DiEugenio, Cranor, and the mole (my mole) - 3/31/20

[Micah Mileto]

2 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Ha!  My "stitches" hypothesis may be factual after all. I wasn't aware of Ebersole's account regarding stitches. (If this is in Best Evidence, I'll bet it is the second edition. I accidentally read the first edition not knowing that a second edition had been released.)

 

See here for a compilation of statements: https://old.reddit.com/r/JFKsubmissions/comments/drvdt0/discussing_jfks_torso_wounds_part_19_john_ebersole/

[Sandy Larsen]

18 hours ago, Micah Mileto said:

See here for a compilation of statements: https://old.reddit.com/r/JFKsubmissions/comments/drvdt0/discussing_jfks_torso_wounds_part_19_john_ebersole/

 

Thanks Micah. Unfortunately the only thing I could find there regarding stitches/sutures was the suturing of the tracheotomy incision. Nothing on the head. I wonder if those are the stitches David Lifton was referring to in his earlier post.

 

Edited April 9, 2020 by Sandy Larsen

[Micah Mileto]

1 hour ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Thanks Micah. Unfortunately the only thing I could find there regarding stitches/sutures was the suturing of the tracheotomy incision. nothing on the head. I wonder if those are the stitches David Lifton was referring to in his earlier post.

 

Yeah, I don't think there's any witness evidence for stitches on the head.

[Evan Marshall]

I read BE but waiting for its sequel reminds me of the boy who cried wolf. I wrote and published three books between 19189-2002. I've lost all interest in what DL's book might consist of.

[Matt Allison]

This thread:

[Dan Rice]

1 hour ago, Matt Allison said:

This thread:

That's how the thread started....

[David Lifton]

On 4/7/2020 at 7:20 PM, Chris Bristow said:

I never knew that Humes found stitches. I had assumed he just found scalpel marks. The idea of a signalman in the plaza makes much more sense if you consider a shot from the front as a last resort. From Jarrell Custer reports and Paul Connors it sounds like the brain may not have been replaced into the skull. Both of them say there was only a tiny amount of brains left in the cranium. If that is true the brain was introduced into the autopsy at some other point.

Radiologist Ebersole's account is the strongest evidence concerning stitches -- and if he is correct, that shows that (at some point that evening) an attempt was made to hide the existence of the throat wound (entirely), and just pass off that frontal defect as a tracheotomy which had been "sewn up."  If there was any such stitching in the area of the head (and I think it was Adm. Galloway who told me that he wan't sure, and then sloughed it off as a possibility, but 'so what'? etc). But if that occurred, it sheds additional light on why FBI Agents Sibert and O'neill stated that it was "apparent that that [there had been] surgery of the head area, namely, in the top of the skull."  I have always wondered about this because of the way Humes so carefully described the four scalp flaps (at the beginning of the autopsy), delineating them as "a", "b", "c" and "d." (Per Ch 13 of Best Evidence). Humes testified that when he parted the scalp, the skullcap was completely fragmented and simply fell apart in his hands.  Stitching would explain how this grotesque mess was (mechanically) kept together, until the body was actually examined by Humes. We have no time machine, but if the WC counsel had been aware of this, Humes could have been asked, quite directly, whether there was any post-mortem stitching on the body, and specifically, either in the area of the throat wound or the head wound.  And if the answer --in either case-- was in the affirmative, the next question would have been: Why didn't you include this in the autopsy report?  And, of course, the same question (about their awareness of stitches) could have been directed at the three key naval officers who were present, and who constituted Humes' chain of command:  Capt. Stover, the CO of the Naval Medical School; Adm. Galloway, the CO of the National Naval Medical Centr; and Admiral Edward Kenney, the Navy Surgeon General. (And then, of course,there was Adm. George Burkley, the President's Physician).  If there were stitches on any of the wounds--- as Dr. Ebersole reported--are we supposed to believe that none of these individuals --all naval doctors---knew about that?
 

[David Lifton]

14 hours ago, Matt Allison said:

This thread:

 

14 hours ago, Matt Allison said:

This thread:

Matt:  You're supposed to have graduated from Brown University. Is this the best you can do, when you want to express yourself--to show us that you can insert a computer graphic of a trash container?  Just imagine you're out on a date, with a lovely  coed. And you're overcome with desire.  Do you take out your iphone and show her porno flicks?  I'm sure you were taught how to paste a graphic into an Internet post, but. . .  can't you do better than that?  

