Josiah Thompson

Luis Alvarez could not find any instance where a startle "smear" occurred in the same frame as the obvious impact of a bullet. This is because Alvarez was convinced that shots came only from the Depository. Hence, there had to be a gap between the shot and Zapruder's reaction. Don Thomas has worked out the math in detail. Because the Z313 shot was fired so close to him, the impact of the bullet upon JFK and Zapruder's startle reaction occur simultaneously. You can find all this explained in various published works by Don Thomas. Obviously, this work is unknown to Professor Fetzer or he wouldn't have gone so far out on a limb only to have it chopped off. Now you should ask: "Okay, how does Alvarez explain the this simultaneity of impact and startle reaction." He opines that the shock wave from the bullet moved Zapruder's camera. Why this is silly doesn't even require explanation. I really admire your loyalty to your tribe. Only if it didn't lead you astray everything would be just peachy keen! Josiah Thompson Perfect statement Prof Fetzer, you took the words right out of my mouth Dean

I'm happy to reply. Don Thomas and I are not "friends" but "acquaintances." We've enjoyed conversations over dinner and attended several events together. My opinions on the acoustics evidence are based upon reading Thomas and reading the critiques of the evidence both from the scientific panel and from O'Donnell. My judgment after reading both is that who's right is not even a close call. Cyril Wecht certainly knows what is plausible in terms of what one would have to know to alter Kennedy's wounds on Friday night and the difference between the appearance of pre-mortem and post-mortem surgery. Yes, Cyril Wecht and I are friends but I don't pass on opinions from friends just because they are friends. I pass them on because the person offering the opinion is in a position to know what he is talking about. Cyril is. Josiah Thompson No doubt Cyril Wecht is a forensic pathologist, a smart man and a great guy, but I have never seen where he offered anything substantial in rebuttal of Lifton's thesis. Dr. Wecht himself never examined the body of JFK and the reason we are all so conscious that the autopsy doctors were unqualified is because Wecht keeps on reminding us, as he did so eloquently just recently. So even if Dr. Wecht is right that competent pathologists SHOULD have noticed post-mortem wounds, why should we rely on the opinions of autopsy doctors who -- Dr. Wecht keeps on reminding us -- were unqualified. On the one hand we should rely on the autopsy doctors and reject Lifton's thesis, (because it is too Machievellian for US), but on the other hand KNOW THAT the autopsy doctors were hopelessly under - qualified for the job at hand. I think Dr. THompson is a man who values friendship, as well he should, but friendship should not dim our objectivity in investigating a homicide. Over on the thread entitled WHO NEEDS THE ACOUSTICS? I am awaiting Josiah's response to my question whether his personal friendship with Don THomas is coloring his judgment in the matter of the acoustics.

Cool David. The medical evidence in this case is an unbelievable mess. I don't claim to this day to understand it. I do, however, understand a couple of things. These are things I've learned from Cyril Wecht. Wecht does not believe David Lifton's "body alteration" view is correct. The points I made in this 1993 radio broadcast were drawn from discussions with Wecht over the years. It is Wecht's view (repeated by me) that not enough was known between the hours of 4:00 PM and 12:00 midnight on November 22nd for medical personnel to set about altering the wounds in JFK. In addition, there is the problem that alteration of wounds post-death is quite different than alteration of wounds pre-death. Things look different depending on when cuts or changes were made. David Lifton is a valid expert on the medical evidence. I am not. I am simply pointing out that the opinions he quotes as mine were drawn from conversations with Cyril Wecht. And Wecht, no one doubts, has opinions that are worth paying attention to. Josiah Thompson

Since Professor Fetzer has now started posting in boldface. My reply is posted in boldface, italics: Yawn!!! To make a scurrilous point, Professor Fetzer simply quotes the beginning of a sentence and lops off the end. When this is exposed he shifts gear and asks me whether this was the paragraph that made Vincent Salandria in 1967 start the rumor that I was a government agent. This whole sad, little incident is chronicled in John Kelin's book where Kelin quotes extensive correspondence. Kelin points out that when Vince Salandria started saying this he was roundly dumped on by Sylvia Meagher and Arnoni (whose first name I have forgotter but who was the editor of the Minority of One that first published Salandria.) Like Kelin, I find the whole little incident sad and weird. It's not something that keeps me up at night forty years later. I have no idea what was running through Salandria's mind when he started attacking someone who had earlier worked with him. Why don't you ask him? Maybe you'll come up with something to continue your attempted smear of me.[/u]

