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

[Sandy Larsen]

21 minutes ago, Michael Crane said:

Sandy,

While I'm thinking about it...this is a discussion forum and I would like to expand on my opinion.

JFK's body was brought in one time in a shipping casket and placed onto the autopsy table.

There were more casket entries,but they did not contain JFK.

The caskets...The bronze and the mahogany were brought to the morgue and placed in the cold room.

I'm not 100% certain that the mahogany casket was placed in the cold room.

I do speculate that the FBI entry and the MDW Honor Guard only brought the casket so far.

It's my firm belief that the autopsy attendees in the gallery were let into the actual morgue (with tables) after JFK was placed on the table.

 

Michael,

As I said, I'm no expert on that topic and I've forgotten much of it. I'm not a good person to discuss it with... at least not one-on-one. (I said pretty much everything I recall in my prior post.) Plus it's off topic.

Maybe you should open a new thread for discussing that topic. I know that I would follow the thread and even contribute if I can.

 

[Pat Speer]

2 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

I've never said that I want (or believe) the wound to be "far back of the head."

Regardless, it doesn't matter whether a doctor said high on the back of the head or low. Since the back-of-head autopsy photos show a wound in neither location, the photos must be fraudulent.

That's a fact, end of discussion.

 

 

Horse hockey!

The only person who would say that a point just behind the face is the back of the head is you.

 

 

If those scars are/were on top of your head, then you were not hit on the back of your head.

 

 

Most people would say he hit them on the head. NOT the back of the head.

 

So you think the point of all this is that the autopsy photos are fake? After we've been through this a dozen times? The point we've been arguing about is not whether or not they are fake. Book after book after book says we know the autopsy materials are fake because they oughta show a blow-out wound low on the back of the head, and claim the witnesses overwhelmingly support such a wound. When, as I've shown, this is a hoax, as corrosive to the truth as the single-bullet theory. 

Follow the steps. 

1. The Dealey Plaza witnesses taken as a whole described a large wound on the top of the head by the temple, which is consistent with the autopsy photos.

2, The first Parkland witnesses taken as whole described a large wound low on the back of the head, in the occipital area.

3. The Bethesda witnesses taken as a whole, with most viewing the skull after the scalp was peeled back and skull fell to the table, described a massive wound from front to back, incorporating both areas of the skull described by the previous witnesses. 

4. The autopsy photos taken at the beginning of the autopsy, before the scalp was peeled to the left and skull fell to the table, show the wound described by the Dealey Plaza witnesses. 

5. Years later, an excitable researcher got it in his head the wound had been altered between Parkland and Bethesda. 

6. Other researchers followed suit, and claimed instead that the photos had been faked or altered. 

7. Along the way, new witnesses were introduced, with the words of these witnesses being used by some to indicate the body had been altered, and used by others to indicate the body was not altered but the photos are fakes. 

8. And this is where I came in. While attempting to figure out who was correct--the body was altered crowd or the photos were faked crowd--I came to doubt both sides. I then realized that most of the witnesses who'd been asked to point out the location of the wound they saw had pointed to a location well above where the researchers had claimed it had been, and that some of these witnesses had actually described a much larger wound in a video, and had had one frame pulled out to deceive the public as to where they saw the wound. 

9. When trying to discuss this with body alteration theorists, I brought up that the statements of the Dealey Plaza witnesses were consistent with the autopsy photos, and was told that these witnesses didn't count. 

10. When trying to discuss this with body alteration theorists, I brought up that most of the key witnesses at Parkland, save one, had retracted the parts of their recollections that were at odds with the autopsy photos, and had thereby signed off on the authenticity of the photos, and was told these men were all XXXXX. The original excitable researcher even went so far as to tell me that two (or was it three) of these doctors were in on the plot to kill Kennedy, and were supposed to alter his wounds before he reached Parkland.

11.  And that's where it's stands. True believer after true believer has lined up to attack me while proclaiming that the witnesses (many of whom they choose to ignore, or proudly proclaim to be XXXXX) are proof the body was altered or that the photos are fake. Many see me as a heretic, and fail to even recognize that there were originally two camps--the body alteration camp and the photos are fake camp--and that their fanatical belief the body was altered AND the photos are fake is completely bananas. 

12. In any event, I performed a years-long study of the medical evidence, y'know, just to see what the supposedly fake evidence shows, and found that it is clear-cut proof for two head wounds, and therefore two shooters. 

But. let's not kid ourselves, nobody really cares about that. It's just much more fun to think some ghouls butchered the body, and that some evil "they" manipulated the evidence, than it is to accept that political pressure and sleazy lawyers led to doctors and experts misrepresenting the evidence. Boring. Ho-hum. Not enough intrigue. I mean no secret CIA lab? No body switcheroo on the tarmac? Sacrilege. 

 

 

Edited January 6 by Pat Speer

[Pat Speer]

3 hours ago, Keven Hofeling said:

You must be referring to this GIF: The one in which Dr. McClelland is running his thumb up and down the back of his head, right? And what would he be trying to communicate with his thumb, Mr. Speer?

And why did Dr. McClelland say the following while rubbing the back of his head with his thumb if he was, as you wrote, "point[ing] out a location on the right side of the head...above the ear." Now that doesn't make any sense, does it? You don't think McClelland knows the difference between the "back part" of his head and the "right side above the ear" Mr. Speer?

"Almost a fifth or perhaps even a quarter of the right back part of the head in this area here [AT WHICH POINT MCLELLAND RAN HIS THUMB UP AND DOWN THE BACK OF HIS HEAD] had been blasted out along with probably most of the brain tissue in the area."

See SEGMENT WITH AUDIO ON YOUTUBE, CUED IN ADVANCE FOR YOU TO 26:08, AS FOLLOWS:

Well, imagine that. "Look over there at old man McClelland at the JFK conference selling his JFK drawings for twenty bucks a pop..."

You make all of this effort all over the web to validate the authenticity of the government's autopsy photographs and X-rays and you can't relate to someone being inspired by the truth, and devoted to a cause?

If you aren't typing the letters off of your computer keyboard due to being inspired by the truth (as you purport to see it) and devoted to a cause, then precisely why do you do it Mr. Speer? 

