Reversal of Fortune part III - Regime Change

In the first part of Reversal of Fortune outlined how the 2002 elections showed a complete reversal of fortune from what seemingly was a progressive dynasty in the works after the 1962 elections.

The second part outlined the series of warnings made that President Kennedy in 1963, seemingly achieving progress in increasing democracy and peace, was in danger of assassination.

Now we explore the actual day that started the disraveling of democracy: November 22, 1963.

As was stated in part II, the Secret Service and FBI had either ignored, or was unaware of all the warnings, including the secretly recorded predicition by right -wing militant Joseph Milteer, which had caused the cancellation of Kennedy's open limo motorcade on Nov. 18 in Miami.

Instead the feds had in fact decreased security in Dallas by dismissing the normal military backup and by re-routing the motorcade so that it would have to slow to almost a stop to make the awkward 120 degree turn in front of the Book Depository [ similar to the "tall building" referred to by Milteer on Nov. 9].

According to the "Warren [read 'ALLEN DULLES' ] Report", Oswald smuggled his Carcano rile, which he had mail-purchased the previous March for less than $ 20, into the building where he worked, disguised as a package of "curtain rods". Yet, fellow Depository employee James Jarman said Oswald asked him why crowds were gathering below on Elm Street, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Kennedy's motorcade was scheduled to pass in front of them at noon.

Indeed "Oswald" may have been an ignorant patsy. Some of the most knowledgable researchers, including George Michael Evica [author of "And We Are All Mortal" ] and John Armstrong of Oklahoma are writing works that conclude there were two Oswalds.

One was the "birth Oswald", born Oct. 1939 in the New Orleans to Marguerite Oswald, an Anglo woman known to the world after Nov. 22 as Oswald's mother. As an adult he stood about 5' 11" and served in the Marine Corps, enlisting in 1956 at his 17th birday. His ability to speak Russian was poor, if any. His whereabouts after Nov. 22 are uncertain.

The other, the "Nov. 22 arrest Oswald" resembled the birth Oswald as an adult, but was slightly smaller, about 5" 8", probably slightly more dark complected and hair colored, born of Slavic parents, possibly Hungarian. He spoke fluent Russian, perhaps his native tongue. He also enlisted in the Marines, about 1957, after the birth Oswald was serving in the far east as a U-2 radar technician. Before enlisting he likely was recruited by David Ferrie from the Civil Air Patrol in New Orleans as a possible control agent who could duplicate a US native to be sent into the Soviet Union, assuming the "American defector's" identity.

According to these researchers, the "arrest Oswald" successfully assumed the "birth Oswald's identity and became a phony "US defector" to the Soviet Union from October 1959 to June 1962, marrying the niece of a "secret police" Colonel, Marina Prusakova. The 'arrest Oswald', being a fluent Russian speaker [Marina thought he was from one of the Baltic republics when they first spoke], could provide US intelligence sources who sent him [Naval Intellignce, CIA, etc.] valuable information on "Soviet realities", i.e., everyday life in the Soviet Union, as well as a "dangle" to find what the Soviets knew about our super-secret U-2 spy plane. [Gary Powers's plane was shot down on May 1, 1960, while "Oswald" was working at a Minsk "radio" [radar?] factory].

By July 1962 the "arrest Oswald" and Marina were living in the Dallas area, where they were again in November 1963, after a summer in New Orleans in 1963.

According to Evica and Armstrong, as well as others, a strong possibility exists that not only were there two Oswalds afoot in Dallas on Nov. 22, but that there two plots!

The first plot was a "similated assassination" of Kennedy where a pre-planned attack would deliberately miss the President, with no actual harm, and the pro-Communist "Oswald" patsy arrested soon after, done to motivate Kennedy to invade Cuba, or aid the Cuban exiles in doing so, in violation of the semi-secret accord with the Soviets over the Cuban Missle crisis the year before.

This "simulated attack" could explain many anomolies, including the replacement of JFK's normal Presidential Protection Secret Service team, with another not experienced in motorcade security, the denial of military back up in the known dangerous Dallas [Ambassador Stevenson had been attacked the month before]., and the last minute change of motorcade route

Researchers are invsetigating the possibility that administration officials such as the Joint Chiefs, skeptical of the President's reapproachment with the USSR and Cuba [JFK had a French reporter making feelers to Castro at the time] backed the simulated attack.

These plotters could conceiveably have included Attorney General Robert Kennedy, who was more conservative than his brother at the time on Cuba and was close to some of the exile community. This could explain RFK's total absence from the inquiry into JFK's death, conceeding most Justice Deptartment work to FBI Director Hoover, a known Kennedy-hater, and to Deputy A G Nicolas Katzenbach, who wrote the infamous Nov. 24 memo that "We must convince the public" that Oswald acted alone.

According to these researchers, a second, more sinister plot piggybacked onto the simulated one, to actually kill Kennedy during the supposed "simulated" attack. The exact sponsors of the second, actual killing are yet undetermined, but suspicion leads to those in the military industrial complex who profited from reversal of Kennedy's peace-leaning policies.

This second plot clearly succeeded as Kennedy was shot dead at about 12:31 p.m c. s. t. as his slowed limo passed down Elm Street. Unlike many of Kennedy's motorcades at home & abroad, no press or Secret Service car or protective phalanx of police motorocycles preceeded JFK's limo, giving any shooter in front, such as from the Grassy Knoll, a clear shot.

Prior to the turn onto Elm St., the limo had been slowing for the turn as it proceeded one block north on Houston Street, directly in view of Oswald's alleged sixth floor Depository window, where for each shot the target would grow closer and closer, opposite of the view after the turn onto Elm where the car was moving away from the shooter, and where a large Oak tree obliterated his view for part of the shooting sequence.

