The Law of Unintended Consequences

[Cliff Varnell]

It's prima facie impossible to have a half-foot of clothing and JFK's jacket collar occupying the same physical space at the same time.

A fact you cannot refute in the real world

Who in the world BESIDES YOU have ever made such a silly claim? ROFLMAO!

It's your scenario, Craig. You acknowledge the jacket collar rested in a normal position.

The normal position for a jacket collar is just above C7.

You claim that over 6 inches of shirt/jacket fabric were elevated entirely above the base of the neck, C7.

The reason you have failed to replicate this is because the bunch and the collar cannot occupy the same space just above the base of the neck at the same time.

A little kid could grasp this -- the mystery is why you cannot.

Show us the neck shadow that must fall over the shirt and jacket collar at the rear center of JFK's neck in Betzner,

This is something you have invented out of thin air. You obviously don't know how clothing moves or how the sunshine falls on fabric that is indented in some places and slightly bulging in others, which is what occurs when fabric is bunched.

My only purpose in bringing this up on this thread is to demonstrate Craig Lamson's double standard when it comes to providing evidence.

Done.

Edited January 13, 2012 by Cliff Varnell

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

Special thanks to Pat Speer for calling a halt to this massive distraction from the crucial issues that are under consideration here. A prime example is the black patch, where David Mantik and Doug Horne have both inquired as to the origin of this frame, which is especially striking in comparison with Lifton's frame, namely: http://24.152.179.96:8400/A524C/317.png

If this came from "The Lost Bullet" and had its origins in the MPI slide set archived at The 6th Floor Museum, why should we still be debating what those slides would show? We already know--where I cannot understand why there remains any lingering doubt about the use of black to conceal the image, as Pat Block has lucidly explained, where it was missed in the "touch up".

Here are some questions in relation to Josiah Thompson's absurd suggestion in post #369 that David Mantik was "making up" what he saw on the MPI slides when he visited The 6th Floor Museum and which Doug Horne reported in his blog, which I have cited in earlier posts:

If Tink thinks David just made this up, then does he say the same about Patrick Block?

And: Will he say the same about everyone who sees an obvious black patch on Z-317, even Wilkinson?

And: Does Tink really see NO difference between Z-314 (and earlier frames) as compared to Z-317? If so, yikes!

And: Does he really believe that the five individuals who saw a different Z-film also made that up? Where does this end?

And: If the HD scan from the Archives (third generation) shows a black patch and the MPI images do not, then what does that mean?

Cliff and Craig, your obsession with a shadow or not shadow on one photo has nothing to do with this thread, which is about evidence alteration. Your endless bickering about it is side-tracking what would otherwise be considered a productive exchange among members not interested in your obsession. Please take it elsewhere.

Under normal circumstances, the moderators might choose to remove your posts re Betzner and put them into a separate thread. But everything you've posted is a repeat of a repeat of a repeat of posts you've made in earlier threads. So what would be the point?

Edited January 13, 2012 by James H. Fetzer

[Craig Lamson]

It's prima facie impossible to have a half-foot of clothing and JFK's jacket collar occupying the same physical space at the same time.

A fact you cannot refute in the real world

Who in the world BESIDES YOU have ever made such a silly claim? ROFLMAO!

It's your scenario, Craig. You acknowledge the jacket collar rested in a normal position.

The normal position for a jacket collar is just above C7.

You claim that over 6 inches of shirt/jacket fabric were elevated entirely above the base of the neck, C7.

The reason you have failed to replicate this is because the bunch and the collar cannot occupy the same space just above the base of the neck at the same time.

A little kid could grasp this -- the mystery is why you cannot.

Show us the neck shadow that must fall over the shirt and jacket collar at the rear center of JFK's neck in Betzner,

This is something you have invented out of thin air. You obviously don't know how clothing moves or how the sunshine falls on fabric that is indented in some places and slightly bulging in others, which is what occurs when fabric is bunched.

My only purpose in bringing this up on this thread is to demonstrate Craig Lamson's double standard when it comes to providing evidence.

Done.

vroom....

Edited January 15, 2012 by Craig Lamson

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

And here is some of Chris Davidson's excellent work:

http://24.152.179.96:8400/70EB5/317Multi.png

Here is a comparison among a few.:

1.From the "Lost Bullet" program.

2.From MPI, this was from the enlarged version. One of many shown.

To the left in the red square is the version supplied by John Costella, I believe it to be from MPI also. John please correct me if I am wrong.

3.This is #2 with about 30 seconds of work in Photoshop.

