Pat Speer

To be clear, that memorandum was not approved by the ARRB, and is not reflective of the board's views on the matter. Doug Horne, who was anxious to prove Lifton's theory of body alteration, got a job with the ARRB and was able to place a number of memos into the record that raised questions about the official story. But the board itself was not tasked with coming to any conclusions on the medical evidence, and did not come to any conclusions on the medical evidence. In fact, strange as it may seem, the majority of the board (maybe even all its members, I'm not sure) claimed their work, if anything, supported the conclusion Oswald acted alone.

It's a complicated issue. At that time, and still today, the vast majority of Americans did not receive autopsies. In the eyes of the military and Johnson Administration, the autopsy was simply a formality--he'd had his brains blow out...duh... As such they may very well have thought they were being patriotic in restricting the autopsy. But some of the restrictions are indeed quite suspicious. Most suspicious...to me...is that the doctors were prohibited from examining the neck. This is quite the screw-up. Hours before the first incision, the Parkland doctors had discussed the possibility the head wound and throat wound were connected. It was SOP to examine the neck organs, and in this case it was absolutely necessary. But apparently they did not inspect the neck organs at the autopsy. This then allowed them to assume the bullet creating the back wound had exited the throat. The possibility exists moreover that this was no coincidence. IF those in charge had already decided that three shots were fired (and only three shots were fired) before Humes was to examine the neck, they may have realized that "Well, one bullet hit Kennedy in the head, and one bullet hit Connally, and that leaves but one bullet to have created the back wound and throat wound...IF Humes examines the neck and finds the bullet traveled down the neck from the head, or up the neck from the throat, well, that's too many bullets, or even worse a bullet fired from the wrong direction. Well, we can't have that...So, no, let's not let him examine the neck..." That Humes chose not to section the brain when conducting the supplemental autopsy, moreover, only adds to the possibility he was under orders to restrict his findings to two bullets striking Kennedy, and two bullets only...

Here is a more accurate version of your final summation... "The basic difference between us boils down to this: You regret that South Vietnam did not fall to communist tyranny decades earlier (which would have saved millions of lives), whereas I regret that South Vietnam did not remain free (at the cost of millions of lives)." It's easy to be an armchair general, Michael, and assume the loss of millions of lives would be preferable to America's acknowledging its failure... But I live in Southern California, with a substantial Vietnamese population. I spent much of last year in a hospital, and had a dozen or more Vietnamese nurses. While waiting to see if I was gonna die, I killed a lot of time by chitty-chatting with my nurses about their backgrounds. And not a one of them said that they wished the war had continued. A number of them, in fact, told me that they or their immediate family had recently returned to Vietnam to visit relatives. This idea of yours that Vietnam is a hell-hole that would have been worth millions of lives to avoid, is just not a thing with them. While some said their family was devastated by having to leave their homes, they never once said "Yeah, if only the U.S. had bombed more civilians in the north, the south would still be free today" or anything even close to that. There was no sense among them that the U.S. had betrayed the trust of their people by refusing to escalate the war. It's just something that a tiny percentage of pretend "conservatives" cling to so they can delude themselves into thinking they are "real men" and that only "pussy Democrats" lose wars. It's total garbage, and indicative of the bubble some wish to hide in.

I discuss this in exhaustive detail in chapters 3, 3c, and 4g on my website. I think the one thing I would add is that the first accuracy tests used the scope and found that the rifle when using the scope fired 4 inches high and one inch to the right at only 15 yards. And that it consistently fired high and to the right. Frazier of course later adjusted the scope and found that this distance could be reduced but not completely. Tellingly, moreover, he said that after adjusting the rifle, he would need to take a few shots before it settled in...that is, before it became consistent. Well, this blows out of the water the frequent and recurring argument by LNs that the scope was knocked out of alignment by Oswald after the shooting. If he had done so, per Frazier, the rifle would not have fired consistently high and to the right when first tested. Now I have discussed this before on this and other forums. And the WC defenders have often interjected that "Well, clearly, LT. Day or someone at the DPD had test-fired the rifle before it was shipped to the FBI, and that that was why the rifle fired constantly high and to the right when first tested by the FBI." Only there is no record of this, whatsoever. Or, sometimes, they will quote Robert Frazier saying Lt. Day had removed shims from the rifle before shipping it to the FBI... Only, here, they miss that Frazier just made this up for a 30 years after book defending the integrity of the FBI crime lab... Well, the hypocrisy is telling. The historical record indicates that the rifle was inaccurate on 11-22-63. And the only way to get around this is to invent scenarios, and then pretend they happened. When CTs do this, of course, they are vilified as "wild-eyed" theorists. Well, it is a "wild-eyed" theory Day test fired the rifle, or removed shims from the rifle without telling anyone. And that's a fact.

