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Comment by oneoff786 | Hacker News Reader

Fully in the camp that a sniper fired a shot, and then a bodyguard accidentally capped the president from behind. Never revealed out of government shame. Hopeful to learn more.

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Me too. All the shadowy conspiracy theories seem way too complicated, but a simple screwup and the desire to bury it out of embarrassment seems so completely in line with every organization I've ever worked in.

For those of you who aren't familiar, the Secret Service team had been working hard in the year prior to the assassination, and decided to blow off some steam by going out drinking the night before the parade. Because they were all quite hungover, they assigned a relatively new team member, who hadn't gone out drinking with them, to hold the brand new AR-15 they had just been assigned. After the first shot was fired, that agent stood up and began to aim the AR-15, and was immediately knocked back down by the car lurching forward. The theory is that he accidentally squeezed off a round at that moment, which by chance struck Kennedy in the head and killed him.

Supporting evidence:

- The type of bullet that hit Kennedy's head was a frangible one, which is designed to explode upon impact, whereas Oswald's ammunition was non-frangible.

- The third shell found at the book depository was in a different place, and was bent. It could have been used as a chamber plug to keep the chamber safe from dirt and moisture.

- A ballistic expert determined that the fatal shot was most likely to have come from the left rear seat of the Secret Service followup car.

That doesn't make sense. The Zapruder film shows him shot from the front. Jackie Kennedy goes and grabs a piece of brain or skull from the back of the car.

> Jackie Kennedy goes and grabs a piece of brain or skull from the back of the car.

Sorry, not from the US but why would she do that?

Edit: the parent comment originally said "why would she do that? To keep a souvenir?" and has since been edited.

Stealth-editing a comment to deprive replies of their meaning is not a nice thing to do, so please don't do that.

-- original reply: --

"Don't be snarky."

"Eschew flamebait."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Clarification: is this snark or flamebait? I might be missing something, but it seems like a reasonable question. I recall the first time I heard she'd done that, my own incredulity was similar (having never been in a life-or-death crisis, I didn't have the frame-of-reference to get that a person may not be thinking rationally "Doctors can't put brain parts back in" and might grab whatever they see come off a loved one).

I suspect the minimized version, "Why would she do that?" would have been well received. I don't think anyone understands why the "I'm not from the US" clause is there and I personally assigned a reasonable probability that it was a short-hand stand-in for the following sentiment :

"The US has so much gun violence that they must have some kind of expertise that leads them to know that its a good idea to save skull fragments in case the doctors need them. Lol, just kidding, that was sarcasm; I just wanted to bash the US for their high rate of gun violence."

Of course I accept that this may be mis-interpreting it. The only other meaning I can parse is: "I imagine that everyone in the USA learned about this event in great detail in their school lessons/etc. I haven't so....could someone explain why she grabbed the skull fragment?"

The comment originally read "why would she do that? To keep a souvenir?"

People react to sudden, extreme stress in way that seem odd after the fact.

This doesn’t seem inconceivable at all.

Shock, likely.

Pre-shock, even.

She was in shock, and tried to do something to help her husband. It's not even that far fetched. If your hand was cut off, you'd want to save it for possible reattachment.

Some combination of shock and instinct. Probably more shock since she later reported that she didn’t remember doing it at all.

It's really impossible to speculate until you've been in a situation like that and most of us probably have not. I would suspect it was a panic response and not some deeper nefarious action.

Because people do weird things under extreme stress.

She reached for it within the fraction of a second that the bullet struck JFK's head. It was an instinctive action.

In fact, we humans usually can't rationally comprehend catastrophic injury to the body, while in that state of immediate shock. Think of the image of the soldier carrying his detached arm.

For some reason, I'm remembering peoples' take on this being that she was scared and running away, and I'm weirdly glad to see that someone else understood this. It's all morbid and strange, but some weird part of me feels that its important that we see this distinction; this wasn't cowardice, she was trying to "fix it."

It looks like he's shot from the front because it looks like there's a splash of matter from his face - like you'd get if you threw a water balloon at him.

But rifle bullets aren't water balloons. They don't splash on human flesh - they do on concrete or steel - but not flesh. They go through and what you are seeing is ejecta from a bullet passing through JFK's head and exiting, leaving a high pressure mess behind and a small hole for it to leave by.

God knows what Jackie was doing, maybe getting something, maybe trying to get to the guard. God knows.

That's one interpretation. He also slumps backwards rather than forwards. In JFK Revisited, Oliver Stone looked into the hospital staff that saw him at Parkland Hospital and all of the accounts he was able to find had the back of JFK's head blown out with an exit wound.

Dude, just watch the film. It's so obvious that his head recoils forward and that there's a massive exit wound on his face. Whatever his body does afterward is going to be a combination of simple dynamics and the muscular contractions that would be characteristic of a massive head trauma. If there's a conspiracy to be uncovered, it's not going to be evidenced in the film.

I just did, it didn't look like what you said at all. I did not see his head rock forward. It's difficult to determine if that's a massive exit wound on his face, it could just be blood.

CONTENT WARNING: JFK ASSASSINATION https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdwVUBlK-Y0

There's a documentary about that fwiw: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qn97UF_kfYo

That is one of the most out there conspiracy theories I have heard.

