Who's telling the truth: Clint Hill or the Zapruder film?

[Ron Ecker]

There is no evidence that anyone except Oswald in Dallas, or Valle in Chicago was going to be framed. That was the way to cut off all conspiracy thinking in advance.

I can't buy the idea that the conspirators shot JFK front and back and/or had triangulation of gunfire and would blithely assume that they could blame it all on Oswald shooting from behind. Too many things could go wrong. Use multiple shooters, to make sure the job's done, and blame it on multiple shooters, particularly if you're trying to pin the hit on Castro. The evidence on Oswald alone working for Castro, with his leaflets and that Mexico City business, might not be enough. We don't know what or who else they had ready to use to frame Castro, because the "Castro did it" scenario was aborted with the capture of Oswald.

[Paul Rigby]

Sometimes when you read Lifton, its like he has never read anyone else.

Strange, but I get the same impression every time I read anything by you.

This whole idea of an Oswald did it verdict, versus a Oswald did it for Castro verdict has been discussed at length in print by Peter Scott.

I have discussed this also at length with John Newman. If you are not aware, these two guys have done a lot of work on both Oswald and Mexico City.

I confess, I’m so unfamiliar with Newman’s work that I had an argument with him about it at the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool in the 1990s. It was, in brief, about his attempt to exonerate the CIA as an institution from involvement in the coup. I thought his line was preposterous and told him so. He was, if I recall, unimpressed. We parted without exchanging addresses. For those interested in a devastating analysis of the Newman Exoneration, try Salandria’s, as found within Michael D. Morrisey’s Correspondence with Vincent Salandria, 1993-2000 (Lulu, 2007).

Scott’s a curious figure, with important limits to his dissent. His continued support, for example, for the proposition that Lodge removed Richardson as CIA station chief in Saigon to remove an allegedly important impediment to an anti-Diem coup, is demonstrably untrue; and I continue to wonder why he persists with this nonsense, not least given the abundant evidence of CIA responsibility for earlier attempts to remove Diem.

They agree that an invasion of Cuba was probably the intent of the actual planners of the plot (which unlike who Lifton and RIgby seem to insinuate, was not Kellerman. Unless Kellerman was calling Anne Goodpasture about the tapes and photos from Mexico City.

Here we come to one of those petulant and dishonest outbursts to which you are intermittently given. Unless I've missed something,I've never suggested Kellerman was anything more than a hood under orders, albeit one with several pressing problems, most notably at Parkland.

The case you make for the plotters’ supposed plan to pin the blame on Castro is remarkably old-hat; and blithely disregards the diverse evidences that the CIA installed Castro in Havana as a hemispheric bogeyman for the long-haul.

What happened was that this scenario was cut off by Hoover and Johnson, who were not part of the actual planning of the nuts and bolts of the operation. And you can actually see this in the phone calls and communications that take place afterwards. Hoover does not understand what happened in Mexico City. And LBJ does not want a WW 3 on his hands.

I agree with you without reservation when it comes to Hoover, but with some element of doubt as to what Landslide knew and when. That doesn’t mean he was involved in the planning of the hit; or that he was a particularly valuable player afterwards. It’s simply a question of his foreknowledge. Given that he could read a paper, he could not fail to be unaware of the rift between Kennedy and Langley. Did it go beyond that? I don’t know for sure.

So what happens is the fallback position: Oswald as the sociopathic leftist loner. (And BTW this was actually a part of the plot but it got blown up in Clinton-Jackson when too many people saw Oswald with Shaw and Ferrie.)

This represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the coup and its purposes. The major players – Dulles, Angleton et al – first sought to restore the domestic political status quo ante, not furnish a casus belli for immediate action against Havana. It wasn’t a fallback, so much as the original intent. The anti-Castro stuff was merely red meat for the rubes in the trenches.

This Oswald as agent for Castro still survived enough though for authors like Russo and Epstein to base books around it.

Again, this is to miss several important points, most particularly, that involving the CIA's approach, which has proved as flexible and unscrupulous as one might expect.

For the benefit of those unfamiliar with it, the CIA itself produced the most sustained conspiratorial piece in the entire 26 volumes of evidence: It’s in the final volume, boasts Helms’ imprimatur, was dated late February 1964, and urged the Commission to consider “ties between Ruby and others who might have been interested in the assassination of President Kennedy” (p.470). The memorandum sets out just about every false sponsor the CIA was subsequently to sponsor, through a variety of authors, not excluding the two you (correctly) identify, Russo and Epstein.

And BTW, I don't see where the actual Dallas plot was ever about other gun men than Oswald. Just like the Chicago plot was never to frame anyone but Valle. I don't know, was LBJ in Chicago the night before? Paul, was Kellerman? Why not ask Bolden or Edwin Black.

A bit of a nonsense, this, but one serious point needs making: Black's work on the Chicago plot, while fascinating, and perhaps entirely true, requires a lot more research and thought. I remain open-minded on it.

[Pat Speer]

Corroborating the point you're making above (addressing Dan Gallup):

When I visited Nurse Bell in Dallas in December, 1982—when I had just received the autopsy photographs—I showed them to her and she emphasized that they did NOT show the head wound that she had seen. Further, she emphasized how far back on President Kennedy’s head that wound was located. Rather than repeat from memory what she told me, I'll just quote the Afterword to the Carrol and Graf edition of BEST EVIDENCE, which was prepared by using the tape recording of that in-person interview:

NOW QUOTING

Audrey Bell was emphatic on the same point The wound she saw was so localized at the rear that, from her position on the right hand side, with Kennedy lying face up, she couldn't see ANY damage. She described walking into the [emergency] room, seeing Kennedy face up on the car, and expressing puzzlement to Dr. Perry: "Where was the wound?" [was what she communicated to Perry]. Perry pointed to the back of the President's head and moved the head slightly in order to show her the wound." UNQUOTE

When I interviewed Audrey Bell in 1989, on camera, with a professional camera crew, we went through the same incident again.

I fail to understand how Pat Speer (or anyone else) can maintain that there was a hole in the top of Kennedy's head, one-half foot across (per the Boswell diagram) that was unseen at Parkland Hospital. As far as I'm concerned, that's not just a "weak" hypothesis—its a completely absurd and untenable argument. Yet that's the kind of argument or “explanation” that's at the basis of the viewpoint of Pat Speer (and/or Aguilar and/or DiEugenio, who basically parrots whatever Aguilar says). All these folks—in rejecting body alteration—subscribe to the notion that the Dallas doctors and nurses simple observed the posterior portion of a much larger wound. This is their way of denying the reality of body alteration. And that's unfortunate, because "body alteration"—more accurately state, “wound alteration”—is the path to the broader concept of "fraud in the evidence," and "fraud in the evidence" provides the closest thing to a straight-line path to the political heart of the matter: that the “lone assassin theory” is a false (and contrived) construct built on fraudulent evidence. But that explanation, in turn, is the reason why the transition from Kennedy to Johnson was not the "ordinary transition" that might occur if a "lone nut" had actually shot the President, but a transition that was sold to the American people based on a false story about Kennedy's murder.

DSL

1/22/11, Revised and edited, 12:45 PM

Los Angeles, CA

David, you misrepresent my theory, or whatever you want to call it. I do not believe the Parkland witnesses failed to notice a large wound on the top of Kennedy's head. I agree with you that such a mistake would be unlikely. When I decided to look into whether a different kind of mistake would be likely--a mistake in which the wound many thought was on the back of the head was really on the top of the head--however, I found that yes, such a mistake would be possible. The key is Jenkins' report, in which he claims Kennedy was put into the Trendelenburg position to assure blood flow to the head. Well, this would put Kennedy's feet well above his head. If someone were to look at Kennedy while in such a position, moreover, the wound on the top of his head would be at the back of his head--as they would normally view him, and as they would picture him in their mind's eye while trying to remember the wound location.

I spent a month or so looking through every article I could find on how people perceive the human face while rotated, etc, and even corresponded with two top cognitive psychologists (who wished to remain anonymous) who assured me such a mistake was possible. I discuss all this in chapter 18c.

P.S. My search for an alternate explanation than body alteration for the Parkland/Berthesda divide stemmed not from any perverse desire to create a new theory, but from the realization that the Dealey Plaza witnesses failed to see an explosion from the back of Kennedy's head, and that there was really a divide between what was seen in Dealey Plaza, what was seen at the autopsy, what was shown on the autopsy photos and x-rays on ONE side, and what the bulk of the doctors and nurses at Parkland hospital remembered on the other side. It made no sense to me that the body was altered on the way to the hospital and then altered back later.

So WHY did the recollections of the Dealey Plaza witnesses support the Bethesda version of the wounds, and not the Parkland version?

From chapter 18c:

At approximately 12:45 P.M., within 15 minutes of Kennedy's being shot, assassination witness William Newman, who was less than 30 feet to the side of Kennedy when the fatal bullet struck, was interviewed live on television station WFAA. This was 45 minutes before the announcement of Kennedy’s death. Newman told Jay Watson: “And then as the car got directly in front of us, well, a gun shot apparently from behind us hit the President in the side, the side of the temple.” As he said this, he pointed to his left temple, with his only free hand. (This image is reversed on the slide above.)

