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3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Howard L. Brennan -- A Very Important "Eyewitness To History",
By David Von Pein (Mooresville, Indiana; USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Eyewitness to History: The Kennedy Assassination : As Seen by Howard Brennan (Hardcover)
A man by the name of Howard Leslie Brennan was an important figure in American history. Mr. Brennan, who passed away in 1984, wasn't famous for being a politician, or an inventor, or a top-flight athlete, or a movie star. He was, instead, an ordinary 44-year-old man in the fall of 1963. He had a wife, two children, one grandson, and a very ordinary job as a steamfitter for a construction company in the city of Dallas, Texas, USA.
Howard Brennan became famous when he, by pure chance, witnessed one of the most shocking events of the 20th century -- the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on Friday, November 22, 1963. Mr. Brennan watched as a gunman took aim at JFK from a sixth-floor window of an old building (the Texas School Book Depository) across the street from where Brennan had positioned himself to watch President Kennedy's motorcade as it slowly zig-zagged its way through Dealey Plaza. Brennan would later identify the gunman he saw in the window as 24-year-old Lee Harvey Oswald, a minimum-wage warehouse worker who was employed by the Book Depository Company. And while it's true that Brennan did not immediately identify Oswald in a police line-up on 11/22/63, it is also true that Mr. Brennan's initial description of the assassin that he gave to the police (and in his November 22nd sworn affidavit as well) was certainly a general description that would not have EXCLUDED Lee Oswald...... "He was a white man in his early 30s, slender, nice looking, slender and would weigh about 165 to 175 pounds." -- Howard L. Brennan; November 22, 1963 And when Brennan testified in front of the Warren Commission in 1964, he added a height estimate...... "To my best description, a man in his early thirties, fair complexion, slender but neat, neat slender, possibly 5-foot-10, from 160 to 170 pounds." -- Howard L. Brennan; 1964 Sure, Brennan's first description of the assassin was not a perfect description of Oswald. But it was also an eyewitness picture that does not exonerate Oswald either. It's a description that "fits" Oswald in a general sense -- a slender, fairly-young white man. In fact, given the relatively-brief glimpse that Brennan had of the gunman, his description actually matches Oswald fairly well in most crucial respects. Because..... 1.) Oswald was a "white man". 2.) Oswald had a "fair complexion". 3.) Oswald was "slender". 4.) Oswald was 5'9" tall (so Brennan was off by just 1 inch here). 5.) Oswald was 24 years old (but, IMO, he looked older than 24). 6.) Oswald weighed an "estimated 150 pounds" (per his 11/24/63 autopsy report). So, either one of Brennan's weight estimates wasn't too far off either. And when Brennan's initial description of the assassin is coupled with his later positive identification of Lee Oswald as the gunman -- and then is added to the very large batch of additional physical and circumstantial evidence which shows Oswald to be guilty of killing President Kennedy (and policeman J.D. Tippit too) -- it becomes quite clear that the man who owned that rifle found on the Depository's 6th Floor (a Mr. Lee H. Oswald) was the same man who was shooting at President Kennedy on 11/22/63. Given all the evidence in the case that corroborates Brennan's being RIGHT when he identified Oswald as the TSBD sniper, the odds that Brennan actually saw someone OTHER than Lee Harvey Oswald in that window are extremely remote....to virtually non-existent. And to the conspiracy theorists who think Brennan was lying when he positively fingered Oswald after initially not being willing to do that, I'd like to now submit a courtroom-like imitation of author and former prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, who is a man who said this in 1986 when speaking of the JFK assassination: "Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the assassination of President Kennedy. The evidence is absolutely overwhelming that he carried out the tragic shooting all by himself. In fact, you could throw 80% of the evidence against him out the window and there would still be more than enough left to convince any reasonable person of his sole role in the crime." -- Vincent T. Bugliosi ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [Vince Bugliosi "Mock Final Summation" courtroom imitation turned on].... "Why didn't Howard L. Brennan positively identify Lee Harvey Oswald on the day of the assassination, you ask? The reason for that, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is a reason that Mr. Brennan forthrightly gave in his Warren Commission testimony and in a separate sworn affidavit, dated May the 7th of 1964, wherein Mr. Brennan said, and I quote, "I felt that my family could be in