Pat Speer

I really really hope you realize how unscientific this all is, Sandy. Essentially,you have cooked the books. 1..You have failed to take into account the Dealey Plaza witnesses who by and large described the large wound in a manner consistent with the autopsy photos and x-rays. If you include them in your data field, your argument fails. 2. You have failed to take into account that the recollections of the Parkland witnesses were not independent recollections, as they spoke together after viewing the President's body, and read the accounts of others in medical journals, and were later shown drawings like the McClelland drawing, or even the Rydberg drawings, which showed the wound to be further back on the skull than in the photos. As it is impossible to separate the influence of these other factors, the whole premise behind your argument is flawed. 3. You failed to take into account other factors, such as the Parkland witnesses' viewing JFK while he was laying on his back. As reported, the rotation of an image affects our ability to properly assess the relative positions of elements within the image. Now, admittedly, the degree of this distortion is difficult to estimate without reproducing the exact circumstances. And this has never been done. What you have done, however, is select the statements of a specific group of witnesses, and then assume their statements ring true for all witnesses, even though you know this isn't true. This is flawed, at best. It would be like talking to those who saw a bright yellow moon on the horizon, and concluding it was a different moon than the smaller moon later spotted high up in a cloudy sky. Instead of insisting that the discrepancies in the appearance of something or someone proves there is more than one of this something or someone, or that one of the images has been falsified, you should pick up a book or two or ten on human cognition, and try to understand why people can and do make mistakes in a uniform manner. It's fascinating reading, IMO. I have a section on uniform mistakes, and optical illusions, in Chapter 18d. You should really take a look.

I think he made reference to the diary entry in the book, but tried to spin it so it wouldn't sound so bad. He had the diary, along with maybe 200 internal WC documents, up on a website to help promote the book, but I ruined it for everyone by catching on to some of what was in there, and he got mad and took it all down. He was particularly upset that I seized upon an entry in which he discussed Warren's requesting the archives to slow roll the release of unpublished documents to the critics, in order to give the Commission time to sell that it was Oswald.. From Chapter 3: Behind the Scenes with Howard Willens Commission counsel Howard Willens kept a contemporaneous journal on the commission's investigation. In early 2014, he put his journal online. Let's pretend then that, in our imaginary investigation in 1964, we've befriended Willens and that he is showing us his journal. Howard Willens shows us his journal entry for 3-9-64/3-10-64. (I have added some comments to put the events in context. But, of course.) His journal entry reads, in part: 2. On Tuesday, four eyewitnesses appeared before the Commission and completed their testimony at approximately 3 p.m. I had obtained a copy of the prior day’s testimony early in the morning and had planned to read it but was unable to begin this job until late in the evening. 6. After lunch and a brief discussion with Jack Miller I visited with the Deputy Attorney General for a while regarding the work of the Commission. I briefed him on the report of the Nosenko interview and the schedule of witnesses set forth in the memorandum of March 6. I discussed with him briefly the stalemate between the Treasury Department and the Commission regarding the area of security precautions. Mr. Katzenbach agreed that this was a needless problem which should be resolved without too great difficulty. He suggested that I might wish to discuss it sooner or later with Mr. McCloy. 7. Shortly after I returned to the Commission offices on Tuesday, Mr. Redlich came into my office in quite a hurry and asked me to join them in the Conference Room. Apparently the testimony for the day had been completed (eyewitnesses Rowland, Euins, Jackson and Worrell) and the Chief Justice was engaging Messrs. Redlich, Ball, Belin and Specter in conversation regarding the proposed schedule of testimony and several other matters. When I entered the room the Chief Justice was expressing his opinion that more witnesses with significant testimony should be called before the Commission as quickly as possible. This was partly because the court was currently in recess and he wanted to complete as much of the Commission’s business as possible during the next week and a half. He expressed his view that the medical witnesses were among the more important witnesses to be heard. He indicated that as a corollary to this that many of the witnesses that had already been called before the Commission did not have much testimony of substance. Hmmm... Even beyond that newspaper accounts suggest Warren was only present for one hour of the March 9 testimony of the Secret Service agents, Warren's complaint that the witnesses recently called before the commission lacked substance doesn't pass the simplest of smell tests. The four Secret Service agents interviewed the day before indicated the last two shots were bang-bang, one behind the other. Kellerman said the last two came in in a "flurry...it was like a double bang--bang, bang." Greer said they came in "just simultaneously, one behind the other." Hill said he recalled hearing but two shots, but that the last one had "some type of an echo...almost a double sound." And Youngblood pretty much concurred: "There seemed to be a longer span of time between the first and the second shot than there was between the second and third shot." And these four problematic witnesses have now been followed up by a second four, ALL of whom add to the likelihood there was more than one shooter. Arnold Rowland, to begin with, surprised the heck out of the commission and said he saw two different men on the sixth floor before the shooting, and that the last shot was fired but two seconds after the second. Amos Euins said he'd heard four shots. Robert Jackson said "the second two shots seemed much closer together than the first shot, than they were to the first shot." And James Worrell said he'd heard four shots. It seems obvious, then, that Warren views witnesses who can help him sell the single-assassin conclusion as substantive and those harmful to this cause as lacking substance. If so, this makes his request the medical witnesses be brought forward as soon as possible a bit suspicious. It seems possible he is afraid the investigation is about to spin out of control, and hopes to bring the investigation--and the Washington media reporting on the investigation--back in line via the gory details of the President's death. 7. cont'd) He indicated that he wanted to get our lawyers on the road as quickly as possible to interview witnesses. In the course of stating his views on this, the Chief Justice stated that he had complete faith in all of the members of the staff and wanted them to be free to have unrecorded interviews with the witnesses. Although he did not elaborate on his views in this matter, the Chief Justice apparently had been briefed on the staff discussions on this subject by someone, possibly Mr. Rankin or Mr. Ball. Hmmm... Willens has told us of these discussions, and that several of the commission's staff think it improper to prep the witnesses via unrecorded interviews. He shows us a 3-2-64 entry in his journal which reveals: "Most of today was consumed by two staff meetings regarding the proposed schedule of testimony before the Commission and by depositions taken by the staff. The draft memorandum for the members of the Commission which I prepared was distributed to members of the staff and was discussed at the initial meeting beginning at 11:30 a.m. The discussion quickly centered on the problem whether staff members should be permitted to interview witnesses in advance of the witness giving a deposition or testifying before the Commission. This argument went on for two hours or so and for an additional two hours or so at a continuation of the meeting beginning at 4 o’clock. Mr. Shaffer was not there and therefore his eloquence could not be brought to bear on this topic. As a result of the meetings, a set of procedures is to be made up by a committee including Messrs. Liebeler, Belin and Redlich. Mr. Redlich and Mr. Eisenberg were the most forceful proponents of the proposition that staff members should not be permitted to interview witnesses without a court reporter present. Mr. Belin was strongly opposed and Mr. Liebeler urged a somewhat intermediate position." Willens then shows us a 3-4-64 memo from Redlich to Rankin in which Redlich reveals "I feel that an unrecorded interview with a witness creates the inevitable danger that the witness will be conditioned to give certain testimony" and that, furthermore, "If we compound the lack of cross examination with the pre-conditioning of a witness, we will be presenting a record which, in my view, will be deceptively clean..." Well, here, on 3-10, Warren has weighed in on the matter, and has told the staff, in so many words, to go ahead and prep some witnesses and get something on the record...pronto! We can only presume then that he wants to put some miles between the commission and its latest round of witnesses. Willens then shows us the rest of his entry for 3-10. 7. cont'd) In response to the Chief Justice’s views I indicated to him that we would make every effort to secure witnesses for next Friday and to change the schedule for the week of March 16 so as to meet his wishes. The various members of the staff then discussed their views as to the difficulty of the medical testimony and the time necessary to prepare for it. The Chief Justice indicated that he was primarily interested in hearing the testimony of the doctors from the Bethesda Naval Hospital who conducted the autopsy. Hmmm... It seems clear from this that Warren feels confident the testimony of these doctors will bolster the case for a single-assassin. We wonder why he feels this way. 7. cont'd) I indicated that, if possible, we would try to have these doctors appear before the Commission during the week of March 16. ... 8. After the above meeting various members of the staff gathered in my office to make their suggestions regarding alterations in the schedule. Present were Messrs. Redlich, Eisenberg, Ball, Belin, Stern, Liebeler and Ely. As usual there was considerable debate among the members of the staff regarding the function of the Commission and the definition of what constitutes a thorough job. Apparently during the day’s testimony the Chief Justice had indicated his readiness to receive a clean record and not pursue in very much detail the various inconsistencies. Mr. Ball agreed with the approach suggested by the Chief Justice completely and Mr. Specter thought that we would have to amend our approach to correspond with that of the Chief Justice. Mr. Redlich and Mr. Eisenberg took a strong and articulate contrary view. The long and short of the meeting was that we decided to bring up Mr. and Mrs. Declan Ford on Friday and to explore the possibility of having the medical testimony on Monday and Tuesday. Well, this confirms our suspicions. Warren wants the staff to present him with a "clean" case against Oswald, one with as few inconsistencies as possible, and he is giving them the green light to prep witnesses in unrecorded interviews in order to meet this end.

