Pat Speer

Let's back up. The problem is not that Connally is an imperfect witness. I think most would agree with that. But you made out that his statements supported the SBT, when they do not.

I am forced to agree. When I began my deep dive into dark politics I noticed all the connections between the CIA and the Bush family etc, and took from this that there was a master plot that only a few were privy to--a New American Century and all that. One of the eye-openers as I remember was an op-ed piece by Brent Scowcroft, criticizing Dubya's invasion of Iraq. It seemed obvious the piece was written with Bush 41's approval. This led me to doubt my hypothesis there was some master plan and that the Bush family was all acting in accordance with said plan. When I later got sucked into studying the JFKA medical evidence, I discovered similar situations, in which individuals one would think were part of a plot said things they wouldn't have said if they were part of a plot. This led me to realize that the truth is much more nebulous than bad guys fib/good guys tell truth. I think the key to studying this case, and understanding the world, for that matter, is to realize that most everyone thinks they are on the right side of history...and doing the right thing. Let's take Dr. Humes. While I have little doubt he concealed certain facts and probably fibbed about others, it seems quite clear he was uncomfortable telling the whopping fibs necessary to sell the single-assassin conclusion. When he showed up to be interviewed by the ARRB, for example, he gave them the "talking points" supplied him by the justice dept. in preparation for his interview by Dan Rather. He could have just said they asked to interview him and he said yes and that he told the the truth, etc. But no, he gave the ARRB the talking points so historians would know his responses to Rather had been scripted by the justice dept. P.S. To be clear, I don't consider Jeff, John or Jim "Hucksters." While I think Jeff and Jim will exaggerate certain aspects of the evidence to fit their bias, I don't think they are motivated by money, or fame, or anything like that. As far as John Newman, I think Lance should take a closer look. I have spoken with John for hours, mostly about religion. He is not interested in blaming the CIA for our problems. In fact, his research has taken a turn over the past few years where he has begun to suspect the CIA was used as a patsy by the military. So, no, John is not an anti-CIA "huckster" if that's what Lance was claiming.

Facts are facts. The facts about the blood spatter are not based upon my theories. My theories came after a close study of the facts. For decades, people took quotes from this or that witness and spun it into being support for their pet theory. And then others quoted the spin. When I devoted myself to the case, however, I realized that much of what was being sold people on both sides of the fence was just not so, or likely not so. The Oswald did it crowd routinely repeats myth after myth, such as that Vickie Adams ran down the stairs after Oswald, or that Oswald had plenty of time to fire some relatively easy shots. But the Oswald didn't do it crowd has plenty of myths of its own. And the blood and brain exploded from the back of JFK's head and slammed into Hargis is one of them. Hargis, from his earliest statements, insisted he saw an explosion from the right side of JFK's head, and not the back. And he also explained over and over again that he drove through a cloud of debris. Could this shot have been fired from in front of JFK? Perhaps. Blood spatter explodes at a right angle to the surface of the skull where struck. So the explosion of blood observed in the Z-film could be from a shot from most any direction, provided that shot impacted at the supposed exit. While the severity of damage strongly suggests a tangential shot, moreover, that tangent need not be from behind. It is the entirely of the evidence, such as the impact on the windshield and on the curb down by Tague, that suggests the fatal shot came from behind, not the explosion of blood and debris. Now, there remains a problem in saying that ta-da! the shots came from behind. And that problem is that the earwitnesses and smoke witnesses suggest a loud sound and smoke in the knoll area. Well, that led me to wonder if someone might have exploded a firecracker in that area as a diversion. No one in JFK land had written about this. So I combed through books and WWII articles on sniping and found that both the Germans and Japanese had used diversionary devices (essentially long-fused firecrackers) to help conceal the location of elevated snipers from those on the street below.

They were moving. If something splashed up in the air Hargis would have driven right through it as it came down. That is what he said happened. Some have tried to claim blood, brain, and bone were propelled towards Hargis, moving with the direction of the bullet. But that's not how it works. A piece of bone broke off by a bullet would not be pushed by the bullet in the direction the bullet was heading. The piece of bone pushed by the bullet would be pulverized upon impact. Some of the bone surrounding that hole might fracture and break off and fly into the air, but it wouldn't go forward in a straight line, as the bone and matter would explode away from the bullet path, not ride along with it. In any event, the fact is that Hargis said from the start that the bullet impacted the right side of the head, and that he saw nothing impact or explode from the back of the head. I take this as support for something I'd already come to suspect/know based upon the medical evidence--that the large head wound was caused by a tangential impact at the supposed exit.

