Questions for Gary Mack

[Wim Dankbaar]

See my exchange with Gary here:

http://www.jfkmurdersolved.com/mack.htm

Let me ask you point blank: Is it your statement that the single bullet theory is possible?

GM: Of course it is possible. Is it likely? No, but there's no hard evidence that it is impossible.

A forum member here offered the following:

We might ask how the SBT was "shown" to be "possible." Did someone actually fire a bullet from an MC rifle through two corpses at the precise angles; did the bullet penetrate through both corpses in exactly the same way that the SBT theorizes; and did the bullet emerge with only slight damage as did CE399?

Well, I think that's a good offer.

So Gary, Why is the abundant evidence that no bullet penetrated the torso of Kennedy not "hard evidence" for the impossibility of the single bullet theory?

I realize you never post on the public forums that you and Perry monitor, but you know how to contact me.

Awaiting.....

Wim

PS: As a side matter, Should the sixth floor museum, as the purported owner of the Zapruder film, not do something about the wide and free availibility on the Internet (a.o. Youtube and Google video) of it? I mean, what is the reasoning that the museum allows that, but tries to charge for use in other media like TV?

[Cliff Varnell]

See my exchange with Gary here:

http://www.jfkmurdersolved.com/mack.htm

Let me ask you point blank: Is it your statement that the single bullet theory is possible?

GM: Of course it is possible. Is it likely? No, but there's no hard evidence that it is impossible.

The manager of the 6th floor exhibit is indifferent to the physical evidence

in the case.

The bullet holes in JFK's clothes are 2" to 3" below the SBT's required

"back of the neck" in-shoot.

http://www.subversivehistory.com/

A year and a half ago Gary Mack generated world-wide attention with his

observation that JFK's jacket was "bunched up" in the newly discovered Jeffries

film.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/feb/20/usa.filmnews

(quote on)

(Mack) said that the footage showed Kennedy's coat bunched up at his neck,

a detail that will interest conspiracy theorists who have long questioned why

the bullet hole in his body and coat had not matched up as expected.

(quote off)

The films and photos taken over the last 90 seconds before the shooting

clearly show that JFK's jacket dropped in Dealey Plaza.

http://www.occamsrazorjfk.net/

To claim there is no hard evidence against the SBT is a statement of egregious

intellectual dishonesty.

[William Kelly]

The hard evidence that the single-bullet-theory is correct or not will be determined when a proper forensic autopsy is ordered performed on the remains of the victim by a Federal Grand Jury.

BK

[Charles Drago]

The hard evidence that the single-bullet-theory is correct or not will be determined when a proper forensic autopsy is ordered performed on the remains of the victim by a Federal Grand Jury.

BK

Bill,

I understand your point. But I must insist that even absent exhumation of JFK, there is sufficient evidence to convince all sane non-conspirators that the SBT is disproven.

That the body remains the best evidence cannot be denied. But is not, say, the evidence presented by David Mantik relating to the "difficulties" posed for single bullet theorists by certain anatomical realities sufficiently hard? Or the observations of Berkley, Sibert, and O'Neil? Or the body chart/shirt and jacket cross-authentications?

The SB Theory is as worthy of serious consideration as a BS (burning spear) Theory would have been. It is a firmly grasped straw, a fictive construct that has lasted longer than the time it took to be initially presented only because it bears the imprimatur of the suspect parent state.

I submit that we cannot concede that the SBT, let alone the disproven larger LN theory it would support, remains in the least bit viable.

Mack recently confirmed to a journalist his (Mack's) position that there is no consensus on the JFK case. Why do we bother with such a man other than to expose him?

Charles

PS -- Mr. Mack, if you do not intend to respond to me publicly, don't waste your time with a PM I shall not read.

Edited August 13, 2008 by Charles Drago

[Jim Root]

Everybody wants to start with the entry wound to Kennedy when dealing with the SBT. What I find more perplexing is the thigh wound to Connelly. In that wound the depth, the angle of entry and the shape left by the bullet all point to a nearly intact shell which only penetrated to a shallow depth.

The three questions that intrigue me are:

1) If not the bullet found at Parkland, what happened to the bullet that made the Connelly thigh wound?

2) If a group of conspirators did plan, in advance, to plant a bullet at Parkland Hospital, how did they know that Connelly would sustain a wound that would both match and explain where that bullet had come from?

3) If a group of conspirators did plan, in advance, to plant a bullet at Parkland they also had to have a person in place in the Connelly operating room to assure that no other bullet would be recovered from the wound that they had to have known in advance Connelly was going to receive.

This degree of planning is, as I said, even more perplexing to me than some of the rationalizations for the single bullet theory that can so easily and simply explain the Connelly thigh wound without having in place the above to achieve the success of the conspirators plans.

Jim Root

[Thomas H. Purvis]

Everybody wants to start with the entry wound to Kennedy when dealing with the SBT. What I find more perplexing is the thigh wound to Connelly. In that wound the depth, the angle of entry and the shape left by the bullet all point to a nearly intact shell which only penetrated to a shallow depth.

