Pat Speer

David, while I could go through your post, point by point, and show you why there are other ways to interpret the medical evidence, I'll focus on this one for now. You either miss, or ignore, that Humes acknowledged that the wound changed between the time Carrico saw it at Parkland and the time he measured it at Bethesda. He consistently testified that as he reflected the scalp large chunks of bone fell to the table. He testified as well that he pulled out a few other bits of bone before removing the brain. So...Carrico's impression of the wound size was most certainly the large hole in the scalp and bone described by Clark etc. And Humes' impression of the wound was most certainly the much larger wound on the skull after the scalp had been peeled back. So, of course it was much larger. Now, you could argue that Humes and Boswell measured the wound at the beginning of the autopsy when the tangled scalp and bloody hair were obscuring the size of the skull defect. but that would be silly. They were inexperienced in such things, but approximating the size of an explosive wound before reflecting the scalp is not something one would expect from even an intern. As far as Humes and Boswell's slightly different measurements...it seems quite likely Humes approximated the size of the wound before he pulled off chunks of skull to remove the brain, and that Boswell's measurements reflect the size of the skull wound after the brain had been removed. It is entirely illogical, after all, to assume Humes removed chunks of skull after Boswell made his measurements. Boswell's measurements suggest a wound involving most of the right side of the skull.

Happy New Years to you as well. I used Newman and Zapruder because they are the only close-by witnesses I could find who demonstrated their impression of the wound location on 11-22. Another close-by witness, James Chaney, told a TV interviewer JFK was hit in the face. It is undoubtedly intriguing that none of these men, who saw Kennedy while he was still upright, thought the large head wound was on the back of JFK's head. As far as the Willis family, none of them were quoted till many months later, and they were some distance away. From their perspective, it would have been incredibly hard--probably impossible--to differentiate between an explosion of blood from the top of JFK's head while he was moving away from an explosion of blood from the back of his head. Even so, the FBI report on Marilyn Willis, the most consistent of the family, reported that she saw a "red halo" erupt from the top of Kennedy's head, not the back of his head. Phil Willis, moreover, not only testified that he did not see the impact of the final shot (which he apparently believed was the head shot) he testified that "The minute the third shot was fired, I screamed, hoping a policeman would hear me, to ring that building because it had to come from there." Pat check these out..... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmfqDOnZu_Q FRANK O'NEILL RIGHT REAR Interviews - Phil Willis & Family video'sfrom gil jesus http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2-_UhD3Qgk witnesses The back of his head blew off http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVhZdryIs_A http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sh0-2Sthn9A the large back of the head wound.. the Doctor's JFK's head wound http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhWJowvbtxs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P29j9PFZBM wound was in the back of his head to the right... b.. Exactly my point, Bernice. In light of their original statements, the 25 year removed statements of the Willis family are not exactly credible. If you can find records of them describing the shooting and talking about a wound on the back of the head prior to this time, however, I will add them to my database.

David, you might be interested to know that one of your opponents in the medical debate at the symposium was Dr. Michael West, a devotee of Dr. Lattimer's, and that he has since been exposed as a murderous fraud. From patspeer.com, chapter 20: Then came Dr. Michael West, reciting more stuff from Lattimer's book, and showing a film he'd made supporting the single-bullet theory. Well, what happened to Dr. West, you might ask? The 1998 book Tainting Evidence notes that Dr. West was a forensic dentist from Mississippi who, up through 1996, appeared as a scientific expert more than 60 times in 10 states. The book notes further that other medical examiners began testifying against West when it became clear that he was seeing marks on bodies that others failed to see, and that at least 20 of his appearances were in murder cases in which a suspect's life lay in the balance. The 2008 book Forensics Under Fire fills out the story, and uses West as a case study of an expert gone awry. On multiple occasions, Dr. West testified that he saw bite marks on murder victims unseen by the pathologists at autopsy, and then matched these marks to the teeth of the police department's #1 suspect. Despite West's claims that a special blue light he'd personally developed had allowed him to reach these conclusions, the "science" of this light was never quite established. As a result other experts began to question West's conclusions, and he gradually fell out of favor. Within a year of his presentation at the 1993 Symposium, in fact, Dr. West was pressured into leaving the international Association of Identification and the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. He was also suspended by the American Board of Forensic Odontology. As a result, the convictions of two men against whom he'd testified were overturned, and the charges against still another were dropped. Word rapidly got out that his word was suspect. His court appearances dropped off considerably. In 2008, after the arrest of a man who'd admitted killing two toddlers in the early nineties, the lawyers for the two men previously convicted of these crimes--after West had testified that he'd found their bite marks on the victims--called for West's arrest. Peter Neufeld, co-director of the Innocence Project, a nonprofit legal organization that examines questionable convictions and has won the exoneration of more than 200 inmates, declared in an ABC News report that West was "a criminal" and that he'd "deliberately fabricated evidence and conclusions which were not supported by the evidence, the data or the rules of science." Neufeld then explained "If you fabricate evidence in a capital murder case, where you know that if the person's convicted they are going to be executed — as far as I'm concerned that's the crime of attempted murder.'' He then concluded "These are not cases of sloppy forensic science. This is intentional misconduct. It's fabricated evidence to send people to death row.'' Pretty harsh words. Provocative words. Still, even though Neufeld's charges would seem a clear case of libel (should he not have been telling the truth), West refused to respond to his charges. West did, however, tell CBS' Steve Kroft that he stood by his prior testimony, and that if the DNA evidence implicated someone other than the defendants in the rapes and murders of the children they'd been convicted of killing, it meant only that someone else had raped and killed the children after the defendants had bitten them. Not willing to give an inch, West even stood by his absurd testimony that one of the defendants had bitten his victim 19 times--using only his upper teeth! And from there things only got worse for wild, wild, West. In February 2009, Reasononline posted links to a 1993 video of West (http://reason.com/news/show/131527.html) rubbing a suspect's dental impressions on the cheek of a dead child. Finding bite marks on the cheek, curiously, allowed prosecutors to charge the man responsible for her apparently accidental death with deliberation, and this, in turn, allowed them to seek the death penalty. After seeing this video, Dr. Michael Bowers, a dentist and medical examiner for Ventura County, California, broke ranks with his colleague and told Reasononline that marks appeared on the young girl's cheek after West rubbed the suspect's dental impressions on her cheek because "Dr. West created them. It was intentional. He's creating artificial abrasions in that video, and he's tampering with the evidence. It's criminal, regardless of what excuse he may come up with about his methods...You never jam a plaster cast into a possible bite mark like that. It distorts the evidence. You take a photograph, or if there are indentations, you take an impression. But you don't jam plaster teeth into them." Dr. David Averill, a former President of The American Board of Forensic Odontology, concurred with this appraisal. He told Reasononline "The video is troubling. I don't know how you can explain where those marks come from. And there's just no justification for him to push the cast into the skin like that...That isn't an acceptable way to perform a bite mark analysis." But that wasn't the end of it. The writer of the article, Radley Balko, reported that Forensic Odontologist Richard Souviron, who'd served as an expert for the defendant, Jimmie Duncan, was never shown the video prior to Duncan's trial and conviction, and had signed a new affidavit claiming the video showed "'Dr. West, violently and repeatedly, forcing a mold of Jimmie Duncan's teeth into Ms. Oliveaux's right cheek. In doing so, Dr. West creates a mark that was not previously present. Dr. West's behavior and methods are absolutely not supported by any scientific standards or protocol.' Souviron added in the affidavit that hospital photographs show that 'none of the marks were present when Ms. Oliveaux was at the hospital,' and that the abrasions that Reisner testified about for the prosecution 'were created by the flagrant misconduct of Dr. Michael West.'" Is it any wonder then that single-assassin theorists have stopped citing West as an authority?

