"It appears that something has happened in the motorcade route..." 50th anniversary of JFK's assassination.

[unsinkable]

Do you believe Oswald acted alone?

 

I've heard anywhere from 20-35% of Americans do believe he acted alone.

 

What are the WTM board's percentages?

[Happy]

I think he was influenced by others...was it a true conspiracy? Don't know. Oswald was a strange and scary man.

 

Being in the DFW area is remembrance time today.

 

Where were you? (I know not many on this board were born.) I was in first grade. I remember the announcement and my teacher crying. I didn't totally understand what had happened, but I knew it was BAD.

 

 

[unsinkable]

I think he was influenced by others...was it a true conspiracy? Don't know. Oswald was a strange and scary man.

 

Being in the DFW area is remembrance time today.

 

Where were you? (I know not many on this board were born.) I was in first grade. I remember the announcement and my teacher crying. I didn't totally understand what had happened, but I knew it was BAD.

I was not a gleam in my father's eye, as the saying goes!

 

One thing (of many things) that interests me about Oswald is that he is the only assassin of the 4 who killed US Presidents that did not confess/take responsibility for his actions. The other three (Booth, Guiteau and Czolgosz) didn't deny what they did.

[MariannNOVA]

I was in third grade........small private catholic school......the nun

who taught 8th grade came rushing into our classroom and turned on the

television. We were in third grade......no one knew what the word

assassinated meant. But then Walter Cronkite came on and announced the

president was dead.

 

I am not being dramatic when I say that I remember hearing about

Kennedy being shot as if it was yesterday. I remember so much about

it. I remember walking out of school with the eighth grade girl who

drove home with us, she had her arm around me and we were both crying.

We got to my grandmother's car, and she was crying.

 

I vacillate between thinking that Oswald did this on his own to wondering if it was a sinister plot.

[Spy Car]

I was but a gleam in my father's eye, as the saying goes!

 

One thing (of many things) that interests me about Oswald is that he is the only assassin of the 4 who killed US Presidents that did not confess/take responsibility for his actions. The other three (Booth, Guiteau and Czolgosz) didn't deny what they did.

Oswald was gunned downed two days after the assignation by Jack Ruby, while being transferred in police custody. There was not a lot of time for his story to break down.

 

Bill

[FaithManor]

I don't express my opinion on the subject. People get a little too impassioned and zany many times to have a logical discussion. But, the boys are watching a couple of documentaries on the subject today instead of their regular AP World History assignment on ancient Rome.

 

I still get teary when I spend time thinking about it...little John and Caroline, Jackie...ouch, so much pain for them, so much pain for the country.

 

I was not born yet nor a glimmer in my parent's eye either. So, I wasn't anywhere at the time.

 

Faith

[Spy Car]

I also remember the JFK assignation like it was yesterday.

 

I was 5. I remember very clearly the sense of national shock. The funeral, with Jacquline Kennedy, the horse-drawn cortège, and little John-John's "salute" that broke everyone's hearts.

 

At the of the assination time my Dad was working on a television documentary on the Kennedy-Nixon campaign called "The Making of the President" (based on the Theodore H. White book of the same name) that went on to win the EMMY for Outstanding Television Program of the Year. But his crew quickly shifted gears and made a feature documentary on the assignation called "Four Days in November" (that was nominated for an Oscar).

 

Dad also made a very touching tribute film, nicknamed "The Camelot film," that was shown at the Democratic Convention in 1964 and televised nationally.

 

So the JFK story was all around. It pervaded the family life, but no one seemed outside the shared sense of grief that I could tell. It was really a national shock.

 

Bill

[Parrothead]

I voted the second option.  I think Oswald was the shooter, but I don't think he was smart enough to think of the plan on his own.  Color me a conspiracy theorist, I think there was a small contingent of men who wanted JFK gone and they made it happen.  I think the same small group took out Bobby too.  Ted is just lucky he is the third.  One is a happenstance, two is a coincidence, the third time is enemy action.

