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Posts posted by Cliff Varnell
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I find it hard to believe that anyone these days, with the amount of information out there, would STILL believe in the SBT.
RJS
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.
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No sir,not my pet theories. Everything that happened from the time JFK stepped off the plane at Love Field up until this day, has been all theory. No one has a definitive answer for what happened 43 years ago.
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.
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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.
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 we are to assume that you ARE NOT "intellectually dishonest", then we mustassume that one would have to be totally ignorant of the actual facts to claim the T3
"factoid".
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.
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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.
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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.
"It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument."
In event that one can not discredit the presented facts, there is little left other than an attempt to discredit the individual who presents the facts.Usually a "losing" debate tactic among the more knowledgeable and educated.
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.
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Here is the x-ray Cliff. I see nothing at T3
What did they say at the autopsy? The wound was shallow.
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No sir,not my pet theories. Everything that happened from the time JFK stepped off the plane at Love Field up until this day, has been all theory. No one has a definitive answer for what happened 43 years ago.
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.
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The "official x-ray" shows the bullet path high in the neck, not at T-3.
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.
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Cliff,if I understand you correctly, you are saying the bullet to the back never exited?
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.
That the now famous magic bullet was extracted from JFK's back the night of the autopsy?I don't think any bullet was extracted from JFK's back.
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Just seconds before JFK hit.
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.
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Instead, it raises it to the level of the back wound on the autopsy photos,
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.
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* * *
"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.
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Gaeton Fonzi and James Bamford broke the JFK case years ago.
If there had been more men like Gaeton Fonzi on the HSCA, the case might have been solved....Oh, pardon me, did I interrupt some poetic pining for the truth?'scuse...
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 1993The Last InvestigationThis 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.
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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...
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John, the Tague fragment is not nearly the mystery it seems to be, once one realizes that it was a fragment from the head shot and not a sepaqate bullet strike. Sturdivan and Rahn have a whole section on this on Rahn's website. Sturdivan maintains that fragments exit skulls at hundreds of feet per second and that a large enough fragment--more than a third of the head shot bullet was never found--would have enough energy to travel to Tague and damage the curb. He performs a series of calculations demonstrating this. It made sense to me at the time. If you take a look and find something wrong with their thinking on this point please let me know.
A 3g frag can't maintain a near-straight-line trajectory into the teeth of a hard,
swirling wind over the course of 85 yards.
Rahn didn't accurately calculate the rise and run of his Tague Frag, as our friend
John Hunt proved back in 2002. Rahn acknowledged that the curb-impact velocity
would thus be reduced 30%. He promised to change the figures on his website,
but since he is a propagandist and not an educator he lacks the sufficient intellectual
honesty to maintain accuracy.
Rahn and Sturdivan are crackpots, Pat -- havent you figured that out?
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Ok, I'm looking at it. I wonder if Tom could post the elevation above sea level for the curb strike position? I think one should be able to do a calculation ackwards from there tosee what velocity a fragment would have had to have to rise from Kennedys head over obstacles and descend to the curb at that point. I imagine it would be possible to be quite precise about that. Maybe not? If so one can then speculate about if that would be sufficiet to tangentially strike concrete, cause the damage it did and chips break skin 20 feet away.
John, while you're at it, take a look at this frame of the Muchmore film...
[scroll down a bit]
http://spot.acorn.net/jfkplace/09/fp.back_...ue/beverly.html
Note the position of the bottom of Mary Moorman's and Jean Hill's coats.
There was a stiff breeze blowing from the southwest at the moment of the head shot.
Meanwhile, up on the corner of Houston and Elm, motorcycle cop Marrion Baker was
almost knocked over by a stiff wind from the north.
James Tague stood 90 yards southwest of the limo at the moment of the head shot.
There was a hard, swirling wind blowing in Dealey Plaza, and yet we are to buy the
notion that a 3g bullet fragment could maintain a near-straight-line trajectory into
the teeth of this hard, swirling wind over the course of some 85 yards?
The notion is absurd on its face, no?
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There is evidence of a sound-suppressed shot from the right front circa Z199.
Here's JFK at Z186 in Betzner #3.
[hit enlarge]
http://www.geocities.com/quaneeri4/Betzner_Large.jpg
He sat bolt upright, head turned to the right, right arm waving.
He was last in this posture at Z198.
[hit enlarge]
http://www.assassinationresearch.com/zfilm/z198.jpg
Phil Willis stated that he took his fifth photo in a startle response to a gun shot.
Thanks to John Hunt's correction of Willis #5 to the horizon line, we can
see that JFK was leaning noticably to his left at Z202.
The HSCA made the following analysis:
(quote on)
By Zapruder frame 207, when President Kennedy is seen going behind a sign
that obstructed Zapruder’s view, he appears to be reacting to a severe external
stimulus. This reaction is first indicated in the vicinity of frame 200 of the Zapruder
film. The President’s right hand freezes in the midst of a waving motion, followed
by a rapid leftward movement of his head. There is, therefore, photographic evidence
of a shot striking the President by this time.(HSCA Report and Vol. 6:17)
(quote off)
How does a mere 3 Z-frames (1/6th of a second) allow enough time for
both Phil Willis' startle response and the mechanical operation of the camera?
