Greg Doudna

Sandy I read the Aguilar link and I see you are right that Aguilar's flap suggestion for the BOH photograph goes down farther in the back of the head than I think Pat Speer's does.

Its not a matter of "weeping". I don't regard myself as having a dog in this fight, just want to know the truth sensibly whatever it is. What I'm opposed to is attempts to suppress or bully into silence informed discussion presented from divergent points of view, such as from some quarters, Pat Speer's. May intelligent, informed discussion flourish and may the best arguments win. The only weeping from me in that case would be tears of joy.   

12 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

Agreed. There are two facts about the head wound that upset me to my core. The first is that they moved the location of the head wound to fit the single-assassin scenario, and the media failed to notice. And the second is that they changed the interpretation of the mystery photo from its depicting an entrance on the back of the head to its depicting an exit on the front of the head. This is absolute bs of the highest order. And yet the media has never explained this to the pubic. Maybe they think it's too complicated. Maybe they think it's too gory. But my suspicion has long been that the AMA is every bit as powerful as the CIA when it comes to domestic matters, and that no major media outlet wants to call the competence and integrity of the nation's doctors into question. 

Pat, your argument on the blow-by-blow of how the autopsists' EOP/rear-hairline bullet hole was disappeared and the new bullet hole was found at the cowlick--and how that came about without for the first three years anyone reporting that--was stunning to read. My M.A. thesis adviser at Cornell, Martin Bernal, devoted attention to not only the substance of contested scholarly interpretations but also to what he called the "sociology of scholarship", how changes in ideas get accepted and changed in scholarly disciplines.

It is like a retired US federal marshal who was my father's closest friend in his final years told me, speaking from long experience: "Greg, in every town and city there are a few families who run everything."  

In academic disciplines there are usually some major figures with positions and lots of graduate students. Any new idea in a field put forth by, say, some bright graduate student, will take traction if one of the major names in the field endorses it and tells the rest of the field, "look at this". Whether that happens, so far as I have seen, is largely accident, it depends on some major name deciding they like something and deciding to make that public endorsement. If no major figure proactively does that, the work gets published and a few will read it, but--news flash--most scholars do not read most of what is published in their field, they read only what is being done on their specific research question or niche, and may read some of what a few major names of their field publish generally, but not unrecognized names. They don't have time or energy to read unrecognized names. Once a theory attached to a new name is brought to wider attention by one of the major names, then the past publications of that new name may be looked up and read. I honestly think there is a significant percentage of peer-reviewed journal articles with a lot of work and expense going into their publishing that are hardly read by anyone. Of course everyone scans abstracts or may take a 3/4 second glance but that's it for some articles indefinitely.  

10 hours ago, Stu Wexler said:

Greg:  Larry Sturdivan, who is not only an LNer but probably the most qualified LNer on the subject (wound ballistics specialist) believes in an EOP entrance. I believe he brought a few LNers along for the ride. I think John Canal was  pro-EOP even before Larry S but they interacted quite a bit. John was a weird variation of an LNer (he believed Oswald was a lone, deranged shooter but that Ruby killed LHO as part of a mob conspiracy.

Larry Sturdivan (with whom I have had sharp disagreements on other matters) and Canal both argued that the low entering bullet somehow ricocheted or changed directions upwards within the skull. Tough to believe, but again, Sturdivan requires some additional level of refutation, imo, as he is a wound ballistics expert.

Thanks Stu on noting there does exist current advocacy of the EOP/hairline bullet hole and LN interpretation, as well as the rest of your sound comments.

4 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

 

On the 6mm dimension, I do not think that’s a very strong argument. As far as I know, the only measurement instrument the autopsy doctors were using was a ruler. Humes et al. get blasted for a massive laundry list of errors during the autopsy, but they were somehow immune to missing a quarter millimeter on either side of an irregular oval while holding up a crappy ruler to JFK’s skull? 

All of your comments make good sense, and on this one, I have it corrected now but in mine originally I had somehow mistaken in memory the (correct) 6 x 15 mm autopsists' measurement for (I called it mistakenly) 5 x 16 mm.  A difference only between 6.0 and 6.5 mm, not 5 and 6.5, so yes, I accept that a half a millimeter sounds within margin of human measuring error, and withdraw any claim that that is an argument that can be pressed, thanks.

3 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Greg,

The short answer to your question is this:

The back-of-head autopsy photos do not show a flap of scalp falling down, thereby covering a back-of-head hole. So it is clear that Dr. Aguilar is wrong about that. Therefore his belief is inconsequential to my calculation.

I wondered how Dr. Aguilar could defend such an obviously wrong position, and so I requested a response from him. It's been two or three days and I haven't heard back from him.

In the meantime, Keven Hofeling pointed me to an open letter written by Doug Horne, and this led to my finding what possibly led Dr. Aguilar into drawing the conclusion he did. It is located in Dr. Aguilar's review of the recent documentary JFK: What the Doctors Saw, published here on the Kennedys & King website.

The following excerpt seems to explain where Dr. Aguilar got his idea of a flap of scalp falling down, thereby covering the hole on the back of the head:

In a similar vein, Kenneth Salyer, MD said he thought that the autopsy photos appeared to have been tampered with, and that they had replaced the scalp over an area that was wide open (1 hr., 20 min. mark).

Near the end of the film Dr. Salyer made a suggestion that some of us skeptics have long believed plausibly explains why the Parkland doctors and autopsy witnesses said JFK’s wound was right-rearward. A flap of JFK’s scalp had fallen backward, Salyer said, and it “bunched up” at the base of Kennedy’s occiput.

Since the autopsy report documented that there were large scalp tears, and since JFK was lying face-up on the Parkland gurney, as well as on the autopsy table, it only makes sense that gravity would have drawn a torn flap downward to reveal what was present, a rearward skull defect described by both Parkland and Bethesda witnesses.

[Emphases mine.]

So there we have it. Aguilar believes there was a large scalp flap that fell down in Parkland, thus exposing a skull wound in the back, but was pulled back up when the autopsy photo was taken. Even though Dr. Salyer thought that the BOH autopsy photos had been tampered with, he theorized the thing about the scalp sliding down.

