Lifton and Morningstar, nice but no cigar.

[Daniel Gallup]

My responses in bold.

"You know full well that historical (and legal) truth is not established by what is said first, but by what is said last." Pat, placing historical and legal truth in the same box is your first mistake. Second, you are simply disengenuous in stating that "Not one of the key witnesses went to his grave swearing the wound was on the back of Kennedy's head, and that the autopsy photos were fakes (or that the body had been altered)." Tell that to the surviving members of Dr. Charles Chrenshaw.

I said KEY witnesses, Daniel. Crenshaw was only there for a moment, and failed to record or report what he'd witnessed for what? 20 years? One can hardly call him a key witness.

Tell that to the FBI agents who expressed disagreement with the back of the head photo.

Sibert and O'Neill both fervently believed Oswald acted alone. While they said--many years after the shooting--that the photo did not reflect what they'd remembered, I'm pretty sure--correct me if I'm wrong-- they never accused the government of faking the photos.

I suggest you reread David Mantik's forward to William Law's book In the Eye of History.

I read it just the other day. I also watched a video of Frank O'Neill, where he tried to impress upon the audience his fervent belief Oswald acted alone.

And you are logically absurd, for you imply the very thing that must be proved: that the Parkland witnesses needed clarification from accurate autopsy photos, but it is the photos themselves that have come under withering scrutiny, and not just from Parkland testimony, but from Bethesda personnel as well. Read James Jenkins in Best Evidence or in Law's In the Eye of History as just one example.

As I recall it, Jenkins was not a CT either.

Your red car blue care scenario is utterly irrelevant, therefore, because again, it assumes the accuracy of the traffic camera etc.

Nope, it does not. If one wishes to conclude the witnesses were all either wrong to begin with or liars when they recanted their early statements, and that the evidence was either altered or faked, one can go right ahead.

when by comparison the stench surrounding the official x-rays and photos is another matter entirely,

The stench surrounding the evidence comes from all the bogus interpretations of the evidence, not from the evidence itself. When one convinces oneself the evidence has been faked, IMO, one lets the many men who've lied about the evidence, e.g. Specter, Boswell, Humes, Fisher, Morgan, Lattimer, Baden, off the hook.

and anomalies in that record rather point to the initial observations of Parkland personnel as the more accurate depiction of the wounding.

Not at all. You have no evidence, and you have essentially no witnesses, just a few witness statements later disavowed. So what does that amount to? Speculation. In the meantime, when one actually studies the evidence, one finds a number of reasons...concrete and supported by the medical literature, to suspect a conspiracy.

1. Pat, it is not for you to decide whether or not Charles Chrenshaw was a key witness. He wrote a book, and that makes him a key witness. Your view of him is irrelevant. In fact so is mine. 2. It has been a while since I read Law's book, so while I know for certain they rejected the SBT and Specter, and the photo showing an intact back of the head, I don't know if they ever seriously considered whether Oswald was framed. Someone else will have to chime in. 3. I stand on my charge that you argued illogically with your red car blue car scenario. Mantik has wreaked havoc on the authenticity of the X-rays; and the photos: that fish stinks, and it is not due to any interpretation of the photos, but because their description does not match what Stringer originally said he took that night; Stringer's usual documentation is missing, and the quality is decidely inferior. I reread parts of Horne on the photos, and the stench only grows. The collection in existence is of therefore suspect origin and of limited value in determining almost anything of the shooting.. Moreover, and Lifton pointed this out years ago in Best Evidence, the x-rays and photos contradict the autopsy doctors conclusions. Would an authentic set of photos and x-rays reinforce doctors who hovered over the body for hours, or utterly contradict their written record? 4. All the witnesses at Parkland (and Bethesda) were wrong to begin with? It is far easier to understand, and Lifton explained this far better than I, that pressure to conform was enough to get various doctors to recant their original testimony. But why should they? Because, for instance, they see a brain, all 1500 grams of it, with an intact cerebellum, in the official record. Oh well, I was wrong in my observations--so a doctor might be forced to conclude. In the legal (not historical or actual) sense, they were in error, because something of supposed higher probative value contradicted their initial observations. But since the observation of shredded cerebellum was shared by several doctors, the actual "best evidence" is not the substitute brain which in no way could have been Kennedy's, but the early observations themselves. So the witness were not liars in their initial description of the wounding, and under pressure to change, well, each doctor has to answer for himself. Jenkins changed his tune very early, but his intital observations of extruding cerebellum are part of the recored. So is Jenkins a xxxx? Or did pressure truly convince him that he was wrong? We, sitting here, have no light into each of their souls. 5. Your list of gunshot victims in the other post proved that a bullet goes in with a small entry and exits with a larger. This everyone knows. That is why some of the Dallas doctors speculated that the exit wound in the back of the head (right rear) was that of the entering bullet in the throat. Just speculation, of course, but it validated your point in listing examples of gunshot wounding. But you also introduced the "gutter wound" concept as well, where the entrance creates a crater at the point of entrance. In the examples you gave, 8,20,25,59 and 5 were gutter wounds. In none of the descriptions is there mention of an exit wound, so the implication is that the bullet was still in the head , as in case 8 or was a tangential shot. All mention of exit wounds were tied in not with gutter wounding but penetrating wounding. I have no doubt that the Dallas physicians, who had seen many such gunshot wounds, were well-aware of different types of wounding. And I ask, so what? The best you have is Clark's possible tangential wound, but it is clear fromt he context that it is a shot from the front.

6. Your statement that McClelland had nothing to do with the picture in Thompson's book is new information to me. I see Gary Augilar, in MIDP, described the drawing as a "pictorial representation...as endorsed by Robert McClelland." (page 180). Pat, I stand corrected. Here is from the ARRB deposition which I copied from your post: "DR. McCLELLAND: I told him when he was asking me to describe that picture from which you reviewed this that the first thing I saw when I came in the room in addition to that attempted agonal respiration was the edge of the parietal bone was sticking up through the scalp. And that's not on this picture, but what we were trying to depict here was what the posterior part of the wound looked like. In other words, is not the entire wound. It's simply the posterior part of it and what I thought of as the critical part of it at that time and still do." Is the "him" --Thompson? or Posner? Of someone else? Note that McClelland thinks the picture gets the most important part of the wounding right: "it's simply the posterior part of it and what I thought of as the crictical part of it at the time and still do." OK, McClelland has taken ownership of this drawing, and it really is an endorsing. Explain to me how this makes his WC deposition suspect. 7. You use the Clark Panel to show that doctors can disagree with doctors. And I say, you are probably right that what the Clark Panel and HSCA did to question Humes and Boswell's version of things indeed parallels what the Secret Service did to the state of mind of the Dallas doctors when they confronted them with supposedly superior evidence of how the President was wounded. It is relevant because the Clark Panel, and later the HSCA, could not reconcile a low entry wound with a trail of fragments 10 cm higher on the skull. A low entrance wound at the very least also destroyed the LN theory. There was a conflict in the evidence, and someone was wrong. And to the HSCA it was Humes and Boswell. The Dallas doctors were given the same message via the autopsy-- someone was wrong and it had to be them. Using Lifton's terminology, the Clark Panel put lens 3 as the best evidence, and the HSCA following, and thus lens 2, the Bethesda autopsy, was discredited in part. Years earlier, the Secret Service had used Lens 2 to discredit Lens 1, the Dallas observations. Lens 3 "corrects" lens 2, but lens 2 "corrects" lens 1. But why are there 3 lenses in the first place? The murder happened only one way, and each lens should corroborate the other two. But this doesn't happen. So what is the point of all this? The whole thing stinks of machinations behind the scenes.

