APPENDIX A

Lee Harvey Oswald, The CIA and Mind Control

by Jerry Leonard

Excerpt: Objections to the “Lone Gunman” Theory Refuted

As recently declassified documents indicate, Oswald was far from the lone nut the CIA and FBI have made him out to be. But could he have been the sole assassin?

If Oswald was the true and only assassin, what about the stories propagated in the conspiracy-oriented assassination literature of multiple gunmen, Oswald’s alleged lack of marksmanship with the “inferior” rifle used in the assassination and Kennedy’s gruesome backwards head snap at impact with the final bullet that supposedly proves he was shot from the front? Plausible theories explaining these puzzling aspects of the crime have been proposed by researchers such as Dr. John Lattimer and Dr. Louis Alvarez. The research of these two men should be reviewed by anyone doubting that a lone gunman could have accomplished the shooting feat involved in the Kennedy assassination.

Alvarez, a Nobel prize-winning physicist, has explained in the American Journal of Physics[1] how Kennedy’s backward head snap is consistent with a “jet recoil” effect that would allow for an object hit by a bullet to move toward the direction from which the bullet was fired.[2] Alvarez also conducted an extensive analysis of the Zapruder film (through careful measurement of the camera motion[3]) and concluded that indeed only three shots were fired.[4] Alvarez concluded that approximately eight seconds elapsed during the firing of the three shots. This is about three seconds longer than many conspiracy researchers allot for the shooting and would allow more time for a single assassin to accomplish the three-shot feat.

The work of Dr. Alvarez dovetails with the ballistics tests conducted by Lattimer,[5] a physician who did extensive ballistics analysis with the same model rifle[6] used by Oswald to show that three shots could have been fired by Oswald[7] with the required accuracy[8] in the required time.

Lattimer also provides an elegant argument for how the so-called “magic” bullet that pierced Kennedy’s throat could have injured both Kennedy and Connally in the manner described by the Warren Commission.[9] His analysis is based on the actual alignment of the two victims (Connally and Kennedy) as the shot was fired (versus the straight ahead alignment typically shown by critics of the Warren Commission) as well as an extensive set of experiments demonstrating how a single bullet could have slowed and tumbled after passing through the two bodies (simulated by Lattimer using pig necks) thus producing the multiple injuries in the two men without significant deformation of the bullet.[10]

With the arguments that are typically (and erroneously) used to discredit the lone gunman scenario out of the way, it should be seen that it is entirely feasible that Oswald alone accomplished the shooting in the assassination of Kennedy. However, based on the evidence presented in earlier sections, it should also be readily seen that even if such an act was physically committed by Oswald, the CIA could very well have provided the hidden mental stimulus for his anti-social response.

Such a scenario involving a CIA hypno-programmed “throw away” assassin would provide definite advantages for the CIA. Through a mere temporary dropping-of-the-guard by the Secret Service, a lone assassin could be “filtered in” to commit political murder for the CIA and take the fall. The crime of eliminating a political enemy of the CIA could be pinned on a single “fall guy” with a history of apparent mental instability (reinforced by the pre-programmed, pre-assassination behavior) or with an apparent grudge against the murdered victim while the CIA stayed out of the picture far above the fray. There would be no multiple gunmen required; no post-assassination alterations of the victim’s body to hide the role of multiple gunmen required; no chance of a camera catching an extra gunman in the act; and no slew of eyewitnesses to be murdered after-the-fact. All that would be required would be a single pre-marginalized assassin, ready to commit the act and take the scripted fall.[11]

For the complete story of how the “Manchurian Candidate” scenario depolarizes the false dichotomy in the JFK assassination investigation and solves the case, see:

The Perfect Assassin

by Jerry Leonard

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[1] See L. Alvarez, “A Physicist Examines the Kennedy Assassination Film,” Am. J. Phys., Vol. 44, No. 9, September 1976, pp. 813-827.

