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Does Lifton's Best Evidence indicate that the coverup and the crime were committed by the same people?


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10 hours ago, Ollie Curme said:

I'm not sure I can agree with you David that Hume's vague description of the location of the large head wound allow him to be describing the blowout in the back of the head as described by the Parkland doctors.  For the same autopsy report describes a small 15mm by 6mm hole in the occiput, slightly above and 2.5 cm to the right of the external occipital protuberance.  How can you have a small 15mm by 6 mm hole in the same spot where there's a hole the size of a small orange?


Ollie,

The 15 x 6 mm hole was discussed by Humes and other autopsists for the HSCA. The 15 x 6 mm hole was a description of the hole found in the scalp, not the skull. They said the bullet "tunneled" down between the scalp and the skull. The distance of the tunneling wasn't mentioned. At that point of the discussion, one of those present said that the discussion didn't belong in the record and the tape recorder was shut off.

One of the autopsists said that the corresponding hole in the skull was on the margin of the skull bone and a rear (occipital) fragment. In other words, with the occipital fragment in place, the EOP hole in the SKULL was lower than the EOP hole in the SCALP, and was right on the boundary of where the occipital fragment meets the skull proper.

(BTW, I don't believe that that hole really existed. I believe that the bullet fragmented and traveled down the neck. I believe that that is the reason the tunneling information didn't belong in the official record. And that the neck x-ray was made to disappear.)

 

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10 hours ago, Gerry Simone said:

Wasn't it Robert Groden in High Treason who noted that one can discern the matte line in THAT autopsy photo?

Gerry,

Yes, I vaguely remember that, yet Pat Speer offers a fuller explanation with video aides.  

Regards 

--Paul Trejo 

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7 hours ago, Micah Mileto said:

The open-cranium photo was taken after the brain was removed. As shown in uncropped versions of the back wound photograph, the cranial opening was extended all the way to the occipital bone. So if you accept that the open-cranium photos depict the posterior skull, it doesn't really make a statement to the nature of the original head wound.

Micah,

The Zapruder film, IMHO, shows the whole side of JFK's head being torn off.

The orange sized hole in the back was only the final phase.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo 

Edited by Paul Trejo
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12 hours ago, Ron Ecker said:

The plan to blame it on Cuba was abandoned when Oswald, a patsy to be identified as one of the Castro shooters, was taken alive. The decision was made to blame it all on Oswald (which would require a mess of an autopsy) and get rid of him ASAP even if it meant shooting him in the basement of police headquarters on live TV.

Who knows what all factors went into the decision, but it is worth noting that some "Oswald luggage" was reportedly found at the Mexico City airport, which luggage disappeared, the charade abandoned, when Oswald got arrested instead of being on his way to Mexico City or wherever. (Final destination a graveyard or plane crash at sea "on the way to Cuba".)

Ron,

We agree on only one item in your list -- the decision to blame LHO "would require a mess of an autopsy."   That is, the decision for the pre-autopsy autopsy (Lifton, 1981) was a LATE decision -- made only after the JFK assassination itself.

Otherwise, we disagree on almost everything.   You say, "The plan to blame it on Cuba was abandoned when Oswald, a patsy to be identified as one of the Castro shooters, was taken alive."  But that makes no sense.  WHY abandon the Cuba invasion simply because Oswald was taken alive?  Surely Oswald would be dead in a few hours anyway.  There was no NEED to abandon the Cuba invasion on that basis -- which was the WHOLE POINT of the JFK assassination in the first place.

Finally, you say:  "Who knows what all factors went into the decision?"  That argument merely allows you to claim that there was such a decision without explaining it.   You are presuming what you should be proving.  You haven't answered my question -- Why Sheep-Dip Oswald as a Red for six solid months, and then suddenly opt for a Lone Nut Oswald?

The answer I propose is more rational -- namely -- that the JFK Cover-up Team was different and even opposed to the JFK Kill Team.   That's the logical answer -- the :"Lone Nut" Oswald dogma was designed to prevent the US invasion of Cuba.

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

Edited by Paul Trejo
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4 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:


Ollie,

The 15 x 6 mm hole was discussed by Humes and other autopsists for the HSCA. The 15 x 6 mm hole was a description of the hole found in the scalp, not the skull. They said the bullet "tunneled" down between the scalp and the skull. The distance of the tunneling wasn't mentioned. At that point of the discussion, one of those present said that the discussion didn't belong in the record and the tape recorder was shut off.

One of the autopsists said that the corresponding hole in the skull was on the margin of the skull bone and a rear (occipital) fragment. In other words, with the occipital fragment in place, the EOP hole in the SKULL was lower than the EOP hole in the SCALP, and was right on the boundary of where the occipital fragment meets the skull proper.

(BTW, I don't believe that that hole really existed. I believe that the bullet fragmented and traveled down the neck. I believe that that is the reason the tunneling information didn't belong in the official record. And that the neck x-ray was made to disappear.)

