Alen J Salerian, MD

December 7, 2009

Thanks, Peter. The final part of your quote, "BTW, where does the dart theory originate? Does it pre-date HSCA? I may have known this in the 70s, but have forgotten now", was not my query but rather that of David Andrews, to whom I had replied.

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 7, 2009 by James H. Fetzer

December 7, 2009

Bill, I must say, I find this review very peculiar. Where did this appear? You spend more time talking about the conference and that Tunheim ran late--which made it a practical impossibility for me to raises the issues with him that I wanted to address in public--than you do with David W. Mantik's superb summary of the medical evidence. I don't want to belabor the point, but the medical evidence is the key to the case and his is the most important study in the history of research on the assassination of JFK. And yet you, Bill Kelly, pass over it in virtual silence. That, to me, is simply stunning.

I invite anyone to compare Kelly's review with that of John Delane Williams, which appeared in THE FOURTH DECADE (January 2001), pp. 12-17 and which Bernice has posted here. I find your review of MURDER quite superficial and highly idiosyncratic. Your complaints about Doug Weldon's chapter, for example, surprise me in the extreme. I suppose you didn't know that the Ford employee, whom he has subsequently identified, was in fear of his life? But these are not the only gross deficiencies that I find in this highly inadequate and seriously misleading review. I offer as illustrations of the oddity of your study the passages in which you talk about "smoking guns" and "magic bullets":

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.

These paragraphs appear to me to represent an incoherent position about the evidence in this case. You mention "H1 - David W. Mantick's (sic) cross-section of the reputed 'single-bullet' trajectory", the holes in the shirt and in the jacket and, presumably, Boswell's autopsy diagram showing a wound on the body at the same location, but the use of this evidence involves sorting out the difference between the authentic and inauthentic "medical, autopsy and photo exhibits"--such as that of JFK's back--which, you say, "in the course of their own analysis, they [Fetzer, Horne, and Mantik, presumably] totally destroy as viable evidence."

But the whole case hinges on separating the authentic from the inauthentic "medical, autopsy and photo exhibits". How else could this be done? Do you not understand that establishing the alteration of the lateral cranial x-ray involved separating the authentic parts--using dental comparisons to show that this is the skull of JFK, for example--from the altered parts, in particular, the "patch" at the back of the head? How else could this conclusion have been established than by skillfully, intelligently, and analytically sorting out the authentic from the inauthentic features of the medical, the autopsy, and the photographic exhibits?

Similarly, as I have observed in "Zapruder JFK Film impeached by Moorman JKF Polaroid", the missing mass at the right front of the cranium in the lateral cranial and the anterior/posterior x-rays is yet another part of the fabrication of evidence, in this case to comport with the bulging out of brains to the right front in the film in frames 313-316, the caption in LIFE claiming that it was the blow out to the right front that established the direction of the shot, and Abraham Zapruder's TV performance in which he demonstrated a blow out to the right front that did not occur? How could this conclusion have been drawn without sorting out the authentic from the inauthentic features of the medical, the autopsy, and the photographic exhibits?

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.

In this equally stunning passage, you fail to appreciate that the discoveries of the alteration of the x-rays, of the substitution of another brain for that of JFK, and the recreation of the Zapruder film provide powerful premises in the elimination of alternative theories about who was responsible, since (1) the Mafia could not have extended its reach into Bethesda Naval Hospital to alter x-rays under the control of agents of the Secret Service, the president's personal physician, and medical offices of the US Navy; (2) neither pro- nor anti-Castro Cubans could have substituted another brain for that of JFK; and (3) even if the KGB had an ability to fabricate films comparable to that of the CIA and Hollywood, it could not have gained possession of the Zapruder!

When we take into account more than fifteen indications of Secret Service complicity in setting him up for the hit and analyze who had the motive, the means, and the opportunity to arrange the assassination and cover it up--which was done in excruciating detail and required elaborate planning--the list of suspects becomes very small. Indeed, the evidence that implicates Lyndon Johnson, the CIA, the Military and the Mob, not to mention anti-Castro Cubans, is so powerful--including the methods used to frame the patsy--and the alternatives so weak that there really is no reasonable alternative to the involvement of high-level factions of the government in the crime.

When no alternative to an explanation is reasonable, then that explanation has been established beyond a reasonable doubt. Doug Horne has identified additional support for the substitution of another brain and for the alteration of the Zapruder film in his new studies--along with a great deal more! But he had already made such key contributions in his own chapters in MURDER. The failure to make that observation in your new review of his work and your incapacity to understand the relationship between determinations of authenticity and their absence in the medical, autopsy and photographic evidence indicates to me that, in spite of your obvious sincerity, you are not qualified to be reviewing books on these subjects, with respect to which your summaries and reports are clearly unreliable. You are less an expert than a dilettante and should not be reviewing books that are beyond you.

___________________________________________________________

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.

William Kelly · December 7, 2009

So first you complain that I didn't review your book like I did Doug Horne's, and then when I post the review that's nearly ten years old, you say I'm not qualified to write reviews?

It was published in a newsapaper at the Jersey Shore and on JFK Research at the time 2000. And we've learned a lot since then, but very little has changed.

The best review of your book was written by a guy who worked for the Congressional Research Service in a prosecutor's magazine. Because of that review I went out of my way to meet him at lunch one day and he's a real researcher with a great job and got a critical review in a mainstream publication geared towards district attorneys.

The medical evidence isn't the key to the case, as it confuses people, is too technical for most, and if it wasn't for Doug Horne, we wouldn't even be discussing it. And we discuss it from his perspective, not just to determine what happened, but to determine what became of the orignal evidence and records, and get Congress to enforce the JFK Act, not solve the crime.

Actually, I would write a different review today, after further reflection, as your anthologies have some excellent articles by expert witnesses, but other articles, and your inflated ego, detract from them. If the book was better edited it would have had more of an effect than it did.

I was very surprised that Horne in IARRB even acknowledges the articles in your anthology and the work of Harry Livingstone, when the original documents and witness testimony is available, and even he acknowledges that egos get in the way sometimes. (I will site a page for this when I get a chance).

