Pat Speer

Oh, please. I read hundreds of books and articles while writing my chapters on the head wounds. And it's an indisputable fact there are different classes of tangential wounds, from minor marks to large gouges to huge gaping holes. Here is an image I uncovered in my journey, that led Dr. Cyril Wecht to agree JFK's wound appeared to be a tangential wound. Sorry if it makes you wretch.

The movement of the head at 313 was mostly down, and the head sprang back as a result. This shot could have come from in front or behind, but the fragment strike on the windshield and the curb strike near Tague suggest behind.

When reading about Myers' animation in preparation for writing my Animania chapter, I discovered that the claim the animation was based on the Z-film was only partly true. As I recall, Myers admitted he'd matched up every seventh frame or so, and that the rest were just him filling in the blanks. I don't recall their titles, but my stepdad's two sisters both worked at Hanna-Barbera in the fifties and sixties. There was a head animator who determined the look and the basic action, and then there were subordinate animators who drew the frames linking the movements together. They were the latter. In any event. Myers chose to match the animation to the film every seven frames as I recall, and this allowed him to smooth over the hurky-jerky movements of JFK before he went behind the sign in the film. In effect, he erased them, even though these movements had led the HSCA photography panel to conclude JFK was hit at that time. Coincidence? We can suspect not, particularly in that Myers also disappeared Jackie from the film. Now, he would probably say he did this to simplify the action--to make the viewer focus on JFK and JBC. But huh... Jackie turned to look at her husband before Myers claimed he'd been hit, and her turning her head to look at him suggested he had already been hit. So once again--coincidence? We can suspect not.

You are correct, Chris. A fragmented bullet that does not exit will transfer all its energy inside a body, or melon, whatever. Hunting ammunition is designed to do as much. But military (full-metal jacket) bullets are not. So-called Dum-Dum ammo was banned because it blew up heads. But the doctors who studied the new full metal jacket ammo (such as that fired by the Mannlicher-Carcano) found that heads could still explode (a la Kennedy's) should the bullet enter at a shallow angle to the skull and the bullet rupture. Such wounds were called "gutter wounds" or "tangential wounds" and were wounds of both entrance and exit--a big gaping hole on the skull. Thus, it was obvious from the first to those who knew what to look for (such as Dr. William Kemp Clark) that JFK's large head wound was a tangential wound. We have reason to suspect, moreover, that other doctors realized as much. The autopsy doctors, studying Kennedy's brain AFTER Oswald was dead and fingered as a solo assassin, bizarrely failed to dissect the brain, and establish what they failed to notice at autopsy--a bullet path from back to front. This was probably not a coincidence. Similarly, the Clark Panel, when confronted with the obvious fact the presumed trajectory through the brain failed to make sense in light of the limo's location on the street, and JFK's posture in the limo, chose to move the entrance location to a location 4 inches from where it had been observed at autopsy. Well, all this was in service of preserving a myth--that the entrance observed on the back of the head connected to the hole on the top of the head. As described and documented on my website, I spent several years researching missile wounds of the head and brain and it became incredibly clear that JFK's large head wound was a tangential wound of both entrance and exit. Chief among the texts I studied, moreover, were those written by Clark Panel head and mentor to most of the HSCA Pathology Panel, Russell Fisher. It is clear he knew the head wound was a tangential wound, or that he spent an enormous amount of energy deceiving himself into believing it was not. Because his articles on skull wounds and brain wounds were in direct opposition to his (and his subordinates) subsequent conclusions.

FWIW, I thought both Matt and Bill did a good job in their first debate. (I think you had two. Is that correct?) It was refreshing to listen to an exchange of ideas and information--where one could understand both viewpoints--as opposed to an exchange of insults and/or nonsense. I've mentioned it before, but oh well. I participated in a debate in my high school philosophy class. The class voted on what to debate and a group of Born-Againers in the class forced the issue: they wanted to debate the existence of God. It ended up being like 8 on team God, and 3 on team No God--with the rest of the class assigned the task of judging the debate. Or something like that. I don't exactly remember. But what I remember clearly--because it is so absurd--is that it ended up where I was the only one who actually spoke for team No God during the debate. So it was really 8 against 1. And I mopped the floor with them. It was embarrassing. And it wasn't embarrassing because I was right and they were wrong--I could have argued for God and won as well. It was embarrassing because their self-righteousness prevented them from adequately preparing. Their arguments were pathetic--dribble like "If there's no God then why are we here?" For their big finale, moreover, they introduced photos of cloud formations they said looked like Jesus. So my point is that Matt and Bill's debate was fairly even, and that they both took it seriously and knew their stuff. That's rare. Having witnessed thousands of exchanges online, with some who supposedly knew their stuff, I would say that 80% of the exchanges are extremely one-sided.