I think almost everything David says here is correct. It also demonstrates how two critics, guys who have studied this case for forty years, can disagree about evidentiary matters without falling to the level of insult, inuendo and downright falsehood practiced by Professor Fetzer. David made the correct point that in the chapter on the double head shot that contains the McClelland diagram, I took the descriptions from Parkland showing a wound in the back of the head as describing the effects of the hit from the right front. The autopsy report and what we knew of Bethesda observations I took to be describing the shot from the rear. All this is stated explicitly in the last paragraph of that chapter. David, you say I just don't "get it." I might turn the tables and send it back to you. What you don't get is that the Zapruder film is confirmed as authentic by the photo record of Dealey Plaza that constitutes a self-authenticating whole. From the beginning, the Zapruder film has been the central evidence used to show that shots came from more than one direction. That claim is the threshold claim in any study of the assassination. From the beginning, that claim has been supported by the Zapruder film. I sure wish you would "get it." But until that time I look forward to having the kind of civil and informative discussion we've had this last week. Tink So, David, is it fair to assume from this that you do not question Thompson's motive in writing SSID, and consider it a sincere investigation, as opposed to an obfuscation?

My replies are in bold-face: I am asking questions. SSID provided sketches to the Z-film at a time when most of it, in any clear version, was being suppressed. Tink was by his own admission on p.217 working with Mr. George Hunt, Managing Editor of LIFE, for example, in publishing the 'missing frames' for the first time...p. 217 he says "...before WE came into possession of the original print" (caps mine). I am asking if there was an agenda to draw CTs in by presenting sketches of some of the earlier frames while 'ignoring' blatant anomaly of the film that they were aware of because of their close association with it (when this relationship was denied to most of the rest of us). What? By 1967, it had been discovered that certain frames were missing from the original copy of the Zapruder film. The controversy over the socalled "missing frames" was a needless distraction to everyone since the three first day copies had the frames intact. LIFE gave me copies of the frames to publish, and, if memory serves, gave them other news sources. So what? In addition, as Jim Fetzer has pointed out, whereas there is considerable focus on the earlier frames of the Z-film, there is virtually no attention paid to the critical fatal headshot sequence in the Z-film. [Open your eyes, the fatal headshot sequence is the subject of a whole chapter with measurements, graphs, witness reports, and sketches.] our attention is drawn away to the Nix film. Why is that? Why are there no sketches of the fatal headshot sequence? Because the argument presented did not require them. The question I am asking is whether these issues are simply lapses, or oversights, or the result of something more deliberate -- giving researchers bits and pieces of things they had not had before while withholding the fact that they all knew the Z-film had been altered and that it was for this reason being suppressed and dribbled out in little 'safe' little bits. [A few months ago, Barb Junkarrinen, Jerry Logan and I published on this site an article on the damage to the limousine windshield. We agreed with your conclusion that there was no through-and-through hole. Strangely enough, you started taking us to task with criticism of irrelevant details. We also pointed out new information with respect to several of your witnesses, information that changes radically how you would interpret what these witnesses say. Is this payback for showing that you weren't the all-knowing guru of the windshield story? Do you always lapse into character assassination under similar circumstances?]

You write: "It was difficult to determine whether the leads being presented were opening doors to new research or merely rabbit-trails. Taking a fresh look at SSID, which I am now doing, it is occurring to me that it might be valuable to ask whether or not this book was intended as some sort of limited hang-out for the CTs, appearing to give new information but concealing more than it revealed." If I understand you at all here, you are supposing that I scattered a lot of "rabbit trails" out there as part of a conspiracy to give new information by "concealing more that it needed." In other words, I'm the arch agent of some conspiracy that is trying to manipulate investigation of the Kennedy assassination. Coming from Fetzer this would be simply "same old... same old." But coming from you, Pamela, it bewilders me. You must recognize that what you are saying is profoundly insulting. What on earth are you talking about? Josiah Thompson Of course SIX SECONDS needs no defense. While I reserve the future right to point out its shortcomings, no one can deny that the act of writing and publication (it is a superbly produced book) was a courageous act, much to be admired. I would basically agree with you Raymond. My initial reaction to SSID was very positive because it alluded to conspiracy and included sketches of a number of the Z-frames, which were more clear than the photocopies in the WC H&E. However, I did find it muddled and puzzling in many respects; it was difficult to determine whether the leads being presented were opening doors to new research or merely rabbit-trails. Taking a fresh look at SSID, which I am now doing, it is occurring to me that it might be valuable to ask whether or not this book was intended as some sort of limited hang-out for the CTs, appearing to give new information but concealing more than it revealed. Anyone can tell by looking at the Z-film, for example, that it was altered. It was spliced in at least two critical places. So then the question becomes not whether it was altered but how maliciously it was altered. I had a chance to see the Z-film once in a movie theatre in NYC in December 1964. It made an indelible impression. How different would my or any other researcher's perceptions have been if they had had access to it on a daily basis back then. Why, then, are so many now recognized anomalies glossed over in SSID?

