Costella's Review of Horne's IARRB

[Karl Kinaski]

Great review, John!

After reading it, I would compare Horne to the HSCA.

Jack

Horne another Blakey, or Joannides? Come on.

KK

[Greg Burnham]

All,

Now that I have read the review, I think that Bill Kelly made a good

effort to be even-handed, where John has different fish to fry. What

he has not done--and it is a grievous shortcoming--is to explain what

Doug DID ACCOMPLISH by way of establishing five physical differences

between the original celluloid and the current, establishing that the

chain of custody was broken by two different films having been brought

to the NPIC on consecutive evenings, and by demonstrating that at least

some internal content alteration has been established by the Hollywood

experts. This is not as powerful and scientific as Costella's proofs

of film fakery and of the necessity to reshoot each frame in order to

avoid exposure via the "ghost panels", but it is still not bad stuff.

(emphasis added)

Although I concede that Doug did reveal important--very important--new clarifying information...still:

IMO, it is not John's responsibility to "explain" what Doug accomplished in his work! If it needs to be "explained" by a critic [a reviewer] it was not well explained by the author of the work to begin with!

As a point of logic, John contends that his own [John's] work proves that the Z-film is either authentic or it is not [read:it is completely fabricated]. It was altered far beyond a mere "paint over" of individual frames. Moreover, his work proves that there is no such thing as "a slightly altered" Z-film. It was completely altered. However, it could be argued that Doug almost undermines the significance of those findings by his lack of recognition of them in his book!

If the situation was reversed and Doug's book was a "review" of Costella's work, then I think your criticism of HIS (Doug's) "review" might be well founded. Not the other way around, though.

I find a lot of merit in defining that distinction.

In fact, in his eagerness to impail Horne, Costella commits a major

blunder. If he had read Horne carefully, he would have known that a

split 8mm version that had been developed in Dallas was brought to the

NPIC on Saturday with one crew at work and another unsplit 16mm version

was brought from Rochester the next evening. The NPIC even had to go

out to purchase an 8mm projector to show the 8mm film, because it did

not have one. The problem for John is that Homer McMahon was working

on Sunday, not on Satuday, which means that the version he worked with

was the already altered version brought from "Hawkeye Works" or what-

ever. Doug's original report about Homer's statements is in MURDER

and have given what he had to say on that occasion a lot of thought.

I don't think that John had any "eagerness to impail Horne" nor do I think it is settled science that John committed a "blunder"--major or otherwise. Suggesting it is so, in the fashion offered, resembles a "Poisoning of the Well" -- IMHO. Moreover, the John I know "reads things carefully" prior to comment. Suggesting otherwise further poisons the well.

I was so captivated by Homer's having viewed the film ten or more times

and having observed "6 to 8 impacts" that I inferred he was not talking

about JFK alone but had to be talking about impacts on occupants of the

limousine. That made great sense, since JFK was hit at least four times

and Connally as many as three, where 4 + 3 = 7, a number in between six

and eight. I have explained this on radio and to Noel in revising his

book for publication. It was only in discussing the matter explicitly

with Doug that I came to realize that, since Homer was watching a film

that had already undergone (at least preliminary) revision, it was most

unlikely that he could have been observing impacts from the event itself.

I am unsure as to what relevance the above has to John's review?

I am a bit taken aback that John suggests my reaction to the suggestion

that Doug Horne might be a government agent was "hysterical". I know a

lot more about Doug than does John, having interviewed him three times

now at two-hours apiece on "The Real Deal" and having prepared two or

three blogs about his work for my blog, jamesfetzer.blogspot.com. In

my opinion, if Doug Horne is a government agent, then I am a lunatic.

Well, it seems to me to make perfect sense. That if Doug is (and I'm not claiming he is), but if he is a gov agent, (and IF you are that convinced he isn't), then since you don't want to be a lunatic--the implication could cause a near hysterical reaction! Not that far-fetched, IMO. But, I wasn't there--so I don't know.

This is about as bizarre and unjustifiable an insinuation as I have

ever encountered in JFK research. I know them both and regard them

with the greatest esteem. Sometimes, alas, many of us tend to go off

the deep end, which I am afraid goes with kind of research we are doing.

This is a nice example of an extremely smart man offering a dumb review.

Jim

Am I offering a dumb review of your review of his review? Sheesh. Labels mean very little to me.

Edited April 6, 2010 by Greg Burnham

[William Kelly]

Great review, John!

After reading it, I would compare Horne to the HSCA.

Jack

Horne another Blakey, or Joannides? Come on.

KK

Yea, Jack,

You can compare Doug Horne's five volumes to the entire work of the Congressonal Committee.

Horne is extremely critical of Blakey, something Costello wouldn't know since he didn't bother to read the book, and appears disenchanted not to have been give the Z-film credit he expected in the one chapter he did read (twice), and still misunderstood.

Just by asking the Secret Agent Man question Costella poisons the well, as it has been said.

But I like the nick name G-Man Costella has bestowed on Horne, since Doug's been in need of a good nickname.

Costella admits he worked for the DOD, so now that's my nickname for him. DODC the Hatchet Man Costella.

Like all good propagandists know - repeatedly branding someone something works - in the same vein as Holland and Russo, and DOD Hatchet Man Costella repeatedly calls Horne "the Government Man" - apparently because Horne is a State department bureaucrat and has a Navy background (certainly G-Man is also an ONI shill). But The Hatchet Man's bias comes out when he mentions the fact that G-Man worked for the Holocaust museum after his service on the ARRB - and therefore must have different tendencies when it comes to Jews.

Of course in America people know that everybody named Costella is in the Mafia.

I thought that The Hatchet Man, being an academic and with some knowledge of the case, would actually write a thoughtful, useful, yet critical review of Horne's work, but that hasn't been done yet.

Maybe Jimmy D can pull it off.

BK

Edited April 6, 2010 by William Kelly

[Greg Burnham]

Are you kidding me right now? Bill, that is so beneath you! I am appalled. You might disagree, but wow--it's amazing to me how often otherwise intelligent, cordial, descent, people (even JFK assassination researchers), become so desperate to advance their position that they will choose to impugn the character, intelligence, integrity, ability, or challenge the motives of those with whom they disagree.

Sorry, it's not just you--and it's not just here. I'm just naive to expect anything different. A pity.

Great review, John!

After reading it, I would compare Horne to the HSCA.

Jack

Horne another Blakey, or Joannides? Come on.

KK

Yea, Jack,

You can compare Doug Horne's five volumes to the entire work of the Congressonal Committee.

Horne is extremely critical of Blakey, something Costello wouldn't know since he didn't bother to read the book, and appears disenchanted not to have been give the Z-film credit he expected in the one chapter he did read (twice), and still misunderstood.

Just by asking the Secret Agent Man question Costella poisons the well, as it has been said.

But I like the nick name G-Man Costella has bestowed on Horne, since Doug's been in need of a good nickname.

Costella admits he worked for the DOD, so now that's my nickname for him. DODC the Hatchet Man Costella.

Like all good propagandists know - repeatedly branding someone something works - in the same vein as Holland and Russo, and DOD Hatchet Man Costella repeatedly calls Horne "the Government Man" - apparently because Horne is a State department bureaucrat and has a Navy background (certainly G-Man is also an ONI shill). But The Hatchet Man's bias comes out when he mentions the fact that G-Man worked for the Holocaust museum after his service on the ARRB - and therefore must have different tendencies when it comes to Jews.

Of course in America people know that everybody named Costella is in the Mafia.

I thought that The Hatchet Man, being an academic and with some knowledge of the case, would actually write a thoughtful, useful, yet critical review of Horne's work, but that hasn't been done yet.

Maybe Jimmy D can pull it off.

BK

[William Kelly]

Are you kidding me right now? Bill, that is so beneath you! I am appalled. You might disagree, but wow--it's amazing to me how often otherwise intelligent, cordial, descent, people (even JFK assassination researchers), become so desperate to advance their position that they will choose to impugn the character, intelligence, integrity, ability, or challenge the motives of those with whom they disagree.

Sorry, it's not just you--and it's not just here. I'm just naive to expect anything different. A pity.

What's my position again?

And how am I impugn's anyone's character.

After waiting two months for an anticipated critical review of IARRB, The Hatchet Man gave us a hatchet job. Whose impugn's whose character?

BK

Great review, John!

After reading it, I would compare Horne to the HSCA.

Jack

Horne another Blakey, or Joannides? Come on.

KK

Yea, Jack,

You can compare Doug Horne's five volumes to the entire work of the Congressonal Committee.

Horne is extremely critical of Blakey, something Costello wouldn't know since he didn't bother to read the book, and appears disenchanted not to have been give the Z-film credit he expected in the one chapter he did read (twice), and still misunderstood.

Just by asking the Secret Agent Man question Costella poisons the well, as it has been said.

But I like the nick name G-Man Costella has bestowed on Horne, since Doug's been in need of a good nickname.

Costella admits he worked for the DOD, so now that's my nickname for him. DODC the Hatchet Man Costella.

Like all good propagandists know - repeatedly branding someone something works - in the same vein as Holland and Russo, and DOD Hatchet Man Costella repeatedly calls Horne "the Government Man" - apparently because Horne is a State department bureaucrat and has a Navy background (certainly G-Man is also an ONI shill). But The Hatchet Man's bias comes out when he mentions the fact that G-Man worked for the Holocaust museum after his service on the ARRB - and therefore must have different tendencies when it comes to Jews.

Of course in America people know that everybody named Costella is in the Mafia.

I thought that The Hatchet Man, being an academic and with some knowledge of the case, would actually write a thoughtful, useful, yet critical review of Horne's work, but that hasn't been done yet.

Maybe Jimmy D can pull it off.

BK

[Greg Burnham]

Ok, Bill. Fair enough. I consider Fetzer to be a close friend. And I consider you to be a very good man and a formidable researcher, although I don't know you nearly as well, that is still my opinion. I consider Mantik to be "top-shelf" as I do Noel Twyman. Jack White is way up there too--great friend. Scott Myers, close friend--extremely intelligent...and John Costella, a good friend--extremely bright--my wife and I are going to visit him this summer in Australia...

Now, my point is this: These are known entities--with proven track records!

Why do we continue to "vet" them as though they are suspect? And, a better question: Why do we all continue to "VET" each other! Perhaps those with a proven track record with whom we may occasionally disagree on a given point need not be treated with such contempt or doubt or suspicion every time they take an opposing position. (And I said as much to Jim on the phone in not so many words).

Just my 2 cents.

Edited April 6, 2010 by Greg Burnham

[Karl Kinaski]

Ok, Bill. Fair enough. I consider Fetzer to be a close friend. And I consider you to be a very good man and a formidable researcher, although I don't know you nearly as well, that is still my opinion. I consider Mantik to be "top-shelf" as I do Noel Twyman. Jack White is way up there too--great friend. Scott Myers, close friend--extremely intelligent...and John Costella, a good friend--extremely bright--my wife and I are going to visit him this summer in Australia...

Now, my point is this: These are known entities--with proven track records!

Why do we continue to "vet" them as though they are suspect? And why do we continue to "VET" each other! Perhaps those with a proven track record with whom we may occasionally disagree on a given point need not be treated with such contempt or doubt or suspicion every time they take an opposing position. (And I said as much to Jim on the phone in not so many words).

Just my 2 cents.

Costella in his so called review shouldn't have mentioned Horns Holocaust Museum job. A la : Horne went working for the Holocaust Museum, therefore one can't trust his JFK research. That was a strange idea...maybe he can explain that claim further???

Horne with his IARRB carved in stone the body-alteration done by Humes at Bethesda prior to the official "autopsy". For that deed alone he is worth the Pulitzers prize...

KK

[Greg Burnham]

Perhaps I need to re-read John's review. -- Ok, I just did and I didn't detect anything in his review that was "anchored" on your claim. He seems to report facts about Doug's employment--and although I agree that his reference to a reluctance to admit a "Jewish" connection to the assassination is ill founded, it is certainly not central to his position.

Costella in his so called review shouldn't have mentioned Horns Holocaust Museum job. A la : Horne went working for the Holocaust Museum, therefore one can't trust his JFK research. That was a strange idea...maybe he can explain that claim further???

Horne with his IARRB carved in stone the body-alteration done by Humes at Bethesda prior to the official "autopsy". For that deed alone he is worth the Pulitzers prize...

KK

[William Kelly]

Response to Costella's Doug P. Horne: WTF?

The DoD Hatchet Man v. the G-Man.

By William Kelly

April 7, 2010

D. P. Horne: WTF?

John P. Costella

April 6, 2010

Bill Kelly: It was some two months ago when I learned John Costella was writing a critical review of the Zapruder Film Chapter 14 of Doug Horne's Inside the ARRB, so I made sure he had a copy of my transcript of the ARRB interview with Homer McMahon. I was glad when John posted the audo tape on line so people could hear it and get a taste for McMahon's style, which adds flavor to the significance of what he was saying. And I did look forward to reading Costella's review, since I knew he was an academic with advanced degrees and expected him to give Horne a good dressing down, as word got out he would be very critical.

So I was a bit surprised to read this, and must comment on why it so wrong, and the serious, critical analysis of Horne and his work has yet to be written.

John P. Costella: D. P. Horne WTF?

It might be unconventional to use the colloquialism "WTF?" in a book review, but it is the most concise way that I can express my surprise and dismay at Doug Horne's creation. I trust that none in the assassination research community are so delicate as to take offence at my using this term in this day and age.

I received Volume IV of Horne's five-volume set (the volume containing Chapter

14, on the Zapruder film, on which I have previously done some work) for review towards the end of December, more than three months ago now. Upon opening it, I found that the volume covered pages 987 through 1378 of the five-volume set. WTF? The pages are large (8 by 10 inches), the margins are tiny (half an inch), and the text is replete with underlining (in addition to boldface and italics, or both)—a practice that is almost never allowed in professional publishing. The Table of Contents for Volume IV contained just two entries: one told me that Chapter 13 started on page 987, and the other told me that Chapter 14 started on page 1185. WTF?

With a sense of foreboding, I turned to the back of the volume to look for an Index—and found none. Instead, I found letters written in 2009 by Horne to President Obama and others.

Perhaps, I thought, the Index was placed immediately before those Appendices—so I tracked back through the pages. I soon realised that I had stumbled into the narrative proper—and was dumbfounded to find "breakthroughs" being reported in the months leading up to publication.

WTF? My sense of dread grew: for a five-volume set that was a dozen years in the making, the inclusion of last-minute "breakthroughs"—without time for checking or corroboration—was a sign that the author was either extremely gullible, or else was intent on obfuscation.

[bK Notes: As others have already complained about the lack of index, including me, and the placement of the Appendix sources in the beginning, it doesn't take much to figure out that this was not professionally published, as no publisher would touch it. Doug did it practically by himself, with the technical assistance of a few proof readers and Rex Bradford. The Warren Commission was also criticized for not publishing an index of its 24 volumes, but Doug Horne doesn't have the resources of the US government, despite being a government employee. Mae Brussell, Sylvia Meagher and Mary Ferrell are now heroes to all independent researchers because they indexed the WC in the course of their research, and I hope some young students with the time and computer resources will index Horne's five volumes, as it would be of great service.]

I turned to the first page of Chapter 14 (the only information provided by the Table of Contents), and started scanning forward. Four pages in, I found the following: "In 2009 an elaborate deception operation (explained in the Epilogue) was carried out against me by an intelligence operative who was obviously working for the U.S. government. Its sole purpose was to contaminate and discredit the contents of this book." To this day, I have been unable to figure out which section is this "Epilogue", nor where Horne describes this intelligence operation. Perhaps it is in there, somewhere.

[bK Notes; If you define the word "Epilogue" you will find it there. I found the real story referred to extremely interesting and tried to follow up on it, and will try to ID who tried to set up Doug as it is a matter of everyone's security. ]

What I have gathered from his other volumes, and other information on the internet, is that the government man most prominently mentioned in Horne's volumes is Douglas P. Horne: a man who spent most of his career attached to the Department of the Navy in various military and civilian roles (his biography reeks of intelligence assignments, but of course we will never know for sure), and who now works in the most sensitive area of the State Department: passport control.

[bK Notes: Wait a minute. You don't bother to even read the part of Doug Horne being set up in a Sting Operation to discredit him, which you express interest in, and then accuse Doug Horne of being a government man setting you – us up, because he served in the Navy? God Bless him for being a vet, as the only reason he got the job on the ARRB is because he spent 20 years in the Navy and already had the security clearances necessary to be the Deputy and then Chief Analyst for Military Records. I think it's an honor for his record to "reek" of military and intelligence service, as that gave him the background and experience to know how these records were kept, how to review them and how to write logical, readable reports on complex and technical issues. And it is nice to know that we have such competent men as Doug Horne is such sensitive positions in the passport control office. But you shouldn't have blown his cover. ]

Going through the pages, I tried to get some feeling for Chapter 14. My attention was drawn, naturally, to my own name. I was surprised by this: Horne had never contacted me, in any way, over the eight or nine years that I had been involved in Zapruder film research. Surprise turned to dismay when I started reading the details of those references. While superficially complimentary, Horne had ignored completely those findings of mine that I (and, indeed, my critics) consider to be the most important; he had focused attention on aspects that were trivial or irrelevant; and—most damning— he had misrepresented an entire chapter of mine from The Great Zapruder Film Hoax. It was clear that he had either never read my chapters of the book—or, if he did, that he was misrepresenting it in the worst possible way: as disinformation. Either way, his credibility was, for me, already shot.

[bK Notes: Scorned scholar whose neglected work is more significant than what he's supposed to be reviewing. My name isn't mentioned in Horne's book at all, and I'm not jealous of those who are. Good on them for making a dent in history.]

More on this later. Disgusted, I put aside the volume on my bookshelf, so that I could enjoy Christmas with my family. Several days later, Volumes I, II, III, and V appeared in the post. Breaking open the box in front of my wife Sally, I pounced on Volume V, and flipped open the back cover.

WTF? Nothing. Page 1807, but no Index there either. I then scrabbled through the box for Volume I, hoping that a comprehensive Table of Contents would, at least partially, make up for the missing Index. But the Table of Contents was of the same bare-bones nature as contained in Volume IV: less than two pages in total, with the same two lonely entries listed for Volume IV. Following this was eight pages listing the Figures shown throughout the five volumes, and then a list of the Appendices. WTF? I thought it was a brief list of Appendices, until I started reading the details. Apparently, none of them could possibly fit into the five-volume masterpiece, so they were all only accessible from a website. I groaned, but continued. What started out as a mere list quickly grew into an extended discussion of each and every Appendix, in such detail that the author was clearly implying that reading the overview was an essential prerequisite to understanding the five volumes to follow. The farce continued to grow: 34 pages of descriptions of 86 Appendices. The Marx Brothers' A Day at the Races, perhaps?

Following this was Horne's Preface—20 pages of it. And then, finally, literally a quarter of an inch into Volume I, I came to Page 1.

WTF? I turned to Sally, dejected. "It's the bloody Warren Commission all over again." I had to explain to her how the Commission managed to use thousands of pages of red herrings and straw men to bury any evidence of real relevance in a cesspool of garbage—and then displayed the highest contempt of a reader possible, by failing to provide an Index. Government man D. P. Horne had continued this tradition into the twenty-first century.

[bK: WTF? Since you had to read other, earlier reviews of IARRB, you must have known there was no index, and why there is no index after having been told, but this is WTF? The lack of an index? WTF? Is right. I wrote up my own expanded Table of Contents, with sub-chapter headings and posted it at my blog JFKCountercoup, if that makes it any easier for lazy readers.]

In the weeks to follow, I would delve into Horne's volumes from time to time, trying to extract nuggets of gold from them. I failed. Ultimately, I read through every excruciating detail in Chapter 14, twice, as well as some of Volume I.

Now, I must immediately apologise (BK Notes: Sic: apologize) for any errors or omissions in the discussion to follow. Despite having read the chapter, twice, in full detail, the lack of an Index or a sensible Table of Contents means that it is impossible to keep track of what Horne has and hasn't mentioned without keeping a personal set of notes that would be more voluminous than my Ph.D. thesis—and with only half-inch margins, annotation of the volumes themselves is impossible. To me, the feeling is akin to having a cart-load of fresh horse droppings dumped on your front lawn.

Undoubtedly, someone will point out to me that I claimed there was no six-inch worm contained in the delivery, yet—look!—there it is if you dig long and hard enough in the right direction. I simply haven't the time nor the stomach for that sort of activity, so I apologise (BKN: sic) in advance for what will, undoubtedly, be a lengthy list of Errata in due course.

[bK Notes: Doug Horne has an Errata page on his blog and is keeping tabs of all typos and mistakes that can be corrected for another edition, if there is one. I did correct a half-dozen errata's in this essay but left the two above alone. ]

I will say that, on reading through Horne's Chapter 14, I was reminded of how many of the modern developments in the Zapruder film mystery had been associated with Horne himself, from his time with the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB):

Homer McMahon, who saw an assassination film at the National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC) on the weekend of the assassination, seeing Kennedy hit "six to eight times from three different directions"; Kodak's above-top-secret facility in Rochester (referred to as both "Eagle Eye" and "Hawk Eye"—we still do not know if either of these code-names is genuine);

Roland Zavada, the retired Kodak film scientist, who was brought in by Horne to authenticate the "camera original" film prior to the U.S. Government's taking of it; the astounding compensation of the Zapruder family for that act (was it $16 million, as government man D. P. Horne reports, or $25 million?—it has been reported that a member of the Zapruder family claims that they actually received the latter amount); and so on.

