Michael Griffith

Anyone who is going to talk about Watergate must, absolutely must, become familiar with the new evidence on the subject developed by Geoff Shepard. Much of what most history books say about Watergate is wrong. Shepard's two books are required reading for anyone who wants to talk about Watergate: The Real Watergate Scandal: Collusion, Conspiracy, and the Plot That Brought Nixon Down (2019) and The Nixon Conspiracy: Watergate and the Plot to Remove the President (2021). Here is a good summary of Shepard's research: Geoff Shepard: An Alternative View Of Watergate If you'd rather watch some videos, here are some of the better ones: LINK LINK LINK LINK

Leaving aside the questionable nature of the evidence for Brown's claims about the party, I am struck by the sheer absurdity of the idea that LBJ, Nixon, and Hoover would have held any kind of a meeting the night before the shooting if they were involved in the plot. Manchester says LBJ was at the same Ft. Worth hotel where JFK and Jackie stayed that night, and Lady Bird Johnson's biographer confirmed this. We know Hoover was in the DC on the day of the shooting. He was the one who notified RFK about it. He would have had to do an awful lot of flying in the space of about 10-12 hours to have attended the alleged party and made it back to DC. Yes, Nixon was in Dallas for a convention, but he had a protective detail with him, and there's no evidence he attended the alleged party. You might get with Lisa Pease about Brown's story. Lisa does not buy it at all.

Frazier's sister said that Ruth Paine asked her to call about getting Oswald a job at the TSBD. Frazier defended Oswald and repeatedly gave a description of the bag Oswald took to work that ruled it out as a bag that could have been used to carry the rifle into the building.

Oh my goodness. Really? So now we're peddling Madeleine Brown's demonstrably false tales? Her statement "rings true" only to those who want to believe her and who are willing to ignore all the holes in her story. We know where Nixon, Hoover, and LBJ were the night before the assassination. They were not at Murchison's house finalizing a plot to kill JFK. Brown's story is crazy talk. The very idea that they would have held such a meeting at that time and location is absurd, even if one wants to imagine that they were the key plotters. This stuff is embarrassing, low-hanging fruit for WC apologists to use to discredit the case for conspiracy.

Every single one of those alleged items of evidence against Oswald has either been debunked or explained. Faulty Evidence: Problems with the Case Against Lee Harvey Oswald The HSCA and Fraud in the Backyard Rifle Photos Did Oswald Shoot Tippit? Hasty Judgment Reclaiming History? Or Re-Framing Oswald? Debugging Bugliosi

Madeleine Brown was a fraud. She made demonstrably false claims, such as the alleged 11/21/63 evening party at the Murchison home, which she said was attended by LBJ, J. Edgar Hoover, H. L. Hunt, John McCloy, and Richard Nixon, among others. Her tales were debunked years ago. She ranks right up there with Fletch Prouty in telling tall tales that critics have used to discredit the case for conspiracy.

I do not rule out LBJ as a suspect. However, if LBJ was part of the plot, or if he knew about it but did nothing, he was a very good actor on the day of the shooting. Many people who saw him that afternoon said he looked and acted like he was very frightened. Also, he seemed to be sincere when he asked Hoover if any of the shots had been directed at him when the two spoke shortly after the assassination. But he could have been putting on an act. I am surprised that Denton uses the unbelievable Madeleine Brown as a source. Brown claimed she attended a party at Clint Murchison's home the evening before the assassination, and that LBJ, J. Edgar Hoover, Richard Nixon, H. L. Hunt, and John McCloy were there, among others. She also claimed that during that evening, LBJ told her that "after tomorrow" the Kennedys would never embarrass him again. This lady was clearly a fraud. When her son filed a paternity suit to establish his mother's alleged death-bed claim that LBJ was his father, the Johnson family called his bluff, and he never showed up in court to arrange for the paternity test.

@Pat SpeerWe are basically going around in circles. You keep repeating the same arguments and keep dismissing contrary evidence and arguments. We are not going to agree on the specious, contradictory assumptions your position requires one to make. I'm never going to buy the idea that all three autopsy doctors and the radiologist committed the mind-boggling blunder of mistaking the 6.5 mm object for the 7x2 mm fragment, much less for your non-metallic slice object. Nor am I ever going to buy your argument that Humes mismeasured the largest fragment, especially given the fact that he did *not* measure it on the x-ray but measured it after he removed it. Nor will I ever buy your vacuous theory that a bullet entering at the EOP site could have missed the cerebellum. Etc., etc., etc. I will address one issue that you raised that I only briefly answered, namely, the controls used by Dr. Mantik in his OD findings on the white patch on JFK's lateral autopsy x-rays. Dr. Mantik and Dr. Doug DeSalles (M.D.) took OD measurements of the lateral x-rays of nine other deceased persons, in addition to examining one of JFK's pre-mortem lateral x-rays (Dr. Chesser examined the original pre-mortem x-ray). In all the control cases, there was no white area that even came close to transmitting the amount of light transmitted by the white patch. There was a drastic difference between the light area-dark area contrast on the control x-rays vs. the white patch's contrast with the dark area in the frontal region. On the control x-rays, the brightest area was only two or three times brighter than the dark areas, whereas the white patch transmitted about 1100 times more light than the dark area in the frontal region. Doug Horne discusses these facts and provides a detailed explanation of the OD findings in his book Inside the Assassination Records Review Board, Volume 2 (pp. 546-554). He also discusses the science of OD measurement in relation to the 6.5 mm object and the state of x-ray technology at the time of the autopsy. Contrary to what you and some WC apologists claim, the overlapping bone above JFK's right ear on the lateral x-rays has nothing to do with the white patch. The white patch is noticeably farther to the rear than the overlapping bone; they are in two different areas of the skull, as Dr. Mantik observes in his reply to your critique of his research (LINK).