Pat Speer writes this about Wecht: The Power of Suggestion The realization that Wecht's errors were quite possibly related to a misapplication of his extensive experience led me down a dark road of thought. I began to question whether it's possible for those "with knowledge" to ever learn anything new. Does our frame of reference frame our reality? Let's use Wecht as a case study. On August 23 and August 24, 1972, Dr. Cyril Wecht became the first fully independent pathologist to inspect the autopsy materials. He also became the first conspiracy theorist to see these materials. He reported his findings in a 1974 article in Forensic Science. As a long-time critic of the original autopsy, and as a long-time proponent of forensic science, Wecht undoubtedly had a chip on his shoulder. He resented, justifiably, that military doctors with little forensic experience were chosen to perform the most important autopsy of the century. It was indeed an insult to his profession. When the Clark Panel, made up of better-qualified civilians, had its report released in 1969, and concluded that the autopsy doctors had indeed made major mistakes, one can only assume Wecht shouted "Told you so!" There can be little doubt then, that he went into the Archives prepared to confirm the Clark Panel's basic findings. Sure enough, in section 3.3 of the 1974 Forensic Science article discussing his findings, Dr. Wecht concluded "Generally speaking, the author's observations and measurements of the wounds and locations of bullet fragments are in agreement with the findings of the Clark Panel in 1968." At no point in his paper does Wecht side with the interpretations of the original autopsists over those expressed by the Clark Panel. Wecht's failure to question the Clark Panel becomes painfully clear when one inspects Fig. 3 in his article. This is a drawing of a skull, purportedly showing the locations of the bullet fragments visible on Kennedy's x-rays. Wecht failed to properly assess the forward tilt of the skull in the x-ray. As a result the fragment in the middle of the forehead on the x-rays was depicted just above the right eye on his drawing. Wecht described: "A fragment from this location is reported to have been removed surgically and later subjected to spectrographic analysis." This helped fuel the mistaken and ongoing belief that the forehead fragment on the x-ray was the one recovered at autopsy. Far worse, Wecht's drawing depicted a large fragment on the back of the head by the Clark Panel's entrance. A close look at the x-ray purportedly studied by Wecht, however, shows THERE'S NOTHING THERE. Even more intriguing, Wecht KNEW there was nothing there. In his best-selling book, Best Evidence, David Lifton reveals that he accompanied Dr. Wecht to the Archives, and that they discussed Wecht's findings both during and after his examination. Lifton recalls: "During the afternoon session, it became quite obvious that Wecht had great difficulty reading the X-rays--that he couldn't find the entry wound reported by the Clark Panel or by Dr. Lattimer. There was no hole there at all, said Wecht." Lifton then recalls that he discussed this with others and told Wecht that he shouldn't be looking for a "hole", but for a "subtle shading". He then recalls that Wecht "was still not able to locate the entry wound." Lifton then recalls that he measured out the length of thread the supposed entrance would be from the external occipital protuberance and gave this to Wecht to help him find the entrance on the x-rays. He recalls "Wecht did this, and that was how he found the entrance wound in the back of President Kennedy's head." (Unstated by Lifton but clear from his account is that Wecht was unable to locate the large fragment purportedly just below this entrance wound; if he'd seen the fragment, after all, he would not have needed to use this thread to find the location of the "hole.") Lifton then cites Wecht's dictation on the "finding" of this entrance. Wecht said "This is a change in density which apparently is what is referred to in the previous panel as a 'hole.' This either takes imagination or some very sophisticated radiological expertise because it is difficult for me to consider this a hole. In any event, it has to be because it fits the measurements that they give about 100mm from the external occipital protuberance." Thus, Dr. Cyril Wecht, under pressure from David Lifton to confirm that the autopsy doctors were wrong, and unable to conceive that the civilians on the Clark Panel were so badly mistaken, ignored his own better instincts and came to not only accept that the cowlick entrance he could not find was there, but to depict the bullet fragment purportedly just below this entrance in his exhibits. But this was not the only point on which Wecht wrongly deferred to the Panel. When discussing the angle of descent from the back wound to the neck wound, Wecht announced "Adopting also the Clark Panel's measurement of the vertical position of the exit hole, namely 9 cm below the same crease (although the author was unable to corroborate this measurement from his own observations) we are able to compute the trajectory of the bullet relative to the horizontal and sagittal planes through the President's body at the time he was struck. The downward angle works out to be 11 1/2 degrees..." As a more accurate measurement would have helped Wecht in his efforts to debunk the single-bullet theory, Wecht's acceptance of the Clark Panel's measurements made little sense, and suggests he'd given the Clark Panel's measurements and conclusions undue weight. To his credit, Wecht seems fully aware the influence an "expert" can hold over another "expert." An April 19, 1975 memo in the files of the Rockefeller Commission reveals that when Dr. Wecht spoke to the Commission's Robert Olsen, he voiced his displeasure with the make-up of the commission's medical panel. Olsen related "Dr. Wecht was very unsettled by the identity of the members of the panel. Indeed, he was very angry to the point of shouting and indulging in frequent profanity. He said that almost the whole panel is made up of people from the Washington-Baltimore community; that all of them are under the control and influence of the Chief Medical Examiner of Maryland, Dr. Russell Fisher; that we should have looked elsewhere for impartial experts; that Dr. Fisher is a very strong-willed and influential man who has succeeded in getting more Federal grants in the field of forensic pathology than all other doctors in the United States combined...Dr. Wecht readily acknowledged the professional qualifications of all members of our panel. He said that among their fellow professionals each enjoyed a high standing. He stated, however, that it was wholly unrealistic to expect that anybody on this panel would express views different from those expressed by the Ramsey Clark Panel in 1968, which included Dr. Fisher and a radiologist from John Hopkins, Dr. Russell Morgan." It seems Wecht knew of which he spoke...... Full chapter: http://www.patspeer.com/chapter20:conclusionsandconfusions: Thank you, Michael. I was hesitant to bring it up, but since you have taken the liberty of doing so... My extensive study of the medical evidence has convinced me there was no entrance wound in the cowlick area adjacent to a large fragment, as purported by Fisher and the Clark Panel. When Dr. Wecht studied the lateral x-rays, he also failed to see this hole and large fragment, but caved into both his bias against the autopsy doctors, and pressure from David Lifton, and ended up confirming the Clark Panel's findings there was a hole adjacent to a fragment. Dr. Wecht now concurs with Dr. Mantik that there was in fact no hole or fragment in the cowlick area visible on the lateral x-rays. So... to be consistent with his attacks on Thompson, shouldn't Dr. Fetzer be accusing Lifton of "obfuscating"? I mean, Lifton knew the entrance wound had been re-interpreted by the Clark Panel. He knew as well that Wecht couldn't find it on the lateral x-rays. Shouldn't he have immediately suspected the Clark Panel was a sham, or that the A-P x-ray showing the large fragment was a sham, and have pressured Wecht to expose this sham? Of course not. Such Monday morning quarterbacking gets us nowhere. Which only serves to show the silliness of Fetzer's accusation of Thompson.

