by John Bernard, ©2025
(Feb. 12, 2025) — John F. Kennedy was assassinated at 12:30, 22 November 1963 in Dallas, Texas while riding in an open-top convertible limo.
What has followed these past 61 years is wild speculation, an ever-increasing list of questions that have never been answered to anyone’s satisfaction and conspiracy theories.
Officially, we have been told that Lee Harvey Oswald perched in a window in an upper floor of a book depository and waited until Kennedy’s motorcade ambled into view. Oswald then, using a used bolt action, M38 Italian Carcano rifle chambered in 6.5 x 52mm with a cheap Japanese 4 x 18 scope, fired three shots in 8.3 seconds at a moving target at a range of 265 feet with a 12° down slope.
From experience I can tell you that operating a bolt action rifle and re-aquiring a clear sight picture (no scope shadow and a moving target in the crosshairs) with a top quality scope and a smooth bolt action with a tuned trigger takes a moment. The cheap Japanese scope he used was known for its insecure reticle, terrible light-gathering capability and horrible scope shadow. Additionally, there was nothing in his short enlistment in the Marine Corps which would indicate any level of proficiency with firearms or the discipline necessary to plan and execute such a high-profile series of shots. His final qualification score was a 191 as a Marksman meaning he barely qualified.
The Carcano Infantry rifle is similar to most military bolt rifles of the era, lacking the sophistication for well-placed, rapid shots regardless of the Sights. The Warren Commission used (marksmen) to see if the one shooter determination was plausible. Using the same rifle and scope, they all had difficulty landing three shots in 8.3 seconds – at stationary targets in a stress-free environment.
Does this mean Oswald could not have done it? No. But it does beg further investigation which we had been told happened. However, the inexplicable refusal to release full documentation of the investigation seems both indefensible and leaves a fertile field for conspiracy theories.
Add to this Jack Ruby’s killing of Oswald, again, with an inadequate explanation of motive, and it just adds fertilizer to the field.
The impending release of all remaining documents related to this one assassination is most likely going to disappoint a lot of people. For one thing it’s hard to imagine anything contradicting the official report and second, in what alternate universe do we find damning evidence of CIA involvement as theorized by some? Common sense dictates that a rogue CIA operation executed before the digital age that had been successfully buried for six decades would also have had plenty of time to get rid of hard evidence.
Bottom line, that information belongs to us. It is frankly at least 50 years late in coming and begs a question that ensures a rich future for continuing conspiracies; was this information withheld pending the death(s) of guilty individuals and if so, why?
I am very confident we will never know.
SF
John Bernard
You got that right, Mr Bernard. Please allow me, for whatever it’s worth, to add my two cents worth. The JFK assassination was NOT the act of a lone gun man (Lee Harvey Oswald). It was a CONSPIRACY involving two or more groups and two or more individuals, namely the US Government, the CIA, the Mafia, Cuban mercenaries, and Oswald, Charles Nicoletti, Howard Hunt, James Angleton, and others likely even including Lyndon B Johnson and/or George H W Bush. How do I “know?” Some might call it a combination of COMMON SENSE, a sometimes uncanny knack for spot-on gut reactions, and a career in the military followed by 30+ more years in law enforcement. By the way, have any of you read the CIA Assassination Manual which, if I’m not mistaken, the “spooks” wrote in the 1950’s and was released to the public years later in the 1990’s. HOW DO THEY GET AWAY WITH ACTIVITIES LIKE THAT? Could it be because they actually are an independent civilian agency (not a federal government agency) and, for all intents and purposes, are rogue and accountable to no one? 51 of them proved that in the 2020 primaries! But, like I said, that is not the worst of their brand of “intelligence!”