Motive for Cover-Up (of an Oswald Shot)
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Introduction
Why would the government (in the form of the CIA, but under agreement with the Secret Service and under the direction of high-level officials) go through all the trouble of extensively altering the Zapruder film and other assassination films and photographs? All in the name of "National Security"? And since I contend that the first shot came from Oswald, why hide that?
The motive for covering up the AR-15 shot seems self-evident. It was embarrassing. Royally embarrassing. So to keep our country from becoming a laughing-stock, to prevent our premier law-enforcement agencies from looking like Keystone Cops despite that the shot was unintentionally fired from a weapon prone to slam-fire discharge, this shot was blamed on Oswald.
But the motive to cover up a shot that actually came from Oswald seems less obvious.
Before we talk about the motive, we have to know when this shot was fired, and I'll describe that in terms of the limousine's location at the time it was fired. And then we'll look at the reactions of the bystanders. And finally, we'll look at the responses of the Secret Service agents.
Why would the government (in the form of the CIA, but under agreement with the Secret Service and under the direction of high-level officials) go through all the trouble of extensively altering the Zapruder film and other assassination films and photographs? All in the name of "National Security"? And since I contend that the first shot came from Oswald, why hide that?
The motive for covering up the AR-15 shot seems self-evident. It was embarrassing. Royally embarrassing. So to keep our country from becoming a laughing-stock, to prevent our premier law-enforcement agencies from looking like Keystone Cops despite that the shot was unintentionally fired from a weapon prone to slam-fire discharge, this shot was blamed on Oswald.
But the motive to cover up a shot that actually came from Oswald seems less obvious.
Before we talk about the motive, we have to know when this shot was fired, and I'll describe that in terms of the limousine's location at the time it was fired. And then we'll look at the reactions of the bystanders. And finally, we'll look at the responses of the Secret Service agents.
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Location, Location, Location!
I contend that the first head shot came from Oswald. I also contend that shot occurred high up on Elm Street, just after the President's car had turned the corner, when the assassin at the TSBD 6th floor window had a view something like this (but with Kennedy looking to his right, and perhaps even upward):
I contend that the first head shot came from Oswald. I also contend that shot occurred high up on Elm Street, just after the President's car had turned the corner, when the assassin at the TSBD 6th floor window had a view something like this (but with Kennedy looking to his right, and perhaps even upward):
image from https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh17/pdf/WH17_CE_875.pdf
This limousine position lines up fairly well with the limousine's location when young Alan Smith saw Kennedy "shot in the forehead," where Pierce Allman placed his first "Boom!" and where a number of witnesses saw Kennedy's "hair fly up" or something "fly out of the car." and where same-day reporting described as the assassination occurring. (See https://www.a-benign-conspiracy.com/what-happened---shot-1.html)
It also aligns well with this position in the FBI's "Visual Aid" model, with a string-line running to the Kennedy doll's throat:
image from https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10699#relPageId=26
I do think the throat wound appeared when the limousine was at this location, but to be accurate, the string-line should run to the forehead/temple wound location, above the outside corner of Kennedy's right eye, rather than to the doll's throat.
Also, to be clear, this FBI "Visual Aid" image was not presented as a "shot," despite the string-line and notations of distance and angle. And that is odd, because it's the only image in the album with a string-line that is not presented as a shot location. And yet this odd "not-a-shot" location is given not only with a string-line, but also distance from the window and angle from the window?
Hmmm.
The question now becomes, if this was indeed a shot, as I contend, and if it indeed came from Oswald, as I also contend, then why cover it up?
Would it even have been possible? Wouldn't the witnesses know, and speak up?
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Who Noticed? (Inattention Blindness)
The Dealey Plaza bystanders were not expecting an assassination.
Here's a fun little Whodunnit? mystery that illustrates the problem of inattention blindness. This is a Transport for London commercial to promote awareness of cyclists on the road. There are no "Moonwalking Bears" in this commercial (and if you watched my documentary, you know what that means), but it illustrates how something can happen under one's nose without the observer being aware.
Take this "Awareness Test." It's fun!
The Dealey Plaza bystanders were not expecting an assassination.
Here's a fun little Whodunnit? mystery that illustrates the problem of inattention blindness. This is a Transport for London commercial to promote awareness of cyclists on the road. There are no "Moonwalking Bears" in this commercial (and if you watched my documentary, you know what that means), but it illustrates how something can happen under one's nose without the observer being aware.
Take this "Awareness Test." It's fun!
Did you see all the changes? Did you see any of them? The technical term for not noticing such things is "inattention blindness." Your attention is a limited resource. If you're paying attention to one thing,
As I point out in my documentary, most witnesses reported three shots, but they didn't report the same three shots. And as one researcher pointed out, the number of people who reported something other than "3" shots were more likely to report only 2 or 1 than to report 4 or 5 or possibly more. Mary Moorman, for example, thought that she took her famous picture simultaneously with the "first" shot.
