3 hours of never-seen video of Jerrol Custer!

[Vince Palamara]

removed for now

Edited April 28, 2017 by Vince Palamara

[Karl Kinaski]

Fact is that Dennis David and Custer saw a coffin arriving at the Bethesda Morgue before they saw the Kennedy party arriving at the Bethesda main gate. They later assumed that JFKs body was in that coffin ... that coffin (shipping casket) could have been empty. That coffin could have been containing the remains of any "John Doe" ... the saw a coffin ... CXuster and Davies never saw Kennedys corps prior to the arrival of the Kennedy party ... 

 

KK

 

 

 

Edited March 31, 2017 by Karl Kinaski

[Ray Mitcham]

34 minutes ago, Karl Kinaski said:

Fact is that Dennis David and Custer saw a coffin arriving at the Bethesda Morgue before they saw the Kennedy party arriving at the Bethesda main gate. They later assumed that JFKs body was in that coffin ... that coffin (shipping casket) could have been empty. That coffin could have been containing the remains of any "John Doe" ... the saw a coffin ... CXuster and Davies never saw Kennedys corps prior to the arrival of the Kennedy party ... 

 

KK

 

 

 

I don't think a detail of marines would have been ordered to unload an empty casket, and there is no record a "John Doe" being taken into the morgue at any time,  by the Marines.

 

Dennis David timeline.

5 p.m. With Dr Boswell when they heard JFK was to be taken to Bethesda.

 

5. 5.30p.m. Called to Leadbetter's (Officer of the Day) office (NNMC), where 3 or 4 SS men were in attendance.

 

5. 6.30p.m. “Telephone call. “Your visitor is on his way. You will need some people to offload” Collected his own duty sailors together, plus others from dental school.and at about

   6.40p.m. assembled them outside the morgue at the loading dock.

    

   6.45p.m.. A black hearse drove up to the morgue. He said the passengers were wearing OR (Operating room) smock. Four or five blue suits (Fed Agents) exited the back of the hearse, and watched and supervised whilst the 7or 8 sailors offloaded the casket which was in the hearse. He said it was a simple grey shipping casket. His sailors took the casket into the anteroom directly adjacent to the morgue. He then dismissed his men and went back upstairs to an admin office on the second floor.

    

   7.15p.m. approx he saw motorcade including a grey naval ambulance drive to front of Bethesda Tower. He observed Jackie K R.McNamara et al enter the Bethesda lobby and go directly to the 17^th floor suite.

    

   2/2.30a.m. Saw several corpsmen in snack bar and much discussion about two caskets being brought into Bethesda., and even rumors of a brain being brought into the hospital.

    

   Next day, asked Boswell which casket the President had been in and Boswell said “You ought to know: you were there.” [Implication, to him, was JFK was in grey shipping

   casket.]

 

Edited March 31, 2017 by Ray Mitcham

[Ray Mitcham]

4 hours ago, Karl Kinaski said:

Fact is that Dennis David and Custer saw a coffin arriving at the Bethesda Morgue before they saw the Kennedy party arriving at the Bethesda main gate. They later assumed that JFKs body was in that coffin ... that coffin (shipping casket) could have been empty. That coffin could have been containing the remains of any "John Doe" ... the saw a coffin ... CXuster and Davies never saw Kennedys corps prior to the arrival of the Kennedy party ... 

 

KK

 

 

 

"CXuster and Davies never saw Kennedys corps [sic] prior to the arrival of the Kennedy party ... "

How could Custer have taken x rays of the President's autopsy before the arrival of the entourage, KK? 

Edited March 31, 2017 by Ray Mitcham

[David Lifton]

Karl:

I’d like to make four (4) points which –collectively and individually— should put to rest the notion you seem to be attempting to advance: “that coffin [may have contained] the remains of any "John Doe"  [because all they saw was]... a coffin ... Custer and David never saw Kennedys corpse prior to the arrival of the Kennedy party. . .”

I understand your concern, but the above statement is flat-out wrong. And here’s why:

POINT #1:  The Account of Donald Rebentisch

In January 1981, just days after I began my Best Evidence book tour, and when the two – casket account was first published in a two-page story about Best Evidence (which was published in the January 19 issue of TIME, not as a book review, but in the National Affairs section), I was contacted by Jerry Morlock, a reporter for Grand Rapids Press.   Morlock told me he had just interviewed Donald Rebentisch, of Coopersville, Michigan, a petty officer stationed at Bethesda on November 22, 1963, and that Rebentisch confirmed Dennis David’s story.   Morlock wanted me to know about this development before his story was carried in national media. From my room in the Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles, I immediately contacted Rebentisch, and we had a detailed conversation. It was a conversation that I taped using a brand new SONY micro-cassette recorder that I had just purchased, a device that cost (as I recall) about $400 at the time. (Prices came down markedly in the years following).

