Michael Griffith

It's really quite simple. 1. The doctors and a number of observers said they removed a large fragment from behind the right eye. 2. There is a fragment behind the right eye on the lateral x-ray that matches up with the location of the so-called 6.5 mm fragment on the A-P x-ray. I can't believe you are saying this stuff. I am starting to wonder about your motive. First off, the fragment behind the right eye on the lateral x-rays does **not** match the location of the 6.5 mm object on the AP x-ray. What in the world are you talking about? You can't be serious. The fragment behind the right eye on the lateral x-rays is the 7x2 mm fragment seen on the AP x-ray. You keep ignoring the all-important, determinative fact that on the AP x-ray the 6.5 mm object is below and to the right of the 7x2 mm fragment. You cannot tell me with a straight face that you can't see this on the AP x-ray. Here's a copy of that x-ray with the two objects' locations noted by arrows: LINK. Look at it, Pat. The 6.5 mm object and the 7x2 mm fragment are two different objects. A child can see this. And Humes said he removed the largest fragment, which he specified was the 7x2 mm fragment. 3. The doctors said as well that they removed some smaller fragments from right next to this large fragment. Yes, and "this large fragment" is the 7x2 mm fragment. I already quoted Humes explaining to the ARRB that the 6.5 mm object was much larger than any of the fragments he removed. The autopsy report says he removed two fragments, 7x2 mm and 3x1 mm, and says nothing about a 6.5 mm fragment. Humes could not possibly have missed the 6.5 mm object on the AP x-ray if it had been there during the autopsy. 4. There are small fragments next to the fragment behind the right eye on the lateral x-ray. Yes, and the fragment behind the right eye is the 7x2 m fragment. The 6.5 mm object is in the outer table of the skull on the back of the head, as 27 experts have confirmed, including all members of the Clark Panel, the HSCA medical panel, and the ARRB medical panel. 5. Lattimer claimed the large fragment removed at autopsy can be seen on the x-rays...inches away...in the middle of the forehead. Wecht et al followed his lead. As did Mantik... You are simply ignoring facts that refute your argument and just keep repeating your argument. Again, Mantik has made it crystal clear that the 6.5 mm object is in the back of the head. Again, for the umpteenth time, and as Mantik has repeatedly noted, this is why it is such a big deal that the lateral x-rays contain no companion image (in the back of the head or anywhere else) for the 6.5 mm object. 6. But there are no small fragments adjacent to this forehead fragment. Oh, come on. There is only one fragment near the 6.5 mm object, and that is the McDonnel fragment. There are fragments inside the 6.5 mm object, but only one near it, and they are all in the back of the head. Again, 27 experts have confirmed that the 6.5 mm object is in the back of the head. 7. It seems clear, moreover, that much of the confusion stems from the fact these are 3 dimensional objects, and the measurements provided by the doctors were 2-D. In such case a large object 8 x 2 x 10 can be mistaken for a much smaller object 8 x 2 x 1. The first object is ten times larger and yet they can both be described as 8 x 2. The only confusion is with you. 27 experts, who come from both sides of the fence, agree that the 6.5 mm object is in the back of the head. Plus, OD measurements have erased all doubt about the 6.5 mm object and the small fragment inside it. 8. My irritation with Mantik stems in part from his deceptiveness on this issue. He has repeatedly told his audience that the forehead fragment is the fragment removed at autopsy, even though he claimed in his earliest writings that the fragment in the archives is not the forehead fragment on the x-rays. He is familiar with John Hunt's work, moreover, and knows full well that Hunt obtained an image of the archives fragment before it it was broken up by the FBI, and that the fragment on this image is consistent with the large fragment on the x-ray. Are you just going to keep going around and around with this stuff? Go read Mantik's writings for the last 10 years. Read his last three books. He notes that a major indication of fraud is that the lateral x-rays show no image in the back of head, or anywhere else, that corresponds with the 6.5 mm object seen in the AP x-ray. You are either severely misrepresenting Mantin's views or you have severely misunderstood them. As far as the x-ray images being inconsistent with M/C ammunition, that's just not true. While a lead snowstorm is normally associated with hunting ammunition, a full-metal jacket bullet striking tangentially will explode and leave a lead snowstorm. I have seen it argued, moreover, that the fragments in the so-called trail of fragments on Kennedy's x-ray are larger than would be expected if the bullet had been hunting ammunition. If so, it may be that the trail of fragments is proof of a FMJ bullet, not proof against. Nonsense. I'm almost led to suspect that you are a closet lone-gunman theorist. Not a single one of the FMJ bullets in the WC ballistics tests left a snowstorm of tiny fragments. Not one. Furthermore, you ignored my point that the main point of this thread is that the back-of-head fragments--the one in the galea and the one in the outer table--could not have come from FMJ ammo, for the reasons that Sturdivan explained regarding the 6.5 mm object's origin. Forensic Science and President Kennedy's Head Wounds

Crickets from WC apologists. Yet, they will continue to advance the lone-gunman theory and will continue to argue that the ballistics evidence supports the theory. They will also continue to maintain articles on their websites that either ignore or reject Dr. Young's account. They ignore or reject Dr. Young's account because it destroys the lone-gunman theory. They tell themselves that even though his account seems eminently and entirely credible, and even though Chief Mills confirmed it, it simply "must" be wrong. They assure themselves that Dr. Young and the two Navy corpsmen simply "must" have seen a small fragment and mistakenly described it as a deformed bullet, even though they said the bullet was in the back of the limo, not the front (where CE 567 and 569 were found).

