The "Other" Zapruder Film

[Benjamin Cole]

On 2/25/2022 at 9:47 AM, Pat Speer said:

Since this thread has drifted off into discussing wound ballistics, I'd like those with an interest to know that a few years back I added a substantial chapter to my website in which I discuss the history of wound ballistics, and the wound ballistics of the 6.5 mm Mannlicher-Carcano in particular. It's Chapter 16b: Digging in the Dirt. 

To be completely modest, it's probably the best thing ever written about Kennedy's large head wound. 

I like your chapter 16b, and I think you should summarize the findings and post here. 

[Eddy Bainbridge]

3 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

 

I  discuss all those witnesses and drawings in chapters 18c and 18d. If you read it you will see that many of those witnesses did not say what we were told they said, and that some of those who've written on this subject were unwell, dishonest, or both. 

Perhaps we should discuss this on another thread. 

 

Using Pat's post (above) to make a broader point: On any contested issue we can refer to witnesses to observe trends, but cannot rely on one witness. For example ; state a question: Did the limo stop? There is an observable trend around this point; witnesses who expressed a view often stated the limo perceptibly stopped/slowed. What we don't have is a corresponding and persuasive set of witnesses who say it did not perceptibly stop/slow. Therefore a trend(towards the limo in fact stopping/slowing) is perceived in the evidence, with no countervailing trend contradicting it (There might be such a trend in observers who expressed no opinion).

A disingenuous way of challenging the perceived trend is to challenge individual  elements of the trend, perhaps by saying "that some of those who've written on this subject were unwell, dishonest, or both. " This approach clouds the evidence, but what it doesn't do is replace the trend with another one. It has another effect; which is to make us wonder what group of 'unwell/dishonest' people decided to act in unison, and why?

[Sandy Larsen]

On 2/26/2022 at 2:36 AM, Pat Speer said:

My key finding--the finding that is 100% supported by the autopsy protocol, autopsy photos, x-rays, and Z-film--is that the large head wound was a tangential wound, a wound of both entrance and exit.

 

Pat has discovered that researchers can avoid controversy by buying into certain parts of the Warren Commission's fake narrative, and still continue to maintain that the assassination was a conspiracy. I don't know if this is an "end justifies the means" tactic on Pat's part or if he has been been fooled by the WC coverup. Either way, he is willing to go to extraordinary lengths to pull it off.

In the case of the gaping head wound, Pat has erased all the difficulties in explaining faked autopsy photos, faked x-rays, and altered Zapruder film. He does so by ignoring the early testimonies of virtually every Parkland professional (about twenty of them), and also others, who saw the wound on the rear of Kennedy's head. He then cherry picks a few witnesses whose testimonies bolster his case, that the wound was on the top of Kennedy's head. He also chooses to believe a few Parkland doctors who later changed their testimonies once they learned they were contradicted by the official narrative.

 

On 2/26/2022 at 2:36 AM, Pat Speer said:

This didn't come to me out of the blue. It came from Dr. William Kemp Clark. It was, almost certainly, his main observation.on the day of the shooting.

 

What? Dr Clark's "main observation" was that the large head wound was a tangential wound? I don't think so. It was pure speculation on his part, as was his guess that the large head wound may have been caused by a bullet entering the throat. Here is what Dr. Clark said:

"The head wound could have been either the exit wound from the neck or it could have been a tangential wound, as it was simply a large, gaping loss of tissue."

Let's see what else Dr. Clark said on the day of the assassination:

"...in the occipital region of the skull... Through the head wound, blood and brain were extruding... There was a large wound in the right occipitoparietal region, from which profuse bleeding was occurring... There was considerable loss of scalp and bone tissue. Both cerebral and cerebellar tissue were extruding from the wound."
(WC--CE#392)

and

"A large 3 x 3 cm remnant of cerebral tissue present....there was a smaller amount of cerebellar tissue present also....There was a large wound beginning in the right occiput extending into the parietal region....Much of the skull appeared gone at the brief examination...."
(Exhibit #392: WC V17:9-10)

Oh my, Dr. Clark said a lot of things indicating that the large head wound was on the back of the head, not top. Just like nearly every Parkland doctor and nurse said on the first day. Which contradicts a lot of evidence -- like the back-of head Kennedy autopsy photo -- that Pat says his position supports.

As I said, Pat discards a whole lot of testimonial evidence so that he can support the WC's official narrative on the head wound. He does this in the name of sidestepping "inconvenient" controversy

 

On 2/26/2022 at 2:36 AM, Pat Speer said:

It led me to sift through dozens of forensics journals and textbooks and learn all I could about tangential wounds. And it's 100% conclusive the large head wound was a tangential wound. 

 

While it may be true that the head wound is a tangential one, this is certainly not 100% conclusive.

 

[Pat Speer]

I feel like Al Pacino in The Godfather 3. "They keep pulling me back!"

