Pat Speer

Do they sell Larry Hancock's "Someone Would Have Talked?" No. If I recall, I pushed Mack to carry Larry's book several years ago. He said that Lancer had never solicited him to carry the book or some such thing. The store carries two items--First Day Evidence and a 4oth anniversary DVD of WFAA footage--that I had tried to purchase in the past through Amazon, but had found unavailable. Neither of these items has a national distributor. It's clear the museum buys these titles directly from the author and/or producer. So why not buy from Lancer? There's no excuse. Unless, as Mack claimed, Lancer never solicited the buyer on Larry's book.

I am watching the program on Tivo, and have noticed a few mistakes. It has Oswald deny the charges against him (a comment he made on Saturday) before he was even charged with the murder of Kennedy. The scene is captioned "Friday Evening." OOOPS.

While in Dallas for COPA, I decided to check out the 6th Floor Museum's store to see if its book selection had improved since I was last there in 2004. To my pleasant surprise it had. It appears that its selection has improved. It had several books which propose a conspiracy: JFK: the Book of the Film Real Answers by Gary Cornwell The Zapruder Film by David Wrone It had two others which if I recall suggested as much: Brothers by David Talbot Sons and Brothers by Richard Mahoney It also had a few books which, while leaning towards a single-assassin scenario, are informative to interested parties of all stripes: Pictures of the Pain and That Day in Dallas by Richard Trask No More Silence by Larry Sneed And then of course there was Reclaiming History, Four Days in November, First Day Evidence, Mrs. Paine's Garage, the DVD to some of the History and Discovery Channel programs, the DVD to Oswald's Ghost, etc... So...there's still a bias, but it's a lot better than it used to be...

I guess we missed each other, Doug. I was wandering in and out Saturday afternoon. I'm not sure if my presentation, which was right before Wecht, was broadcast or not, but if it was, you might want to check it out. I think it was on Saturday afternoon that someone asked me about Henry Marshall, and Billie Sol Estes, etc in the hallway..., and I mentioned your involvement with Estes and that you'd previously been a lawyer for the Watergate burglars. Little did I imagine that you had either just been or were just about to be in our presence.

If memory serves, and without having gone back to study the films and photos, JFK's head was turned somewhat to the left, leaving the right side of his head facing somewhat towards the front when the bullet struck. If that is correct, then it would appear that the fatal bullet must have come from the right front. I spent a lot of time on this with plumb line and plastic skulls, and came to conclude that Kennedy's right temple was indeed accessible from the sniper's nest at frame 313. His head was tilted to its left in the Z film, but Z was filming from 10 degrees above Kennedy. The Moorman photo shows the true angle of his tilt--about 25 degrees. This lifted the area just above Kennedy's right ear into the space normally occupied by the top of his head, and made it accessible from behind. The outtake of Inside the Target Car showed what happens when a shot from behind hits the edge of the skull in this area--it was a close reproduction of the explosion at 313, much closer than the simulation on the show with the bullet hitting the back of the head..

Ken, publishing the transcript for re-sale or profit is one thing--but I am 99.99% certain you can re-type and re-use what is on the transcript for education purposes under the principle of fair use. People can own a work of fiction, but people can't own a public quote. In Part 3 of my video series, we re-enact an interview of Dr. Humes performed by Dan Rather, where Humes lies through his teeth. We wanted to use the actual interview, to show people Hey! This is real! This good doctor was given a script by the Justice Department and went on national TV and LIED to one of the largest TV audiences of that era. But CBS wanted to charge us a thousand dollars to put a 30 second segment on Youtube, or some such thing. So we just re-shot it, using a comedian friend of the director. CBS owns the footage of what was said, but they do not own what was said, once it's been broadcast. So..the question is has this footage ever been shown publicly?

You're absolutely right. The man was shot multiple times, several times in the head even. It appears that one shooter jumped the gun, literally, and that is the first blow we see impact, apparently on the right top part of the head. The other video purporting to be of Mussolini shows this same impact from a different angle. There we can see that the brain matter not only exploded to the right side of the head, but back of the head. This is what should be seen on the Z-film, but is not. There is no explosion from the back of JFK's head on the Z-film. This is one of the many reasons I've concluded that the bullet striking Kennedy at frame Z-313 did not enter the back of his head.

