JFK and the Unspeakable

[Bfgrn]

JFK and the Unspeakable


Oliver Stone
Award-winning filmmaker
Posted: July 23, 2009 05:05 PM

The murder of President Kennedy was a seminal event for me and for millions of Americans. It changed the course of history. It was a crushing blow to our country and to millions of people around the world. It put an abrupt end to a period of a misunderstood idealism, akin to the spirit of 1989 when the Soviet bloc to began to thaw and 2008, when our new American President was fairly elected.

Today, more than 45 years later, profound doubts persist about how President Kennedy was killed and why. My film JFK was a metaphor for all those doubts, suspicions and unanswered questions. Now an extraordinary new book offers the best account I have read of this tragedy and its significance. That book is James Douglass's JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters. It is a book that deserves the attention of all Americans; it is one of those rare books that, by helping us understand our history, has the power to change it.

The subtitle sums up Douglass's purpose: Why He Died and Why it Matters. In his beautifully written and exhaustively researched treatment, Douglass lays out the "motive" for Kennedy's assassination. Simply, he traces a process of steady conversion by Kennedy from his origins as a traditional Cold Warrior to his determination to pull the world back from the edge of destruction.

Many of these steps are well known, such as Kennedy's disillusionment with the CIA after the disastrous Bay of Pigs Invasion, and his refusal to follow the reckless recommendations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in resolving the Cuban Missile Crisis. (This in itself was truly JFK's shining moment in the sun. It is likely that any other president from LBJ on would have followed the path to a general nuclear war.) Then there was the Test Ban Treaty and JFK's remarkable American University Speech where he spoke with empathy and compassion about the Soviet people, recognizing our common humanity, the fact that we all "inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's futures. And we are all mortal."

But many of his steps remain unfamiliar: Kennedy's back-channel dialogue with Khrushchev and their shared pursuit of common ground; his secret opening to dialogue with Fidel Castro (ongoing the very week of his assassination); and his determination to pull out of Vietnam after his probable re-election in 1964.

All of these steps caused him to be regarded as a virtual traitor by elements of the military-intelligence community. These were the forces that planned and carried out his assassination. Kennedy himself said, in 1962, after he read Seven Days in May, which is about a military coup in the United States, that if he had another Bay of Pigs, the same thing could happen to him. Well, he did have another "Bay of Pigs"; he had several. And I think Kennedy prophesied his own death with those words.

Why does it matter? The death of JFK remains a critical turning point in our history. Those who caused his death were targeting not just a man but a vision -- a vision of peace. There is no calculating the consequences of his death for this country and for the world. Those consequences endure. To a large extent, the fate of our country and the future of the planet continue to be controlled by the shadowy forces of what Douglass calls "the Unspeakable." Only by unmasking these forces and confronting the truth about our history can we restore the promise of democracy and lay claim to Kennedy's vision of peace.

But don't take my word for it. Read this extraordinary book and reach your own conclusions.
Link

 

[xsited1]

Oliver Stone directs some of the best comedies in hollywood. One of my favorites was JFK. It had me rolling in the aisles.

 

[Bfgrn]

Oliver Stone directs some of the best comedies in hollywood. One of my favorites was JFK. It had me rolling in the aisles.

So I surmise you believe the Warren Commission got it right? Now THAT is hilarious...

 

[Liability]

Well, the magic bullet theory was the brainchild of Arlen Specter, so there are some really good reasons to take the Warren Commission with at least a grain of salt.

 

[rightwinger]

Oliver Stone directs some of the best comedies in hollywood. One of my favorites was JFK. It had me rolling in the aisles.

So I surmise you believe the Warren Commission got it right? Now THAT is hilarious...

The Warren Commission did get it right

One day, Lee Harvey Oswald read in the paper that the President was visiting Dallas and that his motorcade would pass right under his window at work. So he brought his gun to work, fired three shots and blew JFKs head off.

Thats all there is....nothing has disproved that scenario in 45 years.

