I am not a Kennedy assassination buff but I just read something that blew my mind.

51furIlnDjL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

I was recently at a dinner at the home of longtime family friends. The husband is a retired Marine (and heavily decorated, though he’d never say it himself) and the wife is a charming, witty woman from Long Island. They like steaks, martinis, and Catholicism.

When their kids were teenagers, the family spent a few years sailing around the Pacific, where they met all kinds of adventurous folks. One of those folks was Andy Kerr, a retired U.S. Navy lawyer who served as special counsel to four secretaries of the Navy. He wrote his memoir, A Journey Amongst the Good and the Great while cruising around French Polynesia. I saw it on a bookshelf before dinner—this couple maintains a real, old-fashioned cocktail hour in their library/living room—and the lady from Long Island loaned it to me.

Its prologue begins like this:

One day we got a letter from Lee Harvey Oswald. The name meant nothing to us then. The letter was long and handwritten and was mailed from Russia where Oswald was living with his wife, Marina. It was addressed to “The Honorable John Connally,” who was then the secretary of the navy in the Kennedy administration.

Some secretary sent the letter to Kerr because it had “legal overtones.”

It was essentially a complaint from Oswald about the character of his discharge from the Marine Corps, and a plea to Connally to use his authority as secretary of the navy to change the discharge to one more favorable… When Oswald left the Marine Corps and went to live in Russia, he was given an administrative discharge that was less than commendatory. As I recall, he was discharged as “undesirable.” He thought that characterization unfair. Later events were to prove the epithet to have been exceptionally mild. The letter was an attention getter. You don’t find many Marines defecting to the Soviet Union.

Kerr goes over Oswald’s record to see if he ever did anything spectacularly great to merit clemency. He had not. (Kerr calls him “a lousy Marine.”) Kerr wrote Oswald to say that his complaint was “without merit.” And that, he thought, was that.

But that’s not exactly the way it turned out. On 22 November 1963, while riding beside President Kennedy in a motorcade in Dallas, John Connally, then governor of Texas, was shot through his arm and lung by Lee Harvey Oswald. President Kennedy was shot and killed in the same incident. The history books say it slightly differently—that Connally was wounded during Oswald’s assassination of President Kennedy. The assumption is always that Oswald was shooting at Kennedy and that Connally was hit by accident or as a secondary target of opportunity. Could it not, however, have been the other way around? In spite of all the investigations, including that of the Warren Commission, and the continuing fascination with and theories about the event, no one has yet come up with a credible motive for the shooting of Kennedy by Oswald. Against this, we know for a fact that Oswald once asked Connally for help in what may have been a cri du coeur. He was turned down flat.

What greater motivation does a psychopath need?

I just don’t know what to think about that.

Brend an Kiley has worked as a child actor in New Orleans, as a member of the junior press corps at the 1988 Republican National Convention, and, for one happy April, as a bootlegger’s assistant in Nicaragua....

35 replies on “A New (to Me) Theory about the Kennedy Assassination: It Was an <i>Accident</i>”

  3. Wow. Never heard that, either.

    I suppose one could argue that if you want to assassinate a governor, there are much easier opportunities to do so than when he is appearing in public with the President. But you could also argue that people who conduct assassinations are not always acting rationally…

  4. The theory that Connally may have been the actual target is nothing new, you think that in almost fifty years no one ever speculated about it?

  5. So what was his motivation for supposedly trying to kill Edwin Walker? Or does this theory presume that Oswald wasn’t responsible for that assassination attempt?

  7. I’m no conspiracy theorist but if you were a conspiracy believer, you’d think this story was a psy-ops job and a plant. Disinformation to take you further away from the truth.

  8. I saw a special on PBS about a hundred years ago that put forth this very theory. That show (it might have been Frontline) also showed Kennedy’s body both before and after the autopsy, which was shocking to say the least.