No, unfortunately, I didn't download the video of the hostage-taker's demise. I'll have to look around and see if I can find it elsewhere.

Greetings, Pat and Happy New Year: I am very interested in your theory that the Parkland doctors perception of the head wound was distorted, and I do intend to check that out further on your web site. But I am puzzled by the above paragraph. You are saying that the explosion on the right side of JFK's head represents the IMPACT/ENTRY, which makes sense to me, but then you add the puzzler that this bullet was fired from BEHIND. I just cannot see how a bullet from behind could enter on the right side of JFK's head, when the right side of JFK's head does not appear to be in the line of sight of a gunman firing from the TSBD (or the Dal-Tex). However, I CAN see that this explosion on the right side of JFK's head is consistent with the entry of a shot from the right front, possibly involving some kind of explosive bullet. Ray, when one positions a skull in the position of JFK's at 312, and then views it from the angle of the sniper's nest at 312, the right side of the head above the ear is readily visible. I spent some time on this a few years back with string and skulls. If an M/C bullet hit the skull at this location and from this angle, moreover, it would strike the skull almost on edge, and encounter far more resistance than a bullet merely striking the skull straight on. Such a bullet would basically explode. If this is what happened, one would expect fragments in the scalp at this location (the HSCA's David Davis reported that he thought there were fragments in the scalp at this location, but that he could not explain them). If this is what happened, furthermore, the largest fragments would be expected to be deflected forward. This, in turn, could explain why the fragment impact on the windshield was out of line with a trajectory traveling through the head from either of the proposed entrances on the back of the head. It could also explain why this fragment was covered with human skin. It could also explain the fragment hitting the curb near Tague, which was only slightly out of line with the head shot at 313. The beveling on the Harper fragment also suggests a shot fired from behind. Still, I found something recently that also supports the possibility the fatal shot came from the front. As a result, I remain open, if only slightly, to that possibility.

I am asking questions. SSID provided sketches to the Z-film at a time when most of it, in any clear version, was being suppressed. Tink was by his own admission on p.217 working with Mr. George Hunt, Managing Editor of LIFE, for example, in publishing the 'missing frames' for the first time...p. 217 he says "...before WE came into possession of the original print" (caps mine). I am asking if there was an agenda to draw CTs in by presenting sketches of some of the earlier frames while 'ignoring' blatant anomaly of the film that they were aware of because of their close association with it (when this relationship was denied to most of the rest of us). In addition, as Jim Fetzer has pointed out, whereas there is considerable focus on the earlier frames of the Z-film, there is virtually no attention paid to the critical fatal headshot sequence in the Z-film. Instead, our attention is drawn away to the Nix film. Why is that? Why are there no sketches of the fatal headshot sequence? The question I am asking is whether these issues are simply lapses, or oversights, or the result of something more deliberate -- giving researchers bits and pieces of things they had not had before while withholding the fact that they all knew the Z-film had been altered and that it was for this reason being suppressed and dribbled out in little 'safe' little bits. Pamela, what you and Jim seem to be missing is that, if you are gonna launch this "You knew the film didn't match the descriptions of the witnesses, and yet you failed to discuss the possibility it was fake--and that makes you suspect" argument at Thompson, you should also extend it to Groden and Lifton, at the very least. Both of them had copies of the Z-film when they wrote their massively influential books. Both of them were well aware of the drawing based on McClelland's statements and the statements of the other Parkland witnesses. And yet, pardon me if I'm mistaken, neither of them included chapters in their books about Z-film alteration. And why should have they? Lifton was focused on the possibility of body alteration. Groden was focused on the Z-film and the possibility of autopsy photo alteration; he even proposed that the Z-film DID show a blow-out on the back of Kennedy's head. This second-guessing of Thompson's intentions is just silly, IMO. If his goal was to obfuscate the possibility Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy, why did he propose, and convince untold thousands, Kennedy was killed by multiple assassins? It's not as if someone was about to publish a book claiming the Z-film was fake, and that this proved conspiracy, but was denied publication because Tink's book was published. Or are you and the Professor arguing that the "THEY" Thompson was working for was unconcerned with the climate of 1967 and 1968 and more than willing to allow thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people to slip further into the conspiracy camp in hopes that the long-term effects of Thompson's book would undermine the articles and books on Z-film alteration sure to come out in 30 years or so? Because, if so, well... YIKES, that's wacky. The "THEY" of which I am aware is extremely short-sighted, and willing to move bullet wound locations and tell lies about the orientation of autopsy photos in order to shut down discussion in the short term, even though it would undermine their credibility in the long term.

Those of you open-minded about a possible explanation for Kennedy's head movements should watch the video at the link below. elastic recoil vid Here is my discussion of the head movement in chapter 16b at patspeer.com As discussed, the Zapruder film makes it clear that Kennedy's head goes back and to the left after the fatal head shot. Conspiracy theorists have long held that this means the shot came from the front. Single-assassin theorists, on the other hand, have pointed out that Kennedy's head initially goes forward, and have used supposedly scientific explanations, the "jet effect" and the "neuro-muscular response," to try and explain Kennedy's subsequent backwards movement. When I started suspecting that the head shot hit Kennedy at the supposed exit, one of the first things I did was slap myself at this exit location from behind, to see if this impact would re-create Kennedy's movements. To my surprise, it did. I subsequently learned that there is a certain elastic recoil in muscle tissue. You stretch it out far enough, and it snaps right back on its own. Some runners learn to use this to their advantage. This led me to believe that Kennedy was hit towards the top of his head, his head was driven down, his chin hit his chest and his head sprang back up from the recoil of his neck muscles. In July 2007, researcher Gil Jesus alerted the Education Forum to a number of videos he found online, depicting head shots. One of these was news footage of a hostage-taker getting killed by a sniper. The shot came in from the man's right. The man's head turned to his left, traveling with the bullet. Then snapped back to his right, facing the sky as he fell to the ground. Not enough fluid was ejected from his head to create the "jet effect." His body failed to stiffen as in a neuro-muscular response. This video can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKTaYzDrnqk Kennedy contorts in a similar manner, only more vertically. This is consistent with his getting hit more towards the top of his head, at the supposed exit. Should one continue to doubt such a shot occurred, and insist that the “back-and-to-the-left” movement of Kennedy’s skull could only have come from the front, I suggest a simple test. I’ve done it way too many times. Lean forward 30 degrees…tilt your head 25 degrees to your left… and SLAP the top of your skull above your ear downwards, and see what happens. NO. I'M KIDDING. Don’t do this!!! It hurts a bit. Take my word for it, instead,--your head will bounce right up and throw your body backwards, exactly as Kennedy’s did in the frames after the fatal headshot. (By the way, I'm not just making this up. This unique attribute of tangential hits is mentioned in the online paper Wound Ballistic Simulation by Jorma Jusilla, presented at the University of Helsinki: It states “A tangential hit also causes a torsion motion of the head which can cause serious injuries.” According to Funk and Wagnall’s, the word “torsion” means “The act of twisting.” I say that in case you might need to look it up. I did.) In retrospect, the mystery over the cause of Kennedy’s back-and-to-the-left movement should have been solved a long time ago. All the debate over the “man behind the picket fence,” the “jet effect” and “neuro-muscular response” would have been unnecessary if someone used some common sense back in 1964. People knew the bullet broke up. People knew that bullets normally pierce a body without imparting enough energy into the body to throw it one way or the other. People knew that, on the other hand, a bullet striking tangentially, creating a gutter wound, and breaking up, could impart enough energy into someone to slap them one way or the other. People knew as well that the Zapruder film showed Kennedy being slapped back into his seat. The problem, one can only guess, is that the people knowing these things were not the same people. The movements of Kennedy apparent in the Zapruder frames following the head shot, when taken in conjunction with the evidence previously discussed, including the fact that no bloody back spatter emanates from the back of Kennedy's head in the film, can therefore be taken as a clear indication the bullet striking Kennedy at frame 313 struck his skull at the supposed exit, most probably from behind.

