The Law of Unintended Consequences

[John Costella]

Tink,

Nice argument, except that you have made a subconscious assumption -- which seems reasonable from your conception of the assassination, but stands out like a sore thumb against mine: you assume that the limo never slowed / stopped.

My conception of the assassination discards the extant photographic evidence. In my mind's eye, the limo braked suddenly and came to either a complete stop, or a "rolling stop" (like many people do when driving through a Stop sign).

In this view of the assassination, there are many seconds around the head shot(s), which might be described as "the start of pandemonium breaking loose" -- interrupted only by Greer flooring the accelerator and the limo "jumping out of the street" and off under the Triple Underpass. The motorcycle cops would have slowed, weaved, circled. Clint Hill ran forward and (unlike our current version of the Z film) did reach Jackie, put her back down in the seat and cover the two, as he has said for 48 years that he did. Who knows -- another secret service agent may have crossed between the cars and started running for the Depository (which, from where they all were on Elm, simply means running back up Elm Street -- the insertion of the detail that it was towards the Depository, specifically, and not, say, the Dal-Tex building, could have come after the event, after the Depository was identified as the source of the shots); after all, everyone agrees that some sort of noise came from behind, whether that was a distraction or a genuine shot.

In this view of the assassination, there is more than enough time for Chaney to see some of these things -- that would only take a couple of seconds -- and still drive up to the lead car to tell them that all was not well. The limo may well have jumped out of the street as he was getting there -- I'm not saying there were minutes to spare here, but five or ten seconds makes a big difference. (Six seconds, maybe?) Remember that it takes time for the limo to decelerate, and then to accelerate again (even if it was a powerful engine), let alone the time taken when it was stopped or rolling. (Lifton made this point well in his Duluth presentation.)

I know you reject this entire scenario, but I'm sure you will agree that you can't disprove one part of it by assuming that the whole thing is false.

John

I agree. This is a terrific find! But not for the reasons you give.

This thread began with the posting of an excerpt from the Chaney interview from the early 1970s. This interview showed that Chaney had not initially gunned his cycle and raced forward to inform Chief Curry what happened. On the contrary, Chaney recalled almost stopping his cycle and holding there for a bit as he recalled seeing Bobby Hargis dump his cycle by the south curb and run across the street in front of him into the knoll area. Your gloss on this was that since Chaney had seen the Zapruder film he was tailoring his report to the film and essentially making up seeing Hargis cross the street in front of him. Since his questioner was trying to get Chaney to say something to undermine the Zapruder's films authenticity, this seems like a stretch. But the Houston Chroniclen report from Chaney on November 22nd or 23rd makes it even more of a stretch. Let's say that Chaney did exactly as you've been saying he did. Chaney saw Kennedy hit in the head and raced ahead to tell Chief Curry what had happened. If Chaney did this, then how did he see "a policeman ran between two cars with his pistol drawn, heading toward the building." The article makes clear that Chaney "sped toward the lead car" after seeing the policeman with gun drawn. If Chaney had done what you have said he did, then his back would have been to all this. What Chaney said in his 1970s interview and what he says in this report is consistent with what all the films show and inconsistent with the scenario you constructed. But you are right. This is a terrific find!

JT

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

Well, I was very patient in replying to your answers to my seven questions, which I continue to affirm demonstrate the absurdity of your position that all the shots were fired from in front. I gather you are seeking some wiggle room here by saying "all the shots that hit JFK". But he was hit in the throat from in front (by the shot that passed through the windshield); he was hit in the back by the shallow shot, 5.5 inches below the collar (which you insist was a "fabricated" wound); he was hit in the back of the head (as David Mantik has proven in a study that you apparently have never read); and he was hit in the right temple (by a frangible bullet that set up shock waves that blew his brains out the back of his head). Connally was hit from one to three times from the side, while three shots missed (the one that injured James Tague; the one that created the indent on the chrome strip; and the one that was found in the grass).

While you cheerfully acknowledge that you actually hold the position that I fault you for, you in reciprocation falsely attribute to me views that I do not hold. According to you, "(I) persist in viewing (and defining) conspiracy as "cross-fire". That is patently ridiculous, and even amateurish." Yes, if that were my position, it would be "patently ridiculous and amateurish", but you have no basis for that attribution. I discuss the nature of conspiracies in many places, where I have NEVER defined it as you do. A conspiracy simply involves collusion between two or more persons to bring about an illegal end. If you can find anywhere that I have defined it as a "cross-fire", then I will not charge you with sloppy, actually shoddy research. For you to take on a critic by fabricating positions he does not hold, I should have thought, would have been beneath you. Instead, it turns out to be your stock in trade. That's disgusting.

You also claim, "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." But of course if you had actually read "Reasoning about Assassinations", which I have cited endless times, you would know better. What I am faulting is your fantastic thesis that that wound was created by the conspirators. But once we ask, "When and by whom?", you little charade begins to fall apart. The body and the shirt and jacket were separated at Parkland and were not together thereafter. So you seem to believe that there would be a perfect alignment between the shirt and the jacket and the location of the wound in Boswell's diagram, Sibert's sketch, Burkeley's death certificate, the reenactment photographs and the mortician's summary of the wounds WITHOUT EVEN HAVING THE SHIRT AND JACKET ON THE BODY TO CREATE THEM.

You also maintain, "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." But you are just pulling this out of your arse. I have never connected the back wound with C-399; I could care less that some reports do that. I DO NOT. There was a whole bullet reported to have been found at Bethesda, but I am not staking anything on that claim. I do believe it was fired from a higher-caliber weapon using a sabot to implant a Mannlicher-Carcanno bullet in the body to provide evidence linking the crime to that obscure WWII Italian rifle as part of the evidence framing Oswald, where the Dallas Police Department played an important role. So I find it extremely unprofessional and a display of incompetence or of corruption to attribute to me views that I do not hold. I suspect the lack of an abrasion collar, which you like to cite, is related to his back-brace, which I conjecture you have not taken into account.

You have also expressed incredulity that I believe eight, nine or ten shots were fired from six locations. You find that preposterous. But that raises other questions in my mind. Since you have never read Mantik's brilliant synthesis of the medical evidence in MURDER or my analysis of the back wound in "Reasoning about Assassinations", I now infer that you have also never read Robert Groden's THE KILLING OF A PRESIDENT (1994) or, in all probability, THE SEARCH FOR LEE HARVEY OSWALD (1995). I have in the past been impressed by your originality and insight about the theft of the body, the removal of bullet fragments, the multiple casket entries, the surgery to the head and the alteration of the throat wound. But it now appears to me that, leaving your work on the film to one side, you are so infatuated with yourself that you are incapable of even bringing yourself to study other scholars' work, much less treat it with a degree of respect, especially when you are CRITICIZING IT WITHOUT EVEN READING IT. I am sorry, David, but I have certainly overestimated your competence and misjudged your character. There may be other issues here, but I think that this is enough for now.

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 15, 2012 by James H. Fetzer

[Josiah Thompson]

There is no question that the limousine slowed. The photos even permit one to calculate how much it slowed. The photos definitively show that Chaney did not pass ahead of the limousine to reach the lead car. This is what he said in an interview with Bill Lord on the night of November 22nd but later took back. Hence, Chaney's later position is consistent with the photographic record. He even tells us in his later interview that he forgot he stopped.

JT

Tink,

Nice argument, except that you have made a subconscious assumption -- which seems reasonable from your conception of the assassination, but stands out like a sore thumb against mine: you assume that the limo never slowed / stopped.

My conception of the assassination discards the extant photographic evidence. In my mind's eye, the limo braked suddenly and came to either a complete stop, or a "rolling stop" (like many people do when driving through a Stop sign).

In this view of the assassination, there are many seconds around the head shot(s), which might be described as "the start of pandemonium breaking loose" -- interrupted only by Greer flooring the accelerator and the limo "jumping out of the street" and off under the Triple Underpass. The motorcycle cops would have slowed, weaved, circled. Clint Hill ran forward and (unlike our current version of the Z film) did reach Jackie, put her back down in the seat and cover the two, as he has said for 48 years that he did. Who knows -- another secret service agent may have crossed between the cars and started running for the Depository (which, from where they all were on Elm, simply means running back up Elm Street -- the insertion of the detail that it was towards the Depository, specifically, and not, say, the Dal-Tex building, could have come after the event, after the Depository was identified as the source of the shots); after all, everyone agrees that some sort of noise came from behind, whether that was a distraction or a genuine shot.

In this view of the assassination, there is more than enough time for Chaney to see some of these things -- that would only take a couple of seconds -- and still drive up to the lead car to tell them that all was not well. The limo may well have jumped out of the street as he was getting there -- I'm not saying there were minutes to spare here, but five or ten seconds makes a big difference. (Six seconds, maybe?) Remember that it takes time for the limo to decelerate, and then to accelerate again (even if it was a powerful engine), let alone the time taken when it was stopped or rolling. (Lifton made this point well in his Duluth presentation.)

I know you reject this entire scenario, but I'm sure you will agree that you can't disprove one part of it by assuming that the whole thing is false.

John

I agree. This is a terrific find! But not for the reasons you give.

This thread began with the posting of an excerpt from the Chaney interview from the early 1970s. This interview showed that Chaney had not initially gunned his cycle and raced forward to inform Chief Curry what happened. On the contrary, Chaney recalled almost stopping his cycle and holding there for a bit as he recalled seeing Bobby Hargis dump his cycle by the south curb and run across the street in front of him into the knoll area. Your gloss on this was that since Chaney had seen the Zapruder film he was tailoring his report to the film and essentially making up seeing Hargis cross the street in front of him. Since his questioner was trying to get Chaney to say something to undermine the Zapruder's films authenticity, this seems like a stretch. But the Houston Chroniclen report from Chaney on November 22nd or 23rd makes it even more of a stretch. Let's say that Chaney did exactly as you've been saying he did. Chaney saw Kennedy hit in the head and raced ahead to tell Chief Curry what had happened. If Chaney did this, then how did he see "a policeman ran between two cars with his pistol drawn, heading toward the building." The article makes clear that Chaney "sped toward the lead car" after seeing the policeman with gun drawn. If Chaney had done what you have said he did, then his back would have been to all this. What Chaney said in his 1970s interview and what he says in this report is consistent with what all the films show and inconsistent with the scenario you constructed. But you are right. This is a terrific find!

JT

[John Costella]

Tink,

We need to establish some agreed terminology.

The Zapruder film shows the limo slowing gently -- almost imperceptibly -- but continuing to glide down Elm Street. Many people have made these measurements, and I did them myself back in 2002 or so. (Interestingly -- coincidence or not? -- the slight rate of slowing, together with the trigonometry of Dealey Plaza, leads to the very curious result that the distance from the sixth floor window increases at a constant rate in the Z film during this slowing. Remarkable coincidence -- or is this telling us something about the storyboard created by the Z film's fabricators?)

