David Lifton

No, I didn't see that. But if I suddenly get hit by the proverbial bus, can you please attempt to see that he doesn't use the event of my passing as the device to deliver a further discourse on Walker. Thanks. DSL

Way back when, on this thread, its originator (Paul Brancato, who started this thread, on April 3) made the polite request that he wished the thread could stay on topic. He made this request after another poster (Paul Trejo) entered the thread, and –it seems to me, anyway—has been using it to promote a (largely) unrelated thesis about Walker being responsible for the Kennedy assassination, and prominently mentioning---both at the beginning of his post, and again at the end—that (somehow) this is all related to the validity of my work, which contains a chapter noting that there was, or appears to have been, a “pre-autopsy autopsy” on the body of President Kennedy. In other words, there has been an attempt to link two issues that I believe are quite unrelated: the validity of Trejo's views on Walker, with my own analysis of the condition of JFK’s body at the time of the Bethesda autopsy, and the evidence (as set forth in Chapter 18 of Best Evidence) that JFK’s body, at the time of the Bethesda autopsy, exhibited explicit indications of having already been subjected to a (somewhat crude) autopsy examination, what I referred to, in that chapter, as a “Pre-Autopsy Autopsy”. We're now on the fifteenth web page of this thread, and these posts (mainly by Trejo) have been so many, and so lengthy, that someone browsing though this material for the first time might think the thread was titled: “Was Walker responsible for Kennedy’s assassination?” In one of your most recent posts, Paul, you have numbered your points, and they began at #1 and ran out to #22, and –for the most part—these points really have nothing to do with the question originally posed by Paul Broncato. Here is the title of the thread, stated in the form of a question: “Does Lifton's Best Evidence indicate that the coverup and the crime were committed by the same people?” At the outset (on April 3rd, see the very first Web page) I jumped in with my own reconstruction; but then you somehow took over the discussion and have steered it way off track, and almost into another world. I'm sure you're not doing this out of any bad motive; Walker, for whatever reason, is the center of your universe, and you really do believe he is at the center of the plot to murder President Kennedy. I disagree, and think of Walker as being out there on the fringe, an outlyer who inhabits some "other" world. THE “OTHER WORLD” Your latest post has some 22 numbered points, and I have some observations to make, and I will number mine, too: #1 If you really have 22 numbered points to make, then you have the makings of a substantial manuscript, and perhaps you should write a manuscript about the subject (Walker); which you could (and perhaps should) distribute as an e-book. Then people could decide for themselves whether or not they agree with your thesis, based on the evidence presented. #2: I realize that the label “Walker” fits into the Kennedy assassination event, but certainly not in the all-encompassing manner which you have suggested. Jupiter is the 5th planet around our sun, and the largest in the solar system. It is so wide—almost 90,000 miles at its equator—that, according to NASA, “all the other planets in the solar system could fit inside it.” Furthermore, besides its famous rings, there are 67 known “moons of Jupiter,” the four most massive of which were discovered by Galileo back in 1610. Their names are so exotic that people even name their children after these moons (Europa, Ganymede, Io, Callisto, Thebe) and probably there is a restaurant somewhere in the world, that even names a pasta dishes in honor of one or more of these moons). However, if you spent years of your life studying Europa or Thebe or Lysithea or Erinome or Harpalyke or Eukalade—and someone asked you a simple question about the solar system, and you then delivered a 10,000 word thesis on Aoede—you might understand why that would produce some impatience, if not irritation. And if you were in a pasta restaurant, where the menu featured the names of a few of these moons of Jupiter as the names of appetizers, much less entrees, and someone asked which one you wanted, and you insisted on carrying on about Taygete (which wasn’t even on the menu), the other diners present might mention that you were way off topic, and that if you kept it up, the restaurant would close and the waitress would go home before anyone had a chance to eat. So its in that spirit that I write, and remain hopeful that you will perhaps get the message—i.e., please attempt to stay on topic, and try to refrain from delivering a numbered thesis which (at this point) goes out to Number 22, and which, by the way, is still only one third (approx.) of the number of moons of Jupiter. Now, back to basics, because I do want to mention Walker, but only in passing: (I will use letters, instead of numbers, to avoid any resemblance to my going on some major –and largely irrelevant—side-trip about the moons of Jupiter). MY TAKE ON WALKER –The Official Version –Why is Walker Relevant? (a) Walker is relevant mainly because of the events of the night of April 10, 1963. What happened that evening is relevant to the events of November 22, 1963, because Oswald came running back to his apartment; told Marina that he had shot at Walker, turned on the radio, listened to newscasts, and then told Marina (according to Marina) that he was sorry that he didn’t kill him, because Walker was like Hitler, and that he should have been killed early on, and that had that occurred, World War II would have been prevented. All of this was duly reported in the Chapter 4 of the Warren Report ("The Assassin") under the label "Prior Attempt to Kill." (b) We all know that, prior to Oswald's return that evening, Marina had found a note, written in Russian, and allegedly written by Lee, which gave instructions as to what to do should he be arrested. Further, it is well know that this note was interpreted in the Warren Report --and reasonably so, if one thinks of Oswald as a fruitcake--as evidence of premeditation. (c ) We all know that Marina confronted Oswald with the note as soon as he returned, breathless, on the night of April 10th. That's when he told her what he had done earlier that evening (i.e., that he had shot at Walker). Marina was seriously upset and told Lee that she was keeping the note, and that if ever did anything like that again, she would take the note to the police. Seven months later, when JFK was shot, and the authorities came to Ruth Paine's home, Marina mentioned nothing about what happened the previous April. Further, when they began to search the house, she concealed the note by putting it inside a cookbook. The note remained concealed until December 2nd, 1963, when Ruth Paine turned the cookbook over to the Irving, Texas, police department. The police turned the book over to the Secret Service, and SS Agent Leon Gopadze found the note on the night of Monday, December 2. Gopadze tried to speak with her about it on the phone that night, but she was evasive. He visited her the next day (Tuesday, December 3) and confronted her with the note. At that time, she was confronted with the note (which had been in a cookbook Ruth Paine and delivered to the Irving Police, requesting that it be returned to Marina). It was turned over to the Secret Service. Leon Gopadze, a Russian speaking agent, made a routine inspection of the cook book, and discovered the note. On Monday night, December 2, he called Marina and attempted to question her; but she was evasive. The next day, he visited her, confronted her with the note, and asked for an explanation. Finally, with her defenses apparently broken, she provided her (basic) account of what had happened on the night of April 10th, 1963, and that's how the Secret Service first learne of the Walker episode. (See WCE 1785 for Gopadze's report). Within hours, Marina was interviewed by FBI agents, and provided a similar account. (See WCE 1784). The episode of "the incriminating note" is one facet of Oswald and Walker. And there is more. . . (d) It is a matter of record that Oswald, along with Michael Paine, attended a speech given by General Walker on October 25th , 1963. (e) In the Speculations and Rumors appendix (Appendix 12), the Warren Report dutifully reports the allegation that Oswald had Walker’s phone number, in his address book, but that proved to be incorrect. (f) The FBI concluded, based on arguable evidence, that Oswald’s rifle was the weapon that fired the slug recovered from the Walker residence. It may well be true that Oswald’s rifle—the one he ordered from Klein’s in Chicago on March 12, 1963—fired the recovered the slug, but—important as that may be (if true)—that is not the focus of my analysis. (Read on, for more info). Now you can add “this ‘n that” to the above list, but that’s about the gist of it: Marina Oswald's account, the note, the ballistic evidence; and, of course, Walker's account of having been sitting near the window, doing his taxes, when a bullet was fired into the room, which--he said--narrowly missed him. If Oswald had indeed attempted to kill Walker, that would certainly indicate he had a proclivity for violence, that he was willing to assassinate a public figure, and so of course all of that would raise the probability that, contrary to his denials, he was in fact JFK’s assassin. And basically, that's how the Warren Commission utilized Walker. It appears in Chapter four of the Warren Report under the heading: "Prior Attempt to Kill." Note: not that he (Oswald) did not actually kill anyone; but that, supposedly, he had been involved in a "prior attempt" to do so. WHAT DOES WALKER HAVE TO DO WITH 11/22/63? So . . What bearing, if any, does this have on Kennedy’s assassination seven months later, and specifically, is it relevant in attempting to address the issue of whether those who were involved in planning JFK’s murder, and executing that plan (whatever it consisted of) were “also involved” in the cover-up? One thing seems certain: if the two are --that is "were"--related, and if Oswald was in fact framed for JFK's murder, then those planning the future assassination of President Kennedy were either very lucky in choosing a fall guy who had a proclivity for shooting at public figures, or showed considerable foresight in fabricating an event, seven months before Kennedy's death, that would greatly enhance his "political profile" as a nut, or, simply put, as a future "lone assassin." Now this ventures into the very area posed by Paul Brancato's question: was the original design of the Kennedy assassination, and any "cover-up" which followed, all part and parcel of one plan, or where these "separate" plans executed by different individuals (or groups). This question of "Before the fact" versus "After the Fact" is a question that, to some extent, is addressed—implicitly—in Chapter 14 of Best Evidence, titled "Trajectory Reversal: Blueprint for Deception," which, essentially argues that the plan to alter the body was, from the outset, part of the original plan to murder President Kennedy. But before getting to that subject (which will have to be the subject of a separate post), let me return to (and hopefully finish up with ) the matter of General Walker. My own focus on Walker: For the benefit of those who may be unaware—and I have not advertised this very much at all—I spent quite a bit of time on the issue of Walker, “way back when.” This included the study of all relevant files from the Dallas Police Department, the Dallas Sheriff, the FBI, and the Secret Service. Further, I obtained copies of all the relevant news stories at the time the Walker shooting occurred (April 1963); along with Warren Commission records of media broadcasts which established just when the matter was first brought up in the aftermath of JFK's murder. In addition, I was engaged in questioning three important witnesses: (a) Questioning Marina Oswald Porter—who I knew quite well for about 15 years, from 1981 to about 1996—on the subject--repeatedly in telephone conversations, and then on camera, in a professionally filmed interview in June or July of 1990; (b) Questioning on camera (Nov. 1996) the key witness--Walter ("Kirk") Coleman, who was 14 years old at that the time, and who lived in the house adjacent to the alleyway from which the shot was fired. Coleman climbed up an a bicycle, looked over a fence, and saw the aftermath of the shooting: two men, running away, and getting into separate cars, one with the lights on and the motor running, one placing something in a back seat, and then driving off. (Coleman's FBI Interview is WCE 2958). (c ) July 1998: Spending hours with FBI Agent Robert Barrett, at his home in Alabama--the key FBI agent (along with Ivan Lee) in the Walker investigation. (In addition, Barrett was the agent present in the immediate aftermath of the Tippit shooting, and was the agent with whom DPD Captain Westbrook was speaking, when he was holding the "found" wallet, in his hand, and who--thumbing through that wallet--asked Barrett if he had ever heard of the name Oswald, or Alex Hidell etc.. (The matter of 'the wallet" will not be discussed here; it belongs on a separate thread). Not only did I review the entire Walker affair with Barrett, most of our conversation was filmed. Rest assured:I was completely immersed in the study of the Walker shooting, even though that is only one small compartment of the Kennedy assassination. I "lived" in that small compartment for quite some time, and on two trips to Dallas--once at my own expense, and another time on a trip paid for by the TV program HARDCOPY--I had the time to visit the Walker scene, and go over it very carefully. In particular, my own “basic news research” (“BNF”, in my filing system) was very thorough, and I unearthed a story that was –as I recall—a bit earlier than Paul Trejo had found, provided that to him, and he thanked me for it. This bears on an important point: when did the first indication surface that someone in the Dallas Police Department was attempting to link the shooting of Walker, which had occurred the previous April, with the assassination of President Kennedy, which had occurred on 11/22/63. The answer, based on my own careful research into news records, was on the afternoon of November 22, 1963, and the effort consisted of some newsman asking such a question of (as I recall) Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry. The first “print” story, as I recall, was in the newspapers by Saturday morning, 11/23. My own basic conclusions about Walker: (a) If we knew the full truth about Walker, we’d know significantly more about who was involved in the frame-up of Oswald, as “the assassin”; because that, I believe, is what the “Walker incident” was all about. It was not a serious attempt to kill Walker, but a staged event involving a deliberate missed shot. (FWIW: Some local FBI agents also thought it was staged.) (b) Lee Oswald was a participant in this staged event. Whether he actually stood at the fence and fired a rifle, I do not know; but—based on Marina’s multiply-told accounts to me—I have no doubt that he came running into the house that night and said—I stress “said”—that he had shot at Walker. (c ) Walker was the event which caused Marina to think of her husband as possibly being unstable, even “crazy”; that he was not the “normal” person she had met and married in the Soviet Union; but someone else, instead. Someone with a much darker side. BUT. . . (d) It was all a fake. Lee Oswald was, in fact, involved in “gas-lighting” Marina. (And to those who do not know what that term means—the deliberate manipulation of another person’s perceptions—then use Google, and, while you’re at it, also look up the famous movie “Gaslight”, with Ingrid Bergman. The subject of “gaslighting” has come up recently in connection with Trump’s campaign for the presidency; but I would stick to the classical material, and the famous movie). TIME OUT FOR A DEFINITION: From the dictionary: Gaslight (a verb): “manipulate (someone) by psychological means into questioning their own sanity.” From Wikipedia: Gaslighting is a form of manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or members of a group, hoping to make targets question their own memory, perception, and sanity. ... The term owes its origin to Gas Light, a 1938 play and 1944 film. Today, the phrase “gaslighting” is often associated with emotional abuse. For example: “Gaslighting is a form of emotional abuse where the abuser manipulates situations repeatedly to trick the victim into distrusting his or her own memory. . “ GASLIGHTING AND MARINA (and the night of April 10, 1963) (e ) Marina, of course, had no idea that she was being “gas-lighted”; first of all, she didn’t speak very much English in the Spring of 1963; Second, she took everything at face value. And she took it all very seriously. I can assure you that the events of that night deeply affected her perception of her husband, and was a significant factor in causing her to come around to the view she had—by the time of her Warren Commission testimony—that her husband was Kennedy’s assassin. (f) Footnote to (e): I met Marina in January 1981, when in Dallas on my Best Evidence book tour. After that, we spoke frequently—on and off for about 15 years. I kept fairly accurate records; was impressed by many things she said to me, and finally persuaded her to “go on camera”. We had an in-depth professionally filmed interview in June or July, 1990. Subsequently, some of that film was aired on HARDCOPY, in (about) 3 separate, consecutive episodes, and you can see excerpts on YouTube. That’s when she said, on camera, what Lee’s attitude (towards JFK) really was. Quoting (from memory): “Lee adored John Kennedy.” (g) Walker’s Phone Number: Regarding the original assertion in the Warren Report about Oswald having Walker’s phone number in his possession, I did a lot of documentary research in this area, and using records not generally perceived as available, and in Final Charade, will produce something quite different from the official answer: Yes, Lee did have Walker’s phone number. (Exactly what that proves, is not clear; and its subject to a variety of interpretations). Walker is important only because it deals with preparations for the frame-up of Oswald, and for the manipulation of the perceptions of Marina; IMHO: It is not significant in attempting to determine who was directly a participant in the shooting of Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Consequently: its my belief that all speculations about David Ferrie (and this person or that person, or the “ground crew” and the “kill team” etc.)