Cliff Varnell

TO CLIFF VARNELL: I haven't mentioned the throat wound. I don't expect to any time in the foreseeable future. ^^^ Wise choice. Rock on...

And the throat wound, Ashton? Can you honestly argue that that was an exit wound? [cue "Jaws"]

[AG]: Oh. Well, then, Cliff, why don't y'all trot back over to the TSBD and all the other places that have been kicked to death for over thirty years that don't "have a lot of problems." [CV]: As I indicated in my post, I don't discount shots from the County Courts Building. [AG]: Me, I think I'm just going to continue to loiter around the County Courts building for a while. [CV]: By all means! I'm an Ashton Gray fan. I just calls 'em like I sees 'em, & I don't care if anyone thinks I'm stepping on their toes. [AG]: Well, now, that's an interesting way to put it. Didn't know I was betting my life on it. Very kind of you to apprise me of the fact here in front of God and everybody. [CV]: There's been a mis-understanding here, for which I take full responsibility. I should have stated: "...but it is another thing for the conspirators to BET THEIR LIVES on such a nebulous occurence." I was not accusing you of murdering JFK, no... [AG]: And I think I'll just go on standing right where I am anyway. I'm kind of enjoying the view and counting the passersby who keep telling me I should move along. [CV]: This passerby wants you to stay put, but I'm only pointing out a flaw in your argument -- who in their right mind is going to risk the gallows on the ASSUMPTION that all those people are going to bite on this "puff of smoke" mis-direction you posit? Read 'em and weep, pal: Ashton Gray Ashton, all you're showing here is the five card board! We ALL know they charged the knoll. That's not the issue. You haven't shown your hand down, yet. Your hole cards: the number of people who testified to seeing the puff of smoke on the knoll. My hole cards: the number of people who heard gun shots from the knoll. I'm all in, Ashton. Sure you wanna call?

Ashton, I dig the outside-the-box thinking but this one has a lot of problems. It's one thing to think that everybody in the Plaza MIGHT run toward a puff of smoke and totally ignore the direction of the sound of gun fire, but it is another thing to BET YOUR LIFE on such a nebulous occurrence. IOW, if you think it a lock that everybody would run to a puff of smoke, I'd be happy to play poker with you anytime. Also, you're assuming that the plotters were keen to mask evidence of a conspiracy. I contend they WANTED the assassination to look like a conspiracy -- a Castro conspiracy. It was only when the patsy survived to be captured alive that it became necessary to mask, distort, and deep-six the evidence of conspiracy. And thirdly -- there WERE people behind the fence. A guy flashing false SS credentials, fresh foot-prints in the mud, a "commotion" behind the fence according to Lee Bowers. Ashton, your essential point may be correct -- that the head shot did not come from the knoll. But the head wound evidence is a black hole out of which no light can escape.

This struck a nerve in a couple of places, and deserves a closer look, this question of intellectual dishonesty, especially as it relates to the physical evidence of conspiracy. Here is a textbook example of JFK research intellectual dishonesty: http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/issues_and_ev...hing--Hunt.html John Hunt's "The Case for a Bunched Jacket" wherein he wrote: (quote on) [M]y research indicates that the difference between the impact point of a "smoothly oriented" jacket shot and a "bunched up" jacket shot is little more than two inches. The reader is invited to contact me via e-mail if he or she is curious as to how I arrived at the aforementioned figure. That essay, explaining in detail my methodology, is not yet finished. (quote off) ...Is not yet finished??? The title of this scholarly work is -- "The Case for a Bunched Jacket" -- but the actual "case" is not yet finished? That was 7 years ago. The argument that JFK's back wound was at T1 or above is inherently intellectually dishonest because these researchers cannot identify more than a fraction of an inch of clothing displacement in the Elm St photos and yet their pet theories require the shirt and jacket to have elevated 2+" in tandem.

And in all intellectual honesty please share with us your methodology for determining the amount of "bunched up" fabric we see in Croft #3. I get .75" to 1" -- tops. How about you, Pat? How did you determine that JFK's jacket was bunched up the 2" your T1-entry theory requires? Fair question, isn't it?

Aren't you making an unsupported assumption that the back shot was a conventional round? When you start your argument with the assumption your conclusion is correct -- it's circular logic, Richard. And keep in mind, as you push your pet theories, that you dismiss out of hand the testimony of the half-dozen people who described the throat wound as an entrance and the 15 who put the back wound at T3 or below. 20 different people got a hands on view of these wounds (Parkland nurse Bowron saw both) and they all got it wrong? Mass hallucination? Mass incompetence? Mass prevarication?