I hope this might be relevant to your post, Mr. Cohen. Professor Fetzer concludes a confused blast against me on another thread by writing, “How could he possibly conclude his book by asserting, ‘It does not prove that the assassination was a conspiracy?’ I think Tink owes us an explanation.” Here’s the explanation. The quote does not come from the conclusion of Six Seconds but from a catch-all chapter entitled, “Answered and Unanswered Questions.” He pulled one sentence out of a larger quote that makes clear what is being said. The book ends with a chapter called “The Warren Report.” This chapter summarizes the points made earlier against the background of the Warren Report. The book ends with this summary paragraph: "This book has attempted to perform a task of archaeology, to lay bare a whole level of contradictory evidence buried beneath the facile conclusions of the Commission’s Report. This evidence (much of it never published) was either ignored, disregarded, or misrepresented by the Commission. Now it has been brought to light. If its introduction makes necessary the emergence of new conclusions, then so be it." (213) This was then followed by a catch-all Chapter X entitled “Answered and Unanswered Questions.” This chapter picked up the various pieces of information learned over the course of writing the book that could find no place in the books structure. The questions were things like, “Are the ‘missing frames’ from the Zapurder film still missing?” “Was the rifle found in the TSBD a Mauser or a Mannlicher-Carcano?” “Were the President’s coat and shirt bunched at the time he was struck in the back?” “Does the Altgens photo show Oswald or Billy Joe Lovelady in the doorway of the TSBD?” “Who is the ‘umbrella man’?” “Who owned the jacket discarded by Officer J.D. Tippit’s assailant?” “Which shot caused the ‘Tague hit.?” This chapter then ends with a sixteen-page discussion of whether Oswald shot the President. Included in this section are numerous witness reports I discovered in the Archives detailing movements of various people near the Depository. The last several pages of this section are devoted to enlargements from the Hughes film and Weaver photo concerning the vexed question of whether in the film and photo the outlines of two people can be seen near the sixth floor corner window. The chapter ends with a short paragraph commenting on the miscellaneous evidence put forward in the final sixteen page section: What does this collection of new evidence prove? It does not prove that the assassination was a conspiracy and that two men were together on the sixth floor of the Depository at the time the shots were fired. Nor does it prove Oswald’s innocence. What it does suggest is that there are threads in this case that should have been unraveled long ago instead of being swept under the Archives rug. It also shows that the question of Oswald’s guilt must remain – nearly four years after the event – still unanswered. (246) The sentence that Professor Fetzer wants to make much of could have been written just as well as “It does not prove that the assassination was a conspiracy because two men were together on the sixth floor of the of the Depository at the time the shots were fired.” Then this closing paragraph of the section refers back to the topic of the section, “Did Lee Harvey Oswald shoot the President?” The last sentence of the paragraph affirms that that question “must remain – nearly four years after the event – still unanswered.” By cutting off the front of a sentence from its tail, Fetzer wants to press the idea that I said in Six Seconds that I hadn’t shown a conspiracy in the death of John Kennedy. What I said was that the photo and ancillary evidence concerning two men at the sixth floor window was not dispositive whether a conspiracy existed and whether Oswald was innocent. This statement remains as true today as it was in 1967. A final word. It is difficult now to get back into the ambience 1967. I can say only that I made a determined effort to write toned-down prose with a scholarly edge to it. Given the temper of the times and the often shrill claims of assassination related writings, a quieter, more objective, more scholarly approach seemed better. But that tone should not mislead anyone as to the robust and serious aim of the book. It was to show that the best reconstruction that can be made of the event shows that shooters fired from three locations. Does this mean a conspiracy was involved in the assassination? Are you kidding? Josiah Thompson

I think this is a really neat idea, Duncan. That film was just sitting there and was shot in 1964. It ought to make a great comparison with the Zapruder film and resolve the remaining "problems." Nice going! Josiah Thompson

My answers will be in bold-face. Dr. Thompson explained this a number of years ago and it has been posted several times on the forum, starting with this thread: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...=5018&st=30 Well Ray you must have missed the post I made were I said I had already read his reason for changing his mind (in fact it was the post made by Tink in the same thread you posted a link to that I read) That was not the point of my making this thread, I want talk to Tink in depth about this theory and his reasons for backing out on it

Mr. Hagerman, please note my replies in bold-face:

