To Gary Murr
Please excuse the crude method I used to respond to specific sections of Mr. Murr’s article. It’s been awhile since I posted here and I was having problems replying properly. I have enclosed his statements between —> and <—
—> there are genuine morons, individuals devoid of any true sense of research beyond the fringe efforts of reading and believing ‘evidence’ relating to the wounding of John Connally that is demonstrably false. Therefore, let us take a look at just what Mr. Miatello, an apparent true believer in the research efforts of Robert Harris, advances in his statements that are at the core of the hypothetical nuances he attempts to advance throughout this, his thread. <—
Mr. Murr, I am baffled that you would write such a hatchet piece, without even attempting to ask me about it. When you do that, you only embarass yourself, as we will see.
—> It was Connally himself who totally debunked this hypothesis, when he wrote in his book “In History Shadow” (1994)– black on white – …” Putting aside the fact that the actual title of the book is “In History’s Shadow,” – David Von Pein is correct [sorry to ruin your day, David, but I have to agree with you on this one] John Connally actually wrote very little of this his “American Odyssey.” This task fell to ghost-writer, Mickey Herskowitz. Herskowitz is also responsible for the equally dreadful 2003 volume “written” by Nellie Connally, “From Love Field.” <—
Well, I feel a little better, knowing you are also trashing this highly esteemed writer. This is from Wikipedia,
“He has authored over 30 books, many of them jointly written autobiographies of famous Americans in politics, sports and media (including Gene Autry, Nolan Ryan, Paul “Bear” Bryant, George Allen, Tom Kite, John Connally and Prescott Bush), and others ghostwritten autobiographies of celebrities in similar fields (including Dan Rather, Mickey Mantle, Howard Cosell, Bette Davis, Shirley Jones, Marty Ingels and Gene Tierney).”
That also includes an American President, George W. Bush. BTW, to the best of my knowledge, there is no one who has ever accused this man of lying or fabricating the statements of his clients, other than a few nutter radicals and pseudo-buffs:-)
And BTW, I personally interviewed Herskowitz, who confirmed that he cited Connally first hand, making the statement about the nurse who recovered the bullet. He said Nellie was not present then, remembered him mentioning it a few days later.
The obvious fallacy in DVP’s argument is that Connally knew he had lost a cuff link and would undoubtedly have assumed that that is what fell, if he hadn’t seen it and the nurse picking it up.
—> It is to be noted that by the time Herskowitz got around to helping Nellie with her painfully inaccurate rendering of the events of November 22, 1963, that a decision apparently had been made not to repeat the ludicrously fanciful account of the “most curious discovery…” of the object” quietly [?] falling to a floor in Parkland Hospital. <—
This is what I mean by embarrassing yourself. Nellie didn’t include that in her book because she was not present when that happened. She couldn’t describe it first hand.
As for errors about other aspects of the assassination, we can hardly blame JBC for that, considering his condition and Nellie was totally focused on him. If Herskowitz had been fabricating all this, as you seem to be implying, he would undoubtedly have gotten the details right.
—> This of course must represent the “TRUE bullet” that apparently wounded John Connally<—
Well, at least you got that right:-)
—> the central brick in the yellow-brick road fairy-tale that this hypothesis represents. <—
Fairy Tale?? Sigh... it is sooo nice to know that I am dealing with an objective, honest researcher, analyzing only the facts and evidence.
—> And it is also to be noted that in her handwritten notes constructed by Nellie Connally after the assassination event, notes in turn that are the basis for “From Love Field”, Mrs. Connally never mentions the discovery of this “TRUE bullet,” even though according to Mr. Miatello the Governor actually witnessed this same bullet “falling from his thigh…” Speaking of which…<—
Yes, Mr. Murr. She only noted what SHE saw and personally experienced.
—> “…Connally saw the TRUE bullet falling from his thigh at around 12:38-12:40 of Nov. 22, 1963, moments before the surgical intervention by Dr. Gregory on 2nd floor of Parkland Hospital.<—
Yep, he got the time wrong, proving that he just made up the whole thing:-)
—>And he recalls that a nurse IMMEDIATELY collected it, and then she put the bullet in a brown envelope…” <—
He never said that he saw her put it in an envelope.