Starting in the 1982 edition, I included Rebentisch’s account in a small section two-page annex dated 12/6/1981, and titled “Epilogue to the 1982 Edition.” (See page 701 of the Carrol and Graf Edition, published in 1988).  

What did Rebentisch say?  Rebentisch told me that  he was one of those who carried in the casket brought in the black vehicle. As far as he knew, and was told at the time, that coffin contained JFK’s body.  Afterwards, he went upstairs and was in the Bethesda lobby, when he saw Mrs. Kennedy, standing at the elevator, with Bobby, waiting to go upstairs.   Here’s what I wrote in that “1982 Epilogue”:

QUOTE: Rebentisch told his local paper, the Grand Rapids Press, that the two-ambulance story published TIME was not news to him—he had been telling his family the same story for years. He stated that President Kennedy’s body was not in the gray navy ambulance, which carried Mrs. Kennedy and the ceremonial casket and which arrived at the front of the hospital. Instead, the body had arrived at the back of the hospital in a black unmarked hearse.  . . . Morlock told me about Rebentisch before his story ran on the wire services, and I was able to interview Rebentisch before he read Best Evidence.  He provided corroboration for Dennis David’s account by recalling that he had helped unload the first casket, an ordinary shipping casket, and that it had arrived at the back before the gray navy ambulance arrived at the front. Rebentisch said that after unloading the first casket, he went upstairs to the lobby area of Bethesda where he saw Mrs. Kennedy, who had just arrived in the navy ambulance, waiting for the elevator.

“Reporter Morlock found other witnesses who knew that two caskets had been used at Bethesda that night. ‘It was common knowledge,’ said one. “Like the witnesses I had interviewed, these new witnesses told Morlock the two-casket scheme was used as a security measure.

“Rebentisch’s account ran on both wire services, the weekend of January 23, 1981. Subsequently, in March 1981, the Canadian Broadcasting Company made arrangements for me to participate in a TV interview of Rebentisch at his home n Michigan for a program that was broadcast in Canada in mid-April. (DSL Note, 4/3/2017: The program was titled “The Empty Casket".  It was a 30 minute TV documentary produced by Brian McKenna, and which McKenna told me was one of the highest rated TV programs ever broadcast by CBC).  I thought him (Rebentisch) honest and straightforward, and he seemed concerned that events he had personally witnesses were not in the official story.”

End QUOTE, from 1982 (mass paperback) edition of Best Evidence, and then republished in the 1988 Carrol & Graf edition (trade paperback format), and then still again in the 1993 New American Library (mass paperback) edition.

Now here’s a small postscript to the above:  As noted, I telephoned Rebentisch from my hotel room, taping the conversation using a SONY micro-cassette recorder, which was somewhat recent technology.  The cassettes were very small, and I was then traveling to over 20 cities on my book tour.  Somehow, that cassette got lost—or so I thought.  A few years ago, I found that original micro-cassette, and the tape was carefully duplicated, and then meticulously transcribed by Pat Valentino.

As far as I’m concerned, Dennis David and Don Rebentisch were co-equal witnesses to the same event—David being interviewed by me on July 2, 1979 (per Chapter 25 of Best Evidence), and then again, on camera, in late October 1980;  Rebentisch, in mid-January, 1981.  Further, in that January 1981 conversation with Rebentisch, I found another way to establish his’s bona-fides. Rebentisch volunteered that he knew Dennis David because he often played cards with him.  I had met Dennis David (and his wife) just 3 months before, in October 1980, when I filmed him for what became the Best Evidence Research Video (now available on YouTube).  So I asked  Rebentisch a simple question: What was Dennis David’s wife’s first name? Without hesitation, he immediately provided the correct answer, and in that moment, I realized that Don Rebentisch was --as they say--"the real deal."

