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

[J. Raymond Carroll]

I love you throwing in the JG pointless reference. GIves the game away, like I knew you would.

The Garrison reference is meant to indicate that you, as a Garrison acolyte, have a vested interest in discrediting Lifton.

Including the FBI agents. Who literally hated Specter for his lies about the SBT. And if you use their angle of declination, plus the fact there was no transit of the back wound, what are you left with?

What happened of course is that the military controlled the autospy and stopped any dissection of the back wound. Elmer Moore then massaged the testimony about the throat wound. The autopsy report was rewritten--as Horne proves--and then Specter rehearsed the autopsy doctors and thus completed the cover up.

THis passage could have been written by David Lifton himself, since it supports Lifton's theory.

[Jack White]

Military control of the autopsy does not negate Lifton's work.

Jack

There you go again Ray.

Because i cite someone's web site, that means I agree with everything he writes.

Can you really be this silly?

I don't agree with Pat on this at all.

But there are things on his web site, sources he uses, and illustrations, that are quite valuable.

I love you throwing in the JG pointless reference. GIves the game away, like I knew you would.

As you do here also:

Well the fact is that they did convince the FBI, the autopsy doctors, the (unwitting) members of the Warren Commission and the media that all the shots did come from behind.

Again, are you serious? Read Law's book on the medical evidence. Hardly anyone at Bethesda that night believed all the shots came from behind. If you would drop BE and read something else maybe you would understand such things.

Including the FBi agents. Who literally hated Specter for his lies about the SBT. And if you use their angle of declination, plus the fact there was no transit of the back wound, what are you left with?

What happened of course is that the military controlled the autospy and stopped any dissection of the back wound. Elmer Moore then massaged the testimony about the throat wound. The autopsy report was rewritten--as Horne proves--and then Specter rehearsed the autopsy doctors and thus completed the cover up.

There are ways to think about all this today besides BE.

Apparently, you don't want to or unaware of these other sources.

[David Lifton]

I have read Lifton's book. . . .But the important thing to note about what I did there is this:

Lifton took the FBI document at face value!

This is shocking. . .

Once again, we’re back to DiEugenio, and his apparent inability to comprehend what is plainly stated in BEST EVIDENCE—in this case, in Chapter 12 (“An Oral Utterance”) which specifically deals with the statement in the Sibert/O’Neill FBI report about “surgery of the head area.”

DiEugenio neglects to mention that after I discovered the FBI statement about pre-autopsy surgery to JFK’s head (on October 23, 1966)—I actually called FBI agent James Sibert, and got him on the phone. That was on November 2, 1966.

Let me repeat that: 10 days after I discovered that critical FBI statement, I telephoned FBI agent Sibert, with a tape recorder hooked up to the phone (reaching him when he was on vacation in Georgia) and prepared to ask the bottom line question—why did you write that? What was the basis for that statement? Having just had the experiences I had, with Professor Liebeler—who was now intent on drafting a memo to Chief Justice Warren about the autopsy in general, and this FBI statement in particular—I was fully aware of the importance of the FBI statement, and the potential significance of Sibert’s response.

Specifically, I was fully aware that if this FBI statement was true, then that marked the end of the validity of the Bethesda autopsy conclusions, and the most fundamental conclusions of the Warren Commission, as well; since the President’s body was the basis for the autopsy conclusions, and the unstated premise was that nobody had messed with the body prior to the start of the official autopsy.

So, with my recorder hooked up to the phone, and with carefully typed out notes in front of me, I was most anxious to see just what Sibert would say.

(As I have said at lectures: I only tape the FBI in cases of national security. <G>).

So, there I was, on November 2, 1966, with Agent Sibert on the phone. I read him the passage. Slowly, and carefully. There was little question that he understood what I saying. He replied, in part, “The report stands.” But he would not go further. He told me to write FBI Director Hoover.

I did just that (see my letter to Director Hoover of November 9, 1966 on the Ferrell website). It was received at the FBI on November 14, and stamped “EXP-Proc.”—apparently, “expedite process.” Copies were sent to all the top FBI officials. On November 17, Assistant FBI Director Rosen addressed the matter, writing an internal memo about my letter. He underlined the critical passage and commented as follows:

Quoting now verbatim: “Briefly, Mr. Lifton wants to know what our agents witnessed which formed the basis for their comments regarding the head surgery performed on the President, and in substance, requested an elaboration regarding the autopsy.” (see B.E., Chapter 12, for exact citations; and note the word “the”—as if, to Rosen, it was a fact—DSL).