I think Ira Woods chronology is the most important part of the book, and my critique is on some of his mistakes that I'm sure he has corrected over time (ie John Martino's wife is not Robyn).

As for the medical evidence and autopsy, I never said I knew anything about it, and have only got into it now because of Doug's book.

He is also being criticized for not being a medical specialist, and like him, I am focusing on the military records, and their deposition, and not trying to become a specialist in the medical, forensic or scientific evidence.

My purpose is to identify new leads that can be further investigated, find new witnesses, new documents and new evidence that can answer the outstanding issues, not write book reviews that please the authors.

Bill Kelly

Edited December 7, 2009 by William Kelly

Dean Hagerman · December 7, 2009

If the book was better edited it would have had more of an effect than it did.

Not only is that a shot aimed directly at Jim its a false statement

The book is edited just fine, I have no problems reading MIDP at all, in fact it is such a great read I have read it at least 50 times

Len Colby · December 7, 2009

If the book was better edited it would have had more of an effect than it did.

Not only is that a shot aimed directly at Jim its a false statement

The book is edited just fine, I have no problems reading MIDP at all, in fact it is such a great read I have read it at least 50 times

So Fetzer whose ego is bigger than the Mall of the Americas can criticize the ever humble Bill Kelly but the latter can't say anything bad about the former? Why the double standard?

Contrary to what you seem to believe the quality of the editing of any book is a matter of opinion not fact but based on Fetzer's repetitive style I imagine Bill was right

Michael Hogan · December 7, 2009

If the book was better edited it would have had more of an effect than it did.

Not only is that a shot aimed directly at Jim its a false statement

The book is edited just fine, I have no problems reading MIDP at all, in fact it is such a great read I have read it at least 50 times

Bill Kelly wrote his review in October, 2000. Apparently his review was based on the first printing of Murder in Dealey

Plaza. The second, third and fourth printings (with corrections according to Jim Fetzer) were not released until 2001.

I owned a copy of the first and third editions. When I learned Professor Fetzer was planning on issuing a fifth printing

in 2002, I wrote him and told him that there were still many errors in the third printing. Most concerned spelling, punctuation

and grammar, but there was also a considerable number of factual misstatements. Some chapters contained a much

higher percentage of errors than others, which I ascribed to the various authors. I offered to highlight the mistakes and send

my book to Professor Fetzer for his consideration. He accepted my offer and was gracious from beginning to end.

In some cases proofreading is an art rather than a science, subject to an individual's point of view, but in other cases a mistake

is just a mistake. In the third printing I found hundreds of what I considered to be errors. I highlighted them and sent the book to

Professor Fetzer. In time he returned my highlighted third printing and an inscribed copy of the fifth printing. He made many of the changes

I suggested, although not as many as I would have liked. I still have both copies of Murder in Dealey Plaza and pulled them from the shelf

to make this post.

Bill Kelly was spot on when he wrote that the book could have been better edited. In fact, it was an understatement. Even in the third

printing there were far too many errors for such an important work. That is not a criticism of Professor Fetzer. It's just a fact.

I have no idea which printing Dean Hagerman owns and has read at least 50 times. The first printing that Bill Kelly reviewed was not "edited just fine."

Nor were the second and third printings.

In this instance, Dean Hagerman doesn't know what he is talking about.

I want to add that I have great respect for Jim Fetzer's efforts to advance this case that he so aptly described as a murder in the title of his book.

Whether I agree with everything that appeared in Murder in Dealey Plaza is irrelevant. Nor is what I think of Professor Fetzer's style or ego relevant.

Many of the specific issues raised in his book can be debated forever by those that choose to do so. It is up to each reader to accept or reject what

is contained in those pages. But of this, there can be no doubt: There is more than enough research contained in MIDP to demonstrate and prove

conspiracy in the murder of President Kennedy.

Edited December 7, 2009 by Michael Hogan

Dean Hagerman · December 8, 2009

In this instance, Dean Hagerman doesn't know what he is talking about.

Michael Hogan has no clue what he is talking about

Why you ask would I say that? I guess just like him im saying it just to say it

How does that sound Michael?

Maybe you should pay attention to whats IN the book like I did instead of dwelling on spelling errors, you act like this book is an report that Fetzer turned into an 8th grade English Teacher

Who cares (besides you and English teachers) if the book has errors? You make it sound like it was so bad that it was impossible to read the book, the errors did not take away from the flow of the book that was easy to read and understand

And for your info I own the first edition

I hope you break my post apart and point out all the spelling and punctuation errors to me so I (along with all the other researchers who care about the case instead of grammer) can get a good laugh

Jack White · December 8, 2009

If the book was better edited it would have had more of an effect than it did.

Not only is that a shot aimed directly at Jim its a false statement

The book is edited just fine, I have no problems reading MIDP at all, in fact it is such a great read I have read it at least 50 times

Bill Kelly wrote his review in October, 2000. Apparently his review was based on the first printing of Murder in Dealey

Plaza. The second, third and fourth printings (with corrections according to Jim Fetzer) were not released until 2001.

I owned a copy of the first and third editions. When I learned Professor Fetzer was planning on issuing a fifth printing

in 2002, I wrote him and told him that there were still many errors in the third printing. Most concerned spelling, punctuation

and grammar, but there was also a considerable number of factual misstatements. Some chapters contained a much

higher percentage of errors than others, which I ascribed to the various authors. I offered to highlight the mistakes and send

my book to Professor Fetzer for his consideration. He accepted my offer and was gracious from beginning to end.

In some cases proofreading is an art rather than a science, subject to an individual's point of view, but in other cases a mistake

is just a mistake. In the third printing I found hundreds of what I considered to be errors. I highlighted them and sent the book to

Professor Fetzer. In time he returned my highlighted third printing and an inscribed copy of the fifth printing. He made many of the changes

I suggested, although not as many as I would have liked. I still have both copies of Murder in Dealey Plaza and pulled them from the shelf

to make this post.

Bill Kelly was spot on when he wrote that the book could have been better edited. In fact, it was an understatement. Even in the third

printing there were far too many errors for such an important work. That is not a criticism of Professor Fetzer. It's just a fact.

