JFK Revisited: Through The Looking Glass

[Micah Mileto]

1 minute ago, Pat Speer said:

 

The Barnum statement

Coast Guardsman George A. Barnum was a pallbearer on the days up to and including President Kennedy's funeral (ARRB MD 163).

When interviewed by researcher David Lifton on 8/20/1979, Barnum had in his possession a written account dated 11/29/1963 summarizing his version of events.

Excerpt from Lifton's 1980 book Best Evidence: Disguise and Deception in the Assassination of John F. Kennedy:

[Part IV – What, When, And Where?, Chapter 16. Chain of Possession: The Missing Link]

Next I called Barnum. He said that although he did remember there had been confusion, he could not recall the details.⁸⁰ But Barnum didn’t have to rely on his memory for information about that night. He explained that when he reported back for duty after the funeral, his superior at Coast Guard Headquarters directed him to write a report. That officer’s interest was purely historical. He knew of someone associated with the Lincoln funeral who, years later, regretted not having created a contemporaneous record. Barnum was surprised to learn that his November 29, 1963 account, which he had saved primarily for his children’s benefit, contained details of interest to me.

[...]

[Part VII – SYNTHESIS, Chapter 20. The X-rays and Photographs Reconsidered]

[...] In his November 29, 1963 account, Coast Guardsman George Barnum wrote that as the men were having sandwiches and coffee sometime after midnight, Admiral Burkley came in and talked to them, and said three shots had been fired, that the President had been hit by the first and third, and he described the trajectories of the two that struck:

"The first striking him in the lower neck and coming out near the throat. The second shot striking him above and to the rear of the right ear, this shot not coming out...."⁶¹

Although Barnum's report was incorrect on the head shot not exiting, both points of entry are those shown in the autopsy photographs, and the neck trajectory was the "transiting" conclusion to be found in the official autopsy report Humes wrote later that weekend. *

Compare this to the statements made by Dr. Pierre Finck, the autopsy's assisting forensic pathologist. Finck claimed that it wasn't until a day later when they concluded a bullet passage in the throat.

For this statement to come from 11/29/1963, Barnum could not have been influenced by news media reports. The existence of a wound in Kennedy's "lower neck"/upper back was not public knowledge on 11/29/1963, let alone the concept of a bullet entering the back and exiting the throat at site reported by the staff at Parkland Hospital. The media first began receiving leaks after members of the FBI received the 12/9/1963 summary report, which contained the reports on the autopsy from agents James Sibert and Francis X. O'Neill, and the 1/13/1964 Supplemental Report, which contained the lab results on the clothing. The first leak was a 12/12/1963 Dallas Times-Herald article by Bill Burrus headlined KENNEDY SHOT ENTERED BACK. Burrus, citing an unnamed source, correctly reported the official autopsy conclusions, with a passage from the back to the throat, describing the back wound as being "above President Kennedy’s right scapula – commonly called the shoulder blade" (Lifton, Best Evidence, Part II: A New Hypothesis, Chapter 7: Breakthrough, Distinguishing the FBI and Navy Versions). Burrus apparently had insider knowledge the FBI was unaware of - the Bureau said they did not obtain a copy of the official autopsy protocol until 12/24/1963 (FBI 62-109090-29, WC HQ File, Section 1; FBI 62-109060-4236, JFK HQ File, Section 102). In a 12/13/1963 memo, the FBI even tried disputing the accuracy of Burrus' article by citing the reports from Sibert and O'Neill which claimed the back wound had no exit (ARRB MD 161). Starting on 12/18/1963, more mainstream publications began running stories acknowledging the existence of the back wound (e.g. St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "Secret Service Gets Revision on Kennedy Wound After Visit by Agents, Doctors Say Shot was from Rear" by Richard Dudman; Washington Post, "Kennedy Autopsy Report" by Nate Haseltine). Thus, George Barnum probably knew more about the autopsy on 11/29/1963 than the entire FBI and news media.