At 1:17, about a half hour later, Watson interviewed Gayle Newman, who'd been standing right beside her husband and had had an equally close look at the President's wound. She reported: "And then another one—it was just awful fast. And President Kennedy reached up and grabbed--it looked like he grabbed--his ear and blood just started gushing out." (As she said this she motioned to her right temple with both of her hands. In 1969, while testifying at the trial of Clay Shaw, Mrs, Newman would make the implications of this even more clear, and specify that Kennedy "was shot in the head right at his ear or right above his ear…")

Okay so that's two for two. Two witnesses, BOTH of whom saw the bullet impact by Kennedy's ear. But they only saw Kennedy for a second. Maybe they were mistaken. If they were correct, certainly someone seeing Kennedy at Parkland Hospital would have noticed the wound they describe by Kennedy's temple, and have mentioned it on 11-22-63.

Someone did. At 1:33 p.m. on November 22, 1963, Assistant Press Secretary Malcolm Kilduff announced President Kennedy’s death from Parkland Hospital. He told the country: “President John F. Kennedy died at approximately one o’clock Central Standard Time today here in Dallas. He died of a gunshot wound in the brain…Dr. Burkley [Kennedy's personal physician] told me it is a simple matter…of a bullet right through the head.(at which time, as shown on the slide above, he pointed to his right temple) . . . It is my understanding that it entered in the temple, the right temple.” As Dr. Burkley had seen Kennedy in the Dallas emergency room and was later to tell the HSCA that Kennedy’s wounds didn’t change between Dallas and Bethesda, the site of the autopsy, Kilduff’s statements are a clear indication that the large head wound depicted in the autopsy photos is in the same location as the large head wound seen at Parkland Hospital. That no one at the time of Kilduff's statement had noted a separate bullet entrance anywhere on Kennedy's head, moreover, suggests that Burkley had seen but one wound, a wound by the temple, exactly where Newman and his wife had seen a wound.

But wait, there's more... Less than forty minutes after the announcement of Kennedy's death, eyewitness Abraham Zapruder took his turn before the cameras on WFAA, and confirmed the observations of Burkley and the Newmans. Describing the shooting, Zapruder told Jay Watson: “Then I heard another shot or two, I couldn't say it was one or two, and I saw his head practically open up, all blood and everything (at this time, and as shown on the slide above, Zapruder grabbed his right temple), and I kept on shooting. That's about all, I'm just sick, I can't…”

This means that there were four witnesses to comment on the location of Kennedy's head wound prior to the approximately 3:15 press conference at Parkland Hospital, in which Dr. William Kemp Clark claimed the wound was on the "back of his head," and all of them had specified the wound to have been on the side of Kennedy's head, where it was later shown to be in the autopsy photos and Zapruder film. Now ain't that a humdinger!

Now, I know what some of you are thinking. You're thinking, "but Pat you're cherry-picking witnesses to support your silly notion that the Parkland witnesses were wrong and that the bullet striking Kennedy at frame 313 did not exit the back of his head." Well, first of all, I don't believe my noting that the earliest witnesses all said that a bullet hit Kennedy by the temple is silly, particularly in that three participants to Kennedy's autopsy--radiologist Dr. John Ebersole, radiology technician Jerrol Custer, and autopsy assistant James Curtis Jenkins--all left the autopsy with a similar impression a bullet struck Kennedy by the temple. And second of all.... Well, have it your way. Let's go through the statements of the best witnesses to the shooting.

Dealey Plaza groundskeeper Emmett Hudson, who was standing on the steps to the right and front of Kennedy at the moment of the fatal head shot, also discussed its impact. In his testimony before the Warren Commission, Hudson asserted: "it looked like it hit him somewhere along a little bit behind the ear and a little bit above the ear." While this is a few inches back of the location described by the Newmans and Zapruder, it is more significantly not a description of a bullet exit on the far back of Kennedy's head, where most conspiracy theorists have long held the large head wound was located.

"Well, wait a second"--I'm sure some of you are thinking--"maybe Hudson, along with the other witnesses, saw the bullet's entrance, and missed seeing the exit of this bullet from the back of Kennedy's head due to their being slightly in front of Kennedy." Well, no, that doesn't work, either.

In 1966, Marilyn Sitzman, Abraham Zapruder’s secretary, who'd stood beside him on 11-22-63, confirmed his observation of the wound location. To writer Josiah Thompson, she related: “And the next thing that I remembered correct ... clearly was the shot that hit him directly in front of us, or almost directly in front of us, that hit him on the side of his face ...” When asked then by Thompson to specify just where she saw the large head wound, she continued: “I would say it'd be above the ear and to the front…Between the eye and the ear…And we could see his brains come out, you know, his head opening. It must have been a terrible shot because it exploded his head, more or less”. Hmmm... Sitzman, as Zapruder, was almost directly to the right of the President at the moment of the fatal bullet's impact. This put them in perfect position to note an explosion from the back of Kennedy's head. And yet neither of them saw such an explosion.

Even worse, at the moment of the fatal bullet's impact, the Newmans were approximately 6-8 feet behind the President, and about 20 feet to his right. Kennedy, at this time, was turned slightly left. This means the Newmans were looking directly at the back of Kennedy's head at the moment of the fatal bullet's impact... And yet both of them noted that this impact was by his ear!

Still, that's just four witnesses in a strong position to note whether the bullet exploded from the side or back of Kennedy's skull, all of whom said side. What about the closest witnesses in the motorcade behind Kennedy? Didn't any of them see an explosion from the back of his head?

Uhhh...nope. Motorcycle officer James Chaney, riding just a few yards off Kennedy's right shoulder, was interviewed by WFAA on the night of the shooting. He reported: "We heard the first shot. I thought it was a motorcycle backfiring and uh I looked back over to my left and also President Kennedy looked back over his left shoulder. Then, the, uh, second shot came, well, then I looked back just in time to see the President struck in the face by the second bullet." Wait... What? Struck in the face? Apparently, Chaney, as Sitzman, considered the space between the eye and the ear the side of the face. While some might wish to believe Chaney was describing the impact of a bullet entering Kennedy's face and exiting from the back of his head, this in fact makes little sense, as Chaney said in this same interview that he thought the shot had come from "back over my right shoulder." We should also consider that WFAA's interview of Chaney took place on the night of the assassination...in the hall of the Dallas Police Station as Oswald was being questioned. By that time, Chaney had to have been told a rifle had been found in the depository behind Kennedy's position at the time of the shooting. If Chaney believed Oswald had fired the shots, as one would suspect since he thought the shots came from behind, and had seen an explosion of any kind from the back of Kennedy's head--entrance or exit--wouldn't he have said so?

And shouldn't the motorcycle officer riding directly to his right, Douglas Jackson, also have reported such an explosion? Jackson's notes, written on the night of the assassination and published in 1979, relate: "I looked back toward Mr. Kennedy and saw him hit in the head; he appeared to have been hit just above the right ear. The top of his head flew off away from me."

Well then, what about the officers riding on the other side, unable to see the right side of the President's face? If there had been an explosion from the back of Kennedy's head, entrance or exit, they would not have been distracted by an entrance or exit by Kennedy's ear. So what did they see?

While the motorcycle officer on the far left of the limo, B.J. Martin, said he did not even see the head shot, the officer to his right, Bobby Hargis, riding off Mrs. Kennedy's left shoulder, was not so lucky. In an 11-24-63 eyewitness account published in the New York Sunday News, he wrote: "As the President straightened back up, Mrs. Kennedy turned toward him, and that was when he got hit in the side of the head, spinning it around. I was splattered by blood." In 1968, in an interview with Jim Garrison's investigators, Hargis would later confirm: "If he'd got hit in the rear, I'd have been able to see it. All I saw was just a splash come out on the other side."

Okay, now, that's eight witnesses, all of whom said the kill shot impacted on the side of the President's head, and none of whom noted an explosion or wound on the back of his head.

We now move to the witnesses directly behind Kennedy, in perfect position to note an explosion from the back of his head. These witnesses rode in the Secret Service back-up car, trailing the limousine by just a few yards. Sam Kinney, the driver of this car, wrote a report on the night of the assassination which asserted "At this time, the second shot was fired and I observed hair flying from the right side of his head…" Sitting next to Kinney was Emory Roberts, sitting directly behind Kennedy. If a bullet hit Kennedy on the back of the head, or erupted from the back of his head, he would have been the one to notice. Instead, in an 11-29-63 report, he wrote "I saw what appeared to be a small explosion on the right side of the President’s head, saw blood, at which time the President fell further to his left."

On the left running board of the back-up car were two agents, neither of whom commented on the bullet's impact or wound location in their initial reports.

One of the agents on the right side of the limo, Paul Landis, however, described the impact in a graphic manner. In a report written 11-29-63, he noted "I heard a second report and saw the President’s head split open and pieces of flesh and blood flying through the air." While vague, this might indeed suggest a bullet's exploding from the back of Kennedy's head.

