Vincent Salandria: "Notes on Lunch with Arlen Specter on January 4, 2012"

[Cliff Varnell]

What could Specter possibly say? Seriously...Gaeton Fonzi punked him in '66 and Specter knows it. He didn't have anything to say then, and he had nothing to say in 2012.

When something is blatantly obvious -- what is there to say?

"The Warren Commission, the Truth, and Arlen Specter"

http://www.kenrahn.com/jfk/the_critics/fonzi/WC_Truth_Specter/WC_Truth_Specter.html

It is difficult to believe the Warren Commission Report is the truth.

Arlen Specter knows it.

It is difficult to believe that “all the shots which caused the President’s and Governor Connally’s wounds were fired from the sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository.”

Arlen Specter knows it.

It is difficult to believe that “the same bullet which pierced the President’s throat also caused Governor Connally’s wounds.”

Arlen Specter knows it.

It is difficult to believe that the “weight of the evidence indicates that there were three shots fired” and that the Commission “found no evidence that anyone assisted Oswald in planning or carrying out the assassination” and that any evidence which would indicate the possibility of others being involved with Oswald “has not come to the attention” of the Commission.

Arlen Specter knows it is difficult to believe some of the fundamental conclusions of the Warren Commission Report.

Looks to me like Specter was tacitly acknowledging the above when he referred to Fonzi as a good reporter.

[Cliff Varnell]

The mark of a good interviewer is to let the subject talk. And talk some more. .And more. The problem with this piece, it seems to me, is that it is 95% Vince Salandria expounding his views (to Arlen Specter, and, via this piece, to us) but only 5% Arlen Specter.

Correct. Specter interviewed Salandria, not the other way around.

Just him arranging this meeting speaks volumes about Specter's frame of mind re the JFK assassination near the end of his life.

Or, so I choose to infer...

[Cliff Varnell]

It's all here, Clarice. Everything we need to catch them, those men we seek...

Notes on Lunch with Arlen Specter on January 4, 2012 by Vincent Salandria

On January 4, 2012 at 11:25 a.m. I arrived at the Oyster House restaurant in Philadelphia for a meeting with former U.S. Senator Arlen Specter. He had called me a week or so earlier and suggested we have lunch.

We met, shook hands, and seated ourselves at a table. I thanked him for suggesting having lunch with me.

I told him that I viewed his work on the Kennedy assassination as very likely having saved my life. I also wanted him to know that if I had been given his Warren Commission assignment, and if I knew then what I know now about power and politics in our society, I would have done what he did. Of course, as a pacifist peace activist with socialist leanings, such as I was and am, I would never have been selected for Specter’s job with the Warren Commission. Arlen Specter was neither a pacifist nor a peace activist. He was a lawyer. I believe that Specter did not know that after the assassination of President Kennedy he was no longer a citizen of a republic but rather was a subject of the globally most powerful banana republic.

But if I had been chosen for his assignment, i.e. to frame Lee Harvey Oswald as Kennedy’s killer, I would have done what Specter did. As a lawyer I would have had been obligated to serve the best interests of my client, the U.S. government. My assignment would have been to cover up the state crime, the coup. I said that not to do that work and not to steer the society away from the ostensible pilot to kill President Kennedy, which plot had as its central theme a pro-Castro and pro-Soviet origin, would have resulted in terrible political consequences.

I told Specter that the American people could never have accepted my view of the assassination as a covert military-intelligence activity supported by the U.S. establishment – not then, and not now. They would have readily accepted as truth the leftist-plot script that the assassins employed. Even now, most Kennedy assassination critics will not accept my view of a U.S. national security state military-industrial killing. I explained that my very bright and rational wife could and would not completely accept my version of the meaning of the Kennedy assassination.

The U.S. national security state’s killing of Kennedy was cloaked in the Oswald myth. That myth included a supposed U.S. defector to the Soviet Union who headed up a Fair Play for Cuba Committee, and who before the assassination allegedly sought a Cuban passport. Therefore, the myth pointed an accusing finger at Fidel Castro and the Soviets.

If the U.S. public had been convinced that Castro and the Soviets were behind the killing of Kennedy, then the military would have considered the killing an act of war, and a military dictatorship in the U.S. would have probably resulted.

Oswald, a U.S. intelligence agent whose past had been molded by the C.I.A., could have been cast into whatever his intelligence masters chose. If the Oswald myth had completely unraveled and had exposed the joint chiefs to the U.S. public as the criminals behind the coup, they, the joint chiefs, would never have quietly surrendered their newly acquired power. I believe that instead, they would have sought to preserve and exploit their newly acquired status of possessing ultimate power over the U.S. arms budget and foreign policy. I believe that they would have proclaimed a national security emergency and imposed martial law. They would have declared a state of emergency, to a state of war, and would have designated the replacement for President Kennedy as a unitary president. We now have been made to understand that the unitary president is unhampered by constitutional separation of powers and the restraints of the bill of rights. In short, the unitary president is a euphemism for the correct political designation of a dictator.

