Jeremy Bojczuk
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Posts posted by Jeremy Bojczuk
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Joseph McBride writes:
QuoteI wonder what group "Jonathan Cohen" is working for. He pops up
now regularly with his kneejerk pro-WC comments, as
David Von Pein used to do as the designated disruptor
of intelligence discourse on this site.
Jonathan Cohen replies:
QuoteJoseph: I'm honored you think my postings rise to the level of paid disinformation specialist. Now I've really hit the big time! In reality, none of my comments here have EVER been pro-Warren Commission. I am as staunch a disbeliever in their findings and conclusions as you will find on this forum. Rather, my comments are in objection to JFK conspiracy theories that are at best implausible and unsupported by any hard evidence (ie, nearly every film and photo shot in Dealey Plaza was altered) and at worst simply preposterous (two distinct Lee Harvey Oswalds running around the United States independent of one another for a decade, "fake" Marguerite Oswalds, etc.). We all owe Tracy Parnell a debt of gratitude for his exhaustive debunking of the "Harvey and Lee" concept.
Leaving aside the question of why Mr McBride writes his comments in verse, that comment sums up the tin-foil-hat wing of JFK assassination enthusiasts. In their minds, questioning 'Harvey and Lee'-type nonsense is equivalent to expressing support for the lone-nut theory.
Do they really not understand that it is possible to question both the lone-nut theory and far-fetched, poorly supported super-conspiracy speculation such as Armstrong's long-term Oswald doppelganger project and Lifton's elaborate body-alteration scheme?
It really isn't necessary to believe in the moon-landings-level stuff in order to disbelieve the notion that President Kennedy was killed by a lone nut named Oswald. The evidence and arguments against the lone-nut scenario have nothing to do with 'Harvey and Lee' or Best Evidence or faking the Altgens 6 photo. You can take away all the faked photographs, faked home movies, faked presidential corpses, faked Oswalds, and faked Marguerites, and the arguments against the lone-nut scenario remain as strong as ever.
In fact, taking away all the speculative stuff makes the case against the lone-nut theory stronger. Think about how many people it takes to shoot a guy in a slow-moving open-topped car. Now think about how many people it takes to run an Oswald doppelganger project for over a decade, and then to install papier-mâché trees on the grassy knoll, and then to shoot a guy in a slow-moving open-topped car, and then to kidnap Kennedy's corpse from Air Force One without anyone noticing, and then to perform elaborate surgical alterations on the corpse, and then to track down and fake most of the photographs and films taken in Dealey Plaza.
The more complications you add, the less likely it is that they actually happened. The smaller the proposed conspiracy, the more likely it is that it actually happened.
We shouldn't be surprised that those who are attracted to one area of far-fetched speculation usually sign up for the full package. You name it, it was faked! One does wonder just how vast and implausible a conspiracy needs to be before those inclined to tin-foil-hattery start to think that, hmm, you know, maybe it didn't actually take hundreds of conspirators to pull off the assassination.
Unsolved mysteries such as the JFK assassination do seem to attract people who are inclined to see a conspiracy everywhere they look. It would be nice if all these tin-foil hat types would stick to the moon landings and UFOs rather than infest a serious topic such as the JFK assassination. Unfortunately, it's the presence of the tin-foil hat types that allows the media to portray genuine critics of the lone-nut theory as a bunch of crazies, thereby making it more difficult to uncover exactly what happened in Dealey Plaza.
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Rob Clark writes:
QuoteI think if anything stands up to these scrutinizing questions, it's the backyard photos. You have the photographic capabilities of the DPD lab, as evidenced with the cut out BYP. Multiple poses, camera questions, photographer questions, subject denial, etc...
Yes, the backyard photos are a self-contained set, and altering them wouldn't generate inconsistencies with other images.
Accusations that the Altgens 6 photo was faked, however, are not worth taking seriously. Anyone arguing that Altgens 6 was faked needs to explain how this could have been done in the time available, given that the finished image was distributed no more than half an hour after James Altgens arrived at the photo lab. As anyone who has done any black-and-white photographic printing knows, it was quite an achievement just to process the film and make a good-quality print in the time available, never mind doing any fakery.
The conspirators would have had to make a test print, examine that print in detail to decide exactly which elements of the image needed to be altered, and then actually carry out the alterations. Oh, and they would have to hope that no other photos turned up which exposed their image as a fake.
There were dozens of people with cameras in Dealey Plaza, many of them unknown to the authorities until years later. By the time the Altgens 6 photo was sent to newspaper offices all over the world, no-one had the faintest idea how many people had been snapping away, or how many photos or home movies might have been taken of the faked elements of Altgens 6.
Until anyone comes up with a plausible account of how it might have been done, the notion that the Altgens 6 photo was faked is ludicrous.
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Another thread, another pile of 'Harvey and Lee' spam.
If even David Lifton finds your theory ridiculous, you've got problems. The great Alex Wilson has described Lifton as "the Dean Koontz of assassination research ... creating scenarios so outlandish that the Warren Report seems sane and eminently rational in comparison." But even Lifton couldn't bring himself to swallow the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense.
Just in case any casual readers are tempted to take the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense seriously, these links should help:
- http://22november1963.org.uk/john-armstrong-harvey-and-lee-theory
- http://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/f13-the-harvey-lee-evidence
- https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t1588-harvey-lee-links-to-alternative-explanations
- http://wtracyparnell.blogspot.com/search/label/Harvey%20%26%20Lee
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Jonathan and Matt are correct.
When you have many photographs and films of the same event, an alteration to one image is likely to produce an obvious contradiction with some of the other images. If you're going to alter one photograph or film, you will almost certainly need to alter several others too.
Those alterations, in turn, will require that alterations are made to yet more images. To eliminate all the contradictions you've created, you'll end up having to alter pretty much all of the hundreds of photographs and films taken in Dealey Plaza.
Some people don't seem to have worked this out, so keen are they to see a conspiracy in every aspect of the assassination story. They should read this illustrated article by Josiah Thompson:
https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-_Bedrock_Evidence_in_the_Kennedy_Assassination.html
If anyone is going to claim that this or that image has been materially altered, they need to account for the practical consequences, and answer a few questions. When was the alteration done? How was the alteration done? How long did it take? Which other images needed to be altered in order to eliminate the contradictions you've just created? When and how were those other images altered?
Alteration enthusiasts need to ask themselves a couple of other obvious questions before launching into accusations of fakery. Does the supposed fakery have an everyday, non-conspiratorial explanation, such as a common or garden artefact of the photographic process? If so, why invent a conspiracy to explain it? If a photograph or film already contradicts the lone-nut theory, why do you feel the urge to think that it is a fake?
The paranoid may get a nice tingly feeling by proposing the most elaborate conspiracy they can think of, but the real world doesn't work like that. The more elaborate the proposed conspiracy, the less credible it is.
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David Lifton writes:
Quoteif a valid autopsy on JFK's body established that President Kennedy was shot from the front (as the Dallas doctors stated was the case), then of course Oswald could not (and would not) be charged with the murder. (You do understand that, don't you?)
No, I don't. If any shots could be shown to have been fired from the sixth-floor rifle, no matter how many other shots might have been fired or where they were fired from, Oswald would have been implicated as a participant in the assassination, purely because he could be linked to the rifle. There was no need for any sort of elaborate plot involving the kidnapping and mutilation of Kennedy's body.
Mr Lifton seems to be working from two faulty assumptions:
(a) that the main purpose of his bizarre body-alteration plot was to frame Oswald as the sole participant in the assassination;
(b) all the shots came from the front.
