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Comment by PrimeMcFly | Hacker News Reader

I don't know why people are so obsessed with this conspiracy theory. Occam's Razor says it was Oswald. Why invest time speculating and arguing over it when there is no way to verify anything?

This new revelation doesn't change anything, it's just hearsay.

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If there were three shots, Occam's Razor says it wasn't Oswald alone. For it to have been Oswald alone, he would have needed to reload and re-aim in a superhuman way. So that isn't the simplest explanation.

There are a lot of people who didn't/don't like the US, and a lot of people who like the US but didn't like Kennedy!

It is not exactly outlandish to think that maybe >1 people wanted Kennedy dead.

And they shoot at the same time?

The shots occurred in a span of several seconds, not simultaneously.

I don't see anything implausible about a second shooter having Kennedy in his sights, waiting for the initial shots to be fired, and pulling the trigger once he heard the initial shot.

There are a lot of implausible aspects to all of this, but that... doesn't seem like one.

But that needs a bigger conspiracy than just kill JFK.

Either there are two shooters working together from the beginning, or one knows about the other and the other does not.

    But that needs a bigger conspiracy than just kill JFK.

I don't feel like "two dudes who both want to kill the president in a country where it's really easy to get a rifle and there are ~16mil WWII veterans and millions more who know how to use them" is a really big or implausible conspiracy.

What about that seems implausible to you?

As for coordinating their fire, what about that seems implausible?

"I'll shoot first, once JFK reaches point XYZ. When you hear my shot that's your signal to shoot. Be ready and have your finger on the trigger, because obviously Secret Service is going to floor the gas and GFTO ASAP as soon as the first shot is fired"

That seems entirely within the realm of plans two dudes could come up with. I don't think it necessarily points to some larger conspiracy.

People seem to go between lone gunman or giant conspiracy and exclude the middle. It could have been a conspiracy of say four people: two shooters, one insider providing info and cover, and someone behind and planning the whole thing.

Much easier to keep everything quiet too. The difficulty of keeping secrets increases exponentially with the number of people who know it.

Yeah. Given the weirdness of the magic bullet theory, especially if the revelations in the linked article are true, I think this sort of "small conspiracy of 2-4 people" is the simplest possible explanation.

I mean, sometimes a former military guy decides to do some killing and sometimes he has somebody working with him.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.C._sniper_attacks

What happened to the third bullet in this scenario?

A lot of sharpshooter/sniper types who have tried it seem to say it's pretty easy. Interestingly they tend to miss the first shot (like Oswald) due to the steeper downward angle.

It’s an amazing bit of history. Leaders of major powers have regularly been assassinated in history. Here the leader of a globally hegemonic nation was assassinated on camera.

Google tells me the number of leaders/former leaders assassinations in recent history that have been caught on camera is indeed very low.

Kennedy, Gaddafi, Shinzo Abe, Benazir Bhutto, Yitzhak Rabin, Rajiv Gandhi, Anwar Sadat.

Rabin assassination has a pretty weird conspiracy theory though

These ones?

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

The bullet points seem to be mostly confusion at the scene and shitty police work afterwards.

What is the conspiracy. That he was not killed at that spot, but later by the secret service? Like "that guy fired blanks at him, lets kill the PM and frame him"?

I never really understood the logic because it is deeply oxymoronic. People that generally wanted him dead (ultra right) think that he was killed by the secret service (presumably left) and Yigal Amir (ultra right) was framed.

But it is something about putting blank bullets in order to gather support with a fake assassination and then he was really killed by the Shabak on order of Shimon Peres (but can’t say that’s verbatim)

It always seemed even less internally consistent than most JFK theories

I mean, that would be like a secret service sniper shooting JFK when Oswald missed, or something. Surely is is reasonable to believe that the risk of a secrete service assassination increases during a assassination attempt. But, there is not really anything that would indicate that.

During the 1WW the death rate of officers was about twice that of privates for a sample.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X2...

I believe that there is a risk of opportunity murder when bullets are flying. Using the confusion as cover. But, as I said, only speculative.

It’s similar to holocaust denial, it doesn’t make sense and the people who support the assassination also support the conspiracy

So Kennedy was the first one even

No, there were a few (iirc 2) prior but I started at Kennedy because the thread is about him, hence recent history.

There are more, if you include the failed assassinations. Reagan, Pope JPII...

> It’s an amazing bit of history.

Sure, it's the obsessing over conspiracy theories that I don't get. There's no way to verify the various speculations, so what's the point?

There's no way (for most of us with finite resources) to verify the vast majority of history, even recent history, even history that happened today. To me this is like saying "who cares what may or may not have happened in the past".

This particular conspiracy theory is interesting because the assumed enemy here—the Soviet Union—was ostensibly (and seeming authentically) unhappy to see this happen. So who wanted JFK dead and why?