Had I known about Rebentisch when I wrote Chapter 25 of Best Evidence  (drafted later in 1979, and devoted almost exclusively to Dennis David, and his account about the arrival of JFK's body in a black hearse, at the morgue entrance, out in back, and about 20 minutes prior to the arrival of the naval ambulance,carrying Jackie and Bobby, at the front), I would certain have included Rebentisch, as important corroboration; and perhaps even  given Rebentisch “equal billing” with Dennis David.  In a future edition, which I am planning, I intend to include an insert of some sort, giving not only the the full account of my July 2, 1979 interview of David (as it appears in Chapter 25 of Best Evidence); but now also  augmented and corroborated by my January 1981 telephone interview of Rebentisch, as well. What also desserves to be included is the January 1981 account that Rebentisch provided to reporter Jerry Morlock and which (as noted above) was published in the Grand Rapids [Michigan] Press, prior to his reading Best Evidence.

POINT #2:  The matter of X-ray tech Jerrol Custer

Now, Karl, turning to your second point. . . that Custer didn’t see JFK’s body “prior to the arrival  of Kennedy’s body.  That’s simply not true.  As I reported in Best Evidence,  Custer was carrying X-rays of Kennedy’s body, already exposed in the morgue, when he passed through the Bethesda lobby, and saw Mrs. Kennedy, who had just arrived.  You will find that on the last page of Chapter 27, where I provided the account of the late Jerrol Custer.

QUOTING (from Best Evidence, on the last page of Chapter 27, and based on my telephone interview of him on 10/7/1979):

            Custer said that he saw Jacqueline from a distance of ten or fifteen yards. “I saw her, because she stuck out like a sore thumb.” He continued to the hallway and took an elevator upstairs to get his [X-ray] films processed.

           Here was the strongest evidence that the President’s body was at Bethesda before Jacqueline got there. She entered the hospital no later than seen o’clock. Outside the hospital door stood the navy ambulance, with the Dallas casket.,  Yet Custer already had in his hands X-rays of President Kennedy’s body.  UNQUOTE (from p. 621 of the Macmillan hardcover, or the 1988 Carrol and Graf edition).

POINT #3: The question of Dr. Humes

You included Dr. Humes in your list of witnesses who (you allege) didn’t see the body before the arrival of the naval ambulance. Again, you are incorrect.  When Humes testified to the ARRB in 1996,  Counsel Jeremy Gunn asked a very pointed question.  By that time, he was onto the games that Humes played, and so he didn’t question him about coffins. Instead, he asked Humes when he first saw the body of President Kennedy.

I’ve heard the audio tape, which was –for me—really quite dramatic, but the transcript captures the moment quite nicely.

Humes answer:  6:45 p.m. (approximately).

As the public record shows, and as Humes surely knew (since Best Evidence  was published, to major media attention in January 1981), the naval ambulance arrived at 6:53 (according to reporter William Grigg, in the Washington Star) or 6:55, according to the official Secret Service chronology.  (See Chapter 16 of B.E., p. 416 n the Macmillan or the Carrol and Graf editions, which are identically paginated).

POINT #4: The Boyajian Document

I believe that the official report of Marine Sergeant Roger Boyajian, the NCOIC [Non Commissioned Officer in Charge] of the USMC Security Detail should settle the matter of when that casket was delivered to the Bethesda Morgue. That detail was specifically requested for morgue security, in view of the imminent arrival of JFK’s body.  It records the arrival time as 18:35  (6:35 p.m. EST).

Some summary observations:

Karl: I hope that you—and others reading this around the world (because I recognized we are now, in effect, “broadcasting” this information via the Internet)—will read this, and appreciate the fact that the coffin that was in the naval ambulance arriving at Bethesda (an ambulance carrying, among others, the president’s wife, Jacqueline, and his brother, Robert, the Attorney General of the United States) was empty.

Just pause a moment, and think about that: that at Andrews Air Force Base, and at that iconic moment—the offload of the Dallas coffin, a televised event broadcast around the world—the coffin being offloaded was empty.

How can we be sure?  Because, as I carefully showed in Best Evidence by “running the event backwards (as in a movie film, see Chapter 25 for details)—that is an ineluctable conclusion: if the Dallas coffin was empty at the Bethesda front entrance (time of arrival: 6:55 p.m., EST), then it must have been empty when it was offloaded--some 50 minutes earlier, at Andrews Air Force Base--from  Air Force One (time of offload, about 6:05 p.m.)

That’s just plain logic, because there is a continuous stream of events from off-load at Andrews -- a televised event that was broadcast around the nation and the world—to arrival at the Bethesda front entrance.  There was no interruption; there was a solid "chain of custody" (in you will) from the Andrews off-load to the arrival at the Bethesda front entrance.

