David Von Pein

If anyone wants to make Mal Couch out to be a xxxx about seeing the rifle in the sixth-floor window, they're going to have to somehow manage to get around Couch's FIRST-DAY live radio interviews on 11/22/63, wherein he tells the audience that he saw the rifle in the TSBD window. Here is one of those interviews (and this was only about two hours after the assassination).... DVP-Potpourri.blogspot.com/2011/05/mal-couch.html

Incompetent or just plain ignorant (on this point anyway). Isn't that fact blatantly obvious? To me it is. BTW, this isn't a case of my being "loyal" to Vincent Bugliosi. I was a believer in the "cowlick entry" years before Vincent's book came out.

Oh for Pete sake, Pat. How can you not see the absurdity in your argument? You and I both know there's a bullet hole there on JFK's head SOMEPLACE. We can see what even YOU say "resembles a gunshot wound" [Pat Speer quote from 6/10/15]. And yet I'm supposed to IGNORE the Clark Panel AND the HSCA's FPP AND the thing that "resembles a gunshot wound" and start looking around for the "real" bullet hole---which cannot be readily seen at all in the photo? (Which makes me, again, wonder why that ruler is being placed next to that red spot if it really ISN'T the bullet hole? Was the person holding the ruler fooled too?) It's ridiculous. BTW, I'm going to start calling Pat Speer "Mister Analogy". Pat's got an analogy for all occasions. (Just an observation. Not an insult, mind you. I do that same thing a lot too.)

Yes, you're probably right. Good for NBC for using common sense. They got it right. Good job.

A "BOH"-RELATED NOTE: I recently added an interesting 1964 NBC-TV program to my JFK video collection. It's the 9/27/64 NBC program called "The Warren Commission Report", and I took note of something kind of strange--- While summarizing the evidence in the JFK case (and NBC did a very nice and succinct job of doing that, btw, in the limited time available during that 9/27/64 program), Robert MacNeil of NBC News shows us a hand-drawn diagram of JFK's head wounds [see the photo below], and the entry hole is placed fairly high on the head of the President: The diagram actually shows the entry wound from two different perspectives (a profile POV [which is not depicted above] and a directly from behind vantage point), with the "from behind" view depicting the entry hole in what looks to me like a VERY HIGH place on Kennedy's head. (The wound is shown too far to the right of the midline, but that's another story.) But the profile view shows the entry hole to be a bit lower on JFK's head (with the President's head also leaning forward way too far, but, again, that's another argument entirely). It could just be the angle, or maybe the illustrator of the sketch made an error somewhere, but I found it interesting that NBC-TV would be reporting that the entry wound in the back of President Kennedy's head was located fairly HIGH on his head (based on one of the views presented in that diagram anyway). I have no idea where NBC would have arrived at any HIGH entry point (as of September '64). They certainly didn't get that kind of information from the autopsy report or the just-released Warren Report. David Von Pein May 18, 2009

But Curry's "fired a gun" remark was still NOT totally accurate. And that's because Curry surely knew that paraffin tests were not reliable tests. Period. But via his remark, he left the impression that there was no doubt at all that Oswald HAD definitely "fired a gun" based on the positive paraffin result on LHO's hands. Can there be any doubt at all that after listening to Curry saying "it only shows he fired a gun", millions of people got the impression that the paraffin test was CONCLUSIVE and therefore had proven that Oswald HAD, indeed, "fired a gun" based on that test? Of course that's what anyone would think after hearing Curry's remarks to the press corps. How could they possibly NOT think such a thing (unless they worked in a police crime lab)?

While talking with Steve Barber on Facebook yesterday, he sent me some interesting audio clips featuring Vince Bugliosi from 2006 and 2007. These are taped telephone messages that Steve recorded on his answering machine. He's given me permission to post them wherever I like. There's one call that exemplifies Vincent's desire to get things right (and to get quotes right), in which he wants to confirm precisely what Steve heard when listening to the Dictabelt recordings in 1979..... Vincent Bugliosi Telephone Messages ====================================== jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2015/06/remembering-vince-bugliosi-1934-2015.html

As I said, I merely was emphasizing that if a "miraculous act of God" had occurred which confirmed the LOW entry location, that fact would not suddenly result in Oswald being innocent. Either entry locale is consistent with Oswald firing from behind. There's ONE entry wound in JFK's head. There is no dispute on THAT fact, as Vince Bugliosi points out in the RH excerpt I cited earlier. And we know that that ONE entry wound was in the BACK of the head---not the FRONT of the head. We can argue all year long about exactly WHERE that ONE entry wound was located. I can SEE the bullet hole in the photos (and not just the color picture; I see it in the B&W photo too, without doubt). The bullet hole is the red spot. And I find it somewhat amusing that even YOU, Patrick Speer, admit that the "red oval" does, indeed, "resemble" a bullet hole. And yet, incredibly, you also say that the red spot cannot possibly be the actual bullet hole, even though you will stipulate to the fact that there was ONE single bullet hole of entry in the back of the President's head. Oh, well. ~~huge shrug~~