Good point, Ray. Was it Alvarez or someone else who actually computed the deceleration of the limousine from 12 mph to 8 mph during the period that Wimp and others observed everyone in the limousine slide forward (Z frame 308ff)? I've known that fact for some time and I know Alvarez was interested in all this. I just don't know if he made the calculation? Josiah Thompson Not nice, Dr. Fetzer. Luis Alvarez was also a Nobel prize winner in physics who studied SIX SECONDS. Alvarez looked into the ZFilm in much greater detail than Feyneman did, and he found something that Thomson AND Feynman had not seen. Alvarez was the first person to notice that the Z-FIlm shows that the limo slows ABRUPTLY prior to the fatal head shot. THis fact was reported by many eyewitnesses, many of whom recalled later that the limo actually came to a complete stop. Alvarez published his paper circa 1976, but for some reason leading critics including Dr. THompson seem to have missed the implications of what Alvarez had to say about the limo's sudden slowdown. The sudden slowdown of the limo EXPLAINS why JFK was moving forward immediately before the fatal shot. So while Dr. Fetzer now fumes at Dr. Thompson for reinterpreting the evidence in the light of findings by Wimp and Durnavich, my only criticism of Thompson is that he seems to have overlooked Alvarez's 1976 paper on the subject, which effectively made the same point as Wimp and Durnavich, only 30 years earlier. But though I criticize Josiah for being slow on the ball here, he is still light years ahead of Dr. Fetzer, who still refuses to acknowledge the value of the Zfilm as evidence. Note:THough I cite Alvarez with approval on the issue of limo slowdown, that by no means implies that I find his defense of Greer to be persuasive, nor his theory of Jiggle analysis, and certainly not his Jet Effect theory.

Interesting post, Ray. From what you write here, you seem to correctly have in your cross-hairs the decisions made by Blakey and others concerning the evidence produced first by Barger and then by Weiss and Ashkenazy. These scientists have never budged an inch from their initial positions. It looks to me like Don Thomas has satisfactorily answered the objections put up by the scientific panel. Hence, are your objections to the acoustics as evidence or to the way this evidence was handled by HSAC? Josiah Thompson So this is interesting anecdotal evidence. But as Aristotle says, one swallow does not a Summer make. Charles Sanders Peirce, my favorite philosopher since Aristotle, warns that BELIEF has no place in inquiry. All our theories must be held provisionally, according to Peirce's doctrine of FALLIBILITY. With that in mind, I have to say that every time I watch the Zapruder film I cannot escape the conclusion -- like Dr. Thompson -- that JFK is KILLED and driven backward by a bullet fired from the right front. That is a bedrock fact that no serious inquirer can deny, IMO. So along comes Robert ("Junk Science") Blakey with his acoustics experts. Blakey is charged with responsibility for shoring up the Warren Report. Meanwhile, credible critics like Josiah Thompson and Harold Weisberg raise the question whether CE399 and the limo fragments were planted, which raises the further question whether the SN rifle and shells were planted also. Blakey is required to prove that 3 shots came from the TSBD, and he embraces the New York acoustics people who claim they can PROVE 3 shots from the TSBD using the police tape. THe only snag in the Warren Report is the possibility of a fourth shot. Blakey was willing to accept the fourth shot, as long as it missed and so, sure enough Blakey's experts matched this "fourth" shot to a MISS. The acoustics evidence reassured us that JFK was still killed by bullets from behind, just like the Warren Commission said. Some conspiracy theorists were overjoyed, because a fourth shot implies a conspiracy, so Hurrah! But how can anyone look at the Zapruder film and say Yes, there was a shot from the front, but it missed? I say the Acoustics are JUNK SCIENCE -- just like Blakey's other follies, the jet effect, the neuro muscular theory and (my favorite) Dr. Guinn and his bullet lead bullcrap -- and the National Academy of Science agrees with me.

Thanks Ray. I'm only too aware of its shortcomings. As we've seen in another thread, the double-hit at Z312-Z314 was based on a misreading of Zapruder's startle reaction. Of course SIX SECONDS needs no defense. While I reserve the future right to point out its shortcomings, no one can deny that the act of writing and publication (it is a superbly produced book) was a courageous act, much to be admired.

David, In this post, you wrote: "In answer to your question: this is all once-removed (and even twice removed) hearsay to me. If some researcher shot such footage, I'd like to examine the product--whether on a DVD Rom, or if there is a Web-based address where it can be viewed, frame by frame. Thanks." Doug Horne writes: “About 3 or 4 years ago, I received in the mail a DVD of test film reportedly shot by a researcher named Rick Janowitz who is a research associate of David Healey’s. The film was shot in Dealey Plaza in a Bell and Howell camera supposedly identical to Zapruder’s. The images on the DVD (of what is apparently an 8 mm film) do show what appears to be ‘full flush left’ penetration into the intersprocket area – something Rollie Zavada could not consistently replicate in his own outdoor film tests. But I don’t have any way of authenticating what I am looking at on the DVD.” Doug Horne implies but does not state that this test film shows “consistent” full flush left penetration. Does this report match the "hearsay" reports you got, David? Does anyone know whether it is Janowitz who produced the film I had heard of that shows “consistent” full flush left penetration? Or is the film I’d heard of a second test film? Can anyone produce a couple of frames from this Janowitz film? David, do you think Doug Horne would let us see the copy he has of this test film? Josiah Thompson

