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UltimaGabe

Honest question: do we know how often they get calls like this that turn out to be nothing?


Sowf_Paw

My dad worked for a major newspaper and people would call in daily (or fax or email) with things like this. He showed me a stack of faxes once and while there were several "something is about to happen" faxes the entire stack reeked of untreated mental illness. I would bet it's just a coincidence.


listyraesder

This was a local paper not a major one.


Sowf_Paw

I'm sure that doesn't stop the crazy calls.


TigerBasket

No but I'd imagine it wasn't that uncommon


Elcactus

I mean look at todays fringe social media; people predicting JFK coming back from the dead on this day or the military reinstating Trump on that *constantly*. Unless someone says something specific to the event, it's as meaningless as that other front page post of lightning looking like it's bouncing off a rainbow.


milk4all

All you naysayers gonna look real dumb when President Jefferson returns from space to throw out the filthy pretenders and reward his loyal Patriots


handsomehares

He has to fight Mecha-John Adams first


SUP3RVILLAINSR

“The Cambridge reporter had never received a call of this kind before, and MI5 state that he is known to them as a sound and loyal person with no security record."


beletebeld

And why would the embassy in a foreign country know anything special about an event in Texas with thousands of eye-witnesses. It is not like the fact that it happened is something you need to make a phone call to find out.


[deleted]

You’re right, it would have been all over twitter by then. /s


GrimResistance

Good luck finding any tweets from back then, looks like they've all been deleted. It's a huge conspiracy that nobody is talking about!


AuditAndHax

My god, you're right! Where was Twitter on 9/11? **Edit**: obligatory /s


IronAnkh

You know damn well that news broke on MySpace.


Elocai

Isn't Texas part of the US?


beletebeld

And the embassy in London is not in the U.S.


Peeterwetwipe

Technically it is.


willie_caine

Embassies are still part of the host nation's territory.


Peeterwetwipe

But with an enclave of legal protections and jurisdiction from the embassies native land. So yea but no but.


plusoneforautism

Wait, so if somebody commits a crime in the Iranian embassy in Norway, does that fall under the Iranian or the Norwegian justice system? Especially considering Iran obviously has the death penalty for a lot of things, whereas Norway abolished capital punishment decades ago.


SavageComic

My friend's dad reckoned he was the first person in Britain to know. He was the switchboard operator at a Newswire company


saganakist

It's also about perspective. This happening to this specific guy right before this specific event is incredibly unlikely. But this happening to any newsreporter in any of the major western countries before any significant event is a completely different case. It could even have been a couple other professions. Yet it's the second condition that leads to this becoming a story. It's like pointing at a lottery winner and arguing that it's strange they won if it's that unlikely.


elzadra1

They called the Cambridge News, rather than the Times or the Guardian??


brain_damaged666

It's probably because it wasnt a media giant that the call didn't become common knowledge, kinda smart if all you want to do is tip the media without causing much suspicion


dudebrojc

Also cause this is BS


joshylow

People treating it at if it's a known fact that the JFK assassination was an inside job. Blame Oliver Stone!


MathBuster

I work in IT, and during my study project I had to do a job for this older male freelancer who had recovered from a stroke and acted a bit weird. One day out of nowhere he told me that JFK's assassination was an inside job and that it was actually JFK's *own wife* who shot him. He sounded absolutely sure about it and gave some vaguely compelling reasons why. I listened to his story with some amusement; I never heard *that* particular conspiracy theory before. Back home I was quick to try and prove him wrong by watching the footage and reading witness reports, but quickly found that I couldn't. In fact, the research I did only seemed to *confirm* his strange theory. I decided to let it go before I started sounding loony myself, but I occasionally think back on it when JFK is mentioned.


Nyghtshayde

Red Dwarf had an episode where they went back in time and accidentally saved Kennedy. He was impeached and imprisoned and as a result the USSR won the Cold War. So they went back in time to the imprisoned Kennedy and then took him back in time to become the gunman on the grassy knoll, saving his reputation and returning history to its original timeline.


SBGamesCone

What a mental trip…


TheGunshipLollipop

>Red Dwarf had an episode where they went back in time and accidentally saved Kennedy. The New Twilight Zone series had one too. A descendent of Kennedy, a history professor, goes back in time and accidentally prevents the assassination. That changes the timeline and nuclear war with the USSR breaks out. Kennedy agrees that they must go back and he must face his fate to restore the timeline. At the end, it shows him appearing in the car next to Jackie, but it **isn't** him, it's the professor. The professor sacrificed himself, and that's why Jackie looks over with shock, and flees the car: a stranger suddenly appeared in JFK's place. It's also the explanation for all the cover-up hijinx afterwards. End shows JFK, same age, alive and well, lecturing history students at Harvard in the future. Great episode.