[Ron Bulman]

4 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

Years ago I found a post on a newsgroup by David Lifton in which he convincingly argued that Bell was not credible. This led me to go back and read her early statements and compare them with her latter-day statements. And he was absolutely correct. She was not Kennedy's nurse, she was Connally's nurse. Now, some might think, well, she floated back and forth or some such thing, but that's not the way it works. Having spent some time in hospitals, and having three nurses and a bio-med technician in the family, the idea that Connally's nurse would wander over to Kennedy's emergency room and walk up to the front of the table and be shown his head wound by the doctor trying to save Kennedy's life...is LUDICROUS. (Sorry about the all-caps, but I need to stress that Bell was as much as saying the moon is made out of cheese or that alien lizard people are impersonating Joe Biden. it's banana-splits, looney tunes, kind of stuff.) In any event, her latter-day statements, much as the statements of Joe O'Donnell, are simply not reliable and should be avoided. 

Hi Pat.  After reading this I got to thinking of a possibility.  I thought I'd read somewhere years ago that Bell was the lead or head nurse or most experienced one.  If so would she not naturally attend to the worst wounded (and most important) patient first?  If she was the head, lead and/or most experienced, when JFK passed might she have gone to assist in attending to Connally?  I went looking a little (so far).

I started with Best Evidence.  It only deals with the fragments from Connally's wrist.  A discrepancy between the two dust like ones reported and the 3-4 she mentioned to Earl Goltz in an interview.  Reinterviewed she said they were 3-4 mm long by about 2 mm wide, "identifiable as fragments".  That was it for Bell in the book per the name index.

I couldn't remember where else I might have read about her in the books on my shelves so I googled Nurse Audrey Bell Kennedy assassination.  One of the first things that came up was this link about (in part) and interview of her for the 20th anniversary in 1983.  "After there was no hope for Kennedy she was moved (by who?) to Gov. Connally's room".

Stacy Smith Looks Back At Kennedy Assassination Report 30 Years Ago – CBS Pittsburgh (cbslocal.com)

I still haven't found anything on her title.  But I did find this post from Bernice Moore in 2010 linking Doug Horne's ARRB interviews of Bell through MFF.  But the links no longer work.  I'm not a member at MFF and have become frustrated there before after exhausting my I think it is 3 searches as a guest.  I don't know if there is enough info in the links to track these down at MFF.  If Larry, Dabid B or Stu himself happen to see this maybe one of them could give me a little direction or assistance.

 

[Micah Mileto]

"Anatomy of Dr. Humes' Saturday Morning Phone Call" could be a long video essay in itself. BTW anybody can copy, distribute, adapt, or alter my posts. I think intellectual property laws should be abolished because they force people to pay for things which are not scarce.

Edited January 23, 2022 by Micah Mileto

[Chris Bristow]

5 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

I didn't recall McClelland telling that to the ARRB, Chris. So I went back and skimmed through the ARRB testimony of the Parkland doctors and found that both Perry and McClelland agreed that they had not been pressured to change their views. Perry even specified that he was always encouraged to tell the truth as he saw it. 

There's also this. (It's good to re-read these things because there's always something that you notice the second third and fourth time that you might have missed before.) McClelland claimed he was present when Humes called Perry and found out about the throat wound...and it was on Saturday morning.

 

I was already aware what Perry and McClellend said. It does not matter that McClellend said he was not not pressured. It is was he said about Perry. Perry did say in response to Dr Jones claim about Arlen Specter that he had the opposite experience and was not pressured. But we have contradictory evidence from McClellend who says he saw an agent grab Perry and tell him not to say that again. Just pointing out the other statement by Perry does not address the contradiction between McClellend and Perry.
 In addressing the contradiction all we can do is speculate. I would say, imo, Perry became an apologist for the WC as a result of pressure. Should we would accept that McClellend never saw the incident with Perry? That he made it up or somehow fabricated the event in his own mind. Neither argument is supported by any behavior of Dr McClellend's throughout his life. Unless there is some evidence he was a xxxx or was creating false narratives as a result of being delusional his statement must hold some weight.
 Gunn restated the question and noted that the Dr's shook their heads. But he had re-phrased the question asking about pressure subsequent to the WC.
 When Dr Jones tried to explain the incident with Arlen Specter Perry interjected his opinion and it sure looks like he was trying to direct Jones statements.  He asserts that Specter was just trying to evaluate Jones's character as to whether he would be 'discreet' about his opinions. Regardless of how discreet Jones might be about what he thought, it was outrageous that the lawyer told him not to mention his beliefs. Specter was trying to control the narrative. What if Dr Jones wanted to dissent, would that not be allowed? The WC had not even finished its work yet.  Other evidence might come forward supporting the shot from the front. Maybe others would join in dissent after Jones talked. Telling Dr Jones not to talk about a specific testimony is not a general question about him being discreet. It looks much more like controlling the narrative.
 In the end we have Dr McClellend's statement about viewing the pressure on Perry with his own eyes and ears. This is not resolved simply by Perry making other statements that are inconsistent. It is very telling that when Dr McClellend stated what he saw and heard about Perry being pressured Perry was sitting right there and said nothing! He didn't say that never happened or I don't remember that or are you sure Robert? Not a word to refute what McClellend just said about him.
 