[W. Niederhut]

Yo, Matt, what year did you graduate from Brown?  (I was in the class of '79.)

As for this dumpster fire of a thread, I'm still incredulous that any JFKA researcher would doubt, in 2020 no less, that the FBI and CIA conspired to withhold evidence from the Warren Commission.

[Matt Allison]

6 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Yo, Matt, what year did you graduate from Brown?  (I was in the class of '79.)

I did not attend Brown University. That is just another one of the silly fantasies invented by the originator of this dumpster fire thread.

 

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Writers such as Roger Feinman and Harold Weisberg have raised plenty of objections to David Lifton's absurdly impractical body-alteration theory. There are two objections in particular to which I'd be interested to discover Lifton's response.

The Rear Sniper

In Best Evidence, Lifton specifically claims that all the shots aimed at President Kennedy were fired from the front. But there is indisputable evidence that at least one shot was fired from behind: the shot which hit Governor Connally in his back and came out of his chest.

How does Lifton account for the sniper who must have been stationed at the rear? What was this sniper's role? Did he (or she) intend to hit Kennedy, but miss and hit Connally by mistake? Or did she (or he) intend all along to miss Kennedy and hit Connally?

In either case: why? If all the shots at Kennedy were supposed to have been fired from in front, as Lifton's theory demands, what was the purpose of having a sniper at the rear?

It is an uncontroversial fact that Connally's wounds were due to a shot from the rear. This fact has been known since the publication of Commission Exhibit 392 (Hearings, vol.17, p.16) in 1964. Lifton must have been aware of it when he wrote Best Evidence. He must also have been aware that this uncontroversial and widely known fact appears to contradict a central element of his theory. Yet Lifton failed even to mention it, let alone attempt to reconcile it with his theory. Why?

The Fake Wounds

The purpose of faking the wounds at the rear of Kennedy's head and torso, according to Lifton's theory, was to ensure that the fake "entry wounds [were] positioned exactly where they were needed" to implicate a lone gunman firing from the sixth floor of the book depository (Best Evidence, p.399). But the wounds described by the autopsy pathologists do not do this.

The Head Wound  Given the position of Kennedy's head at the instant of the fatal shot, the entry wound low down on the back of the head, near the external occipital protuberance, was far too low to have been caused by a bullet from the sixth floor, 60 feet above the road, which then exited above the right ear. This fact has been known since 1967 at the latest, when Josiah Thompson mentioned it (Six Seconds in Dallas, p.111). When Lifton wrote Best Evidence, he must have been aware that the entry wound in the head, as described by the pathologists, was too low for his purposes.

The Back Wound  Likewise, the wound in Kennedy's back is too low to have been indisputably caused by a bullet from the sixth floor which then exited at around the level of the shirt collar. Again, this fact was widely known by the time Lifton wrote Best Evidence, and he must have been aware of it.

The whole purpose of the elaborate body-alteration plot, according to Lifton, was that both of the rear wounds should be "positioned exactly where they were needed" to implicate a lone gunman. But both wounds were in fact positioned some distance from where they were needed. Indeed, the positions of these wounds, far from supporting the lone-nut theory, actually generated widespread disbelief in the lone-nut theory. They had the opposite effect to that which Lifton's theory demands.

Lifton must have been aware that the locations of the two wounds were inconsistent with his theory. Why, then, did he make them an essential element of his theory?

Summary

Lifton's theory proposes actions which did not happen (shots fired only from the front) in order to ensure outcomes which also did not happen (wounds which implicated Oswald as a lone gunman). It fails on both counts. As things stand, Lifton's theory is incoherent and thus worthless.

Lifton would surely have known about both of these problems when he wrote Best Evidence. He seems to have based his theory on two sets of alleged facts which he knew were untrue. Why did he do this?

[Eddy Bainbridge]

Always being wary of disinformation. Can posters who disagree with DavId Lifton please confirm if it is his theory they reject or is it the possibility of body alteration.I view the evidence as showing a frontal entry wound has been removed. Is there a non-alteration explanation?