And: Since Tink has access to (what he regards as) the highest quality slides, why has he published this kind of rubbish:

Special thanks to Pat Speer for calling a halt to this massive distraction from the crucial issues that are under consideration here. A prime example is the black patch, where David Mantik and Doug Horne have both inquired as to the origin of this frame, which is especially striking in comparison with Lifton's frame, namely: http://24.152.179.96:8400/A524C/317.png

If this came from "The Lost Bullet" and had its origins in the MPI slide set archived at The 6th Floor Museum, why should we still be debating what those slides would show? We already know--where I cannot understand why there remains any lingering doubt about the use of black to conceal the image, as Pat Block has lucidly explained, where it was missed in the "touch up".

Here are some questions in relation to Josiah Thompson's absurd suggestion in post #369 that David Mantik was "making up" what he saw on the MPI slides when he visited The 6th Floor Museum and which Doug Horne reported in his blog, which I have cited in earlier posts:

If Tink thinks David just made this up, then does he say the same about Patrick Block?

And: Will he say the same about everyone who sees an obvious black patch on Z-317, even Wilkinson?

And: Does Tink really see NO difference between Z-314 (and earlier frames) as compared to Z-317? If so, yikes!

And: Does he really believe that the five individuals who saw a different Z-film also made that up? Where does this end?

And: If the HD scan from the Archives (third generation) shows a black patch and the MPI images do not, then what does that mean?

Cliff and Craig, your obsession with a shadow or not shadow on one photo has nothing to do with this thread, which is about evidence alteration. Your endless bickering about it is side-tracking what would otherwise be considered a productive exchange among members not interested in your obsession. Please take it elsewhere.

Under normal circumstances, the moderators might choose to remove your posts re Betzner and put them into a separate thread. But everything you've posted is a repeat of a repeat of a repeat of posts you've made in earlier threads. So what would be the point?

Edited January 13, 2012 by James H. Fetzer

[Greg Burnham]

shrooms....

Craig,

I would like to cite Article 4 and invite you to edit your posts that reference any suggestions that members with whom you disagree are doing so because they are impaired due to the ingestion of drugs. "Shrooms" is a reference to psilocybin. You asked me earlier in the thread: "What are you smoking?" -- a veiled allusion to a mind altering substance. These types of comments are inappropriate on multiple counts, the very least includes that those who read these boards (including children) are left with the impression that serious researchers are under the influence, which is simply unacceptable.

I also put the moderation team on notice. If they were concerned that Hood's attorneys might find something actionable...a word to the wise is in order.

[Craig Lamson]

shrooms....

Craig,

I would like to cite Article 4 and invite you to edit your posts that reference any suggestions that members with whom you disagree are doing so because they are impaired due to the ingestion of drugs. "Shrooms" is a reference to psilocybin. You asked me earlier in the thread: "What are you smoking?" -- a veiled allusion to a mind altering substance. These types of comments are inappropriate on multiple counts, the very least includes that those who read these boards (including children) are left with the impression that serious researchers are under the influence, which is simply unacceptable.

I also put the moderation team on notice. If they were concerned that Hood's attorneys might find something actionable...a word to the wise is in order.

Why thank you so much Mr. Burnham. Clearly no one here ever writes like they were under the influence. Heavens no.

[John Costella]

David,

Agreed -- very interesting, particularly that Chaney was yet another limo stop witness.

As to what JFK (or anyone else) was doing after the first shot, we really don't know, and won't know until (and if) we ever see genuine photographic evidence of the event.

I'm wondering if the piece of skull is the same one Clint Hill said was on the back of the seat when he grabbed Jackie, pushed her down into the seat, and covered the two of them. (Missing from the Z film, but likely to have happened while the limo was stopped.) Or was it yet another piece? The way the article is written implies that Chaney saw the piece of skull before motoring forward to the lead car, which would be quite possible in real life when the limo stopped, but it's not definitive.

It's quite possible that Chaney was in front of the limo, in real life. Motoring forward to the lead car would then make most sense for him, because he would have been closer to it than some (all?) of the other motorcycle cops.

I'm interested by the distances. Chaney had obviously been told the party line -- shots from the 6th floor. I'm curious about the "110 feet". Not "about 100 feet". Where on earth did that quite precise number (110) come from? The "50 feet or less" distance doesn't tally with it (not having all my maps and measurements at hand, but Wikipedia tells me the 6th floor was about 60 feet in the air, which sounds about right), and 50 with 60 doesn't give you 110 -- unless you just add them together instead of using Pythagoras; is that what Chaney did?? Could he have been told that the shooter was 50 feet behind the car and 60 feet in the air?

