Remembering Cyril Wecht Pt 1

[James DiEugenio]

This is part one of my two part substack tribute to the late warrior on the JFK case.  Who will be really missed.

My substack is still free.

https://jamesanthonydieugenio.substack.com/p/rememebring-cyril-wecht

[James DiEugenio]

Here is Part 2 of Remembering Cyril Wecht.

Again, my substack is free until November. This is a written complement to Len's show on the man.

He should not be forgotten, he was alone in the woods a long time.

https://jamesanthonydieugenio.substack.com/p/remembering-cyril-wecht-pt-2

[Pete Mellor]

Comprehensive bios of a dedicated searcher for truth in the JFKA medical quagmire.

Met him in 2013 at Lancer when he visited with Doug Horne, got his 'Cause of Death' book signed.

Will be sadly missed, but he attained a good age.

[Ron Bulman]

8 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Here is Part 2 of Remembering Cyril Wecht.

Again, my substack is free until November. This is a written complement to Len's show on the man.

He should not be forgotten, he was alone in the woods a long time.

https://jamesanthonydieugenio.substack.com/p/remembering-cyril-wecht-pt-2

Jim, in part 2 after one paragraph it says, "this post is for paid subscribers."

[James DiEugenio]

Ron, when I clicked it went through to the whole post.

Let me know if there is still a problem, I can post the whole thing here.

[Robert Morrow]

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

Ron, when I clicked it went through to the whole post.

Let me know if there is still a problem, I can post the whole thing here.

This was only available to me and not the rest of your obituary of Wecht:

QUOTE

Once Cyril Wecht read the 888 page Warren Report, the accompanying 26 volumes of testimony and evidence and, with the aid of Josiah Thompson, viewed the Zapruder film, he was convinced that something was rotten in Denmark.  Arlen Specter and the Warren Commission were not involved in explicating a crime.  They were covering up what really happened to President Kennedy in Dealey Plaza. Therefore he wanted to inspect the autopsy materials firsthand.

UNQUOTE

[Ron Bulman]

2 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Ron, when I clicked it went through to the whole post.

Let me know if there is still a problem, I can post the whole thing here.

I still get the same thing I did earlier.  I wonder if anyone else out there has tried it besides myself and Robert.  If anyone reads this soon click on the link and let us know.  The first part works fine for me.

[James DiEugenio]

Here it is for Ron and maybe others

JAMES’S SUBSTACK

Remembering Cyril Wecht Pt. 2

The Great Dissenter

 

JAMES ANTHONY DIEUGENIO

MAY 24, 2024

∙ PAID

---

 

Once Cyril Wecht read the 888 page Warren Report, the accompanying 26 volumes of testimony and evidence and, with the aid of Josiah Thompson, viewed the Zapruder film, he was convinced that something was rotten in Denmark.  Arlen Specter and the Warren Commission were not involved in explicating a crime.  They were covering up what really happened to President Kennedy in Dealey Plaza. Therefore he wanted to inspect the autopsy materials firsthand.

But here he confronted a serious problem.  It was called the Kennedy deed of gift.  For whatever reason, in 1965, after the Commission disbanded, Jackie Kennedy was given all of the autopsy materials. Then, in another odd occurrence, she turned these back to the National Archives in the autumn of 1966. But no one was allowed to see them until after her children passed away. There was one exception. A recognized expert in pathology could see the materials if he had a genuine historical goal. In Wecht’s experience this procedure was simply not the case in a homicide.  Why would a close family member want these items in the first place? Secondly, if any DA wanted to reopen the case, why should he have to apply for permission to a member of the Kennedy entourage?  Because that is what this amounted to in practice.

