I got some help from commentator Iris in the Unz Review. He took up the question of the abort team. Iris provided these interesting pieces of information:
– Robert Tosh Plumlee, who worked for the CIA as a pilot, flew to Dallas what he said he believed to be an “abort” team planning to stop a plot murder against the President.
– Judyth Vary Baker, a friend/girlfriend of Oswald’s, was his associate in anti-Cuban intelligence activities carried in New-Orleans from April to August 1963. From the phone calls she had with Oswald, and conversations with David Ferrie, she believed that Oswald was part of of an abort team tasked to stop an assassination attempt against the President.
There may have been something called an abort team, a team trying to stop the assassination of JFK. What can be made from this?
Firstly, we can be sure the assassination was a conspiracy from the Dictabelt analysis, the way JFK moves after the head shot and because of doctor statements and autopsies.
As it is a conspiracy to assassinate the president, the TSBD shooter must be first class. Oswald was not. Thus, he was not the TSBD shooter. I count three similar shots in 6.3s from the Dictabelt and attribute them to the TSBD shooter. That is very good shooting. It means that the TSBD shooter was a top sniper. The most commonly proposed name is Lucien Sarti.
A top sniper will not miss at that distance and need three shots if the rifle is fine. So, I conclude that the rifle was the one in TSBD and the sight was defective. Why was the sight defective in an assassination of the president? For sure a top sniper did not come there with a defective gun, so the gun was taken to the upper floor by somebody else.
The sight was not only incorrectly adjusted: it was defective and could not be correctly adjusted by moving. The rifle shot a few inches up and to the right. Do we assume for instance that someone like Oswald ordered a rifle from post sale and happened to get a defective one? I would imagine that all rifles are checked before leaving the factory.
The sight must have been damaged after it was sold. Probably it was damaged on purpose. That is not difficult: turn it slightly in a workbench to get it out sight.
This means that there was a traitor in the assassination team. Judyth Vary Baker believed that Oswald was in the abort team. Oswald has bought the rifle from post sale and took the gun to the upper floor where the TSBD shooter found it, together with three bullets. Oswals was assumed to have aimed the rifle correctly, but instead he on purpose damaged the sight. The idea was that the TSBD shooter would miss at least the first shot, probably all three, but after the first shot the abort team would arrest the assassins. Oswald went down to buy coffee and possibly he was photographed outside the building to get an alibi.
There is no clear proof that the rifle was Oswald’s, but this is what we should expect if the rifle was to be left in the building. Oswald did not want any proof connecting him to the gun. He bought the gun from post sale because he did not want to show his face to any local gun dealer, and he did his best to confuse the paper trail connecting him to the rifle.
How can we be sure it is Oswald’s rifle? It is because he was killed and because the sight was defective. There is no sense to assume that the rifle went through many hands. It is natural to assume that it was bought by the same person who aimed it and who took it to the upper floor. Then this same person damaged the sight. It means this person was a traitor and would be killed as he knew too much of the assassination. Oswald was killed, thus the rifle was Oswald’s.
But the TBSD shooter knew that the sight was defective. If the shooter in TBSD did not know that the rifle may not be fine, how could the umbrella man be improvised in seconds to give signs to correct the aim? The three shots were given in 6.3 seconds. I assume that the umbrella man gives signs to correct the aim because he makes two moves with the umbrella. He opens the umbrella before the first shot and between the first and second shots from the TSBD, he first lifts the umbrella high up and then spun it from east to west, that is, to following the direction of the car, which from the umbrella man’s point of view is from the left to the right. I interpret these moves in the following way: “the bullet went up and to the right”. The rifle was shooting up and right. As there were two moves of the umbrella, the message had to contain two pieces of information. It could not be for instance “more shots needed” or “stop fire”.
But Iris found an even better explanation:
– Umbrella Man indicates where the guide directing the shooting is, by standing next to him with an unmissable object.
– Dark Complected Man IS the guide directing the shooting, moving his arm UP and RIGHT.
I think this explanation is the correct one. It is the most logical.
Notice that the TSBD shooter did not need the information how far up and how far right he needs to aim. This information is easily deduced: the sight was moved enough so that JFK would not be hit but not more than that so that the shooter would not notice that the sight is defective. Thus, the sight was moved half a head plus 1-2 inches: if the shooter targets to the middle of the head, the shot passes JFK by 1-2 inches. It follows that the sight could not be moved down. There were only five alternatives: UP, UP-RIGHT, RIGHT, LEFT, UP-LEFT and in each direction the distance is 1/2 head + 1-2 inches.
