Jean Davison

Greg, You speak of the "gunman's abandoned jacket." Oswald reportedly left his rooming house zipping up a jacket, yet witnesses at the Texas Theater said he wasn't wearing one when they saw him, so Oswald apparently abandoned a jacket in that same area. Odd coincidence, or what? Strangely enough, the police tapes report the finding of only one abandoned jacket.

Greg, Concerning the laundry tag, it's not surprising that the FBI failed to trace it since, according to Marina, this was an old jacket that she had always washed for her husband. Likely then that the laundry (or dry cleaning) tag was old. The label in the jacket was that of a California maker or store, which suggests he may have purchased the jacket and later had it cleaned in that state when he was stationed there in 1959. (Or possibly had it cleaned in Russia before he met Marina.) The FBI apparently didn't search for records in California. The fact that the FBI couldn't trace it to Dallas or New Orleans actually fits Oswald quite well and not some random guy who would've had his jacket cleaned locally. showDoc.html (maryferrell.org)

I don't want to debate anyone, just passing by, but just one comment before I go. Contrary to popular belief, the Warren Commission didn't claim that Oswald fired three shots in six seconds. Since it couldn't determine when the shot that missed was fired--whether it was before, after, or between the other two shots --the WC concluded that the time span ranged from approximately 4.8 to in excess of 7 seconds. Please see the last two paragraphs here (WR, p. 117): https://www.maryferrell.orghowDoc.html?docId=946#relPageId=141&tab=page

Jean: Just before you grab your coat and hat, there's a question I've wanted to ask you since reading "Oswald's Game:" To the best of your knowledge, are you in any way related to Alexis or Natasha Davison of Atlanta, GA? I am not now, nor have I ever been, related to any Davison of Atlanta, to the best of my knowledge. Jean

Indeed, DVon Pain is wrong about everything else he says about Oswald, but Jean's writing on the assassination does have reasoned thinking, sound logic and common sense, and she should be a welcome addition to the discussion. I started a thread on her book Oswald's Game under History Books to broaden such a discussion, if she bothers to stick around. I would also like to address DVP's points in another thread as well. You would think that if DVP and JD used common sense they would recognize that if all the evidence points so distinctly at one person as the culpret, that it may be planted as a set up? As for Ford, I would like to know what Jean Davison thinks Ford had in mind when he changed the wording of the report if it was not to reallign the facts to fit the single-bullet-theory? ------- Bill, the original sentence read, "A bullet had entered his back at a point slightly above the shoulder..." Where would that be? It's unclear, don't you think? Ford said he was trying to clarify the meaning, and I think that's plausible, even though his revision wasn't a good one. Since he probably hadn't seen the autopsy photo of the back, he may not've been certain where the wound actually was. The WC and staff should've been allowed to view the autopsy photos, imo, so that the wound descriptions could've been clearer and more consistent from one section of the WR to another. The Report has several different descriptions of this wound, such as, "the point where the bullet entered the President's back...." (second paragraph here) http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk...eport_0061b.htm and ... "The bullet that hit President Kennedy in the back..." (third paragraph): http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk...eport_0065a.htm I hope that the fact that all the evidence points so disctinctly to O.J. doesn't mean that you think he was framed. Thanks for the post, Bill. I'm sorry but I don't really want to talk about my book. It was written so long ago, I'd have to re-read it to find out what I said! <g> Jean BK

See above the Robert Charles-Dunne explanation of why Ford’s actions are so important to the “magic bullet” theory. -------------- He talked about the location of the back wound, but not wasn't the question. Neither he nor anyone else, to my knowledge, 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. Or take a look at this photo of JFK: http://www.jfklancer.com/photos/sbt/hsca.jpg Try drawing a line of c. 18 degrees backward from the knot in JFK's tie. Where does it come out? Upper back, right? 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. Sorry about the bio, but I really didn't intend to be here this long and don't plan to stick around. <snipping the review> Jean

