Cliff Varnell

Your welcome. My pleasure.

Then you should have no trouble posting one. Irrelevant. His shirt may have been pulled out when he was removed from the limo. If you are going to claim that JFK went around with his shirt tail out you have to do more than declare "it cannot be known." The burden of proof is yours. Otherwise, the claim is absurd on its face.

And what does this have to do with the principles of clothing fit and John F. Kennedy's obvious adherence to those principles? So what? We can measure the location of the clothing holes and observe the jacket dropping in Dealey Plaza. Please cite your evidence that JFK's tailors didn't follow the principles of clothing fit. I have no idea what you're talking about. Factually incorrect. He had fleshy pads on the back of his neck. Hurt much bending over backwards for irrelevancies? I can bat 'em down as fast as you manufacture 'em. What's good for right now? As noted earlier in this thread, Salandria's analysis has yet to be honestly challenged.

That would be helpful, thank you. Post the photo you think shows "gross" movement. No, there was no comment upon whether his shoes were tied or his fly zipped up, either. Wouldn't you think the nurses and doctors had more pressing concerns?

You're welcome. Usually when one raises matters that puzzle them they use one of these -- "?" I didn't get the impression you were puzzled, at all. Shaking hands is not a "gross" body movement. I'm curious why you would characterize it as such. Have you ever noticed someone's tucked-in, custom-made shirt becoming untucked when they shake someone else's hand? Here's the Fort Worth photo again. A "normal" extension of the arm was accompanied by "normal" folds in the clothing. The shirt tail was tucked in, John. That's what shirt tails do. Salandria understands this because he grew up with it. It's not at all the mystery you appear to want to make of it. If I say this is a silly question are you going to accuse me of being "negative"?

I will repeat the citation I posted, adding the emphasis: Clothes And The Man -- The Principles of Fine Men's Dress, Alan Flusser, pg 79: The reason guys spend extra money for custom-made clothes is so that their shirts stay tucked in when they move around. Do you understand the concept -- "clothing fit"? The tailor's craft is to allow enough room for the wearer to move comfortably while still looking good. Allowing extra material for the back brace does not translate into extra slack. The amount of slack remains the same, back brace or no -- 3/4". Of course it was. A custom-made shirt is always comfy -- and 3/4" of slack will do the trick. If you have no expertise in this area, why do you make definitive statements about that which you have no knowledge? For myself, I share something in common with Salandria, as this is a personal matter with me, as well: my sister is one of the world's top textile conservators, and a 2-time winner of the LA Drama Critics Circle Award for Costume Design. This is the expertise she has imparted: In clothing design, there are two categories of clothing/body movement: "normal movements" and "gross movements." Normal body movements are casual, and correspond with fractions of an inch of "normal" clothing movements. "Gross movement" occurs when the body is extended; "gross" body movement corresponds with multiple-inch movements of clothing. For all his "twisting and stretching" in the limo, none of JFK's movements in the limo were "gross." The Dealey Plaza photos show the jacket dropping; the tailoring of his shirt precluded "gross" movement of the fabric. The SBT thus stands debunked...anyone's bruised pet theories notwithstanding.

And why do you make the assumption that tailors are "not taking these matters into account"? These "numerous stretchings, twistings, getting in and out of the limo to shake hands" are always taken into account by tailors -- do you think these activities were the sole province of John F. Kennedy? And how did the back brace have one iota of impact on the fit of JFK's shirt? Please cite your expertise in this area, John.

