Michael Griffith

3 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

My disagreement with Mantik's conclusions aside, I don't recall his ever saying the small fragment on the back of the head was 6.3 mm. That's basically the size of the "fragment" he thinks is a fake. As I recall the small fragment he sees on the lateral x-ray is fair smaller than the so-called 6.5 mm fragment. Can you point me to something where he says the "real" fragment and "fake" fragment are nearly the same size? 

One, I confirmed the size with Dr. Mantik. He thinks 6.3 or 6.4 mm is correct. I usually qualify the height by saying something like "6.3 mm (some might say 6.4 mm)." Two, you can see this in his diagram of the fragment. The fragment is slightly shorter than the 6.5 mm object--its top does not quite go up to the top of the 6.5 mm object (see JFK Assassination Paradoxes, p. 8). And Mantik's diagram shows that the fragment is 2.5 mm wide at its widest point. 

Chesser confirmed Mantik's OD measurements of the fragment inside the object: it is definitely metallic. It's the object that forensic radiologist Fitzpatrick saw on the lateral x-rays when he examined them for the ARRB. Fitzpatrick admitted that the fragment does not correspond to the 6.5 mm object on the AP x-ray.

You might know that Mantik uses OD measurements in his practice as a radiation oncologist, and it helps that he also happens to be a physicist. 

Of the three innocent explanations for the 6.5 mm object, only one of them is even theoretically possible. Two of the three explanations (acid drop and stray metal disk in x-ray cassette) are physically impossible. That only leaves the theory that the AP skull x-ray was taken while there was a "stray metal disk" lying on the autopsy table. But WC apologists can't identify what kind of disk it could have been, can't identify a disk that was 6.5 mm in diameter, can't explain how a neatly defined notch would have been chipped from the disk, can't explain why the disk/object does not appear in any of the other skull x-rays, etc., etc. 

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 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 perfectly round. This is one of several problems with the acid-drop theory. 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).

That leaves the stray-metal-disk theories. First of all, what kind of metal disk would have been present that could have somehow dropped onto the autopsy table or gotten stuck in an x-ray film cassette during a presidential autopsy? Anyway, if a metal disk had been inside the film cassette, it would have produced a dark area at the spot of the 6.5 mm object, not a transparent one. 

If a metal disk had been lying next to JFK's head on the autopsy table when the AP x-ray was taken, it would appear on the lateral x-rays as well, but it does not. Of course, it goes without saying that if the radiologist and/or the x-ray technician had noticed a disk lying on the autopsy table after they took the AP x-ray, they would not have taken the lateral x-rays until they retook the AP x-ray.

Finally, there is the fact that multiple sets of OD measurements have proved that the 6.5 mm object is not metallic but that it does contain a genuine fragment that occupies about half the space inside the object (see Mantik's diagram).

Former Secret Service agent Paul Landis's recent disclosure that he found a bullet and/or two bullet fragments in the back seat of the limo once again highlights the problems that the ballistics evidence poses for the lone-gunman theory. One of these items of evidence is the 6.5 mm object seen on the autopsy AP skull x-ray. 

One aspect of the 6.5 mm object that WC apologists cannot explain, an aspect that constitutes compelling evidence of a second gunman, is the fact that the 6.5 mm object contains--actually, is superimposed over--the image of a small genuine bullet fragment. The fragment is about 6.3 x 2.5 mm in size. OD measurements done separately by Dr. David Mantik and Dr. Michael Chesser confirm that the 6.3 x 2.5 mm object is metallic. Numerous forensic and other medical experts who have examined the skull x-rays have confirmed that the lateral x-rays show a small metallic fragment in the back of the skull. 

This fragment simply could not have come from an FMJ bullet, i.e., the kind of ammo that Oswald allegedly used, for the same reasons that former HSCA ballistics consultant Dr. Larry Sturdivan said the 6.5 mm object could not be an FMJ bullet fragment. 

Oddly, in his 2005 book, Sturdivan does not even mention the 6.3 x 2.5 mm fragment, nor does he discuss the other small back-of-head fragment that was identified by Dr. Gerald McDonnel for the HSCA, though he was surely aware of both of them. The McDonnel fragment is slightly to the left of the 6.5 mm object. The 6.5 mm object is 1 cm below the now-debunked cowlick entry site and 8-9 cm (3.1 to 3.5 inches) above the EOP entry site. These two fragments could only be ricochet fragments--that is the only scientifically plausible explanation. But, again, Sturdivan does not mention either of these fragments. 

However, Sturdivan does explain why the 6.5 mm object could not be an FMJ fragment. I quote from Sturdivan's discussion on the 6.5 mm object and Dr. Baden's attempt to use the object as evidence of the proposed cowlick entry site:

          It was interesting that it [Baden's description of the 6.5 mm object] was phrased that way, ducking the obvious fact that it cannot be a bullet fragment and is not that near to their [the HSCA medical panel's] proposed entry site. A fully jacketed WCC/MC bullet will deform as it penetrates bone, but it will not fragment on the outside of the skull.

          When they break up in the target, real bullets break into irregular pieces of jacket, sometimes complete enough to contain pieces of the lead core, and a varying number of irregular chunks of lead core. It cannot break into circular slices, especially one with a circular bite out of the edge. (The JFK Myths, pp. 184-185)

To fully appreciate the insurmountable problems with the idea that a single FMJ headshot bullet deposited any fragment, big or small, on the outer table of the skull, we need to understand what WC apologists claim about this shot:

According to WC defenders, the nose and tail of this supposed lone headshot bullet were found inside the limousine (on the floor in the front seat). Thus, in this scenario, as the bullet struck the skull, either (1) a cross section of metal from inside the bullet was precisely sliced off to form an object that was perfectly round except for a partial circle cut neatly out of its edge, or (2) a piece of the hard jacket was somehow sliced off to form an object that was perfectly round except for a partial circle cut neatly out of its edge. Then, this remarkable fragment abruptly stopped right there on the outer table of the skull, while the nose and tail of the rest of the bullet tore through JFK’s brain, exited the skull, and landed in the front of the limo. 

No credible researcher takes this scenario seriously anymore, but for many years this was the scenario that WC apologists adamantly defended--until fellow WC apologist Sturdivan, to his credit, demolished it in his 2005 book. (It had been demolished before, but only by critics, and WC apologists refused to listen to the critics' eminently scientific and logical case against it.)

However, as mentioned, Sturdivan says nothing about the 6.3 x 2.5 mm metal fragment inside the 6.5 mm object, nor does he say anything about the McDonnel fragment. Forensic science and wound ballistics tell us that no FMJ missile could have deposited the 6.3 x 2.5 mm fragment or the McDonnel fragment on/just under the outer table of the skull. They could only be ricochet fragments.

Firearms expert Howard Donahue said that Dr. Russell Fisher of the Clark Panel told him that the panel believed the 6.5 mm object "looked like a ricochet fragment" (Menninger, Mortal Error, p. 65). The Clark Panel did not have the benefit of OD analysis, so they did not know that the 6.5 mm object is not metallic and that its image is superimposed over the image of a smaller genuine fragment. But Fisher's comment to Donahue shows that the panel members realized that no FMJ bullet could have deposited a fragment on the outer table of the skull, much less nearly half an inch away from the presumed (but now debunked) entry point in the cowlick (not to mention 3.1 to 3.5 inches away from the actual entry point that was slightly above the EOP).