We can rule out assumption (b) for reasons I've already given. Lifton himself seems to be the only person who thinks that Governor Connally was not shot from behind. I'd like to see Lifton justify assumption (a). Even if he were able to do this, he would still need to explain why his imaginary plot failed. After the body had allegedly been altered to show that Kennedy had been shot only by a lone nut firing from the sixth floor, the body actually showed that Kennedy could not have been shot only by a lone nut firing from the sixth floor.
The wounds in the rear of the head and torso, which Lifton claims were entirely fabricated to implicate a lone nut firing from the sixth floor, were too low to have been caused by a lone nut firing from the sixth floor.
The plot evidently didn't work out very well. Either the organisers messed up or the surgeons messed up. All those dozens of conspirators who worked out the plan in advance as an integral part of the assassination, then kidnapped the body, transported it from A to B, operated upon it, and transported it from B to C, were wasting their time. They may as well not have bothered.
Lifton's elaborate plot explains nothing that doesn't have an alternative, non-fantastical explanation.
Quotehow can you claim not to see what is obvious: that the autopsy report conclusions about trajectory (based on the wounds on the body) provides the evidential link between the alleged murder weapon at the sixth floor window, and the homicide that occurred in the street below?
I'm not sure what point Lifton is making here. The autopsy report concluded that the wounds were consistent with shots fired from the rifle found on the sixth floor. So what? We know that the autopsy report was wildly wrong in particular about what caused the rear head wound, because the pathologists didn't take into account the angle of Kennedy's head when he was shot, as shown in the Zapruder film. A bullet fired from the sixth floor at Zapruder frame 313 cannot have entered low down on the back of the head, as the autopsy report claimed, and then exited above the right ear. If those wounds were caused by one bullet at frame 313, that bullet must have been fired from somewhere other than the sixth floor of the book depository.
Lifton's claim that the rear head wound was deliberately fabricated to implicate Oswald is wrong. The rear head wound, as described in the autopsy report, exonerates Oswald. Either the conspirators were desperately incompetent, or the deliberate fabrication cannot have happened. Again, Lifton's elaborate plot explains nothing that doesn't have an alternative, non-fantastical explanation.
QuoteYour reliance on the late Roger Feinman is laughable. I'm sure that, by now, you know that he was disbarred ... after he was admitted to the New York Bar.
And the relevance of that is? If Feinman had been a dairy farmer who went bust, or an accountant who got sacked, or an international jewel thief who got caught, what effect would that have on the evidence and arguments he made about Best Evidence?
Feinman put forward evidence and arguments that contradict Lifton's body-alteration fantasy. Read what he wrote, and evaluate his claims on their merits, not on the basis of his inside-leg measurement or what he had for breakfast. Thanks to Feinman (and others, such as Harold Weisberg), we know that Lifton's body-alteration fantasy is unnecessary to explain the assassination.
Incidentally, there's a technical problem with the version of Feinman's Between the Signal and the Noise: the 'Best Evidence' Hoax and David Lifton's War Against the Critics of the Warren Commission at kenrahn.com. The links at the bottom of each page don't work: the web server is set up to use case-sensitive web addresses, and the links use some lower-case letters instead of upper-case.
This page provides a list of links that work:
https://www.kenrahn.com/JFK/The_critics/Feinman/Between_the_signal/
Alternatively, you can find the complete text here:
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David Lifton writes:
QuoteMr. Bojzuck lives in a world where he (apparently) believes that the primary purpose of body alteration was to create the appearance of a "lone assassin." It was much more than that; the deception goes deeper. It was to create the illusion that Oswald's rifle was the murder weapon. To accomplish that, "non-Oswald" bullets could not be found (ergo, had to be retrieved, pre-autopsy) and "Oswald ammunition" had to be planted.
Why is it so difficult to Jeremy Bojczuk to understand that the President's body was the most important evidence in this case, and that for Oswald to be implicated (if the shots were fired from the front) then the autopsy results had to be falsified.
Of course it was not necessary to falsify the autopsy results in order to implicate Oswald! What implicated Oswald as a participant in the assassination was the presence of a rifle, which he appeared to have purchased, on the sixth floor, from where at least some of the shots appeared to have been fired.
Just as you don't need body-alteration in order to explain Kennedy's and Connally's wounds, you don't need body-alteration in order to explain the framing of Oswald. You certainly don't need all the shots to have been fired from in front, let alone Lifton's magic bullet which turned 180 degrees in mid-air and hit Connally in his back, or bizarre games of musical caskets or follow-that-ambulance. Most importantly, you don't need body-alteration in order to negate the lone-nut theory.
Lifton's entire fantastical scheme is redundant. Oswald could have phoned in sick that day, and he would still have been implicated in the assassination, simply because of the rifle.
Roger Feinman points out numerous problems with the bullet-planting aspect of Lifton's over-elaborate theory in chapter 5 of Between the Signal and the Noise: the 'Best Evidence' Hoax and David Lifton's War Against the Critics of the Warren Commission (https://www.kenrahn.com/JFK/The_critics/Feinman/Between_the_signal/Chapter_five.html)
QuoteAnother, even more pivotal weakness of Lifton's trajectory reversal idea (BE, p. 343) is that it rests upon the assumption that the three bullet shells which were found on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository near the window from which the Warren Commission alleged that Oswald fired the shots were planted by conspirators, and upon the further assumption that the plan called for the number of wounds inflicted during the shooting to correlate perfectly with the number of allegedly planted bullet shells.
This, however, is not necessarily so: If a greater number of shells existed than wounds, it could be explained away that one or more of the shots fired had missed their target. If, however, fewer shells existed than wounds "attributable" to them, then the wounds would have to be correlated in such a way as to accommodate the number of shells. Moreover, Lifton makes no effort to address the weighty issue whether the three shells would have been planted before or after the shooting, let alone how or by whom.
Lifton acknowledges this problem:
"One fact of my hypothesis was that it demonstrated, in theory at least, that the plotters could know, once they saw the body, how much ammunition was needed, and so could coordinate the planting of bullets with the fabrication of trajectories." (BE, p. 359)
Really? How would they know how many bullet fragments to plant? Did they know how many times John Connally was struck? Could they plant fragments in Connally's chest, wrist and thigh?
Wasn't it necessary, in Lifton's world, to plant the three cartridge shells beforehand? Ignoring the faults implicit in his a priori reasoning, consider the consequences. I am grateful to researcher W. Anthony Marsh for pointing out that, if the conspirators had planted the three cartridge shells in the Book Depository, but "gotten lucky" and made the fatal hit with one shot from the knoll, the conspiracy would have been immediately exposed. As he further muses, the number of known or suspected separate and distinct shots far exceeded the three shells recovered (JFK's head and upper back/lower neck, Connally's chest and wrist, the limousine windshield and chrome topping, and bystander James Tague).
I agree with many students of the case that there are doubts about the legitimacy of CE 399. Looking at the totality of Lifton's ammunition-planting scheme, however, why plant a whole bullet on a stretcher, but only fragments in the car? What about the fragments that actually were found in the President's skull, or those that were too minute to recover? Were they planted (and perhaps "sprayed" through the brain) too?
How did the plotters know that a bullet fired from the front would not completely escape the limousine and later be recovered—maybe hours or days after the shooting?
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Ron Ecker writes:
QuoteThere are multiple witnesses to a gaping (exit) wound in back of the head. How does that evidence support the lone-nut scenario?
The single bullet theory is impossible, the evidence for that impossibility being the laws of physics. So how does that support the lone-nut scenario?
