Correcting Dr. James Reese and Homeland Security on JFK

CORRECTING DR. JAMES REESE

HOMELAND SECURTIY

OPINION

Evidence Still Points to Oswald as President Kennedy’s Assassin

https://inhomelandsecurity.com/

BILL KELLY NOTES: This article is especially disturbing because the author is a teacher (of athletics) at the American Military University and it is posted/published in a Homeland Security web site. Certainly the assassination of President Kennedy was a severe breakdown in our national security, and was an attack not only on the man but the entire government and the nation. But it is scary for a military man not to be aware of the military implications of the assassination and to attempt to confirm the Phase Two Cover Story, that a deranged lone nut case killed the President by himself, and using the same debunked arguments that were debunked decades ago. (1)

November 21, 2018 Dr. James Reese

President Kennedy's Assassination: If there were multiple shooters or a conspiracy, where is the credible evidence that has surfaced since Nov. 22, 1963?

BILL KELLY: The evidence of multiple shooters and a conspiracy is there, Dr. Reese just ignores it. And if Lee Harvey Oswald - the former Civil Air Patrol cadet, USMC, Russian language speaker, Soviet defector, who associated with David Ferrie, Guy Bannister, Clay Shaw, George deMohrenschildt, Volkmar Schmidt, David Atlee Phillips, Carlos Bruinguier, Silvia Duran, Michael and Ruth Paine; practiced covert intelligence procedures, and was implicated in the assassination of President Kennedy and Officer J.D. Tippit in any way, then whatever happened at Dealey Plaza was a covert intelligence operation even if it was the work of a lone gunman. And those responsible for HOMELAND SECURITY should recognize that the assassination was a terrorist attack not only on JFK the man but the entire government and nation, as well as our system of government. (2)

James Reese
Program Director, Sports Management, American Military University

JR: Fifty-five years ago this Thursday, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, as the president’s motorcade traveled through Dealey Plaza. I recently visited Dealey Plaza and the former Texas School Book Depository building (now the Dallas County Administration Building) from which Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy.

BILL KELLY NOTES: Reese and Gerald Posner and Max Holland and Phil Shennon and Brian Latell and all of the Deranged Lone Nutters can keep saying Oswald shot Kennedy a thousand times in print in posts or shout it as loud as they want and it won’t make it true. The testimony of multiple witnesses at the scene and Oswald’s own statements clearly place him on the first and second floors before, at the time and in the immediate aftermath of the shooting (3)

And the forensic evidence supports his contention that he was framed as the Patsy, though there was a Third Class Sniper in that window, who wore a white shirt (Oswald wore brown) and who had a very distinct bald spot on the top of his head, a distinguishing characteristic not shared with Oswald. (4)

JR: As I rode the elevator to the sixth floor, where Oswald fired the fatal shots,…

BILL KELLY NOTES: Oswald didn’t fire any shots, and the fatal shot to the head did not originate from the Sixth Floor Sniper’s Nest Window (5)

JR: …..people around me were still debating the assassination. Was it a lone gunman or a conspiracy?

BILL KELLY NOTES: There is no debate, those who claim that Oswald was the lone gunman refuse to acknowledge the facts, the evidence and the truth, and continue to promote the Warren Commission lies that have been proven false and are not accepted by 80% of the public. There are dozens of serious, independent researchers who are working full time on this case and will solve the murder to a moral and legal certainty in the next few years. (6)

Hollywood Film ‘JFK’ Leads to 1992 Assassination Records Collection Act

Oliver Stone’s 1991 film “JFK” did a huge disservice to the public by debunking the single gunman theory introduced by the Warren Commission Report.

BILL KELLY NOTES: By debunking the single gunman theory – and a debunked theory is all it is, was not a disservice, but just the rational and objective review of the evidence as it was known at the time.(7)

JR: The film’s one positive influence was that public response to it led to the creation of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992. This law mandated the release of records related to the death of the president after 25 years.

