Pat Speer

It's called forensic science. Not "It look like it to me!" If someone fired a burst of bullets into a crowd, a number of the victims would react around the same time and be in close alignment with the shooter's location. But they would in fact be shot by different bullets. The nose of CE 399 was unblemished. It may have caused Kennedy's back wound, if fired at a low velocity. And it may have caused Connally's wrist and leg wounds, if fired at a low velocity. But the tests performed for the WC raise strong doubt about its inflicting the wounds it was purported to have made on both men. (Sturdivan for one realized this and went back and fabricated some new velocities for his book.) I mean, think about it... Dr. Humes testified that he could find no passage between the back wound (which he measured at 14 cm below the EOP) and throat wound... This was never countered. And Dr. Wecht testified that the nearly non-existent damage to the bullet was inconsistent with the wounds it was purported to have caused. (Although this was countered by some hypotheticals etc...no doctor has ever found or presented a similar instance where a nearly unblemished bullet was purported to have caused such damage...) Outside of wanting to believe in the SBT, there is little or no reason to believe in it... LNs would be better off developing non-SBT scenarios, IMO.

I've said it before, David. The SBT is toast. If people want to come up with another LN scenario that works, fine. Go for it. But any LN scenario based on the SBT is doomed to fail. It's "the moon-landing was performed in a studio" or "the twin towers were brought down by lasers" kind of stuff. Junk science. Gussied up to look like science. But let's break it down... Does CE 399 give the physical appearance of a bullet that had done what it was purported to do? No. Did Kennedy's body give the physical appearance of a bullet's having traveled from his back wound to his throat wound? No. Did Connally's clothing and back wound give the appearance of him being struck by a tumbling bullet? No. Did the studies performed for the WC indicate that the damage to the bodies of Kennedy and Connally were consistent with the damage one would expect from a high velocity bullet? No. Were the locations of JFK's and JBC's wounds in line with a shot from the sniper's nest at the time the WC (or HSCA, or Myers) believed the SBT shot was fired? No. There's probably a bunch more. None of it adds up. And those tasked with making it add up told numerous lies. At what point do you say "Yikes! There's reason to doubt!"

So, yeah, that's one giant leap for mankind. But you also seem to be saying that the sack was in the corner as claimed, covering up more than half the empty floor space, and that no one, including Fritz, who'd inspected the area prior to the arrival of Day and Studebaker, noticed it or remembered it. That's two giant leaps... And that, furthermore, neither Studebaker nor Day thought to have it photographed in the building upon its discovery or before leaving the building... That's three... Let's go back in order... We have a piece of evidence that 1) was not viewed by any of those first viewing the crime scene, even though it should have been obvious... 2) was not photographed in situ upon its discovery, or even that day, by those claiming to have discovered it, and to have recognized its importance... 3) was "found" by men whose stories were in contradiction, and ever-changing... and 4) was said not to be an item previously seen in the suspect's possession, by the only two witnesses to see the suspect with that item... And what point do you say "Hmmm"? If not by point 3 than most certainly point 4... Right?

Was it found? Or was it brought there? It's long been noted that Day's carrying the rifle out onto the streets was more than unusual, and that it would have been much more professional for him to have placed the rifle in some sort of sack. He acknowledged, moreover, that he went down to the paper and tape machines before leaving the building. It seems possible then that he ordered Studebaker to make a sack for the rifle, but then got tired of just standing around, and left without the sack. And that Studebaker then took the sack back up to the sixth floor. A long piece of the windowsill was removed from the window. No one has ever explained how that was transported from the building. It seems possible that that was in the sack. As far as the photo of the sack on the boxes...this actually undermines the official story as no one ever said anything about leaving the sack laying around for a period after its discovery... It should make you wonder what else was left out...