Thanks for that bit of background, Michael. My parents were divorced when I was 7. My father wasn't around much. But my uncle and his Marine buddies used to come up from Pendleton on the weekends and they became, in effect, my surrogate fathers and older brothers. A couple of these guys had been to Nam. They used to show me Polaroids they'd taken of dead "gooks". One of them gave me a hat that he'd worn in-country, that had "Sorry About That, Vietnam" stitched into the side. Being around these young men, and seeing how it affected their psyches, led my mom to reject the war. To this day, she can't say "McNamara" without her face scrunching up with scorn. But my point is that these guys themselves never denounced the war. Most of them were drafted to fight in a war they didn't believe in, but through their military training they came to see themselves not as expendable cannon-fodder for the military-industrial complex, but as soldiers--modern day warriors designed to kick-ass. The movie Full Metal Jacket depicts this brilliantly, IMO. So my larger point is that people who serve--even those drafted into serving--come away believing there's a military solution for everything...and sometimes even that their newly-acquired skill set and training is applicable to everyday life. Well, our founding fathers--presumably Washington himself, knew this. That is why the Secretary of Defense is a civilian. Because the military, while willing to do what must be done, is not properly equipped to decide what should be done. They just aren't. Their answer is always more soldiers, more firepower, more death, more war... Now, as this pertains to Vietnam. The U.S. military establishment are the sorest of losers. They never came to grips that they "lost" a new kind of war. They have since day one alibi-ed that they could have won if only they'd been given the ability to do so. And this is largely irrelevant. And kinda embarrassing... OF COURSE we could have "won" if we'd given the butchers more knives and more meat to cut. But someone somewhere had to make a decision when to cut and run. Someone somewhere had to take a look at the BIG PICTURE, and see where the war was leading, if not more and more slaughter. After 20 years, South Vietnam had become less stable, and North Vietnam had become a heroic little nation with some mighty big friends, that showed no signs of going anywhere. Our continued presence in SE Asia had damaged us internationally, created a rift internally, and blackened the souls of a generation of young men...who used to dream of sports cars and surf boards but who now delighted in showing 7 year-olds Polaroids of dead "gooks". Enough was enough. And that is where congress comes in... Bowing to the will of the people, congress restricted the military's ability to resurrect the war, and prolong the slaughter. This is what they were supposed to do. They deferred to the wishes of President Johnson, and President Nixon, but when it became clear a third President was itching to throw more meat on the fire, they said "NOPE!" And that was a good thing. Almost everyone now thinks so... Almost everyone now knows so... Although some perished at the hands of the North Vietnamese, it is not nearly the number that would have perished should the war have continued... And may very well not have been nearly the number that would have perished at the hands of a "friendly" South Vietnamese government. In the guise of supporting strong anti-Communist governments, after all, we have propped up many a murderous regime, some no doubt more murderous than the current regime in Vietnam.

Yes, and they pointed to a location about half-way between where the wound is shown on the autopsy photos and where it is shown on the McClelland drawing, and other drawings. So why does a location half-way between two places confirm the accuracy of the drawings, and totally debunk photos showing the other location? It doesn't, right? I mean, let's put this in context. Your distant cousin tells you that your dad owned a brown Lincoln in 1963. And then you find an old photo with your dad behind the wheel in a green Cadillac. And then you ask your dad what he owned and he says he owned a brown Cadillac. Common sense tells you that you either accept what your dad said or accept that he'd made a mistake and that his Cadillac was actually green. But when it comes to this case all too many embrace the illogical, and declare that since dad said his car was brown, that he must have meant that he'd had a brown Lincoln. My question is WHY? Why either assume the wound was on the far back of the head below the ears OR defend the accuracy of drawings (such as the McClelland drawing) that place the wound inches too low on the back of the head from where the witnesses claimed it was? I don't get it. Why can't people who get angry as F about government deception, or LN deception, get upset about the deceptions of Livingstone and Groden, etc? Is it so hard to spit up the Kool-Aid?

