The JFK Autopsy Observations of Lt. Richard Lipsey

[Robert Prudhomme]

I think the time has come to discuss the observations of JFK's autopsy made by Lt. Richard Lipsey, and to further discuss who Lipsey was, and how it came to be he was able to witness almost the entire autopsy from such close quarters.

[Sandy Larsen]

I first became aware of Lt. Lipsey when I was debating a friend of mine regarding the body alteration theory. I claimed that somewhere along the way to Bethesda, JFK's body was removed from his ornamental casket and placed in a cheap casket. And that the cheap casket was placed in a decoy ambulance. I used HSCA testimony to bolster my case (to my friend's surprise) and he used Bugliosi's book (to my delight. )

Of course I won the debate (because the testimony supported my side), though my friend would never admit so. He just became frustrated and quit debating. (BTW, he's no slouch, having graduated top of his class at UC Berkeley. He just chose the wrong person to help him in the debate. The really sad thing is that he still trusts Bugliosi's account.)

Lipsey was aware of the decoy ambulance, the purpose of which (as was explained to him) was to keep the crowds from getting too close to Kennedy's body. But he didn't think the ploy through and, IIRC, continued to think the body was in the ambulance carrying Jackie and the ornamental casket. Which, of course, would have defeated the purpose of having a decoy ambulance.

I believe it was an Admiral Galloway who informed Lipsey of the decoy ambulance. I also believe it was he who drove the decoy ambulance, and was involved in a chase where he intentionally outran a truck carrying the Casket Team (pallbearers). It's a fascinating story... if you read the true one.

Lt. Lipsey was a close aide to General Philip Wehle, the Commanding General of the Military District of Washington (MDW) The MDW was in charge of the funeral. Lipsey was instructed not to let the body out of his sight. And so he attended the autopsy.

(BTW, I now suspect that the casket in the decoy ambulance was empty and that the body was transported by helicopter instead.)

Edited September 19, 2016 by Sandy Larsen

[Robert Prudhomme]

Thanks for the brief biography, Sandy.

As can be seen, Lipsey had no medical experience and this was, in fact, the first autopsy he had ever witnessed. According to the HSCA interview, Lipsey witnessed the entire autopsy plus the enbalming and reconstruction process performed by the morticians; only leaving the theatre for breaks of a few minutes when General Wehle stopped in to relieve him. Lipsey had a good vantage point, too, no more than 12-15 feet from the table on which JFK's corpse lay during the autopsy. From what he described, the three doctors made no effort to conceal their discussions from Lipsey and the others present, although Lipsey was the first to admit a lot of the medical discussion went right over his head.

The thing I like most about Lt. Richard Lipsey is he kept his oath of silence for 14 years following the autopsy, discussing with no one what went on at that autopsy. It was only at the request of the HSCA interviewers that he reluctantly broke his oath of silence. Following the interview, he didn't go on speaking tours or write books about his JFK experience but, instead, went back to the quiet life he had been living since he left the military in 1974 and, as far as I can tell, made no effort to share his recollections further.

The amazing thing about Lipsey's interview is that while, in 2016, the details provide earth shattering revelations to those of us well studied in the medical evidence of the JFK assassination, how many in 1978, outside of a handful of researchers, would appreciate the full implications of what his recollections pointed to? Did Lipsey himself understand the implications of the wounds he was describing? I really don't believe so, as he parrots the autopsy doctors in describing three bullets striking JFK from behind and high up, and all three bullets that struck JFK coming from the same weapon. Although he never says so in the interview, he seems to support the notion of a single shooter and he looks down upon conspiracy theorists as uninformed amateurs.

Lt. Richard Lipsey's interview is valuable simply because I believe he is answering every question as honestly as he can. With no axe to grind, he seems to be delivering the real goods to us.

http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/med_testimony/Lipsey_1-18-78/HSCA-Lipsey.htm

[Thomas Graves]

Thanks for the brief biography, Sandy.

As can be seen, Lipsey had no medical experience and this was, in fact, the first autopsy he had ever witnessed. According to the HSCA interview, Lipsey witnessed the entire autopsy plus the enbalming and reconstruction process performed by the morticians; only leaving the theatre for breaks of a few minutes when General Wehle stopped in to relieve him. Lipsey had a good vantage point, too, no more than 12-15 feet from the table on which JFK's corpse lay during the autopsy. From what he described, the three doctors made no effort to conceal their discussions from Lipsey and the others present, although Lipsey was the first to admit a lot of the medical discussion went right over his head.

