Pat Speer

FWIW, I have spent an hour or more discussing the case with both Robert Groden and David Lifton, who knew Livingstone well. And the one thing they absolutely agreed upon was that Livingstone was not well. (They actually said much worse, but out of respect for the dead...)

No, not at all. I have argued for what feels like forever that the photos and x-rays are legit and prove two head shots and thereby two shooters. I was trying to make the point that those claiming the large head wound was on the far back of the head miss that the description of the wound (which was in fact at the top of the head above the right ear) proves it to have been an entrance, or a wound of both entrance and exit, and not an exit for a bullet striking Kennedy in the forehead.

One of the major problems with the Parkland "back of the head witnesses" and the claim Dr. Clark described a large "blow-out" wound on the back of the head is that he claimed there was a big hole of scalp and bone. It is a forensic fact that scalp tears at exit, and that missing scalp is considered a sign of entry, not exit. SO...since Clark said there was missing scalp at the large defect (and this was confirmed at autopsy) it is a forensic fact that the large defect was an entrance, or, much more likely, a large wound of entrance and exit--which is exactly what Clark said on 11-22. In their zeal to prove a shot from the front, all too many have ignored this basic fact--that the large wound was a wound of both entrance and exit. So..if as they choose to believe, the wound was on the far back of the head, well, this means the shot came from behind, or side, not front. Oops. Now, the HSCA pathology panel realized that the missing scalp meant the large defect was an entrance so they added a footnote saying they thought the autopsy doctors must have been mistaken. They avoided of course that Clark had similarly inspected the skull and had similarly noted the missing scalp in a report written well before the autopsy doctors had a chance to make their inspection. It's weird but true. The missing scalp is the smoking gun.

They didn't report anything. They didn't do a forensic reconstruction. They were told to make the body acceptable for presentation. This meant piecing bone, rubber and cement, whatever, together to conceal any holes that could be seen with JFK laying on his back. They then left a section without bone on the back of the head that they concealed on a pillow. But that did not reflect the location of the hole at the beginning of the autopsy.

We can't just assume it's occipital because that's where you think there's a hole. There are features on bones that allow forensic anthropologists and neuro-anatomists to place them on the skull. Dr. Lawrence Angel, a forensic anthropologist, and Dr. Joseph Riley, a neurologist-anatomist, have studied the photos and have concluded the bone was parietal, from whence it can be seen exploding in the Z-film. I have studied the photos and anatomy books and they are undoubtedly correct. The main person blowing smoke on this is Mantik--who has made up all sorts of reasons to believe it's occipital. When confronted with the fact the Harper fragment is missing the tell-tale ridges on the inner aspect which would place it as occipital, he has "mused" that Kennedy's Addison's disease deformed his skull bones, and flattened out the ridges on the inner aspect of his skull. This is disgusting, IMO. He may as well have said aliens ate his homework. And yet all too many take him seriously.

Oh my. Don't let yourselves be hoodwinked. The Harper fragment is not occipital bone. It is by far the largest fragment found outside the limo. It follows then that it is the fragment seen exploding upwards and forwards in the Z-film. A fragment on such a trajectory would land well forward of the limo where...by golly Billy Harper claimed he found it! It's really not much of a mystery. The plaza was closed down shortly after the shooting. No inch by inch inspection of the plaza was made. No study of the Z-film had been made that would alert investigators to the fact a large fragment exploded skywards and landed far forward of the limo. It should not be surprising then that a piece of bone was found the next day, well forward of JFK's position.

Oh c'mon. Look at the gate in your comparison. The back yard photo has been tilted to the side to disguise that the Oswald figure is leaning to its right. Now, could Oswald have been leaning in such a manner? Sure. But he probably would have taken a quick step to his right just after the picture was taken. That's one of the problems with photos. They capture a precise instant in time. In this case, the Oswald figure--whether it be Oswald himself or a body double--was standing in an awkward position that just seems odd. It's almost like one of those boxing photos in which the face of the boxer receiving the blow is incredibly distorted. It's a split second in time. As for myself, I am still on the "backyard" fence on this issue. The photos look like they may have been altered. Some of the negatives "disappeared", or else never existed, in such case copies were made by the DPD that fooled the HSCA photo panel. So the jury in my mind is still out. But I do put substantial weight on Marina's claim she took the photos--somehow, someway--and if I recall Marguerite admitted seeing one as well. So I accept the possibility they're legit, and were taken at Oswald's instruction to impress someone. But let's not pretend there are no oddities about the photos.

