David Lifton teases Final Charade on the Night Fright Show

[Micah Mileto]

On 10/24/2020 at 9:32 PM, David Lifton said:

See also prior discussion. (There may be some repetition. Will try to further revise later). DSL

Did Dr. David Stewart tell you anything about the information about a wound in the left temple? He always said it was discussed among the Parkland staff but he quotes I have now don't specifically name any witnesses. Will any new information bout that be in Final Charade?

 

I made this long discussion on information suggesting small wound(s) on the front of the head:

This is as complete as I could manage to get it.

[Micah Mileto]

https://www.gofundme.com/f/publishing-final-charade-seq-to-best-evidence

 

Back in September, David made a gofundme for publishing Final Charade! I didn't know until now.

[David Lifton]

On 11/24/2020 at 12:09 PM, David Andrews said:

I don't mean to belabor, but isn't there a competing report, by a doctor, describing the esophagus as pushed to the left and bruised on the right side?  I'm sorry that I can't cite the witness.  It seems that this was at Parkland, and was used to describe the need for a wide trach incision and the difficulty of inserting the trach tube.

RE: (Quoting )"... and was used to describe the need for a wide trach incision.."   ("was used [as an excuse] to describe the need for a wide trach incision".  Let's focus on the word "used".  Used. . by whom?  Keep in mnd what Dr. Perry told me, when i telephoned him (October 1966) and asked, the size (i.e., the width) of the trach incision he had made.  His response: "2- 3 cm".  Contrast this with what Humes wrote in the autopsy report ( "6.5 cm") and when he testified (Spring 1964 - "7 - 8 cm")/  All this is described in detail in Best Evidence.  DSL

Edited March 6, 2021 by David Lifton

[David Lifton]

On 3/4/2021 at 4:15 PM, David Lifton said:

RE: "... and was used to describe the need for a wide trach incision.."   (i.e., "was used [i.e., as an excuse] to describe the need for a wide trach incision").  Let's begin by focusing on the word "used".  Used. . by whom?  Keep in mnd what Dr. Perry told me, when I telephoned him (October 1966) and asked him about the size (i.e., the width) of the trach incision that he made.  His response: "2- 3 cm" (and, as I recall, he added that one didn't need an incision larger than that.)  Contrast what Dr. Perry told me with what Commander Humes wrote in the autopsy report, transmitted to higher authority on 11/24/63 ("6.5 cm") and when he testified in March 1964 ("7 - 8 cm").   All this is described in detail in Best Evidence (Ch. 11) - - which is devoted to the length of the trach incision.  DSL

 

Edited March 6, 2021 by David Lifton

[David Lifton]

No text. Sorry.

[Micah Mileto]

On 3/3/2018 at 12:29 PM, David Lifton said:

Sandy:  I'm going to explore the matter of the steno tape, as discussed in the previous lengthy post. I am also going to obtain a copy of the Nashville Banner story, which marks the first time that Dr. Stewart ever spoke publicly on this matter. Pat V is checking the  Dave Stewart filmed interview, and I am retrieving certain memos that I wrote back in 1989, after the extraordinary experiences we had with both Stewart and Groden.  None of this will happen overnight, but I'll see what can be done.

Any progress in digitizing that Stewart/Groden stuff?

[David Lifton]

1 hour ago, Micah Mileto said:

Any progress in digitizing that Stewart/Groden stuff?

Not yet.  Sorry. DSL

 

1 hour ago, Micah Mileto said:

Any progress in digitizing that Stewart/Groden stuff?

 

[David Lifton]

On 3/6/2021 at 12:49 AM, David Lifton said:

No text. Sorry.

Having computer problems. Meant to write: "Not yet; sorry."

[David Lifton]

46 minutes ago, David Lifton said:

Having computer problems. Meant to write: "Not yet; sorry."

CORRECTION: MeN ro write, "Not yet, sorry."

[David Lifton]

On 11/29/2016 at 9:16 PM, Daniel Gallup said:

Let's hope David Lifton finishes his Magnum Opus soon.  If the finished work is as good as the effort he has put into it, it will be the crowning achievement of a life time.  Godspeed, David!

Thanks. Dan.  (Will communicate further via email).  DSL

Edited October 9, 2021 by David Lifton

[Micah Mileto]

More on the alleged  1979 interview between Robert Groden and Dr. Malcolm Perry. From Best Evidence, 1992 edition:

 

[…Afterword]

 

One doctor I didn’t see in 1983 was Dr. Malcolm Perry, the man who performed the Dallas tracheotomy. Shortly after President Kennedy’s body left Parkland Hospital, Dr. Perry held a news conference at which he stated—three times—that the President was shot in the throat from the front. (See pp. 71-72) The wound was “3-5 mm,” he told Humes the morning after the shooting. In 1966, Dr. Perry told me his incision through that wound was 2-3 cm. (See p. 278) In 1979, researcher Robert Groden, a consultant to the House Assassinations Committee, was present at an unofficial, privately arranged meeting when Dr. Perry was shown an autopsy photograph clearly showing the throat wound. Dr. Perry looked at the picture, shook his head from side to side, and then, on the condition that he not be quoted, gave his reaction: The tracheotomy was too large; it was not the trach he had made. He said the throat wound in the picture was “larger, expanded” and that his was “neater.’’ Dr. Perry said the head wound was not the way he remembered it either, and that the picture published in Six Seconds in Dallas (a picture prepared by Dr. McClelland and similar to my Figure 20 [left side]) was much closer. Of Dr. Perry’s reaction, Groden said: “It was one of the most vivid memories I have of this case. I knew it was important. I knew it was historic.