 

[Bfgrn]

Oliver Stone directs some of the best comedies in hollywood. One of my favorites was JFK. It had me rolling in the aisles.

So I surmise you believe the Warren Commission got it right? Now THAT is hilarious...

The Warren Commission did get it right

One day, Lee Harvey Oswald read in the paper that the President was visiting Dallas and that his motorcade would pass right under his window at work. So he brought his gun to work, fired three shots and blew JFKs head off.

Thats all there is....nothing has disproved that scenario in 45 years.

REALLY???

The United States House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) was established in 1976 to investigate the John F. Kennedy assassination and the Martin Luther King, Jr. assassination. The Committee investigated until 1978, and in 1979 issued its final report, concluding that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald, probably as a result of a conspiracy. The members of this probable conspiracy were not identified. However, the committee noted that it believed that the conspiracy did not include the governments of the Soviet Union or Cuba, nor the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), or the Secret Service. It also stated it did not believe the conspiracy was organized by any organized crime group, nor any anti-Castro group, but that it could not rule out individual members of either of those groups acting together.
wiki

I often wondered how a skinny little guy like Oswald was able to move the Texas School Depository Building to the opposite side of Elm St. for 6 seconds, then move it back...

And he must have been quite a guy...he was able to suspend the law of physics too...

 

[rightwinger]

I often wondered how a skinny little guy like Oswald was able to move the Texas School Depository Building to the opposite side of Elm St. for 6 seconds, then move it back...

Ohhhhhhh.....Grassy Knoll....thoroughly debunked by recent computer animation showing all three shots having a trajectory from the School Book Depository.
Your claims of "It was definitely a conspiracy....except for Soviets, Cuba, Mafia, CIA......." is laughable.

Want to preach your "Magic Bullet" nonsense next?

Keep them coming

 

[Bfgrn]

I often wondered how a skinny little guy like Oswald was able to move the Texas School Depository Building to the opposite side of Elm St. for 6 seconds, then move it back...

Ohhhhhhh.....Grassy Knoll....thoroughly debunked by recent computer animation showing all three shots having a trajectory from the School Book Depository.
Your claims of "It was definitely a conspiracy....except for Soviets, Cuba, Mafia, CIA......." is laughable.

Want to preach your "Magic Bullet" nonsense next?

Keep them coming

If we're going to have a conversation about President Kennedy's murder, first you need to let ME speak for MYSELF (don't tell me what I believe or don't believe) and second,you need to be able to distinguish WHO said what...

The "your claim" you are laughing at is not MY claim... it is the claim of The United States House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA)...

CE386

IF you LOOK at Warren Commission exhibit CE 386 the Commission claims the smaller wounds are entrance wounds and the large evulsion is the exit wound of the fatal shot... So, we are forced to accept that a bullet coming from above and to the right rear of the President, entered his skull traveling downward and to the left would exit above the entrance wound and to the right...

http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh16/pdf/WH16_CE_386.pdf

CE385

If you look at CE 385 & 386; the lower small wound is claimed to be the entrance wound of the single bullet. BUT, the REAL entrance wound was not in the President's neck, as the Commission drawing shows, it was in his back at about the level of the 3rd thoracic vertebra...

Here is page 2 of the Official Death Certificate authored and signed by President Kennedy's personal physician, Dr. George Burkley who was never called to testify before the Warren Commission...

Dr. Burkley's location of the wound matches the autopsy face sheet, the President's shirt and his jacket .....BUT....NOT the Warren Commission's RElocated entrance wound to promote the phony single bullet...

"Beyond any question, and I'll never change my opinion, the first bullet did not hit me. The second bullet did hit me."
Governor John B. Connally

 

[Old Rocks]

The Italian Carcano fired a 160 grain bullet at about 2300 ft. per second. That is a low velocity weopon, less than a 30-30. It would not make a wound like that on the head of President Kennedy. That wound is far more typical of a 220 Swift, or a 25.06. What happened and why, I do not know. But the wound in Kennedys head was not made by an Italian Carcano.