The best way for anyone to determine for themselves what they think of the slowing shown in the Z film is to look at this video:

In any case, let's call this "the gentle slowing shown by the Z film". (And the other films, of course -- I agree that they both agree with the Z.)

In contrast to this -- not seen in any of the three films -- is a violent braking, with the occupants jostled, and the limo coming to either a complete stop, or a rolling stop, for some seconds. Let's call this "the limo stop", even if it was a rolling stop.

If this limo stop actually happened, then the genuine version of that YouTube video above would be much longer, and would show the limo slow, stop / roll, and accelerate again.

Don't try to confound the two. You believe in the former. I believe in the latter.

I've written and said plenty about Chaney, so I'll ignore your cherry-picking with regard to him driving up to the lead car.

John

There is no question that the limousine slowed. The photos even permit one to calculate how much it slowed. The photos definitively show that Chaney did not pass ahead of the limousine to reach the lead car. This is what he said in an interview with Bill Lord on the night of November 22nd but later took back. Hence, Chaney's later position is consistent with the photographic record. He even tells us in his later interview that he forgot he stopped.

JT

Tink,

Nice argument, except that you have made a subconscious assumption -- which seems reasonable from your conception of the assassination, but stands out like a sore thumb against mine: you assume that the limo never slowed / stopped.

My conception of the assassination discards the extant photographic evidence. In my mind's eye, the limo braked suddenly and came to either a complete stop, or a "rolling stop" (like many people do when driving through a Stop sign).

In this view of the assassination, there are many seconds around the head shot(s), which might be described as "the start of pandemonium breaking loose" -- interrupted only by Greer flooring the accelerator and the limo "jumping out of the street" and off under the Triple Underpass. The motorcycle cops would have slowed, weaved, circled. Clint Hill ran forward and (unlike our current version of the Z film) did reach Jackie, put her back down in the seat and cover the two, as he has said for 48 years that he did. Who knows -- another secret service agent may have crossed between the cars and started running for the Depository (which, from where they all were on Elm, simply means running back up Elm Street -- the insertion of the detail that it was towards the Depository, specifically, and not, say, the Dal-Tex building, could have come after the event, after the Depository was identified as the source of the shots); after all, everyone agrees that some sort of noise came from behind, whether that was a distraction or a genuine shot.

In this view of the assassination, there is more than enough time for Chaney to see some of these things -- that would only take a couple of seconds -- and still drive up to the lead car to tell them that all was not well. The limo may well have jumped out of the street as he was getting there -- I'm not saying there were minutes to spare here, but five or ten seconds makes a big difference. (Six seconds, maybe?) Remember that it takes time for the limo to decelerate, and then to accelerate again (even if it was a powerful engine), let alone the time taken when it was stopped or rolling. (Lifton made this point well in his Duluth presentation.)

I know you reject this entire scenario, but I'm sure you will agree that you can't disprove one part of it by assuming that the whole thing is false.

John

I agree. This is a terrific find! But not for the reasons you give.

This thread began with the posting of an excerpt from the Chaney interview from the early 1970s. This interview showed that Chaney had not initially gunned his cycle and raced forward to inform Chief Curry what happened. On the contrary, Chaney recalled almost stopping his cycle and holding there for a bit as he recalled seeing Bobby Hargis dump his cycle by the south curb and run across the street in front of him into the knoll area. Your gloss on this was that since Chaney had seen the Zapruder film he was tailoring his report to the film and essentially making up seeing Hargis cross the street in front of him. Since his questioner was trying to get Chaney to say something to undermine the Zapruder's films authenticity, this seems like a stretch. But the Houston Chroniclen report from Chaney on November 22nd or 23rd makes it even more of a stretch. Let's say that Chaney did exactly as you've been saying he did. Chaney saw Kennedy hit in the head and raced ahead to tell Chief Curry what had happened. If Chaney did this, then how did he see "a policeman ran between two cars with his pistol drawn, heading toward the building." The article makes clear that Chaney "sped toward the lead car" after seeing the policeman with gun drawn. If Chaney had done what you have said he did, then his back would have been to all this. What Chaney said in his 1970s interview and what he says in this report is consistent with what all the films show and inconsistent with the scenario you constructed. But you are right. This is a terrific find!

JT

[Josiah Thompson]

Professor Fetzer,

I spent two afternoons this June studying the MPI transparencies at the 6th Floor Museum. I spent a lot of time looking at frame 317. It is unremarkable. There is absolutely no indication that the back of Kennedy's head has been covered by a patch. David Mantik says there is such an indication. Fine. Let's see who's right. Anyone can go and check this out. Even you, Professor.

If there is a visible and significant blowout at the lower back of Kennedy's head in 317, why doesn't the Moorman photo show it? It was taken at 315 from the left and closer in than Zapruder film. Once again we end up at the same place. Another film confirms the Zapruder film. Are you going to say that it too has been falsified? Good luck.

As a critical thinker and someone who has taught critical thinking for a long, long, very long time, you use an interesting criterion for what is worthy of belief. If it accords with what you already believe, then you rush to believe it. If it doesn't, commit it to the flames. Your most recent example of this is your unqualified statemnt that Ms. Wilkinson's copy of the Zapruder film is a "3rd generation copy." What is your evidence for this? Patrick Block wrote in post #308:

Yes, initially NARA informed Ms. Wilkinson her dupe neg was 5th generation, and Horne was told this from Wilkinson and published the information in his big book. NARA itself discovered they were mistaken this past year, I understand, and informed the researcher of their mistake. I didn't read this anywhere...it's not on the internet, I was informed of this directly.

In short, Patrick Block says somebody told him this but he won't say who. Wonderful. Is that your evidence?

I point out again the bad news you received in the past few days. David Lifton's copy of 317 and my own copy of 317 are upstream from Ms. Wilkinson's copy and the "lost bullet" copy. The upstream copies don't show the "patch" which is simply a function of contrast buildup as you go from copy to copy. John Costella did a quick test on Lifton's 317 copy and found nothing irregular.

So now you go on and on about irrelevant matters and never even admit when you've suffered some reverses. But that, I guess, is just how a critical thinker like you behaves.

JT

Edited January 15, 2012 by Josiah Thompson

[David Lifton]

Below find my answers, inserted in your remarks.

DSL

David, since you were kind enough to respond to my seven questions, I will respond to your seven answers with my replies in italics.

. . .

You are so far off base about your theory that all the shots came from in front that I reassert, IT IS SIMPLY ABSURD. And if Costella wants to join you in that fantasy, so be it. The evidence and logic are on my side, not yours. So if you want to save face on this forum and in this thread, then kindly explain away at least the following seven points:

(1) the holes in his shirt and jacket;

(2) the wound on his back and all that;

(3) the injury sustained by James Tague;

(4) the wound to John Connally's back;

(5) the wound to the back of JFK's head;

(6) the indentation in the chrome strip;

(7) witnesses reports of shots from behind.

. . .

Jim

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

Here, in reverse order, are my comments on the objections you have raised. This response is not intended to be definitive. I am in the midst of a "work in progress" and can't respond in greater detail at this juncture. But regardless of the particulars, it all comes down to the primacy of the body as evidence.

(7) witnesses reports of shots from behind.

DSL Response:

So what? Just because a sniper’s nest was found at the SE corner sixth floor window does not mean that shots were actually fired from there. And this same principle extends to sounds heard, sniper's supposedly seen, etc. There are multiple explanations for why there are “witnesses reports of shots from behind”. If a strategic deception was utilized in connection with the assassination, citing such reports means little. The only way to know the number and direction of the shots that struck Kennedy is to know what wounds were actually on his body immediately after the shots were fired.

JHF Reply: Give us a break, David. You are placing a lot of emphasis on the witnesses with regard to the shots and all that. THEY ARE ALSO WITNESSES REGARDING THE LOCATION OF THE SHOTS AS THEY PERCEIVED THEM. Stuart Galanor, COVER-UP (1998), has a list of 216 witnesses on pages 171-176. You need to go through and count how many reported they had come from the Depository, how many from the knoll, and how many from elsewhere--because THEY WERE ALL CORRECT! Shots DID come from the Depository (though not from the alleged "assassin's lair"), where even the HSCA did not discriminate between that location and the DalTex. I discussed this explicitly with Donald Thomas when he spoke at Lancer and I was the co-chair. When you place so much emphasis on witnesses in other respects, how can you discount them here?

DSL REPLY: I disagree. This crime was conducted in such a manner as to create appearance --both via sight and sound--that shots came from the SE corner sixth floor window; while one or more hidden sniper's actually murdered Kennedy. I think its a useless exercise "to go through and count how many reported they had come from the Depository" (as you suggest, immediately above) because the key is not in the numbers, but in properly distinguishing what is real from what is not real--i.e., in distinguishing fact from artifact. Just because someone is seen with a rifle does not mean he is a genuine assassin. And the same goes for sounds that are heard. I have no doubt that --at the time Kennedy was ambushed--the appearance was created that shots were fired from the TSBD. But a proper reading of the medical evidence reveals that was not so.

(6) The indentation in the chrome strip.

I realize this is a potentially significant issue, and I believe that there are two possible explanations for “the indentation in the chrome strip.” One is the Secret Service reports that indicate the damage was there, prior to Dallas, and was observed from work on the car, either in NYC (at the Empire Garage, as I recall) The other is that if there was windshield switching, then any damage to the chrome strip was incident to such activity. Chrome strip damage only becomes important if it can be reliably established (a) it wasn't there prior to Dallas and (b ) was observed prior to any possible windshield switching.

JHF Reply: This was the presidential limousine. It was maintained to the highest standards. No blemish of that kind would have been allowed to remain without repair. The Secret Service, like the FBI, would be adept at creating false records to cover up any evidence that the car could provide, as was done by sending it back to Ford and having it completely rebuilt. Mike Pincher and Roy Schaeffer have observed that a flare of light appears to emanate from the windshield at that location in frames 330-332. I recommend that you read pages 228-229 of ASSASSINATION SCIENCE (1998) and reconsider your opinion. A photograph of the damage to the chrome strip is published there on page 353. I am certain that photos of the limousine taken before the assassination will confirm that it was not already there.

In fact, a much smaller photo of the damage to the chrome strip can be found in SIX SECONDS (1966), page 113, where he appears along with a photo of the substitute windshield. As an aside, I was struck by the incongruity of the cover of Tink's book, which describes its contents as "a micro-study of the Kennedy assassination proving that three gunmen murdered the President", and the final paragraph of the text on page 246, which states, "What does this collection of new evidence prove? It does not provethat the assassination was a conspiracy and that two men were together on the sixth floor of the Depository at the time the shots were fired." But of course a conspiracy only requires collusion between two or more individuals to bring about an illegal act, where his own theory of three shooters satisfies that.