  10. Wondering how (in particular, but not exclusively) Hyman Rickover and Robert McNamara got on the cover (or, indeed, in the book) along with Connally and Kennedy and Johnson.

    Perhaps a follow-up later on, Brendan?

  12. I always believed in the “Friendly Fire” theory: Oswald was trying to kill Connally and the Secret Service, in firing back, hit the president with a panic shot. Hence the magic bullet and the following cover-up. Can you imagine the reaction in 1963 that the Secret Service had assassinated the President? It would have destabilized the whole Cold War.

    I have absolutely no proof of this – but it will be interesting to see what the unsealed Warren Report records say when they are opened in 2017.

  14. Oswald didn’t initially receive an undesirable discharge; he initially received a Hardship discharge, which is a subcategory of Honorable, but it was changed to a “Section 8” discharge after he went to the Soviet Union and threw several kinds of kooky shit-fit specifically including going to the embassy and trying to renounce his citizenship. A Section 8 is “mentally unfit”. It’s pretty easy to imagine him being bitterly upset about being called a nutter; most nutters are.

    The Warren Report got it right, though.

  16. I first saw this same theory from Thomas Thompson in his novel Celebrity. Thompson was a journalist who covered the assassination for Life magazine. It’s a pretty great read, and Thompson was a great reporter and writer who’s been unjustly forgotten today.

  18. Oswald did it, acting alone. The Warren Commission probably got some details wrong but their overall story is the most likely explanation.

  20. There is no magic bullet.
    Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner in JFK) made a mistake about where the governor was sitting in front of Kennedy. As seen here, the front passenger seat was not directly in front of Kennedy, contrary to the Garrison model.

  24. Yes, it really is astonishing, but every once in a while I read about a group of “volunteer researchers” called the Lordites, who, if I understand correctly, are for some reason dedicated to proving that the ship that refused to come to the Titanic’s assistance was not the Californian. They feel that its captain (Lord) was unfairly maligned in the inquiries. And that was 1912. And they’re wrong.

    It’s ages since I read the Warren Commission (and I just read the short version, not the testimony) but in addition to General Walker, Oswald probably plotted to kill former VP Richard Nixon when he came to Dallas. So honestly, this is another interesting intellectual exercise, but really, it isn’t anything more than that. Oswald was a nutter who saw himself as left wing, and tried to shoot famous people whom he saw as right wing, until eventually he succeeded.

  25. 12/Schweighsr: I always believed in the “Friendly Fire” theory: Oswald was trying to kill Connally and the Secret Service, in firing back, hit the president with a panic shot. Hence the magic bullet and the following cover-up. Can you imagine the reaction in 1963 that the Secret Service had assassinated the President? It would have destabilized the whole Cold War.

    Mortal Error, a book published in 1992, is about the “friendly fire” theory of Howard Donahue, a gun and ballistics expert from Maryland. In the book, Donahue said he was not a conspiracy theorist, that he believed Oswald acted alone, but that as he began to review the ballistic evidence he came to the conclusion that the infamous head shot accidentally came from George Hickey, one of the Secret Service agents who was riding in the back seat of the follow-up car. Donahue said that Hickey reacted very quickly to Oswald’s shots and that, in grabbing the AR-15 and trying to return fire, he accidentally shot Kennedy. There is no doubt that an AR-15 was in the follow-up car; Donahue came across a photo of Hickey holding it as the cars raced to the hospital. The question, of course is: was it fired by Hickey and, if so, did the shot hit Kennedy?

    Donahue lays out a number of intriguing points, among them: (1) unlike the full metal jacketed bullets Oswald was using, the AR-15 bullets were frangible; (2) a number of people in following cars said they smelled gunsmoke as they passed by the spot were Kennedy was shot (and it seems odd that gunsmoke would drift down from the 6th floor); (3) and, perhaps most oddly of all, the Secret Service taking Kennedy’s body from Parkland in a hurry, over the objections of the doctors.