The three questions that intrigue me are:

1) If not the bullet found at Parkland, what happened to the bullet that made the Connelly thigh wound?

2) If a group of conspirators did plan, in advance, to plant a bullet at Parkland Hospital, how did they know that Connelly would sustain a wound that would both match and explain where that bullet had come from?

3) If a group of conspirators did plan, in advance, to plant a bullet at Parkland they also had to have a person in place in the Connelly operating room to assure that no other bullet would be recovered from the wound that they had to have known in advance Connelly was going to receive.

This degree of planning is, as I said, even more perplexing to me than some of the rationalizations for the single bullet theory that can so easily and simply explain the Connelly thigh wound without having in place the above to achieve the success of the conspirators plans.

Jim Root

In that wound the depth, the angle of entry and the shape left by the bullet all point to a nearly intact shell which only penetrated to a shallow depth

Jim;

Whoever told you that a projectile (bullet) which enters with sufficient velocity to have left metallic residue embedded into the bone of the leg upon impact, only had sufficient velocity to penetrate to a shallow depth,----------------lied!

[Mike Williams]

See my exchange with Gary here:

http://www.jfkmurdersolved.com/mack.htm

Let me ask you point blank: Is it your statement that the single bullet theory is possible?

GM: Of course it is possible. Is it likely? No, but there's no hard evidence that it is impossible.

A forum member here offered the following:

We might ask how the SBT was "shown" to be "possible." Did someone actually fire a bullet from an MC rifle through two corpses at the precise angles; did the bullet penetrate through both corpses in exactly the same way that the SBT theorizes; and did the bullet emerge with only slight damage as did CE399?

Well, I think that's a good offer.

So Gary, Why is the abundant evidence that no bullet penetrated the torso of Kennedy not "hard evidence" for the impossibility of the single bullet theory?

I realize you never post on the public forums that you and Perry monitor, but you know how to contact me.

Awaiting.....

Wim

PS: As a side matter, Should the sixth floor museum, as the purported owner of the Zapruder film, not do something about the wide and free availibility on the Internet (a.o. Youtube and Google video) of it? I mean, what is the reasoning that the museum allows that, but tries to charge for use in other media like TV?

The question of the possibility of the Single bullet theory can be readily resolved. A 161 grain Carcano bullet traveling at 2182 feet per second strikes with 1701 ft lbs of force. We also know that is required 30 Ft lbs of force for that projectile to penetrate 1" of human tissue. If JFK and JBC together were 3 feet thick, we would only expend 1000 ft lbs penetrating them, and still have 700 ft lbs left over to overcome bone etc. It might also be noted that the wound in JBC thigh was barely the length of the bullet, requiring just over 30 Ft. Lbs.

Yes the SBT was possible.

Now whether our targets were in a position for it to happen, is another matter, and projectile deformity another yet.

Mike

[Duke Lane]

I suppose the question comes down to, what is "hard evidence" and what is not, and who needs produce it and who doesn't?

We have, first, the quote opening this thread:

[Wim Dankbaar] Let me ask you point blank: Is it your statement that the single bullet theory is possible?

[Gary Mack] Of course it is possible. Is it likely? No, but there's no hard evidence that it is impossible.

Here is another in the same exchange that's even more intriguing:

[Gary Mack] The single bullet theory was tested and found to be possible. In the absence of any other hard evidence, therefore, it must have happened.

It's a good point that to show the SBT to be "possible" requires more than simply proving that a bullet could have gone through one man's body, but that it also has to include going through another man's in the same manner and with the same relative lack of damage as the bullet that purportedly did so (and I'm thinking that numerous test-firings through the wrists of human cadavers did not demonstrate that "possibility" after having gone only through that one "leg" of the trip, just as firing bullets through live goats' chests - by a veterinarian, no less! No Hypocratic Oath there, I guess - did not).

What I find lacking, though, is the "hard evidence" of a bullet actually traversing Kennedy's body in order to graduate the SBT from merely "having possibly happened" to "must have happened."

Let's consider "hard evidence":

• The chief prosector probed the back wound with his finger and "determined" the missile did not traverse the body "inasmuch as he could feel" where the track ended. Is this "hard evidence" that the bullet did not do so?
  
• He did the same with a metal probe, which met with resistance, seemingly validating the above determination. Is this further "hard evidence" of the same?
  
• The published autopsy protocol states that "the missile path ... cannot be easily probled." Is this "hard evidence" that it was successfully probed, just not "easily?"
  
• Autopsists did not dissect the shoulder and could not therefore state with absolute certainty that the missile's path ended at the point where the metal probe and his finger ceased to indicate a bullet track. Is this "hard evidence" that it "must have happened?"
  

Is there "hard evidence," then, either that the bullet did or did not traverse the body, one or the other?

