Is Robert Wagner the New Paul Hoch? – Part 2

Gary L. Aguilar, MD

Commission Exhibit #399, the “Magic Bullet”

Decades ago, Josiah “Tink” Thompson and I detailed the reasons we had for suspecting that CE #399, the  Magic Bullet, is not the original bullet that was found on a stretcher at Parkland Hospital on the day of the assassination. We published our findings online in an essay entitled “The Magic Bullet: Even More Magical Than We Knew?” [1]

The crux of it is that the FBI told the Warren Commission that one of their agents, Bardwell Odum, interviewed the two Parkland Hospital employees who had found the stretcher bullet, Darrell Tomlinson and O.P. Wright. And when Odum showed them CE 399, said the Bureau, they identified it as the stretcher bullet.[2] That was false: Odum never interviewed them.* Furthermore, according to the Bureau’s own, once-secret records, the witnesses told the Agent who did, Gordon Shanklin, that they did not recognize #399. That inconvenient FBI memo never reached the Warren Commission, which was left to believe that Tomlinson and Wright agreed #399 was the stretcher bullet.

(*Tink and I interviewed Odum in his home in Dallas in the 1990s. He flatly denied he’d ever shown any bullet to any Parkland employees, a claim backed up by the fact no FBI files exist of Odum’s supposed interview.)

Suspicion about CE 399’s bona fides first arose in 1966 when Tink Thompson interviewed Parkland’s O. P. Wright about it. A former cop and hunter with a trained eye for ‘guns and ammo,’ Wright said that the round-tipped #399 was not the Parkland bullet. Rather, the bullet he and Parkland engineer Darrell Tomlinson had found on 11/22/63 had a pointed tip. To show what he meant, he pulled a pointed-tipped bullet from his desk that he said looked like the 11/22 shell, and handed it to Tink. A photograph of Wright’s bullet is on page 175 of Tink’s 1967 book.[3]

But wait, Wagner exclaims. There is evidence that at least Tomlinson agreed that #399 looked like the stretcher bullet! It was dug up by Pat Speer,[4] he tells, and it comes from two credible, independent sources, Warren skeptic Ray Marcus and Earl Golz, a Dallas Morning News reporter. They both said that Tomlinson had told them (in 1966 and 1977, respectively) that #399 resembled the stretcher bullet. (p. 117-120) 

Our counselor admits that Tink and I were right that Agent Odum didn’t interview the two men. The record shows that Dallas Special Agent in Charge (SAC) Gordon Shanklin took the interview. But Wagner evades the most important evidentiary point: what Shanklin actually said in the declassified 6/20/64 FBI AIRTEL memorandum from the FBI office in Dallas. 

For the benefit of the jury, here’s what Shanklin wrote the DC Bureau, as Tink and I published it decades ago: 

“SAC, Dallas” (i.e., Special Agent in Charge, Gordon Shanklin) to J. Edgar Hoover, “For information WFO (FBI Washington Field Office), neither DARRELL C. TOMLINSON [sic], who found bullet at Parkland Hospital, Dallas, nor O. P. WRIGHT, Personnel Officer, Parkland Hospital, who obtained bullet from TOMLINSON and gave to Special Service, at Dallas 11/22/63, can identify bullet … .” (emphasis added) 

This memo is the only record, and an official record, of what Tomlinson and Wright told the FBI about CE 399 in 1964. It proves that the Bureau lied to the Warren Commission in CE # 2011 about their saying it resembled the stretcher bullet. And, as Wagner knows but prefers the jury not to, it predates whatever Tomlinson may have told Ray Marcus and Earl Golz in ’66 and ’77. Wagner credits Tomlinson’s later story even though he himself cites the evidence that Tomlinson may not have told Marcus or Golz the truth.

Wagner recounts that Tomlinson told Marcus in 1966 that he had met with FBI agent Shanklin and O.P. Wright in 1964 (p. 118), and that he advised Shanklin that #399 looked like the stretcher bullet. That’s not what Shanklin told his bosses in Washington. No doubt Shanklin’s account is the more objective. For, if anything, Shanklin would have been happy to report that Tomlinson and Wright told him that the dubious  CE 399 was the actual bullet they found on a Parkland stretcher. Wagner discounts what Tomlinson and Wright told the high-ranking FBI agent in 1964, when their memories were fresh. And he touts Tomlinson’s questionable, later word, seemingly oblivious to the inconvenient fact that Shanklin’s 1964 memo debunks the convenient tale Tomlinson gave Ray Marcus in 1966 and Earl Golz in 1977.

It never seems to have occurred to our counselor that when Tomlinson was interviewed by Marcus, 2 years after the FBI interviewed him, and 13 years later by Earl Golz, that by then he might have learned the benefits of aligning with official preferences.  It shouldn’t be ignored that in 1964, Arlen Specter repeatedly leaned on a balky and uncomfortable Tomlinson to say that he found the Magic Bullet on Governor Connally’s stretcher. [5][6] Tomlinson stammered and stalled under oath, but later demonstrated on film to Walter Cronkite that he found the bullet on the stretcher that Tink Thompson had described in Six Seconds in Dallas, Ronnie Fuller’s stretcher–not Connally’s.[7]

Furthermore, after Tomlinson and Wright, the next two people in the “Magic Bullet’s” alleged chain of possession, Secret Service Agent Richard Johnsen and the Chief of the Secret Service James Rowley, were also unable to identify #399, a fact that the FBI reported accurately in CE # 2011. Wagner tries to discount this by arguing their failure to identify was merely a failure to “positively identify” the bullet because they hadn’t inscribed their initials on it, a claim Tink and I dismantled in our original essay.

The bottom line? The first four people in the “Magic Bullet’s” chain of possession said they couldn’t identify CE 399. The FBI lied about it, and Tomlinson probably lied about it, too. Wagner does the best he can with what little he has to make this problem go away. He hasn’t succeeded.

The X-Ray Evidence: Enhanced vs Unenhanced

JFK’s X-ray evidence is of particular importance to our counselor. For Dr. Wecht, myself, and others have argued that the presence of tiny, “dust-like” fragments in the right front quadrant of JFK’s skull X-ray can best be explained by his having been struck in the right front quadrant of his skull by a soft-nosed, hunting round, not Oswald’s jacketed bullet. This worries Wagner. “The nature of the tiny fragments is the most persuasive argument offered by the CRC (critical research community),” he writes, “at least regarding the head wounds of the president (sic) – to establish the multiple-gunman thesis and thus conspiracy.” (p. 305, emphasis added) Wagner is right to fret about the important implications of this evidence. But why?

Unjacketed, soft-nosed rounds don’t behave like Oswald’s jacketed bullets do. Jacketed rounds pass through bone and break up once on the other side into small, but not tiny, “dust-like” fragments. (Fig. 12) Soft-nosed ones flatten on impact and burst into a “snowstorm” of minuscule fragments that cluster near the point of impact. And because they flatten on impact, unjacketed bullets impart more directional momentum to targets than jacketed ones do. The X-ray findings of injuries from the two types of missiles are distinctly different and distinctly important in the JFK case. 

Wagner’s “expert,” again Larry Sturdivan, correctly described those differences to the HSCA. 

The Select Committee asked, “Mr. Sturdivan, taking a look at JFK exhibit F–53, which is an X-ray of President Kennedy’s skull (Fig. 11), can you give us your opinion as to whether the President may have been hit with an exploding bullet?”

