Pat Speer

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?