Pat Speer

I believe I heard the story about Chism's brother and his girlfriend from two if not three different researchers. I don't know if I believe it, but they seemed to believe it. As far as "black dog man", the figure is so indistinct I don't think we can tell if it's a man or a woman. As I sit here right now, I think the image is consistent with a dark-skinned African-American woman dressed all in black's eating her lunch. If I'm not mistaken Marilyn Sitzman supported this possibility by claiming a black woman broke a bottle on the sidewalk just after the shots. And, come to think of it, I think there's footage of this spilled soft drink somewhere--is it in Darnell's footage? I don't recall. But as I recall there's footage of a soda spill right by where this woman was supposedly sitting.

Seeing as some have taken to claiming President Kennedy was killed by a shot fired from the front, and suffered no wound of any substance on the front or top of his head beyond a small entrance wound on his forehead, I present some quotes as a reminder of why most long-time researchers believe this to be bunkum. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy (11-29-63 interview with Theodore White, notes released 5-26-95, and subsequently published in the September 1995 Kennedy Assassination Chronicles) “They were gunning the motorcycles; there were these little backfires; there was one noise like that; I thought it was a backfire. Then next I saw Connally grabbing his arm and saying no no no nonono, with his fist beating—then Jack turned and I turned—all I remember was a blue gray building up ahead, then Jack turned back, so neatly; his last expression was so neat; he had his hand out, I could see a piece of his skull coming off; it was flesh colored not white—he was holding out his hand—and I can see this perfectly clean piece detaching itself from his head; then he slumped in my lap.” (When describing the immediate aftermath of the shots) "All the ride to the hospital, I kept bending over him saying, "Jack, Jack, can you hear me, I love you, Jack." I kept holding the top of his head down trying to keep the..." (When describing her husband's condition upon arrival at the hospital) "From here down"--and here she made a gesture indicating her husband's forehead--"his head was so beautiful. I'd tried to hold the top of his head down, maybe I could keep it in...I knew he was dead." (4-7-64, 5-4-64, 5-7-64, 5-8-64, and 7-20-64 interviews with William Manchester, as represented in The Death of a President, 1967) (On the first shot) "Jacqueline Kennedy believed it was a motorcycle noise." (On Connally's screaming) "Jacqueline Kennedy heard him. In a daze she wondered 'Why is he screaming?' Already she had started to turn anxiously to her husband." (On the final shot) "The First Lady, in her last act as First Lady, leaned solicitously toward the President. His face was quizzical. She had seen that expression so often, when he was puzzling over a difficult press conference question. Now, in a gesture of infinite grace, he raised his right hand, as though to brush back his tousled chestnut hair. But the motion faltered. The hand fell back empty. He had been reaching for the top of his head. But it wasn't there any more." Governor John Connally (12-13-63 FBI report on a 12-11 interview, CD188, p. 3-5) “I was conscious of a third shot and heard it…we were all splattered with what I thought was brain tissue from President Kennedy." (4-21-64 testimony before the Warren Commission, 4H129-146) “I reclined with my head in her lap, conscious all the time, and with my eyes open, and then, of course, the third shot sounded, and I heard the shot very clearly. I heard it hit him. I heard the shot hit something…I heard it hit. It was a very loud noise, just that audible, very clear…Immediately, I could see on my clothes, my clothing, I could see on the interior of the car…brain tissue….on my trousers there was one chunk of brain tissue as big as almost my thumb..." Nellie Connally (12-13-63 FBI report, CD188, p.6-7) “she was facing the front of the car when the first shot was fired and turned to her right towards President Kennedy and saw him with his hand at his throat and then slump down. …almost immediately Governor Connally recoiled in the opposite direction from her and was heard to remark “My God, they are going to kill us all.” She had feelings that buck shot was falling all around them and then she realized it was probably brain matter from President Kennedy’s head…" (4-21-64 testimony before the Warren Commission, 4H146-149) “I never again looked in the back seat of the car after my husband was shot…I remember that he turned to the right and then just slumped down into the seat, so that I reached over to pull him toward me…The third shot that I heard I felt, it felt like spent buckshot falling all over us, and then, of course, I too, could see that it was the matter, brain tissue, or whatever, just human matter, all over the car and both of us..." Motorcycle Officer James Chaney, who was traveling just behind Kennedy and on his right. (11-22-63 interview with KLIF radio, reportedly around 12:45 PM--but not broadcast at that time--as presented on the KLIF album The Fateful Hours. Note: parts of this interview were also played in the 1976 CFTR radio program Thou Shalt Not Kill.) "On the first shot we thought it was a motorcycle backfire. I looked to my left and so did President Kennedy, looking back over his left shoulder, and when the second shot struck him in the face then we knew that someone was shooting at the President." (When then asked if he saw where the bullet had come from) "No, all I knew is it come over my right shoulder." Motorcycle Officer Douglas Jackson rode to the right of Chaney. (Notes written on the night of 11-22-63 as reprinted in The Kennedy Assassination Tapes, 1979): "I looked then back to my right and behind me then looked back toward Mr. Kennedy and saw him hit in the head; he appeared to have been hit just above the right ear. The top of his head flew off away from me." (On what happened after they arrived at Parkland Hospital and he approached the limo) "An agent opened the car door and started to get Mrs. Kennedy out but Mrs. Kennedy said no. It's no need she said and raised up from over Mr. Kennedy. I could see the top of his head was gone, his left eye was bulged out of socket. The agent said "Oh no!" and started crying, pulled his coat off, and placed it over Mr. Kennedy's head." Abraham Zapruder stood on a pedestal in the arcade on the North side of Elm. (11-22-63 notes of an unknown reporter found in the files of the Dallas Times Herald, and quoted in Pictures of the Pain by Richard Trask, p. 149, published 1998.) “Abraham Zapruder…heard 3 shots///after first one Pres slumped over grabed stomac…hit in stomac…two more shots///looked like head opened up and everything came out…blood spattered everywhere…side of his face…looked like blobs out of his temple… forehead… Jackie first reached over to the Pres. And after second shot…she crawled over to back of car…after that she was lying…” Marilyn Sitzman, Zapruder's secretary who was standing beside and in back of him. (11-22-63 notes on an interview of Sitzman by a Dallas Times-Herald reporter, presumably Darwin Payne, as presented in The Zapruder Film by David Wrone, 2003) "Shot hit pres. Right in the temple." William Newman was standing on the north side of Elm Street with his wife and two kids and can be seen in the Muchmore film just behind Kennedy as the fatal shot is fired. (11-22-63 interview on WFAA, prior to the announcement of the President's death, at approximately 12:45) “I don't know who was hit first but the President jumped up in his seat, and I thought it scared him, I thought it was a firecracker, cause he looked, you know, fear. And then as the car got directly in front of us well a gunshot apparently from behind us hit the President in the side of the temple.” (11-22-63 third interview on WFAA, at approximately 1:10 PM) “My wife and my two sons were standing at the curb, looking at the President approaching us, when we heard a blast. And the President looked like that he right jumped up in his seat, and by that time he was directly in front of us. And then he......we seen him get shot in the side of the head. And he fell back in his seat and Governor Connally was holding his stomach. Frances Gayle Newman was Bill Newman's wife 11-22-63 second interview on WFAA, at approximately 1:17 PM) “We were standing next to the curb so the children could see the President. And the car was just up apiece from us and this shot fired out, and I thought it was a firecracker, and the President kind of raised up in his seat. And I thought, you know, he was kind of going along with a gag or something. And then all of a sudden the next one popped, and Governor Connally grabbed his stomach and kind of laid over to the side. And then another one—it was just awful fast. And President Kennedy reached up (with both hands she reaches for her right temple) and grabbed--it looked like he grabbed--his ear and blood just started gushing out. (11-22-63 statement to Dallas Sheriff’s Department, 24H218) “Just about the time President Kennedy was in front of us, I heard another shot ring out and the President put his hands up to his head, I saw blood all over the side of his head.” Emmett Hudson was standing on the grassy knoll steps to the right and In front of the President. (7-22-64 testimony before the Warren Commission, 7H558-565) “I was trying to get a good look at President Kennedy. I happened to be looking right at him when that bullet hit him, the second shot…it looked like it hit him somewhere along a little bit behind the ear and a little bit above the ear." (8-2-68 interview with Barry Ernest recounted in The Girl on the Stairs, published 2011) "When I inquired about the shots, he repeated what he had said to the Commission: they sounded as if they came from above, behind, and to the left. 'Above, behind, and to the left of what?' I asked. 'Above and behind the motorcade, and to the left of me' he replied." James Altgens was on the opposite side of the street from Hudson and was pretty much in front of Kennedy, due to the curvature of the street. (7-22-64 testimony before the Warren Commission, 7H517-525) “There was flesh particles that flew out of the side of his head in my direction from where I was standing, so much so that it indicated to me that the shot came out of the left side of his head. Also, the fact that his head was covered with blood, the hairline included, on the left side all the way down, with no blood on his forehead or face--- suggested to me, too, that the shot came from the opposite side, meaning in the direction of this Depository Building" Note: this is just a small sample of the dozens of eyewitness statements which either describe a wound on the top or side of Kennedy's head, or an ejection of matter forwards from his position when hit. These witness statements are incompatible with the pet theory of some that there was no wound on the top or side of JFK's head, and that all films showing as much are fake.