As stated, I wrote two chapters explaining my views on this issue and demonstrating mass deception on the parts of some of those selling that JFK's large head wound was really low on the back of the head. 

I took no comfort in coming to these conclusions. I like Bob Groden and have spent time with him on the knoll, answering questions. As discussed in chapter 18c, I studied what the witnesses were REALLY saying and ignored the spin put on their statements by those selling books. And the earliest statements suggest a wound further toward the back of the skull than shown in the autopsy photos, but higher up on the back of the skull than shown in the so-called McClelland drawing, which, of course, was not actually drawn by McClelland. This led me to write chapter 18d, in which I discussed the months I spent studying cognitive psychology, and my subsequent conclusion most of the Parkland witnesses were wrong as to the exact location of the wound. 

My writing of these chapters upset many, and continues to upset many, most of whom refuse to actually read them. It's like trying to get a born-again Christian to read Darwin. 

This backlash culminated, moreover, in a hit piece written by Millicent Cranor, in which she attacked me for claiming those saying the Parkland witnesses were right about the location of the large head wound place this wound low on the back of the head. This, in effect, proved my point. After studying the evidence, she thought it was ludicrous that anyone would think the McClelland drawing was an accurate depiction of the wound. And yet she refused to acknowledge that book after book, video after video, article after article, has claimed as much. 

It's amazing to me that people on this forum and within the community are so incensed about bs when it's coming from the likes of Posner and Bugliosi, but turn a blind eye to it when it comes from some of the more famous conspiracy theorists to write on the case. 

Since some seem to want to duke this out right here right now, I'll provide a taste of chapter 18c. 

When one looks at the history of the controversy, that is, the history of the purported Parkland/Bethesda divide on the location of Kennedy's large head wound, one finds that much of it was stirred up by writer Harrison Livingstone in the years 1979-1981. In 1979, on a trip expensed to the Baltimore Sun, Livingstone went to Dallas and asked a number of witnesses to Kennedy's wounds a series of questions about them, and showed them the HSCA's tracing of the back of the head photo--the photo illicitly copied by Livingstone's soon-to-be-partner Robert Groden. While the Sun never published a detailed article on these encounters, Livingstone did publish his version of such an article in the 11-22-81 issue of The Continuing Inquiry newsletter.

Here are the sections of the article on the witnesses:

• 1. "'That's not the way I remember it,' said Dr. Richard Dulany, a medical resident who was on duty in the emergency room when Kennedy was brought in, after looking at a copy of an offical autopsy photograph. According to Dr. Dulany, there is a 'definite conflict' between the wounds as portrayed in the photo and the wounds which he observed in the emergency room. There were at least 22 witnesses in Dallas who have described a 'large hole in the back of the head.' Dr. Dulany insists that the photo does not show the large, gaping wound which had blown out the back of the president's head." (Note that Livingstone fails to reveal the degree of this 'conflict'--was Dulaney told that the autopsy photo he was shown was genuine? Was he willing to sign an affidavit saying the photo was a fake? Or did he simply assume he was mistaken?)

  2. "Dr. Paul Peters, professor and chairman of the Urology Department at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School at Parkland, also questions the accuracy of the disputed photograph. Dr. Peters told the Warren Commission: 'We saw the wound of entry in the throat and noted the large occipital wound.'' After seeing the pictures, he said, 'I don't think it's consistent with what I saw. There was a large hole in the back of the head through which one could see the brain. But that hole does not appear, in the photograph.'" (Note the lack of certainty. Peters 'questions.' Peters doesn't 'think' it's consistent. In other words, Peters, as Dulaney, was unwilling to say he thought the photo was a fake.)

  3. "The president's widow also described a severe wound at the back of the head to the Commission: 'But from the back, you could see, you know, you were trying to hold his hair and his skull on...''' (This, as we've seen, was a misrepresentation of her statements, which in fact suggested the wound was at the top of the head, and more readily viewed from behind.)

  4. "Doris Nelson, a Dallas nurse who was the supervisor of the emergency room when Kennedy was brought there, and who helped to treat the dying president, said that government autopsy photos of the skull are 'not true. There was no hair.' She said, while disputing the most controversial photograph, which merely shows a small entry wound in the cowlick area, which is four inches from where the autopsy report itself describes it, 'There wasn't even any hair back there, on the back of the head. It was blown away. All that area was blown out.'" (Well, here's a decent witness. Of course, she later showed Life Magazine where she thought the wound had been--and it was what most of us would call the top of the head.)

  5. "Claiming that the Photographs were too 'gory,'...the (HSCA) actually published exact tracings of them. It was these tracings, which are described as being accurate down to the last detail, which the Dallas medical witnesses recently evaluated for this report. (One witness, however. Dr. Malcolm Perry of the Cornell Medical Center, was shown prints of the actual photographs by Sun reporters in 1979, and also strongly denounced them as being inaccurate.)" (Hmmm...Perry was Kennedy's primary physician in the ER, why not quote him directly? Could it be that Perry was not shown the photo by the reporters, as claimed, but by Robert Groden, who kept no notes?)