“Well,” he replied, “this adds considerable amount of evidence to the pictures which were not conclusive. In this enhanced x-ray of the skull, the scattering of the fragments throughout the wound tract are characteristic of a deforming bullet. This bullet could either be a jacketed bullet that had deformed on impact or a soft-nosed or hollow-point bullet that was fully jacketed and therefore not losing all of its mass. It is not characteristic of an exploding bullet or frangible bullet, because in either of those cases the fragments would have been much more numerous and much smaller. A very small fragment has very high drag in tissue and, consequently, none of those would have penetrated very far. In those cases, you would definitely have seen a cloud of metallic fragments very near the entrance wound. So this case is typical of a deforming jacketed bullet leaving fragments along its path as it goes. (emphasis added throughout)[8]

Elaborating in his 2005 book, Sturdivan reproduced on the same page both Kennedy’s enhanced lateral skull X-ray and the unenhanced lateral X-ray of a skull shot with a Carcano round in the Biophysics Lab’s tests in 1964.[9] The pattern of bullet fragmentation was very similar, he said. He was right, but for reasons he didn’t at all understand. (Figs. 11 and 12.)

Re JFK’s enhanced X-ray, he wrote: “… Lead fragments are scattered within the skull, reaching the frontal bone, not clustered at the entry point. Frangible bulletswould disintegrate very quickly, producing a dense cloud of fragments at the entry site … the extent of fragmentation of the bullet (in the enhanced X-ray) is characteristic of that of a fully jacketed military bullet that deformed and broke apart upon impact with the skull … It is not that of a frangible, soft-nosed or hollow-point bullet.”[10] (Fig. 11) (emphasis added)

Sturdivan is simply wrong. Cyril Wecht and I explained why in a piece in the AFTE Journal that Wagner discusses in his book, and which he ignores. (p. 301-303) It’s not complicated. 

Because he was neither a radiologist nor a physician, Sturdivan didn’t know how to read X-rays. He was reading the wrong X-ray when he compared Kennedy’s enhanced X-ray (Fig. 11) with the unenhanced film of the blasted test skull (Fig. 12). An apples to oranges comparison. The process of “enhancing” an X-ray renders minuscule fragments invisible. In Kennedy’s original, still secret,unenhanced X-ray, there is an obvious cloud of “dust-like” fragments that don’t show up in the enhanced film that Sturdivan discussed. And that “cloud” is located right where critics believe JFK was struck: the right front quadrant of JFK’s skull, just inside the “entry point,” to borrow from Sturdivan.

Had he done it properly and scientifically, he would have compared Kennedy’s unenhanced post-mortem X-ray with the unenhanced X-ray of the test skull he reproduced in his book. (Why the HSCA hired someone as unqualified as Sturdivan to give an expert interpretation of the X-ray of the Century is a mystery, though perhaps not to those inclined to the view that the HSCA wanted a witness to tell them what they wanted to hear.)

The unenhanced X-ray of the Biophysics test skull (Fig. 12) shows a pattern that is similar to Kennedy’s disanalogous, enhanced X-ray (Fig. 11) — a scattering of small fragments, but none of the “dust-like” radiolucencies that are present in JFK’s original, unenhanced X-rays. 

The Snowstorm

In the Biophysics experiment (Fig. 12), the test skull was shot from behind, and the missile entered where Oswald’s is said to have entered Kennedy’s, low through the occipital bone. The small fragments run across the lower portion of the skull, virtually undeflected. In this enhanced X-ray of JFK, small fragments run along the top. But the “dust-like” fragments, the “snow storm” of fragments, that are easily seen in the original, unenhanced films, aren’t seen because the process of “enhancement” has blotted them out. 

Figure 11. Enhanced lateral X-ray taken of JFK during the autopsy. (HSCA Exhibit F 53; 1HSCA240) 

Red arrows: The autopsy report and Sturdivan and Wagner maintain Oswald’s bullet entered low, through the occipital bone. The Clark Panel and the HSCA’s Forensics Pathology Panel said it entered high, through the parietal bone. When the Biophysics Lab shot test skulls through the occipital bone, the resulting fragment trail was low. (Fig 12) By contrast, the fragment trail in Kennedy’s X-ray runs very close to the top of JFK’s skull, above: orangearrow. Wagner and Sturdivan maintain Oswald’s low-entering bullet left the fragments along the top of JFK’s skull, and that there were no “dust-like” fragments on his X-ray.

However, JFK’s original, still secret, unenhanced X-rays at the National Archives do show myriad, minuscule fragments that are not visible in this enhanced image. They are clustered in the right front quadrant of JFK’s lateral skull X-ray. 

Figure 12. Unenhanced, lateral x-ray of a test skull shot with a Mannlicher Carcano by the government’s Biophysics Lab.[11] The jacketed bullet entered low, through the occipital bone, as Oswald’s is said to have done. The fragment trail is low, as the undeflected Mannlicher Carcano round traversed the lower portion of the skull. 

As with JFK’s enhanced X-ray, there is a scattering of small fragments. But no “dust-like” fragments are visible on this X-ray such as those that are visible, and were described in JFK’s original, unenhanced X-rays. JFK’s unenhanced, lateral skull X-ray would look like this X-ray if he’d been shot with a Mannlicher Carcano. But it doesn’t.

The presence and location of the “snow storm” of dust-like fragments in the right front quadrant of JFK’s original, unenhanced skull X-rays destroys Wagner’s case for a lone gunman. It proves a non-jacketed bullet, a non-Oswald bullet, blew into the right front part of JFK’s skull. Were those X-rays available to the public, I would show them, and the issue would vanish. That those inconvenient “dust-like” fragments exist is not just my and Cyril Wecht’s opinion. 

In fact, they were reported by Kennedy’s chief pathologist, James Humes, MD, also by a Secret Service agent, by an FBI Agent, as well as other government consulting, expert radiologists. This evidence has largely lain unrecognized and unappreciated in the record since 1964.

• During his Warren Commission testimony in 1964, Dr. Humes said: “(JFK’s X-rays) had disclosed to us multiple minute fragments of radio opaque material…These tiny fragments that were seen dispersed through the substance of the brain in between were, in fact, just that extremely minute, less than 1 mm in size for the most part.” A few moments later, Dr. Humes was asked, “Approximately how many fragments were observed, Dr. Humes, on the x-ray?” “I would have to refer to them again (the X-rays),” he answered, “but I would say between 30 or 40 tiny dust-like particle fragments of radio opaque material, with the exception of this one I previously mentioned, which was seen to be above and very slightly behind the right orbit.”[12]
• Secret Service Agent Roy Kellerman, an autopsy witness, testified that the fragments in JFK’s skull X-ray “looked like a little mass of stars; there must have been 30, 40 lights where these pieces were so minute that they couldn’t be reached.”[13]
• The HSCA interviewed FBI Agent James Sibert and reported, “the X-ray had many ‘… flecks like the Milky Way… .’ Sibert said a lot of the metal fragments were tiny.”[14]
• Russell Morgan, MD, the chairman of radiology at Johns Hopkins University, was the Clark Panel’s radiologist. “Distributed through the right cerebral hemisphere are numerous, small irregular metallic fragments,” the Panel reported, “most of which are less than 1 mm in maximum dimension. The majority of these fragments lie anteriorly and superiorly. None can be visualized on the left side of the brain and none below a horizontal plane through the floor of the anterior fossa of the skull.”[15]
• Cook County Hospital Forensic Radiologist John Fitzpatrick, MD, examined JFK’s X-rays in consultation for the ARRB and agreed, writing: “There is a ‘snow trail’ of metallic fragments in the lateral skull X-rays which probably corresponds to a bullet track through the head, but the direction of the bullet (whether back-to-front or front-to-back) [sic] cannot be determined by anything about the snow trail itself.”[16]
• Practicing neurologist Michael Chesser’s work requires examining skull X-rays. He examined the original, unenhanced JFK X-rays at the National Archives with special permission. He came to the same conclusion. “This location, on the intracranial side of the bony defect, is highly suggestive of an entry wound,” he wrote. “One of the principles of skull ballistics is that the largest fragments travel the furthest from the entry site, with the smallest traveling the least distance, and that is exactly what is seen on this right lateral skull X-ray. Tiny fragments are seen on the inner side of this right frontal skull defect, and the largest fragments were noted in the back of the skull.”[17]