Since Dr. Aguilar included the phrase, "that some of us skeptics have long believed plausibly explain...," perhaps it is more likely that Dr. Aguilar has long been one of those skeptics, rather than being a recent convert due to Dr. Salyer's theory.

The only reason for a conspiracy theorist to adopt that view is if they are anti-alterationist.

So it appears that Dr. Aguilar is one of those rare back-of-head-wound believing anti-alterationists.

As is common with anti-alterationists, Dr. Aguilar has to adopt strange beliefs to account for inconsistencies that are associated with not accepting photo alteration. Here are three that I've noticed for Dr. Aguilar:

1. Several witnesses described a hole in the scalp, about the size of a fist. If this size of scalp had actually fallen down during the photographing of the back of the head, we certainly would see the left and right edges of the flap. It is inconceivable that the flap would be so neatly tucked in on, not only its left and right sides, but along the bottom as well, that we'd see nothing amiss in the photos.
    
2. We can see in the BOH photos that the scalp is attached to the right ear. We can't see the left ear, but we know the scalp is attached there as well because there was no damage on the left side. So there is no flap in the back, as Dr. Aguilar says. In contrast, Dr. Salyer's theory was that the fully width of the scalp from ear to ear slid down and bunched up below the gaping hole in the back.
   
   Now, if Dr, Salyer's theory is really what Dr. Aguilar believes, he still has a problem. Given that there is no damage to the left side of the scalp, as evidenced by the left-side autopsy photo, there is no way the full width of the scalp could have slid down.
    
3. Dr. Aguilar apparently is unaware that there is an extant photograph of the damage taken from the right side of the head. Even though he is aware of the complementary photo taken from the left side. He wrote the following in his review:
   
   "Among the pictures that may well be missing is an image (or images) of the full extent of Kennedy’s skull wound taken from his injured, right side. (Interestingly, in the official collection there is one of uninjured, left side of JFK’s head.)"
   
   I wonder if it is cognitive dissonance that is causing Dr. Aguilar to mentally dismiss the existence of this photo. The cognitive dissonance having been created by the inconsistencies caused by denying photo alteration.
   
   Recall that in his review, as quoted above, Dr. Aguilar notes that the autopsy report mentions the existence of large scalp tears. He then conjectures that one (or more?) of these tears could have constituted his supposed flap hanging down over the BOH hole. From looking at the left-side autopsy photograph, and can understand why Dr. Aguilar has to deny the photograph's existence. Because it clearly shows the scalp tears hanging down from the forehead and covering the TOP of Kennedy's head. NO autopsy photo gives any sign of a flap hanging down on the back... which is where Dr. Aguilar wants it to be.

Sandy, your reply responds to something different than what I said, and what I understand Dr. Aguilar to have meant. 

I was not referring to a flap covering up the entire back of the head or any blown-out exit hole in the middle of the back of the head. I was referring to a limited flap coverup of only a small part of the total back of the head, to the top or top-right, in the BOH photos, but not most of the visible back of the head in the BOH photos. That is what I thought I made clear in the way I worded it; that is what Pat Speer has been saying in these discussions recently though I am not sure you have been aware of that; and that is what I assumed Dr. Aguilar meant, though I do not presume to speak for Dr. Aguilar and hope I do not have him wrong on that. 

But you rebut entirely a claim that is not, in this discussion, being made by anyone at issue--you cite someone else's notion of an entire gaping hole in the back of the head covered up by a flap. You then attribute that to Dr. Aguilar, then argue for that being implausible and/or impossible (with which I agree with you on that point--but that is not what was at issue in the question I asked you). 

Dr. Aguilar said in his quoted words to Pat Speer:

"'Re the 'back of the head blowout' controversy, I think you put your finger on it, Pat: Jack's scalp flaps fell backward as he lay on the gurney, face up, at Parkland. (And at Bethesda, too.) It was likely NOT a blown-out exit wound; the Z film wasn't altered, etc.'"

Yet you set up a straw man, claiming that Dr. Aguilar is saying what he explicitly said is "likely NOT" the case: a blown-out exit wound in the back of the head. You wrote (bold is my added):

3 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

So there we have it. Aguilar believes there was a large scalp flap that fell down in Parkland, thus exposing a skull wound in the back, but was pulled back up when the autopsy photo was taken.

Except the problem there was you don't quote Aguilar.

You quote someone else that you thought may have inspired Dr. Aguilar in his views, then stuck those words (from someone else) on to Dr. Aguilar as if that was an accurate representation of what Dr. Aguilar believes. But you did not show that from any direct quotation from Dr. Aguilar. And in the quotation from Dr. Aguilar that is under discussion, Aguilar explicitly said he does "NOT" think a blown-out exit wound in the back likely existed, the opposite of what you attribute to Dr. Aguilar on the basis of quoting somebody else.

Then you attribute to Dr. Aguilar what you term three "strange beliefs". 

4 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

So it appears that Dr. Aguilar is one of those rare back-of-head-wound believing anti-alterationists.

As is common with anti-alterationists, Dr. Aguilar has to adopt strange beliefs to account for inconsistencies that are associated with not accepting photo alteration. Here are three that I've noticed for Dr. Aguilar (. . .)

But Dr. Aguilar said he does "NOT" think a blowout back of the head is likely, of your first line above (your bold).

Of the three "strange beliefs" you claim Dr. Aguilar holds, the first two you list do not even make a claim as to what Dr. Aguilar believes, let alone establishing that he believes such, if your wording is read carefully. Those first two points are in the form of "if-then" propositions, "if" Dr. Aguilar believes what you quote someone else saying, "then" <that is implausible/impossible>". You make those "if-then" logical arguments without quoting Aguilar, without establishing that Aguilar believes the "if" premise. That is faulty logic, as stated, to conclude that Aguilar holds a "strange" belief (the "then" conclusion of your "if-then") based on what logically follows from what someone else said if Dr. Aguilar also holds that, without establishing that he does. 

