E. Howard Hunt's take on JFK assination-Comments welcome

I was 23 on that Friday afternoon and having handled a Carcano rifle I never really believed that story. I burned a DVD off of Newsmax that that a fellow claimed he had done it with a Remington single shot rifle that came out a year or so before, a 221 Fireball from behind the fence on the knoll. When they got back to D.C. later some said his brain was removed, if it was I thought reason was the bullet fragments would ave give it away because the other bullets were not hollow points. It just made me wonder. Jeff
 
jrm53 said:
I was 23 on that Friday afternoon and having handled a Carcano rifle I never really believed that story. I burned a DVD off of Newsmax that that a fellow claimed he had done it with a Remington single shot rifle that came out a year or so before, a 221 Fireball from behind the fence on the knoll. When they got back to D.C. later some said his brain was removed, if it was I thought reason was the bullet fragments would ave give it away because the other bullets were not hollow points. It just made me wonder. Jeff
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Not intended as a basis for an argument, especially by those who see arguing as a competitive sport...

Look out the sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository. About a 60 -65 yard shot. Not particularly difficult even without a scope for a reasonably average to good marksman.
 
The lone deranged assassain-Charles J. Guiteau, Leon Czolgosz, Giuseppe Zangara-has been the norm, Oswald was the only one with any sort of escape plan. The Lincoln Conspirators ? Look how fast they were rounded up.
The Carcano is much maligned due to the poor performance of Mussolini's troops in WWII. One of "us" would have chosen a Remington or Winchester, or an M1903, but when you're on a budget....
A number of rear echelon types-"Pogues" in current terminology-have told me they worked in a stateside/garrison mode, weapons locked up in an arms room, webbed gear-if they had any-by their bunks, no drills or plans in case they were attacked. One Tet veteran said the most frightening experience he was when their base was hit-at night. They were up lined to receive their weapons-done garrison style, they had to sign for them. Several well placed rockets and mortar rounds smashed into the arms room, turned everything in into scrap metal.
 
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cougar14 said:
The one thing that will always stick with me is Oswald's choice of a rifle. That Carcano was junk and the scope belonged on a Daisy. It was purchased for less than $20. He was supposed to be a trained soldier, he could have gotten something decent, like a Swedish Mauser, excellent sniper rifle, for not much more.
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Since this is a gun forum. The Carcano is not a piece of junk. The poor leadership by Italian Officers do not directly reflect on the quality of their weapons.

In my younger days I was a good enough rifle shot to be asked to join my department’s sniper team. One thing our snipers did was shooting from a rest. Oswald had a easy shot. His field of view and fire was unobstructed, the target moving a slow, steady speed, he was shooting from a rest and was rested himself. Oswald was trained by the Marines to control his breathing and heart rate to make his shots more accurate. The distance was only 265’ or a little over 80 yards. Most deer hunters shooting from a stand will say 80 yards with a scoped rifle is a easy shot. The human head is about the size of kill zone on a deer.
 
BLACKHAWKNJ said:
The lone deranged assassain-Charles J. Guiteau, Leon Czolgosz, Giuseppe Zangara-has been the norm, Oswald was the only one with any sort of escape plan. The Lincoln Conspirators ? Look how fast they were rounded up.
The Carcano is much maligned due to the poor performance of Mussolini's troops in WWII. One of "us" would have chosen a Remington or Winchester, or an M1903, but when you're on a budget....
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Having owned and fired a similar Carcano (but in 7.35) quite a few years ago, I believe it was up to the job. It’s more or less equivalent to most other military bolt action rifles of that era and the 6.5 caliber is certainly not a pipsqueak. Probably the weakest part of the system was the scope, or more broadly the sights, which reportedly weren’t anywhere near zeroed. There is a theory that Oswald (if you accept the premise that he was the shooter) may have used the fixed open sights which were more closely regulated than the scope. We’ll never know about that. I seem to remember that it has never been conclusively established if the shooter ever attempted to zero the sights before the assassination.There was just one report of some guy and his son who claimed that they saw someone who looked like Oswald at a local rifle range several weeks before the assassination. He allegedly fired 10 shots and then left. The assassin didn’t necessarily need to be a good shot, only lucky.
 