Where do you get that the back of the head is missing in photo 1? You realize the back of the head is sitting on a head rest, right? On what planet do autopsy physicians put gaping wounds on head rests when taking photos?

The words anterior and posterior relate to which half of the body. Something on the top of the head towards the back would be on the posterior side of the skull. A lot of the confusion about all this stems, moreover, from most CTs being too freakin' lazy to read a medical book or an anatomy book.

The wound shown in the autopsy photos is on the right posterior part of the head, depending on how you define it. Hill and others have made it clear that the "back of the head" to them starts above the ear. And that's where the wound is shown in the photos. Many CTs, however, have long claimed that the witnesses claiming it was on the back of the head were claiming it was in the middle of the back of the head at the level of the ears. Some even claim it was directly between the ears. That way they can match the recollections of these witnesses with the claim the Harper fragment is occipital bone, and that the doctors thinking they saw cerebellum were correct in their assessment. I, on the other hand, have royally pissed people off by pointing out that you can't have it both ways. You can't say the witnesses saying it was right rear and pointing out a location above the ear are consistent with the Harper fragment's being occipital bone and the cerebellum being blasted and exposed. It's like saying someone pointing at the Sphinx was pointing at the pyramids. It might seem true from a distance but the closer you get the clearer it becomes...that they're blowing smoke.

Wrong Jenkins. But this Jenkins reversed himself and said he was mistaken about seeing cerebellum. Macerated brain resembles cerebellum. He and I believe Carrico both came to say they were mistaken about seeing cerebellum.

So... How many of the supposed back of the head witnesses place the wound at the level of the ear, where it is shown in the McClelland drawing, and where it would have to have been to expose the cerebellum from behind? (Keep in mind that Groden took snippets of videos of two of the Bethesda witnesses describing the right side of the skull missing after the scalp was peeled back, and made it look like they were describing.a blow-out on the back of the head apparent at the beginning of the autopsy.)I believe the answer is two": Crenshaw and Bell--neither of whom said anything before decades had passed, and both of whom were inconsistent in their depictions on anatomy drawings. Now, some prominent CTs, perhaps even most of them, have played word games for decades--deliberately interpreting "back of the head" to mean the far back of the head. They desperately want to believe everything adds up and the back of the head was blasted out. Only...the very witnesses they claim as support for this have pulled the rug out from them by routinely pointing to a location above the ear...above the occipital bone...above the cerebellum. The location they point to, on average, is roughly halfway between where so many want the wound to be and where it is shown on the autopsy photos. Now, a non-zealot would say "Well, if there are photos showing one thing, and people recall something slightly different, then the photos are probably accurate." But that doesn't happen in this case. Instead, people say "Well, the photos show one thing, and people recall something slightly different, so they must really mean they saw something that was depicted in a drawing 50 years ago, that someone told me was accurate." (I witnessed this myself at one point. I was in a group discussion with James Jenkins in which he was asked and asked repeatedly if there was a blow-out wound on the far back of JFK's head, and he answered over and over that there was no such wound--that the skull was shattered on the far back--as is shown on the x-rays--but that the scalp over this shattered bone was intact. Well, within days one of those in attendance reported back to someone that Jenkins had said the autopsy photos didn't quite match what he recalled, and this person then wrote a widely disseminated online article claiming that Jenkins had disavowed the autopsy photos--and that this was because the back of the head was blown-out...EXACTLY WHAT JENKINS SAID HAD NOT HAPPENED.) And this sleight of hand--this twisting of what the witnesses said to fit the largely unsupported argument the back of the head was blown out--is nothing new. For example, Groden and Livingstone claimed (and Groden continues to claim) that the Parkland witnesses supported the accuracy of the McClelland drawing, when this is simply not true. When shown the autopsy photos and McClelland drawing by the Boston Globe 40 years or so ago, a number of Parkland witnesses said they didn't believe the photos accurately depicted what they recalled...but an even greater number said the McClelland drawing did not accurately depict what they recalled. So let's throw that drawing in the trash, okay? It's garbage. And McClelland himself knew it to be as much when he was interviewed for The Men Who Killed Kennedy, and showed them where he (at that time) recalled seeing a wound.