On your third point of the three, yes and no. I understand your point there, that the BOH photo shows the right side, whereas Dr. Aguilar speaks of a missing right-side autopsy photo (without acknowledging that the BOH photo shows the right side). However I believe Dr. Aguilar, who has spoken elsewhere in favor of the idea that some photographs taken at the autopsy are missing in the extant autopsy photos, clearly meant a missing specific photo taken full-on from the right side. That was Dr. Aguilar's actual point, I believe. 

But back to the main point (bold below is my added). 

4 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Recall that in his review, as quoted above, Dr. Aguilar notes that the autopsy report mentions the existence of large scalp tears. He then conjectures that one (or more?) of these tears could have constituted his supposed flap hanging down over the BOH hole. From looking at the left-side autopsy photograph, and can understand why Dr. Aguilar has to deny the photograph's existence. Because it clearly shows the scalp tears hanging down from the forehead and covering the TOP of Kennedy's head. NO autopsy photo gives any sign of a flap hanging down on the back... which is where Dr. Aguilar wants it to be.

But Dr. Aguilar said the opposite: "It was likely NOT a blown-out exit wound".

The flap referred to by Pat Speer, I believe Dr. Aguilar, and what I was asking you about, is not a supposed "flap hanging down over the BOH hole" but rather a reduced-size flap hanging down covering a part of the gaping wound that extended into the top-right or upper right of the back of the head--not a massive full flap covering the entire back of the head or rather covering a huge gaping blowout exit wound in the middle of the back of the head. And I was asking you to run a recount of your odds-probabilities based on whether witnesses' claims of what they saw was either consistent or inconsistent with that small-covering by a flap, not what you misunderstood as being a question about a total flap covering a major blow-out hole in the back of the head.

I very clearly in asking my question to you, said that Parkland witnesses who said they saw a gaping wound in the middle or lower part of the back of the head would be inconsistent with the flap interpretation I meant, and which I understood (I hope correctly) Dr. Aguilar also to have meant, and Pat Speer as well.

I was not disputing all of your witnesses, just asking for a recalibration of your odds based on reshuffling your categorizations, since the way you set up your odds seemed straw mannish in its starting assumptions. You did not allow in your starting categorizations for witnesses who said they saw wound in the upper or right back that would be consistent with what Dr. Aguilar appears actually to have meant, which Pat Speer clearly means, and which I meant, in my question. 

22 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

I’ve read Pat’s online book, and we’re on the same page that the alleged cowlick entrance is a definite fabrication, and that Pat has a strong case that the EOP entrance is not connected with the large head wound. 

(…)

My interest in the head wounds is focused on two main questions: 1) Is there a possible wounding scenario in which Pat’s theories and the medical evidence overall can be reconciled with a single shot to the EOP from the 6th floor window; and 2) what is the probability of that scenario actually happening compared to Pat’s theory of two headshots?

The reason I’m interested in those two questions specifically is simple: if the answer to 1) is truly and unequivocally “no”, Pat is correct that the extant medical evidence legitimately proves conspiracy in the JFK case. The head wound location debate instantly becomes irrelevant. 

(…)

Pat’s medical arguments are compelling and well-documented, but like everything else in this case there is plenty of ambiguity. I’ve read some newer wound ballistics literature not cited by any EOP lone-assassin theorist for example describing a plausible mechanism for the high fragment trail, plus  other credible potential counterarguments to some of Pat’s head wound theories e.g. the in-skull trajectory issue. 

As of right now, I agree with Pat that a tangential wound and separate EOP entrance is the most probable scenario to explain JFK’s (extant) head wounds, but I’m not totally convinced it’s the only possible scenario. A case for conspiracy based on the official head wounds alone needs to be as robust as possible; so I think it’s worth the effort to approach Pat’s arguments from the opposing viewpoint and look for ways to make a single shot work.

The biggest obstacles I see currently to a plausible lone assassin EOP solution are the back-and-to-the-left motion and skull fragments launching into the air at high speed in the Z-film. 

First point, does there even exist today a EOP/rear hairline bullet hole LN theorist, even though that was the Warren Report’s position? If you can name anyone today who holds to the Warren Report position on that, and also believes the Warren Report conclusion that Oswald was the lone assassin, I would be interested to know the names. Not even Bugliosi or David von Pein defend or hold to the Warren Report on that part of the WR’s conclusions. 

Second, on arguments against a LN/EOP bullet hole attached to the gaping head wound being possible (i.e. against the WC interpretation that no known LNer today holds), here are two more in addition to what you name:

The autopsists’ 6 x 15 mm measurement of the bullet hole in the skull bone is incompatible with a 6.5 Mannlicher-Carcano bullet. Bone does not shrink, and, if that measurement is accurate, that bullet therefore cannot have come from the Mannlicher-Carcano. Given that other evidence does indicate one or more shots came from the Mannlicher-Carcano, therefore, it follows: more than one shooter.

And second, the trajectory of EOP to exit at the gaping head wound just is a great stretch to consider plausible for a JFK sitting upright. Which is why all WR defenders abandoned the WR on this point, became critics or opponents of the WR on this point—decided that a mere item of evidence, the autopsists’ report of a simple fact as to a particular bullet wound’s location, was to be dismissed out of existence and declared nonexistent, presto, just like that.

A mere simple fact reported by the autopsists, accepted by the WC, and without any contrary evidence other than that it does not agree with the LN interpretation, was declared out of existence because it conflicted with the LN interpretation. 

7 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

That said, note that my number of witnesses -- 50, of whom 40 saw a hole on the back -- are approximate at this point. However, my estimate is conservative in that I'm pretty sure that the percentage of witnesses who saw a hole on the back is greater than the 80% (40/50) in my estimate.

Sandy, have you factored into your odds calculation the below from Dr. Aguilar? According to Dr. Aguilar, all of the witnesses would have seen a gaping wound in the upper part of or to the right of the back of the head, but that does not mean the BOH photograph is not authentic if a flap at the top or right side covered up part of what was visible prior to the flap pulled up in that photograph. 

