Inside the ARRB, Vol. I, by Doug Horne

[William Kelly]

Cliff:

If you think what the HSCA said about the autopsy photos is enough to give one pause, wait until you see what Stringer said about the pictures of what purports to be Kennedy's brain.

Its in Horne Vol. 3, and I think this may be the highlight of the whole series so far.

Can't wait to hear the hue and cry about that.

Jim, I haven't read IARRB, but everything I read about it gives me the impression that Horne

does not address the killing of JFK, but rather the cover-up of the killing. Any kind

of "alteration" theory addresses the cover-up, not the killing.

I find this of minor importance. We already know who directed the cover-up.

From Vincent Salandria's "The Tale Told by Two Tapes":

http://educationforu...art=#entry31073

In November of 1966, I read Theodore H. White's The Making of the President, 1964...

[O]n page 33 I read the following about the flight back to Washington, D.C. from Dallas:

(quote on)

On the flight the party learned that there was no conspiracy, learned of the

identity of Oswald and his arrest; and the President's mind turned to the

duties of consoling the stricken and guiding the quick.

(quoite off)

...* The Situation Room of the White House first fingered Oswald as the

lone assassin when an innocent government, with so much evidence

in Dealey Plaza of conspiracy, would have been keeping all options open.

Therefore this premature birth of the single-assassin myth points to the

highest institutional structure of our warfare state as guilty of the crime

of killing Kennedy. Such a source does not take orders from the Mafia

nor from renegade elements. But such a source is routinely given to

using the Mafia and supposedly out-of-control renegade sources to do

its bidding.

* McGeorge Bundy was in charge of the Situation Room and was spending

that fateful afternoon receiving phone calls from President Johnson, who

was calling from Air Force One when the lone-assassin myth was

prematurely given birth. (Bishop, Jim, The Day Kennedy Was Shot,

New York & Funk Wagnalls, 1968), p. 154) McGeorge Bundy as the

quintessential WASP establishmentarian did not take his orders from the

Mafia and/or renegade elements.

Bundy was a blue-blood who took orders from other blue-bloods.

Joseph Trento, The Secret History of the CIA, pgs 334-5:

Having served as ambassador to Moscow and governor of New York,

W. Averell Harriman was in the middle of a long public career. In 1960,

President-elect Kennedy appointed him ambassador-at-large, to operate

"with the full confidence of the president and an intimate knowledge of

all aspects of United States policy." By 1963, according to [Pentagon aide

William R.] Corson, Harriman was running "Vietnam without consulting

the president or the attorney general."

The president had begun to suspect that not everyone on his national security

team was loyal. As Corson put it, "Kenny O'Donnell (JFK's appointments

secretary) was convinced that McGeorge Bundy, the national security advisor,

was taking orders from Ambassador Averell Harriman and not the president.

He was especially worried about Michael Forrestal, a young man on the

White House staff who handled liaison on Vietnam with Harriman."

And who showed up at the White House mere minutes after LBJ's arrival

the evening of 11/22/63?

Max Holland's The Assassination Tapes, pg 57:

At 6:55 p.m. Johnson has a ten minute meeting with Senator J. William Fulbright

and diplomat W. Averell Harriman to discuss possible foreign involvement in the

assassination, especially in light of the two-and-a-half-year sojourn of Lee Harvey

Oswald [in Russia]...Harriman, a U.S. ambassador to Moscow during WWII, is an

experienced interpreter of Soviet machinations and offers the president the

unanimous view of the U.S. government's top Kremlinologists. None of them

believe the Soviets have a hand in the assassination, despite the Oswald association.

The Oswald-lone-nut cover-up was created at the highest levels of the American

ruling elite, and all Horne is doing is mucking around in the lower levels of

this cover-up and pretending its a big deal.

Since you haven't read Horne's book you wouldn't know that he does indeed mucks around over the missing

AF1 radio communication tapes, and doesn't pretend anything is a big deal.

BK

Doesn't he assert that the killing itself was designed around the framing of Oswald

as a lone nut?

Correct me if I'm wrong.

Doug Horne only mentions Oswald's name a half dozen times in the course of all five volumes.

He certainly does assert that the post assassination machinations of the cover up were designed to assist in the framing of Oswald, a frame that was laid out months before. The assertion that Oswald was not a covert operative and a lone nut is a post assassination cover story.

I will excerpt the parts of Horne that deals with the AF1 radio tapes, because I think they are much more important than the medical evidence, but I will do that on a designated thread and not this one because this thread is supposed to be dealing with Jim's reviews of Vol. I & II that deal strictly with the medical records and evidence.

Read the books, they are certainly worthwhile and cover a lot more than you imagine.

BYW, I agree with your assessment that someone at the highest level of goverment was calling the shots and Bundy and Harriman are suspects.

BK

[Cliff Varnell]

Bill,

I may very well have developed an unfortunate impression of IARRB.

I'll check it out, as per your recommendation.

