Posted on 08/04/2004 5:09:23 AM PDT by BluegrassScholar
WASHINGTON, Aug. 2 - About a year from now, one of the most vexing mysteries in American history may finally be solved: Did Lee Harvey Oswald act alone?
Scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have begun work on a digital scanning apparatus that they believe will be able to reproduce sound from the only known audio recording of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas.
The recording was made through an open microphone on a police motorcycle during Kennedy's motorcade into Dealey Plaza, where the president was shot to death. The sounds were captured onto a Dictaphone belt at police headquarters, but scientific analyses of them over decades proved anything but conclusive, fueling arguments about how many people were actually involved in killing the president.
The federal government's official inquiry into the assassination, the Warren Commission, concluded in 1964 that Oswald was a lone gunman, firing three shots from the Texas Book Depository building high above the plaza. But a House committee that investigated the shooting 15 years later concluded that four shots were fired, including three from the book depository and one from another location, giving rise to all manner of conspiracy theories.
Like old 78 r.p.m. records, the Dictaphone belt became worn and damaged through constant replay for analysis using a stylus. When it became property of the National Archives in 1990, the technical staff recommended that no further efforts be made to replicate its sounds through mechanical means.
That left preservationists with a daunting and historically important challenge: How could the sounds on the old plastic belt be captured for posterity, and if they could, would they provide unequivocal evidence of how many shots were fired?
Leslie C. Waffen, an archivist with the National Archives, said he believed not only that the sound could be captured but also that, using digital analysis to map the sounds, scientists could remove extraneous noise like static and distant voices to reveal gun shots.
"This is big," said Mr. Waffen, whose unit has custody of the belt as well as the original 8-millimeter home movie by Abraham Zapruder, which showed the assassination in color but utter silence. "That's why we called the experts in. They came up with a recommendation to do this."
After a June meeting of the National Archives Advisory Committee on Preservation, the job was left to Carl Haber and Vitaliy Fadeyev of the Berkeley laboratory, who have used a digital optical camera to replicate sounds on fragile Edison cylinders and long-play records. The process involves scanning the grooves of the Dictaphone belt electronically to create a digital image of the sound patterns.
Once that is achieved, Mr. Waffen said, the scientists could "clean it up, like peeling layers off an onion to get down to the sound floor" of the recording. And that, he said, could reveal how many shots were fired.
It is a question that has bedeviled government officials, law enforcement agents and historians since the actual event, leading to an array of conspiracy theories involving the mob, Fidel Castro, Lyndon B. Johnson, Russians or, as the film director, Oliver Stone, would have audiences believe, the "military industrial complex."
Among the strongest and most persistent alternative theories to the Warren Commission report has been the involvement of a second gunman on a sweep of land above the motorcade route that came to be known as the grassy knoll. It gained widespread currency after the 1979 Congressional investigation, which relied, in part, on a graphic comparison of the sounds on the Dictaphone belt and a test of gunshots in Dealey Plaza.
They produced evidence that four shots were fired, with indications that the first, second and fourth shots came from the book depository and the third came from the grassy knoll.
But three years later, in a subsequent acoustical analysis, the National Academy of Science concluded that the noise that others ascribed to gun shots was merely static or something else. That was the last time the belt was played.
Once it became the belt's custodian, the National Archives was faced with two questions: What should be done with it? And how could its evidence be accurately captured and made public?
For years, the questions were unanswered, until it became clear that new technologies might produce evidence that was unreachable through older, less sophisticated analytical methods that risked further damaging the belt.
The advisory commission concluded that the National Archives had a responsibility to provide a true copy of the sound, if not enhance it. That, the panel members said, could be left to the researchers.
"People want to know," said Gary Mack, curator of the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, which opened in the book depository building in 1989. "The Warren Commission said it was one guy. The House Committee said it was Oswald and someone else. There hasn't been any resolution."
Mr. Waffen said it was about time to get one.
"Scientists have studied these sounds for 25 or 30 years and have still reached different conclusions," he said. "But with today's technology, we can get a better reading and answer the question, one way or the other."
"When the shots were fired, photos show a lone man with an umbrella open on the grass by the limo. His umbrella was open and he was standing. Everyone around him are laying on the ground. Photos show that as the car neared him he opened the umbrella, that is when the shots were fired. It is not that hard. You have 1 shooter and 1 spotter. They have never been able to locate this "umbrella man" to speak to him."
