Gary Aguilar Rebuts Robert Wagner

By Gary L. Aguilar, MD

Self-described “open-minded” Bob Wagner’s riposte (click here) to my review of his book is a showcase of how closed the minds of Warren Commission loyalists are to evidence that threatens J. Edgar Hoover’s no conspiracy verdict. The imperious and notoriously corrupt Bureau Chief, who instilled fear in all, including the Warren Commissioners and LBJ,^[1] pronounced Oswald the sole assassin within hours of the ex-marine’s arrest. ^[2] He controlled the investigation, pressing his remarkable epiphany on the public^[3] as well as on the hapless Warren Commissioners whom he cowed. (“[N]ot one of its seven members had any investigative experience.”^[4]) The Commissioners bent the knee, as the Church Committee and the House Select Committee later determined.^[5] With good reason.

Hoover had them file-checked them for “derogatory information.” Commissioner Gerald Ford spied for Hoover and helped him block Earl Warren’s preferred choice for Chief Counsel, Warren Olney.^[6] The lawyer Hoover preferred, Chief Counsel J. Lee Rankin, later admitted: “Who could protest against what Mr. Hoover did back in those days?” It’s pretty clear that at the time, no one could, not the U. S. Chief Justice nor Congressmen and Senators. Assistant FBI Director William Sullivan understood how things worked: “Only if one unwritten but iron rule was unfailingly observed: The Director was always right.”^[7] Predictably, the Warren Commission proved Sullivan was right.

Bob Wagner shows that, even in these days, some remain who seem unmoved by the government’s myriad, proven lies and bad faith, and I stand with Hoover’s pre-investigation epiphany. In doing so, Wagner repeatedly violates Occam’s principle that the simplest explanation – in this case, the one that requires the fewest assumptions, the fewest exceptions to the rule, the fewest leaps of faith – is most likely the correct one. Wagner shows his hostility to Lord Occam in his take on “clearly the central theme,” and the “primary point of his analysis”: the location of Kennedy’s skull wound. (Wagner’s emphasis)

Wagner relentlessly campaigns to discredit Parkland Hospital’s Dr. Robert McClelland’s sworn testimony: “[The] right posterior portion of [JFK’s] skull had been extremely blasted.”^[8] His description matched those of other Parkland doctors. Wagner argued, “if Dr. McClelland, having several minutes to observe the wound, could get this wrong, why wouldn’t others do the same?”^[9] (He dodged a question I’d put to him: How did the two neurosurgery professors who lifted JFK’s skull and examined the head wound also get it wrong, describing it much as McClelland and the others had?)

KENNEDY’S HEAD WOUND – WERE THE DALLAS DOCTORS WRONG?

“The large wound was on the top of the head,” Wagner insists. So, the doctors were wrong. Wagner’s proof? “Alternate substantive evidence.” (Sounds almost Trumpian.) His alternative evidence is threefold.

One: The autopsy said Kennedy’s head wound was “chiefly the parietal bone but extending somewhat into the temporal and occipital regions.”^[10]

Two: A 4 x 2.5-inch skull fragment was ejected from the top of JFK’s skull and found in the limousine – the so-called “triangular” or “Delta” fragment.

Three: An autopsy photo shows what Wagner says is a bullet hole in the low, occipital bone, with missing bone above it at the top of JFK’s skull.

The Texas crew missed the damage to the top of JFK’s head. And I blew it because I never “addressed how head wound witnesses at Parkland (and Bethesda) (sic) failed to note this large area of skull missing from the top of the president’s (sic) head.” He’s wrong.

First, there’s much more about Kennedy’s head wound than Wagner’s quotes from the autopsy report. Moreover, I have discussed the obvious and common-sensical reason that both Parkland and Bethesda witnesses didn’t notice that a bone was missing from the top of JFK’s skull. He ignored it.

J. Thornton Boswell’s much-discussed “face sheet” diagram of JFK’s skull, prepared during the autopsy, is primary evidence. It’s superior to the official autopsy report that was written, rewritten, and typed up later, and which says that Kennedy’s skull defect measured “13 cm. in greatest diameter.”^[11] The House Select Committee’s (HSCA) Dr. Michael Baden asked Boswell about an important discrepancy in this diagram:

Baden: “Could you explain the diagram on the back [of Boswell’s face sheet]?”

Boswell: “Well, this was an attempt to illustrate the magnitude of the [skull] wound again. And as you can see it’s 10 centimeters from right to left, 17 centimeters from posterior to anterior.”^[12] (Fig. 1)

Figure 1. Dr. Boswell’s “face sheet” diagram of JFK’s skull. In the center of the image, Boswell wrote “17” and “missing,” with an arrow pointing front-to-back. He also wrote “10” next to an arrow pointing right-to-left. The official autopsy report says Kennedy’s skull defect measured “13 cm. in greatest diameter.”

How did a 17-cm skull defect on the night of the autopsy shrink in the autopsy report? Boswell told the HSCA, the Assassinations Records Review Board (ARRB), and me that JFK’s skull defect measured 17 cm at the outset of the autopsy. But after a late-arriving bone fragment was replaced into the bottom rear of JFK’s skull, into the “occiput,” the remaining gap then measured “only” 13 cm, the dimension specified in the autopsy report.^[13]

Two important things follow. Not only was bone ejected from the top of JFK’s skull, the Delta fragment, but bone was also ejected from the rear, from the low, occipital bone. (Fig. 2)

Figure 2. Diagram of human skull viewed from the right side.

Secondly, JFK’s skull defect ran per force from the low, occipital bone in the skull’s rear to roughly the parietal-frontal bone region in the front. That’s what Boswell depicted on a human skull that he had marked for the ARRB. Both Boswell’s face sheet and ARRB diagrams are in sharp contrast to what the Warren Commission presented to the public, the Rydberg diagram. It depicts a small (bullet) hole in the rear of JFK’s skull in an otherwise intact plate of bone, and a skull defect that is well above that hole. (Fig. 3)

Figure 3. Left: Photo of a skull marked by Dr. Boswell depicting the size of JFK’s skull defect at autopsy.[14] Notice that the defect extends deeply into the bottom of “JFK’s” low occipital bone. Center: a two-dimensional rendering of the markings Boswell made on the human skull for the ARRB. It shows the shape and dimension of Kennedy’s skull defect at autopsy.^[15]

Right: Warren Commission Exhibit 386 shows a small occipital entrance wound, which is distinct from the large right-sided skull defect. Boswell told the HSCA in 1977 and the ARRB in 1996 that the entrance hole was not in an intact plate of bone. They actually inferred it was a wound of entrance from the beveling present on a late-arriving bone fragment, which fit into a wound that was initially much larger than shown here, and which extended down to the entrance hole. (See CE # 386.^[16] Also see Boswell’s HSCA interview,^[17] and Dr. Boswell’s ARRB deposition, p. 79 ff.^[18])

The reason Parkland’s trauma surgeons, neurosurgery professors, and autopsy witnesses said JFK’s skull wound was occipital has an obvious, simple explanation. Wagner says I never addressed this. I have, several times, starting decades ago.

“Wounds picked apart during an autopsy examination,” I wrote 25 years ago, “are often found to be larger than they first appeared to emergency personnel. In Kennedy’s case, moreover, Jackie Kennedy testified that she tried to hold the top of JFK’s head down as they raced from Dealey Plaza to Parkland Hospital. It is not hard to imagine that during the time it took the Presidential limousine to get to Parkland Hospital, a clot had formed, gluing the top portion of JFK’s disrupted scalp down, making JFK’s skull defect appear smaller to treating surgeons than it later would to autopsy surgeons.”^[19]

Jackie has said as much herself. ” ’He had his hand out, I could see a piece of his skull coming off, and I can see this perfectly clean piece detaching itself from his head . . . I kept holding the top of his head down, trying to keep the brains in,’ she said on Nov. 29, 1963.^[20]” (my emphasis)

In his rebuttal, Wagner offers autopsy witness FBI agent James Sibert in support of his claim that the overlooked Delta fragment proves the Dallas error. But in a taped interview, Sibert described what he saw when Kennedy’s head was unwrapped at autopsy: “… there was a sheet unwrapped off the head. There was a big gaping hole in the right rear of the head back here … .”^[21] (my emphasis) (Fig. 4) Sibert also diagrammed the wound he saw for the ARRB. Sibert thus confirms that JFK’s head wound at autopsy looked eerily like, if not as large as, the wound Dr. McClelland saw at Parkland.^[22] Many other autopsy witnesses described it in similar terms, and so were just as “mistaken” as Dallas neurosurgeons and the FBI Agent were.^[23]

Figure 4. Left: screenshot of witness James Sibert showing where JFK’s wound was when they unwrapped his head at autopsy. Center: MD 188 – Sketch made by FBI agent James W. Sibert for the ARRB – Anatomical Drawing of Wound in President Kennedy’s Head (Executed on September 11, 1997). Right: “McClelland diagram” attested to by Dr. McClelland in 1998.

