Daniel Gallup

The basic problem with your entire analysis, Mr. Rago, is that critical photographic evidence in this case has been forged

You really have got to stop saying that the critical photographic evidence has been forged. I see now you are saying critical evidence, I suppose because of the question I asked Mr. Gallup...how does he know that Toni Foster was running? (He did not answer that yet).

I asked you before if you think that the image of bone being ejected from the skull in Zapruder frame 313 is forged.

Which critical photographic evidence has been forged? The Moorman photo was that forged. That photo was published 2 days after the assassination.

Be specific , which critical evidence has been forged?

NEWBIES is what this case desperately needs Mr. Lifton. They have to correct the errors that the first and second generation researchers made. All they are asking is that the first generation researchers remain accessible and open.

Forgetting about you bizarre theories, which is different problem , there too many myths that have been propagated over the years.

A fatal flaw(there are many) in your argument, sir, is your requirement that the photographic evidence has to have been altered to justify your theory. That is not a winning argument.

How do you know that Toni Foster was running?

Toni Foster is known as the " running woman" because in the Z-film she is jogging toward the limosine. This is her standard title among researchers just to identify her. The issue is not, was she running, jogging, or walking quickly, but what did she see, and tell Debra Conway ? See the earlier post.

By the way, Mike, have you carefully read Best Evidence? I mean CAREFULLY. Because you haven't earned the right to criticize an author unless you understand him, and to understand Lifton you really need to read the book. It's very readable as it is extremely well-written, and , as sort of a historical narrative, has value that way as well.

Mike, here is a portion of Debra Conway's interview with Toni Foster in 1998 which appeared in the KAC Summer 2000. It is evident that Toni Foster, the "running woman" in the extant Z-film, had not seen the Z-film. "for some reason the car stopped. It did stop for seconds. I don't ever know why it stopped and all of a sudden it sped up and they went under the underpass. I could never figure out why the car stopped." Critics say the limo stop witnesses weren't referring to the limo, but this is quite false, as you see here. Others charge the limo stop witnesses as being in schock and not able to report accurately what they saw. This foolish reasoning is contradicted by the specificity of Toni Foster's recollections, even though the interview was in 1998.

You can see why Pat Speer's dismissal of these witnesses is such an insult to those who were actually there. If I were Toni Foster and read such comments, I would be rightly indignant.

This has been discussed ad nauseum. It's nonsense. Many of the so-called "limo-stopped" witnesses were really limo-slowed or motorcade stopped witnesses, which is to say NOT "limo-stopped" witnesses. QUOTE OFF

You assure us that the car did not stop, even though two witnesses who were there said the car stopped, momentarily, right in front of them.

Mr. Lifton you really did not address Pat's question. Pat said that most of the "limo stopped" witnesses were either "limo slowed" or "motorcade stopped" witnesses.

All you did is refer to Bill Newman and his wife. You say they say the limo stopped "momentarily", what does momentarily mean?

I know this question is directed at Mr. Lifton, but "momentarily" generally means "for a moment."

"Mr. SPECTER - Did you notice any other wound on the President's body?

Miss BOWRON - No, sir.":

Here is a clear instance of Diana Bowron telling Specter she saw no other wounds, and years later telling Harrison Livingston she saw the back wound. It is inconceivable to me that her admission to Livingston was "repressed memory." I think she told Specter the truth, and by the same sort of memory pollution that afflicted other Dallas personnel, told a lie to Livingston. I know of no observation by Nurse Henchcliff or the orderly Sanders of a back wound, which lends credence to Lifton's conclusion that the wound in fact was not there, and was in fact man-made after the body was removed from the Dallas casket.

"Of course, I know that, David. You think Stringer's statements to you are of prime importance because he said them to YOU. You can't see beyond what people said to YOU because you're too close to the situation. Stringer proved, when he spoke to the ARRB and questioned the authenticity of the brain photos, that he wasn't afraid to question the official story. And yet, when shown the autopsy photos, he told the HSCA and ARRB that he'd taken them, and that they reflected the wounds as he remembered them. "

Sorry Pat, but Stringer's statements are important because they give his state of mind before pressure was put on him (whether by others or self-imposed) to conform his recollections to the back of the head photo. Lifton interviewed him in 1972, and got Stringer on record (emphatically so) as to the location of the head wound. When the official photos became known which he was supposed to have taken, his admissions to Lifton were an utter embarrassment. So he repudiated them. But Pat, the earlier 1972 statements are the more important ones, given what we now know of the dubious nature of the back of the head photo.

So also with the limo stop witnesses, whom you dismiss. Lifton, not you, interviewed these people in 1971, years before the public airing of the Z-film. Lifton, not you, have them down as saying the limo stopped. They were there, and were emphatic about it. You and I were not there. I have many times also alluded to Debra Conway's breakthough interview with Toni Foster in KAC Summer 2000. She is quite specific about two things: 1. the limo stop and 2. the "spray went behing him" referring to the blood and brains exiting the back of Kennedy's head. These people were staring at the limo and were there. You can't call their recollections nonsense.

"Try and sell that one to the public. "Yeah, there was this giant conspiracy, but they didn't know what they were doing. They kidnapped and altered the body, but changed it in a way that still showed conspiracy. So then they lied about it."

The existence of the shipping casket and body bag proves the body was kidnapped. The brutal condition of the head, unlike anything seen at Parkland, and Humes' comment of surgery, proved that the body was altered (not to mention the inordinately long and messy "trach incision" apparent in the stare of death photo). And you criticize Lifton because the project was done imperfectly? It may be a hard sell but the truth sometimes is, and it's not Lifton's fault that this is so.

My responses in bold.

One of the Parkland doctors famously told Jeremy Gunn that Jackie wore white on the day of the assassination. The recollections of witnesses months, years, decades after an incident are notoriously unreliable. What matters, then, is not what people tell a stranger over the phone, when just talking, but what they are willing to swear by when shown evidence in contradiction to their recollections. In other words, when it's on the line.

Pat: again this is circular reasoning. If Stringer swears on a stack of Bibles to Lifton that the head wound was in the back of the head in 1972, that's being on the line. You suppose the back of the head photo to be proper evidence, when the photo itself is gravely suspect according to a large number of have seen it and say it does not depict the back of the head as they remember it.

Now, I know that sounds silly to someone whose suspicions have been aroused by so few people reporting Kennedy's wounds to be as shown in the photos.

You've got that right.

But that's really all there is to go by.

That is, lens 3 is the best evidence of how the crime occurred. Sorry, I'll take lens 1. Lens 3 is corrupted and an attempted correction of lens 2.