This is just so sad, and rather unsavory. You're calling Rothmiller a fraud because your mythical version of the Kennedy brothers and JFK's death cannot accommodate the explosive and revealing information that Rothmiller has disclosed from the OCID files and from other sources. You guys will swallow the demonstrably bogus, and often nutty, claims of a fringe fraud like Fletcher Prouty, because he supports your fantasies about the assassination, but you reject a genuine good guy like Rothmiller, who is on your side on most issues, because you don't like what he has to say about JFK and RFK. If you would read Rothmiller and Thompson's book, you would learn that Rothmiller does not claim that Marilyn died "almost instantly" from the drink that Bobby gave her. He says Lawford believed that Marilyn was dead by the time he and RFK left her house. You would have known know this if you had the read the book before rushing to attack it. There most certainly is evidence that supports Rothmiller's claims. If you'd break down and read the book, with an open mind, you'd see how much evidence McGovern doesn't even address, and how he nit-picks and misrepresents other evidence. I'm wondering if you are aware that McGovern is--how can I phrase this?--an intensely devout, passionately adoring fan of Marilyn Monroe. Have you checked out his home page? He goes so far as to question whether Marilyn had affairs with JFK and Bobby. Indeed, he claims "there's no credible evidence" that she had affairs with JFK and RFK. "No credible evidence"??? Seriously??? That is ridiculous. McGovern even expresses doubt that Marilyn slept with a large number of men, despite the veritable mountain of evidence that she was extremely promiscuous. Were you aware of McGovern's worship and adoration of Marilyn when you read his review of Rothmiller and Thompson's book? Surely you noticed that in his review, McGovern makes it clear that he is very upset with how the book portrays Marilyn. Even though the book says many nice things about her, it also discusses her affairs with JFK and RFK and the fact that she slept with many other men. In short, you are relying on a review written by a worshipful fan who is so blinded by his adoration of Marilyn that he can't admit that she had affairs with JFK and RFK and slept with many other men. Devout, passionate, adoring Marilyn Monroe fans don't like Bombshell because it talks about Marilyn's promiscuity and drug problems. Go to their websites and you'll see that their reaction to the book has been almost universally negative, and many of them rely on fellow Marilyn devotee McGovern's review. @James DiEugenioGary Vttacco Robles, in his new book Icon, part 2 shows that her house was never bugged. It was an old house that had been rewired by the phone company. Really? Then where'd the CIA get transcripts of phone calls to/from her house? You realize that Otash admitted to bugging and wiring her house, right? You know that Thompson actually interviewed Otash, right? You really should break down and read Rothmiller and Thompson's book before you make more invalid claims. @James DiEugenioIf anyone is an amateur on that case it was Jeremy. And so is Doug Thompson. Oh, boy. So now you are attacking Jeremy Kuzmarov, as well as, of course, Doug Thompson. Their qualifications dwarf yours. You really cannot expect to be taken seriously when you continue to ardently defend an extremist fraud like Fletcher Prouty and continue to praise and cite his bogus, discredited claims. Personally, I would not be caught dead praising and quoting a guy who spoke at a Holocaust-denial conference, who appeared on Liberty Lobby's radio show 10 times in four years, who wrote a letter praising the goals of the IHR's Holocaust-denying journal, who attacked Church of Scientology whistleblowers, who defended L. Ron Hubbard, who spoke at a Liberty Lobby convention and co-chaired a panel with David Duke's VP candidate, who falsely claimed that he was sent to the South Pole so he wouldn't be able to help with security for JFK's Dallas motorcade, and who took seriously the nutty theories that Princess Diana was killed by the Secret Team and that Churchill had FDR poisoned, etc., etc. But that's just me. Folks, I again recommend watching the two interviews with Mike Rothmiller. I think you will see that he is a genuine, credible, and serious person. I also recommend the articles by Kuzmarov and Thompson. Here they are again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TW0Eqjs_Oo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cw6sti-AWkY (starts at 11:10 and ends at 1:10:49) https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9750993/Did-Bobby-Kennedy-murder-Marilyn-Monroe-poison.html https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/08/04/bombshell-sixty-years-after-her-death-new-evidence-suggests-marilyn-monroe-was-murdered-and-lapd-covered-up-murder/

Pat, come on. You must be kidding. The 7x2 mm fragment was the largest fragment in the skull at the autopsy, and it was removed from behind the right eye. This is further proof that the 6.5 mm object was neither in the skull nor on the x-rays during the autopsy. To believe otherwise, one would have to make the absurd assumption, which so far you are making, that the 7x2 mm fragment was the 6.5 mm object. A child can look at the AP x-ray and see that the 7x2 mm fragment is above and to the left of the 6.5 mm object, and that the 6.5 mm object is much larger than the 7x2 mm fragment. Anyone who is not legally blind can readily see this fact on the AP x-ray. Dr. Aguilar and RN Cunningham explain the appearance of the 6.5 mm object on the AP skull x-ray in relation to its horizontal location and the verbiage that it is seen "within the right orbit." They explain that, of course, the object is not actually in or near the right orbit but that it merely projects through the right orbit on the AP x-ray: It is visible on the “anterior-posterior” X-ray as a very dense, 6.5-mm object that sits squarely in the middle of the right bony eye socket, or “orbit.” This AP (Anterior-Posterior) X-Ray from JFK's autopsy shows a 6.5 mm notched circular object just left of the nose; this is alleged to be a cross-sectional fragment of the bullet which struck the head. Several implausibilities surround this object, as noted herein. Of course, the object is not really “in” the eye socket; it is in the rear of the skull. It just “projects” through the orbit on the X-ray which “sees” through all the layers at once. (https://www.history-matters.com/essays/jfkmed/How5Investigations/How5InvestigationsGotItWrong_6.htm) X-ray technician Edward Reed’s ARRB testimony is worth revisiting. Yes, Reed claimed that he saw the 6.5 mm object on the x-rays during the autopsy. However, Reed also said that he could identify the 6.5 mm object on the lateral x-rays and that it is just above the right supraorbital rim on the lateral x-rays (ARRB interview transcript, 10/21/97, p. 89). This is one big giveaway that Reed was either lying or badly mistaken. After studying the AP and lateral skull x-rays for many hours over the course of two days, Dr. Fitzpatrick, the ARRB forensic radiologist, saw no such object in the area of the right orbit on the lateral x-ray, nor did the two other ARRB forensic experts. Likewise, 24 other experts who’ve studied the x-rays have not seen the 6.5 mm object in the right-orbital area on the lateral x-ray. Because it's not there on the lateral x-rays, nor is it in the back of the head on the lateral x-rays. It's a ghosted image, as Dr. Mantik has proved with OD measurements--he was even able to duplicate how the image was added to the x-ray. Regarding Jerrol Custer, an analysis of his ARRB testimony shows that he did not necessarily say that he saw the 6.5 mm object during the autopsy. Even one WC apologist has admitted that Custer's comments are unclear and do not unequivocally say that he saw the object during the autopsy. Plus, in his many hours of conversation with Dr. Mantik about the autopsy x-rays, Custer never once mentioned that he saw the 6.5 mm object during the autopsy (Dr. Mantik has confirmed this to me in an email). Finally, three points bear repeating: One, the AP x-ray shows both the 7x2 mm fragment and the 6.5 mm object. The 7x2 mm fragment is above and to the left of the 6.5 mm object. So there is just no way that the 7x2 mm fragment, which Humes removed, is the 6.5 mm object. Two, two separate sets of OD measurements, one done by Dr. Mantik and the other done by Dr. Chesser, scientifically prove that the 6.5 mm object cannot be metallic and also prove that there is a 6.3 x 2.5 mm fragment within the 6.5 mm object. Three, regardless of where you want to believe the 6.5 mm object is located, this does not change the fact that the two back-of-head fragments could not have come from the kind of ammo that Oswald allegedly used.