DiMaio’s Patriotic Folly

Forensic pathologist Vincent DiMaio, MD, explained the meaning of a “snow trail” or “snowstorm”: “[T]he snowstorm appearance of an X-ray almost always indicates that the individual was shot with a centerfire hunting ammunition…”[18] That is, a soft-nosed, non-jacketed round. And as per Sturdivan, the right-forward location of the tiny fragments is a clear indication of what is visible in Zapruder film: an entrance wound in the right front quadrant of Kennedy’s head from an unjacketed bullet that left a tell-tail snowstorm of “dust-like” fragments in that area. 

For, although he thought that the shot at Zapruder frame 312-313 went from back to front, Sturdivan admitted what is well understood among “ballistics/forensics” authorities: just as the X-ray “snowstorm” can’t tell you whether the bullet was going back-to-front or front-to-back, Sturdivan said that “[a] similar explosion would have taken place if the bullet had gone through in the opposite direction.”[19]

Wagner, and his X-ray “expert” Sturdivan disagree. Our counselor clings to the theory Oswald’s bullet could have left the “snowstorm” of fragments in the right front part of JFK’s skull based on comments DiMaio made in a later edition of his book. 

In it, he suggested that the breach of the shell’s jacket after Oswald’s bullet struck Kennedy’s skull from the rear might have released the “dust-like” fragments seen in Kennedy’s unenhanced X-rays. (p. 323) However, DiMaio never examined Kennedy’s X-rays; he offered no evidence for his theory; and the Biophysics skull-shooting tests offer stout counterevidence: they show that MCC shells don’t release “dust-like” fragments. (Fig. 12) The absence of minuscule fragments in the X-ray of the test skull crushes the DiMaio-Wagner-Sturdivan theory. For as Richard Feynman once put it, “It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with the experiment, it’s wrong.”[20]

[As an aside, Sturdivan finally did see the original, unenhanced images in 2004 at the National Archives. He was emphatic under oath to the HSCA that the absence of tiny fragments in the enhanced X-ray proved that a jacketed bullet, not a hunting round, had felled JFK. But when he reported on his examination of the originals that dramatically do show a snowstorm of fragments in the right front quadrant of JFK’s skull, he said nothing about them. (Nor did he mention them in his 2005 book, JFK Myths.) He either didn’t notice them, or elected not to say they were there.[21] The HSCA’s, and Wagner’s, X-ray “expert” conveniently didn’t see what he didn’t want to see, but what credentialed experts did see.

X-ray Evidence of a Second Headshot?

Besides the “snow trail” of dust-like fragments in the right front quadrant of JFK’s skull, there is also a trail of small, but not minuscule, fragments that runs along the top of JFK’s skull in both the enhanced and the still-secret nonenhanced lateral skull X-rays. It does not align with the supposed low, occipital entrance wound specified in Kennedy’s autopsy report, although the autopsy surgeons said that it did. [22]> Nor does it line up with the higher entrance wound the Clark Panel identified, although that Panel said that it lined up to that higher entrance spot that they chose. [23] In fact, as anyone can see, the fragment trail in JFK’s lateral X-ray is about 5 cm above where both the Clark Panel and the HSCA said it was. (Fig. 11, orange arrow.)

That high fragment trail offers evidence for a second headshot circa Z-frames 327-328, one striking high from behind with a jacketed round that left small, but not “dust-like” fragments. Such a possibility is also backed up by the “jiggle” evidence in the Zapruder film (Z-frame 331 is blurred, which fulfills the 3-frame delay Luis Alvarez posited for a shot from the distant School Depository.[24]), by Professor James Barger’s acoustics analysis that indicated a shot from the rear at this moment, and by JFK’s rapidly forward-moving skull after Z frame 328, as explored by Thompson in Last Second in Dallas. Both Sturdivan and Wagner do not agree. Improbably, they claim Oswald’s bullet entered Kennedy’s skull low, was deflected upward, and left the high fragment trail at the top of Kennedy’s skull. Sturdivan, however, didn’t always see things that way.

Sturdivan, Wagner, and the Improbable Bullet Deflection

In 1978, Sturdivan told the HSCA that the evidence was clear and that the Forensic Pathology Panel got it right: “[T]here is no indication of any (bullet) track in the lower half of the skull. It definitely was in the upper part.” (Wagner, p. 305-6) [25] However, in 2003 he apparently changed his mind. He then endorsed the “low entrance” claim of Parkland neurosurgeon Robert Grossman, MD, with whom he had collaborated in a paper that appeared in the journal Neurosurgery. “There was a laceration approximately 1 inch in diameter located close to the midline of the cranium,” Grossman said, “approximately 1 inch above the external occipital protuberance,” and he produced a sketch of what he saw (Fig. 13).[26]<

Figure 13. Left: diagram prepared by Parkland neurosurgeon Robert Grossman, MD, depicting the entry wound he saw on 11/22/63. He said it was ~1 inch in diameter and slightly above the external occipital protuberance (EOP) in occipital bone. Right: Ida Dox’s drawing of the back of Kennedy’s head. It is a reasonably accurate rendition of an original autopsy photograph. [Dr. Grossman has said that JFK’s actual wound looked much different than the Dox image.[27]]

Against the Clark Panel and the HSCA’s forensic pathologists, Wagner endorses Grossman and Sturdivan that the entry wound was low, just like the autopsy surgeons said it was (Chapter 10). Neither Sturdivan, Wagner, nor Grossman appear cognizant of the fact that X-rays, and Sturdivan’s own sworn testimony, pose virtually insurmountable obstacles for their theory.

As per the lateral X-ray of the skull shot with Oswald’s type of ammo in the government’s tests (Fig. 12 and 15), the fragment trail is low and horizontal. Virtually undeflected, it follows the striking bullet’s trajectory across the test skull. Of course, upon impact, bullets may be deflected and veer away from the straight-line path. But the test bullet didn’t deflect much, if at all, as jacketed bullets like Carcano shells tend not to. Could Oswald’s bullet have been so severely deflected from its low entry point as to leave its fragments along the top of the President’s head, a full 100mm above the point of entry?

Sturdivan and Wagner say: Yes, it could, and it did. No, it couldn’t, according to the government’s skull shooting tests and, ironically, Wagner’s trusty expert. Sturdivan has testified about bullet deflection. Speaking from experience, he said,

“Well, let’s put it this way. With most military bullets, like the M-193, the bullet would curve almost immediately because the yaw begins to grow almost immediately. With the Mannlicher-Carcano bullet, it is much more stable, the yaw begins to grow much more slowly, and it curves much more slowly. So that at a target of 4 or 5 inches of soft tissue, that bullet would not deviate appreciably from its path… .” (emphasis added) [28]

Recall that he told the HSCA that Oswald’s bullet had entered high:  “[T]here is no indication of any track in the lower half of the skull. It definitely was in the upper part.” [29]> (Wagner, p. 305-6) Sturdivan’s obvious point was that Oswald’s bullet wasn’t much deflected, so the fragment trail at the top of JFK’s skull X-ray was close to the path of the bullet. “I would place the original track as being somewhat lower than that trail of fragments indicated through there,” he testified, “certainly not much lower.” (emphasis added) [30]

The X-ray of the test skull backs up Sturdivan’s claim: after entering the skull, the fragment trail does not deviate much from the bullet’s low trajectory. (Figs. 12 and 14)

Figure 14. Left: Lateral skull X-ray of Biophysics Lab test skull shot with a Mannlicher Carcano round from the rear. The bullet entered just above the external occipital protuberance. Note the fragment trail is horizontal and low (green line). The higher, red line is the path Sturdivan/Wagner propose Oswald’s bullet took after striking near the bottom of Kennedy’s skull.

