VINCE PALAMARA SAID:
>>> "I am on record...as espousing a firm belief that there was a conspiracy in DALLAS...and, in a strong way, I AM STILL ESPOUSING ONE...I STILL STRONGLY BELIEVE THERE WERE MORTAL THREATS AND CONSPIRACIES (PLURAL) TO KILL JFK THAT WERE BREWING/ IN MOTION JUST BEFORE/ CONCURRENT WITH 11/22/63...but Oswald "took the rap" for them by doing the deed by himself." <<<
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Hi Vince,
Good post. I enjoyed reading it. [THIS POST]
Re: The "MORTAL THREATS AND CONSPIRACIES (PLURAL) TO KILL JFK" possibly in the city of Dallas on 11/22/63.....
That theory, of course, is pretty close to being impossible to disprove entirely....although I definitely disagree with you on that theory (if, in fact, you do think that other assassins [not connected with Oswald] were stationed somewhere in Dallas on November 22; you seemed to shy away from positively saying whether you thought any such "mortal threats" were actually being planned for DALLAS itself, but I get the feeling you haven't discounted that idea entirely either).
But let's examine this in slightly more detail:
If there had been an organized plot to kill President Kennedy IN DALLAS on 11/22/63 by some unknown group(s), and Lee Harvey Oswald "beat everyone to the punch", as you said....and Oswald wasn't "connected" in any way at all with this "organized" plot being theorized (and you and I both agree he was not)....then you must believe that any such assassination attempt against JFK was going to be made at the Trade Mart. Is that correct?
The reason I say the Trade Mart is quite simple -- because at the time JFK was killed by lone assassin Oswald in Dealey Plaza, the bulk of the motorcade drive through the city was finished....and, of course, Kennedy encountered no problems at all while shaking hands with many people at Love Field Airport.
So it stands to reason that if you are correct, Vince, this would indicate that whoever was going to be aiming weapons at John F. Kennedy in Dallas must have planned to do it only AFTER the motorcade had left Dealey Plaza -- otherwise the organized "plotters" (and not Oswald) would have gotten to JFK first.
In your above post, Vince, you didn't elaborate on the details surrounding this so-called "mortal threat" that you think was possibly hanging over Kennedy's head on November 22nd in Dallas....but via the chronology of events* that DID occur in Dallas that day, you're pretty much left with your theorized non-Oswald assassination attempt taking place at the Trade Mart....or perhaps AFTER Kennedy's luncheon, during his drive back to Love Field (which was scheduled to be a much-quicker trip at higher automobile speeds; i.e., it wasn't going to be a slow motorcade drive through the city again).
* = With this chronology including these facts -- JFK was not bothered or harassed or shot at with guns at Love Field (and from some TV reports, it was said that the police were MORE fearful of "demonstrations" or potential acts of violence there at the airport than at any other location during JFK's Dallas visit); and the President was not shot at with guns during the bulk of his motorcade drive through Dallas, with the assassination occurring at the very tail-end of the parade route in Dealey Plaza.
Now, I do know that the Secret Service wasn't originally too happy about the choice of the Trade Mart as the site for President Kennedy's luncheon. And this uneasiness on the part of the USSS was, I believe, mainly due to the high balconies and overhangs within the Trade Mart building, which were balconies that could, to quote Richard Basehart's narration from the best JFK assassination film ever made -- "Four Days In November" -- "offer an excellent perch for an assassin".
So, I suppose that one of those Trade Mart balconies would have been a pretty good choice to place an assassin. Plus there's the fact that any such assassin(s) wouldn't have to worry about the weather in Dallas that day, and "they" wouldn't have to be concerned about it raining on the motorcade, which would have made it necessary for any outdoor shooter(s) to fire through the plastic (though not bulletproof) bubbletop roof that would have been affixed to JFK's limousine had it continued to rain that day.
Your theory about some kind of organized plot brewing against JFK in Dallas could conceivably be accurate, but it suffers from the same fatal disease that plague so many other JFK conspiracy theories -- A TOTAL LACK OF EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT IT.
>>> "To answer any (future) inquiries: 'What made you change your mind, Vince [Palamara]?' Answer: I read Bugliosi's book." <<<
And this is as good a short, four-word, to-the-point answer as could possibly be made, IMO.
>>> "Is Bugliosi's book (or ANY book) perfect or error-free? No." <<<
Speaking of this "error" topic, let me add this:
While looking through the pages of Vincent Bugliosi's "Four Days In November" paperback book (the truncated version of "Reclaiming History" which was just released in late May 2008), I noticed that a few small errors that popped up in the original "RH" book have been corrected in the softcover "Four Days" edition.
The most notable of these corrections (as far as I could tell from an initial glance) occurs on page #61 of the 688-page "Four Days" volume, when Bugliosi changes the amount of time that occurs between Lee Oswald's first and second gunshots from "3.5 seconds" (in "RH") to "2.7 seconds" (in "Four Days").
This revised "2.7 seconds" time between the shots is more in line with Mr. Bugliosi's general feelings about when the "SBT" shot actually occurred, with
VB saying several times throughout the book "RH" that it's his belief that the
SBT shot occurred at approximately Zapruder Film frame 210, which is a timeline
I definitely disagree with very strongly and for a variety of reasons, as
discussed here.
So, indeed, as Vince Palamara said, no book is going to be "perfect or error-free". But Mr. Bugliosi evidently did want to correct a few of his "RH" mistakes, and has done so in his "Four Days In November" paperback version.
>>> "DO I WANT AND WISH FOR OSWALD TO NOT BE THE SOLE SHOOTER AND FOR THERE TO HAVE BEEN A CONSPIRACY IN DALLAS? You bet; absolutely (so, yes: I wish I could still believe that)." <<<
Well, I've got to give you a lot of extra points for outright honesty here, Vince. The above type of bold "I WANT A CONSPIRACY" declaration is usually the kind of forthright honesty we never ever see coming from the lips of JFK conspiracy theorists (and probably not from too many "reformed" CTers either).
Regards,
David Von Pein
May 27, 2008
EDIT -- Vincent M. Palamara has, as of December 2009, gone back to believing in a conspiracy, and a huge conspiracy at that, since he has totally endorsed the insane book written by conspiracy author Doug Horne. Here's a post I wrote in 2009:
Gee, what a convoluted mess of a post Vincent Palamara has written here, as he attempts to HAVE IT BOTH WAYS -- he wants to believe that Vince Bugliosi's JFK book is a "masterpiece", but at the very same time he is now "back to believing there was a conspiracy, thanks largely to Douglas Horne's amazing new books" [V. Palamara; 12/15/09].
Talk about contradictory thinking....Mr. Palamara's got it.
In order to believe in ANY of the conspiracy-tinged nonsense that Douglas Horne believes in, a person must AUTOMATICALLY disbelieve the things that Vincent T. Bugliosi believes in.
And Mr. Palamara's "marriage" analogy is simply a howl. Marriage isn't akin to the JFK assassination situation at all. Not even close.
Either Lee Oswald killed Kennedy alone (as Bugliosi posits) or he didn't (as Horne posits). You cannot believe that BOTH Bugliosi's and Horne's versions of the JFK story are true. They are like water and oil. They cannot co-exist.
It makes me wonder if Vince Palamara will soon give some credence to Brian David Andersen's conspiracy theory about how JFK faked his own death. Only time will tell. It depends on which direction the wind is blowing on any particular day, it would seem.
In short, it appears that Vince Palamara's opinions regarding the John F. Kennedy murder case are about as steady as the colors of a chameleon.
David Von Pein
December 16, 2009