(5) The wound in the back of JFK’s head:

I am genuinely surprised, professor, that you can recite chapter and verse of all the Parkland Hospital witnesses who saw an exit wound at the back of JFK’s head, as proof it was there, but seem to ignore that some dozen doctors were specifically asked, by Arlen Specter, whether they observed an entry wound on the back of the head (or a “small hole” beneath the large hole) and every single one of them answered “no”. (Well, Dr. Clark said something like "maybe it was hidden in blood and hair") Yet you persist in offering something supposedly on the body at Bethesda, which was not observed at Dallas, as evidence of its authenticity--i.e., that it "must have been there" --when it was not observed. Why do you do that? (And please don't respond by saying its on the Bethesda X-ray, when you yourself agree the X-rays have been faked.) Furthermore, and now turning to anatomic detai, in BEST EVIDENCE, I lay out the case that, based on the Bethesda evidence, there was no “bullet hole” at all, but rather a “portion” of the circumference of something interpreted to be a bullet wound. (See Chapter 22, B.E.)

JHF reply: Well, David, I am genuinely surprised that you haven't given this much thought and that you appear to be unaware of David Mantik's confirmation of an entry wound at the back of the head in his extraordinary synthesis of the medical evidence in MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA (2000), pages 219-297. This is confirmation of my conjecture that you only read your own stuff. This is the most brilliant study of the medical evidence ever composed by the mind of man--and you haven't even read it! I am stunned. It is the case that the evidence for this wound is extremely subtle and that the Parkland physicians were in no position to discern it; but that does not mean that the Bethesda physicians were wrong about the existence of a wound at the back of the head, which of course is the very wound that would be elevated by four (4) inches by the HSCA medical panel in one of the great sleights-of-hand in American forensic history. When I asked Cyril how they dealt with the discrepancies between the Parkland physicians and the Bethesda autopsy report, by the way, he told me that he would "have to consult his notes". Indeed!

DSL RESPONSE: I am well aware of Mantik's work, and what you refer to as "his extraordinary synthesis". I have told him before--and will tell you here--that I believe it to be a preposterous proposition that one can argue that the X-rays show a "patch" at the back of the head, and then turn around and say that, well, 1 or 2 cm from the area of the patch, is this other area, which I will believe to be authentic. Once one argues that a piece of evidence is counterfeit, then that evidence is impeached. Period. For whatever reason, Dr. Mantik subscribes to the notion that he can "mix and match." Well, I don't. One other thing: if Dr. Mantik's x-ray falsification study is indeed "the most brilliant study of the medical evidence ever composed by the mind of man," then I suggest --and I have told him so personally--that the part about the X-rays being fake deserve to be (and indeed, must be) published in a peer-reviewed journal. The news that the JFK X-rays were falsified is the sort of thing that ought to have been published in the Scientific American, or some comparable journal. The notion that it only appears in Assassination Science is truly unfortunate. Its not that your anthology is not useful, and, in some ways, important. But that's not the way real science is done. I've told David Mantik that, and I look forward to the day when his "fake x-ray thesis"--with all the densitometer data--is published in a proper scientific journal.

(4) the wound to John Connally's back

I’ll have much more to say on this matter in the future. I cannot respond at this time. That’s why I was careful to state that I did not believe that Kennedy was struck from behind. Of course, if Connally was struck from the front, then he lied under oath. I assume you are aware that the first person to treat Connally—Nurse Doris Nelson—wrote in her report that Connally had “received” a buollet in the chest. (That's in her report, dated 11/22/63--see the Price Exhibits in the 26 volumes). And, in any event, she personally reconfirmed the validity of that report, in a tape recorded interview in December, 1982, about six months before she died (of cancer). On that occasion, she reconfirmed to me that Connally was shot in the chest from the front, and that she observed no entry wound on the back of his body.

JHF Reply:Well, you know, "Big John" stated that he had turned to his right to see what was going on with JFK, but his view was obstructed, so he turned back to his left and that is when he felt that "doubling-up" in his chest from the bullet having hit him in the back. Since he was turned to the side, my inference is that he was shot from the side, in particular, from the west side of the Book Depository, where, if you ever watch "What happened to JFK--and why it matters today", you will learn that my best guess is that this shooter was Frank Sturgis. I cannot claim that with certainty, of course, but based upon my research, that is my best guess. Big John may have been hit as many as three times, as I see it, where the four entry wounds in JFK combined with the three shots that missed--the one that hit Tague, the one that hit the chrome strip, and the one that was found in the grass--mean that there had to have been eight, nine or ten shots fired that day from what appear to be six locations. I do find your appeal to a single witness rather fascinating, however, and I shall certainly await the results of your research. But I hope this new work is not supposed to prove an absurd theory.

(3) the injury sustained by James Tague

The curb chip—which, as I’m sure you would agree—was covertly patched up, does not prove that the shot was fired from behind. It depends exactly when that shot was fired, and where the limo was located. I will have more to say about this in the future. At this juncture, I would agree that this has to be explained—and I can’t present a full and complete explanation in this post. But rest assured I will have more to say on this matter.

JHF Reply: Thanks for your candor. I think you will have at least as much difficulty proving the case for that shot having been fired from in front as you confront in the case of the other points I raise.

(2) The wounds in his back and all that.

What the heck does “an all that” supposed to mean?

Surely you are aware that Commander Humes called Doctor Perry either at midnight on 11/22/63 or the next day, and asked Perry—according to Perry’s own testimony—whether “we had made any wounds in the back”. And surely you are aware that the FBI agents witnessed one of the doctors putting his finger in the wound, and it barely went in. Finally, the wound—as reported by Humes—did not have an abrasion collar, the sine qua non for a bullet entry wound. So no, I do not believe that is a legitimate bullet entry wound, but rather one placed there to be a matching “receptacle” for the bullet placed on a stretcher in Dallas. Moreover, does it not pique your curiosity, Professor, that this wound was not “discovered” until several hours into the autopsy (during the “latter stages” according to the Sibert and O’Neill report?) How many episodes of Law and Order must we watch to understand that there is something mighty peculiar about this wound, and the circumstances of its "discovery"?

JHF Replies: If you haven't read David's chapter on the medical evidence in MURDER (2000), then I am quite sure you have never read my study of the back wound in "Reasoning about Assassinations", even though it was presented at Cambridge and published in an international peer-reviewed journal. Some of the faults I find in your reasoning include (i) that "Pepper" Jenkins would later observe that he had felt it with his fingers, just as Audrey Rike would later report he had felt the massive blow-out to the back of JFK's head when he helped to lift the body into the casket; (ii) that his jacket and shirt were promptly removed in Trauma Room #1 AND LEFT THERE, which makes it anomalous how they could have made a hole in the shirt and jacket that corresponded to the wound in the body at Bethesda, when they did not have the jacket and shirt to correlate in creating your fabricated wound. I am sorry, David, but when you do so much brilliant work on other aspects of the medical evidence, I am appalled to see you commit blunders of this magnitude. If you had read my article, you would see I am referring to the evidence that substantiates the location of that wound: Boswell's drawing, Sibert's drawing, Burkley's death certificate, the reenactment photographs, and the mortician's summary of the wounds. My opinion is that if we don't know where JFK was hit in the back, then we don't know enough to figure this out, where your fantastic theory that all the shots came from the front and your attempts to defend it are rationally irresponsible.

DSL RESPONSE: Dr. Jenkins ("Pepper Jenkins") who I met with and interviewed in detail, in January, 1981, is a "political" anesthesiologist and a Kennedy hater. His daughter told me, in 1985, that she and her father "drank champaign" on the anniversaries to JFK's death. But most important, and in response to your misleading post: Dr. Jenkins did not send in his information, supposedly attesting to the fact that he reached down and "felt" Kennedy's back wound, until shortly after Best Evidence was published. (Now I'll bet you didn't know that--but I was in touch with an important Time magazine editor, and he told me that story, and actually sent me copies of the correspondence. So you can forget about Jenkins--and there is no comparison between the very valid recollection of Aubrey Rike, which you quote (and which I filmed in October, 1980 ) and the absurd and very problematic "story" disseminated by Jenkins after B.E. was published.

DSL RESPONSE (contd): Re Kennedy's clothing, that was in the hands of Secret Service agent Greer by Friday evening, 11/22/63 (were you not aware of that?) But more important, what ever gave you the idea that the holes in the shirt and jacket had to be made at the same time as the shallow hole in the body?? Moreover, I am at a loss to understand why you think a list of those who saw the whole--Burkley, et al) has any relevance to the point I was making: that wound was not on the body at Parkland. It was on the body by the time Humes observed it--during the "latter stages" of the autopsy (the FBI language).

DSL FINAL STATEMENT: You use all kinds of pejorative adjectives to attack my position. What you cannot get around is the fact that the back wound was not seen at Parkland.

(1) The holes in the jacket and the shirt.

I believe these holes were man made, and created to (roughly) “match” the wound on the body. And that’s why the “dot” on the Boswell diagram made at autopsy roughly matches these clothing holes. The give-away that this is all contrived is the FBI report of the interview of Roy Kellerman by Sibert and O’Neill, from the night of the Bethesda autopsy. In that FBI report, Kellerman states that Kennedy reached around with his right hand to a point on the back of his body, when he was hit.He also then supposedly exclaimed: "My God, I am hit" and/or "Get me to a hospital!" This is all nonsense, of course--Kennedy made no such movement with his right arm, after the shots were fired (nor did he say any such thing)--but shows the extent to which a key Secret Service agent was willing to falsify his account of Kennedy’s last movements in life, in order to create false evidence corroborating this phony story of how JFK (someone whose life he was sworn to protect) actually died.

JHF Replies: As I have previously observed, if you haven't read David's chapter on the medical evidence in MURDER (2000), then I am quite sure you have never read my study of the back wound in "Reasoning about Assassinations", even though it was presented at Cambridge and published in an international peer-reviewed journal. Some of the faults I find in your reasoning include (i) that "Pepper" Jenkins would later observe that he had felt it with his fingers, just as Audrey Rike would later report he had felt the massive blow-out to the back of JFK's head when he helped to lift the body into the casket; (ii) that his jacket and shirt were promptly removed in Trauma Room #1 AND LEFT THERE, which makes it anomalous how they could have made a hole in the shirt and jacket that corresponded to the wound in the body at Bethesda, when they did not have the jacket and shirt to correlate in creating your fabricated wound. I am sorry, David, but when you do so much brilliant work on other aspects of the medical evidence, I am appalled to see you commit blunders. So I ask: precisely when were they made and by whom? Surely not at Parkland. Yet that is the only occasion on which the jacket, the shirt and the body were in the same place at the same time. I am sorry, David, but this is not your best work.