The statements of ONE group of witnesses tend to reflect that the wound was further back on the head than shown in the photos. The statements of another group of witnesses--including Stringer, who reviewed the photos in 1966 and signed a document saying they were the photos he'd taken--reflect that the wounds were as shown in the photos. So how do you resolve this situation? 1. You study the photos to see if there's any obvious discrepancies between what BOTH sides remembered. 2. You show the photos to the side in disagreement with the photos and see if they change their minds.

That's called manipulation by false evidence.

The key Parkland witnesses, with the possible exception of McClelland, either admitted they were mistaken or let their support of the Warren Commission and their dislike of conspiracy theorists be known.

Ah yes, "key" Parkland witnesses. I have no doubt the doctors loathed being the center of controversy owing to their observations of Kennedy's wounds. That doesn't make their observations wrong.

There is no reason to believe any of them went to their graves believing the wounds had been altered or that the autopsy photos had been faked.

Charles Chrenshaw...oh, forgive me, he's not a "key" witness. What Perry et al. took to the grave we will probably never know. He may have hated the controversy so much he took that animus toward researchers to the grave with him. So what? His initial observations, made innocently and truthfully, are part of the record.

"Of course, I know that, David. You think Stringer's statements to you are of prime importance because he said them to YOU. You can't see beyond what people said to YOU because you're too close to the situation. Stringer proved, when he spoke to the ARRB and questioned the authenticity of the brain photos, that he wasn't afraid to question the official story. And yet, when shown the autopsy photos, he told the HSCA and ARRB that he'd taken them, and that they reflected the wounds as he remembered them. "

Sorry Pat, but Stringer's statements are important because they give his state of mind before pressure was put on him (whether by others or self-imposed) to conform his recollections to the back of the head photo. Lifton interviewed him in 1972, and got Stringer on record (emphatically so) as to the location of the head wound. When the official photos became known which he was supposed to have taken, his admissions to Lifton were an utter embarrassment. So he repudiated them. But Pat, the earlier 1972 statements are the more important ones, given what we now know of the dubious nature of the back of the head photo.

So also with the limo stop witnesses, whom you dismiss. Lifton, not you, interviewed these people in 1971, years before the public airing of the Z-film. Lifton, not you, have them down as saying the limo stopped. They were there, and were emphatic about it. You and I were not there. I have many times also alluded to Debra Conway's breakthough interview with Toni Foster in KAC Summer 2000. She is quite specific about two things: 1. the limo stop and 2. the "spray went behing him" referring to the blood and brains exiting the back of Kennedy's head. These people were staring at the limo and were there. You can't call their recollections nonsense.

"Try and sell that one to the public. "Yeah, there was this giant conspiracy, but they didn't know what they were doing. They kidnapped and altered the body, but changed it in a way that still showed conspiracy. So then they lied about it."

The existence of the shipping casket and body bag proves the body was kidnapped. The brutal condition of the head, unlike anything seen at Parkland, and Humes' comment of surgery, proved that the body was altered (not to mention the inordinately long and messy "trach incision" apparent in the stare of death photo). And you criticize Lifton because the project was done imperfectly? It may be a hard sell but the truth sometimes is, and it's not Lifton's fault that this is so.

I have to rush off to church, but a good reply Pat. Glad we agree on some important matters. In answering you, I had occasion to re-read parts of MIDP. In appendix E there is the phone call between Mantik and Ebersole shortly before Ebersole died. One could infer from the call that it was Ebersole who monkeyed with the x-rays to introduce the 6.5 mm object first seen by the Clark Panel. It is hardly something the autopsy doctors could have missed, unless they never saw the skull x-rays. What is your take on all this? Other problems with the x-rays are found in Horne, but without an index, I don't have time to look them up. What about that 6.5 mm object?

My responses in bold.

"You know full well that historical (and legal) truth is not established by what is said first, but by what is said last." Pat, placing historical and legal truth in the same box is your first mistake. Second, you are simply disengenuous in stating that "Not one of the key witnesses went to his grave swearing the wound was on the back of Kennedy's head, and that the autopsy photos were fakes (or that the body had been altered)." Tell that to the surviving members of Dr. Charles Chrenshaw.

I said KEY witnesses, Daniel. Crenshaw was only there for a moment, and failed to record or report what he'd witnessed for what? 20 years? One can hardly call him a key witness.

Tell that to the FBI agents who expressed disagreement with the back of the head photo.

Sibert and O'Neill both fervently believed Oswald acted alone. While they said--many years after the shooting--that the photo did not reflect what they'd remembered, I'm pretty sure--correct me if I'm wrong-- they never accused the government of faking the photos.

I suggest you reread David Mantik's forward to William Law's book In the Eye of History.

I read it just the other day. I also watched a video of Frank O'Neill, where he tried to impress upon the audience his fervent belief Oswald acted alone.

And you are logically absurd, for you imply the very thing that must be proved: that the Parkland witnesses needed clarification from accurate autopsy photos, but it is the photos themselves that have come under withering scrutiny, and not just from Parkland testimony, but from Bethesda personnel as well. Read James Jenkins in Best Evidence or in Law's In the Eye of History as just one example.

As I recall it, Jenkins was not a CT either.

Your red car blue care scenario is utterly irrelevant, therefore, because again, it assumes the accuracy of the traffic camera etc.

Nope, it does not. If one wishes to conclude the witnesses were all either wrong to begin with or liars when they recanted their early statements, and that the evidence was either altered or faked, one can go right ahead.

when by comparison the stench surrounding the official x-rays and photos is another matter entirely,

The stench surrounding the evidence comes from all the bogus interpretations of the evidence, not from the evidence itself. When one convinces oneself the evidence has been faked, IMO, one lets the many men who've lied about the evidence, e.g. Specter, Boswell, Humes, Fisher, Morgan, Lattimer, Baden, off the hook.

and anomalies in that record rather point to the initial observations of Parkland personnel as the more accurate depiction of the wounding.

Not at all. You have no evidence, and you have essentially no witnesses, just a few witness statements later disavowed. So what does that amount to? Speculation. In the meantime, when one actually studies the evidence, one finds a number of reasons...concrete and supported by the medical literature, to suspect a conspiracy.