Maybe it's nothing more than Chaney pulling numbers out of his arse, but it reminds me of the Paul Mandel article in the Memorial Edition of LIFE, which had frame numbers and distances that clearly correspond to an earlier version of the faked-up Zapruder film than we have today. Of course, the Chaney account is even earlier -- he's telling us the storyboard for the assassination as it was on 23 November.

John

Thanks, Chris, for your reply. You understand that my posted close-up came from the LIFE transparencies and these were made in the LIFE photolab directly from the originl. The more I look at these, the more it seems to me that I got the focus a tad wrong.

Question: Did you post a story from the Houston Chronicle for 11/22/63 giving the results of a press interview with Officer James Chaney?

JT

Josiah,

Thank you for explaining the origin of your material.

Yes, I did post the article.

It was from the Houston Chronicle dated 11-24-1963.

The link if needed:

http://24.152.179.96...1E14/Chaney.png

chris

I just took a careful look at this particular interview, which I don't remember seeing before. In any event, just giving it a "close reading" (a term James Angleton might have used) makes me realize the terrible opportunity lost to history, because the WC attorneys either were told to "lay off," or simply did not realize the importance of aggressively pursuing the early accounts of the motorcycle patrolmen who flanked the car in this affair.

Let me state, at the outset, my bias. Almost certainly, you cannot have a "motorcade assassination" (and that's what this was) without the motorcycle escort being complicit--at the very least, they had to be paid off, and instructed to "hang back," "do nothing," "go slow" etc.

Take a close look at this particular interview, apparently conducted on 11/23, and there are many avenues which would have been ripe for further questioning.

Immediately below is the interview, with my interjections.

Below that, for those who are interested, is an unblemished typed version.

OK. . here's the one with my interjections:

FIRST SHOT

WAS A MISS,

OFFICER SAYS

Dallas-A motorcycle policeman just six feet from President Kennedy when he was hit said the assassin’s first shot missed entirely.

DSL COMMENT: How the heck does Chaney know that the "first shot missed entirely." What is the source of that idea?

The second of the three shots felled Kennedy, said patrolman James M. Chaney. He was six feet to the right and front of the President’s car, moving about 15 miles an hour while rounding a curve.

DSL COMMENT: Chaney was not "in front" - - - why did he say he was??

The shot, said Chaney, came from the sixth floor of a warehouse building

DSL Comment: How does Chaney know that??

. . . about 50 feet or less behind the President’s car.

DSL Comment: . . And how does Chaney know that, on 11/23, when this interview supposedly took place?

. . . From the sixth floor to the president, the bullet traveled about 110 feet, Chaney estimated.

Chaney was an infantryman in Europe in World War II with experience with sharpshooting.

“When the first shot was fired, I thought it was a backfire,” Chaney said. Everyone looked around. The President was looking back over his left shoulder.

DSL INTERJECTION: This is nonsense. And similar to Roy Kellerman's false statement that JFK reached behind his shoulder with his right hand--an action not shown on the Z film, and which obviously did not take place. Chaney's report about JFK "looking back over his left shoulder" raises a similar issue. These bozo's did't realize there would be enough of a filmed record to establish that JFK did no such thing.

A second or two after the first shot, the second shot him.

“It was like you hit someone in the face with a tomato.

DSL COMMENT: Highly original. . but no one reports any such thing.

Blood went all over the car.

“There was screaming and yelling. A secret service man yelled, “Let’s get out of here.’”

DSL Comment: As a matter of fact, that's not quite the statement reported by others. But more important, AP Reporter Jack Bell says that Kellerman actually stuood up in the car, and motioned the lead car to move ahead --again, something not visible on the Z film, and something not reported by Chaney.

Chaney said the motorcade stopped momentarily after the shots rang out.

DSL COMMENT: Well, this is interesting. So Chaney is, basically, a "car-stop witness."

A policeman ran between two cars with his pistol drawn, heading toward the building

DSL Comment: Its not clear which officer this would be. Almost certainly, not Officer Baker, who would have been well behind Chaney. So who is this "other" officer who, says Chaney, "ran between two cars with his pistol drawn, heading toward the building." Is this a made-up fiction, or exaggeration? Or are we dealing with another event that has been erased from the film? In any event, it should have been the basis for serious questioning.

“I sped to the lead car carrying Chief (Jesse) Curry and Forrest Sorrels, chief of the secret service division of the Treasury Department in the Dallas area.

DSL comment: Well, at least he says he did that--which (as I recall) is confirmed by Chief Curry, and Sorrels, the issue being exactly when it occurred.

“I told them the President had been hit and it appeared bad,” Chaney said.

“A piece of his skull bone was lying on the floor board of the car,” Chaney said.

