JFK: The Smoking Gun MP3 CD – MP3 Audio, December 15, 2013

An incredible detailed investigative analysis of the assassination of the most powerful man in the world in 1963 - John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States of America.The author, Colin McLaren, a former Australian criminal investigative detective, some 30 years after the assassination and after the passing of an Act by the US Senate sanctioning release, was able to access all the Warren Commission's witness testimony, statements, photographs and factual evidence etc., which previously had been ordered locked away for at least 75 years, marked "Top Secret" never to be released to the public.Throughout the reading of the book it becomes very apparent that the Secret Service (and later the FBI), from the onset of the shooting and subsequent death of the President, embarked upon a giant coverup to convince the world of the "lone gunman" theory, of Lee Harvey Oswald, (who was recorded as being just an average shot during his military service) accurately firing three shots from a "clunky," badly sighted bolt action rifle in 5.6 seconds.Colin McLaren's investigation was able to determine that the Secret Service had possession of an exhaustive amount of eye witness information, film negatives and factual information suggesting that the second and third shots occurred in quick succession, far too quick for Oswald and his bolt action rifle. Several very credible witnesses stated that they either saw and/or smelt what they believed to be a cloud of gun smoke after the second and third shots rising from street level, not from from above the sixth floor of the depository occupied by Oswald.There is no doubt that Lee Harvey Oswald fired one or two shots from his rifle using jacketed cartridges which are designed to pass right through the body, rather than shatter and spread on on impact. The Secret Service at the hospital went to great lengths conceal and take possession of factual evidence of the numerous lead fragments found inside the brain of the President, being the actual kill shot. This of course is extremely strong evidence to indicate another shooter and another weapon actually killed the President from the rear, not unlike the weapon and the shatter type cartridges in possession of the Secret Service Agent George Hickey travelling in the vehicle directly behind the President's vehicle.Throughout the book Colin McLaren discovers a huge amount of factual evidence and evidence of very credible witnesses either at the scene, the hospital and later during the Warren Commission hearing, that shows that the Secret Service either destroyed or concealed any evidence suggesting another shooter and another weapon, including the subsequent disappearance of the Presidents brain, the seizing of operating film and xrays showing the numerous lead particles in his brain, the clean up of blood and other hard evidence inside the Presidential vehicle, including the removal of the Presidents body from the hospital to Washington etc., etc.The Secret Service went to great lengths to "gag" certain witnesses having them sign documents of confidentiality, threatening them with action should they ever reveal whatever they knew. The calling of witnesses during the Warren Commission hearing can only be described as being "extremely selective" heavily slanted towards the Secret Services main objective to conceal, with numerous witnesses who were able to provide "critical" evidence to the Commission either not being called to the stand or the "very critical" evidence they were able to provide to the Commission not being examined.There is little doubt that Colin McLaren has discovered the missing "critical evidence," the link that has baffled the world for decades, discovering much evidence indicating as what type of cartridge and weapon fired the deathly shot, dismissing the conspiracy theory of a shooter on the "grassy knoll" and the several other national and international conspiracy theories, his book is based on fact uncovering much evidence as to whom was responsible.The book is a great read from beginning to end, compiled over several years by a very thorough trained investigator, satisfying my thoughts and no doubt the thoughts of many others as regards numerous conspiracy theories.

