Michael Griffith

17 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

No, the term hatchet job, by Wray, is all of 17 words later.

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.

13 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

 

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)

 

Oh my. You just love to wrap yourself around "experts", particularly when they are testifying outside their area of expertise. 

I am fairly certain Sturdivan was not a doctor, and he was most certainly not an expert on radiology. If he'd read textbooks on radiology and books on the history of radiology he would know that the relative brightness of an object on an x-ray is not a reflection of the object's actual appearance, but is a reflection of the cumulative amount of resistance to the x-ray at that particular 2-d location, which is magnified or lessened by the settings on the machine. Simply put, one can not look at an A-P x-ray and say that the brightest object on that x-ray should be the brightest object on a lateral x-ray. The item on the A-P x-ray might overlap a piece of metal elsewhere on the x-ray. And overlap a sinus on the lateral x-ray. And that's not even to mention the settings, which can have a huge impact on the appearance of an x-ray. 

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.

On 10/15/2023 at 3:10 PM, James DiEugenio said:

1.  Cory, if  he never saw any evidence of an affair then that is it.  Period.  He is not, as you tried to suggest, in opposition to Hill, he is in unison with him.

2. Joe, are you serious? You never saw MM act in any of her films, like Gentleman Prefer Blondes etc?  Even Burt Reynolds, who knew her from her New York days said that one day they were walking down Broadway, and no one noticed her.  And Burt commented on that.  She then said: OK, now watch this.  She took her hair down and changed her walk and suddenly people did start noticing them.  Burt said it was one of the most immediate, sharp, yet subtle changes he ever saw an actress do.  MM really worked hard to master certain techniques to give an effective performance.  If you want to see how skilled she was, watch the skit she did with Jack Benny on his TV show.  Its on You Tube. And then watch the same skit with Mansfield.  Night and day. 

3.  And this is what I mean.  She was really good at putting on that persona.  Because, as I said, she was with her father in law (he is in those photos in Don's article) that night both before and after, who she really liked. She actually wanted him to return to LA with her. But for whatever reason he did not want to go. So she dropped him off in her rented limo in Brooklyn I think, and she returned to her apartment where one or two of her fans were waiting for her.  Even though it was late, she stopped and talked.  It was just them.  And then she went upstairs to her apartment.  And that was it.  Except I think her masseuse was there and that is how she fell asleep.

Pamela: In the uncropped version was Schlesinger in on it also?  Even though, as I prove above in number three, nothing happened?

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.

13 minutes ago, Jeff Carter said:

Mr Campbell  - it was a hatchet job. The esteemed Malcolm Blunt used the exact same-phrase in margin notes of his copy of ARRB military panel memoranda.

The phrase I left out via the ellipsis consisted of Wray’s questionable opinions regarding his own work. I felt including it within the body of this particular quote was redundant since the substance of his opinion was being dealt with in full detail.

Also - as is plain to see - the quotation finishes with a footnote. The footnote contains a proper citation to the source. Any reader, then, can access the original. If I had not done that, then you might have reason to complain. But I did, the citation is accurate, and therefore it conforms to any and all academic standards that I am aware of.

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.

On 10/13/2023 at 1:32 PM, Pat Speer said:

I can't even read you anymore, Michael. When I present you with facts, such as Mantik's falsely claiming the fragment on the forehead is the fragment removed from behind the eye, or his failing to realize that the fragment in the archives had been butchered during testing and is not the fragment as it originally appeared, you double-down and try to make it appear that I am the sloppy researcher. 

Are you willing to learn, or not? And if you think you have nothing to earn from me, because you read one or two books by one author and have decided he's the bee's knee's, why are you trolling me? To save the forum from sloppy research? Really? When you refuse to see or can not see that your chosen emperor has no clothes?

I used to write on the John McAdams newsgroup. There was someone there who thought John Lattimer was all that, and was on the constant attack. I would show him the obvious--that in his blithering defense of the single-bullet theory Lattimer had claimed JFK was a hunchback, and grossly distorted his body shape in drawings, and so on. His response was always the same "HE'S A DOCTOR!!! Who knows way more than you!!!" It was pointless to talk to him. These exchanges with you have become equally pointless.

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. 

10 minutes ago, Rob Clark said:

By the way @Jeff Carter, I have audio from an interview with Gen. Krulak done with Harrison Livingstone in the early 90's in which he denies ever telling Prouty that he thought it looked like Lansdale in the tramp photo. Real horse's mouth type stuff...not Prouty said this, and Prouty said that...

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.

On 10/13/2023 at 2:07 PM, Pat Speer said:

 

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?

On 10/13/2023 at 3:38 PM, James DiEugenio said:

I don't have two standards.

I try and evaluate the credibility of people who say they are witnesses and find evidence to corroborate their stories.

Joe just mentioned the utterly preposterous Jeanne Carmen.  Carmen actually said that Johnny Rosselli murdered Giancana over Monroe!!!!  I am not kidding you can look it up.

But this is the kind of thing that Summers began by giving an utter screwball like Carmen space in his book.

As for this Bday party, I mean how often do I have to prove it? She came with her former father in law.  She rented a limo and drove him home to Brooklyn. She actually wanted him to return to LA with her, but he refused.  She then went back to her apartment where a fan of hers was waiting on her front step.  She talked to him. She then went upstairs, got a massage by her personal masseuse and retired.  

This is all proven.  Therefore the stories made up by the likes of Mark Shaw, and I think Blaine etc are all counter factual.

As you can see, this is the same method I use for JFK.  Credibility and corroboration.

Just to be clear here, you do acknowledge that JFK was a flagrant, serial adulterer, right? I'm not talking about the night of the birthday bash in New York after Marilyn sang "Happy Birthday" to him. I'm talking in general. You do admit that JFK cheated on Jackie many, many, many times, right?

And are you saying that JFK never slept with Marilyn?

The transcript of John Newman and Gus Russo's 1992 workshop suggests that Prouty told Newman in no uncertain terms that he was sent to the South Pole for sinister reasons. The transcript is part of a collection of documents written or collected by W. Anthony Marsh, a veteran conspiracy theorist. Here's what Newman said:

        Fletcher Prouty insists that he was sent to the South Pole by Lansdale to get him out of the way so that he would not witness the events of 22 November 1963. Presumably because if Prouty had been there he would have put two and two together and understood what was going on. (LINK)

Yet, when Prouty was interviewed by the ARRB, he said there was nothing sinister about the trip and that it was so routine he did not think about it. And, of course, Landale did not send Prouty anywhere. 

On 10/14/2023 at 7:34 PM, Joe Bauer said:

55:52

NOW PLAYING

 

 

The Real "Mr. X": Colonel Fletcher Prouty Interview by EIR

 

 

 

 

 

 

I guess Prouty didn't care that EIR was started and produced by anti-Semitic, Holocaust-denying extremist Lyndon LaRouche.

Nah, this was par for the course for Prouty. He also spoke at a Holocaust-denial conference sponsored by the IHR, praised the IHR's Holocaust-denying journal, spoke at a Liberty Lobby convention, appeared on Liberty Lobby's radio show 10 times in four years, recommended that people read the anti-Semitic rag The Spotlight, and praised Carto and Marcellus, etc.

2 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

"If CIA and military elements were alarmed by JFK's limited nuclear test ban treaty and his careful steps toward detente with the Soviet Union, they must have been horrified by and furious with Nixon's sweeping arms control deal and his bold steps toward Soviet-American detente. "--MG

Jefferson Morley and others have pondered exactly that: Did the CIA depose Nixon, in part as Nixon planned to pull out of Vietnam, and in part as Kissinger had removed the Pentagon and Joint Chiefs from the deal-making with Moscow. 

The whole Watergate burglary makes no sense, and McCord seemed to want to get caught. We now know the entire op was manned by CIA'ers. 

Yet the op got blamed on the White House. 

Even Alexander Butterworth, who revealed the Nixon taping system, was former CIA. Some say Woodward is ONI, or intel. 

My take is we have seen four Presidents possibly deposed by the intel state: JFK, Nixon, Carter and one that begins with a "T." 

Nixon had no plans to pull out of South Vietnam without leaving behind a modest residual force and without the provision of substantial long-term military and economic aid after the withdrawal. Furthermore, dramatic progress was made in the war effort under Nixon. The plotters would have had no rational motive for deposing Nixon over Vietnam.

Watergate and a hostile Democrat-dominated Congress forced Nixon to change his plans and prevented him from honoring his commitment to come to South Vietnam's aid if North Vietnam seriously violated the peace treaty. If anything, the plotters would have kicked into high gear and done everything in their power to keep Nixon in office. 

Moves toward detente with the Soviets continued under Ford, Carter, and even Reagan. Of course, Carter, to his great credit, learned his lesson with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; he became much more skeptical of Soviet aims and promises afterward. Reagan pushed for an arms deal with the Soviets and held talks with Gorbachev. 

I suggest that the plotters either were not interested in controlling all aspects of American foreign policy and/or lacked the power to do so. If they had, it is hard to imagine how or why they could have allowed LBJ to pick the dovish, limp-wristed Hubert Humphrey as his VP, how they could have allowed LBJ to so egregiously hamstring our military in Vietnam, how they could have allowed the arms control treaties under Nixon and Carter, etc., etc., etc.

On 10/12/2023 at 3:06 PM, Jeff Carter said:

Kirk - Anson's Esquire piece was discussed at length here:

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/old-wine-in-new-bottles-fletcher-prouty-s-new-critics-recycle-the-past

There are many reasons why it can be fairly characterized as a "hatchet-job".

Oh, please. You guys claim that every criticism of Prouty is a "hatchet job," "a smear," "defamation," etc. You guys even claim that Prouty's ARRB interview was an "ambush," that poor ole Fletch was "set up" by the ARRB. 

You know, at some point you need to ask yourselves just how badly you're willing to damage the case for conspiracy in order to defend Prouty's bogus and nutty claims.

It should tell you something that even Oliver Stone has repudiated Prouty's obscene trash about Lansdale, yet you guys continue to peddle it.

