DEBUNKING CONSPIRACY MYTHS -- Gerald Ford's "Move"

[David Von Pein]

DEBUNKING CONSPIRACY MYTHS:

Gerald Ford's "Move"....

One of the best JFK researchers/experts in the world, Jean Davison, has said some interesting things on the Internet in recent years which are things that I doubt too many people (either LNers or conspiracy advocates) had really thought about before. ....

"I doubt that Ford knew the exact location of the back/neck wound. I think he recognized that the sentence as written couldn't possibly be right since there's nothing "in the back slightly above the shoulders." By definition, above the shoulders is "neck." Ford tried to correct it [see the document below] and made matters worse. One thing I feel certain of is that there was no rational motive for anyone to "raise" the back wound. Moving it to the neck doesn't support the SBT, no matter what suspicion may tell you. An entry in the neck would destroy the SBT trajectory. .... Imo, it often seems that CTs don't allow for human error or Murphy's law or Hanlon's razor ("Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity [or incompetence].")" -- Jean Davison; December 5, 2014

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt.assassination.jfk/xirbG0iyQkY/ubWonTdehPQJ

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Now, conspiracy theorists can try and knock down the logic and common sense that exists within Jean Davison's above remarks concerning the topic of Gerald Ford allegedly "moving" the upper-back wound of President Kennedy in order to better accommodate the Single-Bullet Theory. But I doubt those conspiracists will get very far in their arguments. And that's because Jean is right.

There is also this discussion....

"Both Morningstar and Kurtz claim that the entry wound HAD to be raised to the "back of the neck" in order to make the Warren Commission's single bullet theory work. But the assertion isn't supported, it's simply a claim.

Furthermore, the claim is false, since there was no need to raise the wound into the nape of the neck. Here's the official WC illustration of the SBT, Commission Exhibit 903:

Whether one agrees with it or not, that IS the WC's trajectory for the single bullet, and as you can see, it doesn't require an entry in "the back of the neck".

