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

[J. Raymond Carroll]

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.

Now there's a great research project for you, Cliff. The sources must be out there.

Didn't LBJ say that he would not leave Dallas without Jackie?

Jackie could not be expected to leave without her husband's body.

This suggests that when LBJ left to take over Jackie's Traveling White House, Air Force One, he did not expect to be delayed by a local autopsy.

Ergo he was privy to -- if not the prime mover in -- the plot to kidnap the body and prevent a lawful autopsy.

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Cliff,... Lifton has shown that nothing he writes can be

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

Now now, professor, that is not nice.

Lifton is internationally established as a gifted writer and a scientific historian, among the cognoscenti.

Hands up all those who say we will one day say the same about the good perfessor.

Edited January 26, 2011 by J. Raymond Carroll

[J. Raymond Carroll]

DUplicate

Edited January 26, 2011 by J. Raymond Carroll

[Cliff Varnell]

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.

Now there's a great research project for you, Cliff. The sources must be out there.

Didn't LBJ say that he would not leave Dallas without Jackie?

That doesn't mean anything. Politicians talk all kind of smack like that. Means nothing about LBJ's true motivations.

What I find interesting is his comment -- “No. Wait. We don’t know whether it’s a Communist conspiracy or not" -- at 1:15. It was around 1:10-1:15 that Tippit was shot.

I wonder if it was news of Tippit's death that answered the question of Communist complicity for LBJ.

A dead patsy by 1:15 -- as was likely planned -- would have meant Communist Conspiracy. But a dead cop at 1:15 meant the patsy was still at large, time to get out of town with potentially some unfortunate work to be done on the body if the patsy is captured alive.

Jackie could not be expected to leave without her husband's body.

I'm sure if the Texas authorities had insisted on doing a local autopsy and Mrs. Kennedy wanted to stay in Dallas, Ol' Lyndon would have moseyed back to Washington.

This suggests that when LBJ left to take over Jackie's Traveling White House, Air Force One, he did not expect to be delayed by a local autopsy.

Ergo he was privy to -- if not the prime mover in -- the plot to kidnap the body and prevent a lawful autopsy.

That last bit I'll buy, but not some "charm" about not leaving town without Jackie. Please.

The FACT is that nothing happened at Parkland for 25 minutes after JFK was pronounced dead. If it was the intention of the plotters to hijack the body why wasn't a casket on the scene 10 minutes after JFK was pronounced deceased?

Why would they wait a half an hour to order the casket if the plot all along was to grab the body before any Joe Locals could do a damn thing about it.

But they waited a half hour to order the casket. Because Lyndon was waiting for his marching orders, and a dead Tippit meant grab the body and split.

Edited January 26, 2011 by Cliff Varnell

[William Kelly]

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.

Now there's a great research project for you, Cliff. The sources must be out there.

Didn't LBJ say that he would not leave Dallas without Jackie?

That doesn't mean anything. Politicians talk all kind of smack like that. Means nothing about LBJ's true motivations.

What I find interesting is his comment -- “No. Wait. We don’t know whether it’s a Communist conspiracy or not" -- at 1:15. It was around 1:10-1:15 that Tippit was shot.

I wonder if it was news of Tippit's death that answered the question of Communist complicity for LBJ.

A dead patsy by 1:15 -- as was likely planned -- would have meant Communist Conspiracy. But a dead cop at 1:15 meant the patsy was still at large, time to get out of town with potentially some unfortunate work to be done on the body if the patsy is captured alive.

Jackie could not be expected to leave without her husband's body.

I'm sure if the Texas authorities had insisted on doing a local autopsy and Mrs. Kennedy wanted to stay in Dallas, Ol' Lyndon would have moseyed back to Washington.

This suggests that when LBJ left to take over Jackie's Traveling White House, Air Force One, he did not expect to be delayed by a local autopsy.

Ergo he was privy to -- if not the prime mover in -- the plot to kidnap the body and prevent a lawful autopsy.

That last bit I'll buy, but not some "charm" about not leaving town without Jackie. Please.

The FACT is that nothing happened at Parkland for 25 minutes after JFK was pronounced dead. If it was the intention of the plotters to hijack the body why wasn't a casket on the scene 10 minutes after JFK was pronounced deceased?