DSL Interjection: Was this at Parkland? If so, not according to Clint Hill, who said it was in the rear seat. So. . is this another Chaney exaggeration? Or false statement? Or was there in fact a piece of skull bone actually lying on the floor of the car? Unfortunately, we'll probably never know. Chaney died long ago, and , more important, the WC attorney didn't realize the importance of calling him as a witness, and questioning him closely, with a record of his prior statements (such as this one) sitting in front of them.

Too bad.

HERE IS THE WHOLE INTERVIEW, RETYPED, and without my interjections:

FIRST SHOT

WAS A MISS,

OFFICER SAYS

Dallas-A motorcycle policeman just six feet from President Kennedy when he was hit said the assassin’s first shot missed entirely.

The second of the three shots felled Kennedy, said patrolman James M. Chaney. He was six feet to the right and front of the President’s car, moving about 15 miles an hour while rounding a curve.

The shot, said Chaney, came from the sixth floor of a warehouse building about 50 feet or less behind the President’s car. From the sixth floor to the president, the bullet traveled about 110 feet, Chaney estimated.

Chaney was an infantryman in Europe in World War II with experience with sharpshooting.

“When the first shot was fired, I thought it was a backfire,” Chaney said. Everyone looked around. The President was looking back over his left shoulder. A second or two after the first shot, the second shot him.

“It was like you hit someone in the face with a tomato. Blood went all over the car.

“There was screaming and yelling. A secret service man yelled, “Let’s get out of here.’”

Chaney said the motorcade stopped momentarily after the shots rang out.

A policeman ran between two cars with his pistol drawn, heading toward the building

“I sped to the lead car carrying Chief (Jesse) Curry and Forrest Sorrels, chief of the secret service division of the Treasury Department in the Dallas area.

“I told them the President had been hit and it appeared bad,” Chaney said.

“A piece of his skull bone was lying on the floor board of the car,” Chaney said.

* * *

http://24.152.179.96...1E14/Chaney.png

[Thomas Graves]

[...]

HERE IS THE WHOLE INTERVIEW, RETYPED, and without my interjections:

FIRST SHOT

WAS A MISS,

OFFICER SAYS

Dallas-A motorcycle policeman just six feet from President Kennedy when he was hit said the assassin’s first shot missed entirely.

The second of the three shots felled Kennedy, said patrolman James M. Chaney. He was six feet to the right and front of the President’s car, moving about 15 miles an hour while rounding a curve.

The shot, said Chaney, came from the sixth floor of a warehouse building about 50 feet or less behind the President’s car. From the sixth floor to the president, the bullet traveled about 110 feet, Chaney estimated.

[...]

http://24.152.179.96...1E14/Chaney.png

So Chaney said he thought "the shot" (is he talking about the shot that blew JFK's head off?) came from the sixth floor of a warehouse building (the TSBD) about 50 feet or less behind the President's car. And he estimated that the bullet traveled about 110 feet. I've always thought that the President's car was a lot farther from the TSBD than fifty feet. And I think the distance from the traditional "sniper's lair" to the limo at Z-313 was more like 180 feet. Am I correct?

Thanks,

--Tommy

[David Lifton]

QUOTING JIM FETZER: "David knows a great deal about the assassination and the film, but sometimes his ability to reason dumbfounds me. If he no longer believes that all the shots were fired from in front, he should tell us, because that position is absurd. He now declares that there cannot be a motorcade assassination without the escort officers being involved. That is equally absurd. Who would have knowingly ridden into an ambush so close to the limo and run the risk of having, not just JFK's head blown off, but their own? They protested the reduction of the escort to four. They objected to being instructed not to ride forward of the rear wheels. They reported the limo stop and other aspects of the shooting that undermine and contradict the official account. Their own testimony by itself demonstrates that the film is a fake."

DSL RESPONSE:

Thanks for the compliment, but you reveal a major amount of naivete if you believe that this crime could take place without the involvement of (a) certain high level officials of the Dallas Police Department and (b ) certain members of the motorcycle escort. Have you forgotten why the Dallas Police Department radio dispatcher immediately focused on the TSBD as the source of the shots? That it was three officers from the motorcycle contingent who, within 3-6 minutes of the shooting, made repeated broadcasts describing the TSBD as the source, with the last of the three actually pinpointing the exact window? Do you think that was all a coincidence? (See Chapter 14, Best Evidence, for the details of the transmissions, exact times, etc.)