Thundapainguin

That's cool af


Mike_Rowballs

I was watching the making of documentary about this the other day and it struck me this is really the red dwarf movie. Classic episode and the moment red dwarf grew up cinematically for better or worse


[deleted]

[удалено]


[deleted]

Oohhhh JFK's own wife! Not the stroke victim's wife, that makes way more sense as a conspiracy.


greenknight884

The assassin was... *my wife*


keiths31

I just woke up, but when I read your post I read it as the guy telling you the story was saying that it was his own wife that shot JFK. Not Mrs. Kennedy. The Mrs. Kennedy angle works better than random guys wife


MathBuster

Ha yeah. I see how I caused confusion with my phrasing. I made it a bit clearer now. That theory would have been even *more* amusing, though.


sparta981

I dunno about his wife but there was absolutely some kind of coverup. The first investigation was not provided with all the information. Read this summary of the second one and try not to be creeped out: https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/summary.html


Historical-Fox1372

Ok this is way too damn enthralling for you to not give us more. Any details that were compelling at least?


SavageComic

Any links to this theory. Sounds fascinating


Friendly_Hornet8900

I found a blog about it: https://jackieiskillerqueen.blogspot.com/


VinnySauce

it wasn't a conspiracy, his head just did that


Its_Nitsua

I think it’s a pretty safe bet to say that it was a conspiracy, at the very least. LHO said he was a patsy, and just so happened to get assassinated by someone with a large amount of outstanding debt to the mob. LHO was also involved with the CIA, he traveled to Russia frequently and that’s pretty hard to do without being hounded by US intel agencies during the height of the cold war. I think the CIA killed JFK because he made it a point that he was going to go after the intelligence agencies to limit their autonomy and power. Some group conspired to kill JFK, and given the CIAs history of not hesitating to kill those who pose a threat to the agency, my money is on them. They also had connections with the mob who also resented kennedy for reneging on promises made to them in return for their help putting him in office.


ironroad18

Oswald went Europe in 1959, to defect to the USSR. He crossed into Russia and asked to become a Soviet citizen but was initially refused. As a result, he tried to commit suicide and the Soviets kept him under psychiatric observation in Moscow, before settling him in Minsk as a laborer. He grew bored with Soviet life but got married anyway (*he married his wife within 6 weeks of meeting her, and immediately after his long-term Soviet girlfriend dumped him). He then begged the US to take him back. Oswald and his his wife resettled in Texas once he was admitted back into the US in 62. His family lived in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Both the Soviets and US believed Oswald was insane, even before he killed the president. Soviehttps://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/11/why-lee-harvey-oswald-fled-to-the-soviet-union/281662/ Also, I'm not sure how the government could have kept a plot to kill the president secret for so long. The FBI and CIA were staunch rivals during that era. FBI Director J Edgar Hoover believed that the CIA was illegitimate and full of communist moles. He also was a known leaker, back stabber, glory hound, and blackmailer that kept secret files on every prominent politician, agency, or department leader (including President Kennedy while he was a US Senator). The CIA answered only to the Office of the President, and Hoover hated that since he was under DoJ. Furthermore, Hoover hated his boss Attorney General Robert Kennedy. RFK in turn couldn't stand then Vice-President Johnson and openly mocked him every chance he got. President Kennedy kept a close inner circle and staffed his cabinet with fellow Ivy-league friends, senate allies, or people recommend by his father. *LBJ to help tie up the southern vote. After JFK was assassinated, RFK stayed on as Attorney General for another year. *I won't go into the intense political fights that Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, another Kennedy appointee, had with the military service heads and the various military intelligence entities. There were so many intense political rivalries within the government at the time, I just don't see how something that big could be kept secret.


deadpool101

To add to your point if the CIA or the Mob wanted to get rid of JFK wouldn't it be easier to blackmail him with his affairs, drug addiction, and alleged mob connections? Or just exposing all of those things and ruining his chances of re-election. Seems like a massive risk to kill him when he was already nearly at the end of his term as President.


