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

[Denise Hazelwood]

Three things:

1. When one is trying to indicate by feel an area of blow-out that they saw, there may be some wiggle room for the exact location. However, the general tendency is for the witnesses to indicate a blow-out hole closer towards the rear of the head than towards the front, but more towards the right side rear of the head than towards the center of the head (although there are a few exceptions to this). With the sole exception of Abraham Zapruder (who was looking through his viewfinder at the time) who reported something as occurring towards the right front of the head in his same-day WFAA interview (I think it was possibly a flap, or he was possibly fooled by a rapid head turn), the tendency was to report a hole at the back of the head. In fact, one of the nurses (Audrey Bell), when looking at Kennedy lying face-up on the gurney, didn't even know where the head wound was located until one of the doctors lifted his head and she could see the hole that was at the back of his head.
2. The sworn Warren Commission testimonies of the doctors who treated Kennedy pretty much universally used the terms "occipital" or "occiput" or "occipital-parietal" in describing the location of the large wound in the President's head. (In fact, that obscure HSCA lateral X-ray I've discussed elsewhere in this forum uses the phrase "occipital defect" in its caption.) Google the term "occipital" or "occiput," and you will see that it refers to the back of the head. I doubt there is any way the occipital area of the head could be confused with the frontal bone area where the extant autopsy X-rays show a blow-out (while no blow-out visible at the back of the head.)
3. The authenticity of the autopsy photographs has been brought into question for quite some time now. Robert Knudsen's family described for the HSCA how Knudsen had told them that "hair" had been "drawn in." Saundra Kay Spencer said that there was "no correspondence" between the later autopsy photographs, and the ones she processed in November, 1963 (in fact, the extant collection being printed on different paper than what she used back then.) And there is an account by Linda Willis of at least one of her father's photographs as having been "physically altered" because she believed that "something showed in it that the Secret Service did not want known." The work of Dr.'s Mantik and Chesser confirm that the X-rays were fraudulently manipulated. 

So I'm convinced that the blow-out hole was actually at the back of the head, especially on the back-right side of the head, and that the autopsy photos, etc. were altered to make the blow-out appear to have been more towards the front of the head, with no blow-out at the back of the head, to create the illusion that there was only one head shot, and that it came from the rear. The evidence (autopsy photos and X-rays) is fraudulent. This is not a realization that I leapt to easily, but a conclusion I reached after studying witness accounts, Dr. Mantik's work, etc. So while others try in vain to reconcile the irreconcilable, and even though before studying the case farther I once accepted the "front" of the head blow-out as "fact," I now dismiss those images as "fake." And it makes me angry that  individuals within our government would consent to/order such alterations to the evidence, and I know it makes me look like a kooky "Conspiracy Theorist" when I say that the images were deliberately altered, but that is the truth of the matter, and I will not back down from it.

Witnesses, when confronted with evidence that runs counter to their recollections, will naturally attempt to find some explanation for it (other than to say that the photos were doctored or fraudulently manipulated). Hence, we have Dr. McClelland's speculation the back-of-the-head autopsy photo shows a piece of scalp being pulled over the hole, Saundra Spencer's belief that her 1963 autopsy photos showed Kennedy "after extensive reconstruction" had been done, and the like. Eventually we do get speculation that the photos themselves are fraudulent, which occurred in JFK: What the Doctors Saw, and which Jerrol Custer and Floyd Reibe finally came to realize when they told Vanity Fair that the autopsy images were "fake" and "phony."

Things get even more complicated when the Zapruder Film is taken into consideration, because that, too, was fraudulently altered. 

There is also a phenomenon documented by memory expert Dr. Elizabeth Loftus that memory can be manipulated by presenting to a subject fraudulent evidence inconsistent with their original recall. Hence we get Jerrol Custer's earlier speculation that the computer-enhanced lateral X-ray image showed a "double density" of a chunk of skull from the front being blown towards the blow-out hole that he knew  was at the back of the head, before he eventually later came to realize that "These are fake X-rays." And the McClelland "pulled scalp" hypothesis, etc. And there is a natural reluctance among witnesses who have finally come to realize that the extant images are fake, to come out and publicly say that the images are fake, because it makes them look like kooky Conspiracy Theorists. 

I get especially annoyed by researchers who question witnesses by saying, "The Zapruder Film shows..." or "the X-rays show..." rather than asking the witnesses first what they remember, and when that has been thoroughly documented, then explaining that there is speculation that the Z-film and autopsy images have been altered, and asking whether what these images shows jives with their recollections. Instead, I see multiple instances of the researcher telling the witness what to think, rather than vice-versa. And in that case, there is a danger of the witness being quoted as saying something the researcher thinks or said rather than what the witness actually said. (There was one witness of Jerrol Custer posted on this site that was almost entirely the researcher telling Custer what the researcher thought, rather than asking Custer what he thought or remembered. That is not "research"--that is (at best) "leading the witness," or (at worst) witness tampering! It may not have been (was probably not) deliberate, but that's what happened. Researchers need to keep their own biases out of their questioning. If possible, the interviews should be recorded and available for others to check for confirmation, and examples of "leading questions," etc. And rather than saying things like "this witness was mistaken," researchers need to say things like, "this witness's account is at apparent odds with what X shows." The researcher is free to speculate as to why the witness's account is at odds with what X shows, but rather than just assuming that "the witness was mistaken," that should be just one of multiple possibilities. (Because another possibility, and the one that I've come to realize is the case in the JFKA, is that more often, it is the so-called "evidence"--photos, films, etc.--that is wrong, having been deliberately altered.)