Geez, I get into this on my website. And the record is very clear. From studying Howard Willens' diary, and the related documents, it's clear some lawyers wanted to interview the witnesses cold, and let the chips fall where they may, and that some insisted they needed to pre-interview them off the record, so they could avoid problematic answers, After Specter began interviewing witnesses in Washington, and Warren saw how many witnesses were claiming they heard more than three shots, or that the shots came in in a flurry, etc, Warren called a meeting, and told the lawyers they needed to pre-interview their witnesses, and keep the record clean. And that's what they did from then on. Ball and Belin, in particular, pre-interviewed problematic witnesses, and screened God knows what from the record. Adams was not the only one to be abused in this manner, nor were the tapes to her deposition the only ones to disappear. It is my understanding they all were destroyed. And I'm not even sure this was unusual. The FBI destroys their notes as soon as a report is written, so it wouldn't be surprising if the tapes used to create a transcript were destroyed once the transcript was created. As it is, we have Adams' transcript, with her handwritten notes, which match up to what was stated in the Stroud letter. And we now have her statement on the Sahl show stating she did in fact see Lovelady and Shelley. So there's no reason to suspect anything was changed in the transcript itself. But, of course, Belin's screening of the questions asked Adams remains a problem. On my website, I list dozens of questions that should have been asked of the Commission's witnesses, and some that were listed in memos as going to be asked, that were never asked. We can only assume then that many of these questions were asked off the record, but that Ball/Belin/Specter/whomever didn't like the answer and failed to re-ask these questions once on the record.

You seem like a smart guy, Michael. So it's bizarre to me that you continue to cite so many myths, and cite so many people as back of the head witnesses who signed off on the autopsy photos, or claimed they took the-rays showing the back of the head was intact, etc. They are not back of the head witnesses simply because...fill in the writer..pretends they are. Take, for example, Canada. Robert Canada was introduced as a back of the head witness in a book in which the author routinely cited phone calls made with famous people...who were dead at the time. This author claimed to call up Canada years before he began calling up others--he just called him out of the blue--and that Canada confessed to him, a total stranger. He then claimed he'd withheld this info for decades because Canada--once again, someone who did not know him--made him promise to never tell anyone for 25 years after the call. Only...this author attended JFK conferences after 25 years had passed, and before he published his book, and said nothing. It's transparent bullcrap, that anyone worth reading would avoid. As far as that last post... I was responding to a post citing the 11-22 repors. So it was only natural I responded by discussing the history of the men who wrote those reports, and whether they stood by those reports. People keep saying they all said the same thing, and are thereby 100% reliable. Well, I showed that wasn't true.

Loftus was perhaps the top "expert" on eyewitness testimony, and she testified on behalf of numerous defendants. I exchanged a number of emails with her and another top cognitive psychologist before coming to the conclusion the back of the head witnesses could have been mistaken, and both assured me there was no study directly correlating to what transpired with Kennedy. Around that time, I began re-reading what the "back of the head" witnesses actually said, and realized that they were not in lockstep or any such thing, and that most were consistent in one important regard--that when asked to depict the wound location they routinely pointed at a location ABOVE where those pushing the back of the head scenario claimed there was a wound. \

Okay. That's seven witnesses describing something in reports written hours after the fact, and after they'd discussed this something amongst themselves and others. How consistent are they, really, with both each other, and with the so-called McClelland drawing supposedly depicting what they saw? And how well do they stand up? Carrico: Carrico did not identify a precise location for the wound in his initial statement, and later disavowed his claim of seeing cerebellum, by admitting he never even looked at the back of JFK's head. Carrico's words do not support that occipital bone was missing. Perry: Perry said the wound was on the right posterior cranium, which is certainly in line with how the wound in the photographs might be described by someone viewing it from above, with the patient on his back. As he did not mention cerebellum, moreover, there is nothing in his report that is controversial, or indicates the shot came from the front. Perry's words do not support that occipital bone was missing. Baxter: Baxter's description of the wound as temporal and occipital indicated it was on the side of the head, at the rear, presumably forward of its location in the McClelland drawing. This suggested a frontal entry. Apparently, Baxter realized this mistake because he changed the words to temporal and parietal in his testimony, and observed that a "temporal parietal plate of bone laid outward to the side." Well, this would seem to be a reference to the "wing" of bone seen in the photographs, the photographs he had not seen. Of course, no such wing existed on the President at Parkland, according to the back of the head crowd, and no such wing is depicted in the McClelland drawing. In sum, then, Baxter's words do not support that occipital bone was missing. Clark: After the first few weeks, Clark refused to comment on what he saw, outside of his telling the Warren Commission what he saw was consistent with a shot from behind. He did however speak to the press in the 80's to denounce conspiracy theorists, and he also teamed up with single-assassin theorist John Lattimer to conduct experiments helpful to Lattimer's cause. In his initial press conference, and his subsequent Warren Commission testimony, Clark discussed the possibility the wound was a tangential wound of both entrance and exit. So...it's hard to say what Clark believed at the end. If I had to guess, I'd say he was comfortable with the Oswald did it solution, but continued to feel the large wound was a tangential wound, and kept this silence because well, he didn't want to stir up a hornet's nest. McClelland: McClelland mentioned but one head wound in his report, a wound of the left temple. Although he later claimed the wound he saw was essentially the wound as described by Clark, we have reason to doubt this was his original recollection, seeing as he told Richard Dudman within days of the shooting that there was nothing about this wound to suggest a shot from the front. Bashour: Bashour said nothing of significance regarding the head wound in his report. Jenkins: Jenkins essentially disavowed his report, claiming he was mistaken about the cerebellum, and the wound's being occipital. The thought occurs that he was following the lead of others when writing his report, and then came to believe they were wrong. In any event, his initial report supported what back of the head devotees want to believe, and his subsequent words crushed them, to the extent even that many came to believe he was a deliberate xxxx, or even part of a plot. And that's it. Not one doctor writing a report on the Presidents wounds on 11-22-63 described the wound as an occipital wound, and publicly stuck by their description after it became clear their description was controversial. There is no there there. A bunch of people at a ball game said the runner was safe, and agreed he was out after watching the replay. Except for two: one who wouldn't commit to safe or not safe after the runner was called out, and another who originally said he couldn't tell, but then said he was safe after talking with the others, and then refused to accept the replay, while claiming it was deceptive.