 

Groden first told me of the meeting with Perry shortly after it occurred. He had honored Dr. Perry’s confidence these many years, but has now given me permission to quote what Dr. Perry said in 1979 because Dr. Perry has recently told the television program Nova that he sees no discrepancy between the tracheotomy incision he made and the tracheotomy wound depicted on the Dox drawing (i.e., the artist’s rendition of an autopsy photograph showing the throat wound. See Photo 35).

 

From the 1989 book High Treason by Harrison Livingstone and Robert Groden:

 

[…Part II: The Medical Evidence, Chapter 2p: The President’s Head Wounds And The New Evidence Of Forgery]

 

I wanted to show the picture of the back of the Presidents head to the medical witnesses in Dallas who had seen the body. I had seen what purported to be the actual autopsy photos, and thus possessed knowledge that had been denied even to the doctors who treated the President at Parkland. In 1979, I traveled to Dallas on a trip paid for by Steve Parks of The Baltimore Sun and was the first person to show some of the Dallas doctors the HSCA tracings of the autopsy pictures. Since then, myself, The Baltimore Sun, and Ben Bradlee, Jr. of The Boston Globe have compiled the testimony of a number of additional witnesses, and the startling conclusion of their work is clear: The autopsy pictures are, fake, and hold the key to the true nature of the plot which took the life of the President. (The research conducted by the Globe and the Sun was subsequently turned over to me and placed in the JFK Library in Boston.)

 

[…]

 

In 1979, Dr. Malcolm Perry - one of the most important witnesses among the Parkland doctors - who refused to be interviewed by Ben Bradlee, Jr., was shown copies of the alleged autopsy photos by Jeff Price of The Baltimore Sun. It was an emotional encounter and Dr. Perry was moved almost to tears. He said the pictures of the back of the head were not accurate.

 

In an article in The Baltimore Sun headlined "The Bullets Also Destroyed Our Confidence"55 Steve Parks wrote: "Why were the doctors at Parkland Hospital who tried to save the president's life and who declared him dead never consulted about the autopsy (conducted by military authorities), and why have the autopsy photos never been shown to these doctors? Earlier this year, during an investigation by the Sun, one doctor who had been given access to copies of the photos said the president's head wounds in the pictures were not consistent with what he recalled seeing that day 16 years ago." This was Dr. Malcolm Perry.

 

[…]

 

The Sun published the fact that Dr. Malcolm Perry hotly denounced the picture, but the Globe, although they did not interview him, said that he supported the autopsy photograph. They did not print the denial or any reference to this doctor. In any event, the Sun's intensive interview with Dr. Perry was conducted in front of witnesses, and the results corroborated the testimony of every other witness who had been interviewed up to that time.

 

The Assassinations Committee interviewed Dr. Perry in 1978, but did not show him the autopsy photographs. Perry told the interviewer that he had looked at the head wound and that it "was located in the 'occipital parietal' region of the skull and that the right posterior aspect of the skull was missing."' It does not make sense that Dr. Perry and the only other two Parkland doctors (Jenkins and Carrico) the Committee interviewed would have somehow changed their observation that the back of the head was missing—for The Boston Globe.

 

In addition, the testimony of Dr. Perry to the Warren Commission, and his extensive first-hand experience with the wounds, makes any later retraction attributed to him not credible.

 

From the Baltimore Sun, 11/18/1979, The bullets also destroyed our confidence by Steve Parks:

 

[…] Why were the doctors at Parkland Hospital who tried to save the president's life and who declared him dead never consulted about the autopsy (conducted by military authorities), and why have the autopsy photos never been shown to these doctors? Earlier this year, during an investigation by the Sun, one doctor who had been given access to copies of the photos said the president's head wounds in the pictures were not consistent with what he recalled seeing that day 16 years ago.

 

From a 1981 report on interviews with medical witnesses by Ben Bradlee of the Boston Globe:

 

[...] Perry declined to be personally interviewed by The Globe, but, like Carrico, did send written replies to questions in two separate letters. In the first letter, Perry said that while he gave only a "cursory glance at the head wound...not sufficient for accurate descriptions." the autopsy photograph "seems to be consistent with what I saw." In his second letter, Perry simply reiterated that he did not make a careful examination of the head wound, and that in his opinion, the only person qualified to give a good description of the wound was Dr. Clark.