The thing I like most about Lt. Richard Lipsey is he kept his oath of silence for 14 years following the autopsy, discussing with no one what went on at that autopsy. It was only at the request of the HSCA interviewers that he reluctantly broke his oath of silence. Following the interview, he didn't go on speaking tours or write books about his JFK experience but, instead, went back to the quiet life he had been living since he left the military in 1974 and, as far as I can tell, made no effort to share his recollections further.

The amazing thing about Lipsey's interview is that while, in 2016, the details provide earth shattering revelations to those of us well studied in the medical evidence of the JFK assassination, how many in 1978, outside of a handful of researchers, would appreciate the full implications of what his recollections pointed to? Did Lipsey himself understand the implications of the wounds he was describing? I really don't believe so, as he parrots the autopsy doctors in describing three bullets striking JFK from behind and high up, and all three bullets that struck JFK coming from the same weapon. Although he never says so in the interview, he seems to support the notion of a single shooter and he looks down upon conspiracy theorists as uninformed amateurs.

Lt. Richard Lipsey's interview is valuable simply because I believe he is answering every question as honestly as he can. With no axe to grind, he seems to be delivering the real goods to us.

http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/med_testimony/Lipsey_1-18-78/HSCA-Lipsey.htm

Three shots to the head from the same gun? An automatic?

-- Tommy

Edited September 20, 2016 by Thomas Graves

[Robert Prudhomme]

Thanks for the brief biography, Sandy.

As can be seen, Lipsey had no medical experience and this was, in fact, the first autopsy he had ever witnessed. According to the HSCA interview, Lipsey witnessed the entire autopsy plus the enbalming and reconstruction process performed by the morticians; only leaving the theatre for breaks of a few minutes when General Wehle stopped in to relieve him. Lipsey had a good vantage point, too, no more than 12-15 feet from the table on which JFK's corpse lay during the autopsy. From what he described, the three doctors made no effort to conceal their discussions from Lipsey and the others present, although Lipsey was the first to admit a lot of the medical discussion went right over his head.

The thing I like most about Lt. Richard Lipsey is he kept his oath of silence for 14 years following the autopsy, discussing with no one what went on at that autopsy. It was only at the request of the HSCA interviewers that he reluctantly broke his oath of silence. Following the interview, he didn't go on speaking tours or write books about his JFK experience but, instead, went back to the quiet life he had been living since he left the military in 1974 and, as far as I can tell, made no effort to share his recollections further.

The amazing thing about Lipsey's interview is that while, in 2016, the details provide earth shattering revelations to those of us well studied in the medical evidence of the JFK assassination, how many in 1978, outside of a handful of researchers, would appreciate the full implications of what his recollections pointed to? Did Lipsey himself understand the implications of the wounds he was describing? I really don't believe so, as he parrots the autopsy doctors in describing three bullets striking JFK from behind and high up, and all three bullets that struck JFK coming from the same weapon. Although he never says so in the interview, he seems to support the notion of a single shooter and he looks down upon conspiracy theorists as uninformed amateurs.

Lt. Richard Lipsey's interview is valuable simply because I believe he is answering every question as honestly as he can. With no axe to grind, he seems to be delivering the real goods to us.

http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/med_testimony/Lipsey_1-18-78/HSCA-Lipsey.htm

Three shots to the head from the same gun? An automatic?

-- Tommy

Lipsey did not describe three shots to the head, Thomas. He heard the autopsy doctors describe three entrance wounds; one in the back of JFK's head, one high on the back of the neck just below the back of the skull and one at the base of the back of the neck.

Go to the link and read the interview. It is an eye opener.

http://www.history-m...HSCA-Lipsey.htm

Edited September 20, 2016 by Robert Prudhomme

[Ron Ecker]

So let me ask you, Robert, based on your hunting experience or other knowledge of ballistics. Lipsey believes that one bullet entered the back of the head, blew out the back of the head, and in addition blew out the right side of the head including the right side of the face.

Is that even conceivable?

