WHY PAT SPEER OWES THE FAMILY OF DR. ROBERT McCLELLAND AN APOLOGY

[Pat Speer]

3 hours ago, Keven Hofeling said:

Okay, let's try this: Let's see you address some facts about the failure of the HSCA to authenticate the autopsy photographs, a subject about which you cannot spam me again with a cut and paste because it is of course not addressed on your website.

And while you are at it, why don't you explain to us WHY there is nothing on your website about the HSCA making the Bethesda autopsy camera disappear after failing to match the autopsy photographs to it.

The following from Dr. Gary Aguilar, Dr. Cyril Wecht and Rex Bradford:   https://websites.umich.edu/~ahaq/correspondence.pdf

______________

The story begins in an inconspicuous footnote that qualified the HSCA’s public claim that from “microscopic” and “stereoscopic” examinations of the photos its experts had confidently concluded that the images were authentic (52, 53).

52. HSCA vol 6:225–226. On-line at: http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol6/html/HSCA_Vol6_0116a.htm to http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol6/html/HSCA_Vol6_0116b.htm. Accessed 10/29/04.

53. HSCA report by Frank Scott entitled, “Report on Autopsy Color Photographs Authenticity.” HSCA vol 7:69–71. On-line at: http://history-matters.com/archive/ jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol7/html/HSCA_Vol7_0040a.htm to http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol7/html/HSCA_Vol7_0041a.htm.  Accessed 10/29/04. 

The footnote only offered the minor caution that the HSCA had encountered a negligible glitch during authentication.

It wrote:

Because the Department of Defense was unable to locate the camera and lens that were used to take these [autopsy] photographs, the [photographic] panel was unable to engage in an analysis similar to the one undertaken with the Oswald backyard pictures that was designed to determine whether a particular camera in issue had been used to take the photographs that were the subject of inquiry. (54)

54. HSCA vol 6:226, footnote # 1. On-line at: http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol6/html/HSCA_Vol6_0116b.htm. Accessed 10/29/04. 

Regarding that very sentence, ARRB investigator, Mr. Douglas Horne, wrote, “By late 1997, enough related documents had been located and assembled by the authors to bring into serious doubt the accuracy of the HSCA’s conclusion that ‘the Department of Defense was unable to locate the camera and lens’. . .” (22).

22. ARRB memorandum for file by Mr. Doug Horne entitled, “Unanswered Questions Raised by the HSCA’s Analysis and Conclusions Regarding the Camera Identified by the Navy and the department of Defense as the Camera Used at President Kennedy’s Autopsy,” pp 2–24. On-line at: http://history-matters.com/archive/ jfk/arrb/staff_memos/DH_HscaCamera/html/dh_hscaCamera_0001b.htm. to http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/staff_memos/DH_HscaCamera/html/dh_hscaCamera_0012b.htm. Accessed 10/29/04. 

Mr. Horne reported that the Navy had sent the HSCA a fact sheet that “strongly reiterates the Navy’s position that the camera provided to the HSCA was indeed the camera used at the autopsy on President Kennedy.” The proof was a suppressed letter to the HSCA from the Assistant Secretary of Defense indicating that the Department of Defense had indeed located, and had in fact already sent to the HSCA, “the only [camera] in use at the National Naval Medical Center in 1963” (22).

22. ARRB memorandum for file by Mr. Doug Horne entitled, “Unanswered Questions Raised by the HSCA’s Analysis and Conclusions Regarding the Camera Identified by the Navy and the department of Defense as the Camera Used at President Kennedy’s Autopsy,” pp 2–24. On-line at: http://history-matters.com/archive/ jfk/arrb/staff_memos/DH_HscaCamera/html/dh_hscaCamera_0001b.htm. to http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/staff_memos/DH_HscaCamera/html/dh_hscaCamera_0012b.htm. Accessed 10/29/04. 

However the HSCA wasn’t satisfied with the camera the Defense Department had fetched. In a letter asking the Secretary of Defense to look around for another one, HSCA chief counsel, Robert Blakey, explained the problem:

[O]ur photographic experts have determined that this camera, or at least the particular lens and shutter attached to it, could not have been used to take [JFK’s]autopsy pictures. (22)

22. ARRB memorandum for file by Mr. Doug Horne entitled, “Unanswered Questions Raised by the HSCA’s Analysis and Conclusions Regarding the Camera Identified by the Navy and the department of Defense as the Camera Used at President Kennedy’s Autopsy,” pp 2–24. On-line at: http://history-matters.com/archive/ jfk/arrb/staff_memos/DH_HscaCamera/html/dh_hscaCamera_0001b.htm. to http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/staff_memos/DH_HscaCamera/html/dh_hscaCamera_0012b.htm. Accessed 10/29/04. 

Whereas the HSCA reported it could not completely close the loop because the camera was missing, the suppressed record suggests that 1) the loop was closed, 2) the camera was located, and 3) that the HSCA’s own experts determined the camera “could not have been used to take [JFK’s] autopsy pictures.” The HSCA staff elected to withhold this inconvenient information from the public. They also kept it from their own experts on the FPP, including the chairman, Dr. Micheal Baden (personal communication), and one of the authors of this essay [CHW]. And so, as Dr. Levy makes clear, the FPP experts were left to labor under the illusion that the images had passed authentication with flying colors.

THE ARRB ON THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE JFK AUTOPSY CAMERA DURING THE HOUSE SELECT COMMITTEE ON ASSASSINATIONS INVESTIGATION:

"...4. By late 1997, enough related documents had been located and assembled by the author to bring into serious doubt the accuracy of the HSCA's conclusion (see paragraph 2 above) that "...the Department of Defense was unable to locate the camera and lens...used to take...[the autopsy] photographs." If the HSCA was incorrect in its conclusion that the camera it examined was not the autopsy camera, the implications for what may have happened on November 22-23, 1963 are considerable. In paragraph 5 below, a timeline has been constructed of HSCA activities in the autopsy camera area, referencing appropriate documents assembled by the author, that will explain why a reasonable student of the assassination might conclude that the HSCA reached the wrong conclusion regarding the autopsy camera. [Appropriate documents are attached to this memo as enclosures.] Implications of the HSCA's possibly incorrect analysis of the situation are explored in paragraph 6 below...."

"...7.  Looking at this problem from another viewpoint, the HSCA report writers (presumably Blakey, Cornwell and Billings) might just as well have said, after receiving John Kester's letter of April 20, 1978, "Because the Navy did provide the camera used at the autopsy, through DOD, for our examination--and our experts have concluded it could not have been used to take the autopsy pictures--the Committee therefore concludes that the official autopsy photographs in the collection at the National Archives were taken by someone other than John Stringer, and that John Stringer's photographs were removed from the collection prior to April 26, 1965." But instead of openly pointing out, in its written report, the possibility of either conclusion being correct, the HSCA apparently assumed the photographs were Stringer's without question, and therefore concluded that the Navy and DOD must have provided the wrong camera to the Committee, in spite of the strong assurances of the Department of Defense that the Graphic View Camera provided for examination in 1978 was the only one used at Bethesda in November, 1963. Perhaps worst of all, the document that would have cast doubt on the seeming certainty of the HSCA's conclusion regarding the camera, the John Kester letter of April 20, I978, was apparently sealed for 50 years by someone on the HSCA staff.  In light of the HSCA's deposition of Robert L. Knudsen in August. 1978, in which he indicated with great certainty that he had developed color negatives (vice color positive transparencies) from the autopsy, and a film pack of black-and-white negatives (vice black-and-white negatives from a duplex film holder), and the Committee staff's subsequent decision not to publish or even mention his testimony in its final report, and to seal it for 50 years, one cannot wonder whether some important, high-ranking members of the HSCA staff had a strong disposition against accepting, at face value, indications that there may have been chain-of-custody or authenticity problems with key photographic evidence in the Kennedy assassination, and a predilection in favor of benign explanations for apparent discrepancies in the photographic evidence...."

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=43609#relPageId=1

 

LOL. Your posts are nothing but cut and pastes, repeating the same stuff over and over, much of it nonsense from Horne. You almost never address any point raised by anyone else. You just shout them down with pages and pages of small ole same ole. 

As far as the camera, yes, I discuss it on my website and even mention Horne. 