  6. "The list of medical witnesses who have challenged the autopsy photos includes Dr. Robert McClelland, professor of surgery at the University of Texas Medical School in Dallas. Seventeen years ago, he told the Warren Commission that he stood at the head of the operating table in the emergency room 'in such a position that I could very closely examine the head wound, and I noted that the right posterior portion of the skull had been extremely blasted. It had been shattered, apparently, by the force of the shot...in such a way that you could actually look down into the skull cavity.'' Recently, after viewing a sketch of the gaping head wound which had been drawn by an independent investigator, Dr. McClelland said that it accurately portrays what he 'vividly remembers' seeing on the operating table after the president was rushed into emergency. He firmly rejected the autopsy photos." (Livingstone failed to reveal that McClelland's initial report on his 'vivid' recollections of the wound on the back of the head...placed the wound in the left temple.)

  7. "Margaret Hood (Margaret Henchllffe at the time) had been an emergency room nurse for 12 years prior to the assassination. The nurse, who helped wheel the wounded president into the room and later prepared his body for the coffin, recently drew a sketch of the wound on a skull model provided by reporters. That sketch also showed a large wound at the back of the head. 'You couldn't see much of the wound,' said Ms. Hood. 'It didn't affect his face or ears at all. it was more to the back.' Ms. Hood also strongly disavowed the photographs." (Well, once again, what does that mean-- 'disavowed'? Did she say they weren't consistent with what she remembered? Or did she accuse the government of misconduct?)

  8. "Dr. Ronald C. Jones, a professor of surgery who was Parkland Hospital's chief resident in surgery at the time of the murder, originally described for the Warren Commission 'what appeared to be an exit wound in the posterior portion of the skull.' He also rejected the autopsy photos, and drew an outline with his finger of a large hole at the back of an imaginary head. In addition, he described the drawing which Dr. McClelland had approved as 'close.'" (Once again, this was too vague. Is it really a story when someone remembers something a bit differently than it is depicted in some photographs? No, I don't think so. The story comes when that person is willing to swear on a stack of Bibles their recollections are correct, and publicly accuse someone of faking the photographs. None of Livingstone's witnesses have gone that far.)

  9. "Patricia Gustafson (then Patricia Hutton), another emergency room nurse at the time of the shooting, helped to wheel the president from the limousine into treatment. Ms. Gustafson, testifying before the Warren Commission, outlined a 'massive opening on the back of the head.' Recently, describing an effort to place a pressure bandage on the head wound, she said: 'I tried to do so, but there was really nothing to put a pressure bandage on. It was too massive. So he told me just to leave it be.' Asked if she was sure about the location of the wound, she said yes: ''It was the back of the head,' she said, while rejecting the autopsy photos." ("Rejecting"? What does that mean? I reject what looks back at me in the mirror each morning, but that doesn't mean I think it's fake, and part of some massive conspiracy.)

  10. "Fouad Bashour was an associate professor of medicine in cardiology at the time of the shooting. Interviewed by this reporter at his office in 1979, Dr. Bashour insisted that the official photo which he was being shown did not accurately depict the location of the major wound. 'Why do they cover it up?' he asked several times. 'This is not the way it was.'" (Livingstone hid that Bashour only saw Kennedy's wound for a few seconds.)

  11. "Dr. Charles Baxter, interviewed the same day, who had earlier told the Warren Commission 'There was a large, gaping wound in the back of the skull,' also questioned the autopsy photos." (Well, wait a minute. Baxter had told the Warren Commission "There was a large gaping wound in the skull." He had said nothing about the "back of the skull." In fact, it's worse than that. Baxter at first exclaimed "literally, the right side of his head had been blown off," but then later specified that the wound was in the "temporal parietal plate of bone laid outward to the side." This was a wound on the side of the head, and not the back of the head, as claimed by Livingstone. And "questioned?" What's that mean? And why not quote Baxter from his most recent interview? It seems likely from this that Baxter was mostly supportive of the photos in his interview with Livingstone, and that Livingstone didn't want to admit as much in his article.)

  12. "After being shown the most controversial photo. Dr. Marion Jenkins (he told the Warren Commission, 'There was a great laceration on the right side of the head (temporal and occipital) . . . even to the extent that the cerebellum had protruded from the wound'), blurted: 'No, not like that. Not like that, because... No, you want to know what it really looked, like? Well, that picture doesn't look like it from the back.' Dr. Jenkins demonstrated several times, on his own and a reporter's head, that the large exit wound had been located on the back of the skull: 'You could tell at this point with your fingers that it was scored out (that the edges were blasted out).'" (It seems likely from this that Jenkins didn't trust Livingstone's assertion the photo was an official photo, and was simply trying to show them what he remembered. He was certainly much more cautious in his subsequent interviews. This highlights the problem with the article--it shows that the memories of Kennedy's wounds of some witnesses are inconsistent with what is shown in the autopsy photos, but fails to explore the strength of their recollections, or even what this means...if this is in fact unusual for people trying to remember the specifics of something that happened 16 years prior.)