 

 

Spare me, will ya? Yeah, Pat Speer, the guy who spent 15,000-20,000 hours writing articles for a free website, and refused to allow ads on the site to avoid dweebs claiming he was in it for the money, is after the big bucks. Yeah, that makes sense. 

P.S. Did you look into this McClelland thing, and figure out why so many nearly identical drawings were available online?  If you've read what I've written, in between wiping the froth from your mouth, you'd know I met McClelland, and thought him to be a sincere guy, a gentle soul. But it wouldn't surprise me if people nagged the heck out of him, and asked him to make them a drawing, and that he obliged. And that he started charging for the drawings at a certain point. 

[Keven Hofeling]

On 1/6/2024 at 4:13 AM, Pat Speer said:

 

Spare me, will ya? Yeah, Pat Speer, the guy who spent 15,000-20,000 hours writing articles for a free website, and refused to allow ads on the site to avoid dweebs claiming he was in it for the money, is after the big bucks. Yeah, that makes sense. 

P.S. Did you look into this McClelland thing, and figure out why so many nearly identical drawings were available online?  If you've read what I've written, in between wiping the froth from your mouth, you'd know I met McClelland, and thought him to be a sincere guy, a gentle soul. But it wouldn't surprise me if people nagged the heck out of him, and asked him to make them a drawing, and that he obliged. And that he started charging for the drawings at a certain point. 

Before you start asking me questions, why don't you answer mine?

Here they are again, following your quote from a previous post:

Quote

If anyone owes anyone an apology it is you. To me. The GIF above proves my point. McClelland pointed out a location on the right side of the head...above the ear.

You must be referring to this GIF: The one in which Dr. McClelland is running his thumb up and down the back of his head, right? And what would he be trying to communicate with his thumb, Mr. Speer?

And why did Dr. McClelland say the following while rubbing the back of his head with his thumb if he was, as you wrote, "point[ing] out a location on the right side of the head...above the ear." Now that doesn't make any sense, does it? You don't think McClelland knows the difference between the "back part" of his head and the "right side above the ear" Mr. Speer?

"Almost a fifth or perhaps even a quarter of the right back part of the head in this area here [AT WHICH POINT MCLELLAND RAN HIS THUMB UP AND DOWN THE BACK OF HIS HEAD] had been blasted out along with probably most of the brain tissue in the area."

See SEGMENT WITH AUDIO ON YOUTUBE, CUED IN ADVANCE FOR YOU TO 26:08, AS FOLLOWS:

And I'll just add this one thing for you to ponder when considering your answers:

One of the things that makes me so sure that Dr. McClelland was in fact delineating the back of his head with his thumb is that during the same filming session for TMWKK, McClelland personally sketched the BOH wound, and placed it on the right side of the back of the head in the drawing. The dimensions of the wound were virtually identical to the place he was caressing with his thumb when demonstrating that wound, and I don't think that is a mere coincidence, do you?

 

 

Edited January 25 by Keven Hofeling

[Tom Gram]

6 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Since the back-of-head autopsy photos show a wound in neither location, the photos must be fraudulent.

Maybe @Pat Speer can correct me on this cause I admittedly tend to fail miserably when interpreting photos, but I pointed out in my last comment that the top-of-head autopsy photo does show a large wound on the back of the head above and behind the ear. 

https://www.jfkassassinationgallery.com/displayimage.php?pid=5162&fullsize=1

It looks to me like there are two main scalp flaps opened in opposite directions exposing the wound. The back-of-head photos show the exact same area of JFK’s head and there’s nothing there, so the scalp flaps were obviously closed up for those photos.

Is it really that unreasonable to describe the (gruesome) above photo as depicting a wound on the back-right side of the head? Is it not obvious that the scalp was closed up in the back-of-head photos concealing the wound? Am I hallucinating? 

[Keven Hofeling]

On 1/4/2024 at 4:37 AM, David Von Pein said:

In addition to his appearance in 1988's "The Men Who Killed Kennedy", Dr. Robert McClelland also performed a "hand-on-his-head" demonstration for the PBS-TV camera in another 1988 television program, "Who Shot President Kennedy?", hosted by Walter Cronkite.

In that PBS program, Dr. McClelland twice put his right hand over the upper-right portion of the back of his head to indicate where he said the large wound was located in President Kennedy's head (see the screen captures below).



The late Doctor Robert McClelland, in my opinion, had some very strange beliefs concerning JFK's head wounds and what he was seeing when he viewed the autopsy photographs at the National Archives for that PBS/NOVA program in 1988, which I discuss HERE and HERE.

Here's an excerpt from Vince Bugliosi's book concerning Dr. McClelland:

[Book Quote On:]

“When I spoke over the telephone to Dr. McClelland in late September and early October of 2002, McClelland, a respected Dallas surgeon whom no one accuses of trying to deliberately mislead anyone, only of being completely wrong in what he thought he saw (the most honest people in the world can think they saw the darndest things), said he was positive the president had a "massive hole to the back of his head."

He said at the time of his observation he was holding a metal retractor that was pulling the skin away from the president's trachea so Drs. Perry and Carrico could perform their tracheotomy. "I had nothing else to do or to distract me so I fixated on this large, gaping hole to the back of the president's head for ten to twelve minutes."

When I wondered how he could see the large hole when the president was always lying on his back, he said the wound was so large that he nevertheless could see "most of it." If what he said was true, I asked, how is it possible that on the Zapruder film itself, the explosion is clearly to the right frontal portion of the president's head with a large amount of brain matter spraying out, and the back of his head appears to be completely intact?

Dr. McClelland gave an answer that deserves some type of an award for inventiveness: "What the explanation for this is, I just don't know, but what I believe happened is that the spray of brain matter and blood was kind of like a bloodscreen, similar to a smokescreen, that precluded a clear view of the occipital area."

If, I pursued the matter, the exit wound was to the back of the president's head, where was the entrance wound for this bullet? McClelland, who believes the shot to the head came from the grassy knoll, said he believed the president was struck "around the hairline near the middle of his forehead."

If that was so, I asked, how was it that seventeen pathologists, including Dr. Wecht, all agreed that the president was only struck twice, both times from the rear, and none of them—from photographs, X-rays, and personal observation (by the three autopsy surgeons)—saw any entrance wound to the president's forehead?

