DJD,

I was in 6th grade when JFK was shot. Saw news reports on the in class TV. So my memories are kinda dim on the specifics of the period.

But I would refer you to a 2 hr documentary --
Unsolved History: JFK - Beyond the Magic Bullet, done by the Discovery channel. The nut:

-- They disproved the 2 gunman theory based on what is in the evidence of the case.
-- They used computer based audio technology to disprove the 4 shot theory.
-- They then recreated the actual second shot sequence that killed Kennedy and wounded Connolly. They used anatomically correct ballistic gell dummies for both men. They used a exact match gun type and believe it or not a similiar batch of shells as used by Oswald (40 years later and can still find matched batch lots, amazing.) They hired an expert marksman for the shots.

Up shot. They were able to recreate the entrance and exit wounds on Kennedy, even to the shirt hole match. They were able to recreate the keyhole entry wound in Connolly and the exit and entry wound to his wrist. All this with just a single shot.

Watching how they went through and disproved all the other theories and then recreated the 'magic bullet' sequence the physics of it all pretty much says it had to happen just as the warren commission concluded. Fact is there was no magic to it at all.

I highly recommend going to the library and checking out that documentary.

Sorry John, but all you have done is take a side. And not necessarily the stonger one.

Are you aware, for example, that the lead which struck Kennedy and Connally could have come from as many as 5 different bullets? The tests on which the Warren Commission depended, turned out to be flawed and are no longer considered court-admissible or scientifically-valid.

http://www.ktvu.com/news/9709821/detail.html

Further, the Discovery Channel used assumptions now known to be false in rejecting the audio tape. The matter is very much alive among forensics experts.

http://www.forensic-science-society.org.uk/Thomas.pdf

I won't waste the time debating the eyewitness accounts from the scene, the testimony of persons who could reasonably be called 'persons of interest', or the various theories tossed out by each side. I will simply repeat the clear fact that the case is unresolved after 43 years, and simply demanding that the other side give in is foolish. What matters here in this article, is that trust in government took a potentially lethal blow itself.

Did Oswald kill JFK? Personally, I do not think so, but the only honest answer is that we cannot know; the evidence points in both directions and the investigation and inquiries were badly botched, even worse than a John Kerry war story.

Take a side maybe. Up until I saw the documentary I did not really buy the single shot theory. Just seemed too improbable on it's face. But being able to reproduce it to a reasonable certainty changed my mind that it is possible.

By the way, they address the DB Thoms report and cast some pretty cold water on pieces of it. But like ya say, we'll never know for sure. The guy who could tell us is dead too.

As for Johnson, he lied through his teeth again and again about the Vietnam war, so I would say he earned that distrust pretty fairly.

So did Nixon, come to think of it.

This is one of those events in which it seems everyone who was around when it happened remembers where they were and what they were doing when they learned of JFK's assassination.
I was in second grade at the time and remember the school principal making the announcement over the p.a. At the time, it just didn't seem possible that it could be true. The thing that really sticks in my mind is that somebody was able to kill the President in broad daylight before the entire country and 43 years later we still don't know who did it. Lee Harvey Oswald may or may not have done it. But considering how he was conveniently gunned down before we could find out how much he knew, has cast a cloud of suspicion over the entire episode that exists to this very day. Unless there is someone still living who knows what happened, we may never find out who dunnit.

Ken