Tag: WARREN DEFENDERS
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“Peer Reviewed” Medical/Scientific Journalism Has Been Corrupted by Warren Commission Apologists – Part 2
see Part 1
Larry Sturdivan Bamboozled Neurosurgery, a Legitimate Peer-Reviewed Journal
In November 2003, the journal Neurosurgery published the first of what it promised would be three papers. It was entitled “The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy: A Neuroforensic Analysis—Part 1: A Neurosurgeon’s Previously Undocumented Eyewitness Account of the Events of November 22, 1963.’’ Except for the fourth of the four coauthors, Parkland witness Robert Grossman, MD, none were known to have particular knowledge of the JFK case. The paper’s stated purpose was to showcase Dr. Grossman’s “previously undocumented neurosurgeon’s eyewitness account of what occurred in Trauma Room 1 of Parkland Memorial Hospital on November 22, 1963, in an attempt to shed light on the nature of President Kennedy’s wounds.”[1]
That claim fell wide of the mark. Grossman’s recollections in Neurosurgery were not “previously undocumented.” In 1981, The Boston Globe published Grossman’s account of what he saw in Trauma Room One.[2] He had also “documented” JFK’s wounds to the Assassinations Records Review Board in 1997. In fact, in 2003 Neurosurgery published virtually the same “JFK” skull diagram that Grossman had prepared for the Assassinations Records Review Board (ARRB) six years before.[3] (Fig. 8)
By word and sketch, Grossman recounted that JFK had two skull wounds. The first was a round, 1 inch defect—to the right and ~1 inch above the external occipital protuberance, entirely within the occipital bone. (Fig. 6) The second was on the side of “JFK’s” skull, no larger than about 3 inches, or ~7 & 1/2 cm, and confined solely to parietal bone. Grossman saw no contiguity between the occipital defect and the defect in the right parietal bone that he depicted.
Figure 8. Sketch diagrams of JFK’s skull injuries prepared by Robert Grossman, MD that were published the peer-reviewed journal, Neurosurgery, in the November 2003 issue (left).[4] Grossman’s labeled skull diagram published in the Assassinations Records Review Board in 1997 (right).[5] Neither Grossman’s description nor his images square with what are said to be the authentic photographs taken of the back of JFK’s head at autopsy. Nor are they consistent with the findings in the official autopsy report, or even the sketch diagram of Kennedy’s skull wound that was prepared on the night of the autopsy by one of the autopists. The photographs show no defect low in the back of Kennedy’s head (Fig. 9), and an image prepared on the night of JFK’s autopsy documented a much larger skull defect than 3 inches. (Fig. 10)
Figure 9. Artist Ida Dox’s close rendition of an actual photograph of the back of Kennedy’s head taken during the autopsy. It was prepared for and published by, the House Select Committee on Assassinations. It shows no “1-inch” defect the occiput where Dr. Grossman said there was one. The official autopsy report specified that JFK’s skull defect measured 13 cm, fore to aft.[6] That was later corrected by autopsist, J. Thornton Boswell. He twice testified that when first examined, it actually measured 17 cm, which was the size that he documented on the “face sheet” diagram he prepared by hand during Kennedy’s autopsy. (Fig. 10)[7] After they replaced loose skull fragments into JFK’s skull wound, Boswell explained, the defect then measured 13 cm, and that was the dimension they put in the autopsy report.
Figure 10. Dr. Boswell’s autopsy “face sheet” with the notation “17 missing”—arrows pointing fore to aft. Dr. Boswell testified that, when first examined, Kennedy’s skull defect measured 17 cm. Besides his claims about JFK’s skull wounds, Part 1 was also noteworthy for Grossman’s reporting that Parkland’s chief of neurosurgery, Kemp Clark, MD, “and I lifted (JFK’s) head to inspect the occiput,” where he saw “a laceration approximately 1 inch in diameter located close to the midline of the cranium, approximately 1 inch above the external occipital protuberance. Brain tissue, some of which I thought had the appearance of cerebellar folia, was lying in the laceration.”
The importance of those remarks is not the nature of JFK’s injuries, which are demonstrably inaccurate, but that two neurosurgeons quite appropriately lifted JFK’s head and took a good look at Kennedy’s skull injuries. Like 7 other Parkland doctors, including Dr. Clark, Grossman said he saw a rearward wound—in the occiput. And he saw cerebellum, the small lobe of the brain at the rear-bottom of the brain case, under the occipital bone and beneath the large cerebral lobes of the brain. (That so many credible Parkland witnesses were in agreement on this is old news, but still important as the autopsy photos show there was no rearward skull wound and no cerebellar damage.[8]) Things got much more interesting in Part 2.
In June 2004 Neurosurgery published Part II, entitled, “A Neuroforensic Analysis of the wounds of President John F. Kennedy: Part 2 – A Study of the Available Evidence, Eyewitness Correlations, Analysis and Conclusions.” The lead author was University of California Professor of Neurosurgery, Michael Levy, MD, Ph.D. As in Part I, the fourth coauthor was Robert Grossman, MD.[9]
We were stunned by the long-discredited nonsense that was in it. As the Assassinations Archives and Research Center (AARC) was hosting a JFK conference in Washington, D.C. that fall, one of the current authors (GA) proposed inviting Professor Levy to give a presentation. He agreed and delivered a well-prepared Powerpoint talk. Author Aguilar then stood up and gave a point-by-point rebuttal. Professor Levy was dumbfounded. That evening, Levy joined authors Wecht and Aguilar, and Roger Feinman JD, for dinner. He expressed an honest shame and embarrassment that he knew nothing of the counterfactual evidence Aguilar had presented.
As professor Levy was unknown in the JFK universe, we asked him where he got his information. He said that he based his paper and presentation on material that Dr. Grossman suggested he read. He encouraged us to submit a rejoinder to Neurosurgery to correct the factual record. We did and, apparently over the objections of Dr. Grossman, they published our 10,000 word rebuttal on September 2005.[10]
As we worked on our reply, we noticed that the last page of Levy’s paper included a short congratulatory letter from Larry Sturdivan. “Part 2 of this article,” he wrote, “does not present important new evidence regarding the President’s wounds, as Part 1 did. [Which was false, as we’ve shown from the Boston Globe and the ARRB documents re Part 1, above.] Nevertheless, it is an important summary of the material previously reported. The report, especially the full version on the web site, not only saves the reader the time of acquiring these myriad sources, but also puts them into perspective in a way that a simple collection of documents cannot.”[11]
Intrigued, one of us (GA) phoned the editors at Neurosurgery who were working with us on our reply. He asked them how they found the “peer” who’d reviewed Levy’s paper. They said they didn’t know who to ask. So they turned to Levy’s coauthor, Robert Grossman, the man who had driven the series of articles from the outset. He suggested they invite Larry Sturdivan to do the review.
“Did you know that Grossman and Sturdivan have collaborated on JFK?” Aguilar asked. A quick on-line search confirmed that fact. “It’s highly irregular,” Aguilar said, “to have an author’s collaborator review his submission.” “Yes,” he replied, “it is highly irregular.”
Following up via email, Aguilar wrote both the editors and Larry Sturdivan, and still has the emails. They openly admitted Sturdivan had “refereed” both Part I and Part II. Regarding Part II, Sturdivan emailed Aguilar and the editors of Neurosurgery the following:
Dear Dr. Sullivan,
As you suggested in your letter, the article was a quick read. I could find no substantive errors or typos. The following minor details should be examined before publication … . (emphasis added; copy available by request)
No substantive errors?
Given our rejoinder ran to roughly 10,000 words, with 94 footnotes, a comprehensive accounting of the “substantive errors” Sturdivan missed in Part II alone is well beyond the scope of this discussion. But it can be viewed on-line at Neurosurgery’s website.[12] However, a few of the errors we identified are worth touching upon.
- Levy recycled debunked claims that the fibers in the back of JFK’s coat were bent inward and the fibers in his shirt front were bent outward, thus proving the back-to-front direction of the bullet. As we documented, it was FBI director J. Edgar Hoover who fabricated those claims and it was the FBI Lab itself that disavowed them.
- Levy repeated one of the Warren Commission’s most discredited myths, namely, that a Warren Commission ballistics expert had successfully duplicated JFK’s injuries in simulation shooting tests with cadaver skulls. “That (test) bullet,” Levy wrote, “blew out the right side of the reconstructed cranium in a manner very similar to the head wounds of the President.” Except for the word “cranium” rather than “skull,” as was originally written, this sentence is torn verbatim from page 585 of the Warren Report, given without the appropriate quotation marks or attribution.[13] As we’ve shown here, we noted in our reply that the blasted test skull was not at all “very similar” to JFK’s. It sustained severe damage to the right forehead, the loss of the right orbit, and much of the cheek bone, injuries JFK did not sustain.
- Dr. Levy accepted the legitimacy of Kennedy’s autopsy photos as well as Grossman’s claim that there was a one-inch hole in the occiput of JFK’s skull. He ignored the fact that the supposedly authentic autopsy photos show no occipital wound, one that was described not only by Grossman, but also by numerous Parkland physicians including the chief of neurosurgery, Kemp Clark MD. He also ignored that JFK’s autopsy surgeons all testified that photos they took on the night of the autopsy are missing.
- Ironically, Levy never mentioned, and likely didn’t know, that the ARRB’s chief Analyst for Military Records, Douglas Horne, showed Grossman the Ida Dox sketch of the back of JFK’s head taken from the autopsy photographs (Fig. 8).[14] Grossman rejected it. Horne reported that, “Grossman immediately opined, ‘that’s completely incorrect.’ He insisted there had been a hole devoid of bone and scalp about 2 cm in diameter near the center of the occipital bone.”[15]
- Dr. Levy cited the HSCA’s claim it had authenticated Kennedy’s autopsy photos. But he failed to notice a telling footnote in the very HSCA pages he cited in support of authentication. The HSCA wrote that, “Because the Department of Defense was unable to locate the camera and lens that were used to take these [autopsy] photographs, the [photographic] panel was unable to engage in an analysis similar to the one undertaken with the Oswald backyard pictures that was designed to determine whether a particular camera in issue had been used to take the photographs that were the subject of inquiry.”
But that’s not what the Navy had said. Since Kennedy’s autopsy was performed at the Navy’s Bethesda Hospital, the Secretary of the Navy responded to the HSCA’s claim they hadn’t been given the camera that had taken JFK’s autopsy images . The Secretary huffily insisted that the Navy had definitely sent the HSCA the actual camera, the very one the HSCA’s experts had determined had not taken them.[17]
Whereas the HSCA reported it could not completely close the loop because the camera was missing, the suppressed record suggests that 1) the loop was closed, 2) the camera was located, and 3) that the HSCA’s own authorities determined that the camera “could not have been used to take [JFK’s] autopsy pictures.” The HSCA staff elected to withhold this inconvenient information from the public. They also kept it from their own experts on the Forensic Pathology Panel, including the chairman, Dr. Michael Baden (personal communication), and one of the authors of this essay [CHW]. And so, as per Dr. Levy, the HSCA experts, and Neurosurgery readers were left to labor under the illusion that the images had passed authentication with flying colors.
Thereafter, the editors worked with us and published our lengthy reply. Our evisceration of Dr. Grossman’s JFK project scuttled the rest of the planned operation. Neurosurgery never published the promised Part III of “A Neuroforensic Analysis of the Wounds of President John F. Kennedy.”
The point of this extended discussion is to note that long-debunked anticonspiracy claims of “jet effect,” “neuromuscular reaction,” Neutron Activation Analysis, the government’s skull shooting tests, JFK’s authenticated autopsy photographs, the magic bullet, etc., continue to be recycled by fact-averse, anticonspiracy evangelists. Nicholas Nalli is the new crusader. He laughably tried to rehabilitate “jet effect” and “neuromuscular reaction.” He gave Sturdivan and Haag the benefit of the doubt on their repeatedly debunked NAA fantasies. And he did it in a “peer reviewed,” “scientific” article which was clearly reviewed not by anonymous, informed scientists, as Nalli claimed, but instead by ill-informed Warren loyalists, including in all likelihood, Larry Sturdivan.
Suspicion falls to Sturdivan because Nalli gushingly acknowledges him (“first and foremost”) for reviewing drafts of his paper and for “providing expert feedback.” Just as Sturdivan had thrown eggs on the faces of Professor Levy and the editors of Neurosurgery by “peer-approving” so much nonsense, he did so again to Nicholas Nally by likely contributing to, and possibly “peer-reviewing,” some rubbish that should embarrass Nalli, and expose Heliyon as an outlet for authors who are unwilling to run their work through a proper, expert, anonymous “peer review” gauntlet.
Lost in the fog of his attempt to give mouth-to-mouth to the government’s gasping scenario are the multiple lines of evidence Nalli ignores that converge on the conclusion anyone seeing the Zapruder film immediately draws: the mortal head shot at frame 313 came from the right front. For that reason, that’s a good place to start.
What Can Science Tell Us About What Happened in Dealey Plaza?
The Zapruder film, jiggle analysis, and the death of JFK
As mentioned, in 1976 Alvarez theorized that some of the Zapruder frames are blurred at points that appear to correspond to Mr. Zapruder jerking his camera in startle-reaction to the sound of gunfire.[18],[19] His theory was later validated by CBS after it ran its own, independent experiment.[20] The HSCA also undertook its own “jiggle analysis.” On page 20 and 24 of the HSCA’s report, two independent consultants produced graphs depicting the frames in which there was blurring.[21] For the shot that allegedly flipped Governor Connally’s lapel at Zapruder frame 224, the HSCA graphs show a corresponding “jiggling” three frames later, at 227.[22] The delay is due to the fact the sound wave reached Zapruder after the speedier bullet hit its target. There are other frames that are much more “jiggled” than frame 227 is.
One is Zapruder 313, the head shot. As discussed, if Oswald had fired that shot, frames 316–17 would be blurred.[23] They’re not; they’re sharp. There is only one mathematical possibility for a bullet shock wave distorting the camera’s gaze at frame 313: the bullet had to have been fired much closer to Zapruder than from Oswald’s alleged perch, 270 feet away. The best scenario is that it came from where Mr. Zapruder had told a Secret Service Agent on 11/22/63 it had come from, behind him, from the grassy knoll, approximately 60 feet behind the cameraman.[24],[25]
Let’s assume the shot was fired between frame 312 and 313. Since the shock waves from rifle muzzle blasts travel at the speed of sound, ~1125 ft/sec, the sound and shock wave from a grassy knoll shot would have hit Zapruder in less than 1/20th second, that is, within a single frame of Zapruder’s camera. A good correlation. The sound and shock wave from Oswald’s position, however, would have hit Zapruder 3 to 4 frames later, at, say, 316 or 317.
There is also considerable blurring of frames 331 and 332.[26] This appears to match a putative shot from behind that struck JFK’s head in frames 327–328 as per Last Second in Dallas, one which drove him forward more rapidly than he moved rearward after frame 313, as we’ve discussed.
But what about Kennedy’s rearward lunge after frame 313? If not “jet effect” or “neuromuscular reaction,” what caused it?
Did Momentum Transfer from a Grassy Knoll Shot Drive JFK “Back and to the Left?”
To answer this question, we return to the most analogous, and credible, experimental evidence: the government’s 1964, Biophysics Lab, skull shooting experiments. As Larry Sturdivan testified, while demonstrating with film during his HSCA testimony, “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…”[27] (As discussed, in his book Sturdivan reported a higher, and more likely valid, velocity: “the skull…moves forward at approximately 3 feet/sec, just as it must from the momentum deposited by the bullet.”[28])
Sturdivan thus argued, as he testified, that a shot from behind would have caused “slight movement toward the front, which would very rapidly be damped by the connection of the neck with the body.”[29] In other words, an MCC shell would have moved the skull in the direction of bullet travel. New information informs two key issues here.
Mr. Sturdivan’s conclusion that momentum transfer could not explain JFK’s skull motion was based on experiments using modestly powered Mannlicher Carcano rounds weighing 162 grains (0.023 lbs) that struck their targets from a distance of 90 yards.[30] And he assumed the fatal bullet was jacketed, and so deposited only half of its momentum when it struck Kennedy’s 15-pound skull.[31] These assumptions are unjustifiable and unfairly bias his conclusions toward the lone gunman. (For example, there is no reason to assume a grassy knoll gunman would have used a Mannlicher Carcano and, in fact, the x-ray evidence suggests it wasn’t a Mannlicher Carcano. See below.)
In his book, Hear No Evil, Don Thomas, Ph.D. scrutinized Mr. Sturdivan’s analysis in considerable detail. With permission, we quote Dr. Thomas.
Sturdivan’s calculation, Thomas writes, was:
derived indirectly from his tests shooting human skulls with a Mannlicher-Carcano. The bullet’s velocity at a distance of 90 yards was 1600 feet-per-second according to Sturdivan (in fact, the Army’s data indicated a value closer to 1800 fps) [sic]. Sturdivan then divided this number in half on the supposition (unstated) [sic] that the bullet would deposit only half of its momentum. This supposition was apparently based on his observation that a velocity of something like ‘one-foot-per-second’ was imparted to test skulls when shot with the Carcano.[32] Somehow, Mr. Sturdivan managed to miss the point that the rearward movement might have involved a shot origination from the grassy knoll only 30 yards in front of the target, with consequently less loss of velocity from air resistance, than from a position 90 yards behind the President. It also seemed not to have occurred to Sturdivan that the President might have been shot from the grassy knoll with a different rifle than the modestly powered Mannlicher-Carcano…[33]
“For the purposes of this discussion,” Thomas continues,
let us suppose that the hypothetical killer on the grassy knoll was armed with a .30-.30 rifle…(which) happens to have a muzzle velocity (2200ft/sec) very close to that of the Carcano and fires a 170-grain bullet, slightly larger than the Carcano bullet. At 30 yards, the projectile would have struck at a velocity of approximately 2100 fps…the momentum on impact with the head would be 50 ft-lb/sec. If one postulates a hunting bullet (in accordance with the x-ray evidence) [sic] which is designed to mushroom and deposit its energy at the wound instead of a fully jacketed bullet, we will allow a deposit of 80% of the momentum, leaving a residual velocity for the exiting bullet. This results in a momentum applied to the target of 40 ft-lb/sec; considerably more than Sturdivan’s stingy allowance of 18.4 ft-lb/sec. It is important to realize that, at the time Kennedy was struck with the fatal shot at Z-312-3, he had most likely been paralyzed by the shot through the base of the neck (as Sturdivan admits[34]). Consequently, his head was lolling forward, not supported by the muscles of the neck. This fact tends to minimize the damping effect (that so troubled Mr. Sturdivan) from the absorption of shock by the neck until after the head has snapped back. Assuming a head weight of 12 lbs, the velocity imparted to the head would be approximately 3.3 feet per second…[35] [The same speed of the test skulls that Mr. Sturdivan reported in his book, though in JFK’s case it might have even been faster as most estimates put the weight of a human head at 10-11 lbs.[36]]
From the study of the Zapruder film by Josiah Thompson, the observed rearward velocity for the head was roughly 1.6 feet per second after frame 313.
Thomas concludes, “Even given the uncertainty about the exact weight of the President’s head and the residual velocity of the bullet, the observed movement of the President’s head is well within the range, if anything less, than expected from the momentum imparted by the impact of a rifle bullet.”[37]
In sum, if one corrects for Sturdivan’s faulty assumptions, yet uses his sound logic, the case for momentum transfer becomes compelling. Thus, if Sturdivan is right, as per Aberdeen Proving Grounds, that jacketed, Western Cartridge Company (WCC) shells moved blasted skulls forward at 3 ft/sec, or even 1.2ft/sec, imagine how swiftly one would move if struck with heavier, higher velocity, soft-nosed bullet fired from a much closer location; perhaps enough not only to move JFK’s skull “back and to the left,” but also enough to even nudge his probably paralyzed upper body in the direction of his head.
As Thomas hinted, Kennedy’s x-rays suggest just such a scenario.
X-Ray Evidence for a Shot from the Grassy Knoll
While it is evident that a soft-nosed bullet fired from the right front could have delivered sufficient momentum to drive his head back and to the left, during HSCA testimony it was claimed that JFK’s x-rays prove that he was not hit by a soft-nosed round; that the fatal bullet was jacketed, like Oswald’s. This conclusion is false. It rests on a misreading and misunderstanding of the x-rays. Properly read and understood, Kennedy’s x-rays give evidence for a non-jacketed bullet. The confusion began during late 1970s. That is when the HSCA put an altered version of JFK’s lateral x-ray into evidence and had a non-radiologist, non-physician interpret the altered x-ray—the omnipresent “neuromuscular reaction” “authority,” the Neutron Activation Analysis “expert,” and now the radiology specialist, Larry Sturdivan.
The untrained Sturdivan displayed an “enhanced” version of JFK’s lateral x-ray to the HSCA members (Fig. 10). It was not the original film. The process of enhancement greatly increases the contrast of the x-ray, making the skull bones look much brighter and denser than they appear in the originals. But the process also blots out some of the clinically significant, fine details, including the presence of any miniscule, “dust-like” bullet fragments. Sturdivan testified that the enhanced x-ray ruled out the possibility of a non-jacketed round because, he said, if it had been a non-jacketed shell there would have been many tiny bullet fragments visible on the x-ray.
But, in fact, there are many, tiny fragments on JFK’s skull x-ray. They’re not visible because they’ve been blotted out from view on the enhanced film he presented to the HSCA. The following exchange under oath captured his error.
The Select Committee asked, “Mr. Sturdivan, taking a look at JFK exhibit F–53, which is an x-ray of President Kennedy’s skull,[38] 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)[39]
To demonstrate his point 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.[40] The pattern of bullet fragmentation was very similar, he said, and he was right. (Figs. 9 and 10)
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 bullets would disintegrate very quickly, producing a dense cloud of fragments at the entry site…the extent of fragmentation of the bullet 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.”[41] (emphasis added)
The unenhanced x-ray of the Biophysics test skull (Fig. 12) shows much the same thing as Kennedy’s enhanced x-ray (Fig. 11), a scattering of small, but not “dust like,” radiolucencies—bullet fragments—across the lower portion of the skull. Neither JFK’s enhanced x-ray nor the unenhanced film of the test skull shot with a Carcano round show the miniscule, more numerous fragments that Sturdivan correctly said would have been present had either been struck with a non-jacketed round.
But Kennedy’s original, unenhanced skull x-rays at the National Archives actually do show a cloud of myriad, tiny radiolucencies. Those tiny fragments, and their location, collapse the case for a lone gunman for the good reasons Sturdivan gave: a non-jacketed bullet leaves numerous, tiny fragments near their point of striking—just like those that are clearly visible in Kennedy’s original, unenhanced x-rays. Jacketed bullets like Oswald’s don’t do that.
Figure 11. Enhanced lateral x-ray taken of JFK during the autopsy. (HSCA Exhibit F 53; 1HSCA240) Note that there is a trail of fragments that runs very close to the top of JFK’s skull, and that no “dust like” fragments are visible. Instead, most of the fragments are small, similar to the Carcano fragments in the Biophysics’ unenhanced x-ray of a test skull shot with a MCC round. (Fig. 12) JFK’s original, unenhanced x-rays do show myriad, miniscule fragments that are not visible in this enhanced image. The run along the top of the x-ray, decidedly above the low entrance wound specified in the original autopsy report, and even above the higher entrance wound later accepted by the Clark Panel and the HSCA. 
Figure 12. Unenhanced, lateral x-ray of a test skull shot with a Mannlicher Carcano by the Biophysics Lab.[42] The bullet entered low, through the occipital bone, and so the fragment trail is low, as the bullet traversed the lower portion of the skull. As with JFK’s enhanced x-ray, there is a scattering of small fragments. Note the absence of the myriad, tiny fragments that were described as present in JFK’s unenhanced x-rays. Both authors Wecht and Aguilar have examined the still-secret, original, unenhanced x-rays at the National Archives and have seen that “dust like” fragments are present in the right front quadrant of Kennedy’s skull x-rays. We are not the only ones who’ve noticed them. They were reported by Kennedy’s chief pathologist, Dr. James Humes, by a Secret Service agent, as well as other government consulting, expert radiologists. The presence of miniscule fragments essentially rules out that Oswald’s single, jacketed round hit Kennedy at frame 313.
Why?
For the good reasons Sturdivan gave: tiny fragments don’t travel far in tissue, because of their low mass relative to their large surface area, their “high drag” in tissue. Tiny bullet fragments are quickly stopped in tissue. In contrast, larger fragments have proportionately less surface area compared with their mass than small fragments do, and so drive further through tissue before being stopped.
Besides their presence, a telling detail is the location of the tiny fragments. They sit in the right front quadrant of JFK’s skull, which, to borrow from Sturdivan, is likely “very near the entrance wound.” 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.”[43]
- 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.”[44]
- Russell Morgan, MD, the chairman of the department 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.”[45] (emphasis added)
- 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.”[46]
Authors Wecht and Aguilar concur: there are myriad “dust like” fragments visible on JFK’s lateral x-ray, a “snow trail,” if you will. The vast majority are confined to the right front quadrant of Kennedy’s skull, which is where, as per Sturdivan, a non-jacketed bullet struck.