Thanks, Doug. Much appreciated.

One of my earliest "discoveries" if you will was that Tink Thompson had misrepresented the statements of F. Lee Mudd in Six Seconds in Dallas, and that Mudd is most probably the man on the steps by Hudson. As far as the man behind them who immediately takes off and runs back into the train yards, I have heard from several researchers that he was Faye Chism's brother, and that he and his girlfriend at the time--who was sitting behind the short wall, and who people called "black dog man"--had no interest in coming forward, and wanted to be left alone. Perhaps someone else on this forum has more information... If so, please share...

Unfortunately, Charles, there are circles, in academia, in law enforcement, and the media, for example, where the belief Oswald was the sole shooter, and all this talk of conspiracy paranoid nonsense, is worn like a badge of honor. A lot of these people never studied the case beyond reading a few news articles, and maybe watching a TV program or two, but they are convinced (and want others to be convinced) that Oswald was guilty because they look at the LN side and see the Warren Commission, Arlen Specter, J. Edgar Hoover, Walter Cronkite, and Vincent Bugliosi, and then look at the CT side and see Mark Lane, Jim Garrison, Robert Groden, David Lifton, Oliver Stone, and James Fetzer. The one side seems reasonable and the other side not so much.

Thanks, Stu. I was hoping you'd weigh in. And yes, you are correct, the elements within specific types of bullets are not random. But the larger point I was trying to make was that two samples from the same bullet can have enough variation where one can not say they came from the same bullet, and two bullets from the same box can have enough variation where one can't say they came from the same box. So the use of NAA to support that the wrist fragment matched the magic bullet was smoke, and its subsequent denouncement as junk science is proper. What gets lost in the process, however, is that the protocols established by Guinn prior to his testimony were that a bullet would need to match on three key elements before you could claim it was a match. And it only matched on one, really--antimony. The wrist fragment matched roughly half the other fragments on silver, and failed to match at all on copper. Now, Guinn claimed the sample was tainted by the copper jacket so he threw that one out. But his papers reveal that arsenic was to be used as a back-up in such circumstances, and no results for arsenic were revealed. So the fragment and magic bullet did not match...according to Guinn's science papers. And it follows that his testimony was a deliberate deception.

As discussed in chapter 4f on my website, the paraffin tests for nitrate performed by the DPD were unreliable and were shortly thereafter discontinued. But the tests for gun shot residue using a nuclear reactor--NAA--are still considered reliable, even though they are no longer performed because a similar cheaper alternative has become available. Now, the use of NAA for comparative bullet lead analysis-the test that supposedly linked the magic bullet to the Connally wrist fragment (but really did not)--well, that has been disavowed by the FBI and is no longer performed. But the problem wasn't that the tests were inconclusive--they worked perfectly. No, the problem was that the assumptions behind the interpretation of the results was dog doo-doo, junk science. Essentially, the assumption was that each lot of bullets contained a unique blend of elements. But this turned out to be false. The elements within each lot are not equally dispersed, meaning two bullets from the same lot could have a different amount of any given element. But it was worse than that. This lack of consistency also occurs within each bullet, whereby two fragments taken from the same bullet could have vastly different proportions of any given element. And that's not even to mention that the way bullets are manufactured and distributed could lead to a situation where two nearly identical bullets from the same melt would end up in different boxes shipped across the county from one another. So, knowing this, what was the FBI to tell a jury if two bullets or two bullet fragments matched? That they MAY have come from the same bullet, or MAY have come from the same box, but that they really couldn't be sure? So they just dropped it.

Greetings, Doug. I purchased digitized copies of the papers sent to Weisberg years before any of this stuff was available online. I present my take on these and other pertinent materials, some of which I had to purchase from the U.S. Dept. of Commerce, in Chapter 4f of my website, available here https://www.patspeer.com/chapter4fcastsofcontention Now, this is essentially a short book. So at one point a scientist from Europe--whose name has slipped through the cracks--shortened and simplified this material and my discussion of this material and tried to create a page for this on wikipedia. But the McAdams devotees then in charge of all stuff JFK on wikipedia wouldn't allow it because...because...essentially two reasons. The first was that these test results were not discussed by (what they called) a credible source, namely Bugliosi. And the second was that the materials sent Weisberg had no NARA numbers because...because...these materials were never sent to NARA. In short, these cowards refused to allow any mention of these results on wikipedia, even when I offered to put them in contact with the Hood Library which could confirm these were materials provided Weisberg as a result of a lawsuit.

If you click on your name in the right corner above, by your photo, a list will scroll down. One of the items on this list is Attachments. If you click on that you can then see which attachments are the largest, and then go back to the threads in which they have been added and remove them.

Thank you for the bad joke. I happen to like bad jokes, but they are not for everyone. Here is the x-ray taken of the fragments brought in during the autopsy, as confirmed by everyone. Note the beveled entrance/exit, with metal fragments. Everyone to study this x-ray from the night of the assassination on down has noted this. Are you saying that they all lied? P.S. In case you were wondering, yes, of course, I noticed that you were just making all this stuff up so you won't have to admit you are wrong about anything. Why it was only what? yesterday? that you and your partner were claiming the triangular fragment was thrown into the limo. Now, today, after some guidance from your master (Horne) you are claiming the triangular fragment was cut off from the skull by Humes (even though it bears no sign of a saw cut, and even though Horne cites Reed as a witness to this when Reed specified that he saw Humes saw the forehead--not top of the head, forehead--AFTER he, Reed, and Custer had taken the x-rays of skull showing frontal bone already missing. It's GIGO. As far as the Harper Fragment...oh, please, do some research!!! If you pick up an anatomy book and look at the inner aspect of the occipital bone you will notice in a matter of seconds that the fragment bears no resemblance to the inner aspect of the occipital bone. For what's worse, you will notice that if the Harper fragment is occipital bone well it would encompass almost the entire occipital bone from side to side. So why do you continue claiming it was broken off a bigger piece of bone? How does that make any sense? I mean, really. In your take there is a massive hole on the back of the head. And no hole on the front of the head. And so you've conjured up this fantasy in which the fragment purportedly found in the limo was actually cut from JFK's head by Humes so they could pretend it came from a hole on the top of the head. Well, okay, this is bizarre, but at least it's consistent. So why include in your theory that the Harper fragment was broken off a bigger piece of bone and then thrown in the plaza? Does that make any sense? They already have a beveled entrance low on the back of the head (which you probably believe was faked). And they have a beveled exit on the triangular fragment (which you claim failed to exist). So NO more fragments were necessary for them to come to a conclusion. They had all they needed. If you agree with Mantik, moreover, then you believe the Harper fragment was clear-cut evidence for an entrance by the EOP. But they already had evidence for this on the intact bone. So why would they do anything other than destroy it, as its existence, once found, might prove the back of the head was blown out, and that they had lied about the EOP entrance? Respectfully, your theory makes no sense. Oh, wait, I think I get it. You're trying to account for Hill and Kinney's claiming there was a fragment in the limo, while also explaining how the Harper fragment ended up to the west of the limo's location when fired upon. But it just makes no sense. Nothing would be gained by throwing the fragment back into the plaza. And, besides...how could a large bone fragment be blown out of the back of JFK's head,,,and then end up on the floor the limo? What? Do you think it was a flap? That Jackie pulled off and tossed to the floor?