BILL KELLY: That didn’t happen, the law was totally subverted by President Trump, who tweeted many times that he was going to release all the records, when at the last minute – on October 17, 2017, the 25 anniversary of the signing of the act, he related to pressure from the CIA and his chief of staff, General Kelly (USMC), and continually withheld tens of thousands of documents, in full and in part. But the most significant records that are leading to the resolving of the crime, are not even part of the JFK Collection at the National Archives because the most significant records have been destroyed, are missing or have been wrongfully and illegally withheld. (8)

JR: As a result, approximately 99 percent of more than five million documents about JFK’s assassination are now available to the public, either in full or in partially redacted formats. The Trump administration has scheduled the release of the remaining 300 documents on October 26, 2021.

BILL KELLY: The number of 300 remaining documents is a lie – and I am calling Dr. Reese on his source for that figure, as we know for a fact that there are many tens of thousands of records that are still being wrongfully withheld. What is one percent of four million documents? You tell me. If the assassination was the result of a deranged loner, there would be no reason for the illegal withholding of these records for reasons of National Security. This should be a concern to anyone who is interested in our Homeland Security. (9)

JR: Number of Americans Who Believe that Oswald Acted Alone Has Shrunk

When the Warren Commission Report was released in 1964, 87% of Americans believed Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone. As of 2013, approximately 62 percent of Americans believed there was a conspiracy to kill President Kennedy. However, there is not a shred of solid evidence to support any of the estimated 311 distinct conspiracy theories.

BILL KELLY NOTES: Every legitimate poll taken since 1964, when the Warren Report was issued, has indicated that 80% of the people don’t believe Oswald was the lone assassin, the same percentage of people who have lost their trust in government. That figure has not fluctuated in fifty years, and I challenge Dr. Reese to produce the source of his poll. And it doesn’t matter, if only one person believed there was a conspiracy and uncovered the truth it would be enough. And since the official story that Oswald killed JFK and the assassination only happened one way, one of those 311 distinct conspiracy theories is the way it happened. And we are getting closer to figuring it out. (10)

JR: In addition, there have been at least 900 books dedicated to the Kennedy assassination and 95 percent of them are pro-conspiracy in nature. Obviously, conspiracy theories drive ratings, sell books and make money.

BILL KELLY NOTES: There have been over 2,000 books published about the Kennedy assassination, and most of the conspiracy books are self-published while those who support the government’s cover story have no problem getting published, and make a good living at it, as can be seen in Max Holland’s resume. Most pro-conspiracy writers can’t find a legitimate publisher and I would like to compare how much Gerald Posner, Max Holland, Phil Shennon, Brian Latell, et al. have earned publishing their bull shit compared to the real, independent researchers – Peter Dale Scott, John Newman, David Talbot, John Armstrong, Bob Groden etc. The weight of the money is by far on the side of those who support the government version of events that few believe. (11)

JR: The following material comes from numerous official investigations, including the FBI Investigation Report, the Warren Commission and the Church Committee Reports among others, which discredit many of the common conspiracy theories.

BILL KELLY NOTES: Wait a minute, the Church Committee and its Schweiker-Hart Subcommitee on the assassination uncovered numerous leads that support conspiracy, and many of their interviews and records have disappeared. Isn’t that an issue that those who work in Homeland Security and National Security should be concerned. And the conservative Republican Senator Richard Schweiker (R. Pa.) concluded that “there were fingerprints of intelligence” all over Oswald and the assassination. Why not address those fingerprints if you are interested in national security issues? (12)

JR: Oswald’s Behavior Prior to the Assassination

Just six months before the Kennedy assassination, Oswald attempted to assassinate Army General Edwin A. Walker at his home. The bullet that was removed from the house was consistent with Oswald’s rifle, but could not be matched conclusively since the bullet was severely damaged.

