Pat Speer- I am confused (so what else is new?)...re: JFK head wound

[Vince Palamara]

You should provide the link to that article Vince...

One of the very best - and opened the door to the SS for me at least....

Any thoughts on DILLION's involvement?

See the main page- they're all there

thanks!

Dillon was a former member of the OSS. I detail a fair amount of information about him in my book. The G. d'Andelot "Don" Belin connection and more.

[Pat Speer]

What are we missing here Pat ??

McClelland mistaken again in this photo along with everyone else? (yes, I know there are Bethesda witnesses in this mix... and THEY also place the wound in the same spot)

Since the bones were hinged OUT, is it not conceivable that one or more of these bones would hinge UP requiring holding it down from the TOP of the head? One does not hold NOTHING over a hole in the skull... the only things left to HOLD on JFK's skull was the TOP/FRONT of the head.. the BACK was gone.... just not according to the autopsy report and xrays...

C'mon David. I go through these witnesses one by one on my website. and have posted that information here numerous times. Your exhibit is thoroughly misleading.

First of all, where is Ward? He said it was on the side. Better leave him off. What about Salyer (not Sawyer)? He said it was on the side. Better pretend he said it was on the back. And what about Marilyn Willis and Ed Hoffman? They placed it up on top of the right side. Better leave them off. And, wait, what's this? Jerrol Custer and Paul O'Connor? In Groden's video, they told him the wound once the scalp was peeled back was a giant wound from front to back, and Groden published a still image of them pointing to the back of their heads in his book and made it look like they'd said there was a blow out on the back of the head, and that their recollections mirrored those of the Parkland witnesses. I've posted this information numerous times. Please stop pretending they are "back of the head" witnesses.

P.S. You might want to take a look where you've marked the wounds on the back of the head and compare that to the "McClelland" drawing based on his testimony. According to you, and I agree, the "back of the head" witnesses did not point to the occipital bone, and do not support that the Harper fragment was occipital bone.

We're making some progress, after all.

[John Crites]

The FBI agents saw a back of the head wound at Bethesda.

Actually it appears Boswell admitted as much to the ARRB, but obviously he was still under orders to call as much as a 10 inch opening an entrance wound.

[Pat Speer]

What about Dr, Mantik and the white patch? Or Mantik stating that the one Fox photo of the open head wound IS the right rear of the head?

The (color) photo of the back of the head with the ruler and hands seems so fake- it is very hard to believe that, at the very least, this was a manipulated image: "genuine" photo but manipulated scalp to cover back of head. The blood stain in the cowlick is no wound

I discuss Mantik's "White Patch" in chapter 18 and chapter 18b of my webpage. As confirmed by Dr. Fitzpatrick, a Forensic Radiologist consulted by the ARRB, the white patch was the overlapping bone observed in the right lateral photo. This had been my theory for years, and I had been attacked for holding this theory for years.

Only it turned out, Dr. Fitzpatrick had proposed the same thing long before I.

Hmmm...was it just a coincidence, then, that Doug Horne sat on this report for what? 13 years? before showing it to the research community? And that he leaked the report through Dr. Mantik at the 2009 Lancer conference, and that Mantik failed to tell the audience that, oh, by the way, Fitzpatrick said the same thing Speer's been saying?

P.S. Mantik and I shared the same stage at the recent Wecht conference and have come to an agreement to disagree, if you will. He conceded in his presentation that the "White Patch" was on the side of the head and that it had nothing to do with the Parkland witnesses, and his ongoing belief the Harper fragment was occipital bone.

P.P.S. One of the doctors tugged on the scalp in the back of the head photo so that the small entrance wound low on the back of the head could be photographed. They were trying to show something, not hide something.

[Pat Speer]

Sam Kinney told me (it's on tape- no second-hand neighbor revelations LOL) that the right rear of JFK's head blew out and he had THE piece of the back of JFK's head in his hands on the C-130. He put in a phone patch to Dr. Burkley...it went to Tommy Mills...and who knows what became of it.