Again, McClelland, who acknowledged, "I'm not a pathologist and I've never conducted an autopsy," said, "I don't know the answer to your question." But he remained sincerely inventive in his imagination. "What I believe happened is that none of the pathologists saw the entrance wound because it became a part of the destruction to the whole right side and top of the president's head. In other words, it was no longer a separate hole that could be identified."

(Of course, none of the autopsy photographs show any such massive injury to the president's forehead extending to the right side of his head, and none is referred to in the autopsy report, nor in the reports of the Clark Panel and Rockefeller Commission. As the HSCA said, "There is no evidence that the president was struck by a bullet entering the front of his head.")

"So you do acknowledge," I said, "the explosion to the right front part of the president's head?" "Oh, yes," the doctor said, "but that's not where the bullet exited. It exited in the occipital region of his head, leaving a hole so big I could put my fist in it."

When I pointed out to the doctor again that not only didn't the Zapruder film show any large hole to the back of the president's head but autopsy photographs never showed any large hole there either, he said that although it was pure "supposition" on his part, at the time the photographs were taken, someone "could have pulled a flap of the president's skin, attached to the base of his neck, forward," thereby covering the large defect. When I asked him if he saw any such loose flap of skin at Parkland, he acknowledged, "I did not."

It was getting late in the evening, Dallas time, but before I ended the interview I reminded Dr. McClelland of the fact that in his Parkland Hospital admission note at 4:45 p.m. on the day of the assassination, he had written that the president died "from a gunshot wound of the left temple." "Yes," he said, "that was a mistake. I never saw any wound to the president's left temple. Dr. Jenkins had told me there was a wound there, though he later denied telling me this."

Since there was no bullet wound to the left side of the president's body, and since the conspiracy theorists allege that Kennedy was shot from the grassy knoll to his right front, conspiracy author Robert Groden solves the problem and avoids having his star witness, Dr. McClelland, look very confused and non-credible simply by changing McClelland's words "left temple" to "right temple" in his book, The Killing of a President.

When I called Dr. McClelland the following evening to discuss further one of the points he had made, he quickly told me he was glad I had called because "since we hung up last night, I've had some second thoughts about the exact location of the exit wound."

Unlike the many conspiracy theorists who have exploited Dr. McClelland's obvious errors to their benefit, he told me, "I don't question the integrity of all the pathologists who disagree with me" (he wasn't so kind to his colleague, Dr. Charles Crenshaw: "Chuck had a lot of problems and fabricated a lot of things"), saying, for instance, that he and the three autopsy surgeons were "obviously looking at the same head and the same wound," but that the area on the head where they placed the wound differed because of "the different positions from which we viewed it and also because of the different interpretations of what we saw, which is normal."

But he made a major concession in an effort to reconcile his position with theirs. "I have to say that the sketch I first drew for Josiah Thompson's book a few years after the assassination was misleading. Since last night, I've been thinking that I placed the large hole in the president's head farther back than it really was, maybe. It may have been a bit more forward."

When I asked him where he now put it, he said, "Partially in the occipital region and partly in the right back part of the parietal bone" (which I told him was actually consistent with the original position he took in his Warren Commission testimony), but he still insisted that this large exit wound was not to the right frontal area of the president's skull as concluded by all the pathologists.

Dr. McClelland told me he believes there were two gunmen, Oswald and someone else, and further believes that "the CIA and FBI, mostly the CIA, were behind the conspiracy to kill Kennedy, and they brought in the Mafia, who carried out the killing."

He said he didn't know but suspects that "the Warren Commission covered up the conspiracy." On that note, I thanked the good doctor for his time and bid him a good night.” -- Vincent Bugliosi; Pages 405-407 of "Reclaiming History"

 

"Uh, Houston, I think there's a problem..."

Quote

 

In addition to his appearance in 1988's "The Men Who Killed Kennedy", Dr. Robert McClelland also performed a "hand-on-his-head" demonstration for the PBS-TV camera in another 1988 television program, "Who Shot President Kennedy?", hosted by Walter Cronkite.

In that PBS program, Dr. McClelland twice put his right hand over the upper-right portion of the back of his head to indicate where he said the large wound was located in President Kennedy's head (see the screen captures below).

 

Here's the problem: You've presented this meme of Dr. McClelland in the 1988 PBS Nova program "Who Shot President Kennedy" in support of the notion that he was communicating that the large avulsive back of the head wound that he reported to the Warren Commission was actually on the side of JFK's head in the parietal area over the ear.

But close examination of the program reveals that your two screenshots comprising your Lone Nutter meme were taken when McClelland quickly made these gestures while highly animated in thought and speech, making for a very misleading impression of what he was intending to communicate.

I say this because in the same program, within minutes of the footage from which you derived these two screenshots, Dr. McClelland takes his hand and swirls his fingers in a vertically oriented oval shape on the back of his head to demonstrate the location of the large avulsive wound, as follows:

 

I have slowed this footage down to 25% of its normal playing speed and turned it into a GIF to highlight his oval shaped vertical gesture.

Moreover, we can be certain that McClelland was much more focused on presenting an accurate demonstration of the dimensions of the back of the head wound at this time -- as opposed to your screenshots -- because while doing so (when presenting his rationalization for why the large avulsive wound is not visible in the BOH autopsy photos) he was saying the following (AND PLEASE NOTE THAT I HAVE HIGHLIGHTED THE EXACT WORDS HE IS SAYING WHILE MAKING THE OVAL SHAPED GESTURE IN RED).

_____________

"The Pathologist has taken this loose piece of scalp which is hanging back this way in most of the pictures, exposing this large wound, and has pulled the scalp forward to take a picture..."

_____________

As follows is a video of the segment described above to allow you to appreciate the importance of what Dr. McClelland is saying simultaneous with his hand gesture (it is at 50:37 through 50:53 of the original program at this link:   https://youtu.be/SL9orid231c?si=4Fo7ICwInJX-rxKO ).

