Pat Speer

At a certain point evidence is logged and signed out and people no longer leave their initials. Dozens of items were handled by the WC's lawyers and none of them were marked with their initials.

They didn't study the photos posted on this thread. They had the negatives and the original prints to work with. The photos you are looking at are probably photos of photos that had been printed in books. So let's see. There's the original negative. Then a photo made from that negative. Then a photo of that photo that was printed in a book. Then a digital copy scanned from that book, or perhaps even a digital copy scanned from a photo of a photo in that book. Either way, that's a long way down, a long way in which the relative contrast within the photo could have been changed, and details could have been lost.

In the eyes of Trump and his ilk, Gore was weak, and should have threatened revolution.

While I frequently disagree with Mantik, he occasionally shows some real class. This is one of those times.

Sorry. I should have been more clear. Groden is basing this on what Knudsen supposedly told others because it sounds exciting and helps sell books. He leaves out that 1) Knudsen was a White House photographer who took pictures of the family, and would have under no circumstances been tasked with taking forensic photographs, 2) Knudsen was interviewed by the HSCA and said under oath that he'd developed photographs taken by others on the morning after the assassination, and that that was the first he'd seen the condition of the body, 3) none of the other witnesses to the autopsy, in particular autopsy photographers John Stringer and Floyd Riebe, said he was there, and 4) he was not listed among those attending the autopsy on the list compiled by Sibert and O'Neil. Unfortunately, Groden (a heckuva nice guy, at least to me) is a sensationalist and is not to be relied upon. He has made claims in recent books and presentations that autopsy photographs among his collection are of Kennedy that are not, and was interviewed on TV saying he'd spoken to 80 something witnesses and all agreed the autopsy photos are fake (which is a big fat fib). When he made this claim at Pittsburgh in 2013, moreover, he caused a bit of a stir, and a number of top researchers came up to me afterwards and shared that Groden had lost touch, if he ever had touch. They even had a word for it--that he'd had a "Groden moment"--a moment when he makes a claim so ridiculous or over the top that everyone around him has to roll their eyes or drop their mouths, or both.

Oh my. Robert Knudsen was not an autopsy photographer and did not take photos of Kennedy's autopsy. Heck, he wasn't even at the autopsy. The autopsy photographer was John Stringer, and his assistant, who took a few photos that were overexposed by the SS, was Floyd Riebe.

The skull and bones got their name from a long-time tradition of grave-robbing and placing skulls and bones in their clubhouse. (Oh those college boys--such cut-ups!) Although they spread the myth they stole Geronimo's bones, this was not true. Hence, when busted, they returned the Native American bones they had been pretending were Geronimo's.

Vince, are earlier versions of this document available without the scrawl?

While I suspect Odum was wrong and that he did show the bullet to Tomlinson and Wright, it's a relatively minor issue. What's important is that people stop pretending the FBI Airtel and letter are in disagreement, and that the letter's saying they thought CE 399 looked like the bullet is a lie. Tomlinson has confirmed the truth of this statement, at least as far as himself. That the FBI letter also says they wouldn't positively ID the bullet further suggests its veracity. As far as FBI verbiage, yes, it's true--saying something looks similar to something else is not a positive ID. Brennan told the SS Oswald looked the most like the assassin of the men in the line-up, but refused to make a positive ID. Tomlinson said the bullet shown him looked like the bullet he discovered but refused to make a positive ID. Both did the right thing. This hesitation continues, moreover, in the FBI's reports. Most fields of study do not lend themselves to positive IDs. The FBI's experts can say things are identical in some fields of study, but only that they are similar in others. Saying something is similar is not to say it is not the same, only that there is an insufficient amount of characteristics or data to reject the possibility they are not the same. In such fields the FBI's agents might be asked the odds of this similarity being a coincidence. And this is where the FBI got itself in trouble. There was a major investigation and house-cleaning back in the 90's I believe after it came out some FBI agents were routinely exaggerating these odds in front of juries. As far as missing 302's, this may or may not mean anything. I have found a number of Hoover letters to the commission that have no internal FBI report as backing (e.g. the ID of the rifle print based on marks on the rifle). There are still others that say an agent spoke to so and so, that fails to name the agent, where there is no record otherwise of any agent speaking to so and so. I agree that this is a problem but it may indicate an overall sloppiness, as opposed to deliberate deception. By way of example, Specter made an allusion to an early report on Tomlinson during Tomlinson's testimony...that was not in the record. This seemed mighty suspicious. I found this report a decade or so, however, in the Commission's key person file on Tomlinson. What happened to the original that should have been in the FBI's files? Who knows?

It is visible in all the photos showing its location once you know where to look.

The NIST said nothing. To my understanding the photo used by Roe in his article has been available for 6 years. When you compare the location of the ET in that photo to earlier photos, moreover, it becomes clear the ET was there for a number of years, in the high res archives images available for 10 years or so, and in the images created by Hunt as far back as 2006 or so.

