A shot fired through the front of the windshield- To Barb and Jerry

[Barb Junkkarinen]

Not being a photograpic expert Could someone please explain what the big black patch behind and above Kennedy's head is in front of the woman in the Croft slide. i don't have the computer knowledge to post it here.

Doug Weldon

Doug,

For everyone, the photo is on page 15, post #223. It's a big black purse. Could belong to either lady 9 or lady 10, because of the way it is hanging, I think it more likely belongs to lady 9.

Bests,

Barb :-)

[Barb Junkkarinen]

bag?

Exactly!

Bests,

Barb :-)

[Doug Weldon]

bag?

John:

Thanks.Your phoot looks okay. I am sure you are probably right but to me in post 223 it looks like one big black splotch. Am I missing something? It is probably why why I am not an expert in photography and I appreciate your patience.

Best,

Doug

[Robin Unger]

Window crack comparison, bottom image reversed.

[Josiah Thompson]

Window crack comparison, bottom image reversed.

Thanks a bunch, Robin. It shows that the Frazier photo taken in the wee morning hours of November 23rd shows damage resembling in both location and character the damage shown in Altgens #7.

Josiah Thompson

[Todd W. Vaughan]

Window crack comparison, bottom image reversed.

Thanks a bunch, Robin. It shows that the Frazier photo taken in the wee morning hours of November 23rd shows damage resembling in both location and character the damage shown in Altgens #7.

Josiah Thompson

One could also make the argument (and I do) that the blood droplet at the very bottom of the crack was deposited there after having been carried along by the fragment that exited the head wound an then struck the windshield.

[John Dolva]

TY Robin, here's a rough attempt at first tilting the crack photo in the opposite direction, ie top towards the viewer, and a tilt to ''flatten'' it out.

Then turning that and tilting that to roughly match the plane of the altgens.

[Cliff Varnell]

Robert Livingston, M.D., who was a world authority on the human brain and an expert on wound ballistics, having supervised an emergency medical facility for injured Okinawans and Japanese prisoners of war during the Battle of Okinawa, told me that it was his conclusion that the bullet had fragmented, with part going down into the lung and the other upward, where it ruptured the tentorium.

Fragmented on what?

The trachea?

Did the tip of the lung cause the bullet to fragment?

The neck x-ray shows a clear front to back path with minor damage: bruised lung tip,

hairline fracture of the right T1 transverse process, and an airpocket. No bullet exit.

No round recovered.

Dr. Livinston is entitled to his opinions, he is not entitled to his own facts.

This is a very tough membrane that covers the cerebellum. He told me that, unless the tentorium had been ruptured, even the impact of two shots--one from behind, the other from in front--would not have been sufficient to disrupt the cerebellum. Since we have numerous, consistent report of cerebellum extruding from the wound, the tentorium had to have been ruptured.

There was a triangulation of fire for the head shots and no one missed.

Nothing in Livingston's analysis precludes three head shots. Because there was surgery to

the head pre-autopsy none of the head wound evidence is valid.

It was his opinion, therefore, that President Kennedy had been killed by the causal interaction of three shots: the shot to the throat, a fragment of which ruptured the tentroium, the shot to the back of his head (entering around the EOP), and the shot to his right temple, which was a frangible (or "exploding") bullet, which created shock waves through the brain that blew about half back and to the left with great force--which, of course, is inconsistent with the bulging blob to the right front seen in the Zapruder film. That was his take.

The amount of evidence he had to ignore in order to reach his throat wound conclusion

is impressive.

[Robin Unger]

quote:

One could also make the argument (and I do) that the blood droplet at the very bottom of the crack was deposited there after having been carried along by the fragment that exited the head wound an then struck the windshield.

That was my thinking also Todd.

Which was why i was trying to confirm that it was a blood stain.

In the uncropped version of the crack a number of blood stains can be seen.

[Barb Junkkarinen]

Doug ...

You have raised questions about the scope of our article, why we didn't include Whitaker, our treatment of witnesses Dudman, Ellis, Prencipe and Glanges. The scope of the article has been addressed more than once by me and at least once by Josiah. That included why we didn't include Whitaker. I have addressed Dudman a couple of times, most recently just a couple days ago. Prencipe is in process, I will include a wrap up on him here.

On Dudman, you replied that he told you something different, that he had no doubt he had seen a through and through hole, that he was full of fear and that the whole thing cost him his life long friendship with Livingston. But, you have not provided any explanation, any details, and especially, no quotations, so it is impossible for us to address and evaluate that.