 

[rightwinger]

Beyond any question, and I'll never change my opinion, the first bullet did not hit me. The second bullet did hit me."
Governor John B. Connally

The first bullet missed everyone completely, the second bullet passed through Kennedys throat and hit Connaly, the third bullet blew JFKs head off

 

[rightwinger]

Discovery Channel's reenactment of bullet CE399's path
A Discovery Channel special "Unsolved History: JFK — Beyond the Magic Bullet", attempted to replicate, as well as possible, the conditions of that day. The participants set up blocks of ballistics gel with a substance similar to human bone inside. These studies showed that largely undeformed bullets were possible to produce, if they were slowed by a passage though a tissue-like substance before striking bone. Next, two mannequin figures made of ballistic anatomical substances (animal skin, gelatin, and interior bone-like cast) were set up in the exact relative position of JFK and Connally. A marksman, from a distance equal to that of the sixth floor of the Book Depository building, fired the same rifle model found in the Book Depository, using a round from the same batch of "Western Case Cartridge Company" 6.5x52 mm ammunition purchased with the surplus Carcano weapon in early 1963. The path of their single bullet (followed by high speed photography) duplicated, almost exactly, the wounds suffered by the victims that day, the only difference being that the bullet did not quite have enough energy to penetrate the "thigh" substance in front of the Connally figure, because it struck an extra bone in the "rib" model (i.e., it fractured 2 ribs in the model vs. one rib in Connally). It was also slightly more deformed than CE 399, possibly for the same reason. However, this bullet came close enough to duplicating all wounds in both men with a single shot, with a bullet having little deformation.


[

 

[rightwinger]

ABC's The Kennedy Assassination: Beyond Conspiracy
In 1993 a computer animator named Dale Myers embarked on a 10-year project to completely render the events of November 22 in 3D computer animation. His results were shown as part of ABC's documentary The Kennedy Assassination: Beyond Conspiracy in 2003, and won an Emmy award.

To render his animation, Myers took photographs, home footage, blueprints and plans, and used them to create arguably the most accurate computer re-creation of events to that time. His work was assessed by Z-Axis who have been involved in producing computer generated animations of events, processes and concepts for major litigations in the United States and Europe.

Their assessment concluded that Myers' animation allowed the assassination sequence to be viewed "from any point of view with absolute geometric integrity" and that they "believe that the thoroughness and detail incorporated into his work is well beyond that required to present a fair and accurate depiction
Myers' animation found that the bullet wounds were consistent with JFK's and Governor Connally's positions at the time of shooting, and that by following the bullet's trajectory backwards could be found to have originated from a narrow cone including only a few windows of the sixth floor of the School Book Depository, one of which was the sniper's nest of boxes from which the rifle barrel had been seen protruding by witnesses.

In the same ABC documentary, Myers uses a close-up examination of the Zapruder film to justify the "single bullet theory." He points out a little-known anomaly on the Zapruder film. When Kennedy's limousine appears from behind the street sign in Dealey Plaza, there is a moment — seen between frames 223 and 224 on the Zapruder film — where the right side lapel of Governor Connally's jacket appears to "pop out," as if being pushed from within by an unseen force. Myers theorizes that this is the moment of impact, when both Kennedy and Connally were struck by the same bullet from Oswald's rifle. Myers also points out that — in frames 225-230 of the Zapruder film, as Kennedy appears from behind the street sign — both Kennedy and Connally are simultaneously reacting in pain to the impact of the bullet.