Practicing radiologist Michael Chesser, MD examined the original, unenhanced JFK x-rays and 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.”[47]
Forensic pathologist Vincent DiMaio, MD elaborated upon the meaning of a “snow trail,” or “snow storm”: “[T]he snowstorm appearance of an x-ray almost always indicates that the individual was shot with a centerfire hunting ammunition…”[48]* That is, a 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 for a bullet that left a tell-tail cloud of “dust like” fragments in that area. For, although he thought that the shot at Zapruder frame 313 went from back to front, Sturdivan admitted what is well understood in the “ballistics/forensics” community: “A similar explosion would have taken place if the bullet had gone through in the opposite direction.”[49] In fact, Fig. 2 in Part I of this essay demonstrates this very principle: the human skulls shot in the government’s tests show about as much cranial contents egressing out of the entrance point at the rear of the test skull as out of the front.
(*In a later edition of DiMaio’s book, he allowed that the breach of the shell’s jacket after Oswald’s bullet went through Kennedy’s skull might have released the tiny lead fragments seen in the x-rays. However, he offered no evidence for this claim and the Biophysics skull shooting tests did not show this phenomenon. DiMaio’s is thus an assertion made without evidence and, therefore, will be dismissed in view of the counterevidence from the Biophysics tests.)
Sturdivan finally saw 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 struck JFK. But when he wrote his book in 2005, and when he reported on his examination of the originals that dramatically do show the telltale tiny fragments in the right front quadrant of JFK’s skull, he said nothing about them. He either didn’t notice them, or elected not to say he had.[50] “Scientists” like him don’t see what they don’t want to see. The HSCA’s x-ray “expert,” Sturdivan, didn’t see what other, vastly better credentialed, true experts did see.
The trail of small, but not miniscule, fragments that are visible runs along the top of JFK’s skull in both the enhanced and nonenhanced lateral x-rays. It does not align with the supposed low entrance wound specified by the autopsy surgeons in occipital bone, although the autopsy surgeons said it did. Nor does it line up with the higher entrance wound the Clark Panel identified, although the Clark Panel said it did.[51] 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) That high fragment trail offers evidence there was a second head shot, from behind, with a jacketed round, a possibility that is also suggested by the “jiggle” evidence in the Zapruder film, by Professor Barger’s acoustics analysis, and by JFK’s rapidly forward moving skull after frame 328, as explored by Thompson in Last Second in Dallas.
To recap, there is a cloud of tiny fragments on JFK’s x-ray, which is typical of a hunting round, but not Oswald’s jacketed bullet. That cloud is located in the right front portion of his skull, where they would have been quickly stopped by “tissue drag.” This physical evidence independently buttresses the “jiggle evidence” in the Zapruder film that the shot at 313 came from a location close to the camera, the grassy knoll, precisely where the acoustics evidence said it originated, and not from Oswald’s spot, 270 feet away. It is consistent with evidence that JFK’s split-second lunge “back and to the left” was due to the large momentum that was transferred to Kennedy’s cranium by a non-jacketed bullet that mushroomed on impact, and not due to “jet effect” and/or “neuromuscular reaction.”
These multiple, mutually corroborating lines of evidence point in a direction that seemed obvious to the eye of anyone who watched the Zapruder film on the Geraldo Rivera’s Good Night America show in 1975. It is also what seemed evident 28 years ago to Mr. Masaad Ayoob, a respected gun expert and the former Vice Chairman of the Forensic Evidence Committee of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL):[52]
The explosion of the President’s head as seen in frame 313 of the Zapruder film is simply not characteristic of a full metal-jacket rifle bullet traveling at 2,200 fps or less. It is far more consistent with an explosive wound of entry with a small-bore, hyper-velocity rifle bullet traveling between 3,000 and 4,000 fps, and probably toward the higher end of that scale…An explosive wound of entry occurs when a highly liquid area of the body, such as the brain, is struck by a high velocity round. The tissue swells violently during the microseconds of the bullet’s passing and seeks the line of least resistance. That least resistance is the portal of the entry wound that appeared a microsecond before and the bullet will not bore an exit hole to relieve the pressure for another microsecond or two—perhaps not at all if the bullet fragments inside the brain. 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.[53]
Mr. Ayoob speaks from experience. He notes that the closest commonly used cartridge to a Carcano
…in terms of ballistics is probably the .30/30, which has a .308″ diameter. The Carcano round, about a .263″ diameter. Ask any homicide detective if he’s ever seen a .30/30 round blow a man’s head up at 55 to 60 yards, exploding the calvarium up and away from the body proper. Ask any hunter of deer-size game if he’s ever seen the same thing at that distance. It happens only at very close range with that ballistic technology. The wound we see happening in frame 313 in the Zapruder film—and see the results of most clearly in frame 337—is simply not consistent with this rifle cartridge at that distance in living tissue. It is particularly inconsistent with a round-nose full metal-jacket bullet of the type Oswald had in his rifle.[54] [Note that the head of the goat shot in the government’s tests does not explode as JFK’s did. (Fig. 5)]
Mr. Ayoob does not completely discount the possibility of Oswald’s culpability, but only if the shell “for unexplainable reasons did damage out of all proportion to its ballistic capability as most of us would perceive that to be.”[55]
That takes us back to what author Wecht suspected during his tenure on the Forensics Panel of the House Select Committee: JFK’s “…backward head motion might be explained by a soft-nosed bullet that struck the right side of the President’s head.” Wecht presciently surmised that before these multiple lines of independent, converging evidence had been assembled that confirm what seemed so obvious to him, to Masaad Ayoob, and to anyone viewing the Zapruder film.
In Last Second in Dallas, Thompson quoted Don DeLillo: “[D]id the shot simply come from the front, as every cell in your body tells you it did?” “Don DeLillo is right,” Thompson answered, “When you look at the Zapruder film, every cell in your body tells you the shot at frame 313 came from the right front.”[56] We now know that it’s not only your every cell, but it’s also the science that tells you that. It’s the “Occam’s Razor” solution: the simplest, most complete and compelling explanation of the shot that killed John Kennedy. It’s one that requires no suspension of disbelief; no invocation of tortured, disanalogous neurophysiological phenomena; no misreading of Kennedy’s original autopsy x-rays; and it’s one that honors the many witnesses in Dealey Plaza who said that a shot came from the grassy knoll, not least being the 21 cops who “heard a grassy knoll shot.”[57]
[see also: Milicent Cranor’s Forensics Journal Unintentionally Proves Conspiracy in Cover-Up of JFK Assassination and John Lattimer Never Quit: The Thorburn Business]
[1] Daniel Sullivan, M.Div., Rodrick Faccio, B.S., Michael L. Levy, M.D., Ph.D., Robert G. Grossman, M.D., Neurosurgery, Vol. 53, No. 5, November 2003, p. 1020. Available here.
[2] Ben Bradlee. “Dispute on JFK Assassination.” Boston Globe, 6/21/81, p. A–23. Available here.
[3] ARRB MD file # 185. Available here. (see pp. 4 and 5)
[4] Sullivan, Dan. “The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy: A Neuroforensic Analysis—Part 1:
A Neurosurgeon’s Previously Undocumented Eyewitness Account of the Events of November 22, 1963,” Neurosurgery, Vol. 53, No. 5, November 2003, p. 1024. Available here.
[5] MD 185 – ARRB Meeting Report Summarizing 3/21/97 In-Person Interview of Dr. Robert Grossman. Available here.
[6] Warren Commission JFK autopsy report, p. 3. Available here.
[7] ARRB testimony of J. Thornton Boswell, pp. 71–72. Available here.
HSCA testimony of J. Thornton Boswell. HSCA Vol.7, p. 253. Available here.
[8] See Aguilar G, Cunningham K. “How Five Investigations into JFK’s Medical/Autopsy Evidence Got It Wrong, Part V. The ‘Last’ Investigation—The House Select Committee on Assassinations.” Available here.
[9] Levy M, Sullivan D, Faccio R, Grossman R. “A Neuroforensic Analysis of the Wounds of President John F. Kennedy: Part 2—A Study of the Available Evidence, Eyewitness Correlations, Analysis, and Conclusions,” Neurosurgery. Vol. 54, No. 6, June 2004, E1–E23. Available here.
[10] Aguilar G, Wecht C, Bradford R. Neurosurgery. Vol. 57, No. 3, September 2005.
[11] Levy M, Sullivan D, Faccio R, Grossman R. “A Neuroforensic Analysis of the Wounds of President John F. Kennedy: Part 2—A Study of the Available Evidence, Eyewitness Correlations, Analysis, and Conclusions,” Neurosurgery. Vol. 54, No. 6, June 2004, E23. Available here.
[12] Aguilar G, Wecht HC, Bradford R. Reply to: “A Neuroforensic Analysis of the Wounds of President John F. Kennedy: Part 2—A Study of the Available Evidence, Eyewitness Correlations, Analysis, and Conclusions,” Neurosurgery. Available here.
[13] Warren Report, p. 585. Available here. See also Warren Commission testimony of Alfred Olivier, DVM, 5H, p. 89. Available here.
[14] See JFK Exhibit F-48. In HSCA, Vol. 1, p. 234. Available here.
[15] Horne, Douglas, Inside the Assassination Records Review Board Volume 2, p. 656.
[16] HSCA Vol. 6, p. 226. Available here.
[17] See Memorandum for File on 8/27/1998 by the ARRB’s Douglas Horne, entitled, “Unanswered Questions Raised by the HSCA’s Analysis and Conclusions Regarding the Camera Identified by the Navy and Department of Defense as the Camera Used at President Kennedy’s Autopsy. Available here.
[18] Alvarez, L. A physicist examines the Kennedy assassination film. Am J. Physics, 1976; 44 (9):813 ff. Available here.
[19] Olson D, Turner RF, “Photographic evidence and the assassination of president John F. Kennedy,” Journal of Forensic Sciences, 1971; Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 399–419. Available here.
[20] Ken Scearce & Brian Roselle. “Secrets of the Zapruder Film.” Available here.
[21] HSCA Vol. 6, p. 26. Available here.
[22] Zapruder frames 224 and 227. Available here and here.
[23] Zapruder frames 117 and 316. Available here and here.
[24] Thomas, D B. Hear No Evil, Ipswich, MA: Mary Ferrell Foundation Press, 2010, p. 202-215. Available here.
[25] Secret Service Agent Max Phillips interviewed Zapruder on 11.22.63. His memo appears nowhere in the Warren Commission documents or volumes. It was discovered at the National Archives by Mr. Harold Weisberg. Agent Phillips reported that “According to Mr. Zapruder the assassin was behind Mr. Zapruder.” Weisberg H. Whitewash III: The Photographic Whitewash of the JFK Assassination, New York, Skyhorse Publishing, 1967. See text under “Section I – The New Math and the New Morality.” Available here.
[26] Zapruder frame 331. Available here.
[27] House Select Committee on Assassinations testimony of Larry Sturdivan, September 8, 1978, 1H, p. 404. Available here.
[28] Sturdivan LM. The JFK Myths, St. Paul, MN: Paragon House, 2005, p. 164.
[29] HSCA testimony of Larry Sturdivan, September 8, 1978, 1H, pp. 413–414. Available here.
[30] HSCA testimony of Larry Sturdivan, September 8, 1978, 1H, p. 404. Available here.
[31] HSCA testimony of Larry Sturdivan, September 8, 1978, 1H, pp. 413–414. Available here.
[32] HSCA testimony of Larry Sturdivan, September 8, 1978, 1H, p. 404. Available here.
[33] Thomas, Donald B. Hear No Evil, Ipswich, MA: Mary Ferrell Foundation Press, 2010, pp. 344–345.
[34] Larry Sturdivan apparently agrees. He wrote: “Neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Carey thinks that (JFK) may be falling (by Zapruder frame 312) as a result of temporary paralysis from the spinal damage associated with the neck wound.” Sturdivan LM. The JFK Myths, St. Paul, MN: Paragon House, 2005, p. 209, note 96.
[35] Thomas, Donald B. Hear No Evil, Ipswich, MA: Mary Ferrell Foundation Press, 2010, pp. 345–346.
[36] “How Much Does the Human Head Actually Weigh?” Available here.
[37] Thomas, Donald B. Hear No Evil, Ipswich, MA: Mary Ferrell Foundation Press, 2010, pp. 345–346.
[38] HSCA Exhibit F-53, enhanced lateral skull x-ray, HSCA Vol. 1, p. 240. Available here.
[39] HSCA testimony of Larry Sturdivan. Vol.1:401. Available here.
[40] Sturdivan LM. The JFK Myths, St. Paul, MN: Paragon House, 2005, Fig. 38, p. 173.
[41] Sturdivan LM. The JFK Myths, St. Paul, MN: Paragon House, 2005, p. 177.
[42] Source: Sturdivan, LM, Review of JFK Photographs and X-Rays at the National Archives, September 23, 2004. Available here.
[43] Warren Commission testimony of James H. Humes, MD, Vol. 2:353. Available here.
[44] Warren Commission testimony of Secret Service Agent Roy Kellerman. Vol. 2, p. 100. Available here.
[45] Clark Panel Report, pp. 10–11. Available here.
[46] “Inside the ARRB: Appendices – Current Section: Appendix 44: ARRB staff report of observations and opinions of forensic radiologist Dr. John J. Fitzpatrick, after viewing the JFK autopsy photos and x-rays,” p. 2. Available here.
[47] Chesser, M. A Review of the JFK Cranial X-Rays and Photographs. Available here.
[48] DiMaio, VJM. Gunshot wounds – Practical Aspects of Firearms, Forensics, and Ballistics Techniques, Third Edition, p. 166. Available here.
[49] Sturdivan, LM, The JFK Myths, St. Paul, MN: Paragon House, 2005, p. 171.
[50] Sturdivan, L. “Review of JFK Photographs and X-Rays at the National Archives, September 23, 2004.” Available here.
[51] Clark Panel Report. Available here.
[53] Ayoob, M. “The JFK Assassination: A Shooter’s Eye View,” American Handgunner, March/April, 1993, p. 98.
[54] IBID, p. 105.
[55] IBID, p. 106.
[56] LSID, pp. 353–4.
[57] Jeff Morley. “21 JFK Cops Who Heard a Grassy Knoll Shot.” Available here.
-
“Peer Reviewed” Medical/Scientific Journalism Has Been Corrupted by Warren Commission Apologists – Part 1
Introduction
In his new book, Last Second in Dallas, Josiah Thompson, Ph.D. (philosophy) reported that Nobel Laureate, Luis Alvarez, committed scientific fraud involving the JFK assassination in a peer-reviewed journal, The American Journal of Physics (AJP). It was an extraordinary charge. But as physicians who have reported on the shoddy, biased work of numerous official, credentialed government-funded JFK assassination investigators,[1] we weren’t particularly surprised. We had long ago grasped that pro-Warren Commission journal articles generally fell into the category of junk science. But it was only from Thompson that we learned that the junkification of science traces all the way back to a Nobel Prize winner writing in 1976.
The AJP may have been the first respected science outlet to publish nonsense related to JFK’s death. It wouldn’t be the last. In the years since, many respected “peer reviewed” outlets have published rubbish churned out by a small band of anti-conspiracy activists. Among the most active during the past 20 years are some of the darlings of the mainstream media and the rapidly dwindling band of Warren Commission loyalists: Mr. Larry Sturdivan, Mr. Lucien Haag, Mr. Michael Haag (father and son), and Ken Rahn, Ph.D. In the past three years, a new star has soared into the JFK-junk science heavens, Nicholas Nalli, Ph.D.
An atmospheric chemist with no prior credentials in the JFK case, Nalli published two allegedly “peer reviewed” papers resuscitating the original, moribund theory that Alvarez had introduced in the AJP.[2] Namely, that it was a “jet effect” from Lee Oswald’s bullet that drove JFK “back and to the left.” He failed in spectacular fashion, not only because he placed his faith in Alvarez’s junk science, but also because he concocted a bit of junk science of his own. Predictably, Nalli’s paper was widely heralded. WhoWhatWhy’s Milicent Cranor, a serious student of the Kennedy case, noted that “It has been promoted in Daily Mail, Newsweek, history.com, Komsomolskaya Pravda, and several other places.”[3]
His efforts were not without value, however, for they served as reminders of the consistency with which Commission loyalists corrupt the peer review process in support of the government. And they demonstrated, yet again, that the Warren Commission’s theory of the assassination is a flop, including the “jet effect.”
THE “Jet Effect” and JFK:
Nobel Laureate Luis Alavarez and Jet Effect
America first saw the Zapruder film on March 6, 1975, when ABC broadcast Geraldo Rivera’s program, Good Night America.[4] Seeing Kennedy being blown back and to the left following the fatal shot at the infamous Zapruder frame 313 had an enormous impact on the public. To the eye, it sure looked like JFK had been struck from the right front. So how could Oswald’s shot from behind have driven JFK’s head back toward the assassin? The “scientific” answer came the following year.
In the September 1976 issue of the AJP, Alvarez announced that, “the answer turned out to be simpler than I had expected. I solved the problem (to my own satisfaction, and in a one-dimensional fashion) (sic) on the back of an envelope.” Although JFK’s head was struck from behind, he claimed it was the jettisoning of cranial contents out of the right front side of his skull that drove it back and to the left. The ejecta, he wrote, carried “forward more momentum than was brought in by the (impact of the) bullet…as a rocket recoils when its jet fuel is ejected.”[5]
To satisfy skeptics, including Mark Lane and Josiah Thompson who he named in the AJP, Alvarez ran experiments, and took a turn into the dark side: he shot at light weight, soft-skinned melons, not at all like bony human skulls, and he used the wrong kind of gun and the wrong kind of ammo. He declared:
It is important to stress the fact that a taped melon was our a priori best mock-up of a head, and it showed retrograde recoil in the first test…If we had used the ‘Edison Test,’ and shot at a large collection of objects, and finally found one which gave retrograde recoil, then our firing experiments could reasonably be criticized. But as the tests were actually conducted, I believe they show it is most probable that the shot in (Zapruder) 313 came from behind the car.[6]
Alvarez’s inventive hypothesis was subsequently buttressed by more analogous tests. This time shooting a Mannlicher Carcano, urologist John Lattimer, MD demonstrated the “jet effect” phenomenon. In 1995, in the “peer reviewed” Wound Ballistics Review, Lattimer reported that he shot both at melons as well as the backsides of filled human cadaver skulls that he perched atop ladders. Both melons and skulls recoiled back toward the shooter.[7]
Among Warren loyalists, those unexpected results are foundational. Skeptics remain dubious. But in 2018, Alvarez and Lattimer got new, theoretical support in a paper Nalli published in the supposedly “peer-reviewed” scientific journal, Heliyon. Reaffirming “jet effect” via a withering array of complex calculations, Nalli concluded:
It is therefore found that the observed motions of President Kennedy in the film are physically consistent with a high-speed projectile impact from the rear of the motorcade, these resulting from an instantaneous forward impulse force, followed by delayed rearward recoil and neuromuscular forces.[8]
Unfortunately, all of this lofty “peer reviewed” research is bunkum. It, and the JFK “jet effect” theory, are not only junk science, much of it is borderline fraud.
First, is it remotely credible that, as Alvarez claimed, a soft-shelled melon, even a tape-wrapped one, is the “best mock-up” of a bony human skull? A melon weighs about half what a human head does. A bullet would cut through it like a knife through butter. Second, it was no less than Warren loyalist John Lattimer, MD who revealed a key element of Alvarez’s work that the Nobel Laureate never mentioned in his paper. Apparently unable to get the results he wanted firing “slow,” ~2000 ft/second, jacketed Mannlicher Carcano bullets, Alvarez instead shot non-jacketed, soft-nosed .30-06 rounds, but not just any old .30-06 rounds, with their ~2800 ft/second muzzle velocity. Instead, he “hot-loaded” his cartridges to 3000 ft/sec. Only then did his melons exhibit his famous recoil “jet effect.”[9],[10],[11] Worse, Professor Alvarez also withheld other relevant information about his tests.
A few years ago, Josiah Thompson was given access to the photo file of the original shooting tests by one of Alvarez’s former graduate students, Paul Hoch, Ph.D. (physics).[12] As Thompson reported in LSID, Alvarez had, in fact, “shot at a large collection of objects”—coconuts, pineapples, water-filled jugs, etc. The only objects that demonstrated recoil were his “a priori best mock-up of a head,” the dis-analogous melons that were struck not by Oswald’s slower, jacketed bullets, but rather by supercharged, soft-pointed rounds. (Fig. 1)
Figure 1. Images taken from Luis Alvarez’s shooting tests. In photo at left, a rubber ball lies awaiting a bullet strike through the paper target at right. In photo at right, the rubber ball has been hit and driven in the direction of the bullet’s path, away from the shooter. An honest scientific report would have meticulously recounted the specifics of the testing and all of the experimental results, whether confirming or denying the author’s hypothesis. Readers are invited to scour Dr. Alvarez’s paper, which we’ve linked to, for his mentioning anywhere these other, inconvenient results. He buried them. He then devised a second test using only melons rigged from the outset to produce the “politically acceptable” result he wanted: recoil toward the rifle. (We won’t insult the intelligence of readers by recounting what happened when Alvarez’s team shot targets that were more analogous to skulls: coconuts.)
In his recent review of Thompson’s book, Nicholas Nalli hilariously agreed with the Nobel Laureate and his student Paul Hoch, that a melon is a “reasonable facsimile” of a human head: “Hoch noted that the melons consistently exhibited a ‘retrograde motion’ toward the shooter,” he wrote, “and Alvarez thus was able to demonstrate that a recoil effect is indeed possible.” Possible, indeed, if one shoots the wrong kind of target with the wrong kind of rifle and the wrong kind of ammunition; niggling details Nalli didn’t think worth mentioning.
Nalli also didn’t mention the significant fact that Alvarez had failed to disclose: the professor’s melons exhibited retrograde recoil only when struck by supercharged, soft-pointed hunting rounds, not by Oswald’s slower, jacketed rounds. Nor did he mention that the current authors exposed Alvarez’s chicanery in the AFTE Journal in 2016, noting that, except for the melons, everything he shot at flew away from the rifle, not toward it.[13]
Rather than objecting to Alvarez’s unscientific, selective reporting, Nalli sneered at “CTs (who) had gotten comfortable in rejecting Alvarez as some sort of one-off ‘government shill.’”[14] And he took after Thompson for his “not-so-subtle insinuation that Alvarez had ‘cherry-picked’ his data, a decidedly unethical and unprofessional practice in science. I was dumbfounded when I read this,” Nalli added, “and I can only empathize with how Alvarez might not have taken too kindly to the gall in the accusation.”[15]
Nalli is more upset that Thompson accurately outed Alvarez for cherry-picking than he is that Alvarez had unethically and unprofessionally cherry-picked in the first place. Although Nalli did admit that Alvarez had shot at “different targets,” he forgot to mention what Alvarez also forgot to mention: all targets but the melons fell away from the shooter. Nor does Nalli acknowledge what else Thompson discovered: this wasn’t the only time Alvarez had bent science to the political winds; or, to borrow Dr. Don Thomas’ useful euphemism, in a “socially constructive” direction.[16]
Luis Alvarez – Some Kind of Patriot?
LSID details that Alvarez once claimed that he had “proved” what the U.S. and Israeli government falsely claimed was true: that there had been no South African/Israeli nuclear test in the Indian Ocean—the politically sensitive, so-called “Vela Incident.”[17] But there had been one, a fact Alvarez tried to bury. The Nobel Laureate’s claim was subsequently shredded by private, government, and even military investigators,[18] a fact we also pointed out in the AFTE. So, Alvarez wasn’t a “one off government shill,” he was at least a “two-off government shill.” Predictably, Nalli says nothing about Thompson’s explosive discovery.
Furthermore, Alvarez gave a preposterous, if politically useful, explanation for why Zapruder frame 313 was blurred. He wrote:
[I]n the light of this background material we see that the obvious shot in frame 313 is accompanied immediately by an angular acceleration of the camera, in the proper sense of rotation to have been caused directly by shock-wave pressure on the camera body.[19]
As is well known, “shock waves” from bullet blasts travel at the speed of sound, about 1,100 ft/sec. They expand as a cone behind the nose of the bullet as it slices through air.[20],[21] As discussed below, had Oswald’s bullet struck at 313, the expanding shock wave from that missile would not have reached Zapruder in time to blur 313. (Only a shock wave from a “grassy knoll” shot—~60 feet from Zapruder—would have been close enough to nudge the camera and blur frame 313. See below.) It’s as difficult to believe Alvarez didn’t know that as it is to credit the sincerity of Nalli’s umbrage over Thompson’s critique of Alvarez’s selectively-reported shooting results, his, ahem, cherry-picking.
That comes as no surprise for it turns out that Nalli is himself no slouch when it comes to cherry-picking. One of his cherries of choice is the person who next picked up the “jet effect” baton after Alvarez. The aforementioned, pro-Warren urologist, John Lattimer, MD.