Author John Kelin on the background of early JFK assassination researcher Vincent Salandria: Praise From A Future Generation, Kelin, pg 33: Vincent Salandria grew up with a significant sense of clothing fit. How could he not? This background makes him singularly qualified to make the following assessment of the clothing evidence in the murder of John F. Kennedy: Kelin, pg 483 (emphasis in the original): Following the release of the Warren Report, supporters of the "official story" had to defend the claim that JFK's clothing "bunched up" 4 to 5 inches to match the "back of the neck" wound posited by the WC's lone gunman scenario. Following the release of the HSCA report, the SBT wound was lowered to the base of the neck, and the discrepancy between the holes in the clothes and the "new" SBT was two to three inches. Both SBT wound locations are clearly fraudulent. Anyone with a working understanding of clothing "fit," as Salandria obviously would, knows that a tucked-in custom-made dress shirt normally moves in fractions of an inch. Clothes And The Man -- The Principles of Fine Men's Dress, Alan Flusser, pg 79: The bullet hole in JFK's jacket is 4.125 inches below the bottom of the collar. The bullet hole in JFK's shirt is an even 4 inches below the bottom of the collar. The jacket was "bunched up" .125 of an inch (1/8") vis a vis the shirt. The SBT requires JFK's shirt and jacket to have been "bunched up" two to three inches in tandem, an event its defenders have never replicated. As a San Francisco shirt-maker "Mr. Shirt" explained to me when I visited his downtown shop early in August of 1997 -- bunch fallacy "cannot be -- there isn't enough fabric." Kelin, pg 482: Salandria and the early critics have yet to be honestly challenged on this point. Since the jacket was "bunched" 1/8" vis a vis the shirt, it is not enough to merely point out the obvious -- the jacket was "bunched." Those who promote "bunch fallacy" never get beyond non sequitur. Praise From A Future Generation, pg 298: Kelin, pg. 483: When Arlen Specter made a fool of himself in his confrontation with Fonzi, it wasn't the first time such a humiliation befell him over the same issue. J. Edgar Hoover certainly inflicted such during the notorious FBI "reanactment." Many other "bunch fallacists" and their defenders have commited laughable acts of intellectual buffoonery and fraud. There is no need to inventory those here. Suffice to say: 1) JFK's tucked-in, custom-made dress shirt was designed not to "bunch up" more than a fraction of an inch. 2) The claim that JFK's jacket was elevated 2" to 3" in the Jefferies film is rendered moot by the Dealey Plaza films and photos which show the jacket actually dropping. The visible shirt collar and slight (fraction of an inch) jacket fold seen in Betzner #3 (Z186) is similar to the visible shirt collar and slight fold seen in JFK's clothing in a similar posture (arm elevated) at Fort Worth that morning. Fort Worth: Elm St. (Z186): 3) Vincent Bugliosi refused to address the salient fact of conspiracy in his book, Reclaiming History, but he did, however, address the issue in the CD which accompanied the book: The lone assassin scenario doesn't square with the physical evidence -- so what? I can't imagine a greater monument to Salandria's analysis than to have Bugliosi concede the point.

John Kelin's book Praise From A Future Generation fills THE Void and much more. I'll be discussing this more in a separate thread, "Salandria & the Salient Fact of Conspiracy"...

From the Introduction (emphasis mine): John, just got the book...A pleasure to see my research raison d'etre so introduced.

The problem here, John, is that a consistent theme of neo-con polemics has been the CIA's pursuit of different policies and agendas. Bush is, when all is said and done, a transient politician, and thus of little consequence. John, being "pro-American" and being "pro-Bush" are two entirely different things. Afghanistan now produces more heroin than the world can fix, snort, or smoke; Pakistan is a main route for heroin. When it comes to the "politics of heroin" all ideological concerns are off the table. As in all thriving black markets, aspiring middle-men (or -women) are often assassinated. Normally I'm not one to quote Robert Novak, but this is interesting: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...7123002237.html Paul, the Bush Crime Family has been anything but transient -- in fact, the Harriman/Bush Crime Family has been dictating American foreign policy (often alternating with Rockefeller creatures like Kissinger or Brezinski) at least since the end of WW2. http://www.tarpley.net/bush4.htm

I have much to say on this, but I will await the book... Let us all hew closely to this approach. The burden of proof was on the Bunch Theorists and they failed spectacularly. Hunt is self-refuting; those who pimp Hunt's "historical criticism" do so for their own agenda, the truth notwithstanding. The "historical criticism" belongs to Fonzi, not Hunt. The facts and photos speak for themselves: there is no fabric bulge at the base of JFK's neck in Betzner #3, otherwise the sunshine would have caught it as it did the shirt collar above the base of the neck. I have lots to say about this as well, but will keep my powder dry for the nonce. The women in my life could not agree more! If HBO were smart they'd option TLI for a movie, not that Bug dreck...

