2.(a) Source A is The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, known unofficially as The Warren Commission, was established on November 29, 1963, by Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. It concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in killing Kennedy. The Commission's findings have since proven extremely controversial and have frequently been challenged. The warren commission determined that the shots that killed president Kennedy were fired fro the sixth floor window in the Texas school book depository. They reached this conclusion because the nearly whole bullet found on governor Connally’s stretcher was fired from the 6.5 millimetre Mannlicher-Carcano rifle found on the sixth floor of the depository building. The used cartridge cases found near the window of the sixth floor were fired from the same rifle. The windshield of the presidents limousine was struck by a bullet fragment on the inside surface of the glass, but was not penetrated. The report concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald was solely responsible for the assassination of Kennedy and that the commission could not find any persuasive evidence of a conspiracy—either domestic or foreign—involving any other person(s), group(s), or country(ies). The theory that Oswald acted alone is informally called the Lone gunman theory.
(b) Source B is a report by The Senate Select Committees report blames Lee Harvey Oswald for killing the president they believe Oswald fired three shots and that the final shot killed the president. However they believe he did not act alone. They believe that there were two gunmen which is contradictory to the warren commissions report. There evidence for supporting this is strengthened by a newly-found tape of a police officers radios transmission in which a shot can be heard being fired from a grassy hill in front of the motorcycle.
(g) Source G is the film “JFK” directed by Oliver Stone and blames the American government in agreement with the conspiracy theory for JFK’s death. The movie portrays that a small rogue group of individuals from the CIA sought out to kill the president as he posed a great threat to them. He had already fires powerful people in the organisation and also intended to make peace with the soviets and withdraw from Vietnam, which was highly unwanted by many members of the CIA.
3. How reliable is source G as a representation of the assassination of JFK?
Source G is the Hollywood blockbuster film “JFK” directed by Oliver Stone. The movie is mixed in the aspect of reliability. The movie disagrees with the Warren Commissions report as it does not blame Lee Harvey Oswald for the assassination of JFK. Most of the details of the movie are reliable and based on solid evidence although there are parts of the film throughout that are either untrue or exaggerated, which is expected as this is a movie. Stone is anti-government and based on his previous movies, we can predict that this will be made to an anti-government. Stone uses actual footage from the assassination in the movie which would lead us to think that it is more reliable than it actually is. He confuses us by putting the actual footage in colour and his own filming in black and white, in contrast to what we would expect. Stone uses a wide range of sources which adds to the reliability of the movie, although he is very selective with the information and evidence that he uses. Despite Stones anti-government perspective, he idolised JFK and thus the movie could be described as biased towards President Kennedy.
4. Sources C and D are the eye witness accounts of the JFK assassination. The eye witness account from Jean Hill is one of the less reliable accounts as quite a lot of her testimony is contradicted either by others claims, or claims that she later made about the assassination.
Jean Hill’s testimony is clearly in utmost agreement almost entirely with the conspiracy theory, whether it is true or false, the American government would never acknowledge that it could be true as it disagrees with the evaluation produced by the warren commission which is the accepted review of the assassination. Jean hill changes eight points she had made in ther account of the events of the assassination. The withdrawals and changes she made decrease the reliability of her account and make it seem weak and in some parts untrue.
Another eye witness, Gordon Arnold gave an account detailing the events which occurred prior to the shooting in the grassy knoll. His account portrays the image that JFK’s assassin was firing from the grassy knoll as he talks about how he was in front of the grassy knoll and “a shot came right past my left ear, and that meant it would have had to have come from this direction. And that’s when I fell down, and to me it seemed like a second shot was at least fired over my head”. Arnold’s story also contributes to the conspiracy theory as he tells of how a man who claimed to be with the CIA old him to leave the area he was originally standing in, and then the shots were allegedly fired from that direction.
I think the first account is not very reliable although the second I believe is almost entirely reliable in comparison with the first. Jean Hill’s account is not very reliable on the grounds that she contradicts herself too often, and with Gordon Arnold, I believe most of his account is true although in some instance I think he may have exaggerated the truth, “a shot came right past my left ear”.
5. Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested in connection to the murder of JFK, But was Oswald the assassin? Did he act alone or were others involved? Why did Jack Ruby kill him? Was there a conspiracy? To answer these questions, President Lyndon Johnson created the Warren Commission on Nov. 29, 1963.
Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., who was an assistant counsel to the Warren Commission, says, “When we started this investigation, we were cautioned not to have any preconceptions. And that we had an obligation to keep an open mind, and to follow the evidence wherever it would lead.”
The rifle is definitely Oswald's; the bullets were scientifically proven to come from the rifle; the magic bullet's crazy path and the direction (origination) of the fatal shot, both proven possible by more than a dozen pathologists over the years. In spite of this many people still believe today that there was a conspiracy and that Oswald did not act alone, if he even was part of it.
Personally I do not agree with the warren commission’s conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, or the “Lone Gunman Theory”. I believe that there is so much evidence and conspiracy that goes against this idea, that it would ludicrous to believe that there was only one gunman. There were numerous witnesses that claimed to have heard more than 3 shots which contradict the idea that LHO fired 3, and if they did agree that he fired the alleged 4-6 shots then it would be illogical because the best of snipers cannot fire 4 shots including the reloading of the gun in such a short space of time.
Eye witness accounts also indicate that there was a gunman firing from the grassy knoll again another contradiction of the warren commission’s report. There is also quite a large amount of support for the conspiracy theory which portrays the idea that the government had organised and carried out the murder of JFK and that they had placed snipers in a few places around the area in order to assassinate the president.
If the warren commission’s report was widely accepted by the public, it would be a very naïve belief as if you assumed for a second it was true you would be forced to realise the suspicions and coincidences that are often questioned like how did such a singular man just happened to get a job working at one of the best sniping points in Dallas, through which the president’s open car motorcade just happened to pass? Wasn’t it convenient that the future Mrs.Onassis was spared the anguish of a trial when Oswald was silenced the next day by Jack Ruby, a dachshund-toting strip-club owner with long-standing ties to the mafia? And what was Richard Nixon doing in Dallas the morning of November 22nd?
In Source A we are old pf how Johnson rushed a report to end speculation before the election were held. This allows us to ponder the question of why did he rush it so quickly and what concern of it was his if it was concluded before the election? We then have source B which aggress with source A in the sense that Oswald allegedly fired from the book depository although it poses the theory that there were two gunmen which points towards a conspiracy. We then have source C which questions the whole ideology of whether it would have been plausible that Oswald did carry out the assassination as he was eating lunch fifteen minutes prior to the killing. The final source that either doesn’t point towards conspiracy or indirectly suggest a conspiracy is source D which is the statement of Jean Hill who is not a reliable witness as she changes her story .
The final 3 sources: E, F and G all directly point towards the idea of a conspiracy as the “magic bullet” theory is said to be implausible and impossible along with the fact that the “pristine bullet” is not believable as the bullet on the stretcher was not in pristine condition. Concluding the idea of a conspiracy is Source G the movie by Oliver Stone which is completely in agreement with the conspiracy theory that suggest the government was behind the assassination, although this is not reliable source as Stone used his dramatic licence to a ludicrous extent.
All of the testimonies that argue with the warren commission and the fairly substantial evidence of conspiracy and the fact that witnesses are believed to have been intimidated into changing stories, all points towards the idea and theory that there was and is a conspiracy surrounding the assassination of JFK and that is what I myself believe.