Responding now to your specific comments:

(1) Yes, I believe --as set forth in BEST EVIDENCE--that the shots which struck JFK were fired ONLY from the front. Notice my language: ". . the shots which struck JFK. . " In short, I stand by Chapter 14 of my book, "Trajectory Reversal: Blueprint for Deception.' I am not going to re-argue the point here, but I will have more to say on this in the future. No one observed or reported any rear entries in Dallas on JFK's body, and that's because they were not there. You consistently ignore this critical fact. I do not. (I am ignoring 30 yr plus changed recollection of Nurse Bowron. Under oath in 1964, she denied any rear entry; and I have further corroboration from others that I interviewed.) You persist in viewing (and defining) conspiracy as "cross-fire". That is patently ridiculous, and even amateurish. Further, you seem to believe that two clothing holes are superior to the evidence that the wound on the body was not there. That is another mistake. I'm also surprised that (by implication, anyway) you give any credence to bullet 399 (WCE 399) which clearly was a planted bullet, and intended to "match" the shallow wound which was created "low" on JFK's back. Surely you are aware that that is exactly the way the original FBI Summary Report (12/9/63) was written--and that stems, of course, from the manner in which this farce was "acted out" in the Bethesda autopsy room on the night of Kennedy's murder. (See Chapter 4, B.E., for details of how Humes "discovers" the wound, hours into the autopsy; Kellerman calls SS Chief Rowley, who tells him about the bullet found on the stretcher, etc.) Do you seriously accept all that at face value??

(2) You cite the fact that motorcycle officers would never ride escort if they knew there would be a shooting. I think that is (again) a seriously incorrect supposition. What is far more important--and this is a point you ignore--is that exactly such considerations would in fact apply to the driver of the limo and the supervising agent in the front seat, the two key Secret Service agents involved in this affair. Shots fired "from the rear" --if any missed--would definitely endanger them. But such considerations would not apply if they knew, in advance, that there was little--if any--chance of them being mistakenly struck (because the shots would not be coming from the rear).

(3) As noted at this post: Are you unaware that, in the first 4 minutes, it is the radio transmissions of cops from the cycle escort that call attention to, and pinpoint, the sniper's nest? (If so, please do re-read that section of my Chapter 14). Three of them make transmissions specifying the building, the floor, and--in the third case--the actual window. (Have you forgotten that?)

(4) Another observation: The reason(s) your "diagrams of the shooting" are so criss-crossed with lines, and have shooters firing from all sorts of rooftops and all sorts of directions is that you have combined the false with the real. The result is far from having a "lean and mean" shooting scenario, you have one festooned with spurious shots, and shooters. What is genuine and real is what was observed at Parkland Hospital--nothing more: one shot to the throat (which was, in effect, a "miss") and one, perhaps two, shots to the head. If this is properly analyzed (and this is all set forth in BEST EVIDENCE) that's all there was.

I'm sorry if my orthodoxy on this point troubles you, professor--but that is the proper and logical way to analyze the conflicting data in this situation. If the body is impeached as evidence (and it certainly is, if you agree that it was intercepted and wounds were altered) then you ought to stop "combining" Parkland and Bethesda observations. Bethesda tells us how the body looked at Bethesda--that's all it does. It does not tell us how the shooting took place in Dallas.

Your insistence in combining the two sources constitutes a serious methodological error.

Creating these diagrams in which you depict multiple shooters firing from all sorts of rooftops and multiple directions just confuses the situation, and completely misses the point. (It reminds me of a nuclear scientist who, for some reason, adds several additional electrons to the model of the hydrogen atom, simply because--for some reason--it appeals to his fancy. Sorry, but that won't work).

It is not "absurd" to believe that President Kennedy was struck only from the front. That is completely in accord with the President's body as it was observed at Parkland Hospital in Dallas--and that includes the fact that the body was washed and sponged down by nurses who I interviewed and who don't report any wounds on the back of the body.

The body as it actually looked at Parkland not only reveals how the shooting took place; a comparison between the body at Parkland and the body at Bethesda reveals the nature of (indeed the blue print for, or the algorithm of) the strategic deception that was employed in Dealey Plaza, and which hides the truth in this case.

DSL

1/13/12; 2:40 PM PST

Los Angeles, CA

BELOW HERE. . the original post of Prof. Fetzer (with a few additional "DSL" interjections).

I don't want to get into a prolonged exchange with David Lifton. He is right that there are elements here that anyone could dispute, which he is disputing. Fine. Surely he understands that, if the FBI was contacting the newspapers in Dallas and New York to insert the sentence that, "The doctors did not know if the wounds were caused by one bullet or two", as we learned from Connie Kritzberg and can find in The New York Times, so a lot of time and effort was being spent on sowing seeds of ambiguity and confusion. The question should not be whether there are bit and pieces that could be disputed but whether there is anything here that tends to confirm other elements of these events that has significance for major issues, like the limo stop and Chaney's motoring forward. There are, as I accent.