Right: JFK’s enhanced lateral X-ray. Against Sturdivan’s testimony that MCC shells don’t much deflect, Wagner says that Oswald’s bullet entered JFK’s skull low and was dramatically deflected upward. He believes it left the fragment “trail” that we see in JFK’s X-rays at the very top of the skull, the red line. Note that there are no fragments between Wagner’s/Sturdivan’s low entrance wound and the “trail” at the top of Kennedy’s skull. 

I’ll leave it to the jury to decide whether Wagner and Sturdivan are right about the President’s X-rays.

Wagner “Debunks” the Acoustics

To dismiss the HSCA’s acoustics evidence for a shot from the grassy knoll, our counselor ignores credentialed authorities who are agnostic on the question of conspiracy. Instead, he cites non-credentialed, pro-Warren Commission sources. A little context, first.

Apparently, a Dealey Plaza motorcop’s microphone was stuck open in broadcast mode during the murder. Sounds were picked up, fed to, and recorded by the Dallas police. The HSCA hired two independent groups of acknowledged acoustics experts to analyze the recording. The first was M. R. Weiss and E. Aschkenasy; [31] the second was J. E. Barger, S.P. Robinson, E.G. Schmidt, and J.J. Wolf. [32] Both groups concluded that the recording revealed that gunshots had been fired, and that there was a high probability that one of the shots was fired from the grassy knoll. This finding arrived late in the HSCA’s proceedings, and it raised a ruckus. As the HSCA went out of business, two HSCA members recommended further study.

“The acoustical evidence of a gunman on the grassy knoll has enormous significance for our Nation,” Congressman Christopher J. Dodd wrote. “This by itself makes real the idea of a conspiracy to kill the President. The data upon which the experts base their conclusion should, therefore, be reviewed by other noted experts in this field.”[33] (emphasis added)

Similarly, Congressman Robert Edgar suggested, “I recommend that the Congress immediately order a full and detailed restudy of the acoustics work, perhaps through the National Science Foundation. Included in this restudy, a panel of scientific experts with knowledge of acoustics should be employed to monitor the methodology used in the study to ensure accuracy and determine the level of weight which should be given to this evidence.”[34] (emphasis added)

As Thompson minutely documented in Last Second in Dallas, the government ignored the sensible, specific recommendations of the HSCA. Two “reinvestigations” were done. Neither used credentialed acoustics authorities. Instead, this hot potato was first handed to the FBI, which in 1964 had “proved” there was no conspiracy. A thoroughly inadequately trained Bureau agent, B. E. Koenig, wrote a paper “disproving” the HSCA’s acoustics authorities. [35] His work was promptly debunked and discredited.[36] [37]

The Sorry Story of Luis Alvarez

So the government then turned to its trusted deputy: Nobel Prize-winning physicist Luis Alvarez. Though lacking any acoustics expertise, the Nobelist had sterling credentials as a Warren Commission devotee, and had previously set science aside to run cover for the government on another controversy. That story is worth a few words that Wagner denies the jury. It helps contextualize Alvarez’s subsequent work on the acoustics.

Israel and South Africa detonated a nuclear bomb in the Indian Ocean on 22 September 1979, the so-called “Vela Incident.” [38] It was inconvenient for President Carter’s nonproliferation policy that America’s ally, Israel, was testing nuclear weapons fashioned with American technology. To make the story go away, the government engaged Alvarez. He assembled a team and investigated, reporting that the “double flash” detected by the Vela satellite – invariably betokening a nuclear explosion – was, in this unique case, not a nuclear event. Rather, it was caused by a meteorite striking the satellite. As Thompson pointed out,Alvarez was promptly debunked by both expert government investigators and on-site Israeli sources that Seymour Hersh personally interviewed. [39]

As had the Vela Incident, the conspiratorial implications of HSCA’s acoustics posed an uncomfortable problem for the government. So again, the government tapped Alvarez. Given his longstanding pro-government position on JFK’s murder, the Nobelist did not chair the Ad Hoc Committee on BallisticAcoustics.[40] But he influenced who would be on it. None of the selectees had any acoustics training or expertise, including its chair, physicist Norman Ramsey–with whom Alvarez had long collaborated on prior government projects. He also picked Richard Garwin and F. Williams Sarles, both physicists who’d served on the disinforming Vela Panel. Alvarez thereupon worked closely with the “Ramsey Panel” to debunk the HSCA’s acoustics. 

Does Wagner embrace the experts who are truly expert in the field in which they offer opinions, such as the credentialed acoustics authorities? No. He goes instead with the uncredentialed Ramsey Panel, whose pro-government conflicts, prior history, and lack of expertise he omits any mention of–despite knowing of them from Thompson’s book, which he cites frequently. He also cites, in extenso, the conclusions of the untrained, non-acoustician Michael O’Dell (pp. 184-187, 191, 418-9, 423, 425, 428, 433.) Apparently, they told him what he wanted to hear. And with little more than that, he closes the case on the acoustics in favor of the official narrative. 

Conclusion

I would have much liked to have written a more favorable review, and would have if Wagner had written a different book. I’ve known him for seven years and bear him no personal animosity. He’s been a welcome guest in my home, attending JFK mini-conferences. He is invariably polite, well-mannered, and polished. Like Hoch, he presents himself as a “fair witness,” as someone who is detached, objectively minded, and willing to follow the evidence wherever it leads. But I’ve long thought that that’s not the real Wagner. Beneath a veneer of cautious, objective detachment, I see a devoted partisan. 

My first suspicion arose in the wake of Wagner’s presence supporting anti-conspiracy activist Lucien Haag in a debate at a mock trial of Oswald in Houston in 2017. As he had in a paper in the Association of Firearms and Toolmark Examiners Journal (AFTE), Haag argued that Governor Connally’s back wound was so large and oval that it proved Oswald’s bullet (#399) had not hit point forward, undeflected. It instead must have struck the governor sideways, in “yaw,” because it had tumbled through JFK’s back and neck before it hit Connally. 

Wecht and I had thoroughly debunked that same Haag myth two years before the Houston “trial” in the pages of the AFTE Journal.[41] It was foolish of Haag to gift us the opportunity to debunk him again in Houston. When later I read his first book, I discovered that Wagner had himself already debunked Haag’s fairy tale. Yet he remained mute as Haag tried foolishly to pass off this falsehood before the jury. This episode suggested to me that Wagner’s loyalty is likely less to truth than to the official narrative, and to junk-peddling “experts” like Haag who agitate in support of it. His latest book shows that our counselor’s stripes haven’t changed. 

He’s still privileging pro-government nonexperts and dubious evidence while sedulously ignoring true experts and hard evidence. Does he really expect his jury of readers to accept the debunked claims of his “authorities” when their most demonstrable virtue is not their expertise in the fields in which they offer opinionson JFK, but their loyalty to the government’s lone gunman wheeze? I don’t think he can. Wagner has thus failed the jury. He has also failed his dwindling band of Warren Commission coreligionists who cleave to the official mythology, defending a government that has lied about the death of JFK since the day he was murdered. 