So you haven't heard the one about Ted Cruz's father being behind it?

Wasn't Bush Sr present ?

In Dallas, and he said he couldn't remember why he was in Dallas. It's not like anyone ever said he was in the grassy knoll or something though

Not enough of a nutter to argue passionately about it, but it’s not that out there. There were secret service men right behind him in a car that suddenly lurched forward after the shots were made (so a physical force could have caused the accident not just an itchy trigger finger on a guard). His wound implies behind shot from behind but placing the snipers behind hasn’t made sense ever.

FWIW, I don’t believe this is what happened, but as I understand it the Secret Service agents had recently been issued a new carbine - an AR-15.

At any rate, George Hickey was the agent usually identified as the person who would have negligently discharged his rifle, and photos of the event clearly show him with an AR-15.

Allegedly, the Secret Service changed their procedures shortly thereafter to require their agents to carry with an empty chamber. I have no idea if that’s true.

> Secret Service agents had recently been issued a new carbine - an AR-15

Perhaps I'm being too pedantic, but the firearm Hickey was carrying wasn't a carbine. It was a Colt model 601 rifle, the first variant of the AR-15 that Colt produced after purchasing the AR-15 patents from Armalite.

BTW, this "Hickey did it" theory was popularized by Bonar Menninger in his 1992 book "Mortal Error." Hickey later sued the publisher for defamation, but the lawsuit was dismissed.

If it were true it would've been a fatal accident, but not a conspiracy. Covering it up afterwards, out of embarrassment, would've been the conspiracy - and keep in mind that the US govt. has covered up some pretty crazy things in the past. But I hear you, it's definitely a wild theory.

But covering for some low-ranking secret service agent's accident seems like a lower priority than covering up something malicious like the Gulf of Tonkin affair, which has been revealed.

Do you understand what it would've done to the US' standing vis-a-vis the USSR in the world if it were revealed that someone who is tasked with protecting the most important part of the executive branch accidentally killed them in exactly the type of event where they should've been keeping them safe? What image would that have projected to the rest of the world about America's abilities? Espc. in light of the then just happened Cuban missile crisis, etc.

Don't you think this sort of thing already wrecks US standing?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_attempts_on_Fide...

I would figure a lot higher percentage of people are aware of JFK's death than failed attempts on Castro.

That doesn't change that the US was highly sensitive of their image during the cold war.

I think you mean from the front. Guy riding shotgun turned around and you see his arm extended.

Probably yeah. I’m like toes deep invested in this one.

Here's video by CBS where they easily and repeatedly reproduce Oswald's shots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghmY6HmR4fs. Contrary to a lot of assertion, it wasn't that difficult.

Do you think the video is edited or where was the body guard that you think shot him?

It wasn't a "video", back then they only had ... never mind.

I dont even know what you are trying to say.

The commenter thinks the Zapruder film was a "video" is what I'm saying.

In what way is it not a video?

As a generalization: Video, going back to before the digital era, refers to images recorded on magnetic videotapes, such as VHS or Betamax. This is in contrast with film, which is images recorded using light sensitive silver halide crystals. Video tapes are viewed by scanning the magnetic strips and displaying on a monitor with scan lines. Films are viewed by shining a light through the developed film and displaying the whole image on a reflective screen.

Not quite. Video is generally an electronic medium for moving pictures and can be sent over cables or radio waves from the camera to the TV, without touching a tape. A video signal can be recorded on a tape, but isn't necessarily.

Yes, you are right. Looks like you squeezed in your comment before I was able to put the "as a generalization" disclaimer on it! :)

I was thinking more of the situation where some people might be confused with the Zapruder recording, that it could be on videotape instead of film, which is why I didn't try to cover all the corner cases.

It was film. Video is an electronic signal stored on tape (originally)

I assume all the times I've watched it, it's been from video format. I really doubt they were playing the 8mm every time live and broadcasting. So... I guess it's now a video and not film.

Are you trying to say they didn't have video in 1963?

yes, he's saying they only had film in 1963

What do you think TV is?

TV is a video you can't rewind. Not the real thing.

A quick search (wikipedia) shows videotape existed in 1956, at $300/hr.

Right - something for studios, not the man on the street.

thanks, I wasn't aware, although whether or not they had what vanusa was saying seemed obvious.

Just as an fyi, that's pretty massive tape used in a broadcast studio.

The first consumer video camera (camera that recorded to tape rather than film) wasn't until the BetaMovie in 1983 with VHS coming months later. Heck, _home_ video recorders were still 15-20 years off at the time.

I'm referring to the fact that the "video" in question was an 8mm color film:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapruder_film

Obviously "video" existed then in the sense that there was television -- but consumer video cameras didn't appear until around 1979 or 1980.

In the car behind him - there's a 1992 book about this theory if you are curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortal_Error

A bodyguard firing a handgun from that distance isn't going to blow a fist sized hole in his skull. It was definitely a rifle round.

That’s not a point of contention. This theory identifies the person, with a raised rifle, being jostled by a lurching car.

So essentially Hanlon's Razor.

This would make sense if you ignore all of the facts of the case and also have no understanding of how the government works.

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