Gil, you are self-evidently correct. But, WC apologists will never admit it. Similarly, they won't admit that the Zapruder film shows that JFK was obviously hit long before Z224 and that Connally clearly was not hit before Z231, just as Connally himself adamantly insisted. Anyone can view the Zapruder film and plainly and clearly see these things for themselves, but WC apologists refuse to acknowledge them.

You're repeating yourself about the large fragment and the 6.5 mm object and ignoring the reasons your argument is impossible. There is a fragment in the back of the head, but it is the 6.3 x 2.5 mm fragment within the 6.5 mm object. The 6.5 mm object is in the back of the head, but it is not a fragment. You keep dancing around this central point. No expert has disputed that there is a fragment in the back of the skull on the lateral x-rays, but it is not the companion image of the 6.5 mm object. You are either misrepresenting or are confused about Dr. Mantik's position on the location of the 6.5 mm object. As I've said, you can see in his writings that one of his main points about the object is that there is no companion image for it on the lateral x-rays but that there should be. This would be a silly, meaningless argument if the 6.5 mm object were near the right orbit. Similarly, if the 6.5 mm object were near the right orbit, there should be a companion image for it near the right orbit on the lateral x-rays. I don't know you can keep avoiding these central, obvious facts. And, no, Humes did not tell the ARRB that he saw the 6.5 mm fragment. Let's see what Humes said when he was specifically asked about the 6.5 mm object: _______________________________________ Page 212 Q. Dr. Humes, you're now looking at X-ray 5-B No. 1. I'd like to ask you whether you have previously seen that X-ray. A. I probably have. It's antero-posterior view of the skull and the jaw. . . . ________________________________________ Page 213 Q. Did you notice that what at least appears to be a radio-opaque fragment during the autopsy? A. Well, I told you we received one--we retrieved one or two, and--of course, you get distortion in the X-ray as far as size goes. The ones we retrieved I didn't think were of the same size as this would lead you to believe. Q. Did you think they were larger or smaller? A. Smaller. Smaller, considerably smaller. I mean, these other little things would be about the size of what--I'm not sure what that is or whether that's a defect. I'm not enough of a radiologist to be able to tell you. But I don't remember retrieving anything of that size. Q. Well, that was going to be a question, whether you had identified that as a possible fragment and then removed it. A. Truthfully, I don't remember anything that size when I looked at these films. They all were more of the size of these others. ________________________________________ The idea that Humes mistook the 6.5 mm object for the 7 x 2 mm fragment is ludicrous. You can see both objects on the AP x-ray. The 6.5 mm object is far bigger than the 7 x 2 mm fragment, as Humes explained to the ARRB. And, you're aware that Finck and Boswell both said they did not see the 6.5 mm object on the x-rays during the autopsy, right? Dr. Davis, one of the HSCA's forensic consultants, said the following about the 6.5 mm object's location--not having OD measurements available, he assumed it was a metal fragment and said it was imbedded in the outer table of the skull 3-4 cm above the lambda: There is a metallic fragment about 9 or 1O cm above the external occipital protuberance, which metallic fragment is apparently imbedded in the outer table of the skull. On the frontal view, this metallic fragment is located 2 .5 cm to the right of midline, and on the lateral view, it is approximately 3-4 cm above the lambda. (David O. Davis, "Examination of JFK Autopsy X-Rays," 7 HSCA 222, Addendum D)

Phew! Uh, no, he is not. You think the fringe fraud Fletcher Prouty is the gold standard on Vietnam and on Lansdale. You think the obscene propaganda film Hearts and Minds is the best documentary ever made on the Vietnam War. Have you even read Bombshell yet? I ask because you have a history of stridently attacking books that you haven't even read. And what's with your personal attacks on Mark Shaw? Mark is a wonderful, decent, and sincere person. He has uncovered significant new evidence about Dorothy Kilgallen's murder and about internal dissension within the Warren Commission. He has reached many audiences that you and other far-left researchers have not reached. I'm guessing that you call him names and dismiss his research because he believes the Mafia was the main force behind JFK's death and/or because he has discussed the darker side of JFK and RFK (even though he also says they did many noble things).

Pat, I am just baffled by your comments here. I fear you have severely misunderstood Dr. Mantik's position. If you read Dr. Mantik's writings, including his two most recent books, he unmistakably argues that the 6.5 mm object is in the back of the head. As he discusses, this is why it is such a big deal that the lateral x-rays contain no companion image for the 6.5 mm object. Are you perhaps getting confused over Dr. Mantik's observation that on the AP x-ray the 6.5 mm object is "seen within JFK's right orbit"? He's not saying that the object is in or near the right orbit in its horizontal position, but that on the AP x-ray this is where it appears because the AP x-ray is a straight-on front-to-back view that does not show the object's horizontal location within the skull. Again, this is why it is such a big deal that the lateral x-rays do not show a companion image for the 6.5 mm object. If the 6.5 mm object were near the right orbit, then it would not matter that there's no such object in the back of the head on the lateral x-rays. Plus, if the 6.5 mm object were near the right orbit, there would be a companion image for the object in this location on the lateral x-rays, but there is none. Remember that Humes told the ARRB that he did not see the 6.5 mm object. He specifically noted that he did not see a fragment nearly as big as the 6.5 mm object. The largest fragment he saw was the 7 x 2 mm fragment behind the right orbit, which he removed. The next-largest fragment was the 3 x 1 mm fragment, which he also removed. Anyway, the main point of this thread is that the two back-of-head fragments could not have come from the kind of ammo that Oswald allegedly used.