All very well, but  then we can take this one step further.  We can extend the analysis (about there being an “uninterrupted journey”) back in time to Love Field, in Dallas, where Air Force One took off at 2:47 p.m. CST.   We can extrapolate backwards (in time) using the  same methodology –-the same line of reasoning--to the time when Air Force One took off at 2:47 p.m. CST.

Specifically: if the coffin offloaded at Andrews was empty, then it must have been empty when Air Force One took off from Love Field in Dallas, at 2:47 p.m. CST.

Why?  Because the Dallas coffin was located in the tail compartment of Air Force One, and sitting right there, in the few available seats, and throughout the flight, was Jacqueline Kennedy, Kenny O’Donnell, Dave Powers, et al. They all sat right by the Dallas coffin from the time of take-off (2:47, just nine minutes after the swearing in of LBJ), until the plane landed at Andrews (about 6 p.m., EST).

What all of this means: An empty coffin at the Bethesda front entrance means an empty coffin upon take-off from Dallas.

All of this is laid out, in detail, in Best Evidence (Chapters 25 and 28).

In Final Charade, I will carry the analysis provided above—and which, as noted, is set forth in Best Evidence—to the next level, and address the question of just when President Kennedy’s body was removed from the Dallas coffin, because when that coffin left Parkland Hospital, it sure as  hell contained the President's body.

Stay tuned.

David S.Lifton

4/3/2017 – 8 a.m. PDT

Los Angeles, California

Tweaked, 4/4/2017, 4:50 a.m. PDT

 

 

 

Edited April 4, 2017 by David Lifton

[Karl Kinaski]

KK: Custer and Davies never saw Kennedys corps prior to the arrival of the Kennedy party ... "

Ray Mitcham: How could Custer have taken x rays of the President's autopsy before the arrival of the entourage, KK? 

KK: Custer is mistaken. There was no chance for him to make all the Kennedy-X-rays between 6.35 min (the arrival of a shipping casket at the Bethesda morgue) and the arrival of the Kennedy Party at 6.53h in front of Bethesda, he claimed witnessing, the Kennedy-x-rays in his hands. 
 You can't put (at 6h.35 min)the (a) body into the morgue, take the body out of the casket, place it on a table, bring the x-ray machine into the morgue, moving it around the table several times to make x rays of the head the chest and the whole body in general etc., took the x-ray films out of the x-ray machine and carry them to the front entrance of Bethesda within 18 minutes just in time to see the arrival of the Kennedy party ... that's impossible ... and there is another problem: it was the autopsy radiologist Ebersole who personally carried the x-rays from the morgue, to the processing room ... not Custer.  

Edited April 23, 2017 by Karl Kinaski

[Ray Mitcham]

5 hours ago, Karl Kinaski said:

KK: Custer and Davies never saw Kennedys corps prior to the arrival of the Kennedy party ... "

Ray Mitcham: How could Custer have taken x rays of the President's autopsy before the arrival of the entourage, KK? 

KK: Custer is mistaken. There was no chance for him to make all the Kennedy-X-rays between 6.35 min (the arrival of a shipping casket at the Bethesda morgue) and the arrival of the Kennedy Party at 6.53h in front of Bethesda, he claimed witnessing, the Kennedy-x-rays in his hands. 
 You can't put (at 6h.35 min)the (a) body into the morgue, take the body out of the casket, place it on a table, bring the x-ray machine into the morgue, moving it around the table several times to make x rays of the head the chest and the whole body in general etc., took the x-ray films out of the x-ray machine and carry them to the front entrance of Bethesda within 18 minutes just in time to see the arrival of the Kennedy party ... that's impossible ... and there is another problem: it was the autopsy radiologist Ebersole who personally carried the x-rays from the morgue, to the processing room ... not Custer.  

"Custer is mistaken." So that's your reason. How do you know Custer was mistaken. Were you there or do you have special powers?

