Well if he read them it was not carefully

[Tim Gratz]

"Reclaiming America: has a bibliography of 15.75 pages of books alone, which is exclusive of the myriad government reports. (As I noted earlier conspicuously absent from the bibliograohy is "Someone Would Have Talked."

Re the Odio incident (Bugliosi DOES conclude that it was probably Oswald at Odio's) he writes: "Assuming Sylvia Odio is telling the truth, the identity of Leopoldo and Angelo remains unknown to this day." (p. 1306) He later writes: "Leopoldo and Angelo are shadowy (never having been identified) figures whose personal agenda, if we are to believe Odio, included murder (of Castro)." (p. 1315.)

Interestingly, Joan Mellen's " A Farewell to Justice" is included in Bugliosi's bibliography. As we all know, Mellen interviewed Brigade member Angelo Murgado who identified himself and Bernardo DeTorres as Angel and Leopoldo, respectively, and she describes the interview in her book. Although some quarrel with Murgado's account, Prof. Mellen is convinced Murgado was telling the truth.

The point is that it is obvious VB did not read Mellen's book cover-to-cover or he would not make the statements that Angel and Leopoldo have not been identified. Moreover, had he read her account he no doubt would have commented on Murgado's story (that Oswald was at Odio's when he and DeTorres arrived) which contrasts with the testimony of Odio that Oswald came with Angel and Leopoldo.

No wonder Bugliosi can find no evidence of conspiracy. The Odio story demonstrates he did not read all of those conspiracy books cover-to-cover. (Of course, not all the books he lists as pro- or anti-conspiracy books; some are simply JFK biographies or books re the JFK presidency.)

And of course there is no doubt in my mind that had he read Larry's book he would have thrown away his sixteen years of work on his book and converted to the conspiracy side!

Edited August 18, 2007 by Tim Gratz

[Pat Speer]

Tim, your basic point is correct. While the media has hailed Bugliosi's book as well-written and authoritative, it is neither. Outside of the Odio incident, he mostly neglects things he can't counter. A few years back, I went to the McAdams Forum to argue my position that the so-called "mystery" photo represents the back of Kennedy's head, and pointed out that the 1966 inventory described the photo as a "missile wound over entrance in posterior skull." Dr. Chad Zimmerman, however, amazed me with his absolute bs by asserting that this description was of a bullet exit on the forehead. I don't recall even one of his fellow LNs jumping on that rickety boat with him. While looking through Bugliosi's book, I found that not only was Dr. Chad an adviser, but that Bugliosi bought into his bs about the photo!!! Even worse, while Bugliosi elsewhere acknowledges that some think the photo is of the back of the head, he boldly pretends the 1966 description is of the forehead, and fails to mention the far-stronger possibility it was of the back of the head. He COWARDLY hides from his readers that, even for a second, the autopsy doctors could have interpreted the photo as being of the back of the head. He asserts, furthermore, that the drainage hole in the photo proves it was taken from the front. I've studied this drainage hole and used it to PROVE the photo was taken from behind, and not the front. At what point does his deception become a lie?

From patspeer.com,

As clear as it is to most that the doctors changed their interpretation of the mystery photo between November 1966 and January 1967, there are those who insist this is a conspiracy myth. Dr. Chad Zimmerman, for example, is so convinced that the photo shows forehead that he refuses to believe the doctors ever could have thought it was the back of the head. Accordingly, he has convinced himself that the doctors' 1966 description of a "missile wound over entrance in posterior skull, following reflection of the scalp" is not a description of the back of Kennedy's head at all, but a description of the front of his head, showing the interior aspect of the missile wound in the posterior skull, and the scalp reflected over the forehead. Never mind that it says "over entrance in posterior skull," implying that the photo is of tissue just above the skull. Never mind that "following reflection of scalp" modifies "posterior skull" and not "anterior skull" or "forehead." Never mind that there is no mention that the entrance is inside the cranium anywhere in the photo's description.

Vincent Bugliosi, in his 2007 opus Reclaiming History, drifts even further out to see than Zimmerman. On page 261 of his endnotes, he asserts that the allegedly missing autopsy photo of the entrance on President Kennedy’s head is in fact in the collection. He asserts that this photo of the president’s skull with his brain removed was properly described in the November 1, 1966 inventory of the autopsy photos. As stated, this inventory claims the photo depicts a: “missile wound over entrance in posterior skull, following reflection of the scalp.” In January 1967, of course, the doctors changed their interpretation of this photo, and said it depicted an exit on the president’s forehead. Bugliosi, in keeping with Zimmerman, refuses to acknowledge that they changed their interpretation, however, and instead asserts on page 238 and 262 of his endnotes that both descriptions were correct, and that the photo depicts the interior of the back of the head when viewed from the front, as well as the beveled exit on the frontal bone in the foreground of the photo.. To explain why there was no mention of the beveled exit on the skull prior to the January 67 review, Bugliosi suggests that the doctors, who’d only spent 6 hours or more staring at the president’s body, looking for bullet wounds, only discovered this exit during the 1967 inspection of the photos.

