How reliable is Josiah Thompson?

[Bill Miller]

In other words, Thompson’s summary of Mrs Hester’s location and statement is “erroneous” in the extreme. An honest version would read:

Location: S. side of Elm St. close to underpass

The Hesters are seen in the Willis photo and Wiegman film and were on the NORTH side of Elm Street. They got off the ground and went 'across' the knoll to the shelter on the north side of Elm Street.

Is the playing on words all you have to bring to the discussion???

Bill Miller

Edited February 24, 2008 by Bill Miller

[Jack White]

Mrs Charles Hester statement to the FBI, 24 November 1963, as recorded by J. Doyle Williams and Henry J. Oliver, 24H523:

Mrs CHARLES HESTER, 2619 Keyhold Street, Irving, Texas, advised that sometime around 12:30 p.m., on November 22, 1963, she and her husband were standing along the street at a place immediately preceding the underpass on Elm Street, where President Kennedy was shot. Mrs HESTER advised she heard two loud noises which sounded like gunshots, and she saw President KENNEDY slump in the seat of the car he was riding in. Her husband grabbed then grabbed her and shoved her to the ground. Shortly thereafter they went across to the north side of the street on an embankment in an attempt to gain shelter. She stated that she believes she and her husband actually had been in the direct line of fire. She did not see anyone with a gun when the shots were fired and stated she could not furnish any information as to exactly where the shots came from. After the President’s car had pulled away from the scene, she and her husband proceeded to their car and left the area as she was very upset.”

[David G. Healy]

In other words, Thompson’s summary of Mrs Hester’s location and statement is “erroneous” in the extreme. An honest version would read:

Location: S. side of Elm St. close to underpass

The Hesters are seen in the Willis photo and Wiegman film and were on the NORTH side of Elm Street. They got off the ground and went 'across' the knoll to the shelter on the north side of Elm Street.

Is the playing on words all you have to bring to the discussion???

Bill Miller

the devil is in the details, sonny.......

[Bill Miller]

The Hesters are seen in the Willis photo and Wiegman film and were on the NORTH side of Elm Street. They got off the ground and went 'across' the knoll to the shelter on the north side of Elm Street.

the devil is in the details, sonny.......

Ahhhh ... good to see the guy who whines when others jump into a thread that they were not invited to, but doesn't mind doing it himself ... come to dance some more?

So the 'devil is in the details' - hey David. Now I know that your not just a troller looking for attention, so please lay some of them devilish details on us, David. We're all ears!!!

Bill Miller

[Josiah Thompson]

You quote the follwing paragraph from Trask's book: 1) Richard B. Trask. Pictures of the Pain: Photography and the assassination of President Kennedy (Danvers, Ma: Yeoman Press, 1994), pp. 316-317: “With the presidential Lincoln disappearing into the underpass, Altgens made a picture of the activity across Elm Street showing amateur movie maker Abraham Zapruder and his secretary Marilyn Sitzman just after they had gotten down from the concrete wall from where he had filmed the assassination. In the middle of the frame are Mr and Mrs Charles Hester hunkered down in front of the colonnade area.”

Only two pages later, Trask points out: "In later years, Altgens became unsure of the number of photographs he took that day of the assassination, and has been reluctant to acknowledge authorship of all seven since he is very adamant about not wanting to take credit for someone else's work... An examination of the negative sequence, however, shows quite conclusively that these seven pictures are Altgens's, a fact first noticed by researcher Richard E. Sprague, who found the individually cut negatives at AP in New York. The film is of the same type (Tri X), is numbered sequentially, is chronological, and taken from the same vantage points at which Altgens is known to have been located. Mr. Altgens's personal caution is refreshing, but in light of the evidence, not problematical to the evidence." Trask, Pictures of the Pain, page 319

So the Hesters appear on Zapruder's film just before the shooting near the Pergola and they appear just after the shooting near the Pergola. Altgens photo of Zapruder, Sitzman and the Hesters is obviously kosher given Sprague's and Trask's inquiries. So why should we believe they were anywhere else? Because an FBI 302 paraphrases what they supposedly told the agent by writing "she and her husband were standing along the street at a place immediately preceding the underpass on Elm Street?" Who knows what the Mrs. Franzen said and who knows what the agent (not the Franzens) meant by "immediately preceding the underpass." Quoting John Costella's opinion gets you nowhere.

The description of the Hesters' position in Dealey Plaza is accurately referenced in the chart. This sort of selective quotation and mindless conspiracy mongering wastes everyone's time.

