The JFK Assassination

The JFK Assassination

Multiple Choice

Marina Oswald believed her husband killed JFK after the assassination

• yes

• no

The Warren Commission

• Set up by LBJ to find out who killed JFK. 

• Led by Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren.

• 5/7 members were Republicans.

• 10 month investigation 

• 552 witnesses gave statements 

• 25,000 interviews were conducted.

• nearly 900 pages long. 

The Findings

• The Commission concluded Oswald was the lone assassin.

• Robert Kennedy and Kennedy family are on record as accepting its findings.  

Multiple Choice

How many Americans out of a hundred have read even a single page of the Warren Commission?

• 1

• 15

• 25

• 45

Multiple Choice

Prior to the year 2017, what percentage of the Warren Commission Report had been released to the public?

• 10%

• 25%

• 76%

• 98%

Multiple Choice

President Trump finally released the last remaining sealed documents related to the assassination.

• TRUE

• FALSE

One of the greatest controversies ever

How many shots were fired at JFK?

Poll

Poll Question - What percentage of witnesses in Dealey plaza heard 3 shots or less?

• 10 percent

• 40 percent

• 75 percent

• 89 percent

How many shots were fired?

• According to The Master List of Assassinations – Josiah Thompson, The Warren Commission, and The HSCA reports:

• 89% of witnesses heard 3 shots OR LESS

• This is consistent with the 3 shell casings found on the 6th floor of the T-S-D  

So why is there a controversy?

• Dealey Plaza has an echo effect, so it was hard to tell which direction the shots were coming from.

• Some witnesses later changed their story (years later)

• Some wanted their names in books and movies.

• Some of their statements were distorted or taken out of context.

Multiple Choice

Where was the autopsy of President Kennedy conducted?

• Dallas

• Washington DC

• There was no autopsy

The Autopsy was conducted by Dr. James Humes

• He had performed over 1,000 autopsies, including on people killed by gunshot wounds. 

• His assistant Dr. Pierre Fink had reviewed over 400 autopsies of gunshot victims

• Dr. Rose (a Dallas medical examiner) said “Their conclusions were correct. Two shots entered the president from behind. The autopsy surgeons did a competent job.”

Multiple Choice

JFK's wounds could not have been made from behind?

• TRUE

• FALSE

JFK's wounds were made from behind.

Dr. Humes in 1967 was asked if he had any doubt the wound at the back of the president's head was the entry wound. “There is absolutely no doubt. When a bullet passes through the skull, it creates a characteristic coning effect on the inner aspect of the skull, which is scientific evidence the wound was made from behind and passed forward through the president's skull. 

If we stayed here until hell freezes over and nothing would change this proof. The conspiracy buffs have totally ignored this central scientific fact, and everything else is hogwash.” 

Still don't believe me?

1978 - the House Select Committee on Assassinations chose nine forensic pathologists to examine photographs and X- Rays of the president's head wound. All nine agreed JFK was struck in the head by a bullet from the rear. 

The Clark Panel 1968 and Rockefeller Commission 1975 came to the same conclusion. So in summary

17 pathologists in three separate committees all agreed the wound to the back of JFK's head was an entrance wound. Meaning he was shot from behind.

Poll

the bullet recovered on the gurney at Parkland Hospital is “pristine?” meaning undamaged.

• True

• False

This is the same bullet

• but from a different angle

• Does it still look pristine?

Roger Craig

• In 1968, Dallas deputy sheriff Roger Craig told the LA Free Press he saw 3 shells, all facing the same direction, no more than ¾ inch apart at the TSD.

• He said the shells “looked like they had been deliberately placed there, in plain sight."

HOWEVER,

• In 1964, Craig testified under oath before the Warren Commission that he was standing across the room when someone found the cartridges. 

• "I didn’t get too close to the casings because I didn’t want to bother the area.”

• Asked if he recalled the shells being up against the wall, he said “No, I didn’t look that close.” 

The Umbrella Man

• After an appeal to the public by the HSCA in 1978, Louis Steven Witt came forward claiming to be the "umbrella man.