LOL. Your posts are nothing but cut and pastes, repeating the same stuff over and over, much of it nonsense from Horne. You almost never address any point raised by anyone else. You just shout them down with pages and pages of small ole same ole. As far as the camera, yes, I discuss it on my website and even mention Horne.

From Chapter 19d: Lost in the Jungle with Kurtz The bibliography to 1982's Crime of the Century, a book Kurtz obviously spent some time on, listed the following interviews: Roger Craig 8-18-72 (Curiously, one of the end notes refers to a 10-6-72 interview of Craig.) Helen Forrest (Mrs. James Forrest) 5-17-74 Jerry Herald 4-17-78 Fred Bouchard 5-18-78 George Wilcox 9-9-79 Van Burns 9-1-80 Numerous other interviews, the transcripts of which are in the author’s possession. This bibliography listed hundreds of sources--books, articles, government reports, etc. But, of the numerous interviews Kurtz claimed to have conducted, only these six were listed. Strikingly, none of these interviews (with the possible exception of Dallas Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig) were of a well-known witness or high-ranking member of the government. The 1993 edition of Crime of the Century, moreover, listed an additional hundred or so sources--books, articles, audio visual materials, etc... And yet, no more interviews were listed. So who were Craig, Forrest, Herald, Bouchard, Wilcox, and Burns? Well, Herald was a free-lance news photographer in 1964. He purportedly told Kurtz the real story behind a few of the stories to come out of Dallas in the aftermath of the shooting. Bouchard, on the other hand, was a supposed ballistics expert, who supposedly told Kurtz some details about the supposed assassination weapon. Okay, we have little reason to doubt these interviews occurred. The other interviews were more suspicious. No information is provided on Wilcox, other than that he supposedly saw Oswald with David Ferrie. Van Burns was a sociology professor at Southeastern Louisiana University. His interview with Kurtz was unexplained in the 1982 edition of Crime of the Century, but explained by Kurtz in his 1993 introduction, when he reported that Burns was yet another witness claiming he saw Oswald with Ferrie. (In The JFK Assassination Debates, of course, Kurtz fails to even mention these supposedly important witnesses that he himself uncovered.) That leaves Craig and Forrest. Craig was a Dallas County Deputy Sheriff, one of the first to run towards Dealey Plaza. He told the Warren Commission he saw Oswald run out to a car after the shooting, but was not believed by the commission, nor by his superiors in the Sheriff's office. It seems possible he spoke to Kurtz in 1972. This brings us to Forrest. She is purported to have not only backed up Craig's story, claiming she was in the plaza after the shooting and saw a man who looked like Oswald run out to a car, but to have backed up Kurtz's ultimate conclusion the first shot was fired from the second floor of the school book depository, by telling him she saw someone with a rifle on the second floor of the depository around noon, a half hour before the shooting. Now, this is puzzling. Kurtz claimed to have discovered a key witness who saw something no one else claimed to see, but provided no details as to what she saw (I mean, really, WHERE on the second floor did she see this man with a rifle?), and no details as to how he came to interview her. While many researchers have innocently quoted Kurtz's claims about Mrs. Forrest, for that matter, no researcher, outside Kurtz, has ever claimed to have spoken to her or been able to ascertain the validity of 1) her account, and 2) Kurtz's claims of her account. For all we know, she was a schizophrenic Kurtz met at Mardi Gras. For all we know, Kurtz had a fever dream about the big band singer Helen Forrest, in which she sang about Oswald and a man with a rifle, while backed up by the Harry James Orchestra. Now compare and contrast the list of interviews provided in Crime of the Century to a list of interviews cited in The JFK Assassination Debates--which I have created from Kurtz's end notes. (Where I have found the date of death of the interviewee, I have added it in parentheses. Names without DODs do not necessarily mean the interviewee is still alive, only that I couldn't readily ascertain the interviewee's date of death.) 6-6-68 Robert O Canada (DOD--12-6-72, age 59) 3-6-70 Charles Gregory (DOD 4-76, age 56) 1-10-71 Clem Sehrt (DOD 6-1-74, age 64) 5-5-72 Roger Craig (DOD 5-15-75, age 39) (Note that the date of this interview fails to match either of the dates presented in Crime of the Century.) 5-17-72 Bernard Fensterwald (DOD 4-2-91, age 69) 9-6-72 Henry Kmen (DOD 9-1-78, age 62) 8-18-73 Consuela Martin 10-9-75 Milton Helpern (DOD 4-22-77, age 75) 5-15-77 Craig Craighead 5-8-78 Billy Abel 7-8-78 Jesse Curry (DOD 6-22-80, age 66) 6-8-79 Henry M. Morris (DOD 4-91, age 69) 3-15-81 Hunter Leake (DOD 5-5-93, age 82) 3-18-81 Samuel Wilson (DOD 93, age 82) 3-18-81 Bernard Eble (also cited as Eberle?) (DOD 8-19-09?, age 95?) 3-14-82 Henry M. Morris (DOD 4-91, age 69) 4-16-83 Santos Miguel Gonzalez (later listed as Miguel Santos Gonzalez) 5-7-83 Robert A Maurin Sr. (DOD 1962, age 75) (Note: He probably meant Robert Maurin II--DOD--1988, age 70) 12-14-83 George Burkley (DOD 1-2-91, age 88) 1-16-84 Roy Kellerman (DOD 3-22-84, age 69) 1-16-84 William Greer (DOD 2-23-85, age 75) 3-18-84 Jesse Curry (DOD 6-22-80, age 66) 6-8-84 Hamilton Johnson (DOD 12-12-99?, age 93?) 6-17-84 Edward Grady Partin (DOD 3-11-90, age 66) 7-7-85 Edward Grady Partin (DOD 3-11-90, age 66) 7-17-85 William George Gaudet (DOD 1-19-81, age 72) 9-3-85 Allen (Black Cat) Lacombe (DOD 7-89, age 71) 9-6-85 Seth Kantor (DOD 8-17-93, age 67) 11-12-85 William Hawk Daniels (DOD 1-22-83, age 68) 5-17-86 Robert Shaw (DOD 1992, age 87?) 6-6-86 William Hawk Daniels (DOD 1-22-83, age 68) 9-14-86 Abe Fortas (DOD 4-5-82, age 71) 9-16-86 Leon Jaworski (DOD 12-9-82, age 77) 10-9-86 Joseph R. Dolce (DOD 3-15-94, age 85) 12-7-86 Henry Mentz (DOD 1-23-05, age 84) 5-19-87 Seth Kantor (DOD 8-17-93, age 67) 8-23-87 Manuel Artime (DOD 11-18-77, age 45) 6-12-88 Joseph R. Dolce (DOD 3-15-94, age 85) 10-8-88 Henry Mason 10-20-88 Eddie Adams 4-19-89 Deborah Schillace (DOD 1-1-12, age 56) 8-12-89 Morey Sear (DOD 9-6-04, age 75) 10-13-89 Robert Bouck (DOD 4-27-08, age 89) 8-15-90 Robert Livingston (DOD 4-26-02, age 83) 9-17-90 Sidney Johnston 2-17-91 William Eckert (DOD 9-24-99, age 73) 5-5-91 Edward Brown 11-6-91 Richard M. Bissell, Jr. (DOD 2-7-94, age 84) 11-7-93 Oren Anthony (Orien Anthon on final list) 11-18-93 David Belin (DOD 1-17-99, age 70) 11-18-93 J. Wesley Liebeler (DOD 9-25-02, age 71) 10-3-94 Richard Helms (DOD 10-23-02, age 89) 8-6-95 William Eckert (DOD 9-24-99, age 73) 3-18-97 James Humes (DOD 5-06-99, age 74) 11-21-2003 Henry Lee Kurtz's end notes also make reference to these undated interviews: Sylvia Meagher (DOD 1-14-89, age 67) Luis Alvarez (DOD 9-1-88, age 77) Tad Szulc (DOD 5-21-01, age 74) Lou Russell On page 246, furthermore, Kurtz provides a master list of those he'd interviewed in relation to the assassination. This includes the additional