The information we have from his original article, soon after the event, as well as what his good friend Livingston reported in Assassination Science from a conversation he had with Dudman within a week of the event, shows Dudman saw the damage to the windshield, he thought it was a hole ... but not being able to get close enough to see it better nor to test its "patency" and per Livingston, that he never did know if it was a complete perforation, does not stack up to make him a witness to a through and through hole in the windshield.

On Ellis, in our article we wrote:

Harry Russell Freeman, a DPD motorcycle officer.

According to Murder from Within (1974) by Fred T. Newcomb and Perry Adams, Gil Toff interviewed Freeman in 1971 for the book. Toff reported that Freeman said he observed a hole in the windshield when the car stood outside the Emergency Room at Parkland Hospital. “I was right beside it,” said Freeman. “I could have touched it. It was a bullet hole. You could tell what it was.”

Stavis Ellis, a DPD motorcycle officer.

The day after interviewing Freeman, Gil Toff interviewed Ellis. According to Toff, Ellis told him, “There was a hole in the left front windshield... you could put a pencil through it.”

Ellis was also interviewed by Larry Sneed for No More Silence (1998). According to Sneed, Ellis reported:

I walked by the limousine after they were taken in …… Some of the jockeys around the car were saying, ‘Looky here!’ What they were looking at was the windshield. To the right of where the driver was, just above the metal near the bottom of the glass there appeared to be a bullet hole. I talked to a Secret Service man about it, and he said, ‘Aw, that’s just a fragment!’ It looked like a clean hole in the windshield to me. In fact, one of the motor jockeys, Harry Freeman, put a pencil through it, or said he could.

On August 5,1978, Ellis was interviewed by HSCA Staff with respect to his report that he had seen “a missile hit the ground in the area of the motorcade.” Ellis was riding a motorcycle in the motorcade ahead of the Presidential limousine. Ellis “saw debris come up from the ground at a nearby curb” and then saw “President Kennedy turn around and look over his shoulder. The second shot hit him and the third shot blew his head up.” Oddly enough, we can find no mention in HSCA documents of Ellis’ claim to have seen a hole in the windshield.

Ellis and Freeman did not see the limo/windshield at the same time? Ellis reports hearsay from Freeman in one interview.

You claim Ellis told you that he not only saw a hole in the windshield, but that he, himself, put a pencil through it. You have provided no quotation.

Compare that to what Ellis told Gil Toff in 1974, and Larry Sneed in the 90s.

There is a problem. Surely you must see it. It's big enough to drive a pencil truck through. :-)

In addition, Pamela posted that you somehow got Ellis to change his story about the location of the hole. In post #306, she said:

Weldon may even acknowledge (he has in the past) attempting to *coach* PH witness Stavis Ellis to change the location of the hole Stavis believed he saw to *fit better* into Weldon's scenario. Weldon has an advantage in getting witnesses to do things, too, as he was once a prosecutor.

I had asked you for a specific quote of what Ellis told you. You did not supply any quote. Josiah asked what the deal was about Ellis after Pamela's post. You replied with a big paragraph of campy satire ... and that was it. In a later post, #313, you said this:

As I explain in MIDP (where I acknowledge Ellis giving a different location if anyone cares to read it) it is the fact that they saw a hole which is critical.

Could you please explain and quote what Ellis told you first about the location of the hole, and what location he ultimately told you ... and what brought about any change? We don't have MIDP here, could you please explain and provide a cite/quotation?

Of course, seeing a hole is critical ... but it is also critical that such reports are credible and reliable.

You recounted to Prencipe, for one place, that you had become such good friends with Ellis, that what started out as an interview became a personal relationship with you talking to him 2 to 3 times a week. Did you ask him the names of other policemen who saw the damage to the windshield and contact any of them?

Ellis, given the differences in his statements ... not little details that could be expected to become fuzzy over time, but the salient points ... like sticking a pencil through a hole, and knowing he himself had seen such a hole ... render him less than credible or reliable for having seen a perforation through the windshield.

Evalea Glanges, the medical student, was a complete unknown until Dr. Charles Crenshaw's book, JFK Conspiracy of Silence, in 1995. He writes on page 105:

When I walked back into the hall, Evalea Glanges, a medical student, was standing by the nurse's station. She told me a most peculiar story. While we had been working on President Kennedy, she was outside in the emergency room parking lot. Standing beside the President's limousine, she pointed out to another medical student that there was a bullet hole in the windshield.Upon overhearing her comment, a Secret Service agent nervously jumped into the car and sped away.

In 1992, Dr. Crenshaw stepped down as Chairperson of the Department of Surgery at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth. His successor? Dr. Evalea Glanges, who maintained that position until her death early in 1999. Crenshaw's book was published in 1995. Clearly they knew one another and had at least a bit of a shared professional history. When was this incident that Dr. Crenshaw relates in his book recalled? From the day of the assassination ... or from a conversation with Glanges while he was writing his book, and how did that come about?