I respectfully ask that you take another look at this issue. My question is still, what evidence is there that Ford made his revision in order to support the SBT?" -- Jean Davison; December 31, 2006

~~~~~~

"To my knowledge, [nobody] has ever explained how moving the back wound up to THE NECK supports the SBT. Nobody CAN support it, because moving the entry to the neck would destroy the WC's SBT trajectory, not strengthen it.

Again I'll refer you to CE 903. Although Specter didn't drill a hole in the stand-in's body and drive the rod through it, had he done so, the entry would be in the upper back, not in the neck. There's a string on the wall above his hand that shows an angle of about 18 degrees -- that's the approximate angle measured by a surveyor during the re-enactment and the one the WC used for its SBT. If the rod is moved up to the neck, the bullet will exit well above the exit wound under JFK's Adam's apple. .... The claim that Ford's change "strengthens" the WC's SBT is simply not true. If I haven't made my point by now, I give up." -- Jean Davison; January 2, 2007

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2014 DISCUSSION:

JEAN DAVISON SAID:

The downward trajectory of the bullet exiting below Kennedy's Adam's apple was approximately 18 degrees according to surveyors' calculations for the HSCA and WC. Going backward from the exit (at the knot in his tie), 18 degrees puts the entry somewhere in his upper back. Moving the entry up to the neck would make the bullet's angle too steep to have hit Connally where it did, imo. I think this can be seen in almost any side view of JFK:

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/hunt/croft-love.jpg

http://www.jfkfiles.com/jfk/images/news/croft.jpg

The angle from [the] nape of his neck to the tie knot looks closer to 45 degrees, imo. Where could that shot have come from, a helicopter?

Ford didn't need to move the back wound up. And in fact he didn't, since the phrase he revised put the wound on "his back at a point slightly above the shoulder." It can't be above the shoulder and still be in the back. (Except maybe in conspiracyland where apparently anything is possible.)

DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

And just one quick look at CE903 tells us that the WC did not "move" the wound up into Kennedy's "neck". Specter's pointer in CE903 places the wound just where the autopsy photo has it--in the upper back--which works perfectly for the SBT bullet, moving downward at an angle of 17.72 degrees, to exit right at the tie knot....

jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2010/06/sbt-perfection-of-ce903.html

JEAN DAVISON SAID:

I've said repeatedly that the wound was in the upper back, below the shoulders. It doesn't matter where the Rydberg drawing put it, or where Ford put it, or where the hole in the jacket was. Kennedy wasn't wounded in any of those places. The entry wound is where it's shown in the autopsy photos, in his UPPER BACK.

PAT SPEER SAID:

So WHY did members of the Warren Commission's staff claim the wound was in the neck, after viewing photos proving it to have been in the back?

And WHY did the Johnson Justice Dept., after viewing the photos and knowing full well the wound was in the back, pressure the autopsy doctors into telling the media and the country they'd reviewed the autopsy photos and that this review had proved the wound was where it is shown in the Rydberg drawings, in the neck?

It's one thing to suspect Oswald acted alone, but it's another thing entirely to pretend there was no deliberate deception regarding the location of the back wound.

[...]

When you study the history of the back wound, Jean, it's 100% clear to anyone not named Pollyanna that a number of people, from Humes and Boswell to Specter and Lattimer, have lied about the back wound location.

DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

What you call "lies", I would classify as merely semantics. And I truly believe that, too.

Why?

Because there was simply no reason for anyone to want to start telling a bunch of lies regarding the true location of John F. Kennedy's upper-back wound. And CE903, once again, proves my point.

Exhibit 903, like it or not, does NOT show the wound of entry to be in the "neck" of JFK. It is positively in the UPPER BACK. And as such, any future references made by people such as Arlen Specter or Gerald Ford (or anyone else) to a wound in the "neck" are merely careless misstatements when attempting to describe the location of where the wound was. It's a semantics problem, in my opinion, and nothing more.

We see it over and over again in the Warren Commission volumes and in the Warren Report itself---references to a wound in the "neck" of President Kennedy....

"During the autopsy at Bethesda Naval Hospital another bullet wound was observed near the base of the back of President Kennedy's neck..." -- WR; Page 87

"The position of President Kennedy's car when he was struck in the neck..." -- WR; Page 97

"A surveyor then placed his sighting equipment at the precise point of entry on the back of the President's neck..." -- WR; Page 106

And it's fairly obvious that those references to "neck" in the Warren Report that I just cited above are references that were put on paper by the Commission AFTER the assassination reconstruction was performed in a Dallas garage on May 24, 1964, that resulted in Lyndal Shaneyfelt taking the picture seen in Commission Exhibit 903.

And since that photograph in CE903 does not indicate that there was a bullet wound of entrance in the "neck" of John Kennedy, where does that really leave any of the conspiracy theorists who want to still insist that the Warren Commission (and other people) "lied" about the true location of JFK's upper-back wound?

Do those conspiracists think Arlen Specter, et al, had a strong desire to look like idiots when they continued to refer to the "back" wound as a "neck" wound in various places within the WCR, even though Specter knows that CE903 is ALSO going to be part of the public record, which clearly shows the wound to be in the BACK of the JFK stand-in?

In other words, why would Specter (et al) lie when Commission Exhibit 903 proves forever and for always that there was absolutely NO NEED to lie about this matter at all?

It seems to me as if some of the people describing the location of that wound, including the person or persons who were responsible for writing the words we find on those three pages of the final Warren Commission Report that I quoted above, were in a bit of a quandary about how to precisely describe the part of the body where the bullet entered due to the fact that it entered at a place on JFK's body where the "neck" and the "back" are merging. So we sometimes got differing descriptions.

