Alen J Salerian, MD

[Bernice Moore]

BILL some information from a past critique

The following review has just appeared in THE FOURTH DECADE (January

2001), pp. 12-17.

_________________________________________________________________________

MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA: A REVIEW www.assassinationscience.com/fourth.html

John Delane Williams

Murder in Dealey Plaza:What We Know Now That We Didn't Know Then About

the Death of JFK [1] is a book of readings about newly developed

information. It is edited by Jim Fetzer, who also edited Assassination

Science, [2] and convened a conference [3] in Minneapolis with many of the

same authors. Fourteen different articles are the meat of this book.

Fetzer begins this with "Smoking Guns". Sixteen smoking guns are

discussed, many of which are gone over in considerable detail by the other

authors. Fetzer chose a logical sequence for presenting the articles. With

apologies, the order is changed here, with significance to the overall

story dictating order.

Two Different Brains

A logical starting point for me is Doug Horne's "Evidence of a goverment

Cover-up: Two Different Brain Specimens at President Kennedy's Autopsy". I

had attended the conference in Minneapolis where John Tunheim, who had

directed the work of the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB), stated

that there would be no smoking guns in the released records. [4] Doug

Horne has apparently proven his boss wrong. Horne concluded that there

were two different examinations of the JFK brain. The first examination

occurred on (or about) November 25, 1963. Dr. Pierre Finck was not present

for that examination, but was present at an examintion, purportedly of

JFK's brain, on November 29, 1963. An autopsy photographer, John Stringer,

claimed Finck was not present at the examination. Stringer took several

photographs. Yet the archive photographs include several different views

that Stringer did not take. This present rendering is but a short outline

of the intricate story that comes from the files at the archives that

allowed Horne to posit two different brains at the two examinations.

A Chronology of 22 November 1963

Ira David Woods III has been working on a chronology of events in Dallas.

His chronology, JFK Assassination Chronology, is said to be over 400 pages

long and still not completed. The present reported chronology ("22

November 1963: A Chronology",) is 101 pages long. The chronology has its

own smoking guns. One favorite of mine is Oswald's wallet. At 7:10 AM, he

left his wallet in the dresser with $170 in it; Oswald carried $13.87 to

work. Sixty-one pages later, he left wallet #2 at the Tippet murder scene,

together with a driver's license. Eleven pages later, wallet #3 showed up

at the Texas Theatre where Oswald is arrested. WFAA newsfilm shows the

wallet being gone through at the theatre. It should be noted that five

wallets of Oswald's have been accounted for; in addition to the three

mentioned here, two additional wallets were taken from the Paine residence

by the FBI. [5] Also related in this chronology is the Summers [6] story

that J.D. Tippit had begun an affair with a waitress who worked at

Austin's Barbecue Drive In. Tippit worked at the barbecue in his off

hours. The recently divorced paramour of Tippit was taken to the funeral

parlor by her ex-husband to see Tippit's body before Tippit's widow and

family arrived. The Tippit paramour then revealed to her jealous

ex-husband that she was pregnant by Tippit. The ex-husband had on

occassion followed the two at night in his car. The couple reunited, with

the husband raising the child as his own until their next breakup in 1968.

The Secret Service

Douglas Weldon has focused on the JFK limousine; this focus has lead

directly to the involvement of the Secret Service ("The Kennedy Limousine:

Dallas 1963"). Weldon reviews the confusing and contradictory history of

the limousine. What is clear is that the Secret Service either destroyed,

or had destroyed, evidence of the assassination regarding the limousine.

An agent was photographed with a bucket and water and sponge to wash blood

and brain matter out of the area where JFK sat. [see 7, p.41] Also, a boy

was taking pictures of the limousine outside Parkland Hospital, a Secret

Service agent took away his camera and exposed the film. The Altgen's

photo [see 8, pp. 30-31] shows the bullet hole in the limousine; the

picture was taken at a time equivalent to Z-255. It was rumored that the

Secret Service ordered 20 windshields for the limousine. The picture of

the windshield produced by the Secret Service a week after the

assassination likely could have been one of these substitutes.

Weldon hypothesises the windshield damage was caused by a shot from the

south knoll, perhaps from the storm drain. Secret Service agent Emory

Roberts, in command of the agents in the second car, ordered the agents

not to move at the sound of the first shot. Roberts also appeared to take

command at Parkland Hospital exercising authority he did not posess.

The centerpiece of Weldon's article is the witness from the Ford Motor

Company. The Ford employee, who asked not to be named (actually he didn't

want his story told during his lifetime; he did partially relent. Weldon

played the tape recording of his conversations with the Ford employee at

the Minneapolis Conference [9]). The Ford employee was at work at the

Dearborn, Michigan plant on 11/25/63 when he was told by a division Vice

President to go to the glass plant lab. He and two other employees were to

make a template from the limousine windshield so that it could be

replaced. The windshield had a bullet through it, eminating from the

outside. The carpeting and the interior were completely stripped out. The

original windshield was removed, broken up and scrapped, as they were

ordered to do. Only two people could have ordered the limousine taken to

Dearborn, Lyndon Johnson and James Rowley, Chief of Secret Service. It

seems unlikely that Rowley would make this decision except at Johnson's

approval.

A scathing review of Weldon's article was recently published by Tim Smith.

[10] Smith maintains that there was no hole in the windshield, and berates

Weldon for not naming the Ford employee. The idea that someone fears for

their life if they tell what they know seems to escape Smith.

Vincent Palamara, a leading student of the Secret Service's involvement

with the assassination, [see 11] addresses three focal members of the

Secret Service, Floyd Boring, Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the

White House Detail, Emory Roberts and Bill Geer. Dallas Sheriff Bill

Decker had promised full support to motorcade security; this help was

rejected, presumably by Boring, who was in Washington but in charge of

planning for the Texas trip. More stripping of security included removal

of flanking police motorcyclists, and without agents sitting on the back

of the limousine. Roberts left two agents at Love Field, Henry Rybka and

Don Lawton. Both had been involved in protection to JFK in recent

motorcades. Roberts also ordered agents not to move toward the limousine.

Only Clint Hill, assigned to protect Jaqueline Kennedy, ran to the

limousine, but too late for JFK. At Parkland Hospital, Roberts usurped

Agent Kellerman's authority. Upon seeing JFK was dead in the limousine,

Roberts said to Kellerman, "You stay with Kennedy. I'm going to Johnson".

[12] Bill Geer was the driver of the limousine who apparently slowed the

limousine down almost to a stop (or did momemtarily stop), allowing a

better shot (or shots).

The Zapruder film

An article that addresses eyewitness statements, Vince Palamara reports

(59 Witnesses: Delay on Elm Street, pp. 119-128) on 59 Dealey Plaza

witnesses. The witnesses reported that a) either the limousine stopped; or

the limosine slowed to almost a complete stop. The Zapruder film shows

no such event corresponding to these reports. The eyewitness accounts

would cast doubt on the authenticity of the Zapruder film.

A second article by Doug Horne involves interviews with two former CIA

employees of the National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC). The

existing record says the Zapruder film had three copies made in Dallas.

Bill MacMahon of the NPIC says he was told by Secret Service agent Bill

Smith that Smith took the film from the person who who exposed it, flew it

to Kodak in Rochester, NY to get it developed, and then brought it

directly to the NPIC. It was brought there because the NPIC had special

state of the art equipment. They could enlarge each frame up to 40 times

its original size; then they would produce internegatives which were used

to produce multiple colored prints of selected frames. A second NPIC

worker, Ben Hunter, recalled that a "Captain Sands" delivered the film. He

later amended this recollection to say that a secret service agent brought

the film. MacMahon and Hunter were to find the three shots and select

frames for reproduction. MacMahon said his opinion was that Kennedy was

shot 6-8 times from three different directions. He was told that there

were three shots from behind from the School Book Depository; MacMahon

concluded they were to make frames, not do an analysis

A 16 page inset of photographs are shown and discussed by Jack White in

"The Great Zapruder Film Hoax, and Other Photographic Frauds Perpetuated

by the U.S. Government." White has done considerable photographic work. He

served as an advisor on photographic evidence to the House Select

Committee on Assassinations, as well as seved as a consultant to Oliver

Stone on JFK. White also produced the video Fake! [13] on the Oswald

backyard photos. In his present contribution, White casts doubt on whether

Zapruder actually did the filming. Several frames from the Zapruder film

are compared to other photographic evidence. There are several indications

of differences. A comparison of the photos of the Nix film and the

Zapruder film are such that that at least one of them is falsified. For

example, Z-369 and the equivalent Nix frame show some but not all the same

people from the front and the back. The Zapruder figures seem less

lifelike. It would appear to me that there is a slight time differential

between the Nix and Zapruder films; it appears at least three new people

have run into the area. It appears to me that one of the persons has

vanished (this person is labelled 4 by White in Z-369, and labeled

"S.O.B." in Cicione. [14] Unfortunately, Cicione did not include younger

people in his master list of Dealy Plaza witnesses. At least some of the

people appearing in the Nix frame, but not the Zapruder frame, appear to

be younger (under 21). What White does is show that the Zapruder film and

the Nix film are incompatible; at least one of them has been altered. One

final note on the White pictures: I was unaware of the the painted yellow

stripes in the "kill zone" until my trip to Dallas in November, 2000.

White uses the yellow stripe from the Zapruder film to make an exact frame

match to show alterations in the Zapruder film.

The final essay on the Zapruder film controversy is provided by David

Mantik, who is a major contributor to this volume. Mantik had three

articles in Assassination Science [15, 16, 17] as well as presenting at

the conference in Minneapolis. [18] His presentation in Assassination

Science was more a technical explanation of how the Zapruder film was

altered. Mantik's essay on the Zapruder film is more of an reasoned

approach attempt to show altering the film was not unthinkable. Mantik

first reviews the resemblances of the JFK assassination to that of

Fedinand in 1914. He makes the point that our knowledge of the Franz

Ferdinand assassination is almost entirely by eyewitness testimony. Were

we to take the same view with the JFK assassination, we might have a

different view; the availability and use of several different recording

devices seems to feed a sense that the evidence provided by the still film

and moving film would seem to be more reliable than eyewitness

recollection; Mantik points out that, from a legal view, for a tape to be

introduced into evidence in court, eyewitness testimony needs to preceed

the introduction of photographic evidence. For the Zapruder film to be

authentic and have an evidentiary base, a chain of posession needs to be

established. The work of Horne in this volume would strongly call into

question an unbroken chain of possession.

A very strong case for film alteration can be inferred from eyewitness

testimony, which reports either a complete stop or an almost complete stop

of the limousine on Deala Plazy. An alternative interpretation is either

the camera was erratic, or Zapruder turned off the recording to exactly

coincide with the stop. There are probably technical details that would

render the latter argument to be rejected, however, I don't have the

expertise to do so. A possibility that Mantik gives is the simple excision

of frames in selected places that could achieve a number of aims,

including removing evidence on a stop by the limousine. Such an excision

could have been directed by the Secret Service for the purpose of

eliminating the inappropriate stop (or near stop) by William Greer. The

number of anomalies in the Zapruder film are quite numerous. The

intersprocket image extends all the way to the left edge, unlike the

simulations done by Roland Zavala, a retired Kodak engineer who was

re-hired to do work with Kodak for the AARB. The overexposures typical of

a beginning filming sequence is missing in the film. The likely

interpretation is an excision. Other anomalies include William Greer's

rapid head turn, Toni Foster's unusual stop (and her growing to almost

seven feet tall [19]), among many others.

It should be noted that ther are persons who support a conspiracy approach

who argue that the Zapruder film is authentic. Notable among them is Hal

Verb [see, for example, 20, 21]. On the other hand, a long term dissenter

against accuracy of the Zapruder film is Harrison Livingston [see 22-26].

The Medical Evidence

Gary Aguilar, in "The Converging Medical Case for Conspiracy in the Death

of JFK", makes the point that the available medical evidence grabs the

skeptic who searches for a responsible explanation of the conflicting

evidence. Witnesses who saw Kennedy's head wounds overwhelmingly describe

a wound in the back of JFK's skull that couldn't have been caused by a

shooter from behind. Credible witnessess, when shown the autopsy photos,

called them 'doctored' because they don't show the rearward skull damage.

