Michael Griffith

Well, let's be clear about one thing from the outset: Very few conspiracy theorists still believe that the autopsy x-rays and photos are genuine/accurate, especially the autopsy brain photos (which are brazenly contradicted by the skull x-rays). The Zapruder film is a different matter. There are many WC skeptics who still believe the Zapruder film is the original film. As for why a few conspiracy theorists still believe the autopsy x-rays and photos are genuine, I think one reason they believe this is that you can make a strong case against the lone-gunman theory even if you assume the autopsy materials are genuine, ala Dr. Joe Riley. For example, the existing autopsy materials show two separate wound paths in the brain, one cortical and the other subcortical. The x-rays show pretty clear indications of a frontal shot. The x-rays also show a substantial amount of missing frontal bone and a clear gap between the triangular fragment and the missing parietal bone, a fact that the autopsy doctors and the HSCA FPP erroneously and fraudulently denied. Etc., etc., etc. I think that many WC critics still believe the Zapruder film is the original for the same reason that a few critics believe the autopsy materials are genuine, i.e., that you can make a powerful case against the lone-gunman theory with the existing Zapruder film. By even the most ultra-cautious, conservative analysis, the film shows reactions to four shots. I believe that the plotters were unable to edit the film enough to remove all evidence of multiple gunmen, and that the edited version was unacceptable to them, which is why the film was suppressed for so long--the film was not shown to the American people until 1975.

Regarding the flimsy, dubious case against Oswald in the Walker shooting, I quote from Dr. Gerald McKnight’s section on the shooting from his book Breach of Trust: Belmont was accurate when he told Katzenbach that Oswald had never been a suspect in the Dallas police’s investigation into the Walker case. All of the Dallas police’s witness testimony pointed to two or three conspirators with cars using a high-powered rifle and steel-jacketed ammunition. Oswald did not drive and had no known access to a car, his Mannlicher-Carcano rifle was not high-powered, and the ammunition he allegedly used to kill Kennedy was copper-jacketed. The bullet the Dallas police recovered from Walker’s home had passed through the center wood strip of the outer screen of the general’s study, through a copper weather strip, and penetrated an inside masonry wall reinforced with solid tin and metal lathing, finally falling onto a pile of papers in the adjoining room. Because the bullet was completely mutilated and deformed by such obstruction, the Dallas police claimed they had run no ballistics test on the recovered slug. . . . Whatever weapon was involved in the Walker shooting incident, it was highly unlikely that a 6.5-mm bullet fired from Oswald’s rifle could have penetrated a cinder block, as did the projectile recovered from Walker’s house. During his first appearance before the Warren Commission, Robert A. Frazier, the FBI’s chief firearms expert, repeatedly stressed that Oswald’s Mannlicher-Carcano had a “very low velocity and pressure, and just an average-size bullet weight”. . . . What Eisenberg carefully avoided and Frazier did not volunteer were the results of the FBI’s spectrographic analysis of Q-188. A week before Frazier appeared before the Commission, Eisenberg met with him and Agent Henry H. Heilberger to review the FBI lab results for the Walker bullet. Eisenberg could not have been encouraged by what he learned from Heilberger, the one who ran the tests. Heilberger concluded in his report (PC-78378) that the lead alloy in the Walker bullet was different from the lead alloy of the two large bullet fragments recovered from under the left jump seat of the presidential limousine. (pp. 48-50) In 1979 Walker was watching a televised session of the House Select Committee on Assassinations when Robert Blakey, the committee’s chief counsel, held up CE 573 as a visual aide to augment his narrative on the firearms evidence in the Kennedy assassination. Walker, a thirty-year career army officer with extensive combat experience in World War II, and with more than a passing familiarity with military weaponry, was stunned. According to Walker, what Blakey represented as the bullet fired into his home bore no resemblance to the piece of lead the police had recovered, which he had held in his own hand and closely examined. (p. 52) McKnight also deals at length with the highly suspicious “discovery” of the alleged Oswald note, the absence of Lee and Marina’s prints on the note, the eyewitness testimony that two men were involved and that neither looked like Oswald, and the pressure that was applied to Marina.

I just hope that a new book is written about the Lafitte datebook, one that is not laced with egregious tar-brush attacks on conservative political figures and their supporters.

