Conversations with GROK

BigUn

Politics • Lifestyle • Travel

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Big’un@Big_un

April 04, 2025

Conversations with GROK

A question submitted by @Mander2780 I believe. If I’m incorrect please let me know.

Me:
“Is there any evidence to support more than One shooter in the JFK assassination, was the CIA involved, and was Oswald a CIA asset?”

GROK:

The assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, remains one of the most debated events in modern history, with numerous theories about multiple shooters, CIA involvement, and Lee Harvey Oswald’s potential ties to the agency. Let’s break this down based on available evidence and reasoning.

Evidence for More Than One Shooter

The official investigation, conducted by the Warren Commission, concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, firing three shots from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. However, several points have fueled speculation about additional shooters:

1. Acoustic Evidence: In the late 1970s, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) analyzed a Dallas police dictabelt recording from an open microphone on a motorcycle in the motorcade. Experts from the National Academy of Sciences initially suggested a 95% probability of a fourth shot from the grassy knoll, implying a second shooter. However, later studies, including a 1982 National Research Council review, debunked this, arguing the sounds were not gunshots or were recorded after the event.
2. Witness Testimony: Some eyewitnesses reported hearing shots from different directions, including the grassy knoll ahead of the motorcade. For example, Abraham Zapruder, who filmed the event, and others described a shot seeming to come from the front. However, witness accounts are notoriously unreliable under stress, and many others corroborated the Depository as the sole source.
3. Zapruder Film and “Back and to the Left”: The famous footage shows Kennedy’s head moving backward after the fatal shot, leading some to argue it suggests a shot from the front. Forensic experts, however, explain this as a neuromuscular reaction or the result of a rear-entry shot’s explosive exit, consistent with Oswald’s position.
4. Bullet Trajectories: The “single bullet theory” posits that one bullet caused multiple wounds to Kennedy and Governor Connally. Critics call it implausible, suggesting multiple shooters. Yet, ballistic reconstructions, like those by the HSCA and later 3D modeling, support its feasibility given the seating alignment.

No definitive physical evidence—extra bullets, weapons, or unambiguous forensics—has confirmed a second shooter. The grassy knoll theory persists largely due to inconsistencies and distrust rather than hard proof.

CIA Involvement

The idea of CIA involvement stems from motive and circumstantial links:

1. Motive: Kennedy’s tensions with the CIA after the Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961, his alleged intent to “splinter” the agency (per a disputed quote), and his push for détente with the Soviet Union could have made him a target. Declassified documents show CIA frustration, but no direct order or plan has surfaced.
2. Suspicious Connections: Oswald’s defection to the USSR (1959-1962) and return without prosecution raised eyebrows. The CIA monitored him but found no evidence of recruitment. Additionally, Jack Ruby, who killed Oswald, had minor ties to organized crime, which some link to CIA anti-Castro plots. These are suggestive but not conclusive.
3. HSCA Findings: The HSCA (1979) concluded a “probable conspiracy” based on the acoustic evidence (later contested) but found no proof of CIA orchestration. It criticized the CIA for withholding information, though this could reflect bureaucratic caution rather than guilt.

Declassified files, like the 2017 JFK document release, reveal CIA surveillance of Oswald and anti-Castro activities but no smoking gun tying the agency to the assassination.

Was Oswald a CIA Asset?

Oswald’s background invites speculation:

1. Soviet Defection: Oswald, a former Marine, defected to the USSR, lived there for over two years, and returned with his Soviet wife. The CIA tracked him as a potential security risk but never debriefed him extensively, which some find odd. If he were an asset, one might expect more direct handling.
2. New Orleans Activity: In 1963, Oswald was involved with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, a pro-Castro group, while also interacting with anti-Castro exiles. Some theorize this was a CIA “dangle” operation to infiltrate communist circles. However, his sloppy, public actions—like handing out leaflets—contrast with typical covert tradecraft.
3. CIA Denials: The agency has consistently denied Oswald was an operative. A 1963 internal memo from CIA officer John Scelso (pseudonym) noted Oswald was “not connected with us,” though skeptics question such self-reporting. No payroll records, handler testimony, or operational documents have emerged.
4. Counterintelligence Angle: Jim Angleton, CIA counterintelligence chief, speculated post-assassination that Oswald might have been a Soviet plant, not a CIA one. This muddies the waters further but lacks substantiation.