I'd argue that the shot that startled Phil Willis and made him take his fifth photo was
NOT the same shot that struck JFK in the throat from the right front circa Z199.
The throat shot was sound suppressed.
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The "40 million dead" scenario was a con job from beginning to end.
From James Bamford's BODY OF SECRETS (pg 84)
(quote on)
On February 20, 1962, [John] Glenn was to lift off from Cape Canaveral, Florida,
on his historic journey. The flight was to carry the banner of America's virtues
of truth, freedom, and democracy into orbit high over the planet. But [Chairman
of the JCS] Lemnitzer and his Chiefs had a different idea. They proposed to
[Operation Mongoose chief] Lansdale that, should the rocket explode and kill
Glenn, "the objective is to provide irrevocable proof that...the fault lies with the
Communists et al Cuba [sic]." This would be accomplished, Lemnitzer continued,
"by manufacturing various pieces of evidence which would prove electronic interference
on the part of the Cubans." Thus, as NASA prepared to send the first American into
space, the Joint Chiefs of Staff were preparing to use John Glenn's possible death as
a pre-text to launch a war.
(quote off)
BODY OF SECRETS (pg 87): Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Lyman
Lemnitzer wrote in a memorandum to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara,
April 10, 1962...
(quote on, emphasis added)
The Joint Chiefs of Staff believe that the Cuban problem must be solved in the near
future...Further, they see no prospect of early success in overthrowing the present
communist regime either as a result of internal uprising or external political, economic
or psychological pressures. Accordingly they believe that military intervention by the
United States will be required to overthrow the present communist regime...The Joint
Chiefs of Staff believe that the United States can undertake military intervention in Cuba
WITHOUT RISK OF GENERAL WAR. They also believe that the intervention can be
accomplished rapidly enough to minimize communist opportunities for solicitation of
U.N. action.
(quote off)
In order to successfully establish a pre-text to invade Cuba, "the objective is to
provide irrevocable proof" that anti-American acts were ordered by Castro, and
that such proof would allow the US to invade Cuba "without risk of general war."
Such was the thinking at the top of American military circles in 1962, and, I'd
speculate, on 11/22/63.
Such was the thinking of at least one Cuban journalist on Eleven Twenty-Two,
according to this:
http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2303/sto...24001605500.htm
(quote on)
On November 22, 1963, I was in the picturesque La Percherie restaurant in the port of
Algiers, anticipating the house's excellent snails with Helen Klein, the United States
press chief of President Ahmed Ben Bella. We suddenly received the terrible news.
"President Kennedy has been assassinated!" Now they are going to blame Cuba," I
immediately told her.
"Don't exaggerate," she said.
We quickly went to the Prensa Latina agency on 26, Rue Claude Debussy, where I was
working as a correspondent. There I learned how the radio stations were repeating that
the Cuban government was responsible for the assassination. Surprised, Helen asked me
how I had guessed it.
"I'm not a fortune-teller," I explained, "but for the United States, Cuba is the cause of all
evil. A little bit of it because of hysteria and another little bit because they are looking for
a pretext to try and crush us."
However, a few hours later, the accusation vanished into the air with the same speed that
it had entered...
A Washington-based journalist with close links to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
told me in confidence that the version originally came from the CIA, which distributed a
note stating that Lee Harvey Oswald had committed the murder on behalf of the Cuban government. He added that the FBI forced the media to withdraw the accusation.
When I asked the veteran journalist why the FBI had taken the trouble to do so, he
explained that they considered the initiative an irresponsibility that could have unleashed incalculable consequences, such as a third world war.
(quote off)
Plan A of the assassination plot, to murder JFK in a manner that could be blamed on
a Castro conspiracy, became Plan B in the cover-up: when the lone assassin scenario
(Cover-up Plan A) falls apart, blame Castro and conjur the vision of "40 million dead."
Clearly, the bar that the super-hawks established for a fruitful pretext for invasion had
not been cleared when Oswald was captured alive. Civilian hawks like McGeorge Bundy
understood this, even if the CIA did not. According to Vincent Salandria, Bundy first
transmitted the "news" that Oswald was a lone nut to LBJ before the new President
even landed in DC.
From Salandria's article, "The Tale Told by Two Tapes,"
(quote on)
The Situation Room of the White House first fingered Oswald as the lone assassin...
McGeorge Bundy was in charge of the Situation Room and was spending that fateful
afternoon receiving phone calls from President Johnson, who was calling from Air Force
One when the lone-assassin myth was prematurely given birth...
(quote off)
According to Max Holland's THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION TAPES, Bundy,
Sec/Def Robert McNamara, and George Ball discussed the "overseas implications of
the assassination" on the helicopter ride from Andrews AFB to the White House (pg 57).
LBJ wasn't in the White House more than a few minutes before another major figure
popped in to tell the new Prez what's what...
THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION TAPES, pg 57:
(quote on)
At 6:55 p.m.Johnson has a ten-minute meeting with Senator J. William Fulbright
(D-Arkansas) and diplomat W. Averell Harriman to discuss possible foreign involvement
in the assassination, especially in light of the two-and-a-half year Soviet sojourn of Lee
Harvey Oswald, a twenty-four-year-old man apprehended by Dallas police who is now
considered the chief suspect. Harriman, a U.S. ambassador to Moscow during
World War II, is an experienced interpreter of Soviet machinations and offers the
President the unanimous view of the U.S. government's top Kremlinologists. None
of them believe the Soviets have a hand in the assassination.
(quote off)
I'd speculate that Harriman and Bundy -- rocks of the Eastern Establishment -- would
have signed off on a Cuban invasion if Oswald had been gunned down on Eleven Twenty-Two.
A dead patsy would have enabled the "rapid intervention" required to avoid "general war."
That the patsy was captured alive muddled the picture, so Harriman and Bundy killed the
Castro-did-it scenario.
The man caught in the middle of all this was J. Edgar Hoover. Sympathetic with the
super-hawks, Hoover was given the job of proving that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone
without any foreign involvement.
It was not a job that Hoover relished, I'd speculate, which is why he expressed his
"confusion" during the 11/23 call from LBJ:
http://www.history-matters.com/essays/fram...enMinuteGap.htm
I find this passage from Gerald McKnight's BREACH OF TRUST most telling:
(quote on)
Cartha D. "Deke" DeLoach, the assistant director in charge of the Crime Records Division,
the bureau's well-oiled and effective public relations machine, leaves us with the image of
"the Director" as a natural leader abled to rise to the occasion and surmount any crisis.
DeLoach's Hoover faced national traumas with "a cold and analytical eye," transforming
himself into a high performance machine, spitting out orders...measuring his words with
the precision of a jeweler." Nevertheless, on the day of the assassination DeLoach's
unerring, machinelike director unaccountably broke down. Before that shattering day was
over, virtually every fact he reported to high government officers was wrong. He had shots
coming from the fourth and fifth floors of the book depository building and a Winchester
rifle as the murder rather than the now familiar Mannlicher-Carcano allegedly owned by
Oswald. He had Oswald shuttling back and forth to Castro's Cuba, when in fact Oswald's
one effort to get to Cuba from Mexico in the fall of 1963 had proven futile. There is no
FBI or other government record made public that documents Oswald ever being in Cuba...
Before the day was over, Hoover, despite his record of factual error, hade envisioned the
solution to the crime -- Oswald, "a nut of the extreme pro-Castro crowd," was the lone
assassin.
(quote off)
So, was Hoover a senile old man venting his delusions, or was there a method to
his madness?
The following suggests the latter:
BREACH OF TRUST pg 16:
(quote on)
As the result of stellar investigative techniques or an informant, the FBI had traced
Oswald's Mannlicher-Carcano...to Klein's [sporting Goods Company] the day of
the assassination.
(quote off)
So Hoover had his boys hot on the trail of the MC while Hoover spouted out about
a Winchester, as well as multiple shooting locations and a lone assassin.
I'd speculate that Hoover was keeping both scenarios open -- Castro Conspiracy and
Lone Nut -- in order to accomodate both the Harriman/Bundy crowd (Yankees) and the
Generals "L" -- LeMay, Lemnitzer and Lansdale (Cowboys). Hoover wanted to push for
Castro Conspiracy, but the Yankees held sway over the new President.
This ambiguity extended to the way in which the evidence was handled as it came in
to the FBI Lab on 11/22 and the morning of 11/23.
This document, unearthed by Anthony Marsh, is the contemporaneous notes of
FBI lead examiner Robert Frazier.
http://home.comcast.net/~the-puzzle-palace/436461A.gif
Note the two references to "Q1" and the listing of the limo frags initially as "#1 #2 #3".
Those frags were later designated "Q11 Q12 Q13" (according to John Hunt) and still later
designated together as "Q14."
http://home.comcast.net/~the-puzzle-palace/436461A.gif
This document, unearthed by John Hunt, is Frazier's "evidence roadmap," which
he prepared for his WC testimony. Note the reference to the distribution of
master evidence lists with "the Q & K #s blanked out." (#5)...
http://history-matters.com/essays/frameup/...aks/Figure3.jpg
At 10:01am on 11/23/63 LBJ called Hoover and told him to squelch all talk
of conspiracy. The Northwoods option had failed, and Hoover was stuck
with the job of turning an obvious conspiracy into the work of one man.
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...right on cue the thread descends into chaos...
It's time for me to don the CT jacket, step up to the line in the great Parlor Game...
tho I can't cut through the din perhaps I can spark the discussion away from spats over
that great black hole -- photo alteration...
The case of John F. Kennedy's murder was solved in 2001 with the publication of
James Bamford's BODY OF SECRETS, with its revelations about Operation Northwoods.