I agree that that appears to be the bag in the photo. But it does nothing to prove or even suggest the bag was found as claimed. The bag was not on those boxes when Alyea filmed Fritz in the corner. This was before Montgomery and Johnson claimed they'd found the bag. They claimed, moreover, that they discovered the bag when Day was off inspecting the rifle on the other side of the building. Well, would they really just walk off and leave it near the sniper's nest, only to return later and take it downstairs? And if they really thought the bag had been used to smuggle the rifle into the building, why didn't they make sure Studebaker took a picture of it? The best case scenario would be something like they found the bag, but had no idea if it was important, and just threw it atop the boxes. And that Studebaker was also oblivious and failed to take a picture of it. And that Day upon his return realized its possible importance, and told Montgomery and Johnson to run it over to the crime lab. That's the best case scenario. But even then you would still have to acknowledge that no one who'd actually stood in the sniper's nest prior to the discovery of the bag remembered seeing a bag just laying there that would have covered up most of the open space in the corner. And that's a huge problem...

Montgomery's watch reads 3:00, which would place his leaving the TSBD with the bag at around the same time Day returned to the TSBD.

I believe he also called the single bullet theory the single-bullet fact. So there's that.

It was a simple matter of cutting strings. We had been propping up South Vietnam for 20 years, to the detriment of the most everyone. Our incursion into that country had damaged the U.S. both internationally, and internally. You just don't get the context, Michael. The American people, by and large, never wanted to go in there. While a popular myth holds that lefty college kids were afraid to fight and turned the country against the war, the reality is that the war at the outset was more popular on college campuses than in working class America. Factory workers never understood why their kids had to go off and fight in some jungle for some people they'd never even heard of before. It just never made sense to them. And when their kids came home in a box or maimed physically and mentally, it made even less sense to them. LBJ knew the war would lose the Dems their mandate (based on their support of the civil rights movement vs. the Republican support of state's rights--code for Jim Crow) so he tried to get out with dignity. And Nixon saw this as well and connived to keep the war going for years under the false promise he had a secret plan to win the war. Well, after Nixon's ouster, most everyone in America wanted to get the heck out of Nam. Period. We just didn't care anymore. We'd been lied to enough. Enough people had died. The Pentagon papers had proved that much of our supposed reasons for being there were nonsense. The Gulf of Tonkin incident was a hoax. The Tet offensive showed the North was willing to fight to the death. And the My Lai incident (and related incidents) and, yes, Nixon's Christmas bombings had caused America to question whether or not we had the moral high ground. So what were we doing there? It was time get out. So we did. Could it have been less messy? Probably. But you keep insisting that if only we'd stayed another 20 years and killed another 5 million or so people we would have "won". And you seem angry that some lib-tards tied Ford's hands so he couldn't drag us back into the war in disguise as yet another "police action." John Kerry famously asked "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" Your answer seems to be that you don't ask a man that, you order him, and that you then make sure many many more people die after him so he won't be the last man.

I have a a wide-ranging discussion of the effect of high-velocity bullets on a skull at the end of Chapter 13a, in a section entitled Blasts from the Present. These are the modern views. In chapter 13b I go back to the beginning of the field of wound ballistics and discuss the history of wound ballistics associated with the presumed assassination rifle. In any event, I just went back and re-read a lot of Blasts from the Present, and the tests therein described indicated that the fractures created by a temporary cavity happen immediately, even before the exit of a bullet. So the large skull fractures associated with the temp cavity would be the same if the bullet exited during the point of maximum cavitation or after. I think it makes sense to assume, moreover, that a bullet exiting after the point of maximum cavitation would create smaller fractures upon exit. But I don't recall any testing along these lines. I think a big part of the confusion comes from Olivier and Sturdivan's testing of the M-16. They got it in their head and pushed upon the public that a high-velocity bullet will explode the skull at a mid-point in its trajectory through the skull. While this was true, it led many of those studying the JFK case to assume this explosion would create massive fractures...separate from the entrance fractures. But this wasn't true. Skulls exploding as a result of a large temporary cavity inevitably reveal a spider web of fractures leading back to the entrance. No such pattern was noted on Kennedy's skull. This was so problematic to a nouveau EOP entrance LN doctor named Peter Cummings that he told Fox on the 50th that there actually was a spider web pattern of fractures deriving from the EOP entrance on Kennedy's skull. Well, this would have been news to the autopsy surgeons, who measured the fractures on the skull, and reported that the fractures at exit were far longer than at entrance... There was, of course, no mention of this during Cummings' segment...