  13. "Dr. Charles Carrico, now a professor of surgery at the University of Washington in Seattle, was a general surgeon in residency at Parkland when the president was shot--and the first doctor to reach him. He told the Warren Commission about a large gaping wound, a five-by-seven-centimeter defect in the posterior skull, which he observed in the occipital region. But he has not been interviewed since." (Is it a coincidence that Livingstone failed to interview Carrico, and that Carrico would come to totally reject Livingstone's claims?)

  14. "In addition to these medical figures, three other physicians who were involved in treating the , stricken president-Doctors Gene C. Akin, Jackie Hunt, and Adolph Giesecke, have not fully endorsed the autopsy pictures." (In other words, they partially endorsed the autopsy pictures. Well, what part? Since, if they'd said the head wound was wrong, Livingstone would most certainly have let his readers know about it, it seems likely they said they thought the photos of the head wound looked pretty good to them...and that Livingstone didn't want us to know about this.)

  15. "Two crucial medical witnesses, meanwhile, have not yet been interviewed about the case. Dr. Kemp Clark, who was the senior physician on duty in the Parkland 'trauma room' when the wounded president was brought in, refuses to comment--although he described for the Warren Commission '... a large wound in the right occiput, extending into the parietal region.'' (Livingstone hid from his readers that Clark accepted the conclusions of the autopsy report and Warren Commission.)

  16. "Diana H. Bowron, a British nurse who worked in the Parkland emergency room in 1963, could not be located as of this writing. However, Ms. Bowron did tell the Warren Commission: 'the president was moribund. He was lying across Mrs. Kennedy's knee, and there seemed to be blood everywhere. When I went around to the other side of car, I saw the condition of his head...the back of his head...it was very bad; I just saw one large hole.''' (Aha! A good, credible witness...whom Livingstone hadn't even spoken to...or shown the autopsy photo...)

It seems clear from this, then, that Livingstone was pushing an agenda in his article, and that he wasn't particularly interested in telling his readers the whole story. I mean, why else short-change the recollections of those "not fully" endorsing the photos, and emphasize the recollections of several others--including Mrs. Kennedy--whom he didn't even interview?

And here are some more reasons to believe he cherry-picked his quotes to push a fantastic theory he knew few would buy if he was more forthcoming...

First of all, he claimed, in the article, that "According to the recently interviewed medical witnesses, the president had been shot in the throat, from in front, in addition to the head shot." Well, this was just not true. Few of the witnesses interviewed by Livingstone even saw the throat wound before it was expanded by Dr. Perry, and those that did never told anyone else that the throat wound they saw WAS in fact an entrance wound...only that it appeared to be one. Now, this is an important distinction. These witnesses made observations, and formed recollections, and may or may not have formed opinions based upon these recollections. But Livingstone claimed they'd both presented these opinions as facts, which would have been thoroughly unprofessional, and universally shared the same opinion. It seems clear, then, that he was putting words in their mouths, and that he was exaggerating, or worse.

Secondly, a 6-11-80 article on Livingstone by Maureen Williams found in the Bangor Daily News suggests Livingstone was not a healthy camper. I know this seems a cheap shot, but stick with me here. This article was on Livingstone at a time virtually no one knew who he was, written in his local paper. The article, it follows, was his idea, or at least written with his full cooperation. And yet, look what it reveals: "The federal government has stipulated that certain sensitive material concerning the investigation of the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963 cannot be released to the public and media until the year 2039. One man who claims to be living in secrecy and fear for his life in eastern Maine, claims to have gotten some of that material through an underground source with connections in the Pentagon. Harrison Edward Livingstone, one of hundreds of private citizens who are involved in researching the assassination, carries his completed but rough manuscript of his book with him wherever he goes...He has kept on the move in recent years in several states, because he said he believes he's a 'hunted man.' In one of those states, he says, his car was fitted with an explosive device. In July 1979, a plane was to carry a team of reporters of the Baltimore Sun to Dallas, where they were to rendezvous with Livingstone. The plane was accidentally rammed by a jet fuel delivery truck on the airport apron. Livingstone says this was no accident. The incident caused the occupants to be confined in the plane for three hours, but what is stranger is that neither the newspaper or Livingstone could locate the investigative team for two days. In July and November 1979, the Baltimore Sun published two stories, containing purported new information and a lot of speculation, which Livingstone claims to have stimulated. 'But nobody read it...the wire services probably didn't pick it up, and one of the stories ran on a Sunday features page,' Livingstone said. Livingstone is convinced that some of the government's official autopsy photographs have been forged by an employee of the Central Intelligence Agency so they would be consistent with the so-called 'single-bullet, single-gunman' theory. Livingstone said that on July 30, 1979, he traveled to Dallas where he interviewed various physicians who attended the dying president at Parkland Hospital. In tape-recorded and transcribed interviews, Livingstone said, medical doctors Adolph Giesecke, Robert McClelland, Malcolm Perry, Charles Baxter, Fouad Bashour, Jacqueline Hunt, and Marion Jenkins, indicate that the official government photo shown them may have been fake, because it shows an entrance wound in the occipital-parietal section of the president's head. Livingstone says they all told him that when the president was wheeled into Parkland's emergency room for initial medical treatment, the wound they saw in the back of his head looked like an exit wound...Robert Groden of Hopelawn, N.J., a photographic consultant to the House Assassinations Committee, said 'My visual inspection of the autopsy photos and X-rays reveals evidence of forgery in four of the photographs..."

