Why do some conspiracy theorists accept the X-rays and autopsy photos as genuine?

Keven Hofeling · January 24

3 minutes ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Please forgive me for not having read this entire thread....

but....

Didn't Dr. David Mantik's desnsitometer readings of JFK's head X-rays prove that they were faked?

APPENDIX

The JFK Autopsy Materials:

Twenty Conclusions after Nine Visits

David W. Mantik, M.D., Ph.D.

Introduction

I examined the JFK autopsy materials at the National Archives (NARA) on four
separate days in 1993, on two days in 1994, and on two days in 1995. This review included
the photographs, X-rays, clothing, magic bullet, and two metal fragments removed from the
skull. My most recent visit (day # 9) was on 12 April 2001. Nearly six years had passed since
my eighth visit, during which time the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) had
come and gone. During this six -year time interval my initial findings had been published in
two books: (1) Assassination Science (1998) and (2) Murder in Dealey Plaza (2000), both
edited by James Fetzer. To place the significant discoveries of this ninth and last visit in
context, the major conclusions from my initial eight visits are first summarized. It is
important to note that this succinct account is primarily intended for those readers who are
already familiar with these issues. Newcomers will find supporting details in the
aforementioned books. All readers should note that additional conclusions of somewhat
lesser importance either have been or shall be summarized elsewhere. Visits # 1– 8 (1993-1995)

1. Shortly after the autopsy, a large white (i.e., relatively transparent) patch was
superimposed (in the darkroom—not on a physical skull) over the posterior portion of both
lateral skull X-rays during the production of altered copies. These are now part of the
official collection at NARA. This left unaltered a large, dark area at the front of the skull,
which made it appear that a posterior bullet had blown out the front. Even Humes, during
his ARRB deposition, repeatedly expressed his bewilderment at this dark area, most likely
because the white patch subconsciously confused him. An obvious corollary to this
conclusion is that both original, lateral skull X-rays have vanished—without a trace.

2. Shortly after the autopsy--by using a simple, double exposure technique in the dark
room—a 6.5 mm, metal-like object was superimposed over an authentic, but smaller, metal
fragment (within the right orbit) on the original, frontal X-ray during the production of a
copy film. This is now part of the official collection. The evidence for this conclusion derives
from eight separate lines of evidence, most based on optical density (OD) measurements of
the X-rays. During their ARRB depositions, the autopsy pathologists did not recall seeing
this object on 22 November 1963—nor for that matter did anyone else (including the
radiologist). This X-ray forgery was done with a single purpose: to incriminate Oswald via
the 6.5 mm M annlicher-Carcano carbine. Within the past several years, Larry Sturdivan,
the ballistics expert for the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), has also
stated his absolute conviction that this 6.5 mm object cannot be a bullet fragment. This new
interpretation of the 6.5 mm object (as an irrelevant artifact) totally contradicts the Clark
Panel (1968) and the HSCA (1978), both of whom interpreted this object as an authentic
bullet fragment. Even more to the point, this object played a crucial role in their
conclusions —which have now been thoroughly undermined. The extant frontal X-ray,
therefore, also cannot be an original but must be a copy. The original has vanished without
a trace. Therefore, no original unaltered skull X-ray remains.

3. At the front of both lateral skull X-rays is a fist-sized dark area that is devoid of brain
tissue. This is in dramatic disagreement with the brain photographs, which show nearly
intact brain on both sides of midline. On the other hand, it is remarkably consistent with
the substitute brain hypothesis, as advanced by Douglas Horne, and which is supported by
multiple lines of evidence. Furthermore, the autopsy photographer, John Stringer, told the
ARRB that the photographic film that he used for the brain photographs was different
from the extant film that shows the brain—which would also be consistent with the
substitute brain scenario.

4. Based on OD measurements of all three skull X-rays, more brain is missing on the
right side, but a substantial amount is also missing on the left. This latter conclusion,
especially, is in serious disagreement with the brain photographs. On the other hand, one
of the Parkland nurses, who looked inside the skull while preparing the body for
departure, actually noted that a significant volume of the left brain was also missing.
5. Based on both OD measurements and on intense light observations of the X-rays, the
right skull is missing anteriorly to the forehead, very near the hairline. This is consistent
with both the face sheet from the autopsy and with Boswell’s drawings on a skull for the
ARRB. 41

6. The black and white prints of the X-rays, listed in Burkley’s Memorandum of
Transfer (26 April 1963), no longer exist. Nothing is known about their disappearance or
their present location....

...9. When the anatomic landmarks from the skull X-rays are integrated with similar
landmarks from 3D viewing of the mystery photographs of the large skull defect a clear
conclusion emerges: the large skull defect must lie at the right rear—in striking agreement
with virtually all of the Parkland and Bethesda medical personnel. (Because the b & w
images (# 17, 18) are cropped, the color images (# 44, 45) are essential for this exercise....

13. As viewed at NARA, CE 843, the larger metal fragment supposedly removed from
the skull, is pancake shaped and 3 x 2 x 2 mm. This is in conspicuous contrast to its
appearance on the skull X-rays--where it is more nearly linear at 7 x 2 x 2 mm. No tests
performed on this fragment can explain its odd transformation in shape and size, nor has
42 any official explanation ever been advanced for its current, and dramatically different,
shape. Visit # 9 (12 April 2001)

None of the prior conclusions are changed; on the contrary, they are reinforced.

14. There are remarkably many, tiny metal fragments widely scattered on the skull X-
rays--even on the left side and on the inferior skull, including at least four near the chin on
the frontal X-ray. This remarkable, and heretofore ignored, observation is hardly
compatible with the passage of a single, full metal-jacketed, Mannlicher-Carcano bullet
near the top of the skull, but might more easily have resulted from a hollow point or
mercury bullet—or perhaps even from shrapnel from a bullet that was not counted by the
Warren Commission.

15. All three skull X-rays show a (spatially consistent) fuzzy, gray cloud within the
fragment trail that extends across the top of the skull; this fuzzy cloud seems more
consistent with mercury (extruded from a bullet) rather than lead. I am, however,
unaware of any existing experiment with mercury bullets shot into skulls that could test
this conclusion; this should therefore be viewed instead as a hypothesis ripe for
experiment....

...20. The most important conclusion from day # 9 is this: the left, lateral skull X-ray must
be a copy. The supporting evidence for this is totally new, simple, and straightforward.
Since we now know, beyond any doubt, that at least this one extant skull X-ray must be a
copy, several elementary questions immediately arise: (a) Where is the original? (b) Why
is there no documentation for the missing original? (c) Why was the film copied at all? (d)
Why is there no record of its copying? (e) Who copied it? (f) Why have all of the official
panels, and NARA, too, insisted to the present day that all of the X-rays are originals and
that none are copies? (g) Finally, and most importantly, was it copied in order to alter the
image?

Evidence for the New Conclusions

14. These fragments are obvious to the unaided eye on close inspection. Since direct
copying from the X-rays is not permitted, I employed an alternate technique to locate and
to sketch all of these metal fragments. I first placed a transparent piece of graph paper
over an X-ray; immediately adjacent to this (on a light box) I placed an identical, but
opaque, piece of graph paper. I then located each metal fragment in two dimensions on the
transparent graph paper overlying the X-ray; after finding the same site on the opaque
graph paper, I outlined each fragment’s size and shape with good precision.

15. This fuzzy cloud looks quite different from the obviously metallic fragments: (a) it
appears translucent rather than transparent, (b) it is very large compared to the
fragments, and (c) it has ill-defined, sometimes almost invisible, borders...

...20. On the left, lateral skull X-ray, just anterior to the cervical spine (see enclosed
image) is an apparently hand drawn inscription, not previously discussed by me —or by
anyone else. It looks like an upper case letter T, lying on its side, with a slight separation
between the two perpendicular strokes. It is the only hand drawn symbol that I could find
on any of the three skull extant X-rays. This inscription is quite transparent, as if emulsion
had been removed from one side of the film. In fact, small black traces, suggesting residual
islands of emulsion in a sea of gray, are still visible. OD measurements support this
conclusion of missing emulsion from one side: ODs inside the inscription are 1.05, 1.44,
1.42, 0.92, and 1.42, yielding an average value of 1.25; ODs just outside are 2.29, 2.44, 2.37,
2.44, and 2.43, yielding an average value of 2.39. The ratio of 2.39/1.25 = 1.91, being a little
less than two, is precisely what would be expected for emulsion missing from one side.
By way of comparison, at one edge of this same film, emulsion has obviously peeled up
from one side of the film; short segments of this detached layer are obvious to the unaided
eye. Furthermore, where emulsion has completely separated, the shiny plastic film base is
easy to see. As would be expected, light transmission is greater through this single
emulsion site. That the emulsion is still intact at this same site on the other side of this
double emulsion film is also obvious.

Now if emulsion is truly missing from one side where this hand drawn inscription
appears, then the interruption of the emulsion surface should be easily visible to the
unaided eye (like paint scraped off an oil painting). Here then is the chief discovery of this
ninth visit: no emulsion is missing! Even when the emulsion is closely inspected—using
reflected light glancing off the surface at a wide range of angles--the emulsion appears
entirely intact over this site on both sides of the film. Both surfaces are as slick and smooth
as a freshly iced hockey rink. Emulsion is neither missing nor disrupted in any way. 2
Only one explanation is possible --this left, lateral skull X-ray is a copy. The reason, of
course, is that the emulsion of a copy film would be fully intact, yet at the same time it
would faithfully record any areas of increased transmission (i.e., missing emulsion) from
the original. A simpler--or more straightforward--proof of film copying is unimaginable.3
One final comment seems pertinent. Two other odd features of this particular left,
lateral skull X-ray are: (a) there are no Kodak identification numbers anywhere on it and
(b) this film has never appeared in any publication. It can only be seen at NARA.

"THE JFK AUTOPSY MATERIALS: TWENTY CONCLUSIONS AFTER NINE VISITS"

David W. Mantik, M.D., Ph.D.

https://assassinationresearch.com/v2n2/pittsburgh.pdf

[Editor’s note: This is an expanded and revised version of a presentation for “Solving the Great American Murder Mystery” Symposium, which was held at Duquesne University 20-23 November 2003. The speaker, who is the leading student of the death of JFK in the world today, has elaborated on the formal paper that he submitted on that occasion for its appearance in this journal, while preserving the sequence of figures and photographs. The formal paper appears following this informal version as an appendix.]

Sandy Larsen · January 24

1 hour ago, Pat Speer said:

Holy moly! Let's get this straight!

Yes, I may have overstated what Custer said about the cassette. He may or may not have said he wouldn't put the brain down on the cassette. I don't have all the interviews with him handy, so I can't say for sure. But that's immaterial. Are you really unable to see that?

Custer specified in his ARRB testimony that the back of the head was NOT blown out.

He created a drawing for them showing that it was NOT blown out.

And he said he took the x-rays which you and I agree do NOT depict a blow out wound on the back of the head.

And yet, Keven is telling both of us--actually everyone who reads this website--that Custer was lying when he said the back of the head was NOT blown out, and that, furthermore, the x-rays taken by him DO show the back of the head to be missing...only neither Custer nor the rest of us can see it.

Now I know that sounds like nonsense...and it is...

But it's not my nonsense. Sprinkled amidst his attacks on me, Keven has indicated that he is a devotee of David Mantik's. Well, Mantik says the far back of the head on the x-rays show missing bone that can only be detected by one using his special device, and that the numerous doctors and x-ray techs, including Custer, who dispute this, are just wrong, seeing as they never used his special device. (IOW, junk science in a nut-shell.)

And Custer is of special interest to Mantik because Mantik once showed him a cropped and computer-enhanced x-ray published by the HSCA, and Custer disavowed this x-ray. Ooh...Exciting... Years later, after being shown the originals by the ARRB, however, Custer said he recognized these x-rays as x-rays he'd taken, and vouched for their authenticity. Well, that must have stung Mantik a bit. Perhaps more than a bit. Because Mantik continued (and maybe even continues) telling his audience that Custer had disavowed the x-rays, without telling them that Oh yeah Custer embraced the x-rays as x-rays he'd taken once shown the originals.