Do you believe the body was altered? Or the photos were faked? Or both? And, IF you believe the body was altered, why are you and your new buddies going after me, who has a very small audience, and not Aguilar, who just denounced Horne and the whole body-was-altered nonsense in an article on Jim D's website? Do you even see the disconnect? Huh, Lifton and his followers say the body was altered but the photos are legit, and Groden, Aguilar and others suggest the body was not altered, but that the photos have been faked. These sides have been at war now for decades. It is nowhere close to a resolution. And yet people new to the fray seem to be willing to accept that both are correct, which doesn't make a lot of sense now, does it? If the body was altered to leave a false photographic record, then it makes no sense to believe the photos themselves were faked. But if the body wasn't altered, then the photos would appear to have been faked, seeing as they don't directly align with the witness recollections. They are mutually exclusive positions. So how does one resolve this? I did the unthinkable, and actually went back to square one, and realized that those pushing the back-of-the-head argument (with the possible exception of Aguilar, who refuses to be tied down on a lot of this stuff) were pulling a bait-and-switch. They were pointing out inconsistencies within the witness recollections, and the tendency among many witnesses to place the wound further back than where it appears in the photos, to SELL that the far back of the head, the occipital bone, was blown out. And this, even though few credible witnesses placed a wound in this location. And yet, where's the outrage? If the Warren Commission had used witnesses claiming they saw JFK react, and had misrepresented their statements to support that Connally was hit at the same time, in furtherance of their single-bullet conclusion, members of the CT community would have written chapters on it, and there would be threads on it. And yet, it seems I am the only member of the community to give a hoot that much of what's been written about the medical evidence, by supposed scholars, has been a con. No, instead, we have members repeating post after post insisting that people like William Newman and Charles Brehm and Bobby Hargis--people who insisted the back of the head was not blown out, or that all the shots came from behind--were prominent members of the back of the head club. And that I am just a meanie goat for pointing out that Robert McClelland's initial report--in keeping with the reports then on TV--mentioned a wound of the temple, and said nothing of a blow-out wound on the back of the head. Heresy!

I spent years studying the medical evidence, and compiling a data base of witness recollections, before concluding that the back of the head witnesses were not proof the body was altered, or that the autopsy photos were fake. Those arguing against me, on the other hand, inevitably cut and paste the same statements I studied 20 years ago, and the same arguments I debunked a decade ago. There was no preconceived notion. I don't know who killed Kennedy, and I think anyone claiming they do know is likely full of hooey. What I do know is that the official medical evidence was spun to suggest a single shooter, and the eyewitness evidence has been spun by CTs to sell any number of theories. Stop selling or reading what others are selling. Read textbooks. Learn. And you will see that most CT books are every bit as full of crud as the Warren Report.

You're incorrect. I was in an accelerated math program in high school. There were about 20 of us, in a graduating class of over 1,000. While I goofed off a bit and was content to get a B, there was one chapter which came easy to me, and I shocked the nerds with the pocket protectors and slide rules by getting the best score on the test, by far. That chapter was on probabilities. And the key to probabilities is figuring out if the events are related or not. IF you had 20 different doctors all operating independently of one another, and they all said the same thing, then the chances of them all being incorrect in the same way would be unlikely. But we don't have that in this case. We have a cherry-picked pool of witnesses who interacted with one another and undoubtedly influenced each other, for better or worse. I say cherry-picked because back of the head devotees routinely reject a number of witnesses, or desperately spin these witnesses into saying something they never said, or did not mean to imply, as made clear by all their statements. In this case, you have taken 20 statements of people you wish to believe, and thrown out the statements of the Newmans, Zapruder, Burkley, and so forth. And that's not logical. Not logical at all. And no, the claim these people were describing an entrance wound--that was not found by those looking for it--is just desperate flailing. No one saw such a wound. Here's Bill Newman on TV within 15 minutes of the shooting "a gun shot apparently from behind us hit the President in the side, the side of the temple." And here's his wife about 30 minutes later: ""And then another one—it was just awful fast. And President Kennedy reached up and grabbed--it looked like he grabbed--his ear and blood just started gushing out." And here is Malcolm Kilduff, about 15 minutes later, as he announced JFK's death: “President John F. Kennedy died...of a gunshot wound in the brain…The President was shot once, in the head...Dr. Burkley [Dr. George Burkley, Kennedy's personal physician] told me it is a simple matter…of a bullet right through the head. (And as he said this, he pointed to his right temple). And here's Abraham Zapruder on WFAA, about 40 minutes later: “Then I heard another shot or two, I couldn't say it was one or two, and I saw his head practically open up, all blood and everything. (Now at this time, Zapruder similarly grabbed his right temple), So that's four witnesses with time-stamped appearances before the public placing the large head wound--the only head wound seen in Dallas--by the temple. Now, some quick math, Sandy... What are the odds of that? What are the odds that the first four witnesses to speak on JFK's head wound to the press or the public, would all say the wound was by the temple? When, according to the witnesses you find so riveting, there was no such wound there? I mean, what's going on? A mass hallucination? Now let's continue. Hmmm... Who else saw the murder of the President? And reported on it within the time frame you've deemed acceptable for the Parkland witnesses? Here's James Chaney, a motorcycle officer riding to the right and behind the President, on the night of the shooting: "I looked back just in time to see the President struck in the face by the second bullet." And here's Douglas Jackson, riding to the right of Chaney, in notes written on the night of the shooting: "I looked back toward Mr. Kennedy and saw him hit in the head; he appeared to have been hit just above the right ear. The top of his head flew off away from me." Okay, interesting. Still no explosion from the back of the head... Now here's Emory Roberts, riding directly behind Kennedy in the follow-up car. On 11-29, he wrote: "I saw what appeared to be a small explosion on the right side of the President’s head, saw blood, at which time the President fell further to his left." And here's Kenny O'Donnell, in a book published in 1972: "While we both stared at the President, the third shot took the side of his head off." Side, not back. And here's Glen Bennett, sitting behind O'Donnell, in his 11-22 notes: "A second shoot followed immediately and hit the right rear high of the boss's head." Note that he describes an entrance on rear high, and not an exit on low, middle. Well, then what about those on the ground, on the right side of JFK? Emmett Hudson was standing on the steps to the right and front of President Kennedy. In his testimony before the Warren Commission, he claimed: "it looked like it hit him somewhere along a little bit behind the ear and a little bit above the ear." Here's Marilyn Sitzman, Abraham Zapruder’s secretary, when asked about the head wound in 1966: “And the next thing that I remembered...was the shot that hit him directly in front of us, or almost directly in front of us, that hit him on the side of his face ...” Now, all these people, most of whom had no known connection to each other, thought they saw a wound on right side of Kennedy's head by his temple or even on his face. Well, what are the odds of that...seeing as the supposedly credible Parkland witnesses insisted there was no wound in that location? But wait...There were also witnesses to the left of the limo. If a bullet passed through JFK from the grassy knoll, and exploded out the back of his skull, these people would have had a front row seat for this explosion. So what did they see? Here's Bobby Hargis, riding off Mrs. Kennedy's left shoulder, In an 11-24-63 eyewitness account published in the New York Sunday News: "As the President straightened back up, Mrs. Kennedy turned toward him, and that was when he got hit in the side of the head, spinning it around. I was splattered by blood." When asked in 1968 if he thought this blood came from the back of the head, moreover, he claimed: "If he'd got hit in the rear, I'd have been able to see it. All I saw was just a splash come out on the other side." And what about Sam Kinney, driving the Secret Service back-up car? His 11-22 report claimed: "At this time, the second shot was fired and I observed hair flying from the right side of his head…" And what about Dave Powers, JFK's buddy, sitting in the jump seat behind Kinney? The affidavit he supplied the Warren Commission asserted: "there was a third shot which took off the top of the President’s head." And George Hickey, who was sitting behind Powers? His 11-22 report declares: "it seemed as if the right side of his head was hit and his hair flew forward.” Okay. What about those on the ground? Here's Jean Hill, on 11-22... She said she saw "the hair on the back of President Kennedy’s head fly up." Now, think of that. She was one of the closest witnesses, staring at the back of JFK's head from the left side. So... Did she see an explosion from the back of his head? No. Just the hair flying up. Well, then what about her friend, Mary Moorman, viewing the shooting from the same angle, and snapping a polaroid of the back of JFK's head 1/9 of a second after the fatal impact, which showed no hole on the back of the head? Well, she also said she saw his hair fly up, and made no reference to an explosion from the back of the head. And what about Charles Brehm, who was also standing to the rear and left of JFK at the time of the head shot, and would also have been in perfect position to note an explosion of blood and brain from the back of JFK'S head. Well, he was quoted in the paper that day...saying...you guessed it, that he saw the "the President’s hair fly up." So...those to JFK's right thought the only wound they saw was on his face or by his temple, and those to his left saw blood come out on the other side of his head, and his hair fly up. What are the odds of this happening, if, as you say, the back of the head was blown out and there was no noticeable wound on the face or temple?

