Cliff Varnell

It was rhetorical question. I know you're not interested in consistency. And anyone who describes a symmetrical fold as grossly asymmetrical is very far from telling the truth. All the folds in the DP photos were symmetrical -- you claim the opposite. And since you continually refer to gravity as a "magic theory," let me point out the obvious drop of JFK's jacket on Houston St. -- one more time! No. Your claim that JFK's shirt and jacket could ride up tightly around his neck in the manner of a jacket collar is another one of your howlers. JFK's jacket was elevated about an inch in Altgens. The jacket collar is visible, the smooth shoulder-lines are visible, precluding this Betzner Delusion of yours.

I'm not abusing anybody. I'm taking Gary Mack to task for his cavalier dismissal of the clothing evidence as "hard evidence" of 2+ shooters. I have not found Gary Mack to be all that helpful in our two private e-mail exchanges on this matter. He dismissed me the first time -- "Theorist" And he referred to my "theory" in my second exchange. I present no theory. I present the following: FACT: The bullet holes in JFK's clothes are 2-3" below the SBT wound location. FACT: A tucked in custom made dress shirt only has a fraction of an inch of slack, a fact pressed by most forcefully by Vincent Salandria and Gaeton Fonzi 40+ years ago. FACT: The motorcade photos show JFK's jacket dropping. FACT: The location of the holes in the clothes match the T3 wound descriptions in Burkley's death certificate (marked "verified"); in the autopsy face sheet diagram (marked "verified"); the FBI autopsy report; the wound diagrams and sworn statements of 6 federal agents; the statements of more than a half-dozen medical witnesses. To dismiss this profoundly redundant body of evidence as "virtually no hard evidence" was irresponsible, to put it mildly.

This is an experiment Chad Zimmerman conducted. I challenged him to include a tucked-in custom-made dress in his experiment but he dismissed the need to do that since, in his opinion, custom-made dress shirts and off-the-rack dress shirts fit the same. When I assured him that it did indeed make a difference, he'd go into spasms of scoffing, and dismissed tailors as guys who were just soaking the well off. He hewed to that view throughout my discussion with him. He also scoffed at the notion that JFK was a fashion icon. But he did run a jacket experiment several times. This is the first one. Note that the top of the jacket collar rides over the top of the shirt collar. JFK's shirt collar was visible on Elm St. -- a fact Craig seems to grasp in those moments of lucidity, but not thoroughly process.

I see a faint line of demarcation, very faint, between the bulge & the collar behind the bulge: the upper purple line marks that. [FBI Exhibit 59, JFK's suit coat, measures the bullet hole in the jacket to be 5 3/8 inches below the top of the collar, and appears to be directly in the middle of the back. FBI Exhibit 60, JFK's shirt, measures the bullet hole in the shirt is 5 3/4 from top of collar and about 3/4 inch from center. Autopsy drawings of President Kennedy conducted by Dr. Humes, shows a bullet hole in JFK's back that would match the location of the hole in his clothing. Hole is in the middle of back approximately 6 inches down from the neck. Autopsy photograph of Kennedy's body shows a bullet hole in Kennedy's back clearly away from base of neck and matching the location of hole in shirt.] So, the shirt & coat holes were not perfectly aligned. Miles, you're getting ahead of me! The corroborating evidence is overwhelming! The death certificate filled out by Buckley put the wound about the level of T3 (and marked "verified"); the autopsy face sheet diagram in the vicinity of T3 (and marked "verified"); the FBI autopsy report in the vicinity of T3; wound diagrams and other sworn testimony by 6 federal agents put the wound at T3; more than a half-dozen medical witnesses stated to the wound location at T3. It's overwhelming. But like I say, we get ahead of ourselves. (Don't agree on the autopsy photo, but I'll get to that.)

You haven't measured the folds in Croft, all you did was draw a line on a two dimensional photo and pretend that it represents a three dimensional object. You can draw lines on a photo anyway you want, but you haven't even seen the high quality prints of the photo. You haven't done your homework.

btw, Craig, I've barely scratched the surface of my argument. I've been waiting for you to make my case for me. Thanks!

