Pat Speer- I am confused (so what else is new?)...re: JFK head wound

[Vince Palamara]

The EARLIEST statements of the doctors and nurses are pretty sound (WC...even up to the HSCA era). AFTER that period, especially 1988 onward, there is some inconsistency, here and there.

[Vince Palamara]

Nova 1988 (although there is some clever editing---notice when McClelland keeps talking and Cronkite talks over him--- AND Peters did talk about "this little incision"); the KRON program- Jenkins; JAMA 1992; Posner 1993; ARRB 1994-1998

Jenkins, Carrico, Perry, and even Baxter seem to have waffled in these later years...this waffling does NOTHING to diminish what they originally said

[Pat Speer]

I think the problem is that some posters believe (possibly) altered/fake xrays and photos, rather than the statements of the professionals who were there.

Unlike, Pat, I don't think that the surgeons at Parkland either suffered from hallucinations or were persuaded by others that what they saw wasn't what was in front of them. Professionals do not describe the wounds in the same way unless they saw them.

As stated, the idea that the wounds were changed reaches a dead end when you realize that the witnesses in Dealey Plaza, including Mrs. Kennedy, saw and described the wound represented in the autopsy photos and x-rays. What? The wound on the top of the head observed in the plaza was changed into a wound on the back of the head by the time the President reached Parkland,, only to be changed back again on the plane, or at Bethesda?

No one suffered hallucinations. Our eyes and brains are not recorders. As stated, I spent several months reading books and articles on human cognition and even consulted with 2 cognitive psychologists before reaching my conclusion the Parkland witnesses claiming they saw a wound on the far back of the head were mistaken, and that the wound was actually 3 inches or so further forward on the head.

Let's remember that not one single member of the Parkland staff kept notes on what went on, and that those claiming the wound was on the back of the head did so after discussing the President's death with others, or, in many cases, being told that's what others said. The "pool" of witnesses was, in the eyes of science, cross-contaminated.

From chapter 18d:

A study reported in the July 2011 issue of Science Magazine supports this probability. In this study, participants were 1) shown an eyewitness-style documentary in groups of five, 2) brought back individually three days later and asked questions about what they'd observed, 3) brought back four days later and shown the answers of those tested at the same time as them, 4) asked the questions again, 5) brought back again 7 days later and told that the answers of the others they'd been shown the week before had been random answers, and may or may not have been the actual answers of those with whom they'd originally viewed the documentary, and 6) asked the same questions again, after being told to rely on their original memories. The participants were then debriefed, with the results of those suspicious they were being manipulated thrown out.

The results were impressive. While some of the answers of others shown the participants a week after viewing the documentary were 100% wrong, and not even the real answers given by the others, 68.3% of the participants answered these questions in accordance with how they'd been told the others had responded, even though they'd answered these questions correctly only four days before. That this wasn't simply a failure of memory is proven by a control test, in which only 15.5% of those getting an answer right three days after viewing the documentary got it wrong 14 days after viewing the documentary. This suggests that over 50% of the participants changed their answers to fit in with the crowd.

That this wasn't just a change of answer, but an actual change of memory, for many of those tested, moreover, was demonstrated by the results of the final test. 40.8% of the participants who got a question correct, and then changed it to fit in with the crowd, stood by their incorrect answer after being told the answers of others they'd been shown had been randomly generated, and that they were now to rely exclusively upon their original memories. Disturbingly, this suggests that the memories of a significant percentage of the public can be changed, permanently, by being told what their peers remember, even if what they're told is something they at one time knew was untrue.

Memories are fragile. The recollections of the Parkland witnesses, co-workers who undoubtedly discussed what they saw with other co-workers, most if not all of whom would have been familiar with Dr. Clark's description of the wound, are just not as reliable as many would like us to believe.

