DID ZAPRUDER FILM "THE ZAPRUDER FILM"?

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

Pat,

His point was very simple (and I think you misrepresent it below). Unless the tentorium had been

ruptured, even the causal interaction of the shot from behind (in the vicinity of the EOP) and of

the shot that entered his right temple (which was a frangible round) would not have been enough to

allow cerebellum to have been released and to have extruded from the wound at the back of his head.

Since cerebellum WAS extruding from the wound (as multiple, competent physicians reported), it must

have been ruptured. Since it cannot have been ruptured by the other shot that hit him in the back 5.5"

below the collar (a shallow shot at a downward angle), the only reasonable explanation is that the

shot to his throat fractured, part going downward into the lung, part upward rupturing the tentorium.

I cannot imagine why you would want to describe as "pretty wild" the considered opinion of a world

authority on the human brain who was also an expert on wound ballistics, having supervised an EMH

(emergency medical hospital) for injured Okinawans and Japanese prisoners of war during the Battle

of Okinawa. Your attitude strikes me as baseless. There is no reasonable alternative explanation.

Jim

Pat,

I even gave you the page numbers, especially pages 163-164. He explains that something had to

have disrupted the tenrotium, that a bullet from behind would "press down" on the tentorium and

that it would have been most unlikely to have been damaged by a shot from in front. The second

paragraph on page 164 states, "Therefore, if cerebellum was extruding posteriorly--and I believe

the medical witnesses at Parkland could not have been mistaken about this--it means there had to

be powerful forces exerted from beneath, which developed sufficient shock against the tentorium to

rupture it upwards and simultaneously to detach and extrude cerebellar tissue though the wound in

the back of the president's head. This might have been caused by a bullet entering his neck from in

front, or perhaps a fragment of such a bullet, passing upward through the floor of the posterior fossa

and disrupting the cerebellum and tentorium." He confirmed to me during conversation that this was

his opinion: that the bullet that hit his throat fragmented, part of which went into the right lung and

part of which went upward to disrupt the tentorium. We know that cerebellum was extruding and it

would not have been caused even by the interaction of the EOP hit and the frangible bullet that came

in by his right temple. The only explanation for extruding cerebellum is the one that he has described,

which means that JFK's death was consequently caused by the interaction of three different bullets.

Please read the statements of Robert B. Livingston, M.D., in ASSASSINATION SCIENCE (1998),

beginning at page 161 but especially pages 163-164, but also page 173 and page 175. It was his

opinion--and we discussed this in person--that even the near simultaneous damage from the back-

of-the-head-near-the-EOP shot and the bullet that entered at his right temple would not have been

sufficient to disrupt cerebellar tissue UNLESS the tentorium had already been damaged. Given his

standing as a world authority on the human brain and an expert on wound ballistics, I would hope

you could take his reports into account and reconsider your position regarding these head wounds.

I just re-read Livingston's letters in Assassination Science, and Livingston never says anything about a bullet entering the neck's exploding upwards to damage the tentorium. As his letters were written from the perspective of someone who only knew about two wounds--a small throat entrance, and a blow-out on the back of the head with extruding cerebellum--moreover, it would not be surprising if he did discuss this possibility.

What would be surprising, however, is if, when accepting the possibility the tentorium had been damaged from both a bullet entering the skull from behind, and a second bullet exploding through the skull from the front, he still insisted the damage to the tentorium must have come from a bullet fragment rising from the neck entrance. This is a total non-sequitur.

And it's not his opinion on this I am doubting. It's your memory on this I am doubting. Why did he never write this down? Why are you only coming forward with this more than a decade after Assassination Science was published? Why did you claim this was mentioned in your more recent article, when it is, in fact, never mentioned? Why did Livingson, if he believed the cerebellar extrusion must have been preceded by damage related to the neck wound, tell Lifton, in his 1992 letter published in Assassination Science, that he'd told Humes "that the neck wound would probably not have anything to do with the main cause of death--massive, disruptive, brain injury--because of the angle of the bullet trajectory..."?