DSL RESPONSE: Re Pepper Jenkins. See my previous comment. He was a Kennedy hater, and a xxxx. Re the clothing: it was in SS possession by the evening. And why on earth do you think the clothing has to be on the body for the hole to be made. Was the clothing ever "put back on the body" to verify congruence? Of course not. So I don't see the validity of the point you are making, or attempting to make. I am rather amazed--and certainly amused--to see you write: "So I ask: Precisely when were they made and by whom?" --while at the same time, on this thread, you concede that the President's body was covertly removed from the coffin. Surely you do realize that certain SS agents were apparently involved in this squalid affair? Or do you think this happened by magic?

One other thing: I never said—ever—that you supported the SBT. Nor do I believe any such thing. What I believe I did say, or meant to imply, anyway, was that you seem to ignore the suspicious circumstances that took place in the Bethesda autopsy room when, hours into the autopsy, the “back” wound was suddenly “found” and then, within a minute or so, Kellerman was involved in a telephone call that basically communicated to Humes: “You have a wound without a bullet? Well, see here now, the FBI has just informed me that they have a bullet without a wound”—and so, in that manner, bullet 399 was “matched up” with the shallow wound on Kennedy’s back (or shoulder). This is all discussed in Chapters 4 and 5 of BEST EVIDENCE and, imho, constitutes further evidence that the Bethesda autopsy, in some respects, was akin to a stage-managed fraud.

JHF Replies: Well, thanks for not foisting off on me some ridiculous rubbish like that. There is a question about where the bullet that hit JFK in the back went, but it was certainly not the bullet that was planted on the stretcher. I should add that, in my opinion, that shot, which was fired from (what I take to have been) a 30.06 using a plastic collar known as a "sabot", was intended to implant a Mannlicher-Carcano bullet in the body to tie an obscure World War II weapon to the assassination. They knew they were going to steal the body and place it under medical control, where they could remove any fragments that might have undermined their official "three shot, lone assassin" theory, where you know at least as well as anyone else that they had given even more thought to the cover-up than they had to killing JFK. As we both know, killing him was not the problem; rather, covering it up and making sure that no one would be held liable for his murder beyond the patsy was the challenge. And they met it!

DSL RESPONSE: I do not understand why you continually invoke this notion of a "sabot"--which in your words was "intended to implant a Mannlicher-Carcano bullet in the body..." Surely you do realize that would not be necessary, if the plan was to covertly gain access to the body so that "they could remove any fragments that might have undermined their official "three shot, lone assassin". May I (gently) suggest that if it was planned in advance to gain access to the body, and mess with bullets and fragments, then that alone rendered the use any "sabot" not just unnecessary, but completely superfluous.

DSL

1/14/12; 12:40 PM PST

Los Angeles, CA

[Pat Speer]

But Pat, if the Harper fragment is occipital, then something came out the back of the head.

David Mantik:

"According to Angel, the sagittal (i.e., midline, top of the head) suture is visible on the Harper fragment. That suture line helped Angel to locate the Harper fragment near the skull vertex, as shown in my Figure 11. However, based on the Harper X-ray, the lead site then lies just to the left of the skull vertex—and the lead is on the outside of the skull! That is truly bizarre. No one has ever proposed that a bullet entered at this site, yet that is precisely where Angel’s (and Riley’s) placement of the Harper fragment has led them. There is even more evidence (in a forthcoming essay) that my placement of the Harper fragment (mostly from the upper occipital area—see my essay in Murder in Dealey Plaza) is correct, after all. However the bottom line here is this: if one accepts the Harper X-ray evidence, then the Angel location—with lead lying to the left of midline on the outside—cannot possibly be correct. Angel, however, can be forgiven. He was told, as a fait accompli, that the occipital bone was intact, so he had little choice about where to put this bone. Also, even more importantly, he knew nothing about the Harper X-ray, but now everything has changed."

Out of respect to you, Jim, I've been holding back on this, but since you bring it up...

When properly placed on the skull, the metal fragment on the Harper fragment is just forward and above Kennedy's right ear. James Curtis Jenkins, we should recall, told writer Harrison Livingstone that "just above the right ear there was some discoloration of the skull cavity with the bone area being gray and there was some speculation that it might be lead." That's no coincidence, IMO. A bullet broke up at that location.

Edited January 17, 2012 by Pat Speer

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

Surely you jest! This is past the point of ridiculous. David Mantik is a scrupulous, painstaking and careful scholar. You cannot even reconcile the subtitle of your own book with the content of your final paragraph. You praise Aguilar's chapter in MURDER (2000), but cannot bring yourself to acknowledge that it contradicts the authenticity of the film. You weigh in on behalf of Louis Witt as the Umbrella man, but ignore that he is a limo stop witness. You keep insisting that the MPI slides are the ultimate evidence, when we know that they may have been subjected to revision while under the control of The 6th Floor Museum, whose curator, Gary Mack, is an ally of yours. We know that the best copy of the film is the 3rd generation copy obtained by Sydney Wilkinson directly from NARA, while the MPI slides appear to have been different places at different times. I am quite sure that what David observed--the black patch on frame 317--was there when he studied that frame--and of course it is completely conspicuous in that 3rd generation copy the Hollywood group has been studying. You say I have had "a bad week", but frankly I have never felt better. Many students here are finally taking seriously the massive evidence of the blow-out to the back of the head, where we have witness after witness; the reports of the physicians from Parkland, who were consistent about cerebral as well as cerebellar tissue extruding from the wound; the studies of the X-rays, which demonstrated that the blow-out had been "patched"; and of course frame 374, where we can actually view the blow-out in a frame that they apparently overlooked, frame 374.

Now you come onto this forum and create this thread, confident that you can continue to pull the wool over the eyes of the members. You are most skillful in shifting the burden of proof as though we had not already proven (1) that witness after witness confirmed the blow-out to the back of the head; (2) that physician after physician had confirmed that cerebral as well as cerebellar tissue was extruding from the wound; (3) that David W. Mantik, M.D., Ph.D., the single most qualified student of the case in the history of its study, had established that the X-rays were altered, in particular, that the lateral cranial X-ray had been "patched" to conceal the blow-out at the back of the head; and (4) that we can actually SEE THE BLOW-OUT AT THE BACK OF HIS HEAD IN FRAME 374. Now we discover what many of us have actually long-known: that the blow-out in earlier frames had actually been "patched", too, by painting it over in black. This has been confirmed by the Hollywood group of film restoration experts and again by Patrick and the Director. How long can you persist with this charade? THESE POINTS HAVE BEEN PROVEN--and appealing to an untrustworthy "slide set" held at The 6th Floor Museum is not going to cut it. If you want to produce evidence that these findings wrong, THEN DO THAT. But you never produce any proof that any of what I have just reported is wrong. And we have every reason to believe that what I have reported is right. In moments of extreme candor, you have sometimes admitted that you are not an expert on photographs or films. You were a professor of philosophy and know essentially nothing about science.

You keep implying that I have been having "a bad week", but frankly, in terms of this forum, I couldn't feel better. I have been in the position to produce proof after proof of how we know that there was a massive blow-out to the back the head (from the witnesses, the Parkland physicians, David's X-ray studies, and frame 374), which does not even appeal yet to what we have learned from Clint Hill! When I say, "You never give me your money, you only give me your funny paper", I mean that you make lots of denials and express lots of skepticism, but you never produce ANY ACTUAL PROOF--OR, IN THIS CASE, DISPROOF. Disprove the witness reports! Disprove the doctors' observations! Disprove Mantik's X-ray studies! Disprove that we can see the blow out in frame 374! All of which has been further substantiated by the primitive black "patch" added to the film in producing the extant version. And when you maintain that, if we go to study the MPI slide set held at The 6th Floor Museum that we won't find it, I BELIEVE YOU. As John Costella has remarked, when you extend invitations like this one, you are certain what we are going to find. The problem for you and The 6th Floor Museum, alas, is that we know what those slides should show and what it means if what they show now is no longer the same. Which means that this elaborate charade must come to an end. You have overextended your hand. Everyone who is paying attention knows your game plan. You have lost any lingering vestiges of credibility. And all because of a thread about "unintended consequences". Well, Tink, I think these consequences were not the ones you intended!

Professor Fetzer,

I spent two afternoons this June studying the MPI transparencies at the 6th Floor Museum. I spent a lot of time looking at frame 317. It is unremarkable. There is absolutely no indication that the back of Kennedy's head has been covered by a patch. David Mantik says there is such an indication. Fine. Let's see who's right. Anyone can go and check this out. Even you, Professor.

If there is a visible and significant blowout at the lower back of Kennedy's head in 317, why doesn't the Moorman photo show it? It was taken at 315 from the left and closer in than Zapruder film. Once again we end up at the same place. Another film confirms the Zapruder film. Are you going to say that it too has been falsified? Good luck.

As a critical thinker and someone who has taught critical thinking for a long, long, very long time, you use an interesting criterion for what is worthy of belief. If it accords with what you already believe, then you rush to believe it. If it doesn't, commit it to the flames. Your most recent example of this is your unqualified statemnt that Ms. Wilkinson's copy of the Zapruder film is a "3rd generation copy." What is your evidence for this? Patrick Block wrote in post #308:

Yes, initially NARA informed Ms. Wilkinson her dupe neg was 5th generation, and Horne was told this from Wilkinson and published the information in his big book. NARA itself discovered they were mistaken this past year, I understand, and informed the researcher of their mistake. I didn't read this anywhere...it's not on the internet, I was informed of this directly.

In short, Patrick Block says somebody told him this but he won't say who. Wonderful. Is that your evidence?

I point out again the bad news you received in the past few days. David Lifton's copy of 317 and my own copy of 317 are upstream from Ms. Wilkinson's copy and the "lost bullet" copy. The upstream copies don't show the "patch" which is simply a function of contrast buildup as you go from copy to copy. John Costella did a quick test on Lifton's 317 copy and found nothing irregular.

So now you go on and on about irrelevant matters and never even admit when you've suffered some reverses. But that, I guess, is just how a critical thinker like you behaves.

JT

Edited January 15, 2012 by James H. Fetzer

[Craig Lamson]

Now we discover what many of us have actually long-known: that the blow-out in earlier frames had actually been "patched", too, by painting it over in black. This has been confirmed by the Hollywood group of film restoration experts and again by Patrick and the Director. How long can you persist with this charade? THESE POINTS HAVE BEEN PROVEN

Then PLEASE, PLEASE post this proof.

"I see it, just believe" is NOT PROOF.

How long can you persist in this charade?