Thanks, Vince. I used to see posts claiming the 14 cm measurement placed the wound right where it is in the Rydberg drawings. I don't see that anymore. So perhaps some progress has been made.

Great work. Thanks. After the first couple of posts in response to my question, I assumed that was the case. As years pass, most of us have trouble keeping track of what happened on one day vs what happened a week or even months and years later. That is one of the reasons I put little stock in decades-later witness statements claiming they saw the Z-film on TV in '63, or that they spoke to Dr. Humes on the night of the assassination, etc. Human memory just isn't all that reliable. ARRB honcho Jeremy Gunn discussed this in a presentation. He mentioned that when he questioned the Parkland doctors, one of them felt certain Jackie was dressed in white (as opposed to pink) on the day of the shooting. Research on human cognition has shown, moreover, that the clarity and certainty of distant memories bears little correlation to their accuracy. I have had a front row seat on this myself, as I have weekly dinners with my friend and his dad, who is slipping into dementia. Mr. D, who is in his mid-80's, will sometimes insist on something that is clearly not true, even though he knows he has problems with his memory. The feeling of truth just overwhelms him. A few weeks back, for instance, my brother joined us for dinner, and Mr. D insisted he was not my brother, since he'd known me for a long time and "knew" I had no brothers. Well, the sad fact is that Mr. D not only knew I had a brother, but had met my brother and played basketball with my brother 50 times or more. Tragic. And this feeling of certainty about incorrect info isn't just something that happens to octogenarians. At this week's dinner, my friend was discussing Elton John's recent performances at Dodger Stadium. He mentioned that Elton did some of his more recent hits as well as his oldies, including "I'm Still Standing" which he said was about 15 years old. Well, one of my other friends quickly got on his phone and looked it up, and found that the song was actually almost 40 years old. Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping, into the future...

Alan Dale insisted.

Thanks for the correction. I got mixed up because Marquette is Catholic. But I knew John was Protestant. He was an aficionado of Christian a cappella music. Very Protestant.

Absolutely. I spent a lot of time on his newsgroup and got to know John a bit. He saw discussion of the assassination as an avenue through which he could assault and insult liberals. He wasn't interested in truth as much as he was interested in attacking the libs, who he saw as morally weak, and intellectually compromised socialist ninnies. He was not a Catholic. But he was a missionary. I mean, anyone who followed his court case, in which he unrepentantly hid behind claims of free speech to excuse his bullying and terrorizing a female student teacher, should realize that this was just the tip of the iceberg. On his personal blog, John would spew on in defense of Big Oil and Big Tobacco. On his newsgroup he would attack men like Mark Lane and Jim Garrison as XXXXX when they claimed something that was probably incorrect, but defend men like Lattimer and Baden when they claimed something that was undoubtedly incorrect (because they had no reason to lie, you see). Anyhow, I met him in person once and he was pleasant enough. And he could at times be surprisingly candid (such as when he admitted the Tippit killing was not the Rosetta Stone, seeing as Oswald may have killed Tippit while in fear for his life.) And I think the research community as a whole suffered a loss with his demise. Now, why would I say that? Well, despite his leanings, John would at times unite with those on the other side of the fence in their efforts to gain the release of hidden documents, etc. If a bunch of CTs signed a petition, it looked like whining. But if John signed it along with them, it looked like a serious issue that needed to be addressed. So, RIP.

Huh... I remember looking into this after reading O'Toole's book and coming away with the tests not being admissible, much as a standard lie detector test. Perhaps the laws have changed. I remember reading a book on forensics that bemoaned certain rulings that allowed individual judges discretion over what constituted "science" and what constituted an "expert". Perhaps there has been an erosion on the acceptability of PSE in court. But, even so, is there precedent in that the tests were performed on recordings? I mean, have courts accepted PSE performed on recordings of a suspect and not the suspect himself as evidence? If so, I probably should add this to my website.

The NAA evidence is not conclusive, but it is suggestive. It's possible he fired the rifle, and that he either fooled the tests, or just got lucky. But the NAA results of the cheek casts--which are admissible in court--were negative for antimony. And that may have helped sway a jury. Let's look at the O.J. case for comparison. There, a suspect (O.J.) was allowed to try on dried leather gloves over plastic gloves, and make out that the gloves didn't fit. And this helped sway a jury. Now consider that in this case a widely accepted scientific analysis was done on the "gloves" and proved they did not fit. It is suggestive, but not conclusive.