Pat, in order to sustain the theory that JFK was shot from behind, I have always thought that you need either the Jet Effect theory or the "neuromuscular reaction" theory (or some combination of the two, as the HSCA medical panel claimed) to explain the violent backward "head snap" we see in the Zapruder film. I gather you are arguing that the head shot came from the rear, but I could not find either of these theories discussed in your web article on the "Target Car" Am I missing something? Ray, I wanted to keep that chapter a commentary on the show. I discuss back and to the left etc. in Chapter 16b. 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.

Evan, I was so irritated by the program I created a whole chapter on my webpage about it. You can read it here: http://www.patspeer.com/chapter16c%3Aconfi...ddisappointment If you don't have the time, you might want to just read the captions to the slides in the chapter. In short, I found the program to be deliberately deceptive and dishonest. The irony, for me, is that I agreed with the program's central conclusion--that the head shot probably did not come from in front of Kennedy--and was totally prepared to like it. Boy was I disappointed.

Even more intriguing is that one of the "Chicago mob bosses" sprung by Clark was Johnny Rosselli... I mean, what are the odds? JFK is killed in Dallas on the very day New Orleans mob boss Carlos Marcello wins his lawsuit against Robert F. Kennedy. At Marcello's side is David Ferrie, who knew Oswald, JFK's supposed assassin. Lyndon Johnson is also rumored to have once been associated with Marcello. Another of Marcello's rumored connections is Tom Clark, a Supreme Court Justice. For a time the public is convinced Oswald acted alone, and then, JUST WHEN the public is starting to ask questions and doubt the official story, Johnson appoints Ramsey Clark, Tom Clark's son, to run the Justice Department. Clark arranges for the autopsy doctors to re-examine the medical evidence; their supposed report is instead written by the Justice Department. Around this same time, Johnny Rosselli, a Chicago mobster who'd once been released under then-attorney general Tom Clark's orders, starts maneuvering to get excused from his most recent run-in with the law. His lawyer leaks to columnist Drew Pearson that the CIA had hired him to kill Castro, and that someway somehow this had backfired and that Castro had killed Kennedy instead. Pearson then meets with Johnson and discusses how they can best use this information. Shortly thereafter, Clark tells Johnson that New Orleans DA Jim Garrison has a key witness, Ferrie, and that Garrison now suspects Johnson's involvement. Literally days later, Ferrie dies unexpectedly, and mysteriously. Shortly after that, Robert F. Kennedy breaks with Johnson over Vietnam, and the next day Drew Pearson's column reports that JFK had been killed after Robert Kennedy's plans to kill Castro had backfired. Weeks later, the Justice Department provides Dr. Humes with "talking points" for an interview on CBS; these talking points amount to an order that Humes lie about the location of Kennedy's back wound so that the single-bullet theory and single-assassin conclusion can be preserved. Over the next year or so, the Justice Department under Clark continues to interfere with Garrison's investigation. Then, in early 1968, within weeks of Johnson's deciding not to run for re-election, and his presumed acceptance that Robert Kennedy might become the next President, he has Clark create a secret panel to re-examine the medical evidence. Aware that the entrance wound on the back of JFK's head does not connect to the large defect presumed to have been an exit, this panel either convinces itself or flat-out lies and determines that the entrance wound was actually 4 inches higher on Kennedy's skull. They then refuse to be interviewed about their findings, and destroy all their notes. Their report is not released for almost a year. It is finally released on the first day of Garrison's trial of Clay Shaw, just a few days before Johnson was to step down from office. Not surprisingly, NONE of the national media even reads the report; they report that the new report refutes Garrison's belief in a conspiracy and supports the Warren Commission. NOT ONE paper notes that Clark's secret panel moved the head wound 4 inches, etc... From this, it certainly seems likely that Clark was brought on board to help with the cover-up. Was he too dumb to see what was going on? Maybe.