 

[Keven Hofeling]

51 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

LOL. Your posts are nothing but cut and pastes, repeating the same stuff over and over, much of it nonsense from Horne. You almost never address any point raised by anyone else. You just shout them down with pages and pages of small ole same ole. 

As far as the camera, yes, I discuss it on my website and even mention Horne. 

 

Pat: "Your posts are nothing but cut and pastes, repeating the same stuff over and over, much of it nonsense from PatSpeer.com. You almost never address any point raised by anyone else. You just shout them down with pages and pages of small ole same ole"

Perhaps the most ironic words ever written on this forum.

In my case, at least, I am presenting actual evidence, rather than merely engaging in a folksy Grandpa Corncob narrative of my own imagining. Evidence is what real research is all about. That's the real deal. Look it up.

 

Edited March 13 by Keven Hofeling

[Keven Hofeling]

On 1/5/2024 at 3:06 PM, Pat Speer said:

While I've read theories in which two caskets were brought in the back, I don't think these theories hold that both caskets held JFK's body. So I think you've got a fresh idea. (With apologies to Doug Horne if he came up with this first.)

Like all fresh ideas, it needs to pass a few hurdles, however. 

If the body was indeed brought in in one casket and then another, then it would have to have been taken out in between. 

Well, any witnesses to this removal?

Any idea as to who performed this removal? 

And similarly, are there any witnesses to the transfer of JFK's body from one casket to the other?

Any idea as to who performed this transfer?

Any idea as to why this transfer was performed? 

It appears on the surface that you have resolved conflicting recollections by claiming they both happened, and that some mysterious "they" orchestrated it so that those involved had no idea they were living in alternate realities. 

The ARRB's Jeremy Gunn stepped aside from the research community after interviewing the medical witnesses, and realizing their memories  just weren't reliable. He cited one doctor's insistence Jackie was wearing white on the day of the assassination as an example. 

So, why should we believe inconsistent recollections among humans of events 30, 40, 50, 60 years before, is abnormal?

Why create a "they" when it is more probably "us"? 

First of all, I wish to address the conclusion of your post:

Quote

 

The ARRB's Jeremy Gunn stepped aside from the research community after interviewing the medical witnesses, and realizing their memories  just weren't reliable. He cited one doctor's insistence Jackie was wearing white on the day of the assassination as an example. 

So, why should we believe inconsistent recollections among humans of events 30, 40, 50, 60 years before, is abnormal?

 

One crucial point that I must emphasize, highlight and underscore is your biased and selective treatment of historical accounts from witnesses such as Audrey Bell and Dr. Charles Crenshaw regarding the assassination date. You argue that their credibility is diminished because they were not Warren Commission witnesses and did not share their accounts about the assassination resuscitation efforts until years later. This bias is evident in how you attempt to discredit Bell and Crenshaw, while glorifying and endorsing accounts from other witnesses like Dr. Robert Grossman, who was also notably absent from early historical records related to the assassination. Dr. Robert Grossman happens to be a PRIME SUSPECT for not being present in Trauma Room One on 11/23/1963 but later inserting himself into the narrative for personal gain and publicity. In Grossman's version, he introduces a memory discrepancy that you frequently reference in your writings that is the most significant discrepancy in JFKA history, and you ominously do so without attributing it to him. This inconsistency involves Grossman remembering Jackie Kennedy in her WHITE dress on the day of the assassination. Despite Grossman's contradictions, you prominently feature him on your website and in your content because his narrative supports your mythological belief that the back of JFK's head remained intact. Conversely, you scrutinize Audrey Bell for similar inconsistencies, despite evidence disproving your accusations against her. This double standard exposes clear hypocrisy and highlights the shortcomings in your approach, thus raising doubts about your true intentions and motivations.

"THE ISSUE IS NOT WHETHER DR. GROSSMAN'S VIEW OF JFK'S WOUNDS -- OFFERED 40 YEARS AFTER THE FACT -- IS WORTHY OF BEING TAKEN SERIOUSLY AT THIS LATE DATE, BUT RATHER, WHETHER DR. ROBERT GROSSMAN WAS IN THE ROOM AT ALL."  By David Lifton. https://www.jfk-assassination.net/grossman.htm

 

PAT SPEER WROTE:

Quote

 

While I've read theories in which two caskets were brought in the back, I don't think these theories hold that both caskets held JFK's body. So I think you've got a fresh idea. (With apologies to Doug Horne if he came up with this first.)

Like all fresh ideas, it needs to pass a few hurdles, however. 

If the body was indeed brought in in one casket and then another, then it would have to have been taken out in between. 

Well, any witnesses to this removal?

Any idea as to who performed this removal? 

And similarly, are there any witnesses to the transfer of JFK's body from one casket to the other?

Any idea as to who performed this transfer?

Any idea as to why this transfer was performed? 

It appears on the surface that you have resolved conflicting recollections by claiming they both happened, and that some mysterious "they" orchestrated it so that those involved had no idea they were living in alternate realities. 

 

It would appear that you are unfamiliar with the vast body of evidence indicating that there was indeed a sophisticated shell game involving JFK's body and multiple casket entries at the Bethesda autopsy. The following is some of the best work that has been done on that issue by Jacob Hornberger:

 

The Kennedy Casket Conspiracy

by Jacob G. Hornberger | https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/kennedy-casket-conspiracy/

November 22, 2010

"...The purpose of this article is simply to focus on what happened at Bethesda Naval Hospital on the evening of November 22, 1963, and, specifically, the events that took place prior to Kennedy’s autopsy. What happened that night is so unusual that it cries out for truthful explanation even after 47 years.

U.S. officials have long maintained that Kennedy’s body was delivered to the Bethesda morgue in the heavy, ornamental, bronze casket in which the body had been placed at Parkland Hospital in Dallas.

The problem, however, is that the evidence establishes that Kennedy’s body was actually delivered to the Bethesda morgue twice, at separate times and in separate caskets.

How does one resolve this problem? One option, obviously, is just to forget about it, given that the assassination took place almost a half-century ago. But it seems to me that since the matter is so unusual and since it involves a president of the United States, the American people — regardless of which side of the divide they fall on — lone-nut assassin or conspiracy — are entitled to a truthful explanation of what happened that night at Bethesda. And the only ones who can provide it are U.S. officials, especially those in the Secret Service, the FBI, and the U.S. military, the agencies that were in control of events at Bethesda that night.

The facts of the casket controversy are set forth in detail in a five-volume work that was published in 2009 entitled Inside the Assassination Records Review Board: The U.S. Government’s Final Attempt to Reconcile the Conflicting Medical Evidence in the Assassination of JFK. The author is Douglas P. Horne, who served as chief analyst for military records for the Assassination Records Review Board. The ARRB was the official board established to administer the JFK Records Act, which required federal departments and agencies to divulge to the public their files and records relating to the Kennedy assassination. The act was enacted after Oliver Stone’s 1991 movie, JFK, produced a firestorm of public outcry against the U.S. government’s decision to keep assassination-related records secret from the public for 75 years after publication of the Warren Commission Report in 1964 and for 50 years after publication of the House Select Committee on Assassinations Report in 1979.

Horne’s book posits that high officials in the national security state — i.e., the CIA, FBI, Secret Service, and U.S. military — planned and executed the assassination of John F. Kennedy and that the man who replaced Kennedy as president, Lyndon B. Johnson, orchestrated a cover-up of the conspiracy by telling officials that national security (i.e., a potential nuclear war, citing Oswald’s activities relating to the Soviet Union and Cuba) necessitated shutting down an investigation into determining whether Kennedy’s murder involved a conspiracy. Horne’s book focuses primarily on the events surrounding the autopsy of Kennedy’s body on the night of the assassination. As he himself acknowledges, his book expands upon the thesis set forth in a book published in 1981 entitled Best Evidence by David Lifton, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and reached Number 4 on the New York Times best seller list.

It was Lifton who originally challenged the official story that Kennedy’s body was delivered only once to the Bethesda morgue. It is Horne who has set forth in more detail the evidence that establishes that Lifton was right.

When Air Force One landed at Andrews Air Force Base from Dallas, Kennedy’s casket was placed into a gray Navy ambulance in which Kennedy’s wife, Jacqueline, was traveling. Proceeding in a motorcade, the ambulance arrived at the front of the Bethesda Naval Hospital at 6:55 p.m.