[Paul Trejo]

Robert,

OK, your introduction was good -- Lipsey was a layperson -- not a surgeon or even an intern. He only recalls what he recalls as a layperson. His claim to fame is that he observed and overheard the autopsy surgeons as they performed the JFK autopsy. Let's review part of his HSCA testimony:

------------- BEGIN EXTRACT OF HSCA TESTIMONY OF LT. RICHARD LIPSEY - 1978 --------

LIPSEY: ....From listening to the doctors, watching the autopsy, there was no question in their minds that the bullets came from the same direction that all three bullets came from the same place at the same time. They weren't different angles.They all had the same pattern to them.

Q: Okay, getting back to the bullets themselves, not the bullets themselves but the entrances, can you just go over again the entrances as you remember them?

LIPSEY: Alright, as I remember them there was one bullet that went in the back of the head that exited and blew away part of his face. And that was sort of high up, not high up but like this little crown on the back of your head right there, three or four inches above your neck. And then the other one entered at more of less the top of the neck, the other one entered more of less at the bottom of the neck.

------------- BEGIN EXTRACT OF HSCA TESTIMONY OF LT. RICHARD LIPSEY - 1978 --------

IMHO there are three interesting aspects to Lipsey's non-expert memories:

(1) He recalls hearing about three bullets that entered JFK's head. So much for the SBT and the Lone Nut theory.

(2) All the bullet's came from behind JFK. So much for the Grassy Knoll theory.

(3) He recalls that the right-side of JFK's face (on the left side of the observer) was "blown away." That was news to me.

It is important that Lipsey was not a surgeon, and that he admits he misunderstood the technical language of the surgeons as they spoke to each other, and so it is 50-50 that he understood these descriptions correctly. His testimony was, he admitted, 14 years after the fact.

Yet it is also significant that his "take-away" from the autopsy was that: (A.) there were three bullets that hit JFK alone; and (B.) the surgeons searched high and low for a bullet that entered JFK and never exited, and they could not find it, no matter how much surgery they did.

IMHO, all this adds confirmation to two important CT's -- the first one is from David Lifton in his book, Best Evidence (1980), which argues that the Bethesda autopsy was manipulated by political operatives.

The second theory confirmed is from Professor David Wrone, that under orders from LBJ through J. Edgar Hoover, all the JFK evidence had to be forced into a "Lone Nut" (LN) theory, with its mandatory corollary, the Single Bullet Theory (SBT), which had been decided upon shortly after 3pm on 11/22/1963 -- long before JFK's body arrived at Bethesda.

Political orders travel faster than airplanes.

Photographs were faked and all evidence was faked so poorly in support of Hoover's LN and SBT theory, that for the WC hearings and exhibits, the autopsy photographs and X-rays had to be withheld from the WC, and shabby hand-drawings were used instead.

Interesting thread. It supports a Hoover-based LN, as I read it, and therefore also supports a Walker-did-it CT.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited September 20, 2016 by Paul Trejo

[Thomas Graves]

Robert,

OK, your introduction was good -- Lipsey was a layperson -- not a surgeon or even an intern. He only recalls what he recalls as a layperson. His claim to fame is that he observed and overheard the autopsy surgeons as they performed the JFK autopsy. Let's review part of his HSCA testimony:

------------- BEGIN EXTRACT OF HSCA TESTIMONY OF LT. RICHARD LIPSEY - 1978 --------

LIPSEY: ....From listening to the doctors, watching the autopsy, there was no question in their minds that the bullets came from the same direction that all three bullets came from the same place at the same time. They weren't different angles.They all had the same pattern to them.

Q: Okay, getting back to the bullets themselves, not the bullets themselves but the entrances, can you just go over again the entrances as you remember them?

LIPSEY: Alright, as I remember them there was one bullet that went in the back of the head that exited and blew away part of his face. And that was sort of high up, not high up but like this little crown on the back of your head right there, three or four inches above your neck. And then the other one entered at more of less the top of the neck, the other one entered more of less at the bottom of the neck.

------------- BEGIN EXTRACT OF HSCA TESTIMONY OF LT. RICHARD LIPSEY - 1978 --------

IMHO there are three interesting aspects to Lipsey's non-expert memories:

(1) He recalls three bullets that entered JFK's head. So much for the SBT and the Lone Nut theory.