Kinney discovered the large triangular fragment. Dr. Angel thought this was frontal bone. Dr. Baden claimed it was parietal bone. I'm not aware of a doctor claiming it came from the back of the head.

Edited December 17, 2013 by Pat Speer

[John Crites]

Who saw this? (from the HSCA)

someone from Parkland? Or from Bethesda?

And please don't say someone told Posner something. Posner comes to this case at this time with unclean hands.

Nothing Posner says can be believed and he cannot be trusted until he (or an associate of his) comes forth with the audio interviews he said he conducted and possesses of Boswell and James Tague.

[Vince Palamara]

Pat- I admire your wor, your website, and your ability to change your mind and evolve. I cannot lie- you REALLY have me rethinking things about the back of the head matter.

I gather you believe there was a conspiracy and that there was a shot from the front...right?

Also: what is your take on Mantik's appraisal of the one Fox photo (the gorey huge open crater [see Mantik's article in Fetzer's MIDP]) as being a view of the back of the head?

[Robert Prudhomme]

So, let us see the statements where these gentlemen say that macerated cerebrum looks like cerebellum, which anyone in the medical field with more than six functioning brain cells will tell you is BS.

[Pat Speer]

Who saw this? (from the HSCA)

someone from Parkland? Or from Bethesda?

And please don't say someone told Posner something. Posner comes to this case at this time with unclean hands.

Nothing Posner says can be believed and he cannot be trusted until he (or an associate of his) comes forth with the audio interviews he said he conducted and possesses of Boswell and James Tague.

No one saw that. That is a drawing made under the direction of Dr. Michael Baden, who was so clueless he testified with his exhibits upside down. (See part 1 of my video series)

As far as Posner, I agree. I am not a fan. He pulled a lot of sneaky stuff both when writing his book and afterwards.

But, that said, none of the PARKLAND witnesses with whom he spoke disavowed any of the quotes attributed to them, and none of what they said, of what I am aware, was any different from what they'd been saying publicly for years.

Now, that's what's hard to understand. I came to this case about ten years ago, so my understanding of the Parkland witnesses came through books by Lifton, Groden, Livingston etc. I thought these guys had seen something they weren't supposed to see, and hid out the rest of their lives--the conspiracy of silence alluded to by Crenshaw. As a result, it took me a long time to realize that Dr.s Jenkins, Carrico, Baxter, and Perry--4 of the 6 or 7 doctors most involved in Kennedy's care at Parkland--not only disavowed that they saw a wound on the back of the head oozing cerebellum, but participated in a forum put on by Dr. Lattimer at which they denounced conspiracy theorists, and threw their lot in with the LN crowd.

This holds true for Dr. Clark as well. His only public statements on the matter after his testimony were to denounce conspiracy theorists.

SO...one can hold, should one be so inclined, that these men were not heroic truth-tellers at all, but gutless cowards, who gave in to the incredible pressure put upon them to retract their early statements and testimony...

EXCEPT...Dr. McClelland, the one prime witness to seemingly hold his ground, supports them to this day, and insists that neither he nor they were ever pressured into changing their testimony regarding the head wounds.

This leaves us with what? Dr. Jones and Dr. Peters? Well, they, much as McClelland, have tried to have it both ways, trying to stick to their early statements saying they thought the back of the head was missing, while simultaneously saying they think the autopsy photos and x-rays are legit.

Here are my takes on Peters and Jones.

