Pat Speer

Tom Robinson: I think I saw a small wound that was not a bullet hole by the temple. Tom Robinson, nineteen years later: I think I saw two or three tiny wounds by the right cheek. Doug Horne, fourteen years after that: Robinson said he saw a bullet hole high on the forehead above the right eye. Apparently some think this makes perfect sense.

This is one of the most back-assward things I've ever read. Not one prominent researcher, not even Mantik, finds Horne's theory convincing.You know, cause you asked him, that Mantik doesn't buy into Horne's ridiculous theory Humes cut the large fragment from the head. Now I actually wish Horne was more credible. But he's just not. 1. Compare Reed's testimony to what Horne claims Reed claims. If you do you will see that Reed saw Humes cut into the head to remove the brain AFTER Reed and Custer had taken the x-rays, but Horne needs it to be before, since these x-rays show missing frontal bone...so he simply claims it was before. 2. Compare Robinson's testimony and statements to what Horne claims he saw. Robinson told Horne he saw two three tiny holes on the cheek. Horne claims he actually saw a bullet hole high on the forehead. Robinson has also claimed he saw a blowout wound on the side of the head, but Horne, as I recall, just ignores this and claims any description of a large wound on the front or side of the head prior to Humes' cresting such a wound is a lie. 3. Compare James Jenkins' description of what he took to be an entrance wound by Kennedy's ear, along with Mantik's and Chesser's subsequent descriptions of this wound as one by the ear, and then watch Horne in JFK: What the Doctors Saw pronounce that Jenkins' was really describing a bullet hole high on the forehead. It's embarrassing... for all of us...thinking there was more to it than Oswald...to be associated... with this stuff...

DO THE RESEARCH. Here, I've done it for you... From chapter 19d: One of the first books to report on the ARRB interviews orchestrated by Horne was Murder in Dealey Plaza (2000). This anthology presented competing and overlapping takes on the medical evidence by Dr. Gary Aguilar and Dr. Mantik. Now, to focus on but one deception of many included in this book, we shall note that in his chapter Dr. Mantik claimed "Tom Robinson, the funeral home employee who restored JFK's head (nope, that was Ed Stroble)...described a wound...above the right eye, near the hairline." And that Mantik then cited White House photographer Joe O'Donnell's recollection he saw a photo showing such a wound as support for what he, Mantik, was now claiming Robinson had claimed. But this conspiracy gold was poop. The reality was that Robinson described a small wound which he insisted was not a bullet wound. And that he specified, on different occasions, that this tiny wound was by the temple, or even on the right cheek, but never above the right eye. And the reality is that O'Donnell's claim he saw a wound above the right eye in a photo was also suspect. Basically, O'Donnell told Horne, in the same interview in which he described being shown an autopsy photo, that he and Jackie Kennedy had spent a day together editing the Zapruder film. Well this is absolute rubbish, invisible rabbit kind of stuff. And that's not the only red flag suggesting O'Donnell was less than credible. O'Donnell similarly claimed he'd been shown this photo (for which there is no record) by White House photographer Robert Knudsen, whose family claimed he'd told them he'd been the only photographer at the autopsy--an assertion which Mantik would have to have known was false after studying Gunn's and Horne's interviews where witness after witness failed to recall Knudsen's even being present at the autopsy. Now, the since-deceased Knudsen had been interviewed for the HSCA, and had told them he'd developed photos taken at the autopsy. But he never said anything under oath about his taking the photos himself or his seeing an entrance wound on the forehead in the photos he'd developed, and his family, who told Horne and the ARRB he'd told them all sorts of wild stuff--well, even they failed to recall his describing such a wound. But it's worse than that. When Knudsen was interviewed by the HSCA on 8-11-78 he gave no signs of holding back. He said a lot of stuff which many would find incredible, including that after looking through the autopsy photos supplied him by his interviewer he thought photos were missing in which probes had been placed in the body. But he said nothing about a missing photo showing a hole in the forehead. In fact, he recalled but one photo of the head wounds (and that was one showing a wound in the right rear) and snapped "Here, this is it." when shown photo 37h, a photo showing the top of the head from above which failed to show the supposed entrance hole on the forehead and the supposed exit hole in the middle of the back of the head. Now, there was one curious exchange, where Knudsen was asked if the photos just shown him were "not inconsistent"with the ones he saw in 1963, and responded "No. Not at all." But that was just confusing human speak. I mean, if someone were to ask you if their recollection is not inconsistent with your recollection of an event, it is as likely that you would answer "no" to mean they are not consistent as it is for you to answer "no" to mean they are consistent. I mean, I get confused just writing about this. As Knudsen was asked this question after being shown a series of photos with which he expressed no disagreement, moreover, and as Purdy failed to follow up by asking how they were inconsistent, we can and should assume Knudsen meant that the photos were not inconsistent with his recollections...and that his only real complaint was that some photos (the ones he recalled with the probes) appeared to be missing. So... to sum up, the only one to claim Knudsen saw a small wound on the forehead, or even shared a photo showing such a wound, was O'Donnell, who Knudsen's family had never even heard of, and whose connection to Knudsen was nebulous, if not non-existent. O'Donnell was a dubious source with a dubious claim. Now observe how Mantik's, well, stuff...rubs off on Horne. In Volume 2 of his magnum opus Inside the Assassination Records Review Board (2009) Horne discusses Tom Robinson's description of a small wound by the temple, and takes Mantik's lead and pretends Robinson was actually describing a bullet wound above the right eye. When summarising the HSCA's 1977 interview of Robinson, Horne writes: "Robinson also spoke of a small hole in the temple near the hairlline, which was so small it could be hidden by the hair." Horne then reads the mind of Andy Purdy, the man interviewing Robinson, and claims: "Purdy asked Robinson to clarify which side of the forehead it was on, which tells me that Robinson said 'temple' but had actually pointed to his own forehead rather than to his temple. Robinson responded to the question by saying 'the right side,' thus confirming that it was indeed in the right forehead near the hairline." What the??? Horne makes a ridiculous assumption and then claims his assumption (Robinson meant forehead and not temple) is confirmed by Robinson's saying it was on the right side. Well, hello, there is a temple on the right side of the head! One can not simply declare that someone saying there was a mark on the right side of the head by the temple actually said it was a bullet hole high on the forehead. That's insulting to, well, everyone... But it gets worse. On page 599 of Inside the ARRB, Horne claims Robinson's 1-12-77 recollection of a wound by the temple "is consistent with Dennis David's account of seeing Pitzer's photos of a small round wound high in the right forehead, and of Joe O'Donnell's account of Robert Knudsen showing him a photo depicting an entry wound high in the right forehead." Now, we'll get to David and Pitzer in a minute, but what's important here is that we realize that, according to his widely-disseminated notes, researcher Joe West asked Robinson about the wounds on 5-26-92 and was told instead of "(approx 2) small wounds in face packed with wax", and that when Horne himself spoke to Robinson on 6-18-96, Robinson once again failed to mention a small wound by the temple, and instead claimed he saw "two or three small perforations or holes in the right cheek." And that all this led Horne to assert, on page 612 of Inside the ARRB, that Robinson's 1996 recollection of two or three small wounds on the cheek is consistent with his 1977 recollection of a small wound by the temple. So, you can follow the bouncing ball, right? In Fetzer/Mantik/Horne Bizarro world, Robinson's description of two or three small wounds on the cheek is consistent with Joe O'Donnell's claim there was a bullet hole high on the forehead.