Something even odder now happened.  Since books by Mark Lane, Sylvia Meagher, and Edward Epstein were now being widely read and causing controversy, Ramsey Clark, who was the current Attorney General, set up a panel to inspect the autopsy materials. In others words, in 1968, this select few—four doctors to be exact-- would be able to do what Wecht was not.  To no one’s surprise, this panel endorsed the findings of the Commission: two shots hit Kennedy from behind. But yet, this verdict was different in the sense that they changed the entering locations of the two shots. The Commission had placed the head shot low in the back of the skull, and the other shot in the neck.  The Ramsey Clark panel lowered the latter into the back, and raised the former to the top of the skull. This made Wecht even more eager to inspect Kennedy’s brain, which the panel had apparently not examined.

It finally looked like Wecht was going to be able to examine the autopsy materials.  How did this happen?  Through the DA in New Orleans, a man named Jim Garrison. Garrison called Wecht one day, since he had read about his doubts concerning the medical evidence in the JFK case. Garrison had indicted Clay Shaw as part of a conspiracy to kill Kennedy.  And the judge had allowed him to address the question of conspiracy as a threshold matter to the jury.  Garrison wanted Wecht to testify about the autopsy in court.  Wecht insisted that he could not do so without seeing the autopsy materials first. So Garrison sued in federal court for Wecht, his expert witness, to go into the Archives and inspect the materials.

In January of 1969, Garrison met Wecht in Washington and the doctor appeared before Judge Charles Halleck Jr.  He took the stand and told the court that the autopsy evidence was crucial in a homicide case.  And in most cases was part of the public record anyway.  Garrison was relying on this evidence in part to prove his overall case for conspiracy. The judge went along with Wecht’s plea.  But, as Wecht told this author, the government lawyers insisted they would appeal until hell froze over. When this happened, Wecht told the DA he could not testify, so Garrison got Professor John Nichols, a pathologist, to present that part of the case.

Finally, Fred Graham of the New York Times heard about Wecht’s problems with the Archives. Graham called the good doctor and then got into contact with Burke Marshall, the lawyer for the Kennedys who was in charge of the deed of gift.  Marshall told Wecht he would get back to him after Christmas of 1971. But he did not, and Graham had to call him again.  This time Marshall told Wecht he should visit him at Yale in New Haven, Connecticut. Wecht did so and he finally got permission to view the materials on August 24-25^th in 1972.

Wecht measured where the holes were in Kennedy’s clothing as being 5 ¾ inches down from this collar. Which, to him, made the single bullet theory even more ridiculous. He held CE 399 in his hand and was shocked at how intact it was after shattering two heavy bones in Governor John Connally.  He also saw pictures of similar bullets that were fired into cotton wadding, the rib of a goat corpse, and a human cadaver. Even the bullet fired into wadding showed more deformity than CE 399.

Wecht asked to see Kennedy’s brain.  The archivist, Marion Johnson, said it was not there.  Wecht asked him where it was and when the last inventory was taken.  Johnson said he did not know where it was and the date of the last inventory was in 1966. The only thing more stunning to Wecht than the brain being missing was the fact that no one had reported its disappearance before him. This included Dr. John Lattimer and the Ramsey Clark Panel. Wecht told Graham about his visit and the brain being gone. 

That Sunday, August 27,  Wecht picked up the New York Times. On the front page was the headline, “Mystery Cloaks Fate of Brain of Kennedy.” Graham quoted Wecht as saying, “Who would have taken the responsibility to destroy the brain?” This puzzle haunted Wecht the rest of his life. He later concluded that the reason the brain was gone was due to the fact that it would reveal two shots to Kennedy’s head.

When the Watergate scandal forced Richard Nixon to resign the presidency, former Warren Commissioner Gerald Ford became America’s first unelected president.  While in office, a flurry of controversy began to flow over what the CIA’s true role in Watergate had really been, plus a late 1974 New York Times story about the CIA’s surveillance activities in the USA. Thus, in January of 1975, Ford appointed his vice president, Nelson Rockefeller, to command the Rockefeller Commission in order  to investigate certain domestic crimes of the Agency.  Ford, who had an active role in covering up Kennedy’s murder, appointed people like Governor Ronald Reagan and former chair of the Joint Chiefs, Lyman Lemnitzer, to the commission. To cap it off, Ford named former Warren Commission lawyer David Belin as the chief counsel. Ford likely did this since a small part of the work of the commission would deal with the possible role of the CIA in the Kennedy assassination.