[Robert Harris]

Review of Vol II starts off mentioning head reconstruction versus alteration to show the back of the head intact...

Horne/Lifton support reconstruction yet I have to agree with James as that does not seem likely.

I post this since this is the first time I am combining these 2 images.

IF a frontal shot lacerated the scalp as Boswell described

and IF the underlying skull is gone and extends back into the occipital,

it is possible that the scalp was intact enough yet completely flapped over to expose the large hole many saw.

and the other F photos showing the top of JFK's head supports his drawing.

why is it not possible that they are simply pulling this flap back over the hole... not the best autopsy photo ever, for sure... but it seems possible

and could be without alteration or reconstruction. all it is, is misleading

DJ

David, Boswell's ARRB testimony is simply unreliable. One of Horne's great errors, IMO, is to take snippets of Boswell's testimony and twist them to support his theory, when he knew full well that Boswell, if asked point blank "Was there a large defect missing scalp and bone on the back of Kennedy's head at the beginning of the autopsy?" would have told him to get stuffed. I discuss this in chapter 18c at patspeer.com:

"Now the use of Dr. Boswell as a "back of the head" witness is a bit bizarre on its face, seeing as he signed off on the autopsy report in which no scalp lacerations on the back of the head were noted, and seeing as he never ever said anything indicating he'd seen an entrance wound on the front of the head.

But when one looks at his statements to the ARRB it becomes even more bizarre.

Here is one of the key statements used by back-of-the-head wound theorists to sell Boswell as a "back of the head" witness:

A. There was a big wound sort of transverse up like this from left posterior to right anterior. The scalp was separated, but it was folded over, and you could fold the scalp over and almost hide the wound. When you lifted the scalp up, you could really lay it back posteriorally, and there was a lot of bone still attached to the scalp but detached from the remainder of the skull. And I think these parts back here probably reflect that.

And here is Boswell's response to a follow-up question by Jeremy Gunn:

Q. When you say the left posterior, what do you mean?

A. The left occipital area, and that wound extends to the right frontal area. And what I meant was that the wound in the scalp could be closed from side to side so that it didn't appear that there was any scalp actually--scalp missing.

Yep. That's right. Those pushing Boswell as a witness for the wound described by the Parkland witnesses--a gaping EXIT wound of both scalp and skull on the RIGHT back of the head--are using Boswell's recollection of a scalp LACERATION on the LEFT side of the head, (a scalp laceration that could be closed from side to side so that one could not tell any scalp was missing, mind you), as evidence.

Now, even if one were to accept the ridiculous notion that his statements support there was a gaping wound missing both scalp and skull on the right back side of the head, how reliable are Boswell's recollections?

Not remotely, as it turns out.

More from his ARRB deposition with Gunn:

Q. Do you recall whether there were tears or lacerations in the scalp?

A. Right across here and--

Q. Approximately across the midline?

A. What I previously described, post-occipital, and on the left, across the top, and then down to the right frontal area, and then the laceration extended into the right eye.

Q. Okay. Could you make another drawing--and we'll put Line No. 2 on this--to show the approximate direction of the large laceration that you just referred to?

A. Well, it's not a--I can't say what direction, but--and then this came on down like so, and--actually, I think it came right into here.

Q. Okay. I'm going to put a 2 in a circle right next to that line, and the 2 will signify the approximate direction and shape of the large laceration. Would that be fair?

A. Mm-hmm.

Q. Just so I'm clear--and we'll be looking at the photographs in a few minutes, and you can maybe clarify it there. But at least with some of the photographs, is it your testimony that the scalp was pulled in a way different from how it was when you first saw it in order to better illustrate either wound of entry or exit?

A. Yes. The scalp was essentially loose. In the usual autopsy, you have to cut underneath the scalp in order to reflect it. In this case, the scalp was mobile so that you could pull it forward to obscure the wound or pull it back to make the wound completely lucid.

Q. Okay. Was the hair cleaned in any way for purposes of the photographs?

A. No, I don't think so. There was not a lot of blood, as I remember, and I think he had been pretty well cleaned up in the operating--in the emergency room. And I don't think we had to do much in the way of cleansing before we took photographs.

Well, wait right there. Boswell spoke to the ARRB in 1996. When asked the preceding questions by Jeremy Gunn he had not been shown the autopsy photos since 1977, and had not been shown the establishing shots taken at the autopsy--the photos showing Kennedy lying on the table before an inspection of his wounds had begun--since 1967. Clearly, he had forgotten that these first shots show the President's hair to be matted with blood and brain. His response then shows that he lacked a clear recollection of Kennedy's original appearance when interviewed by the ARRB. He was in his seventies, after all, discussing something he'd seen more than 30 years before. So why should we believe his latter-day recollections are accurate?

We shouldn't. The scalp laceration stretching to the left occipital region suddenly recalled by Boswell 33 years after performing the autopsy was not only not mentioned in the autopsy protocol, it was specifically ruled out by Boswell in his 9-16-77 interview with the HSCA pathology panel.

