Cliff Varnell

We KNOW it was an entrance wound. The back wound was too low to be associated with the throat wound, especially given the path on the neck x-ray. Nellie Connally described JFK as grabbing his throat, and we can see him react to throat trauma in the Zap. The only Dealey Plaza back wound witness, SSA Glenn Bennett, described the back shot as separate from the first "firecracker" he heard. The back wound was probed by Humes and then Finck and no transit was found. We KNOW that JFK's back wound was too low because of the location of the bullet hole in his tucked in custom made dress shirt in the vicinity of T3. And a ton of corroborative evidence for the T3 back wound is found in the Death Certificate (signed off as "verified"), the autopsy face sheet properly filled out in pencil (signed off as "verified", also in pencil as per proper autopsy protocol), and the eyewitness statements of more than a dozen people who saw the wound. Any thing else, Duncan?

Duncan, Exactly! The real issue here and the one they try to so desperately avoid, is how did he suffer the hemo/pneumo thorax? You seem desperate not to address the bullet path in the neck x-ray. JFK suffered a nicked trachea, a bruised lung tip, a hairline fracture of the right T1 transverse process, and air air pocket overlaying the right C7 and T1 transverse processes. Front to back. No exit. What kind of round leaves an air pocket and no bullet?

I can't see anyone aiming through the windshield. Any hole there was the result of a miss, imo. The throat shot was a perfect hit. Cliffy then all you have to do to support this position is get a bullet into the throat at a 90 degree angle, and not go through the windshield. Not at all. A shot from the BDM position circa Z190 was a clear shot. A shooter dressed as a policeman could always claim that they were returning fire, should any questions be asked. How many Dallas citizens would accuse a cop of shooting the President in 1963? It would have taken suicidal bravery. No thank you. It's not one of my favorite rabbit holes.

I can't see anyone aiming through the windshield. Any hole there was the result of a miss, imo. The throat shot was a perfect hit.

According to the FBI. We have reason to believe Hoover was "in" on the cover-up, so their Lab findings are naturally taken with a grain of salt. Two separate shots. Obviously. And we have a witness to this -- SS Agent Glenn Bennett, who clearly described the back shot as separate from the throat shot. So? Result of the throat shot. The throat shot was above the shirt and tie.

Better yet, if the back wound did not transit, which of course it did, how could JFK have suffered a hemo/pneumothorax? In other words how could the upper right Pleura and upper right lung have sustained damage if not for a transiting bullet? The neck x-ray shows a path on a line with the entrance including a bruised lung tip, a hairline-fracture of the right T1 transverse, and a subcutaneous air pocket overlaying the C7 and T1 transverse processes. Front to back -- where the round dissolved, most likely. What other kind of round would leave an air pocket and no exit? I go with dissolved. It's what the autopsists suspected the night of the autopsy. Humes probed the wound with his finger and Finck probed the wound with a metal rod. There was no transit.

The throat wound was an entrance. It was described as such by the Parkland doctors and nurses, and the back wound is too low to have been an entrance for a throat exit. The back wound was probed by Humes and Finck and no transit through the body was found. Tell ya what then Cliffy. Explain how Kennedy managed to have suffered a hemo/pneumo thorax during the shooting. Citation, please, and what is the significance of this in regard to the throat entrance wound? I have no idea what you're trying to say here. The Parkland staff described it as a wound of entrance. Are you denying that? It dissolved. Either that or the projectile was removed. I go with dissolved, since JFK's actions in the limo were consistent with two-second onset paralysis, consistent with blood soluble paralytics developed for the CIA and DOD in the early 60's.

The throat wound was an entrance. It was described as such by the Parkland doctors and nurses, and the back wound is too low to have been an entrance for a throat exit. The back wound was probed by Humes and Finck and no transit through the body was found.

