DiEugenio, Cranor, and the mole (my mole) - 3/31/20

[Rick McTague]

1 hour ago, Andrej Stancak said:

Dennis:

there was a surgery to John Kennedy's head, namely the top of the head, which was reported by Commander Humes at the start of the autopsy (0800) and recorded by FBI agents Sibert and O'Neil. Besides their statement in their November 26 report, there is a comparatively new testimony of Dr James Jenkins corroborating David's finding of a surgery to President's head prior to the autopsy. As documented in Best Evidence and  mentioned by other researchers, there was a staggering difference between the wounds as described by all of Parkland doctors and nurses who saw Kennedy's head wound and Dr Boswell's chart of the head wound and the official autopsy protocol (and the autopsy photograph showing the back of Kennedy head intact) which do not show any wound in the occipital region. These pieces of evidence are enough to accept the basic premise of Best Evidence that President Kennedy's body was tampered with to obfuscate or even suppress the occipital wound.

I may have slight doubts about the  interpretation of the back wound and while finding good logic in BE hypothesis that the perpetrators of illegal surgery did not know about the entry wound in the throat, this my doubt is about one of possible scenarios but it does not question the presence of a pre-autopsy surgery to the head and neck. 

It is very simple: if President was shot at least once from the front, the autopsy findings should show evidence of a frontal shot but they do not. However, there was at least one frontal shot (e.g., HSCA acoustic evidence) and therefore if the autopsy report does not show it, it worked with an altered  body. This is the minimum what Best Evidence says. Later analyses of X-rays (Dr Mantik) and photographs (Tom Wilson) clearly demonstrated the presence of manipulations in the right occipital and posterior parietal region suggesting additional photographic alterations to suppress the occipital head wound.

Is this not enough of best evidence?

Andrej,

I might add to your fine assessment above, two items: 

1. The condition of the body before it left Parkland hospital vs. the condition of the body upon arrival at Bethesda.  At Parkland, the only damage noted to the brain was the occipital fist-sized blowout vs. a cavity you could fit both hands into, with no brain present, at Bethesda per Paul O'Connor.  The body was wrapped in sheets at Parkland and placed on top of a plastic sheet inside the ornamental bronze casket vs. the body received at Bethesda in a standard body bag, not wrapped except for the head, inside a pink shipping casket.
2. The evidence of multiple casket entries at Bethesda, which has been discussed at length here and in great detail in BE.

Someone had to cause these differences.  The body alterations are not "absurd" but rather events that occurred.  

Thanks

 

 

 

 

 

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

18 hours ago, Eddy Bainbridge said:

Always being wary of disinformation. Can posters who disagree with DavId Lifton please confirm if it is his theory they reject or is it the possibility of body alteration.I view the evidence as showing a frontal entry wound has been removed. Is there a non-alteration explanation?

I can't speak for others, but my own objection is to Lifton's theory. I'm agnostic on whether or not the body was tampered with, but if it was, it can't have been done the way Lifton claimed.

It's important to remember that Lifton wasn't just saying that the body was tampered with before the autopsy. His theory claimed that the body was altered in a specific way for a specific purpose.

Quite apart from the laughable notion that the body could be stolen from Air Force One without anyone noticing, two essential elements of Lifton's theory are clearly wrong. All the shots didn't come from the front, and the wounds which he claims were deliberately fabricated to implicate Oswald did the opposite. They exonerated Oswald and had the effect of convincing many people (including me) that the lone-nut theory was nonsense. Lifton's theory doesn't appear to take these facts into account. Perhaps he can tell us why.

If I've misunderstood Lifton's argument, or if he has found a way to reconcile his theory with the evidence I cited, I'm happy to be corrected.

It's good to be wary of disinformation, but it's a mistake to assume that any criticism of any conspiracy theory implies support for the lone-nut theory. There have been many ridiculous JFK assassination conspiracy theories over the years, some of them almost as ridiculous as Lifton's, and it's right to question all of them, not least because of the problem of guilt by association. The existence of the crazy theories supports the media's longstanding message that anyone who questions the lone-nut theory must be crazy.

When the media were looking for a JFK assassination book to promote in the early 80s, they wouldn't have been looking for one which offered a credible explanation for the assassination, or one which was representative of accepted critical thinking. Instead, the sort of book that would serve their purposes would be one which had the effect of undermining rational criticism of the lone-nut theory. They chose Best Evidence.

As for disinformation and David Lifton, the excellent researcher Martin Hay has something interesting to say on that subject:

http://themysteriesofdealeyplaza.blogspot.com/2013/11/send-in-clowns-fetzer-and-lifton.html
 

[Paul Brancato]

6 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

I can't speak for others, but my own objection is to Lifton's theory. I'm agnostic on whether or not the body was tampered with, but if it was, it can't have been done the way Lifton claimed.