--Denise H.

[Denny Zartman]

Outstanding post, @Denise Hazelwood . It's rarely been put better.

It's worth noting that Aubrey Bell's account matches Jackie Kennedy's description.

[Joe Bauer]

My mind has a tendency to want to simplify ( versus over thinking ) when I experience something visual. Especially something that is of such importance that you are forced to contemplate it more than just a casual observation.

Every time I review the JFK shooting Zapruder film ( in regular or slow motion time ) my first visual observations are these:

The huge right-side skull flap blowout just above JFK's ear and even a little forward. 

The huge bright pink spray of blood and matter shooting high and back. Seeing the blood glistening matter exposed underneath the flap. 

And this observation which I seldom see shared:

I saw the top of JFK's head being grossly deformed ( uneven lifting ) in the micro-second of the flap blowout. 

It looked to me that a missile had struck in the back top of the skull and in its trajectory you could see JFK's skull top being shattered, but with the scalp remaining intact. 

I have always wondered whether a part of JFK's skull obliteration included a separation of bone in the back of the skull that simply fell away in the immediate explosion of destruction. And brain matter falling out from underneath. 

JFK's skull top was hugely obliterated. The only thing holding the many separated pieces of bone together was the scalp covered Dura Matter. 

And besides Zapruder's description of what he saw of the JFK head shot ( he was so emotional I think his recollection of it was effected ) we have Bill Newman's description, shared within minutes of the shooting. Newman said on local Dallas Televison that it appeared to him that JFK's ear was blown off.

Obviously, he saw the flap blowout the Zapruder film shows. In that split second event his mind could easily been so blinded with horror it didn't process what he saw more detailed than simply a huge bloody spray explosion. It all happened so quick. I might easily have seen it as 10 to 15 foot close Bill Newman did.

 

Edited March 18 by Joe Bauer

[Sandy Larsen]

12 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

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.

 

Pat apparently believes that CIA agents will inform others in the room that they are CIA.

 

 

 

[Sandy Larsen]

15 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

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.

 

The Darnell film proves that Billy Lovelady and Bill Shelley lied for the Warren Commission.

It's naive to think that people don't lie in a coverup. Just like it's naive to think that evidence isn't altered.

And it's a disservice to The Cause to preach otherwise.

 

 

[Keven Hofeling]

On 3/18/2024 at 9:58 AM, Denise Hazelwood said:

Three things:

1. When one is trying to indicate by feel an area of blow-out that they saw, there may be some wiggle room for the exact location. However, the general tendency is for the witnesses to indicate a blow-out hole closer towards the rear of the head than towards the front, but more towards the right side rear of the head than towards the center of the head (although there are a few exceptions to this). With the sole exception of Abraham Zapruder (who was looking through his viewfinder at the time) who reported something as occurring towards the right front of the head in his same-day WFAA interview (I think it was possibly a flap, or he was possibly fooled by a rapid head turn), the tendency was to report a hole at the back of the head. In fact, one of the nurses (Audrey Bell), when looking at Kennedy lying face-up on the gurney, didn't even know where the head wound was located until one of the doctors lifted his head and she could see the hole that was at the back of his head.
2. The sworn Warren Commission testimonies of the doctors who treated Kennedy pretty much universally used the terms "occipital" or "occiput" or "occipital-parietal" in describing the location of the large wound in the President's head. (In fact, that obscure HSCA lateral X-ray I've discussed elsewhere in this forum uses the phrase "occipital defect" in its caption.) Google the term "occipital" or "occiput," and you will see that it refers to the back of the head. I doubt there is any way the occipital area of the head could be confused with the frontal bone area where the extant autopsy X-rays show a blow-out (while no blow-out visible at the back of the head.)
3. The authenticity of the autopsy photographs has been brought into question for quite some time now. Robert Knudsen's family described for the HSCA how Knudsen had told them that "hair" had been "drawn in." Saundra Kay Spencer said that there was "no correspondence" between the later autopsy photographs, and the ones she processed in November, 1963 (in fact, the extant collection being printed on different paper than what she used back then.) And there is an account by Linda Willis of at least one of her father's photographs as having been "physically altered" because she believed that "something showed in it that the Secret Service did not want known." The work of Dr.'s Mantik and Chesser confirm that the X-rays were fraudulently manipulated. 