Edited January 15, 2012 by Craig Lamson

[Pat Speer]

At several points in this thread it has been suggested that the Zapruder film would be inadmissible in court, and that the (often decades old) recollections of the witnesses should be considered the best evidence. I've read a number of articles and books over the years that convince me this is simply not true.

A quick internet search revealed the following article...

From the 12-1-05 FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin

Any party seeking to introduce a film-based photograph into evidence must demonstrate its relevancy (i.e., add to the likelihood that an event did or did not occur) and authenticity (i.e., a knowledgeable person must verify the image's accuracy). (6) For example, a detective photographs a drug deal. The picture depicts two individuals exchanging a package. The prosecutor wants to enter the photo into evidence at the criminal trial of the individual who received the drugs. The picture is relevant because it shows the person present at the scene where the deal occurred and in receipt of the package. To authenticate the photograph, the prosecutor can place on the stand the detective who took the picture or any officer who witnessed the transaction and elicit that the image actually represents the person, package, place, and time. After establishing the photograph's relevancy and authenticity, the prosecutor can move to admit it into evidence.

Note that ANY witness can testify that the photograph or film depicts the assassination, and get it entered into evidence. It's silly to pretend that none of the witnesses to Kennedy's shooting would do that. Think Mary Moorman. Or William Newman. While they have said there are bits in the film they don't remember, they have never suggested that the film was fake, and did not show the actual assassination.

There's also this to consider. While some here are claiming that the statements of the Dealey Plaza witnesses trumps the Zapruder film, they fail to acknowledge that NONE of these witnesses saw an explosion from the back of Kennedy's head, and that they, instead, OVERWHELMINGLY, claimed the skull exploded along the right side of Kennedy's head, on his face even.

Here's a few:

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.”

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…")

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 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…”

Well, then what about Zapruder's assistant, Marilyn Sitzman? The notes of a Dallas-Times Herald reporter on the day of the assassination reflect that he spoke to Sitzman just after the shots and that she claimed "Shot hit pres. Right in the temple."

And that's not all. Motorcycle officer James Chaney, riding just a few yards off Kennedy's right shoulder, was interviewed on KLIF around the same time Newman was interviewed on TV. He said "On the first shot we thought it was a motorcycle backfire. I looked to my left and so did President Kennedy, looking back over his left shoulder, and when the second shot struck him in the face then we knew someone was shooting at the President." Once again, no explosion from the back of the head is reported.

And shouldn't the motorcycle officer riding directly to his right, Douglas Jackson, also have noted an explosion from the back of Kennedy's head, should one have occurred? 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 see the impact of 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."

The Dealey Plaza eyewitnesses overwhelmingly support that NO shot exploded from the back of Kennedy's head. Take from it what you like.

I think the Dealey Plaza witnesses constitute good evidence that Kennedy was struck (from the front) in the side of his head. What you are omitting, of course, is a most important Dealey Plaza witness: Secret Service Clint Hill.

He, too, is a Dealey Plaza witness--is he not?

Based on what he observed, when he climbed aboard the limousine (in Dealey Plaza, right?), he stated --in his SS report, and then in his testimony--that the back of Kennedy's head was missing, and that it was lying in the rear seat of the car.

Why go to the trouble of listing all these witnesses, who clearly saw something explode as a bullet slammed into the right hand side of JFK's head, and ignore the most important Dealey Plaza witness of all--Clint Hill, who reported that the rear of JFK's head was shot off?

DSL

1/14/12 12:55 PM PST

Los Angeles, CA

I only included witnesses to the impact of the bullet. And yes, you are right. Hill said the wound was on the back of the head. He eventually demonstrated where this was. It's not where you and Jim think it was.

[Craig Lamson]

Oh no Lamson's back.

yawn.

I'm not going away.

I'm amazed YOU are not calling Fetzer on on this. CLEARLY not a single bit of proof has been posted and YOU let this stand unanswered. Your hypocrisy is showing.

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

When I observed that I did not want go get into a prolonged exchange with you, I meant it. The virtue of what we have done already is that it lays out the difference in our points of view and allows other students to arbitrate between them. I shall therefore only make a few key points here about your modus operandi and the inconsistencies and incompetence you have displayed. The fact that optical densitometry is beyond your comprehension is your problem and betrays no lack of confidence in David Mantik's studies. You are simply unable to acknowledge that these issues lie beyond your scientific and technical competence. I should have known that this would be an ultimately disappointing exchange, because I have never know you to change your mind about anything. I can assure you that there are characteristic optical density readings for normal X-rays, which provide a base line for comparisons with X-rays whose authenticity may be in doubt. When you commit blunders in reasoning by suggesting that, once we know some features of X-rays have been altered, we have to discount them entirely, you are appealing to ALL OR NOTHING, CATEGORICAL THINKING. This is so far removed from scientific practice that I am now bewildered that I have ever taken you seriously with regard to your research on the assassination. David's work is so far, far superior to yours that it is simply embarrassing that you would make such remarks to scholar whose competence is so vastly greater than your own. Just to make the simple point: What did David discover about the X-rays and how did he establish his results? Since they were published in ASSASSINATION SCIENCE (1998), I take for granted that a serious student of JFK would have studied them by now. WELL, SHOW US WHAT HE HAS WRONG? I have just gone through this same song-and-dance with Josiah Thompson, but I had expected better from you. IF YOU CAN'T SHOW WHAT HE HAS WRONG, JUST ADMIT IT. What has gone wrong with you, David? You have turned into some caricature of the man I took you to be. Explain what he did, how he did it, and what he got wrong. Otherwise, you simply don't have a leg to stand on. This is extremely embarrassing.

As for his synthesis of the medical evidence, which exceeds by light years anything of which you would be capable, TELL US WHAT HE HAS WRONG? I don't even see any acknowledgment of what he discovered regarding the shot to the back of the head. It is very subtle and I frankly doubt that you are capable of understanding it. So show that I am mistaken. Explain what he discovered about the entry wound at the back of the head and how he established it. THEN SHOW US WHAT HE HAS WRONG. If you can't do that--and I am extremely confident that you cannot do that--then once again admit the limitations of your competence and concede that he has a higher degree of expertise than do you. THAT, AFTER ALL, IS OBVIOUS ON ITS FACE. You were a graduate student in physics, who never completed his degree. So was David, but he completed his degree. He earned a Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin. In addition, he earned an M.D. at the University of Michigan. And beyond that, HE IS BOARD CERTIFIED IN RADIATION ONCOLOGY. His expertise is overwhelmingly greater than your own, which is why you stake out scientifically indefensible positions about the X-rays, which you do not remotely understand and where you have adopted a scientifically indefensible position. If you had any common sense, you would concede his discoveries are beyond your technical competence. Moreover, this appeal to "peer reviewed" studies when you don't know what you are talking about is quite a stretch. Do I need to remind you that, WITH RESPECT TO MY STUDY OF THE BACK WOUND, I presented my findings at Cambridge University and published them in a peer-reviewed international journal? So by your standard, I have done what needed to be done and MY FINDINGS ARE THE STANDARD FOR RESEARCH ON THE BACK WOUND. So if you now want to contest what I have already established, publish your own contrary findings in another peer-reviewed journal! What are you waiting for, David? Explain what I have shown to be the case based upon multiple lines of reasoning and show what I have wrong. I am quite confident you will be unable to do that. Let's put it this way: I have just called your bluff!

Below find my answers, inserted in your remarks.

DSL

David, since you were kind enough to respond to my seven questions, I will respond to your seven answers with my replies in italics.

. . .

You are so far off base about your theory that all the shots came from in front that I reassert, IT IS SIMPLY ABSURD. And if Costella wants to join you in that fantasy, so be it. The evidence and logic are on my side, not yours. So if you want to save face on this forum and in this thread, then kindly explain away at least the following seven points:

(1) the holes in his shirt and jacket;

(2) the wound on his back and all that;

(3) the injury sustained by James Tague;

(4) the wound to John Connally's back;

(5) the wound to the back of JFK's head;

(6) the indentation in the chrome strip;

(7) witnesses reports of shots from behind.

. . .

Jim

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

Here, in reverse order, are my comments on the objections you have raised. This response is not intended to be definitive. I am in the midst of a "work in progress" and can't respond in greater detail at this juncture. But regardless of the particulars, it all comes down to the primacy of the body as evidence.

(7) witnesses reports of shots from behind.

DSL Response:

So what? Just because a sniper’s nest was found at the SE corner sixth floor window does not mean that shots were actually fired from there. And this same principle extends to sounds heard, sniper's supposedly seen, etc. There are multiple explanations for why there are “witnesses reports of shots from behind”. If a strategic deception was utilized in connection with the assassination, citing such reports means little. The only way to know the number and direction of the shots that struck Kennedy is to know what wounds were actually on his body immediately after the shots were fired.

JHF Reply: Give us a break, David. You are placing a lot of emphasis on the witnesses with regard to the shots and all that. THEY ARE ALSO WITNESSES REGARDING THE LOCATION OF THE SHOTS AS THEY PERCEIVED THEM. Stuart Galanor, COVER-UP (1998), has a list of 216 witnesses on pages 171-176. You need to go through and count how many reported they had come from the Depository, how many from the knoll, and how many from elsewhere--because THEY WERE ALL CORRECT! Shots DID come from the Depository (though not from the alleged "assassin's lair"), where even the HSCA did not discriminate between that location and the DalTex. I discussed this explicitly with Donald Thomas when he spoke at Lancer and I was the co-chair. When you place so much emphasis on witnesses in other respects, how can you discount them here?

DSL REPLY: I disagree. This crime was conducted in such a manner as to create appearance --both via sight and sound--that shots came from the SE corner sixth floor window; while one or more hidden sniper's actually murdered Kennedy. I think its a useless exercise "to go through and count how many reported they had come from the Depository" (as you suggest, immediately above) because the key is not in the numbers, but in properly distinguishing what is real from what is not real--i.e., in distinguishing fact from artifact. Just because someone is seen with a rifle does not mean he is a genuine assassin. And the same goes for sounds that are heard. I have no doubt that --at the time Kennedy was ambushed--the appearance was created that shots were fired from the TSBD. But a proper reading of the medical evidence reveals that was not so.

(6) The indentation in the chrome strip.

I realize this is a potentially significant issue, and I believe that there are two possible explanations for “the indentation in the chrome strip.” One is the Secret Service reports that indicate the damage was there, prior to Dallas, and was observed from work on the car, either in NYC (at the Empire Garage, as I recall) The other is that if there was windshield switching, then any damage to the chrome strip was incident to such activity. Chrome strip damage only becomes important if it can be reliably established (a) it wasn't there prior to Dallas and (b ) was observed prior to any possible windshield switching.

