Paul Kuntzler's Washington Conference

[Bill Miller]

Busted. Jack didn't enter this thread until post #11. You referred to the "film alteration cult" in post #2.

You are correct, Mark S. ... I did mention the term 'alteration cult' after posting about the fundamentals concerning film grains. I personally viewed my latter reply to Jack as a direct response to a particular alteration claim where he first came out calling people idiots over something that he was dead wrong about. In that particular exchange there was no need to discuss film grains because Moorman and Hill's black shoes were visible when seen in a good print, thus I considered film fundementals a separate matter from poorly thought out photo interpretations. However, I do see how you made the connection.

Bill

Edited May 16, 2006 by Bill Miller

[Bill Miller]

Perhaps BECAUSE of all the namecalling, I am to the point where the only examination of the Z-film that I am currently taking seriously is that of John Dolva...because I honestly believe he has no axe to grind

Mark K., I think I would reconsider that position because it's like saying that because Sir Isaac Newton called someone a name or used a harsh tone in his writings that you should then not take his theory of gravitation seriously. It's not like craig and I are telling you our opinion as to what color God's eyes are ... we are telling you basic laws of physics that happen to apply to Photography. You can take them to a buddist priest if you like and have him whisper them into your ear and they won't be any more valid or any less true than when we said them. The information being offered to you is for your benefit, not mine ... I've already researched it.

Bill

Edited May 16, 2006 by Bill Miller

[John Simkin]

Maybe someone who attended this meeting could post their comments. This is what Gerry Hemming had to say in an email to me:

More than one member of the"Forum" has noted that the major networks will gleefully jump on this "conference" with both shoes -- to demonstrate that most of these "self-styled experts" have been repeatedly & publicly debunked -- recently and over the several years past !!

However, others feel that "any publicity" is better than none. The Morley vs. CIA (FOIA) case, even if it is sustained by the federal district court, will no doubt be appealed by the agency. That George Joannides was "inserted" into the House Select Committee (along with others, i.e., Dick Billings) was just part of the "Damage Control Op" routinely used by the Intel Community to protect the disclosure of alleged "State Secrets" !!

In the JFK assassination matter, it was done to prevent the disclosure of "Moles" (some of whom had been "turned/doubled/tripled"); foreign state involvement in various plots to kill JFK (whether they were successful or NOT); and the corruption & incompetence reigning throughout the "permanent" civil servant/military pogues.

Most of the "conspiracy theorists" (CTers) fail to grasp the fact that: The murder conspiracy was separate from the cover-up.

[Bruce Cormier]

Maybe someone who attended this meeting could post their comments. This is what Gerry Hemming had to say in an email to me:

More than one member of the"Forum" has noted that the major networks will gleefully jump on this "conference" with both shoes -- to demonstrate that most of these "self-styled experts" have been repeatedly & publicly debunked -- recently and over the several years past !!

However, others feel that "any publicity" is better than none. The Morley vs. CIA (FOIA) case, even if it is sustained by the federal district court, will no doubt be appealed by the agency. That George Joannides was "inserted" into the House Select Committee (along with others, i.e., Dick Billings) was just part of the "Damage Control Op" routinely used by the Intel Community to protect the disclosure of alleged "State Secrets" !!

In the JFK assassination matter, it was done to prevent the disclosure of "Moles" (some of whom had been "turned/doubled/tripled"); foreign state involvement in various plots to kill JFK (whether they were successful or NOT); and the corruption & incompetence reigning throughout the "permanent" civil servant/military pogues.

Most of the "conspiracy theorists" (CTers) fail to grasp the fact that: The murder conspiracy was separate from the cover-up.

1. John, I attended the first hour of the scheduled three and then had to leave. My comments appear in my post @11:34 yesterday.

2. Had I either participated in this killing or covered up the true story, then I'd have gotten away with my misdeeds for 43 years now and counting. Which means I would want as little press coverage as possible and would not be engaged in "Mission Impossible" -- i.e., attempting to change the minds of the three quarters of Americans who do NOT believe the WCR. Let sleeping Presidents lie would be my motto. I saw nothing in the way of network presence yesterday at the Willard.

3. I am generally of the view that all publicity is good because it raises the profile of this issue. For that reason, and because some of its conclusions cause heartburn for LN'ers, I'm pleased about Mark Fuhrman's book and the coverage it has received. One caveat here is my ongoing concern whenever a CT makes unsupportable charges that facilitate the WC/media apologists; for example, if the leading story of yesterday's conference were Z-film alteration based the color of womens' shoes, then I'd view this as a setback.

4. The Mole discussion is interesting. FWIW, I do believe that the murder was separate from its cover-up.

[Doug Horne]

1. The conference's sponsor, Paul Kuntzler, spoke for 5 minutes. Apparently decent and very well meaning, Mr. Kuntzler has been troubled by press coverage since the assassination, and especially since the release of documents following the JFK Act some 15 years ago. With the exceptions of Helen Thomas and Robert MacNeil, no one in the national media, in Kunzler's view, has given this issue the open mind and attention it deserves.

(This gentleman certainly knows how to put on a conference. He secured a substantial portion of the main ballroom of the Willard, one of our finer hotels, and provided seats for about 300 guests. I counted at least 8 flat screen televisions in the anteroom, one showing original footage of that dreadful weekend, another showing "JFK", etc. The ballroom with supplied with a huge flatscreen and an overhead. Unfortunately, I counted about 30 guests in addition to the panelists and technicians that first hour -- many of them in or barely out of college, the balance "forty-something" geezers like me. This, I suppose, is what happens when an event is publicized for the first time the very night before it occurs. I felt sorry for Mr. Kuntzler).