What did they say at the autopsy? The wound was shallow. You know and I know that Drs.Humes,Boswell, and Finck were incompetent fools. Humes, Boswell and Richard Lipsey are the only people to describe the back wound above T3. Humes came up with 3 different locations himself: just above the upper margin of the scapula (around T2), 14cm below the mastoid process (C7/T1), and in the Rydberg drawing the back wound was around C6. But the bullet holes in the clothes are 4" below the bottom of the collars, well below the base of the neck. The Dealey Plaza photos clearly show the jacket dropped. And they found no exit. Graphic descriptions of the low, non-transiting back wound are cited elsewhere on this thread . That's why we can eliminate a round travelling 1700-1800 fps. Never happened. Listen to the folks who saw the back and throat wounds and the facts of the case will point to the perps, imo. Cliff,why is the entry wound in JBC back elongated and the same length as 399? The entry wound is not circular it is Elongated! The WC got it right. Richard, JFK's back wound was oval, as well, 7mm x 4mm. If JBC's back wound was oval because the bullet hit something first, what did the bullet that struck JFK hit first? ... 95% of the first day witness testimony is gold. 95% of the photographic evidence is gold. Follow the evidence to a conclusion, not the reverse. [ADD] There seems to be one instance where the photographic evidence and the consensus witness statements conflict: the movement of the limosine in the Zap. I venture no explanation for this discrepency. Cliff, you cannot trust the Z-FIlm. I think it's okay thru Z227. That's the only part of it I cite in my analysis. After that...I prefer to stay out of that black hole...

What did they say at the autopsy? The wound was shallow. You know and I know that Drs.Humes,Boswell, and Finck were incompetent fools. Humes, Boswell and Richard Lipsey are the only people to describe the back wound above T3. Humes came up with 3 different locations himself: just above the upper margin of the scapula (around T2), 14cm below the mastoid process (C7/T1), and in the Rydberg drawing the back wound was around C6. But the bullet holes in the clothes are 4" below the bottom of the collars, well below the base of the neck. The Dealey Plaza photos clearly show the jacket dropped. And they found no exit. Graphic descriptions of the low, non-transiting back wound are cited elsewhere on this thread . That's why we can eliminate a round travelling 1700-1800 fps. Never happened. Listen to the folks who saw the back and throat wounds and the facts of the case will point to the perps, imo. Cliff,why is the entry wound in JBC back elongated and the same length as 399? The entry wound is not circular it is Elongated! The WC got it right. Richard, JFK's back wound was oval, as well, 7mm x 4mm. If JBC's back wound was oval because the bullet hit something first, what did the bullet that struck JFK hit first? ... 95% of the first day witness testimony is gold. 95% of the photographic evidence is gold. Follow the evidence to a conclusion, not the reverse. [ADD] There seems to be one instance where the photographic evidence and the consensus witness statements conflict: the movement of the limosine in the Zap. I venture no explanation for this discrepency.

What did they say at the autopsy? The wound was shallow. You know and I know that Drs.Humes,Boswell, and Finck were incompetent fools. Humes, Boswell and Richard Lipsey are the only people to describe the back wound above T3. Humes came up with 3 different locations himself: just above the upper margin of the scapula (around T2), 14cm below the mastoid process (C7/T1), and in the Rydberg drawing the back wound was around C6. But the bullet holes in the clothes are 4" below the bottom of the collars, well below the base of the neck. The Dealey Plaza photos clearly show the jacket dropped. And they found no exit. Graphic descriptions of the low, non-transiting back wound are cited elsewhere on this thread . That's why we can eliminate a round travelling 1700-1800 fps. Never happened. Listen to the folks who saw the back and throat wounds and the facts of the case will point to the perps, imo.

And from Paul O'Connor in the same book: O’Connor: When we started an autopsy, the first thing we always did…was to weigh and measure the body. We’d check for any scars, contusions, any abnormalities, and so on. But in this case, we didn’t turn the body over to look at the back while we were doing that. Finally we turned the body over, and there was a bullet wound—an entrance wound—in his back, on the right side of his spinal column. To emphasize where it was in proximity to the rest of his body: if you bend your neck down and feel back, you feel a lump and that’s the seventh cervical vertebra. This bullet wound was about 3 inches down and an inch or two to the right of the seventh cervical vertebra. I remember there was a big gush of surprise that nobody actually thought about turning him over right away, you know after we had done our initial investigation of the president’s body. Dr Humes took his finger and poked it in the hole---the bullet wound hole, the entrance wound hole---and said it didn’t go anywhere. There was a very big argument, a lot of consternation, that he shouldn’t have stuck his finger in the hole. Let's add this graphic, detailed account of autopsy attendee James Curtis Jenkins: (quote on) I remember looking inside the chest cavity and I could see the probe...through the pleura [the lining of the chest cavity]...You could actually see where it was making an indentation...where it was pushing the skin up...There was no entry into the chest cavity...it would have been no way that that could have exited in the front because it was then low in the chest cavity...somewhere around the junction of the descending aorta [the main artery carrying blood from the heart] or the bronchus in the lungs. (quote off) From BEST EVIDENCE.