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Some Australian TV show did the whole thing using a Carcano Short Rifle and the proper surplus ammo and it seemed hard to miss. Much of the "Carcanos are inaccurate" myth comes from US owners using US sized 6.5 ammo made with incorrect assumptions as to how the barrel is rifled. The Italians designed the Carcano differently, with much deeper rifling.
 
Paul in Nevada said:
Nixon is a polarizing figure. I guess the role he plays vis a vis the CIA depends on whether Nixon is the villain in that particular story or not. In other versions, it's Nixon who is trying to blackmail the CIA, while unaware that his "plumbers" were all CIA agents except for the one patsy, G. Gordon Liddy.
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It's my understanding from everything I've read that Nixon was not the sharpest tool in the shed. Not as dumb as Carter but close!

Sent from my SM-A515U using Tapatalk
 
"Pogue"-from the current acronym POG-Personnel other than Grunts-rear echelon personal who stay on base-"Behind the wire" as opposed to infantry who go out in the field. In Vietnam the term was REMF. That definition cannot be spelled out in polite company.
Oswald wouldn't have been the first to buy a scoped rifle and think it turned him into a crack shot, Mr. Deadeye. Didn't bother going to the range, see where it shot. Also I wonder if the scope hadn't been jostled enough by rough handling to throw it off. My objection to the Carcano is that split bridge, makes for a somewhat slower bolt time. I have read of a competition in WWII where a Tommy armed with a Lee-Enfield outshot a GI with an M-1 Garand.
Again, if it was one of "us", a Winchester or a Remington, fresh ammunition, plenty of range time, not the old "I fired Expert in Basic" attitude, use 20 year old ammo,etc.
Nixon and Carter, both intelligent men, but when you get into situations you really don't understand and you haven't got the right people on your team. John Connally said of Nixon that "He was uncomfortable with people." and isolated himself, Carter-when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan and he said he realized "You can't trust them.."-?
 
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My wife assures me that LBJ conspired with the FBI, Secret Service and CIA to kill JFK. Of course she also told at different times it was Castro, the Sicilian Mafia and others I have thankfully forgotten. For my money, it was disturbed, lone assassin Oswald's way into the history books. Having sat in the "sniper's nest" in the book depository (before it was roped off), looking at the spot JFK was shot marked on the street, it is no miracle shot. I cannot blame the conspiracy buffs for the airtime and books that it sells.
 
LVSteve said:
My comment is that the emergence of the various outlandish theories for the JFK and other assassinations show me that the American psyche is seriously disturbed by the idea of lone gunmen. Surely by now the various mass shootings we've had make it clear that they are out there and in considerable numbers.
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I think for many it was not the idea of the lone gunman that started the many theories but that all info was sealed for so long.
 
JohnHL said:
Don't forget, Marine "sniper" Oswald took a shot (at close range) at ex-Maj. General Edwin Walker seven months before Kennedy...

and MISSED!!! :eek:

John
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And that was supposedly at a distance of only about 30 yards, maybe less. Essentially at can’t miss range. One thing which is obvious when you read the Warren Commission Report was how imprecise, muddied, and confusing the ballistics information about the rifle is, and that the FBI and military firearms “experts” who gathered that information would have been outclassed by most of you reading this. It’s comparable to the incompetent autopsy by military doctors at Bethesda who had never before performed a forensic autopsy.

If you want a chuckle, read the accounts about the Secret Service obtaining a casket for Kennedy’s body in Dallas. It reads like something out of a three stooges movie, but it's true. There are several variations, one of which is somewhat mysterious in which the body was delivered to Bethesda three separate times, each in a different casket.
 
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