JHF Reply: This was the presidential limousine. It was maintained to the highest standards. No blemish of that kind would have been allowed to remain without repair. The Secret Service, like the FBI, would be adept at creating false records to cover up any evidence that the car could provide, as was done by sending it back to Ford and having it completely rebuilt. Mike Pincher and Roy Schaeffer have observed that a flare of light appears to emanate from the windshield at that location in frames 330-332. I recommend that you read pages 228-229 of ASSASSINATION SCIENCE (1998) and reconsider your opinion. A photograph of the damage to the chrome strip is published there on page 353. I am certain that photos of the limousine taken before the assassination will confirm that it was not already there.

In fact, a much smaller photo of the damage to the chrome strip can be found in SIX SECONDS (1966), page 113, where he appears along with a photo of the substitute windshield. As an aside, I was struck by the incongruity of the cover of Tink's book, which describes its contents as "a micro-study of the Kennedy assassination proving that three gunmen murdered the President", and the final paragraph of the text on page 246, which states, "What does this collection of new evidence prove? It does not provethat the assassination was a conspiracy and that two men were together on the sixth floor of the Depository at the time the shots were fired." But of course a conspiracy only requires collusion between two or more individuals to bring about an illegal act, where his own theory of three shooters satisfies that.

(5) The wound in the back of JFK’s head:

I am genuinely surprised, professor, that you can recite chapter and verse of all the Parkland Hospital witnesses who saw an exit wound at the back of JFK’s head, as proof it was there, but seem to ignore that some dozen doctors were specifically asked, by Arlen Specter, whether they observed an entry wound on the back of the head (or a “small hole” beneath the large hole) and every single one of them answered “no”. (Well, Dr. Clark said something like "maybe it was hidden in blood and hair") Yet you persist in offering something supposedly on the body at Bethesda, which was not observed at Dallas, as evidence of its authenticity--i.e., that it "must have been there" --when it was not observed. Why do you do that? (And please don't respond by saying its on the Bethesda X-ray, when you yourself agree the X-rays have been faked.) Furthermore, and now turning to anatomic detai, in BEST EVIDENCE, I lay out the case that, based on the Bethesda evidence, there was no “bullet hole” at all, but rather a “portion” of the circumference of something interpreted to be a bullet wound. (See Chapter 22, B.E.)

JHF reply: Well, David, I am genuinely surprised that you haven't given this much thought and that you appear to be unaware of David Mantik's confirmation of an entry wound at the back of the head in his extraordinary synthesis of the medical evidence in MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA (2000), pages 219-297. This is confirmation of my conjecture that you only read your own stuff. This is the most brilliant study of the medical evidence ever composed by the mind of man--and you haven't even read it! I am stunned. It is the case that the evidence for this wound is extremely subtle and that the Parkland physicians were in no position to discern it; but that does not mean that the Bethesda physicians were wrong about the existence of a wound at the back of the head, which of course is the very wound that would be elevated by four (4) inches by the HSCA medical panel in one of the great sleights-of-hand in American forensic history. When I asked Cyril how they dealt with the discrepancies between the Parkland physicians and the Bethesda autopsy report, by the way, he told me that he would "have to consult his notes". Indeed!

DSL RESPONSE: I am well aware of Mantik's work, and what you refer to as "his extraordinary synthesis". I have told him before--and will tell you here--that I believe it to be a preposterous proposition that one can argue that the X-rays show a "patch" at the back of the head, and then turn around and say that, well, 1 or 2 cm from the area of the patch, is this other area, which I will believe to be authentic. Once one argues that a piece of evidence is counterfeit, then that evidence is impeached. Period. For whatever reason, Dr. Mantik subscribes to the notion that he can "mix and match." Well, I don't. One other thing: if Dr. Mantik's x-ray falsification study is indeed "the most brilliant study of the medical evidence ever composed by the mind of man," then I suggest --and I have told him so personally--that the part about the X-rays being fake deserve to be (and indeed, must be) published in a peer-reviewed journal. The news that the JFK X-rays were falsified is the sort of thing that ought to have been published in the Scientific American, or some comparable journal. The notion that it only appears in Assassination Science is truly unfortunate. Its not that your anthology is not useful, and, in some ways, important. But that's not the way real science is done. I've told David Mantik that, and I look forward to the day when his "fake x-ray thesis"--with all the densitometer data--is published in a proper scientific journal.

(4) the wound to John Connally's back

I’ll have much more to say on this matter in the future. I cannot respond at this time. That’s why I was careful to state that I did not believe that Kennedy was struck from behind. Of course, if Connally was struck from the front, then he lied under oath. I assume you are aware that the first person to treat Connally—Nurse Doris Nelson—wrote in her report that Connally had “received” a buollet in the chest. (That's in her report, dated 11/22/63--see the Price Exhibits in the 26 volumes). And, in any event, she personally reconfirmed the validity of that report, in a tape recorded interview in December, 1982, about six months before she died (of cancer). On that occasion, she reconfirmed to me that Connally was shot in the chest from the front, and that she observed no entry wound on the back of his body.

JHF Reply:Well, you know, "Big John" stated that he had turned to his right to see what was going on with JFK, but his view was obstructed, so he turned back to his left and that is when he felt that "doubling-up" in his chest from the bullet having hit him in the back. Since he was turned to the side, my inference is that he was shot from the side, in particular, from the west side of the Book Depository, where, if you ever watch "What happened to JFK--and why it matters today", you will learn that my best guess is that this shooter was Frank Sturgis. I cannot claim that with certainty, of course, but based upon my research, that is my best guess. Big John may have been hit as many as three times, as I see it, where the four entry wounds in JFK combined with the three shots that missed--the one that hit Tague, the one that hit the chrome strip, and the one that was found in the grass--mean that there had to have been eight, nine or ten shots fired that day from what appear to be six locations. I do find your appeal to a single witness rather fascinating, however, and I shall certainly await the results of your research. But I hope this new work is not supposed to prove an absurd theory.

(3) the injury sustained by James Tague

The curb chip—which, as I’m sure you would agree—was covertly patched up, does not prove that the shot was fired from behind. It depends exactly when that shot was fired, and where the limo was located. I will have more to say about this in the future. At this juncture, I would agree that this has to be explained—and I can’t present a full and complete explanation in this post. But rest assured I will have more to say on this matter.

JHF Reply: Thanks for your candor. I think you will have at least as much difficulty proving the case for that shot having been fired from in front as you confront in the case of the other points I raise.

(2) The wounds in his back and all that.

What the heck does “an all that” supposed to mean?

Surely you are aware that Commander Humes called Doctor Perry either at midnight on 11/22/63 or the next day, and asked Perry—according to Perry’s own testimony—whether “we had made any wounds in the back”. And surely you are aware that the FBI agents witnessed one of the doctors putting his finger in the wound, and it barely went in. Finally, the wound—as reported by Humes—did not have an abrasion collar, the sine qua non for a bullet entry wound. So no, I do not believe that is a legitimate bullet entry wound, but rather one placed there to be a matching “receptacle” for the bullet placed on a stretcher in Dallas. Moreover, does it not pique your curiosity, Professor, that this wound was not “discovered” until several hours into the autopsy (during the “latter stages” according to the Sibert and O’Neill report?) How many episodes of Law and Order must we watch to understand that there is something mighty peculiar about this wound, and the circumstances of its "discovery"?

JHF Replies: If you haven't read David's chapter on the medical evidence in MURDER (2000), then I am quite sure you have never read my study of the back wound in "Reasoning about Assassinations", even though it was presented at Cambridge and published in an international peer-reviewed journal. Some of the faults I find in your reasoning include (i) that "Pepper" Jenkins would later observe that he had felt it with his fingers, just as Audrey Rike would later report he had felt the massive blow-out to the back of JFK's head when he helped to lift the body into the casket; (ii) that his jacket and shirt were promptly removed in Trauma Room #1 AND LEFT THERE, which makes it anomalous how they could have made a hole in the shirt and jacket that corresponded to the wound in the body at Bethesda, when they did not have the jacket and shirt to correlate in creating your fabricated wound. I am sorry, David, but when you do so much brilliant work on other aspects of the medical evidence, I am appalled to see you commit blunders of this magnitude. If you had read my article, you would see I am referring to the evidence that substantiates the location of that wound: Boswell's drawing, Sibert's drawing, Burkley's death certificate, the reenactment photographs, and the mortician's summary of the wounds. My opinion is that if we don't know where JFK was hit in the back, then we don't know enough to figure this out, where your fantastic theory that all the shots came from the front and your attempts to defend it are rationally irresponsible.

DSL RESPONSE: Dr. Jenkins ("Pepper Jenkins") who I met with and interviewed in detail, in January, 1981, is a "political" anesthesiologist and a Kennedy hater. His daughter told me, in 1985, that she and her father "drank champaign" on the anniversaries to JFK's death. But most important, and in response to your misleading post: Dr. Jenkins did not send in his information, supposedly attesting to the fact that he reached down and "felt" Kennedy's back wound, until shortly after Best Evidence was published. (Now I'll bet you didn't know that--but I was in touch with an important Time magazine editor, and he told me that story, and actually sent me copies of the correspondence. So you can forget about Jenkins--and there is no comparison between the very valid recollection of Aubrey Rike, which you quote (and which I filmed in October, 1980 ) and the absurd and very problematic "story" disseminated by Jenkins after B.E. was published.

DSL RESPONSE (contd): Re Kennedy's clothing, that was in the hands of Secret Service agent Greer by Friday evening, 11/22/63 (were you not aware of that?) But more important, what ever gave you the idea that the holes in the shirt and jacket had to be made at the same time as the shallow hole in the body?? Moreover, I am at a loss to understand why you think a list of those who saw the whole--Burkley, et al) has any relevance to the point I was making: that wound was not on the body at Parkland. It was on the body by the time Humes observed it--during the "latter stages" of the autopsy (the FBI language).

DSL FINAL STATEMENT: You use all kinds of pejorative adjectives to attack my position. What you cannot get around is the fact that the back wound was not seen at Parkland.

(1) The holes in the jacket and the shirt.

I believe these holes were man made, and created to (roughly) “match” the wound on the body. And that’s why the “dot” on the Boswell diagram made at autopsy roughly matches these clothing holes. The give-away that this is all contrived is the FBI report of the interview of Roy Kellerman by Sibert and O’Neill, from the night of the Bethesda autopsy. In that FBI report, Kellerman states that Kennedy reached around with his right hand to a point on the back of his body, when he was hit.He also then supposedly exclaimed: "My God, I am hit" and/or "Get me to a hospital!" This is all nonsense, of course--Kennedy made no such movement with his right arm, after the shots were fired (nor did he say any such thing)--but shows the extent to which a key Secret Service agent was willing to falsify his account of Kennedy’s last movements in life, in order to create false evidence corroborating this phony story of how JFK (someone whose life he was sworn to protect) actually died.