 

ETA:  I was -3 at the time of JFK's death.

[unsinkable]

Oswald was gunned downed two days after the assignation by Jack Ruby, while being transferred in police custody. There was not a lot of time for his story to break down.

 

Bill

The other three admitted it as soon as they were caught.

[nrg]

I was in first grade. I walked home for lunch to find my mother hunched over the radio in tears. My baby brother was crying in his crib and my 4 year old brother was trying to console my mom. She told me what happened, and when my dad got home for lunch she told him and we watched it on TV. My grandfather came over to be with my mom for the afternoon and dinner.

 

I went back to school and told my friends who told the teacher. The teacher accused me of making it up. When I insisted, she went to the office where there was a radio. She came back crying.

 

I remember watching the funeral and seeing the children just the ages of my brother and me.

[unsinkable]

I don't express my opinion on the subject. People get a little too impassioned and zany many times to have a logical discussion. But, the boys are watching a couple of documentaries on the subject today instead of their regular AP World History assignment on ancient Rome.

 

I still get teary when I spend time thinking about it...little John and Caroline, Jackie...ouch, so much pain for them, so much pain for the country.

 

I was not born yet nor a glimmer in my parent's eye either. So, I wasn't anywhere at the time.

 

Faith

OK, that's why it's an anonymous poll.

[Spy Car]

The other three admitted it as soon as they were caught.

So what?

 

Some criminals admit to their crimes and some don't. Hardly unusual.

 

Bill

[Whereneverever]

I wasn't born. My mother wasn't even born yet and my father was a toddler.

 

I think he was perhaps encouraged by others but it is on him.

[mumto2]

I was a newborn sitting in a bouncey seat on the kitchen counter. My mom was cooking.

[nmoira]

Alone, unaided. I'd encourage anyone with doubts to read Case Closed by Gerald Posner. There's a new forward for the 50th anniversary edition: Case Still Closed.  :tongue_smilie:  (I haven't yet read Bugliosi's book, but I've not heard that it adds anything new factually.)

 

I was born in 1967... so was not even a gleam.

[Starr]

I was in third grade happily swinging at recess just after a cheerful music class. I remember distinctly thinking how fast life changed from all the happiness to the shock and horror of his death. It seems to me that a real conspiracy would be uncovered by now. People just don't keep secrets well.

[FaithManor]

OK, that's why it's an anonymous poll.

Oh, I voted, I'm just not saying what I think in a follow up post! :D

 

Poor Bill, I just know he's hankering for someone to throw their hat into the ring so the debate will begin!!! :biggrinjester:

[Spy Car]

Oh, I voted, I'm just not saying what I think in a follow up post! :D

 

Poor Bill, I just know he's hankering for someone to throw their hat into the ring so the debate will begin!!! :biggrinjester:

Not really. On a forum where some people believe in a 6000 year old universe, or that vaccines cause (or trigger) autism, I would be highly unsuprised to discover that there are JFK conspiracy-theorists.

 

Bill

[FaithManor]

Not really. On a forum where some people believe in a 6000 year old universe, or that vaccines cause (or trigger) autism, I would be highly unsuprised to discover that there are JFK conspiracy-theorists.

 

Bill

Just teasing Bill!

[unsinkable]

Not really. On a forum where some people believe in a 6000 year old universe, or that vaccines cause (or trigger) autism, I would be highly unsuprised to discover that there are JFK conspiracy-theorists.

 

Bill

Who here was on the House Select Committee on Assassinations?

[FaithManor]

Who here was on the House Select Committee on Assassinations?

(Hand in air, frantically waving) Oooo, me, me, pick me!!!!

 

I had a hand in taking out the Borg Queen...her body is being held at Edward's Air Force base and if Michael Moore keeps threatening to do a documentary about it, we plan on him having a really unfortunate accident involving a bad McDonald's cheeseburger, and exploding fries. You don't want to know what we did to the Kardasian General!