Wow….Retired Aussie detective Colin McLaren has written the ultimate conspiracy theory about the assassination of JFK. A conspiracy theory with a definite “twist.”Searingly insightful, exhaustively researched, and utterly authoritative, Mr. McLaren posits a theory of a second gunman on that fateful day. However, instead of such a second assailant being a Russian-spy type or a mafia hitman or an “umbrella man,” or some such, as has been put forth in the past, the second assailant was none other than a Secret Service agent sitting in the follow-up car to the Presidential limousine, who, reacting to prior gunshots (those coming from Oswald), accidentally fired the fatal shot into the President’s head. To be as succinct as possible, the author’s claim is that President Kennedy died of “friendly fire.” That is why my initial reaction is a resounding “Wow.”Based on an earlier book (“Mortal Error” by Bonar Menninger, which I have heard described as “overly technical”), Mr. McLaren expounds upon the ballistics work of one Howard Donohue undertaken in the 1960s. Although I have not read the Menninger book, I found Mr. McLaren’s book to be an extremely easy to understand and gripping reading experience.In a nutshell, Mr. McLaren claims that yes, there was a conspiracy involved in the death of the 35th President of the United States, but the conspiracy was all in the subsequent cover-up, as opposed to the planning and execution. Stated in another way, the conspiracy was one of omission, not of commission. And the Warren Commission – which allegedly neglected incriminating evidence - was nothing more than a whitewash intended to spare embarrassment to the Secret Service and, more significantly, to the United States on the world stage.The first few chapters had me a little disappointed in that they seemed like re-hashed material we all already knew, but when this book took off, it rolled! The introductory chapters were, in hindsight, necessary to the rest of the story.Now, I have to say that I am NOT one to be overly intrigued by so-called conspiracy theories, nor am I a gullible type, but I must say that I found this book to be not only thoroughly engrossing, but extremely plausible and convincing as well. He makes all the pieces of the puzzle fit together.The crux of the theory is that the bullets fired by Lee Harvey Oswald were “full metal jacket” type bullets, intended to travel cleanly through their target, while the third and fatal bullet to hit the President was of another (“frangible”) type, meant to explode upon impact, which is precisely what it did. The fact that there were two different TYPES of bullets in play is supposedly evidence that there were two different GUNMEN at work.My only question is this: Mr. McLaren keeps hammering away at the fact that a full metal jacket bullet would not disintegrate upon impact. However, does that still apply if such a bullet hits human skull bone as opposed to soft tissue? I felt this issue was never properly addressed in the book, but other than that I found Mr. McLaren’s theory and research to be extremely impressive.An extraordinary account of a day that will, unfortunately, probably remain shrouded in mystery.

It was well researched, logically written, and made sense of a tragic moment in world history. There was a cover-up and it was by both the Secret Service and the administration to save very real embarrassment to the Service and internationally to the government. A terrible accident.

Complétant le précédent livre (Mortal Error), The Smoking Gun résout une fois pour toute le mystère entourant la mort de JFK.

Thanks to Mr McLaren's hard work and perseverance, we finally know what happened to the president.The evidence he points out and why there are so many conspiracy theories is completely laid bare.It's very understandable and well written for everyone, not just people serving in jurisdictions of law, etc.Thank you, Mr McLaren.

As someone who has spent nearly 15 years involved in criminal investigations, having dealt with many cases and stood in Court giving evidence many times, I'm astounded at how much of the investigation into one of the most famous murders of modern times was flawed to the point of being ludicrous. I read with interest of the omission of the testimony of several key witnesses, the contamination of key evidence and the apparent fabrication of evidence in what can only be an attempt to cover up the truth of what happened on that fateful day. There aren't just holes in the investigation, there are chasms! The author has the expertise to know a fudged investigation when he sees one and this one appears to be a veritable cake shop of fudge! A great read

Lectura amena, aunque algunos aspectos de la tesis que sostiene son poco creíbles. Puede admitirse la posibilidad de un segundo implicado además de Oswald, pero si lo hubo, no creo que fuera la persona propuesta por este libro.

