Dr. Michael Chesser Documents JFK's Right Forehead Entry Wound

[David Josephs]

On 8/26/2024 at 3:19 AM, Pat Speer said:

Doug Horne is not a member of this forum. We are as free to call him a liar as we are to call Arlen Specter a liar, or Gerald Posner a liar.

@James Norwood @Sandy Larsen

So we're all ok with a Moderator of this forum putting HORNE in the same category as SPECTER and POSNER?

 

Edited Tuesday at 12:05 PM by David Josephs

[Keven Hofeling]

On 8/22/2024 at 5:43 PM, Pat Speer said:

Sloppy sloppy sloppy.

1. I have said numerous times where Horne said Jenkins saw a wound high on the forehead, He said it in "JFK: What the Doctors Saw." This is his most recent comment on the subject. I would be glad to accept that he simply screwed up and accidentally mis-informed millions of people, but the movie has been out a year and neither he nor Mantik nor Chesser have corrected his mistake. 

As @Sandy Larsen has been diligently trying to point out to Mr. Speer on this thread, he is distorting Doug Horne's work when conflating Horne's concept of the upper forehead wound with Horne's concept of the right temple wound, and this is why and how:

Instead of doing any research on Horne's theories about there being TWO frontal entrance wounds to JFK's head, Speer instead regurgitates Paramount's poor presentation of a frontal entrance wound theory which conflates the two frontal head wounds postulated by Dr. David Mantik and Doug Horne three head shot scenario.

In "What the Doctors Saw," Paramount deceptively takes James Jenkins's account of the right temple wound and combines it with Doug Horne's conception of a high forehead wound, and whatever further explanation delineating the difference between these two different wounds -- that Horne surely provided to the Paramount producers -- has been cut and ended up on the studio floor, with what remains in the following segment from the documentary making for the misleading appearance which Speer has been flagrantly regurgitating, and attempting to mislead others into believing to be Horne and Mantik's articulation of the right temple wound as described by James Jenkins and Tom Robinson:

 

Had Speer done his due diligence, and researched the subject, he would have learned that Horne and Mantik's three headshot scenario differentiates between the high forehead entrance wound and the entrance wound at the right temple described by Jenkins and Robinson, as elucidated by Doug Horne in the following video:

 

 

YouTube link: https://youtu.be/NOSDgC_-4Ws

1. Doug Horne's Background and Book: The video begins by introducing Doug Horne, a former employee of the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB). He worked as a senior analyst on the military records team and later became the chief analyst for military records. After the ARRB shut down, Horne published a five-volume book titled "Inside the Assassination Records Review Board" in 2009. This book presents his conclusions about the medical cover-up surrounding the JFK assassination, the alteration of the Zapruder film, and the reasons behind President Kennedy's death.

2. The Three Shots and Their Trajectories: Horne and Dr. David Mantik, a physician, agree that President Kennedy was shot in the head three times. They believe one shot came from behind and entered low in the skull, likely originating from the Dealey Plaza Dal-Tex building. Two shots came from the right front. One entered high above the right eye and exited the upper left rear of the skull, likely fired from near the corner of the fence on the grassy knoll. The second shot from the right front entered just forward and above the right ear, causing a large blowout at the rear of the head. Horne suggests this shot was fired from further down the fence line.

3. Tangential Wound and Parkland Hospital: Horne mentions Dr. Kemp Clark, the head of neurosurgery at Parkland Hospital, who described the head wound he saw as potentially a tangential wound, meaning it might have entered and exited at the same point. Horne connects this description to the shot that exited the upper left rear of the skull, indicating it might have been a near-tangential wound.

4. The Missing Exit Wound and the Orbit/Vomer Injuries: The shot from behind, according to Horne, likely did not exit the skull, explaining the cracked orbit of the right eye, displaced right eye, and crushed vomer (the bone in the middle of the nose) as noted by Dr. Boswell. Since no exit wound was observed on the front of President Kennedy's face, Horne believes this bullet was removed during surgery before the autopsy.

5. The Red Triangle Incision and the Postmortem Surgery: Horne explains that the second shot from the right front, which entered high above the right eye, had to be removed during the postmortem surgery. This explains the large red incision in the shape of a V on the president's forehead, which was not seen at Parkland Hospital. He highlights the significance of this point by mentioning that nobody at Parkland Hospital saw a red triangle of bloody damage above the right eye, and Jackie Kennedy, who was holding President Kennedy's head during the shooting, stated that there was "nothing" from the front.

6. Contradictions in Testimony and the Zapruder Film: Horne emphasizes the discrepancy between the absence of a red triangle at Parkland Hospital and its presence in the autopsy photographs. He argues that this red triangle is the result of an incision made to remove the third entrance wound, which was approximately the size of a dime. He further mentions the discrepancy between the lack of a visible right side of the head in the Zapruder film and the presence of a blown-out right side in the autopsy photographs.

_________________

"Sloppy sloppy sloppy."

This is the problem with Speer's "research," particularly that concerning Dr. David Mantik, Dr. Michael Chesser, and Doug Horne, against whom he has elsewhere admitted bearing a great deal of personal animosity. Speer fails to do actual research, and instead offers half-baked assumptions based upon shoddy productions such as "What the Doctors Saw," and attempts to pass them off as fact. If Speer were to do the honorable thing, he would make public apologies to Dr. Mantik, Dr. Chesser and Doug Horne, and publicly apologize to his readers for these efforts to mislead them which, at best, are the result inept research methods.

 

On 8/22/2024 at 5:43 PM, Pat Speer said:

2. It is silly to assume Robinson said something when he didn't say it. As stated, he quickly corrected Purdy and said "by the temple." He was then asked about this first by Livingstone and then Horne and told them what he saw was on the cheek. Now some have taken to pretending he was describing a different wound entirely and that Livingstone and Horne were too incompetent to ask him about the wound on the forehead, but it's clear as day they asked him about the wound he saw and he said it was on the cheeks. 