Yarborough said he saw a man to the right of the road dive onto the grass. People took this to mean he saw Gordon Arnold. But the reality is he was probably thinking of Malcolm Summers. Summers was standing on the left side of Elm, but would have appeared to be on the right from Yarborough's position, due to the curve of the road.

Ok, now I'm confused. Isn't that the location of "Black Dog Man"? I thought Arnold was over on the grass by the fence.

15 years ago or so, I spent way too much time obsessing on the rings. I wondered if a body double hadn't left his own wedding ring on. In the end, however, I ended up concluding photo C was too blurry to come to a conclusion. I think we can say, however, that the ring on the left hand is most probably Oswald's Marine Corps ring, and the ring on the right hand is a wedding band. As I recall, I looked through dozens of photos of Oswald and found Oswald sometimes wore his Marine Corps ring on his left hand, including on 11-22.

I believe I've read where Marina thought of it as a silly masquerade. As I recall, she wrote "Hunter of Fascists ha ha ha" on the back of one of the photos. As far as Lee, he supposedly thought these photos could help him convince the Cubans and Russians he was a serious revolutionary. Well, this cuts both ways. it could be that he wanted as much because he personally wanted their approval. Or, more likely, IMO, he created these photos as a dangle, to see how the Cubans and Russians responded. Of course, my memory is not what it once was. Does anyone recall if Lee actually showed these photos to anyone? Or if anyone saw them, outside Marina, Marguerite and Michael Paine? (I think the DeMohrenschildts claimed they found a copy in a record album returned to them by Michael Paine, and that they had no recollection of the photo before they moved to Haiti.) If not, then maybe the whole thing was just a joke, or a strange game between Lee and Marina.

You could very well be right. I worked at a company that was taken over by criminals. I spent a thousand bucks or more of my own money investigating them and then turning what I had over to the FBI. But that was personal. They had come to destroy something I had helped build. So what is Litwin's angle? He's not even American. And yet he spends much of his free time and some serious bucks trying to put a dent in Ollie Stone? I hate to say it, but it reminds me of Robert Stone, who put together that piece of trash, Oswald's Ghost, in which he dismissed all JFK research as tainted by Garrison and his presumed homophobia. Is that what Fred is up to? Is he driven by a desire to strike back at Garrison for his silly comments about a thrill kill cult? I have no idea. But I wish I could just read his arguments without wondering what's behind them.

Ok, Bill. The production values for this blurb are way beyond what would be within range of a humble researcher out to debunk Stone's film. Who is behind this? Litwin's rich Canadian friends? I'm a bit perplexed because, while I accept many of Litwin's arguments, I am confused as to just what is going on. Do you know? And please don't tell me it's all on the up and up. That doesn't pass a smell test. Bugliosi had a major publisher, and tons of buddies in the press, and there was nothing like this--with fresh artwork and special effects. I can pretty much guarantee, moreover, that the cost of making this video swallowed up all the royalties from the book--and all the royalties that will ever come from the book. So who is funding this? It's not a sin for Litwin to have rich friends who are willing to fund his passion. JFK conferences and even the MFF have had rich people funding from afar. So who is behind Litwin?

The multiple shooters angle is in hindsight. Those studying the Z-film originally placed the shots too close together to have been fired by the M/C rifle. They then switched it around, and even pretended the head shot occurred well down the street from where it is depicted in the films. Some take from this that the SS and FBI were telling the truth, and that the films were changed. But this is quite a stretch. The reality is clear, IMO, that the SS and FBI both fibbed about the location of the head shot, so as to give "Oswald" enough time to shoot Connally in between two shots fired on Kennedy. This is discussed in great detail in Chapter 2b of my website.