> There's no way (for most of us with finite resources) to verify the vast majority of history, even recent history, even history that happened today.

That's an entirely different issue.

> So who wanted JFK dead and why?

Again, Occam says Oswald.

Fair enough, as long as you leave the thinking and decision-making to people who have even a modicum of historical curiosity.

> Occam's Razor says it was Oswald

I think it doesn’t. That’s why the story has never come to rest, there’s simply too many question marks about the whole thing

What open questions? He clearly had access to the place where the shots were fired, and knew how to use a gun. The shot was not particularly difficult.

I completely agree with you that it was Oswald but the weird parts of this story are:

1. Oswald defection from the army and time in the Soviet Union

2. Oswald going to the Cuban and Soviet embassies before the murder (possibly starting a third world war)

3. The subsequent assassination of Oswald

This can be mostly explained by a mental disorder but it is still a messed up story

> This can be mostly explained by a mental disorder

Kinda like the Reichstag fire huh

I look at it like the crazy general in Dr Strangelove that is trying to start a world war

I highly doubt that a secret in the caliber of “let’s kill the President” can be kept by so many people for such a long time. In my experience large organizations of people just don’t work that way

> large organizations

I don’t think large organisations can act in such a coordinated manner at all but they can be manipulated.

Cartels with a lot to lose can take their secrets to the grave, in particular if their constituents have a lot to lose. Everyone else has “unfortunate accidents”.

So, just from the top of my head and rather recently:

1. the NSA lost all of its malwares/zero days to the Russians

2. The NSA lost a huge amount of documents detailing a large amount of their billion dollars sigint sources and tech catalog

3. China was able to steal US nuclear weapons design

4. The CIA itself lost its entire internal wiki

5. Top secret documents were on discord for over a month

Yet somehow these omnipotent organizations can keep the secret of how they killed the US president. Without a good answer as to what was their interest to do something so extreme in the first place

Organizations keep secrets all the time. A huge amount of American history is learned after the fact when documents are declassified.

So despite countless of soviet spies in the FBI and CIA, the end of the cold war, defectors and open archives

The JFK assassination still remained a secret?

I think there are some secrets that don’t go on file. Often times the most crucial meetings involve subtle cues over a cup of tea.

Thousands of documents related to it still remain classified, even after a declaration to declassify them. So... Yes.

The key to all of those is they are digital files easily copied and deseminated online. It hard to hack a mechanical typewriter and or to exfiltrate physical documents locked in a filing cabinet in a secure facility. Then distributing them en mass the way the way digital channels like discord can is just not managable unless your a major news paper publisher. Digital information wants to be free, typewriten documents want to be locked in a documents warehouse missfiled and lost forever.

That’s the key to the fact they were disseminated online. They still hired people that weren’t fit to keep these secrets and that’s not a new issue

Don't forget the OPM hack (2015)

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

    I highly doubt that a secret in the caliber of “let’s 
    kill the President” can be kept by so many people for 
    such a long time.

Agree.

However, what if that wasn't the conspiracy?

What if the conspiracy was, "let's avoid war with the USSR"?

If the US Government knew of or suspected USSR involvement in JFK's assassination: their choices were essentially "war with the USSR", "look like fools who bowed down to the USSR", or "pretend that Oswald was a lone, crazy guy."

In other words: not a conspiracy per se where the government was en masse covering up some specific thing they knew to be true. I agree with you that feels implausible. Especially since presumably a significant portion of the government would have been opposed to the assassination or the cover-up.

But it might have been more of a concerted effort to look the other way. Like, "If we investigate Oswald and the investigation too closely, the trail might lead to Russia or one of its satellite states, and therefore war, and therefore nuclear war. So therefore let's all agree that Oswald was a lone gunman because it sure beats war with the USSR."

That does not seem impractical to me.

Remember, the country was still reeling from the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the chilling possibility of having narrowly avoided nuclear war.

This is very close to my feeling on the matter, and if I remember correctly there was even a case of cover up related to the fact that he visited the embassies (which can also be interpreted as not wanting to divulge their intelligence sources).

However, it seems like the well known facts about Oswald (the communist background) weren't a major issue at the time (at least from what I gathered), so maybe there wasn't anything to cover up

Anyway, if the US government doesn't want to stir the cold war issues around the assassination, is it a conspiracy or just common sense statesmanship?

[edit]: I think I misread you, I do not think the soviets were involved, I think this is an extremely risky move no one would do. I do think there were probably fears it would be perceived as a foreign assassination which drove some actions in the US government.

    I do not think the soviets were involved, I think this 
    is an extremely risky move no one would do. I do think 
    there were probably fears it would be perceived as a 
    foreign assassination which drove some actions in the 
    US government.

I was vague on that because my post was overlong already and I don't have a clue or guess about who (if anybody) was involved besides Oswald.