You interviewed Glanges just a month before she died, Doug. What did she say about that? You did ask her when she first reported this incident to anyone, and how it came about that Crenshaw included it in his book, didn't you? It's obvious she and Crenshaw must have discussed it during the time he was writing his book. I wonder who brought it up.

A month before you interviewed her, she had been contacted by Vince Palamara, by letter, in December 1998. She replied to that letter saying basically the same thing you reported and Crenshaw reported in his book, in mid-January 1999.

What is *not* reported, anywhere, by anyone, that I was able to find, is just *where* on the windshield she said this "clean hole" she said she saw was located. What did she tell you about that?

In a The Smoking Gun interview, Glanges said:

We ran around the building to the emergency room exit, and the

Presidential limousine was thereI had been standing there for some

time just watching the back of the emergency room when I realized

there was a bullet hole in the windshield. Talked to my friend and I

said, "Look, there is a bullet hole in the windshield" and pointed it

out to them. At the time, I did not know any of the details of the

shooting. I was quite shocked when I looked up and saw the bullet

hole, but it was very clear. It was a through and through bullet hole,

through the windsheild of the car from the front to the back. I don't

believe there were even any cracks associated with that bullet hole.

It seemed like a high velocity bullet that it penetrated from front to

back in that glass pane. At which point a security officer of some

type raced forward and jumped in the limousine and drove it off even

as I was leaning against it to an area back of us somewhere.

There were pics that included the windshield taken at Parkland. There is no "clean hole" seen there, just as there is no "clean hole" seen in Altgens photo taken just after the head shot. It shows the same cracking pattern damage seen in pics taken at Parkland and taken by the FBI during their exam in the wee hours of 11-23-63.

Glange's report appears to have emerged decades later, leaves out a location all together, in The Smoking Gun interview (above) she said there was no cracking around this bullet hole she saw, and her claim of a secret service agent hopping into the car and driving away so quickly that it almost pulled her arm off is pretty incredible, especially given where the car was parked and persons and other vehicles around and behind it. You actually spoke to her, so perhaps can supply quotations and reasoning why she should be considered a probative witness.

On Prencipe ... you replied with Nick's own words via e-mails .... just as I had done. Between your interview with Prenciipe and the e-mails you posted, they, frankly, imo, cast more doubt on Prencipe's account, and introduce conflicts and inconsistencies that emerged after he became aware that there was a real timing problem with his story vs Greer's known whereabouts. He saw the windshield alone vs with someone else, the tarp was down vs someone had already lifted it part way up, it was in its bay vs it was out in the open, he was in touch with former colleagues vs lots of officers saw the hole, it was the talk of the dept but they're all dead, and more. No reason to belabor it all here because the bottomline on Prencipe is that, by his own telling, in the time frame he himself set, his story is impossible. As you yourself said in one or another post the other day, the critical thing is that he spoke to Greer, and based on that conversation, he went to the garage and saw the hole. Those would be the salient points. The etched in memory points. Here is what Prencipe wrote to Pamela, and it is what he had related to her in her interview:

From: NPRINCE9@juno.com

To: pamel

Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2000 07:18:41 -0400

Subject: Re: QUESTION

Message-ID: <20000703.072039.-3702699.0.NPRINCE9@juno.com>

Pam

I will answer this in several parts

First of all --If I had not been on duty--you can bet that I would have

been on my way home.

I was at the command post all evening and was in contact with my excort

men at Andrews AFB--I was aware of every thing that was taking

place--from that distance--it was only in ref to what my boys were doing.

During the period that I was there--and this was not too long after the

plane had brought the family back, I noticed Bill standing in the

street--west executive ave--only about 50-60 feet or so from me. I went

to him and we shook hands and thats when he made his statement to me.

I resumed my activity and I heard the transmissions re the escort of the

limo to the garage. Later--and I cant pin it down to any specific

minute, I went to the garage--it was not that far away. There were still

some people around and I just walked in--nobody stopped me or paid any

attention to me--all those guys in the SS and State dept. etc knew me and

were used to me being in many places at many times.

From the best of my rec. there was someone else interested in seeing that

w shield and we saw it together and

there WAS a hole in it..................

Nick

And by the section I bolded, hangs his tale. Prencipe's story bumps up against Greer being seen in a live nationally televised broadcast helping unload the casket from AF1 at Andrews, helping load that casket into the ambulance, and him getting into the driver's seat of the ambulance and proceeding to Bethesda. Once at Bethesda, Greer is accounted for unloading JFK's casket, unloading the body from the casket and waiting in the anteroom with Sibert & O'Neil while x-rays were taken. That fills Prencipe's time frame. Never mind that Greer's whereabouts and activities through the rest of the night are also documented, not just by Greer, but by the reports of others as well.