After more than a decade, Zapruder film researchers would have expected Horne to flesh out these developments.

Such researchers will be sorely disappointed. The biggest break in the case, as far as the Zapruder film is concerned, should have been Horne's discovery of NPIC's Homer McMahon.

[bK Notes: Certainly the interview with Homer McMahon is a giant break in the case, and if it pans out, it could lead to some major developments into the assassination and the government's role as detailed in the records.]

Remarkably, at least one of Horne's interviews with McMahon was recorded, and that recording was made available to me in recent weeks. It is so important to understanding Horne's work that I have posted the audio file, in full, on my website, at

http://assassinationscience.com/johncostella/jfk/horne-mcmahon-interview.mp3

(quite remarkably, a number of researchers and other interested parties, who had never heard the recording, appear to be dismayed that I have done so; whereas—if they were honest brokers—they should be relieved).

[bK Notes: As soon as I obtained my CD copy of the McMahon interview I began to transcribe it, and shared the transcript with anyone who wanted it, and ran down a half-dozen leads it presented before I posted the transcript on my blog and at the Education Forum. I was going to send the CD tape to Len O. at Black Op radio for him to put on the internet, but John Costella posted it first. Thanks John. I'm sure Peter Janney is one of those dismayed, as he is the source for many of the copies of the McMahon interview that were going around, and he is wrapping up a book that will accurately detail the Z-film at NPIC and the briefing of McCone and was, it turns out correctly concerned that the story will get wrongfully mangled, as Costella manages to do here. McMahon had nothing to do with the preperation of the briefing boards Art Lindahl used to brief McCone.]

I recommend that anyone reading this review, who has not listened to the interview, should do so before continuing. A warning: it runs to just over 100 minutes. I would also recommend that any serious researcher should listen to the recording using high-quality headphones, because the frequent glitches and step-shifts in background hiss and static reveal how heavily edited the recording is. Whether this editing was done by Horne; by his superior, Jeremy Gunn (who was present for the interview and can be heard in the recording—and to whom Horne's five volumes are solely dedicated); by the National Archives; or by a subsequent possessor of the audio file, is beyond my knowledge. In Volume IV, Horne only mentions redacting the name of "Eagle Eye" or "Hawk Eye" from the recording—implying that he edited out no other pertinent material.

[bK: Notes: Doug Horne requested many further interviews and wanted to tape record all interviews, but his requests were denied by his superiors at ARRB. That the one interview with McMahon was taped at all was at his initiative, and was only transcribed because I did it myself, with the help of others. ]

"WTF?" That's all that Sally and I could say to each other, many times (and not in abbreviated form, either), when listening to Horne and McMahon for the first time.

Any assassination researcher who has read the Warren Commission testimony at length will have frequently blurted out loud, "Ask the next question! Ask the next question!" Now, finally, with the Horne–McMahon recording, we get a glimpse into what such an interview—with ineptitude so severe that it cannot be interpreted as anything but a cover-up — sounds like in real time.

Despite being heavily edited, the interview is cram-packed with potential leads, left unexplored by Horne and Gunn.

[bK Notes: Indeed, we are ten years behind in recognizing the significance of McMahon's ARRB interview, and developing the potential leads, but that is on going, and we're not depending on Horne, Gunn or Costella to develop them. ]

Within the first ten minutes we learn that McMahon had begun in photography just before the outbreak of World War II; that he had worked for the FBI, for the CIA, for Eastman Kodak, and had "other clearances" — not least of which military intelligence — that allowed him to work on "anything"; that, at the time of the assassination, McMahon "was CIA; that was my cover at the time"; and that the "work" they did on the assassination film was done under a special onetime - only clearance, unrelated to the many other clearances that McMahon already held.

The obvious question arises: WTF was the CIA doing investigating a domestic crime in the first place? My understanding is that the CIA is only permitted to work on international matters; and, furthermore, that under the terms under which the CIA operated, the explicit authorization of CIA Director John McCone would have been needed in order to request NPIC to carry out the work described.

[bK Notes: McCone himself did request the NPIC analysis of the Z-film and this analysis was prepared by Lindahl and the briefing boards used were done by Dino Brugioni's crew, and did not include McMahon. ]

The McMahon interview, together with other research, suggests that NPIC was funded by the CIA, but that NPIC was much more highly classified than the Agency, reporting to both the Agency and the Department of Defense; and one gets the feeling that the more senior master was the DoD.

Arthur Schlesinger's journal relates that, within weeks of the assassination, the FBI had told Robert Kennedy — the most important law enforcement official in the country — that only one man was shooting at his brother, but that CIA Director McCone had told him that there were two men shooting. It is logical that the observations of Homer McMahon — and, no doubt, others at NPIC who worked on the same film — formed the basis of McCone's information.

We also know that McCone met with President Johnson and McGeorge Bundy on the Sunday of the assassination weekend, suggesting that the work on the film at NPIC may well have been completed on Saturday night.

[bK Notes: As explained in Horne's Chapter 14, which Costella read twice but still misunderstands, McCone was briefed by Art Lindahl, head of NPIC, on Sunday morning, using briefing boards prepared by Dino Brugioni's crew, while McMahon/Hunter/Smith /Sands worked on another film another, later night. McCone was already briefed before McMahon ever saw the Z-film. ]

Of course, I haven't cleared any of these speculations with government man D. P. Horne. Needless to say, his interview of McMahon clarifies nothing.

Later in the interview, we learn that McMahon was a trick shooter of such skill that he could have shot three balls in mid-air before they hit the ground. "WTF?" was our only possible response. To my knowledge, this detail has been systematically omitted from the public accounts given by government man D. P. Horne. The importance of McMahon's experience, of course, is that his

claim to have seen Kennedy shot six to eight times from three different directions is escalated in importance from a merely amateur observation made by a photographic technologist into the reliable testimony of a shooting expert. And, of course, you can imagine, by now, what we said after McMahon volunteered the information about the shots, and Horne let the comments slide without further questioning.

[bK Notes: There was further questioning on this issue, led by JG and rehased in detail, as can be heard on the tape or read in the transcript. ]

Reportedly, the Chair of the ARRB, the Hon. Judge John R. Tunheim, has stated that he was never made aware of the interview of McMahon at all — a remarkable situation, given the importance of McMahon's statements.

[bK Notes: Indeed, Tunheim was unaware of the McMahon interview, and its significance, as was practically everyone, until Horne called attention to it.]

In the latter part of the interview, McMahon himself reveals that he had abused drugs and alcohol in the years following his service with NPIC. Given McMahon's habit of compartmentalizing information (drummed into him during decades of work on highly classified projects, and manifestly evident throughout the recorded interview), we may reasonably infer, from this remarkably honest admission, that McMahon felt that his descent into addiction was caused, at least in part, by the work he did on the assassination film.

[bK Notes: No one, other than Costella, makes this assertion at all. There is no association made between McMahon's work on the Z-film and his later addictions, which he emphasized in order to negate having spilled the beans on other sensitive issues, as he did. ]

Certainly, McMahon's description of "Bill Smith" from the "Secret Service"—the name and affiliation given by the man who delivered the film from Kodak's above-top-secret plant at Rochester to NPIC (McMahon seems to place no faith in the authenticity of either) — was "not interested" in McMahon's interpretation of the film.

[bK Notes: In the interview, McMahon explained that his job as a color lab tech was to make the enlarged prints of the negatives, and not analyze anything, as other, more qualified photo analysists were responsible for that. ]

Neither, unfortunately, was government man Horne, nor his superior, Gunn.

In his Chapter 14, Horne laments the ARRB's accepting the pro bono work of Kodak's Roland Zavada in "authenticating" the six-foot strip of celluloid in the National Archives as a genuine 1963 strip of film, as it "later" became clear to him that Kodak was complicit in the fabrication of the fake film. Horne does not mention the fact that Roland Zavada pulled out of the 2003 Zapruder

Film Symposium. (Horne may not have known that Zavada's withdrawal was caused by my destroying Zavada's bogus claims for "authenticity", months before his intended presentation at the Symposium, in an email discussion including Gary Mack and Josiah Thompson.)

But why did Horne introduce Zavada to the case at all? If his Chapter 14 is any guide, it was simply as a straw man for him to spar with, more than a decade later. Horne spends a disproportionate number of pages shooting down his straw man as an irrelevance—a conclusion that had already been reached by anyone with more than a passing interest in the Zapruder film, more than six years before Horne published his volumes.

While trying to wade through the swamp of Horne's writing,

[bK Notes: Actually Doug Horne's writing is easy to read, and is logically and laid out with a real method in mind, but since Costella is too lazy to read it from beginning to end and must peruse it via index, and table of contets, looking for his own name first – and no, Judyth Vary Baker isn't mentioned either, he can't follow the logic laid out for him. If I were the G-Man, I would send Costella's wife Sally a copy of the book with the chapters on the historical background of the assassination, and ask her what she thinks of Doug Horne's writing. ]

a remarkable predilection comes to light: although Horne superficially expresses skepticism of almost every agency, organization and person involved with the case, he treats every word of Abraham Zapruder's story as if it were gospel truth — despite it having been established for over a decade that it simply does not add up. Possibly, government man Horne, who moved to the Holocaust Museum immediately after finishing up with the ARRB, may have shared the sensitivities of many assassination researchers with regard to investigating any Jewish connection in the assassination. Whether his immediate superior, former ACLU lawyer Jeremy Gunn, shared the same reluctance is unknown.

[bK Notes: WTF? What are you trying to say here? That because he worked at the Holocaust Muse, he failed to properly analyze the Zapruder situation? And Gunn Jewish sensitive too? Of course in the same vein everyone knows that anyone named Costella is in the Mafia, right? ]

But we know, from the ground-breaking work of Jack White more than a decade ago—subsequently spectacularly confirmed—that Abraham Zapruder was not holding his camera at the time that the assassination film was recorded. There are no photographs establishing his presence on the concrete pedestal: those that do show figures on the pedestal do not show Zapruder, but rather a man half a foot shorter; and the Ike Altgens photo apparently showing him from behind was disowned by Altgens himself: it was likely staged, days or weeks afterwards. Zapruder's movements on the weekend of the assassination are subject to the most extreme doubt; the locations of the various films taken of the assassination are likewise confused.

[bK Notes: So that's why Jack White wrote what a great "review" this is. I'm surprised you are so vain Jack. ]

What film was it that was returned to the Zapruder family in 1975 for $1? Certainly not a genuine film of the assassination. And what secrets allowed them to extort $16 million (or $25 million) from the U.S. Government in the late 1990s? Certainly not the "taking" of the six fake feet of celluloid: we know that Judge Tunheim urged the Zapruder family to simply turn the film over to the government, as a gesture of goodwill—the family having already gained hundreds of thousands of dollars of profits from the film over the previous 35 years.

Now, it is reasonable that Horne might disagree with any or all of these points, that have been made numerous times in the past decade; and it would likewise be reasonable for him to refute any or all of them in his Volume IV. Instead, we find silence—or worse: the implicit assumption that "there's nothing to see here, folks; move along" when it comes to the complicity of the Zapruder family in the fabrication of the film evidence of the assassination.

[bK Notes: Actually Doug Horne was against giving the Zapruder family the money, especially not getting the copyright in return, and writes extensively about this, but apparently two readings of the chapter wasn't enough for Costella to digest this.]

Horne's gullibility (or worse) extends beyond the Zapruder story itself. He quotes from the amazing Paul Mandel article in the Memorial Edition of LIFE, emphasising the sentence claiming that "the 8 mm film" (LIFE never attributed it to Abraham Zapruder—ever) showed Kennedy turning far to the right to receive the throat shot. Horne's comment? "This is pure bullxxxx, of course. The film shows no such thing—JFK never turns to his rear at any time in the extant film." Horne then proceeds to consider various logical possibilities as to why Mandel made that statement in print, settling on the idea that the government forced him to make the statement—but he never once contemplates the possibility that Mandel viewed a different film. For someone who professes to believe that the extant film is a fake, this is a remarkably narrow-minded point of view: since the limo turn has been excised from the extant film, how do we know what a genuine film might have shown?

Why didn't Horne ask Homer McMahon whether the film he saw agreed with Mandel's description?

[bK Notes: The questioning of McMahon was not done properly, with the basic background established first, including date of birth, place of birth, names of parents and family members, military service and complete work history, and I told this to Doug Horne when I met with him in DC, and he acknowledged the weaknesses in the interview, but he did the best he could under the circumstances, and he did follow up interviews as well.]

Why didn't he ask McMahon whether any of the "six to eight shots" to Kennedy occurred way too far up Elm Street to have come from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository? No: instead, Horne subtly tries to convince us that the official story of the Zapruder film is almost all true: his only point of departure is to insert some alteration steps along the way, away from Dallas. Resurrecting this "small-'a' alteration" viewpoint—shown to be impossible for almost a decade—points to someone that is either out of touch, or wants to steer the reader away from the truth. Government man D. P. Horne is simply unable to extricate himself from the horns of this fundamental dilemma.

The same subtle form of manipulation contaminates Horne's treatment of my own work on the Zapruder film. On page 1339, Horne has a heading, "Is the Extant Zapruder Film A 'Complete Fabrication', or Simply an Altered Film?" This is not only a direct reference to the title of my main chapter in The Great Zapruder Film Hoax ("A Scientist's Verdict: The Film is a Fabrication"), but Horne moreover refers to both my chapter and that of David Healy explicitly. But instead of dealing with the central physics arguments of my chapter, he goes off on a tangent about the possible timeline for the fabrication of the film. My simply placing upper bounds on the time possible to fabricate various parts of the film is escalated by Horne into the central question—a bogus straw man that he then attempts to shoot down. In doing so, he seems to convince himself that he has, by implication, answered the question he posed in the heading: since he disagrees with some of my upper bounds, therefore (he deludes himself) my physics proofs of the film being a complete fabrication are wrong; and he can imply—he never actually answers his own question—that the film could be "a little bit altered".

[bK Notes: Here again is the Hatchet Man's obsession with his own work. ]

If Horne wished to disagree with my conclusions, then he should have mounted arguments against my proofs. This is what critics of my work, such as Craig Lamson, Joe Durnavich and Josiah Thompson, do; and, while I am confident in the knowledge that their attacks are wrong (Lamson refuses to answer even the most elementary questions of optics, for example), I acknowledge that they fully understand and embrace the logical consistency of my arguments: that the only way to disprove my assertion that the film is a complete fabrication is to disprove my proofs of gross alteration, such as of the Stemmons Freeway sign, the lamp-post, and the lack of blurring of Frame 232 appearing in LIFE magazine.

[BK Notes: Of course we have heard all of the anomalies over and over again, and I guess we'll just have to put up with them, though they don't tell us, like McMahon does, who, what, when, where and why the Z-film was at Rochester and the NPIC twice. Arguing over anomalies is more fun. ]

What Horne wishes to overlook is the fact that all commentators on the Zapruder film—including Lamson, Durnavich, Thompson, and friends—agree with this crucial, second part of my proof: The physics properties of the inter-sprocket area are such that the extant Zapruder film must be either completely genuine (apart from possible painted-on artwork), or else completely fabricated. The double-exposures in the inter-sprocket area of the film inextricably link every frame of the Zapruder film with its two neighbours; and when you take into account the motion blurring and claw shadow (and their interaction) in this area, then it is physically impossible to remove frames from the film, or alter any aspect of them that intrudes into the inter-sprocket region, without creating the frames from scratch, from other photographic material (Jack White and I call them "pilot films" in The Great Zapruder Film Hoax) mixed with genuine imagery from the assassination itself.

Indeed, in recent weeks, Horne's good friend David Lifton has expressed to me his complete understanding of this crucial aspect of my work in The Great Zapruder Film Hoax. Why, then, is Horne himself so ignorant of the issue? Why did he believe that he could so smugly dismiss the "complete fabrication" proof? Did he believe that I would be so vain that I would simply look through his book for superficial compliments, without checking what he actually wrote? If so, then

he completely underestimated me.

[bK Notes: Now I know why Horne doesn't use or acknowledge Costella's work, as Costella's a scholar scorned ego itself explains in excruciating detail. ]

I must emphasise that this issue is not about me feeling injured, personally: this is crucial to the entire question of the Zapruder film. Horne rightly points out that early copies of the various films taken of the assassination show the presidential limousine turning the corner from Houston Street onto Elm (there are at least two people still alive—a retired government agent, and a prominent television newsman—who saw this on the weekend of the assassination, or afterwards; plus countless others—including Abraham Zapruder himself, under oath—who are no longer with us).

Horne also highlights the importance of the "limousine stop" (whether it slowed significantly or came to a full halt is a red herring, in my view; the extant "Zapruder" film shows neither). As Horne's friend David Lifton highlighted so strongly at his 2003 Zapruder Symposium presentation, removing this limo stop—even in a quick-and-dirty film to be projected at full speed only— required the removal of many frames (indeed, an increasing number of frames as the limo slows, and then decreasing as it speeds back up: watch [bK Notes: please add here: Doug Horne's Good Friend" ] Lifton's presentation on YouTube for a good, simple explanation). My "all or nothing" proof means that the extant "Zapruder" film we now have cannot be the result of simply removing frames in that manner: each and every frame of the extant film, during the period of frame removal, would have needed to have been created by photographic means. Optical printing and traveling mattes—techniques that government man D. P. Horne spends countless pages promoting—could not have been used. It's as simple as that.

Since The Great Zapruder Film Hoax was published in 2003, every serious student of the Zapruder film has understood that its authenticity is literally "all or nothing": either the film is genuine (apart, possibly, from superficial paintwork), or it is a complete fabrication. Just as you cannot be "a little bit pregnant", the Zapruder film cannot be "a little bit altered". All students of the film today sit in one or other of these two camps. Except government man Douglas P. Horne: he continues to persist with the 1990s view (understandable at the time, but not today) that you can have a bet each way.

Again, one must ask the question: is Horne simply incompetent, or is he a whited sepulchre? The hysterical reactions of researchers such as Peter Janney and Jim Fetzer to the mere suggestion that Horne is an agent of disinformation are astounding, given that the presence of such people within the research community is beyond any doubt.

[bK Notes: Wait a minute! I didn't know Horne was accused of being a government agent, and that Peter Janney and Jim Fetzer were hysterical over it. When and where did this happen? ]

A clue to the true state of play may come from greatest fan of Horne's five volumes on amazon.com: Secret Service specialist Vincent Palamara.

Having edited two of Palamara's books for online distribution three years ago, I was acutely aware that at no time did Palamara ever question the Warren Commission's version of events; and so it was no surprise at all when Palamara issued a gushing YouTube review of Bugliosi's recent Posnerian tome, claiming that it had caused him to see the light and accept the government's version of the assassination. For such a man to claim that Horne's volumes are "the finest 5 volume set of books written to date on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. They deserve a Pulitzer Prize!" tells me exactly where D. P. Horne sits in the big picture.

[BK Notes: Yes, we know where Doug "G-Man" Horne sits in the big picture. He was a well read conspiracy theorists with a Navy background who wiggled his way into the staff of the ARRB and got them to do their job a lot better than if he wasn't there. And he's lived to tell us about it. ]

I feel some sympathy for Horne: as a government man, his hand was forced as to what he could investigate or publish.

[bK Notes: This is certifiable untrue as the reason Doug Horne wrote, edited and published the books himself is because he didn't want anyone to dictate what he was to write. He was certainly limited by the government in his "Investigations," as the ARRB and staff were specifically prohibited from "investigating" the assassination, and could only make inquiries on the known government records.]

(Indeed, during the time I worked for the Department of Defence, I felt it inappropriate to work on assassination research at all.)

[bK Notes: Ah, ha, so the kettle is black after all, and the man who christened Doug Horne the G-Man, is himself a DOD stooge who "felt it inappropriate to work on assassination research at all" while he worked for those actually responsible for the murder and coup. Hatchet Man has no qualms though, about publicly identifying Horne's place of work, thus jeopardizing his job, and acknowledging the sensitive nature of the job, his personel security.]

And so, regardless of his disclaimer at the end of his last page of his five massive volumes—page 1807—that his words do not represent the views or opinions of the U.S. government, one cannot fail to feel that Horne's work is, indeed, the final chapter of the government's cover-up of the brutal assassination of the thirty-fifth President of the United States.

[bK Notes: Why does everything have to be "final,"? This isn't final anything, as the real repercussions of Doug Horne's work have yet to be fully realized. ]

Edited April 6, 2010 by William Kelly

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

US GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL: JFK COVER-UP, FILM FABRICATION

Jim Fetzer

ABSTRACT. The former Senior Analyst for the Assassination Records Review Board, which was entrusted with the authority to declassify documents and records from the CIA, the FBI, the Secret Service and other federal agencies, has published INSIDE THE ARRB (2009), a five-volume study to which he has devoted more than fifteen years of research. This work, the first acknowledgment by a government official of a conspiracy and cover-up in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, is meticulous, thorough, and detailed in its reconstruction of the conspiracy and the cover-up. In this article, some of the key findings that impugn the authenticity of the home movie of the death of JFK, known as "the Zapruder film", are presented.