In part 2 of this thrilling series, I examine the mislocation of witnesses in Thompson’s 1967 Six Seconds in Dallas.

Theme the second: Mislocation of witnesses…

Witness 66, p.259, in Thompson’s Six Seconds table is Mrs Charles Hester. Here is Thompson’s summary of her evidence in the, by now, familiar format:

Location: N. side of Elm St. on slope

No. of shots: 2

Bunching of shots: ---

Direction of sound/shots: ---

Date of report: 11/25/63

Total time of shots: ---

References: 24H523

Remarks: Thinks she and her husband were in the direct line of fire

Here is Mrs Hester’s full statement to the FBI, from the Hearings volume and page cited by Thompson, as made on 24 November 1963:

Mrs CHARLES HESTER, 2619 Keyhold Street, Irving, Texas, advised that sometime around 12:30 p.m., on November 22, 1963, she and her husband were standing along the street at a place immediately preceding the underpass on Elm Street, where President Kennedy was shot. Mrs HESTER advised she heard two loud noises which sounded like gunshots, and she saw President KENNEDY slump in the seat of the car he was riding in. Her husband grabbed then grabbed her and shoved her to the ground. Shortly thereafter they went across to the north side of the street on an embankment in an attempt to gain shelter. She stated that she believes she and her husband actually had been in the direct line of fire. She did not see anyone with a gun when the shots were fired and stated she could not furnish any information as to exactly where the shots came from. After the President’s car had pulled away from the scene, she and her husband proceeded to their car and left the area as she was very upset.”

In other words, Thompson’s summary of Mrs Hester’s location and statement is “erroneous” in the extreme. An honest version would read:

Location: S. side of Elm St. close to underpass

No. of shots: 2

Bunching of shots: ---

Direction of sound/shots: ---

Date of report: 11/24/63

Total time of shots: ---

References: 24H523

Remarks: Accompanied by husband; thinks she and her husband were in the direct line of fire

Inevitably, in the case of this witness and her husband, there’s a lot more at stake than normal, for the Hesters feature on a pre-assassination Zapruder film sequence; and are central to an attempt to create an important post-assassination photographic verifier for the Zapruder-Sitzman presence on the concrete abutment. Read on.

Costella vindicated: Why Altgens didn’t remember the Hesters or his seventh photo

In John Costella’s “A Scientist’s Verdict: The Film is a Fabrication,” the second chapter of part II of The Great Zapruder Film Hoax: Deceit and deception in the death of JFK (Chicago: Catfeet Press, 2003), he devotes a section to the question of how many photographs AP’s James Altgens took of the motorcade, the assassination and its aftermath. The relevant extract runs as follows:

“But the second additional photograph (allegedly the seventh and last in the sequence overall) is even more problematical. This purports to show Abraham Zapruder and Marilyn Sitzman walking away from the ‘Zapruder pedestal,” with the Hesters crouched on the ground nearby. If genuine, it would be the clearest photographic evidence actually showing Abraham Zapruder in Dealey Plaza at the time of the assassination – albeit from behind.

The problem with this additional photograph is that Altgens explicitly states what he did after taking this photo of Clint Hill on the back of the limousine: he crossed to the north side of Elm Street! Yet a detailed analysis reveals that this extra photograph was taken from the south side of Elm. Altgens also described in detail for Liebeler everything he observed after the assassination…Does he describe Zapruder and Sitzman, or the Hester couple crouched on the ground – a sight he apparently thought worthy enough to take a photograph of? Absolutely not…So where were Zapruder, Sitzman and the Hesters? Why don’t they rate a mention at all in the Altgens testimony?,” pp.204-205

The answers couldn’t be more straightforward: the Hesters weren’t there at the time Altgens crossed the road; and Altgens did not take the seventh photo attributed to him by Trask (1), Thompson (2) et al. The Hesters were instead, at best, en route; and someone else took the photo:

Mrs Charles Hester statement to the FBI, 24 November 1963, as recorded by J. Doyle Williams and Henry J. Oliver, 24H523:

Mrs CHARLES HESTER, 2619 Keyhold Street, Irving, Texas, advised that sometime around 12:30 p.m., on November 22, 1963, she and her husband were standing along the street at a place immediately preceding the underpass on Elm Street, where President Kennedy was shot. Mrs HESTER advised she heard two loud noises which sounded like gunshots, and she saw President KENNEDY slump in the seat of the car he was riding in. Her husband grabbed then grabbed her and shoved her to the ground. Shortly thereafter they went across to the north side of the street on an embankment in an attempt to gain shelter. She stated that she believes she and her husband actually had been in the direct line of fire. She did not see anyone with a gun when the shots were fired and stated she could not furnish any information as to exactly where the shots came from. After the President’s car had pulled away from the scene, she and her husband proceeded to their car and left the area as she was very upset.”