EYEWITNESSES TO DELIVERY OF A CASKET AT 6:35-6:45 pm     Roger Boyajian was a marine sergeant in charge of a detail of marines on the evening of 11/22/63. His orders from Admiral Calvin Galloway, CO of the National Naval Medical Center (NNMC) at Bethesda (of which the Naval Hospital is part), were to prevent unauthorized personnel from entering restricted areas around the morgue [2], as well as to prevent the press from interfering with the delivery of the president's casket. On November 26, 1963, Boyajian wrote an after-action memo describing the duties of his team including [3]: At approximately 1835 (6:35 PM) the casket was received at the morgue entrance and taken inside. Although he provided no details of its appearance, the coffin he saw being unloaded and delivered to the morgue could not have been the ornamental bronze casket in which the president's body had been placed at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, because, at 6:35 PM, that casket was en route from Andrews Air Force Base.     Dennis David, Chief of the Day for the Medical School (also part of the NNMC) on the evening of the autopsy, told the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) in 1997 that he supervised the removal of a gray shipping casket from a black hearse at about 6:45 [4]. A group of sailors under his command carried the shipping casket into the anteroom of the morgue. After this event, David witnessed the arrival of the navy ambulance -- carrying the ornamental casket and Mrs. Kennedy -- at the front of the NNMC. He saw Mrs. Kennedy exit the ambulance and enter the lobby. David also described the hearse as a black Cadillac, which, he was certain, arrived well before the gray navy ambulance. His recollection of the time of arrival of 6:45 PM is consistent with that of Sgt. Boyajian.   In February 2009, the author asked Dennis David what, if anything, he had noticed when he supervised the delivery of the shipping casket to the anteroom. He responded that he "saw marines in the morgue hallway." The ten-man security detail under Boyajian's command was composed of marines, whose presence would be conspicuous to a navy man.   Edward Reed a technician at Bethesda Naval Hospital, took a number of x-rays of the president's body during the autopsy. In his 1997 deposition to the ARRB, he stated that he reported to the morgue after being paged over the PA system [5, p. 20]. In 1978, he told Mark Flanagan of the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) [6] that he arrived at the morgue at around 6:30 PM, where, according to his ARRB testimony, he found that the casket containing the president's body had already been delivered and was being guarded by five or six marine corpsmen [5, p.22]. Reed helped carry the casket into the autopsy room, was present when it was opened and saw that the body was inside a "plastic bag" [5, p. 24; 6]. Mr. Reed's account corroborates those of Boyajian and David of an early arrival of a casket at the Bethesda morgue and, furthermore, provides proof that this casket contained the president's body. Hospital corpsman Floyd Riebe assisted in taking photographs during the autopsy on President Kennedy's body. He told the ARRB [7, p. 28] in 1997 that a gun-metal gray casket, brought into the autopsy room, contained the president's body, which was inside a body bag [7, p. 30] and that Paul O'Connor (see below) assisted in removing the body from the casket.   Paul O'Connor was a medical technician who assisted at the autopsy. In 1997 he told HSCA staff members that a pink shipping casket contained the president's body, which was in a body bag [8]. Mr. O'Connor's observations are consistent with those of Reed and Riebe. Like Paul O'Connor, James Jenkins was a medical technician who was interviewed by HSCA staff members in 1977 [9]. Mr. Jenkins was not asked to describe the casket containing the president's body. However, in a phone conversation with author David Lifton in 1979, he said that the casket "was not a really ornamental type thing...not something you'd expect a president to be in" [1, p. 609].   Gawler's First Call Sheet. Gawler's Funeral Directors (Washington, DC) supplied a Marsellus 710 mahogany casket [10] as a replacement for the ornamental bronze casket, because the latter had been damaged in transit from Dallas. The president's body was interred at Arlington Cemetery inside the Marsellus casket. Gawler's First Call Sheet, dated November 22, 1963, states [10]: Body removed from metal shipping Casket at USNH at Bethesda. No time is given for this event; however, it is consistent with eyewitness accounts of delivery to the Bethesda morgue of a shipping casket containing the president's body.     EYEWITNESSES TO DELIVERY OF A CASKET AT 7:17 PM   When the plain shipping casket containing the president's body was carried into the Bethesda morgue at 6:35-6:45 PM, the motorcade bringing Mrs. Kennedy was en route from Andrews Air Force Base. One of the vehicles in the motorcade was a gray navy ambulance carrying the ornamental bronze casket that had been flown from Dallas; on arrival at Andrews AFB, it had been placed in the ambulance by an all-service honor guard, under the command of Lieutenant Samuel Bird. The honor guard made the journey to Bethesda by helicopter.   James Sibert and Francis O'Neill, FBI agents, were in the third car of the motorcade as it traveled from Andrews AFB to Bethesda. Their responsibilities were to maintain constant vigil over the bronze ornamental casket, which they believed carried the president's body, to attend the autopsy and to collect bullets or fragments recovered from the body. Their duties and activities are described in their subsequent report [11] and statements to Arlen Specter [12], to the HSCA [13; 14] and to the ARRB [15; 16].   FBI Agent O'Neill told the ARRB that, upon his (and Agent Sibert's) arrival at the front entrance of the hospital (at approximately 6:55 PM [17]), he observed Mrs. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy and probably Dr. Burkley exit the gray navy ambulance, which contained the ornamental bronze casket, and enter the hospital along with Secret Service Agent Roy Kellerman. After some time, during which the navy ambulance had not moved, he and Sibert approached Larry O'Brien (president's assistant) and asked about the delay. O'Brien said that SSA William Greer, who had driven the ambulance from Andrews AFB to Bethesda, was not sure how to find the morgue. Since O'Neill and Sibert were familiar with the Bethesda Hospital grounds, they drove to the morgue entrance at the rear of the hospital, with SSA Greer following.   Upon arriving at the loading dock outside the morgue, O'Neill noted SSA Kellerman coming out of a door to a corridor leading into the autopsy room, at which point he (O'Neill) introduced himself to Kellerman. Clearly, Kellerman had found his way from the front entrance of the hospital to the morgue complex.   Sibert and O'Neill, along with Greer and the ambulance, arrived at the morgue entrance just prior to 7:17 PM. Sibert told the ARRB that he and O'Neill assisted Greer and Kellerman in taking the ornamental bronze casket into the anteroom of the morgue at about 7:17 PM [15, p. 45; p. 50]. In their interview with Specter, both agents said that "preparations for the autopsy" occurred at approximately 7:17 PM [12, p. 2].   From "JFK 22/1163Body/Casket Chicanery at the Bethesda  Morgue   By James Rinnovatore   The above testimonies do not agree that JFK's casket arrived at 7.35.p.m.