There is credible eyewitness testimony that a bullet struck the curb near JFK's limo early in the shooting sequence, as many researchers have noted, and many kinds of bullets that strike concrete will send fragments flying from the impact. Donahue, although he rejected the conspiracy view, acknowledged this evidence of the curb shot and cogently argued that ricochet fragments from this bullet are the only scientifically feasible explanation for any back-of-head fragment, since no FMJ missile would have deposited fragments on the outer table of the skull. But WC apologists cannot accept this plausible scientific explanation, partly because they must account for the bullet that struck the curb near James Tague and sent a concrete chip or metal fragment streaking toward him with enough force to cut his face.

Curtin seems overly suspicious to me, and I think he oversimplifies the facts when he declares that we know the CIA killed Kennedy. Curtin argues there is an extensive media conspiracy to hype Landis's disclosure in order to divert the public's attention from the "fact" that the CIA killed JFK. He suggests that Landis's disclosure is being purposely used by powerful forces that are still covering up the truth about JFK's death. I think this is an overly suspicious take on Landis's disclosure and on the media's coverage of it.

I agree that elements of the CIA were involved in the assassination, but other powerful elements also played a role. I think we need to be careful to point out that the CIA as an institution did not play a role in JFK's death, but that powerful rogue elements of the CIA were involved in the plot. To simply say "the CIA killed JFK" ignores the important roles played by certain Mafia leaders and by elements of the FBI and the military industrial complex. 

On 9/15/2023 at 11:15 AM, Greg Doudna said:

And I don’t know if you saw my above, but in Estes’ story Connally would not have been seen by anyone entering or at a strip club, apart from the ones present in Ruby’s office who would be the only ones who knew he was there. It is not as if he was in public watching strippers on a stage, or walked into an entrance of such an establishment. I am assuming an unmarked door in the alley in the back went to all levels of a multistory building thus even if seen need not necessarily be seen as going to the Carousel Club at a time when it was closed. I do see one point that could weigh in favor of what you are saying though. If I were Connally, I might want to control the venue out of fear of being covertly taped or caught on camera (and then set up for blackmail). 

If the Carousel Club had a rear entrance in the back alley, that would at least mean that Connally could have entered the club with a minimal chance of being seen, which would make this part of Estes's story a bit more plausible. I still find it hard to believe that Connally would have risked holding an illicit meeting in Ruby's club, even if he could have entered via a back-alley rear door. However, given the credible nature of the rest of Estes's story, I agree that the Connally-Ruby-meeting part of his story cannot be easily dismissed.

2 hours ago, David Von Pein said:

No sensible person could possibly truly believe the stories told by all of the various people who have come forward over the years to say they saw bullets all over the place. It's absurd.

I don't think even very many CTers believe all of the "I Saw A Bullet" stories.

Ah, yes. Here we go.  So all these witnesses are lying or incomprehensibly "mistaken." Dr. Young couldn't tell the difference between a bullet and CE 569. Chief Petty Officer Mills similarly mistook a small fragment for a bullet. Landis is lying or dreaming about finding a bullet in the back seat, even though he says he was afraid to talk about the bullet until now. Jerrol Custer, of all people, lied or merely dreamed about seeing a large fragment fall from JFK's back during the autopsy. 

Your true position is "If there had been a conspiracy, someone would have talked, but whenever someone does talk, we will look for any and every excuse to reject their account."

I notice you said nothing about Sturdivan's admission that no FMJ bullet would have left fragments on the rear outer table of the skull. This refreshing admission is devastating given the fact that there are two fragments on the rear exterior of the skull, one in the outer table (the 6.3 x 2.5 mm fragment) and one between the galea and the outer table (the McDonnel fragment). Crucially, both fragments are far away--some 8 cm--from the rear head entry wound at the EOP (and at least 1 cm from the now-debunked cowlick entry site). 

These two fragments could only be ricochet fragments, just as Dr. Russell Fisher of the Clark Panel told Howard Donahue regarding the 6.5 mm object.

2 minutes ago, David Von Pein said:

Even if the "6.5 mm. object" on the X-ray is, indeed, a bullet fragment, that still wouldn't make the total weight of the head-shot bullet greater than 160 grains. No way. No how.

You are missing the key point that the 6.3 x 2.5 mm metal fragment inside the 6.5 mm object and the McDonnel fragment could not have come from the FMJ ammo that Oswald allegedly used.

Plus, you ignored the large fragment seen by Custer, the bullet that Landis found, and the bullet found by two Navy corpsmen and seen by Dr. Young. The WC scenario simply cannot explain all of these bullets and fragments. No way. No how.

Obviously, the 6.3 x 2.5 mm fragment is not the McDonnel fragment, as a few WC apologists have erroneously argued. The McDonnel fragment is about 5 cm above the lambda, "lies medial" to "the depressed fracture in the right occipital bone," and is "between the galea and the outer table of the skull" ("Report of G.M. McDonnel," 8/4/78, p. 2, 7 HSCA 218), whereas the other fragment is 3-4 cm above the lambda on the lateral view, is 2.5 cm to the right of the midline on the AP x-ray, is 1 cm below the debunked cowlick entry site, and is on the outer table of the skull. 

The McDonnel fragment could not have come from an FMJ bullet and could only be a ricochet fragment. Similarly, the 6.3 x 2.5 mm fragment 1 cm below the debunked cowlick entry site could not have come from an FMJ bullet and could only be a ricochet fragment. These facts prove that more than one gunman fired at JFK.
 

21 minutes ago, David Von Pein said:

You can't possibly be serious.

You really believe that these two fragments taken from JFK's head (CE843), which weighed 1.8 grains, plus the fragments seen in this X-ray plus these very small fragments recovered from under Nellie Connally's seat in the limo (which were said by Robert Frazier to weigh a total of 2.3 grains) plus the 65.6 grains of total weight that exists in the two large front-seat bullet fragments (21.0 grains for one of the fragments and 44.6 grains for the other, per Robert Frazier's WC testimony)....you want to believe that all of those fragments, when added together, weighed more than approximately 160 grains (which is the average weight of a Carcano bullet)?

Let's add them up.....

1.8 + 2.3 + 65.6 = 69.7 grains.

Weight of Oswald's bullet = Approx. 160 grains (but some people have said it's as high as 161).

Unaccounted for weight = 90.3 grains (which would include the fragments left in JFK's skull, which were never weighed, of course).

But even if we assume, for the sake of argument, that those bullet fragments that were left in JFK's head weighed a total of 90 grains (which is, of course, a ridiculously high weight estimate for such tiny little fragments), that would still leave 0.3 grains unaccounted for (or 1.3 grains if you want to go with a pre-fired bullet weight of 161 instead of 160).

As I said before --- you can't be serious. (Can you?)

And the Landis fragment that you're willing to acknowledge? And the other fragment that Landis mentioned? And the bullet that Landis found, whose existence Landis was afraid to reveal until now? And the 6.3 x 2.5 mm fragment inside the 6.5 mm object? And the large fragment that Jerrol Custer told the ARRB he saw fall out of JFK's back at the autopsy? And the bullet that the two Navy corpsmen found--in the back seat of the limo--and that Dr. Young saw? 