(2) All the bullet's came from behind JFK. So much for the Grassy Knoll theory.

(3) He recalls that the right-side of JFK's face (on the left side of the observer) was "blown away." That was news to me.

It is important that Lipsey was not a surgeon, and that he admits he misunderstood the technical language of the surgeons as they spoke to each other, and so it is 50-50 that he understood these descriptions correctly. His testimony was, he admitted, 14 years after the fact.

Yet it is also significant that his "take-away" from the autopsy was that: (A.) there were three bullets in JFK alone; and (B.) the surgeons searched high and low for a bullet that entered JFK and never exited, and they could not find it, no matter how much surgery they did.

IMHO, all this adds confirmation to two important CT's -- the first one is from David Lifton in his book, Best Evidence (1980), which argues that the Bethesda autopsy was manipulated by political operatives.

The second theory confirmed is from Professor David Wrone, that under orders from LBJ through J. Edgar Hoover, all the JFK evidence had to be forced into a "Lone Nut" (LN) theory, with its mandatory corollary, the Single Bullet Theory (SBT), which had been decided upon shortly after 3pm on 11/22/1963 -- long before JFK's body arrived at Bethesda.

Political orders travel faster than airplanes.

Photographs were faked and all evidence was faked so poorly in support of Hoover's LN and SBT theory, that for the WC hearings and exhibits, the autopsy photographs and X-rays had to be withheld from the WC, and shabby hand-drawings were used instead.

Interesting thread. It supports a Hoover-based LN, as I read it, and therefore also supports a Walker-did-it CT.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Dear Paul,

How could three bullets to the head support anyone's Lone Nut theory?

Or does LN here stand for Longish Narrative?

-- Tommy

Edited September 20, 2016 by Thomas Graves

[Joe Bauer]

Posted Today, 09:02 PM

So let me ask you, Robert, based on your hunting experience or other knowledge of ballistics. Lipsey believes that one bullet entered the back of the head, blew out the back of the head, and in addition blew out the right side of the head including the right side of the face.

Is that even conceivable?

I too was always curious about how much damage the supposed "3rd" shot bullet actually did to JFK's head.

It seemed to not just obliterate a third or more of his skull into many separate pieces but also "explode" it's inside brain matter into an outward trajectory spray so powerful it covered the back of the presidential limo and even went so high and far in back, it went into the faces and clothes of the following DPD motorcycle officer's ( at least one ) faces.

I have never hunted in my life and have never even owned a gun in 65 years, so I am really uneducated in the area of guns, ballistics and bullet damage to bodies and heads.

But have deer hunters with similar caliber rifles and bullets as the Carcano hit deer in their heads ( from 265 feet away ) and seen that much damage?

Perhaps the answer is a simple yes. I don't have a clue.

But is it possible that JFK's head was hit with a different type bullet than the ones used by the Italian Carcano?

A bullet that had a more deadly and powerful make up?

Could it be that the testimony of some Dealey Plaza witnesses ( I only know of two so far-Beverly Oliver- and a person in her presentation audience who was there that day ) that the last shot seemed different in sound and intensity from the other earlier shots - that it seemed louder and more powerful ( a "BOOM" versus a "BANG" ) add some weight of logic to the scenario of a different weapon firing the head shot?

I don't know how many other Dealey Plaza witnesses ever described the three shots in the different sound way as I have described, but if it were true that the 3rd shot did sound different than the first two, how could the same rifle being fired make different sounds like that?

Posted Today, 09:02 PM

So let me ask you, Robert, based on your hunting experience or other knowledge of ballistics. Lipsey believes that one bullet entered the back of the head, blew out the back of the head, and in addition blew out the right side of the head including the right side of the face.

Is that even conceivable?

[Robert Prudhomme]

So let me ask you, Robert, based on your hunting experience or other knowledge of ballistics. Lipsey believes that one bullet entered the back of the head, blew out the back of the head, and in addition blew out the right side of the head including the right side of the face.

Is that even conceivable?

Nope. But it fooled Lipsey, and several others.