 

From the Boston Globe, 6/21/1981, Dispute on JFK assassination evidence persists by Ben Bradlee:

 

Some Warren Commission critics and other researchers have erroneously cited this drawing as representing the Dallas doctors' and nurses' sole view of the head wound.

 

Actually, according to Globe interviews, they are not unanimous in their opinions or recollections. Five of the doctors and nurses agree with McClelland on the drawing and strongly assert that the wound was in the back of the head; four other doctors say that the tracing of the autopsy photograph shown them by The Globe is "consistent" with their recollection of the head wound.

 

Two doctors lean toward this official view. while five others tend toward the McClelland view that the wound was in the rear of the head, but 'all short of giving it a blanket endorsement.

 

Of the six doctors who said that they agree or tend to agree with the official tracing showing no gaping wound extending into the occipital region, five have, at one time or another, gone on record as saying that the wound did extend into the occiput.

 

From an early draft of a chapter for Harrison Livingstone’s 1992 book High Treason 2:

 

How can Groden narrate the Zapruder film and not be able to answer the questions "What is that coming out of his face?" when the President is struck in the head with a bullet? "I don't know," he says.

 

Since he was my partner, I know that his M.O. is denial. Now you see it, now you don't. He has for a long time played a shell game with this evidence. At times I was shown different views of the back of the had. In one of them, there is clearly a line of small black crescents, a half an inch long and a half an inch apart all the way around where he says there is a matte line--just as though a can opener had been operating there. I ask him what that is--"I don't know" he responds. Sometime later he hauls out a picture of the back of the head again, and I can't find the crescents. "Where are the crescents?" "I don't know. You imagined that. There aren't any."

 

Well, Mark Crouch saw them too.

 

In 1979, Steve Parks and I saw both a color set of photographs and a black and white set at Groden's house. Later the black and white set seems to have disappeared. He says he never had black and whites, but David Lifton and numerous others saw them. Groden doesn't seem to have them anymore. Maybe he sold them.

 

He claimed never to have the Stare of Death picture, but both Lifton and myself recorded at different times having seen this unique photograph.

 

Groden says that he personally interviewed Dr. Malcolm Perry, an interview I set up, but Perry, Jeff Price, the reporter, and Steve Parks, the editor from the Sun, deny that Groden was allowed inside the interview. His pictures were not shown to Perry. The Sun (and most if not all newspapers) would never allow an outsider along on any personal interview, anyway.

 

And Groden has begun telling a colossal lie: That he discovered the conflict between the X-rays and the photographs and wrote a memo to someone on the Committee about it. How come his finding is not in his long memorandum which they published- -giving him total freedom?

 

Nothing in between. No painting. Lately I have found this sort of conflict in many of the facets of the evidence, and each time there is often an either/or situation, but no third possibility, no other ground to go, unless you look for it real hard. And now I am finding them, and for those who have co-opted this case, the answers I am coming up with seem to me to work a lot better.

 

From High Treason 2:

 

[...p. 121, Chapter 4, Parkland Memorial Hospital]

 

Perry denied, in a letter to me, saying to anyone that the cut in the photographs was larger than he had made it. “I’ve neither verified nor challenged the accuracy of any photos.”36

 

[...p. 160, Chapter 6. The Autopsy: Some Conflicts in the Evidence]

 

Dr. Crenshaw told me that the cut that Dr. Malcolm Perry made was much smaller and that he never would have made such a cut. The original report I had in 1979 from an interview I arranged but was not present for with Dr. Perry indicated that the cut was not the one he made. Dr. Perry will not dispute the photograph showing a two-inch cut, which Audrey Bell38 and all other Parkland witnesses-some of whom were filmed39-now have told me is accurate. Perry himself indicated to me that the photograph is accurate, though I admit the manner in which he did so was greatly convoluted and mysterious.

 

[...p. 336, Chapter 15. The Autopsy Photographs and Evidence of Forgery]

 

The incision is not as large as some critics have made it out to be. I had previously been misled into thinking that it was quite a bit large than what Dr. Perry had done, and that therefore someone had cut it open farther in probing for a bullet. But after talking to all of those Dallas witnesses who remembered it and to whom I showed these photographs, I cannot believe that it was enlarged. Without exception, everyone said that what is seen in the picture is accurate. Dr. Perry strongly denied that he had ever questioned the picture or even been asked about it, since the whole purpose of the Baltimore Sun visit I organized was to question him about the Back-of-the-Head pictures.

 

From an open letter by David Lifton responding to a 5/19/1992 episode of the MacNeil/Lehrer report on PBS:

 

In 1979 Dr. Perry saw for the first time a copy of the Bethesda autopsy photograph showing the large wound at the front of the throat. He responded by shaking his head from side to side, expressing great-surprise, and stating that this was not his tracheotomy incision, this was not the way he left the wound. The wound depicted in the picture was "larger, expanded"; his incision was "neater." Then, in a single word, Dr. Perry said a mouthful: Dr. Perry said he had left the wound "inviolate". (Dr. Perry used the word 'inviolate' on at least one previous occasion and in a similar context: in 1963, within days of the assassination. In a conversation with fellow Parkland doctor David Stewart. Perry expressed puzzlement that the tracheotomy he performed should have caused any confusion at the Bethesda end of the line. He told Dr. Stewart: "I left the wound inviolate".)