I have no idea which printing Dean Hagerman owns and has read at least 50 times. The first printing that Bill Kelly reviewed was not "edited just fine."

Nor were the second and third printings.

In this instance, Dean Hagerman doesn't know what he is talking about.

I want to add that I have great respect for Jim Fetzer's efforts to advance this case that he so aptly described as a murder in the title of his book.

Whether I agree with everything that appeared in Murder in Dealey Plaza is irrelevant. Nor is what I think of Professor Fetzer's style or ego relevant.

Many of the specific issues raised in his book can be debated forever by those that choose to do so. It is up to each reader to accept or reject what

is contained in those pages. But of this, there can be no doubt: There is more than enough research contained in MIDP to demonstrate and prove

conspiracy in the murder of President Kennedy.

In the publishing world, EDITING and PROOFREADING are two distinctly different roles.

It is generally the publisher who is responsible for proofreading. Editing has to do

with working with manuscripts and making them suitable for publishing. The editor

of course sees publisher proofs and should catch typos to be be corrected. But having

been an editor, I know that by the fourth or fifth reading of a work, one reads a proof

knowing what it should say, and easily misses typos. Having worked at an agency with

a large number of employees, we usually had a different person read proofs after each

successive correction.

Jack

Dean Hagerman · December 8, 2009

If the book was better edited it would have had more of an effect than it did.

Not only is that a shot aimed directly at Jim its a false statement

The book is edited just fine, I have no problems reading MIDP at all, in fact it is such a great read I have read it at least 50 times

So Fetzer whose ego is bigger than the Mall of the Americas can criticize the ever humble Bill Kelly but the latter can't say anything bad about the former? Why the double standard?

Contrary to what you seem to believe the quality of the editing of any book is a matter of opinion not fact but based on Fetzer's repetitive style I imagine Bill was right

So you have never read "Murder In Dealey Plaza" Len?

Craig Lamson · December 8, 2009

If the book was better edited it would have had more of an effect than it did.

Not only is that a shot aimed directly at Jim its a false statement

The book is edited just fine, I have no problems reading MIDP at all, in fact it is such a great read I have read it at least 50 times

So Fetzer whose ego is bigger than the Mall of the Americas can criticize the ever humble Bill Kelly but the latter can't say anything bad about the former? Why the double standard?

Contrary to what you seem to believe the quality of the editing of any book is a matter of opinion not fact but based on Fetzer's repetitive style I imagine Bill was right

So you have never read "Murder In Dealey Plaza" Len?

Grape? Cherry? Or Orange?

December 8, 2009

Compare this exceptional review of MURDER with Bill Kelly's pathetic effort.

The following review has just appeared in THE FEDERAL LAWYER (May 2001),

pp. 52-56. This journal (formerly: THE FEDERAL BAR NEWS AND JOURNAL)

is a publication for attorneys who work for the federal government, who

practice before federal agencies, or who appear before federal courts.

_______________________________________________________________________

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

the Death of JFK, Edited by James Fetzer; Catfeet Press, 2000. 468

pages, $19.95.

Reviewed by George Costello*

There has always been strong evidence of multiple gunmen in the

assassination of President Kennedy -- strong evidence that the official

story presented in the Warren Report,1 and in large measure ratified by

the report of the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA),2 is

false. Conspiracy evidence, however, has always run up against autopsy

evidence that substantiates the official story that shots hit the

President only from behind.3 Ordinarily, the autopsy is the best

evidence of how a murder was accomplished, but the Kennedy

assassination has proven to be the exception to the rule. Murder in

Dealey Plaza pulls the props from under the autopsy report, and gives

us good reason to believe that the report, along with accompanying

X-rays and photos, was falsified to hide evidence of frontal shots.

Murder in Dealey Plaza is aptly subtitled ^ÄWhat We Know Now that We

Didn't Know Then About the Death of JFK.¾ For years, key evidence in

the case was kept secret by the federal government. Thanks to the work

of the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB), however, we now have

much more information than we did before about the assassination of

President Kennedy, and about the cover-up orchestrated from within the

government.4 Thanks to the dedication and persistence of people like

Professor James Fetzer, Dr. Gary Aguilar, Dr. David Mantik, and Douglas

Horne ^Â contributors to Murder in Dealey Plaza ^Â we now have a better

idea about what really happened.

Soon after the ARRB released its report in 1998, supporters of the

Warren Commission's conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone

assassin were quick to provide sound bites proclaiming that there were

no ^Äsmoking guns¾ in the released files. This was true only in the

very literal sense that the actual murder weapons and assassins were

not identified.5 There is explosive material in the newly released

files ^Â evidence that helps establish that the autopsy report was

misleading on critical points, that supporting X-rays and photographs

relied upon by the HSCA were falsified, and that the government has

never revealed the true nature of the President's wounds.

Murder in Dealey Plaza, building on knowledge that has been gained over

the years,6 sets forth much of the new information and explains its

import.7 The principal focus is on the medical evidence, but there are

also interesting chapters on the Presidential limousine, the failure of

Secret Service protection, the authenticity of the Zapruder film, the

failure of professional historians to probe behind the cover-up, and

Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry's files on the case. A perceptive 1964

essay by Bertrand Russell rounds out the book.8

Among the book¼s findings are the following:

Ö Contrary to conclusions in the HSCA's report, witnesses to the

Bethesda autopsy confirmed, rather than contradicted, the Dallas

doctors' assertions that there was a large hole in the back of the

President's head.9 Such a hole would ordinarily signify an exit wound,

not an entrance wound, and is therefore indicative of a shot from the

front.

Ö Autopsy X-rays were forged, probably shortly after the autopsy, to

make it appear that there was a round metallic object, 6.5 mm in

diameter, lodged in the back of the President's skull near the alleged

bullet entry site identified by the HSCA. (Accused assassin Lee Harvey

Oswald's rifle used 6.5 mm ammunition.)

Ö Not all of the photos and X-rays taken at the autopsy remain in the

collection at the National Archives. ARRB interviews with autopsy

doctors, photographers, and X- ray technicians reveal that some

photographs and X-rays taken during the autopsy are missing from the

collection at the National Archives, and that some of the photographs

now in that collection were not taken during the autopsy.