So I'm convinced that the blow-out hole was actually at the back of the head, especially on the back-right side of the head, and that the autopsy photos, etc. were altered to make the blow-out appear to have been more towards the front of the head, with no blow-out at the back of the head, to create the illusion that there was only one head shot, and that it came from the rear. The evidence (autopsy photos and X-rays) is fraudulent. This is not a realization that I leapt to easily, but a conclusion I reached after studying witness accounts, Dr. Mantik's work, etc. So while others try in vain to reconcile the irreconcilable, and even though before studying the case farther I once accepted the "front" of the head blow-out as "fact," I now dismiss those images as "fake." And it makes me angry that  individuals within our government would consent to/order such alterations to the evidence, and I know it makes me look like a kooky "Conspiracy Theorist" when I say that the images were deliberately altered, but that is the truth of the matter, and I will not back down from it.

Witnesses, when confronted with evidence that runs counter to their recollections, will naturally attempt to find some explanation for it (other than to say that the photos were doctored or fraudulently manipulated). Hence, we have Dr. McClelland's speculation the back-of-the-head autopsy photo shows a piece of scalp being pulled over the hole, Saundra Spencer's belief that her 1963 autopsy photos showed Kennedy "after extensive reconstruction" had been done, and the like. Eventually we do get speculation that the photos themselves are fraudulent, which occurred in JFK: What the Doctors Saw, and which Jerrol Custer and Floyd Reibe finally came to realize when they told Vanity Fair that the autopsy images were "fake" and "phony."

Things get even more complicated when the Zapruder Film is taken into consideration, because that, too, was fraudulently altered. 

There is also a phenomenon documented by memory expert Dr. Elizabeth Loftus that memory can be manipulated by presenting to a subject fraudulent evidence inconsistent with their original recall. Hence we get Jerrol Custer's earlier speculation that the computer-enhanced lateral X-ray image showed a "double density" of a chunk of skull from the front being blown towards the blow-out hole that he knew  was at the back of the head, before he eventually later came to realize that "These are fake X-rays." And the McClelland "pulled scalp" hypothesis, etc. And there is a natural reluctance among witnesses who have finally come to realize that the extant images are fake, to come out and publicly say that the images are fake, because it makes them look like kooky Conspiracy Theorists. 

I get especially annoyed by researchers who question witnesses by saying, "The Zapruder Film shows..." or "the X-rays show..." rather than asking the witnesses first what they remember, and when that has been thoroughly documented, then explaining that there is speculation that the Z-film and autopsy images have been altered, and asking whether what these images shows jives with their recollections. Instead, I see multiple instances of the researcher telling the witness what to think, rather than vice-versa. And in that case, there is a danger of the witness being quoted as saying something the researcher thinks or said rather than what the witness actually said. (There was one witness of Jerrol Custer posted on this site that was almost entirely the researcher telling Custer what the researcher thought, rather than asking Custer what he thought or remembered. That is not "research"--that is (at best) "leading the witness," or (at worst) witness tampering! It may not have been (was probably not) deliberate, but that's what happened. Researchers need to keep their own biases out of their questioning. If possible, the interviews should be recorded and available for others to check for confirmation, and examples of "leading questions," etc. And rather than saying things like "this witness was mistaken," researchers need to say things like, "this witness's account is at apparent odds with what X shows." The researcher is free to speculate as to why the witness's account is at odds with what X shows, but rather than just assuming that "the witness was mistaken," that should be just one of multiple possibilities. (Because another possibility, and the one that I've come to realize is the case in the JFKA, is that more often, it is the so-called "evidence"--photos, films, etc.--that is wrong, having been deliberately altered.)

--Denise H.

DENISE HAZELWOOD WROTE:

Quote

1. When one is trying to indicate by feel an area of blow-out that they saw, there may be some wiggle room for the exact location. However, the general tendency is for the witnesses to indicate a blow-out hole closer towards the rear of the head than towards the front, but more towards the right side rear of the head than towards the center of the head (although there are a few exceptions to this). With the sole exception of Abraham Zapruder (who was looking through his viewfinder at the time) who reported something as occurring towards the right front of the head in his same-day WFAA interview (I think it was possibly a flap, or he was possibly fooled by a rapid head turn), the tendency was to report a hole at the back of the head. In fact, one of the nurses (Audrey Bell), when looking at Kennedy lying face-up on the gurney, didn't even know where the head wound was located until one of the doctors lifted his head and she could see the hole that was at the back of his head.

I think that what Abraham Zapruder was reporting was that he saw the bullet impact JFK's forehead, to which he made a quick gesture during his 11/22/1963 television interview:

 

Bill Newman was more specific in his account of the headshot during his 11/23/1963 television interview, saying that he saw the gunshot "hit in the side of the temple," and demonstrated by pointing to his own temple (note that he points to the left side of his head with his left hand because the reporter is on his right side blocking his ability to gesture with his right hand):

 

So despite the efforts of lone nutters and limited hangouters (like Pat Speer) to claim that Zapruder and the Newmans stand for the proposition that the large avulsive head wound was in the side or on the top of JFK's head, they instead provide further corroboration of a frontal shot which left an entry wound in JFK's hairline that was so small that it was not identified at Parkland Hospital (and if it had instead been the large wound that Speer and confederates claim, the Parkland trauma team surely would not have missed that).