But Wagner may yet redeem himself. He made a pledge that I hereby also make: “If I am wrong in certain respects, I will admit error and work to correct it.” (p. 13) I’ll do that no matter what he does, and I invite corrections. Let’s see if he does the same.

________________________________________

Footnotes

[1] https://www.history-matters.com/essays/frameup/EvenMoreMagical/EvenMoreMagical.htm

Is Robert Wagner the New Paul Hoch? – Part 1

Gary L. Aguilar, MD

Introduction

Paul Hoch is considered by some, and was recently described as the “doyen of serious JFK assassination research.”[1] That was the impression I and several colleagues had of him when we first waded into the mysteries of the President’s murder in the early 1990s. Having immersed himself in the case since the mid-1960s, Hoch struck us then-newbies as objective, knowledgeable, and logical. His essays in the 1976 book The Assassinations were astute, informative, and justly attacked aspects of the official narrative. Particularly the dishonesty of the FBI, and the Warren Commission’s bending its knee to the Bureau despite its members’ private, serious misgivings.[2] But while he skewered the Commission, he also rubbished some of the critics’ wilder notions.[3] But when, decades ago, he boosted Gerald Posner and J. Edgar Hoover’s confidant, John Lattimer, MD,[4] and when Hoch signaled his loyalty to the official narrative, our enthusiasm subsided. As he has faded from the scene in recent years, Hoch continues to wave the Commission’s flag. And now it seems a protégé and apparent heir has stepped forward to take up that éminence grise’s banner.  His name is Robert Wagner.

The author of two books,[5] Wagner, à la Hoch, purports to navigate the dense thicket of assassination medical, legal, and forensics data with “just one agenda,” he says, “to work toward establishing the most reasonable explanation of the assassination.”[6] To do that, Wagner, who has no credentials in medicine, law, or forensics, applies the knowledge and wisdom he’s acquired from what he says are his “many years of experience” in “providing expert opinions at state and federal trials on business and economic topics.” Those years taught him that “the jury needs to be convinced that the expert is truly expert in the field in which he or she offers opinions” and that an “expert consistently grounds his or her opinions on a reasonable assessment of known facts and overall context.”[7]

In his latest book, JFK Assassinated, Wagner puts his courtroom experience to work weighing the contrasting claims of Warren loyalists and skeptics. He, like Hoch before him, levels broadsides at both sides. Also, like Hoch, he concludes that the battle is done, the smoke has cleared, and the government’s case, though battered and bruised, still stands.

Pro Warren jurors will cheer, and they have.[8] Skeptics will jeer, not without good reason. For our counselor observes in the breach the very rules he advocates in real trials. He’ll never convince a fair jury that the experts he cites – Larry Sturdivan on neurophysiology, radiology, etc., Parkland Hospital’s Robert McClelland, MD on Kennedy’s head wound, Michael O’Dell, and indirectly the Ramsey Panel, on acoustics, etc., really are the best ‘experts in the fields in which they offer opinions.’ Nor does he show that they ‘consistently ground their opinions on reasonable assessments of known facts and overall contexts.’  

In this review, as if presented to a jury, I will argue that a whiff of insincerity wafts from the pages of his book. For it’s difficult to imagine he doesn’t realize how flawed and prejudiced the sources he trusts are.

Wagner was warned that I might take notice of his book. “Paul Hoch may have been correct,” he writes, “when he told me that I had taken over from him to be Gary’s punching bag.” (p. 343) I take no joy in lacing up the gloves. But with this book, our counselor has willingly stepped into the ring and put his guard down. I wouldn’t be taking a swing if he hadn’t jutted out his glass jaw.

While much more could be written, in this review I will narrow the focus to areas our consultant most emphasizes: Kennedy’s head wound and evidence from the autopsy photographs; his explanation of JFK’s lurch “back and to the left” after being struck in the head at Zapruder frame 313; the bona fides of Commission Exhibit #399, the so-called “Magic Bullet;” Kennedy’s X-ray findings; and, finally, the acoustics evidence.

To begin with, Wagner’s handling of the President’s head injuries hints at an agenda. In brief, he sides with the House Select Committee’s (HSCA’s) dubious claim, namely that the Parkland doctors were mistaken about Kennedy’s head wound. It’s a fascinating story, but a little background for the jury is in order.

Kennedy’s Fatal Head Wound

After the shots rang out in Dealey Plaza, Kennedy was rushed to an excellent major trauma center, Parkland Hospital. There, he was treated by a seasoned team of trauma surgeons. They said that Kennedy’s fatal wound was on the back, right side of his head. The words right “posterior,” “occipital,” “occipito-parietal,” etc., were repeatedly used. However, Kennedy’s autopsy photographs, which the HSCA said it had authenticated, showed no such rearward damage but only a wound toward the right front area of JFK’s head.[9] This posed a significant problem for the HSCA, which reinvestigated the assassination in the late 1970s.

It announced that it had resolved the conflict. This is what it wrote in Volume 7, p. 37 of their volumes: 

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 the wound … 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.”[10] (Emphasis added.)

As we discovered almost 30 years ago from files declassified by the JFK Review Board–files that should never have been suppressed in the first place–the above HSCA claim was false. The autopsy witnesses did not corroborate the wounds depicted in the photographs. To the contrary, by word and diagram, they had overwhelmingly agreed with the Dallas doctors that JFK’s skull wound was rearward, on the right.[11]

Wagner doesn’t bother with the autopsy witnesses who had more than ample viewing time, nor with most of the Texas trauma surgeons. Instead, he presents to the jury “[P]erhaps the most famous account” of JFK’s rearward wound, that of Dallas’s Robert McClelland, MD, and dissects the doctor over four pages (p. 206-10). Wagner begins by quoting McClelland’s Warren Commission testimony: “As I took the position at the head of the table … I was in such a position that I could very closely examine the head wound, and I noted that the right posterior portion of the skull had been extremely blasted.” (6H33). 

That was an innocent mistake, Wagner says, because, as the anesthesiologist M. T. “Pepper” Jenkins reported, JFK’s “emergency room cart was elevated at the feet in order to provide a Trendelenberg position.” (Fig. 1.) (This is a common and proper maneuver in such circumstances. It increases blood flow to the brain and heart during the CPR of a trauma patient. I used it myself in emergencies during my stint as a trauma surgeon at UCLA-Harbor General Hospital.) 

Fig. 1 depicts what Wagner is talking about. Dr. McClelland couldn’t actually have seen the back of JFK’s head, he says, because the head of the gurney had been lowered. Wagner’s conclusion? “[I]t is indeed most reasonable to believe that he observed a blast wound more on the top-right of the president’s (sic) head than on the right rear.” (emphasis added)

Figure 1. Dr. McClelland stood at JFK’s head in Trauma Room One. He looked down at the President, who was in a head-downward, Trendelenburg position. The back of Kennedy’s head would not have been visible to the doctor, says Wagner. So, the doctor saw a wound in the top-right of JFK’s head and mistook it for a posterior one.

Wagner extrapolates from McClelland’s “error” to the rest of the trauma team, and lands in HSCA country. The wound McClelland described “is simply not correctly located. Perhaps this explains why other witnesses located the large wound incorrectly. After all,” Wagner argues, “if Dr. McClelland, having several minutes to observe the wound, could get this wrong, why wouldn’t others do the same?” (p. 210) Put simply, Wagner says the HSCA was right when it concluded that “it appears more probable that the observations of the Parkland doctors are incorrect.” 