Ö As a follow-up to the autopsy there were two separate brain

examinations of two different brains. The first examination, evidently

of President Kennedy's brain, was probably conducted on the morning of

Monday November 25, prior to the President's funeral. The second

examination, conducted about a week later, was of a different brain ^Â a

brain that showed damage consistent with the official story of a head

shot from the rear.

Among the conclusions that can be drawn from these and other findings

are the following:

Ö President Kennedy was shot at least twice in the head. At least one

shot to the head came from the front.

Ö Autopsy photos and X-rays were falsified to conceal the true nature

of President Kennedy's wounds, and to create images consistent with the

official version of the shooting. The autopsy report was deliberately

misleading.

Ö The second brain examination, evidently of a brain not the

President's, was conducted in order to create a record of a brain

specimen that was consistent with the official story that President

Kennedy had been shot from behind.

Ö All of the official investigations of President Kennedy's

assassination relied on falsified or misleading medical data to reach

their conclusions.

The new findings about the medical evidence cannot be set forth in full

detail in a book review of this length. Some elaboration here,

however, should help convince the reader that the medical essays in

Murder in Dealey Plaza are both thorough and persuasive with respect to

their principal findings, and that the book merits serious attention.

The Autopsy Witnesses

One of the most shocking revelations in the ARRB's releases is the fact

that the HSCA misrepresented the basic thrust of statements made to

Committee staff by witnesses to President Kennedy's autopsy at

Bethesda.10 According to the HSCA report,

In disagreement with the observations of the Parkland doctors are the

26 people present at the autopsy. All of those interviewed who

attended the autopsy corroborated the general location of the wounds as

depicted in the photographs; none had differing accounts . . . . t

appears more probable that the observations of the Parkland doctors are

incorrect.11

The autopsy photographs referred to by the HSCA report show the back of

the head apparently intact, the hair free of blood, with only a small

red spot near the cowlick.12 By contrast, doctors at Parkland Hospital

in Dallas who treated the mortally wounded President, including

neurosurgeons, described a large, gaping wound in the back of the head,

with brain tissue from the cerebellum as well as the cerebrum

extruding. (The cerebellum, located low in the back of the brain, has

a very distinctive appearance that no doctor should mistake for the

cerebrum.) The autopsy report, although it wrongly concluded that

President Kennedy was shot only from behind, also clashed directly with

these photographs. The report describes a large hole ^Äinvolving

chiefly the parietal bone, but extending somewhat into the temporal and

occipital regions.¾13 This is a description of a hole that extends well

into the back of the head.14 Any large hole in both the parietal and

occipital bones should have been readily apparent in a photograph of

the back of the head, at least if there was a corresponding loss of

scalp.

According to Dr. Aguilar, it is simply not true that the autopsy

witnesses interviewed by the HSCA staff corroborated the autopsy

photos. Staff summaries of the witnesses' statements, locked up for

30 years until being released through the ARRB, reveal that all 13 of

those interviewed (only half of those present at the autopsy)

corroborated the observations of the Parkland doctors that there was a

large wound in the back of the head. Many Warren Commission witnesses

had also described a large wound in the back of the head. Dr. Aguilar

reports that, between Parkland and Bethesda, there were more than 40

witnesses ^Â including the autopsists themselves ^Â whose original

observations attested to a right-rearward skull wound.15

Thus, it is no longer a matter of Parkland doctors and other Dallas

witnesses being contradicted by the autopsy photographs and all of the

autopsy witnesses. Rather, it appears that the current autopsy

photographs were contradicted by virtually all interviewed witnesses at

the Bethesda autopsy as well as at Parkland. As Dr. Aguilar contends,

it is difficult to imagine how there could have been near unanimity

among so many people -- many of them highly trained professionals --

and how all of them could have been wrong about so basic a matter as

the location of a large head wound recognized by all as the fatal wound.

Incomplete and Altered Autopsy Photos

How can it be that the autopsy photographs conflict so starkly with the

observations of the 13 autopsy witnesses who described a large hole in

the back of the President's head? With the exception of one confusing

photo of the inside of the skull,16 the collection of autopsy

photographs at the National Archives does not verify a large defect in

the back of the head. In fact, as mentioned above, the extant photos

of the exterior of the back of the head show it to be intact. The

explanation appears to be that the original autopsy photos were

replaced with subsequently made and probably fabricated photos that

were intended to be consistent with the official story of shots from

behind.

Through interviews with the autopsy doctors, photographers, X-ray

technicians, autopsy witnesses, and a technician who developed autopsy

pictures, the ARRB helped to establish that there were key photographs

taken during the autopsy that are not now present in the collection at

the National Archives. Various discrepancies emerged. For example,

particular angles and views that were photographed during the autopsy

are not now represented (e.g., the inside of the chest cavity, the

inside and outside of the skull where the beveling of a bullet entry is

revealed). The number of exposures supposedly taken during the autopsy

exceeds the number of pictures in the collection. Photos now in the

collection were taken with film that was not used by the autopsy

photographer, and that was not developed at the Naval Photographic

Center, where apparently the original autopsy photos were developed.

Another strong indictment of the authenticity of the extant photo

showing a blood-free and intact back of the head is the reaction to

this photo by the two FBI agents present at the autopsy: ^Äthis looks

like it's been doctored in some way¾ and ^Äit looks like it could have

been reconstructed or something.¾17

The HSCA's account of authentication of the photographs is almost as

troubling as its misrepresentation of the statements of the autopsy

witnesses. The Committee reported that the autopsy photographs were

authenticated, although it claimed that the Department of Defense ^Ähad

been unable to locate¾ the camera and lens that had been used at the

autopsy. HSCA files released in 1997, however, revealed that DOD had

indeed identified the camera and sent it to the Committee, but that the

Committee's photographic experts, rather than raising embarrassing

questions of authenticity, chose instead to conclude that the camera

and lens had not been the one used to take the autopsy photographs

existing in 1977.18

Forgery of the Autopsy X-Rays

There are two aspects of the extant autopsy X-rays that Dr. Mantik

believes are forged. One is the round, 6.5 mm fragment mentioned

above, apparently lodged in the back of the skull and visible on the

frontal X-ray. The other is the intact back of the skull seen on the

lateral X-rays. Dr. Mantik, a radiation oncologist who is

board-certified by the American College of Radiology and who also has a

PhD in physics, relies on optical densitometry measurements to confirm

the forgeries.