FBI Director Hoover responded (to me) with a neutral statement, but those same internal FBI documents which I have just quoted (and which I obtained under FOIA, and which—I believe—are at the Ferrell website) show what was actually going on behind the scenes: that Sibert was questioned and stated that the information in his report was “orally furnished” to him by the chief autopsy surgeon. (See Chapter 12 of Best Evidence—titled “An Oral Utterance”)

Another FBI document states: “Our agents obtained their information from the head pathologist.” Another internal FBI memo states that agent Sibert replied that “Statements in his report were based on autopsy findings as stated by Dr. Hume.”

On November 25, 1966, Hoover issued a statement to the New York Times, addressing the controversy surrounding the autopsy, and which attempted to explained the difference between the FBI reporting of the autopsy and the Navy autopsy conclusions. That statement said, (in part):

“The F.B.I. reports record oral statements made by autopsy physicians while the examination was being conducted and before all facts were known. The autopsy report records the final findings of the examination.” (Hoover statement, NYT, 11/26/63)

(Mr. DiEugenio: is that so hard to understand?. In light of the above, how can you write: "Lifton took the FBI document at face value! . . . This is shocking.")

Now the above is all based upon what is published in BEST EVIDENCE, but here is an interesting postscript:

Years later, in a wide ranging conversation with Sibert (1991), we reviewed all this again, he said to me: “Dave, I could swear on a stack of bibles that Dr. Humes said there had been surgery here.”

Mr. DiEugenio, again I ask: what is there about this that is so difficult to understand? Do you have some congenital inability to grasp what’s stated in plain English?

Why do you keep repeating false statements misrepresenting what I wrote in my book?

At what point are you going to realize that you're not debating the facts, but rather spreading false information and simply damaging your own credibility?

DSL

1/24/11, 9 PM PST

Los Angeles, CA

Edited January 25, 2011 by David Lifton

[Daniel Gallup]

More proof that I read the book. This is form Part One of my Horne review:

But when the ARRB did declassify the HSCA medical files on this subject, it turned out that this was all a subterfuge. The medical personnel at Bethesda largely agreed with the Dallas observers about a gaping hole in the back of Kennedy's skull. The witness statements were all there in the newly declassified files which Robert Blakey and Michael Baden had chosen to keep hidden from the public. Gary Aguilar did a magnificent job in collecting and collating these newly declassified witness affidavits. He put them on a chart and showed that, except for a small minority, most of the witnesses from both locations agreed that there was a gaping hole in the rear of the skull and where it was located. (See Aguilar's essay in Murder in Dealey Plaza, especially pages 188, 199. In my view, this is one of the three or four best long pieces written on the medical evidence since the ARRB closed shop in 1998.) What had happened was that the HSCA realized that if these statements were published then the Dallas vs. Bethesda dichotomy would be largely minimized. And you would have a near unanimous verdict that this hole in the rear skull existed. This would create serious problems for the official story in two ways. First, the avulsive nature of the wound strongly suggested a front to back trajectory through the skull. Second, these observations would bring into doubt the autopsy photos mentioned above which reveal no trace of such a violent wound in the rear skull area.

My reaction: Jim, one of the mysteries of this case, and I have read conflicting reports, is, how much skull was missing, say, when Sibert and ONeill saw the body. In Law's ITHOH, p. 245, Sibert describes a large wound in the back of the head:"The thing that I remember was this massive head wound. I mean we're talking about something that was 3 1/2 inches long and about that size." [sibert makes a pear shaped oval with his two hands].Law: "Can you take your right hand and put it back and tell me where --" Sibert: "Yes, it was right back in here (indicates right rear are of the head, behind and above the ear.)" And yet the autopsy report and face sheet indicate a far larger wound. Kellerman too (p. 268) gives a larger dimension: about 5" in diameter. In conflict with Sibert's statement is his own admission that around midnight a piece of bone about 3.9 by 2.5 inches was flown in from Dallas (p. 270). Sibert doesn't for reasons unclear to me, mention the big gaping hole that must have been left due to the absence of this piece, until p. 271, when he considers the possibility that Humes' worry about surgery was alleviated when this bone arrived. So when Sibert first saw the head wound, it must have been considerably bigger than what was seen at Parkland, not just because Carrico's estimate of a 5-7cm circular wound is certainly smaller than Sibert's 3 1/2 ", but Sibert's approximation doesn't take into account bone missing from the top of the skull, which seems to be the place the late arriving fragment (actually there were 3 of them) fit.