Sigh. . . . A few facts, facts that have been known for years: -- Walker himself insisted that the bullet in evidence looked nothing like the bullet that he examined at the time of the shooting. -- FBI spectrographic testing found that the lead alloy in the bullet was different from the lead in the bullet fragments found in JFK's limo. -- Guinn's bogus NAA finding regarding the Walker bullet has been debunked. -- The Walker bullet was fired from a high-powered rifle, a rifle powerful enough to enable the bullet to go through brickwork. The Mannlicher–Carcano rifle was not that powerful--it was a rather low-velocity weapon--and there is no evidence that Oswald had access to a high-powered rifle. -- Two men were seen leaving the shooting scene, and neither of them resembled Oswald. -- The alleged Oswald note smells to high heaven. The finding of the note alone raises strong doubt about its authenticity. The police and the FBI thoroughly searched Ruth Paine’s home twice, once on the afternoon of the shooting and again the next day, and failed to find the note. Also, the note was undated, did not mention Walker, and said nothing about a reason for a potential arrest. Moreover, two of the three handwriting experts consulted by the HSCA declined to identify the note's handwriting as Oswald's handwriting. And, none of the seven fingerprints on the note belonged to either Lee or Marina.

Personally, I could never feel shamed by anyone who still believes in the single-bullet theory. Similarly, I could never feel shamed by someone who believes that Elvis did not die in 1977 but faked his death and lived a secret life for many years thereafter. Given all we now know about why the SBT was conjured up in the first place, given the release of clear photos of the tie and what those photos show (e.g., no hole through the tie and no nick on the edge of the tie), given the hard physical evidence of the holes in the back of JFK's coat and shirt, given the ARRB releases about the absolute and positive determination during the autopsy that the back wound had no exit point, given Dr. Mantik's CT scan of a JFK-like torso showing no path from the back wound to the throat wound without smashing through bone, given that the Zapruder film indisputably shows that JFK was hit before Z190, given the demolition of Guinn's NAA fraud, given that three of the Dallas doctors revealed that the throat wound was above the tie knot, and given the recent Knott Laboratory 3D laser SBT analysis, etc., etc., there is just no excuse for still believing in the SBT.

Anyone who still believes in the single-bullet theory is in no position to shame anyone, especially after the release of close-up photos of the shirt and tie, after the demolition of Guinn's NAA, and after the the Knott Laboratory 3D laser analysis of the SBT. Reasonable people will recognize this paragraph as a mix of strawman polemic and a denial of documented facts. We could literally fill hundreds of pages with real-life cases of innocent suspects who were wrongly convicted because the police and/or prosecutors used faked evidence, altered evidence, and/or planted evidence. FYI, it is an established fact that the CIA ran long-term imposter projects. "Presidential body-snatchers"? Well, we now know that JFK's body arrived at Bethesda long before its official arrival time, and that it arrived in a cheap metal military shipping casket, not in the ceremonial casket into which it was placed in Dallas. Personally, I've never mentioned or seen references to "photo-alteration vans" in Dealey Plaza. Photo alteration probably occurred elsewhere. There are technical anomalies and impossibly fast movements in the Zapruder film that no anti-alteration apologist has yet been able to explain, not to mention the absence of events in the film that numerous witnesses described (such as the limo stop/marked slowdown). How many times have governments been caught using fake photos for propaganda/disinformation purposes? Did you miss the news about the CIA's frequent use of fake photos in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s? How many thousands of cases of fake passports that fooled government customs personnel do you want to talk about? It is almost comical that WC apologists, and a few misguided WC critics, act like photo fakery and photo alteration only happen in fiction movies and spy novels.

In fact, in some criminal cases, eyewitness accounts are given years after the fact but are still viewed as credible and reliable. In the case of the large back-of-head wound, we have written same-day accounts from several doctors. We have Agent Hill's 11/30/63 report in which he mentions seeing the wound and notes that he saw JFK's head three times on the day of the shooting, once for several minutes on the back of the limo, again at Parkland Hospital, and again at Bethesda (where he was specifically asked to view the wounds). We have extensive WC testimony from Parkland doctors and nurses who saw the wound. We have recorded private interviews with medical and non-medical personnel who saw the wound either at Parkland or Bethesda. We have the HSCA interviews in which numerous Parkland and Bethesda witnesses recalled seeing the wound. And, we have the ARRB interviews in which a number of witnesses, including several new ones, recalled seeing the wound or recalled seeing the wound in autopsy photos that were excluded from the official collection.