Now is a good time to mention the fact that the back-of-head fragments could not have come from the kind of ammo (FMJ) that Oswald allegedly used. The fact that the autopsy x-rays show at least one small back-of-head fragment on the outer table of the skull has been acknowledged by everyone from Dr. Joseph Riley to the HSCA medical panel to the Clark Panel to Dr. David O. Davis to Dr. Norman Chase to Dr. Larry Sturdivan. This is the fragment that for many years was misidentified as the lateral-view image of the 6.5 mm object. It is about 1 cm below the debunked cowlick entry site.

Dr. Larry Sturdivan, who served as a wound ballistics consultant for the HSCA, treats the small back-of-head fragment in a curious manner. In commenting on the HSCA medical panel's findings, he correctly notes that this fragment cannot be the companion image of the 6.5 mm object, and that the 6.5 mm object cannot be an FMJ bullet fragment:

          The frontal x-ray of the head . . . shows a nearly circular density near the higher entry site that the panel identified as a bullet fragment deposited on the skull at entry. It appears to be a disk of something as dense as metal, with a small circular "bite" taken out of the lower edge. . . . This second bit of evidence was discussed several times during the meetings of the FPP [the HSCA Forensic Pathology Panel, aka the HSCA medical panel] and is mentioned by Dr. Baden [chairman of the panel] as a "relatively large metal fragment". . . . It is interesting that it was phrased that way, ducking the obvious fact that it cannot be a bullet fragment and is not that near to their proposed entry site. A fully jacketed WCC/MC [FMJ] bullet will deform as it penetrates bone, but will not fragment on the outside of the skull. In the Biophysics Lab tests, most of the test bullets' jackets ruptured about midway through the skulls. . . .

          When they break up in the target, real bullets break into irregular pieces of jacket, sometimes complete enough to contain pieces of the lead core, and a varying number of irregular chunks of lead core. It cannot break into circular slices, especially one with a circular bite out of the edge. As radiologist David Mantik points out, . . there is no corresponding density on the lateral x-ray. The slightly lighter area indicated by the FPP as the lateral view of this object is not nearly light enough to be a metal disk seen edge-on [from the side/sideways]. As bright as it is seen flat in the frontal x-ray [AP 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: A Scientific Investigation of the JFK Assassination, 2005, pp. 184-185)

Now, why is Sturdivan so vague about the small back-of-head fragment? He does not deny its existence. But, he never calls it a fragment. He calls it "the slightly lighter area." He admits that the HSCA medical panel identified it as the 6.5 mm object on the lateral x-rays, and does not dispute the panel's identification and placement of the fragment. However, he does not go beyond observing that the fragment cannot be the lateral image of the 6.5 mm object or of a metal disk. Why the apparent vagueness? Because he has just acknowledged that FMJ bullets will not fragment on the outside of the skull, so he knows that this fragment could not have come from an FMJ bullet. I suspect this is also why he says nothing about the McDonnel fragment.

It is utterly shameful that the Biden administration has denied RFK Jr. SS protection. 

23 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Michael,

Are you certain that Landis says now that he purposely did not mention the whole-bullet earlier?

I ask because that is one of the two speculations I had to make in my hypothesis (in the OP of this thread). That would be great if he did say that because then my hypothesis would require only one speculation, the one that explains Clint Hill's so-called debunking of Landis.

NBC News quoted Landis as saying he has been afraid to share his true story until now (LINK, 3:55 to 5:15). Landis mentioned that in an email exchange with Clint Hill in 2014, Hill advised him not to say anything about finding a bullet because it would have "many ramifications."

22 minutes ago, David Von Pein said:

No, it doesn't. Not even close. A single "fragment" doesn't do the lone-gunman scenario a bit of harm. As I said before, over HALF of the head-shot bullet was never recovered at all. So why would it be surprising to have some small fragments from the head shot left in the limo where President Kennedy was located?

It's certainly not a matter of there being too many head-shot fragments seen and/or recovered (despite what Michael Griffith said in a prior post), because not even close to the entire head-shot bullet was ever seen or recovered.

The best the CTers can possibly do regarding this matter of "fragments" being found in the BACK SEAT of the limo is to gripe about the fact that whoever did see and/or pick up any such small head-shot fragments didn't bother to place those fragments into the official record of the JFK case (for some unknown reason).

"Not even close"??? Let's review: Two fragments, CE 567 and 569, the nose and tail of a bullet, were recovered from the floor in the front seat of the limo. A 7x2 mm fragment and a 3x1 mm fragment were removed from the skull during the autopsy. The skull x-rays show a 6.3 x 2.5 mm fragment within the 6.5 mm object, 1 cm below the now-debunked cowlick entry site and about 8 cm above the entry site described in the autopsy report (aka EOP entry site). Dr. McDonnel identified another fragment to the left of the 6.5 mm object, even farther away from the nonexistent cowlick site and from the EOP entry site. On top of all these fragments, the skull x-rays show some 40 small fragments in the right-front part of the skull. 

How, how, how can you say that the one Landis fragment that you're willing to acknowledge, which was found in the back seat, can be explained by the lone-gunman theory?

I notice you once again avoided mentioning the bullet found in the rear of the limo by two Navy corpsmen and observed by Dr. James Young at the autopsy.  Dr. Young, as you may know, ardently believed the WC's version of the shooting and innocently assumed that the deformed bullet that he saw was one of the three shots acknowledged by the WC.

1 minute ago, David Von Pein said:

VINCE PALAMARA SAID THIS.

DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

Vince, I really haven't the slightest idea what Landis' motive might be.

Mr. Landis certainly gives the appearance of being a very forthright and truthful person. And I certainly don't relish the notion of calling him an outright teller of deliberate falsehoods. But the fact remains: He changed his story significantly over these last 40 years. I don't think there can be any question about that fact after you take a look at the two newspaper clippings I have posted above.

Perhaps his advanced age has taken its toll on his memory and his ability to be able to recall things clearly and correctly. But when we've got TWO different interviews from the 1980s (when Mr. Landis was a much younger man) which are verifying BOTH of the key elements of his "bullet" story --- i.e., it was a bullet "fragment" he saw/handled and "gave to somebody" --- then it seems pretty clear what the truth really is when it comes to Mr. Landis' 11/22/63 involvement with any type of "bullets" or "fragments" in the limo.

Mr. Landis, IMO, needs to be confronted with BOTH of the above newspaper articles at the same time, which each say the very same thing concerning the matter of the "bullet fragment".

I'd be interested to know if Landis thinks he was misquoted in both of those articles, five years apart.

I suppose that Paul Landis could, if he wanted to, now start saying that he did indeed retrieve a bullet "fragment" from the limo and "gave it to somebody", but he ALSO saw and picked up a "whole bullet" on the back seat and took it into the hospital. And the reason he never told a single soul about the "whole bullet" ON THE DAY OF THE ASSASSINATION was because.....well.....uh.....um.....[fill in your own choice of reasons here, because I can't think of a single good one myself].

But I think that even that opportunity may have passed Mr. Landis by, because I read a few days back that Landis has, indeed, claimed he was "misquoted" in one of the earlier newspaper articles.

So he now needs to have BOTH the 1983 and the 1988 articles shoved before his eyes at the same time while a live microphone awaits his response.

Uh-huh. Landis admits that he withheld the finding of the bullet until now. So, yes, he made previous statements that contradict what he's now saying, but he's explained the contradiction, just as Kenny O'Donnell explained to Tip O'Neill why his WC testimony said nothing about shots from the grassy knoll--he withheld it to avoid controversy after FBI agents told him he must have been imagining things, but he was certain that shots had come from the knoll.