As noted above, Aguilar's work on this issue posed a problem for Lifton's theory. Because now the split between the Dallas observations and the Bethesda observations were at least slightly ameliorated.

My reaction: Slightly ameliorated is not the same as resolved. Lifton reports Jenkins thought the shot was from the front the way the bones in the back were sprung open (BE 609ff). One could argue that therefore the Bethesda wound was just like the Parkland wound. But the size Jenkins gives is about the span of his hand(BE 616)--Lifton estimates this as similar to O'Connor's estimate: 8 by 4 inches. With the missing bone (to enter the morgue at midnight, according to Boswell and the FBI) this sounds about right. This massive a wound has no attestation at Parkland, however.

Milicent Cranor's essay on Malcolm Perry, "Ricochet of a Lie," posited another problem for Best Evidence. Her work poses a question about the differing size of the tracheotomy. As Robert McClelland stated at the Lancer Conference in 2009, a wide tracheotomy was not unusual practice for Parkland. And for Malcolm Perry to have seen the organs in the throat that he reported on, he almost had to have cut a wider tracheotomy than he let on about.

My reaction: I read this essay and I have to take the early estimates in 1966 as having more validity than anything Milicent Cranor can offer. Both Perry and Carrico, with corroboration (later) by Bell, give the 2-3 cm size. Lifton's interviews with Parkland doctors indicates that a 7 cm incision across the neck was indeed unusual(BE 272). I don't put much stock in 2009 estimates when those making them are aware of the controversial nature of the issue. I trust early estimates made when the full impact of these estimates are unknown.

This brings us to the main thesis of Best Evidence. Lifton was making the following proposals:

All the shots in Dealey Plaza came from the front

My reaction: It is interesting that there is no attestation of the back wound at Parkland by anyone until the 90s when Harrison Livingston interviews nurse Bowron. I am also thinking of Lifton's reply on this thread that nurse Henchcliffe did not recall seeing a back wound.

The Parkland Hospital doctors saw this evidence

"Evidence?" They saw an entry in the throat and an exit in the back, with a possible (left?) temporal entry

Therefore the body was then hijacked as it left Air Force One

Well, if it shows up in a shipping casket, it was hijacked at some point; maybe at Parkland.

The body was then altered to show shots from the rear

The conspirators dug out the bullets from the body

That is the best explanation for the "widely gaping irregular edges" Humes described of the trach incision, and the fact that Perry was confident the bullet entering Kennedy from the front "ranged downward and did not exit" (from Clark).

The Commission was fooled by this alteration

If you were on the Commission, would you expect fraud in the evidence?

Sorry I don't know how to separate my comments from Jim's so I hope it is clear when I am commenting.

Edited January 25, 2011 by Daniel Gallup

[Daniel Gallup]

Daniel:

When you say that there is no attestation about a back wound at parkland until the nineties, I mean do you know what this sounds like?

I mean think, really think.

Its the old proverbial adage, well if a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there to hear it, did it make a sound.

Yes, of course it did.

But this is the kind of game we are forced to play with Lifton post Ramparts.

Now, the person who would see it since everyone else was occupied with ER procedures to save Kennedy's life, was Bowron who was dressing the body as it left.

Now you rely on, of all things the WC, to say that when they asked her about anything else, she passed. But Daniel, by then, everyone knew about the back wound The autopsy report had been filed. The WC had it. Specter knew about it. What would she be adding that was new?

But see, in Lifton's world, post Ramparts, these are the kinds of things we have to actually entertain. You know that Bowron would actually make something up to Livingstone because somehow Livingstone wanted to puncture BE. I'm sorry, I don' t buy it. Especially since she is such a great witness for our side. The combination of her and Bennett cinch that the wound in the back was at the level of the coat and shirt.

Oh, but I forgot. See those things were "punched in" also. That is why Finck wasn't allowed to see them. Lemay was using an ice pick and then someone else's blood to make them look like bullet holes.

Please, my aching back.

I'm outta here.

It is late, and you are right that Bennett (contemporaneously) and Bowron (belatedly) testify to the wound in the back. I would feel better about it if Henchcliffe corroborated them, and if Carrico had felt the defect when he did a manual examination of the back in the manner Lifton describes(BE 192), and if Hill didn't call it the night of 11/22 as an "opening in the back." And if Bowron, when asked if she had anything to add (to the WC), had mentioned the back wound. For despite your comment that "everone knew about the back wound," the Dallas doctors didn't know about it until notified of it later. One might wonder why Bowron didn't inform the doctors about it immediately. I would feel better about it if Humes hadn't called Perry and asked him if he made any wounds in the back.(can't find the reference in BE). Obviously Humes was ambivalent about its nature, as was Hill in describing it. In the end, you may be right, but IMO none of these questions is trivial and deserve serious consideration. Best, Daniel

Edited January 25, 2011 by Daniel Gallup

[Cliff Varnell]

Daniel:

When you say that there is no attestation about a back wound at parkland until the nineties, I mean do you know what this sounds like?