It would appear if the two-plot researchers are correct, the simulated assassin would be stationed in the Depository, where he was supposed to miss, setting up the Depository employee Oswald as the Commie patsy.

In the second plot, real assassins were mostly, if not all, in the front, as indicated by Zapruder film of the head shot violently thrusting Kennedy's whole body backwards, whereas he had been slumping forward into Jackie's arms, from the non-fatal throat wound, just before.

The press photographer on foot ahead of JFK's car took a picture before the head shot that shows Kennedy's Secret Service team just glancing about in reaction to the non-fatal shot[s]. But- in that same photo behind JFK's Secret Service car is Vice President Johnson's car [having the VP in the same motorcade was itslef a violation of security procedures]. Behind Johnson's car the VP's secret service team is bounding from their closed [!] back up car to protect him! In other words LBJ's Secret Service agents riding in a CLOSED car that has barely made the turn onto Elm seem to be reacting faster that JFK's Secret Service team riding in a open auto right at the rear bumper of the Presidential limo! This photo would seem to evidence knowledge by LBJ's crew, and ignorance by JFK's, of an assassination plot, real or simulated.

Besides LBJ's bodyguards, one other of the security team reacts quickly to the first, non fatal shot[s]. Dallas police motorcycle officer Marrion Baker, who, thinking a shot has come from the roof of the Depository, leaves the route and drives up to the door of the Depository, enters the building, and not finding an elevator available, climbs the stairs, heading for the roof. On the second floor, accompanied by Depository superintendent Roy Truly, Officer Baker encounters "Oswald" in the vestibule, calmly headed for the lunch room. This is just 90 seconds, at most, after the first shot, in Baker's recollection. Oswald does not appear suspicious, or out of breath, as he assumedly would be after descending from the 6th to 2nd floor by stairs after not only shooting the President, but disassembling his rifle and hiding it where it was later found. Superintendant Truly vouched to Officer Baker that Oswald works for him, dissuading Baker, who resumes his climbing.

Workers had spotted Oswald about 12:15, just 15 minutes before the shooting, in the same second floor area where Truly & Baker found him at about 12:32 pm. From this, it can be discerned that the "arrest Oswald" was told by his handlers to stay in the second floor lunch area during this crucial time.

As Officer Baker had drove up to the Depository door the fatal, probably frontal shot, killed Kennedy and the limo finally sped off to Parkland Hospital. According to the offical 1964 "Warren Report" "Oswald" had fired only 3 shots in 6.5 seconds with one missing the motorcade totally. This missed shot was used to explain a bystander approximately 100 yards away at the railroad underpass on Commerce Street, the southern end of the Plaza, who was wounded by a chip of concrete, assumedly from a stray bullet.

This left only two shots to account for two wounds to Kennedy, non-fatal neck & fatal head, and three to Texas Govenor John Connally, who rode direclty ahead of Kennedy, in his back/chest, wrist and thigh. Oswald's rifle was so rickety that investigators who tried to re-enact the shooting had to put shims in the sight scope to align it. [With such modifications any test would likely have been inadmissable in a trial had Oswald lived.] A further complication is that the rifle found in the Depository was originally described by law enforcement officers as a Mauser, not a Carcano, and accorindg to some, was found on the 4th, not the 6th, floor.

Thus was born the "single bullet theory" hypothesizing that Oswalds first or second shot had hit Kennedy in the back of his neck, exited his throat above his tie, entered Connally's back, out his chest, and into his wrist before entering his thigh. This bullet was allegely found in almost undamaged condition on a Parkland Hospital stretcher. Tests of bullets from the Carcano rifle fired through cotton and animal carcassas showed noticable damage.

Besides the condition of the bullet, another problem for this theory is that the Zapruder film appears to show that Gov. Connally is not wounded for a second or two after Kennedy is reacting to the throat wound, improbable for a bullet traveling 18 to 24 feet per second.

Further, the one thing upon which the medical evidence is consistent is that Kennedy's coat and shirt show an entry wound in between the shoulder blade, not the neck area. The autopsy photos show the back wound in exactly the same location. No clear evidnece of a throat exit wouund exists, and all the Parkland emergency room physicians at the time thought the troat wound was an entry, indicating a frontal shot.

About a third of the Dealey plaza witnesses thought shots had come from the front, and crowds ran toward the Grassy Knoll, not the Depository, including police, reporters and those inside the Depository.

All this evidenced at least one shooter from in front of Kennedy, hence a conspiracy. In 1978 the US House of Representatives's Select Commitee on Assassinations concluded that indeed there had to have been a second shooter from the front, bolstered by new accoustical evidence from a recording of another motorcycle officer's radio mic stuck open during the shooting.

The accumulation of evidence, both eyewitness and forensic, over the past 39 years definitely indicates at least one conspiracy, if not two, in Dallas that fateful November 22.

The immediate result was the first chink in the armor of US democracy. The results of the 1960 election were voided, and a man no one had voted for for President hand been elevated to that office, Lyndon Johnson. Within 2 days of his swearing in on Air Force One in Dallas, Johnson would sign National Security Action Memorandum 273, reversing Kennedy's NSAM 263, which had called for the withdrawal of US combat troops from Vietnam, beginning in December 1963 and projected to be completed in 1965. LBJ now commmitted all the weight of the US armed forces and arms industry to defeat Communism in Southeast Asia.

Secondly, no President from Johnson on would ever again ride in an open limo in a public motorcade. By 2002 the President has become so isolated that only pre-screened groups are ever admitted to seem him in person. This open motorcade, a democratic means for the President to communicate directly and spontaneously with the public he was supposed to serve, favored by Kennedy and Presidents before him back at least to Franklin Roosevelt, ended on November 22, 1963.

What began on that morbid date was a continuous encroachment on our democratic process, the reversal of fortune.
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