If probing to the end of the bullet track is "hard evidence" that the bullet did not do so, then the statement that it "must have happened" is completely, utterly and knowingly false. If it is not "hard evidence" of its not having done so - leaving open the mere possibility that it did - is that "hard evidence" that it "must have happened?" If so, why?

Does an absence of "hard evidence" prove that something "must have happened" simply because there's no "hard evidence" to the contrary? I would think that the statement that something "must have happened" would demand the same "hard evidence" that it did happen - not that it merely "could have" happened, that it is possible - as is required of the statement that it "couldn't have happened" because, after all, it is "possible."

In shorter form, what I really like is (paraphrasing) "It's possible, but it's not likely. But since it's not impossible, it must have happened. There's no hard evidence that something else happened, and none that it did happen, but my lack of hard evidence trumps your lack of hard evidence." I have, in effect, proven my point simply by telling you that you can't prove yours.

I wonder how this "hard evidence" question would apply to the throat wound, because I'm thinking that there "must have been" someone at Parkland malicious or barbarous enough to have stuck his or her fingers in the corpse's throat and just yanked and thrust while nobody was watching in order to turn Dr. Perry's neat little surgical incision into the "distorted" wound that appears in the autopsy photos.

There's no "hard evidence" that it happened while the body was in transit (sorry, David), nor any that it occurred at Bethesda. Since Dr. Perry said that was still a neat cut when he last saw it, and it wasn't a "neat cut" at the outset of the autopsy when they took photos, it could only have happened somewhere between Trauma Room One and the casket. Are there any candidates?

Of course, I'm being somewhat facetious, but applying the same "hard evidence" logic. Or is the "hard evidence" that the tracheostomy incision always looked like a surgical cut despite the "hard evidence" of the photos and the autopsists' description? Hmmm, will have to ponder that further ....

Duke

--------------------

Some further thoughts:

The autopsy protocol in published form reads in relevent part:

The second wound

presumably of entry

is that described above in the upper right posterior thorax ... The missile path through the fascia [a band or sheath of connective tissue investing, supporting, or binding together internal organs or parts of the body] and musculature

cannot be easily probed

. The wound

presumably of exit

was that

described by Dr. Malcolm Perry

of Dallas ... as "a few millimeters in diameter", however its character is distorted is distorted at the time of autopsy. ... there is considerable ecchymosis [bruising] of the strap muscles of the right side of the neck and the fascia about the trachea adjacent to the line of the tracheostomy wound ... [and] in the apex (supra-clavicular [above the clavicle] portion) of the right pleural cavity ... there is a contusion [a bruise in which the subsurface tissue is injured but the skin is not broken] of the parietal pleura [a delicate serous - "watery" - membrane investing each lung and folded back as a lining of the thorax] and of the extreme apical [near the apex] portion of the right upper lobe of the lung ... In both instances the diameter ... at

maximal involvement

measures 5 cm [two inches].

The essence is that there was a wound in the back whose path could not be "easily" probed, surrounding which in the musculature there was considerable bruising, extending to the membrane lining the body cavity but not penetrating it, and also to the tip of the lung which abuts the membrane, also not being penetrated. There is also bruising on and in the throat, but - being described merely as ecchymosis and contusion, i.e., bruising - there is likewise no penetration.

Therefore, the bullet "must have" traversed the body since it is not(?) extant on X-rays; there's no "hard evidence." It could not have fallen out during exteral cardiac massage, as first postulated by the autopsists, or by any other means: there's no "hard evidence" such as a missing, unmutilated bullet anywhere. And a bullet entering from the front - for which there is no "hard evidence" - could not exist because it, too, is non-extant in the X-rays.

Summing up:

• There is no "hard evidence" of a bullet traversing the body, only that a bullet was in the body and caused bruising.
  
• Since it was not still in the body, it therefore "must have" gone through, providing the needed "hard evidence" that it did so.
  
• The "hard evidence" that the bullet traversed the body allows for the possibility that the same bullet also hit Governor Connally;
  
• Knowing that Governor Connally was hit by a bullet that could have been the one that traversed Kennedy's body is "hard evidence" of that bullet being the same as that traversing Kennedy;
  
• That "hard evidence" proves once and for all that the single-bullet theory "must have happened."
  

QED. Proving that something "must have happened" requires only either qualifying what "hard evidence" is as needed, or stating that possibility is probability; proving that it "couldn't have happened" requires absolute certainty.

What have we been thinking all this time? All we ever had to do was use faulty logic and wrap it in the cloak of authority and it would have all been so simple!

... Of course, it is also possible that JFK's reaction behind and/or emerging from behind the sign was acute myocardial infarction, and that the man was dead even before his head was blown off (so to speak). This reduces the potential charge from "murder" to "mutilation of a corpse," a misdemeanor. Since it's possible that this was overlooked in favor of the gross observation of the head wound(s), does it follow that since there is no "hard evidence" to the contrary, that it "must have happened" that way?