I think most rational, educated people, especially those who know anything about Israel's early history, would agree that "Israel's possible involvement" is an absurd, fringe, far-fetched proposition that is well beyond the bounds of respectable discussion.

As usual, you are being very selective in your choice of witnesses and statements. How about the nurses who saw, and in one case handled, a large back-of-head wound? How about the morticians who saw, handled, and filled a large back-of-head wound? How about the federal agents who saw a large back-of-head wound (even though they thought it was an exit wound from a shot from the rear)? How about the funeral worker who felt the edges of the back-of-head wound as he helped put the body in the casket? How about the other witnesses at the autopsy who saw a large back-of-head wound (Karnei, Reed, McHugh, Canada, Ebersole, Stringer [first interview], Custer [first interview], etc.)? How about the autopsy photographer and the autopsy photo lab technician who said they saw autopsy photos that showed a large back-of-head wound? How about the newsman at Parkland who saw a large back-of-head wound? How about the 11/22/63 Parkland reports that mention a right occipital-parietal wound? Why do you suppose Finck questioned the authenticity of the back-of-head autopsy photo? What about the brazen contradiction between the skull x-rays and the brain photos regarding the amount of missing brain (much of the right brain missing vs. only 1-2 ounces of brain missing)?

To read this post, one would never guess that suspects are charged and convicted based solely or mostly on eyewitness testimony all the time. It happens every day in our courts. In most cases, many if not the majority of the witnesses did not give their accounts immediately after the event but anywhere from half an hour to an hour to several days or even weeks after the fact. I would like to see a study where dozens of witnesses independently make the same egregious mistake in describing a wound when they have clear reference points to which to associate the wound. We're not talking about a few people, but at least over two dozen who supposedly could not tell the difference between a wound above the right ear and a wound in the back of the head that included part of the occiput. We're talking about nurses and morticians who handled the skull, for crying out loud. We're talking about a federal agent who saw the wound three times in one day, the first time being from just a few feet away and for several minutes. We're talking about a funeral home worker who held JFK's head in his hands while he helped put the body in the casket and who could feel the jagged edges of a large wound in the back of the head.

So your argument is that dozens of people independently, and in three different locations, actually saw a large wound above the right ear but for some inexplicable reason mistook it for a large wound that was 3-4 inches farther back on the head and included part of the occiput, even though some of them actually handled the head or saw the wound up-close for several minutes, including the morticians who reassembled the skull after the autopsy. I don't see how anyone can truly, deep down, believe this. We now know that Dr. Finck questioned the authenticity of the back-of-head photo in his HSCA FPP testimony. We know that one of the FBI agents at the autopsy (Francis O'Neill) said the back-of-head photo looked "doctored" and did not show the head as he remembered it. We know that Saundra Spencer and Joe O'Donnell told the ARRB that they saw autopsy photos that showed a large hole in the back of the head. We also know that the autopsy brain photos are fraudulent because the skull x-rays show a large portion of the right brain missing, whereas the autopsy photos show only 1-2 ounces of tissue missing (as Bugliosi foolishly and gladly acknowledged). We further know that bits of JFK's brain were blown onto at least 16 surfaces. I find it much more logical and easier to believe that a handful of autopsy photos are fraudulent than to believe that dozens of people, including doctors and nurses and morticians, independently mistook a large wound above the right ear for a large wound in the back of the head.

I think you misspoke. The only skeptics who accept the large back-of-head wound are WC skeptics. WC apologists universally reject the back-of-head wound. WC skeptics accept it. Anyway, your posts are great. Keep them coming! If anyone is getting "headaches" from your posts, they are getting them because their brains are trying to break free from the lone-gunman brainwashing that has chained them down all these years.

No WC apologist has yet offered a rational, credible explanation for why Tippit was so far out of his area when all other police officers had understandably been ordered to head to the downtown area. Even the 1:16 shooting time requires that we believe that Tippit's killer somehow walked past 10th and Patton before Tippit arrived, then inexplicably turned around and started walking west before Tippit arrived, and then turned around again and resumed his eastward heading, i.e., away from Tippit's car, when he saw Tippit's car approaching.