At 8:00 p.m., a little more than an hour later, the casket was carried into the Bethesda morgue by a military honor team called the Joint Casket Bearer Team, which consisted of personnel from all the branches of military service, all of whom were in dress uniform and wore white gloves.

However, the evidence also establishes that at 6:35 p.m. — 90 minutes earlier than when Kennedy’s Dallas casket was carried into the morgue at 8:00 p.m. by the Joint Casket Bearer Team — another group of military personnel carried the president’s body into the Bethesda morgue. That casket was a plain shipping casket rather than the expensive, heavy, ornamental, bronze casket into which the president’s body had been placed in Dallas.

Equally strange was the fact that the president’s body at the 6:35 p.m. delivery was in a body bag rather than wrapped in the white sheets in which the medical personnel in Dallas had wrapped it before it was placed into the heavy, bronze casket in Dallas.

Have doubts? Let’s look at the evidence.

On November 22, 1963, Marine Sgt. Roger Boyajian was stationed at the Marine Corps Institute in Washington, D.C. On that day, he received orders to go to the Bethesda Hospital to serve as NCO in charge of a 10-man Marine security detail for President Kennedy’s autopsy.

Four days later — on November 26 — Boyajian filed a report of what happened. Here is what his report stated in part:

The detail arrived at the hospital at approximately 1800 [6:00 p.m.] and after reporting as ordered several members of the detail were posted at entrances to prevent unauthorized persons from entering the prescribed area…. At approximately 1835 [6:35 p.m.] the casket was received at the morgue entrance and taken inside.” (Bracketed material added.)

If you would like to see a copy of Sergeant Boyajian’s report, it is posted here on the Internet as part of the online appendix to Horne’s book.

Still not convinced?

In 1963, E-6 Navy hospital corpsman Dennis David was stationed at the Bethesda National Navy Center, where his job consisted of reading medical textbooks and transforming them into Navy correspondence courses. David later became a Navy officer and served in that capacity for 11 years in the Medical Services Corps. He retired from active duty in 1976.

On November 22, 1963, David was serving as “Chief of the Day” at the Navy medical school at Bethesda. According to an official ARRB interview conducted by Horne on February 14, 1997, David stated that at about 5:30 p.m. he was summoned to appear at the office of the Chief of the Day for the entire Bethesda complex (including the medical school). When he arrived, there were three or four Secret Service agents in the office. He was informed that President Kennedy’s autopsy was going to be held at the Bethesda morgue. David was ordered to round up a team and proceed to the morgue and establish security. He rounded up several men from various barracks, proceeded to the Bethesda morgue, and assigned security duties to his team.

At around 6:30 p.m., David received a phone call stating that “your visitor is on the way: you will need some people to offload. ” David rounded up 7 or 8 sailors to carry in the casket and a few minutes later, a black hearse drove up. Several men in blue suits got out of the hearse, along with the driver and passenger, both of whom were wearing white (operating room) smocks. Under David’s supervision, the sailors offloaded the casket and carried it into the morgue.

What did the casket look like? David stated that it was a simple, gray shipping casket similar to the ones commonly used in the Vietnam War.

Now keep in mind that the motorcade in which the gray Navy ambulance that carried Mrs. Kennedy and the heavy bronze casket into which her husband’s body had been placed in Dallas didn’t arrive at the hospital until 6:55 p.m., twenty minutes after Kennedy’s body was carried into the morgue by David’s team. Keep in mind also that according to the official version of events, the Dallas casket wasn’t carried into the morgue by the Joint Casket Bearer Team until 8:00 p.m.

David added that after his team had delivered the shipping casket into the morgue, he proceeded into the main portion of the hospital, where several minutes later (i.e., at 6:55 p.m.) he saw the motorcade in which Mrs. Kennedy was traveling (and the Dallas casket was being transported) approaching the front of Bethesda Hospital. As he stated to Horne, he knew at that point that President Kennedy’s body could not be in the Dallas casket because his team had, just a few minutes earlier, delivered Kennedy’s body into the morgue in the shipping casket.

While David didn’t personally witness the president’s body being taken out of the shipping casket, he later asked one of the autopsy physicians, a U.S. Navy commander named Dr. J. Thornton Boswell, in which casket the president had come in. Boswell responded, “You ought to know; you were there.”

Moreover, when Lifton showed David a photo of the Dallas casket in 1980, David categorically stated that that was not the shipping casket in which Kennedy’s body had been delivered at 6:35 p.m. (Horne, volume 4, page 989.)

What David told Horne in 1997 was a repetition of what David had told Lifton many years before, which Lifton had related in his 1981 book, Best Evidence. As Lifton recounts in his book, David gave the same account to a reporter from the Lake County News-Sun in Waukegan, Illinois, in 1975.

If you would like to see Horne’s official ARRB report of his interview with David, it is posted on the Internet here. (Lifton’s account is in chapter 25 of his book and is entitled “The Lake County Informant.”)

Still not satisfied?

According to Horne, “After Best Evidence was published, a Michigan newspaper and a Canadian news team located and interviewed Donald Rebentisch, one of the sailors in Dennis David’s working party, who had been telling the same story independently for years.” (Horne, volume 3, page 675.)

So, you have a Marine sergeant and two sailors, whose statements unequivocally confirm that Kennedy’s body was carried into the Bethesda morgue in a plain shipping casket at 6:35 p.m.

Is there any more evidence of the 6:35 p.m. delivery of Kennedy’s body to the morgue?

Yes.

On November 22, 1963, Joseph Gawler’s Sons, Inc., which, according to Horne, had been the most prestigious funeral home in Washington for many years, was summoned to Bethesda Hospital to perform the embalming of President Kennedy’s body. On November 22-23, 1963, Gawler’s prepared what was called a “First Call Sheet” for President Kennedy’s autopsy, which contained the following handwritten notation:

“Body removed from metal shipping casket at NSNH at Bethesda.”

The person who wrote that notation was Joseph E. Hagan, the supervisor in charge of the Gawler’s embalming team for the Kennedy autopsy and who later became president of Gawler’s. When the ARRB interviewed Hagan in 1996, he stated that he had not personally witnessed the president’s body being brought into the morgue in the shipping casket but that someone whom he could not recall had advised him of that fact.

If you would like to see a copy of the Gawler’s First Call Sheet, it is posted here on the Internet.

Need more evidence?

Paul O’Connor was an E-4 Navy corpsman who served as an autopsy technician for the Kennedy autopsy on November 22, 1963. According to Horne, O’Connor told the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1977 and Lifton in 1979 and 1980 that Kennedy’s body had arrived in a “cheap, metal, aluminum” casket in a “rubberized body bag” with a “zipper down the middle.” (Horne, volume 4, page 990.)

In 1979, Lifton interviewed a man named Floyd Riebe, who was a medical photography student present at Kennedy’s autopsy when he was an E-5 Navy corpsman stationed at Bethesda. According to Horne, Riebe stated that Kennedy’s casket was not a viewing casket because the lid did not open halfway down. Riebe also confirmed that Kennedy’s body was in a rubberized body bag with a zipper. (Horne, volume 4, page 990.)

Jerrol Custer was an E-4 Navy corpsman who served as an X-ray technician for the Kennedy autopsy. According to Horne, Custer told Lifton in repeated interviews that Kennedy’s body was in a body bag. Custer also told Lifton that he saw the black hearse that brought in the shipping casket. He stated that he saw two different caskets in the Bethesda morgue, one of which was bronze. Interestingly, in a deposition conducted by the ARRB in 1997, Custer denied that Kennedy was in a body bag even though he had stated the contrary in two separate interviews with Lifton in 1979 and 1989. (Horne, volume 4, page 991.)

Ed Reed, an E-4 Navy corpsman, also served as an X-ray technician for the Kennedy autopsy. In an ARRB deposition in 1997, Reed testified that Kennedy’s casket was a “typical aluminum military casket.” He said that there were Marines present at the time the casket was delivered. He recalled that the president arrived in a see-through clear plastic bag, not in a standard body bag. (Horne, volume 4, page 991.)

