Doug Horne

Thanks for posting this Bill, and thanks to Doug Horne, Rex Bradford and the folks at Maryferrell.org. Here is a link to a 2006 thread dealing with Doug's press conference. John Simkin has described it as the most important thread since the foundation of the forum. http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=6849 [Edited for spelling]

I certainly do believe that the WW III cover story was used like a bludgeon on many people (including the autopsy pathologists and those managing the autopsy photographs and x-rays) to get them to institute a massive coverup by inserting fraud into the evidence, so Newman’s hypothesis is very “simpatico” with this certainty of mine. And since LBJ very effectively used the WW III cover story on Earl Warren to get him to chair the W.C. (and thereby effectively cause all other suggested inquiries to be stillborn), it suggests that the plot crossed agency lines and included people at the very highest levels of government. Without rereading his book (and without examining the new material) I can’t really say what this will do to the most commonly held assumption---that David Atlee Phillips was a major player in the plot, and that David Sanchez Morales was involved with the wet end of the affair. I don’t know if Newman’s hypothesis precludes Phillip’s involvement or not. It may not be incompatible with his hypothesis at all. It may simply mean that Angleton was the puppetmaster at the top of the operational chain of command.

YES! Absolutely!

I just read Mr. Bugliosi’s rather severe criticism of my work on the staff of the Assassination Records Review Board, where I served initially as a Senior Analyst on the Military Records team, and was eventually promoted to the position of Chief Analyst for Military Records. Specifically, he took issue with my conclusion in a 1998 research memo that 2 different brains were examined following President Kennedy’s death: -President Kennedy’s brain, on Monday, November 25, 1963; and -A second (fraudulent) brain---not that of President Kennedy---during the period between November 29-December 2, 1963. Based upon testimony and interviews conducted by the Warren Commission staff, the HSCA staff, and the ARRB staff, I concluded that President Kennedy’s severely damaged brain, which provided unassailable evidence of President Kennedy being shot from the front, was examined by Navy pathologists Humes and Boswell less than 3 days after the conclusion of the autopsy on the body, and was photographed by Navy civilian photographer John Stringer on that day, November 25, 1963. I concluded that Stringer’s photographs of JFK’s brain, which would have provided proof that JFK was shot from the front and that a bullet exited the back of his skull, were suppressed by the Federal government and are not the brain photographs found in the autopsy collection in the National Archives today. I also concluded that a second brain---not President Kennedy’s---was examined by Humes and Boswell between November 29 and December 2, 1963, that Army pathologist Pierre Finck (the “outside man” involved in the autopsy, in more ways than one) was invited to this second examination, and that an unknown Navy photographer (not John Stringer) photographed the specimen being examined. It is the photographs of this fraudulent specimen, I concluded, which showed a completely different pattern of damage than JFK’s brain (namely, rear to front), that are in the autopsy collection in the National Archives today. It is my firm belief that Dr. Finck, who arrived late at the autopsy on the body Friday night after the brain had been removed, and who was excluded from the review of the first draft of the autopsy report on Saturday, November 23, was used as a “dupe” for purposes of “authenticating” the photographs of the second brain specimen introduced into the official record, in the event that was ever required. In summary, my findings that Dr. Humes and Dr. Boswell participated in an officially sanctioned coverup of the medical evidence are based upon several foundations: -A rigorous timeline analysis of when various persons recalled meeting to conduct “a brain exam” and when they examined brain tissue revealed that there were two separate events. -Navy photographer John Stringer, under oath before the ARRB, disowned the brain photographs in the Archives, because (1) they were taken on a type of film he did not use; (2) they depict “inferior”” views of the underside of the brain which he was certain he did not shoot; and (3) the photographs of several individual sections of brain tissue that he did photograph were not present. -Retired FBI Agent Frank O’Neill, who was present at the autopsy on the body on November 22, testified to the ARRB that the brain photos in the National Archives could not possibly be of President Kennedy’s brain, because there was too much tissue present; O’Neill testified that more than half of President Kennedy’s brain was missing when he saw it at the autopsy following its removal from the cranium, and his objections to the brain photographs in the Archives were that they depict what he called “almost a complete brain.” Furthermore, both O’Neill and Gawler’s Funeral Home mortician Tom Robinson told the ARRB staff that a large portion of the rear of President Kennedy’s brain was missing, and each man unequivocally demonstrated the location of the missing brain tissue in my presence by dramatically placing his right hand on the back of the right side of his own head, behind the right ear. In contrast, in the brain depicted in the Archives photographs, the right cerebellum is completely intact, and the occipital lobe of the right cerebrum is largely intact. This concludes a brief---and accurate---summary of the research memo that Mr. Bugliosi takes such objection to. Now, I will address Mr. Bugliosi’s criticisms. He called my research memo of June 1998 “obscenely irresponsible,” and yet admits that he did not even try to contact me to discuss his objections to it. I will let the reader decide who was “obscenely irresponsible.” The tone of Mr. Bugliosi’s attack on my work is unbalanced---it is pejorative and sarcastic, in the extreme. In attempting (unsuccessfully) to rebut my work, he used a combination of ridicule, distortion, omission, and circular reasoning. There is nothing scholarly about his attack on my work, in contrast to the tone of my research memo, which attempted to interpret all of the relevant evidence in a balanced fashion. When one strips away the ridicule and ad hominem attacks, Bugliosi is essentially saying that because he knows that there was only one brain exam following JFK’s autopsy, that any time I find evidence that indicates otherwise, that I am wrong and engaging in fantasy. Anyone who reads this section of Bugliosi’s book (pages 434-447), and nothing else, will be unaware that virtually all of the objections he raises to the logic of my hypothesis are already addressed in my research memo of 1998. Bugliosi attempts to smear me with the use of the word “insane” three different times, as well as with the use of the words “crazy” and “aberration.” This is nothing more than a cheap prosecutor’s trick, employed in court every day by prosecuting attorneys presenting a one-sided version of the evidence in an adversarial proceeding, in an attempt to impugn any evidence that contradicts their own argument. Anyone who reads the relevant pages in his book will recognize Bugliosi’s sophistry for what it is: a desperate attempt to discredit the opposition’s evidence. I learned long ago that when an opponent cannot successfully counter his opposition’s arguments with logic, he will often employ ridicule and personal attacks. In doing so, Bugliosi has engaged in “the last refuge of a scoundrel,” has revealed the depth of his desperation, and has done nothing to advance the scholarly debate of the JFK assassination in this country. I can only conclude that Mr. Bugliosi must have felt that his personal belief system (supporting the Warren Commission’s basic conclusions) was severely imperiled by my work, for him to use such scurrilous tactics to try to discredit my hypothesis. I therefore implore and encourage anyone who is intrigued by the subject of the post-autopsy examination and photography of President Kennedy’s brain to first read my 32-page research memo (it is not 15 pages long, as Bugliosi claims) entitled “Questions Regarding Supplementary Brain Examination(s) Following the Autopsy on President John F. Kennedy,” dated June 2, 1998, before you reach your own independent conclusion about what happened in 1963. Mr. Bugliosi’s invective cannot be properly evaluated without reading, for yourself, that with which it takes issue. My research memo can be obtained at minimal cost from the JFK Records Collection at Archives II in College Park, Maryland.

