Bang up job, folks...

[Cliff Varnell]

E. Martin Schotz, from his 1998 COPA speech:

https://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/FalseMystery/COPA1998EMS.html

<quote on>

The struggle for truth in the assassination of President Kennedy confronts us with the problem of the “waters of knowledge” versus “the waters of uncertainty.” Let me give you an example involving two important individuals who attempted to bring the truth before the American people. I am speaking of New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison and filmmaker Oliver Stone.

Both Garrison and Stone knew that the President was the victim of a conspiracy by high level US military intelligence officials. Each in his own way tried to bring such knowledge to the attention of the American people. In the case of Oliver Stone, even before his film JFK had received its final cut there developed an unprecedented campaign of slander against Stone, that he was a madman, that he was a drunk. In the face of this attack Stone was advised to compromise and did so.[3] He backed off from telling the American people that his film was the truth, and instead claimed that his film, JFK, was “my myth.” In other words Stone said “I have my myth and you are entitled to yours. I’m not saying I know what happened here. There is uncertainty.” The instant Stone did that, the campaign of slander ended. He was again acceptable. He was invited to address Congress and was permitted to ask the government to release more information so as to help us clear up the supposed mystery.

Jim Garrison’s story is different. In the face of his effort to reveal the true nature of the assassination there was a campaign to discredit him. It was claimed that he was a drug addict, that he had ties to the Mafia, that he was grandstanding and self seeking. But Garrison never backed down. And because of that, even today a noted biographer cannot get a major publisher to enter into a contract to do an honest biography of the man. He is still an outcast, a madman as far as the society is concerned. Stone agreed to drink the waters of uncertainty and society recognized him as having miraculously recovered his sanity. Garrison refused, insisting on continuing to drink the waters of knowledge, and for this he suffered accordingly. </q>

[James DiEugenio]

46 minutes ago, Cory Santos said:

He is a guest but I take no responsibility for his actions and/or opinions.  You are all warned.  

Does that mean you wash your hands of who you brought back?

[Cliff Varnell]

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

Does that mean you wash your hands of who you brought back?

If anyone thinks I’d give up my naturally air-conditioned Haight Ashbury pad for hot-as-hell Henderson...well, there are a couple of bridges here in town I can arrange for you a real deal, since you’re in the market.  

I recommend the orange one.

[Cliff Varnell]

An object lesson in the power of physical evidence in a cold case murder investigation.

The WarrenCommission, The Truth, & Arlen Specter

by Gaeton Fonzi

https://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/GaetonFonzi/WCTandAS.pdf

<quote, italic emphasis in the original, bold added>

The Warren Commission Report says the entrance wound caused by the bullet which came out Kennedy’s throat was “approximately 5-1⁄2 inches” below the back of the right ear. Yet photographs of the President’s jacket and shirt, which were part of the FbI supplemental report of January 13th, make it difficult to believe that is the truth.

These photographs were not part of the Warren Commission Report and were left out of the 26 volumes of supporting evidence. Although a description of Kennedy’s clothing was in the Report, the discrepancy between the location of the bullet holes in them and the reported location of the wounds was never discussed or explained.                             

And there was a very obvious discrepancy: the hole in the back of the jacket was 5-3/8 inches below the top of the collar and 1-3⁄4 inches to the right of the center back seam of the coat. traces of copper were found in the margins of the hole and the cloth fibers were pushed inward. “Although the precise size of the bullet could not be determined from the hole, it was consistent with having been made by a 6.5-millimeter bullet,” said the Report.

The shirt worn by the President also contained a hole in the back about 5 3⁄4 inches below the top of the collar and 1-1/8 inches to the right of the middle. It, too, had the characteristics of a bullet entrance hole.

Both these holes are in locations that seem obviously inconsistent with the wound described in the Commission’s autopsy report — placed below the back of the right ear — and illustrated in exhibit 385, which dr. Humes had prepared.