The round 6.5 mm object that appears to be lodged in the back of the

skull was apparently not present on the X-rays taken the night of the

autopsy.19 When questioned under oath by the ARRB, the three autopsy

doctors had no recollection of the object, and no witness to the

autopsy has ever described it. A major objective of autopsy X-rays is

to identify bullets and bullet fragments present in the body so that

they can be removed and preserved as evidence. Other much smaller

bullet fragments were removed from the President's head during the

autopsy, and it stands to reason that this largest of all objects would

also have been spotted and removed. The fact that this object was not

identified and removed the night of the autopsy is by itself strong

evidence that it was not there. In addition, irregularities in optical

density measurements led Dr. Mantik to conclude that the object was not

a bullet fragment at all, but had been placed on the X-ray film through

use of a composite.20

The lateral X-ray shows an impossibly dense area within the posterior

skull ^Â so dense, in fact, that Dr. Mantik concluded that if it were

bone it would have to be nearly solid bone from one side of the skull

to the other. Also indicative of forgery is the fact that there is no

corresponding dense area visible on the frontal X-ray, as one would

expect if there were something that dense within the skull.21 Dr.

Mantik concludes that this X-ray also appears to be a composite created

by double exposure.22

Another aspect of the skull X-rays bears emphasis, although it is not

indicative of forgery. Visible on the lateral X-ray is a trail of tiny

metallic particles extending from near the hair line on the right

forehead most of the way back across the top of the skull. This trail

of particles does not line up with either of the bullet entry sites

identified by government inquiries. The trail clearly could not have

resulted from a bullet that entered low on the back of the skull near

the external occipital protuberance (the site identified by the autopsy

pathologists). In fact, the autopsy report misplaces this trail by

over 10 cm, an astonishing error that the pathologists could not

explain to the ARRB. Nor does the trail line up with the much higher

site posited by the HSCA. The trail of particles does align, however,

with a possible bullet entry site near the hairline on the forehead.23

The Two Brain Examinations

If the discovery by ARRB staffer Douglas Horne that there were two

brain examinations of two different brains following President

Kennedy's autopsy does not constitute a ^Äsmoking gun,¾ it is hard to

imagine what would. Horne set forth his findings in a staff memorandum

released to the public in 1998, and summarized by Horne in a chapter in

Murder in Dealey Plaza.24

Horne based his conclusions on ^Äthree sets of indicia¾: (1) conflicting

evidence, drawn mostly from ARRB interviews with participants, as to

the timing of what was initially assumed to be one brain examination;

(2) conflicting evidence as to the type of film and photographic

techniques used to photograph the brain(s); and (3) differences between

the appearance of the brain at autopsy and in photographs of the

(second) brain examination.

As for the timing, both autopsy doctor J. Thornton Boswell and autopsy

photographer John Stringer told both the HSCA and the ARRB that the

brain exam was conducted 2 or 3 days after the autopsy. President

Kennedy was killed in the early afternoon of Friday, November 22, 1963,

his body was flown back to Washington that afternoon, and the autopsy

was conducted that evening. The brain exam that was conducted 2 or 3

days after the autopsy most likely occurred on the morning of Monday,

November 25, the day of the funeral, there having been pressure to

complete the autopsy procedures in time to bury the brain with the

body. There was other evidence, however, of a later brain exam. Dr.

Pierre Finck of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, the third

doctor present at the autopsy (and a meticulous record keeper), wrote

in a 1965 memo to his superior that Dr. Humes had called him on

November 29, 1963 about the need to examine the President's brain, and

that he had subsequently attended such an examination. Dr. Finck

reaffirmed to the ARRB that the brain examination he attended could not

have been as soon as 2 or 3 days after the autopsy. Relying on this

information as well as interviews with other key people, Horne

concluded that Dr. Finck had been excluded from the first brain exam,

and was then called in to observe the second.25

The brain observed at autopsy and the photographed brain were grossly

disparate. The right hemisphere of the photographed brain was

disturbed, but virtually all of the brain matter was present. The

recorded weight was 1500 grams, near the upper limit for a male brain

(the average is reportedly 1350 to 1400 grams).26 But by all accounts a

significant amount of the President's brain was blown away when he was

shot in the head.27 Witnesses at Parkland and at the autopsy said that

at least a third of the brain was gone, and the extant autopsy X-rays

show a complete absence of brain in the front of the head. These major

discrepancies alone could have justified Horne's conclusion that the

brain that was photographed and described could not have been that of

President Kennedy.

Conclusion

What does all of this mean? Any one of the findings summarized above

would be troubling by itself. Together, these findings form a critical

mass of evidence indicating that President Kennedy's autopsy was

falsified, and help establish a compelling case that people within the

federal government covered up evidence of frontal shots ^Â and hence of

multiple gunmen and conspiracy in the assassination of President

Kennedy. Because it pulls this evidence together in one place, Murder

in Dealey Plaza is one of the most important books to date on the

Kennedy assassination.

The new evidence turns the tables. No longer can defenders of the lone

assassin theory hide behind the autopsy evidence and claim that it

trumps all the other evidence. The weight of this other evidence now

trumps the autopsy report. Lone assassin theorists must address and

explain the new evidence if they wish to regain credibility.

It is time for people of integrity who were involved in the official

investigations ^Â especially the professionals ^Â to take a good-faith

look at the new evidence and confront the likelihood that their

conclusions were based on falsified data. Murder in Dealey Plaza may

not be the last word on the medical evidence, but it should be the

starting point for a fresh look ^Â not only at the medical evidence, but

also at the assassination and its implications.