Madison, WI (The Education Forum) 6 April 2010 -- Douglas Horne, who served as the Senior Analyst for Military Affairs of the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB), has now published INSIDE THE ARRB (2009), a five-volume study of the efforts to the board to declassify documents and records held by the CIA, the FBI, the Secret Service, and other government organizations related to the assassination of JFK. As a former government official, historian, and author, he is speaking out to disabuse the public of any lingering belief that THE WARREN REPORT (1964), THE HSCA FINAL REPORT (1979), Gerald Posner’s CASE CLOSED (1963), or Vincent Bugliosi’s RECLAIMING HISTORY (2007) represent the truth about what is know about the assassination of our 35th President, even remotely! Indeed, in relation to a new article, “Birds of a Feather: Subverting the Constitution at Harvard Law” (OpEdNews), Horne has made a forceful declaration to set the record straight:

I know, from my former role as a government official on the staff of the ARRB (from 1995-1998), that there is overwhelming evidence of a government-directed medical cover-up in the death of JFK, and of wholesale destruction of autopsy photographs, autopsy x-rays, early versions of the autopsy report, and biological materials associated with the autopsy. Furthermore, dishonest autopsy photographs were created; skull x-rays were altered; the contents of the autopsy report changed over time as different versions were produced; and the brain photographs in the National Archives cannot be photographs of President Kennedy's brain -- they are fraudulent, substitute images of someone else's brain.

Over and beyond the medical evidence, however, Horne – in Vol. IV of INSIDE THE ARRB (2009), has also demonstrated that the home movie of the assassination known as “the Zapruder film” — and others that correspond to it, such as the Nix and Muchmore films – have been massively edited to remove indications of Secret Service complicity in the crime and to add other events to these films in order to sow confusion and conceal evidence of the true causes of death of John F. Kennedy.

There are many proofs that the film has been fabricated—including that the driver brought the limo to a halt to make sure he would be killed; that his brains were blown out to the left-rear; and that a motorcycle patrolman accompanying the limo rode forward at the time of the stop to inform Dallas Chief of Police Jessie Curry that the president had been hit. But none of these events appears in the extant version of the film, which has been massively edited. That these events occurred has been established by more than 60 witness reports of the limo stop, where the wound to the back of his head was confirmed by 40 witnesses, including virtually all the physicians at Parkland Hospital, who described cerebellum as well as cerebral tissue extruding from the wound. The blow-out to the right-front, as seen in the film, therefore, is not authentic.

Indeed, in an appendix to Vol. IV, Horen explains that a copy of the film has now been studied by Hollywood exerts, who found that the blow-out to the back of his head had been painted over in black in an amateurish effort to obfuscate the blow out, which can actually be seen in a few later frames, including 372 and 374. Those who have persisted in defense of the authenticity of the film have offered three major arguments — (1) that the features of the extant film correspond to those of the original processed in Dallas, (2) that there was an unbroken chain of custody, which precluded the film be changed; and (3) that the Dealey Plaza films are not only consistent with themselves but with one another, where the Zapruder could only have been faked if the others had been as well.

The following extracts from INSIDE THE ARRB (2009), Vol. IV, demonstrate that all three arguments are fallacious: (1) there are five features of the extant film that differ from those of the original and (2) that different films were brought to the NPIC on consecutive days, which vitiates the chain-of-custody argument. The consistency of the films with one another (3) turns out to be an interesting question, since they all seem to have been edited to remove the turn of the presidential limousine from Houston onto Elm. More significantly, there are subtle inconsistencies between the films and, most importantly, the Zapruder film is not even consistent with itself, which proves that it cannot possibly be authentic! Horne’s new studies thus confirm the previous research that has previously been reported in THE GREAT ZAPRUDER FILM HOAX (2003), “New Proof of JFK Film Fakery” (2007), and “Zapruder JFK Film impeached by Moorman JFK Polaroid” (2008), where these two articles are on-line.

(1) Five features of the original do not match the extant film

INSIDE THE ARRB, Vol. IV (2009), p. 1292:

Conclusions

In his long essay published in 2007 on the Mary Ferrell Foundation website, Josiah Thompson [NOTE: the author of SIX SECONDS IN DALLAS (1967), an early study based on the Zapruder film] told us we should all trust [retired Kodak expert on celluloid] Rollie Zavada's judgment and defer to his authority:

"Roland Zavada has a towering reputation in the field and no conceivable reason for cooking his conclusions."

Now that we have concluded examining his report and Zavada's changes of mind since that time, it is clear that he has cooked his conclusions. In particular, he has ignored—trashed—key testimony:

* That the exposures were not bracketed at the Jamieson lab when the three 'first day copies' were struck, meaning that the three 'first generation' copies today should not be bracketed copies;

* That a 'full frame' aperture (picture plus soundtrack) was used when duplicating the Zapruder film, meaning that the intersprocket images should be present on the 'first generation copies';

* That the edge printer light was turned off when the original film was developed, meaning that there a double registration of processing edge prints in the family scenes on the extant 'first generation' copies; and,

* That the camera original film was slit at the Kodak plant in Dallas, meaning that the 16 mm wide, unslit black-and-white copies in existence today cannot have originated from the camera original film, and are instead indirect evidence that a new 'original' was created as an unslit 16 mm, double 8 movie (just as Homer McMahon's expert testimony to the ARRB indicates).

Furthermore, Zavada's opposition to the shooting of a control film in Zapruder's actual camera in Dealey Plaza—which was inexplicable and extremely frustrating when it occurred in 1997—now takes on a very different taint, one of possibly intentional sabotage of the authentication effort by the ARRB staff. An incredible charge, you say? Not necessarily.

Read more on pages 1292 through 1294 as well as 1243 to 1292. And this does not take into account that the numbers on the extant film are not punched in the same location as the original. Read Horne to appreciate the depth of Zavada's deception.

(2) Different films were brought to the NPIC on consecutive days

Not only has Doug Horne demonstrated that the strips of film—the actual celluloid — of the film that was processed in Dallas and the extant "Zapruder film" are not the same, but he has demonstrated that David Wrone has misled his audience and distorted the evidence about the chain-of-custody, where one film—apparently the original, was brought to the NPIC on Saturday, 23 November 1963, which was an 8mm, slit version, the processing of which Bruno Brugioni, Chief of the NPIC Information Branch, supervised, which even required opening a camera store to purchase an 8mm projector, which the NPIC did not possess, while a second, 16mm unslit version, was brought to the NPIC on Sunday, 24 December 1963, by Secret Service Agent "William Smith", which was handled by Homer McMahon and by Ben Hunter, who had not been present the night before, and a very different film.

INSIDE THE ARRB, Vol. IV, pages 1226 and 1227:

Analysis: First of all, we can now say with certainty that the NPIC never copied the Zapruder film as a motion picture, even though for years the NPIC notes had mislead some researchers into believing that it had. However, Homer McMahon's rock-solid certainty that the film brought to him was an original, unslit 16 mm wide, double 8 movie — and that it came from a classified CIA photo lab run by Kodak at Rochester — implies that McMahon and Hunter were not working with the true camera original developed in Dallas, but were instead working with a re-created, altered film masquerading as 'the original'. I suspected in 1997, and I am more certain than ever today at this writing in 2009, that 'Bill Smith' told the truth when he said that the film he couriered to NPIC was developed in Rochester — after all, how could he possible make a mistake about something so elementary, since he brought it from Rochester to Washington, D.C. himself? He was only lying about one thing: it could not have been the original film exposed inside Abe Zapruder's camera, because we know from the Dallas Affidavit trail, and from the interviews Rollie Zavada conducted with the surviving personnel from the Dallas Kodak lab, that the original film was indeed developed in Dallas on Friday, November 22, 1963. If McMahon was correct that he had viewed an original, 16 mm wide, unslit double 8 movie film the weekend of the assassination, and if it was really developed in Rochester at a CIA lab run by Kodak (as he was unambiguously told it was), then the extant film in the Archives is not a camera original film, but a simulated 'original' created with an optical printer at the CIA's secret film lab in Rochester.

The critical information published in the ARRB call and meeting reports about our interviews with McMahon and Hunter in 1997 was published in full by Jim Fetzer in the year 2000 in MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA, but was subsequently ignored by Josiah Thompson in a 2007 essay posted on the Mary Ferrell website (note 14) and was intentionally under-reported and misrepresented by David Wrone in his 2003 book on the Zapruder film. This is what many advocates of a specific hypothesis or a historical position resort to when the heat is on and their longstanding positions on key issues are threatened by new evidence: all too often they either ignore the argument of their opponents as if they do not exist, or they will misrepresent them, intentionally setting up a false 'straw man', and then knock it down. In the case of the serious chain-of-custody implications of the McMahon interviews, Thompson chose to ignore the problem in 2005 and again in 2007, while David Wrone has not only misreported/misrepresented their import, but he has overstated the case for authenticity, as I shall demonstrate below.

In his 2003 book THE ZAPRUDER FILM: REFRAMING JFK’S ASSASSINATION, Wrone fails to report the specific content of the Homer McMahon interviews (nor does McMahon's name even appear in Wrone's index), and then completely misreports what I have said about them (on page 127), as follows:

Similarly spurious is Douglas Orme's charge (yes, he misspelled my name, too) that Time, Inc. allowed the film to be altered. In MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA, Horne argues that Time, Inc. permitted the film to be taken by Federal Officials for doctoring. [This statement was followed by endnote 36, which simply refers to page 319 of MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA, without telling the reader what is on page 319. Page 319 is the interview report I wrote of the Homer McMahon interview of July 14, 1997 at the National Archives.] Like Zapruder, however, Time knew it had a treasure in the Zapruder film, and it would do nothing to endanger the flow of revenue it expected from those 26 seconds of film. [boldface added by author]

Shame on you David Wrone! There are so many things wrong with this short paragraph that I hardly know where to begin. First of all, and most importantly, Wrone never mentioned in his text that the Head of the Color Lab at NPIC, the world's pre-eminent photo interpretation lab in 1963, claimed that he had [had] delivered to him by the Secret Service, prior to the President's funeral, a 16 mm wide, unslit original double 8 film of the Kennedy assassination that was developed in Rochester, the location from which the courier brought him the film!!! So David Wrone's first sin is that of intellectual dishonesty -- hiding facts from his readers which might have contradicted his own thesis that the extant film in the Archives today is authentic and unaltered. His second sin is that of putting words in my mouth: it is simply not true that I said anywhere in Fetzer's book that Time, Inc. had allowed the film to be altered! The editor of the anthology, Jim Fetzer, published only my call reports and meeting reports of what the witnesses told the ARRB staff, and no one used that language in their interviews with us. So Wrone set up a straw man here which he attempted to knock down with a private enterprise profit motive, while all the time ignoring facts about C.D. Jackson's long standing associations with the CIA and the national security establishment during the decade of the 1960s. If Wrone had been intellectually above-board, he would have talked honestly about the content of the McMahon/Hunter interviews, and then stated why he did not find these eyewitness recollections persuasive, if that was the case; instead, he took the coward's way out and intentionally failed to report what McMahon had said. . . .

Note 14: The name of the lengthy 3-part essay is "Bedrock Evidence in the Kennedy Assassination", and is based upon a somewhat shorter version delivered by Thompson on November 19, 2005 at a conference sponsored by Jim Lesar's Assassination Archives and Research Center (ARRC) and the Cyril H. Wecht Institute of Forensic Science and Law.

(3) The Zapruder film displays inconsistencies with other films and with itself

INSIDE THE ARRB, Vol. IV, pages 1336 to 1337:

The Alteration of the Zapruder Film was Rushed and Imperfect

Because there are physical limitations to what can be altered in a film — particularly on a tight schedule and when faced with time pressure--the alteration of the Zapruder film was imperfect, and it therefore had to be suppressed as a motion picture even after its gross alteration to conceal what the forgers had been unable to remove. My working hypothesis postulates that because the cabal that killed the president (and which was feverishly covering up the crime that weekend) did not yet know, on the weekend of the assassination, what type of investigation(s) would be conducted of the crime, or by which governmental bodies, speed was of the essence. By late Sunday afternoon — after discussing the limitations to the film's alteration with the technicians at "Hawkeyeworks" in Rochester — they would have known that while the car stop had been removed from the film, and the exit debris leaving the back of President Kennedy's skull had also been removed, that a serious problem remained: the so-called 'head snap', or violent movement of the President's head and upper body to the left and rear, in response to the frontal head shots. This was a simple and persuasive demonstration of the law of conservation of momentum that even a layperson without a physics degree could viscerally understand, and the public could not be permitted to see it, or the lone assassination cover story would not sell. . . . .

The film's imperfect alteration was revealed in other ways aside from the 'headsnap'. As later discovered by Josiah Thompson, Ray Marcus, and other researchers, and as written about in scores of books now and as mentioned in hundreds of lectures, the extant film contains evidence of a very serious 'timing problem': President Kennedy and Governor Connally react to separate shots that occur too close together to have been fired in succession by the rather slow mechanism of the alleged murder weapon. The Warren Commission staff expressed great concern about this internally, and ultimately dealt with it dishonestly by concluding that the same bullet had hit both men, and that Connally had unaccountably exhibited a 'delayed reaction' to this very severe and painful wounds. What we do not know today is whether the 'timing problem' is an artifact of frame removal, or whether those frames of the film prior to the headshot were not tampered with, and reflected the true reality of the assassination farther up Elm Street in the vicinity of the Stemmons Freeway sign. Either possibility is [better: could be] true. Given what we know about the robust evidence in favor of alteration of the Zapruder film, it would be imprudent for JFK researchers to continue to claim that the 'timing problem' is the primary evidence of conspiracy in the Kennedy assassination. It isn't. Given the overwhelming evidence that the camera original has been altered, the 'timing problem' should now be demoted to simply being 'possible evidence' of conspiracy. Eyewitness and earwitness testimony from Dealey Plaza alone, and the behavior of the impact debris after the head shots, are the true 'bedrock evidence' that proves conspiracy, not the 'timing problem', which is inevitably suspect now, because of the overwhelming evidence that the camera original Zapruder film was altered on Sunday, November 24, 1963.

One final and undeniable mistake by the forgers was their failure to black out the real exit wound(s) in the posterior skull in all frames. I believe one of two exit wounds can been seen today, with proper magnification, in frames 335 and 337 of the extant film [NOTE: and in frames 372 and 374, where a comparison between David Mantik's study of "Area P" in the lateral cranial X-rays and the blow-out to the back of the head can be viewed in "Dealey Plaza Revisited", Chapter 30 of JOHN F. KENNEDY: HISTORY, MEMORY, LEGACY (2009), which is archived at http://www.und.edu/org/jfkconference/ .] The best images of this to date have been published in HIGH TREASON (the color plate in the cloth edition, opposite page 387), in [Harrison Livingston's] THE HOAX OF THE CENTURY: DECODING THE FORGERY OF THE ZAPRUDER FILM (on page 264) and in [Robert Groden's] THE KILLING OF A PRESIDENT (on page 38). While the forgers were 'successful' in superimposing rather poor aerial imaging artwork of an enormous head wound on the top and right side of President Kennedy's head in the Zapruder film — a head wound which is grossly inconsistent with the localized posterior blowout observed at Parkland Hospital, and only roughly consistent with the autopsy photos taken after clandestine post mortem surgery at Bethesda Naval Hospital -- they failed to properly execute their most basic task, which was to hide all evidence of posterior exit wounds in the back of JFK's head. Persons in the government were clearly aware of this problem, for the last frame of the Zapruder film published in volume XVIII of the Warren Commission's 26 supporting volumes was frame 334, the frame immediately prior to those which show one of the two exit defects in the back of the head. 'Coincidences' like this are not worthy of belief, and the fact that the Warren Commission stopped publishing at frame 334 strongly implies that someone on the staff—presumably Specter and Rankin—knew they had a problem in frames 335 and 337, and so simply decided not to publish those frames. For them, discretion was the better part of valor. . . .

INSIDE THE ARRB (2009), Vol. IV, pages 1317 to 1320 (in part):

If the Zapruder Film is an Alteration, Doesn't This Mean That Other Films of the Assassination Must Have Been Altered Also? Also, Are There Inconsistencies Between Other Films and the Zapruder Film?

Absolutely—alteration of the Zapruder film does indeed imply that in a perfect conspiracy, that other films would have been altered also, and in the same way as the Zapruder film. If they were not altered and the Zapruder film was, this would have left undeniable evidence in the photographic record that "the" pre-eminent record of the assassination is indeed an alteration. In fact, what we do find in the evidence is one suggestion of identical alteration; and numerous indications of disagreement between various Dealey Plaza films and the Zapruder film.

The Turn from Houston Onto Elm May Have Been Removed from the Zapruder Film, the Nix Film, and the Muchmore Film

First, let us examine the suggested identical alteration of the Zapruder film, the Nix film, and the Muchmore film. Neither the Nix film, the Muchmore film, nor the Zapruder film show the Presidential limousine turning left from Houston Street onto Elm Street. Orville Nix told Mark Lane (on film) in 1966 that his film has initially been 'lost' by the processing plant and that when the FBI returned his film to him, some of the frames had been 'damaged' and were missing. The originals of both the Nix film and the Muchmore film (taken from the opposite side of thje plaza from which Zapruder was shooting his film, and from much farther away) are missing today. How convenient. The absence of first-frame overexposure in frame 133 of the Zapruder film suggests, but in my view does not prove, that the limousine's turn from Houston onto Elm was removed when the film was altered and recreated, using an optical printer. The fact that the originals of the Nix and Muchmore films are missing is extremely suspicious; they may have been removed from circulation to prevent detection of their alteration — specifically, removal of the limousine's turn onto Elm from Houston and of the car stop during the assassination. If ever found, one of the first things that should be checked is to see if the limousine's turn onto Elm Street in these two films has been excised--either crudely, with splices, or via reprinting those films in an optical printer.

Clint Hill's Interactions with Jackie Kennedy on the Trunk of the Limousine Appear to be Inconsistent in the Nix Film and the Zapruder Film

There is also significant disagreement between the Nix film and the Zapruder film. In Harry Livingstone’s 2004 book about the Zapruder film, he discusses differences between the images of Clint Hall and Jackie Kennedy on the trunk of the limousine in the Nix film, versus what is shown in the Zapruder film. Livingstone correctly points out that in the Nix Film, Clint Hill appears to place his left arm around Jackie Kennedy’s right shoulder and push her back into her seat — where as in the Zapruder film, he barely touches her with his right hand, and is not seen embracing her with his left arm at all. (See pages 250-251 of Livingstone for the pertinent Nix frames, and the MPI video of the Zapruder film for comparison. A projected version of the portion of the Nix film showing Clint Hill on the trunk of the limousine can been seen in the 1973 film "Executive Action", and it can be seen in its entirety in the Groden DVD JFK Assassination Films: The Case for Conspiracy.)

Is the “Headsnap” Different in the Zapruder, Nix and Muchmore films?

The 'headsnap" in the Nix film appears to be slightly slower, and less violent than in the Zapruder film; in the Muchmore film, there appears to be no 'headsnap' visible at all, but this may be inconclusive because of the camera angle at the time of the headshot(s) and because the line of sight to the President's head is obstructed by Dealey Plaza bystanders immediately afterwards. (See episode 3 of "The Men Who Killed Kennedy" for footage oft he headshot(s) in both the Nix and the Muchmore films; both films can also been seen in their entirety in Robert Groden's DVD JFK Assassination Films: The Case for Conspiracy.) The perceived differences between the headshot(s) in the Zapruder, Nix, and Muchmore films suggests that when debris exiting from the back of President Kennedy's head was removed from the three films, that it was not done uniformly, resulting in three slightly different versions of the motion of the President's head caused by the fatal shot(s). This has not been conclusively proven, but is worthy of further investigation. . . .

Concluding Reflections

There is much more, but the Addendum, "The Zapruder Film Goes to Hollywood", pages 1352 to 1363, is of special interest, where highly qualified experts on film restoration viewed a digital version of the forensic copy of the Zapruder film obtained from the National Archives and found that the massive blow out at the back of the head had been painted over in black, which was a stunning confirmation of the observation of Roderick Ryan, reported in Noel Twyman, BLOODY TREASON (1997), that the bulging out of brains — called the "blob"—and the blood spray visible in frames 314 and thereafter had also been painted in, where Ryan would receive the Academy Award in 2000 for his contributions to cinematography, where his area of specialization was special effects.

As of this date, seven Hollywood film experts — eight, if we include Ryan — have agreed that the fakery used to cover up the blow out to the back of the head by painting it over in black was very primitive and highly amateurish, a finding that they have based upon a 6k version of the forensic copy of the Zapruder film obtained from the National Archives. David Mantik, M.D., Ph.D., has verified these artifacts using the 4x5 slides created by MPI when it produced a digital version of the film — which are archived at The 6th Floor Museum — the inadequacies of which are explained in “Which Film is ‘the Zapruder Film’?”, by me and Scott Lederer, THE GREAT ZAPRUDER FILM HOAX (2003), page 31. The creation of this visual deception was an elaborate undertaking, but it contained the elements of its own refutation.

“Chapter 14: The Zapruder Film Mystery” is an astonishing achievement. For Horne to have assimilated and synthesized such a complicated and technical assortment of arguments and evidence impresses me beyond words. This chapter alone is worth the price of the whole. No matter what reservations or differences I may have with any other parts of his work, what he has done on the film is extraordinary. He was my featured guest on "The Real Deal" on Wednesday, 13 January 2010, archived at http://radiofetzer.blogspot.com. It is also archived http://jamesfetzer.blogspot.com/2010/01/do...b-part-iii.html as part of a three-part blog on Horne, INSIDE THE ARRB (2009). Those who want to pursue this historic development in JFK assassination research are welcome to pursue these leads.

Edited April 6, 2010 by James H. Fetzer

[Bernice Moore]

THANK YOU BILL KELLY FOR YOUR REVIEW OF COSTELLA'S CRITIQUE...APPRECIATED...B

[Pat Speer]

THANK YOU BILL KELLY FOR YOUR REVIEW OF COSTELLA'S CRITIQUE...APPRECIATED...B

While I am not a fan of Horne's book, I would agree that Costella's review read more like a rant, a rant I can relate to, by the way.