But how could a spotter see where the bullet hit? One commentator peterAUS claimed that surely he could not. So, finally I found a simple solution. The shooter did not aim at JFK in the first shot. He aimed at a target. The spotter, the dark complexion man put something to the ground close to him, a bag or something, that served as a target. Something larger than JFK’s head. The shooter aimed in the center. The bullet hole told the spotter where the hit went. He signaled it to the shooter. The shooter missed the second round as he looked at the signs, but on the third round he hit. Well, this is a simple solution to the objection by peterAUS.
How could the TSBD shooter know in advance that he needed an umbrella man to give signs? A top sniper almost always hits without a helper. He had to know it and it means that Oswald, the traitor, had informed of the assassination plan to his superior, maybe one-two steps above his immediate superior, but this superior was in the conspiracy. He told Oswald to go along with the assassination plan so that they could get the assassins red-handed and would have enough evidence. Oswald should damage the sight so that the shooter misses, but only slightly, some inches, so that the shooter will not notice the damage. He promised that there would be an abort team and Oswald would be the key person in the abort team. After giving Oswald these instructions the superior informed the assassins.
Naturally, the false abort team and an assassination team were from the same organization, which must be the CIA and Oswald was a CIA agent.
Who would be the best patsy if not the one who informed about the assassination. An abort team implies that some agent learned of the assassination plan and then he very possibly was originally in the plan himself and he betrayed the plan by telling about it to a superior. Oswald was the patsy, thus he most probably was the traitor of the assassination plan.
Originally there was not going to be any patsy. Oswald could not be connected with the rifle and he was not supposed to go home, fetch his revolver and a false ID, shoot Tippit and get caught in the theater. He was supposed to drink his coke downstairs and if necessary to show a photo where he is standing in the doorway when JFK drives by.
But as it happened, Oswald went home, fetched his revolver and a false ID and did all that. Or almost all, according to Iris Oswald did not shoot Tippit. Someone else did. So, the scenario may be that Oswald tried to get help from a honest policeman Tippit, who believed Oswald and got killed.
A patsy was added to the plan when Oswald tried to abort the assassination plan. It aldo implied that Ruby would have to shoot Oswald. Ruby stalked Oswald that day. They knew Oswald was the traitor and would die.
This modification to the plan naturally complicated the job of the TBSD shooter. He would miss the first shot almost surely, but he had three bullets and an umbrella man. He was sure three shots would be enough no matter where the sight pointed to, provided he gets the signs of the umbrella man. It is a fair assumption. The sight was just a few inches off.
Let us see where the umbrella man is in the Zapruder film and the Dictabelt.
I synchronize the Dictabelt with the Zapruder film again. Assuming that shaken frame 197 indicates the first shot, we have to give a bit time for Zapruder to react, so let the first shot be at the frame 196. Then the speed is (313-196)/(58.8-52.5)=18.57 fps. Then we can assign to frames all other times
I still estimate the length of the break in the Zapruder film, though it does not much matter. Zapruder frames 1-132 show policemen. Then there is an unknown length pause that must be several seconds. The Zapruder film starts again at frame 133, which is 49.11 seconds in the Dictabelt that I use. Let us assume that the break is 7 seconds. It means that there is missing 130 frames, thus frame 132 is actually frame 2. Then the time 37.6 s is frame -80+130=50.
Now we get this list of events:
Zapruder frame Dictabelt, or what it sounds to me
50 37.60-38.60 “I get it”
132 42.11 Zapruder film stops
break 44.10-46.10 “get out of here, over here”
break 48.60-50.65 “Hold if up right there, we’re gonna do it”
133 49.11 Zapruder film starts
162 50.65-52.65 “I, I got it, hope your arse you got it”
196 52.50 first loud shot
209 53.20 first silent shot
220 52.80 second silent shot
225 54.06 Umbrella man’s umbrella seen frame 225
253 55.60 second loud shot
265 56.20-56.80 bell – about 12:30
313 58.80 third loud shot, the head shot
314 58.85 (possible front shot)
Looks nice. The umbrella man is indeed signaling after the first shot from the TSBD but before the second TSBD shot. There is the second shooter with a less loud automatic gun trying to hit Kennedy, but hitting only him to the back and hitting Connally. The TSBD shooter misses also the second shot, but not the third.
Notice that if the rifle were correctly aimed, there would be no need for any umbrella man to give signs for aiming the gun. If the gun shoots straight and the shooter misses, there is no sense to correct the aim. The fact that there was the umbrella man shows that the shooter knew in advance that the aim was incorrect.
I guess this is about as far as I go with the JFK assassination.