The JFK Assassination - Was There Really a Second Shooter on the Grassy Knoll?

Hello everybody welcome back to another episode of decoding the unknown hitting a big one today the JFK assassination was there really a second shooter on the grass you know Kevin Jennings wrote this thank you Kevin Jennings I'm gonna read it I've never read this before of course I'm familiar with the JFK assassination this is one of those conspiracy theories where it's a bit like like I'm not a conspiracy guy I like we landed on the moon no question about it humans have been up there um but the JFK one you're like look I don't know what went on I don't know what happened but it's weird right there's a lot of sketchy stuff going on around that but like with the bullets and stuff and and all of this I don't really know anything about it I just know that it's weird hopefully after this I mean definitely after this it's extremely long we will all know more let's jump in [Music] I've always been of the belief that conspiracy theories is stupid the Earth isn't flat man walked on the moon the government isn't run by lizards Jewish space lasers that's not to say that conspiracies don't take place and people try to hide their existence but nothing can stay secret forever there's actually a fascinating research paper out of Oxford University addressing the matter of how long a conspiracy could be kept using data from Real World conspiracies things like MK Ultra or NSA prism real conspiracies that were eventually leaked or used as data points NSA prism is the Snowden thing right that just blows my mind every time but I still think about that and you're like if someone had told me that before Snowden I'd be like you need to put your tinfor hat back on me that's some crazy [ __ ] and then snowden's like that's real and it turns out that it's real and that's just like oh my God which is why there are like there's definitely conspiracy theories that conspiracy theories that are real just some of them are really dumb like the Flat Earth ones it's nonsense the researcher involved made sure to skew any estimated numbers in favor of the conspirators essentially providing a best case scenario for a conspiracy Theory being able to exist obviously the more people that were involved the less time it would take for the date for The Conspiracy to be uncovered if something like climate change or the moon landing was actually a hoax it would only have taken three to four years for the information to have come out given though there were hundreds of thousands of people involved to keep a secret for a decade or longer there would need to be fewer than a thousand people involved for an even longer term secret there of course needs to be even fewer people involved giving something under apps for an entire Century should ideally have a maximum of 125 people involved personally that number of conspirators feels awfully high for keeping something secret for so long but we'll just assume that everyone involved is either highly motivated to not ever spill the beans or not even on their deathbed lest some unfortunate accident before their family and friends only can you imagine like knowing a secret that Intense or it's like if you tell anyone we won't just kill you we'll kill your family so you might burn your deathbed if you tell anyone we'll murder your children like holy [ __ ] but then at some point someone's going to be on their deathbed they have no family they have no friends and they're gonna be like and Stanley Kubrick did it and I mean it's gonna come out like 100 125 people also does seem like a lot doesn't it for a century with JFK having been assassinated 60 years ago the idea that there could still be some hidden conspiracy seems silly to me admittedly before researching this I wasn't that familiar with the evidence in the case American schools were told that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in killing the president and there would be absolutely no follow-up questions I came into this assuming it would be a whole lot of nothing but having looked through all the evidence that we'll go through today it seems almost insane to me to believe that there wasn't another shooter holy [ __ ] Kevin looked into this Kevin is a skeptical man and his mind has been changed by doing this so that's super interesting because I'm already going in like I'm normally the skeptical one but I'm like with the JFK thing I'm like there's a weird [ __ ] going on there I'm very curious now let's go this is unlike the supposed evidence of the Flat Earth where theorists will just point to a picture of the Horizon to show you that it's a straight line either this is like actual forensics science and the first hand testimony from the day that it happened not decades later when people had time to misremember or distort their memories if there was a second shooter on the grassy knoll who could it have been the Mafia the FBI male models okay this must be a Zoolander reference right but those two Lookers who kept Kennedy from the grassy no sure a 60 year old time traveling assassin trapped in a ten-year-old's body I don't know that reference I don't know what that one is but I'm getting ahead of myself we haven't even talked about the events of that day or the evidence yet so to begin this story we're going to have go back back and to the left okay president going back and to his left 1963. that book 1963 um or Dallas 63 or I think it's got a different name it's got It's got a couple of different names it's a Stephen King book about a guy who goes back in time um to kill the Harvey Oswald it's so good it's so long it's possibly one of the longest books I've ever read it's possible I've read it twice it's brilliant it was November the 22nd 1963 and President John F Kennedy was traveling to Dallas Texas the purpose of his meeting was to try and smooth over the relations between fellow Democratic party members Ralph and Don Yarborough oddly enough no relation okay is that a common surname and Governor John Connolly Connolly was a member of the democratic party at the time but he was a Texas conservative and would switch his affiliation to the Republican Party a decade later the residents of Dallas had known for a month Kennedy would be coming to visit them and nearly a week before the visit the official route of the motorcade was published in the newspapers Kennedy was to arrive at Dallas Love Field Airport and take a 45-minute drive through Dallas to the trademart to begin business it was only a 10 mile trip so the plan was to travel to Casual 30 miles per hour or so thus allowing all the residents in attendance to get a clear shot at the president I mean a clear look at the president even though the motorcade route was planned out by the Secret Service the entire thing was a dangerous proposition they wanted to give ample warning about the president's route route so that excited Spectators of which there were between 150 and 200 000 would be able to line up to see the president however publishing this information also meant that those with ill intent would have had plenty of time to prepare but much of the route they took was the typical Parade route downtown Dallas anyways so people would have been able to guess even if it wasn't heavily publicized in modern times something like that would be manageable but that's mostly because of the Lessons Learned in Dallas back then the Secret Service operating budget was only 5.5 million dollars per year about 54 million dollars in today's money I know that's a lot of money but it's not a lot of money for this is it that seems quite cheap that may seem like a good chunk of money but Secret Service agents are paid around 135 000 per year I guess they are very elite that is a lot of money I couldn't find numbers from back then but I'll assume it was comparable oh when adjusted for inflation with 350 agents in 1963 after payroll they'll be left with less than nine million dollars in today's money for everything else that they had to do and purchase for the entire year not only is that very little money for such an important organization to have access to but that's very few people as well of the 350 secret service members only 26 were actually on the ground in Dallas the day of the motorcade I guess in my mind I was like 350 Secret Service sounds like quite a lot because but that's only because in my mind there's like I don't know how many people like walk next to the president what four or five like surrounding him or whatever like in their suits but there's obviously people on rooftops people scouting it out going ahead doing all this other [ __ ] that must be involved so I guess it's not that many really the other reason the number probably seems low is because it absolutely is which is why the Secret Service now has 3 200 special agents 1 300 uniformed officers and another 2 000 Technical and support personnel and a multi-billion dollar budget that's insane I mean the Secret Service must do other stuff right I mean famously doesn't it do the money forgery thing isn't that because that's why it first existed with Lincoln because it was established on the day he was shot that famous like fact but it wasn't protection back then so there's other stuff that they do as well right that does seem like but protect when you think of Secret Service you think keeping the president alive right there's a lot of money and a lot of people unfortunately that was a lesson the US government was going to have to learn the hard way yes nothing like a presidential assassination to get the Secret Service budget increased that was the plan then there was the president's car a 1961 Lincoln Continental convertible although the vehicle was heavily modified it was mostly for Comfort rather than security there were a couple of telephones installed that operated by radio as well but nothing was added to provide additional security for the occupants in fact there was the opposite that actually it was on hydraulic so that passengers could be lifted up to give everyone a better view I hope mobile [ __ ] right there there wasn't any armor plating on the car and the car's top was down for the motorcade one thing that really bothers me in TV shows now that I know about it and I know it's stupid is the president's limo like the Beast is what it's called in real life and I've made a video or two about it properly and it's a monster like this you know those doors when you get onto a passenger plane and that door shuts and it's like super thick that's like how thick those doors are that of that acara and in movies they're always like yeah it's just a regular limo with some Thin door and you're like it's not like that in reality it's a beast occasionally people will point to the car not having its bubble roof attached as a fatal mistake but it really wouldn't have made any difference it was just a plain plastic bubble it wasn't even bullet resistant let alone Bulletproof the bubble really only acted as a deterrent giving the illusion of security while still leaving the president visible for spectators that that's kind of a genius move being like nice oh it's 100 bulletproof and then it's just like it's just a plastic sheet anyway enough backstory about the lacking security the motorcade began at the airport at 11 40 am due to the overwhelming crowd that came out to see the president as oh well as Kennedy insisting that they made a couple of unplanned stops the cars were falling behind schedule the first 40 minutes were great and everyone involved had a lovely time riding along with President Kennedy where his wife Jackie Governor Connolly and his wife Nelly and two Secret Service agents who were the driver and the front seat passenger the Convoy had made it dealy Plaza nearing the end of its Journey as the president's Lincoln convertible turned from Houston Street onto Elm Street passing the Texas School Book Depository on its Right Nelly turned to face Kennedy and said Mr President you can't say Dallas doesn't love you he replied in agreement no you certainly can't those with a last words he would ever speak as the sound of the first shot from the depository rang out through the streets the timing was so poetic you'd