Requested DENIED. Resubmit in 90 days with triplicate forms. Be advised that you must answer the first question on the form before you can complete the rest of the form. The first question reads, "Do you still believe in the single-bullet theory?" Warning: Checking the Yes box will gray-out the rest of the form, and you will be sent links to (1) the overhead CT image that proves that no bullet could have gone from the back wound to the throat wound without smashing through the spine, and (2) the recent Knott Laboratory 3D laser analysis that proves that a bullet exiting JFK's throat could not have caused Connally's back wound.

Gerry, your handler has asked me to advise you that you're sharing too much information about CIA recruiting operations. He also asked me to pass along that it would be a shame if your scheduled promotion were delayed or revoked. Remember: I'm just the messenger here.

And then there was Parkland Hospital nurse Patricia Hutton. She said nothing about seeing a large wound above the right ear, but she did see a large wound in the back of the head. Nurse Hutton saw JFK's body moved from the limo onto a hospital cart, and then she helped to wheel the cart into the ER and witnessed the efforts to save JFK's life. She was asked to place a dressing on the head wound, but she said this did no good "because of the massive opening on the back of the head" (Price Exhibit No. 21: Activities of Pat Hutton on Friday, November 22, 1963, MD 99, p. 2). She added that the President was "bleeding profusely from a wound on the back of his head." Are we to believe that she could not tell the difference between a large wound above the right ear and a large wound on the back of the head? How did all the morticians fail to see the obvious wound above the right ear that we see in the autopsy photos? Mortician Tom Robinson said nothing about a large wound above the right ear. Robinson said he saw "a large, open wound in the back of the President's head" (ARRB meeting report, 6/211/96, MD 180, p. 2). He provided a diagram of the wound and put it in the occiput (MD 88, p. 5). Robinson gave the same description to the HSCA in 1977 (HSCA interview transcript, 1/12/1977, MD 63, p. 2). Mortician John VanHoesen said nothing about a large wound above the right ear. VanHoesen said there was a hole "roughly the size of a small orange (estimated by gesturing with his hands) in the centerline of the back of the head" even after the skull was reconstructed (ARRB meeting report, 9/25/96, MD 181, p. 4). He explained that the hole was covered with a sheet of plastic "to prevent leakage." Mortician Joe Hagan said nothing about a large wound above the right ear. Hagan said that JFK's head was "open in the back." Gesturing to the back of his head, he said that "all of this was open in the back." The ARRB meeting report notes that he gestured "to the area between both of his own ears on the back of his head" (ARRB meeting report, 5/17/96, MD 182, p. 5). Were all these medical personnel legally blind and/or astonishingly ignorant of basic anatomy? Are we to believe that they looked at a large wound above the right ear and somehow imagined that it was 3-4 inches farther back on the head? Is it just an amazing coincidence that after getting a close-up, prolonged look at JFK's large head wound en route to Parkland, and after seeing the wound twice more that day, Agent Clint Hill said the wound was in the right-rear part of the head? And is it an even more amazing coincidence that the Parkland nurse who cleaned JFK's head and packed the large head wound with gauze, Diana Bowron, said the wound was in the back of the head? Could she not distinguish between the right ear and the back of the head while she was cleaning the wound and packing it with gauze?

I've never really cared a great deal about the identity of the shooters. I'm much more interested in the identity of the plotters and in the identity of those who knowingly participated in the cover-up.