Well, here we are again dealing with Speer's false assertions about the Tom Robinson testimony. It appears that no matter how many times I bring these misstatements about Robinson's testimony to his attention, he just keeps repeating them again and again, as if he is not at all concerned about the impact it has on his own steadily diminishing credibility.

Speer's disinformation about Tom Robinson's testimony basically breaks down to three claims, as follows:

1) There was a tiny hole that was not a bullet entrance by [JFK's] temple.

2) that nineteen years later, before the ARRB, Robinson was no longer referencing the right temple wound, and testified instead "I think I saw two or three tiny wounds by [JFK's] right cheek," and

3) that fourteen years after that Doug Horne, without any actual reference to Tom Robinson's testimony at all claimed that "Robinson said he saw a bullet hole high on the forehead above the right eye."

The sleight of hand parlor trick Speer is playing when characterizing Robinson's testimony as meaning "there was a tiny hole that was not a bullet entrance by the temple" misleads by implying that Tom Robinson believed the right temple wound could not have been caused by a bullet, or alternatively, that it could have been caused by a bullet, but was an exit wound rather than an entrance wound. As can be seen by reading Robinson's actual testimony below, Robinson did in fact testify that the right temple wound could have been caused by a piece of a bullet, by shrapnel or by a piece of bone. And as to Robinson's statement that it was an exit wound rather than an entrance, it would become clear in Robinson's Assassination Records Review Board interview that he was relying entirely on what he had overheard the pathologists saying at the Bethesda Morgue which accounts for his opinion that it was an exit wound; and pertinent to that fact is the likelihood that the pathologists were engaged in a cover-up of evidence of frontal bullet entry wounds. Thus, both Robinson's statement that the cause was a piece of a bullet -- rather than an intact bullet -- and that it was an exit wound rather than an entry wound cannot be regarded as a definitive expert opinion, as Robinson was not a pathologist or a ballistics expert, and the opinion was based merely on what he overheard the pathologists saying (pathologists who were engaged in a cover-up).

Speer, in doing one of his infamous "McClelland jobs" on Tom Robinson takes the art of deception to a new level. Speer simply straight out writes bald faced misrepresentations.

Pat Speer's misrepresentations about Tom Robinson were as follows:

https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/30374-incision-made-on-jfks-head-kennedy-assassination-nothing-to-see-here-an-incision-made-on-jfks-head/?do=findComment&comment=534508

1). Pat Speer characterizes Tom Robinson's 1/12/1977 HSCA testimony as Robinson saying "I think I saw a small wound that was not a bullet hole by the temple":

But as can be seen in the transcript of Tom Robinson's 1/12/1977 below, Tom Robinson testified that there was a little wound "at the temples in the hairline" on the "right" side that was "a quarter of an inch" in diameter (Speer deceptively claims this was instead a "large wound," consistent with his deluded top of the head wound paradigm), and was according to Robinson caused "probably [by] a piece of bone or a piece of the bullet" (but NOTE that the ARRB questioning of Robinson in 1996 makes it clear that Robinson's opinions of the cause of the wound were ALL based upon what he overheard the pathologists saying [as they engaged in the cover-up of the frontal wounds] as Robinson was not any kind of expert in pathology or ballistics):

THOMAS EVAN ROBINSON INTERVIEW - ARRB MD 63 - Robinson-Purdy HSCA Interviews (1/12/77) https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=327⁠
⁠
"...PURDY: Did you notice anything else unusual about the body which may have been artificially caused, that is, caused by something other than the autopsy?
⁠
ROBINSON: Probably, a little mark at the temple in the hairline. As I recall, it was so small, it could be hidden by the hair. It didn't have to be covered with make-up. I thought it probably a piece of the bone or a piece of the bullet that caused it.
⁠
PURDY: In other words, there was a little wound.
⁠
ROBINSON: Yes.
⁠
PURDY: Approximately where, which side of the forehead or part of the head was it on?
⁠
ROBINSON: I believe it was on the right side.
⁠
PURDY: On his right side?
⁠
ROBINSON: That's an anatomical right, yes...
⁠
PAGE 3
⁠
PURDY: You say it was in the forehead region up near the hair line?
⁠
ROBINSON: Yes.
⁠
PURDY: Would you say it was closer to the hair?
⁠
ROBINSON: Somewhere around the temples.
⁠
PURDY: Approximately what size?
⁠
ROBINSON: Very small, a quarter of an inch.
⁠
PURDY: Quarter of an inch is all the damage. Had it been closed up by the doctors?
⁠
ROBINSON: No, he didn't have to close it. If anything I just would have probably put a little wax on it.
⁠
PURDY: Were you the one that was responsible for closing these wounds in the head?
⁠
ROBINSON: Well, we all worked on it. Once the body was embalmed arterially and they brought a piece of heavy duty rubber, again to fill the area (area in the back of the head) I remember treating the . . . organs, like I said, we all tried to help one another.
⁠
PURDY: O.K., you had to close the wound in the back of the head using the rubber, what other work had to be done on the head?
⁠
ROBINSON: It had to be all dried out, packed and the rubber placed in the hair and the skin pulled back over it as much as possible and stitched into that piece of rubber. They were afraid again of leaks, once the body is moved or shaken in the casket and carried up the Capitol steps and opened again, we had to be very careful, there would have been blood on the pillow.
⁠
PURDY: Was there any other work that you had to do on the head?
⁠
ROBINSON: I did the make up, cosmetic.
⁠
PURDY: Were there any other wounds on the head other than the little one in the right temple area, and the big one in the back?
⁠
ROBINSON: THAT'S ALL (emphasis not in original).
⁠
PAGE 4
⁠
PURDY: Did you have to shave the head so you could tell if there were other wounds?
⁠
ROBINSON: No. In fact, we wanted the hair there to hide as much as possible. Putting the head into the pillow of the head of the casket would have hidden everything.
⁠
PURDY: Do you think it was possible that there was some other wound under the hair? Did you look for other wounds?
⁠
ROBINSON: Oh yes, we would have found that.
⁠
PURDY: So you are satisfied in your professional experience that there were no other significant wound of the head?
⁠
ROBINSON: I stayed on the left side of the body throughout the whole thing.
⁠
PURDY: Did you get a good look at that wound on the right temple area?
⁠
ROBINSON: Oh yes, I worked right over for some time.
⁠
PURDY: What did you feel caused that wound?
⁠
ROBINSON: I think either a piece of bone or a piece of the bullet. Or a very small piece of shrapnel...."

