Who's telling the truth: Clint Hill or the Zapruder film?

[Pat Speer]

The point I've been trying to make is that, IF conspiracy theorists are to claim we KNOW the head wound was on the back of the head because so many witnesses thought they saw it there, that it is the height of hypocrisy to turn around and claim the Harper fragment was occipital bone. For the Harper fragment to be occipital bone, there would have to have been a hole LOW on the far back of JFK's head. NONE of the eyewitnesses to the shooting saw a hole there, and NONE of the original statements of the Parkland witnesses place a wound in this location. While some of the witness statements over the years can be stretched to support a wound in this location, many more can not. Many of the photos of witnesses, in which they point out the wound location, including Conway's photo of Foster, show them pointing to a location on the right side of the back of their head above their ear, and do not remotely support that a chunk of bone exploded from the skull inches below and to the left of this location.

So WHY continue pretending that the Harper fragment is occipital?

Pat: I do not have time to examine and critically analyze the full "chapter sized" postings you made, but just consider what you have written above. It is, in my opinion, easily refutable. Turn to Chapter 13 of BEST EVIDENCE, and just consider my December, 1966 interview with Dr. Paul Peters. "Dr. Peters emphazed that the head wound was at the back, that it was actually necessary to get to the back of the head to get a good view of it." Then, some pages later, and in the section under the breaker "What was visible through the wound," I dealt with all the testimony about the cerebellum, and here's what Dr. Peters had to say on that point, and I QUOTE:

"Dr. Peters gave me a most vivid description. . . . trying to impress upon me the locaton of the wound he saw, Dr. Peters said: "I'd be willing to swear that the wound was in the occiput, you know. I could see the the occipital lobes clearly, AND SO I KNOW IT WAS THAT FAR BACK, ON THE SKULL. I could look inside the skull, and I thought it looked like the cerebellum was injured, or missing, because the occipital lobes seemed to rest almost on the foramen magnum. . . [it] looked like the occipital lobes were resting on the foramen magnum." (For readers of this thread who may not be all that familiar with anatomic terminology, the "foramen magnum" is the hole in the base of the skull, in that part of the occiptal bone that wraps around and forms the base of the skull, through which the spinal cord enters and then connects to the brain.). It was as if something underneath them, [something] that usually kept them up from that a little ways, namely, the cerebellum and brainstem, might have been injured or missing." There can be no doubt about what part of the head Dr. Peters looked at, or how far down the back of the head the fatal wound he saw was located. Dr. Peters statement that he saw the occipital lobes resting on the foramen magnum was not the description of a casual observor."

Dr. Peters corroborated five Dallas doctors' testimony in the Warren Commisson records that erebellar tissue was visible in the sull wound. These observatons clearly indiated where the Dallas wound was located.

UNQUOTE

Pat: I do not understand how, with such vivid testimony spelled out in plain English, you can possibly deny the clear evidence of where the head wound was located--at the bottom of the back of the head. And then join that mis-conception, or misunderstanding (or mistake--however one wishes to characterize the manner of your analysis) --and then join that to the controversy re the Harper fragment, and state: " [it] is the height of hypotcriy to turn around and claim the Harper fragmebnt was occipital bone. For the Harper fragment to be occipital bone, there would have to have been a hole LOW on the back of JFK's head. NONE of the eyewitnesses to the shooting saw a hole there. . "

(Of course, do keep in mind that Dr. Jack Harper, who actually examined the bone, said it was occipital bone--and said so (as I recollect) on November 25, 1963, per the FBI interview.)

The problem with your analysis--and I now remember that I ran into this when I first emailed with you years ago--was your statement that you thought that entirely too much weight was given to the Parkland records, or some such thing. Immediately I understood then--and from your postings here I see that things have not changed all that much in the years since--that you simply do not understand or appreciate the legal and historical importance of statements made AT THE TIME (first of all); and secondly, you continually will equate, in importance, "the Parkland witnesses" with "the eyewitnesses to the shooting."