And, again, even the one back-seat fragment that you're willing to acknowledge destroys the lone-gunman theory. As it is, there are too many bullet fragments in the official record to have come from the head-shot bullet, as I explained in my previous reply. And this is not to mention the bullet that two Navy corpsmen found in the rear of the limo and that Dr. Young saw at the autopsy before it was handed to Humes. 

22 minutes ago, David Von Pein said:

Allow me to re-post something I said five days ago.....

[Quote On:]

"FWIW....

Here's what I think happened....

Paul Landis really did see and pick up a bullet fragment (not a whole bullet) off of the back seat of the Presidential limousine at Parkland Hospital on November 22, 1963. He then might very well have given that fragment to someone else nearby, with that person never being identified.

And, it would seem, that particular bullet fragment which Mr. Landis handled never came to light as evidence either. But we must keep in mind that a lot of tiny fragments from the fatal head shot that were probably scattered all over the car and in Dealey Plaza were never introduced as official evidence either. After all, more than half of the bullet that struck President Kennedy in the head was never found or recovered at all.

But now, in 2023, for some unknown reason, that bullet fragment (which he gave to someone else at Parkland on 11/22/63) has now been embellished by Mr. Landis and has morphed into a whole bullet (the CE399 "stretcher bullet" or so-called "magic bullet"), with Landis embellishing things further by also now saying he took that whole bullet into the hospital himself and placed it on JFK's stretcher in the emergency room.

So, in my opinion, Mr. Landis' current story probably does contain a layer of truth in it, which is very common among witnesses who have, shall we say, enhanced or added things to their assassination stories over the years (with Jean Hill, Roger Craig, and Buell Wesley Frazier coming to mind as three such examples).

I think Paul Landis probably did see (and perhaps also pick up) a small bullet fragment in the limousine. That's the "layer of truth" that exists in his account. And the two newspaper articles from the 1980s cited HERE tend to confirm that "layer of truth". But the remainder of Landis' current 2023 story just simply cannot be believed, in my opinion."

-- DVP; September 13, 2023

So, according to you, Landis is just lying when he says that he purposely did not mention the bullet earlier and that he is revealing it now because he believes its existence should be known.

The lone-gunman theory cannot even explain the one back-seat fragment that you are willing to acknowledge. The nose and tail of the head-shot bullet were found on the floor in the front seat. Two more fragments were acknowledged as having been removed from JFK's head during the autopsy, and the autopsy x-rays show a snowstorm of dozens of tiny fragments in the right-front part of the skull. Plus, HSCA radiologic experts detected another fragment in the back of the skull at least 1 cm from the now-debunked cowlick entry site, and there's no way that an FMJ bullet could have deposited that fragment.

And shall we mention the deformed bullet that two Navy petty officers found in the rear of the limo and that Dr. Young saw before it was handed to Dr. Humes? 

Just admit it: More than one gunman fired at JFK.

16 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

When I read this, I had an Aha! moment. There were both a whole bullet and a fragment! (And a second fragment.)

I have a hypothesis that requires only two simple speculations to explain all of the differing Landis stories.

Following is my hypothesis. Ive highlighted in red the parts that are speculative.

On Nov. 22, 1963, Secret Service Agent Paul Landis found a whole bullet and two bloody fragments on the top of the back of the rear seat, where the top of the limo attaches to the body. He picked one of the fragments up and then put it back. He put the whole bullet in his pocket and later placed it on JFK's gurney, near his feet.

The 1983, an AP reporter interviewed Landis for a news article. At that time, Landis was wondering if the whole bullet he'd found could be the controversial magic bullet. So he decided not to mention it or the stretcher incident. Instead, he said that he pocketed a fragment.* When the reporter asked what he did with it, quick-thinking Landis said he gave it to someone. The New York Times published the article.

That would essentially be the untrue story Landis used to protect himself from then on. As indicated by a later 1988 article where Landis is quoted as saying, "I distinctly remember there was a bullet fragment on the seat which I picked up and handed to somebody." Though later on the story evolved into putting the fragment back down on the seat, and instead pocketing a Zippo lighter with a presidential seal on it. As indicated by the 2010 book, The Kennedy Detail.

In 2014 Landis told the true story to Clint Hill. He told him that he placed the whole-bullet on Kennedy's gurney. Clint Hill thought at the time that gurneys were left in the hallway when patients were taken into emergency rooms. (That's exactly what I thought.... until now.) So nine years later, 2023 comes along and Clint Hill (incorrectly) recalls that Landis said the Gurney was in the hallway when he placed the bullet

*Another possible reason why Landis hid the whole-bullet incident is that he was embarrassed that he'd taken evidence. He wasn't embarrassed saying he pocketed a fragment because he could say that he was concerned the fragment might get lost. That is actually what he said in the 2010 book, that the fragment could get blown off the seat by the wind.

Even Landis's account of the two back-seat bullet fragments is problematic for the lone-gunman theory, because the only two fragments in the official record, CE 567 and CE 569, were found on the floor in the front of the limousine.

So whether Landis saw a whole bullet or two fragments in the back seat, he saw ballistics evidence that the lone-gunman scenario cannot explain. 

Are WC apologists going to claim that Landis saw neither a bullet nor two fragments? That he imagined or made up all of his accounts? One way or another, they will find excuses to dismiss this historic evidence.

Below you will find part of the evidence that the war was going well in 1962 and 1963 that is presented in Dr. Mark Moyar’s book Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954–1965 (Cambridge University Press, 2006). Presenting all of that evidence would require at least three more posts.

If you’re curious to know how liberal scholars have responded to this historic evidence, go read the liberal reviews of the book in the roundtable compilation Triumph Revisited--you’ll see that they have simply ignored most of it and have misrepresented the small parts of it that they have addressed.

Here is small part of the evidence that the war was going well in 1962 and 1963 from Moyar's book:

          All observers in South Vietnam at the time, even the American journalists who would later claim that the war effort was deteriorating at this time, reported that the Diem government dramatically improved its position in the countryside relative to that of the Viet Cong during the second half of 1962. It did so in the face of extensive North Vietnamese infiltration of men and materiel that continuously replenished the Viet Cong’s forces.

          The Australian Wilfred Burchett, a pro-Communist journalist who lived with the Viet Cong during this time and spoke with many of their leaders, accurately summed up the year. “In terms of territory and population, Diem made a considerable comeback in 1962,” Burchett observed. Government armed forces “registered a number of successes and held the strategic and tactical initiative.” In the final analysis, stated Burchett, 1962 was “Diem’s year.”[546] (pp. 184-185).