Oh my God!!! That's not how it works!!! These were not people studiously viewing something, and being asked what they saw right afterwards. They were colleagues, who viewed JFK with his feet up in the air, and talked about what they saw afterwards. They then wrote reports, and read each others' reports in a prominent medical magazine. The odds of them being mistaken about one thing or another under these circumstances is actually quite high. And besides, they didn't all say the same thing, now, did they? McClelland said the wound was of the left temple. Giesecke said it was along the left side of the head. And Salyer placed it by the ear.

I've gone through those one by one numerous times on this website. A number of them were people who didn't actually see the wound and were only repeating what they'd been told. A few others were pointing out the rear-most part of the large defect after the scalp was reflected and skull fell to the table, and were misrepresented by Groden as witnesses to a wound in that location at the beginning of the autopsy. While the bulk of the rest did indeed point towards the back of the head, they mostly pointed to a location entirely above the level of the ear on the back of the head, when the CTs selling books on this stuff insist the wound they're pointing out was at the level of the ear, and was in accordance with the McClelland drawing, and that the Harper fragment was occipital bone. It's a hoax. That I've been pointing out for more than a decade. And this really upsets some people.

They watched the President go by, and heard the shots. They then walked/jogged around the west side of the building and re-entered the building by the west loading dock, because Shelley wanted to call his wife. This would have taken but a short time. It's a tight squeeze, but it seems likely they were at the back of the building when Adams came down, and that this was a few seconds before Baker and Truly arrived at the elevator.

Which witnesses? They didn't all point to the same location.