Here is an extensive article on Monroe's death written by liberal scholar and Tulsa University professor Jeremy Kuzmarov for Covert Action Magazine that views and uses Rothmiller as a credible source and that presents evidence that supports Rothmiller's account: https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/08/04/bombshell-sixty-years-after-her-death-new-evidence-suggests-marilyn-monroe-was-murdered-and-lapd-covered-up-murder/ Here are segments of a review of Bombshell posted on the popular book-review blog Jaffareadstoo: Mike Rothmiller served for ten years with the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and during that time he had access to certain secret files and from the knowledge gleaned from the files and from first hand testimonies and private diary entries he makes his case that Robert Kennedy, who was then, Attorney General, was responsible for Marilyn Monroe's death. That there are dark secrets in the life of this enigmatic actress have long been known but the authors make a convincing case of presenting their new evidence in a consistent and believable manner. The book is complex as any investigation into an unexplained death must be and the authors give a comprehensive account of all those who featured in Marilyn's tragically short life, from the US security systems which were in place to trace her every move, to the men, in authority, and in the celebrity spotlight, who exploited and abused Marilyn for their own sexual gratification, and ultimately to the most powerful family in America, the Kennedys, who had so much to lose if Marilyn Monroe carried through her threat to expose them. Mike Rothmiller's argument that Robert Kennedy was responsible for Marilyn's Monroe's death is convincing and sheds a whole new light onto what happened on August 4th and 5th, 1962. You can read the whole review here: https://jaffareadstoo.blogspot.com/2021/07/publication-day-book-review-bombshell.html. And here is a long, informative article on Bombshell by co-author Doug Thompson published in the UK newspaper the Daily Mail--the article provides a good summary of the book and includes information not mentioned in the book: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9750993/Did-Bobby-Kennedy-murder-Marilyn-Monroe-poison.html For those who don't know who Doug Thompson is, he is an internationally respected writer and journalist who has written or collaborated on best-selling biographies of famous Hollywood figures. He is a regular contributor to newspapers all over the world. Four of his books are now being developed for TV, while another is being developed into a theatrical play. His book on the Muslim Brotherhood received wide praise. and was a sensation in the Arab world when it was published in Arabic. After spending many hours with Rothmiller going over every aspect of his story, Thompson became convinced that Rothmiller was "solid and credible."

Yes, Summers does believe that RFK was in LA that day. In fact, he says RFK was one of the last people to see her alive that day. However, he also believes her death was suicide or possibly accidental OD. As Mark Shaw notes, to make that conclusion seem more credible, Summers ignores the evidence that Marilyn was not suicidal that day, that her career was on the upswing again, and that her actions that day did not indicate an intention to commit suicide (e.g., she went shopping for new furniture). Dorothy Kilgallen knew her well and just a few days before Marilyn's death, Kilgallen saw no indication that she was suicidal--Kilgallen later said the whole story about Marilyn's death had not been told.

You must be kidding. How you could call McGovern's emotional-fan hit piece a "demolition" is beyond me. Have you even read Bombshell? Yes, folks, do go read McGovern's "demolition" and then read Bombshell and watch the two YouTube interviews with Rothmiller that I've posted in the OP, and then make up your own minds. Oh, Lawford said something different to the authorities! Well, uh, yes, of course he did! What kind of grade-school argument is this? Gee, O'Donnell told the WC that he only heard shots from behind! Case closed, right? And, yes, Bobby was in Los Angeles that day. In your upcoming "decimating review" of Shaw's presentation in Allen, Texas, are you going to deal with the evidence that Rothmiller, Thompson, and Shaw present in their books that RFK was in LA that day? Are you aware that a former LAPD official and a former LAPD police officer admitted in their memoirs that RFK was in LA that day? I suspect your promised "decimating review" will be as misleading and ideologically driven as your ridiculous "review" of Selverstone's book The Kennedy Withdrawal. So you buy the suicide/accidental overdose claim??? I suppose Dorothy Kilgallen accidentally overdosed as well, right? It is quite sad and odd to see you attacking genuine good guys like Mike Rothmiller and Mark Shaw. You attack any authors who do not subscribe to your abject worship of JFK and RFK as ultra-liberal saviors, no matter how sincere and credible they are, and even if they acknowledge that JFK and RFK did many good things.

I can't believe you're saying this nonsensical stuff. Did Mantik offend your grandmother or something? What is with your seemingly pathological refusal to acknowledge the crucial, historic nature of his research and your seemingly reflexive urge to disagree with him even when he is obviously right? Your argument about Humes and the largest fragment is sheer poppycock. Humes said the largest fragment was the 7x2 mm fragment that he removed behind the right eye. The 7x2 mm fragment obviously, clearly, and self-evidently is **not** the largest fragment seen on the AP x-ray. A child can see this, for crying out loud. The 6.5 mm object is the largest "fragment" on the AP x-ray. You can see the 7x2 mm fragment and the 6.5 mm object on the AP x-ray. A child can see that they are separate objects. What in the world are you talking about? Similarly, your argument about the whiteness of objects in relation to the 6.5 mm object and the lack of a companion object on the lateral x-rays is just baffling and erroneous. Dr. Fitzpatrick was deeply troubled by the fact that the lateral x-rays show no companion image for the 6.5 mm object on the AP x-ray. He was so troubled that he took an extra day to examine the x-rays to see if he could detect a companion image for the 6.5 mm object. He certainly didn't think that it was no big deal that the whiteness of the 6.5 mm object is not seen in the small fragment on the lateral x-rays. Let's read what he said again: Although there is a mere trace of some additional density near the fragment bilocation at the vertex of the skull, the consultant did not feel this object was anywhere near the density/brightness required for it to correspond to the bright, radio-opaque object on the A-P X-Ray. Fitzpatrick also rejected your curious argument that the other, smaller fragment in the area behind the right orbit is the companion image for the 6.5 mm object. And we're not just talking about whiteness anyway. We're talking about the established science of optical density (OD) measurement. Multiple OD measurements done separately by Mantik and Chesser confirm that the 6.5 mm object is not metallic, but that within the object there is a 6.3 x 2.5 mm metal fragment. We're talking hard science here. Are you saying that Mantik and Chesser fabricated their OD measurements, that Mantik was merely seeing things when he examined the 6.5 mm object under high magnification? Speaking of which, we're also talking about high-magnification analysis. Mantik examined the x-rays under high magnification, and when he did so he was able to see the 6.3 x 2.5 mm fragment within the 6.5 mm object. Then, he confirmed his high-magnification analysis with OD measurements, and Dr. Arthur Haas, chief of medical physics at Kodak at the time, reviewed Mantik's OD measurements and findings and saw no problem with them. According to you, the 27 medical experts who say that the 6.5 mm object is in the back of the head are wrong, and you are right. And how about the McDonnel fragment? Are you going to tell me that it, too, somehow is actually in the front of the skull, even though McDonnel specified that it is in the galea in the back of the head?