Specter asked me what I thought was the reason for the assassination. In reply I asked whether he had read the correspondence between President Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev. He had not. I explained that my reading of the correspondence convinced me that Kennedy and Khrushchev had grown very fond of one another. I saw them as seeking to end the Cold War in the area of military confrontation. They were in my judgment seeking to change the Cold War into a peaceful competition on an economic rather than military basis, testing the relative merits of a free market and command economy. I saw the U.S. military intelligence and its civilian allies as being opposed to ending the Cold War.

I told him that I concluded that there was also a conflict between Kennedy and our military on the issue of escalation in Vietnam. In order to deter the efforts of Kennedy and Khrushchev to accomplish a winding down of the Cold War, the C.I.A, with the approval of the U.S. military, killed Kennedy.

I said that I believed the assassination was committed at the behest of the highest levels of U.S. power. I said that I did not use sophisticated thinking to arrive at my very early conclusion of a U.S. national-security state assassination. I told him that I think like the Italian peasant stock from which I came. We use intuition.

I explained that the day after the Kennedy assassination I met with my then brother-in-law, Harold Feldman. We decided that if Oswald was the killer, and if the U.S. government were innocent of any complicity in the assassination, Oswald would live through the weekend. But if he was killed, then we would know that the assassination was a consequence of a high level U.S. government plot.

Harold Feldman and I also concluded that if Oswald was killed by a Jew, it would indicate a high level WASP plot. We further decided that the killing of Oswald would signal that no government investigation could upturn the truth. In that event we as private citizens would have to investigate the assassination to arrive at the historical truth.

Specter uniformly maintained a courteous, serious and respectful demeanor, as did I. He asked me whether I had talked to Mark Lane frequently. I told him that I had spoken to him, and that I had spoken to essentially every assassination critic then active. I described meeting Mark Lane at a dinner in Philadelphia at a lawyer’s home. The dinner was in 1964. I could not recall the name of the lawyer host. I related that Spencer Coxe, the Executive leader of the Philadelphia branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, was also present.

At that dinner I informed Lane that I was interested in Oswald as a likely U.S. intelligence agent provocateur. Lane was not interested in the concept of Oswald as a possible U.S. intelligence asset. Specter asked me what Lane believed regarding the assassination. I said that at that time he believed there was a plot, but he did not name who the plotters were and did not discuss what he thought the reason was for the killing. I did say that later, Lane got a jury to decide for Lane’s client who had said that E. Howard Hunt was in Dallas on the date of the Kennedy assassination. Lane’s client had been sued for libel. He described the case in his 1991 book Plausible Denial.

In 1964, after his work with the Warren Commission was completed, Specter had been honored for this association at a meeting of the Philadelphia Bar Association. He asked me what I remembered about that event. I told him that I attended with my copy of the Warren Report and directed some questions at him regarding the shots, trajectories and wounds in the Kennedy assassination. After the meeting some of my colleagues at the bar asked me to write an article. That night I did so. I sent the article to Theodore Vorhees, the Chancellor of the Philadelphia Bar Association, and asked him to have it published. He sent it back and asked me to tone it down. I did so. He got it published in The Legal Intelligencer.

Specter recalled that in our confrontation I had accused him of corruption. He said that he had asked me at that time whether I would change the charge to incompetency. I had refused. I told him that I could not change it to incompetency because I knew then from his public record, as I know now, that he was not incompetent. My charge was reiterated in the Legal Intelligencer article, which described the Warren Commission’s work as speculation conforming to none of the evidence. I said the Warren Report did not have the slightest credibility, committing errors of logic and being contrary to the laws of physics and geometry.

Specter, during our 2012 lunch, asked me whether I thought that the Warren Commission was a set up. I answered that probably not all of the Commissioners knew it was a set up, but that Dulles and Warren knew. I also told him that I thought that McGeorge Bundy was privy to the plot. Specter did not respond to this.

I explained that I did not discuss with friends my view of the assassination and my conception of how controlled our society is. I said that I did not discuss with my friends matters such as we were discussing because people are just not ready to accept my view of the assassination and the tight control over our society. I said that I had nothing to offer to people in terms of solutions to the mess we are in. I related how last year, when I had a blood condition and thought I was going to die, my big regret was the mess of a society we were bequeathing to our children.

Specter commented: “Washington is in chaos.” I told him that I was deeply concerned about whether we are going to bomb Iran. Specter said, “We are not going to bomb Iran.”

I offered an example of how out of control the society is. I pointed out that he had been against escalation in Afghanistan. While Obama was supposed to be meditating over whether or not to escalate the U.S. forces there, Generals McChrystal and Petraeus were speaking to the press telling the world that we were going to escalate. These statements by the generals were made while Vice President Biden was speaking publicly against escalation. I said that I thought McChrystal and Petraeus should have been court martialed for violating the chain of command. I then said that I don’t think Obama any longer has power over the military, despite the ostensible constitutional chain of command.