In that reconstruction, the witnesses who saw a gaping wound lower in the back of the head would indeed run counter to BOH photo authenticity, but those witnesses who saw the gaping wound high, or at the top right, in the back of the head, not so. Could you rerun your calculations with new counts of the witnesses based on Dr. Aguilar's framing of the issue? Would that change your claimed proof from astronomical odds that the BOH photo must be faked? 

"Here is our friend Dr. Aguilar in an email to me last week (and yes, he said I could quote him):

15 minutes ago, Cliff Varnell said:

Are you willing to regard JFK balling his fists in front of his throat and deducing it was in response to the throat shot?  No?  Why not?

It could be, but I think that could be a reaction to being hit in the upper back. 

Just out of curiosity, suppose the first shot that hit JFK was the upper back hit. How would you expect him to react differently than what we see in Zapruder with the elbows raising?

I take Bennets affidavit establishing a terminus ad quem, time no later than, for the back hit, which means the back shot was before Z313. Bennet saw the back shot there when he looked. I don’t see evidence of JFK reacting to another hit between the elbows-raising and Z313, therefore I reason that first hit, the one of the elbows raising, was the bullet in his back. 

2 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

I’m also curious about the 6 x 15mm dimension, and what specific yaw angle of a MC bullet would create that size of an entrance. Bullets will tend to yaw, and thus curve in the body, in the direction of yaw at entrance.  

From the foundation that there was a bullet hole just above the rear hairline--to the right of the EOP--as the autopsists and other witnesses said--Pat Speer makes an excellent argument that the huge gaping head wound was not connected to that but caused by a different, tangential shot, not a through-and-through shot with a separate entrance and exit for if that had been the case comparative parallels indicate (Speer cites) that it would not have blown out as much of the skull as a tangential shot would and, in the case of JFK, did.

The autopsists said the rear hairline bullet hole was an entrance wound due to beveling on the inside, but I would like to see that interpretation analyzed. I know Pat Speer accepts that it is an entrance wound with the exit in the throat. But there are several things that seem to me could weigh in favor of reversing that direction, with entrance at the throat and exit at the rear hairline. First, the impressions of nearly everyone who saw the throat bullet hole that it was an entrance. Second, the throat wound was only 3-5 mm, much smaller than the rear hairline 6 x 15 mm, and all else being equal, usually the smaller hole is the entrance, the wider hole is the exit.

Third, from some gunshot articles I have been reading, beveling in skull bone is a usually decisive argument on direction but there are exceptions; in the case of tangential hits there is beveling on both sides, or rather the bullet channels in making a "trough" on one side of the exit hole, from the inside (before beveling on the outside of the exit). But that "trough" on the inside can look like beveling too, which runs counter to the idea that beveling always is on the opposite side of the direction of the bullet. The question is whether the autopsists' 6 x 15 mm bullet hole could have had a "trough" looking like beveling on the inside, with the "oval" hole representing a tangential exit rather than an entrance. 

I was struck in reading Speer's chapter (13) by the analysis of the Clark and HSCA panels. I have come to see that those panels did not "move" the autopsists' rear-hairline bullet hole "up" four inches higher. No. What they did was they simply disappeared or declared nonexistent the autopsists' rear-hairline bullet hole. They then found a new alleged bullet hole at the cowlick, much higher, based on an indeterminate photo and an interpretation of an indeterminate lateral x-ray, both very equivocal in interpretations as necessarily indicating a bullet hole at that location. 

As Speer brings out, nobody had previously noticed any bullet hole at the cowlick before the Clark and HSCA panels newly "found" one there. The Clark and HSCA panels obviously did not have access to the actual skull so were working solely from photos and x-rays. Whether or not they were correct in finding a bullet hole at that location--Speer makes a good argument they were incorrect on that, that it was dried blood in that location--has no connection to whether they were right or wrong in "disappearing" the autopsists' and other witnesses bullet hole near the rear hairline. The cowlick clearly was not what the autopsists saw and measured and reported located as a bullet hole near the rear hairline. 

Then Speer argues the rear-hairline bullet hole is visible in the BOH photo and in the "mystery photo" of inside the skull. Speer goes through how the panels tried to get the autopsists to say they had mistakenly located the rear-hairline bullet hole and that they had really all along seen the one the panels were saying was located at the cowlick (which is pretty ridiculous, really)--but 8 of 9 (or whatever the numbers were) of the rear-hairline bullet hole witnesses refused to agree with that. The only one who did, one time, was autopsy author Hume, after he was threatened to be ripped apart publicly in a hostile cross-examination bringing out other errors he had made in a way that would ruin him professionally, in other words coercion. Humes then said what was wanted re the cowlick location, avoiding the threatened hostile public evisceration of his reputation, but after that Humes repudiated that and returned to his former (and all the others') original location of the rear-hairline bullet hole location as they had all measured and reported.

And troubling, is one of the autopsists, I forget which one, thought he remembered photos being taken of the skull showing that rear-hairline bullet wound, but none survive in the autopsy photos today, as if there may have been intentional "losing" of certain photos.

But back to the entrance versus exit issue of the rear-hairline/near-EOP bullet hole. If it was an entrance (as the autopsists' thought, citing I believe almost entirely beveling on the underside as their reason or evidence for that--but was that true beveling on the underside, or was that a long-trough one-side bevel of a bullet tangentially exiting?) ... if it was an entrance then there are the questions of when was that additional shot from the rear fired, what is the explanation for the small exit hole, and what became of the bullet. 

The other alternative, that it was an exit but the autopsists mistakenly thought it was an entrance, in some ways intuitively seems a better fit with the evidence, if the beveling issue could survive scrutiny and analysis on that point.

The very small entrance at the throat becomes the entrance wound that everyone's first impression of it was.

The trajectory would work with a shot from the storm drain. A storm drain shooter would have to have fired a handgun on practical grounds for space reasons. I have read that .22's were favored by professional assassins because they were quieter and easier to silence. On the other hand there were reports that an unexplained .45 bullet was found in the north knoll grass. Perhaps a storm drain shooter fired a .45 pistol, and the .45 bullet found was from that shot exiting near JFK's rear hairline.