[Pat Speer]

Nova 1988 (although there is some clever editing---notice when McClelland keeps talking and Cronkite talks over him--- AND Peters did talk about "this little incision"); the KRON program- Jenkins; JAMA 1992; Posner 1993; ARRB 1994-1998

Jenkins, Carrico, Perry, and even Baxter seem to have waffled in these later years...this waffling does NOTHING to diminish what they originally said

If you were asked about something you'd witnessed, something you'd think you would remember---let's say the color of the hair of the girl you took to your high school prom--and you said blonde. And then someone comes out with a book saying they have a picture of her at home that night and her hair was really brown...and that therefore either her hair changed color by the time she got in the car with you, or the photos taken by her parents before she left for the prom are fakes--wouldn't you step in and say "Well, hold it right there, I am probably mistaken. Her hair probably was brown."

It's not waffling to inject common sense into a situation. Jenkins, Carrico, Perry and Baxter distanced themselves from those wanting to believe the wound was on the back of the head. They said they'd been mistaken. Clark also wanted to have nothing to do with the research community, and sought to stay out of it altogether.

Jones, Peters and McClelland tried to have it both ways. They played nice with the research community, but refused to say they thought the photos are fakes. Jones told Vince P, among others, that he was probably mistaken as to the exact location of the wound.

That leaves Peters and McClelland as the only two prime witnesses swearing they saw a wound on the back of the head. If one were to break down the activities of the Parkland witnesses into most active, and most likely to get a good look, etc, Peters and McClelland would represent what? 20% at most of the sum total of interaction with Kennedy.

In the long run, then, those holding the wound was on the back of the head are at odds not just with the Dealey Plaza witnesses, Zapruder film, Moorman photo, autopsy photos, and X-rays, but their far more credible co-workers.

Only adding to my conclusion they were wrong, for that matter, is my far greater conviction that the medical evidence points to more than one shooter. Now some, including Dr. Mantik, have swallowed the official line and said the evidence taken at face value points to a single assassin. I beg to differ, and am quite convinced it suggests more than one shooter.

So why would "they" fake the evidence to suggest more than one shooter? I draw a blank.

[Pat Speer]

Tom Robinson was a mortician who worked on the body of President Kennedy following the autopsy, preparing it for burial. He was interviewed by HSCA staff members Andy Purdy and Jim Conzelman early on, during the era when Richard Sprague still headed the HSCA. Mr Robinson described a large rear head wound, "directly behind the back of his head." He also observed what appeared to be a small wound in the right temple.

Complete Recording 28:19 WMA MOV MP3

Source:

http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/med_testimony/audio/HSCA_Robinson.htm

I know I've posted this before. So excuse me if you already know all this. From chapter 18c:

One of the strangest "back of the head" witnesses, in my opinion, is Tom Robinson, one of Kennedy's morticians. The stealth with which conspiracy theorists, in an attempt to acquit Lee Harvey Oswald, present Robinson's words to suggest Kennedy was shot from the front, is truly a wonder to behold.

This is how researcher Michael Griffith presents Robinson in his online essay The Head Shot from the Front.

Tom Robinson the mortician. He reassembled the President's skull after the autopsy. He reports that there was still a visible defect in the back of the head even after the inclusion of some late-arriving skull fragments from Dallas.

After discussing Dr. Burkley's claim the bullet entered Kennedy's temple, and pretending that Burkley's words suggest a separate exit on the back of the head, Griffith further discusses Robinson: "This was very probably the same small temple-entry hole that was described by some of the Parkland doctors and that was filled with wax by Tom Robinson."

Well, this suggests that Robinson not only saw an exit on the back of the head and an entrance on the front, but that the Harper fragment--the only large bone fragment not recovered by the end of the autopsy--was occipital bone, correct?

Well, maybe, but what Griffith presents is not a fair presentation of Robinson's words.

When asked, on 1-12-77, by HSCA counsel Andy Purdy if he could tell what percentage of the large hole on the back of Kennedy's head he'd observed had been caused by bullets, as opposed to the doctors, he responded: “Not really. Well, I guess I can because a good bit of the bone had been blown away. There was nothing there to piece together, so I would say probably about [the size of] a small orange.”

He is basing his guess, then, on the size of the hole left on the back of the head after reconstruction. He doesn't even realize that three large bone fragments had been retrieved and added back into the skull, and that the size of the hole after reconstruction does not reflect what he thinks it does...