Of course neither those witnesses nor the impossibility of the single-bullet theory support the lone-nut scenario. Sorry if I didn't express it adequately, but the point of my minor observation was that those who claim that the evidence was faked are implying that the result of the alleged fakery, the state of the body after the alleged fakery had taken place, supports the lone-nut scenario.
After all, if the wounds in their current, allegedly post-faking state don't support the lone-nut theory, they can't realistically have been faked to support that theory. What was the point of faking them, if not to make them consistent with the lone-nut scenario? To claim that they have been faked is to imply that they are now, post-fakery, consistent with the lone-nut scenario. Unless, I suppose, the forgers were particularly incompetent, which would be an even stranger claim to make.
But it is not true that the wounds, having allegedly been faked, unequivocally support the lone-nut theory. It is possible to make a plausible case that the wounds are not consistent with the lone-nut theory, which implies that they cannot have been faked, at least not by competent forgers.
For illustration, take Lifton's claim that the rear wounds were entirely fabricated, and that the "entry wounds [were] positioned exactly where they were needed" (Best Evidence, p.399). If they were, the purpose can only have been to make the positions of the wounds consistent with the lone-nut scenario. Lifton is implying that he believes that the positions of the rear entry wounds support the lone-nut scenario, and that they make the lone-nut scenario credible. (Of course, as most of us are aware, Lifton is wrong: the wounds were too low to make the lone-nut scenario credible.)
QuoteWhat in your opinion was the reason for the arrival of JFK's body at Bethesda in a shipping casket, separate from the arrival of the Dallas casket?
But did it? See chapter 6 of Feinman's Between the Signal and the Noise (https://www.kenrahn.com/JFK/The_critics/Feinman/Between_the_signal/Chapter_six.html) for evidence that contradicts the 'musical caskets' notion, as well as the related 'ambulance chase' notion. Feinman also points out the incoherent implications of Lifton's claim.
QuoteAnd why do you think Humes stated, at the start of the autopsy, that there was evidence of surgery to the head?
If he stated it, I expect that was because he thought at first that the damage to the head could have been the result of surgery. Chapter 5 of Feinman's Between the Signal and the Noise (https://www.kenrahn.com/JFK/The_critics/Feinman/Between_the_signal/Chapter_five.html) discusses this point, and provides reasons to doubt that there was surgery to the head.
As I pointed out earlier, whether one thinks that the body was altered or not altered, evidence exists which contradicts that opinion.
You can make a plausible case that the wounds were not altered at all, that there was no pre-autopsy surgery of the head, no game of musical caskets or follow-that-ambulance, and thus no elaborate conspiracy to fix the medical evidence.
To question the lone-nut theory, it isn't necessary to claim that the wounds were altered. The theory fails for other reasons. If you question the lone-nut theory, you have a choice between two beliefs:
- there was an unnecessary and elaborate conspiracy to fix the medical evidence;
- there was no elaborate conspiracy to fix the medical evidence.
Which is the rational choice?
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Sandy Larsen writes:
Quote"...When the bullet hit him, he said he felt like he had been kicked in the ribs and couldn't breathe..."
Huh? How does this John Connally quote indicate that the bullet hit him in the front of the chest? The back of the chest has ribs too.
Indeed. Even by Lifton's standards, this is outrageous.
1 - David Lifton claims that Governor Connally said he was shot from the front:
QuoteGov Connally later (some years after his Warren Commission testimony) gave an account that he felt as if he were slammed in the chest from the front.
2 - Gary Murr asks for the evidence for Lifton's claim:
QuoteAs someone who possesses more than a passing interest in the wounding of John Connally, can you indicate to me/us the source for Connally claiming “that he felt as if he were slammed in the chest from in front.”?
3 - Micah Mileto provides this quote by Connally:
Quote"...When the bullet hit him, he said he felt like he had been kicked in the ribs and couldn't breathe..."
4 - Lifton seizes on this quote and pretends that Connally is referring to being shot from the front. Further Best Evidence-style verbiage follows (I did this, I did that, a piece of evidence emerged, I was astounded, I came up with a solution), including the claim that Connally's quote contradicts his Warren Commission testimony:
QuoteFor here was Connally, in his own words, completely contradicting what he had said to the Warren Commission --- that the impact felt like a fist striking him in the back, or back of his shoulder.
From there, Lifton ropes in the Zapruder film:
QuoteMy personal belief: Connally was always puzzled --deeply puzzled -- as to why his recollections of November 22 1963 diverged from what the Zapruder film frames showed.
Lifton implies not only that the Zapruder film must have been faked (because it shows Connally reacting to a shot from behind, contrary to Connally's recollections) but that it was the faked film that caused Connally, despite having doubts, to go along with the lone-nut story.
It's all made up. Connally did not claim to have been shot from the front, and there was no reason why he should have been puzzled (let alone "deeply puzzled") by what he saw on the Zapruder film. He consistently claimed to have been shot from behind, as the medical evidence shows, and as the Zapruder film shows.
Connally went along with the Warren Commission's conclusions in public, no doubt in order not to rock the political boat. He did indeed express doubts in 1966 about the Commission's conclusions, not because he knew he had actually been shot from the front, but on the grounds that he was shot later than the non-fatal shot which wounded Kennedy. From the beginning, he had claimed to have been shot later than Kennedy:
QuoteIt is not conceivable to me that I could have been hit by the first bullet, and then I felt the blow from something which was obviously a bullet. ... the major wound that I took in the shoulder through the chest couldn't have been anything but the second shot.
It was Connally's recollections about when he was shot, not from where he was shot, that made the single-bullet theory impossible, which thus made the lone-nut theory impossible.
The Zapruder film matches Connally's recollections. It shows him reacting to a shot from behind, and it shows him reacting noticeably later than Kennedy.
Far from being troubled by an inconsistency between his recollections and what he saw on the Zapruder film, Connally's recollections agree with the Zapruder film. His doubts about the Warren Commission's conclusions weren't due to his having been duped by a faked film, and they weren't due to his having been shot from the front. Lifton made it all up.
As things stand, there is no evidence that Connally was shot from the front, let alone that the wound in his back was fabricated, as Lifton is now claiming. There is plenty of evidence that Connally was shot from behind and that there must therefore have been a sniper at the rear. Lifton still needs to find a way to incorporate this fact into his nonsensical "all the shots were fired from the front" theory.
P.S. This is a good illustration of the point I made in my previous comment, to Andrej. If there is a credible, non-conspiratorial explanation (in this instance, the timing of Connally's wounding) which invalidates the lone-nut theory, there is no need to invent a further conspiracy (in this instance, a faked film and fake wounds).
P.P.S. Has Lifton apologised to James DiEugenio yet?
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Thank you, Andrej, for your thoughtful reply. It is true that the particular novelty features of Lifton's body-alteration theory (that the rear wounds were pure fabrications and that no shots came from behind) are separate from his basic claim (that the body was actually altered). You imply that you doubt the novelty features but accept the basic claim. Fair enough.
But it is far from an accepted fact that JFK's body was altered. As everyone knows, the medical evidence is a mess. Whatever interpretation one wants to put on it, there will be witness statements and other evidence which contradict that interpretation. There isn't much that is incontrovertible.
There are four claims one could make:
(a) The body was substantially altered, as Lifton claims.
(b) Only minor alterations were made.
(c) The body was not altered at all, and it shows evidence consistent with the lone-nut scenario.
(d) The body was not altered at all, and it shows evidence which contradicts the lone-nut scenario: shots from both front and rear, and shots which entered too low to have been fired by a lone nut.