No Cliff, TAILORS MAKE CLOTHING TO THE SPECS OF THE CLIENT. So? How does that challenge my observation that tailors don't purposely destroy jacket lines? What part of "tapered waist" don't you understand, Craig? 2.25+ inches of fabric more than a man needs to move comfortably and look sharp in a tucked in shirt. JFK's tucked-in custom-made dress shirt only had 3/4" of available slack -- enough for him to move comfortably and maintain his Updated American style jacket lines. You are ignorant about how shirts fit, obviously. "Normal" is a term of art in clothing design that refers to casual movements of clothing and body. Normal body movement causes normal clothing ease -- which is invariably measured in fractions of an inch. Your question doesn't make sense in this context. Proper shirt fit is governed by very simple, iron-clad rules. http://www.throughtherye.com/flusser/ch7part3.htm Alan Flusser, CLOTHES AND THE MAN: The Principles of Fine Men's Dress (emphasis added): Custom-made shirts are designed specifically NOT to bulge. ibid. The shirt needs to act like a second skin. In other words, the shirt is designed NOT to bunch up. It needs to act like a second skin so it won't ruin the lines of the jacket. This is especially true for a suit style like Updated American -- which has a tapered waist. The significance of a "tapered waist" should be obvious even to you, Craig.

Robin, the bandages and back support did not effect the fit of the shirt and jacket. Ther tailors would have allowed extra material to accommodate the back brace but this would not have translated into extra slack. The amount of slack in his shirt would not have exceeded a fraction of an inch as long as it was tucked in. His suit style, Updated American, featured a tapered waist silhouette. His tailors would not have ruined this silhouette with 3 or 4 times the amount of normal slack.

Tink, I'm sure that this topic was one of the first JFK-related discussions you had with Vincent Salandria back in the mid-60's. It wasn't a controversial topic then, the custom-fit of JFK's clothing. Surely the "tapered waist" of JFK's suit is not a point of contention, is it? And aren't the implications of said "tapered waist" not obvious? His waist wouldn't have appeared tapered if there were 3 or 4 times the amount of normal slack, would it? You cite CE-399 as "physical evidence," but you seem to dismiss the clothing evidence as a "controversy." There is nothing controversial about proper clothing fit. CE-399 tells us nothing about the murder of JFK. Says something about the cover-up, for sure. But not the killing. The bullet hole in JFK's shirt tells us a great deal about the killing of JFK. I find your incuriosity about this puzzling.

Jim, Kennedy wore a suit style called Updated American Silhouette. This style took the traditional Ivy League sack suit and added Italian influences by slightly padding the shoulders and somewhat suppressing the waistline. A suppressed waist-line meant the shirt and jacket were fit closer to the body. Here's some more background on suit styles: http://www.filmnoirb...-american-style JFK's shirt could not have moved more than a fraction of an inch during the motorcade. There is no actual controversy to this. If you read Arlen Specter's book - he devotes quite a bit of it to JFK's shirt, not only examining it closely as a Warren Commission exhibit, but actually going to New York City to the store where JFK had purchased it. I don't know what it all means, but Specter thought there was something there. BK Bill, I think what it all means is that Specter had hard physical evidence of 4+ shots on his hands and he had no idea how to handle it. Any tailor would roll his eyes if you suggested that JFK's shirt had three or four times the amount of normal slack. Tailors don't purposely destroy jacket lines. Frankly, I can't think of anything more obvious.

Jim, Craig persists in his charade because his head will explode if he doesn't remain self-deluded. His reactionary, Kennedy-hating world view renders him incapable of processing information. The shirt evidence is definitive. Uncontested, unchallenged, and unimpeachable.

No, I never have. I'm not sure what you mean by "tailored shirts do not do what you want them to do." T-shirts do!

Here's the lowdown on fine men's dress from THE authority on the subject, designer/historian Alan Flusser: CLOTHES AND THE MAN: The Principles of Fine Men's Dress http://www.throughtherye.com/flusser/index_current.html This hybrid style was dubbed Updated American. Flusser: "Suppression of the waist" is the key phrase. JFK's suits where tailored to taper at the waist. Flusser: What is the significance of the tapered waist? The minimal amount of slack fabric in JFK's shirt! Flusser: Bulging material around JFK's waist would have ruined the lines of the Updated American silhouette, and there is absolutely no photographic evidence that JFK ever suffered from ruined jacket lines.