          Once again, North Vietnamese documents and histories corroborate the American and other foreign reports on the Diem government’s effectiveness. One North Vietnamese account stated that in the first six months of 1963, the South Vietnamese government conducted between 1,500 and 2,000 infantry operations per month, and it noted: “Protracted and large-scale operations launched unremittingly against any given region were more numerous and fiercer than in the previous year.”[626]

          A top-level Communist report on this period asserted that the government strengthened the rural militias and it still possessed much stronger military forces than the Viet Cong. “Due to the results attained in the recent sweeps and due to his grinding efforts to gather in the people and establish strategic hamlets,” the report acknowledged, “the enemy seized a large number of people and constricted our liberated areas, causing us many manpower and materiel difficulties.” It also stated that government forces had launched successful operations deep into Communist base areas, destroying Communist forces and disrupting Communist lines of communication that ran from North Vietnam and Laos into South Vietnam.[627]

          The history of the Communists’ critical Region 5 noted that during 1963, “the enemy recaptured practically everything we had captured.” (pp. 208-209)

          Most compelling of all, the Communists themselves acknowledged that the Diem government was attacking the Viet Cong energetically and adeptly during the last months of 1962. Meeting on December 6, the North Vietnamese Politburo remarked, “The enemy is using his military superiority to expand the war in a determined effort to annihilate our forces.” It conceded that “our armed forces are still weak,” and that if the Communists continued the armed struggle at the present level, they would be unable to maintain the movement in the South.[529]

          One official Communist history noted that South Vietnamese government leaders “obstinately continued to strengthen their forces and wage an increasingly fierce ‘special war’ against our people in the South” through the end of 1962.[530] A Communist document concerning the upper delta – the 7th Division’s own area of operations – in late 1962 acknowledged that “the enemy succeeded in mopping up our weak areas, repressing the people’s political movement, expelling our forces, and activating strategic hamlets. The enemy then employed concentrated Civil Guard, Self-Defense Corps, and Ranger units to attack liberated areas.”[531]

          Similar descriptions appeared in a Communist history of Military Region 6, which encompassed six coastal and highland provinces in central South Vietnam.[532] According to these Communist histories, South Vietnam’s regulars as well as its irregulars caused great harm to the Viet Cong in this period, a strong indication that the South Vietnamese Army was becoming more proficient in counterinsurgency operations.[533]

          As the hamlets sprouted up across the country, Hanoi ordered the Viet Cong to set the destruction of the strategic hamlets as their top priority. The Viet Cong, however, were not capable of annihilating the new hamlets, not even in the Mekong Delta, where the program was making the least headway and was most vulnerable.

          The Communist history of the upper Mekong Delta noted that when the Viet Cong tore down the strategic hamlet fences and guard posts, “the enemy would just force the people to rebuild them, this time even stronger, and would tighten his defensive alert procedures, tighten his controls on the population, and aggressively hunt down our guerrilla organization inside the hamlet to suppress it, making it more difficult for us to conduct our operations. . . . When we destroyed a strategic hamlet they usually rebuilt it and then built even more.”[539]

          The official Communist history of the southern Mekong Delta region stated, “We expended tremendous efforts in the program to destroy strategic hamlets but in fact accomplished very little.”[540] (pp. 181-183)

          South Vietnam’s armed forces were to make even greater progress in the second half of 1962 than in the first. Weak commanders were replaced with aggressive young men from the new generation of leaders. Government units hit the Viet Cong hard in VC-held areas and at night. . . .

          A Communist historical account of 1962 noted, “Our people’s war forces were unable to stop the enemy’s helicopter-borne and armored personnel carrier assaults, and so our three spearheads [military, political, military proselytizing] became confused and hesitant, and our losses increased. . . . Many units were forced to disperse.”[477]

          In the latter part of the summer, the number of government victories soared, and the government reasserted its control over many areas that had fallen into Viet Cong hands over the past two and a half years. After repeated maulings of large Viet Cong units, the Communists cut back severely on large-unit operations, making it more difficult for them to overwhelm government units and strategic hamlets. . . .

          As the summer came to a close, Ambassador Nolting’s deputy William Truehart exclaimed that he was “tremendously encouraged” by progress in the military realm that was “little short of sensational.”[478] (168-169)

          Colonel Daniel Boone Porter, the senior American adviser in the Mekong Delta, where the government’s armed forces were at their weakest, reported in February 1963 that “tremendous progress has been made in virtually all areas of training, operations, logistics, civic action programs and in the fields of leadership and command since 1 January 1962.”[589] None other than Vann himself was to say, in his final report before leaving the country in April, “There is not the slightest doubt that significant improvements have occurred in practically every facet of the counterinsurgency effort in this tactical zone during the past year.”[590] Steady improvement was to continue for the rest of Diem’s tenure. . . . (pp. 199-200)

          As 1963 progressed into the spring and summer, the South Vietnamese government continued to improve its counterinsurgency capabilities and its position in the countryside.[609]. . . .

          At Diem’s command, the South Vietnamese continued to eliminate small and isolated outposts in the countryside and transfer their personnel to more productive duties. The government’s forces aggressively sought battle with the Viet Cong and inflicted many defeats during this time.

          Colonel Bryce F. Denno, upon completing an eleven-month tour as the I Corps senior adviser in July 1963, reported that in his region, “the Self-Defense Corps units are defending their villages against enemy attacks with much greater confidence and success than in the past. The ARVN is reaching out into the deep jungle to attack Viet Cong ‘secure’ areas.” The population, moreover, was giving more information on the enemy to government forces in his corps area.[611]

          In a mid-year assessment, Ⅲ Corps senior adviser Colonel Wilbur Wilson remarked that pacification had experienced substantial gains in every province of the corps area.[612] (p. 206)

          U. S. officers who visited each of South Vietnam’s provinces in the first half of 1963 remarked that local governments had undergone dramatic improvements and had greatly extended their reach, while the hamlet militia were repelling the Viet Cong with determination and skill. They also noted that the rural population and local officials now had much greater confidence in the government and their morale was up.[616]

          Colonel Ted Serong, a guerrilla warfare expert who headed the Australian training mission in South Vietnam, told top Washington officials in May 1963 that “the big success story in Viet-Nam is the strategic hamlet program and this story has not yet been fully told.”[617]

          Sir Robert Thompson, who like many other observers had shifted to an optimistic view of the war effort after holding a distinctly pessimistic view in the bleak days of 1961 and early 1962, observed that in the strategic hamlet program, “the energy displayed has been remarkable by any standards.”[618] In Thompson’s opinion, the government was now winning the war and it might be able to shut off the Viet Cong’s access to the people by the middle of 1964, even in the Mekong Delta.[619]. . . .

          Later it would be alleged with great regularity that the optimism surrounding the strategic hamlet program was the result of uncritical acceptance of inflated South Vietnamese statistics.

          In reality, Phillips and most other advisers did not rely solely on statistics or other reports from the South Vietnamese. In every province, American civilian and military advisers personally inspected numerous hamlets and talked with villagers and government employees, then sent reports to Phillips’s staff and other U. S. organizations. The Americans also received pertinent information from captured documents and Viet Cong defectors.[620] Phillips’s report made very clear that the optimism about the program was not based upon official statistics. (p. 207)

          From his first entry, on October 9, 1962, to the last entry, on January 11, 1963, Tregaskis described a war that was very different from the one that Halberstam and Sheehan later depicted in their enormously influential books.