[Dennis Berube]

On 4/9/2020 at 9:59 AM, W. Niederhut said:

As for this dumpster fire of a thread, I'm still incredulous that any JFKA researcher would doubt, in 2020 no less, that the FBI and CIA conspired to withhold evidence from the Warren Commission.

Agreed W. That is simply not a credible assertion for so many reasons. Mexico City alone is enough to make me laugh at this. Theories aside, Lifton's conduct in this thread has been embarrassing and weird. 

 

1 hour ago, Eddy Bainbridge said:

Can posters who disagree with DavId Lifton please confirm if it is his theory they reject or is it the possibility of body alteration.I view the evidence as showing a frontal entry wound has been removed. Is there a non-alteration explanation?

First, I am not too well versed (compared to most jfk researchers) in medical evidence in the JFK case, I decided long ago to largely neglect that area because the condition of the evidence is so bad as to support almost any theory one wishes. David's demeanor towards anyone who questions him is overly emotional and wild. In and of itself, that is discrediting in my view. Besides that, I don't see how anyone can believe all shots came from the front. The back wound went in at a downward angle and stopped a few inches in. How does that come from the front? The Bennet statement, the Tippit location, etc... maybe he changed his mind on this now, I don't know. The point is, I don't trust that Lifton actually uses the scientific method. If he discovered something that went against his theory, I suspect he would cover it up or else lose his imagined place in history. For someone who has spent their life on a very particular topic, I imagine that is a relatively normal human thing to do.

Ron Bulmans post on page 7 provides good links if your looking for information that could be considered contrary to Lifton.
 

I don't see Dylan's song as proof that he read and agrees with best evidence, and the attempt to insert oneself into culture in this way is off putting.

These two paragraphs describe what this thread is about to me. Feeling proud is one thing, getting aggressive and slanderous points to something else.

“I feel proud,” I replied, and I did (and still do). The late Pat Lambert, who played a major role in editing Best Evidence, used to say, “David, your work will seep slowly into the culture.”  She didn’t have any prediction as to when that would occur, just the certainty that eventually it would.  

I hoped she was right.  And maybe now it has, but in a way I would never have expected.  Best Evidence  was published in January 1981.  After years of isolation, I was proud when it was selected  Book of the Month Selection (Sept 1980, approx), was on the New York Times best-seller list (for about 3 months, starting in February 1981); and (to my considerable surprise), was  briefly number 1 on the wire service lists (Feb - April, 1981). 

 

[Andrej Stancak]

Dennis:

there was a surgery to John Kennedy's head, namely the top of the head, which was reported by Commander Humes at the start of the autopsy (0800) and recorded by FBI agents Sibert and O'Neil. Besides their statement in their November 26 report, there is a comparatively new testimony of Dr James Jenkins corroborating David's finding of a surgery to President's head prior to the autopsy. As documented in Best Evidence and  mentioned by other researchers, there was a staggering difference between the wounds as described by all of Parkland doctors and nurses who saw Kennedy's head wound and Dr Boswell's chart of the head wound and the official autopsy protocol (and the autopsy photograph showing the back of Kennedy head intact) which do not show any wound in the occipital region. These pieces of evidence are enough to accept the basic premise of Best Evidence that President Kennedy's body was tampered with to obfuscate or even suppress the occipital wound.

I may have slight doubts about the  interpretation of the back wound and while finding good logic in BE hypothesis that the perpetrators of illegal surgery did not know about the entry wound in the throat, this my doubt is about one of possible scenarios but it does not question the presence of a pre-autopsy surgery to the head and neck. 

It is very simple: if President was shot at least once from the front, the autopsy findings should show evidence of a frontal shot but they do not. However, there was at least one frontal shot (e.g., HSCA acoustic evidence) and therefore if the autopsy report does not show it, it worked with an altered  body. This is the minimum what Best Evidence says. Later analyses of X-rays (Dr Mantik) and photographs (Tom Wilson) clearly demonstrated the presence of manipulations in the right occipital and posterior parietal region suggesting additional photographic alterations to suppress the occipital head wound.

Is this not enough of best evidence?

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 10, 2020 by Andrej Stancak

[Paul Brancato]

Mr. Lifton,

I’m asking for the third time - when will we see your new book?