I remember her deposition well. Her comments about the watermark were indicated to be in error later when Kodak examined her print and compared it with other paper from 1963. However, she did develop post mortem photography DIFFERENT from that in the Archives today. (Different type of film and different images.) Her photography seemed to be of the body after reconstruction, but before it was clothed and put in the burial casket. The photos she developed would be some of those that I now consider “missing.” Her testimony is part of my analytic work. She was a very credible witness.

He was my boss for a year and a half: he was the original boss of the Military Records Team, from sometime in autumn of 1995 until he left in March of 1997. Then I was promoted into his job. (“Kicked upstairs,” as they say.) The files of individual workers were not assembled for retention until the last month, when we were shutting down. Since he left in March of 1997, and we started shutting down in September of 1998, that is probably why they have no “working papers.” (I’m not sure he would have kept any, anyway.) However, there should be plenty of records of his former employment in the ARRB’s personnel records in the National Archives. Tim was a “great guy,” a “hail fellow well met,” but was very anti-conspiracy theorist and very pro Warren Commission. He left out of boredom and frustration.

1. Per your request, enclosed are the two FBI documents that I had intended to distribute as "extra material" at the May 15, 2006 press conference in Washington, D.C. I ended up not doing so, since (1) no one asked for them; and (2) because I felt the evidence discussed in my prepared statement was more important, or rather, more "conclusive" than the material in these two documents, which you will see is less "robust," and more "speculative" in nature. Nevertheless they are quite interesting. 2. The one-page FBI HQ document dated November 22, 1963 is a potential "smoking gun" document which may indicate another major aspect of the medical coverup in the assassination. In the first paragraph, it mentions a "bullet lodged behind the President's ear" which the FBI was planning on obtaining. You will note that this was written while the autopsy was ongoing; many persons that night have reported that Federal agents were on the telephone in the morgue all night long. There is no mention of any such bullet in the (existing) autopsy report, or for that matter, in the FBI Sibert-O'Neill report about what its own 2 agents witnessed at the autopsy. However, there was a typed "receipt of a missile" [sic] signed by Sibert and O'Neill on November 22, 1963 and given to Captain Stover, in acknowledgment for a missile removed by Commander Humes at the autopsy. The wording of that receipt-a receipt for "a missile"-has never made sense to many people, because officially, per the existing autopsy report and the Sibert-O'Neill report, only two tiny fragments (1 x 3 mm, and 2 x 7 mm) were removed from the body at the autopsy. The receipt does not say " 2 tiny fragments," or " 2 fragments of such and such dimension" it says "a missile," implying an intact bullet. I conclude that i f the mention of a "bullet lodged behind the President's ear" in the FBI HQ memo is not an error based on bad information, then it is likely that the receipt to Captain Stover dated November 22, 1963 for a "missile" may be for the bullet lodged behind the President's ear. The ARRB did not get satisfactory answers from Sibert or O'Neill at their depositions about either document. 3. The second document is more complicated, and more nuanced. It is a formerly Top Secret report distributed to the very highest echelons of the FBI leadership on December 1, 1966. While on the staff of the ARRB, the then-head of the FBI Records Team (Phil Golrick) told me that this document was also sent directly to President Lyndon Johnson by J. Edgar Hoover on that date, and this is perhaps its true significance. You will note that there is both a redacted version, indicating what the FBI still wanted to withhold in 1996, and the completely open version that the Review Board forced the FBI to release. The document is a history of the innermost private thinking of the KGB-not ' propaganda-both immediately after the assassination, and later in September of 1965. It was explained to me by Phil Golrick that the language used in the memo indicates the information was obtained by electronic surveillance, not human intelligence, and therefore should be considered a very reliable record of what the KGB was saying behind its own closed doors in New York City. Right after the assassination, per page one, the KGB blamed the assassination on an "ultraright conspiracy," but by September of 1965, per page 3, the KGB privately told its staff in NYC that President Lyndon B. Johnson was responsible for the assassination of John F. Kennedy. 4. That's the major buzz now in many quarters of the United States, the "dirty story" that the major broadcast media will simply not cover, even to this day, because of self-censorship. The document did receive brief mention on the AP wire in 1996 when we at the ARRB released it at our public hearing in Los Angeles, but no one in the broadcast media followed up on it. To me the document has the smell of blackmail all over it. Hoover's power derived from the secrets he was aware of that were NOT leaked, but which he held over people's heads, by letting them know he "had their secret in his files and would safeguard it." So, here he was in December of 1966 telling LBJ that "the KGB says YOU did it. " The timing seems strange.. .the FBI knew about this in September of 1965, but did not inform LBJ until fourteen-and-one-half months later. I suspect that Hoover felt threatened at this time, and possibly feared for his job, and was using this knowledge, which he had been sitting on for over a year, as leverage-as an insurance policy against getting fired. 5. We have to be careful here; the document tells us what the KGB believed, but it does not explain what evidence the KGB held that caused it to reach this conclusion. When we read this today, in 2006, we do not know why the KGB believed LBJ had murdered JFK. We need to have another American historian like Timothy Naftali visit Russia and obtain access to the former KGB files on the Kennedy assassination from 1964 and 1965 that would throw light on why the KGB came to this conclusion. Until we know how and why the KGB reached its determination, this document will remain yet one more tantalizing clue that will be argued about forever by researchers. 1. Per your request, enclosed are the two FBI documents that I had intended to distribute as "extra material" at the May 15, 2006 press conference in Washington, D.C. I ended up not doing so, since (1) no one asked for them; and (2) because I felt the evidence discussed in my prepared statement was more important, or rather, more "conclusive" than the material in these two documents, which you will see is less "robust," and more "speculative" in nature. Nevertheless they are quite interesting. 2. The one-page FBI HQ document dated November 22, 1963 is a potential "smoking gun" document which may indicate another major aspect of the medical coverup in the assassination. In the first paragraph, it mentions a "bullet lodged behind the President's ear" which the FBI was planning on obtaining. You will note that this was written while the autopsy was ongoing; many persons that night have reported that Federal agents were on the telephone in the morgue all night long. There is no mention of any such bullet in the (existing) autopsy report, or for that matter, in the FBI Sibert-O'Neill report about what its own 2 agents witnessed at the autopsy. However, there was a typed "receipt of a missile" [sic] signed by Sibert and O'Neill on November 22, 1963 and given to Captain Stover, in acknowledgment for a missile removed by Commander Humes at the autopsy. The wording of that receipt-a receipt for "a missile"-has never made sense to many people, because officially, per the existing autopsy report and the Sibert-O'Neill report, only two tiny fragments (1 x 3 mm, and 2 x 7 mm) were removed from the body at the autopsy. The receipt does not say " 2 tiny fragments," or " 2 fragments of such and such dimension" it says "a missile," implying an intact bullet. I conclude that i f the mention of a "bullet lodged behind the President's ear" in the FBI HQ memo is not an error based on bad information, then it is likely that the receipt to Captain Stover dated November 22, 1963 for a "missile" may be for the bullet lodged behind the President's ear. The ARRB did not get satisfactory answers from Sibert or O'Neill at their depositions about either document. 3. The second document is more complicated, and more nuanced. It is a formerly Top Secret report distributed to the very highest echelons of the FBI leadership on December 1, 1966. While on the staff of the ARRB, the then-head of the FBI Records Team (Phil Golrick) told me that this document was also sent directly to President Lyndon Johnson by J. Edgar Hoover on that date, and this is perhaps its true significance. You will note that there is both a redacted version, indicating what the FBI still wanted to withhold in 1996, and the completely open version that the Review Board forced the FBI to release. The document is a history of the innermost private thinking of the KGB-not ' propaganda-both immediately after the assassination, and later in September of 1965. It was explained to me by Phil Golrick that the language used in the memo indicates the information was obtained by electronic surveillance, not human intelligence, and therefore should be considered a very reliable record of what the KGB was saying behind its own closed doors in New York City. Right after the assassination, per page one, the KGB blamed the assassination on an "ultraright conspiracy," but by September of 1965, per page 3, the KGB privately told its staff in NYC that President Lyndon B. Johnson was responsible for the assassination of John F. Kennedy. 4. That's the major buzz now in many quarters of the United States, the "dirty story" that the major broadcast media will simply not cover, even to this day, because of self-censorship. The document did receive brief mention on the AP wire in 1996 when we at the ARRB released it at our public hearing in Los Angeles, but no one in the broadcast media followed up on it. To me the document has the smell of blackmail all over it. Hoover's power derived from the secrets he was aware of that were NOT leaked, but which he held over people's heads, by letting them know he "had their secret in his files and would safeguard it." So, here he was in December of 1966 telling LBJ that "the KGB says YOU did it. " The timing seems strange.. .the FBI knew about this in September of 1965, but did not inform LBJ until fourteen-and-one-half months later. I suspect that Hoover felt threatened at this time, and possibly feared for his job, and was using this knowledge, which he had been sitting on for over a year, as leverage-as an insurance policy against getting fired. 5. We have to be careful here; the document tells us what the KGB believed, but it does not explain what evidence the KGB held that caused it to reach this conclusion. When we read this today, in 2006, we do not know why the KGB believed LBJ had murdered JFK. We need to have another American historian like Timothy Naftali visit Russia and obtain access to the former KGB files on the Kennedy assassination from 1964 and 1965 that would throw light on why the KGB came to this conclusion. Until we know how and why the KGB reached its determination, this document will remain yet one more tantalizing clue that will be argued about forever by researchers.