3. He was then followed by Jim Fetzer, who spoke until 11:20 and also served as a bridge between subsequent speakers. Jim launched an attack on the WCR, the HSCA Report, and "Case Closed" that I'm sure is familiar to you all. He recounted his belief that there were at least 6, and as many as 8, shots fired in DP that day, with JFK sustaining a wound to his back from behind, an entrance wound to his throat, and two head wounds, one from behind and another from forward of the vehicle.

4. What, then, is one to make of those X-rays? Enter Dr. Mantik, who had spent nine days at the National Archives and made two principal points today. First, even though five X-rays were taken of JFK's head (he knows this from two witnesses), only three appear in the Archives, and they are copies, not originals. He knows this because the originals should have been roughly textured because of scraped emulsions, but the X-rays he saw were smooth. Dr. Mantik then demonstrated how easy it is to alter copies, suing a pair of scissors and his daughter's toy.

Second, describing a technique termed optical densitometry, Dr. Mantick explained that the massive rear head wound observed by the doctors was deliberately masked by the X-Rays. How does he know this? Because the rear head appears far too bright in the X-rays, with a "contrast factor" of 1000 instead of the usual two. If the X-Ray of the rear head were genuine, then JFK indeed would have been a "bonehead".

Dr. Mantick concluded by noting that the X-rays do not square with pictures and eyewitness descriptions of the brain, with too much matter missing in the front. He also noted 3 doctors did NOT observe a 6.5 mm bullet grain in the brain, which shows up on the X-rays.

5. A little after 11:30, Doug Horne took the floor, also speaking for about 10 minutes. He served on the AARB staff from August 1995 through September 1998 and claims to have found "unequivocal evidence of a government cover-up of the medical evidence", and specifically 'serious fraud' in three areas.

He observed that there were three and not one versions of the autopsy report, Ex. 387. Dr. Humes admitted under oath while deposed by the AARB that he burned a draft report along with his notes in his fireplace. Another "original" autopsy report was then sent to Bobby Kennedy per Secret Service records. Yet, another "original" was thereafter sent to the Nat'l Archives per those same records. How can that be?

Horne then stated that there were two brain examinations, one on November 25, and the second during the period November 29 through December 2. The second examination, which was not of JFK's brain but of a substitute brain, was an occasion for fraud. The photos of that examination were on the wrong kind of film, and were taken from an erroneous perspective. Also, there was no sectioning, as there was in the original exam. All this per the doctors.

Horne concluded that there is something "seriously wrong' with the autopsy photos, which do not square with the observations of Parkland doctors or doctors present at the autopsy. In Horne's estimation, "something is terribly wrong' about all this.

6. Evidently, the sponsor (or perhaps more accurately, Fetzer) has concluded that the Z-film cannot be squared with a 6+ shot scenario, Enter, Thomas "Nike" Lipscomb, who temporarily drove this bus into a ditch. Mercifully, he spoke for only five minutes. He made two points.

Using descriptions of Mr. Zapruder's height, and photographs of Mr. Zapruder's assistant's attire, he appeared to raise questions whether these folks, in fact, were old Abe and his assistant. He didn't overly suggest who these people might have been, and if they weren't Abe and his assistant, where the latter two were when the would be imposters filmed. Nor did Lipscomb even mention the rather famous TV footage shortly after the assassination in which Abe -- undoubtedly the genuine article this time -- says he is Abe and explains how he filmed.

Second, and predictably, Lipscomb showed pictures of witnesses with shoes on upon arriving at Dealey Plaza, counterposed with what these women appear to be wearing in a snippet of the Z-film, white sneakers. It was far from clear to me that they were, in fact, wearing white sneakers or whether, instead, their shoes were obscured by the angle of Abe's camera and/or the grass and we were looking at their socks instead. More importantly, there was utterly no effort made to tie the significance of what was on these womens' feet to how the Z-film was altered. How can altering footwear change shot sequence and location?

Lipscomb then said he and others are at the early stages of this Z-film work. Obviously so. Any charge of alteration based on the evidence he presented today is preposterous.

6. Finally, Joan Mellon began talking about Louisiana and LHO, and I had to leave. Unfortunately, they did not get to Jeff Morley, also a panelist, while I was there.

Caveat: I saw only the first hour folks. So if anything transpired thereafter that changes the above in any significant way, I was not there to observe it.

I was frustrated by the artificial time constraints placed upon us by Fetzer/Lipscomb, who “insisted” that the Press would “walk” at 12:00 if we were not finished with our “one hour” press conference. The rest of us panelists deferred to their judgement, which I feel was unfortunate, because both David Mantik and I, under extremely serious (and I now feel completely unwarranted) time pressure, severely curtailed what we had planned to present.

At least I was wise enough to bring 20 copies of my prepared text, which I made available after the presentation to journalists, so that hopefully I would not be misquoted.

Fetzer told us ahead of time that he was simply going to moderate, and introduce the rest of us after a brief introduction of the evidence, but in my view he tried to present too much OLD information, and instead of abbreviating his content, insisted upon reading every word of his material, and did so far too fast. It was a data dump of major proportions, like trying to drink from a charged firehose. Most of the limited audience probably “tuned out” on his very rapid data dump about 5 minutes into his 18 or 20 minute presentation. Because Jim took up so much time, Mantik and I were essentially forced to wrap up early by Mr. Kuntzler, so as meet our self-imposed “time-constraints.” My presentation at the podium suffered accordingly, as I was mentally editing/omitting text and comment as I spoke. However, my handouts should have made up for any detail I cut out.

I would have been wiser if I had simplified my 20 minute presentation into an outline of “bullets,” and then spoken extemporaneously from my outline. That is a “lesson learned” for me, for which I blame no one.