The article then proceeded to quote Jack White on the possibility the photos had been faked, and Dr. Cyril Wecht on the probability there was more than one shooter. It then reported: "On the other hand, Dr. Paul C. Peters, professor and chairman of the Division of Urology, University of Texas Health Science Center at Dallas, told the NEWS that he has never seen any of the official government autopsy photos. He was one of the many doctors and nurses who tried to revive the dying President 17 years ago. But after studying the forensic observations of Dr. John Lattimer, a retired Columbia professor, he believes that the gaping hole he saw in the right rear of the felled President's head should not be considered a true exit wound, but a 'tangential' wound, caused by a shallow bullet entry at the back of his neck."

Well, where do we begin? Hmmm... Livingstone had either presented himself, or had allowed himself to be presented, as a man on the run from dark forces--all because he had copies of the autopsy photos. He then hid that he'd received these copies from Robert Groden, by claiming he'd gotten them from some mysterious figure in the Pentagon. This allowed, as well, for Groden to serve as an additional source for the reporter. Well, this was pretty sneaky, no? And then there's the matter of Peters, who was not listed as one of Livingstone's interviewees, but nevertheless ended up getting called by Williams, only to shoot down the possibility the Parkland doctors' disagreement with the photos suggests a second shooter, by claiming single-assassin theorist Dr. John Lattimer had convinced him otherwise. Pretty wacky.

And from there it only got wackier. By June of 1981, Livingstone had convinced Ben Bradlee, Jr. of the Boston Globe to pick up where he'd left off, and interview the Parkland witnesses for himself. Bradlee's summary of these interviews can be found in the Weisberg Archives. They reveal that Bradlee focused on the recollections of 16 witnesses, and that 8 of the 14 he interviewed for the story cast doubt on the authenticity of the photos, and 6 largely supported their authenticity. This was a journalist at work, and not a theorist. And he believed barely more than half the witnesses suggested the photos were at odds with the wounds. This was far from the ALL claimed by Livingstone.

The witnesses Bradlee thought disagreed with the official description of the head wound were:

• 1. Dr. Robert McClelland, who is reported to have claimed that the drawing he approved for book publication is still how he "vividly remembers" the wound appearing.

  2. Dr. Richard Dulany, who is reported to have "told the Globe that he recalled seeing a wound four to six inches in diameter squarely in the back of the head, in a location quite distinct from that depicted in the official autopsy report and photograph."

  3. Patricia Gustafson, who repeated what she'd earlier told Livingston, that the wound she'd observed was at the "back of the head."

  4. Doris M. Nelson, who "drew an illustration of the head wound that placed it high on the back, right side. The wound she drew was in the parietal area, but it extended well toward the rear of the head and appears to conflict with the autopsy photograph. Shown the tracing of that photo, Nelson immediately said: 'It isn't true.' Specifically, she objected to the photograph showing hair in the back of the head. 'There was no hair,' she said. 'There wasn't even hair back there. It was blown away. All that area was blown out.'" (Note: Bradlee was more specific than Livingstone regarding Nelson's recollections, and reveals that, while disputing the accuracy of the autopsy photos, she nevertheless felt the wound was at the top of Kennedy's head, and not on the far back of the head, where Livingstone and others placed the wound.)

  5. Margaret Hood, who "sketched a gaping hole in the occipital region which extended only slightly into the parietal area."

  6. Dr. Ronald Jones, who "refused to make a drawing of the wound on a plastic skull model, saying he never had an opportunity to define the wound's margins. With his finger, however, he outlined the wound as being in the very rear of the head. He said the official autopsy photograph of the back of the head did not square with his recollection, but that the McClelland drawing was 'close.'" (Well, this is interesting. Jones clearly saw where this was headed, and tried to make clear that his recollection wasn't worth all that much.)

  7. Dr. Paul Peters, who "made a drawing that appeared to place the head wound entirely in the parietal region, but he insisted that he meant for it to overlap into the occipital region as well. 'I think occipital–parietal describes it pretty well,' he remarked. He said he had a good opportunity to examine the head wound. Shown the official tracing of the autopsy photograph, Peters remarked: 'I don't think it's consistent with what I saw.' Of the McClelland drawing, Peters said: 'It's not too far off. It's a little bit (too far) down in the occipital area, is what I would say...But it's not too bad. It's a large wound, and that's what we saw at the time.'" (Well, this is also quite intriguing. Peters placed the wound in the parietal area, but, one can only presume, recalled Clark's description of it as occipito-parietal, and thought better of it. Note also that two of the witnesses disputing the accuracy of the autopsy photos--Nelson and Peters--had disputed the accuracy of the McClelland drawing as well.)