I told Specter that I knew there was a conspiracy to kill Kennedy notwithstanding his single-bullet theory because the holes in the custom-made shirt and suit jacket of Kennedy could not have ridden up in such a fashion to explain how a shot from the southeast corner of the sixth floor of the Texas Book Depository Building, hitting Kennedy at a downward angle of roughly 17 degrees, and hitting no bone, could have exited from his necktie knot. I told him that Commission Exhibit 399 was a plant.

I admitted that I had coached Gaeton Fonzi before his interview with him on the questions that he should ask Specter. Specter asked me where Fonzi is. I told him that he lives in Florida, and that he is sick with Hodgkin’s disease. Specter said he was a good reporter. I told Specter that Fonzi was a great investigative reporter.

I told Specter that my very smart wife does not accept my political thinking regarding the nature of the power in control of the country and the world. Specter asked me about my wife. I told him that she is Jewish. She is a graduate of Swarthmore College. She studied at the University of Chicago and accomplished all but the dissertation in Russian Literature there. She owns and manages 41 apartments around Rittenhouse Square. Her father was a fellow traveler. He was subpoenaed before the House Un-American Activities Committee. He retained Abe Fortas as his lawyer. The hearing was cancelled. He was a philanthropist who financed the Youth Ruth Wing of the Jerusalem Museum and a college and high school in Israel.

I suggested to Specter that he was selected to perform the hardest assignment of the Warren Commission because he was a Jew. The government could have selected a right WASP lawyer for the job. I said that I had received less criticism for my work on the assassination than he had received for his work on the Commission and as Senator. He related how in Bucks County in a speaking engagement a man had risen and shouted at him that he should resign because he was too Jewish. I told him that I thought that he was a good Senator. He replied that being a Senator was a good and interesting job.

So how is it that Arlen Specter’s work on the Warren Commission saved my life? If I had been successful in arousing public opposition to the National Security State, whom I viewed at the President’s true killers, then the National Security State, possessing supreme power after its successful coup, would have liquidated any effective dissent. In 1966, after a public forum on the Warren Commission’s evidence, I was advised by Brandeis Professor Jacob Cohen that I would have to be killed. I viewed Professor Cohen as speaking for the assassins.

The Warren Report quieted the public. And as it developed, I was completely ineffective. There was no need to dispose of me. So, I consider my life was saved by the effectiveness of Arlen Specter’s work and the ineffectiveness of my own.

As we were leaving the Oyster House I gave Specter a copy of James W. Douglass’s book, JFK and the Unspeakable. I said it was the best book on the assassination, and that it was dedicated to a friend of mine and me.

Specter was smiling broadly as we left. I told him that he had a great smile, but that he did not sport it often in public. I asked him whether he was in good health. He said he was, and seemed optimistic about his well-being. I don’t know whether he was then aware of his illness. In dealing with his protracted struggle against very serious afflictions he displayed remarkable fight and courage.

Knowing what I know now, and being then, as now, committed to historical truth, I would have not changed my earliest statement that the Kennedy assassination was a crime of the U.S. warfare state. But I would not have endeavored to rally people to confront as I did the assassins. I know now that the U.S. public never did want to accept the U.S. warfare state as the criminal institutional structure that it is. I know now, that even if the U.S. public ever was ready to accept the true historical meaning of the Kennedy assassination, that there are and have been no institutional structures open to them with which they could hope to countervail successfully the Kennedy killers, the enormous power of the U.S. empire and its warfare state.

I know that my efforts to convince people to oppose Kennedy’s assassins were feckless. But was the effort of a small community of people to establish the historical truth of the Kennedy assassination valueless? I think not. I feel that historical truth is the polestar which guides humankind when we grope for an accurate diagnosis of a crisis. Without historical truth, an accurate diagnosis of the nature and cause of crisis, we would have no direction on how to move to solve societal disease.

Knowing what I know now, would I change my harsh criticisms of Arlen Specter? Yes, I would. Specter was a superior lawyer who enlisted his services to the U.S. government. The Warren Commission Report, through its lies, served to calm the U.S. public in a period of great crisis. If any serious domestic or foreign effort had been made to counter the coup, the weaponry commanded by the state criminals would have resulted in catastrophic loss of life. Therefore, in my judgment of Arlen Specter I defer to the wisdom of Sophocles, who said: “Truly, to tell lies is not honorable; but where truth entails tremendous ruin, to speak dishonorably is pardonable.”

[Cliff Varnell]

JFK Assassination 101:

I told Specter that I knew there was a conspiracy to kill Kennedy notwithstanding his single-bullet theory because the holes in the custom-made shirt and suit jacket of Kennedy could not have ridden up in such a fashion to explain how a shot from the southeast corner of the sixth floor of the Texas Book Depository Building, hitting Kennedy at a downward angle of roughly 17 degrees, and hitting no bone, could have exited from his necktie knot. I told him that Commission Exhibit 399 was a plant.

I admitted that I had coached Gaeton Fonzi before his interview with him on the questions that he should ask Specter. Specter asked me where Fonzi is. I told him that he lives in Florida, and that he is sick with Hodgkin’s disease. Specter said he was a good reporter. I told Specter that Fonzi was a great investigative reporter.

Boo-yah!