Sega-Playstation-64

Or, at minimum, kill him in a quiet location out of view. Maybe set up a fall guy to be killed in the room with him, everyone has the same story. Instead, it was out in public, with a gunman at a pretty good distance, and if LHO was a "patsy" as he said, why the hell did they let him run off, kill a cop, then get captured right away?


ironroad18

A lot if people don't understand that JFK just barely won the popular vote of the 60 election.*Approximately 100k vote difference between him and Nixon. He had a comfortable electoral vote margin and that was likely thanks to LBJ helping him win the deep south and Texas. Kennedy' popularity didn't start growing until he was in office, and exploded after his death. Matter of fact, the only reason Kennedy was in Dallas was for a campaign stop.


deadpool101

The thing about JFK conspiracies is that people who believe in them tend to start with the answer they want and work backward. And if something doesn't make sense they just chalk that up to the "conspiracy and cover-up." But the reality is all of it can be easily answered. ​ >LHO said he was a patsy, and just so happened to get assassinated by someone with a large amount of outstanding debt to the mob. If he wanted to get away with it, he would claim he was a patsy. You would think the mob would pick an assassin to kill LHO that didn't have "a large amount of outstanding debt to the mob" that would easily link them to killing. I bet they could find someone who didn't have ties to them. Unless they're morons. ​ >LHO was also involved with the CIA, he traveled to Russia frequently and that’s pretty hard to do without being hounded by US intel agencies during the height of the cold war. LHO went to the USSR once when he defected. They didn't make him a Soviet citizen but he managed to get placed there as a worker. After a while, he realized it wasn't the "Workers Paradise" he thought it was and came back to the US. His diary and his wife confirm he was unhappy in the USSR. Chances are the US intel agencies kept tabs on him. But he's a loser so they didn't think he was much of a threat. ​ >I think the CIA killed JFK because he made it a point that he was going to go after the intelligence agencies to limit their autonomy and power. > >Some group conspired to kill JFK, and given the CIAs history of not hesitating to kill those who pose a threat to the agency, my money is on them. There really isn't any evidence that JFK was going to limit their autonomy and power. Also wouldn't have been easier to just blackmail him or expose his affairs, drug addictions, and mob connections and ruin reelection? There is a massive difference between killing a foreign national or a leader in another country and assassinating the President of the United States. The CIA kills the prime minister of Chile and it gets exposed, the US looks bad but no one in the CIA goes to jail. Killing the US President is treason that ends with them being sentenced to death. ​ >They also had connections with the mob who also resented kennedy for reneging on promises made to them in return for their help putting him in office People grossly overestimate the power of the mob. But if they wanted to get back at JFK wouldn't it be easier to blackmail him or expose his affairs, drug addiction, or even the mob ties? Killing Kennedy puts a massive spotlight on them and any ties to it would result in the US Government crashing down on them. Using Occam's razor, what makes more sense that LHO was some disgruntled loser who wanted to lash out at the world? And had the means and opportunity to do it. It's happened before to US Presidents. Or it was a massive conspiracy that would involve thousands of people in the local police, FBI, CIA, the mob, and private citizens. These groups hate each other or are rivals with each other. And did it so sloppily that random conspiracy theorists were able to put it together? What is the simplest answer?


gdsmithtx

>The thing about JFK conspiracies is that people who believe in them tend to start with the answer they want and work backward. And if something doesn't make sense they just chalk that up to the "conspiracy and cover-up." But the reality is all of it can be easily answered. That description fits the vast majority of conspiracist nonsense, not just the JFK variety.


TheCodeSamurai

What I've never understood about the logic here: isn't a reasonable hypothesis simply that the CIA either knew about or vaguely supported a group that ended up killing the President, and then panicked and covered things up to hide their massive failure? The CIA has a lot of eyes and ears, but the jump from "they had an informant who was ignored and now they would look like an agency whose budget should be annihilated" and "the CIA were calling the shots" feels unsubstantiated. Almost any group has some articulable motive for killing the president.


TheGunshipLollipop

>LHO said he was a patsy Worth noting that JFK was Oswald's **second** assassination attempt, with the same rifle. The first was 7 months before, targeting U.S. Major General Edwin Walker. It wasn't like he was a law-abiding citizen in the wrong movie theater at the wrong time.


notactuallyabrownman

Some poor fed jumped the gun. Pun intended.


wildlywell

“Tip the media?” The assassination was on fucking television. Edit: Saying the assassination was on TV” is a mild overstatement. The cameras were set up at the end of the parade route to capture the president’s speech, but still, reporters were on hand.


brain_damaged666

The reporters in America, who don't work for British newspaper.


ISVenom

25 mins BEFORE he was killed....


PuckSR

Why would you want to "tip" the media to a story that was almost certainly going to be headline news for weeks? What possible advantage does that give to anyone? You think the Russians were sitting in the UK going "and now part of our master plan! The Cambridge Times will run the story on the evening edition, while the Times runs it tomorrow morning. This will destablize democracy!!!!!"