JHF Replies: As I have previously observed, if you haven't read David's chapter on the medical evidence in MURDER (2000), then I am quite sure you have never read my study of the back wound in "Reasoning about Assassinations", even though it was presented at Cambridge and published in an international peer-reviewed journal. Some of the faults I find in your reasoning include (i) that "Pepper" Jenkins would later observe that he had felt it with his fingers, just as Audrey Rike would later report he had felt the massive blow-out to the back of JFK's head when he helped to lift the body into the casket; (ii) that his jacket and shirt were promptly removed in Trauma Room #1 AND LEFT THERE, which makes it anomalous how they could have made a hole in the shirt and jacket that corresponded to the wound in the body at Bethesda, when they did not have the jacket and shirt to correlate in creating your fabricated wound. I am sorry, David, but when you do so much brilliant work on other aspects of the medical evidence, I am appalled to see you commit blunders. So I ask: precisely when were they made and by whom? Surely not at Parkland. Yet that is the only occasion on which the jacket, the shirt and the body were in the same place at the same time. I am sorry, David, but this is not your best work.

DSL RESPONSE: Re Pepper Jenkins. See my previous comment. He was a Kennedy hater, and a xxxx. Re the clothing: it was in SS possession by the evening. And why on earth do you think the clothing has to be on the body for the hole to be made. Was the clothing ever "put back on the body" to verify congruence? Of course not. So I don't see the validity of the point you are making, or attempting to make. I am rather amazed--and certainly amused--to see you write: "So I ask: Precisely when were they made and by whom?" --while at the same time, on this thread, you concede that the President's body was covertly removed from the coffin. Surely you do realize that certain SS agents were apparently involved in this squalid affair? Or do you think this happened by magic?

One other thing: I never said—ever—that you supported the SBT. Nor do I believe any such thing. What I believe I did say, or meant to imply, anyway, was that you seem to ignore the suspicious circumstances that took place in the Bethesda autopsy room when, hours into the autopsy, the “back” wound was suddenly “found” and then, within a minute or so, Kellerman was involved in a telephone call that basically communicated to Humes: “You have a wound without a bullet? Well, see here now, the FBI has just informed me that they have a bullet without a wound”—and so, in that manner, bullet 399 was “matched up” with the shallow wound on Kennedy’s back (or shoulder). This is all discussed in Chapters 4 and 5 of BEST EVIDENCE and, imho, constitutes further evidence that the Bethesda autopsy, in some respects, was akin to a stage-managed fraud.

JHF Replies: Well, thanks for not foisting off on me some ridiculous rubbish like that. There is a question about where the bullet that hit JFK in the back went, but it was certainly not the bullet that was planted on the stretcher. I should add that, in my opinion, that shot, which was fired from (what I take to have been) a 30.06 using a plastic collar known as a "sabot", was intended to implant a Mannlicher-Carcano bullet in the body to tie an obscure World War II weapon to the assassination. They knew they were going to steal the body and place it under medical control, where they could remove any fragments that might have undermined their official "three shot, lone assassin" theory, where you know at least as well as anyone else that they had given even more thought to the cover-up than they had to killing JFK. As we both know, killing him was not the problem; rather, covering it up and making sure that no one would be held liable for his murder beyond the patsy was the challenge. And they met it!

DSL RESPONSE: I do not understand why you continually invoke this notion of a "sabot"--which in your words was "intended to implant a Mannlicher-Carcano bullet in the body..." Surely you do realize that would not be necessary, if the plan was to covertly gain access to the body so that "they could remove any fragments that might have undermined their official "three shot, lone assassin". May I (gently) suggest that if it was planned in advance to gain access to the body, and mess with bullets and fragments, then that alone rendered the use any "sabot" not just unnecessary, but completely superfluous.

DSL

1/14/12; 12:40 PM PST

Los Angeles, CA

Edited January 15, 2012 by James H. Fetzer

[Josiah Thompson]

More rhetoric and bile but no answers:

(1) If David Mantik is saying that Z 317 in the MPI transparencies shows evidence of the "patch" at the back of Kennedy's head, he is simply mistaken. This can be proven by inspection... by simply looking at Z 317 of the MPI transparencies.

(2) If a massive blow-out to the back of Kennedy's head should be visible in Z 317, why is it invisible in the Moorman photo taken at Z 315?

(3) None of the Dealey Plaza witnesses and none of the Dealey Plaza films observed a massive blow-out to the back of JFK's head immediately after z 313. This does not in any way conflct with the witness testimony from Parkland Hospital. After being shot from the front at Z 313, Kennedy had yet to receive a bullet to the back of his head later on. His cranium was undoubtedly fractured in many ways by each bullet hit. The question is whether what was observed at Parkland had to be visible in the milliseconds after impact at z 313. There is no physical necessity to that proposition.

(4) Your claim that the Wilkinson copy is not what she claimed it to be two years ago is based upon hearsay from Block who says only he heard it from someone. Even if the Wilkinson copy turned out to be "3rd generation" it would still be downstream from the copies David Lifton and I posted.

(5) The copies we posted show the likelihood that the whole "patch" phenomonon is based upon contrast build-up in the repetition of copies.

(6) After awhile, don't you get tired of listening to yourself spout the same old evasions and opinions? Your opinions are not evidence and no one pays any attention to your insults. The portrait you paint of yourself is not attractive.

JT

Surely you jest! This is past the point of ridiculous. David Mantik is a scrupulous, painstaking and careful scholar. You cannot even reconcile the subtitle of your own book with the content of your final paragraph. You praise Aguilar's chapter in MURDER (2000), but cannot bring yourself to acknowledge that it contradicts the authenticity of the film. You weigh in on behalf of Louis Witt as the Umbrella man, but ignore that he is a limo stop witness. You keep insisting that the MPI slides are the ultimate evidence, when we know that they may have been subjected to revision while under the control of The 6th Floor Museum, whose curator, Gary Mack, is an ally of yours. We know that the best copy of the film is the 3rd generation copy obtained by Sydney Wilkinson directly from NARA, while the MPI slides appear to have been different places at different times. I am quite sure that what David observed--the black patch on frame 317--was there when he studied that frame--and of course it is completely conspicuous in that 3rd generation copy the Hollywood group has been studying. You say I have had "a bad week", but frankly I have never felt better. Many students here are finally taking seriously the massive evidence of the blow-out to the back of the head, where we have witness after witness; the reports of the physicians from Parkland, who were consistent about cerebral as well as cerebellar tissue extruding from the wound; the studies of the X-rays, which demonstrated that the blow-out had been "patched"; and of course frame 374, where we can actually view the blow-out in a frame that they apparently overlooked, frame 374.

Now you come onto this forum and create this thread, confident that you can continue to pull the wool over the eyes of the members. You are most skillful in shifting the burden of proof as though we had not already proven (1) that witness after witness confirmed the blow-out to the back of the head; (2) that physician after physician had confirmed that cerebral as well as cerebellar tissue was extruding from the wound; (3) that David W. Mantik, M.D., Ph.D., the single most qualified student of the case in the history of its study, had established that the X-rays were altered, in particular, that the lateral cranial X-ray had been "patched" to conceal the blow-out at the back of the head; and (4) that we can actually SEE THE BLOW-OUT AT THE BACK OF HIS HEAD IN FRAME 374. Now we discover what many of us have actually long-known: that the blow-out in earlier frames had actually been "patched", too, by painting it over in black. This has been confirmed by the Hollywood group of film restoration experts and again by Patrick and the Director. How long can you persist with this charade? THESE POINTS HAVE BEEN PROVEN--and appealing to an untrustworthy "slide set" held at The 6th Floor Museum is not going to cut it. If you want to produce evidence that these findings wrong, THEN DO THAT. But you never produce any proof that any of what I have just reported is wrong. And we have every reason to believe that what I have reported is right. In moments of extreme candor, you have sometimes admitted that you are not an expert on photographs or films. You were a professor of philosophy and know essentially nothing about science.

You keep implying that I have been having "a bad week", but frankly, in terms of this forum, I couldn't feel better. I have been in the position to produce proof after proof of how we know that there was a massive blow-out to the back the head (from the witnesses, the Parkland physicians, David's X-ray studies, and frame 374), which does not even appeal yet to what we have learned from Clint Hill! When I say, "You never give me your money, you only give me your funny paper", I mean that you make lots of denials and express lots of skepticism, but you never produce ANY ACTUAL PROOF--OR, IN THIS CASE, DISPROOF. Disprove the witness reports! Disprove the doctors' observations! Disprove Mantik's X-ray studies! Disprove that we can see the blow out in frame 374! All of which has been further substantiated by the primitive black "patch" added to the film in producing the extant version. And when you maintain that, if we go to study the MPI slide set held at The 6th Floor Museum that we won't find it, I BELIEVE YOU. As John Costella has remarked, when you extend invitations like this one, you are certain what we are going to find. The problem for you and The 6th Floor Museum, alas, is that we know what those slides should show and what it means if what they show now is no longer the same. Which means that this elaborate charade must come to an end. You have overextended your hand. Everyone who is paying attention knows your game plan. You have lost any lingering vestiges of credibility. And all because of a thread about "unintended consequences". Well, Tink, I think these consequences were not the ones you intended!

Professor Fetzer,

I spent two afternoons this June studying the MPI transparencies at the 6th Floor Museum. I spent a lot of time looking at frame 317. It is unremarkable. There is absolutely no indication that the back of Kennedy's head has been covered by a patch. David Mantik says there is such an indication. Fine. Let's see who's right. Anyone can go and check this out. Even you, Professor.

If there is a visible and significant blowout at the lower back of Kennedy's head in 317, why doesn't the Moorman photo show it? It was taken at 315 from the left and closer in than Zapruder film. Once again we end up at the same place. Another film confirms the Zapruder film. Are you going to say that it too has been falsified? Good luck.

As a critical thinker and someone who has taught critical thinking for a long, long, very long time, you use an interesting criterion for what is worthy of belief. If it accords with what you already believe, then you rush to believe it. If it doesn't, commit it to the flames. Your most recent example of this is your unqualified statemnt that Ms. Wilkinson's copy of the Zapruder film is a "3rd generation copy." What is your evidence for this? Patrick Block wrote in post #308:

Yes, initially NARA informed Ms. Wilkinson her dupe neg was 5th generation, and Horne was told this from Wilkinson and published the information in his big book. NARA itself discovered they were mistaken this past year, I understand, and informed the researcher of their mistake. I didn't read this anywhere...it's not on the internet, I was informed of this directly.

In short, Patrick Block says somebody told him this but he won't say who. Wonderful. Is that your evidence?