Jackie held the top of JFK’s head down on the way to Parkland; a blood clot kept his scalp down; and the full extent of his skull defect wasn’t apparent until the surgeons at Bethesda lifted his scalp to examine his huge skull defect. My reply to Wagner’s claim of: “The large wound was on the top of the head, not lower on the back of the head” is clear. Kennedy’s wound was so large that it involved both the top of his head as well as the back of his head.

But what about the autopsy photograph that shows the backside of JFK’s head intact and undamaged? Does this not prove Dr. McClelland, neurosurgeon Dr. Kemp Clark, Agent Sibert, etc., were wrong? (Fig. 5) The ARRB asked Boswell about this very photograph.

Q. Okay. Could we turn to the sixth view, which is described as “wound of entrance in right posterior occipital region”? That corresponds to black and white photos Nos. 15 and 16, and color photos Nos. 42 and 43. Do these photographs appear to you, Dr. Boswell, to be accurate representations of photographs taken during the autopsy of President Kennedy?

A. Yes.

Q. In that photograph, is the scalp of President Kennedy being pulled forward?

A. Yes.

Q. For what purpose was it being pulled forward?

A. In order to take the photograph, because if it wasn’t pulled forward, this would just–the scalp would come down and cover the wound of entrance here. And this was necessary to demonstrate the wound here. ^[24]

In other words, the photo of the back of JFK’s head doesn’t show the rearward extent of the head wound because JFK was lying on his left side, not upright, as his scalp was pulled forward over the back of his skull to show a bullet wound in the scalp. (Fig.5)

Figure 5. Left: Autopsy photo as it’s usually displayed. Kennedy is upright; the backside of JFK’s head is intact and undamaged. Center: diagram of the wound that Parkland’s Dr. Robert McClelland said he saw. Right: proper orientation of the photo as it was taken. JFK is lying on his left side, and an autopsist (Boswell?) is holding JFK’s rearward scalp forward over the right-rear portion of Kennedy’s skull wound.

WAGNER’S CLAIM: AN AUTOPSY PHOTO PROVES OCCIPITAL INSHOOT

Re Wagner’s last bit of ‘alternate evidence,’ an autopsy photo commonly called the ”mystery photo”. It is so badly shot and composed that many could not understand what it was. I do not accept his “special plea” that he knows what it is and what it means, when even the autopsy surgeons and the HSCA’s Forensic Pathology Panel were uncertain about its proper orientation or meaning. Besides, as I originally wrote, Dr. Pierre Finck, who held JFK’s skull in his hands, as Wagner put it, said that this is not the photo Wagner says it is.

This “mystery photo” (sic) is of the “occipital wound of entrance,” he says, “How could it be otherwise?” It’s otherwise for at least two good reasons. First, in his 1965 memo to General Blumberg, Finck wrote that “I found a through-and-through wound of the occipital bone, with a crater visible from the inside. This wound showed no crater when viewed from the outside.”^[25] (my emphasis)

The wound in the photo, as I discussed in my original review, and as anyone can see, is beveling. But it’s beveled outside, not inside, and it’s plainly visible, even in this bootleg “mystery photograph.” (Fig. 6) The outside beveling makes this photo more likely one of an outshoot, not Wagner’s occipital inshoot. 

Figure 6. “Mystery photo” from JFK’s autopsy.

Wagner says this “mystery photo” (taken from my slide show) 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, Wagner’s 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 that Finck meant.

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?” (my emphasis)

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 … I don’t remember seeing those photographs.”^[26] Finck examined this photograph, which does show cratering on the outside, and he denied it was the occipital entrance photo. So how can Wagner, not a forensic pathologist, not a physician, and who wasn’t present, say that Finck, a forensic pathologist, who was there, who held JFK’s head in his hands, is wrong, and that he is right.

WAGNER AND KENNEDY’S PHYSICAL AND X-RAY EVIDENCE

Perhaps Wagner’s most desperate assaults on Lord Occam have to do with the physical evidence: Kennedy’s response to the shot that killed him, and the autopsy X-rays. By his lights, what we see happen to JFK’s head, what we see in the Zapruder film, and what’s visible in JFK’s X-rays, mesh smoothly with Hoover’s scenario. They don’t.

Put simply, we know from government duplication experiments done for the Warren Commission that, when human skulls are struck with Mannlicher ammo, they move differently than JFK’s did; the skull injuries are vastly different; and the X-ray findings are worlds apart. I ran through them in detail in my original review.

Briefly:

High-speed photos show that when struck with MCC rounds in the government’s tests, 10 out of 10 skulls moved away from the shooter, not back toward the shooter as Wagner argues Kennedy’s did. The photos also show that, like all “closed vessels,” the first reaction to bullet penetration is an explosion back out through the point of entrance.^[27] Milliseconds later, there’s a burst through the outshoot on the opposite side of the skull, or “closed vessel.” (JFK’s skull showed no such rearward ejecta in the Z film.) Shot in accordance with the official theory, the test skull’s right forehead, entire right orbit, and right cheek were blown away. JFK suffered no such injuries.

There’s no small irony that the official experiments intended to “duplicate” what happened when Oswald shot JFK not only failed, they pretty much proved Oswald didn’t do it. (Fig. 7) The pictures below illustrate what I said about ejecta and facial damage.

JFK’s X-rays can’t keep Wagner’s ship afloat. A test skull shot with a Carcano round showed no “dust-like,” no “snowstorm,” of minuscule fragments. Wagner’s own expert, Larry Sturdivan, testified in detail why: jacketed bullets like Oswald’s don’t leave a “snowstorm” of minuscule fragments after blasting through bone.^[28]

But in fact, there is a “snowstorm” of minuscule bullet fragments in the right front quadrant of JFK’s skull X-ray. They are clearly visible in JFK’s original, unenhanced X-rays, and their existence in that location was attested to by expert radiologists.^[29] But they’re blotted out and are not visible in the poor quality, “enhanced” films available to the public.

Moreover, jacketed shells like Oswald’s don’t deviate much from their original flight path. Why? Because, as Larry Sturdivan testified, the jacketed “Mannlicher-Carcano bullet is much more stable, the yaw begins to grow much more slowly (than non-jacketed, military rounds do) … .”^[30] (my emphasis)

Wagner asks us to believe that Oswald shot downward toward JFK’s receding skull, striking it low with a jacketed slug. It was then somehow deflected way upward to the top of JFK’s skull, leaving fragments high in the skull. (Figs.7&8)

Figure 8. Left: Sturdivan reproduced an X-ray of a test skull shot with a Mannlicher round at the Biophysics Lab.^[31] The fragments are small, but not “dust-like.” Not like the “snowstorm” of fragments visible in the right-front quadrant of Kennedy’s still-secret, original and unenhanced, lateral X-ray. (Which is evidence JFK was killed with a non-jacketed bullet. For “dust-like” fragments are quickly stopped by brain tissue, and so lodge close to the point of entry.) Moreover, the test skull’s fragment trail closely follows a low, little-deviated flight path across the skull, precisely as Larry Sturdivan said happens with MCC rounds.

* Right: JFK’s “enhanced” lateral X-ray: small fragments are visible only along the top of the skull. Wagner says that, unlike the test skull, Oswald’s bullet was fired downward, struck JFK’s skull low, then popped up to the top of his skull, broke apart, and blew out of the right side of his head.

MOMENTUM – WHAT DROVE KENNEDY “BACK AND TO THE LEFT”?

Wagner offers no explanation for JFK’s rearward lunge. Except a “grassy knoll” shot did not do it. Why? Because JFK’s body is visibly “lifted against gravity” after Z-313. It’s something that Kennedy’s rearward head movement could not have accomplished. (He carefully avoids admitting it, but if not “momentum transfer” from a “grassy knoll” shot, his sole remaining pro-Hoover explanation for the rearward lunge is a “neuromuscular” reaction, one that lacks medical/scientific foundation, and that has been debunked.^[32])

The proof Wagner is wrong is in the Zapruder film. The motion of JFK’s head appears to have been enough to pull his back along with it. For as JFK’s head moves, so does his upper body, and it does so in two different directions. Following Z-327, when an acoustics- and Z-film-corroborated shot hit him from behind, Kennedy’s head lunges frontward and his back moves forward with it. The opposite thing happens after Z-313: his head flies backward, and his back follows. So just as JFK’s back is “lifted against gravity” backward when his head jolts rearward after Z-313, his back is similarly “lifted against gravity” forward as the President’s head ploughs ahead after Z-327. (Fig. 9)

Figure 9. Kennedy’s “upper body” is “lifted against gravity” backward by the motion of his head after Z-313, just as it is similarly “lifted against gravity” forward after Z-327. (Image taken from a PowerPoint slide.)