The only timing window of opportunity for such a storm drain shot--which would be a perfect assassin's shot--would be just after the Z312-313 head shot, not before, and there is a whole literature of jiggle analysis as well as witnesses hearing shots close together at the end that support another shot after Z313, about 3/4 of a second later; perhaps this was it. At that timing and limousine location there is no windshield in the way of the shot, and JFK is leaned back and to the left lessening the discrepancy between trajectory and bullet path going up the neck and out near the rear hairline of the head.

And what happened to the bullet is no longer a problem with the rear-hairline being an exit since it either is the .45 bullet possibly found, or else some other bullet that ended up outside of the limousine, but does not need to be found inside the limo.

Cliff is skeptical that a T1 right transverse process could be damaged by a bullet in transit from the throat to a rear-hairline exit. I am not expert enough to know whether that is a real or illusory objection. I would be swayed if Cliff could cite convincing expert testimony on this point but am not willing to simply take Cliff's word for that on its own.  

As is well known there was no dissection of the neck to find where the throat bullet track "went", but I recall something about it did go "upward" in direction from the throat. And then there is mortician Robinson's testimony claiming he saw a probe inserted in the autopsists' rear-hairline bullet hole which he says he saw come out at the throat wound. If true--Robinson insisted it was--that would be decisive and end all argument on this. However that testimony of Robinson was decades later and no one else directly corroborated it to my knowledge, which seem to be major objections to considering that possible confirmation. 

I would be interested if someone knows of a concise, single article (or book chapter) which directly and in an informed way refutes or falsifies this line of analysis--the notion of a connection between the autopsists' near-rear-hairline bullet hole and throat wound.

2 hours ago, Cliff Varnell said:

And this accounts for the hairline fracture at T1, the air pocket overlaying C7/T1, and JFK holding his fists in front of his throat 6 seconds before the head shot(s)?

T1 is a couple of inches below the hairline.

I have read that .22 bullets, for example, can move around all sorts of ways inside a body after entrance. I have read differing explanations of air in the x-rays, and referred damage to locations not caused by direct bullet impact. Can you prove that a throat to rear hairline path (whichever direction it was) can NOT have caused what you cite? You KNOW that, do you? 

5 minutes ago, Cliff Varnell said:

Multiple shots to the head.

Where did that bullet go (if it is interpreted as an entrance)? Did it exit?

But Cliff, what do you do with the bullet hole just above the rear hairline? Deny its existence? On what grounds?

1 hour ago, Cliff Varnell said:

The hairline fracture of the right T1 transverse process could only have been caused by a throat entrance.

That’s a given.  We need to move beyond the obvious and deal with the root facts: (1) JFK suffered an entrance wound in the soft tissue of his back, with no exit and no bullet recovered during the autopsy.  (2) He suffered a wound of entrance in the soft tissue of his throat, with no exit and no bullet recovered during autopsy.

But Cliff, the argument that there was a 5 x 16 mm bullet hole (whether it was entrance or exit is a separate issue) at the rear hairline, as attested by the three autopsists and other witnesses and shown with devastating force in Pat Speer's chapter 13, one of the strongest and most significant chapters in Pat Speer, is extremely compelling (https://www.patspeer.com/chapter13solvingthegreatheadwoundmyster). 

It is true the Warren Report tried to connect that to a head wound exit but that is impossible, and that interpretation of that bullet track was simply in error. But that does not change the empirical existence of that rear hairline bullet hole at the rear hairline. 

There is no other possible connection to that rear hairline bullet hole than the throat wound. 

The only issue is which was the entrance and which was the exit at either of those two ends (and associated questions, the caliber of bullet and from where the origin of the shot). But what cannot be in question is that those two wounds are connected, a bullet entering/exiting at those two ends, the one bullet hole being the exit for the other's entrance. Because once the rear hairline bullet hole is acknowledged to be fact, then there is no other possibility. 

That still leaves the back entrance wound unexplained. But the back wound cannot connect to the throat wound (as in the single-bullet theory) because the throat wound is connected to the rear hairline wound.

So far as I can tell I believe this logic is airtight, even if it is not widely recognized.

With thanks to Greg Parker for the information, Dorothy Kilgallen reported on the Shirley Martin interview of Acquilla Clemons, giving it wider currency. It was not a previously-unknown interview of Acquilla Clemons conducted by Dorothy Kilgallen personally (https://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg12239.html).

Sara Jordan-Heintz's new book, The Incredible Life & Mysterious Death of Dorothy Kilgallen (2023). 

I have just received this book, have not read most of the book but what I have seen is interesting. Naturally she focuses some attention on Ron Pataky--who died in 2022--the man who entered her life and with whom Dorothy was enamored at the time of her death. According to Jordan-Heintz, Pataky actively worked with Dorothy on her JFK assassination research, a book. As part of that Pataky said he met with two leading figures in the JFK assassination case, evidently on his own complementary to but not at the behest of Dorothy: Mark Lane and Jim Garrison.

Jordan-Heintz says Pataky went to Guatemala in 1954 at the time the CIA sponsored the coup overthrowing the Arbenz government, and Jordan-Heintz sees an intelligence agency connection to Pataky:

"[Quoting Pataky] 'I did go to Guatemala when in a small military thing. There was a communist uprising in Guatemala. I did go, but nothing to do with assassins for God's sake ... I was in the military then, and they sent a detachment of us down there because of this communist uprising. They sent many, not just me" ... Pataky was never formally in the U.S. military, but as was previously mentioned in this book, he did attend Stanford for a while on a Navy ROTC scholarship, but was kicked out ... 'Several hundred of us went. We were highly trained'...

"The U.S. officially had no military troops in Guatemala during the timeframe in which Pataky admitted to being there ... Though he [Pataky] had denied ever attending a CIA run assassin's school in Panama, he later contradicted himself. Larry Jordan recalls, 'Pataky told me, in one of our last conversations, "I always denied it, but I really was there."' At the very least we know Ron Pataky was in Guatemala in 1954 when the CIA staged a coup d'etat and got President Jacobo Arbenz removed from office. The covert operation to overthrow Arbenz was code-named Operation PBSuccess ... The CIA armed, funded and trained a force of at least 490 men who invaded Guatemala on June 18, 1954, backed by a heavy campaign of psychological warfare. The democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz was deposed on June 27 in order to protect the profits of the United Fruit Company, which had vast land holdings there, and shipped a lot of bananas. What ensued was decades of brutal U.S.-backed regimes that committed widespread torture and genocide... 