Mike is relying for his Vietnam stuff on an agenda driven book which Tom Gram exposed on this site as being full of holes. Ha! Tom Gram did no such thing. He knows less about the war than you do. Folks, I invite interested readers to read my exchanges with Tom Gram in the thread "Top 5 Books on the JFK & Vietnam." I would also direct interested readers to my thread "The Myth that JFK Was Killed Over the Vietnam War." And, FYI, I've cited many more books than just Dr. Moyar's excellent book Triumph Forsaken. And yes Mike, i am calling Nixon a fruitcake, you know why? Even Ambrose, Mr. Establishment, thought that Nixon was around the bend on Vietnam. Oh, well, that proves it! What did Ambrose say about Nixon's signing of the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Voting Rights Act Amendments, the ABM and SALT arms control agreements? What did he say about the fact that Nixon started Affirmative Action, desegregated Southern schools, invested the largest sums up to that time in cancer research, and created the EPA? I proved Nixon knew he could not win the war and he proceeded with it for political and personal reasons for over four years. You didn't prove any such thing. You haven't done enough research to prove anything about the war, except that you don't know what you're talking about. You didn't answer a single point I made about your timeworn, debunked claim. You do this all the time: You make a false claim, and the claim gets refuted (with sources), and then you just repeat the claim again and act like you've won the argument. People should read our exchanges in the "Top 5 Books on JFK & Vietnam" thread and see how many times I caught you making inexcusably erroneous claims about the war, not to mention utterly false claims about Moyar's book (which, of course, you haven't even read). Ted Draper proved that the terms he agreed to in 1973 were just about the same that he was offered in 1969. LOL! Really???! "Just about the same"???! Why don't you go read the 1973 terms and compare them with the 1969 terms, hey? This is basic stuff, Vietnam War 101 stuff, but you don't even know that much. No, the '73 terms were not "just about the same" as the '69 terms. This is yet another gaffe in the long list of inexcusable gaffes that you've made about the war. To kill as many people as he did in three countries, and to bomb them to the point that Indochina looked like the surface of the moon, that is just beyond the pale. What Nixon did in Cambodia was simply nutty. Phew! What??? Your claims are what are truly "simply nutty." Seriously, this is wingnut material. You are spewing Communist propaganda that is detached from all reality. Our bombing was limited to small parts of Cambodia and Laos. Most parts of Cambodia and Laos never had a single bomb dropped on them. Even ultra-liberal and ardently anti-Vietnam War historian Stanley Karnow admitted that the North Vietnamese greatly exaggerated the degree of damage caused by American bombing. That you either cannot see this, or deem it excusable, that is your problem Mike. Not mine. I "cannot see this" because it did not happen. You seem to be caught in a time warp from the 1960s and appear oblivious to all the research that has been done since North Vietnam and the Jane Fondas and the John Kerrys peddled their propaganda. You and so many other liberals continue to be in denial about the enormous crime that your side committed during the Vietnam War. Your side constantly smeared South Vietnam and praised and whitewashed the far-more-repressive Hanoi regime of North Vietnam. And when your side finally got their wish and enabled North Vietnam to win the war, your side looked the other way when the Hanoi regime imposed a brutal tyranny, breaking every promise it had made during the war, sending over 800,000 South Vietnamese to concentration camps (where thousands died from the harsh conditions and mistreatment), executing over 60,000 people, and ending the basic rights that the South Vietnamese had enjoyed under the Thieu government (freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of religion, local control of education, the right of private schools to operate, freedom of travel, and the right of private property).