I mean think, really think.

Its the old proverbial adage, well if a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there to hear it, did it make a sound.

Yes, of course it did.

But this is the kind of game we are forced to play with Lifton post Ramparts.

Now, the person who would see it since everyone else was occupied with ER procedures to save Kennedy's life, was Bowron who was dressing the body as it left.

Now you rely on, of all things the WC, to say that when they asked her about anything else, she passed. But Daniel, by then, everyone knew about the back wound The autopsy report had been filed. The WC had it. Specter knew about it. What would she be adding that was new?

But see, in Lifton's world, post Ramparts, these are the kinds of things we have to actually entertain. You know that Bowron would actually make something up to Livingstone because somehow Livingstone wanted to puncture BE. I'm sorry, I don' t buy it. Especially since she is such a great witness for our side. The combination of her and Bennett cinch that the wound in the back was at the level of the coat and shirt.

Oh, but I forgot. See those things were "punched in" also. That is why Finck wasn't allowed to see them. Lemay was using an ice pick and then someone else's blood to make them look like bullet holes.

Please, my aching back.

I'm outta here.

It is late, and you are right that Bennett (contemporaneously) and Bowron (belatedly) testify to the wound in the back. I would feel better about it if Henchcliffe corroborated them, and if Carrico had felt the defect when he did a manual examination of the back in the manner Lifton describes(BE 192), and if Hill didn't call it the night of 11/22 as an "opening in the back." And if Bowron, when asked if she had anything to add (to the WC), had mentioned the back wound. For despite your comment that "everone knew about the back wound," the Dallas doctors didn't know about it until notified of it later. One might wonder why Bowron didn't inform the doctors about it immediately. I would feel better about it if Humes hadn't called Perry and asked him if he made any wounds in the back.(can't find the reference in BE). Obviously Humes was ambivalent about its nature, as was Hill in describing it. In the end, you may be right, but IMO none of these questions is trivial and deserve serious consideration. Best, Daniel

Daniel, does it not give you pause that neither the back wound nor the throat wound are consistent with the damage one would expect from a "kill shot"?

Why fake a wound that is shallow when you're trying to connect it to a throat exit that has also been faked?

Why fake a wound that is several inches too low to have been connected to the (fake) throat exit wound?

Why fake a wound in the back at all if you can force the autopsists to conclude that the throat wound resulted from a fragment from the head wound, which would be consistent with a back-to-front trajectory?

Hasn't the location of the back wound created nothing but problems for defenders of the official story?

The claim that this was all carefully planned out in advance runs counter to the fact that there have been 4 "official" locations for the back wound, only one of them accurate.

Since Bennett wrote about the back wound on 11/22/63 and put it exactly where the holes in the clothing are, he had to have been "in" on it, along with other members of the Secret Service. Kellerman is often fingered as a perp, and yet in his WC testimony Kellerman described the back wound being probed and no exit found, which completely demolishes the Single Bullet Theory.

I can't imagine a more conflicted, harebrained cover-up operation!

Edited January 25, 2011 by Cliff Varnell

[David Lifton]

Hardly anyone at Bethesda that night believed all the shots came from behind. If you would drop BE and read something else maybe you would understand such things.

Including the FBi agents. Who literally hated Specter for his lies about the SBT.

Sorry, Jim DiEugenio, but once again you demonstrate a lack of knowledge about the record.

The only person I spoke with who didn't believe all the shots came from behind was Bethesda medical technician James Jenkins. He was a true standout, and I treated him in just that fashion (see Chapter 27, of Best Evidence, titled "The Recollections of James Curtis Jenkins, et al").

Here, for your edification, is an excerpt, an excerpt which follows my explanation that Jenkins had some basic knowledge about entry wounds being smaller than exits, and the conclusion he drew from the size of the wound he saw, and his failure to see any wound of entry on the front of th ehead: "So, on the night of November 22, 1963. . . James Curtis Jenkins formed the opinion that President Kennedy had been shot in the head from the front."

"But then, the next day, said Jenkins, 'I found out that supposedly he was shot from the back. . . I just could't believe it, and have never been able to believe it."

