A 2021 E-MAIL EXCHANGE: Subject: Robert N. McClelland, MD--JFK
Date: July 1, 2021 (4:17 P.M. EDT)
From: Alison McClelland
To: David Von Pein
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Good afternoon,
I am Bob McClelland's daughter. I have two questions that I hope you will be willing to answer, and a comment or two that I hope will enlighten you. I'd appreciate your reply.
1. Do you still 'believe' Warren and Bugliosi? If so, on what hard, factual grounds?
2. What are your specific credentials that allow you to feel yourself more able to draw educated conclusions about the injuries to JFK than those of my father? (who was an award-winning surgeon and teacher who 1) is and was known for his measured, insightful, precise actions and 2) was at the head of the gurney, 12 inches from JFK's head wound).
3. On the website I saw from 2012 I believe, SO much of what you say is taken out of context or flat out inaccurate: Dad has as much right to consider possibilities as any citizen. He went through a period where the Mafia theory was interesting to him. He never stated it was 'true' and his interest had NOTHING to do with his medical testimony.
FYI -- Please don't cite anything said or claimed by Dr. MT Jenkins. He essentially 'flunked out' of his Southwestern Medical College surgical residency and was allowed to 'save face' by becoming an anesthesiologist instead. He has proven himself time and time again to be a shameless self-promoter who overstates his knowledge and involvement to a comical degree.
In closing, if you still back the same claims as you did in 2011-2012, I will be happy to on a point by point basis correct your misconceptions. With hard, corroborated, fully-objective, correctly stated evidence.
Thank you.
Alison McClelland ----------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Re: RN McClelland, MD--JFK
Date: July 1, 2021 (8:53 P.M. EDT)
From: David Von Pein
To: Alison McClelland
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Hi Alison,
Thanks very much for your e-mail today.
The answer to your first question is --- Yes, I do still "believe" Earl Warren and Vincent Bugliosi. (That is to say, I still believe the bottom-line conclusions that were reached by both Mr. Warren and Mr. Bugliosi relating to John F. Kennedy's death—i.e., assassin Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK twice from behind and there was no conspiracy involved in the assassination.)
The "hard, factual grounds" for why I believe that Oswald acted alone have been posted many times on my websites since 2007. Here's a good overview of those "hard, factual grounds": http://Oswald-Is-Guilty.blogspot.com
If I have seemed a little hard on your father in my online comments over the last several years, I apologize for that (on a personal level, that is, because I really liked to hear your father speak in the interviews he did). But given the things your dad said in interviews since 1963 and on the 1988 PBS-TV NOVA program, I have no choice (given my bottom-line "No Conspiracy" beliefs) but to be critical of some of the things the late Dr. Robert N. McClelland has said concerning President Kennedy's head wounds. And that's because Dr. McClelland's comments and observations simply do not match the things we can see in the official autopsy photographs and X-rays taken of JFK's cranium on 11/22/63.
My 2011 online post linked below provides, in brief capsule form, the things that have made me think that Dr. McClelland's observations are not exactly entirely accurate (or reliable): http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/head-wounds.html#McClelland
Now, since I'm a person who doesn't believe for one second that any of the autopsy photos or X-rays have been faked or manipulated in the JFK murder case, then you can see why I have difficulty with some of your father's statements concerning President Kennedy's head wounds.
Is it possible that perhaps the #3 item on my 5-item list in my post above is inaccurate? My #3 item is: 3.) McClelland does not think the autopsy photos are fakes.
Did your father ever say anything to you about the autopsy pictures and X-rays possibly be phony? As far as I know, he never expressed any such belief at any point in his life.
In the final analysis, I can't see how your father's statements about JFK's head wounds can be reconciled without Dr. McClelland believing that the autopsy photographs and X-rays had been faked.
Thanks again for writing.
Best regards,
David R. Von Pein ----------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Re: RN McClelland, MD--JFK
Date: July 2, 2021 (4:02 P.M. EDT)
From: Alison McClelland
To: David Von Pein
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Hi David, I truly appreciate your response.
Thank you for including your blogspot link. However, I’ve read your website closely which is what prompted me to contact you.
——While I don’t want to sound combative, providing me a link to your blog rather than giving me a direct response is a bit like some witnesses who in later years knew they were wrong and so rather than admitting so, deflected people by telling them to read their earlier testimony. I’m not asking you what you’ve written. I’m asking you to tell me what hard medical and ballistics evidence remains that allows you to now—today—believe the lone gunman theory.
——I notice you didn’t respond to my request for your credentials, training, experience. That’s a fair question that I do hope you will provide that to me.
——It fascinates me how you seem to completely ignore the enormous amount of credible, corroborated, widely accepted evidence, etc that has surfaced discrediting or disproving Warren. I’m truly curious as to on what grounds you choose to do so?
I’ve taught argument, rhetoric, and logic my entire career and in general these are errors in ‘argument 101’ I’ve noticed that so many lone-gunman/Warren supporters make:
——Ignoring evidence that does not jive with your argument automatically weakens the strength of your own.