But between the agents on the left and right sides of the limo sat four more witnesses, two on the jump seat, and two on the rear seat. While Kennedy's close aide Kenneth O'Donnell failed to describe the impact of the fatal bullet or head wound location in his Warren Commission testimony, he and the man sitting next to him on the jump seat, Dave Powers, would in 1970 publish a book on Kennedy, which described: "While we both stared at the President, the third shot took the side of his head off. We saw pieces of bone and brain tissue and bits of his reddish hair flying through the air..." These were Kennedy's friends, both of whom felt one or more shots came from the front, and yet neither of them claimed to see an explosion from the back of Kennedy's head. Years earlier, in fact, Powers had provided a statement to the Warren Commission, which described: "there was a third shot which took off the top of the President’s head..." Thus, O'Donnell and Powers felt the explosion was on the top and side of the President's head--and not on the far back of his head, where so many conspiracy theorists fervently believe the wound was located.

Their impression was shared by George Hickey, one of the two Secret Service agents on the rear seat of the back-up car. On the night of the assassination, he wrote a report on what transpired in Dallas, and noted: "it seemed as if the right side of his head was hit and his hair flew forward." Next to Hickey sat Glen Bennett, who noted, in a handwritten 11-22-63 report, that the fatal bullet "hit the right rear high of the President’s head." While some might take Bennett's statement to indicate he saw the entrance of a bullet near Kennedy's cowlick, the entrance location later "discovered" by the Clark Panel, a more logical assessment would be that he saw an explosion of brain and blood from the right side of Kennedy's skull, to the rear of his head, as in not on his face, and high, as in the highest part of his head visible from behind. This, not coincidentally, would be the top of Kennedy's head above his ear, the location of the impact shown in the Zapruder film. (Should one not agree with this assessment one should feel free to explain how Bennett could have seen an impact at the small red shape seen in the autopsy photos, and fail to note the massive explosion from the gaping hole on the right side of Kennedy's head seen in the Zapruder film, especially when no blood can be seen exploding from the back of Kennedy's head in the film.)

In sum, then, none of the closest witnesses to the side or back of the President saw a bullet impact on or explode from the back of his head. So why is it, again, that so many believe there was a wound on the back of his head? Oh, that's right. ALL those who saw Kennedy at Parkland Hospital said the wound they saw was on the back of his head.

Well, not all... As we've seen, Dr. Burkley, long before the Dallas doctors convened their press conference and told the world the large head wound was on the back of Kennedy's head, had already explained to press secretary Malcolm Kilduff that the wound was in fact by the temple.

And he wasn't the only one at Parkland to make this assessment. Texas Highway Patrolman Hurchel Jacks, the driver of Vice-President Johnson's car in the motorcade, arrived at the hospital just moments after the limousine, and witnessed the removal of the President's body from the limo. On 11-28-63, less than week after the assassination, he filed a report (18H801) and noted: "Before the President's body was covered it appeared that the bullet had struck him above the right ear or near the temple." Well, then, what gives? Didn't any of the closest witnesses to the shooting or Kennedy's body before it entered the hospital say anything suggesting they saw a large wound on the back of Kennedy's head?

Yeah...one did... Clint Hill, the Secret Service agent riding to the hospital on the back of the limo, while making no initial comment on the impact location of the fatal bullet, would later describe the appearance of Kennedy's head wound both en route to the hospital in Dallas, and then later, after the autopsy in Bethesda. An 11-30-63 report written by Hill relates: "As I lay over the top of the back seat I noticed a portion of the President's head on the right rear side was missing and he was bleeding profusely. Part of his brain was gone. I saw a part of his skull with hair on it lieing in the seat." Hill returned to this later. When describing the aftermath to Kennedy's autopsy in his report, Hill relates "At approximately 2:45 A.M., November 23, I was requested by ASAIC to come to the morgue to once again view the body. When I arrived the autopsy had been completed and ASAIC Kellerman, SA Greer, General McHugh and I viewed the wounds. I observed a wound about six inches down from the neckline on the back just to the right of the spinal column. I observed another wound on the right rear portion of the skull." Well, this once again, is vague. A wound, whether on the "right rear side" of the head, or simply in "the right rear portion of the skull," could be most anywhere in back of the face, including the area above the ear.

So what about Hill's testimony, you might ask? Did he clear this matter up when testifying before the Warren Commission? Some would say so. In testimony taken nearly four months after the shooting, Hill told the Warren Commission: "The right rear portion of his head was missing. It was lying in the rear seat of the car. His brain was exposed. There was blood and bits of brain all over the entire rear portion of the car. Mrs. Kennedy was completely covered with blood. There was so much blood you could not tell if there had been any other wound or not, except for the one large gaping wound in the right rear portion of the head." Hill's testimony, then, first reflects that the wound was not on A portion of the right rear side, or merely ON a right rear portion of the skull, but instead covered THE entire right rear portion. It then reverses course, and reflects merely that it was IN the right rear portion, which could, of course, be anywhere in back of the face.

So, despite the widespread claims that Hill's testimony is proof the wound was on the back of Kennedy's head, it is, in reality, a confusing mess. With his statements and testimony, Hill had made four references to Kennedy's head wound--three that were unduly vague, and one that was overly expansive, as not even the looniest of conspiracy theorists believes the entire right rear portion of Kennedy's skull was missing. Perhaps Hill, then, when claiming "THE right rear portion" was missing, meant simply to repeat his earlier statement that "A portion of the right rear side was missing," and mis-spoke. While this may be stretching, it explains Hill's subsequent claim, in a 2004 television interview, that, when he first looked down on the President, he saw "the back of his head, And there was a gaping hole above his right ear about the size of my palm" better than that he had forgotten what he had seen, or that he had suddenly, for the first time, more than forty years after his original testimony, decided to start lying about what he saw.

"But the men behind Kennedy were all government employees!", some might claim. "What about the witnesses in back of Kennedy on the south side of the street? Certainly, they saw an explosion from the back of his head..." No, no such luck. There were three witnesses behind Kennedy on his left who would have been in a position to see an explosion from the back of his head, should a shot from the grassy knoll truly have exploded from the back of his head, as so many believe. Mary Moorman, whose photo of Kennedy taken just after the shot's impact shows no evidence for such a wound, was interviewed numerous times on the day of the shooting, and would say only that she saw Kennedy grab his chest and slump down in the car. Her friend, Jean Hill, moreover, the woman in red in the Zapruder film, said much the same thing on the day of the shooting. Four months later, however, after much more spectacular reports had been printed, Hill claimed to have seen "the hair on the back of President Kennedy’s head fly up." Note that she still was not claiming to have seen an explosion from the back of his head. No, she didn't even claim such a thing when tracked down and interviewed decades later by conspiracy writer Jim Marrs. Instead, she told Marrs simply that "a bullet hit his head and took the top off." "Top." Not "back." Ms. Hill, in fact. made no claims of seeing the explosion from the back of Kennedy's head so many conspiracy theorists assume she saw until her book The Last Dissenting Witness appeared in 1992. It related "The whole back of his head appeared to explode and a cloud of blood-red mist filled the air." That this was "poetic license" inserted by her co-writer, Bill Sloan, should be readily apparent. If not, one should take into account that by 1992 Ms. Hill was still so confused by what she saw that she told interviewer James Earl Jones and a national television audience that, as "shots rang out", Kennedy "grabbed his throat, and that was the horrible head shot." Kennedy, of course, grabbed his throat long before the head shot.

Well, what of the third witness, then? Well, in his earliest interviews, Charles Brehm claimed to see Kennedy really get blasted and get knocked down in the car. No mention of an explosion from the back of his head. A few days later, however, newspaper accounts of the shooting quoting Brehm claimed he saw "the President’s hair fly up." In 1966, when interviewed by Mark Lane, moreover, he filled in the details, and claimed "When the second bullet hit, there was—the hair seemed to go flying. It was very definite then that he was struck in the head with the second bullet…I saw a piece fly over in the area of the curb…it seemed to have come left and back." While some might wish to take the flight of this one piece of skull as an indication the fatal shot came from the front, they really shouldn't rush to such a judgment. You see, not only did Brehm long claim he thought the shots came from behind, but he paused before he told Lane "the hair seemed to go flying." During this pause, in an obvious indication of where he recalled seeing a wound, he motioned not to the back of his head but to...his right ear.

Well, were there any other known witnesses to report on this wound from further back? Yes. Marilyn Willis, standing quite some distance behind Kennedy, told the FBI in June, 64 that she saw the "top" of Kennedy's head blown off, only to turn around and tell a TV audience in 1988 that she saw brain matter blown out the "back of his head," only to turn around yet again and tell Robert Groden in 1993 that the wound she saw was on "this side," while grabbing the right side of her head above her ear.

Edited January 24, 2011 by Pat Speer

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Okay, now, that's eight witnesses, all of whom said the kill shot impacted on the side of the President's head, and none of whom noted an explosion or wound on the back of his head.