There is no comparison between an "eyewitness to the shooting"--who may have had a fleeting glimpse of the President (and his wounding), a glimpse lasting a few seconds, and the observations of someone like Dr. Peters, who was in the Emergency Room, and had a chance to observe the wounds at close hand (just inches away), and with the experience of a trained physician.

Yet you continually invoke the "Dealey Plaza witnesses to the shooting" as if their observations should (or do) carry the legal weight comparable to those of the doctors and nurses in the Emergency Room. That's just plain wrong. Its apples and oranges. You should not be doing that, yet you continually do so.

The proper and legitimate comparison should be between observations made in the Parkland Emergency Room (or even in the Parkland Hospital parking lot, if someone got a good look at JFK's wounds there) and the reports from Bethesda. That is reasonable and legitimate. But to start by creating (and then invoking, as you do) a data base consisting of "eyewitneses-to-the-shooting" observations, and comparing them to those of the doctors actually in the emergency room, is not just of dubious value; its completely wrong, and represents a very serious analytic error. No wonder your conclusions are so completely off the mark, if they are based on "reasoning" like that. I appreciate all the pretty graphics (obviously, you are talented in that regard) but its the reasoning that counts, and I find this kind of reasoning deeply flawed.

When I have more time, I'll try to critique the lengthy posting you have made (and addressed to me), but again and again, I find you traveling down this same false path, mixing apples and oranges, and drawing all kinds of unjustifiable inferences, based on this flawed methodology. That pervades your entire analysis of the medical evidence, and results in a mistaken view of what the President's body actually looked like, after the shooting; what wounds it contained; a flawed view of Dealey Plaza, and--perhaps most important of all--an inability to discern whether "the medical evidence" has been altered.

And that is really the key: because if your methodology is so flawed as to not be able to perceive the evidence that the wounds on the body were altered between Parkland and Bethesda, then you have lost sight of THE major issue in this case.

DSL

1/27/11; 11:50 AM PST

Los Angeles, CA

PS: Also remember what Dr. Charles Baxter (I think it was he) who said that the President's brain was "lying on the table." What veteran JFK researcher Wallace Milam concluded--decades ago (and I agreed with him)-was that this was Baxter's less than optimal way of describing the brain at the back of JFK's head (when JFK was lying face up) protruding through the wound, and touching the surface of the hospital cart. Again, more evidence as to the rearward location of the wound.

Thanks, David, for your explanation. But you reinforced my point. Look where Peters places the wound in this video.

Peters on youtube

He places it well above his ear...ABOVE the occipital bone.

If the Harper fragment (a pyramid shape roughly 2 1/2 in wide and 2 in tall) was missing from the occipital bone and was dislodged from the hole Peters saw, Peters would not have been looking down on the occipital lobes from above, wondering if there was any cerebellum down below, he would have been looking straight at the occipital lobes from behind and be able to see the damage to the cerebellum.

This is shown here (on an otherwise unrelated slide).

P.S. I actually find Peters' observation supportive of my own theory on the wounds. IF he was looking through a hole near the top of the head down at the base of the brain, and it seemed to him that the brain was sitting low in the skull, and that cerebellum was missing, then it follows that there could have been a second bullet trajectory involving cerebellum BELOW the one making the hole through which he was looking. This supports my conclusions, or impressions, or whatever you want to call it when you study something for years and develop strong suspicions on what really happened.

Pat, I am not one for good dictation but in the short clip on Peters he says there is large 7cm opening in the right occipitoparietal area and the occipital cortex was lying down by the opening of the wound. Anatomists, come to my aid. Where is the occipital cortex?? Best, Daniel

Daniel, the occipital cortex is not one spot, it is the outermost surface of the brain of at the back of the head. I take from Peters' statement that some of the brain was flipped back out of the wound, and was draped down on the back of the head. This matches what is shown in the top of the head autopsy photos, only the hole in the photos with brain draping down is on top of the head.

In any event, the hole he describes and points out would have to be primarily parietal bone, and inconsistent with a hole 2 1/2 in wide 2 in down from the parietal bone.

Not that I think he is necessarily the most credible of witnesses...

Check out where he claims the wound was at 7:56 of this video.