Thanks, Jim. Livingston does indeed offer the scenario you describe. Have you found any other doctors to support his opinion? Because it's pretty wild. He seems to think 1) the hole on the back of the head was above the EOP, and that the cerebellum must have been forced upwards out of this hole from a force below the cerebellum, and 2) this force was most likely a fragment from the neck shot...which came seconds before the shot causing the hole (s) on the back of the head. In other words, he seems to have believed a fragment of the bullet entering Kennedy's throat had enough force to rise within the neck, destroy the tentorium, and lift the cerebellum upwards, and that a second bullet then tore through the cerebellum from behind, and then a third bullet from the front exploded it back out a hole on the back of the head.

Perhaps he thought the cerebellum had some sort of homing mechanism attached to it. That's a bad joke, I know. But I find it hard to believe any other doctor would go along with such a thing.

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

Robin,

My point is, they are OBVIOUSLY not the same windshields. Adding a drop or two of blood (a

nice touch) does not change a white, spiral nebula with a dark hole in the center into a star-

like configuration of five extending (even more or less straight) lines. Surely you see that:

Jim.

My question is, if the FBI garage image below shows a different windshield to the original.

THEN WHERE DID THE "BLOOD DROPS" COME FROM THAT WE SEE ON THE WINDSHIELD

Am i expected to beleive that they kicked out the original windshield, and then replaced it with another windshield, complete with a new set of cracks and blood drops.

[Robin Unger]

Jim

I have seen the Altgens 6 image many times in various sizes from small to very large.

In my honest opinion it is almost impossible to see the damage in Altgen's 6 clear enough to confirm a hole in the windshield.

The resolution of the image just is not good enough

Edited April 15, 2011 by Robin Unger

[Robin Unger]

This is the largest resolution scan i can find, i see a small star shape pattern but i cannot make out enough detail to confirm a hole in the windshield

Credit: Anthony Marsh ( Trask's that day in dallas )

Edited April 15, 2011 by Robin Unger

[Robin Unger]

Small stabilized GIF (stabilized using the rear view mirror

Looking at the two images layered on top of each other,and given the large difference in perspective of the two photographers , both in angle and distance.

Using the rear view mirror as a stabilization point, it is not out of the question that the two separate cracks seen in this GIF are infact in the same position on the windshield.

Edited April 15, 2011 by Robin Unger

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

We have information about it from lots of other sources, which I have cited here before. Do you

at least acknowledge that the star-shaped figure is very different from the white spiral nebula? My

image is better than your blow ups and some of these no doubt have also been slightly tweaked.

Regardless of your concerns, can you not see that they are OBVIOUSLY not the same windshields?

Jim

I have seen the Altgens 6 image many times in various sizes from small to very large.

In my honest opinion it is almost impossible to see the damage in Altgen's 6 clear enough to confirm a hole in the windshield.

The resolution of the image just is not good enough

Edited April 15, 2011 by James H. Fetzer

[Robin Unger]

Jim

I just edited my post above to add a GIF

Quote:

We have information about it from lots of other sources, which I have cited here before. Do you

at least acknowledge that the star-shaped figure is very different from the white spiral nebula? My

image is better than your blow ups and some of these no doubt have also been slightly tweaked.

Regardless of your concerns, can you not see that they are OBVIOUSLY not the same windshields?

I acknowledge that the two shapes appear vastly different

But i also acknowledge that one image was taken from about 3 ft away directly in front of the windshield, while the other one was taken from around 25 feet away at approx a 30-degree angle.to the windshield.

Edited April 15, 2011 by Robin Unger

[Jack White]

Small stabilized GIF (stabilized using the rear view mirror

Looking at the two images layered on top of each other,and given the large difference in perspective of the two photographers , both in angle and distance.

Using the rear view mirror as a stabilization point, it is not out of the question that the two separate cracks seen in this GIF are infact in the same position on the windshield.