According to Horne, James Jenkins, another E-4 Navy corpsman who served as an autopsy technician for Kennedy’s autopsy, told Lifton in 1979 that Kennedy’s casket was not ornamental and that it was plain — “awful clean and simple” and “not something you’d expect a president to be in.” (Horne, volume 4, page 992.)

According to Horne, John VanHuesen, a member of the Gawler’s embalming team, told the ARRB that he recalled seeing a “black, zippered plastic pouch” in the Bethesda morgue early in the autopsy. (Horne, volume 4, page 992.)

So, what do we have here? We have eight Marine and Navy enlisted personnel who were performing their assigned duties on November 22, 1963, and whose statements unequivocally establish that Kennedy’s body was delivered to the Bethesda morgue at 6:35 p.m. in a shipping casket and in a body bag rather than in the heavy, ornamental, bronze casket into which it had been placed at Parkland Hospital, wrapped in white sheets.

We also have two written reports — Sergeant Boyajian’s report and the Gawler’s report — that were filed contemporaneously with the autopsy, both of which confirm early arrival of Kennedy’s body in the shipping casket. We also have a member of the Gawler’s embalming team stating that he saw a body bag in the morgue.

But that’s not all. We also have the statement by Dennis David that after he and his team offloaded Kennedy’s casket and delivered it into the morgue at 6:35 p.m., he personally witnessed the motorcade in which Mrs. Kennedy (and the Dallas casket) was traveling approaching the front of Bethesda Hospital at 6:55 p.m.

In fact, David isn’t the only one who saw Mrs. Kennedy’s motorcade (which contained the Dallas casket) approaching Bethesda Hospital after the president’s body had already been delivered to the morgue at 6:35 p.m. According to Horne, Jerrol Custer told Lifton in 1980 that he had seen Mrs. Kennedy in the main lobby while he was on his way upstairs to process X-rays that had already been taken of the president’s body. (Horne, volume 4, page 991.)

Let’s now turn back to the official version of events. The official version is that Kennedy’s body was carried into the Bethesda morgue by the Joint Casket Bearer Team at 8:00 p.m. in the heavy, ornamental, bronze casket into which it had been placed at Parkland Hospital. This is the account given in William Manchester’s book The Death of a President. When the casket was opened, Kennedy’s body was taken out, and witnesses confirm that it was wrapped in the white sheets that had been wrapped around the body by the Parkland Hospital personnel in Dallas. At 8:15 p.m., the autopsy began.

So, which is it?

Was Kennedy’s body carried by a team of sailors into the Bethesda morgue at 6:35 p.m. in a shipping casket encased in a body bag after being delivered in a black hearse that contained several men in blue suits?

Or was it carried in by the Joint Casket Bearer Team at 8:00 p.m. in the heavy, ornamental, bronze casket from Dallas and wrapped in white sheets after being delivered in a gray Navy ambulance?

The answer: Both.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: “There’s no way that Kennedy’s body would have been delivered two different times into the Bethesda morgue. Why would anyone do that? Anyway, if Kennedy’s body was actually delivered into the morgue at 6:35 p.m. in the shipping casket, how did it get back into the heavy, ornamental, bronze casket from Dallas that the Joint Casket Bearer Team carried in at 8:00 p.m.? Why, that’s just plain crazy!”

Permit me to cite some of the adjectives that the noted attorney Vincent Bugliosi used in a chapter entitled “David Lifton and the Alteration of the President’s Body” in his book Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy: “preposterous,” “far out,” “unhinged,” and “nonsense.”

So, which casket delivery would you guess Bugliosi settled on — the 6:35 p.m. delivery of the shipping casket with the body bag or the 8:00 p.m. heavy bronze casket delivery with the white sheets wrapped around Kennedy’s body?

You guessed wrong!

Bugliosi settled on a third casket delivery.

Yes, you read that right. Vincent Bugliosi, along with noted conspiracy critic Gerald Posner, author of the 1993 book Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK, have settled on a third casket delivery into the Bethesda morgue — one that took place between 7:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. — that is, after the 6:35 p.m. casket delivery and before the 8:00 p.m. casket delivery.

Are you doubting me? Are you thinking to yourself, “No way, Jacob. Two casket deliveries were already enough for me. But a third? Now you’ve gone too far”?

Permit me first to set forth Bugliosi’s position. Referring to Paul O’Connor, the E-4 X-ray technician cited above, Bugliosi writes,

O’Connor told the HSCA [House Select Committee on Assassinations] investigators that the president’s body arrived in a pink shipping casket and told Lifton that the body arrived in a “cheap, pinkish gray casket, just a tin box.” But FBI agent James Sibert told me that he, his partner, Francis O’Neill, a few Secret Service agents, and a few others he doesn’t recall, carried the casket from the limousine at the back of the hospital to “an anteroom right next to the autopsy room….” He vividly remembers that “it was a very expensive one, definitely not a shipping casket” and he recalls it was “very, very heavy….” [The] November 26, 1963, report of FBI agents Sibert and O’Neill reads that when the president’s body arrived in the autopsy room, “the complete body was wrapped in sheets.”… (Bugliosi, pages 1069-70; bracketed material added).

Posner writes.

Sibert and O’Neill helped take the casket inside, and there, waiting for the President’s body were [autopsy physicians] Dr. James Humes and Dr. J. Thornton Boswell…. When the funeral motorcade arrived at the hospital, Robert and Jacqueline Kennedy were escorted to upstairs waiting rooms while the casket was brought to the morgue. There, Drs. Humes and Boswell, with help from FBI agents O’Neill and Sibert and Secret Service agents Kellerman and Greer, removed the body…. (Posner, chapter 13, page 299; bracketed material added.)

Having concluded that the president’s casket could have been delivered only one time to the Bethesda morgue, Bugliosi and Posner obviously concluded that FBI agents Francis O’Neill and James Sibert and Secret Service agents Roy Kellerman and William Greer must be the only ones telling the truth and that the enlisted men who stated they carried the president’s body into the morgue at 6:35 p.m. in a shipping casket had to be speaking falsely.

It is clear that to both Bugliosi and Posner it is inconceivable that the 6:35 p.m. group could be telling the truth. Bugliosi ridicules the veracity of Paul O’Connor, while Posner mocks the veracity of O’Connor, Jerrol Custer, and James Jenkins.

What about Marine Sgt. Roger Boyajian, who filed the after-action report on November 26, in which he stated unequivocally that the president’s casket had been carried into the morgue at 6:35 p.m.?

What about Dennis David, the Chief of Day for the Naval medical school, who later retired from the Navy as an officer, who stated that the president’s body had been carried into the morgue at 6:35 p.m. in a shipping casket?

What about Donald Rebentisch, a member of David’s team, who stated the same thing?

What about Floyd Riebe and Ed Reed, two other enlisted men who confirmed the account?

What about Joseph Gawler’s Sons, Inc., whose representatives filed a written report on November 22 23, 1963, which stated that the president’s body had arrived in a shipping casket?

Most of them aren’t even mentioned by Bugliosi and Posner, and Posner describes them collectively as “bit players at Bethesda — orderlies, technicians, and casket carriers.”

Bit players?

Permit me level a very simple question at Vincent Bugliosi and Gerald Posner: Why in the world would these eight enlisted men, who were simply doing their jobs on the evening of November 22, 1963, have any reason to lie or concoct a false story about bringing the president’s body into the Bethesda morgue?

Only Bugliosi and Posner can explain why they didn’t carefully focus on and analyze the statements and testimony of all these witnesses, but let give you my theory on the matter. In my opinion, the reason they didn’t do so is that they knew that if they did, their own position would immediately become untenable.

Why?

Because both Bugliosi and Posner know that the chance that each of all those witnesses came up with the same fake story independently of all the other witnesses who were saying the same thing is so astronomically small as to be nonexistent.

Therefore, for all the witnesses to have all come up with the same fake story about the 6:35 p.m. delivery of Kennedy’s body into the Bethesda morgue in a shipping casket would have had to involve one of the most preposterous conspiracies of all time. Bugliosi and Posner would be relegated to becoming conspiracy theorists and ridiculous ones at that. They would be alleging that eight enlisted men in the United States Armed Forces who were suddenly called to duty to serve at the autopsy of President John F. Kennedy’s body conspired to concoct a wild and fake story about how they delivered President Kennedy’s body into the Bethesda morgue in a shipping casket at 6:35 p.m. on the evening of November 22, 1963. Oh, I forgot — the conspiracy also would have included the most prestigious funeral home in Washington, D.C., the funeral home that the U.S. military had selected to handle the embalming of the president’s body.