Personally, I'd go for option (d). But whatever claim you make, there is evidence which supports that claim, and evidence which contradicts that claim. The current state of the medical evidence doesn't really allow any of these claims to be made with certainty.
The important point is that it is possible to make a plausible case that the body was not altered and that it shows evidence of shots from both the front and the rear. If you want to cast doubt on the lone-nut theory, it isn't essential to claim that the body was altered. Other areas of evidence are more than sufficient to indicate that the lone-nut theory is nonsense. The notion of body-alteration is, at best, an optional extra.
If you can explain a set of facts without proposing a conspiracy, that explanation is more likely to be correct than one which demands a conspiracy. And if there is to be a conspiracy, the smaller it is, the more plausible it is. When it comes to conspiracies, bigger isn't better. The more paranoid JFK assassination enthusiasts, with their army of conspirators faking everything in sight, will be disappointed to learn all of this, but it's true.
Now consider these points:
- It hasn't been proved beyond any doubt that the body was altered.
- Those who argue that the body was altered to support the lone-nut scenario are implying that they believe that the current state of the evidence clearly supports the lone-nut scenario.
- The most high-profile theory about how the body might have been altered, Lifton's, is clearly wrong in its novelty features, as Roger Feinman and others demonstrated many years ago.
- A plausible interpretation of the medical evidence exists which allows us to rebut the lone-nut theory without requiring conspiratorial body-alteration. You can have a conspiracy to kill JFK without a conspiracy to alter the wounds on his body.
- The smaller and simpler a proposed conspiracy is, the more plausible it is. The larger and more elaborate, the more implausible.
- The more plausible the proposed conspiracy, the more likely it is that the general public will accept it. The more implausible it is, the more easily the media can persuade the general public that any critic of the lone-nut theory is a paranoid fantasist. Without the support of the general public, the case won't get resolved.
Summary: The simplest, and thus the most plausible, explanation for the medical evidence is that the body was not altered. This explanation is perfectly compatible with the belief that the lone-nut theory is nonsense. Once you accept this, you can finally let go of Lifton.
As for Mr Lifton, I'm glad that he has stated for the record his denial that Connally was actually shot from behind, and his belief that at least one of Connally's wounds was fabricated:
QuoteI do believe that a small (and relatively minor) entry wound was created on the rear surface of Governor Connally's body to create valid medical evidence he was struck from behind.
He should have done this 40 years ago, and stated his opinion clearly in Best Evidence. But if he had, it would have had the same effect as if he had included his 'snipers hiding in papier-mâché trees on the grassy knoll' idea.
No-one would have taken his book seriously. The media would have had a much harder job to mislead the public by promoting the book as representative of critical thought. It was a wise decision for Lifton to completely ignore the evidence for a rear sniper, and hope that his readers wouldn't notice.
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Jim Hargrove writes:
QuoteJohn told me how much it bothered him that Jack White veered off on topics such as the fake moon landings, contrails, etc. John felt Jack was just making it easier for critics to mock the H&L analysis and ignore the bulk of the evidence.
I don't think Jack White "veered off" at all.
The "moon landings were faked" people might justifiably complain about being associated with someone who helped to invent the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense. Jack White apparently believed that two young boys were selected for a long-term plot which required them to grow up to look identical a decade later, and that one of the identical boys just vanished into thin air immediately after the assassination. Oh, and that each boy had an identical mother, and that one of the identical mothers vanished into thin air immediately after the assassination too. Compared to that, the notion that someone faked the moon landings on a temporary film-set in the Arizona desert doesn't seem quite so crazy.
The "no planes crashed into the World Trade Center" people also might want to complain about being associated with someone who apparently believed that the identical long-term Oswald doppelganger who was buried in Fort Worth had not undergone a mastoidectomy despite solid medical evidence that he had, and that Jack White's fellow inventor of the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense knew about this problem but neglected to mention it, hoping that no-one would notice.
The problem isn't that people laugh at the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense because of Jack White's other paranoid fantasies. It's that people are liable to laugh at rational critics of the lone-nut theory because of the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense.
Even David Lifton finds the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense too nonsensical for his tastes. Does anyone know what Mr White's position was on the question of gunmen hiding in papier-mâché trees on the grassy knoll?
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21 hours ago, Andrej Stancak said:
I wonder where does your aversion to David Lifton's Best Evidence comes from?
Lifton's far-fetched explanation of the shooting, and the effect of his book on public opinion, are where my "aversion to David Lifton's Best Evidence comes from". As I wrote earlier:
QuoteI'm agnostic on whether or not the body was tampered with, but if it was, it can't have been done the way Lifton claimed.
It's important to remember that Lifton wasn't just saying that the body was tampered with in some way before the autopsy. His theory claimed that the body was altered in a specific way for a specific purpose.
Lifton's specific claim was that the planning of the assassination required three things, each of which has its own problem:
(a) all the shots at Kennedy were to be fired from in front;
(b) the body was to be stolen (or "covertly intercepted", as Mr Lifton prefers to call it) while on Air Force One, and in such a way that none of the people on the plane or on the ground would claim to have noticed the theft (sorry, the covert interception);
(c) all the wounds were to be fabricated to indicate that they were fired from behind, from a gunman on the sixth floor, and the fabrication was to be done so skilfully that it would fool the pathologists at the autopsy.
Does anyone apart from Lifton himself actually believe item (a), that all the shots were fired from the front? Remember, this is not a trivial detail but an integral part of his theory. It is clearly incorrect, because we know for a fact that Governor Connally was wounded by a shot that was fired from behind. Lifton must have known that this fact was inconsistent with his theory, but he did not even bother to mention it in Best Evidence, let alone incorporate the existence of the rear sniper into his theory.
If anyone finds item (b) at all credible, please get in touch: I can supply you with a tall metal tower in Paris for a very reasonable price. See https://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/b_snatch.htm for some of the problems with Lifton's "covertly intercepted" scenario.
Item (c) cannot be true. The wounds did the opposite of what Lifton claimed. He wants people to think that the locations of the wounds support the Warren Commission's lone-gunman scenario, when in fact they contradict it. Again, Lifton must have been aware of this when he wrote Best Evidence.
Lifton's theory required a highly co-ordinated conspiracy involving, at a minimum, dozens of people, doing things that surely would have been noticed, but which no-one noticed, in next to no time. Of the three elements of Lifton's theory, two are contradicted by the facts. The other has no solid evidence to support it and is, to put it politely, not very plausible in principle. Not only that, but the promotion of Best Evidence by the media helped to mislead the public about what the genuine objections are to the lone-nut theory. That's where my aversion to Best Evidence comes from.
Quoteplease say which piece of data in David Lifton's book is invalid. ... The scenario can be discussed, improved or even changed if new data becomes available but it does not disprove the ... conclusion that President's body had been altered before the start of the official autopsy.
You imply that Lifton has proved beyond reasonable doubt that the body was altered before the autopsy, and that all the data he presented in his book are sound. I'm not so sure. The notion that the head wounds were altered to support the lone-nut scenario, for example, is less certain than you seem to think. I've already pointed out one problem with the head wounds: the entry wound at the rear of the head was not consistent with having been caused by a lone gunman firing from the sixth floor, which according to Lifton was the whole purpose of faking it.
Of course, the muddy state of the medical evidence rarely allows for watertight conclusions, but if you look at what the doctors at Parkland actually said and wrote about the head wounds, their accounts tend to
contradict the lone-nut scenario[edit:] agree with the pathologists' accounts, which implies that the wounds weren't faked; see https://www.history-matters.com/essays/jfkmed/How5Investigations/How5InvestigationsGotItWrong_5.htm.There's a problem with speculating about the precise way in which the wounds were manipulated to support the Warren Commission's interpretation. Such speculation requires the assumption that the wounds support the Commission's interpretation, and implies that this point of view is uncontroversial. The wounds must be consistent with the lone-nut scenario, because even the conspiracy theorists say so!