• Witt was a supervisor at a nearby insurance company and was on his lunch break.

• He held up the umbrella to heckle JFK.

• Witt said he did not know he had been the subject of controversy.

Consider this

• A black umbrella symbolized appeasement of Hitler.

• British leader Neville Chamberlain always carried one. JFK's father supported Chamberlain.

• When the Berlin Wall was built in 1961, schoolchildren from West Germany sent JFK an umbrella labeled Chamberlain

• "ouch!"

Poll

Do you think Witt was the Umbrella Man?

• yes

• No

• I'm still not sure

The Babushka Lady

• refers to a woman standing in Dealey Plaza wearing a scarf much like an older Russian woman. 

• She appears to be filming the motorcade with a movie camera.

• In the days following the assassination, no one claiming to be her came forward.

• no film shot from her position was discovered

Who is the Babushka Lady?

• I don't know

• But, it's not the woman claiming to be her in the movie JFK.

• That woman is a FRAUD!

How do we know she's a fraud?

• In 1970, Beverly Oliver came forward claiming to be the Babushka lady.

• She was a dancer and singer in a strip club. Over the years, her story has been elaborated to include many conspiracy elements, some of which are in the movie JFK. 

Poll

If you had to guess, how old do you think the Babuska Lady was when JFK was assassinated? (look at her clothes)

• in her teens

• in her 20s

• in her 30s or 40s

• at least 50 or older

Problems with Beverly's claim

She was 17 years old in November 1963.

​No witnesses support her claim that she was in Dealey Plaza.

She said she entered Dealey Plaza and “selected a spot near a young boy and his father.” (Charles Brehm and his young son Joe.)

Brehm told a different story.

He said he and his son moved beside the lady in the picture, not the other way around as Beverly claimed.

Other Problems with her story

Beverly claimed the FBI showed up to her workplace 72 hours after the assassination and took her Yashica Super 8 Zoom movie camera. 

No such camera existed until 1967. (4 years after the assassination)

• In 1999, Beverly Oliver claimed her film had been found, and she had four frames from the it

• At a convention, she refused to show them to the crowd

• Later, she let author John Hunt see them. Hunt told her the pictures were taken at a completely different angle than where the Babushka lady was standing,

• Beverly dismissed the author with a wave of her hand. Hunt is quoted as saying “I attempted to show her that the film could not be the Babushka film in order to save her aggravation, time and money. My intent was to help, not to embarrass, her.”

Poll

The movie JFK claims Beverly Oliver was the Babushka Lady. How convinced are you the movie got it right?

• very convinced, they nailed it

• Not convinced at all

• still not sure

More on Beverly

• She claimed Jack Ruby introduced her to Lee Oswald at the Carousel Club, saying “this is my friend Lee Oswald of the CIA.”  NO ONE that worked at the Carousel Club verified her story.

• Would a CIA agent let himself be identified in a strip club to a stranger?  

• She claimed she had dinner with Jack Ruby on the eve of the assassination.

• Ruby had dinner with friends that night, and NONE OF THEM mentioned Beverly in sworn testimony.

• She claimed Jack Ruby hated JFK. That contradicts testimony from Ruby's own sister.

Another word on this

• Attorney Carroll Jarmigan also claimed he saw Ruby and Oswald at the same nightclub, but he failed a lie detector test and said "well, some things you remember, and some you don't."

• Yet, the movie JFK uses him as a reliable source.

Was there a gunman on the grassy knoll?

Not Likely

No witnesses at the time reported seeing a gunman on the grassy knoll or anywhere else in Dealey Plaza besides the 6th floor of the TSD.

Right after the shooting, Sheriff Eugene Boone ran behind the picket fence into the parking lot behind the railroad yards. He found nothing.

Only 15 years later did a few witnesses come forward with stories about seeing a second gunman.

Smoke coming from a rifle was NOT seen on the grassy knoll at the time of the shooting.  

• Oliver Stone admitted using a smoke machine and a fan to recreate this “alleged” event!

Open Ended

What did you find most interesting or suprising today?