The large fractures at the supposed exit are a problem for the "bullet broke up within the skull" scenario. Upon rereading the HSCA FPP's report for the millionth time, ti finally dawned on me that they were claiming that the fractures were too large to have come from a highly fragmented bullet, and that the fractures would have to have come from a fragment the size of the two fragments found in the front area of the limo. IOW, they claimed those two bullet fragments exited intact and broke apart after hitting the windshield strut. While this is pretty dumb, IMO, the icing on the cake was that this meant the large disc-like fragment they proposed was on the back of the skull did not derive from the middle of the bullet, as seemed obvious (due to the fact the two fragments found in the front area were the nose and base of the bullet.) I then realized there was a method to Dr. Baden's madness. He had made numerous claims over the years that the fragment on the back of the head had simply leaked or rubbed off the bottom of the bullet. Well, he needed to claim as much to have the two fragments found in the limo exit intact, and he needed them to exit intact to explain the large fractures at the supposed exit. Oh what a tangled web we weave...

I don't know if there is a way to measure who is prominent or who is not. But there is an old guard, most of whom are now deceased. Still, Cyril Wecht, Paul Hoch, Tink Thompson and Peter Dale Scott remain. And I would add Gary Murr to this list. And there is a best-selling author group, which would include Lifton, Groden, and Anthony Summers. And there is a widely published author group, which would include Walt Brown, Larry Hancock, LaMar Waldron, Joan Mellen, Jim D, James Fetzer, John Newman, Doug Horne and Vince Palamara. And there is a group of professional historians, such as David Wrone, David Kaiser, and Michael Kurtz. And there is a group of professional doctors, such as Gary Aguilar, David Mantik, and Randy Robertson. And there's a group of professional journalists, such as Jeff Morley, David Talbot, and Russ Baker... And there are those with a strong presence on the internet, such as Rex Bradford, John Simkin, Anthony Marsh, Len Osanic, Mike Griffith, and Robin Unger... And there are those who've run conventions...like Debra Conway and Judyth Baker... And there is one who did the research for a number of books written by others... (That's Malcolm Blunt) And there is one who has MC'ed conventions, run organizations, and helped write the books of others... (That's Alan Dale) My point is that when these folk get together--and I have been in the company of almost all of them--the conversation is much different than the discussions on this forum. With few exceptions, they do not follow this or any other forum.

Yes, and perhaps in some online articles. Although he supported the cowlick entrance in his HSCA testimony, he later changed his mind about this--in part due to the prodding of John Canal and Chad Zimmerman (who were at that time quite active on the alt.assassination.JFK newsgroup moderated by John McAdams, of which I was also a member.) As a result Sturdivan's book is at odds with his previous testimony and discusses the head shot under the presumption the bullet entered near the EOP. if you find this shocking, moreover, get ready for another shock. Although John Lattimer conducted numerous tests and wrote numerous articles under the presumption the bullet entered at the cowlick entrance, he was, much as Sturdivan, swayed by Canal, and he also changed his mind in the end. So, much as CT-land is a confusing mess, LN-land is also confusing. Many if not most of the LNs currently writing online will cite Lattimer and Sturdivan ad nauseam, but fail to acknowledge they both ended up claiming the evidence supported an EOP entrance. This is toxic to their claims to authority--that all the experts agreed etc etc etc. I mean you can't cite the HSCA Forensic Pathology Panel as unquestioned authorities while simultaneously citing the findings of Lattimer and Sturdivan--who ended up claiming the HSCA FPP was full of doo-doo.