While it is the case that Keven presented a video of Custer saying (in 1988 for KRON TV) that the back of the head was gone, I see now that Keven didn't challenge you on that. My bad.

But he is right on the parts of what you said that he did challenge. Since you say those points are immaterial, why didn't you just admit that you misspoke or incorrectly remembered?

Greg Doudna · January 25

Boswell explains why the BOH photograph is authentic but the Parkland witnesses were not wrong in what they said they saw

Boswell said there was gaping wound in the back of the head, and that the BOH photograph was genuine and unaltered, at the same time, because a flap of scalp had been pulled up over missing bone underneath to cover the wound. In his AARB testimony Boswell said he was one of the hands in that photo pulling scalp up to cover the large defect in the back of the head. In the case of the photo of the upper back wound, Boswell said the reason they pulled the scalp up was because if they had not, the scalp would have fallen the other way, like a flap, covering the area they wanted to photograph.

This is not John Canal's explanation of the BOH photograph representing post-autopsy embalmers' work. No, Boswell said the BOH photographs were taken during the autopsy (and I think I remember Boswell saying it occurred early in the autopsy).

This is Boswell saying the autopsists themselves, i.e. himself, pulled loose scalp up in that BOH photo (and in the rear upper-back wound photo). It looks like no gaping wound in the back of the head but Boswell said there was missing bone underneath, which would have been visible if they (Boswell and the others doing the autopsy) had not pulled that flap of scalp with hair still on it which covered it.

This is not some theory of what might have happened. This is one of the autopsists themselves saying that is what happened, resolving the apparent contradiction, in a manner that does not involve photo alteration.

Paul Seaton has discussed this and has added this further bit of interpretation: Seaton says the so-called cowlick "entrance hole" (the Ida Dox drawn hole) appearing to be in the cowlick area in the BOH photograph actually is the scalp entrance wound of the autopsists near the EOP and it was where the autopsists said it was, lower not at the cowlick. Seaton says the "cowlick" hole in the BOH photo is illusorily higher than it actually was because the scalp with the real hole in it was being pulled upward. The position in the BOH photo of that bullet hole in the scalp does not reflect its lower true location in the bone of the head. Seaton thinks the autopsists' near-EOP location of that bullet hole was correct, not the higher "cowlick" entry location of the later panels; Seaton says there never was any bullet hole in the bone at the cowlick area, and says pulling of the scalp flap upward is the explanation for that apparent discrepancy without invoking photo alteration in the BOH photo.

Pat Speer, I have searched on your site (under search terms Seaton, and Boswell) and do not see where you discuss this particular explanation given by Boswell for accepting both the rear-of-the-head wound witness reports and the authenticity of the BOH photos without alteration.

All the others here who think without question the BOH photo was altered intentionally and deceptively to cover up visible wound in the back of the head, I also do not see have addressed this testimony of Boswell on this matter, or the Paul Seaton supplementary argument on this matter. Paul Seaton's analysis is here: https://paulseaton.com/jfk/boh/parkland_boh/parkland_wound.htm. Boswell's AARB testimony is here: https://www.jfk-assassination.net/russ/testimony/boswella.htm.

Both sides, please address. Thanks.

~ ~ ~

Here is Boswell (copied from the Seaton page link):

" But the scalp was lacerated, & a pretty good sized piece of the frontal
& right occipital portion of the skull had separated and were stuck to
the undersurface of the scalp. " (Boswell, interviewed by Livingstone, High Treason 2, p196)

Q So you're saying that on the fourth view,
which are the photographs that are in your hand
right now, the scalp has been pulled back and
folded back over the top of the head in a way
different from the way that they appeared in the
third view, the superior view of the head?

A Yes.

Q Is that fair?

A In the previous one, it was permitted just
to drop. In this one, it's pulled forward up over
the forehead, toward the forehead.

Q Who, if you recall, pulled up the scalp
for the photograph to be taken?

[Colour autopsy photo. The yellow hashed area marks the approximate location of the skull defect according to a skull Boswell marked for the ARRB ]

A There are about three of us involved here,
because there are two right hands on that
centimeter scale. I think that I probably was
pulling the scalp up.

(Boswell ARRB)

" Well, this was an attempt to illustrate the magnitude of the
wound again. And as you can see it’s 10 centimeters from right to left, 17 centi-
meters from posterior to anterior. This was a piece of 10 centimeter bone that
was fractured off of the skull and was attached to the under surface of the skull. . . There were fragments attached to the skull or to the scalp and all the three
major flaps." (Boswell, interviewed by the HSCA FPP)

Boswell is explicit that the skull is missing beneath the scalp in the autopsy picture, above :

Q ...Now I'd like to ask you a question
about what is underneath the scalp of what we are
looking at now. Let's take the marking that
appears towards the hairline right at the base of
the neck, or where the hairline meets the neck. If
we take the point above that, where would you say
that the scalp is or that the skull will be missing
underneath the scalp that we can view there?

A Probably right about here.

Q So you're--

A Just about the base of the ear.

Q So you're pointing to approximately
halfway up the ruler that we can observe and to the
right of that small fragment, so the skull is
missing--

A Right.

(Boswell ARRB)

Edited January 25 by Greg Doudna

Pat Speer · January 25

19 minutes ago, Greg Doudna said:

Boswell explains why the BOH photograph is authentic but the Parkland witnesses were not wrong in what they said they saw

Boswell said there was gaping wound in the back of the head, and that the BOH photograph was genuine and unaltered, at the same time, because a flap of scalp had been pulled up over missing bone underneath to cover the wound. In his AARB testimony Boswell said he was one of the hands in that photo pulling scalp up to cover the large defect in the back of the head. In the case of the photo of the upper back wound, Boswell said the reason they pulled the scalp up was because if they had not, the scalp would have fallen the other way, like a flap, covering the area they wanted to photograph.

This is not John Canal's explanation of the BOH photograph representing post-autopsy embalmers' work. No, Boswell said the BOH photographs were taken during the autopsy (and I think I remember Boswell saying it occurred early in the autopsy).

This is Boswell saying the autopsists themselves, i.e. himself, pulled loose scalp up in that BOH photo (and in the rear upper-back wound photo). It looks like no gaping wound in the back of the head but Boswell said there was missing bone underneath, which would have been visible if they (Boswell and the others doing the autopsy) had not pulled that flap of scalp with hair still on it which covered it.

This is not some theory of what might have happened. This is one of the autopsists themselves saying that is what happened, resolving the apparent contradiction, in a manner that does not involve photo alteration.

Paul Seaton has discussed this and has added this further bit of interpretation: Seaton says the so-called cowlick "entrance hole" (the Ida Dox drawn hole) appearing to be in the cowlick area in the BOH photograph actually is the scalp entrance wound of the autopsists near the EOP and it was where the autopsists said it was, lower not at the cowlick. Seaton says the "cowlick" hole in the BOH photo is illusorily higher than it actually was because the scalp with the real hole in it was being pulled upward. The position in the BOH photo of that entrance wound in the scalp does not reflect its lower true location in the bone of the head. Seaton thinks the autopsists' near-EOP location of the entrance bullet wound was correct, not the higher "cowlick" entry location of the later panels; Seaton says there never was any hole in the bone at the cowlick area, and says pulling of the scalp flap upward is the explanation for that apparent discrepancy without invoking photo alteration in the BOH photo.

Pat Speer, I have searched on your site (under search terms Seaton, and Boswell) and do not see where you discuss this particular explanation given by Boswell for accepting both the rear-of-the-head wound witness reports and the authenticity of the BOH photos without alteration.

All the others here who think without question the BOH photo was altered intentionally and deceptively to cover up visible wound in the back of the head, I also do not see have addressed this testimony of Boswell on this matter, or the Paul Seaton supplementary argument on this matter. Paul Seaton's analysis is here: https://paulseaton.com/jfk/boh/parkland_boh/parkland_wound.htm.

Both sides, please address. Thanks.

~ ~ ~

Here is Boswell (copied from the Seaton page link):

" But the scalp was lacerated, & a pretty good sized piece of the frontal
& right occipital portion of the skull had separated and were stuck to
the undersurface of the scalp. " (Boswell, interviewed by Livingstone, High Treason 2, p196)

Q So you're saying that on the fourth view,
which are the photographs that are in your hand
right now, the scalp has been pulled back and
folded back over the top of the head in a way
different from the way that they appeared in the
third view, the superior view of the head?

A Yes.

Q Is that fair?

A In the previous one, it was permitted just
to drop. In this one, it's pulled forward up over
the forehead, toward the forehead.

Q Who, if you recall, pulled up the scalp
for the photograph to be taken?

[Colour autopsy photo. The yellow hashed area marks the approximate location of the skull defect according to a skull Boswell marked for the ARRB ]

A There are about three of us involved here,
because there are two right hands on that
centimeter scale. I think that I probably was
pulling the scalp up.

(Boswell ARRB)

" Well, this was an attempt to illustrate the magnitude of the
wound again. And as you can see it’s 10 centimeters from right to left, 17 centi-
meters from posterior to anterior. This was a piece of 10 centimeter bone that
was fractured off of the skull and was attached to the under surface of the skull. . . There were fragments attached to the skull or to the scalp and all the three
major flaps." (Boswell, interviewed by the HSCA FPP)

Boswell is explicit that the skull is missing beneath the scalp in the autopsy picture, above :

Q ...Now I'd like to ask you a question
about what is underneath the scalp of what we are
looking at now. Let's take the marking that
appears towards the hairline right at the base of
the neck, or where the hairline meets the neck. If
we take the point above that, where would you say
that the scalp is or that the skull will be missing
underneath the scalp that we can view there?

A Probably right about here.

Q So you're--

A Just about the base of the ear.

Q So you're pointing to approximately
halfway up the ruler that we can observe and to the
right of that small fragment, so the skull is
missing--

A Right.

(Boswell ARRB)

FWIW, Greg, I found a lighter version of the back wound photo in which the skull defect can be seen, and in which no one is pulling the flap forward. This shows that yessiree the defect stretched to the top of the back of the head. As this flap would have been open while JFK was on his back with his feet in the air at Parkland, moreover, it only makes sense that those viewing it would think it went further back than it did.

But, as you can see, it still went back pretty far, and is consistent with what many of so-callled back of the head witnesses remembered.

image.png.093087ed4e536497b297f3ac9c97534d.png

Keven Hofeling · January 25

1 hour ago, Greg Doudna said:

Boswell explains why the BOH photograph is authentic but the Parkland witnesses were not wrong in what they said they saw

Boswell said there was gaping wound in the back of the head, and that the BOH photograph was genuine and unaltered, at the same time, because a flap of scalp had been pulled up over missing bone underneath to cover the wound. In his AARB testimony Boswell said he was one of the hands in that photo pulling scalp up to cover the large defect in the back of the head. In the case of the photo of the upper back wound, Boswell said the reason they pulled the scalp up was because if they had not, the scalp would have fallen the other way, like a flap, covering the area they wanted to photograph.

This is not John Canal's explanation of the BOH photograph representing post-autopsy embalmers' work. No, Boswell said the BOH photographs were taken during the autopsy (and I think I remember Boswell saying it occurred early in the autopsy).

This is Boswell saying the autopsists themselves, i.e. himself, pulled loose scalp up in that BOH photo (and in the rear upper-back wound photo). It looks like no gaping wound in the back of the head but Boswell said there was missing bone underneath, which would have been visible if they (Boswell and the others doing the autopsy) had not pulled that flap of scalp with hair still on it which covered it.

This is not some theory of what might have happened. This is one of the autopsists themselves saying that is what happened, resolving the apparent contradiction, in a manner that does not involve photo alteration.