Where are the Hesters on the Zapruder film, public version two? Why do we not see them on it when, according to Mrs Hester, at the time of the shooting, she and her husband were close to the underpass on the south side of Elm, allegedly facing Zapruder’s camera?

Notes

(1) Richard B. Trask. Pictures of the Pain: Photography and the assassination of President Kennedy (Danvers, Ma: Yeoman Press, 1994), pp. 316-317: “With the presidential Lincoln disappearing into the underpass, Altgens made a picture of the activity across Elm Street showing amateur movie maker Abraham Zapruder and his secretary Marilyn Sitzman just after they had gotten down from the concrete wall from where he had filmed the assassination. In the middle of the frame are Mr and Mrs Charles Hester hunkered down in front of the colonnade area.”

(2) Josiah Thompson, Proof the Zapruder Film Is Authentic: “Marilyn then described how she and Abe got down off the pedestal, ran down the hill in front of the pedestal and then made their way back into the pergola structure. They were photographed there first by AP photographer James Altgens and then by Art Rickerby of Life magazine.”

http://home.earthlink.net/~joejd/jfk/zapho...pson-proof.html

Paul

[Jack White]

I am aware of a researcher who interviewed Altgens in the sixties when he was still living.

At that time Altgens told him that he did not take two of the exposures attributed to him...

number 5 and number 8. Why would a photographer decline to take credit for two historic

photos being attributed to him?

Jack

[Josiah Thompson]

Because (as Trask points out in the above quote) Altgens was a modest guy who wasn't real clear about what he shot and didn't shoot that day. The negatives found in the AP files in numerical and chronological order tell the story as both Richard Sprague and Trask discovered. Secondly, who knows what Altgens said and what was interpreted by your anonymous researcher. You're really stretching, Jack.

I am aware of a researcher who interviewed Altgens in the sixties when he was still living.

At that time Altgens told him that he did not take two of the exposures attributed to him...

number 5 and number 8. Why would a photographer decline to take credit for two historic

photos being attributed to him?

Jack

[Wim Dankbaar]

Mr Josiah Thompson,

You once wrote, I believe it was in an article as early as in the late sixties, that you believed the shot from the grassy knoll may have been fired from a long barreled pistol. What made you believe that?

Wim

[Bill Miller]

Mr Josiah Thompson,

You once wrote, I believe it was in an article as early as in the late sixties, that you believed the shot from the grassy knoll may have been fired from a long barreled pistol. What made you believe that?

Wim

I find it odd that if Josiah wrote an article as you stated ... that he didn't state in the article why he believed something to be so.

[Josiah Thompson]

Sorry. At this point, I just don't remember.

Mr Josiah Thompson,

You once wrote, I believe it was in an article as early as in the late sixties, that you believed the shot from the grassy knoll may have been fired from a long barreled pistol. What made you believe that?

Wim

[Paul Rigby]

Censored and misleading summaries of eyewitness testimony in Six Seconds in Dallas

“How the hell can we use a witness who saw it happening a way it couldn’t have happened?”

Josiah Thompson. Gumshoe: Reflections in a Private Eye (London: Pan Books Ltd, 1988), p.185.

Witness Austin Miller, witness 96, p.262:

Location: RR overpass

No. of shots: 3

Bunching of shots: 2 & 3

Direction of sound/shots: ---

Date of report: 11/22/63

Total time of shots: “few seconds”

References: 6H223-227; 19H485; 24H217; Archives CD 205, p.27

Remarks: Saw “smoke or steam” coming from a group of trees N. of Elm; saw shot hit street past car

Inspect the first testimony cited by Thompson and you find Miller not offering the following opinion on the origin of the shots on Elm St:

Mr. Belin: “Where did the shots sound like they came from?”

Miller: “Well, the way it sounded like, it came from the, I would say right there in the car,”6WCH225

http://www.jfk-assassination.com/warren/wch/vol6/page225.php

Witness Royce Skelton, witness 137, p.265:

Location: RR overpass

No. of shots: 4

Bunching of shots: 1&2, then 3&4

Direction of sound/shots: ---

Date of report: 11/22/63; 12/18/63; 4/8/64

Total time of shots: ---

References: Archives CD 205, p.26; 6H236-238; 19H496

Remarks: “saw two shots or fragments hit the pavement”

Here is Royce Skelton failing to offer an opinion as to the origin of the shots:

Mr. Ball: Did you see the President's car turn on Elm Street?