Now all of this is spelled out in Chapter 27 of Best Evidence, and, based on my other interviews, and from the documents, I know of no other persons at that autopsy who claimed that President Kennedy was shot from the front.

Certainly, as you know, the three autopsy doctors didn't believe that, or say any such thing.

Certainly, among the three med-techs (O'Connor, Jenkins, and a third one) --none of the others said that.

Godfrey McHugh never thought that.

Neither X-Ray tech told me that.

The two FBI agents--in the report they wrote--never said any such thing.

So just who are you talking about when you write: "Hardly anyone at Bethesda that night believed all the shots came from the rear"?

What you're doing, of course, is attempting to deny the fact that the forgery of the wounds was effective--because you (and Aguilar, and others) would like to subscribe to a "conspiracy of liars" --i.e., a "political conspiracy"--rather than confront the fact that there was alteration of the wounds --which, in some respects, was quite effective. And a good example of that is the fact that, with the exception of James Jenkins, I know of no other person at the Bethesda autopsy who, in a 1963/64 record, stated that JFK was shot from the front.

In challenging you to explain what the heck you're talking about, let me say that I'm not interested in what someone says 25-35 years later at a JFK research conference, or in an interview with Harrison Livingstone. I'm talking about what the people said in documents at the time, or what they told me when I first interviewed them (when first released from the military order not to talk, in 1979).

As I said, the exception was James Jenkins. And in many ways, I thought of him as having a rather heroic status,because of (a) what he believed and (b ) the manner in which he stuck to his beliefs.

Please do justify your statement; and if you can't, you ought to stop repeating such false information.

DSL

1/25/11; 4:30 AM PST

Los Angeles, California

Edited January 25, 2011 by David Lifton

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Kellerman is often fingered as a perp, and yet in his WC testimony Kellerman described the back wound being probed and no exit found, which completely demolishes the Single Bullet Theory.

I can't imagine a more conflicted, harebrained cover-up operation!

Good liars know how to tell the truth. Kellerman knew that this information would come out anyway, with Sibert & O'Neill taking notes. By the time he testified, the final autopsy report already existed, and the non-transiting back wound had already been explained away by the autopsy doctors.

Kellerman knew that the Commission would be relying on the doctors, and not on him, him for a final medical conclusion.

I think it was earlier on this thread that Greg Burnham pointed out that obfuscation can be a more effective form of cover-up than outright lying.

But you are right that the cover-up was by no means perfect.

Edited January 25, 2011 by J. Raymond Carroll

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Please do justify your statement; and if you can't, you ought to stop repeating such false information.

DSL

In fairness to Jim, he does cite William Law's book as the source for his assertion that various people suspected shots from the front. I confess that I have not read Law's book, but I understand it relies on interviews recorded many years after the publication of BEST EVIDENCE, when the controversy about the source of the shots had already been widely discussed, and memories were dimmed by the passage of time.

[Cliff Varnell]

Kellerman is often fingered as a perp, and yet in his WC testimony Kellerman described the back wound being probed and no exit found, which completely demolishes the Single Bullet Theory.

I can't imagine a more conflicted, harebrained cover-up operation!

Good liars know how to tell the truth. Kellerman knew that this information would come out anyway, with Sibert & O'Neill taking notes.

But the information didn't come out through Sibert & O'Neill. The information came out through Kellerman.

By the time he testified, the final autopsy report already existed, and the non-transiting back wound had already been explained away by the autopsy doctors.

Explained away? It wasn't "explained away" it was totally ignored in favor the the SBT.

Kellerman knew that the Commission would be relying on the doctors, and not on him, him for a final medical conclusion.

So? What advantage did it allow him or the cover-up conspiracy to volunteer the information that the back wound had no exit, and that more than three shots were fired?

I think it was earlier on this thread that Greg Burnham pointed out that obfuscation can be a more effective form of cover-up than outright lying.

What obfuscation? Kellermen twice in his testimony blew major holes in the three shot scenario -- and that is evidence of his complicity?

But you are right that the cover-up was by no means perfect.

In regards to the back wound it was non-existent. Lifton said the back wound was supposed to account for CE 399 -- but FMJ rounds are known for penetration, and yet the wound was shallow.

Lifton questions whether or not they knew about the throat wound, and yet they enlarged the throat wound to make it appear as an exit.

And the question that David Lifton will not address is why did they choose a patsy with such heavy political connections to play a "lone wacko."

This is Rube Goldberg type theorizing, frankly.

[Cliff Varnell]

But wouldn't a casket be arranged as a matter of course once the man was dead?