think Nelly was in on the conspiracy herself she wasn't but that timing feels more like a scene from a movie than real life the first bullet struck Kennedy's upper back passed through his neck damaging one of his vertebrae and exiting out of his throat just below his larynx from the moment the bullet was fired from the depository and exited Kennedy's throat everything becomes much less clear as the car continued down Elm Street anywhere from two to four more shots were fired Connolly was also struck with the bullet entering his back shattering four inches of one of his ribs exiting through his chest entering his arm just above the wrist shattering his radius into eight pieces exiting through his palm and finally lodging in his thigh good Lord did that guy get shot by one bullet and it passed through three parts of his body that's crazy and possibly part of what's going on today Kennedy's hands were up to his throat undoubtedly trying to put pressure on the bleeding about five seconds after the first shot was art another shot went clean through Kennedy's skull there is dispute as to whether this shot entered from the front or the back of his head sorry Simon but this next part is really important fragments of Kennedy's brain skull and scalp went everywhere landing on the cars interior on the windshield on the hood of the car on the trunk of the car on two of the four motorcycle cops that were flanking the rear of the carp and on the Secret Service agents that were following behind including on the driver's arm Jackie climbed out of her seat onto the trunk of the car to collect pieces of her husband's skull and brain before secret service agent Clint Hill finished a running from the trailing car to the president's Lincoln directing Jackie back into a seat and hanging off the trunk as the car began accelerating away they rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital where Governor colony was able to recover from his injuries but there was no hope for the President John F Kennedy was dead we'll return to Delhi Plaza and the highly contested series event later but first we need to take a look at the person that we know for sure fired at least some of those shots Lee Harvey Oswald like most Killers Oswald didn't have a great childhood but it wasn't as bad as most Killers either his father died before he was born and his mother was described as self-involved not giving him the love and the affection that he needed that sucks and all but compared to the horrific backstories of other Killers it's really lame and as I've got another show a casual criminalist which is another podcast I do and I always point out yeah even if someone had the most horrific background you could possibly think of and they became a serial killer there are thousands of other people millions of other people who had equally shitty childhoods and did not grow up to become serial killers they just ended up being you know regular [ __ ] up not needing to murder or do horrible crimes this lack of affection resulted in Oswald being a shitty little [ __ ] and he was constantly getting into trouble as a kid when he was 12 years old Oswald was arrested for his constant truancy and forced to undergo a psychological exam the psychiatrist described him as basically being batshit insane but in nicer terms and with most of the blame being put on his mother after dropping out of school a dozen times at the age of 17 he was finally ready to enlist in the Marines like his older brother had normally you need to be 18 to serve the military but Oswald was able to join since his brother signed off on it as his legal guardian the military only went slightly better him than school had although he was in the Marines for three years he was able to get himself caught martial twice in that period Court martial's like that's they're like going to court for regular people right so that's yeah you've been naughty the first gold martial game when Oswald accidentally shot himself with a handgun that he wasn't supposed to have you know if I was if I was a sea driver like punishment's enough I'll give you that Bloody gun Oswald considering that he had scored high enough in his shooting tests to be given the designation of Sharpshooter there's definitely some delightful irony in him accidentally shooting himself the second Court martial was the result of Oswald picking a fight with the sergeant that he thought got him in trouble for the first incident he was imprisoned and devoted and obviously this story ends with him getting honorably discharged really honorably oh yeah and there was the third time he got in trouble when he was stationed in the Philippines and randomly shot his rifle into the jungle one night while on guard cheats whoops while serving with the Marines Oswald began expressing his pro-soviet beliefs to his colleagues earning him the nickname oswaldkovic and failing to throw up nearly enough red flags for a U.S Marine in the 1950s he also began teaching himself to read and speak Russian this was dude they were really not into it at this time even nowadays people were like they're you know Americans are really intense about this they're like hey you call me and all this [ __ ] in the 1950s oh my god well it was a McCarthyism that was to come a bit later they were like routing commies out he didn't do a great job of it but he was putting in the initiative and that should have also seemed suspicious in 1959 he claimed that he needed to care for his mother and was given a hardship discharge bumping him down to a member of the reserve and allowing him to go home wait wasn't he honorably discharged previously Kevin I'm confused I don't know mate what's going on but Oswald wasn't really trying to leave the military to go be with his mother he was leaving to Gobi with Mother Russia oh my later they find out he was I was a lion Mother Russia a month after being discharged from the Marines he made his way to Moscow via Helsinki on a one-week travel visa immediately upon making it to Moscow he told his Russian tour guide that he wanted to defect from the United States because he loved communism and the Soviet Union his application for citizenship was denied Oswald waited until his travel guide was set to pick him up to escort him from the country and then he slit his wrists in the bathtub allegedly to kill himself in a manner that would shock the poor woman it was Bloody but the injury he gave himself was in no way serious it did however get him thrown in hospital and put on psychiatric evaluation for a week a few days after being released from the hospital he went to the U.S embassy in Moscow declaring his desire to renounce his citizenship he also made some vague threats about leaking Military Intelligence to the Soviets though it's doubtful he actually would have known anything of value I don't think you can renounce your citizenship unless you have another citizenship or like you're on the path to getting one or like some other country has accepted you he'd be like I'm a citizen of no country and the Soviet is like get out he's like well where am I supposed to go I'll be like that uh Tom Hanks in the the terminal nevertheless Oswald got his wish and he was allowed to stay in the Soviet Union where he planned to attend Moscow State University okay never mind so I guess I was wrong apparently you can't do that except that's not how Communism works Oswald was shipped off to Minsk in Belarus where he was assigned to work as a lathe operator things did not work out for you he did receive higher pay and better accommodations than most but he was also under constant surveillance for obvious reasons his job sucked but he did begin a relationship with a female co-worker while he was there it was what he believed to be a serious relationship though she just thought he was lonely and only dated him out of pity Oswald proposed and she refused after this rejection he began realizing that communism in the Soviet Union kind of sucked indeed you should have believed you basically like that's amazing it's amazing oh no what have I done the work was boring and there was nothing to do with the money anyway Soviet Russia wasn't really known for its happening night club scene shortly after the marriage proposal was declined he wrote to the U.S embassy asking for his passport back I want to say that that doesn't happen but I also know he ends up back in the States so I guess they were like yeah sure I guess this stuff was like more chill back in the day or maybe I just don't understand how it works you see he had basically walked into the embassy thrown his passport at them and said he wanted to renounce his citizenship except that's not how bureaucracy works Oswald is like Michael Scott I declare dude you can't just do that it's not how it works you can't just declare your intent there are official forms to be filled out it doesn't matter how much you hate the country rules the rules and paperwork isn't Gonna Fill itself out a few weeks after sending that letter off Oswald met another girl a few weeks after that they got married she was 19 and a pharmacological student and Oswald was already trying to move back to the United States so if he shared those plans with her then she may have just been using him to get American citizenship where she could go and earn that sweet sweet big Pharma money this is of course a lot of bass and the speculation I'll just be happy in knowing that he remained unloved until the day he died yeah he's not a very sympathetic character is he anyway it took over a year at which point the couple had already had a child but in June of 1962 a little over a year before the assassination known communist Lee Harvey Oswald and his new soviet-born family moved to Dallas to both Oswald and my surprise this wasn't really a big news story when he defected to the Soviet Union and a couple of years earlier it made national news but now that it returned it didn't receive nearly the same level of attention man regrets life decisions returns to America I feel like that's positive news for America that would be a that would be like a propaganda too or people thinking about defecting to the Soviet Union beer like it was so [ __ ] this guy went over there and he wanted to be like study at the University or whatever they made him a lathe operator and gave him no money he came back once back in Dallas he wasn't able to hold down a job for even a year he was a bit of a dick something that cost his wife all of the new friends that she'd made and his arrogance and rudeness frequently pushed people just to the edge of physical violence co-workers also saw him reading Russian magazines which didn't definitely didn't help his likability it's interesting like these I don't have any friends who are dicks because you don't make friends with dicks and it's very rare I find it very rare for me to meet someone in like a social setting and for them to be a dick because generally you don't get invited to social settings if you're a dick so I guess it's like neighbors and stuff I don't really know my neighbors because it's I don't know it's just not a neighborly thing like I just live in a Parma building and it's like no one really knows each other other than like in passing um so I just don't need that many [ __ ] oh there was one person I know it was a dick it's just that dinner it's a mates and I think I I cut the guy some slack story was just having a bad day or whatever it's like it's like I vividly remember this because it was one of the times that you met oh I met a dick there you go he was fired the first week of April in 1963 but he found a way to keep himself busy the month before he was fired Oswald was able to purchase an Italian military rifle from a World War II surplus store for 29.95 he was able to buy the gun through the mail using a fake name because [ __ ] you this is America yeah that's amazing you can't even how would can I I don't think I can even buy something I couldn't buy like a phone that's a bad example because phones can be no no one cares like you can't I couldn't buy like a laptop using a fake name because how's it going to get delivered to me I'd be like just deliver it to this address it's like yeah names