Mr. Skelton: Yes, sir; I saw the car carrying the Presidential flag turn.

Mr. Ball: And did you hear something soon after that?

Mr. Skelton: Just about the same time the car straightened up--got around the corner--I heard two shots, but I didn't know at that time they were shots.

Mr. Ball: Where did they seem to come from?

Mr. Skelton: Well, I couldn't tell then, they were still so far from where I was.

Mr. Ball: Did the shots sound like they came from where you were standing?

Mr. Skelton: No, sir; definitely not. It sounded like they were right there more or less like motorcycle backfire, but I thought that they were these dumbballs that they throw at the cement because I could see the smoke coming up off the cement.

Mr. Ball: You saw some smoke come off of the cement?

Mr. Skelton: Yes.

Mr. Ball: Where did it seem to you that the sound came from, what direction?

Mr. Skelton: Towards the President's car.

Mr. Ball: From the President's car?

Mr. Skelton: Right around the motorcycles and all that--I couldn't distinguish because it was too far away.

http://www.jfk-assassination.com/warren/wch/vol6/page237.php

The point is not whether we approve or disapprove of the verdicts offered by Miller and Skelton as to the origins of the shots, but the accuracy of Thompson’s summaries of their testimony. Yet again, he is found wanting.

Skelton’s brief statement in 19H496 contained another unwelcome observation that had to be hidden from the reader by Thompson. More on that in due course.

Paul

[Bill Miller]

Skelton’s brief statement in 19H496 contained another unwelcome observation that had to be hidden from the reader by Thompson. More on that in due course.

Paul

Just when I thought a response couldn't sound any nuttier. I am glad that Josiah had enough sense to understand that while a bullet may have it the street ... it couldn't have done so by being shot within or around the car. I think if 'Six Seconds in Dallas' had been written any differently, then it may have just ended up as something to merely raise the level of a coffee table leg as TGZFH book ended up being.

[Josiah Thompson]

Mr. Rigby,

You charge that I give "censored and misleading summaries of eyewitness testimony in Six Seconds in Dallas". As evidence for this, you lay out what is said said in a chart of hundreds of witnesses with respect to reports from Austin Miller and Royce Skelton. However, there is nothing either "censored" or "misleading" in what is said in this chart with respect to Miller and Skelton. Note the correctness of each indication:

Witness Austin Miller, witness 96, p.262:

Location: RR overpass [CORRECT!]

No. of shots: 3 [CORRECT!]

Bunching of shots: 2 & 3 [CORRECT!]

Direction of sound/shots: --- [CORRECT!]

Date of report: 11/22/63 [CORRECT!]

Total time of shots: “few seconds” [CORRECT!]

References: 6H223-227; 19H485; 24H217; Archives CD 205, p.27 [CORRECT!]

Remarks: Saw “smoke or steam” coming from a group of trees N. of Elm; saw shot hit street past car [CORRECT!]

Witness Royce Skelton, witness 137, p.265 [CORRECT!]

Location: RR overpass No. of shots: 4 [CORRECT!]

Bunching of shots: 1&2, then 3&4 Direction of sound/shots: --- [CORRECT!

Date of report: 11/22/63; 12/18/63; 4/8/64 [CORRECT!]

Total time of shots: --- [CORRECT!]

References: Archives CD 205, p.26; 6H236-238; 19H496 Remarks: “saw two shots or fragments hit the pavement” [CORRECT!]

Thus far, in trying to prove I am unreliable, you have produced a mouse --- one clerical error in a chart summarizing the witness testimony of 190 witnesses. Yes, it is true that Mr. and Mrs. Franzen were standing on the south side of Elm Street not the north side of Elm Street.

Your second claim that I mistakenly located Mr. and Mrs. Hester crashed and burned. Why? Because the dizzy idea you got from John Costella that Altgens never took the photo showing the Hesters where I located them meets shipwreck on a simple fact --- both Richard Sprague and Richard Trask verified that the negative of this photo appears in both serial and chronological order in the series of negatives exposed by Altgens that day.

You have also claimed that the Franzen error was part of a dark plot in 1967 to authenticate the Zapruder film. Huh? Like Shakespeare says somewhere, "That way madness lies.." It would be twenty years before that piece of silliness became an urban myth,

Censored and misleading summaries of eyewitness testimony in Six Seconds in Dallas

“How the hell can we use a witness who saw it happening a way it couldn’t have happened?”