[Chris Bristow]

1 hour ago, Pat Speer said:

The rest of the Parkland doctors, including McClelland, thought Crenshaw was full of it, and incredibly insulting when he implied they were scared to tell the truth. 

 

I think I read something like that is Posner's book. Is there any documentation of this other than what Posner? said. Are these supposed to be direct quotes? Going by memory I thought that the statements by Gerald Posner in his book did not have quotes.
In all the years that McClellend gave interviews and did speaking events I never heard any reference to Crenshaw as a xxxx.

[Pat Speer]

40 minutes ago, Chris Bristow said:

I think I read something like that is Posner's book. Is there any documentation of this other than what Posner? said. Are these supposed to be direct quotes? Going by memory I thought that the statements by Gerald Posner in his book did not have quotes.
In all the years that McClellend gave interviews and did speaking events I never heard any reference to Crenshaw as a xxxx.

There were a number of televised and newspaper interviews given after Crenshaw's book came out. They all rejected Crenshaw's version of events (that they were frightened into silence.) Some went too far and questioned whether he'd even been in the ER. But that got straightened out fairly quickly.

[Chris Bristow]

3 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

There were a number of televised and newspaper interviews given after Crenshaw's book came out. They all rejected Crenshaw's version of events (that they were frightened into silence.) Some went too far and questioned whether he'd even been in the ER. But that got straightened out fairly quickly.

Yes the lie perpetrated in the JAMA article about Crenshaw not being in the room " We can't prove a negative but we don't know if Crenshaw was even in the room that day" was disproven by the prior testimony of nurse Henchcliffe and Dr Curtis. I call it is a lie because the lead Dr in the JAMA article, Dr Baxter, also testified prior that Crenshaw was in the room. In fact when asked, Crenshaw's name  was the first name he mentioned.
 "They all rejected Crenshaw's version of events ". All the Parkland staff? In the ARRB testimony McClellend talks about Perry's intimidation and Jones talks about his. If they all said no one was frightened into silence after Crenshaw's book in the 80's why did he then make those statements in the 90's?
 I think we also have to consider that if any doctors were frightened into silence then of course they would deny being frightened into silence right?
 I have not seen any of the news stories or articles that support the idea that all or some of the Dr's rejected the stories about intimidation. do you have a link to support this? and do you know if the claims Posner made can be substantiated beyond his word?

[Micah Mileto]

9 hours ago, Chris Bristow said:

Yes the lie perpetrated in the JAMA article about Crenshaw not being in the room " We can't prove a negative but we don't know if Crenshaw was even in the room that day" was disproven by the prior testimony of nurse Henchcliffe and Dr Curtis. I call it is a lie because the lead Dr in the JAMA article, Dr Baxter, also testified prior that Crenshaw was in the room. In fact when asked, Crenshaw's name  was the first name he mentioned.
 "They all rejected Crenshaw's version of events ". All the Parkland staff? In the ARRB testimony McClellend talks about Perry's intimidation and Jones talks about his. If they all said no one was frightened into silence after Crenshaw's book in the 80's why did he then make those statements in the 90's?
 I think we also have to consider that if any doctors were frightened into silence then of course they would deny being frightened into silence right?
 I have not seen any of the news stories or articles that support the idea that all or some of the Dr's rejected the stories about intimidation. do you have a link to support this? and do you know if the claims Posner made can be substantiated beyond his word?

I have combed through every Crenshaw statement, and I could not find one instance of him claiming to have knowledge of a specific cover-up. Just Dr. Baxter's self-admitted ban on commercial benefit, and the Secret Service agents explaining to them the autopsy conclusions. Crenshaw always said that the "conspiracy of silence" he was referring to was fearing for their careers.