bump

John, I can't wait! Please pardon the reflexive pessimism of my earlier posts. As Michael Hogan correctly pointed out, Salandria (and Fonzi) would have to be included in any book on the early researchers. As to the source of my pessimism, a history... I first became interested in this case in 1975 when I read about it in Creem (America's Only Rock & Roll Magazine!) In 1977 I read Carl Oglesby's The Yankee and Cowboy War. That book made a lot of sense, and sated for a time my curiosity in the case. Between 1991 and 1997 I was an avid reader of JFK assassination literature. I read The Last Investigation in 1994 and whole-herartedly agreed with Fonzi's conclusion that the physical evidence -- the bullet holes in JFK's clothing -- was the smoking-gun in making the case for conspiracy. But when I got on the internet in 1996 I found that the only other researcher to make that point, other than Fonzi, was Jim Marrs. It seemed to me that the case had veered off into these highly complex controversies, such as the police dictabelt and the contradictory head wound evidence. Surely the case for conspiracy could be readily made in such a manner that a kindergartener would grasp it. In 1997 I started to post my own research into the clothing evidence on internet groups. I sometimes wonder if the JFK case would have been better off if I'd picked another hobby. In response to my postings, two pieces of utter fraud have been produced in rebuttal, both of which reached a far, far greater audience than I ever have. My two usenet antagonists: John Hunt and Chad Zimmerman. Zimmerman went on the Discovery Channel's Unsolved History to claim that he could pin-point "exactly" the high back wound using a stand-in for JFK and an x-ray machine. His experiment contradicted his earlier claims about the location of JFK's third thoracic vertebra, a fact he failed to note in the show. His prior analysis of the Dealey Plaza photos concluded that JFK's jacket was only elevated an inch in Dealey Plaza, and his x-rays verified the fact that the clothing had to be elevated at least two inches. He touted this as evidence in support of the SBT, all the while knowing it was a lie. At the end of November 1999 John McAdams triumphantly posted to his site John Hunt's article, The Case for a Bunched Jacket. http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/bunched.htm In this article John Hunt concluded that JFK's shirt and jacket were "bunched up" over 2" in near-tandem at the time of the shot in the back. John McAdams declared this analysis "definitive." By varying degrees, Hunt's work was smiled upon by such notables as Gary Mack, Martin Shackelford, and Debra Conway. Here's the opening paragraph: And what evidence does Hunt produce to conclude that JFK's clothing was sufficiently "bunched" to account for the SBT trajectory? From the article, emphasis added: Not yet finished? In what scientific or academic discipline does one get away with publishing one's conclusions and then leave out the case upon which those conclusions were based? As it turns out, Hunt's "evidence" is nothing more than his tortured analysis of the Dealey Plaza photos and the witness testimony. He describes the highly visible shirt collar in Willis #4 and then claims that the jacket in Croft #3 was up to the level of JFK's ear. He describes a "distinctly arched shape," i.e. convex, on JFK's left shoulder in Betzner #3 while showing a blow up of Willis #5 showing a concave curvature at the left base of JFK's neck. Hunt refers to his "home experiment" wherein he managed to get his jacket to ride up a couple of inches, but he failed to note that in the same experiment his shirt didn't ride up at all. This is a work of academic fraud, well blessed by several leading figures in JFK research... ...and Wikipedia: From the Wikipedia entry for "John F. Kennedy Assassination," emphasis added: So a "case" presented as an academic exercise which refuses to provide a methodology is now to be regarded as "historical criticism"? Other than Jim Fetzer referring to John Hunt as "intellectual scum," Hunt has not been taken to task by anyone of note in the JFK research community. Indeed, his views appear to have been widely adopted, and the clothing evidence is rarely cited. Such is the source of my initial pessimism concerning your book, John, which extends to the JFK research community as a whole. Nothing personal! For the record, the Dealey Plaza films and photos show JFK's jacket dropping: I think any bright 5 year old could see that JFK's shirt collar was occluded in the first Nix frame, and visible in the second. Ergo, the jacket dropped, contrary to the arguments of all LNers and a sadly large number of "CTs". Thankfully, I hear the hooves of the Cavalry approaching -- your book, John, which I hope will re-focus attention on this crucial evidence.