And that is what we see in the Zapruder film.

As Ayoob and other firearms experts have pointed out, this is consistent with an EXPLODING BULLET from the grassy knoll. An exploding BULLET will not neccesarily leave an exit wound, according to Ayoob.

Massad Ayoob, The JFK Assassination: A Shooter's Eye View, American Handgunner, March/April 1993. "The explosion of the President's head as seen in frame 313 of the Zapruder film is simply not characteristic of a full metal-jacket rifle bullet traveling at 2,200 fps or less. It is far more consistent with an explosive wound of entry with a small-bore, hyper-velocity rifle bullet traveling between 3,000 and 4,000 fps, and probably toward the higher end of that scale ...An explosive wound of entry occurs when a highly liquid area of the body, such as the brain, is struck by a high velocity round. The tissue swells violently during the microseconds of the bullet's passing, and seeks the line of least resistance. That least resistance is the portal of the entry wound that appeared a microsecond before, and the bullet will not bore an exit hole to relieve the pressure for another microsecond or two--perhaps not at all if the bullet fragments inside the brain. If the cataclysmic cranial injury inflicted on Kennedy was indeed an explosive wound of entry, the source of the shot would have had to be forward of the Presidential limousine, to its right, and slightly above...the area of the grassy knoll."

and the bullet will not bore an exit hole to relieve the pressure for another microsecond or two--perhaps not at all if the bullet fragments inside the brain.

THE X-RAYS (CONTROVERSIAL TO BE SURE) SHOW A FRAGMENTING BULLET HIT THE BRAIN.

Edited January 24, 2011 by J. Raymond Carroll

[Josiah Thompson]

I think the point you make here, Ray, is really important. Thomas's study indicates (if memory serves) a muzzle velocity for the behind-the-fence-weapon in the range that Ayoob specifies.

JT

Okay, now, that's eight witnesses, all of whom said the kill shot impacted on the side of the President's head, and none of whom noted an explosion or wound on the back of his head.

And that is what we see in the Zapruder film.

As Ayoob and other firearms experts have pointed out, this is consistent with an EXPLODING BULLET from the grassy knoll. An exploding BULLET will not neccesarily leave an exit wound, according to Ayoob.

Massad Ayoob, The JFK Assassination: A Shooter's Eye View, American Handgunner, March/April 1993. "The explosion of the President's head as seen in frame 313 of the Zapruder film is simply not characteristic of a full metal-jacket rifle bullet traveling at 2,200 fps or less. It is far more consistent with an explosive wound of entry with a small-bore, hyper-velocity rifle bullet traveling between 3,000 and 4,000 fps, and probably toward the higher end of that scale ...An explosive wound of entry occurs when a highly liquid area of the body, such as the brain, is struck by a high velocity round. The tissue swells violently during the microseconds of the bullet's passing, and seeks the line of least resistance. That least resistance is the portal of the entry wound that appeared a microsecond before, and the bullet will not bore an exit hole to relieve the pressure for another microsecond or two--perhaps not at all if the bullet fragments inside the brain. If the cataclysmic cranial injury inflicted on Kennedy was indeed an explosive wound of entry, the source of the shot would have had to be forward of the Presidential limousine, to its right, and slightly above...the area of the grassy knoll."

and the bullet will not bore an exit hole to relieve the pressure for another microsecond or two--perhaps not at all if the bullet fragments inside the brain.

THE X-RAYS (CONTROVERSIAL TO BE SURE) SHOW A FRAGMENTING BULLET HIT THE BRAIN.

[David Lifton]

A/

Sometimes when you read Lifton, its like he has never read anyone else.

This whole idea of an Oswald did it verdict, versus a Oswald did it for Castro verdict has been discussed at length in print by Peter Scott.

I have discussed this also at length with John Newman. If you are not aware, these two guys have done a lot of work on both Oswald and Mexico City.

B/

Oh, for goodness sake. . here we go again. Its DiEugenio, and another slice of revisionist history.

"Sometimes when you read Lifton. . . " he starts, "its like he has never read anyone else." Sometimes, when I read DiEugenio, it seems that he either first become involved in the JFK case decades after I did (and is blissfully unaware of that), or someone snuck up on him when he was asleep, and pressed his "re-set" button.

Perhaps he should wear a sign saying, "Hello, I'm tabula rasa. Anything you tell me hasn't happened before I first learned of it."

This fellow simply has no idea of events that preceded HIS involvement in this case.

So, for Jim DiEugenio's sake, and as an "fyi" for anyone reading this thread, here's some anecdotal personal history.

JOHN NEWMAN AND DSL

I first met John Newman around 1984, at a time when (as I recall) he was the military assistant to the director of NSA.

He read BEST EVIDENCE, was a major supporter of my work, and --a year or two before--had been using it as a textbook in a course he was teaching in either Japan or Hawaii (I forget which, just now). But now back in the U.S. from an overseas posting, he sought me out using the New York City phone book. He located first an uncle, then was in touch with my late mother, and that's when a got a call from my late mom telling me there was this captain in the U.S. Army, who wanted to speak with me. (Of course, my mom was a bit concerned. . to put it mildly. . )

Within days, we were in contact--this is about 1984 (a decade before the Internet and seven years before the release of JFK)--and spent considerable time together: John, when he visited me in L.A., and me, when I visited with John (and his family) in Maryland. In the beginning, it was all focused on Dealey Plaza and the medical evidence--and we had some memorable times at certain Santa Monica delis where John and I were poring over the autopsy photographs (which I did not publish until 1988) to the shock and amazement of one or more waitresses.

At some point, John (then in graduate school) had to choose a thesis topic, to get his Ph.D. I was one (perhaps there were others, I don't know for sure) who strongly urged him to tackle the problem of whether there had been a reversal of JFK's foreign policy (re Vietnam). I had been a close student of Peter Dale Scott's work--he had written a wonderful review of my book (pubished in Jan 1981) and further had hosted a party at his home when I passed through San Francsico on my book tour, circa, Spring, 1981. Anyway, returning to 1986-ish, at some point, John decided he would do just that. He would do his Ph.D thesse on the issue of a "post-assassination foreign policy switch."

From that point on--and now we're talking about 1986, plus or minus, John was off and running. For the next several years, we spoke frequently. Often, after he would conduct an interview, he would call me on the phone, and we would hash it out. "I've discovered a war conspiracy," was something he would sometimes say, "and you're one of the few people who understand."

In short, I was a major dialogue partner of John Newman during this period. Interview by interview; document by document. THEN, NSA assigned him to go China. This was in 1989. His knowledge was so detailed, and so unique, and I was so concerned about his safety, and "what if" etc., that I persuaded him to sit down for a multi-hour interview, to put the essence of what he knew (at that time) on film. At the time, John was stationed at Fort Ord, California, and I took a professional film crew there, and we did a detailed multi-hour interview.

When John came back from China the next year, he completed his thesis. Then, there was a period where we lectured together, both in Maryland, and once in California--two podiums, two slide projectors, etc.

Finally, I was "present at the creation" --the period in 1990 (as I recall) when John, then stationed in Kansas, sent his telegram to Oliver Stone, and met Stone for the first time. Furthermore, it was I who made the suggestion--and then performed the introductions--to Pat Lambert, who had assisted me with Best Evidence, so that John could get that Ph.D. thesis turned into a book. That relationship lasted for many months, and at the end, John's book, JFK and Vietnam, was published by Warner Books. "JFK" was released in December, 1991.

DiEugenio should perhaps pull his copy of Newman's book off the shelf: There are three blurbs on the back cover of that book: William Colby, Oliver Stone, and me.

(DiEugenio . . wake up. . this isn't Sleepy Hollow. . this was 1991 (!) Do you "get it"?)

At the very tail end of this process--around mid 1991--John Newman met Peter Dale Scott for the first time; and, in the closing pages of of his book, gives Scott credit for the fine work he had done.

But I digress. . so let's return to Mr. DiEugenio. Of course, DiEugenio knows little, if anything, about any of this chronology; because, for this woefully uninformed fellow, his "world" --his "timeline"--is not just a wee bit inaccurate. It starts many years later. Something "happens" when HE first learns about it (!).

So today, I turn on the computer, and read the ill-informed and smug Mr. DiEugenio--who, as is often the case, is highly inflated but knows little about what he is spouting off about --start by saying that, gee whiz, "Sometimes when you read Lifton, its like he has never read anyone else." And then go on to inform inform us that what I am talking about has already been discussed previously (!), and that "the whole idea of an Oswald did it verdict, versus a Oswald did it for Castro verdict has been discussed at length in print by Peter Scott."

That's right, Jim. . .some of it has. . and its also the case that I first became involved in this case in 1964, and Peter Dale Scott hosted me (and members of my family, for a party at his home) in 1981.

Perhaps DiEugenio, using frequent flyer miles, will take a trip to Florida, get some well needed rest, and return to inform us that he, and not Columbus, discovered America.

DSL

1/22/11; 7 PM

Los Angeles, CA

Edited January 24, 2011 by David Lifton

[David Lifton]

Thank you for reminding us, David. This is another smoking gun.