Wecht testified in private for five hours.  He asked to appear before the whole Commission, but Belin denied that request. Wecht and other doctors wrote a petition calling for the Commission to fully disclose all of its scientific and medical evidence.  Again, this was denied. Their conclusion was that the Warren Commission was correct and they pointedly edited Wecht’s testimony to support that verdict.. Wecht was enraged.  He called a press conference to voice his utter disagreement.  He also demanded that the entire transcript of his testimony be declassified. Again, this was turned down. And the missing autopsy materials issue was avoided.

But something happened in the interim between the Rockefeller Commission being formed and its final report being released in the summer of 1975. On March 6, 1975 Geraldo Rivera made television history.  ABC did not want him to show the Zapruder film on Good Night America.  Rivera said that if they refused and fired him he would call a press conference, explain his termination, and then show the film.  ABC relented and Rivera showed the Zapruder film with guests Robert Groden and Dick Gregory.  The next week, Rivera had Wecht on his show and he showed the film again, again to smash ratings. Pandora’s box was now open.

In October of 1976, Wecht appeared on the news program 20/20 to criticize Specter and his Single Bullet Theory. About this time, Representative Tom Downing of Virginia was forming the House Select Committee on Assassinations.  Wecht was jubilant that the first chief counsel was going to be Richard A. Sprague, a famous Philadelphia prosecuting attorney. Unlike most  of the Warren Commission lawyers, his specialty was criminal law, and he was very experienced in homicide cases. Sprague chose Robert Tanenbaum, chief of homicide in Manhattan, as his chief counsel for the Kennedy case. But Downing chose not to run for office again, and the new chairman, Henry Gonzalez, got into argument after argument with Sprague. Both men left and Tanenbaum stayed behind as a caretaker. Robert Blakey, a professor at Notre Dame and Cornell, now took over the committee.  I cannot do better than to quote Wecht himself on this relationship:

I had never met Blakey before, but it became abundantly clear that he manifested palpable hostility toward me and was unwavering in his support of the Warren Commission’s view of the medical evidence. (Wecht and Kaufmann, p. 232)

When this alteration of power took place, the approach of the committee changed. Tanenbaum was going to have only two medical consultants: Wecht and the lawyer’s colleague from New York City, Dr. Michael Baden. They were going to run a wide open inquiry. Under Blakey, and his deputy Gary Cornwell, panels of several experts were chosen.  It became obvious to everyone, including Blakey’s Cornell law student Eddie Lopez, that they were going to abide by the Magic Bullet concept.

So Wecht was marginalized on the nine member pathology panel. He was allowed to question Pierre Finck.  But on the days that Jim Humes and Thornton Boswell testified, he was somehow not invited. But on September 7, 1978 Wecht was allowed to testify for 30 minutes in front of the Committee and in public. He had a memorable, pungent presentation pointing out the silliness of the Magic Bullet and how important the missing brain was to the case. (If the reader has not seen this, I strongly suggest you watch it on YouTube)

Wecht later worked for director Oliver Stone as a consultant for his 1991 hit film, JFK. It was Cyril who suggested to Stone that Kevin Costner do the demonstration of the trajectory of the magic bullet with a pointer in court. Costner was so surprised at this that he asked who dreamed it up. When Stone said Arlen Specter, the actor said, “Let’s put his name in the script.”  And that is how the senator’s name was uttered by Costner, playing Jim Garrison. Wecht also made an effective appearance for Stone in his more recent documentary JFK Revisited.

Because he has a college named after him at Duquesne, Wecht was allowed to sponsor JFK conferences there beginning in 2003 going up to 2023. These were splendid well attended events with many high profile speakers: Mark Lane, Arlen Specter, Josiah Thompson, Alec Baldwin, Rob Reiner. At the last one last year, Cyril was in a wheelchair. There was a dinner dedicated to him on the next to last night featuring speeches by Gary Aguilar and David Mantik, as he was their mentor.