It's important to remember that Lifton wasn't just saying that the body was tampered with before the autopsy. His theory claimed that the body was altered in a specific way for a specific purpose.

Quite apart from the laughable notion that the body could be stolen from Air Force One without anyone noticing, two essential elements of Lifton's theory are clearly wrong. All the shots didn't come from the front, and the wounds which he claims were deliberately fabricated to implicate Oswald did the opposite. They exonerated Oswald and had the effect of convincing many people (including me) that the lone-nut theory was nonsense. Lifton's theory doesn't appear to take these facts into account. Perhaps he can tell us why.

If I've misunderstood Lifton's argument, or if he has found a way to reconcile his theory with the evidence I cited, I'm happy to be corrected.

It's good to be wary of disinformation, but it's a mistake to assume that any criticism of any conspiracy theory implies support for the lone-nut theory. There have been many ridiculous JFK assassination conspiracy theories over the years, some of them almost as ridiculous as Lifton's, and it's right to question all of them, not least because of the problem of guilt by association. The existence of the crazy theories supports the media's longstanding message that anyone who questions the lone-nut theory must be crazy.

When the media were looking for a JFK assassination book to promote in the early 80s, they wouldn't have been looking for one which offered a credible explanation for the assassination, or one which was representative of accepted critical thinking. Instead, the sort of book that would serve their purposes would be one which had the effect of undermining rational criticism of the lone-nut theory. They chose Best Evidence.

As for disinformation and David Lifton, the excellent researcher Martin Hay has something interesting to say on that subject:

http://themysteriesofdealeyplaza.blogspot.com/2013/11/send-in-clowns-fetzer-and-lifton.html
 

You correctly point out and warn against conspiracy theories that have the deliberate effect of giving the media a target to lump all conspiracy theories together as ridiculous. There are so many examples and you name a few. I remember that my first reaction to Best Evidence was exactly that. Over the years I’ve become more agnostic on Lifton’s theory, but I still wonder about the various eye witness sources he uses to prove his thesis. And I can’t help but notice how he treats those that disagree with him. Plus he still hasn’t answered my oft repeated question to him - where is the book he was promoting on this forum recently? 

[Eddy Bainbridge]

What is wrong with a theory that Hulmes/funeral prep altered the body? The directions may have been provided by; talking to Perry, viewing the body on the plane, or pre-autopsy investigation. If there have only been two modifications (removal of front entry wound and reconstructing rear of the head) then there are no timing issues. 

The throat wound may have been destroyed but there wasn't a pressing need. The back wound's position has been successfully blurred by conflicting testimony. 

The brain is another piece of evidence that has been successfully blurred. Its removal and hiding was sufficient. Is it absolutely necessary to have it replaced? 

[Cliff Varnell]

8 minutes ago, Eddy Bainbridge said:

The back wound's position has been successfully blurred by conflicting testimony. 

What “conflicting testimony”?

There is ZERO testimony to a high back wound.

All you nay-sayers have is improperly recorded and highly conflicted measurements and an obviously faked autopsy photo.

The T3 back wound has been blurred by a bunch of self-aggrandizing hustlers out to inflate the significance of lesser evidence.

[David Lifton]

On 4/11/2020 at 7:58 AM, Paul Brancato said:

You correctly point out and warn against conspiracy theories that have the deliberate effect of giving the media a target to lump all conspiracy theories together as ridiculous. There are so many examples and you name a few. I remember that my first reaction to Best Evidence was exactly that. Over the years I’ve become more agnostic on Lifton’s theory, but I still wonder about the various eye witness sources he uses to prove his thesis. And I can’t help but notice how he treats those that disagree with him. Plus he still hasn’t answered my oft repeated question to him - where is the book he was promoting on this forum recently? 

When I have precise information, I will gladly address your question. Hopefully will soon have a web address.  One other matter, and that concerns your apparent concern about "other" conspiracy theories.  Please name some of the conspiracy theories to which you subscribe (or are partial), and which you believe have been damaged, or become less credible, simply because of the publication of Best Evidence (1981) or the release of the Best Evidence Research Video (1989), which documents the fact that the Presidents body was covertly intercepted somewhere  between the pronouncement of death, in Dallas,  circa

2 pm CST; and the commencement of the official autopsy at 8 PM EST at Bethesda Naval Hospital.  For example, has anyone claimed that shots could not have been fired from the front, because the body was altered?  (Not particularly logical, but has anyone made such a claim?)  Alternatively (or similarly): Has anyone claimed that Oswald could not have been a USG agent because the body was altered?  I would be interested in learning some of the details of your hypothetical "damage assessment."  Please do let me know.

 

Edited April 12, 2020 by David Lifton

[Joseph McBride]

From my book INTO THE NIGHTMARE:

Neither Lifton nor Horne is convincing in hypothesizing how the body was secretly transported to Bethesda. (See further discussionin Chapter 15.)