Why would they wait a half an hour to order the casket if the plot all along was to grab the body before any Joe Locals could do a damn thing about it.

But they waited a half hour to order the casket. Because Lyndon was waiting for his marching orders, and a dead Tippit meant grab the body and split.

The question should be: where did the metal shipping casket come from, and end up?

BK

[David Lifton]

Cliff,... Lifton has shown that nothing he writes can be

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

Now now, professor, that is not nice.

Lifton is internationally established as a gifted writer and a scientific historian, among the cognoscenti.

Hands up all those who say we will one day say the same about the good perfessor.

Ray,I'm positive he meant to write "DiEugenio has shown. . " etc. But I'll let Prof. Fetzer speak for himself.

(If I'm correct, he ought to return to that post, press "Edit", and make the appropriate name-change).

DSL

1/25/11; 10:10 PM PST

Los Angeles, CA

Edited January 26, 2011 by David Lifton

[Pat Speer]

Cliff,... Lifton has shown that nothing he writes can be

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

Now now, professor, that is not nice.

Lifton is internationally established as a gifted writer and a scientific historian, among the cognoscenti.

Hands up all those who say we will one day say the same about the good perfessor.

Ray, I think he meant to write "DiEugenio has shown. . " etc. But I'll let Prof. Fetzer speak for himself.

(If I'm correct, he ought to return to that post, press "Edit", and make the appropriate name-change).

DSL

1/25/11; 10:10 PM PST

Los Angeles, CA

I suspect you are correct, David. Jim F seems more annoyed with Jim D these days than you. (Maybe he's just relieved that you haven't nagged him for a royalty statement lately.)

Now I don't mean to harass, but I didn't see a response to my post in which I pointed out that, to my eyes, there is not a Parkland/Bethesda divide, but a Parkland/Dealey Plaza--Bethesda divide. Just as you can't accept that so many Parkland witnesses claiming the large head wound was on the back of the head could be wrong, I have trouble accepting that so many eyewitnesses to the shooting itself could fail to see an explosion from the back of Kennedy's head, should there have been one, and should instead claim the wound they saw was on the top or side of the head, where it is shown in the Zapruder film.

SO...I guess my question is, if, in your research, you noticed this as well, and if you came across anything in your extensive reading to 1) convince you that a blow-out on the back of the head would not be noticed by onlookers, and 2) explain why so many thought they saw a wound in the location where you believe a wound was added later.

Your insight appreciated.

To refresh, here is my discussion of the witnesses to the shooting.

From patspeer.com, 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 a 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.

Pat

Edited January 26, 2011 by Pat Speer

[J. Raymond Carroll]

What I find interesting is his comment -- “No. Wait. We don’t know whether it’s a Communist conspiracy or not" -- at 1:15. It was around 1:10-1:15 that Tippit was shot.

I wonder if it was news of Tippit's death that answered the question of Communist complicity for LBJ.

A dead patsy by 1:15 -- as was likely planned -- would have meant Communist Conspiracy.

From memory news of Tippit's shooting hit the police radio at 1.14, so the timing is close. But there is NO EVIDENCE that Tippit tried to shoot anyone, and the evidence shows that Oz was nowhere near the scene of the Tippit shooting.

To David Lifton: When we discussed the Tippit murder (many years ago) you indicated that you believed it was LHO who shot Tippit. Is that still your view?

I'm sure if the Texas authorities had insisted on doing a local autopsy and Mrs. Kennedy wanted to stay in Dallas, Ol' Lyndon would have moseyed back to Washington.

THe behaviour of Kellerman & Co. in knocking down Doyle Williams and removing the coffin by the threat of FORCE shows that they intended to brook no interference with their plan. THey knew Jackie would be in such a state of shock she would be unable to insist on anything.

The FACT is that nothing happened at Parkland for 25 minutes after JFK was pronounced dead. If it was the intention of the plotters to hijack the body why wasn't a casket on the scene 10 minutes after JFK was pronounced deceased?

Maybe they didn't want to appear too hasty, and/or maybe they needed the time to work on Ken O'Donnell and make it appear like his idea.