No. Riebe's photos were long shots and were confiscated, and never printed. They were developed by the ARRB. Dr. Randy Robertson petitioned the archives to view them, and was successful, He said they were completely consistent with the other photos. He saw them as yet another reason to believe the autopsy photos are legit.

No mass hallucination was necessary. When people see something that is kinda vague, like the location of a wound on someone's head when he is laying on his back with his feet up in the air, they can come to an incorrect conclusion as to the exact location of the wound. This has been studied and demonstrated ad nauseam. And when people discuss amongst themselves something that is kinda vague for weeks and months and years afterwards without comparing what they saw to photographs, they can come to an incorrect conclusion. This has been studied and demonstrated ad nauseum. And when these people hours, days, weeks and decades later are shown misleading drawings or asked leading questions about what they saw, their memories can actually be changed, so that they now remember what they saw as what they've been led to believe they should have seen. Now, this works both ways. I know you accept that the recollections of some witnesses were tainted by contact with officialdom, and learning what they were supposed to say. And I'm pretty sure you believe they weren't lying, and that they actually came to believe what they were told they were supposed to believe. So why can't you see that this happens both ways--that someone who'd barely seen something 20 years before might tell someone with an agenda who'd approached them what they wanted to hear. I have watched numerous witness interviews. The interviewer will quite often preface something with "Now, so and so said he got a good look and he said he saw such and such. Did you get a good look? Is that what you saw?" Or "It looks to me like such and such. What do you think?" Books have been written on eyewitness identification and testimony. And an eyewitness identification of a suspect is of one of the least reliable pieces of evidence. And yet, it remains one of the most trusted pieces of evidence by juries. People have great difficulty accepting that our senses are not reliable recorders of fact, and that our impressions of events can change day to day based upon outside influence. But it's nevertheless true.

Yes, McClelland was easily manipulated into telling people what they wanted to hear. But do either of these drawings reflect what the Parkland witnesses by and large recalled? NO!!! Most of the witnesses on the slide below are pointing out a location entirely above the top of the ear, not directly behind the ear. The only two witnesses who support the accuracy of these drawings, moreover, are Crenshaw and Bell, neither of whom spoke on the matter for decades after the shooting, and neither of whom placed the wound in a consistent location when asked to place it on drawings showing the rear and side of the skull. And yes, I know, we've been through this before, and I thought you'd agreed that the wound as widely recalled was high up on the back of the head, and not where it is placed in the McClelland drawings. So what's changed? Is it that you can not acknowledge that there has been widespread deception on the part of CTs, much as there has been widespread deception on the part of LNs?

Well, then, I probably ought to read it. One of the great ironies of my jaunt through research-land came at a mini-conference hosted by Dr. Aguilar, where Mantik and Thompson, with whom I usually agree, had a strong disagreement over the dictabelt. The irony was that I found myself swayed by Mantik's arguments, and thought those rallying behind Thompson were doing so based more on his personal charisma, than on the substance of his arguments.

I'm not "a CTer," David, I'm Pat, and I have a heckuva lot more credibility than Myers on these matters. So quit playing to the imaginary LN audience out there cheering you on for "sticking it to the CTs" or whatever you think you're doing. The fact of the matter is this... While Myers claimed his cartoon was locked in or whatever, he actually admitted he locked in every 7th frame, if I recall, and that he simply filled in, as an animator, the images in between. When one actually looks at his cartoon one spots a number of mistakes. Among these is that he portrayed JFK hanging over the side of the limo circa Z-224, when the Z-film is clear that he moved from this position as he went behind the sign in the film. That JFK jerked leftward at this time was noted by the HSCA photography panel, long before I ever started studying this case. So, no, it's not some CT myth. Another indisputable fact is that Myers initial acknowledged that the location of JFK's back wound in his animation was established via rear projection from Connally's armpit wound back to the SN. Well, by the time he'd sold his animation to ABC, he'd taken to claiming the back wound location on JFK in his animation came from studying the autopsy photos, and precise measurements. This was not true. As demonstrated below...