He also offers no reason to believe the reconstruction was accurate. Morticians are not forensic anthropologists. They are not trained to piece shattered skulls back together. They are cosmeticians. They stretch and sew torn scalp together to hide head wounds. They use packing material and rubber to reconstruct skulls, not super glue. In this case, moreover, they were hired to make the body presentable at a State Funeral. So, OF COURSE the hole left over at the end of the initial phases of reconstruction -- which Robinson did not even perform, nor pay much attention to (he observed the autopsy from a location on the left side of the President's body and had no recollections of a large wound on the right top side of the President's head)--was on the back of the head (where it could be hidden in a pillow should the President have been given an open-casket funeral), and not the right top side of the head, from whence the Harper fragment almost certainly derived.

(There is support in the historical record, moreover, that the reconstruction of Kennedy's skull was a cosmetic reconstruction, and not a forensic reconstruction. The notes on the HSCA's 8-29-77 interview of James Curtis Jenkins, Dr.s Humes and Boswell's assistant at the autopsy, reflects that he recalled watching "the mortician trying to arrange the small skull fragments in the head" and that "the embalmers replaced some of the tissue and used some type of plaster molding to close the head wound.")

That the wound during the autopsy was not where Robinson saw it at the end of the autopsy is supported, moreover, by Robinson himself. Consider the summary of Robinson's interview with the ARRB, written by Doug Horne, which reveals: "Robinson said he had a '50 yard line seat' at the autopsy...He said the President's head was to his right, which means that he was on the anatomical left of the president during the autopsy. He said that most of the pathologists and their assistants were opposite him, on the anatomical right of the president during the autopsy." Well, why would the autopsy team be standing on the right side of the body, if the wound was at the middle of the back of the head?

But that's not the only reason to doubt the hole in the middle of the back of the head seen by Robinson was the exit wound seen at Parkland. For one, he said this hole on the skull was "circular." Well, who believes the triangular Harper fragment--as stated, the only large bone fragment still missing by the end of the autopsy--would leave a circular hole on the skull? No one. When asked by Doug Horne and the ARRB in 1996 to further describe this hole and mark the location of this hole on a drawing, moreover, Robinson contended that he believed this hole was an entrance wound, and placed it in the middle of the occipital bone, inches away from where conspiracy theorists Robert Groden and David Mantik hold the Harper fragment erupted.

The strangeness surrounding Robinson's testimony, or at least most theorists' interpretation of his testimony, however, is best illustrated through a discussion not of Robinson's ARRB testimony, but Saundra Spencer's ARRB testimony. In Volume 2 of his 5 volume opus, Doug Horne writes: "Before the photograph that Saundra Spencer developed was exposed, a head-filler...was used to restore shape and structure to the severely damaged cranium; after a 'rubber dam' was located to help seal the large cranial defect and prevent body fluids from leaking from the cranium inside the casket, the remaining scalp was stretched back into place as much as possible and sutured together (as well as into the rubber dam material) outside the now hardened and reconstructed skull. The two-inch diameter 'wound' that Saundra Spencer recalls seeing squarely in the middle of the back of the head in one photograph, high in the occipital bone, simply represented the small area that the undertakers could not repair and close."

Robinson's fellow mortician John Hoesen described a similar hole on the back of the head. According to Horne, Hoesen claimed "it was roughly the size of a small orange...located in the center of the back of the head." Horne then proceeds to assert that Hoesen, as Spencer, was describing the small hole remaining after skull reconstruction.

And yet he maintains that Robinson, who described a hole in the exact same location, in nearly identical terms, (it was the size of a "small orange") was describing the head wound at the beginning of the autopsy! What? Where does he get that?

He gets that from Robinson's HSCA and ARRB interviews, and his claim the head wound was enlarged by Dr. Humes to remove the brain (something Humes actually testified to). Apparently, Horne assumes Robinson's description of the wound prior to being enlarged was based upon an independent observation, and not on speculation derived from its appearance during reconstruction. Well, as we've seen, this just isn't true. When asked if he could estimate the size and location of the wound at the beginning of the autopsy, before the enlargement of the wound and removal of the brain, Robinson told the HSCA's Andy Purdy: “Not really. Well, I guess I can because a good bit of the bone had been blown away. There was nothing there to piece together, so I would say probably about [the size of] a small orange.”