Wagner’s selection and elimination of evidence is as breathtaking as it is unsurprising. He has, rather unreasonably, left out witnesses ‘who are truly experts in the field in which they offer opinions’: the two senior head wound experts who attended Kennedy at Parkland. Neurosurgery professors Kemp Clark, MD, the most senior treating surgeon, the man who pronounced JFK dead, and who spoke at a news conference on the day of the murder, as well as his neurosurgery professor colleague, Robert Grossman, MD.

He doesn’t black them out completely, but Wagner keeps the lights down low. He tells the jury that Clark located JFK’s wound “mostly in the back-back side of the president’s head” (sic, p. 282). And he doesn’t even mention Grossman. For the benefit of Wagner’s jury, let’s turn the lights up. 

Kemp Clark, MD – from the record: 

• In an undated note apparently written contemporaneously at Parkland, Clark described the President’s skull wound as “in the occipital region of the skull… Through the head wound, blood and brain were extruding… There was a large wound in the right occipitoparietal region … Both cerebral and cerebellar tissue were extruding from the wound.” (WC–CE#392)
• In a handwritten note dated 11-22-63, Dr. Clark wrote, “a large 3 x 3 cm remnant of cerebral tissue present … there was a smaller amount of cerebellar tissue present also …There was a large wound beginning in the right occiput extending into the parietal region … Much of the skull appeared gone at the brief examination….” (Exhibit #392: WC V17:9-10)
• He told the Warren Commission: “I then examined the wound in the back of the President’s head. This was a large, gaping wound in the right posterior part, with cerebral and cerebellar tissue being damaged and exposed.” (WC–V6:20)[12] 

To push his theme that the Dallas doctors blew it, Wagner quotes, only to discount, what coauthor Cyril Wecht, MD, JD, and I wrote in Charles Crenshaw, MD’s second book, Trauma Room One: “it seems reasonable to suppose that not only did they have plenty of time to get a good look at Kennedy’s skull injuries, the Dallas doctors took responsible and appropriate steps to examine the skull wound before pronouncing the President dead.”[13] (p. 207) His riposte is that we were merely “inferring” that. We weren’t. 

Which the jury would know if Wagner hadn’t knowingly cut what else we wrote on that very page: “Because the autopsy photographs show no wound in the rear of JFK’s skull, an explanation has been sought for how it was that so many Parkland physicians, including neurosurgeons, said they saw such a wound. The Boston Globe raised the issue. It reported that “some [Parkland] doctors doubted the extent to which a wound to the rear of the head would have been visible since the President was lying supine with the back of his head on a hospital cart….” The Globe immediately refuted that speculation: “But others, like [Dr. Richard] Dulaney and [neurosurgeon] Dr. Robert] Grossman, said the head at some point was lifted up, thereby exposing the rear wound.”[14]  And make no mistake, that paper is an MSM outlet.

We also pointed out that the ARRB’s Jeremy Gunn interviewed Grossman on March 21, 1997, reporting, “[Grossman] and Kemp Clark [Chairman of Neurosurgery at Parkland] (sic) together lifted President Kennedy’s head so as to be able to observe the damage to the President’s head.”[15] Grossman has said the same thing over the years, most recently in the peer-reviewed journalNeurosurgery, where he wrote, “The President was lying supine, with his occiput on the stretcher. Kemp (Clark, MD) and I lifted his head to inspect the occiput….”[16] Grossman has repeated this numerous times,[17] which Wagner should know from work I’ve published that he discusses. [18] [19]

That wasn’t the only credible expert Wagner omitted regarding JFK’s head injuries. Ironically, he also left out the professor of anesthesiology whom our consultant cited about Kennedy’s being positioned in Trendelenburg. In an interview with the HSCA’s Andy Purdy on 11-10-77, “Pepper” Jenkins said that he “was positioned at the head of the table so he had one of the closest views of the head wound (and) believes he was ‘…the only one who knew the extent of the head wound.’ (sic)…Regarding the head wound, Dr. Jenkins said that “a portion of the cerebellum (lower rear brain) (sic) was hanging out from a hole in the right–rear of the head.” (HSCA-V7:286-287) In an interview with the American Medical News published on 11-24-78, Jenkins said, “(Kennedy) had part of his head blown away and part of his cerebellum was hanging out.” (As elsewhere documented, poor Pepper’s inconvenient early memory underwent a sudden patriotic turn 12 years later when queried by pro-Warren loyalist Gerald Posner, who was kind enough not to remind the good doctor, or his readers, of his prior, unhelpful statements.[20])

Furthermore, Wanger ignores other credible, official witnesses who were not rushed, who had ample opportunity to see what Kennedy’s fatal wound looked like, and whose descriptions of Kennedy’s wounds are part of the official record: the witnesses at Kennedy’s autopsy. As Wecht and I wrote in the Crenshaw book, Bethesda Naval Hospital witnesses were closely aligned with the “mistaken” descriptions of the trauma surgeons in Texas. 

A full recitation of the Bethesda witnesses is beyond the scope of this discussion. Curious members of the jury are invited to review the official accounts of these witnesses, which have been online, with hot-linked sources, for 30+ years.[21] We summarized the autopsy witnesses’ accounts in the following table that appears on page 286 of Crenshaw’s Trauma Room One. (Fig. 2)

Figure 2. Screenshot of page 186 from Charles Crenshaw, MD’s Trauma Room One.

Put simply, regarding JFK’s head wound, Wagner has ignored the best-positioned and most expert witnesses. Instead, he featured McClelland, who, though “less expert,” somehow managed to describe the wound very much like the experts did. 

He also didn’t think to mention something else Wecht and I wrote about in Trauma Room One — published research on the reliability of witnesses.

There we wrote:  

Though sometimes dismissed as unreliable, the reigning authority on eyewitness testimony, Elizabeth Loftus, claims witnesses are not always unreliable. In fact, there are circumstances in which their reliability is high.[22]In part, her evidence is based upon a 1971 Harvard Law Review study. Marshall, Marquis, and Oskamp found that when test subjects were asked about “salient” details of a complex and novel film clip scene they were shown, their accuracy rate was high: 78% to 98%. Even when a detail was not considered salient, as judged by the witnesses themselves, they were still accurate 60% of the time.[23]

Factors that would degrade witness recall were not present at either Parkland or Bethesda. Absent those factors, the research of Marquis and Oskamp, and Loftus, shows that witnesses are very reliable.[24] If Wagner is going to argue witness error is the explanation, it’s his burden to explain how so many good witnesses improbably made the same mistake by agreeing JFK had a gaping skull wound involving the back of his head.[25] Wecht and I made this challenge in the very pages Wagner cites; he does not rise to that challenge. We also documented official accounts of numerous percipient government eyewitnesses saying that autopsy photographs they took, or processed, or saw, have vanished. (Available online.[26]) For the reasons stated above, he must know about it and conveniently ignores it.

However, Wagner doesn’t overlook the autopsy images completely. Rather, he uses one of them to (wrongly) insist that Kennedy was not struck high, in the parietal bone, as the Clark Panel and the HSCA’s Forensic Panel had determined, but low, in the occipital bone.