John, even if one discounts the practical argument that Oswald worked at the TSBD, Dealey Plaza--particularly that segment of Dealey Plaza--was an ideal location for an assassination attempt. Why? 1. The turn from Houston onto Elm necessitated the limo's cutting its speed roughly in half. Since it was leading a motorcade, moreover, it would not rapidly increase its speed after completing the turn. This was a huge advantage. 2. Elm Street after the turn ran directly away from The Dal-Tex Building. This would serve as as a second huge advantage for a shooter in that location. 3. By having a shooter in the Dal-Tex, the trajectories of the TSBD sniper's nest window would be closely replicated, increasing the chance the shooting could be blamed on a lone "commie". 4. By firing the shots when the limo was heading down Elm, by the knoll, the illusion could be created that the shots came from the front, or even from the south. This would help add to the confusion, and help insure the escape of the snipers.

That's reaching, IMO. Apparently, McHugh claimed from the get-go that LBJ's behavior aboard AF1 had been "obscene". All indications are that McHugh was a Kennedy loyalist. His involvement in a plot seems most unlikely.

Sometime not so long ago I was watching early newsreel footage of the assassination on Youtube, and noticed a quick scene I hadn't noticed before. It was a shot of an unidentified DPD Identification Bureau officer (Doughty? Hicks?) holding up Oswald's fingerprint card for the cameras. Now that I'm investigating this aspect of the case, of course, I can't find it. Any links to this footage or photos of this incident will be greatly appreciated. It may prove important. Thanks in advance, Pat

Well, Mark, you agree with Posner, my favorite government apologist, who is quoted at the conclusion of the current Times story: “Most conspiracy theorists don’t understand this... But if there really were a C.I.A. plot, no documents would exist.” I'm not sure how Posner actually knows this, but he certainly sounds authoritative, doesn't he? I suppose Nosenko told this to Posner in one of their top secret meetings.

Does anyone know whether this went ahead? I'm in the wrong time zone to listen live, and there's nothing on the Black Op website as yet. Len usually gets at least a link up in the archives section by now. I've been looking forward to it. Paul. I heard the last 20 minutes or so. After they'd been going at it for almost two hours, they reached the half-way point. McAdams, who lives in the Central Time Zone, then said he'd only like to go another hour. Rather than short-change the second batch of questions, they all agreed to do the second part next week. From what I heard it was quite civil and informative. McAdams had an answer for a lot of DiEugenio's points. DiEugenio, however, was well-prepared, and was able to shoot down a lot of McAdams' explanations. I'm not sure if the first part went as well, but, if so, someone should prepare a transcript of the debate, and post it all over the internet. It would allow ill-informed CTs to see that there is another point of view, and allow LNs fond of repeating the same old nonsense to see that there is plenty of info supporting the other side, and that distrust of the official story is not the sure sign of mental illness they've been led to believe.

Len, perhaps you're both right. Just because ONE paper printed the correct total five weeks later does not mean it became common knowledge... Cover-ups are rarely one hundred percent successful...but they don't need to be. As far as Greg's basic point--that governments cover-up and lie to protect politicians and that it sometimes takes decades to uncover the truth, how can you argue? I'll give you my favorite example. The vast majority of Americans STILL believe the United States HAD to drop the bomb on Japan, because the Japanese military had vowed to fight to the last man. Virtually no one knows that Japanese leaders had been trying to negotiate a surrender with Allen Dulles and others in Europe for months before the bomb was dropped. Virtually no one knows that Douglas MacArthur, of all people, said that the battle of Iwo Jima was totally unnecessary. We continued fighting and dropped the bomb because we wanted to assure Japan's UNCONDITIONAL surrender (and perhaps just perhaps send a message to the Russians). But how many Americans knew this? How many soldiers fighting at Iwo Jima were told that the Japanese had already agreed to surrender, and give up all the gains they'd made in the war, but were fighting on because they didn't want us to occupy their homeland? Probably zero. The American people were sold the war under the premise the Germans and Japanese were out to conquer the world; they were not sold the war on the premise we needed to conquer Germany and Japan and rebuild them to suit or economic interests. And so the lie was repeated after the war was over. And repeated and repeated and repeated. Until it became doctrine.