 

From Groden’s 1993 book The Killing of a President:

 

[...p. 77, The Medical Cover-Up Begins, The Throat Wound]

 

Dr. Malcolm Perry (above) described the original throat wound as “a very small injury [3 to 5 mm], with clear cut, although somewhat irregular margins of less than a quarter inch, with minimal damage surrounding it on the skin.” He was adamant that it was an entry wound. When interviewed in 1979, he still maintained that the bullet had entered the President’s throat from the front, but has since refused to go on the record with this information.

 

From Groden’s 1993 documentary JFK: The Case for Conspiracy:

 

There was a wound in the President's throat, a tiny wound described by the Dallas doctors as a small neat wound of entrance no more than three to five millimeters in size. This laceration was not noted as a gunshot wound during the autopsy. At the start of the life-saving efforts in Parkland Hospital in Dallas, Dr. Malcolm Perry utilized the existing bullet wound in the President's throat and added a small three-quarter inch horizontal slit through the bullet wound in order to insert a tracheal tube. This operation is called a tracheostomy. However, by the time the autopsy began, that small neat wound of entrance became a gaping wound nearly twenty times its original size as shown here.

 

Because of the mutilation of the President's throat the autopsies did not even know that there had been a bullet wound in the front of the President's neck. It was not until the morning after the autopsy was completed that Dr. Humes one of the autopsies spoke by phone to Dr. Perry in Dallas and learned for the first time that there had been a bullet wound in the president's throat. This notation was written by Dr. Humes as he spoke to Dr. Perry. By this time, the President's body had already been prepared for burial and could not be retrieved for further study.

 

Dr. Perry and all of the other doctors who related any information about the wound on the day of the assassination said that the wound was one of entrance. For the first few hours following the assassination, we heard the truth. The official story that was released around the country was that the President had been shot from the front, that the bullet entered his throat and ranged downward into the body and did not exit. In spite of the fact that all the doctors who saw the President's throat wound said it was one of entrance, the Warren Commission elected to ignore their testimony. That really happened to the wound in the President's neck? When the body left Dallas, the wound was a small neat wound of entrance with a three quarter inch horizontal slit through it. At the beginning of the autopsy, however, it was a large gaping wound. Where did the enlargement happen and who did it? One possible answer is that a bullet entered the President's body from the front and someone in control was aware of this. The bullet would then have to be removed before the official autopsy x-rays were taken. If a bullet were discovered coming from the front, it would destroy the pre-determined myth of a lone assassin.

 

From Groden’s appearance at a 2003 conference:

 

[…] As far as alteration of the body goes, the only evidence of that is the fact that when I interviewed Dr. Perry, he told me that he did not create that wound, he said- he stood up shocked and he pointed- pointed at the photograph, which I- again, I had shown him for the first time, he said I didn't do that. He said that's a butcher job. A tracheotomy hole is the size of a pencil to put a tube down there. If it leaks, it defeats the purpose. This hole is large enough to stick a fire hose down. It didn't work that way at all. It- it's sad but that's the case. […]

 

From another conference with Robert Groden, undated, uploaded to Youtube 9/28/2021 by the Lone Gunman channel UCAG--Ai7Xh56gr6nxnX-24A:

 

As far as alteration of the President's body goes, I believe that there’s there's- it's unquestionable that something was done to the president's throat. I interviewed Dr. Perry in 1978 and I showed him the autopsy photographs which he had never seen before, and he took a look at the throat wound in the photographs and he stood up at his desk and he was just shocked. He was silent for a moment, then he said ‘I didn't do that’, he said ‘that's a butchered job’. He said ‘I didn't do that’, and then he relived the entire tracheotomy, he stood up and he had his- what was supposed to be a- a scalpel in his hand and he showed doing it- doing the- the incision and said it was only about a little over an inch long he says- he just went on and on about why that couldn't have been what he had done. [...]

 

Edited September 29, 2021 by Micah Mileto

[David Lifton]

On 9/28/2021 at 9:22 PM, Micah Mileto said:

More on the alleged  1979 interview between Robert Groden and Dr. Malcolm Perry. From Best Evidence, 1992 edition:

 

[…Afterword]

 

One doctor I didn’t see in 1983 was Dr. Malcolm Perry, the man who performed the Dallas tracheotomy. Shortly after President Kennedy’s body left Parkland Hospital, Dr. Perry held a news conference at which he stated—three times—that the President was shot in the throat from the front. (See pp. 71-72) The wound was “3-5 mm,” he told Humes the morning after the shooting. In 1966, Dr. Perry told me his incision through that wound was 2-3 cm. (See p. 278) In 1979, researcher Robert Groden, a consultant to the House Assassinations Committee, was present at an unofficial, privately arranged meeting when Dr. Perry was shown an autopsy photograph clearly showing the throat wound. Dr. Perry looked at the picture, shook his head from side to side, and then, on the condition that he not be quoted, gave his reaction: The tracheotomy was too large; it was not the trach he had made. He said the throat wound in the picture was “larger, expanded” and that his was “neater.’’ Dr. Perry said the head wound was not the way he remembered it either, and that the picture published in Six Seconds in Dallas (a picture prepared by Dr. McClelland and similar to my Figure 20 [left side]) was much closer. Of Dr. Perry’s reaction, Groden said: “It was one of the most vivid memories I have of this case. I knew it was important. I knew it was historic.