More photographs were taken by autopsy photographers than are now extant.

On the matter of missing photographs, Drs. Humes, Boswell, and Ebersole,

together with autopsist photographer John Stringer signed on 11/1/66 a

document saying, "The X-rays and photographs described and listed above

include all the X-rays and photographs taken by us during the autopsy and

we have no reason to believe that any other X-rays or photographs were

made during the autopsy". [27] Another false affidavit, signed on

11/22/63 by Stringer and Floyd Reibe, an assistant autopsy photographer,

specified the number of autopsy photographs that were taken and

surrendered to Secret Service Agent Roy Kellerman. Both Stringer and Reibe

stated they were ordered to sign by Captain Stover, the Commanding Officer

of the U.S. Naval Medical School. At least the 11/1/66 affidavit was

apparently at the command of Lyndon Johnson. [28]

David Mantik is uniquely qualified to address the JFK autopsy issues;

Mantik holds a Ph.D in physics as well as an M.D. The article on "The

Medical Evidence Decoded" is more an integration of his research with the

recent efforts of other researchers. From Douglas Weldon, he notes that

several witnesses indicate a shot from the left front, probably from the

storm drain south of the first overpass. Mantik concludes that this shot

is consistent with a shot to the right forehead. A right frontal shot

seems likely and consistent with metallic debris found in the X-rays.

Mantik systematically attacks the existing evidence. Much evidence is

missing. This is garnered from addressing witness testimony. Many

photographs taken at the autopsy are missing. Witnesses disagree

drastically with existing photographs. Two photographs that seem unlikely

to be of the same person are a posterior head photograph that shows an

intact head (p.221); when this photograph is contrasted to the one showing

a massive head injury (p.297), one's credulity is stretched beyond reason

that they represent different views of Kennedy's head. Mantik also

explains how a metallic object can later be added to an X-ray, using film

extant in 1963. Mantik hypothesises that Kennedy's throat wound was due to

glass fragments from the windshield. Mantik concludes that high government

officials had to approve, and probably transmit, orders for alteration of

critical forensic evidence. Persons who might have warranted grand jury

investigations included James Rowley, who led the Secret Service, which

held the critical autopsy materials; Robert Knudsen, White House

photographer; and Admiral George Burley, Kennedy's personal physician. All

three kept their jobs in the Johnson administration.

Righting the Record and Epilogue

Jim Fetzer addresses the question, "Could Oswald be Convicted?", using

material from Jesse Curry's JFK Assassination File. [29] This article uses

Curry's evidence to construct a probable conspiracy. The evidence suggests

that Oswald was not likely a shooter. It does not address a possible

involvement in a conspiracy for Oswald.

David Mantik addresses the lack of historians becoming involved in

researching the Kennedy assassination. Mantik laments the "Silence of the

Historians". I would suggest Barbie Zelizer's Covering the Body [30] as

another way to view the lack of historian involvement regarding the JFK

assassination. Zelizer maintains that journalists refuse to allow the

assassination story be given to historians. Many journalists gain prestige

by their relation to the JFK story. Journalists form an interpretive

community and marginalize persons and views they oppose. Within the

journalistic community, the JFK assasination was a turning point to allow

national television journalists to elbow out local and print media for the

ascendency. The day that Kennedy died was the most important day in the

career of Dan Rather. He went from being a regional journalist to a

national corespondent. Rather claimed to be at Dealey Plaza at the time of

the assassination, but a mile away four minutes later after running the

distance, talking to Walter Cronkite later. The importance of "being" at

the assassination was important to the carees of other journalists. Life

Magazine could "be there" by purchasing the Zapruder film. One might guess

that, as the Dan Rathers are gone from the scene, historians may start to

assert a claim to researching the story.

A final essay by Bertrand Russell, noted British mathematician and

philosopher, was previously published in 1969. [31] This essay seems

relevant today, and adds a few snippets that have not been widely

reported. District Attorney Henry Wade made a statement of Oswald's

movements. Oswald took a taxi driven by Darryl Click, who had signed an

affidavit to his having driven Oswald. Wade later altered the driver's

name to William Wahley. If "Click" was Wahley, then Wahley had signed a

false affidavit. If the two were not the same, there is conflicting

evidence. In either case, Wade's actions were compromised. "Good showing,

Bertrand."

Some might fault this book for the lack of inclusion of other information

that we now know that we didn't know then. These might include the

involvement of LBJ [32, 33, 34], which includes identifying Mac Wallace's

(an LBJ henchman) print on the sixth floor of the Texas Schoolbook

Depository. This print had long been unidentified. [35] The work of Peter

Dale Scott [36] as well as other research deserves mentioning. But a book

has to end somewhere. This is an excellent start.

Notes

1. Fetzer, J.H. (Ed.) (2000). Murder in Dealey Plaza: What We Know Now

that We didn't Know Then About the Death of JFK. Chicago: Catfeet

Press.

2. Fetzer, J.H. (Ed.) (1998). Assassination Science: Experts Speak out

on the Death of JFK. Chicago: Catfeet Press.

3. The Death of JFK Conference. (1999, May). Minneapolis.

4. Tunheim, J.R. (1999, May). The AARB Records. The Death of JFK

Conference. Minneapolis.

5. Armstrong, J. (1998). Lee and Harvey Oswald; the Mystery of the

Wallets. The Fourth Decade, 5,6,20-28.

6. Summers, A. (1980). Conspiracy. New York: McGraw-Hill.

7. Trask, R. (1994). Picture of the Pain. Danvers, MA: Yeoman's

Press.

8. Groden, R.J. (1993). The Killing of a President. New York:

Viking Studio Books.

9. Weldon, D. (1999, May). Kennedy Limousine. The Death of JFK

Conference. Minneapolis.

10. Smith, T. (2001). Windshield Reflections. JFK Deep Politics

Quarterly, 6,2,16-21.

11. Palamara, V.M. (1993). The Third Alternative: Survivor's Guilt:

The Secret Service and the JFK Murder. Pittsburgh: Author.

12. Manchester, W. (1967). The Death of a President. New York:

Harper & Row.

13. White J. (1990). Fake! (Video). Fort Worth: Third Coast

Productions.

14. Cicone, C. (1996). Schematic and Master List of Witnesses in

Dealey Plaza. Highland Park, MI: Author.

15. Mantik, D.W. (1998). The JFK Assassination: Cause for Doubt. in

Fetzer, J.H. (Ed.) (1998). Assassination Science: Experts Speak Out

on the Death of JFK (pp. 93-139). Chicago: Catfeet Press.

16. Mantik, D.W. (1998). Optical Density Measurements of the JFK X-

rays and a new Observation Based on the Chest X-ray. in Fetzer, J.H.

(Ed.) (1998). Assassination Science: Experts Speak Out on the Death

of JFK (pp. 153-160). Chicago: Catfeet Press.

17. Mantik, D.W. (1998). Special Effects in the Zapruder Film: How

the Film of the Century was Edited. in Fetzer, J.H. (Ed.) (1998).

Assassination Science: Experts Speak Out on the Death of JFK (pp.

263-343). Chicago: Catfeet Press.

18. Mantik, D.W. (1999, May). The Zapruder Film. The Death of JFK

Conference. Minneapolis.

19. White, J. (2000). The Great Zapruder Film Hoax. in Fetzer, J.H.

(Ed.) Murder in Dealey Plaza: What We Know Now that We didn't Know

Then About the Death of JFK (ins. 1-16). Chicago: Catfeet Press.

20. Verb, H. (1998). Book reviews: Bloody Treason and Assassination

Science. The Fourth Decade. 5,2,12-17.

21. Verb, H. (2000). Livingston's creation science and the Zapruder

film. The Fourth Decade. 7,2,12-15.

22. Livingston H.E. (1999). The Zapruder film: a study in

deception- part one. The Fourth Decade. 6,4,14-31.

23. Livingston H.E. (1999). The Zapruder film: a study in

deception- part two. The Fourth Decade. 6,5,12-26.

24. Livingston H.E. (1999). The Zapruder film: a study in

deception- part three. The Fourth Decade. 6,6,25-37.

25. Livingston H.E. (1999). The Zapruder film: a study in

deception- part IV. The Fourth Decade. 7,1,17-28.

26. Livingston H.E. (2000). The Zapruder film: a study in

deception- part V. The Fourth Decade. 7,2,7-12.

27. Weisberg, H. (1975). Post Mortem. Frederick, MD: Author.

28. Aguilar, G. (2000). The Converging Medical Case for Conspiracy in

the Death of JFK. in Fetzer, J.H. (Ed.) (2000). Murder in Dealey

Plaza: What We Know Now that We didn't Know Then About the Death of

JFK (pp. 175-217). Chicago: Catfeet Press.

29. Curry, J. (1969). JFK Assasination File. Dallas: American

Poster & Printing Co.

30. Zelizer, B. (1992). Covering the Body: The Kennedy

Assasination, the Media, and the Shaping of Collective Memory.

Chicago: U. of Chicago Press.

31. Russell, B. (1969). The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell,

1944-67. London: Allen & Unwin.

32. Brown, M.D. (1997). Texas in the Morning: The Love Story of

Madeleine Brown and Lyndon Baines Johnson. Baltimore: The

Conservatory Press.

33. Brown, W. (1998). TSBD Evidence Places LBJ "Hit Man" in

Sniper's Nest. JFK Deep Politics Quarterly (extra edition) 3,3.

34. Williams, J.D. (1999). Lyndon B. Johnson and the Assassination

Conspiracies. JFK Deep Politics Quarterly. 4,2,25-28.

35. Sloan, B. (1993). Breaking the Silence. Dallas: Taylor Pub. Co.

36. Scott, P.D. Deep Politics II: Essays on Oswald, Mexico & Cuba.

Skokie, IL: Green Archive Publications.

John Delane Williams

522 Belmont Road

Grand Forks, ND 58201

Home Books Challenge Posner Disinformation

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

Video Special Cases Terrorism Social Issues Order

Edited December 3, 2009 by Bernice Moore

[Peter McGuire]

Why does the dart have to come from the umbrella?

Good point, Bill. The answer, is of course, it didn't have to come the umbrella. Something hit JFK in the neck and caused a small entrance wound. Then something hit him in the temple and blew the side of his head off.

[William Kelly]

Why does the dart have to come from the umbrella?

Good point, Bill. The answer, is of course, it didn't have to come the umbrella. Something hit JFK in the neck and caused a small entrance wound. Then something hit him in the temple and blew the side of his head off.

Yea, something hit JFK in the neck and caused a small entrance wound, and didn't exit, so where did it go?

The temple shot blew out the back of his head.

And because they (Humes) removed bullet fragments from the brain that half filled a vial and not turned over to the FBI to be entered into evidence, the ony conclusion that can be reached is that these fragments were not fragments consistant with a 6.5 bullet.

Was it a larger caliber, a smaller caliber like a .22 or a flechette?

BK

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

Thank you for theses sensible comments about Alen Salerian's paper, which I urged him not to present. The proof that JFK was hit four times--once in the throat from in front, once in the back from behind, and twice in the head from behind and from in front--is simply overwhelming. Of special interest is the through-and-through hole in the windshield, which has been thoroughly established by Doug Weldon in his chapter in MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA.

As David Andrews observes, what would have been the point of paralyzing JFK when he was already in the kill zone? The wound to the throat was described three times by Malcolm Perry, M.D., as a wound of entry. In his chapter on the medical evidence in MURDER, David Mantik explained that puncture wounds to his face, which the mortician, Thomas Evan Robinson, had had to fill in with wax, were apparently caused by small shards of glass when the bullet punctured the windshield.

Bob Livingston, the world authority on the human brain and an expert on wound ballistics, told me that he thought the wound to the throat had hit bone and broken into two pieces, one of which went downward into the right lung, the other upward where it severed the tentorium, a tough membrane that covers the cerebellum. Otherwise, he said, even the impact of two shots to the head would not have caused cerebellum to extrude from the back of the head wound.