it was Joe O'Donnell. 13 years ago or so, I was reading the New York Times and came across an article about a former U.S. Information Agency photographer who had recently passed, whose passing had ignited a scandal. Because his obituary had listed a number of famous photos he'd taken, when he had in fact not taken these photos. It turned out that, although he had taken some famous photos in the aftermath of the A bomb in Japan, he had been signing and selling photographic prints for decades of photos that he had not taken==all of which were Kennedy-related. An investigation followed and led to his family admitting he'd been suffering from dementia and had developed an unhealthy obsession with the Kennedys. This was, of course Joe O'Donnell, one of the few people in history whose obituary led to a retraction. In any event, I read a number of articles on this situation, and saw that Cecil Stoughton, the White House photographer who'd accompanied Kennedy to Dallas, and had taken the Johnson swearing-in photos, had said he'd never heard of O'Donnell, and that, if I recall, U.S. Information Agency photographers did not interact much with White House photographers or the first family. Well, hell, I thought, and went back and read the notes of the interviews of the Knudsen family, and found they said they'd never heard of O'Donnell. And then re-read the notes on Horne's interview with O'Donnell, in which he reported that O'Donnell had claimed he'd performed a private showing of the Zapruder film for Jacqueline Kennedy, and that the two of them had edited the film together. Well, that was it, I thought, the man was obviously suffering from dementia when he claimed Knudsen had shown him some photos. But, wait, how would he have known Knudsen had claimed he'd taken some photos? I then remembered that Knudsen had written an article in which he claimed he'd taken photos...and that the HSCA had then called him in to testify and that he'd told them he'd developed photos taken by others. In any event, I shared this info with the research community in the hopes people would stop citing O'Donnell as an important witness. And have instead witnessed men like Mantik and Horne continue to cite O'Donnell as credible, when they know full well he is not. Now, recently, after re-reading all of this stuff, I feel a little more charitable towards O'Donnell. We Know Knudsen developed photos. So the possibility exists Knudsen DID show O'Donnell some photos, and that O'Donnell had simply mis-remembered the nature of these photos