Well, pray tell, Mssrs. Bugliosi and Posner: What would have been the motive behind such a conspiracy?

Perhaps if we try to imagine how the conspiracy got arranged, we can figure out what the motive was.

Let’s see: Carrying out his orders to establish a team of Marines for security at Bethesda Hospital, Marine Sgt. Boyajian calls the team together and says, “Men, I’ve got an idea. Let’s conspire to come up with a fake and false story about how the president’s body got delivered to the Bethesda morgue. We’ll tell everybody that his body was brought to the morgue in a black hearse that contained several men in blue suits and that Kennedy’s body was contained in a shipping casket and in a body bag.” The team goes along with the idea.

Then, once Marine Sergeant Boyajian arrives at the morgue, he collars the Chief of the Day at Bethesda medical school, Dennis David (a “bit player” who would later become a Navy officer), and whispers in his ear, “Hey, dude, my Marines and I have come up with a great idea. We’re conspiring to concoct a fake story about how we delivered President Kennedy’s body into the morgue in a shipping casket at 6:35 p.m. Would you like to join our conspiracy?”

David responds, “Wow! That sounds great! Yeah, I’ll talk to my team about it.” So David goes to his team and convinces them to join the conspiracy.

Oh, but wait — there are also the other “bit players” to contact. So, the conspirators approach the X-ray technicians and photographers and, after some persuasion, convince them to join the conspiracy.

All that’s left is Joseph Gawler’s Sons, Inc. No problem. When they hear about the idea, they think it’s fantastic, and they’re willing to risk the good reputation they’ve built up over the years to become the most prestigious funeral home in Washington and quickly join the conspiracy.

And for what? Whoops! It still isn’t clear what the motive of all those “orderlies, technicians, and casket carriers” could have been.

Let me use the adjectives that Bugliosi employed to describe this supposed conspiracy among what Posner described as “bit players”: “preposterous,” “far out,” “unhinged,” and “nonsense.”

Unless one is convinced that such an impossible conspiracy took place, there is only one conclusion that can be reached: Those eight enlisted men and the representatives of Gawler’s funeral home, all of whom were suddenly and unexpectedly called to do their duty on the evening of November 22, 1963, were telling the truth. President Kennedy’s body was carried into the Bethesda morgue at 6:35 p.m. in a shipping casket and inside a body bag.

The next question naturally arises: Was the O’Neill-Silbert-Kellerman-Greer casket delivery that Bugliosi and Posner settled on the same casket delivery as the Joint Casket Bearer’s Team’s casket delivery? Or were they two separate casket deliveries?

Posner doesn’t address the issue. In fact, he doesn’t even mention the Joint Casket Bearer’s Team’s delivery of the Dallas casket, which would seem odd, since it was prominently mentioned in William Manchester’s famous book on the assassination, The Death of a President. Perhaps Posner had difficulty reconciling the two different accounts and just felt it would be simpler to leave one of them out of his analysis.

Bulgliosi, on the other hand, does address the issue. What is his approach? Obviously convinced that there could have been only one casket delivery that night, he conflates the O’Neill-Sibert-Kellerman-Greer casket delivery and the Joint Casket Bearer Team’s casket delivery into one casket delivery.

The problem for Bugliosi, however, is that the evidence does not support his position. Instead, the evidence leads to but one conclusion: three separate casket deliveries, as follows:

6:35 p.m.: First casket delivery. We know this from the statements of Marine Sergeant Boyajian, Chief of the Day David, the six other enlisted men, and the Gawler’s funeral home report.

Between 7:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Second casket delivery. We know this from statements made by FBI agents O’Neill and Sibert and Secret Service agent Kellerman, as shown below.

8:00 p.m.: Third casket delivery. We know this from the official report of the Joint Casket Bearer’s Team, as shown below.

We have already reviewed the evidence that establishes the first casket delivery and its time of delivery of 6:35 p.m.

Let’s now review the evidence that establishes the second casket delivery, which took place sometime between 7:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

In their official report of November 26, 1963, O’Neill and Sibert stated in part as follows,

On arrival at the Medical Center, the ambulance stopped in front of the main entrance, at which time Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy and Attorney General Robert Kennedy embarked from the ambulance and entered the building. The ambulance was thereafter driven around to the rear entrance where the President’s body was removed and taken into an autopsy room. Bureau agents assisted in the moving of the casket to the autopsy room.

Keep in mind that the ambulance arrived in the front of the hospital at 6:55 p.m. Keep in mind also that the Joint Casket Bearer Team didn’t deliver the Dallas casket into the morgue until more than an hour later, at 8:00 p.m.

On March 12, 1964, an official memo of the Warren Commission recounted the following exchange between Warren Commission counsel Arlen Spector and FBI agents O’Neill and Sibert:

Question: What was the time of the preparation for the autopsy at the hospital?

Answer: Approximately 7:17 p.m.

Question: What time did the autopsy begin?

Answer: Approximately 8:15 p.m.

Ask yourself: How could preparation for the autopsy begin at approximately 7:17 p.m. if the Joint Casket Bearer Team didn’t deliver the body into the morgue until 8:00 p.m.? Of course, since we know that the body had already been delivered to the morgue at 6:35 p.m. in the shipping casket, preparation for the autopsy could have begun at 7:17 p.m.

In fact, recall that X-ray technician Jerrol Custer, one of the enlisted men who witnessed Kennedy’s body being brought into the morgue in the shipping casket, saw Mrs. Kennedy entering the main lobby of the hospital as Custer was heading upstairs to process X-rays of Kennedy’s body.

Question: How could Custer have been processing X-rays of the president’s body if the Dallas casket containing the president’s body had not yet been delivered by either the Joint Casket Delivery Team at 8:00 p.m. or by O’Neill, Sibert, Kellerman, and Greer sometime between 7:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.?

In a deposition that was taken by the ARRB in 1997, Sibert was asked about the 7:17 p.m. time that he and O’Neill had referred to in their 1964 exchange with Specter:

Gunn: I will read for the record, if you will read along with me. “Question: What was the time of the preparation for the autopsy at the hospital?” “Answer: Approximately 7:17 P.M.” Do you see those words?

Sibert: Yes.

****

Gunn: Well, I guess my question in part is: Does the time that is provided here, 7:17 P.M., help you identify the approximate time that the casket was unloaded from the Navy ambulance?

Sibert: Well, that could have been the time that it was unloaded, the 7:17 — or just a short time thereafter when they got it in there. And, of course, they had to take the body out of the casket, put it on the autopsy table and this would be all the preparation too. (Horne, volume 3, pages 713 14.)

Ask yourself: If there was only one casket delivery, how could it be unloaded at 7:17 p.m. and also 8:00 p.m., as reported by the Joint Casket Bearer Team?

Here is what O’Neill wrote in a sworn statement to the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978:

Upon arriving at the National Naval Medical Center of Bethesda, the ambulance stopped at the front entrance where Jackie and RFK disembarked to proceed to the 17th floor. The ambulance then travelled to the rear where Sibert, Bill Greer (Secret Service), and Roy Kellerman (Secret Service), and I placed the casket on a roller and transported it into the autopsy room.

Notice that, once again, the implication is that the casket is promptly delivered after the 6:55 p.m. arrival of the motorcade. Also, notice that there is no mention of the Joint Casket Bearer Team and that O’Neill states that he, Sibert, Greer, and Kellerman transported the casket into the morgue on a roller.

In an affidavit signed and delivered to the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978, Sibert reinforced O’Neill’s testimony:

When the motorcade from the airport arrived at the Naval Hospital, Bobby Kennedy and Mrs. Kennedy were let off at the administration building. Mr. O’Neill and I helped carry the damaged casket into the autopsy room with some Secret Service agents.

Consider the testimony of Secret Service Agent Kellerman before the Warren Commission in 1964:

Mr. Specter: What time did that autopsy start, as you recollect it?

Mr. Kellerman: Immediately. Immediately after we brought him in.