Oliver Stone is a busy man. I doubt he reads any of the forums or keeps up with new discoveries re the assassination beyond checking in with Jim D from time to time. Many of the most prominent members of the research community are of a similar mindset. Avoid the internet at all costs. I have met and dined with and even spent the night at the house of some of the big names in CT land, and they will call me up to ask me a question about something that I discuss in detail on my website. And what I say will come as a surprise. They know I know something about whatever it is they are calling me about, but have never taken the time to read my website or watch my videos. There's a bubble in CT land much as there's a bubble in this country. While "prayer man" is a big deal on this and other forums, I assure you that if you get together the 10 most prominent CTs in the media, and the 10 most prominent CTs who speak at conferences, "prayer man" will barely come up. The talk will be about John Newman's new discovery or an upcoming mock trial or Gary Aguilar's rebuttal to Lucien Haag's article in some obscure forensic publication. It's pretty much a closed loop. And there's a reason for this... People like me. This forum was founded by John Simkin, who went out of his way to invite some of the most prominent writers and personalities in JFK land to the forum. He allowed others to join, if they behaved themselves. But many didn't. Most prominent people have prominent egos and this leads to their reluctance to engage on a level playing field. Similarly, newbie know-nothings are all too anxious to confront or insult someone more prominent than themselves so they can make their bones and brag about how they "owned" so and so. I, myself, have some remorse over confronting Mark Lane over something. I suspect he left the forum as a result. But I don't feel too bad about it. If it wasn't me it would have been someone else.

The largest fragment was found behind the right eye. The large fragment at the back of the skull on the x-rays is probably on the scalp or in the hair, as there was no brain at that location.

I believe it's possible for a bullet to be deflected upon entrance and curve upwards before exploding from the skull. But such a bullet would almost certainly leave fragments on the bullet path, and a large permanent cavity within the brain connecting entrance and exit. Neither of these were found in this case. The medical evidence indicates that all the fragments were towards the top of the head if not on the outside of the top of the head. And the damage to the brain (which if I recall Sturdivan neglects) does not support such a scenario. There's also this. It's been awhile but some of this is coming back to me. The large fractures at the top of the head indicate the impact or exit of an intact bullet, not a fragmented bullet. Explosions of fragmented bullets (or shotgun pellets) create large holes but not large fractures. So this creates a conundrum for Sturdivan supporters... If the bullet broke up upon impact low on the back of the skull, and then exploded from the top of the skull, how is it that all the bullet fragments are at or on the outside of the skull by the exit, and how is that the skull fractures at the supposed exit are much greater than the skull fractures at the supposed entrance? (Answer: it isn't.) The evidence is clear that an impact occurred at the supposed exit.

Just spit-balling. You compare Vietnam to Korea... Isn't this apples and oranges? Wasn't Korea a battle between a communist north and a non-communist south? As I recall, much of the resistance in South Vietnam came from their fellow South Vietnamese, who wanted a reunited communist country. Am I wrong on this? Were the South Vietnamese united in their resistance to the north? As far as winnable... You keep talking about North Vietnam as if it was this pesky dog that Nixon almost brought to heel... You keep leaving out that Russia and China were backing this dog, and had bet the future of their revolution on this dog... Were they really just gonna walk away from North Vietnam? Or are you saying that "winning" the war meant the continuation of two Vietnams...which would be a draw...not a win... And if so who was gonna run South Vietnam? None of the governments we'd supported had had the widespread backing of the people... To my understanding Diem was probably the closest and we know what happened to him... Or do we? I seem to recall that even Nixon agreed that the main impetus in his overthrow and assassination was Lodge, Nixon's running mate in 1960. And I seem to recall that one of Diem's biggest supporters was LBJ. So if we're linking the downfall of South Vietnam back to the coup in 63, we can't exactly claim this was another failure of the left. Right?