1. Pat, it is not for you to decide whether or not Charles Chrenshaw was a key witness. He wrote a book, and that makes him a key witness. Your view of him is irrelevant. In fact so is mine. 2. It has been a while since I read Law's book, so while I know for certain they rejected the SBT and Specter, and the photo showing an intact back of the head, I don't know if they ever seriously considered whether Oswald was framed. Someone else will have to chime in. 3. I stand on my charge that you argued illogically with your red car blue car scenario. Mantik has wreaked havoc on the authenticity of the X-rays; and the photos: that fish stinks, and it is not due to any interpretation of the photos, but because their description does not match what Stringer originally said he took that night; Stringer's usual documentation is missing, and the quality is decidely inferior. I reread parts of Horne on the photos, and the stench only grows. The collection in existence is of therefore suspect origin and of limited value in determining almost anything of the shooting.. Moreover, and Lifton pointed this out years ago in Best Evidence, the x-rays and photos contradict the autopsy doctors conclusions. Would an authentic set of photos and x-rays reinforce doctors who hovered over the body for hours, or utterly contradict their written record? 4. All the witnesses at Parkland (and Bethesda) were wrong to begin with? It is far easier to understand, and Lifton explained this far better than I, that pressure to conform was enough to get various doctors to recant their original testimony. But why should they? Because, for instance, they see a brain, all 1500 grams of it, with an intact cerebellum, in the official record. Oh well, I was wrong in my observations--so a doctor might be forced to conclude. In the legal (not historical or actual) sense, they were in error, because something of supposed higher probative value contradicted their initial observations. But since the observation of shredded cerebellum was shared by several doctors, the actual "best evidence" is not the substitute brain which in no way could have been Kennedy's, but the early observations themselves. So the witness were not liars in their initial description of the wounding, and under pressure to change, well, each doctor has to answer for himself. Jenkins changed his tune very early, but his intital observations of extruding cerebellum are part of the recored. So is Jenkins a xxxx? Or did pressure truly convince him that he was wrong? We, sitting here, have no light into each of their souls. 5. Your list of gunshot victims in the other post proved that a bullet goes in with a small entry and exits with a larger. This everyone knows. That is why some of the Dallas doctors speculated that the exit wound in the back of the head (right rear) was that of the entering bullet in the throat. Just speculation, of course, but it validated your point in listing examples of gunshot wounding. But you also introduced the "gutter wound" concept as well, where the entrance creates a crater at the point of entrance. In the examples you gave, 8,20,25,59 and 5 were gutter wounds. In none of the descriptions is there mention of an exit wound, so the implication is that the bullet was still in the head , as in case 8 or was a tangential shot. All mention of exit wounds were tied in not with gutter wounding but penetrating wounding. I have no doubt that the Dallas physicians, who had seen many such gunshot wounds, were well-aware of different types of wounding. And I ask, so what? The best you have is Clark's possible tangential wound, but it is clear fromt he context that it is a shot from the front.

6. Your statement that McClelland had nothing to do with the picture in Thompson's book is new information to me. I see Gary Augilar, in MIDP, described the drawing as a "pictorial representation...as endorsed by Robert McClelland." (page 180). Pat, I stand corrected. Here is from the ARRB deposition which I copied from your post: "DR. McCLELLAND: I told him when he was asking me to describe that picture from which you reviewed this that the first thing I saw when I came in the room in addition to that attempted agonal respiration was the edge of the parietal bone was sticking up through the scalp. And that's not on this picture, but what we were trying to depict here was what the posterior part of the wound looked like. In other words, is not the entire wound. It's simply the posterior part of it and what I thought of as the critical part of it at that time and still do." Is the "him" --Thompson? or Posner? Of someone else? Note that McClelland thinks the picture gets the most important part of the wounding right: "it's simply the posterior part of it and what I thought of as the crictical part of it at the time and still do." OK, McClelland has taken ownership of this drawing, and it really is an endorsing. Explain to me how this makes his WC deposition suspect. 7. You use the Clark Panel to show that doctors can disagree with doctors. And I say, you are probably right that what the Clark Panel and HSCA did to question Humes and Boswell's version of things indeed parallels what the Secret Service did to the state of mind of the Dallas doctors when they confronted them with supposedly superior evidence of how the President was wounded. It is relevant because the Clark Panel, and later the HSCA, could not reconcile a low entry wound with a trail of fragments 10 cm higher on the skull. A low entrance wound at the very least also destroyed the LN theory. There was a conflict in the evidence, and someone was wrong. And to the HSCA it was Humes and Boswell. The Dallas doctors were given the same message via the autopsy-- someone was wrong and it had to be them. Using Lifton's terminology, the Clark Panel put lens 3 as the best evidence, and the HSCA following, and thus lens 2, the Bethesda autopsy, was discredited in part. Years earlier, the Secret Service had used Lens 2 to discredit Lens 1, the Dallas observations. Lens 3 "corrects" lens 2, but lens 2 "corrects" lens 1. But why are there 3 lenses in the first place? The murder happened only one way, and each lens should corroborate the other two. But this doesn't happen. So what is the point of all this? The whole thing stinks of machinations behind the scenes.

"You know full well that historical (and legal) truth is not established by what is said first, but by what is said last." Pat, placing historical and legal truth in the same box is your first mistake. Second, you are simply disengenuous in stating that "Not one of the key witnesses went to his grave swearing the wound was on the back of Kennedy's head, and that the autopsy photos were fakes (or that the body had been altered)." Tell that to the surviving members of Dr. Charles Chrenshaw. Tell that to the FBI agents who expressed disagreement with the back of the head photo. I suggest you reread David Mantik's forward to William Law's book In the Eye of History. And you are logically absurd, for you imply the very thing that must be proved: that the Parkland witnesses needed clarification from accurate autopsy photos, but it is the photos themselves that have come under withering scrutiny, and not just from Parkland testimony, but from Bethesda personnel as well. Read James Jenkins in Best Evidence or in Law's In the Eye of History as just one example. Your red car blue care scenario is utterly irrelevant, therefore, because again, it assumes the accuracy of the traffic camera etc. when by comparison the stench surrounding the official x-rays and photos is another matter entirely, and anomalies in that record rather point to the initial observations of Parkland personnel as the more accurate depiction of the wounding.

Pat, I think David Lifton has put matters where they should be, but since you suggested McClelland did not draw the picture published in Thompson's book, I might draw your attention to Brad Parker's First on the Scene page 31. In 1994 McClelland wrote on the famous picture the following words: "Brad, the drawing below is an exact copy, in regard to the location and dimensions, of the drawing I made for Josiah Thompson in 1966. Best wishes, Robert McClelland, M. D."

Now Pat, let us engage in some elementary deductions. One, it matters not a wit whether McClelland did the actual drawing or had someone do it for him. It represents what he wanted recorded for history, what he owned as his representation of the wounding. Thus he can call it his drawing even though he used an illustrator. You say a college student did the work. Well, under whose direction? McClelland, of course. A cooperative venture is just that. So McClelland's considers it his drawing. This does not make him a prevaricator.