Says Mark Knight even though this "sock puppet" (DVP) expressed his disagreement with Gary on the Jesse Curry issue discussed above. Maybe I'm a new breed of "sock puppet" --- a sock puppet with a mind of his own. Imagine the uniqueness of that!

This whole topic, of course, is only an academic one in the first place. Because even if by some miraculous act of God or prestidigitation the bullet hole of entry in President Kennedy's cranium was located low on his head, instead of high on his head as the photographs amply illustrate, it wouldn't change the status of Lee Harvey Oswald's lone guilt one solitary bit. Because either entry site on JFK's head is still perfectly consistent with a conclusion of Oswald shooting the President from the sixth floor of the Book Depository Building. Back to Vince for a moment.... "Is it possible we are talking about two separate wounds to the back of the head? No. All seventeen pathologists said there was only one gunshot wound to the back of the president's head. So, by definition, we have to be talking about the same wound. Moreover, the fourteen pathologists who followed the three autopsy surgeons were able to demonstrate that the wound they found was the same wound (same dimensions) the autopsy surgeons described in their report." -- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 395 of "Reclaiming History"

Obviously so, if he examined the entrance wound. Because the entrance wound is so obviously high on the head--near the cowlick. And what about this?..... "In concluding that the autopsy surgeons were wrong about the precise location of the entrance wound (as described in the autopsy report), the HSCA also noted that photographs show the lower area of the president's brain to be "virtually intact"—an impossibility had the bullet entered the skull as low as the three autopsy pathologists contend." -- Page 395 of "Reclaiming History" And let me remind Pat of the Clark Panel "100mm. above the EOP" stuff he is forced to ignore..... http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-1968-clark-panel-report.html And the garbage about the HSCA licking the bootstraps of Fisher's Clark Panel just so that Baden & Co. wouldn't have to disagree with the Almighty Dr. Fisher in public is, as I say, garbage. The two panels were independent panels (Clark & HSCA FPP). One wasn't required to bow down to the other. Such a notion is preposterous. IOW, just one more CT myth to add to the sky-high stack of myths that never die in this case.

I'm not sure, Jon. But there's this from Vince Bugliosi's book.... "Only four people in the autopsy room [had a close-up view of the president's head], the three autopsy surgeons and John Stringer, the chief medical photographer for the navy at the autopsy who took the only photographs of the president's head. When I spoke to Stringer [by telephone on September 21, 2000], he said there was "no question" in his mind that the "large exit wound in the president's head was to the right side of his head, above the right ear." And in an ARRB interview on April 8, 1996, Stringer said, "There was a fist-sized hole in the right side of his head above his ear." Though...Stringer's recollection of matters is questionable, he said he remembers this very clearly. When I asked him if there was any large defect to the rear of the president's head, he said, "No. All there was was a small entrance wound to the back of the president's head. During the autopsy, Dr. Humes pointed out this entrance wound to everyone."" -- Pages 409-410 of Vincent Bugliosi's "Reclaiming History" ---------------------------- And there's also this.... "Not only do the autopsy photos and X-rays definitively show that the entrance wound is in the upper part of the president's skull, but they show a bullet track (deposit of small metal fragments as the bullet proceeded forward) only in the upper portion of the skull. Additionally, if the bullet had entered the president's skull at the lower point the autopsy surgeons said it did, there would have been damage to the cerebellum, the lower part of the brain, which there was not. Dr. Baden testified that his forensic pathology panel "did not see any photographic or X-ray evidence...indicating any injury of the brain other than the extensive damage to the right upper part of the brain, consistent with the upper track which the panel agrees to." In concluding that the autopsy surgeons were wrong about the precise location of the entrance wound (as described in the autopsy report), the HSCA also noted that photographs show the lower area of the president's brain to be "virtually intact"—an impossibility had the bullet entered the skull as low as the three autopsy pathologists contend." -- Page 395 of "Reclaiming History" Also See: http://www.maryferrell.org/pages/ARRB_Medical_Interviews.html The above link includes a July 1996 interview with autopsy photographer John Stringer.

Jon, as far as I know, it was taken by John Stringer.