—>Unfortunately Dr. Charles Gregory’s “surgical intervention”, and I assume here that what Mr. Miatello is referring to is Dr. Gregory’s actual surgical repair to the Governor’s right distal radius, did not begin “moments before…” a time frame “around 12:38 – 12:40…”. Rather this operative procedure did not begin until 4:00 p.m. CST [1600 hours as dictated by Dr. Gregory] and ended some 50 minutes later at 4:50 p.m., CST. Perhaps Alberto can point me to a citation/document/testimony wherein John Connally states that he actually “saw” this bullet falling from his thigh, as he lay prone on his back in trauma room # 2, <—
I have no idea what your point is, re: Gregory. The bullet fell when he was being moved from a gurney to the operating table, to be operated on first, by Shaw. And he probably wasn’t “prone”; he saw it fall as he was being moved and was likely, turned a bit. And if he wasn't, he would only have had to turn his head in the direction of the bullet after he heard it hit the floor.
—>and while he is at it can also indicate to me documentation supporting the contention that John Connally recalled a nurse “immediately” gathering up this same “TRUE bullet” and witnessed it being “put in a brown envelope.” <—
Connally never said that. In fact, the bullet had not been put in an envelope, prior to DA Wade seeing her holding it in her hand.
—>You do know, Alberto that these same evidence envelopes were not kept in trauma room # 2 – just trying to help you out here.<—
Not sure why you keep hammering away at these irrelevancies.
—>As for the further contention that “the bullet falling from Connally’s thigh was seen at around 12:38 – 12:40 p.m. at 2nd floor of Parkland…” is, of course, an impossibility. John Connally was not taken up to OR # 5 on the second floor until at least 12:50 p.m. and most probably even later than that. <—
Yep, another trivial, irrelevant issue.
(snipping more irrelvancies)
—> There was one and only one evidence envelope prepared as a result of metallic residue removed from the right distal radius of John Connally. This same envelope was prepared by Nurse Audrey Bell in her office, not in OR # 5, and she turned this envelope over to Robert N. “Bobby” Nolan, a member of the Texas Highway Patrol. <—
That is flatly untrue. Bell stated that she gave four fragments to plain clothed federal agents and not to Nolan. The FBI was constantly trying to describe one fragment, because Nolan’s envelope only contained one item. Frazier even tried to sell that one in his WC testimony. When asked about the FBI report, claiming she referred only one "fragment", she immediately denied saying that, as she would have done on 11/23/63, when she was interviewed. The FBI lied about that and they lied about what Nolan and Stinson said as well.
Nolan said the nurse he encountered, stated that her envelope contained a whole bullet, from Connally’s “gurney” - exactly the same thing she told DA Wade. He said,
“Nolan: I was talking to a man who was one of governor Connally's aides. His name was - I think it was either Stinton or Stimmons (Bill Stinson). And he was an aide to the Governor. And she came up and told him that she had the bullet that came off of the gurney. “
He repeated the same thing in this video interview, posted by Welton Hartford,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fN9jIAiGNYg&t=837s
Wade told the Dallas Morning News,
“I also went out to see (Gov. John) Connally, but he was in the operating room. Some nurse had a bullet in her hand, and said this was on the gurney that Connally was on.”
What is your explanation for that, Mr. Murr? Why would he fabricate the same story than Nolan and Connally did?
—>In this current thread regarding the “TRUE bullet” recovered by a phantom nurse <—
Why would you feel that the failure of those three men to mention her name, makes her a “phantom”? How exactly, is that relevant. If we had her name, you would just call her a xxxx anyway, wouldn’t you:-)
—>Alberto contends, as he did in a prior thread he constructed that dealt with CE 399, Audrey Bell handed officer Nolan a “bullet” in a small brown envelope and identified this same object [apparently unknown to Nolan because the envelope was sealed] as a bullet and did so in the presence of Connally aide, William Stinson. <—
It was not “unknown” to him. The nurse stated that it was a “bullet” from Connally’s stretcher. Wade heard the same thing.
Stinson also confirmed that it was a whole bullet, BTW, although he was obviously mistaken in thinking it was recovered in surgery. This is from a 1967 issue of Ramparts magazine.
“Before the Commission discredited Connally's testimony they should at least have heard all the important witnesses. Ramparts found one the Commission never talked to; they never even asked him for an affidavit. He is William Stinson, an aide to Governor Connally at the time of the assassination. Today, although officially employed by the Veterans Administraton, he has an office in the White House. Stinson told us he was in the operating room, wearing a sterile uniform, when the doctors operated on Connally at Parkland Hospital. 'The last thing they did,' said Stinson, 'was to remove the bullet from the governor's thigh---because that was the least thing that was wrong with him.'".