names: Gary Aguilar Russell Fisher (DOD 5-21-84, age 67) Michael Griffith Vincent P. Guinn (DOD 11-7-02, age 85) David Mantik John McCone (DOD 2-14-91, age 89) Charles Nelson Dean Rusk (DOD 12-20-94, age 85) Well, first note the number of high-profile interviews. While Crime of the Century boasted no interviews with prominent witnesses or high-ranking government officials, The JFK Assassination Debates laid claim to interviews with the two Secret Service agents riding in the front of Kennedy's limousine at the time of the shooting, the head of the Presidential Protection unit of the Secret Service, Kennedy's personal physician, the doctor who performed Kennedy's autopsy, the Commanding Officer of the hospital where the autopsy was performed, two of Governor Connally's doctors, the chief of the Dallas Police, two Warren Commission attorneys, a wound ballistics expert who consulted with the Warren Commission, two prominent physicists who conducted research related to Kennedy's assassination, three prominent forensic pathologists, a legendary forensic scientist, two former directors of the CIA, one of whom was a former director of black ops for the CIA, a second former director of black ops for the CIA, Kennedy's Secretary of State, two judges, and a former Supreme Court justice and top adviser to President Lyndon Johnson. Most of these interviews, furthermore, were purported to have occurred before Crime of the Century was re-issued in 1993. Well, why weren't these interviews mentioned in Crime of the Century? Or in articles or at conferences written or conducted prior to the release of The JFK Assassination Debates in 2006? To be clear, Dr. Kurtz teased his upcoming book in a 11-4-03 press release put out by Southeastern Louisiana University, and this press release mentioned but one interview--with Dr. Robert Shaw, Governor Connally's doctor, whose rejection of the single-bullet theory had been in the public record for decades. If Kurtz had actually interviewed rarely-interviewed doctors such as Canada, Burkley, Humes, and Fisher he would almost certainly have mentioned them before mentioning his interview with a more commonly-interviewed subject as Shaw. That only makes sense. Let's get real. One would think an historian would brag to the high hills about his numerous interviews with important historical figures. And yet here we have an historian who listed "numerous interviews" in the only book he was likely to write on a subject, only to come back 24 years later and claim that among these "numerous interviews" were some of the most prominent figures of the 1960's, nearly all of whom were now dead. This doesn't ring true, at all. Here is a promotional blurb put out by The University of Tennessee Press for the 1982 edition of Crime of the Century: "Thoroughly documented and based on the most exhaustive research carried out to date on John Kennedy's murder, Crime of the Century draws on a variety of primary source materials from the National Archives and the FBI's and CIA's declassified assassination files. It utilizes the latest source materials released by the House Select Committee's investigation. The depth of research, the rigorously objective sifting of evidence, and the incisive critique of official investigative bias make this a book of importance not only to students of the Kennedy assassination in particular, but also to scholars of government response to political violence in general." Notice anything? By 1982, Kurtz had supposedly already interviewed both Robert Canada and Hunter Leake, two of the most revelatory interviews ever conducted, or at least claimed to have been conducted, regarding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. And yet these interviews were not only not mentioned in Kurtz's 1982 book based on the "most exhaustive research carried out to date on John Kennedy's murder", they were not mentioned in a blurb put out by his publisher pushing the greatness of his research. No interviews, in fact, are mentioned anywhere in the blurb. Hmmm... Which seems more likely? That Kurtz's publisher forgot to add in that "Oh yeah, by the way, the good professor has been conducting his own investigation into the assassination, and has conducted some interviews that will change the way we look at Kennedy's autopsy and Oswald's possible connections to the CIA"? Or that Kurtz kept these interviews a secret from his own publisher? Or that, by golly, these interviews were never actually conducted? Now note that, aside from Roger Craig, whose interview in The JFK Assassination Debates has a different date than the two offered in Crime of the Century, the interview subjects listed in Crime of the Century, including the mysterious Helen Forrest, who Kurtz relied upon at two key points in Crime of the Century, and the mysterious George Wilcox, who purportedly saw Oswald with Ferrie, are no longer even listed among those Kurtz has interviewed. Now note that the first interview listed for The JFK Assassination Debates is Kurtz's interview with Dr. Robert Canada. This is more than curious. Why would Kurtz conduct his first interview regarding the assassination with Dr. Canada? Why not with Dr.s Humes, Boswell, and Finck, who'd actually performed the autopsy? Or some of the witnesses to the assassination itself? And why would Kurtz's second interview regarding the assassination not come until 1970, when he supposedly interviewed one of Governor Connally's doctors, Dr. Charles Gregory? Is it a coincidence that, much as Dr. Canada, Dr. Gregory died in 1976, at a relatively young age? (Canada died at 59. Gregory died at 56.) Is it another coincidence, for that matter, that they died at a younger age than all but one of the subjects Kurtz claimed to have interviewed prior to 1987? I mean, really, did Kurtz simply have a knack for interviewing people no one else was interviewing--before they dropped dead and no one else could interview them? Or is it more likely that, hmmm, Kurtz was just making up dates for a number of his interviews, and was forced to place the dates for those who died young in years preceding his other interviews? Now note the date of the last interview. It's Dr. Henry Lee on 11-21-03. Well, that's the day Kurtz moderated a panel on the basic facts of the assassination at the Solving the Great American Murder Mystery Conference in Pittsburgh. Dr. Lee was also in attendance at this conference. It seems likely, then, that this "interview" was not set up in advance, with prepared questions, but was more like a discussion of two men at a conference. Now note the date of the last interview before the one with Dr. Lee. It's an interview with Dr. James Humes, who performed Kennedy's autopsy, on 3-18-97. Well, this is nine years before the release of The JFK Assassination Debates. Are we really supposed to believe that someone claiming to have conducted "numerous interviews" relating to Kennedy's assassination in the 1970's and 1980's would fail to conduct ANY interviews while piecing together a book that is likely to be his final word on the subject? I mean, not one? Now note the highlighted interviews. These interviews all supposedly took place when the interview subject was DEAD.

