Oswald in the doorway: the blog of the Oswald Innocence Campaign, by Ralph Cinque

I think most people consider human lives precious. And in an emergency, say, if someone were choking or drowning or having a heart attack, most people would do whatever they could to save the person- even if they didn't know him from Adam. It's because most people consider human lives precious.

And that's why to get to the point of shooting at someone to kill for the sake of killing represents such a tremendous pendulum swing from the normal instincts of a human being. You really have to be completely and totally deranged. You have to be at the extreme of monstrosity. It's really like you are not even human any more.

It happened here in Austin in 1966. From the top of the UT Tower on the UT campus, which for a very long time was the tallest building in the city (they even had an ordinance which said that you couldn't build higher than the UT Tower)  25 year old former Marine Charles Whitman, who was an engineering student, went up there and started shooting at people. He killed 14 people and wounded 32 others before an Austin policeman shot and killed him. However, before the Tower killing spree began, he stabbed both his mother and his wife to death as they lie sleeping in their beds.  

  

Besides police officers shooting back at him, including one who was in a small plane which circled the Tower, there were also civilians shooting back. I must admit: that is heartening to hear. However, it was Officer Houston McCoy who with two others, one also a police officer and one not, who bravely went up to the top of the Tower at great risk of their own lives, and it was McCoy who shot him twice, right in the face, with a 12 gauge shotgun from a distance of 50 feet. 

The official story of the JFK assassination has it that Lee Harvey Oswald was essentially like Charles Whitman.  A big difference is that nobody ever tried to assign a motive to Whitman. He was just completely out of his mind. But, in Oswald's case, there's been plenty of attempt to give him a motive. Nobody ever claimed that he had any personal animosity towards Kennedy. Nobody ever said that there was something that Kennedy did as President that Oswald didn't like. The most common motive we've heard for Oswald is that he was a loser, and he wanted to do something that he would be remembered for, that he wanted to go down in history for having done something that changed the world. This is the "place in history" motive. 

But, if that were true, wouldn't he have taken credit for it? Why would he deny it so adamantly if his purpose was to get credit for killing Kennedy?

I was rereading the testimony of SS Agent James Hosty. In his initial report, he had written that Oswald had "frantically" denied doing it. Frantically. So, Attorney Belin asked him what he meant by frantically. And Hosty's response was that "frantically" was probably not the right word, that "emphatically" was better. Oswald denied doing it: emphatically.

But, I have to wonder because there is a big difference between frantic and emphatic. You can state something emphatically and still be calm, cool, and collected. But, if you state something frantically, it means you're acting out, getting emotional, getting animated and distraught. You're at your wit's end. You're fraught with despair and frustration. I imagine that anyone who was falsely accused of killing two men would deny it not just emphatically but frantically. 

So, how does that fit in with Oswald wanting the fame of having killed Kennedy? If Oswald killed Kennedy and tried to escape, doesn't that look like he didn't want to be found out? According to David Belin, Oswald was going to escape to Mexico. He didn't have much money, but, according to Belin, he had his pistol, so he could just hold people up. But, how did he expect to live? Was he going to work or just rob for the rest of his life? And, did he or did he not want the world to know that Lee Harvey Oswald killed John F. Kennedy? Was he going to assume a new name? Was he going to undergo plastic surgery to change his looks like Humphrey Bogart's escaped convict character in Dark Passage?  

The more you analyze this, the more you realize that the whole idea that Oswald killed Kennedy to get a "place in history" is absolutely crazy. It is ridiculous. There isn't one piece of evidence that supports it. There isn't one piece of evidence that even hints at it.

And that's why that claim is declining. You don't hear it as much today as you used to.  

I heard Vincent Bugliosi addressing the issue of Oswald's motive once, and what it came down to for him was not "place in history" but Oswald's hatred for America. He absolutely ruled out that it was anything personal against Kennedy. It was what Kennedy stood for: America. 

But, Oswald never said he hated America. He said there were things he didn't like about America. But, there were also things he didn't like about the Soviet Union. He never said he hated America, and nobody ever reported seeing or hearing him raging against America. When I say raging I mean in a way that could lead to extreme, violent, and monstrous acts.

Here's what the Warren Commission said:

1) that he had a deep-rooted resentment of all authority

(RC: tell me about it. who doesn't?)

2) his inability to enter into meaningful relationships

(RC: not according to his friends Palmer McBride, Nelson Delgado, and Anthony Botelho. He got married, and his wife was willing to leave all that she knew just for him.)

3) his wanting a "place in history" and his frustration with his failures

(RC: "place in history" has already been debunked; it does not follow from the evidence. And why such a failure? He apparently was good at the radar work he did. He held his job at the radio factory for 3 years and apparently could have stayed on for as long as he wanted. And everyone said he was a good worker at the Depository. He spoke the Russian language fluently which is a rare talent for an American. And he had his ties to the US intelligence community, whatever they amounted to, and that's a rare thing as well. He had a very unusual life- even before the last three days of it. Was he mired in failure consciousness? I doubt it.)

4) his capacity for violence for having shot at Walker? No. That was made up. Everything about the story is preposterous, including that he owned a rifle. 

5) his love for the Soviet Union, Cuba, Castro, etc. yeah, yeah, yeah. Shut the pluck up. Killing Kennedy meant installing LBJ in office who was no friend to any of that, and Oswald would have known it. That is a totally baseless and empty claim.  

You see what this amounts to? It amounts to taking all these weak, pathetic claims and piling them up, thinking that a pile of weak claims comprises something strong. It doesn't. It only shows weakness and desperation. 

Oswald had NO motive to kill Kennedy. None. And all that's left is to just depict him like Charles Whitman. But, everybody and his good-for-nothing brother knows that Oswald was NOT like Charles Whitman.