“Well,” said Specter, when asked about this in his City Hall office last month, “that difference is accounted for because the President was waving his arm.” He got up from his desk and attempted to have his explanation demonstrated. “Wave your arm a few times,” he said, “wave at the crowd. Well, see if the bullet goes in here, the jacket gets hunched up. If you take this point right here and then you strip the coat down, it comes out at a lower point. Well, not too much lower on your example, but the jacket rides up.”

If the jacket were “hunched up,” wouldn’t there have been two holes as a result of the doubling over of the cloth?

“No, not necessarily. It ... it wouldn’t be doubled over. When you sit in the car it could be doubled over at most any point, but the probabilities are that ... aaah ... that it gets ... that ... aaah ... this ... this is about the way a jacket rides up. You sit back ... sit back now ... all right now ... if ... usually, as your jacket lies there, the doubling up is right here, but if ... but if you have a bullet hit you right about here, which is where I had it, where your jacket sits ... it’s not ... it’s not ... it ordinarily doesn’t crease that far back.”

What about the shirt?

“Same thing.”

There is no real inconsistency between the Commission’s location of the wound and the holes in the clothing?

“No, not at all.  That gave us a lot of concern. First time we lined up the shirt ... after all, we lined up the shirt ... and the hole in the shirt is right about, right about the knot of the tie, came right about here in a slit in the front ...”

But where did it go in the back?

“Well, the back hole, when the shirt is laid down, comes . . . aaah ... well, I forget exactly where it came, but it certainly wasn’t higher, enough higher to ... aaah ... understand the ... aah ... the angle of decline which ...”

Was it lower? Was it lower than the slit in the front?

“Well, I think that ... that if you took the shirt without allowing for it’s being pulled up, that it would either have been in line or somewhat lower.”

Somewhat lower?

“Perhaps. I ... I don’t want to say because I don’t really remember. I got to take a look at that shirt.”

</q>

 

Edited September 26, 2023 by Cliff Varnell

[Roger Odisio]

3 hours ago, Cliff Varnell said:

E. Martin Schotz, from his 1998 COPA speech:

https://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/FalseMystery/COPA1998EMS.html

<quote on>

The struggle for truth in the assassination of President Kennedy confronts us with the problem of the “waters of knowledge” versus “the waters of uncertainty.” Let me give you an example involving two important individuals who attempted to bring the truth before the American people. I am speaking of New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison and filmmaker Oliver Stone.

Both Garrison and Stone knew that the President was the victim of a conspiracy by high level US military intelligence officials. Each in his own way tried to bring such knowledge to the attention of the American people. In the case of Oliver Stone, even before his film JFK had received its final cut there developed an unprecedented campaign of slander against Stone, that he was a madman, that he was a drunk. In the face of this attack Stone was advised to compromise and did so.[3] He backed off from telling the American people that his film was the truth, and instead claimed that his film, JFK, was “my myth.” In other words Stone said “I have my myth and you are entitled to yours. I’m not saying I know what happened here. There is uncertainty.” The instant Stone did that, the campaign of slander ended. He was again acceptable. He was invited to address Congress and was permitted to ask the government to release more information so as to help us clear up the supposed mystery.

Jim Garrison’s story is different. In the face of his effort to reveal the true nature of the assassination there was a campaign to discredit him. It was claimed that he was a drug addict, that he had ties to the Mafia, that he was grandstanding and self seeking. But Garrison never backed down. And because of that, even today a noted biographer cannot get a major publisher to enter into a contract to do an honest biography of the man. He is still an outcast, a madman as far as the society is concerned. Stone agreed to drink the waters of uncertainty and society recognized him as having miraculously recovered his sanity. Garrison refused, insisting on continuing to drink the waters of knowledge, and for this he suffered accordingly. </q>

Thanks for this, Cliff.  I had seen Salandria's "False Mystery" speech at the same COPA convention in '98 several times but not this. This speech was a brilliant complement to that.  Schotz was a gem.

25 years later researchers are still making the same mistakes he and Salandria were railing against.