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

DAVID W. MANTIK, M.D., Ph.D., REVIEWS DOUG HORNE, INSIDE THE ARRB, VOL. IV

Inside the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) by Douglas Horne:

A Nearly-Entirely-Positive Review

This is a Review of Volume IV, which includes

Part II: Fraud in the Evidence—A Pattern of Deception (continued)

Chapter 13: What Really Happened at the Bethesda Morgue?

(and in Dealey Plaza)

Chapter 14: The Zapruder Film Mystery.

David W. Mantik, M.D., Ph.D.

February 25, 2010

The death of a democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.

—Robert Maynard Hutchins, Great Books (1954)—

My title here is a parody of my review of Reclaiming History (2007) by Vincent Bugliosi. Since that review was (in my opinion) rather devastating for Bugliosi, my title was intended to be sardonic. Despite this, Vince lifted a few quotes from it (out of context and without my permission) and included them with his abbreviated paperback version, Four Days in November (2008). The total page count (CD included) of his massive doorstopper was about 2786, almost exactly three times as long as the 888-page Warren Report. Horne’s book, by contrast, is shorter: 1880 pages, including the front matter (pages i-lxxiii). I had stated that Bugliosi’s book was likely to stand forever as the magnum opus of this case, though not without serious flaws. As a magnum opus, however, Horne’s five-volume set is a serious challenge to Bugliosi, but with virtually none of Bugliosi’s flaws. The current review, however, focuses (almost) solely on Volume IV, which I regard as Horne’s set piece (as that phrase is used in literature and film, but not in soccer).

Although some men believe that women age like fine wine, in this case it is Horne himself who has aged well—he waited the better part of a decade after his experiences with the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) before beginning the serious work on his book. He does hint, though, that Bugliosi drop-kicked him (he is an Ohio State Buckeye fan) onto the playing field. Volume IV focuses on the two chief themes of the entire five-volume set: (1) the illicit surgery, before the official autopsy began, by pathologists James J. Humes and J. Thornton Boswell at the Bethesda morgue and (2) the Zapruder film riddles. It is likely that the success or failure of Horne’s work will rise or fall with this single volume. In this review, I shall address these two topics in sequence, critique a few puzzles, then draw some conclusions and finish with several suggestions. By way of a caveat emptor, I should confess that I initially encountered Horne at his first COPA (Committee on Political Assassinations) conference (when he interviewed with the ARRB), have intermittently met him since, and consider him a very good friend. He is also a very bright and strong-willed investigator.

Illicit Surgery at the Bethesda Morgue

In order to paint Humes and Boswell (H&B hereafter) as the morbid co-conspirators, Horne needs first to clarify the timeline—which he does brilliantly (see the Appendix at the end of this review). The ARRB learned, for the first time, that JFK’s body initially arrived at the Bethesda morgue at 6:35 PM local time (in a black hearse). That information derives from an after-action report (written on November 26, 1963) by Marine Sergeant Roger Boyajian. Quite astonishingly, Boyajian had retained a copy of his report, which he presented to the ARRB. His report corroborates the recollections of Dennis David who saw the light gray navy ambulance (with the bronze casket from Dallas) arrive at the front of the hospital, where he saw Jackie exit; its arrival time was either 6:53 PM or 6:55 PM (the sources vary). But just about 20 minutes earlier, David had directed his on-duty sailors as they delivered the body in a cheap casket, i.e., the entry described by Boyajian. David estimated (from memory) the delivery time as 6:40 PM, or perhaps 6:45 PM. His estimate is strikingly close to Boyajian’s recorded time of 6:35 PM. Horne concludes that this arrival time of 6:35 PM must now be accepted as a foundation stone in this case. As further corroboration for this time, he emphasizes that even Humes agreed with it: before the ARRB, Humes cited the initial arrival as possibly as early as 6:45 PM. In my opinion, therefore, it is very difficult to disagree with this early arrival time. If this is accepted, though, the repercussions are colossal—it means that the bronze casket (the one that traveled with Jackie) was empty. Horne next compiles a long table of witnesses to the cheap casket and the body bag, both of which were seen at this initial entry. He is also very persuasive here, although he rightfully credits Lifton with much of this groundbreaking work.

Now if the body arrived at 6:35 PM in a cheap shipping casket, when did it exit the bronze casket (the one that left Parkland)? Horne suggests that this transfer occurred right after the bronze casket boarded Air Force One. (Lifton again blazed this trail.) As corroboration for this, Horne describes JFK’s Air Force Aide, Godfrey McHugh, as perturbed about a delay caused by a “luggage transfer” between the two official planes. After this transfer to a body bag, tampering became feasible. Horne suggests that an initial foray into the body took place in the forward baggage compartment prior to the flight to DC; the goal was to extract metal debris or a bullet from the throat wound. (It is not known whether anything was found.) Horne infers that a similar attempt was made on the brain, but that attempt likely foundered because the requisite tool (e.g., a bone saw) was missing.

The second casket entry (via a light gray navy ambulance) occurred at about 7:17 PM. James W. Sibert and Francis X. O’Neill, Jr. (the two-member FBI team) and Roy H. Kellerman and William Greer (both Secret Service) together delivered the (empty) bronze casket to the morgue. This time is consistent with the arrival time of the bronze casket (shortly before 7 PM) at the front of the hospital. The third casket entry (with the body inside) has traditionally been accepted as the official one—at 8 PM (in a light gray navy ambulance). It was delivered by the Joint Service Casket Team. The transfer of the body must have occurred (in the morgue) after the second entry at 7:17 PM. But it must also have transpired after the initial X-rays (for reasons to be discussed below). Finally, this transfer must have occurred well in advance of 8 PM so that the bronze casket could leave the morgue (Tom Robinson recalled this temporary departure ), be “found” by the official casket team, and then delivered again at 8 PM. This sequence of three casket entries looks like a classic French farce, i.e., an affair concocted by a half-mad scriptwriter. Unfortunately, all of the evidence points strongly in the direction of three casket entries. Perhaps this would have been unnecessary, as Horne points out, if only Jackie had not insisted on staying with the bronze casket en route to the morgue. (She had declined a helicopter ride to the White House, which would have separated her from the Dallas casket.) Most likely the plan had been to surreptitiously transfer the body between caskets at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. But Jackie’s unexpected decision to remain with the bronze Dallas casket waylaid those plans, which meant that Kellerman (who Horne nominates as the morgue manager) had to improvise on the spot. It was a highly risky business, during which this escapade was nearly uncovered, according to Horne.

Lifton had argued that body alteration had occurred somewhere before Bethesda. He believed that altering the geometry of the shooting through "trajectory reversal"—i.e., turning entrance wounds into exit wounds, and planting false entrance wounds on the body—was the primary reason for the illicit post mortem surgery, and that removing bullet fragments was only a co-equal, or even secondary, goal of the clandestine surgery. Horne takes a different tack: he believes that the reason for assaulting the body (before Bethesda) was merely to extract bullet debris, not primarily to alter wounds.

My own views come into play at this point. Before Horne’s work, I had become convinced that someone had messed with the throat wound, most likely to extract bullet fragments. The evidence for this was that the two sets of witnesses—those at Parkland vs. those at Bethesda—had disagreed so profoundly. Also, Malcolm Perry, the surgeon who performed the tracheotomy, claimed that he had left the throat wound “inviolate,” meaning that it was easily visible after the tube was pulled. In addition, Charles Crenshaw insisted that the tracheotomy at Parkland was nothing like the one in the autopsy photographs. I also had my own (telephone) encounter with the autopsy radiologist, John Ebersole. I still sense the horror in his voice as he recalled the tracheotomy and declared that he would never do one like that. Horne’s witnesses (there are more) only validate my prior conclusion about throat tampering.

Before Horne’s work, I was uncertain about head tampering before Bethesda (although Lifton had made a strong case for it). Nonetheless, I had to agree that if the throat had been explored, then of course the head might also have been invaded. Although Horne is still open-minded about illegal tampering of the skull before Bethesda, he believes that such an event can be inferred from (1) Finck’s statement (to the defense team at the Clay Shaw trial in 1969) that the autopsy report (presumably an earlier one, as the extant one does not say this) described the spinal cord as severed when the body arrived at Bethesda and (2) Tom Robinson’s comment to the ARRB that the top of the skull was “badly broken” when the body was received at Bethesda, but that the large defect (in the superior skull) in the autopsy photographs was “what the [autopsy] doctors did”—i.e., that the missing skull was due to the pathologists, not due an assassin’s bullet(s). These reports therefore provide more evidence that the head was explored somewhere before Bethesda; the goal was to retrieve bullet debris, but it failed—because the brain could not be extracted from the skull. In summary then, the body arrived at Bethesda as follows: (1) with a radically enlarged tracheotomy and no bullet debris in the neck (perhaps there never was any, as I have suggested elsewhere ) and (2) with the same (right occipital) exit wound that was seen at Parkland and with a brain that had not been removed from the skull and that therefore closely, or possibly even exactly, resembled the Parkland brain. Most likely the brain still contained most, or even all, of the bullet fragments from Dealey Plaza. (These metal fragments are, of course, absent from the official record today.) Those are Horne’s conclusions about H&B, but let’s look at the evidence.

So why does Horne conclude that H&B illicitly removed (and altered) the brain shortly after 6:35 PM, before any X-rays were taken, and before the official autopsy began? He here introduces two intriguing witnesses—the two R’s, namely Reed and Robinson. Edward Reed was assistant to Jerrol Custer (the radiology tech), while Tom Robinson was a mortician. Rather consistently with one another, but quite independently, both describe critical steps taken by H&B that no one else reports. (Horne documents why no one else reported these events—almost everyone else had been evicted from the morgue before this clandestine interlude.) After the body was placed on the morgue table (and before X-rays were taken), Reed briefly sat in the gallery. Reed states that Humes first used a scalpel across the top of the forehead to pull the scalp back. Then he used a saw to cut the forehead bone, after which he (and Custer, too) were asked to leave the morgue. (Reed was not aware that this intervention by Humes was unofficial.) This activity by Humes is highly significant because multiple witnesses saw the intact entry hole high in the right forehead at the hairline. On the other hand, the autopsy photographs show only a thin incision at this site, an incision that no Parkland witness ever saw. The implication is obvious: this specific autopsy photograph was taken after Humes altered the forehead—thereby likely obliterating the entry hole.

Reed’s report suggests that Humes deliberately obliterated the right forehead entry; in fact, the autopsy photograph does not show this entry site. Paradoxically, however, Robinson (the mortician) recalls seeing, during restoration, a wound about ¼ inch across at this very location. He even recalls having to place wax at this site. So the question is obvious: If Humes had obliterated the wound (as seems the case based on the extant autopsy photograph), how then could Robinson still see the wound during restoration? This question cannot be answered with certainty, but two options arise: (1) perhaps the wound was indeed obliterated (or mostly obliterated) and Robinson merely suffered some memory merge—i.e., even though he added wax to the incision (the one still visible in the extant photograph), he was actually recalling the way it looked before Humes got to it, or (2) the photograph itself has been altered—to disguise the wound that was visible in an original photograph. The latter option was seemingly endorsed by Joe O’Donnell, the USIA photographer, who said that Knudsen actually showed him such a photograph.

Regarding Robinson, Horne concludes that he arrived with the hearse that brought the body (i.e., the first entry). After that, Robinson simply observed events from the morgue gallery; contrary to Reed’s experience, he was not asked to leave. Just before 7 PM, Robinson saw H&B remove large portions of the rear and top of the skull with a saw, in order to access the brain. (Robinson was not aware that this activity was off the record.) He also observed ten or more bullet fragments extracted from the brain. Although these do not appear in the official record, Dennis David recalls preparing a receipt for at least four fragments.

Contrary to Reed and Robinson, Humes declared that a saw was not important:

We had to do virtually no work with a saw to remove these portions of the skull,

they came apart in our hands very easily, and we attempted to further examine

the brain….

Although James Jenkins (an autopsy technician) does not explicitly describe the use of a saw, he does recall that damage to the brain (as seen inside the skull) was less than the corresponding size of the cranial defect; this indirectly implies prior removal of some of the skull.

Horne adds an independent argument for multiple casket entries. Pierre Finck told the Journal of the American Medical Association that he was at home when Humes telephoned him at 7:30 PM. (In his 2/1/65 report to General Blumberg he cites 8 PM. ) Finck, as a forensic pathologist, had been asked to assist with the autopsy. As further confirmation for Finck’s overall timeline, he arrived (see his Blumberg report) at the morgue at 8:30 PM. But here is the clincher: during this phone call, Humes told Finck that X-rays had already been taken—and had already been viewed. On the other hand, the official entry time (with the Joint Service Casket Team) was at 8 PM! If that indeed was the one and only entry time, how then could X-rays have been taken—let alone developed and viewed (a process of 30 minutes minimum)—even before the official entry time? The only possible answer is that the body did not first arrive at 8 PM. Furthermore, Custer and Reed, the radiology techs, provide timelines consistent with much earlier X-rays; in particular, they recall seeing Jackie enter the hospital lobby, well after the 6:35 PM casket entry—an entry they had personally witnessed. In summary, eyewitnesses convincingly support a much earlier timeline than the official entry of 8 PM. Therefore, multiple casket entries are logically required. And that more relaxed timeline gave H&B time both to perform their illicit surgery and also for skull X-rays to be taken and read, most likely all before 7:30-8:00 PM.

The reader might well ask why Reed and Robinson (and Custer, too) were permitted to observe (at least briefly) this illegal surgery by H&B. Horne proposes that the morgue manager that night (Kellerman) was not present for the first casket entry—that’s because he was riding with Jackie and the bronze casket. Therefore, before he arrived (most likely that was shortly after 7 PM), there was no hands-on stage manager in the morgue. It is even possible that Kellerman himself ejected Reed and Custer as soon as he arrived. Robinson, on the other hand, dressed in civilian clothing, may have seemed to Kellerman a lesser threat, so Robinson stayed.

Several conclusions follow from the above analysis. First, the official skull X-rays do not show the condition of the skull or the brain as seen at Parkland. Instead, they were taken after tampering by H&B, perhaps even after significant tampering, especially if Robinson and Reed are correct. Furthermore, the massive damage seen in the photographs and X-rays was not caused just by a bullet or even by multiple bullets, but instead by pathological hands. In particular, for a single, full metal-jacketed bullet (the Warren Commission’s inevitable scenario) to generate such an enormous defect has always defied credibility. Likewise, Boswell’s sketch (for the ARRB) on a skull of this enormous defect only shows the condition of the skull after tampering by H&B—and does not reflect the skull as seen at Parkland. (The Parkland witnesses fully concur with this.) On the other hand, many witnesses at Bethesda saw the condition of the skull before such tampering began. These witnesses, both physicians and paraprofessionals, uniformly describe a right occipital blowout, consistent with a shot from the front. Leaving aside the pathologists, as many as eight Bethesda physicians may be on this list. In photographs, both Parkland and Bethesda witnesses demonstrate with remarkable unanimity, on their own heads, the location of this obvious exit wound on the right rear skull.

The X-rays do, however, show many small fragments distributed across the top of the skull. So why didn’t Humes extract more of these? I have previously proposed (based on their actual appearance—as viewed in detail on multiple occasions at the Archives) that they look more like mercury than like lead. If so, then Humes would not have been able to palpate them (mercury is liquid) and would therefore have been unable to remove them during his illicit surgery phase.

We could go on to ask: What other evidence exists for such illicit surgery? Lifton initially introduced this issue by citing the FBI report (by Sibert and O’Neill), which quoted Humes as describing surgery to the head. Sibert, in the 2000s, still insisted that they had quoted Humes correctly about such surgery. (I also heard Sibert say this in Fort Myers, Florida, during one of Law’s taping sessions.) Furthermore, the FBI had no reason to fabricate such a statement. On Lifton’s tape (which I have heard), he queries Humes about this; to me, Humes does sound remarkably suspicious and evasive. But the FBI men are not the only witnesses to his statement. Another is James Jenkins, who quotes Humes as asking: “Did they do surgery at Parkland?” Furthermore, Humes was later told, when some skull fragments arrived at the morgue, that these had been “removed” during surgery at Parkland. We all know that did not happen, so where did they come from? Horne implies that Humes himself had removed them during the illicit phase. Another supporting argument is the remarkable ease of removing the brain from the skull (during the official autopsy phase), but this is not so surprising if it had previously been removed during the unofficial phase. James Jenkins observed that the brainstem been cut, as if by a scalpel (not severed by a bullet), which also suggests its earlier removal that evening (while Jenkins was absent). In any case, such an early removal was likely essential to successfully search for (and extract) bullet debris. Even Finck bears witness to a transected spinal cord: to the defense team at the Shaw trial in 1969, Finck stated that the autopsy report (presumably an earlier one, as the extant one does not say this) described the spinal cord as severed when the body arrived at Bethesda. Finck was still absent when the brain was removed, so someone must have told him this, most likely Humes.

Horne comments further on the throat wound. He concludes that H&B were well aware of this wound that night and he provides considerable evidence for this conclusion. However, given the absence of the throat wound from the FBI report, H&B probably learned of it only after the FBI left, i.e., after 11 PM. That information then led to the pathologists’ interim discussion of an exit through the throat, as later reported by Richard Lipsey. Horne even speculates that an early version of the autopsy report included exactly this scenario, which later had to be discarded because of timing data from the Zapruder film.

Regarding the throat wound I would add the following. Warren Commission loyalists like to cite medical articles that ER personnel cannot reliably distinguish entry from exit wounds. Even if true, though, that comment obfuscates the situation. To the contrary, in this particular case several facts trump those medical reports: (1) such a tiny exit wound could not be duplicated in experiments and (2) Milton Helpern (who had done 60,000 autopsies) said that he had never seen an exit wound that was so small (under similar conditions). Then there is the question of the magic bullet. As Horne summarizes, its provenance has been extensively investigated by Josiah Thompson (with recent assistance from Gary Aguilar). In the face of the persistent refusal of the pertinent witnesses to identify this bullet, most likely it would never have been admitted at trial—and that alone would thoroughly devastate any Warren Commission case. A final telling blow derives from the National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC): before political leverage was exerted, their scenario actually included a frontal throat shot!

The Zapruder Film Mystery

Based on his relentless defense of the extant film, Josiah Thompson can justifiably claim the title, “High Priest of Z Film.” His initial claim derives from his work for LIFE magazine in the 1960s, which led to Six Seconds in Dallas (1967). He claimed (p. 7): “Quite obviously, the Zapruder film contained the nearest thing to absolute truth about the sequence of events in Dealey Plaza.” His most recent public paper (2007) finalized his claim to the above title. Unfortunately for Thompson, Horne’s work has created deep fractures in his purported bedrock, and has pulverized some rockheads into finely ground sand. When Thompson wrote his “Bedrock” article he ignored two witnesses who had been extensively interviewed by the ARRB (actually by Horne himself) and whose interviews were surely already known to Thompson, who is nothing if not a very bright detective. These witnesses were Ben Hunter and Homer McMahon, employees of the NPIC (a subsidiary of the CIA), who received the original (in their view) film from a Secret Service agent. The latter, in turn, had just couriered it from Rochester, New York, headquarters of Eastman Kodak. Moreover, this agent (“Bill Smith”) specifically said that the film had been developed (sic) in Rochester. If that was true, then there must have been a second film, one not shot by Zapruder (his film, after all, had been developed in Dallas), but rather one filmed from a nearly identical site in Dealey Plaza.

But Horne’s next stroke is the mortal blow to the Zapruder film, one beyond even the skills of a contemporary Parsifal. Horne details Peter Janney’s encounters (including seven interviews) with Dino Brugioni, a founder of the NPIC. John McCone, Director of the CIA, had telephoned the NPIC director, Arthur Lundahl (Brugioni’s superior), asking him to assist the Secret Service in analyzing the original (Zapruder) film. Beginning late on Saturday night (November 23), Brugioni viewed an original, 8 mm film and prepared briefing boards, which were presented to McCone the next morning. Amazingly, Brugioni stated that neither Ben Hunter nor Captain Sands were at his event.

(Brugioni did not recall ever meeting Homer McMahon; he could therefore not personally report whether or not McMahon was present at Event I on Saturday night. Of course, since Brugioni was positive that Ben Hunter was absent, and because Hunter and McMahon were linked by their recall of one another, then McMahon should not have been present at Brugioni’s event.) In a detailed analysis Horne shows convincingly that two separate events, both highly compartmentalized, occurred on successive nights. During these recent interviews, when Brugioni finally learned—after 46 years—of two unrelated events, both at NPIC, he was stunned!

Horne assembles a magnificent table that contrasts these two events: the Saturday night (November 23) event with Brugioni and the Sunday night event (November 24) with Hunter and McMahon. Horne demonstrates how compartmentalized these two events were: they differed in attendees, film format, and briefing boards. Brugioni knew Ben Hunter, but did not see him at his event. Brugioni had handled an 8 mm film (Hunter and McMahon had a 16 mm film) that he considered an original; that it was 8 mm is certain because NPIC had to purchase a projector (near midnight on Saturday) from a private local store. (The NPIC did not own its own 8 mm projector.) Brugioni also viewed photographs of the briefing boards currently in the Archives, which had been authenticated by Hunter and McMahon. However, Brugioni was certain that these were not his. He was even able to recall how his differed from these. Although Hunter and McMahon’s film reportedly came from Rochester, Brugioni was not told where his had originated (most likely it was Zapruder’s original—diverted from Chicago to DC that Saturday).