—all of that can be safely set aside. It is entirely irrelevant. If anyone wishes to go down that path, then certainly they are free to do so, and the proper place for that is a full length manuscript. That’s nothing more than another “grassy knoll theory” about the Kennedy assassination. With regard to Kennedy’s murder as it actually unfolded: The “connectivity” between these two areas (Walker and Kennedy) can be found by pursuing the truth about why someone in the Dallas Police (or in the media) was (prematurely) attempting to connect Oswald to the Walker shooting on November 22, 1963. This has to do with gas-lighting Marina Oswald, and—through her—promoting a false public view of her husband. (h) The problem of the plotters. . . : I have said previously—on this thread—that the assassination of Kennedy was “elegant” in conception, but bungled in execution. A good example of this—of how Murphy’s Law upset the original plan—is what happened to the note apparently written by Lee Oswald. (I accept the expert’s identification of this note. And experts aside, Marina had a serious confrontation with Lee about the note. Lee never said: “You’re nuts! I didn’t write that! How the heck did that note get into this apartment?!” Not at all. To the contrary, he compared Walker to Hitler, and said that if Hitler had been assassinated, that would have prevented World War II. In my opinion, this note was intended to be the fuse that would release this “stink bomb” against Oswald, but instead, and because of the unexpected protective action taken by Marina, none of this worked out as planned. What was planned was the release of this information about Oswald's "prior attempt to kill" on November 22, 1963. (Instead, certain players in this plot were undoubtedly scratching their heads and asking: "What the heck is going on? Where the heck is that note?) Bottom line: the story needed a fuse, but "the fuse" was nowhere to be found. (i) The Walker Note. This note was written by Oswald, at some point in time prior to the evening of April 10. It was left, by Oswald, for “Marina to find.” Marina found the note, and was concerned, but concealed its existence from the night of April 10th until 11/22/63; at which point, the events of April 10th came back to haunt her, and this note in particular became radioactive. Marina didn’t volunteer anything about it, but instead concealed it in a cookbook. This is critically important: Marina realized that this note was incriminating, and so hid it in a cookbook (!). (ii) The Discovery of the Note: When the note was discovered about a week later when the cookbook was given to the Irving Police, by Ruth Paine, who had no idea that the cookbook contained the note. Within a day or so, the unusual note inside—written in a foreign language—was found. And translated. Marina was then confronted with this damning piece of evidence, and asked, in effect: “What the heck is this all about? At that point, she melted, and that’s when was forced to tell the whole story. First, to SS Agent Leon Gopadze; and then to FBI Agent Wallace Heitman. This revelation—which followed an initial strategy of concealment—was a very big moment in Marina’s life: first of all, this evidence was “discovered”; second, she was caught having attempted to hide something. Again: she was forced to acknowledge, to SS and FBI agents who were interrogating her, what had happened on the night of April 10, 1963. That’s when what I view as the “false public record” of who Oswald “actually was” began. The source was Marina, but she was only reporting what had happened the previous April. Moreover, if the note had been discovered in the original search of the Paine home (on 11/22), the discovery of such a note would have been headline news in the next day’s newspapers. “JFK’s Assassin Had Tried To Murder Walker. Documentary Evidence Discovered” etc. (i) My acquaintanceship with Marina (and her subsequent turnaround). I believe that I played a role—over the course of about seven years—in “de-programming” Marina from many false ideas that she had about her husband. All of this came to fruition in the fall of 1988, on the 25th anniversary of the assassination, although I had nothing to do with the "finale." That fall (Sept-Oct 1988, approx.), Myrna Blythe, Editor in Chief of the Ladies Home Journal, spent a day (or two, or three) with Marina, at her home. In a series of dramatic and emotional conversations, Marina poured out her heart to Blythe, the two bonded in some way, and Myrna wrote an important story—which was published in the November 1988 issue of the Ladies Homes Journal. This marked a major turn-around of sorts: the first time that Marina came out and changed her public position on her former husband’s guilt. I had no prior knowledge of those interviews, but I am sure that Marina’s relationship with me, and with Mary Ferrell, and with JFK researcher Wallace Milam all played a role in stiffening Marina’s resolve and determination to free herself of her previous views about the case. (This of course created a major problem in the relationship that Marina had previously had with Priscilla Johnson McMillan, author of Marina and Lee (1977). McMillan’s numerous interviews with Marina, starting around 1964, formed the basis for the portrait of Lee that was presented in her biography of the couple, as set forth in Marina and Lee. It is important to understand that the portrait of Lee, as presented to (and published by) McMillan, is probably not incorrect. Its just that—years after the fact—Marina realized that she had been gaslighted (by Lee himself) and so changed her interpretation of many events that had occurred in her past. In other words: Don’t blame Marina, and don’t blame Priscilla McMillan, for this change. This represented a change in interpretation of one’s past, a different way of “connecting the dots.” Think of it (perhaps) as a hard disk that has been partitioned. Marina had her memories of Lee—the Lee that she thought was “real”—from March 17, 1961 (when they met at a dance), to November 22, 1963, when she heard the shocking news of JFK’s death, and then people from the Dallas County Sheriff’s showed up at Ruth Paine’s house, and she learned that her husband was a suspect in the president’s murder. The next day she had her last face-to-face contact with Lee, when she spoke with him in the Dallas jail. The day after that, Sunday, Lee Oswald was murdered. From that point, and through her Warren Commission testimony (Feb 1964) and through her entire relationship with McMillan (whose book Marina and Lee was published in 1977), she became comfortable with thinking of Lee in one way. I like to think that January 1981, a nd the publication of Best Evidence, marked a turning point—but I believe that in fact it occurred a year or two earlier. (Another subject). In any event, the change did occur, and the result was dramatic. This is not dissimilar to people who go through life, through their 20s (for instance); and then discover—in their thirties (or even later)that they were adopted; that their father, say, was really not their (birth) father; or that their father had a secret criminal history, or perhaps was even executed, as a murderer, for a crime they knew nothing about. I am familiar with such situations. (j) Around 1990, “Hollywood” became interested in Marina’s story. At that point, she first fell into the hands of (or should I saw the “jaws” of ) David L. Wolper, the much-acclaimed documentary film producer who was also a completely convinced Lone Nutter. I was in steady touch with Marina at the time, provided some timely advice (where she might find an agent, etc), and –as I recollect (I have journals on all of this)—she basically told Wolper (the great “David L. Wolper”) to get lost; that she was fed up; that she was no longer the “innocent” Marina she used to be; and –and, most important—that she wanted nothing to do with him, and his view that she had married a monster. That that whole thing was ridiculous. And that she now rejected that conception. It was a great moment (for Marina, and this is based on my recollection). So what happened next? What did Wolper do? He enlisted the service of his son, Mark Wolper, to handle the production of the “Marina Story”. Mark was a completely different kind of fellow, and his involvement made all the difference. Mark and Marina had a number of conversations, and Marina left no doubt in his mind (and this is my recollection), that unless he (David Wolper) cleaned up his act, she was not going to cooperate. You have to know Marina, and see her really get angry, really get pissed off, to know how powerful she can be. As I recall, Mark Wolper simply folded. Basically, it was “OK, ok, Marina. Whatever you say.” So they set out to produce something that was truthful. Google “Mark Wolper” if you wish to know more, but here—in synopsis form—is what happened next. To begin with, the movie that was produced was eventually called Fatal Deception: Mrs. Lee Harvey Oswald (1993). Millions watched that movie, and it was eventually shown “in re-runs” on the History Channel. Here were the key players: (1) The producer placed in charge of doing the Marina story was Bernard Sofronski (husband of actress Susan Dey). Both are accomplished persons, and here is just one item from Sofronski’s IMdb bio: “Sofronski is behind some of the highest rated and recognized drama films for TV including the controversial true story, Playing for Time - a film about an all-female orchestra playing for Nazis in a concentration camp in order to stay alive.” (2) Sofronski hired writer Steve Bello, to do the screenplay—an experienced and talented screenwriter (and producer) best known for Hill Street Blues, St. Elsewhere, Mancuso –FBI. (See the IMDB data base, if you wish to know more). (3) The Director hired for the project was Robert Dornheim, originally from Romania, and well known for Spartacus (2004), The Ten Commandments (2006) and Sins of the Father (2002). His acclaimed film “Requiem for Dominic” became an important film in the 25th anniversary of the Romanian revolution in 1989. Early on, Sofronski and Bello interviewed Marina at length—and from those detailed, intense (taped) interviews, I learned several facts I had not known before, and which deepened my understanding of Marina. (4) Bello then wrote a screenplay –a “teleplay,” since this was conceived of as a TV production. It would, in part, be the story of how Marina had been deceived, and the evolution of her consciousness over the years. (5) There had to be a way, in the “storyline”, for how Marina became aware of much of the information that contradicted her previous view. As I understand it, the producer and/or writer simply asked Marina, and she identified me as a key person. So my “character” was introduced into the screenplay, and played by actor Robert Picardo (who later achieved fame on “China Beach,” “Startrek: Voyager” and many others (See the IMdB data base, his filmography goes on for pages). (6) The actress playing Marina was the very beautiful Helena Bonham Carter. I had a meeting with Dornheim at his home in Malibu, and quite a few conversations (and some meetings) with Steve Bello. Besides contributing my own insights about the entire situation, I provided certain other valuable data—specifically, copies of the filmed interview I had with Oswald’s youngest daughter, Rachel. Our agreement was that they could use the data for informational purpose, but not a foot would be screened. They kept their word, and Steve told me it was useful in writing the scenes about Oswald’s two daughters (June, the eldest, born in Minsk, on 2/15/62; and Rachel, born in Dallas, on 10/20/63). (7) The “Plot Summary” as published on the IMDb data base, reads as follows: The story of the widow of Lee Harvey Oswald, the man accused of shooting President Kennedy. Via flashbacks, the story traces the woman's life from her days in Russia, the turmoil following the assassination, raising her family, and coming to grips with the fact that she too may have been a pawn in a grand conspiracy. This, then, is the role that I played in attempting to bring a faithful account of Marina’s experience to the screen. Of course, it was very nice to see my name published in TV guide, beneath that of Helena Carter, and Picardo; and the entire experience deepened my own understanding of how deals are struck, how movies are made, and how film production works. But probably the most important credit goes to Marina, who realized she’d been gas-lighted (my term) by various U.S. Government agencies and officials, and who stood up to the great David L. Wolper and told him she was going to have nothing to do with him, if he dared to present her husband as some crazy person she had married, and who didn’t reveal his “true self” until November 22, 1963. Those days were over. Marina made clear that she would have nothing to do with any such production, and its because of her stance, and the way she asserted herself that Fatal Deception was produced as it is.* * * Now back to the beginning of this post: I started this post by noting that Paul Brancato had begun this thread on April 3 (2017) by asking a simple question: “Does Lifton's Best Evidence indicate that the coverup and the crime were committed by the same people?” For reasons that I don’t completely understand—and I have attempted to treat somewhat humorously in the opening paragraphs—Paul Trejo has jumped in, with his theories about Walker, the result being that this discussion has been steered way off track. However, I will candidly admit that I, too, am concerned with Walker, but not because it has anything to do with the grassy knoll, killer teams, "the ground crew" and all of that, which I find to be largely irrelevant (in terms of the Walker facet of the JFK assassination). My focus is on the events occurring on the night of April 10, 1963, and the role of the Walker affair in gaslighting Marina Oswald. (To repeat:IMHO: It has nothing whatever to do with "who was on the grassy knoll" etc.) In this post, I have tried—in highly synopsized fashion—to explain the methodology I have employed, and my own view of Walker, in order to perhaps proceed further, but also to pave the way for others to jump in, and to address the original question raised by Brancato: was the cover-up and the crime committed by the same people? (Or. .. are we dealing with two separate functions? Two separate plans?) In my post (on the first Web page) I expressed my view that the assassination was elegant in conception, but bungled in execution. There’s little question in my mind that Oswald was ever supposed to leave the building alive. (And if I’m correct on that point, there would have been no Tippit shooting, no theater arrest, no necessity to kill Oswald while in DPD custody, etc.) But furthermore, and now going back to Walker, if this plot had unfolded as planned, and if Marina had not hidden then note Lee had written, I have little doubt that on the afternoon of November 22, 1963, in addition to the fact that it would have been announced that “the assassin had been killed in the building,” and that “his rifle” had been “also found” on the sixth floor of the building, headlines would have been made by another story: it would have been announced that the Dallas Police investigation established that Lee Oswald was the “unknown sniper” who had shot at General Walker, the previous April; furthermore, and this would have commanded a major headline, that a note had been found at the Irving residence, where his Russian wife lived, which established without question that he was the person responsible for Walker’s shooting. I may have more to say about this subject, as time permits; but here’s my only request: Please refrain from using this thread to disseminate a seriously bloated and largely speculative version of a Walker hypothesis. As I said at the outset, anyone who does that is akin to someone delivering a thesis about some of the distant moons of Jupiter, when the question originally raised is a relatively simple one about what is known, traditionally, as the solar system. DSL 4/10/2017 – 8:20 a.m. PDT Edited and tweaked, 4/10/17, 9:30 p.m. PDT Los Angeles, California