From patspeer.com, Chapter 5b: Bobby W. Hargis rode to the right of Martin and to the left of Mrs. Kennedy. (Note: as so many use Hargis' words to support that the fatal bullet impacted on the front of Kennedy's head, or that the limo stopped on Elm Street, I have highlighted quotes touching upon these issues.) (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.”

I have a video series on the so-called mystery photo, in which I demonstrate its likely orientation. I have since modified my impression, but only slightly. I have chapters on this on my website, in which I demonstrate that the mis-appraisal of the mystery photo led Dr. Baden to make some ridiculous claims, including that the Harper fragment sprung from Kennedy's right temple. It's all smoke...that will clear in time, and quite likely lead to yet another re-examination of the evidence. The fact remains that the beveled bone is not frontal bone, and that the Clark Panel on down have wrongly claimed it was frontal bone. Here is an image from chapter 13b in which I demonstrate one of the problems created by the Clark panel's claim the photo showed frontal bone.

I think we both view this more than as an intellectual exercise. As stated, I had a dear friend of Ukrainian heritage move to Russia and Ukraine in the early 90's, and come back convinced it was just a matter of time before Russia invaded. He told me this even before Putin came to power. He saw that there was a hole in the soul of the Russian people that would likely be filled by a charismatic leader, and that this charismatic leader would likely push them to regain their former "glory" as opposed to rebuild their national identity around hard work, family, and religion. He told me that the people he'd worked with, by and large, were lazy, because they were used to the government taking care of them, and knocking them down when they tried to take care of themselves. He saw further that those who'd had a history of looking out for themselves--mostly criminals--had embraced capitalism and had the upper hand in the new economy. He said he left Moscow because he got tired of the attitudes of the workers, as well as the attitudes of those with whom he had to do business--who were always looking for angles and were frequently requesting bribes. In any event, that was just one man's impression. But I later befriended a young Russian woman who'd moved to the states. She told me she still loved Putin, and that we should disregard all the bad things I'd heard about him. When I asked her why she believed him, and not all the evidence of his corruption and treachery, she got a smile on her face and said that Americans just couldn't understand--that he made Russians feel good again--and safe. I've always been a talker, and have always been curious about religion, and have had numerous conversations on the street with followers of Rajneesh, Hubbard, LaRouche, etc. And they had that same look in their eyes. A twinkle.

Agreed. And I wrote what amounts to five or six books arguing as much. I share a sensibility with some LNs, however, in that I am appalled at how people sharing my conclusion there was more than one shooter and that Oswald was set up, will grasp at any claim, and argument, and hold it up as a fact, when, in fact, the majority of CT arguments are garbage. Now, of course, the LN side is equally desperate to shut down CT arguments, and often behaves in the same manner. As, but one example, the LN side is incredibly reluctant to admit ANY of the evidence presented by the WC was bogus, or that ANY of the numerous DPD and FBI agents involved in the case fibbed about anything. It's clear to me that such people are not serious students of the case, but are simply "defenders." Quite often, they are Uber-patriotic, and view the challengers to the official story as dangerous and anti-American. I, and I suspect others on this forum, are indeed patriots and view it as my patriotic duty to call bs on what is obviously bs.

Let's say Kennedy's brain weighed 1500g before the shooting. We can break that down to something like 600g left hemisphere, 600g right hemisphere, and 300g cerebellum. No one worth listening to claimed or believed the entire right side of the brain was missing. The descriptions of the missing brain make out that roughly half the right cerebrum was missing. That leaves 300g, 1200g in total. Add 20% on to account for the formalin infused into the brain, and that's 1440g. The whole brain weight argument is a waste of time. A lot of the so-called experts' claims about the medical evidence are poorly thought out, and wastes of time. There is a HUGE problem with the brain's not being sectioned, and then later disappearing, however. This is a HUGE problem. But the brain weight problem is just something people latch onto and repeat because it sounds good. But it is a minor problem, at best.