 

Groden first told me of the meeting with Perry shortly after it occurred. He had honored Dr. Perry’s confidence these many years, but has now given me permission to quote what Dr. Perry said in 1979 because Dr. Perry has recently told the television program Nova that he sees no discrepancy between the tracheotomy incision he made and the tracheotomy wound depicted on the Dox drawing (i.e., the artist’s rendition of an autopsy photograph showing the throat wound. See Photo 35).

 

From the 1989 book High Treason by Harrison Livingstone and Robert Groden:

 

[…Part II: The Medical Evidence, Chapter 2p: The President’s Head Wounds And The New Evidence Of Forgery]

 

I wanted to show the picture of the back of the Presidents head to the medical witnesses in Dallas who had seen the body. I had seen what purported to be the actual autopsy photos, and thus possessed knowledge that had been denied even to the doctors who treated the President at Parkland. In 1979, I traveled to Dallas on a trip paid for by Steve Parks of The Baltimore Sun and was the first person to show some of the Dallas doctors the HSCA tracings of the autopsy pictures. Since then, myself, The Baltimore Sun, and Ben Bradlee, Jr. of The Boston Globe have compiled the testimony of a number of additional witnesses, and the startling conclusion of their work is clear: The autopsy pictures are, fake, and hold the key to the true nature of the plot which took the life of the President. (The research conducted by the Globe and the Sun was subsequently turned over to me and placed in the JFK Library in Boston.)

 

[…]

 

In 1979, Dr. Malcolm Perry - one of the most important witnesses among the Parkland doctors - who refused to be interviewed by Ben Bradlee, Jr., was shown copies of the alleged autopsy photos by Jeff Price of The Baltimore Sun. It was an emotional encounter and Dr. Perry was moved almost to tears. He said the pictures of the back of the head were not accurate.

 

In an article in The Baltimore Sun headlined "The Bullets Also Destroyed Our Confidence"55 Steve Parks wrote: "Why were the doctors at Parkland Hospital who tried to save the president's life and who declared him dead never consulted about the autopsy (conducted by military authorities), and why have the autopsy photos never been shown to these doctors? Earlier this year, during an investigation by the Sun, one doctor who had been given access to copies of the photos said the president's head wounds in the pictures were not consistent with what he recalled seeing that day 16 years ago." This was Dr. Malcolm Perry.

 

[…]

 

The Sun published the fact that Dr. Malcolm Perry hotly denounced the picture, but the Globe, although they did not interview him, said that he supported the autopsy photograph. They did not print the denial or any reference to this doctor. In any event, the Sun's intensive interview with Dr. Perry was conducted in front of witnesses, and the results corroborated the testimony of every other witness who had been interviewed up to that time.

 

The Assassinations Committee interviewed Dr. Perry in 1978, but did not show him the autopsy photographs. Perry told the interviewer that he had looked at the head wound and that it "was located in the 'occipital parietal' region of the skull and that the right posterior aspect of the skull was missing."' It does not make sense that Dr. Perry and the only other two Parkland doctors (Jenkins and Carrico) the Committee interviewed would have somehow changed their observation that the back of the head was missing—for The Boston Globe.

 

In addition, the testimony of Dr. Perry to the Warren Commission, and his extensive first-hand experience with the wounds, makes any later retraction attributed to him not credible.

 

From the Baltimore Sun, 11/18/1979, The bullets also destroyed our confidence by Steve Parks:

 

[…] Why were the doctors at Parkland Hospital who tried to save the president's life and who declared him dead never consulted about the autopsy (conducted by military authorities), and why have the autopsy photos never been shown to these doctors? Earlier this year, during an investigation by the Sun, one doctor who had been given access to copies of the photos said the president's head wounds in the pictures were not consistent with what he recalled seeing that day 16 years ago.

 

From a 1981 report on interviews with medical witnesses by Ben Bradlee of the Boston Globe:

 

[...] Perry declined to be personally interviewed by The Globe, but, like Carrico, did send written replies to questions in two separate letters. In the first letter, Perry said that while he gave only a "cursory glance at the head wound...not sufficient for accurate descriptions." the autopsy photograph "seems to be consistent with what I saw." In his second letter, Perry simply reiterated that he did not make a careful examination of the head wound, and that in his opinion, the only person qualified to give a good description of the wound was Dr. Clark.