Oswald’s profile fits a lone malcontent more than a trained asset. His erratic behavior and lack of clear CIA control suggest he acted independently, though his life’s oddities keep the theory alive.

Conclusion

• Multiple Shooters: No conclusive evidence supports more than one shooter; the Warren Commission’s lone-gunman finding holds up better under scrutiny than alternatives, despite persistent doubts.
• CIA Involvement: Circumstantial hints exist—motive, withheld files, odd coincidences—but no hard proof ties the CIA to the plot.
• Oswald as CIA Asset: Possible but unlikely; his actions align more with a self-driven ideologue than an agency operative.

The enduring mystery reflects gaps in transparency and human tendency to seek patterns. Without new, definitive evidence, these questions remain speculative. What do you think—does the official story satisfy, or do the loose ends point to something bigger?

Picture: Some folks were upset by GROK’s representation of itself as a human nerdy whiteboy.
Here it is as an Android.

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Big’un@Big_un

15 hours ago

Day 21

Of the 2026 Cavalcade

2890 miles

In order to say we ‘completed the west coast’ we had to go a little further south. @The_CINC had a Weight Watcher’s meeting and a place to get another stamp for her NPS Passport book. The Cabrillo National Historic Monument.

We first rode to a Methodist church for my bride’s Weight Watchers meeting.
She’s to attend at least a weigh in, at a meeting location, once a month.
Once she reached her goal weight, her membership became, and will remain free as long as she doesn’t go more than 2lbs over her goal weight.
She was a tad concerned about her weigh in, as we’ve been eating at lots of restaurants.
Although we’ve stuck to the One Meal A Day regimen.
She took her ‘weigh in clothes’ of course.
She’s exactly her goal weight.
We then headed to Point Loma.

Cabrillo NHM is at the top of Point Loma. It’s the location of a landing, by the Spanish explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo. He is the West coast’s equivalent of the Eastern Spanish explorer, Hernando...

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Big’un@Big_un

October 10, 2026

Day 20

Of the 2026 Cavalcade

2736 miles

The beginning of the end.

We reached Dana Point CA, the end of ‘The PCH’ and ‘CA-1’. Which was the point of this Cavalcade. We will now visit San Diego today, and tomorrow we ‘turn left’, by heading to Joshua Tree NP.

Yesterday was a ‘slog’. 4 hours 45 minutes of seat time to travel 132 miles. 2 hours of it was stop and go, with traffic lights. We hit every LA beach. From Malibu to Redondo and Hermosa beaches.
We saw where the beach houses of Malibu are still just burned pilings and stairs to nowhere. There are just a few locations where the houses are being rebuilt, most have ‘For Sale’ signs in front of a drop off to the ocean.
We also got to check off one of our ‘Weird road side attractions’, ‘The Nude Dude Ultimate Challenge’ statue. Also Known As ‘The Naked Surfer’ in Huntington Beach, which is also known as ‘Surf City’.

We arrived at our current hotel around 16:45. We then decided to try ‘Door Dash’. My formerly ...

00:00:43

Big’un@Big_un

October 09, 2026

Day 19

Of the 2026 Cavalcade

2597 miles

We visited the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi.
He was the first President to win, in the first Presidential election, in which we both voted.
We both, of course, voted for him.

@The_CINC was a little miffed that they only mentioned his two children with Nancy. He’d had three children with Jane Wyman.

“Touched By a President”

It was during the second term of Ronald Reagan, that the White House Heliport was refurbished.
Because of this, when the President returned to Washington DC from Andrews AFB, they had to land HMX-1 (Marine 1), at the Pentagon Heliport.
The heliport was on the Washington Ave side of the building, which before 9/11 was a flat area between the highway and the Pentagon. There was a landing pad with a small ‘tower’ that also contained a firetruck and crew.
They would pull the truck out whenever there was a landing.