 

[Bfgrn]

Discovery Channel's reenactment of bullet CE399's path
A Discovery Channel special "Unsolved History: JFK — Beyond the Magic Bullet", attempted to replicate, as well as possible, the conditions of that day. The participants set up blocks of ballistics gel with a substance similar to human bone inside. These studies showed that largely undeformed bullets were possible to produce, if they were slowed by a passage though a tissue-like substance before striking bone. Next, two mannequin figures made of ballistic anatomical substances (animal skin, gelatin, and interior bone-like cast) were set up in the exact relative position of JFK and Connally. A marksman, from a distance equal to that of the sixth floor of the Book Depository building, fired the same rifle model found in the Book Depository, using a round from the same batch of "Western Case Cartridge Company" 6.5x52 mm ammunition purchased with the surplus Carcano weapon in early 1963. The path of their single bullet (followed by high speed photography) duplicated, almost exactly, the wounds suffered by the victims that day, the only difference being that the bullet did not quite have enough energy to penetrate the "thigh" substance in front of the Connally figure, because it struck an extra bone in the "rib" model (i.e., it fractured 2 ribs in the model vs. one rib in Connally). It was also slightly more deformed than CE 399, possibly for the same reason. However, this bullet came close enough to duplicating all wounds in both men with a single shot, with a bullet having little deformation.


[

Whoa there cowboy...we're talking the law of physics...You've been confronted with physical and medical evidence that the path of a single bullet passing through the President and hitting the Governor in the back is not possible... you really need to explain in detail HOW a bullet entering the President's back at the level of the third thoracic vertebra traveling on a downward and to the left angle from a sixth floor window can exit his throat from a wound six inches higher?

THEN, you've been confronted with physical and medical evidence that the path of the fatal head wound came from the other side of the street. And again, you claim a bullet traveling on a downward and to the left angle from a sixth floor window exits a wound that is HIGHER and to the right of the entrance wound??

THEN, you need to explain how that bullet traveling on a downward and to the left angle from a sixth floor window hit the President in the back of the head and didn't exit through the President's face???

AND, You say the first shot missed....tell me, where did it go?

 

[Old Rocks]

So, one round goes through soft tissue with little deformation and not much damage to that tissue. Not untypical for a low velocity full jacketed bullet. But the next bullet completely blows out the side of Kennedys skull. Same cartridge, same rifle, same distance. Sorry, that didn't happen. What did happen, I don't know. But it was not a round fired by the Carcano that blew apart President Kennedy's skull.

 

[rightwinger]

Whoa there cowboy...we're talking the law of physics...You've been confronted with physical and medical evidence that the path of a single bullet passing through the President and hitting the Governor in the back is not possible... you really need to explain in detail HOW a bullet entering the President's back at the level of the third thoracic vertebra traveling on a downward and to the left angle from a sixth floor window can exit his throat from a wound six inches higher?

It was fully explained by the Myers animation. The major problem with the "magic bullet" theory was that they wrongly placed John Conally in the front passenger seat. In fact, he was in a jump seat which was located "down and to the left" of the president. That and the fact that the vehicle was headed downhill which raised the president up higher

THEN, you've been confronted with physical and medical evidence that the path of the fatal head wound came from the other side of the street. And again, you claim a bullet traveling on a downward and to the left angle from a sixth floor window exits a wound that is HIGHER and to the right of the entrance wound??

wrong again, the grassy knoll theory of the direction of the bullet was disproved 20 years ago. You really need to get more up to date conspiracy nonsense

THEN, you need to explain how that bullet traveling on a downward and to the left angle from a sixth floor window hit the President in the back of the head and didn't exit through the President's face???

Once again fully demonstrated by accredited computer animation that the angles line up with the wounds. The bullet blew out the side of JFKs head

AND, You say the first shot missed....tell me, where did it go?

Oswalds first shot missed and hit the curb around the presidents vehicle. This fact has been documented since 1963

 

[rightwinger]

Care to discuss Jack Ruby now?

 

[Bfgrn]

Whoa there cowboy...we're talking the law of physics...You've been confronted with physical and medical evidence that the path of a single bullet passing through the President and hitting the Governor in the back is not possible... you really need to explain in detail HOW a bullet entering the President's back at the level of the third thoracic vertebra traveling on a downward and to the left angle from a sixth floor window can exit his throat from a wound six inches higher?