[Pat Speer]

My responses in bold.

1. Pat, it is not for you to decide whether or not Charles Chrenshaw was a key witness. He wrote a book, and that makes him a key witness. Your view of him is irrelevant. In fact so is mine.

Writing a book does not make Crenshaw a key witness. The key witnesses to an event are those that 1) have a front row seat to the event, or 2) record their impressions in a timely fashion. Crenshaw 1) only saw Kennedy's wounds for a second, and 2) did not record his observations until decades later. If a drummer boy in the civil war wrote a book about his experiences 20 years later in which he claimed Robert E. Lee had been a Northern spy, would we believe him? Probably not.

2. It has been a while since I read Law's book, so while I know for certain they rejected the SBT and Specter, and the photo showing an intact back of the head, I don't know if they ever seriously considered whether Oswald was framed. Someone else will have to chime in. 3. I stand on my charge that you argued illogically with your red car blue car scenario. Mantik has wreaked havoc on the authenticity of the X-rays;

You realize, of course, that Mantik's research has never been confirmed by anyone with a background in forensic radiology.

and the photos: that fish stinks, and it is not due to any interpretation of the photos, but because their description does not match what Stringer originally said he took that night; Stringer's usual documentation is missing, and the quality is decidely inferior.

Stringer always insisted that he took the autopsy photos of Kennedy, and that the wounds in the photos were as he remembered them. He expressed some doubts about the brain photos, however. He was in his mid-70's at the time, and I'm not sure we can trust his memory.

I reread parts of Horne on the photos, and the stench only grows. The collection in existence is of therefore suspect origin and of limited value in determining almost anything of the shooting.. Moreover, and Lifton pointed this out years ago in Best Evidence, the x-rays and photos contradict the autopsy doctors conclusions.

Well, hello? This is what I've been saying all along. The autopsy photos and x-rays are clear-cut evidence that there was more than one shooter...which is why I assume they are authentic.

Would an authentic set of photos and x-rays reinforce doctors who hovered over the body for hours, or utterly contradict their written record?

If the doctors were twisting the evidence to fit a desired conclusion, the photos and x-rays would contradict their written record.

4. All the witnesses at Parkland (and Bethesda) were wrong to begin with?

The Parkland witnesses are not nearly as consistent as you seem to think. And the Bethesda witnesses for a large wound on the back of the head were almost certainly describing the wound after the scalp had been peeled back, and the brain removed. This last point is one of the few ones on which Lifton, Fetzer, and myself agree.

It is far easier to understand, and Lifton explained this far better than I, that pressure to conform was enough to get various doctors to recant their original testimony. But why should they? Because, for instance, they see a brain, all 1500 grams of it, with an intact cerebellum, in the official record. Oh well, I was wrong in my observations--so a doctor might be forced to conclude. In the legal (not historical or actual) sense, they were in error, because something of supposed higher probative value contradicted their initial observations.

So your speculation on the nature of Kennedy's wounds is built upon speculation that most everyone supporting your speculation subsequently lied when they said your speculation was wrong. That's a losing argument, no matter how true it may feel to you.

But since the observation of shredded cerebellum was shared by several doctors, the actual "best evidence" is not the substitute brain which in no way could have been Kennedy's, but the early observations themselves. So the witness were not liars in their initial description of the wounding, and under pressure to change, well, each doctor has to answer for himself. Jenkins changed his tune very early, but his intital observations of extruding cerebellum are part of the recored. So is Jenkins a xxxx? Or did pressure truly convince him that he was wrong? We, sitting here, have no light into each of their souls.

Exactly. He may have honestly believed he'd made a mistake. There was certainly no sign of cowardice on his part. If you received an automatic traffic ticket in the mail with a picture of you running a red light, you would tend to believe it, wouldn't you? I know most would. There is nothing wrong with someone doing so. It's normal behavior. But if the photo showed you running a light in a part of town you've never frequented, well, then you'd say "Hey, wait a second!" In the end, none of the key witnesses--and by that I mean Carrico, Perry, Clark, McClelland, Jenkins, Baxter and Jones--said "Hey, wait a second!" In other words, they all believed--or gave indications of accepting--that they may have been mistaken. And how do you argue with that?

5. Your list of gunshot victims in the other post proved that a bullet goes in with a small entry and exits with a larger.

When it has a separate entrance and exit, that is usually the case.

This everyone knows. That is why some of the Dallas doctors speculated that the exit wound in the back of the head (right rear) was that of the entering bullet in the throat. Just speculation, of course, but it validated your point in listing examples of gunshot wounding. But you also introduced the "gutter wound" concept as well, where the entrance creates a crater at the point of entrance. In the examples you gave, 8,20,25,59 and 5 were gutter wounds. In none of the descriptions is there mention of an exit wound, so the implication is that the bullet was still in the head

Not at all. A gutter wound is a tangential wound is a gutter wound. They are one and the same. As described by Clark, the bullet enters at a shallow angle and breaks up on the skull. it explodes. Much like hunting ammunition.

, as in case 8 or was a tangential shot. All mention of exit wounds were tied in not with gutter wounding but penetrating wounding. I have no doubt that the Dallas physicians, who had seen many such gunshot wounds, were well-aware of different types of wounding. And I ask, so what? The best you have is Clark's possible tangential wound, but it is clear fromt he context that it is a shot from the front.