From Chapter 18d: Since those rejecting the possibility the Parkland doctors could be mistaken about the location of Kennedy's head wound cite Professor Elizabeth Loftus in support of their position, a short discussion of Professor Loftus' research is in order. First of all, here's their argument... On Table 3.1 of Loftus' 1979 book Eyewitness Testimony she presents a chart demonstrating memory accuracy in relation to saliency or importance. This shows that when it came to salient details, (what was determined after the event to be most frequently discussed or noticed) the recollections of the eyewitnesses to the event used as a test were 98% accurate, while the recollections of the details that were less widely noticed were only 61% accurate. Well, this suggests (at least to those citing this chart, e.g. Dr. David Mantik, Dr. Gary Aguilar) that it would be extremely unlikely for so many witnesses to be mistaken as to the location of Kennedy's head wound. But there are a number of problems with this conclusion. To begin with, this chart was based upon a 1971 study by Marshall et al (that was published in the Harvard Review) in which the "witnesses" were shown a short film, and then interviewed immediately thereafter. The interviewers had previously shown the film to another group of witnesses, who had listed what they had noticed in the film. And this list helped the interviewers determine what was "salient." The interviewers then asked the new group of witnesses a series of multiple choice questions, and from this they determined that the new group of witnesses was 98% accurate on the salient points. The problem, of course, is that this study bears no resemblance to what happened with the Parkland witnesses. 1. The Parkland witnesses were not bystanders observing everything as closely as possible in anticipation they would be tested on it, but participants in a fast-moving and traumatic event. 2. The Parkland witnesses' first recollections as to the wound location were not given immediately after leaving Trauma Room One, but an hour or more afterwards, on up to 30 years or more afterwards. 3. There is no reason whatsoever to assume the precise wound location was a "salient" detail. The salient details in the study cited by Loftus, after all, were determined by pre-screening the film and noting what details were most often listed. There is no reason whatsoever to assume the precise location of the head wound would have been one of the details most listed by those watching a film of the President in Trauma Room One. Now that might sound a bit silly. One should consider, however, that no one at Parkland Hospital had a clue where the shots came from, or where the limousine was on Elm Street when the shots were fired. As a result, there is no reason to believe the exact location of the President’s head wound was of interest to them, and should be considered a salient detail. So...what was a salient detail, then, if not the exact wound location? Well, one such detail was whether or not the wound was a survivable wound. The witnesses, after all, were 100% consistent on that point. They all said "no." And that's not the only point on which they were consistent. While recollections of the exact location of the President’s head wound varied from being on the top of his head to being at the very back of his head, all the witnesses remembered clearly and correctly that the wound was not on his face. It seems likely then that the main focus of everyone’s attention was the President’s face. Now, this realization--that the witnesses were focused on Kennedy's face--helps support what we've already discussed regarding rotation and perception. The witnesses were mentally rotating Kennedy's face while looking at his wounds and this led to some confusion as to the exact location of the head wound beyond that it was in his hair in back of his face. Or not. We will almost certainly never know exactly why so many doctors got it wrong. But it's enough to know that mistakes of this nature are actually quite common, and of no surprise whatsoever to the cognitive psychologists tasked with studying such mistakes. Don't believe me? Well, then, let's go back to Loftus. Yep, when I finally got around to reading Elizabeth Loftus' book Eyewitness Testimony for myself--as opposed to reading summaries of her work by those claiming it supported the accuracy of the Parkland witnesses--I realized just how WRONG it was for anyone to claim her work supports the accuracy of the Parkland witnesses. Sure, there's that chart citing a 1971 study in which witness recollections were 98% accurate on salient points when taken immediately following the viewing of a film, but what about the rest of the book? What about Loftus' own studies? Well, on page 54 she cites the negative effect of time on memory. She then proceeds to cite a number of studies in which certain kinds of behavior add to this decay. On page 55, she cites a 1927 incident in which a newspaper reporter misreported the substance of a college lecture, where the teacher then tested his students on the lecture, and found that those who'd read the incorrect article made many more mistakes than those who'd relied solely upon their attendance at the lecture. The teacher had discovered, to his dismay, that reading something that isn't true about something someone had witnessed for oneself could negatively impact one's memory of that event. And that's just the beginning. Loftus then proceeds to cite a 1975 study of her own in which subjects were shown a film of a car making a right turn without coming to a stop at a stop sign, and causing an accident. Half the subjects were then asked the approximate speed of the car when it ran the stop sign, with the other half being asked the approximate speed of the car when it made its right turn. All the students were then asked if they'd seen the stop sign. 53% of those reminded of the stop sign in a preceding question claimed they'd seen the sign, while only 35% of those not reminded of the sign in a preceding question claimed they'd seen the sign. Well, this shows how the questioning of a witness can inadvertently "enhance" their memory. And not just for the better. For another 1975 study she showed forty subjects a short videotape of a student demonstration. At the end of the tape, she handed out some questionnaires in which she asked half the students the sex of the leader of "the four demonstrators", and the other half the sex of the leader of "the twelve demonstrators." A week later the subjects returned to answer additional questions. At this time, they were asked the number of demonstrators they'd observed. The correct answer was eight. Even so, those who'd been asked the "four" question recalled seeing an average of 6.4 demonstrators (an apparent compromise between the four they'd been asked about and the eight they'd actually observed), and those who'd been asked the "twelve" question recalled seeing an average of 8.9 (an apparent compromise between the twelve they'd been asked about and the eight they'd actually observed). This tendency to compromise was further studied in 1977. In this study, the subjects were shown a series of slides depicting a car accident. They were then asked a series of questions about the slides. One of the questions dealt with the color of a car passing the accident. This car was actually green. Half the subjects were asked about the blue car driving past the accident, with the other half being asked the same question, but without being told the car was blue. The subjects then engaged in another activity. When they returned to the study, twenty minutes later, the subjects were shown a color wheel containing thirty color strips and asked to match these to ten objects they'd observed on the slides. Those who'd been asked about a blue car "tended to pick a blue or bluish-green as the color that they remembered for the car that passed the accident. Those not given any color information tended to choose a color near the true green. Thus, the introduction of the false color information significantly affected the ability of subjects to correctly identify a color that they had seen before." On page 58 she cites another of her studies in which subjects were shown a series of slides depicting a car accident. (I think we can presume these were the same slides used in her earlier study...) Half were then asked if another car passed as the car stopped at a stop sign, with the other half being asked if another car passed as the car stopped at a yield sign. (There were, in fact, two different sets of slides, one showing it stop at a stop sign, and one showing it stop at a yield sign.) In any event, when shown slides a bit later in which the car was by one of the signs and asked if they'd seen this slide before, 75% of those who had been asked--but 20 minutes earlier--about the sign which they'd been shown answered affirmatively. Now, that's no surprise. But, here's the shocker: 59% of those who had been asked--but 20 minutes earlier--about a sign they had not been shown also answered affirmatively when shown a slide of that sign. This, to be clear, was a sign they had not been shown, but they claimed to recognize anyway, twenty minutes after being asked a question in which the nature of the sign--stop or yield--was misrepresented. Now, the control question for this study suggests that 25% of those shown an image of a sign they'd been shown will fail to recognize it. And this in turn supports that 25% of those claiming to have seen a sign they'd not been shown would have claimed they'd seen it even if they'd never been asked a misleading question. But this still suggests that 34% of the subjects were led to recall seeing something they'd never seen... from being asked a question that suggested they'd seen it. Loftus then cites a similar study in which her students served as subjects. She showed them a film of a car racing down a country road. Some of them were then asked about a barn on the side of the road. A week later, all of the students were asked if they recalled seeing a barn in the film. 17% of those asked about the barn the week before recalled seeing a barn, while only 3% of those not asked about the barn the week before recalled seeing a barn. No barn was shown in the film. It follows, then, that 14% of the students were fooled into thinking they saw a barn just by being asked about it. She then cites another less scientific study involving her students. In this one, her students staged a fake theft, in which a woman left her bag unattended in a crowded place and a man pretended to steal something out of her bag. The woman then returned to her bag and cried out that a tape recorder had been stolen. She and a friend then took the phone numbers of a number of witnesses. A student posing as an insurance agent called a week later. Well, more than half the witnesses claimed they saw the supposedly stolen (but actually non-existent) tape recorder, with some of them describing it in great detail. She then cites another study involving saliency, to which those citing her book should have referred. This one is from 1977, by Dritsas and Hamilton. For this study subjects were shown films of industrial accidents, and then asked a series of questions--some deliberately misleading--about the films. Well, to no one's surprise, they found that salient or central items or events were recalled more accurately--and were less likely to be altered by misleading information--than peripheral items. But look at these numbers. The subjects were but 47% accurate on peripheral items. Even worse, their recollections of peripheral items could be altered via misleading information 69% of the time. Now let's see how they fared on central items. The recollections of the subjects on central items were but 81% accurate. (That's a far cry from the 98% suggested by the study depicted in Loftus' Figure 3.1). More telling, though, is this. 47% of those correctly recalling a central item or event recalled it incorrectly after receiving misleading information. This all leads up to the largest study cited by Loftus, this one involving 600 subjects. For this study, she once again showed the subjects a series of slides involving a stop sign or yield sign, and once again asked some of the subjects a subsequent question in which they were given misleading information about the sign they'd been shown. But for this one, she asked some of the subjects what they saw immediately after viewing the slides, and asked some of them the same question one day, two days, or even a week later. The results were staggering. While those questioned immediately after viewing the slides--and not asked any misleading questions regarding the sign shown in the slides--correctly selected the slide they'd been shown 80% of the time, those questioned a week later--and asked a misleading question about the sign shown in the slides--correctly selected the slide they'd been shown but 20% of the time. Our memories are fragile. They are subject to change within moments of their creation, based upon subsequently received information. They also erode with time, and grow more subject to change as time goes by. The reception of misleading information can not only compromise our memories, where we remember things partly as they were and partly as we've been told they were, but lead us to recall seeing things we never saw, and remember things that never happened. But who am I to blather on? Here is Loftus' own summary of her findings, as published in her memoir, Witness for the Defense (1991): "As new bits and pieces of information are added into long-term memory, the old memories are removed, replaced, crumpled up, or shoved into corners. Memories don't just fade...they also grow. What fades is the initial perception, the actual experience of the events. But every time we recall an event, we must reconstruct the memory, and with each recollection the memory may be changed--colored by succeeding events, other people's recollections or suggestions...Truth and reality, when seen through the filter of our memories, are not objective facts but subjective, interpretive realities." As a result, I'm forced to reject the primacy of the Parkland witnesses. Their statements have been erratic from the get-go, and have only grown more erratic over time. Those holding them up as a "smoking gun" in the JFK case both misrepresent the location of the wound described by the bulk of these witnesses, and the consistency of these witnesses as a whole. There's just no "there" there. Of course, this is a double-edged sword. The memories of those deferring to the accuracy of the autopsy photos twenty-five years after the shooting are not necessarily more credible than the memories of those claiming they saw cerebellum, and that's it. While the one group is seemingly more malleable, the other is seemingly less reasonable. It's impossible to say who is right based upon words and words alone. So that's a choice I choose not to make. The autopsy photos, x-rays, and autopsy report are consistent with the recollections of the Dealey Plaza witnesses. And for me that is enough...

It's just not true that doctors would never mistake cerebrum for cerebellum. Outside of Clark, most of the doctors rarely, if ever, saw brain matter. It was not their specialty. They could no more differentiate between macerated cerebrum and cerebellum than your allergist could diagnose your leaky bowel. Once doctors move outside their specialty, they're just making educated guesses. And I know because I've had lots of doctors over the past few years. Far too many. Now, Clark, clearly, should have known the difference. And it's unclear if he ever came to believe he was wrong. But it seems likely he did, seeing as he denounced conspiracy theorists as money-starved wackos in the press, and buddied up to John Lattimer, single-assassin theorist extraordinaire.