Excellent GIF, but they do not depict the same image. I do not know what that means.

Jack

[Robin Unger]

Hi Jack

I am of the opinion that the windshield seen in the Altgens, and FBI photo are one in the same.

I also think that my GIF above shows the cracks to be in a very similar position in both the FBI & the Altgen's photo's

I know that goes againt what you and Jim think

but that is the way is see it.

Altgen's distance from the limo & camera settings.

We probably should also take into account Altgen's camera settings, there seems to be some sort of zoom effect at play on the altgen's 6 image.

there is a possibility that the spiral nebular shows an artifact situated behind the clear glass windscreen, and not on the windscreen

Quote:

Mr. ALTGENS - Well, I have to take into consideration the law governing photographic materials and the use of optics in cameras--lenses--and while my camera may have been set on a distance of 30 feet, there is a plus or minus, area in which the focus still is maintained. I figure that this is approximately 30 feet because that's what I have measured on my camera.

Mr. LIEBELER - And you say Exhibit No. 203 was taken about 30 feet away?

Mr. ALTGENS - But it might be 40 feet, but I couldn't say that that's exactly the distance because while it may be in focus at 40 feet, my camera has it in focus 30 feet. It's the same thing--if I focus at 15 feet, my focus might extend 20 feet and it might also be reduced to 10 feet, but my focusing was in that general area of 30 feet. I believe, if you will let me say something further here about this picture----

Mr. LIEBELER - And you say Exhibit No. 203 was taken about 30 feet away?

Mr. ALTGENS - But it might be 40 feet, but I couldn't say that that's exactly the distance

From 40-feet away the spiral nebular effect would be all but invisible to the naked eye. ?

WHAT ZOOM EFFECT IS AT PLAY TO CAUSE IT TO STICK OUT SO PROMINENTLY IN THE ALTGEN'S 6 IMAGE ?

If the limo is at (30-40ft ) how far away is all the the detail in the backround of that image, going right up to the Daltex building ( much of being in focus ) ?

Edited April 16, 2011 by Robin Unger

[Pat Speer]

Pat,

His point was very simple (and I think you misrepresent it below). Unless the tentorium had been

ruptured, even the causal interaction of the shot from behind (in the vicinity of the EOP) and of

the shot that entered his right temple (which was a frangible round) would not have been enough to

allow cerebellum to have been released and to have extruded from the wound at the back of his head.

Since cerebellum WAS extruding from the wound (as multiple, competent physicians reported), it must

have been ruptured. Since it cannot have been ruptured by the other shot that hit him in the back 5.5"

below the collar (a shallow shot at a downward angle), the only reasonable explanation is that the

shot to his throat fractured, part going downward into the lung, part upward rupturing the tentorium.

I cannot imagine why you would want to describe as "pretty wild" the considered opinion of a world

authority on the human brain who was also an expert on wound ballistics, having supervised an EMH

(emergency medical hospital) for injured Okinawans and Japanese prisoners of war during the Battle

of Okinawa. Your attitude strikes me as baseless. There is no reasonable alternative explanation.

Jim

Jim, I've spent hundreds of hours reading about wound ballistics, including a number of hours reading autopsy protocols, etc, in old magazines such as Military Surgeon, and can assure you that a theory holding that a bullet fragment, after ascending the neck and breaking through the base of the skull, still had enough energy to rupture the tentorium, is indeed pretty wild. The energy of a fragment is not nearly that of an intact bullet, and the drag upon its energy as it passes through flesh and bone far greater. As a result, there's reason to doubt that a fragment--which would almost certainly have been a small fragment to have been so easily detoured from its original trajectory--would even have the energy to break through the base of the skull.