[Charles Drago]

The question of the possibility of the Single bullet theory can be readily resolved. A 161 grain Carcano bullet traveling at 2182 feet per second strikes with 1701 ft lbs of force. We also know that is required 30 Ft lbs of force for that projectile to penetrate 1" of human tissue. If JFK and JBC together were 3 feet thick, we would only expend 1000 ft lbs penetrating them, and still have 700 ft lbs left over to overcome bone etc. It might also be noted that the wound in JBC thigh was barely the length of the bullet, requiring just over 30 Ft. Lbs.

Yes the SBT was possible.

Now whether our targets were in a position for it to happen, is another matter, and projectile deformity another yet.

Mike

Not to split hairs (or hares, if you use that gun to hunt), but you have not demonstrated that the theory that a single bullet struck JFK and JBC as concocted and proffered by Arlen Specter and/or his masters "was possible." Rather, you have addressed yourself to the issue of the possibility of the projectile you describe penetrating twin targets in your specifically cited fashions.

The historical SBT, when considered properly and fairly -- which is to say, exactly as presented by its fabricator(s) -- was, is, and ever shall be fiction.

[Thomas H. Purvis]

I suppose the question comes down to, what is "hard evidence" and what is not, and who needs produce it and who doesn't?

We have, first, the quote opening this thread:

[Wim Dankbaar] Let me ask you point blank: Is it your statement that the single bullet theory is possible?

[Gary Mack] Of course it is possible. Is it likely? No, but there's no hard evidence that it is impossible.

Here is another in the same exchange that's even more intriguing:

[Gary Mack] The single bullet theory was tested and found to be possible. In the absence of any other hard evidence, therefore, it must have happened.

It's a good point that to show the SBT to be "possible" requires more than simply proving that a bullet could have gone through one man's body, but that it also has to include going through another man's in the same manner and with the same relative lack of damage as the bullet that purportedly did so (and I'm thinking that numerous test-firings through the wrists of human cadavers did not demonstrate that "possibility" after having gone only through that one "leg" of the trip, just as firing bullets through live goats' chests - by a veterinarian, no less! No Hypocratic Oath there, I guess - did not).

What I find lacking, though, is the "hard evidence" of a bullet actually traversing Kennedy's body in order to graduate the SBT from merely "having possibly happened" to "must have happened."

Let's consider "hard evidence":

• The chief prosector probed the back wound with his finger and "determined" the missile did not traverse the body "inasmuch as he could feel" where the track ended. Is this "hard evidence" that the bullet did not do so?
  
• He did the same with a metal probe, which met with resistance, seemingly validating the above determination. Is this further "hard evidence" of the same?
  
• The published autopsy protocol states that "the missile path ... cannot be easily probled." Is this "hard evidence" that it was successfully probed, just not "easily?"
  
• Autopsists did not dissect the shoulder and could not therefore state with absolute certainty that the missile's path ended at the point where the metal probe and his finger ceased to indicate a bullet track. Is this "hard evidence" that it "must have happened?"
  

Is there "hard evidence," then, either that the bullet did or did not traverse the body, one or the other?

If probing to the end of the bullet track is "hard evidence" that the bullet did not do so, then the statement that it "must have happened" is completely, utterly and knowingly false. If it is not "hard evidence" of its not having done so - leaving open the mere possibility that it did - is that "hard evidence" that it "must have happened?" If so, why?

Does an absence of "hard evidence" prove that something "must have happened" simply because there's no "hard evidence" to the contrary? I would think that the statement that something "must have happened" would demand the same "hard evidence" that it did happen - not that it merely "could have" happened, that it is possible - as is required of the statement that it "couldn't have happened" because, after all, it is "possible."

In shorter form, what I really like is (paraphrasing) "It's possible, but it's not likely. But since it's not impossible, it must have happened. There's no hard evidence that something else happened, and none that it did happen, but my lack of hard evidence trumps your lack of hard evidence." I have, in effect, proven my point simply by telling you that you can't prove yours.

I wonder how this "hard evidence" question would apply to the throat wound, because I'm thinking that there "must have been" someone at Parkland malicious or barbarous enough to have stuck his or her fingers in the corpse's throat and just yanked and thrust while nobody was watching in order to turn Dr. Perry's neat little surgical incision into the "distorted" wound that appears in the autopsy photos.

There's no "hard evidence" that it happened while the body was in transit (sorry, David), nor any that it occurred at Bethesda. Since Dr. Perry said that was still a neat cut when he last saw it, and it wasn't a "neat cut" at the outset of the autopsy when they took photos, it could only have happened somewhere between Trauma Room One and the casket. Are there any candidates?

Of course, I'm being somewhat facetious, but applying the same "hard evidence" logic. Or is the "hard evidence" that the tracheostomy incision always looked like a surgical cut despite the "hard evidence" of the photos and the autopsists' description? Hmmm, will have to ponder that further ....