Endnotes

1 The Warren Report is the popular name of the Report of the Presidents

Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The

Warren Commission was established on November 29, 1963 by E.O. 11130,

and charged with evaluating the evidence developed by the F.B.I., with

making such further investigation as the Commission finds desirable,

and with reporting findings and conclusions to President Johnson. The

Commissions report, delivered to President Johnson on September 24,

1964, concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, and firing three

shots from a sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository

above and behind the presidential limousine, killed President Kennedy

and wounded Governor Connolly, and that Jack Ruby, acting alone, killed

Oswald two days later. 2 The House Select Committee on Assassinations

was formed in 1976 to review the evidence relating to the

assassinations of President Kennedy and Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Committee devoted much of its limited resources to assembling

panels of experts to examine and evaluate the evidence, and conducted

only a limited new investigation. See Gaeton Fonzi, The Last

Investigation (1993). The Committees report, issued in 1979, agreed

with the Warren Commission that the President was killed by Lee Harvey

Oswald, who fired three shots from the sixth floor of the Texas School

Book Depository. The Committee also, however, found a high probability

that a second gunman fired at the motorcade, but missed, from behind

the picket fence atop the grassy knoll to the front and right of the

Presidential limousine.

3 According to the official story formulated by the Warren Commission

and agreed to by the HSCA, two of the three shots fired by Lee Harvey

Oswald from the sixth floor snipers nest in the Texas School Book

Depository building struck President Kennedy. Under this scenario the

first shot to strike the President hit him in the upper back and exited

his throat just below the Adams apple. This same bullet (later dubbed

the single bullet or magic bullet), then allegedly struck Governor

Connolly, seated in front of the President, and caused all of the

Governors wounds. Both official accounts agreed that the second shot

to strike the President was fatal, and entered the back of the head.

They strongly disagreed, however, as to the location of the bullet

entry hole on the back of the head. The Warren Commission, relying on

the findings of the autopsy doctors, concluded that this bullet entered

low on the skull slightly above and to the right of the external

occipital protuberance. The HSCA, however, relying on autopsy

photographs and X-rays, placed the entry hole about four inches higher,

near the cowlick.

4 The ARRB was established pursuant to the President John F. Kennedy

Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, Pub. L. 102-526. The

Boards mission was to obtain all government records relating to the

assassination, and to the fullest extent possible release those records

to the American people. The Board was not charged with investigating the

crime or with making findings as to who was responsible for the

Presidents murder. The Board was authorized, however, to pursue issues

related to the completeness of assassination records and the possible

destruction of records; relying on this authority, the Board conducted

extensive interviews relating to the autopsy and other medical records.

5 In the Prologue to Murder in Dealey Plaza (MIDP), Fetzer identifies

16 smoking guns revealed by the new evidence.

6 A number of researchers have contributed to deciphering the medical

evidence. Among the more significant books on the subject have been

Harold Weisberg, Post Mortem (1975); Charles Wilber, Medicolegal

Investigation of the President John F. Kennedy Murder (1978); David

Lifton, Best Evidence (1980); Noel Twyman, Bloody Treason (1997);

Harrison Livingstone, High Treason (1998); and James Fetzer, Editor,

Assassination Science (1998).

7 MIDP is a sequel to Fetzers 1998 book Assassination Science. Both

books are collections of essays by assassination researchers probing

different aspects of the case. The MIDP chapters on the medical

evidence are thorough summaries that cover the new evidence and bring

the essentials together in one place. MIDP does not replicate what is

found in Assassination Science, however, and is well supplemented by

the earlier work.

8 This reviews emphasis on the medical evidence is not intended to

minimize the significant contributions of Vince Palamaras analysis of

the Secret Service performance in Dallas and its aftermath, of Douglas

Weldons research into the post-assassination disposition of the

presidential limousine, or of David Mantiks analysis of the Zapruder

film. All of these chapters in MIDP are well worth the readers

attention.

9 After the shooting in Dealey Plaza, President Kennedy was taken to

Parkland Hospital in Dallas, where a team of doctors attempted

unsuccessfully to save his life. During the course of treatment, these

doctors observed two wounds a small puncture wound of the throat and a

large hole in the back of the head. After President Kennedy was

pronounced dead, his body was forcibly removed from Parkland Hospital,

in disregard of Texas law requiring that the autopsy be performed

there, and transported to the National Naval Medical Center at

Bethesda, Maryland. The autopsy was performed at Bethesda under the

direction of Dr. James Humes, of the Naval Medical Center, and with the

assistance of Dr. J. Thornton Boswell, also of the Naval Medical

Center, and Dr. Pierre Finck, from the Armed Forces Institute of

Pathology.

10 That HSCA staff kept the witness statements and their import from

its own panel of forensic pathology experts is also shocking. When Dr.

Aguilar showed these statements in 1995 to Dr. Michael Baden and Dr.

Cyril Wecht, both members of the HSCA panel, they both said they had

never seen them before. MIDP, p.188.

11 Report of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, 95th Cong.,

2d Sess., vol. 7, at 37-39 (1979), as quoted and emphasized in MIDP, pp.

197-98.

12 That red spot was later identified by HSCA experts as the bullet

entry hole. This represented a major upward shift of about four inches

from the entry point identified by the autopsy doctors, just to the

right and just above the external occipital protuberance (EOP). With

the exception of one occasion when Dr. Humes seemed to waver on the

issue under questioning by the HSCA, the three autopsy doctors Humes,

Boswell, and Finck have consistently maintained that the bullet entry

hole was at the lower site, near the EOP.

13 In 1996 Dr. Boswell reconfirmed these observations by drawing just

such a large hole on a skull as an illustration for the ARRB, MIDP pp.

235-37. 14 The two parietal bones cover much of the top and sides of

the skull, from the coronal suture in front, where they meet the

frontal bones, to the lambdoid suture in the back, where they meet the

occipital bone. The back of the head is thus comprised of parietal

bone on top and occipital bone below. Note as well that the occipital

bone overlies the area of the brain that contains the cerebellum, and

that the Parkland doctors reported seeing tissue from the cerebellum

extruding from the wound in the back of the head.

15 The emphasis on original statements is important. Soon after the

autopsy Secret Service agents visited the Parkland doctors in an effort

to get them to revise their statements. Some of them did back off their

initial statements, both with respect to the head wound and with respect

to the wound in the front of the throat, which they had initially

described as a likely entry wound.