The fact that the Dealey Plaza folks witnessed a transitory event which lasted seconds while the Parkland doctors observed a stationary body up close for an extended period of time, and described it with medical precision. What part of "occipital-parietal" don't you understand? Cliff, if you read the literature on the effects of rotation on human cognition you'll see that the length of time one is near a rotated object is unrelated to one's ability to accurately recall the appearance of the object. We're not dealing with "one" recollection, we are dealing with about a dozen, at least, all medical professionals of good standing and most precise in the description of a massive "occipital-parietal" exit wound. Your assumptions about their cognitive opportunities in the ER find no support in the testimony. If they hadn't observed an "occipital-parietal" wound they would not have made unqualified comments to that effect. "Trendelenburg"? Is that German for "specious"? What the heck? First of all, only one doctor described the wound as "occipito-parietal" in his initial report. Two others mentioned "temporal" and "occipital" which rules out the parietal location assumed by most CTs. Second of all, are you really trying to claim doctors don't make mistakes? Dr. McClelland initially reported that there was a gunshot wound on Kennedy's left temple. That's as many as claimed the wound was "occipito-parietal". Who should we believe?

For 5 years or more, I've been trying to figure out why HSCA Exhibit F-114 was originally described as a photo of a bullet exploding into gelatin at 800 feet per second, when the transcripts of Larry Sturdivan's testimony reflect that the bullet was traveling at 800 meters per second. The thought occurred that he'd unwittingly discussed the wound ballistics of a cartridge designed for assassination weapons, and that someone at the HSCA complied with a request from someone in the CIA or Pentagon to change his testimony. On Christmas Eve I received confirmation that the transcript was not an accurate representation of Sturdivan's testimony. From patspeer.com, chapter 20: In January 2006, after gathering up the nerve, I contacted Larry Sturdivan and asked him about his HSCA testimony. As to whether Exhibit F-114 represented a bullet strike at 800 meters per second or 800 feet per second he responded: “It has a simple explanation. I misspoke. The bullet is obviously a low-velocity strike, probably at a simulated range of several hundred meters. The figure of 800 feet per second is certainly the one that is closest to the actual impact velocity. At work, I always used metric measure, but for the public hearings it was suggested that I use feet, inches, and pounds. This is one instance in which I slipped. There may be others. In other cases, the person who transcribed the testimony misinterpreted a few of my words. It likely happened with other witnesses for the HSCA and WC as well.” When I asked him if his use of an exhibit depicting an M-16 bullet traveling at a subsonic speed indicated he’d studied the possible use of silenced weapons in connection with the Kennedy assassination, he responded: “It was just one of the thousands of pictures we had of military bullets we had tested. I used it because it showed the instability of a bullet in a soft tissue simulant, without the deformation and breakup. Like the WCC/MC, it was a bullet that did not deform in soft tissue. Modern military bullets deform at full velocity, so I showed a picture of one at reduced velocity. The only bullets fired in the WC tests were the WCC/MC.” When I followed up and asked him if the HSCA had ever asked him about the possible use of silenced weapons, he answered: “Never came up. Several witnesses who were familiar with supersonic rifle fire, such as John Connally, stated that the shots were identifiable as "high-powered rifle" fire. A subsonic bullet is much quieter -- and is much less injurious, has a more arced trajectory (due to its low speed) and, as a result, is much less accurate, etc. A sniper using a subsonic weapon (e.g., a handgun) could fire a volley of shots from the upper floors of the Depository and be unlikely to hit the target with any of them. Such a weapon is more likely to be used in point blank shooting, like the Tippit murder.” (Sturdivan’s comments here are intriguing. He ignores the possibility of subsonic rifle fire even though he’d studied the ballistics of subsonic rifle fire, as proven by F-114. His statement that a subsonic bullet has a more arced trajectory is also intriguing when one considers that the trajectory of the bullet creating Kennedy’s back wound was initially reported as heading sharply downwards.) When I wrote back and asked if he felt handicapped by the limits of the HSCA investigation, he wrote: “No. The HSCA didn't tell me much. They just asked a lot of questions. The most irritating thing is that they kept most of the scientists isolated from each other, so that I didn't meet Bill Hartmann 'til years later.” Sturdivan’s response forced me to do some soul-searching. Here I had taken several pieces of information: 1) that Exhibit F-114 had been misrepresented in Sturdivan’s published testimony; 2) that it was in fact the ballistics gelatin of a subsonic bullet; and 3) that it was also misrepresented on a website created by Oswald-did-it theorist John McAdams, and convinced myself that this represented some sort of conspiracy. And yet I was wrong. I was right about points one and two, but they had an innocent explanation. And I was wrong about point 3 altogether. When I realized that it was possible Sturdivan had merely told me a cover story, and that it was also possible that Russ had deliberately misrepresented the exhibit on his website, I had a revelation. In that moment, I fully understood what I will call “the seduction of intrigue”. For a split second, it seemed rational to me to assume Sturdivan was lying etc… This was because I had quietly changed gears and begun thinking of reasons to believe I wasn’t wrong, rather than reasons to believe that I was right. It occurred to me that such thinking takes place when someone has spent a lot of time developing a theory, and someone else comes along and wrecks it. I at once understood why my presentation had upset so many alterationists, i.e. why they had refused to honestly look at my presentation etc. They’d thought so long and hard when developing their theories that they couldn’t bear to believe they’d been wrong. What had been their theory had become their religion. I decided to lose my religion and accept that the mislabeling of F-114 had been some sort of mistake. Only it turned out my bout with intrigue was far from over. In April, 2006, I acquired video footage of some of the HSCA hearings, including parts of Sturdivan’s testimony. Unfortunately, the footage of Sturdivan began just after he discussed F-114, so I was unable to determine whether he, in fact, said 800 feet or 800 meters. Nevertheless, when I compared the published transcripts of Sturdivan’s testimony against his actual testimony, a few new questions arose. When I e-mailed Sturdivan and asked about these new (at least for me) discoveries, he was once again quite forthcoming. When asked why his published testimony reflects his actual words, when the testimony of Dr. Baden appears to have been significantly re-written, he replied “Perhaps Baden asked to be allowed to revise his own testimony, I don't know.” (Another witness, Jack White, told me that every witness was given the opportunity to change their testimony. Perhaps Sturdivan was simply not informed he could do so.) When I asked who changed the exhibit numbers in his testimony—Exhibit 583 was twice corrected to read Exhibit 853-- Sturdivan replied: “I guess Mathews corrected the exhibit numbers.” (Mathews refers to I. Charles Mathews, the HSCA Special Counsel responsible for Sturdivan’s testimony.) When I asked why some of the questions asked Sturdivan had been changed, Sturdivan’s response surprised me. He replied: “In the case of (Congressmen) Fauntroy and Ford, the staff probably published the questions as phrased on the script they were supposed to follow. Some of the Congressmen had trouble following the script -- or just did what politicians do; i.e., speak without thinking what they are trying to say, just because they like the sound of their own voices…” When I asked him WHAT script he was talking about, he clued me in on how the HSCA conducted its “public” hearings. (Dr. Baden had previously mentioned the use of scripts in his 1989 book Unnatural Death, but it had fallen below my radar). Sturdivan replied: “A couple of weeks before the open hearings, I got a copy of the questions to be asked, keyed to each Congressman in turn. I prepared my "probable answer" to each so that the staff and/or Congressman could pre-prepare any follow-up questions. I.e., the Committee's staff did it. I suggested a few changes to questions and a few additional questions to make the story more complete. However, the Congressmen had a lot of trouble following the script. Some asked questions I had already been asked by another person and did not ask some of the questions they were scripted to ask. As a result the story got scrambled and less understandable.” In light of the fact that someone (probably Mathews) changed Sturdivan’s testimony to reflect the proper exhibit numbers, I asked Sturdivan if he remembered that he mis-spoke and said F-114 represented a bullet traveling 800 meters per second, or had simply assumed he’d done so. His response was illuminating: “The 800 meters per second, referring to F-114, is an obvious mistake. This is an M-193 bullet. Had it hit at 800 m/s, it would have been deformed, probably would have broken in two, and the bullet (or fragments) would have exited the block. 800 f/s is a handgun velocity that would have produced this type of picture. I don't know whether I said it wrong or they wrote it wrong or later changed it to be wrong.” And there it sat until Christmas Eve, 2009, when I received a copy of Sturdivan's HSCA testimony from the Poage Library at Baylor University. I put the DVD in my DVD player, convinced that I would soon be able to resolve whether Sturdivan said "800 meters per second" and confused the HSCA, or said "800 feet per second," only to have some unidentified person change his testimony and exhibits to read "800 meters per second." But I was in for another surprise. Sturdivan said "F-114 is the same bullet at a lower velocity. That velocity would be encountered at about 800 meters per second", but then corrected himself and said "800 meters range". This was quite interesting. First of all, at all other points in his testimony, Sturdivan discussed bullet velocity in terms of feet per second, and here he was discussing a bullet's velocity in "meters down range." By describing the bullet in such a manner, Sturdivan thereby hid from the record that the bullet tested was not fired from 800 meters down range, but was a reduced charge bullet apparently designed to simulate the effects of a bullet fired from 800 meters down range. Such a bullet was subsonic. Such a bullet was the type used in weapons designed for silent killing. Assassination weapons. In retrospect, Sturdivan's verbal gymnastics only made sense. Sturdivan was, after all, testifying on behalf of a government widely suspected of assassinating its President. He'd done work for the military. Included in this work was studying the wounding effects of the subsonic ammunition used in assassination weapons. Needless to say, this was not a topic the committee would want him to touch upon. And so he testified not how fast the bullet was traveling, but how far down range it would normally take the bullet to slow to that speed. And screwed up. But it's not as simple as that. While on the surface it seems possible Sturdivan's mistaken claim the bullet was traveling 800 meters per second led someone to not only include this mistake in the transcript, but mistakenly re-title his exihibit, this fails to explain why Sturdivan's correction, "800 meters range," was left off his testimony. He was clearly correcting himself. And his words were clearly spoken. This effectively puts me back where I began, wondering why the exhibit title was changed, and wondering whether it's just a coincidence that this exhibit was of a bullet type used in assassination weapons. But it also takes me further. In finding that Sturdivan's correction had been omitted from the transcript of his testimony, a door was once again opened to the possibility that much of what we know FROM SWORN TESTIMONY, is an inaccurate presentation of said testimony. This is an ongoing source of concern.

