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HSCA Televised Hearings 1978 (Video)


Lori Spencer

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This was just uploaded to YouTube today, perhaps for the first time. (I’ve been looking for the HSCA hearings in their entirety online for a while, so this is a real treat to see at last, digitally cleaned up from the old analog tape source.) 

It’s a 50 minute excerpt from the hearings about the famous DPD motorcycle cop Dictabelt recording which caused the Committee to reverse its initial conclusion that Oswald acted alone. 
 

The Memory Hole is a really great resource for lots of vintage news and goodies you won’t find anywhere else. If you browse their YouTube channel, there are even more HSCA videos recently uploaded, and more to come this month. 
 

 

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12 hours ago, Lori Spencer said:

Back when everyone was smoking up a storm in the committee rooms! 🚬 

ah, the 70’s… so much plaid, polyester, and platform shoes … my eyeballs ache just looking at these fashions… 

and leisure suits! I had a seafoam green leisure suit that i wore with tan two-inch platform shoes! 40 years later, i was at the Village Halloween parade and within a block of each other, two guys walked by me wearing the same colored leisure suit that I once had. I turned to my then girlfriend and asked her "what does it mean that the outfit I used to wear in clubs is now a Halloween costume."  

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The HSCA will forever mystify.

Gobs of evidence there was more than one gunman in Dealey Plaza that day. The Z-film for starters. A Dallas police officer and a Dallas sheriff separately testify they met a man flashing Secret Service credentials near the GK. 

LHO's intel connections. 

But a dubious motorcycle dictabelt, indecipherable to the layman, is cited as the reason to believe there was a conspiracy. 

 

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58 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

The HSCA will forever mystify.

Gobs of evidence there was more than one gunman in Dealey Plaza that day. The Z-film for starters. A Dallas police officer and a Dallas sheriff separately testify they met a man flashing Secret Service credentials near the GK. 

LHO's intel connections. 

But a dubious motorcycle dictabelt, indecipherable to the layman, is cited as the reason to believe there was a conspiracy. 

 

This was by design. Blakey didn't want any he said/she said and basically ignored all witnesses, perhaps under the assumption the WC went as far as one can go with the witnesses statements. No, he thought he could use science to break the case. He failed to realize, of course, how subjective it is, and ended up with "scientists" claiming the exact opposite of each other, or even the exact opposite of what they'd written in their professional papers. It's a disgrace that the scientific community still refuses to deal with. The lone exception, of course, is the NAA, which Guinn and Blakey used to support the SBT. It has now been pretty much debunked within the scientific community. But even this shows how gutless they are. The scientific community now says NAA is unreliable, and that Guinn misused it to support the SBT. But they won't say the gol darned truth--that his tests strongly suggested the opposite of what he said they did--and that they actually suggested Oswald's innocence.

That's still a red line that honorable men of science refuse to cross... And it's a damned shame because it allows prevaricators like Posner to claim the scientific consensus is circling towards Oswald acting alone--when this is total bs. .

Edited by Pat Speer
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9 minutes ago, Miles Massicotte said:

I think if the dictabelt hadn't surfaced they would have rubber stamped Oswald just like the WC did. The dictabelt was a problem because it was hard to refute at the time. It seemed like hard to ignore evidence that would have looked very bad had that been made public. Plus, the HSCA needed to throw the public a bone. Large swaths of the public did and continue to believe that there was a conspiracy to assassinate the president. If they simply repeated the conclusion of the WC it would have only increased the already mounting pressure to fully investigate the assassination. By giving them the easily debatable and refutable dictabelt the government saved face while basically being able to maintain their overall position. 

It's a bit more complicated than that, IMO. The facts they'd unsurfaced regarding Ruby and his ties to organized crime made the HSCA as a whole suspect a conspiracy. But the scientists hired by Blakey to get at the truth spun spun spun the evidence to support Oswald acting alone. So Blakey needed to find some evidence that supported a conspiracy. He found that with the dictabelt evidence, and clung to it like a dog with a bone. 

What he failed to see, of course, was that the FPP among others was lying through its teeth, and that he wouldn't have needed the dictabelt if he'd had the huevos to confront the FPP on their obvious bs. 

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45 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

It's a bit more complicated than that, IMO. The facts they'd unsurfaced regarding Ruby and his ties to organized crime made the HSCA as a whole suspect a conspiracy. But the scientists hired by Blakey to get at the truth spun spun spun the evidence to support Oswald acting alone. So Blakey needed to find some evidence that supported a conspiracy. He found that with the dictabelt evidence, and clung to it like a dog with a bone. 