Hilarious. Horne's history is one of taking inconsistencies in the record and spinning them into the wildest tale possible. I urge you to do the research. What did Tom Robinson tell the HSCA? That he recalled a small wound on Kennedy's temple. What did Tom Robinson tell the ARRB? That there were two or three tiny wounds on Kennedy's cheek. What did Doug Horne take from his statements? That there was a bullet hole high on the forehead above the right eye. What did James Jenkins say? That he recalled seeing a gray smear on the skull above the right ear. What did he come to claim later? That he saw a bullet hole above the right ear. What did Horne claim in JFK: What the Doctors saw Jenkins REALLY saw? A bullet hole high on the forehead above the right eye. What did Ed Reed say? He and Custer took the x-rays, developed them, brought them back to the morgue, sat down for twenty minutes, saw Humes start cutting on Kennedy to remove the brain, was asked to leave as his services were no longer required, and never returned to the autopsy. What did Horne take from his statements? That he came in to take the x-rays and sat down, saw Humes cutting on Kennedy to remove bones from the top of the head to phony up the x-rays, was asked to leave, and was asked to return after 20 minutes to take the phony x-rays. The statements of Robinson and Reed are the pillars of Horne's theory. And yet he grossly misrepresents their statements to conjure up this theory. Now, as you know, he has few if any supporters among the upper echelon of researchers within the "community." That doesn't mean he 's wrong. But it's saying something that he has spent dozens if not hundreds of hours with Mantik in which he undoubtedly pushed. a theory holding that the largest recovered bone fragment was removed by Humes at Bethesda, and that Mantik would never embrace this, telling you, a few years back that the fragment was missing at Parkland but the hole was covered by scalp, and telling his audience in 2021, that this is pretty much what Humes saw when he first saw Kennedy's head. Now, as a refresher, here is what Horne claims Humes saw, prior to his alteration of the body... Now I'm guessing you're siding with Horne. But Horne, in case you haven't noticed, is by far the most slanderous researcher of all. Virtually everyone interviewed by the ARRB, in Horne's eyes, was a coward or a liar. Heck, he claims Tom Robinson, his star witness, was involved in the clandestine delivery of JFK's body at Parkland an hour and a half before its official arrival.

I know that's what Horne wants us to believe...but how do you remove a hole by cutting into it? As detailed in Jim D's last book Stone asked Horne this very question, and was given some rigamarole. The bone Horne claims was cut off the head contained no bullet hole, and was inches away from were they claim the bullet entered. So why was no hole in this location observed by those viewing the body at Parkland? Or Bethesda? Or shown on the photos? Or on the A-P x-ray? There was no bullet hole there. This whole hole thing got drummed up when Mantik took Robinson's recollection of a small wound by the temple and started claiming he saw a bullet hole on the forehead. Robinson was asked about this by the ARRB and said it was two or three small wounds on the cheek.And yet here we are 25 years later with Mantik and Horne still claiming Robinson said he saw a hole on the forehead.

I have been battling cancer and the side effects from the treatment of cancer for about 3 years. The meds given me to combat cancer and the recurrence of cancer, and the meds I'm forced to take to minimize the side effects from the treatment, create a bit of "brain fog." There was an article on this in I think the New York Times a few months back. They actually call it "Chemo brain." Apparently many cancer patients never regain full brain capacity after undergoing chemo-therapy.As for myself, I feel I am about 90% back. On watching the video I notice a lot of pauses in my speech while I search for words. That is the new Pat. The old Pat could stand in front of a crowd and speak for an hour on a number of topics while hardly taking a breath. I have always stammered bit, but now sometimes I sound like Porky Pig.

Thank you.

Researcher Matt Douthitt called me up the other night on Zoom and captured the feed while we watched John Lattimer's presentation at the 1993 Chicago conference. For those not in the know, Lattimer was the first non-military doctor allowed into the archives to view the assassination materials, who then parlayed this into dozens of magazine articles, and interviews. It can safely be said that he did more to keep the single-bullet theory alive than ALL those involved with the creation of the theory, and was a huge influence on the thinking of the Oswald-did-it crowd. In any event, Matt decided to put the entire 5 HOUR conversation up on YouTube. Now, there's a lot of blithering on my part and a lot of repetition and almost certainly some mis-statements. But if you're someone with an interest in the case who would like to know what it's like to sit in on a conversation between two veteran researchers, this might be your cup of tea. Now, Matt does provide a lot of images and even some outside interviews, which help to illuminate Lattimer's nonsense. And of course there's the images from Lattimer's own presentation. So it's not just talking heads. In fact, if you are relatively new to this you can probably learn more from this video than probably any other video on the assassination, as it presents arguments for Oswald's guilt from a hero to the Oswald did it crowd, and then blasts gigantic holes through most of his arguments. Now it is FIVE hours long. So I think someone with an interest might want to watch a half hour at a time or so. Or not.

I will agree with your basic point, Bill. IF one is asked did Oswald act alone, the vast majority of people will say no, but not because they have an extensive knowledge of the case. IF one is asked what is your particular theory, as to who pulled the trigger, and who made the decision the trigger should be pulled, however, the Oswald did it all by his lonesome theory will be by far the most common answer. But, once again, it is not because those saying this have an extensive knowledge of the case. And there is a reason for this. if you study the statements of people commenting on the case over decades, you will find that many of those attracted to the more than Oswald theory view the case as part of a larger pattern of evil misdeeds by a they. These people are attracted to conspiracy because they see conspiracies everywhere. But by the same token, many if not most of those claiming Oswald did it now stop talking come from a position of fear--a fear of the unknown, and a fear that Oswald's possible innocence suggests something about America that they just won't let themselves believe. I mean, Earl Warren and Walter Cronkite were wrong? And Mark Lane, Jim Garrison, and Oliver Stone were right? For some that's impossible to fathom, and their whole world is threatened by such a possibility. Now, I have spent countless hours arguing online, and discussing the case in emails and in person with people of both camps--the Oswald did its and the more than Oswalds. And I can say that at least 50% of what most CTs believe is garbage, and at least 20% of what most LNs believe is garbage. So from hearing this, one might think I'm leaning towards LN. But no, far from it, the myth put together by the Warren Commission was stretched so thin that if even 5% of what they claimed is garbage, then a reasonable person would have to accept the possibility there was more to it than Oswald.