Apparently the only two video cameras there were from AP and the conservative Sinclair network. If Sinclair wanted to do a “rip job” and present us as lightweight buffs, unfortunately, they could do so. Toward the end of the Press Conference, the sponsor, Mr. Kuntzler, President of Miller Reporting Company (DC’s biggest and most reputable court reporting company), who spent a fortune on this event, decided to present his Grand Unified Field Theory of the Assassination, which includes almost everyone in the U.S. Government and U.S. Industry in 1963. We had hoped he would wait to do this until AFTER the conference, but he did not. Of course it WAS his conference, his event, so I suppose he had a right to present whatever he wanted. He also presented his views to CNN the day before the press conference, and they wrote an article about his views on Sunday on their website.

The intent of the conference was to present relatively NEW material on “fraud in the evidence” in this case. Mantik has proved (to me, anyway) that the 3 head x-rays are forged composite copy films. His optical density measurements prove that. The 2 lateral head x-rays have had a “white patch” superimposed which hides the blowout in the right rear of the head, and the A-P head x-ray has had the 6.5 mm “bullet” fragment superimposed on the copy film, supposedly implicating the Oswald rifle.

My presentation discussed fraud in 3 areas:

-CE 387, the autopsy report in the Archives, is in my view the 3rd version. Humes destroyed a first draft in his fireplace, per his ARRB deposition, and RFK disposed of an “original” listed in the Burkley/USSS receipt dated April 26, 1965. A second “original” was transferred by the USSS to the Archives in October 1967---that is the one in the Archives today. I have a very plausible hypothesis of how the content of each report changed and this will be presented in my book.

-I covered the evidence of 2 brain exams, one on Nov 25th (the real brain, which was sectioned, and whose photos were never placed into the record), and the fraudulent, substitute specimen’s examination between Nov 29th-Dec 2nd, whose photographs were placed into the Archives. The evidence of the first exam would have provided evidence of a frontal shot which exited in the rear of the head, so it was deep-sixed; the fraudulent specimen’s pattern of damage is generally consistent with being shot from above and behind, so it was introduced into the record to support the official cover story.

-There are 3 possible reasons why the back of the head appears intact in the autopsy photos (of course, it was not intact and the photos depict an intentionally “false picture” of what happened):

-photographic forgery (to which I do not subscribe);

-gross manipulation of the scalp (from elsewhere on the head) by the doctors, so as to fool the camera; or

-a partial reconstruction of the back of the head by Mr. Stroble, the Gawler’s funeral home technician, a the direction of the pathologists, so as to fool the camera.

I tend toward suspecting the third option above.

My point was that no one can claim with any certainty that the autopsy photos are photographic forgeries unless or until they do analytic work with the original materials in the Archives---the color slides and B & W negatives. To my knowledge no one claiming photographic forgery has done this…they have all used bootleg prints, which is not real science. It’s wishful thinking. (Mantik has visited the Archives 9 times and has repeatedly taken empirical measurements of the head x-rays with an optical densitometer; he has real data which is repeatable by anyone else.)

I don’t wish to say anything else; I could, but I will not. Everyone involved did their best, but I would only give us a “C minus” in overall presentation. I learned a lot from this experience myself and will do better next time.

Unfortunately, in spite of the great effort and expense extended by Mr. Kuntzler, the media didn’t care very much about this 43 year old story.

[Doug Horne]

1. The conference's sponsor, Paul Kuntzler, spoke for 5 minutes. Apparently decent and very well meaning, Mr. Kuntzler has been troubled by press coverage since the assassination, and especially since the release of documents following the JFK Act some 15 years ago. With the exceptions of Helen Thomas and Robert MacNeil, no one in the national media, in Kunzler's view, has given this issue the open mind and attention it deserves.

(This gentleman certainly knows how to put on a conference. He secured a substantial portion of the main ballroom of the Willard, one of our finer hotels, and provided seats for about 300 guests. I counted at least 8 flat screen televisions in the anteroom, one showing original footage of that dreadful weekend, another showing "JFK", etc. The ballroom with supplied with a huge flatscreen and an overhead. Unfortunately, I counted about 30 guests in addition to the panelists and technicians that first hour -- many of them in or barely out of college, the balance "forty-something" geezers like me. This, I suppose, is what happens when an event is publicized for the first time the very night before it occurs. I felt sorry for Mr. Kuntzler).

3. He was then followed by Jim Fetzer, who spoke until 11:20 and also served as a bridge between subsequent speakers. Jim launched an attack on the WCR, the HSCA Report, and "Case Closed" that I'm sure is familiar to you all. He recounted his belief that there were at least 6, and as many as 8, shots fired in DP that day, with JFK sustaining a wound to his back from behind, an entrance wound to his throat, and two head wounds, one from behind and another from forward of the vehicle.

4. What, then, is one to make of those X-rays? Enter Dr. Mantik, who had spent nine days at the National Archives and made two principal points today. First, even though five X-rays were taken of JFK's head (he knows this from two witnesses), only three appear in the Archives, and they are copies, not originals. He knows this because the originals should have been roughly textured because of scraped emulsions, but the X-rays he saw were smooth. Dr. Mantik then demonstrated how easy it is to alter copies, suing a pair of scissors and his daughter's toy.

Second, describing a technique termed optical densitometry, Dr. Mantick explained that the massive rear head wound observed by the doctors was deliberately masked by the X-Rays. How does he know this? Because the rear head appears far too bright in the X-rays, with a "contrast factor" of 1000 instead of the usual two. If the X-Ray of the rear head were genuine, then JFK indeed would have been a "bonehead".

Dr. Mantick concluded by noting that the X-rays do not square with pictures and eyewitness descriptions of the brain, with too much matter missing in the front. He also noted 3 doctors did NOT observe a 6.5 mm bullet grain in the brain, which shows up on the X-rays.

5. A little after 11:30, Doug Horne took the floor, also speaking for about 10 minutes. He served on the AARB staff from August 1995 through September 1998 and claims to have found "unequivocal evidence of a government cover-up of the medical evidence", and specifically 'serious fraud' in three areas.

