(Part of a series called “American History Made Simple”)
Doesn’t it seem like the bullet that killed Pres. Kennedy was a Crazy Bullet? I mean if you believe the reports, just think of all the wild aerodynamic acrobatic somersaulting this one bullet performed!
It started off straight enough (as all bullets do) zooming forward under the regular laws of physics straight toward its target at an incredibly high velocity.
That’s all plain enough but what happens next becomes shrouded in mystery . . . for after having found its target, this bullet starts a most amazing series of turns, feints, and wriggly gyrations.
Yes, this “magic bullet” (as it was soon dubbed) began turning and twisting in all sorts of unpredictable ways. In part, this was due to the fact that some investigators started at Parkland Hospital and worked their way backwards.
They started with the one scenario they wished to see proved above all others: that Oswald was the only shooter and any bullets fired were fired by him. No one was ever sure about how many shots were fired–reports varied widely in the first few hours, from a couple to half-a-dozen.
After the Zapruder film emerged, the investigators concluded the answer had to be three: there were three shots fired. Some of the evidence indicated four or more shots occurred but Zapruder’s film did not allow for four bullets.
Inevitably, one bullet would have to do the work of what was, in all likelihood, two different bullets. Thus a problem in physics emerged and hence the two bullets became the one “magic bullet”.
Imagine for yourself if someone took a rifle and fired two shots a respectable distance from a target, say two trees 100 feet straight ahead and 20 feet apart left to right. The first shot hits the tree on the left and the second shot hits the tree on the right.
Then someone whispers to you: “I need you to do something for me. I need you to prove that there was only one bullet fired and it hit both trees.” Sounds easy? No, not at all!
Indeed, it is physically impossible to do unless one has great determination and a willingness to connive at the actual evidence and replace it with bent and mangled half-truths.
And so the story unfolds with President Kennedy: a single bullet starts behaving quite erratically. As it zooms toward its presidential target, this bullet will undergo jaw-dropping changes in its flight at fantastic angles to one another.
Why, this crazy bullet will even execute a physics-defying downward plunge in mid-air —departing from its original flight trajectory–dropping a foot in altitude. Yes it does! After passing through Kennedy’s body the same bullet takes on new life and goes ZOOMING after Gov. Connally!
If anyone in that car had a reason to be afraid, it was the Governor of Texas. That bullet had his name on it!
The Magic Bullet Does Tricks
This “bouncing bullet” passed through the bodies of two different people—both Kennedy and Connally–tearing through flesh and muscle while chipping out big pieces of bone along the way and yet, upon recovery from the president’s stretcher, retained its pristine shape intact!
People would pay big bucks to see a magician duplicate that feat!
Not only that, but this bullet apparently also had time to zip and zoom its wandering trajectory above and around the heads of the crowd gathered to greet the President as he passed by in his open limo (ah, fatal mistake!) echoing and re-echoing on all sides of the Plaza to sound like car-backfires, firecrackers, and shots to all kinds of people.
It flew high enough in the air that its flight path was visible to a fair number of witnesses and this one bullet by itself originated in several different places, from the Book Depository to the Grassy Knoll! (which, by the way, are nowhere near one another for any novices new to the case).
Still more amazing, as it zigged and zagged its way through the dark hours of November 22nd on that terrible day, this magic bullet managed to make an exceptionally large hole in the Constitution of the United States . . . as well as in the head, neck, ribs, wrists and other body parts of one president and one governor happily seated near each other in the open-roof car in the presidential cavalcade, with their wives alongside them.
Having done all this and more, the bullet finally fell to earth exhausted–or more exactly, it fell out of Kennedy’s body or Connally’s body or somebody’s body all by itself onto the stretcher of the president who was being rushed to the emergency room where he would soon expire, to the great grief of a stricken nation.
This magic bullet, whatever else it did that day, was one of two bullets that found its intended mark and ultimately proved fatal. No one was sure at first from where this bullet came or from which body wounds it might have exited.
Yet, amazingly, after “recovery” of this bullet, the American people were told that it was hardly damaged at all and its nose was barely flattened by the horrific impact!
Later, carefully designed tests with this identical caliber of bullet showed that if it were fired at objects as soft as sculpted clay, the nose of the bullet became unmistakably malformed to a tremendous degree–and of course most of us know that bone is ever so much harder than soft clay! At least we used to know such things . . . before the official investigation of this case began and “warped time” first appeared.
The Critics Emerge
As fascinating as the story of the real trajectory of this magic bullet is to so many people, I myself think the greater intrigue revolves around Lee Harvey Oswald. The police and press told us so many different stories about him that the public–clamoring for answers–soon grew confused, indignant, angry, mystified and perplexed.