THe answer would be Yes, in the case of death by natural causes. In the case of a violent homicide, most DECIDEDLY NOT, unless someone had something to hide!

When was the decision to leave made?

THe timeline strongly suggests that the decision to remove the body was already being implemented --in the form of the struggle with Theron Ward & Doyle Williams -- even before the arrest was announced. It does not look like a sudden reaction to news of the arrest. The process began with the ordering of the casket.

Raymond, in light of our conversation and further digging I've revised my hypothesis that the arrest of Oswald triggered the snatching of the body. I agree with you that the process of removing the body from Parkland was already underway before Oswald's arrest.

I submit the following time-line:

1:00pm CST -- Dr. Kemp Clark pronounces JFK dead

1:15: -- JFK Deputy Press Secretary Malcolm Kilduff suggests Johnson make a statement and LBJ replies: “No. Wait. We don’t know whether it’s a Communist conspiracy or not.”

1:25: Johnson leaves Parkland for Love Field. He apparently got the answer to his question of whether it was a Communist conspiracy or not. I speculate that Johnson was informed that the patsy was not gunned down as planned but was still at large and subject to capture by the local authorities. At which point Johnson decided to high-tail it out of Dallas.

circa 1:30: FBI man Doyle Williams is jumped by SS agents and kept out of the ER.

1:30: The casket is ordered.

1:36: Malcolm Kilduff announces the death of John F. Kennedy.

1:40: The casket arrives.

circa 1:50: Oswald arrested.

circa 1:50 Kellermen and Rose struggle over the casket.

Yes, the arrest of Oswald clearly did not put in motion the snatching of the body.

But I would reasonably speculate that circa 1:20 LBJ got word that the patsy had eluded death as planned and was still at large, a serious blow to the Communist conspiracy angle.

Edited January 25, 2011 by Cliff Varnell

[J. Raymond Carroll]

But I would reasonably speculate that circa 1:20 LBJ got word that the patsy had eluded death as planned and was still at large, a serious blow to the Communist conspiracy angle.

Cliff: I know that your view on this is shared by a number of researchers, but not by me. I do not see evidence of a plan to kill Oz on day one. It makes sense to me that the plotters wanted to keep Oz alive long enough to bombard the FBI, the media, etc. with "evidence" of his guilt. Once everyone was convinced of his guilt then it was time to shoot him before he could get a lawyer and prove his innocence.

I agree that the communist conspiracy angle was very much in the forefront of the plotters minds, but this was another red herring they were throwing at the FBI. They knew that when the FBI investigated Oz's background they would conclude that he had not conspired with anyone.

I have caused some consternation here in saying I believe Lee Oswald acted alone. It can be said about all the innocent people exonerated by DNA. They acted alone, but did not commit any crime.

And the question that David Lifton will not address is why did they choose a patsy with such heavy political connections to play a "lone wacko."

Lee Oswald, with his "Commie" background, was the perfect choice to create a national security panic and allow the plotters to use "national security" as a pretext to impose a blanket of secrecy on the planned "inquiry."

Edited January 25, 2011 by J. Raymond Carroll

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Lifton's book is about the medical evidence. This was never Garrison's great interest in this case.

The point, dear sir, is that BEST EVIDENCE describes Garrison as deluded at best.

Since you are a Garrison booster, we would expect you to resent Lifton's work.

[Cliff Varnell]

But I would reasonably speculate that circa 1:20 LBJ got word that the patsy had eluded death as planned and was still at large, a serious blow to the Communist conspiracy angle.

Cliff: I know that your view on this is shared by a number of researchers, but not by me. I do not see evidence of a plan to kill Oz on day one.

Not even Jack Ruby stalking him for a couple of days?

It makes sense to me that the plotters wanted to keep Oz alive long enough to bombard the FBI, the media, etc. with "evidence" of his guilt.

Sure. Nothing speaks of guilt like a guy yelling, "I'm just a patsy!" and calming answering questions at a press conference where he's accused to killing the President.

It's a lot easier to make a guilty charge stick when you're dealing with a dead guy instead of a live patsy proclaiming his innocence.

Once everyone was convinced of his guilt then it was time to shoot him before he could get a lawyer and prove his innocence.

So...they planned to send in Jack Ruby to kill Oswald all along? That wasn't improvised?

Gee, I guess nothing says "no-conspiracy" like sending a mobbed up strip club owner into the basement of the Dallas Police Department to kill the patsy.

That deal didn't make anyone suspicious, eh?

I agree that the communist conspiracy angle was very much in the forefront of the plotters minds, but this was another red herring they were throwing at the FBI.