2). Pat Speer next characterizes Tom Robinson's 6/21/1996 ARRB testimony as Robinson saying "I think I saw two or three tiny wounds by the right cheek":

But when we consult the actual 1996 ARRB report, we see that just as Tom Robinson did in his 1977 HSCA testimony, in his 1996 ARRB testimony Tom Robinson ALSO specifically describes the right temple wound separately from the shrapnel punctures in the cheek (See next to red arrow below). Tom Robinson additionally executed two drawings of the right temple wound for the ARRB (one of which is the skull diagram below).

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

3). Then Pat Spear attempts to smear Doug Horne by writing "Doug Horne, fourteen years after that: Robinson said he saw a bullet hole high on the forehead above the right eye." 

As can be seen in the second video at the top of this post, and in the following graphic below, Doug Horne's reference to the upper forehead entry wound is an element of the three head shot scenario advocated by Dr. David Mantik and himself, having NOTHING to do with Tom Robinson's testimony. Speer's assertions to the contrary are the product of his shoddy research methods combined with his desire to slander Horne and Mantik, and should be dismissed as such:

 

[Jonathan Cohen]

4 hours ago, David Josephs said:

@James Norwood @Sandy Larsen

So we're all ok with a Moderator of this forum putting HORNE in the same category as SPECTER and POSNER?

 

Neither James Norwood or Sandy Larsen are moderators of this forum.

[Pat Speer]

2 hours ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

Neither James Norwood or Sandy Larsen are moderators of this forum.

I think he was talking about me. For some reason he was offended by my suggestion people like Horne should be held to the same standards as people like Specter and Posner. 

This tribalism is silly, IMO. I have met most of the "names" involved in JFK research. And I can guarantee that many of the most famous CTs think more highly of some of the top LNs than they do some of those on their own "side." 

Let's take for example Cyril Wecht. Cyril disagreed with men like Baden, Specter, and Bugliosi. But he thought more highly of them than he did men like Lifton and Fetzer. 

[Pat Speer]

6 hours ago, Keven Hofeling said:

As @Sandy Larsen has been diligently trying to point out to Mr. Speer on this thread, he is distorting Doug Horne's work when conflating Horne's concept of the upper forehead wound with Horne's concept of the right temple wound, and this is why and how:

Instead of doing any research on Horne's theories about there being TWO frontal entrance wounds to JFK's head, Speer instead regurgitates Paramount's poor presentation of a frontal entrance wound theory which conflates the two frontal head wounds postulated by Dr. David Mantik and Doug Horne three head shot scenario.

In "What the Doctors Saw," Paramount deceptively takes James Jenkins's account of the right temple wound and combines it with Doug Horne's conception of a high forehead wound, and whatever further explanation delineating the difference between these two different wounds -- that Horne surely provided to the Paramount producers -- has been cut and ended up on the studio floor, with what remains in the following segment from the documentary making for the misleading appearance which Speer has been flagrantly regurgitating, and attempting to mislead others into believing to be Horne and Mantik's articulation of the right temple wound as described by James Jenkins and Tom Robinson:

 

Had Speer done his due diligence, and researched the subject, he would have learned that Horne and Mantik's three headshot scenario differentiates between the high forehead entrance wound and the entrance wound at the right temple described by Jenkins and Robinson, as elucidated by Doug Horne in the following video:

 

 

YouTube link: https://youtu.be/NOSDgC_-4Ws

1. Doug Horne's Background and Book: The video begins by introducing Doug Horne, a former employee of the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB). He worked as a senior analyst on the military records team and later became the chief analyst for military records. After the ARRB shut down, Horne published a five-volume book titled "Inside the Assassination Records Review Board" in 2009. This book presents his conclusions about the medical cover-up surrounding the JFK assassination, the alteration of the Zapruder film, and the reasons behind President Kennedy's death.

2. The Three Shots and Their Trajectories: Horne and Dr. David Mantik, a physician, agree that President Kennedy was shot in the head three times. They believe one shot came from behind and entered low in the skull, likely originating from the Dealey Plaza Dal-Tex building. Two shots came from the right front. One entered high above the right eye and exited the upper left rear of the skull, likely fired from near the corner of the fence on the grassy knoll. The second shot from the right front entered just forward and above the right ear, causing a large blowout at the rear of the head. Horne suggests this shot was fired from further down the fence line.

3. Tangential Wound and Parkland Hospital: Horne mentions Dr. Kemp Clark, the head of neurosurgery at Parkland Hospital, who described the head wound he saw as potentially a tangential wound, meaning it might have entered and exited at the same point. Horne connects this description to the shot that exited the upper left rear of the skull, indicating it might have been a near-tangential wound.

4. The Missing Exit Wound and the Orbit/Vomer Injuries: The shot from behind, according to Horne, likely did not exit the skull, explaining the cracked orbit of the right eye, displaced right eye, and crushed vomer (the bone in the middle of the nose) as noted by Dr. Boswell. Since no exit wound was observed on the front of President Kennedy's face, Horne believes this bullet was removed during surgery before the autopsy.

5. The Red Triangle Incision and the Postmortem Surgery: Horne explains that the second shot from the right front, which entered high above the right eye, had to be removed during the postmortem surgery. This explains the large red incision in the shape of a V on the president's forehead, which was not seen at Parkland Hospital. He highlights the significance of this point by mentioning that nobody at Parkland Hospital saw a red triangle of bloody damage above the right eye, and Jackie Kennedy, who was holding President Kennedy's head during the shooting, stated that there was "nothing" from the front.