May 15, 2006 Press Conference: Prepared Remarks by Douglas P. Horne, Former Chief Analyst for Military Records, Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) I served on the staff of the Assassination Records Review Board for just over three years, from August 1995 through September 1998. During that period of time the Review Board granted permission for the staff to take the depositions of 10 persons involved in the autopsy on President Kennedy: as a result, today any American citizen can go to the “Archives II” facility in College Park, Maryland and obtain copies of the transcripts of the sworn testimony of the 3 autopsy pathologists; both of the official Navy photographers; both Navy x-ray technicians; a Navy photographer’s mate who developed some of the post-mortem photography; and both of the FBI agents who witnessed the autopsy. The Review Board’s charter was simply to locate and declassify assassination records, and to ensure they were placed in the new “JFK Records Collection” in the National Archives, where they would be freely available to the public. Although Congress did not want the ARRB to reinvestigate the assassination of President Kennedy, or to draw conclusions about the assassination, the staff did hope to make a contribution to future ‘clarification’ of the medical evidence in the assassination by conducting these neutral, non-adversarial, fact-finding depositions. All of our deposition transcripts, as well as our written reports of numerous interviews we conducted with medical witnesses, are now a part of that same collection of records open to the public. Because of the Review Board’s strictly neutral role in this process, all of these materials were placed in the JFK Collection without comment. I have been studying these records for 10 years now. The reason I am here today is because contained within our deposition transcripts and interview reports is unequivocal evidence that there was a U.S. government cover-up of the medical evidence in the Kennedy assassination, yet most members of the public know nothing about this. Let me sound a cautionary note here: no single statement of any witness stands alone. Before it can be properly evaluated, the recollections of each witness must be compared to all of his own previous testimony, and to that of other witnesses—before the Warren Commission, the House Select Committee on Assassinations, and even with independent researchers—as well as all available documentary evidence. Having said this, after considerable study of all of these records, I am firmly convinced that there is serious fraud in the medical evidence of the Kennedy assassination in three areas: (1) The autopsy report in evidence today, Warren Commission Exhibit # 387, is the third version prepared of that report; it is not the sole version, as was claimed for years by those who wrote it and signed it. (2) The brain photographs in the National Archives that are purported to be photographs of President Kennedy’s brain are not what they are represented to be; they are not pictures of his brain, but rather are photographs of someone else’s brain. Normally, in cases of death due to injury to the brain, the brain is examined one or two weeks following the autopsy on the body, and photographs are taken of the pattern of damage. Following President Kennedy’s autopsy, there were two subsequent brain examinations, not one: the first examination was of the President’s brain, and those photographs were never introduced into the official record; the second examination was of a fraudulent specimen, whose photographs were subsequently introduced into the official record. The pattern of damage displayed in these ‘official’ brain photographs has nothing whatsoever to do with the assassination in Dallas, and in fact was undoubtedly used to shore up the official conclusion that President Kennedy was killed by a shot from above and behind. (3) There is something seriously wrong with the autopsy photographs of the body of President Kennedy. It definitely is President Kennedy in the photographs, but the images showing the damage to the President’s head do not show the pattern of damage observed by either the medical professionals at Parkland hospital in Dallas, or by numerous witnesses at the military autopsy at Bethesda Naval hospital. These disparities are real and are significant, but the reasons remain unclear. There are only three possible explanations for this, and I will discuss these possibilities today. The Autopsy Report The evidence that a draft autopsy report—as well as a first signed version—existed prior to the report in evidence today is both easy to understand, and undeniable. The First Draft On November 24, 1963 the chief pathologist at President Kennedy’s autopsy, Dr. James J. Humes, signed a typed statement he had prepared that read as follows: “I, James J. Humes, certify that I have destroyed by burning certain preliminary draft notes relating to Naval Medical School Autopsy Report A63-272 and have officially transmitted all other papers related to this report to higher authority.” [Author’s emphasis] On two occasions before the HSCA, in March of 1977 and in September of 1978, Dr. Humes maintained that he had destroyed notes. He repeated this claim in an interview published by the Journal of the American Medical Association in May of 1992. The reasons given in each case were that the notes were destroyed because they had on them the blood of the President, which Dr. Humes deemed unseemly. The ARRB General Counsel, Jeremy Gunn, had reason to suspect that an early draft of the autopsy report had also been destroyed, based upon an analysis of inconsistencies between Dr. Humes’ previous testimony about when he wrote the draft report, and existing records documenting its transmission to higher authority. After extremely thorough and persistent questioning by the Review Board’s General Counsel in February of 1996, Dr. Humes admitted, under oath, that both notes from the autopsy, and a first draft of the autopsy report (which had been prepared well after the autopsy’s conclusion and had no blood on it), had been destroyed in his fireplace. The First Signed Version A simple study of the receipt trail for the transmission of the autopsy report reveals that the first signed report is missing as well. On April 26, 1965 the Secret Service transferred the autopsy photographs and x-rays, and certain vital documents and biological materials to the custody of the Kennedy family at the request of Robert F. Kennedy. That receipt lists, among other things: “Complete autopsy protocol of President Kennedy (orig, & 7 cc’s)—Original signed by Dr. Humes, pathologist.” Evelyn Lincoln, secretary to the late President Kennedy, signed for receipt of all of the items the same day. Incredibly, on October 2, 1967 the head of the Secret Service signed a letter transferring the original of CE 387, the autopsy report placed in evidence by the Warren Commission, to the National Archives; the National Archives signed a receipt for CE 387 the next day, October 3, 1967. Warren Commission Chief Counsel J. Lee Rankin, in a declassified transcript of a January 27, 1964 Executive Session of the Commission, discusses details of the content of “the autopsy report” which are not consistent with the details of the report in evidence today, CE 387, thus confirming that the first signed version contained different conclusions. The dilemma presented here can best be summarized by the following rhetorical question: How could the U.S. Secret Service transfer the original JFK autopsy protocol to the National Archives (or to anyone else, for that matter) on October 2, 1967 when they had previously given it to the Kennedy family on April 26, 1965? The answer, of course, is that there were two separate reports. The first smooth, or signed version, was given to the Kennedy family at the specific request of Robert Kennedy, and has disappeared. The second signed version is in the National Archives today. Conclusion The destruction of both the first draft and the first signed version of the autopsy report are clear evidence of the ongoing malleability of the autopsy report’s specific conclusions during the initial 2 weeks following the conclusion of the post mortem examination. Furthermore, it is clear that when Dr. Humes testified under oath to the Review Board that there was only one autopsy report, and that he only signed one autopsy report, he committed perjury. [For those interested in obtaining copies of the relevant documents in the receipt trail, or in studying the likely content of the first two versions of the autopsy protocol, I will make copies of the relevant research memo available at the end of the press conference.] Two Brain Examinations My most remarkable finding while on the Review Board staff, and a totally unexpected one, was that instead of one supplemental brain examination being conducted following the conclusion of President Kennedy’s autopsy, as was expected, two different examinations were conducted, about a week apart from each other. A thorough timeline analysis of available documents, and of the testimony of autopsy witnesses