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/northwoods.html
Gen. Lansdale inspired Operation Northwoods and colleagues ID him in one of
the tramp photos.
http://www.ratical.org///ratville/JFK/USO/appD.html
Dovetails nicely with what Gaeton Fonzi dug up on David Atlee Phillips and David
Sanchez Morales in THE LAST INVESTIGATION.
http://cuban-exile.com/doc_001-025/doc0006.html
A document uncovered in 1998 links Lansdale with an intelligence operative
who fit the description of Maurice Bishop...
http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/the_critics/g..._CIA_Agent.html
JFK was murdered in a manner designed to look like a conspiracy -- a Castro
conspiracy. Powerful segments of the military/intelligence community wanted
a pre-text to invade Cuba, and wield a more free hand in Vietnam.
Oswald was obviously sheep-dipped to fit the bill of a Castro agent.
I'd speculate that if a Dallas policeman had gunned down Oswald on
Eleven Twenty-Two, the US Air Force would have, in the words of
Richard Helms, "bombed Cuba back into the middle ages."
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Hi Ashton,
Killer post.
You hit on some things I've been rolling around in my cabeza for a while...our
agreements are as sharp as our disagreement(s).
The only thing in your post I wholeheartedly disagree with is the insinuation
that Pat Speer et al are "disinformation agents."
I don't buy it. I think the cover-up took on a life of its own decades ago, and
you eloquently describe its current function otherwise. That's a point of
agreement I'll get to shortly.
When "CTs" argue major LNer talking points, I dismiss them as ego-heads whose
need to be *right* overpowers any intellectually honest urge to know the truth.
I give 'em the "Vichy CT" needle if they ask for it, but otherwise I give them
the benefit of the doubt.
Don't get me wrong, it certainly is *possible* that some think tank is funding
these clowns -- but I don't go there because when you get right down to it,
anybody who disagrees with me about anything is potentially suspect...
...Pat, you again refuse to discuss any of the evidence I put forth and apparently want to make this a battle of conclusions.
...That's why you snip out my arguments, rather than stand and rebut them point by point.
...You regularly accuse me of hindering progress in the case!
...How does embracing an obvious lie *win* any argument?
...Unfortunately you have an ugly habit of attributing arguments to people they never made.
Hi, Cliff.
I've taken the liberty of excerpting the quotes above from several of your messages, not to comment on the evidence at issue—since I believe the "medical evidence" is almost exclusively the game of the disinformationists for reasons set forth herein—but to comment on the games played on their selected playing fields.
Bingo! There are many such black hole discussions in this case, the location of the
head wounds most especially. You say dis-info, I say mis-info, but otherwise, yes,
these discussions have an obfuscationary function.
Anything that makes the case needlessly complex serves an obfuscationary function,
imho, and this is often the collatoral damage of good research, as much as the
intellectually dishonest product of the ego-head mis-infos.
Other black holes I rarely descend:
NAA of bullet fragments
the police dictabelt/acoustic evidence
the Garrison investigation
photo alteration (outside of Fox 5 autopsy photo -- clearly altered)
J. Baker/J. Files
This thread may be the only discussion of the head wounds I've engaged in since 1997.
Near total waste of time, that one.
The nature of the throat wound is not a waste of time. It's characteristics may
point to the perps.
And the location of the back wound is prima facie proof of conspiracy.
The boundaries of their playing fields are always marked by the edges of the mists of ambiguity. Hardly any greater ambiguity exists than the provenance and validity of the "medical evidence." It is a Klein bottle of "evidence," existing inside and outside itself with no entrance and no exit (and that can be taken in any way anyone wishes, literally or figuratively).Their playing fields are governed, in terms of time, only by infinity, and, in terms of goals, only by conflict: time never expires, conflicts are never resolved, scores cannot be made, arguments can be neither won nor lost. But the game can be won infinitely by the playing field owners, since the only goal anywhere on the field is the continuance of the conflict through any means, any tactic, without the slightest regard for any rules of engagement, debate, or decency. Anyone reckless enough to play their game on their own fields of ambiguity with the hope of any other possible outcome is doomed by stepping on the field.
The Parlor Game.
When I realized that I could play the Parlor Game into infinity, always commanding
the lead but always running in place, I found fun in the idea of taking hostages.
I have two -- John Hunt and Chad Zimmerman. My critiques of their intellectually
indefensible SBT-works are scathing to the nth degree, but mostly I hold my fire.
When the Parlor Game gets real sick, reputations are hunted for sport.
Their overriding and ruling rule is chaos, not order. Even if one should be clever or observant enough to make inroads of clarity on their foggy fields of ambiguity, the amorphous boundaries—like the time that governs play—are infinitely movable and infinitely expandable through the infinite accusation of fictional "arguments" never argued or proposed, just as you bemoan above. If you should be so astute as actually to take one tiny piece of their ground, 20,000 more acres of mist are created from nothing in an instant and added to the field stretched out before you....Damn! Now that is some writin', bro-slam!