on the door is it so obviously it just gets sent back I don't think that's how it works I guess you could get it delivered to a PO Box but then there's going to be that name form where you're going to fill in like PO box the week after he was fired Oswald used his new rifle an attempt to assassinate retired army Major General Edwin Walker the bullet wound up hitting the window frame and Walker only received minor injuries from some bullet fragments Landing in his forearm Walker who had been fired for Distributing white right-wing literature among his soldiers was chosen as a Target by Oswald because of his strong anti-communist and segregationist Views I vaguely remember this from that Stephen King book just in case this seemed like a weird reason for a high-ranking officer to be fired it doesn't at all military personnel in the U.S are prohibited from engaging in partisan politics oh I didn't know that that's great I I like that I even have friends that worked at Raytheon and they were strictly prohibited for making any politically charged social media posts since they dealt with military contracts this military policy does make sense because partisan politics can get really polarizing and it's probably for the best that our troops remember that they're all on the same side yeah I think that makes perfect sense and I think that's great and I think that General should have got fired for Distributing whether it was right-wing or left-wing I don't care you shouldn't have politics in the military like that you should just do the military stuff it's dangerous if you have politics in the military because then they're like well if it just gets swayed a bit one way or the other and then they're like guess what time for a coup following the attempt on Walker's life police had no suspects which makes sense because his views make him seem like such a likable guy he even wound up getting arrested on charges of insurrection and seditious conspiracy due to his later efforts in opposition of desegregation allegations that saw JFK's brother attorney general Bobby Kennedy toss Walker in a mental institution that was ultimately released and never indicted on those charges within hours of the Kenneth yeah being like supported segregation yeah he's like bell bell end how you must know and I I guess you didn't like back in the day but it's like some stuff today you know that if you're opposing this like oh I guess like trans issues would be uh a more modern thing you must know if you're like no that shouldn't be allowed you've you must know you're on the wrong side of his history right you might not like it you might not be okay with it but you must know that in like 50 years you're gonna like you're gonna look like you were wrong right you must know that because look how history is gone look at the whole of History uh to be fair throughout history like if you go back far enough it has gone swings and roundabouts up and down with um like liberalism and stuff but in like more modern history the you're not going to look good in like the medium the short to medium term or medium to long term within hours of the Kennedy assassination the link between Walker and Oswald was identified but it wasn't yet known following the attempt on Walker's life Oswald went to New Orleans his wife would join him a month later after getting a ride with her remaining friends friend singular they were in New Orleans a few months but most of it isn't important the highlights are that Oswald started a local chapter of the fair play for Cuba committee a profode or Castro activist group and dude that he was arrested for disturbing the peace after getting into a physical altercation with a member of an anti-castro our activist group I feel like in the modern day this guy would be being spied on by so many computers but it like this for him to get away with an assassination attempt today would seem just absurd because he'd be just on so many watch lists a charge like this is usually pretty minor the equivalent to a bar fight what makes the incident intriguing is Oswald's Behavior after he was released from police custody before he left the station he told police that he liked to speak to someone from the FBI a request they granted Oswald told the agent that he was member of the New Orleans branch of the fpcc that they had 35 members said that the branch leader was AJ haddell this was the same fake name that it used to purchase his rifle R did 999 you've got to have multiple fake names you can't be using the same fake name for different things come on now and when he was arrested after the Kennedy assassination his wallet contained a fake ID with the name Alec J hiddle on it there are some that speculate the name was meant to be an anagram inspired by Jekyll and Hyde and at this point it's worth noting that as a student Oswald was considered to be of average intelligence but that he both excelled at reading and failed at spelling yeah I'm pretty I'm a pretty good reader like reading is something I could do spelling is something I am atrocious at me and Harvey Oswald in that regard the idea that he would both attempt to make a fake name based on literary characters but also failed to properly construct an anagram checks out I'm not fully convinced there was anything nearly so deep in the name selection but I'd say it's reasonably plausible if he saw himself as Jekyll and Hyde it might prove it it might provide insight as to why I went out of his way to put himself in front of the FBI alternatively he could have just been a criminally insane [ __ ] Oswald continued his Pro Caster activities in New Orleans for the next couple of months until his wife got a ride with her friend back to Irving Texas which is near Dallas he was supposed to take the bus to join them a few days later after picking up his unemployment check but instead he decided to take a detour to Mexico once in Mexico City he all went to the Cuban consulate and applied for a travel visa so that he could visit Cuba and then the Soviet Union so he still likes the Soviet Union even after he was like they made me a lathe operator I made no money my wife didn't love me and it was cold and everyone had guns and smelled like soup why are you so enamored with the Soviet Union it seemed to have been a bad time for you although your life seems to be a bad time to be fair so maybe you just thought it was slightly less shitty there I think it's like so much of life is just the attitude you have about it like I don't know I've always been like quite chipper I was been like whatever I'm doing whatever I'm up to I'm sure if I was a late late operator sounds really hard I want a sudden I've been entirely sure what a lathe is but by working in a factory or something as long as it's not like crushingly physically demanding or something I'd be like I probably have some friends would sit around we'd have a laugh I've done boring jobs and I've usually been like pretty like this is all right this is all right fortunately I've always been very ambitious because otherwise if I didn't have that ambition I'd just be like this is all right I could do this and then you're 50. um but yeah what am I talking about it doesn't matter let's get back to who we're here to learn about Harvey Oswald and not Simon though his Visa was eventually approved it took about three weeks by that time Oswald had already gotten bored and had gone back to Texas however the CIA was now well aware of his activities this man had made national news by defecting to the Soviet Union return to the United States a few years later and had now traveled to Mexico to contact the Cubans and the Soviets they had every reason to suspect that he may be involved in some form of Espionage and the Dallas branch of the FBI was made aware of activities I've actually been to Cuba it was quite interesting that all those old cars driving around you got all these old buildings people smoking cigars it's uh it's a Vibe it's a Vibe I found the food very repetitive like that just seemed to me I can't even know what it was but I I ate like Poyo Frito or whatever it is like fried chicken with rice like almost every day at least or at least every other day it's like some variation would have been good maybe I was just in the wrong places or whatever it was delicious the food was delicious but it was very similar all the time and also it's maybe like I realize you know British food I live in Czech Czech food it's kind of pretty similar after a while after a few days but we also have like Italian restaurants Mexican restaurants all this like International Food which I think was just less of a thing at least when I went to Cuba if I remember correctly especially outside of Havana Upon returning to Texas Oswald was informed of a job opening at the Texas School Book Depository by a neighbor it was a minimum wage job paying a dollar 25 an hour but given is an ability to hold down his previous jobs he wasn't exactly overflowing with options neither he nor his wife drove so he rented a room in Dallas where he would live during the work week and then traveled back to Irvine to spend the weekends with his wife and children the FBI don't seem to have been aware of this Arrangement because in early November agents twice attempted to visit him in the Irving home while he wasn't there Oswald didn't care for this at all so he marched right down to the Dallas FBI office and demanded to speak with special agent hosty the agent that had been visiting his home hosty or wasn't in the office so Oswald left a threatening note with a receptionist exactly how threatening was this note you ask or that depends on how you believe who you believe doesn't sound like a good idea don't threaten an FBI agent this feels like advice for my casual criminalist podcast don't threaten the FBI it's a bad idea according to agent hosty the message read if you have anything you want to learn about me come talk to me directly if you don't cease bothering my wife I will take the appropriate action and report this to the proper authorities however according to the receptionist it said let this be a warning I will blow up the FBI and the Dallas Police Department if you don't stop bothering my wife signed Lee Harvey Oswald you maniac if you actually wrote that I can't believe he wrote that because that is insane like you're that is a I'm I don't know what the offense is but there's gonna be something where it's like you threaten to blurb a government building seriously you're going to jail for like a decade what the [ __ ] those are very different threats it would be easy not to remember the exact wording of the note but for either person involved be unable to remember whether the note said I will kill you or I will whine to your boss seems hard to believe given what we know about Oswald and his delusions of grandeur are meant more inclined to believe the receptionists account it sounds like the mentally unstable lunatic that he was whereas hostey's account sounds far too normal and restrained it's strange that both these people both work for the FBI and they just have totally different memories about this note or they're lying for some reason this feels like it must be a lie because it's so different but people's memories are also terrible so I believe that they both could believe this I wonder how long afterwards they were asked about it of course we could just read the note for ourselves to find out but it no longer exists a hosty said that he was ordered by superiors to destroy the note as soon as Oswald was named as a suspect in the Kennedy assassination some of the conspiracy theories suggests that either the FBI or the CIA was involved in the assassination or at least in hiding the identity of the real killer from the public it sucks that the letter was destroyed but this action was not likely done as part of some conspiracy or cover-up if anything an insane threatening no would only provide a stronger case against Oswald as a singular anti-government vigilante this seems much more like a holy [ __ ] the bureau cannot suffer the embarrassment of revealing the president was shot by somebody that they were actively investigating sort of knee-jerk reaction yeah that seems