 

[Ray Mitcham]

One serious question. Does anybody believe the cover story that the SS arranged for a decoy ambulance from Andrews to Bethesda in case somebody tried to intercept it. Really? The body of the slain president surrounded by numerous SS, and military personnel, and they were worried that somebody would try to intercept? The real  reason for a decoy ambulance was for nefarious reasons.

Edited April 23, 2017 by Ray Mitcham

[Ron Ecker]

5 hours ago, Ray Mitcham said:

One serious question. Does anybody believe the cover story that the SS arranged for a decoy ambulance from Andrews to Bethesda in case somebody tried to intercept it. Really? The body of the slain president surrounded by numerous SS, and military personnel, and they were worried that somebody would try to intercept? The real  reason for a decoy ambulance was for nefarious reasons.

I believe that Lipsey stated the reason for the decoy ambulance was not fear of interception of the body, but concern about the mob of people at Bethesda awaiting the body's arrival. He said he was not even sure the chopper he was on could land safely because of the crowd. I would not be surprised, though, if they didn't have their story straight about why the decoy, and I agree the decoy was for nefarious reasons.

 

[Karl Kinaski]

Custer is mistaken 

 

In this video about 18 min. 45sec. Custer claimed, that he had already done jfk x-rays and took them to the processing room, when he saw the Kennedy party arriving ... (18.55h) 

But it was his boss Ebersole, not Custer, who took the x-ray to the processing room.

 

1978 HSCA Interview of John Ebersole:

MEDICAL PANEL MEETING 
Saturday, March 11, 1978 
House of Representatives, 
Medical Panel of the Select 
Committee on Assassinations, 
Washington, D. C.

The meeting convened at 10:20 a.m., pursuant to notice, in room 503, Archives Building, Seventh Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, N. W., Washington, D. C.

Quote, john Ebersole:

With the exception of the periods when I personally carried the cassettes containing the X rays to the X ray Department which was on the fourth floor of the hospitalⁱ -- with the exception of those periods I was in the autopsy room from the time the coffin arrived

Close quote

 

Custer never carried any Kennedy x-rays to the x-ray department seeing Jackie Kenndy arriving at the same time.

Custer is mistaken. 

 

KK

 

 

 

Edited April 26, 2017 by Karl Kinaski

[David Lifton]

13 minutes ago, Karl Kinaski said:

Custer is mistaken 

 

In this video about 18 min. 45sec. Custer claimed, that he had already done jfk x-rays and took them to the processing room, when he saw the Kennedy party arriving ... (18.55h) 

But it was his boss Ebersole, not Custer, who took the x-ray to the processing room.

 

1978 HSCA Interview of John Ebersole:

MEDICAL PANEL MEETING 
Saturday, March 11, 1978 
House of Representatives, 
Medical Panel of the Select 
Committee on Assassinations, 
Washington, D. C.