——Resorting to ad hominem attacks when you can’t disprove another’s argument is wrong on every single level.
——Over-generalization is logical fallacy.
——The pro-Warren holdouts continued insistence on lumping together everyone who disagrees with you as a ‘nut’ or paranoid is ridiculous.
——Much of what you write about Dad on your blog is either you yourself quoting Dad out of context or reveals that you chose to believe at face value some other source doing so.
As I am on a family vacation for the weekend, it will be early next week before I can continue our dialogue. I do hope you will do so with an open mind and objective stance. ----------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Re: RN McClelland, MD--JFK
Date: July 3, 2021 (4:38 A.M. EDT)
From: David Von Pein
To: Alison McClelland
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Alison said: "I notice you didn’t respond to my request for your credentials, training, experience."
I have no "credentials" at all to speak of. I did help Mel Ayton write this 2014 book about the JFK case, but that was decades after I had already reached the conclusion (based on a wealth of evidence) that Lee Oswald was the lone killer of President Kennedy.
But I'm just a nobody in Indiana who has had a keen interest in JFK and his assassination since about 1981. And when I got a computer, I decided to start writing a lot of stuff on the Internet about Kennedy and Oswald and the assassination.
Alison said: "I’m asking you to tell me what hard medical and ballistics evidence remains that allows you to now—today—believe the lone gunman theory."
It's rather hard to believe that you could even ask such a question while limiting the areas of your inquiry to the "hard medical and ballistics evidence" in the JFK case. Because the fact of the matter is (and always has been) that the "hard medical and ballistics evidence" in this case leaves little to no doubt that John F. Kennedy was shot twice from above and behind, which is perfectly consistent with Oswald doing all the shooting from the sixth floor of the Book Depository.
Can you provide me with one piece of "hard medical" or "ballistics" evidence that proves a conspiracy took place in Dealey Plaza on 11/22/63? I doubt that you can.
Alison wrote: "It fascinates me how you seem to completely ignore the enormous amount of credible, corroborated, widely accepted evidence, etc that has surfaced discrediting or disproving Warren. I’m truly curious as to on what grounds you choose to do so?"
Well, you see, Alison, the problem with a statement like the one you just made is that the things you are calling "credible" and "corroborated" are things that I would argue are far from being credible and/or corroborated. With the biggest example of this, I suppose, being the observations of the President's head wounds made by people like your own father at Parkland Hospital on November 22nd. The observations of those witnesses who said that JFK had a massive hole in the back of his head are simply not "credible" or "corroborated" as fact.
How can I say such a thing, you might ask?
Simple. Because the authenticated-as-genuine (by the HSCA) autopsy photos and X-rays of the President's body simply do not support the observations of those Parkland witnesses, including Dr. Robert N. McClelland. And that's why I asked you specifically in my last mail if you had ever heard your father mention whether or not he was of the opinion that the autopsy pictures and X-rays had been forged or faked in some manner.
Also, the "widely accepted evidence" that you're talking about (which you are claiming "discredits" or "disproves" the Warren Commission's conclusions) are things that can no doubt be disputed by a Lone Assassin believer like myself. An excellent example of this would be the "widely accepted" theory that Lee Harvey Oswald never received any rifle by mail-order in March of 1963.
There are thousands of conspiracy theorists out there today who will argue that Oswald never even ordered the Mannlicher-Carcano murder weapon from Klein's Sporting Goods in Chicago. But that "widely accepted" myth is just that—it's a myth. And it's a myth that can easily be debunked and destroyed by merely properly and fairly evaluating the evidence and the facts pertaining to Oswald's rifle purchase. (Which I've done here.)
And there are so many other things in this case that have been "widely accepted" by conspiracy believers (and labelled as "facts" by them), but when scrutinized carefully, those supposed conspiracy-favoring "facts" crumble into dust very quickly. Another popular one being: The Warren Commission said that Oswald had only 5.6 seconds to accomplish the assassination -- which is just a flat-out lie that continues to be told by thousands of conspiracy theorists every year. In reality, the Warren Commission fully acknowledged that Oswald's shooting feat could have taken as long as 7.9 seconds (WCR, p.117).
Another reason I believe that Oswald acted alone is due to Oswald's own actions on November 21st and 22nd of 1963. If anyone objectively studies everything Lee Oswald did on those two days, it becomes virtually impossible to arrive at the popular "LHO Was Merely An Innocent Patsy" conclusion that so many conspiracy believers seem to currently favor.
In short, Oswald's own actions and movements go a long way toward proving that he was a double-murderer who was acting on his own in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963.
Alison said: "Much of what you write about Dad on your blog is either you yourself quoting Dad out of context or reveals that you chose to believe at face value some other source doing so."
Please provide some specific examples of this. I look forward to seeing how I am constantly quoting Dr. McClelland "out of context".
Thank you.
DVP
[DVP Note --- I haven't heard anything further from Ms. McClelland since the above 2021 e-mail exchange.]