Bugliosi goes on to make a statement that distances himself from Zimmerman, however. On page 261 of his endnotes, Bugliosi states “The HSCA forensic pathology panel subsequently concluded that the images depicted both the entrance wound bevel (in the background of the image) and the exit wound bevel (in the foreground of the image).” Bugliosi holds this statement as a confirmation of his earlier analysis of the autopsy doctors’ 1966 and 1967 reports. The problem is that the HSCA determined that the entrance on the back of Kennedy’s head was four inches higher than as determined by the autopsy doctors, and that this photo shows NO “semi-circled” entrance in the entrance location proposed by the panel. No semi-circled entrance in this location was ever mentioned in the testimony of the panel’s spokesman, and none was included on any of their drawings. As a result, it seems likely that the writer of the HSCA’s report incorrectly presented the semi-circle of bone apparent in the photo as both a bullet entrance (“a possible portion of the beveled inner table corresponding to the semicircular margin of the entrance wound at the back of the head” HSCA FPP Report p. 129) and as an exit (“the anterior bone fragment with the semicircular defect” HSCA FPP Report p.129). These interpretations are, of course, mutually exclusive.

Bugliosi's assertion that a bullet entrance is visible at the HSCA's cowlick entrance location is uniquely incorrect, moreover, as everyone to study the photo under the belief it is taken from the front, most prominently Dr. Zimmerman, John Canal and Larry Sturdivan, has come to agree that the bullet entrance visible on the interior aspect of the posterior skull (which is, in my interpretation, the jugular foramen) is, if anything, the lower entrance as described at autopsy. There is no bone in the photo at the level of the cowlick entrance in which there could even be a bullet entrance! From this, it seems clear that Vincent Bugliosi, who only spent 20 years writing his book on the assassination, never found the time to gain even a basic understanding of the mystery photo. Perhaps its time he bought a computer...

[Tim Gratz]

Pat, you have been doing a wonderful job on Bugliosi's misstating the medical evidence.

I noticed that he does not even discuss John Martino in the book itself. Although he admits he has not read Larry Hancock's book that goes into Martino extensively, he does list in his bibliography the Vanity Fair article "The Ghosts of November" by Anthony Summers and Robyn Swann that discussed the Martino pre-assassination statements. Do you know what he says about Martino on the CD?

And I just listened to his speech in San Francsico where one of his big points was that after 44 years no one has talked! Which is ridiculous because of course Jim Files and Chauncey Holt confessed, but he did not qualify his remark that no one credible had confessed. And I am positive he made the speech after Hunt "confessed". So we have at a minimum Files, Holt, Martino, Hunt and (at least per Wheaton) Carl Jenkins and he STILL says with a straight face that no one has talked! Now, he could be forgiven I think if he made a statement that there have been no CREDIBLE confessions--which of course is a matter of opinion--but he cannot do that and still maintain that there is NO evidence a rational person could accept.

So again it is clear he ignores evidence that does not suit his position.

[Tim Gratz]

Well I have now found another book listed in the bibliography of "Reclaiming America" that VB apparently did not read.

I know it is probably the LEAST popular theory among Forum members, but long-term members may recall that in Joseph Trento's "The Secret History of the CIA" Trento claims that a faction of the Politburo whose main objective was to depose Khruschev had to first get rid of JFK and this faction organized the assassination, with some help from the Cubans. Trento even names the Politburo members he claims (rather it was Angleton, his source) organized the assassination. As I recall, and I am quite sure, the KGB was not only not involved but was unaware of it.

PLEASE UNDERSTAND MY POINT IN THE ABOVE IS NOT TO RESTART A DEBATE ON THE TRENTO THEORY. MY POINT APPLIES WHETHER YOU ACCEPT THE THEORY OR NOT (heck, I know you don't.)

In his section on conspiracies, VB discusses why the KGB could not have been involved in the assassination. Without going into it in any detail, since again my purpose in this post is not to advance the theory, but at least some of the objections to KGB involvement would not apply if Trento's theory was correct.

So my point is that "Reclaiming History" lists "The Secret History of the CIA" in its multi-page bibliography but VB never in his book discusses the Trento theory or the names that Trento names.

Trento's chapters on involvement in the assassination by the very same Politburo members that did depose Khruschev in 1964 is no doubt the most carefully articulated theory of "Soviet involvement" in recent assassination literature.

The fact that VB never discusses it seems ample proof to me that there is a SECOND book in his bibliography that he did not read. Had he read it, he would have HAD to respond to it since it is the most developed articulation of "Soviet" involvement.

So we now have TWO books VB claims to have read (presumably that is what is meant when a book is listed in a bibliography) that the OMISSIONS in his book demonstrate he really did NOT read them: Joan Mellen's "A FAREWELL TO JUSTICE" and Joseph Trento's "THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE CIA".

Edited August 20, 2007 by Tim Gratz