taken by the ARRB, revealed that the remains of President Kennedy’s badly damaged brain were examined on Monday morning, November 25, 1963 prior to the state funeral, and that shortly thereafter the brain was turned over to RADM Burkley, Military Physician to the President; a second brain examination, of a fraudulent specimen, was conducted sometime between November 29th and December 2nd, 1963—and it is the photographs from this second examination that are in the National Archives today. Pertinent Facts Regarding the Two Examinations are as follows: First Brain Exam, Monday, November 25th, 1963 Attendees: Dr. Humes, Dr. Boswell, and Navy civilian photographer John Stringer. Events: John Stringer testified to the ARRB that he used both Ektachrome E3 color positive transparency film, and B & W Portrait Pan negative film; both were 4 by 5 inch format films exposed using duplex film holders; he only shot superior views of the intact specimen—no inferior views; the pathologists sectioned the brain, as is normal for death by gunshot wound, with transverse or “coronal” incisions—sometimes called “bread loaf” incisions—in order to trace the track of the bullet or bullets; and after each section of tissue was cut from the brain, Stringer photographed that section on a light box to show the damage. Second Brain Exam, Between November 29th and December 2nd, 1963 Attendees: Dr. Humes, Dr. Boswell, Dr. Finck, and an unknown Navy photographer. Events: Per the testimony of all 3 pathologists, the brain was not sectioned, as should have been normal procedure for any gunshot wound to the head—that is, transverse or coronal sections were not made. The brain looked different than it did at the autopsy on November 22nd, and Dr. Finck wrote about this in a report to his military superior on February 1, 1965. The color slides of the brain specimen in the National Archives were exposed on “Ansco” film, not Ektachrome E3 film; and the B & W negatives are also on “Ansco” film, and originated in a film pack (or magazine), not duplex holders. The brain photos in the Archives show both superior and inferior views, contrary to what John Stringer remembers shooting, and there are no photographs of sections among the Archives brain photographs, which is inconsistent with Stringer’s sworn testimony about what he photographed. Further indications that the brain photographs in the Archives are not President Kennedy’s brain are as follows: Two ARRB medical witnesses, former FBI agent Frank O’Neill and Gawler’s funeral home mortician Tom Robinson, both recalled vividly that the major area of tissue missing from President Kennedy’s brain was in the rear of the brain. The brain photos in the Archives do not show any tissue missing in the rear of the brain, only in the top. When former FBI agent Frank O’Neill viewed the Archives brain photographs during his deposition, he said that the photos he was viewing could not be President Kennedy’s brain because when he viewed the removed brain at the autopsy, the damage was so great that more than half of it was gone—missing. He described the brain photos in the Archives as depicting a ‘virtually intact’ brain. Finally, the weight of the brain recorded in the supplemental autopsy report was 1500 grams, which exceeds the average weight of a normal, undamaged male brain. This is entirely inconsistent with a brain which was over half missing when observed at autopsy. Conclusions The conduct of a second brain examination on a fraudulent specimen, and the introduction of photographs of that specimen into the official record, was designed to do two things: (1) eliminate evidence of a fatal shot from the front, which was evident on the brain removed at autopsy and examined on Monday, November 25th, 1963; and (2) place into the record photographs of a brain with damage generally consistent with having been shot from above and behind. Until I discovered that the photographs in the Archives could not be of President Kennedy’s brain, the brain photos had been used by 3 separate investigative bodies—the Clark Panel, the Rockefeller Commission, and the House Select Committee on Assassinations—to support the Warren Commission’s findings that President Kennedy was shot from above and behind, and to discount the expert observations from Parkland hospital in Dallas that President Kennedy had an exit wound in the back of his head. In my opinion, the brain photographs in the National Archives, along with Dr. Mantik’s Optical Densitometry analysis of the head x-rays, are two irrefutable examples of fraud in this case, and call into question the official conclusions of all prior investigations. [For those who wish detailed verification of this hypothesis, the 32-page research paper on this subject that I completed in 1998 will be made available at the end of this press conference.] The Head Wound in the Autopsy Photographs I would like to conclude with some brief closing remarks about the autopsy photographs at the National Archives. The images of the President’s head wound are inconsistent with both the Parkland hospital observations, and the Bethesda autopsy observations of almost every witness present in the morgue, as follows: Parkland Hospital The blowout, or exit wound in the right rear of the head seen in Dallas is not present in the autopsy images, which show the back of the head to be intact except for a very small puncture interpreted by the HSCA as a wound of entry. Furthermore, the autopsy photographs of the head show extensive damage to the top of the head, and to the right side of the head, which was not seen in Dallas during the 40 minutes that the President was observed in trauma room one at Parkland hospital. Bethesda Naval Hospital Most witnesses from the autopsy also recall a very large wound at the back of the head, which, as stated above, is not shown in the autopsy photographs. The additional damage many autopsy witnesses recall at the top of the head, and on the right side, is present in the photographs—but not the damage they remember at the rear. One prominent witness, Dr. Ebersole (the radiologist at the autopsy), testified under oath to the HSCA Forensic Pathology Panel in 1978 that the large head wound in the autopsy photos is more lateral and more superior than he remembered, and said that he recalled the back of the head being missing at the autopsy. Three Possible Explanations There are 3 possible explanations for these inconsistencies: (1) Photographic forgery—i.e., “special effects”—to make the rear of the head look intact when it was not; (2) Major manipulation of loose, and previously reflected scalp from elsewhere on the head by the pathologists, so as to make it appear that the back of the head was intact when it was not; or (3) Partial reconstruction of the head by the morticians, at the direction of the pathologists, followed by photography that created the false impression that there was no exit defect in the back of the head. Many JFK researchers have long suspected photographic forgery, but extreme caution is warranted here because all analyses of the autopsy photographs done to date have used “bootleg” materials, and not the original materials in the Archives. The “bootleg” photographs do represent the actual views of the body in the Archives collection, but they are badly degraded, suffer from contrast buildup, and are photographic prints—whereas any true scientific study of these images for authenticity should use the color positive transparencies and B & W negatives in the Archives as subjects, not multi-generational prints of uncertain provenance. I personally examined magnified and enhanced images of the Archives autopsy photographs at the Kodak lab in Rochester, New York in November of 1997, and I saw no obvious evidence of photographic forgery; but I am the first person to admit that I am not an expert in photographic special effects techniques circa 1963. I am of the opinion that it is likely that the back of the head appears intact in the autopsy photographs either because the loose scalp was manipulated for photographic purposes, or because the photos in question were taken after a partial reconstruction by the morticians. I was steered toward this opinion by the ARRB testimony of the two FBI agents who witnessed the autopsy. Both men found the images of the intact back-of-the-head troubling, and inconsistent with the posterior head wound they vividly remembered. Frank O’Neill opined under oath that the images of the back-of-the-head appeared “doctored,” by which he meant that the head had been put back together by the doctors. James Sibert testified that the head looked “reconstructed” in these images—he actually used the word “reconstructed” at his deposition. No final conclusions can yet be drawn about exactly why a large defect in the rear of the head is not shown in the autopsy photographs, when one was seen by so many witnesses. It is sufficient to say that something is terribly wrong here, and that it is an area that requires more study with the original materials. Thank you for your attention. I also have some interesting declassified FBI documents for anyone that is interested.

