.
Since the whole shebang is nothing but one great conspiracy and a pack of lies, how could conspiracy theories–in which we happen to catch on to this or that loose thread of the great conspiracy itself–not spread and gain more currency with people?
When “trust no one” is they way we have to operate, then all bets are off.
If what we are told is “Reality” is in fact mostly a lie, perhaps some of these conspiracy theories–not all by any means, but some–might offer a glimpse of the actual Reality that lies beneath the false one that has been created to mesmerize, and to preoccupy, divert, and pacify us.
P.S.–In the spy business they talk about their world of espionage, deception, false loyalties, false identities and histories, and betrayal as being a “wilderness of mirrors.”
Part of the Left/MSM disinformation operation is, of course, to sow as much confusion as possible about the real state of affairs. Thus, we have writers and Hollywood presenting a whole bunch of “conspiracy” books and movies to muddy the waters–such conspiracies being shown as generally false and the preoccupation of paranoid Right-wing nuts, but, then again, occasionally true. But, as everyone knows who watches the film or reads the book, the “take home message” is that the worlds and the conspiracies portrayed in them are actually exercises in fantasy and fiction i.e. such conspiracies really do not exist, and anyone who thinks they do is nuts.
Thus, we are presented with layer upon layer of some truth mixed with fiction–the best kind of and the most effective lies, all sorts of ambiguities, false and side trails, stories that morph as time progresses–some earlier “facts” are now “inoperative” and other new “facts” have taken their place, presented with a whole host of people arguing some variant of “this is true,” and others arguing that “this is false,” and such a cacophony of voices and viewpoints, and spreading, concealing, clouds of words that the Truth–if it really exists–is extremely hard to discern through all the fog and confusion, and that is exactly the desired result of such a campaign of disinformation.
Case in point, Barack Hussain Obama.
On the topic of accidentally becoming a part of history, the name Oliver Sipple comes to mind.
Parker and waltj: I am planning to write another post on the subject, but the short answer is that (a) Oswald was actually a good shot; and (c) the rifle is a good one that is quite effective; and (c) it was not purchased to kill Kennedy.
Oswald had owned the rifle for eight months when he used it in the assassination. He had purchased it by mail order in March of 1963 shortly before he used it in an assassination attempt against General Walker, which is almost certainly the reason he got it. Then he hid it away in a friend’s garage where he stored some things, and retrieved it right before the Kennedy shooting, after learning the motorcade route would pass near where he worked, which gave him an opportunity to attempt to kill Kennedy.
He had very little time between the motorcade announcement and the shooting, and used the rifle he already owned. He was also a very poor man with very little money; he probably had chosen that rifle because it was a combination of a good price and a fairly lethal and accurate weapon.
i think the brewer’s of today are diminishing or at least discouraged from getting involved
one could probably expect a by-standers role to extend no more than uploading the suspect escaping into the sunset on youtube
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/03/national/main2324961.shtml
A quick-thinking commuter saved a teenager who apparently suffered a seizure and fell onto subway tracks in Upper Manhattan, by jumping onto the tracks himself and pushing them both between the rails, beneath the oncoming train.
Cameron Hollopeter, 19, of Littleton, Mass., fell onto the tracks at Broadway’s 137th Street station Tuesday. Another subway passenger, 50-year-old Wesley Autrey of Manhattan, was standing on the platform with his two daughters whom he was taking home so he could go to his construction job.
When Autrey saw Hollopeter fall, he quickly took action and left his daughters to jump on the tracks to bring the man to safety as an oncoming train approached.
“I didn’t want the man’s body to get run over,” Autrey said. “Plus, I was with my daughters and I didn’t want them to see that.”
Autrey jumped down onto the tracks and initially tried to pull Hollopeter up to the platform but had to decide whether he could get him up in time to avoid both of them getting hit.
“I was trying to pull him up, but his weight [was too much] plus he was fighting against me – he didn’t know who I was,” Autrey told CBS station WCBS-TV.