@Pat Speer Nice dodge. ONE expert noticed it and thought it didn't look like metal. Dr. Mantik has noticed it as well. He, too, says it’s not metallic. There is no evidence he was told or knew that the autopsy participants specified from where the fragment was removed, and that it matched the location of what is undeniably a fragment. Think clearly, Michael. What are the odds of a bone fragment just so happening to appear on the x-rays where the doctors said they recovered a metal fragment? Hmmm... Sigh. . . . You just keep repeating this nonsense and ignoring the refutation of it. You know that to make this argument, you must assume that Humes, Boswell, Finck, and Ebersole committed the mind-boggling blunder of mistaking the round 6.5 mm object for the narrow, club-shaped 7x2 mm fragment on the AP x-ray. That is just ridiculous. A child could tell the difference between these two objects on the AP x-ray. You also know that your argument requires that we dismiss the fact that Humes clearly, plainly, and undeniably stated that the largest fragment he removed was the 7x2 mm fragment, which he correctly said was behind and slightly above the right orbit, exactly where it appears on the x-rays. You further know that your argument requires that the 6.5 mm object is the AP view of your tiny slice object on the lateral x-rays, which is just hogwash for several reasons, starting with the fact that nearly all experts who’ve studied the x-rays have placed the 6.5 mm object in the back of the head, not to mention that no expert has identified your slice as metallic, much less as the partner image of the 6.5 mm object. You keep making these dogmatic, emphatic assertions for a position that is utterly devoid of evidence and that is contradicted by every expert who has examined the x-rays. What? They saw a fragment on the x-rays. As they provided but two measurements for this 3-d fragment, they probably even measured it on an x-ray. The fragment behind the eye is roughly 7 x 2 on the lateral x-ray. They said nothing about a club-shape. In any event, the fragment I've identified--which was also picked out by others--is far closer in proportion to being 7 x 2 on the lateral x-ray than the club-shaped fragment INCHES AWAY from where they removed a fragment. . One, see above. Two, “the fragment” you’ve “identified” is not metallic, and no expert has said it is. Not one. So, poof, there goes your convoluted theory from the get-go. Three, I did not say that the autopsy doctors described the 7x2 mm fragment as club-shaped. I’m saying that this is the fragment’s shape. Humes described is as “irregular,” 7 mm in height and 2 mm in width. But you’re making the absurd argument that Humes was actually describing the neatly round 6.5 mm object. Four, you know, you must know, that it is patently false to claim that the 7x2 mm fragment was “inches away from where they removed a fragment.” That is total bunk. Humes specified, in plain English, that the 7x2 mm fragment was behind and slightly above the right orbit, and that it was the largest fragment that he removed. It is simply amazing that you keep dismissing this fact. OD is hard science for determining bone density. It has never been used by forensic radiologists to determine the authenticity of x-rays. That’s a cop-out and a dodge. OD analysis can determine the density of any object on an x-ray, not just bone. It is usually used to determine bone density, but it can also determine the density of other objects on an x-ray, as Dr. Mantik has demonstrated. When he provided his hundreds of OD measurements to Dr. Fitzpatrick and invited him to review them, Fitzpatrick refused. Dr. Arthur Haas, the chief of medical physics at Kodak, reviewed Mantik’s OD research and saw no problems with it. Before one can state the whiteness on an x-ray is so white it must be fake, moreover, one must ascertain the settings on the machine, and time of exposure, etc. Mantik never even tried to do any of this. In one of his embarassing responses to my writings, he expressed outrage that I would suggest they used sub-standard x-ray equipment at Bethesda. He was CLUELESS to the fact the x-rays were created on an old portable machine, and that such machines were notorious for their wide swings in contrast. This is false. Have you not read his response to your critique of his research? He also claimed that he'd compared his OD measurements to those on similar x-rays, and that he used these as controls. This is deceptive. Apples vs Oranges. None of these x-rays were created on old portable machines, and none of them involved over-lapping bone. This is nonsensical gibberish. The overlapping bone is irrelevant because it is not even close to the area of the white patch, and it has nothing to do with the OD measurements of the 6.5 mm object. Folks, I suggest interested readers read Dr. Mantik’s reply to Pat’s amateurish attacks (LINK). And not only that, there is reason to doubt he tested as many as he and others would later claim. You, Michael, keep playing the science card. So where's the data 0n his controls? And where are his images of similar skull wounds created on similar machines? That would be science, Michael. This is more amateurish flailing. How about Dr. Chesser’s OD measurements? Hey? As it is, no one in radiology-land takes him seriously. This is a petty smear. If no one takes him seriously, how has he been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals on issues relating to radiation oncology? What about the doctors, one of whom is a radiation oncologist, who have endorsed his work? He is like someone who spotted a ghost image on an old photo who jumps right to "It's a ghost" without first testing to see if it could be a double-exposure. (And no, you shouldn't run to him to get his response. READ some textbooks and see for yourself. Or, better yet, join a radiology forum and see what they have to say about all this.) You have no clue what you are talking about. He compared JFK’s pre-mortem x-rays with the autopsy x-rays. He collected hundreds of data points in OD measurements of the white patch. He was able to demonstrate how the white patch was created, i.e., via double-exposure. As mentioned, Dr. Arthur Haas checked his work and saw no issues with it. Dr. Greg Henkelmann, a fellow radiation oncologist who also happens to have a background in physics, has endorsed Dr. Mantik’s research. [[ME: Here we go again. So far, every single time you have claimed that your website (your online book) "explains X" or "explains Y" or "explains Z," when I have gone back and checked your website, I have found that it does not explain those issues.]] WRONG. Uh, no. NOT WRONG. You said your online book explains the virtually undamaged cerebellum, but it does no such thing. You said your online book has diagrams that show a bullet entering at the EOP could have exited the throat, but no such diagrams appear in your book. Do you want me to quote what you said to refresh your memory? [[MG: So how about we do this: How about if you name just one piece of evidence that you believe was faked or deceptively altered? How about that? Just name one. Now, obviously, I'm not talking about a diagram, drawing, or statement created or submitted to the WC or the HSCA, etc. I'm talking about an item of physical evidence, such as an autopsy photo, an autopsy x-ray, a bullet fragment, a film, a rifle, a shell casing, a fingerprint, etc., etc. Just name one. Just one.]] I'll give you a bunch. I believe the palm print lift is a fake--perhaps lifted off a table top or palm print card. I also believe the paper bag was created by the DPD, for unclear reasons, perhaps to transport a part of the window frame, and that it was then decided it should be used against Oswald. So, yeah, that would mean the bag prints--which I proved were misrepresented in the WR--are also fakes. And, oh yeah, there's Oswald's shirt. All the photos of the shirt he was wearing when arrested fail to show a hole in the elbow, but then Bledsoe said she thought his shirt he'd been wearing had a hole, and all the photos after that show a hole in the elbow. And this wasn't a coincidence, mind you. Fibers from that shirt were "discovered" on the rifle before Oswald told Fritz he had actually been wearing a different shirt at work. This then led to a desperate attempt to prove he really had been wearing the dark brown shirt at work. So it's a two-fer. The DPD/FBI planted fibers on the rifle, and then tore a hole in the sleeve to elicit an ID from Bledsoe. Uh, well, yeah, I’ll buy these examples as examples of faked/altered evidence. So, I happily stand corrected on this point. However, I was thinking more of medical evidence, but I take your point.