David knows a great deal about the assassination and the film, but sometimes his ability to reason dumbfounds me. If he no longer believes that all the shots were fired from in front, he should tell us, because that position is absurd.

He now declares that there cannot be a motorcade assassination without the escort officers being involved. That is equally absurd. Who would have knowingly ridden into an ambush so close to the limo and run the risk of having, not just JFK's head blown off, but their own? They protested the reduction of the escort to four. ((DSL Interjection: And you take these after-the-fact protestations seriously??)) They objected to being instructed not to ride forward of the rear wheels. ((DSL Comment: Again, you take that seriously??)) They reported the limo stop and other aspects of the shooting that undermine and contradict the official account. ((DSL: So what?? They clearly were unaware that films would be altered.)) Their own testimony by itself demonstrates that the film is a fake.

There is more, such as the personal relationships between Jean and Mary and some of the escort officers who rode with the limo. It is obvious that they were unaware that the assassination was going to take place,

DSL INTERJECTION. . . : Oh pleez. . are you going to invoke what one of them told a girl friend as probative to their state of knowledge prior to this murder?))

but, as you can read in Jean's book, were concerned afterward that their lives might be in jeopardy if they spoke out about it. They gave their initial interviews when it would have been all but impossible to control them, where their naivete is apparent.

DSL interjection: Now just a minute: Are you unaware of Haygood's behavior, and his smart-ass comments, in a 1986 conversation with JFK researcher Todd Vaughan: "It’s a bunch of goddamn Yankees come down there to get their goddamn sorry bunch of damn Texans there straightened out, because we killed their President." And what about the cycle cop who, already riding in the motorcade, wisecracked to Marvin Lee Aday (later known as "Meatloaf"): ", 'Well, yep, you know what? If somebody was going to shoot him, they would certainly do it here in Dallas.'" Sorry, Professor. . methinks you have suddenly adopted a most innocent and peculiarly naive attitude when it comes to the Dallas Police Department." END INTERJECTION

I think that David has strong feelings about me that affect his reasoning and warp it into making arguments that are not compelling or well-founded only because he wants to undermine my posts. That is trivial and silly, but he has done it before and will do it again. He has much to offer, but sometimes squanders it, as he does here. More's the pity!

DSL INTERJECTION: No, Jim. . nothing personal. I realize you're a card catalogue of valuable data... and a storehouse of energy. Its just that your analysis in this instance is thoroughly incorrect. END INTERJECTION

Thanks, Chris, for your reply. You understand that my posted close-up came from the LIFE transparencies and these were made in the LIFE photolab directly from the originl. The more I look at these, the more it seems to me that I got the focus a tad wrong.

Question: Did you post a story from the Houston Chronicle for 11/22/63 giving the results of a press interview with Officer James Chaney?

JT

Josiah,

Thank you for explaining the origin of your material.

Yes, I did post the article.

It was from the Houston Chronicle dated 11-24-1963.

The link if needed:

http://24.152.179.96:8400/D1E14/Chaney.png

chris

[snipped--to save space. See previous post for text of the Chaney interview]

FIRST SHOT

WAS A MISS,

OFFICER SAYS

http://24.152.179.96...1E14/Chaney.png

Edited January 14, 2012 by David Lifton

[Pat Speer]

[...]

HERE IS THE WHOLE INTERVIEW, RETYPED, and without my interjections:

FIRST SHOT

WAS A MISS,

OFFICER SAYS

Dallas-A motorcycle policeman just six feet from President Kennedy when he was hit said the assassin’s first shot missed entirely.

The second of the three shots felled Kennedy, said patrolman James M. Chaney. He was six feet to the right and front of the President’s car, moving about 15 miles an hour while rounding a curve.

The shot, said Chaney, came from the sixth floor of a warehouse building about 50 feet or less behind the President’s car. From the sixth floor to the president, the bullet traveled about 110 feet, Chaney estimated.

[...]

http://24.152.179.96...1E14/Chaney.png

So Chaney said he thought "the shot" (is he talking about the shot that blew JFK's head off?) came from the sixth floor of a warehouse building (the TSBD) about 50 feet or less behind the President's car. And he estimated that the bullet traveled about 110 feet. I've always thought that the President's car was a lot farther from the TSBD than fifty feet. And I think the distance from the traditional "sniper's lair" to the limo at Z-313 was more like 180 feet. Am I correct?