I no longer have my BEST EVIDENCE video. Is this interview available on the BE video or some other video?

Is a transcript available?

Ray, I have not done anything with my Doyle Williams interview--yet. I a number of others as well (e.g., Vince Drain). I believe I had them transcribed. Will have to check.

DSL

[Cliff Varnell]

My comments in burgundy.

Addressing the recent post(s) of Cliff Varnell:

Cliff,

I’ve had some more time to think about the position you’re taking, which I didn’t quite fully understand when I wrote my previous post(s).

You’re saying that you believe it would have been perfectly OK to have a multiple shooter (“Castro did it”) conspiracy, as long as Oswald was promptly eliminated.

I understand what you’re saying, but I still disagree with that view. What I’m going to now say is all conjecture, because it didn’t happen, but, in the spirit of “let’s suppose it did”:

a) The nation would be told that Kennedy was killed by Oswald, who lived in Russia for 2-1/2 years, returned to this country married a Russian wife, and recently went to Mexico City and visited the Cuban consulate and Soviet Embassy. Ergo, the basis for believing he was an ardent communist and became involved in a “Castro” conspiracy. All very well, to that point.

BUT THEN. . (and without a medical coverup):

There are unknown “other shooters” on the loose, and the FBI actually would have recovered ammunition from the body and (if you believe in the cross-fire theory, which I do not, but let’s suppose it to be true). . such evidence (plus any medical evidence of frontal entry) would constitute unquestionable prima facie evidence of a conspiracy, i.e., a “shooting” conspiracy.

Up to this point, I'm with you. A real pleasure to have this discussion with you, David.

But this bit that follows...not so good...

Now, you then argue: why bother with a medical and ballistic cover-up? Why not just have the Kennedy assassination be an “unsolved crime,” with “other shooters” who simply “got away”?

To which my first response is: “Are you kidding?” Just “got away”?

I'm not the author of those words you put in quotations. I never made an argument about anybody "who simply 'got away'".

Here's what I wrote, emphasis added:

If the killers could have made that scenario the "official" version then there would have been no need for "obliteration/alteration/fabrication," would there? They could have explained the evidence of multiple shooters by claiming that Oswald had Commie confederates still at large.

While the war drums ramped up calling for revenge against Castro, some of Oswald's confederates would be identified, probably gunned down. Setting up patsies was a fairly routine task for JFK's killers, I imagine.

I cannot imagine a situation like that: a Marxist in Dallas, and “the others” just “got away”? But this would be the U.S. Government’s position, both to its own people, and to the world at large—correct?

Incorrect. They'd manufacture any evidence they needed to support the accusation that Fidel was behind JFK's killing. Didn't that turn out to be the "private" cover story, anyway?

If one believes the Warren Report was a “hard sell,” let me just say: that would be nothing, as compared with what would be required for the American public (much less the world) to believe (much less accept).

Are you familiar with Operation Northwoods, David? The Pentagon actively plotted to kill Americans on American soil if they could manufacture "irrevocable proof" of a Castro conspiracy.

From James Bamford's Body of Secrets (pg 84)

(quote on)

On February 20, 1962, [John] Glenn was to lift off from

Cape Canaveral, Florida, on his historic journey. The flight

was to carry the banner of America's virtues of truth, freedom,

and democracy into orbit high over the planet. But [Chairman

of the JCS] Lemnitzer and his Chiefs had a different idea. They

proposed to [Operation Mongoose chief] Lansdale that, should

the rocket explode and kill Glenn, "the objective is to provide

irrevocable proof that...the fault lies with the Communists et al

Cuba [sic]." This would be accomplished, Lemnitzer continued,

"by manufacturing various pieces of evidence which would prove

electronic interference on the part of the Cubans." Thus, as NASA

prepared to send the first American into space, the Joint Chiefs of

Staff were preparing to use John Glenn's possible death as a

pre-text to launch a war.

(quote off)

ibid, pg 87: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Lyman Lemnitzer wrote in a memorandum to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, April 10, 1962:

(quote on, emphasis added)

The Joint Chiefs of Staff believe that the Cuban problem must be solved

in the near future...Further, they see no prospect of early success in

overthrowing the present communist regime either as a result of internal

uprising or external political, economic or psychological pressures.

Accordingly they believe that military intervention by the United States

will be required to overthrow the present communist regime...The Joint

Chiefs of Staff believe that the United States can undertake military

intervention in Cuba without risk of general war. They also believe

that the intervention can be accomplished rapidly enough to minimize

communist opportunities for solicitation of U.N. action.

(quote off)

The JFK assassination has all the makings of an Operation Northwoods-type false flag attack designed to appear as a Communist conspiracy, not a lone nut action.

Specifically: that President Kennedy came to Dallas to settle a “political problem” (or so said Johnson, who pushed hard for him to make the trip); then he rode in an open motorcade; then he was assassinated by a pro-Castro Marxist, in Dallas, who had recently visited the Cuban Consulate and the Soviet Embassy, AND—in addition—it was front page news in the nation’s media that, based on the examination of the body, there were unknown accomplices.

Again, this bit about "unknown accomplices" ignores the manufacturing of evidence central to a successful false flag attack.

What you’re postulating would be a public relations disaster, and, for all practical purposes, a political disaster (for Johnson).

I'm not postulating anything of the sort. This is your interpretation. I'm citing the historical record that shows that the upper levels of the US military establishment considered manufacturing evidence against Castro. Oswald did not fit the profile of a "lone nut" -- he fit the profile of Commie agent.

The stench of illegitimacy would be all over the place.

So that is my first initial reaction.

I don't find your reaction informed with any arguable historical context, frankly. If J. Edgar Hoover, LBJ and top people in the CIA said that Castro did it, there would have been a public outcry calling for an invasion of Cuba.

Edited January 24, 2011 by Cliff Varnell

[Daniel Gallup]

Okay, now, that's eight witnesses, all of whom said the kill shot impacted on the side of the President's head, and none of whom noted an explosion or wound on the back of his head.

And that is what we see in the Zapruder film.

As Ayoob and other firearms experts have pointed out, this is consistent with an EXPLODING BULLET from the grassy knoll. An exploding BULLET will not neccesarily leave an exit wound, according to Ayoob.

Massad Ayoob, The JFK Assassination: A Shooter's Eye View, American Handgunner, March/April 1993. "The explosion of the President's head as seen in frame 313 of the Zapruder film is simply not characteristic of a full metal-jacket rifle bullet traveling at 2,200 fps or less. It is far more consistent with an explosive wound of entry with a small-bore, hyper-velocity rifle bullet traveling between 3,000 and 4,000 fps, and probably toward the higher end of that scale ...An explosive wound of entry occurs when a highly liquid area of the body, such as the brain, is struck by a high velocity round. The tissue swells violently during the microseconds of the bullet's passing, and seeks the line of least resistance. That least resistance is the portal of the entry wound that appeared a microsecond before, and the bullet will not bore an exit hole to relieve the pressure for another microsecond or two--perhaps not at all if the bullet fragments inside the brain. If the cataclysmic cranial injury inflicted on Kennedy was indeed an explosive wound of entry, the source of the shot would have had to be forward of the Presidential limousine, to its right, and slightly above...the area of the grassy knoll."

and the bullet will not bore an exit hole to relieve the pressure for another microsecond or two--perhaps not at all if the bullet fragments inside the brain.

THE X-RAYS (CONTROVERSIAL TO BE SURE) SHOW A FRAGMENTING BULLET HIT THE BRAIN.

Raymond, correct me if I am wrong. Are you saying Clint Hill is wrong about the back of Kennedy's head being blown off, and the Z-film right (that all the ejecta left from the top and front, and presumably,there was no exit wound as described by the doctors at Parkland)? Notice I am speaking directly to the heading of this thread, with apologies to all those active in the subthreads contained herein. Thanks in advance for clarification. Best, Daniel

[Cliff Varnell]

Continued from previous post.

Of course, that’s all speculative (and I don’t mean to demean speculation, per se) but then we must face certain chronological facts that are far less easy to dismiss:

(a) The stretcher bullet linking Oswald’s rifle to the crime was planted within 30 minutes.

Yes, they wanted to link the Commie to the crime. How does this support the lone nut scenario?

( A similar situation, apparently, prevailed in the Connally OR, where ---according to Connally himself (see his memoir)-a bullet fell to the floor. (See also film clip of Wade, commenting on this, by Mark Oakes).

Again, how does this support the lone nut scenario?

(c ) The matter of Doyle Williams, the FBI agent who was prevented from entering the ER, when SS agents jumped him and knocked him to the floor. I have a wonderful 1990 filmed interview with Williams, and he goes through this in considerable detail. Kellerman, on top of him, says, “Perhaps you’d better leave.”

Now imagine that—the chief of Kennedy’s SS detail (in Dallas, anyway) telling an FBI agent to leave the area (!). At about 1:30 PM (!).

And this supports the lone nut scenario-- how?