"The invasion force of which Ron Pataky was apparently a part, was called a 'liberation army' and headquartered at Copan, Honduras, about four miles from the Guatemalan border ... According to the Central Intelligence Agency's own in-house historian, Gerald Haines, the agency compiled lists of individuals in Arbenz's government 'to eliminate immediately in event of [a] successful anti-Communist coup.' Planning for assassination included budgeting, training programs, creation of hit teams, drafting of target lists of persons and transfer of armaments. ... Vans of CIA-trained thugs would kidnap people on the hit list, and in some cases their mutilated bodies would be thrown out of a helicopter in front of a stadium during a sporting event to terrorize the local populace. 

"Since Ron Pataky finally confessed that he had, indeed, attended a Panamanian assassin school (after acknowledging he had denied it for years), one can only conclude the role he assumed in Guatemala fell within the scope of some of the CIA's most egregious terrorist activities... The coup was widely denounced internationally, dealt a death blow to democracy in Guatemala, and engendered long-lasting anti-U.S. sentiment across Latin America which continues to this day...

"Given Ron Pataky's experience in Guatemala as a paid participant in a paramilitary operation, it is not unreasonable to suspect that he further lent himself to other CIA-sponsored activities in the years ahead. Could one of those have been to befriend Dorothy Kilgallen, keep tabs on her progress in investigating the assassination of John Kennedy, and then eliminate her by methods he had learned from the CIA at Stanford? [reference to earlier discussion of CIA MK-ULTRA drug- and poisoning research carried out at Stanford starting in 1953 at the time Pataky was there]" 

Steve Rossi, a famous entertainer (comedian), friend of Dorothy: 

"To this day, the files are open in the New York police department on how she died. They never solved the case. They alleged that she died from an overdose of barbiturates, but I know for a fact that she wasn't taking anything at the time. She felt like she was being poisoned. And I think that's what happened. Once she started writing the book on the Kennedy assassination, I think somebody came in there and poisoned her. She was turning yellow, you know. I saw her two weeks before she died. She looked really bad. And she thought she was being poisoned, but they couldn't detect it." 

Ron Pataky was a poet. One of his poems:

"While I'm spilling my guts/ She is driving me nuts/ Please fetch us two drinks/ On the run/ Just skip all the noise'n/ Make one of 'em poison/ And don't even tell me/ Which one!"

On Robert Morrow’s claim that Lansdale killed JFK: so far as I can see the only claimed evidence is argument that he was in Dealey Plaza, and motive. Is that it? That’s insubstantial, not evidence of killing Kennedy, a wild leap. Thousands of civil servants had motive in the sense of passed over for promotion or fired from a job or disagreed on policies, motive is not proof of anything. Did Prouty have anything more than the Dealey Plaza photo claim? So what if that was Lansdale? How go from that to he killed JFK? Why not rephrase that to that’s enough to put Lansdale on a short list of maybe only 5000 or 10,000 possible suspects, at least the vast vast majority of whom are assuredly completely innocent. Would that not be more accurate reasoning?

1 minute ago, Michael Griffith said:

She talked about it in one of her columns, her 9/25/1964 column (LINK). 

The link does say Dorothy Kilgallen in 1964 reported an interview with Acquilla Clemons, true enough. I wonder if Kilgallen’s original column would clarify whether that was Mark Lane’s interview (in which case nothing new), or an interview of her own. I have never heard of a Kilgallen Clemons interview transcript. 

19 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

She interviewed Acquilla Clemons 

Are you sure of that? What is the evidence Dorothy Kilgallen interviewed Acquilla Clemons?

The following unverified claim (below) appears on page 107 of John Davis, The Kennedy Contract (1993). Never mind the issue of Karen Carlin being alive or dead, the question is whether Gary Shaw ever said Karen Carlin told him what is reported here. Davis cites no footnote or documentation, and I can find nothing to confirm that Gary Shaw or anyone else claiming to have been in contact with Karen Carlin said that Karen Carlin said what Davis claims. Davis:

"[I]n October 1992, Karen Carlin came back from the dead. She contacted Gary Shaw, director of the JFK Assassination Information Center in Dallas, after almost thirty years living under an assumed identity, and told him she knew of a conspiracy to kill Lee Harvey Oswald, that Ruby told her to phone him Sunday morning and that an hour later he would telegraph her $25, just before shooting Oswald, to establish an alibi to justify his shooting of Oswald as an impulsive act of revenge. And who was ultimately behind the conspiracy to kill Oswald? Kar[e]n Carlin mentioned two names to Gary Shaw, Carlos Marcello and Santos Trafficante, Jr."

Here is a newspaper interview I found of Gary Shaw's own account of his contacts with Karen Carlin of 1992-1993, which does not back up John Davis's claim: https://www.cleburnetimesreview.com/news/local_news/this-just-in-little-lynn-still-dead/article_8fcf8e54-cfad-5fd2-b0b7-f5bfbfd2678b.html.

Does anyone know if there is any verification or source stating Gary Shaw said Karen Carlin actually told him this, or is this urban legend and/or misinformation retailed by John Davis?

OK David I think you’re right on the coincidence. Brennan already had his 6th floor shooter at 165-175 lbs, first-day written statement, or 160-170, WC testimony, thinks the height was about 5’10”, WC testimony, and the description given by Sawyer juxtaposed with Brennan’s makes Brennan pretty clearly Sawyer’s source. Therefore the agreement with the preexisting Oswald height and weight does look like coincidence, a “false positive” so to speak. 

That is coincidence, but it still seems a bit much to me that Baker also has the exact same 165 lbs applied to his non-165 lbs Oswald, not because Baker did not run into Oswald (as Oswald was about to exit the second floor to go down the NW stairwell to exit out the back as I understand it), but because Baker must have picked up the 165 lb estimate overheard from somewhere, and having no clearer idea of Oswald’s weight just used the 165, though Baker’s height estimate (5’9”) and clothing description would be original to him. 