Duke

--------------------

Some further thoughts:

The autopsy protocol in published form reads in relevent part:

The second wound

presumably of entry

is that described above in the upper right posterior thorax ... The missile path through the fascia [a band or sheath of connective tissue investing, supporting, or binding together internal organs or parts of the body] and musculature

cannot be easily probed

. The wound

presumably of exit

was that

described by Dr. Malcolm Perry

of Dallas ... as "a few millimeters in diameter", however its character is distorted is distorted at the time of autopsy. ... there is considerable ecchymosis [bruising] of the strap muscles of the right side of the neck and the fascia about the trachea adjacent to the line of the tracheostomy wound ... [and] in the apex (supra-clavicular [above the clavicle] portion) of the right pleural cavity ... there is a contusion [a bruise in which the subsurface tissue is injured but the skin is not broken] of the parietal pleura [a delicate serous - "watery" - membrane investing each lung and folded back as a lining of the thorax] and of the extreme apical [near the apex] portion of the right upper lobe of the lung ... In both instances the diameter ... at

maximal involvement

measures 5 cm [two inches].

The essence is that there was a wound in the back whose path could not be "easily" probed, surrounding which in the musculature there was considerable bruising, extending to the membrane lining the body cavity but not penetrating it, and also to the tip of the lung which abuts the membrane, also not being penetrated. There is also bruising on and in the throat, but - being described merely as ecchymosis and contusion, i.e., bruising - there is likewise no penetration.

Therefore, the bullet "must have" traversed the body since it is not(?) extant on X-rays; there's no "hard evidence." It could not have fallen out during exteral cardiac massage, as first postulated by the autopsists, or by any other means: there's no "hard evidence" such as a missing, unmutilated bullet anywhere. And a bullet entering from the front - for which there is no "hard evidence" - could not exist because it, too, is non-extant in the X-rays.

Summing up:

• There is no "hard evidence" of a bullet traversing the body, only that a bullet was in the body and caused bruising.
  
• Since it was not still in the body, it therefore "must have" gone through, providing the needed "hard evidence" that it did so.
  
• The "hard evidence" that the bullet traversed the body allows for the possibility that the same bullet also hit Governor Connally;
  
• Knowing that Governor Connally was hit by a bullet that could have been the one that traversed Kennedy's body is "hard evidence" of that bullet being the same as that traversing Kennedy;
  
• That "hard evidence" proves once and for all that the single-bullet theory "must have happened."
  

QED. Proving that something "must have happened" requires only either qualifying what "hard evidence" is as needed, or stating that possibility is probability; proving that it "couldn't have happened" requires absolute certainty.

What have we been thinking all this time? All we ever had to do was use faulty logic and wrap it in the cloak of authority and it would have all been so simple!

... Of course, it is also possible that JFK's reaction behind and/or emerging from behind the sign was acute myocardial infarction, and that the man was dead even before his head was blown off (so to speak). This reduces the potential charge from "murder" to "mutilation of a corpse," a misdemeanor. Since it's possible that this was overlooked in favor of the gross observation of the head wound(s), does it follow that since there is no "hard evidence" to the contrary, that it "must have happened" that way?

Duke:

A few clarifications may be in order.

In regards to the "probing" of the wound!

After opening of the chest and finding the bruising of the apical area of the right lung, the parietal pleura (membrane which surrounds the lung) could also be seen to have a corresponding area of bruising.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parietal_pleura

With the lungs removed and the chest open, the probe was inserted into the back wound and the front of the probe could be observed inside the open chest, pushing against the parietal pluera in the exact area of the brusing of this membrane.

Due to the physical location of the apex of the lung, as relates to the central location of the anterior throat wound, it is for all practical purposes physically impossible for the same projectile to have created these two separate wounds and not have also torn the neck all to pieces.

Then, when one adds in the fractured and fragmented right transverse process of the C7/T1? vertebrae, along with the purported metallic residue left in the area of the fracture, and the deviated trachea, then it becomes all but impossible for a single projectile to have been responsible for creation of these injuries.

And, that is merely the beginning of the problems!

P.S. The anterior back wound was excised and had slides made of the tissues.

[Mike Williams]

The question of the possibility of the Single bullet theory can be readily resolved. A 161 grain Carcano bullet traveling at 2182 feet per second strikes with 1701 ft lbs of force. We also know that is required 30 Ft lbs of force for that projectile to penetrate 1" of human tissue. If JFK and JBC together were 3 feet thick, we would only expend 1000 ft lbs penetrating them, and still have 700 ft lbs left over to overcome bone etc. It might also be noted that the wound in JBC thigh was barely the length of the bullet, requiring just over 30 Ft. Lbs.

Yes the SBT was possible.

Now whether our targets were in a position for it to happen, is another matter, and projectile deformity another yet.

Mike

Not to split hairs (or hares, if you use that gun to hunt), but you have not demonstrated that the theory that a single bullet struck JFK and JBC as concocted and proffered by Arlen Specter and/or his masters "was possible." Rather, you have addressed yourself to the issue of the possibility of the projectile you describe penetrating twin targets in your specifically cited fashions.