A. Why do you conclude in your chapter that an FMJ bullet struck JFK? PS: A lot of people have studied individual pieces of the case and have come up with fantastical ideas. My website and research reflect an attempt to see what the evidence in sum indicates, because it most assuredly isn't what we've been told, by the WC or even our fellow researchers. It's been awhile but I believe I started off by wondering if the FMJ bullet fragments found in the limo are compatible with Kennedy's large head wound. I found that they are, but not if his large head wound was the exit for a bullet creating a small entrance. In short, while his head wound resembled a wound created by a dum-dum bullet, it is also consistent with that of a FMJ bullet that struck his skull at a shallow angle. B. IMO - Figure 13 (1) most accurately depicts the injuries to JFK, even though it is a drawing. Why did you not reference a dum dum bullet or reference a bullet instead of an FMJ bullet to depict the tangential injury to JFK? The X-rays clearly show a snow storm of metallic objects from the ear to the top of the skull. I have no idea what type of bullet struck JFK, just want to know more about damage caused by different types of bullet. PS: Answered above. C. Why would you offer an opinion on the velocity of the bullet that struck JFK? How would anyone know the velocity if there is no real answer to the type of rifle or type of ammunition used? PS: The enormous size of the skull fractures is incompatible with the impact of a low-velocity bullet. D. You state: ..."tangential impact on the skull can break splinters of bone from the skull's inner table." You mention bone splintering inward into the brain by a tangential shot from an FMJ bullet, yet your make no mention of the effects of a dum dum bullet on a tangential injury. Does the bone splinter? Does a dum dum bullet splinter inside the brain? PS: I don't recall if I found anything about this, but I assume a dum dum bullet would have a similar impact on the skull. As stated, the impact of an FMJ bullet at a tangent gives the appearance of the impact of a dum dum bullet. I don't recall finding any articles describing any subtle differences between the two but would love to read one should you find one. E. In (7) figure 10.9. you compare an individuals tangential wounds from the front to the back of the skull to JFK's injuries. Figure 10.9 shows brain matter, JFK's injury only show scalp fatty tissue and your image states that it is "brain-soaked hair". Do you have reason to believe that it is brain matter instead of scalp fatty tissue? PS: Numerous witnesses said they saw brain matter in the limo, or dripping from his head in the operating room. It only makes sense that some of this was in his hair. If I recall the morticians said they cleaned brain matter from the hair. Still, why do you raise this issue?

You really need to look at the context, David. The DPD was not accustomed to anyone questioning their integrity. As a result they were quite sloppy in some of their fabrications. Lt. Day, for example, testified that HE tore a piece of cardboard containing a palm print from Box D, and signed it that night. This is what he told the WC in Washington. Apparently he didn't realize that Studebaker had already told the commission's staff in Dallas that he was the one who'd tore the cardboard from the box and signed it. And apparently Day didn't realize that the DPD had already provided the FBI and WC with photos taken on the 25th which proved Studebaker had signed the piece of cardboard, and not Day. The man lied and lied with impunity.

Oh please. This has already been addressed. Day signed both versions of the form. Different signatures. Upon signing the second form he may not have realized that the submission date was incorrect. But you're right. sorta. Upon further reflection it seems obvious the second form with the release date of 3-26 was a carbon copy of the first form...separated off before the first set of rods were released to Howlett on 3-24. Day then used this carbon as the submission form for a second set of rods...which he released on 3-26. In any event, the result is the same. There were two sets of rods.

That's the point, Gil. IF the 3/15 date on the DPD form is correct--and we have every reason to believe it is--there would have to have been a second set of curtain rods. In his book Bugliosi claimed "Never mind. The 3/15 was just a mistake." But a few years back Alan Ford compared the original form as presented on the UNT website with the form as published by the WC, and found that the submission date was the same, but that the release date had been changed, and the person to whom it had been released had been removed. Well, this served to conceal that the set of rods received on the 15th were released before the second set of rods were even finger-printed, and that this set was released to the Secret Service, and not the WC.

Seeing as Day signed both copies, it is reasonable to assume he was involved in the creation of the fake copy. Upon being asked to send his report to the WC, he may have realized that the report said the rods were released to Howlett, when he'd sent the rods recovered by Jenner directly to Washington. He may also have realized that at least one of the lifts was dated 11-25--AFTER he had returned the original set to Howlett. He would then make a new copy of the report in which Howlett's name was removed and the release date was changed. As this was weeks after he'd originally received both sets of rods, he may not have realized that the date on the report preceded the date Jenner and Howlett had received the second set from Paine. FWIW, I tried to track down when the rods and this report were sent to Washington, and could find no paper trail. The FBI reported their existence in August, if I remember. But I could find nothing that indicated when and who sent this stuff to Washington, and how it came to be published by the WC.