I think it is important to note that Prencipe's time frame is clear, it is detailed, and it lays out the steps he took based on the conversation he had. He spoke to Greer about *that* day. It was *before* the limo was being escorted back to the garage. *After* he had spoken to Greer, he then went back to his commnan post and *heard* the chatter about the escort for the limo to come back to the garage. And based on all that, he then *later* went to the garage to see the windshield. Each time framed detail resulted in a step he then took. That is not the kind of thing that gets hazy. It is quite specific. And it clearly is at odds with what the nation watched on TV that evening.

You said that you are "satisfied" with Prencipe's account. I don't see how you can be satisfied with Prencipe's story having any validity given all that. Prencipe may have been a wonderful man, a great officer, and he may have known Greer well. But there is no conceivable way Prencipe could have seen and talked to Greer on executive avenue the evening of 11-22 in the time frame Prencipe himself lays out ... or anytime that night. Did they ever have this conversation? Maybe. Did Prencipe ever see the windshield? I doubt it.

Of these witnesses, one mentions no location for the hole at all, two put it on opposite sides of the car and low, near the lower frame of the windshield, one changes his account rather dramatically, and one, with the earliest and most straightforward account, honestly notes that he didn't get a chance to check it out.

Those are some of the reasons we didn't find these people very convincing as witnesses, and wrote in our article:

It is not necessary to underline the lack of probative significance to be attached to the fragmentary reports of Freeman, Stavis [sic, Ellis] and Glanges. Much of the windshield argument in the past has been based upon taking the absolute statements of casual observers like Freeman, Stavis [sic, Ellis] and Glanges at face value and finding a contradiction between those statements and the reports of professional examiners. Of even less probative significance is the claim of a purported witness like Nick Principe [sic] who surfaces thirty-five years after the event on a conspiracy web site with a story contradicted by indisputable facts.

And yes, casual observers. These people were bystanders in this situation, not in a position to closely further check out the damage that anyone could see ... a stellate cracking pattern. And given a car, known to have been in a shooting, from which gunshot victims had been removed, is it any wonder that ones noticing that cracking pattern might well assume it meant there was a bullet hole there. I don't think so.

Bests,

Barb :-)

[Jack White]

Doug ...

You have raised questions about the scope of our article, why we didn't include Whitaker, our treatment of witnesses Dudman, Ellis, Prencipe and Glanges. The scope of the article has been addressed more than once by me and at least once by Josiah. That included why we didn't include Whitaker. I have addressed Dudman a couple of times, most recently just a couple days ago. Prencipe is in process, I will include a wrap up on him here.

On Dudman, you replied that he told you something different, that he had no doubt he had seen a through and through hole, that he was full of fear and that the whole thing cost him his life long friendship with Livingston. But, you have not provided any explanation, any details, and especially, no quotations, so it is impossible for us to address and evaluate that.

The information we have from his original article, soon after the event, as well as what his good friend Livingston reported in Assassination Science from a conversation he had with Dudman within a week of the event, shows Dudman saw the damage to the windshield, he thought it was a hole ... but not being able to get close enough to see it better nor to test its "patency" and per Livingston, that he never did know if it was a complete perforation, does not stack up to make him a witness to a through and through hole in the windshield.

On Ellis, in our article we wrote:

Harry Russell Freeman, a DPD motorcycle officer.

According to Murder from Within (1974) by Fred T. Newcomb and Perry Adams, Gil Toff interviewed Freeman in 1971 for the book. Toff reported that Freeman said he observed a hole in the windshield when the car stood outside the Emergency Room at Parkland Hospital. “I was right beside it,” said Freeman. “I could have touched it. It was a bullet hole. You could tell what it was.”

Stavis Ellis, a DPD motorcycle officer.

The day after interviewing Freeman, Gil Toff interviewed Ellis. According to Toff, Ellis told him, “There was a hole in the left front windshield... you could put a pencil through it.”

Ellis was also interviewed by Larry Sneed for No More Silence (1998). According to Sneed, Ellis reported:

I walked by the limousine after they were taken in …… Some of the jockeys around the car were saying, ‘Looky here!’ What they were looking at was the windshield. To the right of where the driver was, just above the metal near the bottom of the glass there appeared to be a bullet hole. I talked to a Secret Service man about it, and he said, ‘Aw, that’s just a fragment!’ It looked like a clean hole in the windshield to me. In fact, one of the motor jockeys, Harry Freeman, put a pencil through it, or said he could.