The historical SBT, when considered properly and fairly -- which is to say, exactly as presented by its fabricator(s) -- was, is, and ever shall be fiction.

Charles,

The perspective I offered was strictly physical. Yes the SBT was possible. The projectile did have the force and penetration ability to achieve the feat. I dont believe the SBT for a second, but not because it was ballistically impossible, but rather that not once has anyone proven the targets were in such a position.

Was is possible, yes, did it happen in this instance.....IMO....NO.

[Mike Williams]

I suppose the question comes down to, what is "hard evidence" and what is not, and who needs produce it and who doesn't?

We have, first, the quote opening this thread:

[Wim Dankbaar] Let me ask you point blank: Is it your statement that the single bullet theory is possible?

[Gary Mack] Of course it is possible. Is it likely? No, but there's no hard evidence that it is impossible.

Here is another in the same exchange that's even more intriguing:

[Gary Mack] The single bullet theory was tested and found to be possible. In the absence of any other hard evidence, therefore, it must have happened.

It's a good point that to show the SBT to be "possible" requires more than simply proving that a bullet could have gone through one man's body, but that it also has to include going through another man's in the same manner and with the same relative lack of damage as the bullet that purportedly did so (and I'm thinking that numerous test-firings through the wrists of human cadavers did not demonstrate that "possibility" after having gone only through that one "leg" of the trip, just as firing bullets through live goats' chests - by a veterinarian, no less! No Hypocratic Oath there, I guess - did not).

What I find lacking, though, is the "hard evidence" of a bullet actually traversing Kennedy's body in order to graduate the SBT from merely "having possibly happened" to "must have happened."

Let's consider "hard evidence":

• The chief prosector probed the back wound with his finger and "determined" the missile did not traverse the body "inasmuch as he could feel" where the track ended. Is this "hard evidence" that the bullet did not do so?
  
• He did the same with a metal probe, which met with resistance, seemingly validating the above determination. Is this further "hard evidence" of the same?
  
• The published autopsy protocol states that "the missile path ... cannot be easily probled." Is this "hard evidence" that it was successfully probed, just not "easily?"
  
• Autopsists did not dissect the shoulder and could not therefore state with absolute certainty that the missile's path ended at the point where the metal probe and his finger ceased to indicate a bullet track. Is this "hard evidence" that it "must have happened?"
  

Is there "hard evidence," then, either that the bullet did or did not traverse the body, one or the other?

If probing to the end of the bullet track is "hard evidence" that the bullet did not do so, then the statement that it "must have happened" is completely, utterly and knowingly false. If it is not "hard evidence" of its not having done so - leaving open the mere possibility that it did - is that "hard evidence" that it "must have happened?" If so, why?

Does an absence of "hard evidence" prove that something "must have happened" simply because there's no "hard evidence" to the contrary? I would think that the statement that something "must have happened" would demand the same "hard evidence" that it did happen - not that it merely "could have" happened, that it is possible - as is required of the statement that it "couldn't have happened" because, after all, it is "possible."

In shorter form, what I really like is (paraphrasing) "It's possible, but it's not likely. But since it's not impossible, it must have happened. There's no hard evidence that something else happened, and none that it did happen, but my lack of hard evidence trumps your lack of hard evidence." I have, in effect, proven my point simply by telling you that you can't prove yours.

I wonder how this "hard evidence" question would apply to the throat wound, because I'm thinking that there "must have been" someone at Parkland malicious or barbarous enough to have stuck his or her fingers in the corpse's throat and just yanked and thrust while nobody was watching in order to turn Dr. Perry's neat little surgical incision into the "distorted" wound that appears in the autopsy photos.

There's no "hard evidence" that it happened while the body was in transit (sorry, David), nor any that it occurred at Bethesda. Since Dr. Perry said that was still a neat cut when he last saw it, and it wasn't a "neat cut" at the outset of the autopsy when they took photos, it could only have happened somewhere between Trauma Room One and the casket. Are there any candidates?

Of course, I'm being somewhat facetious, but applying the same "hard evidence" logic. Or is the "hard evidence" that the tracheostomy incision always looked like a surgical cut despite the "hard evidence" of the photos and the autopsists' description? Hmmm, will have to ponder that further ....

Duke

--------------------

Some further thoughts:

The autopsy protocol in published form reads in relevent part:

The second wound

presumably of entry

is that described above in the upper right posterior thorax ... The missile path through the fascia [a band or sheath of connective tissue investing, supporting, or binding together internal organs or parts of the body] and musculature

cannot be easily probed

. The wound

presumably of exit

was that

described by Dr. Malcolm Perry

of Dallas ... as "a few millimeters in diameter", however its character is distorted is distorted at the time of autopsy. ... there is considerable ecchymosis [bruising] of the strap muscles of the right side of the neck and the fascia about the trachea adjacent to the line of the tracheostomy wound ... [and] in the apex (supra-clavicular [above the clavicle] portion) of the right pleural cavity ... there is a contusion [a bruise in which the subsurface tissue is injured but the skin is not broken] of the parietal pleura [a delicate serous - "watery" - membrane investing each lung and folded back as a lining of the thorax] and of the extreme apical [near the apex] portion of the right upper lobe of the lung ... In both instances the diameter ... at

maximal involvement

measures 5 cm [two inches].