Jim, Kennedy wore a suit style called Updated American Silhouette. This style took the traditional Ivy League sack suit and added Italian influences by slightly padding the shoulders and somewhat suppressing the waist. A suppressed waist meant the shirt and jacket were fit closer to the body. Here's some more background on suit styles: http://www.filmnoirbuff.com/article/the-paul-stuart-variation-classic-american-style JFK's shirt could not have moved more than a fraction of an inch during the motorcade. There is no actual controversy to this.

The non sequiturs from Craig Lamson are just beginning, however.

I must say you do provide great comic relief Cliff. Actually you don't KNOW any of that Cliff. Sure we do. And you know it especially. How many times a week does a businessman with a custom-made shirt enter your studio for photographs. No matter what pose he takes his shirt moves in fractions of an inch. It's an uncontested fact. It's unimpeachable. It's the nature of reality. Anyone can observe how their clothing moves when they move their arms like JFK -- fractions of an inch of clothing moves along with them. This may be the most easily observed fact known to man. Your photo analyses are moot. JFK was shot in the throat with the first shot. It's right there in the Zapruder film. Actually, it's great to see you offer no rebuttal. Tucked-in custom-made dress shirts only have a fraction of an inch of slack. Period. End of story. It is an irrefutable fact of clothing fit. There are no exceptions. Where have you demonstrated any proof that JFK's shirt had 4 times the standard amount of slack? JFK's posture changed completely after Betzner. Your fantasy jacket fold is moot. You can produce no proof that JFK's shirt had 4 times the standard amount of slack. This discussion is over.

Irrelevant. Betzner 3 was taken a split second before JFK was shot in the throat. According to SS Agent Glenn Bennett, the only Dealey Plaza back wound witness, the back shot occurred between the first shot (which Bennett said sounded like a firecracker) and the head shot. Bennett on 11/23/63: 4 inches down from the right shoulder -- the bullet hole in the shirt is 4 inches below the collar, which means that Bennett got it exactly right. The back wound occurred several seconds after Betzner, after JFK had already responded to the throat wound as seen in Zapruder. We know that JFK's jacket was elevated no more than a fraction of an inch because the bullet hole in the jacket is 4.125 inches below the collar, very close to the bullet hole in the shirt. A tucked in custom-made dress shirt only has about 3/4 inch of available slack. This is an uncontested fact. Unimpeachable. The claim that JFK's shirt had four times the standard amount of slack is beyond ridiculous. JFK was vigorously reacting to the throat wound for two seconds after Betzner was taken, so Lamson's bizarre interpretations of Betzner have no bearing on the location of the back wound.

And that's because the head wound evidence is tainted beyond redemption. He may have been hit in the head four times for all we know. The high likelihood of pre-autopsy surgery to the head makes the finding of fact impossible in regards to the number of head shots. Indeed. The unchallenged T3 back wound evidence forces nutters like Vince Bugliosi to tell whopping lies about the Dealey Plaza photo evidence. Prevarications are not arguments, no matter how many times they are repeated, or by whom.

Thank you, Don. When the evidence is so lop-sided as the case with JFK's T3 back wound there is no actual controversy, the noisy non sequiturs of "bunch" fallacies aside. A tucked-in custom-made dress shirt only has a fraction of an inch of slack. This is an unchallenged fact. Normal body movements such as JFK's in the motorcade cause clothes to move in fractions of an inch, invariably. These are iron-clad facts of clothing design and fit. While a handful of major researchers have pressed this point in the past -- Salandria, Marrs, Fonzi, Twyman, Groden all come to mind -- these unchallenged facts are quite unpopular in the JFK Assassination Research Community. The bullet hole in JFK's shirt is prima facie evidence of 4 plus shots. Period. That fact renders lots of discussions and research of secondary import. Much of the 2003 Wecht Conference was utterly moot in light of the clothing evidence, which is why it was never mentioned there (to the best of my knowledge). Why should we give a fig about the acoustics evidence, the NAA, or CE399 when there is unchallenged, prima facie evidence of 4+ shots? Or the head wounds? I mean, there is an entry in the FBI report on the autopsy concerning pre-autopsy surgery to the head. That's the end of the head wounds as a topic worthy of speculation, imo. All we have is a pile of highly conflicted evidence upon which even allies cannot agree. For instance, James Fetzer says JFK was hit the head twice -- doesn't Doug Horne say it was three? Who knows? We'll never know. The topic is ridiculous! But don't let me be a bummer, let the Parlor Game play on...