[David Lifton]

To David Lifton: When we discussed the Tippit murder (many years ago) you indicated that you believed it was LHO who shot Tippit. Is that still your view?

No. But I do believe he was there, and then ran away.

(Ray--do you remember what year that was? When we had that dinner here in West L.A.??)

DSL

[J. Raymond Carroll]

(Ray--do you remember what year that was? When we had that dinner here in West L.A.??)

DSL

Yes, it was 1993. It is easy to pinpoint because, at our second (vegetarian) dinner i brought along a photocopy of that day's New York TImes which contained the obituary of Governor John Connally.

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

Ray,

You may have misread me. I was talking about Lifton's critique of DiEugenio. I am a huge

fan of David Lifton and I was not faulting him in the passage you cite. On the contrary, I

was endorsing his criticisms of DiEugenio, which appear to me to be very well-founded.

Jim

Cliff,... Lifton has shown that nothing he writes can be

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

Now now, professor, that is not nice.

Lifton is internationally established as a gifted writer and a scientific historian, among the cognoscenti.

Hands up all those who say we will one day say the same about the good perfessor.

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Ray,

You may have misread me. I was talking about Lifton's critique of DiEugenio. I am a huge

fan of David Lifton and I was not faulting him in the passage you cite. On the contrary, I

was endorsing his criticisms of DiEugenio, which appear to me to be very well-founded.

Jim

You are right, Jim. I did misread you, and I apologize. I see that you have now edited the post to make the sentence clearer, but I should have guessed your real meaning from the overall context, as David & Pat both did.

I guess that's why they make the BIG BUCKS and not me!

[Daniel Gallup]

Pat, this is from Debra Conway's interview with Toni Foster, the Running Woman, in 2000.

"And I remember everything stopped for me. I remember

[his head] looked like confetti, it was just blown off. It hit him

back here [puts her hand on the right rear of her head] and it was

just like confetti. The spray went behind him. I do believe from

what I heard and what I saw the shots came from the back2 . Now

this whole thing was a shock but that’s how I feel, what I heard

and what I saw. At the time when I looked at him and I saw [how

he reacted] – they were coming from the back.

I know the Governor and Mrs. Connally were there but I

wasn’t even thinking of them. I don’t mean that in an inconsiderate

way but it’s just what I saw. They were protecting themselves too.

For some reason the car stopped. It did stop for seconds. I don’t

ever know why it stopped and all of a sudden it sped up and they

went under the underpass."

Toni had a side view of the head shot, and she saw debris fly backwards, which accords perfectly with an avulsive wound in the back of the head, as recorded by the doctors there.

It is understandable, if the bullet entered the right temple area in a tangential way, that the Newman's would testify to that; this doesn't mean there wasn't ejecta shooting out the back (and I would guess left, away from the Newmans somewhat) so that it would strike Officer Hargis with some force. This might explain why Toni Foster was in a better position to appreciate the backwards direction of the spray than the Newmans. Just a thought. Best, Daniel

[Pat Speer]

Pat, this is from Debra Conway's interview with Toni Foster, the Running Woman, in 2000.

"And I remember everything stopped for me. I remember

[his head] looked like confetti, it was just blown off. It hit him

back here [puts her hand on the right rear of her head] and it was

just like confetti. The spray went behind him. I do believe from

what I heard and what I saw the shots came from the back2 . Now

this whole thing was a shock but that’s how I feel, what I heard

and what I saw. At the time when I looked at him and I saw [how

he reacted] – they were coming from the back.

I know the Governor and Mrs. Connally were there but I

wasn’t even thinking of them. I don’t mean that in an inconsiderate

way but it’s just what I saw. They were protecting themselves too.

For some reason the car stopped. It did stop for seconds. I don’t

ever know why it stopped and all of a sudden it sped up and they

went under the underpass."

Toni had a side view of the head shot, and she saw debris fly backwards, which accords perfectly with an avulsive wound in the back of the head, as recorded by the doctors there.