          The American advisers Tregaskis met during those three months gave no indication of frustration with the level of aggressiveness among South Vietnamese leaders; to the contrary, they generally thought that the South Vietnamese were prosecuting the war effectively. “Patrols are going on constantly,” said Major Lloyd Picou, the American operations officer for Ⅱ Corps. “We want to get into new areas, so that there will be no area where the VC can say, ‘This is a safe area.’” Pointing to a map of Vietnam, Picou showed Tregaskis a province where the government had gone from controlling very little two-and-one-half months earlier to controlling three quarters of the rice land.[508]

          Other American journalists who visited Vietnam in late 1962 came away with the same general impressions as Tregaskis. Touring Vietnam for Newsweek after Sully’s removal, Kenneth Crawford wrote, “In the opinion of Diem’s responsible American advisers, his strategy is right and he has made a promising start.” Crawford also noted, “Missionaries scattered through the country report that the Communists are in fact complaining about lack of support.”[512]

          Writing in The Saturday Evening Post in late November, Harold Martin concluded that the huge American investment of men and materiel had begun paying dividends in recent months.[513] Time commented that the war in South Vietnam “looks far more hopeful than it did a year ago,” and “U. S. advisers are confident that the Viet Cong now have virtually no hope of achieving their goal of setting up a separate Communist-ruled puppet state in South Viet Nam.”[514]

          Most remarkably, the reporting from the Saigon correspondents themselves in late 1962 confirmed that the South Vietnamese government had not cut back on aggressive military operations and that the South Vietnamese armed forces were fighting well. (pp. 177-179)

          Much other evidence shows that Diem’s war effort did not falter between October and December 1962. In some areas, especially those distant from Saigon, American military advisers witnessed successful operations during this period that entirely escaped the attention of the press corps. Among the most noteworthy was a series of joint air-ground assaults in Ⅲ Corps near the Cambodian border. . . .

          Theodore Heavner, following a visit to Vietnam from October 18 to November 26, noted that American advisers “say that the GVN forces are doing more and better night work,” with the result that “the night no longer belongs only to the VC.” The South Vietnamese armed forces were performing much better on the whole, he noted. . . . (p. 181)

          At an early stage in the development of the strategic hamlet program, Theodore Heavner, a Vietnamese-speaking State Department official who examined the strategic hamlets in considerable depth, commented, “One of the brighter aspects of the program at the moment appears to be the remarkable effort to send good cadre into the hamlets to get the program in motion.”[448] (p. 158)

          Diem’s government rang in the second half of 1962 with a sensational exhibition of military prowess. On July 20, two days after Harkins had told Diem “the only way to win is to attack, attack, attack,” the South Vietnamese 7th Division executed a large night helicopter assault in the Plain of Reeds. Employing thirty U. S. Army and Marine Corps helicopters and one thousand government troops, it was the biggest attack involving helicopters to date, day or night. The heliborne government troops came down almost directly on top of a Viet Cong battalion, but the Viet Cong were unable to gun down the South Vietnamese troops as they disembarked from the helicopters, when they were most vulnerable. Upon realizing the strength of the attack force, the Viet Cong attempted to flee, only to find themselves pursued by South Vietnamese infantry, helicopters, and rocket-firing AD-6 Skyraiders. (p. 168)

On 9/13/2023 at 12:39 PM, Joseph Backes said:

. . . this radical Right-wing Congress who only wants to attack Biden. 

Oh, that's just total nonsense. Here we go again with this far-left tar-brushing of all Republicans as "radicals." Was the recent budget deal that the Republicans made with Biden "radical"? How about the recent bill to improve trade with Taiwan? How about the recent bill that put certain land in San Diego into trust to help the Pala Band of Mission Indians? How about the recent bill that authorized additional major medical facility projects for veterans? How about the recent bill that increased compensation for veterans with service-related disabilities? How about the recent bill to require the DNI to declassify information about COVID's origins? The House passed all these bills, along with the Senate, and Biden signed them--they are now public law. Were these bills "radical"?

I'm guessing you have no clue about the solid and growing evidence of serious wrongdoing by Biden involving brazen pay-for-play/access, aiding and abetting Hunter's criminal activity, the acceptance of huge sums of foreign money under suspicious circumstances, and using extortion to force Ukraine to fire the state prosecutor, etc. Have you read even a single article from a non-liberal source on these issues?

On 9/13/2023 at 5:13 PM, Paul Jolliffe said:

Candy Barr (who knew, but did not work directly for Jack Ruby) was pardoned by John Connally in 1967 for her 1957 marijuana possession conviction for reasons unknown to her, "unless he had read her record and realized she had been framed."

Candy Barr - Biography - IMDb

Uh huh. I'm sure that was the reason . . . 

I don't see how Connally's 1967 pardon of Candy Barr, four years after the assassination, has any bearing on the claim that Connally held a secret meeting with Ruby and others at Ruby's strip club before the assassination. Governors get dozens of requests for pardons every year and usually rely on some kind of screening board to vet the pardon requests. 

It just makes no sense to me that a Boy Scout like Connally, who was the governor of the state at the time, would have been caught dead in a strip club for any reason, much less that he would have attended an illicit meeting at such a club. It would have been far more logical and much safer to hold such a meeting in a private home or in a hotel room.

Is it possible that the FBI padded Estes's account and added the bit about Connally meeting with Ruby and others at the strip club? Or did Estes fabricate this meeting in an otherwise-truthful account?

On 9/13/2023 at 7:27 PM, Vince Palamara said:

HSCA attorney Belford V. Lawson*, in charge of the Secret Service area of the "investigation," is the author of a recently uncovered memo in regard to an interview with Nathan Pool conducted on 1/10/77 and headlined "POOL's CO-DISCOVERY OF THE 'TOMLINSON' BULLET." In the memo, Pool mentions the fact that TWO Secret Service agents were by the elevator, one of which " remained there throughout most or all of Pool's stay". Before we can catch our breath, a THIRD Secret Service agent enters the picture; although all these men were in the immediate vicinity of the discovery of the bullet, one particular agent "was within 10 feet when Pool recognized the bullet". According to Pool, the bullet was pointed, and he added that it "didn't look like it had hit anything and didn't look like it had been in anything".

Lawson felt that further development of Pool's testimony may reveal the following:

QUOTE: "A SECRET SERVICE AGENT WAS FOR A SIGNIFICANT PERIOD OF TIME CLOSE ENOUGH TO THE ELEVATOR TO PLANT A BULLET; MAY LEAD TO AN IDENTIFICATION OF THAT AGENT..."

Pool Nathan 01.pdf (archive.org)

As chance would have it, while I was re-reading your book Survivor's Guilt yesterday, I came across the section on Pool and saw that I had highlighted large parts of it the first time I read it. Great stuff.

Pool's description of the stretcher bullet as pointed matches O. P. Wright's description. Ah, I can hear WC apologists now: They were both "mistaken."

On 11/24/2013 at 6:36 PM, Vince Palamara said:

Agent Sam Kinney's wife BELIEVED LBJ WAS INVOLVED IN JFK's MURDER...WHO SAT NEXT TO KINNEY IN THE FOLLOW-UP CAR? AGENT EMORY ROBERTS, LBJ'S EVENTUAL APPOINTMENT SECRETARY AND DEAR FRIEND---!

http://vincepalamara.com/2013/11/24/sam-kinney-and-his-wife-hazel-disturbing-knowledge/

I remain torn about LBJ's involvement. I'm aware of the fact that in a phone call with Hoover soon after the shooting, LBJ asked if anyone had been shooting at him. On the other hand, I am suspicious of LBJ's vehement attempt to get JFK to swap Connally and Yarborough in the motorcade. Reportedly, the argument devolved into a shouting match. Would LBJ have been so vehement simply because he disliked Yarborough and didn't want to sit next to him during a motorcade during which he could simply ignore Yarborough? 

My tentative suspicion is that LBJ was made aware of the plot, or that he detected indications of the plot on his own, and stayed silent. I have difficulty seeing LBJ as the mastermind behind the plot, though I could be wrong.