Of course, it is not just the revelation that you and your Lone Nutter confederates have cherry-picked misleading photographs of Dr. McClelland (and others) to support your government's fraudulent cover-story for the assassination that confirms that the earliest reports of the Parkland doctors and nurses that JFK had a large exit wound in the back of his head, but also those first reports themselves, which would result in the exclusion from evidence of the contradictory and implausible autopsy materials and fraudulent films were a FRE 402 evidentiary hearing to be held in the matter. Dr. McClelland's Warren Commission testimony on the matter is clear and unambiguous, and constitutes the strongest evidence in support of the video evidence above debunking your cherry-picked meme photos.

My question for you, therefore, is when can we expect you to cleanse your social media of these deceptive and misleading memes and commentary about Dr. McClelland's identification of the right rear occipital-parietal wound?

Quote

Here's an excerpt from Vince Bugliosi's book concerning Dr. McClelland:

[Book Quote On:]

“When I spoke over the telephone to Dr. McClelland in late September and early October of 2002, McClelland, a respected Dallas surgeon whom no one accuses of trying to deliberately mislead anyone, only of being completely wrong in what he thought he saw (the most honest people in the world can think they saw the darndest things), said he was positive the president had a "massive hole to the back of his head."

He said at the time of his observation he was holding a metal retractor that was pulling the skin away from the president's trachea so Drs. Perry and Carrico could perform their tracheotomy. "I had nothing else to do or to distract me so I fixated on this large, gaping hole to the back of the president's head for ten to twelve minutes."

When I wondered how he could see the large hole when the president was always lying on his back, he said the wound was so large that he nevertheless could see "most of it." If what he said was true, I asked, how is it possible that on the Zapruder film itself, the explosion is clearly to the right frontal portion of the president's head with a large amount of brain matter spraying out, and the back of his head appears to be completely intact?

Dr. McClelland gave an answer that deserves some type of an award for inventiveness: "What the explanation for this is, I just don't know, but what I believe happened is that the spray of brain matter and blood was kind of like a bloodscreen, similar to a smokescreen, that precluded a clear view of the occipital area."

If, I pursued the matter, the exit wound was to the back of the president's head, where was the entrance wound for this bullet? McClelland, who believes the shot to the head came from the grassy knoll, said he believed the president was struck "around the hairline near the middle of his forehead."

If that was so, I asked, how was it that seventeen pathologists, including Dr. Wecht, all agreed that the president was only struck twice, both times from the rear, and none of them—from photographs, X-rays, and personal observation (by the three autopsy surgeons)—saw any entrance wound to the president's forehead?

Again, McClelland, who acknowledged, "I'm not a pathologist and I've never conducted an autopsy," said, "I don't know the answer to your question." But he remained sincerely inventive in his imagination. "What I believe happened is that none of the pathologists saw the entrance wound because it became a part of the destruction to the whole right side and top of the president's head. In other words, it was no longer a separate hole that could be identified."

(Of course, none of the autopsy photographs show any such massive injury to the president's forehead extending to the right side of his head, and none is referred to in the autopsy report, nor in the reports of the Clark Panel and Rockefeller Commission. As the HSCA said, "There is no evidence that the president was struck by a bullet entering the front of his head.")

"So you do acknowledge," I said, "the explosion to the right front part of the president's head?" "Oh, yes," the doctor said, "but that's not where the bullet exited. It exited in the occipital region of his head, leaving a hole so big I could put my fist in it."

When I pointed out to the doctor again that not only didn't the Zapruder film show any large hole to the back of the president's head but autopsy photographs never showed any large hole there either, he said that although it was pure "supposition" on his part, at the time the photographs were taken, someone "could have pulled a flap of the president's skin, attached to the base of his neck, forward," thereby covering the large defect. When I asked him if he saw any such loose flap of skin at Parkland, he acknowledged, "I did not."

It was getting late in the evening, Dallas time, but before I ended the interview I reminded Dr. McClelland of the fact that in his Parkland Hospital admission note at 4:45 p.m. on the day of the assassination, he had written that the president died "from a gunshot wound of the left temple." "Yes," he said, "that was a mistake. I never saw any wound to the president's left temple. Dr. Jenkins had told me there was a wound there, though he later denied telling me this."

Since there was no bullet wound to the left side of the president's body, and since the conspiracy theorists allege that Kennedy was shot from the grassy knoll to his right front, conspiracy author Robert Groden solves the problem and avoids having his star witness, Dr. McClelland, look very confused and non-credible simply by changing McClelland's words "left temple" to "right temple" in his book, The Killing of a President.

When I called Dr. McClelland the following evening to discuss further one of the points he had made, he quickly told me he was glad I had called because "since we hung up last night, I've had some second thoughts about the exact location of the exit wound."

Unlike the many conspiracy theorists who have exploited Dr. McClelland's obvious errors to their benefit, he told me, "I don't question the integrity of all the pathologists who disagree with me" (he wasn't so kind to his colleague, Dr. Charles Crenshaw: "Chuck had a lot of problems and fabricated a lot of things"), saying, for instance, that he and the three autopsy surgeons were "obviously looking at the same head and the same wound," but that the area on the head where they placed the wound differed because of "the different positions from which we viewed it and also because of the different interpretations of what we saw, which is normal."

But he made a major concession in an effort to reconcile his position with theirs. "I have to say that the sketch I first drew for Josiah Thompson's book a few years after the assassination was misleading. Since last night, I've been thinking that I placed the large hole in the president's head farther back than it really was, maybe. It may have been a bit more forward."

When I asked him where he now put it, he said, "Partially in the occipital region and partly in the right back part of the parietal bone" (which I told him was actually consistent with the original position he took in his Warren Commission testimony), but he still insisted that this large exit wound was not to the right frontal area of the president's skull as concluded by all the pathologists.

Dr. McClelland told me he believes there were two gunmen, Oswald and someone else, and further believes that "the CIA and FBI, mostly the CIA, were behind the conspiracy to kill Kennedy, and they brought in the Mafia, who carried out the killing."