Oswald’s wife, Marina, later testified that her husband admitted to the assassination attempt. In addition to the attempt on General Walker’s life,

BILL KELLY NOTES: While Mrs. Paine refused to identify the host of the house party where she met Lee and Marina, it was the home of Volkmar Schmidt, who I interviewed, and who acknowledged to me that he encouraged Oswald to kill Walker  “as Hitler should have been killed.” And Schmidt was entwined with the July 20, 1944 German military plot to kill Hitler that in 1963 the CIA was “studying in detail” to be adapted for use against Castro. In addition, there were two people seen at the scene of the Walker shooting, so someone besides Oswald was involved. The Walker shooting is significant but not because it proves Oswald had the “capacity for violence,” as simple minded Lone Nutter try to use as proof of anything. (13)

JR: a June 1964 declassified memo from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover revealed that while on a trip to Mexico City just three weeks before the assassination, Oswald threatened to kill Kennedy.

BILL KELLY NOTES: Wow, this is news to me. Is this the Silvia Odio incident? That the Warren Commission falsely said were Lawrence Howard and friends who denied it was them. And the Odio incident is proof of conspiracy, not that Oswald threatened to kill Kennedy. Or is this a reference to the phone call that was recorded by the CIA that was not Oswald but someone impersonating him? Or is this Shennon’s Twist Party incident in which I have proven, by interviewing two of the participants Shennon says were there, who denied knowing Oswald and were in Mexico weeks after Oswald left? In any case, everyone who knew him confirmed Oswald liked JFK, and did not have a motive to kill him. (14)

JR: These acts indicate that another assassination attempt on a high-profile target, the president, would not be unreasonable.

BILL KELLY NOTES: It would be more reasonable for a First Class Sniper, trained to shoot Castro by US Army Rangers and US Marines at the JMWAVE base in Florida, to redirect their target to the highest-profile target the POTUS, anti-Castro Cuban maritime commandos who DID have a motive to kill JFK and hated him with a passion. (15)

JR: Ownership of the Murder Weapon

A document trail confirms that Oswald purchased a secondhand Italian M91/38 bolt-action Carcano rifle from Klein’s Sporting Goods in Chicago on March 13, 1962.

BILL KELLY NOTES: On the day the rifle was picked up from the Dallas Post Office, Oswald was working at the Jaggers/Chiles/Stoval graphic arts firm, who did work for the US Army map service, including putting arrows and captions on U2 photos of Cuba and Russia. On the day the rifle and pistol were collected, no one at the Post Office recalls handing the weapons over the counter to Oswald, and there is no record of it. On that same day, J/C/S records clearly indicate Oswald worked from before the Post Office opened until after it was closed, so he had to pick it up on company time, though his time sheet accounts for his work for every hour, including working for a J/C/S client – the Sam Bloom Advertising agency, who handled the details of the motorcade on the day of the assassination. (16)

JR: Marina said Oswald wrapped the rifle in a blanket and stored it in the nearby garage of family friends, Ruth and Michael Paine.

BILL KELLY NOTES: According to Oswald’s brother Robert, a US Marine marksman, “If Lee did not practice with that rifle and scope in the days and weeks before the assassination he did not take the shots that killed President Kennedy and wounded Governor Connolly.” And the Warren Commission concluded Oswald did not practice with that rifle that remained in the Paine’s garage until the day of the assassination. (17)

JR: According to Oswald’s coworker Wes Frazier, Oswald brought a brown paper package to work the morning of the assassination, claiming it contained curtain rods. A brown paper bag of a similar size, containing Oswald’s fingerprint and palm print, was found on the sixth floor of the Depository.

BILL KELLY NOTES: This is a deliberate lie, as Dr. Reese certainly is aware that both Wesley Frazier and his sister, who also saw the package, described it as much smaller than the rifle, even if disassembled, and the brown bag allegedly found in the Sixth Floor Sniper’s Nest, was not photographed in place before it was removed, and did NOT contain Oswald’s fingerprints as Dr. Reese falsely claims. Two deliberate lies in one paragraph. And Dr. Reese knows better, so they are lies and not simple mistakes.

JR: Investigations after the assassination concluded that Oswald had been in the Paines’ garage the night before the slaying. No curtain rods were found in the Depository or were missing from the Paine household. However, the rifle was missing from the blanket.