  8. Diana H. Bowron: A British registered nurse. Bradlee couldn't find her but quoted her testimony before the Warren Commission.

  9. Dr. William Kemp Clark. Clark refused to be interviewed but Bradlee quoted his previous reports and testimony.

  10. Dr. Gene C. Akin, who "at first recalled that the head wound was 'more parietal than occipital'" but who equivocated after being shown the McClelland drawing, and said "Well, in my judgment at the time, what I saw was more parietal. But on the basis of this sketch, if this is what Bob McClelland saw, then it's more occipital.'" (Holy smokes. This confirms that at least one back of the head witness deferred to the accuracy of McClelland's drawing, without realizing the drawing had not been made by McClelland, and without the foresight to realize McClelland himself would come to dispute its accuracy. There's also this. Of the 8 witnesses disputing the accuracy of the autopsy photos, three--Nelson, Peters, and Akin--also initially disputed the accuracy of the McClelland drawing.)

This, then brings us to the six witnesses Bradlee spoke to who "tended to agree with the official description of the head wound that emerged from the autopsy and Warren Report."

• 1. Dr. Charles Baxter, who, despite his earlier statements and testimony, drew "a large wound in the parietal region" on a model skull, and "said the official autopsy photo of the back of the head did not conflict with his memory."

  2. Dr. Adolph Giesecke, who "placed the head wound in the right parietal region, saying it extended about three or four centimeters into the occiput. Though this would appear to make the wound visible in a rear-view photo, Giesecke said the official autopsy photograph was nonetheless 'very compatible' with what he remembered. He explained this by saying that in the photograph it appeared to him that a flap of scalp blown loose by a billet was being held in such a way as to cover the rear-most portion of the skull wound. Giesecke said the McClelland drawing did not reflect what he remembered of the wound." (So Giesecke was being reasonable; the photo didn't reflect exactly what he remembered but it was close enough for him to assume it was legitimate. Meanwhile, he totally dismissed the McClelland drawing.)

  3. Dr. Charles Carrico, who was not interviewed, but answered questions by letter, and said in his first letter "that the official autopsy photograph showed 'nothing incompatible' with what he remembered of the back of the head. But he conceded that 'we never saw, and did not look for, any posterior wound.' In his second letter, Carrico said he agreed with the size of the wound shown in the McClelland drawing, but not its location, since '...we were able to see the majority. if not all of this wound, with the patient laying on his back in a hospital gurney.'"

  4. Dr. Malcolm Perry, who, like Carrico, declined to be interviewed, but responded by letter. "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 had not made 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."

  5. Dr. Marion T. Jenkins, whose earlier claims he'd observed cerebellum had been widely quoted "told The Globe he had been mistaken in his statements on this. 'I thought it was cerebellum, but I didn't examine it,' he said. Jenkins refused to draw a picture of the head wound on a plastic skull model, insisting instead that a reporter play the part of the supine Kennedy so he could demonstrate what he saw and did. Asked to locate the large head wound, Jenkins pointed to the parietal area above the right ear. He said he had never looked at the back of the head."

  6. Dr. Robert G. Grossman, who "said he took up a position next to Dr. Clark at the right of Kennedy's head. In contrast to Jenkins, Grossman said the president's head was picked up by Clark. 'It was clear to me that the right parietal bone had been lifted up by a bullet which had exited,' Grossman said. Besides this large parietal wound, Grossman went on to say that he had noted another separate wound. measuring about one—and—a-quarter inches in diameter, located squarely in the occiput. Grossman was the only doctor interviewed who made such a reference to two distinct wounds. Though no occipital wound such as he described is apparent in the official autopsy photograph, Grossman nevertheless said 'it seems consistent' with what he remembered. He said the large wound depicted in the McClelland drawing 'is in the wrong place.'"

Let's reflect. Ben Bradlee and the Boston Globe interviewed 14 Parkland witnesses in 1981. Of these 14, 8 strongly questioned or rejected the accuracy of the autopsy photo showing the back of Kennedy's head, and 6 supported or failed to question the accuracy of the photo. This is indeed interesting. But what's just as interesting, and just as telling in the long run, is that NINE of these 14 rejected the accuracy of the McClelland drawing, which those focusing on this issue nevertheless propped up as a depiction of the one true wound.

Feel free to scream. And let's reflect that when ultimately reporting on these interviews, in his 1989 best seller High Treason, Livingstone and his co-author Robert Groden claimed that the "McClelland" drawing "was verified by every doctor, nurse, and eyewitness as accurate."