Based on these interviews, Horne draws several conclusions: (1) the CIA had an immediate and high level interest in the film; (2) the original film had been split from 16 mm to 8 mm in Dallas, just as the Dallas witnesses had agreed; (3) the extreme compartmentalization implies that the two films were different; (4) Brugioni viewed Zapruder’s original (8mm), whereas Hunter and McMahon viewed an altered film (in 16 mm, unslit format); (5) the alterations were done during the day on Sunday, November 24, in Rochester, New York; (6) most likely aerial imaging was used for these alterations; and (7) the three copies of the original (already in circulation ) then had to be replaced by copies of the newly altered film. The reason that Horne chooses Sunday is straightforward: LIFE’s next issue reached the marketplace on Tuesday (November 26) and it contained images from the extant film (the one currently in the Archives). Some of these low resolution, black and white LIFE images (in Horne’s opinion—and mine, too) show signs of alteration, particularly the bizarre debris (sometimes called the “blob”) on JFK’s face and the disappearance of the white object in the background grass. Horne suspects that the alterations had all been completed by Sunday night, although he seems not finally wedded to this concept. In any case, Loudon Wainwright said that 31 frames were employed for that issue of LIFE. Although other frames might have been open to alteration after Sunday, it seems likely that these 31 frames would have restricted later changes. (There are fewer than 500 in the entire film.)

] Horne next reviews the momentous technical issues that bedevil the extant film—anomalies that really should not be present. In fact, none of these would have been predicted for an original film. Even a single one casts doubts on authenticity, but when a complete list is compiled the evidence becomes overwhelming. Aside from image content issues (which are very serious) this technical list includes the following items: (1) the location of the punched number 183 is inconsistent on both the extant film and (in photographic images) on the extant copies, (2) the punched numbers unique to each of the three copies are quite strangely located, (3) the absence of intersprocket images on the three copies was not predicted by the Jamieson lab, which had exposed them, (4) Zavada could not reproduce the septum line, (5) the double registration of the Dallas processing edge print is odd, (6) no one in Dallas recalled the bracketing (by exposure differences) that is present in the three extant copies, (7) Zavada has shown remarkable indecisiveness about when Zapruder’s film was slit from 16 mm format to 8 mm, (8) the “full flush left” issue was not resolved, and (9) claw flare is still a puzzle. That so many purely technical issues persist would, by itself, be a wonder if the extant film indeed were authentic.

Horne also reviews the curious stories of Dan Rather and Cartha DeLoach. Both had been early viewers of the film and both had reported that JFK’s head had gone violently forward. To put this into perspective, the reader might ask himself this question: How many individuals have you met who, after once viewing the film, agreed with the reports of these two men? I have never met any. An actual Dealey Plaza witness, James Altgens, a photographer, also described JFK’s head as going forward. Horne also reminds us that early viewers of the film easily saw debris (possibly brain tissue) flying to the rear. One of these witnesses was Erwin Schwartz (Zapruder’s partner), who saw the film multiple times the very day that it was developed. Such backward-flying debris is nowhere seen in the extant film. Horne also notes the unrecorded turn from Houston to Elm (which both Zapruder and his secretary recalled filming) as well as the now-ancient problem of the limousine stop (first emphasized by Lifton many years ago). The discrepancies between the autopsy photographs, on the one hand, and the Zapruder film, on the other, are also reviewed. Horne offers likely explanations (of incompetent tampering) for these inconsistencies.

In an Addendum, “The Zapruder Film Goes to Hollywood,” Horne recounts his viewing of HD scans based on a 35 mm “dupe negative.” His Hollywood contact got her copy of the extant film (for $795) from a private laboratory, to which she had been referred by the Archives’ personnel themselves. (There is no other means to obtain such a copy, as the Archives do not directly reproduce copies.) Horne describes his viewing experiences with several Hollywood professionals (I have seen these, too). Quite striking were (1) the black patch over JFK’s head, (2) the oddly truncated corner of the Stemmons Freeway sign, and (3) the “blob” on JFK’s face. The black patch, in particular, had sharp and geometric borders and was astonishingly black, especially when compared to earlier frames (before Z-313) of JFK’s head and also when compared to the natural shadow on the back and side of Connally’s head. I have since viewed the MPI transparencies (copied directly from the extant film at the Archives) at the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas. These images, too, are quite striking. Since they are accessible by the public, anyone should be able see them, merely by arranging an appointment with the Museum. Horne concludes this section by printing his FOIA letter to the CIA and associated letters on this subject to President Obama, Senator Webb, and DCI Panetta (the CIA response is still pending). Among other items, he requested information on (1) the highly secret CIA facility in Rochester, New York (Hawkeyeworks), (2) the optical printer(s) available there in 1963, (3) the briefing boards prepared by Brugioni (which might still exist), and (4) Brugioni’s personal history of the NPIC. Brugioni told Janney that he himself had written this history, which included a brief mention of his Zapruder film event.

Aside from David Wrone (not discussed here, but worth reading about), the individual who fares worst as Horne’s mark is Roland Zavada, author of the now-infamous Zavada Report. Although this was purportedly a study to confirm the authenticity of the Zapruder film, no such claim is actually made in that report. After many tête-à-têtes with Zavada, Horne concludes that Zavada has ruined his own credibility in matters of the Zapruder film. Horne especially, and appropriately, critiques him for his public dithering on multiple serious issues, all of which are well documented. I myself have accused him of frequently employing ex post facto logic. That may be appropriate in the courtroom but is wholly out of place in a scientific investigation. Horne specifically faults him for these items: (1) the printing aperture issue, (2) the bracketing issue, (3) the edge printing light issue, and (4) the inconsistent locations of the punched numbers on the copy films. I concur with all of these—and have previously so stated in print.

Critiques

It is impossible to write any comprehensive treatise about the JFK case and expect to go unscathed (as I well know). The data are simply too complex and, as Horne repeatedly emphasizes, they are too often corrupted. The sole recourse then for the investigator is simply to speculate, based on those data he considers most reliable. Horne clearly recognizes his vulnerability here. Horne and I differ, as he knows, on several issues, the most obvious being the role of Robert Knudsen in the autopsy.

Horne concludes that none (or at least very few) of the autopsy photographs derive from the official photographer, John Stringer. Instead he nominates Knudsen as the source of the extant autopsy photographs. Knudsen was the social photographer for the White House and he told his family that he had been busy that night filming the autopsy (he was not home for three nights in a row). The embarrassing fact, of course, is that no one saw him there. Not even the Secret Service agents mention him, though they surely recognized one another from their White House duties. Horne regards the autopsy photographs as authentic (i.e., not photographically altered), chiefly based on his viewing of high resolution images at Eastman Kodak, in Rochester, while he served on the ARRB. (Nonetheless, he maintains that they are highly misleading.) On the other hand, I regard several images (certainly not all of them) as photographically altered, especially the posterior head images. An entire essay could be spent developing these divergent arguments (of photo-alteration vs. no alteration), but I shall not do so here. My viewing of the posterior scalp, with a large format stereo viewer (on multiple occasions and while sampling all imaginable photographic variations of the two pertinent images), repeatedly showed that the back of the head, precisely at the occipital blowout, did not yield a 3D image. This could only occur if the occipital area was precisely identical on the two photographs in the stereo viewer; such a resulting 2D image is exactly what would be expected if the same photographic patch (a soft matte insertion) had been used for each member of the pair. (Ordinarily the two images should have derived from slightly different perspectives.) Otherwise, the expected 3D images were readily obtained, both on other portions of these same suspect photographs and also on all other photographs that I examined. This impression of an anomalous area, precisely where the witnesses disagreed with the photographs—and only there—was inescapably striking to me. Unfortunately, Horne did not perform such stereo viewing, as he acknowledges with some regret.

In addition, other serious problems plague Knudsen’s role as assigned to him by Horne. Foremost is his statement to his own son: he rode in the limousine with the bronze casket. Now we know that the bronze casket arrived at the front of the hospital by 6:55 PM and that it arrived at the morgue by 7:17 PM. That is a very tight timeline for Knudsen, if he was at the morgue at all. In view of that, it does seem unlikely that he took very early photographs of the right upper forehead. By then (according the timeline offered by Tom Robinson, and also probably by Ed Reed), H&B had already committed at least some of their nefarious manipulations. Some skull X-rays may even have been taken by 7:17 PM. If that is true, how then could Knudsen have photographed the head before these alterations—as Horne claims he did? Perhaps he got there much earlier (and did not ride with the bronze casket), but no evidence exists for this. And Stringer himself clearly implies that photography began only after 8 PM. If both Stringer and Riebe are correct about this timeline, then what equipment did Knudsen use? And who set it up for him? That task would typically fall to an assistant, such as Riebe, but Ed Reed tells us that he saw no photographic equipment when he took the initial X-rays. And, since Knudsen was a total novice at an autopsy, how did he know to take two photographs from a similar perspective, in order to create stereo pairs?

Here is another major challenge to Horne’s scenario: he proposes that Knudsen took photographs after reconstruction by the morticians, when both Riebe and Stringer were absent from the morgue. Horne bases this on Riebe’s recollection that they had both left by then. Unfortunately, that is not what Stringer recalled. In fact, he clearly stated that he remained until reconstruction had been completed and that he did not get home until about 4 AM. Who would best remember Stringer’s presence during that time: Riebe or Stringer? Therefore, if Stringer stayed around, Knudsen gets left out. There is simply no need for two photographers. Furthermore, Stringer never saw Knudsen.

The record shows Knudsen making many trips to develop the autopsy photographs. And, of all places, they went to the highly secret Anacostia facility. (Ordinarily, Stringer would have developed his own photographs; furthermore, he would never have used Anacostia.) That so many trips were required, over the next several weeks, is suspicious in itself. After all, there are only nine autopsy views and only 52 catalogued photographs. So why were so many trips necessary?

My conclusions about Knudsen, only briefly supported here, disagree with Horne’s. I instead conclude that Knudsen indeed worked with the autopsy photographs (in the darkroom, but not in the morgue), perhaps by improving them cosmetically for the Kennedy family—or by supervising someone else who did this. I suspect he was an unwitting conspirator, being played by his superiors. Furthermore, if the Oswald evidence photographs were doctored, if Dealey Plaza photographs were touched up, if the skull X-rays were altered (in the darkroom), if the Zapruder film was revised, then why would the autopsy photographs remain pristine? After all, it is much, much easier to alter a photograph than to correctly improvise a misleading autopsy scene in the morgue (especially a scene that was often described by attendees as a madhouse). Furthermore, time limits do not apply in the darkroom, where one can leisurely keep improving the image until success is achieved.

I also disagree with Horne about the semicircular defect (with apparent beveling), as seen in F8. This mysterious photo, which I consider to be the back of the head, was described as precisely that during the initial “military review” by the autopsy personnel on November 1, 1966. In addition, Paul O’Connor (autopsy technician) clearly confirmed this. Horne concludes that this beveled defect represents an important exit site. Because it looks like an exit, I agree with Horne that the pathologists should have discussed it. In fact, they do not—and that is suspicious. However, Roger McCarthy, after his own experiments, concluded that such beveled defects can occur independently of exiting bullets or bullet fragments. Furthermore, this site does not fit with any other metal debris in the skull X-rays—certainly not the fragment trail across the top of the skull nor the two fragments removed by H&B—nor does it match the right occipital blowout. To finally bury this proposal, no witness at either Parkland or Bethesda observed a scalp wound that corresponded to this semicircular beveled defect, so it may simply be a red herring.

How many shots struck JFK’s head? Horne argues for three, which will perplex many a reader. Even critics of the Warren Commission typically argue for only two head shots at most. (The Warren Commission’s scenario was simple: a single shot entered at the rear, near the external occipital protuberance (EOP).) Although I agree with that shot, a second shot likely entered high on the right forehead, very near the hairline.) I confess that Horne has forced me to think again about a third shot. Although I had previously been inclined to ascribe the supposed left temple entry to observer error (confusing left for right—or perhaps just seeing a blood clot ), I am now more inclined to believe in such an entry. Horne cites the Parkland physicians—Marion Jenkins, Robert McClelland, Ronald Jones, and Lito Puerto (aka Porto) —who clearly reported a small wound in the left temple. Others include Dr. Adolph Giesecke, Dr. David Stewart, Father Oscar Huber, photographers Altgens and Similas and, more recently, Hugh Huggins (aka Hugh Howell), who was RFK’s emissary to the autopsy.

Although I was reluctant to visualize Greer with a pistol during the shooting, Secret Service agents did pull their pistols during the tussle over JFK’s body in the ER. It is even possible that Greer fired, though I can’t imagine what his target was. But it is most unlikely that he deliberately fired at JFK. That would have been far too risky—multiple witnesses would have fingered him, yet no one has done so. Furthermore, no photograph shows him doing this (although it is theoretically possible that such photographs have been culled or altered). Besides, although he may have disliked JFK, we have no evidence that he was involved in the plot to kill JFK.

In the end, though, I must admit that evidence of a third shot to the head persists. Perhaps the major clue is the right occipital blowout. The right forehead shot likely produced the debris across the top of the skull X-rays (neither the Warren Commission’s scenario nor the HSCA’s scenario match that trail), but that fragment trail does not fit (at all) with a right occipital blowout. Furthermore, if the bullet that caused the visible fragment trail had been mercury filled (as I suggested), then perhaps much of the mercury remained inside the skull. So what produced the occipital blowout? The Warren Commission shot (from the rear) surely could not do that. But a shot from the left front could be just right. What is odd, though, is that no witness at Bethesda, absolutely no one, ever reported such an entrance hole.

Then there is the Clarence Israel story, related by Janie Taylor, a biologist at NIH, across the street from the Bethesda Hospital. Israel (now deceased), an orderly in the morgue that night, saw a doctor working at a “hurried” pace to mutilate three bullet punctures to the head area. Like Jeremy Gunn, I don’t know what to do with this tale, although it is striking that three head wounds are cited.

Diana Bowron, a Parkland nurse, told Livingstone that less than 50% of the right brain remained (the right rear quadrant was most effected) and about a quarter of the left hemisphere was also missing. I am not aware of any other Parkland comments about the left hemisphere, and there is very little clear-cut information from Bethesda either. But if Bowron is correct, then her report constitutes powerful evidence for a left frontal shot. Of course, her report also flatly contradicts the official brain photographs, which show no missing left brain. The optical density data also support Bowron; they show that only 60-65% of the left brain was present, as measured on the AP skull at the National Archives. Of course, in view of Horne’s conclusions, some of this missing brain might have been due to H&B. But, even if H&B had removed this, that alone would be suspicious—i.e., they would have had no reason to excise left brain tissue at all unless trauma had occurred there.

To all of this, Horne adds the support of Dr. Charles Wilbur, who carefully reviewed the microscopic pathology report of the left brain sample. This showed “extensive disruption … associated with hemorrhage.” Wilbur concluded: “These observations rekindle my interest in the observations made in Dallas on the ER table (by several medical personnel) … that there was an entry hole in the left temporal region, in front of the ear and at the hairline.” In conclusion, I would say that the left temple wound seems more likely than ever, especially with support from the optical density data.

It might have been expected the brain photographs would have resolved this mystery; unfortunately, they are not of JFK’s brain. Horne was the first to deduce, from multiple lines of disparate data (see his detailed table), that a surrogate brain had been introduced at a second brain examination. Even the (sole) autopsy photographer of the brain, John Stringer, stated in no uncertain terms that these were not his photographs. One reason was that they were on the wrong brand of film. My own optical density data (taken directly from the extant skull X-rays at the National Archives) are totally inconsistent with the brain photographs (which I have observed at the National Archives with Cyril Wecht). Insofar as the amount of residual brain goes, one can accept either the X-ray data as authentic or the brain photographs as authentic, but not both. They are inconsistent with one another—in fact, wildly inconsistent. To date, no Warren Commission supporter has come to terms with this intractable paradox. It should also be emphasized that the optical density data actually preceded Horne’s proposal, but these data are entirely consistent with his two-brain proposal.

I also object to Horne’s proposal that puncture wounds were deliberately created in the scalp that night. Oddly, he does not identify the perpetrator, or even who issued the order. Of course, none of that is in the official record. Horne proposes that the high posterior “red spot” (selected by the HSCA as the official entry site—albeit persistently denied by the pathologists) was deliberately created that night. How the red color was achieved he does not say. And why that particular site was selected is also mysterious—did it fit better with the “sniper’s nest” than did the EOP site? If so, who in the morgue would have known that so early in the game? But what madness it would be to create another wound! After all, H&B had already identified a lower (EOP) entry site; therefore this higher one would immediately imply two shots to the head—exactly what no one wanted that night. But Horne does not stop there; he also believes that the lower “white spot” (very near the posterior hairline) was deliberately man-made. We might well ask why he takes these risks. But that question has a simple answer: because he refuses to consider photographic alteration, he has no choice. Think about this: that red spot nearly correlates spatially with the 6.5 mm object on the skull X-ray—as it should since both were fakes. However, what breathtaking serendipity such a match was for subsequent government panels—they had their entry site! But because Horne has boxed himself in (no photo-alteration allowed) his only option is to say that the red spot really was present that night. Unless photographic doctoring is permitted, that red spot could not abruptly appear later. But no one at the autopsy saw this red spot (let alone its creation)—and the pathologists forever adamantly refused to recognize it (despite Horne’s insinuation that they themselves had created it). All of this, taken together, is quite damning evidence in favor of (at least some) photographic alteration.

Horne suggests that the original Zapruder film may have been shot at 48 frames per second, an option that was available on that camera:

Removing the Car Stop and the Exit Debris From the Film Would Have Been Simple if Zapruder Had Actually Filmed the Motorcade at ‘Slow Motion,’ or at 48 Frames Per Second, Instead of at the Normal ‘Run’ Setting of 16 Frames Per Second.

Horne suggests that simple frame excision could then have eliminated much of the evidence of conspiracy. But this cannot work, as Costella has explained: the ghost images (in the intersprocket area) make this impossible. When Zapruder’s camera exposed one frame (call it number 10), the gate (the metal frame that actually admits light to the film) simultaneously exposed (in the intersprocket area) a modest portion of each neighboring frame (call these 9 and 11). When Costella examined the film he learned that these ghost images are, in fact, consistent with the central frame in each case—i.e., 10 is always adjacent to 9 and 11 (and this works for any three adjacent frames). In a sense then, each adjacent ghost image “belongs” to its primary frame—and not to any other frame. On the other hand, if frame excision had occurred, each ghost image would become separated from its simultaneously exposed primary frame; i.e., such excision would have led to an adjacent ghost image exposed at a different time from the primary frame. For example, for excision of every other frame, 10 would end up next to 8 and 12; for excision of two of every three frames, 10 would end up next to 7 and 13. In either case, these ghost images would not match the frames next to them. And Costella emphasizes that enough information (e.g., motion blur) exists in these ghost images to permit such a deduction. The bottom line is that such inconsistencies are not found in the extant film. Furthermore, there is no escape from this problem, i.e., it is not possible simply to erase a ghost image from the intersprocket area—once there, it is always there. Partly based on this very powerful argument, Costella has argued that the extant film must be a fabrication, i.e., a re-creation using parts of multiple films (and probably only a rather modest portion of Zapruder’s film at most). At least one of these films must have been shot during the motorcade, but others could have been shot before or after, even some days before or after. These then had to be stitched together to compose the extant film. Even differences of perspective (as would be expected for films shot from slightly different sites) could be overcome by selecting only pertinent parts of frames.

Costella concludes that the Stemmons freeway sign is one example of such a cut and paste job. By analyzing the effects of pincushion distortion he concludes that the sign was placed into the film after the fact, i.e., it looks constant in all frames. On the other hand, if it had been shot from Zapruder’s camera, it should have experienced pincushion distortion: i.e., the sign would successively change its appearance from one frame to the next. Furthermore, after several frames, these changes would accumulate to become even more obvious. But the bottom line is that the Stemmons sign does not show such pincushion effects, which means that it was placed after the fact by the film forgers. This situation is closely analogous to the fake hairpiece on the back of JFK’s head, where the image looks 2D rather than 3D via the stereo viewer. In both cases, the same fake image was placed (into multiple photographs—or into multiple frames) in a manner that violates the basic rules of optics.

Based on these arguments, Costella concludes that it would have been impossible to alter the film without discarding essentially all of the intersprocket areas and starting all over. In that case, he argues, the total time for (final) fabrication would have taken much longer than several days. Although Horne does not require completion of a final film (i.e., the extant film) by Sunday night (November 24) he does suggest that the Jamieson copies were switched quite promptly, likely within several days. Such a prompt (yet final) switch implies a timeline that sharply contrasts with Costella’s more leisurely pace. Even David Healy (a professional video producer with decades of experience) emphasized in his 2003 Duluth lecture that even if an altered film had been viewed on Sunday night, November 24, it need not have been the final product (i.e., the extant film), but merely an interim film. Horne ultimately agrees that alterations might have continued for “several weeks” afterwards, especially if a traveling matte had been employed.

Costella also refers to the possibility that the proposed second film of the motorcade (by an unknown photographer—or photographers) might have been shot in 16 mm format. If so, that would have made forgery ever so much easier, particularly since the contemporaneous optical printers were not designed for 8 mm. It might also have made the subsequent first generation copies (the extant ones, which are probably not the Jamieson copies) appear more authentic after fabrication.