Autrey said the man was still moving violently from the seizure, so he pulled him into the center of the tracks – away from the high-voltage third rail – and laid on top of him. “The only thing that popped up in my mind was, ‘OK, well, go for the gutter,'” Autrey said. “So I dove in, I pinned him down and once the first car ran over us, my thing with him was to keep him still.”
The subway trough between the rails, which is used for drainage, is typically about 12 inches deep but can be as shallow as 8 or as deep as 24, a New York City Transit spokesman said.
The train’s operator saw someone on the tracks and put the emergency brakes on. Two cars of the train passed over the men – with about 2 inches to spare, Autrey said – before it came to a stop.
Autrey’s daughters thought the train had killed their father and the teen, but were relieved to hear their father shout up from under the train that the two were fine.
Hollopeter, a student at the New York Film Academy, was taken to a hospital, where he was in stable condition with only minor injuries.
Hollopeter’s stepmother, Rachel Hollopeter, said Autrey was “an angel.”
“He was so heroic,” she said early Wednesday in a telephone interview. “If he wasn’t there, this would be a whole different call.”
Onlooker Patricia Brown said Autrey, a Vietnam War veteran, “needs to be recognized as a hero.” Others cheered him and hugged him outside the train station.
The incident took place around 12:45 p.m. Service on the line, which runs between the southern tip of Manhattan and the Bronx, was suspended for about 45 minutes.
Now Autrey was a veritable “Atrful Dodger!”
Parker:
The Oswald shot has been duplicated any number of times — I’ve seen it done on television twice. I’m sure you can see examples on YouTube. I happened to be surfing a gun site last night and came across a discussion of the shot. The conclusion was, “An easy shot. He couldn’t miss.”
“The Oswald shot has been duplicated any number of times – I’ve seen it done on television twice. I’m sure you can see examples on YouTube. I happened to be surfing a gun site last night and came across a discussion of the shot. The conclusion was, “An easy shot. He couldn’t miss.”
Done on TV twice is not done in the real world once. Ever shoot a deer in the head with a Carcano at 50 yards when its moving at 10 mph while you are 6 floors above it? How about 25 or 100 yards? I’ve never shot a Carcano, but I do know its a less than desirable rifle. Mausers, Enfields, and Springfields were extremely cheap in the early 1960s. You could buy a Mauser for less than $20! I know this is true because I bought a Mauser in 1962 at age 15 for $19.98 (including shipping and handling). BTW LHO took 3 shots, not one.
IMO, it was not an easy shot(s). Was there a cover up? I don’t know. However you look at it, LHO must have been an excellent marksman capable of rapid shots with a bolt action and if he was such a great marksman how did he manage to hit Connelly?
It is likely we will never know the truth. Warren Commission, countless books, and so forth have failed to satisfy my skepticism. The JFK assassination remains the one ‘conspiracy theory’ I’m willing to give some slack.
Parker: have you actually read those books? The Posner book? The Bugliosi book?
What about reports such as this? Seems most people familiar with the gun and the distance say it was not a hard shot to make.
Also see this.
The Carcano is probably at least as accurate as an old .30-30 deer rifle (within 3-4 minutes of angle; say 3-4 inches at 100 yards).
The target was considerably closer, and while moving, it was moving almost along the line of sight; very little lateral movement at all.
I know — some dip in Oliver Stone’s movie remarks “and Oswald was only a medium shot”.
Well, what the Hell does THAT mean?
Not very precise information there. He was a good enough shot to satisfy the United States Marine Corps.
Sgt. James Zahm, the NCO in charge of the marksmanship training unit, said, “In the Marine Corps he is a good shot, slightly above average…and as compared to the average male…throughout the United States, he is an excellent shot.”
If you don’t want to look through over 500 opages of Case Closed (over 70 of which are notes and sources for his information), you can find that particular piece on the first page of chapter 2.
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