Tomlinson actually said "I believe Mr. Shanklin" which might very well mean Shanklin was the only FBI agent name he remembered. Or, as previously discussed, it could indicate Shanklin actually was the one who brought the bullet out to Parkland. It doesn't change the fact that an FBI agent brought a bullet out to Parkland which Tomlinson said resembled the bullet he saw on 11-22-63. And it doesn't change the fact that some of my favorite people have grossly misled people into thinking this all means Tomlinson's refusal to ID the bullet means it was not the bullet he saw on 11-22-63, and that some mass conspiracy ensued to cover this up. Jim, I know you know a lot about screen-writing. What's the #1 rule about screenwriting? "Kill your darlings" right? Well, this is a darling. Let it die. You can still have the bullet being planted on the stretcher, etc. But Todd lying about initialing the bullet, and Tomlinson claiming the bullet he discovered was not CE 399? That's just weak sauce that drags down the over-all narrative.

I agree. Even if they are only slightly gouging, the message needs to be sent that he is on the side of consumers.

This is what I mean. You can't just assume people wouldn't forget something because you consider it important. To Odum, it could very well have been just another day at the office. And his latter-day claim he wouldn't forget it means nothing. When I was a kid, my mom accidentally set my hair on fire. It was something we later joked about, and the whole family was in on the joke. But a few years ago she started saying it never happened and I just made it up. She's now 85 and has not suffered severe memory loss. She reads a book a day and does word search puzzles to keep her mind fresh. And she can tell you the names of her school friends and what schools she went to and a ton of details about her past. But that memory is just gone. It happens to all of us. And it gets much worse once one turns the corner past 80. As far as the supposedly contradictory reports, it's just semantics. Here is the wording in the 6-20-64 Airtel from Dallas Special Agent in Charge J. Gordon Shanklin to J. Edgar Hoover: "neither Darrell C. Tomlinson, who found bullet at Parkland Hospital, Dallas, nor O.P. Wright, Personnel Officer, Parkland Hospital, who obtained bullet from Tomlinson and gave to Special Agent Richard E. Johnsen, Secret Service at Dallas 11/22/63, can identify bullet." And here is the wording in the letter sent to the commission on 7-7-64: "On June 12, 1964, Darrell C. Tomlinson...was shown Exhibit C1, a rifle slug, by Special Agent Bardwell D. Odum...Tomlinson stated it appears to be the same one he saw on a hospital carriage at Parkland Hospital on November 22, 1963, but he cannot positively identify the bullet as the one he found and showed to Mr. O.P. Wright...On June 12, 1964, O.P. Wright...advised Special Agent Bardwell D. Odum that Exhibit C1, a rifle slug, shown to him at the time of the interview, looks like the slug found at Parkland Hospital on November 22, 1963 which he gave to Richard Johnsen, Special Agent of the the Secret Service...He advised he could not positively identify C1 as being the same bullet which was found on November 22. 1963..." These are not contradictory. Tomlinson told Marcus and Golz that the bullet looked like the one he saw, but that he could not positively ID it seeing as it didn't have his initials or anything. We need to stop latching onto stuff and then refuse to let it go when contradictory evidence arises. it's a huge distraction from the multitude of evidence for which there is no contradictory evidence.

Tomlinson told Marcus in 66 and Golz in 77 that the FBI came out to the hospital and showed him a bullet. So it's not just the say-so of one report. As far as it being Odum, Tomlinson said he thought Shanklin showed it to him. Shanklin was the big boss in Dallas and I don't recall his going into the field on any other occasion. But I suppose it's possible he handled this himself and pretended it was Odum, in order to conceal his involvement from Hoover. He was the guy, after all, who ordered Hosty to destroy the note from Oswald...and then lied about it under oath. He may very well have handled this himself so that if Tomlinson and Wright said they were positive it wasn't the bullet, he could contain the damage. I would be willing to believe that's what happened, moreover, if Tomlinson hadn't told Marcus and Golz he thought the bullet shown him looked like the bullet he discovered.

Thanks, Gary. That nails it. While the glare from the light partially obscures the E, the ET is right there in the same position as in the other photos.