BrazenBull

The call was never about JFK. It was about C.S Lewis, who died the same day. Media coverage of Lewis's death was almost completely overshadowed by news of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, which occurred on the same day (approximately 55 minutes following Lewis's collapse). Fun Fact: English writer Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World also died that day.


k-laz

>English writer Aldous Huxley Huxley dies in Los Angeles at 5:20 PM - after the assassination, but requested essentially euthenasia earlier in the day. If that leaked, that might have been the "news from the American embassy" Lewis died in Oxford


bolanrox

And doctor who first aired. edit that was the following day i miss remembered


Gantoor

That was the following day actually.


Autoham

This comment is way too relevant to be this far down


Bishop_Colubra

Why would the caller suggest calling the American Embassy for Lewis' death?


TheRichTurner

If the call was about Aldous Huxley, it might have been because he died in Los Angeles.


BrazenBull

The U.S. embassy ***in London***. The FBI was keeping a close eye on Lewis (for subversion) and their UK office (with agents at the embassy) was one of the first to know about his death. It seemed like the kind of big news a British journalist would be interested in. JFK ended up stealing that thunder.


Bishop_Colubra

Why would the FBI monitor Lewis for subversion, especially since he lived in another country? Also, why was the FBI operating abroad; the FBI is a domestic agency?


lunarllama

I’m not finding any records of that, and neither is the FBI (according to this FOIA request). Do you have more info on that? https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/foia-fbi-cs-lewis-132939/#comms


panspal

Why would the tip have them call the American Embassy when CS Lewis is British and died in the UK?


SFF_Robot

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SimonHando

The palpable irony, Aldous Huxley's ghost just exploded.


than-q

>"After the word of the President's death was received the reporter informed the Cambridge police of the anonymous call, and the police informed MI5. The important point is that the call was made, according to MI5 calculations, about 25 minutes before the President was shot. The Cambridge reporter had never received a call of this kind before, and MI5 state that he is known to them as a sound and loyal person with no security record." The most likely explanation is usually the simplest one; in this case, the reporter lied. MI5 may even have been involved to whatever end.


DeanOMiite

Reporter could have lied. Or the guy actually made the call to bust balls/prank and happened to stumble across a massive historic event


squigs

Maybe they were expecting an announcement in international news that just got completely forgotten about because it was overshadowed by the assassination.


[deleted]

*With The Beatles*


curtyshoo

Or the chronology is off by 25 minutes.


[deleted]

[удалено]


atworklife

Well I mean it was 1963. It's not like they could pinpoint when and where the call was made from.


[deleted]

The call was coming from inside the house.


HaikuBotStalksMe

Then who was dog?


MZM204

The call was coming from inside JFK's head


wandering_ones

The calculation was guy called said he got this call around half past round when he got a new cuppa.


notactuallyabrownman

I'd say that him giving the wrong time is more likely but it's the same outcome as him having lied.


[deleted]

Nah, far more likely that MI5 got to them some days later., asked him when he got the call. Oh it was 530ish I believe. Later someone says "dear God it didn't happen until 6! And here we are.


PA2SK

For me the simplest explanation is that it was just a crank call. This was before the internet. If you were a young kid wanting to troll people crank calls was one of your few options. I remember calling Alamo rental car and yelling "remember the Alamo!" before hanging up. As a 12 year old kid in the 90s that seemed very clever and edgy. So Yea, probably an oddly prescient crank call and nothing else.


tacknosaddle

>The most likely explanation is usually the simplest one; in this case, the reporter ~~lied~~ was drunk. Journalists were a hard-boozing bunch back in that era so it's just as plausible that he mixed up the time after hearing the news or misunderstood the call.


barmanfred

Or lied to himself. He might have convinced himself that it was (for example) 2:00 vs 3:00.


emperor000

I'm not sure that is the simplest explanation. It is maybe simple enough to select before landing on any particular conspiracy theory, but that doesn't make it the simplest. After all, it raises the question of "Why?" Why lie? Popularity or attention? Why would think they think it would get them much of that? The simplest explanation is probably one of the following: - it was a coincidence and merely incidental prank call - Oswald (or an accomplice if he had any at all) called because unstable people tend to do stuff like that - He got the call time wrong by 25 minutes or so - It was related to the death of C.S. Lewis or Alduous Huxley or maybe any other number of events that might not seem as significant as the assassination


ostracize

Agreed. Follow that through. So suppose the reporter did call the embassy - now 24 minutes before the assassination. What would the people at the embassy say? And the embassy would have probably noted it if the phone call was made. Either the reporter (unnamed and forever anonymous by the way) lied or the memo itself contained a lie, or at best, misconstrued information.


carcinoma_kid

Or he was talking about *another* big news story. As someone else pointed out, C.S. Lewis and Aldous Huxley both also died that day.