DATE: April 9, 2017 - 12:20 a.m. PDT - Los Angeles, California RE: Much Delayed Response to the above post by Paul Rigby (just read today) FWIW: I think this represents interesting research, but it also has an innocent explanation. (And those who know me know the ordinary response I have to those on the other side of the JFK debate who seem to ceaselessly invent "innocent explanations" for evidence suggesting conspiracy. Pat Valentino calls them paid "excuse makers"; and I certainly am not one of them; but I do believe there is an innocent explanation for the UPI dispatch cited previously on this thread.) My belief: that this particular dispatch is nothing more than careless writing and research done by a UPI reporter who, confronted with the release of a piece of the Nix film (in connection with Wolper's release of FOUR DAYS, or some equivalent media event), conflated a description of what is shown in the Zapruder film (according to a file copy of another story, read on. . . ) with a dispatch that is referring to the Nix film. First, let's identify the reporter involved, and the full title of this particular news item. From the dispatch(es) and excerpts quoted above, the "journalist-of-record" is: "Marlyn E. Aycock (UPI)" and her story ran under the headline: "JFK Assassination Film Holds Guests Spellbound, Kingsport News (Tennessee), 8 October 1964, p.19" I think her identification is important, because it is fair to ask: was she ever questioned on her remarkable dispatch? (Not that I know of.) Second: the actual words used in the dispatch to describe what the film showed are suspiciously close, if not almost identical, to the wire-service accounts put out around November 28th, 1963, to describe the Zapruder film, and those wire service accounts came, as I recall, from the Secret Service. So what I think happened is that Ms. Aycock, the author of this particular UPI account, went to some file in the newspaper morgue, retrieved some copy describing the Z film from November 28th (plus or minus a day), 1963, and included those sentences in her story. Yes, I think its that simple. Another point to keep in mind: film format. To project a film on the usual equipment at a New York City theater, the normal projector is 35 mm. So the film is (almost always) in 35 mm format. Now please note: the conversion of the Zapruder film from the 8mm copy (held by LIFE) to a full 35 mm format was not accomplished until around 1967, when Moe Weitzman did that work on a contract for LIFE Magazine. As described in Pig on a Leash, I viewed that remarkable material in June 1970 at the Beverly Hills office of Time-Life. So, purely as a practical matter, anyone who advocates that the Z film was shown at a New York City theater would have to explain how they could project a 35mm copy of the Z film, by their projectionist, when no such film, in that format--I repeat, in that format--was made until Weitzman did the work for LIFE, in 1967. So. . . : All things considered, and aside from the fact that --personally--I don't believe that the Zapruder film was shown at the Bleeker Street Cinema in 1964, I want to (again) point out the sheer implausibility of such an alleged event. Specifically: that if any such event had occurred, it would have caused a sensation both at the offices of LIFE magazine, at Rockefeller Center, and at the headquarters of the U.S. Secret Service in Washington. Really: from the standpoint of LIFE executives, and top Secret Service officials, this would have been the ultimate "WTF?!" moment. It is the stuff of a Peter Sellers movie. Again, it would not have been physically possible without a 35 mm copy (and, as far as I know, there was no such copy in 1964), but even if one skips over that problem (and it is a huge problem), and then postulates--using the word "somehow"--that "somehow" such an event occurred, it would not only have caused a sensation in the two aforementioned organizations, with SS agents descending on the Bleeker Street Cinema and demanding to know "Where the hell did you get that copy that you projected?" etc., but the news generated by such an event would have been all over the media. Just consider the headlines it would have spawned: "SECRET ASSASSINATION FILM--AVAILABLE ONLY TO FBI AND WARREN COMMISSION--ACCIDENTALLY PROJECTED AT NEW YORK CITY THEATER." And I can just imagine the lead paragraph to such a story, not to mention the paragraphs which followed. Honestly, it is so outrageous, and improbable --and I am not unsympathetic to the UFO phenomenon, and all matters of planetary science--but it is so utterly improbable, much less implausible, that it would be akin to the landing of an alien craft in Rockaway Beach, and for such an event to have been witnessed by 100 people (I am conservatively estimating the audience size at the Bleeker Street Cinema), and for the event to have left no media footprint. (Except, of course, for the single JFK researcher, who is normally quite careful, and who claims to have witnessed such an event at the Bleeker Street Cinema in New York City, when she went to the movies one day (or evening) and saw such an extraordinary cinematic event.) Also, and I add this in the spirit of a footnote, why is it that the two newspapers cited to document this supposed event are the "Kingsport News (Tennessee)" and the "The Valley Independent, (Monessen, Pennsylvania)." Really?? What happened to Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Atlanta? (And what about Dallas?) So perhaps this was simply an incorrect dispatch that was "killed" by the wire service, but somehow got published in these small town newspapers. In writing the above, please do keep in mind that I am one who believes that the Zapruder film (and other civilian films of the shooting) were altered; and have additional significant information about all of that which I have obtained since the publication of Pig on a Leash. But no, I do not believe the Zapruder film was "accidentally" projected at the Bleeker Street Cinema in the fall of 1964. DSL 4/9/17 - 1 a.m. PDT Los Angeles, California

David Von Pein: In this regard, I cannot speak for anyone else, only for myself, but you are dead wrong, as will be established definitively with the publication of Final Charade. In the interim, please engage in the following thought experiment: Step 1: Imaging a large dumpster, of the kind used to pick up trash in many communities. (They are all over the roads, here in Southern California, especially in the early morning hours, clanking loudly as they race down the major avenues towards their various destinations). Step 2: Imagine a big sign being placed on that dumpster device: “Dustbin of History” (and perhaps in small type, and in order to give proper intellectual credit: “Original wording, per Leon Trotsky”). Step 3: Imagine yourself being consigned to that location, because of your persistent and very loud statements that the President could not have been shot from the front (and setting aside the issue of whether he was shot “only” from the front). You keep pointing out this problem, and I gather it concerns you deeply. That is a good sign. It shows you have the capacity to think logically. Now, to the next step. . . SOMETHING FOR YOU TO PONDER: Do you really think that those who engineered the plan to remove Kennedy from office were so stupid that they set up a plan to shoot him in a motorcade, and to frame a “pre-selected patsy” (etc.), and yet were such dunderheads that they failed to conceive of a plan to remove bullets, much less alter wounds? Do you not think that anyone with an IQ above room temperature might conceive of the necessity for such planning? Or do you believe you're the only person, blessed with the intelligence and insight, to raise such an issue? Food for thought. DSL 4/5/2017 – 11:35 a.m. PDT Los Angeles, California

