If WC Apologists Reject Landis's Disclosure, What Do They Say About Dr. Young's Disclosure?

[Michael Griffith]

Predictably, WC apologists have reflexively rushed to reject former Secret Service agent Paul Landis's bombshell disclosure that he found and removed a bullet lodged in the limo's back seat and put the bullet on JFK's stretcher, even though a former Parkland Hospital nurse has reported that she saw a bullet on JFK's stretcher. Lone-gunman theorists stress the fact that Landis's initial statements contradict his disclosure, even though we have a number of examples of other witnesses who withheld important information from their initial statements because they felt pressured to do so or because they feared the information would spark controversy and criticism, e.g., Kennedy O'Donnell and Dave Powers regarding shots from the grassy knoll.

WC apologists also note that when interviewed in 1983 and 2010, Landis said he found a fragment on the back seat, not a bullet, although they don't address the fact that this fragment is not recorded in the official record and that it poses a severe problem for the lone-gunman theory. They also, naturally, refuse to see Landis's 1983 and 2010 statements as an attempt on his part to partially reveal what he found.

Anyway, if WC apologists reject Landis's disclosure, what excuse do they have for rejecting Dr. James Young's accidental 2001 disclosure about the finding of a deformed bullet in JFK's limousine on the night of the autopsy? 

During the autopsy, a deformed bullet was found in Kennedy's limousine by two Navy chief petty officers who had been ordered to search the limousine. Dr. Young was a Navy doctor at the autopsy. He examined the bullet after the two chief petty officers brought it to the autopsy, and the bullet was then given to Dr. James Humes, the chief autopsy doctor (Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, “Navy Medicine and President Kennedy’s Autopsy: Recollections from a former White House Physician,” Washington, D.C.: Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, 2013, pp. 9-11; Milicent Cranor, “Navy Doctor: Bullet Found in JFK’s Limousine, and Never Reported,” WhoWhatWhy website, 10/6/2017, https://whowhatwhy.org/politics/government-integrity/navy-doctor-bullet-found-jfks-limousine-never-reported/).

I call Dr. Young's disclosure "accidental" because he had no idea he was disclosing anything that contradicted the WC's version of the shooting. For years, Dr. Young assumed that the bullet had been discussed in the Warren Report. Years later, Dr. Young discovered that there was no mention of this bullet in any of the Warren Commission’s records. When he realized this, he tried to find out why the bullet had been ignored and why it had vanished. In an attempt to find out what had happened to the bullet, on December 27, 2000, Dr. Young wrote a letter to former President Gerald Ford, a former member of the WC. He also contacted former WC member Arlen Specter about the bullet.

In 2001, Dr. Young discussed the finding of the bullet with the Navy’s Office of Medical History. His interview was not published until 2013 when the Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery published it in a paper titled “Navy Medicine and President Kennedy’s Autopsy.” 

What makes Dr. Young’s account so compelling and credible, aside from the fact that Chief Mills confirmed it, is that Dr. Young was an ardent believer in the WC’s version of the shooting. He had no idea why the deformed bullet found in the limousine was ignored and why it had vanished. He assumed the bullet was one of the three shots acknowledged by the WC. And he had no idea that his account destroyed the WC's version of the assassination. The 2021 documentary JFK: Destiny Betrayed includes an excellent segment on this historic disclosure.

What excuse do WC apologists have for not accepting Dr. Young's account? They ignore it and reject it only because it refutes the lone-gunman theory. The few times I've been able to get WC apologists to discuss the subject, they've offered the lame argument that Dr. Young "simply made an honest mistake" and was "sincerely mistaken." Never mind the fact that Chief Mils confirmed the finding of the deformed bullet, and never mind that Dr. Young said he actually handled the bullet. How exactly would one "misrecall" handling a deformed bullet and talking about it with one of the petty officers who found it? 

I discuss Dr. Young's account in more detail in my article "Extra Bullets and Missed Shots in Dealey Plaza."

Edited September 13, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[Gerry Down]

Did Dr. Young simply find the tail section of the bullet that struck JFK in the head? This was in the front seat of the limo and could be regarded as a "deformed bullet". 

[Michael Griffith]

37 minutes ago, Gerry Down said:

Did Dr. Young simply find the tail section of the bullet that struck JFK in the head? This was in the front seat of the limo and could be regarded as a "deformed bullet". 

Dr. Young didn't find the bullet. Two Navy NCOs found it during the autopsy and brought it to the autopsy room, where Dr. Young received it, examined it, and then passed it along.