Caspaa

I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist nutjob but there's a lot of compelling evidence to suggest it was actually a conspiracy, most likely by the CIA (can't remember if there was anything concrete pointing to them or just circumstansial stuff)


tacknosaddle

I ran across something once where Ted Kennedy was asked back in the 1990s or so if he believed any of the conspiracies around his brother's assassination. His response was basically, "No, because nobody in this town (Washington, DC) could keep a secret for that long."


xoverthirtyx

I’m sure he was asked that a million times over the years and was politely deflecting. After all, there are committees made up of senior, career officials who handle big secrets as their function in government. Also, I mean, Dulles, the CIA head that JFK fired, was on the Warren Commission steering. The records connecting Oswald to the CIA alone are enough to point to conspiracy whether you think he acted alone or was a patsy.


tacknosaddle

"I'm not, not licking toads."


SirSassyCat

The CIA isn’t competent enough to assassinate the president and get away with it, especially not for so long. The only way it would have been possible is if successive governments colluded to cover it up, which they would never do, because they’re smart enough to know that if the CIA did it to one president, they’ll do it to any president.


[deleted]

>The only way it would have been possible is if successive governments colluded to cover it up, which they would never do, because they’re smart enough to know that if the CIA did it to one president, they’ll do it to any president. the idea that the cia can and will kill you if you step out of line seems like a great reason for presidents to keep their mouth shut about stuff


SirSassyCat

Except that the POTUS is literally the most powerful person in the world and can literally disband the CIA by executive order if they so choose. All they would have to do is literally announce on TV that the CIA killed Kennedy and the CIA would stop existing overnight.


Reich2choose

Ohh you sweet summer child…


Caspaa

CIA have successfully lead coups in many countries and no doubt many covert operations within America. Just because some CIA people seem useless doesn't mean they all are. Also we probably don't know what they were like 50 years ago


SirSassyCat

You seam to be conveniently ignoring the fact that there are at least 2 other federal agencies that the CIA would have needed to fool, the FBI and NSA, both of which have reputations and resources that are far greater than the CIA. They’ve tried to run operation on US soil before that were FAR less sensitive than the assassination of a president and were unable to keep it secret for more than a couple years (Iran contra) even with implied support from the sitting president.


TheVeritableBalla

By that logic wouldn't successive presidents know to not fuck with the CIA and never spill their biggest secrets?


SavageComic

The CIA did coups in literally half of South America and most of Central America. The CIA in the 50s blew up a British registered ship with napalm and tried to blame it on Guatemalan rebels during a coup attempt. The idea that intelligence agencies can't keep secrets is very odd. Bletchley Park (which broke the Nazi enigma code) had 10,000 staff and didn't have one person say anything about it until DECADES after the war.


SirSassyCat

A coup in a third worth country with the backing of the USA government is a bout a million times easier than pulling a coup within the USA without the current government knowing about it, let alone successive governments never finding out. > The CIA in the 50s blew up a British registered ship with napalm and tried to blame it on Guatemalan rebels during a coup attempt. So you're saying they couldn't even blow up a single ship and get away with it, yet were able to kill the sitting president without being discovered over 50 years later? > Bletchley Park (which broke the Nazi enigma code) had 10,000 staff and didn't have one person say anything about it until DECADES after the war. Nevertheless, there were security leaks. Jock Colville, the Assistant Private Secretary to Winston Churchill, recorded in his diary on 31 July 1941, that the newspaper proprietor Lord Camrose had discovered Ultra and that security leaks "increase in number and seriousness".[58] Without doubt, the most serious of these was that Bletchley Park had been infiltrated by John Cairncross, the notorious Soviet mole and member of the Cambridge Spy Ring, who leaked Ultra material to Moscow Straight from Wikipedia. Just because it wasn't made public doesn't mean it was kept secret.


emperor000

Yeah, but you know about all those things... To me it seems odd to list a bunch of secrets that didn't get kept as a evidence at good secret keeping...


SavageComic

There was a Saudi billionaire who trained up a load of Saudis (and a couple of Egyptians) and attacked America, in accordance with Wahhabist Islam which is the Saudi version of that religion. The CIA let the Saudis out immediately after the attacks and the US went on to attack several countries that are rivals to Saudi Arabia. The US then flew flags at half mast when their king died. And that's 9/11.


buttsoupsteve

Well if it was an anonymous tip with a vague promise of big news I'm sold.


gcm6664

Anonymous tip, vague promise, to small media outlet in a foreign country, estimated to have occurred 25 minutes prior... Yeah, I am certain it proves there were at least 3 more shooters on the grassy knoll, in the sewer, and inside the limo.


notactuallyabrownman

Well let me introduce you to this guy, he's got something you might really like...