While I, naturally--seeing as the majority of the doctors thinking they saw cerebellum later admitted they'd been mistaken--have doubts cerebellum was seen, there is simply no forensic basis for assuming the neck bullet fragmented--and caused the damage to the cerebellum. It appears to me that Livingston interpreted the statements of the Parkland witnesses to mean the entire cerebellum had come unattached from the skull, when, taken as a whole, they only suggest that SOME cerebellum had been macerated before oozing from the rear skull wound--an event that is more likely to have come as a result of a frontal shot's blowing-out the back of the head.

Perhaps Livingston failed to realize, as well, that when the cerebellum supposedly oozed through the wound, Kennedy was in the Trendelenburg position, with his feet far over his head, and that, as a result, gravity would have pulled the macerated cerebellum from the wound.

Edited April 15, 2011 by Pat Speer

[Jack White]

All reports I remember reading had JFK on a standard emergency gurney, not a special operating room table.

Jack

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

What it means is that there was a through-and-through hole in the windshield, which is visible as a small, whilte spiral nebula

with a dark spot in the center, but which had to be cover-up because it was proof of a shot from in front. So after the limo had

been completely rebuilt at Ford--stripped down to bare metal and the windshield replaced, which Doug Weldon even confirmed

with the official at Ford who replaced it--the Secret Service fabricated a third windshield with cracks caused by a shot from the

rear to obviate the problem and create "new proof" of shots being fired only from behind, which has worked with some students.

Why Robin cannot bring himself to admit the obvious--that the damage shown is not the same in both--is simply beyond me.

Small stabilized GIF (stabilized using the rear view mirror

Looking at the two images layered on top of each other,and given the large difference in perspective of the two photographers , both in angle and distance.

Using the rear view mirror as a stabilization point, it is not out of the question that the two separate cracks seen in this GIF are infact in the same position on the windshield.

Excellent GIF, but they do not depict the same image. I do not know what that means.

Jack

[Jack White]

Hi Jack

I am of the opinion that the windshield seen in the Altgens, and FBI photo are one in the same.

I also think that my GIF above shows the cracks to be in a very similar position in both the FBI & the Altgen's photo's

I know that goes againt what you and Jim think

but that is the way is see it.

Altgen's distance from the limo & camera settings.

We probably should also take into account Altgen's camera settings, there seems to be some sort of zoom effect at play on the altgen's 6 image.

there is a possibility that the spiral nebular shows an artifact situated behind the clear glass windscreen, and not on the windscreen

Quote:

Mr. ALTGENS - Well, I have to take into consideration the law governing photographic materials and the use of optics in cameras--lenses--and while my camera may have been set on a distance of 30 feet, there is a plus or minus, area in which the focus still is maintained. I figure that this is approximately 30 feet because that's what I have measured on my camera.

Mr. LIEBELER - And you say Exhibit No. 203 was taken about 30 feet away?

Mr. ALTGENS - But it might be 40 feet, but I couldn't say that that's exactly the distance because while it may be in focus at 40 feet, my camera has it in focus 30 feet. It's the same thing--if I focus at 15 feet, my focus might extend 20 feet and it might also be reduced to 10 feet, but my focusing was in that general area of 30 feet. I believe, if you will let me say something further here about this picture----

Mr. LIEBELER - And you say Exhibit No. 203 was taken about 30 feet away?

Mr. ALTGENS - But it might be 40 feet, but I couldn't say that that's exactly the distance

From 40-feet away the spiral nebular effect would be all but invisible to the naked eye. ?

WHAT ZOOM EFFECT IS AT PLAY TO CAUSE IT TO STICK OUT SO PROMINENTLY IN THE ALTGEN'S 6 IMAGE ?

If the limo is at (30-40ft ) how far away is all the the detail in the backround of that image, going right up to the Daltex building ( much of being in focus ) ?

Maybe I missed it, but tell us again the provenance of the "FBI" photo of the cracked windshield.

Thanks.

Jack

[Pat Speer]

All reports I remember reading had JFK on a standard emergency gurney, not a special operating room table.