—>This fanciful tale is based upon an interview Robert Harris had with Nolan in 2010. According to this same fanciful narrative, <—
You seem to like that word, don’t you:-)
—> and I paraphrase, false documentation was thereafter generated to change this encounter to reflect that Nurse Bell gave Nolan fragments from the Governor’s wrist and the bullet and its envelope was made to disappear. The crowning jewel in this Harris – Miatello tale is that even in this deception the bungling “morons” involved in this scheme screwed up. <—
Let me try to explain what happened.
According to DA Wade, he told the nurse to get the bullet to the police and he was probably not very happy that she had been carrying around the most important evidence of that century, all afternoon. Does it make sense that he was a bit grouchy about that?
This was not an experienced nurse. If you listen to Hartford’s interview, you will notice that Nolan stated that there was nothing in the information section of that envelope, when he signed it. That’s important, Mr. Murr. Now, let’s take a closer look at that envelope.
First, look at the heavy erasure smudge at the bottom of CE-842.
http://jfkhistory.com/ce842.jpg
And this is with a bit of image enhancement, brightening and sharpening up the bottom section:
http://jfkhistory.com/ce842x.jpg
Do you see the partial erasures and character fragments? And the kitty face at the very bottom?
Over the years, that envelope was cleaned up by the time John Hunt scanned it, removing some of the garbage. But look at all the sharp creases, suggesting that this envelope had at one time, been crumpled.
http://www.jfklancer.com/hunt/phantom_files/image004.jpg
Perhaps she couldn’t find Bell, so in her panic to satisfy Wade, she rummaged around in a waste basket and found a crumpled envelope that had been scribbled and/or doodled on. She frantically smoothed it out and erased it as best she could. She then dropped the bullet in it and ran out into the hallway, spotting the only cop in sight.
Nolan told us the rest.
Now, I’m sure you will be eager to ridicule this “fanciful” theory, but before you do that, please explain why Bell would use an envelope in that condition. And she certainly would have filled out the information section at the top.
—>Why? Because Nurse Bell claimed she turned the brown envelope represented as CE 842 over to a “civilian”, possibly “an FBI or maybe a Secret Service agent.” Nurse Bell, in turn, could not be “mistaken” on this point because, in the words of Robert Harris, “Patrolman Bob Nolan was wearing an uniform…” and Bell remembers the individual who received this envelope as a “civilian wearing no uniform.” As I indicated previously, there are morons and then there are morons. And there are also morons who never do research. <—
Nolan told me he was in full, dress uniform that day and I’m pretty sure he told Weldon the same thing. It was clearly distinguishable from civilian clothes. And according to your extremely dubious, unsourced “receipt”, he signed off as a State Trooper. She gave her envelope to federal agents. I’m pretty sure she knew the difference:-)
But it’s not JUST Bell. Nolan heard that nurse state that this was a “bullet”, that came from Connally’s gurney - exactly what she told Wade and exactly what Connally said, happened. Bell would never have told them that.
And Stinson also was told the same thing that Nolan and Wade were, which is why he believed that it was a whole bullet.
There are too many witnesses saying the same thing, Mr. Murr. You might be able to generate a little doubt if there were only one, but there are just too many, all mutually corroborative.
—>In March of 2002 I contacted the Executive Director of the Texas DPS [Department of Public Safety] Historical Museum and Research Center, Austin, Texas. I asked this individual one specific question: Did all members of the Texas Highway Patrol always wear a uniform, in particular the typical uniform one would associate with a member of the Texas Highway Patrol, i.e. the customary State Trooper’s obligatory style hat and some form of visible badge? The answer was yes, but with a notable exception. Certain officers of the DPS/Texas Highway Patrol identified as Texas State “Troopers” were in 1963 dressed as “plain clothed officers,” a practice that continues to this very day. <—
Wrong again, Gary. Nolan was not a plain clothed officer. He was in full dress uniform, planning to work security at the Trade Mart for the POTUS.
—> This same information was confirmed for me in February of 2003 by researcher Steve Thomas, whose contact with a retired Dallas police detective confirmed that he was familiar with plain clothed officers of the Texas Department of Public Safety. Robert Harris and his disciples like to use Audrey Bell’s interview with the ARRB as proof of deception and disappearance of evidence. Harris claims that Audrey Bell “was always stubborn in denying any kind of delivery by her to Bob Nolan…and of course she cannot be mistaken on this point”<—
Mr. Murr, please stop misrepresenting me.