Clark had no idea where Kennedy was sitting in relation to the rifle. He thought the wound he saw was probably a wound of both entrance and exit. This could have been from the front or from behind. As Perry believed the throat shot came from the front, however, he probably thought it came from the right front side. But that's neither here nor there. Studies have been performed on the accuracy of the impressions of emergency room physicians on the number of shots and direction of entry of gunshot wounds. And they are wrong all the time. This is why they have forensic autopsies.

6. Your statement that McClelland had nothing to do with the picture in Thompson's book is new information to me. I see Gary Augilar, in MIDP, described the drawing as a "pictorial representation...as endorsed by Robert McClelland." (page 180). Pat, I stand corrected. Here is from the ARRB deposition which I copied from your post: "DR. McCLELLAND: I told him when he was asking me to describe that picture from which you reviewed this that the first thing I saw when I came in the room in addition to that attempted agonal respiration was the edge of the parietal bone was sticking up through the scalp. And that's not on this picture, but what we were trying to depict here was what the posterior part of the wound looked like. In other words, is not the entire wound. It's simply the posterior part of it and what I thought of as the critical part of it at that time and still do." Is the "him" --Thompson? or Posner? Of someone else? Note that McClelland thinks the picture gets the most important part of the wounding right: "it's simply the posterior part of it and what I thought of as the crictical part of it at the time and still do." OK, McClelland has taken ownership of this drawing, and it really is an endorsing. Explain to me how this makes his WC deposition suspect.

McClelland's WC testimony was in opposition to his earliest statements, and his latter-day statements are also curious. He is simply not reliable. A nice guy, from what I can gather. But not reliable.

7. You use the Clark Panel to show that doctors can disagree with doctors. And I say, you are probably right that what the Clark Panel and HSCA did to question Humes and Boswell's version of things indeed parallels what the Secret Service did to the state of mind of the Dallas doctors when they confronted them with supposedly superior evidence of how the President was wounded. It is relevant because the Clark Panel, and later the HSCA, could not reconcile a low entry wound with a trail of fragments 10 cm higher on the skull. A low entrance wound at the very least also destroyed the LN theory. There was a conflict in the evidence, and someone was wrong. And to the HSCA it was Humes and Boswell.

But Boswell, to his credit, refused to budge on this point. Finck didn't budge either. The only one to cave--of all the autopsy witnesses claiming there was an entrance wound by the EOP--was Humes, and he quickly swung back. Now contrast this to the Parkland witnesses, where most all of them came to agree with the authenticity of the autopy photos, and none of them swung back at the end.

The Dallas doctors were given the same message via the autopsy-- someone was wrong and it had to be them. Using Lifton's terminology, the Clark Panel put lens 3 as the best evidence, and the HSCA following, and thus lens 2, the Bethesda autopsy, was discredited in part. Years earlier, the Secret Service had used Lens 2 to discredit Lens 1, the Dallas observations. Lens 3 "corrects" lens 2, but lens 2 "corrects" lens 1. But why are there 3 lenses in the first place? The murder happened only one way, and each lens should corroborate the other two. But this doesn't happen. So what is the point of all this? The whole thing stinks of machinations behind the scenes.

Well, we can agree on that. I have recently re-read Arlen Specter's statements over the years and it's incredibly clear to me that he lied, and lied repeatedly, about the location of Kennedy's back wound, in an effort to support the single-bullet theory. I mean, my God, he only started calling it a wound on "the back of the neck" AFTER he was shown a photo of it on Kennedy's back, below the shoulder line. How smelly is that?

[Daniel Gallup]

I have to rush off to church, but a good reply Pat. Glad we agree on some important matters. In answering you, I had occasion to re-read parts of MIDP. In appendix E there is the phone call between Mantik and Ebersole shortly before Ebersole died. One could infer from the call that it was Ebersole who monkeyed with the x-rays to introduce the 6.5 mm object first seen by the Clark Panel. It is hardly something the autopsy doctors could have missed, unless they never saw the skull x-rays. What is your take on all this? Other problems with the x-rays are found in Horne, but without an index, I don't have time to look them up. What about that 6.5 mm object?

[Mark Knight]

Pat, I only take exception with your characterization of hunting ammunition. I have hunted for years, and there are two purposes to hunting, as done by myself and millions of others. the first is to kill the target animal [obviously], the second is to maximize the amount of usable meat from the target animal. EXPLODING AMMUNITION doesn't preserve usable meat; it destroys it. EXPANDING ammunition [lead slugs, jacketed hollow-point bullets] tend to maximize the wound channel and bring a swift death to the target animal, while providing the opportunity to salvage the maximum usable meat from the carcass.

If hunting ammunition were indeed meant to explode, deer hunters would use grenades or dynamite instead of firearms, as those would often be more efficient [at simply killing, anyway] than attempting to find a way to launch a well-placed shot to ensure maximum usable meat.

[Cliff Varnell]

I mean, my God, he only started calling it a wound on "the back of the neck" AFTER he was shown a photo of it on Kennedy's back, below the shoulder line. How smelly is that?

About as smelly as an autopsy photo with no chain of possession which was improperly produced and featured a wound with an abrasion collar consistent with a shot from below.

Specter is a xxxx and the Fox 5 JFK autopsy photo is a composite.

Unless of course you want to demonstrate your "bunch theory" once and for all, Pat?

[David Lifton]

My responses in bold.

1. Pat, it is not for you to decide whether or not Charles Chrenshaw was a key witness. He wrote a book, and that makes him a key witness. Your view of him is irrelevant. In fact so is mine.

Writing a book does not make Crenshaw a key witness. The key witnesses to an event are those that 1) have a front row seat to the event, or 2) record their impressions in a timely fashion. Crenshaw 1) only saw Kennedy's wounds for a second, and 2) did not record his observations until decades later. If a drummer boy in the civil war wrote a book about his experiences 20 years later in which he claimed Robert E. Lee had been a Northern spy, would we believe him? Probably not.

2. It has been a while since I read Law's book, so while I know for certain they rejected the SBT and Specter, and the photo showing an intact back of the head, I don't know if they ever seriously considered whether Oswald was framed. Someone else will have to chime in. 3. I stand on my charge that you argued illogically with your red car blue car scenario. Mantik has wreaked havoc on the authenticity of the X-rays;

You realize, of course, that Mantik's research has never been confirmed by anyone with a background in forensic radiology.

and the photos: that fish stinks, and it is not due to any interpretation of the photos, but because their description does not match what Stringer originally said he took that night; Stringer's usual documentation is missing, and the quality is decidely inferior.

Stringer always insisted that he took the autopsy photos of Kennedy, and that the wounds in the photos were as he remembered them. He expressed some doubts about the brain photos, however. He was in his mid-70's at the time, and I'm not sure we can trust his memory.