As he once said, because of his incontinence in speaking up on the JFK murder, he was banned from lecturing at the FBI Academy and the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. He had lectured there regularly before he became so outspoken on the case. But no matter what he did, it could not diminish his stature in his field.  As attorney Alan Dershowitz once said, Wecht pretty much made forensic pathology into a front row science in America. He professionalized the field and made it central to the administration of justice.

In his next to last book The Life and Deaths of Cyril Wecht, he wrote that the reason why the book was penned was to show things like police violence, prosecutorial bias, what the FBI is really about, and how court cases can be manipulated “and how judicial misconduct can overrule facts and reason.” He also wanted to show how appointed judges can be worse than elected ones due to a personal ideology, for which he or she is given lifetime tenure.   And is therefore free to do what he or she wants. Our Supreme Court today is a very good example of this ideology run wild. (pp. 195-97 of ebook version, with co -writer Jeff Sewald.)

A giant is now gone.  But in the hearts of many in the JFK field Cyril Wecht will be more than not forgotten. His fighting spirit will live on as an example of a refusal to give in to power and bias. A spirit that will not rest until the truth about the Kennedy murder, and what happened as a result of it, are finally and totally exposed.

 

 

 

 

[Ron Bulman]

Thanks Jim.  Much deeper and more detailed than any or the other obit's posted on the two threads on here.  

I've got Cause of Death, not just on the JFKA but 62 pages on it.   I loved listening to him on the several videos where I've seen him speak and in JFK Revisited.  He was an engaging speaker.  I think I'm going to have to read The JFK Assassination Dissected.

[James DiEugenio]

By the way, I did not go into the whole moronic and evil phony charges the local US attorney Mary Beth Buchanan, the DA Anthony Zappala, and the FBI agent Brad Orsini cooked up against him because he was challenging how they abused African American and Latino suspects.  

That was a sickening spectacle that cost Cyril millions and dragged on for years.  I did not include since it was not directly related to the JFK case, but Dave Perry actually put the whole indictment on his web site. How low can one go. I mean using a fax machine in the coroner's office  for a private expense. Whew. The most one could ask for is a reimbursal, but criminal charges?  Wecht could argue back that he never asked to be reimbursed by the city for working overtime, which he did all the time.

When he took over the office, they did not even have a microscope or an autopsy table.  He made that office into one of the best in the state.

 

[James DiEugenio]

David Mantik adds to our memorial to Cyril Wecht through his personal memories of a fine individual.

Some nice pictures included.

At the end are links to my two part substack tribute.

He will be missed.

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/a-tribute-to-cyril-wecht-md-jd

[Benjamin Cole]

On 5/25/2024 at 6:23 AM, James DiEugenio said:

Here it is for Ron and maybe others

 

JAMES’S SUBSTACK

Remembering Cyril Wecht Pt. 2

The Great Dissenter

 

JAMES ANTHONY DIEUGENIO

MAY 24, 2024

∙ PAID

---

 

Once Cyril Wecht read the 888 page Warren Report, the accompanying 26 volumes of testimony and evidence and, with the aid of Josiah Thompson, viewed the Zapruder film, he was convinced that something was rotten in Denmark.  Arlen Specter and the Warren Commission were not involved in explicating a crime.  They were covering up what really happened to President Kennedy in Dealey Plaza. Therefore he wanted to inspect the autopsy materials firsthand.

But here he confronted a serious problem.  It was called the Kennedy deed of gift.  For whatever reason, in 1965, after the Commission disbanded, Jackie Kennedy was given all of the autopsy materials. Then, in another odd occurrence, she turned these back to the National Archives in the autumn of 1966. But no one was allowed to see them until after her children passed away. There was one exception. A recognized expert in pathology could see the materials if he had a genuine historical goal. In Wecht’s experience this procedure was simply not the case in a homicide.  Why would a close family member want these items in the first place? Secondly, if any DA wanted to reopen the case, why should he have to apply for permission to a member of the Kennedy entourage?  Because that is what this amounted to in practice.