Paul Seaton has discussed this and has added this further bit of interpretation: Seaton says the so-called cowlick "entrance hole" (the Ida Dox drawn hole) appearing to be in the cowlick area in the BOH photograph actually is the scalp entrance wound of the autopsists near the EOP and it was where the autopsists said it was, lower not at the cowlick. Seaton says the "cowlick" hole in the BOH photo is illusorily higher than it actually was because the scalp with the real hole in it was being pulled upward. The position in the BOH photo of that entrance wound in the scalp does not reflect its lower true location in the bone of the head. Seaton thinks the autopsists' near-EOP location of the entrance bullet wound was correct, not the higher "cowlick" entry location of the later panels; Seaton says there never was any hole in the bone at the cowlick area, and says pulling of the scalp flap upward is the explanation for that apparent discrepancy without invoking photo alteration in the BOH photo.

Pat Speer, I have searched on your site (under search terms Seaton, and Boswell) and do not see where you discuss this particular explanation given by Boswell for accepting both the rear-of-the-head wound witness reports and the authenticity of the BOH photos without alteration.

All the others here who think without question the BOH photo was altered intentionally and deceptively to cover up visible wound in the back of the head, I also do not see have addressed this testimony of Boswell on this matter, or the Paul Seaton supplementary argument on this matter. Paul Seaton's analysis is here: https://paulseaton.com/jfk/boh/parkland_boh/parkland_wound.htm.

Both sides, please address. Thanks.

~ ~ ~

Here is Boswell (copied from the Seaton page link):

" But the scalp was lacerated, & a pretty good sized piece of the frontal
& right occipital portion of the skull had separated and were stuck to
the undersurface of the scalp. " (Boswell, interviewed by Livingstone, High Treason 2, p196)

Q So you're saying that on the fourth view,
which are the photographs that are in your hand
right now, the scalp has been pulled back and
folded back over the top of the head in a way
different from the way that they appeared in the
third view, the superior view of the head?

A Yes.

Q Is that fair?

A In the previous one, it was permitted just
to drop. In this one, it's pulled forward up over
the forehead, toward the forehead.

Q Who, if you recall, pulled up the scalp
for the photograph to be taken?

[Colour autopsy photo. The yellow hashed area marks the approximate location of the skull defect according to a skull Boswell marked for the ARRB ]

A There are about three of us involved here,
because there are two right hands on that
centimeter scale. I think that I probably was
pulling the scalp up.

(Boswell ARRB)

" Well, this was an attempt to illustrate the magnitude of the
wound again. And as you can see it’s 10 centimeters from right to left, 17 centi-
meters from posterior to anterior. This was a piece of 10 centimeter bone that
was fractured off of the skull and was attached to the under surface of the skull. . . There were fragments attached to the skull or to the scalp and all the three
major flaps." (Boswell, interviewed by the HSCA FPP)

Boswell is explicit that the skull is missing beneath the scalp in the autopsy picture, above :

Q ...Now I'd like to ask you a question
about what is underneath the scalp of what we are
looking at now. Let's take the marking that
appears towards the hairline right at the base of
the neck, or where the hairline meets the neck. If
we take the point above that, where would you say
that the scalp is or that the skull will be missing
underneath the scalp that we can view there?

A Probably right about here.

Q So you're--

A Just about the base of the ear.

Q So you're pointing to approximately
halfway up the ruler that we can observe and to the
right of that small fragment, so the skull is
missing--

A Right.

(Boswell ARRB)

Personally, I don't believe J. Thornton Boswell's explanation of the back-of-the-head autopsy photographs. Mostly because it's not consistent with the testimony of the BOH witnesses, none of whom reported a huge segment of detached scalp at the back of JFK's head, but also because I once had a client who was a second-year med intern who had an interest in the JFKA and discussed that particular Boswell testimony with me. He had experience with cadavers and gunshot wounds, and told me that anybody that believes we are looking at a grapefruit sized piece of scalp being held up in those BOH photographs must be suffering from magical thinking because broken heads don't look perfectly intact the way JFK's head looks in those photographs. He said "it's just not credible."

But if I were inclined to believe it, it would cause me to see the testimony of Dr. McClelland in the video below in a different light. However, I think McClelland was, like the other Parkland doctors in the PBS Nova episode "Who Killed President Kennedy," just concerned about his professional reputation when confronted with the original autopsy photographs, and didn't want to be pilloried as the "lone conspiracy doctor."

I suspect that what was going on with Boswell and Humes is that they were told by some higher up, perhaps even LBJ himself, that the Cubans and Soviets were behind the assassination and that the lives of forty million Americans -- who would die in a nuclear war if the American public were to find out -- rested in their hands, and in their ability to convince the public with their Autopsy Report that President Kennedy had been assassinated by a lone gunman shooting from behind.

It was by the use of this exact story that LBJ enlisted Senator Richard Russell and Chief Justice Earl Warren onto the Warren Commission:

__________

'LBJ-Russell 11-29-63, 2nd call'

This fascinating conversation between President Johnson and his old mentor Senator Richard Russell is very revealing. Johnson begins by reading to Russell the announcement of the formation of the President's Commission to study the assassination, to which he has named Russell. Not realizing that it's a done deal, Russell complains that he "couldn't serve on it with Chief Justice Warren--I don't like that man" and pleads with Johnson to reconsider. LBJ tells him that "Dick, it's already been announced and you can serve with anybody for the good of America, and this is a question that has a good many more ramifications than on the surface and we've got to take this out of the arena where they're testifying that Khruschev and Castro did this and did that and kicking us into a war that can kill 40 million Americans in an hour."

Toward the end of the conversation, Johnson re-invokes the image of 40 million Americans killed in a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union, and then tells Russell how he got Warren to serve on the Commission. After Warren refused several times, Johnson called him to the Oval Office and told him "what Hoover told me about a little incident in Mexico City," whereupon Warren began crying and told Johnson "well I won't turn you down, I'll just do whatever you say."

https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/lbjlib/phone_calls/Nov_1963/audio/LBJ-Russell_11-29-63_2nd.htm

Edited January 25 by Keven Hofeling

Pat Speer · January 25

6 minutes ago, Keven Hofeling said:

Personally, I don't believe J. Thornton Boswell's explanation of the back-of-the-head autopsy photographs. Mostly because it's not consistent with the testimony of the BOH witnesses, none of whom reported a huge segment of detached scalp at the back of JFK's head, but also because I once had a client who was a second-year med intern who had an interest in the JFKA and discussed that particular Boswell testimony with me. He had experience with cadavers and gunshot wounds, and told me that anybody that believes we are looking at a grapefruit sized piece of scalp being held up in those BOH photographs must be suffering from magical thinking because broken heads don't look perfectly intact the way JFK's head looks in those photographs. He said "it's just not credible."

But if I were inclined to believe it, it would cause me to see the testimony of Dr. McClelland in the video below in a different light. However, I think McClelland was, like the other Parkland doctors in the PBS Nova episode "Who Killed President Kennedy," just concerned about his professional reputation when confronted with the original autopsy photographs, and didn't want to be pilloried as the "lone conspiracy doctor."

I suspect that what was going on with Boswell and Humes is that they were told by some higher up, perhaps even LBJ himself, that the Cubans and Soviets were behind the assassination and that the lives of forty million Americans -- who would die in a nuclear war if the American public were to find out -- rested in their hands, and in their ability to convince the public with their Autopsy Report that President Kennedy had been assassinated by a lone gunman shooting from behind.

It was by the use of this exact story that LBJ enlisted Senator Richard Russell and Chief Justice Earl Warren onto the Warren Commission:

__________

'LBJ-Russell 11-29-63, 2nd call'

This fascinating conversation between President Johnson and his old mentor Senator Richard Russell is very revealing. Johnson begins by reading to Russell the announcement of the formation of the President's Commission to study the assassination, to which he has named Russell. Not realizing that it's a done deal, Russell complains that he "couldn't serve on it with Chief Justice Warren--I don't like that man" and pleads with Johnson to reconsider. LBJ tells him that "Dick, it's already been announced and you can serve with anybody for the good of America, and this is a question that has a good many more ramifications than on the surface and we've got to take this out of the arena where they're testifying that Khruschev and Castro did this and did that and kicking us into a war that can kill 40 million Americans in an hour."

Toward the end of the conversation, Johnson re-invokes the image of 40 million Americans killed in a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union, and then tells Russell how he got Warren to serve on the Commission. After Warren refused several times, Johnson called him to the Oval Office and told him "what Hoover told me about a little incident in Mexico City," whereupon Warren began crying and told Johnson "well I won't turn you down, I'll just do whatever you say."

https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/lbjlib/phone_calls/Nov_1963/audio/LBJ-Russell_11-29-63_2nd.htm

Oh my! Keven and I agree on something!

Yes, even an hours worth of reading about wound ballistics will show you that the scalp does not sag at exit, where it can be pulled back up to cover a large hole on the skull. Now, could scalp be torn at exit, and the flaps be replaced to conceal this exit? Yep. But that's not what happened here. Both Clark and the autopsists insisted the large defect was a defect of both scalp and skull. So, no, McClelland's and Boswell's latter-day claims scalp was pulled up to cover a large defect on the back of the head is just wrong.

But they were on the right track. As shown in my last post, the skull defect in the back wound photo extends two inches or so further back than one would guess from looking at the back of the head photos in isolation. There was a flap at the top of the head, that was pulled up for the back of the head photos, and this gives the incorrect impression the skull was intact where the fingers are gripping the flap, when it was not.

Tom Gram · January 25

2 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

Oh my! Keven and I agree on something!

Yes, even an hours worth of reading about wound ballistics will show you that the scalp does not sag at exit, where it can be pulled back up to cover a large hole on the skull. Now, could scalp be torn at exit, and the flaps be replaced to conceal this exit? Yep. But that's not what happened here. Both Clark and the autopsists insisted the large defect was a defect of both scalp and skull. So, no, McClelland's and Boswell's latter-day claims scalp was pulled up to cover a large defect on the back of the head is just wrong.

But they were on the right track. As shown in my last post, the skull defect in the back wound photo extends two inches or so further back than one would guess from looking at the back of the head photos in isolation. There was a flap at the top of the head, that was pulled up for the back of the head photos, and this gives the incorrect impression the skull was intact where the fingers are gripping the flap, when it was not.

This is one I don’t really understand the controversy on. As discussed in Boswell’s ARRB deposition, the top-of-head photos show the scalp flaps open and hanging down/to the side. The back of head photo shows the same area of the head, with the scalp flaps closed and pulled forward…

Also, do you think Humes was lying to Gunn when he said the amount of actual missing scalp was only 3-5cm, but it was hard to tell, and that it was possible to pretty much cover the entire wound by closing up the “stellate” scalp tears? Is Humes’ latter day recollection not supported by the top of head photo, which basically shows exactly what Humes described: a large wound surrounded by scalp flaps of roughly the same combined area of the wound open in three directions?

Edited January 25 by Tom Gram

Pat Speer · January 25

1 hour ago, Tom Gram said:

This is one I don’t really understand the controversy on. As discussed in Boswell’s ARRB deposition, the top-of-head photos show the scalp flaps open and hanging down/to the side. The back of head photo shows the same area of the head, with the scalp flaps closed and pulled forward…

Also, do you think Humes was lying to Gunn when he said the amount of actual missing scalp was only 3-5cm, but it was hard to tell, and that it was possible to pretty much cover the entire wound by closing up the “stellate” scalp tears? Is Humes’ latter day recollection not supported by the top of head photo, which basically shows exactly what Humes described: a large wound surrounded by scalp flaps of roughly the same combined area of the wound open in three directions?

Pardon my quoting my website, Tom, but I tried to remember something the other day off the top of my head, and didn't get it quite right, and was attacked by people who spew nonsense all day long.

From chapter 16b:

Some things are best defined by what they're missing. Accordingly, the evidence that ultimately convinced me the large head wound was tangential in nature was something that was missing: scalp.