    I never believed there was a coverup based on an intentional conspiracy to kill Kennedy (in fact, I never believed there was a conspiracy.) But a coverup of a horrible and profoundly embarrassing accident, especially an accident caused by the people charged with protecting the president, seemed very plausible to me.

    Hickey ended up suing the publisher, St. Martin’s Press. Wikipedia says: “the suit was dismissed in 1997 on the grounds that it had been filed too long after publication. In 1998, Hickey settled with the publishers of Mortal Error on undisclosed terms. I also read somewhere that two films taken by other spectators showed that Hickey did not have the gun pointed toward Kennedy at the precise moment that Kennedy’s head was hit (the famous Zapruder film does not have the follow-up car in frame.)

    Anyway, like I said, Donahue’s theory was the most plausible one I’ve ever heard but, ultimately, it proved to be wrong. Also, in the book, Donahue said that he believes Oswald’s second shot had mortally wounded Kennedy anyway so that even if Hickey had accidentally fired the head shot, it wouldn’t have been the fatal shot (although it certainly was the most dramatic.)

    The Connolly-as-primary-target theory is interesting but Oswald was obviously an extremely good shot and it seems likely that if he had intended to kill Connolly, he would have.

    Oh, one other interesting thing Mortal Error mentions. Apparently, it was standard procedure back then for two Secret Service agents to be standing on the back bumper of the presidential limo. But the author says that Kennedy had been irked by this during a previous motorcade (I can’t recall the reason why) and, supposedly, ordered them to not ride on the bumper in Dallas. Had they been there, they very well might have screened Kennedy from Oswald’s shots.

  26. Time to read the books that tell the truth–JFK and the Unspeakable–Why He Died and Why It Matters; Me & Lee: How I Came to know, Love and Lose Lee Harvey Oswald (both of these books were rated the top two on Jessie Ventura’s ‘best conspiracy books’ list), Crossfire: the Plot that Killed Kennedy, Inside the ARRB, and Dr. Mary’s Monkey. Five books that give the answers. We had the government investigate what the government DID–and got the mess called the Warren Commission, with the HSCA right behind griping that they were not given info from the CIA (gee, why not?). WHY should we care? scroll up and see all the responses. Among them the usual infiltrators throwing you off the tracks–including the old, silly idea that JFK wasn’t the target. It IS important to see how government cover-ups work. Anyone who thinks we can trust the government to tell us “everything” should remember The Gulf of Tonkin lies, Watergate, Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (not) and now, that Congress doesn’t have to give Obama permission to bomb Libya because we’re not engaged in ‘hostilities’ against Libya. Learn to recognize what happened and how the game works, folks. I will not reply to any comments.

  28. Some months before JFK was shot he sign an Executive Order that would have effectively ended the Federal Reserve. with what we know about groups like the Bilderbergs, and others, this would be a good motive for JFK’s demise.

  29. December 1962: Covert back-channel communications from an official high within the USSR reveal that Nikita Khrushchev is planning to assassinate President Kennedy out of revenge of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Top secret messages from the source warn that that the Soviets are unable to remove the mentally unstable Khrushchev from office while he has the support of his Army. It has become apparent that Khrushchev will go to any lengths to kill Kennedy, an event that will likely start World War III. Out of options, Kennedy decides to beat Khrushchev to the punch.
    There was nobody on the grassy knoll, there wasn’t a second shooter. The only conspiracy that took place in Dallas on November 22, 1963 was perpetrated by the President himself.
    The Greatest Patriot is a thought provoking spin on the history of the last five decades that leaves its readers with a serious case of “What if?”

    https://www.createspace.com/3440956

  30. Probably Mob (Marcello. Trafficante) with an assist from anti-castro Cubans and disgruntled CIA types who were not happy about the lack of air cover at the Bay OF Pigs..