On August 5,1978, Ellis was interviewed by HSCA Staff with respect to his report that he had seen “a missile hit the ground in the area of the motorcade.” Ellis was riding a motorcycle in the motorcade ahead of the Presidential limousine. Ellis “saw debris come up from the ground at a nearby curb” and then saw “President Kennedy turn around and look over his shoulder. The second shot hit him and the third shot blew his head up.” Oddly enough, we can find no mention in HSCA documents of Ellis’ claim to have seen a hole in the windshield.

Ellis and Freeman did not see the limo/windshield at the same time? Ellis reports hearsay from Freeman in one interview.

You claim Ellis told you that he not only saw a hole in the windshield, but that he, himself, put a pencil through it. You have provided no quotation.

Compare that to what Ellis told Gil Toff in 1974, and Larry Sneed in the 90s.

There is a problem. Surely you must see it. It's big enough to drive a pencil truck through. :-)

In addition, Pamela posted that you somehow got Ellis to change his story about the location of the hole. In post #306, she said:

Weldon may even acknowledge (he has in the past) attempting to *coach* PH witness Stavis Ellis to change the location of the hole Stavis believed he saw to *fit better* into Weldon's scenario. Weldon has an advantage in getting witnesses to do things, too, as he was once a prosecutor.

I had asked you for a specific quote of what Ellis told you. You did not supply any quote. Josiah asked what the deal was about Ellis after Pamela's post. You replied with a big paragraph of campy satire ... and that was it. In a later post, #313, you said this:

As I explain in MIDP (where I acknowledge Ellis giving a different location if anyone cares to read it) it is the fact that they saw a hole which is critical.

Could you please explain and quote what Ellis told you first about the location of the hole, and what location he ultimately told you ... and what brought about any change? We don't have MIDP here, could you please explain and provide a cite/quotation?

Of course, seeing a hole is critical ... but it is also critical that such reports are credible and reliable.

You recounted to Prencipe, for one place, that you had become such good friends with Ellis, that what started out as an interview became a personal relationship with you talking to him 2 to 3 times a week. Did you ask him the names of other policemen who saw the damage to the windshield and contact any of them?

Ellis, given the differences in his statements ... not little details that could be expected to become fuzzy over time, but the salient points ... like sticking a pencil through a hole, and knowing he himself had seen such a hole ... render him less than credible or reliable for having seen a perforation through the windshield.

Evalea Glanges, the medical student, was a complete unknown until Dr. Charles Crenshaw's book, JFK Conspiracy of Silence, in 1995. He writes on page 105:

When I walked back into the hall, Evalea Glanges, a medical student, was standing by the nurse's station. She told me a most peculiar story. While we had been working on President Kennedy, she was outside in the emergency room parking lot. Standing beside the President's limousine, she pointed out to another medical student that there was a bullet hole in the windshield.Upon overhearing her comment, a Secret Service agent nervously jumped into the car and sped away.

In 1992, Dr. Crenshaw stepped down as Chairperson of the Department of Surgery at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth. His successor? Dr. Evalea Glanges, who maintained that position until her death early in 1999. Crenshaw's book was published in 1995. Clearly they knew one another and had at least a bit of a shared professional history. When was this incident that Dr. Crenshaw relates in his book recalled? From the day of the assassination ... or from a conversation with Glanges while he was writing his book, and how did that come about?

You interviewed Glanges just a month before she died, Doug. What did she say about that? You did ask her when she first reported this incident to anyone, and how it came about that Crenshaw included it in his book, didn't you? It's obvious she and Crenshaw must have discussed it during the time he was writing his book. I wonder who brought it up.

A month before you interviewed her, she had been contacted by Vince Palamara, by letter, in December 1998. She replied to that letter saying basically the same thing you reported and Crenshaw reported in his book, in mid-January 1999.

What is *not* reported, anywhere, by anyone, that I was able to find, is just *where* on the windshield she said this "clean hole" she said she saw was located. What did she tell you about that?

In a The Smoking Gun interview, Glanges said:

We ran around the building to the emergency room exit, and the

Presidential limousine was thereI had been standing there for some

time just watching the back of the emergency room when I realized

there was a bullet hole in the windshield. Talked to my friend and I

said, "Look, there is a bullet hole in the windshield" and pointed it

out to them. At the time, I did not know any of the details of the

shooting. I was quite shocked when I looked up and saw the bullet

hole, but it was very clear. It was a through and through bullet hole,

through the windsheild of the car from the front to the back. I don't

believe there were even any cracks associated with that bullet hole.

It seemed like a high velocity bullet that it penetrated from front to

back in that glass pane. At which point a security officer of some

type raced forward and jumped in the limousine and drove it off even

as I was leaning against it to an area back of us somewhere.