Why is that? Even some good people can do terrible things if they feel they have no choice. Marilyn was going to hold a press conference in a few days and expose her affairs with RFK and JFK. Her intention to do so was captured by some of the mics planted in her house, as confirmed by a CIA memo. Lawford told Rothmiller that Marilyn said she would hold the press conference on the following Monday. This disclosure would have ruined JFK's presidency and ended Bobby's career--both of them would almost certainly would have had to resign. You don't think that Bobby, who was known to have a dark and volatile side, would have felt he had no alternative but to silence Monroe, given what was at stake? Lawson explained to Rothmiller that he and Bobby tried to talk Marilyn out of going public, and that she and Bobby argued so heatedly that the argument turned violent. It was after the physical confrontation, said Lawford, that Bobby stirred something into a drink that he gave to her. Lawford said he assumed the drink was just a sedative to calm her down, but he realized it was much more when she passed out and then turned ashen gray. Then, said Lawford, two of Bobby's fixers showed up, and Bobby told Lawford they had to leave, and then the two fixers went inside the house. Lawford asked Bobby who the two men were, but he wouldn't tell him. If you read Rothmiller's book Bombshell, you'll discover that Rothmiller is one of the good guys, if you haven't already discerned this from watching the two interviews with him that I've posted. His exposure of the illegal activities of the LAPD's OCID in his 1992 book L.A. Secret Police led to the elimination of the division. He also called out the LAPD for its systemic racism in his book. If you've watched the two YouTube interviews, you know he's also very critical of the CIA. Soon after Rothmiller met with Lawford, OCID tried to assassinate Rothmiller, and the LAPD shamefully harassed him and his family after he recovered from the assassination attempt. The LAPD also tried to deny him a medical retirement settlement, but luckily the judge who heard his appeal sided with him and roundly condemned the LAPD for how it had treated him.

Here is another good interview with Mike Rothmiller about his research and book on RFK's role in Marilyn Monroe's death. Part of it deals with Sinatra and the Mafia. This one includes a Q&A with callers. Very interesting stuff. It's from an appearance earlier this year on the radio show Coast to Coast AM: LINK (starts at 11:10 and ends at 1:10:49)

Well, it is a confession, reported by the person who heard it. I guess to anticipate such nit-picking, I should have said "Rothmiller reports that Lawford confessed to him." Read the book and then make up your mind.

Sigh. . . . Okay. . . . Those who don't want to believe the confession account will look for any reason to dismiss it. I find Rothmiller credible, serious, and objective. He is not anti-Kennedy. He's very critical of the CIA. He comes across as calling things as he sees them without a preconceived agenda.

Lawford made this admission to Rothmiller. Listen to the segment in the interview--the segment starts at about 17:15 and runs for about 10 minutes. I know it is very sad to learn this about RFK. Very sad. I almost don't want to talk about it, but it is important and sheds light on what was going on behind the scenes and things that could have contributed to JFK's death.

Pat, you are sadly and badly mistaken here. Here is a list of the medical experts who have examined the autopsy skull x-rays and have determined that the 6.5 mm object is not behind the right eye but is at the back of the head, where Dr. Mantik places it: -- The four members of the Clark Panel (Dr. Carnes, Dr. Fisher, Dr. Morgan, and Dr. Moritz) -- The nine members of the HSCA medical panel (Dr. Weston, Dr. Loquvam, Dr. Coe, Dr. Petty, Dr. Spitz, Dr. Rose, Dr. Wecht, Dr. Baden, and Dr. Joseph Davis) -- Dr. David O. Davis (not to be confused with HSCA medical panel member Dr. Joseph Davis) -- Dr. Lattimer -- Dr. McDonnel -- Dr. Chesser -- Dr. Aguilar -- Dr. Henkelmann -- The three ARRB forensic experts (Dr. Fitzpatrick, Dr. Ubelaker, and Dr. Kirschner) -- Dr. Randy Robertson (radiologist) -- Dr. Larry Sturdivan (HSCA wound ballistics consultant) -- Kathy Cunningham (RN) -- Dr. Eric Haubner (MD) Dr. Fitzpatrick, the ARRB's forensic radiology consultant, acknowledged that the small back-of-head fragment on the lateral x-rays is not the companion image of the 6. 5mm object, and that the small fragment behind the right eye is not the companion image either: No object directly and clearly corresponding to the bright, 6.5 mm wide radio-opaque object in the A-P X-Ray could be identified by the consultant on the lateral skull X-Rays. Although there is a mere trace of some additional density near the fragment bilocation at the vertex of the skull, the consultant did not feel this object was anywhere near the density/brightness required for it to correspond to the bright, radio-opaque object on the A-P X-Ray. After briefly speculating that the small metallic density behind the right eye in the lateral X-Rays might correspond to the bright radio-opaque density in the A-P X-Ray, this idea was abandoned because neither the locations nor the density/brightness of the 2 objects are consistent. Furthermore, regardless of where you want to believe the 6.5 mm object is, nobody denies that the lateral x-rays show a small bullet fragment in the rear of the skull. Also, the main point of the OP for this thread is that the 6.3 x 2.5 m fragment and the McDonnel fragment at the back of the head cannot have come from the kind of ammo that Oswald allegedly used.

He starts talking about Lawford's confession at about 17:15. His discussion on the confession lasts for nearly 10 minutes.

As some here probably know, in 2021, a serious, credible author, Mike Rothmiller (with Doug Thompson), published the book Bombshell: The Night Bobby Kennedy Killed Marilyn Monroe. Rothmiller makes a strong case that Robert F. Kennedy had Marilyn Monroe murdered because she was about to go public with her affairs with him and JFK. Rothmiller worked for years in the LAPD's Organized Crime Intelligence Division. Because of his position and contacts, he gained access to important new information about Marilyn's death. Here is an extended interview with Rothmiller about his book and how he obtained the new information included therein, which includes a confession from Peter Lawford [given to Rothmiller himself]: LINK. (He also talks about the RFK and JFK cases, Oswald, LAPD intelligence ops, and the CIA.) [Here is another interview with Rothmiller: LINK, starts at 11:10 and ends at 1:10:49. This interview provides more background on Rothmiller's career and on his research on Marilyn Monroe's death, and it includes info on Frank Sinatra and the Mafia.] After having a brief affair with JFK, Marilyn began having a more serious, prolonged affair with RFK. At one point, RFK told her he would leave his wife and marry her, but Marilyn soon realized this was not going to happen. Furious at being dumped first by JFK and then by RFK, she decided she would go public with her affairs with JFK and RFK. She made the serious mistake of angrily warning RFK that she was about to go public. We know the CIA was aware of Marilyn's affairs with the Kennedy brothers and knew about her threat to reveal the affairs to the press. Marilyn's house had been bugged, with mircophones planted in nearly every room. The CIA was also aware of the contents of the recordngs from those microphones, as a CIA document reveals. The FBI may have been behind the bugging of her house. Also, evidence suggests that the Mafia may have been aware of the affairs and may have known or suspected that Bobby was involved in Marilyn's death. Undoubtedly, when the plotters learned that RFK had murdered Marilyn Monroe, they saw this as strong justification for killing JFK, since JFK may have known or suspected that Marilyn had been murdered, and since JFK may have known or suspected that RFK was involved in her death. They knew that if they killed RFK, JFK would leave no stone unturned in pursuing his killers, but that if they killed JFK, this would neutralize RFK and would be, in their eyes, justified revenge for RFK's killing of Marilyn Monroe. Rothmiller's book goes well beyond Mark Shaw's research on Marilyn Monroe's death (included in Collateral Damage, Denial of Justice, and Fighting for Justice). However, I recommend that interested readers also read Shaw's research on the subject, since he presents a few items of information not found in Rothmiller's book. I should add that Rothmiller acknowledges that JFK and RFK did "many great things." He speaks favorably about their policies and achievements. He says he is sad to have to discuss RFK's crime and wishes RFK had not done it.