Sure. I’ll be delighted to tell you what I know on this topic. Perhaps others will be able to refine the issue. I went to the URL [http://server3002.freeyellos.com/rhepler/Motion%20Blur.htm] carrying David Wimp’s detailed analysis of blurs and his measurements on the Zapruder film. This is perhaps the most relevant source of information on this subject. I was going to reference it but, alas, found that it has disappeared. If anyone has downloaded the material, it would be a service to make it available to us. Back in 2004, I made arrangements with Jim Lesar for Wimp to give a talk at the AARC Conference in Washington, D.C. His talk is on the DVD of that conference. See [http://www.aarclibrary.org/Catalog/About2004Conf.htm]. Let me start out by saying that an obvious fact has bothered me from the beginning with respect to the double-shot (Z312-Z314) scenario. Whether you have two or three people shooting at the limousine, the likelihood of two shots arriving on target within one-ninth of a second of each other is very slim. This is simply a statistical fact and it has bothered me from the beginning. The measurements published in Six Seconds were made on 8" by 10" black and white prints made by copying the 4" by 5" transparencies LIFE copied from the original film. I still have the prints and they show how primitive were our measurements. I simply took a pin and pricked the point on the photo where I thought the back of JFK’s head was. I did the same with the leading edge of the back seat and the leading edge of the handhold on the trunk. Then these distances were measured with a micrometer and Bill Hoffman, an undergraduate major in physics, did the proper mathematics. There could have been errors all over the place. For example, the enlarger that made 8" by 10" prints might have varied a bit from frame to frame. My own eye could have been off from time to time in picking just where the back of Jack Kennedy’s head was. I think we determined that between frame 312 and 313 JFK’s head moved forward by about 2.2 inches. I was amazed when ITEK later carried out similar measurements and came up with a forward movement of 2.3 inches. Frame 313 is unique among the various Zapruder frames since it demonstrably shows the impact of a bullet at the same time the camera is being moved by the startle reaction of Zapruder. In all other instances, where we believe we can see the effects of a bullet strike, the horizontal smear introduced by Zapruder’s startle reaction follows two or three frames later. Don Thomas has developed this point in a rigorous manner. He explains the difference by the fact that the shot from the stockade fence was fired so close to Zapruder that the sound from the shot hit Zapruder’s ears fast enough to produce the unusually fast startle reaction. The other shots from the north end of Elm Street naturally produced a delay in startle reaction. The fact that 313 shows large horizontal smearing is critical. The effect can be seen by noting the horizontal smearing of the light reflections from the chrome strut over the passenger compartment. Measurements of the position of JFK’s head were made against the background of the light-colored south curb of Elm Street. The effect of the smear was to elongate this horizontal light-colored area. What I took to be movement of JFK’s head was at least partially due to the horizontal elongation of the curb introduced by the smear. David Wimp has produced both a study of how you measure smearing and also a study of the movement of JFK’s head. From memory, I think he found that the movement of JFK’s head between 312 and 313 was either an inch or less than an inch. What makes this reduction in movement so important is another discovery Wimp made. Careful study of the Zapruder film shows that Bill Greer turned around at about Z 302 (again from memory). In doing so, he either took his foot off the accelerator or tapped the brake. The result is that at about Z 308 all the occupants of the limousine (JFK, Jackie, Connally, Mrs. Connally, Gov. Connally, Roy Kellerman and William Greer) begin sliding forward. This forward movement continues to about Z 317 or Z 318 (again from memory) for all the occupants of the limousine except JFK who is bowled backwards and to the left. The result of this analysis is that it is impossible to label any part of JFK’s forward movement as due to the action of a bullet striking his skull rather than due to the deceleration of the limousine. I would point out that this in no way requires that JFK was only hit from the right front in the head. In fact, the dispersion of brain matter and the hit on the interior of the windshield and the chrome strip certainly indicate a strike on the skull from the rear. All this means is that the Z 313 effect was solely from a bullet striking his skull and fired from the right front. I should point out that before reading David Wimp’s studies my friend Art Snyder had already alerted me to the unlikelihood that my measurements were measuring solely movement of the head. Finally, I look forward to carrying out new measurement of JFK’s head movement using the 35 mm. prints available from the archives. High resolution scans of these frames using “pixel-counting” techniques pioneered by Joe Durnavich and others should make possible extremely accurate measurements of movement. Josiah Thompson Dr. Thompson explained this a number of years ago and it has been posted several times on the forum, starting with this thread: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...=5018&st=30 Well Ray you must have missed the post I made were I said I had already read his reason for changing his mind (in fact it was the post made by Tink in the same thread you posted a link to that I read) That was not the point of my making this thread, I want talk to Tink in depth about this theory and his reasons for backing out on it