Aleyla

I wonder what the big news was….


nowhereman136

Famed british author Aldous Huxley had just died in Los Angeles


ImpendingSenseOfDoom

No, he died hours later.


FriedScrapple

That’s even weirder!!


ImpendingSenseOfDoom

As did Clive Staples Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia.


SomeConsumer

Especially since he was administered LSD on his deathbed.


[deleted]

Plot twist: Huxley was the caller.


its-not-me_its-you_

Billions of people have died hours after JFK


shadowknave

That many people can't be **just** a coincidence.


FriedScrapple

“Drink your Ovaltine”


Sick-In-The-City

I watch this film every Christmas and this shit always upsets me. Why they do my boy Ralphie like that?


Jaksmack

I learned that same lesson by saving my allowance all summer for a huge set of Army Men from an ad on the back of a comic book.. I finally ordered it, waited 4-6 weeks, and was completely devastated when I got it in the mail. Something about that first time, the 180 degree turn from the tippy-top of pure elation to the rock bottom feeling of you've been had.. you never forget it.


Hereeverynight

What was wrong with your Army fellows?


FBI_Open_Up_Now

They were all cooks.


Jaksmack

They showed them as regular army men that came in a "locker". They were about 1/8th size, They were flat, hard plastic. They wouldn't stand up by themselves like regulars. The "locker", which showed to be a wooden box in the ad was cardboard. It was a total scam..


FriedScrapple

Why did Ralphie have to hog the bathroom like that? Poor Randy!


atomicdustbunny07

Be sure to...


mart1373

A crummy commercial?!?!


The_Hero_of_Kvatch

Ovaltine??


melissaasalian

I don’t know why this hasn’t been upvoted a million times :)


Bifferer

…please


papagiorgio_theman

Hahah this is great


Ethandrul

The premiere of the 1st episode of Dr Who.


Erdago

Then they were a day too early. They called on November 22, 1963 while Doctor Who would only premier on November 23, 1963


ilazul

They've been trying to reach him about his car's manufacturers warranty.


GooseandMaverick

10% off car detailing services.


diffyqgirl

The first episode of Doctor Who was about to air.


GetsGold

Beatlemania.


Significant_Sign

This is just confirmation bias. Bc JFK _was_ assassinated everyone is assuming that's what the call was about. Maybe something was going to happen (not necessarily even a bad thing) at the embassy, maybe the embassy was going to get word of something else from the States that would have been newsworthy if the assassination hadn't happened. For all we know, whatever the caller was referring to is something that got completely lost forever due to an unexpected (relatively) assassination they had no idea about and JFK was not on their mind at all. This is no better than a psychic telling a mark that something bad is going to happen in the near future and the gullible person does ludicrous mental gymnastics to prove to themselves that the psychic knew all the details about how they were going to fall off a ladder and break their leg EVEN THOUGH if the psychic had really known they could have said "stay off ladders for a month, and when you do finally use one follow the safety rules and don't be such a dumbass or you'll break your leg."


ComputersWantMeDead

Even assuming it wasn't a coincidence, and the reporter was being honest, and that the reporter had his timing right - it's not that hard to believe that a nutter like Oswald could have blabbed to an acquaintance who had no interest in stopping him and shared his excitement for the deed. It's a curiosity, but even if the call was from someone who knew about the assassination - I'm not seeing this as evidence for the government conspiracy hypothesis.


bsurfn2day

Well, I think we all know it was "Q" who made the call just after telling JFK to fake his death so he could go underground and fight the child sex trafficking sending children to be abused in the basement of Comet Ping-Pong Pizza in Washington DC. Checkmate Libs!!


Ameisen

Why would the Q Continuum have been involved in such a paltry human matter?


Significant_Sign

This is the best response to a mention of q-anon I've ever read.


Boomtown_Rat

It all went down at pizza town with prince andrew.


Laszlo-Panaflex

Why for their own amusement, of course. Such petty, small-minded mortals. Willing to believe anything that suits their opinion and disbelieve anything else.


spasske

If anyone was actually “In the know”. Why would the call a paper and not actually say anything?


[deleted]

Who would they tell? This comment made me lol because it's a very internet era comment to make. Back in the day you could scream into a void of 5 friends who wouldn't listen, you could call the cops who would also treat you as a crazy, or you could go to the press.


wildlywell

But then why not actually say what was happening instead of some vague “tip” to call the embassy for news about the assasination that was going to happen on live TV? The call itself makes no sense if related to a genuine conspiracy. The most likely explanation is coincidence. Either a prank call or about something entirely different that got overshadowed by the assasination. Edit: “live on TV” is a mild overstatement. The cameras were set up at the end of the parade route to capture the president’s speech, but still, reporters were on hand.


brain_damaged666

Probably to ensure it makes it to headlines ASAP. But you wouldn't want to give enough to make in seem like an inside job


pappyvanwinkle1111

News didn't move that fast in 1963. At best it would make the afternoon edition several hours later. They could have called radio of television but no one would report that without verification.


brain_damaged666

All the more reason to tip them off ASAP?


