JFK Papers

Oh yes, poor Stephen Ward, literally hounded to his death. Not the establishment's finest hour!! A dreadful business

Surely there's no longer any mystery about who killed JFK. There was a programme about it not so long ago that proved that Lee Harvey Oswald could not have fired three bullets. He shot the Governor, then the Secret Service guard in the car stood up to shoot back, lurched and shot JFK by accident. It was hushed up for obvious reasons. It was proved by examinations of the wounds and by measurements of the trajectories of the bullets. The top marksmen in the country tried to replicate the "3 bullets from LHO" theory and it was found to be physically impossible.

But the secret service chap was sitting in the front seat and was JFK not shot in the back of his head?

I've certainly never heard this version of events! As I understand it JFK was shot first in the throat and again in the back of the head falling sideways into Jackies lap.

Yes niggly, the service chap sat next to the driver, behind them the govener and his wife, behind them JFK and Jackie, I too thought he was shot in the back of his head

Never hurts to have a reminder that even those who look wonderful have feet of clay.

I've never heard that either.

The mystery is not who but why.

Yes, why could lead to whom too but why is the big question

humptydumpty - the programme is called The Vietnam War and it was on BBC 4. I'm watching it up a catch up link. I'd recommend it.

My limited reading of the conspiracy theories and recently released papers suggest that Oswald was an unstable individual., I think the Russian papers refer to him as "neurotic", the most commonly used word in the 60's I suspect for people we'd now describe as unstable. I am not convinced there was a conspiracy. I don't believe the secret service man shot him accidentally. I do believe it's possible various bodies and individuals did want JFK out of the way. As others have said, he brought youth and a positive approach to politics, so welcome after the in the latter half of the 20th century. My visit to the JFK Museum in Massachusetts was memorable, the sadness I felt surprised me. They were such a beautiful, hopeful bunch of young men. Of course they were imperfect but they genuinely wanted a more equal society. They contributed positive to that decade, despite their flaws and the fact JFK and Bobby were murdered.
Interesting that the arms manufacturers didn't want the Vietnam war to end. It feels horribly reminiscent of our current wars in Syria to me.

I wish Mr Trump would get on and release all the UFO Roswell stuff but there would continue to be cover ups because no governments want you to know the truth behind their past deceitful behaviour!

anniebach You say "we will not learn anything new about the murder of JFK". nigglynellie You also think there is no point in "dragging this up again". I am astounded that people feel it is right for information of this nature to be withheld from the general population. Surely, if there was nothing to be learned, there would be no need to withhold these documents because all the information would already be in the public domain?

In my opinion, the as yet undisclosed material must be fairly significant, otherwise it would be released in order to dispel the widely held suspicion that the official version of JFK's assassination was a cover up.

In The I today, there is a brief summary of the various questions and theories that have been put forwad, and they are not wild conspiracy theories but point to inconsistencies in witness accounts, photographic and forensic evidence, etc.

The I refers to several inconsistencies and one of the theories referred to is:

"there are reports that Kennedy was shot by a secret service agent in the car behind his limo. When the first shot was fired, the agent's car jerked forward, causing him to accidentally fire his weapon, which struck Kennedy. This was covered up when people were asked to hand in their footage of the incident. No one got their footage back - apart from Abraham Zapruder, who did not capture this in his footage".

It also reports:

"Included among the thousands of documents released in the US on Thursday was a memo detailing correspondence sent from MI5 to the FBI, stating that the British newspaper, the Cambridge News, received an anonymous call 25 minutes before Kennedy was called ..... the caller said only that the reporter should call the American embassy in London for some big news, and then hung up"

"Anna Savva, a reporter who currently works at the Cambridge News said ........ It would have been common knowledge in the office who took the call, but we have nothing in our archive - we have nobody here who knows the name of the person who took the call".

There are many, many unanswered questions, and justification for not releasing all these documents, i.e. "national security" should be questioned. Given the number of years that have passed, all the main "actors" in this event are no doubt dead or very elderly. There will, of course, be speculation that whatever information is being withheld is so damning of the conduct of certain individuals, parties or organisations that it will have an negative impact upon the reputation and legitimacy of their present-day counterparts.