6. Contradictions in Testimony and the Zapruder Film: Horne emphasizes the discrepancy between the absence of a red triangle at Parkland Hospital and its presence in the autopsy photographs. He argues that this red triangle is the result of an incision made to remove the third entrance wound, which was approximately the size of a dime. He further mentions the discrepancy between the lack of a visible right side of the head in the Zapruder film and the presence of a blown-out right side in the autopsy photographs.

_________________

"Sloppy sloppy sloppy."

This is the problem with Speer's "research," particularly that concerning Dr. David Mantik, Dr. Michael Chesser, and Doug Horne, against whom he has elsewhere admitted bearing a great deal of personal animosity. Speer fails to do actual research, and instead offers half-baked assumptions based upon shoddy productions such as "What the Doctors Saw," and attempts to pass them off as fact. If Speer were to do the honorable thing, he would make public apologies to Dr. Mantik, Dr. Chesser and Doug Horne, and publicly apologize to his readers for these efforts to mislead them which, at best, are the result inept research methods.

 

Well, here we are again dealing with Speer's false assertions about the Tom Robinson testimony. It appears that no matter how many times I bring these misstatements about Robinson's testimony to his attention, he just keeps repeating them again and again, as if he is not at all concerned about the impact it has on his own steadily diminishing credibility.

Speer's disinformation about Tom Robinson's testimony basically breaks down to three claims, as follows:

1) There was a tiny hole that was not a bullet entrance by [JFK's] temple.

2) that nineteen years later, before the ARRB, Robinson was no longer referencing the right temple wound, and testified instead "I think I saw two or three tiny wounds by [JFK's] right cheek," and

3) that fourteen years after that Doug Horne, without any actual reference to Tom Robinson's testimony at all claimed that "Robinson said he saw a bullet hole high on the forehead above the right eye."

The sleight of hand parlor trick Speer is playing when characterizing Robinson's testimony as meaning "there was a tiny hole that was not a bullet entrance by the temple" misleads by implying that Tom Robinson believed the right temple wound could not have been caused by a bullet, or alternatively, that it could have been caused by a bullet, but was an exit wound rather than an entrance wound. As can be seen by reading Robinson's actual testimony below, Robinson did in fact testify that the right temple wound could have been caused by a piece of a bullet, by shrapnel or by a piece of bone. And as to Robinson's statement that it was an exit wound rather than an entrance, it would become clear in Robinson's Assassination Records Review Board interview that he was relying entirely on what he had overheard the pathologists saying at the Bethesda Morgue which accounts for his opinion that it was an exit wound; and pertinent to that fact is the likelihood that the pathologists were engaged in a cover-up of evidence of frontal bullet entry wounds. Thus, both Robinson's statement that the cause was a piece of a bullet -- rather than an intact bullet -- and that it was an exit wound rather than an entry wound cannot be regarded as a definitive expert opinion, as Robinson was not a pathologist or a ballistics expert, and the opinion was based merely on what he overheard the pathologists saying (pathologists who were engaged in a cover-up).

Speer, in doing one of his infamous "McClelland jobs" on Tom Robinson takes the art of deception to a new level. Speer simply straight out writes bald faced misrepresentations.

Pat Speer's misrepresentations about Tom Robinson were as follows:

https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/30374-incision-made-on-jfks-head-kennedy-assassination-nothing-to-see-here-an-incision-made-on-jfks-head/?do=findComment&comment=534508

1). Pat Speer characterizes Tom Robinson's 1/12/1977 HSCA testimony as Robinson saying "I think I saw a small wound that was not a bullet hole by the temple":

But as can be seen in the transcript of Tom Robinson's 1/12/1977 below, Tom Robinson testified that there was a little wound "at the temples in the hairline" on the "right" side that was "a quarter of an inch" in diameter (Speer deceptively claims this was instead a "large wound," consistent with his deluded top of the head wound paradigm), and was according to Robinson caused "probably [by] a piece of bone or a piece of the bullet" (but NOTE that the ARRB questioning of Robinson in 1996 makes it clear that Robinson's opinions of the cause of the wound were ALL based upon what he overheard the pathologists saying [as they engaged in the cover-up of the frontal wounds] as Robinson was not any kind of expert in pathology or ballistics):

THOMAS EVAN ROBINSON INTERVIEW - ARRB MD 63 - Robinson-Purdy HSCA Interviews (1/12/77) https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=327⁠
⁠
"...PURDY: Did you notice anything else unusual about the body which may have been artificially caused, that is, caused by something other than the autopsy?
⁠
ROBINSON: Probably, a little mark at the temple in the hairline. As I recall, it was so small, it could be hidden by the hair. It didn't have to be covered with make-up. I thought it probably a piece of the bone or a piece of the bullet that caused it.
⁠
PURDY: In other words, there was a little wound.
⁠
ROBINSON: Yes.
⁠
PURDY: Approximately where, which side of the forehead or part of the head was it on?
⁠
ROBINSON: I believe it was on the right side.
⁠
PURDY: On his right side?
⁠
ROBINSON: That's an anatomical right, yes...
⁠
PAGE 3
⁠
PURDY: You say it was in the forehead region up near the hair line?
⁠
ROBINSON: Yes.
⁠
PURDY: Would you say it was closer to the hair?
⁠
ROBINSON: Somewhere around the temples.
⁠
PURDY: Approximately what size?
⁠
ROBINSON: Very small, a quarter of an inch.
⁠
PURDY: Quarter of an inch is all the damage. Had it been closed up by the doctors?
⁠
ROBINSON: No, he didn't have to close it. If anything I just would have probably put a little wax on it.
⁠
PURDY: Were you the one that was responsible for closing these wounds in the head?
⁠
ROBINSON: Well, we all worked on it. Once the body was embalmed arterially and they brought a piece of heavy duty rubber, again to fill the area (area in the back of the head) I remember treating the . . . organs, like I said, we all tried to help one another.
⁠
PURDY: O.K., you had to close the wound in the back of the head using the rubber, what other work had to be done on the head?
⁠
ROBINSON: It had to be all dried out, packed and the rubber placed in the hair and the skin pulled back over it as much as possible and stitched into that piece of rubber. They were afraid again of leaks, once the body is moved or shaken in the casket and carried up the Capitol steps and opened again, we had to be very careful, there would have been blood on the pillow.
⁠
PURDY: Was there any other work that you had to do on the head?
⁠
ROBINSON: I did the make up, cosmetic.
⁠
PURDY: Were there any other wounds on the head other than the little one in the right temple area, and the big one in the back?
⁠
ROBINSON: THAT'S ALL (emphasis not in original).
⁠
PAGE 4
⁠
PURDY: Did you have to shave the head so you could tell if there were other wounds?
⁠
ROBINSON: No. In fact, we wanted the hair there to hide as much as possible. Putting the head into the pillow of the head of the casket would have hidden everything.
⁠
PURDY: Do you think it was possible that there was some other wound under the hair? Did you look for other wounds?
⁠
ROBINSON: Oh yes, we would have found that.
⁠
PURDY: So you are satisfied in your professional experience that there were no other significant wound of the head?
⁠
ROBINSON: I stayed on the left side of the body throughout the whole thing.
⁠
PURDY: Did you get a good look at that wound on the right temple area?
⁠
ROBINSON: Oh yes, I worked right over for some time.
⁠
PURDY: What did you feel caused that wound?
⁠
ROBINSON: I think either a piece of bone or a piece of the bullet. Or a very small piece of shrapnel...."