Your comments on Robinson make no sense. He told the HSCA of a large wound in the back of the head about the size of a small orange, with a good amount of bone blown away. The defect was roughtly circular and ragged along the edges. At the embalming stage, rubber was required to cover the defect in the back of the head between the ears. He indicates the scalp was pulled back over the rubber as much as possible, and that placing President Kennedy's head on the pillow in the casket hid the damage that could not be completely repaired by the reconstruction. From Horne, p. 600: "This verifies that the area of both missing scalp and bone to which Robinson was referring was directly between the ears in the back of the head, and not at the top of the head or in the right side." You may not think that exit wounds cause a loss of scalp, and you may bolster your conclusions by appealing to professionals, but at Parkland, the wound in the back of the skull was devoid of bone and scalp, like it or not, and this is confirmed by Robinson. And to suggest the avulsive nature of that wound suggests entry, is absurd. Was Kennedy hit by a grenade?

Pat, you have not answered my point about pressure the Secret Service applied to the Dallas doctors, within a week, if memory serves, of the assassination, and well before Dudman's interview with McClelland. If your interpreation of McClelland is correct, he should have rejoiced at having his exit wound in the front of the head corroborated by Bethesda, or at least whatever the Secret Service might have told him. But more to the point, since criticism of McClelland over the years has been his staunch refusal to budge from his WC testimony which is quite explicit about where the wound was and the type of brain tissue "blasted out," why wouldn't he simply say, "Oh, I'm sorry, Pat's right. I really saw only one wound, and it was in the left (or right) temple, right where the autopsy pictures show it." He'd be off the hook and the Establishment would love him. His fellow Dallas doctors who knuckled under would embrace him. But Pat, that's not really what he's done, has he? And we have to ask ourselves "Why?" Whether McClelland thought he was shot from the front or back does nothing to mitigate the force of his WC testimony, and his subsequent reiteration of same to various authors over the years. Could it be that Pat Speer's interpretation of the events surrounding McClelland have led him to a false conclusion, or is McClelland just pulling our collective chains?

Pat: "What you seem to be missing is that the SS trip to Parkland had nothing to do with the head wound, as no one, at that time, even realized the Parkland doctors described the head wound in a different manner than the Bethesda doctors. The problem at that time was the throat wound. The Parkland doctors had described it as an entrance, in the first press conference, and afterwards. The SS thought they should stop doing this. So Elmer Moore paid Parkland a visit with a copy of the Bethesda autopsy report."

My reply: Moore's visit to Parkland with the Bethesda report resulted in the Parkland doctors changing their mind about the direction of the throat shot. But, as far as I know, and I may be wrong here, they never changed their description of the way the anterior throat wound looked. Perry's press conference, and the corroborative testimony of others, indicated that the wound had all the marks of an entrance wound. This distinction is important, and IMO, determinative. The pressure exerted by Moore is irrelevant to the nature of the wounding. That later Dallas doctors change their mind is irrelevant to the nature of the wounding. Their earliest observations are the most important, before pressure of one sort or another forced them to deny they saw what they saw. I have Brad Parker's First on the Scene in front of me and Brad is quite good at chronicling the pressure and changes various doctors made in their views of the wounding. But I digress. The issue is McClelland, and your claim that he changed his mind, based on his statements to Dudman.

In 1997, Brad Parker writes: "After Charles Chrenshaw, M.D., perhaps no Parkland physician-witness to John F. Kennedy's wounds has drawn more criticism than Robert McClelland, M.D....While his detractors have argued that Dr. McClelland was in no position to observe the wound in detail...During the traceotomy, Dr. McClelland's role was to hold the retractor while Drs. Baxter and Perry worked to insert the trach tube....However Dr. McClelland commented to the author, 'All I was doing was holding a retractor, which doesn't take much attention to do that.' Therefore, he says, (McClelland) he had ample time to examine the massive head injury sustained by the President.." This from a 1992 interview of McClelland by Parker. from pp. 6-7.

So McClelland claims he had ample time to view the posterior head wound, and gave a precise desciption of it to the WC. Therefore, I reiterate again, by the time Dudman comes along, McClelland has experienced pressure from Moore who has the Bethesda autopsy report, and that Pat, has more in it that the SBT. It has all wound coming from the back. Put yourself in McClelland's shoes: an official autopsy trumps anything interpretation he might have had on how Kennedy was shot. And he was doubtless embarassed by some of his speculations, which you note above. This is sufficient to explain his comments to Dudman on the interpretation of the wounding, but not the nature of the wounding itself. I view this distinction has crucial, and whatever he told Dudman was with a view to conforming his interpretation of the shooting to the Bethesda autopsy. But when it came time under oath to describe what he saw, and not to speculate on the direction of the shots, he did so eloquently before the WC. And he has not varied through the years what he said under oath.

On one last point I think you are dead wrong. You state that by the time Moore visited Dallas, there was not an awareness of the difference between the autopsy report, wherein Humes describes the head wound whose exit was "chiefly parietal," with the Dallas' view as the wounding as posterior (right/rear). In the press conference, 11/22/63, Perry distinctly says, "A missle had gone in or out of the back of his head..." and when asked about the bullet's course, he replied, "We were too busy to be absolutely sure or the track, but the back of his head." There is deliberate ambiguity on Perry's part up to this point. But then Dr. Clark left no doubt that the wound in the back of the head was an exit wound, for he said "The head wound could have been either the exit wound from the neck or it could have been a tangent wound, as it was simply a large, gaping loss of tissue. Perry later agrees with Clark that the head wound could have been caused by the bullet entering the neck. This implies directly that to Clark and Perry, the head wound looked like an exit wound, and its location in the back of his head. That there is no doubt about Perry's meaning, here is the next question: " Would the bullet have had to travel up from the neck wound to exit through the back?"

The Secret Service was not stupid; the press conference yielded enough information for anyone with room temperature IQ to see that these statements directly contradicted the autopsy report as to the direction of the shot(s). So Pat, you argue that the issue was the throat wound; I think if McClelland saw the Bethesda report he would want nothing better than to quell controversy, his embarassing speculations, and get with the program. But when it came time under oath to describe what he saw, he recalled what he was certain about: the location of the wound and its desciption.