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.

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.

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.

The two worst things about communism, in my opinion, were: (1) The attempt of the totalitarian state to control not only your actions, but your thoughts as well. This prohibition on the free and unfettered exchange of ideas - that is, the unacceptability of free speech and freedom of the press, and the prohibition on engaging in writing (and reading) that was "politically incorrect," is perhaps the most odious aspect of Communism to someone brought up in the West. (2) The poor material standard of living that resulted from inefficient, centrally planned economies, combined with the lack of economic incentives for individuals to excel in "collective economies." Long bread lines, shortages of meat, and thousands of shoes of the wrong size that do not fit well, are three classic examples. But the quantity and quality of work in communist societies often suffered, because there was generally no economic incentive for an individual to produce greater quantities of goods, or to improve the quality of his/her work. One of the common jokes shared by industrial workers in Communist countries was 'they pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work.' In the post-WW II USSR, there were rarely high-quality consumer goods for sale, but there was an abundance of cheap vodka, with which poor and disillusioned workers could remain stupefied (and relatively docile). As I see it, a major advantage of living in a Communist country would be the extra resources dedicated to those who showed promising athletic talent or great intellectual capacity (in a field that benefited the state, such as aerospace technology, nuclear physics, etc.). Much greater state resources were dedicated in Communist countries (as compared to 'free market' societies) to direct support of these arenas... providing, of course, that the end results would reflect favorably on the state and its standing vis-a-vis Capitalist states in the Cold War. I am not going to list free medical care as a major advantage, as many people would, because we now know, post-cold war, that the quality of this free medical care was truly substandard in most Communist societies."

The issue of Berlin was extremely important and potentially extremely dangerous for the entire world. JFK was never willing to initiate use of nuclear weapons over Vietnam or even Cuba, but would have used nuclear weapons, if necessary, if pressed into a corner over Berlin, if the choice had been between total war or capitulation and appeasement. Berlin was Kruschev's Big Bluff, in which he (incorrectly) sensed weakness and lack of resolve in the West, and thought he could "rub our blister" by demanding that Berlin instantly become part of Communist East Germany...or else, "there would be war!" JFK was very wary of the possibility of a non-nuclear confrontation or crisis quickly escalating into an unintentional nuclear war...this was what Kruschev misinterpreted as weakness. What Kruschev did not understand was that JFK, who knew his father, our Ambassador to Britain in 1940, was wrong about Nazi Germany's "inevitable" triumph and had been a defeatist, and a supporter of Chamberlain's appeasement policy, was determined NOT to be viewed as an appeaser, as his father, Joseph P. Kennedy, was. JFK also realized the primacy of NATO and America's European allies in our foreign policy. Twice in the 20th Century America had been sucked into World Wars which originated in Europe, and had to "cross the big pond" to pull English and French chestnuts out of the fire. America had far fewer troops in Europe than did the Soviets, and had a quiet but firm policy to use nukes if necessary to stop any massive Soviet invasion of the West. JFK correctly felt that caving in on the Yalta agreement for 4-power occupation of Berlin after Germany's defeat, and simply handing Berlin over to the East German State at the demand of a bullying USSR, would have signaled a moral collapse in the West, a lack of spine and resolve that would only have encouraged other Soviet adventurism. To JFK, caving in to Kruschev's demand on Berlin would have been equivalent to Chamberlain giving the Czech Sudetenland to Hitler's Germany in 1938. JFK often stated that the small numbers of U.S. and allied troops in Berlin were essentially "hostages." What he meant by this was that they were a trip-wire which could initiate a nuclear war to defend the West's resolve and overall interests in Europe, if the Soviets were so bold as to take Berlin by force. JFK was extremely cautious over the Cuban Missile Crisis because he was very much concerned that any actions he took against Cuba (where the U.S. had the overwhelming superiority of forces) might stimulate a Soviet counter-response against Berlin (where the West was militarily relatively weak). "Allowing" East Germany (read: the USSR) to build the Berlin Wall (on East Germany's own territory) defused the entire Berlin crisis, because it ended the East German brain drain, and its public embarrassment over the large numbers of fleeing citizens. JFK wanted a nuclear war less than anyone, but was locked into a U.S. committment to use nukes if necessary to defend Western Europe...and Berlin was the weakest spot (militarily) in Western Europe.

JFK was looking forward to running against Barry Goldwater, and without a doubt would have defeated him. The only question is by how much. Goldwater was correctly viewed as a Conservative extremist and a Hawk in 1964, at a time when the public was warming to JFK's peace initiatives and more positive view of the world. I suspect that JFK would have beaten Goldwater by a comfortable margin in the popular vote, and by an electoral college landslide. LBJ, without JFK's personality and wit, did so in 1964, simply by stoking fears of Goldwater's warmongering. With his positive view of the world and lively personality, JFK would have done even better.