Edited January 23, 2022 by Micah Mileto

[Ron Bulman]

I think this article is relevant to this discussion.

John Kennedy Assassination: The Ordeal of Malcolm Perry - The Constantine Report

[Ray Mitcham]

Thanks Ron, very enlightening.

[Gary Murr]

15 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

I thought I'd read somewhere years ago that Bell was the lead or head nurse or most experienced one. 

Hello Ron:

At the time of the assassination of JFK, Audrey Bell was the head nurse supervisor of both the OR [Operating Rooms] and recovery rooms at Parkland Memorial Hospital. As someone who attempted to contact Bell on several occasions during my construct and gathering of research for my trilogy of works on the wounding of John Connally - unsuccessfully, as all of my correspondence was either ignored or returned - I can echo comments offered by  Pat Speer. Audrey Bell is one individual whose various comments, narratives, "testimony' should be approached with caution.  FWIW

Gary Murr

[Pat Speer]

16 hours ago, Chris Bristow said:

I was already aware what Perry and McClellend said. It does not matter that McClellend said he was not not pressured. It is was he said about Perry. Perry did say in response to Dr Jones claim about Arlen Specter that he had the opposite experience and was not pressured. But we have contradictory evidence from McClellend who says he saw an agent grab Perry and tell him not to say that again. Just pointing out the other statement by Perry does not address the contradiction between McClellend and Perry.
 In addressing the contradiction all we can do is speculate. I would say, imo, Perry became an apologist for the WC as a result of pressure. Should we would accept that McClellend never saw the incident with Perry? That he made it up or somehow fabricated the event in his own mind. Neither argument is supported by any behavior of Dr McClellend's throughout his life. Unless there is some evidence he was a xxxx or was creating false narratives as a result of being delusional his statement must hold some weight.
 Gunn restated the question and noted that the Dr's shook their heads. But he had re-phrased the question asking about pressure subsequent to the WC.
 When Dr Jones tried to explain the incident with Arlen Specter Perry interjected his opinion and it sure looks like he was trying to direct Jones statements.  He asserts that Specter was just trying to evaluate Jones's character as to whether he would be 'discreet' about his opinions. Regardless of how discreet Jones might be about what he thought, it was outrageous that the lawyer told him not to mention his beliefs. Specter was trying to control the narrative. What if Dr Jones wanted to dissent, would that not be allowed? The WC had not even finished its work yet.  Other evidence might come forward supporting the shot from the front. Maybe others would join in dissent after Jones talked. Telling Dr Jones not to talk about a specific testimony is not a general question about him being discreet. It looks much more like controlling the narrative.
 In the end we have Dr McClellend's statement about viewing the pressure on Perry with his own eyes and ears. This is not resolved simply by Perry making other statements that are inconsistent. It is very telling that when Dr McClellend stated what he saw and heard about Perry being pressured Perry was sitting right there and said nothing! He didn't say that never happened or I don't remember that or are you sure Robert? Not a word to refute what McClellend just said about him.
 

I got sucked into this thread because I didn't remember McClelland telling the ARRB that an "agent" told Perry not to say the throat wound appeared to be an entrance. I looked back through McClelland/Perry's joint interview with the ARRB and didn't find McClelland saying as much. Instead, I found McClelland's insistence the phone call with Humes took place on Saturday, mid-morning. If you could point out where McClelland said he saw an agent grab Perry I would be appreciative.

Now, in an attempt to be clear, let me explain what I think happened. The doctors were told by their supervisors not to talk too much or share too many details about what they witnessed, beyond the basics of the President's care. This is not surprising. This is what one would expect from a prestigious hospital. I have spent much of the last year in a hospital and I would expect the doctors engaged in my treatment to keep mum for the most part, and not attempt to gain any publicity from my illness or any other patient's illness. So that was one form of pressure brought to bear on the doctors.