BILL KELLY NOTES: Yea, and not one strand of the heavy wool Russian blanket was found on the well greased rifle, and yes, the rifle is what they used to frame Oswald for the crime, as there is no other credible evidence.

JR: Oswald’s Rifle Linked to the Crime

Three 6.5 x 52 mm spent shell casings were found beside the sixth floor window after the assassination.

BILL KELLY NOTES: Yea, where did they come from? You can’t buy single bullets like you can’t buy single cigarettes, and the FBI traced the bullet serial numbers to a lot of bullets that were sold to the US Marine Corps in 1958. How did Oswald get them, and what became the rest of the package? The shells were seen by the window by the first responders, all neatly lined up in a row close together, and then a TV cameramen testified that Dallas homicide detective Will Fritz picked them up in violation of standard forensic practice, and then threw them back on the floor under the window leaving them in a random pattern. As they say, it isn’t who pulls the trigger in an assassination, it’s who buys the bullets. Oswald didn’t buy any bullets, and never fired that rifle, even in practice.

JR: JIn addition, a damaged bullet was recovered from the Parkland Hospital stretcher used by Governor Connally.

BILL KELLY NOTES: The stretcher from which WC Exhibit #399, the basically undamaged “Magic Bullet” was found has been in dispute since it was discovered, and its provenance has been broken.

JR: Five bullet fragments were recovered from the presidential limousine after the assassination.

Two of the bullet fragments were large enough to be tested.

BILL KELLY NOTES: Indeed, the bullet fragments found in the limo also contained blood, flesh and brain matter that Federal Attorney John Orr convinced Attorney General Janet Reno to test as DNA evidence. If the DNA matched John Connally, that was positive proof of conspiracy, but the testing came up “inconclusive,” a determination that would not have been made had it been proven to be that of JFK.

JR: The shell casings, bullet and the two largest fragments were all matched to Oswald’s rifle by firearms experts.

BILL KELLY NOTES: Well if you are going to frame someone for murder by using his rifle, you will use his rifle. Oswald just wasn’t the guy in the Sixth Floor window who fired it, and as John Orr has explained, the fatal head shot did not originate from that window.

JR: Oswald’s palm print was also found on the rifle.

BILL KELLY NOTES: The Dallas Police could find no fingerprints on the rifle, but the FBI discovered a latent palm print that matched Oswald on the underside of the disassembled rifle, proving that he once handled it disassembled long before the assassination. It was his rifle, taken from Mrs. Paine’s garage.

JR: Gunshot Wounds to President Kennedy

All investigations concluded that two shots hit the president from the rear and came from the direction of the sixth floor window of the Depository. The second shot to the head proved fatal.

BILL KELLY NOTES: Not all investigations came to that conclusion. The original, first FBI report concluded Connolly was hit by a separate bullet than JFK, and Orr’s report to Reno concluded the fatal shot was from the rear but not from the Sixth Floor window. All of the First Class Snipers that I have talked to said that the fatal head shot was not fired at a target moving from left to right by a Third Class Sniper with a Third Class weapon, but by a First Class Sniper from in front or behind, maybe both, as some have concluded there were two simultaneous shots to the head, one from in front and one from behind, as the target moved towards or away from the shooter with a First Class weapon.

JR: At least six independent commissions came to that conclusion.

BILL KELLY NOTES: That’s simply not true. For one they weren’t independent, and the House Select Committee on Assassinations HSCA concluded there was a shooter in front of the president. The first study of the Zapruder film, by the CIA’s National Photo Interpretation Center (NPIC) concluded there were more than one gunman, reported that to CIA director John McCone, and McCone told that to RFK.

JR: To believe there was a conspiracy to alter the medical or acoustics records,

BILL KELLY NOTES: The medical records do not reflect the fact that the throat wound was one of entry, and back of JFK’s head was blown out – clearly an exit wound – as ALL of the Parkland doctors and nurses testified to, proving that there was a gunman shooting from the front. And you bring up the acoustic evidence, which clearly indicate four shots, the last two coming on top of each other – bam, bam thank you mam, as all of the ear witnesses said, too close together to come from one gun. And the acoustics indicate a gunman from the front, a study that has never been duplicated or debunked.