He observed that there were three and not one versions of the autopsy report, Ex. 387. Dr. Humes admitted under oath while deposed by the AARB that he burned a draft report along with his notes in his fireplace. Another "original" autopsy report was then sent to Bobby Kennedy per Secret Service records. Yet, another "original" was thereafter sent to the Nat'l Archives per those same records. How can that be?

Horne then stated that there were two brain examinations, one on November 25, and the second during the period November 29 through December 2. The second examination, which was not of JFK's brain but of a substitute brain, was an occasion for fraud. The photos of that examination were on the wrong kind of film, and were taken from an erroneous perspective. Also, there was no sectioning, as there was in the original exam. All this per the doctors.

Horne concluded that there is something "seriously wrong' with the autopsy photos, which do not square with the observations of Parkland doctors or doctors present at the autopsy. In Horne's estimation, "something is terribly wrong' about all this.

6. Evidently, the sponsor (or perhaps more accurately, Fetzer) has concluded that the Z-film cannot be squared with a 6+ shot scenario, Enter, Thomas "Nike" Lipscomb, who temporarily drove this bus into a ditch. Mercifully, he spoke for only five minutes. He made two points.

Using descriptions of Mr. Zapruder's height, and photographs of Mr. Zapruder's assistant's attire, he appeared to raise questions whether these folks, in fact, were old Abe and his assistant. He didn't overly suggest who these people might have been, and if they weren't Abe and his assistant, where the latter two were when the would be imposters filmed. Nor did Lipscomb even mention the rather famous TV footage shortly after the assassination in which Abe -- undoubtedly the genuine article this time -- says he is Abe and explains how he filmed.

Second, and predictably, Lipscomb showed pictures of witnesses with shoes on upon arriving at Dealey Plaza, counterposed with what these women appear to be wearing in a snippet of the Z-film, white sneakers. It was far from clear to me that they were, in fact, wearing white sneakers or whether, instead, their shoes were obscured by the angle of Abe's camera and/or the grass and we were looking at their socks instead. More importantly, there was utterly no effort made to tie the significance of what was on these womens' feet to how the Z-film was altered. How can altering footwear change shot sequence and location?

Lipscomb then said he and others are at the early stages of this Z-film work. Obviously so. Any charge of alteration based on the evidence he presented today is preposterous.

6. Finally, Joan Mellon began talking about Louisiana and LHO, and I had to leave. Unfortunately, they did not get to Jeff Morley, also a panelist, while I was there.

Caveat: I saw only the first hour folks. So if anything transpired thereafter that changes the above in any significant way, I was not there to observe it.

I was frustrated by the artificial time constraints placed upon us by Fetzer/Lipscomb, who “insisted” that the Press would “walk” at 12:00 if we were not finished with our “one hour” press conference. The rest of us panelists deferred to their judgement, which I feel was unfortunate, because both David Mantik and I, under extremely serious (and I now feel completely unwarranted) time pressure, severely curtailed what we had planned to present.

At least I was wise enough to bring 20 copies of my prepared text, which I made available after the presentation to journalists, so that hopefully I would not be misquoted.

Fetzer told us ahead of time that he was simply going to moderate, and introduce the rest of us after a brief introduction of the evidence, but in my view he tried to present too much OLD information, and instead of abbreviating his content, insisted upon reading every word of his material, and did so far too fast. It was a data dump of major proportions, like trying to drink from a charged firehose. Most of the limited audience probably “tuned out” on his very rapid data dump about 5 minutes into his 18 or 20 minute presentation. Because Jim took up so much time, Mantik and I were essentially forced to wrap up early by Mr. Kuntzler, so as meet our self-imposed “time-constraints.” My presentation at the podium suffered accordingly, as I was mentally editing/omitting text and comment as I spoke. However, my handouts should have made up for any detail I cut out.

I would have been wiser if I had simplified my 20 minute presentation into an outline of “bullets,” and then spoken extemporaneously from my outline. That is a “lesson learned” for me, for which I blame no one.

Apparently the only two video cameras there were from AP and the conservative Sinclair network. If Sinclair wanted to do a “rip job” and present us as lightweight buffs, unfortunately, they could do so. Toward the end of the Press Conference, the sponsor, Mr. Kuntzler, President of Miller Reporting Company (DC’s biggest and most reputable court reporting company), who spent a fortune on this event, decided to present his Grand Unified Field Theory of the Assassination, which includes almost everyone in the U.S. Government and U.S. Industry in 1963. We had hoped he would wait to do this until AFTER the conference, but he did not. Of course it WAS his conference, his event, so I suppose he had a right to present whatever he wanted. He also presented his views to CNN the day before the press conference, and they wrote an article about his views on Sunday on their website.

The intent of the conference was to present relatively NEW material on “fraud in the evidence” in this case. Mantik has proved (to me, anyway) that the 3 head x-rays are forged composite copy films. His optical density measurements prove that. The 2 lateral head x-rays have had a “white patch” superimposed which hides the blowout in the right rear of the head, and the A-P head x-ray has had the 6.5 mm “bullet” fragment superimposed on the copy film, supposedly implicating the Oswald rifle.

My presentation discussed fraud in 3 areas:

-CE 387, the autopsy report in the Archives, is in my view the 3rd version. Humes destroyed a first draft in his fireplace, per his ARRB deposition, and RFK disposed of an “original” listed in the Burkley/USSS receipt dated April 26, 1965. A second “original” was transferred by the USSS to the Archives in October 1967---that is the one in the Archives today. I have a very plausible hypothesis of how the content of each report changed and this will be presented in my book.

-I covered the evidence of 2 brain exams, one on Nov 25th (the real brain, which was sectioned, and whose photos were never placed into the record), and the fraudulent, substitute specimen’s examination between Nov 29th-Dec 2nd, whose photographs were placed into the Archives. The evidence of the first exam would have provided evidence of a frontal shot which exited in the rear of the head, so it was deep-sixed; the fraudulent specimen’s pattern of damage is generally consistent with being shot from above and behind, so it was introduced into the record to support the official cover story.