It was Bob, of course, who concluded that the brain shown in diagrams and photographs at the National Archives cannot possibly be the brain of JFK, as he explained already in his contribution to ASSASSINATION SCIENCE. In his view, the death of JFK was therefore brought about by the causal interaction of three shots: the throat shot, which severed the tentorium; the back of the head shot, weakening the cranium; and the shot to the right temple, which created shock waves that blew about half his brains out the back of the head with great force.

Louis Witt's appearance before the HSCA, of course, was a joke, even though the issue is no laughing matter. The function of the umbrella seems to have been as a visual signal to shooters that, as long as it is pumping, the target is not dead and they should continue shooting. James Richards, whom I have found to be highly reliable about the identities of participants in the crime, has identified the "umbrella man" to me as Jerry Buchanan and not Louis Witt.

Jim Lewis, as I have reported on pages 11 and 436 of THE GREAT ZAPRUDER FILM HOAX, has traveled through the South and fired high-velocity rounds through the windshields of junked cars at dummies in their back seats. He has found that hitting the throat from around 200 yards--the distance from the above-ground sewer opening on the south side of the Triple Underpass--is not a difficult shot but that it makes the sound of a firecracker as it transits the glass.

Alen, whom I know personally, is sincere in his research, but in this instance he does not have it right. In his paper, he asserts that "A second bullet struck President Kennedy with posterior entry 6.5 inches below his neckline and was lodged in his chest." This is only partially correct, since the shot to the back was about 5.5 inches below the collar and not at the base of the neck, as the "magic bullet" theory requires. But it was a shallow wound with no point of exit.

Indeed, the determination of the location of the wound to the back--on the basis of the shirt, the jacket, the autopsy diagram, the FBI sketch, Berkley's death certificate, and re-enactment photographs--establishes beyond reasonable doubt that the "magic bullet" theory is not only provably false but--as David Mantik has demonstrated--is not even anatomically possible, which means the wound to the throat and those to Connally require other shots and shooters.

I have laid this out in "Reasoning about Assassinations", which I presented at Cambridge and published in a peer-reviewed journal, which is accessible via google. Surely it is not necessary to continue to debate issues that have long since been resolved. While I like Bill Kelly's review of Doug Horne's Vol. IV, I am just the least bit surprised that he does not appear to be aware that key issues were already addressed by Doug in his chapters in MURDER.

In particular, the existence of a second supplemental autopsy exam--during which another brain was substituted for the original--is reported there as well as Homer McMahon's report of observing 6-8 impacts on JFK. I think that, in this instance, there was a mistake in transcription, since that appears to be the correct number of impacts upon the occupants, not on JFK alone. He was hit four times, Connally as many as three, which equals a number between 6 and 8.

I am grateful to Bernice for publishing the review of MURDER by John Delane Williams in THE FOUTH DECADE, which appeared in 2001. Even Vincent Bugliosi acknowledged that ASSASSINATION SCIENCE, MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA, and THE GREAT ZAPRUDER FILM HOAX are the only three "exclusively scientific" books on the assassination of JFK. All things considered, it might be a good idea if some of you were to invest your time in actually reading them.

So where was the flechette at Parkland?

As much as I feel that the person that I believe is TUM is perhaps the only man (outside of Gordon Liddy) willing and able to fire an umbrella flechette gun at a moving president in a public street at broad noon, I don't believe that this happened at all, and I think that the flechette story is a dodge and an obfuscation.

We know of umbrella-point toxin stabs in KGB wetwork. Is there one known case of US or other flechette gun use in an assassination, kidnapping, or like?

Does anybody think, or know, that such a throat shot is possible today with any dart equipment?

Again, what if the dart had struck JFK in the face in front of crowds?

Has anybody ever checked TUM's position to see if he could have hit Kennedy with such weaponry, windshield or no?

Why, again, was it necessary to paralyze Kennedy in a two-block sized kill zone?

I suspect strongly that in an Algens 6 where the windshield is not retouched (unlike the TSBD doorway) you can see Kellerman eyeing the hole in the windshield made by the bullet that has just struck JFK's throat.

Can anyone get Dr Salerian on the Forum, with all respect as a researcher accorded?

BTW, where does the dart theory originate? Does it pre-date HSCA? I may have known this in the 70s, but have forgotten now.

[Len Colby]

My approach to TUM and RM is firmly that neither should have been there, period.

Why not?

Witt is simply not believable when he tried to impersonate UM. Witt did not look like UM

Please show us an image of “TUM” clear enough to determine he and Witt are not the same person. Stills from Stone's movie don't count.

, nor did his explanation match what really happened that day.

How so?

The notion that someone keeps an umbrella for 12 years is absolutely laughable.

When my family sold an apartment it had occupied for about 50 years we had to toss out all manners of old junk none of which anyof us had taken to one of the most pivotal events of the century.

That is all that needs to be said about UM and RM.

Pushing the dart theory will always, in my opinion as well, discredit the whole UM/RM aspect of the assassination, or even the entire truth of the matter.

Funny that you say that, I agree but you seemed to be pushing it a few posts back

It is plausable; and seems very likely that UM provided some kind of low-tech signal to the shooters, and RM seems to signal with his raised arm. Why in the world would these people be there, with an umbrella and do these kind of actions if they were not part of a murder that was going on a few feet away?

What exactly did "radio man" supposedly do that it was so odd there is no other rational explanation? Why would the shooters need someone to"signal" them

[Len Colby]

I’ll take your work for it Humes “HAD NEVER PERFORMED AN AUTOPSY ON A GUNSHOT VICTIM before”

Don't take my word, Len. I am relying on Cyril Wecht. Wecht repeated this in his COPA presentation last week, but he has been trumpeting this fact for FORTY YEARS and nobody (e.g. Humes) has ever contradicted him.

How exactly did Wecht determine this did Humes tell him or did he go over all of Humes’ previous autopsies? In anycase a moot point because Humes was assisted by Finck who was well qualified in the area.What makes you think Humes knew, let alone cared about, what Wecht said about him?

It is an established fact that Humes (ditto Boswell) had no more experience autopsying gunshot wounds than you or I do.

Are you a militarily trained pathologist, funny there's nothing about you even being a doctor in your bio, but you're mistaken I'm not.

Ray don't you think he would have been exposed to bullet injuries during his residency at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology? All pathologists will perform autopsies concerning certain types of death for a first time. it is you position that when doing so they were no more qualified than someone with no medical training?

[William Kelly]

I'll take your work for it Humes "HAD NEVER PERFORMED AN AUTOPSY ON A GUNSHOT VICTIM before"

Don't take my word, Len. I am relying on Cyril Wecht. Wecht repeated this in his COPA presentation last week, but he has been trumpeting this fact for FORTY YEARS and nobody (e.g. Humes) has ever contradicted him.

How exactly did Wecht determine this did Humes tell him or did he go over all of Humes' previous autopsies? In anycase a moot point because Humes was assisted by Finck who was well qualified in the area.What makes you think Humes knew, let alone cared about, what Wecht said about him?

It is an established fact that Humes (ditto Boswell) had no more experience autopsying gunshot wounds than you or I do.

Are you a militarily trained pathologist, funny there's nothing about you even being a doctor in your bio, but you're mistaken I'm not.

Ray don't you think he would have been exposed to bullet injuries during his residency at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology? All pathologists will perform autopsies concerning certain types of death for a first time. it is you position that when doing so they were no more qualified than someone with no medical training?

Neither doctor had performed an autopsy on a gunshout wound victim, that's why Finck was brought in.

BK

[J. Raymond Carroll]

All pathologists will perform autopsies concerning certain types of death for a first time.

There is a world of difference between a hospital pathologist and a FORENSIC pathologist, and when, apart from this unique case, has any first-timer in any field ever got his VERY FIRST PRACTICE on the president of the USA?

Just FYI, Inquiring minds consider the choice of autopsy doctors to be among the major indicators of crime and cover-up by the powers controlling the investigation of the assassination.

There are, of course, many other indicators, hence the existence of this forum.

[Len Colby]

Just FYI, Inquiring minds consider the choice of autopsy doctors to be among the major indicators of crime and cover-up by the powers controlling the investigation of the assassination.

Who chose them? Wasn't it Jackie and Bobby who wanted the autopsy done there?

[Peter McGuire]

Bob Livingston, the world authority on the human brain and an expert on wound ballistics, told me that he thought the wound to the throat had hit bone and broken into two pieces, one of which went downward into the right lung, the other upward where it severed the tentorium, a tough membrane that covers the cerebellum. Otherwise, he said, even the impact of two shots to the head would not have caused cerebellum to extrude from the back of the head wound.

It was Bob, of course, who concluded that the brain shown in diagrams and photographs at the National Archives cannot possibly be the brain of JFK, as he explained already in his contribution to ASSASSINATION SCIENCE. In his view, the death of JFK was therefore brought about by the causal interaction of three shots: the throat shot, which severed the tentorium; the back of the head shot, weakening the cranium; and the shot to the right temple, which created shock waves that blew about half his brains out the back of the head with great force.

Louis Witt's appearance before the HSCA, of course, was a joke, even though the issue is no laughing matter. The function of the umbrella seems to have been as a visual signal to shooters that, as long as it is pumping, the target is not dead and they should continue shooting. James Richards, whom I have found to be highly reliable about the identities of participants in the crime, has identified the "umbrella man" to me as Jerry Buchanan and not Louis Witt.

Jim Lewis, as I have reported on pages 11 and 436 of THE GREAT ZAPRUDER FILM HOAX, has traveled through the South and fired high-velocity rounds through the windshields of junked cars at dummies in their back seats. He has found that hitting the throat from around 200 yards--the distance from the above-ground sewer opening on the south side of the Triple Underpass--is not a difficult shot but that it makes the sound of a firecracker as it transits the glass.

I have laid this out in "Reasoning about Assassinations", which I presented at Cambridge and published in a peer-reviewed journal, which is accessible via google. Surely it is not necessary to continue to debate issues that have long since been resolved. While I like Bill Kelly's review of Doug Horne's Vol. IV, I am just the least bit surprised that he does not appear to be aware that key issues were already addressed by Doug in his chapters in MURDER.

BTW, where does the dart theory originate? Does it pre-date HSCA? I may have known this in the 70s, but have forgotten now.

Good to hear from you, Dr. Fetzer, and thanks for your input.

"Surely it is not necessary to continue to debate issues that have long since been resolved." Well put.

Since you asked however, I would guess that since the Zapruder Film was hidden until 1975, that UM and RM were not noticed the Z Film was released to the public. They then had to scramble and make up their unbelievable story and manufacture Mr. Witt. I would also guess that that was when the theory about a dart launched from the umbrella came forward. The dart theory has always made it easier to attack the whole idea that Umbrella Man and Radio Man had no business being there, and that they had to up to something.

Edited December 4, 2009 by Peter McGuire

[Peter Fokes]

Why does the dart have to come from the umbrella?

Good point, Bill. The answer, is of course, it didn't have to come the umbrella. Something hit JFK in the neck and caused a small entrance wound. Then something hit him in the temple and blew the side of his head off.

Why bother paralyzing your victim when you could kill him with a poison dart? No need for messy head shot ....

Fire a dart with a lethal poison. Forget paralysis.

(url to article below posted in my prior post)

<quote on>

A CIA secret weapon used for assassination shoots a small poison dart to cause a heart attack, as explained in Congressional testimony in the short video below. By educating ourselves and others on vitally important matters like this, we can build a brighter future for us all.

The dart from this secret CIA weapon can penetrate clothing and leave nothing but a tiny red dot on the skin. On penetration of the deadly dart, the individual targeted for assassination may feel as if bitten by a mosquito, or they may not feel anything at all. The poisonous dart completely disintegrates upon entering the target.

The lethal poison then rapidly enters the bloodstream causing a heart attack. Once the damage is done, the poison denatures quickly, so that an autopsy is very unlikely to detect that the heart attack resulted from anything other than natural causes. Sounds like the perfect James Bond weapon, doesn't it? Yet this is all verifiable in Congressional testimony.