Once again, NONE of your proclaimed experts were both radiologists and well-versed in the issues at hand. None of them studied the witness statements Oh, wow, so you’re saying that all those pathologists and radiologists couldn’t even read an x-ray, could not distinguish between a round 6.5 mm object and a narrow club-shaped 7x2 mm fragment, and royally goofed in locating the 6.5 mm object in the back of the head! Okay, you bet. and noted that a fragment was found in that location. We’ve already been over this. We both know that Humes clearly, plainly, and undeniably said that the largest fragment he removed was the 7x2 mm fragment, which he correctly noted was behind and just above the right orbit. But you wave this aside and rely on a confusing statement by two FBI agents about a fragment in the back of the head, and ignore the fact that there was a fragment in the back of the head but that Humes obviously did not remove it. As far as the EOP entrance...your persistence on this point can only be viewed as trolling. My persistence in rejecting your erroneous, convoluted arguments is “trolling”! Okay. You just can’t admit when you’re clearly wrong. You acknowledge you believe there was an entrance at this location, and that its pathway through the body is unknown. Huh??? Its “pathway through the body”??? Its only pathway would have been in/through the head, and only the head. It could not have gone below the head unless it was fired from a helicopter hovering above the TSBD, and even then it would have had a hard time missing the cerebellum. You acknowledge as well that some who have viewed the photos have noted damage to the cerebellum. I have shown you as well that the original reports noted damage in this area that they believed had been caused by a bullet, You know this is misleading. You know that no expert who has viewed the brain photos has noted anything remotely close to the kind of damage that would have been done by a bullet entering at the EOP site. You know that all but one of the experts who have viewed the brain photos have noted no pre-mortem damage to the cerebellum and only very slight post-mortem damage. The one exception is Dr. Chesser, and the only pre-mortem damage he saw in the brain photos was a small sliver of the cerebellum hanging down. Yet, Finck told the ARRB that there was “extensive damage” to the cerebellum, and some of the Dallas doctors, including a neurosurgeon, said the cerebellum was badly damaged. and that a number of the experts you pretend to believe in have noted a passage in the tissues down the neck ending at the throat wound. So what's the problem? There is no path from the EOP site to the throat wound that does not go through the cerebellum. I have repeatedly challenged you to prove otherwise, and you have declined to do so. The throat wound was an entrance wound—that’s why it was small, neat, and punched-in. Furthermore, we now know that on the night of the autopsy, the pathologists absolutely, positively determined that the back wound was shallow and had no exit point. A number of those inspecting the photos have claimed they proved no bullet had traversed UPWARDS from he EOP, and then used this to push the bullet really entered 4 inches higher where no one saw a wound. The possibility it went downwards was never addressed. Although there is some language suggesting they thought the lack of damage meant no entry of any kind was by the EOP, they were clearly just blubbering, as they elsewhere acknowledged there was some damage and that there was a passageway down the neck. You can repeat this nonsense a hundred times and it will still be nonsense. There was no path from the EOP site to the throat wound that did not go through the cerebellum. The throat wound was an entrance wound. Your entire argument starts with the bogus assumption that your slice object on the lateral x-rays is the partner image of the 6.5 mm object, yet no expert has even identified that slice object as metallic, much less as the partner image for any object seen on the AP x-ray. So let's be clear... If you believe there was an EOP entrance that led upwards, but that the photos were faked and don't show this, then your claims he bullet could not have gone down the neck has no basis outside your pretending to trust in the expertise of men you believe conjured up a fake entrance in the cowlick, while studying photos and x-rays you assume to be fake. I do not claim that the x-rays are “fake.” I say they have been altered, that they are x-rays of JFK’s skull taken at the autopsy but that they have been altered. And, yes, I do most certainly say that the brain photos are fake because they could not be photos of JFK’s brain, since we have numerous credible accounts that a large part of JFK’s brain was gone and that a large amount of brain tissue was splattered onto 15 surfaces, since the x-rays portray far more missing brain than we see in the brain photos, and since the brain photos show a virtually undamaged cerebellum. Yes, the HSCA FPP members followed the Clark Panel’s relocation of the rear head entry wound, but they did so partly because they noted that the brain photos categorically and incontrovertibly refuted the EOP site. They also did so because they were trying to account for the 6.5 mm object, which all of them correctly located in the back of the head. At least one of the FPP consultants raised issues with the revised entry wound location, but his observations were ignored. In other words you are arguing just to argue...and your arguments are without merit. Phew! Can you say “projection”? You can’t cite a single expert who says your slice object is metallic. You wave aside the fact that virtually every expert who has examined the skull x-rays has placed the 6.5 mm object in the back of the head. You make the absurd assumption that Humes, Boswell, Finck, and Ebersole horrendously misread the skull x-rays, that they incomprehensibly mistook the round 6.5 mm object for the narrow, club-shaped 7x2 mm fragment on the AP x-ray, and that they then read your small slice object as being the partner image of the 6.5 mm object on the lateral x-rays!