FWIW, Bell claimed she was in the room at the beginning, not at the end, when Clark arrived and inspected the wound. She also claimed she'd been shown the wound by Perry, who, as I recall, claimed he'd never turned the head, and who, I'm fairly certain, said he had no recollections of her being in the room. As she had clearly concocted (or grossly misremembered) her story about giving fragments to the SS or FBI, we have no reason to believe any of the other additions to her story. I think people need to realize that most of the latter-day recollections of witnesses--whether it be Bell claiming Perry showed her the wound, or Landis claiming he put a bullet on a stretcher--are nonsense, and not to be relied upon. And this cuts both ways. Didn't Mike Howard cough up some some crazy story about Oswald towards the end of his life? Well, that was obviously nonsense. I put Bell's and Landis' recollections in the same box.

What the??? As stated, Jenkins is on camera saying the back of the head was shattered beneath the scalp but not blown out of the skull. He has said a lot of things that are problematic for the official story, that's for sure. But he has claimed this part of the head was intact at the beginning of the autopsy. He has also claimed, since forever, that no pre-autopsy surgery was performed at Bethesda and that Horne is completely off-base. When I spoke to him, and asked if maybe Humes had done thus surgery in another room, he was adamant that there was no other room, and that nothing of the sort happened at Bethesda. I think he was open-minded about the possibility something had occurred somewhere else, before the arrival of the body at Bethesda, but Horne won't have that, as he's cherry-picked numerous pieces of evidence and put them together to create a completely phony story about Humes altering the body, and is unable to break away from his creation. P.S. I notice that you mention Jenkins' claim he saw a bullet wound by the ear. Well, he initially said this was a gray smear on the bone, which helped convince me I was correct about a bullet's entering at this location. Then, after being pounded for years by your heroes, he started claiming he saw a bullet hole by the ear and not just a gray smear. And then, with the release of JFK: What the Doctors Saw, these years of manipulation paid off--as Horne was now claiming this bullet hole, which was originally not a bullet hole, was actually a bullet hole high on the forehead. Which Mantik and Horne had conjured up from almost nothing... In any event, it's nice to see you acknowledge Jenkins said this was by the ear, and that Horne's claim it was really high on the forehead is nonsense.

The denuding of skin is symptomatic of tangential wounds, Vince. As the bullet strikes at a shallow angle, a piece of bone pulls forward and tears the skin.

It's not my conjecture. Jenkins said the back of the head between the ears was shattered but still intact beneath the scalp in filmed interviews with Harrison Livingstone and William Law, and then again at two different JFK Lancer conferences which I attended. At the first of these, there was a breakout session with about 30 people in attendance in which he was repeatedly grilled by Aguilar and Mantik about the back of the head, and told them repeatedly that it was shattered but intact beneath the scalp. Of course Mantik turned around and told this to Doug Horne and within days Horne had an article online in which he claimed Jenkins had told this audience that the autopsy photos are inaccurate and Horne then twisted this into Jenkins' claiming the back of the head was blown out--when he had actually said the exact opposite. Now, the next year, he made an appearance with Mantik and Chesser and I spoke to him a bit with Matt Douthitt, and I told Jenkins these guys were taking his words and twisting them into support for their belief the back of the head was blown out. And he said "What are you gonna do? People will believe what they want to believe..." So I was as shocked as anyone when I saw Jenkins pull a flip-flop on all this but when I looked closely at his book I found my answer--he credited Mike Chesser with help on the book. So, yeah, from where I stand--and from what I have witnessed personally--Mantik, Horne, and Chesser are in the deception business. Now they may be deceiving themselves first and foremost, but they are not particularly interested in the truth, IMO.

Yes, I am aware that Mantik was briefly swayed by Horne, but his 2021 presentation on the FFF website was presented from the perspective of Humes, and he has Humes lying about just about everything, but NOT about any pre-surgery to the head. In fact, he claims Humes, when first observing JFK, saw a giant hole from front to back on the right side of his head.

I try to keep tabs on Mantik's latest findings, and I'm not aware of anything new in this one. Essentially, about ten years ago, he started claiming his OD readings not only proved a white patch had been added to the x-rays, but that the hole on the back of the head was apparent on the x-rays, only we can't see it. And, then, around this same time, both he and Horne started claiming there were two headshots from the front, and three in total--one that entered near the temple and blew the Harper fragment off the occipital bone, one that entered the forehead and exited the left side of the back of the head, and one that entered near the EOP.. Now, the only thing I'm not clear on is what Mantik thinks happened to the bullet entering near the EOP. Horne says it did not exit and that there was no exit wound on the front of the head. But Mantik has long-claimed the large fragment was frontal bone, and that Humes saw a gigantic wound at the beginning of the autopsy, so I gotta believe he thinks this was blown from the head and found in the limo, as purported and, to my eyes anyhow, demonstrated in the Z-film. Now, here's the thing. Without pushing what I believe because who cares really, there are obvious problems with Mantik's scenario. The alterationist wing of the party, so to speak, was formed because Lifton and others had a notion the Parkland witnesses were great witnesses and could not be wrong. But Mantik has 1. A bullet entering near the EOP that exited somewhere on the top of the head, with neither entrance nor exit being observed at Parkland. 2. A bullet entering near the temple that blew out the middle of the back of the head, with the entrance going unobserved at Parkland and only half the exit being observed at Parkland. 3. A bullet entering high on the forehead and exiting from the left side of the back of the head, with neither entrance nor exit being (knowingly) observed at Parkland. He's got six wounds, of which but one half of one wound was observed by the Parkland witnesses I trust I'm not the only one who has a problem with this.