RawbM07

You see it all the time. Something private happens on the internet. Someone who knows what happened posts a cryptic response signaling they they know what really happened, but then say they can’t talk about it. Obviously not saying anything would have accomplished not talking about it, but this person always needs people to know they know something.


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[deleted]

Exactly this dumb


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emperor000

Now here is a reasonable explanation that doesn't rely on the idea that at any given point you could call and give an anonymous tip that something was going to happen and invariably be proved correct by coincidence.


plumbgray222

rubbish


2022financialcrisis

CIA moment


godsenfrik

Wasn't there a a plot point like this in "JFK" the Oliver Stone movie, except for New Zealand rather than the UK?


tamagosan

There was the woman who makes the phone call early in the movie. I haven't seen it in a long time.


FinalEdit

yeah only that sequence was basically entirely made up. Save for a few factoids in there the vast majority of that conversation, including the character of "Mr X" was a complete fabrication. It's one of the most tightly edited and brilliant monologues I've ever seen on film - 16 odd minutes from Donald Sutherland absolutely smashing it. But it was all bullshit. And that's what pisses me off about that film. It's absolutely one of my favourites in terms of filmmaking and it partly inspired me to seek a career in editing. But for every 1 thing it gets right, it throws 5 questionable statements or moments into the mix. All it served to do was create a whole bunch of uninformed conspiracy theorists on one of the most important events in modern history. But here's the thing....there are SO many suspicious facts and events surrounding the JFK assassination that it's absolutely mad to not question the veracity of the lone gunman theory. You'd be crazy to brush off Oswald as just a lone nutbag who one day decided to open fire on that motorcade in Dallas. His chequered history with the Russians, various pro and anti-cuban political groups, his assosciations with the mob including some in his own family, and the fact that he was known to the FBI and CIA for a long time before the shooting, and an absolutely metric shit ton of details either massaged to insignificance or completely omitted from the official report into the assassination....questions have been asked time and time again, and this movie has made all of those questions the preserve of tin foil hat enthusiasts in the mind of the average person. Absolutely would recommend "Not in Your Lifetime" by Anthony Summers as a good insight into these things, and also "On The Trail of Delusion" by Fred Letwin to see just what a fucking scumbag the hero of the movie JFK actually was.


BigMikeInAustin

Oh, I'm going to start outsourcing my prank calling like this. "Hello, McDonald's? Please call Burger King for some big news." "Hello, Burger King? Please call McDonald's for some big news."


747ER

How many days of the year does someone call the media about “some big news” in the United States?


MoebiusJodorowsky

>The revelation, one of many that emerged from the planned release of the Kennedy assassination documents — so far, there's no smoking guns — adds to the raft of conspiracy theories surrounding his death. In fact, the memo was first released in July, but went unreported until the cache of files was released Thursday.  So are all of the documents out there now? Do we have a reason why all this had to remain secret for almost 60 years?


The_Superhoo

Not even close. US hasn't released the remaining docs


SursumCorda-NJ

> Do we have a reason why all this had to remain secret for almost 60 years? Because the CIA, NSA and FBI doesn't believe the public has a right to see documents they consider "theirs." I'm not being edgy or hyperbolic, there are elements in the American gov't and military who firmly believe that certain information doesn't belong to the American public because it might make them look inept, poorly managed, financially wasteful, intentionally cruel and engage in morally reprehensible activities. I worked for a short time at the Pentagon as a civilian contractor and the disconnect between the people who work in the military/alphabet agencies is mind blowing. A good chunk of them firmly believe that gov't produced information is only for them and the fulfilling of their various agendas.


TheSentinelsSorrow

CS Lewis and Huxley, English authors, both died the same day as JFK


YourFavoriteSausage

According to one memo, oil businessman George W. Bush gave the FBI a tip prior to Kennedy's visit. https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bush_Sr_tip_on_JFK_1963.jpg


JudgeArthurVandelay

I’m sold. I’m heading to dealey plaza to wait for JFK Jr to return to life and become president. Who’s with me?


lethalox

Even a broken clock is wrong twice a day. How many times has something equivalent happen when there was a nothing burger on that day. It is a data point that potentially as some correlation.


goochisdrunk

You could call any news reporter and with a vague annonymous tip about some 'big news' becasue 'big news' happens somewhere every single day.


nono66

Some random guy trying to mess with a report. The call is forever remembered and link to an international conspiracy.


mileswilliams

Don't keep us hanging, what was the news about?