Dr. John Lattimer and Jet Effect
This time, conducting more analogous trials, John Lattimer shot human skulls to test for “jet effect.” Using a Mannlicher Carcano, he fired downward from the rear at filled human skulls that were perched atop ladders. The target skulls recoiled, but apparently not due to any “jet effect.” In his book, Hear No Evil, Donald Thomas, Ph.D. explained the obvious:
Lattimer’s diagrams reveal that the incoming angle of the bullet trajectory sloped downwards relative to the top of the ladder, with the justification that the assassin was shooting from an elevated position…But the downward angle would have had the effect of driving the skulls against the top of the ladder with a predictable result—a rebound.”[22] (A video clip of Dr. Lattimer’s shooting tests shows the ladder rocking forward as the skull is driven against the top of the ladder.[23])
Lattimer’s downward-shooting technique was precisely what longtime Warren loyalist Paul Hoch, Ph.D (physics) had warned against. The target should be fired upon along a horizontal trajectory, Hoch said, not at a downward angle. And the target should either be dangling from a wire or laying on a flat surface. Lattimer’s technique imparted downward and forward momentum to the skulls. That force was transmitted through to the ladder, causing it to move forward while the skull bounced backward. Unlike Dr. Lattimer’s skulls, the base of JFK’s skull and his jaw bone were not resting on a hard, flat surface. (It is also worth mention that the “wounds” sustained by the blasted skulls were not, as Dr. Lattimer reported, “very similar to those of the President.” While Nalli cites Thomas’s “Hear No Evil,” he omits any mention of Thomas’s devastating evisceration of Lattimer.)
But there is more reason than his tendentious skull shooting technique to distrust Lattimer. In a paper published in the medical/scientific literature, he said that he had also shot melons using MCC ammo. “No melon or skull or combination,” he reported, “ever fell away from the shooter in these multiple experiments,”[24] a finding that deserves an honorable place in the Journal of Irreproducible Results.[25] By contrast, Warren loyalist Lucien Haag reported what happened when he fired Carcano bullets at melons: “…the melons (which were free to move) remained in place, and the entry and exits holes were small.”[26] Douglas Desalles, MD and Stanford Linear Accelerator physicist, Arthur Snyder, Ph.D. shot melons with MCC ammo and found the same thing: little movement in the targets, though some did roll slowly away. (Lucien Haag, however, did finally get melons to recoil. But only when he fired after clipping the tips off Carcano rounds to expose the soft lead cores, justifying doing so by arguing that the tip of Oswald’s jacketed bullet would have been breached when it struck JFK’s skull.[27] However, when the U.S. government shot human skulls, no such phenomenon was observed—see below.)
There is a glaring omission that mars all the “peer reviewed” JFK papers by Alvarez, Lattimer, and Nalli. It is requisite, standard practice in medical/scientific publishing to acknowledge and integrate prior published research findings that are relevant to an author’s report. Writers elaborating on newly discovered aspects of the Theory of Gravity, for example, would likely give a tip of the hat to Issac Newton and Albert Einstein. Alvarez, Lattimer, and Nalli have observed this time-honored practice in the breach.
Testing for Jet Effect
For example, the results of Alvarez’s and Lattimer’s tests are in sharp contrast to similar, shooting tests conducted by University of Kansas’s pathology professor, Dr. John Nichols, MD, Ph.D., F.A.C.P.—as well as those performed by the U.S. government. Rather than shooting downward at skulls perched atop a flat surface, Nichols shot MCC ammo at both melons and cadaver material that were suspended by a wire. (As Warren Commission aficionado Paul Hoch, Ph.D. had recommended.) Professor Nichols’ finding? “This study did not demonstrate the jet effect and would lead us to reject the jet effect as the basis for President Kennedy’s backward head movement.”[28]
Nalli and Lattimer have never acknowledged Professor Nichols’ studies. Nor have Alvarez, Nalli, and Lattimer ever acknowledged even the fact that truly analogous skull-shooting experiments were actually conducted for the Warren Commission in 1964 at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds by the Biophysics Lab. Larry Sturdivan, an ardent anti-conspiracist, had intimate familiarity with those studies. He described them in testimony before the House Select Committee on Assassinations. Dried human skulls filled with gelatin were used. Goat skin was placed over the backs of the skulls to simulate Kennedy’s scalp and hair. While testifying, he projected movies of the actual tests, high speed films shot at 2200 frames/second. (Fig. 2)
Figure 2. 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 material is thrown rearward from the point of entrance in the occiput, and that as much material appears to fly backward from the entry point as from the area of exit in the front. As the skull ruptures, the skull moves rapidly away from the shooter. Sturdivan swore:
As you can see, each of the two skulls that we have observed so far have moved in the direction of the bullet. In other words, both of them have been given some momentum in the direction that the bullet was going. This third one also shows momentum in the direction that the bullet was going, 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…[29]
In his book, JFK Facts, Sturdivan reported a substantially higher velocity: “the (test) skull…moves forward at approximately 3 feet/sec, just as it must from the momentum deposited by the bullet.”[30] This higher figure is likely the more accurate, as it was not given off the cuff during testimony, but was written by Sturdivan while he was preparing his manuscript.
While neither Alvarez, Lattimer, nor Nalli mention those results, Sturdivan did, and dismissed their telling significance. His novel explanation was that the government’s shooting tests failed to show recoil from a “jet effect,” because the Biophysics Lab had filled their target skulls with “stiff gelatin,” a claim he made without evidence, and may therefore be dismissed without evidence.[31]
Ironically, although Sturdivan endorses the “jet effect” theory these days, he didn’t always. Sturdivan wrote in 2005:
The question is: 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.[32]
Throwing JFK’s “body backward into the limousine” is code for the other factor besides “jet effect” that supposedly contributed to Kennedy’s rearward lurch: “neuromuscular reaction.” The current pro-government theory, which Nalli endorses, is that “jet effect” nudged JFK’s head backward a bit initially. Then a “neuromuscular reaction” took over, throwing his “body backward into the limousine.”
Neuromuscular Reaction and JFK
That some sort of a neuromuscular phenomenon drove Kennedy’s body backward after the “jet effect” knocked his head back has long been a staple of pro-Warren mythology. As Nalli recently put it, “The Zapruder Film…corroborates that another delayed (5–6 frame) forcing mechanism was at play (in addition to the projectile collision impulse and head cavity recoil – i.e. “jet effect”), and a neuromuscular spasm is the only physically plausible mechanism known to this author.”[33] (emphasis added)
Larry Sturdivan and Neuromuscular Reaction
If “Neuromuscular spasm” is the only physically plausible mechanism that Nalli knows of, it’s likely because he’s “cherry picked” the “expertise” of untrained, inexpert anti-conspiracy crusaders such as Mr. Larry Sturdivan, Mr. Lucien Haag, and Mr. Gerald Posner. Were Nalli the least bit serious, or curious, he’d have scoured and cited the work of proper authorities (e.g neurophysiologists, neurologists, perhaps even trauma surgeons). But he doesn’t. His principal “neuromuscular” sources are Sturdivan and Luke Haag who, circularly, sources Sturdivan.
Sturdivan’s “expertise” consists of a B.S. in physics from Oklahoma State University and an M.S. in statistics from the University of Delaware.[34] His lack of training and credentials in neurophysiology, medicine, or even human biology, is evident in the shoddiness of his explications. His shamelessness is evident in his putting himself forward as an authority on a neurophysiological phenomenon he lacks the credentials to discuss.
For example, Sturdivan has variously described Kennedy’s backward lunge as either a “decorticate”[35] or a “decerebrate” type of neuromuscular reaction, as if they were interchangeable. They’re not.[36] Nor are JFK’s motions either, as we will show, and as anyone who google-searches can discover for themselves in mere moments. In fact, we submit, JFK doesn’t exhibit any kind of “neuromuscular reaction.” But whether “neuromuscular,” “decorticate,” or “decerebrate,” some species of neurospasm has been proposed to explain Kennedy’s seemingly paradoxical rearward lunge since at least 1975.
Neuromuscular Reaction and the Rockefeller Commission
That year, former Warren Commissioner President Gerald Ford impaneled the Commission on CIA Activities within the United States. It is commonly referred to as the Rockefeller Commission, since Vice President Nelson Rockefeller was named chair.[37] Its creation was sparked by Seymour Hersh’s explosive revelations in the New York Times that the CIA had engaged in wildly illegal domestic operations against antiwar activists and dissidents during the Nixon years.[38] Its investigation extended into the question of whether there was evidence that JFK was “struck in the head by a bullet fired from the right front.”[39]
Although promoted as an independent probe, there were major conflicts of interest from the beginning, not least being that a former Warren Commissioner had established it;[40] that Nelson Rockefeller was himself deeply involved in some of the CIA’s unsavory history;[41] and that former Warren Commission counsel, and anti-conspiracy activist, David Belin, JD, was named executive director. Belin vowed to absent himself from any JFK-related issues. However, he made an exception. He sat in during the discussions of Rockefeller’s medical consultants, all of whom had similar potential conflicts of interests of their own.[42] The fix was in. Out plopped a flawed study that warmed the heart of the Warren Commissioner in the White House, as well as Commission loyalists.
Rockefeller’s experts made an astonishing number of factual errors (documented elsewhere).[43] Although error tends to be random, predictably the Rockefeller Commission’s all went in a single direction: to conclude that JFK’s backward jolt was not caused by the impact of a bullet coming from the front or right front. Drs. Spitz, Lindenberg, and Hodges said that Kennedy’s motion was caused by a violent straightening and stiffening of the entire body as a result of a seizure-like neuromuscular reaction due to major damage inflicted to nerve centers in the brain (Urologist John Lattimer picked up this theory and put it into the medical literature the following year, in 1976.[44]) Dr. Alfred Olivier, the pro-Warren consultant and Rockefeller expert, concurred. He reported that goat shooting experiments he had performed at Aberdeen Proving Grounds had demonstrated just such spasms, and that “jet effect” had also played a role in the Kennedy case.[45]
Neuromuscular Reaction and the House Select Committee on Assassinations
In 1979, a second group of experts, the Forensics Panel of the HSCA, also endorsed “neuromuscular reaction.” They, too, had significant conflicts of interest and they also made numerous, obvious pro-government errors (detailed elsewhere).[46] They wrote, “The (forensic) panel suggests that the lacerations of a specific portion of the brain—the cerebral peduncles as described in the autopsy report—could be a cause of decerebrate rigidity, which could contribute to the President’s backward motion.”
However, in the next sentence, the Panel added an important caveat that would be familiar to physicians who’ve had experience with head trauma patients (including author Aguilar, who was once the admitting general surgery resident in the emergency room of a major trauma center, UCLA/Harbor General Hospital): “Such decerebrate rigidity as Sherrington described,” the Forensic Panel correctly noted, “usually does not commence for several minutes after separation of the upper brain centers from the brainstem and spinal cord.” (emphasis added)
The panel also reported that “One panel member, Dr. Wecht, suspects that the backward head motion might be explained by a soft-nosed bullet that struck the right side of the President’s head simultaneously with a shot from the rear and disintegrated on impact without exiting the skull on the other side.” But, it added, “The remaining panel members take exception to such speculation…”[47]
The first point worth noting is that, though properly credentialed pathologists, none of the Rockefeller or HSCA experts were neurophysiologists, or neurologists, or neurosurgeons, or even trauma surgeons familiar with what actually happens to living humans who suffer brain trauma. They were forensic pathologists whose work was supplemented by consulting radiologists. They worked on dead people, using X-rays, microscopes and lab data. In other words, when opining on the somewhat obscure neurophysiologic phenomena in the JFK case, they weren’t speaking on the basis of any professional expertise; they were like orthopedists offering their “expert” opinions on a pediatric problem.
The Science of Neuromuscular Reactions
That is made plain by the fact that JFK’s recoil differs from any kind of recognized “neuromuscular” etiology the pathologists had specified, both in timing and manifestation, whether decorticate or decerebrate. Rather, there are multiple, independent avenues of evidence that converge in support of author Wecht’s minority ‘suspicion’ that it was a non-jacketed, soft-pointed shell that struck JFK from the right front, driving him back and to the left.
Decorticate posturing has been well described. The back arches rearwards, the legs extend and the arms flex inward. In decerebrate posturing the back arches and the legs extend, as they do in decorticate posturing. But the arms extend downward, parallel to the body.
If one compares his posture at Zapruder frame 230, or in any frame after the back shot but before the head shot, Kennedy is reacting to the first shot. His elbows are raised and abducted away from his body, and his arms and hands are flexed inward toward his neck.[48] (Fig. 3)
Figure 3. 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 the frames following the head shot, there is no “violent straightening and stiffening of Kennedy’s entire body,” as Rockefeller’s experts claimed. JFK’s head moves backward, but his back does not arch, nor do his upper arms move toward his body (adduct), but instead fall limply toward his side. And although not visible in the film, there’s no jerking motion of his body to suggest that his legs extend. Nor do his arms flex inward or extend inferiorly. They instead fall limply toward his lap. His upper body, likely paralyzed from the spinal injury caused by the first shot, passively follows his blasted cranium “back and to the left.”[49]
From the web, below are images depicting and contrasting decerebrate and decorticate posturing. JFK assumed neither posture in reaction to the head shot. (Fig. 4)
Figure 4. 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 planter 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.
But while it is known that decerebrate and decorticate postures do not manifest in split seconds, as Kennedy’s reactions did, there is another, more instantaneous “neurospasm” that has been demonstrated experimentally. Sturdivan described and demonstrated a split-second, neurospastic reaction that he likened to the President’s.[50] His evidence was an Edgewood Arsenal movie that he presented to the HSCA that showed a living goat being shot through the head with a .30 caliber bullet.
As the high-speed film rolled, he described the action: “…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.”[51]
Edgewood Arsenal’s chief investigator, veterinarian Alfred Olivier, DVM echoed Sturdivan, with whom he had worked at Edgewood. The goats, he said, “evidenced just such a violent neuromuscular reaction. There was a convulsive stiffening and extension of their legs to front and rear commencing forty milliseconds (1/25 of a second) (sic) after the bullet entered the brain.”[52] (Except for telling it what it wanted to hear, we can think of no reason why Sturdivan, a man with no training, background, or experience, would be the expert chosen by the HSCA to explain that Dealey Plaza offered an example of this complex neurophysiological phenomenon.)
In his book The JFK Myths, Sturdivan reproduced a series of still photographs of the goat-shooting 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.”[53] (Fig. 5)
Figure 5. 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, Sturdivan 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. 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. The muscles in the back of the trunk are much stronger than the abdominals and, therefore, the body would arch backward.[54]
In essence, the goat-like posture he described as JFK’s was a brief “decerebrate” posture—back arched, arms and legs extended. In a filmed interview, Sturdivan confidently demonstrated the neurological phenomenon, arching his upper body and arms upward and backward.[55] (Fig. 6) Sturdivan’s is a specific posture that JFK never remotely manifested. (Fig. 7) Not only was Sturdivan’s a specific posture one that JFK never remotely manifested, Sturdivan’s arms aren’t ‘straightened out’ as he testified they should have been. (Fig. 6) The “neuromuscular reaction” expert’s dis-analogous posture brought to mind a particularly apt Charles Darwin quip: “Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.”
Figure 6. Larry Sturdivan demonstrating JFK’s “neuromuscular reaction” to the fatal head shot at Zapruder. frame 313. His back is arched; his head is bent backward, and his arms are raised. Sturdivan’s posture is unlike JFK’s in frames that follow 313. 
Figure 7. Image left, 1/18th second before his head explodes: JFK’s head is tilted forward and slightly to the left. Image right, ½ second after he’s hit, it is JFK’s head that has moved backward, not his back. Unlike “Decorticate” or “Decerebrate” neuromuscular reactions, JFK’s back does not arch; his legs do not extend, his upper arms do not adduct. Rather, his back follows his head passively. His right arm neither flexes nor extends, but instead falls limply to his side. Furthermore, were Kennedy’s posture truly a decorticate or decerebrate reaction of some sort, it’s likely he’d have maintained that backward-arched posture. He doesn’t.
In the Zapruder frames following frame 321, 4/9th seconds after the head shot, JFK bounces off the back seat of the limo and starts moving forward. His back then curls forward following his head, though at a slower speed than his head does. After frame 327, the advancing velocity of Kennedy’s head doubles from what it had been between frames 321 and 327, moving ahead at a faster clip than his head had rocketed rearward after the strike at 313. His back follows. Thus, Kennedy’s head and upper back not only “flexed” forward, when they should have been arching backward in decorticate or decerebrate spasm, his head also sped up, perhaps due to what Thompson has recently proposed: an acoustics matching, X-ray matching, second head shot striking JFK from behind at frame 327-8.[56] (see below)
While there is much more that could be said, the point here is that Nalli had no reason but the obvious one to trust Sturdivan, Haag, and Posner on this. None have the requisite training or background. Nor do they grasp the neurophysiological phenomena they’ve invoked to defend the government’s preferred scenario. Moreover, they have no answer to the science-based debunkings that have previously been published. But what they do have is an allegiance to the government’s preferences.
These are things Nalli would have known about “neuromuscular reaction” had he but followed standard scientific protocol and done a proper literature review prior to writing. If he had, he’d have addressed the AFTE piece Wecht and I wrote, the very one he cited in his own footnotes. That piece explored “neurospasm” in detail, with hot-linked footnotes to credible sources.[57] Instead, he ignored the science to stand with his cherry-picked, anti-conspiracy nonexperts. And not only on Kennedy’s reaction to the head shot. He also did so in another scientific area of the Kennedy case: Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA), a sophisticated technology once said to be able to match recovered bullet fragments to the bullets they came from.
Neutron Activation Analysis and JFK
On this issue, Nalli turned yet again to his Zelig—“neurospasm expert” Larry Sturdivan—who was now masquerading as an authority in another area of science in which, at best, he holds the rank of discredited amateur.
In a junky, “peer reviewed” paper published in 2004, Sturdivan touted NAA as the Rosetta Stone: proof that all the bullets and fragments recovered from the assassination traced to but two rounds that had been firearms-matched to Oswald’s rifle.[58] Ergo, no one but Oswald could possibly have done it. That extraordinary, and seemingly dispositive, claim was first made to the House Select Committee on 8 September 1978 by NAA authority, Vincent Guinn, Ph.D.[59]
In his review of Last Second in Dallas, Nalli touts Guinn. He writes:
…that it was ‘highly probable’ that the fragments in Gov. Connally’s wrist were from the ‘stretcher bullet’ (CE399) found at Parkland Hospital and that the fragments from President Kennedy’s head were from the same bullet as the fragments found in the limousine, thereby providing strong evidence that only two bullets caused all the wounds.[60]
Besides Guinn’s testimony and Sturdivan’s paper, there is other “peer reviewed” literature that backs Nalli up on NAA, including a paper written by Kenneth Rahn with Larry Sturdivan as coauthor,[61] as well as “peer reviewed” papers written by Lucien Haag touting NAA and published in the AFTE Journal.[62]
(Nalli ignores that the government’s own evidence, and that of an FBI Agent, Bardwell Odum, have shown that the so-called “stretcher bullet” now in evidence—Warren Commission Exhibit #399—is not the same bullet that was found on a Parkland stretcher on 11/22/63. See “The Magic Bullet: Even More Magical Than We Knew?” by Aguilar and Thompson.[63])
But Nalli did allow that, “There has apparently been some degree of legitimate dispute about the NAA findings of Guinn. However, counterarguments have since been advanced from forensic experts such as Larry Sturdivan (cf. The JFK Myths) (sic) and Luke Haag. Lacking personal expertise, I shall remain, for the time being, agnostic on Guinn’s findings. Sturdivan and Haag are not to be easily dismissed…”
Nalli neither mentions nor alludes to what the “legitimate dispute” is all about, nor even who has disputed Guinn, Sturdivan, and Haag. He has a good, if ‘socially constructive,’ reason not to. It would be difficult to explain why untrained, uncredentialed, anti-conspiracy evangelistic “forensic experts,” Sturdivan and Haag, would also happen to have expertise on NAA that’s on par with their detractors who have, in fact, quite ‘easily dismissed’ Sturdivan and Haag (as well as Kenneth Rahn, Ph.D., Sturdivan’s coauthor).
The ‘legitimate disputants’ Nalli didn’t think worth mentioning include the FBI’s National Laboratory, which abandoned the use of NAA to match bullets and fragments in 2005 because of its serious deficiencies;[64] two “conspiracy agnostic,” nationally recognized NAA authorities from Lawrence Livermore National Lab, Eric Randich, Ph.D. and Pat Grant, Ph.D, who debunked Guinn’s JFK claims in the prestigious Journal of Forensic Sciences[65] (Grant had studied for his Ph.D. under Guinn, among others, at UC Irvine, and bore him no malice.[66]), a distinguished professor of statistics at Texas A&M University, Clifford Spiegelman, Ph.D. and his coauthor, FBI chief lab examiner William Tobin, who, among other things, eviscerated the flawed statistical analysis the non-statistician, Sturdivan, had published supporting NAA,[67] and others.[68]
Furthermore, Nalli had every good reason to know of these inconvenient “alternative” facts. They’ve attracted considerable interest among assassination students, and they are easily found by a google search.[69] Moreover, they were explored in extenso in a piece I wrote with coauthor Wecht that Nalli cites in his footnote #58. That article included a detailed discussion of the collapse of NAA in bullet matching studies, both in the Kennedy case and elsewhere. It also provided the citations found here, with hotlinks to the peer reviewed papers and the source documents themselves.[70]
Moreover, Nalli fails to mention that neither Sturdivan nor Haag have any primary expertise in NAA. They have no applicable training or background, and no credible NAA research, apart from Sturdivan’s debunked statistical analysis that was demolished, without refutation, by the statistics professor at Texas A&M, by the NAA authorities at Lawrence Livermore Lab,[71] and by Stanford Linear Accelerator physicist, Arthur Snyder, Ph.D.[72]
For Nalli to put lightweights Sturdivan and Haag on one side of the NAA scale, and these heavy-weight ‘legitimate disputants’ on the other, and say he sees an even balance is exactly the kind of anti-science, cherry picking that skeptics have learned to expect from pro-Warren “experts.” But the irony doesn’t end there.
Referring to Thompson’s showcasing the work of the internationally recognized acoustics authority, James Barger, Nalli sniffed that “Thompson has no problem ‘appealing to authority’ when it suits him.” Barger, of course, is an actual internationally renowned authority to whom one may perfectly appropriately “appeal.” Nalli’s sources, not so much. He knowingly ignored credentialed, legitimate, published authorities, but had ‘no problem appealing to the authority’ of anti-conspiracy nonexperts who have fed him the discredited “science” he wants. Would that be the worst of Nalli’s problems. It’s not. His preposterous presuppositions are far worse.
Nicholas Nalli’s Calculations Prove JFK Had an Extraordinary Brain
One of Nalli’s sillier affronts to science has to do with the core of his anti-conspiracy case: how he explains physics of Kennedy’s jet recoil. After autopsy, JFK’s brain weighed 1500 grams. (Oddly the brain was not weighed during autopsy.) Nalli calculated that it must have weighed much more when he was struck, 2100 grams in fact. Why? Because his “physics based,” jet effect computations proved that a forward-jetting mass of 600 grams was physically required to give the propulsion necessary to drive Kennedy’s head rearward as fast as we see in the Zapruder film. Pure codswollop.
What Nalli could have easily discovered in a 30-second google search, and what any legitimate “peer reviewer” would have told him, is that human brains simply don’t weigh anywhere near that much. Rather, it’s an unusual complete and undamaged brain at autopsy that even weighs as much as 1500 grams. The average weight being between 1250 grams and 1400 grams.[73] Nalli’s 2,100 gm brain “has been the cause of much merriment among the knowledgeable.” WhoWhatWhy researcher Milicent Cranor quipped, “It’s what publishers call a ‘howler.’”[74] Researcher David Mantik, MD, Ph.D. (physics) emphasized this as but one of Nalli’s myriad “Omissions and Miscalculations.”[75]
Six months after Nalli’s paper came out, he put out a correction. “[I]t has also come to the author’s attention,” he wrote, “that the estimate used for President Kennedy’s ‘intact’ brain mass (2100 g) … was most likely too large, falling well outside of the normal range (probably more than 3σ) for human males; this is not an error per se, but rather simply an oversight.”[76] (our emphasis) “Most likely too large?” Ok. Not an error, “simply an oversight?” Ok again. But it wasn’t only Nalli’s “oversight,” it was also his “peer reviewers’” too. Did no one bother to google for even 30 seconds to check if one of Nalli’s core suppositions—JFK’s premortem brain weight—had any basis in reality?
Unfazed, he reran calculations based on three new, hypothetical premortem brain weights: 1800 gm, 1650 gm, and 1500 gm. To get the requisite rearward thrust with these lower brain weights, Nalli simply upped the exit speeds at which he presumed the escaping brain mass must have jetted. The idea being that if a lower mass escaped at a higher velocity, it’d produce the same “jet effect” as a larger mass exiting at a lower speed. “These corrections,” he wrote, “do not affect any of the conclusions presented in the paper.” Jaw dropping.