JR: you would have to believe that all of these independent groups conspired together over a long span of several decades.

BILL KELLY NOTES: First there was a conspiracy to kill the President, a very well planned and successfully executed covert intelligence operation, one that succeeded in framing Oswald but failed to implicate Fidel Castro, as the plan was devised. Then there was the cover-up that involves not independent groups – but government controlled groups conspiring together to protect those actually responsible for the crime. That second conspiracy continues today in the attempts to implicate Castro in the murder, as we see in the well published work of Max Holland, Brian Latell, Phil Shennon, and others that were either full fledged CIA agents (Latell) or CIA media assests (Holland/Shennon et al)

JR: Movement of the President’s Body

One of the most discussed topics about the assassination was the movement of the president’s body after he was struck in the head by a bullet. Many conspiracy theorists, including producer Stone, contend that since the president’s head moved back and to his left after impact, the shot must have come from the side and the grassy knoll area.

However, multiple medical and ballistics experts stated that the movement of his body was due to nerve damage that was consistent with being struck from behind by a bullet. This conclusion is also supported by the president’s medical records, which clearly show the bullet entered from the rear. There is no physical evidence to suggest that the shots were fired from any other location, including the grassy knoll area.

BILL KELLY NOTES: Well the so-called “Jet Effect” has been completely debunked, and the backward – forward movement of the head is now being explained more rationally by two simultaneous shots to the head, one from the front and the other from the rear, and as confirmed by the acoustic evidence. The “baseball” or “saucer” sized blown out hole in the back of the President’s head, and the 3 to 5 inch “Harper Fragment” found at the scene, photographed and identified as a rear scull fragment, before it disappeared, are proof of a shot from the front. That’s physical evidence that Dr. Reese refuses to recognize.

JR: Was Oswald Capable of Making Long-Distance Kill Shots?

Oswald, like all Marines at the time, received marksmanship instruction at 200, 300 and 500 yards with the standard-issue M1 rifle. All of those Marines were evaluated on the accuracy of 50 shots.

Oswald qualified as a sharpshooter with a score of 212 at distances of 200, 300 and 500 yards. When the United States Marine Corps was contacted about Oswald’s shooting ability, a USMC representative described Oswald’s marksmanship skills as “better than average.”

Four marksmanship experts testified before the Warren Commission that Oswald was capable of the level of marksmanship needed to perform the assassination. Although tests conducted for the Warren Commission were based on the assumption that Oswald utilized the rifle’s 4x scope, firearms experts advising the House Select Committee testified that based on the angle of the shots, it would have been easier to use the open sights on the rifle.

The topic of “open sights” is important. Oswald was trained in the Marines with his M1 rifle using open sights and no scope. The longest of the three shots needed to assassinate President Kennedy was only 88 yards.

Since a 4x scope makes targets appear four times closer, Oswald’s actual view through the crosshairs of his scope would have approximated a range of 15 to 22 yards. For someone trained at longer distances with open sights, shooting at the president from a distance of no more than 88 yards with a 4x scope would not have been difficult for Oswald

BILL KELLY NOTES: Every gun expert agrees that the Sixth Floor Shooter – who ever he was, did not use the scope because it had to be properly aligned and can only be done so by using it by firing the rifle. And because the target was moving from left to right, the chances are slim that Third Class Sniper – civilian clothes, little training, no practice, could take that head shot and hit a bulls eye. It may not have been difficult for Oswald – trained by the USMC, but he did not take those shots as he wasn’t even on the sixth floor at the time. The Chicago technician who mounted the scope on Oswald’s rifle said if Oswald did the shooting with that rifle he was extremely lucky.

JR: One last factor that could have affected Oswald’s marksmanship ability was the quality and accuracy of his rifle. There are differing opinions about its effectiveness. Although a fingerprint expert advising the Warren Commission referred to Oswald’s rifle as a “cheap old weapon,” tests concluded that it was accurate.