The Boardwalk and Park Place of JFK assassination evidence. Hard, concrete physical evidence.

The bullet holes in the back of JFK's shirt and jacket, and the provenance of the planted Magic Bullet.

As Dr. Ken Rahn likes to say, physical evidence trumps witnesses and documents.

The locations of the bullet holes in the clothes are too low to have been associated with the throat wound, establishing the throat wound as a shot from the front.

In a court of law DiEugenio/Thompson/Marcus et al would have no problem proving CE399 a plant, thus wiping out the credibility of the FBI Lab, to say the least.

Next stop: The White House Situation Room.

[Cliff Varnell]

Bob:

Is this for real?

SPecter agreed to meet with VInce and talk about this matter?

Looks like Specter sought to interview Salandria, only it was Salandria who took the notes.

The notes of the meeting are for posterity, in the interest of historical truth. Looks to me like Specter wanted this meeting for his own peace of mind.

This is a beautiful thing.

Truly. RIP Arlen. You were just a patsy.

[Michael Hogan]

Looks like Specter sought to interview Salandria, only it was Salandria who took the notes.

The notes of the meeting are for posterity, in the interest of historical truth. Looks to me like Specter wanted this meeting for his own peace of mind.

This is a beautiful thing.

Truly. RIP Arlen. You were just a patsy.

Just a patsy?

Arlen Specter was a criminal -- an accessory after the fact to the murder of President Kennedy.

That is the historical truth.

[Cliff Varnell]

Looks like Specter sought to interview Salandria, only it was Salandria who took the notes.

The notes of the meeting are for posterity, in the interest of historical truth. Looks to me like Specter wanted this meeting for his own peace of mind.

This is a beautiful thing.

Truly. RIP Arlen. You were just a patsy.

Just a patsy?

Arlen Specter was a criminal -- an accessory after the fact to the murder of President Kennedy.

That is the historical truth.

Looks like Specter sought to interview Salandria, only it was Salandria who took the notes.

The notes of the meeting are for posterity, in the interest of historical truth. Looks to me like Specter wanted this meeting for his own peace of mind.

This is a beautiful thing.

Truly. RIP Arlen. You were just a patsy.

Just a patsy?

Arlen Specter was a criminal -- an accessory after the fact to the murder of President Kennedy.

That is the historical truth.

Point taken, Mike. But it sure looks like Salandria forgave and absolved him.

Edited November 29, 2012 by Cliff Varnell

[David Josephs]

From T3 UP to the throat at a DOWNWARD angle of 17 degrees... pretty special bullet and IMPOSSIBLE to get around....

Just a little visual aid for those following along with the bouncing ball.....

about 5+ inches down from the top of the collar...

http://mcadams.posc....ss/Sa-benne.htm

I immediately looked from the right/crowd/physical area/and looked towards the President who was seated in the right rear seat of his limousine open convertible. At the moment I looked at the back of the President I heard another fire-cracker noise and saw the shot hit the President about four inches down from the right shoulder. A second shot followed immediately and hit the right rear high of the President's head

Mr. Rankin:

Then there‘s a great range of material in

regards to the wound and the autopsy and this point of exit

or entrance of the bullet in the front of the neck, and that all

has to be developed much more than we have at the present time.

We have an explanation there in the autopsy that probably

a fragment came out the front of the neck, but with the elevation

the shot must have come from, and the angle, it seems quite apparent,

since we have the picture of where the bullet entered in

the back, that the bullet entered below the shoulder blade to the

right of the backbone, which is below the place where the

picture shows the bullet came out in the neckband of the shirt

in front, and the bullet, according to the autopsy didn't strike

any bone at all, that particular bullet, and go through.

So that how it could turn, and --

Rep. Boggs. I thought I read that bullet just went.in a

finger's length.

Mr. Rankin. That is what they first said

and just a quick visual on what this bullet wound have to avoid to do what they said it did...

The SBT is anatomically impossible

[Mike Rago]

Correcting some information from the previous post which left the impression that the bullet could not have passed through the neck because of all the soft tissue in the way. The key here is , "soft tissue". I am including strap muscle in my definition of "soft tissue" and I do not know if that is correct but it is not bone. ¹

The Bethesda autopsy physicians attempted to probe the bullet hole in the base of Kennedy's neck above the scapula, but were unsuccessful as it passed through neck strap muscle. They did not perform a full dissection or persist in tracking, as throughout the autopsy, they were unaware of the exit wound, at the front of the throat. Emergency room physicians had obscured it when they performed the tracheotomy.

At Bethesda, the autopsy report of the president, Warren Exhibit CE 387[9] described the back wound as being oval, 6 x 4 mm, and located "above the upper border of the scapula" [shoulder blade] at a location 14 cm (5.5 in) from the tip of the right acromion process, and 14 cm (5.5 in) below the right mastoid process (the bony prominence behind the ear).

The concluding page of the Bethesda autopsy report,[9] states: "The other missile [the bullet to the back] entered the right superior posterior thorax above the scapula, and traversed the soft tissues of the supra-scapular and the supra-clavicular portions of the base of the right side of the neck.