So, David, is it fair to assume from this that you do not question Thompson's motive in writing SSID, and consider it a sincere investigation, as opposed to an obfuscation?

The fact that the Dealey Plaza folks witnessed a transitory event which lasted seconds while the Parkland doctors observed a stationary body up close for an extended period of time, and described it with medical precision. What part of "occipital-parietal" don't you understand? Cliff, if you read the literature on the effects of rotation on human cognition you'll see that the length of time one is near a rotated object is unrelated to one's ability to accurately recall the appearance of the object. If you'd read the statements of the Parkland witnesses closely, moreover, you'd see that none of them, outside Clark and perhaps McClelland, studied the wound for more than a few seconds. What part of "Trendelenburg position" don't you understand?

Might I suggest those questioning Tink's motives go back and read the early assassination literature? Lifton was questioning the order of the Z-film frames published in the Warren Report. Weisberg was questioning the frames not published by the WC. But no one was questioning the veracity of the film itself. In fact, most everyone assumed that a public display of the film would convince the public JFK had been killed by more than one gunman. (And, strangely enough, they were right.) In SSID, Thompson published Z-312, Kennedy's position before the head shot, on the same page as CE 388, the drawing created for the WC depicting this shot. This proved that either JFK was shot from the trunk of the limo, or that CE 388 was a lie. It seems more than a coincidence that the next Government panel to inspect the autopsy photos moved the head wound, and that the leader of this panel said his panel was convened to refute the "junk" in Thompson's book. So, with SSID, Thompson used the Z-film to mortally damage the government's position that the medical evidence was above reproach. This was what the research community had been trying to accomplish since day one. As a result it's hard to believe that Thompson, even if he'd noticed that the wounds in the Z-film failed to match the descriptions of the Parkland witnesses, would have spent much time on this. I mean, the focus of most everyone at the time was to show how the (mostly suppressed) Z-film demonstrated a likely conspiracy. Thompson did just that. He was under no obligation to discuss reasons to doubt the accuracy of the film, even if he had such doubts. I mean, say someone edits a book about an historical event, which includes chapters by a number of writers. Say that one or more of these writers doubts the veracity of a theory that this editor holds dear, like, I don't know, evolution. Is the editor then obligated to point out that he questions the reasoning ability of this writer, as an afterward to the chapter submitted by the writer. Of course not.