So, I ask again, were we conned?

 

Edited February 27, 2022 by Pat Speer

[Michael Crane]

Elmer Moore couldn't or did not make Crenshaw change his statement.

 

[Pat Speer]

2 hours ago, Michael Crane said:

Elmer Moore couldn't or did not make Crenshaw change his statement.

 

This is the kind of stuff I discuss on my website, Michael. Crenshaw never made a statement until years after the assassination, and then only after he'd been exposed to tons of conspiracy material.

P.S. There is no indication Moore even talked about the head wounds. The Parkland witnesses indicated the head wound was on the back of the head in their early statements and then again in their testimony, and the autopsy doctors created a drawing showing the wound at the top of the back of the head. In the aftermath of the release of this drawing, back in 1964, moreover, none of the Parkland witnesses--not one--came forward to say it was inaccurate. 

Now, that said, yes, there was a cover-up of the medical evidence. First, the WC attorneys and autopsy doctors conspired to move the back wound up to the back of the neck...to better sell that this bullet came from above and exited the throat. And second, the Clark Panel realized that a trajectory connecting the small wound on the back of the head and the large wound on the top of the head made little sense in light of Kennedy's position in the Zapruder film, and "found" an entrance wound 4 inches higher on the back of the head. 

And yet, almost no one beyond myself discusses these two provable cover-ups.. 

 

[Michael Crane]

We will just have to agree to disagree on this one Pat.

I still consider you one of the best forensic researchers here on the forum  😉

Edited February 28, 2022 by Michael Crane

[Pat Speer]

5 hours ago, Michael Crane said:

We will just have to agree to disagree on this one Pat.

I still consider you one of the forensic researchers here on the forum  😉

OK, let's be specific. What are we disagreeing on?

That the Parkland witnesses were pressured into changing their testimony (regarding JFK's head wound) by Moore? That's not debatable. It did not happen. They did not change their testimony and the Rydberg drawings show a wound on the back of the head.

Or that there were cover-ups regarding the back wound location and head wound entrance location? That too is not debatable. It happened. Do you think it was just a coincidence that Joe Ball wrote a memo saying he needed to explain how a shot from above could enter the back and exit the throat, and that he went along with Specter when Specter spoke to the doctors and ordered up the Rydberg drawings? And do you think it was a coincidence that Clark hired Fisher to debunk the crap in Thompson's book, including his demonstration that the head wound trajectory made little sense, and that Fisher then "found" an entrance high on the back of JFK's head, which essentially nullified the original autopsy report? 

Now, I suspect what you meant is that we disagree on Crenshaw. And I suppose we do...

[Michael Crane]

I'm not the best debater,and my speech & grammar is far from what others provide.

I guess where we disagree the most is the location in the back of the head.I don't believe that the wound extends as "high" as you do.I am in more agreement with the Parkland witnesses,then the Bethesda witnesses.

Even the very early arriving mortician Thomas Robinson has pin pointed his location.

I have the wound rising at most above the ear.

Edited February 28, 2022 by Michael Crane

[Michael Crane]

If push comes to shove....let's go with the autopsy report itself.

 

[Jamey Flanagan]

These are great discussions to be had gentlemen, for sure, but getting back on course to the subject of the post, I'm wondering if anyone had anything else to add on the "other" film of the assassination with a similar viewpoint to Zapruder or it possibly just being an "unaltered" copy of Zapruder? Several things have always bugged me about the extant Zapruder film over the years. And I have pretty much been all over the place as far as my opinion as to the extent (extant, lol, pun intended) of the alteration. But, I have always believed that there was alteration, even as a young man studying the case who had probably never used the word alteration. Zapruder and Sitzman stated that he started filming just as the motorcade (the advance motorcycle cops) started turning onto Elm. Neither has EVER said that he stopped filming and started back. I don't think he did. I think that for some reason or multiple reasons that the rest of the motorcade and the Presidential limo turning onto Elm has been removed from the current version we call the Zapruder film. The Stemmons Freeway sign has always bugged me even if I couldn't articulate why at the time. And granted, I have never been to Dealey Plaza (as of yet) and I haven't seen the angles or stood on the same "perch" that Zapruder stood, but every road sign I have ever seen in my life has faced toward the oncoming traffic so they can see it. Do you know what I mean? This sign on the extant film looks almost like instead of facing oncoming traffic that it is facing the opposite side of the road. This doesn't make sense to me at all going by seeing road signs my whole life but I never recall seeing one quite like this. And coupled with testimony that the sign was quickly taken down and replaced it just makes me feel like something happened with that sign and that it has been replaced in the film we now see and that since they had to replace that sign anyway they maybe enlarged it a little and placed it at that strange angle to hide something that went on while the limo was in that area. The area where the throat shot occurred. If, as many suspect, the shot came from the south knoll and through the windshield then maybe you could see evidence of the windshield shot from the front and they used the sign to hide that impact. Just speculation on my part of course. And there is no doubt in my mind that there was at the very least a brief limo stop or what officers call a rolling stop at the time of the head shot or head shots that we do not see on this film. I've been pulled over before where I stopped at a stop sign and had time to look both ways before accelerating again. But the officer swore up and down that I didn't stop at all, leaving me dumbfounded because I know I stopped no matter how briefly. Maybe the limo did a rolling stop but I have no doubt that it did some kind of a stop. Enough for people to notice. Not the fluid motion we see in the extant copy. And last, but not least, as much as I appreciate that rapid head movement backwards leading many people to believe in a conspiracy, the facts are the facts........no witness in Dealey Plaza seeing this horrific event unfold right before their eyes have EVER reported seeing that violent backwards head snap that day. And many have said that his head went forward after the head shot. And not the imperceptible to the human eye forward motion just before the violent backwards head snap we see in the film currently. Noticeable forward movement. I'm not going to speculate as to why the people behind the assassination would alter the evidence to make it look more like a shot from the front other than they thought the film would never see the light of day except for selected still frames. To me, if that head snap was done just to remove frames of a limo stop then the forgers would have been better served just leaving the limo stop in and let Greer take one for the team on that. However, I suspect there is more. If, like many believe, there were two head shots almost simultaneously and there was obvious evidence of there being two distinct shots in the original film then that could possibly be a more important reason for them to delete frames even if it left the impression of a frontal shot. Not saying there weren't more alterations to this film, but to me these are the things I consider were altered at the very least.