On 9/13/2023 at 2:56 PM, Bill Fite said:

She says 6 times during her testimony that she can't identify the murderer then miraculously when she is given the suggestion that it was 'Number 2' she makes the ID.    LOL

Yes, that is astounding. How someone can pretend that this doesn't change "the fact that she identified Oswald as the killer" is hard to comprehend. In any normal case, nobody would take her "identification" seriously.

Anyway, yes, it seems rather obvious that Markham knew or strongly suspected that Oswald was not the man she had seen shoot Tippit. After all, she was at least 90 feet away. I believe the description of the killer that she gave in interviews was her genuine recollection: that the guy was a bit heavy and had dark bushy hair.

17 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

This is real simple.  Michael Griffith misquoted Benavides.

It is very simple: It is hopeless trying to reason with you or to get you to deal credibly with evidence. 

If I say, as Benavides did of the killer's hair, that John Doe's hair "went down and squared off," that would logically mean that I could see his hairline; otherwise, how would I know if his hair "squared off" when it "went down"? How? How? X-ray vision? If I could not see his hairline because it was covered by a coat collar, I would have no idea how his hair looked when it "went down."

If Benavides could not see the guy's hairline, one would logically think he would have said so and would have qualified his description of the guy's hair accordingly. This is just logic and common sense. Ah, but you can't go there because Oswald's hair was indisputably tapered in the back.

Once again, we see that when WC apologists cannot credibly, rationally explain an item of evidence, they usually fall silent after a few lame attempts to deal with it. So far, the only response has been the unserious, implausible suggestion that Dr. Young mistook CE 569 for a deformed bullet.

Again, the bullet was found in a different part of the car than where CE 569 was found (in the rear, not the front); it was found by different people; and it was found at a different time. Plus, no one is going to describe a small, mangled fragment as a "misshapen bullet." People know the difference between a small fragment and a bullet. A bullet is not a small fragment, and a small fragment is not a bullet. To understand the degree of difference here, consider that CE 399 weighed 157.7 grains, whereas CE 569 weighed only 20.6 grains, or nearly eight times less than a WCC bullet.

Dr. Young's account poses an especially thorny challenge for WC apologists because Young accepted the WC's version of the shooting; because he assumed that the bullet he saw was one of the three shots acknowledged by the WC; because he had no idea that his account posed a problem for the single-assassin scenario; because he was consistent in telling his account each time he told it; and because one of the surviving petty officers who found the bullet confirmed Young's account.

This bullet destroys the lone-gunman theory. No version of the lone-gunman scenario can explain the finding of a deformed bullet in the rear of the limo. It means at least four shots were fired. It means there were two gunmen. It means that Dr. Humes, and perhaps other officials at the autopsy, suppressed the bullet's existence.

This is why emotionally blinded or ideologically dominated WC apologists cannot bring themselves to admit that Dr. Young's account is obviously true. 

I have always summarily dismissed the idea of shots from the storm drains. However, Gil's and Greg's posts provide some interesting food for thought and make the idea of storm-drain shots seem less dubious to me. 

Three myths that have done great damage to the case for conspiracy in the JFK assassination, and that have drawn severe criticism from academics and journalists, involve JFK and Vietnam. These myths are (1) that JFK was killed because he was going to unconditionally and totally disengage from South Vietnam after the election, (2) that JFK never would have escalated the war the way LBJ did, and (3) that LBJ enthusiastically escalated the war as quickly as he dared after JFK's murder. Numerous facts refute these myths. Let us start with facts that refute the third myth, and then go backward from there.

-- As literally hundreds of historians have documented from the LBJ White House tapes and memos and meeting minutes, until the Communist offensive in 1965, Johnson strenuously tried to limit the war effort because he feared that an expanded war would interfere with his domestic agenda, especially his Great Society legislation. 

-- Most of the Kennedy holdovers in the Johnson White House recommended deploying combat troops in response to Hanoi's enormous and unprecedented offensive in 1965, a situation that JFK never faced. The North Vietnamese army (NVA) and the Viet Cong (VC) had never launched an offensive of such magnitude against South Vietnam during JFK's presidency. In response to this escalation, JFK holdovers John McNaughton, Robert McNamara, William Bundy, McGeorge Bundy, and Dean Rusk advocated sending combat troops to South Vietnam.

-- Even when Johnson felt compelled to send combat troops in response to the 1965 Communist offensive, he placed insane, reckless restrictions on U.S. ground, naval, and air operations, restrictions that needlessly cost the lives of many American pilots and soldiers.

The Joint Chiefs' objections to these restrictions caused a bitter, deep rift between them and LBJ and McNamara. And, mind you, these were not the "fire-breathing/radical" Joint Chiefs of the JFK era. These chiefs were handpicked by LBJ and McNamara because they were known for being moderate and temperate, and because LBJ and McNamara believed they would be compliant with the administration's gradual-escalation, limited-war approach. For a time, the Joint Chiefs were compliant, but as American casualties mounted, they became increasingly vocal about calling for an end to the restrictions.

-- Far from being chummy with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and far from rubber stamping the Joint Chiefs' requests, LBJ sidelined, attacked, manipulated, and misled the Joint Chiefs. Historian H.R. McMaster documents LBJ's war with the Joint Chiefs in painstaking detail in his best-selling book Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam.

McMaster documents the devious methods that LBJ and McNamara used to mislead, sidetrack, and muzzle the Joint Chiefs and to either reject most of their recommendations or to approve only parts of their recommendations. 

-- Although JFK was adamant about wanting to avoid sending combat troops to South Vietnam, he was never faced with the situation that Johnson faced in 1965. Bobby Kennedy's 4/30/1964 oral history interview makes it clear that Bobby believed JFK might have used combat troops if he had been faced with the imminent collapse of South Vietnam. 

-- Given the fact that Rusk and the Bundy Brothers, and even McNamara and McNaughton, recommended using combat troops in response to the 1965 NVA-VC offensive, would not these men have given the same recommendation to JFK if JFK had not died and had faced a similar situation? 

-- The JFK White House tapes do not contain a single syllable of evidence that JFK intended to abandon South Vietnam after the election, as Dr. Marc Selverstone proves in his widely acclaimed 2022 book The Kennedy Withdrawal. (BTW, earlier this month, Selverstone's book was the subject of a roundtable review by several historians in Passport: The Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations Review [LINK]. One of the reviewers compares Selverstone's book to John Newman's book JFK and Vietnam, and finds Selverstone's book to be more convincing.)

-- As I have documented in this forum on several occasions, JFK's public statements about the Vietnam War, even including two of his speeches during his November 1963 Texas trip, sharply contradict any suggestion that he was planning on abandoning the war effort after the election. In fact, in the months leading up to this death, he specifically criticized and rejected the idea of withdrawing from South Vietnam.

-- Unfortunately, some researchers have uncritically run with the so-called "secret debrief" created by Robert McNamara shortly before JFK's death, to the point of including it in the 2021 documentary JFK Revisited. They failed to consider crucial facts that cast great doubt on the debrief's veracity. For example, not one word about this debrief is uttered on the JFK and LBJ White House tapes. Not a single JFK holdover in LBJ's administration said a word about the debrief. Not one of McNamara's adoring proteges/supporters, not even McNaughton, breathed a word about the debrief. Revealingly, McNamara himself did not even mention the debrief in his memoir, even though he argued in his memoir that JFK intended to withdraw from Vietnam by late1965.