If we look at the case of editing of the Gerald Ford entry, we can see that the above statement is not true. As I pointed out, in 1997 the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) released a document that revealed that Ford had altered the first draft of the report to read: "A bullet had entered the base of the back of his neck slightly to the right of the spine." Ford had elevated the location of the wound from its true location in the back to the neck to support the single bullet theory. Ford admitted this was the case in an interview with Mike Feinsilber, of the Associated Press on Gerald Ford and the Warren Report (2nd July, 1997). The passage was not removed because of its factual basis, but because it portrayed Ford as participating in a cover-up of the evidence during his time on the Warren Commission. Mr. Simkin, could you please explain what you mean by "Ford admitted this was the case"? He "admitted" revising a sentence, but he didn't say he'd "elevated" the wound or that he made the change to support the SBT. What evidence is there that he made the revision for that reason, may I ask? Jean Davison This is the original article: Mike Feinsilber, Gerald Ford and the Warren Report (2nd July, 1997) Thirty-three years ago, Gerald R. Ford took pen in hand and changed - ever so slightly - the Warren Commission's key sentence on the place where a bullet entered John F. Kennedy's body when he was killed in Dallas. The effect of Ford's change was to strengthen the commission's conclusion that a single bullet passed through Kennedy and severely wounded Texas Gov. John Connally - a crucial element in its finding that Lee Harvey Oswald was the sole gunman. A small change, said Ford on Wednesday when it came to light, one intended to clarify meaning, not alter history. ''My changes had nothing to do with a conspiracy theory,'' he said in a telephone interview from Beaver Creek, Colo. ''My changes were only an attempt to be more precise.'' But still, his editing was seized upon by members of the conspiracy community, which rejects the commission's conclusion that Oswald acted alone. ''This is the most significant lie in the whole Warren Commission report,'' said Robert D. Morningstar, a computer systems specialist in New York City who said he has studied the assassination since it occurred and written an Internet book about it. The effect of Ford's editing, Morningstar said, was to suggest that a bullet struck Kennedy in the neck, ''raising the wound two or three inches. Without that alteration, they could never have hoodwinked the public as to the true number of assassins.'' If the bullet had hit Kennedy in the back, it could not have struck Connolly in the way the commission said it did, he said. The Warren Commission concluded in 1964 that a single bullet - fired by a ''discontented'' Oswald - passed through Kennedy's body and wounded his fellow motorcade passenger, Connally, and that a second, fatal bullet, fired from the same place, tore through Kennedy's head. The assassination of the president occurred Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas; Oswald was arrested that day but was shot and killed two days later as he was being transferred from the city jail to the county jail. Conspiracy theorists reject the idea that a single bullet could have hit both Kennedy and Connally and done such damage. Thus they argue that a second gunman must have been involved. Ford's changes tend to support the single-bullet theory by making a specific point that the bullet entered Kennedy's body ''at the back of his neck'' rather than in his uppermost back, as the commission staff originally wrote. Ford's handwritten notes were contained in 40,000 pages of records kept by J. Lee Rankin, chief counsel of the Warren Commission. They were made public Wednesday by the Assassination Record Review Board, an agency created by Congress to amass all relevant evidence in the case. The documents will be available to the public in the National Archives. The staff of the commission had written: ''A bullet had entered his back at a point slightly above the shoulder and to the right of the spine.'' Ford suggested changing that to read: ''A bullet had entered the back of his neck at a point slightly to the right of the spine.'' The final report said: ''A bullet had entered the base of the back of his neck slightly to the right of the spine.'' Ford, then House Republican leader and later elevated to the presidency with the 1974 resignation of Richard Nixon, is the sole surviving member of the seven-member commission chaired by Chief Justice Earl Warren. In his book, 'The JFK Assassination Debates' (2006) Michael L. Kurtz explained the importance of what Ford did. Virtually every serious Kennedy assassination researcher believes that the Warren Commission's single bullet theory is essential to its conclusion that only one man fired shots at President Kennedy and Governor Connally. The awkwardness of the Mannlicher-Carcano's bolt action mechanism, which forced FBI experts to fire two shots in a minimum of 2.25 seconds, even without aiming, coupled with the average time of 18.3 film frames per second as measured on Abraham Zapruder's camera, constitute a timing constraint that compels the conclusion either that Kennedy and Connally were struck by the same bullet, or that two separate gunmen fired two separate shots at the two men. Although a handful of researchers contend that the first shot struck Kennedy at frame Z162 or Z189, thereby allowing sufficient time for Oswald to fire a separate shot with the Carcano and strike Connally at frame Z237, the vast majority of assassination scholars maintain one of two scenarios. First, both Kennedy and Connally were struck by the same bullet at frame Z223 or Z224, evidenced by the quick flip of the lapel on Connally's suit jacket as the bullet passed through his chest. Second, the first bullet struck Kennedy somewhere between frames Z210 and Z224, and the second bullet struck Connally between frames Z236 and Z238, evidenced by the visual signs on the film of Connally reacting to being struck. The evidence clearly establishes, however, that Kennedy and Connally were struck by separate bullets. The location of the bullet wound in Kennedy's back has given rise to considerable controversy. Originally, the Warren Commission staff draft of the relevant section of the Warren Report stated that "a bullet had entered his back at a point slightly above the shoulder and to the right of the spine." The problem lay in the course of the bullet through Kennedy's body. If a bullet fired from the sixth-floor window of the Depository building nearly sixty feet higher than the limousine entered the president's back, with the president sitting in an upright position, it could hardly have exited from his throat at a point just above the Adam's apple, then abruptly change course and drive downward into Governor Connally's back. Therefore, Warren Commissioner Gerald Ford deliberately changed the draft to read: "A bullet had entered the base of the back of his neck slightly to the right of the spine." Suppressed for more than three decades, Ford's deliberate distortion was released to the public only through the actions of the ARRB. When this alteration first surfaced in 1997, Ford explained that he made the change for the sake of "clarity." In reality, Ford had elevated the location of the wound from its true location in the back to the neck to ensure that the single bullet theory would remain inviolate. The actual evidence demonstrates the accuracy of the initial draft. Bullet holes in Kennedy's shirt and suit jacket, situated almost six inches below the top of the collar, place the wound squarely in the back. Because JFK sat upright at the time, and because photographs and films show that neither the shirt nor the suit jacket rode up over his collar, the location of the bullet holes in the garments prove that the shot struck him in the back. Kennedy's death certificate places the wound at the level of the third thoracic vertebra. Autopsy photographs of the back place the wound in the back two to three inches below the base of the neck. ------------------------ Thanks for your response. Yes, I have read the original article and the excerpt from Kurtz' book. My point is that neither one offers any evidence whatsoever to support the claim that Ford made his revision to support the SBT. 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: http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk...Vol18_0055b.htm 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