 

From the Boston Globe, 6/21/1981, Dispute on JFK assassination evidence persists by Ben Bradlee:

 

Some Warren Commission critics and other researchers have erroneously cited this drawing as representing the Dallas doctors' and nurses' sole view of the head wound.

 

Actually, according to Globe interviews, they are not unanimous in their opinions or recollections. Five of the doctors and nurses agree with McClelland on the drawing and strongly assert that the wound was in the back of the head; four other doctors say that the tracing of the autopsy photograph shown them by The Globe is "consistent" with their recollection of the head wound.

 

Two doctors lean toward this official view. while five others tend toward the McClelland view that the wound was in the rear of the head, but 'all short of giving it a blanket endorsement.

 

Of the six doctors who said that they agree or tend to agree with the official tracing showing no gaping wound extending into the occipital region, five have, at one time or another, gone on record as saying that the wound did extend into the occiput.

 

From an early draft of a chapter for Harrison Livingstone’s 1992 book High Treason 2:

 

How can Groden narrate the Zapruder film and not be able to answer the questions "What is that coming out of his face?" when the President is struck in the head with a bullet? "I don't know," he says.

 

Since he was my partner, I know that his M.O. is denial. Now you see it, now you don't. He has for a long time played a shell game with this evidence. At times I was shown different views of the back of the had. In one of them, there is clearly a line of small black crescents, a half an inch long and a half an inch apart all the way around where he says there is a matte line--just as though a can opener had been operating there. I ask him what that is--"I don't know" he responds. Sometime later he hauls out a picture of the back of the head again, and I can't find the crescents. "Where are the crescents?" "I don't know. You imagined that. There aren't any."

 

Well, Mark Crouch saw them too.

 

In 1979, Steve Parks and I saw both a color set of photographs and a black and white set at Groden's house. Later the black and white set seems to have disappeared. He says he never had black and whites, but David Lifton and numerous others saw them. Groden doesn't seem to have them anymore. Maybe he sold them.

 

He claimed never to have the Stare of Death picture, but both Lifton and myself recorded at different times having seen this unique photograph.

 

Groden says that he personally interviewed Dr. Malcolm Perry, an interview I set up, but Perry, Jeff Price, the reporter, and Steve Parks, the editor from the Sun, deny that Groden was allowed inside the interview. His pictures were not shown to Perry. The Sun (and most if not all newspapers) would never allow an outsider along on any personal interview, anyway.

 

And Groden has begun telling a colossal lie: That he discovered the conflict between the X-rays and the photographs and wrote a memo to someone on the Committee about it. How come his finding is not in his long memorandum which they published- -giving him total freedom?

 

Nothing in between. No painting. Lately I have found this sort of conflict in many of the facets of the evidence, and each time there is often an either/or situation, but no third possibility, no other ground to go, unless you look for it real hard. And now I am finding them, and for those who have co-opted this case, the answers I am coming up with seem to me to work a lot better.

 

From High Treason 2:

 

[...p. 121, Chapter 4, Parkland Memorial Hospital]

 

Perry denied, in a letter to me, saying to anyone that the cut in the photographs was larger than he had made it. “I’ve neither verified nor challenged the accuracy of any photos.”36

 

[...p. 160, Chapter 6. The Autopsy: Some Conflicts in the Evidence]

 

Dr. Crenshaw told me that the cut that Dr. Malcolm Perry made was much smaller and that he never would have made such a cut. The original report I had in 1979 from an interview I arranged but was not present for with Dr. Perry indicated that the cut was not the one he made. Dr. Perry will not dispute the photograph showing a two-inch cut, which Audrey Bell38 and all other Parkland witnesses-some of whom were filmed39-now have told me is accurate. Perry himself indicated to me that the photograph is accurate, though I admit the manner in which he did so was greatly convoluted and mysterious.

 

[...p. 336, Chapter 15. The Autopsy Photographs and Evidence of Forgery]

 

The incision is not as large as some critics have made it out to be. I had previously been misled into thinking that it was quite a bit large than what Dr. Perry had done, and that therefore someone had cut it open farther in probing for a bullet. But after talking to all of those Dallas witnesses who remembered it and to whom I showed these photographs, I cannot believe that it was enlarged. Without exception, everyone said that what is seen in the picture is accurate. Dr. Perry strongly denied that he had ever questioned the picture or even been asked about it, since the whole purpose of the Baltimore Sun visit I organized was to question him about the Back-of-the-Head pictures.

 

From an open letter by David Lifton responding to a 5/19/1992 episode of the MacNeil/Lehrer report on PBS:

 

In 1979 Dr. Perry saw for the first time a copy of the Bethesda autopsy photograph showing the large wound at the front of the throat. He responded by shaking his head from side to side, expressing great-surprise, and stating that this was not his tracheotomy incision, this was not the way he left the wound. The wound depicted in the picture was "larger, expanded"; his incision was "neater." Then, in a single word, Dr. Perry said a mouthful: Dr. Perry said he had left the wound "inviolate". (Dr. Perry used the word 'inviolate' on at least one previous occasion and in a similar context: in 1963, within days of the assassination. In a conversation with fellow Parkland doctor David Stewart. Perry expressed puzzlement that the tracheotomy he performed should have caused any confusion at the Bethesda end of the line. He told Dr. Stewart: "I left the wound inviolate".)