The report also reported contusion (bruise) of the apex (top tip) of the right lung in the region where it rises above the clavicle, and noted that although the apex of the right lung and the parietal pleural membrane over it had been bruised, they were not penetrated, indicating passage of a missile close to them, but above them.

The report noted that the thoracic cavity was not penetrated.

This missile produced contusions of the right apical parietal pleura and of the apical portion of the right upper lobe of the lung. The missile contused the strap muscles of the right side of the neck, damaged the trachea, and made its exit through the anterior surface of the neck."

The single bullet of the Warren Commission Report places a bullet wound at the sixth cervical vertebra of the vertebral column, which is consistent with 5.5 inches (14 cm) below the ear. The Warren Report itself does not conclude bullet entry at the sixth cervical vertebra, but this conclusion was made in a 1979 report on the Kennedy assassination by the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), which noted a defect in the C6 vertebra in the Bethesda X-rays, which the Bethesda autopsy physicians had missed, and did not note.

http://en.wikipedia....Kennedy_autopsy

¹James Gordon is the resident expert. I am sure he will chime in if he disagrees with any of the above

²Get out your magnifying glass and look at the neck image from the previous post you will see those long "belts" are the strap muscles.

Cliff , where is your evidence that it is at T3?

Edited November 30, 2012 by Mike Rago

[Cliff Varnell]

Correcting some information from the previous post which left the impression that the bullet could not have passed through the neck because of all the soft tissue in the way.

The bullet could not have passed through the neck because it struck JFK in the back at the level of the T3 vertebra.

The bullet holes in JFK clothes leave no room for any other possibility, a conclusion corroborated by at least 15 witnesses and three properly prepared official documents.

The Bethesda autopsy physicians attempted to probe the bullet hole in the base of Kennedy's neck above the scapula, but were unsuccessful as it passed through neck strap muscle.

There was no bullet hole in the base of JFK's neck. The bullet holes in the clothes are 4 inches below the bottoms of the collars, significantly below the base of the neck..

Of course, when dealing with pet theorists, as we are here, actual evidence means very little.

[Cliff Varnell]

Correcting some information from the previous post which left the impression that the bullet could not have passed through the neck because of all the soft tissue in the way...

At Bethesda, the autopsy report of the president, Warren Exhibit CE 387[9] described the back wound as being oval, 6 x 4 mm, and located "above the upper border of the scapula" [shoulder blade] at a location 14 cm (5.5 in) from the tip of the right acromion process, and 14 cm (5.5 in) below the right mastoid process (the bony prominence behind the ear).

Mike, you've bundled together conflicting wound locations. None of your wound descriptions were recorded according to proper autopsy protocol.

"Just above the upper margin of the scapula" is a location consistent with T2 -- significantly below the neck.

Mike, how could the bullet pass through the neck if it struck JFK in the back?

Edited November 30, 2012 by Cliff Varnell

[Cliff Varnell]

15 witnesses to the low back wound.

1) Dr. Admiral George Burkley, JFK's personal physician observed the body at Parkland and Bethesda, wrote on the Death Certificate that the back wound was "about the level of the third thoracic vertebra."

2) The autopsy face sheet diagram prepared by Dr. J. Thornton Boswell shows a wound location consistent with the holes in the clothes (4 inches below the bottom of the collars).

http://www.jfklancer...opdescript1.gif

The diagram was filled out in pencil and signed off as "verified," also in pencil, also in accordance to proper autopsy protocol. The "14cm from the mastoid" notation was made in pen, which is a violation of proper autopsy protocol. Boswell would subsequently sign off on three different "posterior" wound locations.

Only in the JFK assassination would anyone insist that improperly prepared material trumps properly prepared material. But then, here we are...

3) Dr. John Ebersole attended the autopsy and told David Mantik in a 1992 interview that

the back wound was at T4. (Harrison Livingstone's KILLING THE TRUTH pg 721)

4) James Curtis Jenkins was a lab tech at the autopsy and made this statement to

David Lifton:

(quote on)

I remember looking inside the chest cavity and I could see the probe...through the pleura

[the lining of the chest cavity]...You could actually see where it was making an indentation...

where it was pushing the skin up...There was no entry into the chest cavity...it would have

been no way that that could have exited in the front because it was then low in the chest cavity...

somewhere around the junction of the descending aorta [the main artery carrying blood from the

heart] or the bronchus in the lungs.

(quote off)

5) Chester H. Boyers was the chief Petty Officer in charge of the Pathology Department at

Bethesda November 1963. This is from Boyers signed affidavit:

(quote on)

Another wound was located near the right shoulder blade, more specifically just under the scapula

and next to it.

(quote off)

The location just below the upper margin of the scapula is consistent with T3:

6) SSA Will Greer in his WC testimony (Vol 2 pg 127) placed the back wound

“in the soft part of that shoulder,” consistent with the testimony of Boyers.

7) SSA Roy Kellerman testified before the WC (Vol. 2 pg 93) that the wound in the back

was “the hole that was in his shoulder.” Kellerman expanded on this for the HSCA with

a diagram which placed the back wound in the vicinity of T-3.