-There are 3 possible reasons why the back of the head appears intact in the autopsy photos (of course, it was not intact and the photos depict an intentionally “false picture” of what happened):

-photographic forgery (to which I do not subscribe);

-gross manipulation of the scalp (from elsewhere on the head) by the doctors, so as to fool the camera; or

-a partial reconstruction of the back of the head by Mr. Stroble, the Gawler’s funeral home technician, a the direction of the pathologists, so as to fool the camera.

I tend toward suspecting the third option above.

My point was that no one can claim with any certainty that the autopsy photos are photographic forgeries unless or until they do analytic work with the original materials in the Archives---the color slides and B & W negatives. To my knowledge no one claiming photographic forgery has done this…they have all used bootleg prints, which is not real science. It’s wishful thinking. (Mantik has visited the Archives 9 times and has repeatedly taken empirical measurements of the head x-rays with an optical densitometer; he has real data which is repeatable by anyone else.)

I don’t wish to say anything else; I could, but I will not. Everyone involved did their best, but I would only give us a “C minus” in overall presentation. I learned a lot from this experience myself and will do better next time.

Unfortunately, in spite of the great effort and expense extended by Mr. Kuntzler, the media didn’t care very much about this 43 year old story.

[Bruce Cormier]

1. The conference's sponsor, Paul Kuntzler, spoke for 5 minutes. Apparently decent and very well meaning, Mr. Kuntzler has been troubled by press coverage since the assassination, and especially since the release of documents following the JFK Act some 15 years ago. With the exceptions of Helen Thomas and Robert MacNeil, no one in the national media, in Kunzler's view, has given this issue the open mind and attention it deserves.

(This gentleman certainly knows how to put on a conference. He secured a substantial portion of the main ballroom of the Willard, one of our finer hotels, and provided seats for about 300 guests. I counted at least 8 flat screen televisions in the anteroom, one showing original footage of that dreadful weekend, another showing "JFK", etc. The ballroom with supplied with a huge flatscreen and an overhead. Unfortunately, I counted about 30 guests in addition to the panelists and technicians that first hour -- many of them in or barely out of college, the balance "forty-something" geezers like me. This, I suppose, is what happens when an event is publicized for the first time the very night before it occurs. I felt sorry for Mr. Kuntzler).

3. He was then followed by Jim Fetzer, who spoke until 11:20 and also served as a bridge between subsequent speakers. Jim launched an attack on the WCR, the HSCA Report, and "Case Closed" that I'm sure is familiar to you all. He recounted his belief that there were at least 6, and as many as 8, shots fired in DP that day, with JFK sustaining a wound to his back from behind, an entrance wound to his throat, and two head wounds, one from behind and another from forward of the vehicle.

4. What, then, is one to make of those X-rays? Enter Dr. Mantik, who had spent nine days at the National Archives and made two principal points today. First, even though five X-rays were taken of JFK's head (he knows this from two witnesses), only three appear in the Archives, and they are copies, not originals. He knows this because the originals should have been roughly textured because of scraped emulsions, but the X-rays he saw were smooth. Dr. Mantik then demonstrated how easy it is to alter copies, suing a pair of scissors and his daughter's toy.

Second, describing a technique termed optical densitometry, Dr. Mantick explained that the massive rear head wound observed by the doctors was deliberately masked by the X-Rays. How does he know this? Because the rear head appears far too bright in the X-rays, with a "contrast factor" of 1000 instead of the usual two. If the X-Ray of the rear head were genuine, then JFK indeed would have been a "bonehead".

Dr. Mantick concluded by noting that the X-rays do not square with pictures and eyewitness descriptions of the brain, with too much matter missing in the front. He also noted 3 doctors did NOT observe a 6.5 mm bullet grain in the brain, which shows up on the X-rays.

5. A little after 11:30, Doug Horne took the floor, also speaking for about 10 minutes. He served on the AARB staff from August 1995 through September 1998 and claims to have found "unequivocal evidence of a government cover-up of the medical evidence", and specifically 'serious fraud' in three areas.

He observed that there were three and not one versions of the autopsy report, Ex. 387. Dr. Humes admitted under oath while deposed by the AARB that he burned a draft report along with his notes in his fireplace. Another "original" autopsy report was then sent to Bobby Kennedy per Secret Service records. Yet, another "original" was thereafter sent to the Nat'l Archives per those same records. How can that be?

Horne then stated that there were two brain examinations, one on November 25, and the second during the period November 29 through December 2. The second examination, which was not of JFK's brain but of a substitute brain, was an occasion for fraud. The photos of that examination were on the wrong kind of film, and were taken from an erroneous perspective. Also, there was no sectioning, as there was in the original exam. All this per the doctors.

Horne concluded that there is something "seriously wrong' with the autopsy photos, which do not square with the observations of Parkland doctors or doctors present at the autopsy. In Horne's estimation, "something is terribly wrong' about all this.

6. Evidently, the sponsor (or perhaps more accurately, Fetzer) has concluded that the Z-film cannot be squared with a 6+ shot scenario, Enter, Thomas "Nike" Lipscomb, who temporarily drove this bus into a ditch. Mercifully, he spoke for only five minutes. He made two points.

Using descriptions of Mr. Zapruder's height, and photographs of Mr. Zapruder's assistant's attire, he appeared to raise questions whether these folks, in fact, were old Abe and his assistant. He didn't overly suggest who these people might have been, and if they weren't Abe and his assistant, where the latter two were when the would be imposters filmed. Nor did Lipscomb even mention the rather famous TV footage shortly after the assassination in which Abe -- undoubtedly the genuine article this time -- says he is Abe and explains how he filmed.