There were pics that included the windshield taken at Parkland. There is no "clean hole" seen there, just as there is no "clean hole" seen in Altgens photo taken just after the head shot. It shows the same cracking pattern damage seen in pics taken at Parkland and taken by the FBI during their exam in the wee hours of 11-23-63.

Glange's report appears to have emerged decades later, leaves out a location all together, in The Smoking Gun interview (above) she said there was no cracking around this bullet hole she saw, and her claim of a secret service agent hopping into the car and driving away so quickly that it almost pulled her arm off is pretty incredible, especially given where the car was parked and persons and other vehicles around and behind it. You actually spoke to her, so perhaps can supply quotations and reasoning why she should be considered a probative witness.

On Prencipe ... you replied with Nick's own words via e-mails .... just as I had done. Between your interview with Prenciipe and the e-mails you posted, they, frankly, imo, cast more doubt on Prencipe's account, and introduce conflicts and inconsistencies that emerged after he became aware that there was a real timing problem with his story vs Greer's known whereabouts. He saw the windshield alone vs with someone else, the tarp was down vs someone had already lifted it part way up, it was in its bay vs it was out in the open, he was in touch with former colleagues vs lots of officers saw the hole, it was the talk of the dept but they're all dead, and more. No reason to belabor it all here because the bottomline on Prencipe is that, by his own telling, in the time frame he himself set, his story is impossible. As you yourself said in one or another post the other day, the critical thing is that he spoke to Greer, and based on that conversation, he went to the garage and saw the hole. Those would be the salient points. The etched in memory points. Here is what Prencipe wrote to Pamela, and it is what he had related to her in her interview:

From: NPRINCE9@juno.com

To: pamel

Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2000 07:18:41 -0400

Subject: Re: QUESTION

Message-ID: <20000703.072039.-3702699.0.NPRINCE9@juno.com>

Pam

I will answer this in several parts

First of all --If I had not been on duty--you can bet that I would have

been on my way home.

I was at the command post all evening and was in contact with my excort

men at Andrews AFB--I was aware of every thing that was taking

place--from that distance--it was only in ref to what my boys were doing.

During the period that I was there--and this was not too long after the

plane had brought the family back, I noticed Bill standing in the

street--west executive ave--only about 50-60 feet or so from me. I went

to him and we shook hands and thats when he made his statement to me.

I resumed my activity and I heard the transmissions re the escort of the

limo to the garage. Later--and I cant pin it down to any specific

minute, I went to the garage--it was not that far away. There were still

some people around and I just walked in--nobody stopped me or paid any

attention to me--all those guys in the SS and State dept. etc knew me and

were used to me being in many places at many times.

From the best of my rec. there was someone else interested in seeing that

w shield and we saw it together and

there WAS a hole in it..................

Nick

And by the section I bolded, hangs his tale. Prencipe's story bumps up against Greer being seen in a live nationally televised broadcast helping unload the casket from AF1 at Andrews, helping load that casket into the ambulance, and him getting into the driver's seat of the ambulance and proceeding to Bethesda. Once at Bethesda, Greer is accounted for unloading JFK's casket, unloading the body from the casket and waiting in the anteroom with Sibert & O'Neil while x-rays were taken. That fills Prencipe's time frame. Never mind that Greer's whereabouts and activities through the rest of the night are also documented, not just by Greer, but by the reports of others as well.

I think it is important to note that Prencipe's time frame is clear, it is detailed, and it lays out the steps he took based on the conversation he had. He spoke to Greer about *that* day. It was *before* the limo was being escorted back to the garage. *After* he had spoken to Greer, he then went back to his commnan post and *heard* the chatter about the escort for the limo to come back to the garage. And based on all that, he then *later* went to the garage to see the windshield. Each time framed detail resulted in a step he then took. That is not the kind of thing that gets hazy. It is quite specific. And it clearly is at odds with what the nation watched on TV that evening.

You said that you are "satisfied" with Prencipe's account. I don't see how you can be satisfied with Prencipe's story having any validity given all that. Prencipe may have been a wonderful man, a great officer, and he may have known Greer well. But there is no conceivable way Prencipe could have seen and talked to Greer on executive avenue the evening of 11-22 in the time frame Prencipe himself lays out ... or anytime that night. Did they ever have this conversation? Maybe. Did Prencipe ever see the windshield? I doubt it.

Of these witnesses, one mentions no location for the hole at all, two put it on opposite sides of the car and low, near the lower frame of the windshield, one changes his account rather dramatically, and one, with the earliest and most straightforward account, honestly notes that he didn't get a chance to check it out.