Josiah Thompson. Gumshoe: Reflections in a Private Eye (London: Pan Books Ltd, 1988), p.185.

Witness Austin Miller, witness 96, p.262:

Location: RR overpass

No. of shots: 3

Bunching of shots: 2 & 3

Direction of sound/shots: ---

Date of report: 11/22/63

Total time of shots: “few seconds”

References: 6H223-227; 19H485; 24H217; Archives CD 205, p.27

Remarks: Saw “smoke or steam” coming from a group of trees N. of Elm; saw shot hit street past car

Inspect the first testimony cited by Thompson and you find Miller not offering the following opinion on the origin of the shots on Elm St:

Mr. Belin: “Where did the shots sound like they came from?”

Miller: “Well, the way it sounded like, it came from the, I would say right there in the car,”6WCH225

http://www.jfk-assassination.com/warren/wch/vol6/page225.php

Witness Royce Skelton, witness 137, p.265:

Location: RR overpass

No. of shots: 4

Bunching of shots: 1&2, then 3&4

Direction of sound/shots: ---

Date of report: 11/22/63; 12/18/63; 4/8/64

Total time of shots: ---

References: Archives CD 205, p.26; 6H236-238; 19H496

Remarks: “saw two shots or fragments hit the pavement”

Here is Royce Skelton failing to offer an opinion as to the origin of the shots:

Mr. Ball: Did you see the President's car turn on Elm Street?

Mr. Skelton: Yes, sir; I saw the car carrying the Presidential flag turn.

Mr. Ball: And did you hear something soon after that?

Mr. Skelton: Just about the same time the car straightened up--got around the corner--I heard two shots, but I didn't know at that time they were shots.

Mr. Ball: Where did they seem to come from?

Mr. Skelton: Well, I couldn't tell then, they were still so far from where I was.

Mr. Ball: Did the shots sound like they came from where you were standing?

Mr. Skelton: No, sir; definitely not. It sounded like they were right there more or less like motorcycle backfire, but I thought that they were these dumbballs that they throw at the cement because I could see the smoke coming up off the cement.

Mr. Ball: You saw some smoke come off of the cement?

Mr. Skelton: Yes.

Mr. Ball: Where did it seem to you that the sound came from, what direction?

Mr. Skelton: Towards the President's car.

Mr. Ball: From the President's car?

Mr. Skelton: Right around the motorcycles and all that--I couldn't distinguish because it was too far away.

http://www.jfk-assassination.com/warren/wch/vol6/page237.php

The point is not whether we approve or disapprove of the verdicts offered by Miller and Skelton as to the origins of the shots, but the accuracy of Thompson’s summaries of their testimony. Yet again, he is found wanting.

Skelton’s brief statement in 19H496 contained another unwelcome observation that had to be hidden from the reader by Thompson. More on that in due course.

Paul

[Bill Miller]

Thus far, in trying to prove I am unreliable, you have produced a mouse --- one clerical error in a chart summarizing the witness testimony of 190 witnesses. Yes, it is true that Mr. and Mrs. Franzen were standing on the south side of Elm Street not the north side of Elm Street.

Isn't it truly amazing that in a typo lies the heart of the alteration pusher. This is what they look for and is exactly why they have earned the title of 'buffs' and cannot get anyone outside of a select few of like-minded individuals to take their alteration claims to the public at large. I would love to see just one solid alteration find, but if that ever happens ... it won't come from that XXXXXXXXXXXXXX... that I can be certain.

Offensive remark removed by moderator.

Edited February 27, 2008 by Antti Hynonen

[David G. Healy]

Thus far, in trying to prove I am unreliable, you have produced a mouse --- one clerical error in a chart summarizing the witness testimony of 190 witnesses. Yes, it is true that Mr. and Mrs. Franzen were standing on the south side of Elm Street not the north side of Elm Street.

Isn't it truly amazing that in a typo lies the heart of the alteration pusher. This is what they look for and is exactly why they have earned the title of 'buffs' and cannot get anyone outside of a select few of like-minded individuals to take their alteration claims to the public at large. I would love to see just one solid alteration find, but if that ever happens ... it won't come from XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX... that I can be certain.

Do you have any idea what your talking about...?

Your efforts are duly noted. Why not take a few bucks and buy him a coffee, better yet, BRING him a cup of coffee.... that should cover the extent of your knowledge concerning DP related films and photos....

so many wannabe's so little time..... LMFAO! (c'mon bill, I'm waiting.... tap-tap-tap)

edit :objectionable phrase

Offensive remark removed by moderator.

Edited February 27, 2008 by Antti Hynonen