So we can agree then that the so-called McClelland drawing is not remotely accurate and that those claiming it is have been grossly deceptive.

Yes, as demonstrated by numerous studies, the recollections of operating room doctors are not consistent and not to be relied upon. This is why they have autopsies. Not just because initial impressions are frequently incorrect, but because one's memory of one's initial impression is frequently incorrect. The beef between McClelland and his fellow doctors was not that the wound was on or near the back of the head, it was that the wound was LOW on the back of the head, as depicted in the so-called McClelland drawing--which, to be clear, McClelland did not draw, and did not supervise. As reported on this website by Tink Thompson, McClelland was not consulted in the creation of that drawing. And yet over time he came to tell people he either consulted with an artist to create the drawing or created it himself. As for Peters. he said numerous times that the wound he saw was at the top of the back of the head. That is, in fact, the consensus of the Parkland witnesses--that it was at the top of the back of the head, roughly half-way between where it is shown on the autopsy photos and where it is shown in the so-called McClelland drawing. And yet...the myth of the accuracy of the so-called McClelland drawing continues...

I met Judyth once. She was quite anxious for me to believe her story. While I suspect its possible she knew Oswald for a brief time, and that she may even have flirted with him or some such thing, I find the rest of her story implausible. Of course, in this case, I am not entirely unbiased. Once James F embraced her and took up her cause, the odds of my believing her were effectively nil. if you're the real deal you shouldn't get in bed with a carnival huckster.

When you double-down on nonsense it doesn't change its nature.

PS: This was supposed to show that the wounds gave the appearance of a back entrance and throat exit. You know damn well that those who saw the throat exit unanimously described it as a small hole, and that what is shown in this photo is the throat after a tracheotomy. The throat hole as described by those who actually saw it did not give the appearance of an exit, and was perceived as being an entrance.

Concluding something is not the same as observing something, David. Doctors are supposed to report what they observe. It was either a colossal FU to not dissect the back wound, or a deliberate avoidance. In either case, their conclusion the bullet traversed the body was akin to "A man went in the front door of an office complex, and a man went out the back door of an office complex, and we conclude it was the same man without ever going inside and verifying that the front door leads to a hallway which leads to the back door. We just don't know. In fact, when we looked inside the front door, it appeared to lead to a dead end, and, oh yeah, the name over the back door (its appearance) was of a different company than the name over the front door. So we just don't know. But we're supposed to say something and act official and all, so we're just gonna say whatever it takes to get our employers off our back. So, yeah, the man who went in the front door somehow made his way over to the back door, which was left open, but, of course, we don't actually know if it was left open by someone coming in or by someone coming out. But yeah, we'll just say what we're supposed to... The man who came in the front door left through the back door." That's not science, David. That's guesswork. And uneducated guesswork at that... If they'd done a little homework they'd have found that beyond that they could find no entrance into the body from the back wound, the small size of the throat wound and yes, even the x-rays, were strong evidence that no bullet passed between the back wound location and the throat wound location. If they'd done their jobs and dissected the back wound, of course, they could have proved this one way or another, but they did not. Which means we have to rely upon the available evidence. And this is in perfect alignment with one conclusion--NO bullet traversed from the back wound to the throat wound.

You realize, of course, that the witnesses watching Kennedy at the time of the first shot overwhelmingly claimed he was hit by this shot? And that the few who did not, such as Mary Woodward, claimed he'd moved in a manner inconsistent with his behavior if he hadn't been shot? Kennedy turns to his left before the limo goes behind the sign in the Z-film. Witnesses said he'd jerked to his left after the first shot. It follows, then, that he was shot before he went behind the sign in the film. This was, moreover, the conclusions of the HSCA photography panel separate from the conclusions of the HSCA acoustics experts. And yet Myers, in his animation, depicts JFK leaning over the side of the limo and waving to the crowd for another two seconds. Hmmm.... I wonder why...

We don't know there was only one bullet fired into the car at that time. There could have been two rifles in sync, or one semi-auto firing a two shot burst. The WC re-enactment photos prove that when viewed from the sniper's nest Connally's right armpit was only inches away from the back of Kennedy's head. Someone aiming for his head could have missed and hit Connally.