Horne's suggestion Humes removed frontal bone with a saw, and was observed by Reed, is a scam. Reed specified in his statements to the ARRB that Humes' use of the saw occurred AFTER Custer and himself had taken the skull x-rays...the skull x-rays Reed claimed were the same x-rays later shown him by Gunn...and the x-rays showing frontal bone to be missing. It would be hard for Humes to have removed bone that was already missing.

Keven: "Regurgitating the same nonsense over and over doesn't lend it any credibility." Perhaps the most ironic words ever written on this forum.

From Chapter 18c; Autopsy photographer John Stringer's statements and testimony have been similarly mislabeled. Stringer, we should recall, signed the November 1, 1966 inventory of the autopsy materials--along with Dr.s Boswell, Ebersole, and Humes. This inventory was purported to list "all the x-rays and photographs taken by us during the autopsy." Now this is important. Although Stringer and the others would later admit that they actually believed some x-rays and photos were missing, they would never once waiver from their claim the x-rays and photos of Kennedy's body they'd observed at the archives were authentic, and were ones they'd had created. Now, to be clear, Stringer contributed to the confusion surrounding his statements. In 1996, while testifying before the ARRB, Stringer failed to recognize the photos of Kennedy's brain as photos he'd taken at the supplementary examination. He thought he would have done a better job identifying the photos themselves when taken; he thought he'd have used a different kind of film; and he didn't remember taking one of the views. Well, this, of course, is interesting. But conspiracy theorists of all stripes have taken from this that the photos were switched out to hide a hole on the back of the brain, a hole proving once and for all that the shot killing Kennedy came from the front and blew out the back of his head. Many assert that this makes Stringer--yep, you guessed it--a "back of the head" witness... And that's just nonsense. I mean, if in 1996 the 78 year-old Stringer could tell just by looking at the photos that they were not his creation, wouldn't he have been much better able to tell this in 1966, just a few years after they were taken, when he was but 48? Well, then why didn't he say so, or remember his thinking so? The thought occurs that by 1996 Stringer's memory had slipped a bit. (Note: this is more than a passing thought. Stringer's obituary, found online, notes that he died on 8-17-11, at the age of 93, and that his wife of 51 years had died in 1993. Well, sadly, men widowed at such an age often start to slip. Only making this possibility more likely, moreover, is that Stringer's obituary further stated that memorial contributions could be made to the Alzheimer's Association of Vero Beach, Florida. So, yeah, the accuracy of the man's memories in 1996 are open to question.) Now, to be clear, it's hard to say just when Stringer's memories started fading. In 1977, the HSCA asked the then 59 year-old Stringer to go to the archives and look at the autopsy photos. The report on his doing so reflects that, while he was uncertain he'd taken the black and white photos of the brain, the brain itself gave the appearance of the brain he'd photographed, and that the brain, as Kennedy's brain, was not sectioned (cut into quarters). So, hmmm, Stringer was uncertain about the photos...but felt the brain in the photos was quite possibly Kennedy's brain. It's hard to see, then, how one can stretch his statements to include that the back of the head was blown out. While some, including Doug Horne and writer Jim DiEugenio, are fond of pointing out that Stringer told the ARRB that autopsy photographers who objected to things, such as rushing through the autopsy, didn't "last long," this by no means suggests that, in 1966, he would have readily gone along with someone switching out his photos to hide the true nature of Kennedy's wounds. That just goes too far. By 1996, when Stringer was first contacted by the ARRB, his memory had faded so badly that he couldn't even remember being contacted by the HSCA in 1977, let alone visiting the archives on their behalf. It follows then that the confusing aspects of his ARRB testimony may simply have been a reflection of his age, and the passing of time. It makes little sense, after all, to assume Stringer would readily admit what all too many now perceive as as an important truth--that he did not take the brain photographs--but then lie about the nature of Kennedy's head wounds in order to "get along." What, are we to believe Stringer was so stupid he didn't realize his disowning the brain photos was bound to raise some questions? And yes, you read that right. Those holding that Stringer was a bold and fearless truth-teller when discussing the brain photos inevitably hold he was a cowardly liar when discussing Kennedy's head wounds. Consider... When first contacted by Doug Horne on behalf the ARRB, and asked to describe the large head wound, Stringer told Horne "there was a fist-sized hole in the right side of his head above his ear...It was the size of your fist and it was entirely within the hair area. There was a sort of flap of skin there, and some of the underlying bone was gone." When under oath in his ARRB testimony, moreover, Stringer further confirmed that, no matter who took the brain photos, there was NO large blow-out wound on the back of Kennedy's head. When asked to describe Kennedy's head wounds, he at first described a small wound on the occipital bone near the EOP, "about the size of a bullet, from what you could see."He then described the large head wound: "Well, the side of the head, the bone was gone. But there was a flap, where you could lay it back. But the back - I mean, if you held it in, there was no vision. It was a complete head of hair. And on the front, there was nothing - the scalp. There was nothing in the eyes. You could have - Well, when they did the body, you wouldn't have known there was anything wrong." He was thereby describing the wound depicted in the autopsy photos and not the wound on the far back of the head proposed in books such as Horne's. Which only makes sense... Stringer had, after all, signed the aforementioned inventory in 1966 in which it was claimed the autopsy photos were those he'd taken, and had, upon studying these photos a second time in 1977, confirmed this by explaining to the HSCA's investigators what he was trying to portray as he took each shot. He had, moreover, told an interviewer from the Vero Beach Press-Journal in 1974 that the fatal bullet "had entered the right lower rear" of Kennedy's head and had come "out in the hair in the upper right side, taking with it a large chunk of his skull." While Mr. Stringer had also intimated (in a 1972 phone call with David Lifton) that the "main damage" was on the "back part" of Kennedy's skull, it's not entirely clear that Stringer was describing the damage to the skull apparent before the reflection of the scalp, or after. It's fortunate then that Stringer got a chance to clarify this issue in his ARRB testimony. He explained that when he first saw the skull, the scalp at the back of the head "was all intact. But then they peeled it back, and then you could see this part of the bone gone." Now, should one believe I'm cherry-picking here, and wrongly accepting Stringer's latter-day recollections over his much earlier statements to Lifton, one should go back and read the transcript of Stringer's conversation with Lifton, as released by the ARRB. It's confusing to say the least. After Stringer told Lifton the wound was on the "back part" of the skull, Lifton sought further clarification. He asked "In other words, there was no five-inch hole in the top of his head?" To which Stringer replied "Oh, it was...ahh some of it was blown off--yeah. I mean, ahh...towards out of the top, in the back, yeah." Apparently unsatisfied with that answer, Lifton later returned to this question, and re-framed it in one of the most confusing series of questions I've ever read. He asked "If you lie back in a bath tub, just in a totally prone position and your head rests against the bath tub, is that the part of the head, you know, is that the part of the head that was damaged?" To which Stringer replied "Yeah." (Now, I'm already lost. If you're laying back in a bath tub, you're not really prone, are you? Does Stringer's response then indicate that the top of the head was damaged? Or the back of the head?) Lifton then sought further clarification--with an equally confusing question. He asked "the part that would be against the tile of the bathtub?" To which Stringer replied "Mm-hmmm." (I'm still lost. Isn't the "tile of the bathtub" normally the tile on the back wall of a bathtub? And, if so, doesn't Stringer's response suggest the crown of the head was damaged, and not the back?) Lifton then tried again: "Whereas the part that would be straight up ahead, vertically in that position--was undamaged?" To which Stringer replied "Oh, I wouldn't say--undamaged--no. There was---some of it was gone--I mean--out of some of the bone." (Now, I'm not exactly sure what this means. But it seems clear, nevertheless, that Stringer thought he'd observed a hole on the top of Kennedy's head, where so many assume no hole was found. And that's not all that seems clear. In his book Best Evidence, Lifton re-writes this last question, and changes the context of Stringer's reply. He claims he asked Stringer "about the part of the head which in that position would be straight up and down, the vertical part, the 'top.' Was that undamaged?" His actual words, of course, were not so clear. According to his transcript, he not only failed to specify that he was talking about the top of the head, but said "straight up ahead"instead of "straight up and down." And that's confusing as heck. There is reason to believe then, that Stringer was confused by Lifton's questions, and just played along to get him off his back, not realizing his answers would be quoted in a best-selling book some 9 years later, and cited as evidence for a massive conspiracy.) And should one still have doubts Stringer failed to see a large hole on the back of Kennedy's head where conspiracy theorists believe it to have been, Stringer explained under further questioning by the ARRB that the occipital bone was "intact" but fractured, and that he could not recall any of it missing upon reflection of the scalp. So, yes, it's clear. Those believing Stringer to be honest and credible when telling the ARRB he didn't take the brain photos, and then using this to suggest there was a blow-out wound to the back of Kennedy's head, are behaving like the Warren Commission in reverse: taking snippets of someone's testimony, propping these snippets up as proof of something, and then finding ways to hide or ignore that the bulk of the witness' statements suggest something other than what they are trying to prove. Now, this is fairly common behavior, on all sides of the discussion. But what is unusual in this circumstance is the strength with which those pushing this view hold onto two mutually exclusive ideas: 1) Stringer is a brave truth teller, and PROOF the brain photos are not of Kennedy's brain, and 2) Stringer is a gutless liar, out to protect the status quo by pretending there was no hole on the back of Kennedy's head. I trust I'm not alone in finding this a problem. As far as Doug Horne, not only does he push in his book that Stringer lied about Kennedy's head wounds to the ARRB, he asserts that Stringer first publicly reversed himself from the descriptions he'd provided Lifton (in the 1972 phone call) in 1993. This avoids that in the 1993 article cited by Horne, Stringer's 1974 comments, in which he'd accurately described the wounds depicted in the autopsy photos, were discussed, as well as the fact that a TV crew inspired by Lifton's book interviewed Stringer in 1988, only to shelve the footage when Stringer told them the autopsy photos were accurate depictions of Kennedy's wounds. This, then, raises as many questions about Horne's integrity as Stringer's. That Stringer was describing the wounds shown in the autopsy photos as early as 1974, after all, cuts into Horne's position that Stringer reversed himself on the nature of these wounds as a response to Lifton's book, published seven years later, in 1981.