Thanks,

--Tommy

I think he was describing the first shot, which he thought missed. Even so, the limo was clearly more than 110 feet away at the time. The distance at the time of the head shot was supposedly 265 feet. While some LNers might use his estimation to try to argue Chaney heard a first shot miss way back when they claim it missed, around Z-160, they'd be pretty silly to do so, IMO, as Chaney was adamant the second shot hit Kennedy in the head. If he thought the first shot was fired around Z-160 and missed, and that the next shot was the head shot at Z-313, after all, he'd have to have been the worst witness ever. The Altgens photo, one should recall, shows him looking to his left at Z-255. One can only hope he'd have noticed SOME movement in the limo at this time.

And indeed he did. He thought Kennedy was looking back over his left shoulder, when he was really reacting to the first shot. Which did not miss.

[John Costella]

Hang on a minute.

Jim, you believe the Secret Service agents were complicit, right? And that they knowingly drove JFK into the kill zone.

But you say that it's absurd for a complicit motorcycle cop to escort the limo into the kill zone?

I don't necessarily ascribe to either, but I find neither of them absurd. If one or more officers (of either type) had foreknowledge, it's impossible to know the extent or details of that knowledge. Who knows what they were told? I doubt it would have been a description of what eventually happened on Elm Street -- which itself was almost certainly a stuff-up anyway.

Saying that the motorcycle cops must be innocent because their accounts undermine the official story is ridiculous -- and you don't even extend the same assumption to the Secret Service agents. Have you actually read what they told the Warren Commission? By your criterion, they'd be as sweet as roses too.

I don't find Lifton's all-shots-from-the-front scenario to be absurd at all. I don't believe that he's proved it to be the case beyond reasonable doubt -- so I don't ascribe to it as the sole possible answer -- but it's an interesting scenario that has a degree of simplicity and elegance to it.

I've certainly worried about the amount of three-dimensional space endangered by the bullets-from-all-directions scenario. That concern doesn't rule it out either, but it does make it a more complicated scenario to plan. Doesn't anyone else find it remarkable that there was precisely one "innocent bystander" hit -- Connally? (Or maybe two, if the reports of a shot Secret Service agent were actually true.) When you look at Elm Street in hindsight, you can convince yourself that it makes sense, because of the lack of people down there, and the angles, and the position of the limo, and so on. But that's with hindsight. Planning for that scenario when you don't know exactly where everything, and everyone, is a different story.

John

QUOTING JIM FETZER: "David knows a great deal about the assassination and the film, but sometimes his ability to reason dumbfounds me. If he no longer believes that all the shots were fired from in front, he should tell us, because that position is absurd. He now declares that there cannot be a motorcade assassination without the escort officers being involved. That is equally absurd. Who would have knowingly ridden into an ambush so close to the limo and run the risk of having, not just JFK's head blown off, but their own? They protested the reduction of the escort to four. They objected to being instructed not to ride forward of the rear wheels. They reported the limo stop and other aspects of the shooting that undermine and contradict the official account. Their own testimony by itself demonstrates that the film is a fake."

DSL RESPONSE:

Thanks for the compliment, but you reveal a major amount of naivete if you believe that this crime could take place without the involvement of (a) certain high level officials of the Dallas Police Department and (b ) certain members of the motorcycle escort.

<snip>

[Thomas Graves]

[...]

HERE IS THE WHOLE INTERVIEW, RETYPED, and without my interjections:

FIRST SHOT

WAS A MISS,

OFFICER SAYS

Dallas-A motorcycle policeman just six feet from President Kennedy when he was hit said the assassin’s first shot missed entirely.

The second of the three shots felled Kennedy, said patrolman James M. Chaney. He was six feet to the right and front of the President’s car, moving about 15 miles an hour while rounding a curve.

The shot, said Chaney, came from the sixth floor of a warehouse building about 50 feet or less behind the President’s car. From the sixth floor to the president, the bullet traveled about 110 feet, Chaney estimated.

[...]

http://24.152.179.96...1E14/Chaney.png

So Chaney said he thought "the shot" (is he talking about the shot that blew JFK's head off?) came from the sixth floor of a warehouse building (the TSBD) about 50 feet or less behind the President's car. And he estimated that the bullet traveled about 110 feet. I've always thought that the President's car was a lot farther from the TSBD than fifty feet. And I think the distance from the traditional "sniper's lair" to the limo at Z-313 was more like 180 feet. Am I correct?