 

:smilielol5:

 

(My kids made me watch Star Trek Voyager!)

[unsinkable]

Bump for the evening crowd!

[nmoira]

If you're going to go with a conspiracy, I prefer Red Dwarf's take in which Kennedy shoots himself from the grassy knoll.

[Spy Car]

How do we even know if Kennedy really was the President? :D

 

Bill

[MFG]

How do we even know if Kennedy really was the President? :D

 

Bill

We know because Papa Joe bought it for him?

[LostSurprise]

Because Daley handed it to him?

[FaithManor]

How do we even know if Kennedy really was the President? :D

 

Bill

We could be living in an alternate reality...possibly Dr. Who was here and the real president was and Adlai Stevenson was president.

[LucyStoner]

Well, we all know JFK was really just Adlai Stevenson in a very, very good disguise.  He had to up his pretty to get elected after all those tries.  That guy he sent to the United Nations wasn't Stevenson but Lee Harvey Oswald.  None of the Kennedys have ever really existed.  It's all propaganda.   

 

FTR- I'm with Nmoira and Bill on this one.  

[Lady Florida.]

Yes I believe Oswald acted alone. In 50 years there has been no *credible* evidence to the contrary.

 

As for memories, I had just turned 8 a few weeks prior to his assassination and was in 3rd grade. I was home sick that day. My grandmother called my mother and told her to turn on the radio (yes, radio not tv). In the days following I specifically remember some things (I can still hear my parents discussing it). There are other things that I'm not sure if I remember or only think I do. I don't know if John-John's salute is a real memory or if I've just seen it replayed so much I think it's real. I remember talking with my same-age cousin about the fact that JFK was Catholic. We had heard our parents discussing it. That was a big deal then, especially in our family and social circle.

[twoxcell]

I'm embarrassed to say that I do not know enough about it to form an opinion. :leaving:  I was born 20 years after. ;)

[Liz CA]

Neither dh nor I were born yet, even though dh was in the oven already.

My MIL remembers it every year for the shock it was and because her father didn't think there would be a future without Kennedy...

 

For some reason, I am thinking Oswald was not the brain of this operation, the orders came from elsewhere. I would not call it a conspiracy though.

[DianeW88]

I was in utero at the time. :D

 

I don't believe in any conspiracy theories regarding the assassination.  I think Oswald acted all on his own without any influence from anyone but the voices in his head.

[Mom in High Heels]

How do we even know if Kennedy really was the President? :D

 

Bill

 

 

He wasn't.  He was clearly and alien sent to take the place of the real JFK (after he became president)  to take over world, but decided he liked it too much and refused to cooperate with his alien superiors.  Clearly Oswald was another alien, sent to take out Alien JFK, because he had told Jackie and the rest of the Kennedy's what was going on.  Ruby was another alien, sent to take out Oswald, because Oswald felt bad about doing what he did and decided to spill the whole story.  BTW, the other Kennedy assassinations were done by aliens as well, because JFK had told them the plans for take over.  Unlike the other aloe assassins, Ruby was caught and is still being held at Area 51.  Every now and then he gets out of his cryogenic chamber (they can't keep him frozen!) and opens up the Ark of the Covenant, causing weird lights to spark up into the sky, making everyone to think space ships are flying around.  He does this in hopes of attracting attention from his alien overlords so they can find him and beam him up.  Booyah.

 

Not that I'm making fun of the Kennedy assassinations, because they were all tragic, I'm just stating what could have happened.  Maybe.

[MyThreeSons]

I voted alone but backed by others, but I don't know that Oswald was "backed" so much as "influenced" by others. 

 

An interesting tidbit I learned while watching some show about the JFK assassination this past weekend: some woman was talking about the fact that when the announcement of the assassination was made to a group of people she was with, several guys actually cheered. This was in the old South, and Mr. Kennedy's stand on civil rights issues was that reviled.