But I agree with you: I cannot imagine that Khrushchev or the leadership of the USSR wanted open war. For the same reasons the USA didn't.

There is definitely a middle ground sort of possibility, where Oswald was involved with the USSR to some extent (informant, or whatever) but they truly had no idea he was going to shoot JFK. That seems completely possible.

Of course, the Soviet government was enormous and not monolithic. Maybe some within it wanted war, maybe some thought that they could prod Oswald into an assassination without getting "caught."

Seems possible, but zero idea how likely that is.

The simplest scenario is: Oswald worked in tandem with a second rando guy who had a rifle and wanted the president dead. No shortage of those in America, a land with cheap rifles and ~16 million WWII vets who were trained to use them.

    Anyway, if the US government doesn't want to 
    stir the cold war issues around the assassination, 
    is it a conspiracy or just common sense statesmanship?

Definitely common sense statesmanship.

Arguably a conspiracy as well but that depends on our definition of "conspiracy."

The only thing I'm really sure of is that it was in the US government's best interests to sell the idea that Oswald was a lone crazy guy. That was the least-bad scenario for America.

> Arguably a conspiracy as well but that depends on our definition of "conspiracy."

Not a conspiracy in the more surreptitious sense that most people consider. It would bear all the same hallmarks though, and I guess that’s what sets off people’s radars

Can’t say I believe there was another gunman.

There may be forensics technicalities that are hard to explain but it seems that in any event that is highly ‘investigated’ people find too many patterns in the noise (9/11 for example)

Like most of those Cold War events, these cover ups look more like protecting intelligence sources and blunders than some large overarching cabal

I think the 9/11 and JFK conspiracy theories are dissimilar, almost opposite.

The official explanation for 9/11 is also the simplest possible explanation: terrorists carried out a very low tech and plausible hijacking attack that exploited some rather obvious holes in our airline security.

The 9/11 conspiracy theories are orders of magnitude more complex than this official narrative.

I don't think the JFK "second gunman" theory is more complex than the official truth. In it's simplest form (Oswald worked with another gunman, but there was no overarching conspiracy involving Russia or Martians or lizardmen or whatever pulling the strings) I would argue it's simpler than the official narrative.

While it is possible Oswald worked with another gunman, there is no reason for him to do that. Everything done is something anyone with basic gun knowledge could have done alone.

As I said elsewhere, the only evidence of a second gunman is we know Oswald was a good shot with a gun and so needing 3 shots (with a scoped rifle at close range - less than 100 meters) is something to question. But in the end it seems more likely he would have pulled the trigger himself and thus not needed help.

> What if the conspiracy was, "let's avoid war with the USSR"?

I think this is a plausible line of thinking. My issue with the official story is that it feels stretched to cover too many datapoints. Like it kind of explains the data but not quite and indeed the obfuscation I’m detecting could just as well be coming from something like that as any new world order coup. tldr; Still fishy though.

Why would the USSR assassinate a US president at all? Why would they risk war (and their recent backing down in the Cuban missile crisis shows they really didn't want war) for something that gives them no strategic gain against the US?

I agree with you completely: I don't think Russia tasked an unstable loner malcontent with knocking off JFK and possibly kickstarting WW3 in the process. Russia did not want that.

What I think the US government feared was a public perception that Russia (or Cuba, or whoever) might have been behind it.

That's when swathes of the public and various grandstanding politicians start rattling their sabers and thinking about war. Any official story besides "Oswald was a crazy lone gunman" would have looked awful for the US and increased the odds of war, a recurrence of McCarthyism, etc.

So I don't think the possibility of a second gunman was ever seriously entertained, even though there's some evidence for it.

A lot of those things were cleared up for me when I visited the site in Dallas. People claiming conspiracy are trying to make what he did much more difficult than it really was. He had a job that happened to be in the right place at the time, he had a standard gun anyone could buy, and plenty of time alone (he specifically did not have anything on his todo list for the day done despite being at work for a few hours). There is nothing about this a lone actor would have any trouble with, other than the initial luck of getting a job there in the first place and that type of coincidence isn't unlikely.

Your understanding of geopolitics is (even partially) rooted in fiction.

Which part? The fact that a part of the executive branch can’t kill the head of the executive branch and keep it a secret?

Or the fact that I assume Oswald was crazy and being a megalomaniac did actions that might have started a war?

Crazy how a bunch of CIA connected people got him that job giving him that access, probably nothing.

As a wise man once said: ”Back and to the left”

Also, was Oswald’s own assassination at the hands of a mob figure ever satisfactorily explained?

Jim Garrison was basically accused of among other things being an outright pederast in the New Orleans papers years ago so his credibility is a little suspect to say the least.

> the place where the shots were fired

Do we even know that?

Yea let's also convict people using Occam's Razor.