JFK's greatest achievement is certainly one of the 3 listed below; first I will give you 3 choices, and then I will indicate my possibly surprising selection: (1) avoiding nuclear war with the USSR over the Cuban Missile Crisis; (2) coming down firmly on the side of Civil Rights in 1963, including introducing the Civil Rights Act legislation that was later passed after his death; (3) proposing and strongly supporting America's Moon landing program---Project Apollo. My selection is the Apollo program, and here's why: 500 years from now, and perhaps 50 or even 100 years from now, America's Apollo Moon landing program will clearly be the most significant decision and/or act by JFK. By proposing and "selling" this program in the midst of a Cold War with the USSR, the American President indicated that he took the Cold War very seriously, that he was NOT an appeaser (as many Conservatives feared), and that he not only didn't mind, but welcomed competition with the USSR, as long as it was NOT on the battlefield. Although the origins of the Apollo program were 100% in America's Cold War competition with the USSR, its benefits were truly astounding in terms of technology boost, building excitement over Space Exploration, and its positive impact on the human spirit. It has also remained the quintissential symbol of what Americans---and humans, for that matter---can do if they have the will and dedicate the resources. In many ways the future of the human species will be determined by space exploration and space travel, and JFK's jumpstart certainly got us to the Moon 50 or 100 years before it would otherwise have happened, at a time when many feared the U.S. had already lost the Space Race, and that competition with the USSR was pointless.

JFK's greatest achievement is certainly one of the 3 listed below; first I will give you 3 choices, and then I will indicate my possibly surprising selection: (1) avoiding nuclear war with the USSR over the Cuban Missile Crisis; (2) coming down firmly on the side of Civil Rights in 1963, including introducing the Civil Rights Act legislation that was later passed after his death; (3) proposing and strongly supporting America's Moon landing program---Project Apollo. My selection is the Apollo program, and here's why: 500 years from now, and perhaps 50 or even 100 years from now, America's Apollo Moon landing program will clearly be the most significant decision and/or act by JFK. By proposing and "selling" this program in the midst of a Cold War with the USSR, the American President indicated that he took the Cold War very seriously, that he was NOT an appeaser (as many Conservatives feared), and that he not only didn't mind, but welcomed competition with the USSR, as long as it was NOT on the battlefield. Although the origins of the Apollo program were 100% in America's Cold War competition with the USSR, its benefits were truly astounding in terms of technology boost, building excitement over Space Exploration, and its positive impact on the human spirit. It has also remained the quintissential symbol of what Americans---and humans, for that matter---can do if they have the will and dedicate the resources. In many ways the future of the human species will be determined by space exploration and space travel, and JFK's jumpstart certainly got us to the Moon 50 or 100 years before it would otherwise have happened, at a time when many feared the U.S. had already lost the Space Race, and that competition with the USSR was pointless.

JFK improved relations with the USSR following the Cuban Missile Crisis in the following ways: (1) He not only publicly made a "no-invasion" pleadge re: Cuba (providing Castro did not reintroduce offensive weapons), but he made clear he was really going to keep his promise, over the objections of many in the military and intelligence communities. (2) Operation Mongoose---the hyperactive program of covert sabotage operations against Cuba---was shut down. (3) The "Peace Speech" at American University on June 10, 1963 was a bold step toward ending the Cold War: it challenged both Americans and Soviet citizens to re-evaluate their opinions of each other, and to learn to live together peacefully. The speech concentrated on the common ground between the two peoples, and soberly discussed the dangers of nuclear war and nuclear testing. Kruschev was so impressed with the speech that he ordered it published verbatim in the Soviet press...without any omissions or changes whatsoever. (4) In September 1963 JFK gave a speech at the U.N. in which he proposed that the USSR and the U.S. cooperate in attempts to land humans on the moon. NASA wasn't too excited over this, and dragged its feet. JFK, irritated, sent written direction to the head of NASA, James Webb, to report in December in writing on ways to cooperate with the Soviets in landing on the moon. (This never happened, of course.) (5) The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, banning tests in the atmosphere, on land, or at sea was signed in October between the USSR and the U.S. It was a landmark of international negotiation and diplomacy, and was the single accomplishment that JFK was proudest of. Doug Horne

On the Groden superior photo of the autopsy what do you think of the surgical-looking wound at the right temporal area? Was this an attempt to find bullet fragments as surely this cannot be just a bullet wound? And what do you think is the cause of the flap just above and behind the right ear? Yes, can you make your medical research memos available on this site? Gerry Greenstone <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Gerry, I think what you are looking at is evidence of post-mortem surgery...evidence tampering, if you will. You and I and numerous others are convinced the damage above the right eye in this photo represents part of an incision; Dr. Peters (a Dallas treating physician who did not see any such damage at Parkland) agreed that it was an incision on the NOVA program in 1988. The extensive damage to the right side and top of the head in the Groden "right-superior profile," and the extensive damage to the top of the head in two other autopsy photos, are also, in my view, blatant evidence of post-mortem surgery which was conducted to (1) remove bullets/bullet fragments, and (2) to change the size and location of the apparent exit wound, and therefore to support the official shooting scenario. Along with me, my boss at the ARRB, Jeremy Gunn(General Counsel) interviewed Nurse Audrey Bell and Dr. Charles Crenshaw in 1997 in Texas. (They had been missed, or overlooked, by the Warren Commission.) Both independently drew, on different days and in different cities, a localized occipital head wound---interpreted by them as an exit---behind the right ear on a blank skull diagram from Grant's Anatomy, and both vociferously and firmly denied that there was any apparent damage to either the top of the skull, or the right side of the skull, at Parkland. Their interview comments were striking, and corroborative of the Dallas doctor same-day reports from 11/22/63, and their testimony to the Warren Commission in 1964. Did you receive my answers yesterday to your 5 questions? I sent 5 replies (one to each question), but cannot see them posted. I will make my key memos available to John Simkin. Doug Horne