8) FBI SA Francis O'Neill said that the first location for the back wound that Humes gave

was "below the shoulder." Here's O'Neill's HSCA wound diagram:

http://www.jfklancer.../md/oneill1.gif

9) FBI SA James Sibert also diagrammed a lower back wound:

http://www.jfklancer.../md/sibert1.gif

10) Autopsy photographer Floyd Reibe stated that the back wound was a lower marking

on the Fox 5 autopsy photo (Harrison Livingstone's Killing the Truth, pg 721).

11) Parkland nurse Diana Bowron stated the same thing to Livingstone: the back wound

was lower than the "official" wound in the autopsy photo (KTT, pg 183).

12) Bethesda lab assistant Jan Gail Rudnicki told Livingstone that he saw "what appeared to

be an entry wound several inches down on the back." (Livingstone's High Treason 2, pg 206). This

is consistent with T3.

13) Bethesda x-ray tech Edward Reed reported seeing a back wound "right between the scapula

and the thoracic column," although he thought it was an exit (KTT, pg 720). This location

is also consistent with T3.

14) Secret Service Agent Glen Bennett wrote in a note the evening of 11/22/63:

(quote on)

I saw a shot hit the Boss about four inches down from the right shoulder.

(quote off)

4 inches below the right shoulder. Fact: the bullet hole in JFK's shirt is 4" below the

bottom of the collar. Glen Bennett nailed the back wound.

15) Secret Service Agent Clint Hill, tasked with bearing witness to the location of JFK's

wounds, testified before the Warren Commission:

(quote on)

...I saw an opening in the back, about 6 inches below the neckline to the right-hand side of the

spinal column.

(quote off)

6 inches below the neckline. Fact: the bullet hole in JFK's shirt is 5 & 3/4" below the top

of the collar. Clint Hill nailed the back wound.

Edited November 30, 2012 by Cliff Varnell

[Pat Speer]

Correcting some information from the previous post which left the impression that the bullet could not have passed through the neck because of all the soft tissue in the way. The key here is , "soft tissue". I am including strap muscle in my definition of "soft tissue" and I do not know if that is correct but it is not bone. ¹

The Bethesda autopsy physicians attempted to probe the bullet hole in the base of Kennedy's neck above the scapula, but were unsuccessful as it passed through neck strap muscle. They did not perform a full dissection or persist in tracking, as throughout the autopsy, they were unaware of the exit wound, at the front of the throat. Emergency room physicians had obscured it when they performed the tracheotomy.

At Bethesda, the autopsy report of the president, Warren Exhibit CE 387[9] described the back wound as being oval, 6 x 4 mm, and located "above the upper border of the scapula" [shoulder blade] at a location 14 cm (5.5 in) from the tip of the right acromion process, and 14 cm (5.5 in) below the right mastoid process (the bony prominence behind the ear).

The concluding page of the Bethesda autopsy report,[9] states: "The other missile [the bullet to the back] entered the right superior posterior thorax above the scapula, and traversed the soft tissues of the supra-scapular and the supra-clavicular portions of the base of the right side of the neck.

The report also reported contusion (bruise) of the apex (top tip) of the right lung in the region where it rises above the clavicle, and noted that although the apex of the right lung and the parietal pleural membrane over it had been bruised, they were not penetrated, indicating passage of a missile close to them, but above them.

The report noted that the thoracic cavity was not penetrated.

This missile produced contusions of the right apical parietal pleura and of the apical portion of the right upper lobe of the lung. The missile contused the strap muscles of the right side of the neck, damaged the trachea, and made its exit through the anterior surface of the neck."

The single bullet of the Warren Commission Report places a bullet wound at the sixth cervical vertebra of the vertebral column, which is consistent with 5.5 inches (14 cm) below the ear. The Warren Report itself does not conclude bullet entry at the sixth cervical vertebra, but this conclusion was made in a 1979 report on the Kennedy assassination by the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), which noted a defect in the C6 vertebra in the Bethesda X-rays, which the Bethesda autopsy physicians had missed, and did not note.

http://en.wikipedia....Kennedy_autopsy

¹James Gordon is the resident expert. I am sure he will chime in if he disagrees with any of the above

²Get out your magnifying glass and look at the neck image from the previous post you will see those long "belts" are the strap muscles.

Cliff , where is your evidence that it is at T3?

Mike, the HSCA placed the entrance wound at T1, not C6. You really should watch my videos. You really should read my book. I have chapter after chapter on this stuff.

Reading those chapters could save you a lot of time.

Here's a bit on strap muscles.

From chapter 10 at patspeer.com

Specter and the Strap Muscles

Now I know some out there would prefer I give one-time Senator Specter the benefit of the doubt. And I would prefer to do so myself. But I just can't. If there had been but one or two misstatements or misrepresentations in Specter's chapters in the Warren Report and subsequent statements regarding his work for the commission, one might grant he'd simply made a mistake as to the location of the back wound in the photo shown him by Kelley, and had failed to double-check Humes' measurements to see where the wound was actually located.