THE “DEBRIS FIELD”

Josiah Thompson, Dr. Doug Desalles and I have repeatedly pointed out that the “debris field” – the region toward which most of Kennedy’s skull and brain matter flew – was “back and to the left” of Kennedy, consistent with a shot from the grassy knoll. Wagner counters that some “human matter” was also located forward of JFK. He’s right on that.

The explosion of JFK’s head at Z-313 would likely have sent some debris forward. As previously shown (Fig.7), some debris flies back toward the shooter when any closed vessel is struck. But most of the debris from the Z-312-313 shot clearly flew back to the left. Some of the forward-driven material likely flew due to a bullet strike to JFK’s head from the rear at Z-327-8. That strike drove JFK’s head and upper body rapidly forward after Z-327. It also abruptly changed the anterior-top portion of his skull, driving the “debris” that is seen falling down across his face a half-second later. High-quality Z-frames make this clear. (Fig. 10)

As final, corroborative points, an acoustics waveform suggested a shot was fired from behind at Z-327-8. And Z-frames 331 and 332 are “jiggled,” which fulfills the Alvarez-proposed, 3-frame delay for the sound of an Oswald shot at Z-327-8 to reach Zapruder and jostle his camera.[33]

Figure 10. Between Z-frame 327 and 337, Kennedy’s head is driven swiftly forward and downward; his back follows. The anterior portion of his head changes dramatically, and debris can be seen spilling down across his face. (If he was struck from behind at Z-327, why is there no rearward gush of ejecta seen as occurred in the government’s skull shooting tests, Fig. 7? Simply, by Z-327 the President’s skull was no longer a “closed vessel.”)

THE MAGIC BULLET – COMMISSION EXHIBIT #399

Wagner tries to salvage the dubious bona fides of the so-called “magic bullet” by eliding key facts. First, the FBI lied in Commission Exhibit #2011 when it reported that Parkland employees Tomlinson and Wright claimed #399 resembled the bullet they found on 11.22.63.[34] They never said that. The early, and only, report from the Bureau’s Dallas field office in 1964 reported that neither Tomlinson nor Wright could identify #399. Period. And, as Wagner admits, in 1966 O.P. Wright handed Thompson a bullet from his own desk that he said looked like the bullet they’d found. It had a pointed tip, not at all like the round-tipped #399. (As a former Dallas Sheriff, he would have known the difference.)

The FBI also lied, claiming that it was agent Bardwell Odum who had gotten the Tomlinson-Wright admission that there was a bullet resemblance. In person, in his own living room, Odum emphatically denied to Thompson and me that he’d gotten any such admission. He never talked with Tomlinson and Wright, or had #399 in his possession. The Bureau’s own internal records back up Odum’s unequivocal denials to us. Odum’s name is nowhere to be found in any FBI files regarding #399, according to searches done by skeptics as well as by the government.

It should not be ignored that #399 is “magical” in other ways as well. It’s supposed to have passed through JFK’s jacket and shirt on the way in, through his neck, his shirt again on the way out. It then nicked his tie, tore through Governor Connally’s jacket and shirt, blew completely through his chest, breaking a rib, and out through his shirt. Then it passed, butt-first, backward through the governor’s wrist, transected his trousers, before finally lodging in his leg, only later to fall out. And yet there are no fabric striations on the unblemished nose of #399. Nor is there any residuum of blood or tissue on this negligibly deformed missile. And it’s skeptics who are fools for not buying this?

ACOUSTICS

As I pointed out in my review, Wagner says that one should trust authorities “who are truly expert in the field in which they offer opinions.” He didn’t do that with the acoustics, nor with much else for that matter. The U.S. Justice Department didn’t either. Wagner omits any mention of a well-known, acoustics-related scandal.

When the HSCA went out of business, two of the committee members appropriately recommended that the pro-conspiracy acoustic evidence needed to be reexamined. They specified that acoustics experts should do the restudy.^[35] As I discussed in my review, in typical fashion, the Justice Department ignored the HSCA’s directive. Justice first turned to a Bureau agent, B. E. Koenig, whose credentials consisted of his completing a quickie “Gee Whiz!” course in acoustics. His paper “refuting” the HSCA’s acoustics was promptly debunked and discredited.^[36]

DOJ then turned to Nobel Prize winner, Luis Alvarez. He’d previously put out a false scientific finding that pleased the Carter Administration. His work on the so-called Vela incident proved nothing except that he could be relied upon to uphold a necessary government myth. [37][38]

U.S. officials needed a fixer for the acoustics. But Alvarez didn’t chair the reexamination. Instead, he arranged the panel. The selectees were all physicists known to Alvarez. None had any acoustics training or expertise. Not even the chair, Harvard’s Norman Ramsey, with whom Alvarez had long collaborated on prior government projects. He also picked Richard Garwin and F. Williams Sarles, both trusted alumni of Alvarez’s Vela fiasco. It was like picking pediatricians to do a hip replacement, except that the pediatricians I have personally known would never do what Alvarez and his appointees did.

Alvarez sat in and worked closely with his “Ramsey Panel,” and, lo and behold, they disproved the HSCA’s acoustics! Wagner shows no concern about this arrangement: progovernment, anticonspiracist Alvarez hand-picked non-experts who issued a progovernment opinion in a field in which they had no experience or expertise, and which supposedly disproved the findings of government-appointed scientists with proven experience and expertise. And it’s skeptics who are fools for not buying this?

Conclusion

A reasonable corollary of Lord Occam’s principle might be to reject a complex theory that requires suspending disbelief and embracing complex improbabilities if there is a simpler, less complex, less improbable theory that requires less suspension of disbelief. The evidence is so against Wagner that he asks us to suspend disbelief and accept complex improbabilities.

• That numerous percipient trauma surgeons, neurosurgery professors, FBI agent eye witnesses were wrong that Kennedy had a rearward skull wound;
• That nonphysician Wagner is right that the “mystery photo” in Fig. 6 is Kennedy’s occipital entrance wound from Oswald’s fatal bullet, and that JFK’s examining forensic pathologist Finck, who said it isn’t, is wrong;
• That JFK’s head flew backward toward Oswald’s rifle when all 10 test skulls that were similarly fired upon in government tests flew away from the shooter;
• That Oswald’s bullet entered Kennedy’s skull low on a downward trajectory, yet was wildly deflected upward. Which is in defiance of the expressed claims of Wagner’s experienced, government ballistics expert, Larry Sturdivan, whose opinion was confirmed in a government duplication test that showed that a Mannlicher shell was not deflected as it passed through a human skull;
• That Oswald’s jacketed MCC bullet left a “snowstorm” of minuscule fragments in the right front quadrant of JFK’s head when “snowstorms” in X-rays are not seen with jacketed bullets, but only with non-jacketed rounds. [Nor was a “snowstorm” seen in the X-ray of a test skull shot with an MCC shell in a government test. (Fig.8)]
• That the “debris field” that flew back to the left of JFK, and the skull fragments that flew leftward, were all driven backward and leftward by Oswald’s bullet that supposedly entered the right rear of Kennedy’s skull and blew out of the right front part of his head;
• That there is nothing noteworthy about the fact that none of the first four people in the chain of possession of the Parkland stretcher bullet were later able to identify #399 as that same bullet. Nor is it noteworthy that the FBI lied about #399 in official records. Nor that there was neither the marking of the shell’s having passed through fabric nor any tissue residues on the near-pristine bullet that is supposed to have been so destructive of fabric, flesh and bone;
• That a group of untrained, acoustics-ignorant physicists, appointed by an acoustics-ignorant, proven government toady and anticonspiracist (Luis Alvarez), definitively debunked the findings of three of the most highly regarded acoustics authorities in the country.
• That the debunked “neuromuscular reaction” and/or “jet effect” explain(s) Kennedy’s rearward lunge, and that the momentum imparted to JFK’s skull from a grassy knoll shot does not.