Professor Fetzer, If Six Seconds needs a defense, then someone apart from the author should give it. Your objections and questions are simply non-sensical. You address me now as "PI Thompson." I take it that you do that to demean me and how I've made my living for the last thirty years. Do you think that people won't pay any attention to what I say because you've pointed out I am a lowly PI and you are a retired professor? Is that the idea? Well, it just might boomerang. I hold not a scintilla of regret for trading in an academic career for the life of a private investigator. The job is difficult and taxing in ways the academic life was not. It also calls for a complexity of moral thinking unknown in the academic world. It is an honorable, sometimes dangerous, and always interesting profession. If you could look beyond your silly-ass academic glasses, you might see that Craig Lamson's career as a professional photographer has a similar integrity. Or even that persons whom you discard as unlettered or uncredentialed, have abilities that leave you and your pals in the ditch. As I pointed out back in 1998, the one principle that has guided research in the Kennedy assassination from the beginning is that “there are no Ph.D.s in assassination research.” [Fetzer’s] emphasis on credentials and the cult of expertise (or alleged expertise) is demeaning to the tradition of inquiry we all share as a community. When the final history of this case is written it will be based on the canons of acute historical research. These canons have nothing to do with how many initials you can hang after your name or how often you're called "distinguished." They have to do with the evidence you put forward for your view and the reasonableness of the interpretations you hang on that evidence. That's what Sylvia Meagher and I believed when we started working together in the 60s. It was a long time ago in virtually another country. It was 1965... 66... 67, and here and there people were beginning to distrust what they'd been told. There was Mary Ferrell in Dallas, Penn Jones just outside Dallas, Sylvia Meagher in New York City, Paul Hoch in Berkeley, Cyril Wecht in Pittsburgh, Vince Salandria in Philadelphia, Harold Weisberg in Maryland, Ray Marcus and David Lifton in Los Angeles... and many, many more. A housewife, a lawyer for the school board, the editor of a small paper, a graduate student, a young professor, a WHO official. We were little people. People who had only a few things in common -- inquiring minds, an unwillingness to be intimidated by public attitudes, more than a little tenacity, a bit of modesty and a willingness to laugh at oneself. None of us had any money or hoped to make any money out of this. We were doing it for its own sake. We formed a community... the closest thing to a true community of inquiry that I've ever known. We shared information on a transcontinental basis. I still remember the excitement with which Vince Salandria and I received our copy of the Sibert-O'Neill Report from Paul Hoch! None of us gave a damn for credentials because - as we put it - "There are no Ph.Ds in assassination research." Josiah Thompson

Drone on Professor! If I thought anyone really was paying attention to your persistent attempts to change the subject from the focus of this thread, I might be worried about your continued insults. But I don't think that's the case. Did I miss something or between the lines of this discussion didn't you admit to publishing a photo that proved just the opposite of what the text said it proved. Oh, dear me, once again I forgot that you're only the editor and have no responsibility for the accuracy of what you publish. If you're going to continue your extended whine, please do us the favor of not including in your post a long, long thread of earlier posts. Josiah Thompson

The man who gave a lecture in Washington on the acoustics was: Richard L. Garwin Thomas J. Watson Research Center IBM Corporation and Adjunct Professor of Physics Columbia University Then, in a following lecture right after, his claims were eviscerated by Don Thomas. Josiah Thompson We must agree to disagree on this, Josiah. Dr. THomas Vs. UNANIMOUS National Research Council COMMITTEE ON BALLISTIC ACOUSTICS Norman F. Ramsey, Chairman Harvard University Luis W. Alvarez Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory University of California Herman Chernoff Massachusetts Institute of Technology Robert H. Dicke Princeton University Jerome I. Elkind Xerox Palo Alto Research Center John C. Feggeler Bell Telephone Laboratories Holmdel, New Jersey Richard L. Garwin Thomas J. Watson Research Center IBM Corporation and Adjunct Professor of Physics Columbia University Paul Horowitz Harvard University Alfred Johnson Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms National Laboratory Center Department of the Treasury Robert A. Phinney Princeton University Charles Rader Lincoln Laboratory Massachusetts Institute of Technology F. Williams Sarles Trisolar Corporation Bedford, Massachusetts THe NRC reached 3 conclusions, but only ONE is WARRANTED. The only warranted conclusion here is that there is no acoustical evidence of guns fired anywhere in Dealey Plaza. THe Committee simply ASSUMED that 3 shots were fired from the TSBD. THis is BEGGING THE QUESTION, since Blakey brought in the acoustics experts in hopes of PROVING that there were 3 shots from the TSBD. If the NRC experts beleive their own findings, there is no acoustical evidence of gunshots from the grassy knoll OR from the TSBD. [