First, as previously noted, although not as extreme as 2100 grams, both 1800 grams and 1650 grams are also well beyond the range of a normal, complete adult human brain, both in the medical literature, as well as in the personal experience of coauthor Wecht, a forensic pathologist with over 40,000 autopsies under his belt. They might remotely be possible, but only if Kennedy had a very large cranium. As David Mantik pointed out, JFK’s head wasn’t particularly large; his hat size was average (7 3/8).[77]
So then, how about Nalli’s third supposition, that Kennedy’s premortem brain might have weighed as little as 1500 grams? It was as preposterous as it was unsurprising that Nalli seriously proposed that Kennedy’s brain could still have weighed what it did before it was blasted, before much of it was blown all over the limousine, its occupants, the Secret Service agents, the motorcycle cops to JFK’s left and rear, all over Dealey Plaza, and even after Jackie had handed “a big chunk of the President’s brain” to Parkland’s treating anesthesiologist, Professor Marion T. (“Pepper”) Jenkins, MD.[78] We struggle to think of a clearer example of a “scientist” forcing evidence to fit his pet theory. Science is supposed to work by finding a theory that explains the evidence.
(Outside the scope of this essay is the important question of how Kennedy’s severely blasted brain could turn up at autopsy weighing 1500 grams, which is more than an average, complete human brain. ARRB investigator Douglas Horne has suggested that two different “JFK” brains were examined during two different “supplemental” exams that were done at different times after the original autopsy. Some readers will shy from such a daring, “conspiratorial” assertion. However, can there be any doubt but that what remained of Kennedy’s actual brain didn’t weigh 1500 gms when it was pulled from his cranium? This important and fascinating issue is explored elsewhere.[79],[80])
How Peer Reviewed Medical/Scientific Journalism is Corrupted in the Kennedy Case
That so much pro-government nonsense got through peer review and into a scientific journal will come as no surprise to most Warren skeptics. It’s happened often. The mechanics of how this likely happened in Nalli’s case is an important and fascinating story, one that has clear traces to Nalli’s major source and most lauded collaborator, Larry Sturdivan.
After reading Nalli’s paper in Heliyon, it occurred to us that we might try to publish one in that journal ourselves. We wrote one and put our submission through Heliyon’s required on-line portal, a now-standard process among scientific journals. After uploading it to the site, one of us (GA) followed Heliyon’s prompts to complete the process. Immediately the following asks from Heliyon popped up. GA stared at them in amazement and delight—Heliyon isn’t a real peer reviewed, scientific journal; it’s a pay-to-publish vanity journal!
Prompt #1: Please suggest potential reviewers for this submission and provide specific reasons for your suggestion in the comments box for each person. Please note that the editorial office may not use your suggestions, but your help is appreciated and may speed up the selection of appropriate reviewers. Fill in as much contact information, ideally including a link to their Google Scholar, Scopus or institutional webpage to allow us identify the person correctly. Please avoid suggestions who have a conflict of interest, such as colleagues, collaborators, co-authors (shared publications in the last three years) or people with whom you share funding.
“Current Suggested Reviewers List” Add Suggested Reviewer
Prompt #2: Please identify anyone you would prefer not to review this submission. Fill in as much contact information to allow us to identify the person in our records, and provide specific reasons why each person should not review your submission in their comments box. Please note that we may need to use a reviewer you identify here, but will try to accommodate author’s wishes when we can. If you have additional concerns about this issue please indicate them in your cover letter.
“Currently Opposed Reviewers List”
Prompt #3: Article Publishing Charge. Heliyon is a fully Open Access journal. The journal’s costs are covered solely by author publication charges. There are no subscription fees for our readers, or page and figure charges for our authors. Accordingly, all authors of accepted articles will receive an invoice charging the article publication fee of $1,750 USD (plus VAT and local taxes where applicable).
The journal explained its financial demand: “Heliyon has a small budget for reducing Open Access charges for authors in developing countries and others in genuine financial hardship…”
Since Nalli doesn’t live in a developing country, nor is it likely he faces “genuine financial hardship,” it’s a safe bet that Nalli paid to have his work published, or that someone else paid for him. Given his whopping errors, it’s likely that Heliyon didn’t send it to knowledgeable, independent experts, but that Nalli picked them. And it was probably Nalli who specified whom he didn’t want reviewing it. Heliyon’s requirements prompted us to check Nalli’s acknowledgements.
“First and foremost,” he wrote, “I am grateful to Larry M. Sturdivan (wound ballistics expert for the HSCA) (sic) for very helpful discussions pertaining to his previous work as well as for reviewing my initial drafts and providing expert feedback…I am also grateful for the critical reading and constructive professional feedback of the three anonymous peer-reviewers.” (our emphasis)
“Anonymous peer-reviewers”? Not likely, given that Heliyon explicitly asks authors to suggest the reviewers they want. Nalli’s published rubbish proves precisely why peer review by knowledgeable, independent, anonymous reviewers is so important. Nalli’s reviewers were almost certainly uninformed, incurious, anti-conspiracy advocates. As one of us (GA) pondered this discovery, he had a déjà vu moment.
Nalli’s charade bears a striking resemblance to an analogous episode in 2003 and 2004, in which Sturdivan had played a similar, behind-the-scenes role. In that case, Sturdivan hornswoggled a respected, legitimate “peer review” journal, Neurosurgery, into letting him collaborate with, and “peer review,” error-ridden, pro-Warren Commission work that the hapless journal editors published. It’s a fascinating tale, one that embarrassed both the journal and a respected University of California, San Diego neurosurgery professor who was left holding the bag. It also hints at a pattern: anti-conspiracists publishing under the respected mantle of “peer reviewed” scientific journalism, while violating the principles that have earned the “peer review” process deserved admiration.
see Part 2
[1] Aguilar G. Cunningham, K. “How Five Investigations into JFK’s Medical/Autopsy Evidence Got It Wrong.” May, 2003. Available here.
Cyril Wecht, MD, JD. New York Times, 6/12/1975. “Doctor Says Rockefeller Panel Distorted His View on Kennedy.” Available here.
[2] Alvarez L, “A Physicist Examines the Kennedy Assassination Film,” American Journal of Physics, Vol. 44, No. 9, September, 1976. Available here.
[3] Cranor, M. “Scientist’s Trick ‘Explains’ JFK Backward Movement When Shot.” Available here.
[4] “When was the Zapruder film first shown to the American people?” Available here.
[5] Alvarez L, “A Physicist Examines the Kennedy Assassination Film,” American Journal of Physics, Vol. 44, No. 9, p. 819, September, 1976. Available here.
[6] Alvarez L, “A Physicist Examines the Kennedy Assassination Film,” American Journal of Physics, Vol. 44, No. 9, September, 1976. Available here.
[7] Lattimer JK, Lattimer JK, et al. “Differences in the Wounding Behavior of the Two Bullets that Struck President Kennedy; An Experimental Study,” Wound Ballistics Review, V2(2)361995. Available here.
[8] Nalli, Nicholas. Gunshot-wound dynamics model for John F. Kennedy assassination. Heliyon. Vol. 4, No. 4, e00603, April 01, 2018. Available here.
[9] Lattimer JK, Lattimer J, Lattimer G. “An Experimental Study of the Backward Movement of President Kennedy’s Head,” Surgery, Gynecology & Obstetrics. February, 1976, Vol. 142, pp. 246–254. Available here.
[10] Lattimer, J. Kennedy and Lincoln. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1980, p. 250.
[11] Lattimer JK, Lattimer J, Lattimer G. “An Experimental Study of the Backward Movement of President Kennedy’s Head,” Surgery, Gynecology & Obstetrics. February, 1976, Vol. 142, pp. 246–254. Available here.
[12] Josiah Thompson, Ph.D. gave a public lecture in October, 2013 and projected images from Alvarez’s shooting tests. Wecht Center Symposium on the 50th Anniversary of the Assassination of President Kennedy Available here.
[13] Aguilar G. Wecht CH. AFTE Journal, Vol. 48, No 2, Spring 2016, p. 712. Available here.
[14] Nalli, N. “The Ghost of the Grassy Knoll Gunman and the Futile Search for Signal in Noise,” a review of J. Thompson’s book, “Last Second in Dallas,” 6.3.21. Available here.
[15] Nalli, N R. “The Ghost of the Grassy Knoll Gunman and the Futile Search for Signal in Noise,” a review of J. Thompson’s book “Last Second in Dallas” published on 6/3/21. Available here.
[16] Donald Byron Thomas, Hear No Evil – Social Constructivism & Forensic Evidence in the Kennedy Assassination. Ipswich, MA. Mary Ferrell Foundation Press, 2010
[17] Thompson, Josiah, Last Second in Dallas. Lawrence, Kansas. University Press of Kansas, 2021, pp. 281–284.
[18] * The Vela Incident – Nuclear Test or Meteoroid? National Security Archive. Available here.
* 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].”
[19] Alvarez L, “A Physicist Examines the Kennedy Assassination Film, American Journal of Physics Vol. 44, No. 9, p. 817. September, 1976. Available here.
[20] “The speed of sound, known as Mach 1, varies depending on the medium through which a sound wave propagates. In dry, sea level air that is around 25 degrees Celsius, Mach 1 is equal to 340.29 meters per second, or 1,122.96 feet per second.” Available here.
[21] Robert C. Maher. “Summary of Gun Shot Acoustics,” Montana State University 4 April 2006. “A supersonic bullet causes a characteristic shock wave pattern as it moves through the air. The shock wave expands as a cone behind the bullet, with the wave front propagating outward at the speed of sound.” Available here.
[22] Don Thomas. Hear No Evil. Ipswich, MA. Mary Ferrell Foundation Press, 2010, pp. 362–363.
[23] Dr. John Lattimer fired at human skulls from above and behind with a rifle and ammunition identical to those Oswald used. Clicking on the image at right will download a video clip of one of Lattimer’s shooting experiments. Note that the ladder rocks forward after bullet impact, reflecting the forward momentum transfer.
[24] Lattimer JK, Lattimer J, Lattimer G. “An Experimental Study of the Backward Movement of President Kennedy’s Head,” Surgery, Gynecology & Obstetrics. February, 1976, Vol. 142, pp. 246–254. Available here.
[25] The Journal of Irreproducible Results 1980-2003. Available here.
[26] Haag, L. “President Kennedy’s Fatal Head Wound and his Rearward Head ‘Snap,’” AFTE Journal, Vol. 46, No. 4, Fall 2014, p. 283; see Figure 8
[27] Haag, L. President Kennedy’s Fatal Gunshot Wound and the Seemingly Anomalous Behavior of the Fatal Bullet. AFTE Journal, Vol. 46, No. 3, Summer 2014, p. 218ff.
[28] John Nichols, MD shooting experiments, accessed at Baylor University. Available here.
[29] Sturdivan LM. HSCA testimony, Vol.1:404. Available here.
[30] Sturdivan LM. The JFK Myths. St. Paul, MN: Paragon House, 2005, p. 164.
[31] Sturdivan LM. The JFK Myths. St. Paul, MN: Paragon House, 2005, p. 164.
[32] Sturdivan LM. The JFK Myths. St. Paul, MN: Paragon House, 2005, p. 162.
[33] Nalli, Nicholas. Gunshot-wound dynamics model for John F. Kennedy assassination. Heliyon. Vol. 4, No. 4, e00603, April 01, 2018. Available here.
[34] Sturdivan LM. The JFK Myths. St. Paul, MN: Paragon House, 2005, p. xxiii.
[35] Sturdivan LM. The JFK Myths. St. Paul, MN: Paragon House, 2005, p. 170.
[36] Sturdivan, L. Letter to the editor. AFTE Journal. 2015 Vol. 47, No. 3, p. 143.
[37] “Report to the President by the Commission on CIA Activities within the United States,” June, 1975. Available here.
[38] Hersh S M, “Huge C.I.A. Operation Reported in U.S. Against Antiwar Forces, Other Dissidents in Nixon Years,” New York Times, 12.22.74. Available here.
[39] Rockefeller Commission Report, Chapter 19, p. 257 ff. Available here.
[40] George Washington University’s National Security Archive documented that the Rockefeller Commission “ceded its independence to White House political operatives.” Available here.
[41] “Gerald Ford White House Altered Rockefeller Commission Report in 1975; Removed Section on CIA Assassination Plots,” National Security Archive. Available here.
[42] See: Aguilar G, Cunningham K. A detailed discussion and source documents are available on line at: “How Five Investigations into JFK’s Medical/Autopsy Evidence Got It Wrong,” Part IV. The Rockefeller Commission. Available here.
[43] Aguilar G, Cunningham K. “How Five Investigations into JFK’s Medical/Autopsy Evidence Got It Wrong,” Part IV. The Rockefeller Commission, 2003. Available here.
[44] Lattimer JK, Lattimer J, Lattimer G. “An experimental Study of the backward Movement of President Kennedy’s Head,” Surgery, Gynecology & Obstretics, Vol. 142, pp. 246–254. Feb, 1976. Available here.
[45] Rockefeller Commission Report chapter 19, p. 261–263. Available here.
[46] Aguilar G, Cunningham K. “How Five Investigations into JFK’s Medical/Autopsy Evidence Got It Wrong,” Part V. The ‘Last’ Investigation – The House Select Committee on Assassinations, 2003. Available here.
[47] HSCA, Vol. 7, p. 174. Available here.
[48] Zapruder frame 230. Available here.
[49] Zapruder frame 320. Available here.
[50] Sturdivan LM. The JFK Myths. St. Paul, MN: Paragon House, 2005, p. 170.
[51] Sturdivan L. HSCA testimony, p. 417. Available here.
[52] Rockefeller Commission Report, p. 262. Available here.
[53] Sturdivan, L M., “The JFK Myths: A Scientific Investigation of the Kennedy Assassination,” Paragon House, St. Paul, MD (2005), pp. 164, 166.
[54] Sturdivan L. HSCA testimony. Vol. 1, p. 415. Available here. [Full quote: “Now, the extreme radial velocity imported to the matter in the President’s head, the brain tissue, caused mechanical movement of essentially everything inside the skull, including where the cord went through the foramen magnum, that is, the hole that leads out of the skull down the spinal cord. Motion there, I believe, caused mechanical stimulation of the motor nerves of the President, and since all 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. 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. The muscles in the back of the trunk are much stronger than the abdominals and, therefore, the body would arch backward.”]
[55] “Larry Sturdivan Arched Dramatically Backwards.” Available here.
[56] Thompson J. Last Second in Dallas. Op. Cit.
[57] Nalli, Nicholas. Gunshot-wound dynamics model for John F. Kennedy assassination. Heliyon. V.4(4), e00603, April 01, 2018. Available here. See footnote #58 citing letter by G Aguilar, MD and C. Wecht, MD, JD. The actual letter, as published by the AFTE Journal. Available here.
[58] Sturdivan L, Rahn K. “Neutron Activation and the Kennedy Assassination – Part II, Extended Benefits.” Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry, Vol. 262, No. 1 (2004), p. 221.
[59] Testimony of Dr. Vincent P. Guinn, Sept. 8, 1978, I HSCA-JFK hearings, 491ff. Available here.
[60] Nalli, N R. “The Ghost of the Grassy Knoll Gunman,” a review of J. Thompson’s book “Last Second in Dallas” published on-line, 6/3/21. Available here.
[61] * Rahn K, Studivan L. “Neutron activation and the JFK assassination Part I. Data and interpretation.” Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry, Vol. 262, No. 1 (2004), pp. 205, 213.
* Sturdivan L, Rahn K. “Neutron Activation and the Kennedy Assassination – Part II, Extended Benefits.” Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry, Vol. 262, No. 1 (2004), p. 221.
[62] *Haag L. “Tracking the ‘Magic’ Bullet in the JFK Assassination,” AFTE Journal, Vol. 46, No. 2, Spring 2014.
* Authors Aguilar and Wecht published a rebuttal to Haag’s defense of NAA in the AFTE Journal. Haag doubled down on his defense of NAA in a letter published by the AFTE Journal: Haag. L. “Author’s response to Doctors Aguilar and Wecht.” AFTE Journal, Vol. 47 No. 3 (Summer 2015), p. 139.
[64] “FBI Laboratory Announces Discontinuation of Bullet Lead Examinations,” September 1, 2005. FBI National
Press Office. Available here.
Possley, M., “Study shoots holes in bullet analyses by FBI,” Chicago Tribune, 2.11.2004
[65] * Erik Randich Ph.D., Patrick M. Grant Ph.D., Proper Assessment of the JFK Assassination Bullet Lead Evidence from Metallurgical and Statistical Perspectives. Journal of Forensic Sciences, V.51(4)717 ff.July 2006. Available here.
* Erik Randich 1 , Wayne Duerfeldt, Wade McLendon, William Tobin. A metallurgical review of the interpretation of bullet lead compositional analysis. Forensic Sci Int. 2002 Jul 17; 127(3), pp. 174–91.
[66] Pat Grant, Ph.D. “Commentary on Dr. Ken Rahn’s Work on the JFK Assassination Investigation.” Available here.
[67] Cliff Spiegelman, William A. Tobin, William D. James, Simon J. Sheather, Stuart Wexler and D. Max Roundhill. CHEMICAL AND FORENSIC ANALYSIS OF JFK ASSASSINATION BULLET LOTS: IS A SECOND SHOOTER POSSIBLE?
The Annals of Applied Statistics 2007, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 287–301. Available here.
[68] * Giannelli, Paul, “Comparative Bullet Lead Analysis: A Retrospective,” Case Western Reserve, Sept., 2001. Available here.
* William Tobin. “Comparative Bullet Lead Analysis: A Case Study in Flawed Forensics,” www.nacdl.org The Champion. Available here.
* Charles Pillar. “Report Finds Flaws in FBI Bullet Analysis.” Los Angeles Times, 2/4/2004. Available here.
[69] Cliff Spiegelman, Ph.D. “What new forensic science reveals about JFK assassination.” Salon.com, 12/12/2017. Available here.
See also: Pat Grant, Ph.D. (Lawrence Livermore Laboratory). Commentary on Dr. Ken Rahn’s (NAA) Work on the JFK Assassination Investigation. Available here.
[71] See Pat Grant’s evisceration of NAA defender, Ken Rahn. “Commentary on Dr. Ken Rahn’s Work on the JFK Assassination Investigation.” Available here.
[72] Arthur Snyder, Ph.D. Comments on the Statistical Analysis in Ken Rahn’s Essay: “Neutron-Activation Analysis and the John F. Kennedy Assassination.” Available here.
[73] Brain Facts and Figures. Available here.
[74] Cranor, Milicent. Scientist’s Trick ‘Explains’ JFK Backward Movement When Shot, 05/31/18. Available here.
[75] Mantik, D. The Omissions and Miscalculations of Nicholas Nalli. Available here.
[76] Nalli, N. Corrigendum to “Gunshot-wound dynamics model for John F. Kennedy assassination” [Heliyon 4 (2018) e00603], 10/1/2018. Available here.
[78] “JFK in Trauma Room One: The Missing Piece: Last Moments Before Death.” A YouTube video of Parkland Professor Marion T. Jenkins, MD discussing the assassination. This quote can be heard at and after the 5 minute, 25 second mark. Available here.
[79] Assassinations Records Review Board investigator, Doug Horne. “The Two Brain Memorandum.” Available here.
[80] See Doug Horne, “Questions Regarding Supplementary Brain Examination(s) Following the Autopsy on President John F. Kennedy.” ARRB Memorandum for file, 8/28/1996, revised 6.2.1998. Available here.
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In Memoriam: Priscilla Johnson McMillan, 1928–2021
Jim DiEugenio wrote about Priscilla Johnson McMillan, who interviewed Oswald in Russia then worked with his widow after the JFK assassination. (Click here for details)
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Fred Litwin on the Facts of the JFK Case
This is a relatively concise review of Fred Litwin’s first book on the John Kennedy assassination, I Was a Teenage JFK Conspiracy Freak. It will be by chapters—excepting Litwin’s discussion of the Jim Garrison inquiry. Jim DiEugenio has reviewed Litwin’s work on that issue at length and in depth. (Click here and here)
Chapter 1
Litwin says first generation critics “started finding small inconsistencies” in the case. But they were actually big inconsistencies (e.g. the dubious provenance of CE 399). (Click here for details) He also avows: “The motorcade had to turn onto Elm Street so it could take an exit to the Stemmons Freeway which would have taken them to the Dallas Trade Mart for Kennedy’s speech.”
Like his previous statement, this one is also false. The motorcade could have taken Main St. to Industrial Blvd. What is so odd about this error is that the correct information is in the House Select Committee volumes, which, on other occasions, Litwin values highly. (HSCA Vol. 11, p. 522) He incorrectly says there are “20,000 pages” in the Warren Commission’s 26 volumes of testimony and evidence. There are really 17,816 pages. Shockingly, before even going into the actual evidence at all, Litwin casually says: “The authors of the Warren Report were honorable men who conducted an honest investigation and reached the right answer.” As many have pointed out, in this day and age, for anyone to call people like Allen Dulles, John McCloy, and Jerry Ford honorable men is wildly archaic. He incorrectly says John Connally’s “lapel” flipped as an indication of a bullet transit—yet his chest wound was not near the lapel! (Click here for details)
The Canadian author then goes through the “overwhelming evidence” against Oswald. He claims Oswald had “a long…package”—but the two witnesses to it said it was not long. (WC Vol. 2, pp. 239–240, 249) Litwin claims that “after the assassination, Oswald was the only warehouseman missing”—but Charles Givens was also missing. (WC Vol. 3, pp.183, 208) Litwin nonchalantly says Oswald “killed police officer J.D. Tippit,” which, with the accumulation of evidence we have on that case today, is a quite dubious statement. (Click here for details)
But Litwin marches on. He also claims that “many witnesses identified Oswald“—but those “identifications” were based on rigged lineups and some were made months after he was dead and nationally known. One of the best examinations of the line ups was made by the late British police inspector Ian Griggs. To name just two problems: Griggs noted that in the British model, there should be 7 other people in a line up and they should be of similar age, height and appearance. (Ian Griggs, No Case to Answer, p. 81) After a seventeen-page analysis, Griggs concluded that, to put it mildly, these guidelines were not adhered to with Oswald. For example, there were only three other people in the Oswald line ups. As per similar physical appearances, Homicide Detective Elmer Boyd said, well “Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t.” (Griggs, p. 83) As per age, Oswald was 24. Two of the stand-ins were 18 years old. Further, Oswald was the only one with bruises on his face. And although the others made up their names and occupations, Oswald did not. Even though, by the time of most of the line ups, his name and place of work had been broadcast on radio and TV. (Ibid, pp. 85–86)
But further, one of the witnesses, Helen Markham, was so weak and faint that the police had to administer her ammonia. Or as Captain Fritz testified to the Commission:
We were trying to get that show up as soon as we could, because she was beginning to faint and getting sick. In fact, I had to leave the office and carry some ammonia across the hall, they were about to send her to the hospital or something and we needed that identification real quickly, and she got to feeling all right after using this ammonia. (WC Vol 4, p. 212)
Line-up witness Cecil McWatters, a bus driver, later admitted that Oswald was not even the man he recalled from his bus ride. He was trying to identify Roy Milton Jones. (Griggs, p. 87) Then, of course, there was the testimony of cab driver Bill Whaley. Whaley said that anyone could have identified Oswald, because he was carrying on and yelling at the policemen. He said it was not right for him to be placed in a line-up with teenagers. If Litwin had been in Oswald’s place, would he not have done the same? (Griggs, p. 90)
Litwin then says that “one expert concluded that one of the four bullets recovered from Tippit’s body matched the revolver found in Oswald’s possession”—but 8 other experts disagreed with him, and moreover that bullet did not appear for a quarter of a year! (WC Vol. 3, p.474) Litwin says “the expended [Tippit] cartridge cases matched Oswald’s gun to the exclusion of all other weapons”—but those cases did not appear for a week (WC Vol. 24, pp. 253, 332) and four officers’ initials disappeared from them. (WC Vol. 7, pp. 251, 275–276; Vol. 24, p. 415) They could not be identified by the three witnesses as the ones they found that day. (WC Vol. 24, pp. 414–415) And as most of us know, two of the cases were from Winchester Western and two were from Remington-Peters. While three bullets were from Winchester and one was from Remington. (Henry Hurt, Reasonable Doubt, p. 152)
Litwin says “Oswald’s right palm print was found on the rifle barrel”—but the only person to see this print said it was an old print. (Gary Savage, First Day Evidence, p. 108) Litwin then says “his fingerprints were found on the bag used to carry the rifle to work.” Yet, when FBI expert Sebastian LaTona initially examined the bag on 11/23, he could find no latent prints on it. (WC Vol 4, p. 3) Litwin then declares: “Faced with this massive amount of incriminating evidence, the critics could only chip away at the margins.” But as the reader can clearly see above, this author did not “chip away at the margins.” I simply debunked Litwin’s claims with original evidence.