The tail-section fragment is noticeably smaller than a bullet, as is the nose-section fragment that was also found in the limousine. Have you seen the pictures of the nose and tail fragments? Could you imagine anyone, even a child, looking at one of those and calling it a "deformed bullet"? A fragment is just that: a fragment. A bullet, whether intact or deformed, is not a fragment but a bullet.

Plus, the nose and tail were found in the front of the limo, whereas the Navy NCOs found the bullet in the rear of the limo.

Dozens of medical personnel, including two neurosurgeons, knew the difference between a wound over the right ear and a wound 3-4 inches farther back on the head, and Dr. Young would not have a mistaken the small tail fragment for a deformed bullet.

Edited September 13, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[Gerry Down]

24 minutes ago, Michael Griffith said:

Could you imagine anyone, even a child, looking at one of those and calling it a "deformed bullet"?

Yes. 

[Michael Griffith]

3 hours ago, Gerry Down said:

Yes. 

I doubt that you really believe this. I doubt that you genuinely believe that the small, mangled tail fragment is the object that Dr. Young described as a "misshapen bullet." The tail fragment is CE 569. Anyone can look at photos of CE 569 and see that, at most, it is only 1/2 inch in height, if that. Moreover, it has no lead, only copper. Now, come on: no one is going to describe such a fragment as a "misshapen bullet." It's not a bullet--it's a small fragment with no lead in it.

Deep down, no sensible, rational person is going to buy the idea that two military men looked at CE 569 and viewed it as a "misshapen bullet." Also, the deformed bullet was found in the rear of the limo, but the nose and tail fragments were found in the front of the limo and were found by different people at a different time. 

 

Edited September 13, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[Michael Griffith]

Once again, we see that when WC apologists cannot credibly, rationally explain an item of evidence, they usually fall silent after a few lame attempts to deal with it. So far, the only response has been the unserious, implausible suggestion that Dr. Young mistook CE 569 for a deformed bullet.

Again, the bullet was found in a different part of the car than where CE 569 was found (in the rear, not the front); it was found by different people; and it was found at a different time. Plus, no one is going to describe a small, mangled fragment as a "misshapen bullet." People know the difference between a small fragment and a bullet. A bullet is not a small fragment, and a small fragment is not a bullet. To understand the degree of difference here, consider that CE 399 weighed 157.7 grains, whereas CE 569 weighed only 20.6 grains, or nearly eight times less than a WCC bullet.

Dr. Young's account poses an especially thorny challenge for WC apologists because Young accepted the WC's version of the shooting; because he assumed that the bullet he saw was one of the three shots acknowledged by the WC; because he had no idea that his account posed a problem for the single-assassin scenario; because he was consistent in telling his account each time he told it; and because one of the surviving petty officers who found the bullet confirmed Young's account.

This bullet destroys the lone-gunman theory. No version of the lone-gunman scenario can explain the finding of a deformed bullet in the rear of the limo. It means at least four shots were fired. It means there were two gunmen. It means that Dr. Humes, and perhaps other officials at the autopsy, suppressed the bullet's existence.

This is why emotionally blinded or ideologically dominated WC apologists cannot bring themselves to admit that Dr. Young's account is obviously true. 

Edited September 15, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[Michael Griffith]

Crickets from WC apologists. Yet, they will continue to advance the lone-gunman theory and will continue to argue that the ballistics evidence supports the theory. They will also continue to maintain articles on their websites that either ignore or reject Dr. Young's account. 

They ignore or reject Dr. Young's account because it destroys the lone-gunman theory. They tell themselves that even though his account seems eminently and entirely credible, and even though Chief Mills confirmed it, it simply "must" be wrong. They assure themselves that Dr. Young and the two Navy corpsmen simply "must" have seen a small fragment and mistakenly described it as a deformed bullet, even though they said the bullet was in the back of the limo, not the front (where CE 567 and 569 were found).

Edited September 21, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[David Von Pein]

On 9/13/2023 at 9:04 AM, Michael Griffith said:

Could you imagine anyone, even a child, looking at one of those and calling it a "deformed bullet"?

I agree with Gerry Down. The answer to your above question is most certainly Yes.

Let's have a look at Commission Exhibit No. 569....

-------------------------------------

Also See:

https://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2011/09/ce567-and-ce569.html

 

Edited September 21, 2023 by David Von Pein

[Michael Griffith]

21 hours ago, David Von Pein said:

I agree with Gerry Down. The answer to your above question is most certainly Yes.

Let's have a look at Commission Exhibit No. 569....

-------------------------------------

Also See:

https://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2011/09/ce567-and-ce569.html

How could Dr. Young have been describing CE 569 when CE 569 was never at the autopsy, was found at a different time, was found by different people, and was found in the opposite end of the limo? 