The meeting convened at 10:20 a.m., pursuant to notice, in room 503, Archives Building, Seventh Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, N. W., Washington, D. C.

Quote, john Ebersole:

With the exception of the periods when I personally carried the cassettes containing the X rays to the X ray Department which was on the fourth floor of the hospitalⁱ -- with the exception of those periods I was in the autopsy room from the time the coffin arrived

Close quote

 

Custer never carried any Kennedy x-rays to the x-ray department seeing Jackie Kenndy arriving at the same time.

Custer is mistaken. 

 

KK

 

 

 

Karl:

There is obviously a conflict between Custer's account, and the Ebersole account.

Please keep this in mind:

1. When I spoke with Ebersole (8/27/72) he either said (or implied) that the autopsy began at 10 p.m.

2. Custer told me from the beginning (Sept/Oct 1980) of this   incident.  I didn't lead him on in any way; he simply volunteered it.

Whose story is correct?  An interesting question which is not easy to analyze.

Neither are "perfect" witnesses.

DSL

 

[David Josephs]

On 4/23/2017 at 7:05 AM, Ray Mitcham said:

One serious question. Does anybody believe the cover story that the SS arranged for a decoy ambulance from Andrews to Bethesda in case somebody tried to intercept it. Really? The body of the slain president surrounded by numerous SS, and military personnel, and they were worried that somebody would try to intercept? The real  reason for a decoy ambulance was for nefarious reasons.

Yes... real reason was that JFK was being helicoptered to Bethesda...  the "decoy" was only known to be such by those involved with the conspiracy.  Lipsey is neck deep in it.

As for Karl - that he uses Ebersole as his "go to" witness is a real joke.   If he took even a second to read thru anything about Ebersole, he'd know how cooperative he was in the same vein as Humes and Boswell.  Ebersole claims he retook ALL the SS photos on instruction from the SS...  Ebersole, like Humes, was a tool that evening.

If I have to decide between the work of Karl and that of Lifton on this topic, sorry Karl... you're not even in the ballpark.

[David Lifton]

On 4/23/2017 at 1:19 AM, Karl Kinaski said:

KK: Custer and Davies never saw Kennedys corps prior to the arrival of the Kennedy party ... "

Ray Mitcham: How could Custer have taken x rays of the President's autopsy before the arrival of the entourage, KK? 

KK: Custer is mistaken. There was no chance for him to make all the Kennedy-X-rays between 6.35 min (the arrival of a shipping casket at the Bethesda morgue) and the arrival of the Kennedy Party at 6.53h in front of Bethesda, he claimed witnessing, the Kennedy-x-rays in his hands. 
 You can't put (at 6h.35 min)the (a) body into the morgue, take the body out of the casket, place it on a table, bring the x-ray machine into the morgue, moving it around the table several times to make x rays of the head the chest and the whole body in general etc., took the x-ray films out of the x-ray machine and carry them to the front entrance of Bethesda within 18 minutes just in time to see the arrival of the Kennedy party ... that's impossible ... and there is another problem: it was the autopsy radiologist Ebersole who personally carried the x-rays from the morgue, to the processing room ... not Custer.  

Karl:

I understand your argument, and its possible that you are correct, but. . . :

But if you are, there's a second witness to Jacqueline Kennedy's arrival (6:53/6:55 p.m.) and that she was inside the Bethesda lobby, a few minutes later (say, 7 p.m.), and a good 25 minutes after the recorded arrival of the body (per the Boyajian document, at 6:35 p.m. ).

Who is that witness?  Donald Rebentisch (whose account I first published in the 1982 edition of Best Evidence (a Dell paperback) and whose information is so important that I mad sure to include it in the remaining two editions of Best Eividence: the 1988 Carroll and Graf edition, and the 1993 Signet mass paperback edition, both of which carried the autopsy photographs (which I had obtained in December 1982).

This "addendum" is titled "Epilogue to 1982 Edition", and you anyone interested in this subject of "time-sequence" should read it, because it explains who Donald Rebentisch is, how I came to interview him, and what he saw.

WHO IS REBENTISCH: One of the sailors who was on duty that night, at Bethesda, and who was called upon to assist in unloading the black hearse which arrived with the shipping casket, "a good 20 minutes before" the arrival of the naval ambulance (carrying RFK, Jackie, and the Dallas casket, at the front).

HOW DID I HEAR ABOUT REBENTISCH, AND WHEN DID I NTERVIEW HIM?