Costella goes on to wonder whether the splices in the film (e.g., between Z-208 and Z-212) were unavoidable during forgery for a simple reason: they may have contained telltale ghost images of bystanders who appeared under the left edge of the Stemmons sign. A splice is also present at Z-155 to Z-157. Curiously, this is close to frames where Michael Stroscio, a physicist, identified a possible shot at Z-152 to Z-153.

There is a final, simple argument against a 48 fps scenario for Zapruder. If 48 fps had been used, then when the film was shown that weekend, all of the action would have appeared in slow motion—as if the actors were subject to the lesser gravity of the moon. However, no one reported such an odd effect, even though someone surely should have.

My final paragraph in this section is not really a criticism of Horne at all. It merely reflects an unblinking reality: no one (not even Bugliosi ) can address everything important in this case. I refer here to the police dictabelt and the acoustics data. Horne implies that the acoustics data support conspiracy—based on the number of audible shots and also on timing problems, i.e., two shots are only 1.66 seconds apart, an interval much too short for the Mannlicher-Carcano. However, he does not cite the work of Don Thomas, which reinvigorated this subject, nor does he mention the fallout from that work. The discussion continues; the interested reader may begin with Wikipedia for current references.

Conclusions

I stand in awe of the scope, detail, and profound insights that Horne has achieved, especially in the medical evidence—to say nothing of his Olympian effort. Given the circumstances of its creation (mostly on weekends, within a cumulative time span of perhaps two years) it is nothing short of phenomenal. Contrast Horne’s effort with Bugliosi’s, which extended over several decades, and which may have included writing assistants and editors. Bugliosi also did not have to self-publish. The bottom line is that I feel a deep debt of gratitude to Horne for further disentangling this nearly half-century old Gordian knot. By contrast, I should emphasize that I never experienced that sensation with Bugliosi.

If H&B indeed played alterationists with the skull and brain (as I now accept), then Horne has initiated a paradigm shift in our understanding of the cover-up. But, as Horne acknowledges, this does not necessarily convert H&B into villains. After all, they may well have considered themselves to be heroic patriots, who single-handedly aborted World War III, depending on exactly what their military superiors had told them.

Josiah Thompson has proclaimed that the Zapruder debate has been a gigantic waste of time, because it is “junk science” that has produced nothing. Like Einstein’s opinion of quantum mechanics, Thompson’s mind is stuck in the past. In fact, Horne has presented revolutionary new data about the chain of possession. In view of Thompson’s now-shaky bedrock, many will find this new information very convincing indeed—especially younger researchers new to the case, whose minds are still open. I have previously summarized traditional historical (and scientific) views that were later overturned, so no one should be surprised at this dénouement. Without nascent heretics, our world would soon become more impoverished. In retrospect, it was best not to offer obeisance to Roland Zavada (as the inerrant pope of the film), as Thompson implied we should do. The two-event sequence at NPIC has all the hallmarks of a covert operation—but for 46 years not even Brugioni knew what had transpired—and he wrote the history of the NPIC! Some of us did not need more evidence, but others did. These fence-sitters may now take their own time to decide. Some may even wish to make a pilgrimage to view the MPI transparencies in Dallas. The real point, though, as Horne states, is that the alteration of the film is, in itself, major evidence of a government cover-up. I could not agree more.

What remains controversial for many though is the timeline for alteration. Horne favors a very short timeline, while Costella prefers a distinctly longer one. The early appearance in LIFE of altered frames (e.g., the “blob” on JFK’s face and the disappearance of the white object in the background grass) indicate that some frames had been altered before Sunday night, November 24. In addition, the Hunter/McMahon briefing boards show the extremely black patch over JFK’s occiput, as well as the blob. It is possible, though not certain, that incriminating flying debris was also removed by Sunday night. The Stemmons sign and the lamppost (both added after the fact, according to Costella) also appear in LIFE’s first JFK issue, in low-resolution black and white photographs. Now consider this: McMahon concluded that JFK was hit by 6-8 shots, fired from at least three directions. Evidence for these shots is absent from the extant film, so he must have seen a different film (though probably not the original). If McMahon’s observations were correct, then he must have seen a partly altered film. That would leave time for Costella’s more leisurely scenario.

The chief argument for a short timeline is the need to dispose promptly of the Jamieson (first-day) copies; the problem, of course, is that the longer these persisted the longer the original images might be copied—or recalled—by others. Horne notes that the FBI returned its Jamieson copy to the Secret Service by Tuesday, November 26. However, we do not know the disposition of any other FBI copies, i.e., later generation copies made from the Jamieson copies (that the FBI might have already made by then). So perhaps this cover-up was a two-step process: (1) retrieve quickly all possible copies (including Jamieson copies and all those made from Jamieson’s) and (2) sometime later (e.g., within one or two months) replace those earlier ones by copies subsequently made from the extant film. Perhaps the FBI was even given some credible excuse for the delay in replacement (e.g., an improved quality copy was pending); in any case, it is likely that J. Edgar Hoover would have cooperated with any reasonable suggestion to abet the cover-up. But LIFE, too, had a copy. However, after their early assassination coverage, they had no need for the film, as a movie film. Given the role of C. D. Jackson (LIFE’s publisher), first in the very expensive purchase of the film, and then in his sequestering of the film (with no profit accruing to LIFE), it is likely (especially in view of his longtime intelligence connections) that he also would have agreed to such a delayed replacement.

But there is still the matter of the three black and white copies of the extant film, discovered in the year 2000 by the Sixth Floor Museum among materials sold to Zapruder in 1975 by Time, Inc. Their format is 16 mm, unslit, with the motorcade on one side and Zapruder home scenes on the other (adjacent) side. These include markings on the film that identify specific frames actually printed in LIFE. An irresistible deduction from these markings, of course, is that the extant film had already been completed by that early date. In fact, however, all that is certain is that specific frames (those made public) must have been finalized by that date. On the other hand, if Costella’s more leisurely timeframe is adopted, that would imply that these black and white copies were only later placed into the LIFE collection—marked up appropriately after the fact—so as to give the impression that the markings (and the extant film, too) dated to November. Although this scenario may be true, no eyewitness to date has corroborated it.

Suggestions

The HD scans (cited above) of selected Zapruder frames should be scanned with an optical densitometer. If possible, multiple wavelengths (colors) should be employed. These scans should then be compared to controls, e.g., JFK’s head before Z-313 and Connally’s head (at most any time). This might quantify the magnitude of photo-alteration, thus making the conclusions more scientific. Further studies may be forthcoming from the Hollywood nexus. New films shot via a camera like Zapruder’s might yet provide further insights. Of course, if extant films (i.e., original ones, not altered ones) from Zapruder’s actual camera can still be located that would be even better. As Horne suggests, at the National Archives two autopsy photographs of the posterior scalp (from a matched pair) should be overlaid on a view box. If the images of the suspect area perfectly align, that would constitute powerful evidence of photo-alteration. Control areas should also be extensively compared, just to see what non-identical (but stereo-matched) pairs look like. Surprisingly, no one has done this.

There are three X-ray films of the bone fragments, which seems a bit excessive. Is it possible that these extra films were taken to replace those X-rays that had been discarded—in order that the total number of X-ray films remained fixed at 14? Is it even possible that these three films are identical to one another? If so, that would be even more suspicious. To check on this (for the first time—no one has done this), Horne suggests that the films simply be overlaid to see if they match precisely.

I have never looked for the head brace on the X-rays nor, apparently, has anyone else. Since the autopsy personnel did not recognize this, it would be useful to look for this on the X-ray films. In view of Horne’s proposal that Knudsen took autopsy photographs with the head brace (apparently while no autopsy personnel were present—because no one recalls this), the presence or absence of such a brace on the X-rays might shed further light on Horne’s proposed timeline for Knudsen (if he was involved at all).

The optical density data from the X-rays should be confirmed. The National Archives have their own densitometer(s); perhaps they would even assist with this. Actually the data need not be too extensive—even a few select data points inside the 6.5 mm object and inside the “white patches” could be highly confirmatory.

My observation at the National Archives of intact emulsion (where there should be none) over the T-shaped inscription on a lateral skull X-ray provided prima facie evidence that this X-ray must be a copy. That clearly means that (1) the original is missing and (2) the door lies open to alteration (during copying). Surprisingly, no one has yet attempted to confirm my observation (of the paradoxically missing emulsion), despite the fact that Chad Zimmerman and Larry Sturdivan had that opportunity after my observation became public. Furthermore, Bugliosi should be a bit red-faced that he did not accompany them at that critical moment. Even he could have made that observation.

Perhaps some other creative minds can think further about three head shots. My fear, though, is that this impasse may never be resolved due to insufficient data. Given the destruction inflicted on the skull by H&B (and perhaps by their predecessors), I am not even certain that a second autopsy would help to resolve that question.

Addendum: The 6.5 mm Mystery on the AP Skull X-ray

Although Horne’s discussion of the suspicious 6.5 mm object on the AP X-ray is in Volume II, I could not resist a few comments about it here. To date no one else has explained this object, not even the three experts interviewed by the ARRB. Furthermore, each one of the three autopsy pathologists (interviewed separately and under oath) denied either seeing or removing this thing at the autopsy. Even Larry Sturdivan admits that it cannot be a bullet fragment (this admission, almost by itself, destroys the case against the lone gunman), but then after his visit to the National Archives he had to confess that it remained as mysterious as ever. He did, however, offer one half-hearted proposal that he did not really endorse, namely that the fragment had been present on the AP X-ray, but had fallen off before the lateral was taken. (He necessarily assumed that the AP had been taken first.) But this does not explain an awkward fact: the lateral X-ray still shows a small metal fragment at precisely the expected site! Furthermore, this proposal disagrees with Reed’s sequence of X-rays: Reed said he took the lateral film first. In fact, the only viable explanation for this bizarre 6.5 mm object is photographic addition in the dark room. Horne recounts my own adventures with this fantastic forgery in some detail. Given that he began his odyssey as a layman in medicine and radiology, Horne offers a splendid summary of this entire subject.

Appendix: Three Casket Entries

Time (PM) Casket Type Witnesses Remarks

Paul O’Connor

6:35 Shipping Roger Boyajian Black hearse

casket Dennis David Body bag

Donald Rebentisch

Floyd Riebe

Note: this first entry was documented by Boyajian and corroborated by the above witnesses.

7:17 Bronze viewing Jim Sibert Light gray navy

casket Frank O’Neill ambulance

(from Parkland) Roy Kellerman Empty casket

William Greer

Note: this second entry was documented in the report of Sibert and O’Neill.

8:00 Bronze viewing Joint Service Casket Team Light gray navy

casket Godfrey McHugh ambulance

Body inside, wrapped

in sheets—no body bag

Note: this third entry was supervised by Lt. Samuel Bird from Fort Myer.

[William Kelly]

There are already three threads going on Mantik's review of Horne. Why include it under the Costella review of Horne other than to confuse things?

BK

DAVID W. MANTIK, M.D., Ph.D., REVIEWS DOUG HORNE, INSIDE THE ARRB, VOL. IV

Inside the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) by Douglas Horne:

A Nearly-Entirely-Positive Review

This is a Review of Volume IV, which includes

Part II: Fraud in the Evidence—A Pattern of Deception (continued)

Chapter 13: What Really Happened at the Bethesda Morgue?

(and in Dealey Plaza)

Chapter 14: The Zapruder Film Mystery.

David W. Mantik, M.D., Ph.D.

February 25, 2010

The death of a democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.

—Robert Maynard Hutchins, Great Books (1954)—

My title here is a parody of my review of Reclaiming History (2007) by Vincent Bugliosi. Since that review was (in my opinion) rather devastating for Bugliosi, my title was intended to be sardonic. Despite this, Vince lifted a few quotes from it (out of context and without my permission) and included them with his abbreviated paperback version, Four Days in November (2008). The total page count (CD included) of his massive doorstopper was about 2786, almost exactly three times as long as the 888-page Warren Report. Horne's book, by contrast, is shorter: 1880 pages, including the front matter (pages i-lxxiii). I had stated that Bugliosi's book was likely to stand forever as the magnum opus of this case, though not without serious flaws. As a magnum opus, however, Horne's five-volume set is a serious challenge to Bugliosi, but with virtually none of Bugliosi's flaws. The current review, however, focuses (almost) solely on Volume IV, which I regard as Horne's set piece (as that phrase is used in literature and film, but not in soccer).

Although some men believe that women age like fine wine, in this case it is Horne himself who has aged well—he waited the better part of a decade after his experiences with the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) before beginning the serious work on his book. He does hint, though, that Bugliosi drop-kicked him (he is an Ohio State Buckeye fan) onto the playing field. Volume IV focuses on the two chief themes of the entire five-volume set: (1) the illicit surgery, before the official autopsy began, by pathologists James J. Humes and J. Thornton Boswell at the Bethesda morgue and (2) the Zapruder film riddles. It is likely that the success or failure of Horne's work will rise or fall with this single volume. In this review, I shall address these two topics in sequence, critique a few puzzles, then draw some conclusions and finish with several suggestions. By way of a caveat emptor, I should confess that I initially encountered Horne at his first COPA (Committee on Political Assassinations) conference (when he interviewed with the ARRB), have intermittently met him since, and consider him a very good friend. He is also a very bright and strong-willed investigator.

Illicit Surgery at the Bethesda Morgue

In order to paint Humes and Boswell (H&B hereafter) as the morbid co-conspirators, Horne needs first to clarify the timeline—which he does brilliantly (see the Appendix at the end of this review). The ARRB learned, for the first time, that JFK's body initially arrived at the Bethesda morgue at 6:35 PM local time (in a black hearse). That information derives from an after-action report (written on November 26, 1963) by Marine Sergeant Roger Boyajian. Quite astonishingly, Boyajian had retained a copy of his report, which he presented to the ARRB. His report corroborates the recollections of Dennis David who saw the light gray navy ambulance (with the bronze casket from Dallas) arrive at the front of the hospital, where he saw Jackie exit; its arrival time was either 6:53 PM or 6:55 PM (the sources vary). But just about 20 minutes earlier, David had directed his on-duty sailors as they delivered the body in a cheap casket, i.e., the entry described by Boyajian. David estimated (from memory) the delivery time as 6:40 PM, or perhaps 6:45 PM. His estimate is strikingly close to Boyajian's recorded time of 6:35 PM. Horne concludes that this arrival time of 6:35 PM must now be accepted as a foundation stone in this case. As further corroboration for this time, he emphasizes that even Humes agreed with it: before the ARRB, Humes cited the initial arrival as possibly as early as 6:45 PM. In my opinion, therefore, it is very difficult to disagree with this early arrival time. If this is accepted, though, the repercussions are colossal—it means that the bronze casket (the one that traveled with Jackie) was empty. Horne next compiles a long table of witnesses to the cheap casket and the body bag, both of which were seen at this initial entry. He is also very persuasive here, although he rightfully credits Lifton with much of this groundbreaking work.

Now if the body arrived at 6:35 PM in a cheap shipping casket, when did it exit the bronze casket (the one that left Parkland)? Horne suggests that this transfer occurred right after the bronze casket boarded Air Force One. (Lifton again blazed this trail.) As corroboration for this, Horne describes JFK's Air Force Aide, Godfrey McHugh, as perturbed about a delay caused by a "luggage transfer" between the two official planes. After this transfer to a body bag, tampering became feasible. Horne suggests that an initial foray into the body took place in the forward baggage compartment prior to the flight to DC; the goal was to extract metal debris or a bullet from the throat wound. (It is not known whether anything was found.) Horne infers that a similar attempt was made on the brain, but that attempt likely foundered because the requisite tool (e.g., a bone saw) was missing.

The second casket entry (via a light gray navy ambulance) occurred at about 7:17 PM. James W. Sibert and Francis X. O'Neill, Jr. (the two-member FBI team) and Roy H. Kellerman and William Greer (both Secret Service) together delivered the (empty) bronze casket to the morgue. This time is consistent with the arrival time of the bronze casket (shortly before 7 PM) at the front of the hospital. The third casket entry (with the body inside) has traditionally been accepted as the official one—at 8 PM (in a light gray navy ambulance). It was delivered by the Joint Service Casket Team. The transfer of the body must have occurred (in the morgue) after the second entry at 7:17 PM. But it must also have transpired after the initial X-rays (for reasons to be discussed below). Finally, this transfer must have occurred well in advance of 8 PM so that the bronze casket could leave the morgue (Tom Robinson recalled this temporary departure ), be "found" by the official casket team, and then delivered again at 8 PM. This sequence of three casket entries looks like a classic French farce, i.e., an affair concocted by a half-mad scriptwriter. Unfortunately, all of the evidence points strongly in the direction of three casket entries. Perhaps this would have been unnecessary, as Horne points out, if only Jackie had not insisted on staying with the bronze casket en route to the morgue. (She had declined a helicopter ride to the White House, which would have separated her from the Dallas casket.) Most likely the plan had been to surreptitiously transfer the body between caskets at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. But Jackie's unexpected decision to remain with the bronze Dallas casket waylaid those plans, which meant that Kellerman (who Horne nominates as the morgue manager) had to improvise on the spot. It was a highly risky business, during which this escapade was nearly uncovered, according to Horne.

Lifton had argued that body alteration had occurred somewhere before Bethesda. He believed that altering the geometry of the shooting through "trajectory reversal"—i.e., turning entrance wounds into exit wounds, and planting false entrance wounds on the body—was the primary reason for the illicit post mortem surgery, and that removing bullet fragments was only a co-equal, or even secondary, goal of the clandestine surgery. Horne takes a different tack: he believes that the reason for assaulting the body (before Bethesda) was merely to extract bullet debris, not primarily to alter wounds.

My own views come into play at this point. Before Horne's work, I had become convinced that someone had messed with the throat wound, most likely to extract bullet fragments. The evidence for this was that the two sets of witnesses—those at Parkland vs. those at Bethesda—had disagreed so profoundly. Also, Malcolm Perry, the surgeon who performed the tracheotomy, claimed that he had left the throat wound "inviolate," meaning that it was easily visible after the tube was pulled. In addition, Charles Crenshaw insisted that the tracheotomy at Parkland was nothing like the one in the autopsy photographs. I also had my own (telephone) encounter with the autopsy radiologist, John Ebersole. I still sense the horror in his voice as he recalled the tracheotomy and declared that he would never do one like that. Horne's witnesses (there are more) only validate my prior conclusion about throat tampering.

Before Horne's work, I was uncertain about head tampering before Bethesda (although Lifton had made a strong case for it). Nonetheless, I had to agree that if the throat had been explored, then of course the head might also have been invaded. Although Horne is still open-minded about illegal tampering of the skull before Bethesda, he believes that such an event can be inferred from (1) Finck's statement (to the defense team at the Clay Shaw trial in 1969) that the autopsy report (presumably an earlier one, as the extant one does not say this) described the spinal cord as severed when the body arrived at Bethesda and (2) Tom Robinson's comment to the ARRB that the top of the skull was "badly broken" when the body was received at Bethesda, but that the large defect (in the superior skull) in the autopsy photographs was "what the [autopsy] doctors did"—i.e., that the missing skull was due to the pathologists, not due an assassin's bullet(s). These reports therefore provide more evidence that the head was explored somewhere before Bethesda; the goal was to retrieve bullet debris, but it failed—because the brain could not be extracted from the skull. In summary then, the body arrived at Bethesda as follows: (1) with a radically enlarged tracheotomy and no bullet debris in the neck (perhaps there never was any, as I have suggested elsewhere ) and (2) with the same (right occipital) exit wound that was seen at Parkland and with a brain that had not been removed from the skull and that therefore closely, or possibly even exactly, resembled the Parkland brain. Most likely the brain still contained most, or even all, of the bullet fragments from Dealey Plaza. (These metal fragments are, of course, absent from the official record today.) Those are Horne's conclusions about H&B, but let's look at the evidence.

So why does Horne conclude that H&B illicitly removed (and altered) the brain shortly after 6:35 PM, before any X-rays were taken, and before the official autopsy began? He here introduces two intriguing witnesses—the two R's, namely Reed and Robinson. Edward Reed was assistant to Jerrol Custer (the radiology tech), while Tom Robinson was a mortician. Rather consistently with one another, but quite independently, both describe critical steps taken by H&B that no one else reports. (Horne documents why no one else reported these events—almost everyone else had been evicted from the morgue before this clandestine interlude.) After the body was placed on the morgue table (and before X-rays were taken), Reed briefly sat in the gallery. Reed states that Humes first used a scalpel across the top of the forehead to pull the scalp back. Then he used a saw to cut the forehead bone, after which he (and Custer, too) were asked to leave the morgue. (Reed was not aware that this intervention by Humes was unofficial.) This activity by Humes is highly significant because multiple witnesses saw the intact entry hole high in the right forehead at the hairline. On the other hand, the autopsy photographs show only a thin incision at this site, an incision that no Parkland witness ever saw. The implication is obvious: this specific autopsy photograph was taken after Humes altered the forehead—thereby likely obliterating the entry hole.

Reed's report suggests that Humes deliberately obliterated the right forehead entry; in fact, the autopsy photograph does not show this entry site. Paradoxically, however, Robinson (the mortician) recalls seeing, during restoration, a wound about ¼ inch across at this very location. He even recalls having to place wax at this site. So the question is obvious: If Humes had obliterated the wound (as seems the case based on the extant autopsy photograph), how then could Robinson still see the wound during restoration? This question cannot be answered with certainty, but two options arise: (1) perhaps the wound was indeed obliterated (or mostly obliterated) and Robinson merely suffered some memory merge—i.e., even though he added wax to the incision (the one still visible in the extant photograph), he was actually recalling the way it looked before Humes got to it, or (2) the photograph itself has been altered—to disguise the wound that was visible in an original photograph. The latter option was seemingly endorsed by Joe O'Donnell, the USIA photographer, who said that Knudsen actually showed him such a photograph.