As I recall, this was long-ago exposed as Soviet disinformation. They forged the letter to try to implicate H.L. Hunt, not realizing the CT's to whom they leaked it would seize upon it being Howard Hunt. Now, some will say the documents linking it as Soviet disinformation were themselves fake, and that the lefter is actually legit. But this is to deny the provenance of the letter--where it suddenly appeared in the hands of CTs in the 70's. And this, to me, misses the real take-away. The HSCA handwriting analysts were fooled by the letter, and thought it may have been legit. Knowing it was a fake PROVES that other questionable documents declared legit could similarly be forgeries. And not by the Russians. Among the gazillion books I own is a 1950's era book on the FBI crime lab. This book noted that the FBI's handwriting analysts served a dual function. One was to best assess the ID of those signing signatures and writing up letters. Two was to forge letters themselves that could then be passed off as legit as part of the Cold War. I remember the specific example of forging letters from Russian diplomats to American agents that could then be put to use. They would make sure these forgeries somehow fell into Soviet hands, and that the Soviets would begin a counter-intelligence investigation of the diplomat/agent. They would then swoop in and offer asylum to the diplomat/agent should he/she wish to defect as opposed to facing a decade in the gulag, or execution.

The feeling among the acoustics proponents is that it is locked in--that they can't throw out when and where the shots were recorded without throwing out the value of the recording. I would like to see them try. It is 100% clear McLain was not where he needed to be to record the shots as proposed. Those holding onto that possibility engage in self-deception--"Well, maybe McLain slowed down his bike and cruised through the plaza at 4 mph without anyone noticing, etc." It's desperate.

The films are consistent and prove McLain was nowhere near where the "stats" needed him to be. Now, if someone wants to propose the stats work without McLain being where they theorized he was when the shots were fired, they should go for it. But they don't. Instead, they rehash Thomas' stuff and pretend it's all good. The acoustics is pretty much a CT SBT.

The photo at right is not JFK. Groden has been scamming people about this for awhile. "Hey, I am publishing a previously unpublished JFK photo! Buy my book!" Only...it's not JFK.

Yes, this is fake. I wonder where it came from.

It might not be relevant, but context is everything. By 1963, the American public, of all stripes, had been inundated with stories and movies depicting good Quakers who would not harm a fly. It makes sense to me that whatever normal instincts the DPD had about the Paines--that they shouldn't be trusted--were put into the deep freeze once they realized they were Quakers. I mean, these were freakin' Quakers, for crying out loud. I had a similar response in my personal life. When my dad died in a different state, I had to go up and sort through his stuff, etc. At the time he was working as a property manager for a religious couple--I think Mennonites. In any event, they had his keys and could have stolen all sorts of stuff--cash, jewelry, electronics, etc. But they were super nice. And religious. So it never crossed my mind.

I seem to recall that Life Magazine came out on the morning of the 23rd, and took pictures of the Paines and Oswalds. I think there was something about them going to a hotel afterwards to negotiate a deal, exclusive rights or some such thing. So the Paines leaving on errands during the search may have been a euphemism. They were looking to cash in. Just spit-ballin'. Hopefully someone has a better recollection of the timeline...

Only adding to the oddness is that Frazier is purported to have told the DPD Oswald brought some curtain rods to work on the 22nd, and not one cop thought to check to see if any curtain rods were missing from the Paine's garage. I mean, why the heck not? The only "innocent" explanation is that they'd decided the pinko was dirty and had no interest in helping him with anything resembling an alibi.

FWIW, Nixon knew he was in deep doo-doo, and used Agnew as a bargaining chip. Essentially, it was agreed upon that Agnew would step aside for his overt corruption, and receive a handslap, in exchange for the Watergate investigators taking a slower course with Nixon. It had become clear that forcing Nixon out and leaving Agnew in power would have been awful for the country--as Agnew was kinda like a Sarah Palin, not someone anyone, including Nixon, actually trusted. This then left the congressional mucky-mucks--not the CIA--but the likes of Teddy Kennedy and Barry Goldwater--to craft an acceptable replacement. Ford was one of them. He got appointed, and this freed Ervin etc to go after Nixon without leaving Agnew in place and having to go through it all over again. (Much of this comes from Agnew himself--who felt he'd been railroaded out of town. From the evidence against him to later come out, he was probably lucky as heck, as he may very well have been headed towards prison if not for Nixon's deal.)

It's the same old argument, David. You make a gigantic assumption and then say it makes no sense for others to do other than you have assumed. The plotters may have wanted it to look like a plot. The investigators may have not wanted it to look like a plot. There may even have been a double-cross, as in "We want it to look like there were two shooters, agreed?" "Uh, no, I've changed my mind about that--we need people to think it was just this one looney, sorry." Problem solved. Over and over again. We don't know and will probably never know.

We should remember Vince to credit Harry Malcolm and Bart/DPUK whenever possible.