Notice anything?

[Pat Speer]

FETZER: My opinion of Pat Speer has never sunk lower. Bob Livingston was a world authority on the human brain. He founded the first department of neuroscience in the world at UCSD. His accomplishments were so great that, when he was appointed as the scientific director of the National Institute of Mental Health and of the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Blindness, they had to create a new, higher, civil service rank since they had never had anyone of his degree of distinction. Anyone who would like to review his credentials should consult ASSASSINATION SCIENCE (1998), which I am quite sure Speer, who would not have qualified to carry Bob's luggage, has never done. Livingston was a founding member of the first society to be awarded the Nobel Prize and served as the science advisor to His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. Bob Livingston taught at some of the most distinguished universities in the United States. He danced with Jackie at a state dinner and was the most exceptional American I have ever known.

MY RESPONSE: none of this means Livingston's memories were accurate. If Einstein thought, in his later years, that he'd once played kick the can with the Kaiser, it wouldn't have made it true.

FETZER: Although Speer appears not to know it, descriptions of two wounds were widely broadcast on radio and television, namely: a shot to the throat and a shot to the right temple. (Speer does not understand the difference between entry and exit wounds!)

MY RESPONSE: I don't believe this is true. I've listened to hours and hours of radio and TV coverage from 11-22. And there was no consistent description of the wounds. Clark and Perry, at the Press conference, made it clear they did not know how many times Kennedy had been hit, and if the throat wound and head wound were connected. If, in the hours after the press conference, between 4:00 and 8:00 PM EST, the media suddenly got in lockstep and reported the wounds as you describe, it would be news to me. Can you provide any links to any radio broadcasts describing the wounds so clearly? As far as your last little dig, it's clear you're ill-informed. Chapter 16 at patspeer.com includes a comprehensive discussion of wound ballistics, in relation to the Kennedy assassination. If you read it you may very well learn a thing or two.

FETZER: Bob learned of the clean, neat wound to the throat during a taxi ride in New York. Having supervised an emergency medical hospital for injured Okinawans and Japanese prisoners of war during the Battle of Okinawa, he recognized that it had to be a wound of entry. (Speer probably also does not know that, during the Parkland Press Conference held at 3:15 PM in Dallas, Malcolm Perry had described the throat wound as an entry wound not once, not twice, but three times! The transcript was not made available to The Warren Commission but appears as an appendix to ASSASSINATION SCIENCE. Considering the importance of this collection of studies, it might be a good idea if Speer were to consult it and bring himself a bit more up-to-speed lest others conclude that he is a fraud!)

MY RESPONSE: clearly, Dr. Jim needs to bring himself up to speed. I have read Assassination Science and much much more and the book at my webpage describes the press conference in detail. It was not broadcast live on national radio or TV. It was reported in bits and pieces throughout the day and many of the reporters either misunderstood the doctors, or misrepresented what they had to say. If Dr. Fetzer can find an 11-22 radio description of a "clean, neat wound" of the throat, I'd be most impressed.

FETZER: The National Institutes for Health are located across the street from Bethesda Hospital. Livingston deliberated about calling or not calling, but finally decided he should call. He identified himself to the Officer of the Deck, who put him through to Commander Humes. Humes told him he was not listening to reports on radio or television, but Bob explained to him that since, given the description of the wound, it had to be a wound of entry, if there was any evidence of shots fired from the rear, then there had to have been more than one gunman and therefore a conspiracy. He also emphasized to Humes that it was important to carefully dissect the neck for information that would lead to a calculation of the trajectory of the wound and its most probable firing location. To Bob's surprise, their call was interrupted by the FBI, which he found difficult to believe, since this was a conversation between physicians about conducting an autopsy on the body of the President of the United States. It always bothered him that that had happened.

MY RESPONSE: this just doesn't make sense. If Livingston was as experienced as he claimed, he would undoubtedly have known that emergency room doctors routinely mistake wounds of entrance and exit, and that it is the business of forensic pathologists to determine the actual direction of the bullet. It seems likely that if Livingston had called Humes to tell him anything, it would have been to be sure and have a forensic pathologist at his side.

FETZER: Some lowlifes will stoop to anything to try to make themselves appear important. I am sorry, Pat, but nothing you can do will ever make you important. That you should attempt to disgrace the name of one of the most remarkable human beings the world has known simply discredits you. You have no idea who you are dealing with and no understanding of the significance of qualifications of the extraordinary kind that Bob Livingston possessed. At my suggestion, he visited the audio/video department at UCSD and recorded his experiences, which he had copied and distributed to a dozen or more reliable sources, just in case anything should happen to him. I am glad to say, nothing did. My final memory of Bob was taking him to Encinida for presentations by Noel Twyman, David Mantik, Gregory Burnham, and me. His hair was long and a bit unkempt when I picked him up in a Sebring convertible. He had a great time and I will never forget the wind blowing through his hair as we navigated the Interstate highway.

MY RESPONSE: I'm sorry if my calling Livingston a "fraud" hurt your feelings. "Fraud" does sound harsh. I've retracted it from my original post. I'd have been better off saying his story was simply not credible. But you're calling me a "lowlife" says a lot more about you than it does about me. How can it be that you, while claiming to be an ardent proponent of using science and reason to understand the Kennedy assassination, are totally unaware of all the research on my website?

While people are free to disagree with my findings, they are not free to pretend I never did my homework. You probably should read up and get up to speed before you pass any further judgment on the "importance" of me or my work.

Edited October 7, 2008 by Pat Speer