"Not really. Well, I guess I can because..." Horne's "Epiphany" that Robinson saw an orange-sized hole on the back of Kennedy's head, and that Dr. Humes then enlarged this wound to hide its real size (as opposed to simply pulling out the brain), is thus exposed as smoke. If the hole started out as orange-sized, and was then expanded for the taking of the autopsy photos, and then reconstructed with the addition of the three large skull fragments flown in from Dallas, how could it be orange-sized at the end?

No. Nothing strange there.

Well, then, what about the entrance on the front of the head observed by Robinson? Certainly, Robinson's recollection of THAT wound is important. Well, WHAT entrance on the front of the head? He saw no such thing.

Here is his discussion with Purdy of the wound he observed.

PURDY: Did you notice anything else unusual about the body which may not have been artificially caused, that is caused by something other than the autopsy?

ROBINSON: Probably, a little mark at the temples in the hairline. As I recall, it was so small it could be hidden by the hair. It didn't have to be covered with make-up. I thought it probably a piece of bone or a piece of the bullet that caused it.

PURDY: In other words, there was a little wound.

ROBINSON: Yes.

PURDY: Approximately where, which side of the forehead or part of the head was it on?

ROBINSON: I believe it was on the right side.

PURDY: On his right side?

ROBINSON: That's an anatomical right, yes.

PURDY: You say it was in the forehead region up near the hairline?

ROBINSON: Yes.

PURDY: Would you say it was closer to the top of the hair?

ROBINSON: Somewhere around the temples.

PURDY: Approximately what size?

ROBINSON: Very small, about a quarter of an inch.

PURDY: Quarter of an inch is all the damage. Had it been closed up by the doctors?

ROBINSON: No, he didn't have to close it. If anything, I just would have probably put a little wax in it.

When asked later what he thought caused this wound, moreover, he claimed "I think either a piece of bone or a piece of the bullet. Or a very small piece of shrapnel." When then asked if that was the only place he thought a bullet could have exited, he repeated "It was no bullet. It was a fragment or a piece of the bone." When then asked yet again--for once and for all--what he thought caused the wound, he reiterated "A piece of the bone or metal exiting."

So, Robinson did not call this wound an entrance, nor think it was an entrance. No, he believed it to have been an exit for a very small fragment of some sort, or perhaps even a mark created by shrapnel. This is NOT the description of an entrance hole for an explosive round so many pretend it is, nor a bullet hole of any kind.

Heck, it was a wound so small that Robinson wasn't even sure he put wax in it.

So why pretend otherwise?

I mean, Griffith, a fairly conservative researcher, has presented the exact same nonsense spewed by the far from conservative James Fetzer in his online posts, and has indicated that Robinson saw 1) an exit on the back of the head (when he in fact said he thought it was an entrance), and 2) an entrance on the front of the head (when he in fact said it was to his mind an exit for a small fragment, and possibly even a nick from shrapnel).

[Robert Prudhomme]

And heck, Pat, did you know that 6.5 mm = .256" which is about as close to 1/4" as you can get. Of course it was a small hole; how big a hole do you think a 6.5mm makes?

And are you saying hollow point, fragmenting and explosive rounds make bigger entrance holes than FMJ bullets? Just how would you know this? I can tell by what you write you don't know the first thing about firearms, or anything else, for that matter.

[Pat Speer]

And heck, Pat, did you know that 6.5 mm = .256" which is about as close to 1/4" as you can get. Of course it was a small hole; how big a hole do you think a 6.5mm makes?

And are you saying hollow point, fragmenting and explosive rounds make bigger entrance holes than FMJ bullets? Just how would you know this? I can tell by what you write you don't know the first thing about firearms, or anything else, for that matter.

Please find a source for your nonsensical claim an exploding bullet would leave a tiny hole--a hole so small it might not even need to have been filled with wax.