I am not sure what you mean here, Keyvan. I am not aware of Mantik's changing his opinions on anything for this book. Isn't it the same stuff he's been saying for years?

I am sure you know this, but Marina later told researchers that her testimony was poorly interpreted, and that the transcript was misleading as to how she actually testified. Do you have access to a top linguist, who can create a new (and hopefully, Marina-approved) transcript?

I would agree that she probably ID'ed him, but her behavior during her testimony and her inability to recognize Oswald in a photo really really hurts her credibility, to the point where she would probably be written off by a jury. Can we at least agree on that?

I agree. Perry clearly THOUGHT it was an entrance wound. And his recollections of its size strongly suggest it was either an entrance wound, or the exit wound of a slowly moving object. I just don't believe there was a concerted effort to get him to change his and others' opinion it looked like an entrance wound. And if there was, it failed. Because pretty much everyone at Parkland who saw the wound prior to the tracheotomy said it was small and appeared to be an entrance wound. I think what some miss here is the context. Emergency room doctors make their observations and put things together, but they are frequently wrong, and know it, and defer to the opinions of others, who ran additional tests or who are more expert in the field. So, knowing this, we have to accept that some if not many of the Parkland witnesses could believe both that the throat wound looked like an entrance wound, and that it was not. Perry is, I believe, among those. My own experience illuminates this situation. I was very weak and dizzy. I went to an urgent care facility. The doctor looked me over and said I had an upper respiratory infection and that I should take cold medicine, and that I ought to be fine within a few days. She seemed very sure of herself. A few days later, I felt worse, and contacted my personal doctor, who refused to meet me in person over Covid concerns. After roughly a half hour, he said I had a heart condition, and set me up with a cardiologist. He seemed very sure of himself. The cardiologist's office refused to give me an appointment right away. And said I would have to wait two weeks. The next day I felt worse, and asked if I could come in sooner. They told me the earliest would be 10 days. The next morning I felt worse, and could barely get out of bed. So my wife and I agreed I should go to the emergency room. This was the height of Covid, so they made me wait outside for two hours and undergo numerous tests in the parking lot before they would even let me in the building. When I finally met a doctor, well, she said she thought I had a leaky bowel, and ran a test that came up negative. They then took me to a private room, where another doctor came in and said all signs indicated I had a leak in my upper GI tract. He seemed very sure of himself. He told me not to eat or drink for the next 18 hours so he could go down my throat with a scope and find the leak. He found no leak. And was kinda pissed off. I could tell. He said they were gonna release me so they could bring me back in a few days for more tests. But before they could release me another doctor came in and said he was gonna have me sent to a cancer hospital because he thought I had leukemia. I was sent to the hospital. They took some bone marrow. And confirmed his diagnosis. So I had four doctors take a look at me and tell me what they thought was wrong, and all four were totally wrong. Also relevant, one day, after my stem cell transplant, I noticed that the doctor whose gut instinct proved correct had an office by my son's dentist office. So I went in while my son was at his appointment. to thank him. He was with a patient so I had some time to kill in the lobby, and ended up explaining to two of his nurses why I was there. They were very proud of him, as he had saved my life. But here's the weird part. When he came out and I reminded him who I was he denied sending me to the cancer hospital on his instinct, and insisted--in front of his nurses--that he would not have sent me to the cancer hospital without first receiving the results of a bone marrow biopsy. Well, this is of course was bull, as no such biopsy was performed at the original hospital. I then realized--he had called an audible--and had essentially rescued me from the GI doctor who was convinced I had a GI leak. And he didn't want his nurses to know because, well, that just isn't done... So think about Perry. He knows what he saw LOOKED like an entrance wound, but has been told by the authorities it was an exit wound. He doesn't want to be one of the four doctors who'd come to an incorrect conclusion regarding my situation, but he also doesn't want to be seen as someone who second-guesses those responsible for making the ultimate determination...because it just isn't done...

You know of course that your hero Robert McClelland said many times in many places that the throat wound in the photos was as he remembered it looking after the tracheotomy.