The astonishing information about this secret weapon of the CIA comes from U.S. Senate testimony in 1975 on rogue activities of the CIA.

<quote off>

Now here is a bizarre theory .....

The poison dart shot was the real McCoy. It would have killed JFK. The unnecessary head shot just a useful decoy to set up the patsy.

Now, excuse me, time to practice walking on water again!

Cheers

Peter Fokes

[Bernice Moore]

THANKS DR.JIM AND PETER LEN AND ALL...INTERESTING THREAD

LEN FYI....YOU MAY ALSO BE INTERESTED RE HUMES AND BOSWELL'S NON EXPERIENCE .B...ALSO SUCH AS DR..WECHT IN HIS BOOK MENTIONS THIS AND ALSO THE FACT THAT HE AND OTHER QUALIFIED FORENSIC SPECIALIST AUTOPSISTS IN THE STATES WAITED FOR THE PHONE TO RING THAT DAY TO BE CALLED IN..TO BETHESDA BUT THE CALLS NEVER CAME..B..

Unfortunately, JFK’s autopsy was performed at Bethesda Naval Hospital, a hospital inexperienced in “unnatural death” autopsies, like JFK’s. [JFK’s physician, Admiral George Burkley, advised Jackie that it would be best if the autopsy were performed at “a military hospital for security reasons,” and so she chose the Naval Hospital because of JFK’s prior Navy service.[30]] The surgeon in charge was an anatomic pathologist, Navy Commander James H. Humes, MD. So was his second in charge, Commander J. Thornton Boswell, MD.

Lyndon Johnson being sworn in as President aboard Air Force I in Dallas, beside Jacqueline Kennedy, prior to the return flight to Washington and the autopsy of President Kennedy's body at Bethesda Naval Hospital.

(White House Photo - LBJ Library)

Thirty minutes after the autopsy had begun, a properly credentialed, Army forensics pathologist, Colonel Pierre Finck, MD, arrived from the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology to lend a hand. But by that time Humes and Boswell had already removed JFK’s brain, and forensically important evidence may well have been lost. But even Finck wasn’t what the occasion called for. During the previous two years prior to examining JFK, Finck had performed no autopsies. His job at the AFIP was to do armchair reviews of autopsies others had done. Furthermore, his “outsider,” Army status, didn’t enhance his position in JFK’s Navy morgue.

Describing his predicament as a lower-ranking Army officer in a Navy morgue, Finck later admitted, “They were admirals, and when you are a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army you just follow orders.”[31] The famed New York City coroner Milton Helpern, MD, has laid out the problem particularly well: “Colonel Finck’s position throughout the entire proceeding was extremely uncomfortable. If it had not been for him, the autopsy would not have been handled as well as it was; but he was in the role of the poor bastard Army child foisted into the Navy family reunion. He was the only one of the three doctors with any experience with bullet wounds; but you have to remember that his experience was limited primarily to ‘reviewing’ files, pictures, and records of finished cases. There’s a world of difference between standing at the autopsy table and trying to decide whether a hole in the body is a wound of entrance or a wound of exit, and in reviewing another man’s work at some later date in the relaxed, academic atmosphere of a private office … .”[32]

So three inadequately prepared pathologists rolled up their sleeves to unravel the complex mysteries of JFK’s murder. The key to the case was to determine from which direction the bullets had come and whether there was evidence of more than one gunman. If the autopsy had proved shots from different directions, the verdict of conspiracy would have been inevitable. The final conclusions, however, were decidedly against conspiracy. Both of the shots that hit JFK, the pathology report said, had come from a single source – above and behind JFK. But how was that conclusion derived? It is likely that the background information the pathologists were given played a role in their decision-making.

Search Results

How Five Investigations into JFK's Medical/Autopsy Evidence Got it ...

Autopsy face sheet prepared during the autopsy by Dr. Boswell. Note the presence of JFK's bloodstains on these notes. The explanation Dr. Humes gave for ...

www.history-matters.com/.../jfkmed/.../How5InvestigationsGotItWrong.htm

[Bernice Moore]

THANKS DR.JIM AND PETER LEN AND ALL...INTERESTING THREAD

LEN FYI....YOU MAY ALSO BE INTERESTED RE HUMES AND BOSWELL'S NON EXPERIENCE .B...ALSO SUCH AS DR..WECHT IN HIS BOOK MENTIONS THIS AND ALSO THE FACT THAT HE AND OTHER QUALIFIED FORENSIC SPECIALIST AUTOPSISTS IN THE STATES WAITED FOR THE PHONE TO RING THAT DAY TO BE CALLED IN..TO BETHESDA BUT THE CALLS NEVER CAME..B..

Unfortunately, JFK’s autopsy was performed at Bethesda Naval Hospital, a hospital inexperienced in “unnatural death” autopsies, like JFK’s. [JFK’s physician, Admiral George Burkley, advised Jackie that it would be best if the autopsy were performed at “a military hospital for security reasons,” and so she chose the Naval Hospital because of JFK’s prior Navy service.[30]] The surgeon in charge was an anatomic pathologist, Navy Commander James H. Humes, MD. So was his second in charge, Commander J. Thornton Boswell, MD.

Lyndon Johnson being sworn in as President aboard Air Force I in Dallas, beside Jacqueline Kennedy, prior to the return flight to Washington and the autopsy of President Kennedy's body at Bethesda Naval Hospital.

(White House Photo - LBJ Library)

Thirty minutes after the autopsy had begun, a properly credentialed, Army forensics pathologist, Colonel Pierre Finck, MD, arrived from the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology to lend a hand. But by that time Humes and Boswell had already removed JFK’s brain, and forensically important evidence may well have been lost. But even Finck wasn’t what the occasion called for. During the previous two years prior to examining JFK, Finck had performed no autopsies. His job at the AFIP was to do armchair reviews of autopsies others had done. Furthermore, his “outsider,” Army status, didn’t enhance his position in JFK’s Navy morgue.

Describing his predicament as a lower-ranking Army officer in a Navy morgue, Finck later admitted, “They were admirals, and when you are a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army you just follow orders.”[31] The famed New York City coroner Milton Helpern, MD, has laid out the problem particularly well: “Colonel Finck’s position throughout the entire proceeding was extremely uncomfortable. If it had not been for him, the autopsy would not have been handled as well as it was; but he was in the role of the poor bastard Army child foisted into the Navy family reunion. He was the only one of the three doctors with any experience with bullet wounds; but you have to remember that his experience was limited primarily to ‘reviewing’ files, pictures, and records of finished cases. There’s a world of difference between standing at the autopsy table and trying to decide whether a hole in the body is a wound of entrance or a wound of exit, and in reviewing another man’s work at some later date in the relaxed, academic atmosphere of a private office … .”[32]

So three inadequately prepared pathologists rolled up their sleeves to unravel the complex mysteries of JFK’s murder. The key to the case was to determine from which direction the bullets had come and whether there was evidence of more than one gunman. If the autopsy had proved shots from different directions, the verdict of conspiracy would have been inevitable. The final conclusions, however, were decidedly against conspiracy. Both of the shots that hit JFK, the pathology report said, had come from a single source – above and behind JFK. But how was that conclusion derived? It is likely that the background information the pathologists were given played a role in their decision-making.

Search Results

How Five Investigations into JFK's Medical/Autopsy Evidence Got it ...

Autopsy face sheet prepared during the autopsy by Dr. Boswell. Note the presence of JFK's bloodstains on these notes. The explanation Dr. Humes gave for ...

www.history-matters.com/.../jfkmed/.../How5InvestigationsGotItWrong.htm

HERE IS SOME INFORMATION FROM DR.WECHT'S '' TALES FROM THE MORGUE A POST I MADE LONG TIME PAST...B FYI..

Dr.Cyril Wecht

Information from…. “Tales From The Morgue”.

2005...Prometheus Books

In February 1965 Dr .Cyril Wecht was asked by the American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS) to present a “critical view” of the Warren Commission Report (WC), in Chicago. The only access to the report was at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. No one could check out copies, so he spent each evening for two weeks reading the key portions of the 26 volumes. They were based largely on, three sources, the Zapruder film, the FBI investigations, and the autopsy.

The Film was of the uppermost importance as the report repeatedly pointed to the film being the decisive evidence, in that it determined the number of shots fired, the sequence of injuries to the President and the Governor, the trajectory of those bullets, and the number of gunmen.

It contained 486 frames, ran about 18.3 frames per second, meaning that the film caught the reactions every 1/8th of a second.

The WC created on Nov.29, 1963 by President L.B.Johnson, executive order #11130, reported that “Although it is not necessary to any essential findings of the Commission to determine just which shot hit Governor Connally, there is persuasive evidence from the experts to indicate that the same bullet which pierced the President’s throat also caused Governor Connally’s wounds.” The report also stated that the second bullet that struck President Kennedy came from the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD).

In 1965, Dr.Wecht had no reason to question the Zapruder film.

He had believed the WC findings …..After all it stated that the Zapruder film had proved its findings that Oswald had fired the shots, and acted alone, they were agreed to by the Chief Justice Earl Warren, and six other respected commission members, the FBI, and beside all that, the physical evidence that connected LHO to the killing was overwhelming. In other-wards it was a slam dunk. “Pretty damning evidence, or so it seemed at the time.”

“My intent was not to question the findings of the Warren Commission, but to review how the autopsy and other medicolegal aspects of the inquiry were conducted. In doing so, I became simply astonished.”

The first problem was that the Secret Service had removed the body, from Dallas to Washington.

At this point in time LHO was still alive, arrested, in the city jail, and if not murdered would have been put on trial in Dallas, because the 6th Amendment of the Constitution requires people to be tried where the crime takes place.

The authorities within that state retain all evidence, as that guarantees its authenticity. In removing the body from control of the Dallas County coroner, federal officials probably destroyed the admissibility of any evidence gained through the autopsy held in Washington.

At Bethesda, Dr.James Humes, and Dr.J.Thornton Boswell, not forensic pathologists and Dr.PierreFinck who was, but had not functioned in that position in any coroner'’s office.

Neither the military officers nor any person in the autopsy room, in charge, had either the education, training, or experience for the task. Seemingly, Humes and Boswell started before Finck arrived, and they missed the fact that there was an entrance wound in the front of the President’s neck, the path of the wound was not traced, and they did not dissect nor trace the wound in his back, also Humes burnt his early autopsy notes.

Dr.Wecht found that the brain, which is soft and cannot be examined immediately, had been placed in a fixture of formalin, which then allows it to harden. But he discovered that two weeks later they had not performed an adequate examination by not serially sectioning that brain. This would have allowed them to trace the path of the bullet(s) that struck the President in the head. They said this was what killed him, yet they did not dissect the brain…He was needless to say, flabbergasted, and is as appalled today as he was then back 1965.

After researching the medical and autopsy findings, he was disturbed and critical, also of the police investigation .The crime scene was not protected, witnesses were allowed to leave, without being questioned .The limousine was not properly quarantined nor examined for forensic evidence; the Governor’s clothes were laundered before examination.

However at that time in 1965 he concluded his report without questioning the basic findings of the WC. That was not his charge, and neither did he have sufficient evidence or reason to believe they were wrong in deciding that Oswald was the lone assassin. He was though, quite critical of the autopsy and the forensic investigation. He did announce that had LHO not been murdered and put on trial for the murder of President Kennedy, the prosecutors would have lost.

“ The medical and forensic evidence was so screwed up, so incomplete, and so tainted that it would not have held up in a court of law.”..

After the lecture, at a breakfast meeting, Dr. Pierre Finck approached him and extended his congratulations on his report. Dr.Wecht could have told him he was wrong in his conclusions but did not. Dr.Finck instead stated to him, and he has never forgotten,

“You cannot believe what it was like, it was horrible. Horrible. I only wish I could tell you about it.” He regrets in not pushing Dr.Finck a little more for some details, but he did not and he thought at the time that would be all he would ever say publicly about the assassination of President J.F.Kennedy. As we know Dr.Cyril Wecht was so very wrong.