The large hole in the occiput—as observed at Parkland Hospital—did not “[go] away”. Rather, its existence was cleverly incorporated into the description provided by Humes of the “large” defect in President Kennedy’s skull, as described in the Bethesda autopsy report (drafted by Humes). The final typed draft, as accepted in evidence as Warren Commission Exhibit 387, reads: ““There is a large irregular defect of the scalp and skull on the right involving chiefly the parietal bone but extending somewhat into the temporal and occipital regions. In this region there is an actual absence of scalp and bone producing a defect which measures approximately 13 cm. in greatest diameter.” Please focus on the words “extending somewhat” and “into the. . occipital regions.” By the use of this kind of language, Humes was able to incorporate the Dallas “occipital” wound into his official description of the “large” (in fact, much larger) Bethesda wound that was present at the time he examined Kennedy's body. This language—from the Bethesda autopsy report, and describing how the body looked to Humes—provided the legal basis for the Warren Commission conclusion that President Kennedy was struck fatally from “above and behind.” THE AUTOPSY PHOTOS Now moving forward several years, we come to the revelations contained in the autopsy photos (and X-rays) which were not processed until around December 10, 1963, and which was not seen by the public until the summer of 1978, during the televised hearings of the HSCA. The first indication of what they showed came with the release of the Clark Panel Report –from the examination of the autopsy photos by a four-man panel convened by AG Ramsey Clark in March 1968. That report was made public, probably on White House orders, around January 17th, 1969, just three days before Nixon’s inauguration. It was a major news story. That report described the geometry of the head wounding somewhat differently, and it became a cat-and-mouse game to try and decipher just what it showed from the paucity of data. Finally, during the 1978 HSCA hearings, the public got its first visual look when it was arranged for an artist (Ida Dox), to create exact copies of the photos. The rear view of JFK’s head—televised nationally during these hearings—made clear that the occipital wound described in Dallas (and incorporated into Humes slippery description) had completely disappeared. I saw the actual photos in May 1981, when I met with SS employee Jack Fox, and obtained my personal copies in December 1982, courtesy of Mark Crouch, and published them in the 1988 (Carroll & Graf) edition of Best Evidence, first released in October 1988. But now returning to 1979, when I was drafting Best Evidence: In Chapter 20 of Best Evidence, I addressed this situation in detail, because these photographs represented a “third view” of the wounds—i.e., there was Parkland, then Bethesda (per the autopsy protocol), and now this “other” Bethesda view (a “third view”) per the autopsy photographs. I displayed the data, in tabular form, in Figure 38 in Chapter 20. (See p. 506 of the Macmillan or Carroll & Graf [trade paper] edition). And I called the three different representations of the head wound Lens 1, Lens2, and Lens 3. Both the “Humes version” and the “autopsy photo” version had a back-to-front head trajectory, but they were distinctly different. The autopsy photo version—which became the legal basis for the HSCA conclusions—had everything rotated by about 20 degrees, clockwise, and so the back of the head was now intact. Wow. Mirable dictu. The “blowout” at the rear—so prominent in Dallas, and incorporated into the Humes version (i.e., the autopsy report, with its slippery language) –had now disappeared! I addressed this situation in Chapter 20, referring to these three different views of the wounding, as noted, as the result of viewing the head through 3 lenses: Lens 1 was Dallas; Lens 2, was Bethesda (per Humes); and Lens 3 was Bethesda (per the photographs). REVISITING THE WARREN COMMISSION SITUATION. . . Going back now to the time frame of Spring 1964, and the Warren Commission investigation, the question I addressed next was whether WC attorney Arlen Specter, in charge of the medical evidence, was aware of this situation—or was it a fact that he never saw the autopsy photographs? (in which case all he would have been aware of was Lens 1 (Dallas) and Lens 2 (Bethesda, per the autopsy report). Officially, Specter never saw the photos; but we know that he admits to being shown a photo of the back wound, when—apparently—he insisted on being shown photo evidence that the wound was high enough on the back to support the Single Bullet Theory. But did he ever see the autopsy photos of the head wounding, and –if he did—did he recognize the difference in the head wounding as described by Humes, as described in the Bethesda autopsy report, and the head wounding as shown in the autopsy photographs? The answer, I believe, is yes, he did. I based that on two detailed memos that he wrote, and which I discovered in my January 1971 nearly-month-long stay at NARA, when I reviewed all the memos written by all the staff attorneys that were in the WC “office files.” These memos –about the autopsy photos and X-rays—are dated April 30 and May 12, 1964, and they provide potent evidence re Arlen Specter’s state of mind, when it came to this evidence which (supposedly) he had not seen. WHAT SPECTER WROTE. . . This section is titled “Specter’s Memoranda of April 30 and May 12, 1964”, runs seven plus pages, and contains numerous indications that Specter was very much aware of the differences in the historical record between what Humes stated in the Bethesda autopsy report showed, and what these photos showed. (See pp. 508 – 515 of Best Evidence). Specter was a very bright man, and it seemed to me that he fully understood the various differences and the implications—but he had to be careful in writing these memos because, supposedly, he had not seen the photos (!). You have to read my discussion to get a full appreciation of all this; i.e., of what I referred to as –“Specter’s seeming awareness of the conflicts in the record.” For example, in Specter’s Memo of April 30, 1964, he wrote (as his Point Number 3”) that “The Commission should determine with certain that there are no major variations between the films and the artist’s drawings” (referring, at that time, to the crude drawings by naval artist Rydberg, that Humes used to illustrate his Warren Commission testimony). Specter seemed very aware that Humes testimony—as it then stood—could not explain the many differences in the photos, and wrote: “I suggest that we have a court reporter present so that we may examine Dr. Hume after the X-rays and photographs are reviewed to put on the record . . . any changes in his testimony or theories required by a review of the –rays and films. .“ Specter was well aware that the issue was whether Kennedy was shot from the front or the back. He wrote that “none of the doctors at Parkland Hospital in Dallas observed the [entry] hole in the President’s back or the small [entry] hole in the lower portion of his head.” Emphasizing the problem, Specter—exhibiting considerable prescience—wrote: “Some day someone may compare the films with the artist’s drawings and find a significant error which might substantially affect the essential testimony and the Commission’s conclusions.” Now Returning to the Matter of whether the body or the photos were altered. . .which was it? (or was it both?) Reviewing the record retrospectively, and assisted by having these two “Specter Memos” (of 4/30 and 5/12 1964), memos written by none other than Arlen Specter himself, it seems clear to me that both kinds of alteration were present in this situation. The body was (covertly) altered on November 22, 1963, prior to the start of the official autopsy, and that explains the differences in the record between Lens 1 (Dallas) and Lens 2 (Bethesda). This was part of the original plot to alter the body "as part of the crime." But then, starting that night (in the morgue) and then on into the one to two weeks following, some sort of “clean-up” occurred, and a photo record was created (the “autopsy photographs”). That photo record was not utilized (officially, anyway) by the Warren Commission and remained under lock and key for years. That photo record did receive major attention by the Forensic Panel of the House Select Committee, circa 1977-1979) and that photo record became the basis for the HSCA conclusions about trajectory. All of that occurred I the time frame 1976-1979. To recap: The alteration of JFK’s body –whether viewed from the perspective of the Warren Commission’s investigation (1963-64) or the HSCA (1976 – 1979) was done to create a false legal record which, in each case, became the foundation for official conclusions, but in investigations that occurred in separate years. Also, they resulted in slightly different legal records (i.e., when it came to the particulars of the head wounding). (N.B.: There are also other interesting differences, but I am not addressing them here, in this writing). (A) Dallas vs Bethesda (Lens 1): Here, the physical alteration of the body between Dallas and Bethesda was, essentially, a crude alteration that involved the removal of bullets and the alteration of wounds. By the time of the start of the official autopsy, the body no longer contained any evidence of shots from the front—at least, at least none from the front that was officially noted in the autopsy report. (B) A further physical manipulation of the body, at Bethesda, to stage a reconstruction for the purpose of creating a photo record (Lens 3) which would show (a) no shots from the front and (b) that was devoid of any evidence that the body had been altered. Based on my analysis, (A) was the result of the original planning for the assassination; (B) was the result of an effort at "clean-up"; i.e., to sanitize the result of what was (as originally executed) a crude medical forgery, and make it “acceptable” for photography. The result of all this activity was the “disappearance” of the rear exit wound by the time the autopsy photographs were created; and the existence of three separate and distinguishable legal records (the 3 “lenses” described in chapter 20 of Best Evidence). To return to the point that Ollie raised: Commander Humes testified based upon the body as he saw it; and so the language he used to describe "the condition of the body" included (or "incorporated") "the occipital wound" that was so prominent in Dallas (Lens 1) and certainly partially visible at the time of autopsy (Lens 2). But that wound was no longer present in the autopsy photographs (Lens 3). DSL 4/5/2017 - 10:45 a.m. PDT Los Angeles, California

To all: I’m going to jump in here and present my view—which, by the way, I have already stated (to some extent) in my appearance at Bismarck, North Dakota in November 2013 (Google, David Lifton, Bismarck) and in the November 2016 Night Fright Show (with host Brent Holland), just a few months ago. In a nutshell: 1. This was not an “ordinary murder”; but rather, a political assassination accompanied by the deployment of a sophisticated strategic deception. The purpose of the deception was to change basic facts, and hide the truth about how Kennedy died (and who was responsible). 2. The basic concept: this was a body-centric plot –i.e., it was planned, in advance, to alter the body (as part of the crime); to change legal facts about the shooting, and promote a false story of how the president died. (Moreover: a key purpose of the autopsy falsification was to falsely connect the sniper’s nest at the sixth floor window with the crime which took place in the street below). 3. It was never intended that the body, at autopsy, would provide a true picture of the crime; and. . .(see next point). . . 4. It was never intended that there would be two medico-legal records: one from certain medical personnel who saw the body prior to alteration; and a second record emerging from those present at the official autopsy. 5. Fundamental mistakes were made which resulted in a botched execution of the crime, as planned: a. The unexpected shooting of Connally b. Oswald getting out of the TSBD alive; and then. . . c. Oswald being arrested (alive); and then. . d. Oswald making the statements about his innocence, which he did, during the two days he remained alive. 6. The existence of a “live Oswald” necessitated creating a plan to eliminate him. (That resulted in the murder of Oswald, by Ruby, which--of necessity--was broadcast on national TV). 7. The Tippit murder was never supposed to have occurred, and was not part of the original planning for the murder of Kennedy. It was an unexpected event that occurred as a consequence of 5b. If Oswald –qua “assassin”—had been murdered in the building, there would never have been: (a) any Tippit murder or (b) any professions of innocence coming from the mouth of the accused. Dead men don’t talk. 8. It was part of the original conception of the crime that the Attorney General of the U.S.—the President’s brother—be neutralized as part of the crime. That part worked. Essentially, Bobby made certain very muted (and cryptic) private statements, but by and large, he maintained the public posture that he believed the official version (See his appearance in Cracow, Poland, on 6/29/64, when he first announced this stance; which was front page news (cols 6 and 7, bottom half of paper) in the New York Times in the next day’s newspaper [6/30/64]). Robert Kennedy Says Oswald Acted on Own in Assassination The story, by Times reporter Arthur Olsen, continues on page 2, under this headline: KENNEDY LABELS OSWALD A MISFIT Opening paragraph (on page 1): Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy said today that his brother had been assassinated by Lee H. Oswald, “a misfit” who took out his resentment against society by killing the President of the United States. 9. Generally speaking: the JFK assassination was “elegant in conception, but bungled in execution.” That’s the reason why there are strong elements of an “after-the-fact” cover-up. Mistakes were made, and the result (in those cases) was improvisation and ad hoc solutions and “cover-up” events which, of necessity, occurred after he fact, and which were justified by allusions to “national security” or “preventing World War III.” That was all baloney. Generally speaking (and referring to many details): the assassination was not planned to unfold in the manner in which it did. Much went wrong, the result being akin to a boat which almost sank, but which—both through cleverness and desperation—was kept afloat. 10. Finally, and this is my personal opinion (which I will be writing about in Final Charade, or in an auxiliary essay): the original assassination, as planned, was for the fall of 1961. Certain unexpected events occurred which resulted in it being postponed until November 1963. This fact is important in properly interpreting certain historical data pertaining to the evolution of the event. DSL 4/04/2017; 6:20 a.m. PDT Los Angeles, California