Yep, I got me my little piece o' original JFK research, my one (1) contibution to the case:
Jacket up on Main St, jacket normal in Fort Worth...
http://www.jfklancer.com/photos/sbt/tkoap.jpg
Jacket normal at Z186 (visible shirt collar, vertical/diagonal fold)
http://www.geocities.com/quaneeri4/Betzner_Large.jpg
Back 1997 I started posting research on the internet, arguing for the primacy
of the clothing evidence.
At that time 5% of all JFK researchers regarded the clothing holes as definitive
evidence of conspiracy.
After 9 years posting 2 million words of brilliant research and rhetoric on usenet,
I find that today, in 2006, about 4% of JFK researchers regard the clothing evidence
as definitive.
And what does it matter, anyway, once one has accepted and donned the hideous uniform/costume/frightmask they created for the "Conspiracy Theorist," a non-existent and entirely generalized "persona" that the disinformationists have so thoroughly discredited that to wear the garment is to lose the game.Bingo! You may call me naive but I refuse to have the CT jacket on my back, not
when I'm on my little unambiguous piece of the JFK case.
I speak of no "theory."
These are hard facts...Three guys were struck in Dealey on Eleven-Twenty-Two,
9 wounds suffered between them.
The holes in JFK's clothes are 4 inches below the collar, well below his throat
wound -- rendering it impossible for only 3 shots to have created those 9 wounds.
Hard fact.
There are no assumptions in my analysis, no "theory."
As long as they can make the game one of "CTs" versus them—in their own endless conspiracy of disinformation, a delicious irony—they have assured for themselves infinite conflict on their own fields of infinite ambiguity, and that is the only game they will play.Ashton Gray
Screw 'em. My "debate" with Pat Speer is on the order of a child picking wings off flies...
-
Pat wrote:
> Cliff, you clearly don't spend much time reading other people's work.
When I read your limp re-write of "Coat Check," I felt discouraged from
entertaining any further regard for your work.
> I updated my presentation in January and gave props to you for your collar
> suggestion.
Thank you. I only wish my pointing out JFK's jacket drop had made
a similar impression.
Well, you've certainly made no effort to rebut the fact that JFK's jacket
dropped an inch in Dealey Plaza.
Of course, no one has...It's a fact that couldn't be more obvious.
But to acknowledge that fact would require you to let go of your pet,
LN-friendly T1-back-wound theory -- and we can't have that, can we, Pat?
> I also argued against Hunt's claim that the collar was bunched enough to support
> the SBT.
I'm curious -- what was your methodology for determing the amount of
elevated jacket fabric in Croft?
> I used images from his presentation and everything.
Total waste of time. It doesn't take a "presentation" to debunk the SBT -- the
T3 back wound is prima facie physical evidence of multiple shooters in Dealey.
Can we move on?
There is no need to drag the fact of conspiracy down these black holes of complex
"presentations."
Arguing against the SBT on more complex points does not move the case forward.
That Humes/Specter could con CTs into accepting a T1 back wound is a measure
of the success of the cover-up.
> As far as the top of the head photo....you can not see the back of the head or the
> top of the back of the head in that photo. You see blood and brain encrusted hair.
There are 3 strands of "brain encrusted hair" in this photo...
The shorter strand on the right is clearly extruding from a location behind
the right ear, which must be above the white horizontal line of the table.
That fact contradicts what is seen in Fox 5:
I'm not a photo-alterationist, Pat, nor am I given to calling witnesses liars.
But even the HSCA disputed the authenticity of Fox 5.
It wasn't even a good alteration, Fox 5: how do you explain an abrasion
collar consistent with a bullet that entered on an upward trajectory, Pat?
-
Pat Speer wrote:
>Cliff I honestly can't follow the logic in your arguments.
No, my arguments are easy to follow. What you're struggling with is your
lack of a single fact to support your case.
That's why you snip out my arguments, rather than stand and rebut them
point by point.
> I AGREE with you that the holes in the jacket are too low for the SBT to make
> sense.
I'm having a similar debate right now with a guy over on aajfk. Like you, this guy
claims that the Fox 5 photo is 100% definitive, the irrefutable evidence of a wound
at C7/T1.
He says C7/T1, you say T1.
His name is John McAdams.
It appears that you AGREE with John McAdams about the location of the back
wound (give or take a fraction of an inch), and the PRIMACY of the evidence
upon which this hard conclusion was based.
In that sense, you and the LNers are on the same page.
The problem is -- that page is full of lies. The evidence of the T3 wound is so
overwhelming that even J Edgar Hoover didn't attempt to contradict it.
Getting the back wound to reconcile with the lone shooter scenario was the
WC's biggest challenge.
So Humes, a military man acting under orders, posited THREE different wound
locations above T3.
First, he fudged the location just a little. The actual wound was just below the
upper margin of the scapula, so Humes first moved it to just ABOVE the upper
margin of the scapula -- a location consistent with T2.
(Please note, Pat, that the upper margin of the scapula is visible in Fox 5
and the wound IS NOT "just above" it.)
Then Humes concocted another location, "14c below the mastoid process,"
which, as you have confirmed, is consistent with T1 (or C7/T1 according to
the LN).