As far as semantics... One does not say one is hallucinating when one is simply mistaken. People thinking a ball is in a magician's left hand when it is really in his right are not hallucinating. People thinking a runner is safe at first when he was really out by a step are not hallucinating. People seeing a woman dressed like their wife from a distance, and thinking it is their wife, are not hallucinating. Here's a quick definition of hallucinating. A hallucination is a false perception of objects or events involving your senses: sight, sound, smell, touch and taste. Hallucinations seem real, but they’re not. Chemical reactions and/or abnormalities in your brain cause hallucinations. Hallucinations are typically a symptom of a psychosis-related disorder, particularly schizophrenia, but they can also result from substance use, neurological conditions and some temporary situations. A person may experience a hallucination with or without the insight that what they’re experiencing isn’t real. When a person thinks their hallucination is real, it’s considered a psychotic symptom. Conclusion: Pat Speer never said, nor implied, that witnesses seeing things incorrectly are hallucinating.

No, you HAVE been duped by the cover-up. The small EOP entrance/large top of the head exit NEVER made sense, but people bought into because they were familiar with hunting ammunition, and such a combination of wounds is possible with hunting ammunition. It's not tooting my own horn, because I'm sick and tired and consider my work on the JFK case largely a waste of time, but Chapter 16b on my website is probably the most important "book" on the case... Period. In this chapter, I present the history of the study of wound ballistics, and show how JFK's head wound only makes sense if it was a tangential wound of both entrance and exit--precisely as presumed by Dr. Clark. Over the course of this chapter, and then in the following chapters, I go on to show how the scalp wounds, skull fractures, tears to the dura, and tears in the brain ALL support that the fatal injury struck tangentially at the top of the skull. It is, in short, a scientific fact, that the fatal wound impacted at the supposed exit location, which means there were two head wounds, and thus--almost certainly--two shooters. Now, I've worked with a group of doctors who want to take this information, and use it to support a shot from the front. And I'm okay with that because to me the provenance of the shot comes second, and what matters is that people realize that the large wound in the films and photos is THE SMOKING GUN that proves a conspiracy, that was hidden in plain sight by the WC and government panels, and then buried under mountains of dirt by those claiming all the evidence is fake, because it must be fake because it supports the Oswald did it scenario. ONLY... they were wrong. It supported no such thing.

Nonsense. Pure nonsense. If you study human cognition you will find that people are often uniformly incorrect about certain things. They can 1) interpret things incorrectly, and 2) remember them incorrectly, and 3) be swayed by outside forces into changing their memories without their consciously doing so. As time passes, moreover, it only gets worse, and people's first impressions become lost, to the extent they no longer recall what they saw, but recall what they recalled they saw the last time they recalled it. Like a tape recording of a tape recording of a tape recording, the accuracy gets lost. But the emotional impact often gains focus. For this reason, a loud frightening sound will get louder over time, and a large angry man will get bigger and scarier over time. Now, all this goes to show how memories are unreliable. But more important in this instance is how images can be interpreted incorrectly, in a relatively uniform manner. Well, it has everything to do with how our brains organize information. Take, for example, South America. People have seen it on maps and globes since they were kids. It hasn't moved. And yet, when asked to draw the western hemisphere, people uniformly place South America directly beneath North America, when it is actually to the east of it. Or, take coins. It's not as common as it once was, but people used to handle coins every freaking day. And yet repeated studies found that when asked to draw a penny, the vast majority of Americans drew Lincoln's left profile, and not his right. This can be partially explained by the fact the penny is the only coin with a right profile. But still. Millions upon millions of people who've handled pennies tens of thousands of times in their lifetime...were unable to draw one. Now, why is that? Because we are piss-poor recording devices. It's not what we're built for. Our brains are wired to take shortcuts and simplify things, and our memories are sculpted to reinforce our emotional states, and not see things as they are. It's a constant struggle for those trying to get things right. But most don't even bother. Let's return to the back of the head witnesses. When asked to point out the location of the large head wound, the majority of the Parkland witnesses have pointed to a location at the top of the back of the head above the ear. Well, apparently, this triggered something in the research community, and people went hog-wild, and took from this that egads! the back of the head was blown and the Harper fragment really was occipital bone, and the doctors really did see cerebellum and so on. Only... they were looking at this stuff with their hearts and not their eyes. Well over a decade ago, I began pointing out that the witnesses presented in Groden's book did not support his thesis that the autopsy photos were faked to hide an occipital wound. At the time, this drew little support, aside from Tink Thompson. And since that time, roughly once or twice a year, someone joins the Ed Forum or publishes an article online to go after me, and call me a Warren Commission defender, whatever. They could not be more wrong. But they don't really care. It just feels so good to kick someone.

FWIW, Keven, I would be glad to accept that the black patch was painted in. But the Dealey Plaza witnesses--including and especially Hargis--are clear that the explosion of blood and brain occurred on the right side of the head, where it is shown in the films. It also makes little sense that they would paint over a hole on the back of the head but leave the gigantic exit defect alone. As stated ad nauseum, I combed through the history of wound ballistics and proved that M/C bullets don't go in small and explode skull into the sky, and that the only plausible explanation for a wound that massive was that is was not an exit related to the EOP entrance, but a tangential wound of both entrance and exit.

Cut the B.S. I have never said anyone mass-hallucinated anything. I have said over and over again that the location of the head wound in the photos is deceptive, as there is a big flap at the crown of the head that may very well have flapped open when JFK was on his back at Parkland. As another flap, by the ear, was almost certainly closed at Parkland, the net effect would be to shift the appearance of the wound back two inches or so, when compared to the photos. I have also said, and no one has countered this, that people routinely make mistakes when trying to remember the appearance of rotated images. As JFK's head, normally viewed in the upright position, was viewed by all at Parkland in a prone position, and for at least part of the time tilted backwards, it is clear this would effect the ability of those viewing a hole surrounded by a bloody mess of hair from precisely recalling its location There are numerous articles on this in psychology magazines. It is not my theory. It is a scientific fact. So I believe that contributed to the confusion as well. While I think the flaps, and the rotation of the head, were factors in so many misidentifying the wound's location upon recall hours months and decades after the body was viewed, it seems clear to me the main factors were social factors. Kennedy's time at Parkland was stressful for everyone involved, and probably felt like a blur. Within a short time, before anyone had written a report, two esteemed doctors, Clark and Perry, held a press conference, in which they described the wounds. A few weeks later the reports of the doctors who'd written reports were published in a Texas medical journal, which was undoubtedly widely circulated within the hospital. As a consequence most everyone working there would have become familiarized with what the official story was and what they "should"have seen. And, being humans, they would accommodate this in their memories. Now, here, once again, I didn't make this up. This kind of stuff has been studied hundreds of times in hundreds of ways, and the result is always the same...people's memories change when exposed to the statements of others, true or not. One such study, for example, had people answer questions regarding a video they'd watched of a blue car running a stop sign, only the questions referred to the car as green. A week later, in a follow-up series of questions, the subjects were asked the color of the car in the video, and many said green. The asking of an inaccurate question had led them to recall something inaccurately. In any event, the witness pool at Parkland has been tainted from almost the start. Which brings me to a second point, Sandy. You keep saying that 20 witnesses said "early on" etc etc etc. What do you mean by that? What is early on? Most people selling the back of the head myth in books and articles have mixed in people who were barely involved who saw the body for a few seconds, and said nothing about it for decades, and present them as credible. Perhaps you could create us a list of the statements regarding the head wound in chronological order. Now that might prove helpful. Oh, wait, I already did that. It's in chapter 18c.

Oh my. For those confused by all this, this character is citing a James Jenkins drawing showing a wound on the back, top and side of the head which stretches to the front...as evidence for a comparatively small blowout wound on the far back of the head. No matter what you think the head wound looked like when first viewed at Bethesda, this is clearly the wound as observed after the removal of the brain, and not the wound as first viewed. The least bit of research, moreover, would have proved what I have claimed for roughly a decade...that Jenkins told Livingstone and later Law and eventually a roomful of researchers, including myself, that the far back of the head at the level of the ear--the occipital bone--was shattered but still extant beneath the scalp. Still, he doesn't dispute that, really, does he? No, he makes out instead that the only evidence for this is my say-so. That's not research. That's whining. "I don't like what you say, so I'm gonna tell everyone you're a xxxx, without even checking out what you've said against the multiple sources you provide." What a crock.