It was fully explained by the Myers animation. The major problem with the "magic bullet" theory was that they wrongly placed John Conally in the front passenger seat. In fact, he was in a jump seat which was located "down and to the left" of the president. That and the fact that the vehicle was headed downhill which raised the president up higher

THEN, you've been confronted with physical and medical evidence that the path of the fatal head wound came from the other side of the street. And again, you claim a bullet traveling on a downward and to the left angle from a sixth floor window exits a wound that is HIGHER and to the right of the entrance wound??

wrong again, the grassy knoll theory of the direction of the bullet was disproved 20 years ago. You really need to get more up to date conspiracy nonsense

THEN, you need to explain how that bullet traveling on a downward and to the left angle from a sixth floor window hit the President in the back of the head and didn't exit through the President's face???

Once again fully demonstrated by accredited computer animation that the angles line up with the wounds. The bullet blew out the side of JFKs head

AND, You say the first shot missed....tell me, where did it go?

Oswalds first shot missed and hit the curb around the presidents vehicle. This fact has been documented since 1963

You are really reaching with your wacky Myers' crap... the guy had to make President Kennedy into a hunchback wearing his jacket like a cape to fudge his cartoon. PLUS, Myers made more than one cartoon, in the first cartoon he placed the "entrance" wound in the FALSE "NECK" location based on the Warren Report. In his second cartoon, he MOVED the wound and disfigured Kennedy...10 years DOWN the f_ckin' drain...LOL. I don't care if Governor Connally was sitting on JFK's lap and the limousine was dropped off a cliff, the trajectory of the "magic" bullet, the location of the "entrance" wound and the supposed "exit" wound DON'T line up...

IF the first bullet missed, it was fired before the limousine came from behind the Stemmons Freeway sign in the Zapruder film...the 6th floor window site had a TREE in the way...AND the bullet that missed hit a curb much farther down Elm Street and a fragment hit James Teague in the cheek...Teague was standing near the triple overpass, WAY down the street...

You have to get past the FIRST wound...without it, it was MORE than one gunman...

You're WAY behind cowboy, and I haven't even gotten to the Dallas doctors professional observations and consensus of the President's wounds...

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpBDuSJeH14]YouTube - Interview - Dr. Charles Crenshaw[/ame]

 

[Midnight Marauder]

Pshaw! Here we are in the 21st Century, three years after EVERY JFK assassination conspiracy has been thoroughly debunked, and we still have some idiots who take OLIVER STONE as some kind of expert on it?

 

[Gunny]

JFK and the Unspeakable


Oliver Stone
Award-winning filmmaker
Posted: July 23, 2009 05:05 PM

The murder of President Kennedy was a seminal event for me and for millions of Americans. It changed the course of history. It was a crushing blow to our country and to millions of people around the world. It put an abrupt end to a period of a misunderstood idealism, akin to the spirit of 1989 when the Soviet bloc to began to thaw and 2008, when our new American President was fairly elected.

Today, more than 45 years later, profound doubts persist about how President Kennedy was killed and why. My film JFK was a metaphor for all those doubts, suspicions and unanswered questions. Now an extraordinary new book offers the best account I have read of this tragedy and its significance. That book is James Douglass's JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters. It is a book that deserves the attention of all Americans; it is one of those rare books that, by helping us understand our history, has the power to change it.

The subtitle sums up Douglass's purpose: Why He Died and Why it Matters. In his beautifully written and exhaustively researched treatment, Douglass lays out the "motive" for Kennedy's assassination. Simply, he traces a process of steady conversion by Kennedy from his origins as a traditional Cold Warrior to his determination to pull the world back from the edge of destruction.

Many of these steps are well known, such as Kennedy's disillusionment with the CIA after the disastrous Bay of Pigs Invasion, and his refusal to follow the reckless recommendations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in resolving the Cuban Missile Crisis. (This in itself was truly JFK's shining moment in the sun. It is likely that any other president from LBJ on would have followed the path to a general nuclear war.) Then there was the Test Ban Treaty and JFK's remarkable American University Speech where he spoke with empathy and compassion about the Soviet people, recognizing our common humanity, the fact that we all "inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's futures. And we are all mortal."