For Wagner, it’s always, well, under normal circumstances, a, b, c, … x, y, and z do not happen. But this time it’s different. As improbable as it may seem, folks, in this unique case, all these unlikely things did happen, and they happened just the way the government said they did … . And it’s the skeptics who are fools for not buying this? Well, we don’t buy it. Because we have long had a far less complicated theory than J. Edgar Hoover about what happened in Dealey Plaza. And it’s one that fits the evidence and is not in defiance of it. It explains things like JFK’s rearward lunge, which an Oswald shot does not; it explains things like ejecta backward; why the motorcycle cops were hit with blood and tissue while riding to JFK’s right; why there is a snowstorm of dust-like bullet fragments in the right front of Kennedy’s forehead. I could go on and on with this, but I think the reader gets the point by now.

If the government had been telling us the truth all along, there’d have been no need for intimidating witnesses, for destroying evidence, and for continuing to withhold evidence to this day.

So why does Wagner remain faithful to those who have endlessly lied and acted in such extraordinarily bad faith? How many more proven official malefactions would it take to shake his faith? I keep thinking of something Jeff Morley pointed out that’s worth repeating:

“In civil law, when one party does not disclose evidence in its possession, a jury is allowed to draw an adverse inference that the missing information destroyed or not produced was unfavorable.” Now, 60+ years after Kennedy was assassinated, it’s more than fair to draw the adverse inference that the missing information destroyed or not produced by the FBI, the CIA,^[39] and the Secret Service was unfavorable to the government’s claim Oswald acted alone.^[40]

One might have hoped that the government’s proven dishonesty and bad faith in the Kennedy case, which Jim Dieugenio, Jeff Morley, and others have shown have no limit and no end, would force a reckoning among Warren loyalists. There’s little doubt but that it has, among some. But from what he’s written in his books and in his riposte, it seems that there’s nothing that’s likely to ever shake Bob Wagner’s “patriotic” faith. And it’s skeptics who are fools for not buying this?

Click here to read the article by Robert Wagner that Gary Aguilar is responding to.

Editor’s note: Robert Wagner and Gary Aguilar have both been given space on this site to present their latest retorts on this ongoing debate. At this point, we have no plans to publish further discussion between the two researchers regarding this debate.

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1. Curt Gentry. J. Edgar Hoover – the Man and the Secrets. New York. W.W. Norton & Co., 1991, p. 553, and p. 558. (Hoover kept a file on LBJ.)

2. See Hoover memo from 11.22.63 saying Oswald was the culprit: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=62251#relPageId=97

3. JFK assassination files: Hoover said FBI must “convince the public” Oswald acted alone. CBS News. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jfk-assassination-files-hoover-said-fbi-must-convince-the-public-oswald-acted-alone/

4. Curt Gentry. J. Edgar Hoover – the Man and the Secrets. New York. W.W. Norton & Co., 1991, p. 548 and p. 553.

5. See: Aguilar G. Warren Commission Counsels Burt Griffin and Howard Willens Attempt the Impossible: Shoring up the Tottering Credibility of Earl Warren’s Investigation. https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/warren-commission-counsels-burt-griffin-and-howard-willens-attempt-the-impossible-shoring-up-the-tottering-credibility-of-earl-warren-s-investigation

6. Sources at: Aguilar G. Warren Commission Counsels Burt Griffin and Howard Willens Attempt the Impossible: Shoring up the Tottering Credibility of Earl Warren’s Investigation https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/warren-commission-counsels-burt-griffin-and-howard-willens-attempt-the-impossible-shoring-up-the-tottering-credibility-of-earl-warren-s-investigation

7. Gerald D. McKnight. Breach of Trust – How the Warren Commission Failed the Nation and Why. Lawrence, Kansas: Kansas University Press, 2005, p. 150.

8. Warren Commission testimony of Robert McClelland, Hearings Vol. 6, p. 33. Hereafter 6H33.

9. Wagner, R. JFK Assassisnated – In the Courtroom Debating the Critical Research Community. Mill City Press, 2023, p. 210.

10. Warren Commission Exhibit #387, Autopsy Report and Supplemental Report, p. 3. https://aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wr/pdf/WR_A9_AutopsyReport.pdf

11. Warren Commission Exhibit #387, Autopsy Report and Supplemental Report, p. 3. https://aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wr/pdf/WR_A9_AutopsyReport.pdf

12. House Select Committee (HSCA) testimony of J. Thornton Boswell, MD. V7:253 https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol7/html/HSCA_Vol7_0132a.htm

13. HSCA memo of conversation with J. T. Boswell, HSCA record # 180-10093-10430-, agency file number 002071, p. 6. Also reproduced in ARRB Medical Document #26, see p. 6. See also my discussion of this 33 years ago:

    Aguilar G, Cunningham K. HOW FIVE INVESTIGATIONS INTO JFK’S MEDICAL/AUTOPSY EVIDENCE GOT IT WRONG – DISCUSSION. https://history-matters.com/essays/jfkmed/How5Investigations/How5InvestigationsGotItWrong_6.htm

14. Image available at: Mantik D. The Omissions and Miscalculations of Nicholas Nalli

    https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/the-omissions-and-miscalculations-of-nicholas-nalli

15. ARRB Master Set of Medical Exhibits, MD 29. https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md209/html/md209_0001a.htm

16. https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh16/html/WH_Vol16_0501a.htm

17. HSCA V. 7:246. https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol7/html/HSCA_Vol7_0128b.htm

18. https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/medical_testimony/Boswell_2-26-96/html/Boswell_0045b.htm

19. Aguilar G. The Converging Medical Case for Conspiracy in the Death of JFK. In: Fetzer J, ed. Murder in Dealey Plaza, Part III. Chicago: Catfeet Press, 2000, p. 187.

20. Seattle Times, May 27, 1995. Jackie’s Memories Of JFK’s Death — In 1963 Interview, She Talked Of Seeing Husband Shot. https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/19950527/2123253/jackies-memories-of-jfks-death—-in-1963-interview-she-talked-of-seeing-husband-shot

21. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7cimeXvqLA

22. https://aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md188/html/md188_0001a.htm

23. See my 1994 compilation of witness statements: JOHN F. KENNEDY’S FATAL WOUNDS: THE WITNESSES AND THE INTERPRETATIONS FROM 1963 TO THE PRESENT http://assassinationweb.com/ag6.htm

24. ARRB testimony of J. Thornton Boswell, p. 160-161. https://www.jfk-assassination.net/russ/testimony/boswella.htm

25. MD 28 – Reports From Lt. Col Finck to Gen. Blumberg (1/25/65 and 2/1/65). See Summary page: https://aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md28/html/Image19.htm

26. HSCA testimony of Pierre Finck, MD. https://www.jfk-assassination.net/russ/testimony/finckhsca.htm

27. Besides the photos from the government’s Biophysics Lab, a posted video of extremely high speed videos of eggs being shot with bullets that repeatedly show that the first egress of debris exits the point of entrance. See “Cory Santos” videos posted online in an “Education Forum” discussion of “jet effect.” https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/27768-video-destroying-the-jet-effect/

28. See: Aguilar G. Is Robert Wagner the New Paul Hoch? – Part 2, “Snowstorm.” https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/is-robert-wagner-the-new-paul-hoch-part-2

29. See: Aguilar G. The X-Ray Evidence: Enhanced vs Unenhanced. In: Is Robert Wagner the New Paul Hoch? – Part 2 https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/is-robert-wagner-the-new-paul-hoch-part-2

30. Sturdivan, L. Testimony HSCA Vol. 1:394. https://aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol1/pdf/HSCA_Vol1_0908_3_Sturdivan.pdf

31. Sturdivan, L S. The JFK Myths. St. Paul. MN. Paragon House, 2005, p. 173.

32. * See: Aguilar G, Wecht CH. Dr. Nalli and Neuromuscular Reaction. In: Nicholas Nalli and the JFK Case, Part 2. https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/nicholas-nalli-and-the-jfk-case-part-2

    * See: Aguilar G, Wecht CH. AFTE Journal — Volume 47 Number 3 — Summer 2015, p. 134-135. Available here: https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-reviews/nova-s-cold-case-jfk-junk-science-pbs

    * See: Aguilar G. Wecht CH. AFTE Journal — Volume 48 Number 2 — Spring 2016, p. 72. Available here: https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-reviews/nova-s-cold-case-jfk-junk-science-pbs

33. Alvarez J. A physicist examines the Kennedy assassination film. Am. J. Physics, V.4, # 9. Sept. 1976. https://aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol1/pdf/HSCA_Vol1_0908_4_Alvarez.pdf

34. See Commission Exhibit #2011: https://www.history-matters.com/essays/frameup/EvenMoreMagical/images/Slide2.GIF

35. * HSCA Final Report, p. 486. https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/report/pdf/HSCA_Report_4_Remarks.pdf

    * DISSENTING VIEWS BT HON. ROBERT W. EDGAR TO THE FINAL REPORT, p. 499. https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/report/pdf/HSCA_Report_4_Remarks.pdf

36. * Koenig, BE. Acoustic Gunshot Analysis – The Kennedy Assassination and Beyond (Conclusion) https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/acoustic-gunshot-analysis-kennedy-assassination-and-beyond

    * Thompson. J. Last Second in Dallas. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2023, p. 275-300.