Karl: I’d like to make four (4) points which –collectively and individually— should put to rest the notion you seem to be attempting to advance: “that coffin [may have contained] the remains of any "John Doe" [because all they saw was]... a coffin ... Custer and David never saw Kennedys corpse prior to the arrival of the Kennedy party. . .” I understand your concern, but the above statement is flat-out wrong. And here’s why: POINT #1: The Account of Donald Rebentisch In January 1981, just days after I began my Best Evidence book tour, and when the two – casket account was first published in a two-page story about Best Evidence (which was published in the January 19 issue of TIME, not as a book review, but in the National Affairs section), I was contacted by Jerry Morlock, a reporter for Grand Rapids Press. Morlock told me he had just interviewed Donald Rebentisch, of Coopersville, Michigan, a petty officer stationed at Bethesda on November 22, 1963, and that Rebentisch confirmed Dennis David’s story. Morlock wanted me to know about this development before his story was carried in national media. From my room in the Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles, I immediately contacted Rebentisch, and we had a detailed conversation. It was a conversation that I taped using a brand new SONY micro-cassette recorder that I had just purchased, a device that cost (as I recall) about $400 at the time. (Prices came down markedly in the years following). Starting in the 1982 edition, I included Rebentisch’s account in a small section two-page annex dated 12/6/1981, and titled “Epilogue to the 1982 Edition.” (See page 701 of the Carrol and Graf Edition, published in 1988). What did Rebentisch say? Rebentisch told me that he was one of those who carried in the casket brought in the black vehicle. As far as he knew, and was told at the time, that coffin contained JFK’s body. Afterwards, he went upstairs and was in the Bethesda lobby, when he saw Mrs. Kennedy, standing at the elevator, with Bobby, waiting to go upstairs. Here’s what I wrote in that “1982 Epilogue”: QUOTE: Rebentisch told his local paper, the Grand Rapids Press, that the two-ambulance story published TIME was not news to him—he had been telling his family the same story for years. He stated that President Kennedy’s body was not in the gray navy ambulance, which carried Mrs. Kennedy and the ceremonial casket and which arrived at the front of the hospital. Instead, the body had arrived at the back of the hospital in a black unmarked hearse. . . . Morlock told me about Rebentisch before his story ran on the wire services, and I was able to interview Rebentisch before he read Best Evidence. He provided corroboration for Dennis David’s account by recalling that he had helped unload the first casket, an ordinary shipping casket, and that it had arrived at the back before the gray navy ambulance arrived at the front. Rebentisch said that after unloading the first casket, he went upstairs to the lobby area of Bethesda where he saw Mrs. Kennedy, who had just arrived in the navy ambulance, waiting for the elevator. “Reporter Morlock found other witnesses who knew that two caskets had been used at Bethesda that night. ‘It was common knowledge,’ said one. “Like the witnesses I had interviewed, these new witnesses told Morlock the two-casket scheme was used as a security measure. “Rebentisch’s account ran on both wire services, the weekend of January 23, 1981. Subsequently, in March 1981, the Canadian Broadcasting Company made arrangements for me to participate in a TV interview of Rebentisch at his home n Michigan for a program that was broadcast in Canada in mid-April. (DSL Note, 4/3/2017: The program was titled “The Empty Casket". It was a 30 minute TV documentary produced by Brian McKenna, and which McKenna told me was one of the highest rated TV programs ever broadcast by CBC). I thought him (Rebentisch) honest and straightforward, and he seemed concerned that events he had personally witnesses were not in the official story.” End QUOTE, from 1982 (mass paperback) edition of Best Evidence, and then republished in the 1988 Carrol & Graf edition (trade paperback format), and then still again in the 1993 New American Library (mass paperback) edition. Now here’s a small postscript to the above: As noted, I telephoned Rebentisch from my hotel room, taping the conversation using a SONY micro-cassette recorder, which was somewhat recent technology. The cassettes were very small, and I was then traveling to over 20 cities on my book tour. Somehow, that cassette got lost—or so I thought. A few years ago, I found that original micro-cassette, and the tape was carefully duplicated, and then meticulously transcribed by Pat Valentino. As far as I’m concerned, Dennis David and Don Rebentisch were co-equal witnesses to the same event—David being interviewed by me on July 2, 1979 (per Chapter 25 of Best Evidence), and then again, on camera, in late October 1980; Rebentisch, in mid-January, 1981. Further, in that January 1981 conversation with Rebentisch, I found another way to establish his’s bona-fides. Rebentisch volunteered that he knew Dennis David because he often played cards with him. I had met Dennis David (and his wife) just 3 months before, in October 1980, when I filmed him for what became the Best Evidence Research Video (now available on YouTube). So I asked Rebentisch a simple question: What was Dennis David’s wife’s first name? Without hesitation, he immediately provided the correct answer, and in that moment, I realized that Don Rebentisch was --as they say--"the real deal." Had I known about Rebentisch when I wrote Chapter 25 of Best Evidence (drafted later in 1979, and devoted almost exclusively to Dennis David, and his account about the arrival of JFK's body in a black hearse, at the morgue entrance, out in back, and about 20 minutes prior to the arrival of the naval ambulance,carrying Jackie and Bobby, at the front), I would certain have included Rebentisch, as important corroboration; and perhaps even given Rebentisch “equal billing” with Dennis David. In a future edition, which I am planning, I intend to include an insert of some sort, giving not only the the full account of my July 2, 1979 interview of David (as it appears in Chapter 25 of Best Evidence); but now also augmented and corroborated by my January 1981 telephone interview of Rebentisch, as well. What also desserves to be included is the January 1981 account that Rebentisch provided to reporter Jerry Morlock and which (as noted above) was published in the Grand Rapids [Michigan] Press, prior to his reading Best Evidence. POINT #2: The matter of X-ray tech Jerrol Custer Now, Karl, turning to your second point. . . that Custer didn’t see JFK’s body “prior to the arrival of Kennedy’s body. That’s simply not true. As I reported in Best Evidence, Custer was carrying X-rays of Kennedy’s body, already exposed in the morgue, when he passed through the Bethesda lobby, and saw Mrs. Kennedy, who had just arrived. You will find that on the last page of Chapter 27, where I provided the account of the late Jerrol Custer. QUOTING (from Best Evidence, on the last page of Chapter 27, and based on my telephone interview of him on 10/7/1979): Custer said that he saw Jacqueline from a distance of ten or fifteen yards. “I saw her, because she stuck out like a sore thumb.” He continued to the hallway and took an elevator upstairs to get his [X-ray] films processed. Here was the strongest evidence that the President’s body was at Bethesda before Jacqueline got there. She entered the hospital no later than seen o’clock. Outside the hospital door stood the navy ambulance, with the Dallas casket., Yet Custer already had in his hands X-rays of President Kennedy’s body. UNQUOTE (from p. 621 of the Macmillan hardcover, or the 1988 Carrol and Graf edition). POINT #3: The question of Dr. Humes You included Dr. Humes in your list of witnesses who (you allege) didn’t see the body before the arrival of the naval ambulance. Again, you are incorrect. When Humes testified to the ARRB in 1996, Counsel Jeremy Gunn asked a very pointed question. By that time, he was onto the games that Humes played, and so he didn’t question him about coffins. Instead, he asked Humes when he first saw the body of President Kennedy. I’ve heard the audio tape, which was –for me—really quite dramatic, but the transcript captures the moment quite nicely. Humes answer: 6:45 p.m. (approximately). As the public record shows, and as Humes surely knew (since Best Evidence was published, to major media attention in January 1981), the naval ambulance arrived at 6:53 (according to reporter William Grigg, in the Washington Star) or 6:55, according to the official Secret Service chronology. (See Chapter 16 of B.E., p. 416 n the Macmillan or the Carrol and Graf editions, which are identically paginated). POINT #4: The Boyajian Document I believe that the official report of Marine Sergeant Roger Boyajian, the NCOIC [Non Commissioned Officer in Charge] of the USMC Security Detail should settle the matter of when that casket was delivered to the Bethesda Morgue. That detail was specifically requested for morgue security, in view of the imminent arrival of JFK’s body. It records the arrival time as 18:35 (6:35 p.m. EST). Some summary observations: Karl: I hope that you—and others reading this around the world (because I recognized we are now, in effect, “broadcasting” this information via the Internet)—will read this, and appreciate the fact that the coffin that was in the naval ambulance arriving at Bethesda (an ambulance carrying, among others, the president’s wife, Jacqueline, and his brother, Robert, the Attorney General of the United States) was empty. Just pause a moment, and think about that: that at Andrews Air Force Base, and at that iconic moment—the offload of the Dallas coffin, a televised event broadcast around the world—the coffin being offloaded was empty. How can we be sure? Because, as I carefully showed in Best Evidence by “running the event backwards (as in a movie film, see Chapter 25 for details)—that is an ineluctable conclusion: if the Dallas coffin was empty at the Bethesda front entrance (time of arrival: 6:55 p.m., EST), then it must have been empty when it was offloaded--some 50 minutes earlier, at Andrews Air Force Base--from Air Force One (time of offload, about 6:05 p.m.) That’s just plain logic, because there is a continuous stream of events from off-load at Andrews -- a televised event that was broadcast around the nation and the world—to arrival at the Bethesda front entrance. There was no interruption; there was a solid "chain of custody" (in you will) from the Andrews off-load to the arrival at the Bethesda front entrance. All very well, but then we can take this one step further. We can extend the analysis (about there being an “uninterrupted journey”) back in time to Love Field, in Dallas, where Air Force One took off at 2:47 p.m. CST. We can extrapolate backwards (in time) using the same methodology –-the same line of reasoning--to the time when Air Force One took off at 2:47 p.m. CST. Specifically: if the coffin offloaded at Andrews was empty, then it must have been empty when Air Force One took off from Love Field in Dallas, at 2:47 p.m. CST. Why? Because the Dallas coffin was located in the tail compartment of Air Force One, and sitting right there, in the few available seats, and throughout the flight, was Jacqueline Kennedy, Kenny O’Donnell, Dave Powers, et al. They all sat right by the Dallas coffin from the time of take-off (2:47, just nine minutes after the swearing in of LBJ), until the plane landed at Andrews (about 6 p.m., EST). What all of this means: An empty coffin at the Bethesda front entrance means an empty coffin upon take-off from Dallas. All of this is laid out, in detail, in Best Evidence (Chapters 25 and 28). In Final Charade, I will carry the analysis provided above—and which, as noted, is set forth in Best Evidence—to the next level, and address the question of just when President Kennedy’s body was removed from the Dallas coffin, because when that coffin left Parkland Hospital, it sure as hell contained the President's body. Stay tuned. David S.Lifton 4/3/2017 – 8 a.m. PDT Los Angeles, California Tweaked, 4/4/2017, 4:50 a.m. PDT

To John Newman, Peter Dale Scott, and Galbraith--and particularly to John, with whom I spent so many hours on his Vietnam manuscript (which was originally a Ph.D. thesis at George Washington); and who permitted me to blurb for him, on the back of the 1992 original hardcover edition (fellow blurb authors were Oliver Stone, Colby, and Scott): John basically did ground breaking work in unearthing a war conspiracy. My eyes were opened to the Vietnam situation--around 1967--by using the New York TImes Index, and seeing, right there in the public record, how the war had been methodically escalated starting about a month after Johnson's inauguration. Presently, this is all "old hat," but at the time, it was amazing. Then, of course, came the Pentagon Papers, in June 1971. As far as I'm concerned, the next stop on this train of disclosures was John Newman's book in 1992. Now let's turn to Ken Burns. . . : I am reasonably familiar with Ken Burns, having had a multi-hour meeting with him in March 2007. The subject (of course) was the Kennedy assassination, and at issue was what role, if any, Burns might play in a making a movie using material from Best Evidence, both the book, and the already-existing documentary footage. What a disappointment. From personal experience, I can attest that Burns is completely contemptuous of conspiracy theories in the case of the Kennedy assassination. He is (or at least "was.," at the time I met with him) a nasty, biased, arrogant, sarcastic lone nutter. Given his attitude, i find it difficult to believe that he will meaningfully engage, in any way, on the debate about a post-assassination policy reversal in the area of Vietnam; yet that, at heart, is what the 60's was all about; and that is what is historically important. Can any of us who study this area ever forget the pioneering work of Peter Dale Scott, and how he pieced together the genesis of policy reversal, within days of Kennedy's murder, from un-redacted sections of other documents? Ken Burns is not a radical. He sticks to what is safe, but "interesting." His film about the the Brooklyn Bridge is a good example. On that score, you can expect plenty of carefully crafted emotion about Vietnam (a great "tragedy" I'm sure he will intone), but little of substance when it comes to "policy reversal." If Ken Burns could get funding for a film about vanilla ice cream, I'm sure he would make a multi-part documentary about that too. Consequently--and now addressing Peter Dale Scott, and James Galbraith,and John Newman, all of whom did pioneering writing in this area: do not expect to be interviewed at all-much less meaningfully interviewed--by this particular film maker. Its just not going to happen. (And should that suddenly materialize, in some much-delayed fashion, be on guard about how the result is edited). For further information, contact me at "dsl74@cornell.edu DSL 4/3/2017; 3:50 a.m PDT Los Angeles, California

