Talk:Lee Harvey Oswald/Archive 5

message: So, Michael Dorosh, Oswald was not trained as a sniper, but how was he trained as a soldier? What did that entail? You obviously know more about this, so please contribute to the article. andreasegde 17:50, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry for not answering the second question - the answer is that he received training on the service rifle just like any Marine. But he was not employed in a combat role during his service from what I can tell. All Marines train as riflemen, and their creed is that every Marine is a rifleman first, and whatever their actual trade is second (in LHO's case, a radar operator). That is often lip service only. But don't confuse that with being a "trained marksman". All Marines achieve a minimum level of competency with the rifle, but indeed, achieve that with a variety of weapons. Oswald actually did better than average with his rifle, according to Posner in Case Closed and of course the Warren Report(sic). As you correctly identify above, though, "Sniper" is a specific term that has been defined in Wikipedia to be something Oswald certainly was not. Hopefully that answers the question? Just wasn't sure where you were going with the question. I think it is significant to the article and can find some quotes in Posner if you feel the same way.Michael DoroshTalk 17:59, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks a lot for the answer, Michael. I am definitely neutral about it (unbelievable as it may seem) but what I want to know is this: Was he good? Could he have got off two shots (the second and third) that hit the target, in your opinion? You know more about this, so your answer is important. Was it possible? (I know this is a difficult question, but I´m asking it anyway...  :) andreasegde 18:13, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Warren Commission had it wrong about 5.6 seconds, and current thought is that the shots took 8 seconds. He had a 4 power scope - some say misaligned, others that it aided him in the shooting. Kennedy was for all intents and purposes 25 yards away when looking through that scope. Anyone with even marginal experience firing a rifle could have made that shot. I took a girl out shooting with my M-1 Garand the other weekend, her first time, and with rudimentary instructions and firing left-handed because of a bad right eye (she is right handed), she was shooting targets about 1/10 as big as JFK's head from 20 yards with great accuracy. For someone with professional training as Oswald had, as well as practice with that specific weapon, I have no doubt that he was capable of doing the shooting. It certainly didn't take a "sniper". But my opinion is irrelevant - Posner cites experts who say the same things.Michael DoroshTalk 18:33, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks a lot for the answer, Michael. So all this talk about Oswald being a good shot, marksman or whatever, is a waste of time. My only thought is about the "25 yards". It seems a bit too short. Note to editors: Does anyone know how far away he was? It must be somewhere... andreasegde 13:22, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 25 yards is taking into effect the 4 power magnification of the scope - I thought the true range was 98 yards or something like that; I'd have to check the source (I'm at work right now). EDIT - See the discussion here Kennedy range and scope discussionMichael DoroshTalk 14:41, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I thank you kindly, sir. andreasegde 15:19, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Which time limit did they use? The Warren Commission says 6 seconds but more recent analysis quoted in Posner gives 8 or 9 seconds.Michael DoroshTalk 18:50, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The only problem is that I recently saw a stunt team on the Discovery Channel here in the US duplicate the feat. Ramsquire 18:17, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Which means that we are back at the beginning again. Ho-hum... P.S. If you can find a reference Ramsquire, it should go in the two shooters section on the Theories page. --andreasegde 11:45, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I wish I could find one but finding those documentary type shows is time-consuming and difficult. There are so many of them. I'll look though.  Ramsquire 16:36, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Sniper or soldier

message: This page needs an Archive; 0/4 --andreasegde 19:07, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Archive

message: I deleted the following info because it contains unsupportable unsourced speculation.  Although it is likely that Oswald saw the article in question, it is impossible to state that he no doubt read it.  Since that portion of the article cannot be wikified (under WP:VERIFY, WP:RS or WP:OR) or confirmed, the rest of the paragraph although sourced is irrelevant.
: "Per Paul May, Atlanta, the genesis for the assassination may have ocurred on September 7th, 1963.  On that date Fidel Castro was interviewed by A.P. Reporter Daniel Harker at the Brasilian Embassy Havana.  Castro went on record stating if the American Government continued its' efforts to "eliminate" Cuban leaders, those efforts would result in kind to American Leaders.  This story first appeared September 9th in the New Orleans Times Picyune.  As a strong pro Marxist and Castro Supporter, Oswald, living in New Orleans at this time, no doubt read this story."
Also, please make sure that the link to Kennedy's assassination page is at the top or bottom of the section, not in the middle.
Ramsquire 18:53, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Paul May

message: “Critics have asserted“, and “Some conspiracy theorists say” - without any references - are too weak to be allowed. --andreasegde 23:41, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: POV

message: I have nominated this article up for peer review so in the next few weeks, there may be a few new editors on this page.  I welcome the added input.  In that vein, one of the complaints was that the article was too long, and contained a lot of fluffy descriptions and background info.  To that end, I have deleted and moved several bits of information which I believe were unnecessarily adding length to the article.  Please see my edit summaries. Ramsquire 21:50, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Peer Review/Edits