Second, and predictably, Lipscomb showed pictures of witnesses with shoes on upon arriving at Dealey Plaza, counterposed with what these women appear to be wearing in a snippet of the Z-film, white sneakers. It was far from clear to me that they were, in fact, wearing white sneakers or whether, instead, their shoes were obscured by the angle of Abe's camera and/or the grass and we were looking at their socks instead. More importantly, there was utterly no effort made to tie the significance of what was on these womens' feet to how the Z-film was altered. How can altering footwear change shot sequence and location?

Lipscomb then said he and others are at the early stages of this Z-film work. Obviously so. Any charge of alteration based on the evidence he presented today is preposterous.

6. Finally, Joan Mellon began talking about Louisiana and LHO, and I had to leave. Unfortunately, they did not get to Jeff Morley, also a panelist, while I was there.

Caveat: I saw only the first hour folks. So if anything transpired thereafter that changes the above in any significant way, I was not there to observe it.

I was frustrated by the artificial time constraints placed upon us by Fetzer/Lipscomb, who “insisted” that the Press would “walk” at 12:00 if we were not finished with our “one hour” press conference. The rest of us panelists deferred to their judgement, which I feel was unfortunate, because both David Mantik and I, under extremely serious (and I now feel completely unwarranted) time pressure, severely curtailed what we had planned to present.

At least I was wise enough to bring 20 copies of my prepared text, which I made available after the presentation to journalists, so that hopefully I would not be misquoted.

Fetzer told us ahead of time that he was simply going to moderate, and introduce the rest of us after a brief introduction of the evidence, but in my view he tried to present too much OLD information, and instead of abbreviating his content, insisted upon reading every word of his material, and did so far too fast. It was a data dump of major proportions, like trying to drink from a charged firehose. Most of the limited audience probably “tuned out” on his very rapid data dump about 5 minutes into his 18 or 20 minute presentation. Because Jim took up so much time, Mantik and I were essentially forced to wrap up early by Mr. Kuntzler, so as meet our self-imposed “time-constraints.” My presentation at the podium suffered accordingly, as I was mentally editing/omitting text and comment as I spoke. However, my handouts should have made up for any detail I cut out.

I would have been wiser if I had simplified my 20 minute presentation into an outline of “bullets,” and then spoken extemporaneously from my outline. That is a “lesson learned” for me, for which I blame no one.

Apparently the only two video cameras there were from AP and the conservative Sinclair network. If Sinclair wanted to do a “rip job” and present us as lightweight buffs, unfortunately, they could do so. Toward the end of the Press Conference, the sponsor, Mr. Kuntzler, President of Miller Reporting Company (DC’s biggest and most reputable court reporting company), who spent a fortune on this event, decided to present his Grand Unified Field Theory of the Assassination, which includes almost everyone in the U.S. Government and U.S. Industry in 1963. We had hoped he would wait to do this until AFTER the conference, but he did not. Of course it WAS his conference, his event, so I suppose he had a right to present whatever he wanted. He also presented his views to CNN the day before the press conference, and they wrote an article about his views on Sunday on their website.

The intent of the conference was to present relatively NEW material on “fraud in the evidence” in this case. Mantik has proved (to me, anyway) that the 3 head x-rays are forged composite copy films. His optical density measurements prove that. The 2 lateral head x-rays have had a “white patch” superimposed which hides the blowout in the right rear of the head, and the A-P head x-ray has had the 6.5 mm “bullet” fragment superimposed on the copy film, supposedly implicating the Oswald rifle.

My presentation discussed fraud in 3 areas:

-CE 387, the autopsy report in the Archives, is in my view the 3rd version. Humes destroyed a first draft in his fireplace, per his ARRB deposition, and RFK disposed of an “original” listed in the Burkley/USSS receipt dated April 26, 1965. A second “original” was transferred by the USSS to the Archives in October 1967---that is the one in the Archives today. I have a very plausible hypothesis of how the content of each report changed and this will be presented in my book.

-I covered the evidence of 2 brain exams, one on Nov 25th (the real brain, which was sectioned, and whose photos were never placed into the record), and the fraudulent, substitute specimen’s examination between Nov 29th-Dec 2nd, whose photographs were placed into the Archives. The evidence of the first exam would have provided evidence of a frontal shot which exited in the rear of the head, so it was deep-sixed; the fraudulent specimen’s pattern of damage is generally consistent with being shot from above and behind, so it was introduced into the record to support the official cover story.

-There are 3 possible reasons why the back of the head appears intact in the autopsy photos (of course, it was not intact and the photos depict an intentionally “false picture” of what happened):

-photographic forgery (to which I do not subscribe);

-gross manipulation of the scalp (from elsewhere on the head) by the doctors, so as to fool the camera; or

-a partial reconstruction of the back of the head by Mr. Stroble, the Gawler’s funeral home technician, a the direction of the pathologists, so as to fool the camera.

I tend toward suspecting the third option above.

My point was that no one can claim with any certainty that the autopsy photos are photographic forgeries unless or until they do analytic work with the original materials in the Archives---the color slides and B & W negatives. To my knowledge no one claiming photographic forgery has done this…they have all used bootleg prints, which is not real science. It’s wishful thinking. (Mantik has visited the Archives 9 times and has repeatedly taken empirical measurements of the head x-rays with an optical densitometer; he has real data which is repeatable by anyone else.)

I don’t wish to say anything else; I could, but I will not. Everyone involved did their best, but I would only give us a “C minus” in overall presentation. I learned a lot from this experience myself and will do better next time.

Unfortunately, in spite of the great effort and expense extended by Mr. Kuntzler, the media didn’t care very much about this 43 year old story.

Thanks Doug. I thought you and Mantik came across persuasively, but observed first hand the obvious frustration when you gentlemen got the bum's rush upon approaching the end of you apparent 10-minute windows. By my calculation, Fetzer absorbed perhaps 25 minutes of the first hour between his opening presentation and traffic cop duties. If the point was to get the new stuffout there in the first hour, the time obviously could have been allocated more judiciously. Recognizing that you don't wish to say anything else, I wonder if you would consider these questions.