way more likely it's like wait that guy left you a note say he was going to blow some [ __ ] up Andy managed to assassinate the president later why wasn't he in prison FBI yeah I'd say that's a little it's not a conspiracy it's just that oh [ __ ] we [ __ ] the bed on this one the day before the assassination Oswald asked the co-worker he got rides from on weekends to take him back to Urban to pick up some curtain rods the long paper bag he retrieved allegedly containing said rods actually contained the rifle that he had purchased on November 22nd Oswald brought his rifle to work and set up a sniper's nest on the sixth floor of the depository when the presidential motorcade entered dealy Plaza at 12 30 that afternoon Oswald fired three shots from his rifle the official count was that the first bullet struck both Kennedy and Connolly the second shot missed and the third shot owes the Fatal headshot bystanders heard shots coming from the depository with at least one person having seen Oswald firing from the window about 90 seconds after the shots were fired police over inside the building confronting him when the police found him Oswald was in the second floor cafeteria he was calm not seeming at all nervous or out of breath and seeming and seemed genuinely shocked when an officer pulled a gun on him once the supervisor identified as an employee the officer lowered his weapon and continued searching the building Oswald bought a Coke and walked to the front door bore four police sealed off the building he then hopped on a bus before getting off to take a taxi back to his rented room that is very casual my dude why are you buying that coke you lost your mind you just assassinated the [ __ ] president and you're like I'll take a Coke for the road just leave quickly calmly collectively just leave Oswald only briefly stopped at his room grabbing a jacket and a revolver don't get the revolver you don't need that what are you gonna do have a shootout with the cops don't even grab the jacket just leave it's Dallas in September wait no November it might be a little chilly it's uh yeah okay but you just don't take the jacket deal with the cold come on he walks for about a mile before being accosted by Dallas patrolman JD Tippett Tippett pulled his car next to Oswald to ask some questions oh and if it got out of the car Oswald fired four shots killing him before fleeing the scene in front of numerous Witnesses who would easily identify him as the murderer wow I don't even remember this I didn't realize he shot a cop afterwards roughly 25 minutes later a store manager saw Oswald outside his store He was unaware that this was a wanted man but he could tell Oswald looks suspicious and saw him duck into the adjacent movie theater without buying a ticket the manager could hiding in the mood don't commit crimes when you're on the run this is basic the manager contacted the theater who then called the police when police arrived Oswald pulled out his revolver and attempted to fire but was disarmed and arrested for the murder of Tippett the interrogations that followed were pretty pointless Oswald did a whole lot of lying about easily verifiable information he denied knowing any AJ hidell despite both deliberately telling the FBI that he knew such a person and having identification Asian on his person bearing the name in his own photograph it's unlikely he would have ever told the truth but he was never given a chance on November 24th two days after his arrest Oswald was set to be transferred to the county jail he was shot dead on live television during the transfer to some this was the end of a dark chapter in American history but to others the suspicious circumstances surrounding Oswald's murder only brought credibility to the notion that he had not been the only person to far upon President Kennedy that day did Oswald act alone a week after the Kennedy assassination president Lyndon Johnson created the president's Commission on the assassination of President Kennedy better known as the Warren Commission named after chief of Justice or Warren who was chairman of the commission the Warren Commission owes recommended in a memo to the president by Deputy attorney general Nicholas katzenbach katzenbach wrote that the investigations should be made public stating that the public must be satisfied that Oswald was the Assassin that he did not have Confederates who are still at large FBI director J Edgar Hoover also wrote the thing I am concerned about and so is Mr katzenbach is having something issued so we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin though Hoover's memo is about the Dallas Police not having a hurdles without receiving information from the FBI the wording on both of these statements is a bit off yeah that last bit being like uh is the real assassin basically like wait wait wait like what because there's another assassin you ought to convince them that it's him I mean I get what he was meaning and it's just about how you read it so it could be completely innocent and also if this was conspiratorial they wouldn't have let it out it would be easy for someone to interpret either or both of these quotes as meaning that they did not believe Oswald actually acted alone just that the public needed to believe that he did looking at it from that perspective Hoover's wording definitely sounds a lot worse of course this wasn't all known to the public yet the findings and the interviews from the Warren Commission were made public but it would be a long time before these memos were released ah okay sorry I thought they were part of the commission so these were released much later which does make it sound more suspect although I really think you know they're probably not writing down their crimes I think they just um they just didn't mean it like it could be interpreted as there's another shooter the findings of the war on commission were predictable on September 24th 1964 the 888-page Warren report was published two months later 26 volumes of support documents were published as well just like katzenbach had suggested they had conducted a completely public investigation except for the 5 million pages of unpublished records that were sent to the National Archives to be locked away for 75 years as was the style at the time and just like Hoover had suggested the war on commission issued something to convince the public that Oswald was the real assassin and that he acted alone also just to go back there five million pages that is an insane amount of stuff that's going to be come uncovered in it's going to be what like 1963 and it's 2022 so that's 60 59 years so it's only 16 more years and that stuff's all going to be released that's pretty crazy and for a while it worked before the war report was released only 29 of Americans believed that Oswald acted alone after the report polls showed that an overwhelming majority of Americans 87 of them believed that Oswald was the Lone shooter however as the years went on this perception would change evidence would be more thoroughly examined and advancements would be made in forensic science and more documents would be revealed related to the assassination these documents would prove that at least on some level the government was trying to hide the truth from the American people this was Kevin was talking about at the beginning every conspiracy as time goes by will be revealed as unless it's very small group of people as so many people are involved like someone's gonna talk someone's gonna leak something it certainly didn't help that President Johnson Bobby Kennedy and four of the seven members of the Warren Commission didn't believe in the conclusion of the report or were at least highly skeptical of it they may have publicly acknowledged the findings for the good of the country but they didn't necessarily thoroughly believe it when the public learned that at least half of the people who wrote the report were skeptical of its findings while that's certainly going to raise a whole lot of questions about its veracity when did they learn about this it must have been some time later because of all of these important people didn't believe in it well I don't believe it then they're never going to get an 87 approval rate of like Oswald acting alone and they'd definitely be continuing an investigation no we'll get to the evidence and the conspiracy theories shortly but I believe that whether or not there was a second shooter on the grassy knoll is potentially a completely separate question from whether or not Oswald acted alone yeah well I mean Oswald could think he's acting alone and then someone else is kind of secretly helping him out or someone else was also trying to assassinate Kennedy that day which is kind of insane can you imagine being Oswald and you're shooting Kennedy and then you realize someone else is also shooting Kennedy at the same time you'll be like what the [ __ ] is going on not all of the conspiracies involving Oswald involve a second shooter some more broadly accuse him of carrying out the hit on behalf of Soviet Russia due to his love of Communism of course he only loved communism in theory despite receiving better accommodations than most he fully expressed in his diary that his time spent actually living under communism kinda sucked my biggest issue with the idea of Oswald being part of a greater conspiracy is that he'd need to find someone that was actually willing to work with him he's gonna say because we know he's a [ __ ] and no one likes being around Oswald he was an unlikable douchebag and a loose cannon someone who throughout his entire life seemed to have few if any friends when he tried to defect to the Soviet Union he was denied at first then given a [ __ ] job and kept under constant surveillance when he went to Mexico City in an attempt to travel to visit Cuba the Cuban consulate wasn't interested he said that he was disinclined to approve Oswald visa on the basis that a person like him would do more damage the revolution than good in the Warren commission's attempt to explain Oswald's motivation they had this to say about him quote begins it is apparent however that Oswald was moved by an overriding hostility to his environment it does not appear to have been able to establish meaningful relationships with other people he was perpetually discontented with the world around him long before the assassination he expressed his hatred for a man American society and acted in protest against it Oswald's search for what he conceived to be the perfect Society was doomed from the start he sought for himself a place in history a role as the great man who would be recognized as having been in advance of his times his commitment to Marxism and communism appears to have been another important factor in his motivation he also had demonstrated the capacity to act decisively and without regard to the consequences oh when such action would further his aims at the moment out of these and the many other factors which may have modeled the character of Lee Harvey Oswald their emerge demand capable of assassinating President Kennedy quite ends while much of the Warren report is contested I find it hard to argue with this analysis of Oswald as a person yeah it seems it's very wordy um as these government things tend to be but it does seem pretty bang on in terms of some large conspiracy he seems at best capable of being a patsy or a full guy even then it's difficult to believe someone so volatile and unpredictable would be trusted enough even to undergo a suicide mission like the Cuban said someone like him would do more harm than good to the mission I feel like even for a suicide mission I feel like suicide mission has got to be done by the person who's like got the nerves of Steel not some guy who's like halfway to insane with our knowledge of the identity of the second shooter should one exist it will be impossible to definitively determine whether or not they and Oswald were linked in some way it may seem outrageous to believe that there could be two unconnected Shooters at the same time but the world is a crazy place I don't know if it could possibly be that crazy though that is a huge statement to that end though let's take