"What's all the fuzz about? The dude was near the murder site at the time, it's obvious it was him, duh"

What point do you think you are making here? Nobody suggested doing that.

Point being why should we shove the whole thing under the rug with a lazy conclusion when it's still clearly possible that something more nefarious was going on back then than we may know?

I heard if you ever want to get out of jury service, just make a comment to the foreman/judge that you just think there's no smoke without fire.

Define conspiracy theory. The Deep State involving every government man at the time? Most likely no. A few people? Possibly. Not just Oswald? Probably. Oswald not involved at all? Unlikely, but possible. There are degrees of probability and likelyhood.

Occam's Razor says that the guy framed to be the fall guy on this literal world changing event was killed mere ours after the fact on live television, "ending the story".

It's amazing that people in 2023 can be just as accepting of the mainstream narrative as the average joes in the 60s, that were subjected to a top down narrative decided by the powers that be using 3 TV channels and 2 newspapers.

How did killing Oswald end the story? You bringing it up proves that it only inflamed the issue and made it more attractive to conspiratorial readings!

"How did killing Oswald end the story?"

Exactly. We don't know since "the killer is dead, nothing to see here, keep moving". I give up.

In my town, there are "sudden killings" of let's say a particular person. No reason why they would be killed or they were a particular target, but everyone is saying " there is no reason to kill this person".

The authorities, in the coming weeks, months do a "shootout" where another person is killed and they declare "in an operation today, we killed the perpetrator of the previous killing. Case closed".

No one is arrested, no suspect is made public before the second shooting and no one asks why no due process was followed.

Its like clockwork and we can count out such instances in more than 2 dozen in the past 20 years if not less.

Because he couldn't be questioned.

It removed the ability for there to be a different narrative. Either Oswald was a lone gunman, or you're a crazy person and believe in conspiracy's.

Read up on Allen Dulles.

That's not at all how Occam's Razor works or is applied.

>It's amazing that people in 2023 can be just as accepting of the mainstream narrative as the average joes in the 60s, that were subjected to a top down narrative decided by the powers that be using 3 TV channels and 2 newspapers.

It's just HN crowd. The majority of Americans have always believed that others were involved.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/165893/majority-believe-jfk-kil...

Occam's razor is a tool not a proof.

Yup.

If one person talks it could help others to talk.

Oswald was a marine sharpshooter, and it took him 3 shots with a scoped rifle (probably at point blank range, though I don't know the ballistics of that gun). That suggests it wasn't Oswald. Though even then Oswald clearly would have been standing next to the unknown shooter urging him to do it.

The shots were at 175, 240, and 270 feet[1]. It had a 4x scope[2].

[1] https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh17/h...

[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20110724214814/http://www.aarcli...

In metric: 53.34m, 73.15m, 82.29m.

All sub-100 meter shots, easily achievable with a scoped rifle with 4x magnification and a bit of practice.

TIL what “point blank” actually means.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point-blank_range

Same; I always thought it essentially just meant "shot at such a close range that you can't miss". (Though I expect most people do actually use it that way, even if it's incorrect.)

Ha, I had always assumed it meant something on the order of inches.

Finally something useful to be gained from this whole thread. That was a TIL for me as well.

For the record, a "marine sharpshooter" is an almost meaningless term. Virtually any physically healthy person is capable of meeting this bar with an hour or two of practice. It sounds way more impressive than it is. Oswald was in no way a highly skilled shooter. In fact, he had extremely basic firearms skills.

He won awards for marksmanship. I agree it isn't a hard skill to learn, but it's still takes some effort.

Seriously, one has to be a total bolo to not get an award for marksmanship. Everyone walks through the training and if orders are followed and one is not a total klutz, the award is Marksman "on a marksman/sharpshooter/expert scale."

During his Marine Corps service in December 1956, Oswald scored a rating of sharpshooter (twice achieving 48 and 49 out of 50 shots during rapid fire at a stationary target 200 yards [183 m] away using a standard issue M1 Garand semi-automatic rifle), although in May 1959, he qualified as a marksman (a lower classification than that of sharpshooter). [0]

0. https://en.wikipedia.org//wiki/John_F._Kennedy_assassination...

While he was at San Diego, Oswald was trained in the use of the M-1 rifle. His practice scores were not very good, but when his company fired for record on December 21, he scored 212, 2 points above the score necessary to qualify as a "sharpshooter" on a marksman/sharpshooter/expert scale. He did not do nearly as well when he fired for record again shortly before he left the Marines. He practiced also with a riot gun and a .45-caliber pistol when he was in the Marines but no scores were recorded. [1]

1. https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-repo...

It was not an "award for marksmanship" by any definition and it requires far less effort than learning to drive a car or ride a bicycle. What's the point in being obtuse here?

Hitting a moving target is really hard.

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