The autopsy protocol describes Kennedy’s large head wound as follows: “There is a large irregular defect of the scalp and skull on the right involving chiefly the parietal bone but extending somewhat into the temporal and occipital regions. In this region there is an actual absence of scalp and bone producing a defect which measures approximately 13 cm in greatest diameter.” And this wasn't a one-time claim. In his 3-16-64 testimony before the Warren Commission, Dr. Humes repeated his claim that scalp was missing. He testified that 1) the large "defect involved both the scalp and the underlying skull...;" 2) "there was a defect in the scalp and some scalp tissue was not available;" and 3) that the largest part of the bullet which broke up on impact "accounted for this very large defect, for the multiple fractures of the skull, and for the loss of brain and scalp tissue..."

There can be no doubt then that Dr. Humes felt scalp was missing, and that Dr.s Boswell and Finck agreed. Or, at least agreed enough to sign the autopsy protocol in which it was described...

But there's more to this missing scalp than one might suspect...

Medicolegal Investigation of Death addresses missing scalp as follows: “A point frequently ignored, or forgotten, in comparing entrance and exit wounds is that approximation of the edges of an entrance wound usually retains a small central defect, a missing area of skin. On the other hand, approximation of the edges of the exit re-establishes the skin’s integrity.” The authors of Medicolegal Investigation of Death were Dr. Russell Fisher, of the Clark Panel, and Dr. Werner Spitz, of the HSCA Forensic Pathology Panel. The pathology panel’s report was most likely accommodating Spitz, then, when it critiqued the autopsy report’s description as follows: “It is probably misleading in the sense that it describes “an actual absence of skin and bone. The scalp was probably virtually all present, but torn and displaced…”

Uhh, no... This last line, disturbingly, ignores that Dr. William Kemp Clark, the one Parkland doctor to closely inspect Kennedy’s head wound, shared the observations of the autopsists, and independently observed “There was considerable loss of scalp and bone tissue” in a summary of the reports written by the Parkland staff on the day of the shooting. (Wasn’t this required reading?)

Still, Dr. Clark was but one doctor...

Well, this line in the Panel's report (the one claiming JFK's scalp was "probably virtually all present") also ignores that Dr. Malcolm Perry, the doctor most intimately involved in the efforts to revive Kennedy at Parkland, similarly claimed that "both scalp and portions of skull were absent" when testifying before the Warren Commission on 3-30-64.

And it also ignores that Dr. James Carrico, the first doctor to inspect Kennedy's wounds at Parkland, confirmed Clark's and Perry's accounts to the HSCA's investigators on 1-11-78. He told them that the large head wound "had blood and hair all around it." All around it, and not above it. And should one suppose Carrico thought the scalp attached to this hair could be pulled back over the wound, he clarified his position on this, once and for all, in an 8-2-97 oral history with the Sixth Floor Museum, when he described the right side of Kennedy's head as having "a big chunk of bone and scalp missing."

And that's not even to mention the witnesses claiming to see this hairy scalp on bone left in the limousine...

On 11-30-63, Secret Service Agent Clint Hill, who'd climbed onto the back of Kennedy's limo just after the fatal shot was fired, wrote a report that included an often-overlooked detail. He wrote: "As I lay over the top of the back seat I noticed a portion of the President's head on the right rear side was missing and he was bleeding profusely. Part of his brain was gone. I saw a part of his skull with hair on it lieing in the seat."

And Hill wasn't the only one to see this hairy fragment. Motorcycle Officer Bobby Joe Dale arrived upon the scene just as the President's body was rushed into the emergency room. He failed to get a look at the President. He did, however, get a look at the back seat of the limo. Here's what he told Larry Sneed, as published in No More Silence (1998): "Blood and matter was everywhere inside the car including a bone fragment which was oblong shaped, probably an inch to an inch and a half long by three-quarters of an inch wide. As I turned it over and looked at it, I determined that it came from some part of the forehead because there was hair on it which appeared to be near the hairline."

And Dale wasn't the only motorcycle officer to make such a statement. When interviewed for the 2008 Discovery Channel program Inside the Target Car, H.B. McClain related: "When I raised her up (he means Mrs. Kennedy)...I could see it on the floor. That's pieces of skull with the hair on it."

So what happened to this hairy fragment, you might ask? Well, it's tough to say. Secret Service Agent Sam Kinney retrieved a large skull fragment from the limousine as it was flown back from Dallas, but never described this fragment as being covered with hair.

And there's this. When interviewed for No More Silence (1998), FBI agent Vincent Drain, who arrived at Parkland within a half hour or so of the shooting, told Larry Sneed: "It may have been the security officer or one of the other officers who gave me a portion of the skull which was about the size of a teacup, much larger than a silver dollar. Apparently the explosion had jerked it because the hair was still on it. I carried that back to Washington later that night and turned it over to the FBI laboratory."

(Drain's account is curious,to say the least, as he arrived in Washington after the conclusion of the autopsy and there is no record whatsoever of a relatively large bone fragment arriving at the laboratory on the 23rd.)

In any event... at least one skull fragment had hair on it. This fragment could not have come from the small entrance wound on the back of the head, and must have come from the large defect on the top of the head.

This marked the large defect as an entrance, or more logically, a tangential wound of both entrance and exit.

Michael Griffith · January 26

On 1/23/2024 at 9:55 PM, Pat Speer said:

Not exactly. Mantik says they are JFK's x-rays, but says further that in his analysis they have been altered. But not in the way you'd expect. He says the far back of the head on the x-rays, which everyone else to study them thinks proves the back of the head to be intact, actually show a massive hole, that only he has been able to discover.

Now, a number of prominent researchers accept Mantik's findings about the OD ratings being too high for the white patch, or too high for the supposed 6-5 mm fragment, but I'm not aware of anyone with any credibility buying into his claim the back of the head is missing on the x-rays. Are you?

Uh, yes: Dr. Michael Chesser, a board-certified neurologist with over 30 years of experience and a former professor of neurology. Dr. Chesser took his own OD measurements on the JFK skull x-rays, including a premortem skull x-ray. Dr. Chesser agrees that the autopsy skull x-rays indicate missing occipital bone. He also agrees with Dr. Mantik's orientation of autopsy photo F8, i.e., that it shows part of a sizable defect in the occipital bone. In addition, he agrees that the white patch is clear proof of alteration.

JFK Autopsy X-rays Proved Fraudulent | Assassination of JFK

Reviewing the Autopsy X-Rays – The Future of Freedom Foundation (fff.org)

Sandy Larsen · January 26

2 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

Uh, yes: Dr. Michael Chesser, a board-certified neurologist with over 30 years of experience and a former professor of neurology. Dr. Chesser took his own OD measurements on the JFK skull x-rays, including a premortem skull x-ray. Dr. Chesser agrees that the autopsy skull x-rays indicate missing occipital bone. He also agrees with Dr. Mantik's orientation of autopsy photo F8, i.e., that it shows part of a sizable defect in the occipital bone. In addition, he agrees that the white patch is clear proof of alteration.

JFK Autopsy X-rays Proved Fraudulent | Assassination of JFK

Reviewing the Autopsy X-Rays – The Future of Freedom Foundation (fff.org)

Michael,

Do you know if Dr. Chesser agrees with Dr. Mantik's occipital placement of the Harper fragment?

Pat Speer · January 26

4 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

Uh, yes: Dr. Michael Chesser, a board-certified neurologist with over 30 years of experience and a former professor of neurology. Dr. Chesser took his own OD measurements on the JFK skull x-rays, including a premortem skull x-ray. Dr. Chesser agrees that the autopsy skull x-rays indicate missing occipital bone. He also agrees with Dr. Mantik's orientation of autopsy photo F8, i.e., that it shows part of a sizable defect in the occipital bone. In addition, he agrees that the white patch is clear proof of alteration.

JFK Autopsy X-rays Proved Fraudulent | Assassination of JFK

Reviewing the Autopsy X-Rays – The Future of Freedom Foundation (fff.org)

I rest my case. Mantik was desperate for support, and he found some with Chesser, a nice guy, but not an expert in the field. So Chesser is of course then propped up as an expert.

We see this all the time. Fetzer, as you know, pushed that David's background qualified him as an expert on all things sciencey, including the Zapruder film, when trying to dismiss the Zapruder film. His efforts largely failed, in part because David ended up pushing stuff like Moorman was really in the street, etc.

If you read about junk science, moreover, you'll see that having experts or relative experts in one field function as experts in an only tangentially related field is a common sign of junk science. Pretty much a Stop sign. Now, to be clear, I'm not claiming the use of OD to study x-rays is junk science, but using it in the manner David did sure looks like it. He failed to use x-rays of similar wounds performed on similar machines as a control, for instance. And there's even a question of how many controls he studied.

Now, I know David wanted Fitzpatrick, a forensic radiologist, to confirm his views, but he refused. Which, believe it or not, I don't think means all that much. Kuhns' book on scientific revolutions proved that experts rarely embrace new claims until they become old claims. So maybe it will come to pass that the use of OD by forensic radiologists does become the standard.

But, even then, his conclusions are unlikely to stand. Why? Because his claim the Harper fragment is occipital bone is ludicrous. In doing so he places the wound he believes was on the back of the head in the middle of the back of the head, where few witnesses recalled a wound, and at the level of the ear, where few witnesses recalled a wound. But that's only a minor problem. The key problem is that it bears little resemblance to the occipital bone. The only experts on this kind of stuff to study the bone--Angel for the HSCA and Joe Riley years later, agreed it was parietal bone. And it's readily apparent to anyone looking at an anatomy book. The Harper fragment does not look like occipital bone. And in his last books, David acknowledged this, but offered up that he thought well, maybe, JFK's Addison's disease deformed his bones so that the ridges on his occipital bone were no longer readily apparent. It was a desperate play from the book of Lattimer, who tried to make a bullet path coming down the neck on the x-rays fit with an entrance wound in the back, and came up with a fantasy in which JFK was a hunch back, with the top of his back above his chin.

So...if you're pushing Mantik, you're pushing that JFK's Addison's disease deformed his skull bones. Well, does that make sense to you? Or does the thought occur that well, maybe David is flailing a bit?

Edited January 26 by Pat Speer

Michael Griffith · January 26

2 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Michael,

Do you know if Dr. Chesser agrees with Dr. Mantik's occipital placement of the Harper fragment?

Yes, Chesser agrees with Mantik that the Harper fragment is upper occipital bone. See Chesser's Reviewing the Autopsy X-Rays – The Future of Freedom Foundation (fff.org) (start at about 1:41).

Greg Doudna · January 26

Some other pages of Paul Seaton show he believes in the higher, cowlick location entrance wound. Apparently some of his web pages represent different arguments that have been made by different persons or at different times.

Edited January 28 by Greg Doudna

Keven Hofeling · January 29

Autopsy photograph authenticity apologists such as @Pat Speer and @David Von Pein cannot and will not even attempt to contend with evidence that the photographs have been altered. To demonstrate this I am offering the following from Dr. Gary Aguilar, Dr. Cyril Wecht and Rex Bradford. It is one of the better recitations of the existing evidence against authenticity that I am aware of (which I have supplemented with some supporting exhibits). It is an excerpt of a Letter to the Editor rebutting an article* giving the standard mainstream line of nonsense and government lies about the medical evidence in the Kennedy assassination. Both the article and the Letter to the Editor appeared in the medical journal "Neurosurgery" in 2004.