I reread parts of Horne on the photos, and the stench only grows. The collection in existence is of therefore suspect origin and of limited value in determining almost anything of the shooting.. Moreover, and Lifton pointed this out years ago in Best Evidence, the x-rays and photos contradict the autopsy doctors conclusions.

Well, hello? This is what I've been saying all along. The autopsy photos and x-rays are clear-cut evidence that there was more than one shooter...which is why I assume they are authentic.

Would an authentic set of photos and x-rays reinforce doctors who hovered over the body for hours, or utterly contradict their written record?

If the doctors were twisting the evidence to fit a desired conclusion, the photos and x-rays would contradict their written record.

4. All the witnesses at Parkland (and Bethesda) were wrong to begin with?

The Parkland witnesses are not nearly as consistent as you seem to think. And the Bethesda witnesses for a large wound on the back of the head were almost certainly describing the wound after the scalp had been peeled back, and the brain removed. This last point is one of the few ones on which Lifton, Fetzer, and myself agree.

It is far easier to understand, and Lifton explained this far better than I, that pressure to conform was enough to get various doctors to recant their original testimony. But why should they? Because, for instance, they see a brain, all 1500 grams of it, with an intact cerebellum, in the official record. Oh well, I was wrong in my observations--so a doctor might be forced to conclude. In the legal (not historical or actual) sense, they were in error, because something of supposed higher probative value contradicted their initial observations.

So your speculation on the nature of Kennedy's wounds is built upon speculation that most everyone supporting your speculation subsequently lied when they said your speculation was wrong. That's a losing argument, no matter how true it may feel to you.

But since the observation of shredded cerebellum was shared by several doctors, the actual "best evidence" is not the substitute brain which in no way could have been Kennedy's, but the early observations themselves. So the witness were not liars in their initial description of the wounding, and under pressure to change, well, each doctor has to answer for himself. Jenkins changed his tune very early, but his intital observations of extruding cerebellum are part of the recored. So is Jenkins a xxxx? Or did pressure truly convince him that he was wrong? We, sitting here, have no light into each of their souls.

Exactly. He may have honestly believed he'd made a mistake. There was certainly no sign of cowardice on his part. If you received an automatic traffic ticket in the mail with a picture of you running a red light, you would tend to believe it, wouldn't you? I know most would. There is nothing wrong with someone doing so. It's normal behavior. But if the photo showed you running a light in a part of town you've never frequented, well, then you'd say "Hey, wait a second!" In the end, none of the key witnesses--and by that I mean Carrico, Perry, Clark, McClelland, Jenkins, Baxter and Jones--said "Hey, wait a second!" In other words, they all believed--or gave indications of accepting--that they may have been mistaken. And how do you argue with that?

5. Your list of gunshot victims in the other post proved that a bullet goes in with a small entry and exits with a larger.

When it has a separate entrance and exit, that is usually the case.

This everyone knows. That is why some of the Dallas doctors speculated that the exit wound in the back of the head (right rear) was that of the entering bullet in the throat. Just speculation, of course, but it validated your point in listing examples of gunshot wounding. But you also introduced the "gutter wound" concept as well, where the entrance creates a crater at the point of entrance. In the examples you gave, 8,20,25,59 and 5 were gutter wounds. In none of the descriptions is there mention of an exit wound, so the implication is that the bullet was still in the head

Not at all. A gutter wound is a tangential wound is a gutter wound. They are one and the same. As described by Clark, the bullet enters at a shallow angle and breaks up on the skull. it explodes. Much like hunting ammunition.

, as in case 8 or was a tangential shot. All mention of exit wounds were tied in not with gutter wounding but penetrating wounding. I have no doubt that the Dallas physicians, who had seen many such gunshot wounds, were well-aware of different types of wounding. And I ask, so what? The best you have is Clark's possible tangential wound, but it is clear fromt he context that it is a shot from the front.

Clark had no idea where Kennedy was sitting in relation to the rifle. He thought the wound he saw was probably a wound of both entrance and exit. This could have been from the front or from behind. As Perry believed the throat shot came from the front, however, he probably thought it came from the right front side. But that's neither here nor there. Studies have been performed on the accuracy of the impressions of emergency room physicians on the number of shots and direction of entry of gunshot wounds. And they are wrong all the time. This is why they have forensic autopsies.

6. Your statement that McClelland had nothing to do with the picture in Thompson's book is new information to me. I see Gary Augilar, in MIDP, described the drawing as a "pictorial representation...as endorsed by Robert McClelland." (page 180). Pat, I stand corrected. Here is from the ARRB deposition which I copied from your post: "DR. McCLELLAND: I told him when he was asking me to describe that picture from which you reviewed this that the first thing I saw when I came in the room in addition to that attempted agonal respiration was the edge of the parietal bone was sticking up through the scalp. And that's not on this picture, but what we were trying to depict here was what the posterior part of the wound looked like. In other words, is not the entire wound. It's simply the posterior part of it and what I thought of as the critical part of it at that time and still do." Is the "him" --Thompson? or Posner? Of someone else? Note that McClelland thinks the picture gets the most important part of the wounding right: "it's simply the posterior part of it and what I thought of as the crictical part of it at the time and still do." OK, McClelland has taken ownership of this drawing, and it really is an endorsing. Explain to me how this makes his WC deposition suspect.

McClelland's WC testimony was in opposition to his earliest statements, and his latter-day statements are also curious. He is simply not reliable. A nice guy, from what I can gather. But not reliable.

7. You use the Clark Panel to show that doctors can disagree with doctors. And I say, you are probably right that what the Clark Panel and HSCA did to question Humes and Boswell's version of things indeed parallels what the Secret Service did to the state of mind of the Dallas doctors when they confronted them with supposedly superior evidence of how the President was wounded. It is relevant because the Clark Panel, and later the HSCA, could not reconcile a low entry wound with a trail of fragments 10 cm higher on the skull. A low entrance wound at the very least also destroyed the LN theory. There was a conflict in the evidence, and someone was wrong. And to the HSCA it was Humes and Boswell.

But Boswell, to his credit, refused to budge on this point. Finck didn't budge either. The only one to cave--of all the autopsy witnesses claiming there was an entrance wound by the EOP--was Humes, and he quickly swung back. Now contrast this to the Parkland witnesses, where most all of them came to agree with the authenticity of the autopy photos, and none of them swung back at the end.