On one especially revealing LBJ White House tape, a phone call between LBJ and McNamara on 2/25/1964, we hear LBJ criticizing McNamara--and JFK--for having publicly talked about the 1,000-man withdrawal plan, going so far as to call such talk "foolish." You would think that if JFK had truly told McNamara he was determined to pull out of Vietnam after the election, McNamara surely would have mentioned this historic declaration to defend himself and JFK. 

And this is not to mention McNamara's known, documented willingness to falsify records, brazenly lie, and deliberately misrepresent the views of others. McMaster's book documents many cases of such conduct. Given McNamara's well-documented penchant for dishonesty and intrigue, did it not occur to the researchers who assisted with JFK Revisited that they should do some checking before running with McNamara's "secret debrief"?

-- Part of the unconditional-withdrawal myth is the myth that the war was going badly in 1962 and 1963. According to this myth, JFK decided he had to get out of Vietnam because the war was going so badly. Even though this myth was soundly refuted years ago by disclosures from newly available/released North Vietnamese sources, among other sources, it still made its way into JFK Revisited. Dr. Mark Moyar's 2006 book Triumph Forsaken presents many pages of evidence, including evidence from North Vietnamese sources, that the war was going well in 1962 and 1963. If you read the 2010 roundtable compilation Triumph Revisited, you will see that the roundtable's liberal scholars did not even address most of the evidence that Moyar presents--they simply ignored it (but acted as though they were refuting Moyar's case).

Needless to say, the fact that the war was actually going well in '62 and '63 belies the claim that military and civilian hawks in Saigon and Washington were feeding JFK false information about the war. It was JFK's liberal advisers who were feeding him false information about the war, especially Hilsman, Harriman, Forrestal, and Ball. The hawks, such as General Harkins, Ambassador Nolting, William Colby, and Walt Rostow, were the ones who were telling JFK the truth about the war effort.

Simply put, the Vietnam War was not one of the plotters' motives. If the plotters were deeply concerned about the Vietnam War, they had far more reasons to be furious with LBJ than with JFK. If the plotters had been as powerful as some have said they were, and if they had killed JFK over Vietnam, they would not have allowed LBJ to impose ridiculous and suicidal restrictions on our military operations in Vietnam, would not have allowed LBJ to fail to respond to VC attacks on American personnel in South Vietnam in 1964, would not have allowed LBJ to implement his bungling gradual-escalation strategy, and would not have allowed LBJ to choose the dovish Hubert Humphrey as his VP.

11 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

 

"Shall we mention that the one guy who was actually close to the shooting when it occurred, Domingo Benavides, said that the gunman had a squared-off (blocked) haircut that ended on the back of his neck above his "Eisenhower" jacket..."

 

Now you're just making stuff up.  Why do you guys continually do things like this?

Benavides said the killer had a squared off haircut, yes.  But he did NOT say the hair was cut "above" the collar of the jacket.  You muddy the waters with this stuff.

Since Benavides did not say that the hair was cut above the collar, it is indeed possible that the jacket's collar itself gave the appearance of a squared off haircut.  The killer could have had a pony tail tucked inside the collar of the jacket and still have the appearance of a squared off haircut.

Oh, sheesh. Can you guys ever just go where the evidence leads? So even though Benavides said the killer had a blocked haircut in the back of his head, since Benavides did not specify that "the hair was cut above the collar," maybe the killer's haircut was really tapered but just looked blocked because of the jacket's collar!

IOW, even though, according to your theory, Benavides supposedly could not see the hairline because of the collar, he merely guessed that the hair was squared off. Is it not much more likely and logical that Benavides could see the hairline and could see that the hair was blocked? Oh, but you can't go there because Oswald undeniably had a tapered haircut. 

Obviously, if you could not see a person's hairline because of his coat collar, you couldn't see whether he had a blocked or a tapered haircut. Naturally, therefore, you would not just guess about what kind of haircut he had. You'd say, "As for his hair style, I don't know because I couldn't see his hairline, so I don't know if his hair was blocked or tapered." This is just common sense. 

11 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

And how does any of that change the fact that she identified Oswald as the killer on the late afternoon of 11/22/63?

The answer to this silly question is self-evident. Do you really need someone to explain to you why the facts regarding her "identification" of Oswald raise serious questions about the validity of that "identification"? Let's review those facts:

The fact that she was at least 90 feet away. The fact that she described the killer as a bit heavy and with dark bushy hair. The fact that she admitted to the WC that she did not "identify" Oswald based on his face but on how he made her feel when she looked at him. The fact that the lineups were grossly rigged to make Oswald the only possible choice to "identify." The fact that she said she spoke with Tippit for several minutes after he was killed. 

Don't you think it's misleading and disingenuous to keep saying that Markham "identified Oswald as the killer" given these facts?

11 hours ago, Vince Palamara said:

HSCA attorney Belford V. Lawson*, in charge of the Secret Service area of the "investigation," is the author of a recently uncovered memo in regard to an interview with Nathan Pool conducted on 1/10/77 and headlined "POOL's CO-DISCOVERY OF THE 'TOMLINSON' BULLET." In the memo, Pool mentions the fact that TWO Secret Service agents were by the elevator, one of which " remained there throughout most or all of Pool's stay". Before we can catch our breath, a THIRD Secret Service agent enters the picture; although all these men were in the immediate vicinity of the discovery of the bullet, one particular agent "was within 10 feet when Pool recognized the bullet". According to Pool, the bullet was pointed, and he added that it "didn't look like it had hit anything and didn't look like it had been in anything".

Lawson felt that further development of Pool's testimony may reveal the following:

QUOTE: "A SECRET SERVICE AGENT WAS FOR A SIGNIFICANT PERIOD OF TIME CLOSE ENOUGH TO THE ELEVATOR TO PLANT A BULLET; MAY LEAD TO AN IDENTIFICATION OF THAT AGENT..."

Pool Nathan 01.pdf (archive.org)

Wow. This is important. Thanks for sharing this.

On 9/8/2023 at 6:07 PM, Bill Brown said:

 

Obvious confusion during her testimony on exactly what Ball was trying to ask her.  But, I'm curious.  What does any of the above have to do with the fact that she identified Oswald back on 11/22/63?  What if she never testified to the Warren Commission?  Before Markham ever heard of Joseph Ball, she picked Oswald on the afternoon of the murder.

"Number two is the one I picked." -- Helen Markham

"Number two was the man I saw shoot the policeman." -- Helen Markham

You can't be serious. Surely you know it is misleading--grossly misleading--to simply claim that Markham "identified" Oswald on the day of the shooting. Surely you know that such a claim would have been destroyed under cross examination in a trial.

For example, in her press interviews, Markham described the gunman as short, a little chunky/kind of heavy, and with bushy black hair. Oswald was 5’9”, downright skinny (if not almost anorexic), and had thinning brown hair.

She told the WC that she did NOT identify Oswald by his face but because he gave her the "chills."

Shall we mention that Markham was at least 90 feet away when the shooting occurred, and that she said that after the killer fled, she spoke with Tippit for several minutes? Tippit, of course, was quite dead when the killer fled.

Shall we mention that the one guy who was actually close to the shooting when it occurred, Domingo Benavides, said that the gunman had a squared-off (blocked) haircut that ended on the back of his neck above his "Eisenhower" jacket, and that photos taken on 11/22/63 clearly show that Oswald’s hair was tapered in the back and would have extended below the neckline on a similar jacket?

And on and on we could go.