Regarding Robinson, Horne concludes that he arrived with the hearse that brought the body (i.e., the first entry). After that, Robinson simply observed events from the morgue gallery; contrary to Reed's experience, he was not asked to leave. Just before 7 PM, Robinson saw H&B remove large portions of the rear and top of the skull with a saw, in order to access the brain. (Robinson was not aware that this activity was off the record.) He also observed ten or more bullet fragments extracted from the brain. Although these do not appear in the official record, Dennis David recalls preparing a receipt for at least four fragments.

Contrary to Reed and Robinson, Humes declared that a saw was not important:

We had to do virtually no work with a saw to remove these portions of the skull,

they came apart in our hands very easily, and we attempted to further examine

the brain….

Although James Jenkins (an autopsy technician) does not explicitly describe the use of a saw, he does recall that damage to the brain (as seen inside the skull) was less than the corresponding size of the cranial defect; this indirectly implies prior removal of some of the skull.

Horne adds an independent argument for multiple casket entries. Pierre Finck told the Journal of the American Medical Association that he was at home when Humes telephoned him at 7:30 PM. (In his 2/1/65 report to General Blumberg he cites 8 PM. ) Finck, as a forensic pathologist, had been asked to assist with the autopsy. As further confirmation for Finck's overall timeline, he arrived (see his Blumberg report) at the morgue at 8:30 PM. But here is the clincher: during this phone call, Humes told Finck that X-rays had already been taken—and had already been viewed. On the other hand, the official entry time (with the Joint Service Casket Team) was at 8 PM! If that indeed was the one and only entry time, how then could X-rays have been taken—let alone developed and viewed (a process of 30 minutes minimum)—even before the official entry time? The only possible answer is that the body did not first arrive at 8 PM. Furthermore, Custer and Reed, the radiology techs, provide timelines consistent with much earlier X-rays; in particular, they recall seeing Jackie enter the hospital lobby, well after the 6:35 PM casket entry—an entry they had personally witnessed. In summary, eyewitnesses convincingly support a much earlier timeline than the official entry of 8 PM. Therefore, multiple casket entries are logically required. And that more relaxed timeline gave H&B time both to perform their illicit surgery and also for skull X-rays to be taken and read, most likely all before 7:30-8:00 PM.

The reader might well ask why Reed and Robinson (and Custer, too) were permitted to observe (at least briefly) this illegal surgery by H&B. Horne proposes that the morgue manager that night (Kellerman) was not present for the first casket entry—that's because he was riding with Jackie and the bronze casket. Therefore, before he arrived (most likely that was shortly after 7 PM), there was no hands-on stage manager in the morgue. It is even possible that Kellerman himself ejected Reed and Custer as soon as he arrived. Robinson, on the other hand, dressed in civilian clothing, may have seemed to Kellerman a lesser threat, so Robinson stayed.

Several conclusions follow from the above analysis. First, the official skull X-rays do not show the condition of the skull or the brain as seen at Parkland. Instead, they were taken after tampering by H&B, perhaps even after significant tampering, especially if Robinson and Reed are correct. Furthermore, the massive damage seen in the photographs and X-rays was not caused just by a bullet or even by multiple bullets, but instead by pathological hands. In particular, for a single, full metal-jacketed bullet (the Warren Commission's inevitable scenario) to generate such an enormous defect has always defied credibility. Likewise, Boswell's sketch (for the ARRB) on a skull of this enormous defect only shows the condition of the skull after tampering by H&B—and does not reflect the skull as seen at Parkland. (The Parkland witnesses fully concur with this.) On the other hand, many witnesses at Bethesda saw the condition of the skull before such tampering began. These witnesses, both physicians and paraprofessionals, uniformly describe a right occipital blowout, consistent with a shot from the front. Leaving aside the pathologists, as many as eight Bethesda physicians may be on this list. In photographs, both Parkland and Bethesda witnesses demonstrate with remarkable unanimity, on their own heads, the location of this obvious exit wound on the right rear skull.

The X-rays do, however, show many small fragments distributed across the top of the skull. So why didn't Humes extract more of these? I have previously proposed (based on their actual appearance—as viewed in detail on multiple occasions at the Archives) that they look more like mercury than like lead. If so, then Humes would not have been able to palpate them (mercury is liquid) and would therefore have been unable to remove them during his illicit surgery phase.

We could go on to ask: What other evidence exists for such illicit surgery? Lifton initially introduced this issue by citing the FBI report (by Sibert and O'Neill), which quoted Humes as describing surgery to the head. Sibert, in the 2000s, still insisted that they had quoted Humes correctly about such surgery. (I also heard Sibert say this in Fort Myers, Florida, during one of Law's taping sessions.) Furthermore, the FBI had no reason to fabricate such a statement. On Lifton's tape (which I have heard), he queries Humes about this; to me, Humes does sound remarkably suspicious and evasive. But the FBI men are not the only witnesses to his statement. Another is James Jenkins, who quotes Humes as asking: "Did they do surgery at Parkland?" Furthermore, Humes was later told, when some skull fragments arrived at the morgue, that these had been "removed" during surgery at Parkland. We all know that did not happen, so where did they come from? Horne implies that Humes himself had removed them during the illicit phase. Another supporting argument is the remarkable ease of removing the brain from the skull (during the official autopsy phase), but this is not so surprising if it had previously been removed during the unofficial phase. James Jenkins observed that the brainstem been cut, as if by a scalpel (not severed by a bullet), which also suggests its earlier removal that evening (while Jenkins was absent). In any case, such an early removal was likely essential to successfully search for (and extract) bullet debris. Even Finck bears witness to a transected spinal cord: to the defense team at the Shaw trial in 1969, Finck stated that the autopsy report (presumably an earlier one, as the extant one does not say this) described the spinal cord as severed when the body arrived at Bethesda. Finck was still absent when the brain was removed, so someone must have told him this, most likely Humes.

Horne comments further on the throat wound. He concludes that H&B were well aware of this wound that night and he provides considerable evidence for this conclusion. However, given the absence of the throat wound from the FBI report, H&B probably learned of it only after the FBI left, i.e., after 11 PM. That information then led to the pathologists' interim discussion of an exit through the throat, as later reported by Richard Lipsey. Horne even speculates that an early version of the autopsy report included exactly this scenario, which later had to be discarded because of timing data from the Zapruder film.

Regarding the throat wound I would add the following. Warren Commission loyalists like to cite medical articles that ER personnel cannot reliably distinguish entry from exit wounds. Even if true, though, that comment obfuscates the situation. To the contrary, in this particular case several facts trump those medical reports: (1) such a tiny exit wound could not be duplicated in experiments and (2) Milton Helpern (who had done 60,000 autopsies) said that he had never seen an exit wound that was so small (under similar conditions). Then there is the question of the magic bullet. As Horne summarizes, its provenance has been extensively investigated by Josiah Thompson (with recent assistance from Gary Aguilar). In the face of the persistent refusal of the pertinent witnesses to identify this bullet, most likely it would never have been admitted at trial—and that alone would thoroughly devastate any Warren Commission case. A final telling blow derives from the National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC): before political leverage was exerted, their scenario actually included a frontal throat shot!

The Zapruder Film Mystery

Based on his relentless defense of the extant film, Josiah Thompson can justifiably claim the title, "High Priest of Z Film." His initial claim derives from his work for LIFE magazine in the 1960s, which led to Six Seconds in Dallas (1967). He claimed (p. 7): "Quite obviously, the Zapruder film contained the nearest thing to absolute truth about the sequence of events in Dealey Plaza." His most recent public paper (2007) finalized his claim to the above title. Unfortunately for Thompson, Horne's work has created deep fractures in his purported bedrock, and has pulverized some rockheads into finely ground sand. When Thompson wrote his "Bedrock" article he ignored two witnesses who had been extensively interviewed by the ARRB (actually by Horne himself) and whose interviews were surely already known to Thompson, who is nothing if not a very bright detective. These witnesses were Ben Hunter and Homer McMahon, employees of the NPIC (a subsidiary of the CIA), who received the original (in their view) film from a Secret Service agent. The latter, in turn, had just couriered it from Rochester, New York, headquarters of Eastman Kodak. Moreover, this agent ("Bill Smith") specifically said that the film had been developed (sic) in Rochester. If that was true, then there must have been a second film, one not shot by Zapruder (his film, after all, had been developed in Dallas), but rather one filmed from a nearly identical site in Dealey Plaza.

But Horne's next stroke is the mortal blow to the Zapruder film, one beyond even the skills of a contemporary Parsifal. Horne details Peter Janney's encounters (including seven interviews) with Dino Brugioni, a founder of the NPIC. John McCone, Director of the CIA, had telephoned the NPIC director, Arthur Lundahl (Brugioni's superior), asking him to assist the Secret Service in analyzing the original (Zapruder) film. Beginning late on Saturday night (November 23), Brugioni viewed an original, 8 mm film and prepared briefing boards, which were presented to McCone the next morning. Amazingly, Brugioni stated that neither Ben Hunter nor Captain Sands were at his event.

(Brugioni did not recall ever meeting Homer McMahon; he could therefore not personally report whether or not McMahon was present at Event I on Saturday night. Of course, since Brugioni was positive that Ben Hunter was absent, and because Hunter and McMahon were linked by their recall of one another, then McMahon should not have been present at Brugioni's event.) In a detailed analysis Horne shows convincingly that two separate events, both highly compartmentalized, occurred on successive nights. During these recent interviews, when Brugioni finally learned—after 46 years—of two unrelated events, both at NPIC, he was stunned!

Horne assembles a magnificent table that contrasts these two events: the Saturday night (November 23) event with Brugioni and the Sunday night event (November 24) with Hunter and McMahon. Horne demonstrates how compartmentalized these two events were: they differed in attendees, film format, and briefing boards. Brugioni knew Ben Hunter, but did not see him at his event. Brugioni had handled an 8 mm film (Hunter and McMahon had a 16 mm film) that he considered an original; that it was 8 mm is certain because NPIC had to purchase a projector (near midnight on Saturday) from a private local store. (The NPIC did not own its own 8 mm projector.) Brugioni also viewed photographs of the briefing boards currently in the Archives, which had been authenticated by Hunter and McMahon. However, Brugioni was certain that these were not his. He was even able to recall how his differed from these. Although Hunter and McMahon's film reportedly came from Rochester, Brugioni was not told where his had originated (most likely it was Zapruder's original—diverted from Chicago to DC that Saturday).

Based on these interviews, Horne draws several conclusions: (1) the CIA had an immediate and high level interest in the film; (2) the original film had been split from 16 mm to 8 mm in Dallas, just as the Dallas witnesses had agreed; (3) the extreme compartmentalization implies that the two films were different; (4) Brugioni viewed Zapruder's original (8mm), whereas Hunter and McMahon viewed an altered film (in 16 mm, unslit format); (5) the alterations were done during the day on Sunday, November 24, in Rochester, New York; (6) most likely aerial imaging was used for these alterations; and (7) the three copies of the original (already in circulation ) then had to be replaced by copies of the newly altered film. The reason that Horne chooses Sunday is straightforward: LIFE's next issue reached the marketplace on Tuesday (November 26) and it contained images from the extant film (the one currently in the Archives). Some of these low resolution, black and white LIFE images (in Horne's opinion—and mine, too) show signs of alteration, particularly the bizarre debris (sometimes called the "blob") on JFK's face and the disappearance of the white object in the background grass. Horne suspects that the alterations had all been completed by Sunday night, although he seems not finally wedded to this concept. In any case, Loudon Wainwright said that 31 frames were employed for that issue of LIFE. Although other frames might have been open to alteration after Sunday, it seems likely that these 31 frames would have restricted later changes. (There are fewer than 500 in the entire film.)

] Horne next reviews the momentous technical issues that bedevil the extant film—anomalies that really should not be present. In fact, none of these would have been predicted for an original film. Even a single one casts doubts on authenticity, but when a complete list is compiled the evidence becomes overwhelming. Aside from image content issues (which are very serious) this technical list includes the following items: (1) the location of the punched number 183 is inconsistent on both the extant film and (in photographic images) on the extant copies, (2) the punched numbers unique to each of the three copies are quite strangely located, (3) the absence of intersprocket images on the three copies was not predicted by the Jamieson lab, which had exposed them, (4) Zavada could not reproduce the septum line, (5) the double registration of the Dallas processing edge print is odd, (6) no one in Dallas recalled the bracketing (by exposure differences) that is present in the three extant copies, (7) Zavada has shown remarkable indecisiveness about when Zapruder's film was slit from 16 mm format to 8 mm, (8) the "full flush left" issue was not resolved, and (9) claw flare is still a puzzle. That so many purely technical issues persist would, by itself, be a wonder if the extant film indeed were authentic.

Horne also reviews the curious stories of Dan Rather and Cartha DeLoach. Both had been early viewers of the film and both had reported that JFK's head had gone violently forward. To put this into perspective, the reader might ask himself this question: How many individuals have you met who, after once viewing the film, agreed with the reports of these two men? I have never met any. An actual Dealey Plaza witness, James Altgens, a photographer, also described JFK's head as going forward. Horne also reminds us that early viewers of the film easily saw debris (possibly brain tissue) flying to the rear. One of these witnesses was Erwin Schwartz (Zapruder's partner), who saw the film multiple times the very day that it was developed. Such backward-flying debris is nowhere seen in the extant film. Horne also notes the unrecorded turn from Houston to Elm (which both Zapruder and his secretary recalled filming) as well as the now-ancient problem of the limousine stop (first emphasized by Lifton many years ago). The discrepancies between the autopsy photographs, on the one hand, and the Zapruder film, on the other, are also reviewed. Horne offers likely explanations (of incompetent tampering) for these inconsistencies.

In an Addendum, "The Zapruder Film Goes to Hollywood," Horne recounts his viewing of HD scans based on a 35 mm "dupe negative." His Hollywood contact got her copy of the extant film (for $795) from a private laboratory, to which she had been referred by the Archives' personnel themselves. (There is no other means to obtain such a copy, as the Archives do not directly reproduce copies.) Horne describes his viewing experiences with several Hollywood professionals (I have seen these, too). Quite striking were (1) the black patch over JFK's head, (2) the oddly truncated corner of the Stemmons Freeway sign, and (3) the "blob" on JFK's face. The black patch, in particular, had sharp and geometric borders and was astonishingly black, especially when compared to earlier frames (before Z-313) of JFK's head and also when compared to the natural shadow on the back and side of Connally's head. I have since viewed the MPI transparencies (copied directly from the extant film at the Archives) at the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas. These images, too, are quite striking. Since they are accessible by the public, anyone should be able see them, merely by arranging an appointment with the Museum. Horne concludes this section by printing his FOIA letter to the CIA and associated letters on this subject to President Obama, Senator Webb, and DCI Panetta (the CIA response is still pending). Among other items, he requested information on (1) the highly secret CIA facility in Rochester, New York (Hawkeyeworks), (2) the optical printer(s) available there in 1963, (3) the briefing boards prepared by Brugioni (which might still exist), and (4) Brugioni's personal history of the NPIC. Brugioni told Janney that he himself had written this history, which included a brief mention of his Zapruder film event.

Aside from David Wrone (not discussed here, but worth reading about), the individual who fares worst as Horne's mark is Roland Zavada, author of the now-infamous Zavada Report. Although this was purportedly a study to confirm the authenticity of the Zapruder film, no such claim is actually made in that report. After many tête-à-têtes with Zavada, Horne concludes that Zavada has ruined his own credibility in matters of the Zapruder film. Horne especially, and appropriately, critiques him for his public dithering on multiple serious issues, all of which are well documented. I myself have accused him of frequently employing ex post facto logic. That may be appropriate in the courtroom but is wholly out of place in a scientific investigation. Horne specifically faults him for these items: (1) the printing aperture issue, (2) the bracketing issue, (3) the edge printing light issue, and (4) the inconsistent locations of the punched numbers on the copy films. I concur with all of these—and have previously so stated in print.

Critiques

It is impossible to write any comprehensive treatise about the JFK case and expect to go unscathed (as I well know). The data are simply too complex and, as Horne repeatedly emphasizes, they are too often corrupted. The sole recourse then for the investigator is simply to speculate, based on those data he considers most reliable. Horne clearly recognizes his vulnerability here. Horne and I differ, as he knows, on several issues, the most obvious being the role of Robert Knudsen in the autopsy.

Horne concludes that none (or at least very few) of the autopsy photographs derive from the official photographer, John Stringer. Instead he nominates Knudsen as the source of the extant autopsy photographs. Knudsen was the social photographer for the White House and he told his family that he had been busy that night filming the autopsy (he was not home for three nights in a row). The embarrassing fact, of course, is that no one saw him there. Not even the Secret Service agents mention him, though they surely recognized one another from their White House duties. Horne regards the autopsy photographs as authentic (i.e., not photographically altered), chiefly based on his viewing of high resolution images at Eastman Kodak, in Rochester, while he served on the ARRB. (Nonetheless, he maintains that they are highly misleading.) On the other hand, I regard several images (certainly not all of them) as photographically altered, especially the posterior head images. An entire essay could be spent developing these divergent arguments (of photo-alteration vs. no alteration), but I shall not do so here. My viewing of the posterior scalp, with a large format stereo viewer (on multiple occasions and while sampling all imaginable photographic variations of the two pertinent images), repeatedly showed that the back of the head, precisely at the occipital blowout, did not yield a 3D image. This could only occur if the occipital area was precisely identical on the two photographs in the stereo viewer; such a resulting 2D image is exactly what would be expected if the same photographic patch (a soft matte insertion) had been used for each member of the pair. (Ordinarily the two images should have derived from slightly different perspectives.) Otherwise, the expected 3D images were readily obtained, both on other portions of these same suspect photographs and also on all other photographs that I examined. This impression of an anomalous area, precisely where the witnesses disagreed with the photographs—and only there—was inescapably striking to me. Unfortunately, Horne did not perform such stereo viewing, as he acknowledges with some regret.

In addition, other serious problems plague Knudsen's role as assigned to him by Horne. Foremost is his statement to his own son: he rode in the limousine with the bronze casket. Now we know that the bronze casket arrived at the front of the hospital by 6:55 PM and that it arrived at the morgue by 7:17 PM. That is a very tight timeline for Knudsen, if he was at the morgue at all. In view of that, it does seem unlikely that he took very early photographs of the right upper forehead. By then (according the timeline offered by Tom Robinson, and also probably by Ed Reed), H&B had already committed at least some of their nefarious manipulations. Some skull X-rays may even have been taken by 7:17 PM. If that is true, how then could Knudsen have photographed the head before these alterations—as Horne claims he did? Perhaps he got there much earlier (and did not ride with the bronze casket), but no evidence exists for this. And Stringer himself clearly implies that photography began only after 8 PM. If both Stringer and Riebe are correct about this timeline, then what equipment did Knudsen use? And who set it up for him? That task would typically fall to an assistant, such as Riebe, but Ed Reed tells us that he saw no photographic equipment when he took the initial X-rays. And, since Knudsen was a total novice at an autopsy, how did he know to take two photographs from a similar perspective, in order to create stereo pairs?

Here is another major challenge to Horne's scenario: he proposes that Knudsen took photographs after reconstruction by the morticians, when both Riebe and Stringer were absent from the morgue. Horne bases this on Riebe's recollection that they had both left by then. Unfortunately, that is not what Stringer recalled. In fact, he clearly stated that he remained until reconstruction had been completed and that he did not get home until about 4 AM. Who would best remember Stringer's presence during that time: Riebe or Stringer? Therefore, if Stringer stayed around, Knudsen gets left out. There is simply no need for two photographers. Furthermore, Stringer never saw Knudsen.

The record shows Knudsen making many trips to develop the autopsy photographs. And, of all places, they went to the highly secret Anacostia facility. (Ordinarily, Stringer would have developed his own photographs; furthermore, he would never have used Anacostia.) That so many trips were required, over the next several weeks, is suspicious in itself. After all, there are only nine autopsy views and only 52 catalogued photographs. So why were so many trips necessary?

My conclusions about Knudsen, only briefly supported here, disagree with Horne's. I instead conclude that Knudsen indeed worked with the autopsy photographs (in the darkroom, but not in the morgue), perhaps by improving them cosmetically for the Kennedy family—or by supervising someone else who did this. I suspect he was an unwitting conspirator, being played by his superiors. Furthermore, if the Oswald evidence photographs were doctored, if Dealey Plaza photographs were touched up, if the skull X-rays were altered (in the darkroom), if the Zapruder film was revised, then why would the autopsy photographs remain pristine? After all, it is much, much easier to alter a photograph than to correctly improvise a misleading autopsy scene in the morgue (especially a scene that was often described by attendees as a madhouse). Furthermore, time limits do not apply in the darkroom, where one can leisurely keep improving the image until success is achieved.

I also disagree with Horne about the semicircular defect (with apparent beveling), as seen in F8. This mysterious photo, which I consider to be the back of the head, was described as precisely that during the initial "military review" by the autopsy personnel on November 1, 1966. In addition, Paul O'Connor (autopsy technician) clearly confirmed this. Horne concludes that this beveled defect represents an important exit site. Because it looks like an exit, I agree with Horne that the pathologists should have discussed it. In fact, they do not—and that is suspicious. However, Roger McCarthy, after his own experiments, concluded that such beveled defects can occur independently of exiting bullets or bullet fragments. Furthermore, this site does not fit with any other metal debris in the skull X-rays—certainly not the fragment trail across the top of the skull nor the two fragments removed by H&B—nor does it match the right occipital blowout. To finally bury this proposal, no witness at either Parkland or Bethesda observed a scalp wound that corresponded to this semicircular beveled defect, so it may simply be a red herring.