Thanks,

--Tommy

I think he was describing the first shot, which he thought missed. Even so, the limo was clearly more than 110 feet away at the time. The distance at the time of the head shot was supposedly 265 feet. While some LNers might use his estimation to try to argue Chaney heard a first shot miss way back when they claim it missed, around Z-160, they'd be pretty silly to do so, IMO, as Chaney was adamant the second shot hit Kennedy in the head. If he thought the first shot was fired around Z-160 and missed, and that the next shot was the head shot at Z-313, after all, he'd have to have been the worst witness ever. The Altgens photo, one should recall, shows him looking to his left at Z-255. One can only hope he'd have noticed SOME movement in the limo at this time.

And indeed he did. He thought Kennedy was looking back over his left shoulder, when he was really reacting to the first shot. Which did not miss.

Pat,

According to Don Roberdeau's map, the limo was approximately 90 feet from the TSBD building at Z-160. Chaney said it was fifty feet or less.

As far as I'm concerned, Chaney is an unreliable "witness" based on this discrepancy alone. The "or less" bit really did it for me.

--Tommy

Edited January 13, 2012 by Thomas Graves

[Greg Burnham]

Pat,

According to Don Roberdeau's map, the limo was approximately 90 feet from the TSBD building at Z-160. Chaney said it was fifty feet or less.

As far as I'm concerned, Chaney is an unreliable "witness" based on this discrepancy alone. The "or less" bit really did it for me.

--Tommy

Tommy,

You are begging the question. A great portion of this thread has revolved around the question of Zapruder film authenticity: Is it or is it not authentic?

Therefore, using the Z-film frame count in order to measure the events and/or the position of the actual physical elements is fallacious. In other words, CHANEY is a witness, indeed, he is a qualified witness (regarding competence of judging distances) due to the nature of his job. Where photographic evidence is at odds with key qualified eyewitness testimony the former's reliability does not stand. Photographic and film evidence require the corroboration of witnesses in order to even be admissible in a courtroom. Chaney's testimony is admissible without the Zapruder film. The Zapruder film requires corroboration by witnesses. You have it backwards, my friend.

[Thomas Graves]

Pat,

According to Don Roberdeau's map, the limo was approximately 90 feet from the TSBD building at Z-160. Chaney said it was fifty feet or less.

As far as I'm concerned, Chaney is an unreliable "witness" based on this discrepancy alone. The "or less" bit really did it for me.

--Tommy

Tommy,

You are begging the question. A great portion of this thread has revolved around the question of Zapruder film authenticity: Is it or is it not authentic?

Therefore, using the Z-film frame count in order to measure the events and/or the position of the actual physical elements is fallacious. In other words, CHANEY is a witness, indeed, he is a qualified witness (regarding competence of judging distances) due to the nature of his job. Where photographic evidence is at odds with key qualified eyewitness testimony the former's reliability does not stand. Photographic and film evidence require the corroboration of witnesses in order to even be admissible in a courtroom. Chaney's testimony is admissible without the Zapruder film. The Zapruder film requires corroboration by witnesses. You have it backwards, my friend.

OK, Greg. Got it. Thanks!

--Tommy

Question: Is there any unaltered photographic evidence which shows the limo when it was "fifty feet or less" from the TSBD building?

Thanks again my friend,

--Tommy

Edited January 14, 2012 by Thomas Graves

[David Lifton]

Cliff,

My point is that Lamson's argument is irrelevant, because we KNOW where the bullet entered the body, namely, 5.5 inches below the collar to the right of the spinal column at a downward angle. And it was a shallow shot with now point of entry. My point is that we've "been there, done that"!

You're right, Jim. But one can say that about other issues in this thread as well. When I saw the critique Craig was making of Mr. Block's argument, it seemed to me that Craig was employing a double standard which deserved a hard look.

As I've noted before -- in a field littered with dead horses I choose to beat the one that proves the case prima facie.

I can explain my work to a little kid. You cannot do so with your work, can you?

I agree with Cliff. Probably the simplest way (today) to destroy the official version is with the impossibility of the official version, due to the low clothing holes in the shirt and jacket (and I say that even though I believe the back wound to be false). I remember when I first read about all this in Liberation Magazine, in Salandria's original article(s) in the spring of 1965. Right then, I knew the whole official version was an impossibility--even though, or me, it was the backward snap of the head, as shown on the Zapruder frames reproduced in Volume 18, which seemed also just as important, and even more bizarre.

The combination of these two led to my 30,000 word article --"The Case for Three Assassins"--that was written in July of 1966, and was a cover story in Ramparts Magazine in January, 1967.

That was the first time I was able to get a physicist to go on record stating that the backward snap established a shot from the front--even though today, I realize that the rapidity of the "backward snap" is almost certainly an artifact resulting from the editing of the Z film at that point, attendant to the removal of the car stop.

DSL

Edited January 14, 2012 by David Lifton