2). Pat Speer next characterizes Tom Robinson's 6/21/1996 ARRB testimony as Robinson saying "I think I saw two or three tiny wounds by the right cheek":

But when we consult the actual 1996 ARRB report, we see that just as Tom Robinson did in his 1977 HSCA testimony, in his 1996 ARRB testimony Tom Robinson ALSO specifically describes the right temple wound separately from the shrapnel punctures in the cheek (See next to red arrow below). Tom Robinson additionally executed two drawings of the right temple wound for the ARRB (one of which is the skull diagram below).

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

3). Then Pat Spear attempts to smear Doug Horne by writing "Doug Horne, fourteen years after that: Robinson said he saw a bullet hole high on the forehead above the right eye." 

As can be seen in the second video at the top of this post, and in the following graphic below, Doug Horne's reference to the upper forehead entry wound is an element of the three head shot scenario advocated by Dr. David Mantik and himself, having NOTHING to do with Tom Robinson's testimony. Speer's assertions to the contrary are the product of his shoddy research methods combined with his desire to slander Horne and Mantik, and should be dismissed as such:

 

1. Mantik and Horne cited Robinson as evidence for a forehead entry years before they developed their three headshot theory. He was in fact their star witness for such an entry. Their presentation of him as such a witness is irrational, if not dishonest. 

2. James Jenkins has specified that the wound he saw was on the side of the head slightly above and forward of the ears. This is not the location of the red arrow in the illustration above. It IS however pretty much the location of the green arrow. This makes it all the more troubling that in JFK: What the Doctors Saw Horne is presented to indicate that the wound Jenkins saw was at the red arrow. I mean WTF?

Now, it COULD be that the film-makers mis-represented Horne's beliefs, as Keven has stated. But this is hard to believe seeing as this film was a re-edit of an earlier film in which Horne was not included, and Horne is clearly presented as the guide whose interpretations of the evidence should be followed. IF the film-makers had misinterpreted and/or deliberately misrepresented Horne's views, why did he not inform them of this after an early screening, and why has he not said so publicly?

As he has not we can only assume his views were not misrepresented. 

And that's not even to mention that Horne has a LONG history of misrepresenting Jenkins' statements and actions regarding the autopsy...to such an extent that Jenkins felt it necessary to add a section to his book in which he disavowed Horne's claim Jenkins was kept out of the morgue before the beginning of the autopsy, and was not there during the period Horne claims Humes altered the body. 

So, yeah, Horne has a history of making stuff up about people when they say things that fail to support his "theory."

It's a pattern. 

Reed said he took x-rays, sat down in the audience, and was then asked to leave. As the x-rays fail to show the skull as Horne wants us to believe it was prior to alteration, Horne tells his readers Reed sat down in the audience, was asked to leave after Humes started altering the body, and was then brought back to take the x-rays. 

Similarly, Robinson said he arrived at the beginning of the autopsy and later saw a wound or wounds on the cheek. As Horne needs his readers to believe this cheek wound was actually a wound on the forehead, which Horne claims was concealed by Humes in pre-autopsy surgery, he tells his readers Robinson arrived far before the beginning of the autopsy, and in fact delivered the body. And that he then saw a wound on the forehead.

So, no, it's not a big stretch to think he had more recently added to his misrepresentations about Jenkins by telling the people behind JFK: What the Doctors Saw that Jenkins saw a wound on the forehead--where Chesser now claims there was a wound. 

 

 

 

Edited Tuesday at 08:25 PM by Pat Speer

[Eddy Bainbridge]

I am not particularly impressed by Chesser's presentation. I don;t think (as shown above) it has the power to convince people of a frontal shot. What I do believe, and have posited on another thread about this presentation is that he has provided THE BEST description of the lateral xray by anyone who has seen it in the archives.

We have discussed analysis of enhanced evidence ad-nauseum (Prayer man, knoll photos, z-film). In Chesser's presentation we have entirely believable testimony that there is more to see on the x-ray than a lay person can discern from available copies. Why isn't there a strong push to simply get an enhanced copy from the archives? That will prove a frontal shot.

[W. Niederhut]

1 hour ago, Eddy Bainbridge said:

I am not particularly impressed by Chesser's presentation. I don;t think (as shown above) it has the power to convince people of a frontal shot. What I do believe, and have posited on another thread about this presentation is that he has provided THE BEST description of the lateral xray by anyone who has seen it in the archives.