That's some fine cherry-picking there, Gerry. It's just not accurate. (11-27-63 televised interview with Martin Agronsky, transcript printed in the 11-28-63 New York Times.) ”It all happened in such a brief span" (12-13-63 FBI report on a 12-11 interview, CD188, p. 3-5) "When Governor Connally was asked about the elapsed time between the first and last shot he remarked “Fast, my God it was fast. It seemed like a split second. Just that quick” and he snapped his fingers three times rapidly to illustrate the time and said “unbelievably quick…Governor Connally felt the shots were fired so fast the assassin had hit him by accident on the second shot.” (4-21-64 testimony before the Warren Commission, 4H129-146) (When asked about the timing of the shots) “It was a very brief span of time…so much so that again I thought that whoever was firing must be firing with an automatic rifle because of the rapidity of the shots…" (11-23-66 press conference) "I think there was more than half a second between the shots. I think there was probably almost close to two seconds between the time President Kennedy was hit by the first shot and the time I was hit."

I have brought this up repeatedly. For whatever reason (discretion?) they did not weigh the brain at autopsy. The brain they weighed was infused with formalin. This would probably add 15 to 20% in weight to the brain. Assuming JFK had a larger than average brain before he was killed--let's say 1500g (which is not nearly as rare as some would like us to believe)--and that it was missing a third of the right side of the brain when weighed, the expected weight would be over 1400g. So it's a lot of smoke about (almost) nothing. If these folks claiming the brain was switched or stolen spent some time reading about brain injuries, they would soon realize that the brain injuries reported in the autopsy report (along with those demonstrated in the HSCA's drawings) were inconsistent with the trajectory of the bullet as purported by both the WC and HSCA. Ironically, the brain is the smoking gun that proves conspiracy. I recently obtained a document that no one else had seen or could remember seeing. It was the HSCA's contact report with Dr. Russell Fisher, the leader of the Clark Panel. In it, he admits what the Clark Panel report concealed. He admits he tried to gain access to the brain in 1968 but was told by the Justice Dept. that it was not available, and that he then spoke to an attorney for the Kennedy family (almost certainly Burke Marshall), and was told they had no knowledge of the whereabouts of the brain. He told the HSCA as well that the Clark Panel's examination of the head wounds was "a lot less satisfying" without the brain. This was kind of shocking to read because Fisher and his acolytes had long insisted that the brain was unnecessary, and had begun saying so before the HSCA had even begun its own search for the brain. This report tells us why. Fisher had tried to gain access to the brain, and had failed. In 1972, Wecht stirred things up again. So they all got in lockstep to shoot down Wecht because--by golly--they couldn't have Wecht succeed where their hero Fisher had failed. Or something like that.