The entry wound in the right temple was however specifically reported at Parkland Hospital by Dr. George Burkley (through acting White House Press Secretary Malcolm Kilduff):

 

And though the fraudulent autopsy protocol and corresponding fraudulent supporting evidence do not reflect it, Bethesda autopsy techs Dennis David, Jerrol Custer, Paul O'Connor and James Jenkins have all reported to researchers that they saw the right temple wound:

 

And as for "wiggle room" about the exact dimensions of the large avulsive wound in JFK's posterior cranium, I think it is instructive that when Dr. Robert McClelland sketched the head wound with his own hand in 1988 on TMWKK, he drew the wound as being much higher on the back of the head than the drawing commonly attributed to him which first appeared in Josiah Thompson's Six Seconds in Dallas, with the lower margin appearing low on the head:

 

DENISE HAZELWOOD WROTE:

Quote

2. The sworn Warren Commission testimonies of the doctors who treated Kennedy pretty much universally used the terms "occipital" or "occiput" or "occipital-parietal" in describing the location of the large wound in the President's head. (In fact, that obscure HSCA lateral X-ray I've discussed elsewhere in this forum uses the phrase "occipital defect" in its caption.) Google the term "occipital" or "occiput," and you will see that it refers to the back of the head. I doubt there is any way the occipital area of the head could be confused with the frontal bone area where the extant autopsy X-rays show a blow-out (while no blow-out visible at the back of the head.)

And as the work of Dr. Gary Aguilar makes so clear, there were many Bethesda autopsy witnesses who attested to the existence of the large avulsive wound in the posterior skull, but their interviews and sketches were withheld by the HSCA from the HSCA Forensic Pathology Panel, and from the American public, by classifying them "top secret" for fifty years. The following link is to Dr. Aguilar's most recent published article (1/2024) in which he writes about this HSCA fraud: https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/jfk-what-the-doctors-saw-an-important-addition-and-a-missed-opportunity

 

Though all of the "official" Bethesda autopsy materials omit the occipital-parietal wound, when the ARRB had pathologist J. Thornton Boswell sketch a diagram of the wound, the dimensions went into the occipital region of JFK's skull (and in my view, the frontal region area encompassed by the sketch was probably the result of the pre-autopsy clandestine craniotomy performed by pathologist Humes):

 

DENISE HAZELWOOD WROTE:

Quote

3. The authenticity of the autopsy photographs has been brought into question for quite some time now. Robert Knudsen's family described for the HSCA how Knudsen had told them that "hair" had been "drawn in." Saundra Kay Spencer said that there was "no correspondence" between the later autopsy photographs, and the ones she processed in November, 1963 (in fact, the extant collection being printed on different paper than what she used back then.) And there is an account by Linda Willis of at least one of her father's photographs as having been "physically altered" because she believed that "something showed in it that the Secret Service did not want known." The work of Dr.'s Mantik and Chesser confirm that the X-rays were fraudulently manipulated. 

Also worthy of mention as to the fraudulent photographic materials is Dr. David Mantik's stereoscopic testing of the back-of-the-head autopsy photographs at the National Archives which showed that there is a matte has been inserted over the posterior skull wound:

 

DENISE HAZELWOOD WROTE:

Quote

So I'm convinced that the blow-out hole was actually at the back of the head, especially on the back-right side of the head, and that the autopsy photos, etc. were altered to make the blow-out appear to have been more towards the front of the head, with no blow-out at the back of the head, to create the illusion that there was only one head shot, and that it came from the rear. The evidence (autopsy photos and X-rays) is fraudulent. This is not a realization that I leapt to easily, but a conclusion I reached after studying witness accounts, Dr. Mantik's work, etc. So while others try in vain to reconcile the irreconcilable, and even though before studying the case farther I once accepted the "front" of the head blow-out as "fact," I now dismiss those images as "fake." And it makes me angry that  individuals within our government would consent to/order such alterations to the evidence, and I know it makes me look like a kooky "Conspiracy Theorist" when I say that the images were deliberately altered, but that is the truth of the matter, and I will not back down from it.

Exactly, unlike lone nutters and limited hangouters such as Pat Speer who would have us believe that Jackie Kennedy was feeling the dimensions of a shadow in the below segment of the Zapruder film, rather than the margins of the occipital-parietal wound. Sorry Pat, but though some of us may have been born at night, it wasn't last night:

 

DENISE HAZELWOOD WROTE:

Quote

Witnesses, when confronted with evidence that runs counter to their recollections, will naturally attempt to find some explanation for it (other than to say that the photos were doctored or fraudulently manipulated). Hence, we have Dr. McClelland's speculation the back-of-the-head autopsy photo shows a piece of scalp being pulled over the hole, Saundra Spencer's belief that her 1963 autopsy photos showed Kennedy "after extensive reconstruction" had been done, and the like. Eventually we do get speculation that the photos themselves are fraudulent, which occurred in JFK: What the Doctors Saw, and which Jerrol Custer and Floyd Reibe finally came to realize when they told Vanity Fair that the autopsy images were "fake" and "phony."

That seems straightforward enough to most of us, but in relation to the four Parkland doctors who modified their views when confronted with the autopsy photographs in PBS Nova's 1988 "Who shot President Kennedy," it seems to be a bridge too far for the lone nutters and limited hangouters.