We have discussed analysis of enhanced evidence ad-nauseum (Prayer man, knoll photos, z-film). In Chesser's presentation we have entirely believable testimony that there is more to see on the x-ray than a lay person can discern from available copies. Why isn't there a strong push to simply get an enhanced copy from the archives? That will prove a frontal shot.

Eddy,

    Any thoughts about the frontal metallic fragment trail seen on the lateral X-ray?

    The distribution of the fragments, by mass, is consistent with a front-to-back bullet trajectory.

[Micah Mileto]

It's also possible for an exiting piece of lead to leave a smear on bone, right? So a bullet could've entered the left temple or right forehead and exited the right temple?

Edited 17 hours ago by Micah Mileto

[Pat Speer]

2 hours ago, Micah Mileto said:

It's also possible for an exiting piece of lead to leave a smear on bone, right? So a bullet could've entered the left temple or right forehead and exited the right temple?

The lead smear is on the outside of the skull--on bone that has been beveled outwards. This makes no sense for a bullet entering at this location (as the beveling denotes an exit) and makes no sense for a bullet exiting this location (as an exiting missile would not smear lead on the outside of the skull). But it does make sense if the bullet both entered and exited at this location, as proposed by Dr. William Kemp Clark. 

Edited 14 hours ago by Pat Speer

[Micah Mileto]

47 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

The lead smear is on the outside of the skull--on bone that has been beveled outwards. This makes no sense for a bullet entering at this location (as the beveling denotes an exit) and makes no sense for a bullet exiting this location (as an exiting missile would not smear lead on the outside of the skull). But it does make sense if the bullet both entered and exited at this location, as proposed by Dr. William Kemp Clark. 

Even with a shallow angle shot or near-tangential shot? What about a bullet from the south knoll entering above the right eye and exiting above the right ear?

[Pat Speer]

8 hours ago, Micah Mileto said:

Even with a shallow angle shot or near-tangential shot? What about a bullet from the south knoll entering above the right eye and exiting above the right ear?

Think of yourself as a bullet fragment. You are traveling through a brain on the way to some skull. An exit defect opens up as you smash through the skull, with the opening on the outside of the skull being larger than the opening on the inside aspect of the skull, as result of the energy spreading outwards. You never touch the outside of the skull. You would leave no trace on the outside of the skull. 

Now, if you hit the skull at a shallow angle, and broke into pieces, with some pieces continuing onwards, the skull would show entrance beveling along with exit beveling. And lead from the inside of the bullet would be apparent on the exit beveling. 

 

 

Edited 5 hours ago by Pat Speer

[Nick Bartetzko]

On 8/31/2024 at 1:42 PM, Pat Speer said:

A couple of points. 

1. I was one of the first to write about Elmer Moore and am to some extent responsible for bringing what we know about Moore to this forum, and to the research community in general.

2. You seem to miss the nuance. ER doctors DO NOT make positive determinations as to entrance and exit. They have no specialized training to do so and their impressions are not considered trustworthy. Studies have been done in which ER doctors are as likely to be wrong as they are right when it comes to determining entrance and exit wounds in bodies with more than one wound. As a consequence, dedicated professionals do not insist wounds they observed were entrances and exits, but will instead insist that these wounds looked like entrances or exits. 

So, yes, Perry said he was willing to accept that the wound was an exit wound, but always maintained that it looked like an entrance wound. 

This is as one would expect from a doctor with his training. All the Parkland witnesses, including McClelland, initially did the same. 

I give props to McClelland, however, for specifying in his WC testimony that the tiny throat wound could only have been an exit for a projectile traveling much slower than the presumed bullet. 

My years-long study of the wound ballistics literature proves he was correct. 

P.S. Here's what I have on Moore. Almost none of this was widely known when I first shared this with this forum. 

From chapter 3c:

Should the Warren Commission's refusal to reach a conclusion on the number and timing of the shots, and its deliberate and ongoing efforts to deceive the public regarding Oswald's ability with a rifle not cause one to wonder if their entire investigation wasn't a political charade, and should Gerald Ford's misrepresentations of the evidence against Oswald not confirm these suspicions, then one needs to learn more about...Moore. Secret Service Agent Elmer Moore, that is...

After seeing Moore's name pop up numerous times in the most suspicious of circumstances, I asked researcher Gary Murr if he’d ever looked into Moore, and it turned out that he'd shared my curiosity. He sent me some of what he’d compiled on Moore. I then matched this up with Moore’s 1-6-76 testimony before the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities (aka the Church Committee). Some years later, moreover, I discovered the following photo of Moore online, where it had been posted by researcher Vincent Palamara. 

(This photo once accompanied a newspaper article in which Moore discussed his service for four U.S. Presidents. One might note, moreover, that he's placed LBJ at the top and JFK at the bottom.)

Here, then, is what we know about Moore...

At the time of the assassination, Elmer Moore was a Secret Service investigator assigned to their San Francisco office. A week after the assassination, 11-29-63, he was instructed to go to Dallas and assist Inspector Thomas Kelley with his investigation of the assassination. Once there, he conducted the Secret Service’s investigation of Jack Ruby, in order to establish the connection or lack thereof between Ruby and Oswald. Not surprisingly, he found no connection. On 12-5-63, he oversaw the Secret Service Survey of Dealey Plaza. The survey plat of this re-enactment, published by the Warren Commission as CE 585, and Moore’s subsequent reports, reveals that he concluded, after studying the Zapruder film, that the fatal head shot at frame 313 occurred when Kennedy was 34 feet further down the street than his fellow Agent Howlett concluded only the week before, and 29 feet further down the street than the Warren Commission would conclude 6 months later. This is a bit suspicious. Is it a coincidence that Kennedy’s traveling this extra distance would give the presumed sniper more time to aim, and make Oswald’s purported shooting feat less fantastic? The next week, on 12-11, Moore engaged in more mysterious activity. He visited the doctors at Parkland hospital who’d worked on Kennedy, and showed them the official autopsy report stating that the throat wound was an exit. This came as a surprise to some of these doctors, who’d initially believed and stated that the throat wound was an entrance, and repeated this speculation to reporter Jimmy Breslin, whose article on their treatment of Kennedy was in that week’s Saturday Evening Post. Since the doctors were giving interviews and repeating what was believed to be incorrect information, it only makes sense then that someone in the government would want to set them straight. Evidently, it was Moore’s job to set them straight.