McClelland is alive. I caught his presentation at the Lancer Conference a few years ago. I've viewed several other interviews of him. I've read his ARRB and Warren Commission testimony. And he's never said anything about feeling pressure or being pressured to change his interpretation of the head wounds in the days after the assassination. He has said--numerous times--that the wound he saw could have been created by a shot from behind, and that he only came to believe it came from the front after viewing the Zapruder film. Notes on a 1969 interview of McCelland in the Weisberg Archives reflect that at that time--2 years after the so-called McClelland drawing was published in Six Seconds in Dallas--he was not as yet a conspiracy theorist, and had nothing but contempt for men like Mark Lane and Jim Garrison, and nothing but respect for men like Arlen Specter.

Now, ask yourself, could he possibly have taken such a position if he knew, for a fact, that Kennedy's large head wound was a gaping hole on the far back of his head?

I urge you to read as much on McClelland as you can, and watch as many interviews of him as you can, and feel confident that if you do so, you will come to believe, as I, that, he is not a credible witness for a wound on the far back of Kennedy's head.

As far as the large head wound's being an exit---the Parkland doctors were not aware of any wounds outside the throat wound and large head wound, and believed the throat wound an entrance. This, in turn, led them to the possibility the large head wound was an exit for the bullet striking the throat. As to the nature of the wound itself, the only expert on skull trauma to inspect the wound was Clark, and his statements and testimony make clear he thought the wound was a tangential wound of both entrance and exit. For what it's worth, my extensive study of the medical evidence has led me to conclude he was correct on this point.

To give but one reason--Dr. Clark reported and testified that the large head wound was a defect of both bone and scalp. The autopsy report said the same thing. The top book on Forensic Pathology, Medicolegal Investigation of Death, however, specifies that missing scalp is symptomatic of an entrance, but not an exit. This book was written by the Clark Panel's Dr. Fisher, along with the HSCA Panel's Dr. Spitz. This fact--that the autopsy report said there was a significant amount of missing scalp at the large defect--concerned the HSCA Panel so much that they inserted a little disclaimer saying they assumed the autopsy doctors were mistaken about this. They left out of their report, however, that Dr. Clark's report, written the same day as the autopsy report without his being in contact with the autopsists, also specified that a significant amount of scalp was missing from the large defect.

The large defect was above Kennedy's right ear, and was a wound of both entrance and exit. You can bet the farm on it.

Once again, Pat, I think you miss the forest for the trees. The McClelland drawing for Thompson was in 1966 shows bones sprung open in a manner required by an exiting bullet. It matters little that McClelland loved Specter. He can say what he wants about where the shot came from; the drawing itself is definitive. As for your contention that missing scalp is evidence of an entrance wound, you are going to have to argue with Humes about that, because he stated in the autopsy that the head wound, chiefly paretial, was devoid of both bone and scalp. This large wound was therefore an entrance wound? That's a new one for me. That bone blasted out by a high velocity bullet would not take scalp with it is utter nonesense, and contradicts the Dallas observation that both one and scalp were missing in the rear defect. Why do you suppose Tom Robinson had to place a piece of rubber to patch the hold in the back of the head? Had there been scalp there this would not have been necessary.

I stand by my observations that McClelland accurately described what he saw before the WC and has maintained that picture of the wounding ever since. I stand by my conviction that McClelland was influenced by the official autopsy and wanted to avoid controversy. He may have loved Specter but such was a necessary concession. I mean, what doctor is going to believe a murdered President would have a slipshod autopsy-- a deliberately false record of the way he was killed? It was just too insulting to the medical profession to even think such a thing.

You have also misquoted Clark. He gave the tangential wound as only one option. I quoted him accurately above. Go back and read the transcript of 11/22/63 at Parkland. And since it is clear cerebellum extruded from the wound, I will bet the farm the wound extended low enough behind the ears to lacerate the cerebellum. Of course, I have no farm, but I'll put my Harley on the line on that point.

It's about time this woman got the respect she deserves.

I have seen the banned episode "The Smoking Guns" and the eye-witness testimony to a through and through bullet hole in the windshield is there to be seen and heard. As in the case of the limo-stop witnesses, I believe them before believing photographic experts. After all, they were there.

The story behind 399 gets even murkier. It may not have been at Dallas, but it may have been at Bethesda. My copy of Best Evidence is tattered, torn, and at least right now, missing, but David Lifton devotes a chapter to the Osborne allegation, which seems to have been forgotten in all this discussion. Apparently an intact bullet fell out of President Kennedy's clothing, according to Admiral Osborne. Without Best Evidence in front of me I can't recall all the details, but Lifton wonders, and i think correctly, if the role of 399 had not yet been determined, and this was one way to tie the bullet to Kennedy. Or by that time its role had been determined, and its appearance at Bethesda was one of many screw-ups in the plot to frame Oswald.

Pat, you have not answered my point about pressure the Secret Service applied to the Dallas doctors, within a week, if memory serves, of the assassination, and well before Dudman's interview with McClelland. If your interpreation of McClelland is correct, he should have rejoiced at having his exit wound in the front of the head corroborated by Bethesda, or at least whatever the Secret Service might have told him. But more to the point, since criticism of McClelland over the years has been his staunch refusal to budge from his WC testimony which is quite explicit about where the wound was and the type of brain tissue "blasted out," why wouldn't he simply say, "Oh, I'm sorry, Pat's right. I really saw only one wound, and it was in the left (or right) temple, right where the autopsy pictures show it." He'd be off the hook and the Establishment would love him. His fellow Dallas doctors who knuckled under would embrace him. But Pat, that's not really what he's done, has he? And we have to ask ourselves "Why?" Whether McClelland thought he was shot from the front or back does nothing to mitigate the force of his WC testimony, and his subsequent reiteration of same to various authors over the years. Could it be that Pat Speer's interpretation of the events surrounding McClelland have led him to a false conclusion, or is McClelland just pulling our collective chains?

Pat: "What you seem to be missing is that the SS trip to Parkland had nothing to do with the head wound, as no one, at that time, even realized the Parkland doctors described the head wound in a different manner than the Bethesda doctors. The problem at that time was the throat wound. The Parkland doctors had described it as an entrance, in the first press conference, and afterwards. The SS thought they should stop doing this. So Elmer Moore paid Parkland a visit with a copy of the Bethesda autopsy report."

My reply: Moore's visit to Parkland with the Bethesda report resulted in the Parkland doctors changing their mind about the direction of the throat shot. But, as far as I know, and I may be wrong here, they never changed their description of the way the anterior throat wound looked. Perry's press conference, and the corroborative testimony of others, indicated that the wound had all the marks of an entrance wound. This distinction is important, and IMO, determinative. The pressure exerted by Moore is irrelevant to the nature of the wounding. That later Dallas doctors change their mind is irrelevant to the nature of the wounding. Their earliest observations are the most important, before pressure of one sort or another forced them to deny they saw what they saw. I have Brad Parker's First on the Scene in front of me and Brad is quite good at chronicling the pressure and changes various doctors made in their views of the wounding. But I digress. The issue is McClelland, and your claim that he changed his mind, based on his statements to Dudman.