This is true. It is the subject matter of The Assassination tapes by George O'Toole, as I recall. The problem is PSE software is like a lie detector. It is suggestive, but not admissible in a court of law or anything like that. NAA tests for gsr are admissible.

For the 59th anniversary of the assassination, Alan Dale collected some comments from some veteran researchers and writers on the case. Among these writers are John Newman, Larry Hancock and Peter Dale Scott.. These can be read here: https://aarclibrary.org/22-november-1963-22-november-2022/ FWIW, I think Dan Hardway's stood out.

The presence of GSR in itself is not always suggestive of firing a weapon. GSR tests usually focus on the back of the suspect's hand, since GSR can be picked up on the palm by handling a weapon. The DPD's drawings of the nitrates found on Oswald's hands suggest the GSR found on his hands was found primarily on the palm side of his hands. Tests performed by Vincent Guinn revealed moreover that the trigger finger is the main source of GSR in those who've recently fired a handgun. No specks were found on Oswald's trigger finger. So the paraffin tests not only suggested Oswald's innocence in killing Kennedy, they raised questions about his killing Tippit. (I pretty much wrote a book on this--which can be found at Chapter 4f at patspeer.com)

Someone wrote this years ago, but there's no evidence it's true. The DPD, at least officially, first fingerprinted Oswald after they'd performed the paraffin test.

His hands had plenty of gsr, which indicates he did not wash his hands or face after the Tippit shooting. So realistically the only place he could have washed his hands was at the rooming house. Well, the housekeeper said he did no such thing. So the NAA tests of the paraffin cheek cast are suggestive of Oswald's innocence regarding Kennedy, but not conclusive.

While I would agree that polls don't mean much, a slight decrease in those suspecting a conspiracy in the years leading up to the 50th anniversary led some, including as I recall Posner, to claim the truth of books like Case Closed and Reclaiming History had turned the tide, and that the public was ready to move on from their doubts about the assassination. So, if anything, the poll conducted by Posner repudiates the claims of Posner and his many supporters in the main stream media. Despite a mass propaganda blitz, their efforts at burying the truth (or at least questions about the truth) has not been successful. Now, that said, I would agree with Paul that the vast majority of the public knows little about the case. If they think Oswald acted alone, and are asked why, they will almost always say something stupid like "Well, they looked into it, didn't they?" or "If someone else was involved someone would have said something" which reveals their unfamiliarity with the case. While at the same time those thinking it was all a conspiracy will say something like "I saw a video that proves the driver did it" or "I don't know. Someone told me that Onassis did it so he could marry Jackie, and that makes sense to me" which reveals their own lack of familiarity. It is an Oswald-did-it canard, for that matter, to blame the lack of faith in the WC's findings on Oliver Stone. The film JFK barely made a dent on the public's response to the conspiracy/no conspiracy question. it did however shift many of those suspecting a conspiracy from suspecting a conspiracy involving the right wing or the mafia to suspecting a conspiracy involving the military and CIA. That this touched a nerve, moreover, can be demonstrated by the way the film forced all too many to come out of the closet and claim the film was nothing but lies, and that its central proposition--that the U.S. policy regarding Vietnam changed after the assassination--was nonsense. Well, they lost that fight and made themselves look freakin' stupid in the process. It doesn't mean they were wrong about the assassination, of course. But it did show that the knee-jerk reaction of many to the film was based upon their own lack of scholarship, and not Stone's.

While the evidence for LBJ's involvement in the murder is not strong, the evidence he lied his ass off about the events of that day is incontrovertible. Most historians have elected to make LBJ's response to the assassination seem heroic. But I suppose it's possible Caro will admit LBJ orchestrated a cover-up, without admitting he may have been involved. But I don't see it happening. Not after he whitewashed LBJ's actions in the last one.