*Levy, M. L., Sullivan, D., Faccio, R., Grossman, R. G., Goodrich, J. T., Kelly, P. J., Laws, E. R., & Sturdivan, L. (2004). A neuroforensic analysis of the wounds of President John F. Kennedy: Part 2 - A study of the available evidence, eyewitness correlations, analysis, and conclusions. Neurosurgery, 54(6), 1298-1312. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15157287/

The link to the Letter to the Editor I have excerpted from below: https://websites.umich.edu/~ahaq/correspondence.pdf

What I'd be interested in seeing from Mr. Speer and Mr. Von Pein -- as well as any other autopsy photograph authenticity apologists who wish to apply -- is a response that provides answers to the following questions which Doctor Aguilar, Dr. Wecht and Mr. Bradford demonstrated in their Letter to the Editor are the fundamental questions that all apologists who wish to be regarded as intellectually honest must answer (accordingly, I predict that there will be no answers from any apologists that are on point, because the apologists are simply not intellectually honest in any way):

What is the explanation as to why coauthor Robert Grossman, and the two FBI agents who were present during the autopsy, rejected the JFK autopsy photographs, if they are authentic?
The failure of the photographs to pass a test designed to link them to the autopsy camera is deeply troubling, and just is troubling is that the HSCA lied about this in its Final Report, claiming instead that the Department of Defense could not locate the camera when HSCA documents declassified in the 1990's indicate that the HSCA had received the camera but could not verify that the camera had taken the photographs. Why should we not therefore conclude that the HSCA failed to authenticate the autopsy photographs, why did the HSCA publish such falsehoods about the autopsy camera, and why should all Americans therefore not regard this as calling into question the authenticity and integrity of the autopsy photographs?
Given the testimony from the autopsy team regarding autopsy photographs having been taken that are no longer in the extant collection today, how are we to regard the autopsy photographs as authentic when the chain of custody of the photographs has been so fundamentally broken?
The consistent misinterpretation of Kennedy's injuries by numerous witnesses at both Parkland and the Bethesda morgue, in claiming a rearward skull wound that is absent in the photographs, is a matter of grave concern. What is a plausible explanation for this glaring inconsistency, particularly considering that the purpose of autopsy photographs is to clarify the nature of the wounds rather than further obscure them?
The absence of any witness describing what is visible in the photographs raises doubts about the veracity of the images. How do you account for this discrepancy, and what credible explanation do you have to offer for why no witness corroborates the details depicted in the photographs?
What plausible explanation do you have to offer for the conflicts between the witness testimony and the autopsy photographs of the brain, and why should we not entertain the possibility that the brain that was photographed was a substitute brain?

"...As we will show, Dr. Humes and several of Dr. Levy’s primary sources adjusted their memories to fit the government’s preferred “lone nut” conclusion. Unfortunately, Dr. Levy nowhere explores this, even in his discussion of the all-important autopsy photographs. Instead, the photos win his endorsement on grounds the HSCA had authenticated them. He sidesteps how incompatible they are with Dr. Gross-man’s description, as well as the fact that Dr. Grossman flatly told the ARRB they didn’t show what he saw. Nor does he explore new evidence uncovered by the ARRB that shows that both government investigators and the autopsy team mishandled this evidence. But before the ARRB knocked the struts out from under them, JFK’s autopsy photographs had offered solid support for the government’s position in the case.

Besides the HSCA’s claim it had authenticated them, the autopsy pictures got an additional boost from four members of the autopsy team: Drs. Humes and Boswell, the attending radiologist, Dr. John H. Ebersole and John Stringer, the autopsy photographer. After being allowed to see the grisly stills for the first time in 1966, the four men signed an affidavit [prepared by the U.S. Justice Depart-ment (3, 6),

3. Aguilar G, Cunningham K: How Five Investigations into JFK’s Medical/Autopsy Evidence Got It Wrong (Part II). On-line at: http://history-matters.com/essays/jfkmed/How5Investigations/How5InvestigationsGotItWrong_2.htm. Accessed10/29/04.

6. Aguilar GL,Wecht C. The medical case for conspiracy, in Crenshaw C (ed): Trauma Room One. New York, Paraview Press, 2001, pp 216–217.

under whose authority its Bureau, the FBI, had determined there had been no conspiracy] attesting to the fact that the file of JFK’s autopsy photos was complete: “The X-rays and photographs described and listed above include all the X-rays and photographs taken by us during the autopsy, and we have no reason to believe that any other photographs or X-rays were made during the autopsy” (3, 7, 91).

3. Aguilar G, Cunningham K: How Five Investigations into JFK’s Medical/Autopsy Evidence Got It Wrong (Part II). On-line at: http://history-matters.com/essays/ jfkmed/How5Investigations/How5InvestigationsGotItWrong_2.htm. Accessed 10/29/04.

7. ARRB Medical Document # 13. On-line at: http://historymatters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md13/html/Image10.htm. Accessed 10/29/04.

91. Weisberg H: Postmortem: JFK Assassination Cover-up Smashed. Frederick, Harold Weisberg, 1975, p 573

But, in another example of oscillation, members of the team also testified, both before and after signing the dubious document, that photographs they had taken during the autopsy are missing. For example, three years before signing off that the file of autopsy photographs was complete, Dr. Humes had sworn to the Warren Commission that he had taken at least three images that aren’t in the file: two or more images of JFK’s skull and one or more of the interior of his chest. “This [skull]wound then had the characteristics of [a] wound of entrance from this direction through the two tables of the skull, ”Humes testified, “and, incidentally, photographs illustrating this [‘coning’ or ‘beveling’] phenomenon [that show the bullet’s direction] from both the external surface of the skull and from the internal surface were prepared” (86).

86. Warren Commission testimony of Dr. James H. Humes. Warren Commission Hearings, 2H352. On-line at: http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh2/html/WC_Vol2_0180b.htm. Accessed 10/29/04.

The complete inventory of autopsy photographs housed at the National Archives and examined by authors Wecht and Aguilar through special permission has no such images, nor have any such images ever been described in any official tally of the inventory. A simple oversight? One might be tempted to accept that explanation for the missing photos if the necessity of taking such photos were not so obvious and if Dr. Humes’ recollection had not been independently corroborated by his teammates. One of them was Dr. Pierre Finck, a forensics expert from the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, someone who would not have been insensitive to the forensic and legal importance of documenting the fatal wound for the expected trial of the then-living Oswald. He was firm that the photos in the inventory do not include the cranial images he shot.

During his formerly suppressed HSCA testimony (unearthed by the ARRB), Dr. Finck read from notes he had apparently written sometime closer to the time of the autopsy. “I help[ed] the Navy photographer to take photographs of the occipital wound (external and internal aspects) [sic]” (48).

48. HSCA interview with Dr. Pierre Finck. HSCA record # 180-10081–10347; agency file # 006165, p 6. On-line at: http://historymatters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md28/html/Image05.htm. Accessed 10/29/04.

As with Dr. Humes, his obvious intent was to capture the tell tale inward beveling at the point of in-shoot on JFK’s cranium, a feature familiar to anyone who has ever shot a BB or a pellet through a pane of glass. Dr. Finck expanded on these notes under oath before the HSCA in 1977.

HSCA Counsel: “We have here a black-and-white blowup of that same spot [on the rear of JFK’s scalp]. You previously mentioned that your attempt here was to photograph the . . . crater, I think was the word that you used.”

Dr. Finck: “In the bone, not in the scalp, because to determine the direction of the projectile the bone is a very good source of information so I emphasize the photographs of the crater seen from the inside the skull. What you are showing me is soft tissue wound [sic] in the scalp.”

A few moments later, the following exchange occurred:

Dallas Chief Medical Examiner Charles S. Petty, MD: “If I understand you correctly, Dr. Finck, you wanted particularly to have a photograph made of the external aspect of the skull from the back to show that there was no cratering to the outside of the skull.”

Dr. Finck: “Absolutely.”

Dr. Petty: “Did you ever see such a photograph?”

Dr. Finck: “I don’t think so and I brought with me memorandum referring to the examination of photographs in 1967. . .and as I can recall I never saw pictures of the outer aspect of the wound of entry in the back of the head and inner aspect in the skull in order to show a crater, although I was there asking [the photographer to take] these photographs. I don’t remember seeing those photographs.”

Dr. Petty: “All right. Let me ask you one other question. In order to expose that area where the wound was present in the bone, did you have to or did someone have to dissect the scalp off of the bone in order to show this?”

Dr. Finck: “Yes. . . the scalp had to be separated from it in order to show in the back of the head the wound in the bone.” (49)

49. HSCA interview with Dr. Pierre Finck, pp 89–90. Agency File 013617. On-line at: http://historymatters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md30/html/Image21.htm to http://historymatters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md30/html/Image22.htm. Accessed 10/29/04.

There are no photographs of JFK’s skull with the scalp reflected. But both JFK autopsy photographers backed up Drs. Finck and Humes. In 1997, Bethesda’s chief autopsy photographer, John Stringer was asked, “Did you take any photographs of the head after scalp had been pulled down or reflected?” Mr. Stringer answered, “Yes” (12).

12. ARRB deposition of John T. Stringer, July 17, 1996, p 71. On-line at: http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/medical_testimony/Stringer_7-16-96/html/Stringer_0008b.htm. Accessed 10/29/04.

Assistant medical photographer, Floyd Riebe, was asked, “Do you recall whether any pictures were taken from angles very close to the inside of the cranium?” “Yes,” Mr. Riebe replied, “I think Mr. Stringer did that when the body was on its side” (13).

13. ARRB deposition of Mr. Floyd Albert Riebe, May 12, 1997, p 39. On-line at: http://historymatters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/medical_testimony/Riebe_5-7-97/html/Riebe_0005a.htm. Accessed 10/29/04.

In 1964, Dr. Humes had also testified that, besides the cranial images, “Kodachrome photographs were made of this area in [the apical portion of] the interior of the president’s chest” (81).

81. Warren Commission testimony of Dr. James H. Humes, in Warren Commission Hearings, 2H363. On-line at: http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh2/html/WC_Vol2_0186a.htm. Accessed 10/29/04.

Despite signing off on the completeness of the photo file in 1966, Dr. Humes told the HSCA the same thing in 1978 that he had told the Warren Commission in 1964. In a suppressed memo regarding a private interview, the HSCA reported that Dr. Humes, “specifically recall[ed] that Kodachrome photographs were taken of the president’s chest” (50).

50. HSCA interview with James H. Humes. HSCA record #180-10081–10347; agency file #006165, p 6. On-line at: http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md19/html/Image06.htm. Accessed 10/29/04.

In open testimony Dr. Humes told the HSCA, “I distinctly recall going to great lengths trying to get the interior upper portion of the right thorax illuminated. . .and what happened to that film I don’t know” (46).

46. HSCA testimony of James H. Humes, HSCA, vol 7:253. On-line at: http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol7/html/HSCA_Vol7_0132a.htm. Accessed 10/29/04.

Eighteen years later, Dr. Humes told the ARRB much the same thing: “We took one [picture] of the interior of the right side of the thorax. . .and I never saw it. It never—whether it was underexposed or over-exposed or what happened to it, I don’t know” (14).

14. ARRB testimony of James H. Humes, February 13, 1999, p 97. On-line at: http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/medical_testimony/Humes_2-13-96/html/Humes_0050a.htm. Accessed 10/29/04.

Dr. Humes’s fellow signatories independently recalled things the same way. The HSCA reported that Dr. Boswell had said that, “he thought they had photographed ‘the exposed thoracic cavity and lung,’ but doesn’t remember ever seeing those photographs” (59).

59. HSCA interview with Dr. J. Thornton Boswell, p 6, A. Purdy memo. HSCA rec.#180-10093–10430. Agency file # 002071, p 6. ARRB Medical Document # 26. On-line at: http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md26/html/Image05.htm. Accessed 10/29/04.

In 1996, Dr. Boswell was asked, “Are there any other photographs that you remember having been taken during the time of the autopsy that you don’t see here?” “The only one that I have a faint memory of was the anterior of the right thorax,” Dr. Boswell replied. “I don’t see it, and haven’t [sic] when we tried to find it on previous occasions, because that was very important because it did show the extra pleural blood clot and was very important to our positioning that wound” (15).