Yes, of course, we should trust what 82 year-old people say about incidents that happened 38 years before. Because their memories are rock solid and they always tell the truth to researchers. Sorry about the smug tone. But this whole school of "Let's track down a senior and see if their memories conflict with the official story" research has been a waste of time, IMO. And actually worse than that. It's been a red herring that has led people astray. FWIW, I have done this myself a few times. At one point I tracked down Richard Dudman to ask him his current viewpoint on the case. He said he stood by an article he wrote in which he admitted he was was wrong about the hole in the windshield. He also told me that yessiree Dr. Robert Livingston was an old school chum with whom he'd talked about the Kennedy assassination, but that Livingston (who claimed in his old age that he'd talked to Humes on the day of the assassination, and had told Humes about the throat wound) had never mentioned his supposed conversation with Humes to him. This was quite remarkable in that Livingston came forward by contacting Harry Livingstone, after being rebuffed (if I recall) by David Lifton. In any event, Livingston was lifelong friends with a famous journalist who'd written about the assassination, and elected to come forward through the CT community without ever mentioning this to his friend. After communicating with Dudman, however, I decided not to share what I had learned. At least not until his death. I worried that Jim Fetzer or one of his acolytes would show up on Dudman's doorstep and accuse him of lying about Livingston, or some such thing. And my feeling about old age is that seniors should be allowed some peace before they go. Between my mom, my wife's parents, my best friend's parents, and my other best friend's parents, I know 7 people between ages 79 and 88. And they all suffer from memory loss, with 2 suffering from serious dementia. Growing old is not kind to our brains. While we may remember fuzzy feelings and even specifics about some events, entire blocks of time and even years (and sometimes the names of our children) get lost. Gone. Vanished. I'm only 61 and I'm starting to feel the effects of Father Time. Famous faces on television used to have names, but now as often as not I recognize the face but struggle with the name. One other point, which most everyone chooses to ignore. Study after study after study has shown that the clarity of one's memory has little connection to its accuracy. So whenever some researcher says so and so says he has a clear memory that blank happened, or did not happen...you just can't rely on it. You just can't. Among the witnesses I have spoken with is William Newman. And he says that while he knows full well his earliest statements said he'd heard two shots, he now has a clear memory of three shots. He has no recollection, moreover, of changing his mind. He recalls hearing three shots, but looks at the record and sees he at first said two shots, and can't figure out what happened. But I can. While compiling my list of witness statements, I came across numerous inconsistencies. Sometimes they could be attributed to a witness being misquoted by someone writing a report or writing up an interview. But frequently it was the witness' own words that were at odds. Humans are not recording machines, or at least not accurate recording machines. We actually kinda suck at it.

No, I don't think I did. The books I was referring to were mostly paperbacks from the 50's and 60's I picked up at a store that sold old paperbacks 10 for a dollar. The books would have titles like "America in Prophecy" or "John Foster Dulles: Christian Hero." (Not real titles as far as I know.) I wouldn't read them cover to cover, but just enough to get the essence of what they were saying. Some of these books would even have stickers on the front saying "One million sold" or some such thing. So I know they weren't self-published manifestos. These were mass-market books. The kind sold in grocery store spinner racks.

Yes, that Smedley Butler was onto something... When I first got sucked into researching the Kennedy case I binge-bought several thousand books on history, politics, law, etc. And among these books were a number on the U.S.' special role in history. These books actually claimed the U.S. had a special role as described in the Bible and that it was our Christian duty to spread Capitalism (God's favorite economic system) to the world. I'm not kidding. This thinking was apparently quite commonplace among the richest fat cats all the way down to members of the local Rotary Club. I remember, moreover, that several of these books singled out one American as the spiritual leader of the Christian Capitalist movement to conquer the world : John Foster Dulles.

My understanding is that the archives photo used by Roe has been available for awhile. When one looks at the location of the ET, moreover, and compares it to earlier archives photos along with the one published by Hunt in 2006, it's clear this ET is not a recent addition. So, no, there's nothing suspicious about the discovery of this ET. Nor was there anything suspicious about the discovery of the identities of the tramps. When the Kennedy case attracts attention it leads some people (AKA "researchers") to look a little deeper. And, voila, they find things. The assumption that the likes of Weisberg, Lane, Thompson, Lifton, Groden, Mantik, and yes even my friend Hunt, were thoroughly reliable and not prone to error is laughable, IMO. They all made errors. We all make errors. And it is only through the acknowledgement of errors that the case can crawl forward...

The current problem is the global market for energy and food. Russia and Ukraine energy and food are currently unavailable, so their former customers are buying from American companies and competing with the American consumer. Thus, more demand for the same pie. Thus, higher prices. If we were to withdraw from these global markets, moreover, it would open up a new can of worms. Some of our allies would come crawling back to Russia, and embolden Hitler to move on from the Sudetenland to Poland. So we're pretty much screwed as long as Putin plays Risk or whatever that board game was where you conquered the world. One solution might be for Biden to put a limit on profits, and force American companies to sell their products at a lower mark-up here than they get elsewhere. But this is a no-win situation for a Democrat. He would immediately be labeled a socialist and the big companies would flood the airwaves and internet with commercials and exposes on how Joe Biden is a wanna-be Stalin, or some such thing. So if we're looking for a Deep State. That would be it, IMO. "The business of America is business". And boy, do they know it...