Finally, Humes directed the creation of the Rydberg drawing, which put the
wound in the back of the neck above C7.
Humes, Specter & Co. couldn't be sure exactly which wound location best fit the
Single Bullet Theory (which is why they were hot for a "reenactment") so they
threw a bunch of xxxx on the wall hoping something would stick.
As I say, it's understandable that LNers would buy into this egregious dishonesty,
but it boggles my mind that any CT -- or at least one who has spent any time at
all studying the evidence -- would swallow it.
> I AGREE with you that this fact alone indicates the likelihood of conspiracy.
I said nothing about "likelihood."
It is a hard FACT that JFK's jacket dropped an inch in Dealey Plaza, to lay in a
normal position on his torso in the Elm St. killing zone.
This is a certainty based on the motorcade photos, not a "likelihood."
It's real simple, even a four year old could follow...
Visible shirt collar at the nape of JFK's neck at Z186 = no significant elevation
of the clothing fabric.
The jacket collar could not occupy the same physical space at the base
of JFK's neck -- at the same time -- as 4" of bunched up clothing.
Disparate, solid objects do not occupy the same physical space at the same
time, Pat, that's why we have car crashes...
> And yet you consider me some sort of trader (a vichy CT)
You regularly accuse me of hindering progress in the case!
Don't dish that xxxx out if you can't take it.
> simply because I believe
> Kennedy's elbow was raised around frame 190, and that this could indicate that his
> jacket was SLIGHTLY raised in comparison to his back.
No, Pat, you posit a 2-inch elevation of the shirt and jacket IN TANDEM,
a physical impossiblity for a tucked-in, custom-made dress shirt.
Don't you grasp the extent of your claim?
Stick to hard facts and you can't go wrong:
The bullet defect in the shirt is 4 inches below the bottom of the collar.
The hole in the jacket is 4 & 1/8 inches below the bottom of the collar.
The two garments had to elevate two inches TOGETHER. even though
JFK's shirt was tucked in and custom-made dress shirts only require
3/4 inch of slack for a man to look good and move comfortably.
Did JFK sit down in the limo with his shirt tail out?
JFK's jacket had padded shoulders -- his shirt didn't. And yet you posit
the two garments moved as one.
Ludicrous...in the extreme.
Besides, JFK's elbow was elevated as soon as he sat down in the limo.
He spent virtually the entire motorcade with his right elbow elevated.
As this photo shows, even while seated with his elbow up, the top of his
shirt collar was an inch below his hairline, same as when standing.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/MCade.htm
> Whatever, dude.
I suspect you re-wrote your article "Coat Check" in order to suck up to
John Hunt.
Not long ago you endorsed -- on this very Forum -- the entire body of
John Hunt's work.
Perhaps you should look before you leap.
John Hunt is an interesting researcher, indeed -- capable of brilliant work...
"The Mystery of the 7:30 Bullet"
http://www.jfklancer.com/hunt/mystery.html
Adjusting Willis 5 to Horizon Line:
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/ngarchive/Willis.jpg
... and John Hunt is sadly capable of work of egregious dishonesty...
"The Case for a Bunched Jacket"
"Frazier Speaks"
A fact is a fact no matter who cites it -- a lie is a lie no matter who
passes it.
I have no problem citing the work of John Hunt in one breath, and
debunking his other work in the next.
Pat, care to debate the merits of either "Frazier Speaks" or "Bunched Jacket"...?
> Attitude's like yours will prevent the truth of your statements--the SBT IS a
> joke--from being recognized by many.
Yes, Pat, you've accused me of setting the case back several times now.
The feeling is mutual, but I note my rhetorical needle may sink a bit deeper
than yours.
You might want to think twice before we continue down this road.
> And. by the way, I fail to see the back of the head in the top of the head photo...
> The large skull defect in that photo is in front of the ear, as is the large defect
> seen in the other photos.
I said "the top of the back of the head," not "the back of the head."
The top of the back of the head in this photo is consistent with the wounds
described at Parkland...
Fox 5 does not show the damage described at Parkland nor does it show
the damage to the TOP OF THE BACK of the head as seen in the above.
-
Pat, you again refuse to discuss any of the evidence I put forth and
apparently want to make this a battle of conclusions.
I'll try to underscore the points you cannot address...
I wrote:
>> Pat, you expect the CT community to embrace one photo -- Fox 5 -- that
>> was singled out by the HSCA (for crissakes!) as obviously deficient as
>> scientific evidence?
>> What indefensible nonsense.
>> I think the CT community needs to read BREACH OF TRUST and grasp how
>> the murder of JFK was covered-up.
> Cliff, my analysis of the back wound photo and my comparison to the other autopsy
> photos is available online in the presentation at the link below.
Your analyses don't inspire me rebut any more than what you present
here on the Forum.
> You post above that the photograph showing the top of Kennedy's head is incompatible with the
> back wound photo. This is preposterous. The two photos show different parts of Kennedy's head,
> so how can they be in conflict?
Are you denying that both photos show the top-back of JFK's head?