Peters strikes again

It is not only higher on the back of the head than the occipital bone, it's an inch or two higher than where he placed the wound in the other video.

Edited January 28, 2011 by Pat Speer

[Don Jeffries]

This has been a very interesting thread. I read Best Evidence shortly after it was released. I found it be one of the most provocative books on the assassination ever written. David Lifton made me look at the medical evidence in a different light. However, I had trouble, and still have trouble, understanding why conspirators would literally alter JFK's wounds when it would be so much easier to simply enlist all the necessary parties (Humes, Boswell, Finck, etc.) in the coverup. In fact, I strongly believe that those running and performing the autopsy were willfully dishonest, and Mr. Lifton's theory tends to convert them into innocent dupes.

I compare David Lifton's research to John Armstrong's; both men undeniably unearthed crucial and valuable information, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we have to accept the theories they constructed from all that data. I also think this is analogous to the work of Jack White, Jim Fetzer and other film alterationists. We can question any of Lifton's body alteration thesis, or any of John Armstrong's "Harvey and Lee" thesis, or any of Jack White's and Jim Fetzer's film alteration studies, but I don't think anyone has the right to question their sincerity or deny that they've raised valid points and produced some invaluable research.

To those who may not know, Kerry Thornley in later life because a rather bizarre inspiration to sci-fi writers Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, who utilized his nearly incomprehensible, wildly eccentric philosophy of "discordianism" to fuel their classic trilogy Illuminatus. I wouldn't suggest that Thornley was a conspirator by any means, but anyone who was writing a book about Lee Harvey Oswald BEFORE the JFK assassination has to arouse the interest of assassination researchers. Then there is the fact that his WC testimony was much more extensive than that of Oswald's other Marine Corps. peers, and conflicted with most of their recollections. Finally, Thornley himself came to believe he'd been a part of the MK-ULTRA program.

Sounding again like a broken record, let me bemoan the continuous state of feuding that seems to exist between good and honest people who've devoted so much time and effort to exposing the truth about this subject. I like the way Cliff Varnell wrote, earlier in this thread, about any perceived differences he had with Jim Fetzer. If only others could have the same attitude. The 50th anniversary of the assassination is fast approaching, and we need to stop the internal bickering and ego posturing and concentrate on the big picture.

[David Lifton]

I read Best Evidence shortly after it was released. I found it be one of the most provocative books on the assassination ever written. David Lifton made me look at the medical evidence in a different light. However, I had trouble, and still have trouble, understanding why conspirators would literally alter JFK's wounds when it would be so much easier to simply enlist all the necessary parties (Humes, Boswell, Finck, etc.) in the coverup. In fact, I strongly believe that those running and performing the autopsy were willfully dishonest, and Mr. Lifton's theory tends to convert them into innocent dupes.

". . . innocent dupes. . . " Not at all.

The key to the Kennedy assassination is understanding what evidence was falsified so as to manipulate the subsequent investigation. In other words, the objective of the plotters was not just to "kill President Kennedy" but to kill him AND get away with it. To do that, it was necessary to employ a strategic deception. The evidence is plentiful that this deception functioned by falsifying the basic evidence. For reasons I have never understood, some people insist on subscribing to the view that "the plot" consists of a shooting plus an "after the fact" cover-up which induced people to lie about the facts. IN other words, there was no strategic deception; rather, there was simply a conspiracy of liars.

Anyone attempting to advance such an argument must understand that the Attorney General of the United States, at the time, was the President's brother. Furthermore, law enforcement in Dallas--and at the federal level, too--is filled with all kinds of people of various loyalties and levels of competence. Glib assertions that, rather than plan in advance to thwart the investigation by altering evidence (and creating a false solution to the crime) that it would be "easier to simply enlist all the necessary parties in the coverup" is completely impractical and unworkable, and, most important, contradicts the evidentiary pattern in this case.