I point out again the bad news you received in the past few days. David Lifton's copy of 317 and my own copy of 317 are upstream from Ms. Wilkinson's copy and the "lost bullet" copy. The upstream copies don't show the "patch" which is simply a function of contrast buildup as you go from copy to copy. John Costella did a quick test on Lifton's 317 copy and found nothing irregular.

So now you go on and on about irrelevant matters and never even admit when you've suffered some reverses. But that, I guess, is just how a critical thinker like you behaves.

JT

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

Tink,

Are we not supposed to notice that you have not answered my seven questions for you? Perhaps you could do that now, so we can at least have some answers from you. I am sorry, but your game of pretending that the MPI slide set is "the end all and the be all" of the study of the Zapruder film has worn thin. Since we now know that the Wilkinson "forensic copy" is a 3rd generation and not a 5th generation copy--which came directly from the National Archives--there are no questions about it authenticity AS A COPY OF THE FILM IN ITS POSSESSION, where the same, alas, cannot be said for the slide set. You have never even addressed the reports about it having "been lost" for two weeks. Why are you avoiding that question, too?

More rhetoric and bile but no answers:

(1) If David Mantik is saying that Z 317 in the MPI transparencies shows evidence of the "patch" at the back of Kennedy's head, he is simply mistaken. This can be proven by inspection... by simply looking at Z 317 of the MPI transparencies.

Well, David will have to speak for himself. But he is a man of impeccable integrity and scientific competence. I am sorry to say that that cannot be said for everyone involved in this. I would observe, moreover, that if David reported observing the black patch at time t1, while you are now insisting it is not there at time t2, you don't have to have taught logic, critical thinking and scientific reasoning to infer that something has changed between t1 and t2. And if you think that David "simply made it up", are you going to say the same about Patrick Block, the Director of the film studio, and the members of the Wilkinson group, who are all accomplished film restoration experts? Are you going to say that anyone who reports seeing a black patch on the film, especially in relation to the 3rd generation copy, which we know to be trustworthy, is "simply making it up"? I think it has long since become clear why you have continued to insist that the slide set at The 6th Floor Museum, over which you and Gary Mack have control, has to be "the definitive version". I am sorry, Tink, but you have worn out your welcome with this tired refrain. It is not I who engages in rhetoric nor I who has not produced proofs. I have done that over and over and over again on this thread. That would be you.

(2) If a massive blow-out to the back of Kennedy's head should be visible in Z 317, why is it invisible in the Moorman photo taken at Z 315?

Well, since the witnesses reported it--including Beverly Oliver, by the way, with whom I appeared on "Jesse Ventura's AMERICA" on msnbc, where she explained how she had seen his brains blown out of the back of his head; Audrey Rike, who was there with us, explained how he had felt the shattered back of his head when he helped to lift him into the casket at Parkland; and I explained how the X-rays revealed that the blow-out had been "patched"--the Parkland doctors confirmed it, David's X-ray studies revealed the "patch" to the X-rays, and it can actually be seen in frame 374, I should think that everyone knows it should be visible in those earlier frames, where, it turns out, they have been "patched", too. Yet you react as though there were something incredible about discovering that the film has been patched in a fashion parallel to the way the X-rays were patched. So you now are attacking David, who is beyond question--apart from Bob Livingston--the single most competent and scientifically qualified expert to ever study the case. I think we can all see exactly why, when his studies were published in ASSASSINATION SCIENCE (1998), you referred to it as "ASSASSINATED SCIENCE". Are we supposed to have forgotten your track record, Tink, or forgiven it?

(3) None of the Dealey Plaza witnesses and none of the Dealey Plaza films observed a massive blow-out to the back of JFK's head immediately after z 313. This does not in any way conflct with the witness testimony from Parkland Hospital. After being shot from the front at Z 313, Kennedy had yet to receive a bullet to the back of his head later on. His cranium was undoubtedly fractured in many ways by each bullet hit. The question is whether what was observed at Parkland had to be visible in the milliseconds after impact at z 313. There is no physical necessity to that proposition.

This is vintage Thompson. Since we KNOW THERE WAS A MASSIVE BLOW OUT TO THE BACK OF HIS HEAD, you now want to pretend that that was from A DIFFERENT SHOT, when we KNOW THAT THE SHOT THAT ENTERED HIS RIGHT TEMPLE WAS A FRANGIBLE (OR "EXPLODING") BULLET THAT SET UP SHOCK WAVES THAT BLEW HIS BRAINS OUT THE BACK OF HIS HEAD. So now you are pretending that HE WOULD RECEIVE A BULLET TO THE BACK OF HIS HEAD "LATER ON"? This is incredible, Tink. You think that after all of the research that has been done by experts and scholars who are overwhelmingly more qualified than you THAT YOU CAN NOW INTRODUCE ANOTHER SHOT TO THE HEAD? And of course we already know that there was a shot to the head that entered near the EOP, which the HSCA medical panel MOVED FOUR INCHES UPWARD. Your friend Gary Aguilar did a pretty good job of dispatching that change, but NOW YOU ARE GOING TO RESURRECT IT? You really are incredible, Tink. You abandon the sound theory of the double-hit from your book, which was independently discovered by a Nobel Prize-winning physicist from CalTech, Richard Feynman, AND NOW YOU WANT EVERYONE TO BELIEVE SOME ENTIRELY NEW FANTASTIC THEORY OF THE HEAD WOUNDS?

(4) Your claim that the Wilkinson copy is not what she claimed it to be two years ago is based upon hearsay from Block who says only he heard it from someone. Even if the Wilkinson copy turned out to be "3rd generation" it would still be downstream from the copies David Lifton and I posted.

This is an excellent illustration of your use of language. Sydney was told by NARA when she purchased the "forensic copy" that it was 5th generation. Now she has been informed by NARA that it is actually 3rd generation. If you want to check with NARA, call them and ask the generation of the forensic copy that is available for purchase by the public. And what is this DOWNSTREAM business? That is not scientific language, Tink, and anyone can compare the rubbish frame that you have posted with other versions that Chris Davidson has supplied.

(5) The copies we posted show the likelihood that the whole "patch" phenomonon is based upon contrast build-up in the repetition of copies.

I doubt that you can even define the word "likelihood". The likelihood of an hypothesis h given evidence e is equal to the probability of e if h were true. Since the evidence we have includes the witness reports, the Parkland observations, Mantik's X-ray studies, and frame 374, what is the probability of that evidence if JFK had a massive blow-out to the back of his head? Obviously, it would be very high. And what is the probability of that same evidence if JFK did not have a massive blow-out to the back of his head? Clearly, extremely low. So we now ask if, given that evidence, what is the probability that, if the film is unaltered, we should see a massive wound at the back of the head? Obviously, it would be very high. And if we do not see a massive wound at the back of the head when we should see a massive wound at the back of the head, what is the probability that it has been concealed (or "patched")? It would be very high. And given that we can actually see the patch in 3rd generation copies of the film, what is the probability that the slide set, which apparently went missing, has been fixed?

(6) After awhile, don't you get tired of listening to yourself spout the same old evasions and opinions? Your opinions are not evidence and no one pays any attention to your insults. The portrait you paint of yourself is not attractive.

Well, everyone can make their own calls about this, Tink, but I think your time upon the stage has come and gone. That you continue with this charade when all of the evidence and the experts--including the film restoration experts in the Wilkinson group, Pat Block and the Director, not to mention David Mantik's own studies--and we are confronted with a series of seven questions that I have asked before but that you have never answered. So I repeat them here. Just as I have never known ANYONE who would report a limo stop if a limo stop had not occurred, I have never known ANYONE who would report a black patch if a black patch were not present. So apparently you think that is a common occurrence. If we assume that we are talking about at least ten experts who have studied the film and found the black patch to be present (apart from the slide set in The 6th Floor Museum), what is the probability that they would all make the same improbable mistake? If we assume the incredibly inflated prospect that they might do this one time in ten (which is preposterous), then for ten persons to make the same mistaken observations about a black patch that isn't there would be equal to 1/10 times itself ten times, or 1/10,000,000,000. Give it a rest, Tink. You really are done!

JT

Well, let's see. You have access to the highest quality slides at The 6th

Floor Museum, yet you post this kind of obviously grossly inferior rubbish:

Chris Davidson has been doing much better by comparison with your efforts:

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.

In post #466, I asked you a few questions about your 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. But you have not responded to them. Well, since you want to mix it up, here's your opportunity:

(1) If you think David "just made this up", then do you think the same about Patrick Block?

(2) If you think David "just made this up", then do you think the same about the Director he cites?

(3) If you think David "just made this up", then do you think the same about Sydney Wilkinson's group?

(4) If you think David "just made this up", then will you say the same about everyone who sees a black patch?

(5) Do you really claim that you see NO difference between Z-314 (and earlier frames) in comparison with frame 317?

(6) Do you really believe that the five individuals who have seen a different and probably authentic Z-film also "made that up"?

(7) If the HD scan from the Archives (third generation) shows a black patch but the MPI images do not, then what is that going to mean?

You are the original "me or your lying eyes" guy on this forum, Tink. You won't budge no matter how much evidence contradicts you. You praised Gary's chapter until I pointed out that it implies that the film is a fake. You endorsed Witt as the Umbrella man until I discovered that he was a limo stop witness and therefore also impeaches the film.

It was NARA, not I, who declared the Wilkinson film 3rd generation, which makes it and not the MPI slides the best available resource we have for its study. You have never even replied to my inquiries about the reports those slides had "gone missing". If we now discover they are discrepant with the 3rd generation copy, no one is going to miss the point.

It's pretty silly of you to think that I have had "a bad week", when I have been thriving. Again, as in the past, you are the one who has been having "a bad week". John's still a "good guy" in my book, but if your strongest ally is now Pat Speer, where you are both maintaining there was no blow-out to the back of JFK's head, I can only say, "You have made my day!"

Edited January 15, 2012 by James H. Fetzer

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

In post #466, I asked you a few questions about your 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. But you have not responded to them. I have repeated them in my most recent post #513. I think it's time you answered them.

(1) If you think David "just made this up", then do you think the same about Patrick Block?

(2) If you think David "just made this up", then do you think the same about the Director he cites?

(3) If you think David "just made this up", then do you think the same about Sydney Wilkinson's group?

(4) If you think David "just made this up", then will you say the same about everyone who sees a black patch?

(5) Do you really claim that you see NO difference between Z-314 (and earlier frames) in comparison with frame 317?

(6) Do you really believe that the five individuals who have seen a different and probably authentic Z-film also "made that up"?

(7) If the HD scan from the Archives (third generation) shows a black patch but the MPI images do not, then what is that going to mean?

Edited January 15, 2012 by James H. Fetzer