> From my perspective it is your refusal to look at the evidence that is indefensible.
And your perspective is unsullied by any attempt to rebut the clear photographic
evidence that the jacket dropped an inch in Dealey Plaza.
This is a typical LNer/Vichy-CT rhetorical tactic on this issue -- cut out the argument
I present and act as if no argument was presented.
> I think Kennedy was first hit at frame 190.
I put it at Z199 but I won't quibble.
> Yes, the Betzner photo was closer to that time. But the point is that if we accept the
> Croft photo as indicative of Kennedy's position a la the HSCA, a la the LN community,
> then we WIN the argument.
How does embracing an obvious lie *win* any argument?
And I'm not a part of your *we* -- I have more respect for LNers than Vichy CTs.
> Unfortunately, it seems clear you're happy with the status quo of the last 20 years...
> "everything is fake" and "they lied."
Unfortunately you have an ugly habit of attributing arguments to people
they never made. I cited ONE photo -- Fox 5 -- and from that you attribute
to me the argument that "everything is fake" and "they lied"?
What about the dozen plus people who stated to the T3 back wound -- all
liars, Pat? Do you want me to attribute that argument to you?
Or did all of the following people suffer the same mass hallucination?
1) FBI SA James Sibert
2) FBI SA Francis O'Neill
3) SS SA Glen Bennett
4) SS SA Clint Hill
5) SS SA Roy Kellerman
6) SS SA Will Greer
7) Autopsy Doctor John Ebersole
8) Autopsy witness Chester Boyers
9) Autopsy witness Floyd Reibe
10) Autopsy witness Jan Gail Rudnicki
11)) Autopsy witness James Curtis Jenkins
12) Autopsy witness Edward Reed
13) Parkland nurse Diana Bowron
14) Dr. George Burkley, JFK's personal physician
The evidence clearly proves a T3 back wound...
http://www.jfklancer.com/docs.maps/back_diagram.gif
http://www.jfklancer.com/photos/Evidence/jfkjacket.GIF
http://www.jfklancer.com/photos/Evidence/jfkshirt.GIF
http://www.jfklancer.com/photos/Ford-Rankin/FBIreenact.GIF
http://www.jfklancer.com/docs.maps/autopdescript1.gif
Dr. John Ebersole attended the autopsy and told Dr. David Mantik
in a 1992 interview that the back wound was at T-4. (Harrison
Livingstone's KILLING THE TRUTH pg 721)
Nurse Diana Bowron washed JFK's body at Parkland, and she
told Livingstone the wound was "lower down on the back" than
shown in the autopsy photos (KTT pg 188.)
Autopsy photographer Floyd Reibe also claimed that the lower
marking on the autopsy photo showed the back wound (KTT pg 721).
Bethesda lab assisstant Jan Gail Rudnicki told Livingstone
that he saw "what appeared to be an entry wound several inches
down on the back." (HIGH TREASON 2, pg 206)
Bethesda x-ray tech Edward Reed reported seeing a back
wound "right between the scapula and the thoracic column."
(KTT pg 720)
James Curtis Jenkins, a lab tech who attended the autopsy,
graphically described the low, non-transiting bullet track to
author David Lifton.
BEST EVIDENCE pg 713:
(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)
Chester H. Boyers was the chief Petty Officer in charge of the
Pathology Department at Bethesda in November 1963. This is
from Boyers signed affidavit:
(quote on)
Another wound was located near the right shoulder blade, more specifically
just under the scapula and next to it.
(quote off)
That's consistent with T3 or lower.
Secret Service Agent Glen Bennett reported, "I saw a shot hit the
Boss about four inches down from the right shoulder."
It should be noted that the bullet holes in JFK's clothing are 4" below the collars
Secret Service Agent Clint Hill testified before the Warren Commission:
(quote on)
Yes, sir; I saw an opening in the back, about 6 inches below the neckline to the
right-hand side of the spinal column.
(quote off)
Here are the wound diagrams pepared by FBI SAs Francis O'Neill and James Sibert:
http://www.jfklancer.com/pub/md/sibert1.gif
http://www.jfklancer.com/pub/md/oneill1.gif
> To my mind, this has done nothing but discredit the CT community with journalists,
> historians and scholars.
Spare me the strawman...I made no such contentions.
> Since the evidence reveals the likelihood of more than one shooter, WHY should we fight the
> evidence? It just makes no sense to me.
You make up bullxxxx about clothes bunching that you can't back up to save your life,
and you need a dozen plus people to have all been wrong even though their accounts
are consistent -- another doozy of a claim.
And you accuse ME of "fighting the evidence"?
-
I wrote:
Conclusion: JFK's jacket dropped at least an inch between Main St. and the killing zone.
Pat, your's and John Hunt's "two-inch Croft bunch" concoction is intellectually indefensible,
to be polite.
Pat Speer ignored my argument to proffer his conclusions:
> Cliff, the right shoulder tip of the jacket in the motorcade photo is clearly elevated.
So?
JFK shot was shot less than 2" right of midline, not in the shoulder tip.