Pat, Okay, I'll stop you right there. You readily acknowledge the fact that the "red oval" in the autopsy photograph below "resembles a gunshot wound". So, here's a simple observation and what I think is a very logical (and basic) question to ask after reading your quote above.... Since there is a spot on the back of JFK's head that DOES look like it could be a bullet hole---and since we both KNOW for a fact that there WAS, indeed, one single bullet hole of entry on the back side of President Kennedy's head---then what do you suppose the chances are of the thing that "resembles a gunshot wound" in the autopsy photo really NOT being a bullet hole in JFK's head after all? Seems like a fair question to me. And I don't think it's a question that can be reasonably answered in the following manner (as some CTers and LNers seem to want to do)..... Well, DVP, the red spot only LOOKS like a bullet hole. The REAL bullet hole is hiding somewhere else in that autopsy picture. It's just a coincidence that the red spot (of blood?) in the photo just happened to take the form and general shape and appearance of a bullet hole. Whereas the REAL bullet hole, which cannot be seen at all in the picture (or at least most people have a hard time seeing it, except perhaps Patrick J. Speer) has decided to go AWOL from the photo, with no "redness" or other qualities to it at all that can be easily noticeable, even though that photo was taken under very good (and bright) lighting conditions. ~shrug~ [End Silly Explanation.] So I'm just trying to wrap my head around the notion that the thing that looks like the bullet hole in the back of JFK's head really ISN'T a bullet hole at all. But at the same time, there really IS a bullet hole of entrance SOMEWHERE ELSE on the back of JFK's head in the above photograph. What an amazing piece of unintentional and miraculous photographic misinterpretation that would turn out to be indeed, if it is to be believed. And, amazingly, Pat Speer (and many other CTers and LNers) actually do believe in it. I, however, cannot stretch unbelievable coincidence quite that far. The red spot, in my opinion, is definitely the bullet hole. More "BOH" discussion: jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2010/06/boh.html

You're dreaming, Pat. This 3D GIF, created by John Mytton, clearly shows the entry hole high on the head near the cowlick---in stereo yet....

Yeah, yeah. Sure, Pat. That's why there's a ruler up next to the red spot. And that's why the red spot is the ONLY thing in that picture which comes even close to resembling a bullet hole. And that's why the HSCA and the Clark Panel BOTH confirmed via multiple measurements (in both the SCALP and the SKULL) that the entry wound on the back of President Kennedy's head was located approximately 100mm. above the EOP. box.com / 1978 HSCA Interview With Dr. Pierre A. Finck jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-1968-clark-panel-report.html From the Clark Panel Report (which is a 1968 report that will forever be ignored or deemed worthless by various conspiracy theorists, including Mr. Patrick J. Speer).... "One bullet struck the back of the decedent's head well above the external occipital protuberance. Based upon the observation that he was leaning forward with his head turned obliquely to the left when this bullet struck, the photographs and X-rays indicate that it came from a site above and slightly to his right. This bullet fragmented after entering the cranium, one major piece of it passing forward and laterally to produce an explosive fracture of the right side of the skull as it emerged from the head. [...] On one of the lateral films of the skull (#2), a hole measuring approximately 8 mm. in diameter on the outer surface of the skull and as much as 20 mm. on the internal surface can be seen in profile approximately 100 mm. above the external occipital protuberance. The bone of the lower edge of the hole is depressed. Also there is, embedded in the outer table of the skull close to the lower edge of the hole, a large metallic fragment which on the anteroposterior film (#1) lies 25 mm. to the right of the midline. This fragment as seen in the latter film is round and measures 6.5 mm. in diameter. [...] The foregoing observations indicate that the decedent's head was struck from behind by a single projectile. It entered the occipital region 25 mm. to the right of the midline and 100 mm. above the external occipital protuberance. The projectile fragmented on entering the skull, one major section leaving a trail of fine metallic debris as it passed forward and laterally to explosively fracture the right frontal and parietal bones as it emerged from the head."

Why on Earth would Vince have done something dumb like that when he had this picture to look at, which proves beyond all reasonable doubt that the bullet entered near the cowlick?....

Thank heaven for that. Because if Pat Speer had gotten Vince to "come to his senses", Vince would have been believing in make-believe bullet holes in the back of President Kennedy's head that nobody else but Pat Speer can see....fake paper bags....and God knows what else.