I discuss this on my website. From chapter 20: The Low Down on the Short Shot A problem has been raised with this scenario that deserves some discussion. It has been pointed out that an undercharged bullet would take longer to reach its target than a normal round, and that a bullet so undercharged it would barely penetrate Kennedy's back would have to have been aimed well above and beyond Kennedy to hit him in that location. Now, this is indeed difficult to work out. But not impossible, IMO. If the assassin used the scope on the first shot, the misalignment of the scope would lead him to fire 14 inches high or more at only 53 yards, the distance of the limo from the sniper's nest around frame 190 of the Zapruder film. As the bullet struck Kennedy on his back, and not his head, moreover, it follows that the bullet struck Kennedy a good 10 inches below where it was originally aimed (assuming, of course, that the bullet was aimed at his head.) This suggests, then, that the bullet struck Kennedy about 24 inches below where it was originally headed. So now let's consider that the presumed target, Kennedy, was moving at the time. Robert Frazier's testimony before the Warren Commission reflects that someone firing the rifle found in the building would need to lead Kennedy by 6 inches or so to strike him at 90 yards. We can extrapolate from this, then, that one might need to lead Kennedy by 4 inches or so at 53 yards. Well, if the bullet was traveling but one sixth its normal velocity, as is suggested by the shallow wound on Kennedy's back, the sniper firing this bullet would have to have led Kennedy by 24 inches or so. Let's check the math. 1. The rifle, when using the scope and standard ammo, fires 14 inches high. 2. The target moves 24 inches higher in the time it takes the bullet to reach the target. 3. The bullet lands about 10 inches below the center of the target. Well, this suggests the bullet landed pretty much where we would expect it to land. So what's the problem? Bullet drop. Ballistics calculators suggest that a bullet traveling but 350 fps (the fastest one can presume it was traveling and still have the bullet barely make a hole on Kennedy's back) would drop about 36 inches over the distance to Kennedy. Well, this suggests that the shot landed about 36 inches higher than it should have, and that the sniper was therefore aiming about 36 inches above Kennedy at the time of the first shot. Hmmm... While I'm not so sure we can trust these numbers, there is reason to believe that, even if accurate, this three feet of bullet drop is not lethal to the proposition Kennedy was hit with a short shot. So, how's that? Since the short shot occurred, we can only presume, due to the sniper's improperly hand-loading the bullet, and since we have separately come to conclude subsonic ammunition was used in the assassination, we can assume the sniper knew full well that this bullet was not gonna travel at its usual velocity, and to have compensated for this by firing 11 inches or so higher than normal. This puts the original target about 25 inches higher than one would expect. Or less. A Marine Corps sniper book in my possession recommends that right-handed shooters tracking a target from left to right double their lead, as there is a "natural hesitation in follow through when swinging against the shooting shoulder." So, yikes, this suggests the original target may have been as little as 14 inches higher than one would expect And that's not the only bit of subtraction in order. The bullet, if fired from the sniper's nest, was fired from about 21 degrees above Kennedy at frame 190 of the Zapruder film. Well, this cuts the presumed bullet drop down from 3 feet to as little as 27 inches or so. And this puts the original target around 5 inches higher than one would otherwise expect. Now, this is all guesswork, of course, but I think we can agree that there are just too many variables to dismiss that an undercharged bullet hit Kennedy--and to say this proves the bullet striking Kennedy in the back actually went into his chest, etc.

At the time, Kinney knew nothing of Oswald or even where the shots came from. All he knew is that in his desire to clean up some of the blood and conceal the President's brains from the crowd, he had improperly screwed up a crime scene, which could result in his termination. So he put the bullet on a gurney he thought had been used to carry the President, and went back to the limo. It's telling, IMO, that no report describing the clean-up of the limo was published by Kinney or anyone in the SS, even though the clean-up was viewed by the media and mentioned in numerous publications. The SS knew it was a major snafu, and sought to keep it out of the public eye. This CYA mentality among the SS was exacerbated, moreover, by talk of LBJ disbanding the SS detail and handing Presidential protection over to Hoover, and by Drew Pearson's column detailing how members of the SS detail were out drinking on the night before the assassination. And then, of course, there was that black SS agent spewing stuff about alcoholism within the SS as well as other assassination attempts with a similar MO as what supposedly happened in Dallas. He had to go away as well. The continued existence of the SS Presidential detail depended on it.

I went ahead and made a slide demonstrating the two ETs.

No, absolutely not. I suspect the bullet was undercharged and caused Kennedy's back wound, and that it was then found in the limo during the clean-up outside Parkland. I suspect further that SS agent Sam Kinney discovered it and then placed it on a stretcher he thought was associated with the assassination, but was in fact the stretcher used in the treatment of Ronnie Fuller. (IOW. I think Tink nailed this last part.)