But it's quite possible that, in fact, the wounds are not consistent with the lone-nut scenario, in which case there wouldn't have been much point in faking them.
In their eagerness to see a conspiracy everywhere they look, some people jump to the conclusion that this or that piece of evidence has been faked. By assuming that the medical evidence or the photographic evidence or whatever must have been faked to support the lone-nut theory, they're doing the Commission's work for them. They are saying, in effect: the evidence we have before us supports the lone-nut theory.
Some of the evidence in the case does seem to have been manipulated; some witness statements, for example. But if one criticises the lone-nut theory properly, and examines the evidence with an open mind, it often turns out that the evidence in question either actively contradicts the lone-nut theory (e.g. the Zapruder film and the entry wound in the rear of the head) or there is at least reasonable doubt that the evidence in question supports the lone-nut theory (e.g. much of the rest of the medical evidence). Again, if it contradicts the lone-nut theory, it can't realistically have been faked to support the lone-nut theory, can it?
The paranoid, 'everything is a fake' mindset does more than just legitimise the lone-nut theory. It causes another problem: it gives the general public the impression that everyone who questions the lone-nut theory is a paranoid fantasist.
Anyone who wants the JFK assassination to be more than a harmless pastime, a game of let's see who can think up the most extravagant and impractical conspiracy theory, anyone who actually wants the case to be resolved, needs to get the public on their side. To do that, you need to question conspiracy theories as well as the lone-nut theory, and question them properly.
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On 4/11/2020 at 3:58 PM, Paul Brancato said:
conspiracy theories that have the deliberate effect of giving the media a target to lump all conspiracy theories together as ridiculous. ... I remember that my first reaction to Best Evidence was exactly that.
Me too. It's worth noting that the harm that something like Best Evidence can do doesn't depend on getting people to actually read the book. The coverage of the book in the print and broadcast media would have been enough to dissuade very many people, perhaps millions of people, from questioning the lone-nut doctrine. "They stole JFK's body from Air Force One and nobody noticed? Get outta here! Is that what these people believe? They're all tin-foil hat crazies!"
As well as allowing the media to equate any form of criticism with irrational belief in an absurdly unlikely conspiracy theory, Lifton's book helped the official case in another way. His theory implied that a crucial aspect of the Warren Commission's case was valid, when it wasn't. According to Lifton and the Warren Commission, the locations of the entry wounds in the rear of JFK's head and torso were consistent with a lone gunman firing from the sixth floor of the book depository.
Lifton's claim is that these wounds were carefully fabricated to show that a lone gunman could have done what the Commission said he did. Once the general public dismisses the faking of the wounds as a paranoid fantasy, they are left with the impression that the location of the wounds shows that the lone-nut theory is plausible. "This part of the Commission's case is rock solid! It must be, because there's this book by one of those conspiracy theorists we've been warned about, and even he says so. Looks like Oswald could have done it after all!"
In reality, the locations of the wounds are strong evidence against the official case. Although most of the general public probably wouldn't have known that the locations actually contradicted the lone-nut theory, Lifton must have known. Why did he misrepresent this evidence in a way that helped the official case?
QuoteAnd I can’t help but notice how he treats those that disagree with him.
Yes, I've heard one or two Lifton stories myself. He doesn't seem able to cope with criticism very well, does he?
QuotePlus he still hasn’t answered my oft repeated question to him - where is the book he was promoting on this forum recently?
I wonder what Lifton's final charade will turn out to be. Maybe he is claiming that the rear sniper (you know, the one who fired a shot from the rear which can't have happened because all the shots were fired from the front) was hiding in a fake papier-mâché book depository.
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18 hours ago, Eddy Bainbridge said:
Always being wary of disinformation. Can posters who disagree with DavId Lifton please confirm if it is his theory they reject or is it the possibility of body alteration.I view the evidence as showing a frontal entry wound has been removed. Is there a non-alteration explanation?
I can't speak for others, but my own objection is to Lifton's theory. I'm agnostic on whether or not the body was tampered with, but if it was, it can't have been done the way Lifton claimed.
It's important to remember that Lifton wasn't just saying that the body was tampered with before the autopsy. His theory claimed that the body was altered in a specific way for a specific purpose.
Quite apart from the laughable notion that the body could be stolen from Air Force One without anyone noticing, two essential elements of Lifton's theory are clearly wrong. All the shots didn't come from the front, and the wounds which he claims were deliberately fabricated to implicate Oswald did the opposite. They exonerated Oswald and had the effect of convincing many people (including me) that the lone-nut theory was nonsense. Lifton's theory doesn't appear to take these facts into account. Perhaps he can tell us why.
If I've misunderstood Lifton's argument, or if he has found a way to reconcile his theory with the evidence I cited, I'm happy to be corrected.
It's good to be wary of disinformation, but it's a mistake to assume that any criticism of any conspiracy theory implies support for the lone-nut theory. There have been many ridiculous JFK assassination conspiracy theories over the years, some of them almost as ridiculous as Lifton's, and it's right to question all of them, not least because of the problem of guilt by association. The existence of the crazy theories supports the media's longstanding message that anyone who questions the lone-nut theory must be crazy.
When the media were looking for a JFK assassination book to promote in the early 80s, they wouldn't have been looking for one which offered a credible explanation for the assassination, or one which was representative of accepted critical thinking. Instead, the sort of book that would serve their purposes would be one which had the effect of undermining rational criticism of the lone-nut theory. They chose Best Evidence.
As for disinformation and David Lifton, the excellent researcher Martin Hay has something interesting to say on that subject:
http://themysteriesofdealeyplaza.blogspot.com/2013/11/send-in-clowns-fetzer-and-lifton.html
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Writers such as Roger Feinman and Harold Weisberg have raised plenty of objections to David Lifton's absurdly impractical body-alteration theory. There are two objections in particular to which I'd be interested to discover Lifton's response.
The Rear Sniper
In Best Evidence, Lifton specifically claims that all the shots aimed at President Kennedy were fired from the front. But there is indisputable evidence that at least one shot was fired from behind: the shot which hit Governor Connally in his back and came out of his chest.
How does Lifton account for the sniper who must have been stationed at the rear? What was this sniper's role? Did he (or she) intend to hit Kennedy, but miss and hit Connally by mistake? Or did she (or he) intend all along to miss Kennedy and hit Connally?
In either case: why? If all the shots at Kennedy were supposed to have been fired from in front, as Lifton's theory demands, what was the purpose of having a sniper at the rear?
It is an uncontroversial fact that Connally's wounds were due to a shot from the rear. This fact has been known since the publication of Commission Exhibit 392 (Hearings, vol.17, p.16) in 1964. Lifton must have been aware of it when he wrote Best Evidence. He must also have been aware that this uncontroversial and widely known fact appears to contradict a central element of his theory. Yet Lifton failed even to mention it, let alone attempt to reconcile it with his theory. Why?
The Fake Wounds
The purpose of faking the wounds at the rear of Kennedy's head and torso, according to Lifton's theory, was to ensure that the fake "entry wounds [were] positioned exactly where they were needed" to implicate a lone gunman firing from the sixth floor of the book depository (Best Evidence, p.399). But the wounds described by the autopsy pathologists do not do this.