Edited September 20, 2016 by Robert Prudhomme

[Robert Prudhomme]

Robert,

OK, your introduction was good -- Lipsey was a layperson -- not a surgeon or even an intern. He only recalls what he recalls as a layperson. His claim to fame is that he observed and overheard the autopsy surgeons as they performed the JFK autopsy. Let's review part of his HSCA testimony:

------------- BEGIN EXTRACT OF HSCA TESTIMONY OF LT. RICHARD LIPSEY - 1978 --------

LIPSEY: ....From listening to the doctors, watching the autopsy, there was no question in their minds that the bullets came from the same direction that all three bullets came from the same place at the same time. They weren't different angles.They all had the same pattern to them.

Q: Okay, getting back to the bullets themselves, not the bullets themselves but the entrances, can you just go over again the entrances as you remember them?

LIPSEY: Alright, as I remember them there was one bullet that went in the back of the head that exited and blew away part of his face. And that was sort of high up, not high up but like this little crown on the back of your head right there, three or four inches above your neck. And then the other one entered at more of less the top of the neck, the other one entered more of less at the bottom of the neck.

------------- BEGIN EXTRACT OF HSCA TESTIMONY OF LT. RICHARD LIPSEY - 1978 --------

IMHO there are three interesting aspects to Lipsey's non-expert memories:

(1) He recalls hearing about three bullets that entered JFK's head. So much for the SBT and the Lone Nut theory.

(2) All the bullet's came from behind JFK. So much for the Grassy Knoll theory.

(3) He recalls that the right-side of JFK's face (on the left side of the observer) was "blown away." That was news to me.

It is important that Lipsey was not a surgeon, and that he admits he misunderstood the technical language of the surgeons as they spoke to each other, and so it is 50-50 that he understood these descriptions correctly. His testimony was, he admitted, 14 years after the fact.

Yet it is also significant that his "take-away" from the autopsy was that: (A.) there were three bullets that hit JFK alone; and (B.) the surgeons searched high and low for a bullet that entered JFK and never exited, and they could not find it, no matter how much surgery they did.

IMHO, all this adds confirmation to two important CT's -- the first one is from David Lifton in his book, Best Evidence (1980), which argues that the Bethesda autopsy was manipulated by political operatives.

The second theory confirmed is from Professor David Wrone, that under orders from LBJ through J. Edgar Hoover, all the JFK evidence had to be forced into a "Lone Nut" (LN) theory, with its mandatory corollary, the Single Bullet Theory (SBT), which had been decided upon shortly after 3pm on 11/22/1963 -- long before JFK's body arrived at Bethesda.

Political orders travel faster than airplanes.

Photographs were faked and all evidence was faked so poorly in support of Hoover's LN and SBT theory, that for the WC hearings and exhibits, the autopsy photographs and X-rays had to be withheld from the WC, and shabby hand-drawings were used instead.

Interesting thread. It supports a Hoover-based LN, as I read it, and therefore also supports a Walker-did-it CT.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

The only correction I would like to make is that I am unable to find anything in his interview that says he overheard there were three bullets that entered JFK's skull.

From what I read, one bullet entered the skull, one entered the back of the neck high up just below the skull and the thirs entered low on the back of the neck.

[Ron Ecker]

Robert,

Lipsey also appears to offer an explanation for the "shallow" back wound (which I assume is what he calls the wound low in the back of the neck). It wasn't shallow at all, the pathologists, according to Lipsey, thought the bullet was somewhere down in the body and they simply gave up looking for it.

[Ron Ecker]

It's interesting that Lipsey, who was there virtually the whole time, recalls that everyone there wore surgical gowns, with a couple of seemingly insignificant exceptions. He doesn't mention anyone being in a gallery (if there was even a gallery there), in particular an Air Force general who liked to chomp on cigars.

Edited September 20, 2016 by Ron Ecker

[Robert Prudhomme]

Posted Today, 09:02 PM

So let me ask you, Robert, based on your hunting experience or other knowledge of ballistics. Lipsey believes that one bullet entered the back of the head, blew out the back of the head, and in addition blew out the right side of the head including the right side of the face.

Is that even conceivable?

I too was always curious about how much damage the supposed "3rd" shot bullet actually did to JFK's head.

It seemed to not just obliterate a third or more of his skull into many separate pieces but also "explode" it's inside brain matter into an outward trajectory spray so powerful it covered the back of the presidential limo and even went so high and far in back, it went into the faces and clothes of the following DPD motorcycle officer's ( at least one ) faces.