 

Sandy, If you read Pat Speer's Chapters 13 and 14 he clears up a lot of confusion.  You can see the 15mm by 6 mm hole in the scalp by the external occipital protuberance  in the Back of Head photo and you can also see the corresponding complete through hole in the underlying skull in the Mystery Photo.  I have attached one of Pat Speer's comparison slides showing the EOP hole in the scalp and skull as well as a Mystery Photo that shows the EOP hole as well as a bevelled half circle hole in the skull at the top of the head.  It is the bevelled half circle hole in the top of the head to which skull fragments brought in later in the autopsy fitted, completing the circle.  These skull fragments were diagrammed by Boswell on the second page of the autopsy face sheet:

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=582#relPageId=2&tab=page and also xrayed, see:

http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=82#relPageId=131&tab=page

Finally I have attached a slide from Cyril Wecht's paper on JFK's head wounds which shows that the trail of lead fragments extend from the top of the head forward to the frontal bone, indicating that the fatal head shot must have come from the rear.

 

BOHcompwithovals.jpg

Slide1.jpg

6 Wecht lateral.jpg

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Paul,

IMO the decision not to blame Cuba, after all that sheep-dipping of Oswald to do so, was made by the Johnson White House, not by Lansdale, Guy Bannister, or any other mastermind of the assassination. LBJ knew he had bigger fish to fry, which was the Vietnam War. (I don't know if that line in Stone's JFK about "Make me president and you can have your war" was made up by the screenwriters or not, but I'm sure that was the understanding.) I imagine LBJ had foreknowledge of the hit, but did he know anything about Lee Harvey Oswald, his sheep-dipping, or why he was sheep-dipped? He didn't have to know. 

I believe that the theory that the assassination was Operation Northwoods Revised Edition (call it ONRE) has as much explanatory power as any other theory. It certainly explains why the assassination was a military-style ambush (per Operation Northwoods, a terrorist act to be blamed on Castro). There was no need, according to the plan, to worry about shots only from the back, to frame some lone shooter, since JFK was obviously shot at front, back, and sideways.

Well, if a military-style ambush, whose military? Ours? Castro's? Russia's? While originally it was meant to be "Castro's," it seems pretty obvious whose military it was, given that neither Castro's nor Russia's nor any other military but ours could institute the cover-up, including a sham autopsy by, you guessed it, our military.

I think ONRE is a theory just as good as yours. But of course we disagree.

 

 

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2 hours ago, Paul Trejo said:

Finally, you say:  "Who knows what all factors went into the decision?"  That argument merely allows you to claim that there was such a decision without explaining it.   You are presuming what you should be proving

Baloney. Since when does not knowing all the answers invalidate a theory? (The theory in this case being Operation Northwoods Revised Edition, with a decision then made not to blame Cuba, making the long sheep-dipping of Oswald a waste of time, for reasons that can be debated, though a crucial factor would be Oswald being captured.) 

The theory of evolution is the cornerstone of modern biology. But we don't know everything about how evolution works. Issues are debated. I guess that invalidates the theory, right?

 

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2 hours ago, Paul Trejo said:

You say, "The plan to blame it on Cuba was abandoned when Oswald, a patsy to be identified as one of the Castro shooters, was taken alive."  But that makes no sense.  WHY abandon the Cuba invasion simply because Oswald was taken alive?  Surely Oswald would be dead in a few hours anyway.  There was no NEED to abandon the Cuba invasion on that basis -- which was the WHOLE POINT of the JFK assassination in the first place.

Unless the freshly captured patsy was going to confess -- "I did it with Castro!" -- there was no way to sell the Castro-did-it narrative.

Oswald had to die that afternoon or the frame falls apart.

From James Bamford's Body of Secrets (pg 84), emphasis added:

(quote on)

On February 20, 1962, [John] Glenn was to lift off from Cape Canaveral, Florida,on his historic journey. The flight was to carry the banner of America's virtues of truth, freedom, and democracy into orbit high over the planet. But [Chairmanof the JCS] Lemnitzer and his Chiefs had a different idea. They proposed to [Operation Mongoose chief] Lansdale that, should the rocket explode and kill Glenn, "the objective is to provide irrevocable proof that...the fault lies with the Communists et al Cuba [sic]." This would be accomplished, Lemnitzer continued, "by manufacturing various pieces of evidence which would prove electronic interference on the part of the Cubans." Thus, as NASA prepared to send the first American into space, the Joint Chiefs of Staff were preparing to use John Glenn's possible death as a pre-text to launch a war.

(quote off)

The Operation Northwoods playbook required "irrevocable proof" of Commie complicity.

A living patsy monkey-wrenched that scenario.

Edited by Cliff Varnell
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2 minutes ago, Ron Ecker said:

 .....The theory in this case being Operation Northwoods Revised Edition, with a decision then made not to blame Cuba, making the long sheep-dipping of Oswald a waste of time, for reasons that can be debated, though a crucial factor would be Oswald being captured.......