Pierre Finck, MD and Kennedy’s occipital entrance Wound

His evidence is a confusing and controversial photograph that was taken during the autopsy, which he calls the “mystery photograph”(p. 254). Wagner says that this image was taken to “document specific – and not general – wounds.” That is, it’s specific proof that the fatal bullet struck JFK low in the rear of his head, in occipital bone, where the autopsy report put it. His evidence is Finck’s memo to General Blumberg, “I help(ed) the Navy photographer to take photographs of the occipital wound (external and internal aspects) as well as the wound in the back.” (sic, p. 254) “[T]he mystery photograph was taken,” our counselor says, “to document an occipital wound of entry, just as Finck told Blumberg.”  Fig. 3 is the image Wagner refers to. 

It is clearly not the photo Wagner says it is, which the jury would know if Wagner hadn’t cut the rest of Finck’s memo. Here’s what else he wrote, “I found a through-and-through wound of the occipital bone with a crater visible from the inside of the cranial cavity …This bone wound showed no crater when viewed from outside the skull … .” (emphasis added) [27] In other words, Finck said that no beveling was visible on the outside of the skull at the point of bullet penetration, the inshoot. But as anyone can see, “outside beveling” is plainly visible in this “mystery photograph.” (Fig. 3) (And it’s even more plainly visible in the original photo at the National Archives that I examined.) That makes this photo more likely one of an outshoot, not Wagner’s occipital inshoot. 

Figure 3. Bootleg copy of autopsy photograph of JFK’s skull wound. What it shows has been hotly contested for decades. 

Wagner says it shows the entrance point of a bullet low in the back of JFK’s skull, in occipital bone, the area specified in the autopsy report. The red arrow points to a semicircular notch, the supposed entrance wound. But the “beveling” is on the outside of the skull, not the inside where Dr. Finck said it was. This, therefore, is not the photo of the entrance wound Finck meant.

Were that not enough, Finck specifically rejected that this image was the occipital entry wound. 

The HSCA’s Charles Petty, MD, asked Finck: “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 … Did you ever see such a photograph?”

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.”[28]  (Emphasis added. If such images ever existed, they’ve disappeared. I elsewhere explore in detail the possibility that photographs are missing.[29]) 

Kennedy’s lunge “back and to the left”

Over several pages, Mr. Wagner discusses Kennedy’s pronounced left-rearward pitch after being struck in the head at Zapruder frames 312-313. He rejects the skeptics’ widely held view that Kennedy was driven backward by the momentum delivered to JFK’s skull from a shot fired from the right front. Instead, he maintains that either a “jet effect” or a “neuromuscular reaction,” or both, best explain(s) Kennedy’s rearward jolt.

He scolds skeptics, writing, 

I caution the CRC (critical research community, i.e., government skeptics) to be more circumspect about the back-and-to-the-left movement of the president (sic) after Z313. Frankly, the movement of the entire torso of the president (sic) against gravity because of a transiting bullet strike from the front (even hitting tangentially) (sic) seems to me as a layman, after studying expert views on this topic, at least as problematic as arguing for the jet effect or a neuromuscular reaction as an exclusive explanation of the president’s head and body movements after the fatal shot to the head. (p. 147)

The theory that a “jet effect” explains Kennedy’s backward lunge was first put forward in 1976 in the American Journal of Physics by Luis Alvarez, a Nobel Laureate in physics.[30] It has been heralded ever since, in recent years, by Nicholas Nalli, Ph.D. Wagner likely knows that Wecht and I dismantled Alvarez’s theory in two pieces published in the AFTE Journal,[31] as well as in two online articles rebutting Nicholas Nalli’s defense of “jet effect.”[32] Even Warren loyalists no longer believe it, including one of our counselor’s most trusted allies, former government employee Larry Sturdivan. He rubbished the Nobelist’s nonsense on the basis of government-funded, skull-shooting experiments that he was a part of in 1964. (See Fig. 5, below.)

Describing those tests, he told the HSCA that the test skulls:

…moved in the direction of the bullet … showing that the head of the President would probably go with the bullet … In fact, all 10 of the skulls that we shot did essentially the same thing. They gained a little bit of momentum consistent with one or a little better foot-per-second velocity that would have been imparted by the bullet …  [33]

He doubled down in his 2005 book, 

“The question is,” he wrote, “Did the gunshot produce enough force in expelling the material from Kennedy’s head to throw his body backward into the limousine? Based on the high-speed movies of the skull shot simulations at the Biophysics Laboratory, the answer is no.”[34]

 But that isn’t the half of it. 

Per Sturdivan, had a jet effect rocked Kennedy back and to the left, his blasted cranial contents would have been jettisoned in the opposite direction, toward the right front. It’s the forward-moving ejecta that would have provided the rearward propulsion, had there been any. But they don’t. Instead, like JFK’s head, they, too, flew off to the left and rear, and for the same reason, the government’s skulls did: momentum transfer.

Zapruder frame 313 shows a mist of debris just in front of JFK’s face, but no real “plume” of brain and bone matter flying forward from him. Exiting bone fragments are seen flying upward, and only very slightly forward. Not discernable in the two-dimensional frame is that those bone segments were also traveling leftward. They landed to JFK’s left, not to his right-front, which they would have if Oswald’s shot from the rear had blown out the right-front side of JFK’s skull. Moreover, the “debris field” from the Z frame 312-313 headshot was principally to the President’s left-rear. (See Fig. 4.)

Figure 4. Zapruder frame 313 and sketch of documented debris field from headshot at Z-313. (Courtesy, Doug Desalles, MD)

Zapruder Frame 313 (left image) shows, in two dimensions, that there is a cloudy mist above and in front of JFK’s face. Exiting bone fragments are going mostly upward and, as discussed, to Kennedy’s left. They would have blown forward to JFK’s right if Oswald’s shot had entered the rear of Kennedy’s skull and exploded out of the right front. The debris field (image right) shows that most of the ejecta moved “back and to the left,” as did the President’s head. 

The motor police riding to Kennedy’s left rear, and Secret Service agents Clint Hill and Sam Kinney, also to JFK’s left rear, were bespattered, as was the left side of the trunk of JFK’s limousine. The right side of the car’s trunk, and motor cops riding to JFK’s right rear, were not smeared. This suggests that the Z 312-313 shot was fired from Kennedy’s right front, the “grassy knoll,” not from Oswald’s right-rearward location.

Our counselor might counter that the cloud of debris that is visible in front of JFK’s face in frame 313 proves Kennedy was shot from behind. But his trusted expert, Sturdivan, has pointed out what is known among forensics/ballistics cognoscenti: “A similar explosion would have taken place if the bullet had gone through in the opposite direction.”[35] Noted forensics/ballistics authority, Masaad Ayoob, has elaborated on this very point regarding Kennedy.

“The explosion of the President’s head as seen in frame 313 of the Zapruder film,” wrote Ayoob, “… is far more consistent with an explosive wound of entry with a small-bore, hyper-velocity rifle bullet … If the cataclysmic cranial injury inflicted on Kennedy was indeed an explosive wound of entry, the source of the shot would have had to be forward of the Presidential limousine, to its right, and slightly above … the area of the grassy knoll.”[36]

Ayoob’s point was demonstrated in government duplication tests that our counsel’s trusted ally, Sturdivan, ran for the Warren Commission in 1964. These images were taken from a high-speed film of skull-shooting experiments. (Fig. 5)

Figure 5. High-speed film images from Biophysics Lab skull shooting tests conducted for the Warren Commission in 1964. 

Note that while the bullet entered the back of the skull, the initial egress of debris is thrown rearward, exiting through the inshoot in the occiput. The later frames show that as much material flies back out of the entry point as from the area of exit in the front. As the skull ruptures, the skull moves swiftly away from the shooter, just as Kennedy’s did in Dealey Plaza. (Debris is not seen exiting the rear of Kennedy’s skull in the Zapruder film.)