You think the FBI was on the up-and-up? I don't.

Someone Would Have Talked, Larry Hancock, pg 288:

4:19 PM, Hoover memo related that he had told RFK that the killer has "Communist leanings" and is a "very mean-minded individual." Hoover also related and confirmed again in a 5:15 PM memo that the subject Oswald "went to Cuba on several occasions but would not tell us what he went to Cuba for." It is true that Hoover did pass on what appears to be some early misinformation about real time events in Dallas but it is hard to interpret the Cuba reference as a mistake since it would have had to come from Oswald's files. Hoover does not mention Oswald's activities in Mexico City or New Orleans or any suspicious contacts or connections.

Hoover appears more than willing to go along with pinning the crime on Castro.

And what are we to make of LBJ sticking around Parkland for 25 minutes after Kennedy was pronounced dead, telling JFK's press guy that they had to wait to find out if the murder was a Communist conspiracy?

Since the casket wasn't ordered until a half hour after Kennedy was pronounced dead, the departure of LBJ at 1:25 seems more likely to have set the body snatching in motion.

They knew that when the FBI investigated Oz's background they would conclude that he had not conspired with anyone.

The historical record indicates Hoover was eager to pin the crime on Castro.

I have caused some consternation here in saying I believe Lee Oswald acted alone. It can be said about all the innocent people exonerated by DNA. They acted alone, but did not commit any crime.

And the question that David Lifton will not address is why did they choose a patsy with such heavy political connections to play a "lone wacko."

Lee Oswald, with his "Commie" background, was the perfect choice to create a national security panic and allow the plotters to use "national security" as a pretext to impose a blanket of secrecy on the planned "inquiry."

Well, I guess it was the perfect crime after all...

Edited January 25, 2011 by Cliff Varnell

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

Cliff,

This thread has been growing exponentially and is covering a lot of ground. I have three points to make:

(1) Your critique of Lifton regarding his thesis that all of the shots were fired from in front appears to me

to be correct. Not only is there a great deal of evidence to substantiate a hit at T-3, as I have explained

in "Reasoning about Assassinations", but the placement of a fabricated wound where it could not be linked

to the throat wound and be used to convert an obvious entry wound into a nebulous exit wound renders

the faking of such a wound pointless. Indeed, as I explain in that article, it provides the basis for refuting

the claim that the throat wound was a wound of exit and provides conclusive evidence of multiple shooters.

(2) Lifton's criticisms of DiEugenio seem to me to be "right on the money"! In my opinion, what we have

in this thread is an entirely new line of reasoning that demonstrates the hopeless inadequacy of what he

tries to peddle. I have previously shown that he adopted a flawed methodology on the Judyth thread and

that his reasoning in attempting to exonerate the CIA in Bobby's death was hopelessly flawed, as I have

explained in "RFK: Outing the CIA at the Ambassador". Lifton has shown that nothing Jim writes can be

taken at face value, where he does not display the knowledge or the abilities of a responsible historian.

(3) Your belief that the assassination and the cover up were separable and independent, however, is not

remotely defensible. As I have already explained, the plan to steal the body from Parkland and transport it

to Walter Reed, remove bullets and alter wounds before delivering it to Bethesda, where Humes would make

additional alterations to the body by performing surgery to the head--which was witnessed by two persons

who were sitting in the room while it happened, one of whom was Thomas Evan Robinson, the mortician who

prepared the body for open-casket viewing, as Horne explains--was indispensable to the assassination plan.

There are several reasons why you are mistaken. The first is that the plotters had to keep some flexibility

in how they treated the body to accommodate the "official account", where the preferred option was that

Oswald was the lone assassin. The second is that they had to steal the body in order to remove bullets

and fragments inconsistent with a "lone assassin" scenario. The third is that, for that purpose, they had

to shift the body from the bronze, ceremonial casket into a body bag and then transport it, apparently

by helicopter, to Walter Reed while attention was focused on the off-loading of the ceremonial casket.

Suppose that Oswald had been photographed in the doorway of the Texas School Book Depository instead

of Billy Lovelady. My take is that "the three tramps" were the fallback, where the boxcar in which they were

apprehended was filled with weapons, ammunition, and explosives. If Oswald had not worked out, then they

would have made perfect fall back patsies and the number of shots that hit JFK could have been arranged

to accommodate multiple shooters at different locations. That option was kept open, but only by taking

control of the body and getting it to Walter Reed, where appropriate changes to the body could be done.