15. ARRB testimony of J. Thornton Boswell, MD, February 26, 1996, p 178. On-line at: http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/medical_testimony/Boswell_2-26-96/html/Boswell_0089b.htm to http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/medical_testimony/Boswell_2-26-96/html/Boswell_0090a.htm. Accessed 10/29/04.

Similarly, John Stringer told both the HSCA and the ARRB that chest photographs were missing. The HSCA reported that, “Stringer remembers taking at least two exposures of the body cavity” (51).

51. HSCA interview with autopsy photographer, Mr. John Stringer. A. Purdy memo. HSCA rec. # 180-10093–10429. Agency file # 002070, p 12. On-line at: http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md19/html/Image11.htm. Accessed 10/29/04.

He testified to the ARRB that “There were some views that we—that were taken that were missing . . . I remember [photographing] some things inside the body that weren’t there [in the file]” (16).

16. ARRB deposition of John T. Stringer, July 16, 1996, p 133. On-line at: http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/medical_testimony/Stringer_7-16-96/html/Stringer_0014a.htm. Accessed 10/29/04.

As with the photos of JFK’s cranial wound, the importance of photographs of the apex of his chest should be emphasized. Besides the clinical value of such images, the autopsy team would not have been blind to the legal importance of documenting the bruise at the apex of JFK’s evacuated chest cavity for both the medical record and expected upcoming trial. Whereas the significance of an incomplete photographic record of JFK’s autopsy should not be understated, two related points bear emphasis. First, the contradictions between their attestation to the completeness of the file of photos in 1966 and their repeated testimonies before and after that date that images are missing does not speak well for the reliability of Dr. Levy’s primary sources. Second, it shows, yet again, that Dr. Levy has overlooked important new evidence. Dr. Levy, however, does not ignore JFK’s autopsy photographs entirely. He endorses them, using “evidence” that suggests he may be unfamiliar with yet another, recent official discovery. Dr. Levy wrote, “The HSCA verified that the postmortem photographs and x-rays in the custody of the National Archives [which show the backside of JFK’s head was undamaged] were authentic. Authentication of the autopsy photographs was essential because of the discrepant descriptions given of the wounds by eyewitnesses at Parkland Memorial Hospital, the doctors present at the autopsy, the Warren Report, and the Clark Panel” (65).

65. Levy ML, Sullivan D, Faccio R, Grossman RG: A neuroforensic analysis of the wounds of President John F. Kennedy: Part 2—A study of the available evidence, eyewitness correlations, analysis, and conclusions.
Neurosurgery 54:1298–1312,2004.

Indeed, the HSCA said it had authenticated the photographs (43).

43. HSCA vol 7:87. On-line at: http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol7/html/HSCA_Vol7_0049a.htm. Accessed 10/29/04.

The images support Dr. Levy’s view the discrepant Dallas doctors were wrong about the gaping hole in the back of JFK’s skull thought by some to be an exit wound. But by the same token, the crystal clear photos also apparently prove that Dr. Grossman was wrong when he described a one inch-wide entrance wound in the middle of JFK’s occipital bone. Dr. Levy seems not to appreciate his and his coauthor’s predicament. He also seems to be unaware of what the ARRB discovered about the HSCA’s process of authentication. The story begins in an inconspicuous footnote that qualified the HSCA’s public claim that from “microscopic” and “stereoscopic” examinations of the photos its experts had confidently concluded that the images were authentic (52, 53).

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

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

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

It wrote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dr. Levy thus offers readers outdated and misleading government assurances while ignoring recent government discoveries that undermine those assurances. In doing so, he both boosts the government’s case for a single gunman at the same time he impugns Dallas doctors who described a rearward cranial wound, including, ironically, his co-author Dr. Grossman. The pristine backside of JFK’s scalp is crystal clear in the images except for a tiny wound or spot of blood at the top of JFK’s cranium overlying the right posterior parietal bone. Dr. Grossman has consistently maintained that the higher wound in the photos is not the larger occipital wound he saw.

So the images seem to prove that all the Dallas doctors who described rearward cranial damage were wrong. But also proven wrong, as we will show, are many of the autopsy witnesses who agreed with them. The images thus put Dr. Grossman in much the same position as his Dallas associates, and in the same position as the FBI agents who witnessed JFK’s autopsy, Francis O’Neill and James Sibert. For, like Dr. Grossman, Special Agents O’Neill and Sibert told the ARRB there was a rearward cranial wound where none appears in the images:

ARRB Counsel Gunn: “I’d like to ask you whether that photograph resembles what you saw from the back of the head at the time of the autopsy?” (Fig. C4)

Special Agent Francis O’Neill: “This looks like it’s been doctored in some way (25)

25. ARRB testimony of FBI agent Francis X. O’Neill, 9/12/97, p 158. On-line at: http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/medical_testimony/Oneill_9-12-97/html/ONeill_0015a.htm. Accessed 10/29/04.

. . .I specifically do not recall those—I mean, being that clean or that fixed up. To me, it looks like these pictures have been. . . It would appear to me that there was a—more of a massive wound. . .” (26)

26. ARRB testimony of FBI agent Francis X. O’Neill, 9/12/97, pp 161–162. On-line at: http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/medical_testimony/Oneill_9-12-97/html/ONeill_0015a.htm. Accessed 10/29/04.

Mr. Gunn also asked the other FBI witness who was present, Special Agent James Sibert, a similar question:

Counsel Gunn: “Mr. Sibert, does that photograph correspond to your recollection of the back of President Kennedy’s head?"

Special Agent James Sibert: “Well, I don’t have a recollection of it being that intact. . . I don’t remember seeing anything that was like this photo. . . I don’t recall anything like this at all during the autopsy. There was much—well, the wound was more pronounced. And it looks like it could have been reconstructed or something, as compared with what my recollection was. . .” ( 28)

28. ARRB testimony of FBI agent James W. Sibert, 9/11/97, p 128. On-line at: http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/medical_testimony/Sibert_9-11-97/html/Sibert_12b.htm. Accessed 10/29/04.

Ironically, in an ARRB interview not mentioned by Dr. Levy, his coauthor Dr. Grossman reacted in almost exactly the same way. The ARRB reported:

When shown the Ida Dox drawing of the back of the head autopsy image [Fig. C4],

Dr. Grossman immediately opined, “that’s completely incorrect” . . .The entry wound he saw was larger than the small entry wound depicted in the Ida Dox drawing, and lower on the head, well down in the occipital region, near the external occipital protruberance. In fact, Dr. Grossman’s opinion was that the entrance wound he observed on the rear of the skull had passed through the tentorium and the right cerebellum, and he remembered seeing what he believed to be cerebellar tissue through this punched out wound which he interpreted to be one of entrance. (17)

17. ARRB memorandum, February 11, 1998. Directed to: Jeremy Gunn and Tom Samoluk. From: Doug Horne. Subject: Wrapping Up ARRB Efforts to “Clarify the Record” Re: The Medical Evidence in the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, p 11.

As Dr. Levy points out, Dr. Grossman now bows to the photographs and concedes that he must have been wrong about cerebellum; that, in other words, evidence from the photographic record of the autopsy, which has problems he was unaware of, trumps his own memory and those of his Dallas colleagues.

Thus, perhaps Dr. Levy regards dissecting the conflicts between Dallas and the autopsy photos as less helpful in understanding the true nature of JFK’s injuries than in determining whom to trust—the Dallas witnesses or the witnesses in the morgue. Given the clear advantages of those who witnessed the prolonged post mortem, it is not unreasonable to credit the Bethesda accounts over the discrepant doctors of Dallas. Moreover, the HSCA reported that the autopsy witnesses had uniformly endorsed Kennedy’s autopsy photos, and so all the more reason to reject Parkland. Or so it was once believed. But, as with the “complete” file of autopsy photographs and the HSCA’s authentication claims, records to which Dr. Levy makes no allusion have proven the converse.

In referring to the compilation of witness statements that one of the authors prepared (Aguilar), Dr. Levy seems to believe that the autopsy photographs rebut Dallas witnesses regarding JFK’s head wounds and prove those at Bethesda. That is not the case. Nor is that really even the controversy. Infact, both Dallas and Bethesda were in virtually complete agreement that Kennedy had a gaping rearward wound that involved his occiput. Thus, the real controversy is that the images apparently disprove both
Bethesda and the Dallas doctors while also disproving Dr. Grossman’s claims. But Dr. Levy’s confusion may be the result of his greater familiarity with the “old” official evidence rather than the “new” official evidence.

In 1979 the HSCA did not mince words in resolving the apparent Bethesda/Dallas conflict. It wrote: “Critics of the Warren Commission’s medical evidence findings have found [sic] on the observations recorded by the Parkland Hospital doctors. They believe it is unlikely that trained medical personnel could be so consistently in error regarding the nature of [JFK’s cranial] wound, even though their recollections were not based on careful examinations of the wounds. . .” (55).

55. HSCA vol 7:37. On-line at: http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol7/html/HSCA_Vol7_0024a.htm. Accessed 10/29/04.

However, it continued, “In disagreement with the observations of the Parkland doctors are the 26 people present at the autopsy. All of those interviewed who attended the autopsy corroborated the general location of the wounds as depicted in the photographs; none had differing accounts . . . it appears more probable that the observations of the Parkland doctors are incorrect” (56).

56. HSCA vol 7:37–39. On-line at: http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol7/html/HSCA_Vol7_0025a.htm to http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol7/html/HSCA_Vol7_0025a.htm. Accessed 10/29/04.

This was a devastating rebuke to skeptics who had cited the Dallas doctors in arguing for a different wound, a different bullet trajectory, and perhaps even a different assassin than Oswald. But the proof—the autopsy witnesses’ interviews—was entirely and unjustifiably suppressed. Had it not been for the ARRB’s interest in this area, these interviews might have remained state secrets until 2028, the mandatory declassification date. A surprise lay in wait when they were prematurely unsealed in the mid-1990s. While more than twenty Parkland witnesses said that at least part of JFK’s cranial defect was rearward, it turns out that, despite the HSCA’s claim to the contrary, just as many autopsy witnesses reported the same thing, whether in the suppressed HSCA interviews or in public Warren Commission documents and interviews (4).

4. Aguilar G, Cunningham K: How Five Investigations into JFK’s Medical/Autopsy Evidence Got It Wrong (Part V). On-line at: http://history-matters.com/essays/ jfkmed/How5Investigations/How5InvestigationsGotItWrong_5.htm. Accessed10/29/04.

For example, after interviewing the commanding officer of the military district of Washington, D.C., Philip C. Wehle, the HSCA’s suppressed record says that, “[Wehle] noted that the wound was in the back of the head so he would not see it because the President was lying face up . . . ” (57).

57. HSCA record #10010042, agency file #002086, p 2.

(Autopsy images show a gaping wound on the right side of Kennedy’s head in front of his right ear, where it should have been easy to see with JFK lying face up.) A Ph.D. candidate in pathology in 1963, James C. Jenkins, worked as a lab technologist in JFK’s morgue. The HSCA said that Mr. Jenkins reported, “he saw a head wound in the ‘. . . middle temporal region back to the occipital’” (58).

58. HSCA interview with Mr. James Curtis Jenkins, 8-29-77. JFK Collection, RG 233, Document #002193, p 4. On-line at: http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md65/html/md65_0004a.htm. Accessed 10/29/04.

The HSCA also said that another lab technologist, Jan Gail Rudnicki, had reported that the “back-right quadrant of the head was missing” (60).

60. HSCA record #180-10105–10397, agency file number #014461, p 2.

Several of the autopsy witnesses, including two FBI agents, prepared diagrams for the HSCA that depicted a cranial defect involving JFK’s occiput (4) (Figs. C5 and C6).

These inconvenient diagrams, their accompanying interviews and similar statements by other autopsy witnesses were all suppressed. And the discrepancy with Dallas? Compare these morgue accounts with that of Parkland’s Robert McClelland, M.D. “The right posterior portion of the skull had been extremely blasted,” he told the Warren Commission, “the occipital bone being fractured in its lateral half” (84).