It is understandable, if the bullet entered the right temple area in a tangential way, that the Newman's would testify to that; this doesn't mean there wasn't ejecta shooting out the back (and I would guess left, away from the Newmans somewhat) so that it would strike Officer Hargis with some force. This might explain why Toni Foster was in a better position to appreciate the backwards direction of the spray than the Newmans. Just a thought. Best, Daniel

Thanks, Daniel. When discussing the eyewitnesses, I limited it to the eyewitnesses identified and interviewed during the Warren Commission investigation. So I ignored Oliver, and Arnold and Foster. Now, that said, I suspect Foster is the real deal and would like to go back and see where Foster pointed to on the back of her head. Do you have the image handy?

My outrage, if you choose to call it that, is not that people claim the Parkland witnesses said they saw a wound on the back of JFK's head. Many of them did. It's that people say they ALL said it was on the back of the head, and imply that where these people say they saw the wound was LOW on the back of the head in the occipital area, and that this supports the Harper fragment being occipital bone. This is incredibly disingenuous, IMO.

IMO, one cannot read the statements of the Parkland witnesses and look at the photos of them pointing out the location as they remembered it and claim they are describing a blow-out of the occipital bone any more than one can read their statements and look at the photos and claim they are accurately pointing out the location on the autopsy photos. It just isn't true.

As far as the Newmans, they were looking directly at the back of JFK's head from what? 25 feet away, and failed to see a blow-out on the back. I find this significant.

Edited January 26, 2011 by Pat Speer

[Cliff Varnell]

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.

Jim, right on the money! Any disagreements we have on other issues are insignificant compared to our agreement on the prima facie case for conspiracy, the low-back & throat entrance wounds.

These are provable facts. That you acknowledge these facts places you on the side of the angels, sir.

Our biggest disagreement is probably the nature of the throat entrance wound, a debate for another day.

(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 he writes can be

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

All of you guys are cool in my book. I have a number of disagreements with all of you at times, but all of you acknowledge the low back wound and the throat entrance wound. David Lifton and I disagree about the nature of the back wound, but at least he gets the location right.

I have a little saying I like to trot out a couple times a decade -- "Obfuscation is the collateral damage of good research." Good researchers can serve an obfuscationary function when they're wrong, and good research on minor evidence can distract from superior evidence.

As far as I'm concerned, to argue the case for conspiracy on anything other than the T3 back wound and throat entrance wound lets WC defenders off the hook. Ever notice how one-sided any debate is regarding the location of the back wound? When the HSCA cited the acoustic evidence as a rationale for positing conspiracy they obfuscated the overwhelming evidence of the T3 back wound. Don Thomas continues this obfuscation, in my book.

Same problem with the NAA cock-up. The SBT obviously fails on its trajectory but we had entire conference, Wecht 2003, purportedly devoted to the Single Bullet Theory, that pushed debates over the NAA to the exclusion of the back wound evidence.

All of this plays into the hands of the WC defenders. If you push them on the back wound issue they eventually feel the need to flat out lie about the position of JFK's jacket in the motorcade photos, an argument no objective person could possibly buy. Instead, they play the false equivalency gambit by turning the issue of conspiracy into disagreements between "experts", "lone nut science" versus "conspiracy science."

The T3 back wound requires no "expert" explication -- the location is too low on the face. I don't care how you, David lifton, or Jim DiEugenio arrived at your understanding of the T3 back wound, it's sufficient that you all acknowledge it, placing you all on the right side of history, imo.

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

remotely defensible.

I enjoy making the attempt, nonetheless.

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.

The central speculative question is: did the plotters of JFK's murder intend to set up Lee Harvey Oswald as the lone assassin? I would argue no, that it was a contingency plan in case he was captured alive.

Had Oswald been gunned down within an hour of JFK's assassination would there have been any need to alter the body?

What do you think posed the greater element of risk -- altering the wounds on JFK's body, or setting up some patsies to be gunned down as Oswald's co-shooters?

I'd think the latter would be a breeze.

Simply put, Lifton and Horne are arguing that the plan all along involved hijacking the body to alter the wounds, while I argue that it was a contingency made necessary by Oswald's capture.

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.

I disagree. The "preferred option" was setting up a Castro conspiracy. In the contingency that Oswald was captured alive, the body would have to be altered since a simultaneous triangulation of fire at the head was a big part of the plot.