1. What, pray tell, occupied hours 2 and 3 (I had to leave after the first hour, as noted above)/

2. Why did we first learn of this conference a mere 16 hours before the event? I felt badly for the sponsor, but sparse attendence seemed inevitable in these circumstances.

3. Finally, I assume Jeff Morley was there to talk about his lawsuit, but missed that portion. How is he feeling about it, and did he say anything particularly noteworthy?

Thanks again,

Bruce

[Joan Mellen]

You would never know it from Doug Horne's posting, but I too presented remarks at the Miller Reporting press conference on Monday morning at the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C. I almost didn't have the opportunity because Mr. Fetzer and Mr. Lipscomb, of whom I had never heard, did their best to see that I wouldn't speak at all.... Mr. Lipscomb had to be pushed away from the microphone so that I could say a few words, and by this time what press attended the conference were either gone or their cameras were turned off, as, quite obviously, he intended. Of all the credible researchers in this field, and people who have made major contributions to original research in this field, that he have been chosen, as he was by Mr. Fetzer, to be on this panel, is a staggering example of dishonesty.

In his fury that I should question when I should speak, Mr. Fetzer admitted that it was political censorship that led to his putting me last (if at all). "You'll clear the room," he said.

In fact, it was he who made the eyes of the audience glaze over with a rehashed refutation of the magic bullet theory. The organizer of the conference had ceded his control and although he tried, he was so sufficiently bullied that Mr. Fetzer and Mr. Lipscomb together were able to make certain that no one had much time, as Doug Horne notes. Mr. Lipscomb's presentation amounted to a grotesque time-waster, its intention clearly to be certain that I would have no time at all before the noon hour.

Mr. Fetzer made a separate presentation every time he "introduced" a speaker, so that he virtually used half the allotted time. He made certain to dissociate himself from my remarks when he finally came to me. Although he was the ostensible "moderator," he hadn't read my book, knew nothing of the evidence offered in "A Farewell to Justice," and did his best to undermine my work in every way he could. When I suggested that I might speak somewhere earlier than last, he screamed at the top of his lungs. He did the same thing later during a taping for the Gary Null program, and was so threatening that security guards had to be called.

It was an appalling performance, persuaded no one in the press, and destroyed what might have been an interesting event even if, as Mr. Cormier suggests, quite rightly, only very young members of the media were in attendance. Mr. Horne attended in good faith, and so I am rather surprised that he didn't notice that I was sitting right next to him.

This disgraceful conduct only makes me long for the camaraderie of a cohort of professional historians, and sorry that people the likes of Robert Caro, Michael Beschloss and Taylor Branch have, so far, lacked the courage to address the issues of the assassinations of President Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

[Pat Speer]

Ms. Mellen, reading this thread has been greatly discouraging. It sounds like this press conference was a wasted opportunity. Did Jeff Morley get a chance to talk, or was he, too, shuffled off to the end after everyone compared sneakers?

[John Simkin]

I thought this should also appear on this thread:

Egad! I am a huge fan of Doug Horne and cannot imagine how he could misreport events that he witnessed up close and personal. While Tom Lipscomb, who is a professional journalist, advanced many recommendations for making the press conference a success--and I am convinced that he was right on all counts!--the time sequence was altered at the last minute by Kuntzler's desire to pacify the demands of Joan Mellen! This was so extreme that, fifteen minutes before the meeting was to begin, we were still deliberating whether she would go first, as Kuntzler was demanding, or fifth, as I had planned from the beginning. Doug told me that he thought that we should keep the original sequence and that she could walk! We talked Kuntzler into keeping with the original plan, but she was suffering from the apparent paranoid delusion that I, as moderator, was not going to let her speak at all! Kunstler thereby imposed a draconian demand that she speak at precisely 10 minutes of noon, which meant that all of us were under extreme time constraints. I was covering the history of the case and the evidence that refutes the "magic bullet" theory and adding other discoveries in introducing everyone in turn. I explained that Michael Baden, M.D., had recently observed that, if the "magic bullet" theory is false, then there must have been at least six shots from at least three directions. I laid out evidence proving that the "magic bullet" theory is false and, on independent grounds, how we know that there were at least six shots from at least three directions. That seemed to be indispensable. Kuntzler was handing me little pieces of paper telling me how many minutes of my alloted 12 I had remaining. I was speed-talking to get through it all, but it happened, including explaining the importance of David's X-ray work. Doug thinks I took 20; how I wish I could have! Only Joan was allocated as much time as she wanted, which panned out at 18. He had 5-6, I had 12, David, Doug, and Tom had 10 apiece, which, together with intros of about 30 seconds each, put her on close to the specified time. Then Jeff Morley finished up. But the topper of the event was a sweeping statement by Kunstler, who knows almost nothing about the case, that enumerates around 30 agencies of the government-- including the Army, the Navy, and everyone except the Good Humor Man - in a conspiracy to kill the President! We made efforts to contain the damage, but who knows if we had any success. I believe that Doug did a fine job of presenting his material in a clear, systematic, and unhurried style, which was quite effective. I have been told that we are going to be given videotapes of the press conference, which I would like to make available to members of the forum to evaluate for themselves. I thought we were all doing our best to make it come out right, but the combination of Joan and Paul proved to be a bit more than the rest of us could manage. The result, alas!, was therefore decidedly mixed. The whole thing came out of the blue on an abbreviated schedule. I don't think any of us had more than a few weeks to plan for this event. My belief was that, even though it posed obvious risks, there was an opportunity here we had to sieze. We gave it our best shot and, if we are lucky, it may produce some benefits in getting our findings to the American people. Let us hope that proves to be the case!