Excellent cite of O'Connor's description of the wound as being 3 inches down from C7 -- matches the consensus testimony, the contemporaneous documents, the holes in the clothes, and the Dealey Plaza photos that show JFK's jacket dropping an inch right before he was shot. I know why LNers insist on a C7/T1 back wound -- they couldn't be LNers otherwise -- by why a CT would buy into it mystifies me.

Yes and no. We can say with 100% certainty that at least 4 shots were fired because JFK's proven T3 back wound was too low to allow any possibility of the Single Bullet Theory. We cannot say with 100% certainty who commanded and controlled the assassination, but I'll argue that we know to 95% certainty that the troika of Ed Lansdale, David Atlee Phillips, and David Sanchez Morales organized and controlled the assassination for the express purpose of pinning the hit on Castro in prelude to an invasion of Cuba. Although these men are rightly characterized as CIA operatives, I'll argue that these individuals did not work "for" any particular institution or group but rather drew upon the sympathy their goals engendered within many institutions and groups. My advice to you, Richard, is read McKnight's BREACH OF TRUST. You will not give so much weight to "evidence" provided by the FBI and the Warren Commission.

I don't fistfight or flamefest vets, JFK's back wound was at T3 and to contend otherwise is, in my opinion, intellectually dishonest. Intellectual Dishonesty = xxxx! No, not necessarily. It means "in denial." That you choose to take this so personally is telling. If I thought we could have a collegial discussion of the facts of the case, I would continue a conversation with you. But you haven't indicated that such a thing is possible, so I'll discuss the case with others.

Mr. Purvis, I don't fistfight or flamefest vets, & since the latter seems inevitable, I'll discuss the JFK assassination with others. Thank you for your past service to our country.

Thank you, Michael. I prefer to discuss facts, but since Tom Purvis can't face the fact that JFK's jacket dropped an inch in Dealey Plaza he has no rhetorical recourse but ad hominem.

What did they say at the autopsy? The wound was shallow.

No one has a definitive answer for what happened 43 years ago. In event you search around, perhaps you may find one here. As regards Cliff, as a "new guy" to the forum it is recognized that you would have had absolutely no idea as to what would occur when you brought up the obvious "bunch/fold" in JFK's coat. Those who have been around are quite familiar with Cliff, and normally, from what has been observed, most apply the "William G. McAdoo" principal when dealing with his junk theories. http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/William_G._McAdoo/ Tom P.S. Welcome, & hope that you have thick skin! ***** This is the first response from Tom Purvis since waaaay back at Lancer in '02. Tom didn't address the evidence then -- and he won't address it now.

That's a path from the throat entrance wound. Bruised the tip of the lung, left a tiny fracture of the tip of the right T1 transverse process. DID NOT EXIT. It also left a field of small metallic debris. Look, Richard, before we go into this I'd advise you consider that 95% of what the first-day witnesses in Dealey, at Parkland, and at Bethesda say is pure gold. Listen to those who were there, Richard, never suppose many people suffered mass hallucinations just because what they say is inconvenient to your pet theories of the assassination.

All I know is what they said at the autopsy -- the bullet didn't exit. The bit about the bullet exiting didn't come up until later when it became a political necessity to cover up the real nature of the crime. I don't think any bullet was extracted from JFK's back.

The implication here is a total non sequitar: (1) The "high back wound" theory requires JFK's shirt and jacket to have been elevated in tandem 2+". (2) There were folds in JFK's jacket at Z161 (the Croft photo shown here). (3) Therefore, JFK's clothing was elevated 2+". This is nonsense. The jacket wasn't elevated more than a fraction of an inch on Elm St. By Z176 JFK's posture had changed, he'd turned his head to the right and had started to wave his right arm. http://www.assassinationresearch.com/zfilm/z176.jpg Betzner #3, taken at Z186, certainly trumps Croft -- and Betzner #3 shows a vertical/diagonal fold at the left base of JFK's neck. A vertical fold means the fabric is pushed SIDEWAYS. This vertical/diagonal fold in Betzner is similar to the diagonal fold in the jacket on Main St., the photo on the left: http://www.jfklancer.com/photos/sbt/tkoap.jpg Same posture on Main St as in Betzner: JFK's head turned to the right, right arm waving. In the Main St. photo the shirt collar IS NOT VISIBLE. At Betzner-Z186 the shirt collar IS VISIBLE. The jacket DROPPED. The fabric was pushed SIDEWAYS. JFK's back wound was at T3 and to contend otherwise is, in my opinion, intellectually dishonest.