Another autopsy witness who confirmed the EOP entry site was Secret Service agent Roy Kellerman, noting that the entry wound was near the hairline: KELLERMAN: Entry into this man's head was right below that wound [the large wound on the right-rear side of the head--see below], right here. SPECTER: Indicating the bottom of the hairline immediately to the right of the ear [Specter's/viewer's right] about the lower third of the ear? . . . SPECTER: Near the end of his hairline? KELLERMAN: Yes, sir. SPECTER: What was the size of that aperture? KELLERMAN: The little finger. SPECTER: Indicating the diameter of the little finger. KELLERMAN: Right. (2 H 81) [/quote] During his HSCA interview, Kellerman drew a diagram that the put the entry wound about 2 inches below the exit wound and well to the left of the right ear (HSCA interview summary, 8/29/1977, p. 10). Kellerman also saw a large wound in the right-rear part of the head. In the segment preceding the above-quoted testimony, Kellerman said the large wound was in the rear portion of the head, to the left of the right ear: Mr. KELLERMAN. He had a large wound this size. Mr. SPECTER. Indicating a circle with your finger of the diameter of 5 inches; would that be approximately correct? Mr. KELLERMAN. Yes, circular; yes, on this part of the head. Mr. SPECTER. Indicating the rear portion of the head. Mr. KELLERJIBS. Yes. Mr. SPECTER. More to the right side of the head? Mr. BELLERMAS. Right. This was removed. Mr. SPECTER. When you say, “This was removed,” what do you mean by this? Mr. KELLERMAN: The skull part was removed. Mr. SPECTER. All right. Representative FORD. Above the ear and back? Mr. KELLERMAN. To the left of the ear, sir, and a little high; yes. About right in here. Mr. SPECTER. When you say “removed,” by that do you mean that it was absent when you saw him, or taken off by the doctor? Mr. KELLERMAN. It was absent when I saw him. (2 H 80-81) In his WC testimony, Kellerman also noted that he told Agent Clint Hill that he wanted him to see the wounds and that he "pointed out the wounds to Hill" (HSCA interview summary, 8/29/1977, p. 7). This is noteworthy because in his 11/30/63 report, Agent Hill confirmed this and twice noted that the large wound was in the right-rear part of the head: As I lay over the top of the back seat I noticed a portion of the President's head on the right rear side was missing and he was bleeding profusely; Part of his brain was gone. . . . At approximately 2:45 a.m., November 23, I was requested by ASAIC Kellerman to come to the morgue to once again view the body. When I arrived the autopsy had been completed and ASAIC Kellerman, SA Greer, General McHugh and I viewed the wounds. I observed a wound about six inches down from the neckline on the back just to the right of the spinal column. I observed another wound on the right rear portion of the skull. (Statement of Special Agent Clinton J. Hill, United States Secret Service, 11/30/1963, pp. 3, 5-6, in CE 1024, pp. 742, 744-745) So Hill saw the same wound that he observed for several minutes en route to Parkland that he saw in the Bethesda morgue when he was asked to view JFK's wounds, and that wound was in the right-rear part of the skull. Kellerman's HSCA diagram also showed a large wound in the back of the head (HSCA interview summary, 8/29/1977, p. 10).

I think the skeptics soundly won the Parkland debate with the ARRB releases, with the Harrison Livingstone interviews, and with other disclosures. Among many other things, we learned that even some of the autopsy witnesses who believed there was only one head shot and that it came from behind said there was a large wound in the back of the head (e.g., Sibert and O'Neill). Other autopsy witnesses who said there was a large rear head wound include Dr. Robert Karnei Tom Robinson Jan Rudnicki Joe Hagan Dr. John Ebersole General McHugh Robert Knudsen Edward Reed I find the Diana Bowron, Clint Hill, Aubrey Rike, Doris Nelson, and Roy Kellerman descriptions of a large rear head wound particularly convincing.

