The JFK Assassination

I haven't spent that much time investigating the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. I watched the film JFK directed by Oliver Stone quite a few years ago and I have only read one book on the subject. The book is titled, "The Assassination Tapes", written by George O'Toole. The book relies a lot on "evidence" "discovered" by utilizing the (then) modern device which determines if someone is lying by analyzing the tone of their voice. The machine is called the voice stress analyzer -- which O'Toole claims proves that Lee Harvey Oswald did not shoot President John F. Kennedy. He came to his conclusions by analyzing tape recordings of Lee Harvey Oswald and others. Perhaps all it proves is that (Lee Harvey) Oswald did not believe he killed (President) Kennedy and he was hypnotized, "Manchurian Candidate" style.

I do not have an "official" opinion on who killed President Kennedy. I don't have enough information to come to a conclusion. I suspect the usual suspects, though.

A device such as the voice stress analyzer would be an invaluable tool in our current political environment(and in our everyday lives as well).
The idea that a machine could objectively tell if someone is lying is too dangerous to the establishment to be floating around. That is probably why this book is quite rare.

Here is a review that is posted on Amazon.com:

"The voice stress analyzer (VSA) is an electronic device that analyzes spoken words and determines if the speaker is lying. It is similar to the stress detector that measures heart rate, breathing, and perspiration ("lie detector") of a live human. The VSA does not require the knowledge, cooperation, or presence of the subject. It can be used with recordings to test the dead. George O'Toole compiled copies of all recordings of the assassination. He then interviewed as many of the principle players as possible and recorded their conversations. This book is the result. This 1975 book seems to have caused the Congressional Select Committee that re-investigated the assassination, and uncovered the facts used in the second wave of books on the subject after 1977. The first wave was the books published in the late 1960s.

The conclusion is that JFK was killed by a conspiracy, and Lee Harvey Oswald was innocent. There were two interlocking conspiracies: one small and tightly organized to shoot JFK; another large and loosely organized to cover it up. The latter involved those who became involved accidentally, reluctantly, or after the fact; they were the weakest links. A fanatic will use a pistol since they don't care if they are caught (Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley). A hired killer will use a rifle to allow time to escape before the police discover the location (JF Kennedy, ML King, Judge Woods). The Appendix discusses the commercial rivalry between the older "lie detectors" and the newer PSE used to analyze voices. The Kubis study was not done by either Kubis or his assistant; they subcontracted defectively recorded audio tapes and received poor results!

The Introduction discusses the Anglo-Saxon conceit that political mischief only happens in non-English speaking nations. It can happen anywhere there is an unresolved conflict among the ruling classes. Watergate revealed this self-evident truth. Like the assassination of Napoleon Bonaparte, time passed before the truth came out. Just as you may be able to detect something wrong from the tone of a voice known to you, the PSE uses objective rules to detect stress in a voice (correlates to telling a lie). "It has demonstrated, beyond any reasonable doubt, that every major conclusion of the Warren Report is wrong" (Chapter 1). Any questions about the Warren Report should follow the laws of science and logic. Researchers into the 26 volumes found many facts that did not lead to a lone gunman. Sylvia Meagher's "Accessories After the Fact" is one example (p.15). Chapter 2 discusses some of the problems with the Warren Report. Governor Connally was wounded by a second shot that could not have come from Oswald's rifle (p.23). The angle and elevation from the "Oswald window" could not pass thru JFK and then hit Connally (p.26). Expert marksmen could not fire that rifle quickly and accurately (p.27). Page 32 quotes a policeman that the bullet dug from General Walker's wall was steel jacketed, not the copper jacketed bullet in the National Archives! There are three important points about the back wound in the Bethesda body: 1) it was below the shoulders, not in the base of the neck; 2) the bullet entered at a steep downward angle that did not line up with the throat wound; 3) the bullet only penetrated a short distance. The Wecht-Smith analysis of the medical evidence was that there were two gunmen firing from the School Depository, neither from the "Oswald window" (p.38).
One interesting note on page 36 concerns the photographs whose facial features "are consistent with" the recollections of the President's. This is NOT saying the facial features were in fact that of the President! See for yourself." 



Link: The Assassination Tapes by George O'Toole on Amazon.com, here.