Thank you, John Kelin! I ordered the book last Sunday and anticipate its arrival like a little kid waiting for Xmas. The entire transcript of the Fonzi-Specter encounter -- a lovely slice of research heaven! Words cannot express my gratitude, sir!

Yes. And this is what I said about that: Jack had the good sense to ignore me. You're a good guy Cliff, and I agree with many of your views including those about Salandria, Fonzi and Larry Hancock. All the best wishes for a good Christmas and New Year. The same to you, my friend! I take your point as to my hastiness in this instance, and I will be purchasing John Kelin's book. Happy Holidays all!

My point was to show how far from the original research we've come, and I wonder if this situation extended to John Kelin's book on the original researchers. I see people come on this Forum patting the original researchers on the back while utterly ignoring their research. I'm trying to find out if this is true of Mr. Kelin's book. The "if" would seem to raise a question, would it not? You're splitting hairs, Michael. Both my use of the word "if" and my use of "?" certainly smack of questions. I stand corrected. Another distinction without a difference, imo. Having spent the better part of a grand to attend the "Cracking the Case" conference I'm a little leery about claims made by anybody. That's why I'm discussing it here, Michael. It would be nice if Kelin moved in lockstep with Salandria and Fonzi, since they point out the prima facie case for conspiracy. I'm hoping he does. Then I'll spend my dough on his book. See how easy this is? I wasn't "promoting" anything any more than Jack White was with his statement about Mary. And I still haven't seen my question about Fonzi answered.

I asked a question about Salandria, and stated my reason for asking it. The question was answered. I said Oliver Stone should have made "JFK" about Salandria, not Garrison. What more do you want, Michael? Yes. John Kelin asked if he'd left anybody out and I asked -- "Gaeton Fonzi?" And what, pray tell, is wrong with asking questions of those who have read the book? If such omissions exist I'll save my money. If such omissions don't exist, I'll buy it. That's why I asked the questions in the first place. And yet several decades later there was a conference in Pittsburgh devoted to the Single Bullet Theory which featured "CT" speakers who place the back wound at the base of the neck. Another conference advertised as "Cracking the Case" didn't address the issue at all, and a couple of published authors there questioned whether there was a conspiracy at all. The earliest research is readily ignored by people who come on this Forum to praise it. That is my objection here, Michael. My negativity is directed at the current state of JFK research. My negativity is directed toward sites like Lancer which characterize the SBT as "not probable" rather than "flat out impossible." I asked two questions about the book, and explained why I asked those questions. I find nothing out of line with asking questions about the contents of a book. No where near the tedium I feel when the "case for conspiracy" is argued on points that require advanced college degrees to verify. And that's where we are today for the most part, Michael. Just look at Morley's recent work -- what does he emphasize? The NAA. We've gone backwards, Michael. All I want to know is if I'm going to spend money on something that is actually going to move us forward again. If Kelin covers this evidence I'll buy his book. If he doesn't, I won't. Due diligence. Works for me...

Right on time. Case in point. Vincent Bugliosi regards the final autopsy report as a legitimate medicolegal document, and he places the back wound at T1. Pat Speer regards the final autopsy report as a legitimate medicolegal document and he places the back wound at T1. This is a view shared by any number of "CT"s like John Hunt and Stu Wexler. Of course, none of them can defend this position to save their lives, but it doesn't stop them from dragging the case into meaningless black hole controversies like the location of the head wounds and the NAA. The reason "the war drags on" is because "instant-expert" newbies and their "new perspectives" ignore the earliest research in the case. Once the "smoking gun" evidence is acknowledged the need for the Parlor Game "question of conspiracy" is moot. The pity is so many don't want that Parlor Game to end, and so here we are plagued with issues that should have been settled over 40 years ago. Sad.