If you want to start a separate thread on the "double head shot" and others choose to contribute, I will be happy to give you chapter and verse on why I was wrong in 1967. I would like to keep this thead focused on what it is supposed to be about. I didn't change my mind, obviously, because of what one researcher told me or didn't tell me. Josiah Thompson Tink This is very important, maybe not to you but it is to me I have asked you in this thread about it and I understand that you are busy dealing with Full Flush Left but at the same time the double hit theory that YOU came up with has something to do with Z-film alteration Again I have believed in your theory since I read it, it made perfect sense and the way you presented it in your book was outstanding I have read the story about why you no longer support your double hit theory, but I cant see how you were so sure in SSID but then go back on it from one researcher telling you it was the from the limo slowing down and the passangers being thrown forward Why didnt the rest of JFKs body get thrown forward with the rest of the limo? Just his head moved forward I dont want to go into my thoughts on Z-film alteration right now because I dont want you to dismiss me as this is important to ME! Rich Dellarosa has seen the double hit unlike myself and you have Tink This fits in perfectly with the Z-film being altered, I hope that you taking back your double hit theory didnt have anything to do with you not wanting to be involved or labeled as an alterationist Tink I believe that you were correct back in 1967 and you are still correct today Can you at least give me some more info on why you dont believe in your theory anymore? Again I would love to discuss this with you, if you want i can start a new thread Thanks Tink Dean

"I hope not, because the best scientific minds to date agree that the acoustic impulses are NOT GUNSHOTS." I beg to differ with you, Ray. I was present in Washington, D.C. when one of what you call "the best scientific minds to date" gave a lecture. He was then irretrievably eviscerated by an even better lecture from another scientist, Dr. Donald Thomas. Ive read both sides on this issue and, in my opinion, there is no doubt on which side scientific evidence resides. Josiah Thompson I hope not, because the best scientific minds to date agree that the acoustic impulses are NOT GUNSHOTS. The Z-film does not need corroboration from the acoustics and besides, the Z-film does not claim 3 shots (OR ANY SHOTS) from the TSBD. So if it turns out that 399 and the limo fragments were planted, and there were No shots from the rear, the acoustics are impeached but not the Zfilm. Now here you are on solid ground, as far as I know.

"My point, PI, is that you cannot evade responsibility for a major inconsistency in your work which was not simply a matter of not noticing a difference due to the transition from color to black-and-white. On the contrary, your "lapse" is inconceivable in a work of the kind you were authoring. You want to dismiss it as an old issue, but it remains completely current in relation to the film's authenticity. So where do you stand today?" Where do I stand today? I stand convinced that you are a ninny!! What on earth does the McClelland quote and diagram have to do with "full frame left interpenetration?" It was part of the discussion in a chapter that showed profound differences between what the Parkland personnel observed and the published autopsy report. Back in those days before the autopsy photos were known and before any investigation of Bethesda by HSCA, this was a real advance in our knowledge of the case. There is no "inconsistency" and no "lapse." Once again, you are simply blowing smoke trying to get me or others involved in an irrelevant debate. Just once why don't you try and limit yourself to what others want to talk about. Josiah Thompson

"Certainly, I have never before seen what I am now calling the "Rollie Red Truck" sequence at this level of clarity—and so I must direct this question to Thompson: does this exhibit which you included in your original post on this matter (and which has precipitated this debate) come from Zavada himself? Did he go back to his original materials—the actual film he took in Dealey Plaza, and provide you with these pictures? Or is it the case that frames of this clarity are in the actual Zavada report?" As always, David, I am delighted to oblige. The photos of the red pickup truck in Dealey Plaza showing full flush left penetration are part of Figure 3-12 and are found on page 27 of Roland Zavada's Study 3. I am flabbergasted that you are not aware of it, given your interest in "full flush left penetration" over the years. Now, let me ask again a question I asked you earlier. First, I want to put the question in context. Back in 2003, you wrote in TGZFH: "What Doug Horne noticed was that in not one instance -- not a single one -- could Rollie Zavada get the images to go full flush left. It couldn't be done because the camera just isn't designed that way." I take it that the photos from Rollie's study show that what you said Doug Horne noticed is not correct... Rollie's studies did produce instances of images "full flush left." From other postings, I take it that it is both your and Doug Horne's position at present that the Zapruder film shows most of the time or all of the time this full flush left interpenetration while Rollie's studies show this only episodically. Now I've been told that a researcher sent to Doug Horne film shot in Dealey Plaza with a camera of the same make and model as Zapruder's. I've been told that this film shows continuous (not just episodic) "full flush left image penetration." Since you are a friend of Doug Horne (my understanding is that he sees you as a kind of mentor), can you tell me if this is correct? If it is correct, then the movement of your position has to be clear. First, you take the position that other similar cameras to Zapruder's camera cannot produce a single instance ... "not a single one"... of full frame left penetration. When it is shown, that Zavada produced precisely what you said he couldn't produce, your position changes: you now claim that, unlike the Zapruder camera, other cameras of like make and model cannot produce continuous full frame left penetration. If it's true that someone achieved continuous full frame penetration, what is going to be the next position on this? Is it going to be that the penetration doesn't go quite far enough or what? I have to say that your shifting position is beginning to look like an extended quibble. But let's get to the bottom of this question about continuous full frame penetration. Did someone really achieve that with a camera of the same make and model? Josiah Thompson