Something even odder now happened.  Since books by Mark Lane, Sylvia Meagher, and Edward Epstein were now being widely read and causing controversy, Ramsey Clark, who was the current Attorney General, set up a panel to inspect the autopsy materials. In others words, in 1968, this select few—four doctors to be exact-- would be able to do what Wecht was not.  To no one’s surprise, this panel endorsed the findings of the Commission: two shots hit Kennedy from behind. But yet, this verdict was different in the sense that they changed the entering locations of the two shots. The Commission had placed the head shot low in the back of the skull, and the other shot in the neck.  The Ramsey Clark panel lowered the latter into the back, and raised the former to the top of the skull. This made Wecht even more eager to inspect Kennedy’s brain, which the panel had apparently not examined.

It finally looked like Wecht was going to be able to examine the autopsy materials.  How did this happen?  Through the DA in New Orleans, a man named Jim Garrison. Garrison called Wecht one day, since he had read about his doubts concerning the medical evidence in the JFK case. Garrison had indicted Clay Shaw as part of a conspiracy to kill Kennedy.  And the judge had allowed him to address the question of conspiracy as a threshold matter to the jury.  Garrison wanted Wecht to testify about the autopsy in court.  Wecht insisted that he could not do so without seeing the autopsy materials first. So Garrison sued in federal court for Wecht, his expert witness, to go into the Archives and inspect the materials.

In January of 1969, Garrison met Wecht in Washington and the doctor appeared before Judge Charles Halleck Jr.  He took the stand and told the court that the autopsy evidence was crucial in a homicide case.  And in most cases was part of the public record anyway.  Garrison was relying on this evidence in part to prove his overall case for conspiracy. The judge went along with Wecht’s plea.  But, as Wecht told this author, the government lawyers insisted they would appeal until hell froze over. When this happened, Wecht told the DA he could not testify, so Garrison got Professor John Nichols, a pathologist, to present that part of the case.

Finally, Fred Graham of the New York Times heard about Wecht’s problems with the Archives. Graham called the good doctor and then got into contact with Burke Marshall, the lawyer for the Kennedys who was in charge of the deed of gift.  Marshall told Wecht he would get back to him after Christmas of 1971. But he did not, and Graham had to call him again.  This time Marshall told Wecht he should visit him at Yale in New Haven, Connecticut. Wecht did so and he finally got permission to view the materials on August 24-25^th in 1972.

Wecht measured where the holes were in Kennedy’s clothing as being 5 ¾ inches down from this collar. Which, to him, made the single bullet theory even more ridiculous. He held CE 399 in his hand and was shocked at how intact it was after shattering two heavy bones in Governor John Connally.  He also saw pictures of similar bullets that were fired into cotton wadding, the rib of a goat corpse, and a human cadaver. Even the bullet fired into wadding showed more deformity than CE 399.

Wecht asked to see Kennedy’s brain.  The archivist, Marion Johnson, said it was not there.  Wecht asked him where it was and when the last inventory was taken.  Johnson said he did not know where it was and the date of the last inventory was in 1966. The only thing more stunning to Wecht than the brain being missing was the fact that no one had reported its disappearance before him. This included Dr. John Lattimer and the Ramsey Clark Panel. Wecht told Graham about his visit and the brain being gone. 

That Sunday, August 27,  Wecht picked up the New York Times. On the front page was the headline, “Mystery Cloaks Fate of Brain of Kennedy.” Graham quoted Wecht as saying, “Who would have taken the responsibility to destroy the brain?” This puzzle haunted Wecht the rest of his life. He later concluded that the reason the brain was gone was due to the fact that it would reveal two shots to Kennedy’s head.