Jim F. did ask a question I thought interesting: Tink, do you place JFK's back wound in the vicinity of the bullet defects in the shirt and jacket, at T3?

Hunt and the Watergate Cubans did not lead back to Castro. P.S. Nixon no doubt thought they were involved in the assassination attempts on Castro. Hunt, as I recall, was involved in talks of killing Castro long before Kennedy was elected, and knew that Nixon had signed off on it. Nixon's probable concern was that HE was responsible for getting Kennedy killed, and that Hunt knew about this. Barker worked with Hunt. Barker ran Sturgis. Sturgis claimed he was asked to perform assassinations. Martinez was part of Mongoose, blah blah blah. It all led back to Castro. Hunt and the Watergate Cubans were not employed by Castro. That was my point. "The fingerprints of intelligence" points to US intel. And yet you characterize Schweiker's view as "Castro did it." Please provide the money quote on that one! I stand corrected on the last one. You make good points about the IG report, Pat. But here are the sections of THE ENDS OF POWER you and Len Colby aren't taking in accurately. Haldeman, emphasis added: Pat, you and Colby insist on confining Haldeman's meaning to "Castro did it," even though the highly publicized Garrison investigation fingered the CIA. On what basis do you dismiss Garrison's accusations from Haldeman's interest in "conflicting theories"? You have no basis in fact to dismiss the view that Haldeman included the CIA as suspects. This is the other section you are determined to dismiss. Haldeman: It appears that you and Len Colby want to shoe-horn Haldeman's thinking into some little Castro-did-it box, but the clear subtext to THE ENDS OF POWER is that Haldeman was intrigued by several theories of the assassination, including the then well-publicized theory that the CIA did it.

Haldeman was telling his alert readers that he suspected the CIA had a hand in Kennedy's killing. Suspicion is not the same as conviction. So he was sending a coded message because he wasn't sure? Your desperate rationalizations are amusing! Of course he wasn't sure. He said he was intrigued by all the theories surrounding the case and wanted Nixon to get to the bottom of it. I'm sure the Castro-did-it scenario was one of those theories that intrigued Haldeman. CIA-did-it was another. According to Haldeman, "Nixon turned me down." But did Nixon proceed with such an investigation anyway? Three times Nixon asked the CIA for the files on the Bay of Pigs, the overthrow of the Diem brothers, and the assassination of Trujillo in the Dominican Republic. Three times the CIA stonewalled Nixon. The President of the United States couldn't get government files from a government agency. No, Haldeman wasn't sure if the CIA hit Kennedy or if Castro hit Kennedy. You want to restrict Haldeman's thinking to the latter to the exclusion of the former, Colby. Haldeman's reference to Angleton's denial about Oswald being CIA put the CIA-did-it scenario into the realm of consideration. This is un-mistakable. Why else would he make a reference to Oswald as a CIA agent if he didn't think such a thing was possible? [...] Now you're trying to re-write the sequence of the text. Anyone can go back to the passages I posted and see this. I didn't "re-write" anything, show which parts of the sequence above were inaccurate. Your mis-characterization of Castro's comments as a "threat", and your continued blind eye to the rehearsed Angleton denials of conspiracy in the murder of JFK and Oswald's possible involvement with the CIA. You simply cannot process this information. It will not stick with you, so you continue to ignore it, or make some lame rationalization about it. It's a special spelling for especially slimey rhetoric, as your guilt by association Morrow sex smear indicates. This discussion is over. Let's take an inventory of what you have conceded. You no longer argue that Matthews was on a show called Hardball in December of 1995. You can't argue that America's Talking, a failing news network with low ratings in December 1995, was as high a profile gig as Hardball on CNBC in 1997 and MSNBC in 1999, both successful networks. You can't argue that DiMona changed "a sentence or two" when obviously he had to make up whole conversations and lines of thought for Haldeman -- an absurd contention. All you're left arguing for is that the "Bay of Pigs thing" referred to a pro-Castro plot to kill Kennedy. In order to make this argument you have to ignore Haldeman's suggestion that Oswald may have been CIA. Good luck with all that, Colby. I'm sick of your slimey tactics. I'm good for a discussion with you once every two years or so. In 2013 we can have another go around and you can end up arguing minor points, as per usual.