Paul: Please email me at DSL74@Cornell.edu I have a question. Thanks. DSL

Michael: The quote is indeed an important one; the problem is the context. When time permits, I'll answer in greater detail. But here is the nub of the matter. The ARRB interview of Robinson was conducted in 1996 (plus or minus). By that time, Best Evidence had been published multiple times--originally in 1981 then again in 1982 (paperback); then with the autopsy photos, in full "trade paper" size (1988, Carrol and Graf) ;and finally (and again), in 1993, again with the autopsy photographs. It is implausible to believe that Tom Robinson did not read--and read closely--Best Evidence. It was therefor incumbent on any legal investigation which questioned him (and he is one of two examples of this) not to ask Robinson (a) whether he read the book; (b) his reaction to the book; and (c ) whether he had any theories of his own. This was not done. The result: Robinson was permitted to espouse his "theory" without any questioning--without any cross-examination. The result is a mess, in which we have a conflation of his original recollections and the memories he had (as a genuine witness) plus what he said in an ARRB telephone interview over three decades later. Not properly questioning Robinson properly is the fault of the ARRB. It opened the door to a witness polluting the record with an assassination theory. If you go back to Robinson's original HSCA Interview (back in 1976, prior to the original publication of my book), you will find quite a rather different record. At that time, he was interviewed, in person (not on the telephone, which is really amateurish) by HSCA Attorney Andrew Purdy. If you read that (HSCA) interview carefully, you will discover two things: #1: Robinson told Purdy, who questioned him carefully, that there was no back wound--let me repeat that: no back wound. Purdy asked him, more than once,as I recall, whether there was any wound on the back, which he (Purdy) defined in the area above the waist, and below the head. Robinson answered in the negative. FWIW: This questioning should have been reviewed by the ARRB, carefully, and under oath, because of its implications--i.e., no back wound, consistent with the Parkland hospital record. But none of that was done. #2: The transcript created by the HSCA (circa 1976 or 1977) happens to be incorrect. Something I discovered years later, by carefully listening to the audio tape of that interview, when it was released sometime in the 1990s. Words and/or phrases were left out, and so (when read superficially) the false transcript gives the impression that the interviewee (Robinson) was saying that the body was removed from the Bethesda morgue, and then returned--both events witnessed by him (!). That is false. No such event happened. More importantlly: That's not what Robinson said. At all. All it took to avoid that error, and to remedy that situation was to listen to the audio tape of that HSCA inteview, and correct the transcript. To repeat: Years later, I did exactly that. Doing so, I immediately discovered the error,and transcribed that part correctly. The ARRB did not, and so Doug Horne advanced a false thesis, based on an incorrect transcript, that Robinson had witnessed something mysterious; i.e., that he had said the body was removed from the morgue (in his presence) and then returned again (!). To repeat: as if he had witnessed something truly mysterious. Robinson said no such thing. That surmise was false and was a completely avoidable error/ But the ARRB (that is, Horne and Gunn, in questioning Robinson) did not properly review (and correct) the HSCA transcript. Had they done so, that incorrect surmise would not have arisen. That was a poor performance for the ARRB, whose major purpose was to "clarify the record." Instead, and because of that inadequate questioning, they clouded the record. The combination of an incorrect transcript and the failure to question the witness properly--exploring whether the implications of his having read Best Evidence (which by that time had been in print for about 17 years, and in four editions)--led to the confused record that now exists. The resultant ARRB record is, imho, a confusing combination of the witnesses original recollections, and his own hypothesis. I'll have more to say about this, because something very similar happened with another witness--X-Ray tech Ed Reed--and the combination of Ed Reed and Robinson has led to a confusing mess in which the legal record contains, instead of the unvarnished record of the witnesses' recollections, those important recollections, but also the witnesses theories about lhe autopsy. That would not have happened if proper procedures had been followed. DSL 2/11/2017 - 4:05 p.m. PST Los ANgeles, California

Micah: There's important missing history of which you are unaware, and which establishes that Dr. Perry's quote (from the 1990's JAMA article) can be set aside (to put it mildly). What I will now set forth concerns what happened when Robert Groden and a reporter from a Baltimore newspaper visited Dr. Perry in his office in New York City (in the period 1977-78) when Groden was on the staff of the HSCA, and had access to certain prints of the autopsy photos. Let's begin with my filmed interview of Robert Groden, conducted at his home in Hopelawn, New Jersey in June or July of 1989, a two-night multihour interview. This interview was filmed, professionally, and Pat Valentino was present, and in charge of the sound. When we interviewed Robert Groden at that time, Robert described, in detail, what happened when he (and a Baltimore news reporter) visited Dr. Malcolm Perry at his New York City office (Perry was then practicing medicine in NYC). Robert Groden was then employed on the staff of the HSCA; and he went to see Perry in New York, the main purpose being get his reaction to see the "stare of death" photo. Groden showed Dr. Perry the photo--the first time Perry had ever seen it--and Perry shook his head from side to side, and said, referring to the trach incision he had made: "I left the wound inviolate." Let me repeat what Perry said: "I left the wound inviolate." Now. . .what did he mean by "inviolate"? And how could that be, since he had testified he made his incision through the wound? Perry was referring to the fact that--based on his unvarnished memory--he had made the incision below the wound. (FYI: This is what Perry had told writer Jimmy Breslin on 11/22/63, and which Breslin then published in the detailed article he wrote, and which was published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Sunday, 11/24/63. FYI: that identical interview was then published (again) in the Saturday Evening Post in early December, 1963 (referring now to the article titled "Death in Emergency Room One" --from memory). Now let's turn to the word "inviolate" and set aside whether this was the first time he had used that word, in connection with describing the throat wound, and how he believed he had left it. When Robert related this, I turned to Pat Valentino and said, "Oh no, Perry is wrong. The transcript from his 1966 CBS interview says "invalid", so Perry must be mistaken". (And in fact, the official CBS transcript does in fact use the word "invalid"). But then came this stunner. Groden happened to have, right there in his residence, an excellent copy of that 1966 CBS interview, and so he played t for us. Naturally, I expected to hear Perry say (just as the transcript quoted him as having said) "invalid." But no, that's not what Perry said. Perry clearly said "inviolate" ! What the heck? Had the transcript been fiddled with? (You betcha!) Pat and I both rose up out of our chairs, astonished. (Groden didn't understand our reaction, because--in the interest of an unbiased interview--we hadn't (yet) told him any of this backstory. But there it was, right there on the screen: Perry had said "I left the wound inviolate" (on screen); and he had told Groden (and the accompanying reporter, at his NYC office), the same thing; he said that he had left the wound "inviolate." Following this, Pat and I then brought Groden completely up-to-date, filling him in on these details, and we did all of this "on camera," to get his reaction as we talked, and we then interviewed him further about his experiences in New York City, and at Perry's office--all about his certainty that yes, there was no doubt about itL in his New York City office, and while looking at the autopsy photo, Perry had said "inviolate." It was a wonderful filmed interview at a time when I had few of the problems with Groden, that later bloomed (and are described in Pig on a Leash, 2003). Now, here's some additional follow-up: ITEM #1: Pat and I (and Groden) --the very next day--then went to a Philadelphia audio lab, with Groden's excellent copy of the filmed interview, and did some precise slowed-up copying to see if we could detect how the world "inviolate" had become "invalid." All I can say is that there was plenty of circumstantial audio evidence of digital hanky-panky. (That work should be repeated, with today's better digitial technology). ITEM #2: Upon returning to Los Angeles, I located the Baltimore reporter who accompanied Groden to Perry's NYC office, and spoke with him by phone. He confirmed that Perry had shook his head from side to side, and made clear that the photograph he was looking was not the way he had left the wound. ITEM #3: Dr. Perry, in a 1988 interview with PBS, tried to demean, and make fun of, me, and the conversation he had had with me in October 1966. Sorry, but that won't work: On October 27, 1966, he told me that the wound was "2-3 cm." And I wrote it down as he said it. ITEM $4: I deeply regret, after all of this, having to state that I completely forgot to develop this into a "research package" and send it to Jeremy Gunn on the ARRB. At the time, I was working very closely with the ARRB, and with Doug Horne, speaking to Horne multiple times per week (and recording all of our conversations, with full permission) and speaking with Gunn, too. I just plain forget about what happened six years before, in 1989. But this would have been a perfect example of using the ARRB's subpoena powers to "clarify the record", which was their mandate. Perry should have been put under oath, and --on this subject--depositions should have been taken from both Groden, and the Baltimore reporter. To round out the record, I would have been glad to contribute the 1989 filmed interview with Groden, in which he related, in vivid terms, Perry's reaction to first seeing the "stare of death" autopsy photo, and his saying: "I left the wound inviolate." ITEM #5: My personal opinion of Dr. Perry: he lied. Its as simple as that. Sure, he told the truth on 11/22/63, and yes, he complained about being badgered about changing his opionion, etc. ; but there was no need for all of that in 1967. A man of integrity would have told the truth. Instead, we have the record of Dr. Perry not only going along with an altered transcript; but then, decades later (and you can find this on the Internet) telling he doctors with whom he worked, in Seattle, (and after swearing this one and that one to secrecy), that of course the wound at the front of the throat was an entry. * * * Micah: I hope you now realize that what Dr. Perry said, in a 1990s JAMA article, should be viewed skeptically, to say the least; and in my personal opinion, it is basically worthless. DSL 2/10/2017 - 6:45 PM PST Los Angeles, California

Alistair Briggs: Thanks much for the time and effort you put into your post, and the fact that you obviously paid close attention to Chapter 14 of B.E., and in particular, my Figure 26, which is titled "Case Against Oswald Viewed as a Triangle." That's a critically important diagram, and if one compares what happened on 11/22/63 to a "screenplay," that's the schematic explaining the structure of the screenplay. There's a myriad of details one can discuss and debate, but that diagram encapsulates (and displays) the structure. Although B.E. was largely written between 1977 and April 1980, the thinking (and analysis) expressed in Chapter 14, and displayed in that diagram, reflects my thinking as of December 1966, about two months after I discovered the evidence of body alteration (10/23/66), and about a month after Liebeler sent out his 11/8/66 memo to Chief Justice Warren and the rest of the WC legal staff (transmitted on 11/16/66, via a letter available at the Ford Library). The bottom line: if my analysis is correct, then on 11/22/63 and in the days immediately following, the country was the target of a major strategic deception that lay behind the transition of power from Kennedy to Johnson. That triangle is a pictorial representation--in effect, a blueprint--of the fabrication of the false (Oswald-did-it) narrative, that lay at the heart of that deception. Your post tells me that you have given serious thought to how this deception might have been synthesized, and how its "moving parts" might have worked. Good, that's exactly why I wrote Chapter 14. FWIW, and if I can take you back to the period Oct-Nov-December 1966: In the first couple of weeks, I was simply horrified and disgusted at what appeared to have happened to JFK's body (and I tried to capture all of that in my narrative). Then came a few weeks intensely devoted to the details (See Chapters 11, 12, 13, 18 etc.)) Then came a lot of questioning and cogitation, and attempting to answer the question(s): "What the heck is going on here? What does all of this mean?" During that period, I had a number of discussions with Professor Liebeler, but also with his top law student (and the person who later became his wife), Susan Liebeler. In the very beginning, I failed to appreciate the full extent of what I had discovered, and thought of body alteration was akin to some sort of "magic trick" by which clever plotters had concealed the "second assassin" (e.g., the one on the knoll). But these early conversations with Prof. Liebeler, and Susan W. set me straight, and made me realize the full extent of the corruption--the systemic (political and "legal") corruption--with which I was dealing. A key phrase--and a key concept---was the notion of "fraud in the evidence"; and that, to some extent, was a jumping off point to a wider concept: strategic deception. But. . .to what end? Answer: To promote a false narrative, one which would facilitate the smooth operation of the presidential line of succession. I remember one conversation where one (or both) of them said to me: "Don't you 'get it'? This isn't about a 'second assassin'!" Well, at the very beginning, I didn't get it. But it wasn't too long before (finally) I "got it." Today, in 2017, there are still people who come to the Kennedy case sort of like a weekend hobby, and think they will find some error or glitch in the Warren Report, that will prove there was a "second assassin." Then they can go back to work on Monday morning, and feel they have accomplished something. I think the reason Bugliosi was so furious with Best Evidence (and with me) is that it challenged the underpinnings of his entire professional career. Everything he had learned in law school was at stake; if my analysis was correct, what he had learned had proved useless (in finding the truth) and the country had been deceived by the falsification of the "best evidence": a false autopsy, a planted murder weapon, some bullet fragments--do all that with some verisimilitude, and you can change the occupant of the Oval Office. Again, thanks for paying attention to the diagram --Figure 26 (in Chapter 14). I'll be having a lot more to say about all of that in Final Charade. DSL 2/10/17 - 5:55 p.m. PST Los Angeles, California