P.S. the 1/4 inch defect noticed by Robinson was almost certainly not a 1/4 vertical hole, but a defect 1/4 inch at its widest and then tapering down to almost nothing by the time it reached the skull. There was no abrasion ring--nothing about it, in fact--that indicated it was a bullet entrance. Which is probably why Robinson swore it was not an entrance. It was too small to be an entrance, and didn't look like an entrance. Ergo, it wasn't an entrance.

[Andric Perez]

What if the Parkland doctors did not see this small wound? Would we be required to believe that Mr. Robinson was not telling the truth about it?

McLelland once claimed to have seen a small wound in the "left temple." Even if you argue that he meant "right temple," McClelland added in 1963 to the St. Louis Post Dispatch (See Speer, ch. 18d): ""I am fully satisfied that the two bullets that hit him were from behind."

In a separate post in this thread, someone dismisses criticism of the Parkland doctors and nurses on the basis that they are "gunshot experts" whose word should be trusted. Do you trust the statement above?

Edited December 22, 2013 by Andric Perez

[Malcolm Ward]

What if the Parkland doctors did not see this small wound? Would we be required to believe that Mr. Robinson was not telling the truth about it?

McLelland once claimed to have seen a small wound in the "left temple." Even if you argue that he meant "right temple," McClelland added in 1963 to the St. Louis Post Dispatch (See Speer, ch. 18d): ""I am fully satisfied that the two bullets that hit him were from behind."

In a separate post in this thread, someone dismisses criticism of the Parkland doctors and nurses on the basis that they are "gunshot experts" whose word should be trusted. Do you trust the statement above? Did he suddenly become a non-expert when he made that statement?

DALLAS (CBS 11 NEWS) - Friday marks fifty years since President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was gunned down in Dallas, and interest in the anniversary is high.

Memories are flooding back, especially for the last surviving surgeon who tried to save the President’s life.

“There was no way we could treat him that he could be salvaged,” Dr. Robert McClelland tells CBS 11 News. McClelland and two other surgeons were summoned to Parkland’s ER that fateful Friday.

“Pushed the door open and was horrified to see— the first thing I saw there—was President Kennedy lying on his back on a cart with an operating room light shining down on is bloody head.”

They initially found the President with what appeared to be only a bullet wound to the neck… until McClelland checked his head.

“(I said) ‘My God, have you seen the back of his head?’ And they said, ‘No, we came in just ahead of you.’ And I said, ‘Well, the whole back of his head is missing on the back side.’” McClelland continued, “Well, when I saw that injury to the back of his head, it became apparent to all of us, all three of us who were gathered around the President’s head working on him, that this was a fatal injury.”

Still, Kennedy’s heart was working and he was trying to breathe, according to McClelland. “So he was definitely not dead as you could define absolute death, but he certainly had a fatal wound that could not be repaired. Either then or now, for that matter.”

They worked on his neck wound for five minutes…until his electrocardiogram straight-lined. When the President was declared dead, Dr. McClelland said there were so many unauthorized people in the cubicle that he and another doctor were trapped inside, pinned between the President’s cart and the wall…and they became unwilling witnesses to his last rites.

Mrs. Kennedy-—Jackie–joined the priest, and McClelland says showed no emotion once he told her the rites had been performed.

“She then took a ring from her finger, and put it on the President’s finger, and a ring from his finger and put it on her finger,” he said adding that the President’s foot was lying outside the sheet that covered him. “She stood by his foot for just a moment, then leaned over and kissed his bare foot and walked out of the room.”

McClelland has since found himself at odds with official versions of what happened at Dealey Plaza. He says he was troubled immediately with the wounds. While the one to the President’s neck seemed to come from behind and was likely the work of Lee Harvey Oswald, it appeared the fatal shot to the back of the President’s head was an exit wound. And later when he closely examined the classic Abraham Zapruder film, he decided there had to be a second gunman. “That he (Kennedy) was shot from the front, from the picket fence,” adjoining the plaza.

McClelland knows this runs counter to the accepted, lone gunman reports, but he claims we will likely never know just what happened that day.

Ironically, two days later he tried to save the life of accused gunman Lee Harvey Oswald after Oswald was shot by Jack Ruby. McClelland feels Oswald’s wound could have been repaired but he repeatedly went into cardiac arrest and finally died.