BILL KELLY NOTES: From First Class Snipers I have talked with about this, the man in the Sixth Floor Window – (wearing a white shirt and with bald spot) was a Third Class Sniper and his weapon was a Third Class Weapon. His job was deception, pump evidence into the car, and leave the rifle implicating Oswald. The head shot was taken by a First Class well trained sniper with a First Class state-of-the-art weapon, shooting the target as it moved toward him or away from him, but not moving. The motto of the First Class Sniper is “One Shot One Kill.”

JR: Timing of the Three Shots and Shell Casings

To me, the timing is one of the most important aspects of the case. The amount of time Oswald had from his first shot to the third would likely affect his accuracy significantly.

BILL KELLY NOTES: To me, the timing is coordinated by the acoustical tapes and the Zapruder film. The CIA’s NPIC says the Z-film alone indicates at least two shooters, and the acoustics confirm the ear witnesses who all say that the last two shots were almost on top of each other, within a second or two apart, too close for one person to shot them both.

JR: If Oswald’s first shot missed, which most experts believe was the case, the Warren Commission estimated the time between the first and third shot to be between 4.8 seconds and a bit longer than seven seconds. The Warren Commission did not reach a conclusion about exactly when the first shot was fired.

BILL KELLY NOTES: Most experts recognize that the first shot was the easiest, and an even more easier shot was to shoot as the car came down Houston Street towards the shooter. Max Holland and others can argue all day long as to when the first shot was fired, and it doesn’t matter. That is a diversion issue while the real assassins walk.

JR: Using the Zapruder film, the House Select Committee determined only that a minimum of two shots, spaced six seconds apart, were fired at the president’s limousine. However, both investigations used Frame 133 of the Zapruder film as the basis of the estimates.

But what if the first shot was fired before Frame 133? There is eyewitness testimony to support this theory. Numerous witnesses testified there was a gap between the first and second shot, with the second and third shots closer together.

 BILL KELLY NOTES: And therefore there were two guns and two shooters firing simultaneously.

JR: The locations of the spent shell casings also support the long delay theory between shots one and two. Though this idea was not addressed by either the Warren Commission or the House Select Committee, the location of the shell casings is telling.

One shell casing was found far to the right of the window while the other two were near each other and closer to the window. When a shell casing is ejected from the right side of a rifle, it typically travels perpendicular to the direction the weapon is aimed. If all three shots came in succession with the rifle pointed at a similar angle, they would likely have landed close to each other.

The fact that one casing was much further to the right suggests the weapon was pointed perpendicular to the building during the first shot. That would be logical since it would provide a sniper with the closest distance to the target. The more a weapon faces to the right as it’s aimed at a target moving away, the farther the ejected casings will land from previous shots.

Oswald had boxes behind him concealing the sniper’s nest. As Oswald turned his weapon to the right to follow his target for shots two and three, the ejected shell casing would have bounced off the boxes behind him. As a result, they would have landed close to each other.

BILL KELLY NOTES: TV cameraman Tom Alyea (who is still alive) was one of the first reporters to enter the TSBD, and says that when he saw the Sniper’s Nest before the crime lab experts got there, he did not see the brown paper bag (no one saw it at the scene) and the three shell casings were together at the base of the window. He called homicide detective Capt. Fritz and Alyea says Fritz picked them up, looked at them and then threw them back where they landed at random and not as they were originally. So all this theorizing about the location of the shells is meaningless. As for the boxes, the sniper’s nest was created by the floor laying crew, and the boxes by the window were moved after the last shot, as the HSCA photo panel concluded on examining two photos of the boxes taken seconds apart.

JR: It’s surprising that neither investigation considered this evidence.

“In the 55 years since this incident, crime scene and evidence collection procedures have dramatically advanced. New tools and technology have been introduced to the process and techniques are consistently evolving. Evidence collected today can tell us much more than that very same evidence collected based on the tools and techniques used over six decades ago,” states Dr. Charles Russo, former law enforcement officer and Director of the Criminal Justice program at American Military University. “I feel confident in saying that today’s tools and technologies would yield better and more detailed information on the evidence I collected and cases I worked back in the 1980s. When asked about this case, I can only imagine what information would be available if we brought today’s ‘latest and greatest’ to the Texas School Book Depository building to process that original crime scene.”