I wonder whether the extreme anxiety shown by Roy Kellerman and other Secret Service agents at Parkland over Dr. Rose’s attempt to conduct the legally required autopsy there could have been due to the body not being in the coffin at the time. Turning the empty coffin over to Dr. Rose would have exposed the whole conspiracy; it appears that would have been worth a gunfight to prevent. If the stakes had not been of the highest, a gunfight most likely would not have been thinkable, especially in the presence of a number of witnesses, including Jacqueline Kennedy herself. This had to be an act of extreme desperation. Accordingly, I suspect that the body had already secretly spirited out of the emergency room and was taken through a tunnel that existed at Parkland for clandestine transportation elsewhere, out of the sight of the media and other observers.

Parkland Hospital administrator Charles Jack Price in his November 27, 1963, report on his activities on November 22, an exhibit in one of the Warren Commission volumes, mentions an “alternate route” out of the hospital that might have been used for the president’s body. Discussing what happened before the casket for the president was obtained from a local funeral home, Price writes, “[O]ne of the secret service men who had been bruised or had a minor injury came to me and asked if there were another way that the President [evidently referring in this context to the just-deceased Kennedy] and Mrs. Kennedy could be taken out of the building. I told him there was a tunnel exit and that if he would come with me, I would walk it off for him. We walked down to inspect the tunnel, then returned to the surgery area of the Emergency  Room.” Price also mentions that the Secret Service considered taking “the Johnsons” out through that “alternate route,” which was also reached by way of “the Emergency Room elevator” that went down to the basement.

Horne dismisses the possibility that Kennedy’s body was removed by this means, citing O’Neal Funeral Home & Ambulance Service driver Aubrey Rike’s account of placing the body in the coffin and escorting it in his ambulance from Parkland to Love Field. Rike’s account in his 2008 book, At the Door of Memory, seems credible. Nevertheless, the body somehow was removed from that coffin and placed in a shipping casket before it reached Bethesda. Although we don’t know all the facts, I believe that the body leaving Parkland through the tunnel in some conveyance other than Rike’s coffin and ambulance is more likely than any of the other scenarios that have been proposed, such as secretly removing the body from Air Force One at Love Field or Andrews Air Force Base. Taking the body secretly from Parkland through the tunnel before the empty coffin was taken to the ambulance would have helped the Secret Service prevent an honest autopsy at Parkland by Dr. Rose as well as allowing the surreptitious pre-autopsy alteration of the body at Bethesda after the body would have been taken back to Washington clandestinely.

 

[Sandy Larsen]

8 minutes ago, Joseph McBride said:

From my book INTO THE NIGHTMARE:

Parkland Hospital administrator Charles Jack Price in his November 27, 1963, report on his activities on November 22, an exhibit in one of the Warren Commission volumes, mentions an “alternate route” out of the hospital that might have been used for the president’s body. Discussing what happened before the casket for the president was obtained from a local funeral home, Price writes, “[O]ne of the secret service men who had been bruised or had a minor injury came to me and asked if there were another way that the President [evidently referring in this context to the just-deceased Kennedy] and Mrs. Kennedy could be taken out of the building. I told him there was a tunnel exit and that if he would come with me, I would walk it off for him. "

 

The above statement by Charles Price indicates that the plotters didn't even bother to plan ahead on how exactly to remove the body from Parkland. That makes me LESS likely to believe that the tunnel was the route the body snatchers used.
 

[Ron Ecker]

It seems likely to me that the swearing-in ceremony aboard AF1, which every (innocent) party was expected to attend, was the perfect time to remove the body. In fact it may have been the reason to hold such a ceremony at all. (Did Jackie attend on her own or was she somehow coerced to leave the coffin? As for McHugh, I wouldn't put a lot of stock in his claims.) There's a reference in this thread or elsewhere to a forklift doing something by the plane while at Love Field. Was that during the ceremony? 

  

[Andrej Stancak]

I find merit in the possibility that President's body was not in the bronze casket already when it was loaded on AF1. The point is that the casket weighed 200 kg (about 400 pounds) without any body in it, and 280 kg with President's body. It puzzles me how could only two SS agents in the front of the casket could carry the casket while holding it with one hand only (at least the agent I see on the left side of the casket) and stepping up the stairs.

In Andrews airport, a forklift was called to handle the casket. There is a phenomenon in experimental psychology known as Weber-Fechner law which says that one can perceive an increment in some physical feature (e.g., weight) more finely if the basal intensity of that feature is low compared to high. For instance, President's body would be perceived as a big increment of weight of load if the casket would be the plain shipping casket weighing about 50 kg but it would be perceived less as a weight increment  if the casket were heavy, such as the bronze casket.

That said, I have no further data in support of the possibility that President's body was not in the casket when loaded on AF1.   