Someone here suggests that Jackie KNEW THE CASKET WAS EMPTY, which is about as absurd a thesis

ever advanced. She had been brought forward in Air Force One to witness the swearing in, which was an

unnecessary event that was staged to allow the opportunity to move the body from the casket to the body-

bag. The crucial proof that you are wrong in treating them separately is the intricate multiple-casket entries

at Bethesda, which Horne has documented so scrupulously. This series of events required extraordinary

planning and could not possibly have been done "on the fly". On this key point, therefore, you are wrong.

I hold you in high esteem. Including you or me or David Lifton, none of us gets all of it right all of the time!

Jim

I am completely floored by this post from Cliff Varnell, many of whose posts in this thread I have admired.

Thank you for your kind words, Jim. I'm not sure at this point, however, if you've read all my posts on this thread.

(1) There is a huge difference between the head wound described in the autopsy report and diagrammed

by Boswell and the head wound as observed at Parkland and by many other witnesses. The craniotomy

performed by Humes himself was witnessed by two persons, one of whom was Thomas Evan Robinson.

I am stunned that someone as intelligent as Cliff Varnell continue to resist such blatant surgical alteration.

Where did you get that idea, Jim?

Surgery to the head is mentioned in the FBI report on the autopsy.

Anyone who dismisses the possibility (I'd call it a high probability) that pre-autopsy surgery was performed on JFK's skull doesn't have a leg to stand on.

Where I disagree with you and practically everyone else is that I view that fact -- the likelihood of pre-autopsy surgery to the head -- as impeachment of all the head wound evidence.

None of it is reliable because for all we know JFK was hit three times in the head.

I regard discussions of the head wounds as a trip down the biggest rabbit hole in the case.

(2) The wound to the throat, which Malcolm Perry described three times as a wound of entrance during

the Parkland press conference (Appendix C to ASSASSINATION SCIENCE), was also diagrammed by

Charles Crenshaw (Appendix A). It was a straight incision, very clean and short. I contrast it with the

gross, ragged wound in autopsy photographs from Bethesda in THE GREAT ZAPRUDER FILM HOAX,

page 14. How anyone could deny that either body alteration or photo fakery was involved is beyond me.

Me too. The only mystery here is why you think I think otherwise.

Jim, you need to read my posts before you critique them.

(3) David Mantik has demonstrated that none of the autopsy X-rays in the National Archives is original

and Bob Livingston determined that the brain shown in diagrams and photographs there cannot possibly

be of the brain of John F. Kennedy, as ASSASSINATION SCIENCE reports. The article that initiated the

thread demonstrates that the back of the head wound was blacked out in key frames and that the HSCA

back-of-the-head photographs were also faked to conceal the massive blow-out to the back of the head.

I've been arguing strenuously against the autopsy photos.

What is Mantik's beef with the neck x-ray?

We are thus confronted with an elaborate and integrated combination of an assassination and cover-up

where the film was altered (by removing the limo stop, painting in the "blob" and painting out the blow

out), the X-rays were "patched" to conceal the blow out (which can actually be seen in frame 374), autopsy

photographs (such as the HSCA back-of-the-head) were faked, and LIFE magazine published frame

313 with a phony caption claiming that, from this frame, the direction of the head shot was determined.

Jim, you are mucking around in the cover-up of the murder of JFK. For the sake of argument I'll buy your inventory of falsifications but I find nothing in them that suggests pre-planning. The people who murdered JFK wanted to set up Fidel Castro.

You, Lifton and Horne seem to think that setting up a lone nut was the goal of the perps, but they designed the crime to look like a conspiracy.

[Cue Joe Pesci}

Don't you get it?

You can't put your scenario in a coherent historical context, Jim.

(snip a bunch of stuff that has nothing to do with me)

The theft of the body from Parkland, its secret transportation to Walter Reed, and the pre-autopsy alterations assassination, the alteration of X- rays and the faking of photographs were planned in advance to insure no one would ever be held liable.

If it was all planned in advance they did a terrible job of it! They left so any loose ends the case has become a global joke.

No Jim, the falsifications are clumsy and obvious and betrays haste. It was, as Larry Hancock put it, ad hoc and reactionary and wasn't put together until the word came from the Skull and Bones boys that Oswald was the lone nut assassin.

This occurred a few hours after the killing, and all the falsification occurred by the seat of their pants thereafter.

The notion that the perps foremost goal was "to insure no one would ever be held liable" cannot be supported, as it should be fairly obvious by now that the perps wanted to hold Fidel liable, and that was their prime motivation.

Edited January 26, 2011 by James H. Fetzer