Happy New Years to you as well. I used Newman and Zapruder because they are the only close-by witnesses I could find who demonstrated their impression of the wound location on 11-22. Another close-by witness, James Chaney, told a TV interviewer JFK was hit in the face. It is undoubtedly intriguing that none of these men, who saw Kennedy while he was still upright, thought the large head wound was on the back of JFK's head. As far as the Willis family, none of them were quoted till many months later, and they were some distance away. From their perspective, it would have been incredibly hard--probably impossible--to differentiate between an explosion of blood from the top of JFK's head while he was moving away from an explosion of blood from the back of his head. Even so, the FBI report on Marilyn Willis, the most consistent of the family, reported that she saw a "red halo" erupt from the top of Kennedy's head, not the back of his head. Phil Willis, moreover, not only testified that he did not see the impact of the final shot (which he apparently believed was the head shot) he testified that "The minute the third shot was fired, I screamed, hoping a policeman would hear me, to ring that building because it had to come from there." What absolute nonsense! Once again you suggest I haven't read something simply because I don't agree with its every conclusion, when it is you who have not read my FREE online book, or even watched my FREE online videos... The point made in the cited post, which you are apparently afraid to consider, is that those who saw Kennedy BEFORE he arrived at Parkland thought his large head wound was above and in front of his ear. The Parkland witnesses tended to claim it was behind his ear. Now, what changed? The body? No, well then how about the position of the body and the angle from which it was viewed? SURE ENOUGH, numerous studies have demonstrated and discussed the difficulty people have when interpreting faces rotated from the position in which they are normally viewed. Kennedy was not only flat on his back, his feet were elevated to a position far over his head. None of this is discussed in ANY of your books... Horne, apparently, avoided it as well.

So here we are back at square one, with you once again running from the evidence before you. I demonstrate why I believe Mantik is wrong and you counter with "what are your credentials", and then claim my refusal to buy your claims comes from my not reading your books, or studying the medical evidence, when the exact opposite is true. It is you who have never read my work, or seen my videos. If you had, you would see that I have studied the medical evidence in far more detail than anyone you are used to arguing against, and have made a number of discoveries that you otherwise might find significant, e.g. that Dr. Baden testified with his exhibit upside down, that the HSCA trajectory panel shrunk Kennedy's skull to make the head shot point back to the sniper's nest, etc. As far as Mantik, while he is not near the "ultimate authority" on X-Rays you purport him to be, I respect him and value his contributions. I just think that he, along with most everyone else, is wrong on several key issues. It bears repeating that I discovered that the white patch on the lateral X-ray was the wing of bone and that the "6.5 mm fragment" on the A-P X-ray was behind the right eye while trying to demonstrate Mantik's findings on PowerPoint slides. I apologize for undermining his findings, if that makes you feel any better. In this thread I have claimed that 1) the white patch on the lateral X-Ray corresponds to the location of the wing of bone in the right lateral autopsy photo (which you apparently believe to be fake). 2) the largest fragment on the A-P X-ray aligns perfectly with a fragment in the location from which the autopsy doctors claimed they removed the largest fragment. 3) there is a bullet hole in the back of the head photo (which you believe to be fake) that corresponds to the location of a bullet wound on the back of the head in the open cranium autopsy photo. And yet you have failed to counter these claims beyond claiming the autopsy photos used to demonstrate these claims are fake, and that I am not as qualified as Dr. Mantik to judge X-rays. This suggests that you do indeed see the points I have been making, but find them meaningless in light of what you think you already know. I thank you for your consideration. If you had anything to counter any of the evidence I've presented beyond "my buddy tells me you're wrong and I trust my buddy because he tells me what I want to hear" you'd have presented it long ago.

While we may disagree with some of Tink's conclusions, and wish he'd pursued different aspects of the evidence, it is an historical fact that his book really shook things up. In the aftermath of the CBS four-part special, and the AP's widely circulated series supporting the Warren Commission, the feeling among the media was almost certainly that Mark Lane, Epstein, and Weisberg, etc, had been countered. And then came Thompson...his book not only received mountains of publicity, and was deservedly taken seriously, it scared the government's hired experts into re-interpreting Kennedy's wounds, and moving the entrance on the back of JFK's head to a location more in line with what they claimed was an exit wound on the top of his head. (The Clark Panel's leader, Russell Fisher, said the Clark Panel was convened in part to refute the junk in Thompson's book.) So...if anything, Tink's book forced the government's hand, and revealed it would willingly embrace any line of nonsense as long as they could claim there was but one shooter firing from behind named Oswald.

Happy New Years to you as well. I used Newman and Zapruder because they are the only close-by witnesses I could find who demonstrated their impression of the wound location on 11-22. Another close-by witness, James Chaney, told a TV interviewer JFK was hit in the face. It is undoubtedly intriguing that none of these men, who saw Kennedy while he was still upright, thought the large head wound was on the back of JFK's head. As far as the Willis family, none of them were quoted till many months later, and they were some distance away. From their perspective, it would have been incredibly hard--probably impossible--to differentiate between an explosion of blood from the top of JFK's head while he was moving away from an explosion of blood from the back of his head. Even so, the FBI report on Marilyn Willis, the most consistent of the family, reported that she saw a "red halo" erupt from the top of Kennedy's head, not the back of his head. Phil Willis, moreover, not only testified that he did not see the impact of the final shot (which he apparently believed was the head shot) he testified that "The minute the third shot was fired, I screamed, hoping a policeman would hear me, to ring that building because it had to come from there."

So here we are back at square one, with you once again running from the evidence before you. I demonstrate why I believe Mantik is wrong and you counter with "what are your credentials", and then claim my refusal to buy your claims comes from my not reading your books, or studying the medical evidence, when the exact opposite is true. It is you who have never read my work, or seen my videos. If you had, you would see that I have studied the medical evidence in far more detail than anyone you are used to arguing against, and have made a number of discoveries that you otherwise might find significant, e.g. that Dr. Baden testified with his exhibit upside down, that the HSCA trajectory panel shrunk Kennedy's skull to make the head shot point back to the sniper's nest, etc. As far as Mantik, while he is not near the "ultimate authority" on X-Rays you purport him to be, I respect him and value his contributions. I just think that he, along with most everyone else, is wrong on several key issues. It bears repeating that I discovered that the white patch on the lateral X-ray was the wing of bone and that the "6.5 mm fragment" on the A-P X-ray was behind the right eye while trying to demonstrate Mantik's findings on PowerPoint slides. I apologize for undermining his findings, if that makes you feel any better. In this thread I have claimed that 1) the white patch on the lateral X-Ray corresponds to the location of the wing of bone in the right lateral autopsy photo (which you apparently believe to be fake). 2) the largest fragment on the A-P X-ray aligns perfectly with a fragment in the location from which the autopsy doctors claimed they removed the largest fragment. 3) there is a bullet hole in the back of the head photo (which you believe to be fake) that corresponds to the location of a bullet wound on the back of the head in the open cranium autopsy photo. And yet you have failed to counter these claims beyond claiming the autopsy photos used to demonstrate these claims are fake, and that I am not as qualified as Dr. Mantik to judge X-rays. This suggests that you do indeed see the points I have been making, but find them meaningless in light of what you think you already know. I thank you for your consideration.