I'm responding to John's comment -- "I hope I'm not forgetting anyone." Since the name Gaeton Fonzi has not come up in this thread, I think my question is valid. If Fonzi and his encounter with Specter are not in the book, then my criticism is justified, imo. I see no harm in bringing this up, frankly, and I'll be delighted beyond words to be wrong. But as Michael Hogan pointed out earlier, I have a poker background, and to be brutally honest I sense a bluff at work. Not from John, necessarily, but from the JFK research community as a whole. Let us not forget this from Vincent Salandria, as written up by Fonzi in TLI, pg 28, emphasis mine: (quote on) "I'm afraid we were misled," Salandria said sadly, "All the critics, myself included, were misled very early. I see that now. We spent too much time and effort micro-analyzing the details of the assassination when all the time it was obvious, it was blatantly obvious that it was a conspiracy...We must face that fact -- and not spend anymore time micro-analyzing the evidence. That is exactly what they want us to do. They have kept us busy for so long. And I will bet, buddy, that is what will happen to you. They'll keep you very, very busy and, eventually, they'll wear you down." (quote off) At the time (1975) Fonzi speculated that Salandria was a little crazy -- turns out he was highly prescient. Yes, I'm sure it will. As I say, I'll be overjoyed if it helps fill THE void in JFK research: the failure of the JFK research community to effectively advance -- or even acknowledge! -- the irrefutable physical evidence of conspiracy (a failure in which I share, btw.) What do the following have in common? The Warren Report The HSCA Final Report The 2003 Wecht Conference on the SBT The 2005 Cracking the Case Conference at Bethesda Bugliosi's Reclaiming History No where in any of the above was the discrepancy noted between the physical evidence (the bullet holes in JFK's clothing) and the SBT. I attended the Cracking the Case Conference. On the first day Anthony Summers basically apologized for the title of his book Conspiracy because, (I paraphrase) "The question is not what kind of conspiracy existed, but if a conspiracy existed." Jeff Morley, sitting next to Summers on stage, nodded his head wisely. I almost fell off my chair. Color me jaundiced, but I think we've all been misled. Indeed.