RESPONSE: No, not at all. I stand by what I wrote in Chapter 11 of Best Evidence, titled: "The Tracheotomy Incision: Dallas vs Bethesda." As reported there, when I spoke with Dr. Perry on 10/27/66, he told me that the incision he made was "2- 3 cm." The autopsy description of the same defect was "6.5 cm" and Humes sworn testimony was "7 - 8 cm." Furthermore, the autopsy described the "wound" (or defect, or whatever you wish to designate it) as having "widely gaping irregular edges," whereas one doctor after another (as described in Chapter 11, were surprised by my even questioning them on the wound edges and told me that they were "smooth" (of course, some added) because it was made with a knife. It should be evident that there was a " 'before' and 'after' " situation on the so-called "incision." What introduces significant confusion is the Bethesda doctors' claim that they didn't know that damage was done "over" a bullet wound. That's the highly debatable point. As I will spell out in Final Charade, Humes knew very well that the throat wound had been altered, from what it was in Dallas, and--because of that knowledge (and possibly because of his direct participation in the coverup)--was more complicit than I had imagined when I wrote Best Evidence. Those reading these posts and debating these matters should keep something else in mind: All of this was way above "Humes' 'pay grade.'" So if he were instructed that there were international political considerations at stake, and he was to say (or write) such-and-so, and that that was the equivalent of an order, he would have said "yes, sir" and followed orders. He was in no position to question orders delivered to him "under the color of authority"--whether the source was the White House, or Attorney General Robert Kennedy, or Sec Def McNamara (the latter two then situated on the 17th floor of Bethesda). Also, and this, too, is important: I spoke with Humes four times--twice in November 1966, and then two more times--once by phone, and another time at the HSCA hearings, when I was at the microphone covering the HSCA heariing for WETA, the Washington, D.C. PBS affiliated. Without doubt, the most dramatic encounter encountered were my two calls to him on 11/2 and 11/3, 1966, as described in Chapter 8 of Best Evidence. I was not writing a book at the time. I was simply calling in the spirit of a UCLA graduate student attempting to follow-up on my recent discovery of the lines in the Sibert and O'Neill FBI report that when the body was unwraped at Bethesda, it was "apparent" that there had been "surgery of the head area, namely, in the top of the skull." Humes was clearly astonished that (a) there was any such report and (b) at the passage I was reading to him. My whole purpose, at that moment, was to tread carefully so that he wouldn't simply hang up on me and terminate the conversation. So, attempting to depressurize the situation, I asked, as innocently as possible, if it was not the case that anything had been done to the body (such as the removal of a bullet, much less the alteration of any wounds). . . if he would have brought it to the attention of the Warren Commission. "I would certainly hope I would," he said, and then I started to speak (but immediately stopped, as I realized he was continuing) and he said: "I'd like to know by whom it was done (pause) and when (pause) and where!". There was no question in my mind, when I listened to Humes--in real time--that I had "made contact", and that he knew exactly what I was talking about. One has to hear this tape to make a judgment about Humes demeanor. I will attempt to get that recording digitized and posted on the net. Simply reading the words, on the page, does not convey the emotional quality, and the effect that conversation had on me, at the time. Today, i realize that Humes is much more complicit than I had originally believed, when I wrote Best Evidence. But by "complicit" I am referring (more or less) to his state of knowledge, and to certain things that he did "after the fact"; i.e., his aweness of multiple coffin arrivals; his involvement in getting the FBI agents to leave the morgue "early" by announcing autopsy conclusions that were incorrect, etc. And, just for the record, I certainly do not believe that Humes performed any surgery --i.e., pre-autopsy surgery--on the president's head. (He was complicit, however, in "sewing up" the "trach incision" in the throat area. Will explain in detail in Final Charade. Based on evidence discovered in January, 2014). The President's body arrived already messed up, and with no brain inside the cranium. Just watch the B.E. Research Video and see Paul O'Connor's account, which I filmed in October 1980, for yourself. The late Jerrol Custer, the X-ray tech, practically corroborated O'Connor when he described--both on the phone (1979)and then again on camera (October 1980) that "I could stick both my hands inside the cranium" (from memory). Furthermore, there is one other stunning piece of corroboration, and I'll get into this, in detail, in Final Charade, and concerns FBI Agent Francis O'Neill. FBI Agent Francis O'Neill --back in 1992--privately told a good friend of his that the cranium was empty. He said this more than once, and insisted on that being true. Then someone clued him in that that would provide major support for B.E., and my work, and he didn't like me (or that idea) at all. And so O'Neill then changed his story, equivocated, and said things like "Well, maybe there was half a brain." (See His ARRB testimony, September 1997). Sorry Charlie (as the saying goes), but the cranium was empty (as Paul O'Connor told the HSCA in 1977, and me in August 1979, and then again --on camera--in October 1980); and FBI Agent Francis O'Neill said the same thing, when queried by a close friend, who conveyed all of this to me, in 1992. Gotta run. DSL 2/10/2017 - 3:30 A.M. PST Los Angeles, California

Ray: You are correct, and if these reports--and their authors--had integrity, the time sequence you have cited would be of considerable importance. BUT. . . . . : The "but" is (unfortunately) that some of the Secret Service officials were complicit --at the very least in the coverup of the President's assassination, and, very possibly, in aiding and abetting in the execution of the crime itself. Once the single bullet theory became a legal and historical necessity, the reports of two agents--Glenn Bennet and George Hickey--were crafted so as to provide legal support for the (final) and supposedly "official" version of the autopsy. Bennet's report states, as you note, that he saw the shot strike 4" down from the right shoulder (even though, in B.E., I noted, and published a photograph, showing that Bennet was looking off to the right). The Hickey report states --what I have always viewed as a "companion" false report--states that he "saw"a shot strike the top right hand side of the head (the "high" position, depicted in the autopsy photographs). IMHO: The whole thing is a scam and a sham. Notably, neither SS agent was called to testify. Nor was either agent interviewed by the FBI. And instead, when some on the WC legal staff grew suspicious, there was a May 1964 communication between the WC and SS Chief Rowley saying, in effect, "And here are Glenn Bennet's handwritten notes proving that he was not lying because he wrote this on November 22. .. etc. ; Is there anything else you'd like to see?" That's the sort of sophomoric investigation we had. What was needed, of course, was a smart Special Prosecutor, but that was 1964, and there wasn't a chance of anything like that coming to pass. DSL 2/9/2017; 6:10 p.m. Los Angeles, California

Sandy, You are completely correct, and I don't want there to be any misunderstanding. If you will look in Best Evidence (under the "low/high" conflict, when it appears in chapter 5, 6 and 7) I address this entire situation, which is indeed confusing. Yes, the original plan (apparently) --and this is "IMHO"--was to create a shallow hole in the back, and "pair it" with a bullet placed on a stretcher. That "pairing" of stretcher bullet and shallow back wound is exactly the way the original FBI Summary Report (the one dated Dec 9, 1963) is written. But then,as events unfolded, two additional factors entered the picture, and had to be accounted for. They were: #1:THE THROAT WOUND It became known that the throat wound, originally (and mistakenly) perceived to be "only" a trach incision (and nothing more) was not that at all. Rather, it was a made over a small bullet wound; and further, once that situation was recognized, that bullet wound had to be accounted for. #2: THE TIME FACTOR At some point in time (and I believe it was likely 11/25 or shortly thereafter), it became clear that Kennedy and Connally were struck in less time that it took to fire the (prop) rifle twice (what I called the "42 frame constraint", in my "Case for 3 Asassins", written in July 1966, but published in Ramparts in Jan 1967); and so either an "additional shot" would have to be added to the "official explanation", or a pre-existing bullet strike would have to be said to have transited, so it could be the missile that struck JC. Of course, there was also the Tague bullet that to be accoiunted for. Yes, all of this is complicated, but I discussed it, in detail, in chapters 5 through 7. Again, to repeat the major point: the bullet placed on the stretcher was (originally) to be "paired" with a shallow wound, and certainly the Single Bullet Theory did not emerge as the important necessity it turned out to be, until some days later. Meanwhile, a legal record had already been created establishing that that hole was "low." So that's when the lies started as to exactly where that "back/neck" wound was actually located. Hope this helps. DSL 2/9/17 -5:55 p.m. PST Los Angeles, CA

Re your quote: "As one who has been heavily involved in Weirdness himself. . . " Could you be more specific? What "weirdness" have you been "heavily involved in"? DSL

QUOTING DVP, QUOTE ON: Well, David Lifton, I think about the only thing a reasonable person needs to do in order to come to a firm conclusion that your theory is utter hogwash (not to mention impossible) is to read the following portion of this post of yours: "The plan, from the outset, was to murder the president, and then alter his body to change the story of how he died. If one has control of the body (immediately) after the shooting, one then is in a position to change the story of how he died, i.e., to fabricate a false "solution" to the crime." -- David Lifton; Feb. 6, 2017 The key words written by David L. above are these words: "The plan, from the outset, was to...alter his body." UNQUOTE DSL RESPONSE: Yes, that was the plan. It didn't work out exactly as planned, but I stand behind every word I wrote. One other point, regarding your commentary: "Maybe we should all take a step back and just think about the above comment for a few moments. It shouldn't take very long, though, for any sensible person to fully appreciate just how ridiculous and far-out and nonsensical and impossible and downright crazy that comment by David S. Lifton truly is." DVP: I'm sorry to tell you the bad news, but your indiscriminate invoking of various adjectives will not save you from the logical consequences of the evidence. DSL, 2/9/17; 11:40 a.m. Los Angeles, Califoprnia

The question you are posing sounds perfectly reasonable, at first; but if you take a closer look--and put yourself in the shoes of the plotters, whose intention was not just to kill the President, but--in addition--to *also* (and by "also" I mean "simultaneously) manufacture a false story of how he died--the problem(s) with what you are suggesting become manifest. Maybe it was my training in math, and my general exposure to systems engineering that brought this problem into focus, but its almost self evident: if one shoots from the back, then that will co-mingle two locations which (by design) one wants to be entirely separate: (A) The true source of the shots and (B) the location for the theatrical episode which is to be the foundation for the false narrative, which --in screenplay form--might as well be titled "The Man in the Building Who Shot the Man in the Car." Can you imagine what would happen if you have an unwitting patsy in the building (a patsy you want to see "dead" asap) but also in the building (e.g., perhaps on a different floor) the actual assassin(s)? And then police --perhaps police who are completely innocent--start rushing to that location? That really could lead to an out-of-control mess, with (innocent) police arresting the real assassins, and so forth. For a better, more carefully stated explanation, I refer to Chapter 14 of Best Evidence. Also, and completely aside from these "theoretical" considerations, I can't overemphasize the fact that no one in the original 1963/64 medical records (i.e., from Parkland Hospital) saw any entry wound on the back of the body. The first report that such existed is in the December 12, 1963 report by Dallas Times Herald science writer Bill Burrus. That's the first supposedly "authoritative" account--from Dallas--that reported that JFK was struck from the rear (by a missile that exited at the front of the throat). FYI: I was able to contact Burrus in 1978 (in New York City, see B.E. p 156)), met him in a NYC bar, buy him a few beers, and talk to him for several hours (with a tape recorder between the two of us); and will give a complete report of that in Final Charade. Bottom line: Burrus was contacted the night before--i.e., late in the evening of 12/11/63--by a certain VIP, who slowly and carefully provided him with the autopsy conclusion regarding the non-fatal shot, emphasizing that it entered high on the back of the right thorax, transited the neck (back to front), emerged (undamaged, by implication) at the throat, etc etc. --in other words, although Burrus was unaware of it, he was being given a preview of the Single Bullet Theory. He then carefully wrote the story, called back the VIP (to make sure he had every detail right) and then it was published in the Dallas Times Herald (page 1) the next day. It was not carried on the wire (AP), because the persnickity wire service official wanted confirmation as to the source, and Burrus--to hide the VIP's identity --intended to (and did) "false source" the story as if it came from a "Bethesda pathologist" (but it did not). All of this was the beginning of the "PR push" for the Single Bullet Theory, and this backstory will be described, in detail, in Final Charade. I don't believe anybody can become acquainted with all of this and still credibly maintain a belief that Kennedy was shot in the back. (Based on what. . . the "clothing holes"?) The whole thing is a fabrication. Again: IMHO. Returning now to your original question: I don't mean to diminish its importance. In fact, it was one of the most difficult questions that I confronted, on my book tour, because, quite frankly, it zeros in on a factor that is counter-intuitive, and difficult to explain, say, in the 30 sec or 1 min typically available on a radio talk show. FWIW: I am proud to recall that in the weeks or months after the publication of B.E., this "counter-intuitive" proposition was the subject of a New York Times Quiz question (I must retrieve that item, frame it, and put it in near my work place). And BTW:Many important propositions in life are counter-intuitive--whether its couples who seem to disagree on everything, but end up in 30 year marriages, or watching a physics professor stand on a piano stool, arms outstretched (and with weights in each hand) and as he brings them to his chest (and especially if he does so rapidly) he starts spinning on the piano stool. (Conservation of angular momentum). I don't expect DVP to appreciate any of that--I'm not even sure he believes in evolution--but rest assured that "trajectory reversal" (spelled out in Chapter 14 of B.E.) is far less radical than many of the revelations of modern biology, or the wave-particle duality in physics. DSL 2/09/2017; 11:30 a.m. PST Los Angeles, California

John: (1) It was an Air Force "Colonel"; (2 ) It was just a story--there was never any body. This story was told to me in October 1980, by James Jenkins, when I interviewed him (on camera). The purpose of this (false) story was to "explain" the Dallas coffin, which was sitting in the ante-room at Bethesda. There is a wonderful moment, on amera, when I tell Jenkins that there was no "AF Colonel" and that that was simly a story to account for the Dallas Coffin. For reasons I will never understand, this story was changed and elaborated upon by Harrison Livingstone. By tbetime Livingstone got finished with his "modification," there really was a body in there, the lid was raised and this or that person saw it, etc. For any serious analysis, I would advice to simply stick with the story as originally related to me (n October 1980); and skip any elaboration developed by Livingtone. D DSL 2/6/17 - 4:05 a.m. PST Los Angels, California