Litwin then proceeds to speak in paragraphs to derail witness Lee Bowers’ account, but he never gets to the meat and potatoes. So I will spell it out here…Bowers told Mark Lane on camera on March 31, 1966:
There were, at the time of the shooting, 2 men standing at the top of the incline. And one of them, from time-to-time as he walked back-and-forth, uh—disappeared behind a wooden fence, which also is—uh—slightly to the west of that. At the time of the shooting, in the vicinity of where the 2 men were, there was a flash of light. The area was sealed off by at least 50 police within 3 to 5 minutes. I was there only to tell ’em what they asked, and—uh—so that when they seemed to want to cut off the conversation. (Click here to watch the video)
Litwin also apparently doesn’t know that subsequently two of Bowers’ friends independently came forward and confirmed that, yes, he did see more than he told the Warren Commission, but he was afraid. He didn’t want his life threatened or ruined, being one of the key witnesses against Lee Oswald as the lone shooter. (Josiah Thompson, Last Second in Dallas, pp. 66—67)
Litwin avows that “Dealey Plaza was an echo chamber which made it hard for witnesses to determine the direction of the shots.” This is not accurate. As Josiah Thompson points out in Last Second in Dallas, “The knoll is covered with trees and grass and a wooden fence, all sound-absorbing materials.” (Thompson, p. 38) And further, the flash of light, smoke, fresh footprints, cigarette butts, and an anomalous shape in the Moorman photo all confirm the 58 grassy knoll ear witnesses! (See Thompson, Chapter 5) All of which are JFK 101 and never mentioned in Litwin’s book. Litwin declares “there were absolutely no witnesses to gunmen on the grassy knoll or behind the picket fence.” Well, of course, everyone was looking at the President, not at some random fence in the corner! Snipers are trained to not be seen. But, as we shall see, we do have physical and photographic evidence left behind which indicates such.
Litwin claims “the Dallas doctors did not see the [rear skull] entrance wound because they didn’t turn Kennedy’s body over”—but they did lift the head up and this wound was seen by Drs. Jenkins and Grossman. Litwin says “Virginia and Barbara Davis saw Oswald run across their lawn after the [Tippit] murder.” But remember, they pointed him out of a rigged lineup. Also, the Davis sisters were really confused witnesses. For instance, Barbara claimed she saw the killer again “a few minutes later” after the shooting! (CD 630e, p. 1) And Virginia claimed she heard the second gunshot “a few minutes later” after the first one! (CD 630f, p. 1) So they were confused witnesses.
Chapter 3
Litwin incorrectly says the Zapruder film is “27 seconds” when, of course, it is 26 seconds. He says the parade route “never changed”—but Secret Service agent Gerald Behn confirmed to Vince Palamara the route was changed for the Dallas trip! (Survivor’s Guilt, p. 104) Palamara’s book is the best there is on this issue. He brings in not just Behn, but three other DPD witnesses to back him up.
Litwin likes to make a big deal that in 1972 Drs. John Lattimer and Cyril Wecht, after viewing the autopsy materials, concluded JFK was only hit from the rear. But the fact is that we have come very far since 1972 and, because of this, Wecht has since changed his mind. But Litwin doesn’t explain this context. He cites Lattimer’s old myth of Connally having an “elongated wound in the back”—but Connally’s doctor testified it was elongated only after he removed damaged skin. (WC Vol. 6, p. 88) He says “Kennedy’s head moved forward before it moved back and to the left”—but this has since been shown to likely be an optional illusion due to camera movement. (Thompson, Last Second in Dallas, pp. 197–205) Litwin says the back and to the left “was probably caused by a neuromuscular spasm”—but as another reviewer has pointed out, “no expert in neuroscience has ever supported this hypothesis.” Moreover, neuromuscular spasms only occur when the nerve centers—at the bottom of the brain—are inflicted and JFK’s were not. Litwin also says “there might also have been some minor movement due to something called the ‘jet effect’”—but the fact of the matter is that this theory met a timely end in 2014 (Click here for details)
Litwin: “The autopsy materials…totally refuted a shot from the front.” This is false. The lateral X-ray (assuming it’s authentic) clearly shows a trail of bullet fragments going from front to back. Due to the new work by Dr. Michael Chesser, we know it goes from front to back, because the largest fragments are in the back. That means a shot from the front. (Click here for a long version of Chesser’s work)
Chapter 5
Litwin touches a bit on the acoustics evidence, but ignored the recent work that has been done on it. His argument seems very dated. He avows that “the autopsy X-rays and photographs…showed a small wound in the back of Kennedy’s head”—this would be news to the autopsy doctor James Humes, who couldn’t find one when shown the materials during his ARRB deposition. Litwin says “the Zapruder film shows the back of Kennedy’s head to be intact after the fatal shot”—but (assuming the film is authentic) the back of the head is unfortunately in shadow in the Zapruder film. What Litwin also doesn’t say is that actually a few frames are not in shadow and they do in fact show the rear of the head blown out! (Frames 335, 337, 374)
He says “you can see a visible exit wound in the right front”—but that is actually a flap of scalp hanging down. Litwin ignores the following facts: Press secretary Malcolm Kilduff indicated in public that a shot hit Kennedy in the right temple. Or that Chet Huntley of NBC News announced this same description on TV that day and gave as the source Dr. George Burkley, Kennedy’s physician. Finally, Bill and Gayle Newman, two of the closest witnesses to the shooting, both said the bullet came from behind them—i.e. the stockade fence—and hit Kennedy in the right temple. (Thompson, Last Second in Dallas, p. 32) Is it only a coincidence that the Newmans did not testify before the Commission and neither did Burkley?
He says “his [Harrison Livingstone’s] witnesses all disagreed with each other.” I’m not sure what Litwin means here. All the witnesses Livingstone interviewed were unanimous that the back of the head was gone. Litwin (like Gerald Posner) misconstrues a 1990 quote by autopsy technician Paul O’Connor—“It has been so many years and so much has happened, I kind of doubt my own ability to remember fine details.”—Posner attributes this to O’Connor’s overall memory, but actually it was attributed to the specific question as to whether JFK was wrapped in a mattress cover! (High Treason 2, p. 272) This is simply literary hackery and Litwin just copied it from Posner’s book. (See Posner, Case Closed, p. 300)
Litwin always makes a big deal that “every forensic pathologist who had viewed the autopsy evidence had concluded that Kennedy was shot from behind.” What Litwin leaves out is that these forensic pathologists—Ramsey Clark Panel, the HSCA—never had the body in front of them. And none of them ever saw Kennedy’s brain, since it disappeared from the National Archives. But here’s the thing, none of their reports ever mention the words “grassy knoll,” “knoll,” or “fence”. They didn’t even take that into consideration. So that talking point is simply not valid. But further, Litwin also ignores this: Dr. Michael Baden conservatively acknowledged a grassy knoll headshot was possible. (HSCA Final Report, pp. 80–81)
Litwin incorrectly accuses critics of “ignoring the HSCA test results.” But these two tests—the NAA and Tom Canning’s trajectory analysis—have been through discredited by, for one, Don Thomas. (Hear No Evil, Chapters 12, 13 respectively.) He jumps on critics for using “faulty diagrams” of the single-bullet theory. He then shows a still from Dale Myers’ animation and declares: “They were in perfect alignment for a shot to hit both men.” But of course, Myers’ dishonest animation only works if you move JFK’s back wound up, stretch his neck, lean his neck way forward, shrink Connally, and slide his seat in 6 inches when it was actually 2.5 inches. (patspeer.com, Chapter 12c; click here for details) Litwin discusses the unreliable “Badgeman” image in the Moorman photo, but completely ignores the more reliable anomalous shape that Josiah Thompson points out in Six Seconds in Dallas. What is notable about this aspect of the Mary Moorman photo is that it contains two figures behind the stockade fence atop the grassy knoll. One is a fixed point, a signal tower. But the other figure disappears—it is not there in later photos, so that, very likely, was a person. (Six Seconds in Dallas, p. 127) Coincidently, the flash of light and smoke was seen there, and the fresh footprints and cigarette butts were found there. Again, none of this is mentioned in Litwin’s book. He incorrectly calls Robert Groden’s 1993 book The Death of a President—it’s actually The Killing of a President.
Chapter 6
Litwin nonchalantly mentioned Thomas Canning’s HSCA trajectory analysis—but none of the wound locations in Canning’s analysis are the same as the locations that were reported in the HSCA’s Forensic Pathology Report. Canning chose them. Yes, he chose his own wound locations! (HSCA Vol. 6, p. 33, see especially the footnote at bottom) All trying to confirm a bias—aka a lone assassin. Moreover, Canning’s trajectory analysis for the single-bullet theory is at Zapruder frame 190, and Litwin believes it happened at frame 224. (ibid, p. 34)
Litwin says “Oswald qualified as a sharpshooter in the U.S. Marines,” but ignores Commission lawyer Wesley Liebeler’s own memorandum which states that the FBI could not duplicate the shooting feat that the Commission attributed to Oswald. But in addition, all of the FBI shots were high and to the right of the target “due to an uncorrectable mechanical deficiency in the telescopic sight.” (Edward Epstein, The Assassination Chronicles, p. 148) In his famous internal memorandum—famous to anyone but Litwin—Liebeler complained that it was “simply dishonest” for the Commission not to mention this serious problem with the rifle in their chapter on the subject. But further, the military test Litwin refers to was the first shooting test Oswald took. In his second test, later on in his service, he scored considerably lower and that score was considered a “rather poor shot.” (WR, p. 191) So by the time he left the Marine Corps, that was his status. As Liebeler went on to explain, there is no evidence that he improved while in the USSR. In 1962 and 1963, the only evidence of any “practice” was that he went hunting with his brother once.
Liebeler said that the chapter glossed over the evidence that Oswald was a poor shot and had accomplished a difficult feat; and created a ‘fairy tale’ that Oswald was a good shot and had accomplished an ‘easy shot.’ (Epstein, p. 152)
Litwin incorrectly claims “there were numerous witnesses who heard a shot before Kennedy was hit in the neck”—there were only three. (patspeer.com, Chapter 9) Litwin claims “four of the Dallas doctors involved in treating Kennedy went to the National Archives in Washington, D.C., in 1988 to view the autopsy X-Rays and photographs. They all went on the record to confirm the authenticity of the autopsy materials.” This is nonsense and sleight of hand. First of all, this goes directly against what these four doctors said in the past when originally shown the back of the head photo (showing it intact).
Dr. Peters—“I don’t think it’s consistent with what I saw. There was a large hole in the back of the head through which one could see the brain. But that hole does not appear in the photograph.” (The Continuing Inquiry newsletter, 11/22/81)
Dr. Dulany—”There’s a definite conflict. That’s not the way I remember it.” (“Dispute on JFK Assassination Evidence Persists”, The Boston Globe, 6/21/81)
Dr. Jenkins—“No, not like that. Not like that…No…That picture doesn’t look like it from the back.” (The Continuing Inquiry newsletter, 10/22/80)
Dr. McClelland—“He firmly rejected the autopsy photos.” (The Continuing Inquiry newsletter, 11/22/81)
And likewise all the other Dallas treating staff have denounced the photo. Now, concerning what those four doctors said in 1988 to NOVA, they said that if the pathologist’s hand in the photo is holding up a flap of loose skin to cover the defect in the back of the head, then the photo would be accurate. But as Dr. Michael Baden has said: “There is no flap of skin there.” (Case Closed, p. 310) So therefore, the photo is in all probability inaccurate.
Litwin mentions ARRB chairman John R. Tunheim telling Vincent Bugliosi that “there’s no smoking gun” in the remaining sealed files—as if conspirators would leave behind a trace for all the world to see! He incorrectly says Doug Horne “wrote a series of books”—it was actually one book with five volumes.
Chapter 7
Litwin avows: “Over the years, more and more documents and records have been released but no major revelation on the assassination has emerged.” This is simply not true. For instance, in 1993 the sealed HSCA testimony of JFK’s mortician Tom Robinson was declassified and it was a bombshell. For years, Warren Commission defenders have demanded to know, “Where’s the grassy knoll bullet?!” The answer came when Robinson’s testimony was released. He said:
They were literally picked out, little pieces of this bullet from all over his head…They had the little pieces. They picked them out…I watched them pick the little pieces out. They had something like a test tube or a little vial or something that they put the pieces in…Fairly many pieces…They were all small that could be picked up with forceps…The largest piece that I saw [was] maybe a quarter of an inch. (RIF#180-10089-10178)
Robinson said “that the total number would be close to 10 fragments.” (ARRB MD 180)
These numerous fragments have to be from the knoll headshot (Z–313). Why? Because they disappeared. They were removed and disappeared. The FBI never examined them. (They would’ve had to have been removed from the head early in the autopsy, for the six autopsy technicians don’t remember them.) In the end, the only fragments from the autopsy turned over to the Warren Commission were two from the Depository headshot (Z–328) that matched Oswald’s rifle. (Thompson, pp. 222–28)
When I asked Litwin if he knows who Tom Robinson is, his response to me was: “The terrific British rocker…I have several of his CDs.” (4/6/21 Facebook message)
Litwin’s Postscript
Litwin writes: “Oliver Stone is locked in for life his with conspiracy theories—there’s nothing that could ever change his mind.” I simply turn the question around on Litwin: is there anything that could ever change YOUR mind? He simply replied: “Evidence.” (ibid)
Well, I’ve spent countless hours both in person and online TRYING to patiently tell Fred Litwin the evidence, but it’s always the same—excuses, arguments from authority, and stubbornness. I was (and am still) truly shocked by his blatant denial and ignorance. It’s actually mind-torturing. At this point, I can only shake my head. As someone once said, “You can pile up all the evidence in the world and they don’t wanna listen.”
My Postscript
Litwin relayed a story to me:
It’s a story that should be in my Teenage Conspiracy Freak book, but isn’t. It goes like this. As I was slowly changing my opinion, I decided it was time to read Posner’s book. I bought it…but I couldn’t open it. It sat there for days…until I decided to read the medical evidence chapter. I thought it was a great chapter—in fact, I wish I had written it…and I knew then that there was no conspiracy…and I put the book down…a changed man. (1/15/21 Facebook message)
I was taken aback by this. First of all, in his book, he says what turned him around on the JFK case was the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1979. Now that is moved forward to 1993? And he still cannot provide any evidence of anything he wrote while he was in the critical community camp? Second, Gary Aguilar interviewed two Kennedy autopsy doctors, Dr. Boswell and Dr. Humes, who both denied the words Posner put in their mouths. Boswell went even further: he said he never talked to Posner. (Click here for details) The truth of the matter is that Gerald Posner’s book Case Closed has been debunked 7 ways to Sunday ever since it was first published in 1993. (Click here for details)
I reminded Litwin of this and he just said: “It has not been debunked.” I then proposed, “If I could prove it has been debunked, what would you say?” Litwin retorted: “If you could prove the earth is flat, what would I say?” (ibid.) When I told him “Baden says it’s possible a shot from the knoll”, Litwin retorted: “It’s possible we are being visited by flying saucers; and it is possible that Bigfoot exists.” (4/5/21 Facebook message)
Folks, that’s Fred Litwin for you.
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Truth Is the Only Client
Mainstream media has abandoned the most important murder case in world history. A Hollywood producer has personally told me, “They just don’t want to touch it anymore.” With a plethora of famous crimes being re-discovered by avid Netflix viewers, one might think JFK would be picked up somewhere. It has not. In other words, you have to “do it yourself” now. An example of this is the 2019 self-produced documentary Truth Is the Only Client, which features the surviving Warren Commission staff members. Yes, mainstream media didn’t even pick this one up. It can be watched for free on Amazon Prime.
The film starts off by resurrecting the late prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, who says the assassination is “the most complex murder case by far in world history. Nothing even remotely comes close.” This is true. But he follows this by saying that “conspiracy theorists” are the reason it is complex. This is not true, not even close. As journalist Jefferson Morley has said, “Suspicions of a conspiracy originated in the circumstances of the crime…It was the facts of the crime that made people think it happened in a different way than the way the Warren Report set forth.” (Jacob Carter, Before History Dies, p. 8) Also, we are researchers, not “conspiracy theorists.”
Warren Commission assistant counsel Samuel A. Stern then spewed the now common bit of it being “so hard to accept” that a nobody killed a somebody. Nice try, but not the case. Researchers have continually pointed out the holes in the evidence or, back in the sixties, the contextual chasms in the Warren Report. And much later, they began to fill in those chasms with new evidence supplied by the Assassination Records Review Board. For instance, if Kennedy was only hit from the rear, then why did over forty witnesses at both Parkland Hospital and Bethesda Naval Medical Center see a large avulsive hole in the rear of Kennedy’s skull? (See Dr. Gary Aguilar’s essay, “How 5 Investigations into JFK’s Medical/Autopsy evidence Got it Wrong,” Section Five) And as Aguilar discovered when the records were reviewed, the House Select Committee on Assassinations misrepresented this fact in its report. (See Volume 7, p. 37) As we shall see, the man who oversaw the writing of those volumes is later featured on this program.
Assistant counsel Burt W. Griffin declared, “If we could find a conspiracy, we’d all be national heroes!” Well, they did have 58 eyewitnesses who reported a frontal shot—but they buried them in their tens of thousands of pages of appendices and commission documents. They had the Zapruder film showing JFK being thrown to the rear—but they somehow missed that in the Warren Report. And it’s almost certain they saw the Moorman photo that seems to depict the grassy knoll gunman behind the fence—but they never published it. Maybe because as soon as you have a frontal shot, there’s a conspiracy. The staff members buried or omitted this vital evidence and, therefore, were not national heroes. However, first generation researchers Josiah Thompson, Sylvia Meagher, Harold Weisberg, and Mark Lane brought all this evidence to light and did get some national acclaim for their toil.
Bugliosi then outlines the Warren Commission’s supposed shooting scenario and does so rather nonchalantly, as if it’s absolute fact. What he doesn’t say is that this is not actually the Commission’s shooting scenario, but rather Gerald Posner’s shooting scenario. Assistant counsel Melvin A. Eisenberg claimed Oswald’s “prints” were found on the rifle—but there was only ONE print and the only person to see this print said it was an old print. (Gary Savage, First Day Evidence, p. 108) Assistant counsel Howard P. Willens claimed that “inside the [paper] package were found remnants of the carpet in which it was kept at the Paine garage”—but he apparently forgot that the FBI could not make a positive identification. (WC 4 H p. 81) And by the way, it was a blanket, not a carpet. Bugliosi touted the long-debunked myth that Oswald was “the only worker” missing from the Texas School Book Depository, when really 17 were never in the building after 12:30. (WC 22 H pp. 632–686) Bugliosi nonchalantly says Oswald killed Patrolman J. D. Tippit, but the late researcher Larry Ray Harris showed Oswald was most likely innocent of that crime. (“November 22, 1963: The Other Murder,” Dateline: Dallas, 11/22/93) Bugliosi says Oswald “told one provable lie after another, all of which, of course, show a consciousness of guilt”—but it only shows he was involved in some way and doesn’t mean he killed the President. Bugliosi also said that “six and a half months before,” Oswald attempted to murder Maj. Gen. Edwin Walker—but the alleged bullet could not be linked with the rifle (WC 3 H p. 439) and the two witnesses said the perpetrator was not Oswald. (WC 5 H pp. 446–447; 26 H p. 438) Also, it was actually seven months before, not six.
The film did a segment on Oswald’s life. The exposition was very similar to the 2003 Peter Jennings program Beyond Conspiracy. Like the 2003 version, this one comes out à la the official portrayal of him as a nobody, which has long been debunked in so many ways. There’s quite a remarkable and emotional interview with Ruth Paine, which, to me at least, helped seal the deal that she was not involved in the plot to kill JFK. But what she did say was striking—“I’ll help these officers in whatever way they need.” That she did.
The Commission’s Howard Willens (and later Bugliosi) spewed the usual “there was no way for the bullet to go after exiting from the President’s neck other than into Connally”—but of course it is highly unlikely that any bullet exited JFK’s neck. For at the autopsy the back wound was probed and found to not go anywhere. (CD 7, p. 284) The bullet lodged in the back and most likely fell out. (It also would’ve smashed the first rib had it traversed where the measurements place it.)
Willens then said something incredible:
Governor Connally insisted then, and until his death, that he had not been hit by the same bullet that hit the President. As I have said, he was the Governor of Texas, he wanted his own bullet.
This is an absolutely outrageous straw-man argument. In fact, there’s no evidence whatsoever to support this claim. Willens simply made it up. The truth is that, as an experienced hunter, Connally understood from the sound pattern that the bullet that struck Kennedy could not have struck him. He deliberately hid his own conclusions about what had happened and this actually helped the Commission! In 1982, Connally was at a political function in Santa Fe. Reporter Doug Thompson asked him if he thought Lee Oswald fired the gun that killed Kennedy. Without batting an eyelash Connally replied with: “Absolutely not. I do not, for one second, believe the conclusions of the Warren Commission.” Thompson asked him why he then never spoke out against the Commission. This is how Connally responded: “Because I love this country and we needed closure at the time. I will never speak out publicly about what I believe.” (Joseph McBride, Into the Nightmare, p. 418)
The film next turned to HSCA chief counsel G. Robert Blakey, who insisted Connally’s back wound was “oval…which is an indication that it hit something else”—but Connally’s doctor testified it was a neat entry wound and was oval only after he removed damaged skin. (WC 6 H p. 85, 88) In fact, just simply look at the holes in his suit coat and shirt and they are not oval. Blakey said that, since the left side of JFK’s brain was undamaged, there couldn’t have been a frontal shot—but this ignores the possibility of a tangential headshot. To explain the head snap to the rear, Blakey says this was a neuromuscular reaction—but that only occurs when the nerve centers (at the bottom of the brain) are inflicted and JFK’s were not. The film then flashes across the screen: “No witnesses saw a gunman shooting at the President from the Grassy Knoll.” Well, of course, everyone was looking at the President, not at some random fence in the corner! Snipers are trained to not be seen.
The film next does something amazing. It shows the apparent forward head movement between Zapruder frames 312 and 313 and acts as if this is the first time it’s being discovered! The Travel Channel had done the same thing a year before. In reality, of course, it was discovered over half a century ago by Ray Marcus. It was first written about in print by author Josiah Thompson, who has since changed his mind and concluded it was actually an optical illusion due to camera movement. (See his new book Last Second in Dallas)
The narrator tells us, “Clearly there is no evidence of anything striking the President from the front.” This is abominably incorrect. Kennedy was thrown to the rear, the blood went back and hit the motorcycle officers, and nearly 100 eyewitnesses felt the shot came from in front on the knoll. In a panic attack, Jackie Kennedy is seen retrieving a part of her husband’s skull off the rear of the limousine. A flash of light and smoke was seen on the knoll, fresh footprints and cigarette butts were found there—coincidently where a shape appears in the Moorman photo that’s not there in later photos. So that was a person. This is all JFK 101 and none of it is mentioned in the film.
The film touched a bit on the acoustics evidence, but ignored all the recent work that’s been done on it. Their argument was very dated.
The film did a segment on Jack Ruby and Blakey laid out what he saw as connections between Ruby, Oswald, and the Mob. But incredibly, the narrator dismissed it all by simply saying, “I disagree.” [!] The rest of the segment is again similar to the 2003 Peter Jennings program—à la the official portrayal of Ruby. There was also an interview with right-winger Bernard Weissman, but heavily downplayed his role all while having a cute fluffy dog in his lap!
Bugliosi avows that Oswald would’ve been “one of the last people” the CIA or Mob would pick to kill Kennedy—but of course, critics do not believe this. Critics believe Oswald was involved in the plot as a double agent who was double-crossed. Bugliosi also tells us that Blakey and ARRB chairman John R. Tunheim assured him that there was “no smoking gun” in the remaining sealed files, as if conspirators would leave behind a trace for all the world to see! Bugliosi then makes an absolutely disgusting straw-man argument: Critics “love and revere JFK, and yet they’ve devoted a good part of their life desperately trying to exonerate Lee Harvey Oswald, the very person who brutally murdered their hero JFK.” I can’t think of anything more disgusting. Critics are simply in search of the truth, NOT solely “desperately trying to exonerate” Oswald. Warren Commission staff attorney Lloyd L. Weinreb then repeated the common talking point of it being “much more acceptable to believe that there’s a conspiracy.” Staff historian Alfred Goldberg took it even further: “Belief in conspiracies is exciting…That’s what feeds their paranoia.” Again, disgusting. I repeat, people simply point out the HOLES IN THE EVIDENCE.
In sum, there is nothing new in Truth Is the Only Client. It just repeated the same old same old, while omitting so much more. It has essentially tried to take the modern and improved Oswald-did-it narrative from Vincent Bugliosi and Gerald Posner and then declare the Warren Commission way back in 1964 got it right after all. Sorry, but it does not work that way, folks.