I'm not saying Humes and Boswell were angels, but I don't see how you can credibly advance the idea that this crime turned on a "conspiracy of liars," when one of the autopsy doctors says to the FBI that when the body arrived, there was "surgery of the head area, namely, in the top of the skull'; when that same doctor clearly delineates, in the autopsy report, that the scalp had been "flapped" (by actually describing the four scalp flaps); when the other doctor measures the huge exit hole as "10 x 17" and writes "missing". This initial behavior is not that of liars, but of whistle blowers. Its only because some people are wedded to their theory that they are dealing with "liars" that the message being sent is simply ignored by those more interested in promoting a "conspiracy of liars" rather than facing the implications of what the data actually shows.

This was not simply aconspiracy of shooters", which was then "covered up" by a "conspiracy of liars." This was a well thought out plan to remove Kennedy from office, and operate the line of succession under circumstanes that appeared to be a quirk of fate.

I'm not saying that the autopsy doctors told the full, unvarnished truth; but what I do maintain is that what they were hiding --to the extent that they were lying, in any significant way--was their awareness that the evidence with which they were dealing (i.e., the body of the President) had been altered (i.e., that the wounds had been altered and bullets removed prior to autopsy).

As far as the smashed up condition of the head, and the head wounds are concerned, that--I believe--is what Humes was alluding to when he said, to the HSCA, "we did the best we could with what we had before our eyes."

Fraud in the evidence is what the Kennedy case is all about. This was not a conspiracy of liars. It was a carefully conceived strategic deception.

By failing to recognize fraud in the evidence, and focusing instead on the inadequacies of the subsequent investigation, the true decoder ring to the Kennedy assassination is not used, because the optimal path to the pursuit of the truth is obscured by largelay irrelevant arguments about the Warren Report.

My thesis that the doctors were boxed in by falsified evidence does not convert them into innocent dupes; but its much closer to reality than spending fruitless hours subscribing to the view that the Warren Commission staff were all in on a conspirayc, or that the doctors who conducted the autopsy were simply liars.

None of that captures the reality of what happened in this case.

DSL

1/28/11; 4:45 AM PST

Los Angeles, CA

Edited January 28, 2011 by David Lifton

[David Lifton]

I wouldn't suggest that Thornley was a conspirator by any means, but anyone who was writing a book about Lee Harvey Oswald BEFORE the JFK assassination has to arouse the interest of assassination researchers. .

Oswald--as most people know--was a Marxist Marine, a pinko Marine. Moreover, Oswald was an interesting conversationalist, and so their conversations about ideology, politics, and philosophy, is what fueled their acquaintanceship.

In stating that "anyone who as writing a book about Lee Harvey Oswald BEFORE the JFK assassination has to arouse the interest of assassination researchers," you are ignoring a major fact. Thornley did not commence the writing of his manuscript until AFTER Oswald defected--specifically, until AFTER he read about Oswald in STARS AND STRIPES. At that point, THornley had an "aha" moment. Having nursed a desire to be a writer--but having "nothing to write about," he suddenly found himself with the perfect subject to place at the center of his proposed novel: this peculiar Marine he knew who had just defected.

What's so unusual about that?

What's really interesting--if the defection is a fake--is that Thornley fell for Oswald's intelligence cover, i.e., his appearance, not the reality.

Now that's a most interesting reflection on Thornley's powers of observation, because not all the Marines in Oswald's unit reacted that way--and one of them, in fact, immediately believed that Oswald had defected because he was on an intelligence assignment.

No matter. Thornley reacted as he did. But what is truly ridiculous (IMHO) is Garrison's reaction --believing that BECAUSE Thornley fell for Oswald's appearance (rather than what was the reality) why then Thornley must have been a part of a conspiracy (!). To the contrary: the fact that Thornley took Oswald so seriously is excellent evidence of how credible Oswald appeared to be, as a "Marxist Marine."

DSL

1/28/11; 5:30 AM PST

Los Angeles, CA

Edited January 28, 2011 by David Lifton

[David Lifton]

Oops duplicate post. Sorry.

Edited January 29, 2011 by David Lifton

[J. Raymond Carroll]

What's really interesting--if the defection is a fake--is that Thornley fell for Oswald's intelligence cover, i.e., his appearance, not the reality.

the fact that Thornley took Oswald so seriously is excellent evidence of how credible Oswald appeared to be, as a "Marxist Marine."