When asked about the red spot the HSCA panel presumed to be the bullet entrance, and which Dr. Humes presumed was dried blood, Boswell replied:

"It's the posterior-inferior margin of the lacerated scalp." When one of the HSCA panel, Dr. Petty, expressed doubt about this, Boswell then repeated: "It tore right down to that point. And then we just folded that back and this back and an anterior flap forward and this exposed almost the entire--I guess we did have to dissect a little bit to get to."

If, in Boswell's mind, the scalp laceration ended at the red spot, high on the back of the head on the parietal bone, in 1977, there was no way it could possibly have stretched all the way to the occipital bone 19 years later. It seems clear, then, that Dr. Boswell was seriously confused.

But those pushing Boswell as a back of the head witness will never admit this.

Let's take, for example, Doug Horne. Horne had fed Gunn questions during the ARRB's questioning of Boswell. On page 111 of his opus, Inside the ARRB, Horne, who by his own admission had pursued a job with the ARRB in hopes of proving fraud in the medical evidence, quotes Boswell's response after being asked if his 17 by 10 measurement for the large skull defect reflected missing bone or fractured skull. Boswell responded: "Most of that space, the bone was missing. There were a lot of small skull fragments attached to the scalp as it was reflected, but most of that space, the bone was missing, some of which--I think two of which we subsequently retrieved."

Now look what Horne says but four pages later, when discussing Dr. Boswell's approximation of the borders of this defect on a skull model: "The 3-D skull drawing by Boswell was critical, because his autopsy sketch of the top of the skull had by its very nature not shown the condition of the rear of the head. Boswell's 3-D skull diagram completed the rest of the picture. And he wasn't depicting fragmentation or areas of broken bone, he was depicting areas of the skull denuded of bone. It was electrifying."

What? Where does Horne get that Boswell wasn't depicting fragmentation? Boswell had just told him that part of the area depicted was where small fragments attached to the scalp. Why does he ignore this?

Here's why:

Q: Just one last point that I would like to just clarify in my one mind is: On the piece for the markings for the 10 by 17 centimeters that were missing, would it be fair to say that when you first examined the body prior to any arrival of fragments from Dallas, the skull was missing from approximately those dimensions of 10 by 17?

A. Yes.

Problem: the word "approximately" is, in this instance, unduly vague. NONE of the other back of the head witnesses described so much skull missing. Clearly Boswell had no idea how big the hole on the skull was before the scalp was peeled back. Clearly he measured the skull defect after the scalp had been pulled back and skull had fallen to the table. Clearly, the best indicator of the size of the hole on the back of the head, then, would be the x-rays, which depict no large hole on the back of the head where Horne and others presume there was a hole...where the Parkland witnesses told them there was a hole...

But, wait, Horne's found a way to undermine the credibility of the x-rays...provided, not surprisingly, by Gunn's questioning of Boswell:

Q. Were any skull fragments put back into place before photographs or before X-rays?

A. I think before we took the--the ones that came from Dallas were never put back in except to try and approximate them to the ones that were present. But I think all the others were left intact.

Q. So, for example, was there a fragment that had fallen out at any point that you then put back into its place before a photograph or X-ray was taken?

A. Yes.

Q. What size fragments and where did you place them at the--

A. Well, the one that's in the diagram on Exhibit 1, that 10-centimeter piece I'm sure was out at one time or another. And I think maybe some of these smaller fragments down at the base of that diagram also were out at one time or another. But those were all put back.

So, from leading the clearly elderly and confused Boswell through a series of strange questions designed to support or refute the body alteration theory of David Lifton, Gunn got Horne the answer he was looking for...that bone was put back in the skull BEFORE x-rays were taken. Never mind that Boswell at first specified that the large pieces of missing bone were not put back in the skull, and only relented after being asked the same question a second time. Never mind that the bone Boswell thinks they are talking about did not arrive until the end of the autopsy, and that NOT ONE witness recalled a skull x-ray being taken after the beginning of the autopsy.

I mean, let's get serious. One can not honestly propose, a la Horne, that Boswell's confused testimony suggests that the 10cm fragment recovered from the floor of the limo was placed back in Kennedy's skull to hide a hole on the back of his head, unless one is willing to propose this bone was occipital bone. And no one of whom I'm aware, even Horne's colleague Dr. Mantik, believes such a thing.

So why play with Boswell's words to suggest such a thing?"

Pat, I don't know what Boswell meant in his side-by-side statement either but what I do know is, that we can easily see the damage that he described. The broken piece of skull at the top of the skull was blown to the rear sometime prior to the 330's. We can easily see the indentation at the top of the head where it used to be, and the missing hair and scalp that was forward of it, but was still in place as late as frame 317. This was one of my early presentations and production values are admittedly a bit shabby:-) Most of the analysis of that damage is in the second half of the video.