Ok. Thanks. My apologies to Dr. McClelland, who repeated something like this in JFK: What the Doctors Saw. It was originally someone else's aged recollection. But the fact remains that it wasn't true. 1. No one involved in the autopsy called Perry during the autopsy. They should have but they didn't. The official story is that Humes--by his lonesome--called Perry the next morning. And this makes the most sense. IF they had called Perry during the autopsy and told him he was to say the throat wound was an entrance, not exit, well, wouldn't they have told the FBI--the Federal Agency responsible--that there was a throat wound? That they believed was an exit? Of course they would. The doctors' failure to know about and properly study the throat wound was a colossal failing--and incredibly embarrassing to the military and the doctors personally. It's not something they would make up for no reason. 2. Humes was a military doctor and would not have any authority over Perry's medical license. Now, if the story was that someone like Burkley or Katzenbach or some LBJ hatchet-man like Valenti had threatened Perry it would be a heckuva lot more believable. 3. Perry and others continued claiming the throat wound appeared to be an entrance for not only days afterwards, but the rest of their lives. There was no cover-up of the throat wound, outside the one I mentioned earlier--where the transcript in which Perry mistakenly said it was a throat wound and not that it appeared to be a throat wound conveniently disappeared.

Oh, no, Greg. They moved (re-interpreted) the wound location. The cowlick was not a separate wound--it was where they claimed the wound described in the autopsy report REALLY resided. The Clark Panel even gave the same measurements for this wound as the one described in the autopsy report (which I prove to be a lie on my website). While the HSCA did re-interpret the wound's measurements as well as its location, they still pretended the red spot in the cowlick was almost an inch from the midline of the skull (which I prove to be a lie on my website). Incredibly, moreover, in order to pull off this switcheroo, they had to claim the photo the doctors initially claimed showed the bullet entrance on the back of the head, really showed a bullet exit on the front of the head. It's a travesty, IMO. While a lot of people are drawn to this case because of the political intrigue, or the spy v spy stuff, it is the bald-faced brazen movement of the wound locations that sucked me down this rabbit hole. I just can't fathom how and why journalists and historians, let along members of the medical profession, let them get away with it. And still only pretend to give a crap...