Regarding Dale Myers' scholarship on the Tippit shooting, you might be interested in my 33-page critique of his book With Malice: Did Oswald Shoot Tippit? A Review of Dale Myers' Book With Malice

I think RFK Jr. would be safer if he had Secret Service protection. I think the Secret Service is better than it was in 1963. Obviously, RFK Jr. himself thinks he'd be safer with Secret Service protection, or else he would not have asked for it. Ronald Reagan's Secret Service detail saved his life when John Hinckley tried to kill him in March 1982. I happen to know a Secret Service agent and two former agents from other agencies who did presidential protection work. They are all men of good character who would never take part in any illicit operation to allow someone to be harmed.

The 6.5 mm object is not a large fragment. It is a ghosted image that was superimposed over the 6.3 x 2.5 mm fragment. This is why there is no fragment that corresponds to the 6.5 mm object on the lateral x-rays, which would be a physical impossibility if the object were metallic. Dr. Mantik confirmed that the 6.5 mm object is an artifact with high-magnification analysis and then with repeated optical-density (OD) measurements. Dr. Chesser did his own OD measurements, and his measurements confirmed Dr. Mantik's measurements. Dr. Mantik points out that the 6.3 x 2.5 mm fragment is only 3-4 mm thick but that the 6.5 mm object's OD measurement shows that it would be nearly 40 mm thick if it were actually metallic; in contrast, the 7 x 2 mm fragment is 2 mm thick on the lateral x-rays, which is consistent with its OD measurement of 1.44 (JFK Assassination Paradoxes, 2022, p. 24). In OD measurements, larger numbers mean less density, while smaller numbers mean more density. As mentioned, the 6.5 mm object's OD measurement is an impossible 0.60, 0.84 lower than that of the 7 x 2 mm fragment. Even more revealing, the OD measurement of the four dental fillings combined is 0.76, 0.16 higher than the 6.5 mm object's measurement. Thus, if the 6.5 mm object were a bullet fragment, it would be denser than all four dental fillings combined, an obvious impossibility and a clear indication of forgery. We should remember the fact that the 6.3 x 2.5 mm fragment and the 6.5 mm object are at the same vertical level, since the small fragment is actually inside the 6.5 mm object when viewed on the AP x-ray. Nobody knew that the small fragment is visible inside the 6.5 mm object until Dr. Mantik discovered this with high-magnification analysis--and then confirmed the fragment's existence with OD measurements. Placing the small fragment inside the 6.5 mm object ensured that the two objects would align vertically. This is important because if the 6.5 mm object were higher or lower than where it is now, it would not align vertically with the small fragment, and nobody would have ever identified the small fragment as the companion image of the 6.5 mm object, and the forgery of the 6.5 mm object would have been obvious. Dr. Mantik explains this point further: On the AP X-ray, the authentic metal fragment lay at the anatomic right side of the 6.5 mm object, but it was located entirely inside of the 6.5 mm object. In fact, it appeared that the darkroom worker had positioned his double-exposed 6.5 mm image to precisely match the (anatomic) right border of the authentic metal fragment. Furthermore, by doing so, he had guaranteed that the 6.5 mm image would not be left without a partner image on the lateral X-ray. On the other hand, if he had not matched the 6.5 mm image to an authentic metal fragment, the 6.5 mm object would have had no partner image on the lateral X-ray, and the forgery would have been obvious. (JFK Assassination Paradoxes, pp. 24-25) This vertical alignment was part of the reason that so many experts erroneously concluded that the two images were the same fragment/one fragment. For example, the HSCA medical panel noted that the AP x-ray shows the 6.5 mm object to be "in approximately the same vertical plane as in the above-described lateral view" (7 HSCA 109). The forgery of the 6.5 mm object was not perfect, but it was good enough to fool every expert who examined the x-rays for over three decades. The forgers should have created an object on the lateral x-rays that matched the 6.5 mm object in size, density, and brightness, but this would have required a more complicated double-exposure than the 6.5 mm object, and they may have assumed that placing the 6.5 mm object over the image of the small back-of-head fragment would suffice (it did for over three decades). Plus, the science of optical density analysis of x-rays was barely in its infancy in 1963, so the forgers had no idea that one day a radiation oncologist who also happened to be a physicist would detect their forgery with OD analysis.

@David Von Pein In reviewing our exchanges, I realized that my above-quoted reply did not give your argument proper credit. You were correct in noting that the fragments that I mentioned did not equal more than the weight of a 6.5 mm Carcano bullet. Although I did not include the Young bullet, the Landis bullet and/or both Landis fragments among the bullet material, my point that the fragments that I did list exceeded the weight of a Carcano bullet was incorrect. But that's the rub: If we include the Young bullet, the Landis bullet and/or the two Landis fragments, not to mention the large fragment that Custer reported to the ARRB, we have more bullet material than the lone-gunman theory can explain. Even if Landis only saw one fragment in the back seat, that fragment is fatal for the lone-gunman scenario. We know from forensic science and ballistics tests that FMJ bullets do not deposit fragments on the outside of a skull when they strike a skull. All the other fragments were found well forward of JFK. A fragment in the back seat could not have come from an FMJ bullet that struck JFK's head from behind. No such unprecedented behavior was seen in the WC's own ballistics tests. And then there's the fact that the two fragments in the back of the skull could not have come from an FMJ bullet.