16 Confusing to the layman, that is. Dr. Mantik contends that this

picture, properly oriented and interpreted, shows the damage to the back

of the head and also reveals the proper placement of a bone fragment

found at the assassination scene in Dealey Plaza.

17 Sworn statements of Francis X. ONeill and James W. Sibert,

respectively, to ARRB counsel Jeremy Gunn, as reproduced in MIDP, p.

208. Dr. Robert Grossman, a neurosurgeon who attended President

Kennedy at Parkland Hospital, had a similar reaction to the picture

when interviewed by ARRB staff. See MIDP, p. 201.

18 Whether the lens in the camera had been changed between 1963 and the

HSCAs examination in 1977 remains unknown.

19 It is probably not coincidental that the size of this fragment

precisely

matched the 6.5 mm ammunition used by Oswalds rifle. Nor is it likely

to be coincidental that spatially compatible images of the 6.5 mm

object are visible on the lateral and frontal X-rays (the object is

round on the frontal view, and narrow on the lateral view, and in both

views appears at the same spot on the back of the skull). A random

artifact might appear on one or the other views, but not both, or a

speck-on-the-lens artifact could appear in identical shape and size on

both images, but the odds of the spatially compatible but distinctly

differently shaped images appearing by random on two different X-rays

at the same spot on the skull are indeed remote.

20 Dr. Mantik also quotes Larry Sturdivan, the HSCAs ballistics expert,

who states unequivocally that this object could not possibly be a

sheared-off cross-section of a bullet or bullet jacket. Never in his

experience, Mr. Sturdivan explained, had he seen a bullet that had

sheared off in this manner after striking a body.

21 A forgers objective would have been to simulate an intact skull, not

to create a suspiciously dense area inside the skull, so the need to

fabricate the frontal X-ray would probably not have been anticipated.

22 This finding is summarized by Dr. Fetzer as Smoking Gun #7 in the

Prologue to MIDP, and was described in more detail by Dr. Mantik in

Assassination Science. An effect of the composite was to leave the

frontal skull looking unusually dark, a feature that puzzled even Dr.

Humes when interviewed by the ARRB.

23 No government inquiry has identified a bullet entry hole at this

site, but Tom Robinson, the funeral home employee who restored the body

after the autopsy, described a wound at that location. MIDP, p. 250.

This trail of particles, incidentally, is more characteristic of an

exploding bullet than of the full metal jacketed bullets used by

Oswalds weapon. See MIDP, Prologue, Smoking Gun #4.

24 The complete staff memorandum was printed in Probe, vol. 7, No.4

(May-June 2000). Probe, now discontinued, was a research journal

produced by Citizens for Truth About the Kennedy Assassination.

25 It may seem incredible that Drs. Humes and Boswell could have

participated in such a deception. Note, however, that John Stringer,

the autopsy photographer, when asked by the ARRB why he signed a false

statement verifying the completeness of the photographic record,

responded that he was ordered to. Perhaps Dr. Humes had similar

orders. There were instances when Dr. Humes was less than candid about

what transpired the night of the autopsy. For example, Dr. Humes had

told the Warren Commission and the HSCA that he had burned his autopsy

notes because some of the Presidents blood was on them and he did not

want them to be the subject of morbid curiosity. He also, however,

burned a first draft of the autopsy report that could not have been

stained with the Presidents blood. See Final Report of the ARRB, p.

122, and MIDP pp 268-71. Also, Dr. Humes initially claimed that he

was not aware that there was a bullet wound in the throat until he

talked by phone with Parkland doctors the next morning, and that it was

only then that he realized that the throat wound must have been the

point of exit for the bullet that entered the back. (The small bullet

hole in the throat observed by Parkland doctors had been cut through to

insert a breathing tube during resuscitation efforts.) This story was

contradicted in 1992 by Dr. Robert B. Livingston, who was Scientific

Director for two of the National Institutes of Health in 1963. Dr.

Livingston recounted that he had called Dr. Humes the afternoon of the

assassination, before the body arrived at Bethesda, and had alerted him

that news reports from Dallas indicated there was a bullet entry wound

in the throat. See Assassination Science, p. 162. Even Dr. Boswell

confirmed to the ARRB that the autopsy doctors were aware of the throat

wound during the course of the autopsy.

26 Oddly, no brain weight was recorded on the autopsy report.

27 Occupants of the Presidential limousine, as well as the motorcycle

policeman riding to the left rear of the limousine, were splattered by

blood and brain matter. (In one of several incredible episodes of

destruction of evidence, the limousine was washed down at Parkland

Hospital soon after the assassination, prior to the inspection that

later took place in the White House garage. As a result, there is no

complete photographic record of the limousine crime scene in the

collection at the Archives. For a full account, see Douglas Weldons

chapter The Kennedy Limousine: 1963 in Murder in Dealey Plaza. Weldon

also presents evidence suggesting that the original windshield, in

which several witnesses saw a through hole, was replaced by one

containing no perforation, but only cracks consistent with a hit from

the rear.)

* George Costello is an attorney who works for the federal government.

The views expressed in this review are solely his own.

So first you complain that I didn't review your book like I did Doug Horne's, and then when I post the review that's nearly ten years old, you say I'm not qualified to write reviews?
It was published in a newsapaper at the Jersey Shore and on JFK Research at the time 2000. And we've learned a lot since then, but very little has changed.

The best review of your book was written by a guy who worked for the Congressional Research Service in a prosecutor's magazine. Because of that review I went out of my way to meet him at lunch one day and he's a real researcher with a great job and got a critical review in a mainstream publication geared towards district attorneys.

The medical evidence isn't the key to the case, as it confuses people, is too technical for most, and if it wasn't for Doug Horne, we wouldn't even be discussing it. And we discuss it from his perspective, not just to determine what happened, but to determine what became of the orignal evidence and records, and get Congress to enforce the JFK Act, not solve the crime.

Actually, I would write a different review today, after further reflection, as your anthologies have some excellent articles by expert witnesses, but other articles, and your inflated ego, detract from them. If the book was better edited it would have had more of an effect than it did.

I was very surprised that Horne in IARRB even acknowledges the articles in your anthology and the work of Harry Livingstone, when the original documents and witness testimony is available, and even he acknowledges that egos get in the way sometimes. (I will site a page for this when I get a chance).

