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Oswald had help, ex-agent says
Rocky Mountain News ^ | 11-21 | Rocky Mountain News

Posted on 12/07/2003 7:38:21 PM PST by ambrose

Rocky Mountain News
 
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URL: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/state/article/0,1299,DRMN_21_2445221,00.html
Oswald had help, ex-agent says

Coloradan convinced that more than one

By Ellen Miller, Special To The News
November 21, 2003

GRAND JUNCTION - Lee Harvey Oswald didn't act alone when he killed President John F. Kennedy, and the president died because Secret Service agents failed at their jobs, a retired agent says.

"Officially, the answer to Oswald when somebody asks - because we were ordered to say it - is that the Warren Commission found that he acted alone," retired agent Jerry O'Rourke said. "But was there more than one gunman? Yes, personally I believe so. And my personal opinion about Jack Ruby is that he was paid to kill Oswald."

O'Rourke grew up in Telluride and attended Western State and Regis colleges, then spent 22 years in the Secret Service. Now retired and back home, he spoke this week to the downtown Grand Junction Rotary Club.

O'Rourke said his group of about 10 agents had protected Kennedy the morning of Nov. 22, 1963, at a breakfast speech in Fort Worth. Then the group left by air for Austin, the next stop planned on the president's Texas tour.

"We got the word (of the assassination) in the air, and we didn't believe it at first," he said. "Most of the agents had tears in their eyes. Agents believed in Kennedy, and we knew we failed our job in Dallas."

After his White House tour ended during Johnson's presidency, O'Rourke spent a year in the Secret Service intelligence division, which offered him glimpses into the investigation of Kennedy's death.

Those glimpses, and the accounts of other agents, have convinced O'Rourke that Oswald didn't act alone.

He cited several reasons:

Kennedy had a number of enemies, any of whom could have plotted against him. They included people angered by his insistence on civil rights; organized crime; labor unions unhappy with investigations of them by Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy; Cuban dissidents angry over the failed Bay of Pigs invasion; and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.

The shots attributed to Oswald were impossible to make. O'Rourke learned to shoot as a boy and trained as a military marksman. He said his visits to Oswald's perch at the Texas Book Depository have convinced him that no one could have fired a rifle three times so quickly, hitting the president and Texas Gov. John Connolly.

The trajectory of one of the shots could not have been made by a gunman on the sixth floor of the Texas Book Depository. The shot entered Kennedy's body at his lower back and traveled up, to exit near his throat.

The circumstances of the autopsy were irregular. Texas law requires autopsies to be done in state, but agents, acting on the orders of White House, took Kennedy's body back to Washington, D.C. The autopsy was performed at Bethesda Naval Medical Center under secrecy that prevails to this day.

Evidence was destroyed. O'Rourke said that on the day of the assassination, one agent was ordered to clean out the cars used in the motorcade, getting rid of blood and other evidence. The agent told O'Rourke that he found a piece of skull, asked the White House doctor what to do with it, and was told to destroy it.

Instructions were given to lie. The agent in charge of motorcade protection told O'Rourke that he was told by the Warren Commission during his testimony that he did not hear a fourth shot and did not see someone running across the grassy knoll. But the agent insisted that his account was accurate.

Evidence about the shots is in conflict. An open microphone on a motorcycle in the motorcade picked up four shots, not three.

"In my opinion, Hoover wanted the commission to find that Oswald acted alone," O'Rourke said.

"The complete file won't be released until 2027, and the reason for that is most of us will be dead by then."

Copyright 2003, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved.



TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: conspiracy; jfk; jfkassassination; kennedyassassination; oswald
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To: veronica
Scroll up a few posts...this is beyond weird.

(Nothing to do with the thread's subject) - but it's ALWAYS a newbie who somehow, for some reasone, signs up "today" and resurrects a 2 or 3 year old thread.

81 posted on 07/04/2006 10:58:25 AM PDT by ErnBatavia (Meep Meep)
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To: BlueNgold

My opinion as well. Before they caged in the place where Oswald's rifle was found, was able to go the the window from which he is supposed to have shot. The spot is quite close to where the shots were fired. I could have got off three rounds in the time those shots were fired. Although I probably would not have been as accurate, even I could have hit the car with each round. The fact is that the car continued to move away in a straight line without speeding up.


82 posted on 07/04/2006 11:10:38 AM PDT by RobbyS ( CHIRHO)
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To: ambrose
After all that I have read about the Kennedy assassination, I believe it was a conspiracy. It was his own party that conspired against him.
They eat their own as you can plainly see today. If they don't tow the Party Line they're out politically. If they still oppose, they go the way of Kennedy, Foster, Brown and so many other Democrats who seem to meet horrible ends.
83 posted on 07/04/2006 11:12:43 AM PDT by Doc91678 (Doc91678)
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To: BluH2o

I have seen most of those documentaries also, including the Peter Jennings special where they made a mistake and rotated the program and showed the exit trak comming out of JFK's chest instead of the throat. You must remember who is paying for the program. A conspirist will prove he couldn't do it or not show the program. The SBT's will prove he did do it or you won't see that show either. The point here is that none of the shows I have seen ever timed the first shot. They time to first to second and the second to third shot. If anyone can aim at a moving target and fire in 6/10 seconds then we will have something. Also williams on the fifth floor said JFK's hand went up (apparently when he was hit the first time) and then the gun went off.