The Head Wound Given the position of Kennedy's head at the instant of the fatal shot, the entry wound low down on the back of the head, near the external occipital protuberance, was far too low to have been caused by a bullet from the sixth floor, 60 feet above the road, which then exited above the right ear. This fact has been known since 1967 at the latest, when Josiah Thompson mentioned it (Six Seconds in Dallas, p.111). When Lifton wrote Best Evidence, he must have been aware that the entry wound in the head, as described by the pathologists, was too low for his purposes.
The Back Wound Likewise, the wound in Kennedy's back is too low to have been indisputably caused by a bullet from the sixth floor which then exited at around the level of the shirt collar. Again, this fact was widely known by the time Lifton wrote Best Evidence, and he must have been aware of it.
The whole purpose of the elaborate body-alteration plot, according to Lifton, was that both of the rear wounds should be "positioned exactly where they were needed" to implicate a lone gunman. But both wounds were in fact positioned some distance from where they were needed. Indeed, the positions of these wounds, far from supporting the lone-nut theory, actually generated widespread disbelief in the lone-nut theory. They had the opposite effect to that which Lifton's theory demands.
Lifton must have been aware that the locations of the two wounds were inconsistent with his theory. Why, then, did he make them an essential element of his theory?
Summary
Lifton's theory proposes actions which did not happen (shots fired only from the front) in order to ensure outcomes which also did not happen (wounds which implicated Oswald as a lone gunman). It fails on both counts. As things stand, Lifton's theory is incoherent and thus worthless.
Lifton would surely have known about both of these problems when he wrote Best Evidence. He seems to have based his theory on two sets of alleged facts which he knew were untrue. Why did he do this?
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For once, I agree with Jim Hargrove. The new Baylor set-up is a bit rubbish, and hasn't been thought through properly. It looks OK, but it's unnecessarily difficult to use and the underlying code is bloated. If you don't know precisely what you're looking for, you probably won't find it. At least it's better than the Harold Weisberg collection at hood.edu, which appears to have been cobbled together by someone who had never used a computer before.
Edge is indeed now Chromium with a coat of paint by Microsoft. I too recommend Firefox. You can download it here: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/. It comes with plenty of optional add-ons, such as ad-blockers and script blockers, that might appeal to the typically wary and privacy-conscious JFK assassination enthusiast.
For Mr Butler: Edge, Firefox and Internet Explorer are all web browsers (basically, software that displays web pages); Google, DuckDuckGo and Startpage are all search engines (basically, software that displays lists of web pages).
Each web browser comes with link to a default search engine, but you can change the default settings and customise any browser to incorporate any search engine, either by clicking on the little search box (if your browser has one) that's to the right of the address bar or by delving into the browser's menu settings (look for 'preferences', the location of which will vary in different browsers).
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On 4/1/2020 at 11:32 PM, Matt Allison said:
David Lifton can try to imagine possible scenarios all he wants, that doesn't make his crazy theory any more plausible or connected to reality.
Exactly. It's important to note that Lifton's claim in Best Evidence is not just that some sort of ad hoc jiggery-pokery went on with JFK's body before the official commencement of the autopsy. Although it's far from certain that anything like this happened, it wouldn't be an outrageous claim to make. Lifton goes much further; he claims that the alteration of the body was an integral part of the assassination plot:
QuoteIdeally, what I wanted on the rear surface [of JFK's body] were entry wounds positioned exactly where they were needed, without the problem of having to extract any bullets which caused them. The simple way to accomplish this would be to leave the rear surface clear and create the rear entries, as needed, after the shooting. ...
If I were a plotter, I could arrange to leave the rear surface free by firing only from the front, using hollow-point ammunition. The body, after the shooting, would have entry wounds on the front and bullets inside. By enlarging the frontal entries, I could retrieve the metal, leaving holes which could pass for exits. Then I could put whatever entries were necessary on the rear surface. ...
To be able to shoot the President, retrieve the bullets, and insure that afterward it appeared the shots came from behind, the real bullets had to be fired from the front. ...
As part of the murder, it could be planned to shoot from the front and then, by altering the body, make it appear that the shots came from behind, from the direction of a pre-arranged sniper's nest.
(Best Evidence, Signet edition, 1992, pp.399-400)
Lifton's imaginary plotters decided in advance that all the shots would be fired from the front, and that the body would be altered to make it look as though all the shots came from behind.
Problems
There are several objections to this preposterous notion. The most obvious one, which anyone familiar with the basic facts of the assassination will be able to work out, is that we know for certain that not all of the bullets were fired from in front. The only bullet whose trajectory is beyond dispute is the one which hit Governor Connally in the back and came out of his chest. That bullet was fired from behind, not from in front.
So much for Lifton's theory. It falls at the first hurdle.
Lifton's Response
You're probably asking yourself: How did Lifton deal with this rather severe problem? Why was there a sniper to the rear? Was it the sniper's job to miss Kennedy and hit Connally? If so, what purpose would this serve? If not, how did that sniper fit into the scheme?
You're probably also asking yourself: How many of Lifton's 800-plus pages are spent reconciling the contradiction between his theory and the known trajectory of the bullet which struck Connally? One of the early reviews tells us the answer:
QuoteLifton makes no attempt to explain Connally's wounds within the terms of his theory. He does not seem to notice the problem at all.
(Thomas Powers and Alan Rich, 'Robbing the Grave', New York Magazine, 23 February 1981, p.46)
More Criticism
Plenty of people have pointed out this and other problems with Best Evidence over the past four decades. For example, there's a short but thorough debunking of Lifton's body-alteration nonsense on pages 134-138 of David Wrone's The Zapruder Film: Reframing JFK's Assassination (University Press of Kansas, 2003).
For a more in-depth debunking, see Roger Feinman's Between the Signal and the Noise: The 'Best Evidence' Hoax and David Lifton's War Against the Critics of the Warren Commission. Anyone who doesn't yet have a copy of this essential text can find it online in several formats:
- In HTML format: https://www.kenrahn.com/JFK/The_critics/Feinman/Between_the_signal/.
- In .txt format (within a zip file which you'll need to unpack): https://the-puzzle-palace.com/etcetera.htm.
- There are also PDF and ebook versions kicking about which many researchers will be pleased to share if you ask them nicely.
- This article includes an excerpt from chapter one: https://www.kenrahn.com/JFK/The_critics/Lifton/Liftonbio.html.
No doubt Mr Lifton will be happy for the late Mr Feinman's work to be distributed as widely as possible, so that Mr Lifton's theory can receive the scrutiny it deserves.
The Effect on Public Opinion
It's important to note the subtitle of Feinman's work: Lifton's War Against the Critics of the Warren Commission. As well as debunking Lifton in depth and giving an interesting insight into his character, Feinman points out the harm that far-out speculation like Lifton's can do to public opinion of the assassination, and consequently the harm it can do to rational criticism of the lone-nut theory.