David: You are one of those who has a completely incorrect model of conspiracy, and is destined to end up in the dustbin of history. Thanks for archiving all the material you have collected, but your analysis leaves much to be desired. If there was an Internet back in 1859, when Origin of the Species was published, you would have been one of those with a massive website arguing against evolution, and saying. . "Just look at all these dogs and cats that I have collected. . . and what about the apes and all the other animals in the zoo! You mean to tell me that all of this is somehow connected! That all these different species came about naturally! That's ridiculous! Darwin is nothing but a kook! All of this was created in about 7 days, and if you don't believe me, go to my Website, "Darwin Sucks.com" DSL

I have heard this argument from others--its what I call the "1967 argument' because it goes back to the time when the be-all and end-all of JFK assassination research was to prove that there was a cover-up; i.e., an "after-the-fact" coverup. But, as I explained in my November 2013 Bismarck lecture (just Google, David Lifton Bismarck), this was a body-centric plot. The plan, from the outset, was to murder the president, and then alter his body to change the story of how he died. If one has control of the body (immediately) after the shooting, one then is in a position to change the story of how he died, i.e., to fabricate a false "solution" to the crime. Those who persist of thinking of this in the old (1967) paradigm --i.e., that of an "after-the-fact coverup--are attempting to put a square peg in a round hole. They completely miss the significance of a modus operandi in which it was planned--as an integral part of the crime--to shoot the President and then alter the body soon afterwards (so as to implicate Oswald as "the assassin")/ The shooting--followed by the alteration--were two facets of the same integrated covert operation. The late Sylvia Meagher--who thought of everything (after the shooting) was part of an ad hoc after-the -fact cover-up--fell victim to this kind of mistaken thinking. Another researcher expressed it this way, back in 1993: QUOTE: The real problem with, I think, with David [Lifton's] thesis is that altering evidence is [that it is] an enormously dangerous thing to get into. It is especially dangerous to get into before you know (now laughs) exactly what you have to have. . .. At this point in time ([and] the point in time we’re talking about are the hours say, between 4 P.M. on that Friday, the 22nd, and midnight of the 22nd. At that time, you simply do not know enough as to what your altered evidence is supposed to show." UNQUOTE This is completely incorrect reasoning, because the evidence is clear--whether one looks at the DPD radio transmissions or what happened with the body (and how fast it happened)--that the plan, from the outset, was to shoot the president, and then create the false appearance as to how he died; i.e., that "a man in the building shot a man in the car." The "man in the building," of course, was Oswald, the pre-selected patsy; and yes, he had to be pre-positioned in the building for any of this to work. But stepping back and taking a "longer" view: To argue that there was no "pre-11/22 design" of this crime, and that the false result (the consequence f a far-reaching cover-up) was all assembled "on the fly," after the shots were fired" is to seriously misunderstand what happened in Dallas, and to seriously misinterpret the chronology of events. Why? Because, by positing that approach, one is tied to a completely incorrect model of conspiracy. Is there any serious student of this case (i.e., of this crime) who really believes that the planning of this murder began (and ended) with the shooting? That after the last shot was fired, the "CEO" of this operation, in effect said, "Well done, boys, we succeeded. We can all go home now!" That is not just inadequate, it is ridiculous--a sophomoric way of looking at this crime (i.e., everything is part of "the cover-up" from J. Edgar Hoover to Gerald Posner!). As I said in my book, Best Evidence (1981), and in numerous lectures in the years following, "my book (or "my work") is not about who put the bullets into the president's body, but who took them out." Those who have studied some modicum of math should have no problem "inverting" the traditional statement of the crime, and viewing it in that fashion. Those who persist in viewing bullet removal and wound alteration--i.e., deliberate autopsy falsification--as something that was dreamed up "afterwards" --perhaps by the hypothetical CEO I mentioned above, who then said, after he told his associates to disband and "go home", "Ooops! I forgot! There are bullets in the body! And those bullet wounds. . OMG. . what am I gonna do about that? I forgot all about that when I/we planned this shooting! But those wounds. . . they may not jibe with that sniper's nest we put at the Sixth Floor window. . OMG! What am I gonna do now?!" Etc. Anyone who persists in viewing the JFK murder in that fashion is destined to waste their time attempting to meaningfully interpret the evidence, because they have a completely incorrect model of the conspiracy that took President Kennedy's life. First of all, they have a substantially incorrect time-line and consequently fail to properly distinguish what was "before the fact" from that which was "after the fact." Second: those who persist with this incorrect model of conspiracy lose the ability to recognize when unexpected events occurred, resulting in genuine ad hoc improvisation (but that is another story, and one which is dealt with quite comprehensively in Final Charade). DSL 2/5/17 - 12:02 a.m. PST Los Angeles, California

Hello Micah Mileto: Thanks for starting this thread. I'd like to debate more, but there's so much writing and "work to be done' that I have no time. Again, many thanks. DSL

I have not visited the London Forum in quite some time, and I see --Pat Speer--that not much has changed. This post is a good example. "I studied the case full-time from 2004 - 2006 or so. . " you inform us; well, that says something, or should. Then you state: "While much has been made of the large size of the trach incision, from studying old textbooks I came to realize that there was nothing that surprising about the size of the trach incision." "Nothing that surprising"? Really! How selective we are, when the need arises. Buried in all the erudition that you cite is what you fail to mention. So. . for those who wish to be informed, here are the basic facts. (All of this is "elementary" but I'll state it here, from memory). 1. I interviewed Dr. Malcolm Perry on October 27, 1966. I was a student in Prof. Liebeler's UCLA Law class on the Warren Commission, and told him exactly that--that the course title was "Legal Problems in Areas of National Security." I said I was assigned a paper, the purpose of which was to get the flavor of what "fact finding" was all about, and my topic was the length of the tracheotomy incision. Perry was perfectly polite, and answered without hesitation. The incision he made, he said, was "2- 3 cm." Of course, I knew, before I made this phone call, that the Bethesda autopsy reported the incision as being 6.5 cm; and that when Commander Humes, the autopsy surgeon, testified, he said it was "7 - 8 cm." That's in his testimony. Look it up. 2. So, upon hearing Perry respond "2-3 cm" I raised the ante a bit, and asked Perry is it might be 4 cm. As I write this, I don't recall his exact response, but he doubted it. Then, whatever Perry's answer was, I then raised the ante again, asking if it perhaps was 5 cm. With each increase, Perry grew more uncomfortable, and concerned, explaining that it wasn't necessary to make an incision that large etc. 3. It was obvious to me that the incision that Dr. Perry recalled making was considerably smaller than the one reported in the autopsy, and certainly much smaller, by at least 50%, than the one to which Humes testified. The story of my Perry phone call is laid out in detail, in Chapter 11 of Best Evidence, titled: "The Tracheotomy Incision: Dallas vs. Bethesda." 4. Immediately after the call, I realized it had historical significance, and that the only record I had was my own memory and notes. I promptly went out and purchased a reel-to-reel tape recorder, resolving that henceforth, I would always tape such calls. 5. Over the following weeks, I studied the record closely, and began calling the other doctors. One of the more important phone calls was with Dr James Carrico, the first to treat Kennedy upon his arrival at ER-1, and the physician who inserted the endotracheal tube. So he saw the wound, before any cutting had been done, and before any tube --with its flange--had been inserted. Without hesitation, and without any prompting from me, Carrico provided a response that was identical to what Perry had said: "2 - 3 cm." 6. Sometime during the course of these interviews, I became aware of another important medico-legal indicia: the edges of the incision. The Bethesda autopsy reported that defect as having "widely gaping irregular edges." Once I was aware of that, I added that question to my repertoire, and one doctor after another responded by saying the edges were "smooth" (and one said "Smooth, of course"). 7. Another indicia of alteration concerns the question of whether the original bullet hole was visible, along the edges of the so-called "trach incision" at the time of autopsy. Renowned medico-legal expert Dr. Milton Helpern said, in his book Where Death Delights, that it ought to have been. But Dr. Finck testified at the Shaw trial in New Orleans that it was not: "I examined this surgical wound. . and I did not see the small wound described by the Dalas surgeons along that surgial incisio., I did not see it." And: "I don't know why it is not there." (Best Evidence, p. 278, original hardcover or Carrol & Graf edition). All of this is discussed at length, and in detail, in Chapter 11 of Best Evidence--which was published in January 1981, was republished by three more publishers, and was in print for 17 years. (And yes, I'm planning another edition. Details not yet finalized). But . . lo and behold. . along comes Pat Speer, in December 2016, over fifty years after I made these calls, and purports to define for us what is (supposedly) important. He informs us that he has looked up a bunch of books about tracheotomy incisions, and finds some contrary data. But . . so what? The issue is not what Pat Speer can dig up in some book: the issue is whether the tracheotomy incision changed between Dallas (at Parkland) and Bethesda (at the morgue). That's the important issue. And, of course, had a photograph been taken of Dr. Perry's incision (and one was not of course taken), then the difference between Dallas and Bethesda would be immediately apparent, there would be no debate; it would be a fact, and the issue would be: What happened to the body? Of course, if Speer was around to deal with such an eventuality, he would probably come up with some excuse to explain that, as well. Based on the head wound "before" and "after" data (See Chapter 13 of Best Evidence; the neck wound data (Chapter 11) and the words spoken at the time of autopsy (Chapter 12), by Humes (that it was "apparent" that there had been "surgery of the head area, namely, in the top of the skull"), plus the clear evidence of covert interception of the body (i.e., the body arriving at Bethesda in a shipping casket, a good 20 minutes before the Dallas coffin arrived with Mrs. Kennedy and Bobby), it seems clear that the body was covertly intercepted and altered. Medical facts were changed. The story of how Kennedy died was changed. Some of the details can be debated, but that basic fact cannot. Its stlll there, i the legal and historical record, that the body looked one way in Dallas; and another in Bethesda. That's what Best Evidence was (and still is) all about. What must be done to persuade you of this data, Pat Speer? Must I send flowers? DSL Los Angeles, California 12/7/16 - 3:17 a.m. PST

I just want to stress again that I started this post not to take sides, but because I opened the Wall Street Journal last Friday, turned to the Op Ed Page (wondering what they might be saying about Trump) and there was an editorial on the case of John McAdams (and the situation with Cheryl Abbate); and I thought it would be of interest to those who read the London Education Forum. Yes, the WSJ boiled the whole thing down to a free speech issue. Obviously, it is more complicated than that, and so it will be interesting to see how the courts rule. Also, I read DiEugenio's article in Consorium (referenced in Post #17 on this thread) and it contained a lot of detailed information of which I was unaware. As far as Ward Churchill is concerned, my personal reaction-- to his referring to those working at the World Trade Center as "little Eichmans" (referring to technocrats working in an evil system, the implication being that perhaps they deserved to die, etc.)--is that his analogy was completely inappropriate, disgusting and outrageous, and I can understand why that sparked a series of events leading to the revocation of his tenure. Again: all of this has to do with where we set boundaries when entering into public discourse. Shifting the focus: I think its outrageous when I see someone claim that we didn't go to the moon, or engage in holocaust denial (and then expect anyone to take seriously what they have to say about the JFK case). The question is where one draws the line. FWIW: Based on my own occasional communication with McAdams, there is no doubt in my mind that he ever intended hate mail to rain down on Ms. Abbate; i.e., he never foresaw the consequences (to Abbate) of naming her. Maybe he should have. Its easy to make judgements like that--after the fact. Clearly, with the advent of the Internet, there is another dimension to the whole matter of whether this is akin to yelling fire in a theater. The issue strikes close to home. When, prior to JFK's arrival in Dallas, the Wanted for Treason posters were distributed, was that incitement (to murder) or free speech? What about the black bordered ad in the Dallas Morning News that started "Welcome, Mr. Kennedy, to Dallas. . " etc. I don't believe any of that "incited" anyone to harm Kennedy--the plot that took his life was far too well planned (in advance)--but those writings were indicative of the "political temperature" of the right wing fringe element already existing in Dallas. Also, I don't think any of the actual plotters involved in JFK's assassination were happy with either of those things, because--had Kennedy or his staff gotten wind of any of that--it could easily have led to a last minute decision to "skip that city." Just a thought. DSL 5/9/16 - 5:30 a.m. PDT Los Angeles, California