Even if you wanted to believe there was just one gunman and just one explanation, it was hard to decide which version of events to believe since the details kept changing daily. Which theory to accept, which to reject?
Next came the energetic critics and scholars, researchers and investigators, forensic scientists and nose-for-a-scent journalists. When evidence-based experts began analyzing the smallest details of testable physical evidence, the whole world was turned upside down.
Instead of solving the case and answering every question, new problems proliferated. Indeed, so many discrepancies appeared that the public’s doubts grew stronger, not weaker, that Oswald alone had pulled off this crime. The polls showed ever increasing skepticism over the years to come.
That left some Americans stuck in a quandary: should they trust the so-called official version of events (with so many unanswered questions) or should they lend an ear to the tangled web of inconsistencies being exposed daily by a bevy of new writers? One side said “Case closed!” while the other side said “Not so fast!”
Some rather highly qualified journalists (investigators, writers, attorneys) took the position that there were very serious problems with the official version of events.
To many of them, the details of President Kennedy’s murder appeared often contradictory or incomplete, with the hard-to-avoid implication that Kennedy’s enemies may have been involved in planning his death.
Reconciling the Discrepancies
However, no one need panic or despair! I have good news; there is a solution! You see, it’s quite simple, really, from both a logistical and philosophical point of view. We are confused because of the contradictions we see. In other words, too many lies have been told!
What is needed is a way to consolidate all these different lies into one good lie that can take care of each and every discrepancy. And so I submit this modest idea: Lee Harvey Oswald had a twin brother.
This will explain everything, as you will shortly see!
When Oswald was in the Texas Book Depository building where he worked, his twin brother was on the grassy knoll firing at President Kennedy. This will satisfy the critics who believe the fatal bullet came from the front and entered Kennedy’s body at the throat. If it’s necessary to move the twin from the grassy knoll to the triple-overpass to fire another shot, that can be done easily enough. One Oswald can’t pull this trick off but two Oswalds certainly can!
Think of it: trying to move the Oswald who worked in the Book Depository Building all around Dallas that day at a speed approaching Mach One requires a miracle! It is difficult and frustrating to make sure he’s on the sixth floor firing 3 (or 4) shots, on the second floor drinking a Coke when the first policeman enters the building, AND firing his rifle from the grassy knoll near the underpass, all within the ten seconds or so allowed by the Zapruder film.
Not enough time for one man? Maybe so but now try twins! I believe two identical Oswald brothers will solve all the time-space problems. This is how it works: wherever Oswald is needed to be where he wasn’t (someplace which didn’t quite make sense before) we can now place his twin there to occupy that location!
For that matter, if Oswald’s twin brother does not suffice, I say let’s go ahead and make Oswald three: triplets!
Surely, if we are dealing with not two but three look-alike triplets, all contingencies are covered!
Oswald One was on the sixth floor taking aim at the back of Kennedy’s head
Oswald Two was on the grassy knoll aiming at Kennedy’s throat and
Oswald Three was on the second floor drinking a Coke when the first Dallas policeman entered the Texas Book Depository Building.
You see, triplets make sense! However, in the interests of time and for the sake of simplicity and out of a sense of common decency for the educational level of the average American, I’m willing to keep it at twins.
Oswald Had A Twin
Now I expect some idiot among you may raise an objection and that is this: there is absolutely no proof anywhere that Lee Harvey Oswald had a twin brother. Aha! You see? That’s the beauty of my proposal!
Other dunderheaded critics are still trying to relate their lies to reality–a necessity I’m willing to forego!
We pick the lie we want and then hold it up high for all to see. With this one well-chosen lie, we can dump all the other falsehoods into the nearest garbage bin.
Of course, we don’t ever admit that it’s a lie, you have to understand. We think of it as a “new fact” about the case that “has only lately come to light”. To anyone who asserts it is a lie, we vigorously deny it!
What’s so different about that from what we’re doing now?
Instead of a dozen different versions for Nov. 22, 1963 the public can rest assured that the real sequence of events is finally deciphered and well-chronicled and here it is:
One of the Oswald twins (or triplets) shot and killed President Kennedy in turn with one, two, or three shots each . . . or if preferable, both twins (or all three triplets) shot at the President at the same instant and wounded or killed him outright while also accidentally or intentionally hitting the Texas Governor and scaring the holy s**t out of him pretty damn good. Too many bullets whistling around his head to his liking, that’s for sure!