Well, then, please explain what his point is. Is it that the body was altered, or that the photos were faked? P.S. I saw that Bobby Hargis was included in Keven's bogus list of back of the head witnesses.Well, here's what Hargis really had to say... Bobby W. Hargis rode to the right of Martin and to the left of Mrs. Kennedy. (11-22-63 article in the Dallas Times-Herald. Note: in 1995 Hargis would tell researchers Ian Griggs and Mark Oakes that he didn't write this article and that it must have been based on a conversation he'd had with a reporter in a hallway) “About halfway down between Houston and the underpass I heard the first shot. It sounded like a real loud firecracker. When I heard the sound, the first thing I thought about was a gunshot. I looked around and about then Governor Connally turned around and looked at the President with a real surprised look on his face…The President bent over to hear what the Governor had to say. When he raised back up was when the President got shot…I felt blood hit me in the face and the Presidential car stopped almost immediately after that…I racked (parked) my motorcycle and jumped off. I ran to the North side of Elm to see if I could find where the bullets were coming from. I don’t think the President was hit with the first shot… I felt that the Governor was shot first." (Undated typescript of interview with Hargis found within the Dallas-Times-Herald's photograph collection, as reported by Richard Trask in Pictures of the Pain, 1994. This is almost certainly the basis for the 11-22 article) "I felt blood hit me in the face, and the presidential car stopped almost immediately after that and stayed stopped about half a second, then took off at a high rate of speed. I racked my cycle and jumped off. I ran to the north side of Elm Street to see if I could find where the bullets came from. I don't think the President got hit with the first shot, but I don't know for sure. When I heard the first shot, it looked like he bent over. I feel that the Governor was shot first. I could be wrong. Right after the first shot, I was trying to look and see if the President got shot. When I saw the look on Connally's face, I knew somebody was shooting at the car...The fatal bullet struck the President in the right side of the head. I noticed the people in the Texas School Book Depository were looking up to see the top. I didn't know if the President stopped under the triple underpass or not. I didn't know for sure if the shots had come from the Book Depository. I thought they might have come from the trestle." (11-23-63 UPI article found in the Fresno Bee) “I saw flesh flying after the shot, and the president’s hair flew up,” Hargis said, “I knew he was dead.” (11-23-63 article in the Houston Post) "A Dallas motorcycle officer who was riding two feet from the presidential car described to the Houston Post Friday what he saw when a sniper fired the shots that killed President Kennedy and wounded Gov. John B. Connally. 'When the first rifle bullet spewed into the open limousine,' said Patrolman J.H. Hargis, 'The President bent forward in the car.' Hargis, a nine-year veteran of the force, said the first shot hit the governor. 'Then immediately after that,' Hargis said, 'the second shot was fired, striking the President in the right side of the head.' The Secret Service man driving the car immediately picked up the phone inside the car and said "Let's go to the nearest hospital.' Hargis said he jumped off his motorcycle and began a search of the building from which the shots were fired. 'I knew it was high and from the right. I looked for any sign of activity in the windows, but I didn't see anybody.'" (11-24-63 article in the New York Sunday News) "We turned left onto Elm St. off Houston, about a half block from where it happened. I was right alongside the rear fender on the left side of the President's car, near Mrs. Kennedy. When I heard the first explosion, I knew it was a shot. I thought that Gov. Connally had been hit when I saw him turn toward the President with a real surprised look. The President then looked like he was bent over or that he was leaning toward the Governor, talking to him. As the President straightened back up, Mrs. Kennedy turned toward him, and that was when he got hit in the side of his head, spinning it around. I was splattered with blood. Then I felt something hit me. It could have been concrete or something, but I thought at first I might have been hit. Then I saw the limousine stop, and I parked my motorcycle at the side of the road, got off and drew my gun. Then this Secret Service agent (in the President's car) got his wits about him and they took off. The motorcycle officer on the right side of the car was Jim Chaney. He immediately went forward and announced to the chief that the President had been shot." (4-3-64 testimony before the Warren Commission, 6H293-296): “I was next to Mrs. Kennedy when I heard the first shot, and at that time the President bent over, and Governor Connally turned around. He was sitting directly in front of him, and (had) a real shocked and surprised expression on his face…I thought Governor Connally had been shot first, but it looked like the President was bending over to hear what he had to say, and I thought to myself then that Governor Connally, the Governor had been hit, and then as the President raised back up like that the shot that killed him hit him.” (When asked about the blood) "when President Kennedy straightened back up in the car the bullet him in the head, the one that killed him and it seemed like his head exploded, and I was splattered with blood and brain, and kind of bloody water, It wasn't really blood. And at that time the Presidential car slowed down. I heard somebody say 'Get going' or 'get going.'" (When asked about the source of the shots) "Well, at the time it sounded like the shots were right next to me. There wasn't any way in the world I could tell where they were coming from, but at the time there was something in my head that said that they probably could have been coming from the railroad overpass, because I thought since I had got splattered, with blood--I was Just a little back and left of--just a little bit back and left of Mrs. Kennedy, but I didn't know. I had a feeling that it might have been from the Texas Book Depository, and these two places was the primary place that could have been shot from." (8-7-68 interview with Tom Bethel and Al Oser, investigators working on behalf New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, NARA #180-10096-10005) (When discussing how he could have been sprayed with blood, if the shot came from behind) "Well, that right there is what I've wondered about all along, but see there's ah -- you've got to take into consideration we were moving at the time, and when he got hit all that stuff went like this, and of course I run through it." (When discussing his interpretation of the direction of the shots) "Well, like I say, being that we know that the shot came from the School Book Depository, right then it was kind of hard to say what run through your mind. You know you pick up these little things. You don't know why you do it. You don't know why you do 'em, you just do 'em. It's just kind of instinct. But I had in my mind the shots you couldn't tell where they was coming, but it seemed like the motion of the President's head or his body and the splatter had hit me, it seemed like both the locations needed investigating, and that's why I investigated them. But you couldn't tell, there was -- it looked like a million windows on the Book Depository.You couldn't tell exactly if there was anyone in there with a gun." (When asked if the shots could have come from anywhere) "Uh huh. That's correct." (When asked if he saw the President's head jerk as a response to a bullet's impact) "Yes. Uh huh...To the left forward. Kind of that way...I couldn't see what part of it got hit...If he'd got hit in the rear, I'd have been able to see it. All I saw was just a splash come out on the other side." (a 1971 interview of Hargis by "Whitney," someone working for researcher Fred Newcomb, as presented by Larry Rivera and Jim Fetzer on the Veterans Today website, 4-3-14) (When asked how long the limo stopped) "Oh – you mean after that first shot?...Only about uh, oh 3-4 seconds. Maybe about 5-6. That’s all...but you won’t find that in the Warren Commission report." (When asked if it said the limo stopped) "Ah no I don’t think it didn’t – you’ve seen a rolling stop have you? It’s going less than one mile an hour?...Well that’s what he was doing he wasn’t completely stopped or dead still." The next three reports were posted on the Education Forum by Chris Scally, 6-21-11. (Interview by HSCA investigators James Kelly and Harold Rose on 10-26-77, notes transcribed 11-16-77, JFK document #003300, RIF 180-10107-10243) ""When they turned left on Elm from Houston, he was watching the President's car. Shortly afterwards, he heard a shot. He saw President Kennedy slump forward and Governor Connally turn. He felt at the time that Connally might have been hit and the President was leaning forward