Most of the readers that finish this book will be persuaded for sound reasons that this is indeed the true account of what happened that day and the day after in Texas and Washington. At times though, the over-familiarity of the author's conversational style of narration grates more than a little. Also, although the long path leading to the conclusions is well constructed, the actual presentation of the key findings themselves is only cursory, and comes off as rather sloppy and distinctly short on clarity. This reviewer has had the temerity to attempt an improved presentation of the author's findings (source references in brackets are the location numbers from the Kindle edition for easy searching):There were just three shots. ("More than one hundred witnesses heard that same sequence, three shots." 3548)Shot One - the Miss (fired by Oswald)Quotes from the book:"Dallas Police Officer Stavis Ellis recounted his experience. He 'saw a bullet hit the pavement'." (1024)"... smacking into the roadway and splintering off to hit the body of the limousine" (2096)"... hit the roadway and ricocheted, hitting an onlooker, salesman James Tague." (3567)Reality: there is a pedestrian side-walk between the roadway and the sloping grass bank along this part of Elm Street, and this first shot hit the pavement/sidewalk not the roadway. The copper jacket of this bullet ruptured and the bullet splintered into multiple fragments, one of which hit a bystander, causing a slight cheek wound in his face (JAMES TAGUE, 3054). Other shards of this bullet impacted what has to have been the right side of the Presidential limousine. (That would make sense since JFK was sitting on the right side of the vehicle, the side nearest the closest onlookers in a vehicle being driven on the right side of the road. What we are not told is anything more about this damage to the outer bodywork of the limousine, any possibly embedded bullet fragments, or of any evidence collected to document this damage and its causes.)Shot Two - the Fluke Hit (Oswald)Quotes:"The shot had entered his upper back, penetrating his neck and exiting his throat." (916)"which hit JFK on the back of the neck." (1653)Reality: this shot hit JFK in the back of the neck and exited at the throat indicating beyond all possible doubt that a back-to-front path was travelled by this bullet. This shot did not enter JFK's skull and indeed does not seem to have come into contact with any bone.(What we are not told is whether this shot would have been fatal had it been the only round to hit JFK. It sounds unpleasant but survivable.)Shot Three - the Head Shot (deduced to have been a round from an AR-15, fired inadvertently as the result of a mishap)Quote:"Jean firmly believed there were two rifles in play that afternoon. The first shots she thought were from a bolt-action rifle, and the last from an automatic rifle. She believed the shots were 'rather rapidly fired' and that the Secret Service was returning fire, '... they are shooting back ... I did think there was more than one man shooting ... I thought, well, they are getting him and shooting back ... oh goodness the Secret Service are shooting back'. Later that day Jean made a sworn statement to the Sheriff's department stating, 'I thought I saw some men in plain clothes shooting back ...' " (JEAN HILL, 1869, standing close by JFK when the first shot was fired, 1864 )In November 1963 weapons that fired a small calibre, frangible bullet (i.e. one that disintegrated on impact) were still very rare in a US civilian setting. The only weapon firing a frangible bullet known to be present in Dealey Plaza that day was the AR-15 of the Presidential Secret Service detail. Although this author refers to it as the Colt AR-15, at this stage it was actually still designated the ArmaLite AR-15. Only in the following year would Colt start selling the semi-automatic version of the M16 rifle as the Colt AR-15.You can have the best weapon in the world, but put it into the hands of someone unfamiliar with its trigger pressures and safety settings, and the results can only be unpredictable. Then put that person with the AR-15 squatting on the back seat of a moving limousine without any form of bracing or harness for the weapon holder to steady himself in the vehicle, and without any rehearsed operational response procedure (if/when the limousine comes under fire does the car stop and return fire or will the vehicle take off at speed, and if so how does that happen when there are other vehicles ahead of it?) and the probability of an uncontrolled outcome increases exponentially.Accordingly, the key conclusion of this book is that JFK was killed accidentally by plain old, straight forward incompetence, combined with the very bad luck that the AR-15 of the Presidential Secret Service detail should have been pointed in exactly that direction when the trigger was inadvertently squeezed. (It could just as easily have been a bystander that was hit and killed, and that would have been a whole lot harder to cover up.)The conclusive evidence for a second weapon being fired that day in Dealey Plaza is:the 6 mm width of the entry wound in JFK's skull; an impossibility for a bullet from a Carcano rifle with a body width of 6.5 mm (1834, 1835, 1840 & 1841; this evidence was provided to the Warren Commission)the interval between the first and second shots had just established the cycle time required for Oswald with his Carcano bolt-action to eject a case, load a new round, take aim and fire; so the very short time interval between the second and third shots demonstrated that the proposition that the third shot came from Oswald's Carcano was a complete physical impossibility (958, 969 & 1634);plus there is also the completely different wound effect of the third shot to take into account (3569 & 3606).