Could it be the following rather than mere matters of intelligence that account for these differences?

 

DENISE HAZELWOOD WROTE:

Quote

Things get even more complicated when the Zapruder Film is taken into consideration, because that, too, was fraudulently altered.

Yes, indeed... 

 

Edited March 19 by Keven Hofeling

[Keven Hofeling]

14 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:

My mind has a tendency to want to simplify ( versus over thinking ) when I experience something visual. Especially something that is of such importance that you are forced to contemplate it more than just a casual observation.

Every time I review the JFK shooting Zapruder film ( in regular or slow motion time ) my first visual observations are these:

The huge right-side skull flap blowout just above JFK's ear and even a little forward. 

The huge bright pink spray of blood and matter shooting high and back. Seeing the blood glistening matter exposed underneath the flap. 

And this observation which I seldom see shared:

I saw the top of JFK's head being grossly deformed ( uneven lifting ) in the micro-second of the flap blowout. 

It looked to me that a missile had struck in the back top of the skull and in its trajectory you could see JFK's skull top being shattered, but with the scalp remaining intact. 

I have always wondered whether a part of JFK's skull obliteration included a separation of bone in the back of the skull that simply fell away in the immediate explosion of destruction. And brain matter falling out from underneath. 

JFK's skull top was hugely obliterated. The only thing holding the many separated pieces of bone together was the scalp covered Dura Matter. 

And besides Zapruder's description of what he saw of the JFK head shot ( he was so emotional I think his recollection of it was effected ) we have Bill Newman's description, shared within minutes of the shooting. Newman said on local Dallas Televison that it appeared to him that JFK's ear was blown off.

Obviously, he saw the flap blowout the Zapruder film shows. In that split second event his mind could easily been so blinded with horror it didn't process what he saw more detailed than simply a huge bloody spray explosion. It all happened so quick. I might easily have seen it as 10 to 15 foot close Bill Newman did.

 

There are some details of what happens in the Zapruder film headshot sequence that are very difficult to see, even when watching the segment cropped down to the Kennedys in slow motion.

To solve that problem I took some stills from the 1998 MPI Images of an Assassination copy of the Zapruder film (struck directly from the extant "original" Zapruder film in the National Archives, thus making it a FIRST GENERATION product), and highlighted the difficult to see key features:

After doing so, I could barely believe my own eyes. What the extant "original" Zapruder film is depicting is a huge cavernous crater in JFK's forehead that is the size of a cantaloupe, and by the time JFK is sitting up again in approximately the same position he was in before the headshot at Z-313, we are seeing his face and forehead blown away such that we are seeing Jackie's pink shoulder pad where JFK's face should be:

Damage to JFK's head that extensive was not reported at Parkland Hospital or at the Bethesda autopsy, and is not present in the autopsy photographs. The implications are so profound that more often than not when I bring it to the attention of others I am met with denial, claims of optical illusions and so on.

But I am by no means the first to make such observations. Harrison Livingstone made similar observations when viewing the Zapruder film in the early 1990's:

Harrison Livingstone writes: "If the [Zapruder] film shows a huge wound to the right side of the face, as it does, then all the witnesses who saw the dying or dead President and all the autopsy photographs are wrong. Common sense tells us they can't all be wrong (Livingstone, High Treason 2, 362)....

 

"Common sense, therefore, tells us that the film is wrong. That it is a fake." (Ibid.)....

 

He continues, "I have long wondered about a large apparent effusion of brain matter or flesh that spills from the right side of the face and temple region just after the President receives a shot to the head. . . . The material spewing forth from the head appears to stick out several inches and be about half a foot wide. It is spread all across the face. One would assume that it is an exploded face or brain, and it cannot be an optical illusion from reflections of sunlight off Jackie's hat and from the small flap of bone that evidently opens up at that point, as Groden has led us to believe. . . . (Ibid.)....

 

"We see a small flap of bone with scalp attached on the right side of the head in some of the autopsy photographs but not in others. Trouble with the flap is, it changes orientation in relation to the rest of the head as the camera moves around the head. And it does not exist at all in the autopsy photograph of the right side of the head. There is a bat-wing-shaped structure on the head in the general area, but much too large to be the flap, and in the wrong place (Ibid.)....

 

"Groden claims that Mrs. Kennedy closed up the alleged flap on the way to the hospital, where it was not seen. But the autopsy staff say the flap we see in the picture is not in the right place either, or did not exist at all" (Ibid., 363-65)....

 

Livingstone quotes Secret Service agent Roy Kellerman: ". . . I saw nothing in his face to indicate an injury, whether the shot had come through or not. He was clear" (Ibid., 365, citing 2 H 82)....

 

Livingstone goes on, "There are many other statements that there was no damage at all to any part of the President's face, and none to the contrary" (Ibid.). He is correct: From Dealey Plaza to Parkland to Bethesda to the White House, where family members privately viewed the body, not a single person noted any damage to the face except a cracked supraorbital ridge, which caused the right eye to protrude slightly....