What he failed to see, of course, was that the FPP among others was lying through its teeth, and that he wouldn't have needed the dictabelt if he'd had the huevos to confront the FPP on their obvious bs. 

What is FPP?

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12 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

What is FPP?

Forensic Pathology Panel. Baden was appointed by Tanenbaum, and asked to put together a panel to re-investigate the medical evidence. According to Tanenbaum, he insisted Baden include Wecht, so that the panel would be sure to have a conspiracy viewpoint onboard. Baden then split the panel into two parts: 6 members who had never studied the evidence, and 3 who had. He put Wecht on the panel with 2 who had, and had publicly confirmed the findings of the WC--that there was evidence for but one shooter. This served to minimize Wecht's influence over the 6 newbies. I told Wecht that this was by design and he said he knew that, but had never confronted Baden over this because it would probably end their friendship. In any event, the panel began operation believing the SBT had been confirmed by Guinn, and twisted everything to fit that conclusion. Much to Wecht's chagrin. Then, when Blakey came back to Baden and told him they were gonna go with conspiracy, because of the circumstantial evidence and the dictabelt, he asked for Baden's help finding something anything in the medical evidence that would help sell conspiracy...and Baden told him no dice. So Blakey was stuck with an ugly mutation...a conspiracy where all the wounds were caused by Oswald, and the SBT was valid. 

The late John Hunt looked into this in detail and rescued a number of important documents from the archives, and I built upon this a bit. And it's 100% clear IMO that the HSCA FPP was a hoax, a charade, and that Dr, Michael Baden is a lying sack of something. With apologies to the sack of something...

 

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19 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

Forensic Pathology Panel. Baden was appointed by Tanenbaum, and asked to put together a panel to re-investigate the medical evidence. According to Tanenbaum, he insisted Baden include Wecht, so that the panel would be sure to have a conspiracy viewpoint onboard. Baden then split the panel into two parts: 6 members who had never studied the evidence, and 3 who had. He put Wecht on the panel with 2 who had, and had publicly confirmed the findings of the WC--that there was evidence for but one shooter. This served to minimize Wecht's influence over the 6 newbies. I told Wecht that this was by design and he said he knew that, but had never confronted Baden over this because it would probably end their friendship. In any event, the panel began operation believing the SBT had been confirmed by Guinn, and twisted everything to fit that conclusion. Much to Wecht's chagrin. Then, when Blakey came back to Baden and told him they were gonna go with conspiracy, because of the circumstantial evidence and the dictabelt, he asked for Baden's help finding something anything in the medical evidence that would help sell conspiracy...and Baden told him no dice. So Blakey was stuck with an ugly mutation...a conspiracy where all the wounds were caused by Oswald, and the SBT was valid. 

The late John Hunt looked into this in detail and rescued a number of important documents from the archives, and I built upon this a bit. And it's 100% clear IMO that the HSCA FPP was a hoax, a charade, and that Dr, Michael Baden is a lying sack of something. With apologies to the sack of something...

 

Thanks. BTW, I am an admirer of your work.

In contrast to you, I work with simple stuff. Really simple. 

Like this photo of the bullet hole in the back of JBC's shirt. It is small and round, even after enlargement to remove cloth for testing. Just large enough for straight shot of a Mannlicher-Carcano (Westerm ammo) slug, which is more than one-quarter inch in diameter. The MC slug, or Western ammo, is 1 1/4 inches long. 

https://www.tsl.texas.gov/sites/default/files/public/tslac/landing/documents/jfk-damaged-clothing18.pdf

So we know from indisputable physical evidence that the bullet was not tumbling when it struck JBC. The bullet did not strike JBC sideways, as posited by some, including Baden. 

Baden said there is a large scar on JBC's back, proof of a tumbling bullet. JBC's surgeon explained that he debrided the wound, that is removed dead flesh, enlarging the wound scar.

This is basic stuff. This is high-school forensics. This is pulp-novel detective work. 

Baden got it wronger than a pickled onion in a banana split. 

The question: Why? No one is that dense. 