In 1997, Brad Parker writes: "After Charles Chrenshaw, M.D., perhaps no Parkland physician-witness to John F. Kennedy's wounds has drawn more criticism than Robert McClelland, M.D....While his detractors have argued that Dr. McClelland was in no position to observe the wound in detail...During the traceotomy, Dr. McClelland's role was to hold the retractor while Drs. Baxter and Perry worked to insert the trach tube....However Dr. McClelland commented to the author, 'All I was doing was holding a retractor, which doesn't take much attention to do that.' Therefore, he says, (McClelland) he had ample time to examine the massive head injury sustained by the President.." This from a 1992 interview of McClelland by Parker. from pp. 6-7.

So McClelland claims he had ample time to view the posterior head wound, and gave a precise desciption of it to the WC. Therefore, I reiterate again, by the time Dudman comes along, McClelland has experienced pressure from Moore who has the Bethesda autopsy report, and that Pat, has more in it that the SBT. It has all wound coming from the back. Put yourself in McClelland's shoes: an official autopsy trumps anything interpretation he might have had on how Kennedy was shot. And he was doubtless embarassed by some of his speculations, which you note above. This is sufficient to explain his comments to Dudman on the interpretation of the wounding, but not the nature of the wounding itself. I view this distinction has crucial, and whatever he told Dudman was with a view to conforming his interpretation of the shooting to the Bethesda autopsy. But when it came time under oath to describe what he saw, and not to speculate on the direction of the shots, he did so eloquently before the WC. And he has not varied through the years what he said under oath.

On one last point I think you are dead wrong. You state that by the time Moore visited Dallas, there was not an awareness of the difference between the autopsy report, wherein Humes describes the head wound whose exit was "chiefly parietal," with the Dallas' view as the wounding as posterior (right/rear). In the press conference, 11/22/63, Perry distinctly says, "A missle had gone in or out of the back of his head..." and when asked about the bullet's course, he replied, "We were too busy to be absolutely sure or the track, but the back of his head." There is deliberate ambiguity on Perry's part up to this point. But then Dr. Clark left no doubt that the wound in the back of the head was an exit wound, for he said "The head wound could have been either the exit wound from the neck or it could have been a tangent wound, as it was simply a large, gaping loss of tissue. Perry later agrees with Clark that the head wound could have been caused by the bullet entering the neck. This implies directly that to Clark and Perry, the head wound looked like an exit wound, and its location in the back of his head. That there is no doubt about Perry's meaning, here is the next question: " Would the bullet have had to travel up from the neck wound to exit through the back?"

The Secret Service was not stupid; the press conference yielded enough information for anyone with room temperature IQ to see that these statements directly contradicted the autopsy report as to the direction of the shot(s). So Pat, you argue that the issue was the throat wound; I think if McClelland saw the Bethesda report he would want nothing better than to quell controversy, his embarassing speculations, and get with the program. But when it came time under oath to describe what he saw, he recalled what he was certain about: the location of the wound and its desciption.

What you are addressin

Autopsy Report:

The other missile entered the right superior posterior thorax above

the scapula and traversed the soft tissues of the supra-scapular and

the supra-clavicular portions of the base of the right side of the neck.

This missile produced contusions of the right apical parietal pleura

and of the apical portion of the right upper lobe of the lung. The

missile contused the strap muscles of the right side of the neck,

damaged the trachea and made its exit through the anterior surface of

the neck. As far as can be ascertained this missile struck no bony

structures in its path through the body.

----

Their diagram of this is:

Note the necessity for them to tilt JFK's head forward in order to allow a bullet from BEHIND to

enter where it entered in his back AND then to exit his throat. Remember, this bullet caused NO

broken bones and didn't appear to get deflected by any bone. So, his head must be forward in

order to accommodate their explanation. However, from such an angle of trajectory how is it

remotely possible for said bullet to then wound Governor Connally since Connally was not lying

on the floor at JFK's feet when he was shot?

What you are questioning is the second component of the SBT, where did the bullet go after

it exited the presidents neck. If there is an error in the SBT this is where it is at. Where did the bullet go after it exited the neck?

I have a hypothesis on that.

I'm sorry Mike, but the error in the SBT starts before it "exited the neck," because all the medical personnel who saw the wound said it had the appearance of an entrance wound, and as i posted pages ago, Dr. Perry told Dr. Clark that bullet entered the neck from the front, ranged downward, and did not exit. That's the problem with you SBT, pure and simple.

"The scalp bulge on the back of JFK's scalp is visible on the Zapruder Film and appears the issue for the misleading drawings about a large hole JFK's scalp at the rear of his head. There was a lot of soft material forced under the scalp of the rear of JFK's head." Jim, this is complete nonsense. Misleading drawings? I presume you refer to McClelland's which more or less follows his WC testimony. All wrong? I'll trust the Dallas doctors' observations over you photographic interpretation any day. Where is the limo stop? Where is the ejecta out of the avulsive wound in the back of the head? Gone. I rather think the acceptance of this fraud, the extant Z-film, is the reason more progress has not been made on this case.

Mike,

Had this question been raised, even five years ago, I would have been very skeptical of such a notion. However, today I am beginning to see it as the central question of the assassination.

I still have some reluctance to embrace that someone somewhere medled with the body, and the theories of Douglas Horne are just too extreme to accept. I have a high respect for David Lifton, and I will await his material on Zapruder manipulation, but I have always found it difficult to accept, especially understanding the enormity of what would be involved.

However, all that said, I am beginning to think that body alteration may well have taken place. And if that took place, then maybe it happened elsewhere.

As this forum will know I have spent he last few months looking at he medical evidence. In looking at this material too many questions are being raised.

a) Assuming you are not a supporter of the Warren Commission, then you will be aware that a bullet entered JFK's throat. However no bullet was discovered. As I see it there are only three options

i. The SBT theory is not a theory but a fact and that explains it. I have presented, along with many other members, reasons why that is not a valid proposition.

ii. That a bullet actually was discovered, but never registered. It is possible, but I find it difficult to see how such a find could escape the eyes of Sibert and O'Neil. For those reasons, although it has logic, I don't see this as avalid proposition.

iii) That just leaves the option that a bullet was removed at some point and that is why a bullet was not found.