I have never hunted in my life and have never even owned a gun in 65 years, so I am really uneducated in the area of guns, ballistics and bullet damage to bodies and heads.

But have deer hunters with similar caliber rifles and bullets as the Carcano hit deer in their heads ( from 265 feet away ) and seen that much damage?

Perhaps the answer is a simple yes. I don't have a clue.

But is it possible that JFK's head was hit with a different type bullet than the ones used by the Italian Carcano?

A bullet that had a more deadly and powerful make up?

Could it be that the testimony of some Dealey Plaza witnesses ( I only know of two so far-Beverly Oliver- and a person in her presentation audience who was there that day ) that the last shot seemed different in sound and intensity from the other earlier shots - that it seemed louder and more powerful ( a "BOOM" versus a "BANG" ) add some weight of logic to the scenario of a different weapon firing the head shot?

I don't know how many other Dealey Plaza witnesses ever described the three shots in the different sound way as I have described, but if it were true that the 3rd shot did sound different than the first two, how could the same rifle being fired make different sounds like that?

Posted Today, 09:02 PM

So let me ask you, Robert, based on your hunting experience or other knowledge of ballistics. Lipsey believes that one bullet entered the back of the head, blew out the back of the head, and in addition blew out the right side of the head including the right side of the face.

Is that even conceivable?

As I said to Ron Ecker....nope.

Let me tell you a story. Where I live here, on a group of islands on the northwest coast of Canada, there is a species of deer that, while not being overly large, are extremely plentiful. They are so plentiful, the season goes from June of one year to the end of February next year. There is a yearly bag limit of fifteen deer per hunter, and the daily possession limit is three per hunter.

When hunting deer, most hunters will try to go for a "lung shot" by shooting a deer in the chest. With a deer standing sideways to the hunter, the ribcage of the deer presents a fairly large target, both tall and wide. A bullet entering anywhere in this area will put a hole in the pleural cavity, as well as rupturing one and possibly both lungs and collapsing them. As well, the pleural cavity contains a large network of pulmonary arteries and veins, and one is almost guaranteed to sever some of these and induce a massive haemorrhage of blood. If the deer is able to still walk after being shot here, he won't go far.

The problem with shooting smaller deer in this area, especially if one is attempting to recover the maximum amount of meat possible, is that it is very easy to be off a bit with your shot and damage meat in the shoulder or backstrap area. As well, many people find the heart to be a delicacy, and putting a bullet through the heart renders it inedible.

The solution is to go for a head shot. It is a smaller target, though, and shooting a deer here does not always guarantee a clean kill.

My favorite rifle was a bolt action .308 calibre rifle. I would sometimes hand load cartridges for it, and at other times just shoot "factory" ammunition. I found 130 and 150 grain bullets to be quite effective on our deer. One day, when purchasing ammo, I noticed on the shelf a box of 110 grain "hollow point" slugs in the .30 calibre size needed for my rifle. Knowing that hollow point bullets expanded much more and more rapidly than the soft point bullets I normally used, I purchased these slugs and hand loaded some rifle cartridges with them, in the hopes the rapid expansion of these bullets would make for a better kill in a head shot.

Well, they worked, far better than I ever imagined they would. In fact, the results were so obscene, I was embarrassed to have anyone see these deer after I shot them, and quit using them after they ran out. Inevitably, there would be a very large exit wound, and not always in line with the path of the bullet. Shooting a deer in the side of the head, for instance, could sometimes blow the top of its head off; 90° from the path of the bullet.

Do you know what every one of these shots had in common, though? On every deer, these hollow point bullets made a tiny entrance wound the same size as the bullet, and did no damage to any of the area around the entrance wound.

The entrance wound described by Lipsey, in which the impact of the bullet "blows out" the skull around the entrance wound, is a lie, especially for a non-expanding full metal jacket bullet.

Edited September 20, 2016 by Robert Prudhomme

[Sandy Larsen]

Guys,

When Lipsey says the face was blown away, it is clear to me that he is saying that there was extensive damage to the bones in the face. He may have assumed some of the bone in the face area was missing, as was the case with the top of the head.

When he says they were all wearing surgical gowns, he was talking about the people performing the autopsy. Apparently the general and unidentified civilians didn't impress him. Or maybe he didn't mention them because their presence there seemed irrelevant to him.