I, too, became interested in the JFK case because of Oliver Stone's movie JFK, and, like you, I was intrigued by what Donald Sutherland said as "Mr. X." The problems with Prouty go well beyond his bogus, and sometimes nutty, claims. His close and prolonged association with anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers and with L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology disqualifies him as a credible source, by any rational standard. One big reason that Prouty's followers refuse to face the facts about him is that he was one of the main sources for the myth that JFK was going to unconditionally withdraw from Vietnam after the election and that this is why he was killed.

Here again we will see the difference between your level of research on the Vietnam War and mine. Do you think this is the first time I’ve seen a liberal quote this alleged statement? Do you have Kimball's book? Do you? If so, did you check the source he cites for this alleged statement? Did it occur to you that, gee, after all the times I caught you peddling dubious and even fraudulent "evidence” in other threads on the Vietnam War, that perhaps you should do some checking before running with this statement? Now, if you turn to Kimball's book, you'll see that his source for this quote was a disgruntled former Nixon speechwriter named Richard Whalen (p. 54). Even a New York Times reviewer recognized that Whalen used his book to "settle a few personal scores" (LINK). Just FYI, Whalen’s book is loaded with doubtful claims, some of which come across as downright paranoid, such as his accusation that LBJ’s final bombing halt was an “ambush.” Does it concern you that none of Nixon’s other speechwriters said they ever heard Nixon say this? Does it concern you that Whalen did not bother to get the other speechwriters who supposedly heard the statement to confirm his story? What about all the instances on the Nixon White House tapes when Nixon expressed confidence in the war effort? How do you explain those statements? And, you know that Nixon and Kissinger both wrote books that strongly argued that the war was most certainly winnable, right? Have you read Dr. Larry Berman’s book No Peace, No Honor yet, as I recommended that you do months ago when we were discussing your erroneous spin on the “decent interval”? Using the White House tapes, Berman, no Nixon lover, shows that Nixon was determined to win the war and that one of the reasons he agreed to the Paris Peace Accords was that he intended to order massive bombing when North Vietnam violated them. even though he needlessly invaded two other countries with utterly disastrous results. This is sheer fiction. Apparently you still have not read a single scholarly study that challenges your far-left myths about the war. The incursions into Cambodia and Laos were entirely legal under international law, since the North Vietnamese were illegally using their eastern regions as staging and supply bases against the express wishes of those governments. The Cambodian incursion did great damage to the North Vietnamese army. The Laotian incursion, though not as successful as the Cambodian one, did considerable damage and caused a noticeable decline in NVA operations from the area for several months.

Pat, you accidentally put your reply in the quoted portion that contains my reply.

I'm sorry, but this strikes me as debating the validity of an Elvis sighting. No, there is no known photo of Lansdale wearing glasses. His son said he did not wear glasses. His son also said that Lansdale did not wear the prominent ring that the man in the tramp photo is wearing. The whole discussion is absurd. I have proved that Prouty made utterly bogus claims, some of which are as whacky as claiming that McGovern won the 1972 election. How many years does a person have to spend palling around with anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers to be repudiated as a credible source? How many of the person's claims have to be indisputably exposed as false, and even downright nutty, before Occam's Razor kicks in?