I too have been watching the Vietnam documentary which showed JFK wished to pull out of Vietnam but was dissuaded by the military and the CIA from doing anything about it, on the grounds that it would leave him open to accusations of being unpatriotic or "soft on Communism". There is also footage of a speech he made a few weeks before he was assassinated in which he was highly critical of the way in which the banking and tax systems were operating, perhaps heralding his intention to make changes. I don't suppose that would have gone down well in some quarters.

A lot has come out about JFK since his assassination, some good but mostly about his womanising, links with the mafia etc. I've always believed that LBJ had something to do with it. I can't wait to read about it if or when the papers are ever published and what about the papers that were not released?

What proof of the womanising?

Grandtante - I would be very interested in reading that book. I was very aware of the case in 1963 and have read/watched with interest various theories etc over the years. However there have been implications of very well known public figures being involved and this will only come out in the future after they have long gone.

Interesting that the CIA has removed some of the dossiers prior to publication. If the CIA and Maffia were involved - there are surely concerns about their power still being present in current politics- and not just in the USA.

... as has become clear in the recent assasination if Malta- heavily linked with UK tax evasion, for instance.

Anniebach he was a well known womaniser. Letters written by his wife to a friend tell how she was in despair about all his affairs. They have been published.

Then he was a womaniser Anya, I haven't read Any of the books written about his death or life, thank you

I'm afraid he was annie, as were Bobby and Teddy. Father Joe seemed to be tarred with the same brush - perhaps it was genetic?!!!! Even so, that aside, he gave a lot of people hope for a better tomorrow and who knows what might have been achieved had he (and Bobby) lived.

jura2
And let's not forget that the Maltese prime ministers wife was named in the panama papers. And there were 'alleged' payments from the president of Azerbaijans daughter.
Now who else has links with Azerbaijan: Tony Blair.
Must be true, it was in the guardian.
As they say: follow the money

chicken I saw the programme about the secret service agent as well. It seemed perfectly logical and well researched. An inexperienced agent, not usually armed, brought in at the last moment as a replacement who shot accidentally. Very feasible.

I remember Teddy and the Mary Jo affair niggly, heard that JFK had affairs but not Bobby. Oh well, nothing can take away the hope there was at that time , the sixties was a strange decade, tragedies JFK, Bobby, Dr King, Malcom X,
Mandela jailed, the hanging of the three anti racist activists in .Mississippi, the Vietnam War with that horrific attack by American soldiers on a village in Vietnam I think about four or five hundred butchered , the Sharpville massacre, my dear friend David kicked to death in Pretoria prison .

Yet with JFK becoming president there was such hope .

My late mother ,a very straight laced wee woman amazed me once when discussing JFK and Marilyn Munroe....she said that most men in powerful jobs have high sex drives and mistresses..at least the ones she had known in her lifetime.She seemed to accept it as fact that it happened all the time.When the Bill Clinton /Monica Lewinsky affair hit the news she smugly said I told you so.Maybe she was of her generation and thought it a right of these men...even though like another poster she thought the sun rose and set on JFK ,I was very surprised by her attitude .

paddynan, interesting comment about your mother and her generation. My mother wasn't particularly straight laced, though she high moral standards about fidelity etc. She said her own mother had advised her that politicians, actors and others in the public eye didn't lead "normal" lives, so their personal lives were likely to be more chaotic than we ordinary folks. Gran didn't want a life in the lime light, with all that went with it.
My own view, for what its worth, is that many highly ambitious men (I'm focussing on men because of JFK) are highly motivated on so many levels, they have a self belief that most of us wouldn't come within miles of. Women do seem often to be attracted to powerful men and it doesn't surprise e that the Kennedy brothers learned from their father that women were there for their enjoyment, with each having a loyal and beautiful wife at home, as did their dad. In addition, they were high energy, probably needed levels of excitement most of us wouldn't seek out. So, I'm not surprised they and Bill Clinton, for example didn't find it difficult to attract women and had no scruples that this ws their god given right.

I don't agree any poster has made comments to make it seemed the sun rose and set on JFK. Anyone who at that time who was distressed by the treatment of the African American, remember those children blown up when in their church? Had such hope they would at last be free from apartheid.