to find out what happened. He said the first shot sounded to him like a firecracker. The second shot hit JFK in the head. The presidential car had slowed almost to a stop. After the second shot, the car accelerated rapidly and sped to Parkland Hospital. Hargis said he pulled over to the curb at the grassy knoll. He got off the bike and went up the hill on the grass. He didn't see anyone with a gun, so he went over to the Texas School Book Depository at 411 Elm Street and helped other police officers seal it off." (Interview by HSCA investigator Jack Moriarty dated 8-8-78, notes transcribed 8-23-78, JFK document #014362, RIF 180-10113-10272) "When the first report sounded, he was "about one-third of the way down Elm", having made the last turn from Houston. It sounded like a firecracker, but he was unable to tell where it came from. He looked to his right and saw Connally turning and the President appeared to be leaning forward as if he was trying to hear what the Governor was saying. He had seen JFK lean forward in like manner during the motorcade as he and Connally had been conversing. This time, though, the President had an expression of pain on his face. When the second shot was fired - no doubt gunfire this time as it hit the President's head - the limousine slowed so much it practically stopped and he had to put his feet down to maintain balance. Then the driver accelerated and several motormen started the escort. Hargis remained behind parking his bike where it stood in the left side of Elm now about one half way down the hill. He ran to the grassy knoll and continued until he had reached the top section of the underpass. Finding nothing significant, he returned to his bike - still on the stand with the radio on (and working) and the engine off. He started the bike and drove back up Elm and parked just west of the front door of the TSBD where he joined Brewer as they became part of the effort to seal off this building, although, he adds, at that time no-one was certain just where the shots had come from." (Interview by HSCA investigator Jack Moriarty, 12-29-78, JFK document # 014224, RIF 180-10109-10354). "Reached Mr. Hargis at his new residence... today and developed the following additional information. At the sound of the first shot, he was "in position" - some five to six feet from the left corner of the rear bumper of John F. Kennedy limousine. At the sound of the second shot, he was a bit closer (the limousine slowed and nearly stopped) - perhaps four feet. By the third shot (although he doesn't recall the actual, but saw John F. Kennedy's head explode), he was "almost even with Jackie - no more than two or three feet, if that." (Interview with NBC broadcast on the 1988 program That Day In November) "It sounded like a firecracker to me and I thought 'Oh Lord, let it be a firecracker. And it looked like the President was bending over, forward. And then when he raised back up is when that second shot hit him in the head." (5-14-92 video-taped interview with Mark Oakes) "I was trying to catch up to my assigned station when the first shot rang out...I saw Connally turn around...I thought he had been shot. It sounded like a firecracker but then when I saw Connally's face I thought he'd been shot. Which he had...The second shot made his head like a ripe tomato when you shoot it with a gun on the ground. It explodes. That's how his head did. It exploded. Now you got brain matter, blood, and everything else on you" (6-26-95 video-taped interview with Mark Oakes and Ian Griggs) (On the explosion of Kennedy's head) "It didn't only hit me...It showered everything in the car behind it...You put a ripe tomato, and you shoot it with a gun and it splatters. That's what it was...But the first shot sounded like a firecracker...I've been fired at like five times and every one of them sounded like a firecracker--to me..." (Later, after voicing his support for the single-bullet theory) "There was not three shots; there was only two. I only heard two. One got him through the back and one got him through the head. That's it...The facts was there was two shots--one that hit him in the back and one that hit him in the head. And the one that hit him in the head just busted his head wide open. That's it." (On William Greer, the driver of the limo) "That guy slowed down, maybe his orders was to slow down, slowed down almost to a stop." (11-23-95 Dallas Morning News article found in the Herald Journal) "'I'm the only one living who was beside the car,' said Detective Hargis, now 63. 'When he was shot in the head, it splashed up, and I ran into all that brain matter, and all that. It came up and down, all over my uniform." (November 1998 interview with Texas Monthly) “About ten seconds after we made that left-hand turn, that first shot rang out…I remember Kennedy leaned forward to listen to what he had to say. And then when he raised back up, that second shot hit him in the head. But we figured out that he had got shot—that first bullet had gone through the upper part of his back, well through the seat, and hit Connally’s wrist and glanced off and went into his thigh.” (Interview within an 11-22-03 WBAP radio program found on Youtube) "Yeah I looked toward the President and I thought maybe John Connally was hit because he turned around to look at the President. He had a real surprised look on his face. Kennedy was bending over like he was listening to what Connally had to say. When he raised back up, that second shot hit him in the head. That's what killed him, There was only two shots fired." (11-22-03 article in the Dallas Morning News) “Hargis differs with the Warren Commission and most eyewitnesses, insisting that only two shots were fired. With the first, “a thousand million things went through my mind,” he says. After the last, “there was a plume of blood and brains and plasma. It was just like a fog, and I ran right through it.” (Oral History interview performed for the Sixth Floor Museum, 9-24-10) (When asked if his observations suggested that the fatal shot came from in front of Kennedy) "No." (When asked if it bothered him that people use his statements to suggest there'd been a conspiracy) "Yeah, it does...There was no conspiracy, whatsoever. There was two shots fired, and both shots, we found the bullet." (On the possibility there was a second gunman on the grassy knoll) "To me it sounds ludicrous." (11-22-13 article in The New York Post) "Few people were closer to President Kennedy’s assassination than the Dallas motorcycle cop who got splattered with his blood and gore. Bobby Hargis was riding a Harley-Davidson just behind and to the left of the Lincon Continental convertible that carried Kennedy through Dealey Plaza. The motorcade was moving so slowly, Hargis said, that “I had a hard time holding my Harley up. I never let it fall, but I had to use my kickstand quite a bit.” “People were so happy and they were crowding into the street,” Hargis said — until the shots that killed Kennedy cracked the air. “I saw him being struck. Big plume of brains and blood. I rode right through the plume. I didn’t even notice it,” said Hargis, 81. As chaos erupted, Hargis parked the bike and ran into the Book Depository looking for the shooter. Later, he recalled, “Another officer said to me, ‘You’ve got something on your lip.’ It was part of (Kennedy’s) brains.” Hargis said the shooting left him feeling guilty that and his colleagues had failed to protect the president. “Until then, I was real proud to be a police officer,” he said. “It seemed like we didn’t have it all together. We could have done better.” He also can’t forget how quickly things changed when Oswald opened fire. “One minute (Kennedy’s) so happy. They’re smiling and everybody’s happy. The crowd was happy,” he said. “And it was all just destroyed.”

What??? Of course they had an interest in what was going on in the railroad yards. They started to go over there but were stopped by a policeman who told them to go back in the building.

If she'd claimed they went to the passenger elevator first, as you assume, the WC representative, presumably Belin, would have been delighted. Ball and Belin were looking for ways to discredit Adams. It follows then that Styles' discussion with a WC representative, a discussion for which this representative failed to write a memo, moreover, was supportive of Adams' story.

I agree. Well after Adams, Lovelady, and Shelley had testified, Ball wrote a memo saying they needed to call Eddie Piper back and ask if he saw Adams come down the stairs. He was clearly looking for more ways to discredit her. IF he thought Styles might do the trick, he would most certainly have called her. But he didn't. Which should lead us to believe he KNEW she wouldn't undermine Adams. And this raises a question... Did Ball or Belin call her or have the DPD call her, and ask her some questions, and then fail to take her testimony, because of how she answered these questions? P.S. I just noticed that Styles told Murphy in 2008 that she met with a WC representative briefly in her office, and was confused as to why they didn't call her as a witness. I think we know the answer.