I have given a HUGE amount of consideration to the possibility that Bell was on heavy drugs that day, but the evidence and statements of Connally, Wade, Nolan and Stinson, make it logically impossible that she was the nurse who gave an envelope to Nolan.
Not only would you need to declare all of them delusional, but you would need them to all be suffering from nearly identical delusions.
If the four men were correct, it couldn’t have been Bell they encountered, and surprise, surprise, Bell ALSO said it wasn’t her.
And if that isn’t enough, the envelope itself was obviously not pristine and unused. Bell was an ER supervisor. She would never have done something like that.
—> the why of which I explored in the paragraph above - she gave her envelope to a citizen not a patrolman theoretically “wearing an uniform.” This, however, was Douglas Horne’s conclusion drawn from the March 20, 1997 ARRB interview of Bell:
“She independently recalled filling out a receipt on 11/22/63 for the fragments on half-page sized paper with red lettering in the letterhead, which was signed for by one of two men in civilian clothes (whom she thought were Federal agents) who accepted the fragments. She said she personally delivered the original of this receipt to Parkland Hospital Administrator, Jack Price. <—
Strange, how your unsourced receipt has no red lettering and no reference to Jack Price, isn’t it? Whoever fabricated that thing, should have done his homework.
—>(ARRB staff promised to try to locate this document, and promised that if located, we would mail her a photocopy for verification purposes.)” As I have written regarding this Horne conclusion in my Connally manuscript: “The use of the noun “thought” in conjunction with Ms. Bell and the “two men in civilian clothes…” may just possibly represent an indication that Audrey Bell was willing to concede, <—
Well, with no research skills, I have to prefer what a witness actually says to what you want her to have said. And she told the HSCA the same thing in 1978 that she told the ARRB. She gave her envelope to federal, plain clothed agents.
—> some 34 years after the event took place, that her assumption that any individual who approached her dressed in “civilian” clothing had to have necessarily been a “Federal agent” is and was potentially wrong.<—
Yeah, but like almost everything else you are making up for her, she never did that. Of course she asked for ID. She was required to.
—>The key, of course, should be found on the “receipt…signed for by one of the two men in civilian clothes...”. If you have the receipt, or a copy of the receipt, then the signature of the “one” individual who signed for the fragments will be present on this same receipt – if Audrey Bell’s recollections are correct.” Robert Harris and his followers,<—
My “followers”?? Jesus Christ man, you are really something else. Did I run over your dog or something?
Or were just you thinking that I won’t be here to defend myself:-)
—>including apparently Alberto Miatello, believe this receipt “disappeared”, further proof if you will of intentional destruction of evidence. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. The Bell - Nolan receipt does exist – I have had a copy of it since 1999. And it was signed by only one “civilian” and precisely where Audrey Bell left room on this particular PMH letterhead for this same civilian to verify that he had “received” that which she had given him – Bob Nolan.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzA5R7J9M0SFVl9JcGNNR3BxTDQ/view?usp=sharing <—
This is a reply to my most recent attempt to get information about the real receipt, from the National Archives,
“Mr,. Harris:
This is in response to your July 28, 2017 request for information about the records of the JFK Assassination Collection, Specifically, you are interested in a receipt for an envelope of bullet fragments from Parkland Hospital, signed by Audrey Bell and Texas State Trooper Bobby M. Nolan on 11/22/1963. We received your request on July 21, 2017.
We took a look through the database and while we can find a poor quality photocopy of the envelope in HSCA records, we cannot find a copy of the receipt in the Collection We also took a look through Joe Freeman's ARRB files, but still met with no success.
We regret that we could not be or more assistance to you. If you have any further questions, please feel free to respond by return email or by calling (301) 837-1993.
Gene Morris
Archives II Textual Reference Branch (RDT2)
Room 2400”
Tell me Mr. Murr, how did you manage to get this document which the National Archives doesn’t have? The FBI confiscated everything related to the chain of custody. I’m pretty sure they didn’t pass this stuff out to civilians.
Who exactly gave it to you? Source is everything, sir. Please be specific.
And BTW, as a conspiracy advocate, who do you think was behind it? How many snipers were there? I would love to hear your conspiracy theories. Maybe I can learn something.