But it's pretty clear that even though CE903 is providing solid VISUAL confirmation that the bullet entered in the upper BACK of JFK, the people in charge of writing up the 888-page Warren Report still, for the most part, favored the use of the word "neck" instead. (Go figure.)

JEAN DAVISON SAID:

Pat [speer],

In my opinion, Oswald was not only guilty, he was obviously guilty, but I wouldn't tell anyone, "One can only avoid that conclusion by refusing to look at the evidence." If you don't see it, you don't see it. I don't interpret the evidence the same way you do. When you end up with a large number of people "lying" for no apparent reason, that's a red flag, imo.

I'm no Pollyanna, I'm a Doubting Thomas. Can you show me a SBT trajectory of c. 18 degrees that works when the wound is raised to the neck -- specifically, a trajectory from the SN [sniper's Nest] exiting at the tie knot and hitting Connally where it did? Without that, there's no motive for anyone to lie about the wound's location.

As I recall, Boswell told a Baltimore newspaper that the wound was where the autopsy measurements placed it: c. 5 1/2 inches below the mastoid process. Isn't that in the upper back?

I think a part of the confusion came from "semantics," as David suggests. The bullet entered the upper back but since the throat extends below the shoulders on the front of the body, the bullet also passed through and exited a part of the neck. It was a "back/neck wound," literally.

IMO, the "Pollyanna" view of the assassination is thinking that Kennedy was killed by his political enemies. This gives his death significance and makes it understandable. It suggests an orderly universe where things happen for a reason. But if you're stuck with believing as I do that the assassination was a senseless random event with JFK and LHO arriving on Elm St. on the same day entirely by chance, that's a very bleak view. Pollyanna would curl up and die.

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ALSO SEE:

jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2010/06/gerald-ford-and-sbt.html

Edited April 30, 2015 by David Von Pein

[Jon G. Tidd]

The question is, from an anatomical standpoint, what region of the human structure comprises the shoulder?

I used to think my right shoulder was comprised of the point, more or less, where my right arm entered into the shoulder socket. This area is covered over by the deltoid muscle. Apologies to anatomists and physicians.

Some years ago, I broke a chip off my left shoulder blade doing chin-ups.

During the pain that followed, I went to see an orthopod. A physician who knew about muscle-skeleton structure. He had me x-rayed. To his amazement, he found the bone chip buried deep within what he told me were the muscles of my left shoulder. Too deep to operate. I learned then that from a physician's point of view the shoulder is a structure that encompasses the shoulder blade.

So Ford made a mistake. An historic mistake.

Footnote: The autopsy report does not describe the back would in terms of the shoulder. It describes the back wound in terms of the right mastoid process (a movable, not a fixed, point) and the midline of the back. Even Humes, in his imprecision, disagrees with Ford.

Edited April 30, 2015 by Jon G. Tidd

[Brian Schmidt]

http://www.rtl.fr/actu/international/kennedy-le-reve-a-ete-assassine-avec-l-homme-dit-giscard-7767111282

The article is in French, so you will have to find a translation device to use on the whole article, but in essence, former French president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing says he asked Ford about the assassination and that Ford told him that the WC was certain about the fact that the assasination was organised but they could not find out which organisation was behind the crime.

Edited April 30, 2015 by Brian Schmidt

[Jon G. Tidd]

So, Brian, if (and that's if) you believe some organization was behind the JFK assassination, what was the organization?

I agree some organization was behind the assassination and had the agreement with guys like McGeorge Bundy.

[Cliff Varnell]

Now, conspiracy theorists can try and knock down the logic and common sense that exists within Jean Davison's above remarks concerning the topic of Gerald Ford allegedly "moving" the upper-back wound of President Kennedy in order to better accommodate the Single-Bullet Theory. But I doubt those conspiracists will get very far in their arguments. And that's because Jean is right.

No, you were right when you correctly pointed out that JFK's jacket was bunched up just "a little bit" in the Croft photo (Z161).

That's the ball game, David.

Physical evidence trumps.

The SBT thus stands debunked, in this instance by the words of David Von Pein.

Edited April 30, 2015 by Cliff Varnell

[Brian Schmidt]

I think the term organization is more attributed to translation from French to English than what Ford really meant. I don't think an official organization was behind the assassination, but it could have been a secret alliance of sorts. I also don't doubt that the Warren Commission as an institution didn't know who was behind it, but I think members like Dulles and/or McCloy had a good idea of who it was and never said, and may have been a part of it themselves.

I don't think it's completely off base to think Bundy could have been involved. As for my own view, I think Johnson was integral and he utilized some agents of the CIA and Cuban exile community, partly because he knew they could pull it off but also because he knew this would be a layer that could be discovered at a lower level if the lone-nut scenario ever fell apart completely.

Edited April 30, 2015 by Brian Schmidt

[Pat Speer]

Nice straw man argument, David (and Jean). "Why would they say the back wound was on the neck when CE 903 shows that it wouldn't work if it was on the neck?"

Oh, please! It wasn't CE 903 they were worried about. It was CE 385, 386 and 388. They couldn't present the public drawings showing the wound to be on the neck, if they knew it was on the back, right? So they didn't. They changed most all the references to the "back" to be "neck." Specter, who originally said "back" took to correcting people and telling them "neck." It was all deliberate, and OBVIOUSLY so.

[Ray Mitcham]

Special Agent Bennett on 11/22/63