Gaeton Fonzi? Specifically, his encounter with Arlen Specter in 1966 as described in the following article and in The Last Investigation: http://karws.gso.uri.edu/JFK/The_critics/F...th_Specter.html (quote on) The Warren Commission Report says the entrance wound caused by the bullet which came out Kennedy’s throat was “approximately 5½ inches” below the back of the right ear. Yet photographs of the Presidents jacket and shirt, which were part of the FBI supplemental report of January 13th, make it difficult to believe that is the truth. These photographs were not part of the Warren Commission Report and were left out of the 26 volumes of supporting evidence. Although a description of Kennedy’s clothing was in the Report, the discrepancy between the location of the bullet holes in them and the reported location of the wounds was never discussed or explained. And there was a very obvious discrepancy: The hole in the back of the jacket was 5-3/8 inches below the top of the collar and 1¾ inches to the right of the center back seam of the coat. Traces of copper were found in the margins of the hole and the cloth fibers were pushed inward. “Although the precise size of the bullet could not be determined from the hole, it was consistent with having been made by a 6.5-millimeter bullet,” said the Report. The shirt worn by the President also contained a hole in the back about 5¾ inches below the top of the collar and 1-1/8 inches to the right of the middle. It, too, had the characteristics of a bullet entrance hole. Both these holes are in locations that seem obviously inconsistent with the wound described in the Commission’s autopsy report—placed below the back of the right ear—and illustrated in exhibit 385, which Dr. Humes had prepared. “Well,” said Specter, when asked about this in his City Hall office last month, “that difference is accounted for because the President was waving his arm.” He got up from his desk and attempted to have his explanation demonstrated. “Wave your arm a few times, he said, “wave at the crowd. Well, see if the bullet goes in here, the jacket gets hunched up. If you take this point right here and then you strip the coat down, it comes out at a lower point. Well, not too much lower on your example, but the jacket rides up.” If the jacket were “hunched up,” wouldn’t there have been two holes as a result of the doubling over of the cloth? “No, not necessarily. It…it wouldn’t be doubled over. When you sit in the car it could be doubled over at most any point, but the probabilities are that…aaah…that it gets… that…aaah…this…this is about the way a jacket rides up. You sit back…sit back now… all right now…if…usually, as your jacket lies there, the doubling up is right here, but if…but if you have a bullet hit you right about here, which is where I had it, where your jacket sits…it’s not…it’s not…it ordinarily doesn’t crease that far back.” What about the shirt? “Same thing.” So there is no real inconsistency between the Commission’s location of the wound and the holes in the clothing? “No, not at all. That gave us a lot of concern. First time we lined up the shirt…after all, we lined up the shirt…and the hole in the shirt is right about, right about the knot of the tie, came right about here in a slit in the front…” But where did it go in the back? “Well, the back hole, when the shirt is laid down, comes…aaah…well, I forget exactly where it came, but it certainly wasn’t higher, enough higher to…aaah…understand the… aah…the angle of decline which…” Was it lower? Was it lower than the slit in the front? “Well, I think that…that if you took the shirt without allowing for it’s being pulled up, that it would either have been in line or somewhat lower.” Somewhat lower? “Perhaps. I…I don’t want to say because I don’t really remember. I got to take a look at that shirt.” It is difficult to believe that Arlen Specter didn’t take a very close look at that shirt—and that jacket—at the time of the investigation and that these factors didn’t indelibly stick in his mind: Kennedy was one of the best-tailored presidents ever to occupy the White House, and if it is possible—but not probable—that he was wearing a suit jacket baggy enough to ride up five or six inches in the back when he waved his arm, it is inconceivable that a tightly-buttoned shirt could have done the same thing. (quote off) The Single Bullet Theory was demolished in 1966 by Gaeton Fonzi, who exposed Arlen Specter and his Single Bullet Theory as a fraud. If this encounter isn't covered in Mr. Kelin's book it's a grievous omission, imo.

Cliff, certainly a veteran poker man such as yourself can make the assumption that Salandria is in the book. He has to be. That's what I'd figure, but he wasn't mentioned in the Amazon blurb. Hell, I think Oliver Stone picked the wrong guy for "JFK" -- Salandria would have made a better subject than Garrison, imo.

Thanks Dawn. I just ordered it; you convinced me to do it sooner than later. If you say it's a must read, I know I can count on that. And thanks to Peter for the heads-up that Kelin's book was available. The First Generation Critics as they've come to be known were a small but remarkable group of men and women. Gosh, that seems such a long time ago.... I checked it out at Amazon. Vincent Salandria wrote a nice blurb for the book, but I didn't get the impression that Salandria was in the book. If that's the case I may not buy it.

Charles, May I suggest a corollary: Anyone who has read Gerald McKnight's Breach of Trust and still regards the JFK final autopsy report as a genuine medicolegal document is both intellectually dishonest and a participant, witting or unwitting, in the cover-up of JFK's murder.

JFK wore a tucked in custom made dress shirt. The hole in the dress shirt is 4" below the bottom of the shirt collar and the hole in the jacket is 4 & 1/8" below the jacket collar. The jacket was elevated 1/8" vis a vis the shirt. In order to get both of those bullet holes to align with C7 the shirt and the jacket had to be elevated in tandem about 3 inches. Neat trick for a custom-made dress shirt -- which only requires a fraction of an inch of slack. Neat trick for the jacket -- which the Dealey Plaza films and photos show dropping in Dealey. You can't get a dress shirt and jacket to move the same. You can't get 3 inches of a jacket to elevate entirely above C7 at the base of the neck without pushing up on the jacket collar at the base of the neck. JFK's jacket collar was in a normal position at the base of his neck on Elm St. "Bunch Theory" is a scam perpetrated by frauds. Not even Bugliosi could bring himself to defend this nonsense.