Later in his testimony, Kellerman became more specific:

Mr. Kellerman: Let’s come back to the period of our arrival at Andrews Air Force Base, which was 5:58 p.m. at night. By the time it took us to take the body from the plane into the ambulance, and a couple of carloads of staff people who followed us, we may have spent 15 minutes there. And in driving from Andrews to the U.S. Naval Hospital, I would judge, a good 45 minutes. So, there is 7 o’clock. We went immediately over, without too much delay on the outside of the hospital, into the morgue. The Navy people had their staff in readiness right then. There wasn’t anybody to call. They were all there. So, at the latest, 7:30, they began to work on the autopsy….

Notice that Kellerman is reinforcing O’Neill’s and Sibert’s testimony that they delivered the Dallas casket into the morgue sometime between 7:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Ask yourself: How could they begin to work on the autopsy no later than 7:30 p.m., given that the Joint Casket Bearer Team didn’t deliver the Dallas casket until 8:00 p.m.?

According to Horne, a Washington Star article dated November 23, 1963, referring to the motorcade’s 6:55 p.m. (or 6:53 p.m., as another account asserted) arrival at the front of the Bethesda Hospital with Mrs. Kennedy and the Dallas casket, “also noted that the ambulance containing the casket was not driven away from the front of the hospital facility for at least 12 minutes after it arrived, i.e., at about 7:07 PM (or at 7:05 PM at the earliest, depending on which arrival time one uses).” (Horne, volume 3, pages 677-78.) That fits with O’Neill, Sibert’s, and Kellerman’s testimony that the Dallas casket was delivered to the morgue between 7:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

Let’s now review the evidence that establishes the third casket delivery, the one at 8:00 p.m. by the Joint Casket Bearer Team.

Headed by infantry 1st Lt. Samuel Bird, the Joint Casket Bearer Team was the honor team charged with formally carrying President Kennedy’s body into the Bethesda morgue. As previously stated, the team consisted of soldiers in dress uniform and white gloves representing all the branches of the military.

On December 10, 1963, Lt. Bird filed his official report of the Joint Casket Bearer Team’s delivery of the president’s casket into the Bethesda morgue on the evening of November 22, 1963. The report stated in part:

The Joint Casket Team consisted of one officer, one NCO and seven enlisted men (from each branch of the Armed Forces)…. They removed the remains as follows: 1. From the ambulance to the morgue (Bethesda) 2000 hours [8:00 p.m.], 22 Nov. 63. (Bracketed material added.)

A copy of the Joint Casket Bearer Team’s official report is posted on the Internet here.

You will notice that the report makes no mention of O’Neill, Sibert, Kellerman, or Greer or the roller that O’Neill, Sibert, Kellerman, and Greer used to carry the casket into the morgue.

You’ll also notice that the report contains the following memorable incident, later recounted in Manchester’s The Death of a President:

While the casket was being moved inside the hospital, Brigadier General [Godfrey] McHugh relieved [illegible] from the casket team and awkwardly took his place. (Bracketed material added.)

Nowhere do O’Neill, Sibert, Kellerman, or Greer relate the McHugh incident in their account of delivering the Dallas casket into the morgue.

There is something else to consider: A member of the Joint Casket Bearer Team denied that O’Neill, Sibert, Kellerman, and Greer helped the team carry the casket into the morgue. According to Lifton,

I asked Cheek [a member of the Joint Casket Bearer Team] whether two FBI men were present when the ambulance was unloaded. “No,” he replied, ”there were just the six of us.” I asked this because Sibert and O’Neill reported they helped with the casket, but made no mention of a casket team. (Lifton, chapter 16; bracketed material added.)

Now, consider the following sworn testimony before the Warren Commission on March 16, 1964, of Commander James J. Humes, one of the physicians who conducted the autopsy on the president’s body on the evening of November 22:

Mr. Specter: What time did the autopsy start approximately?

Commander Humes: The president’s body was received at 25 minutes before 8, and the autopsy began at approximately 8 p.m. on that evening. (Warren Commission Report, Volume II, page 349.)

Ask yourself: How could the body have been received at 7:35 p.m. (i.e., 25 minutes before 8:00 p.m.) if the Joint Casket Bearer’s Team didn’t deliver it until 8:00 p.m.?

Now, let’s examine the thesis originally developed by Lifton and later expanded upon by Horne to see if the evidence is consistent with three casket deliveries into the morgue.

Again, unless one concludes that Marine Sergeant Boyajian, Chief of the Day David, the other six enlisted men, and Gawler’s funeral home entered into a quick, preposterous conspiracy to concoct a fake story about the delivery of the president’s body, we begin with the fact that President Kennedy’s body was offloaded from a black hearse containing several men in blue suits and delivered into the Bethesda morgue in a shipping casket at 6:35 p.m.

That obviously means that the Dallas casket that arrived twenty minutes later at 6:55 p.m. in the motorcade with Mrs. Kennedy did not contain the president’s body.

Therefore, there was an obvious challenge for whoever did this and wished to keep it secret: how to get the president’s body back into the Dallas casket so that it could be formally delivered into the morgue by the Joint Casket Bearer Team just before the autopsy would begin?

As Horne explains, that was what the O’Neill-Sibert-Kellerman-Greer casket delivery had to be all about. Soon after the arrival of the motorcade, they drove around to the morgue and carried the empty Dallas casket into the morgue sometime between 7:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

Then, sometime between 7:30 p.m. and 8:00 p.m., the president’s body was then wrapped back into the white sheets in which it had been wrapped in Dallas, placed back into the Dallas casket, and carried back out to the Navy ambulance, enabling the Joint Casket Bearer Team to officially carry it back into the morgue at 8:00 p.m.

There is actually no other reasonable conclusion that can be drawn from the evidence. Kennedy’s body is delivered at 6:35 p.m. in the shipping casket. The middle delivery of the Dallas casket — the one between 7:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. — was used to effect the transfer of the body back into the Dallas casket, so that it can then be carried back out into the gray ambulance and then be delivered formally into the morgue at 8:00 p.m. by the Joint Casket Bearer Team, enabling the autopsy to formally begin 8:15 p.m., which is the time that everyone agrees the autopsy formally began.

Why was all this done? That is a very good question.

One possible explanation is that officials were concerned about the possibility that someone might try to attack the motorcade from Andrews Air Force Base to Bethesda Hospital and steal the president’s body and, therefore, decided to secretly separate the president’s body from the Dallas casket and secretly transport it to the morgue to obviate that possibility.

It seems to me that that would have been a plausible explanation, if they had announced it publicly at the time. But they didn’t do that. Instead, they engaged in secrecy, deception, and cover up, and have ever since.

Some people would undoubtedly respond, “No way, Jacob! Not high government officials. They would never lie to the American people. Only ‘bit players’ like Marine sergeants, Navy enlisted men, and long-established funeral homes would do that.”

But keep in mind that it is undisputed that several months after the events at Bethesda Naval Hospital, it wasn’t “bit players” consisting of “orderlies, technicians, and casket carriers” who secretly conspired to concoct a fake story about a North Vietnamese attack at the Gulf of Tonkin, with the intent of securing a congressional resolution that would lead to the Vietnam War. Instead, it was the new president of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson, and the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff, who entered into that secret and deadly conspiracy.

It seems to me that if high government officials would conspire to lie about a military attack that they had to know would bring on a war that would result in the deaths of tens of thousands of American soldiers (and millions of Vietnamese people), high government officials would be fully capable of lying about casket deliveries on the night of November 22, 1963.

The only other explanation for the multiple casket delivery that I can conceive of is a nefarious one, the one that is carefully detailed by Horne in his 5-volume work: that U.S. military officials at the Bethesda morgue, including the autopsy physicians, perhaps following orders based on national security, used the period of time from 6:35 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. on the night of the autopsy to alter the president’s body in order to hide any evidence of wounds resulting from gunshots that came from the front of the president, e.g., from the grassy knoll.

One of the most fascinating stories that Horne describes involves the testimony of Tom Robinson, a member of the Gawler’s embalming team. When Robinson was questioned by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, he made the following cryptic statement:

The time that the people moved (autopsy). The body was taken….and the body never came….lots of little things like that. (Horne, volume 2, page 607.)