FWIW, I delved into this some time back and found the evidence is not as clear cut as one would like. But what is clear is that the WC and FBI conspired to conceal and misrepresent the NAA tests of the paraffin casts. The WC and FBI said the tests were inconclusive because there was too much barium on the back side (control side) of the paraffin cast of the cheek. But they said nothing of the other element: antimony. You need both for a positive result--if one is too low it is considered a negative result. But they did not publish the data for antimony. Fortunately, the great Harold Weisberg sued the AEC and FBI etc and was ultimately rewarded with a big box of documents, including the handwritten notes on the tests performed on the casts. And I was able to access these through the Hood Library. And my oh my the antimony result was suspiciously low, and would have resulted in a negative result but for one thing. Today's standards hold that the test should be performed within a certain amount of time, and the tests were performed a bit late to be considered conclusive. BUT... There was plentiful gsr on Oswald's hands, so the presumption gsr was wiped from Oswald's face really has no foundation. My suspicion then is that a judge would allow the tests to be presented in court, along with expert witnesses from both sides, who could disagree about the validity of the tests. As for myself...well...I consider these tests to be a (non) smoking gun...

I would bet that the video is misleading and that it is a video that will be available through Netflix and not a video that is funded by Netflix, or will be promoted by Netflix. If it was in fact a Netflix production it would have some credits in the trailer ("From director so and so", or "From the studio that brought you Making a Murderer"). It does not. it looks like an inflated YouTube series. I mean, my friend Brad and I created one of the first Youtube series on the case, that sadly still remains one of the best. We had original music and some original graphics. We also filmed a few re-enactments. I didn't notice anything like that in the promo. In short, it looks like narration added to found footage--with the footage most probably taken from other sources without permission. So...will I watch it? Perhaps. If it is all designed to lead us to thinking Greer did it, it will be a tremendous waste of time and effort. And I will avoid. But if it includes extended excerpts of the many interviews performed for the book--most of which were only briefly excerpted in the book? It may still be worthwhile.

1) I doubt that Netflix would invest in such a project. 2) The production values of the video are below Netflix' standards. So, it appears to be a video series that will be available through Netflix. Now, that's not saying much. At one point, I was regularly checking in on Amazon Prime and Netflix to see what videos were available. Well, I was surprised to see that roughly half the videos were self-produced schlock, some of which "borrowed" heavily from other sources. IOW, the quality of some programming available through these streaming services is about the same as that on YouTube, which isn't saying much.

I don't understand why people think it has to be one way or the other. It's as if they've never been in a relationship. There were money issues in the relationship, and sex issues, and it's clear they argued frequently. It's not surprising, then, that this sometimes turned violent. But it's a mistake, IMO, to take from this that Oswald was a wife-beater, with a predilection towards violence. My impression is that Marina nagged the crap out of him, and may even have provoked much of Lee's violence though her own violent actions. I think further that some saw her blue eyes and thin frame and assumed she was a sweet victim in all this. But the DeMohrenschildts and Paines knew better. My two cents.

Yes, David, we know. They said there was a track visible on the unenhanced x-ray. Lattimer saw the same thing. And so did Sturdivan. But guess what? You can see this for yourself and the wound track doesn't start at the back wound location. It starts well above that, and is in fact evidence for a missile descending the neck from the skull. The HSCA FPP realized this, moreover, and decided they needed to explain it away. So they added a bit about the air in the neck tissues representing air that backed up in the neck when Kennedy's tie blocked its exit. I think we can agree, David, that that was total horse-puckey.

1. The trajectory from the upper floors and roof of the Dal-Tex building is nearly identical to that of the sniper's nest. These areas were within Canning's trajectory cones. I believe Myers included them as well. The trajectory is so similar in fact that the WC published an exhibit purporting to show the sniper's nest view that was actually taken from the perspective of the Dal-Tex. We should also recall that a number of SBT simulations purporting to point back to the TSBD actually pointed to the Dal-Tex. 2. I have spoken to Wecht about the SBT and he acknowledges the possibility the bullet did not transit. His claim is that a full velocity bullet would have transited, and may very well have been deflected out of the car, But he doesn't pretend we know the bullet transited. 3. The President's movements circa Z-224 are not consistent with a minor impact on his back. But neither are they consistent with a bullet transiting his throat. His rapid arm movements and subsequent slump are instead indicative of an injury to the cerebellum. As a consequence I suspect he was first hit on the back around Z-190, that he was then hit low on the back of the head by the same burst striking Connally, and that he subsequently was struck at the supposed exit on the top of his skull by a tangential shot. I know you won't let yourself be convinced, and that's fine. But if you actually dig through the weeds and read about wound ballistics, etc, this scenario makes 100x as much sense as the crap we were fed by the likes of Spitz and Baden. 4. As far as why someone would use a subsonic round, well, that is explained quite nicely in the CIA's Manual on Assassination. Not only was the use of such a round an option, it was recommended.