The film was also way too long and quite frankly very boring. Astonishingly, it has a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes. Yes, you heard me correctly. 100%. To put that into perspective, here is a list of famous films that do NOT have 100% on Rotten Tomatoes:
– Casablanca
– The Godfather
– Gone with the Wind
– Lawrence of Arabia
– The Wizard of Oz
– The Graduate
– On the Waterfront
– Schindler’s List
– It’s a Wonderful Life
– Sunset Boulevard
– The Bridge on the River Kwai
– Some Like It Hot
– Star Wars
I think we all know what this is about.
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A Review of Last Second in Dallas by Josiah Thompson
Just over half a century ago Josiah “Tink” Thompson published one of the seminal books on the JFK assassination, the influential Six Seconds in Dallas. Working with limited materials, he performed a pioneering initial investigation outlining many of the crucial objections to the Warren Commission’s conclusion of a single gunman. A striking finding at that time, made by Raymond Marcus, was the forward and then violently back-and-to-the-left head motion seen sequentially at 312/313 and 314/315 on the Zapruder film. Thompson’s original theory was that this indicated sequential shots, the first from behind and the second from the Grassy Knoll, striking in approximately 1/10th of a second.
Since the 1967 publication of Six Seconds in Dallas, intense scrutiny has been placed on all aspects of the evidence. In 1978, the HSCA discovered the DPD DictaBelt tape and an analysis concluded with a 95% confidence level that the shot that first struck the head was fired from the Grassy Knoll. In 2001, Don Thomas reanalyzed Mark Weiss and Ernest Aschkenasy’s data and published a peer reviewed article in Science and Justice concluding that the probability was even higher. Impressed by this pure science, Thompson has now changed his position and believes that the first shot came from the Grassy Knoll and that a second shot to the head came from behind less than 1 second later in accordance with the original 1978 analysis.
His new investigation, culminating in the publication of Last Second in Dallas, relies on several experts, including the distinguished Dr. James Barger who did the original acoustic analysis for the HSCA. It is to Thompson’s credit that he was able to get the reticent genius Dr. Barger to do further scientific work in the final authentication of the tape. In Last Second in Dallas, Thompson presents the reader with new observations which should erase all doubt of a single gunman in Dealey Plaza. It is a combination of the history of the case from his personal perspective of over 50 years’ experience as well as the scientific studies which have been performed with special emphasis on the acoustic evidence.
Chapters 1 and 2 are recollections of his initial reaction to the assassination as well as his early activities in the case. Interactions with many eyewitnesses and first-generation researchers and critics are recalled. Thompson revisits some of his original observations from Six Seconds in Dallas. One concerns the circuitous journey of CE399. The eyewitness testimony of Parkland Hospital Security Director O.P. Wright claiming that the bullet he recovered had a pointed tip is revived. This is a topic which has been examined in detail, but here the focus is on Wright. The author rightfully questions the ability of CE399 to have accomplished all necessary to maintain the single bullet theory. He continues with his involvement with Life magazine, which gave him access to the sequestered Zapruder film which was crucial in the writing of Six Seconds in Dallas.
Chapters 3 through 5 recount the eyewitness testimony confirming a shot being fired from the Knoll. Their firsthand recollections of the gunshot report, including the smoke from under the trees, the smell of gunpowder, footprints, and cigarette butts behind the fence, as well as the presence of an individual flashing a fake Secret Service agent badge, are telling memories of the day. The reader is exposed once again to many familiar names: the Newmans, Zapruder, Sitzman, Hudson, Altgens, Jackson, Chaney, Hargis, Martin, Smith, Holland, and Bowers. Many of these statements will be known to even beginning students of the assassination, but Thompson’s focus on the Knoll provides persuasive evidence beyond the acoustics that a shot was fired from the there.
In Chapters 6–8, Thompson recalls his continuing involvement in the case and significant developments during that time period. Deservedly proud of his work on the 1966 Life magazine article “A Matter of Reasonable Doubt,” he regales in telling how this brought him to the attention of J. Edgar Hoover. He immersed himself in the case doing groundbreaking work with interviews, examination of photos and films, and ballistics, among other fields, resulting in the publication of Six Seconds in Dallas. That book documented many of the early persuasive arguments weighing against a sole gunman and it garnered a cover story in The Saturday Evening Post. Tink’s behind-the-scenes stories are both entertaining and enlightening and provide insight into his early years of assassination research and his, at times, contentious interactions with other highly respected first-generation critics. At the time of the Clay Shaw trial, the author distanced himself from other critics who were supportive of Jim Garrison’s prosecution of Shaw. For older readers, the preceding chapters may evoke memories of the heady days of fresh clues and new revelations. For younger readers, Thompson’s firsthand recollections can directly transport them back to what those times were like.
Chapter 9 covers the involvement of Nobel prize winner Dr. Luis Alvarez, who also assumed he had a PhD in assassination “science.” Alvarez, a blatant Warren Commission apologist, is known for shooting melons, thus trying to create a reverse jet effect to explain the rearward component of JFK’s double head motion. Alvarez is one of many scientists, like Vincent Guinn, in the governmental and academic circles to have used their prestige when approaching the assassination from their individual field of expertise. Thompson recounts a long period of contentious personal communication between he and Alvarez, mainly over Alvarez’s “jiggle analysis” of the Zapruder film and “reproducing” the reverse jet effect. Critics had immediately pounced on Alvarez’s claim that a single frame horizontal blur seen at 313 reflected Zapruder’s reaction to a rifle shot, as a muzzle blast from the TSBD would not have even reached his ears yet. Ironically later in Chapter 14, a same horizontal blur will be viewed as a reaction to a shot from the Grassy Knoll, with a similar lack of success based upon similar principles. Alvarez’s attempts at shooting various objects, plus his publications, are revisited. During the writing of the book, Paul Hoch provided the author with photos and notes from the actual melon shooting sessions, which almost invariably showed objects moving forward in the direction of the bullet as had the Warren Commission tests. Thompson details the intellectual dishonesty and despicable behavior exhibited by this Nobel prize winner. I do not think the author adequately describes the enjoyment he found after obtaining Alvarez’s materials, provided by Hoch, which are now conserved at the Sixth Floor Museum.
Chapter 10 presents a continuing autobiographical tale of his life as a renowned first-generation researcher in the 70’s and a life one could well be envious of. He highlights working abroad as well as his presence at Robert Groden’s first public viewing of the Zapruder film in 1973. He also provides a behind-the-scenes view of the drama behind its first nationwide broadcast on Geraldo Rivera’s Good Night America in 1976. The electric effect this had on the public, and the resultant efforts to get the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) created, are noted. The chapter ends with the Dallas Police Department DictaBelt tapes being given to the HSCA in 1978 by Mary Farrell and its subsequent effect on their deliberations.
II
A short history of the chain of possession of the tapes is detailed and extremely helpful information on how the DictaBelt recording system functioned is provided in Chapter 11. HSCA Chief Counsel Robert Blakey’s choice of James Barger to analyze the tape for the HSCA is covered. Thompson ends this chapter without revealing to the reader that prior to the involvement of Weiss and Aschkenasy, Barger gave his discovery of the muzzle blast from the Grassy Knoll at 145.15 seconds a 50/50 probability.
Thankfully, due to his true scientific ambivalence, the HSCA brought Weiss and Aschkenasy on board and it was their work which identified an earlier muzzle blast at 144.90 seconds. Without the identification of this earlier muzzle blast, the stalemate of medical evidence of a single shot from behind versus the acoustic evidence of a single shot from the Grassy Knoll would have continued for a significant period.
The 60 Degree Rule concerning the identification of the N waves created by a bullet’s supersonic travel is improperly explained. I brought this up with Barger, who provided a diagram he had made applicable to this when the bullet’s velocity went down to zero after impact. Most important is that when the bullet stops, the creation of the N wave stops, and it is from this point along the trajectory to the target that the 60 degrees angle is measured for a bullet traveling at Mach 2. It is not the difference in the angle between the target and microphone as stated. When applied to a Grassy Knoll shot, H. B. McLain’s microphone should not have been able to detect an N wave from any Knoll shot. Barger recently acknowledged this, but gave the explanation that it might be a reflected N wave which was recorded.
Chapter 12 delves into the HSCA investigation quickly going over Guinn’s Neutron Activation Analysis studies (today called Comparative Bullet Lead Analysis) and their attempts to synchronize shots on the tape with the film. On p. 173, a shot sequence is attempted based upon his evaluation of the timing of muzzle blasts. The origin of each shot is not noted. Confusion is created when predicated upon the inerrancy of the acoustic analysis. Barger cautioned the HSCA that, as the number of putative shots increased, so did the possibility that one of these events might be an artifact on the tape itself and not represent an actual gunshot. His warning has not been heeded.
Attempts are made in Table 12–2 to correlate reactions thought to be due to a first shot recorded at 137.70 seconds or approximately Zapruder frame 175. This has Phil Willis reacting to a shot at 202 which would not be fired until 204. Close attention must also be given to the coverage of the blurs. A blur at 181–182 is cited as a reaction to the first proposed shot at 137.70 seconds. None of the HSCA investigators in Table 12–1, on the previous page, identified a blur at that time. A horizontal panning error is mistaken as evidence for a startle reaction at 181/182 just as for 313. This is the only extra-acoustic evidence for this earlier shot.
All the reactions which are cited in Table 12–2 to support such an early shot occur incident to the actual first shot near 200 recorded at the later 139.27 seconds. The HSCA photographic panel pointed to JFK’s first reaction near 200. In this same table, it is not true that Connally and Kennedy are obscured by the Stemmon’s Freeway sign after 199. Here it is correctly stated that the last shot of the first volley, recorded at 140.32 seconds, struck Connally, but in Chapter 24 p. 352 it is mistakenly claimed that the acoustic evidence indicates that it was actually the prior shot recorded at 139.27 seconds. Mathematical calculations are not provided which would allow readers to arrive at that conclusion. This equivocation stems from a failure to recognize that the first impulse, recorded at 137.70 seconds, is an artifact on the tape. A true synchronization demonstrates the shot to Connally was fired from the TSBD and was the last shot of the first volley recorded at 140.32 seconds. The first actual gunshot which struck JFK at 201, was recorded at 139.27 seconds. The artifact on the tape earlier at 137.70 seconds is a phantom muzzle blast of which Barger had warned. A successful synchronization of a Knoll shot recorded at 144.90 seconds is not presented.
The chapter ends by briefly going over the pseudoscience of reverse jet effects and “neuromuscular” reactions which establishment scientists—like Alvarez and Larry Sturdivan—have foisted on the public to explain the backward head motion. The HSCA medical panel’s significant reservations with each is noted. Unmentioned is that the HSCA Medical Panel finally concluded that both these unlikely factors, acting simultaneously, had caused the backward head movement. Along with this is a critique of the tests performed by Alvarez with melons and the goat shooting experiments by Sturdivan at the Edgewood Army Arsenal, which helped bring the HSCA Medical Panel to its head-scratching conclusion about the cause of the violent backward head movement.
III
In Chapter 13, the decision of the AARB to buy the Zapruder film for 16 million dollars is mentioned. The unconscionable decision by the ARRB to gift the copyright of the film to the Sixth Floor Museum should have deserved mention as well. The comparative bullet lead analysis, NAA, done by Vincent Guinn for the House Select Committee on Assassinations is addressed as well as the excellent scientific work of Rick Randich and Pat Grant in exposing the fallibility of these tests. That work was so groundbreaking that the FBI has subsequently stopped using the procedure entirely. Warren Commission apologist Ken Rahn’s “Queen of the Forensic Sciences,” NAA, had been dethroned. While providing relief for some criminal suspects, this analysis did nothing to advance the case beside WC apologists having to admit these small lead fragments cannot be traced to any particular bullet.
Chapter 14 begins by attempting to convince the reader that the head does not actually go forward from a bullet impact at 312/313, relying solely on head motion while ignoring contrarian observations. Even then, the author’s, Itek’s, and even David Wimp’s measurements all show forward head motion and none significant backward motion until 315 as seen on page 415. The case for the blur at 313 representing a startle reaction by Zapruder is not well made. Similar lateral blurring at frame 409 is pointed to in Photo 14–2 on page p. 198 as an example. This blur cannot be due to a gunshot report because none was fired that late. A known horizontal panning error at 409 is used as an example for what happened at 313, a supposed startle reaction. The case is completely undermined when it has already been noted on p. 117 that a blur known to be due to gunshot report at 227 is in a diagonal or downward direction just like the blurs at 318 and 331. Don Thomas is relied upon to prove that the horizontal blur at 313 was caused by an acoustic startle reaction on Zapruder’s part. Thomas’s diagram, Plate 2 on p. 214, has Zapruder reacting in ½ a frame or .027 seconds after the muzzle blast arrival. Yet, the fastest acoustic startle reaction experimentally documented by Landis and Hunt in 1939 was .06 seconds or a full Zapruder frame. Based on the other shots, Zapruder’s reaction time can be calculated to approximately 1.5 frames.
The horizontal blur at 313 cannot be due to a startle reaction and can be correctly recognized as a horizontal panning error as can 409. The other blurs at 331 (p. 227 photo 15–25), 318 (p. 223 photo 15–7), and 227 (p. 117 photo 9–20) are all greater in degree and all show a downward not horizontal deviation of Zapruder’s camera. Here the blur at 318 is not recognized as a startle reaction, yet the HSCA investigators did. Alvarez is now invoked to claim that oscillations caused the inconvenient downward camera deviation with blur at 318. None of the other blurs show such a train of oscillations as Alvarez claimed happened at 318. No such oscillations have been reported in the medical literature. If true, the downward oscillation at 318 caused an even greater blur than the supposed original horizontal reaction at 313. A startle reaction at 318, indicating a shot origin even farther than the TSBD, is antithetical to both Alvarez and the author’s claims.
In Chapter 15, the author, having found an ally in Dave Wimp in the previous chapter, continues with the use of chosen experts. In 2005, Keith Fitzgerald sought out Thompson to show him what he thought was a notable finding concerning JFK’s head motion. Fitzgerald pointed to a 1.7 inch forward head motion between 327/328 as evidence for a shot having struck from behind. A second bullet striking the head from behind and fragmenting provided an apparent answer for all the damage to the windshield and Connally’s wrist wound which his theory demanded. However, earlier Thompson had relied on the opinion of physicist Art Snyder that a 2.16 inch forward head motion between 312/313 caused by a bullet was impossible. Is the short .4 inch difference between these two measurements the difference between possible and impossible? No. The author selectively uses one expert, Snyder, to claim no rear entry at 313, but then readily accepts the antithetical opinion of Fitzgerald to propose an absolutely necessary rear entry at 328. This chapter acknowledges that the bullet struck at 328. Whatever force caused the earlier forward motion Fitzgerald had identified between 327/328 could not have been caused by a bullet impact occurring at 328. Perhaps it might be related to the application of the brakes and/or the effects of gravity on a near lifeless body.
The problem for a theory of a single shot from the front at 313 means that the two points of windshield damage and Connally’s wrist wound must have all been made at the same time by fragments of a forward moving bullet at 328. Thompson is relying on Fitzgerald’s errant conclusion to reinforce his particular viewpoint. The WC testimony of Dr. Gregory is quoted here, as it was in Chapter 4 of Six Seconds in Dallas, citing his opinion that a fragment of a bullet caused Connally’s wrist wound rather than CE399. A critical revelation in the first book, omitted here, is that dark wool suit fibers were discovered in the wound. The entry holes in the jacket sleeve and French cuff must have been in alignment to have been pierced simultaneously. At frame 328, however, Connally’s French cuff is completely exposed out of the jacket sleeve. This is readily apparent in Photo 15–41 on page 233. The entry point in the jacket sleeve graphically depicted in the close-up photos is closer to the wrist than is diagrammed. In either case a bullet entering at any point in the jacket sleeve could not have entered the mid portion of the fully exposed French cuff to simultaneously carry dark suit fibers into the wound. This observation, in and of itself, makes this whole thesis untenable. See photos 1, 2, and 3.
Attention is now directed to the windshield damage. An impact at 328 is demonstrated by a flare of reflected light one frame later at 329 as the glass was deformed by a bullet’s impact. This seems quite logical. The acoustics indicates an impact at 328, a flare from deformation is seen on the very next frame and Zapruder’s startle reaction deviating his camera downward at 331. Incontrovertible evidence is provided for a gunshot and impact less than one second after the head wounds, meaning at least two gunmen.
This is the single most important observation in the book and, quite frankly, the history of the case. Without it, there is no convincing visual evidence for an impact at 328 as the acoustic evidence indicates. The author’s seeming agnosticism relating to this flare is curious. This critical observation is dismissed simply as a matter of coincidence with a single critical angle to the sun causing the flare coincidentally timed one frame, 1/18th of a second, after a known windshield impact. However, there was another earlier flare from the windshield at 314, smaller the first time because it was caused by only a fragment of a bullet. See photo 4, frame 314.
Two flares, each occurring on the very next frames after separate impacts, is evidence that the first wound to the head came from behind. The dark wool fibers in Connally’s wrist wound are fully corroborative. After the fragment’s impact at 313, Connally’s right wrist and French cuff were propelled fully forward out of the jacket sleeve. At frame 328 the holes in the jacket sleeve and in the French cuff were misaligned as photo 15–41 depicts. Selective use of observations is used to arrive at conclusions. The windshield flare at 329 will be cautiously pointed to as possible evidence of an impact but a second earlier flare, indicating a bullet going forward through JFK’s head at 313 and fragmenting, will be ignored in absolute deference to the acoustics. The presence of two flares, as well as two corresponding startle reactions, answers a question left unaddressed by the WC, whether the two points of damage were made at the same or separate times. The effects of two impacts are seen in less than one second proving conspiracy. An unshakeable belief in the inerrancy of the acoustic analysis prohibits the author from acknowledging these antithetical observations of the wound to Connally’s wrist and the presence of two windshield flares. A whole bullet directly struck the windshield frame at 328 bending its tip in the process and falling back into the limo where it was later recovered during the initial limo inspection. This non-fragmented bullet with a bent tip was chronicled by autopsy attendee and WH physician James Young MD in his 2001 US Navy BUMED Oral History Interview as well as in a confidential letter sent to ex-Warren Commission member and ex-President Gerald Ford. The existence of this whole bullet is also antithetical to a bullet fragmenting after a rear impact at 328.
The final portion of the chapter is a review of eyewitness statements with the proposition that the final shot heard was the one which is conjectured as going forward through the head at 328. The question is not if an additional shot was heard after the head exploded, the tape reliably tells us that down to the hundredths of a second. The question is whether this final shot could accomplish all that is necessary in this scenario. Connally’s exposed French cuff and the head motion beginning at 327 rather than 328 should guide us to the conclusion that it cannot.
IV
Chapter 16 deals with the medical evidence and, I must admit, it is not the strongest chapter. Having investigated this area for 30 years, I can say that it can seem extremely complex at first and that there are many pitfalls which can be, and are, run into in this chapter. Numerous problems with the autopsy are highlighted. Thompson believes that the controversy over the autopsy findings is related to incompetence rather than a concerted effort to hide evidence of conspiracy. This reviewer can not come to the same conclusion.
The Parkland doctor’s testimony concerning the head wounds, which are supposedly in contradiction to the autopsy photos and x-rays is revived, indicating to some alterations or forgery. This is a longstanding rabbit hole from which some are unwilling to exit. The hole in the skull was made by bone loss. All five of the recovered skull fragments are seen being ejected on the Zapruder film. The bone loss seen on the post-mortem radiographs and photographs in the autopsy room matches the bone loss seen as it occurred on the Zapruder film taken in Dealey Plaza as the events happened. Any intervening testimony by Parkland observers which challenges this is incorrect and only goes to demonstrate the fallibility of human recollections, such as those of O.P. Wright and McClelland among many others.
An emphasis is placed on the distribution of metallic fragments in the head seen on the lateral skull x-ray. In either scenario, back then front or front then back, there were two bullets which struck the head and both fragmented. In either case, what the lateral x-ray of the skull shows is a composite of metal particles from two bullets. These metal fragments were mobile, and many were moved out of, or about in, the skull when the temporary pressure cavity caused an explosive wound. Mobile brain tissue with enclosed metallic fragments fell out onto the gurney in Trauma Room One. The discovery of a few additional metallic fragments adds little to the discussion.
The subject of missing autopsy photos is taken up. Waters are muddied by bringing up the 30 year old recollections of Sandra Spencer to the AARB. Spencer initially developed and briefly saw the photos on one occasion shortly after the autopsy. The photographic and documentary records do not support her recollections. The HSCA had Kodak make enhancements of the roll of film exposed to light by Secret Service agent Kellerman the night of the autopsy. These images could not have been altered. I, as well as a few others, have seen these photos at the National Archives and I can say, as they have, that it is the same body on the same table at the same time and matches the other autopsy photos in the National Archives as well as those in the public domain. In the clinical photos taken later, there is a one-to-one correspondence between the fracture pattern on the photos and the authenticated skull x-rays. Spencer’s claim of a picture of the brain next to the body on the autopsy table makes no sense from a forensic perspective. The case is also made for other missing autopsy pictures. The possibility of missing photos can never be eliminated. Would one expect autopsy physicians, who will not disclose the distance of the entry wound above the EOP, to provide clear pictures of its exact location?
Unable to make sense of the medical evidence as a whole, the author simplifies the focus down to only three findings. The first concerns the location of the entry hole in the rear of the head. Thompson claims that the hole of entry with internal beveling was completed by the portion of the hole in a corner in the late arriving triangular Delta fragment. A good student of the medical evidence will know that he is quoting autopsy pathologist Dr. Boswell from his gaffe filled 1992 JAMA interview. The problem is that the Delta fragment had external beveling in one corner not internal beveling. None of the late arriving fragments had internal beveling. Boswell had unwittingly revealed his knowledge that the Delta fragment fit at the top rear as the Nix and Zapruder films show. The actual level of the entry hole documented by the autopsy team can be seen on page 265 photo 16–14. A fracture, created by a first bullet’s entry, is present at the autopsy team’s lower entry level. This extends upwards and anteriorly to stop the propagation of a fracture from the HSCA’s higher “entry” wound. This is Puppe’s law which states that a primary fracture will stop the propagation of a secondary fracture by virtue of the pre-existing gap in the bone.
This was the basis for an article I submitted to the Journal of Forensic Sciences in 1996 indicating two shots to the head, the first from behind and 1/10th of a second later from the front just as Thompson proposed in 1967. This was sent out for and passed peer review, but the editors and board refused to publish it for some of the same reasons later given to Don Thomas when his paper was even refused evaluation by Journal of Forensic Sciences.
The second finding relates to the distribution of metallic fragments in the head. These mobile fragments cannot be used as a reliable path of the bullets. The pattern of intersecting fracture lines in areas of minimally displaced skull manifesting Puppe’s law indicate that the autopsy doctors were correct in their lower entry localization.
The third area is the proper location and orientation of the Delta fragment. In 1967 in Six Seconds in Dallas, Thompson astutely identified it sliding backwards across the trunk on the Nix film. From the previous chapter, page 232, Jackie’s detailed and accurate description of the skull fragment she recovered matches the Delta fragment. Arising from this position, the only orientation possible, determined by a portion of cranial suture, is for the metallic fragments in its one corner with external beveling to match up with the 6.5 mm lead fragment seen at the HSCA’s higher “entry” point. Any proposed shot from the front had to strike the top rear of the skull to cause external beveling and deposit a 6.5 mm metallic fragment in the skull as well as simultaneously depositing lead particles in the corresponding corner of the Delta fragment. The apparent trail of metallic fragments high on the lateral skull x-ray, Photo 16–14 p. 265, do not depict a single bullet’s precise path for reasons discussed. The lower fracture, demonstrating Puppe’s law, which has passed peer review, indicates a first shot from behind and the external beveling at the HSCA’s higher “entry” means a second shot to the head from the front impacting at the top rear: forward at 313 and nearly immediately backward at 315 just as the author had proposed in 1967. These closely spaced motions corresponding to two muzzle blasts identified one quarter second apart at 144.90 and 145.15 seconds on the acoustics belt.