If we look at the case of editing of the Gerald Ford entry, we can see that the above statement is not true. As I pointed out, in 1997 the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) released a document that revealed that Ford had altered the first draft of the report to read: "A bullet had entered the base of the back of his neck slightly to the right of the spine." Ford had elevated the location of the wound from its true location in the back to the neck to support the single bullet theory. Ford admitted this was the case in an interview with Mike Feinsilber, of the Associated Press on Gerald Ford and the Warren Report (2nd July, 1997). The passage was not removed because of its factual basis, but because it portrayed Ford as participating in a cover-up of the evidence during his time on the Warren Commission. Mr. Simkin, could you please explain what you mean by "Ford admitted this was the case"? He "admitted" revising a sentence, but he didn't say he'd "elevated" the wound or that he made the change to support the SBT. What evidence is there that he made the revision for that reason, may I ask? Jean Davison

Arlen Spector, father of the single-bullet theory, has stated on national TV as late as 2004 that JFK was shot "in the back of the neck." Okay, could you quote that in context, please? I was off by a year, working from memory. This latest TV pronouncement that I'm aware was 2003: "SPECTER: The bullet entered between two large strap muscles at the back of the president's neck, hit nothing solid, went through the pleural cavity, nicked his tie coming out." http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0311/22/asb.00.html Ron, Thanks, and yes, Specter did say that, but please take a look at CE 903 again and note that, if the bullet literally entered the nape of the neck, the SBT trajectory not only isn't helped, it's destroyed. Drawing a line from the nape through the tie knot sends the bullet headed for JFK's knees, not Connally's back. Or take the Croft photo. How could a bullet entering the back of the neck and exiting below the Adam's apple end up hitting Connally where it did? http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/images/2/2...hsca_ex_135.jpg My point is that the SBT doesn't require raising the back wound. The HSCA, e.g., endorsed the SBT and placed the entry wound in the upper back: http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk...eport_0037a.htm http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk...eport_0037b.htm If someone can show me how raising the wound helps the SBT trajectory, I'm willing to listen, but IMO, Ford had no motive to move the wound as part of a "cover-up." Jean

Arlen Spector, father of the single-bullet theory, has stated on national TV as late as 2004 that JFK was shot "in the back of the neck." Okay, could you quote that in context, please? Here is a photo of Specter that the WC used to illustrate the SBT. It's CE 903, taken after a surveyor had measured the approximate trajectory from the SN window to the limo. Notice that above Specter's hand there's a string on the wall running parallel to the rod he's holding. That string represents the surveyor's trajectory. As you can see, the rod "enters" the stand-in's upper back and "exits" at the knot of the tie, which is where the bullet exited JFK's body. Notice that if the rod were raised so that the bullet "entered" the back of the neck, it would come out too high, above the tie knot. A neck entry would also be out of sync with the trajectory shown by the string on the wall. http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk...Vol18_0055b.htm The title of this exhibit is "Photograph taken at garage, following reenactment of assassinatlon on May 24, 1964, depicting probable angle of declination of bullet which passed through President Kennedy and Governor Connally." IOW, no back of neck entry. Jean

A few quick points, if I may. Since the bullet exited below JFK's Adam's apple, not above it, it appears that Mr. Kurtz "raised the wound." I don't think he did so deliberately. The first draft location, in the "back ... slightly above the shoulder and to the right of the spine," is where, exactly? Isn't the body area "above the shoulder" commonly referred to as the NECK? In other words, isn't the original sentence ambiguous? By the time Ford made his revision, the SBT was already a fait accompli and needed no "help" from him. Besides, there was no reason to move the wound up. No LN theorist and no trajectory study that I'm aware of has ever placed this entry wound anywhere except in the upper back. The WR places the entry wound where the autopsy report does, approximately 5.5 inches below the mastoid process (which on any normal person would be in the upper back, not in the nape of the neck): http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk...eport_0056b.htm Ford didn't move the wound, and couldn't. It's where it has always been, where the autopsy photo shows it, in the upper back. Jean Davison