The autopsy photographs have never been published by the USG. (The Warren Commission should have published them, but unfortunately decided not to introduce them as evidence, supposedly for reasons of "taste." Whether this was the real reason or not, their decision was inexcusable and has resulted in major controversy and charges of cover-up.) However, certain representative views have been published in various researcher books over the years, starting in 1988 in the trade paperback reissue of David Lifton's monumental tome "Best Evidence." They have also appeared in some of Harrison Livingstone's books, and in Robert Groden's "coffee table" book on the assassination, "The Killing of a President." The sources of the so-called "bootleg" autopsy photographs are twofold: (1) Secret Service Agent James K. Fox---now deceased---made an unauthorized set of black and white prints in 1963; these prints were loaned to researchers in the early 1980s, and the researchers photographed the black and white prints before returning them. It is this set---the "Fox Set"---that ended up in Lifton's 1988 trade paperback version of "Best Evidence." (2) Amateur photographer Robert Groden served as an unpaid photographic consultant to the HSCA from 1976-78; he surreptitiously photographed color prints in the possession of the HSCA staff. When you see color autopsy images in books---such as in Groden's own book cited above---the source are the color images he took of the prints while the HSCA temporarily had possession of them. The only images in the autopsy collection that have not been "bootlegged" are the brain images. (The HSCA produced an artist's rendition of one of the brain photographs in volume 7 of its report.) All images of the body published in the researcher books cited above do indeed represent actual autopsy images...but they are degraded to a greater or lesser extent, and suffer from contrast buildup, which is what happens when you make multi-generational photographic copies. Most of them are also cropped and do not show the entire field of view. Be very careful---and by this I mean very skeptical---of what researchers say about the photographs in their books; they are giving you personal interpretations about what the images appear to show, and as a former ARRB staff member I can tell you that even the "experts" disagree about what the photographs show or do not show. I have viewed the original collection 15 or 16 times...we showed them to some experts to obtain their impressions/opinions, and also used them during our 10 depositions of autopsy witnesses and participants. First, about format: the "original" images in the archives consist of 4" X 5" black and white negatives, and 4" X 5" color positive transparencies (both on duplex film). The brain B & W images are also 4" X 5" in size, but were taken with a press pack, not duplex film. The ARRB staff (namely, my boss, General Counsel Jeremy Gunn, with me assisting) asked many, many interpretive questions about the autopsy photographs of autopsy witnesses and participants, while they were under oath. Those questions, and the answers received, are all recorded in the ARRB deposition transcripts of the following persons (located in the JFK Collection in the National Archives of the United States): Pathologists James J. Humes, J. Thornton Boswell, and Pierre Finck; photographer and assistant photographer John Stringer and Floyd Riebe; X-Ray technicians Jerrol Custer and Edward Reed; FBI agents James Sibert and Francis X. O'Neill; and Navy photographer's mate Saundra Spencer. Although individual answers to the same question often varied from witness to witness, some patterns did emerge: (1) some photographs definitely taken at the autopsy are "missing"---that is, are not in the official collection, and never have been; (2) some individuals developed post mortem film images on types of film (color negatives, for example) that are not, repeat NOT, in the official collection; (3) some photographs seen by developers are NOT in the official collection; (4) the nature of the head wound (as well as the size of the tracheotomy) is markedly different in the autopsy images than what is remembered by Dallas treatment physicians and nurses at Parkland hospital. This is a very complex subject, but one major conclusion can be stated here: many more photographs were taken than are in the official collection; the collection has been "culled." My personal opinion, representing 3 years of work on the staff of the ARRB (including 10 autopsy-related depositions), is that additional photographs were taken during the reconstruction process following the embalming---that is, during the post-mortem restorative process. Some of those images have been intermingled with actual autopsy photos to create a false and misleading impression of the nature of the damage to the President's head. Specifically, both FBI agents told the ARRB under oath that there was a large hole in the right rear of President Kennedy's head at autopsy, and were quite perplexed when they saw images of an apparently intact back-of-the-head in the autopsy collection. Agent O'Neill said it looked like the head (not the images themselves) had been "doctored" or fixed up; Agent Sibert said the photographs of the intact back-of-the-head looked like a "reconstruction." This is indirect corroboration from 2 expert witnesses of the numerous Dallas reports from Parkland Hospital of a blow-out, or exit, in the back of the head. So this is a complex subject, and unlike a normal murder case, one cannot obtain a good sense of what happened from viewing the autosy photos. In fact, one will very likely be deceived. My boss at the ARRB, Jeremy Gunn, often said that to him, the autopsy photo collection was intended "to conceal, rather than to reveal." I believe David Lifton is correct in "Best Evidence" when he posits that the President's body was altered after it left Parkland and prior to the start of the autopsy, in order to remove evidence and change wounds. This was never proven conclusively because: (1) The Warren Commission did not show the autopsy images to the Dallas doctors (who had the "before" view in their memories) when they testified in the Spring of 1964; (2) The HSCA never showed the autopsy images to the Dallas doctors in spite of being asked to do so by several researchers; (3) The ARRB blew it, and never showed the autopsy images to the Dallas doctors during their depositions, in spite of me pleading for this to happen for 3 years. Why? The Archives refused to cooperate and ship the photos to Texas for the depositions, and the ARRB failed to insist that the Dallas physicians come to Washington (where the photos are), as they could and should have. The Photographic Alteration Issue: Many researchers, for years, assumed that the photographs had been altered, thus explaining the differences between the Dallas observations during treatment, and the wounds shown by the photos today. Buy neither Kodak, nor I, found any evidence of photographic alteration in these images, in spite of looking for such evidence when the images were digitally preserved in Rochester, New York. For this reason, as well as others, I have concluded that the reason the autopsy photos do not match the Dallas descriptions of the head wound is because many of the photos in the collection represent a "partial reconstruction" (of the head) performed during the embalming and restorative process on 11/23. I also concluded, for many reasons (as highlighted in a 32-page research paper I wrote while on the ARRB staff), that the brain photographs in the autopsy collection are not photos of President Kennedy's brain; rather, they are photos of someone else's brain designed to fool history (and any prospective audience of future investigators) into believing that a man in a building shot a man in a car. This conclusion of mine---that the autopsy photographic collection is an official fraud designed to support the "lone nut" assassin scenario (of an assailant shooting from above and behind)---is one of the major "smoking gun" legacies of the ARRB, and yet most Americans do not know about this because of limited and spotty press coverage about the ARRB's work. I will be happy to answer additional questions on this issue, and make some of my major medical research memos available to the web site, if requested. END

JFK's management of the US Government during the Cuban Missile Crisis was a masterpiece of crisis management by a sober leader who realized that the origins of Kruschev's placement of the missiles there in the first place lay in the mistakes of the U.S., namely, the attempt to overthrow the Castro governement with the Bay of Pigs invasion. Not only did that exile invasion reveal U.S. hostility, but it revealed U.S. weakness as well. Both Castro and the USSR feared that the next step would be a major, full-scale U.S. invasion, and sought to forestall this with a secret deployment of the missiles for defensive purposes, followed by a bombshell announcement fo the "fait accompli" after the U.S. mid-term elections. (This "defensive" deployment would also---in Kruschev's mind---have "solved," or made up for, the huge missile gap which existed between the superior US missile forces and the inferior USSR missile forces.) The solution---to force Kruschev to withdraw the missiles under tremendous public pressure while the U.S. openly made all preparations to both bomb and invade, was JFK's...no one else's. The recently released secret tape recordings of missile crisis meetings (see "The Kennedy Tapes," by Zelikow and May) reveals more than ever before how many on the National Security Council wanted to bomb immediately, and/or invade as soon as we were ready. JFK went ahead with all preparations to do both, while stalling the hawks in his government one day at a time, and increasing the public propaganda pressure on Kruschev. The blockade of limited military items (i.e., missiles) satisfied no one but JFK! The hawks thought he was being weak and edging toward appeasement, but JFK was smarter than all of those folks. He really did not want to bomb or invade unless or until ALL diplomatic avenues had been totally exhausted. JFK's policy to go ahead and let the Bay of Pigs fail (as it clearly was) and not follow up in April 1961 with U.S. military intervention, and leave Castro in power, may have been the proximate cause of the USSR placing missiles there in 1962...BUT JFK's cool head and sober judgement in October 1962 saved the world from a nuclear war, and achieved our objective as well---removal of the missiles. His peformance in 1962 was masterful. END