But many of his steps remain unfamiliar: Kennedy's back-channel dialogue with Khrushchev and their shared pursuit of common ground; his secret opening to dialogue with Fidel Castro (ongoing the very week of his assassination); and his determination to pull out of Vietnam after his probable re-election in 1964.

All of these steps caused him to be regarded as a virtual traitor by elements of the military-intelligence community. These were the forces that planned and carried out his assassination. Kennedy himself said, in 1962, after he read Seven Days in May, which is about a military coup in the United States, that if he had another Bay of Pigs, the same thing could happen to him. Well, he did have another "Bay of Pigs"; he had several. And I think Kennedy prophesied his own death with those words.

Why does it matter? The death of JFK remains a critical turning point in our history. Those who caused his death were targeting not just a man but a vision -- a vision of peace. There is no calculating the consequences of his death for this country and for the world. Those consequences endure. To a large extent, the fate of our country and the future of the planet continue to be controlled by the shadowy forces of what Douglass calls "the Unspeakable." Only by unmasking these forces and confronting the truth about our history can we restore the promise of democracy and lay claim to Kennedy's vision of peace.

But don't take my word for it. Read this extraordinary book and reach your own conclusions.
Link

Any similarity between Oliver Stone and actual history is purely coincidental.

 

[Bfgrn]

Pshaw! Here we are in the 21st Century, three years after EVERY JFK assassination conspiracy has been thoroughly debunked, and we still have some idiots who take OLIVER STONE as some kind of expert on it?

Debunked by WHOM?

Oliver Stone is only a poster boy and whipping boy for right wing pea brains like you... no one that has studied the JFK assassination takes Stone's movie as a documentary...

If YOU can explain how the law of physics took a 6 second vacation on November 22, 1963 at 12:30 CST please enlighten me...

OR, I could just forget the law of physics, and just SWALLOW like you...

Interesting...the Warren Commission came the the SAME conclusion J Edgar Hoover and President Johnson concluded three days after the assassination...as this memo from the Justice Dept to the President's assistant lays out...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------


Memo from Nicholas deB. Katzenbach, Deputy Attorney General

November 25, 1963

MEMORANDUM FOR MR. MOYERS

It is important that all of the facts surrounding President Kennedy's Assassination be made public in a way which will satisfy people in the United States and abroad that all the facts have been told and that a statement to this effect be made now.

1. The public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin; that he did not have confederates who are still at large; and that the evidence was such that he would have been convicted at trial.

2. Speculation about Oswald's motivation ought to be cut off, and we should have some basis for rebutting thought that this was a Communist conspiracy or (as the Iron Curtain press is saying) a right-wing conspiracy to blame it on the Communists. Unfortunately the facts on Oswald seem about too pat-- too obvious (Marxist, Cuba, Russian wife, etc.). The Dallas police have put out statements on the Communist conspiracy theory, and it was they who were in charge when he was shot and thus silenced.

3. The matter has been handled thus far with neither dignity nor conviction. Facts have been mixed with rumor and speculation. We can scarcely let the world see us totally in the image of the Dallas police when our President is murdered.

I think this objective may be satisfied by making public as soon as possible a complete and thorough FBI report on Oswald and the assassination. This may run into the difficulty of pointing to in- consistencies between this report and statements by Dallas police officials. But the reputation of the Bureau is such that it may do the whole job. The only other step would be the appointment of a Presidential Commission of unimpeachable personnel to review and examine the evidence and announce its conclusions. This has both advantages and disadvantages. It think it can await publication of the FBI report and public reaction to it here and abroad.

I think, however, that a statement that all the facts will be made public property in an orderly and responsible way should be made now. We need something to head off public speculation or Congressional hearings of the wrong sort.

Nicholas deB. Katzenbach

Deputy Attorney General

FBI JFK Assassination File (62-109060)