The Dallas doctors were given the same message via the autopsy-- someone was wrong and it had to be them. Using Lifton's terminology, the Clark Panel put lens 3 as the best evidence, and the HSCA following, and thus lens 2, the Bethesda autopsy, was discredited in part. Years earlier, the Secret Service had used Lens 2 to discredit Lens 1, the Dallas observations. Lens 3 "corrects" lens 2, but lens 2 "corrects" lens 1. But why are there 3 lenses in the first place? The murder happened only one way, and each lens should corroborate the other two. But this doesn't happen. So what is the point of all this? The whole thing stinks of machinations behind the scenes.

Well, we can agree on that. I have recently re-read Arlen Specter's statements over the years and it's incredibly clear to me that he lied, and lied repeatedly, about the location of Kennedy's back wound, in an effort to support the single-bullet theory. I mean, my God, he only started calling it a wound on "the back of the neck" AFTER he was shown a photo of it on Kennedy's back, below the shoulder line. How smelly is that?

Pat,

I really do think you're hanging on for dear life through Mr. Toad's wild ride through wonderland.

My time is severely limited, but here are just a few quick points:

Re your statement:

Stringer always insisted that he took the autopsy photos of Kennedy, and that the wounds in the photos were as he remembered them.

Surely you do know that I spoke with Stringer twice--in August, 1972--and tape recorded those calls. Surely you do know that he insisted that the wound he photographed was at the back of the head, in the occipital area.

Surely you do know that when I brought this to Dr. Wecht's attention, he did not have the cojonas to deal with it, and quesitoned whether Stringer really knew his anatomy terminology.

Surely you do know that that's when I called Stringer back a second time, went over if again, and he re-verified everything he told me--emphasizing that of course he knew anatomic terminology; that this was his field.

And if you don't know these things, see Chapter 20 of BEST EVIDENCE, where it is all spelled out, word for word.

And surely you do know that these tapes were then played, for Stringer, by an enterprising Florida news reporter, Craig Colgan, and that Stringer then tried to play dumb. . . .

And surely you do know that I then provided these tapes to the ARRB, and they were the basis for Stringer being questioned, under oath, about these 1972 conversations?

So, yes, technically you are correct: Stringer never attacked the photographs directly; but what he said to me in August, 1972, is clearly inconsistent with the autopsy photographs showing an intact back of the head.

You really ought to know better than to try to sell this false bill of goods to anyone reading these posts, on the Internet.

The photographs Stringer took--as described to me in these August, 1972 conversations--do not show the "intact back of the head" as is shown on the official autopsy photographs now at the National Archives.

Surely you do know that. . .or ought to know that.

* * * *

NEXT POINT. . which I shall label the "Pat Speer test for authenticity."

As described by you, Pat Speer.

Now quoting:

Well, hello? This is what I've been saying all along. The autopsy photos and x-rays are clear-cut evidence that there was more than one shooter...which is why I assume they are authentic. END OF QUOTE

This, imho, is a rather bizarre criterion for authenticity. The fact that evidence which may have been altered still shows (or "nevertheless shows"--choose your own terminology) is certainly NOT proof of authenticity, and should certainly not be the basis for any assumption of validity much less authenticity.

All that means--if the evidence was altered--is that the alteration was imperfect, or carried out hurriedly, or did not take into acount all the data.

An excellent case in point concerns the possibility of Zapruder film alteration.

Some dozen witnesses said the car stopped (I interviewed 4 of them, in 1971) and dozens more said it slowed sharply, to the point that it "almost" stopped, etc. If (in reality, i.e., in actuality) that actually happened, and if the film was altered in an attempt to conceal that fact, then a very serious problem arose, because the result of frame deletion (i.e., "speeding up the action") resulted in a very serious artifact: the appearance, on the resultant (altered) film, that the head "snapped" backwards.

Now I can tell you, from personal experience, that the backward headsnap was something that was the foundation for my initial belief that there must have been someone firing at Kennedy from the front (this was before I realized the powerful evidence, offered by the Dallas doctors, of an exit wound at the rear of the head) . And I an also tell you, from years of lecturing on the case, that one of the most powerful pieces of evidence of conspiracy that an be shown to a lecture audience, is that backward headsnap.

Now today (and going back to about 1970, when I first had the insight) I realize that the backward snap is an artifact of an altered film. But it would never occur to me--and would be, imho, totally false and fallacious--to assert that because the film shows such a dramatic headsnap (i.e. beause it shows "evidence of conspiracy") that the film was not (i.e., "could not have been") altered.

That is absurd.

If the alteration was done under great time pressure--and if plotters faced a Hobson's choice, i.e., if the choice was either exonerating the Secret Service by making the assassination appear to have been a six-second "we-were-caught-by-surprise" affair; OR. . having no head-snap, but (in that case) having a 10-15 second assassiantion, and a clearly non-reacting Secret Service, the choice would have been clear: alter the film; and just "lock it up" (which is what happened in this case), so hardly anyone would see the head-snap

But then, someone comes along, and argues (as you do). . and you see how folks react to the headsnap, and you might argue: "Oh, that film shows evidene of conspiray; ergo, it could not have been altered!"

The bottom line: this was not a perfect crime, and apparently, those who were involved not just in the crime, but in the coverup, got tangled in their own web of lies, and imperfectly and sloppily altered data.

I'm sorry to see you citing their clearly imperfect cover-up, as "evidence of authenticity."

DSL

8/19/12; 8:15 PDT

Los Angeles, California

Edited August 20, 2012 by David Lifton

[Pat Speer]

I have to rush off to church, but a good reply Pat. Glad we agree on some important matters. In answering you, I had occasion to re-read parts of MIDP. In appendix E there is the phone call between Mantik and Ebersole shortly before Ebersole died. One could infer from the call that it was Ebersole who monkeyed with the x-rays to introduce the 6.5 mm object first seen by the Clark Panel. It is hardly something the autopsy doctors could have missed, unless they never saw the skull x-rays. What is your take on all this? Other problems with the x-rays are found in Horne, but without an index, I don't have time to look them up. What about that 6.5 mm object?

Chapters 18 and 18b of my webpage are devoted to a discussion of the x-rays, and my interpretation of them. I disagree with just about all of Mantik's conclusions, and try to explain why. The so-called 6.5 mm object was the largest fragment removed during the autopsy, from behind Kennedy's eye. The Clark Panel's Morgan then decided this was a piece of a bullet on the back of Kennedy's head, and exaggerated the details of what he'd observed in order to help sell that the assassin fired from behind using 6.5 mm ammunition. it's a tragedy, IMO, that researchers circled in on the fragment's being added onto the x-ray, rather than study the record and reach the readily-obvious conclusions Morgan was both incorrect, and blowing smoke.