JFK, in my view, was trapped by his campaign rhetoric, which had been very tough on Castro's Cuba, and had openly supported Cuban freedom fighters and criticized the USG (Eisenhower and Nixon) for not doing enough to aid the Cuban exiles in the US to overthrow Castro. He really had no choice but to support the CIA's planned invasion by 1500 old men and boys...even though he had serious doubts. (He did not know they were old men and boys at that time...only after the invasion failed.) The Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a masterpiece of weasle-wording, wrote a pre-invasion assessment of the CIA's plans that was very critical of details, but which concluded that the invasion had a "fair" chance of success. The CIA insisted that the invasion would trigger a widescale Cuban revolt and insurrection against Castro---this was the biggest problem with their plan...most of the Cubans who hated Castro had already LEFT CUBA, and gone to the United States! Just as the U.S. recently trusted Iraqi exiles too much (about weapons of mass destruction), the CIA trusted Cuban exiles (and their own wishful thinking) too much about the impending "revolt" that the invasion was supposed to trigger in Cuba. JFK's mistake was in asking his Dad for advice, and in trusting the "experts," rather than listening to his inner voice and making up his own mind. He learned skepticism and caution, and about how bad the CIA's human intelligence really was (sound familiar?), and about the limits of military power, from the Bay of Pigs fiasco. END

Author Tad Szulc, who interviewed Castro extensively in the early 1960s and wrote a Castro biography, related a story about how President Kennedy once launched a "trial balloon" by asking him (Tad Szulc) what he thought about the idea of assassinating Castro. Szulc replied with some horror that he was against that idea very much. JFK immediately agreed, and stated that "others" in government were urging him to do just that. (I believe this was post-Missile Crisis, but I am not abolutely certain.) Tad Szulc related that he felt JFK was being disingenuous, and that he only opined against assassination in order to agree with his guest. My own personal opinion is that JFK must have known about, and approved of, some of the CIA plots to kill Castro. His brother Robert, the Attorney General, played a key role on the 5412 Committee, or "Special Group, Augmented," which was the government committee in the Executive Branch charged with trying to bring down the Castro government through sabotage, dirty tricks, coups, etc. RFK also was personally acquainted with certain CIA officers involved with assassination plots (such as Desmond Fitzgerald). There is no way, in my view, that RFK could have known and JFK NOT known. RFK was JFK's "cutout," for deniability purposes. Now, it is true that JFK made certain peace overtures to Castro following the Missile Crisis, but I think that all this means is that he had a "2-track" policy on Cuba. If Castro would reform and behave responsibly, fine, but President Kennedy probably had no real hope of this, so he was simultaneously prepared to "do him in" to get rid of his regime. Duplicitous? Yes, certainly. But this was the height of the Cold War, and JFK and his brother Robert viewed Castro as an unstable madman, or at the very least a hothead with poor judgment, who had damn near caused World War III by putting Soviet Missiles in Cuba. The Kennedy brothers prided themselves as being "tough"---all the New Frontiersman did. JFK certainly wanted to avoid a nuclear war with the Soviet Union, especially an unintended escalation which could lead to a nuclear war...but in my view he dealt with the Castro problem in a different compartment of his mind...the tough Irish compartment, that wanted revenge against an unstable leader who had embarrassed him (twice) and almost dragged the world into armaggedon. I think it is wishful thinking to believe that JFK knew nothing about Castro assassination plots, and that he never would have approved of them if he had. In my view, JFK would have welcomed an assassination of Castro (if "deniability" had been in place), or a fomented coup against Castro which would have resulted in his death. The death of Castro would have pleased hawks in the US, and would have made a costly and dangerous full-scale invasion unnecessary. END

It became public knowledge in the 1970s, as a result of Congressional investigations, that in 1960 the CIA had recruited certain Mafia bosses...specifically, Sam Giancana and Johnny Roselli...to assassinate Castro. Either the mob was inept at this, or perhaps they simply took the CIA's money (like good con men) and did nothing on purpose, because nothing came of the effort. (Remember, this was inititated during the tail end of the Eisenhower administration by CIA director Allen Dulles, no doubt with Eisenhower's full concurrence.) Unfortunately, this compromised the CIA; the mob then "had something" to hang over the head of the government. This connection has caused some to wonder over the years whether certain very disgruntled CIA Operations Directorate personnel (such as William Harvey) may have recruited Mafia elements to assassinate JFK in 1963, presumably driven by their rage over JFK's refusal to bail out the CIA's failed Bay of Pigs invasion, and JFK's refusal to invade or bomb Cuba during the Missile Crisis in 1962. In my view this suspicion is mere speculation driven by presumed "motive" only, and not by any real or credible evidence. The Mafia, it seems to me, was more likely to wait out the end of the JFK administration if they felt "betrayed" by the Kennedys' war on organized crime, than to attempt an assassination of the President which could very well have greatly accelerated the government campaign against the Mafia, and brought about their total ruin, even if they had succeeded in killing him. In my opinion, the theory that "the Mafia killed President Kennedy" on their own, or even at the behest of others, is one of the biggest "red herrings" in the JFK assassination literature.

I worked on the staff of the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) for the last 3 of its 4 years of existence, from August 1995 to September 1998 (when the ARRB shut down). I served as an Analyst on the Military Records team for all three years; I headed the team (and was given the inflated title "Chief Analyst for Military Records") for its last year-and-a-half, which was "crunch time," as far as getting Cuba and Vietnam documents declassified. I prepared inventories with editorial comments, or "User Guides," for both the key Vietnam records and the key Cuba records that the ARRB deposited in the National Archives. (Steve Tilley, in charge of administering the National Archives' JFK Records Collection, should be able to provide these documents upon request. They are located in my personal working papers, which are on file at the Archives.) We were able to locate and stimulate the release of many more Cuba documents than Vietnam documents, although we had important finds in both areas. Our Cuba records provided some real bombshell material on proposed "pretexts" (in both 1962 and 1963) for U.S. full-scale invasions of Cuba; on "dirty tricks," and sabotage, against the Castro regime; and we actually declassified several versions or iterations of full-scale miltary OPLANS (i.e., contingency plans) for invasions of Cuba dating from 1962 through early 1964. Collectively, these Cuba records document how much the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other Cold War hawks in government (both civilian and military) wanted to implement a full-scale conventional military invasion of Cuba during the 2 years or so following the Bay of Pigs fiasco...something JFK never did. Our principal Vietnam record, the minutes of the 8th SECDEF Conference on Vietnam (May 1963), confirmed once and for all that JFK actually gave orders for, and was implementing, a withdrawl from Vietnam through his Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara.

I worked on the staff of the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) for the last 3 of its 4 years of existence, from August 1995 through September 1998 (when the ARRB shut down). I served as an Analyst on the Military Records team for all 3 years, and headed this team (with the somewhat pompous and inflated job title of "Chief Analyst for Military Records") for its last year-and-a-half. Thanks to the Joint Staff Secretariat, we uncovered the complete meeting minutes for the 8th SECDEF Conference on Vietnam (held in Honolulu at Camp Smith in May 1963), at which SECDEF Robert McNamara directed the U.S. military to pull out 1000 (of the 16,000 total) advisors by the end of the year, and to accelerate withdrawl plans and pull out completely by the end of 1965. Before the ARRB shut down I prepared a "User's Guide" document, or inventory with comments, of the key Vietnam documents we placed in the JFK Collection at the Archives. Steve Tilley at the National Archives should be able to provide this "User's Guide" upon request...it's in my personal papers, which he has on file. END