Let's be clear. 1. The triangular fragment IS the fragment that was brought in later, during the autopsy. It had been discovered by Secret Service Agent Sam Kinney, who had noticed it on the floor of the limo as it was flown back from Dallas. 2. The doctors noted a beveled exit on this fragment and concluded it derived from the top of the head. 3. Dr. Angel, the forensic anthropologist whose conclusions were s-canned by Dr. Baden when he couldn't get them to align with the single-assassin conclusion, concluded this fragment was frontal bone, at the the front of the right side of the top of the head. 4. The Harper Fragment was discovered in Dealey Plaza on the day after the assassination. It was never viewed by the autopsy doctors, and played no role in their conclusions. 5. Dr. Angel viewed photos of the Harper Fragment and concluded that the Harper fragment was parietal bone, from the middle of the right side of the top of the head. 6. Dr. Baden ultimately claimed the triangular fragment was from the middle of the right side of the top of the head, and that the Harper fragment was from the side of the head below it. 7. Dr. Mantik has concluded that the triangular fragment was frontal bone. 8. Dr. Mantik had concluded that the Harper fragment was occipital bone. 9. The triangular fragment is far too large for both it and the Harper fragment to be occipital bone. 10. Whether the triangular fragment was from the back of the top of the head, as claimed by Randy Robertson, or the front of the back of the head, as claimed by Angel and Mantik and many many others, it still came from the top of the head. 11. One can not postulate then that the witnesses supposedly claiming there was a large wound on the back of the head, and a large wound nowhere else, are accurate...unless...one postulates that the triangular fragment was not missing at Parkland, and was removed afterwards. 12. If one is to go down this road, however, one must postulate further that the purported finding of this fragment in the plaza, and its being thrown in the limo by a Secret Service Agent, is nonsense. 13. And if one is to go down this road, one must postulate as well that Sam Kinney lied about his discovery of this fragment, and that the doctors lied about the beveled exit on this fragment, and that the x-rays were faked to show a beveled exit or entrance on this fragment. And what would be the point? If the goal was to kill Kennedy, the plotters would not care one iota if he was shot from behind or the front. If the goal was to kill Kennedy and frame Oswald, this could have been done from behind, more easily than from the front. So what would be the point of all these shenanigans? Why have the only beveled exit be found on a piece of bone not even present at the beginning of the autopsy? Did they remove the bone? And leave it to others to add this exit to the bone during the early stages of the autopsy? And then pretend to have it delivered into the autopsy suite? How many people were involved? We are now up to a dozen or so, right? Everyone flying in with Kinney, and everyone involved in the pre-surgery? When the whole problem could have been avoided by having Humes claim there was a beveled exit...in the intact skull.

There are some major problems with Horne's response. 1. He cites Audrey Bell as a credible witness, when she is not. She never mentioned anything about the head wound till decades after the shooting, after she had been embraced by the research community as a truth-teller for claiming she'd been handed numerous fragments from Connally's wrist and had handed them to an FBI or SS agent. This seemed important at the time because the official story was that she'd been handed but one fragment and had handed it to a member of the Texas Highway Patrol. Only...it turned out that her latter-day claims were inaccurate...as she'd written a first-hand account for a nursing magazine in 1968 in which she said she handed the fragment (singular) to an officer of the highway patrol (IOW, the official story.) 2. He cites Dr. Robert Canada in support of his claims. Well, this is just sad. The only source for Canada's supposed claims is Kurtz, an historian from New Orleans not known for his probing interviews. And yet he claimed late in life to interviewing Canada in the 60's (shortly before Canada's death) and having Canada spill the beans to him about the autopsy. Whether a deliberate lie, or the blurry recollections of someone not in full control of his faculties, Kurtz was not telling the truth. As detailed in my online article Lost in the Jungle with Kurtz, Kurtz's last book, in which he claimed he'd interviewed Canada, was rife with juicy quotes from supposed interviews conducted decades before, that had gone unmentioned in a number of books and articles by Kurtz published after these interviews. And it's worse than that. From comparing the dates of these supposed interviews to public death records I was able to ascertain that at least 11 of his subjects were DEAD when he'd supposedly interviewed them. Kurtz's supposed interview with Canada never happened. And Horne is undoubtedly aware of this. 3. He presents Robinson as a witness to the removal of the brain before the removal of the brain observed by Jenkins. This is silly. Jenkins has long been insistent that there was nowhere that such an operation could be conducted without his knowledge and that no such pre-surgery took place. When one considers, furthermore, what Robinson told the HSCA--that he'd been sitting on the left side of the President and had seen the doctors working on the right side of the head, one should question the accuracy of Horne's suggestion Robinson saw the removal of the brain from the back of the head, especially when one takes into account the statements of Jenkins and O'Connor, etc, confirming that the brain was removed from the right side of the head and not the back. I mean, I hope he doesn't expect us to believe Humes cut open the back of the head pulled out the brain, substituted it with another brain, and then pieced the back of the head back together so successfully that his autopsy assistants had no idea the back of the head had previously been removed. 4. Horne uses Ed Reed's recollection of Humes' using a saw on the forehead to imply Humes did this to remove the frontal bone missing on the x-rays, which many believe correlates to the triangular fragment found in the limo. But he conceals that Reed said Humes used the saw AFTER the x-rays had been taken...and that Reed signed off on the authenticity and veracity of the x-rays in archives, which show frontal bone to be missing. It's a deliberate deception on Horne's part, to say the least. In short, Horne cherry-picks pieces of dubious info and concocts a scenario at odds with the statements of the autopsy participants. And that none of his fellow researchers actually believe. (David Mantik, his closest colleague, has long argued that the large fragment found in the limo was frontal bone, and that it did indeed explode from the head during the shooting sequence. And yet Horne here makes out that this fragment was cut from the skull by Humes, or some such thing.) In any event, Horne is entitled to his pet theory, but he shouldn't be surprised when a veteran researcher like Aguilar finds it an unnecessary distraction.