JFK was shot after he changed his posture around Z175 -- Croft was taken at Z161.
How does Croft trump Betzner, taken after JFK changed his posture?
> In Z-161 we see this same elevation.
Please share your methodology for determining the amount of upward
displacement seen in the Croft photo.
Please explain why Croft is more relevent than Betzner, even though JFK changed
his posture after Croft.
> Hunt made a mistake and believed the clothing sticking out from the back in the Croft
> photo stuck straight out.
No, John Hunt claimed that Croft shows 2.25" of upwardly displaced jacket and shirt
fabric.
That's a whopping 4.5" of clothing fabric elevated entirely above C7/T1 at the base
of JFK's neck -- but obviously below the bottom of the jacket collar, at the base of JFK's
neck, a flat-out physical impossiblity.
It's right here in his essay.
John Hunt claims that the following photo shows a "distinctly arched shape" at the right
base of JFK's neck. An "arch" is a convex curve.
As anyone with two eyes in their head can see, the curvature at the right
base of JFK's neck in this photo was concave...
The contention that there was a distinctly convex curvature to the right base of
JFK's neck in the above photo is the height of intellectual dishonesty.
> He felt this meant the jacket was "bunched up" enough to support the SBT. The
> color Croft makes clear, however, that the clothing appearing to stick straight out is
> the shoulder tip, seen at an angle. In my presentation, which I know you've visited
> (You actually gave me a good tip once), I make clear my belief that there is not
> enough bunching visible in the photos to support the SBT.
Please share your methodology for making the determination that there was ANY
elevation of fabric more than 1/8 of an inch in Betzner #3.
Pat, if you elevate fabric even a small fraction of an inch it creates a HORIZONTAL
fold. Betzner shows a VERTICAL fold.
Why do you ignore this?
> The wound in the autopsy photo
HSCA dismissed the Fox 5 as "difficult or impossible" to use to accurately locate the
back wound.
And yet you claim Fox 5 as the definitive evidence in the case...Intellectually
indefensible, Pat, which is why you recite your conclusions but never cite a
single fact to support them.
All you enter into evidence is your own subjective analysis of an improperly
produced autopsy photo of poor quality and highly suspect authenticity.
Not much of an argument.
> --which does not support the SBT, no matter how much smoke is blown by the
> HSCA and those on alt.assassination.JFK--IS in line with the holes on the clothes,
> if you accept that there was a small amount of bunching of the clothing, as confirmed
> by the Croft photo.
And are you saying JFK was shot in the back at Z161?
Or, was JFK shot AFTER he turned his head to the right and started to wave his right
hand -- circa Z175?
If you acknowledge that JFK changed his posture after Croft, then Betzner and its'
vertical/diagonal fold trumps Croft and its' over-hyped "bunch," doesn't it?
And by the way, if you should actually bring yourself to research clothing movement,
you will find that the 1+" fabric movement is defined by clothing designers as a "gross"
fabric fold -- less than an inch is considered a "normal" fabric fold. "Gross" and "normal"
are terms of art in clothing design, fyi.
> While you once single-mindedly (AND CORRECTLY) sought to show that the holes
> on the clothing demonstrated that the SBT was unlikely, you have now embarked
> on an effort to use the clothing holes and motorcade photos to show tha the
> autopsy photos of the back wound are fake.
Are you saying it is *impossible* to fake an autopsy photo?
And what an autopsy photo it is! Shows an intact back of the head, an abrasion
collar consistent with a bullet that entered on an upward trajectory (truly absurd),
and a back wound where no one described it, not even in the autopsy report.
You have no chain of possession for that photo; other autopsy photos contradict
it (see below); you have no one who will claim to have taken that photo; the HSCA
concluded it likely prima facie inadmissable in court.
That's a nice piece of evidence you hitch your wagon to, Pat.
> I'm sorry I can't support that.
Don't apologize for supporting it, apologize for reciting your conclusions
without citing a single fact to back them up.
You posit a mythical 1+" clothing bunch in Betzner #3, a fabric fold that by definition
is 1/2" on the upside, the exact same amount of visible shirt fabric seen in that photo.
And yet there is no visible horizontal fold at all in Betzner #3, much less one
the same size as the exposed shirt collar -- quite the contrary, Betzner #3
shows a fold more vertical.
> After studying the autopsy photos for years I am firmly of the belief the autopsy
> photos and x-rays indicate conspiracy. I am also 100% convinced that only through
> the acceptance of these photos by the CT community will this issue come to any kind of resolve.
This photo shows a massive wound in the back of the head...
How can Fox 5 (above), with its intact back of the head, be authentic if the above with
its massive back head wound is authentic?
Pat, you expect the CT community to embrace one photo -- Fox 5 -- that was singled
out by the HSCA (for crissakes!) as obviously deficient as scientific evidence?
What indefensible nonsense.
I think the CT community needs to read BREACH OF TRUST and grasp how
the murder of JFK was covered-up.
JFK x-ray for Cliff Varnell
in JFK Assassination Debate
Posted
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.