  31. LEE HARVEY NEVER PULLED A TRIGGER THAT DAY-CHARLES NICOLLETI AND JAMES FILES HIT THE PRESIDENT IN THE HEAD AT THE SAME TIME-C.N. WAS ON THE SECOND FLOOR OF THE DAL-TEX BUILDING-J.F. WAS ON THE GRASSY KNOLL-BOTH FROM CHICAGO MOB UNDER SAM GIACANA–THE RIFLE THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE FIRED BY OSWALD WOULD NOT EVEN CHAMBER THE SHELLS THAT WERE FOUND IN THE DEPOSITORY-THE ONLY TRIGGER THAT OSWALD PULLED WAS IN THE TEXAS THEATER WHEN HE TRIED TO SHOOT THE ARRESTING OFFICERS-THAT PISTOL WAS GIVEN TO HIM BY JACK RUBY EARLIER THAT MORNING-THE GUN MIS-FIRED DUE TO A FIRING PIN THAT WAS INTENTIONALLY DAMAGED AND WOULD NOT FIRE-HE WAS SET UP TO DIE-NO DEFENSE-A PATSY AS HE SAID-READ THE INCREDIBLE TRUTH AND COMPLETE FACTS http://WWW.JFKMURDERSOLVED–IT MAY TAKE YOU MONTHS TO READ THRU IT ALL–AMAZING SITE……….

  32. The Connally-as-target theory was prominent in James Reston’s 1988 biography of JBC – “Lone Star”, publication of which coincided with the 25th anniversary of the assassination. I actually wrote to Connally in 1991 or so to ask him his thoughts on it. I still have his letter of reply somewhere, I’ll have to dig it out. His response was simple and straightforward – that if LHO wanted to kill him, he could have easily done it on any street corner on any other day, and that to attempt it during the presidential motorcade on Nov 22nd, 1963 would be to consciously try to do under the most difficult of circumstances. I have to admit, this makes a ton of sense. Unless perhaps LHO wanted to attract mega news attention and publicity to the event – by killing him right in front of JFK and wife with crowds looking on, taking pictures, filming, etc.

  33. The Connally-as-target theory was prominent in James Reston’s 1988 biography of JBC – “Lone Star”, publication of which coincided with the 25th anniversary of the assassination. I actually wrote to Connally in 1991 or so to ask him his thoughts on it. I still have his letter of reply somewhere, I’ll have to dig it out. His response was simple and straightforward – that if LHO wanted to kill him, he could have easily done it on any street corner on any other day, and that to attempt it during the presidential motorcade on Nov 22nd, 1963 would be to consciously try to do under the most difficult of circumstances. I have to admit, this makes a ton of sense. But I’ve still always wondered whether LHO wanted to attract mega news attention and publicity to the event – by killing him right in front of JFK and wife with crowds looking on, taking pictures, filming, etc.

  34. The Case Against LBJ (Part 1)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZzEbKxCF&hellip;

    The Case Against LBJ (Part 2)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZcecy1bt&hellip;

    The Case Against LBJ (Part 3)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BiYVw8ml&hellip;

    The LBJ-CIA Assassination of JFK
    http://www.federaljack.com/?p=18969

    Read 1) BLOOD, MONEY & POWER, by Barr McClellan, 2) Mary’s Mosaic: Mary Pinchot Meyer & John F. Kennedy and Their Vision for World Peace, and 3) JFK: The CIA, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy, by L. Fletcher Prouty.

    Did you know, that LBJ would have gone to PRISON, for the murders of 8 people in Texas (including LBJ’s own SISTER!), at the hand of Mac Wallace, LBJ’s hired hit-man, had LBJ NOT become President? LBJ wanted DESPERATELY to become President. (Just like Tricky Dick Nixon, who was at Clint Murchison’s house, the night before the Assassination, along with many, many other colorful characters, such as J. Edgar Hoover, and Jack Ruby). TPTB (The Powers That Be) knew that JFK and RFK were trying to get LBJ OFF the ’64 ticket! In order for TPTB to reverse all of JFK’s actions as President (such as Executive Order 11110) – LBJ would HAVE TO BECOME PRESIDENT. The choice was clear – the deed would be done in Dallas, but only after they ruled out Chicago, and Tampa). LBJ suggested the Dallas venue. JFK agreed. Jack Ruby owed a favor to Carlos Marcello. That’s why he was the one who took out the patsy: Oswald.