    * See also memo from HSCA Chief Counsel, Robert Blakey, to the FBI’s William Webster dated 4.2/1981 that included a technical refutation of FBI Agent Koenig’s acoustics analysis written by James Barger and the acoustics authorities at Bold, Beranak and Newman, Inc. Cambridge, Mass: http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/FBI Records/062-117290/062-117290 Volume 25/62-117290P25b.pdf

37. Thompson. J. Last Second in Dallas. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2023.

38. * https://scienceandglobalsecurity.org/archive/sgs25wright.pdf

    * Thompson. J. Last Second in Dallas. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2023, p. 280-284. 

    *See also” “The Vela Incident Nuclear Test or Meteoroid? Documents Show Significant Disagreement with Presidential Panel Concerning Cause of September 22, 1979 Vela “Double-Flash” Detection.” National Security Archives, 5/5/2006. Available here: https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB190/index.htm

    *A good summary of government evidence proving a nuclear blast in the Vela Incident is available in: Report on the 1979 Vela Incident. Available here. [“(Investigative journalist Seymour) Hersh reports interviewing several members of the Nuclear Intelligence Panel (NIP), which had conducted their own investigation of the event. Those interviewed included its leader Donald M. Kerr, Jr. and eminent nuclear weapons program veteran Harold M. Agnew. The NIP members concluded unanimously that it was a definite nuclear test. Another member—Louis H. Roddis, Jr.—concluded that ‘the South African-Israeli test had taken place on a barge, or on one of the islands in the South Indian Ocean archipelago.’” [Hersh 1991; pg. 280-281. Available here. He also cited internal CIA estimates made in 1979 and 1980 which concluded that it had been a nuclear test. “The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory conducted a comprehensive analysis, including the hydroacoustic data, and issued a 300-page report concluding that there had been a nuclear event near Prince Edward Island or Antarctica [Albright 1994b].”

39. CIA Hid Key Oswald Ties from JFK Investigators, New Docs Confirm

    July 14, 2025 https://rockymountainvoice.com/2025/07/14/cia-hid-key-oswald-ties-from-jfk-investigators-new-docs-confirm/

40. Jeff Morley. JFK Facts. https://jfkfacts.substack.com/p/a-trail-of-destruction-followed-faucis?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=315632&post_id=145391771&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=1e6chw&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Robert Wagner Replies to Gary Aguilar

Introduction

In December 2024, Kennedys and King published Dr. Gary Aguilar’s review of my book JFK Assassinated – In the Courtroom: Debating the Critical Research Community (“JFKA”). JFK was my second book about the assassination of President Kennedy. My first book, The Assassination of JFK: Perspectives Half a Century Later, was published in 2016. I met Gary in November 2017 at the Houston mock trial of Lee Harvey Oswald, where I served as a prosecution expert consultant. Having since exchanged a few hundred emails and engaged on private group threads, Gary and I are familiar with each other’s views on this subject. While we have significant disagreements, I have always admired Gary’s dedication and enormous contributions to this case.

Gary addresses six topics. Below I address them individually and then conclude with important overall context discussed in JFKA not mentioned by Gary. Space for my reply is limited, so I can only address high points. There is much more supporting detail offered in JFKA.

Response

1. The Fatal Head Wound – Especially the Parkland Hospital Recollections

Gary complains that I rely on Dr. McClelland’s recollection, extrapolating it to every doctor and layperson in Trauma Room 1 at Parkland. Gary criticizes me for neglecting sufficient discussion of the reports of two neurosurgeons, Kemp Clark and (allegedly) Robert Grossman.[1] This critique completely sidesteps the primary point of my analysis.

This issue is principally about considering where on the president’s head that adults—many of them doctors, some of them laypeople—say they saw a sizable hole, and addressing the differences between their recollections and the autopsy evidence. Gary’s well-known survey of Parkland (and Bethesda) witnesses includes mostly laypeople and medical doctors who are not neurosurgeons.[2] Gary implicitly trusted such witnesses to accurately report their observations about the location of a large wound somewhere on a human head. So, the issue is not that neurosurgical credentials are necessary to accurately report what was seen. The issue is distilled to this: When witness observations conflict with autopsy evidence, is there alternate substantive evidence that provides value in determining where to grant greater weight as to reliability?

McClelland’s authorized sketch has been seized upon by the critic community as “Exhibit A” of the location of the area of missing skull. I quoted Doug Horne (p. 206), when describing the whereabouts of the location of the area of missing skull, which Horne says was attested to “virtually unanimously” by Parkland treatment physicians: “It was approximately fist sized, or baseball sized, or perhaps even a little smaller—the size of a very large egg or a small orange; … it was in the right rear of the head behind the right ear.”[3] Horne’s summary description matches well with the McClelland drawing:

The Parkland witnesses do not describe the wound in the same detail from person to person, but in any case, their descriptions of the wound location are noticeably at odds with that described at autopsy as: “chiefly the parietal bone but extending somewhat into the temporal and occipital regions”[4] (emphasis added). By and large, the Parkland witnesses described the wound location as chiefly occipital.

There is persuasive evidence nullifying the accuracy of those recollections, and it is not blind reliance on autopsy doctors, but on evidence not in dispute: the large triangular fragment recovered from the limousine and brought to the Bethesda morgue late into the autopsy. The triangular (“delta”) fragment measured about 4 inches by 2.5 inches. Researcher John Hunt considered anatomical locations just in front of, or behind, the president’s right coronal suture; locations that are generally agreed to be the possibilities for the fragment’s origin. Regardless, no one claims this fragment is occipital bone from the back of the president’s head [5]:

Gary has not addressed how head wound witnesses at Parkland (and Bethesda) failed to note this large area of skull missing from the top of the president’s head—coincidentally more or less the same size of the area of missing skull according to McClelland.[6] Unlike at Parkland, the Bethesda witnesses, early in the autopsy, would have observed enlargement of that wound as the autopsy doctors reflected the president’s scalp and portions of the skull adhered to the reflected scalp and also fell away from the head, enlarging the span of missing skull (p. 288) such that no significant sawing (if any) was needed to extract the president’s brain (the brain could not have been extracted from the area of missing bone represented by the McClelland sketch).[7]

That Parkland witnesses failed to note the large hole in the top of the president’s skull is irreconcilable to the “delta fragment” evidence.[8] Further, those witnesses do not describe a second large hole (this one on the top of the head, either in back of, or in front of, the right coronal suture), nor a contiguous larger wound extending from occipital bone forward to the coronal suture anterior on the parietal bone, even with the due examination by the Parkland doctors, as mentioned by Gary. The large wound was on the top of the head, not lower on the back of the head.

That the area of missing skull was at the top of the president’s head is confirmed by one of the autopsy photographs (“views”)—taken from behind the president showing the large wound on top of his head, which autopsy assistant James Jenkins described as having brain matter visible.[9] When FBI Agent James Sibert was shown this autopsy photograph by William Law, he said, “I definitely remember that. That’s just the way it looked.”[10] When, for Law and Debra Conway, Sibert sketched the dimensions of the delta fragment, Conway commented, That’s huge! I mean, that’s the top of your head.”[11] Gary’s review omits these issues as presented in JFKA, yet this is clearly the central theme of my analysis, not McClelland’s singular reporting.

How could Parkland witnesses have been mistaken? We know Bethesda witness Sibert appeared on Gary’s surveyed list of “right rear” witnesses and confirmed that location verbally to Law, yet also authenticated an autopsy photograph—taken before any autopsy manipulations were performed—that very clearly shows the wound on the top of the president’s head.[12] Reports of visible cerebellar brain tissue (e.g., neurosurgeon Clark and anesthesiologist Jenkins) are also in conflict with this evidence, although as Gary has previously written, the “external occipital protuberance (EOP), overlies the upper margin of the cerebellum which lies beneath it.”[13] It follows that because the autopsy reported location of the inshoot was “slightly above” the EOP,[14] the bullet could have missed the cerebellum (defecting up, to be discussed), which brain pictures from the supplemental autopsy confirm.