The press and other media, which for obvious institutional reasons have consistently promoted the lone-nut theory, promoted Lifton's book enthusiastically. Imagine that the media succeeded in persuading the general public that the only alternative to the lone-nut scenario is this ridiculously elaborate plot:
1 - a team of snipers is under instructions to shoot JFK only from in front;
2 - an unknown number of unidentified operatives are hired to kidnap the president's body from Air Force One (possibly at Love Field airport in Dallas, possibly at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington DC, but Lifton isn't certain), a task which, miraculously, they manage to perform without being noticed by any of the people inside the plane or any of the journalists, ground crew or sightseers at whichever airport the heist took place;
3 - the unidentified operatives deliver the kidnapped body to some undetermined location (possibly Walter Reed Hospital in DC, but Lifton isn't certain), by undefined means (possibly by plane, possibly by helicopter, possibly by ambulance, but Lifton isn't certain), also without anyone noticing;
4 - an undefined number of unnamed surgeons at the undetermined location are able in double-quick time to construct wounds to the president's back and head which mimic shots from behind, a task they perform so skillfully that they fool the pathologists at the autopsy, although the fake entry wounds they created in the back and the head were too low to implicate a lone gunman firing from the sixth floor, thereby messing up the whole purpose of the body-alteration plot ("entry wounds positioned exactly where they were needed");
5 - the unidentified operatives take the kidnapped body away from the undetermined location, again without anyone noticing, and deliver it to Bethesda for the autopsy.
As Matt points out, it's a crazy idea. Even the lone-nut theory is more credible than Lifton's, and that's saying something. Given the choice, which theory would the average person be inclined to believe? "Hey, Wilma! You hear about those conspiracy theorists? They're all living in crazy world! Looks like Oswald must have done it after all."
If enough people can be persuaded to believe that anyone who questions the Warren Commission must be a paranoid fantasist, there will never be enough popular pressure to get the case properly investigated.
Further Reading
- A pre-Best Evidence theory of body alteration: https://www.kenrahn.com/JFK/Issues_and_evidence/Alteration_of_wounds/Newcombe-Perry/Newcombe-Perry_text.html.
- Chapter 27 ('Trust Me - I'm a Thief') of Harold Weisberg's unpublished book, Inside the Assassination Industry, backs up Feinman's account and shows that there's more to Lifton than the ability to make up ridiculous theories: http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/HW%20Manuscripts/Inside%20the%20Assassination%20Industry/Itai-27.pdf (PDF: 50 KB). The rest of the book is worth reading too: http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/HW%20Manuscripts/Inside%20the%20Assassination%20Industry/.
- On the subject of making up ridiculous theories, there's also an article in which Lifton seriously proposed that gunmen hid on the grassy knoll in artificial trees made from papier-mâché, but I haven't been able to find that one online. If anyone can track it down, please let us know so that we can all have a good laugh. Papier-mâché trees! Maybe James Files, Hungarian Harvey (and his doppelganger) and Elvis Presley were hiding in the trees too.
- More about Lifton's next work of imaginative fiction: https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t1251-lifton-on-his-new-evidence.
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I'm not sure if Steve is implying that I'm acting as a proxy for Greg Parker, but just for the record: I haven't had any contact with Mr Parker about anything to do with this thread. Also for the record: I don't have an opinion either way about whether or not Oswald lived at that particular address.
I merely noticed that Greg was offering to debate the topic, and, since he can't do that here, anyone who is interested could do so at his forum, under a set of rules which seem unobjectionable.
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Tracy Parnell tells Jim Hargrove:
Quotedespite your lengthy post, you didn't answer Jeremy's question. That's because you can't.
This is the question I asked, and which Jim has avoided answering: what are the specific facial features which allow us to distinguish the fictional characters 'Harvey' and 'Lee'?
Jim is doing his best to avoid answering that question. Take the set of four images, supposedly of Lee Harvey Oswald, which Jim has provided. No-one has ever credibly claimed that the middle two images are of the real Oswald, or of the fictional character 'Harvey' or the fictional character 'Lee'. These two images have nothing to do with the question of whether the facial features of 'Harvey' and 'Lee' were identical or different. Why did Jim include these images, if not to pretend to answer my question while actually avoiding it?
Let's try again. Were the facial features of the fictional characters 'Harvey' and 'Lee' identical or different? If they were different, those differences should be visible consistently in the photographic record. But they aren't, are they?
Look at the 70-odd photographs in Jim's montage on page 48. There are no consistent differences between the noses ("obviously very different" according to one believer!), the mouths, the eyes, the eyebrows, the ears, etc. Even Jim can't identify any consistent differences in the facial features in those photos. We are left with two possible conclusions:
(a) 'Harvey' and 'Lee', despite being unrelated and from different parts of the world, turned out to look identical a decade or so after being chosen for their top-secret doppelganger project. Or ...
(b) There were no 'Harvey' and 'Lee'. They are characters in a work of fiction. There was only the real-life, historical Lee Harvey Oswald.
Of course, there's also option (c): the photographs have been faked by the lizard people, like all the other evidence which contradicts the 'Harvey and Lee' theory.
As Tracy points out, all of Jim's 'Harvey and Lee' talking points have been debated over and over again, here and elsewhere. If Jim needs to refresh his memory, he will find these resources useful:
http://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/f13-the-harvey-lee-evidence
https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t1588-harvey-lee-links-to-alternative-explanations
http://wtracyparnell.blogspot.com/search/label/Harvey%20%26%20Lee
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/2oswalds.htm
http://22november1963.org.uk/john-armstrong-harvey-and-lee-theory
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Congratulations to Mr Butler for identifying the only facial feature that distinguishes 'Harvey' from 'Lee'! One ear in a photograph looks marginally different to one ear in ... a drawing. Oh well. And the shadow on one ear in a second photograph is slightly different from the shadow on the same person's ear in a third photograph.
I can never work out if Mr Butler is being serious, or if he is having a laugh at the expense of the 'Harvey and Lee' theory. Just in case Mr Butler is being serious, could he confirm that all the other facial features of 'Harvey' and 'Lee' - eyes, eyebrows, mouth, nose, etc - are identical?
Or, if he really thinks there are consistent differences, could he point out a few examples in the mugshot montage on page 48? They are all the same person, aren't they?
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John Butler writes:
QuoteI haven't mentioned this detailed description since nothing will satisfy you
On the contrary, it won't take much to satisfy me. All I'm asking for is a short list of the facial features that are specific to each of the fictional characters, 'Harvey' and 'Lee'. It might go something like this:
- 'Harvey': narrower mouth, thinner lips, longer nose, straight eyebrows, eyes closer together, smaller ears.
- 'Lee': wider mouth, fatter lips, shorter nose, curved eyebrows, eyes wider apart, larger ears.
That shouldn't take very long to compile, should it?
Once you have produced your list, all we need to do is check it against Jim's mugshot montage on page 48. If the photographic record really does show two people, the differences between them should be visible consistently across the photographic record.
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Jim Hargrove writes:
QuoteMr. Bojczuk insists that I micro-analyze a visual record that has clearly been falsified and manipulated.
There's no need to "micro-analyze" the photographic record. If the facial features of the fictional characters 'Harvey' and 'Lee' were not identical, it should be easy to identify each fictional character's specific facial features, because those features will appear consistently in the many photographs of Oswald.
Take, for example, the two photographs provided by John Butler on page 52. He seems convinced that one of them shows 'Harvey' and the other shows 'Lee'. What facial features in those two photographs are distinctive of each fictional character? The differences should be obvious.
To my untrained eye, the facial features look remarkably similar. Even the noses appear to be identical, although we are told by David Josephs that the noses of the two fictional characters are "obviously very different". You know, I'm beginning to suspect that these two photographs, taken several years apart, may actually show the same person, in different poses and different lighting conditions.
Would Jim (or any other 'Harvey and Lee' believer) care to point out the characteristic features of 'Harvey' and 'Lee' in these two photographs? No answers? It's the same person, isn't it?
At this point, Jim will want to remind us of the most important element of the 'Harvey and Lee' theory: if a piece of evidence contradicts the theory, the evidence must be fake (which, according to some unkind people, makes the theory unfalsifiable and hence worthless).