I know Towner is far from all the evidence. I was not answering your question with regard to that, as you know well by now. And no, sadly, I cannot revisit the issue with them. I made one follow-up call to Mr. Shirt and he politely answered some follow-up questions, emphatically declaring (I paraphrase), "There's not enough fabric -- it cannot be." However, he said to me that his son warned him not to discuss the JFK assassination, and that was that. My other expert was a casual LNer when I brought this evidence to their attention. I was advised at first to speak with tailors, which I did, then I went back to discuss it with my other expert. The jacket collar was pointed out as an effective way to measure the fraction of an inch fold. My expert said there was no way 2-3" of shirt and jacket fabric could ride up without pushing up on the jacket collar. Chad Zimmerman's x-ray experiments have verified this. At the end of the analysis, my expert was a very reluctant CT and wanted to make sure that their name was never associated with this analysis. I haven't discussed it with this individual since, nor will I.

Not if the jacket were elevated a couple of millimeters to occlude the bottom of the collar. It must be a strange universe where clothing can make a gross migration in a couple of seconds but it can't make normal movements at all. Craig, you are so far out of your depth in this discussion. Really, so now you claim that the jacket collar is pushed up over the shirt collar and the back of the jacket is folded below the collar bottom upwards so that it covers the bottom of the collar? Wow! Amazing! No. For a guy who gets bent out of shape when his arguments are accurately paraphrased, you have a distinct habit of putting words in other people mouths. If the back of the jacket rode up 1.125" and the jacket collar rode up 1" then the extra 1/8" would occlude the bottom of the jacket collar. This isn't too hard, is it? What I call gravity you call the Varnell Magic Jacket Theory. You make all kinds of ad hominem attacks when you don't think I'm correctly characterizing your position, but you readily attribute to me arguments I never made. Would it be too mcuh to ask that you exercise a little more consistency to your rhetoric?

Not if the jacket were elevated a couple of millimeters to occlude the bottom of the collar. It must be a strange universe where clothing can make a gross migration in a couple of seconds but it can't make normal movements at all. Craig, you are so far out of your depth in this discussion.

Another look at the collar. See red lines. This methodology is phonier than a 3-dollar bill. Sorry Craig, but there are higher resolution versions of this image. Get the Trask book. Besides, I could draw a line on any two-dimensional photo and get any measurement I want. What counts is the line in the photo -- and that line is the jacket collar. For that, Towner still is the king. Let's make a photo comparo: It's clear that the red arrow in Betzner points to the same fold we see at the midline in Croft. Betzner and Croft both show the fraction of an inch fold.

Another look at the collar. See red lines. If its the collar Miles, where is the shadow line marking the bottom of the collar. There is plenty of detai available to show it. Isn't it amazing that the jacket couldn't have been elevated the 3 millimeters required to occlude the bottom of the jacket collar -- BUT it is a FACT that the shirt and jacket wrapped themselves around the base of his neck in a manner consistent with a jacket collar. Wow. This gets better and better all the time! Replicate this event with a tucked in custom-made dress shirt. You never will, Craig. What you see there is his jacket collar. Obviously.

Because it's a nonsense question. I showed the Towner photo to them. No, I didn't. The "yes" was to your brilliant analytical ability. As indicated in the structure of the sentence, and in my repeated reiterations. When all ya got is puerile "gotcha"...make lemonade. And what part of the sentence -- "I showed them the Towner photo" -- don't you grasp. I hear the death rasp in your desperation here, Craig. I've asked many good questions that you don't answer. For instance, since you said it was impossible to measure the fold, how can you state as a fact that the fold involved 2-3"? I don't have to get hysterical to press for an answer to a question. Why thank you Cliff I welcome new information. Now back to the question at hand. Were there ANY versions of Croft available in 1997 Cliff? Very poor, like the Hunt b&w. This was the deal: in discussing the evidence with friendly LN types like Ron Judge and JudyM (two people for whom I will always have a warm spot in my heart) we agreed that Towner was the piece of evidence because it showed the inside of the cupped fold right next to the identifiable 1.25" jacket collar. The Croft photo was deemed insufficient. Now, John Hunt based a lot of his case on that b&w Croft. Then one day he found the color version. At first he crowed about its discovery. Then he fell silent on the issue, and wouldn't come out to defend his academic fraud to save his life. You see, Craig, the higher the resolution of the Croft photo the smaller "the bunch" appears. I suspect Hunt took it to his own tailors and was told it was a garden variety symmetric 3/4" jacket fold. Now, the problem for you is that you went to Hunt's site and pulled his Croft and made the same analysis as he did. You both analyzed Betzner the same way. But you did not have access to all the evidence, Craig. I saw you walk right into the color Croft face first -- when I told you you had no idea what you were doing. You have made your analyses without seriously studying the photos, Craig.