message: This section should be heavily trimmed. --andreasegde 18:41, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed.  I had started trimming out entries that simply said "An episode of..." but it is very difficult to determine which entries stays and which one goes. Ramsquire 17:56, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe they could be in external links, or further reading? --andreasegde 18:21, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Or maybe we could chuck the entire section, since it's not really that important.Ramsquire 18:56, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Oswald in fiction and pop culture

message: *The above was taken directly from http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKassassinationsC.htm and "dropped" into this article. Besides the plagiarism issues, there are reliability issues:
**HSCA did not "discover" much of anything, it heard testimony others had discovered
**"evidence to suggest" is usually only evidence to the suggestable. HSAC specifically stated it found no evidence that Castellanos was involved - and said the anti-Castros were more vociferous than dangerous
** the quote is overly selective & omits context HSCA gives - omitting that Castellanos was holding up a Dallas paper with details of the upcoming visit
** The "obtained evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald met David Ferrie in New Orleans" was a report made by someone who "thought they might have met"
** neither the clause "individuals active in anti-Castro activities had the motive, means, and opportunity to assassinate President Kennedy" nor any relevant part of it appears in the searches I have made of the HSCA report
*Rather than give lop-sided websites as sources for what HSCA says, let's go to the source http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/ and specifically http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/part-1c.html#anticastro
*there is far too much detail about other possible conspirators in this article, which is supposed to focus on LHO. All the other stuff should be in the article I proposed long ago - the Evidence for & against LHO - which would not be full of slanted quotes from slanted web-sites
forgot to sign, will sign now --JimWae 20:22, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Crappy schoolnet paragraph 

message: (Personal attack removed by Ramsquire 23:56, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: The above Anonymous post