While I agree with your over-all point (that the evidence for three headshots is negligible), citing Baden is not helpful. He is, after all, the guy who both testified with his exhibits upside down, and spewed so much nonsense over the years it's embarrassing. From chapter 13b: Baden's Reign of Error 1989 In his first book, Unnatural Death, published 1989, Dr. Baden presented a chapter on the Kennedy assassination. One might think that Dr. Baden, concerned about his reputation, would be sure to make his book as accurate as possible, and review the reports and findings of the House Select Committee before committing his thoughts for posterity. But one would be wrong.Among Baden’s claims: Those who believe the back-and-to-the-left movement of Kennedy's head after frame 313 indicates the shot came from the front are mistaken because "They left out of their calculations the acceleration of the car Kennedy was riding in. Beyond that, the body simply does not react that way. The force of the bullet would just as likely cause Kennedy's head to move forward as backward. It's not predictable." (A quick look at the Zapruder and Nix films shows that the acceleration of the limousine came after the back-and-to the-left movement of the President’s head. This is not just the opinion of conspiracy theorists. Dr. John Lattimer noted as much in his 1976 article in Surgery, Gynecology, and Obstetrics. In addition, Baden's claim that the movement of a head is unpredictable is either something he just made up because it sounded good...or was a misrepresentation of Dr. Olivier's testimony for the Rockefeller Commission, in which he claimed that the direction in which a goat's body fell after being shot in the head is unpredictable.) "No forensic pathologist has ever examined the body of the President." (As we've seen, one of the three doctors performing Kennedy's autopsy, Colonel Pierre Finck, was a licensed forensic pathologist on November 22, 1963.) "Colonel Finck, it turned out, had never done an autopsy involving a gunshot wound, either." (As we've seen, Dr. Finck testified about his prior experience on 3-11-78. As a direct response to a question from Dr. Baden, Finck said he'd performed autopsies on gunshot wound victims prior to 1959. Apparently, Dr. Baden didn't note his answer.) "The FBI photographer, who had clearance, was in the same quandary as Humes. He had never taken autopsy pictures before and was untrained in photographing gunshot wounds."(As previously discussed, John Stringer, the actual photographer, was a civilian working for the Navy, and had been Bethesda Naval Hospital’s chief autopsy photographer for years. His work had been featured in textbooks.) "The Kennedy head bullet was found on the floor of Kennedy's car in front. It had struck the windshield strut and broken in two." (Since bullet fragments are smaller and lose their energy much more rapidly than intact bullets, it seems doubtful that two fragments of a bullet breaking up upon entrance on the back of the skull would traverse the skull and exit with the force necessary to crack a windshield and dent a windshield strut. This is in keeping, moreover, with the report of Baden's pathology panel, which observed that the large defect apparent at the supposed exit suggested the exit of a fragment the combined size of the recovered fragments. So it's not exactly surprising that Baden would try and claim the bullet exited intact and broke up after striking the windshield strut. The problem, as discussed above, is that HE SHOULD KNOW THIS ISN'T TRUE. Not only does he overlook that a fragment struck and cracked the windshield in addition to the strut, but he ignores that the two fragments found in the front seat were the nose and base of the bullet, and that they comprised only about half of the bullet. As much of the middle of this bullet was supposedly left in the skull, including the “slice” of bullet seen on the x-rays and interpreted by Baden and his panel to be on the back of the head by the bullet's entrance, it follows then like night from day that these fragments exited separately and did not break in two upon impact with the windshield strut. Baden's pretending that it did and that the "slice" just fell out the back of the bullet and clung to the back of the skull is bizarre beyond belief.) Dr. Humes burned his notes on November 23, the day after the shooting, before talking to Dr. Perry and finding out the tracheotomy incision had been cut through a bullet wound, and before starting work on the autopsy report. (This may be Baden's most egregious "mistake." Its existence reveals that as early as 1989 he was looking for ways to explain to his readers how Humes could be so mistaken about the location of the entrance wound on the back of Kennedy's head--and that he was willing to make stuff up to do this. There is simply no evidence supporting Baden's version of these events. Humes testified before the Warren Commission that he called Dr. Perry on the morning of the 23rd, began working on the autopsy report later that evening, and burned his notes the next day. He repeated this testimony, moreover, to Baden himself, when meeting with members of Baden's panel on 9-16-77. Shame, shame, shame.) The Cortisone that Kennedy was taking for his Addison’s disease "causes odd fat deposits--an upper back hump, full cheeks. Kennedy had them both, but Addison's disease is not mentioned in the autopsy report." (As discussed, the "back hump" or "hunchback" story is a disgusting fairy tale started by Dr. Lattimer to help explain how a descending bullet could enter Kennedy’s shirt and jacket inches below his shirt collar and still exit from his throat.) “Perhaps the most egregious error was the four-inch miscalculation. The head is only five inches long from crown to neck, but Humes was confused by a little piece of brain tissue that had adhered to the scalp. He placed the head wound four inches lower than it actually was, near the neck instead of the cowlick.” (This, of course, is nonsense. Baden must have known that Dr.s Humes and Boswell didn't just observe this wound on the scalp, but on the skull after the scalp had been peeled back. He also would have to have known their observation was confirmed by Dr. Pierre Finck, arriving after the beginning of the autopsy. He also should have known their "too low" location was confirmed by several other witnesses to the autopsy, including autopsy photographer John Stringer. His attempt, then, to make this "egregious error" appear to be the error of one man, and not many, and his failure to tell his readers that these witnesses verified this location numerous times, can only be viewed as deceptive.) "For the head wound, we enhanced the x-rays and saw the entrance perforation on top of the cowlick." (This would be news to the HSCA's radiology consultants, Dr.s McDonnell and Davis. Neither of them noted such an entrance in their reports. While they both concluded there was an entrance in this location, they did so based upon their observation of fractures and fragments in the area, NOT because they saw an entrance perforation. This distinction is an important one that Baden should not have forgotten.) That when inspecting the photos of the head wound "Pictures of the wound yielded more when viewed through a stereopticon. In three dimensions they showed the oblique lines (beveling) on the bone in the back of the skull that an entering bullet makes." (As discussed, this was never mentioned in Baden's testimony before the HSCA. It was mentioned but not demonstrated in his panel's report. Despite plentiful opportunities, no one has demonstrated it in all the years since. It is probably nonsense.) That they "reconstructed the exit wound at the throat (Note: he means skull) from X rays of the skull and skull fragments and photographs of a single piece of bone which came to be called the Nieman-Marcus fragment. Three skull fragments had been retrieved from the limousine, brought to Washington, X-rayed, and later vanished. The fourth, measuring about two by one and a half inches, was found a few days after the autopsy by a premed student walking his dog in Dealey Plaza, where the shots were fired. He took it home to his father, a doctor, who knew what it was and had it photographed. At a party the photographer couldn't resist talking about it, and the story got back to the FBI. Agents swooped down on the premed student, who was saving the fragment as a souvenir. He had it wrapped in a piece of cotton in a Nieman-Marcus box. It later disappeared from the archive, along with the other fragments, but the photographs of it were good enough for purposes of reconstructing the skull." (This is just embarrassing. It shows both how little Baden knows about the assassination, and how willing he is to spew the nonsense he thinks he knows. First of all, of the three skull fragments x-rayed in Washington, only one was found in the limousine, the other two were found in the street. Second of all, no one called the fourth fragment the "Nieman-Marcus fragment"; it was called the Harper fragment, after Billy Harper, the student who found it while taking photographs in Dealey Plaza, not walking his dog as claimed by Baden, and not a few days after the shooting as claimed by Baden, but the day after. Third of all, the doctor to whom Harper gave the fragment, and who had it photographed, was his uncle, not his dad. Fourth, after visiting the hospital on November 25, Harper visited the FBI, and gave them the fragment; he did not try to hold onto the fragment as a souvenir, and no one swooped in to grab the box containing the fragment from him. Fifth, none of the four fragments Baden mentions disappeared from the archives. The three fragments x-rayed in Washington are believed to have been buried with the body, and the Harper fragment was last known to have been in the possession of Kennedy's doctor, Dr. George Burkley. And, finally, sixth, Baden claims the photos of the fragment "were good enough for purposes of reconstructing the skull." Presumably, he means accurately reconstructing the skull. Well, in such case, why didn't he? Why did he, instead, pretend this over 2 inch long fragment fit into a gap on the side of the head that was not discussed in his testimony, or depicted on any of his exhibits?) "The trace metal content in the bullet found on the stretcher and the fragment from Connally's wrist match perfectly. It was a copper-jacketed military bullet with a core of 99 percent lead and insignificant amounts of strontium, arsenic, nickel, platinum, and silver. As small as they are, these traces are like fingerprints." (The magic bullet and the wrist fragment failed to match on copper, and barely matched on antimony. It also matched on silver, as did half the bullets tested. Protocols of the time dictated that, if a sample failed to match on one of these three, the samples did not match. Therefore there was no match, let alone a perfect match. None of the other elements listed by Baden were even tested.) That when he inspected Governor Connally's back wound he saw "a two-inch long sideways entrance on his back. He had not been shot by a second shooter but by the same flattened bullet that went through Kennedy." (Dr. Baden wrote a memo on this inspection for the HSCA. At that time he reported Connally's scar as 1 1/8 inches long. His description of CE 399 as "flattened" is another exaggeration. Only the base of the bullet was slightly flattened.)