 

"Corresponding to the gigantic wound in the right front of the face and forehead-temple area is a total loss of bone in the X-ray alleged to be of President Kennedy's head. We know that this would be impossible without the face being blown away, if it represents a shot from behind. If the bone had fallen in during transport to Bethesda, it would show somewhere in the X-rays. It does not. If it had fallen in, the face would have fallen in with the body on its back, and there is no sign of the bone anywhere in the skull. The face shows no sign of being unsupported by bone, and in fact looks perfectly undamaged. No doctor I have spoken to said that a face would remain normal if the underlying bone was gone (Ibid.)....

 

"The missing bone in the skull X-rays has to represent a blow-out of the face, which did not in fact happen (Ibid.)....

 

If the exit wound was in the rear of the head, where most eyewitnesses place it, or at the top or side of the head, as the autopsy photographs would indicate, then we should see "the blob coming out there if the [Zapruder] film was on the up and up, and not on the face, as we now see it in the film (Ibid.)....

 

"It is my opinion, therefore, that the Zapruder film has some animated special effects: The large effusion we see sticking out from the head is painted in for those few frames before the head falls into Jackie's lap" (Ibid., pp. 365-66). (He later clarified that he didn't mean it was painted *directly* onto the film [Livingstone, Killing Kennedy, 159])....

 

". . . We see the strange blob for more than twenty-five frames, far too long for it to be any sort of defect in the film. . . . it cannot be an artifact, because it is quite clear and distinctive for those twenty-five frames (High Treason 2, 366)....

 

"What is not clear and distinctive is the President's head, which seems to disintegrate and disappear by the time it is drawn into Jackie's lap. In one frame there is no face or head at all to the right of the line extending upward from the President's ear, and I see Jackie clearly to the right of and beyond the ears, where the rest of the head should be" (Ibid.)....

 

Not one frame -- two: 335 and 337, cf. color photo insert in High Treason 2; or Groden's The Killing of a President, pp. 38-39 and 188-89....

 

Livingstone speculates that "the purpose of this special effect is to encourage the idea in Earl Warren's head that the President was shot from behind" (High Treason 2, 366)....

 

Look closely at color reproductions of frames 335 and 337 (it's nearly impossible to discern in black and white unless you already know what you're looking for). Page 38 of The Killing of a President has a gigantic blow-up of 337. Mentally draw a line straight up from the middle of Kennedy's ear; on the left is the back of his head; on the right is the pink sleeve of Jacqueline Kennedy's left arm where JFK's face should be. The "blob" also obscures the entire lower right of his face. Same thing for 335. Look closely -- is that John F. Kennedy's face's? IS there a face in these frames? Or is there only a shadow across the front of Jackie's dress, curving along a contour that almost approximates the shape of a face?....

 

And it's not just those two frames -- those are just the only two *clear* frames. All of the surrounding frames, however blurry, show that the President's face -- the entire front half of his head -- is missing. The edge of the front half also sometimes appears to be strangely blacked out....

 

Was the President's face actually blown away? Not only is this contrary to every single word of the eyewitness testimony; not only is it contrary to every other piece of photographic evidence (and I would not exclude the autopsy X-rays); not only is it contrary to any and all conclusions the government has put forth -- neither the autopsy report, the Warren Commission, the HSCA, nor anyone has concluded that the entire front half of Kennedy's head was blown off....

 

Not a single witness of the dozens and dozens who saw JFK's body in between Dealey Plaza and the time he was buried reported anything seriously wrong with the face -- much less that it was gone, as it appears in these frames....

 

ZAPRUDER FRAME 335

 

ZAPRUDER FRAME 337

 

 

[Joe Bauer]

KH...thanks for posting the stills above.

Respectfully, I disagree on a few of your observation points. Agree on others.

I don't see the blowing out flap reaching the face or even JFK's forehead.

But, what I do clearly see is what I described earlier.

The top of JFK's skull instantly appears grossly misshaped. Uplifted unevenly. JFK's upper skull was shattered in such a destructive way it was obliterated into many pieces though those pieces stayed in place somewhat and only because of their attachment to the scalp covered Dura Matter. I also believe Jackie tried to put the flap piece back onto JFK's skull.

I believe I read an account of Jackie Kennedy remarking that her husband's face was not damaged like you describe. In the JFK death stare photos I do see the sub-orbital eye bone slightly injured, which is noticeable by the protrusion of JFK's right eye.

Edited March 19 by Joe Bauer

[Keven Hofeling]

29 minutes ago, Joe Bauer said:

KH...thanks for posting the stills above.

Respectfully, I disagree on a few of your observation points. Agree on others.

I don't see the blowing out flap reaching the face or even JFK's forehead.

But, what I do clearly see is what I described earlier.

The top of JFK's skull instantly appears grossly misshaped. Uplifted unevenly. JFK's upper skull was shattered in such a destructive way it was obliterated into many pieces though those pieces stayed in place somewhat and only because of their attachment to the scalp covered Dura Matter. I also believe Jackie tried to put the flap piece back onto JFK's skull.