But, sadly, this is not the case. There is, instead, a whole slew of misstatements and misrepresentations, all contributing to Specter's "Single-Bullet Conclusion."

Consider the presentation of the back wound bullet trajectory in the Warren Report... On page 90 of the paperback, it claims "The autopsy examination further disclosed that, after entering the President, the bullet passed between two large muscles, produced a contusion on the upper part of the pleural cavity (without penetrating that cavity), bruised the top portion of the right lung and ripped the windpipe (trachea) in its path through the President's neck." On page 91, it appears to build upon this, and relates: "While the autopsy was being performed, surgeons learned that a whole bullet had been found at Parkland Hospital on a stretcher which, at that time, was thought to be the stretcher occupied by the President. This led to speculation that the bullet might have penetrated a short distance into the back of the neck and then dropped out onto the stretcher as a result of external heart massage. Further exploration during the autopsy disproved that theory. The surgeons determined that the bullet had passed between two large strap muscles and bruised them without leaving any channel, since the bullet merely passed between them."

Upon reading this, one would undoubtedly come to believe the two large strap muscles in the second quote are the two muscles mentioned in the first quote, and were on the back of Kennedy's neck.

And one would be right. While taking the testimony of Dr.s Baxter and McClelland, Specter made reference to the bullet's passing between the "strap muscles of the shoulder" and "strap muscles on the posterior aspect of the President's body," respectively. But there are no strap muscles in the shoulder or on the posterior aspect of the body. The autopsy report makes no mention of these muscles. It notes, instead, that "there is considerable ecchymosis of the strap muscles of the right side of the neck and of the fascia about the trachea adjacent to the line of the tracheotomy wound." This would be at the front of the neck.

But you needn't take my word for it. In his testimony before the Warren Commission, Dr. Humes specified that the bruised strap muscles which helped lead him to conclude the throat wound was an exit were on "the right anterior neck inferiorly" (i.e. the lower right quadrant of the front side of the neck). Dr. Humes explained that the bruising on these muscles next to what he initially believed was a simple tracheotomy incision was far more extensive than the bruising next to the incisions on Kennedy's chest, and that this led him to suspect these neck bruises preceded the emergency procedures performed in Dallas, and were in fact caused by a bullet. Humes said NOTHING about a bullet sliding between two muscles on the back of Kennedy's neck or shoulder. In fact, when discussing the entrance on Kennedy's neck/back, he said just the opposite, and described a defect in the underlying tissue, but no evidence for a pathway between two muscles. He testified "When the tissues beneath this wound were inspected, there was a defect corresponding with the skin defect in the fascia overlying the musculature of the low neck and upper back." He then added "We were unable, however, to take probes and have them satisfactorily fall through any definite path at this point."

(It should be noted, moreover, that the doctor doing this probing was Dr. Pierre Finck and that Finck later confirmed Humes' testimony. On January 24, 1969, when testifying during the trial of Clay Shaw, when asked about his failure to "satisfactorily" find a "definite path" from the back wound through Kennedy's neck, Finck testified: "I couldn't introduce this probe for any extended depth." He was then asked "how far in this probe went" and responded "The first fraction of an inch.")

It should probably be mentioned here that "the musculature of the low neck and upper back" through which Humes and Finck could not find a path was the trapezius muscle, a flat sheet of muscular fibers covering the back of the neck and shoulder. A bullet could not slide between two muscles in this area because the area was covered by but one.(Should one not believe me on this, one should look here.) The trapezius muscle covers so much area, in fact, that anatomists break it up into four parts when describing it in anatomy books. Kennedy's backwound, moreover, was in part three, the thickest and strongestof the four parts of the trapezius muscle.

It follows then that Humes had strong reasons to conclude, as he did on the night of the autopsy, that the bullet creating the back wound had failed to enter the body. Perhaps the cartridge for this bullet had been undercharged. Perhaps there had been a misfire.

When one digs further, moreover, and reads the Warren Commission testimony of Dr. Malcolm Perry, one finds that Dr. Humes continued to doubt that a bullet had entered Kennedy's body at the back wound location even after Dr. Perry had told him of the throat wound, which could serve as an exit for the bullet. According to Perry:

"He inquired about, initially, about the reasons for my doing a tracheotomy, and I replied, as I have to you, during this procedure, that there was a wound in the lower anterior third of the neck, which was exuding blood and was indicative of a possible tracheal injury underlying, and I did the tracheotomy through a transverse incision made through that wound, and I described to him the right lateral injury to the trachea and the completion of the operation. He subsequently called back--at that time he told me, of course, that he could not talk to me about any of it and asked that I keep it in confidence, which I did, and he subsequently called back and inquired about the chest tubes, and why they were placed and I replied in part as I have here. It was somewhat more detailed. After having talked to Drs. Baxter and Peters and I identified them as having placed it in the second interspace, anteriorly, in the midclavicular line, in the right hemithorax, he asked me at that time if we had made any wounds in the back. I told him that I had not examined the back nor had I knowledge of any wounds of the back."