a look at the umbrella man when Kennedy was shot he was a bright and sunny day and yet standing right by the place where he was shot was a man standing with an open umbrella I believe he's the only person in any of the pictures or videos from DD Plaza to have an umbrella with him at all but he was absolutely the only one to have one open uh people love umbrellas in the sun though like maybe this guy's got like um uh I don't know some like skin disease or skin condition where he has to have an umbrella to Shield him from the Sun it doesn't seem unsuper unreasonable and also if you are like as a bright sunny day and you're on an assassination mission using an umbrella just seems like an excellent way to draw unwanted attention to yourself when Josiah Thompson an accomplished private investigator who has since been involved in several high-profile cases wrote his in-depth analysis of the assassination six seconds in Dallas he believed that the umbrella man was part of the conspiracy to kill the president it was believed that the umbrella man was used to Signal the shooters to fire potentially opening and closing his umbrella to signal to fire again it was a beautiful day in Texas and there was this man with an open umbrella standing right by where Kennedy was shot how could these two things not be related I don't know there's reasonable explanations for a dude just having an umbrella but like I say the world is a crazy place where things happen all the time no matter how strongly it seems that the two things must be related when it comes to the actions of different people as they could easily have nothing to do with one in 1976 the United States House elect committee on assassinations was created to reinvestigate the assassination of Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr they made a public appeal for the umbrella man to come forward identify himself and explain exactly what he was doing so he did oh my god really I don't know this part of the story I mean to be honest most of my knowledge comes of this comes from the Stephen King book so I guess this wasn't relevant so that is bad that most of my knowledge of JFK's assassination comes through a fictional book about time travel but whatever here we are I'm learning more today bettering myself the umbrella man was named Louis Witt and he was completely unaware that he was involved in a conspiracy theory about the assassination his explanation was that the umbrella umbrella was a visual protest of the actions of Kennedy's Father Joseph Kennedy the umbrella was a reference to British prime minister Neville Chamberlain a fashion accessory heavily associated with Chamberlain and often used in 1930s political cartoons as a symbol of Nazi appeasement Whit wanted to protest the Kennedy family for appeasing Hitler before World War II and since JFK's Harvard thesis was on the subject of appeasement particularly by England he felt that Kennedy would understand the reference when Thompson the author who initially brought attention to the umbrella man heard this story he immediately knew that it was true it had to be true because it was too ridiculous a story not to be yeah I totally believe it and also if the umbrella man he just wouldn't have come forward if he was like no why we did that uh about appeasement blah blah blah you wouldn't have come forward if you'd actually been signaling the shooters you'd have just stayed in the shadows and never revealed yourself because of course you would not only was the umbrella meant as a benign symbol of protest which protest wasn't even really aimed at the president it was aimed at his father fortunately Thompson wasn't some Nut Job conspiracy theorist who wanted to push the narrative anyway in fact over the next 50 years he would update and correct both his original book and the works of others using the latest and using latest science and evidence culminating in the release of last second in Dallas in 2021 that is excellent and a guy you can imagine like in your mind you're like a guys he's writing a book and it's selling but he's gonna sell more books because he sells this salacious conspiracy theory right that's kind of what enters your mind like immediately and it's awesome that this is the kind of dude who's like no new evidence came to light and I'm adjusting my opinion opinions which is so [ __ ] rare and so [ __ ] cool thank you Thompson Legend the umbrella man remains an important caution retail especially among those that would investigate conspiracy theories two things that may seem like they must absolutely be intrinsically linked could easily have nothing to do with one another because people do weird [ __ ] in this case it was something benign being falsely conflated with something malicious but the same can hold true in two malicious acts Oswald shot Kennedy and dealy Plaza from The Book Depository are we talking about another malicious act being another shooter at the same time unrelated that's so wild there are some Fringe conspiracy theories out there that think that part's all a lie but there's enough evidence that we could pretty much just cite that as fact however if there was in fact a second gunman that does not mean by default that they and Oswald were connected it may seem difficult to believe that two people could both try to assassinate the president in the same time at the same place while having nothing to do with one another but that by no means makes it impossible or even improbable I'm curious to hear how Simon feels about that but Oswald feels I like too much of a psychotic loner to me to be even used as a puppet by someone else but now that all of that backstory and the official account is finally out of the way let's get into the conspiracies Okay Kevin I'll tell you how I feel I feel at first I kind of wrote it off as out of hand as that would be too much of a coincidence but also if you're looking if you're uh Harvey Oswald or any potential assassin and you're looking for a time to assassinate the president there's going to be limited opportunities to do that and this one him riding through Dallas on a pre-planned route is just like that's a good opportunity and maybe someone else who wants to assassinate the presidency that as a good opportunity about them shooting at exactly the same time they were both probably lining up their shots uh you know and one of them took it first and then the other guy was like holy [ __ ] okay let's go and he was like well I gotta take my shot now and help out because otherwise they're going to drive off so I have come around to it being not quite as unlikely as I initially thought it could be evidence of a second shooter nearly 60 years since Kennedy's assassination there have been volumes of research to done theories have come and gone but one that persists is that there was a second shooter on the grassy knoll there are a few key pieces of evidence that suggest the existence of a second shooter there's a Pruder film the dictabel recording and eyewitness and ear witness testimony first we'll cover the witness account since those tend to be the least reliable as the motorcade traveled down Elm Street it was approaching the triple overpass a bridge that went across three roads with only 26 Secret Service agents available this was one of the few locations where agents were stationed because Spectators on the overpass would be directly above the president's head it was seen as the premier location for an assassin to strike from but there was a dispute among Witnesses over both how many shots were fired and where they were fired from which isn't terribly surprising given what an emotional and chaotic experience it would have been for those in attendance also there's going to be big buildings around reflecting shots and stuff and Echoes and it's going to be that's going to be confusing evidence it was estimated that there were between 500 and 700 people at Daily Plaza and this was the very end of the motorcade and after the triple overpass they were going to get on the highway so most Spectators had been in other areas downtown a total of 190 witness statements were taken of those nearly 80 agreed that they heard three shots as for where those shots were coming from this was a lot harder to determine between Echoes and shock waves and other acoustic nonsense pinpointing a direction could be difficult especially given the circumstances a full two-thirds of the witnesses didn't give any indication of where the gunshots came from of those that did 51 sighted the area by the grassy knoll or the triple overpass while only 39 claimed they came from the depository I want to address the issue of the majority of people only hearing three shots there were three shell casings found in the depository along with Oswald's rifle so the existence of the fourth shot is pretty important the official story from the Warren Commission was that Oswald's second shot missed however the evidence will be examining suggests that it was actually Oswald's first shot that missed a huge the important distinction when the firing began many people including Secret Service agents thought it was a car back firing or some stupid kid setting off firecrackers if it was the first shot that missed it may not have been until the second shot hit Kennedy that people really started registering what was happening causing them to only count that shot and the two that followed the earwitness accounts may have been somewhat inconsistent but those on top of the triple overpass knew what they saw after the shots rang out at least eight people on the overpass saw a puff of smoke coming up from the tress by The Stockade Fence on the grassy knob smoke that could easily have been the result of a firearm they quickly sprung into action to investigate the area as did many others near the fence that believed they had heard something despite the unreliability of eyewitness testimony and stuff the fact that there were so many people seeing a puff of smoke arise from an area that could have been where the shot came from after the shots went off it's just like that is there were a lot of people for those unfamiliar with the layout of the grassy knoll it was a little Hill that came up from the sidewalk at the top was a stockade fence that separated the grassy area from a parking lot there were also trees that would have made someone behind the fence virtually invisible there is one photo that potentially shows someone's head poking out above the fence but it's a really low quality image and the other evidence should be compelling enough without introducing grainy photos of Bigfoot when people arrived to search the parking lot they didn't find anybody there they were fresh footprints in the mud right up against the fence but there was no sign of any person by itself this obviously doesn't mean anything police found Oswald immediately after he shot Kennedy and he was still able to buy a Coke and casually walk away like a maniac all the shooter behind the fence would have had to do is toss their gun in the trunk of their car and walk away or they could just wait for the others to get close and then melt into the crowd of people that were searching for an assassin if they had even 10 or 15 seconds before people arrived and it sounds like they had significantly more than that escape immediate detection would have been pretty trivial the witness accounts certainly indicate a strong possibility of someone on the grassy knoll but eyewitness testimony is basically the least reliable form of evidence at this point so let's look at some harder evidence it's crazy like how you know the the say like caught red-handed or whatever or like eyewitness testimony you associate it with it being like whoa I saw you doing it and now it's like yeah that's pretty unreliable compared to other forms of testimony there's even arguments to say that eyewitness testimony should not be used in court because it's just not reliable enough I mentioned the house select committee on assassinations hsca earlier but I never actually said what they decided at first they were ready to declare that Oswald acted alone then the dick to Belt tape was introduced and it very quickly changed their minds