That "time" being the rest of his life. Here are Connally's earliest statements. From patspeer.com: (11-22-63 report of CBS News' Walter Cronkite, quoting Connally's aide William Stinson's circa 2:00 PM press conference) (On Connally's response when asked from which direction the shots came) "I don't know. I guess from the back. They got the President, too." (11-27-63 televised interview with Martin Agronsky, transcript printed in the 11-28-63 New York Times.) ”we had just turned the corner, we heard a shot; I turned to my left—I was sitting in the jump seat. I turned to my left to look in the back seat—the President had slumped. He had said nothing. Almost simultaneously, as I turned, I was hit and I knew I had been hit badly. I knew the President had been hit and I said, “My God, they are going to kill us all.” Then there was a third shot and the President was hit again and we thought then very seriously. I had still retained consciousness but the President had slumped in Mrs. Kennedy's lap and when he was hit the second time she said, or the first time—it all happened in such a brief span--she said “Oh, my God, they have killed my husband—Jack, Jack.” After the third shot, the next thing that occurred—I was conscious--the Secret Service man, of course, the chauffeur, had pulled out of the line--they said, “Get out of here…” (12-13-63 FBI report on a 12-11 interview, CD188, p. 3-5) “Governor Connally stated “First sense or realization of anything unusual I became conscious of a shot or what sounded like a gunshot. I knew it came from my right rear. I instinctively turned to my right to look back and as I did so I sensed more than I saw that President Kennedy was hit. As I turned I realized something was amiss with President Kennedy and then I turned back to my left a little and as I did so I got hit with a bullet in my right shoulder just below the shoulder blade and arm pit about four inches from my right side. This bullet pierced my chest coming out the right side slightly below my right nipple. It entered my right arm above the wrist, passed through and then lodged in my left inner leg just above my knee where the bullet apparently split. I believe I remarked “Oh my God, they are going to kill us all!” Realizing I had been hit I crumpled over to Mrs. Connally and she pulled me over towards her…I was conscious of a third shot and heard it…we were all splattered with what I thought was brain tissue from President Kennedy.” …When Governor Connally was asked about the elapsed time between the first and last shot he remarked “Fast, my God it was fast. It seemed like a split second. Just that quick” and he snapped his fingers three times rapidly to illustrate the time and said “unbelievably quick…Governor Connally felt the shots were fired so fast the assassin had hit him by accident on the second shot.”. (As quoted in Red Roses from Texas, by Nerin Gun, published February 1964. As Gun has Connally stating there may have been a fourth shot--something he never said elsewhere--the veracity of this quote is in question. Did Gun talk to Connally, or was he paraphrasing what Connally had told others? If anyone knows the source of Gun's quote of Connally, please let me know.) "'You can't say now,' said Governor Connally's wife, turning towards the President as the car rounded the corner from Houston Street into Elm Street, 'that the people of Dallas don't love you, and aren't glad to see you." "No, no-one can say that any more," John Kennedy answered. They were his last words. At that moment, the first bullet hit him. He lifted a hand to his throat. Jacqueline, who was smiling and waving to some people on the other side of the road, turned back towards him, to see what was happening. The chauffeur looked up at the small bridge, trying to see what had caused the noise. Kennedy slumped down in the back of the car, and Jacqueline cried: 'Oh my God! They've killed my husband. Jack . . . Jack!' That was when Governor Connally turned to the right. He was to say later: 'The President had blood on his cheeks. He said nothing. Then a bullet hit me in the shoulder. I knew that the wound was serious. I tried to get up, but collapsed into the arms of my wife. It was then that I heard a third shot, maybe a fourth. I saw that the President had been hit again. I cried out: 'My God, they're going to kill us all.'" (2-3-64 Associated press article reporting on Connally's comments at the annual Associated Press Texas managing editors meeting) "Texas Gov. John Connally, although seriously wounded by the second shot, was still conscious and saw the third and fatal shot strike President Kennedy, he told newsmen today. 'I saw the effects of the third shot--the shot to the head--and I assumed then there was no hope for him,' Connally said of the President's assassination in Dallas November 22. Connally said when he heard the first shot, he had one thought: 'This is an assassination attempt.'...'Frankly, I thought I had been killed, too,' said Connally, his arm still in a sling from the wounds he received. 'I heard the first shot, but not the second which struck me. There was no pain whatever. It felt like a short jab to the back. I lunged forward, there was blood everywhere, and Nellie (Mrs. Connally) covered me.' Connally said his turning to check on the President after the first shot undoubtedly saved his life. 'I looked back over my right shoulder and could not see the President, so I turned to look over my left shoulder. I never completed that second turn when I got hit. Had I not turned, I have no doubts the bullet would have entered my spine and heart.'" (4-21-64 testimony before the Warren Commission, 4H129-146) “we had gone, I guess, 150 feet, maybe 200 feet, I don’t recall how far it was, heading down to get on the freeway…We had just made the turn, well, when I heard what I thought was a shot. I heard this noise which I immediately took to be a rifle shot. I instinctively turned to my right because the sound appeared to come from over my right shoulder, so I turned to look back over my right shoulder, and I saw nothing unusual except just people in the crowd, but I did not catch the President in the corner of my eye, and I was interested…the only thought that crossed my mind was that this is an assassination attempt. So I looked, failing to see him, I was turning to look back over my left shoulder into the back seat, but I never got that far in my turn. I got about the position I am in now facing you, looking a little bit left of center, and then I felt like someone had hit me in the back. (When asked how long it was between the first shot and his feeling the impact) “A very, very brief span of time…I just looked down and I was covered with blood, and the thought immediately passed through my mind that there were either two or three people involved or more in this or someone was shooting with an automatic rifle. These were just thoughts that went through my mind because of the rapidity of these two, of the first shot plus the blow that I took…So I merely doubled up, and then turned to my right again and began to—I just sat there, and Mrs. Connally pulled me over to her lap…I reclined with my head in her lap, conscious all the time, and with my eyes open, and then, of course, the third shot sounded, and I heard the shot very clearly. I heard it hit him. I heard the shot hit something…I heard it hit. It was a very loud noise, just that audible, very clear…Immediately, I could see on my clothes, my clothing, I could see on the interior of the car…brain tissue….on my trousers there was one chunk of brain tissue as big as almost my thumb, thumbnail and again I did not see the President at any time either after the first, second, or third shots, but I assumed always that it was he who was hit and no one else. I immediately, when I was hit, I said, “Oh, no, no, no.” And then I said “My God they are going to kill us all.” (When asked about the timing of the shots) “It was a very brief span of time…so much so that again I thought that whoever was firing must be firing with an automatic rifle because of the rapidity of the shots…it just couldn’t conceivably have been the first (bullet which struck him) …when I heard the sound of that first shot, that bullet had already reached where I was, or it had reached that far, and after I heard that shot, I had the time to turn to my right, and start to turn to my left before I felt anything…I never heard the second shot, didn’t hear it…I think I heard the first shot and the third shot.”