[Cory Santos]

4 hours ago, Cliff Varnell said:

If anyone thinks I’d give up my naturally air-conditioned Haight Ashbury pad for hot-as-hell Henderson...well, there are a couple of bridges here in town I can arrange for you a real deal, since you’re in the market.  

I recommend the orange one.

I told you the ac was fixed in the pool house.  That was one time.  Get over it.   

[Benjamin Cole]

3 hours ago, Cliff Varnell said:

An object lesson in the power of physical evidence in a cold case murder investigation.

The WarrenCommission, The Truth, & Arlen Specter

by Gaeton Fonzi

https://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/GaetonFonzi/WCTandAS.pdf

<quote, italic emphasis in the original, bold added>

The Warren Commission Report says the entrance wound caused by the bullet which came out Kennedy’s throat was “approximately 5-1⁄2 inches” below the back of the right ear. Yet photographs of the President’s jacket and shirt, which were part of the FbI supplemental report of January 13th, make it difficult to believe that is the truth.

These photographs were not part of the Warren Commission Report and were left out of the 26 volumes of supporting evidence. Although a description of Kennedy’s clothing was in the Report, the discrepancy between the location of the bullet holes in them and the reported location of the wounds was never discussed or explained.                             

And there was a very obvious discrepancy: the hole in the back of the jacket was 5-3/8 inches below the top of the collar and 1-3⁄4 inches to the right of the center back seam of the coat. traces of copper were found in the margins of the hole and the cloth fibers were pushed inward. “Although the precise size of the bullet could not be determined from the hole, it was consistent with having been made by a 6.5-millimeter bullet,” said the Report.

The shirt worn by the President also contained a hole in the back about 5 3⁄4 inches below the top of the collar and 1-1/8 inches to the right of the middle. It, too, had the characteristics of a bullet entrance hole.

Both these holes are in locations that seem obviously inconsistent with the wound described in the Commission’s autopsy report — placed below the back of the right ear — and illustrated in exhibit 385, which dr. Humes had prepared.

“Well,” said Specter, when asked about this in his City Hall office last month, “that difference is accounted for because the President was waving his arm.” He got up from his desk and attempted to have his explanation demonstrated. “Wave your arm a few times,” he said, “wave at the crowd. Well, see if the bullet goes in here, the jacket gets hunched up. If you take this point right here and then you strip the coat down, it comes out at a lower point. Well, not too much lower on your example, but the jacket rides up.”

If the jacket were “hunched up,” wouldn’t there have been two holes as a result of the doubling over of the cloth?

“No, not necessarily. It ... it wouldn’t be doubled over. When you sit in the car it could be doubled over at most any point, but the probabilities are that ... aaah ... that it gets ... that ... aaah ... this ... this is about the way a jacket rides up. You sit back ... sit back now ... all right now ... if ... usually, as your jacket lies there, the doubling up is right here, but if ... but if you have a bullet hit you right about here, which is where I had it, where your jacket sits ... it’s not ... it’s not ... it ordinarily doesn’t crease that far back.”

What about the shirt?

“Same thing.”

There is no real inconsistency between the Commission’s location of the wound and the holes in the clothing?

“No, not at all.  That gave us a lot of concern. First time we lined up the shirt ... after all, we lined up the shirt ... and the hole in the shirt is right about, right about the knot of the tie, came right about here in a slit in the front ...”

But where did it go in the back?

“Well, the back hole, when the shirt is laid down, comes . . . aaah ... well, I forget exactly where it came, but it certainly wasn’t higher, enough higher to ... aaah ... understand the ... aah ... the angle of decline which ...”

Was it lower? Was it lower than the slit in the front?

“Well, I think that ... that if you took the shirt without allowing for it’s being pulled up, that it would either have been in line or somewhat lower.”

Somewhat lower?

“Perhaps. I ... I don’t want to say because I don’t really remember. I got to take a look at that shirt.”

</q>

 

oat. traces of copper were found in the margins of the hole and the cloth fibers were pushed inward.---CV

So, the disintegrating "ice" bullet, of which you posit struck JFK in the back, and then vanished, was encased in a copper sheath?