[Michael Crane]

"Not saying there weren't more alterations to this film, but to me these are the things I consider were altered at the very least."

I would just like to add the blood splatter & the black blob on the back of the head that has been tampered with.

[Jamey Flanagan]

Yes Sir Michael Crane, I most definitely agree!

[Pat Speer]

12 hours ago, Michael Crane said:

I'm not the best debater,and my speech & grammar is far from what others provide.

I guess where we disagree the most is the location in the back of the head.I don't believe that the wound extends as "high" as you do.I am in more agreement with the Parkland staff,then the Bethesda staff.

Even the very early arriving mortician Thomas Robinson has pin pointed his location.

I have the wound rising at most above the ear.

If you really think the wound was at most above the ear, you are in disagreement with the majority of witnesses cited by Groden et al as proof the wound was on the back of the head. IMO, you can't say it was low on the back of the head because the witnesses tell us so when most of them pointed out a wound at the top of the back of the head, above the ear. 

As far as Robinson, it's clear he saw a hole on the back of the head at the end of the skull's reconstruction and assumed this was the location of the wound at the beginning of the autopsy. He did not reconstruct the skull himself. That was Stroble, if I recall. In any event, one of the things that made me so militant on this issue was Horne's book, where he claimed the orange-sized hole at the back of the head described by Robinson was the hole at the beginning of the autopsy, but that the orange-sized hole at the back of the head described by John VanHoesen was the hole at the end of the autopsy.

And that's just bs. They were co-workers, who undoubtedly traveled together and almost certainly sat together throughout the autopsy. The idea that Robinson, who sat at JFK's left during the autopsy and could not see what was being done to the right side of the head, saw a wound not seen by VanHoesen at the beginning of the autopsy--that was not seen or described by other witnesses--is just silly. Unfortunately, it's also one of the central premises of Horne's book. 

In any event, I discuss Robinson and most all the other supposed "back of the head" witnesses in Chapter 18c. 

Edited February 28, 2022 by Pat Speer

[John Butler]

2 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

And that's just bs.

Pat apparently doesn't like something and terms it BS.  

On 2/27/2022 at 7:00 AM, Sandy Larsen said:

In the case of the gaping head wound, Pat has erased all the difficulties in explaining faked autopsy photos, faked x-rays, and altered Zapruder film. He does so by ignoring the early testimonies of virtually every Parkland professional (about twenty of them), and also others, who saw the wound on the rear of Kennedy's head. He then cherry picks a few witnesses whose testimonies bolster his case, that the wound was on the top of Kennedy's head. He also chooses to believe a few Parkland doctors who later changed their testimonies once they learned they were contradicted by the official narrative.

Sandy does say that well.  It is mainly the reason I can't read his material.

Sandy continues,

On 2/27/2022 at 7:00 AM, Sandy Larsen said:

Oh my, Dr. Clark said a lot of things indicating that the large head wound was on the back of the head, not top. Just like nearly every Parkland doctor and nurse said on the first day. Which contradicts a lot of evidence -- like the back-of head Kennedy autopsy photo -- that Pat says his position supports.

As I said, Pat discards a whole lot of testimonial evidence so that he can support the WC's official narrative on the head wound. He does this in the name of sidestepping "inconvenient" controversy

Sandy is saying this better than I could, so I am using his material here.  

I wonder if Pat dreams of being the new Von Plein or new John Mcadams?  IMHO, people sacrifice a lot when they get caught up in the swirls and twists of Lone Nutism.