You're wrong. His name is Louis Steven Witt, and he was interviewed within days of the shooting. He said he was protesting JFK by aping Chamberlain.
The Z Thesis
http://www.cyberspaceorbit.com/phikent/zthesis.html
I have never seen anything that indicates what you have said to be true.
Read Six Seconds in Dallas.
The panel, sponsored by the 1996 JFK Lancer Conference was held at the Dallas Grand Hotel. Beside Professor Fetzer and Mr. Lifton, other experts on the panel included Dr. David Mantik, physicist and radiation oncologist; Jack White, a photographic expert with 33 years of experience;...All you need to know about so-called experts. Scroll down about two thirds of the way down the page to read about the Z thesis.
He is correct, except for the part about being interviewed withing days. Louis Witt was tracked down by the HSCA.
You cannot read conspiracy books and get the truth, it doesn't matter how many. Most of them take great liberty with the facts, or simply repeat the accepted myths about the evidence. If you want to know the truth you must first set aside the conspiracy books and look at the evidence.
Read Six Seconds in Dallas.
A decent book, but an old one. Written before the HSCA, which debunked a lot of the misinformation that was spread about. Its author is firmly committed to a conspiracy and isn't going to let anything change his mind. :-)
Then you've never even read the Warren Report, since it is in there--and much else besides.
Google the name.
Sorry. I misspoke in my previous post. His name appears in the House Select Committee report. And I misspoke earlier when I said within days.
What happened was the umbrella man theory was brought up before the HSC and they issued an appeal--and he came forward within days.
He was a Dallas Insurance man.
"Louis Witt was tracked down by the HSCA."
Right. Or rather the HSC made a public appeal and people who knew him identified him. And then he came forward.
Thank you - that clinches it for me. Oswald acted alone. The laws of physics - particularly that of terminal ballistics - dictate that such a strike on such a target may very well move the target toward the shooter.
I've never looked deeply into the event, and misunderstood where the "grassy knoll" was. Your post prompted me to finally dig up a map:
Having studied the subject a bit, looking at this picture, having seen the Zapruder film (and having attended a lecture on the subject by the guy Kodak sent to the Warren Commission to analyze the film), and knowing a bit about terminal ballistics, it is plainly obvious that:
- Oswald chose an excellent position
- the shots are easily made in that configuration
- the wounds & reactions are consistent with what Oswald presumably did
- there is no need for a conspiratorial second (or more) shooter.
The simplicity is plain, especially with Oswald being a former Marine and left-handed.
If one insists on a conspiracy, I am reminded of the Penn & Teller trick/illusion "Smoking":
With Penn describing the situation, Teller walks on stage smoking a cigarette, stomps it out, and lights another - simple enough. But wait - it's a conspiracy! it's a trick! Everything Teller does is faked: the cig, the smoke, the drop, the crush, the draw, the light, the puff - everything is not what it seems, as the cig is a tube, the smoke is dust, the drop is a feignt and palm, the crush is acted, the draw is de-palming the tube, the light is a flashlight, and the puff is more dust. Sure, a man smoking could be a conspiracy, and is in this case ... but that doesn't mean I suspect a smoker on the street of faking a puff.
3 shots, one shooter, everything lines up. I'll go with Occam's Razor.
I now believe that the same bullet went through Kennedy and Connally and there was enough time to get the three shots off. Those computer animations are pretty compelling. Plus Oliver Stone has never been right.
I don't know what happened, but I can guarantee that 50 books arguing for the standard interpretation would not sell many copies.
If you don't see the photos, click on the link and flip thru the gallery. The "9/11 Tourist Guy" appears with Oswald posing with the Carinco (sp?), in the limo's front passenger seat, and when Oswald meets Ruby the hard way.
/sarcasm
I always found that interview to be odd as well.
The only other piece of infomration that I've wondered about was where Oswald was reported to have been seen in the break room by the police officer who rushed to the 6th floor.
Plus the issue of Ruby killing him. It's just not all there. I would say he was involved or played out in some way, but I don't think he was the only one. Regardless of where the shots were fired.
Its the look on his face, When he goes to the interview room, its not often shown. When he ask everybody to please help me.
Given that almost everything Oswald said to the press was an easily documentable lie--that isn't a very accurate indicator.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.