 

From Groden’s 1993 book The Killing of a President:

[...p. 77, The Medical Cover-Up Begins, The Throat Wound]

 

Dr. Malcolm Perry (above) described the original throat wound as “a very small injury [3 to 5 mm], with clear cut, although somewhat irregular margins of less than a quarter inch, with minimal damage surrounding it on the skin.” He was adamant that it was an entry wound. When interviewed in 1979, he still maintained that the bullet had entered the President’s throat from the front, but has since refused to go on the record with this information.

 

From Groden’s 1993 documentary JFK: The Case for Conspiracy:

 

There was a wound in the President's throat, a tiny wound described by the Dallas doctors as a small neat wound of entrance no more than three to five millimeters in size. This laceration was not noted as a gunshot wound during the autopsy. At the start of the life-saving efforts in Parkland Hospital in Dallas, Dr. Malcolm Perry utilized the existing bullet wound in the President's throat and added a small three-quarter inch horizontal slit through the bullet wound in order to insert a tracheal tube. This operation is called a tracheostomy. However, by the time the autopsy began, that small neat wound of entrance became a gaping wound nearly twenty times its original size as shown here.

 

Because of the mutilation of the President's throat the autopsies did not even know that there had been a bullet wound in the front of the President's neck. It was not until the morning after the autopsy was completed that Dr. Humes one of the autopsies spoke by phone to Dr. Perry in Dallas and learned for the first time that there had been a bullet wound in the president's throat. This notation was written by Dr. Humes as he spoke to Dr. Perry. By this time, the President's body had already been prepared for burial and could not be retrieved for further study.

 

Dr. Perry and all of the other doctors who related any information about the wound on the day of the assassination said that the wound was one of entrance. For the first few hours following the assassination, we heard the truth. The official story that was released around the country was that the President had been shot from the front, that the bullet entered his throat and ranged downward into the body and did not exit. In spite of the fact that all the doctors who saw the President's throat wound said it was one of entrance, the Warren Commission elected to ignore their testimony. That really happened to the wound in the President's neck? When the body left Dallas, the wound was a small neat wound of entrance with a three quarter inch horizontal slit through it. At the beginning of the autopsy, however, it was a large gaping wound. Where did the enlargement happen and who did it? One possible answer is that a bullet entered the President's body from the front and someone in control was aware of this. The bullet would then have to be removed before the official autopsy x-rays were taken. If a bullet were discovered coming from the front, it would destroy the pre-determined myth of a lone assassin.

 

From Groden’s appearance at a 2003 conference:

 

[…] As far as alteration of the body goes, the only evidence of that is the fact that when I interviewed Dr. Perry, he told me that he did not create that wound, he said- he stood up shocked and he pointed- pointed at the photograph, which I- again, I had shown him for the first time, he said I didn't do that. He said that's a butcher job. A tracheotomy hole is the size of a pencil to put a tube down there. If it leaks, it defeats the purpose. This hole is large enough to stick a fire hose down. It didn't work that way at all. It- it's sad but that's the case. […]

 

From another conference with Robert Groden, undated, uploaded to Youtube 9/28/2021 by the Lone Gunman channel UCAG--Ai7Xh56gr6nxnX-24A:

 

As far as alteration of the President's body goes, I believe that there’s there's- it's unquestionable that something was done to the president's throat. I interviewed Dr. Perry in 1978 and I showed him the autopsy photographs which he had never seen before, and he took a look at the throat wound in the photographs and he stood up at his desk and he was just shocked. He was silent for a moment, then he said ‘I didn't do that’, he said ‘that's a butchered job’. He said ‘I didn't do that’, and then he relived the entire tracheotomy, he stood up and he had his- what was supposed to be a- a scalpel in his hand and he showed doing it- doing the- the incision and said it was only about a little over an inch long he says- he just went on and on about why that couldn't have been what he had done. [...]

 

He claimed never to have the Stare of Death picture, but both Lifton and myself recorded at different times having seen this unique photograph.

DSL COMMENT: When I first met Gordon (1972-1974, see previous writings for a more precise date),  he did not have the "stare of death" photo (and bemoaned that fact).  But I did. That photo was among the images that I had obtained from the late Mark Crouch (circa 12/84). Groden's copies of the photos, as I recall, were obtained from his time employed as a "photographer" hired by the HSCA.  in other words, he violated the rules of his hiring by surreptitiously  copying the photos --but his "set of the photos" did not include the stare of death.   His hiring (at HSCA) occurred because General Counsel Blakey was impressed with Groden's ability to make a variety of motion picture film exhibits for use during the televised HSCA hearings. At some point, Groden and I met at his home --either in New Jersey, or Pennsylvania. (He had moved during this period).  