Washington Ave was shut down by VA State Police, there was Executive Protective Service (uniformed secret service), Secret ...

00:00:32

Big’un@Big_un

March 02, 2022

This is my Darth Vader voice

For you doubters…
😂🤣😂😂🤣

Big’un@Big_un

16 hours ago

Gutter Kith

The Scotts have a saying;
“Kith and Kin, Kith is the family you choose, kin is the family you are born with.”

My Gutter friends are like ‘Kith’, they are the friends and family I’ve chosen.

We had supper with new kith, Isabell @IMP85 , and her dear friend Terry.
I did make her mad when I snuck in my card to pay for our supper.

Big’un@Big_un

October 09, 2026

Locals Friends

Two lists, they are longer than I expected.

First list, folks we’ve met and ‘broken bread’ with:

@Pam_Antosiak - The Gutter
@PhillipH —The Gutter
@ChickenLizard — The Gutter
@RichOnTheFarm — The Rubin Report
@bbgillinson — The Rubin Report
@TorridLuvr — The Rubin Report
@RG_Terp — The Rubin Report, The Gutter
@manis1111 — The Gutter
@KevinProudTexan - The Gutter
@ACDC_Guy — The Gutter
@Arcadian — The Gutter
@CBMichael - Tom Shillue
@Powerdigm — The Gutter

Folks we’ve met and at least spoke with:
@EyeAm — The Gutter
@Sesome — The Gutter
@bluzy777

I also spent around 5 minutes talking with @DaveRubin one on one in The Capitol Rotunda.

If we are near your location and would like to meet up, here’s the process.
If we are staying the night, we can meet for supper.
If we are just passing through, we can get a cup of ‘Joe’.

After Dana Point, we will head east to Joshua Tree NP. From there we will be stopping near Phoenix AZ to visit friends from Montana that winter ...

KeeperOfThePark@Pmyles277

14 hours ago

Please pray for Keith Malinak from the Pat Gray Unleashed show.

Big’un@Big_un

November 30, 2022

The Day I Retired

Its almost the sixth anniversary...

Some of you may have looked at my photos and thought; what young looking handsome man… He couldn't be old enough to retire …

Thank you Mama

Anyway, I am 60 and I retired at 55 in July of 2017. I was given a retainer for two more months in order to be on call. I couldn’t always get a reliable Internet connection and I can’t take someone’s money for nothing, so I shut that down in Sept 2017…

So you are thinking, what day in July did you retire? I didn’t really retire in July 2017. I quit going to work then…

I retired Thursday, around 1:35 PM, December 15, 2016…

Life was good for @The_CINC and I.

It was shortly before Christmas 2016. Tiny dancer, our surprise baby was a junior in college. We had a 4K sqft house on 7 acres, 40 miles south of Washington DC. It was our second house in 33 yrs of marriage. We had lived there for over 20 yrs. The final house payment was due Nov 10, 2017.

The CINC was at the highest point you can achieve as a civilian Govt Employee without going into the Senior Executive Service. When she was offered SES, the CINC had gotten to the point at which it would have meant more work, more time away from home, for no more money (because of the pay structure) for at least five to seven years. We also knew we wanted to Retire, so it made no sense to invest the time required for an SES position.

She worked for OSD, DOD, WHS (The office that runs the Pentagon, they are the ‘Landlords’) for 34 years. At one point she ran a division that had a yearly budget of $1 Billion.

She would be eligible to retire in April 2017. We really hadn’t decided what we were going to do. My top-secret NSA/DOD clearance was supposed to be coming through anytime. One of my specialties was encrypted secure communications.

I was a subcontractor for IBM and they were paying $50,000 for my vetting. It had been 2 years because I was a traveling consultant that didn’t associate with my neighbors… I was gone all of the time and I couldn’t see any of them from my house anyway..

Once that clearance came through, I could double or triple my salary which wasn’t small in the first place.

Here we were, at the top of our earning potential, few bills, house almost paid for, kids all gone…

Life was good…

Then Thursday, around 1:35 PM, December 15, 2016, happened…

I was in Birmingham AL, working at the US HQ, of a regional US bank that had been acquired by a Spanish bank. I was digitizing and updating their manual and electronic bank and treasury transactions. I had been on this contract for three years. The last 10 months or so I had been mostly remote, working from my lazy boy.