Those are some of the reasons we didn't find these people very convincing as witnesses, and wrote in our article:

It is not necessary to underline the lack of probative significance to be attached to the fragmentary reports of Freeman, Stavis [sic, Ellis] and Glanges. Much of the windshield argument in the past has been based upon taking the absolute statements of casual observers like Freeman, Stavis [sic, Ellis] and Glanges at face value and finding a contradiction between those statements and the reports of professional examiners. Of even less probative significance is the claim of a purported witness like Nick Principe [sic] who surfaces thirty-five years after the event on a conspiracy web site with a story contradicted by indisputable facts.

And yes, casual observers. These people were bystanders in this situation, not in a position to closely further check out the damage that anyone could see ... a stellate cracking pattern. And given a car, known to have been in a shooting, from which gunshot victims had been removed, is it any wonder that ones noticing that cracking pattern might well assume it meant there was a bullet hole there. I don't think so.

Bests,

Barb :-)

The orchestrated vendetta against Doug and the many credible witness is getting extremely repetitive

and very boring to wade through. Doug has much material he is saving for his book. I believe his

book will answer questions and prove not only the presence of a hole but many other things.

[Josiah Thompson]

I am very careful in my interviews and I never misrepresent anything.

Since apologizing for being so hard on you in “coaching” Principe in his interview with you, I was given the audio tape of the interview. It is quite appalling not because you are not "careful in your interviews" and not because you "misrepresent anything." The problem with your interview of Principe is that it is designed to build a case and not elicit the truth.

There is a difference between doing interviews in an adversary proceeding and doing interviews as an historian. I let you off the hook on Principe because I recognized that everyone in the adversary game is playing the same game and trying to get what one wants from a witness. In certain cases, I’ve done sort of the same thing that you did with Principe. But I wasn’t investigating a case of national importance as an historian. The rules are different. An historian is supposed to be trying to get at the truth. You weren't. You were seeking to harvest a particular part of Principe's story. Here's why I say that.

When you start your interview of Principe you don’t tell him you are taping the phone call. He has to ask if you are taping and you admit that you are. In California, it is a felony to tape a phone call without the other party’s consent. Other states have other rules and I don’t know where you called him from. At the very least, this doesn't lead to Principe having a lot of confidence in you or your scruples.

You spend untold minutes probing what Principe knew of JFK’s sexual peccadillos. Why on earth would you spend even a moment on this?

Principe tells you that he was the victim of a Black Panther Party assassination attempt and that he ended up retiring from the force because of it. Any experienced investigator hearing this from a witness ought to inquire further. I never heard of any Black Panther Party attack on a capitol policemen ever. There may very well have been such an attack and you should have let Principe tell you about it. This is a thread from a witness that you want to unwind to determine whether you are dealing with a someone with an overactive imagination. He does tell you of the photos he has with varous notables, an admission that makes one wonder a bit about his present story.

When you get to the heart of the interview concerning his observations in the White House garage you keep offering him what he said to Pamela and only let him agree with what you tell him. This is the kind of treatment that is all too usual in the world of the adversary system but has no place in a genuine truth-seeking project. What appals me most is that you never do the most obvious thing, elicit from him what he did that day before visiting the White House garage. It would have been the easiest thing to say to him: "I bet you'll never forget the day of the Kennedy assassination. No one ever does. What were you doing when you heard of the shooting?" From there you could elicit a kind of chronicle of Principe's movements that day and night. Where was he assigned? When did he get off duty? How did he end up talking with Greer? Where and when did this happen? Why did he go to the White House garage that night at all? Then you could move on to his critical observation. "You say you saw the bullet hole from the front of the car? How close did you get to it? Was there an overhead light on it? Why did you say it was through-and-through and not just damage?"

Given the restraints you put on Principe in simply confirming what he told Pamela, Principe never gets a chance to tell his story apart from your choreographing it. What he does say is not reassuring. With regard to the damage in the windshield, Principe says, “I glanced at it and it was quick..” Much later in the interview, Principe confirms that the light was bad in the garage. His description of the bullet hole is generic and uninformative. When you ask him how certain he is of seeing it... where on the scale of 1 to 100 his confidence lies... Principe doesn’t answer directly and highlights what Greer told him about a shot through the windshield. Then Principe gives you the wrong answer with respect to the location of the windshield damage. Your voice changes noticeably and you tell him other witnesses didn’t place it where he placed it. Docilely, he responds to your coaching and says he might be wrong about its location.

Most importantly, you are dealing with a witness who has appeared thirty-five years after the event and you never ask him the obvious question, “About this bullet hole, back then in 1963 or thereabouts did you ever tell anyone about it? Like other officers or your friends and family?” Since you never asked the question, we’ll never know the answer.