There's a reason for this. Multiple reasons, in fact:
- Inattention Blindness, as illustrated above. None of the Dealey Plaza witnesses was expecting an assassination. When they heard the sound of the first shot
- Disbelief in what was happening. people were not ready to believe that shots were being fired. Instead, they thought that vehicles were backfiring, or firecrackers were being thrown.
- Disbelief that the Secret Service could be fallible.
- Not realizing that shooter(s) could be in a moving car. When witnesses saw the "puff of smoke," and the car immediately moved out from underneath it, people assumed that the smoke came from somewhere else nearby--i.e., the picket fence.
- Not seeing Secret Service agents firing. Again, inattention blindness was at work. Some critics have said that Dealey Plaza witnesses would surely have seen Hickey firing. But Hickey wasn't aiming. He fell over, and the gun went off. There were plenty of witnesses who thought a "Secret Service man was also killed." But they didn't see him aim, because he didn't aim. Nevertheless, some earwitnesses put at least one shot from that general vicinity.
- Acoustic perception phenomena. Front-back reversal is common phenomenon.
- "Lazarus Sign." Decorticate posture has sometimes been described as a "Lazarus sign" that can occur even when the victim is "brain dead." A neuromuscular response to severe head trauma can lead others to think that the victim is showing life-signs, when in fact, he/she is not.
- Misinterpretation. Some bystanders misinterpreted the movement into decorticate posture as "waving," One common misinterpretation was thinking that the sound of shots was "backfire" or "firecrackers." Even visually, the effects of the first shot was misinterpreted as a "firecracker" flying around the inside of the car (see Jack Franzen
- Misinterpreting separate shots as "echoes." For example, Clint Hill described the final shot as having "some kind of an echo," whereas other witnesses described a "double-bang" for the last two shots. Some witnesses described "evenly spaced" or "well spaced" shots coming from the TSBD, whereas quite a few described a double-bang for the last two shots.
- Only reporting shots they were "sure" of. Mary Moorman reported on the same day that "3 or 4" shots was what she was "sure of"--leaving open the possibility of other shots that she was less sure of.
- Point of view. Those who were closer to the corner were more likely to report the first shot as occurring just after the limousine turned the corner. Those farther down the street closer to the Triple Underpass were more likely to miss the early shots in the sequence (as Mary Moorman did).
- Memory reconstruction. The pervasive news reporting that only "3" shots had been fired (matching the 3 hulls found in the TSBD) may have convinced witnesses who thought they might have heard more than 3 that they were "mistaken." Mary Moorman, for example, later decided that her same-day reporting of "3 or 4" that she was "sure of" was actually only "3." (But she persisted in thinking that her picture was simultaneous with the "first" shot.) Memory reconstruction may have led some witnesses to believe that they had heard "echoes" instead of separate shots.
- Fear of looking like a fool. With the news media reporting only 3 shots fired from the TSBD, witnesses who heard more might well have been reluctant to report more than three, for fear of looking like a "kook" (as Jean Hill worried about).
- Witness intimidation. Whether real or perceived, some witnesses reported reluctance to speak out (as Marvin Faye Chism reported in her Sixth Floor Museum "Living History" interview) out of fear. Reports of witness death (e.g., Lee Bowers' car accident death, James Worrells' motorcycle death) only added to that fear. Worrells told one interviewer, "I saw everything that happened. And that's all I have to say about that." Exactly what all Worrells saw was never described in the interview, and his Warren Commission testimony reveals nothing noteworthy. He might possibly have felt intimidated to not tell everything he saw.
- Only reporting shots from the TSBD, not reporting any "return fire." In a same-day interview, Pierce Allman was asked if any police (or Secret Service men) "returned the fire." His response was, "This is possible." and "I imagine there were (shots fired in return).
Or finally:
- Protecting the Secret Service. It's possible that some bystanders knew full-well that the Secret Service might have fired one or more shots (Ralph Yarborough: "The third shot might have been a Secret Service man returning the fire.") but were reluctant to for whatever reason.
Any one or combination of the above could account for why witnesses may have miscounted the number of shots or otherwise have given mistaken accounts of exactly what happened.
It would be easy to throw ones hands in the air and declare the. case to be "Unsolveable!" However, by looking for corroboration among witness accounts and taking the position that any given witness saw something but may have misinterpreted what they saw, I believe that the case is solvable.
But the question remains: Assuming that I am correct about this first shot being a head shot that came from Oswald, what would be the motive in covering it up? Why bother such extensive alterations to the Zapruder film? Alterations to other films and photographs? And so on.
To answer that question, let's look at a couple of statements: one from a Secret Service agent, and one from a witness who was directly behind the Secret Service follow-up car.
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Secret Service Agent John Norris' Statement
Secret Service Agent John Norris wasn't actually in the Dallas motorcade, but he was a Secret Service agent who was very critical of fellow Secret Service agents in their response to the shots being fired in Dealey Plaza. Norris' exact quote is:
"Except for George Hickey and Clint Hill, everybody else just basically sat there with their thumbs up their butts while the president was gunned down in front of them."