Those are not my ellipses. They are also not Horne’s. In fact, neither are the parentheses around the word “autopsy.” That’s exactly how Robinson’s testimony appears in the official transcript of his testimony. As Horne points out, that’s fairly unusual, given that people don’t ordinarily speak using ellipses and parentheses. Those sorts of things are used in written communications, not oral ones.

Because Robinson’s testimony was recorded, Horne decided to look up the tape and listen to the actual recording of Robinson’s testimony. His office located the tape labeled as Robinson’s testimony in the National Archives. Unfortunately, however, the tape contained something else on it, and Horne was not able to locate another tape with Robinson’s testimony on it.

Perhaps I should mention that after Robinson gave his testimony, it was ordered sealed for 50 years, along with testimony provided by other people for the House Select Committee on Assassinations. Keep in mind also that the Warren Commission had ordered many of its records sealed for 75 years. It was only thanks to the JFK Records Act, enacted in the wake of Oliver Stone’s movie JFK, that such records were ordered opened to the public.

If you would like to see the pertinent excerpt from the official transcript of Robinson’s testimony, it is posted here on the Internet.

It might interest you to know that the personnel who participated in Kennedy’s autopsy, both military and civilian, were required by U.S. military officials to sign written oaths of secrecy in which they promised to never reveal what they had witnessed at the autopsy, on threat of court martial or criminal prosecution.

In fact, as Horne pointed out,

A considerable amount of effort by the HSCA’s Chief Counsel, Robert Blakey, was required to get the Pentagon to lift the gag order during the late 1970s. Even then, some participants at the autopsy (such as James Curtis Jenkins) were hesitant to talk about what they had witnessed, and others (such as Jerrol Custer) still stubbornly refused. Many of the enlisted men present in the morgue, as well as civilian photographer John Stringer, have recalled quite vividly the threatening manner in which this letter was delivered to them by CAPT Stover, Humes’ immediate superior and the Commanding Officer of the Naval Medical School at Bethesda. (Horne, volume 1, page xxvii.)

If you would like to see a copy of the oath of secrecy that people were required to sign, it is posted here on the Internet.

Do you now see why the authors of The Kennedy Detail: JFK’s Secret Service Agents Break Their Silence might have chosen to omit a detailed account of what happened at Bethesda Hospital on the evening of November 22, 1963, notwithstanding their promise to “reveal the inside story of the assassination, the weeks and days that led to it and its heartrending aftermath”? Specifically denying Lifton’s (and Horne’s) contention that President Kennedy’s body had been “kidnapped” (the term used by the authors) and omitting any reference whatsoever to Lt. Bird and his Joint Casket Bearer Team, the sum total of the authors’ account of what happened at the Bethesda morgue that night was the following sentence: “There was a presidential suite on the seventeenth floor of the hospital, and as Bill Greer, Roy Kellerman, and Admiral Burkley accompanied the casket to the morgue for the autopsy, Clint Hill and Paul Landis escorted Mrs. Kennedy and her brother-in-law the attorney general to the suite.” (Blaine and McCubbin, Chapters 15 and 22.)..."

 

THE CASKET MYSTERY from KRON's JFK: An Unsolved Mystery 1988

 

[Sandy Larsen]

On 1/5/2024 at 3:06 PM, Pat Speer said:

If the body was indeed brought in in one casket and then another, then it would have to have been taken out in between. 

....

Any idea as to why this transfer was performed?

 

Isn't the answer to this question obvious?

The background on this is that Kennedy's body had been removed from the ornate bronze casket and placed in a shipping casket somewhere along the way from Parkland Hospital and the Bethesda morgue.

The shipping casket was brought into hospital by men in dark suits about an hour before the official autopsy began. The body was removed from the shipping casket and pre-autopsy surgery performed.

The problem with this plan is that the military honor guard is supposed to bring the casket from the hearse to the morgue. So Kennedy's body had to be secretly removed from the autopsy room after pre-autopsy surgery, and brought back in by the honor guard. This time in the ornate bronze casket.

There were actually THREE casket entries, and multiple witnesses to each of them. First, the body was brought in secretly in the shipping casket. Then the EMPTY ornate bronze casket -- which the pallbearers assumed held a body -- was brought in. The body was secretly put in this casket and removed from the morgue. Then, finally, this casket was brought in by the honor guard. After which the autopsy was performed.

I think I got that right.

The autopsy room was controlled by G-men in suits. The were able to pull this chicanery off by asking the autopsy participants to leave the room temporarily as necessary, at which time they were given some excuse. For example, while x-rays were being taken.

 

 

[Pat Speer]

1 hour ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Isn't the answer to this question obvious?

The background on this is that Kennedy's body had been removed from the ornate bronze casket and placed in a shipping casket somewhere along the way from Parkland Hospital and the Bethesda morgue.

The shipping casket was brought into hospital by men in dark suits about an hour before the official autopsy began. The body was removed from the shipping casket and pre-autopsy surgery performed.

The problem with this plan is that the military honor guard is supposed to bring the casket from the hearse to the morgue. So Kennedy's body had to be secretly removed from the autopsy room after pre-autopsy surgery, and brought back in by the honor guard. This time in the ornate bronze casket.

There were actually THREE casket entries, and multiple witnesses to each of them. First, the body was brought in secretly in the shipping casket. Then the EMPTY ornate bronze casket -- which the pallbearers assumed held a body -- was brought in. The body was secretly put in this casket and removed from the morgue. Then, finally, this casket was brought in by the honor guard. After which the autopsy was performed.

I think I got that right.

The autopsy room was controlled by G-men in suits. The were able to pull this chicanery off by asking the autopsy participants to leave the room temporarily as necessary, at which time they were given some excuse. For example, while x-rays were being taken.

 

 

G-men is slang for FBI agents. The only FBI agents at the autopsy were Sibert and O'Neill, who made many statements helpful to the claims of conspiracy, and were interviewed by Arlen Specter for the WC, and then not called to testify, because he thought their statements might prove damaging. 

So who the heck are you talking about? 

[Keven Hofeling]

54 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

G-men is slang for FBI agents. The only FBI agents at the autopsy were Sibert and O'Neill, who made many statements helpful to the claims of conspiracy, and were interviewed by Arlen Specter for the WC, and then not called to testify, because he thought their statements might prove damaging. 

So who the heck are you talking about? 

The Praetorian Guard (Secret Service) served as floor managers for the shell game that was orchestrated with JFK's body at the fraudulent Bethesda autopsy the night of the assassination, but they enlisted the assistance of FBI agents Sibert and O'Neil in part of the charade, which may be what Sandy had in mind...

Per Jacob Hornberger:

"...Kellerman and Greer:

Readers of my recent series “The Evidence that Convicts the CIA of the JFK Assassination,” already know who Kellerman and Greer were. Greer was the Secret Service agent who was driving the limousine in which President Kennedy was riding when he was shot. As I pointed out in part 2 of my series, after the first shot rang out in Dealey Plaza, Greer stepped on the brakes rather than the accelerator, which made it easier to kill Kennedy with the fatal head shot(s). 

His partner, Roy Kellerman, was seated next to him in the passenger seat. Rather than jumping over the seat and covering JFK’s body with his own body, as he was supposed to do as a Secret Service agent, Kellerman just sat there like a bump on a log until Kennedy was hit with the fatal gun shot to the head.

Readers of my recent series will also recall that Kellerman, who was sporting a Thompson submachine gun, was in charge of the Secret Service team at Parkland Hospital that forcibly prevented the Dallas County medical examiner, Dr. Earl Rose, from conducting an autopsy on JFK’s body and then forced their way out of the hospital with the president’s body.

Later that evening, Kellerman and Greer were at the Bethesda military morgue assisting with the fraudulent autopsy. To get the president’s body back into the Dallas casket after the military pathologists had engaged in pre-autopsy shenanigans on it, they got FBI agents O’Neill and Sibert to unwittingly assist them in carrying the (empty) Dallas casket into the morgue at 7:17 p.m. O’Neill and Sibert were then shunted over to a separate part of the facility so that they could not see JFK’s body being put back into the Dallas casket. The Dallas casket, now with the president’s body put back into it, was taken back out to a Navy ambulance, which was then united with Sam Bird’s Joint Service Casket Team, which carried it into the morgue at 8 p.m., with no one on the team, including Sam Bird, aware of what had happened. The official autopsy began at 8:15 p.m.