2. The Entry Wound on the Back of the President’s Head

Here, Gary notes Pierre Finck’s autopsy commentary, which he contends I ignore or misinterpret. Neither assertion is true. Consider the so-called “mystery photo.” That view is one of three extant pictures (views) to document bullet wounds.[15] Noteworthy is that Finck told his boss, General Blumberg, that he directed only three pictures (views) be taken: “the occipital wound (external and internal aspects), as well as the wound in the back” (pp. 222, 254). Gary mistakenly notes that I omitted a key part of Finck’s description, namely, “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).[16] Not only do I quote this phrase (p. 221), but I devote significant narrative to its meaning in context because it is key to understanding the “mystery photo” (pp. 221-223; 251-258).

Gary points to the semi-circular notch in the “mystery photo” and claims “outside beveling is plainly visible,” concluding that this is evidence of outshoot. Importantly, Finck never claimed there was any evidence of outshoot anywhere on the intact skull, and he had that skull in his hands.[17] Finck clearly had something else in mind. As discussed in JFKA (pp. 255-257), critic researcher Don Thomas warned of wrongly interpreting beveling features: “when dealing with fragments or margins of bone, and not through-and-through holes [as is the case here], all bets are off. This is because the laminate nature of cranial bone lends itself to chipping that can easily be confused with beveling.”[18] I also quoted Vincent Di Maio: “Chips of bone can flake off the edge of an entrance hole.”[19] One of Gary’s seminal published works is also relevant to this point, relating, “…there are numerous cases from the scientific literature in which the documented beveling characteristics were the reverse of what might be expected from the known direction of wounding”[20] (emphasis added). As expressed in JFKA (p. 256), even though Finck told Blumberg otherwise, there is no extant photograph showing the internal aspect of the skull for the entry wound, the partner to what we see in the semi-circular notch in the “mystery photo.” As Finck related to Blumberg, the portion of a “crater”[21] was “obvious” on the internal aspect. Although this involves speculation, it finds support because, again, Finck never claimed to have seen outshoot evidence anywhere on the intact skull and, again, Finck held that skull in his hands.

Finck said he directed pictures be taken of the occipital wound of entrance (not parietal, as Gary now claims), both internal and external aspects. I propose that the “mystery photo” was the picture of the external aspect. Finck never said generalized pictures were taken of the skull. The most reasonable conclusion is that the “mystery photo” was a particularized picture – one of just three views directed, meaning that each had targeted purpose from Finck’s perspective. For the “mystery photo,” then a targeted, particularized picture of what? The occipital wound of entrance, just as Finck related to Blumberg. How could it be otherwise? It could only be otherwise if one were to disconnect his intention from the outcome, which would not be reasonable. In JFKA chapters 9 and 10, I discuss confusion posed by the “mystery photo” among researchers and all three autopsy doctors (see particularly p. 229). The autopsy doctors, Finck included, saw the pictures for the first time a few years after the autopsy—then setting the table for confusion—and understandably even more hazy recollections fifteen years later as to the HSCA, and three decades later to the ARRB. These impediments should not override what Finck told Blumberg in early 1965 before he ever saw the autopsy pictures, although total clarity is indeed lacking.[22]

While researchers disagree about whether a noticeable forward head movement at Z312-Z313 is because of a rearward bullet strike (it was, as notable members of the critic community acknowledge) or, alternatively, Zapruder film blur artifacts (as Gary believes), or that Puppe’s Rule (a secondary fracture of the president’s skull terminated when meeting a prior fracture) establishes that a low shot to the back of the president’s head was the first trauma inflicted to his head, as argued by Randy Robertson and Michael Chesser (both recognized by the critical community as having radiology interpretation expertise[23]); the evidentiary weight confirms that the president was at Z312-Z313 struck low on the back of the head in occipital bone (not parietal, as Gary maintains as occurring at circa Z327), just as Finck and other autopsy doctors concluded.

3. The “Back and to the Left” Lunge

Gary says I concluded that “either a ‘jet effect’ or a ‘neuromuscular reaction’ or both, best explain(s) Kennedy’s rearward jolt.” That is not at all what I wrote. In JFKA, I simply rejected the effects of bullet momentum as an explanation for the “lunge” (pp. 335-336).

In long-ago private conversation, Gary scolded me for my claim of the effect of the Z312-Z313 shot lifting the president’s torso against gravity, but no more. (In response, I pointed out that Tink Thompson recognized this “lifting” effect in Last Second in Dallas.[24]) I place weight on the expertise of Larry Sturdivan (degree in physics) to the extent of his contention that a penetrating bullet strike to the head would not lift a torso against gravity, as it must have just after Z312-Z313, but physics Ph.D. David Mantik had also so concluded.[25] Now, the retort from Gary is that a similar effect can be seen from the effect of a supposed rear head strike just after circa Z327. I will leave the readers to determine for themselves if a forward torso lunge occurs just after circa Z327 akin to the rearward torso lunge just after Z312-Z313, but I cannot make that reach.[26] Gary says these lunges (just after Z313 and Z327) were both caused by the president’s head as it “tugged” his torso in the same direction. The notion that the lifting of the president’s entire torso just after Z313 was caused by the “tugging” of the president’s head finds objection by two physics-trained researchers, one pro-conspiracy and one anti-conspiracy. I also note that even Tink described the post Z313 event as “lifts and throws his body backward and to the left …” (emphasis added), which is accurate and connotates something more severe than a “tug.” Finally, while we all agree that such an effect occurred after Z312-Z313, Randy Robertson and Don Thomas, both critic researchers and important believers of a shot fired at circa Z327 (like Tink, in support of the acoustics case), deny that this shot even struck the president.[27]

Gary notes that “the debris field” (matter ejected from the president’s head) went “principally to the president’s left-rear.” It is also well-known, however, that Agents Greer and Kellerman, riding two rows in front of the president, were sprayed with human matter[28]; some human matter was located as far forward as on the hood of the car[29]; and the Harper bone fragment was reportedly found by its namesake well forward location of the limousine at Z313.[30] Human matter was jettisoned in many directions (plainly visible at Z313, and not at circa Z327), as hydraulic cavitation from the sheer force of the shot caused the president’s head to explode.[31]

4. Provenance of CE 399

Gary’s criticism relates to the government’s documentation of the chain of possession of CE 399, particularly of O.P. Wright’s claim that the recovered bullet had a pointed tip, rather than a rounded nose, as does CE 399[32]:

In Last Second in Dallas, Tink relates details of his 1966 conversation, and of testing Wright on his recollection of seeing a pointed tip bullet. Wright forcefully implied that such a mistake was not possible.[33] For Wright, one could evidently not mistake the difference between the two types of bullets.

In a long-ago email exchange, Gary confirmed that he had no reason to suspect that the two middle intermediaries in the six-person transmission chain of CE 399, Secret Service Agent Richard Johnsen, and Secret Service Chief James Rowley, took part in evidence manipulation. According to documentation Gary cites, neither Johnsen nor Rowley could many months later positively identify CE 399 as the bullet they handled on November 22, 1963. Wouldn’t it be reasonable to conclude, however, that Johnsen and Rowley, when later presented with CE 399 for identification, would not have merely claimed they were unable to identify it, but would have instead said, consistent with Wright, that CE 399 was positively not the bullet? (As mentioned in JFKA, p.120, without identifying markings it would not be realistic for either Johnsen or Rowley months later to distinguish one round-nosed bullet from another.) Wouldn’t Wright have said the same thing in 1964 to Gordon Shanklin? Would Shanklin have risked tampering with witness accounts, like Wright’s, in the larger ongoing investigation in which such impropriety could be easily exposed? From this analysis one must be skeptical of Gary’s and Tink’s argument, if not reject it, as I do, for this and other reasons explained in JFKA.

5. Directionality of the Fatal Shot

Gary takes issue with my assertion that a bullet entered low on the president’s head, in occipital bone, and exited high on the top/top right side of the present’s head upon deflection. Noteworthy is Don Thomas’ admonition in Hear No Evil, that bullets will deflect as he took to task the HSCA’s bullet trajectory analysis: “There was no good reason to believe that the bullet track through the skull would be anywhere close to the same as that prior to impact. On the contrary, the bullet would almost certainly deflect … This is why a knowledgeable (and honest) person would not undertake such an analysis in the first place” (emphasis added).[34] It follows that the path of bullet (or bullet fragments) deflection through a skull is a unique event, difficult if not impossible to replicate on any human head, much less a cadaver skull.