danger, and I, myself, might {be} in danger". Unquote. Howard Brennan, therefore, did not provide a positive I.D. of Lee Oswald on November the 22nd, 1963, NOT because he didn't recognize Oswald as the sniper in the Depository window....but, instead, because he feared for his life, ladies and gentlemen of the jury! That's why! And who among the twelve men and women seated in this jury box today could honestly say that you, yourself, wouldn't have reacted the exact same way as Mr. Brennan with respect to witnessing the murder of the President? And fearing you might be the ONLY witness who was able to say with a good deal of certainty that this man sitting at that defense table, Lee Harvey Oswald, was the killer of our nation's President, you clam up...but not out of indecisiveness...but, instead, out of fear and concern for yourself and your family. Because, ladies and gentlemen, if it HAD been out of indecisiveness on Mr. Brennan's part as to whether he could or could not have identified the defendant, Lee Harvey Oswald, as the President's assassin -- then WHY did Mr. Brennan swear before Almighty God during his Warren Commission testimony that he COULD positively identify this defendant as the President's assassin?! Why would Mr. Brennan put himself through that ordeal if it were not the TRUTH?! In other words, why didn't Howard Brennan just simply take the easy way out? He could have done so...very easily. He could have just kept his mouth shut and refused to positively identify the defendant as the person he saw firing a rifle from that sixth-floor window. But he did NOT do that, ladies and gentlemen! And the reason he did not do that is because he's an honest man, with integrity. And he KNEW he had to come forward with this ultra-important information regarding the murderer of President Kennedy -- even though he KNEW he would probably be hounded by the critics for the rest of his life! He still felt it important enough to come forward and tell the truth about who he saw point that gun at the President on November the twenty-second, 1963. And he felt it was important enough to swear out a second official affidavit in May of 1964, wherein he repeated his reasons for why he had not initially positively identified the defendant as the President's assassin. Did he HAVE to do those things, ladies and gentlemen?! The answer to that question is an unequivocal 'No'! He didn't have a gun to his own head, being FORCED to positively identify Lee Oswald as JFK's murderer. And this defense team is 100% wrong when they attempt to spoon-feed you the ridiculously-absurd lie that Mr. Brennan WAS somehow being FORCED to twist his story into a convenient "Oswald's Guilty" tale of deception. And this unscrupulous defense team sitting at that counsel table across this courtroom is also 100% wrong when they also assert the alternative notion that Mr. Brennan deliberately lied when he told the Warren Commission on March 24th, 1964, that he HAD, in fact, been able to identify Lee Oswald as the man in the Sniper's window! And this defense team has absolutely no proof to back up the despicable allegation that Mr. Brennan would have done such a vile, rotten thing as to intentionally give known-to-be-false information regarding the investigation into the murder of the President of the United States! These defense attorneys should be ashamed of themselves for even suggesting such a thing to you folks here in open court! Because there is not a shred of verifiable proof to back up the idea that Mr. Brennan is anything but what he appeared to be on that witness stand -- and that is an honest citizen of these United States, who came forth with THE TRUTH concerning the man he saw shoot the President .... even when he didn't have to come forth and tell that truth. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen." ....[/V.B. mode off] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A large percentage of the American population firmly believes that a vast conspiracy of some sort was afoot in Dealey Plaza in November 1963 when JFK was murdered. And most of these people also believe that multiple guns were used to assassinate America's 35th President. Those conspiracy believers have "faith" in their belief that a conspiracy took place in Dallas in '63. But there's one not-so-little thing they do not have, and never did -- and that's the raw PHYSICAL EVIDENCE to back up the conspiracy theories that they place their faith in. All of the ballistics evidence in the John F. Kennedy murder case spells "Lee Oswald Was A Presidential Assassin", because every scrap of "bullet" evidence in the case can either be conclusively traced to Oswald's very own Mannlicher-Carcano rifle (#C2766), or is bullet evidence that is consistent with coming from Oswald's rifle. I'd then ask any "CTer" this question -- What are the odds of the above occurring if President Kennedy had, in fact, actually been struck by bullets from one or more additional... Read more ›
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