Here's something about Vince that I never knew.... Wikipedia shows Vince's full name as Vincent T. Bugliosi, Jr. I never knew Vince was a "Junior". I know his son is named Vince Jr., but I didn't think Vince Sr. was also a Jr. ~shrug~ wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Bugliosi ------------------- EDIT: From the Los Angeles Times.... "Vincent T. Bugliosi was born in Hibbing, Minn., on Aug. 18, 1934, the son of Ida and Vincent Bugliosi Sr. His father ran a small grocery store and was later employed as a railroad conductor." Source: http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-vincent-bugliosi-20150609-story.html

From Dale Myers' blog.... "I knew Vince quite well having assisted him on his 2007 book, "Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy." He was cantankerous, volatile, and brilliant. His comprehensive book on the Kennedy case, despite the occasional and inevitable flaws, is easily the best single volume on the assassination saga ever written. His unwavering support of my own work over the years was much appreciated. For that, I remain truly grateful." -- Dale K. Myers; June 9, 2015 [End Quote.] jfkfiles.blogspot.com/2015/06/vincent-bugliosi-has-died -------------------- I, like Dale, will always be grateful to Vince Bugliosi. I never met Vince in person, but through a few letters and e-mails (forwarded to him by his great secretary, Rosemary, because, as you all probably know, Vince didn't use a computer at all and never had an e-mail address of his own), I have thought of Vince as a personal friend during the last eight years. I will miss him.

E-MAIL FROM GARY MACK: Subject: Paraffin Tests Date: 6/8/2015 9:13:43 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time From: Gary Mack To: David Von Pein ------------------- As for DPD comments about the paraffin test results, they were made hours and hours after Oswald, based on other evidence police possessed, had already been charged with killing JFK. As is very clear from media recordings, Curry merely said the test "only showed that he fired a gun." -------------------------------------------------------------- DAVID VON PEIN SAID: Right. And that is NOT an accurate statement, because a paraffin test will not reliably tell you that information. That's the whole point of the discussion I started---the tests are not reliable. They can swing in all directions. So when Curry told the press (and millions watching on TV) that the paraffin test "showed that he fired a gun", he was not really telling the whole story. He should have said it this way: "It only shows that he MIGHT have fired a gun. But that kind of test is never conclusive one way or the other, so we can't say for sure." But I suppose we could surmise that Curry was just playing things a little "dumb" because he didn't want a softer statement (like the one above) to somehow make its way to Oswald's ears (and there seemed to be no way to keep the reporters from shouting out anything they wanted to shout at Oswald during his many trips through the DPD hallways during those 2 days at City Hall). Is that what you think Curry could have been doing? Was he using a bit of psychology by not telling the whole truth to the press about the uselessness of paraffin tests? I don't know. But I do know the statement he made to the press on 11/23 was not an accurate one. Another possibility (however remote) is that Curry was just plain ignorant about paraffin test results. Maybe he really DID think that a positive result positively meant that Oswald "fired a gun". ~shrug~ It's hard for me to believe that the POLICE CHIEF in a huge U.S. city could truly be that ignorant of the facts about paraffin tests, however. DVP -------------------------------------------------------------- E-MAIL FROM GARY MACK: Subject: Paraffin Tests Date: 6/9/2015 3:15:53 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time From: Gary Mack To: David Von Pein ------------------- Hi Dave, Well, Dave, looks like Burnham's the one who is "conflating", for lie detector tests are always admissible in court as long as the prosecution and defense agree to do so. Besides, when the DPD told Oswald on 11/22 that they could run a paraffin test to determine if he fired a gun, neither he nor they were in court. One was in jail and the other was gathering evidence. And as I recall, not only did Oswald agree to allow the test, he taunted the officers by saying they'd just have to do the test instead of him confessing. What Oswald didn't know, and what Curry certainly didn't want the public to know, was that DPD knew full well that the test results might or might not be conclusive. That is why he said what he did to the press once the paraffin test results came in....and what he told them was accurate. What he left out of his statement was that the test might have been positive for some other reason. Gary -------------------------------------------------------------- DAVID VON PEIN SAID: No. What Curry told the press about the paraffin test results was not completely accurate. He was stretching the truth, because he very likely knew the positive test result did not NECESSARILY mean what he told the press (and the world) it DEFINITELY DID mean -- i.e., that Oswald had "fired a gun". He was misleading the press on that topic--without question. Although I agree that his motive for misleading them was likely a valid and legitimate one, versus it being a dastardly and underhanded "cover-up" motive on Chief Curry's behalf.

This is a very sad day for me.... nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Vincent-Bugliosi-Dies-at-80 jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2015/06/remembering-vince-bugliosi--(1934-2015)

And you, Glenn, keep relying on Doug Horne, David Lifton, David Mantik, and Mark Lane. They'll lead you to the promised land, no doubt.