Washington Whispers

New Shocker in the JFK-Lee Harvey Oswald Story

By Paul Bedard

October 25, 2008 RSS Feed Print

Some 45 years after Jack Ruby was convicted in 1964 of slaying Lee Harvey Oswald, his celebrated "irresistible impulse" defense is being challenged—by Ruby's own words. That's right, the most investigated political assassination in history, the JFK-Oswald story, has yet another shocker. Never-before-revealed interview notes taken by a Ruby biographer and heading to auction strongly suggest that Ruby did not act on impulse when he came face to face with Oswald at the Dallas Police Station. The notes the biographer used to write stories sold to newspapers to build a legal defense fund quote Ruby saying he "intended" to gun down Oswald. In the story draft, Ruby describes seeing Oswald: "I lost my senses . . . I pulled out my gun and took a couple of steps . . . they could have blown my head off. I only shot him once . . . I guess I intended —I don't know what." But defense lawyer Melvin Belli edited out that and other potentially incriminating Ruby quotes. Alexander Auctions Presi-dent Bill Panagopulos, whose sale takes place November 6 and 7, tells us, "Undoubtedly, much more could be read into these notes." He predicts they'll sell for up to $3,000.

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One final historical fact may begin to look slightly different in light of all this, too. The conventional wisdom at the time, was that LBJ did this due to polling showing lack of popularity. (And, I can't say he was my favorite person back then). He trailed in the primary poll in Wisconsin, and Bobby had challenged him, too. But LBJ could have pulled the party, dismembered between doves and southerner Wallace and Humphrey's "impossible" Vietnam position, together and kept a progressive position on Civil Rights. Why did he really say, on March 31, 1968:

"I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President."

He said it. I remember when he said it. Dad had been suspicious of LBJ since the assassination--and was surprised.

But, maybe the explanation is that he didn't want to deal with what he'd put together about revenge for our past "Murder Incorporated."

With this post, I'll cease trying your patience on this thread. I didn't do this research, I'm just, you know, putting it all out front, to see how it lays. It may be a patchwork of things, only a small part of which involved Castro or Brezhnev.

Max S of AR 1:01AM April 25, 2012

Another important witness was Carolyn Arnold who told the FBI on November 26 that she left the building around 12:15 to go out to lunch with some of the other secretaries. Arriving on the sidewalk in front of the building they found a crowd gathering to await the President. The secretaries decided to join the crowd. While awaiting the President’s passage, Arnold recounted that she looked back through the glass door of the building and saw Oswald. This would have been around five or ten minutes before the assassination. When asked if she was absolutely certain that it was Oswald, she could only respond that she felt it was (CD 5, p. 41) [2]. Subsequently however, Arnold would claim that the FBI had misquoted her and that she had actually seen Oswald on the second floor, not the first (Summers, p.60)."

Sorry about misspelling a couple of names. Other witnesses were somewhat confused as to when they had seen Oswald on the second or first floor, as well. Intriguingly, right at the time of the shooting itself, the work crew that normally would have been in the lunchroom floors, was outside, like Mrs. Arnold. This confusion might be accounted for by the presence of Oswald look-alike crafard's presence in the building.

as far as the exact trajectories of stray shots versus good shots, and their richochets into windshields, curbs, etc., many details are impossible to determine. And, even very recently, has come new data indicating Oswald started shooting slightly earlier than previously thought. His first shot, in this scenario, hit a traffic light, and bounced...somewhere. There was also some confusion about where a spent cartridge was found, as well as a possible additional bullet fragment found by a police officer. Please note that there was no crossfire, and the "magic" bullet really happened. No one was shooting from any knolls, etc. All the shots were fired from the TSBD. Tippit probably "barely" knew Crafard--barely. And Oswald had also behaved oddly on seeing Tippit, changing direction. Just odds and ends suggest Tippit was slightly lax in his approach to Oswald, best explained by a very casual acquaintance with Crafard, a (somewhat) look-alike.

There are a lot of gray areas and some can't be cleared up. Did the Castro/Brezhnev/Marcello clique manipulate Oswald to plan to kill Connally as he had tried to Walker, and also in revenge? Using the same rifle would have been a good way to get it all blamed on O', when he was only part of the "team".

This isn't popular or pleasant for those looking for a Far Right connection, and wishing to think JFK was more popular in Latin America. But it fits some facts.

Marcello hated the Kennedys at that point. Marcello was with, not against, Castro. Brezhnev wanted power from Kruschev and got it shortly after. LBJ ended the "murder inc" policy--not continue it. Castro was practically shell-shocked, we'd tried to kill him so many times. The USSR couldn't operate many governments, for our killing gov't leaders.

Max S of AR 12:22AM April 25, 2012

the preceding is a quote. I was unable to get quote marks into the screen before it closed. It's from

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/faq

page. In this scenario, Crafard would be the other shooter, from either the second or first floor. "Oswald" was seen by secretary Carol Arnold on either the second or first floor (she seemed unsure which) from the outside through a window as she awaited the motorcade. If four shots were fired, one was fired virtually simultaneously to Oswald's second or third (the third, the head shot, would have been fired by crafard in this scenario). Oswald fired on stray shot that hit the side of the JFK limousine, the hit the windshield and was found on the limo floor and placed on a stretcher. His other stray shot hit a curb, then the triple overpass, then nicked James Taque. Crafard's one MC rifle shell casing was thus not found because he took it with him. His rifle was also not found in the TSBD because it was dropped off in Terre Haute, IN. Stories of other rifles being found on on floors stem from rifles brought into the building for display a few days before by a TSBD employee. Also, a Mannlicher Carcano is sometimes mistaken for a Mauser when seen from a distance. Much depends on the details coming out of Havana later.

Max S of AR 2:17PM April 22, 2012

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