84. Warren Commission testimony of Dr. Robert McClelland, in: Hearings, 6H33.On-line at: http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh6/html/WC_Vol6_0022a.htm. Accessed 10/29/04.

Or Charles J. Carrico, M.D., who told the Warren Commission that JFK’s cranial defect was “in the posterior skull, the occipital region” (85).

85. Warren Commission testimony of Dr. Charles Carrico, in: Hearings, 3H361. On-line at: http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh3/html/WC_Vol3_0185a.htm. Accessed 10/29/04.

Virtually all the Dallas doctors and nurses offered similar descriptions. In Dr. Levy’s article, his coauthor dealt with this by dismissing his Parkland colleagues on grounds of imprecision. “Many doctors,” Dr. Grossman explained, “loosely use the term [occipital] to refer to the ‘back fifth of the head’” (65).

65. Levy ML, Sullivan D, Faccio R, Grossman RG: A neuroforensic analysis of the wounds of President John F. Kennedy: Part 2—A study of the available evidence,eyewitness correlations, analysis, and conclusions.
Neurosurgery 54:1298–1312,2004.

It is difficult to understand how even non-neurosurgeons would have referred to the gaping wound the photos show in front of JFK’s ear as “occipital,” as in, the “back fifth of the head.” But what of perhaps the best witness in Dallas—Parkland’s chairman of neurosurgery, Kemp Clark, M.D., the senior treating physician at Parkland, the man who signed JFK’s death certificate, and Dr. Grossman’s superior on the day of the assassination? The ARRB asked Dr. Grossman about Dr. Clark in 1997. “Repeatedly during the interview,” the ARRB reported, “Dr. Grossman suggested that we interview Dr. Kemp Clark, and said that he felt Dr. Clark’s observations would be more accurate than his, since Dr. Clark had much more experience at that time than he with gunshot wounds to the head and neurosurgery in general” (18).

18. ARRB interview of Dr. Robert Grossman, 3/21/97. ARRB Medical Document #185, p 2. On-line at: http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md185/html/md185_0002a.htm. Accessed 10/29/04.

Unacknowledged in Dr. Levy’s report, which accurately reflects Dr. Clark’s descriptions of JFK’s cranial injuries in official documents, is the fact that Dr. Grossman’s superior was just as “loose” with the term “occiput” as were the discrepant Dallas doctors he dismissed. For example, on the day of the assassination, Dr. Clark wrote, “There was a large wound beginning in the right occiput extending into the parietal region” (87).

87. Warren Commission Exhibit #392, hand-written notes of Kemp Clark dated 11/22/63, in: 17H9–10. On-line at: http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh17/html/WH_Vol17_0018a.htm to http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh17/html/WH_Vol17_0018b.htm. Accessed 10/29/04.

Under oath before the Warren Commission, Dr. Clark further explained that, “This was a large, gaping wound in the right posterior part, with cerebral and cerebellar tissue being damaged and exposed” (88).

88. Warren Commission testimony of Kemp Clark, MD, in: Hearings, 6H20. On-line at: http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh6/html/WC_Vol6_0015b.htm. Accessed 10/29/04.

Whose description are we to accept? There is abundant scientific support for the common sense notion that descriptions given immediately after an event are more likely to be accurate than accounts given years later (37, 67–70).

37. Buckhout R: Eyewitness testimony. Sci Am Dec 1974, pp 23–31.There is even evidence that the human mind is capable of creating false memories (67).

67. Loftus EF: Creating false memories. Sci Am Sept 1997, pp 71–75.

68. Loftus EF: Eyewitness Testimony. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1996.

69. Loftus EF, Doyle JM: Factors determining retention and retrieval of events, in:
Eyewitness Testimony: Civil and Criminal. Charlottesville, The Michie Co., 1992, pp 53–83.

70. Marshall J, Marquis KH, Oskamp S: Effects of kind of question and atmosphere of interrogation on accuracy and completeness of testimony. Harvard Law Rev 84:1620–1643, 1971.

Given that Dr. Clark recorded his impressions immediately and testified under oath close to the time of the events, whereas Dr. Grossman waited 18 years to give his account to a newspaper reporter, and given that even Dr. Grossman has said that Dr. Clark’s then-greater experience with such wounds confers greater authority to his account, one would have hoped Dr. Levy would have offered better reasons than he has to accept Dr. Grossman’s description and reject the near identical descriptions of Dr. Clark and his Parkland colleagues (Fig. C7).

And if Dr. Levy is going to continue to regard JFK’s autopsy photographs as unassailable, he might usefully offer a sensible explanation for 1) why his coauthor and two FBI agents apparently rejected them, 2) why the photos failed a test designed to link them to the autopsy camera, 3) why the autopsy team testified that some images have vanished, 4) why myriad witnesses at both Parkland and the morgue made the same mistake in claiming that Kennedy had a gaping rearward skull wound that is remarkable by its absence in the pictures, and 5) why not a single witness described what is visible in the photographs.

Unfortunately, the contradictions in the autopsy evidence do not end here. For while the photographs of Kennedy’s brain seem to be a reasonable match for its measured weight and autopsy description, the images are contradicted by several witness reports from both Parkland and Bethesda, as well as by evidence from the scene of the shooting.

Dr. Levy used Dr. John Lattimer’s claim that 70% of JFK’s right cerebral hemisphere was missing as a springboard to succinctly dispatch another important, photography-related controversy: “We should note that some authors have used the term ‘missing’ when referring to the brain which has led to extreme theories of the nature of the injuries,” he wrote. However, he added, the “drawing by Ida Dox (sic) demonstrates a bullet track in the right hemisphere extending from the occipital lobe forward, but the brain was not missing.” There the discussion ended with the reader left to assume that the Dox sketch was accurate and that Dr. Lattimer was not.

Unfortunately, Dr. Levy shortchanged his readers by printing the wrong diagram—the HSCA’s depiction of a blasted human skull, not the Ida Dox drawing of an autopsy photograph of JFK’s brain—and by not mentioning the ARRB’s contributions to the controversies involving JFK’s brain, controversies that again pit the autopsy findings and photographs against credible witnesses. But Dr. Lattimer’s estimate was probably based on more than just this HSCA diagram, which faithfully renders photos that show a disruption of JFK’s right cerebrum with little actual loss of mass (Fig. C8).

He may have based it on the reports of several key witnesses. In the Journal of the American Medical Association, for example, Dr. Humes reported that, “two thirds of the right cerebrum had been blown away” (35).

35. Breo 😧 JFK’s death: The plain truth from the MDs who did the autopsy. JAMA267:2797-2798, 1992. ARRB Medical Document #22. On-line at: http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md22/html/Image06.htm. Accessed 10/29/04.

Dr. Boswell testified that one-half of the right cerebrum was missing (19).

19. ARRB testimony J. Thornton Boswell, College Park, Maryland, 2/26/96. On-line at: http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md241/html/md241_0001a.htm. Accessed 10/29/04.

When shown the photographs of JFK’s brain at autopsy, FBI Agent O’Neill told the ARRB in 1997, “The only section of the brain which is missing is this small section over here. To me, that’s not consistent with the way I recall seeing it.” Mr. O’Neill amplified, saying that when JFK’s brain was removed, “more than half of the brain was missing” (24).

24. ARRB testimony of FBI Special Agent Francis O’Neill, pp 116–117. On-line at: http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/medical_testimony/Oneill_9-12-97/html/ONeill_0011b.htm. Accessed 10/29/04. (See also: Washington Post, 11/10/98, p. A-3.)

The assistant autopsy photographer, Mr. Floyd Riebe, recalled things much the same way. When asked by ARRB counsel, “Did you see the brain removed from President Kennedy?” Riebe answered, “What little bit there was left, yes. . . Well, it was less than half of a brain there” (29).

29. ARRB deposition of autopsy photographer, Mr. Floyd Albert Riebe, 5/7/97, pp 43–44. On-line at: http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/medical_testimony/Riebe_5-7-97/html/Riebe_0005a.htm to http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/medical_testimony/Riebe_5-7-97/html/Riebe_0005b.htm. Accessed 10/29/04.

Finally, the chief of anesthesia at Parkland Hospital, Marion Thomas Jenkins, M.D., reported that Jackie Kennedy had handed him “a large chunk of her husband’s brain tissues” (36) during the resus-citation effort.

The Zapruder film shows such a massive jettisoning of tissue from Kennedy’s head that something like what these witnesses reported seems likely to be true.

Hence, the brain photographs contradict the prosectors, other credible witnesses, and the Zapruder film. FBI Special Agent Francis O’Neill, who observed the autopsy, rejected the images commenting, quite rightly: “This looks almost like a complete brain” (27).

27. ARRB testimony of FBI Special Agent Francis O’Neill, 9/12/97, p 165. On-line at: http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/medical_testimony/Oneill_9-12-97/html/ONeill_0015b.htm. Accessed 10/29/04. (See also: Washington Post, 11/10/98, p. A-3.)

In rejecting the images, O’Neill was joined by the photographer of record, John Stringer. Stringer claimed that he took images of sections of the brain, which are missing, and that the images in the current file were not taken with the type of camera or type of film he used at that time (20).

20. ARRB testimony of John Stringer, July 16, 1996, pp 216–222. On-line at: http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/medical_testimony/Stringer_7-16-96/html/Stringer_0021a.htm. Accessed 10/29/04.

If Dr. Levy is right to accept the pictures and the brain weight, then what is exploding from JFK’s skull when his head erupts in the Zapruder film? What ejecta caused the “jet effect” that Dr. Levy proposes may have propelled JFK’s head rearward? Officially, virtually nothing, it seems. As intractable as this conflict might seem, an intriguing possible solution was first publicized in a Washington Post
article. The November 10, 1998, news headline read: “Archive photos not of JFK’s brain, concludes aide to review board; staff member contends two different specimens were examined” (23).

23. ARRB memorandum for file by Mr. Doug Horne entitled “Questions Regarding Supplementary Brain Examination(s) (sic) Following the Autopsy on President John F. Kennedy,” 8/28/96. On-line at: http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/staff_memos/DH_BrainExams/html/d130_0002a.htm. Accessed 10/29/04. (See also: Washington Post, 11/10/98, p A-3.)

The Washington Post report was the first public acknowledgment of an ARRB memo advancing the so-called “two brain” hypothesis of former naval officer and review board staffer, Douglas Horne. After carefully comparing accounts of the appearance of JFK’s brain on the night of the autopsy against photographs disavowed by the photographer which contradicted these accounts, and after comparing incompatible accounts of the timing of the brain examination given by the prosectors and lab personnel, Mr. Horne concluded that two different brains were examined on two different days (22).

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

If Horne is right, the HSCA diagram likely depicts the second brain that was examined, the one that weighed 1500 grams. But this is not the brain that we see exploding in the Zapruder film, not the one missing the “large chunk” Mrs. Kennedy handed Dr. Jenkins. Nor is it the one that Dr. Humes, Dr. Boswell, Agent O’Neill, or the photographer, Reibe, said was missing so much mass. In fact, no witness has ever described seeing a JFK brain that looks like the one in the autopsy photographs. Dr. Levy may have his reasons for rejecting Horne’s hypothesis. But because he sets such stock by official sources and analyses, one wishes he had at least acknowledged this intriguing government report, or the coverage of it in the Washington Post, if only for the purpose of refuting it...."