Secondly, there was the Secret Service. The Secret Service, in the form of Elmer Moore, thought the doctors should know that, according to the autopsy, the throat wound was officially an exit wound. He later expressed concern he was wrong in doing so. But it's really simple when you think about it. There was a lot of conflicting info in the press. The SS and Moore thought they could minimize this by bringing the Parkland doctors in the loop and did so. Now, was this pressure? One might see it that way. But one might also see it as someone telling you you have toilet paper on your shoe, or that your fly is open. The Parkland staff, it seems to me, were appreciative of Moore's visit, and not fearful. To repeat myself, doctors routinely defer to the expertise of others. Perry's subsequent statements make clear he thought the throat wound looked like an entrance, but was willing to believe it was an exit. Even late in life, long after he'd acknowledged it could have been an exit, he insisted that it did look like an entrance. In other words, he felt his mistake was not in his observation, but in sharing his speculation with the media. The observations of ER doctors are not conclusions. They don't have time to make conclusions. They do their best to keep the patient alive. It is the job of pathologists and coroners to establish the exact cause of death. Now, not to get side-tracked, but, much as Cyril Wecht has challenged his fellow pathologists to find a bullet believed to have done as much damage as CE 399 and to have remained so pristine, I have challenged my fellow researchers to find one instance where the recollections of an emergency room doctor were presented in court to challenge the findings of a pathologist or coroner. And have received no response. And there's a reason why. It does not happen. An emergency room doctor challenging the findings of a pathologist or coroner in a court of law would be shredded by the opposing lawyer. What is your expertise? How many autopsies have you performed? How long did you study the patient? Did you open him up and study the bullet trajectories? Did you even turn the body over? 

Third, there's the WC. Specter's job was to make things add up. He knew there were problems. So he constructed a ludicrous question asking the Parkland staff if, assuming the bullet traveled on the trajectory outlined in the autopsy protocol, they would accept that the bullet traveled on the trajectory outlined in the autopsy protocol. It was a meaningless question, but it created the illusion there was no dispute about the throat wound, etc. Now, was this pressure? Of course it was. But did the doctors see it as much? Most would say no. Evidently he was charming and polite and just doing his job, which was to shut doors, not open them. 

And then there's what came after. What a lot of researchers miss is that many witnesses have succumbed to pressure from the research community. I personally witnessed people try to bully James Jenkins into saying the back of the head was missing, which he vehemently denied, only to later publish a book in which he succumbed to their pressure and wrote that the back of the head was missing. McClelland is another example. He demonstrated on camera his best recollection of the wound location numerous times. And always placed the wound at the top of the back of the head, within two inches or so of where he'd placed it before. And then later in life he sold (?) or provided drawings to people in which he depicted the wound on the far back of the head, at the level of the ear, which is to say low on the back of the head, inches lower than where he'd previously placed the wound. Well, why would he do this? Because that's where it is shown in the so-called "McClelland" drawing, a drawing made for Tink Thompson based on McClelland's testimony, the accuracy of which McClelland would disavow when asked by The Boston Globe and ARRB. Late in life, after becoming a darling for the CT community, however, he not only told people he had helped create the drawing for Thompson (which Thompson confirmed on this forum was simply not true) but that he drew it himself. And so, yeah, one can now find drawings by McClelland on eBay purporting to show where he saw the wound that closely mirrors the location shown in a drawing he did not create...whose accuracy he had previously disavowed.

Now, did McClelland give in to pressure? You bet he did. It's human nature. My beef is that so many on my side of the fence, which is to say the CT side of the fence, are unwilling to recognize their double-standard--where every time a witness tells a government investigator or an Oswald did-it writer what he wants to hear that person is giving in to pressure, but every time a witness tells a CT writer what he wants to hear he/she is a courageous truth-teller. It's just not so. People try to please those questioning them, and people are highly prone to suggestion. So, if a writer approaches a witness and says "Hey, all the other witnesses said they saw blank, did you see blank?" it's highly likely the witness would say "Y'know, I think I saw blank." (There's a ton of clinical studies demonstrating this tendency, many of which I discuss on my website.) In other words, the latter-day statements of witnesses can not be taken at face value, and must be weighed against previous statements, with added weight to their earliest statements.  