[2] According to Alvarez, the momentum of the material “ejected” from the president’s head in the direction of the bullet’s travel on impact could easily have been greater than the incoming momentum of the bullet. Thus, in order to conserve momentum in the collision, the head must move in the opposite direction (that is in the direction from which the bullet was fired). Alvarez was able to experimentally verify the kinetics of this hypothesis by shooting watermelons wrapped in tape with a high-powered rifle and watching them recoil in the direction of the shooter.

[3] As a former consultant to the company that produced the camera used by Abraham Zapruder (Bell and Howell Company), Alvarez had extensive knowledge of the camera used and the motion produced by human operators holding the camera without mechanical support. In fact, Alvarez was working on the development of camera stabilizers for hand-held cameras made by the same company that made Abraham Zapruder’s camera at the time Kennedy was shot. His analysis of the film and the timing of the fired bullets were based on the neuromuscular contractions of Zapruder (which were measured based on careful analysis of the streaking in the images recorded on the developed film caused by angular accelerations of the camera) in response to the startling auditory stimuli of the fatal gunshots fired in close proximity.

[4] This estimate of the number of shots fired at Kennedy is consistent with the research of an early investigator named Josiah Thompson who conducted an exhaustive study of the testimony of the eyewitnesses at the assassination (172 of the 190 at the scene). In his study entitled Six Seconds In Dallas, Thompson revealed that more people reported hearing only “two shots” (12) and “two or three” shots (10) than the total number reporting hearing “three or four” (5), “four” and (6) “more than four” (3). Josiah Thompson, Six Seconds In Dallas, (USA: Bernard Geis Associates, 1967), p. 25.

[5] John K. Lattimer, Kennedy and Lincoln: Medical and Ballistic Comparisons of Their Assassinations, (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980).

[6] Lattimer even used ammunition from the same batch as that used by Oswald.

[7] In addition to this empirical research that supports the single gunman theory, Lattimer argues that Oswald’s rifle training (with a bolt action rifle) as a Marine sharpshooter clearly provided him with the ability to complete the assassination himself. Oswald’s Marine rifle scorebooks show that he hit targets with the required precision from a much greater distance than that that existed between Kennedy and his perch in the School Book Depository. Specifically, they show that he scored 49 out of 50 points shooting rapid fire at head-and-shoulders military targets from a distance of more than twice that (200 yards) required for the assassination and without the benefit of a scope. See: Lattimer, Kennedy and Lincoln, p. 293.

[8] Through empirical analysis using the same model rifle as that used by Oswald on simulated targets, Lattimer demonstrated that the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle used by Oswald was indeed accurate enough and reliable enough to do the shooting. With a little practice, his high school aged son was even able to duplicate, on simulated targets, the precision shooting required in roughly the same time period that would have been needed by Oswald.

[9] For a discussion of the single bullet theory, see the Warren Commission Report chapter “The Bullet Wounds,” The Report of the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, pp. 85-117.

[10] Lattimer’s argument is that the “magic” bullet was traveling at a greatly reduced velocity (having gone through Kennedy’s neck) when it hit bone in Connally’s body and that it hit bone at an oblique angle (due to tumbling after leaving Kennedy’s body) instead of head-on. In Lattimer’s model, this would account for the fact that the nose of the bullet is undeformed as well as the minimal deformation at the rear of the so-called magic bullet. As evidence showing that the single bullet could have pierced Kennedy’s neck without being deformed, Lattimer reproduces pictures of bullets similar to those used by Oswald which, in tests, penetrated 25 inches of elm wood and 47 inches of ponderosa pine without being deformed. See: Lattimer, Kennedy and Lincoln, p. 272.

[11] In light of the arguments above, the thesis should be considered that the perpetuation of assassination conspiracy literature that attempts to absolve Oswald from all guilt in the crime of assassinating President Kennedy serves to eliminate consideration of who Oswald really was as well as to whom he was connected… and thus serves the interests of the intelligence agencies who might have “programmed” him. Perhaps persons who perpetuate this thesis are, ironically, actually wittingly or unwittingly serving to hide the CIA’s true role in the assassination while appearing to blame it.