A bullet entered the throat AND that bullet did not exit the body. From a logical perspective I can only see three possibilities, outlined above, and since two are non starters for me, that leaves only one option: at some point it was removed.

I am coming to his view, not from a theoretical perspective but from one of logic.

Although I have only just started my study of the head wound, there are already serious questions being raised that I can find no logical answer for.

The damage to the Pons being severed from the Midbrain makes no sense. Humes was not aware that this had happened until he turned the head over. Such damage was not visible from the top of the head. O.k. I am sure some of you will already being offering reasons why Fox 2 shows significant brain matter at the top of the skull.

The first problem for me is that the top of the head, although damaged, has a significant portion of the brain matter still there and visible. Yet underneath this area, that is still contained within the head, is a major dislocation of critical areas of the brain. As well, the position of the Pons is well behind the skull damage that we see in Fox 2.

If it is to be argued that Pons could be damaged by the force of the explosive powers created by the passage of the bullet, then I find it curious that the upper brain matter was left essentially intact, as seen in Fox 2, yet below that extraordinary damage has been done.

However where this contradiction becomes extremely curious is when you map the damage on a 3D model. Then I become faced with a multitude of "Why's" and "How's". And it is these unanswered questions that lead me to wonder whether there is another process been going on. If this damage had been done by the consequence of the bullet, I would have expected to see much more damage in the upper brain area and hopefully see some of this damage to he Pons from above. But you don't, and neither did Humes. He only was aware of it when he turned he brain over.

David Lifton argues that this damage was done in order to find and remove bullets. he would argue that in cutting to find and remove the bullets that is how his was done. I noticed an interesting comment by Humes. In this lower area of the brain, Humes comments that there was a number of lacerations going in all directions. He suggests that the reason for all these tears was the effect of the power of the bullet on the brain. It is possible, but I could think of another reason for these tears.

Alteration or Non-Alteration. My movement towards alteration is not based on any particular theoretical perspective. For me it is based of impossible contradictions and unanswerable questions. Too many questions, which I am daily being confronted with, is making me more and more suspicious and my suspicions are leading me to the only logical conclusion: at some point the body was tampered with.

James

James, Dr. Kemp Clark told the New York Times a few days after the assassination that the bullet that entered his throat "ranged downward" and did not exit. I looked into this further and the best I can tell is that this information was relayed to him by Dr. Perry. Recall now that the FBI report and death certificate indicated a shallow back wound around T-3. So there would be no corresponding exit to the anterior throat wound. Think also if the autopsy description of the throat wound (its size and condition) sounds like a trach incision. Lifton has Perry on record as indicating the size as 2-3 cm in length. That's less than half the size of the wound appearing in the photos and described by Humes. I think one can reasonably connect the dots and ascertain that the bullet was removed by widening the trach incision somewhere between Parkland and the official autopsy beginning at 8:00 pm at Bethesda or shortly thereafter. That's alteration to remove evidence of the real nature of the killing. And if the perps were willing to dig into Kennedy's throat, they would certainly want to dig into his head, as gruesome as this sounds, to complete their job. That would certainly explain the horrible condition of the top of the skull as seen in the autopsy photos and the absence of such at Parkland, and would account for Humes' comment which the FBI picked up about surgery of the head area, at the top of the skull.

Pat, you have not answered my point about pressure the Secret Service applied to the Dallas doctors, within a week, if memory serves, of the assassination, and well before Dudman's interview with McClelland. If your interpreation of McClelland is correct, he should have rejoiced at having his exit wound in the front of the head corroborated by Bethesda, or at least whatever the Secret Service might have told him. But more to the point, since criticism of McClelland over the years has been his staunch refusal to budge from his WC testimony which is quite explicit about where the wound was and the type of brain tissue "blasted out," why wouldn't he simply say, "Oh, I'm sorry, Pat's right. I really saw only one wound, and it was in the left (or right) temple, right where the autopsy pictures show it." He'd be off the hook and the Establishment would love him. His fellow Dallas doctors who knuckled under would embrace him. But Pat, that's not really what he's done, has he? And we have to ask ourselves "Why?" Whether McClelland thought he was shot from the front or back does nothing to mitigate the force of his WC testimony, and his subsequent reiteration of same to various authors over the years. Could it be that Pat Speer's interpretation of the events surrounding McClelland have led him to a false conclusion, or is McClelland just pulling our collective chains?

We have information that was not available to the autopsy doctors. We know how the head wounds were elaborated.

In this post I present evidence which shows that there were two separate wounds to the head. The back of the head profile is normal at the time of the Moorman photo but is definitely not normal at the time of Zapruder frame 337.

http://educationforu...=45#entry256195

BTW, if the Zapruder film is a fake then the Moorman photo must also be a fake because the Moorman photo also shows missing skull on the top of the head.

Once again, Mike, I believe your interpretation of the Moorman photo is just that-- your interpretation. There are strange things about that photo, especially with regards to the apperances of Kennedy's right shoulder, but again these are matters of photographic interpretation. You are the first person I have found who is dogmatic on the issue of missing skull from top of the skull in Moorman. If you can see this so clearly, why couldn't the Dallas doctors and nurses see it? Ah yes, the urban legend that Jackie restored the top of the skull it its natural shape and form, even though she makes no mention of this area in her WC testimony. Instead she makes mention of the back of the head, precisely where Clint Hill, Nurse Bowron who rushed to the limo as it came to a halt at Parkland, and all the Dallas doctors and nurses located the wound.

I don't know what Dr. McClelland said in later years, but he clearly believed, in November 1963, that a bullet exited from the wound he described at the back of the head; repeated essentially the same thing when he testified (1964); and certainly said that to me and Pat Valentino when we conducted a detailed filmed interview in 1989.

The problem with this case is that many folks said one thing in 1963/1964, and then, years later, read books or articles, formed opinions about what happened, and then those opinions affected their own recollections. Always its best to deal with the earliest recorded recollection. That's true in a simple auto accident, and its also true in the case of the Kennedy assassination.

DSL

7/30/12; 4 AM PDT

Los Angeles, California

The reasons you think we should believe McClelland saw a wound on the far back of Kennedy's head are the very reasons I don't believe he saw such a wound: his earliest statements.

"The cause of death was due to massive head and brain injury from a gunshot wound of the left temple." Dr. McClelland's report on the death of President Kennedy, written on 11-22-63.

"I am fully satisfied that the two bullets that hit him were from behind." Dr. Robert McClelland, as quoted by Richard Dudman in the 12-18-63 St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

If you know of any statements by McClelland made prior to his Warren Commission testimony, in which he indicated he saw an exit wound on the far back of Kennedy's head, I'd appreciate your bringing them to my attention.