Don, in chapter 19 at patspeer.com, I discuss in excruciating detail why I believe the Parkland doctors were wrong about the wound location, even to the extent of publishing and discussing all their earliest statements. The key is that there are flaws in human cognition, whereby we routinely get confused by certain images and events. We are in fact terrible at perceiving relative distances on rotated objects, particularly human faces. This is demonstrated here: So what bearing does this have on the case, you might ask? It's simple. Kennedy was not only laying flat on his back when most everyone at Parkland saw him, he was laying on his back with his feet up in the air. So, in short, I think the rotation of Kennedy on the stretcher caused some of those viewing him to misinterpret the location of his head wound, and their recollections colored those of their colleagues. It is significant, IMO, that none of these witnesses noted an entrance wound on the front of Kennedy's head, even though they were looking at his face. No, they just saw one large wound. The same large wound, one should assume, that was observed by William Newman and Abraham Zapruder in Dealey Plaza, and described on TV before the Parkland doctors had written a word. So where did Newman and Zapruder place the wound? Exactly where it is on the autopsy photos!

I'm not the one with low standards, Jim. You seemingly will accept any conspiracy argument provided it comes from your clique, and then never waver no matter how much evidence is presented proving them wrong. In this regard, you are pretty much like former JAMA editor George Lumberg, who claimed there was nothing fishy about the medical evidence because Dr. Humes and Dr. Petty told him so, without even acknowledging that Humes and Petty were in wide disagreement on the nature of the President's wounds. As far as JFK's hair, it was far from neat and tidy. It was long on top and short along the side, and was blown all over by the winds of Texas. The head in the autopsy photos has this same exact haircut. My, what a coinkydink! As far as the white patch, you seem to think the wing was above Kennedy's ear, and that the white patch is behind his ear. Take a look again at the Where is the Wing? slide. The area above Kennedy's ear is towards the back of his head... precisely where one can find the white patch. As far as Files, I'm not a disciple, and your trying to paint me with the "Files" brush is a bit ridiculous, considering some of the brushes one could paint you with. It is not my ignorance that is the source of our problems, it is your arrogance. For years now you have been arguing from authority, citing Mantik's work on the X-rays as definitive, while I have been trying to get one honest answer out of you regarding what is readily apparent to others. Even so, I'll try again. Mantik claims there is a white patch towards the back of Kennedy's lateral x-ray. He is right. I believe he is wrong, however, to assert this patch has no innocent explanation. While trying to create a slide demonstrating this white patch I realized that the location of this white patch corresponds precisely to the location of the "wing" of bone seen on the establishing shots taken at the autopsy. This led me to believe Mantik was wrong. This white patch is not an artifact, moreover, but what one would expect of a section of skull three layers of bone deep. The "whiteness" of this area, furthermore, would lead to the one layer of bone area anterior to these three layers of bone to appear darker than normal. This darkness, in turn, led Mantik to believe there was no brain in this area. The overlay of bone and "white patch" is demonstrated here: To be clear, I did not create the slide above to prove Mantik wrong or any such thing. I was trying to test the work of LNer Joe Durnavich, and, in doing so, found his depiction of the wing on the X-rays to be incorrect. Now, in regards the supposed 6.5 mm fragment... In this case I was trying to create a slide in which I would demonstrate Mantik to be correct. I was trying to match up the lateral and AP-X-rays after taking into account the distortion and tilt of the skull in the A-P. And what I found astounded me. While drawing a line from the frag on the A-P to the frag location in the lateral--in order to prove there is no clear-cut frag on the back of the head in this location--I noticed that the line passed through an unusual shape behind JFK's right eye. The thought quickly occurred that "Hmm...could it be?" When I compared the x-ray to the pre-mortem X-ray it was clear it was. I then went back to the reports on the autopsy, the Rydberg drawings, Humes' testimony, and even Humes and Boswell's ARRB testimony. All confirmed that the large frag on the A-P X-ray is the large frag removed from behind the right eye at the autopsy. This is demonstrated here: And here: Now if you want to create an argument that it is just a coincidence that the white patch corresponds exactly with the "wing" of bone, and that the fragment supposedly added onto the back of the head corresponds precisely to the location of the fragment removed from behind the right eye at autopsy, then FIRE AWAY. But calling me ignorant, when I have read your books, and you refuse to read mine, is the height of arrogance, and a clear demonstration, IMO, that your positions are not thought out, but gulped down with vigor, like wine during communion. If you open your eyes, Jim, and actually look at the "where is the wing" slide above, you will see that the white patch area matches precisely the area covered by the wing of bone in the right lateral Groden photo and stare of death photo, which are almost certainly not fakes. As far as the hair, OF COURSE, the hair was washed before the back of the head photo was taken. When one reads about autopsy photography, one finds that establishing shots are taken before close-ups of the individual wounds. The establishing shots in this case are the top of the head photos, left lateral photo, right lateral photo, and stare of death photo. After these were taken the body was cleaned up a little, rolled over and inspected. (I mean, really, do you think doctors sifted through blood and brain-soaked hair when inspecting the scalp?) This is standard. During this clean-up and inspection, two wounds were located: a small back wound and a small entrance near the EOP, which is demonstrated in the slide below: Now, since you seem to think the BOH photo is a fake put out by the government, can you explain why it shows a bullet entrance in the scalp that precisely corresponds with the bullet entrance in the skull noted at autopsy, that has since been "disappeared" by the government? I mean, let's get real here, why would the government "fake" photos and films that, when studied, demonstrate their re-assessments of the medical evidence to have been a sham, and suggest Kennedy was shot twice in the head? Did they create one false set of evidence in 63, and then turn around and lie about what this bogus evidence showed? Doesn't it make a lot more sense to think the medical evidence currently suppressed by the government, which suggests Kennedy was killed by not one but two shots to the head, is real?

It is not my ignorance that is the source of our problems, it is your arrogance. For years now you have been arguing from authority, citing Mantik's work on the X-rays as definitive, while I have been trying to get one honest answer out of you regarding what is readily apparent to others. Even so, I'll try again. Mantik claims there is a white patch towards the back of Kennedy's lateral x-ray. He is right. I believe he is wrong, however, to assert this patch has no innocent explanation. While trying to create a slide demonstrating this white patch I realized that the location of this white patch corresponds precisely to the location of the "wing" of bone seen on the establishing shots taken at the autopsy. This led me to believe Mantik was wrong. This white patch is not an artifact, moreover, but what one would expect of a section of skull three layers of bone deep. The "whiteness" of this area, furthermore, would lead to the one layer of bone area anterior to these three layers of bone to appear darker than normal. This darkness, in turn, led Mantik to believe there was no brain in this area. The overlay of bone and "white patch" is demonstrated here: To be clear, I did not create the slide above to prove Mantik wrong or any such thing. I was trying to test the work of LNer Joe Durnavich, and, in doing so, found his depiction of the wing on the X-rays to be incorrect. Now, in regards the supposed 6.5 mm fragment... In this case I was trying to create a slide in which I would demonstrate Mantik to be correct. I was trying to match up the lateral and AP-X-rays after taking into account the distortion and tilt of the skull in the A-P. And what I found astounded me. While drawing a line from the frag on the A-P to the frag location in the lateral--in order to prove there is no clear-cut frag on the back of the head in this location--I noticed that the line passed through an unusual shape behind JFK's right eye. The thought quickly occurred that "Hmm...could it be?" When I compared the x-ray to the pre-mortem X-ray it was clear it was. I then went back to the reports on the autopsy, the Rydberg drawings, Humes' testimony, and even Humes and Boswell's ARRB testimony. All confirmed that the large frag on the A-P X-ray is the large frag removed from behind the right eye at the autopsy. This is demonstrated here: And here: Now if you want to create an argument that it is just a coincidence that the white patch corresponds exactly with the "wing" of bone, and that the fragment supposedly added onto the back of the head corresponds precisely to the location of the fragment removed from behind the right eye at autopsy, then FIRE AWAY. But calling me ignorant, when I have read your books, and you refuse to read mine, is the height of arrogance, and a clear demonstration, IMO, that your positions are not thought out, but gulped down with vigor, like wine during communion. If you open your eyes, Jim, and actually look at the "where is the wing" slide above, you will see that the white patch area matches precisely the area covered by the wing of bone in the right lateral Groden photo and stare of death photo, which are almost certainly not fakes. As far as the hair, OF COURSE, the hair was washed before the back of the head photo was taken. When one reads about autopsy photography, one finds that establishing shots are taken before close-ups of the individual wounds. The establishing shots in this case are the top of the head photos, left lateral photo, right lateral photo, and stare of death photo. After these were taken the body was cleaned up a little, rolled over and inspected. (I mean, really, do you think doctors sifted through blood and brain-soaked hair when inspecting the scalp?) This is standard. During this clean-up and inspection, two wounds were located: a small back wound and a small entrance near the EOP, which is demonstrated in the slide below: Now, since you seem to think the BOH photo is a fake put out by the government, can you explain why it shows a bullet entrance in the scalp that precisely corresponds with the bullet entrance in the skull noted at autopsy, that has since been "disappeared" by the government? I mean, let's get real here, why would the government "fake" photos and films that, when studied, demonstrate their re-assessments of the medical evidence to have been a sham, and suggest Kennedy was shot twice in the head? Did they create one false set of evidence in 63, and then turn around and lie about what this bogus evidence showed? Doesn't it make a lot more sense to think the medical evidence currently suppressed by the government, which suggests Kennedy was killed by not one but two shots to the head, is real?