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

It fascinates me how people who weren't there are so willing to impose their interpretations upon events. I can assure you that what you are hearing from Joan Mellen is grossly distorted. In my response to Pat on another thread, I made the following observations about follow-up questions:

Several reporters did stick around, including one for a Russian outlet, who wanted to talk with me. More importantly, Friday before the conference I had made a brief appearance on the Gary Null radio program and offered the advance notice that a press conference would be held in Washington, D.C., on Monday at 11 AM at the Willard. He declared that he would send a crew to tape the conference. What was taped included interviews with the speakers. For some reason, Kuntzler was under the thumb of Mellen, even though their views on the assassination are virtually contradictory. (She thinks it was mainly a New Orleans affair, while he blames it on LBJ, Nixon, and the like. I don't think he realizes that his enthusiasm for her book undermines reasons to take him seriously!)

She was so incensed at not having everything her way--it was an incredible display of narcissism-- that she even had Kuntzler disrupt my interview in the middle of answering a question. When I told Kuntzler to "Get lost!" because this was so totally unprofessional, he responded by calling security on the ground that, since he had sponsored the event, he was entitled to control everything about it, which was at least faintly absurd. He insisted that my taping be aborted to tape Mellen instead, which no doubt gave her great satisfaction! It was a disgraceful performance by them both, in my opinion, and I quite seriously doubt that there will be a repeat performance [another Kuntzler sponsored press conference, which Pat had inquired about]. I am very sorry about the way it played out, because there was great potential here that was largely squandered by Kuntzler's many efforts to satisfy her unceasing demands.

In his fury that I should question when I should speak, Mr. Fetzer admitted that it was political censorship that led to his putting me last (if at all). "You'll clear the room," he said.

In fact, it was he who made the eyes of the audience glaze over with a rehashed refutation of the magic bullet theory. The organizer of the conference had ceded his control and although he tried, he was so sufficiently bullied that Mr. Fetzer and Mr. Lipscomb together were able to make certain that no one had much time, as Doug Horne notes. Mr. Lipscomb's presentation amounted to a grotesque time-waster, its intention clearly to be certain that I would have no time at all before the noon hour.

Mr. Fetzer made a separate presentation every time he "introduced" a speaker, so that he virtually used half the allotted time. He made certain to dissociate himself from my remarks when he finally came to me. Although he was the ostensible "moderator," he hadn't read my book, knew nothing of the evidence offered in "A Farewell to Justice," and did his best to undermine my work in every way he could. When I suggested that I might speak somewhere earlier than last, he screamed at the top of his lungs. He did the same thing later during a taping for the Gary Null program, and was so threatening that security guards had to be called.

It was an appalling performance, persuaded no one in the press, and destroyed what might have been an interesting event even if, as Mr. Cormier suggests, quite rightly, only very young members of the media were in attendance. Mr. Horne attended in good faith, and so I am rather surprised that he didn't notice that I was sitting right next to him.

This disgraceful conduct only makes me long for the camaraderie of a cohort of professional historians, and sorry that people the likes of Robert Caro, Michael Beschloss and Taylor Branch have, so far, lacked the courage to address the issues of the assassinations of President Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Ms. Mellen,

I agree with Pat. And maybe something worse than a wasted opportunity (a la Gerry Hemming's message to John). Given that Fetzer has been known to cast scheisse at more realistic approaches to researching JFK's assassination (see the nice letter from Fetzer to Pat at Pat's presentation site), it just seems pathetic and galling that the most controversial and to some the most implausible aspects of the research should be the highlights presented. Amazing: "you'll clear the room"? It just seems unfortunate to me that yourself and Doug Horne and Jeff Morley should have been associated with such a questionable "event" when the "prime movers" of that event were so clearly intent on taking it over with their own controversial take on things.

Dan

Edited May 20, 2006 by James H. Fetzer

[David G. Healy]

'Joan Mellen' wrote:

[...]

This disgraceful conduct only makes me long for the camaraderie of a cohort of professional historians, and sorry that people the likes of Robert Caro, Michael Beschloss and Taylor Branch have, so far, lacked the courage to address the issues of the assassinations of President Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr....

...

________________

Ms. Mellen,

I believe a presenter at the podium with you yesterday, at one time stated, "today's historians have failed when it comes to JFK's assassination..." or words to that effect. (I always thought, the WINNERS wrote HISTORY, anyway...)

So, welcome to the real world Ms. Mellon, the only "disgraceful conduct" I'm aware of regarding JFK's assassination and or related events, then or now is, the 'assassination' itself.

Quite frankly, when it comes to "professional historians" regarding JFK, WCR, and attendent volumes, most don't know case evidence and/or lack of, from a hole in the ground -- So, I wouldn't worry too much, you were amongst some good longterm researcher company yesterday. Exception being, the guy that put up the buckeeros... Evidently, he cast quite a net when it comes to who he thinks is responsible for JFK's demise, damn near everyone, and agency, right?

So, you'll sell a few books, let your agent and publisher know from here on out, you want better venues to hawk your wares. Say, any stage large enough to hold your importance?

David Healy

Edited May 17, 2006 by David G. Healy

[Guest Stephen Turner]

Sometimes, when I see pro conspiracy researchers fighting like cats in a sack, I think I ought to find something more productive to do with my limited spare time.

[David G. Healy]

Sometimes, when I see pro conspiracy researchers fighting like cats in a sack, I think I ought to find something more productive to do with my limited spare time.

Stephen you're being 'too' kind. When you get authors who are selling books, researchers [who work most of the time in the background with no limelight] doing specialized evidence research and presenting their material from the same podium, minutes apart to media reps... Who do YOU think is going to moan the loudest AFTER the fact?

[Trent Adams]

Sometimes, when I see pro conspiracy researchers fighting like cats in a sack, I think I ought to find something more productive to do with my limited spare time.

Amen!