I started going through the book, and I must agree with you, Vince. It's a good one. Bob is that rare writer who spends most of his time writing about what others believe. It's like he wants the reader to know not just what he thinks but what others think. It's a good/great book for those following the forum who don't feel it's necessary to have an opinion on everything. IOW, the open-minded folks... It is also a good book for those with an interest in the forensic evidence, but who have not had the energy to track down everything written by Aguilar, Mantik, Chesser, Robertson, Thomas, and myself. Bob delineates the differences of opinion among us. He does not hide the skeptic in him--that he is an Oswald did-it guy--and is not convinced by most of our arguments. But he concedes a number of points, and does not resort to the usual insults. And it's not all rehash. I have already added a number of post-its to its pages, to point out facts I had missed and arguments I should address.

He claims someone like Kupcinet, who wasn't even a witness, was within the 1400 people closest to the assassination? A more realistic number would be the closest 100,000. As far as the reporters... Hunter's death was almost certainly an accident. if "they" had wanted to murder him, they most certainly would have killed him in a manner where no one would have been arrested, and been convicted of manslaughter. It is also unreasonable to assume he had any inside dirt on anything, as he had written articles saying Oswald did it. As far as Koethe, I've read other sources which insist he was strangled, and not killed by a karate chop. And that he was gay and perhaps killed as part of a hate crime. Now I have no idea, but I hope Belzer gets into this stuff rather than rely on Penn Jones and Robert Groden etc, who are not exactly reliable.

You inspired me to look up the name of the woman I spoke to regarding Bowers. Her name was Anita Dickason. She was an experienced accident investigator who'd looked into the case. Here's a link to her book. https://www.amazon.com/JFK-Assassination-Eyewitness-Conspiracy-Bowers/dp/1480803359

I actually have the Belzer book...somewhere. I think he even quotes me in there somewhere, although I don't remember the context. My complaint was that he included too many people, many of whom were only loosely affiliated with the case. As far as the actuarial stuff...I assume you know about the end of the film Executive Action and what happened afterwards. At the end of the movie it quoted a London paper claiming that the odds of the suspicious deaths being a coincidence were billions to one or some such thing. But that this was later debunked. It turned out that the numbers were cooked, essentially. As I recall, the original number was created by taking the number of witnesses to testify before the commission, and then adding on a few who died. But this was bad math. The actual number should have been created by the number of witnesses to testify before the commission, and then adding on the thousands of people who were tangentially related to the assassination, who both died and did not die. The deaths of those reporters comes to mind. There were literally hundreds of reporters in Dallas on the day of the assassination, and its aftermath. The accidental deaths of a few of them, who never claimed to have top secret knowledge, is not surprising. Now, to be clear, the crop of deaths in the mid-70's is a lot harder to dismiss. I remember when I first started researching, and discovering that heck this guy died just before the HSCA and heck that guy died just before the HSCA and so on. So I don't dismiss the premise of the book. I just think it was too broad. P.S. One of the guys who died surprisingly and prematurely during the HSCA was Manuel Artime. He was only 45 at the time, and was likely to have knowledge about the CIA's attempts on Castro and the possible re-routing of these attempts onto Kennedy. I don't recall. Is he in the Belzer book?

I know we've been over this 100 times. But you claim there was a "frontal head shot that killed JFK and blew the back of his skull backward." Now, no matter what you think...frontal shot or no...this isn't accurate. 1. The films of the shooting show the skull fragments flying forwards. 2. The two largest fragments found afterwards were found in front of JFK. 3. One of these fragments indisputably (yes, even in the eyes of those claiming the back of the head was blown out) derived from the front of Kennedy's head. 4. The closest eyewitnesses in a position to view the fatal wound in the plaza placed the wound by the ear or on the face, and not on the far back of the head. Now you can disagree with these points of evidence, and claim they have all been faked, etc. But you should not be surprised when some accept the validity of this evidence over what some witnesses later remembered, and what some writers desperately want you to believe.

I had a long talk with a reporter (whose name I don't remember) who wrote a book on Bowers' death and found nothing suspicious. She knew she'd sell more books if she said it was suspicious, but she couldn't find anything. I spoke with her at a Lancer conference, and was allowed to talk with her at great length because no one else seemed interested. I don't know if you've been to a JFK conference, William, but they are a strange place. The presenters present all kinds of material--some supporting a conspiracy, and some not. But the audience---the audience are largely wide-eyed people hoping, almost praying, to hear something shocking and crazy. That's what they paid for--to be entertained with bedtime stories about an evil "they" out to destroy the world. This is what they cling to, true or not. So when someone like myself or Buell Frazier or Kenneth Salyer or this woman provides a non-conspiratorial explanation of a particular piece of evidence, the crowd gets restless, and you can even sometimes hear rumblings of "limited hang-out" or "mockingbird" whatever. Now I have the Belzer book somewhere but it is not handy. Can you cite the sources provided by Belzer re Bowers' supposed statements? I didn't remember his speaking to anyone before dying, and am wondering if this is something Belzer got from Penn Jones, etc, who was simply repeating a rumor.