Clint Hill saw the wound up-close for several minutes while he rode on the back of the limo on the way to Parkland, saw the wound again at Parkland, and saw the wound again at Bethesda. In his 11/29/63 report, he said there was a large wound in the right-rear part of the head. The Parkland nurse who cleaned the head and packed the head wound with gauze to prepare the body for placement in the casket, Diana Bowron, and the supervising nurse who watched the cleaning and wrapping of the body, Doris Nelson, said the large wound was in the back of the head. The funeral home worker who held JFK's head in his hands while he helped put the body in the casket, Aubrey Rike, said he could feel a large, jagged wound in the back of the head. Several of the Parkland doctors specified in their first reports that JFK had a large right-occipital-parietal wound, and some of them even specified that they could see cerebellum extruding from the wound. The cerebellum is unique in appearance compared to other parts of the brain, and the cerebellum is located low in the rear area of the brain. For example: Dr. Kemp Clark, neurosurgeon: Two external wounds, one in the lower third of the anterior neck, the other in the occipital region of the skull, were noted. . . . There was a large wound in the right occipital-parietal region, from which profuse bleeding was occurring. . . . There was considerable loss of scalp and bone tissue. Both cerebral and cerebellar tissue were extruding from the wound. (Summary report of Dr. Kemp Clark, 11/22/63, pp. 1-2, CE 392) Dr. Malcolm Perry: A small wound was noted in the midline of the neck, in the lower third anteriorly. It was exuding blood slowly. A large wound of the right posterior cranium was noted. (Treatment report of Dr. Malcolm Perry, 11/22/63, p. 1, CE 392) Dr. Marion T. Jenkins: There was a great laceration on the right side of the head (temporal and occipital), causing a great defect in the skull plate so that there was herniation and laceration of great areas of the brain, even to the extent that the cerebellum had protruded from the wound. (Statement of Dr. Marion T. Jenkins, 11/22/63, p. 2, CE 392) Tom Robinson, one of the morticians at the autopsy, said there was an orange-sized hole in the back of the head. Dr. John Ebersole, the radiologist at the autopsy, told the HSCA that there was a large wound in the back of the head and that one of the late-arriving skull fragments was occipital bone. When Dr. Mantik spoke with Dr. Ebersole, Dr. Ebersole repeated his statement that there was a sizable hole in the back of the head. Dr. Robert Karnei, one of the doctors who attended the autopsy, said there was a large hole in the back of the head. Edward Reed, an x-ray technician at the autopsy, told the HSCA that there was a large wound "located in the right hemisphere in the occipital region." General Godfrey McHugh, one of Kennedy's top aides, attended the autopsy. He got a good look at JFK's head wounds. During a recorded interview, McHugh placed the large defect in the back of the head. When asked by to define what he meant by "back of the head," McHugh replied, "The portion that is in the back of the head, when you're lying down in the bathtub, you hit the back of the head." Newsman Roy Stamps saw Kennedy's body in the limousine at Parkland shortly before it was taken inside. He said "the back of his head was gone." And on and on we could go.

This far-left anti-Israeli trash can also be found in several articles published in Hamas, Hezbollah, Iranian, and PLA publications. This thread's OP is another sad example of the Far Left's attempt to project their own radical views onto JFK.

JFK should have helped Israel get the bomb, instead of trying to prevent her from doing so. He was simply wrong on this issue. If any nation on Earth had the right to have the bomb, it was Israel. Everyone understood why France adamantly insisted on having the bomb. It should have been obvious why Israel wanted and needed the bomb. By the time JFK took office, Israel had already been attacked once by her neighbors in 1948, and eight years later, starting in 1956, Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran and the Suez Canal to Israeli shipping and blockaded the Gulf of Aqaba. Only after Israel, with French and British backing, sent forces into the Sinai Peninsula and captured the Gaza Strip and the Sinai did Egypt agree to freedom of navigation and to the demilitarization of the Sinai. Given these events and the virulent anti-Israeli/anti-Semitic propaganda continually coming from Egypt, Syria, and Iraq through the 1950s and 1960s, Israel had every rational and moral right to arm herself with nukes. Although JFK disagreed with Israel's desire for the bomb, he agreed to sell Israel the Hawk missile system, whereas Truman and Ike had refused to sell Israel such advanced missile weaponry.

You are simply ignoring the plain meaning of what Hodges says after this. Yes, he begins by referring to the autopsy report's description of the wound, but then, as we've seen, he says that some of the color photos show the small wound in the occiput. Let's read again: Although not readily detected on the x-rays, a small round hole visible from intercranial side after the brain was removed is described in the autopsy report in the right occipital bone and many of the linear fracture lines converge on the described site [ok, so he has just cited the autopsy report]. The appearance is in keeping with colored photographs showing a large compound, comminuted injury in the right frontal region, and a small round soft tissue wound in the right occipital region. What don't you understand here? He stops citing the autopsy report after the first sentence and then refers to color photos showing a small wound in the right occipital region. The autopsy report says nothing about color photos showing a small wound in the occiput, so this is obviously based on Hodges' own observations. Let's continue: The x-rays and the photographs are diagnostic of a gunshot wound in which the bullet struck the right occiput leaving a portion of itself flattened against the outer table before penetrating the bone, producing a small hole of entry largely obscured on the x-ray by the more extensive havoc caused in the brain and anterior skull represented by extensive fractures, missing bone, disrupted soft tissues and gas within the cranial cavity. So according to Hodges, the x-rays and photos are "diagnostic" of a bullet that "struck the right occiput." Synonyms of "diagnostic" include "characteristic," "typical," and "symptomatic." Here, too, the Hodges is not citing the autopsy report, since the autopsy report does not make this statement about the x-rays and the photos and does not mention a fragment flattened against the outer table. BTW, all three of the ARRB forensic experts, including the forensic radiologist, said they saw no cowlick entry site on the skull x-rays.