Pat, that would require both the shirt and the jacket to have elevated 2" in tandem entirely above your alleged T1 inshoot, at the base of JFK's neck. But Altgens #5 shows a smooth jacket back and a jacket collar only elevated about an inch. The jacket collar rode ABOVE the top of the shirt collar but BELOW the hairline. His shirt collar was not visible in Altgens, but visible in the Elm St. photos: ergo, the jacket dropped right before JFK was shot. The Towner film clearly shows JFK's shirt collar at the back of his neck, the jacket collar riding in a normal position toward the base of his neck. http://www.jfk-online.com/Towner.mpg JFK's jacket dropped in Dealey Plaza. The bullet holes in the clothes align with T3, where the contemporaneous documents and witness testimony place it. Your bunch theory is nonsense, Pat, as is your insistence that more than a dozen witnesses to the T3 back wound suffered a mass hallucination. Anyone who claims that JFK's back wound was above T3 does not understand the nature of this crime, nor the nature of it's cover-up.

* * * "I believe the CIA directed and controlled the assassination of John Kennedy." * * * "Morales may have worked for the mob." * * * I don't buy any of this. Morales/Phillips/Lansdale didn't work for an ENTITY -- "the mob," "the Agency." etc. They worked for a specific United States government POLICY: the military overthrow of the Castro government in response to the Castro-ordered murder of President John F. Kennedy. The carefully sheep-dipped patsy survived to be captured alive, and thus the operation of Eleven Twenty-Two failed in it's primary objective. The invade-Cuba policy had much sympathy in the CIA, organized crime, the Joint Chiefs, the Texas oil industry, the Dallas Police Dept., the FBI, the office of the Vice President, the Secret Service, and others. How this sympathy congealed into material support for the conspirators is a matter of speculation. But not one of those entities directed and controlled the assassinations, imo. Morales, Phillips & Lansdale -- coup makers extraordinaire -- likely directed and controlled the JFK assassination, with Morales likely responsible for arranging Bobby's murder. The assassination of Robert Kennedy had the (successful) primary objective of PREVENTING a USG policy under a potential RFK Presidency -- the rigorous investigation of his brother's murder. Morales wasn't in the Ambassador Hotel as a hired hand -- he was there to keep his own treasonous neck out of a noose.

No pining for the truth here, is there? Understand this, also: The action that brought about the death of President Kennedy is directly related to where we have gone as a nation since then. It is particularly important to what is happening today. That single event prefaced the disintegration of our solid faith in government, fathering the now pervasive and enervating assumption that we no longer have control over our economic or political destiny. Its residue lies in the ashes of the Sixties--in burned out countries and burned out cities and burned out people--and in the debilitating social disparities and continuing civil conflicts of the last thirty years. The assassination and its aftermath bred rampant distrust and disrespect for all established institutions, and that outlook festers yet. And now, we hardly give a damn when our own Government violates or ignores its own laws, as it has done with distressing regularity over the last two decades. An enormous public apathy greeted the Iran/Contra scandals; we were hardly stirred by the fact that hidden layers of government had pursued a secret foreign policy agenda, circumventing the law of the land, the Congress and the Constituion itself. And still, it seems incredible that we're not angry. The fact is, we know an effective democracy demands a populace ready, willing and able to get riled enough to pressure its elected officials into doing their duty in spite of themselves. Where is that anger now? The Government has failed us. It is outrageous that in a democratic society, after two official investigations, our Government still tells us it doesn't know what happened, I hope this book makes you angry about that. Very angry. If it doesn't, we might as well let slip the grip on our individual freedom. It will be gone soon enough. Gaeton Fonzi 1993 The Last Investigation This was the book that inspired my research. My advice to any newbies to the subject -- read the Last Investigation, & the chapter on Operation Northwoods in James Bamford's Body of Secrets, Gerald D. McKnight's Breach of Trust, & anything by Rex Bradford. MEXI is the key. Sheep dipping the patsy as a Castro agent, Phillips head of anti-Castro activities in MC. Maurice Bishop...Ed Lansdale...bad guys. Key government docs (among others) -- Op Northwoods (see Bamford) and this: http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/the_critics/g..._CIA_Agent.html This case is solved to my satisfaction and I don't need the NY Times to ratify my conclusion.

Gaeton Fonzi and James Bamford broke the JFK case years ago. It is a "false mystery," as Vincent Salandria would say (Oliver Stone should have made JFK about Salandria, not Garrison.) JFK was murdered to provide a pre-text to invade Cuba. David Atlee Phillips was fingered by his own family. David Sanchez Morales was fingered by very close family friends. Ed Lansdale -- the inspiration for the Operation Northwoods false flag plots to establish a pre-text to invade Cuba -- was fingered by two close colleagues as being in one of the tramp photos. It isn't too obvious now, is it? ...Oh, pardon me, did I interrupt some poetic pining for the truth? 'scuse...