 

[Ray Mitcham]

1 hour ago, Andrej Stancak said:

I find merit in the possibility that President's body was not in the bronze casket already when it was loaded on AF1. The point is that the casket weighed 200 kg (about 400 pounds) without any body in it, and 280 kg with President's body. It puzzles me how could only two SS agents in the front of the casket could carry the casket while holding it with one hand only (at least the agent I see on the left side of the casket) and stepping up the stairs.

In Andrews airport, a forklift was called to handle the casket. There is a phenomenon in experimental psychology known as Weber-Fechner law which says that one can perceive an increment in some physical feature (e.g., weight) more finely if the basal intensity of that feature is low compared to high. For instance, President's body would be perceived as a big increment of weight of load if the casket would be the plain shipping casket weighing about 50 kg but it would be perceived less as a weight increment  if the casket were heavy, such as the bronze casket.

That said, I have no further data in support of the possibility that President's body was not in the casket when loaded on AF1.   

 

Could be an empty coffin was the reason that so much force was used to ensure that it was removed from Parkland against the wishes of the Coroner, rather than let an autopsy take place in Dallas.

[Ron Ecker]

1 hour ago, Ray Mitcham said:

Could be an empty coffin was the reason that so much force was used to ensure that it was removed from Parkland against the wishes of the Coroner, rather than let an autopsy take place in Dallas.

It can also be argued that the SS was determined to remove the coffin from Parkland not just to avoid a Dallas autopsy but so that the body could then be stolen. Once the body was in the government's sole custody, there would naturally be opportunities for the government to steal it more easily than at Parkland. In fact a "decoy" ambulance was used after arrival at Andrews, as if it was feared that the body would be stolen by a mob on the street.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[David Andrews]

A couple of tall oxygen tanks from Parkland in the coffin to simulate the body's weight?

Edited April 14, 2020 by David Andrews

[Paul Brancato]

20 hours ago, David Lifton said:

When I have precise information, I will gladly address your question. Hopefully will soon have a web address.  One other matter, and that concerns your apparent concern about "other" conspiracy theories.  Please name some of the conspiracy theories to which you subscribe (or are partial), and which you believe have been damaged, or become less credible, simply because of the publication of Best Evidence (1981) or the release of the Best Evidence Research Video (1989), which documents the fact that the Presidents body was covertly intercepted somewhere  between the pronouncement of death, in Dallas,  circa

2 pm CST; and the commencement of the official autopsy at 8 PM EST at Bethesda Naval Hospital.  For example, has anyone claimed that shots could not have been fired from the front, because the body was altered?  (Not particularly logical, but has anyone made such a claim?)  Alternatively (or similarly): Has anyone claimed that Oswald could not have been a USG agent because the body was altered?  I would be interested in learning some of the details of your hypothetical "damage assessment."  Please do let me know.

 

David - you promoted your new book here heavily a year or two ago. I want to read it. That’s why I asked.

my statement about conspiracy theories was a general one and not related to Best Evidence. I stated that I was at first skeptical, later agnostic, on the merits of your theory. I have no doubt that the autopsy was a controlled event. I just don’t know that the various eyewitnesses claiming this or that with caskets was necessary to explain the shenanigans in the autopsy room, or aboard Air Force One when the decision was made as to where the autopsy would take place. I also have no doubt that it was important for the plotters to remove the body from Parkland in order to control the autopsy. I have nothing to say about how conspiracy theories add or subtract from your research. It was a general statement. We live in a world where conspiracies are floated that cannot be true, yet many believe them including some of my friends. Fetzer has promoted several. The result is to provide ammunition to the mainstream media enabling them to label all conspiracies as bs. 
Why do you bait Jim DiEugenio? I think the two of you behave quite shamelessly when you go after each other. I’m glad he has not taken the bait this time, but in the past it’s been otherwise. It hurts your credibility and his in my eyes. 

Edited April 13, 2020 by Paul Brancato

[Eddy Bainbridge]

10 hours ago, Ron Ecker said:

It can also be argued that the SS was determined to remove the coffin from Parkland not just to avoid a Dallas autopsy but so that the body could then be stolen. Once the body was in the government's sole custody, there would naturally be opportunities for the government to steal it more easily than at Parkland. In fact a "decoy" ambulance was used after arrival at Andrews, as if it was feared that the body would be stolen by a mob on the street.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think the confrontation over the coffin is a strong indication that body alteration was not part of the primary plan. If the State actors showed strong enough resolve then the federal actors would have failed. A plan requiring such an unpredictable element is an excessively risky plan. The two-stage shot sequence, the coffin fight and Finck's testimony in the Garrison trial suggest to me we got the implementation of a backup plan. The autopsists were guided, they were not rehearsed and the plan has sufficient holes so the truth can be partially seen through the disguise.