They wanted me to come in for some end of the year meetings and Christmas parties.

I flew in Monday mornings, getting to the office around 10:00 AM. I would work 10 hours Monday, 12-14 Tuesday and Wednesday, 6-8 Thursday and then catch a flight home around 4:00 pm Thursday. I would have 40-45 hours in 4 days by the time I caught my flight home.

I was sitting at my ‘station’, there weren’t really ‘cubes’, just tables with 3-4” dividers that had plugs. It was basically a giant open room, semi closed at each end by meeting rooms. My seat was near the meeting rooms. Behind me to my right was a large opening which led to a spacious elevator lobby.

The bank of elevators were the divider for another large working area. If you really tried, you could easily get 150-200 people in the elevator lobby.

I had just come back from lunch. I was trying to wrap a few things up before heading to the airport. A woman calmly walks behind me and says “Does anybody know first aid?”

I stood up “Excuse me?!?” She pointed to the elevator lobby behind her.

So I walked that way to see what was happening…

I am a trained first responder. I was a police officer at the pentagon and I was a FFX County VA police officer. I am also a trained BSA leader with back country first aid training.

As I entered the elevator lobby I saw an extremely obese man laying partially on his back. A woman by his side rubbing his hand looking concerned. Another man near his feet watching. I looked around, there were about 10 gawkers.

“MA’AM!”

I startled the woman to look at me…

“We have to treat him for shock”

First thing I could think of, get him flat on his back, elevate his feet.

"Go get that footstool"

That gave her something to do and think about.

I looked at the gentleman "Find me something to keep him warm."

I got him on his back. He must have weighed 400 Lbs.

I ripped his shirt open, put my head on his chest.

No Breathing, no heartbeat.

I took his pulse at his carotid artery to make sure.

No, pulse, his face was white, blue lips, his eye lids were partially open, his eyes were already clouding over...

He was already dead.

I looked up for a second...

At least 175-200 people were watching me...

I could hear people sobbing..

Where the hell did they all come from?

So I measured up his sternum, and began compressions..

If you've never really done CPR...

The first time will gross you out. I broke every bone in his chest away from his sternum. It sounded like I was crushing a bag of potato chips.

Another gentleman, kneeling beside me asked "Shouldn't you do the breaths?"

I was doing this for show. I knew he was dead. I have seen and handled many dead bodies. He was already dead, he wasn't coming back.

I looked over at the decedent's face, my compressions were forcing his lunch out of his mouth.

"Turn his head to the side, sweep his mouth, knock yourself out."

About that time a woman came over with an automatic defibrillator.

As I was giving compressions, I talked her through placement of the electrodes. She was so upset, she couldn't read the instructions.

She placed the electrodes, hit the switch, and audible countdown started from 15. When it got to one, it would send the charge.

I kept doing compressions until the Defib audibly said 'CLEAR', at which time, for some reason , I through my arms up like a touchdown. As soon as the cycle was over, I started compressions again.

I was starting to get winded, when I heard the elevators open and EMTs emerged.

one immediately kneeled across from me and took over.

I simply stood up, and walked away.

I didn't want to be there anymore.

I walked back to my station, and packed my stuff.

I was going to the airport.

As luck would have it..

I followed the gurney down to the lobby, one of the EMTs on the guy's chest still giving compressions.

On the drive to the airport, the shakes hit... I can stay extremely calm in the most stressful situations, but it takes a heavy toll later.

After arriving at my gate, I sat down, my cell phone rang. It was my boss from the bank "I just wanted to let you know that the guy didn't make it."

'I know" I said, "I knew that before I left, thanks for letting me know"

I called @The_CINC and told her everything. I then said "I don't want to die in a cube farm. Let's retire"

The Bank, and my employer tried to do some kind of ceremony for me. I told them not to, it was a dumb idea. If he would have lived it would have been a celebration of his life. He died, there was nothing to be proud of.

That was why they gave me the retainer...

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