[Pat Speer]

Pat, I only take exception with your characterization of hunting ammunition. I have hunted for years, and there are two purposes to hunting, as done by myself and millions of others. the first is to kill the target animal [obviously], the second is to maximize the amount of usable meat from the target animal. EXPLODING AMMUNITION doesn't preserve usable meat; it destroys it. EXPANDING ammunition [lead slugs, jacketed hollow-point bullets] tend to maximize the wound channel and bring a swift death to the target animal, while providing the opportunity to salvage the maximum usable meat from the carcass.

If hunting ammunition were indeed meant to explode, deer hunters would use grenades or dynamite instead of firearms, as those would often be more efficient [at simply killing, anyway] than attempting to find a way to launch a well-placed shot to ensure maximum usable meat.

You are correct, Mark, that hunting ammunition does not literally explode. But it does have an explosive effect on a skull. That's what I was getting at.

While I don't exactly swear by everything Olivier and Lattimer had to say, I found letters in the Weisberg Archives in which they acknowledged the bullet striking Kennedy behaved like soft-nosed hunting ammunition.

Dr. Alfred Olivier, 2-13-73 letter to Emory L. Brown, Jr. (A copy of this letter can be found in the Weisberg Archives.)(On the origins of the large fragment purported to be on the back of Kennedy's skull in the X-rays.)"This metallic fragment was probably deposited when the bullet jacket ruptured on the skull. This rupturing of the jacket was one of the things that surprised me when we tested the bullet (same lot as used by Oswald) against human skulls. Apparently, the gilding metal was fairly soft, allowing these full-jacketed military bullets to act like soft-nosed hunting bullets. If Oswald had used Italian ammunition, which had steel jackets, the head wound would have been much less severe, but probably still fatal."

Dr. John Lattimer, 10-23-75 letter to Emory Brown, Jr. (A copy of this letter can be found in the Weisberg Archives.) (On tests he'd performed on M/C ammunition) "These bullets keep on going straight ahead in the wood. These same bullets will fragment exactly like a soft-nosed bullet, if they strike the skull, exactly as President Kennedy's skull was struck."

[Pat Speer]

My responses in bold.

Pat,

I really do think you're hanging on for dear life through Mr. Toad's wild ride through wonderland.

My time is severely limited, but here are just a few quick points:

Re your statement:

Stringer always insisted that he took the autopsy photos of Kennedy, and that the wounds in the photos were as he remembered them.

Surely you do know that I spoke with Stringer twice--in August, 1972--and tape recorded those calls. Surely you do know that he insisted that the wound he photographed was at the back of the head, in the occipital area.

Surely you do know that when I brought this to Dr. Wecht's attention, he did not have the cojonas to deal with it, and quesitoned whether Stringer really knew his anatomy terminology.

Surely you do know that that's when I called Stringer back a second time, went over if again, and he re-verified everything he told me--emphasizing that of course he knew anatomic terminology; that this was his field.

And if you don't know these things, see Chapter 20 of BEST EVIDENCE, where it is all spelled out, word for word.

And surely you do know that these tapes were then played, for Stringer, by an enterprising Florida news reporter, Craig Colgan, and that Stringer then tried to play dumb. . . .

And surely you do know that I then provided these tapes to the ARRB, and they were the basis for Stringer being questioned, under oath, about these 1972 conversations?

So, yes, technically you are correct: Stringer never attacked the photographs directly; but what he said to me in August, 1972, is clearly inconsistent with the autopsy photographs showing an intact back of the head.

You really ought to know better than to try to sell this false bill of goods to anyone reading these posts, on the Internet.

The photographs Stringer took--as described to me in these August, 1972 conversations--do not show the "intact back of the head" as is shown on the official autopsy photographs now at the National Archives.

Surely you do know that. . .or ought to know that.

Of course, I know that, David. You think Stringer's statements to you are of prime importance because he said them to YOU. You can't see beyond what people said to YOU because you're too close to the situation. Stringer proved, when he spoke to the ARRB and questioned the authenticity of the brain photos, that he wasn't afraid to question the official story. And yet, when shown the autopsy photos, he told the HSCA and ARRB that he'd taken them, and that they reflected the wounds as he remembered them.

Wait... it just occurred to me--isn't it your position that the body was changed before the photos were taken? And that the photos are legit? If you've changed your position, please let us know.

* * * *

NEXT POINT. . which I shall label the "Pat Speer test for authenticity."

As described by you, Pat Speer.

Now quoting:

Well, hello? This is what I've been saying all along. The autopsy photos and x-rays are clear-cut evidence that there was more than one shooter...which is why I assume they are authentic. END OF QUOTE

This, imho, is a rather bizarre criterion for authenticity.

It's not a criterion. It's one of many factors leading to a conclusion.

The fact that evidence which may have been altered still shows (or "nevertheless shows"--choose your own terminology) is certainly NOT proof of authenticity, and should certainly not be the basis for any assumption of validity much less authenticity.

All that means--if the evidence was altered--is that the alteration was imperfect, or carried out hurriedly, or did not take into acount all the data.

Try and sell that one to the public. "Yeah, there was this giant conspiracy, but they didn't know what they were doing. They kidnapped and altered the body, but changed it in a way that still showed conspiracy. So then they lied about it."

An excellent case in point concerns the possibility of Zapruder film alteration.

Some dozen witnesses said the car stopped (I interviewed 4 of them, in 1971) and dozens more said it slowed sharply, to the point that it "almost" stopped, etc.

This has been discussed ad nauseum. It's nonsense. Many of the so-called "limo-stopped" witnesses were really limo-slowed or motorcade stopped witnesses, which is to say NOT "limo-stopped" witnesses.

If (in reality, i.e., in actuality) that actually happened, and if the film was altered in an attempt to conceal that fact, then a very serious problem arose, because the result of frame deletion (i.e., "speeding up the action") resulted in a very serious artifact: the appearance, on the resultant (altered) film, that the head "snapped" backwards.

Now I can tell you, from personal experience, that the backward headsnap was something that was the foundation for my initial belief that there must have been someone firing at Kennedy from the front (this was before I realized the powerful evidence, offered by the Dallas doctors, of an exit wound at the rear of the head) . And I an also tell you, from years of lecturing on the case, that one of the most powerful pieces of evidence of conspiracy that an be shown to a lecture audience, is that backward headsnap.

Now today (and going back to about 1970, when I first had the insight) I realize that the backward snap is an artifact of an altered film. But it would never occur to me--and would be, imho, totally false and fallacious--to assert that because the film shows such a dramatic headsnap (i.e. beause it shows "evidence of conspiracy") that the film was not (i.e., "could not have been") altered.