Here is more of the evidence from Dr. Moyar’s book Triumph Forsaken that the war was going well from early 1962 until Diem was assassinated in November 1963. Much of this evidence addresses the myth that the war effort took a sharp downward turn in the summer of 1963, a few months before Diem’s death. Another [Communist] account explained, “With a network of outposts and strong points and a web of roads, airfields, and ‘strategic hamlets,’ the enemy was able to establish fairly tight control over Region 5. In the rural lowlands, our self-defense guerrillas and local force troops were few and weak.”[629] Concerning Cochinchina, meaning the Mekong Delta and the provinces surrounding Saigon, a Communist account stated that the Viet Cong had few full-time soldiers at this time, and noted that the Viet Cong troops were dispersed into small groups, which prevented them from defeating government forces engaged in either mobile operations or the construction of strategic hamlets.[630] Le Quoc San, the Communist commander in the upper Mekong Delta for most of the war, remembered that the Viet Cong were hurting badly in Ben Tre province, which had been one of the most troublesome provinces for the government since the Ben Tre insurrection in January 1960. By the middle of 1963, the government had established 195 strategic hamlets across Ben Tre. “Our Party members and guerrillas who had previously lived with and been close to the people,” explained Le Quoc San “were now driven out and forced to return to conducting secret operations or to living in the fields in bushes and on riverbanks. District and provincial local force troops could no longer rely on the people. Without this support, they were forced to disperse to conduct low-level operations, evading the enemy’s constant sweep operations and patrols.”[631] These developments reinforced the pessimism that had taken hold during the middle of 1962 in Hanoi. In a prominent Party journal, a senior North Vietnamese official named Minh Tranh wrote that the Americans and the South Vietnamese government “resort to all shrewd and cruel measures” and therefore “the South Vietnamese revolution must go along a long, arduous and complicated path.” The fighting capabilities of Diem’s forces, he predicted gloomily, “will not diminish during 1963 but can grow even fiercer.”[632] After 1963 had come and gone, Halberstam, Sheehan, and other reporters would claim that South Vietnam’s counterinsurgency efforts crumbled over the course of 1963, up until the end of October, and that they had been aware of the crumbling at the time.[633] It was a myth crafted afterwards to justify their support of the disastrous November coup. . . . Albert Fraleigh, one of the top U. S. advisers to the strategic hamlet program, received frequent visits from Halberstam, Sheehan, and other correspondents. On many occasions, Fraleigh discussed with them the achievements of the strategic hamlet program, but they showed no interest in such topics because they quite obviously were not seeking positive information about the Diem government. “Halberstam and Sheehan were always looking for glaring errors on the South Vietnamese side,” Fraleigh explained.[634] Major General Edward Rowny recalled from firsthand experience that some journalists, especially Halberstam, “were more interested in pursuing their own political agendas than they were in reporting on the military situation.” After Halberstam and Rowny accompanied one operation that resulted in combat with the Viet Cong, Halberstam wrote an article stating that the government troops had performed poorly and blaming their ineffectiveness on the unpopularity of Madame Nhu. Rowny told Halberstam, “You know, Dave, that the operation was rather successful. And whether it was or not had nothing to do with Madame Nhu. The soldiers don’t even know who she is.” Halberstam replied, “Ed, the readers don’t want to read anything about these military skirmishes. What they are interested in is the Dragon Lady.”[635] (pp. 209-210) But what is most significant is that Catholics did not come close to dominating the Diem government, not even at the highest levels. Among Diem’s eighteen cabinet ministers were five Catholics, five Confucians, and eight Buddhists, including a Buddhist vice-president and a Buddhist foreign minister. Of the provincial chiefs, twelve were Catholics and twenty-six were Buddhists or Confucians. Only three of the top nineteen military officers were Catholics.[658]. . . . No successful leader in Vietnamese history had tolerated the sort of vicious and organized public attacks that the Buddhist militants began to make on Diem in May 1963. In the rural areas, moreover, where the war was being fought, no one cared about the Buddhist crisis. Even among the educated elite, a large number understood and supported Diem’s actions during the Buddhist disturbances.[660]. . . . A few captured Communist documents, available at the time to both the Americans and the South Vietnamese, revealed Communist participation in the Buddhist protest movement. . . . For many years, Hanoi kept silent about the very sensitive subject of its involvement in the Buddhist movement, but in the early 1990s it began publishing detailed accounts of its early and intimate complicity. (pp. 216-217) In their trip reports, McNamara and McCone commented that during the Diem era some Americans had made use of South Vietnamese government statistics on the war that exaggerated the government’s successes. Supporters of the coup would later cite these remarks as evidence that the strategic hamlet program and other elements of the South Vietnamese war effort were crumbling during Diem’s last months.[901] This contention was erroneous. As mentioned earlier, top U. S. government officials had long distrusted South Vietnamese statistics and had based their views of the war on what they had learned from American advisers in the field and other reliable sources. Up until the time of Diem’s death, they had believed, correctly, that the war in general was proceeding well, and after the coup they perceived, with equal accuracy, a spectacular decline in performance. Coup proponents were also to misuse a statement in McCone’s report that statistical indicators of South Vietnamese performance in the war had begun a downward turn in July. They argued that these statistical trends showed that the Viet Cong had held the upper hand in the war from July onward, but in truth these statistical trends resulted from the increase in Viet Cong attacks on fledgling strategic hamlets in a few delta provinces, which, it has been seen, in no way demonstrated that the war had begun to turn against the government. These provinces had little strategic value, and Diem had been faring well in the rest of the country. At the time of the December report, McCone himself and the rest of the CIA knew that until the coup the problems had been confined to a few provinces, and that the sharp downturn did not begin until November.[902] In February 1964, moreover, after all of the claims of statistical error had been analyzed, an independent CIA team of experts pinpointed November 1, 1963 as the date at which the strategic hamlet program and the militia entered into a steep decline.[903] Communist sources were to confirm that the government had held the upper hand until the coup, and quickly lost it after the coup. In April 1964, reporting on the general situation, their southern command would state that the Viet Cong had struggled during 1962 and the first ten months of 1963, but after November 1 they began to re-establish themselves in areas where they had been weakened.[904] A Communist assessment prepared in March 1965, by which time the Saigon government stood very close to total defeat, was to describe the government’s collapse in the sixteen months since Diem’s killing in the following manner: “The balance of forces between the South Vietnamese revolution and the enemy has changed very rapidly in our favor. . . . The bulk of the enemy’s armed forces and paramilitary forces at the village and hamlet level have disintegrated, and what is left continues to disintegrate. . . . Eighty percent of the strategic hamlets, which are viewed by the Americans as the ‘backbone of the special war,’ have been destroyed, and most of the people and land in the rural countryside are in our liberated zones.”