And let me add one other thing about this alleged comparison of that fruitcake Nixon with JFK. “That fruitcake Nixon”??? Such a comment again puts you on the left fringe of the political spectrum. That “fruitcake Nixon” desegregated schools in the South and did so without major confrontations with governors. He supported and signed the Voting Rights Act. He created the EPA. He signed the ABM and SALT arms control agreements. He signed the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act. He ended discrimination in companies and labor unions that received federal contracts. He established affirmative action hiring for African Americans. He was the first president to invest a large sum of money in cancer research ($100 million, $800 million in today’s dollars). He signed Title IX, opening the door for women’s collegiate athletics. And he literally saved Israel from destruction when your peace-loving Egyptian and Syrian governments launched a combined attack against Israel in the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Kennedy would have never ever even thought of using nukes in Indochina Yes, I know most liberals shudder and shiver at the thought of ever using nukes, even tactical nukes. Did it slip your mind that FDR was fully prepared to nuke Nazi Germany if necessary? Even many liberal scholars still defend Truman’s atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, even though they were clearly unnecessary and unjustified. By the way, guess who first authorized the extensive use of chemical defoliants in Vietnam? John F. Kennedy. or bombing the dikes. Uh, FDR authorized the bombing of German dams during WW II. In Operation Chastise, we and the Brits blew huge holes in two major dams, the Mohne Dam and the Edersee Dam in 1943, which caused catastrophic flooding in the Ruhr Valley and flooded entire villages in the Eder Valley. Both Truman and Ike authorized the bombing of dikes and dams in North Korea during the Korean War, directly killing tens of thousands of people, and causing the deaths of many more people due to starvation and the lack of electricity in the cold months. Your beloved, peace-loving Soviets blew up the Dnieper Dam in Ukraine in 1941, in order to stop a German advance, flooding numerous villages along the river and killing thousands of civilians. The Soviets also blew up the Kakhova Dam in Ukraine in 1941, in order to stop a German advance. The Chinese blew huge breaches in the Yellow River dikes in 1938, killing some 400,000 of their fellow Chinese, in order to stop a Japanese advance. Nixon proposed both and we have it on tape. The latter would have been even more lethal than the former; John Newman said it would have killed about a half million people. I already debunked the myth that bombing the Red River Dikes would have killed half a million people. That is ridiculous. By the way, did Newman say anything about the fact that the North Vietnamese put AAA and SAM batteries near and on those dikes? As we have seen, dikes and dams were considered valid targets by FDR, Churchill, Truman, Ike, and Chiang Kai-shek during the Sino-Japanese War, World War II, and the Korean War. Moreover, when you put AAA and SAM batteries on and near a dike or dam, as the North Vietnamese did, that dike or dam is a perfectly valid target, according to even the most rigid rules of war. To top it off, Nixon lied about this after. Probably because he knew that liberals would pounce on it to try to make him look like an ogre. I am not sure that Nixon really ever seriously considered using nukes. He may have just been thinking out loud. As is well known, Ike finally got the Chinese and the North Koreans to agree to an armistice by threatening to use nukes. He even had nuke tubes shipped to South Korea and arranged for this movement to be leaked to the Chinese and the North Koreans. They got the message. I trust you know this stuff. Besides, according to you, JFK was lying through his teeth in 1963, right up until the day he died, when he repeatedly said that he opposed withdrawing from Vietnam, that withdrawing from Vietnam would be a great mistake, and that we had to be prepared to stay the course in Vietnam. According to your scenario, JFK was involved in a cynical-but-necessary deception and was prepared to allow thousands of more deaths in Vietnam until after the election. However, Bobby Kennedy, as late as March 1968, just three months before his death, said he opposed a unilateral withdrawal and called the idea "unacceptable": I do not want, and I do believe that most Americans do not want, to sell out America's interest to simply withdraw -- to raise the white flag of surrender in Vietnam -- that would be unacceptable to us as a people, and unacceptable to us as a country. (https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/the-kennedy-family/robert-f-kennedy/robert-f-kennedy-speeches/remarks-at-the-university-of-kansas-march-18-1968)

No, Nixon and Kissinger most certainly did not view Vietnam as a lost cause. This is part of the invalid liberal spin on the "decent interval." I addressed this issue at some length in the thread "Top 5 Books on JFK & Vietnam." Trying to save 18 million South Vietnamese from Communist tyranny, concentration camps, and mass executions was a noble goal, and the cost would have been much smaller in blood and treasure if we had used our military power smartly and effectively. The Linebacker campaigns in 1972 proved that we had the power to bring North Vietnam to its knees in a matter of a few months. If a slightly longer campaign of the same intensity had been done earlier, especially in 1965 or 1966, the war would have been won relatively quickly and with far fewer lives lost. I certainly do agree that Nixon was deposed, but not by JFKA plotters. He was deposed by dishonest elected Democrats and their allies in the news media. We now know that the case against Nixon was a mix of gross exaggeration and outright fabrication. You should read Geoff Shepard's books The Real Watergate Scandal and The Nixon Conspiracy. A good intro is this panel discussion on Shepard's research held at George Washington University: LINK.

You've been suckered. The fragment behind the eye is far more likely to be the 7 x 2 fragment than the forehead fragment. Gosh, you must be kidding. We've been over this. You keep repeating arguments that I have proved are full of holes. Again, for the umpteenth time, your supposed "fragment behind the eye" is the slice object that no medical expert has even identified as metallic. That's just for starters. Then, as I've also pointed out several times, to believe that your slice object is the 7x2 mm fragment, we'd have to believe that Humes, Boswell, Finck, and the radiologist committed the mind-boggling blunder of mistaking the round 6.5 mm object for a club-shaped 7x2 mm object on the AP x-ray, even though the 7x2 mm fragment and the 6.5 mm object are plainly visible on the AP x-ray. And, of course, your entire convoluted explanation also requires us to dismiss the hard science of the OD measurements that prove the 6.5 mm object is not metallic. We have two sets of OD measurements that include hundreds of data points and that were done independently by two medical experts, one of whom uses OD measurements in his work as a board-certified radiation oncologist. As far as my "emotional attachment"...hogwash. If you'd read my website, you'd know I've discovered and have pointed out numerous problems with the evidence. Here we go again. So far, every single time you have claimed that your website (your online book) "explains X" or "explains Y" or "explains Z," when I have gone back and checked your website, I have found that it does not explain those issues. So how about we do this: How about if you name just one piece of evidence that you believe was faked or deceptively altered? How about that? Just name one. Now, obviously, I'm not talking about a diagram, drawing, or statement created or submitted to the WC or the HSCA, etc. I'm talking about an item of physical evidence, such as an autopsy photo, an autopsy x-ray, a bullet fragment, a film, a rifle, a shell casing, a fingerprint, etc., etc. Just name one. Just one.