Dr. Paul Peters, on the other hand, has tried to have it both ways. Although he had repeatedly claimed the wound he saw was in the "occiput" or the back of Kennedy's head, and is pictured in Groden's book pointing to this location, he also told the producers of the PBS program Nova, after viewing Kennedy's autopsy photos in 1988, that the autopsy photos were "pretty much as I remember President Kennedy at the time." He then confirmed his support for the legitimacy of the autopsy photos by telling Gerald Posner in 1992 that the "head wound is more forward than I first placed it. More to the side than to the rear." When interviewed by the ARRB in 1998 and given yet another chance to claim the autopsy photos and x-rays were fake, moreover, he claimed instead that "I was amazed when I saw the first x-ray of the skull — the lateral skull--of the extent of the fragmentation of the skull. I did not appreciate that I think because a lot of it was covered by scalp at the time we worked on him. We were doing a resuscitation, not a forensic autopsy." He had thereby deferred to the accuracy of the x-rays. When discussing the location of the wound in the McClelland drawing, for that matter, he shared: "It looks a little further down in the occiput in this picture." When trying to explain the intact back of the head in the back of the head photo, on the other hand, he claimed: "It was my thought exactly that they just kind of pulled that flap back into place and took a picture so they could show how it looked with things restored as much as possible and it just -- a flap just kind of -- had been torn back and now they were just kind of putting it back and snapping a picture. For what reason, I don't know. But I'm certain there was a hole there, too. I walked around right and looked in his head. You could look directly into the cranial vault and see cerebral injury to the cerebral cortex and I thought at the time to the cerebellum. So I know the hole was big enough to look into. I estimated it at seven centimeters at that time, and I don't know what the actual measurements were when they took the radiographs, but I thought just exactly what Bob did. They were probably making a series of pictures and they had just pulled that flap back up there to cover it up and took a picture of that to show the head with the flap restored, so to speak, for whatever reason. I'm sure there were many other pictures that were made at the same time."

Dr. Ronald Jones, as Peters, has claimed many times over the years that the wound was on the back of Kennedy's head. In the photo in Groden's book, however, he points to a wound location slightly to the side of the wound on the "McClelland" drawing. In 1992, even stranger, he described the wound as a "side wound." In 1997, in a letter to researcher Francois Carlier, Jones tried to explain his confusion; he insisted that although he observed a wound on the "posterior aspect of the skull," he was "unable to observe the exact extent or dimensions of this wound" because of his "position at the table on the left side of the President below his arm" while the President was lying "flat on his back." When interviewed by the ARRB in 1998, for what's worse, he offered more excuses, insisting "it was difficult to see down through the hair," and admitting "All my view was from the President's left side." He then clarified this position to researcher Vincent Palamara, first admitting that he really didn't have "a clear view of the back side of the head wound. President Kennedy had very thick dark hair that covered the injured area" and then offering "In my opinion it was in the occipital area in the back of the head." He had thereby confirmed that he'd failed to see the large hole missing scalp and bone depicted in the "McClelland"drawing.

[Robert Prudhomme]

Having troubles finding the supporting statements I asked you for, Pat?

[Pat Speer]

Pat- I admire your wor, your website, and your ability to change your mind and evolve. I cannot lie- you REALLY have me rethinking things about the back of the head matter.

I gather you believe there was a conspiracy and that there was a shot from the front...right?

Also: what is your take on Mantik's appraisal of the one Fox photo (the gorey huge open crater [see Mantik's article in Fetzer's MIDP]) as being a view of the back of the head?

My 4 part video series is devoted to my trying to understand the mystery photo, or F8. I show that Baden testified with it upside down according to his own supposed interpretation of the photo, and then wonder what it really shows. I have a chapter on this as well. (I conclude it shows the back of the head after the scalp was peeled back and skull fell to the table.)

As far as a shot from the front...I believe the earwitness evidence is intriguing in that regard, and strongly suggestive that a sound of some sort came from west of the building. I find the statements of the railroad workers--that they saw smoke blow out from the knoll--intriguing as well. But I see no evidence for an impact of such a shot on Kennedy or Connally, and am perplexed by the fact no gunman was seen. (Yes, I know several people later claimed there was a gunman on the knoll, but I'm going by the first and most credible statements of these witnesses.)

In any event, this led me to suspect some sort of long-fused firecracker was fired as a diversion. I then found references to both firecrackers being used as diversion devices in articles on WWII sniping tactics, and the necessity of incorporating "dummy positions" into a successful sniping plan in books on military sniping tactics.

So...my current suspicion is that someone lit a long-fused firecracker on the knoll...

[Pat Speer]

Having troubles finding the supporting statements I asked you for, Pat?