 

[Pat Speer]

2 hours ago, Gary Murr said:

Hello Ron:

At the time of the assassination of JFK, Audrey Bell was the head nurse supervisor of both the OR [Operating Rooms] and recovery rooms at Parkland Memorial Hospital. As someone who attempted to contact Bell on several occasions during my construct and gathering of research for my trilogy of works on the wounding of John Connally - unsuccessfully, as all of my correspondence was either ignored or returned - I can echo comments offered by  Pat Speer. Audrey Bell is one individual whose various comments, narratives, "testimony' should be approached with caution.  FWIW

Gary Murr

Thanks, Gary. it's clear to me the head nurse for the OR would not be wandering around the ER inspecting the wounds of a mortally wounded patient. 

I spent some time in ERs and ORs in the last year and there was no overlap. Once I was out of the ER I never saw those nurses and doctors again. And I never saw the floor nurses in the OR or at the recovery rooms, and never saw the OR/recovery room nurses once I was back in my room. It's a very regimented system. Now, Parkland back then was not nearly the size of Parkland today, but it was still quite large, roughly the size of the hospitals I've had the displeasure to visit. 

Now here's a thought. Did you create a timeline of Connally's and Kennedy's treatment? At what point was Connally taken to the OR? Because Bell would have been with him from that point, correct? Well, the thought occurs that Carrico may still have been with JFK when Connally was taken up to the OR. If so, that leaves a very small or nonexistent window for Bell to have visited the ER, and to have talked with Perry. 

Edited January 23, 2022 by Pat Speer

[James DiEugenio]

Its all in my article above.

Just look at the The Parkland Doctors.

Its near the end.  Someone grabbed Perry and said words to the effect, "Don't ever say that again."  What makes this remarkable is that the press conference started at 2:15, and JFK was announced dead at 1 PM.  Now, according to Horne and the AF 1 tapes, the uncensored version, LeMay is also flying in from an unspecified location in Canada around this time, a location he lied about. He refused to reply to his aide de camp on the inbound flight, and he also breaks orders by landing at National instead of Andrews. In keeping with the clandestine nature of the flight, there were two advantages to doing this. First, all the cameras were at Andrews since that is where JFK's body came in, therefore the odds of detection were much lower, plus National is closer to Bethesda.

Now, Bell is backed up by Perry  himself. Perry said he was getting calls from Bethesda that night and he adds to it by saying they were threatening calls. As I have said before, IMO, Humes and Boswell would not do something like that, at least in my opinion.

But LeMay? I have little doubt he would.

When this new information is assembled, in my view, its pretty hard to deny that there was some kind of teamwork going on between Dallas and Washington that day.  The Perry/Clark press conference was fatal to the Oswald story that needed to be promulgated by the conspirators.  And that fact that the video of that conference disappeared, and the Secret Service lied about not having a transcript of it, this  shows what prosecutors call "consciousness of guilt".  That press conference is very strong evidence of an ambush, with shots from the front.  And the way Perry gets angry with reporter Martin Steadman-"I know what an entrance would looks like, I have done hundreds of these types of operations, and I am also a hunter"--this shows what a job that Elmer Moore had to do on this guy. And btw, it was not just Moore, it was Roger Warner also.  They essentially did the advance work for Specter.

I am glad we got some of this in, especially in the long version. The  part I regret not getting in were the Perry admissions to Steadman. The reason that part did not get in was we got thrown out of Oliver's office due to CV 19 when I discovered it through Rob Couteau.  BTW, the process of talking the Dallas doctors out of what they saw went all the way up to 1988 and PBS and Nova. The host of that show was Walter Cronkite.  The producer of the show was Bob Richter.  They both worked on the 1967 four part CBS cover up.

Edited January 23, 2022 by James DiEugenio

[Pat Speer]

O.K. Back to square one. Where did Perry say he received threatening calls on the night of the shooting? It seems to me this is all second-hand info received decades after the fact. I've watched and read a number of Perry interviews and have no recollection of him saying such a thing. 

As to the disappearance of the Parkland transcript, I agree, this was no coincidence. But it wasn't because those making it disappear knew the shots came from the front, but because they were concerned what the public might think if Perry's initial perception was made public. So Specter put on a show, and "helped" Perry pretend the newspaper articles quoting him had misquoted him. It was all part of a dog and pony show. But it's silly, IMO, to pretend this was all part of the plot to kill the President. There was the plot to kill the President and then there was a coordinated effort to make Oswald look like a lone assassin. I see them as two separate events, with those involved in the second event not privy to what really happened, and presumably believing Oswald actually did the crime.