DSL

So in the inquiry into whether Oz was a real or a fake defector we can count Thornley as a close-up witness that Oz was REAL.

[David Lifton]

No, that's not what I meant to convey. Rather: that Oswald conveyed his contrived Marxist pose with such credibility that Thornley believed him. As I indicated, there was one Marine who did not. (I forget his name. . will get back to you on that.) DSL

[William Kelly]

No, that's not what I meant to convey. Rather: that Oswald conveyed his contrived Marxist pose with such credibility that Thornley believed him. As I indicated, there was one Marine who did not. (I forget his name. . will get back to you on that.) DSL

Joe Biles' book on Oswald in New Orleans details how a women met Thornley at a French Quarter bar in the summer of 63' and he was sitting and talking to Oswald.

While Thornley denied it happened, and later said that maybe he didn't recognize Oswald as his old Marine buddy, Biles was convinced they were together, and so am I.

Thornley saw what happened to Oswald, and being at the same level in the same league as The Patsy, its no wonder he didn't spill the beans.

You can't get around the fact that Thornley wrote a novel that includes Oswald as a main character before the assassination, and was in the San Diego USMC unit when

Oswald met Hemming and first approached the Cubans, and when Oswald was most likely recruited to the counter-intel unit that sent him to USSR.

Thornley didn't know who put the Dealey Plaza Operation together, but he was certainly part of the network that included those who did.

BK

[David Lifton]

What's really interesting--if the defection is a fake--is that Thornley fell for Oswald's intelligence cover, i.e., his appearance, not the reality.

the fact that Thornley took Oswald so seriously is excellent evidence of how credible Oswald appeared to be, as a "Marxist Marine."

DSL

So in the inquiry into whether Oz was a real or a fake defector we can count Thornley as a close-up witness that Oz was REAL.

REPLY BY DSL:

No, that's not what I meant to convey, not at all. Rather, my point was that Oswald was such a good actor--so good at pretending he was something he was not, and doing so with such verisimilitude--that Kerry Thornley (an excellent witness to this "performance") was fooled. And so what we have, in Thornley's 1962 manuscript, is a good representation of the way Oswald appeared to be (and I stress those words, "appeared to be") at the time Thornley knew him, an appearance conveyed with such credibility that, a year or so later, Thornley (who had aspirations to be a writer, and was looking for a subject to write about) was inspired to write about this unusual Marine he had known. And so, settling down in New Orleans, and tackling the job of batting out his first novel, he then did so in 1962. That's exactly why Thornley wrote about Oswald (in 1962)--he makes that very clear in the introduction to his book, spelled it out to me when we first met, and I never had any trouble with that explanation. Thornley had aspirations to be a writer, a political writer, and what he said makes perfect sense.

For whatever reason, all this was beyond Garrison's comprehension (as well as the comprehension of some of the other JFK researchers, all of whom followed Garrison like a bunch of lemmings, and immediately jumped on the "Well, if Jim says so, why Thornley must have been a bad guy" version of this sequence of events).

Watching all this first hand--especially since I knew Thornley personally--was really quite amazing, not to mention upsetting. And of course now--many years later--there are still additional reverberations as new generations of researchers come onto the scene, and travel down that same path.

But returning to my main point, which is the impression Oswald made on his fellow Marines: please remember that there was at least one Marine in Oswald's unit (when he was at El Toro, in the Spring of 1959) who apparently had his doubts, and I am referring here to Anthony Botelho, later to become "Judge Botelho." I interviewed Botelho, at length decades ago. But putting aside what he told me, let's go to the official record. When interviewed by the FBI on December 3, 1963, Botelho said (and I'm now quoting from their report): "Since Oswald's defection received so little publicity, BOTELHO thought OSWALD might have been a spy for us." (Commission Document 68, pp. 4-5).

So there you have it: a Marine in Oswald's unit who thought Oswald's defection was a fake, and told that to the FBI just two weeks after Kennedy's assassination. And if Botelho thought that--and said so--in December, 1963, I wonder what the others might have said, when interviewed in the weeks following October 31, 1959, when there was an official investigation at El Toro, the records of which have--apparently (or at least according to the HSCA)--have disappeared.