It's Posner's line in the sand. He established last February that the SBT requires JFK's clothing to be in the position they were in in the Jefferies film. But the jacket dropped. 40+ years ago Vincent Salandria and Gaeton Fonzi handed the JFK research community the smoking gun in the Kennedy assassination, the bullet holes in JFK's clothes. The JFK research community as a whole ignores this smoking gun. My two favorite writers here are Charles Drago and Robert Charles-Dunne. They are in a class by themselves. However, in their response to Gary Mack recently neither one cited the smoking gun Salandria and Fonzi gave us. The JFK research community has been lead seriously astray. Am I throwing rocks, as Tosh calls it? You bet.

Because it's a nonsense question. I showed the Towner photo to them. But you are too busy playing semantic "gotcha" to mount an actual argument. If Craig had done a modicum of research he'd know that the color version of Croft had not been published in 1997. But when you lack any argument -- make an issue up out of thin air, right, Craig? Yes, I agree you are more of an expert in the study of photographic images. I was agreeing with your description of your experience, that's it. That's why the whole phrase was: I was refering to your stated expertise, Craig -- but you have to pull that "Yes" out of context like a drowning man pulling a piece of wood off a sinking ship. Since I had already made it clear I showed the Towner photo only, I find this clumsy "gotcha" game most revealing.

fwiw I think is as close to the truth as we've gotten. Cast of characters in bold Tosh Plumlee wrote: We have an account of a FBI teletype coming in on November 17, warning of a "revolutionary group" plotting to assassinate JFK in Dallas. We have Democratic Party advance man Marty Underwood reporting: "We were getting all sorts of rumors that the President was going to be assassinated in Dallas; there were no ifs, ands, or buts about it." These warnings are consistent with attempts afoot to stop JFK's assassination, which obviously bolsters Tosh's account. I suspect that it was JFK himself who overruled this "they" I highlighted above, who were probably the Secret Service. Makes sense to me that the Dallas Cubans would not have been involved in something like that in their own backyard. Reading the above, I find it interesting that the only group on the ball was military intelligence. All the FBI and the CIA could come up in the way of fore-warning was a Mob guy in Austin? And that probably came from the FBI. All these heavy rumors coming out about Dallas and it appears that the FBI intentionally failed to pass it on to Dallas PD, even after canceled motorcades in Tampa and Chicago. I do not find it co-incidental that all this activity occured after November 1, 1963. The over-throw of Diem in Vietnam may have split the original sponsors of the JFK assassination into two camps. The one in Dallas got their way. I find your account totally credible, sir. But I still think Morales put a long day in at JMWAVE co-ordinating the hit from HQ. Thank you for your insight, Tosh. You're a damn great American.

If its impossible to know, then why do you claim as a FACT that 2-3" of JFK's shirt and 2-3" of his jacket were bunched up entirely above the base of his neck (without pushing up on the jacket collar at the base of the neck -- <snicker>). As you so ably demonstrate. Cliff, did you show "your guys" Croft? Cliff, Did you show your guys Croft? once more just in case you missed it again... Cliff, did you show your guys Croft? Tha fact you refuse to answer this simple questions speaks VOLUMES! It does? What did I write? You have written NOTHING in reply to the direct question: No reply needed. I showed one photo, the same photo, to the both of them. Have you already forgotten what that one photo was? Go back over the posts again and find out what photo I showed Mr. Shirt. You're obviously asking a rhetorical question. Now, what do you have to say about the mass migration of JFK's clothing in less than 1.5 seconds between Croft and Betzner? I've asked you plenty of other direct questions you've dodged; but I think its amusing when people show they have no argument.