I learned about Febentisch within a few days of the publication of the TIME story (in the issue dated Jan 19, 1981) which carried a two-page story, in the National News section, about the publication of Best Evidence. The TIME story was titled "Now, a Two Casket Argument," and--I was told--almost made the cover, and TIME was serioiusly considering carrying an excerpt of B.E. in that issue. Rebentisch, who lived in Grand Rapids, Michigan, called his local newspaper, and volunteered that yes, he knew about the two-casket business, and had been telling his family all about that for years.  So the reporter wrote all of that up in a newspaper account, which was published (locally) in the Grand Rapids Press, and then he telephoned my publisher, to reach me, before it appeared. My publisher told him where to reach me--I was on my book tour, in Los Angeles, and was staying at the very posh Bonaventure Hotel.  The phone rang in my room, and I got the message. I immediately realized the potential significance of Rebentisch as a witness, and went to considerable trouble to hook up my freshly purchased SONY mini-cassette recorder to the phone in my room, and called Morlock, who then provided me with Rebentisch's phone number; and soon I was on the phone with Rebentisch. 

It was a remarkable phone call, because I was able to speak with him--at length, and in great detail--before he had read (or even had a copy of) Best Evidence. He went through his entire account with me, and the most important part, from my standpoint, was that he corroborated the account of dennis David, who was Chapter 25 in Best Evidence. Yes, he was asked (by Dennis David) to assist in the unloading of the black hearse, and yes, he helped carry in the shipping casket.  And then--get this--he went up to the Bethesda lobby, which was on the first floor,  and there he saw Jacqueline Kennedy (and Bobby, as I recall) waiting at the elevator, to take that "upstairs" to the presidential suite (which we now know, was on the 17th floor). 

THE IMPORTANCE, HISTORICALLY, OF REBENTISCH'S ACCOUNT

Rebentisch's account provided strong evidence that the black hearse--which he helped unload--arrived at the back, before the naval ambulance carrying Jacqueline Kennedy (and Bobby, and the Dallas casket) arrived at the front.

As the call came to an end, I was searching in my mind for some way to verify his credibility, because that was most important to me.  At some point during the call, he mentioned that he often played cards with Dennis David, and had known him well. Just three months before, in October (1980), I had been to Dennis David's home, in a small town in Illinois, to interview him on camera, and had met his wife.  And she had a somewhat unusual first name. "By the way," I asked, "Do you know the first name of Dennis David's wife?" Without missing a beat, he replied, and his answer was correct. As far as i was concerned, that estbalished his credibility.

THE CBC DOCUMENTARY--THE EMPTY CASKET--AND REBENTISCH'S ACCOUNT

Some months later, in the spring of 1980, and after B.E. had been on the national best seller lists for several months (#1 in both AP and UPI, and $4 on the NY Times list), CBC film producer/director Brian McKenna, approached me, and --using the B.E. footage I already had (from Octobner 1980)--Brian produced a major nationally televised documentary broadcast on CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company). In connection with the production of that program, he arranged for us to fly to Grand Rapids, Michigan, and we interviewed Rebentish on camera.  Brian tells me that the program--"The Empty Casket"--was one of the highest rated TV programs ever broadcast on CBC.

THE ORIGINAL MICRO-CASSETTE TURNS UP

Finally, this footnote. For years after I re-settled myself in Los Angeles (around May 1985), I couldn't locate what had become of the original cassette of the original January 1981 telephone interview.  Just a few years ago, I opened a manila file folder (of many that I have) and out flopped that cassette!  Pat Valentino made it his project to transfer to the audio to a digital format and spent the hours it took to make a perfectly accurate transcript.  So that's the "happy ending" to the Don Rebentisch story.

He's an important witness who corroborates the account of Dennis David, and so --if it turns out that Custer's account was incorrect (whatever the reason)--it doesn't matter, because Rebentisch provides quite powerful corroboration, for the sequence of arrivals: i.e., first, the black hearse (with the shpping casket at the back); and then, some 20 minutes later, the naval ambulance arriving with Jacqueline Kennedy, RFK, and the Dallas coffin at the front.

Bottom line: The Dallas coffin--the coffin offloaded from Air Force Once, in the nationally televised arrival of AF-1 from Dallas--was empty.

More on that another time.

DSL

4/26/17 -8 a.m., PDT

Los Angeles, California

Edited April 26, 2017 by David Lifton

[Karl Kinaski]

edit

Edited April 26, 2017 by Karl Kinaski