It didn't happen, Robert. The only credible source for such a thing if I recall is a very aged McClelland, and he was probably confusing the subtle harassment of SS agent Elmer Moore in December--which at the time he welcomed. Yes, believe it or not, the Parkland doctors were grateful to be brought into the loop and shown the autopsy report by Moore. They were professionals, and didn't want to look like idiots, and knew full well that the recollections of emergency room doctors aren't worth spit when compared to the weight given pathologists--who have hours and days to inspect the body. In any event, no one scared Perry into silence after the press conference. He described the throat wound as one giving the appearance of an entrance wound to Kritzberg, and in the interview above, and actually said as much the rest of his life. He never once said the wound looked like an exit wound. Let's not forget that an entrance on the throat was propped up for days afterwards, to such an extent that White House sources were telling newsman JFK turned to look over his shoulder when first struck. And that the FBI had the throat wound as an exit for a bone fragment for at least a month after the shooting. The single-bullet theory was months off. And let's be clear, there was a medical cover-up of the throat wound, but it didn't begin for months afterwards. And it wasn't to make the wound an exit--that move was performed by Dr. Humes on the 23d. No, it appears that someone--Katzenbach?--thought it best the public be told Perry was misquoted by newsman when he described the wound as an entrance. Because it sure smells that no one could find a copy of the press conference transcript...for years and years... I also find it interesting that, according to Perry's own testimony, he was interviewed numerous times on Saturday the 23rd. We can suspect then that some transcripts and notes on these interviews are still to surface. From chapter 3 at patspeer.com: Time Out: A Quick Glimpse of the Warren Commission at Work. Elsewhere, on 3-30-64, Dr. Malcolm Perry testifies before the Warren Commission. Despite his stated objective of finding a transcript for Dr. Perry’s November 22nd press conference, Arlen Specter has failed to obtain one, and instead interviews Dr. Perry about his recollections of the press conference. Not surprisingly, Perry’s memory is that he made no solid statements about Kennedy’s wounds, and that the media misrepresented what he said. While it might sound overly-conspiratorial to suggest that Specter and the Warren Commission would deliberately mislead the public by using the flawed recollections of witnesses when concrete evidence was available, the fact is they have employed this technique before. On 3-16-64, when the autopsy doctors testified about Kennedy’s wounds, they were asked to do so without referring to the autopsy photos and x-rays taken for the express purpose of assisting them with their testimony.Even worse, Specter asked them to create drawings based purely upon their recollections of the President’s wounds, and then placed these drawings into evidence. Here, then, is Dr. Perry’s testimony about the press conference: Dr. Perry - Mr. Specter, I would preface this by saying that, as you know, I have been interviewed on numerous occasions subsequent to that time, and I cannot recall with accuracy the questions that were asked. They, in general, were similar to the questions that were asked here. The press were given essentially the same, but in no detail such as have been given here. I was asked, for example, what I felt caused the President's death, the nature of the wound, from whence they came, what measures were taken for resuscitation, who were the people in attendance, at what time was it determined that he was beyond our help. Mr. Specter - What responses did you give to questions relating to the source of the bullets, if such questions were asked? Dr. Perry - I could not. I pointed out that both Dr. Clark and I had no way of knowing from whence the bullets came. Mr. Specter - Were you asked how many bullets there were? Dr. Perry - We were, and our reply was it was impossible with the knowledge we had at hand to ascertain if there were 1 or 2 bullets, or more. We were given, similarly to the discussion here today, hypothetical situations. "Is it possible that such would have been the case, or such and such?" If it was possible that there was one bullet. To this, I replied in the affirmative, it was possible and conceivable that it was only one bullet, but I did not know. Mr. Specter - What would the trajectory, or conceivable course of one bullet have been, Dr. Perry, to account for the injuries which you observed in the President, as you stated it? Dr. Perry - Since I observed only two wounds in my cursory examination, it would have necessitated the missile striking probably a bony structure and being deviated in its course in order to account for these two wounds. Mr. Specter - What bony structure was it conceivably? Dr. Perry - It required striking the spine. Mr. Specter - Did you express a professional opinion that that did, in fact, happen or it was a matter of speculation that it could have happened? Dr. Perry - I expressed it as a matter of speculation that this was conceivable. But, again, Dr. Clark and I emphasize that we had no way of knowing. Mr. Specter - Have you now recounted as specifically as you can recollect what occurred at that first press conference or is it practical for you to give any further detail to the contents of that press conference? Dr. Perry - I do not recall any specific details any further than that-- Representative Ford - Mr. Specter was there ever a recording kept of the questions and answers at that interview, Dr. Perry? Dr. Perry - This was one of the things I was mad about, Mr. Ford. There were microphones, and cameras, and the whole bit, as you know, and during the course of it a lot of these hypothetical situations and questions that were asked to us would often be asked by someone on this side and recorded by some one on this, and I don't know who was recorded and whether they were broadcasting it directly. There were tape recorders there and there were television cameras with their microphones. I know there were recordings made but who made them I don't know and, of course, portions of it would be given to this group and questions answered here and, as a result, considerable questions were not answered in their entirety and even some of them that were asked, I am sure were misunderstood. It was bedlam. Representative Ford - I was thinking, was there an official recording either made by the hospital officials or by the White House people or by any government agency? Dr. Perry - Not to my knowledge. Representative Ford - A true recording of everything that was said, the questions asked, and the answers given? Dr. Perry - Not to my knowledge. Mr. Dulles - Was there any reasonably good account in any of the press of this interview? Dr. Perry - No, sir. Representative Ford - May I ask-- Dr. Perry - I have failed to see one that was asked. Representative Ford - In other words, you subsequently read or heard what was allegedly said by you and by Dr. Clark and Dr. Carrico. Were those reportings by the news media accurate or inaccurate as to what you and others said? Dr. Perry - In general, they were inaccurate. There were some that were fairly close, but I, as you will probably surmise, was pretty full after both Friday and Sunday, and after the interviews again, following the operation of which I was a member on Sunday, I left town, and I did not read a lot of them, but of those which I saw I found none that portrayed it exactly as it happened. Nor did I find any that reported our statements exactly as they were given. They were frequently taken out of context. They were frequently mixed up as to who said what or identification as to which person was who. Representative Ford - This interview took place on Sunday, the 24th, did you say? Dr. Perry - No, there were several interviews, Mr. Ford. We had one in the afternoon, Friday afternoon, and then I spent almost the entire day Saturday in the administrative suite at the hospital answering questions to people of the press, and some medical people of the American Medical Association. And then, of course, Sunday, following the operation on Oswald, I again attended the press conference since I was the first in attendance with him. And, subsequently, there was another conference on Monday conducted by the American Medical Association, and a couple of more interviews with some people whom I don't even recall. Representative Ford - Would you say that these errors that were reported were because of a lack of technical knowledge as to what you as a physician were