It's possible that the reason both of these photographs show the same person is because they have been carefully faked, no doubt by the same lizard people who went on to fake the moon landings photographs a few years later, although why they would bother to laboriously manipulate inconvenient photos rather than simply destroy them is a mystery.
But surely the 70-odd photographs in Jim's montage on page 48 can't all be fakes, can they?
There must be plenty of genuine photographs which will demonstrate, for example, the "obviously very different" noses of the two fictional characters. Which photographs show the nose of 'Harvey', and which show the nose of 'Lee'? Jim won't need micro-analysis for this simple, two-minute task. Come on, Jim! It's easy! The noses are "obviously very different"! Which photos show which nose?
It can't just be the noses of the two fictional characters that differ. What about their mouths? But there aren't any obvious differences between the mouths. Admittedly, we can't rule out the possibility that those two unrelated boys grew up to have one facial feature that looks identical throughout the photographic record. It's unlikely, but possible.
But what about their ears, eyebrows, and other facial features? Surely all of those features can't have turned out to look identical as well. That would be extremely unlikely. The differences should be easy to spot, because they would be shown consistently across the photographic record. No micro-analysis is required - just list the numbered photographs (from Jim's montage on page 48) which show the distinctive noses, ears, eyebrows, etc, of each fictional character.
This game is open to anyone, by the way, not just Jim, even though he is keen to "debate the specifics right here" (or he used to be; he isn't quite so keen now, for some reason). Let's start with something easy: the noses, which are "obviously very different". Can anyone spot two consistent types of nose in the montage on page 48? Which numbered images show one type of nose, and which show the other type of nose?
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Greg Parker, who isn't a member here, has replied:
QuoteSteve has mentioned me more than once in that thread, including asking if I was a member. He clearly wanted to take me to task about the evidence in this matter...
I therefore have set up a safe space for reasoned debate here. Up to 10 questions each, no one else involved without prior agreement, answer must be responsive to the specific question asked and ONLY that question, both parties agree not to claim victory here, but to allow readers to come to their own conclusions.
You will not find a fairer offer on any forum. It remains open to anyone on any relevant topic.
Sounds reasonable to me. Here it is:
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I'm not sure what point Jim Hargrove is trying to make with the images he has provided, unless it is the obvious point that some of the photos of Oswald are of very poor quality, or the equally obvious point that press photographs are often touched up before publication.
If he thinks these images reveal facial features that are specific to each of his fictional characters, perhaps he could tell us:
(a) which facial features are specific to the fictional character 'Harvey';
(b) which facial features are specific to the fictional character 'Lee'; and
(c) which of the other photographs in the montage demonstrate each of those facial features.
For example, if he is claiming that the 'Harvey' character has a long, thin nose and the 'Lee' character has a short, wide nose, it should be possible to list all the numbered photographs which demonstrate each type of nose. He could do the same for the differences in each fictional character's mouth, ears, eyebrows, and so on, if he thinks that any such differences actually exist. Let's see what he comes up with. To quote Jim: Please debate the specifics right here.
Once we have taken account of variables such as lighting conditions, poses, shadows, quality of photographic reproduction, and normal physical changes over the years, what differences are there in the faces of 'Harvey' and 'Lee'? So far, all we have is a poorly defined "the nose is obviously very different". (In what way is it different? If it really is "very different", this difference should be clearly visible in several other photographs. Which photos depict the nose of 'Harvey', and which depict the very different nose of 'Lee'?)
Since the faces in the photographs appear to possess no differences that don't have everyday alternative explanations, we are left with two choices. Either the fictional characters 'Harvey' and 'Lee' were identical, a possibility that is so unlikely that we can dismiss it as a fantasy, or the photographs are of just one person: the real-life, historical Lee Harvey Oswald.
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John Butler writes:
QuoteIt doesn't take a dentist or expert to see that Lee Oswald on the right has a missing front tooth and Harvey Oswald on the left has all of his front teeth.
It takes a 'Harvey and Lee' believer to interpret a small dark patch on a photograph as a missing tooth instead of, say, a shadow or a photographic artefact. If that's the only difference Mr Butler can see, it's clear that both photographs must show the same person: the real-life, historical, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald.
In Mr Butler's opinion, which facial features are specific to 'Harvey', and which are specific to 'Lee'? Are their noses different, as David Josephs has claimed? He thinks they are "obviously very different". If so, how exactly does the appearance of their noses differ? If not, why is Mr Josephs imagining things? What about their mouths: are they different? Their eyebrows? Their ears? What consistent differences can 'Harvey and Lee' believers see that others cannot?
If the two fictional characters really are unrelated and from different parts of the world, as the 'Harvey and Lee' theory claims, what does Mr Butler think are the chances that they turned out to look identical a decade or so after they were chosen as boys for the top-secret doppelganger project? It would be very unlikely indeed, wouldn't it?
The two fictional characters cannot realistically have looked identical. They must have looked different. We would expect the photographic record to show consistent differences between the facial features of the two fictional characters. But it doesn't, does it? I wonder why that could be.
Anybody Have This Tom Wilson Image?
in JFK Assassination Debate
Posted
The inside cover of Richard Trask's Pictures of the Pain: Photography and the Assassination of President Kennedy contains a plan of Dealey Plaza with the locations of the following 18 people who were taking still photographs and home movies:
- James Altgens
- 'Babushka Lady'
- Mark Bell
- Hugh Betzner
- Wilma Bond
- Richard Oscar Bothun
- Charles Bronson
- Robert Croft
- Elsie Dorman
- Robert Hughes
- John Martin
- Mary Moorman
- Marie Muchmore
- Orville Nix
- James Towner
- Tina Towner
- Phillip Willis
- Abraham Zapruder
We can add to this list the following 17 people, most of whom were press photographers and cameramen in the motorcade (Trask names them on p.306):
- Tom Atkins
- Henry Burroughs
- Harry Cabluck
- Frank Cancellare
- Malcolm Couch
- Tom Craven
- James Darnell
- Tom Dillard
- Johnny Flynn
- Clint Grant
- Robert Jackson
- Jim Murray
- Art Rickerby
- Cecil Stoughton
- James Underwood
- Jack Weaver
- David Wiegman
That's 35 names I found with just a five-minute search of Trask's book. There may well have been other photographers in Dealey Plaza whose names are on record, as well as others whose names we don't know and whose photographs have not yet come to light.
Mr Butler, and indeed anyone else who is interested in the photographic aspect of the assassination, should try to get hold of a copy of Trask's book. It isn't cheap (currently $40 on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Pictures-Pain-Photography-Assassination-President/dp/0963859501), but it's comprehensive and very informative.
We know that there were plenty of people in Dealey Plaza snapping photographs and shooting home movies. We also know that the authorities paid little attention to the photographic record. There was only a token appeal to the public to make their images available. There was no attempt to round up all the spectators who carried cameras, some of whom only surfaced years afterwards.
All of this would cause a serious problem for any conspirators wishing to alter a photograph or a home movie, quite apart from the technical problem of making a convincing fabrication. You have no way of knowing how many other images exist which depict the scene you're trying to fake. How can you ensure that the alterations you make won't stick out like a sore cliché when compared to non-faked images of the same scene?
Perhaps Mr Butler will now answer a question of mine. He seems to think the Altgens 6 photograph was altered in some way. Unfortunately, that particular photograph was one of the least likely candidates for forgery, because as well as the risk of alterations being exposed, we know that there was next to no time to actually make any alterations (for details, see Trask, pp.307-325).
Could Mr Butler give us a plausible account of how the Altgens 6 photograph could have been altered, given the very limited time available and the risk of exposure?