Jack

THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS SOUTHWESTERN MEDICAL SCHOOL, DALLAS

November 22, 1963 1630

To: Mr. C. J. Price, Administrator Parkland Memorial Hospital

From: M. T. Jenkins, M.D., Professor and Chairman Department of Anesthesiology

Subject: Statement concerning resuscitative efforts for President John F. Kennedy

Upon receiving a stat alarm that this distinguished patient was being brought to the emergency room at Parkland Memorial Hospital, I dispatched Doctors A. H. Giesecke and Jackie H. Hunt with an anesthesia machine and resuscitative equipment to the major surgical emergency room area, and I ran down the stairs. On my arrival in the emergency operating room at approximately 1230 I found that Doctors Carrico and/or Delaney had begun resuscitative efforts by introducing an orotracheal tube, connecting it for controlled ventilation to a Bennett intermittent positive pressure breathing apparatus. Doctors Charles Baxter, Malcolm Perry, and Robert McClelland arrived at the same time and began a tracheostomy and started the insertion of a right chest tube, since there was also obvious tracheal and chest damage. Doctors Paul Peters and Kemp Clark arrived simultaneously and immediately thereafter assisted respectively with the insertion of the right chest tube and with manual closed chest cardiac compression to assure circulation.

For better control of artificial ventilation, I exchanged the intermittent positive pressure breathing apparatus for an anesthesia machine and continued artificial ventilation. Doctors Gene Akin and A. H. Giesecke assisted with the respiratory problems incident to changing from the orotracheal tube to a tracheostomy tube and Doctors Hunt and Giesecke connected a cardioscope to determine cardiac activity.

During the progress of these activities, the emergency room cart was elevated at the feet in order to provide a Trendelenburg position, a venous cutdown was performed on the right saphenous vein, and additional fluids were begun in a vein in the left forearm while blood was ordered from the blood bank. All of these activities were completed by approximately 1245, at which time external cardiac massage was still being carried out effectively by Doctor Clark as judged by a palpable peripheral pulse. Despite these measures there was no electrocardiographic evidence of cardiac activity.

These described resuscitative activities were indicated as of first importance, and after they were carried out attention was turned to all other evidences of injury. There was a great laceration on the right side of the head (temporal and occipital), causing a great defect in the skull plate so that there was herniation and laceration of great areas of the brain, even to the extent that the cerebellum had protruded from the wound. There were also fragmented sections of brain on the drapes of the emergency room cart . With the institution of adequate cardiac compression, there was a great flow of blood from the cranial cavity, indicating that there was much vascular damage as well as brain tissue damage .

It is my personal feeling that all methods of resuscitation were instituted expeditiously and efficiently. However, this cranial and intracranial damage was of such magnitude as to cause the irreversible damage. President Kennedy was pronounced dead at 1300.

Sincerely, M. T. Jenkins, M.D .

[Robin Unger]

What it means is that there was a through-and-through hole in the windshield, which is visible as a small, whilte spiral nebula

with a dark spot in the center, but which had to be cover-up because it was proof of a shot from in front. So after the limo had

been completely rebuilt at Ford--stripped down to bare metal and the windshield replaced, which Doug Weldon even confirmed

with the official at Ford who replaced it--the Secret Service fabricated a third windshield with cracks caused by a shot from the

rear to obviate the problem and create "new proof" of shots being fired only from behind, which has worked with some students.

Why Robin cannot bring himself to admit the obvious--that the damage shown is not the same in both--is simply beyond me.

Small stabilized GIF (stabilized using the rear view mirror

Looking at the two images layered on top of each other,and given the large difference in perspective of the two photographers , both in angle and distance.

Using the rear view mirror as a stabilization point, it is not out of the question that the two separate cracks seen in this GIF are infact in the same position on the windshield.

Excellent GIF, but they do not depict the same image. I do not know what that means.

Jack

I still have an open mind Jim

I re-evaluate the evidence as it presents itself.

Jack

I will check the providence of the FBI image

Here is something else to look at in the mean time.