saying, or others were saying? Dr. Perry - Certainly that could be it in part, but it was not all. Certainly a part of it was lack of attention. A question would be asked and you would incompletely answer it and another question would be asked and they had gotten what they wanted without really understanding, and they would go on and it would go out of context. For example, on the speculation on the ultimate source of bullets, I obviously knew less about it than most people because I was in the hospital at the time and didn't know the circumstances surrounding it until it was over. I was much too busy and yet I was quoted as saying that the bullet, there was probably one bullet, which struck and deviated upward which came from the front, and what I had replied was to a question, was it conceivable that this could have happened, and I said yes, it is conceivable. I have subsequently learned that to use a straight affirmative word like "yes" is not good relations; that one should say it is conceivable and not give a straight yes or no answer. "It is conceivable" was dropped and the "yes" was used, and this was happening over and over again. Of course, Shires, for example, who was the professor and chairman of the department was identified in one press release as chief resident. (NOTE: Dr. Perry’s insistence that his words were taken out of context at the press conference is self-serving and inaccurate. Nobody trapped him into saying anything that he didn’t suggest with his own statements. Many years later, a transcript to this press conference was located at the Johnson Library. This transcript was subsequently published as ARRB Medical Document 41. From this transcript: “DR. MALCOM PERRY…There are two wounds, as Dr. Clark noted, one of the neck and one of the head. Whether they are directly related or related to two bullets, I cannot say. QUESTION- Where was the entrance wound? DR. MALCOLM PERRY- There was an entrance wound in the neck. As regards the one on the head, I cannot say. QUESTION- Which way was the bullet coming on the neck wound? At him? DR. MALCOLM PERRY- It appeared to be coming at him...") Moments later, Arlen Specter returns to the topic of the November 22nd press conference: Mr. Specter - “we have been trying diligently to get the tape records of the television interviews, and we were unsuccessful. I discussed this with Dr. Perry in Dallas last Wednesday, and he expressed an interest in seeing them, and I told him we would make them available to him prior to his appearance, before deposition or before the Commission, except our efforts at CBS and NBC, ABC and everywhere including New York, Dallas and other cities were to no avail. The problem is they have not yet cataloged all of the footage which they have, and I have been advised by the Secret Service, by Agent John Howlett, that they have an excess of 200 hours of transcripts among all of the events and they just have not cataloged them and could not make them available. (NOTE: Specter was not telling the whole story. On 3-18-64, J. Lee Rankin, Specter's boss, wrote James J. Rowley, the head of the Secret Service, to ask for his help in acquiring a recording or transcript of Dr. Perry's press conference. On 3-25-64, Rowley wrote back telling Rankin that no video tape or transcript of Perry's comments could be located. This letter was published as CD 678. It seems possible, then, that Specter was only pretending that the problem was that the footage had not yet been catalogued, and that he was pretending this so Perry wouldn't be unnerved by the fact all the tapes of his press conference had miraculously vanished. There's also this. When eventually published by the ARRB as medical document 41, the transcript to the press conference had an interesting stamp on its final page. It read "Received U.S. Secret Service Office of the Chief" with the date of 11-26-63, 11:40 AM. Well, hell. This could mean a number of things. None of them good. Either Rowley was so incompetent that he failed to realize he had a transcript to the press conference when contacted by Rankin, or he was so forgetful that he failed to remember giving this transcript to Johnson for his Library, or he knew damn well he still had or used to have a copy of the transcript, and deliberately withheld this information from Rankin and the commission.) Mr. Dulles - Do you intend to catalog them? Mr. Specter - Yes, they do, Mr. Dulles. They intend to do that eventually in their normal process, and the Secret Service is trying to expedite the news media to give us those, and it was our thought as to the film clips, which would be the most direct or the recordings which would be the most direct, to make comparisons between the reports in the news media and what Dr. Perry said at that time, and the facts which we have from the doctors through our depositions and transcript today. Representative Ford - Can you give us any time estimate when this catalog and comparison might be made? Mr. Specter - Only that they are working on it right now, have been for sometime, but it may be a matter of a couple of weeks until they can turn it over. (NOTE: These last few exchanges are priceless. Dulles asks Specter if he plans on going through the transcripts and he responds by saying that the Secret Service is going to help him. He then estimates that it should only take a few weeks. As stated, Rowley had already told Rankin they'd looked but that no recording or transcript could be located. It seems possible then that Dulles and Specter were putting on a show. No one knows what became of the original recordings of the press conference. Certainly someone had a tape recorder running. But none has ever surfaced. It seems possible then that they were made to disappear.) (Discussion off the record.) (God only knows what they talked about.) Mr. McCloy - Mr. Chairman, I have some doubt as to the present propriety of making, of having the doctor make, comments in respect to a particular group of newspaper articles. There have been comments, as we all know, around the world, of great variety and great extent, and it would be practically impossible, I suppose, to check all of the accounts and in failing to check one would not wish to have it suggested that others, the accuracy of others was being endorsed. I would suggest that the staff make an examination of the files that we have of the comments, together with such tape recordings as may have been taken of the actual press conferences, and after that examination is made we can then determine, perhaps a little more effectively, what might be done to clarify this situation so that it would conform to the actual statements that the doctor has made. Mr. Dulles - Well, Mr. McCloy, it is quite satisfactory with me and I agree with you we cannot run down all of the rumors in all of the press and it is quite satisfactory with me to wait and see whether we have adequate information to deal with this situation when we get in the complete tapes of the various television, radio and other appearances, so that we have a pretty complete record of what these two witnesses and others have said on the points we have been discussing here today. So I quite agree we will await this presentation to the doctors until we have had a further chance to review this situation. What I wanted to be sure was that when we are through with this we do have in our files and records adequate information to deal with a great many of the false rumors that have been spread on the basis of false interpretation of these appearances before television, radio, and so forth and so on. And with that, Dr. Perry’s public and properly quoted description of Kennedy’s throat wound as an “entrance wound” is successfully disposed of as a “false rumor” spread by an over-zealous media...

Those cameras shoot over a hundred frames per second, so when viewed frame by frame you are seeing a progression of 1/100 of a second (probably less). The Dealey Plaza films were all 24 frames per second or less...and filmed on tiny frames...so there's no real chance we we will ever see anything on them that we can't already see. The thought occurs, however, that some kind of analysis could be performed someday someway that could be of help. Say, for example, a computer were fed 10,000 images from blood spatter simulations--with the locations of the bullet's impact and direction of fire noted. With AI, if I am understanding it correctly, the computer could then spit out the likely appearance of blood spatter from a bullet fired from the sixth floor, the grassy knoll etc, and even come to a conclusions as to which location is the likely location for the bullet killing Kennedy. As it stands right now we rely upon "experts" who are often blinded by bias. AI could help clarify things.