******************

On the morning of Aug.24, 1972, in Washington D.C, where Dr.Cyril Wecht had flown from Pittsburgh, the previous evening, he was ready and waiting at 8 am for a cab to be flagged, so he could begin his trip through the National Archives (N/A) having finally been given access to the Kennedy assassination materials.

In 1965 an unheard of event had taken place, the federal officials in their maddening wisdom, had chosen to turn over to Jacqueline Kennedy, all physical and autopsy materials ,and it is unacceptable to this day. This was evidence in a crime, plain and simple, the fact that it was evidence in an assassination of the President made it all the more horrific. In 1966 she turned it over to the National Archives, a request to the court being that the materials not be made public until after the death of her children. She did however say that recognized experts in the field of pathology would be allowed to apply to review the materials “for serious historical purpose.”

Dr.Wecht in 1971 was president of the American College of Legal Medicine, and he had applied for over a year to the N/A, and Burke Marshall, the executor of the Kennedy archive materials, seeking the access to review them. His letters and phone calls went unanswered. Then in 1971 when New York Times investigative reporter, Fred Graham, called him, having heard that he had applied to the N/A, he told him he was being stonewalled and so Graham made a few phone calls to find out why? Within a few days of Graham’s call, he was contacted by Burke Marshall and the wheels began to turn. He was given two days of exclusive access to all the physical evidence, autopsy materials and crime scene photographs.

When he arrived that morning and entered, he was still somewhat skeptical of the official version of the investigations into the assassination.

Dr C.Wecht: “What I saw during those two days convinced me that the truth still remains unknown. Those two days changed my view about the honesty of my government”..

Within the National Archives building he was directed to a Mr. Marion Johnson, an affable man who shook his hand, and told him he was there to help him in any way he could, and led him to a large private room, containing a table, chair, an x-ray viewing machine and a projector.

He had brought his own microscope, as none was available for him.

As he scanned the list of materials connected to the assassination he noticed the item, an original copy of the Zapruder film. Mr. Johnson had set up the projector to review the film, if he wished.

“He added that the film was only about thirty seconds long .He said that while more than five hundred photographs and pieces of film recorded portions of the assassination, only the Zapruder film captured the entire event on tape. When he informed me that the film was graphic, I reminded him that I’m a forensic pathologist and used to witnessing the result of violence and tragedy”..

What he did not tell Johnson was that he had seen the Zapruder film; in 1966 he had received a call from Dr.Josiah Thompson, who was working on an article for Life magazine, he had told him.

“that the editors at Life had purchased an original copy of the Zapruder film and that they wanted me to fly to New York to watch the eight-millimeter film with them”.

The film had not been shown publicly at that time, though some frames had been published in its magazine. He had read about the film seen the few photographs and studied the additional frames that had been printed in the WC. Report. He was acutely aware of how important the film was.

Wecht watched the film in N.Y with Thompson and the Life editors, Thompson explained to him that the film had been taken with a Bell & Howell Model 414D Zoomatic Director Series camera. The film 8mm Kodachrome color but recorded no sound, it consisted of 486 frames played at 18.3 frames a second. Taken approximately, by Abraham Zapruder, on a pedestal, assisted by Marilyn Sitzman, his receptionist some 70 feet from the middle of Elm St. where the Presidential limousine passed. He had sold a copy to Life for $150,000.

To better examine the timing and sequence, Life had printed each frame into 11 by 15 inch photographs.

He sat alone and watched the film, again, that morning at the N/A examining the still enlargements of each frame. As he watched it over and over, and reviewed the still photographs, he felt that the WC was right, that the Zapruder was the best documentary of the assassination, but that it contradicted some conclusions of the WC..

First: It called into question the timing of the bullet that supposedly hit both the President and Governor. If it struck JFK in frame 210 as the WC said, then more than a second elapses before the Governor is hit, and that is not consistent with a bullet that is traveling at speed of two thousand feet a second.

Second: Firearms experts had said that it would take 2.3 seconds for the Mannlicher-Carcano to be re-loaded and fired again, far too little time for the President and the Governor to have been shot with the same gun.

Third: It called into doubt the trajectory of the bullet.

If as the WC had concluded that one missile # 399, had entered the President’s back and coursed through the upper part of his back and neck, striking neither bone nor cartilage, then exited from the front of his neck, midline near the level of the knot of his tie.

Then entered the Governor’s back, breaking the right fifth rib, which destroyed four inches of that bone, then exited from the front of the Governor’s chest below his right nipple.

The same bullet then re-entering the back of the Governor’s wrist , which caused a fragmented fracture, in what is called the distal end of the radius, that being…one of the two large bones that comes down from the elbow to the wrist….

Then finally exiting the front of the Governor’s right wrist and re-entering his left thigh..

But as he viewed the Zapruder film and the photographs, he realized something was wrong. If a bullet had been fired from the 6th floor of the TSBD towards the President in frame 210, as the WC concluded. It would have been traveling at a downward angle, of about 17 degrees, from back to front, and from right to left as it entered his back…but a bullet travels in a straight line, unless it strikes an object on the way to alter its course..?

If the bullet was shot from the TSBD, it would travel from left to right, and if it did not hit any bones, within the president’s body, then JFK would have to have been sitting dramatically forward, his head almost on his knees, for that bullet to have exited through his neck, but the Zapruder film showed him sitting almost bolt upright. As we know for the bullet to have done what the WC stated, it would have had to emerge from the president’s neck, stop in midair, make an acute turn to the right about 18 to 20 inches ,stop again in midair ,turn downward and enter the governor’s back on the right side just behind his right armpit.

Because if you draw a straight line from the president’s back at the point of entrance and the front of the neck, at the site of the knot or a tie, as shown in the Zapruder film, the bullet would probably miss the governor,

completely or possibly it could have clipped him on the left back or left shoulder area instead of his right armpit. But fours years of medical school, six years of additional education and training, to become a forensic pathologist as well as three years of law school and nearly a decade of experience at the time, had led him to understand one basic principle and common sense as well, that bullets travel in straight lines, they do not change course in mid air, it was a “magic bullet”.

This bullet was very special, it was found on a stretcher by a maintenance man, so the story went, at Parkland Hospital after the President and the Governor had been wheeled in. The federal authorities said initially they did not know about the wound in JFK’s neck ?, so they decided that at Parkland this bullet must have come from his back when they were trying to save his life. When they did learn, (they said the next day), and decided that the bullet must have entered his back and exited his neck. (Without ever dissecting the throat wound at Bethesda.).Under their original theory, the bullet which traveled at a speed of two thousand feet per second, did not have the power to penetrate the President’s starched collar?

That was some heavy starch.

But then along came the Warren Report with a second theory..

They had to make the facts fit the story that LHO was the lone shooter, so they had to develop a scenario whereby only three bullets were fired, all from the 6th floor window of the TSBD…….and they also had to have it taken place within the time frame of the Zapruder film. So Arlen Specter a young brilliant lawyer serving as one of the junior counsel members on the W/C, came up with a scenario that fit. It required that all the nonfatal wounds from President Kennedy and Governor Connally were caused by the same bullet. (So it fell from Governor Connally’s thigh .If it was to work?.)

Dr.Cyril Wecht: “And then there is the business of the bullet just popping out of Governor’s Connally’s left thigh while he was lying on the stretcher at Parkland Hospital. This is a substantial piece of metal that was buried deep in the governor’s thigh near the femur. The entrance hole in the skin was small. There is no way that a bullet that went down that deep would just come back out. A bullet will on rare occasions plop out of an entrance wound, if the wound is a large gaping wound with extensively torn tissues. But in wounds such as the one suffered by Governor Connally in the left thigh, bullets become immediately entrapped in hemorrhagic tissue.. The tissue swells and the skin, which stretches to accommodate the entry of the bullet, becomes elastic like within a few seconds, entrapping the bullet in the tissue”.

Mr. Johnson brought him CE 399, in a small case, it rested on a bed of cotton padding, he picked up the bullet and held it against the light. It is in nearly pristine condition, the bullet before it is shot weighs 161 grams….the bullet he held in his fingers weighed 158.6…Impossible.

Even the autopsy pathologists agreed with him on this point Dr.Pierre Fink had asked Arlen Specter during the WC if CE 199 “could have been the bullet which inflicted the wound on Governor Connally’s right wrist?”

“No, for the reason that there are too many fragments described in that wrist,” Dr.Finck responded. “There was practically no loss off this bullet.”

The federal government did try to duplicate with an experiment and replicate the magic bullet at US Army’s Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland. They tried Mannlicher-Carcano bullets through goat carcasses and human cadavers, broke one rib in the goat’s chest and also finally they broke a distal end of the radius in the human cadavers to simulate the wounds in Connally.

They also fired MC bullets into cotton wadding. The bullets that broke the goats rib were significantly deformed. The bullets that broke the radius bone in the human cadaver were tremendously deformed .Some fragmented and all showed the mushrooming, umbrella-like appearance, seen in bullets that hit dense bones.

Keeping in mind that none of the bullets hit and broke both bones as the Magic Bullet did. The WC own experiments failed and proved that the single-bullet theory was physically impossible.

As Dr.Wecht looked at the CE 399 bullet, he realized that it was a “magic bullet”..Magic because it accommodated the WCs every wish and desire.

“There has never been a bullet like this one in the world”.

Among the many documents and such that he came upon was a verbatim transcript of a briefing at Parkland Hospital at 3.16pm., just two hours

After the President had been pronounced dead…

Dr. Malcolm Perry and neurosurgeon Dr. Kemp Clark discuss what they witnessed.

“Reporters: Where was the entrance wound?

Dr. Perry: There was an entrance wound in the neck.

Reporter: Which way was the bullet coming on the neck wound?

Dr.Perry: It appeared to be coming at him.

Reporter: Doctor describe the entrance wound.

Dr.Perry: The wound appeared to be an entrance wound in the front of the throat.”

He scanned through some of the 500 photos taken that day in Dealey Plaza ..Some that showed the presidential limousine turning from Main onto Houston, directly in front of the shooter? Why didn’t he shoot at the President then? Unobstructed by trees or foliage, a clear shot. Instead the WC claimed that he waited until it was partially hidden and at a more difficult angle to hit the moving target?? It didn’t make sense…

He examined the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle and the spent three shells. He is not a gun expert, but can tell us that it is not a very sophisticated weapon; it is weighty, bulky, and not easy to fire or to reload. It is considered by to be a most inferior weapon of it’s genre in existence at that time.

He then was allowed also to examine the President’s clothes.

“His shirt, pants and jacket, were neatly folded and separated from each by a thin soft paper.” He held up his suit jacket and examined the bullet hole, it is approximately five and three-quarter inches down from the base of the back.

This raised another interesting issue to him, where was the entrance wound in the President’s back?

The doctors handling the autopsy placed the bullet wound further down on the President’s back initially. About five and three quarter inches from the base of the neck?.

The Secret Service agents who had the first contact with the President immediately after the shooting, two Secret Service Agents Glenn Bennett and Clint Hill, who had first contact with the President immediately after the shooting, had told the WC that the bullet hole was four to six inches below the neckline on the right of the spinal column, which is exactly where the autopsy notes indicated it was. Even the FBI agents who had witnessed the autopsy had reported a back wound that “was below the shoulders”. In their report (Sibert and O’Neill), which was sealed till a few years ago, stated they doubted the same bullet that entered the back could have exited the neck, because the bullet entrance was too low on the back. The WC and the Government claimed it was actually four inches higher. That made their theory that the same bullet that entered, and somehow exited his neck, though that was highly unlikely. Also by moving Governor Connelly’s seating farther and farther to the left. It made it all the more feasible to them.

Even though in the Zapruder film and in eyewitness confirmation that he was sitting directly in front of the President, if they had edged him over any closer he would have been sitting in Mrs. Connally’s lap.