adictabel was just a fancy recording device made by the dictaphone company but the dicta belt on one of the officers motorcycles was stuck in the on position during the assassination basically one of the police motorcycles had a hot mic why would a police motorcycle have a recording device on that's weird I mean I assume it's a standard thing otherwise Kevin would be like it's weird that there was this dictaphone device on this bike the recording has a substantial lack of any Clarity due to crosswalk crosstalk and random noise but it is an extremely important recording I mean it's gonna that's gonna know how many shots there were surely extensive audio analysis was done on the sound waves from the recording audio scientists conducted tests in Delhi Plaza to see what the echo patterns of gunshots in various locations throughout the plaza would sound like when recorded from different locations that the motorcycle could have been at while it was recording in total they collected about 2 600 data points to compare against the dictabout recording they compared the sound waves from their tests with the sound wave from the dictabout recording within the wave patterns they found matches for what should have been four gunshots three from the depository and one from the null it's not conclusive because this is a kind of Weird Science I guess in a way it doesn't I mean it seems like they're matching patterns and stuff which is you know I don't don't know how reliable that's going to be but it is definitely pushing in the direction of there being another shooter right even if it's not enough to be like for sure it's enough to be like that's that's suspicious when the audio was synced up with video that were mentioned in a moment and played for the hsca it was shocking though they had been previously prepared to rule that Oswald acted alone they immediately changed their decision and said that there was a 95 probability there was a second shooter on the grassy knoll holy [ __ ] okay maybe the slides behind this is legit because that is a huge swing the hsca's final report concluded that four shots were fired that Oswald's first shot missed and that the shot from the nutcracy Knoll also missed the hsca's final report concluded that four shots were fired that Oswald's first shot missed that the shot from the grassy null missed that the Warren Commission did not take the possibility of a conspiracy seriously enough and that the FBI and CIA were full of organizational failures miscommunication and had both prioritized their own desire for secrecy above the needs of the investigation by the Warren Commission so while the first government investigation ruled that Oswald acted alone the second ruled there was almost definitely a second shooter although they ruled out most of the popular conspiracy theories such as those involving either the Cuban or Soviet government they also claimed that the shooter on the grassy knoll missed because of course they did this report was published in March 1999 what else could they say that the man who killed the president had been at large for the last 16 years no whoever was on the grass ain't all definitely had to have missed for America the dictable tape became so famous that in July 1979 records containing the audio included as a centerfold in a porno magazine I'm sure the idea of putting murder evidence in a porno mag sounds weird to you Simon it totally does I was I'm waiting for the like the to see what this is about like was there a naked woman holding it in front of her ladybugs like what what's going on but you look at porno on page to review your newspapers so I don't want any Guff we don't do that anymore and we definitely did do that in the past not unlike proper newspapers in like shitty newspapers no offense to the sun slight offense to the sun based on an oddity in the recording that was ironically discovered from someone listening to one of these porno magazine records the doj paid for the National Academy of Sciences to review the dictabelt audio upon a 1982 review The Academy discredited the recording claiming that it occurred over a minute after the shots have been fired and the researchers had conflated random noise with gunfire about 30 years later Josiah Thompson believed that he had discredited the recording thanks to the help of the original audio scientist that had appeared before the hsca I'd have preferred using a different scientist but it is what it is so maybe this uh audio recording science isn't as hot like I was thinking I don't know Linux belt has been discredited by comparing a sound at the beginning of it with a sound from a different recording that was believed to have been from 60 to 90 seconds after to the assassination upon further analysis of audio hum frequencies that would allegedly indicate how many devices the recording had been run through they concluded that the version of the audio used to discredit the dictabelt was not an original they argued that the other recording was spliced and overlaid creating the illusion that the Digger belt was a recording the aftermath of the assassination rather than the attack itself personally I'm a little bit torn on this one I believe Thompson is working in good faith and focuses on good science but the explanation as I understand it sounds a little implausible there were National Academy of scientists winding up with a degraded second or third generation copy of the audio instead of the original isn't it all crazy but once you add in that it was deliberately and deceptively spliced or overlaid it becomes a harder pill to swallow on the other hand the dictabout audio lines up so perfectly with the video that it's equally hard to believe that it was just random noise oh wait to me it just sounds like someone wanted to give them a tape to discredit the original recording which seems to be legit right there's someone someone's playing someone's playing with them this is either a case of deliberate cover-up yeah I think maybe or an instance of man searches for proof of something man finds that support man finds thing that supports his belief uh yeah okay but scientists while they do fall into this trap um do so less because they understand how like science works and like proving things and hypotheses and stuff and I think I think that this is a little bit of a cover-up to be honest I'll put my conspiracy Temple hat on and be like I think someone's messing with them to try and discredit the tape if the dictable tape really was from a minute after the assassination that it doesn't disprove anything it just becomes irrelevant luckily there's still the most important piece of evidence there's a prude of film The brutal film was a silent home movie shot by Abraham Zapruder on eight millimeter Color Film it's not the only home movie of the assassination but it's the highest quality and most Kennedy also received a fatal headshot when his Lincoln was at the point in its path closest to Zapruder so it provides the best and most traumatizing footage of the assassination possible the film is 486 frames long and was shot at 18.3 frames per second making the total run time 26 seconds the Zapruder film is the single most important piece of evidence in this case and one of the most important films ever recorded Zapruder had loved Kennedy and hated the fact that he was the person that caught the assassination on camera though it worked out pretty well thing within two days it sold the film to Life magazine for 150 000 roughly 1.5 million dollars in today's money with the stipulation that they couldn't show frame 313 the one where Kennedy's head explodes he donated 25 000 of that to the Widow of Officer Tippett the policeman that Oswald killed before entering the movie theater sapruder died in 1970 at the age of 65 but life sold the video back to his family in 1975 for a dollar it's not a typo the US government would later seize the film by eminent domain in 1999. wait I thought eminent domain was something that governments use when they want to like build an airport and your house is in the way they could just use it to take your [ __ ] like your [ __ ] [ __ ] off government I'm building a bunker of course eminent domain requires that the government pay a fair price for anything that they seize and since it was historically important and one-of-a-kind item the government paid so prude as family 16 million dollars which is nearly 29 million dollars in today's money good [ __ ] Lord holy [ __ ] okay forget it I'll take it take it eminent domain my ass come on let's go Jesus and why wouldn't they just lie well you know life sold it to you for a dollar and after like 20 years of inflation that's a dollar 75 congratulations 1.75 no 32 million uh 29 million dollars in today's money Jesus that's a that's a windfall as for the content of the film itself if you've ever seen the footage of the assassination this is almost definitely what you're looking at what you were what you're looking at I have seen it it has been painstakingly analyzed for decades with every single frame of the film looked at in excruciating detail it's been digitally enhanced with new technology synced to the potential audio even examined in every way imaginable we're not going to do a frame by frame analysis but we will touch upon the most important aspects the gunfire began at approximately frame 190 but from the video alone it's difficult to tell the exact moment Kennedy's right arm was raised a wave to the crowd on his right and it seemed like he was starting to react however from frames 207 to 224 he is obscured by a sign for the highway past the triple overpass there's about one second between when the first shot was fired and when he was hidden by the sign and another second until the beginning emerges once back in view Kennedy is clearly holding his hands up to his throat but Governor Connolly does not appear to be showing sign haven't been injured yet if the same bullet passed through both of them as the Warren Commission had argued it should have all happened in the space of a single frame given the speed of the bullet the first pain response Connolly seems to manifest is at frame 2238 there is an argument that he may have had a delayed pain response and this is possible alternatively there is the possibility that Oswald's first shot did not Miss Kennedy and the second shot he fired o was the one that hit Connolly the second shot was fired just before they came back into view so if this one hit Connolly he would have been reacting less than a second after being shot we'll briefly touch on the magic bullet theory later but for today's episode it's not actually the most important thing we're trying to determine whether there was a second shooter and since shots one and two were both Fireballs while it doesn't really matter which one hit Connolly other than to discredit the Warren Commission in support of conspiracy the part we are most concerned with begins at frame 313. having visual aids would certainly help her but since the show is also a podcast I don't really think Simon wants to look at them anyway I'll have to go on without it hell I'd have been happier if I didn't have to watch the subruta film so many times and so intently but this topic was my idea so it's my own stupid fault yeah I've seen it once and I have no desire to watch it again seeing someone murdered is uh yeah just that's not something you'd really want to see I remember I think we we made a YouTube video about this once and we showed shots of it and was like well no obviously we're not going to show a dude getting his head blown off because well it's just not nice and it's also kind of disrespectful I feel to his family right I mean I know he's long dead but he's still got living relatives Jesus anyway the frame 313 the Fatal bullet struck Kennedy blood brain matter and skull fragments exploded from his hand head sending it back and to the left at this point the grassy knoll was in front of him and to the right so this motion would have been following the trajectory of a bullet fired from that direction there were arguments made before the Warren Commission that his head could not have been propelled in the direction from which the bullet made