V
In Chapter 17, Thompson reveals that, while riding his classic BMW motorcycle through the beautiful central California countryside, he had an epiphany that the acoustic evidence was the glue which could bring all the elements of the assassination together. The findings of Wimp eliminated a forward strike at 313 as did the opinion of Snyder. Discarding the opinion of Snyder, Fitzgerald’s findings were accepted as evidence for a shot entering the rear at 328. Insufficient mathematical effort has been applied. On page 277, two essential claims are made about successful synchronization of a putative Grassy Knoll shot striking at 313 with the ensuing impact at 328, a 15 frame difference, and the preceding impact at 223, a 90 frame difference. The time difference for the last two shots is .71 seconds but the math is not demonstrated nor is it stated that it needs to be lengthened by 5% to compensate for time compression as the DictaBelt recorded. .71 X 1.05 = .7455 seconds .7455 seconds X 18.3 frames/second = 13.6 frames not 15 frames. The second claim is mathematically disproven as well. Here, the stated time difference to the previous shot was 4.8 seconds, which on this occasion is correct, because they were recorded 4.58 seconds apart and 4.58 X 1.05 = 4.8 seconds. It is not explained to the reader that compensation for time compression has been made or the reason for needing to do so. 4.58 seconds X 18.3 frames/second = 88 frames not 90 frames. For the acoustic evidence to be valid, it must synchronize with the events and this is a matter of mathematical calculations. This lack of synchronization means the echolocation of Weiss and Aschkenasy is in error. This failure of synchronization is due to the failure of W&A’s echolocation of the shot’s origin. They did not fail to correctly identify the precise timing of a true positive muzzle blast. The head is struck first from behind. It is surprising that this discrepancy in frames was overlooked. In full transparency, the math calculations immediately preceding are not in any way all that needs to be taken into consideration when doing a full synchronization. The speed of bullets at distance, speed of sound, distances, Zapruder camera rate, muzzle blast delays, and time compression among other factors must be taken into consideration. Even after a full set of calculations has been performed, as I have, a Grassy Knoll shot at W&A’s 144.90 seconds does not synchronize with either the preceding or ensuing shots which each synchronize with each other. The head is first struck from behind.
The DOJ’s response to the HSCA’s recommendation on further study of the Bronson film for movement in the 6th floor window and the acoustic evidence of recorded gunshots is reviewed. Alvarez’s timely entry into this new aspect of the assassination is noted. His activities in declining chairmanship in the Ad Hoc Committee while maintaining a dominating role as a member of the panel are detailed as are some of the panel’s inner workings. Alvarez’s scientific bias is fully exposed by recalling his previous efforts to quash satellite evidence of a nuclear explosion in the Indian Ocean in 1979 during the Carter administration. Barger’s heroic efforts in defying the Ad Hoc Committee are chronicled including threats to his professional career if he did not sign a pre-drafted statement saying he agreed with the Ad Hoc Committee’s conclusions. Alvarez is fingered as this scientific extortionist.
Chapters 18 through 23 are an excellent historical review of the DPD tape and the Ramsey Panel’s subsequent involvement. This covers Steve Barber’s discovery of the phrase “Hold everything secure,” a statement which was made shortly after the assassination, but on the tape supposedly occurred at the same time the Barger’s putative shots had been identified. The Ramsey Panel did not then need to do any statistical challenge but instead now used the ill-timed phrase “Hold everything secure” to completely discredit the possibility that the tape was recorded in Dealey Plaza or at the time of the shooting. This controversy would persist until resurrected by a peer reviewed article by Don Thomas in Science and justice, a statistical review substantiating the echolocation done in 1978 by Weiss and Aschkenasy. Thompson provides commentary on the scientific tennis match played out on the pages of the UK based journal Science and Justice between Thomas and the remnants of the Ramsey Panel, which had been dominated by his and Barger’s old nemesis Luis Alvarez. The author carefully goes over the significance of episodes of crosstalk such as “Hold everything secure” and “I’ll check it,” some of which the Ad Hoc Committee ignored, which bolstered Thomas’s position. As with the autopsy doctors, Thompson questions whether the panel’s actions were malignant but in the end is willing to chalk it up to complicity. Many readers may disagree with this opinion after reading this section. The 2005 Ramsey Panel’s belated rebuttal in Science and Justice to Thomas’s original 2001 piece had flaws which gave Thomas the advantage. Thomas served up another rebuttal with, now author, Ralph Linsker lobbing back a final article in which he admits that valid crosstalk of the phrase “I’ll check it” could destroy their argument about the late timing of the shots.
Thompson, in his quest for final validation of the tape, then turned to the premier expert in the field, Dr. James Barger. Barger has impeccable academic credentials and is in every manner a gentleman and a scholar. His strong ethics and belief in his findings did not allow him to bow to pressure from others in the scientific community particularly from Alvarez. His intellectual talents are readily apparent in Appendix A. It is to Thompson’s credit that he brought such a genius on board. Barger and Mullen’s scientific work for this book served up the match winning ace for its authenticity. In somewhat technical but understandable terms, the author lays out how this analysis was performed. True to his nature, Barger did not want to directly perform the tests as it might appear biased so instead he had Dr. Richard Mullen perform them. Thompson describes the suspense he felt when Mullen presented his findings to them for the first time. One can feel his electric anticipation. It turned out that “I’ll check it” was a true example of crosstalk establishing its authenticity. Thompson felt not only vindication of its authenticity but also validation for the opinions of Wimp, Snyder, Fitzgerald, Thomas, and, of course, Barger, who were all supportive of his theory. Barger had cautioned the HSCA that any putative shots must be matched to visible reactions seen on the Zapruder film. Not only must the acoustics be applied to events on the film, but the events on the film must be applied to the acoustics. Thomas’s 2001 article was only a statistical analysis of the echolocation for an initial shot to the head from the front. This proposition had not been challenged by the real time events seen on the film or a full mathematical synchronization of this proposed shot to the others.
Previously it has been noted that there is another flare at 314, that Connally’s right wrist could not have been struck at 328 and that horizontal panning error at 313 could not have represented a startle reaction from a Grassy Knoll shot. In 1978, Barger had initially given his Grassy Knoll shot at 145.15 seconds a 50/50 probability. The logical solution to this conundrum is that Thompson was correct in 1967. Weiss and Aschkenasy did find a muzzle blast at 144.90 seconds, but their echolocation failed, and what they actually discovered was the muzzle blast for the first shot to the head from behind consistent with Puppe’s law, the first windshield flare and proper synchronization. Barger had initially and correctly identified the shot from the Grassy Knoll at 145.15 seconds. This second impact ejected the Delta fragment from an area of previously undisturbed skull at the top rear. Two closely timed shots, recorded ¼ second apart, accounted for the rapid forward and then backward motions of the head seen at 312/313 and 314/315. When these two closely recorded shots are considered, a faithful synchronization of film and tape can be, and has been, accomplished. Chapter 23 again reviews the issues and tests which led to establishing the tape’s authenticity and how good science has prevailed over bad science.
The final chapter will be a disappointment for those who had expectations that this book would provide the exact timing and origin of all the shots. Incontrovertible evidence of conspiracy is provided, however. The film of the assassination and now the authenticated soundtrack recorded as McLain’s motorcycle traveled through Dealey Plaza should have allowed a synch to be accomplished. A purported single shot from the Grassy Knoll recorded at W&A’s 144.90 seconds does not mathematically synchronize with any of the other shots which all synchronize with themselves. Confusion related to the presence of a phantom first shot causes an inability to locate the origin of any of the shots fired in the first volley. The fourth paragraph on page 352 states that the shot to Connally’s chest came from the Dallas County Records Building, but the previous paragraph stated that the acoustics indicated this shot was fired from the TSBD. A mathematical synchronization of the shots is not accomplished. To fully synchronize the tape and film, no one avenue of investigation, not even the acoustics, is immune to challenge from other disciplines and known facts. In this regard, I find the theory that JFK’s head was initially struck from the front untenable from numerous avenues. The book’s final determination of conspiracy is left to the evidence surrounding the final volley and the most critical observation of the second windshield flare at 329.
In many ways, this is an exceptional book. Thompson, through this work, with the assistance of Barger and Mullen, has provided a scientific basis for the authenticity of the DPD DictaBelt tape. He has brought to light one of the windshield flares only one second after the head wounds indicating an additional shot and indisputable evidence of conspiracy. We are treated to a historical life’s journey through the Kennedy assassination from its beginning continuing forward through today that readers will find both illuminating and entertaining. The scientific battle over the authenticity of the acoustic evidence and his efforts in its validation will surely be one of the hallmark moments in the history of the case and an epic victory for those who believe in true versus pseudoscience. Despite its flaws concerning the number and timing of the shots, Last Second in Dallas presents new incontrovertible evidence which demands a conclusion of conspiracy. It is highly recommended reading and should be regarded as a significant book in the history of the JFK assassination.
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James Moore, JFK, and QAnon
James Moore is the chief business commentator and a regular columnist for the British online newspaper The Independent. The day before Valentine’s Day, Moore penned an article called “JFK’s assassination greased the wheels for QAnon and Covid-Deniers.” This was the sub-title to this column:
The same type of thinking fuels the Kennedy conspiracy theories and the venomous fiction concocted by extreme right-wingers, that we see today. It needs to be laid to rest.
You have to wonder, did Moore crib his column from the piece that Steven Gillon wrote for the Washington Post? Gillon’s was published on the 57th anniversary of President Kennedy’s assassination and made much the same false equivalency argument that Moore does here. (Click here for my discussion of this)
Gillon was wrong on every point he made in his faux comparison. QAnon is not something that say, Mark Lane, would have gone within a mile of if he were alive. To compare the arguments in the two cases is simply bizarre. The initial critics of the Commission, like Mark Lane and Harold Weisberg, showed that, although the MSM accepted the Warren Commission’s work, they should not have. Because contrary to what reporters like Tom Pettit of NBC and Walter Cronkite of CBS trumpeted, the Commission had not proven its case that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman who killed President Kennedy. Yet, on the evening of the issuance of the Warren Report, both CBS and NBC, with those two reporters, stated to an unsuspecting public that the Commission had done just that.
So here is the question I would like to post to both Gillon and Moore: How did those two men read 888 pages of the Warren Report—which was not subject indexed—and put together a broadcast show in less than 24 hours? The answer is they could not have. These two programs were in production well before the report was even issued. Therefore, what the rational reader can conclude is that both CBS and NBC were leaked the Commission’s findings well in advance of publication. And they made some kind of implicit or explicit agreement not to challenge those findings in return for the information. In fact, at the end of the CBS program, Cronkite made the stunning statement that it would be hard to imagine that a more thorough inquiry could have been done.
In fact, it was even worse than that. For we later learned from film director Emile de Antonio and journalist Florence Graves that CBS instructed their on-camera witnesses to parrot the Commission’s conclusions. (Florence Graves, Washington Journalism Review, Sept/Oct, 1978) Documentary director de Antonio saw the outtakes from the 1964 CBS program. When a witness was asked where the shots in Dealey Plaza came from, and they replied with “the knoll area”, they were asked the question again. Only the take where the witness finally said, “the Texas School Book Depository” was shown to the public. De Antonio later told Graves, “The interviewer was more like a prosecuting attorney leading a witness to support the state’s case.” Graves found out that the CBS production was actually months in the making. (Click here for details)
I would like to ask Mr. Moore: Is this your idea of journalism? Would you go along with such an illicit and unethical scheme to endorse an official story for the British government? Would you instruct a witness to change his story on camera? Would you produce a program endorsing a report months before that report was even published? Because that is what happened with the Warren Report.
Recall, this was in the early period of the controversy. People like Weisberg were writing that the Commission had not proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt. It was way before the declassifications of the Assassinations Record Review Board (ARRB). What those declassifications revealed, and what authors like Gerald McKnight proved in Breach of Trust, was that there was no case against Oswald at all. The FBI, Secret Service, and CIA fed the Commission an incomplete and faulty record. The Commission accepted and published it. With the new information available after 1998, critics like McKnight, and several others, could finally prove the fraud in the Commission’s performance—to a legal standard.
Such is not the case with QAnon. That movement has little or nothing to do with investigatory data or a court room legal standard. QAnon was begun by an anonymous poster at the 4chan website in late 2017. That website was often characterized as being extremist and racist. Who the man who started it really was, we do not know. He claimed to be a high ranking military officer. This person announced that Hillary Clinton was going to be arrested. It was part of a scenario that depicted a grand battle going on: good vs evil. President Trump and his Pentagon advisors were working to take down a global alliance of Satan worshiping pedophiles. That alliance included politicians, Hollywood celebrities, and figures in the media.
According to QAnon, the battle will end with two great apocalyptic events. The first is The Storm, which will result in mass arrests of thousands of people; it will be a day of reckoning. The second event is the Great Awakening, the day everyone will realize that QAnon was correct. This will be the opening of a new utopian era. (Click here for details)
Many commentators believe that the birth of QAnon was preceded and perhaps derived from the whole Pizzagate imbroglio. That resulted in an attack on Comet Ping Pong Pizza in Washington DC by a man named Edgar Maddison Welch. This occurred in December of 2016. Welch had a rifle, a handgun, and a shotgun. That fruity incident was based on similar themes: namely that the Clinton campaign was running a child molestation ring right out of the basement of the pizza shop, which had no basement. Promoters of this bizarre scenario were Donald Trump backers like Alex Jones, Michael Flynn, and his son Michael Jr. The motivation probably being that it went after Hillary Clinton. Mr. Welch actually thought she was murdering children. (See Huffpost, story by Hayley Miller, 12/16/2016; Esquire 7/24/20, article by Michael Sebastian and Gabrielle Bruney)
There is no cognitive/intellectual relationship between what people like Mark Lane, Gerald McKnight, or Harold Weisberg did and Mr. Welch’s beliefs or what the backers of Pizzagate or QAnon do. The latter are mythological concepts. The former are based upon data and evidence. JFK writers can today demonstrate that the Commission was wrong on many key points. What can QAnon show? Another pizza shop with a child porn ring in the basement?
As I pointed out with Gillon’s rubbish, in its historical origins, again there is no relationship between QAnon/Pizzagate and critics of the Commission. The followers of the former stem from over a decade prior to Mark Lane’s Rush to Judgement. The QAnon troop are mostly successors to the anti-government, pro-gun, rightwing militia corps. It was these groups that helped create the John Birch Society and helped found its sister association, the Minutemen. From the election of Ronald Reagan, the GOP has drifted more and more to the right, especially during the Bill Clinton presidency. At that time, party leaders like Rush Limbaugh advocated for every conspiracy theory out there about the Clintons: Whitewater, Vince Foster, the Rose Law Firm. None of which two Republican special prosecutors could convict him over. I might also add that Limbaugh, in February of 2020, dismissed CV-19 as being as innocuous as the common cold. (Rolling Stone, 2/17/2021, article by Bob Moser) This intellectually unmoored, anything-goes attitude eventually allowed QAnon to spread into the modern elected GOP (e.g. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert). In my view, it was this anti-intellectual, ahistorical, politically packed attitude that led to the Insurrection of January 6, over another Limbaugh/Trump myth: a stolen election. As a consequence, eight people died—five were killed, three took their own lives. No such pattern exists for the critics of the Warren Commission, because the critical community is not fundamentally political and not based on a spurious, ethereal, ideological belief system.
This leads us to the key sentence in Moore’s screed. He writes that “The Kennedy conspiracy has become a respectable conspiracy theory. Almost.” The idea that Kennedy’s murder was caused by a conspiracy is today not a theory. It is a forensic fact. And because of the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB), we can show that in a number of ways with the so-called “hard evidence” (i.e. the ballistics and the autopsy). We can also demonstrate that previous inquiries were simply wrong in these aspects. And show why they are wrong.
Moore scores Oliver Stone’s 1991 film JFK on this point. He does so using a sleight of hand trick. He says that JFK posited a combination of nine different organizations that wanted Kennedy killed. He actually includes groups that, after about six viewings of the film, I still don’t see (e.g. pro-Castro Cubans, the Russians, Hoover’s FBI, and the Mafia). What the film really says is that a combination of the Power Elite and the military schemed to kill Kennedy over his policies in Vietnam and Cuba. Most of the other groups are mentioned in passing, or posited as a part of the cover up.
But Moore’s kind of trickery obscures the point of the film. The film was trying to show that, almost three decades later, we did not really know who killed Kennedy. As everyone recalls, except perhaps Moore, the end title card to the film said one reason for this was because the files of the HSCA were still classified over a decade after they closed shop. Why? This is a question that Moore does not want to deal with. Neither does he want to deal with what those files revealed once they were declassified. If he did, the problems with his lousy column would be exposed.
Moore writes something just as bad just a couple of sentences later. He actually states that there is really not much reason for questioning the JFK case. Why? Because the doubts are only “backed by little more than the feeling that one man simply couldn’t have, on his own, changed history as Oswald did.”
In other words, those 2 million pages of ARRB declassified documents, their inquiry into the medical evidence, the work of scientists and physicians like Dave Mantik, Cyril Wecht, Randy Robertson, Mike Chesser, and Gary Aguilar, all of this new writing, evidence, and analysis amounts to a feeling?
Moore then doubles down. He now says that with all the declassifications, plus the studies by ballistics experts and physicists, all of these have concluded that the fatal bullet came from Oswald, which exposes him as a charlatan. Does Moore not know that Vincent Guinn’s Neutron Activation Analysis—the test that the HSCA relied upon to seal its case against Oswald—has now been exposed as “junk science”? (Journal of Forensic Sciences, July 2006, pp. 717–28) How about ballistics? Gary Aguilar, Tink Thompson, and John Hunt have shown that the Magic Bullet, CE 399—the Commission’s keystone of their case against Oswald—has no chain of custody to it. Thus, it would blow up in a prosecutor’s face at trial. (The Assassinations, edited by James DiEugenio and Lisa Pease, pp.282–84; and click here) This lack of knowledge further exposes Moore as indulging in ignorant quackery.
Yet, near the end of Moore’s Comedy of Errors, he again says that both the JFK case and QAnon lead people down the same rabbit hole. Not so. With QAnon, there is no end to the rabbit hole; since it is at best a myth, at worst a hoax. In the JFK case, by following the best that has been written of late, one can find some definite evidentiary conclusions. Moore is either unaware of them or does not want to mention them, since it would blow up his column.
The column ends the only way it could. Moore endorses Gerald Posner’s “exhaustively researched” book Case Closed. Well, if one wants to read what was essentially a rerun of the Warren Report, fine. But the remarkable thing about that book is that it was written before the creation of the Review Board. So how could it be “exhaustively researched”? The major part of Posner’s footnotes relied on the volumes of the Warren Commission. Meaning it could have been written in 1965 or ’66. Posner endorsed the Single Bullet Fantasy, which we know today did not happen. (Click here for details) We also know that there is a problem with the interviews Posner did. Some of the people who he says he interviewed do not recall talking to him. (Probe Magazine Vol. 5 No. 5, p. 14)
Further, in the original edition of Case Closed, Posner wrote that there was no credible evidence that Oswald knew David Ferrie, a major character in the film JFK. (See p. 148) In fact, Ferrie had told the FBI he did not recall Oswald. (Commission Document 75, p. 286) Within weeks of the publication of that book, PBS Frontline produced a photo of the two men standing together at a Civil Air Patrol barbecue. In the declassified files of the HSCA, there was further evidence via affidavits of CAP members who recalled the rightwing, CIA associated Ferrie with the alleged communist Oswald at meetings. (Op. CIt. Probe Magazine, pp. 15–16)
To top it off, we now know through at last three sources that, within days of the assassination, Ferrie was visiting and calling people to recover evidence that linked him to Oswald. (Ibid, p. 17) This included both his library card and the above-mentioned picture. In other words, far from not knowing Oswald, Ferrie was involved in the act of obstruction of justice in order not to incriminate himself in perjury. This is a rabbit hole?
So much for Mr. Posner. And also Mr. Moore.
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Fred Litwin, On the Trail of Delusion – Part Three
As I have noted throughout, Litwin’s continual reliance on some of the most dubious-in some cases, scurrilous-sources in the literature seems to indicate what his objective was. Hugh Aynesworth has admitted his goal has always been to deny a conspiracy in the JFK case. (Click here for details) As one can see from that linked article, he openly threatened the Warren Commission in order to intimidate them into a lone gunman conclusion. This was months before the Commission’s 26 volumes of evidence were published!
Hugh wanted the Commission to portray Oswald as a homicidal maniac who was going to kill Richard Nixon. Through his friend and colleague Holland McCombs at Time-Life he learned about Garrison’s inquiry. As one can see, from the beginning, he secretly plotted to thwart the DA. He also became an FBI informant. We previously saw how he attempted to tamper with Clinton/Jackson witness John Manchester. Shaw’s lead lawyer, Irvin Dymond was very appreciative of the huge amount of work Aynesworth did for his client, which went as far as eliminating troublesome aspects to the point they did not surface at the trial.(Columbia Journalism Review, Spring 1969, pp. 38–41) In light of this sorry record, Litwin calls him a “great reporter”. That comment says much more about Litwin than it does the FBI informant who did not want his name revealed to the public.
Another Litwin source is Harry Connick Sr. Litwin features a picture of Connick in the Introduction to his book and says he was a source for how Jim Garrison operated as a DA. That is as far as the description goes. As with Aynesworth, its what Litwin leaves out that covers both his and Connick’s tail.
In 1973, in a close election, Harry Connick defeated Jim Garrison for DA. Over time, under Connick, New Orleans became “the city with the highest murder per capita ratio in the US.” (Probe Magazine Vol. 2 No. 5) But that’s not all. Gary Raymond, an investigator on his staff, was asked to check into the case of a local priest suspected of sodomizing children and young adults. Gary did so, and he accumulated evidence, including tapes and affidavits. The investigator recommended Connick prosecute the case. But nothing happened. Meanwhile Gary encountered one of the kids on the tapes. He asked him if he wanted to go on the record. The victim replied that his abuser had threatened his life. Raymond now wrote a three page memo outlining the case. This angered Connick because it created a paper trail. Raymond then encountered the DA at a St. Patrick’s day parade and asked him when the perpetrator would be indicted. Connick placed his finger in Gary’s chest and said, “He won’t be. Not as long as I am the DA. And you can’t do a thing about it.” Raymond had no choice but to go to the press. This began a series on what became the infamous Father Dino Cinel child abuse scandal. (Ibid, based on personal interview with Raymond)
For obvious reasons, as mentioned throughout, one would think that this sorry episode would be mentioned by the author. As with John McCloy’s failure to intercede with the Nazi extermination program against the Jews of Eastern Europe, you will not find it in the book.
But that’s not all. Connick was reproached by the US Supreme Court twice for violations of the Brady rule. (NY Times editorial of 2/16/2015; Slate, 4/1/2015, article by Dahia Lithwick) That rule maintains that the DA’s office must turn over any exculpatory materials it has to the defense. The cases were Connick vs. Thompson, and Smith vs Cain. (Click here for details) In the first case, the exculpatory material resulted in the defendant’s eventual acquittal. The ethical abuse in the second case was so bad that the conviction was reversed. Connick’s excuse for sending innocent people to prison for life was, “I stopped reading law books …when I became the DA.”
This record, and the fact that Connick served as the Washington liaison to the Shaw trial, is rather consistent. Because once he was in office, he went to work setting aflame the evidence Garrison had left behind. That is not figurative language. He carted it to the incinerator. When someone protested, Connick’s reply was “Burn this sonofabitch and burn it today.” (Op. Cit, Probe Magazine) Make no mistake, Connick literally wanted every single file left on the Kennedy case torched. This reviewer is certain of that. For when he visited Connick in 1994, the DA was shown an index to a file cabinet in his office made by the HSCA. Connick called in an assistant to check if it was still there. When he was told it was, his face took on a look of surprise and he said, “We still have that stuff?” Harry Connick is a major reason we have such an incomplete record of the Jim Garrison investigation into the JFK assassination. The excision of these key factors is another instance of Litwin’s plastic surgery practices.
I don’t know what is worse: if Litwin was ignorant of all the above, or if he knew it and decided not to tell the reader about it. In either case, Connick is in no position to tell any DA how to operate his office.
II
With that firmly established, the third part of the book deals with the HSCA, Oliver Stone, Permindex, and people like this reviewer. That is people who have written newer books on the Clay Shaw inquiry.
Litwin’s chapter on the HSCA is so sketchy that its almost embarrassing. For instance, he writes that the HSCA forensic pathology panel wrote that Kennedy was shot from behind. (Litwin, p. 238) Gary Aguilar, among others, has shown that this was again achieved by the HSCA classifying key information that indicated the contrary. As he has written, “…the HSCA misrepresented the statements of its own Bethesda autopsy witnesses on the location of JFK’s skull defect.” (Trauma Room One, by Charles Crenshaw, p. 209) In other words, with the information now declassified, both sets of witnesses-those who saw Kennedy’s body in Dallas, and those who examined it at Bethesda-were on the record as depicting a rather large blown out hole in the rear of Kennedy’s skull, strongly indicating a shot from the front. What makes this worse is that when Gary did some questioning of who was responsible for writing the contrary in the HSCA report, no one would admit to it. (HSCA Vol. 7, p. 37) This would include Chief Counsel Robert Blakey, the lead medical investigator Andy Purdy, and the chair of the pathology panel Michael Baden. (Aguilar interview for the documentary, JFK: Destiny Betrayed)
After slipping on this banana peel, Litwin now goes ahead and depicts the association of Garrison with the HSCA. He tries to impute this relationship as beginning under Blakey. Which shows he never interviewed Bob Tanenbaum, who was the first Kennedy Deputy Chief Counsel. Tanenbaum is still alive and talks to people on the phone about the JFK case. Apparently, Litwin did not think that step was historically important. This reviewer has talked to Tanenbaum many times. He was the one who approved the HSCA inquiry into New Orleans. It was he who assigned Jon Blackmer as the lead lawyer and Larry Delsa as the investigator. Delsa then recommended Bob Buras, another police detective, as his partner. They then decided to consult with Garrison, who shared what he had in his remaindered files with this team.