When the Watergate scandal forced Richard Nixon to resign the presidency, former Warren Commissioner Gerald Ford became America’s first unelected president.  While in office, a flurry of controversy began to flow over what the CIA’s true role in Watergate had really been, plus a late 1974 New York Times story about the CIA’s surveillance activities in the USA. Thus, in January of 1975, Ford appointed his vice president, Nelson Rockefeller, to command the Rockefeller Commission in order  to investigate certain domestic crimes of the Agency.  Ford, who had an active role in covering up Kennedy’s murder, appointed people like Governor Ronald Reagan and former chair of the Joint Chiefs, Lyman Lemnitzer, to the commission. To cap it off, Ford named former Warren Commission lawyer David Belin as the chief counsel. Ford likely did this since a small part of the work of the commission would deal with the possible role of the CIA in the Kennedy assassination.

Wecht testified in private for five hours.  He asked to appear before the whole Commission, but Belin denied that request. Wecht and other doctors wrote a petition calling for the Commission to fully disclose all of its scientific and medical evidence.  Again, this was denied. Their conclusion was that the Warren Commission was correct and they pointedly edited Wecht’s testimony to support that verdict.. Wecht was enraged.  He called a press conference to voice his utter disagreement.  He also demanded that the entire transcript of his testimony be declassified. Again, this was turned down. And the missing autopsy materials issue was avoided.

But something happened in the interim between the Rockefeller Commission being formed and its final report being released in the summer of 1975. On March 6, 1975 Geraldo Rivera made television history.  ABC did not want him to show the Zapruder film on Good Night America.  Rivera said that if they refused and fired him he would call a press conference, explain his termination, and then show the film.  ABC relented and Rivera showed the Zapruder film with guests Robert Groden and Dick Gregory.  The next week, Rivera had Wecht on his show and he showed the film again, again to smash ratings. Pandora’s box was now open.

In October of 1976, Wecht appeared on the news program 20/20 to criticize Specter and his Single Bullet Theory. About this time, Representative Tom Downing of Virginia was forming the House Select Committee on Assassinations.  Wecht was jubilant that the first chief counsel was going to be Richard A. Sprague, a famous Philadelphia prosecuting attorney. Unlike most  of the Warren Commission lawyers, his specialty was criminal law, and he was very experienced in homicide cases. Sprague chose Robert Tanenbaum, chief of homicide in Manhattan, as his chief counsel for the Kennedy case. But Downing chose not to run for office again, and the new chairman, Henry Gonzalez, got into argument after argument with Sprague. Both men left and Tanenbaum stayed behind as a caretaker. Robert Blakey, a professor at Notre Dame and Cornell, now took over the committee.  I cannot do better than to quote Wecht himself on this relationship:

I had never met Blakey before, but it became abundantly clear that he manifested palpable hostility toward me and was unwavering in his support of the Warren Commission’s view of the medical evidence. (Wecht and Kaufmann, p. 232)

When this alteration of power took place, the approach of the committee changed. Tanenbaum was going to have only two medical consultants: Wecht and the lawyer’s colleague from New York City, Dr. Michael Baden. They were going to run a wide open inquiry. Under Blakey, and his deputy Gary Cornwell, panels of several experts were chosen.  It became obvious to everyone, including Blakey’s Cornell law student Eddie Lopez, that they were going to abide by the Magic Bullet concept.

So Wecht was marginalized on the nine member pathology panel. He was allowed to question Pierre Finck.  But on the days that Jim Humes and Thornton Boswell testified, he was somehow not invited. But on September 7, 1978 Wecht was allowed to testify for 30 minutes in front of the Committee and in public. He had a memorable, pungent presentation pointing out the silliness of the Magic Bullet and how important the missing brain was to the case. (If the reader has not seen this, I strongly suggest you watch it on YouTube)

Wecht later worked for director Oliver Stone as a consultant for his 1991 hit film, JFK. It was Cyril who suggested to Stone that Kevin Costner do the demonstration of the trajectory of the magic bullet with a pointer in court. Costner was so surprised at this that he asked who dreamed it up. When Stone said Arlen Specter, the actor said, “Let’s put his name in the script.”  And that is how the senator’s name was uttered by Costner, playing Jim Garrison. Wecht also made an effective appearance for Stone in his more recent documentary JFK Revisited.