At the risk of belaboring the obvious, since the Dallas casket that Kellerman, Greer, O’Neill, and Sibert carried into the morgue at 7:17 p.m. was empty before the president’s body was re-inserted in it, that necessarily means that the president’s body had already previously been brought into the morgue, which confirms what Sgt. Boyajian and all the other witnesses stated about the president’s body being brought into the morgue at 6:35 p.m. in a shipping casket and enveloped in a body bag. The early entry of the president’s body into the morgue enabled the military pathologists to engage in their fraudulent pre-autopsy shenanigans on President Kennedy’s body...."

Autopsy Fraud Convicts the Military in the JFK Assassination

by Jacob G. Hornberger

August 17, 2023

https://www.fff.org/2023/08/17/autopsy-fraud-convicts-the-military-in-the-jfk-assassination/

 

Edited March 17 by Keven Hofeling

[Sandy Larsen]

5 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

G-men is slang for FBI agents.

 

G-men is also slang for U.S. government agents.

 

5 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

So who the heck are you talking about?

 

My guess is CIA agents.

 

[Pat Speer]

I hope I'm not the only one who notices how some people are willing to throw EVERY WITNESS under the bus to support their reckless theories. 

Sibert And O'Neill, who refused to play along with the single-bullet theory, and who later made claims suggesting the back of the head was blown out? Well, they are an impediment to the pet theory of some that the body was paraded into the morgue multiple times in a number of different caskets...so they MUST be part of the conspiracy.

And Greer, who said the last two shots were simultaneous, and thereby cast doubt on the Oswald-did-it-theory? Well, he slowed the limo down while looking back at the President...so he MUST have been part of the conspiracy?

And Kellerman, who said a flurry of shots came into limo at the time of the head shot, and who made a drawing for the HSCA consistent with the back of the head's being blown out? Well, he took the body from the Dallas Coroner--something EVERYONE in the the Federal Government at that time, including EVERYONE in the Kennedy Administration, and family, thought needed to be done--so he MUST be part of the conspiracy. 

If you look back at the title of this thread you'll see that it was started because I had said publicly that I thought a person--who I had met and deemed a nice man--was incorrect on some key points, and had enjoyed the attention he had received from conspiracy theorists. 

And yet here, several pages into the thread, we can all see what's really going on--that those upset by my statements are full of nasty and disrespectful suspicions of long-term public servants, and are more than willing to claim these men were not mistaken, as I said of McClelland, but active participants in a cover-up of the President's murder.  

I mean, there would be no body alteration theory without the Sibert and O'Neill report--which opened a door for Lifton.  And Kellerman's description of a "flurry of shots" undoubtedly convinced a lot of LNs into becoming CTs. 

Should one actually study the evidence, moreover, one will find that Earl Warren was so disturbed by Kellerman and Greer's testimony that he met with the staff and told them he wanted to have a clean record and that he thought it would be fine if the staff pre-interviewed their witnesses and omitted questions which might lead to answers that would dirty the record. 

So, no, they weren't witting members of a plot to kill the man they'd been charged with protecting. Because if they had been they'd have provided Warren with the "clean" record he was seeking. And the same goes for Sibert and O'Neill, who wouldn't play along with the single-bullet theory, and were consequently not called to testify.   

They are among the best witnesses for a conspiracy, and elaborate attempts to undermine their credibility are either counter-productive, or suspect. 

Edited March 18 by Pat Speer

[Pat Speer]

2 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

G-men is also slang for U.S. government agents.

 

 

My guess is CIA agents.

 

Who? Sibert and O'Neill made a list of those in attendance. No CIA agents were present. Plenty of military officers, and a number of SS agents. But no CIA agents. 

P.S. As soon as I wrote this I started thinking that the CIA would want someone present. But I just can't think of who that would be. I'm drawing a blank.  And I think that's because they had no one present. This was a domestic crime, after all. And was not exactly their responsibility. That responsibility rested on the Secret Service (which was tasked with presidential protection), the military (over which Kennedy served as Commander-in-Chief) and the FBI (which was tasked with investigating domestic crimes). The CIA had no role to play at the autopsy. 

Edited March 18 by Pat Speer

[Sandy Larsen]

3 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

I hope I'm not the only one who notices how some people are willing to throw EVERY WITNESS under the bus to support their reckless theories.

 

Ha! This statement from the guy who throws nearly 50 witnesses under the bus for saying they saw a gaping wound on the back of Kennedy's head.

We aren't the witness bashers here Pat, you are.

[Sandy Larsen]

3 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

The CIA had no role to play at the autopsy.

 

How would you know if there were CIA agents at the autopsy or not?

The fact is, the assassination was a plot created by the CIA at the behest of the military (JCS). Of course the generals at the autopsy would have had some CIA present as well.

 

[David Von Pein]

55 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

The fact is, the assassination was a plot created by the CIA at the behest of the military (JCS).

Your "fact" regarding the alleged "plot" is nothing but sheer guesswork (along with a large dose of wishful thinking), and nothing more.

 

Edited March 18 by David Von Pein

[Sandy Larsen]

14 minutes ago, David Von Pein said:

1 hour ago, Sandy Larsen said:

The fact is, the assassination was a plot created by the CIA at the behest of the military (JCS).

14 minutes ago, David Von Pein said:

Your "fact" regarding the alleged "plot" is nothing but sheer guesswork (along with a large dose of wishful thinking), and nothing more.

 

Nope.

It's supported by a large amount of circumstantial evidence, of which you are apparently ignorant.

 

[Pat Speer]

10 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Ha! This statement from the guy who throws nearly 50 witnesses under the bus for saying they saw a gaping wound on the back of Kennedy's head.

We aren't the witness bashers here Pat, you are.

That's the most back-assword thing I've ever read. It would be funny if it weren't so symbolic of what's going on in the world, where people out to deceive point at those trying to hold them accountable, while claiming, "Witch!"

The majority of witnesses to JFK's head wound in Dallas placed it near the top of the back of his head.

I suspect it was a few inches forward of that, but that a flap of bone opened up while JFK was on his back, and this gave the illusion of the wound's being more rearward.

I am in good company when it comes to this suspicion, moreover. 

It is not throwing the witnesses under the bus to say some of their recollections could be slightly off. And it is hypocritical for people pushing the back of the head was blown out, and only the back of the head was blown out, to pretend as much. 

Most everyone to claim there was blow-out wound on the back of the head, after all, claims the bulk of the witnesses placing their hands above their ear to designate this wound's location were in error, and insists the wound was actually located at the level of the ear. 

And virtually everyone to claim there was a blow-out wound low on the back of the head, for what's worse, claims the numerous witnesses in the plaza and at the hospital who placed the wound at the top and side of the head were either mistaken, or lying.

And it's worse than that... Many of the back of the head crowd believe the bulk of the men most involved in Kennedy's treatment in Dallas, who later claimed they'd been mistaken in implying the wound was on the far back of the head, were lying and even complicit in the cover-up of Kennedy's murder. One prominent researcher even went so far as to claim some of these men were willing conspirators in Kennedy's murder. 

So it is not I who is bashing the witnesses.

I mean, if you read through this forum, you will find numerous threads claiming Buell Frazier, Bill Shelley, Billy Lovelady, Roy Truly, and Abraham Zapruder were part of a conspiracy to cover up JFK's murder, along with numerous Secret Service agents. Never mind the numerous statements by these men supportive of Oswald's innocence. They performed the SIN of saying something that upset someone with a pet theory--so they are now marked with a digital letter on their chests--a C, for conspirator. 

It's a disgrace, IMO. 

 

Edited March 18 by Pat Speer

[Pat Speer]

4 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

How would you know if there were CIA agents at the autopsy or not?

The fact is, the assassination was a plot created by the CIA at the behest of the military (JCS). Of course the generals at the autopsy would have had some CIA present as well.

 

It's called research, Sandy. If you read the statements of those in attendance at the autopsy you will see that no one mentions the CIA's involvement. They were not there. They had nothing to do with it.

The military assumed responsibility for the autopsy. If you're gonna search for a boogey man, there's your boogey man. You can say the CIA killed Kennedy and the military covered it up if you like, and it might even be true, but to say the CIA ran the autopsy is just ridiculous.