This was told to author Bill Sloan and reported in JFK: Breaking the Silence and reported in Vince Palamara's book Survivor's Guilt: The Secret Service and the Failure to Protect President Kennedy, and in the October 17, 2014 issue of Vanity Fair.
Presumably, Norris made this statement based on either seeing the Secret Service copy of the unaltered Zapruder film, or on things he had heard in the organization.
But there is someone else, someone more directly involved in the assassination events, who said something very similar.
Secret Service Agent John Norris wasn't actually in the Dallas motorcade, but he was a Secret Service agent who was very critical of fellow Secret Service agents in their response to the shots being fired in Dealey Plaza. Norris' exact quote is:
"Except for George Hickey and Clint Hill, everybody else just basically sat there with their thumbs up their butts while the president was gunned down in front of them."
This was told to author Bill Sloan and reported in JFK: Breaking the Silence and reported in Vince Palamara's book Survivor's Guilt: The Secret Service and the Failure to Protect President Kennedy, and in the October 17, 2014 issue of Vanity Fair.
Presumably, Norris made this statement based on either seeing the Secret Service copy of the unaltered Zapruder film, or on things he had heard in the organization.
But there is someone else, someone more directly involved in the assassination events, who said something very similar.
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Senator Ralph Yarborough's Statement
Senator Ralph Yarborough was riding in the Vice President's limousine, directly behind the President's Secret Service follow-up car. In addition to saying some very interesting things like "The third shot might have been a Secret Service man returning the fire" and describing the smell of gun smoke lingering in the motorcade "all the way to the hospital," Yarborough said something extremely interesting in his Warren Commission affidavit.
Specifically, he said:
After the shooting, one of the secret service men sitting down in the car in front of us pulled out an automatic rifle or weapon and looked backward. However, all of the secret service men seemed to me to respond very slowly, with no more than a puzzled look. In fact, until the automatic weapon was uncovered, I had been lulled into a sense of false hope for the President's safety, by the lack of motion, excitement, or apparent visible knowledge by the secret service men, that anything so dreadful was happening. Knowing something of the training that combat infantrymen and Marines receive, I am amazed at the lack of instantaneous response by the Secret Service, when the rifle fire began. I make this statement in this paragraph reluctantly, not to add to the anguish of anyone, but it is my firm opinion, and I write it out in the hope that it might be of service in the better protection of our Presidents in the future.
Senator Ralph Yarborough was riding in the Vice President's limousine, directly behind the President's Secret Service follow-up car. In addition to saying some very interesting things like "The third shot might have been a Secret Service man returning the fire" and describing the smell of gun smoke lingering in the motorcade "all the way to the hospital," Yarborough said something extremely interesting in his Warren Commission affidavit.
Specifically, he said:
After the shooting, one of the secret service men sitting down in the car in front of us pulled out an automatic rifle or weapon and looked backward. However, all of the secret service men seemed to me to respond very slowly, with no more than a puzzled look. In fact, until the automatic weapon was uncovered, I had been lulled into a sense of false hope for the President's safety, by the lack of motion, excitement, or apparent visible knowledge by the secret service men, that anything so dreadful was happening. Knowing something of the training that combat infantrymen and Marines receive, I am amazed at the lack of instantaneous response by the Secret Service, when the rifle fire began. I make this statement in this paragraph reluctantly, not to add to the anguish of anyone, but it is my firm opinion, and I write it out in the hope that it might be of service in the better protection of our Presidents in the future.
What these statements indicate is that the Secret Service agents charged with protecting the President--half of whom had been out drinking the night before and into the early morning hours on the day of the assassination despite the regulations against it--were slow to respond to the first shot.
Two things should be noted: 1) The agents were trained to watch bystanders, not the President, and the sounds of the crowd as well as the sounds of the nearby motorcycles may have masked the sound/s of gunfire. An 2) George Hickey was not among the agents who had been drinking in Fort Worth. Hickey had gone on to Dallas to prepare for that motorcade, and was not even present at Fort Worth. Hickey (and possibly follow-up car driver Sam Kinney who reportedly saw the back wound appear) may have been the only one/s to realize that there had been a problem with the first shot.
No wonder they wanted to cover that up!
Two things should be noted: 1) The agents were trained to watch bystanders, not the President, and the sounds of the crowd as well as the sounds of the nearby motorcycles may have masked the sound/s of gunfire. An 2) George Hickey was not among the agents who had been drinking in Fort Worth. Hickey had gone on to Dallas to prepare for that motorcade, and was not even present at Fort Worth. Hickey (and possibly follow-up car driver Sam Kinney who reportedly saw the back wound appear) may have been the only one/s to realize that there had been a problem with the first shot.
No wonder they wanted to cover that up!