The essence is that there was a wound in the back whose path could not be "easily" probed, surrounding which in the musculature there was considerable bruising, extending to the membrane lining the body cavity but not penetrating it, and also to the tip of the lung which abuts the membrane, also not being penetrated. There is also bruising on and in the throat, but - being described merely as ecchymosis and contusion, i.e., bruising - there is likewise no penetration.

Therefore, the bullet "must have" traversed the body since it is not(?) extant on X-rays; there's no "hard evidence." It could not have fallen out during exteral cardiac massage, as first postulated by the autopsists, or by any other means: there's no "hard evidence" such as a missing, unmutilated bullet anywhere. And a bullet entering from the front - for which there is no "hard evidence" - could not exist because it, too, is non-extant in the X-rays.

Summing up:

• There is no "hard evidence" of a bullet traversing the body, only that a bullet was in the body and caused bruising.
  
• Since it was not still in the body, it therefore "must have" gone through, providing the needed "hard evidence" that it did so.
  
• The "hard evidence" that the bullet traversed the body allows for the possibility that the same bullet also hit Governor Connally;
  
• Knowing that Governor Connally was hit by a bullet that could have been the one that traversed Kennedy's body is "hard evidence" of that bullet being the same as that traversing Kennedy;
  
• That "hard evidence" proves once and for all that the single-bullet theory "must have happened."
  

QED. Proving that something "must have happened" requires only either qualifying what "hard evidence" is as needed, or stating that possibility is probability; proving that it "couldn't have happened" requires absolute certainty.

What have we been thinking all this time? All we ever had to do was use faulty logic and wrap it in the cloak of authority and it would have all been so simple!

... Of course, it is also possible that JFK's reaction behind and/or emerging from behind the sign was acute myocardial infarction, and that the man was dead even before his head was blown off (so to speak). This reduces the potential charge from "murder" to "mutilation of a corpse," a misdemeanor. Since it's possible that this was overlooked in favor of the gross observation of the head wound(s), does it follow that since there is no "hard evidence" to the contrary, that it "must have happened" that way?

Duke:

A few clarifications may be in order.

In regards to the "probing" of the wound!

After opening of the chest and finding the bruising of the apical area of the right lung, the parietal pleura (membrane which surrounds the lung) could also be seen to have a corresponding area of bruising.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parietal_pleura

With the lungs removed and the chest open, the probe was inserted into the back wound and the front of the probe could be observed inside the open chest, pushing against the parietal pluera in the exact area of the brusing of this membrane.

Due to the physical location of the apex of the lung, as relates to the central location of the anterior throat wound, it is for all practical purposes physically impossible for the same projectile to have created these two separate wounds and not have also torn the neck all to pieces.

Then, when one adds in the fractured and fragmented right transverse process of the C7/T1? vertebrae, along with the purported metallic residue left in the area of the fracture, and the deviated trachea, then it becomes all but impossible for a single projectile to have been responsible for creation of these injuries.

And, that is merely the beginning of the problems!

P.S. The anterior back wound was excised and had slides made of the tissues.

Tom,

The comment about "torn the neck all to pieces" is right on the mark. Many who allege this feat have no clue what med/high velocity projectiles do to a human neck.

Mike

[Wim Dankbaar]

Guys,

Isn't it an iron hard fact that the back wound was probed and found to have been a shallow wound with no exit?

Z ? Now, when Airforce One left, headed back towards Washington to take the president to the Bethesda hospital for the autopsy, these two agents received a phonecall from headquarters and were told to report to Andrews airforce base and for taking the motorcade to Bethesda and also view the autopsy to uphold the FBI?s interest. These are the only two agents, or let?s say the only two individuals that night, that took notes as to who was in and out of that room.

I have filmed agent Jim Sibert and have talked to agent Francis O?Neill, both of whom viewed the autopsy. And what they have to say, just totally blows the Warren Commission out of the water. Uh, for instance, and bear with me, I just got three paragraphs and I think these three paragraphs will prove there was a conspiracy and a cover-up.

G ? Okay, By all means, go ahead!

Z ? (reading out loud) ?During the last stages of this autopsy Dr. Humes located an opening which appeared to be a bullet hole, which was below the shoulders and two inches to the right of the middle line of the spinal column.?

That happens to be five and a half inches below the neck line.