However, and as an important footnote, do note this: when the WC attorney prepared an affidavit for Botelho to sign (June, 1964, and after a telephone interview, an affidavit and which appears in the 26 volumes [Vol 8, p 315]), this particular statement was omitted. So either the attorney suggested that it be omitted, or Botelho didn't feel comfortable about signing an affidavit which made that statement. I don't know which is the case. My point is: when first interviewed by the FBI, Botelho said what he did.

Anyway, I hope I have now clarified what I intended to convey, re Thornley: i.e., attempting to explain WHY Thornley wrote what he did, in 1962--well after Oswald's October, 1959 "defection," but a good year (or more) before the Kennedy assassination.

DSL

1/29/11; 4 PM, PST

Los Angeles, California

[David Lifton]

To those who may not know, Kerry Thornley in later life because a rather bizarre inspiration to sci-fi writers Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, who utilized his nearly incomprehensible, wildly eccentric philosophy of "discordianism" to fuel their classic trilogy Illuminatus. I wouldn't suggest that Thornley was a conspirator by any means, but anyone who was writing a book about Lee Harvey Oswald BEFORE the JFK assassination has to arouse the interest of assassination researchers.

I still think the young guy photographed outside of the TSBD shortly after the shooting, looks a lot like Kerry Thornley.

Does anyone know where Thornley was, or was alleged to have been on the day of the assassination?

DSL Reponse: Yes, its an interesting resemblance, but. . . Kerry Thornley was in New Orleans. One can read the FBI interviews, both of Thornley, and those who knew him there. DSL

[David Lifton]

No, that's not what I meant to convey. Rather: that Oswald conveyed his contrived Marxist pose with such credibility that Thornley believed him. As I indicated, there was one Marine who did not. (I forget his name. . will get back to you on that.) DSL

The witness you are citing is Barbara Reid, the witch, and a real New Orleans character. (That, as I recall, was Garrison's "evidence.") Really, I don't want to spend time rehashing old arguments about Thornley. He had absolutely nothing--NADA--to do with Kennedy's assassination. I knew Thornley well enough to make these statements. The Garrison case against him was a complete farce.

Just read the news release Garrison put out against him--it was loaded with insubstantial and truly absurd reasoning. (Must we trot that out, and go through it item by item?)

Just for the record, let me state my own opinion, based on numerous conversations with Thornley, way back when:

Thornley had no idea Oswald was in New Orleans during the summer of 1963--and by the time Oswald was in the news (August 63) Thornley had left. Thornley was amazed to learn, later, that he and Oswald (about who he had already written) were in the same city, for brief period. He would loved to have questioned him, to say, "Hey man, I've written about you! I thought you were going to Russia forever? What made you return?" etc. I had conversations about all this with Thornley, decades ago. And he did not make up this story, for my benefit. How some folks "connect the dots" just amazes me.

Thornley was not part of "the network" that put the Dealy Plaza operation together. Just who are the others in this "network"? And what was their function? (And what, in the Biles' theory, was supposedly Thornley supposed function? (To write a book about Oswald? Oh pleez. . )

You write: "You can't get around the fact that Thornely wrote a novel that includes Oswald as a main character before the assassination. . " To the contrary: Please do read my posts responding to Ray Carrol. It is eminently and reasonably explainable. Oswald had defected. Thornley had known him. Thornley had ambitions to be a novelist. And so he built his first manuscript about this most interesting person he had known. And he started work on it in 1962.

What is YOUR take on this? That in 1962, Thornley was recruited to . . to do what? I invite you to complete the sentence. Spell out your hypothesis. I'd sure like to know what it was.

Finally, your analysis of when Oswald was recruited is seriously flawed. Are you maintaining that all this began at El Toro?

IMHO: That's way too late. . just look at the time line. Oswald doesn't return to El Toro until Dec 1958/Jan 59. He's ALREADY got the radar credentials under his belt; and clearly, if he was recruited for an intelligence assignment, it had something to do with radar.