BILL KELLY NOTES: Well today we certainly can apply the latest crime scene technology to the JFK assassination evidence that has been preserved at the National Archives, we can identify the fingerprints on the boxes from the sniper’s nest, apply 3D computer technology to the shells and magic bullet, bullet fragments can be tested for the DNA evidence, and new facial recognition technology can be applied to the photo evidence. And CAPA is doing just that.

JR: Final Thoughts on the Kennedy Assassination

The area around the sixth-floor window at the Book Depository museum is enclosed in glass. However, at the end of our tour, we were allowed to visit the open area on the seventh floor. It is as close as you can get to the view Oswald had from the sixth floor. As I looked out the window at the “X” on the street representing the location of the president’s limousine at the time of the third shot, one thing became obvious.

There are only two windows of opportunity for a sniper to shoot. Houston Street is eliminated since the limousine windshield would obstruct the target who was seated behind the driver and Texas Governor John Connally.

BILL KELLY NOTES: The window and Connally would not be an obstruction as the car turned the corner directly below the sixth floor window. That shot wasn’t taken because the cross fire was coordinated and timed for when the fatal head shot could be taken.

JR: The first shot opportunity came after the vehicle turned onto Elm Street in front of the Depository. After that, there is a traffic signal and large oak tree that obstruct the view of the street. The second window of opportunity opened after the vehicle reappears from under the tree. That is when I believe shots two and three were taken.

So why did Oswald’s first shot miss, which was the best opportunity to hit his target? A recent forensic analysis concluded that “the most reasonable explanation for why Lee Harvey Oswald’s first shot missed is that the bullet struck the traffic light pole and was redirected to a concrete curb where the FBI found evidence of a bullet impact.”

Based on the evidence, I agree with those who estimate Oswald may have had as much as 11 seconds to fire three shots. For a skilled shooter such as Oswald, that would be plenty of time to accurately aim at his target for a second and third time while operating the bolt-action feature of the weapon.

If there were multiple shooters or if Oswald was part of a conspiracy, it’s reasonable to assume that some credible evidence would have surfaced during the past 55 years.

BILL KELLY NOTES: Oswald wasn’t part of a conspiracy, he was set up as the Patsy, and much credible evidence has surfaced in the last 55 years. Former NYC prosecutor Bob Tanenbaum, the head of the Kennedy Task force for the first chief counsel of the HSCA said that those who claim Oswald did it alone ignore all of the facts and evidence that has surfaced in the past 50 years – especially the FBI destruction of the Hosty note and the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro, both of which throw a wrench in the works of the Lone Nutters.

JR: There are many conspiracy theories, but when evidence has been investigated, none of those theories has been substantiated. All scientific evidence and eyewitness testimony suggests that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the assassination of President Kennedy.

BILL KELLY NOTES: Since the official version of events could not have taken place as the Warren Commission contends and Oswald was framed as the Patsy as he claimed, one of the conspiracy theories is the way it happened, and it only happened one way.

JR: Perhaps the release of the remaining assassination documents will take us in a different direction.

BILL KELLY NOTES: And the records released under the JFK Act have led us in a different direction, and the remaining documents will assist us piece together what’s missing from the big picture.

About the Author

Dr. James Reese is the director of the undergraduate and graduate Sports Management programs at American Military University (AMU). As a personal interest, he has been studying the details of the assassination of President Kennedy for more than 30 years.

About the author of the NOTES:

Bill Kelly is the son of a Camden, NJ homicide detective, a graduate of the University of Dayton (History and English Education), journalist, historian, author of two regional history books, co-founder of the Committee for an Open Archives and COPA, and research coordinator for Citizens Against Political Assassinations (CAPA-US.org).

BILL KELLY NOTES: I will try to add the footnotes to this essay, but it really is getting to be too much when the real research is panning out and we can just solve the crime to a legal and moral certainty within the next few years, with or without the still withheld records.