His attention returned to studying frames 312 and 313 of the Zapruder film, he saw that President Kennedy’s head is in a slight chin-downward position as the fatal bullet strikes his head, they showed him that blood and brain matter sprayed on Mrs. Kennedy and the back of the presidential limousine and the Dallas motorcyclists who followed their car.

He wondered why, if the bullet was fired from behind, why did the president’s head lurched backwards, instead of forward with the momentum of the bullet, and why did nearly all the blood spray and matter go towards the back of the of the limousine if the bullet was fired from behind? It made no sense.

Indeed the size and location of that fatal head wound, which was instrumental in determining the position of the assassin was in dispute.

“The truth is, very little about the evidence in this case is not in dispute.”

The emergency room Physicians at Parkland and the three autopsy pathologists (at Bethesda) agreed the President died of a massive fatal head wound toward the back right of the skull.

The size and location of the head wound, officially changed in 1968. The Attorney General, Ramsey Clark (The Clark Panel) re-examined the autopsy records and determined that President Kennedy’s wound was actually 4 inches higher on his head that either the emergency doctors or the autopsy pathologists had indicated. They said it was a simply and easy mistake and that the higher head wound proved that the fatal shot came from the TSBD. They based their findings exclusively on a review of the autopsy photographs and x-Rays.

The problem of course, was that the head wound the Clark Panel saw is so significantly different from the wound described by Parkland and the autopsy pathologists (at Bethesda). The emergency doctors saw cerebellar tissue when they examined the president’s head, (this is a part of the brain from the lower portion of the head, no where near where this new entry site was located.)This intrigued Dr.Wecht.

He then turned his attention to the autopsy materials and started with the original autopsy report and photographs. The original autopsy described an entrance point as “just above the external occipital protuberance” which is the bony knob at the bottom rear of the skull, while they did not say how far above, it is certain they were not saying four inches.. The blow out wound was on the back right side of the president’s head, also known as the “parietal-temporal area.”

While he was critical of the three autopsy pathologists lack of forensic pathology expertise, he did not believe they could have mistaken the back of his head for the top of the president’s head..

As he examined the autopsy photographs and x-Rays he also found a couple of previously unreported items…the x-Rays showed a very dense 6.5 millimeter object at the base of the skull. It was 9 centimeters above the external occipital protuberance (bony knob at the bottom rear of the skull)

And one centimeter below a crack in the parietal bone in the skull.( above the occipital bone right hand side). It was a large fragment seen in the x-Ray that was not mentioned in the autopsy?? Equally as baffling was the fact, that it was so large as fragments go, and why the pathologists had not retrieved it as they had smaller fragments? And in addition why had a small flap on the back of the president’s head, slightly above his neckline, that appeared to be loose tissue, and was it an entrance wound or an exit wound?.. Had also not been reported…?

If it was an entrance wound, it would prove the lone assassin theory wrong,

and obsolete, because it would mean an additional bullet had been fired at the president, and recall the Zapruder film confines the shooting to six seconds. If it was an exit wound then that would disprove the lone assassin because it shows a bullet from the front. Meaning an accomplice and a conspiracy.

Unfortunately the only way to know for sure is to exhume the body, and conduct a second autopsy, but Dr.Wecht knew neither the Kennedy family nor the federal government will allow such within his life time..

Something else seemed odd to him, in the autopsy photographs, there was very short thick hair covering the back spot where the Parkland doctors saw the open gaping wound , the hair is less than an inch long though in an area where the hair would have been much longer. Instead, this was the length of hair normally found at the bottom of the scalp. It made him wonder if the president’s head in the autopsy photos had been tampered with to cover the actual wound.

He also examined a roll of film that had been improperly exposed and ruined, he learned that an autopsy photographer (Floyd Riebe )

took a series of pictures at Bethesda as they were starting the autopsy.

A military officer seized the camera, and stripped the film from such claiming he was not authorized to take the photographs, it was overexposed. This roll reminded Dr.Wecht of Dr.Finck’s remark regarding how horrible the conditions were that night at the autopsy.

Spending time with and reviewing Governor Connally’s X-Rays taken at Parkland that showed bone injuries and fractures to his right fifth rib and right radius above the wrist ,and also showing small fragments embedded in his chest, right wrist, and left thigh..They were never removed, (even after his death ) and could have proven or disproven whether they came from the magic bullet..(Another deliberate gaffe.)

As his time was running out he asked for three additional items.

(1: The President’s brain.

(2: The Autopsy photographs of the President’s chest wounds.

(3: The microscopic tissue slides of the wounds.

The brain was removed the evening of the autopsy. It was placed in a container of formalin to preserve it, it is a soft tissue, and the formalin causes it to harden and then the doctors are able to dissect and determine the trajectories of the bullets. However the president’s brain had not been dissected. But he thought it had been preserved for future examination.

The microscopic slides included sections of the actual wounds; he would have been able to tell if they were entrance or exit wounds. They would reveal the outer layer of skin called the epidermis, if it was pushed in then it would be an entrance, if out it would be an exit. There are also other differentiating features between exit and entrance wounds.

But that is when Mr. Johnson told Dr.Wecht the shocker

President Kennedy’s brain.

Some X-rays of the chest.

The microscopic slides.

Were all missing.

Gone.

Taken.

The Warren Report states that the brain was, “removed and preserved for further study”.The brain, x-Rays and microscopic slides were placed in a small metal container for storage amongst other Kennedy assassination materials presented to Mrs. Kennedy ,though there is no evidence she ever received them. Instead they were stored for about a year, by the president’s secretary Evelyn Lincoln, and his brother Robert.

Mr. Johnson told Dr.Wecht that when the family decided to turn all materials over the National Archives as a gift, the brain, chest X-rays, and microscopic slides were mysteriously not included. He also said he had no idea whatever happened to them, who had them, nor when they disappeared.

These three missing items are the key pieces of the hard physical evidence.

So as a result much of the case is based upon subjective interpretation or circumstantial, it is physical evidence that cannot be replaced nor duplicated.

Dr.Cyril Wecht left the National Archives late that Friday afternoon, after spending two full days examining the evidence in the President’s assassination. He was met by Fred Graham of the New York Times; he was pleased to discuss his findings with him as he had been so helpful in his being able to gain access to the materials. What he told him about the missing brain and all, as well as his general observations and opinions, in regard to the physical and medical evidence. Was published on the front page of the New York Times on the Sunday Aug 27th,1972 by Mr. Graham in which he detailed the doctor’s findings.

His interest did not cease in the assassination then or in the future.

In 1975 amid the strong public dissatisfaction of the outcome of the investigation of their President’s murder, President Gerald Ford, who was an original member of the WC, created the Rockefeller Commission, headed by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller.

One of the panel’s senior lawyers interviewed Dr.Wecht as to his scientific opinion, and for five hours he walked him through his critique of the autopsy, his analysis of the medical and physical evidence. He testified that the evidence made it clear that the Single Bullet was nonsense, that all bullets were not fired from behind, and that more than three shots were fired at the President and the Governor. That the autopsy was a sham, that he was convinced there was a second gunman, and the case should be reopened and reinvestigated..

Imagine his surprise when he read the Rockefeller’s Commission’s Report stating that he agreed with their opinion that all shots came from behind and most likely the TSBD. The report made clear that this was all the evidence that Dr. Wecht had provided to the commission.

He demanded to see a transcript of his testimony, and was told it was confidential, and that by releasing it in full, it would be a breach of national security.

He was stunned and dumbfounded .His statement was a matter of national security, he had never realized he was that important.

To a reporter from the Associated Press he stated:

“It that transcript shows in any way that I have withdrawn or revised my thoughts on the Warren Commission Report, I’ll eat the transcript on the steps of the White House.”

Twenty years later the government finally released the transcript of his entire five hour interview. It showed exactly what he had said..

Two years later the Government created the House Select Committee on Assassinations in1977 they were charged with reopening investigations into the assassinations of President John F Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King. To help it acquire, organize and analyze the medical and physical evidence in the Kennedy case, they appointed a 9 member pathology panel, and Dr.Wecht was surprised when he was asked to be a member on the panel. He learned later from personal friends that pressure had been applied to have him not appointed.

So for several months they discussed and reviewed the evidence. All agreed that the autopsy was woefully substandard, and all nine agreed the forensic investigation was equally tragic. The other 8 pathologists were well qualified and very experienced. He simply believes that they had made up their minds long ago that the WC was probably correct, and as a result their eyes were closed to accepting any different explanations. He challenged them to show him another bullet that could match the condition and weight of the so-called magic bullet. “Go back to your respective cities and search through the thousands and thousands of bullets and show me one bullet that has done what you say this bullet and has and looks like this bullet looks,” He implored the panel.

Twenty seven years later, he is still waiting.

His gut feeling was that the HSCA would only whitewash this investigation as well. He was somewhat surprised when they found in their finally report that there was a high degree of probability that the President’s death was a result of a conspiracy and that there was a second gunman involved. The committee also pointed to the Mafia and that they had motive and means to organize an assassination plot.

They also stated that the senior government officials were determined that any investigation would be a finding of a single assassin, Oswald.

“It must be said that the FBI generally exhausted its resources in confirming the case against Oswald as the lone assassin, a case that Director J.Edgar Hoover, at least, seemed determined to make within twenty-four hours of the assassination.”

The committee’s report, turned over all of its findings to the FBI and the US Dept. of Justice for further investigation.

Unfortunately, the Justice Dept. was never interested and or willing to continue the inquiry.

“So what did happen? Was there a conspiracy? How many gunmen were there? How many shots were fired?”

Dr.Cyril Wecht believes there are two elements to consider. He believes that there was a conspiracy, and also that the physical, medical and scientific evidence clearly points to at least two shooters. That under the law if there were two shooters, then there was a “conspiracy”, that there were at least four shots fired, perhaps five. Three were probably fired from behind and probably two from the front.

He has never believed that the murder was a result of an official FBI or CIA planned assassination, but that it was a domestic plot, and that there was no foreign power involved. While some members of organized crime may have had a hand and a contributing role, they were not the principals who did orchestrate the overthrow of the government in 1963.

CBS anchor Dan Rather asked Dr.Wecht in 1979 if he believed there was a postassassination conspiracy cover-up by government officials or the Warren Commission to hide the truth regarding the assassination, or were the numerous missteps the result of sheer incompetence?.

“I think it was both. I think the autopsy and original investigation was sheer incompetence that was in no way meant to be part of a cover-up I have never suggested that these pathologists or even some members of the Warren Commission knowingly engaged in any kind of conspiracy. However I think as things developed, when they began to realize that there were tremendous defects and gaps in their overall investigation and forensic scientific aspects of the case, they felt that they simply had to put it together in some seemingly plausible scenario. I think it started off as incompetence but that it has become an organized effort to ensure that the truth would never be exposed.”

“In 1992 Congress did pass the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act, which required the establishment of an Assassination Records and Review Board to review and declassify millions of documents related to the president’s slaying. Approximately five million such records were made public. It was a huge step forward in discovering what happened.”

While there have been no” smoking guns” found among the documents such as the CIA admitting that they were behind the shooting, some of the records did contain big surprises. For instances there is a previously confidential memo from the lawyer of Dr. George Burkley, who as President Kennedy’s personal physician was in the motorcade that day when he was shot. Also was present in Parkland and in Bethesda during the autopsy. In 1977, in a letter to the HSCA, Burkley’s lawyer stated “Although he, Burkley, signed the death certificate of President Kennedy in Dallas, he had never been interviewed and he has information

in the Kennedy assassination indicating that others besides Oswald may have participated”. Despite the letter to them, Burkley was never called nor officially interviewed by any government agency, nor the HSCA.

The ARRB also exposed another secret problem: the legitimacy of the autopsy photos of the brain. During Wecht’s visit to the NA, he noticed that the brain had appeared in the photographs to be completely intact, which was impossible. The Zapruder film shows that the skull is exploding and spraying copious amounts of brain matter.

( On the back of the limo, towards the motorcycle policemen, and Governor Connally mentions the fact that brain matter flew all over the back of the limo…including himself and Nellie).

As well as witnesses to the shooting, who were standing extremely close.