The relationship between the black and white areas of an X-ray are determined not by some set standard, but by the time of exposure etc. I found an example of this in an old guide to an X-ray machine similar to the one used at the autopsy. This is demonstrated here: If I recall, Dr. Mantik performed his tests on the computer-enhanced x-rays. If this is correct, unless he checked with those who did the "enhancement" and found out what was done to the contrast in the X-ray, and took this into account, his tests are irrelevant. P.S. I take from your argument from authority and expertise that you agree with my assessment that the wing of bone corresponds precisely with the "white patch" and that the "6.5 mm fragment" corresponds precisely with the fragment behind the eye. Am I wrong? P.P.S. I respect Dr. Mantik and enjoy many of his articles, e.g. his review of Reclaiming History. But he is, as you say, a radiation oncologist. This is a far cry from being a radiologist charged with reading x-rays of bullet wounds. Even if he was such a radiologist, however, it wouldn't sway my opinion. Nor should it. The wing precisely corresponds to the "white patch" and the fragment lines up precisely with the fragment behind the eye. Unless he is willing to address these issues, I'm afraid, I have no choice but to trust my own eyes over his. Someone asked him about my findings at Lancer, and he said I was wrong, but then admitted he'd never X-rayed a skull with an extra layer of bone adjacent to a hole to see the effect it would have on the optical density of an X-ray. So, there it is.

It is not my ignorance that is the source of our problems, it is your arrogance. For years now you have been arguing from authority, citing Mantik's work on the X-rays as definitive, while I have been trying to get one honest answer out of you regarding what is readily apparent to others. Even so, I'll try again. Mantik claims there is a white patch towards the back of Kennedy's lateral x-ray. He is right. I believe he is wrong, however, to assert this patch has no innocent explanation. While trying to create a slide demonstrating this white patch I realized that the location of this white patch corresponds precisely to the location of the "wing" of bone seen on the establishing shots taken at the autopsy. This led me to believe Mantik was wrong. This white patch is not an artifact, moreover, but what one would expect of a section of skull three layers of bone deep. The "whiteness" of this area, furthermore, would lead to the one layer of bone area anterior to these three layers of bone to appear darker than normal. This darkness, in turn, led Mantik to believe there was no brain in this area. The overlay of bone and "white patch" is demonstrated here: To be clear, I did not create the slide above to prove Mantik wrong or any such thing. I was trying to test the work of LNer Joe Durnavich, and, in doing so, found his depiction of the wing on the X-rays to be incorrect. Now, in regards the supposed 6.5 mm fragment... In this case I was trying to create a slide in which I would demonstrate Mantik to be correct. I was trying to match up the lateral and AP-X-rays after taking into account the distortion and tilt of the skull in the A-P. And what I found astounded me. While drawing a line from the frag on the A-P to the frag location in the lateral--in order to prove there is no clear-cut frag on the back of the head in this location--I noticed that the line passed through an unusual shape behind JFK's right eye. The thought quickly occurred that "Hmm...could it be?" When I compared the x-ray to the pre-mortem X-ray it was clear it was. I then went back to the reports on the autopsy, the Rydberg drawings, Humes' testimony, and even Humes and Boswell's ARRB testimony. All confirmed that the large frag on the A-P X-ray is the large frag removed from behind the right eye at the autopsy. This is demonstrated here: And here: Now if you want to create an argument that it is just a coincidence that the white patch corresponds exactly with the "wing" of bone, and that the fragment supposedly added onto the back of the head corresponds precisely to the location of the fragment removed from behind the right eye at autopsy, then FIRE AWAY. But calling me ignorant, when I have read your books, and you refuse to read mine, is the height of arrogance, and a clear demonstration, IMO, that your positions are not thought out, but gulped down with vigor, like wine during communion.

So here we have the "Z-film is fake" theory stretching ever outward, to the point where Zapruder and Greer are part of the conspiracy... This, to me, makes little sense, as both the Z-film in evidence and Zapruder's and Greer's statements suggest there was a conspiracy. Now, I am open minded about the possibility aspects of the film were altered (e.g. whether or not the back of JFK's head was painted in), but believe whole-heartedly that any argument placed before the public in which both the Z-film and autopsy photos are purported to be largely fake is a sure loser. Bill, since you seem to be watching this thread with an eagle-eye, perhaps you can explain why you think an argument that everything is fake has more traction than an argument that the already-accepted evidence has been deliberately misinterpreted? Do you really believe people will believe 70 and 80 year-olds with conflicting stories, whose stories only add up when cherry-picked and fed through Horne's Lifton-influenced filter? Whether or not Horne is right, I just don't think his "take" on much of the evidence will ever "play in Peoria". As but one example, in his Black Op radio interview he said he found Saundra Spencer to be the most credible of witnesses. It seemed clear to me from this that what she said fed into his theory, and that this made her credible in his eyes. But where is the proof of her credibility? Was she asked questions regarding other events in 1963? Were these compared to the known facts to determine if her memory was remotely accurate? I mean, we can't go into 50th anniversary debates citing the recollections of Jean Hill, Beverly Oliver, Gordon Arnold, Joe O'Donnell, Robert Knudsen, and Saundra Spencer as our best proofs of conspiracy, now can we? I'd bet the farm that McAdams, Holland, and Bugliosi all hope we will do so.

Jim D has added to his review of The Ruby Connection a reaction to Gary Mack's email. The Ruby Connection Part 3