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

[Michael Griffith]

4 hours ago, David Von Pein said:

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

 

You bet. So Boyers, who was an experienced Chief Petty Officer (E-7) and the NCOIC of the hospital's Pathology Department, looked at a few tiny fragments, the largest of which would have been the 7x2 mm fragment, and for some inexplicable reason described them as a missile. I spent 21 years in the Army, and "missile" always meant "bullet" in reference to ammo.

Do you know how small 7 x 2 mm is? It's 0.27 inches x 0.07 inches, or 1/4th inch in length x 7/100th inch in width. That's a sliver, and that was the largest of the few fragments. Why would anyone use the term "missile" to describe a few tiny fragments?

When the HSCA asked Boyers about this, he merely said he'd made a mistake. He didn't explain how he could have "mistaken" a few tiny fragments for a bullet, and why he didn't specify the number of fragments that were being transferred to Sibert and O'Neill. And, sadly, his HSCA interviewer did not press him on his odd answer. I would have asked, "Wait a minute, why did you describe a few tiny fragments as a missile? Have you ever described a few miniscule fragments as a bullet in other memos or reports? Why didn't you specify the number of fragments that were found and were being receipted to the FBI agents?"

I suspect that Sibert and O'Neill may not have even bothered to read the memo but signed it perfunctorily. They may not have been aware that a bullet had been found, nor would they have necessarily been aware of the large fragment that Jerrol Custer saw fall from JFK's back while x-rays were being taken. 

Anyway, find me a single military or FBI document where a few tiny fragments are described as a missile or a bullet. Let's see just one such document. If you're involved in a murder case and you are transferring bullet fragments found in the autopsy, you are at least going to specify the number of fragments, if not also the dimensions of each fragment. 

Finally, I will just note again that you are now not just saying that Young was mistaken but that he may have lied, even though Chief Mills confirmed his account, even though Young accepted the lone-gunman story, even though Young clearly believed that the bullet he had seen was one of the shots acknowledged by the WC, and even though he only contacted Ford and Specter after he realized that the bullet was not mentioned in the Warren Report. 

Edited September 22, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[Marjan Rynkiewicz]

On 9/22/2023 at 10:46 PM, David Von Pein said:

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

 

Sibert mentions (12:15) that they (Finke & Hume i think) probed the back wound with a chrome probe, ie before using a rubber gloved finger, & could not find an exit.

edit... The slug had in fact exited at the throat. The (stainless steel) probe (& finger) must have been blocked by bone.

Edited September 25, 2023 by Marjan Rynkiewicz

[Michael Griffith]

The accounts of Dr. James Young and x-ray tech Jerrol Custer are not the only accounts of a bullet/large fragment at the autopsy that WC apologists must dismiss with the lame claim that they were mistaken or lying, even though Young's account was corroborated by Chief Mills and even though Young and Custer had no conceivable motive for lying.

We also have the account of Captain David Osborne, who was Chief of Surgery at Bethesda Naval Hospital in 1963 and attended the autopsy. During the HSCA investigation, then-Admiral Osborne told HSCA investigators that when JFK's body was lifted from the coffin and placed on the autopsy table, an intact bullet fell out of JFK's clothing and onto the autopsy table. 

The HSCA pathology panel's report claimed that Osborne expressed doubt about his account after being told that JFK's body did not arrive clothed but was wrapped in sheets and that no one else at the autopsy recalled seeing a bullet at the autopsy. But when David Lifton interviewed Osborne, Osborne rejected the panel's claim. Notes Dr. Donald Thomas,

          When author David Lifton located and interviewed Admiral Osborne, now the Deputy Surgeon General, he was given a different version of the conversation. Osborne denied ever having expressed doubts to the Committee's investigators about seeing the bullet. On the contrary, he had not only seen the bullet, but had held the projectile, which he described as an "intact bullet," "not deformed in any way," in his hands. Osborne maintains that the bullet was taken by Secret Service agents (perhaps thus explaining the evening time on Johnsen's receipt). Osborne related that when he spoke to the Committee's investigators he only admitted to being mistaken about the bullet falling out of the President's clothing.85 If the President was wrapped in a sheet, then he had seen the bullet fall out of a sheet, not clothing. (Hear No Evil, p. 406)

So Osborne, then a Navy Captain and the Chief of Surgery at the hospital, actually handled the bullet. Are we to believe that Osborne actually only handled the two tiny fragments that Humes removed from JFK's skull and misrecalled them as a bullet when interviewed by the HSCA? Then what did he see fall onto the autopsy table? He said he handled the bullet that fell onto the autopsy table. 