I believe I read an account of Jackie Kennedy remarking that her husband's face was not damaged like you describe. In the JFK death stare photos I do see the sub-orbital eye bone slightly injured, which is noticeable by the protrusion of JFK's right eye.

Of course JFK's face was not damaged. There was also no frontal "blob," and no flap (none of those were reported by a single witness at Parkland Hospital or at the Bethesda autopsy). Those are all products of the special effects work done at Hawkeyeworks on the weekend of the assassination, exactly like the black patch that was inserted over JFK's large avulsive occipital-parietal wound which the "official" account of the assassination attempted to replace with the head wound imagery seen in the extant "original" Zapruder film.

 

The Jackie Kennedy testimony you have in mind is the following:

"I was trying to hold his hair on. From the front there was nothing -- I suppose there must have been. But from the back you could see, you know, you were trying to hold his hair on, and his skull on...."    

Jackie gave that testimony under oath to the Warren Commission which then promptly classified it "top secret" and omitted it from the Warren Report because the testimony contradicts the official version of the head wound (which is what we are seeing in the extant "original" Zapruder film). That testimony was liberated through litigation in the early 1970's.

And if there is any doubt about Jackie's version of the wound (and that it was that back of the head wound that she was holding down to keep the brains in), Jackie can clearly be seen in the film feeling the dimensions of the wound with her white gloved hand (wherein if the frontal wound and corresponding "'blob" had actually existed, she would have been probing that area of JFK's head instead).

 

Edited March 19 by Keven Hofeling

[Pat Speer]

13 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

The Darnell film proves that Billy Lovelady and Bill Shelley lied for the Warren Commission.

It's naive to think that people don't lie in a coverup. Just like it's naive to think that evidence isn't altered.

And it's a disservice to The Cause to preach otherwise.

 

 

No, YOUR interpretation of the film and their testimony proves they lied. Their actual words--as opposed to the WC spin--suggests they saw Vickie Adams on the first floor upon their rapid return to the building. SHE both testified to as much, and claimed as much years later on Mort Saul.

A better question, IMO, is why did she change her story after her appearance on Saul, and start claiming she hadn't seen them downstairs? 

And I think we know the answer. 

It's because she believed the WC's spin on Shelley and Lovelady's statements, and never talked to them, and felt she needed to deny ever saying she saw them to retain credibility. 

This need--to retain credibility--is in constant battle with our desire to tell the truth. It challenges the truth and warps it and sometimes transforms it. 

Now, you will say I'm a perfect example of this. And that's fine. 

 

Edited March 19 by Pat Speer

[Pat Speer]

6 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:

KH...thanks for posting the stills above.

Respectfully, I disagree on a few of your observation points. Agree on others.

I don't see the blowing out flap reaching the face or even JFK's forehead.

But, what I do clearly see is what I described earlier.

The top of JFK's skull instantly appears grossly misshaped. Uplifted unevenly. JFK's upper skull was shattered in such a destructive way it was obliterated into many pieces though those pieces stayed in place somewhat and only because of their attachment to the scalp covered Dura Matter. I also believe Jackie tried to put the flap piece back onto JFK's skull.

I believe I read an account of Jackie Kennedy remarking that her husband's face was not damaged like you describe. In the JFK death stare photos I do see the sub-orbital eye bone slightly injured, which is noticeable by the protrusion of JFK's right eye.

I hope I don't mark you as a heretic by saying I think you're on the right track.The impact in the Z-film shatters the head, and makes it lose shape. This is in line with the recollections of a number of key witnesses, who said the skull was shattered on the right side from front to back.

Now some have been duped into believing such a description is in keeping with the "official" story, and is part of the cover-up or some such thing. But it is not. A full-metal-jacket bullet on a through and through trajectory would not pulverize a skull in this manner. Such damage is proof of another scenario. 

Here is a test skull from the first published study of the wound ballistics of Mannlicher-Carcano ammunition. This skull was that of a cadaver with scalp and an intact brain when fired upon. The bullet was fired at a closer range than that purported for the assassination. And yet the skull fragments remained beneath the scalp.

Now, note as well that the skull fractures are longer at the entrance defect, at left, than at the exit defect, at right. This is the exact opposite of what was observed on Kennedy's skull.

The Zapruder film and autopsy report pointed the way out of the casino, but most everyone stopped off to see the circus act.

[Tom Gram]

33 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

I hope I don't mark you as a heretic by saying I think you're on the right track.The impact in the Z-film shatters the head, and makes it lose shape. This is in line with the recollections of a number of key witnesses, who said the skull was shattered on the right side from front to back.

Now some have been duped into believing such a description is in keeping with the "official" story, and is part of the cover-up or some such thing. But it is not. A full-metal-jacket bullet on a through and through trajectory would not pulverize a skull in this manner. Such damage is proof of another scenario. 

Here is a test skull from the first published study of the wound ballistics of Mannlicher-Carcano ammunition. This skull was that of a cadaver with scalp and an intact brain when fired upon. The bullet was fired at a closer range than that purported for the assassination. And yet the skull fragments remained beneath the scalp.

Now, note as well that the skull fractures are longer at the entrance defect, at left, than at the exit defect, at right. This is the exact opposite of what was observed on Kennedy's skull.