(d ) Kellerman, who looked back and did nothing to help Kennedy, then spearheaded the effort to get Kennedy’s body out of Dallas

And this supports the lone nut scenario-- how?

All this is happening BEFORE Oswald was brought to Dallas Police Headquarters (2:03 PM, lets not forget that). So none of this can be explained by a “Castro did it!” model.

But none of it supports the lone nut scenario, either. Yes, they were framing Oswald as a shooter, after they'd already framed him as an agent of Fidel, not a lone nut. There is nothing in Oswald's background consistent with what you claim was the intended cover-up.

And then, finally, we come to this. . .

(e) There’s the matter of the “empty coffin,” critical evidence of the intercept, and obviously related to alteration of the body. No less than six witnesses state that the body arrived at Bethesda BEFORE the Dallas casket; which means the body wasn’t in the coffin on take-off from Dallas. The take-off was at 2:47 PM CST.

Now you can take your choice as to how that happened, and I don’t wish to be involved in an extensive discussion of that on this thread, and at this point (but see “The Casket Conspiracy” thread, if you wish to pursue it). The point is: the body is the centerpiece in the universe of the evidence in this case, and, since it arrived at Bethesda some 20 minutes before the Dallas casket, it must have been removed from the casket prior to the takeoff of AF-1. So: the notion that it was “several hours later” that decisions were made to do this or that to the body does NOT fit with your chronology, i.e., with your “political theory” of the cover-up.

The fact that Oswald was a "political guy" is consistent with the "political theory" of the cover-up, a fact you haven't yet addressed.

The capture of Oswald dictated the course of the cover-up. They didn't snatch the body until after Oswald was captured at the theater, correct? Consider the following from Someone Would Have Talked:

1.15 pm Malcolm Kilduff asked Johnson to make a statement on what had happened. Johnson’s response was: “No. Wait. We don’t know whether it’s a Communist conspiracy or not.”

Johnson was waiting for his marching orders. If he got word of Oswald's death, the Castro-did-it Communist conspiracy scenario was a go. When they heard that Oswald was captured alive instead, they snatched the body and split.

There are other very significant matters that can be added to this list, and you will be reading about them in the future.

Again, I come back to my initial point: I believe your basic model to be incorrect. It simply doesn’t have enough categories for the various facts at hand. I believe that a more elaborate ‘sorting scheme’ is necessary to be able to properly categorize, and analyze, the various issues at hand.

Now back to your hypothesis. Here’s the way matters stack up, IMHO:

Your hypothesis states that Oswald was a pre-selected patsy (Agreed).

Your hypothesis states that Oswald was manipulated, in advance, so as to appear to be affiliated with a foreign power. (Agreed).

Your hypothesis states that it was planned, in advance, to eliminate the patsy, and to do so promptly. (Agreed).

But where you and I disagree—and it is profound disagreement—is that, when it comes to “the details,” you have postulated a scenario that does NOT require a medical and ballistic cover-up, whereas I believe such an objective (and some detailed planning) was at the very heart of the Kennedy assassination.

That’s why I wrote Chapter 14—“Trajectory Reversal: Blueprint for Deception”—which lays out the case (such as I understood it at the time) for a “designer shooting.” By contrast, you have essentially taken the position: “No designer shooting was necessary; for the design, itself, was to create the appearance of conspiracy, a Castro conspiracy, which would then be the official solution to the crime.”

I thoroughly disagree with that position. First of all, I think it would have been politically unstable (i.e., for LBJ et al). If events unfolded along the lines of your scenario, the nation would have been in an uproar. People would have been outraged, and demanded justice, and “justice” –in that case—would have meant cries for an invasion of Cuba. But none of that happened.

Correct. The patsy was captured alive, which foreclosed on making a strong case that he was an agent of Fidel, since Oswald wasn't about to announce himself as such. The biggest flaw in your reasoning is that you fail to see that Oswald did not fit a lone nut profile, and yet you have him getting set up as a lone nut as the central part of the conspiracy.

The historical record does not support your conclusions.

In fact (and to the contrary) Johnson basically tamped down the entire situation. Further, he disavowed any plan to remove Castro, but then secretly switched the policy on Vietnam—from de-escalation and withdrawal to an Americanization of the war.

Furthermore, in the midst of such an uproar and publicly relations disaster (which, I believe, would have followed if events had unfolded along the lines you speculate were planned), I do not believe LBJ could possibly have been nominated in August, 1964, at the Atlantic City convention.

The Northwoods documents clearly show that the military was capable of mounting a false flag attack in order to establish a rationale for the invasion of Cuba. You can say it doesn't make sense, and yet there it is.

But, most important, I don’t think what you’re suggesting is supported by the evidence in this case. As noted: I have stressed the “early planting” of bullet 399 (which I discuss, in detail, in Best Evidence).

Again, this does not indicate an intention to set up Oswald as a lone nut.

But you might wish to chew on the matter of the empty coffin when you have some spare time. Remember: AF-1 took off at 2:47 PM, CST. The body was not in the coffin. And that’s got to be a central fact pertaining to any strategic deception. And so what we’re dealing with here must have commenced well before the “several hours after” that you apparently envision as the start of your “after-the-fact” scenario.

Stay tuned.

DSL

1/22/11; 8:30 PM PST

Los Angeles, CA

You might want to chew on the fact that Johnson didn't move until after Oswald was captured. I'll stand corrected if I have this wrong, but wasn't the body snatched after Oswald was captured? It was then that Johnson found out that the Fidel-did-it scenario was not likely to hold, and other contingencies needed to be considered. The call from McGeorge Bundy from the White House Situation Room made the lone nut did it scenario official, and I don't see any alteration of the body before that.

Edited January 24, 2011 by Cliff Varnell

[Cliff Varnell]

To Cliff Varnell:

Here's an important point that I'd like to address, because it goes to the heart of the matter.

In our recent interchange, appears the following:

DSL : "No, I'm not turning witnesses into perps. I'm seeking a logical explanation of the events."

Your response: "Doesn't make sense to me to plan on falsifying wounds when the whole plot was designed to look like a conspiracy."

Let's focus on that last statement: that the plot "was designed to look like a conspiracy," because there's a major difference between the following two types of "design":

(A) a plot "designed to look like a conspiracy" because "Oswald, the shooter" had recently gone to Mexico City and visited both the Soviet Embassy and the Cuban Consulate. (And, in that sense, that was the "design purpose" of the Mexico City trip; to create just such an appearance--i.e., of "foreign involvement");

(B ) A plot "designed to look like a conspiracy" because Kennedy was shot from multiple directions by multiple assassins and NO provision was made to hide that fact, i.e., to "shape in advance" the "solution" to Dealey Plaza.

The former presents an easily-managed and controlled situation because it turns on what Oswald did (or was directed to do); and how that is interpreted afterwards, i.e., after the actual Kennedy murder. Its still "one man" (i.e., the one shooter) who has mysterious "ties to a foreign power". Now that's something I've studied carefully and subscribed to for years. But that (i.e., Case A) is entirely different from a situation ("B" ) in which that same Oswald, "sheep dipped" in that same fashion, then turns up in Dealey Plaza and (supposedly) shoots the President as one of a number of assassins, THE REST OF WHOM (in this scenario ["B" ]) are not apprehended.

But that's NOT the scenario I'm discussing. I don't buy your A or B dichotomy.

I'm simply pointing out the historical record in regards to top level military planning of false flag attacks, which I believe the Kennedy assassination was. Providing back-up patsies would not have been a problem. Given the elite control of the major news media, whipping up anti-Castro sentiment would not have been a problem

And there would have been no need to alter the wounds of the body.

In (A), the situation is (to coin a term) "controlled" and well-defined. Numerous options are available. In (B ), the situation is completely out of control, and "in your face," with un-apprehended assassins on the loose (!).

You keep repeating that as if it were some fatal flaw. Finding Oswald's confederates would not have been any kind of problem.

I certainly do not subscribe to (B ), because--as I described in a somewhat lengthy post earlier this evening--it leads to a completely out of control political situation, and --imho--a first class public relations disaster for the new President.

I don't subscribe to your arbitrary characterization of 'A design' or 'B design'. Your speculations regarding a "public relations disaster for the new President" are moot since no one is postulating the scenario as you've outlined it.

For many years, I have believed that "A" was the intention of the plotters. "A" still leaves the potential for plenty of guilt and finger-pointing (e.g., at Castro) but it is entirely controllable.

"B"--as I have previously argued--leads to an out-of-control "in your face" public relations disaster,in which the toothpaste cannot be put back in the tube.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff thought otherwise in 1962.

In the case of "A", Oswald can still be a "lone assassin," although there is "mystery" as to what went on in Mexico City. In the case of "B", there are unapprended assassins, and the FBI Lab even has the bullets from their guns (!).

I just don't see any comparison. If its the intention to create a stable political transition so that Johnson can ascend to the Oval Office without a huge cloud over his head, then "A" is the way to go.

And that's the sort of thing that, I believe, happened in this case.