Well, its a free country, and anyone can entertain any hypothesis they wish. . but I don't see the logic of any hypothesis that in any way inculpates Thornley.

In any role whatsoever.

DSL

1/29/11; 10:45 PM PST

Los Angeles CA

Edited January 30, 2011 by David Lifton

[Don Jeffries]

David,

With all due respect, I think your interpretation of Kerry Thornley's history in connection with Oswald is a bit naive. While Oswald was of notoriety to the U.S. Govt. because of his defection to Russia, I don't believe he was a celebrated public figure at all until the assassination. As such, many of us find it extremely odd that Thornley would be moved to write a book about him before he became undeservedly infamous. As a writer, I can certainly understand the allure of eccentric personalities in terms of developing interesting fictional characters, but when I couple his book on Oswald with other known facts about Thornley, I become much more skeptical than you.

Thornley was a unique, interesting and yes- suspicious character. As I noted, he was the co-founder and primary advocate for a nearly incomprehensible philosophy he coined discordianism. The authors of Illuminatus knew Thornley, and Robert Anton Wilson continued to parrot and admire his thoughts and words in several more books about the Illuminati and political conspiracies in general. Wilson was also very close to LSD guru/almost certain CIA asset Timothy Leary at this same time, so it's not unlikely that Thornley knew Leary as well, or at least crossed paths with this celebrated pop culture figure. And we must not forget Thornley's own publicly expressed belief that he had been a part of the MK-ULTRA program.

There is no denying that Thornley's WC testimony was markedly different from the others who'd served with Oswald in the Marines. His view of Oswald came to be an accepted part of historical lore, and as such I place him firmly in the category of Ruth Paine, for instance, whose recollections proved so damaging to LHO and again, have become accepted at face value by far too many critics, imho.

I'm not delcaring with certainty that Thornley was a conspirator, or involved in any way with JFK's assassination. You may very well be right in your assumptions about him. However, I think that his background and associations make him a figure that is definitely worth further study.

[J. Raymond Carroll]

So in the inquiry into whether Oz was a real or a fake defector we can count Thornley as a close-up witness that Oz was REAL.

REPLY BY DSL:

No, that's not what I meant to convey, not at all. Rather, my point was that Oswald was such a good actor--so good at pretending he was something he was not, and doing so with such verisimilitude--that Kerry Thornley (an excellent witness to this "performance") was fooled.

THank you David. I did realize that you were suggesting that Oz was a "fake" defector. I am not persuaded that this theory is true, and therefore I pointed out that THornley is one witness whose testimony points to Oz being a genuine Russophile & Marxist.

From Garrison's Playboy interview:

[W]e do have proof that Oswald was recruited by the CIA in his Marine Corps days, when he was mysteriously schooled in Russian and allowed to subscribe to Pravda. And shortly before his trip to the Soviet Union, we have learned, Oswald was trained as an intelligence agent at the CIA installation at Japan's Atsugi Air Force Base...

http://www.jim-garrison.com/bio.html

Of course Garrison never produced this "proof," any more than he produced proof that Thornley was involved in the plot to kill Kennedy.

When interviewed by the FBI on December 3, 1963, Botelho said (and I'm now quoting from their report): "Since Oswald's defection received so little publicity, BOTELHO thought OSWALD might have been a spy for us." (Commission Document 68, pp. 4-5).

THis sounds like pure conjecture on Botelho's part, and moreover it is hindsight conjecture AFTER THE FACT. It hardly qualifies as EVIDENCE that Oz was a fake defector.

as an important footnote, do note this: when the WC attorney prepared an affidavit for Botelho to sign (June, 1964, and after a telephone interview, an affidavit and which appears in the 26 volumes [Vol 8, p 315]), this particular statement was omitted.

Botelho could not in good conscience sign an affidavit swearing that something was true when it was merely his own conjecture. And it is possible that Botelho learned --in the interval between his FBI statement and his affividavit-- that the Oswald defection DID receive publicity at the time, not only in the Fort Worth newspaper, where we would expect it, but even (if memory does not deceive me) in the New York Times.