On 10/14/2023 at 9:56 PM, Benjamin Cole said:

There are (broadly speaking) two views on the JFKA.

1. The JFKA was perped was LN, and that is all there is to it. 

2. The CT view: The JFKA was a political assassination, by domestic forces who wanted control over US foreign, military and trade policies. 

I think there is a third view, a second CT view: Mafia dons and CIA rogues teamed up to kill JFK because they viewed him as a threat, but they were not in a position to control, and did not control, all U.S. foreign policy, military, and trade policies after his death. The FBI and some military brass took part in the cover-up. The Mafia's and the rogue CIA elements' motives were revenge and self-preservation.

It is true that LBJ planned to escalate the war in Vietnam after the '64 election, but McMasters and other scholars have documented beyond any doubt that LBJ did not envision, and did not want, a large-scale escalation. LBJ envisioned a moderate increase in the number of "military advisors," very limited U.S. air strikes, and an increase in the U.S. Navy's presence along the coast. LBJ did not want to send combat troops, certainly not in large numbers, if at all. When North Vietnam drastically escalated the war in late 1964 and early 1965, LBJ dithered and almost waited too long to deploy combat troops. And his initial air campaign was so limited and timid that it amounted to meaningless pinpricks that did no serious damage to the North Vietnamese war effort. 

If CIA and military elements were alarmed by JFK's limited nuclear test ban treaty and his careful steps toward detente with the Soviet Union, they must have been horrified by and furious with Nixon's sweeping arms control deal and his bold steps toward Soviet-American detente. 

On 10/11/2023 at 2:24 PM, Pat Speer said:

Are you out to set some kind of record?

1. You need to realize that images on x-rays are 2-d, and that it is impossible to tell from an A-P view where an object is on a lateral view. This is Radiology 101.  First chapter in a textbook. First day of class. So one can not say a fragment not visible on the back the head on a lateral x-ray is at the back of the head on an A-P X-ray. That's just bonkers. 2 + 2 = 5. What one CAN say is that a large fragment apparent high on the head on an A-P view has no obvious partner on the back of the head on a lateral view.  In such case, then, one SHOULD look to where the doctors said they found the largest fragment--BEHIND the right eye. I did just that, and guess what, there lies a fragment. And no, you can't rule out that the fragment in the FBI photo is the fragment on the x-rays. 

2.  When one reads radiology text books one finds that they address some of the frequent mistakes of x-ray techs and that one of these mistakes results in a white round spot on the finished image. Such spots are attributed to drops of fixer, not acid. So, no, the film is not burned. While I have never pushed this as an explanation for the shape on JFK's A-P x-ray, I mention it to expose one of the many flaws in Mantik's methodology. Here is a common mistake often discussed in textbooks, that addresses otherwise unexplained white round and oval shapes--that is not mentioned by Mantik in his papers, even in passing. This is not a coincidence, IMO. It seems obvious he doesn't want his readers to know that radiologists encounter white spots in every day life, and attribute such spots to a mistake in development. He wants people to believe he has made this great find, and that the white spot on JFK's A-P x-ray can ONLY be explained by some giant conspiracy. Please. 

Please indeed. I guess Dr. Fitzpatrick, according to what you claim, must have flunked Radiology 101, because he was very disturbed by the fact that the 6.5 mm object has no partner image on the lateral skull x-rays. 

Yes, of course, everyone understands that the skull x-rays are 2D images. We all know that. But you keep citing this fact as if you're proving something, or as if a 3D image of the 7x2 mm fragment would magically change its height and width. The only thing a 3D image would show us that the AP x-ray does not is the fragment's depth/thickness. 

You can just keep going around and around with your specious speculation about the largest fragment that Humes said he removed, but I've already proved that Humes plainly, clearly, and unmistakably said that the largest fragment was the 7x2 mm fragment. You can't accept this because it destroys your cockamamie theory that Humes was actually describing the 6.5 mm object, never mind that even a child could identify the 6.5 mm object and the 7x2 mm fragment as different objects on the AP x-ray.

Not only does your theory require us to discard the hard science of the OD measurements, but it demands that we view your tiny slice object on the lateral x-rays as the lateral view of the 6.5 mm object. Never mind that no expert has identified that slice as a bullet fragment, and that nearly all experts have said the 6.5 mm object is in the back of the head. 

I suspect we could go around and around about this stuff forever, because you brush aside all contrary evidence and then act like anyone who disagrees with you is refusing to follow the evidence where it leads, which is very strange posturing for someone who's pushing a theory that virtually no one else accepts. 

If someone who had never read a book about the JFK case asked me to recommend one book, I would probably recommend Gerald McKnight's book Breach of Trust: How the Warren Commission Failed the Nation and Why.

If I had to vote on the "best all-around" book on the assassination, I think I would say Doug Horne's five-volume work Inside the Assassination Records Review Board.

20 hours ago, Jeff Carter said:

Absolutely incorrect. Prouty’s references to the trip, over the years, amount to exactly what he told the ARRB panel. I submitted a representative example yesterday. Here is another:

"In November 1963, when I was Chief of Special Operations with the Joint Staff in the Pentagon, I was sent to Antarctica with a large group of VIPs, industrialists, newsmen, and others.  We went there to witness a most important event.  A small nuclear plant was going to be activated at the Navy Base of the shore of McMurdo Sound, Antarctica; and from that moment on all water, all heat, and all electricity for that huge scientific establishment was going to provided by that tiny, inconspicuous nuclear plant."   (“Water”)

This is an accurate quote, but Griffiths somehow misses the two most important qualifying words in the sentence: “wondered” and “might”.

“I have always wondered, deep in my own heart, whether that strange invitation that removed me so far from Washington and from the center of all things clandestine that I knew so well might have been connected to the events that followed.”

This sentence is the single basis for the ARRB panel’s “allegation”. Leaving aside the fact it was published in 1992, a full year or two after the JFK script had been written, one must ask how this sentence could be considered in any way definitive - as portrayed by the ARRB panel, Litwin and Griffiths? The words “wonder” and “might” establish this as a non-definitive thought experiment, and to jump on Prouty over it seems an exercise in denying the man his own thoughts, just as the criticism over Teheran involve an effort to deny Prouty his own personal experiences.

Further, because these critics are largely unaware of Prouty’s wide body of work, they are blissfully ignorant that the original source of the “suspicions” over the Antarctic trip was actually Bud Fensterwald, as expressed at the time of the HSCA. Prouty: “Bud Fensterwald had selected me for no apparent reason to become a member of his CIA committee, we were having lunch together. He said...out of the blue... "Fletch did you ever wonder why you were selected to go to the South Pole?"    (Mongoose Cycle 1961-62)

But Prouty is correct - the overseeing of a small nuclear reactor at McMurdo had no relation to his previous assignments. This is confirmed in part by a letter of commendation for Prouty’s good work sent by James Mooney Antarctic Projects officer to General Thomas D. White July 2, 1959.

Completely untrue, and I highly doubt Griffith has any personal knowledge of the discussions  informing the JFK screenwriters. He has simply made this up. The “claim” was an acknowledged dramatic embellishment.

Because the "professed suspicions" do not exist.  Prouty simply reiterated what he had always said about the purpose of the trip.

There was no "admission", and in truth, the critics did little more than reveal their own lack of knowledge over the topic, and their inability to understand the role of  dramatic license in construction of the JFK screenplay. The continuing stubborn insistence that this moronic talking point is in any way convincing is merely an expression the obvious confusion and bad faith of this self-appointed star-chamber.

This is just so silly and so sad. Even when confronted with Prouty's own words, you ignore their clear meaning and implausibly spin them as innocently as you can. 

By any rational, honest, objective assessment, Prouty clearly and plainly indicated that he believed he was sent to the South Pole for sinister, ulterior motives. I should have quoted the rest of what he said on the subject to make this even clearer. 

Prouty undeniably said that he found it "strange" that he was being sent to the South Pole. Yet, he told the ARRB that there was nothing strange or sinister about the trip and that it was "so routine" that he thought nothing of it. That's not what he told Oliver Stone either. (FYI, Prouty himself said in his 1992 interview on the anti-Semitic nutjob LaRouche's TV program that he acted as a consultant to Oliver Stone on the movie JFK.)

Prouty clearly lied when he claimed for years that he worked on presidential protection. He was nice enough to fess up to his tale to the ARRB. And, no, there was no such thing as "military presidential protection units."

I notice you punted on Prouty's gibberish about the notes he supposedly took during his alleged phone call with the 112th MI Group and about the phone call itself. This was just more of his bunk. Any sane, truthful person would have made copies of those potentially historic notes and would have carefully safeguarded the originals. 

the criticism over Teheran involve an effort to deny Prouty his own personal experiences.

Oh, sheesh. Unbelievable. First off, several of his claims about Chiang and Tehran have nothing to do with his alleged "personal experiences."  Chiang was never "controlled" by Soong.  I defy you to find one Asia/WW II scholar who will say that Mao's forces posed more of a threat to Chiang during WW II than the Japanese did. I also defy you to find one Asia/WW II scholar who will say that at the Tehran Conference, FDR got Stalin to agree to order Mao to stand down--Mao and his forces were never even discussed at that conference. 

As for Prouty's alleged "personal experiences," this brings us to Prouty's wild tale that Chiang and his delegation attended the Tehran Conference, and that Prouty personally flew the delegation to Tehran. You guys rely on one obviously errant, unsourced statement buried in a book about the Vietnam War and ignore the hundreds of records and scholarly sources that prove that Prouty's tale is pure fiction.

By the way, where are Prouty's alleged Tehran-trip photos of the Chinese delegation? 

On 10/12/2023 at 7:34 PM, Pat Speer said:

 

You are just messing with me, right?

No, but you must be messing with me. Once again, we see your willingness to accept erroneous WC assumptions and then claim that the only problem is misinterpretation.

1. If you connect an entry by the EOP to the wound in the throat you will find that the trajectory leads across the underside of the cerebellum, precisely where Humes noted damage. I suppose you think that's a coincidence.