And incidentally, you will find that "A" --in a perverse sort of way--is exactly what someone like Max Holland believes: that Oswald (who he actually believes shot at Kennedy, and was the "sole assassin")--was motivated out of a fierce devotion to Castro, and then the Warren Commission (for "political" reasons) concealed Oswald's true political profile.

You, too, would probably agree that the WC hid --or seriously soft-pedaled, or concealed--Oswald's "political"connections, but (like myself, and UNLIKE someone like Max Holland) would probably agree that Oswald was a pre-selected patsy.

So there are a number of ways to assemble the pieces of this "Rubic's Cube," depending on one's political proclivities, and how one interprets the evidence; and, most important of all (IMHO) whether one is willing to challenge the validity of the evidence.

Finally (and you can call this my own "pet peeve"): there are those who--for largely personal reasons--cannot abide by the fact that by the time they came to this case--often, after the 12/91 release of Stone's "JFK"--BEST EVIDENCE had been in print for over 10 years and (imho) they simply cannot deal with the fact that body alteration is the fundamental explanation for the bifurcated Dallas/Bethesda record.

As I've said on many occasions,"fraud in the evidence"--and body alteration to understand the bifurcated Dallas/Bethesda record--is the only way to understand the actuality of what happened in Dallas. It offers the best and most reasonable explanation as to why the legal and historical record (or, in computer lingo, the "data base") is so bifurcated, and appears the way it does, at this point in time.

Remember: The assassination happened only one way once-- not once for the benefit of the Warren Commission, and then in some other manner for the benefit of conspiracy theorists.

Ultimately--and in a manner that is roughly analogous to the "uniqueness theorem" in mathematics (and specifically, differential equations)--there is only one correct 'solution' to this rather complex crime.

DSL

1/23/11 4:30 AM PST

Los Angele, CA

I regard the crime as less complex. It's the researchers who have made the case appear so complex.

I find that body alteration is at the center of the cover-up of the killing, not central to understanding the killing itself.

[Cliff Varnell]

Ron, are you saying what I think you are saying here?

1.) That from a picture you could know precisely what Bennett's field of vision was during the entire shooting sequence.

I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying (in agreement with Lifton) that pictures show him looking away from the president during the seconds that the back wound was supposedly inflicted.

2.) That somehow Bennett could not have known about this back wound because it was not described to him yet.

I have no idea when Bennett knew about the back wound.

3.) That somehow Rowley suborned Bennett to go along with a body alteration plot that day?

It would appear that Rowley had Bennett provide support for the autopsy results. No "alteration plot" had to be mentioned to Bennett. There is no doubt in mind, however, that there was Secret Service complicity in the murder and cover-up, so anything regarding individual agents is possible.

Dwight MacDonald once wrote--in reference to the autuer theory of film-- about the wages of a thorough going, dyed in the wool theorist.

I don't know what that means.

I would like to comment on Lifton's postings as I understand them. David rejects the idea that the conspirators planned a "Castro did it" scenario that would include several shooters with Oswald being fingered. He says that all the shooters except Oswald "getting away" would have been a public relations disaster and thus would not have been planned. But this assumes that all the other shooters were supposed to get away. For all we know, plans were in place to shoot some or all of the shooters down (including Oswald) in the course of that afternoon, making the Dallas PD look like supercops. Whatever the conspirators planned after the shooting got screwed up by Oswald getting arrested.

Which leads us to David's other objection. He believes that plans to steal and alter the body would have been unnecessary if several shooters were supposed to be involved, yet the body was promptly stolen at Parkland or soon after on the plane for alteration. This ignores the likelihood that there was a Plan B in place (and a Plan C, D, or E) at the time of the shooting. The conspirators had to consider that something could go wrong just as it in fact did. Things going wrong could include Oswald (or another "shooter" destined for elimination) getting taken alive by the police. If a lone nut had to be fingered under Plan B, then they had better have the body to alter wounds accordingly. So they had the body, as planned for contingency purposes.

And they didn't take the body until after Oswald was arrested at the theater, isn't that correct? I'll stand corrected if it's not.

If Oswald had been gunned down instead of captured they might not have taken the body at all, or so I'd speculate.

[Cliff Varnell]

Cliff, It seems I need to read Hancock, for he, among others, seems to be a primary source for your contention that Oswald was not to be captured alive.

No, my original source for that conclusion was the publication of James Bamford's Body of Secrets, which contained information about Operation Northwoods originally uncovered by the ARRB.

I've quoted this on another post but it bears repeating.

James Bamford's Body of Secrets pg 87: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs

of Staff Gen. Lyman Lemnitzer wrote in a memorandum to Secretary of

Defense Robert McNamara, April 10, 1962:

(quote on, emphasis added)

The Joint Chiefs of Staff believe that the Cuban problem must be solved in the near future...Further, they see no prospect of early success in overthrowing the present communist regime either as a result of internal uprising or external political, economic or psychological pressures. Accordingly they believe that military intervention by the United States will be required to overthrow the present communist regime...The Joint Chiefs of Staff believe that the United States can undertake military intervention in Cuba without risk of general war. They also believe that the intervention can be accomplished rapidly enough to minimize communist opportunities for solicitation of U.N. action.

(quote off)

ibid, pg 84

(quote on)

On February 20, 1962, [John] Glenn was to lift off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on his historic journey. The flight was to carry the banner of America's virtues of truth, freedom, and democracy into orbit high over the planet. But [Chairman of the JCS] Lemnitzer and his Chiefs had a different idea. They proposed to [Operation Mongoose chief] Lansdale that, should the rocket explode and kill Glenn, "the objective is to provide irrevocable proof that...the fault lies with the Communists et al Cuba [sic]." This would be accomplished, Lemnitzer continued, "by manufacturing various pieces of evidence which would prove electronic interference on the part of the Cubans." Thus, as NASA prepared to send the first American into space, the Joint Chiefs of Staff were preparing to use John Glenn's possible death as a pre-text to launch a war.

(quote off)

When I read this I immediately recognized the JFK assassination as an Operation Northwoods-type false flag attack that would have required the death of the patsy.

Larry Hancock's Someone Would Have Talked confirmed my conclusions, which is why I quote so much from it.

Who was supposed to kill him? Tippit? Baker? Persons unknown? Now I have a confusion --- if Oswald's being captured alive triggered the need to intercept Kennedy's body, it is my understanding that Oswald was captured around 1:51 p.m., and at 1:58 Jfk's casket is wheeled from the emergency room to the awaiting hearse for the trip to Love Field.

This is my understanding as well. I contend that Oswald's capture inspired the body snatching.

But there was quite a commotion about keeping the body in Dallas for a proper autopsy. This may well have started before Oswald's capture;

Are you sure? It is my understanding that the squabble occurred immediately after Oswald's capture, but I'll stand corrected if I have this wrong.

It is a crucial point.

this makes me think the Secret Service never intended the body to be given a Texas autopsy, regardless of whether or not Oswald was captured.

That's a big question.

This would be all the more important if their understanding of the wounds was the same as the Dallas doctors: that Kennedy was hit twice from the front (apologies to Bennett). Remember, the Dallas doctors gave no hint that Kennedy had a wound in his back. Oswald wouldn't do as a suspect if the bullets came from the front. Come to think of it, what difference would it make had Oswald been shot or not? The body (as the Secret Service would have understood it at that hour) displayed only indications of shots from the front. That couldn't be allowed to remain as such.

Why not? The "other" shooters could turn up dead at any time. I have no idea why you and David Lifton think setting up other patsies was impossible.

In light of this, it is hard for me to see how those who killed Kennedy and those covering up the true nature of the crime constituted two entirely groups of people, or am I not understanding your position? Best, Daniel

The people who killed Kennedy wanted to make it a Castro conspiracy -- but the people who covered up the crime didn't want to do that, they wanted to paint Oswald as a lone nut. In fact, Dallas Assistant DA William Alexander actually charged Oswald with being part of an international Communist conspiracy -- until pressure from Washington forced him to retract the charge.

Immediately after the killing people connected to the CIA, FBI and military intelligence started pushing the Castro-did-it line. It is among that group of people we find the perps, imo.

Edited January 24, 2011 by Cliff Varnell

[David Lifton]

As Roger Feinman pointed out, Lifton was not alway in the "all shots came from the front" camp. This was a revised position of his for his book.

In 1967, he co-wrote with David Welsh, a very long, very detailed essay of over 20 pages, divided into two parts, with dozens of footnotes for Ramparts. David probably wishes this would go away. It won't. Why? Because it is really good stuff. In fact, I would rank it as one of the best early essays I have read on the JFK case. Anyway, on page 98 of this essay, the following appears: "Both Kennedy and Governor Connally, as the Commission concluded, were struck from the rear...." . . . .if one reads that essay,the title is "The Case for Three Assassins". And . . .it says that "President Kennedy was caught in a crossfire on November 22." Further, at the beginning of the essay, called Part One, the subtitle is "The Shots from the Rear". (p. 78)

What happened to Lifton is anyone's guess.

Jim:

I never cease to be amazed at your apparent inability to read and understand what is written in plain unvarnished English--in this case, your inability to follow the chronological narrative of my book, BEST EVIDENCE.