If Oswald was gunned down instead of Tippit on 11/22/63, additional patsies had already been prepared to be hunted down, or so I'd speculate.

Since the goal of the conspiracy was to provide a rationale for the invasion of Cuba, the latter scenario was by far the "preferred option."

I argue that the perps are likely to be identified in the following.

Larry Hancock, Someone Would Have Talked, pg. 13:

Immediately following the assassination, FBI and CIA informant Richard Cain (an associate of Sam Giancana and participant in the very early (Johnny) Roselli organized attempts against Castro) began aggressively reporting that Lee Oswald had been associated with a FPCC group in Chicago that had held secret meetings in the spring of 1963 planning the assassination of President Kennedy...

Following the assassination, John Martino and Frank Fiorini/Sturgis of Miami, and Carlos Bringuier of New Orleans, all began telling the same story about Oswald visiting Cuba and being a personal tool of Fidel Castro. Strangely enough, on the afternoon of November 22 after Oswald's arrest, J. Edgar Hoover also related that the FBI had monitored Oswald on visits to Cuba.

Hoover wrote in a 4:01 PM EST on November 22: "Oswald...went to Cuba on several occasions but would not tell us what he went to Cuba for." Hoover repeated this information again an hour later in a memo of 5:15 PM EST.

ibid, pg 288:

On Friday evening, Dallas Assistant D.A. William Alexander prepared a formal set of charges for Lee Oswald. These papers charged Oswald with murdering the President "(in furtherance of) an International Communist Conspiracy."

William Kelly, the "Black Propaganda Ops" thread:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...c=11191&hl=

7) In Miami, shortly after the assassination, Dr. Jose Ignorzio, the chief of clinical psychology for the Catholic Welfare Services, contacted the White House to inform the new administration that Oswald had met directly with Cuban ambassador Armas in Mexico.

8) In Mexico City, David Atlee Phillips of the CIA debriefed a Nicaraguan intelligence officer, code named "D," who claimed to have seen Oswald take money from a Cuban at the Cuban embassy. [see: Alvarado Story]

9) In New Zealand, U.S.A.F. Col. Fletcher Prouty read complete biographies of Oswald in the local papers hours after the assassination, indicating to him that a bio of Oswald was pre-prepared.

10) Brothers Jerry and James Buchanan, CIA propaganda assets, began promoting the Castro-did-it theme immediately. According to Donald Freed and Jeff Cohen (in Liberation Magazine), the source of the Buchanan's tales was the leader of the CIA supported International Anti-Communist Brigade (IAB). "Back in Miami," they wrote, "a high powered propaganda machine was cranking out stories that Oswald was a Cuban agent…" (Frank) Sturgis is quoted in the Pampara Beach Sun-Sentinel as saying that Oswald had talked with Cuban G-2 agents and fracassed with IAB members in Miami in 1962.

From Peter Dale Scott's 2010 COPA paper:

Meanwhile, in Washington, the post-assassination phase-one stories out of Dallas were augmented by a more serious item of pre-assassination false evidence. A letter purporting to be from Oswald, mailed from Irving, Texas on November 12 to the Soviet Embassy in Washington, was intercepted by the FBI. In this letter, the writer spoke of "my meetings [plural] with comrade Kostin in the Embassy of the Soviet Union, Mexico City." The letter also alluded suggestively to the lack of time there "to complete our business." Even more alarmingly, the author revealed his accurate knowledge that the Consul in the Cuban Embassy had been "replaced." 39.

This Kostin letter was completely unlike any other written by Oswald; to begin with, it was not handwritten but typed. I have argued elsewhere that for various reasons, including above all its timing, the letter was a false artifact, or, as I would now say, part of a provocation-deception plot.

Scott breaks the cover-up down into "phase-one" and "phase-two" stories, the plot to set up the Commie conspirator, or the lone assassin contingency.

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

Perhaps the lone-assassin contingency was "elaborately planned," as you insist, but it was a contingency nonetheless.

Thank you for your kind words, Jim.

Edited January 27, 2011 by Cliff Varnell