If I'm not mistaken the testimony you cite from 3/21 is actually from 3/23. Ruth Paine testified in Washington before the commission on 3/21 I believe. Jenner then flew back to Dallas with her to continue the questioning in her garage with Howlett.

Here is my discussion of the obviously doctored document on my website: Here is the original on the UNT website... And here is the doctored document published by WC... Now, let's note the differences between the original full-color form published on the the UNT website, and the black and white copy of this form published as CE 1952 in the Warren Commission's volumes. To create CE 1952, someone had to: Remove the signature "John Joe Howlett" from the "specimen released to" line. Change the date of the specimen's release from "3-24-64" to "3-26-64." Re-write Lt. Day's signature on the "specimen released by" line. Inadvertently change the relationship of the "d" in "Oswald" and the "a" in "Day" in the writing at the bottom of the page. Now, this last bit is quite confusing. The thought occurs, however, that the person dummying-up CE 1952 may have taped sections from a photo-copy of the original document onto a new form, then filled out the rest of this form, then made a photo-copy of this new phony document that was then sent to the Commission. Or something like that... So what can be made of this? 1. Bugliosi's insistence that the submission date of "3-15-64" on CE 1952 was a simple mistake no longer passes muster. Not only were the curtain rods in Mrs. Paine's garage not retrieved until 3-23-64, 8 days after 3-15-64, but the original form for CE 1952 has a release date of "3-24-64," a day before Lt. Day created the lift card from the curtain rod shown above (in DPD image 91-001/256). 2. This suggests, then, that there were 2 sets of curtain rods. One set submitted to the DPD by Howlett on 3-15-64 ("two white curtain rods"), and then released back to him on 3-24-64, and another set retrieved from Mrs. Paine on 3-23-64 (one cream-colored curtain rod and one white curtain rod), tested on 3-25-64, and released on 3-26-64. 3. It could be, then, that the curtain rods turned over on 3-15-64 were made to go bye-bye, and that the on-the-record seizure of Mrs. Paine's curtain rods on 3-23-64 was designed in part to conceal that curtain rods had been recovered and submitted to the DPD's crime lab from somewhere other than Mrs. Paine's garage. 4. If this is so, then, Secret Service Agent John Joe Howlett was right in the middle of it. One can not avoid that Howlett's signature was on the submission line of CE 1952...on 3-15...8 days before he'd supposedly even seen the curtain rods he recovered in Mrs. Paine's garage. In all other instances where physical evidence was collected for the WC's investigation, it was collected through the FBI. So why was Howlett, an SS Agent, even involved in this--the collection of physical evidence for the Warren Commission's investigation? While Howlett's involvement in this on 3-23-64 (when the Commission and FBI were at odds) might make sense, his submission of these curtain rods to the DPD on 3-15-63 (before Jenner had even arrived in Dallas) makes far less sense...unless...unless...he'd obtained these rods during the Secret Service's investigation of the assassination back in December. So when could he have found them? Or received them? Well, the thought occurs that Howlett starred in a Secret Service re-enactment film produced on 12-5-63...that was filmed on location in Oswald's place of work, the school book depository. It seems possible, then, that Howlett found or was given two white curtain rods at that time, and had decided to hold off telling anyone about them until he could do so without raising too much ruckus. One might presume then that he spoke to Jenner about this later, and that the two conspired to go behind Hoover's back and have the curtain rods tested by Lt. Day...and that it was then decided to make them disappear, and use the curtain rods found in Mrs. Paine's garage to conceal their very existence. 5. If this is so, then, it follows that Howlett or Day created the numbers for these curtain rods (275 and 276) and that Jenner chose to re-use these numbers on 3-23-64. (It has long been a mystery as to why Jenner gave the exhibits entered into evidence on 3-23-64 numbers in the 270's. I mean, why not start at Ruth Paine Exhibit 1, and proceed from there...as was done with most every other witness? Perhaps now we have an answer.) 6. It seems probable, for that matter, that the replacement of "3-24-64" on the original DPD form, with the "3-26-64" on the form as published by the Warren Commission, was done to conceal that this was a different set of rods than those tested by Lt. Day on 3-25-64. 7. In such case, it follows that whoever was behind this switcheroo (presumably Day, seeing as he'd provided two different signatures on the release line for the two different versions of the form), had failed to notice that the submission date on this form was 8 days before Howlett (and Jenner) had acquired the curtain rods from Mrs. Paine. Now, I've thought about this a bit, and have tried to come up with a less horrifying explanation for the changing of the dates on the DPD crime lab form, but have come up with nothing but ?????