10 minutes ago, David Von Pein said:

Yes....coincidence. Without doubt.*

* IMO

It's a coincidence brought about by Howard Brennan's description of the assassin that he gave to the police (probably to J. Herbert Sawyer).

Thanks for the answer David. I don’t agree with Robert M that Baker and Brennan were involved in trying to frame Oswald or that anyone put either of them up to lying that weekend.

I suppose unanswered questions are is it certain Brennan was Sawyer’s source, and did Brennan confirm he gave a 5’10” height estimate specifically. Did Sawyer’s source claim to have seen the shooter leave the building with a rifle (which was other than a Mannlicher-Carcano)? That sounds like what the source told Sawyer, but is that what Brennan told Sawyer? 

I’m a little puzzled why Sawyer could not identify who told him that original height and weight estimate, never directly confirmed it was Brennan. But Brennan—wasn’t he wearing a hardhat or something, difficult not to remember? An important piece of information for Sawyer and to have no name record or memory of physical description of the source? A little odd. 

It’s not an impossible coincidence (the coincidence explanation), just a little odd is all. 

Thanks David for that discussion of the topic. I don’t see that it clears up the question I asked though. I agree Baker saw Oswald, and Baker reported Oswald (the real Oswald) as 165 lbs. But the issue is not whether someone could mistake 140 lb Oswald for 165 lbs—that is not the question—but the specificity of the DPD radio broadcast error being 165 and not 160 or 170, combined also with the specificity of the error in Oswald’s height being 5’10” and not some other inch. Referring to that 12:44 police radio broadcast.

Without questioning that Baker saw Oswald, I have wondered if Baker somehow heard or got the 165 pounds number from somewhere and wrote it, or maybe not. If he truly had no knowledge of a 165 number from any other source by the time he wrote his report of his encounter with Oswald, if his 165 pounds for Oswald truly was uninfluenced and his own, then that is coincidence and irrelevant here.

So forget Baker, and forget your point correctly shown that a weight estimate of someone of Oswald’s weight by a witness can be mistaken by 20 or 30 pounds, that’s not the issue here.

The question is how is it the DPD 12:44 broadcast EXACTLY matches to the inch and the pound the preexisting inaccurate written record on BOTH Oswald’s height and weight before his name was known as a suspect.

What is your answer to that question

Coincidence?

I assume that is your answer—but would you confirm that? 

6 minutes ago, Michael Griffith said:

As Dr. Marc Selverstone has proved in The Kennedy Withdrawal, the JFK White House tapes contain not one shred of evidence that JFK saw Vietnam "as a morass" and that he was looking to pull out while not losing at the same time. For one thing, North Vietnamese sources have confirmed that the war was actually going well until Diem was assassinated in November 1963.

If you read the supporting documents behind NSAM 263 and 273, you see that the withdrawal was clearly conditional, that some support troops would remain, and that military and economic aid would continue. 

But Michael, how can you deny (or Selverstone if so) that JFK was “looking to pull out while not losing at the same time”, when in your next breath you refer to NSAM 263 as “a withdrawal”? 

Was JFK intent on a conditional withdrawal or not? You seem to be arguing both ways simultaneously.

Also you say McBundy’s draft of NSAM 273 represented JFK’s thinking but you did not answer whether in your understanding 273 did or did not end the earlier stated 1965 timetable for a conditional intended withdrawal? 

In other words, was the 1965 planned (conditional) withdrawal of NSAM 263 for real as JFK intent, or not, and when exactly did that real intent (if so) get formally cancelled in top-level war planning by the US? And by whom exactly? 

David von Pein, could you give a LN response to Robert Morrow’s point above (and references in his blog post linked there) concerning the 5’10”, 165 lbs., mistaken physical description of Oswald stemming from Marguerite’s mistaken information to FBI Fain in 1960 … a mistaken Oswald physical description as early as 12:44 pm on Dallas Police Radio, before Oswald was a suspect?

It cannot stem from a real description of Oswald from a witness because if so there would not be the exact agreement to the pound and to the inch with the mistaken Oswald physical description. 

And it cannot stem from Oswald being suspected and then obtaining a written physical description of Oswald because this was before Oswald was a suspect.

It looks like catching a plagiarist or someone cheating on a test at school because they copied a telltale mistake that was in the source. 

Does that look like someone planned to incriminate Oswald prior to the shots being fired? 

Is there a mundane, innocent explanation for the exact height and weight match to the mistaken Oswald physical description for the suspect, before Oswald was a suspect? 

Michael G., is it consensus historians’ view that JFK would have signed NSAM 273 without any editing as it stands (as LBJ did sign it)? 

The earlier NSAM had the written 1965 objective of near-withdrawal (understood most read that as with conditions, nevertheless that stated policy and planning objective)—is it consensus historians’ view that that element was now being dropped or abandoned or repudiated in NSAM 273–and that JFK would have been OK with that dropping, abandonment, or repudiation of the stated 1965 timetable planning? 

It just looks like JFK by Nov 1963 was seeing Vietnam as a morass and looking for an acceptable wind-down or disengagement while not “losing” at the same time, whereas a majority of joint chiefs etc had no such intent or interest or belief in a feasible possibility of a 1965 near-end to engagement. And that these differences in wordings reflect internal battles over framing policy at staff/Joint Chiefs level? 

Did JFK usually sign such prepared draft NSAM’s unaltered or did he frequently have them revised or reworded, in practice? I.e. how certain do you feel that JFK if he had returned to Washington instead of being assassinated, would have knowingly signed an abandonment of a policy commitment to plan for disengagement/withdrawal (mostly) by 1965?