Really?! Let’s see you connect the EOP wound to the throat wound without hitting the cerebellum. Use the two diagrams I posted and show us a trajectory from the EOP to the throat wound that could have missed the cerebellum. Let’s see it.

And, eee-gads, leaving aside the problem of missing the cerebellum, a bullet going from the EOP site to the throat wound (1) would have had to enter the head at around a 45-degree downward angle (was the gunman firing from a helicopter hovering above the TSBD?), (2) would have caused severe damage to the intervening neck tissue, and (3) could not have produced the small, neat, punched-in wound described by the Dallas doctors and nurses.

And, oh yeah, the Clark Panel and HSCA saw a path from above and exiting at the throat wound on the x-rays.

Oh, so Arlen Specter and crew were actually right in claiming the throat wound was an exit wound, and the Dallas doctors and nurses were all wrong, and the only problem is that WC apologists have missed (or suppressed) the EOP-to-throat-wound explanation! This is just so much poppycock it’s hard to take it seriously.

The Clark Panel pretended this path started at the back wound, which they pretended was well above the throat wound. The HSCA Panel knew this was nonsense, but were frightened by the implications of the trail, and so conjured up a line of bs so transparent you might find it convincing. They said JFK's tie blocked his throat wound and forced the air leaking from his windpipe to back up into his neck. Because, y'know, that happens.

As you know, I have documented that during the autopsy the pathologists absolutely, positively determined that the back wound was shallow and had no exit point. However, you would snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and substitute the bogus back-wound-to-throat-wound theory with the far more ludicrous theory that the throat wound was the exit wound for the EOP rear head shot.

2. Most of the doctors you claim to believe in, including Mantik, have come to believe there was an entrance hole by the EOP. Assuming you believe they are correct, just where do you think the bullet exited? 

I think I’ve already made it clear that I accept the EOP entry site, but that you cannot accept the EOP site if you believe the brain photos are authentic.

Where did the EOP shot exit? Given the fraud that we know occurred regarding the autopsy report (please don’t tell me you think Humes’s first draft was essentially the same as the published version), and given that we know that photos and x-rays were withheld, we cannot say with certainty where it went or how it behaved after it hit the skull. The bullet that Belmont said was lodged behind the right ear could have been the EOP shot. Or, the EOP shot, or a sizable fragment from it, could have exited the right parietal area and created the right parietal flap in the process. Even Dr. Mantik agrees that the right parietal flap is plausible and that it could explain the trajectory of some of the debris.

3. The brain photos are fake blah blah is built on Stringer's ARRB interview. It uses his belief the photos were not photos taken by him to push that the photos were faked to hide a huge hole on the back of the brain. And it does this without admitting Stringer also told the ARRB the photos showing an intact back of the head were taken by him, and that there was no hole on the back of the head. It's cherry-picking at its worst. 

You are years behind the times and are misrepresenting Stringer’s ARRB testimony. Stringer insisted that the extant brain photos did not show the same brain that he photographed, and that the extant photos were taken with a different kind of film than the film he used.

Surely you know that when Lifton interviewed Stringer years earlier, on tape, Stringer clearly and specifically described a large wound in the back of the head. He even used the medical terms “occiput” and “occipital” to describe the wound’s location. Lifton repeatedly asked him if the large wound was “in the back” and “in the occipital part of the skull,” etc., and each time Stringer said it was. Lifton even asked Stringer if the large wound was in the part of the head that would touch the tile if a person were to lie flat on their back in a bathtub, and Stringer said yes. You know this, right?

When we look closely at Stringer’s ARRB testimony, we see that it does not contradict his Lifton interview as sharply as some would like to think:

          Q: And, now, in terms of the back of the skull, was the portion that would include part of the occiput also severely damaged when you saw the President’s head?

          A: Yes. But when -When I first saw it, this was all intact. But then they peeled it back, and then you could see this part of the bone gone. (ARRB interview, 7/16/96, p. 86)

And:

          Q: Okay. And where Mr. Robinson drew a circle showing missing occipital bone, would it be --do you have any recollection of whether any portion of that occipital bone was missing?

          A: I don’t know, because I don’t -- I don’t think I ever saw the whole hair pulled down that far. (p. 91)

Frankly, if you read Stringer’s whole ARRB interview, you see that he was all over the map on the issue of missing occipital bone.

Crucially, Stringer specified that when he photographed the head, the rear area of the head was intact. Yes, of course, because when Stringer photographed the head, the skull had already been reconstructed. Saundra Spencer explained that the pre-reconstruction photos showed a sizable right-rear defect, just as dozens of other witnesses said, but that the post-reconstruction photos showed the back of the head intact.

4. Actually, the brain photos are fake blah blah is worse than bad cherry-picking. It conceals from impressionable parties what they need to know: that the photos match up with the autopsy protocol and supplemental report,

But, as we have seen, the brain photos markedly contradict the autopsy report because they show no pre-mortem damage to the cerebellum or the right occipital lobe, whereas the autopsy report says a bullet entered slightly above the EOP and created a fragment trail that led to the right orbit.

and that this, the official evidence regarding the shooting of Kennedy, is clear-cut proof for two head shots, and thus, a conspiracy. 

And WC apologists love your two-rear-head-shots conspiracy because it is so specious, untenable, and convoluted, and because it, like the lone-gunman theory, dismisses all evidence of shots from the grassy knoll. According to you, all the witnesses who insisted that some shots came from the knoll were wrong; all the witnesses, in three different locations, who saw a large right-rear head wound were wrong; the doctors, including a neurosurgeon, who saw severe damage to the cerebellum were wrong; all the witnesses who smelled the distinct odor of gun powder near the knoll were wrong; all the witnesses who saw gun smoke on the knoll were wrong; the apparent gun smoke seen in the Wiegman film near the knoll is just an optical illusion or smoke from steam pipes; etc., etc., etc.

There's no need to fake evidence when you can just mis-interpret it, or lie about it. 

Right. All the severe conflicts in the medical evidence and all the evidence of shots from the grassy knoll are all just cases of deliberate and innocent misinterpretations and misunderstandings. Nothing to see here. This was a cover-up that did not fake or alter a single piece of evidence! The brain photos that show only 2-3 ounces of missing brain tissue [Baden says the photos show only "an ounce or two" of missing tissue] and a virtually undamaged cerebellum—yes, they’re authentic, even if the guy who supposedly took them insists they don’t show the same brain that he saw and were not taken with the same film that he used, and even though we know that brain matter was splattered on the limo’s seats, on some of the limo’s occupants, on the limo’s trunk, on the follow-up car’s windshield, and on two of the trailing patrolmen. Yeah, sure, all that brain matter amounted to no more than 3 ounces!

8 hours ago, Leslie Sharp said:

To set the stage:

@Greg Doudna, frequent poster on EF and skeptic of the datebook maintained by intel contractor Pierre Lafitte ergo highly critical of Albarelli's Coup in Dallas, recently introduced an analysis of the claims made by James Odell Estes that he had seen Governor John Connally at a meeting with Jack Ruby at the Carousel Club which was also attended by another man referred to as "Nick."
 

Greg writes, A Marcello payoff to Connally?

About 5 days or so later Estes saw "Lee" again with a man named "Nick" (well-dressed mobster type driving a maroon Cadillac with Louisiana plates). "Lee" and Nick went to Ruby's office. A two hour meeting, after which Estes says the bartender named "Mike" literally broke all the glasswear used in that meeting--the wine bottles and the glasses used--and disposed of it. (To avoid risk of fingerprints? Estes does not say.)

The next day, mid-PM, Estes said he saw Lee, Nick, and Chuck come in the back door of the Carousel Club and go to Ruby's office. 15 minutes later Chuck went down and met two men coming in the back door. One, says Estes, was Governor Connally. Connally the governor of Texas. 

Comment: on its face this looks like a story of a bribe being paid to Connally, with "Nick" the well-dressed mobster type from Louisiana maybe from some mob connection in New Orleans (source of the money?). . . 

 'Nick" -- well-dressed, flashy jewelry, "mob" type visiting from Louisiana, unspecified business with Ruby, New Orleans accent, age 30s-40s, 6'2", 200-plus lbs, big man, moustache, black hair cut short, drove maroon Cadillac with Louisiana plates

A serious candidate for "Nick" is New Orleans businessman Nicholas Popich, thirty-four years of age in 1963.

https://obits.nola.com/us/obituaries/nola/name/nicholas-popich-obituary?id=10203236

Nick Popich, founder of Popich Marine Construction, was co-owner and operator of Vieux Carré, one of numerous Carlos Marcello restaurant investments in the French Quarter.  For our interests, Hank Albarelli has reported that Pierre Lafitte was employed as a sous chef in NOLA in the early 1960s and although the private dining club in Clay Shaw's original Trade Mart — precursor to the Plimsoll Club which opened in the new building in 1967 with Lafitte hired as head chef — is a reasonable option, it's logical to also consider that Nick Popich/Carlos Marcello employed Lafitte at the Vieux Carré in the early 1960s.  During that period, Lafitte also worked briefly at Reily Coffee sometime prior to Lee Harvey Oswald and Judyth Baker.  

Documents confirm that Nick Popich also had a longstanding personal and business relationship with William "Bill" Dalzell, a subject of keen interest to FBI SA William de Brueys and a character who appears in Lafitte's 1963 datebook.

It was also "Nick" Popich who hosted the May 1963 Bobby Baker entourage in New Orleans which included his girlfriend Carole Tyler, Paul Aguirre (Puerto Rican developer), and alleged East German honey trap Ellen Rometsch who is referred to frequently in Pierre Lafitte's 1963 records. Govt. docs confirm that Rometsch, alleged to have had several sexual encounters with President Kennedy, would quietly return to East Germany following intense scrutiny by Hoover's FBI in the summer of '63.