____________

ARRB STAFF MEMO | BY DOUG HORNE | 6/2/1998

'Questions Regarding Supplementary Brain Examination(s) Following the Autopsy on President John F. Kennedy'

https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/staff_memos/DH_BrainExams/html/d130_0001a.htm

DOUG HORNE, PRESS STATEMENT (15th May 2006)

https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKhomeD.htm

"...Two Brain Examinations

My most remarkable finding while on the Review Board staff, and a totally unexpected one, was that instead of one supplemental brain examination being conducted following the conclusion of President Kennedy’s autopsy, as was expected, two different examinations were conducted, about a week apart from each other. A thorough timeline analysis of available documents, and of the testimony of autopsy witnesses taken by the ARRB, revealed that the remains of President Kennedy’s badly damaged brain were examined on Monday morning, November 25, 1963 prior to the state funeral, and that shortly thereafter the brain was turned over to RADM Burkley, Military Physician to the President; a second brain examination, of a fraudulent specimen, was conducted sometime between November 29th and December 2nd, 1963—and it is the photographs from this second examination that are in the National Archives today.

Pertinent Facts Regarding the Two Examinations are as follows:

First Brain Exam, Monday, November 25th, 1963

Attendees: Dr. Humes, Dr. Boswell, and Navy civilian photographer John Stringer.

Events: John Stringer testified to the ARRB that he used both Ektachrome E3 color positive transparency film, and B & W Portrait Pan negative film; both were 4 by 5 inch format films exposed using duplex film holders; he only shot superior views of the intact specimen—no inferior views; the pathologists sectioned the brain, as is normal for death by gunshot wound, with transverse or “coronal” incisions—sometimes called “bread loaf” incisions—in order to trace the track of the bullet or bullets; and after each section of tissue was cut from the brain, Stringer photographed that section on a light box to show the damage.

Second Brain Exam, Between November 29th and December 2nd, 1963

Attendees: Dr. Humes, Dr. Boswell, Dr. Finck, and an unknown Navy photographer.

Events: Per the testimony of all 3 pathologists, the brain was not sectioned, as should have been normal procedure for any gunshot wound to the head—that is, transverse or coronal sections were not made. The brain looked different than it did at the autopsy on November 22nd, and Dr. Finck wrote about this in a report to his military superior on February 1, 1965. The color slides of the brain specimen in the National Archives were exposed on “Ansco” film, not Ektachrome E3 film; and the B & W negatives are also on “Ansco” film, and originated in a film pack (or magazine), not duplex holders. The brain photos in the Archives show both superior and inferior views, contrary to what John Stringer remembers shooting, and there are no photographs of sections among the Archives brain photographs, which is inconsistent with Stringer’s sworn testimony about what he photographed.

Further indications that the brain photographs in the Archives are not President Kennedy’s brain are as follows:

Two ARRB medical witnesses, former FBI agent Frank O’Neill and Gawler’s funeral home mortician Tom Robinson, both recalled vividly that the major area of tissue missing from President Kennedy’s brain was in the rear of the brain. The brain photos in the Archives do not show any tissue missing in the rear of the brain, only in the top.

When former FBI agent Frank O’Neill viewed the Archives brain photographs during his deposition, he said that the photos he was viewing could not be President Kennedy’s brain because when he viewed the removed brain at the autopsy, the damage was so great that more than half of it was gone—missing. He described the brain photos in the Archives as depicting a ‘virtually intact’ brain.

Finally, the weight of the brain recorded in the supplemental autopsy report was 1500 grams, which exceeds the average weight of a normal, undamaged male brain. This is entirely inconsistent with a brain which was over half missing when observed at autopsy.

Conclusions

The conduct of a second brain examination on a fraudulent specimen, and the introduction of photographs of that specimen into the official record, was designed to do two things:

(1) eliminate evidence of a fatal shot from the front, which was evident on the brain removed at autopsy and examined on Monday, November 25th, 1963; and

(2) place into the record photographs of a brain with damage generally consistent with having been shot from above and behind.

Until I discovered that the photographs in the Archives could not be of President Kennedy’s brain, the brain photos had been used by 3 separate investigative bodies—the Clark Panel, the Rockefeller Commission, and the House Select Committee on Assassinations—to support the Warren Commission’s findings that President Kennedy was shot from above and behind, and to discount the expert observations from Parkland hospital in Dallas that President Kennedy had an exit wound in the back of his head.

In my opinion, the brain photographs in the National Archives, along with Dr. Mantik’s Optical Densitometry analysis of the head x-rays, are two irrefutable examples of fraud in this case, and call into question the official conclusions of all prior investigations.

[For those who wish detailed verification of this hypothesis, the 32-page research paper on this subject that I completed in 1998 will be made available at the end of this press conference.]..."

https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKhomeD.htm

Edited February 1 by Keven Hofeling

Tom Gram · January 30

On 1/25/2024 at 3:15 PM, Pat Speer said:

Pardon my quoting my website, Tom, but I tried to remember something the other day off the top of my head, and didn't get it quite right, and was attacked by people who spew nonsense all day long.

From chapter 16b:

Some things are best defined by what they're missing. Accordingly, the evidence that ultimately convinced me the large head wound was tangential in nature was something that was missing: scalp.

The autopsy protocol describes Kennedy’s large head wound as follows: “There is a large irregular defect of the scalp and skull on the right involving chiefly the parietal bone but extending somewhat into the temporal and occipital regions. In this region there is an actual absence of scalp and bone producing a defect which measures approximately 13 cm in greatest diameter.” And this wasn't a one-time claim. In his 3-16-64 testimony before the Warren Commission, Dr. Humes repeated his claim that scalp was missing. He testified that 1) the large "defect involved both the scalp and the underlying skull...;" 2) "there was a defect in the scalp and some scalp tissue was not available;" and 3) that the largest part of the bullet which broke up on impact "accounted for this very large defect, for the multiple fractures of the skull, and for the loss of brain and scalp tissue..."

There can be no doubt then that Dr. Humes felt scalp was missing, and that Dr.s Boswell and Finck agreed. Or, at least agreed enough to sign the autopsy protocol in which it was described...

But there's more to this missing scalp than one might suspect...

Medicolegal Investigation of Death addresses missing scalp as follows: “A point frequently ignored, or forgotten, in comparing entrance and exit wounds is that approximation of the edges of an entrance wound usually retains a small central defect, a missing area of skin. On the other hand, approximation of the edges of the exit re-establishes the skin’s integrity.” The authors of Medicolegal Investigation of Death were Dr. Russell Fisher, of the Clark Panel, and Dr. Werner Spitz, of the HSCA Forensic Pathology Panel. The pathology panel’s report was most likely accommodating Spitz, then, when it critiqued the autopsy report’s description as follows: “It is probably misleading in the sense that it describes “an actual absence of skin and bone. The scalp was probably virtually all present, but torn and displaced…”

Uhh, no... This last line, disturbingly, ignores that Dr. William Kemp Clark, the one Parkland doctor to closely inspect Kennedy’s head wound, shared the observations of the autopsists, and independently observed “There was considerable loss of scalp and bone tissue” in a summary of the reports written by the Parkland staff on the day of the shooting. (Wasn’t this required reading?)

Still, Dr. Clark was but one doctor...

Well, this line in the Panel's report (the one claiming JFK's scalp was "probably virtually all present") also ignores that Dr. Malcolm Perry, the doctor most intimately involved in the efforts to revive Kennedy at Parkland, similarly claimed that "both scalp and portions of skull were absent" when testifying before the Warren Commission on 3-30-64.

And it also ignores that Dr. James Carrico, the first doctor to inspect Kennedy's wounds at Parkland, confirmed Clark's and Perry's accounts to the HSCA's investigators on 1-11-78. He told them that the large head wound "had blood and hair all around it." All around it, and not above it. And should one suppose Carrico thought the scalp attached to this hair could be pulled back over the wound, he clarified his position on this, once and for all, in an 8-2-97 oral history with the Sixth Floor Museum, when he described the right side of Kennedy's head as having "a big chunk of bone and scalp missing."

And that's not even to mention the witnesses claiming to see this hairy scalp on bone left in the limousine...

On 11-30-63, Secret Service Agent Clint Hill, who'd climbed onto the back of Kennedy's limo just after the fatal shot was fired, wrote a report that included an often-overlooked detail. He wrote: "As I lay over the top of the back seat I noticed a portion of the President's head on the right rear side was missing and he was bleeding profusely. Part of his brain was gone. I saw a part of his skull with hair on it lieing in the seat."

And Hill wasn't the only one to see this hairy fragment. Motorcycle Officer Bobby Joe Dale arrived upon the scene just as the President's body was rushed into the emergency room. He failed to get a look at the President. He did, however, get a look at the back seat of the limo. Here's what he told Larry Sneed, as published in No More Silence (1998): "Blood and matter was everywhere inside the car including a bone fragment which was oblong shaped, probably an inch to an inch and a half long by three-quarters of an inch wide. As I turned it over and looked at it, I determined that it came from some part of the forehead because there was hair on it which appeared to be near the hairline."

And Dale wasn't the only motorcycle officer to make such a statement. When interviewed for the 2008 Discovery Channel program Inside the Target Car, H.B. McClain related: "When I raised her up (he means Mrs. Kennedy)...I could see it on the floor. That's pieces of skull with the hair on it."

So what happened to this hairy fragment, you might ask? Well, it's tough to say. Secret Service Agent Sam Kinney retrieved a large skull fragment from the limousine as it was flown back from Dallas, but never described this fragment as being covered with hair.

And there's this. When interviewed for No More Silence (1998), FBI agent Vincent Drain, who arrived at Parkland within a half hour or so of the shooting, told Larry Sneed: "It may have been the security officer or one of the other officers who gave me a portion of the skull which was about the size of a teacup, much larger than a silver dollar. Apparently the explosion had jerked it because the hair was still on it. I carried that back to Washington later that night and turned it over to the FBI laboratory."

(Drain's account is curious,to say the least, as he arrived in Washington after the conclusion of the autopsy and there is no record whatsoever of a relatively large bone fragment arriving at the laboratory on the 23rd.)

In any event... at least one skull fragment had hair on it. This fragment could not have come from the small entrance wound on the back of the head, and must have come from the large defect on the top of the head.

This marked the large defect as an entrance, or more logically, a tangential wound of both entrance and exit.

The alleged hairy fragment is pretty interesting - but Humes’ ARRB deposition is not really inconsistent with the autopsy report in that he said there were 3-5cm of missing scalp. He also said it was difficult to estimate the actual amount missing:

Q. Without stretching the scalp, just, you know, basically how much scalp was actually missing at the time that the body arrived at Bethesda?
A. You know, I couldn't--it would be a rough guess. Maybe four or five centi--three or four centimeters, something like that. Probably, because it was all torn, you see, with serrated-- and there were--it wasn't like a punch that was punched out. It was torn apart, you know. So I have a hard time estimating that.

I might be off base here, but it also seems like it would’ve been easy to mistake torn and displaced scalp for scalp that was actually missing, especially if some of the flaps were open at Parkland - and per your analysis Clark, Perry et al. weren’t exactly immune to making errors.

I’ve said this before, but for the record I totally agree that the probability of an EOP entrance with 6.5mm ammo causing JFK’s (official) head wounds and the effects we see in the Z-film is exceedingly low, if not impossible. It’s just the impossible part that I’m curious about. The possibility of impossibility, or something like that.

For example, I’d love to see someone attempt to reconcile the large chunks of skull literally launching through the air at high speed with an EOP entrance/temp-cavity exit scenario. That’s one that seems like a blatant hallmark of an impact in the supposed exit location, especially combined with JFK’s back and leftward motion.

Why do some conspiracy theorists accept the X-rays and autopsy photos as genuine?

Recommended Posts

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Days

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Days

Posted Images

Link to comment

Share on other sites

[Colour autopsy photo. The yellow hashed area marks the approximate location of the skull defect according to a skull Boswell marked for the ARRB ]

Link to comment

Share on other sites

[Colour autopsy photo. The yellow hashed area marks the approximate location of the skull defect according to a skull Boswell marked for the ARRB ]

Link to comment

Share on other sites

[Colour autopsy photo. The yellow hashed area marks the approximate location of the skull defect according to a skull Boswell marked for the ARRB ]

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

Announcements