CE 569 and 567 were found by Secret Service agents when the limo first arrived in Washington from Dallas, long before the two Navy corpsmen found the bullet that Dr. Young saw. The two fragments were delivered by Deputy Chief Paul Paterni and White House Detail Chief Floyd M. Boring to FBI Special Agent Orrin Bartlett, who then delivered them to FBI ballistics expert Robert Frazier in the FBI laboratory at 11:50 p.m. on 11/22/1963. Again, CE 569 was never at the autopsy. So how could it be the object that Dr. Young saw during the autopsy?  

Surely you realize that your argument is unserious and illogical, not to mention impossible. Leaving aside the fact CE 569 was never at the autopsy, the fragment is a fraction of the size of a Carcano bullet and weighs nearly eight times less than a Carcano bullet (20.6 grains vs. 160 grains). Moreover, CE 569 is not just "misshapen" but is a badly damaged fragment that was obviously torn from the rest of the bullet--you can see where the tearing occurred. It is very hard to fathom how even a child would describe that fragment as a bullet. But, of course, all of these problems pale compared to the problem that CE 569 was never at the autopsy. 

Edited September 22, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[David Von Pein]

16 minutes ago, Michael Griffith said:

Leaving aside the fact CE 569 was never at the autopsy...

Well, we know that no "whole bullet" was ever at the autopsy either. Because if it had been, then that whole bullet would have most certainly been entered as evidence in the case by Dr. Humes, and it would have been given to FBI agents Sibert and O'Neill (along with the two fragments from JFK's head that were given to those two agents). But no whole bullet was given to Sibert & O'Neill.

Therefore, Dr. Young must be wrong.

 

Edited September 22, 2023 by David Von Pein

[David Von Pein]

22 minutes ago, Michael Griffith said:

How could Dr. Young have been describing CE 569 when CE 569 was never at the autopsy, was found at a different time, was found by different people, and was found in the opposite end of the limo? 

I wasn't attempting to make any sense out of this "Dr. Young Bullet" mess/silliness in my first reply in this thread. I was merely answering this question you asked earlier:

"Could you imagine anyone, even a child, looking at one of those [CE567 & CE569] and calling it a "deformed bullet"?"

And, as Gerry and I have both said, the answer to THAT question SPECIFICALLY (and all by itself) is, in my opinion, Yes.

 

Edited September 22, 2023 by David Von Pein

[Michael Griffith]

17 minutes ago, David Von Pein said:

Well, we know that no "whole bullet" was ever at the autopsy either. Because if it had been, then that whole bullet would have been entered as evidence in the case by Dr. Humes (et al). But it wasn't. Therefore, Dr. Young must be wrong or mistaken or not telling the whole truth.

LOL! 

You must be writing from a parallel universe during a time when the ARRB materials have not been released yet. It is astonishing that you would reject Dr. Young's account, and even suggest he was lying, because "Dr. Humes et al" did not enter a whole bullet into evidence. Was Chief Mills mistaken or lying too?

How about the Sibert & O'Neill 11/22/63 receipt for "a MISSILE removed by Commander James Humes"? Let me guess: They were really only talking about the two tiny fragments that Humes removed from the skull, right? Find me a single other FBI document where two tiny fragments are described as "a missile."

Edited September 22, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[David Von Pein]

2 minutes ago, Michael Griffith said:

Was Chief Mills mistaken or lying too?

Refresh my memory --- Who is Chief Mills?

 

[Michael Griffith]

Just now, David Von Pein said:

Refresh my memory --- Who is Chief Mills?

Oh, he was obviously just another lying or mistaken witness. Chief Mills was one of the two chief petty officers (Navy corpsmen) who searched the limousine during the autopsy, found the "misshapen bullet" in the rear of the limo, and brought the bullet to the autopsy room, where Dr. Young saw it.

[David Von Pein]

17 minutes ago, Michael Griffith said:

How about the Sibert & O'Neill 11/22/63 receipt for "a MISSILE removed by Commander James Humes"? Let me guess: They were really only talking about the two tiny fragments that Humes removed from the skull, right? Find me a single other FBI document where two tiny fragments are described as "a missile."

The Navy Corpsman who wrote the memo that said "missle" [sic] was definitely mistaken. Even BOTH of the FBI agents think he was wrong/mistaken, and they've said so in various interviews over the years.

"There was no large bullet of any kind there at Bethesda during this autopsy that was found." -- James W. Sibert; June 30, 2005

http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com / 2005 Interview With James Sibert

http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com / 1979 Interview With Francis O'Neill

 

Edited September 22, 2023 by David Von Pein