Because he has a college named after him at Duquesne, Wecht was allowed to sponsor JFK conferences there beginning in 2003 going up to 2023. These were splendid well attended events with many high profile speakers: Mark Lane, Arlen Specter, Josiah Thompson, Alec Baldwin, Rob Reiner. At the last one last year, Cyril was in a wheelchair. There was a dinner dedicated to him on the next to last night featuring speeches by Gary Aguilar and David Mantik, as he was their mentor.

As he once said, because of his incontinence in speaking up on the JFK murder, he was banned from lecturing at the FBI Academy and the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. He had lectured there regularly before he became so outspoken on the case. But no matter what he did, it could not diminish his stature in his field.  As attorney Alan Dershowitz once said, Wecht pretty much made forensic pathology into a front row science in America. He professionalized the field and made it central to the administration of justice.

In his next to last book The Life and Deaths of Cyril Wecht, he wrote that the reason why the book was penned was to show things like police violence, prosecutorial bias, what the FBI is really about, and how court cases can be manipulated “and how judicial misconduct can overrule facts and reason.” He also wanted to show how appointed judges can be worse than elected ones due to a personal ideology, for which he or she is given lifetime tenure.   And is therefore free to do what he or she wants. Our Supreme Court today is a very good example of this ideology run wild. (pp. 195-97 of ebook version, with co -writer Jeff Sewald.)

A giant is now gone.  But in the hearts of many in the JFK field Cyril Wecht will be more than not forgotten. His fighting spirit will live on as an example of a refusal to give in to power and bias. A spirit that will not rest until the truth about the Kennedy murder, and what happened as a result of it, are finally and totally exposed.

 

 

 

 

JD--Thanks for posting.

"I (Wecht) had never met Blakey before, but it became abundantly clear that he manifested palpable hostility toward me and was unwavering in his support of the Warren Commission’s view of the medical evidence." (Wecht and Kaufmann, p. 232)

I never met Wecht, but I have seen him extensively in video, and he sure seemed like one of the most likable people one could meet, highly intelligent, curious about the world, collegial, and even humorous. 

I have written about the strange goings-on at the HSCA and the curious, manufactured departure of Richard Sprague. 

Late in life, Blakey more or less concluded he had been had by the CIA. 

Funny how life turns out. 

 

[James DiEugenio]

That really is kind of odd is it not?

Blakey had never met Wecht, but Cyril could tell he did not like him off the bat. Which is the opposite reaction most people had with him.

But Cyril was really surprised when he learned afterwards that the HSCA pathology panel had interviewed Boswell and Humes in his absence.

He learned of it afterwards. 

Another point: Wecht wanted to do a live single bullet theory experiment. Blakey said it was too expensive. 

Wecht offered to pay for it himself; Blakey still declined.

 

Edited Tuesday at 08:48 AM by James DiEugenio

[Pete Mellor]

7 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

But Cyril was really surprised when he learned afterwards that the HSCA pathology panel had interviewed Boswell and Humes in his absence.

and not under oath!

[James DiEugenio]

The other thing about the panel was the "lean forward" theorem.

To make the phony trajectory work, they said that while behind the Stemmons Freeway sign, JFK was leaning forward, and then reverted back.  Wecht said you mean he was bent over to tie his shoe or scratched his groin at exactly that second and then reverted back upwards? He further adds, that they all knew it was hokum, but they were determined to go with the magic bullet. 

How bad was this panel? During the so called London mock trial with Bugliosi and Spence, Dr. Petty from the HSCA said on the stand that "it would have been nice to have the brain".

LOL. ROTF.  Can you imagine saying something like that?  Just that alone turned the whole proceeding into  a joke.

It recalls  one of my favorite lines from any book on the case, the ending of Rush to Judgment.  "As long as we rely for information upon men blinded by the fear of what they might see, the precedent of the Warren Commission Report will continue to imperil the life of the law and dishonor those who wrote it little more than those who praise it."

Edited Tuesday at 05:44 PM by James DiEugenio