 

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15 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

Forensic Pathology Panel. Baden was appointed by Tanenbaum, and asked to put together a panel to re-investigate the medical evidence. According to Tanenbaum, he insisted Baden include Wecht, so that the panel would be sure to have a conspiracy viewpoint onboard. Baden then split the panel into two parts: 6 members who had never studied the evidence, and 3 who had. He put Wecht on the panel with 2 who had, and had publicly confirmed the findings of the WC--that there was evidence for but one shooter. This served to minimize Wecht's influence over the 6 newbies. I told Wecht that this was by design and he said he knew that, but had never confronted Baden over this because it would probably end their friendship. In any event, the panel began operation believing the SBT had been confirmed by Guinn, and twisted everything to fit that conclusion. Much to Wecht's chagrin. Then, when Blakey came back to Baden and told him they were gonna go with conspiracy, because of the circumstantial evidence and the dictabelt, he asked for Baden's help finding something anything in the medical evidence that would help sell conspiracy...and Baden told him no dice. So Blakey was stuck with an ugly mutation...a conspiracy where all the wounds were caused by Oswald, and the SBT was valid. 

The late John Hunt looked into this in detail and rescued a number of important documents from the archives, and I built upon this a bit. And it's 100% clear IMO that the HSCA FPP was a hoax, a charade, and that Dr, Michael Baden is a lying sack of something. With apologies to the sack of something...

 

I don't think that is accurate as far as origins.

When Richard Sprague appointed Bob Tanenbaum as HSCA Deputy Chief Counsel over the Kennedy case, Bob was going to use Wecht--because he was the only forensic pathologist who had a name on the JFK case and knew the evidence.  He  brought down Baden from NYC since he had worked with him when Bob was Chief of Homicide in NYC.

Tanenbaum and Baden were actually working on a conspiracy angle at first and Baden was in that camp in the early days: that JFK and JBC were hit by separate shots. No Magic Bullet.  And, of course, so was Wecht.  Bob was vehemently against the Single Bullet Fantasy and still is.  And he has a strong pull on Baden since they knew each other from at least the seventies.

After Sprague departed, Blakey did his tutoring under Tanenbaum--which you can read about it Fonzi's excellent book.  He brought in some of his own people like his former law school students Ed Lopez and Dan Hardway.  Once Tanenbaum was gone, knowing what Baden and Tanenbaum were doing previously, Blakey called Baden into his office and told him they were going with the Magic Bullet. Baden then called Andy Purdy into his office, since Purdy was the chief investigator for the medical side.  Baden told Purdy the same.

According to Eddie Lopez, from that moment on, Purdy made pretty much a 180 degree somersault on the JFK case.  He was a dyed in the wool Warren Report advocate.  Eddie argued with him loudly, : "Andy, go ahead raise up your arms see if you can get that bullet hole to go up that far!"  No go. As Eddie put it, Andy now had religion about the Single Bullet Theory.

Baden and Blakey then chose their panel.  Which, as many have said, was rigged in advance.  At the same time,  Blakey brought in Guinn and Canning to 1.) certify CE 399, through NAA, as the Magic Bullet, and  2.)  to approve the trajectory of the SBT.  To put it mildly, these both turned to be horse manure.  And someone, no one will say who it was, simply lied about the hole in the back of JFK's head.  In Volume 7, p. 37, it says that, differing with the Parkland attendants, the people at Bethesda did not see this baseball sized hole in the rear of Kennedy's skull.  Utterly false; not only did they see it, they drew pictures of it.  Wecht says he never saw these while on the HSCA, Baden says the same.  I trust Wecht, not Baden.

As per the acoustics, this apparently blindsided Blakey and Baden. But Blakey bought into it. So now you had four shots-actually five but Blakey said he could only sell the committee four--and amazingly, the one from the front, which was closest, with the car coming toward the rifleman, this one missed. This is because Baden had done what he could to preserve Oswald and the SBT. So Blakey and Dick Billings now went with their Oswald as the demented communist working for Trafficante and Marcello, and he shot Kennedy and Connally and murdered TIppit. But someone, who knows who, was on the GK and missed.

As Bud Fensterwald once wrote, "The HSCA sure went to Hades in a hand basket fast didn't it?  One wonders if it did so on its own, or if it had outside help."

Edited by James DiEugenio
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On 11/11/2022 at 12:14 PM, James DiEugenio said:

I don't think that is accurate as far as origins.

When Richard Sprague appointed Bob Tanenbaum as HSCA Deputy Chief Counsel over the Kennedy case, Bob was going to use Wecht--because he was the only forensic pathologist who had a name on the JFK case and knew the evidence.  He  brought down Baden from NYC since he had worked with him when Bob was Chief of Homicide in NYC.