Huh? I suggest you take another look at the document. I count 54 words. And Wray was correct in noting that Prouty's answers contained a number of retractions, contradictions and disqualifications. Anyone who reads the transcript can see this. The bottom line is that the interview was in no sense an "ambush." If anything, the interviewers were too soft on him. I would have pressed him on several points, especially his casually stated bombshell answer that his alleged notes from his supposed phone call with the 112th MI Group were lost. Yeah, just like his alleged Tehran-trip photos of the Chinese delegation. It is hard for me to understand how anyone who truly cares about the case for conspiracy can continue to defend Prouty given all that we now know about his nutty and bogus claims.

No, Sturdivan is not a doctor, but Fitzpatrick is, Mantik is, Chesser is, Aguilar is, etc., etc. The HSCA FPP members and consultants were medical experts. You are again using a strawman argument to avoid the problem. The point is not that the brightest object on an AP x-ray should be the brightest object on the corresponding lateral x-ray. The point is that the 6.5 mm object should be even brighter on the lateral x-rays than it is on the AP x-ray. I notice you said nothing about Finck's statement that there was "extensive damage" to the cerebellum. Either the brain photos do not show JFK's brain or Finck was yet another doctor who inexplicably mistook the cerebrum for the cerebellum, even though the cerebellum has a much different appearance and is located behind the lower part of the occiput. Finally, I note that you once again declined to explain how a bullet that entered at the EOP site could have exited the throat without tearing through the cerebellum, and how the brain photos could be authentic if the EOP site is valid. We should keep in mind that the EOP site was at least 1/8th inch above the EOP.

I again pose these two questions: Are you saying that JFK was not a serial adulterer, that he did not cheat on Jackie many, many, many times? Even McGovern, your supposedly "authoritative" and "gold standard" source, readily admits that JFK was a flagrant adulterer, and that some of his "conquests" included several Hollywood starlets (LINK). By the way, some of his affairs with noted actresses only became known when the actresses revealed them to friends who then reported them or when the actresses disclosed them in a biography/autobiography. Are you saying that JFK never slept with Marilyn even once? Are you aware of J. Randy Taraborrelli's new book Jackie: Public, Private, Secret, published just a few months ago? Taraborrelli did almost 25 years of research and interviews with Jackie's family, friends, and former lovers. Over the course of his years of research, Taraborrelli came across evidence that JFK had a brief affair with Marilyn Monroe, which Taraborrelli says consisted of a weekend-long fling in March 1962.

Huh? Standard academic standards would tell you to let the reader decide about Wray's supposedly "questionable opinions" instead of snipping them out and depriving the reader of important context. By the way, two months ago I saw Elvis. Really, I did. And if you question my account, my defenders will say "you are trying to deny Griffith his personal experiences." Of course, the point would be that my "personal experience" was bogus becaue I could not have seen Elvis.

You are the one who appears unwilling to learn anything. You are once again misrepresenting Dr. Mantik's statements. Anyone can look with their own eyes and see that the CE 843 fragments cannot be the fragments that Humes described. It's that simple. You keep trying to make this about Mantik, but I noticed the problem with CE 843 before I checked to see what others had said about it. The core problem here is that you are emotionally attached to the idea that not a single item of evidence was faked, substituted, or deceptively altered. So even when confronted with the brazen and unsolvable conflict between the EOP entry site and the brain photos, you resort to mountains of special pleading and specious theories to avoid the obvious.

I've pointed this out as well and provided a link to the recording of the Livingstone-Krulak interview. Not only did Krulak not corroborate Prouty's nutty ID of Lansdale in the tramp photo, he said he had no reason to believe that Lansdale would have been involved in the assassination. Apparently Prouty or one of his followers forged the Krulak-to-Prouty letter in which Krulak endorses the Lansdale ID. A letter can be forged relatively easily, but a tape recording between two men whose voices can be checked is infinitely harder. Occam's Razor says the letter was forged.