Source:

http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2013/11/18/surgeon-who-tried-to-save-jfk-reflects-on-50th-anniversary-of-assassination/

[Robert Prudhomme]

Okay, Pat, you are a wannabe expert on bullets, now, are you? Define what you mean by "exploding" bullet.

Next, tell us all just how you know the exact shape of this 1/4" hole in JFK's head, as, from what I am reading, Robinson did not describe it as you are doing.

[Andric Perez]

me from behind and was likely the work of Lee Harvey Oswald, it appeared the fatal shot to the back of the Presidents head was an exit wound. And later when he closely examined the classic Abraham Zapruder film, he decided there had to be a second gunman. That he (Kennedy) was shot from the front, from the picket fence, adjoining the plaza.

http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2013/11/18/surgeon-who-tried-to-save-jfk-reflects-on-50th-anniversary-of-assassination/

Wait a minute, Ward. You are on record believing that the Zapruder film was altered in order to hide a conspiracy, yet you believe that this altered film turned a lone nut theorist into a conspiracy theorist?

[Malcolm Ward]

me from behind and was likely the work of Lee Harvey Oswald, it appeared the fatal shot to the back of the Presidents head was an exit wound. And later when he closely examined the classic Abraham Zapruder film, he decided there had to be a second gunman. That he (Kennedy) was shot from the front, from the picket fence, adjoining the plaza.

http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2013/11/18/surgeon-who-tried-to-save-jfk-reflects-on-50th-anniversary-of-assassination/

Wait a minute, Ward. You are on record believing that the Zapruder film was altered in order to hide a conspiracy, yet you believe that this altered film turned a lone nut theorist into a conspiracy theorist?

My,you sound angry Perez.Like Pat Speer,my opinion is evolving.I am williing to see past my own prejudices.And opinions,at times.I once thought that the Secret Service was not involved.I no longer hold that view.The Assassination happened,because the Secret Service was not protecting the President.

[Vince Palamara]

Good thread. Pat, you have me rethinking this whole matter of the back-of-the-head position.

WHAT is your take on Crenshaw/ his book?

[Andric Perez]

me from behind and was likely the work of Lee Harvey Oswald, it appeared the fatal shot to the back of the Presidents head was an exit wound. And later when he closely examined the classic Abraham Zapruder film, he decided there had to be a second gunman. That he (Kennedy) was shot from the front, from the picket fence, adjoining the plaza.

http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2013/11/18/surgeon-who-tried-to-save-jfk-reflects-on-50th-anniversary-of-assassination/

Wait a minute, Ward. You are on record believing that the Zapruder film was altered in order to hide a conspiracy, yet you believe that this altered film turned a lone nut theorist into a conspiracy theorist?

My,you sound angry Perez.Like Pat Speer,my opinion is evolving.I am williing to see past my own prejudices.And opinions,at times.I once thought that the Secret Service was not involved.I no longer hold that view.The Assassination happened,because the Secret Service was not protecting the President.

You could easily say that Prudhomme seems angry (not "sounds angry", as he is not speaking, he's typing), but he is on your side of the argument. So you will pretend that those opposiing your view are angry, while you and those on your side are calm and collected. Not surprisingly, you claim to sense anger in Pat's words, too. Shocker!

In fact, the likelihood of you being angry right now is high, as it was not your plan to tout testimony (McClelland's) that goes against the film alteration theory. Having stated that you believed the film was altered was supposed to be a secret, but now someone called you out on it, due to your reliance on the same film. That would make me angry. But it's ok. Evolving views happen all the time. Even in the case of "gunshot expert" McClelland. Now take a deep breath and relax.

[Vince Palamara]

DR KEMP CLARK:

"Killing The Truth", p. 702---"Although I [Livingstone] had no interview, Dr. Kemp Clark passed a verbal message to me in his outer office that the picture of the back of the head was inaccurate.";

1/5/94, 1/20/94, and 1/28/94 interviews with David Naro [see COPA 1994

abstract]---"The lower right occipital region of the head was blown out and I

saw cerebellum. In my opinion, the wound was an exit wound…a large hole

in the back of the President's head…blown out";