So where did Specter get that a bullet slipped between two back muscles? Simple. He either misunderstood Humes' reports and testimony (which would be problem enough), or he completely made it up.

I currently suspect the former. On March 12, 1964, a few days before Humes testified, Specter stopped by Bethesda Naval Hospital, and discussed the basic facts of the autopsy with Humes and Boswell. Intriguingly, Specter's memo on this meeting portends his inaccurate representation of the strap muscles in the Warren Report. He relates: "Dr. Humes and Dr. Boswell were shown the Parkland report which describes the wound of the trachea as 'ragged,' which, they said was characteristic of an exit rather than an entrance wound. Dr. Humes and Dr. Boswell further said that it was their current opinion that the bullet passed in between two major muscle strands in the President's back and continued on a downward flight and exited through his throat. They noted, at the time of the autopsy, some bruising of the internal parts of the President's body in that area but tended to attribute that to the tracheotomy at the time. Dr. Humes and Dr. Boswell stated that after the bullet passed between the two strands of muscle, these muscle strands would resist any probing effort and would not disclose the path of the bullet to probing fingers, as the effort was made to probe at the time of the autopsy."

Now, some might read Specter's memo and see this as evidence Dr.s Humes and Boswell lied to him, but then retreated from their lies in their testimony. But I suspect instead that Specter was confused by his notes on the meeting, and had mistakenly come to believe the bruised strap muscles were on Kennedy's back, not throat.

Let's re-read the key section: "Dr. Humes and Dr. Boswell further said that it was their current opinion that the bullet passed in between two major muscle strands in the President's back and continued on a downward flight and exited through his throat. They noted, at the time of the autopsy, some bruising of the internal parts of the President's body in that area but tended to attribute that to the tracheotomy at the time."

If one read the words "in that area" as a reference to the "President's back," instead of as a reference to "his throat," then Specter's memo is consistent with Specter's later claims the strap muscles were bruised and on Kennedy's back.

Now let's re-read the last line: "They noted, at the time of the autopsy, some bruising of the internal parts of the President's body in that area but tended to attribute that to the tracheotomy at the time." Well,why would the doctors have attributed bruised back muscles to a tracheotomy?

It seems clear, then, from Specter's own memo, that the doctors said the bruised strap muscles were on Kennedy's throat, and that Specter came away from their meeting thinking the "two major muscle strands" they'd said were bruised were on Kennedy's back.

Perhaps he couldn't accept that a high-velocity bullet had passed through the President's back and throat without leaving a discernible path through his back muscles... Perhaps he'd found it easier to believe it had slipped between two back muscles... Perhaps he'd failed to grasp there was but one muscle in the area...

Or perhaps his confusion was just a smoke screen...

Edited November 30, 2012 by Pat Speer

[Cliff Varnell]

Pat, since Humes and Boswell obviously lied repeatedly after the autopsy, why should we put stock in anything they said after the autopsy?

Why is what they said during the autopsy -- before their deliberations were completely corrupted -- so much less credible to you than the statements they made after the autopsy?

Pat, if you continue to insist there was a back wound at T1 the burden of proof is on you to show how Kennedy's clothing moved multiple inches by casual movement.

Why is it that "almost all serious researchers" (according to you) claim the back wound at T1 yet none of you ever replicate this event with the appropriate clothing? Not once, ever!

Instead you hype the testimony of known liars!

Why is that, Pat?

Edited November 30, 2012 by Cliff Varnell

[Cliff Varnell]

Looks like Specter sought to interview Salandria, only it was Salandria who took the notes.

The notes of the meeting are for posterity, in the interest of historical truth. Looks to me like Specter wanted this meeting for his own peace of mind.

This is a beautiful thing.

Truly. RIP Arlen. You were just a patsy.

Just a patsy?

Arlen Specter was a criminal -- an accessory after the fact to the murder of President Kennedy.

That is the historical truth.

Mike, after giving this some thought it appears to me that Specter took the fall for the creation of the Single Bullet Theory.

He is generally credited as its author.

But the SBT was made inevitable the night of the autopsy when FBI SA James Sibert called the FBI Lab to inquire as to the existence of blood-soluble weapons technology ("bullet that dissolves after contact") and was told of the existence of the Magic Bullet.

It was determined the night of the autopsy that Q1 (if I recall the initial FBI designation correctly), a/k/a CE399 would account for all the damage that the other two shots couldn't explain.

The 3-shot scenario was baked into the official story from the get-go, and then Arlen was hired to give it specifics and do the heavy duty lying, standing there with a pointer inches above the wound location during the recreation. He looked like an idiot. A couple of years later Gaeton Fonzi made him look like an idiot again over the clothing evidence.

That Arlen Specter would reach out to Vincent Salandria and ask him if he thought the Warren Commission was a set-up seems to me like a tacit admission he suspected, at that point in his life, he was set up.

Yes, Specter played a knowing, key part in a criminal enterprise; maybe Oswald was a criminal as well, but he is primarily regarded as a patsy.

Edited November 30, 2012 by Cliff Varnell