I think Ira Woods chronology is the most important part of the book, and my critique is on some of his mistakes that I'm sure he has corrected over time (ie John Martino's wife is not Robyn).

As for the medical evidence and autopsy, I never said I knew anything about it, and have only got into it now because of Doug's book.

He is also being criticized for not being a medical specialist, and like him, I am focusing on the military records, and their deposition, and not trying to become a specialist in the medical, forensic or scientific evidence.

My purpose is to identify new leads that can be further investigated, find new witnesses, new documents and new evidence that can answer the outstanding issues, not write book reviews that please the authors.

Bill Kelly

William Kelly · December 8, 2009

Bill Kelly writes: The best review of your book was written by a guy who worked for the Congressional Research Service in a prosecutor's magazine. Because of that review I went out of my way to meet him at lunch one day and he's a real researcher with a great job and got a critical review in a mainstream publication geared towards district attorneys.

Now I stand corrected: It was - George Costello "in THE FEDERAL LAWYER (May 2001),

pp. 52-56. This journal (formerly: THE FEDERAL BAR NEWS AND JOURNAL)

is a publication for attorneys who work for the federal government, who

practice before federal agencies, or who appear before federal courts."

Jim Fetzer then digs out the review, posts it and writes: "Compare this exceptional review of MURDER with Bill Kelly's pathetic effort."

Now I'm pathetic, on top of all the nice things Johnny Bevlaquavelva said about me.

I haven't even made my effort yet.

After reading that review I met Costello when I was in DC with a handful of COPA volunteers - maybe a dozen of us, who broke up into two man teams and with sneakers on the ground, went into as many Congressional offices we could, handing out copies of the ARRB Final Report and trying to get them to have JFK Act Ovesight Hearings. That was nearly ten years ago.

I got Mr. Costello's phone number, called from a near by pay phone and he was glad to hear from us. He met me and Andy from Last Hurrah book shop, my tag-team partner, during lunch hour, just outside the library of Congress where he worked with the Congressional Research Service.

The CRS produce non-biased reports on issues that are requested by Congressman, but these reports are not given out to the public, only to Congressman, which has led some open government groups to post some of their reports on line.

They have done a few on the Kennedy assassination, one at the request of the HSCA and another the title of which escapes me, but is worth looking into, because the researchers who put them together, like Costello, are top notch.

Very few Congressmen or women paid much attention to us, except for Sen. Thompson of Tenn., who saw that Oliver Stone was on the masthead of the Advisory Board of COPA, and he wanted a part in his next movie, and Cynthia McKinney, who sympathasized with us and became friends, and hired John Judge as an aide. At least she let us in the door.

But here we are, ten years later, and still no oversight hearings on JFK Act.

If Doug Horne's book doesn't open that door, it will never open.

Which reminds me of the nasty attacks that were leveled against Jim Fetzer and Jack White and the other contributors to MIDP and Assassination Science, when the book came out, and how those broadsides should now be expected to be leveled against Doug Horne and IARRB.

The Amazon reviewer already attached a UFO to Horne, and it's been asked by a forum member if he smokes pot, so I guess that's just the beginning of the desecration of Doug Horne.

BK

Bernice Moore · December 8, 2009

If Doug Horne's book doesn't open that door, it will never open.

Which reminds me of the nasty attacks that were leveled against Jim Fetzer and Jack White and the other contributors to MIDP and Assassination Science, when the book came out, and how those broadsides should now be expected to be leveled against Doug Horne and IARRB.

The Amazon reviewer already attached a UFO to Horne, and it's been asked by a forum member if he smokes pot, so I guess that's just the beginning of the desecration of Doug Horne.

BK

SORRY TO SAY BILL BUT EXACTLY IT DOES MAKE ONE PAUSE THOUGH THAT THE NEOCONS AS SOME CALL THEM AND OF COURSE THE LNRS APPEAR TO ATTACK SUCH STUDIES WITH SUCH VIGOR..SIMPLE ANSWER IS THEY ARE VERY AFRAID OF WHAT IS WITHIN..IF NOT THEY SIMPLY WOULD NOT BOTHER..AND IGNORE ...IT HAS ALREADY BEGUN AND IT WILL CONTINUE FOR SOME TIME I HOPE DOUG BATTENS DOWN THE HATCHES..AND HAS A THICK SKIN PREPARED I WISH HIM ALL THE BEST WITH HIS COLLECTION AND A HUGE THANKYOU..FOR SUCH A GREAT EFFORT...B CARRY ON...BILL...

Kathleen Collins · December 8, 2009

I did like some of Dr. Salerian's paintings, though.

Paintings? A bullet from the front went through the windshield.

Proving the immobilization theory is a tuff one. This guy is an MD. Are you an MD? He is also a painter , I know.The fact is Kennedy was hit by something that caused an entry wound to the throat; caused his arms to raise, immobilized him and made him unable to speak. He was clearly softened up for the kill, then Cuban Man raised his arm to give the go ahead for the fatal shot.

One has to ask the question why would this man raise his arm a few feet from the dying President of the United States if he were not in on the deed?

He was not waiving an innocent hello!

He had NO business being there.

He did not flee in panic nor did he run away out of fear of being caught.

Lets look at what this MD has to say and why he feels the way he does.

Amen.

Kathy C

Kathleen Collins · December 8, 2009

4. Not too many witnesses would see the umbrella opening and closing down near the Grassy Knoll.
Even with the inserted Stemmons Freeway sign in Zapruder, we see the umbrella man moving the umbrella up and down; while the Cuban next to him signals to SS Greer, the driver, where to stop. This stopping of the limo has been removed from the Zapruder film.

Kathy C

Have you considered the possibility that the Stemmons Freeway sign wasn't inserted into Zapruder, but was strapped to Umbrella Man's back?

I guess that's supposed to be funny. Read Fetzer's compendiums: Assassination Science, Murder at Dealey Plaza and especially, The Great Zapruder Film Hoax.

Kathy C

Alen J Salerian, MD

Recommended Posts

Guest James H. Fetzer

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Days

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Days

Guest James H. Fetzer

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Guest James H. Fetzer

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

Announcements