The Zapruder film and autopsy report pointed the way out of the casino, but most everyone stopped off to see the circus act.

Is that exterior beveling I see by the entrance wound? If so that’s kind of interesting. I found a headshot study a few weeks ago, that I thought I saved but now can’t find, that contained a one-liner saying that exterior beveling was observed at the entrance in a few cases but only on entrances in parietal bone. 

[Pat Speer]

11 minutes ago, Tom Gram said:

Is that exterior beveling I see by the entrance wound? If so that’s kind of interesting. I found a headshot study a few weeks ago, that I thought I saved but now can’t find, that contained a one-liner saying that exterior beveling was observed at the entrance in a few cases but only on entrances in parietal bone. 

I think you are correct in that sometimes chipping occurs at an entrance, but in this case I think it's just that the photo was taken at a slight angle from the entrance hole, and that you can see the wall of the hole in the thick bone. Here is another skull fired upon by a similar rifle. This was not a cadaver skull but a live human skull--if I recall it is the skull of a prisoner killed while trying to escape. The entrance at the back of the skull gives a similar appearance. But it's just the angle of the camera. 

 

Edited March 19 by Pat Speer

[Sandy Larsen]

8 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

22 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

The Darnell film proves that Billy Lovelady and Bill Shelley lied for the Warren Commission.

 

8 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

No, YOUR interpretation of the film and their testimony proves they lied.

 

I interpreted nothing.

Lovelady and Shelley both testified that, after the shooting,  they stayed on the steps of the TSBD for three to four minutes, at which time Gloria Calvery arrived.

In contrast, the Darnell film shows that Gloria Calvery arrived very quickly... within 30 seconds.

This is proof that they lied. And it is proof that you are ignorant of these facts. (Given your accusation that it is merely my interpretation of the film and testimony that they lied). Which would be fine if you didn't talk so authoritatively about things you apparently haven't studied in great detail, as if you had.

BTW, another lie is when Bill Shelley testified to the WC that he was on the TSBD steps when Gloria Calvary arrived. In contrast, in his first day statement he said that, after the shooting, he immediately ran across Elm Street Extension and bumped into Gloria Calvery there. Only his first day statement is consistent with what we see in the Darnell film.

 

8 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

Their actual words--as opposed to the WC spin--suggests they saw Vickie Adams on the first floor upon their rapid return to the building. SHE both testified to as much, and claimed as much years later on Mort Saul.

 

Oh, so now you agree with me that Lovelady and Shelley lied to the WC! At least that is the case if you are aware of their WC testimony.

Here you say that they returned to the TSBD rapidly -- within a minute according to Vickie Adams. And yet to the WC they said they spent three to four minutes on the steps before returning. After which they walked to the railroad tracks before entering the TSBD. Right there you have a delay of five or six minutes!

Now add to that the time they said they spent at the concrete island across Elm Street Extension; PLUS the time they spent down by where the shots took place. PLUS the time they spent at the railroad yard. I don't recall the numbers, but it was a few minutes at each location. (These were periods of time Lovelady and Shelley told the FBI in their multiple interviews.)

So don't give me this nonsense that it's only my INTERPRETATION of the Darnell film and their testimonies that proves they lied.

 

[Pat Speer]

1 hour ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

 

I interpreted nothing.

Lovelady and Shelley both testified that, after the shooting,  they stayed on the steps of the TSBD for three to four minutes, at which time Gloria Calvery arrived.

In contrast, the Darnell film shows that Gloria Calvery arrived very quickly... within 30 seconds.

This is proof that they lied. And it is proof that you are ignorant of these facts. (Given your accusation that it is merely my interpretation of the film and testimony that they lied). Which would be fine if you didn't talk so authoritatively about things you apparently haven't studied in great detail, as if you had.

BTW, another lie is when Bill Shelley testified to the WC that he was on the TSBD steps when Gloria Calvary arrived. In contrast, in his first day statement he said that, after the shooting, he immediately ran across Elm Street Extension and bumped into Gloria Calvery there. Only his first day statement is consistent with what we see in the Darnell film.

 

 

Oh, so now you agree with me that Lovelady and Shelley lied to the WC! At least that is the case if you are aware of their WC testimony.

Here you say that they returned to the TSBD rapidly -- within a minute according to Vickie Adams. And yet to the WC they said they spent three to four minutes on the steps before returning. After which they walked to the railroad tracks before entering the TSBD. Right there you have a delay of five or six minutes!

Now add to that the time they said they spent at the concrete island across Elm Street Extension; PLUS the time they spent down by where the shots took place. PLUS the time they spent at the railroad yard. I don't recall the numbers, but it was a few minutes at each location. (These were periods of time Lovelady and Shelley told the FBI in their multiple interviews.)

So don't give me this nonsense that it's only my INTERPRETATION of the Darnell film and their testimonies that proves they lied.

 

It is your interpretation that they lied. If we are gonna pretend everyone who said something at odds with the films and photos lied, well, then, most all your favorite witnesses lied.

Edited March 20 by Pat Speer