Quit with the games, David. It's a cheap stunt used by your hero to avoid evidence, but you can do better. The ball is in your court. Please explain why 1) The curtain rods submitted to the DPD were submitted and photographed before any curtain rods were recovered from Mrs. Paine's garage. 2) The Lt. Day-authored report on these curtain rods was doctored before publication by the WC. 3) Joe Ball failed to ask Mrs. Johnson about the damaged curtain rod in her rooming house. 4) All the dates on all the copies of the FBI report referring to this damaged curtain rod were changed to reflect that Ball and the WC were informed of this damaged curtain rod after Ball took Mrs. Johnson's testimony. 5) The curtain rods residing in the archives have no arrows or markings indicating where Lt. Day found an identifiable print. 6) There is no FBI report on its own study of the curtain rods (quite possibly because there were no prints on the rods sent to them). Who knows? There could be a rational explanation. But the best I could come up with was that these men were gross incompetents and should not have been allowed anywhere near a criminal investigation. I actually find it comforting to think they were hiding something. I mean, think about it. Oswald was a dead commie-symp. To the minds of all the men involved he must have had something to do with the killing of JFK, and was almost certainly the killer of Tippit. If the Johnson Administration preferred to leave it at Oswald, none of these men were likely to say anything to support his innocence. Why? To what end? I mean, do you know what momentum looks like? By early December the FBI's propaganda chief DeLoach had leaked much of its investigation to the press, and the press had repeated it without question. By the time the Warren Commission was actually talking to people Oswald's guilt was as much as certain. The outlines for the commission's investigation and report were all built around Oswald, and evidence for his guilt...before they had taken any testimony. So, really, do you honestly believe there was a single soul on the Warren Commission or its staff who would rock the boat to the extent where they would actually question Oswald's guilt? When you look through their papers and interviews there was never any question about his guilt. The only question was to whether he'd been under the influence of others, or maybe had help from others. But there was never any question from the beginning of the WC investigation that they were gonna say Oswald fired all the shots. I mean, when you look at the record, this is crystal clear. When a Marine Corps expert told them he would consider Oswald a "poor" shot at the time of the assassination, did they let that stand? No. They waited until AFTER the chapter saying Oswald fired all the shots had been written and approved and then brought back in another expert to tell them that each shot in isolation would not have been all that difficult, and then used this to misrepresent the evidence for Oswald's guilt. The fix was in, and no one was gonna risk their future to say as much.

As I recall, Ho Chi Minh actually liked the U.S., and would almost certainly have been a pro-U.S. communist. The problem is that the mucky-mucks in Washington at that time saw communism as anti-religion and anti-Capitalism and thereby a grave threat to the U.S. But Ho Chi Minh didn't see it that way. As I recall one of the biggest revelations from the Pentagon Papers was that we actually supported Ho during WWII, in his battles with Vichy France. He was our ally. After the war, however, we turned on him, and (for the most part) supported France against him. I'm sure Jim knows all the details but I believe this rubbed JFK the wrong way, to the extent he felt we should stay the heck out of it. This attitude of his was a problem for the "believers" within the U.S. Govt...who believed we were on a mission from God to defeat Communism. It may have cost him his life.