This issue highlights a certain line of demarcation: did the shot that struck the president in the back of the head do so in occipital bone as the first head strike (my position, with this event being the sole shot to the head), or did the shot strike much higher–about four inches higher than reported at autopsy–in parietal bone as a second head strike (Gary)? As to the bullet strike to the back of the head, the weight of the evidence (as previously discussed) supports the lower occipital location, and that there was no head trauma prior to that strike. That being the case, then a bullet (or bullet fragments) upward deflection is self-evident from the visible damaged and undamaged (e.g., undamaged face and forehead) portions of the president’s head, as shown in the autopsy pictures. In turn, this leads to the next issue.

As to the “lead storm” fragment pattern seen on the autopsy X-rays, the questions posed are the directionality of a bullet causing that pattern, as well as the interpretation of the pattern. I recognize this issue is complex and, especially in isolation, hazardous for lone shooter supporters, but there are issues beyond what Gary has addressed.

There were at least two impacts on the skull by a bullet (or bullet fragments) on entry and then on exit. A disintegrating jacketed bullet can shed at least larger fragments as it passes through the head (shown on the Biophysics Lab test featured by Gary and JFKA, p. 318). A bullet (or bullet fragments) can also shed fragments upon exit from collision with the skull and for that proposition there is evidence: an X-ray of the delta fragment (formerly located in the right front quadrant of the president’s skull in the same region where there are also tiny fragments visible in the X-rays) shows tiny metallic fragments on that bone at the exit (not entrance) site. In Tink Thompson’s reconstruction, he acknowledges that a Mannlicher-Carcano–alleged Oswald bullet–struck the president in the back of the head,[35] as I believe Gary does, and so do I, although we disagree on the timing and location, as mentioned. As the first shot, however, at least two large and visibly mangled M-C bullet fragments (CE 567 and CE 569) collided with the president’s skull upon exit – producing evidence of that exit on the delta fragment (recall, from the top of the president’s head) and accompanying tiny fragments (pp. 282-283, 321-323), which, according to James Humes, were “similar in character to the particles seen within the skull (emphasis added).[36] Additionally, the president’s head was attached to a living human body unlike a shooting test on a cadaver skull. The chaos resulting from hydraulic cavitation (visible explosion) of the president’s living head is relevant to any consideration of the fragment pattern. As researcher Pat Speer notes, with evidence, it appears that many of these tiny fragments are outside of the skull, in the scalp.[37]

Gary’s notes that Massad Ayoob concluded, “The explosion of the president’s head as seen in frame 313 … is far more consistent with an explosive wound of entry with a small-bore hyper-velocity rifle bullet …” As discussed in JFKA, Ayoob also concluded, in the same article, “It is entirely possible that he [Oswald] also shot JFK in the back of the head with another bullet, which for unexplainable reasons did damage out of proportion to its ballistic capability as most of us would perceive that to be.”[38] Entirely possible. Vincent Di Maio also allowed for an Oswald bullet to have struck the president in the head. (In JFKA, I explained Gary’s concerns with Di Maio’s conclusions.[39]) The simple point is that two prominent gunshot wound experts allowed for the lone shooter theory.

6. Acoustics Evidence

Gary’s assertion that I rely on the Ramsey Panel is wrong. Throughout more than forty pages (pp. 162-195, 416-428) of related analysis and discussion, not once do I substantively refer to the Ramsey Panel’s work. It is only an endnote (197, p. 423) where such reference is made, and then only to acknowledge criticisms of the panel’s work by Don Thomas and Tink Thompson. Gary has the reader of his review believe my acoustics analysis is superficial, which is entirely wrong. Gary again sidesteps the basis for my conclusions.

Acoustics evidence, especially as to supporting the theory of a shot from the grassy knoll, is built upon three prongs: (1) reconstruction tests conducted in Dealey Plaza in 1978 and related waveform comparison analysis done by HSCA experts, (2) alleged instances of crosstalk on two police frequencies, and (3) evidence that motorcycle cop H.B. McLain was in the right locations in Dealey Plaza as shots were fired. In addition, for the acoustics evidence to be valid, all agree that McLain’s microphone had to be the microphone in question, picking up gunshot sounds as he was accompanying the motorcade. I have no ability to directly opine on waveform science or crosstalk that both supporters and detractors of the acoustics evidence use to make their case, although I explain strengths and weaknesses of both sides in relation to each of these issues in JFKA. Rather, I dispute the assertion that McLain’s was the open microphone, referring to it as a “deal-killer” for the acoustics case (p. 175; see also p. 336). In JFKA, I relate my several strands of reasoning, covering many pages of analysis. Not once in Gary’s review is the name “McLain” mentioned, nor my related analysis. Also, the HSCA report said that McLain asked a reasonable question, one for which the only reasonable answer further invalidates the acoustics case: “If it was my radio on my motorcycle, why did it [channel 1, the frequency purportedly containing evidence of gunshots] not record the revving up at high speed plus my siren when we immediately took off for Parkland Hospital?”[40] Channel 1 did not pick up engine revving and siren sounds because McLain’s radio was switched to channel 2 – the frequency devoted to the presidential motorcade, which it was McLain’s job to be monitoring.

Gary objects to my reference to Michael O’Dell as an acoustics evidence expert. But it was Tink Thompson that acknowledged O’Dell’s expertise. In Last Second in Dallas, he writes, “The universe of people really knowledgeable about the acoustic evidence is vanishingly small: James Barger, Don Thomas, Chris Scally, and one other person, Michael O’Dell.”[41] O’Dell informs me he reached out and then was invited to consult with James Barger and Tink for a year or two prior to publication of Last Second in Dallas, raising the issues noted in JFKA, and others. As described in chapter 7 of JFKA, O’Dell questions technical (waveform) aspects and the interpretation of crosstalk relied on by Barger and, by extension, Tink. O’Dell raises valid issues not addressed in Last Second in Dallas. In JFKA I wrote that O’Dell’s work impinges the acoustics evidence (p. 191). I am unaware of any rebuttal to O’Dell’s criticisms. Gary says that I cite, in extenso, Michael O’Dell’s work and incorrectly implies that O’Dell and the Ramsey Panel are the basis for my conclusion. Rather than simply recite my book index, as Gary did, for O’Dell page references (several containing name references only, and one of those pages cited by Gary – my error – was an incorrect page reference), it is not hard to see that less than ten percent of the word count of this topic relates to O’Dell. And it is certainly not O’Dell’s work in extenso.

Concluding Remarks

In both books I emphasize an important theme that should guide anyone’s analysis of the assassination: Oswald’s movements in the depository were not controlled. If there was a sophisticated conspiracy to frame an innocent patsy, it would have been job one to make sure the patsy could not produce an alibi. For all that supposed conspirators could know, Oswald would be in the company of coworkers as the shots rang out. After the release of JFKA, Vince Palamara noted on the JFK Education Forum, “Wagner believes the greatest challenge to those who believe there was a conspiracy is the following: there is no evidence that Oswald’s movements were controlled in any fashion on 11/22/63 to PREVENT HIM FROM HAVING AN ALIBI. As an open-minded author/researcher, I myself cannot think of a good counterargument to this challenge” (emphasis in the original).[42] I propose to Vince and others that there is no good counterargument. This should give any researcher pause. As noted in both books, if Oswald was a shooter (not a patsy), then the notion of a Mafia or some (direct or indirect) government involvement in the assassination is realistically precluded. A conspiracy involving Oswald and other rogue types is possible, however, although anyone partnering with Oswald in murdering the president would have taken on considerable risk given Oswald’s high-profile activities earlier in 1963. I am not dogmatic, however. I have said for years that I am an Oswald (probably) did it guy. Probably.

Click here to read Gary Aguilar’s response to this article.

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1. In 2003, David Lifton authored an article questioning whether Dr. Grossman was even in Trauma Room 1 during the president’s treatment: “That is the issue: not what Dr. Grossman alleges he saw; not his interpretations; but whether he was there.” https://www.jfk-assassination.net/grossman.htm. Thus, contrary to Gary’s assertion, and respecting Lifton’s analysis, I will not give weight to Dr. Grossman’s representations out of a proper abundance of caution.

2. https://history-matters.com/essays/jfkmed/How5Investigations/How5InvestigationsGotItWrong_tabfig.htm#Table_1.

3. Doug Horne, Inside the Assassination Records Review Board: The U.S. Government’s Final Attempt to Reconcile the Conflicting Medical Evidence in the Assassination of JFK – Volume 1, (2009), p. 69.