He said he didn't know but suspects that "the Warren Commission covered up the conspiracy." On that note, I thanked the good doctor for his time and bid him a good night.” -- Vincent Bugliosi; Pages 405-407 of "Reclaiming History"

We see in Dr. McClelland's confused reaction to Vince Bugliosi's skillful use of the fraudulent Zapruder film, the power of the government's contrived photographic evidence, and the importance to the government of your endeavors to protect those materials. Lesser men than Dr. McClelland, who knew the truth of the most probative medical evidence on day one, have retreated in haste when it has been invoked, though we must concede that even McClelland resorted to the convenient fiction of a rear head flap when confronted with those phony photos in the 1988 Nova episode. Nevertheless, it remains a testament to Dr. McClelland's intestinal fortitude that he did not fold under Bugliosi's Zapruder film cross-examination onslaught that day. 

Edited January 24 by Keven Hofeling

[Keven Hofeling]

1 hour ago, Tom Gram said:

Maybe @Pat Speer can correct me on this cause I admittedly tend to fail miserably when interpreting photos, but I pointed out in my last comment that the top-of-head autopsy photo does show a large wound on the back of the head above and behind the ear. 

https://www.jfkassassinationgallery.com/displayimage.php?pid=5162&fullsize=1

It looks to me like there are two main scalp flaps opened in opposite directions exposing the wound. The back-of-head photos show the exact same area of JFK’s head and there’s nothing there, so the scalp flaps were obviously closed up for those photos.

Is it really that unreasonable to describe the (gruesome) above photo as depicting a wound on the back-right side of the head? Is it not obvious that the scalp was closed up in the back-of-head photos concealing the wound? Am I hallucinating? 

The mortician who reconstructed the President's head by sewing a piece of rubber into the wound in the back of the head and filling the quarter inch in diameter bullet hole at the right temple told the ARRB (when shown the top-of-the-head photographs depicting the mess of gore and brains relied upon by LN's to claim the existence of a frontal exit wound) vigorously protested the photographs, saying it "was what the doctors did," and when you combine that with the testimony of the forty Parkland Hospital and Bethesda autopsy witnesses who reported that the only damage to President Kennedy's head was the large avulsive wound in the occipital-parietal wound on the right side of the back of the head, you have virtually undeniable evidence that the autopsy photographs depicting such frontal head damage are manipulated to mimic a frontal exit wound which never existed (manipulated by being taken in the middle of the pathologist's efforts to remove shrapnel from the skull while the scalp was reflected). Nurse Diana Bowron, who had the best look at the President's head wounds at Parkland because she washed the dried blood out of his hair and packed the rear head wound with gauze squares was absolutely adamant when interviewed at length by author Harrison Livingstone that there was NO FRONTAL DAMAGE to JFK's head when she cleaned the body up before placing it in the ceremonial casket at Parkland Hospital. I'll post the sketches of the head wound that Diana Bowron drew for Harrison Livingstone below, as well as provide you with a link to the interview:

_______________

MORTICIAN TOM ROBINSON'S REACTION UPON BEING SHOWN THE TOP-OF-THE-HEAD AUTOPSY PHOTOGRAPH BY THE ASSASSINATION RECORDS REVIEW BOARD:

"...-Top of Head/Superior View of Cranium (corresponds to B & W #'s 7-10): ROBINSON FROWNED, AND SAID WITH APPARENT DISAGREEMENT, "THIS MAKES IT LOOK LIKE THE WOUND WAS IN THE TOP OF THE HEAD." HE EXPLAINED THAT THE DAMAGE IN THIS PHOTOGRAPH WAS "WHAT THE DOCTORS DID," AND EXPLAINED THAT THEY CUT THIS SCALP OPEN AND REFLECTED IT BACK IN ORDER TO REMOVE BULLET FRAGMENTS (THE FRAGMENTS HE HAD OBSERVED IN A GLASS VIAL). ARRB STAFF MEMBERS ASKED ROBINSON WHETHER THERE WAS DAMAGE TO THE TOP OF THE HEAD WHEN HE ARRIVED AT THE MORGUE AND BEFORE THE BRAIN WAS REMOVED; HE REPLIED BY SAYING THAT THIS AREA WAS "ALL BROKEN," BUT THAT IT WAS NOT OPEN LIKE THE WOUND IN THE BACK OF THE HEAD (emphasis not in original)...." 

 

MD 180 - ARRB Meeting Report Summarizing 6/21/96 In-Person Interview of Tom Robinson", http://aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md180/html/md180_0001a.htm

_______________

None of the members of the Parkland trauma team reported a large blowout wound to the top or side of JFK's head (particularly Nurse Diana Bowron, who washed the dried blood out of JFK's hair, and did not encounter any kind of "flap" [See below]) nor did the pathologists or other witnesses at Bethesda (including the autopsy photographer, John Stringer, who told David Lifton that the large avulsive wound was in the BACK of the head; nor mortician Tom Robinson, who found only a puncture a quarter inch in diameter hidden in the hairline at JFK's right temple). The large frontal blowout appears only in the fraudulent Zapruder film.

_______________

PARKLAND NURSE DIANA BOWRON -- WHO CLEANED THE DRIED BLOOD OUT OF JFK'S HAIR AND PACKED THE BOH WOUND WITH GAUZE -- ASSURED RESEARCHER HARRISON LIVINGSTONE UNEQUIVOCALLY THAT THERE WAS NO SWINGING BONE DOOR (OR FLAP) IN THE TOP OF JFK'S HEAD:

 