It doesn't matter what you think they could have seen or not seen, David. What matters is what they said. And neither JBC nor Nellie's statements "support" the SBT. You can finesse arguments and assert that their statements do not single-handedly destroy the SBT. That's kosher. But you cannot pretend their statements "generally support" something they insisted did not happen. That is the opposite of support. By way of comparison, to claim their statements "generally support" the SBT would be like saying Chief Justice Warren's statements "generally support" Oswald's innocence. It just isn't true, and you would attack anyone who said it was true. So let's set some ground rules. If one is to assert that someone's statements arguing against something do not in fact mean that that something didn't happen, one should say that that person's statements, once held up to the light, are not inconsistent with what they said did not occur...actually occurring. Or something like that. Let's make another analogy. Your dad gets arrested for shoving your neighbor. He says he didn't do it--that they just talked. But the neighbor insists he did. Your dad then tells the cops something like "unless I had some sort of seizure I am quite sure I didn't shove him." Well, it would be wrong for the policeman to then write up a report which claims "Mr. Von Pein's statements generally support" that he pushed the neighbor. His statements did no such thing. They did the opposite.

I consider Matt a good friend, but would agree that there are valid criticisms of the article. Number 2 on your list is not one of them, however. Connally's account does not "generally support" the SBT. That's ludicrous. 1. He repeatedly said he sensed (presumably from sound) that Kennedy was hit before him. 2. He repeatedly said he deferred to the recollections of his wife, who said she saw Kennedy react before her husband was hit. 3. Under tremendous pressure from Johnson, he submitted that perhaps just perhaps he could have been hit by the same bullet as Kennedy, but that it would have to have been the second bullet. (He said this, moreover, when most everyone who knew anything about the case knew the witnesses saw Kennedy react to the first bullet.) 4. After time passed, and enough bs had been stirred into the public's collective memory, people began saying "OK, maybe he was hit by the second bullet. Yeah, that's the ticket!" 5. But Connally wasn't biting. He made crystal clear at the end of his life that he never for one second believed he was hit by the same bullet as Kennedy. So, the facts, David. Connally's account can be twisted into supporting the SBT. But they do not "generally support" it--no, just the opposite. They "generally" oppose it, and write it off as garbage.

This was an area of interest for me when I first joined the forum. I raised some points then that Gary Mack--who used to looky-loo on the forum, but who would not post--took offense with. He tried to bully me but reluctantly, after a number of emails, conceded defeat. My basic points (as I remember them) were as follows: 1. The official records indicate that two photos and one or two negatives were recovered by the DPD. 2. Two photos and one negative were turned over to the WC. 3. As a blow-up for one of the photos was shown to Oswald, and as the negative for this photo was not found, it was assumed this negative was lost. 4. Defenders of the DPD insisted that this blow-up was taken from the full version of this photo, and that no negative was actually found of this photo, or lost. 5. A third photo was later brought forth by the widow of Roscoe White. This spurred the HSCA to investigate. Other copies of this same photo were discovered in the possession of a number of Dallas detectives. 6. The HSCA photographic panel authenticated all three photos, and said they were first generation prints made from negatives. 7. I acquired the HSCA testimony of Det. Studebaker, however, and he insisted he made numerous copies of the photos with a copy camera. He also said something which at the time I thought quite significant, and led me to donate this testimony to the Mary Ferrell site. He said he'd made copies of all the evidence photos, and gave them out as souvenirs to his fellow detectives, and even tried to sell a set to a local mob figure. (This made me wonder what other evidence had been sold off, and if the missing negatives had not in fact been sold off by corrupt employees in the DPD crime lab.) 8. My argument with Gary stemmed from my position that either the Dallas Police were lying about the use of a copy camera, or the HSCA photo panel was fooled and were not working with prints made directly from the negatives. If the latter was true, well, it meant that the HSCA photo panel had been discredited by the very men they were believed to be protecting, and that the photos had not, in fact, been authenticated. Gary tried to have it both ways--that the photos had been authenticated as first generation prints, and that the DPD did not misplace or allow to be stolen two of the three negatives. AS stated, he eventually realized he couldn't have it both ways. I think he opted to side with the DPD--men of integrity and all that--as opposed to the HSCA panel. But can't recall for sure.