That's interesting. In my e-mail conversation with him a year ago he seemed patently disinterested in what the photo-film evidence showed in regards to the movement of JFK's clothing. I found this odd since a stray remark of his upon release of the Jefferies film sparked world-wide headlines about "new evidence," that being the position of JFK's jacket in Jefferies, 90 seconds before the shooting. I quite reasonably asserted that surely photo-films taken within 10 seconds of the shooting trumped Jefferies, but he wasn't interested in discussing it much. Curious attitude, I found.

No sweat, Dawn I eat 'em for lunch. They don't grind me down, I grind them down. Cue Patton

Gary Mack's arbitrary dismissal of the clothing evidence as "hard evidence" of more than one shooter is an abrogation of his responsibility as a historian. Among the American people, conspiracy in the murder of JFK is a historical fact.

If its impossible to know, then why do you claim as a FACT that 2-3" of JFK's shirt and 2-3" of his jacket were bunched up entirely above the base of his neck (without pushing up on the jacket collar at the base of the neck -- <snicker>). As you so ably demonstrate. Cliff, did you show "your guys" Croft? Cliff, Did you show your guys Croft? once more just in case you missed it again... Cliff, did you show your guys Croft? Tha fact you refuse to answer this simple questions speaks VOLUMES! It does? What did I write?

I didn't fabricate any statement. I asked for an explanation. In our previous discussion of Altgens, you referred to jpeg compression artifacts. In response to my very reasonable question as to the artifact in the black box, you started slobbering about some "losing rehash" of yours. And so, since our prior discussion concerned jpeg compression artifacts, I assumed that was what you were referring to. You have repeatedly claimed there was a convex-shaped hump of clothing at the right-shoulder one in every photo in Dealey Plaza. That artifact is in the exact location you claim a gross clothing bunch. But there is no gross clothing bunch. That artifact is not part of JFK. It's part of the background. I find it interesting that you claim to see all these amazing things in the motorcade photos but when it gets to proving them you keep running into low res, bad camera angles that don't allow you to really see very much, different photographer perspectives that hide your Betzner Bunch, etc, etc belly-ache, whine, moan, sniffle, rationalize etc... You say the Betzner Bunch is in every photo, but you keep putting photos into evidence that destroy your inane little theory. Let's put your Betzner and the color Croft up together, hm? So tell us, Craig, how did that fold at the nape of JFK's neck in Croft (z161) migrate several inches over to right to land on JFK's right shoulder, as you claim to see in Betzner (Z186)? 25 Z frames is less than a second and a half. What occurred in that limo in less than a second and a half that would have caused this gross movement of JFK's clothing? C'mon, Craig -- you make the claim, where's the argument? It's been your position that every DP photographic image shows Betzner Bunch. But Altgens clearly shows a smooth right-shoulder-line and what certainly appears to be a background gap between the man's leg and JFK's jacket collar. Make up your mind, Craig -- does every DP photo show Betzner Bunch, or not? Hilarious! You've been putting words in my mouth about "Varnell Magic Jacket Theory" when all I was referring to was gravity. How is gravity a Magic anything, Craig? You don't believe in gravity? Seems like you're having a tough time here, Craig. Are you okay?

Charles, We're in a Media guerrilla war. The venues change and our understanding deepens and we take our best shots where we find them. All blessings to you in the next stage of your work, sir!

Okay. Please explain how the artifact in the black box above is a jpeg compression artifact.

If its impossible to know, then why do you claim as a FACT that 2-3" of JFK's shirt and 2-3" of his jacket were bunched up entirely above the base of his neck (without pushing up on the jacket collar at the base of the neck -- <snicker>). As you so ably demonstrate.

I see a normal 3/4" "bunch" in Croft, Duncan. What do you see?