When I laid out the photos I had --on a floor, as I recall --Groden was green with envy.   They had never been published, and the "stare of death" photo was clearly the most shocking -- and valuable.   Blakey made clear that if anyone had (somehow) possessed them, and published them, he (Blakey) was going to see to it that they were prosecuted.  I realized the photos were critically important, but --under no circumstances did I wish to be associated with having "sold" the autopsy photographs to anyone. Not to the media, nor to any individual.  Under no circumstances was I going to do that.  if they were going to be published, i thought, it should be in connection with some legitimately published article --perhaps in a forensic journal.  All of this was uncharted territory.

CARROLL & GRAF (publisher) -Trade paperback edition; October 1988 (25th anniversary edition of B.E.)

When Carroll & Graf approached me about publishing Best Evidence in Trade Paperback format, I believed this offered just such a venue.  I told the top executives (Kent Carrol and Herman Graf) that I had these photos.  I showed them the photos, and it was agreed they would create an additional photo insert, and publish the photos in that insert of the "trade paperback" edition.  That's how it came to pass that the autopsy photos were published --when  B.E. was published (in the Carroll & Graf edition) around October 1988 (just prior to the 25th anniversary of JFK's death).  

Groden and/or Livingstone immediately rushed to copy and publish one or more of the pictures in the latest edition of their book "High Treason."  I don't remember the details, but it seemed clear that they were going to publish the photos by simply photographing the images from the photo insert as published  in Best Evidence.  Meanwhile, Gordon was communicating with me that I "owed" him copies, "after all i've done for you."  

INSERT, 10/25/21_ 8 PM PDT: You have to know Groden personally --as I did, for many years --to understand how laughable this comment is.  END INSERT.

I finally decided that I did not want to be in the position of  having a "commercial motive"; and of "withholding" this important evidence.  And so, as I recall, I prepared a good set of prints (made by a first rate commercial photo lab at UCLA) and sent them to Groden.  (INSERT: 10/25/21: In other words, I gave them to Groden, gratis. END INSERT) Within a short while, Groden did something I would never have done.  Within days --or perhaps a month--Groden sold copies of the Kennedy autopsy photos  to one of the tabloids for $50,000.   (I vividly remember media star Nancy Grace blasting him for this  very obvious "for profit" transaction). Anyway, that's about where the "tale of the autopsy photos" ends. 

ANTHONY SUMMERS

One other matter:  When Anthony Summers approached me for copies of the photos, I agreed to provide them, but made clear that I did not want to sell the photos to him.  However, I made clear that making high quality photos (again, at UCLA) would not be free, and Tony paid the nominal costs (about $30, as I recall).  He then used one or more of them in the re-issue of his book CONSPIRACY.

P.S.:  One other matter: When I went to Dallas, and --along with Pat Valentino--visited the Dallas doctors and conducted filmed interviews, we showed the autopsy photos to each of the doctors; and filmed their reaction. The near universal reaction: shaking their head from  side-to-side and commenting that "No, that's not the way JFK looked when we saw the body."

DSL, 9/29/21; 10/25/21

Edited October 26, 2021 by David Lifton
Clarification.

[David Lifton]

How Groden deceived Blakey (as told to me, by Groden):

1. The HSCA had the photos (with permission, from the Kennedy family attorney; per arrangement with Gen. Counsel Blakey)

2. Groden told Blakey he needed to make certain enlargements --specifically, of the left temporal wound, and that area in general; and Blakey, who didn't fully understand Groden's psychology, agreed.

3. What Groden told Blakey was basically a cover story.  In other words, he deliberately deceived Blakey in order to have a seemingly legitimate reason to perform his personal photography.

4. Groden then arranged to bring an extra roll of film, for this specific  task.

5. Groden used this "extra" roll to make unauthorized copies of the autopsy photos.  BUT. . .

6. Groden --as he told me --had this Hemingway-isk  moment, in connection with the creation of this unauthorized photography.  The result:  True, he made the unauthorized exposures, but --for some reason-- lost his nerve, and did not (or could not) copy the stare of death photo. Bottom line: he "froze," could not (and so did not) create a stare if death photo.  At least, that was my understanding.

DSL, 9/29/21

 

Edited September 29, 2021 by David Lifton
Providing more info.

[Micah Mileto]

7 hours ago, David Lifton said:

 

Interesting. What about the claim that Groden would play charades with his own personally-altered photos of JFK?

[David Lifton]

32 minutes ago, Micah Mileto said:

Interesting. What about the claim that Groden would play charades with his own personally-altered photos of JFK?

 

32 minutes ago, Micah Mileto said:

Interesting. What about the claim that Groden would play charades with his own personally-altered photos of JFK?

Not clear what you are getting at. Please clarify.  What do you mean by Groden  "playing charades."?  Be specific.  DSL

Edited September 29, 2021 by David Lifton