What happened to the ice bullet's copper sheath after it left copper on JFK's shirt and coat? 

 

[Cliff Varnell]

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

oat. traces of copper were found in the margins of the hole and the cloth fibers were pushed inward.---CV

I don’t trust an FBI analysis of any of the evidence once the Magic Bullet was put into play — by the FBI.

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

So, the disintegrating "ice" bullet, of which you posit struck JFK in the back, and then vanished, was encased in a copper sheath?

What happened to the ice bullet's copper sheath after it left copper on JFK's shirt and coat? 

Once CE 399 was put into evidence, copper HAD to turn up.

Edited September 27, 2023 by Cliff Varnell

[Cliff Varnell]

Pure hearsay:

Henry Heiberger was the FBI agent who handled JFK’s clothing.  Heiberger had four daughters.  One of his daughters went to college with my sister.  She told my sis that her Dad told her the Warren Report was a lie.

[Cliff Varnell]

16 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

According to Farlex Dictionary of Idioms, "go through the ceiling" means "to increase significantly and often suddenly."

A literal interpretation of “go through the ceiling” is equally valid: “unprecedented heights.”

[Cliff Varnell]

8 hours ago, Roger Odisio said:

Thanks for this, Cliff.  I had seen Salandria's "False Mystery" speech at the same COPA convention in '98 several times but not this. This speech was a brilliant complement to that.  Schotz was a gem.

I wonder if it was well received by the COPA crowd.  He basically said to their faces they didn’t want to solve the case.  

The subtext of pseudo-debate: there is a foundational mystery to solve.  In JFK Revisited it’s debunking the Magic Bullet that solves the false mystery.  False because JFK had a shallow wound in his back and 6.5 mm Full Metal Jacket rounds don’t leave shallow wounds, not in soft tissue.

8 hours ago, Roger Odisio said:

25 years later researchers are still making the same mistakes he and Salandria were railing against.

Indeed.  The last time the clothing evidence was mentioned at a JFK Conference was Schotz in ‘98. 

 

Edited September 27, 2023 by Cliff Varnell

[Cliff Varnell]

I engaged in pseudo-debate for 21 years on-line.  For the first 8 years I didn’t realize I was participating in the cover-up of the JFKA.  In 2005 I went to the Cracking The Case Conference in Bethesda, a proud member of the Critical Community.

By the time I got back home I was a critic of that community.  I didn’t feel part of a movement at all.  I engaged in fake debate for my own kicks.  I’m not the one who put Our Lady of JFKA Truth in the gutter; I was just flicking ashes on Her bruised and bleeding body.

By the end 2018 I felt I’d learned enough and quit with the fake debate.  I was then entitled to enroll in the Vincent Salandria School of Research into the Obvious.

With a license to ridicule pseudo debate, I still get my kicks.

[Cliff Varnell]

Most Still Aren’t Buying JFK ‘Lone Gunman’ Conclusion

https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/lifestyle/general_lifestyle/october_2017/most_still_aren_t_buying_jfk_lone_gunman_conclusion

Most Americans still aren’t convinced that President John F. Kennedy was the victim of a lone assassin in November 1963.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 43% of American Adults accept the government’s conclusion that Kennedy was assassinated by a lone gunman. But 33% continue to believe he was the victim of a conspiracy, while one-in-four (24%) are undecided. </q>

6 years later:

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/rasmussen-reports-jfk/2023/07/12/id/1126834/

Voters are still divided on whether Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. 

A 1964 Warren Commission found that Kennedy was killed by Oswald, a U.S. citizen who had previously lived in the Soviet Union, and that Oswald acted alone.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 38% of likely U.S. voters accept the government's conclusion that Kennedy was assassinated by a lone gunman. But 38% continue to believe he was the victim of a conspiracy, while 24% are undecided. These numbers haven't changed much since 2017, when 43% of adults said a lone gunman killed JFK. </q>

Thr purveyors of False Mystery are prevailing, even if they don’t want to.

Edited September 29, 2023 by Cliff Varnell