https://alt.assassination.jfk.narkive.com/QbgORExR/nurse-diana-bowron

⁠"...HL: Okay. If you can try to remember anybody taking pictures in there, photographs, it's very important because there's a reason to think that some of these autopsy pictures-I published a lot more of them in my last book-that they're not taken at Bethesda, you know. Now, do you think that any part of his face-like the right eye and the right forehead above it - did that sag in or was there any bone missing in that area? Did his face look so perfectly normal? Did you feel his face?
⁠
HL: You washed his face?
⁠
DB: I can't remember whether I washed it or Margaret washed it. I know I washed his hair.
⁠
HL: Well, you would have noticed if a large piece of bone -- see, the X-rays, if you look at the X-rays in my book, they show the whole right front of the face is gone from the eye area. And the lateral view X-ray is not the same as the AP view. There's a lot more bone missing in the lateral view. But most of the-most of them have the whole right eye area, from the top of the orbit, at least, plus the forehead and the temporal bone is gone.
⁠
DB: No, no. I mean, I would have noticed something like that. You know, to say his face looked like a dead body's face. You know, there was no injury to the face.
⁠
HL: Yeah.
⁠
DB: It was just to his-the back of his head. And the one in his, in his throat. But and by then it was the tracheostomy opening. But his face itself, no.
⁠
HL: Okay. One more question about that. Do you remember any laceration across the scalp from front to back where it comes on to the forehead, where the scalp would have been lacerated and it goes straight back from that area? Picture the right eyebrow. A laceration about a half an inch into his forehead, and then going straight back, where the scalp was torn. Do you remember anything like that?
⁠
DB: No.
⁠
HL: You would have because you washed the hair, right?
⁠
DB: Yes. When I say washed it, I just took cotton swabs and washed all the clotting blood off. I mean, I didn't shampoo it or anything.
⁠
HL: So, in this massive hole, was there a flap of scalp there, or was scalp actually gone?
⁠
DB: It was gone. Gone. There was nothing there. Just a big, gaping hole.
⁠
HL: We're talking about scalp first, and then bone, right?
⁠
DB: Yeah. There might have been little lumps of scalp, but most of the bone over the hole, there was no bone there.
⁠
HL: Was there any part of a flap of scalp over that big defect in the bone missing?
⁠
DB: What I'm saying is that the hole where the bone had gone, perhaps the skin was a little bit smaller, if you know what I mean, but only fractionally, just over the edge.
⁠
HL: So the scalp was blown out, too?
⁠
DB: Yes.
⁠
HL: I don't know if I should ask you this question-but did you have enough experience either before or after to think that that was either an exit or an entry hole?
⁠
DB: Well, to me it was an exit hole.
⁠
HL: Yeah.
⁠
DB: I mean, I've never seen one as big as that, but-..."
⁠
⁠https://alt.assassination.jfk.narkive.com/QbgORExR/nurse-diana-bowron

 

[Jonathan Cohen]

14 minutes ago, Keven Hofeling said:

The large frontal blowout appears only in the fraudulent Zapruder film.

Absolute, complete nonsense, but not surprising coming from someone who relies on Harrison Livingstone for primary source material ...

[Keven Hofeling]

2 minutes ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

Absolute, complete nonsense, but not surprising coming from someone who relies on Harrison Livingstone for primary source material ...

If you can corroborate the huge cavernous forehead wound we see in the headshot sequence of the extant Zapruder film, I'd like to see you do it.

___________

And the Diana Bowron interview conducted by Harrison Livingstone is invaluable not because of Livingstone's involvement, but because there isn't another equivalent interview of Bowron out there. If you can provide me with one, well then I'd like to see you do that too.

 

 

[Michael Griffith]

On 1/4/2024 at 6:36 AM, Chris Bristow said:

I think the skeptics lost the Parkland debate a long time ago. The misrepresentations, cherry picking, and gaslighting have become far too obvious over time.  I assume many researchers see right through it. It is truly a 'House of cards", imo.   

I think the skeptics soundly won the Parkland debate with the ARRB releases, with the Harrison Livingstone interviews, and with other disclosures. Among many other things, we learned that even some of the autopsy witnesses who believed there was only one head shot and that it came from behind said there was a large wound in the back of the head (e.g., Sibert and O'Neill). Other autopsy witnesses who said there was a large rear head wound include

Dr. Robert Karnei

Tom Robinson

Jan Rudnicki

Joe Hagan

Dr. John Ebersole

General McHugh 

Robert Knudsen

Edward Reed

I find the Diana Bowron, Clint Hill, Aubrey Rike, Doris Nelson, and Roy Kellerman descriptions of a large rear head wound particularly convincing. 

Edited January 6 by Michael Griffith

[James DiEugenio]

You know when we start killing the message because of the messenger, its time to quit.

Bowron was a witness and she was there.

I have always felt that her testimony, and Tom Robinson's were important and compelling. She was among the last to see the body in Dallas, he was among the last to see it  at Bethesda.

BTW, would we behaving this discussion if not for the ARRB?

[Joe Bauer]

1 hour ago, Keven Hofeling said:

MORTICIAN TOM ROBINSON'S REACTION UPON BEING SHOWN THE TOP-OF-THE-HEAD AUTOPSY PHOTOGRAPH BY THE ASSASSINATION RECORDS REVIEW BOARD:

"...-Top of Head/Superior View of Cranium (corresponds to B & W #'s 7-10): ROBINSON FROWNED, AND SAID WITH APPARENT DISAGREEMENT, "THIS MAKES IT LOOK LIKE THE WOUND WAS IN THE TOP OF THE HEAD." HE EXPLAINED THAT THE DAMAGE IN THIS PHOTOGRAPH WAS "WHAT THE DOCTORS DID," AND EXPLAINED THAT THEY CUT THIS SCALP OPEN AND REFLECTED IT BACK IN ORDER TO REMOVE BULLET FRAGMENTS (THE FRAGMENTS HE HAD OBSERVED IN A GLASS VIAL). ARRB STAFF MEMBERS ASKED ROBINSON WHETHER THERE WAS DAMAGE TO THE TOP OF THE HEAD WHEN HE ARRIVED AT THE MORGUE AND BEFORE THE BRAIN WAS REMOVED; HE REPLIED BY SAYING THAT THIS AREA WAS "ALL BROKEN," BUT THAT IT WAS NOT OPEN LIKE THE WOUND IN THE BACK OF THE HEAD (emphasis not in original)...." 

I feel Robinson's recollection makes the most sense.

In my viewing of the Z film when slowed down, I saw an unusual and grossly uneven lifting of the top of JFK's skull in the micro-second of the bullet impact which imo clearly was depicting the breaking apart of the upper skull as Robinson described it's condition when he examined that area.

I still don't understand how anyone can see the Z film, and not see a blowout of skull bone above JFK's right ear. A huge "flap" which when blown out revealed pink tissue underneath.

It also looked to me that the enormous pink blood and tissue cloud that sprayed 6 ft high came from that blown out flap area.

Closest eye-witness to JFK's head shot ( just 10 feet away? ) was Bill Newman.

His description of JFK's right-side skull blowout matches the Z-film imo.

Edited January 6 by Joe Bauer

[Keven Hofeling]

19 minutes ago, Joe Bauer said:

I feel Robinson's recollection makes the most sense.