It's true, he said fifth floor, but he must have been counting in a hurry. It's obvious he was describing a man in the sixth floor window. The men on the fifth floor were wearing dark clothing as I recall and they were most certainly not surrounded by stacks of books. And, oh yeah, they were dark-skinned, something he would have noticed, and mentioned. Robert Edwards (11-22-63 statement to the Dallas County Sheriff’s Department, 19H 473, 19H647) “Today, November 22nd, 1963, I was with Ronald Fischer, and we were on the corner at Elm and Houston, and I happened to look up there at the building, the Texas School Book Depository Building, and I saw a man at the window on the fifth floor, the window was wide open all the way; there was a stack of boxes around him, I could see. Bob remarked that he must be hiding from somebody. I noticed that he had on a sport shirt, it was light colored, it was yellow or white, something to that effect, and his hair was rather short; I thought he might be something around twenty-six, as near as I could tell. The motorcade rounded the corner at this time, and then I thought I heard four shots, but it never occurred to us what it was. The shots seemed to come from that building there.”

Yeah, that's Rachel...warmongering. Geez... Let me ask this... Under what circumstances do you think a war could have been avoided? Putin already broke off the Crimea. No one attacked. Should Ukraine have stood by while he slowly annexed half the country? Is that what you call diplomacy?

Edwards was one of those who reported seeing a man in the sixth floor window. Here he is walking over to the TSBD shortly after the shots. He confirmed to the reporter that this was where he saw the shooter.

The bullies where I grew up used to play a game. They would reach towards your face till you grabbed their hand. Now in control of your hand, they would slap you in the face with your hand while saying something like "Why are you doing that?" And then, if you broke free, they would accidentally on purpose hit you with their own hand, and say "See what you made me do?" You were hit by your own hand. And your breaking free caused you to get hit by the bully's hand. But it wasn't your fault. It was the bully's fault. Putin is the bully in this situation. The whole world knows it.

Rex Bradford acted out the transcript and found that it played out nowhere near the length of the gap on the tape. This strongly suggests that much was left out of the transcript. After Rex pointed out that the tape was blank, moreover, the library had it studied. They acknowledged that it was not wear and tear and that it must have been deliberately erased by some unnamed person. This is suspicious as heck. Only adding to the weirdness, when I compared the library transcript to the transcript in Max Holland's book I found that Max had changed some words to make Hoover's statements less problematic. He couldn't claim it was matter of interpretation, of course, because there was no recording to interpret. All we have is the incomplete transcript, and Max chose to change it for his book. Many have claimed there are no smoking guns and that if there was a smoking gun it would have been destroyed long ago. We have reason to suspect this tape was a smoking gun.

Thanks for doing that. As an observer and survivor of many a flame war, the biggest problem has not been people not telling us who they are, and coming here to do damage, but well-known people in research-land who can not handle disagreements. A number of other forums have spun off from this one, so that those departing could avoid contact with the other "side." The result has been a more peaceful forum. In my experience, those seeking to avoid contact with the other side---no matter which side--risk drowning in their own reflection. I tried to contact Bugliosi when he was working on his book, because I felt positive his book would suffer if he didn't receive massive input from a number of CTs. No response, of course. I have seen the same thing with some CTs. They spend years working on a book with some obvious flaws, but don't recognize them before publication because no one in their inner circle will say nope, that's batpoop.

My understanding is that the President can withhold records...personally. IOW, he has to take responsibility for withholding the records. Both Trump and now Biden have allowed agencies to withhold records, without the president's personal review. It seems probable, moreover, that T and B have no idea what they've been withholding. To my understanding, they are in violation of the law.

Agreed.

I didn't watch the video due to Livingston's face being on it. I spent a lot of time digging into his claims and concluded he has zero credibility.

I think you are recalling incorrectly. Chesser is in lock-step with Mantik, who presents his interpretation of the photo in the images presented by David Josephs.