Kennedy's good friend since their Senate days, Florida Sen. Sen. George Smathers is identified in an obscure gossip column as having been familiar with Baker's trip to NOLA with Rometsch. Smathers had been instrumental in seeing to it that Bobby Baker would benefit from the newly established Serv-U Corporation. Of note, Lafitte is also aware of their presence in Dallas, making a note that Carole was there followed by the initials G.D. (might this refer to General Dynamics of Ft. Worth?).

As an aside, it is well documented that Smathers was responsible for Judyth Baker’s arrival in New Orleans within days of the Baker/Tyler/Aguirre/Rometsch trip which was, coincidentally, around the time of Judyth's initial encounter with LHO. 

 
Now, to the alleged episode at the Carousel Club as described by James Odell Estes, and a working hypothesis:

I know we all agreed in our last call that the possibility of John Connally waltzing into the Carousel Club, as per the claims of James Odell Estes, might broach the absurd, but in light of Connally's history with both Texas oilman Clint Murchison and Bobby Baker and the brewing TFX scandal at the time of the Baker/Carole/Ella trip to Dallas and New Orleans, the possibility that Connally might risk a personal appearance at the Carousel warrants further consideration. Remember that Connally was a member of JCS when Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara insisted the TFX project be jump started.

 

 

I think I shared that Gov. Connally's history with Bobby Baker and with Clint Murchison  prompted me to reconsider Odell Estes' claims. Setting aside his story about "Lee," the references to "Nick" at the meeting(s) with Ruby and a man he believed to be Governor John Connally added further fuel.  I believe the prime candidate for Nick, to date, would be Nick Popich who had hosted Baker and Carole, and Aguirre, and Ella in NOLA in May. 

 

An initial stab at advancing the argument: Connally had been responsible for Murchison's prized lobbyist Bobby Baker's early rise in the Democratic Party in the 1940s when he encouraged Sen. Lyndon Johnson to bring him on board his staff.  Barring any significant shift in their relationship, it's reasonable to assume Connally and Baker remained friendly even if at arm's length in 1963 when Murchison and Baker were engaged in numerous shady business deals including in Haiti.

Connally was also the long time attorney for Murchison's partner Sid Richardson and had assumed responsibility for the hugely successful independent oilman's estate upon his death in the fall of 1959; in that role Connally joined Murchison's board of the Del Mar Race Track so we have at least one practical pivot point to connect both Murchison and Baker directly with Connally in 1963. Remember also that FBI Dir. J. Edgar Hoover was the guest of Murchison in Del Mar in August 1963 — just weeks after his agents discretely interviewed Ellen Rometsch about her liaisons formed with DC powerbrokers while working at Baker's Quorum Club  — as was his annual custom.  

 

From there, we pivot back to Bobby Baker's association with Sen. George Smathers, Kennedy confidant Grant Stockdale, and Serv-U Corp, prompting our attention toward Pennsylvania developer Matthew McClosky who also invested in Serv-U. Weirdly, the newly appointed Amb. to Ireland McClosky along with previous Amb. Scott McLeod — former agent of the FBI and drinking buddy of Robert Maheau — were bookends to Grant Stockdale's ambassadorial post to Dublin.

 

Lafitte's datebook indicates Stockdale and SS Otto Skorzeny were still in communication in 1963 and Hank indicates that Ilse Skorzeny visited the Stockdales in Florida. It should also be noted that Murchison's partner Sid Richardson commissioned the Dallas-based O'Neil Ford architectural firm which included a young Arch Swank to design a compound in the Canary Islands, a destination (according to Major Ralph Ganis) of OAS Captain Jean Rene Souetre and Otto Skorzeny in early '63.  The Richardson compound had been sold by then, so I'm not suggesting any training took place on this property. I'm simply noting the coincidence.  For the record, Arch's wife, Patsy Swank was instrumental in Dick Stolley rushing to Dallas to negotiate on behalf of Time/LIFE for the Zapruder film.)

 

Note: In 1957, Eisenhower's Amb. to Ireland Scott McLeod — a drinking buddy of Robert Maheu —  was in position to establish initial rapport with Otto and Ilse as they made inroads into the purchase of property in Co. Kildare, near a major military training facility. McLeod would have then handed the couple off to Grant Stockdale in '61, who then handed them off to his colleague at Serv-U, Matthew McClosky in late '62.  

 

Thru Serv-U Corp, McClosky had obviously also associated with George Smathers and Bobby Baker; throughout 1963 as the Serve-U scandal surfaced, McClosky was posted at the embassy in Dublin while  the Skorzenys were developing strategy for the plot to assassinate Kennedy in Dallas — details of which could have taken place under his nose and/or that of the Franco's representatives in Dublin.  And not to overstate the connection, but McClosky had recently served as treasurer of the Dem National Committee with obvious close ties to Lyndon Johnson and John Connally. 

 

Considering this milieu, and the possibility Estes was a credible witness recounting a meeting with "Nick,"  Ruby and Connally:  If Nick Popich was Baker's good friend as suggested in news accounts of the New Orleans trip with Rometsch, and Baker was Murchison's trusted lobbyist, is it possible that both Popich and Bobby Baker also knew Murchison's representative/attorney for his dealings in Haiti, Herbert Itkin?   Recall that Itkin also had longstanding connections in Haiti on behalf of Oswald's friend George de Mohrenschildt. Further, in July, Haiti was on the mind of the gunrunner Jack Ruby worried most about, Tom Davis, identified in Lafitte's datebook.  Lafitte leaves us clues to all but Connally.  Why?
 

Which brings us full circle to the question: should James Odell Estes's story about meetings between "Nick" Popich, Gov. Connally and Jack Ruby be dismissed out of hand?  Or, should we ask what else could have been in play that might compel John Connally to risk a meeting at Ruby's Carousel with another "Nick"? 

 

This document may shed further light on the Itkin entries in the Lafitte datebook, and possible relevance to the aforementioned.

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=12882#relPageId=2

 

 

 

Notes on John Connally in context of Lafitte records:

·      John M. Connally was instrumental in LBJ hiring Bobby Baker in 1948

·      Connally is co-executor of estate of oilman Sid Richardson beginning 1959, and board member of Del Mar Race Track

·      LBJ is instrumental in JFK's appointment of Connally as Sec. of Navy 1961

·      Air Force and Navy had been seeking new aircraft when McNamara was appointed Sec Def 1961

·      McNamara ordered go ahead of TFX (Tactical fighter Experimental) in June 1961

·      Proposals received from Boeing, Lockheed, McDonnell, North American, Republic National, and General Dynamics

·      Former Sec Army Frank Pace was President and CEO of General Dynamics from 1957-1962; he was replaced in February ’62 by asst. Sec Air Force Roger Lewis. Chicago industrialist Henry Crown was the major shareholder of GD and heavily invested in Conrad Hilton Hotels

·      Pace was on the board of Nation-Wide Securities Wall Street investment firm intermittently with Ret. Gen. Maxwell Taylor, Ret. Admiral R. B. Carney, and Allen Dulles.

·      Connally was a member of the Joint Chiefs during the Bay of Pigs invasion; Kennedy tasked him to determine the strength required for intervention in Laos if it became necessary.

·      Connally resigned to run for TX Governor December 1961

·      Kennedy replaced Connally as Sec Navy with Fred Korth, president of Continental National Bank of Fort Worth January 1962

·      Boeing and General Dynamics with their largest plant based in Fort Worth were selected to submit enhanced design followed by two additional updates for the TFX

·      Boeing was picked by the selection board

·      However, November 1962, McNamara selected General Dynamics and a contract signed December 1962

·      Congressional investigation followed but did not change the selection

·      Winning proposal was later designated the General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark

·      Nickel has been essential mineral in production of high temp aerospace alloys since 1950s.

·      Connally was inaugurated governor of Texas January 1963

·      Bobby Baker’s role in the F-111 scandal is exposed.

·      Nick Popich and Bill Dalzell in pursuit of offshore drilling rights in the Red Sea

·      Lafitte entry April 17 Dalzell K $ for drilling

·      Lafitte entry April 21 Carole – Dallas – G.D.

·      Lafitte entry May 14 Carole - (airport [with strikethrough]) Paul Aguirre - Others?

·      May 1963, Bobby Baker trip to New Orleans with girlfriend Carole Tyler, Puerto Rican developer Paul Aguirre and Ellen Rometsch hosted by Nick Popich of Popich Marine Construction

·      Lafitte entry June 7 Else and W. wife = shipment $ - John Wilson-H’ ———Ruby

·      Lafitte entry June 25 nickle [sic] deposits $ Skorzeny (talk Else) NY

·      Jack Ruby notes October 29 John Wilson — bond

·      Lafitte entry October 30 Ruby – Wilson-H – Bond . . . -call Ilse NY 

·      Korth’s Continental National of Ft. Worth was one of a number of banks which participated in the line of credit for the TFX / F-111

·      Korth resigned as Sec Navy November 1, 1963

       Lafitte entry Nov. 20 . . . call de M . . . 

One correction: Connally was not a member of the Joint Chiefs. He was Secretary of the Navy, a civilian position that was entirely separate from the JCS.

I am undecided about the Estes account of Connally meeting with Ruby at the Carousel Club. The information in your post causes me to be a bit more open to the possibility that the meeting occurred.

On 10/11/2023 at 4:14 PM, Pat Speer said:

More flailing. If you had read the chapters you'd know I present drawings to support my arguments. 

As far as the EOP entrance... the Clark Panel used the lack of lower brain damage to refute the low entrance/high exit trajectory pushed by the autopsy doctors and WC. So they conjured up a higher entrance. 

Neither they nor any of their disciples have made the argument the brain photos preclude a low entrance/even lower exit. 

If you're claiming to have done so, please present your work...

One, not one of your drawings/diagrams even attempts or pretends to explain how a bullet entering at the EOP site could have magically missed the cerebellum and the right occipital lobe. Just to be sure I had not missed something, I reviewed all of your chapters on the medical evidence. Nowhere do you provide any diagram or drawing that even shows the EOP site in relation to the cerebellum and the right occipital lobe, much less that shows how a bullet entering at that site could have missed those parts of the brain.