I could go on and on. But the central point is clear. The interview you did is the kind of interview one might expect from an inexperienced Assistant District Attorney with few scruples who had been told by his boss to interview this witness and make sure the witness held to his story. It is the farthest thing from the kind of fact-finding interview one would expect from a trained historian pursuing historical truth. All the important questions that would help us evaluate the credibility of Principe’s story are never asked.

You tell Principe that you will be sending him your videotape later because you did not want to influence his story. Yet the interview from beginning to end is structured to preserve a particular part of his story... he saw a bullet-hole in the White House garage. You interviewed him to harvest this tale unchallenged by any serious questions. Both Richard Dudman and Secret Service Agent Taylor looked at the damage to the windshield and thought it contained a through-and-through bullet hole. Only later did we learn that Dudman did not observe a through-and-through hole and Taylor recanted after looking at the windshield in the Archives. The limousine in the White House garage contained a windshield with some damage in it. If Principe saw that windshield he could have made the same mistake as Dudman and Taylor made. The purpose of a genuine interview of Principe would have been to tease out whether he saw a hole or just damage. Your interview failed to do that. It failed because throughout the interview you functioned as a lawyer with a case to make rather that as an historian with a truth to find.

Josiah Thompson

[Barb Junkkarinen]

The orchestrated vendetta against Doug and the many credible witness is getting extremely repetitive

and very boring to wade through. Doug has much material he is saving for his book. I believe his

book will answer questions and prove not only the presence of a hole but many other things.

There is no orchestrated vendetta, Jack. I have no reason to have a vendetta against Doug ... or anyone else, for that matter. This was Doug's choice ... and at his request. He came to the Ed Forum specifically to voice his critique on our article and asked us to address specific things. He himself has spelled that out in numerous posts.

Bests,

Barb :-)

[Don Jeffries]

Josiah/Barb,

An attempt to "elicit the truth" is in the eye of the beholder. In my view, Doug has no more of an agenda than either of you have on this issue. As I commented in an earlier thread last year about your article, I don't think you've eliminated the doubts that many of us have about whether or not there was a hole in the windshield. You seem to think you have. I don't unequivocally say you're wrong, but I still suspect there was a hole in the windshield.

Again, I think it comes down to two things; how you interpret the photographs and which witnesses you believe are credible. You clearly believe the "official" types like Frazier have more credibility. As a critic of the official "investigation," I think citizens who weren't directly connected to those who "investigated" the assassination have more credibility.

Thanks, Doug, for sharing all your good work.

[Josiah Thompson]

I am interested in the totality of the evidence and I remain convinced that none of you understood that in your article. If we had photograpic evidence that there might be a hole in Altgen's but no other corroborative evidence or if we still had the original windshield a debate would be specious. My questions were not answered nor was the twisted evidence addressed by anyone of you.... It is obvious to me that none of you knew much of anything about the witnesses or the evidence....

My best to you,

Doug

You say we don't know "much of anything about the witnesses or the evidence." You say you are "interested in the totality of the evidence." That's all find and good. As for witnesses, I spent an hour listening to your tendentious and controlling interview of Principe. As for evidence... when we confront you with a particular evidentiary problem you simply hightail it in the opposite direction covering your exit with a lot of noble sentiments.

Earlier, I put before you the unvarnished fact that Martin Hinrichs had advanced our knowledge of the "spiral nebula" by showing the positions and clothing of spectators seen through the windshield in Altgens #6. I put before you the fact that Hinrichs had shown that Lady #8 in the Couch photo has an apron on (or is carrying a bag) that lines up perfectly with the "spiral nebula." More than this, if you compare the color of the "spiral nebula" with the color of Lady #9's dress as seen through the windshield in Altgens #6, the color difference matches the difference in color between the two in Couch's photo. Hence, in terms of position and color the apron or bag of Lady #8 would appear to be without question your socalled "spiral nebula." This is real evidentiary analysis that doesn't come from me. Nor do you have to be a photo expert to understand its import. Yet when it is put before you, you just prattle on about "firecrackers" and other irrelevancies.

Has Hinrich answered the question as to the nature of the "spiral nebula? If he hasn't, why hasn't he? Furthermore, why do you or anyone else think the "spiral nebula" is a penetrating bullet hit when it looks nothing like it? Do you really think that "spiral nebula" in Altgens #6 appears at the same location in the windshield as the damage Altgens #7? Take a look once again at Altgens #6 and Altgens #7 as posted by Robin Ungar on this thread. Where do you stand on this critical evidentiary point? If you can't answer a direct and simple question like this, then all your complaints about us not dealing with the evidence are laughable.

Josiah Thompson