Exactly. I watched the video in which he fires the shots. He fires on a stationary target (a door) and never lifts his head. One of the problems with the Carcano--to my understanding--was that the bolt action was extremely stiff and people had to take their eyes off the target between rounds to operate the bolt. And so I mentioned that his rifle was clearly not in the same condition as Oswald's. (I would guess he has fixed it up in some way--perhaps he replaced the bolt with something much much easier to operate.) That was what led to both his deleting my old messages and making me a wager.

I exchanged a few words with the maker of this video, and he revealed himself to be quite the fraud by deleting all the negative comments on his video. He insists he can hit seven shots on a moving target in seven seconds with his Carcano, and wants to bet me on it. I've tried to explain to him that I don't care what he can do with his Carcano, but that he is implying anyone can hit seven shots in seven seconds with an hour's practice, on a rifle in the condition of OSWALD'S Carcano. I have tried to explain that the FBI, Army, CBS News, Dr. Lattimer, etc. all performed tests on the rifle, or on rifles in similar condition, and found it to fire no faster than once every 2 seconds when firing on a moving target. But he's too ignorant to care. "You implying I can't hit the shots? Wanna man-up and make a bet on it?" What a joke... He's an obvious fraud trying to make a name for himself by proving that rat bastard commie killed Kennedy. Probably a birther...

David, while doing a comparison between the Z-film and Dale Myers' animation I took a closer look at frames 208-211 and came to a similar belief. While JFK stays put just above the top of the sign, Jackie bounces all over the place. It is clear she's reacting to a shot and staring at her husband. I believe that's one of the reasons Myers couldn't find the time to include her in his cartoon. It also raised the question with me if that wasn't why the frames disappeared. Perhaps someone...Specter?... realized if those frames were published, the public would never believe the first shot wasn't fired til Z-210, as the WC was preparing to propose.

Pamela, you might find chapter 9b at patspeer.com interesting. I compare Bugliosi's assaults on Stone with his own deceptive use of footnotes and citations, and demonstrate quite clearly, IMO, that Vincent Bugliosi is the "real" Oliver Stone.

I met Bugliosi in January at a book-signing. He is indeed a weird egg, full of himself, and his belief his arguments are irrefutable. He is also an atheist.

David, presuming the Z-film is not a fake, there is no way Kennedy was hit at the time of the Croft photo. The Croft photo is at Z-161. The Z-film shows Kennedy turn to his right, smile and wave to some women after this point. There is no way he could have or would have done this after being shot. The witnesses, furthermore, claimed Kennedy was shot during this wave. This supports that Kennedy was hit circa Z-190. Connally, when first shown the film, thought Kennedy was hit at this time. Since the Warren Commission was afraid to say Kennedy was hit at this time, as the limousine was at this time partially hidden behind a tree, they decided to have the FBI's Lyndal Shaneyfelt testify that there was no evidence Kennedy was hit before coming out from behind the sign. They then proposed JFK was hit somewhere between Z-210 and Z-225, when he was behind the sign or just coming out from behind the sign. I believe they knew this to be a lie. In any event, the HSCA photographic panel studied the film and, as Connally, decided Kennedy was hit before heading behind the sign in the film. The HSCA said okay, and claimed a shooter from the sniper's nest might have tried to fire through a break in the tree at this point. Okay. I agree. In their zeal to prop up the single-bullet theory, however, the HSCA decided Connally was also hit at this point, and that he showed no reaction until seconds later. Well, this was a problem, even for single-assassin theorists, who never met a ridiculous assertion propping up the single-bullet theory that they didn't like. Close study of the film by theorists in the 80's and 90's suggested that yes, indeed, the HSCA was full of smoke, and that Connally was hit circa Z-224 and not Z-190. Now this is the good part. They then decided to pretend there was no evidence Kennedy was hit before Z-224. The claimed his rapid reaction to being wounded after Z-224 was related to something called Thorburn's response. This was later proved to be a hoax. They created animated versions of the Z-film showing Kennedy smiling and waving until being hit at the same time as Connally. This animation has since been proven to be inaccurate, and inaccurate in such a way that it suggests a deliberate deception. Kennedy's movements on the film before he heads behind the sign are the proof of the lie. Dale Myers, the creator of the most widely-seen animated version of the shooting, tried to get around the HSCA photographic panel's interpretation by claiming close study of the film shows that Kennedy was not reacting to a shot, but checking out some chicks. Ridiculous. But at least he has plausible deniability. When the eyes of history look down on him and say "How could you be so mistaken?" he can claim "Well, I guess I was wrong! Sorry!" Not so Vincent Bugliosi. In the 1986 mock trial of Oswald, Bugliosi called as a prosecution witness Cecil Kirk, head of the HSCA photographic panel. He had Kirk testify Kennedy was hit circa frame 190, before he went behind the sign. When Bugliosi's book Reclaiming History came out in 2007, however, Bugliosi was now claiming, a la Myers, that Kennedy was not hit until circa frame 224. So you'd think he'd just ignore Kirk, right? Wrong? He repeatedly cites Kirk in his book, trading upon Kirk's expertise, but NEVER tells his readers that not only did Kirk believe Kennedy was shot seconds before Bugliosi claims Connally was shot, but that Bugliosi had taken testimony saying as much in the mock trial serving as the back drop for Bugliosi's book. ARRGGHH! Will the parade of lies and liars never cease!