Two, I am baffled by your comment about the Clark Panel and the conflict between the EOP entry site and the lack of damage to the cerebellum in the brain photos.

Did you have a sudden attack of amnesia and forget that the HSCA FPP hammered the autopsy doctors on the impossibility of the EOP entry site because of the virtually pristine condition of the cerebellum (with no pre-mortem cerebellar damage) and of the rear area of the right occipital lobe in the brain photos? Do I need to again quote Dr. Loquvam's devastating interrogation of Finck on this point? Do I need to quote Dr. Petty's damning questioning of Humes and Boswell on this point? Let's read what the FPP said on this issue in their report:

          The panel notes that the posterior-inferior portion of the cerebellum virtually intact. It certainly does not demonstrate the degree of laceration, fragmentation, or contusion (as appears subsequently on the superior aspect of the brain) that would be expected in this location if the bullet wound of entrance were as described in the autopsy report. There is no damage in the area of the brain corresponding to the piece of brain tissue on the hair which the autopsy pathologists told the panel was the entrance wound. (7 HSCA 129)

The panel added that

          . . . the absence of injury on the inferior surface of the brain offers incontrovertible evidence that the wound in the President's head is not in the location described in the autopsy report. (7 HSCA 115)

I find it hard to take you seriously when you keep insisting that the autopsy brain photos are authentic. 

Of all the evidence that has obviously been faked or altered, the brain photos are at the top of the list. We have a number of accounts of brain tissue being splattered onto over a dozen surfaces (15, by my count). We have numerous mutually corroborating accounts that a large part of JFK's brain was blown out. We have dozens of accounts of a large wound that included a sizable part of the occiput. We have several accounts of severe damage to the cerebellum. Yet, the brain photos show a virtually intact brain, with no more than 2 or 3 ounces of missing tissue, including a virtually undamaged cerebellum, no pre-mortem damage to the cerebellum, and no damage to the rear area of the right occipital lobe. 

And we have the EOP entry site, which could not exist if the brain photos were authentic. 

I'm adding two diagrams that show the EOP's location in relation to the cerebellum, and the EOP's location in relation to the eye socket. I did not create these diagrams but pulled them from the Internet and added lines, boxes, arrows, and comments.

There continues to be an embarrassing and inexcusable amount of denial and evasion in this thread over Prouty's demonstrably bogus claims. Let's bring the discussion back to the facts:

-- Prouty's one and only source for his claim that Chiang attended the Tehran Conference is a single sentence in William Gibbons' 1994 book The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War. Gibbons provided no source for the statement. The statement appears in the middle of a paragraph about British opposition to a postwar trusteeship for Indochina. It is obvious to everyone except Prouty’s supporters that Gibbons simply confused and conflated the Cairo Conference with the Tehran Conference.

The sentence that Prouty quotes from Gibbons' book says that at the Tehran Conference, Chiang and Stalin approved FDR's proposal for an Indochina trusteeship. But every other source ever written on the subject says (1) that Chiang did not attend the Tehran Conference, (2) that Chiang approved the trusteeship proposal at the Cairo Conference, and (3) that the trusteeship was only briefly discussed at the Tehran Conference. Here are just a few of the sources that document these facts:

Negotiating China's Destiny in World War II (Stanford University Press, 2014), by Hans van de Ven, Diana Lary, Stephen MacKinnon (editors). See especially pages 196-200, 206-207, 226-229. The book is available online via Amazon Kindle (I have the Kindle edition).

“The Cairo Conference, 1943,” article on the U.S. State Department's website, https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/wwii/107184.htm.

“Madame Chiang Kai-shek to President Roosevelt,” State Department website, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1943China/d140. The 12/5/43 letter that Chiang’s wife wrote to FDR in which she detailed her and her husband’s travels following the Cairo Conference. She stated that they flew from Cairo to Karachi, then from Karachi to Ramgarh, then from Ramgarh to Chabau, and then from Chabau to Chungking. Surely if she and her husband had gone to the Tehran Conference, she would have mentioned this noteworthy item in her letter to FDR.

Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, the Conferences at Cairo and Tehran, 1943, White House Files, Log of the Trip, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1943CairoTehran/d353. This is the detailed White House log, the "Log of the Trip," of FDR's trip to Cairo, his actions at the Cairo Conference, his trip to Tehran, his actions at the Tehran Conference, and his return trip to Cairo for the second Cairo meeting.

"(Mis)-Interpretations of the 1943 Cairo Conference: The Cairo Communiqué and Its Legacy among Koreans During and After World War II," International Journal of Korean History, 2/28/2022, by Mark Caprio, https://ijkh.khistory.org/journal/view.php?number=559.

"Cairo Conference and Tehran Conference," https://www.nvlchawaii.org/cairo-conference-and-tehran-conference/.

The Cairo Conference of 1943: Roosevelt, Churchill, Chiang Kai-shek and Madame Chiang (McFarland, 2011), by Ronald Heiferman. See especially pages 148-159. The book is available online via Amazon Kindle (I have the Kindle edition).

"Back-to-Back-to-Back Conferences: Cairo to Tehran to Cairo," George C. Marshall Foundation website, https://www.marshallfoundation.org/articles-and-features/back-to-back-to-back-conferences-cairo-to-tehran-to-cairo/.

"Sextant Conference," JCS website, https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/History/WWII/Sextant_Eureka3.pdf.

The Cairo Conference: A Forgotten Summit, by Zhu Shaokang, https://www.fhk.ndu.edu.tw/site/main/upload/6862ac282432fc1fde400aa74f317621/journal/81-12.pdf. Professor Shaokang discusses the fact that both Chiang and Stalin were determined to *avoid* meeting, and that they did not meet in Cairo or Tehran.

"The Tehran Conference, 1943," State Department website, https://history.state.gov/milestones/1937-1945/tehran-conf.

"Tehran, Yalta, and Potsdam," House of Lords Library, https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/tehran-yalta-and-potsdam-three-wartime-conferences-that-shaped-europe-and-the-world/.

Eureka Summit: Agreement in Principle and the Big Three at Tehran, 1943 (University of Delaware Press, 1987), by Paul Mayle. Available on the Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/eurekasummitagre0000mayl/page/n1/mode/1up. An exhaustive look at the Tehran Conference. Chiang was not there, and the trusteeship idea was discussed only briefly. Stalin had no dog in the hunt on the issue of a trusteeship in Indochina, since the Soviets would play no role in it, per FDR's proposal. FDR obtained Chiang's approval of the Indochina trusteeship at the Cairo Conference to make sure that China did not swoop down into Indochina after the war, given China's history of occupying large chunks of Indochina, especially Vietnam, for long periods of time in the past. Stalin was indifferent about the Indochina trusteeship and was happy to say he agreed with the idea during the very brief discussion about it (by "very brief," I mean no more than a few minutes at the most). Stalin, however, was intensely interested in Manchuria, Korea, and the Kuril Islands.

My Dear Mr. Stalin: The Complete Correspondence Between Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph V. Stalin (Yale University Press, 2005), edited by Susan Butler with a foreword written by Arthur Schlesinger Jr. Available on the Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/mydearmrstalinco0000roos/page/n8/mode/1up. Not so much as a trace of a hint that Chiang attended the Tehran Conference, much less that Chiang and Stalin met at the conference. Also, Butler and Schlesinger both say nothing about Chiang being in Tehran.

-- Prouty's claim that at the Tehran Conference, FDR and Stalin agreed to have Stalin order Mao to stand down has zero support in the record. Not a single available record on the conference mentions such an agreement, nor does a single record state that Mao was even mentioned at the conference. No such agreement or discussion appears in the available Soviet and American records of the conference.

-- Prouty's claim that he had pictures from his trip with the Chinese delegation to Tehran is a revealing blunder, another one of his gaffes in trying to provide bogus details to make his story seem credible. His claim begs the question: Why didn't he include at least one of these alleged photos in his book JFK, especially given the fact that in his book and in his interviews he acknowledged that all other sources on the Tehran Conference say that Chiang was not there? His alleged photos would have been monumentally historic evidence. Where are these alleged photos?

I'm reminded of Prouty's claim that he took notes during his alleged stand-down phone call with the 112th MI Group. For years Prouty said, and wrote, that he had taken notes during this putatively historic phone call. Yet, when the ARRB asked about the notes, he said, "Oh, I think they're long gone"! Yeah, I bet his alleged Tehran-trip photos were "long gone" as well. They were long gone because they never existed.

By the way, during his ARRB interview, Prouty claimed for the first time ever that he had not called the 112th but that they had called him! Until that point, Prouty had always said he had called them. And, incredibly, he told one of his ARRB interviewers that the phone call may not have been legitimate because the person who called him didn’t sound legitimate!

-- Prouty's stunning claim that Mao's Communists posed a greater threat to Chiang during WW II than did the Japanese is an absolute howler. It's further proof that he had no clue what he was talking about.

-- Prouty's equally stunning claim that Chiang would have sided with the Japanese had he not been controlled by T. V. Soong is ridiculous mythology. First of all, as we've established, Soong did not control Chiang but was subordinate to Chiang. Second, Chiang's hostility toward the Japanese and his determination to fight them is profusely documented.

-- Prouty's bunk about Churchill being delayed at a Soviet checkpoint in Tehran due to a lack of ID because he was wearing a pocketless military jumpsuit is another piece of silly fiction that, naturally, finds no support in any source, including Sarah Churchill's extensive accounts of her experiences at the Tehran Conference. Plus, there were no pocketless British jumpsuits. For that matter, there were also no Soviet, American, French, or Canadian pocketless jumpsuits, as anyone can confirm in 15 minutes via Google.

-- Prouty claimed, in writing, that he had "worked with military presidential protection units" and that he had "worked on what is called 'presidential protection.'" But, he royally back-peddled from these claims during his ARRB interview. He admitted that his duties did not include presidential protection. He said, “Quite frankly, other than knowing Presidential protection exists, that’s about all I was required to know," and added, "The only time I was personally involved -- and I think that was just for familiarization early in my assignment for this work -- was when I went to Mexico City.... that was my first and last course with them.... I flew the airplane to Mexico City for them."