Let's read what Hodges said again, with focus on the key sentence in his statement: The appearance [the one he just said was described in the autopsy report] is in keeping with the color photographs showing a large compound, comminuted injury in the right frontal region, and a small round soft tissue wound in the right occipital region. So he said that the color photos show "a small round soft tissue wound in the right occipital region." He said that the description in the autopsy report "is in keeping" with the color photos, and that those photos show a small round wound in the occiput. I don't know how you can read his statement any other way. He discussed the autopsy report's description of the wound, and then said that the wound's described appearance corresponds to the "color photographs showing . . . a small round soft tissue wound in the right occipital region." And let's remember that Hodges also said that The x-rays and photographs are diagnostic of a gunshot wound in which the bullet struck the right occiput . . . producing a small hole of entry largely obscured on the x-ray by the more extensive havoc caused in the brain and anterior skull. . . . (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=32027#relPageId=3, pp. 2-3) So clearly, Hodges himself put the wound in the right occiput and was not just repeating the autopsy report. I find the "they weren't lying, just wrong" argument markedly far-fetched. It is just not a reasonable or plausible scenario that Finck, Lipsey, Stringer, Humes, and Boswell all committed the astonishing blunder of mistaking a wound that would have been clearly above the lambda and above the lambdoid suture for a wound that was only 1 cm above the EOP, that was 2 inches below the lambda, that was 1 inch below the lambdoid suture, and that was near the hairline. Nobody is that blind and/or that incompetent. This scenario is as bad as, if not worse than, the scenario that the Parkland doctors, including the neurosurgeon, couldn't tell the difference between the cerebellum and the cerebrum, and that numerous doctors, nurses, medical assistants, and federal agents mistook a wound above the right ear for a back-of-head wound that included part of the occiput and that was a good 3 inches behind the right ear.

No, go back and read what Dr. Hodges said. He said he could see the wound in some of the autopsy photos. Let's read his statement again: Although not readily detected on the x-rays, a small round hole visible from the intracranial side after the brain was removed is described in the autopsy report in the right occipital bone, and many of the linear fracture lines converge on the described site. The appearance is in keeping with the color photographs showing a large compound, comminuted injury in the right frontal region, and a small round soft tissue wound in the right occipital region. I might add that when the autopsy doctors examined the autopsy photos in late 1966, they reported that the autopsy photos proved that the EOP entry wound was correct: The autopsy report states that a lacerated entry wound measuring 15 by 6 mm (0.59 by 0.24 inches) is situated in the posterior scalp approximately 2.5 cm (1 inch) laterally to the right and slightly above the external occipital protuberance (a bony protuberance at the back of the head). . . . Photographs Nos. 15, 16, 42, and 43 show the location and size of the wound, and establish that the above autopsy data were accurate. (p. 3) In Dr. Finck's January 1965 report to General Blumberg, Finck said the entry wound was in the occiput (p. 1). Are you going to tell me that Finck could have so horrendously blundered as to locate a wound in the occiput that was actually visibly above the lambda and even more visibly above the lambdoid suture and thus obviously in the parietal bone? Military aide Richard Lipsey, who attended the autopsy on orders from General Wehle, told the HSCA that the entry wound was "just inside the hairline" (Richard A. Lipsey Interview, 1/18/1978, HSCA transcript, p. 9). The HSCA interviewers asked Lipsey to draw a diagram of JFK's wounds. Lipsey put the rear head entry wound in the lower-middle part of the back of head, just above the hairline and very near the EOP (p. 10). Autopsy photographer John Stringer told the ARRB that he saw the rear head entry wound, that it was very close to the EOP and "near the hairline," and that the red spot in autopsy photo F3 was not a wound (ARRB deposition, July 16, 1996, pp. 193-196; cf. pp. 87-90).