Haldeman was telling his alert readers that he suspected the CIA had a hand in Kennedy's killing. Suspicion is not the same as conviction. <snip> + You seem to have lost sight of the fact the book was aimed at the general public not the assassination community. Based on what they wrote the interpretation that LHO was CIA is one only likely to be reached by the latter. What you think "likely" has no weight in argument. You have no idea what "the general public" is "likely" to think. The facts are that Haldeman tied Hunt and the Watergate Cubans to the Kennedy assassination, Haldeman suspected Oswald was CIA, and Richard Helms -- a man known for his unflappable demeanor -- reacted to Nixon's "Bay of Pigs" card with considerable agitation, described by Haldeman as "violent" and "turmoil." + Saying “the CIA literally erased any connection between Kennedy's assassination and the CIA” would be an incredible understatement if he thought they were covering up the fact they had orchestrated his murder. More contentless rationalization. The statement is significant as it stands, your "incredible understatement" crack is nothing but smoke. + You can’t see how the CIA repeatedly failing to kill the leader of a small Third World country and that leading to that leader assassinating the president of the most powerful country on earth would be "detrimental"? Not detrimental to the country, no. There would have been a host of right-wingers who would have been happy to promote that argument. The revelation that the CIA tried to kill Castro didn't have any dramatic detrimental consequences, and I'm sure lots of people were making the connection of the Mafia plots and the Castro-did-it line. The subject certainly wouldn't have set Richard Helms' hair on fire. It definitely would NOT have been a boon to the CIA. Although word about the attempts may have gotten out years before but obviously it was news to Hardermona and he expected it to be news to his readers because he described them as being “according to Schorr” rather than established. I dare say it wasn't news to Richard Helms in 1972 -- since it had been written about in '67 and '71 -- and certainly wouldn't have caused this most impassive of spooks to start shouting and gripping his armchair. Haldeman's reference to Oswald as a CIA agent and Nixon's connection of Hunt and the Watergate Cubans to 11/22/63 indicates Haldeman's suspicions about CIA involvement. Your ideology prevents you from grasping the obvious subtext in THE ENDS OF POWER. See above nothing. The exposure of the Mafia-plots wasn't "bad for the country" and the notion that mis-fired CIA plots led Castro to kill Kennedy wasn't "bad for the country," either. The CIA having a hand in Kennedy's murder -- yes, I can see where Nixon would consider such a revelation "bad for the country." +Halderman suggested that LHO was a Castro sympathizer much more directly than he (supposedly) suggested he might have been CIA. So? Pro-Castro activities by a man suspected of being a CIA agent aren't the same as pro-Castro activities by a man suspected of being a Castro agent. It's too bad Haldeman was too subtle for you, Colby. Only when you take the comments out of context and spin them to fit your world view. Castro didn't issue a threat. He clearly issued a warning: "Let Kennedy and his brother Robert take care of themselves, since they, too, can be the victims of an attempt which will cause their death." Fidel admonishes the Kennedys to "take care," since the same people unleashed on Castro now had their sights on Kennedy. Now you're trying to re-write the sequence of the text. Anyone can go back to the passages I posted and see this. I'm done with your slimey tactics, Colby.