And, incidentally, the ARRB established that there was no such thing as "military presidential protection units." I worked in military intelligence in the Army for 21 years, and I never heard of such units.

-- Finally, for many years Prouty led everyone to believe that he had been sent to the South Pole shortly before the assassination to prevent him from interfering in the Dallas security arrangements. In his book JFK, Prouty said that he had always “wondered, deep in my own hear,” if he had been sent to the South Pole to keep him “far from Washington,” and that he had “observed and learned” many things that led him to believe that “such a question might be well founded” (p. 284). Moreover, Prouty said that it “seemed strange” to him that he was ordered to go on the South Pole trip because the trip “had absolutely nothing to do with my previous nine years of work” (p. 284).

Prouty convinced Oliver Stone to include the strange-sinister-South-Pole-trip claim in Stone’s 1991 movie JFK.

Yet, when Prouty was interviewed by the ARRB, he said nothing about his professed suspicions about why he was sent to the South Pole. In fact, he admitted that the trip was “so routine” that he “didn’t give it a thought.” When asked specifically if he believed there was anything sinister about the trip, he answered, “Oh, no.”

Gee, it’s too bad Prouty didn’t tell these things to Oliver Stone before Stone released his movie, hey? Following Prouty’s ARRB interview, critics pounced on his admission and used it to further attack Stone’s movie.

On 10/11/2023 at 12:39 PM, Pat Speer said:

All this is covered on my website--y'know the one you've supposedly read but have apparently failed to absorb, or even slightly understand. 

I mean, it's gotten beyond ridiculous. Post after post in which you make inaccurate claims and present ignorant assumptions as fact, and attack me for failing to consider blank, when I discuss blank in detail on my website, and have discussed blank on this forum, and in presentations, and in personal meetings and phone calls with the likes of Aguilar, Thompson, Wecht, and Newman. 

Read the website, for real. While you can disagree with my conclusions, you will undoubtedly learn more from my website than from the crap you've been reading. 

From Chapter 17:

The Final Moments

Since a bullet shooting down the neck at Z-224 would have brushed past the cerebellum, I decided to look back through the literature to see if there was any indication something like this occurred. I found that when discussing the brain photos with the ARRB in 1996, Dr. Humes acknowledged, “the right cerebellum has been partially disrupted, yes.” I also found that Dr. Peters, one of the President’s doctors in Dallas, was shown the autopsy photos in 1988 and shared Humes’ appraisal. He wrote writer Harry Livingstone that “the cerebellum was indeed depressed on the right side compared to the left.” I then recalled the HSCA’s declaration that “the posterior-inferior portion of the cerebellum” was “virtually intact…It certainly does not demonstrate the degree of laceration, fragmentation, or contusion (as appears subsequently on the superior aspect of the brain) that would be expected in this location if the bullet wound of entrance were as described in the autopsy report.” This time, however, I noticed the qualifiers. They said “virtually intact,” which indicates some damage. They also said there was certainly not the degree of damage necessary to be consistent with the autopsy report. Well, this makes sense. The bullet trajectory suggested by the autopsy report, after all, has the bullet heading straight into the cerebellum. These statements by the HSCA Pathology Panel, then, led me to believe the damage apparent on the cerebellum is consistent with a bullet’s having headed down into the neck.

Dr. Humes certainly thought a bullet caused this damage. When interviewed by the HSCA Forensic Pathology Panel on 9-16-77, and asked by Dr. Coe if he thought the "destruction" apparent on the underside of the brain was a "post-mortem artifact" from the removal of the brain, or was caused by the bullet, Humes responded "I think it was partly caused by the bullet."

And it appears that he wasn't the only doctor present at the autopsy, to subsequently study the autopsy photos, to say as much. On page 159 of his book The Death of a President, published 1967, William Manchester reports: "The last bullet has torn through John Kennedy's cerebellum, the lower part of his brain." Well, so what? Who the heck is Manchester? He could just be repeating nonsense he read in the paper. Well, this is what. Manchester's book was authorized by the Kennedy family. It was supposed to answer a lot of the questions. As a result, Manchester was given unparalleled access. Including access to doctors speaking with nobody, and I mean nobody, else. The Sources section of his book lists 5 interviews with Kennedy's physician, Dr. Burkley, between October 1964 and July 1966. Burkley inspected the autopsy photos in 1965. Did Burkley tell Manchester the cerebellum was damaged?

We can assume so.

Upon re-reading the supplementary autopsy report from 12-6-63, moreover, I noticed that there were seven slices of tissue removed from the brain for microscopic examination, including one from the “right cerebellar cortex.” I then noticed that the other six were all from areas reported to be damaged. When I re-read the report I realized that a line I had read many times meant something completely different than I’d previously believed. The report states “When viewed from the basilar aspect the disruption of the right cortex is again obvious.” As “the basilar aspect” means “underneath” and “cortex” means “outer layer,” this is quite possibly a reference to the cerebellum as well as the cerebrum.

The results of the microscopic examination of the brain confirm, furthermore, that the cerebellum was damaged: “Multiple sections from representative areas as noted above are examined. All sections are essentially similar and show extensive disruption of brain tissue with associated hemorrhage.” Later, during his March 16, 1964 testimony before the Warren Commission, Humes confirmed yet again that the cerebellum was damaged. He noted that "the flocculus cerebri was extensively lacerated." There is no flocculus cerebri. There is however, a flocculus cerebelli. It is on the underside of the cerebellum. While some researchers insist Humes meant to say the "falx cerebri," a covering of the brain, was extensively lacerated, it seems obvious that he would be much more likely to say (or have mis-recorded by a court reporter) "cerebri" instead of "cerebelli" than he would be to say (or have mis-recorded) "flocculus" instead of "falx".

There's also this. In Dr. Michael Chesser's appearance at the 2018 JFK Lancer Conference--an appearance designed to raise questions about the authenticity of the brain handled by autopsy assistant James Jenkins on November 22, 1963, and the brain photos currently in the archives--he nevertheless admitted that the photos he'd viewed at the archives revealed a "tiny sliver hanging loose" from the underside of the right cerebellum. Now, Chesser knew this observation did nothing to help sell his theory the brain photos are fakes, so we can probably presume it was accurate.

At the risk of pulling a Lattimer--who foolishly tried to link Kennedy’s movements after first struck to something he described as a Thorburn’s response--let's examine, then, the possibility the President’s behavior after frame 224 in the Zapruder film can be explained by his suffering damage to the flocculus in particular, and the cerebellum in general. Neuroanatomy: An Atlas of Structures, Sections, and Systems (2004) holds that lesions involving the flocconobular lobe result in "truncular ataxia (an impairment of the ability to perform smoothly coordinated voluntary movements), nystagmus (a condition in which the patient suffers involuntary eye movements) and head tilting."

Similarly, Neuroscience in Medicine (2008), holds that "damage to the flocculus, nodulus, and uvula result in a pronounced loss in equilibrium, including truncal ataxia..." The description continues: "There is an inability to incorporate vestibular information with body and eye movements."

Well, thankfully, Wisegeek.com helps put this in layman's terms: "Damage to the flocculus can cause jerky eye movements and difficulty maintaining balance."

Now this is quite interesting. Kennedy appears to reach for his neck, but miss, and then lean to his left in the frames after Zapruder frame 224.

Here is a Gif put together by Robert Harris, in which the awkward actions of Kennedy's arms are revealed.

An observation by Dr. William Kemp Clark contained in Warren Commission Exhibit 392 becomes relevant at this point. When describing Kennedy's appearance upon treatment at Parkland Hospital, he noted: "His eyes were divergent, being deviated outward; a skew deviation from the horizontal was present." Well, it seems more than a coincidence then that numerous scientific articles cite a correlation between damage to the flocculus and downbeat nystagmus, in which the eyes drift slowly upward, before returning to their target. Neurological Differential Diagnosis, 2005, goes even further, moreover, and notes both that the "flocculo-occulomotor tract" has "the only direct cerebellar connection with the eye muscle nuclei" and that "clinical lesions and stimulation experiments" of the cerebellum may "result in a divergence of the eyes." Well, let's put it together. Damage to the flocculus can cause a divergence of the eyes.

Well, then what about damage to the cerebellum in general, as opposed to damage specific to the flocculus? According to multiple sources, including Dr. Gordon Holmes in the December 1917 issue of Brain, the symptoms of cerebellar damage include a weakness to the side of the body suffering the damage (ipsilateral hypotonia), a tendency to not stop a movement at its proper point (dysmetria), an inability to grasp objects (ataxia), an abnormal head attitude, and disturbances in speech, eye movement, and equilibrium. Between Zapruder frame 224, when the President seems to suffer a wound on his throat, and 313, when he is obviously hit in the head, the President reached in the direction of his throat without grabbing anything, lifted his arms past his throat, slumped to his left (perhaps as over-compensation for the sudden weakness on his right), and stared down without letting out so much as a scream.Ironically, a November 24, 1963 article in the New York Times by Dr. Howard Rusk described this very phenomenon. Mistakenly believing the theory proposed by the Dallas doctors on the afternoon of the 22^nd, that one shot hit Kennedy in the throat and exploded out the back of his head, Dr. Rusk explained brain injuries as follows: “If the injury is in the posterior portion of the brain, where the bullet that killed the President made its exit, the cerebellum is damaged. Then the individual is left with ataxia, evidenced by severe intention type of tremors that occur when one tries to perform a basic act or grasp an object. Damage to the cerebellum is also usually accompanied by a loss of equilibrium."