4. CE 387 of the Warren Commission hearings. Material quoted and discussed in JFKA, pp. 276-282.

5. “A Demonstrable Impossibility: The HSCA Forensic Pathology Panel’s Misrepresentation of the Kennedy Assassination Medical Evidence,” https://www.history-matters.com/essays/jfkmed/ADemonstrableImpossibility/ADemonstrableImpossibility.htm.

6. In a 50^th anniversary interview in 2013, Dr. McClelland said the wound was “at least five inches in diameter.” https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=jfk+robert+mcclelland+interview+with+hsca&mid=4D55662CC464643168B34D55662CC464643168B3&FORM=VIRE. See just after the six-minute mark.

7. James Humes, Warren Commission testimony (2H 354): “We had to do virtually no work with a saw to remove these portions of the skull, they came apart in our hands very easily …” See also James Jenkins, At The Cold Shoulder of History, (2018), pp. 26-27. The pertinent material is quoted in JFKA at pp. 211-212.

8. If one concludes (as I do) that the so-called Harper fragment was also parietal bone (not from the rear of the head), then the actual span of missing skull (ejected from the top/top right of the president’s head) is even larger. The trapezoidal Harper fragment measured about 2.75 by 2.2 inches. See JFKA, pp. 440-441 (endnote 224).

9. At The Cold Shoulder of History, (2018), p. 141. Material discussed in JFKA, pp. 209-210.

10. In the Eye of History, (2015), pp. 376-377. Material is quoted in JFKA at p. 210.

11. In the Eye of History, (2015), pp. 395, 479. Material is quoted in JFKA at pp. 210, 441 (endnote 225).

12. ARRB, view #3. Although there were thirty-eight individual pictures taken at the autopsy (Doug Horne, Inside the Assassination Records Review Board – Volume 1, (2009), Illustrations section (Figure 57), many of those black and white and color pictures taken were of the same “view;” there are just seven views corresponding to those many individual pictures. Four of the views were pictures taken of the body (including view #3 – Figure 61) prior to any autopsy manipulations being performed.

13. “The Converging Medical Case for Conspiracy,” Murder in Dealey Plaza, (2000), p. 181. Material quoted and discussed in JFKA, pp. 258-259. In his review of JFKA, Gary refers to November 1977 HSCA interview notes (7 HSCA 286), indicating that Dr. Jenkins “believes he was … the only one who knew the extent of the head wound” (emphasis added). How could that be if it were Clark and/or (allegedly) Grossman that lifted and inspected the president’s head (according to Grossman or Dulaney)? Which doctor should be relied upon?

14. CE 387 of the Warren Commission hearings.

15. ARRB, view #7 (Doug Horne, Inside the Assassination Records Review Board – Volume 1, (2009), Illustrations section (Figure 66).

16. January 25, 1965, Finck letter to Blumberg and accompanying February 1, 1965, notes, ARRB Medical Exhibit 28, see particularly pp. 327, 332.

17. See, for example, February 1, 1965, Finck notes to Blumberg, ARRB Medical Exhibit 28, see particularly p. 331: “No EXIT wound is identifiable at this time in the skull …” (emphasis in the original). Finck then relates that it was upon receipt of the late-arriving fragments (including the delta fragment) that provided evidence of a bullet exit. Material quoted and discussed in JFKA at pp. 255-258.

18. Hear No Evil, (2010), p. 273. Thomas’ comments related to the beveling on the delta fragment.

19. Gunshot Wounds (3^rd ed.), (2016), pp. 100-101. Material quoted in JFKA at p. 448 (endnote 250).

20. https://history-matters.com/essays/jfkmed/How5Investigations/How5InvestigationsGotItWrong_6.htm. See footnote 352. Material quoted and discussed in JFKA at pp. 255-258.

21. February 1, 1965, Finck notes to Blumberg, ARRB Medical Exhibit 28, see particularly p. 331: “I also noticed another scalp wound, possibly of entrance, in the right occipital region … Corresponding to that wound, the skull shows a portion of a crater (emphasis added), the beveling of which is obvious on the internal aspect of the bone; on that basis, I told the prosectors and Admiral Galloway that this occipital wound is a wound of ENTRANCE” (emphasis in the original). Material quoted in JFKA, p. 221.

22. Finck told Blumberg there were three pictures capturing specific wounds, and on that he is correct. While it would have made sense that a picture of the internal aspect of the skull would have been taken to document the inshoot beveling that Finck said he saw, such a picture is not extant in the official collection. Instead, the controversial “back of the head” view is extant as a third picture view.

23. Robertson: see for example his review of Tink Thompson’s book Last Second in Dallas at https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-reviews/a-review-of-last-second-in-dallas-by-josiah-thompson; Chesser: see James Jenkins’ book, At The Cold Shoulder of History, (2018), pp. 156-157. Material related to discussion in JFKA at p. 130.

24. Last Second in Dallas, (2021), pp. 354-356. Material discussed in JFKA at p. 143.

25. “The Zapruder Film Controversy,” Murder in Dealey Plaza, (2000), p. 343. Mantik apparently believes the lurch we see on the Zapruder film just after Z313 is the effect of film alteration. Material discussed in JFKA, pp. 139-143, 396-397 (endnote 149), 410 (endnote 154).

26. See slow motion version of the Zapruder film at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zwG3QdPLfw&rco=1. Note that at around Z327, and then the few frames following, Jackie, with her right hand on the president’s back, begins the movement to the trunk of the car. By far it is better to study the slow-motion film than to try to interpret still frames.

27. Hear No Evil, (2010), p. 717. See, for example, Randy Robertson’s analysis published on the Kennedys and King website, in which Robertson describes a direct impact at 328 on the limousine windshield (“A whole bullet directly struck the windshield frame at 328 …”), allegedly shown by a flare in the windshield. Robertson believes that, without that flare, “there is no convincing visual evidence for an impact at 328…” https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-reviews/a-review-of-last-second-in-dallas-by-josiah-thompson. Material related to discussion in JFKA at p. 142.

28. FBI Agent Frank O’Neill September 12, 1997, ARRB deposition transcript at p. 74.

29. See FBI Agent Robert Frazier’s February 22, 1969, testimony at the Clay Shaw trial, https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1297#relPageId=11.

30. See David Mantik’s book JFK’s Head Wounds, (2015), pp. 54-61; Mantik’s book The Final Analysis (2024), pp. 219-226.

31. For example, see Sherry Fiester’s analysis in Enemy of the Truth (2012) (pp. 250-251). Fiester explains that projectile fragmentation creates a certain chaos, such that, “Since the brain is encased by the closed and inflexible structure of the skull, only breaking the skull open can relieve the temporary cavity pressure. The fractured skull may or may not remain intact. If the scalp tears from the force of temporary cavitation, bone fragments may be ejected from the skull. In this event, blood and tissue will forcefully exit from the opening created by the missing bone fragment. If a portion of the scalp adheres to the dislodged bone fragment, a bone avulsion is produced (emphasis added). (Material quoted and discussed in chapter 11 of JFKA.) As such, there is more to the analysis of the “debris field” than an angle of a shot.

32. The pointed tip bullet at right is a picture adapted from Tink’s book Six Seconds in Dallas, (1967), p.175.

33. Last Second in Dallas, (2021), pp. 23-26. Material quoted and discussed in JFKA, pp. 117-121, 391-392 (endnote 130).

34. Hear No Evil, (2010), pp. 434-437. Material quoted in JFKA at p. 302.

35. Last Second in Dallas, (2021), p. 230.

36. James Humes Warren Commission testimony, 2H 354-355. Less than half of that bullet’s mass was ever recovered. Whatever happened to most of that bullet’s mass can only be speculated, including perhaps explaining the controversial Tague curb strike. JFKA, pp. 463-464 (endnote 291).

37. Chapter 18 of Speer’s online book (https://www.patspeer.com/chapter18x-rayspecs ). Material, including personal communication with Speer, quoted in JFKA, pp. 311-312. For example, Speer cites an August 23, 1978, report of Dr. David Davis (HSCA radiology consultant), who reported, “It is not possible to totally explain the metallic fragment pattern that is present from some of the metallic fragments located superiorly in the region of the parietal bone, or at least projecting on the parietal bone, are actually in the scalp.” (7 HSCA 222-225, particularly at 224)

38. American Handgunner, March/April 1993, p. 106. Material quoted in JFKA at p. 324.

39. Gunshot Wounds (3^rd ed.), (2016), p. 166. Material quoted and explained in JFKA at pp. 323-324.

40. HSCA report, pp. 492-493 (comments offered by Representatives Devine and Edgar).

41. Last Second in Dallas, (2021) p. 339. Material quoted in JFKA, p. 186.

42. JFK Education Forum, May 3, 2024, post.