That is absurd.

If the alteration was done under great time pressure--and if plotters faced a Hobson's choice, i.e., if the choice was either exonerating the Secret Service by making the assassination appear to have been a six-second "we-were-caught-by-surprise" affair; OR. . having no head-snap, but (in that case) having a 10-15 second assassiantion, and a clearly non-reacting Secret Service, the choice would have been clear: alter the film; and just "lock it up" (which is what happened in this case), so hardly anyone would see the head-snap

But then, someone comes along, and argues (as you do). . and you see how folks react to the headsnap, and you might argue: "Oh, that film shows evidene of conspiray; ergo, it could not have been altered!"

I have never said it "could not" have been altered. I have merely reported that my conclusion the evidence suggests a conspiracy feeds my conclusion the evidence was most probably not altered.

The bottom line: this was not a perfect crime, and apparently, those who were involved not just in the crime, but in the coverup, got tangled in their own web of lies, and imperfectly and sloppily altered data.

I'm sorry to see you citing their clearly imperfect cover-up, as "evidence of authenticity."

DSL

8/19/12; 8:15 PDT

Los Angeles, California

Edited August 20, 2012 by Pat Speer

[Daniel Gallup]

"Of course, I know that, David. You think Stringer's statements to you are of prime importance because he said them to YOU. You can't see beyond what people said to YOU because you're too close to the situation. Stringer proved, when he spoke to the ARRB and questioned the authenticity of the brain photos, that he wasn't afraid to question the official story. And yet, when shown the autopsy photos, he told the HSCA and ARRB that he'd taken them, and that they reflected the wounds as he remembered them. "

Sorry Pat, but Stringer's statements are important because they give his state of mind before pressure was put on him (whether by others or self-imposed) to conform his recollections to the back of the head photo. Lifton interviewed him in 1972, and got Stringer on record (emphatically so) as to the location of the head wound. When the official photos became known which he was supposed to have taken, his admissions to Lifton were an utter embarrassment. So he repudiated them. But Pat, the earlier 1972 statements are the more important ones, given what we now know of the dubious nature of the back of the head photo.

So also with the limo stop witnesses, whom you dismiss. Lifton, not you, interviewed these people in 1971, years before the public airing of the Z-film. Lifton, not you, have them down as saying the limo stopped. They were there, and were emphatic about it. You and I were not there. I have many times also alluded to Debra Conway's breakthough interview with Toni Foster in KAC Summer 2000. She is quite specific about two things: 1. the limo stop and 2. the "spray went behing him" referring to the blood and brains exiting the back of Kennedy's head. These people were staring at the limo and were there. You can't call their recollections nonsense.

"Try and sell that one to the public. "Yeah, there was this giant conspiracy, but they didn't know what they were doing. They kidnapped and altered the body, but changed it in a way that still showed conspiracy. So then they lied about it."

The existence of the shipping casket and body bag proves the body was kidnapped. The brutal condition of the head, unlike anything seen at Parkland, and Humes' comment of surgery, proved that the body was altered (not to mention the inordinately long and messy "trach incision" apparent in the stare of death photo). And you criticize Lifton because the project was done imperfectly? It may be a hard sell but the truth sometimes is, and it's not Lifton's fault that this is so.

[Pat Speer]

"Of course, I know that, David. You think Stringer's statements to you are of prime importance because he said them to YOU. You can't see beyond what people said to YOU because you're too close to the situation. Stringer proved, when he spoke to the ARRB and questioned the authenticity of the brain photos, that he wasn't afraid to question the official story. And yet, when shown the autopsy photos, he told the HSCA and ARRB that he'd taken them, and that they reflected the wounds as he remembered them. "

Sorry Pat, but Stringer's statements are important because they give his state of mind before pressure was put on him (whether by others or self-imposed) to conform his recollections to the back of the head photo. Lifton interviewed him in 1972, and got Stringer on record (emphatically so) as to the location of the head wound. When the official photos became known which he was supposed to have taken, his admissions to Lifton were an utter embarrassment. So he repudiated them. But Pat, the earlier 1972 statements are the more important ones, given what we now know of the dubious nature of the back of the head photo.

So also with the limo stop witnesses, whom you dismiss. Lifton, not you, interviewed these people in 1971, years before the public airing of the Z-film. Lifton, not you, have them down as saying the limo stopped. They were there, and were emphatic about it. You and I were not there. I have many times also alluded to Debra Conway's breakthough interview with Toni Foster in KAC Summer 2000. She is quite specific about two things: 1. the limo stop and 2. the "spray went behing him" referring to the blood and brains exiting the back of Kennedy's head. These people were staring at the limo and were there. You can't call their recollections nonsense.

"Try and sell that one to the public. "Yeah, there was this giant conspiracy, but they didn't know what they were doing. They kidnapped and altered the body, but changed it in a way that still showed conspiracy. So then they lied about it."

The existence of the shipping casket and body bag proves the body was kidnapped. The brutal condition of the head, unlike anything seen at Parkland, and Humes' comment of surgery, proved that the body was altered (not to mention the inordinately long and messy "trach incision" apparent in the stare of death photo). And you criticize Lifton because the project was done imperfectly? It may be a hard sell but the truth sometimes is, and it's not Lifton's fault that this is so.

One of the Parkland doctors famously told Jeremy Gunn that Jackie wore white on the day of the assassination. The recollections of witnesses months, years, decades after an incident are notoriously unreliable. What matters, then, is not what people tell a stranger over the phone, when just talking, but what they are willing to swear by when shown evidence in contradiction to their recollections. In other words, when it's on the line.

Now, I know that sounds silly to someone whose suspicions have been aroused by so few people reporting Kennedy's wounds to be as shown in the photos.

But that's really all there is to go by. The statements of ONE group of witnesses tend to reflect that the wound was further back on the head than shown in the photos. The statements of another group of witnesses--including Stringer, who reviewed the photos in 1966 and signed a document saying they were the photos he'd taken--reflect that the wounds were as shown in the photos. So how do you resolve this situation? 1. You study the photos to see if there's any obvious discrepancies between what BOTH sides remembered. 2. You show the photos to the side in disagreement with the photos and see if they change their minds.

The key Parkland witnesses, with the possible exception of McClelland, either admitted they were mistaken or let their support of the Warren Commission and their dislike of conspiracy theorists be known.

There is no reason to believe any of them went to their graves believing the wounds had been altered or that the autopsy photos had been faked.