"BRAVO Ray... and your conclusion does not make not one wit of difference if I think, or, you think the Z-film is altered. The Z-film debate is and for recent years a canard -- fodder and diversion for nutter-trolls... A now needless debate that stymies progress..." I couldn't agree with you more, David. All of this terrain has been covered over and over again while the interesting work on the Kennedy assassination stands apart from it. It is becoming more and more clear that there is a kind of exact correspondence between the acoustics map of the assassination and the map of the assassination provided by the Zapruder film. A sound impulse on the Dallas police channel is matched by something happening on the Zapruder film... some sign of a bullet hit in the car or some sign of a shot's sound making Zapruder jerk the camera (and, in many cases, both). The overall picture is of five shots in all, one from the stockade fence, the rest from the north end of Elm Street. From what I've been reading, this picture of what happened in Dealey Plaza is edging ever closer to proof. So let's ask this question: If it can be proven that the extant Zapruder film matches in content the sound impulses appearing on the Dallas police dictabelt, doesn't that say something about the authenticity of the extant Zapruder film? Let's also ask a second question: No discrepancy between the extant Zapruder film and any other film or photo taken in Dealey Plaza has ever been shown. Doesn't that say something about the authenticity of the extant Zapruder film? The endless debate about Z-film authenticity is not just (as you put it) "fodder and diversion for nutter-trolls." Rather it distracts from productive research that will use the Zapruder film as an incalculably important resource in proving that a shot was fired from the right front of the limousine. It's a pleasure to agree with you about something, David. Josiah Thompson At the 2003 Duquesne conference I asked the forensic pathology panel if they agreed that only a new autopsy would resolve all the conflicts in the medical evidence, and none of these distinguished experts disagreed. The original autopsy was performed by amateurs, and until a new autopsy is performed, I am unable to give definitive answers on the wounds to JFK's body. We do know however that an entry wound in JFK's throat was noted at parkland hospital, and we also know that the Zapruder film shows that JFK was driven backward by a bullet in the brain, apparently fired from the right front. There have been various efforts to rationalize the Head Snap and make it seem consistent with a shot from behind, but none of these efforts (jet effect, neuro) are remotely persuasive, and the fact remains that Malcolm Perry was quite certain that the throat wound was an entry. So my view for now is that JFK was shot twice from the front, and that view may be modified depending on the findings of a new autopsy or other unassailable source. The Zapruder film is entirely consistent with JFK being struck twice from the front, and I submit that trying to have the Z-film declared a fake does nothing to resolve the problems with the autopsy. BRAVO Ray... and your conclusion does not make not one wit of difference if I think, or, you think the Z-film is altered. The Z-film debate is and for recent years a canard -- fodder and diversion for nutter-trolls... A now needless debate that stymies progress...

David, I'm going to let Craig and Duncan deal with the point that you make. My knowledge of film and filmmaking is quite limited so anything I might say is probably not worth much, probatively speaking. From the perspective of ten or fifteen years we can all agree it might have been better if Rollie Zavada had been able to get hold of Zapruder's camera and shoot a few rolls through it. If so, we wouldn't have all these questions we now have. But that didn't happen. So we're stuck with what we've got... several cameras of like make and model that Rollie experimented with and the report that someone else shot some film through a similar camera in Dealey Plaza and got continuous full flush left intersprocket image penetration. Remember I asked if you knew anything about that. Do you? Rollie has a section in Study 4 called "Recognized Image Anomalies in the Zapruder Original Film." A subsection of this section he titles, "Image Penetration Between the Perforations." He points out that "the characteristics and depth of the image penetration... is directly related to the effective image area from the exit window of the Varamat lens, the focal length of lens and in some cases the aperture setting." I would guess everyone would agree that Rollie is correct about this. The next question is whether small differences in lens manufacture or mechanical functioning can account for the small differences between Zapruder camera image penetration and image penetration in like cameras. Josiah Thompson