Need more bullets? You add another Oswald. Need fewer bullets or bullet-sounds? Okay, only one Oswald actually fired a rifle while one of his twin brothers ran around Dealey Plaza yelling “boom!”and setting off firecrackers.
This second twin brother (or triplet) zigged, zagged, and zoomed in and around the crowd while dancing his circling wiggles and waggles as part of a very clever “Ha-ha fooled you!” ploy to decoy!
Can’t explain how that Magic Bullet got on the stretcher? Well, now we have an idea: Oswald Twin Number Two or Triplet Number Two (or Three) stood very near the stretcher bearing President Kennedy’s body as it passed by him (hiding in the crowd) and right then and there this Twin or Triplet casually tossed a bullet he had with him onto the stretcher when nobody was looking!
You see, he had an extra bullet in his pocket that hadn’t been fired—explaining to everyone’s complete satisfaction why the bullet looked so “unused” and “pristine” the way it did. It came from a pocket and not the barrel of a rifle!
Can’t explain “the other thing” or “the something else”? Get busy moving the twins around. Keep moving one or both of the twins (or two or three of the triplets) around until you find an explanation that works!
Fiction Stranger Than Truth
To those of you who will object to my plan by saying, as good Americans we cannot agree to arrive at the truth by inventing a twin brother for Lee Harvey Oswald out of whole cloth, I say: Pshaw!
Is this any more inventive in the art of lying than what we have witnessed hitherto from the police, the press, and the Warren Commission? Isn’t it a damn sight better to wrap all the different discordant noisy unhappy lies into just one good basic All-Purpose Lie?
And to those who will object by saying President Kennedy was an honest man who stood for truth and who would not like to see his killer convicted by the unseemly use of lies, I say . . .
Well, it’s not up to him any longer, remember? He’s dead and has nothing to say about it!
Okay, perhaps a few dozen people in some future generation will get way upset when studying this famous murder case if they can find no record of Lee Harvey Oswald ever having a twin brother.
Who cares? This is the present, the here and now, and not the future!
Why should we worry about some yahoos not even born yet? We have our own crisis of faith to deal with and this, I assure you, is a brilliant solution to a most difficult mystery!
I suggest we let the Dallas Courts go ahead–using this new approach–and try Oswald in abstentia on the assumption that he or his twin or his triplet did some or all or at least most of the shooting.
All other lies can be swept away! We have our evidence, we have our “facts” and we have our new theory that makes perfect sense! It may take a little getting used to, that’s all. But is getting used to a new lie really all that hard for patriotic Americans? We’ve been doing it for years and we certainly have had plenty of practice!
Of course there will always be a few die-hard malcontents who will choose to argue that–even with twins and/or triplets—some serious “discrepancies” still remain!
They will try to argue that even two shooters are not enough to bring order and sense to the countless mixed up mazes of convoluted theories and spurious explanations surrounding this case (They may have a point!)
With practice, however, I believe we can all come to believe that it has been conclusively shown that Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone–except for his twin brother or twin triplet–did by himself shoot this one crazy bullet that went on its long, many-twists-and-many-turns journey before finding its final target and making its fatal plunge.
One can almost hear the questions at his trial for murdering the president:
“Mr. Oswald, are you that good a shot, how do you plead?”
Oops, I forgot that he was murdered two days later. Not much protection for the likes of him in those days, eh?
He’s the accused–the prime suspect in no less a crime than the assassination of the president of the United States–and he’s shot to death while in police protection.
And the obedient media pundits wonder why so many Americans still have trouble believing “the official versions” about what happened!
Who Knew Ruby?
Hmm, if we can’t get Lee Harvey Oswald to confess (because he’s dead) that does present a problem. Oh, I got it! Did I forget to mention this?
It has just come to my attention that, by the strangest of coincidences, the don’t-get-in-his-way assassin of Oswald, Jack Ruby (nightclub owner and confidant of Mafia-types) also had a twin brother!
Ruby’s twin brother (who survived Ruby’s passing) is expected momentarily to publish a written statement (as soon as the FBI is finished typing it) claiming that his brother told him that he (his brother) talked to Oswald or one of Oswald’s twins (he’s not sure which) shortly before he (Ruby) shot him and Oswald told him that he and his brother did all the shooting by themselves all right: yes, I’m pretty sure that would hold up in any court in the land as a genuine good confession anywhere.
Naturally, I expect the nation to thank me profusely for this priceless contribution to uncovering the truth about the real murderer or murderers of President Kennedy.
I expect to be honored by the Sherlock Holmes Society and possibly much more.
I, with a single stroke of an inventive pen, have done what no one else in the country could ever do:
I HAVE SOLVED THE CASE!!!