My book tells a story, the story not only of what I discovered, but how and when. It is not that difficult a story to follow, but for some reason you fail to do so, and confuse the evolution of my ideas with some kind of bad faith behavior.

Let's go through this a step at a time, shall we?

In the beginning--circa 1965--all I had (like everyone else) was the 26 Volumes of the Warren Commission.

"The Case for Three Assassins" --a 30,000 word essay on the medical and ballistic evidence (as I then saw it)--was written in July, 1966, when I was hired in the position of a temporary staff writer for Ramparts Magazine. The article was published, as a cover story, in the January, 1967 issue of Ramparts, and set forth the case that the Warren Commission Report was wrong.

Thanks for your kind remarks about the article--it represented a lot of hard work: harvesting the result of my own knowledge about the case, and Dave Welsh's fine writing skills.

First of all, we explained that the single bullet theory didn't hold water. Second: there was the matter of the Zapruder film head snap, and all the related medical and eyewitness evidence of shots from the front. Ergo: a cross-fire. All that is laid out, crystal clear, in Chapter 4 of my book, which recounts my experiences (and that evidence) under the heading: "Ramparts Magazine and 'The Case for Three Assassins.'"

Meanwhile, I returned to Los Angeles, continued thinking about the Kennedy case, and the numerous puzzling anomalies in the evidence; and October 23, 1966, I discovered the passage in the recently released FBI report that stated that it was "apparent," at autopsy, that there had been "surgery of the head area, namely, in the top of the skull." For your edification, I refer you to Chapter 7 of Best Evidence, titled: "Breakthrough."

This discovery, and numerous other related insights, then caused me to take a fresh look at the medical evidence, and it became rather clear that there was a serious bifurcation in the medical evidence between the way the body appeared in Dallas, and the way it appeared in Bethesda. This was unexplored territory. Here it was, the third anniversary of President Kennedy's assassination; and Lyndon Johnson was President of the U.S. And I had now arrived at the point where I believed the key to the murder was the secret alteration of the wounds on JFK's body, prior to autopsy.

But the result, however chilling, was easy to visualize. Indeed, the whole thing struck me as quite similar to a classic "before and after" situation such as one often encounters in the physical sciences (i.e. physics and chemisty). Many of my new insights are discussed at length in Chapter 8 of my book, titled "Emergency of a New Hypothesis."

Now, let's go to the next step:

At the time, I was attending UCLA law professor Liebeler's class on the Warren Commission, and it was on Monday, October 24, 1966, that we had an approximately 4-6 hour meeting, in which I revealed to him my discovery, and presented my hypothesis that the reason for the Dallas/Bethesda bifurcation in the Commission's medical records was that the President's body (i.e., his wounds) had been altered. And that the President's body, at autopsy, was tantamount to a medical forgery.

Got that? OK. . let's proceed.

Liebeler grasped the significance of what I had found. Indeed, he was stunned. For here was a simple thesis that explained so many of the puzzling contradictions in the record. This full day meeting --at which I expounded my views--took place on October 24, 1966, is the subject of Chapter 9 of my book, titled "October 24, 1966: A Confrontation with Liebeler."

OK. . got that? Now let's proceed.

Meanwhile, my previously written article--drafted in July (1966)--was being edited, and re-edited, and was on its way to galleys, for publication at some point in the future in Ramparts Magazine (as it turned out, in the January, 1967 issue, as a cover story).

Now let's pause here, because you're going to have to follow two lines of thinking--and at the same time. I believed one thing in July, 1966, and those ideas were on their way to publication in Ramparts. Meanwhile, my ideas were undergoing a rapid change.

Got that? Good. Now let's proceed.

Also: during this very same period, Liebeler then went on to write a detailed 12-13 page memorandum on the subject of the medical evidence--dated November 8, 1966--featuring my discovery, and basically alerting the Warren Commission members, and anyone on the staff who could read English, that there was clear evidence, in the files of the Warren Commission, that the medical evidence had been falsified. Also, he was on the phone quite a bit with someone who had been close to Robert Kennedy, Ed Guthman. But let's get back to the memo.

Liebeler's memo was addressed to Chief Justice Warren and all former members of the Commssion (and most of the staff). The memo raised the issue of pre-autopsy surgery, and sought a limited reopening of the Warren Commission investigation in the area of the medical evidence. All this is covered in Chapter 10 of BEST EVIDENCE, titled: "The Liebeler Memorandum" The Liebeler memorandum was dated November 8, 1966, and was sent out on November 16, 1966. I played a major role in the research that went into that memo, and attended the multi-hour drafting sessions.)

Now, Jim, let's see if you can "do the math"--which, in this case, means: Can Jim DiEugenio sufficiently understand English, to arrange things linearly on a timeline, and make the entries necessary to grasp the evolution of DSL's ideas on a normal calendar, an evolution that occurred between July, 1966 an January, 1967?

Let's take this a step at a time, shall we?

In July, 1966, I'm hired by Ramparts, relocate to San Francisco (temporarily) and, with Dave Welsh as co-writer, we write a 30,000 word article on the medical evidence. That article covers all the evidence rebutting the single bullet theory, and it also presents all the evidence (as of that date) for a shot to the head from the front. Its called "The Case for Three Assassins". That article is published in January, 1967. (Moreover, that article, and my employment at Ramparts, is discussed in detail in Chapter 4 of my book, under the heading: "Ramparts Magazine and the Case for Three Assassins.")

In late October, 1966, I discover the first evidence for pre-autopsy alteration of President Kennedy's body, immediately notify Professor Liebeler of my discovery, am involved in interviewing the Dallas doctors, and FBI agent Sibert, and Humes--all of whom I manage to get on the phone--and, in addition, I work with Professor Liebeler on his memorandum, which goes out to Chief Justice Warren, the Justice Department, the Kennedy family (RFK), etc.--and that distribution occurs on November 16, 1966.

Then, in January, 1967, my Ramparts article is published.

Again, let's recap, because I don't want you to miss a thing, here, Jim: In July, 1966, I believed one thing; then I went through a major paradigm shift, realized the body was altered, and went on to do major additional research which led to the research and writing of Best Evidence, which was accepted by a published in the late fall of 1978, and published in January, 1981.

Naturally, my ideas changed, between July, 1966, and their final presentation in January, 1981 when my fully developed thesis was published in BEST EVIDENCE.

Is that too difficult to grasp?

Yet you write: "Which brings me to my other point. Lifton was not always in the "all shots came from the front" camp. This was a revised position of his for his book."

". . .revised. . . for his book. . . "? Now what the heck is that supposed to mean?

My book was written over the course of some 14 years and was published in January, 1981. This paradigm shift I have described occurred back in the fall of 1966.

Do you understand that? Or, as seems to be the case, are we back to Roger Feinman, your disbarred lawyer friend, and his garbaage about my having made up a theory to get a book contract? (So is that what this is all about?)

Frankly, Jim, your critique is preposterous.

But let's move beyond all this, to a wider issue. . . : your overheated assertions that the Warren Commission was a "kangaroo court". This is another idea which is not supported by the records. There was plenty wrong with the Warren Commission--I can cite you chapter and verse--but your oversimplified critique gets us nowhere, and is as silly as it is unsophisticated. Knowing the way you operate, you're probably getting that, too, from your buddy, Feinman.

Re the Commission: All you have to do is study the working papers of the Warren Commission--and I spent many hours at the Archives doing that in 1970-1972--to see how, from the outset, the staff's work was compartmentalized, and how thoroughly each individual staff member basically believed the "Oswald story". Or: you can study the 250 page transcript from July, 1964, when the top staff members meet with consulting psychologists, and attempt to understand Oswald's motive. In retrospect, their attempt at analysis may appear absurd, but I don't think any of this was play acting. Perhaps, if you had been on the Commission staff, you would have instantly grasped the myriad problems. But from what I can see, most of them, unfortunately, fell for the "evidence" of Oswald's guilt. And (it seems clear to me, anyway) an important factor propelling them down that path was the false autopsy. The President was struck twice from behind--that's what the autopsy told them, and nobody seemed to challenge that. (I'd like to think I would have, had I been on that staff, but I wasn't). In any event, I don't suppose you will see it that way, because if you can't even grasp the paradigm shift I personally went through between July, 1966 and December, 1966, then I don't suppose it can be expected that you would understand the far ore complex dynamics of the Warren Commission investigation.

DSL

1/24/11; 3:20 AM PST

Los Angeles, CA

Edited January 24, 2011 by David Lifton

[J. Raymond Carroll]

What happened to Lifton is anyone's guess.

That has got to be one of the most hilarious statements ever, Jim.

It is tantamount to admitting that you never read BEST EVIDENCE, where everything that happened to Lifton (or rather everything that he made happen) is spelled out in great detail.

I'd say David deserves more respect than that, and an apology from you might be appropriate.

P.S. Relying on the disgruntled Roger Feinman, Esq. is pretty funny also.

PPS: THe Ayoob article is quoted in full on Pat Speer's site.