contact after the exit wound was formed but the science was flawed at best at frame 327 we can see what is believed to be the fourth shot Kennedy's head is suddenly propelled forward following the trajectory that a bullet fired from The Book Depository would have taken a close inspection of the individual frames shows more blood and brain matter being expelled from the front of Kennedy's head these shots struck Kennedy roughly 0.76 Seconds Apart there have been various tests conducted by SWAT snipers the NRA and private citizens the results are very with some showing it was possible for him to fire three shots and some showing that he could not have fired three shots within a span of six seconds or so looking at all the different data I think it's safe to say that Oswald could have fired three shots within the time span even if the minimum cycle time that his rifle would mechanically allow is 2.3 seconds as given by the war on commission the clock doesn't start until he fires the first round meaning that he would only need to cycle the rifle twice in some of the tests this was more than adequate for a skilled marksman to fire three shots and that fine though the majority of people in attendance only reported hearing three shots they were in agreement that the final two shots were much closer together than the first and second shot were this indicated the final two shots were much closer together than the first and second shot were this indicates that the final two shots they heard were the ones the sapruder film shows struck Kennedy 0.76 seconds apart it may have been possible for Oswald to fire three shots within the overall time span but it was absolutely not possible for him to get off two shots in three quarters of a second with a rifle that he had so if they can prove that there were two there were two shots close together then that seems pretty locked down there was a second shooter there was also the matter of blood and brains that we mentioned flying ever at the beginning of this episode skull fragments and brains were violently propelled outward from the back of Kennedy's head once again flying back and to the left and to the left the left side of the hood and windshield of the follow-up car were covered as were two motorcycle officers to the left side of Kennedy's car this batter would have been consistent the shot fired from the grassy knoll the motorcycle officer was further forward a reported that he had been hit in the chest by the debris with such intense force that he thought he had been shot it's highly improbable that this officer could have been hit in the chest with that amount of Force if the bullet had been fired from behind then there was the blood on the Lincoln's Wing shield and Hood this would have been the likely effect of the second shot striking Kennedy's head from the opposing from the opposite direction I know it's all really gross but it seems pretty conclusive as well if we are allowed to include the dictabel tape as well it seems even more damning the final two shots line up perfectly with frame 313 and 327. maybe it's just confirmation biased being able to hear the gunshots while seeing Kennedy's head knocked backwards and then forwards is really compelling evidence I say like the blood splatter the brain spatter all of this stuff is like there were two shots from different directions right there's a lot of evidence saying that there's something going on here I don't know if it's a con but I'm not I guess the conspiracy is was there a second shooter but it doesn't seem like anyone saying absolutely not other than the Warren Commission which people didn't like in the first place like was reinvestigated so is anyone like saying other than like the common knowledge of people and Kevin being taught in school that there was one shooter is it a conspiracy that there were two people or is it just like maybe there were two people because it doesn't feel like a conspiracy at the moment it just feels like there's some evidence to say that there's maybe a second shooter so first of all our commission ruled out Oswald acted alone then thanks to the dictabel the hsca ruled that there was a second shooter then when the doj felt they had discredited the audio recording they again declared that Oswald acted alone so which is it and what exactly doesn't the government want us to know I think the government just wants people to be happy with there being one shooter who is now dead because it's simple and tidy and they haven't let a criminal who killed a president be on the loose for the last however many decades he survived afterwards potentially could still be alive um I think that benefits the government because then it's like they haven't failed but I don't think I don't think that's a conspiracy I think that's just like sensible but a government it's just that's probably good policy and I I think that we can the dictive belt tape being fake or whatever I think we can just write off as it was clearly interfered with evidence of a conspiracy this section could easily be called circumstantial evidence of a conspiracy but that doesn't sound nearly as catchy there is absolutely no hard evidence tying Oswald to a greater conspiracy which is why I argued that it was possible that he acted alone despite the presence of a second unrelated shooter whether he was part of a conspiracy or not some of the facts of this case do point to a larger conspiracy in play if nothing else we know that the government hasn't been entirely forthcoming about the investigation and right now I think it's gonna have to be something really compelling to make me believe that there's something conspiratorial Beyond just a second shooter either by coincidence or by Design or whatever but to be like the government did it I don't think so it's gonna have to be really super strong evidence or something like that all the Cubans or the USSR I just like I'm pretty skeptical the war on commission was supposed to be public they published their report along with 26 volumes of supporting documents but that wasn't all the information they had we know that most of the documents were sent to the National Archives where the official policy was there remain sealed for 75 years however this rule no longer exists it was essentially replaced by the 1966 Freedom of Information Act but just because you make an foia request doesn't mean the request will be granted aside from those few years between the hsca declaring there was a second shooter in the dictabel tape being discredited the government has maintained that Oswald acted alone director Oliver Stone didn't agree and in 1991 he released the film JFK the film focused heavily on frame 313 of the sapruder film and Kennedy's head being knocked back into the left trying to demonstrate that the shot had to be had to have been fired from the grassy knoll the film also alleged a conspiracy involving the FBI CIA and Military as co-conspirators in the assassination Stone's film played a major role in reshaping public perception about events in Congress and wanted to set the record straight see first part of that double shooter totally can believe in second part of that involving the FBI CIA military's co-conspirators I'm like where's the evidence for that show me some evidence and it better be more than circumstantial in in 1992 in a no small part due to Stone's movie Congress passed the JFK records act the law set a firm 25-year time limit with all assassination records being required to be released to the public in full by October 26 2017. unless the president of the United States decided to postpone them that is well 2017 has come and gone and and when time was running out on the clock the FBI and CIA decided that they didn't really want to release that information president Trump sided with the intelligence organizations allowing them to postpone the release of thousands of documents until 2021 sure the timer recording was last year or when you're listening probably two years ago because these are recorded well in advance once 2021 came around roughly 1 500 new documents were released with President Biden allowing the rest to be postponed again until December 2022 that's this month that's when I'm recording this so depending on when this video releases either there have been a major breakthrough or another delay probably the latter as best I can determine there remain about six thousand completely unreleased documents with another four thousand that only been released in partially redacted form of the documents that still remain unclassified the vast majority of files related to organized crime this has led to heavy speculation that the mafia was involved in the assassination though that speculation is by no means new when Bobby Kennedy was given the news about his brother he was reported as saying I knew they would get one of us I thought it would be me Bobby had been Waging War against the mafia in his role as attorney general and they obviously didn't appreciate this yeah but I don't think this is saying the mafia could have been involved in the Kennedy assassination I don't believe that's not you're not a conspiracy theorist you're just like that is one person who could have potentially assassinated him could have been the Soviets could have been Cuba could have been Oswald just pissed off at Kennedy um I don't think this doesn't fall like into conspiracy theory for me it just falls into like we should all be critical thinkers and consider the the different pieces of evidence I mean there's no if there's no proof of it I you can't be like it was the mafia but to say that it's it doesn't seem like an unreasonable thing there are claims that Jimmy Hoffa even explicitly said that it was time to kill the president those close to him believed his statement to be a joke while lower level mafia members were seen as taking his order deadly serious the continued unwillingness of the government to even release redactive versions of these files with confidential informant names blacked out it seems highly suspicious with a strong implication that the mafia was somehow involved in the assassination one of the members of the Warren Commission had argued against the mafia conspiracy theory in an interview in the 1970s he said that they would have loved to have been able to tie the mafia to the assassination while he was already trying to take them down and if they had been responsible for JFK's death then it would have completely turned the public against them to evaded the government in their goal of eliminating organized crime that's not a terrible argument but it leaves out a major detail that wouldn't have been revealed for decades project Johnny it wasn't until after the 1992 records act that the public learned that the CIA on behalf of President Kennedy offered to pay the mafia 150 000 to assassinate Fidel Castro following the disastrous Bay of Invasion the map here respectfully declined this proposal they said they do it for free out of their love for America this was the reason they gave anyway but of course it wouldn't really be free the marriage of the mafia and the team's dis Union had made them nearly as powerful as the federal government if they were to kill Caster on direct orders from the president the way they saw it they would own the entire [ __ ] country of course they never actually succeeded and the Kennedys were growing increasingly impatient with the lack of results between Bobby Kennedy bearing down on the mafia Jimmy Hoffer's misinterpreted joke and the mafia's inability to do the one thing that would make them own the White House is not inconceivable that they could have been involved in the assassination in some way if they had been it would make sense to use Oswald as the Fall Guy rather than risk revealing the underhanded dealings between Kennedy and the mafia even if Oswald and the mafia hadn't been working in concert his arrest was too good of an opportunity to pass up though the connection between the mafia and JFK is now known if the mafia was involved in the assassination and the government is unlikely to voluntarily admit to lying to the entire country for the past 60 years if they could avoid it there's also the matter