Interesting Paula. Without knowing any better, it just sounds like from her high-level Party or intelligence English-tutoring clients she may have heard about Oswald (natural topic for conversation, how could it not come up, right?). They probably like Mary on a personal level, she tells them she hasn't met him but if she does she will let them know. But she really does not want anything to do with it so discourages Ernst's offer to introduce them. You ask why she was not more proactively enlisted to befriend Oswald and see if he would open up to her... maybe because it would look too transparent to Oswald and if he was a spy he would be unlikely to open up like that? And they had him heavily surveilled already.

Ernst Titovets, who knew Oswald closely, just like two others who knew Oswald closely, George de Mohrenschildt and Buell Wesley Frazier ... each of these, against the grain of common thinking, and suffering negative consequences as a result, but simply saying so because it is what they think to be true, say the Oswald they knew was no killer, and would not have killed President Kennedy. Each of these said this and stuck to this after having seen and heard all the major and familiar points of evidence of the case.  

In rereading the preface to the third edition (2020), the one I have, of Oswald: Russian Episode, I see your name and am struck anew at how accidental and unlikely some book publications are, juxtaposed to the unforeseen and unknowable effect some books have, not necessarily immediately, that do see the light of day, so difficult to foresee in advance. Titovets writes:

"My first literary agent, A***** L***** [name is published in Titovets] of the A***** L***** Literary Agency Ltd in London, demonstrated high interest in my book. After he had received the script, he kept it for a long time without any discernible progress. When I finally saw him at his office in London, he, without any explanations, said that the book had better be rewritten by a ghostwriter. I said, 'No way.' We parted.

"M****** A***** [name is published in Titovets] of Johnson and A***** Ltd. in London was equally enthusiastic to get the script. Again, there followed a period of an unaccounted-for procrastination. Finally, he informed me of the opinion of an anonymous reviewer, who found nothing new in my book. [!--gd] There came a suggestion to include some material from the then-recently declassified JFK files. I saw no point in inflating my book with information peripheral to my first-hand account. That meant the end of our cooperation. To sum it up, the two literary agents delayed publication of Oswald: Russian Episode by at least ten years.

"Eventually, Oswald: Russian Episode, edited by Paula Botan, was published by MonLitera in Belarus.

"In 2013, as the book's author and as a person who closely knew Oswald in Russia, I was invited to serve as a keynote speaker at an annual conference held in Dallas in November by the Coalition on Political Assassinations (COPA). The event was focused on the 50th Anniversary of JFK assassination.

"However, there arose a problem in obtaining my U.S. visa at the American Consulate in Minsk. Carrying COPA's official invitation and a copy of Oswald: Russian Episode, I went to the consulate, while thinking that approval to visit for my forthcoming speech would be a mere formality. Unexpectedly, the interview turned out to be a psychological assault by the consulate officer that bordered on outright provocation.

"She made it so stressful for me that I can only think to describe it with the American expression, 'Keep your shirt on,' which is reputed to stem from the frontier days when a man's removal of his shirt meant that he was ready to fight (but not willing to damage clothing valued in that era). By the end of her act, the officer suddenly became calm and all business. She collected my papers and announced that I had to wait for a decision. Still furious inside, I left the consulate pondering the meaning of the show that she had staged with me.

"I waited to hear anything from the U.S. consulate for over a month. With the time of my scheduled departure fast approaching, I decided to act. I appealed to the Americans involved with the conference for polite letters of support to be sent to the consulate in my behalf by those who expected my visit. (. . .) This and perhaps other circumstances worked. Before long, I obtained my U.S. visa.

(. . .)

"This book gives a straightforward, firsthand account of Oswald and his everyday life in Russia. That includes his work and leisure, love and disappointments, interests and ambitions, his socio-political views, and his writings.

"I often ask myself why such a book would be hindered and so little known, especially in the United States when there is so much interest in the life and death of the popular president. The reviewers who took the trouble to write are unanimous in stating that Oswald: Russian Episode presents the real Oswald and humanizes this much-dehumanized man.

"The real Oswald would not pull the trigger at JFK. This view, based on my observations and professional evaluation of Oswald, is in opposition to the U.S. official view on Oswald's role in the JFK tragedy. This makes Oswald: Russian Episode an undesirable nuisance except for those [who] know or who care to understand the facts. 

"Ernst Titovets, M.D., Ph.D., Minsk, Belarus, September 2020." 

That’s an interesting point Robert Morrow—on Kilduff remembering LBJ’s first thought at ca 1:00 or 1:15 pm Fri Nov 22 being “Communists did it” (in agreement with the DRE/Miami-station attempts to falsely implicate Castro via an Oswald connection as a casus bellus for retaking Cuba), and not as more expected and feared in Dallas, from right wing hatred or fanatics. 

But before running too far with it, does Kilduff’s statement on that have independent support or verification? This is Kilduff in 1991 saying that. Is that claim (of LBJ’s earliest reaction going to communist conspiracy, prior to the arrest of Oswald) attested earlier than 1991? 

Still, Kilduff’s account even standing alone in 1991 has some force, in that Kilduff is credible, and raises the question whether the always-wily LBJ was purposely planting to Kilduff, the acting press secretary whose words minutes later would be echoed and reported nationwide shaping news coverage to follow, the idea of a Castro or Russian role. As if without directly telling Kilduff so, LBJ was giving something for Kilduff to tell if it came up. 

Which raises another question. It is well known that LBJ and Hoover cooperated in killing the Castro conspiracy idea very quickly that weekend, against what looked like a serious attempt of some agency actors to have made that the narrative. Accepting that change (from communist conspiracy to LN Oswald narrative) as fact, which nobody now disputes, the question is why. 

The accepted narrative reason why, is LBJ et al did not want a risk of World War III. That is the benign coverup explanation. 

But is it excluded a different explanation—that somehow, awareness that an intended false flag was not going to work on strictly pragmatic or operational grounds, a cover blown or something, whatever (maybe even the unknown wild card of how much Oswald might have talked or could talk?), and it was that pragmatic knowledge that caused that LBJ/Hoover decision from the top to abandon a false flag narrative accusation and go LN focus? 

If LBJ’s first planted reaction with the acting press secretary that the assassination was a Communist conspiracy is true, before there had been any arrest or known focus on Oswald as suspect, it seems that could add weight to the idea of LBJ foreknowledge.