Agreed. My working theory is that a the Dealy Plaza tactical group were Anti-Castro Cubans who were sheep-dipped and credentialed as Communist Cubans. An unveiled Communist Conspiracy would lead to a Cuban invasion. The Cubans were double-crossed by right wing industrial interests who wanted the Vietnam War, 10,000 miles away, with no risk of a nuclear war.

 

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2 hours ago, Ollie Curme said:

Sandy, If you read Pat Speer's Chapters 13 and 14 he clears up a lot of confusion.


Ollie,

I am not an adherent of Pat's hypothesis. He and I have fundamental differences in our beliefs.

 

Edited by Sandy Larsen
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15 hours ago, Cliff Varnell said:

Continuity-of-government types prevailed.

The President Has Been Shot. Charles Roberts  (p. 141) A reporter for Newsweek Roberts was on AFI and met McGeorge Bundy at Andrews.

<quote on>
I remember looking at (McGeorge) Bundy because I was wondering if he had any word of what had happened in the world while we were in transit, whether this assassination was part of a plot. And he told me later that what he reported to the president during that flight back was that the whole world was stunned, but there was no evidence of a conspiracy at all.

<quote off>

Jack Valenti – in “A Very Human President” (1973, p3)

<quote on>

Shortly before 7:00 P.M., I escorted Senator J. William Fulbright, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Ambassador Averell Harriman into the office. I fidgeted outside, in the middle of what would have appeared to be an objective onlooker to be a mélange of confusion. No one of the Johnson aides, Marie Fehmer, his secretary; the late Cliff Carter, his chief political agent; Bill Moyers, nor any of the rest, was quite certain of what lay ahead. We were all busy on the phone and trying to assemble what measure of office discipline we could construct.

<quote off>

The Assassination Tapes, Max Holland, pg 57:

<quote on>

At 6:55 p.m. Johnson has a ten minute meeting with Senator J. William Fulbright and diplomat W. Averell Harriman to discuss possible foreign involvement in the assassination, especially in light of the two-and-a-half-year sojourn of Lee Harvey [in Russia]...Harriman, a U.S. ambassador to Moscow during WWII, is an experienced interpreter of Soviet machinations and offers the president the unanimous view of the U.S. government's top Kremlinologists. None of them believe the Soviets have a hand in the assassination, despite the Oswald association.

<quote off>

The key continuity of government figures were the Skull & Bones boys -- Harriman and Bundy -- who let the Commies off the hook, and authored the LN scenario.

Cliff - these are great quotes, in device of your theory that the kill and coverup teams were not connected. I've also read posts where you make the point that need to know was SOP. Just to be clear - are you saying you don't believe that there was centralized control in charge of both pre and post assassination?

in any case, consider this. Your quotes don't prove that the LN scenario was not planned in advance. What is clear is that certain operatives on the kill side had a different objective than the one that transpired. Perhaps in order to enlist the kill team, promises had to be made that were later broken.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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22 minutes ago, Michael Clark said:

The Cubans were double-crossed by right wing industrial interests who wanted the Vietnam War, 10,000 miles away, with no risk of a nuclear war.


Now that's an interesting theory. I'd love to hear of any evidence pointing to that.

Though the Mexico City thing makes me think that the perps were interested primarily in war (with Russia) in Cuba. Not Vietnam.

 

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2 minutes ago, Paul Brancato said:

Cliff - these are great quotes, in device of your theory that the kill and coverup teams were not connected. I've also read posts where you make the point that need to know was SOP. Just to be clear - are you saying you don't believe that there was centralized control in charge of both pre and post assassination?

in any case, consider this. Your quotes don't prove that the LN scenario was not planned in advance. What is clear is that certain operatives on the kill side had a different objective than the one that transpired. Perhaps in order to enlist the kill team, promises had to be made that were later broken.

Paul -- I'm convinced the kill team and the cover-up were connected at the very top.

The team tasked with killing JFK had nothing to do with the team tasked with killing Oswald, although both were employed from on high.

To get to the point -- I strongly suspect W. Averell Harriman with the blessing of the Rockefellers pushed the buttons on JFK and LHO.

When Oswald was captured Harriman got on the horn to Bundy and told him to call LBJ to inform him the lone assassin was in custody.

I speculate that the goal was to establish a SE Asia-to-Havana heroin pipeline which required the removal of Diem, Kennedy and Castro.

Oswald's capture let Castro off the hook and Harriman eventually worked out a deal where Castro would move dope thru GHW Bush's Zapata Off-shore.

 

 

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Just now, Sandy Larsen said:


Now that's an interesting theory. I'd love to hear of any evidence pointing to that.

Though the Mexico City thing makes me think that the perps were interested primarily in war (with Russia) in Cuba. Not Vietnam.

 

Sandy, the way that this is unfolding for me is not so much that the evidence is pointing me to the theory, but the theory is making more sense of the evidence. 

I have a list of supporting circumstances but I am much more interested in seeing if others pick-up the same nuggets that I am finding, or find other nuggets that I have not found yet myself.

Cheers,

Michael

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