of Oswald's assassin Jack Ruby Ruby was a known associate of the Chicago Mafia and many believed that the murder was carried out with police cooperation to silence Oswald it's all circumstantial but there's a good amount of circumstantial evidence yeah is like that again though the fact that he was assassinated is uh himself um uh Oswald was assassinated it's just like that's very convenience isn't it unrelated to the mafia there's also the matter of Oswald's trip to Mexico it turns out there was a lot more to that trip than the CIA wanted people to believe for example Oswald who was under much heavier surveillance than was initially let on is known to have openly bragged about his plans to kill President Kennedy while he was there personally I think they would have hid this information out of embarrassment not because they were somehow complicit in the assassination but while there are those that take it the other direction much more notable was Oswald's trip to the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City if it even was Oswald in 1993 the transcript of a phone call between Jay Edgar Hoover and President Johnson was revealed in it Hoover says that they were all very confused about this incident they had images and audio of a man who went to the Embassy claiming to be Oswald but it wasn't him neither the face nor the voice match Oswald and Hoover believed there was a second person there with him in order to call that Revelation anything other than a bombshell and it's the one piece of evidence that makes it difficult for me to argue that the two Shooters weren't necessarily working together um unless I guess I must be missing something must be my smooth brain but just because he has an accomplice and is doing something weird at an embassy with someone else I I it's it's very circumstantial isn't it what am I missing let me know in the comments you're coming to probably watch this it'll be Simon is it not obvious it might be obvious to someone with a big brain like you Kevin well like 99 of the audience well I don't understand I don't think I just think it's circumstantial or maybe I'm just too skeptical one of the central Arguments for the Oswald acted alone Theory particularly as put forth by the Warren Commission is the single bullet theory this is often referred to as the magic bullet theory because of how implausible it generally seems the Warren Commission believed that the first bullet Oswald fired struck both Kennedy and Connolly the second missed and the third was the Fatal headshot is this the bullet that traveled through like Connolly in a weird way and now they're saying it also went through Kennedy's throat and then through Connolly's body please for this to be possible the bully would have had to pierce through Kennedy's back brace through his upper back collide with one of his vertebrae exits through his neck enter Connolly's back shatter four inches of rib exit through colonies Connolly's chest entered a colony's arm shatter his radius into eight pieces and then exit through his palm and Lodge in his thigh I don't that that seems extremely unlikely whether or not their sequence of events would be physically possible is heavily debated there's a lot of analysis of bullet angles and exactly how far to the left or right Connolly was sitting in his chair and we're just not going to get into that instead I'll just show you the bullet this is the bullet that fell out of Connolly's thigh when he was placed on a stretcher in the hospital okay I'm looking at it in front of me I'm sure you're also looking at it on the screen but for our podcast friends I'll just say that it looks like a remarkably intact bullet for the Warren commission's findings to be true that bullet that is in that condition very good condition had to have done all the damage we just said if the bullet was rotated so that we could see the bottom of it there is some extremely minor damage that but the bullet is by and large intact for comparison here is one of the fragments of the headshot bullet you'll notice that I say fragment as it did not remain in one piece and for our listeners home it is just a small piece of like wrecked metal it does not look like a bullet at all it looks like a fragment of a bullet as Kevin just described it's about a third to a quarter of the size of the bullet the full bullet the first bullet allegedly went through two people and multiple bones while remaining in almost pristine condition but the other bullet that should have been from the same gun was crushed to form to broken into pieces even if such an angle existed where both men's wounds were caused by one bullet for that bullet to be a nearly pristine condition just seems a bit improbable doesn't it again yeah it does it I don't think it's impossible I don't find this to be the most compelling like the the state of the bullet I find that to be a bit circumstantial could have been extremely lucky and just not got broken I mean people fall out of planes and survive so I'm saying it's unlikely but it's not conclusive also from the Warren Commission there are a lot of reports of witness tampering suppression and intimidation these are hard to substantiate but I still figured it was worth mentioning we already know that the government was hiding information about the assassination like the details about Mexico but there's one final piece of evidence that I'd like to discuss that indicates that the government may have been involved in a conspiracy in 2014 the CIA said that they were okay fine it's a little more complicated than that David rabaj who has been a member of the cia's history staff since 1996 and chief historian since 2005 published a report that CI director John McCone was part of what he called a benign cover-up the report stated that the CIA had deliberately withheld information from the Warren Commission and instructed its officers to give the vagust and least helpful answers to questions when possible rabaj concluded that McCone was not interested in letting the public know the full truth only in guiding the Warren Commission to what the agency believed at the time was the best truth that Lee Harvey Oswald for as yet undetermined motives had acted alone in killing John Kennedy it was a benign cover-up because McCone was wasn't trying to cover up any CIA involvement in the assassination he just wanted the American public to receive the most sanitized version of the truce even if it was incomplete I said this earlier like it looks good for the government I don't think there's a conspiracy I just think they were like yeah it's better if we look more competent and it doesn't look like we screwed up and it doesn't look like there's been someone on the loose or blah blah blah blah blah they're not covering up some Mafia thing even though maybe that's possible they're just trying to make themselves look good aren't we are unfortunately unless the CIA or the FBI were actually involved in the assassination this did more harm than good the frequent Revelations about information that was withheld from both the public and the warring commission combined with the thousands of documents that are still not released have eroded public confidence and only further fueled conspiracy theories they say oh where there's smoke there's fire and the CIA is billowing not to mention the literal smoke that emanated from the grassy North wrap up there are a lot of conspiracy theories about Who besides Oswald might have been involved in the assassination of president John F Kennedy people have pointed blame at the Mafia the CIA the FBI Soviet Union Fidel Castro or Cuban nationalists some sort of Illuminati style Shadow government the Secret Service President Johnson the Israeli government the Federal Reserve and even George H.W bush guys there's not enough anti-Semitism in your uh in your conspiracy theories come on these are not and also not absurd enough where are the Nazis come on that list is too long to even attempt to address who did it and there's no hard evidence for any of them anyway based on Oswald's personal ties and Kennedy's activities there's greater circumstantial evidence pointing towards the Mafia the Soviets or the Cubans but there's not enough to draw any but I don't think you're a conspiracy theorist like personally I don't think this is a conspiracy theory I just think there is something weird about it we don't know the full truth we don't know who did it it seems very unlikely that Oswald was just doing this on his on his own I'd say we don't know maybe it was Oswald acting alone but I I just think I don't think it's conspiracy theory I just think there are many potential guilty parties and we don't know which one it was is that how conspiracy people really feel is that is that people who don't believe we land in the movie they're like it's not a conspiracy theory guys am I becoming one of these people [ __ ] there is other circumstantial out there that I just couldn't get into in the interest of time but for any of our viewers who really want to believe the American government was somehow involved in the assassination I'd recommend looking into the death of journalist Dorothy kilgarlin and her missing files to have tried to address her alleged suicide would be an entire episode by itself that sounds fascinating and Kevin if you're up for it in the comments are Keen for it let's do that that sounds like part two to be honest but since our goal wasn't right to try and address which of the Myriad of conspiracies was most likely it brings us back to the question at the heart of this episode was there a second shooter on the grassy knoll like I said at the beginning when I began this project I assume the answer would obviously be no and would just have some fun dunking on conspiracy theories but that is no longer the case people have been asking for this episode for ages like when is the one where Simon is persuaded and I kind of went into this less skeptical than before because the Kennedy assassination is the is the the thing where I'm like there's more something's up with that it's weird and I've come even more convinced like reading about it learning about it today that there is something weird there I probably think there was a second shooter I'm a conspiracy theorist give him I did for that the key physical evidence seems to strongly suggest the evidence of another shot fired from behind the stockade fence on the glass scene on the grassy knob even without the Victor belt audio the frame by frame analysis of the Zapruder film seems almost irrefutable combined with all the witness accounts and the trajectory of the blood and skull fragments I really don't know how to argue that there wasn't a second shooter I'm curious to hear what you Simon and our viewers think maybe I've inadvertently left you with some huge unanswered question or maybe there's some contradictory evidence that you feel I didn't value highly enough you can all feel free to argue about in the comments section and I'll be back next time back and to the left thank you everybody for listening or watching this podcast if you enjoyed this audio form please leave a review that is super helpful against the podcast into more people's pod catches is that the official term podcast apps I don't know and uh yeah from YouTube like subscribe and thank you for watching see you next time foreign [Music]

Channel: Decoding the Unknown

Views: 893,965

Keywords: jfk assassination eyewitness, jfk assassination footage, international center of photography, jfk assassination history, jfk assassination, jfk: a bystanders view of history, historical photography, president kennedy, jackie kennedy, john f. kennedy (us president), president of the united states (ontology class), history, jfk texas

Id: 1Ltg2RgHlsQ

Length: 85min 1sec (5101 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 21 2023

Reddit Comments

[u/poojanks7861]

They made sure every allegedly was in place, he didn't want to get JFK'ed.

[u/eskamobob1]

It seriously feels like Simon started mentioning this episode like a year ago. Wknd r what held it up so crazy long

[u/DarnellHalfling505]

Now the Malcolm X and MLK Jr assassinations

[u/DylanToback8]

Decoding*