Should one not be entirely satisfied with the explanation that Kennedy's strange movements were brought about by damage to his cerebellum, however, there is an additional explanation for his movements that can be added into the mix. This explanation, moreover, is equally suggestive he was struck in the skull before frame 313 of the Zapruder film. Since Brock’s Injuries of the Brain and Spinal Cord (1974) made note that “Posterior basilar fractures tend to gravitate towards the large foramina”, I decided to see if there were any behavioral symptoms for a fracture in this area. And I found something which again dropped my jaw. (My jaw has been dropped so many times during this investigation that it's a wonder it hasn't been broken.) Jugular Foramen Syndrome is described by Blakiston’s Pocket Medical Dictionary as “Paralysis of the ipsilateral glossopharyngeal, vagus, and spinal accessory nerves, caused by a lesion involving the jugular foramen, usually a basilar skull fracture.” According to the online article Craniofacial and Skull Base Trauma by Dr. Harry Shahinian and the Skull Base Institute the paralysis of the vagus nerve would manifest itself through a paralysis of the vocal cords, and a paralysis of the spinal accessory nerves would manifest itself through a paralysis of the neck muscle that flexes the head (the sternocleidomastoid) as well as a weakness of the trapezius muscle, which rotates it. The result is a “weakness in contralateral head rotation and shoulder elevation.” Contralateral, of course, means affecting the opposite side of the body. As we know all too well, Kennedy turned toward his left and dipped his left shoulder in his final silent moments.

So, yeah, I'd say there's good reason to suspect Kennedy's cerebellum and/or posterior skull was damaged even before he'd received his fatal wound.

Yes, I did read that chapter. You keep claiming that I'm either not reading or am missing/ignoring your explanations. I am reading them, but your explanations don't "explain" anything--they are balls of confusion, special pleading, contradiction, error, and abject nonsense.

Yes, Dr. Chesser did indeed say that when he examined the autopsy brain photos, he saw a "tiny sliver hanging loose" from the underside of the right cerebellum. How does this help your case??? How??? A bullet entering the EOP site would have done far, far, far more damage to the cerebellum than merely causing a "tiny sliver" to hang loose. 

Sheesh, you must be kidding. I take it you didn't follow my suggestion to examine a brain diagram and to note where the cerebellum and the right occipital lobe are located in relation to the EOP. If the bullet entered the EOP site at a sharply downward angle, it may have just barely avoided physical contact with the right occipital lobe, but it could not have missed the cerebellum. The bullet's shock wave would have at least damaged part of the right occipital lobe, and the bullet itself would have torn through the cerebellum.

Furthermore, a bullet fired from the sixth-floor window would have entered JFK's skull at a downward angle of 15 degrees, which is not what one would usually consider to be a sharply downward angle. At that angle, or at any angle close to it, the bullet could not have avoided doing severe damage to the cerebellum and to the right occipital lobe, just as the HSCA FPP noted.

Incredibly, you appeal to Dr. Kemp Clark regarding the appearance of JFK's eyes. However, you also claim that Dr. Clark egregiously erred in describing substantial damage to the cerebellum! IOW, Dr. Clark could accurately describe JFK's eyes but he committed the stunning error of mistaking damage to the parietal lobe for damage to the cerebellum! Yeah, and just never mind that he was a neurosurgeon, and never mind that the cerebellum has a distinct appearance and is only located low behind the occiput!

This is a good example of your convoluted, contradictory, and dubious "explanations."

2 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

You're just flailing. It's embarrassing. Your arguments are pure nonsense. 

1. Sturdivan said he suspected the A-P fragment was an artifact--NOT real, and NOT on the back of the head.

2. I never said anything about a stray disc. This is a deliberate straw man argument designed to conceal that Mantik is simply out to lunch on a number of issues--in this case that the fragment in the archives should be the same size and shape as the fragment renamed at autopsy. He failed to do the homework. The original fragment was broken up for testing. 

I think you're the one who's flailing. Readers will notice that you keep ignoring many of my points.

As you surely know, Sturdivan says the 6.5 mm object is an artifact precisely because it has no partner image on the back of the skull in the lateral skull x-rays (The JFK Myths, p. 185). He notes that the partner image identified by the HSCA FPP on the lateral x-rays cannot be the lateral view of the 6.5 mm object because "it is not nearly light enough" (Ibid.) If the 6.5 mm object did not seem to be on the back of the head, this would be a pointless, invalid argument. This is why it is such a big deal that the 6.5 mm object has no partner image on the lateral x-rays. This is why this contradiction bothered and perplexed Dr. Fitzpatrick. I've pointed this out to you many times, but you keep ignoring it.

For weeks you kept claiming that Mantik does not place the 6.5 mm object in the back of the head, until I proved that he does. What is disturbing about this is that Mantik himself refuted your claim in his response to your critique several years ago, yet you repeated the false claim until I proved that Mantik already refuted it.

So you really should stop repeating the falsehood that the 6.5 mm object does not appear to be on the back of the head when this is the very reason that the lack of a partner image on the lateral x-rays is such a huge problem and such a big deal. 

In double-checking, I realized that, as you said, you do not posit a stray disk to explain the 6.5 mm object, but you do posit a drop of acid (fixing solution), which is even more problematic. Leaving aside the question of where a drop of acid would have come from in the first place, since when do drops of acid include a well-defined notch that disrupts an otherwise nearly perfectly round shape? The 6.5 mm object has a notch missing on its bottom right side (viewer’s right), but the rest of it is virtually perfectly circular (it looks perfectly circular on the AP x-ray). The fatal problem with the theory is that if the 6.5 mm object were caused by an acid drop, the x-ray film's emulsion would be visibly altered at this site, but the emulsion is completely intact (Mantik, JFK Assassination Paradoxes, p. 150).

So, yes, you are correct: You have not advanced the stray-disk theory. I stand corrected on that. Sturdivan has offered the theory as one of two explanations (the other being an acid drop), but you have not. However, this doesn't help your case any because the acid-drop theory is impossible. 

1 hour ago, Jeff Carter said:

more repetitive irrelevant long-debunked information. the above "factoid" is representative:

Antarctica:   a key node in a merry-go-round of circular reasoning. The idea that Prouty was forced, at the ARRB interview in 1996, to walk-back or retract his concepts of ”sinister motivation” sending him to Antarctica in November 1963 began with the ARRB panel, and has found eager vouching by a posse of contemporary critics including Griffiths, Litwin, and two guys with a podcast who prattled on about this issue for about 20 minutes back in August. None of these people actually know what they are talking about, and continued repetition of this pathetic talking point only underlines their ignorance.

I can identify at least five essays, as part of a record which dates back to the 1970s, in which Prouty discusses the trip. This is a representative example of a consistent presentation:

“I had worked for the U.S. Antarctic Projects Officer for many years. In fact I had received his congratulations in a valued letter of 2 July 1959 for work done then, more than four years earlier. The fact that I was working on another Antarctic project on Nov 22, 1963, was simply a part of my official military duties over the years.” (Prouty)

That is essentially what Prouty told the ARRB panel as well. The panel, in their Summary of the interview,  then claimed Prouty could not “back up the suspicions he mentioned in the excerpt from the book”. The “suspicions” constitute a brief non-definitive thought experiment influenced by the “JFK” film - which is the actual source of the “sinister motivation” concept referred (an example of the dramatic licence occasionally inserted into the script, as long acknowledged). The panel were entirely unaware Prouty was reiterating a longstanding and oft-stated account of his experience. The contemporary critics are not surprisingly also completely clueless on this matter, although it doesn’t prevent their insistence that Prouty engaged in a “climb-down”, a “retraction” or that “he finally admitted the claim was false in his ARRB interview”. 

Simply put,  reiterating a position which one has consistently held over many years does in no possible or conceivable way constitute a “climb-down”, a “retraction”, or an admission of “false” claims, and insisting it does does injury to commonly held definition and the factual record. It underscores the essential bad-faith by which these critics are operating, and establishes the poster responded to here is effectively trolling the Forum.

Your replies are what smack of bad faith. I've already proved in this thread that Prouty clearly suggested, in writing, that he was sent to the South Pole to keep him from intervening in the Dallas security arrangements. Prouty repeated this tale to Oliver Stone when he acted a consultant for Stone's 1991 movie JFK. This is why Oliver Stone included the claim in the movie.

It is amazing that you are pretending that Gibbons could not possibly have committed just a single blunder in a passing comment on a topic that was not even the subject of the paragraph or the book, but, according to you, every other historian who has ever written about the Tehran Conference has blundered by saying that Chiang did not attend the conference!  You're also saying that all those other historians have further blundered by not saying that Chiang and Stalin approved the Indochina trusteeship in Tehran. 

You have one source that supports Prouty's fable. I have literally hundreds that refute it. Yes, there was talk of a Chiang-Stalin meeting at one point, but, as I documented, both Chiang and Stalin eventually shot it down and in fact proved determined to avoid meeting. 

By the way, I recently stumbled across the video of another Prouty interview. He appeared on a TV show produced by anti-Semitic nutjob Lyndon LaRouche in 1992 (LINK). No sensible person in their right mind would have appeared on that show. 

Anyway, during the interview, from 2:40 to 3:29, Prouty claimed that he had pictures that corroborated his story that he flew the Chinese delegation to Tehran. Well, then, where are those pictures? Why didn't he ever publish them? Why didn't he include them in his book JFK: The CIA, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy? Huh? Why?

During that same segment of the interview, Prouty also said that he introduced Elliott Roosevelt to the Chinese delegation when he allegedly stopped at Habanaya Airport. Humm, well, then it is especially odd that Elliott said nothing about this noteworthy event in his extensive accounts of his experiences at the Cairo and Tehran conferences.

21 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

The EOP entry was rejected by the Clark Panel on down because there was no upwards path  ending at the large defect. They never looked down. We can presume, moreover, that they weren't allowed to, because that would mean a second shooter. 

Now I know you're gonna pretend there's no evidence a bullet went down the neck, but there is a massive amount of such evidence, which is widely discussed on my website. If you had actually read my chapters on the head wounds, you would know this. 

Oh, come on. You'd better take a minute and look at a diagram of the brain. If the bullet had entered the EOP at a sharply downward angle, it still could not have missed the right occipital lobe and the cerebellum. You must know this. You must be able to see this in any valid brain diagram. 