Now here’s where things get weird. Moore’s 1976 testimony reflects that on 12-19, he was ordered to contact Chief Justice Earl Warren and request that he accept Secret Service protection.He had known Warren for over 20 years. But he had never worked in the protective detail of the Secret Service beyond temporary assignments. Nevertheless, he successfully convinced Warren he needed protection, and was Warren’s near-constant companion and bodyguard from that day until after the Warren Report was issued the next September. In this role, as bodyguard, he accompanied Warren to Warren’s questioning of Jack Ruby. But Moore was more than just a bodyguard. He admitted to the Senate Committee in 1976 that he had “discussions daily” with Warren. The obvious and vital question of whether or not Moore kept anyone informed of these discussions was not asked. The equally obvious question of whether anyone thought it was a conflict of interest to have one of the Secret Service’s chief investigators act as Warren’s personal security, when Warren was supposed to be reviewing the Secret Service’s investigation, also was not asked.  (A Church Committee document listing the names of 27 "Secret Service Agents investigating the Assassination of President Kennedy" lists Moore as one of three "supervisors," with 24 subordinates.)

What was discussed in 1976 was Moore’s relationship with James Gochenaur. Gochenaur had come forward with the allegation he’d met Moore in 1970, and that Moore had told him about some of his experiences investigating the assassination of President Kennedy. More to the point, Gochenaur said that Moore had guiltily admitted he’d badgered Dr. Malcolm Perry into changing his testimony about the President's throat wound. 

So how did Moore respond to this allegation? Well, Moore admitted meeting Gochenaur, and discussing the assassination with him, but denied telling Gochenaur he'd pressured Dr. Perry. Moore’s behavior, however, reveals he was greatly concerned about Gochenaur’s allegation, perhaps concerned enough to lie. He'd arrived for questioning with a personal attorney. He expressed the opinion that “to induce any witness to change his testimony, of course that’s a felony.”

So far, so good. Moore’s testimony fell apart, however, when he tried to explain what DID happen when he talked to Dr. Perry and the other Parkland doctors. Moore testified: “I was given a copy of the Bethesda autopsy. A mimeographed copy. There were numerous copies sent to the Dallas office and it was assigned to attempt to determine the trajectory of the bullets, the missiles, from the wound, and the report I referred to covers this…Well, what happened here, when I received the autopsy reports, there were medical terms and measurements that I was not familiar with one. I recall it was the acromion which is a process of the shoulder blade, I learned through Dr. Perry. And I think the description of the neck strap wound, the first bullet in the President’s neck, was determined about 14 centimeters from the acromion process arc, and another arc from the mastoid of 14 centimeters... They’re exactly the same measurements. And I was not sure of these in medical terms. The logical thing I thought at the time was to go out to talk to these people and also to let them see for the first time the results of the autopsy because they had not had the opportunity to actually see the fatal wound at all. They had never turned the body over at Parkland. They were engaged in respiratory and circulatory, you know, the trauma actions rather than examining wounds. So I had talked to Dr. Perry and he was, as I recall, 34 years old, a very personable man. He was very disturbed, as he had been quoted, where he had performed the tracheotomy through the exit wound, which is right over the Adam’s Apple, it went by part of the tie. He was quite disturbed that he had been quoted in the press as having said that is an entrance wound, and he had denied that consistently, that he ever said that, that what he said was there was a wound there and it could have been an entrance or an exit…And then when he saw the autopsy report, which was the first occasion, they got a copy, I think, the following day or so, was sent down from Bethesda, and they had been in contact with the doctors by phone, I believe…but they were quite interested in the autopsy report. And after reading it I think it was Dr. Perry first and then Dr. Carrico came in. And after they read it they asked if there would be any objection to other staff doctors seeing it who had attended the President in some manner or another and were interested in it. And I saw no objection. So they went into a little conference room—I would say six or seven doctors—and discussed it for possibly ten or fifteen minutes, and I left.” (When asked why he went to Parkland) “(To see) If it could be determined from the wounds the trajectory of the bullets. Did they come from the sixth floor of this and could this be proven by the—(When asked what Perry told him) “Well, that was not actually for him to answer, but what he was doing for me was  determining where this wound was on the body and what direction it went.”

The problem with Moore's testimony is it’s just not credible. I mean, really, Moore just so happens to show Perry the autopsy report, telling him the throat wound is officially an exit, to let him "see for the first time the results of the autopsy because they had not had the opportunity to actually see the fatal wound at all...They had never turned the body over at Parkland"? It was all just for Perry's general information, mind you, and not to get him to shut up? And really, Moore just so happens to pick Perry, the guy who told the nation in a press conference the throat wound was an entrance, as the guy to teach him a little anatomy? 

Moore's contention he consulted with Perry about the relative locations of the wounds, as opposed to his telling Perry the official conclusion about the relative positions of the wounds, is also suspect. The measurements for the back wound on the autopsy report, 14 cm from acromion and 14 cm below the tip of the right mastoid process, as we shall see, place the back wound in the back, at the same level as the throat wound. Moore’s 12-11 report, after his meeting with Perry, however, asserts that the missile path of the first bullet to strike the President “is from the upper right posterior thorax to the exit position in the low anterior cervical region and is in slight general downward direction.” I doubt a doctor would say such a thing. The upper thorax is, by definition, below the lower cervical region, unless the body is leaning forward. And the Zapruder film studied by Moore demonstrated that Kennedy was not leaning forward before the shots were fired. The probability, then, is that Moore went to Parkland at least in part to bring Perry into line, and let him know that the throat wound was officially an exit., and below the back wound. 