Edited August 20, 2012 by Pat Speer

[Mike Rago]

One of the Parkland doctors famously told Jeremy Gunn that Jackie wore white on the day of the assassination. The recollections of witnesses months, years, decades after an incident are notoriously unreliable. What matters, then, is not what people tell a stranger over the phone, when just talking, but what they are willing to swear by when shown evidence in contradiction to their recollections. In other words, when it's on the line.

Now, I know that sounds silly to someone whose suspicions have been aroused by so few people reporting Kennedy's wounds to be as shown in the photos.

But that's really all there is to go by. The statements of ONE group of witnesses tend to reflect that the wound was further back on the head than shown in the photos. The statements of another group of witnesses--including Stringer, who reviewed the photos in 1966 and signed a document saying they were the photos he'd taken--reflect that the wounds were as shown in the photos. So how do you resolve this situation? 1. You study the photos to see if there's any obvious discrepancies between what BOTH sides remembered. 2. You show the photos to the side in disagreement with the photos and see if they change their minds.

The key Parkland witnesses, with the possible exception of McClelland, either admitted they were mistaken or let their support of the Warren Commission and their dislike of conspiracy theorists be known.

There is no reason to believe any of them went to their graves believing the wounds had been altered or that the autopsy photos had been faked.

I would like to add that the photos taken by some of those witnesses is key to understanding what happened. Their photos are much better than their memories.

The massive wound in the back of the head is obvious in this Zapruder frame. When anyone talks of the massive wound to the back of the head this is the wound they are referring to. However , this was not the only wound. There is also a massive wound to the front and right side of the head, caused by the second bullet which struck the president in the head.

Here is the testimony of Dr. Boswell, before the ARRB, describing the wound we see in the Zapruder frame...

A. There was a big wound sort of transverse up like this from left posterior to right anterior. The scalp was separated, but it was folded over, and you could fold the scalp over and almost hide the wound. When you lifted the scalp up, you could really lay it back posteriorally, and there was a lot of bone still attached to the scalp but detached from the remainder of the skull. And I think these parts back here probably reflect that.

The autopsy photos do not show this grotesque damage, but they well could have if they had folded back the two pieces of broken skull at the back of the head but were held on by the scalp. It took a front-to-back force to push the skull back like that.

Some have referred to it as the back of the head was blown out...and that is exactly what it looks like.

The photographic evidence also helps understand how the shots to the presidents head were sequenced....

http://educationforu...=45#entry256195

.

Edited August 20, 2012 by Mike Rago

[Pat Speer]

One of the Parkland doctors famously told Jeremy Gunn that Jackie wore white on the day of the assassination. The recollections of witnesses months, years, decades after an incident are notoriously unreliable. What matters, then, is not what people tell a stranger over the phone, when just talking, but what they are willing to swear by when shown evidence in contradiction to their recollections. In other words, when it's on the line.

Now, I know that sounds silly to someone whose suspicions have been aroused by so few people reporting Kennedy's wounds to be as shown in the photos.

But that's really all there is to go by. The statements of ONE group of witnesses tend to reflect that the wound was further back on the head than shown in the photos. The statements of another group of witnesses--including Stringer, who reviewed the photos in 1966 and signed a document saying they were the photos he'd taken--reflect that the wounds were as shown in the photos. So how do you resolve this situation? 1. You study the photos to see if there's any obvious discrepancies between what BOTH sides remembered. 2. You show the photos to the side in disagreement with the photos and see if they change their minds.

The key Parkland witnesses, with the possible exception of McClelland, either admitted they were mistaken or let their support of the Warren Commission and their dislike of conspiracy theorists be known.

There is no reason to believe any of them went to their graves believing the wounds had been altered or that the autopsy photos had been faked.

I would like to add that the photos taken by some of those witnesses is key to understanding what happened. Their photos are much better than their memories.

The massive wound in the back of the head is obvious in this Zapruder frame. When anyone talks of the massive wound to the back of the head this is the wound they are referring to. However , this was not the only wound. There is also a massive wound to the front and right side of the head, caused by the second bullet which struck the president in the head.

Here is the testimony of Dr. Boswell, before the ARRB, describing the wound we see in the Zapruder frame...

A. There was a big wound sort of transverse up like this from left posterior to right anterior. The scalp was separated, but it was folded over, and you could fold the scalp over and almost hide the wound. When you lifted the scalp up, you could really lay it back posteriorally, and there was a lot of bone still attached to the scalp but detached from the remainder of the skull. And I think these parts back here probably reflect that.

The autopsy photos do not show this grotesque damage, but they well could have if they had folded back the two pieces of broken skull at the back of the head but were held on by the scalp. It took a front-to-back force to push the skull back like that.

Some have referred to it as the back of the head was blown out...and that is exactly what it looks like.

The photographic evidence also helps understand how the shots to the presidents head were sequenced....

http://educationforu...=45#entry256195

.

If you watch the film in slow-mo, frame by frame, you'll see that Jackie's white glove was on JFK's right shoulder a few frames before the one you've presented, and is in the process of being pulled back at this frame. The so-called volcano shape at the back of JFK's head is therefore but an illusion, created by the white glove's blocking out the lowest part of his head.

[James R Gordon]

Mike,

I follow your argument for a twin bullet strike, however the damage does not need two bullets to cause such damage.

Over the weekend I read a very persuasive and interesting article by John Hunt entitled “A Demonstrable Impossibility”. His argument was that the bullet could have splintered and thereby damage different areas in the head, even though his main thesis was where the existing bone fragments might fit on the head and they should fit there.

Just a thought.

James.

[Mike Rago]

If you watch the film in slow-mo, frame by frame, you'll see that Jackie's white glove was on JFK's right shoulder a few frames before the one you've presented, and is in the process of being pulled back at this frame. The so-called volcano shape at the back of JFK's head is therefore but an illusion, created by the white glove's blocking out the lowest part of his head.

It is not an illusion. The glove is behind the head from the perspective of the camera. It is obvious it is not an illusion.

The testimony of Boswell as well as the x-ray confirm it.

A. There was a big wound sort of transverse up like this from left posterior to right anterior. The scalp was separated, but it was folded over, and you could fold the scalp over and almost hide the wound. When you lifted the scalp up, you could really lay it back posteriorally, and there was a lot of bone still attached to the scalp but detached from the remainder of the skull. And I think these parts back here probably reflect that.

What we are seeing in the Zapruder frame is the skull folded over at the crack we see in the x-ray. The scalp was connected to the skull but the skull was not connected to the head.

Edited August 20, 2012 by Mike Rago