Tanenbaum and Baden were actually working on a conspiracy angle at first and Baden was in that camp in the early days: that JFK and JBC were hit by separate shots. No Magic Bullet.  And, of course, so was Wecht.  Bob was vehemently against the Single Bullet Fantasy and still is.  And he has a strong pull on Baden since they knew each other from at least the seventies.

After Sprague departed, Blakey did his tutoring under Tanenbaum--which you can read about it Fonzi's excellent book.  He brought in some of his own people like his former law school students Ed Lopez and Dan Hardway.  Once Tanenbaum was gone, knowing what Baden and Tanenbaum were doing previously, Blakey called Baden into his office and told him they were going with the Magic Bullet. Baden then called Andy Purdy into his office, since Purdy was the chief investigator for the medical side.  Baden told Purdy the same.

According to Eddie Lopez, from that moment on, Purdy made pretty much a 180 degree somersault on the JFK case.  He was a dyed in the wool Warren Report advocate.  Eddie argued with him loudly, : "Andy, go ahead raise up your arms see if you can get that bullet hole to go up that far!"  No go. As Eddie put it, Andy now had religion about the Single Bullet Theory.

Baden and Blakey then chose their panel.  Which, as many have said, was rigged in advance.  At the same time,  Blakey brought in Guinn and Canning to 1.) certify CE 399, through NAA, as the Magic Bullet, and  2.)  to approve the trajectory of the SBT.  To put it mildly, these both turned to be horse manure.  And someone, no one will say who it was, simply lied about the hole in the back of JFK's head.  In Volume 7, p. 37, it says that, differing with the Parkland attendants, the people at Bethesda did not see this baseball sized hole in the rear of Kennedy's skull.  Utterly false; not only did they see it, they drew pictures of it.  Wecht says he never saw these while on the HSCA, Baden says the same.  I trust Wecht, not Baden.

As per the acoustics, this apparently blindsided Blakey and Baden. But Blakey bought into it. So now you had four shots-actually five but Blakey said he could only sell the committee four--and amazingly, the one from the front, which was closest, with the car coming toward the rifleman, this one missed. This is because Baden had done what he could to preserve Oswald and the SBT. So Blakey and Dick Billings now went with their Oswald as the demented communist working for Trafficante and Marcello, and he shot Kennedy and Connally and murdered TIppit. But someone, who knows who, was on the GK and missed.

As Bud Fensterwald once wrote, "The HSCA sure went to Hades in a hand basket fast didn't it?  One wonders if it did so on its own, or if it had outside help."

The only point with which I would disagree is that you seem to believe Blakey decided to go with the SBT before Guinn became involved. I deduced it was the other way around. Blakey wanted the FPP to be based on science. Nichols, and Weisberg, and as I recall, Wecht, had claimed the key was neutron activation analysis of the bullet fragments. This was performed by Guinn before Baden and his panel studied reports on the medical evidence, or viewed the medical evidence for themselves. Guinn gave his report to Blakey and voila! a few days later Baden and the boys go to the archives. I deduced that it was the receipt of Guinn's report that led Blakey to announce they were going with the SBT. But I could be wrong. If I recall, I asked Lopez about this at the 2014 Bethesda conference but he couldn't recall the exact date. I also spoke to Blakey at that conference and he said he'd rather communicate through email where he could check his notes etc and be more thorough. I then emailed him at the address he provided, while sharing some of the info I'd gathered about Guinn, which proved Guinn's testimony supporting the SBT was nonsense. Blakey didn't respond. I wrote him two more times, as I recall, asking him some simple questions to increase the chances of a response. But I did not receive a response.

So, in short, I deduced that Blakey took his lead from Guinn. And tried to make everything fit. But if there's something I'm missing--such as proof Blakey decided to go with the SBT before Guinn performed his analysis, or issued his report--I will revise. 

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I think the following is interesting:

 I also spoke to Blakey at that conference and he said he'd rather communicate through email where he could check his notes etc and be more thorough. I then emailed him at the address he provided, while sharing some of the info I'd gathered about Guinn, which proved Guinn's testimony supporting the SBT was nonsense. Blakey didn't respond. I wrote him two more times, as I recall, asking him some simple questions to increase the chances of a response. But I did not receive a response.

You may be right Pat, but it was always my impression that Blakey was going with the Magic Bullet.  I mean even now, with Guinn discredited, he still stands behind it.

Edited by James DiEugenio
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