Mrs. Kennedy handed a part of the brain to the chief of anesthesia at Parkland, Floyd Riebe a photographer at Bethesda, testified,

“Less than half the brain was there”. on and on, many related the information that the President’s brain had been blown out and that there was much missing. FBI agent Francis O’Neill, who was present at Bethesda, for the autopsy was shown the photographs and testified, that they were inaccurate.

“This looks almost like a complete brain.” he stated.

(Though at Parkland there seems to have been more of the brain present within the skull than when the body finally was given the autopsy at Bethesda?)

The official autopsy report documents the weight of the President’s brain to be fifteen hundred grams, which is heavier than the average, complete human brain. In 1998 John Stringer, the lead autopsy photographer also examined the photograph.

“He told the Washington Post that the current pictures are not his, and do not resemble anything he saw the night of the autopsy.”

This is very important because it shows that the Presidents assassination

evidence has been tampered with.

“Someone does not want the truth to be told. Who that person or persons are and what their motives may have been, I have no idea”.

“When I was a young man I believed that the Kennedy assassination would one day be solved and that the truth would be revealed. As I enter my seventh decade on this Earth, I now have serious doubts. The only way this case will ever be solved is through re-examination of the physical and medical evidence. Every day that goes by, the evidence deteriorates. If the brain does exist I doubt it still has any evidentiary value. And I am willing to bet every dollar that I possess that the Kennedy family and the federal government will never allow the body of President Kennedy to be exhumed for a second autopsy”.

When Governor Connally died there was a slight window of opportunity to gain new evidence, and Dr.Wecht along with a group of forensic experts and physicians petitioned US attorney general Janet Reno, to have the bullet fragments removed from his body and tested, they then would have been able to tell if they were from CE 399. Surprising to them Mrs. Reno did write to the Connally family and asked permission. However the family refused, and the bullet fragments along with possibly our last opportunity for finding the truth were buried..

Despite his doubts that he will learn the entire truth in his lifetime.

“There are legitimate efforts underway that are utilizing advances in science and technology to shed light on the mystery.”

Dr.D.Thomas who is an expert in the study of acoustical evidence,

made a dramatic presentation in, Pittsburgh in 2003 at a JFK Symposium,

hosted by Dr.Wecht.

Using photographs, the Zapruder film, and the Dallas Police audio recording his research and analysis showed that there were 5 shots fired in less than 9 seconds. At least two from the grassy knoll area, he explained to the panel. Stating that the evidence indicates, the bullets that were fired probably came from a .30 caliber weapon. At that time, the most popular weapon available was a .30 caliber Winchester.30-30 rifle.

His findings are quite ironic as a Dallas police officer radioed an alert at 12.45 pm stating “The wanted person in this, is a slender white male, about thirty five feet ten, one sixty five, carrying what looked like to be a .30-30 or some type of Winchester.”

The evidence, at every turn, does not add up in the Kennedy assassination,

to a lone assassin. Everywhere Dr.Wecht looks the evidence does point to an effort to keep the American public from knowing the truth.

Evidence missing, witnesses asked to and falsifying affidavits, testimony dramatically altered and documents manipulated.

“What happened in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963, was an effort by two or more people to kill the President of the United States. What has happened since has been a conspiracy to hide the truth.

The result of the two was nothing short of a coup d’e’tet”.

B..below in photo HSCA EX 294

CE 399.....CE 572 THROUGH COTTON CE 853 GOAT RIB CE 856 WRIST....

Edited December 4, 2009 by Bernice Moore

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Just FYI, Inquiring minds consider the choice of autopsy doctors to be among the major indicators of crime and cover-up by the powers controlling the investigation of the assassination.

Who chose them? Wasn't it Jackie and Bobby who wanted the autopsy done there?

THe key players known so far were Kellerman, Admiral Burkley, and their commander -in-chief, Lyndon Johnson.

Kellerman forcibly prevented Dr. Earl Rose, a highly qualified forensic pathologist, from performing the autopsy in accordance with Texas law. Kellerman removed the body from Parkland and took it to AiR Force One.

Johnson gave the order for Air Force to take off with the body on board, making his first official act a crime (Obstruction of Justice).

During the flight, Burkley told Jackie that she had only TWO options for the autopsy, Walter Reed ARMY hospital or Bethesda NAVAL hospital, and he did so in the full knowledge that -given such a limited choice --Jackie would choose Navy, since JFK was a Navy man.

Bobby Kennedy was not consulted about any of this.

After the flight from Dallas the story gets murkier, and we (or at least I) do not know how the chain of command worked at Bethesda Naval Hospital. I understand Doug Horne's book will shed some light on the chain of command at Bethesda, but we do know that the overall commander of the US Navy that night was Lyndon Baines Johnson.

[William Kelly]

Jim Fetzer wrote: "While I like Bill Kelly's review of Doug Horne's Vol. IV, I am just the least bit surprised that he does not appear to be aware that key issues were already addressed by Doug in his chapters in MURDER."

My review from Oct., 2000

Murder in Dealey Plaza – What We Know Now that We Didn't Know then about the Death of JFK (Catfeet Press, Chicago, 2000, 468 pages, Anthology with index, $19.95)

Edited by James H. Fetzer, Ph..D.

A Review – By William Kelly

If the murder that took place in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963 was investigated as a normal homicide, then this book would not be necessary, and those responsible for killing the President would die in jail rather than in leisurely retirement.

Instead, we have to sift through the paper and photographic trail of government records that have been released to the public over the past decade because of the JFK Act, and try to put it all together, at least in our minds and for posterity, if not for Justice for JFK.

Murder in Dealey Plaza is a book that has been a long time coming, and while late, it's here and it should have an impact on the way people perceive the assassination of President Kennedy and how they react to unresolved nature of that crime still haunts us today.

This book is not the cavalry coming to rescue the truth, but rather, it's a posse ferreting out the evidence of conspiracy, mainly involving the cover-up, and proving, beyond a reasonable doubt, that most of the criminal evidence in the case is either missing, fabricated, altered or destroyed by criminals within the government itself.

Along with it's predecessor, Assassination Science (1998), this edition comes from Professor James Fetzer, a former Marine, doctor of Philosophy (University of Minnesota, Deluth) and author of articles and books on the philosophy of Science and the theoretical foundations of computer science. As an important anthology of accumulated research, this is a work that stems from a conference Professor Fetzer held at the University of Minnesota in May 1998 .

Although it was not, as Fetzer says in his book, "the first professional conference on the death of JFK on a major campus" – the first I attended was at NYU Law School in the early 1970s [see Kelly on: Conferences – JFK Assassination] - the Minnesota Conference was a very significant event if only for resulting in this important book, which includes abstracts from many of those who made presentations at the Minnesota Conference. (Unfortunately I was not one of them, but then objective status allows me to write this critical review).

Fetzer states the current state of affairs very well when he notes in his Preface, "Although you would not know from reading it in your daily newspaper, watching it on the evening news, or hearing it from the federal government, during the past decade – especially since 1992 – enormous advances have been made in unraveling one of the greatest crimes of our time, the assassination of President Kennedy. The murder was a state offense for which no one has ever been convicted. After more than 35 years, many Americans tend to think what happened will never be known and there is nothing new to learn. That opinion may be widely held, but it is also completely wrong. We know vastly more now that we ever have before, and we are learning more every day. What happened to this nation on 22 November 1963 occurred as a result of a meticulously executed conspiracy, whose character was concealed by a massive cover-up. Indeed, unraveling the cover-up has provided an access route to understanding the conspiracy, which deprived the American people of their democratically elected leadership."

Indeed, getting to the heart of the conspiracy by uncovering the cover-up is the approach this research takes, and it does work in many instances, and the information in the newly released files has certainly supplied tons of new ammunition.

The keynote speaker at the conference was, quite fittingly, local Minnesota Federal Judge John R. Tunheim, fresh from his position as head of the ARRB.

Now there's a lot of great stuff here, but I'm going to be critical right off the bat, not taking issue with what Fetzer has to say, but to try to instigate a better effort to bring the best evidence to the table and make those officials responsible for the enforcing the law to look at the evidence.

Of all the official government representatives that JFK assassination researchers have had to deal with over the decades, John Tunheim has been one of the fairest, easy going and most open-minded, without a trace of the guilt and arrogance of David Belin, Jack Valante, Gerald Ford and Arlen Spector.

And Tunheim should be proud of what his ARRB did accomplish, though now, years after it dissolved, we must still confront the failures of the JFK Act, and Tunheim is at the heart of those failures.

Fetzer has a list of "Smoking Guns," just like I do, and he tried to get the list to Tunheim before he addressed the conference, yet failed, "as luck would have it." But Fetzer's failure to give the list to Tunheim before the conference shouldn't prevent us from getting Tunheim's reaction to the "Smoking Guns." Fetzer complains, "he arrived 45 minutes late, which made it impossible for me to present my list of discoveries and still kept the meeting on schedule. Although the opportunity was lost, I also resolved to pursue the issue in the belief that the American people should know at least as much as the Chair of the ARRB about its own findings. This book is meant to serve that purpose."

Now, they both live and work in Minnesota and Fetzer claims to know Tunheim personally, so they should have been able to hook up either sooner or even later, for Tunheim's response to be included in the book, since what Tunheim has to say is really important. And I won't let Tunheim off the hook as easy as Fetzer does, because the JFK Act is still in effect and will remain in effect until the Archivist of the United States informs the President of the United States that ALL of the government records relating to the assassination of President Kennedy have been included in the JFK Assassinations Records Collection and are available to the public.

The departments (ie Navy) and agencies (ie NSA) that did not want to abide by the law known as the JFK Act, did what they've done with every other temporary official investigation (ie WC, Church Intelligence Committee, Rock Com., HSCA) and simply waited out the existence of the ARRB. Now that it's gone, Congress itself, as well as the Department of Justice, are responsible for enforcing the JFK Act, and neither is doing so.

And that's just one quick beef I have, both with Fetzer for not buttonholing Tunheim to get answers, and for Tunheim, for not ensuring the JFK Act is enforced beyond the life of the ARRB. Now that is a job that still has to be done and this book is a good step in that direction.

Fetzer: "The present volume extends and deepens our past findings by taking advantage of the new evidence provided by the release of more than 60,000 documents [4 ½ million pages – BK] and records by the Assassinations Records Review Board (ARRB), an entity of five persons created by Congress…The evidence to which we have now had access not only substantiates our previous findings but also enables us to understand in rather precise detail how the cover-up was conducted. The fabrication of the X-rays, the substitution of someone else's brain, revision of the autopsy, photographic fakery, and the destruction and alteration of other critical evidence – including the Presidential Lincoln limousine, which was 'a crime scene on wheels" – was carried out by specific individuals who have specific names…."

And Fetzer names names – those individuals who were responsible for the crimes related to the cover-up, and they all fall within the realm of government servants, err employees, whose salaries are paid for by you - the taxpaying citizens of the United States.

In looking at the medical, autopsy and photographic evidence, Fetzer takes note that, "The principle of scientific reasoning known as Occam's Razor says that simpler theories should be preferred to more complex theories, provided that they are adequate to explain the evidence. What properly counts as "evidence" in this case, however, turns out to be a complicated question, where our most important contributions have involved discriminating between authentic and inauthentic evidence, where much of the evidence is a mixture or a blend of both original and artificial features to create deceptive composite fabrications. Most medical scientists, even forensic pathologists, are not accustomed to considering the possibility that their evidence may be fraudulent, which has contributed to the difficulty of finally securing a suitable foundation for differentiating between theories of the crime."

"The greatest obstacle confronting the government account is to explain why so much of the evidence has been altered, created, or destroyed. The simplest explanation for government involvement in the cover-up, after all, is government involvement in the crime. It should not have been necessary to frame a guilty man. The studies published in this volume provide the simplest explanation for what happened to the evidence in this case. The conclusions they support afford understanding of the conspiracy itself, its scope and its duration. Unpacking the cover-up illuminates what has to be one of the most extensive conspiracies of the 20^th century. A judicial verdict may be said to be 'beyond reasonable doubt' when no alternative explanation for the crime is reasonable. In this sense, this case has been settled beyond reasonable doubt."