message: I deleted the Pop Culture and Fiction section because it has simply become too large, unwieldly and is wholly unencyclopedic.  It is an unending list, and should not be put back in to the article.  Here it is in it's entirety:
:===Oswald in fiction and pop culture===
:One of Oswald's Marine Corps comrades, Kerry Thornley, shortly after learning of Oswald's October 1959 departure for the USSR, began writing a novel titled The Idle Warriors; its protagonist of Johnny Shellburne (a disillusioned Marine stationed in Japan who defects to the Soviet Union) being significantly inspired by Oswald's character and actions. The Idle Warriors is currently the only known literary work about Lee Oswald completed before the JFK assassination. Although an unpublished copy of Thornley's completed manuscript had been given to the Warren Commission in 1964 and was later stored in the National Archives, The Idle Warriors was not formally published until 1991.
:Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman present another interpretation of the events in their musical Assassins. In the play Oswald goes to work on November 22 with the intention of killing himself, but John Wilkes Booth (Abraham Lincoln's assassin) appears out of the bookcases. When Oswald declares that he has given up on mattering to anyone, Booth replies that in killing himself, Oswald honestly hopes for the pity of people, something to make him matter. But that's not enough. In killing the president of the United States he'll matter more than he ever has. People will hate him; but from starting as a person who is treated only with apathy, to becoming a figure whom people feel so passionately about, he can matter. Other assassins follow and convince Oswald that the way to gain his fame, appreciation and purpose is to shoot Kennedy instead of himself. 
:He has also been portrayed in various novels, such as Libra by Don DeLillo and The Two Faces of Lee Harvey Oswald by Glenn B. Fleming.
:Another novel featuring Oswald and speculation on the Grassy Knoll theory is 1975's The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson.
:Warren Adler's mystery novel, American Quartet, featured the antagonist mimicking Oswald's actions the day of the assassination exactly.  
:In Ken Grimwood's novel Replay, the protagonist, upon finding himself reliving the month of November 1963, travels to Dallas and sends death threats to Kennedy, signed with Oswald's name, from Oswald's local post office. Oswald is arrested soon after; to the protagonist's surprise, Kennedy is still assassinated on the 22nd.
:In the 1973 movie Executive Action, actual archival footage of Oswald is used, while an Oswald "double" in the film is played by James Mac Coll.
:In the 1977 movie The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald John Pleshette plays Oswald in a fictional dramatization of the trial that never happened.
:In Woody Allen's 1977 film Annie Hall, Woody's character of Alvy Singer obsesses over the JFK assassination, unable to believe the Warren Commission's conclusion that Oswald acted alone. His wife Allison (Carol Kane), accuses him of using his 'conspiracy theory' as "an excuse to avoid sex with me".
:In Full Metal Jacket (1987) Gunnery Sergeant Hartman's dictated version of events allows room only for Oswald, who fires three rounds.
:In Oliver Stone's 1991 film JFK, which dramatizes the investigation of JFK's assassination, Oswald's character is played by Gary Oldman.
:In the movie Zoolander, Oswald is referenced as NOT being the one to shoot JFK; a pair of models instead were the culprits.
:In the movie The Rock, Oswald is again listed as not being the true assassin; the real assassin's identity is left ambiguous.
:In the British comedy series Red Dwarf, Oswald is knocked out of the window by the arrival of the Red Dwarf crew before he can fire his third shot. Having seen the dystopic future their actions have caused, the crew attempt to set history back on course by sending Oswald up to the top floor so their past selves cannot interfere, but at this higher vantage, the trajectory is so steep that Oswald's shot goes wide and history is changed. With no other recourse, and with none of the crew willing to kill Kennedy, the crew recruit an alternative John F. Kennedy from the future (In the new timeline Kennedy was arrested in 1965 for sharing a mistress with a Mafia boss) to shoot "himself" from behind the Grassy Knoll. The character Lister claims that not only will these actions restore the original timeline, but they will also "drive the conspiracy theorists crazy".
:In the 5th season of the show Quantum Leap, the character of Sam Beckett "leaps" into the body of Oswald, days before he's supposed to shoot Kennedy. He leaps into Oswald while posing for the photo of himself holding a rifle, taken by his wife. He leaped back out again just prior to the actual assassination shots and into  Secret Service agent Clint Hill running alongside the limo. Had he not leaped, Oswald would have also killed Jacqueline Kennedy. In the episode, Oswald was played by Willie Garson who also played the part in the movie Ruby. The show's creator, Donald P. Bellisario, served in the US Marine Corps with Oswald and the episode recreated a meeting between the two.
:Frank Whaley played Oswald in the 1993 TV movie Fatal Deception:  Mrs. Lee Harvey Oswald, in which Helena Bonham Carter starred as Marina Oswald.  Whaley had previously played the role of "Oswald Imposter" in Oliver Stone's JFK.
:In a 4th season episode of the show The X-Files, it is revealed that the Cigarette Smoking Man, then an Army Captain, killed Kennedy by shooting him from a storm drain on Elm Street as the President's motorcade was passing by. CSM was secretly ordered to do so by a vindictive army General who felt Kennedy had bungled the Bay of Pigs invasion by withholding air support for the invading fleet. CSM also arranged the situation in such a way as to frame Oswald. Also in the series, three characters print a newsletter that they call The Lone Gunmen. And in their short lived spin off series, a fellow hacker named Lois Runtz goes by several aliases that are all anagrams of Lee Harvey Oswald (the most frequently used being Yves Adele Harlow.)
:In the fourth season of the television series Angel, the goddess Jasmine says that there was no conspiracy and that Oswald acted alone. In the fifth season, Lorne says that Kennedy had a deal with the evil law firm Wolfram and Hart and tried to get out of it, and was killed as a result.
:In the television series Family Guy, the JFK assassination was parodied having Oswald trying to warn Kennedy of the shooters in the grassy knoll.  Then, revealing a rifle, he attempts to shoot them, not Kennedy, from the Depository building. 
:In episode 405 9F04 of the FOX cartoon "The Simpsons" (Treehouse of Horror III), Bart realizes that the spell book he needs to reverse the animation of Springfield's dead as zombies is still in the library. Surrounded by flesh-eating zombies, Homer racks a round into the chamber of his shotgun and declares: "To the Book Depository!".
:After saving Abraham Lincoln from assassination in the "The Simpsons" episode "Today I am A Clown", Homer and Lincoln appear next to Oswald while he is loading his rifle. Homer states "You hit him high, I'll hit him low" and the pair attack Oswald, thus preventing JFK's assassination.
:In the Simpsons the assassination of Oswald was re-enacted in an episode of Itchy & Scratchy, with Scratchy playing Oswald, and Itchy playing Ruby.
:In The Drew Carey Show, one of the main characters is named Oswald Lee Harvey, which is a slightly mix-up of the assassin's name. The character is frequently mocked by other characters because of his name and joking him as 
sniper.
:In Eight-Legged Freaks, Oswald's rifle appears in the hands of the sheriff.
:Phil Bennison (Homer Henderson) wrote a song titled "Lee Harvey Was A Friend Of Mine," which has been covered by Laura Cantrell, T. Tex Edwards and Asylum Street Spankers, among others.
:In The Postal Service song ‘Sleeping In’: “Last week I had the strangest dream/where everything was exactly how it seemed/where there was never any mystery/of who shot John F. Kennedy/ It was just a man with something to prove/Slightly bored and severely confused he steadied his rifle with his target in the center/and became famous on that day in November/”
:Eric Church's song 'Before She Does' mentions Lee Harvey Oswald: "There's absolutely postively no doubt in my mind/ That O.J. did it, Lee Harvey didn't and she's really gone this time"
:One of Bill Hicks' favourite routines in his stand-up sets was to talk at length about the Kennedy Assassination, one such riff detailing how he thought that the Assassination Museum set up to look exactly as it did on the day of the assassination was indeed incredibly accurate; "Because Oswald's not in it. Incredible...painstaking detail. I don't know who did the research, but I applaud them."
Ramsquire 23:20, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please do not delete the above text.  Please see WP:EP:  If you make deletions, you should try to explain why you delete their contributions in the article talk page. This could reduce the possibility of reverting wars and unnecessary arguments.  So, whatever you do, try to preserve information....But preserve any old contents you think might have some discussion value on the talk page, along with a comment about why you made the change.  Ramsquire 19:48, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Deleted Section