If the above is accurate, it is a shameful part of Ted Kennedy' legacy, and is disappointing, knowing what many of us know, concerning the flaws in the Warren Commission Report, so well documemnted, for example, in the threads on this forum. Well, that helps explain things. Warren, to his everlasting shame, personally "sold" the commission's findings to the family. It would be hard not to be swayed by such a thing. I wonder if Warren told them: "Uhhh, the doctors wanted to look at the autopsy photos THEY'D created to assist them in writing their reports, and to help them in their testimony, but I REFUSED to let them look at these photos because I was concerned with upsetting Bobby, even though he'd told Katzenbach that they could look at them if they wanted to. Y'know, out of my loyalty... I just couldn't bear the thought of the doctors who--in point of fact, OWNED the photographs--looking at them, and creating accurate exhibits representing the President's wounds. And oh, by the way, these photographs would never have been allowed in a court of law anyway, cause they were just too gruesome, and they would have overly-influenced the jury into convicting Oswald. Of course, if there was something in the photos that suggested Oswald's innocence, they would have been allowed, but that's another matter. I mean, I looked at the photos myself, and made the decision that there was NOTHING in these photos that could possibly suggest his innocence--that is, unless you count that the neck wound in the exhibits we're gonna publish is two inches higher on the back than the back wound in the photos, and that this totally helps sell that the bullet striking your brother from behind exited his throat and went on to hit Connally, and that this helps us sell that one man could have fired all the shots. I mean, some snakey public defender, some Mark Lane-type, might try and do something with that. But no one needs to know about that, now do they? We all know that squirrelly commie did it, and did it alone, and actually studying the medical evidence and bringing up all those memories, well...really what's the point? Yeah, yeah... I know what you're thinking. You're thinking "But Earl, your appointing yourself an expert and determining the relevance of these photos without the consultation of an expert is a violation of everything you're supposed to represent, and would almost certainly have resulted in an overturn of a conviction, should it have been done in an actual court room." But you're forgetting---this wasn't a court room. It was a fact-finding commission, and we could do whatever we wanted to find facts or not find facts, without fear of one of those embarrassing reversals. That's the beauty of it... And that's why I think we should circumvent the rights of the accused in all criminal investigations of highly-charged political events in the future by creating Presidential commissions answerable only to the President...particularly when the President is himself under suspicion for the crime. I mean, we can't have that, can we? I mean, if the legitimacy of the Presidency itself is ever under question, then our whole American way of life is in jeopardy. So it only follows that we need to destroy everything that people think matters--the rule of law, etc--in order to save what we here in Washington know REALLY matters...RESPECT FOR AUTHORITY."

Oh, so I get it...they weren't trained in assassination, only torture. How dare we think someone trained to "take up the rear guard" and "collect information" and "interrogate" might also kill a commie or two! The horror! This convinces me even more that Op 40 was trained to kill the likes of Manolo Ray. The assassination lists found in the CIA files were intended for someone. Who better than the guys serving as "internal investigators" while "taking up the rear guard"?

George Carlin, Bill Hicks...I think Lenny Bruce might have cast some suspicion also. Why is it that our comedians seem to have more common sense than our politicians?