About the cerebrum/cerebellum confusion? Find them yourself. Both Carrico and Jenkins made public statements indicating they'd mistaken cerebrum from cerebellum. I believe Baxter did so as well. Perry denied ever saying he saw cerebellum. There's this thing. It's called google.

Now, how about you answer some of my questions?

A number of witnesses from Parkland Hospital thought they saw a wound on the back of Kennedy's head.

Most of the doctors intimately involved in Kennedy's care later said, or gave a strong indication, they'd been mistaken, and accepted the conclusions of the Warren Commission. Were they lying?

Several of the Parkland witnesses, from the very beginning, placed the wound in a location other than on the back of Kennedy's head. Were they lying?

A number of witnesses in Dealey Plaza saw a large wound near Kennedy's temple, in the precise location it is shown on the autopsy photos and x-rays. In the moments after the assassination, three of them discussed this on TV . Were they mistaken? Or lying? And, if so, how do you explain that the location they pointed to ended up being the location in the photos and x-rays? Were they part of the plot?

A number of other witnesses, including Mrs. Kennedy, said the wound was on the top or right side of the head in the months after the assassination. Were these witnesses lying? Or just misquoted? And if they were misquoted, why? Because the evidence suggests there was NO controversy about the head wound location in the months after the shooting. This is PROVED, moreover, by the testimony of the Parkland witnesses, where Arlen Specter let them say whatever they wanted about the head wound, but guided them carefully during their discussion of the throat wound.

As stated, the photos and x-rays showed a wound on the top of the head, by the temple. Were these fakes? And, if so, were the Bethesda personnel who signed off on their authenticity once shown the originals, e.g. Humes, Boswell, Finck, Stringer, Riebe, Custer, lying?

So let's be clear. My position is that a few men and women were mistaken. These people all worked with each other, and their recollections could have been molded by this contact. Your position appears to be that these people couldn't have been mistaken and that almost everyone else to comment on the head wounds was either mistaken or a xxxx, and that most all the evidence supporting their statements has been faked.

And faked to show what? That there was more than one shooter firing upon President Kennedy? Because that's what it shows...

Now, let me be clear on this as well... My rejection of the "evidence is fake" argument is related to the fact I spent years studying the medical evidence in the context of textbooks and professional papers, and realized that the medical panels to study the evidence, from the autopsy doctors on down through the HSCA Forensic Pathology Panel, were controlled to some extent, and steered into making conclusions at odds with what they would have concluded should the victim have not been the President.

Would you agree that the evidence, accepted at face value, suggests a conspiracy? Or are you yet another conspiracy theorist secretly subscribing to the lone nut position the evidence suggests Oswald's sole guilt, and that the only way around this is to claim the evidence is fake?

Edited December 17, 2013 by Pat Speer

[Ray Mitcham]

Pat, what is your position on where the head wound was? IYO was it on the top of the head or the side of the head?

[Robert Prudhomme]

Translated: You can't and won't find the statements about the cerebrum/cerebellum because you know they will not support your exaggerated claims.

[John Crites]

Pat, you hit it out of the park with your presentation of Baden turning the picture upside down.
But as with the drawing, I feel Baden knew exactly what he was doing, EXACTLY WHAT HE WAS DOING!



Dr. Peters;

"A fairly large wound on the right side of the head in the parietal/occipital area. One could see blood and brains, both cerebellum and cerebrum fragments in that wound." (HSCA I believe)

There are a lot of witnesses who said there was a huge back of the head wound. They may have spoken differently at times - even taken out of context, but so much sworn testimony to the fact of a rear blowout.

As far as Posner, Boswell and Tague were two that spoke out that they were never interviewed and misquoted at that. And Boswell probably would have never muttered a word but not for Dr. Aguilar's investigating. So just because others didn't say anything pursuant to what Posner wrote about them does not mean that Posner is telling the truth. Until Posner comes forth with the audios of Tague and Boswell, NOTHING he says should be taken truthfully. I didn't say he does not have these tapes, it's just that he said he did and stonewalled the AARB and the rest of the research community for 2 decades.