Pierre Finck Learned his Lesson

[James DiEugenio]

Micah:

You aren't really quoting FInck's testimony from the ARRB as being in any way probative are you?

As Horne notes in his book, Finck answered that he did not recall to almost half the questions Gunn asked him.

Horne said that it was clear to him and Jeremy that Finck had learned his lesson from the Clay Shaw trial.  In 1969, when he did answer fairly honestly, Washington went into an epileptic fit. 

The guy running the cover up at the Justice Dept under Clark actually said: Finck is screwing everything up.  

From their point of view he was.  That was really the first inside look the public got at the fact the autopsy was not "botched" as Dan Rather would say in 1975.  The autopsy was sabotaged.

I mean what the heck were all those military guys doing there?  Why were they allowed in?  Why was the gallery full?  Why were they allowed to interfere with the autopsy?  Why did Lemay and his biographer lie about his whereabouts that day, and why did Lemay disobey orders about where to land?  Why, as Bill K has shown, was the AF One tape edited to conceal this about Lemay?  And when did that editing happen?  Under what auspices? All of this shows that there has never been a real investigation of the JFK case.  For Finck did not say this stuff until almost six years after.  And I do not for five seconds think that Specter did not suspect what had really happened.  He did.  And that is why he asked Boswell a total of maybe a dozen relevant questions,  had all three doctors testify back to back to back, and prepped them for their appearances with about 9 previous meetings.

It was really Finck's testimony in New Orleans that opened up this Pandora's Box.  And its only when you either see the trial transcript or read the two local papers, which ran very full versions of the Shaw trial, that you can understand the mini earthquake Finck set off.  And understand why they flew Boswell down to New Orleans to discredit him, but then thought better of it. FInck's bombshell testimony  was covered up by the MSM.  As I have written, JIm Phelan had a prominent role in that concealment, as he did with tempering the impact of the screening of the Z film.  When I first read the newspaper accounts on Finck's testimony down at the New Orleans library, I was really surprised.  I then made sure I got the actual transcript to verify all this. In a media that was not compromised, Finck's testimony should have been front page news and the lead on the networks.

FInck understood what he had done.  So he played the forgetful role for the ARRB.  If the Board had real teeth, both Finck and Humes would have been indicted for perjury.

 

Edited March 23, 2020 by James DiEugenio

[Chuck Schwartz]

And, in an essay by David Manning, it was stated that Pierre Finck was the only pathologist present at both the JFK and the RFK autopsies.

[James DiEugenio]

I think that is true. 

He was also the most highly qualified at Bethesda.

And Burkley was the only physician at Parkland and Bethesda.

Edited March 24, 2020 by James DiEugenio

[Paul Jolliffe]

On 3/21/2020 at 11:17 PM, Micah Mileto said:

I tried looking into this issue for my torso wounds megapost, but didn't include it. I think it's very likely the "verified" notation was made on 11/24-26 after the paper was photocopied for the Secret Service.

Micah,

It is possible, as you conjecture, that Admiral Burkley signed his name and added the word "verified" to Boswell's sketch sheet on 11/24/63.

While anything is possible, the most likely explanation for a Burkley's signature and his word "verified" is that he wrote that in the autopsy room, as Boswell completed the sketch sheet late in the evening of 11/22/63. After all, at that moment, Burkley was indeed in a perfect position to "verify" the wound locations on the president's body - he was looking at JFK's corpse right there and then in the morgue at Bethesda!

In any event, you and I can play guessing games from now to eternity, but it was the Warren Commission's sworn duty (and moral obligation) to get to the heart of this and every other matter relating to the assassination. That they did not do so in this crucial matter (Where the hell exactly was the president hit?) is yet further proof beyond any doubt that they had no interest in conducting an honest investigation.

The Warren Commission was only interested in reaching the finding that one man, LHO, did it and that he did it alone, and that he did it because he was a nut.

Nothing else mattered to them. 

They conducted no investigation whatsoever - they merely propped up a politically expedient conclusion, one that had already been sanctioned by those who committed the assassination.

The president's murder has never, never been properly investigated by any governmental authority.