    FIVE important books on the subject:

    1) Blood, Money & Power, by Barr McClellan
    2) Mary’s Mosaic: Mary Pinchot Meyer & John F. Kennedy and their Vision for World Peace, by Peter Janney
    3) JFK: The CIA, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy, L. Fletcher Prouty
    4) Coup d’Etat in America: The CIA and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy, by Alan J. Weberman and Michael Canfield
    5) Plausible Denial: Was the CIA Involved in the Assassination of JFK? by Mark Lane

  35. Robert Morrow Morrow321@aol.com 512-306-1510

    Oswald was US intelligence and he shot NO ONE on 11/22/63, not JFK, not Connally, not Tippitt. Oswald was a fake defector to Russia for the CIA or ONI. And, yes, he did write Connally asking that his dishonorable discharge be removed.

    Basically, Oswald studied Russian in the Marines, was tested by the Marines, then he left to go work for US spies. Then he gets posthumously framed in the LBJ-CIA Assassination of JFK.

    1) LBJ: Mastermind of JFK’s Assassination by Phillip Nelson
    2) JFK and the Unspeakable:Why He Died and Why it Matters by James Douglass
    3) Brothers: the Hidden History of the Kennedy Years by David Talbot
    4) The Dark Side of Camelot by Seymour Hersh
    5) Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty by Russ Baker.
    6) Google the essay “LBJ-CIA Assassination of JFK” by Robert Morrow.
    7) Google “National Security State and the Assassination of JFK by Andrew Gavin Marshall.”
    8) Google “Chip Tatum Pegasus.”
    9) Google “Vincent Salandria False Mystery Speech.” Read everything Vincent Salandria ever wrote.
    10) Google “Unanswered Questions as Obama Annoints HW Bush” by Russ Baker
    11) Google “The Holy Grail of the JFK story” by Jefferson Morley
    12) Google “The CIA and the Media” by Carl Bernstein
    13) Google “CIA Instruction to Media Assets 4/1/67”
    14) Google “Jerry Policoff NY Times.” Read everything Jerry Policoff ever wrote about the CIA media cover up of the JFK assassination.
    15) Google “CBS News and the Lone Assassin Story by Roger Feinman”
    15) Google “Reasoning about Assassinations” by James Fetzer
    16) Google “Murray Rothbard the JFK Flap”
    18) Google “Preserving the Legacy by Mat Wilson”
    19) Google “Bertrand Russell 16 Questions on the Assassination”
    20) Watch on You Tube the extremely important videos The Men Who Killed Kennedy, episodes 7, 8, and 9 which focus on the role of Lyndon Johnson.
    21) Watch on You Tube Jesse Ventura’s show on the JFK assassination.
    22) Watch the movie JFK director’s cut by Oliver Stone.
    23) Watch on You Tube “Evidence of Revision.” – 8 hours of fantastic and rare footage relating to the JFK assassination.

    Another key point: Lee Harvey Oswald was U.S. intelligence and he shot NO ONE on 11/2263. Re: Oswald’s intelligence connections read 1) “Oswald and the CIA” by John Newman 2) “Spy Saga: Lee Harvey Oswald and US Intelligence” by Philip Melanson 3) “History Will Not Absolve Us” by Martin Schotz (Chapter V Oswald and U.S. Intelligence by Christopher Sharrett) 4) “Me and Lee” by Judyth Vary Baker (Oswald’s mistress in New Orleans, summer 1963) 5) Google “Lee Harvey Oswald’s reading habits summer 1963”

Comments are closed.