(It is a surprising omission here that after stating clearly that the fist-sized exit wound produced by the third shot was on the right side of Kennedy's head [940, 1669 & 2528] the author does not make an equally clear statement that the entry hole of the bullet into the skull of JFK was offset slightly to the left of the exit wound. Instead at 1686 the author's statement is: "... the fatal shot had entered the rear of the President's skull ...". In sum, this third round followed a shallow and slightly left-to-right path into JFK's skull. The photographic evidence shows that following the second shot JFK's head was facing forward and he was leaning to his left. [“His clenched fists rose to his neck, he leaned forward and left as a concerned Mrs Kennedy wrapped her arms around him.” 915] It's hard then to avoid the conclusion that the third shot came from somewhere somewhat left of the President. It could not realistically have travelled such a path had it been fired by Oswald from JFK's right rear. For that to have been a genuine possibility JFK's head would have had to have actually been turned to the left, a most unnatural position when leaning forward and to the left with head tilted downwards. Did anyone try to duplicate such a body position? It would have been simple enough to arrange this.)The author's judgement on the Warren Commission seems sound: "nothing more than twaddle created by ineffectual lawyers" (2674). In retrospect, that the fix was in from the get go, was demonstrated by the Commission calling Mark Lane as the first witness, a man "who was nowhere near Dealey Plaza on the fateful day." (3153) Whoever controlled the calling of witnesses before the Commission would appear to have been a key orchestrator in arranging the deliberate cover up of the actual events.There is also hard evidence here of the cover up itself. A bullet fragment supposedly from a Carcano round was found in an autopsy photograph embedded in the outside surface of JFK's skull "near the point of entry of the fatal bullet." (1716) The only Carcano full metal jacket round that fragmented was the first that hit the pavement near or beside the Presidential limousine. That a part of this bullet had curled up over the side of the limousine and embedded itself in the rear of JFK's skull whilst creating no response in the President, is quite simply beyond any credible belief. Then there are the two anomalous bullet fragments supposedly found on the floor mat of JFK's limousine with an antimony content significantly different to that of the bullet fragments extracted from inside JFK's skull. (1715) (Whoever rigged this cover up had failed to prepare for that subsequent level of scrutiny.) Add to these two points that the descriptions, weights and sizes of the bullet fragments tested for antimony were different to those logged by the FBI agents at the time of the autopsy, and the evidence for the cover up becomes incontrovertible. (1716) Another aspect where this author unfortunately fails to draw together logically and clearly the threads of evidence that he has set out.Duplication of events and effects is a normal and often key part of modern forensics. As mentioned in the book some attempt was made to duplicate the effects of the shots fired on human cadavers. (2970) However, in a curious demonstration of complete irrelevance, none of these shots fired from a similar Carcano rifle using similar ammunition studied the effects of a hit on a human skull. If there ever was the will, it remains a straight forward possibility to perform controlled testing with as many iterations as necessary to evidence the actual effects of Carcano shots on the heads of human cadavers. My gut feel is these would demonstrate conclusively that the probability of replicating the type of damage inflicted on JFK's skull using a 6.5mm full metal jacket bullet fired from a Carcano is vanishingly small, equally so the creation of an entrance hole in the skull of no more than 6 mm. That would lay to rest once and for all the Warren Commission hypothesis of a single lone assassin wielding a single Carcano rifle.It seems a peculiarly American astigmatism to believe that the go-to weapon for an assassin has to be a rifle. Had professionals actually been involved, more likely they would have taken a leaf from the Heydrich assassination. Six hand grenades with fuses carefully hand-cut, wired in pairs on three feet of rope festooned with red, white and blue bunting, then armed together and dropped into the Presidential limousine at the overpass, followed quickly by six smoke grenades, would have done the job with much greater assurance and still allowed the chance of a fast escape in the confusion.Since at least a score of individuals were involved in covering up the circumstances surrounding the third shot, what is unbelievable is that in a society as loose-lipped as this, not one person has left an account to be released a decent interval after their death. Surely, at least a few of the individuals involved had a conscience and knew that what had been done to obscure the truth was completely and unforgivably wrong? Or was it truly the case that all of the participants in this cover up had not even a shred of remorse or integrity? Perhaps something else might still appear in the fullness of time.A couple of things the author gets wrong:Oswald was not dishonourably discharged by the USMC, rather he was granted what was called an undesirable discharge. So not honourable but also not dishonourable. (Also his duties did not involve routinely carry a rifle, rather his military task required him to stare at radar screens.)The Stemmons overpass over the three roadways was not itself a roadway as is stated at location 2590. Instead this overpass carried a wide gaggle of railway lines, hence the presence of multiple railway workers, including a signalman and a switchman, standing on the overpass to watch the motorcade.There is one entirely ludicrous feature in this Kindle edition. An Index is included listing the original page numbers of the print version. However, there are no page numbers in the Kindle version, only location numbers. Go figure ... (Clearly not much thought was applied here.