Now let's be fair. As Moore, in his testimony, expressed skepticism wound locations could effectively establish a bullet’s trajectory, he may honestly have figured the entrance on Kennedy’s back was close enough. This doesn’t explain, however, his reporting that the back wound was above the throat wound--something the measurements shown to Perry proved false. One should wonder, furthermore, if Moore noticed that the location of the back wound in the drawings created by the autopsy doctors in March was far higher than the wound location he’d mapped out with Perry, and if he told Chief Warren about this problem... Or even if the apathetic attitude towards the wound locations and trajectories revealed by Moore in his work for the Secret Service infected the Commission’s re-enactment in May...

If that's it, moreover, that Moore was apathetic to the extreme, well, that may have been just what qualified him for the job. A 1-7-64 Treasury Department memorandum for the file reflects that Moore, who’d been traveling with Earl Warren since 12-19, was asked by Warren on 12-2 if “he could be available to the Commission for an indefinite period to assist in its work.” A 12-8 memo from Secret Service Chief Rowley reflects that Moore was assigned to “furnish any service, assistance, and cooperation the Commission considers necessary.” Hmmm... These memos fail to mention Moore’s purported role as Warren’s bodyguard. This raises the question, then, of whether Moore was protecting Warren or helping him run the investigation. In Professor Gerald McKnight’s book Breach of Trust, he discusses a document found in the voluminous archives of researcher Harold Weisberg, now held at Hood College. Among the documents recovered via Weisberg’s numerous Freedom of Information Act lawsuits was a February 7. 1964 letter from General Counsel Rankin’s Secretary, Julia Eide. This letter reflects that “all the waste material” (that is, notes, carbons, tapes) of the 1-22-64 meeting of the Warren Commission, in which they discussed the possibility Oswald was working for the FBI, was to be turned over to Secret Service Inspector Elmer Moore and burned. 

Huh? Doesn’t sound like straight guard duty to me...

That Moore was more...than Warren’s guard dog... is undoubtedly intriguing. In the years following the assassination of President Kennedy, it would be revealed that the Secret Service has been used at times as a private intelligence unit answering only to the President. Richard Nixon used them to spy on his own brother, and, according to Nixon aide Alexander Butterfield, spy on other political candidates as well. Huh... This raises the uncomfortable possibility that Moore was President Johnson’s eyes and ears on the Commission, put in place, with Warren's acquiescence, to help keep the commission "in line." Huh... This might explain why Moore, a long time Warren acquaintance, was brought into the Secret Service’s investigation on the same day Warren agreed to chair a Presidential Commission reviewing the Secret Service’s findings. 

And that's not all... This might explain as well how Anthony Lewis, a writer for the New York Times, while working on a book with Johnson's close associate Abe Fortas, became privy to information that could only have come from within the Commission. And it might also explain Moore’s seemingly exaggerated concerns about Gochenaur’s statements, and his willingness to lie about his visit to Perry. And, while we're at it, it might also explain why Moore, the only one working with the Commission to admit measuring out 14 cms from the tip of the mastoid process on a body, failed to alert Warren that this put the wound on Kennedy’s back, inches below the location on the drawings entered into evidence on March 16, 1964 as the official representations of the President’s wounds.  

And, oh yeah, before I forget... it might also explain why an HSCA contact sheet (brought to my attention by Vince Palamara) reveals that Moore called HSCA staff member Eileen Dinneen on 3-9-78 to tell her that "a young lawyer" on the Schweicker Committee (sic--he meant Church Committee) "had been ready to send him to jail for perjury" and that, as a consequence, "he would refuse to answer questions about matters he was already questioned about." 

I mean, that's some balls, right? He called the HSCA to tell them he'd refuse to answer any question he'd ever been asked before, seeing as his answer to such a question might reveal an inconsistency in his story, and the possibility/probability he'd been lying. 

Now that's some public servant!

There’s also this… On November 22nd 2003, Senator Arlen Specter addressed a crowd at an assassination conference held at Duquesne University. He told the crowd about his work for the Warren Commission and of being shown an autopsy photo of the President’s back wound on May 24, 1964. This autopsy photo, as we have seen, should have convinced Specter that the wound on Kennedy's back was inches below the level depicted in the commission's exhibits, and that it was therefore doubtful the shooting had occurred as purported. Instead, Specter stuck by his belief the bullet causing this wound, after striking Kennedy's back on a sharply downward trajectory, had somehow exited from his throat. Now, in his 2000 book Passion for Truth, and in previous interviews, Specter had said that Secret Service Inspector Thomas Kelley had shown him this photo. On this day, the 40th anniversary of the assassination, however, he told the audience it was “Elmer Moore, who was the Chief’s bodyguard.” 

Yikes. If it was in fact Moore, well, that would suggest Specter was shown the photo with Warren’s blessing. And this, in turn, would suggest that Warren, Moore and Specter all knew the wound was on the back and inches lower on the body than as shown in the commission's exhibits...and that they'd conspired to hide this from the public... 

I read your conclusions/scenario on your website as to what you believe happened. You've done a tremendous amount of research which I very much appreciate. But I quite disagree with your conclusions. The throat wound is clearly an entrance wound. As was stated by CVarnell recently, JFK is starting to react between Z186-190 on the film and his mouth is open and he is clearly in distress when he emerges from behind the sign. The film then immediately shows the impact of the back shot and JFK is pushed forward. It's as if someone pounded a fist below his shoulder blade. There was metallic residue on the back wound clothes, but not on the front shirt and tie. The Getty photo of the shirt shows the hole in the back of the shirt is lower than the hole in the front. JFK was still sitting upright. Weisberg penned a book called Post Mortem. Going from memory, he interviewed Perry in 1966 at Parkland. Perry said it was an entrance wound, that he had wiped blood from the small wound with his finger and saw a ring of bruising which is indicative of an entrance wound. With this information and visual corroboration from the film, it sure looks like what I have described is the most plausible explanation for those wounds.