?This opening was probed by Dr Humes with a finger, at which time it was determined that the trajectory of the missile entered at this point and entered in a downward position of 55 to 60 degrees. Further probing determined that the distance traveled by this missile was a SHORT distance, in as much that the end of the opening could be felt with a finger. In as much that no complete bullet of any size could be located in the brain area, and likewise no bullet could be located in the back or any other area of the body, as determined by total-body X-rays and inspection revealing that there was no point of exit. The individuals performing the autopsy were at a loss to explaining why they could not find no bullets.?

What that means, is that this bullet that enterered the back of president Kennedy did not exit the body. If you believe these two agents? testimony of their report, there cannot be, can NOT be a magic bullet.

Mike Williams said:

Was it possible, yes, ...

Wow! That's basically the same what Gary Mack says! No further comments.

Edited August 13, 2008 by Wim Dankbaar

[Duke Lane]

...In regards to the "probing" of the wound!

After opening of the chest and finding the bruising of the apical area of the right lung, the parietal pleura (membrane which surrounds the lung) could also be seen to have a corresponding area of bruising. With the lungs removed and the chest open, the probe was inserted into the back wound and the front of the probe could be observed inside the open chest, pushing against the parietal pluera in the exact area of the brusing of this membrane.

Due to the physical location of the apex of the lung, as relates to the central location of the anterior throat wound, it is for all practical purposes physically impossible for the same projectile to have created these two separate wounds and not have also torn the neck all to pieces.

Then, when one adds in the fractured and fragmented right transverse process of the C7/T1? vertebrae, along with the purported metallic residue left in the area of the fracture, and the deviated trachea, then it becomes all but impossible for a single projectile to have been responsible for creation of these injuries. ....

Tom, I lay no claims to medical expertise!

My intent is not to debate the physical probabilities, possibilities, improbabilities or impossibilities, but merely to comment on and question the nature of "hard evidence."

Absent the "hard evidence" that the bullet traversed the body - for example, "the wound is probed and it passes through, over the pleura, bruising the membrane, and continues through the trachea, exiting at a point where an elongated wound appears in the anterior neck" - then there is no proof, no "hard evidence" that the bullet did do so.

It is both offensive and intellectually dishonest for anyone with no "hard evidence" to support the possibility of an event such as the SBT - cannot even state that it was proven that the bullet at least passed all the way through Kennedy! - to state that it "must have happened" and demand an apparently much higher degree of "hard evidence" of others to refute their own lack of same.

As to the points you raise, what it seems like the doctors described, as did you, was a missile that entered sufficiently and with sufficient force to have created bruising and no more. I have no doubt that such a bullet could have entered and struck an area described "near" the apex but not "at" it, and bruised it, and that a probe pushed into the wound, following the track of the bullet, would be seen pushing against - but not "penetrating" - the exact area at the bruising of the lung. All makes "perfect" sense to me.

I even understand the "inference" to explain where the bullet might have gone since it wasn't in the body. I mean, it must've gone somewhere, right? Before the autopsists knew about the hole that was in the throat before the tracheostomy, they were content that it had fallen out; what other explanation could there have been?

An option might have been that "the bullet passed through the upper thorax and emerged through a tracheostomy incision." Sure, but their probe of the wound did not indicate that anything had done any such thing.

When they did learn of the hole in the throat, they no longer had the body to verify that their inference did, in fact, occur the way they could only have imagined it did. Sure, maybe it made sense at the time (a standard proof of scientific procedure), but it doesn't constitute any form of proof that it did.

One wonders what the results might have been had they somehow been informed before the autopsy that there was a "wound of entrance" in the front! One of the imponderables that we'll never know.

Put in another light, it is all not unlike thinking that your wife's been cheating on you. You hire a PI to follow her, he loses her "for just a second," then finds a car that looks just like hers parked a few blocks away in the same direction she'd been going, just a few cars away from one that "everyone knows" belongs to that notorious philanderer Bob Jones's, and just a couple of blocks from a motel. He went to get coffee, when he came back, the cars were both gone; upon returning to your house, he found your wife's car parked in the driveway, hood still warm.

He's got no license plate, no close observation of the car, no visual sighting of your wife, no sighting of the philanderer, no seeing them entering the motel or exiting from it, merely the inference that a car "like hers" was in the same general area, "near" a motel, and only the fact that her car engine was warm when he got back to your house.

Do you think it's time to send the retainer to the divorce lawyer yet? Are you sure it's even time to pay the PI yet?

Edited August 13, 2008 by Duke Lane

[Wim Dankbaar]

In case you hadn't noticed,Tom Purvis has laid out a convinvcing case as to how the SBT could be total horse manure, yet the scenario of a single assassin could be plausible.

No, I have not noticed, but It doesn't surprise coming from Purvis. Please DO explain!

By the way, the statement that "without the single bullet theory, you have no single assassin", comes from Dr. Cyril Wecht. And thusfar I cannot shoot holes in that statement. So yes, please give me the explanation on how he is wrong!

Please tell me how Oswald could have caused all the wounds in JFK and Conally with three shots (one miss), if one of his two hits did not penetrate both men?

Wim