In my viewing of the Z film when slowed down, I saw an unusual lifting of the top of JFK's skull in the micro second of the bullet impact which imo clearly was depicting the breaking apart of the upper skull as Robinson described it's condition when he examined that area.

I still don't understand how anyone can see the Z film, and not see a blowout of skull bone above JFK's right ear. A huge "flap" which when blown out revealed pink tissue underneath.

It also looked to me that the enormous pink blood and tissue cloud that sprayed 6 ft high came from that blown out flap area.

Closest eye-witness to JFK's head shot ( just 10 feet away? ) was Bill Newman.

His description of JFK's right-side skull blowout matches the Z-film imo.

Some food for thought...

_________

"....JOSIAH THOMPSON's PRESENTATION AT LANCER: Tink Thompson demonstrated once again that he is an excellent speaker, a wonderful raconteur, and a relaxed, avuncular presenter with a rich sense of humor.  In his presentation, after destroying the old theories about the "jet effect" and "neuromuscular reaction" by W.C. supporters Luis Alvarez and Larry Sturdivan, he moved on to a revision of the original shot sequence he wrote about in his seminal work Six Seconds in Dallas, in 1967.  In his book he posited a double head shot occurring almost simultaneously: a shot from behind striking JFK at Z frame 312, and then a shot from the right front striking JFK at frame 313, causing a double head motion measured by him and others (forward for one frame, and then sharply back and to the left).  Thompson explained that he now no longer believes the apparent forward motion of JFK's head at frame 312 was caused by a head shot from the rear, but was a mistaken interpretation on his part, actually caused by Zapruder's panning error---camera shake---in response to a severe external stimulus, probably the sound of a gun shot.  In other words, Abe Zapruder probably jerked the camera sharply (as proven by the frames he displayed showing extreme blurring), creating only the illusion of forward motion of JFK's head at frame 312.

Instead, Thompson proposed that the head shot from behind actually occurred at frame 328, and provided various visual and acoustical proofs.  This simply moves the head shot fired from behind the limousine temporally---"in time"---to being the last shot fired in Dealey Plaza, according to Josiah Thompson's new interpretation, instead of it being the first head shot.  I have no problem with that either.

BUT WHAT I DID HAVE A PROBLEM WITH WAS WHAT JOSIAH THOMPSON WAS SAYING ABOUT Z-FILM IMAGES FROM FRAME 328 THROUGH 337.  He showed many slides depicting how the top of JFK's head is apparently missing, and where you can actually see Jackie Kennedy's shoulder (in the pink Chanel suit) through what appears to be a huge golf-type "divit" of missing cranium in the top of JFK's skull.  It was easy to see how Tink had connected the dots: "The Z-film shows a huge portion of the top of the head missing, just like the autopsy photos, so therefore the Z-film is authentic."

But wait---Tink was clearly dodging an important issue: the same day treatment notes, and same-day and same-weekend statements to the media, of the Parkland doctors and nurses. NONE OF THEM MENTIONED ANY DAMAGE TO THE TOP OR RIGHT SIDE OF THE HEAD IN 1963.  In 1964 when they all testified under oath, only one Parkland witness, Dr. Giesecke, mentioned damage to the top of the head and side of the head, and he said it was the top and left side of the head (the wrong side).  His testimony is so anomalous that it can, and should be, discarded.  Just go back and read the same-day treatment notes from the Warren Report, and the sworn testimony of all of the other Parkland doctors and nurses from 1964.  They repetitively and definitively describe a wound in the BACK OF THE HEAD, not the top or right side of the head, using these phrases: "posterior; occipital, occipital-parietal; and occipital-temporal" (which is still behind the right ear if you check the skull drawings in an anatomy text).  Jackie Kennedy told the Warren Commission in her testimony: "From the front there was nothing," indicating she could see no damage to her husband's head when looking at JFK from the front.  Presumably she saw him from the front when he was removed from the limousine at Parkland, and also observed him lying supine on the gurney inside Trauma Room One.  When Jeremy Gunn and I interviewed nurse Audrey Bell and Dr. Crenshaw in 1997, face-to-face, and specifically asked them if they saw any damage at Parkland to the top or right side of President Kennedy's head, they emphatically said "no," and looked at us like we were crazy.   Dr. Ronald Jones volunteered to the ARRB under oath in August of 1998 that he saw no evidence of missing bone in the top of the head, nor did he see bones protruding from the right side of the head.  His clear intent was to impugn the bootleg autopsy photos that he had seen in many books, as not representing what he saw in Trauma Room One.  In a recent article Dr. Don Teal Curtis, another Parkland witness, was quoted as saying the autopsy photographs do not accurately depict the damage to President Kennedy's head that he saw in Trauma Room One; he specified that the head wound he saw was strictly posterior, not superior.   Here is the link to that article: http://www.myplainview.com/canyon/news/article_f6555d0a-48c4-11e3-bbd1-001a4bcf887a.html 

Finally, the four Parkland doctors who saw cerebellum protruding from the head wound onto the treatment cart have provided compelling evidence that the head wound they observed was in THE BACK OF THE HEAD, NOT THE TOP.  Cerebellum could only have been protruding from the wound if that wound was in the back of the head, vice the top, as shown in the Z-film.

Furthermore, Josiah Thompson knows this.  He published medical illustrator Philip Johnson's depiction of the damage described by Dr. McClelland in his book in 1967.  It shows no visible damage to the top of the head or to the right side.  And I am confident that in 1966 and 1967 he read the same-day treatment notes, and the sworn Warren Commission testimony, of the members of the Parkland emergency room treatment staff who attempted to save JFK's life.  Beginning in 1998, the Parkland Hospital wound sketches drawn for the ARRB by nurse Audrey Bell, and Dr. Charles Crenshaw---both depicting a wound localized to only the right rear quadrant of the head, thus confirming the 1967 drawing approved by Dr. McClelland---have been available to the public via the JFK Records Collection, and have been published in more than one book.  So he is intentionally dodging the issue, which I do not at all respect.  This is egregious and inexplicable behavior for someone who was both a philosophy professor, and a "private eye."  He should have raised the issue himself and declared his position.  Does Josiah Thompson believe the remarkably consistent wound descriptions of the Parkland doctors and nurses, or not?   Did he think we were all so stupid that we would not think of this just because we were so captivated by his own line of reasoning?  Tink is a smart man; I'm sure he was aware of this major weakness in his continuing argument for Z-film authenticity.  He was just attempting to dodge it.  Buy the Lancer recording of his lecture, and see for yourself.