Pat, "gunshot of the left temple" does not specifiy the direction; in fact, in plain and simple language, the closest meaning would be: "gunshot wound to the left temple." As for Dudman's dispatch, this is three weeks after the assassination, and we are dependent upon Dudman's accurate reporting, how he stated the question,etc. Recall Pat, that the Dallas doctors to the best of our knowledge were not aware of any wound in the back on the day of the assassination. Carrico did a manual examination underneath his clothing and found nothing. Rather, the witnesses to the anterior throat wound were unanimous in describing it as having the appearance of an entrance wound, at least that day. Then the Secret Service came and presented Perry with the autopsy report that it was an exit wound. I am rather certain this is prior to Dec. 18. Depending on the dates when pressure was exerted on the Dallas doctors to change their original opinion, McClelland's utterance to Dudman may simply reflect that pressure, and a desire to avoid controversy. That he gave the WC such a careful description of the wound in the back of the head I think is sufficient to challenge your interpretation of his report.

Arguing from a faked film is to me no evidence at all. No one at Parkland reported such a wound. Recall, if you will, Audrey Bell asking Perry where the wound was, because the face was clear, as well as the top of the skull. Perry turned Kennedy's head to the left and pointed to the right rear. Nurse Bowron reported only one large wound in the rear of the skull. See also McClelland's drawing for Thompson, and the FBI report of surgery, first unearthed by Lifton and published in Best Evidence. The FBI were recording words of Humes that night, and Humes said there was surgery to the top of the skull. The photo above shows the top of Kennedy's head looking like scrambled eggs and hair. Funny no one saw any of this at Parkland. Costella's list of mistakes in the extant film speak to 313 and would be good reading. The government has us fooled, and we have fallen for this fraud hook, line and sinker.

Daniel,

Where is the reference for Audrey Bell asking Malcolm Perry where the wound was.

Although Diana Bowron testified to the Commission that she only saw only the neck wound she also saw the back wound. In "Killing the Truth" P. 189 she informed Harrison Livingston that she also saw the back wound. That makes sense, because I believe she assisted in the preparation of the body for return to Washington.

I believe you will find that Dr. McClelland has commented on what he considered this drawing meant. I understand his view is that it did not reflect a wound as you have described. I cannot remember exactly what he said it really meant. But I am sure it is not the single exit wound that many take it to mean.

The Sibert O'Neill is still dynamite, even after all these years. True it is not clear what was meant, but somebody said it and all Sibert and O'Neill did was to record it.

I have never been persuaded by the Fetzer/Costella theory about Zapruder. The complexity of what would be required is what I find to seriously undermine the theory. And without the Zapruder film we have lost the visual evidence of the assassination.

James

This comes from her ARRB deposition. I took the information from Brad Parker's First on the Scene, published by Lancer, page 166, although the actual deposition should be read. AS for Bowron, she testified before the WC about the wound in the back of the head, She is listed as a witness to an right-rear blowout of the back of the head in the WC, Vol 6, part of CE 392, Appendix VIII , pp. 516-530. As to her comments years later to Livingston, I would like to ask her why she did not reveal this information to the WC when questioned. Before the WC, she said she met the limo and saw Kennedy "lying across Mrs. Kennedy's knee. " She testified to seeing just one large hole in the back of his head, which accords with Jackie's own words which I quoted earlier. She told Livingston about seeing the throat wound, thinking it was an entrance wound (and she would be in a position to see it, being one of the first to see the president in the limo at Parkland) and the back wound. We have corroboration for the neck wound, but i would feel much better if Nurse Henchcliff also reported seeing a back wound. It is my memory that she said she saw no such thing, but I no longer remember the source and hope someone who knows more than I can nail down Henchcliff's observations. If she denied seeing a back wound, that would be strange, since she participated in washing Kennedy's body and presumbably had as good a look at the President's back as Bowron. An orderly Sanders was also present. Has he ever commented? Anyway, hope the information on Bell helps. best, daniel

s

Are you saying that what we see in Zapruder frame 313 is fake?

Once one allows themselves to believe that the data is fake they enter a realm where they can prove just about anything they want to prove. I cannot go there.

Yes I am saying emphatically that it is fake. As phony as CE 399 piercing two men, and in particular a bone-crunching tour through Connally's chest and wrist.. As phony as the reported photograph of Kennedy's brain, showing the cerebellum intact. The conflicts between the film and the evidence of wounding as seen in Parkland are a permanent part of the record. The conflicts between the film and what those who were at the limo at the time of the headshot saw is part of the record, thank to researches who interviewed these people before they knew that what they saw contradicted the film. Kudos to Debra Conway for her groundbreaking interview of Toni Foster in the summer 2000 Kennedy Assassination Chronicles, David Lifton for his 1971 interviews of the Newmans, Franzens, and Mary Moorman, and kudos to the many others who recorded testimony of the limo stopping after the headshot.

And Mike, you are dead wrong that in questioning the validity of the evidence you can prove anything you want to prove. Has proving CE 399 did not do what the WC said it did led to the truth in the assassination? No, it has created more mystery. Does taking the limo stop witnesses seriously solve the crime? No, it creates more mystery. These things show we don't know as much about what happened in Dealey Plaza as we thought we did. Conflicts in the record have to be explained and not swept under the rug. It is the enormity of these conflicts that led me to the conclusion that the extant Z-film is a CIA dog and pony show, among other things. I cannot recommend enough reading Best Evidence and then Doug Horne's 5 volumes, both of which highlight the conflicts in the record, and their attempts to reconclie them. I think Lifton's basic thesis has withstood the test of time.

Arguing from a faked film is to me no evidence at all. No one at Parkland reported such a wound. Recall, if you will, Audrey Bell asking Perry where the wound was, because the face was clear, as well as the top of the skull. Perry turned Kennedy's head to the left and pointed to the right rear. Nurse Bowron reported only one large wound in the rear of the skull. See also McClelland's drawing for Thompson, and the FBI report of surgery, first unearthed by Lifton and published in Best Evidence. The FBI were recording words of Humes that night, and Humes said there was surgery to the top of the skull. The photo above shows the top of Kennedy's head looking like scrambled eggs and hair. Funny no one saw any of this at Parkland. Costella's list of mistakes in the extant film speak to 313 and would be good reading. The government has us fooled, and we have fallen for this fraud hook, line and sinker.

Mike, an entrance wound is small, an exit large and avulsive. See Jackie's words that I quoted above, and find for me evidence of your first head shot in the Parkland testimony. Thanks in advance, Daniel