[905] Consonant with U. S. sources, Communist accounts indicate that the Viet Cong took longer to capitalize on the coup in some areas than in others. In the crucial lowlands of Communist Military Region 5, according to Hanoi’s official history of the region, the destruction of strategic hamlets built under Diem did not begin until the middle of 1964, for the Communist forces needed the intervening period to recover from the losses sustained during Diem’s final years. Between the middle of 1964 and the middle of 1965, the history stated, the Communists destroyed 2,100 of the 2,800 strategic hamlets that had been built in the region before the coup of November 1963.[906] A similar situation prevailed in Communist Military Region 6. The official Party history of that region stated that between Diem’s assassination and the middle of 1964, Communist forces accomplished little in the way of destroying strategic hamlets and retaking control of the population. The reason, again, was Communist weakness, not governmental strength; the history noted that the Minh government’s rapid disbandment of Diemist organizations and prosecution of Diemist officials had quickly caused the collapse of the government’s ruling apparatus in the villages, while the major advances did not begin until mid-1964. From that point until mid-1965, the number of civilians under Communist control in Military Region 6 jumped from 25,000 to 203,345.[907] In the central highlands, the strategic hamlet program sustained very little damage prior to November 1963. It came under attack in the months immediately following the coup, suffering substantial injury well before the programs in Communist Military Regions 5 and 6. The Communist history of the central highlands front observed that the ousting of Diem and the resultant disorganization of the South Vietnamese militia forces enabled the Viet Cong to cause the strategic hamlet program serious harm for the first time; within a few months, they destroyed forty percent of the region’s strategic hamlets. The strategic hamlet program in the highlands continued to suffer losses throughout 1964 and the first half of 1965. Many of the most geographically important hamlets in the highlands did not fall under Communist domination until the Communists’ summer offensive of 1965.[908] The southern command’s April 1964 report acknowledged that before Diem’s demise, the campaign against the strategic hamlets had attained significant momentum only in the Mekong Delta, and that even there, the Viet Cong’s achievements had been rather modest up until November 1963, at which point they began to grow rapidly.[ rapidly.[909] Even in Long An and Dinh Tuong, the two provinces where the Viet Cong had inflicted substantial pain on the strategic hamlets prior to the coup, the strategic hamlet program suffered much greater damage after the coup than before. The official Communist history of Long An province stated that September 1963 was the “period when the province faced its greatest difficulties. Enemy strategic hamlets and military outposts practically covered the entire rural area of the province. Most of the civilians had been moved into the hamlets.” The Viet Cong’s mobile company in the province had been so weakened in recent battles with the enemy that neither it nor the district and village forces could destroy any strategic hamlets completely. Whenever Viet Cong forces injured a strategic hamlet, the history asserted, the government came back the next day to repair the damage.[910] Of the 273 strategic hamlets established in the province under Diem, the history recounted, only 20 had been put out of order before the coup. In the six months after the coup, “virtually all the strategic hamlets throughout Long An province were destroyed.”[911] (pp. 283-285) The last point worth mentioning in connection with the claims of a major decline preceding the November coup is that almost all of the supporting evidence originated with Diem’s successors, who, even if they had always respected Diem and had turned against him primarily to appease the Americans, had a desperate need after the putsch to save face with the Americans and with their own people. Like Halberstam and Hilsman and the other American proponents of the coup, South Vietnam’s new rulers inaccurately claimed that the abysmal situation at the end of 1963 differed little from the situation preceding November so as to show that the coup they had instigated had created no new problems. An American assessment of the strategic hamlet program at the beginning of 1964 noted that because of “political or personal considerations,” the Minh government had replaced the original statistics on the pre-coup period with new, less positive statistics in order to support the “denigration of the old regime” and establish “a favorable data base for the new incumbent.”[913] The deceitful misrepresentation of the pre-coup situation by coup supporters, American and Vietnamese, would color analysis of the Diem regime for many years to come.[914]. Because of Diem’s accomplishments in 1962 and 1963, the Viet Cong lacked the ability to defeat the government at the time of Diem’s death, and for a considerable period thereafter. Had Diem lived, the Viet Cong could have kept the war going as long as they continued to receive new manpower from North Vietnam and maintained sanctuaries in Cambodia and Laos, but it is highly doubtful that the war would have reached the point where the United States needed to introduce several hundred thousand of its own troops to avert defeat, as it would under Diem’s successors. Quite possibly, indeed, South Vietnam could have survived under Diem without the help of any U. S. ground forces. Those who led South Vietnam from November 1963 to the time of the American intervention prosecuted the war far less effectively than Diem had, and this weak performance helped overcome Hanoi’s great reluctance to send the North Vietnamese Army into South Vietnam. If the North Vietnamese Army had invaded the South at some later date while Diem still ruled, South Vietnam might very well have withstood the onslaught with the help of U. S. air power but without U. S. ground troops, as it would in 1972. The Communists, unlike most of the Americans, were very quick to grasp the profound significance of the November 1963 coup. Upon hearing of Diem’s assassination, Ho Chi Minh remarked, “I can scarcely believe that the Americans would be so stupid.”[915] Demonstrating astonishing foresight, the North Vietnamese Politburo predicted: “The consequences of the 1 November coup d’état will be contrary to the calculations of the U. S. imperialists. . . . Diem was one of the strongest individuals resisting the people and Communism. Everything that could be done in an attempt to crush the revolution was carried out by Diem. Diem was one of the most competent lackeys of the U. S. imperialists. . . . Among the anti-Communists in South Vietnam or exiled in other countries, no one has sufficient political assets and abilities to cause the others to obey. Therefore, the lackey administration cannot be stabilized. The coup d’état on 1 November 1963 will not be the last.”[916] The pro-Communist Australian Wilfred Burchett, who spent time with Vietnamese Communist leaders shortly after the coup, told an American journalist in late 1964, “We never believed the Americans would let Diem go, much less aid and abet his departure. Diem was a national leader, and you will never be able to replace him – never. You haven’t had an effective government in Saigon since and you won’t have one.” Burchett said that Vietnamese Communist leaders, amazed by their good fortune, called the coup a “gift,” and exclaimed that “the Americans have done something that we haven’t been able to do for nine years and that was get rid of Diem.”[917] (pp. 285-286)