The EOP site was slightly above the EOP. So do tell me how in the world it could have missed the right occipital lobe. Look where the right occipital lobe is. Look at the EOP. Now tell me how a bullet entering just above the EOP, even at a sharply downward angle, could have missed the right occipital lobe. Not on this planet.

The FPP got this one right, and even Wecht saw the conflict between an EOP site and an undamaged cerebellum and an undamaged right occipital lobe.

And if the bullet were traveling sharply downward, how in the devil could it have left the cerebellum completely undamaged, without even causing any bleeding?! 

14 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

You really need to stop repeating Mantik's nonsense. 

The Fragment Fragment

Now, to be clear, on this particular point I concur with Dr. Mantik. He was apparently the first to notice it, he deserves credit for it, and he is absolutely correct--CE 843, the fragment Humes claimed he'd removed from behind Kennedy's eye, bears no resemblance to the club-shaped fragment so many assume he'd recovered from the forehead. In his essay 20 Conclusions After Nine Visits, Mantik writes that this is “One of the most shocking contradictions in the entire case.The shape of the larger piece of metal is nothing like the supposedly identical piece seen on the x-rays. No measurements taken on this piece can explain its bizarre transformation in shape. Most likely, it is not the piece taken from the skull…I saw only two, not three, at NARA. The largest, however, bears no resemblance to the corresponding image on the x-rays. The larger piece shown here is pancake shaped and was 107 mg. On the other hand the x-rays show a club shaped object—on both x-ray views. The studies done by the FBI on this object—spectrographic analysis and neutron activation analysis, required only a tiny amount at most, about 1 mg, according to one of the FBI experts…No one has offered an explanation for this flagrant discrepancy in shape of the largest piece. Sampling of the material is not an explanation. The possibility of substitution of fragments, an issue actually raised by the neutron activation expert (Dr. Vincent Guinn), remains wide open.” While it might seem strange my quoting Mantik on this issue, seeing as I've repeatedly demonstrated his lack of credibility, it's not half as strange as Mantik's insisting the 7 by 2 fragment removed at autopsy is the fragment on the forehead on the x-rays, and then turning around and admitting that the fragment in the archives is not the fragment one sees on the forehead. Hmmm... I mean, before insinuating some sort of switcheroo had been performed, shouldn't it have occurred to him that maybe, just maybe, the fragment removed at autopsy was not the fragment on the forehead, but was a fragment removed from somewhere else? Hmmm... Perhaps even from where the doctors claimed it had been removed, from behind the right eye? I don't know. Just a thought...

In any event, Mantik was correct to mention Guinn. Guinn testified before the HSCA that the fragment he tested, and the fragment subsequently seen by Mantik, was much smaller than the original fragment. While the fragment entered into evidence by the FBI was 107 mg, the one tested by Guinn 15 years later was only 41.9 mg. Robert Frazier, the FBI ballistics expert, described the fragments to the Warren Commission as follows: “These fragments consisted of two pieces of lead, one weighed 1.65 grains. (107 mg) The other weighed .15 grains. They were examined spectrographically so their present weight would be somewhat less since a very small amount would be needed for spectrographic analysis.”

HSCA Chief Counsel Robert Blakey, however, followed up on Guinn’s comments and was able to find out that the size of the fragment used in the spectrographic tests was 32.045 mg, not as large as the original fragment, and not as large as the remaining fragment. This means the FBI broke up the fragment and destroyed or lost more than 60% of its mass! The reasons for this are not clear. Since these spectrographic tests were done before Frazier’s testimony, moreover, this means the photographs of CE 843 entered into evidence during his testimony showed only the remaining fragment. This, then, explains the discrepancy noted by Mantik.

But not really. When one reflects back on Mantik’s description of the fragment as “pancake-shaped,” and considers the size and shape of the fragment apparent in the forehead, it seems likely that the original-full-sized CE 843 looked nothing like the club-shaped fragment apparent in the forehead, and bore a much greater resemblance to the fragment found behind the eye on the x-rays.

Enter John Hunt. At the 2003 assassination conference put on by Dr. Cyril Wecht, researcher John Hunt shared photos he’d recently uncovered at the National Archives, including photos taken by the FBI of the bullet fragments prior to testing. These photos revealed a much larger fragment than the one entered into evidence by Frazier, with a rounded edge on the far side of the fragment, and a bite out of the near side. Intriguingly, the shadow of this bite approximates the shape of the bite visible on the x-ray fragment. Intriguingly, when one rotates the fragment in one's mind, so that the bite appears in the 5 o'clock position of the bite apparent on the x-ray, a small shelf of lead is lifted towards the top of the fragment when seen from the side, precisely where such a shelf is visible on the lateral x-ray. When one looks at the fragment in the photo, and compares it to the shape of the forehead fragment apparent on the A-P x-ray, moreover, it’s clear that the fragment in the photo is too thick to be the club-shaped fragment on the x-ray. As a result it seems almost certain that this fragment is the large fragment seen on the x-ray, and that it was found behind the right eye, exactly as claimed by Humes.

One finds support for this possibility, moreover, in the most surprising of places. In Larry Sturdivan's 2005 book The JFK Myths, he recounts his 2004 visit to the Archives to view the Kennedy autopsy materials. When discussing the supposed 6.5 mm fragment on the x-rays, which Sturdivan believes is an artifact, he offers "The disk was not as nearly circular as it appears on the view printed in the HSCA report. The edges are irregular, with the 'bite' being merely the largest indentation in the irregular, jagged margin."

So, what Sturdivan thought was an artifact and what others believed was a "slice," was actually irregular--and thereby more likely to have been lead as opposed to the rounded slice of copper and lead presumed by most theorists.

Not that Mantik will acknowledge this, of course. In his 2011 review of this website, Mantik asked himself "Has Speer explained the discrepancy between the 7 x 2 mm fragment (seen on the x-rays) and the quite different fragment in evidence at NARA?" He then responded by claiming that John Hunt has "discovered that only 2 mg was actually taken for spectroscopy. This is only a tiny fraction of the original mass (106.92 mg) of the larger fragment." Well, beyond his continuing to call the club-shaped fragment the 7 x 2 fragment, when this fragment was not in the location of the 7 x 2 fragment recovered at the autopsy, Mantik misled his readers on a crucial point. The fragment currently at NARA is not 104.92 mg, as suggested by Mantik, but 41.9 mg. The fragment used in the spectrographic tests was 32.05 mg. This suggests then that the 106.92 mg fragment recovered by the FBI was broken into pieces.

Well, think about it. The break-up of this fragment, regardless of the reason, offers us a reasonable explanation for why the bullet fragment in the most recent archives photos fails to match its appearance on the x-rays.

The bulk of the evidence, then, suggests that the 7 by 2 measurement given for the largest fragment recovered at the autopsy referred to an irregular fragment found behind the eye that appeared to be roughly 7 mm in diameter and 2 mm thick on the x-rays, and not a thin stake found in the middle of the forehead that was 7 mm long by 2 mm in width, as Dr. Mantik continues to claim.

This fragment was then cut into pieces. For testing. Which is why it no longer gives the appearance it once did. It all makes sense.

 

No, it does not all make sense. It's nonsense. I already answered most of these arguments in the thread on Landis's disclosure and the 6.5 mm object, yet you've repeated them without addressing the objections I raised to them.

First off, you keep ignoring the hard science of the OD measurements, the two independent sets of OD measurements done by Dr. Mantik and Dr. Chesser. Those measurements prove that the object is not metallic. This means it's not a bullet, and it's not a stray disk. It's a ghosted image that was placed over the image of a smaller genuine back-of-head fragment that measures 6.3 mm x 2.5 mm. Dr. Mantik was even able to duplicate how the image was created. 

Anyone can look at the CE 843 fragments and see that they look nothing like the fragments that Humes handled and measured. There is no way those fragments were ever a 7x2 mm fragment and a 3x1 mm fragment. Not one of them looks like what someone would describe as "irregular," not to mention that they're not 7x2 mm and 3x1 mm. Nor could the CE 843 fragments have formed the 6.5 mm object, especially given the fact that the object is not metallic.

When you repeat your convoluted explanation, you really should inform readers that not a single medical expert has identified your slice object as a bullet fragment, and that your entire theory stands or falls on your assumption that the slice object was metallic. Your theory also requires that the slice object is the lateral view of the 6.5 mm object, and that it is the fragment that Humes said was the largest fragment he removed, even though, as I've proved, Humes made it crystal clear that the largest fragment he removed, handled, and measured was 7x2 mm. 

But if the slice object is the partner image of the 6.5 mm object, i.e., if it's the lateral view of the 6.5 mm object, then the small bullet fragment in the back of the head on the lateral x-rays has no partner image, a physical impossibility. You keep avoiding this problem. 

Your theory further requires us to believe that Humes saw the 6.5 mm object on the AP x-ray but somehow committed the incomprehensible blunder of mistaking it for an irregularly shaped 7x2 mm object, even though the 7x2 mm fragment and the 6.5 mm object are both clearly visible on the AP x-ray.

Your theory also requires us to believe that the 6.5 mm object is near the right orbit, but the vast majority of experts who've studied the x-rays place the object in the back of the head. 

You cite Sturdivan on the 6.5 mm object's appearance but ignore the fact that he puts the object in the back of the head, which destroys your convoluted theory. Speaking of the 6.5 mm object's appearance, here's what Dr. Fitzpatrick said about it:

          He opined that the 6.5 mm radio-opaque object in the A-P skull X-Ray looked "almost as if it had been machined off or cut off of a bullet. (ARRB meeting report, 2/29/96, p. 4)

Yes, indeed. The object certainly looks neatly circular on the AP x-ray, even in enlargements of the AP x-ray. But, if it really is not perfectly circular but is just generally circular, then that refutes your theory that the object is a stray disk that was lying on the table when the AP x-ray was taken. The stray-disk theory is implausible anyway, for the reasons I explained in the thread on Landis and the 6.5 mm object.