[David Lifton]

Thornley was a unique, interesting and yes- suspicious character. As I noted, he was the co-founder and primary advocate for a nearly incomprehensible philosophy he coined discordianism.

DSL RESPONSE: Yes, but all that happened years later, when he went psychologically downhill, after his life (and psyche) were turned upside down by the Garrison prosecution. The Kerry Thornley I knew in 1965-68 was not like that. At all.

many of us find it extremely odd that Thornley would be moved to write a book about him before he became undeservedly infamous.

DSL Response: He may have been (relatively) unknown to the outside world; but his defection definitely triggered the "aha" moment for Thornley; as in, "aha. . I'll write about him!" I heard this first-hand from Thornley (and he said so in the introduction to his own book). That's why he chose to write about him. Anyway, the book sold a few hundred copies--so how was that supposed to be part of some plot?

There is no denying that Thornley's WC testimony was markedly different from the others who'd served with Oswald in the Marines.

DSL RESPONSE: How was it all that different? The fact is that Thornley had an ideological debate with Oswald, during the brief period he knew him in the USMC, at El Toro. I don't know that any of Oswald's fellow Marines "debated" with Oswald. And I think that's what makes his testimony a bit different, and gives it an "edge" if you will. Furthermore, it was because Thornley actually "debated" with Oswald that, subsequently, he selected to write about him, to "explain" why such a person might defect (remember: that's how it all started); and then, some 18 months later, when Oswald was accused as the assassin (a conclusion which Thornley accepted, by the way, until he met me), he thought that he (Thornley) could "explain" the "why" of the Kennedy assassination.

But how is that all that different from numerous other commentators who have come on the scene. For decades, people have purported to "explain Oswald" in terms of his putative Marxism. Why hold that against Thornley? As I have repeatedly noted, that WAS in fact the way Oswald appeared--if one probed deeply enough. (And Thornley did; so he got the whole "pitch," the whole "shtick" from Oswald). The fellow Marine in Oswald's unit (who later went on to play pro-football, I forget his name just now) told me that, for Oswald, Karl Marx was his "God." The difference between him and Thornley is that he went on to play pro-ball, whereas Thornley went on to write a manuscript. But, when it came to LHO, their views weren't all that different, but Garrison didn't go on to prosecute him.

To this day, I continue to believe that Thornley (and that ridiculous press release Garrison put out about him) is Exhibit A when it comes to some of the worst excesses of the Garrison investigation, and a perfect example of the "group-think" of many of the early Warren Report critics (e.g., Harold Weisberg). It made me realize how many of my fellow Warren Report critics (that's what "JFK researchers" were called back then) had the propensity to behave like a bunch of true believers, engaged in a witch hunt. It was all very cult like. I remember one phone call with Vince Salandria when I was arguing for Oswald's innocence--and I was basically saying to him, "Where the heck is your humanity? For God's sake. .. you're an ACLU lawyer, Vince!" (something like that). . and he replied by telling me that Thornley was "only pretending to be innocent." I told Vince that, if he reasoned that way, then in his world (and when it came to assessing the guilt of anyone Garrison accused), there were only two kinds of people: those who were guilty (as charged) and those who were "pretending to be innocent" (!). And wasn't that a great testament to objectivity.

And things really haven't changed much over the years.

So today, we have researchers returning to the same record, and connecting the same "dots" the same "wrong way."

"Come look over here!," they say. "Thornley went to Mexico City!" Or: "Thornley was in New Orleans...how could he not have known Oswald was in town?!" (Well, he didn't.) "Don't ya see? Its all part of a plot,a cover-up! And look at these terrible statements Thornley made against Kennedy!. . ." (ignoring the fact that Thornley was a libertarian, and viewed from that end of the spectrum, Kennedy was a "Statist," etc.

That's what I see going on.

Someday, if time permitted, I'd like to get out the hours of tape recordings I have of Thornley discussing with me Garrison's craziness, in making these legal charges against him (taped with full permission, btw, just to make a record of these bizarre events) and people can judge for themselves.

DSL

1/31/11; 1:30 AM PST

Los Angeles, CA

Edited January 31, 2011 by David Lifton