Ask yourself this: "What is more likely, that the Zapruder film is an authentic and unaltered film, and therefore matches what is seen in two thirds of the autopsy photos---and that ALL the Parkland doctors and nurses were either lying, or were wrong, and consistently wrong, in the same way? Or that the Parkland doctors and nurses were all correct and telling the truth, and that the Zapruder film was altered at Hawkeyeworks on 11/24/63 in an attempt to make it "match" the autopsy photos developed on 11/23/63---the day before the film went to Hawkeyeworks---autopsy photos which depict the results of clandestine, illicit, post-mortem surgery performed at Bethesda Naval Hospital to remove from JFK's body all evidence of shots fired from the right front?" After all, the new 6k digital scans of frame 317 and many other frames (currently the subject of an ongoing scientific investigation in California) appear to depict evidence of gross, crude alteration intended to black out the back of JFK's head.  In view of this new evidence (written about by me in 2009 in Chapter 14 of my book), isn't it more likely that the Parkland treatment staff were all correct in their statements the weekend of the assassination, and that the Zapruder film has been altered?  We need to show some intellectual rigor and apply Occam's Razor here.  Which is more likely?  That a film that is already suspect for good reason has been altered, or that all of the Parkland treatment staff was incompetent and didn't know what they saw or what they were talking about afterwards?  This is the same dilemma that confronts any assassination researcher who wants to believe BOTH the Dallas doctors and nurses, and ALSO believe that the Zapruder film is an authentic, unaltered film.

You can't have it both ways. As I said in my book, interpreting evidence in which there are so many conflicts requires that the researcher make judgments, and employ some critical thinking.  In my long essay at the LewRockwell.com site about "The Two Zapruder Film Events at NPIC," I have thoroughly explored the broken chain-of-custody of the film the weekend of the assassination; its presence at the Hawkeyeworks R & D lab in Rochester, New York (at Kodak headquarters); and the apparent creation there (in an optical printer) of a new double 8 unslit film masquerading as an unslit out-of-camera original. Here is the link: http://archive.lewrockwell.com/orig13/horne-d1.1.1.html

Study my long essay at LewRockwell, and consider the issues raised here in this essay.  And then make up your own mind.  Don't blindly defer to the presumed authority of a retired Kodak (!) film chemist, or of an author protecting a lifetime of intellectual turf.  Sometime within the next 6 to 9 months you will be able to better assess the other side of the story using your own eyes, and your own mind---via a magnificent documentary being made in California.  You will then learn the current state of this ongoing scientific investigation.   Anyone who has any uncertainty about this issue right now, or who is interested in it at all, should keep an open mind, and reserve final judgment until that documentary is released...."

'JOSIAH THOMPSON AND ROLLIE ZAVADA AT JFK LANCER: A CRITICAL REPORT'

by Douglas P. Horne, author of Inside the Assassination Records Review Board

⁠https://insidethearrb.livejournal.com/10709.html

 

Edited January 6 by Keven Hofeling

[Pat Speer]

7 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

You know when we start killing the message because of the messenger, its time to quit.

Bowron was a witness and she was there.

I have always felt that her testimony, and Tom Robinson's were important and compelling. She was among the last to see the body in Dallas, he was among the last to see it  at Bethesda.

BTW, would we behaving this discussion if not for the ARRB?

Only... we know damn well Tom Robinson sat on the left side of JFK during the autopsy and did not see the head wound until the reconstruction was performed by Ed Stroble...and we know Stroble told his friend the wound was on the top of the head. 

And we know Robinson said this wound was in the middle of the back of the head, and the size of a small orange, the same description given by his fellow mortician John Van Hoesen. And yet, even so, Horne pretended Robinson was describing the wound at the beginning of the autopsy and Van Hoesen was describing the wound at the end of the reconstruction, which is really bizarre considering a large piece of frontal bone was added back into the skull during the reconstruction.

And we know Robinson thought the head wound was an entrance wound, that connected with the throat wound. Now that is an interesting observation that is potentially important. But it somehow gets ignored in the rush to pretend he is a witness to a large exit on the back of the head. Hmmm...see how that works? Those misrepresenting Robinson's statements to "prove" conspiracy are doing the opposite, and are actually using his statements to conceal evidence for a conspiracy. 

It goes on and on. It seems very few are willing to look at all the statements and put them together, as opposed to cherry-picking the statements supporting the back of the head was blown-out, and ignoring the rest. Bowron is another good example, Jim. She told Livingstone "When we prepared the body, I washed as much blood as I could from the hair; while doing this, I did not see any other wound either in the temples or in other parts of the head." And yet those citing her recollection of the head wound location ignore that she is a much better witness for there being no bullet hole in the forehead or temple. And why is that? 

 

[Michael Crane]

37 minutes ago, Joe Bauer said:

I feel Robinson's recollection makes the most sense.

In my viewing of the Z film when slowed down, I saw an unusual and grossly uneven lifting of the top of JFK's skull in the micro-second of the bullet impact which imo clearly was depicting the breaking apart of the upper skull as Robinson described it's condition when he examined that area.

I still don't understand how anyone can see the Z film, and not see a blowout of skull bone above JFK's right ear. A huge "flap" which when blown out revealed pink tissue underneath.

It also looked to me that the enormous pink blood and tissue cloud that sprayed 6 ft high came from that blown out flap area.

Closest eye-witness to JFK's head shot ( just 10 feet away? ) was Bill Newman.

His description of JFK's right-side skull blowout matches the Z-film imo.

Hello Joe,

Let's try going over some things ok?....ok

It is a known FACT that nurse Bowron who literally washed JFK's hair had NO time manipulate any evidence,that's the bottom line.Along with other Parkland personnel observations.

Any other observations/evidence including the Zapruder film had time AFTER Parkland to be altered and or munipulated.

I know which one I'm going with.

 

Edited January 6 by Michael Crane