In the Prologue to his anthology Dr. Fetzer lists what he calls his "Smoking Guns" – something similar to John Newman's list of "Smoking Documents" and Doug Horne's quick list of "smoking gun" documents he put together in response to ARRB member Anna K. Nelson's statement that, "Assassination aficionados seeking the "smoking gun" documents(s) will be disappointed." We "aficionados" have certainly not been disappointed with the new information contained in the release of the government documents, which implicate the federal agencies in the crime and mimic Nelson's statement that "the (JFK) Act was designed to strip away theories that implicated federal agencies in a conspiracy to murder the young president."

While I will deal with Doug Horne's list and my own list of "Smoking Docs," Fetzer's list is not the best evidence available, though it may be convincing enough to sway those who are still on the fence, as to whether or not there was a conspiracy. My problem with the lists composed by both Horne and Fetzer is that they focus mainly on the medical, autopsy and photo exhibits, which in the course of their own analysis, they totally destroy as viable evidence.

I was going to list and go over each "Smoking Gun" Hypothesis, beginning with H1 – David W. Mantick's cross-section of the reputed "single-bullet" trajectory, which is not unlike the evidence that convinced Gaeton Fonzi of conspiracy – the photos of the bullet hole in the jacket, shirt and back of JFK, which if you draw a straight line to the bullet hole in the throat, and continue the line in both directions, may begin at the Sixth Floor window, but certainly does not come out in Connally's direction and conclusively refutes the Single-Bullet Theory.

I will go over Fetzer's "Smoking Guns" in another article, as well as Doug Horne's list and add my own, they all focus on the contradictions of the government's case for a lone-assassin, but fail to lead us to those actually responsible for the crime, rather than the cover-up. I do subscribe to Fetzer's paraphrase of Charles Drago's statement that, "anyone sincerely interested in this case who does not conclude that JFK was murdered as the result of a conspiracy is either unfamiliar with the evidence or cognitively impaired." Or, as I might add, an accomplice or accessory to the crime.

Most interesting to me is the Chronology prepared by Ira David Wood III, a Raleigh, N.C. playwright who became a student of the assassination while contemplating a dramatic work on the assassination and began his chronology, a "work in progress." Beginning a chronology of pertinent events is one of the of the first things a real homicide detective does when beginning an investigation of a murder, and Wood's chronology is good, though not perfect. He doesn't have, at least in this volume, a source for each notation, and while what's published in this volume is only one fifth of his entire chronology, and limited to the day of the assassination, his entire chronology should be published and made available to researchers, and corrected in spots.

Wood's chrono should be correlated with Mary Ferrell's much more detailed file, and in conjunction with the chrono of Mary's friend, as well as Carlos Bringuier's, the Church Committee's, my own and any others that may be related.

Two important corrections: (p.24) "At their home in Miami Beach, Florida, John Martino and his wife Robyn are talking about going to the Americana [Hotel] for lunch. An announcement comes over the radio concerning JFK's trip to Texas. According to Robbyn, John Martino tells her: 'They're gong to kill him. They're going to kill him when he gets to Dallas.'" Martino's wife was Florence, while Robbyn, is Robbyn Summers, Tony Summers wife who helped research and write a Vanity Fair article and the "Not In Your Lifetime" update of Summer's book "Conspiracy."

In addition Wood writes (p. 65), "Braden stayed at the Cabana Motel in Dallas on the evening of 21 November The Cabana is owned by Joe Campisi who has strong ties with Carlos Marcello." While Joe Campisi does have strong ties to Marcello, he owned the Egyptian Lounge in North Dallas [still a great place to eat]; the Cabana was owned by Doris Day and her lawyer, and was financed by the Teamsters Pension Fund].

Wood also repeats some time worn, inaccurate rehash of information concerning Jack Lawrence, which has been corrected with even more interesting and conspiratorial data in a series of articles that were published in the Fourth Decade Journal, which Wood should be aware of. In any case, I endorse his Chronology Concept and now that we are in the computer and internet age, suggest that we put all of the extant chronologies together so everyone can use them to better understand what happened in Dealey Plaza.

Whenever someone new asks my advice on doing JFK assassination research I advise them to get a good overall picture of the Kennedy presidency and then focus on one particular aspect of the assassination, as Vince Palamara has done with the Secret Service and Pamala Mac. Brown has done with limo. In this edition, Vince has two articles – "Witnesses: Delay on Elm Street" and "The Secret Service: On the Job in Dallas," which compliments Doug Weldon's study of "The Kennedy Limousine: Dallas 1963.

Now Doug has some nice things to say, which, "…demonstrates a sinister complicity by the Ford Motor Company in cooperating with the deception and criminal destruction of evidence," but he really bothers me when he says things like, "Further evidence of complicity between Johnson and the Secret Service of which I am aware will have to be addressed at another time. (But it is curious to note that (Chief of the S.S. James) Rowley was the first person to shake Johnson's hand as Johnson arrived at Andrews Air Force Base on the evening of the assassination."

Well, let's have it Doug, what are you waiting for, more witnesses to die?

And another thing, I don't buy the unnamed source from the Ford Motor Company, who eight years ago told Weldon that he saw a bullet hole in the window and concludes not only did the shot originate from the front, but it came from the OTHER side of Dealey Plaza – the South Side, and was INTENDED to go through the window to hit JFK.

Witnesses that you can't name aren't witnesses but distractions, much like: "One witness to the assassination of President Kennedy told this writer that shortly after the shooting he observed a women being taped by a TV camera. He heard her say that she saw a shot fired from the south side of the railroad overpass as the President was killed. To our knowledge, there is no record that this tape was ever shown on TV. In fact, we have never learned the identity of the women. The witness did not get her name: but he stayed up all night hoping to see himself on TV."

Now to me that's total bullxxxx and just a waste of time to even talk about. A unidentified witness who overhears an unknown witness tell a TV crew something that's never been reported before, is unsubstantiated hearsay that only muddies the waters. And we don' need any more of that.

I do like one thing that Weldon says however, "People have become very cynical about our leaders. Whether Kennedy was liked or not, or was good or bad, something changed that day. A faith and trust in government was lost that can only be cleansed by the truth. History deserves that truth. The People alive now and of future generations also deserve that truth. I hope that everyone can recapture the promise that we should have…History not only deserves the truth, it demands truth…."

Now I'm not giving equal time to Part III on The Medical Evidence, which includes articles by Dr. Gary L. Aguilar, M.D. and David W. Mantik, M.D., Ph.D., because they conclusively prove that what's needed is not a debate or dialog but a real, independent Forensic Autopsy, something that will eventually happen, hopefully in our lifetime.

Douglas P. Horne wrote two articles for Part IV – ARRB Revelations, one on "Evidence of Government Cover-Up: Two Different Brain Specimens in President Kennedy's Autopsy" and "Interviews with Former NPIC Employees: The Zapruder Film in November 1963." Both are extremely significant articles.

Just as Aguilar and Mantik did with the medical evidence, Jack White and David Mantik challenge the legitimacy of the Zapruder Film in "The Great Zapruder Film Hoax" and "Paradoxes of the JFK Assassination: The Zapruder Film Controversy," and subsequently eliminate the Zap film as potential evidence because of the controversies.

The Photo and Medical evidence cannot be used to instigate Grand Jury action, but other persuasive evidence can, the result of which would be to proceed like any normal Grand Jury investigation of a homicide, and order a proper Forensic Autopsy – That is one that not only determines the cause of death, but the means of how death was inflicted, with the intention of identifying suspects and creating evidence that can be utilized in a court of law.

In one of the more interesting portions of the book, Part VI "Righting the Record," Fetzer analysis's "Jesse Curry's JFK Assassination File: Could Oswald Have Been Convicted?" and Mantik philosophizes over another paradox, "The Silence of the Historians."

The Epilogue is British philosopher Bertrand Russell's "Questions on the Assassination," which has stood the test of time. Before the Warren Report was even issued, Russell focused in on many of the appropriate issues that remain significant today.

The Appendices includes Fetter's "A Précis of Assassination Science (1998) and a "Letter to Leslie's Batchelor," an FBI Protective Research Report of 27 November 1963, Ford Motor Company Intra-Company Communication of 18 December 1963, and Mantick's Conversation with John Ebersole, M.D. and his edited depositions of Autopsy doctors Thorton Boswell and James Humes.

This book is extremely important and may be a significant attack on the official government policy on the assassination if it's message will reach the right people, but the best book about the assassination of President Kennedy has yet to be written - the one that solves the case to a moral and legal certainty.

Bill Kelly – Somers Point, New Jersey, October 3, 2000.

DOUG HORNE'S "SMOKING GUNS"

"Assassination aficionados seeking the 'Smoking gun' document(s) will be disappointed." – Anna K. Nelson – former member of the Assassination Records Review Board, in the anthology, A Culture of Secrecy : The Government Versus the People's Right to Know, by Athan G. Theoharis (Editor), (University of Kansas Press, 1998).

Doug Horne's Response:

I can think of several "smoking gun" documents right now, of hand, just by memory:

(a) The Top Secret FBI report sent to LBJ in December 1966 indicated that the KGB secretly briefed its New York office in 1965 that it had evidence that Lyndon Johnson was responsible for the assassination of President Kennedy.

( Inspector Thomas Kelly of the U.S. Secret Service wrote a memo on February 14, 196w which stated that if, in the future, the FBI were allowed sole jurisdiction over investigations of Presidential assassinations, that a "venal" FBI director could single-handedly control the investigation, and "we could have another Seven Days in May situation." ["Another"?]

The sworn testimony of JFK autopsy photographer John Stringer to the ARRB in the summer of 1996 conclusively proved that the photographs of "a brain" in the JFK Collection at the Archives could not be the photographs he shot at a post-autopsy supplemental brain exam – essentially proving that the brain photos in the archives are not of President Kennedy's brain, but rather some other brain.

(d) The sworn testimony of former FBI agents O'Neil and Sibert to the ARRB in

September of 1997 indicated that the brain photos in the Archives could not be Kennedy's brain because at the autopsy, JFK's brain, "was over half gone."

(e) The sworn testimony of former FBI agents O'Neil and Sibert tot eh ARRB in September of 1997 indicated that the JFK autopsy photographs of an intact back of the head were incorrect, i.e., inconsistent with the large posterior defect they remembered seeing at the autopsy.

(f) Numerous OPLANS released to the ARRB by the Pentagon revealed that the U.S. Military (i.e., the Chairman of the JSC, Lyman Lemnitzer) was openly advocating a U.S. military invasion of Cuba before the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Other staff papers generated in 1962 and 1963 at the one-star level within the Pentagon, recommended that the U.S. invent and employ several ingenious pretexts for an invasion of Cuba with overwhelming U.S. force.

(g) The sworn testimony of Dr. James J. Humes to the ARRB in 1996 indicated that the A-P head x-ray of the President shown to him at the deposition in 1996 did not look the same as he remembered it looking on the night of the autopsy in November 1963. Specifically, the x-ray shows a large metal (bullet) fragment today which Humes does not remember seeing on the x-ray during the autopsy – nor does he remember searching for any such fragment on the body; furthermore, the x-ray shows other characteristics that Humes did not remember seeing at the autopsy, and which he did not understand when viewed in 1996. [The implications of his remarks are that the present x-ray could be a partial forgery.]

"I could go on and on, but the above is sufficient to prove that Anna Nelson is just plane wrong on this count. Or more precisely, the relative importance of a document is in the mind of the researcher or historian, and is determined by his or her knowledge, filters, world view, etc."

Finally, I do not know how anyone could say this without reading all of the documents, either. Another Board member, Dr. Kemrit Hall, more accurately stated at the ARRB's sunset news conference that "the real impact of the ARRB's work could not be estimated for at least ten years."

Now that is a statement I can respect.

Please give this the widest possible dissemination.

Doug Horne

ARRB Staff Member, August 1996-September 1998.

Edited December 7, 2009 by William Kelly