How many shots struck JFK's head? Horne argues for three, which will perplex many a reader. Even critics of the Warren Commission typically argue for only two head shots at most. (The Warren Commission's scenario was simple: a single shot entered at the rear, near the external occipital protuberance (EOP).) Although I agree with that shot, a second shot likely entered high on the right forehead, very near the hairline.) I confess that Horne has forced me to think again about a third shot. Although I had previously been inclined to ascribe the supposed left temple entry to observer error (confusing left for right—or perhaps just seeing a blood clot ), I am now more inclined to believe in such an entry. Horne cites the Parkland physicians—Marion Jenkins, Robert McClelland, Ronald Jones, and Lito Puerto (aka Porto) —who clearly reported a small wound in the left temple. Others include Dr. Adolph Giesecke, Dr. David Stewart, Father Oscar Huber, photographers Altgens and Similas and, more recently, Hugh Huggins (aka Hugh Howell), who was RFK's emissary to the autopsy.

Although I was reluctant to visualize Greer with a pistol during the shooting, Secret Service agents did pull their pistols during the tussle over JFK's body in the ER. It is even possible that Greer fired, though I can't imagine what his target was. But it is most unlikely that he deliberately fired at JFK. That would have been far too risky—multiple witnesses would have fingered him, yet no one has done so. Furthermore, no photograph shows him doing this (although it is theoretically possible that such photographs have been culled or altered). Besides, although he may have disliked JFK, we have no evidence that he was involved in the plot to kill JFK.

In the end, though, I must admit that evidence of a third shot to the head persists. Perhaps the major clue is the right occipital blowout. The right forehead shot likely produced the debris across the top of the skull X-rays (neither the Warren Commission's scenario nor the HSCA's scenario match that trail), but that fragment trail does not fit (at all) with a right occipital blowout. Furthermore, if the bullet that caused the visible fragment trail had been mercury filled (as I suggested), then perhaps much of the mercury remained inside the skull. So what produced the occipital blowout? The Warren Commission shot (from the rear) surely could not do that. But a shot from the left front could be just right. What is odd, though, is that no witness at Bethesda, absolutely no one, ever reported such an entrance hole.

Then there is the Clarence Israel story, related by Janie Taylor, a biologist at NIH, across the street from the Bethesda Hospital. Israel (now deceased), an orderly in the morgue that night, saw a doctor working at a "hurried" pace to mutilate three bullet punctures to the head area. Like Jeremy Gunn, I don't know what to do with this tale, although it is striking that three head wounds are cited.

Diana Bowron, a Parkland nurse, told Livingstone that less than 50% of the right brain remained (the right rear quadrant was most effected) and about a quarter of the left hemisphere was also missing. I am not aware of any other Parkland comments about the left hemisphere, and there is very little clear-cut information from Bethesda either. But if Bowron is correct, then her report constitutes powerful evidence for a left frontal shot. Of course, her report also flatly contradicts the official brain photographs, which show no missing left brain. The optical density data also support Bowron; they show that only 60-65% of the left brain was present, as measured on the AP skull at the National Archives. Of course, in view of Horne's conclusions, some of this missing brain might have been due to H&B. But, even if H&B had removed this, that alone would be suspicious—i.e., they would have had no reason to excise left brain tissue at all unless trauma had occurred there.

To all of this, Horne adds the support of Dr. Charles Wilbur, who carefully reviewed the microscopic pathology report of the left brain sample. This showed "extensive disruption … associated with hemorrhage." Wilbur concluded: "These observations rekindle my interest in the observations made in Dallas on the ER table (by several medical personnel) … that there was an entry hole in the left temporal region, in front of the ear and at the hairline." In conclusion, I would say that the left temple wound seems more likely than ever, especially with support from the optical density data.

It might have been expected the brain photographs would have resolved this mystery; unfortunately, they are not of JFK's brain. Horne was the first to deduce, from multiple lines of disparate data (see his detailed table), that a surrogate brain had been introduced at a second brain examination. Even the (sole) autopsy photographer of the brain, John Stringer, stated in no uncertain terms that these were not his photographs. One reason was that they were on the wrong brand of film. My own optical density data (taken directly from the extant skull X-rays at the National Archives) are totally inconsistent with the brain photographs (which I have observed at the National Archives with Cyril Wecht). Insofar as the amount of residual brain goes, one can accept either the X-ray data as authentic or the brain photographs as authentic, but not both. They are inconsistent with one another—in fact, wildly inconsistent. To date, no Warren Commission supporter has come to terms with this intractable paradox. It should also be emphasized that the optical density data actually preceded Horne's proposal, but these data are entirely consistent with his two-brain proposal.

I also object to Horne's proposal that puncture wounds were deliberately created in the scalp that night. Oddly, he does not identify the perpetrator, or even who issued the order. Of course, none of that is in the official record. Horne proposes that the high posterior "red spot" (selected by the HSCA as the official entry site—albeit persistently denied by the pathologists) was deliberately created that night. How the red color was achieved he does not say. And why that particular site was selected is also mysterious—did it fit better with the "sniper's nest" than did the EOP site? If so, who in the morgue would have known that so early in the game? But what madness it would be to create another wound! After all, H&B had already identified a lower (EOP) entry site; therefore this higher one would immediately imply two shots to the head—exactly what no one wanted that night. But Horne does not stop there; he also believes that the lower "white spot" (very near the posterior hairline) was deliberately man-made. We might well ask why he takes these risks. But that question has a simple answer: because he refuses to consider photographic alteration, he has no choice. Think about this: that red spot nearly correlates spatially with the 6.5 mm object on the skull X-ray—as it should since both were fakes. However, what breathtaking serendipity such a match was for subsequent government panels—they had their entry site! But because Horne has boxed himself in (no photo-alteration allowed) his only option is to say that the red spot really was present that night. Unless photographic doctoring is permitted, that red spot could not abruptly appear later. But no one at the autopsy saw this red spot (let alone its creation)—and the pathologists forever adamantly refused to recognize it (despite Horne's insinuation that they themselves had created it). All of this, taken together, is quite damning evidence in favor of (at least some) photographic alteration.

Horne suggests that the original Zapruder film may have been shot at 48 frames per second, an option that was available on that camera:

Removing the Car Stop and the Exit Debris From the Film Would Have Been Simple if Zapruder Had Actually Filmed the Motorcade at 'Slow Motion,' or at 48 Frames Per Second, Instead of at the Normal 'Run' Setting of 16 Frames Per Second.

Horne suggests that simple frame excision could then have eliminated much of the evidence of conspiracy. But this cannot work, as Costella has explained: the ghost images (in the intersprocket area) make this impossible. When Zapruder's camera exposed one frame (call it number 10), the gate (the metal frame that actually admits light to the film) simultaneously exposed (in the intersprocket area) a modest portion of each neighboring frame (call these 9 and 11). When Costella examined the film he learned that these ghost images are, in fact, consistent with the central frame in each case—i.e., 10 is always adjacent to 9 and 11 (and this works for any three adjacent frames). In a sense then, each adjacent ghost image "belongs" to its primary frame—and not to any other frame. On the other hand, if frame excision had occurred, each ghost image would become separated from its simultaneously exposed primary frame; i.e., such excision would have led to an adjacent ghost image exposed at a different time from the primary frame. For example, for excision of every other frame, 10 would end up next to 8 and 12; for excision of two of every three frames, 10 would end up next to 7 and 13. In either case, these ghost images would not match the frames next to them. And Costella emphasizes that enough information (e.g., motion blur) exists in these ghost images to permit such a deduction. The bottom line is that such inconsistencies are not found in the extant film. Furthermore, there is no escape from this problem, i.e., it is not possible simply to erase a ghost image from the intersprocket area—once there, it is always there. Partly based on this very powerful argument, Costella has argued that the extant film must be a fabrication, i.e., a re-creation using parts of multiple films (and probably only a rather modest portion of Zapruder's film at most). At least one of these films must have been shot during the motorcade, but others could have been shot before or after, even some days before or after. These then had to be stitched together to compose the extant film. Even differences of perspective (as would be expected for films shot from slightly different sites) could be overcome by selecting only pertinent parts of frames.

Costella concludes that the Stemmons freeway sign is one example of such a cut and paste job. By analyzing the effects of pincushion distortion he concludes that the sign was placed into the film after the fact, i.e., it looks constant in all frames. On the other hand, if it had been shot from Zapruder's camera, it should have experienced pincushion distortion: i.e., the sign would successively change its appearance from one frame to the next. Furthermore, after several frames, these changes would accumulate to become even more obvious. But the bottom line is that the Stemmons sign does not show such pincushion effects, which means that it was placed after the fact by the film forgers. This situation is closely analogous to the fake hairpiece on the back of JFK's head, where the image looks 2D rather than 3D via the stereo viewer. In both cases, the same fake image was placed (into multiple photographs—or into multiple frames) in a manner that violates the basic rules of optics.

Based on these arguments, Costella concludes that it would have been impossible to alter the film without discarding essentially all of the intersprocket areas and starting all over. In that case, he argues, the total time for (final) fabrication would have taken much longer than several days. Although Horne does not require completion of a final film (i.e., the extant film) by Sunday night (November 24) he does suggest that the Jamieson copies were switched quite promptly, likely within several days. Such a prompt (yet final) switch implies a timeline that sharply contrasts with Costella's more leisurely pace. Even David Healy (a professional video producer with decades of experience) emphasized in his 2003 Duluth lecture that even if an altered film had been viewed on Sunday night, November 24, it need not have been the final product (i.e., the extant film), but merely an interim film. Horne ultimately agrees that alterations might have continued for "several weeks" afterwards, especially if a traveling matte had been employed.

Costella also refers to the possibility that the proposed second film of the motorcade (by an unknown photographer—or photographers) might have been shot in 16 mm format. If so, that would have made forgery ever so much easier, particularly since the contemporaneous optical printers were not designed for 8 mm. It might also have made the subsequent first generation copies (the extant ones, which are probably not the Jamieson copies) appear more authentic after fabrication.

Costella goes on to wonder whether the splices in the film (e.g., between Z-208 and Z-212) were unavoidable during forgery for a simple reason: they may have contained telltale ghost images of bystanders who appeared under the left edge of the Stemmons sign. A splice is also present at Z-155 to Z-157. Curiously, this is close to frames where Michael Stroscio, a physicist, identified a possible shot at Z-152 to Z-153.

There is a final, simple argument against a 48 fps scenario for Zapruder. If 48 fps had been used, then when the film was shown that weekend, all of the action would have appeared in slow motion—as if the actors were subject to the lesser gravity of the moon. However, no one reported such an odd effect, even though someone surely should have.

My final paragraph in this section is not really a criticism of Horne at all. It merely reflects an unblinking reality: no one (not even Bugliosi ) can address everything important in this case. I refer here to the police dictabelt and the acoustics data. Horne implies that the acoustics data support conspiracy—based on the number of audible shots and also on timing problems, i.e., two shots are only 1.66 seconds apart, an interval much too short for the Mannlicher-Carcano. However, he does not cite the work of Don Thomas, which reinvigorated this subject, nor does he mention the fallout from that work. The discussion continues; the interested reader may begin with Wikipedia for current references.

Conclusions

I stand in awe of the scope, detail, and profound insights that Horne has achieved, especially in the medical evidence—to say nothing of his Olympian effort. Given the circumstances of its creation (mostly on weekends, within a cumulative time span of perhaps two years) it is nothing short of phenomenal. Contrast Horne's effort with Bugliosi's, which extended over several decades, and which may have included writing assistants and editors. Bugliosi also did not have to self-publish. The bottom line is that I feel a deep debt of gratitude to Horne for further disentangling this nearly half-century old Gordian knot. By contrast, I should emphasize that I never experienced that sensation with Bugliosi.

If H&B indeed played alterationists with the skull and brain (as I now accept), then Horne has initiated a paradigm shift in our understanding of the cover-up. But, as Horne acknowledges, this does not necessarily convert H&B into villains. After all, they may well have considered themselves to be heroic patriots, who single-handedly aborted World War III, depending on exactly what their military superiors had told them.

Josiah Thompson has proclaimed that the Zapruder debate has been a gigantic waste of time, because it is "junk science" that has produced nothing. Like Einstein's opinion of quantum mechanics, Thompson's mind is stuck in the past. In fact, Horne has presented revolutionary new data about the chain of possession. In view of Thompson's now-shaky bedrock, many will find this new information very convincing indeed—especially younger researchers new to the case, whose minds are still open. I have previously summarized traditional historical (and scientific) views that were later overturned, so no one should be surprised at this dénouement. Without nascent heretics, our world would soon become more impoverished. In retrospect, it was best not to offer obeisance to Roland Zavada (as the inerrant pope of the film), as Thompson implied we should do. The two-event sequence at NPIC has all the hallmarks of a covert operation—but for 46 years not even Brugioni knew what had transpired—and he wrote the history of the NPIC! Some of us did not need more evidence, but others did. These fence-sitters may now take their own time to decide. Some may even wish to make a pilgrimage to view the MPI transparencies in Dallas. The real point, though, as Horne states, is that the alteration of the film is, in itself, major evidence of a government cover-up. I could not agree more.

What remains controversial for many though is the timeline for alteration. Horne favors a very short timeline, while Costella prefers a distinctly longer one. The early appearance in LIFE of altered frames (e.g., the "blob" on JFK's face and the disappearance of the white object in the background grass) indicate that some frames had been altered before Sunday night, November 24. In addition, the Hunter/McMahon briefing boards show the extremely black patch over JFK's occiput, as well as the blob. It is possible, though not certain, that incriminating flying debris was also removed by Sunday night. The Stemmons sign and the lamppost (both added after the fact, according to Costella) also appear in LIFE's first JFK issue, in low-resolution black and white photographs. Now consider this: McMahon concluded that JFK was hit by 6-8 shots, fired from at least three directions. Evidence for these shots is absent from the extant film, so he must have seen a different film (though probably not the original). If McMahon's observations were correct, then he must have seen a partly altered film. That would leave time for Costella's more leisurely scenario.

The chief argument for a short timeline is the need to dispose promptly of the Jamieson (first-day) copies; the problem, of course, is that the longer these persisted the longer the original images might be copied—or recalled—by others. Horne notes that the FBI returned its Jamieson copy to the Secret Service by Tuesday, November 26. However, we do not know the disposition of any other FBI copies, i.e., later generation copies made from the Jamieson copies (that the FBI might have already made by then). So perhaps this cover-up was a two-step process: (1) retrieve quickly all possible copies (including Jamieson copies and all those made from Jamieson's) and (2) sometime later (e.g., within one or two months) replace those earlier ones by copies subsequently made from the extant film. Perhaps the FBI was even given some credible excuse for the delay in replacement (e.g., an improved quality copy was pending); in any case, it is likely that J. Edgar Hoover would have cooperated with any reasonable suggestion to abet the cover-up. But LIFE, too, had a copy. However, after their early assassination coverage, they had no need for the film, as a movie film. Given the role of C. D. Jackson (LIFE's publisher), first in the very expensive purchase of the film, and then in his sequestering of the film (with no profit accruing to LIFE), it is likely (especially in view of his longtime intelligence connections) that he also would have agreed to such a delayed replacement.

But there is still the matter of the three black and white copies of the extant film, discovered in the year 2000 by the Sixth Floor Museum among materials sold to Zapruder in 1975 by Time, Inc. Their format is 16 mm, unslit, with the motorcade on one side and Zapruder home scenes on the other (adjacent) side. These include markings on the film that identify specific frames actually printed in LIFE. An irresistible deduction from these markings, of course, is that the extant film had already been completed by that early date. In fact, however, all that is certain is that specific frames (those made public) must have been finalized by that date. On the other hand, if Costella's more leisurely timeframe is adopted, that would imply that these black and white copies were only later placed into the LIFE collection—marked up appropriately after the fact—so as to give the impression that the markings (and the extant film, too) dated to November. Although this scenario may be true, no eyewitness to date has corroborated it.

Suggestions

The HD scans (cited above) of selected Zapruder frames should be scanned with an optical densitometer. If possible, multiple wavelengths (colors) should be employed. These scans should then be compared to controls, e.g., JFK's head before Z-313 and Connally's head (at most any time). This might quantify the magnitude of photo-alteration, thus making the conclusions more scientific. Further studies may be forthcoming from the Hollywood nexus. New films shot via a camera like Zapruder's might yet provide further insights. Of course, if extant films (i.e., original ones, not altered ones) from Zapruder's actual camera can still be located that would be even better. As Horne suggests, at the National Archives two autopsy photographs of the posterior scalp (from a matched pair) should be overlaid on a view box. If the images of the suspect area perfectly align, that would constitute powerful evidence of photo-alteration. Control areas should also be extensively compared, just to see what non-identical (but stereo-matched) pairs look like. Surprisingly, no one has done this.

There are three X-ray films of the bone fragments, which seems a bit excessive. Is it possible that these extra films were taken to replace those X-rays that had been discarded—in order that the total number of X-ray films remained fixed at 14? Is it even possible that these three films are identical to one another? If so, that would be even more suspicious. To check on this (for the first time—no one has done this), Horne suggests that the films simply be overlaid to see if they match precisely.

I have never looked for the head brace on the X-rays nor, apparently, has anyone else. Since the autopsy personnel did not recognize this, it would be useful to look for this on the X-ray films. In view of Horne's proposal that Knudsen took autopsy photographs with the head brace (apparently while no autopsy personnel were present—because no one recalls this), the presence or absence of such a brace on the X-rays might shed further light on Horne's proposed timeline for Knudsen (if he was involved at all).

The optical density data from the X-rays should be confirmed. The National Archives have their own densitometer(s); perhaps they would even assist with this. Actually the data need not be too extensive—even a few select data points inside the 6.5 mm object and inside the "white patches" could be highly confirmatory.

My observation at the National Archives of intact emulsion (where there should be none) over the T-shaped inscription on a lateral skull X-ray provided prima facie evidence that this X-ray must be a copy. That clearly means that (1) the original is missing and (2) the door lies open to alteration (during copying). Surprisingly, no one has yet attempted to confirm my observation (of the paradoxically missing emulsion), despite the fact that Chad Zimmerman and Larry Sturdivan had that opportunity after my observation became public. Furthermore, Bugliosi should be a bit red-faced that he did not accompany them at that critical moment. Even he could have made that observation.

Perhaps some other creative minds can think further about three head shots. My fear, though, is that this impasse may never be resolved due to insufficient data. Given the destruction inflicted on the skull by H&B (and perhaps by their predecessors), I am not even certain that a second autopsy would help to resolve that question.

Addendum: The 6.5 mm Mystery on the AP Skull X-ray

Although Horne's discussion of the suspicious 6.5 mm object on the AP X-ray is in Volume II, I could not resist a few comments about it here. To date no one else has explained this object, not even the three experts interviewed by the ARRB. Furthermore, each one of the three autopsy pathologists (interviewed separately and under oath) denied either seeing or removing this thing at the autopsy. Even Larry Sturdivan admits that it cannot be a bullet fragment (this admission, almost by itself, destroys the case against the lone gunman), but then after his visit to the National Archives he had to confess that it remained as mysterious as ever. He did, however, offer one half-hearted proposal that he did not really endorse, namely that the fragment had been present on the AP X-ray, but had fallen off before the lateral was taken. (He necessarily assumed that the AP had been taken first.) But this does not explain an awkward fact: the lateral X-ray still shows a small metal fragment at precisely the expected site! Furthermore, this proposal disagrees with Reed's sequence of X-rays: Reed said he took the lateral film first. In fact, the only viable explanation for this bizarre 6.5 mm object is photographic addition in the dark room. Horne recounts my own adventures with this fantastic forgery in some detail. Given that he began his odyssey as a layman in medicine and radiology, Horne offers a splendid summary of this entire subject.

Appendix: Three Casket Entries

Time (PM) Casket Type Witnesses Remarks

Paul O'Connor

6:35 Shipping Roger Boyajian Black hearse

casket Dennis David Body bag

Donald Rebentisch

Floyd Riebe

Note: this first entry was documented by Boyajian and corroborated by the above witnesses.

7:17 Bronze viewing Jim Sibert Light gray navy

casket Frank O'Neill ambulance

(from Parkland) Roy Kellerman Empty casket

William Greer

Note: this second entry was documented in the report of Sibert and O'Neill.

8:00 Bronze viewing Joint Service Casket Team Light gray navy

casket Godfrey McHugh ambulance

Body inside, wrapped

in sheets—no body bag

Note: this third entry was supervised by Lt. Samuel Bird from Fort Myer.

[William Kelly]

THANK YOU BILL KELLY FOR YOUR REVIEW OF COSTELLA'S CRITIQUE...APPRECIATED...B

While I am not a fan of Horne's book, I would agree that Costella's review read more like a rant, a rant I can relate to, by the way.

We await your rant Pat.

At least it will be on topic.

Let's see - WTF Rant #1 - no index.

WTF Rant #2 - Vague table of contents.

WTF Rant #3 - Horne doesn't mention Costella's work

WTF Rant #4 - Horne "reeks" of military intelligence and is G-Man

WTF Rant #5 - Horne doesn't include the entire McMahon interview

WTF Rant #6 - IARRB is an extension of the WC coverup.