"....At this point I heard what_sounded like a fire-cracker. I immediately looked from the right/crowd/physical area/and looked towards the President who was seated in the right rear seat of his limousine open convertible. At the moment I looked at the back of the President I heard another fire-cracker noise and saw the shot hit the President about four inches down from the right shoulder. "

Another agent who got it wrong, David?

Edited April 30, 2015 by Ray Mitcham

[David Von Pein]

They changed most all the references to the "back" to be "neck." Specter, who originally said "back" took to correcting people and telling them "neck." It was all deliberate, and OBVIOUSLY so.

1.) But WHERE on Kennedy's body IS the wound, Pat? Neck or back?

2.) And does the ACTUAL wound of entrance align itself with what we see in CE903?

I'll answer both of my above questions...

1.) The upper back.

2.) Yes, it does. (Within the leeway that must be granted the WC regarding the precise "SBT" angle, given the fact the angle seen in CE903 is merely an AVERAGE angle between Z-Film frames 210 and 225. So a tiny bit of "margin of error" HAS to be applied to this "CE903" topic, as I discuss here....)

jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2011/12/ce903-part-3.html

So, again, we're back to merely semantics. Nothing more.

(Caption by DVP.)

Edited April 30, 2015 by David Von Pein

[Robert Prudhomme]

Big LSD party all the SS people were at the night before, Ray.

[Brian Schmidt]

David, in regards to post #3, do you think Valéry Giscard d'Estaing was lying?

[David Von Pein]

Beats me, Brian. I can't read a word of it.

[Ray Mitcham]

So let's see.

The hole was shown to be in the shoulder according to the autopsy sheet.

The President's doctor, Dr Burkley, stated that the shot hit the President at the third Thoracic vertebra.

The President's jacket showed that the bullet hit him in the shoulder.

The President's shirt showed that the bullet hit him in the shoulder.

Special Agent Bennnett said he saw the bullet hit the President four inches down from the shoulder.

Who, apart from Specter, said it hit the President in the neck?

[Ray Mitcham]

Beats me, Brian. I can't read a word of it.

Here you go, David. Was Valéry Giscard d'Estaing lying?

50 years ago, "JFK" collapsed in his official convertible through the streets of Dallas, Texas, shot and killed by several bullets. John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th president (Democrat) of the United States, was murdered on 22 October 1963 and even today, the truth about this crime is still not officially established.

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, then Minister of finance by General de Gaulle, has been informed of the event that stunned the world "in a special way".

"I left my office to the Louvre to go to take the plane to Villacoublay in the direction of the Auvergne region and on the right side of the sidewalk, there was a man of a certain age who was - as if it was auto stop, he lifted the arms," said the former head of State to the microphone of RTL.

In Kennedy's assassination, there is somewhere the notion of the murder of a dream

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing

"I said to myself 'what is happening, that what can happen?', continues Valéry Giscard d'Estaing." It slowed, I lowered the window, and it looked and told me: 'the president of the United States comes from being murdered, I learned on the radio, I went out immediately from me to say everywhere'. Andhe burst into tears. It was someone who was so traumatized that he could not keep this new for him".

For those who held the highest offices of the State from 1974 to 1981, the emotion of this anonymous isto the image of the shock felt by "all French" that day. "Because in the assassination of Kennedy, there is somewhere the notion of the murder of a dream, he says. When were murdered a dream, there not that the person who is murdered, the dream is murdered with".

The former French president revealed in passing a few tasty secrets of its relationship with the iconic American Chief, whom he met in the Oval Office. "He asked me advice!", including on inflation, book. As for the atmosphere prevailing at that time in the White House, "it was youth in power. The youth who wanted to change the world. It has deeply inspired me", he said.

VGE convinced by the conspiracy theory

And if the myth has not switched off with man, the blur remained on the real reasons for his death. Aman, Lee Harvey Oswald, is quickly arrested; It will be recognized guilty to have thrice fired on theyoung president in a State of grace with a rifle. It will never be held, murdered less than 48 hours afterhis arrest.

Two official investigations - the controversial conclusions - establish his guilt: the Warren commission, in1974, and Stokes, from 1976 to 1978. But countless theories claim to something else: for thecomplotistes, Oswald would have remote controlled by the CIA, the FBI or the extreme right, accordingto the versions.

There was an organization (...) who has decided to get rid of president Kennedy. It is my belief

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing

"Gerald Ford (president of the United States from 1974 to 1977, Editor's note) was part of the Warrencommission, resumes Valéry Giscard of Estaing. I did a drive with him once in the United States, he was President and I myself President. I told him: ' I ask you an intrusive question: you were in the Warren commission, what conclusions have you been?' He told me: ' this is not satisfactory. We have achieved afirst conclusion: it was not an isolated crime, it was something organized. We were sure that it was organized. But we could not discover by whom ' "."

"So there was an organization that has not really up-to-date, which hated, who hated or feared that President Kennedy, and who has decided to get rid of him. It is my belief," slice the former head of State.Where we learn that two former presidents among the most powerful of their time to support the conspiracy theory.

[Brian Schmidt]

This should be a translation into English, David:

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rtl.fr%2Factu%2Finternational%2Fkennedy-le-reve-a-ete-assassine-avec-l-homme-dit-giscard-7767111282

The part I am referencing:

"...I did a road trip with him [Gerald Ford] once in the United States, [while] he was president . I was president and myself I said: 'I ask you an indiscreet question: you were in the Warren Commission, what conclusions have you reached?' He said. 'This is not satisfactory. We came to a first conclusion: this was not an isolated crime, it was something organized We were sure that it was organized..."

Edited May 1, 2015 by Brian Schmidt