All of these issues are addressed on the website you claim to have read, but clearly fail to understand. You keep saying this, and I keep proving that your website does explain the things you claim it explains. By the way, I notice that you made no attempt to explain how a bullet that entered at the EOP site could have exited the throat without tearing through the cerebellum, and how the EOP site can be accepted if you believe the autopsy photos are genuine since those photos show virtually no damage to the cerebellum and no pre-mortem damage to it—not even any bleeding. Yet, Finck told the ARRB that there was "extensive damage" to the cerebellum: Q: Was the cerebellum of President Kennedy's brain disrupted or lacerated by the entrance wound? A: Well, it was—there was extensive damage. (ARRB deposition, 5/24/96, p. 104) Obviously, he could not have been describing the brain seen in the autopsy brain photos. I will address one point. The descriptions of the brain in the autopsy report and supplemental report strongly suggest two headshots. They mention a trail of fragments on the x-rays in the initial report, but present no evidence for it after studying the brain. It seems clear then that Humes had fooled himself into thinking he saw such a trail on the x-rays a few days later when writing the report, or was flat-out fibbing. In any event, the conclusions of the doctors are at odds with their own observations. In other words, when you want to believe the autopsy doctors, you cite and quote them approvingly, but when they say things that contradict your theory, you claim they made astonishing errors or out-and-out lied. Why didn’t Humes say anything about the high fragment trail in the autopsy report? Did he “miss” it? Did Boswell, Finck, and Ebsersole also “miss” it? Didn’t Finck tell the ARRB that he saw the low fragment trail described in the autopsy report? By the way, I notice that you made no attempt to explain how a bullet that entered at the EOP site could have exited the throat without tearing through the cerebellum, and how the EOP site can be accepted if you believe the autopsy photos are genuine since those photos show virtually no damage to the cerebellum and no pre-mortem damage to it—not even any bleeding. You keep missing this. The observations are the key, not the conclusions. People stating they do not see a fragment on the back of the head on the lateral x-ray are not simultaneously saying it is on the back of the head on the A-P x-ray. One can not determine depth from an x-ray--this is why they take two views when trying to determine location. As for those stating they could not see a partner or whatever, they were responding to questions written and asked under the presumption the fragment on the A-P was on the back of the head. Their answer was they could not see it. If you can show me one such exchange where they were told beforehand that the largest fragment removed at autopsy was removed from behind the eye, and then asked if the fragment behind the eye had a partner on the lateral, well, that would be something. But that never happened. Heck, Morgan was never allowed to meet with H and B before claiming the fragment was on the back of the head. He was told to find evidence proving the shot was from behind, and popped up with a non-existent fragment on the back wall by a non-existent hole. You don't believe there was such a hole, right? So why would you believe there was such a fragment? Oh, come on. So according to you, the Clark Panel, the HSCA FPP, the HSCA FPP consultants, and the three ARRB experts blindly accepted the assumption that the 6.5 mm object was in the back of the head. Most of these men relocated the rear head entry wound upward by nearly 4 inches, but it never occurred to them to verify the 6.5 mm object’s location with their own observation and analysis! The HSCA FPP members and consultants all identified the small back-of-head fragment on the lateral x-rays as the partner image of the 6.5 mm object on the AP x-ray, which self-evidently proves that they located the object on the back of the head—otherwise, it could not be the parent image of the back-of-head fragment. You ignore the fact that even Dr. Sturdivan said that the 6.5 mm object should be even brighter in the back of the skull on the lateral x-rays than it appears on the AP x-ray: The slightly lighter area indicated by the FPP [i.e., the small back-of-head fragment] as the lateral view of this object is not nearly light enough to be a metal disk seen edge-on. As bright as it is seen flat in the frontal x-ray, it should be even brighter when seen edge-on in the lateral. If an object is present in only one x-ray view, it could not have been embedded in the president's skull or scalp. (The JFK Myths, p. 193) Dr. Mantik has made the same point. So has Dr. Aguilar. So has Dr. Chesser. Dr. Fitzpatrick was puzzled and disturbed by the stark difference in brightness/density between the small back-of-head fragment and the 6.5 mm object. He would not have cared one bit about this contradiction if the 6.5 mm object did not appear to be on the back of the head in the AP x-ray. If the object were just behind the right eye, it would not matter one tiny bit that the back-of-head fragment cannot be the 6.5 mm object’s partner image—indeed, this would be impossible because the small fragment would be in the wrong location. It is amazing that you keep dismissing this fundamental point. Ah, but according to you, Fitzpatrick misled himself because he blindly assumed that the 6.5 mm object was in the back of the head on the AP x-ray and that this assumption caused him to compound his error because it led him to assume that the object’s partner image should be in the back of the skull! Finally, it bears repeating that you are (1) dismissing the hard science of the two independent sets of OD measurements that prove the 6.5 mm object is not metallic, (2) assuming that all of the descriptions of a large right-rear head wound are “mistaken,” (3) assuming that all of the accounts of severe damage to the cerebellum are likewise “mistaken,” (4) assuming that the brain matter that was splattered onto 15 surfaces amounted to no more than 3 ounces, (5) assuming that Humes missed the 7x2 mm fragment on the AP x-ray, and (6) assuming that Humes somehow mistook the round 6.5 mm object for a club-shaped 7x2 mm object. By the way, did I mention that I notice that you made no attempt to explain how a bullet that entered at the EOP site could have exited the throat without tearing through the cerebellum, and how the EOP site can be accepted if you believe the autopsy photos are genuine since those photos show virtually no damage to the cerebellum and no pre-mortem damage to it—not even any bleeding? Did I mention that?