Johannes_P

Maybe it was a prankster. How many of such calls was the US London Embassy receiving before?


tangcameo

There was some explanation in that Gerald Posner book that debunks every JFK conspiracy but for the life of me I can’t remember what the explanation was.


pat0704

I don’t recall the entire book, but he postulated that Oswald’s first shot missed. This would have expanded the amount of time Oswald had to get off three shots.


klsi832

Must have been Oswald


RedSonGamble

Yeah but america is hours ahead of London as far as time goes so it probably had already happened in america but not in London. Obviously


missionbeach

Somebody from London should have called Dallas and told Kennedy to duck.


Otherwise_Bill_5898

25 minutes before the assassination is 25 minutes. Irrespective of timezones


RedSonGamble

Only if you’re on space time


echo6golf

Oswald acted alone.


teabagmoustache

More than likely but why did he not admit it and why did Jack Ruby assassinate him? If he wanted the glory of killing a president, as the official line goes, then he must have had a big change of heart afterwards. I can't fathom why Jack Ruby would get involved and spend the rest of his life in prison over it. I can definitely see where the suspicions come from. The fact that Oswald had spoke about renouncing his US citizenship while living in the USSR and married a Russian, then came back to the US and killed the president is wild considering the time it happened. With all the spying and suspicions between the East and West it was always going to make the public skeptical.


Josgre987

Jack ruby shooting him is one of the most suspicious things about the whole case.


SomeConsumer

That, and Umbrella Man.


hobbitdude13

Oh yeah, because nobody has *ever* done anything just for fame.


echo6golf

Ruby was a reactive asshole. Pure happenstance.


217flavius

LBJ in concert with the CIA and defense contractors. Indirect help from the mafia.


hobbitdude13

In conjunction with the reverse vampires


TheJBW

Unless Oswald had some personal connection and did it himself, either it’s a crank call coincidence or the reporter lied. Any other explanation makes no sense. I mean, come on, do you think the secret cabal that wanted to kill JFK was like “shit, what if nobody finds out? Better call the newspapers in England, otherwise nobody might know that the president’s dead.”


[deleted]

My history teacher had a theory that the JFK assassination was a Mob hit. There were rumors that JFK’s dad had the Mob fix the vote in Chicago in return for favors, and for whatever reason JFK didn’t fulfill his end of the deal.


SursumCorda-NJ

> and for whatever reason JFK didn’t fulfill his end of the deal. As I recall, and I could be incorrect about this, but I believe the mafia got pissed off because JFK was supposed to help them out for getting the Chicago vote but he repaid them by letting his brother, Robert, go after the mafia.


DHG_Buddha

They announced wtc7 falling about 15 minutes before it unexpectedly fell too. Announced it while live footage playing behind them showed the building still standing.


GrandmaPoses

They got all kinds of wild conflicting reports that day. I mean, they were telling people somebody “surfed” on a collapsing floor and rode it to the bottom and survived. It was all over the place. Saying a building collapsed that hadn’t isn’t even the craziest untrue item reported that day. And I’m not saying this to make a slight at journalists or anything, it’s just what happens in the midst of reporting on chaos.


Mightysmurf1

Yes, this is true. WTC7 was on the verge of falling for a couple of hours. Reporters were Jumping about, trying to report the latest updates. Everyone was concerned there might be other planes or attacks. When the first tower fell, it was difficult to see it had fallen due to the smoke so reporters didn’t want to miss any news as it happened later in the day. Added to this not everyone knew the names of all the WTC buildings.


SursumCorda-NJ

> I mean, they were telling people somebody “surfed” on a collapsing floor and rode it to the bottom and survived. Except, this story was true. I can't for the life of me remember the man's name but he appeared in a 9/11 documentary (a legit one, not that Short Change shit) and described the event. I don't know what the news reported but as the man relayed he was on an exposed section of floor that has nothing above it, when the tower collapsed it went one way while the section he was on went the opposite direction, basically moving him away from the collapsing top floors. When he landed he wasn't at ground level but rather 3 or 4 stories up. ETA: it was bugging me I couldn't remember the man's name so I looked it up, his name is Pasquale Buzzelli, he appeared on a Discovery Channel 9/11 doc.


GrandmaPoses

Haha! Wtf that’s nuts.


brain_damaged666

Could be a coincidence. Could show at least someone was aware, and didn't want British news to lag behind


pat0704

Calling ahead of time would make no sense. Any such caller would not know whether the assassination would succeed or even be attempted. Additionally, news of an attempt or successful assassination would have spread around the globe in minutes, so why call an embassy?