84 posted on 07/04/2006 6:40:17 PM PDT by glwx
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To: RobbyS

Ever read 'Mortal Error'?
One of the best forensic analysis' of the JFK assassination available, IMHO.


85 posted on 07/05/2006 10:08:11 PM PDT by BlueNgold (Feed the Tree .....)
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To: BlueNgold

Will try to find it.


86 posted on 07/05/2006 10:20:23 PM PDT by RobbyS ( CHIRHO)
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To: dfwgator

I have never seen that before, but you can bet your --- that I have saved it. That is waaaay too funny.


87 posted on 07/06/2006 8:07:52 AM PDT by dmz
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To: ambrose
The shots attributed to Oswald were impossible to make. O'Rourke learned to shoot as a boy and trained as a military marksman. He said his visits to Oswald's perch at the Texas Book Depository have convinced him that no one could have fired a rifle three times so quickly, hitting the president and Texas Gov. John Connolly.

I have visited "Oswald's perch" too and I am convinced that almost anyone even minimally trained with a rifle could have made those shots.

88 posted on 07/06/2006 8:14:24 AM PDT by Ditto
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To: justshutupandtakeit

Good point. I just read a book on LBJ that was written by a conservative Texan in 1964 "A Texan Looks at Lyndon" by J. Evetts Haley. What struck me is that LBJ's reaction to the events of Nov. 22, 1963 exactly paralleled clinton's reaction to the OKC bombing of Apr. 19, 1995. In both cases, the southern liberal president shamelessly manipulated the country's massive grief over the tragedy against the "right wing", "the forces of hate", etc. etc. Cinton's approach was right out of LBJ's playbook. The book also says that LBJ's first call after the assasination was to Khruschev, and the second call was to labor leader Walter Reuther.


89 posted on 07/06/2006 8:20:22 AM PDT by 2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten
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To: glwx; ErnBatavia; veronica; Eaker; Judith Anne; netmilsmom; Devil_Anse; T Minus Four; ...

This resurrection was brought to you by glwx.

90 posted on 07/06/2006 8:20:34 AM PDT by hellinahandcart
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To: ambrose
They included people angered by his insistence on civil rights;

IIRC, JFK was not a big supporter of Civil Rights. But Bobby was, as was LBJ.

91 posted on 07/06/2006 8:25:05 AM PDT by Cowboy Bob (Liberalism in a parasite that ALWAYS kills its host.)
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bump


92 posted on 07/06/2006 8:26:45 AM PDT by Non-Sequitur
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To: hellinahandcart
Thanks for the resurrection!
93 posted on 07/06/2006 8:51:23 AM PDT by bwteim (bwteim - Begin With The End In Mind)
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To: glwx

*snort!*
I am the third man on the grassy knoll!
I AM the grassy knoll!
I came up with the conspiracy, it was all ME!
I will be called the Darklord, and you will all cower and shiver before me!
I run OPEC!
It's all MY fault!
American Idol is rigged by ME!
I have ways of knowing what you are doing because of the distgrontificator in your RADIO!
Your TV is a spying device through which we see your actions!
Your showerhead is a video camera with which we view your shortcomings!
Your spouse is an agent plant that works for US!
WE will control all!
Nothing short of Binaca will stop US!
The crows really are out to get me.....


94 posted on 07/06/2006 1:50:02 PM PDT by Darksheare (This is a test of the emergency tagline system. Had there been an emergency, you would have heard...)
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To: ambrose

Ping-a-roo for later reading (after tinfoil hat is secure).


95 posted on 07/06/2006 2:15:02 PM PDT by Ignatz (quoting Freeper cyborg: "The lay teachers could not make hands of some girls.")
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To: hellinahandcart

Nice picture. Question if it is not considered and "old Thread". Who was in the freight elevator that day?
when Baker and Truly hit the first floor both elevators were stuck on the fifth. When Baker confronted LHO on the second floor the west elevator had not dropped yet according the Baker. When they got to the fifth floor the west elevator was gone. Williams, Jarman, Norman and Dougherty are all accounted for. If Oswald was on the second floor, then who was on the sixth?


96 posted on 07/06/2006 5:07:33 PM PDT by glwx
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To: glwx
If Oswald was on the second floor, then who was on the sixth?

No, Who was on first.

97 posted on 07/07/2006 8:28:07 AM PDT by hellinahandcart
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To: hellinahandcart

Abbot could solve this in half an hour and do it in black and white. have a good week-end


98 posted on 07/07/2006 2:41:56 PM PDT by glwx
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To: hellinahandcart; glwx
"If Oswald was on the second floor, then who was on the sixth?"

No, Who was on first.

(in unison) Third base!

99 posted on 07/07/2006 2:44:18 PM PDT by Lazamataz (Isalm is a perversion of faith, a lie against human spirit, an obscenity shouted in the face of G_d)
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To: Lazamataz

After the 9/11 commission I realized that ALL gov't appointed commissions are a drain on the public finances and they only put out WHAT THEY WANT US TO BELIEVE! The Warren Commission is certainly along the same corrupted lines as the 9/11 commission, so the truth is buried somewhere in Jackie Kennedy's personal papers that also won't be opened until after we're gone.


100 posted on 07/07/2006 2:56:33 PM PDT by princess leah
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