Similarly, Dr. Young inspected the bullet that was found in the limousine by two Navy corpsmen, and one of those corpsmen, Chief Mills, confirmed that he found the bullet in the rear of the limousine. 

As for the receipt for a "missle" recovered at the autopsy and the dubious explanation that the receipt was referring to a few tiny slivers, one can only wonder why the receipt was excluded from the WC volumes. The autopsy report says a receipt for the two fragments removed by Humes was attached to the report, but the "missle" receipt was not only not attached to the autopsy report, it was not even included in the WC volumes but was buried in the National Archives. Harold Weisberg learned of the receipt's existence in 1966, but it took him three years and a FOIA submission to get a copy of it. 

Now why was this receipt excluded from the WC volumes and only released after a FOIA submission? Furthermore, when asked about the receipt by the HSCA, over a decade after the fact, Sibert and O'Neill said they thought it referred to the two tiny fragments that Humes removed from JFK's skull, i.e., the 7x2 mm and 3x1 mm fragments. So two tiny slivers were a missile? 

Dr. Thomas makes some good points about the receipt:

          That being the case it is difficult to imagine what sort of document could be more suggestive of the presence of a bullet at the autopsy than a receipt for a "missle"[sic] recovered at the autopsy. The existence of the receipt was discovered in 1966 and then obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by critic Harold Weisberg in 1969. The two FBI agents responsible for taking possession of evidence at the autopsy, James Sibert and Francis O'Neill signed the receipt addressed to Commander R.H. Stover, which states: 

          "We hereby acknowledge receipt for a missle removed by Commander James J. Humes MC, USN on this date."

          Notably, the receipt states that the "missle" was "removed" by Humes, as if it were removed from the body. The FBI agents, when queried about the meaning of this receipt by the HSCA, maintained that the receipt referred to the two tiny slivers of metal recovered from the President's brain. The Assassinations Committee was prepared to accept this explanation, without comment, and pretend that there were no documents to indicate the presence of a bullet at the autopsy. According to the official autopsy report and the testimony of the chief autopsy surgeon James Humes, there were only two fragments of metal removed from President Kennedy. The FBI report also specified, 

          "During the autopsy [and} inspection of the area of the brain, two fragments of metal were removed by Dr. HUMES, namely, one fragment measuring 7 x 2 millimeters, which was removed from the right side of the brain. An additional fragment of metal measuring 1 x 3 millimeters was also removed from this area, both of which were placed in a glass jar containing a black metal top which were thereafter marked for identification and following the signing of a proper receipt were transported by bureau agents to the FBI Laboratory."

          It is the opinion of this author that a receipt for "a missle" is not a proper receipt for two tiny slivers of metal. Furthermore, the FBI spectrographic report indicates that four pieces of metal, not two, were recovered at the autopsy -- at least, they tested four pieces of metal supposedly recovered at the President's autopsy. Moreover, Sibert and O'Neil insist that they did not type the receipt, but rather it was typed by hospital personnel. (Hear No Evil, pp. 405-406)

You would think that at some point, sooner or later, deep in their minds, even WC apologists would have to say to themselves, "Wait a minute. ALL of these credible witnesses could not have been 'mistaken.' How would anyone handle two tiny fragments and ever describe them as an undamaged bullet or as a misshapen bullet? This just don't seem reasonable. It seems mighty unlikely that ALL of these people were mistaken or lying." 

Edited September 25, 2023 by Michael Griffith