NEUROMUSCULAR  REACTION

So, if not “jet effect,” what of “neuromuscular reaction” as an explanation for JFK’s lunge backward? Wagner quotes in extenso what I’ve written about that theory. I won’t repeat all of it here, but some key points bear mention. 

First, there are two known types of “neuromuscular reactions” that may be seen in brain injuries or following head trauma: decorticate and decerebrate. Their features are well known in the medical/scientific community. It is known that they do not manifest in split seconds, as Kennedy’s reactions did. From the web, below are images depicting and contrasting decerebrate and decorticate positions (Fig. 6), images Wagner also used in his book (p. 135). JFK assumed neither posture in reaction to the headshot. 

Figure 6. Decorticate vs. Decerebrate Postures

Decorticate posture results from damage to one or both corticospinal tracks. The upper arms are adducted, and the forearms flexed, with the wrists and fingers flexed on the chest. The legs are stiffly extended and internally rotated with plantar flexion of the feet.

Decerebrate posture results from damage to the upper brain stem. The upper arms are adducted, and the forearms arms are extended, with the wrists pronated and the fingers flexed. The legs are stiffly extended, with plantar flexion of the feet.

The Goat Experiment

However, there is another, more instantaneous “neurospasm” that has been demonstrated experimentally in animals. Wagner’s go-to neurophysiology authority, Sturdivan, described and demonstrated this reaction – a split-second neurospastic response that he likened to the President’s response to the headshot at Z-312-313.[37] His evidence is a goat’s reaction to being shot through the head with a .30 caliber bullet, as shown in a movie produced by Edgewood Arsenal.

As the high-speed film rolled, Sturdivan described the action to the HSCA: “…the back legs go out under the influence of the powerful muscles of the back legs, the front legs go upward and outward, that back (sic) arches, as the powerful back muscles overcome the those of the abdomen. That’s it.”[38]

In his book The JFK Myths, Sturdivan reproduced a series of still photographs from the experiment that he said demonstrated the goat’s evanescent, “JFK-like” reaction to being shot in the head. Sturdivan writes, “His (the goat’s) back arches, his head is thrown up and back, and his legs straighten and stiffen for an instant before he collapses back into his previous flaccid state.”[39] (Fig. 7)

Figure 7. Images of a goat being shot in the head, per Larry Sturdivan. At left, image of a goat taken before being shot in the head. At right, the goat’s immediate reaction to being shot. His back arches, his upper and lower limbs splay outward and backward. (Unlike JFK’s, the goat’s head does not explode.)

Elaborating to the HSCA, Mr. Sturdivan, who has no credentials in medicine, neurology, neurophysiology, etc., drew the Dealey Plaza parallel:

…since all (of JFK’s) motor nerves were stimulated at the same time, then every muscle in the body would be activated at the same time. Now, in an arm, for instance, this would have activated the biceps muscle, but it would have also activated the triceps muscle, which, being more powerful, would have straightened the arm out (occurs in “decerebrate”). With leg muscles, the large muscles in the back of the leg are more powerful than those in the front, and, therefore, the leg would move backward (occurs both in “decerebrate” and “decorticate” postures). The muscles in the back of the trunk (the “extensor” muscles) are much stronger than the abdominals, and, therefore, the body would arch backward.[40]

In a broadcast interview, Sturdivan demonstrated how he said Kennedy reacted to the fatal shot. (Fig. 8.)

Figure 8. Arching his back and head rearward, and his upper arms upward, in a filmed interview, Sturdivan purports to mimic JFK’s neurophysical reaction to the headshot.[41]

Not only was Sturdivan’s posture one that JFK never remotely manifested, but his arms weren’t ‘straightened out’ as he testified they should have been, as the goat’s forelegs were. (Fig. 9)

The jury can easily see that Mr. Sturdivan’s posture resembles neither of the known types of “neuromuscular reactions” depicted in Wagner’s book (Fig. 6), nor that of the goat’s response. (Fig. 7) All are unlike JFK’s actual reaction to his fatal head injury. (Fig. 9)

Figure 9. Zapruder frame 230, Kennedy is reacting to the first shot. His elbows are raised and abducted away from his body. His wrists are flexed inward across his mouth and neck. In Z frame 312, 1/18th second before his head explodes, JFK’s head is bent forward and to the left.

In Z frame 320, less than ½ second later, it’s his head that has jolted backward, not his back, which has not arched backward à la Sturdivan, but instead follows after his driven skull. His right arm neither flexes inward, “decorticate-style,” nor straightens out, “decerebrate-style,” but instead falls limply toward the President’s lap. Kennedy’s reactions bear no resemblance to Mr. Sturdivan’s demonstration (Fig. 8), nor to any known “neuromuscular” reaction. (Fig.8)

In sum, JFK’s reaction to the headshot at Z 312-313 can’t be explained by a “jet effect,” and it fails the physiological criteria of any kind of “neuromuscular” reaction.[42]

Our counselor would have done himself and the jury a favor if he had looked at the Z film himself and not taken an anti-conspiracy activist’s word for what is in it.

More Problems with Sturdivan

Another counter to inexpert Sturdivan’s theory is that real neuromuscular reactions are not evanescent; they last a while. “Such decerebrate rigidity as Sherrington described,” the HSCA’s Forensic Panel correctly noted, “usually does not commence for several minutes after separation of the upper brain centers from the brainstem and spinal cord.”[43] Not only was Kennedy’s backward jolt immediate, it was not sustained.

In the frames following Z-327, 7/10^ths seconds after the headshot, JFK’s head starts driving forward. His back then follows along after it, but at a slower rate than his skull moves, which advances at as fast a rate, or faster, than his head flew backward after Zapruder frame 313.[44] Kennedy’s back thus “flexed” forward the same way it had “arched” backward: it didn’t itself flex or arch. It instead followed JFK’s head in both directions: backward after Z-313, and forward after Z-327. This is at a time when our counselor’s theory would have it that the President’s back should have been arching backward. (Fig. 10.) 

In addition, Wagner argues that Kennedy’s backward-moving head could not have moved JFK’s torso backward; that it could not have ‘lifted him against gravity.’ Unfortunately for our counselor, the proof that it did is right in the Zapruder film in the frames following Z-327: Kennedy’s head flies forward, and his torso is visibly ‘lifted against gravity’ in the same, now forward direction. Obviously, it wasn’t the bullet itself that did all that; it was the left rearward lunge of his ~11 lb. head that tugged his upper body backward after Z-313, and then forward after Z-321.

Figure 10. Left: frame 320, 7/18^th seconds after being struck in the head, Kennedy’s head has flown backward; his back and torso follow. At approximately frame 321, his head starts reversing direction and moving forward. 

Right: frame 338, 17/18th seconds later, Kennedy’s head has moved far forward, and his back and torso have been “lifted against gravity” in a forward direction.

Momentum Transfer vs. Neuromuscular Reaction vs. Momentum Transfer

It’s clear that “jet effect” and/or “neuromuscular reaction” simply can’t explain Kennedy’s rearward lunge. The most reasonable explanation for it is momentum transfer from a bullet striking from the right front. This is consistent with the results of the Biophysics Lab’s experiments in which all the shot skulls moved in the direction of bullet travel; consistent with the fact debris from the headshot was thrown to JFK’s left rear; consistent with the observation of several witnesses who saw smoke floating across Dealey Plaza from the grassy knoll; consistent with the impressions of the 21 cops in Dealey Plaza who suspected a grassy knoll shot;[45]and it perfectly fits the acoustics evidence. 

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Footnotes