In this chapter, Litwin trots out an old chestnut originated by Jim Phelan many years ago and repeated by Patricia Lambert. Namely that Bertrand’s name was implanted into Perry Russo under truth serum. What Shaw’s defense had done—and Phelan was a part of that team—was mislabel the order of the sodium pentothal sessions. As Lisa Pease noted, when read in their proper order, it’s very clear that it was Russo who brought up the name of Bertrand on his own. (Probe Magazine, Vol. 6 No. 5) This reviewer has shown these transcripts to other researchers from other fields, and once shown them, they agree. (See DiEugenio, p. 413, footnote, 116)
Litwin concludes this chapter by using a book later written by Blakey and Billings to score Garrison. (Litwin p. 251) In other words, he passes over the origins of the HSCA New Orleans inquiry, skips over Tanenbaum, and then jumps to a “Mafia did it” book-without telling the reader it’s a Mafia did it book. Or that, in 1981, the original title of the volume was The Plot to Kill the President. If you talk to Blakey today he will tell you that there was a second shot from the front of Kennedy. This reviewer knows this since he was in email contact with him while proofreading American Values by Bobby Kennedy Jr.
In the updated 1992 version of the 1981 book, renamed Fatal Hour, Billings refers to an episode Garrison described in On the Trail of the Assassins. This depicted Billings, the Life reporter who had gone on the famous Pawley/Bayo raid to Cuba, questioning the DA about an organized crime figure in Covington. (Garrison, pp. 163–64) Garrison questioned people in his office and they did not know who the man was. Billings used this lack of knowledge as an excuse to portray Garrison as a lax crimefighter. When Fatal Hour came out, this was now revised to say the name Billings gave Garrison was Carlos Marcello. We are to assume then that somehow Garrison had never heard of Marcello. In the files released by the ARRB, this reviewer found Garrison’s notes to this conversation. The name was not Marcello, not even close. (Personal files given to Bill Davy for an update to his book)
What this points out is an utterly crucial issue: the sea change that took place with the HSCA after the first Chief Counsel, Dick Sprague, had been forced out. Litwin avoids this entire episode pretty much completely. Sprague and Tanenbaum were going to run a genuine homicide investigation. And both men were very experienced doing that: Sprague in Philadelphia and Tanenbaum in New York. As did Garrison, they both had quite positive records in court. (DiEugenio, pp. 173, 326) Respectively, neither the CIA, nor the FBI wanted this kind of real criminal inquiry into either the JFK case or the murder of Martin Luther King. (Personal interview with congressman Tom Downing, 1993, in Newport News) Therefore the MSM created a faux controversy over Sprague, and he was forced out in rather short order. Tanenbaum became the acting Chief Counsel.
But the problem was, after what happened to Sprague, no one wanted the job. Sprague’s forced resignation was clearly meant as a warning shot. Or as HSCA photographic consultant Chris Sharrett said to me, “It was Garrison all over again.” (DiEugenio and Pease, p. 59) As Chief of Homicide in New York, Tanenbaum said he understood how false the Warren Report was; and he had been alerted to this first by Senator Richard Schweiker who had worked on the Church Committee. (Speech by Tanenbaum, at Chicago Midwest Symposium in 1993) The three leaders of the first phase of the Kennedy side of the HSCA-Sprague, Tanenbaum and Al Lewis-were all experienced criminal attorneys. None of them bought the Warren Report. With his background as a DA, when Lewis inspected the autopsy materials in the JFK case, he was shocked. (DiEugenio and Pease, p. 57)
Dick Billings was not a criminal lawyer. Yet he helped write the Final Report of the HSCA concerning the JFK inquiry. In and of itself, that helps the reader understand what happened to that committee. This is the story that Litwin, almost by necessity, excludes from his book. Namely that Schweiker, Sprague, Tanenbaum, and Lewis were all on the same page. Garrison was correct, the JFK case was a conspiracy, we are now going to solve it. In fact, Schweiker told Tanenbaum that the CIA was involved in the assassination. (2019 interview with Tanenbaum by Oliver Stone and Jim DiEugenio) And, like Garrison, that effort was crushed. You won’t be able to unfold that rather sad saga if you don’t talk to anyone involved. And you certainly won’t find it in the papers of Sylvia Meagher or Patricia Lambert.
III
Litwin spends about 30 pages on the making of Oliver Stone’s film JFK. Again, I looked in his references for indications that he talked to anyone of importance in the making of the film. That is Oliver Stone, co-screenwriter Zach Sklar, any of the co-producers, or even an important consultant like John Newman. There was no evidence he did.
Litwin begins with the writing of Garrison’s book, the early drafts that eventually became On the Trail of the Assassins. He tells the shopworn story of how Sylvia Meagher was hired by a major book publisher to proof Garrison’s original manuscript for publication. She thought it was a worthy effort, but she then objected to his tenet that the motorcade route was changed. This formed a big part of the rejection of Garrison’s book by that publisher. (Litwin, pp. 259–60) As her lifelong fan, the late Jerry Policoff said, due to her innate bias, Sylvia should have never been handed that assignment. But once handed it, she should have never accepted it. (Click here for details)
Through the valuable work of Vince Palamara, we know today that Garrison was correct on this and Meagher was wrong. The motorcade route was altered. (Vince Palamara, Survivor’s Guilt, pp. 98–108) In fact, the Commission witness who Sylvia used to criticize Garrison, Forrest Sorrels, was one of the two men involved with the change—the other being Winston Lawson. It was then Lawson who stripped back the number of motorcycles riding in the motorcade, especially those bracketing either side. Further, the police were told to ride to the rear of the car. They were puzzled at this direction which was given to them at Love Field. (Palamara, pp. 131–38) As a result of Palamara’s work, the best one can say today about the Secret Service and their performance in Dallas is that it was extremely negligent. As time goes on, it more and more appears that Meagher’s expertise on the case was confined to the textual analysis of the Commission volumes
Getting to Stone’s film itself, taking out his dog whistle, Litwin calls it a depiction of a homosexual conspiracy. (Litwin, p. 254) Which, again I think is a bizarre statement. Because, after watching the film several times, I don’t see it as that. The plot that I see is based on a military and Power Elite objection to Kennedy’s policies in Vietnam and Cuba, in that order. And, in everything I have seen or read, Shaw and Ferrie were not concerned about Indochina. In fact, this is what Garrison thought. He also believed that what he had uncovered, topped by Guy Banister, was only the local New Orleans level of the plot. In a documentary first broadcast on Pacifica radio in 1988, he said as much. He added that the character he thought was the main hand behind it all was Allen Dulles.
Litwin must understand this because now he goes after the Stone/Garrison portrait of Kennedy not being a Cold Warrior. But not even that is enough. If the reader can believe it—and you sure as heck can by now—Litwin also says that Lyndon Johnson continued Kennedy’s policy in Vietnam! (Litwin, pp. 270–71) I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at this. But, since it was Litwin, I chuckled. The idea that Kennedy was withdrawing from Vietnam at the time of his death was announced, not just by Oliver Stone, but back in 1997 by the New York Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer. Both papers had headlines on this ARRB created story: The former said “Kennedy Had a Plan for early exit in Vietnam.” The latter was “Papers support theory that Kennedy had plans for Vietnam pullout.” (Probe Magazine, Vol. 5, No. 3)
The occasion for this confirmation of the thesis supplied to Oliver Stone by Fletcher Prouty and John Newman was the declassification of the records of the May 1963, SecDef conference. At this meeting in Hawaii, all arms of the American presence in Vietnam-military, CIA, State-offered their withdrawal schedules to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who had previously requested them. When he had them in hand, he looked them over. He then looked up and said the schedules were too slow, they had to be speeded up. Kennedy had taken John Kenneth Galbraith’s advice and decided to leave Indochina. (Click here for details)
But what we have today is even stronger than that. Because again, through the ARRB, we now have Johnson’s opposition to JFK and McNamara: In his own words on tape. (Tape of 2/20/64 phone call):
I always thought it was foolish for you to make any statement about withdrawing. I thought it was bad psychologically. But you and the president thought otherwise, and I just sat silent.
It then got worse for McNamara. Two weeks later, Johnson requested that McNamara take back what he said about a thousand man withdrawal plan in December of 1963 as being part of a complete withdrawal by the end of 1965. (Virtual JFK by James Blight, p. 310) I could go on, because it gets even worse. But the point is made. Not only did LBJ know he was breaking with Kennedy, he was trying to cover his tracks in doing so. That is, as lawyers term it, consciousness of guilt. Again, if Litwin did not know this, then he should not be writing about it. If he did know this and he deliberately concealed it then it points to the kind of writer he is and the quality of his book.
But ignoring this new evidence on Indochina is not enough for Litwin. Again, in defiance of the new work on Kennedy, he tries to say JFK was a Cold Warrior. This is as untenable as there being no breakage in policy on Vietnam. What Kennedy was trying to do in his overall foreign policy was get back to FDR: a modus vivendi with the Soviets and a policy of neutralism in the Third World. The newest research on this subject, by Robert Rakove, Greg Poulgrain and Philip Muehlenbeck has redrawn the map on this point. It has been done so effectively that this reviewer is now convinced that the attempt to cloud that particular issue was done more deliberately than the actual cover up of Kennedy’s assassination. (Click here and here and here for details) The last instance, Johnson changing policies in Indonesia, was proclaimed by Roger Hilsman back in 1967. (To Move A Nation, p. 409) Hilsman resigned the State Department over that alteration and Johnson’s escalation of the Vietnam War. We are supposed to think that Litwin was unaware of all this.
IV
Taking his lead from the late Robert Sam Anson’s hoary article for Esquire, printed back in November of 1991, Litwin goes ahead and assails Fletcher Prouty on just about every score that Anson, and later Edward Epstein, could think of. Including the ridiculous accusation that Prouty did not know that Leonard Lewin’s The Report from Iron Mountain was meant as a satire. With the help of Len Osanic, I have addressed all of these goofy charges as made by Epstein. (Click here and go to the last section for details)
Prouty was involved in the drafting of the McNamara/Taylor report in Washington. This was the plan that Kennedy was going to use to justify his withdrawal from Vietnam. Prouty’s revelations about this are bolstered by Howard Jones’ book, Death of a Generation. Except Jones states that this was done before the trip to Saigon. Jones writes that the departing party received large binders of material as they boarded the plane, “including a draft of the report they were to write afterward.” (Jones, p. 370) That material included the conclusions they were to present the president, along with statistics. This is a key piece of information. (My thanks to Paul Jolliffe for pointing this out to me.) Needless to say, Litwin does not list any of the new books about the issue of Kennedy, Johnson and Vietnam—either in his bibliography or his references. This makes sense since they rely on new documents and new interviews to further the case originally made by Prouty, Newman and Stone.
Litwin also uses Fletcher’s interview with the ARRB against him. (Litwin, pp. 271-72) He could have easily called Len Osanic about this matter. Osanic is the web master of the best Prouty web site there is. He knew Fletcher as well as anyone. He visited him at his home in Alexandria, Virginia. When I asked him about the perceived problems the ARRB had with Prouty, he informed me of the full context. (Click here for details) Fletcher had been interviewed by both the Rockefeller Commission and the Church Committee. He was not happy with either experience. In his interview with the former, dated May 5, 1975, its odd that when Prouty started getting into matters dealing with the CIA, the interviewer wanted to go off the record. (See page four of the interview)
When Fletcher went in for his pre-interview with the House Select Committee, he was rather surprised. The reason being that George Joannides was there. And it appeared that he was actually taking part in the investigation. Prouty was one of the few people who instantly understood what this meant. He decided he was only going to give a brief statement and not do the interview.
Which brings us to the ARRB appearance that Litwin likes to use against the man. Prouty understood from the first couple of questions what the agenda was. So he decided to play along and give them what they wanted. He then called Len and informed him about it. Let us just discuss two issues. The first will be the whole trip to the South Pole as depicted in the film JFK. The unusual aspect about that was that Ed Lansdale was the officer who sent in his name for the mission. Lansdale was not his commanding officer. That was Victor Krulak. So why did Lansdale offer his name?
The other point is about the lack of military protection for Kennedy in Dallas. When asked by the ARRB if he had any notes on this, Fletcher said he did not. (See page 6 of the ARRB summary of the interview) Fletcher did have the notes of the call. And Len Osanic has seen them. Prouty’s informant said that, as late as January 1964, when he reported to the 316th Field Detachment—which was very close to the 112th Military Intelligence Group in San Antonio—there were still arguments between the two commanders about why they were not detached to go to Dallas. (ARRB interview with Col. Bill McKinney 5/2/97) Especially since some of the officers there had been trained in presidential protection at Fort Holabird. McKinney called Prouty about it since Fletcher would likely have arranged the air transportation for the unit. After all, it’s a four drive from San Antonio to Dallas. Also, after the film was released, a daughter of one of the high level officers called Len. She told him that, over the assassination weekend, there was an argument at her home over this particular issue. Namely why there was no military protection forwarded to Dallas. (Interview with Osanic, 2/6/2021)
Fletcher Prouty was vividly played by Donald Sutherland in the film JFK. During that walk he took from the Lincoln Memorial with Costner/Garrison, for the first time, the American public was given loads of information about what the CIA was doing for decades in the name of spreading democracy abroad. It turned out they were not spreading democracy. They were actually overthrowing democratically elected republics e.g. Iran, Guatemala and Congo. And in the case of Congo, planning assassination plots. This information was all communicated with exceptional cinematic skill. The Powers That Be did not like the fact that Fletcher-an inside the beltway officer-was partaking in such an exercise. And not only was he telling the public that he knew Kennedy was exiting Vietnam, but he had worked on the plans. All one has to know about how valuable he was to the disclosure of the secret government is that James McCord despised him.
When Fletcher Prouty passed away, he was given full military honors. This included a band with a bugler playing Taps, a 21 gun salute, his body carried to chapel by caisson, and the flag folded up into a triangle and given to his widow. Like Kennedy, he was buried at Arlington. We are all lucky that a man with that standing gave so many insights to the general public. Because no one else at that level ever did.
V
Litwin’s book is designed to conceal who Clay Shaw really was. Therefore he does something I have never seen anyone do before; I don’t even recall Gerald Posner doing it. Right in front of the reader’s eyes he changes the spelling of a word—contract to contact—in a long hidden CIA document. He then alters the wording, concerning Shaw’s payments, to make it read as he wishes. (Litwin, p. 289) In other words, J. Kenneth McDonald, the Chief of the CIA’s History Staff, was writing a memo to CIA Director Robert Gates, and with the file in front of him, somehow he got it wrong—but Litwin got it right? (CIA Memorandum of 2/10/1992)
But it’s worse than that. What Litwin does not tell the reader is that the CIA was so desperate to hide their association with Shaw that, as previously mentioned, they tampered with his file. Bill Davy first discovered this, and then Manuel Legaspi of the ARRB confirmed it and furthered it. (Legaspi to Jeremy Gunn, 11/14/1996; Davy, p. 200) So from what is left of the CIA records we know that Shaw was a highly paid contract agent and he had a covert security clearance for Project QKENCHANT. (For the latter, see Davy, p. 195) All of this discovery has been made possible by the ARRB. In a letter from Gordon Novel to Mary Ferrell in 1977, he revealed that the CIA had been trying to cover up their relationship with Shaw for well over a decade. (Personal Files sent to Bill Davy)
Another of Shaw’s CIA associations is with the mysterious European entity, CMC/Permindex. This was first revealed back in the sixties, and Shaw actually admitted to it for his entry in Who’s Who in the Southwest for 1963–64. Yet, that was Shaw’s last entry in that rather illustrious series. For whatever reason, his name does not appear after the 1963-1964 edition.
As most people know, when this organization was announced in 1956 in Switzerland, it was later booted out of the country due to a crescendo of negative newspaper articles. One of the reasons for the adverse reception was the attempt to conceal the main financial backing of the project. The State Department intervened and did some investigatory work. They found out that the true principal funding was through J. Henry Schroder’s, a bank that was closely associated with Allen Dulles and the CIA. In fact, Dulles had worked for the bank as General Counsel. (Davy, pp. 96–97) As Maurice Philipps has revealed, Ferenc Nagy, one of the key organizers of the enterprise, was a cleared CIA source and his file contained several references to his association with the World Trade Center, that is Centro Mondial Commerciale, the parent for Permindex. (Click here for details)
The project stalled, but the State Department kept up its inquiry, now referring to it as the Permindex “scheme”. John Foster Dulles knew about the “scheme” and made no objections to it. (Michele Metta, CMC: The Italian Undercover CIA and Mossad Station, p. 114) In 1958, State now said that the model for the company was the New Orleans International Trade Mart. Further, that Shaw had shown interest in the project. (Cables of April 9, July 18, 1958) The enterprise then moved to Rome. Litwin makes reference to a 1959 CIA document saying that Nagy offered to place a CIA agent on the staff. He then says that since Shaw joined the board in 1958, the dates do not match. (Litwin, p. 293) First, placing someone on the staff is not the same as a member of the Board, and I have a hard time believing Litwin does not understand this. Secondly, we don’t know from the document when Nagy first wrote the CIA about the employment offer.
Phillips made two groundbreaking discoveries. First, as already mentioned, about Nagy and the CIA. Secondly by going through the Louis Bloomfield archives in Canada, he found out that corporate lawyer Bloomfield served as a legal representative of the company and was soliciting funds for Permindex. What made that even more fascinating was, in doing so, he was in contact with the wealthiest families in the world at that time e.g. the Rockefellers and the Rothschilds. None of this had been previously disclosed.
When one adds in the work of Michele Metta, then the mix gets more bracing. Let me say this upfront: in my opinion, Metta’s book is one of the finest pieces of work I have ever read in English on the Italian political scene of the sixties and seventies. Metta discovered that Gershon Peres was on the Board of Permindex from 1967-70. (Metta, p.114; see also article by Paz Marverde, at Medium, 12/12/17) Peres was the brother of Shimon Peres, on and off the Prime Minister of Israel for three years, and then president of Israel from 2007-14. In what is probably the only positive contribution by Litwin in his entire book, he appears to clear Permindex member George Mandel of being in the Jewish refugee racket. (Litwin, pp. 295–97) The problem with this is that Metta shows that Mandel was working with the Israeli spy service for years and years. (Metta, p. 114)
I cannot begin to summarize all the quite relevant material in Metta’s book. But perhaps the most important, at least to me, is that another CMC member was instrumental in the rise of Licio Gelli, the infamous leader of the utterly fascist Propaganda Due (P2) lodge. But further, CMC and P2 shared the same office space! (Metta, p. 120, see also Marverde) Suffice it to say that with these kinds of revelations, Philip Willan, an expert on Operation Gladio, now entertains the possibility that P2 and Permindex may have been a part of that concealed “stay behind” NATO network. Which puts it above the level of the CIA.
How does Litwin counter these powerful revelations? First, he barely mentions Metta’s book. Second, he uses Max Holland’s article in Daily Beast to say that, somehow, the Permindex story was all part of a KGB propaganda plot, issued through communist leaning papers in Italy. Holland’s article was published at the height of Russiagate mania, which has now been exposed as being, to put it mildly, a false alarm, to put it bluntly, a hoax. Holland swam right into that wave. Secondly, nothing I have referred to above relies on that material. Obviously, Phillips did not. Metta’s book is well documented and in his discoveries about CMC, are largely original research. Third, the underlying basis for Holland is the Mitrokhin archives. The well paid Russian defector has turned out to be, well, kind of unreliable. Especially on the JFK case. (Click here for details)
The other way Litwin tries to distract from all of this is by picking up his second dog whistle. His first is homophobia; his second is anti-Semitism. Because Bloomfield was Jewish, he uses that to play the anti-Semite card. I was nauseated at Litwin’s shameless hypocrisy. As I noted in the very first part of this series, what John McCloy did on the Jewish/Nazi issue during and after World War II was unfathomable. Somehow, Litwin did not find any of that even notable. Just as Jim Garrison never said anything about Shaw being a homosexual during the two years of that being a live case, Garrison has never written anything about Bloomfield being Jewish. And although Litwin writes that Bloomfield was not in the OSS, John Kowalski, who has been through the Bloomfield archives, says he did see letters between the legendary World War II Canadian/British intelligence officer William Stephenson and Bloomfield.
VI
The last chapter of the book is entitled “Conclusion: The Attempt to Rehabilitate Jim Garrison”. Here, Litwin groups Bill Davy, Joan Mellen and myself under one rubric in order to belittle and attack respectively, Let Justice be Done (1995), A Farewell to Justice (2005) and Destiny Betrayed, Second Edition (2012).
First he says the three books are incestuous. My book has over 2000 footnotes to it. Less than 2% of the references are to Bill Davy’s prior book. And even less than that are to Mellen’s A Farewell to Justice. The Davy book has about 650 references to it, evens less of his notes apply to my work in any form e.g. including essays I wrote for publication in various journals, particularly Probe Magazine. It’s preposterous to do that same comparison to Mellen’s book. For the simple reason that she employed the superb archives researcher Peter Vea, who was the Malcolm Blunt of his day. Therefore the figures for her are even smaller.
What Litwin is trying to avoid is this: the three books are based on research, data and facts that became newly available through the ARRB. And how that unprecedented event led to more searches through phone and personal interviews, field investigation, and materials mining at other centers e.g. the AARC. This combined effort, by many more people than he lists, resulted in a plethora of new information on New Orleans. Enough to pen three books clocking in at about a thousand pages.
Therefore, the idea of “rehabilitation” is demonstrably false. What these volumes do is redefine New Orleans, Garrison’s inquiry and its suspects. To the point that they have made books like Kirkwood’s look like a museum exhibit. And it’s not just those three works. For instance, my book uses John Newman’s Oswald and the CIA, which has important new material in it on New Orleans. It also uses Joe Biles’ work, In History’s Shadow, which did much to reopen the case of Kerry Thornley. In this particular review, I have utilized Michele Metta’s volume, which takes a quantum leap forward with Permindex/CMC. One of the main sources for my book was Probe Magazine, which I used far more than Bill Davy or Joan Mellen. That journal did many articles based upon new archival materials about New Orleans. I could go on, but my point is that Litwin’s attempt to narrow the field is simply not an accurate description as to how the database has been altered geometrically and exponentially on the subject.
His attempt to characterize the three books as being similar in subject and theme is also inaccurate. Let Justice be Done is narrowly focused on New Orleans and Clay Shaw. So when Litwin writes that all three deal with ending the Cold War, withdrawing from Vietnam and Kennedy ushering in “a new era of peace and prosperity”, that simply does not apply to the text of Davy’s book. (Litwin, p. 311, not numbered) It only relates to the Afterword by a different author, Robert Spiegelman. It was not part of Davy’s research, themes or his ultimate aim. Mellen’s book only deals with the subject of JFK and his policies in one half of one chapter (See Chapter 11) My book is the only one that assays this topic at any length or detail. But the concept that Lyndon Johnson drastically altered Kennedy’s foreign policy is today an established fact. And Litwin can only deny it by not mentioning scholars like Robert Rakove, Greg Poulgrain, Philip Muehlenbeck, Richard Mahoney, Brad Simpson, Gordon Goldstein, David Kaiser, and James Blight—among others. Again, if he knew of this work and did not tell the reader about it, then he is not being forthright. If he didn’t know, then he should not be writing about it.
In this final chapter, he also tries to deny, as he does throughout the book, that Shaw was Bertrand. As I have shown in the last installment, there is nothing to argue on this point anymore: Shaw was Bertrand. This is a fact. And in all probability Shaw’s defense team knew it. As we have seen, former FBI agent Aaron Kohn later made up one of his fables for the HSCA in order to disguise it. If the Bureau had been aiding Garrison, Shaw would have been decimated on the stand over this.
In quoting Jon Blackmer’s memo on his interview with Garrison about Shaw being a part of the conspiracy or a “cut out” to the plot, he writes that I did not place it in its proper context. He then adds that it’s not a part of the HSCA Final Report. (Litwin, p. 318)
This is another Litwin effort at a shell game. What I write about Blackmer’s memo is simple and straightforward, but it’s not part of Litwin’s agenda. And it explains why Blackmer’s work is not only absent from the Final Report, but why he was then absent from New Orleans. What I wrote is that Jon Blackmer did not matter once the leadership of the HSCA changed. (DiEugenio, p. 332) And anyone who knows this case understands that. As Gaeton Fonzi has written, once Sprague and Tanenbaum were gone, the focus shifted from the Cuban exiles and the CIA, to the Mafia. In fact, as Wallace Milam informed me back in the nineties, Blackmer was shifted out of New Orleans and his name was on a couple of autopsy memoranda. As Joan Mellen discovered when she approached him, Blackmer would not talk about his HSCA experience with her. Try and find any of this important material in Litwin’s book.
Another part of the story that Litwin wants to eliminate in this chapter is the massive interference with Garrison’s inquiry. To show how desperate he is, in the part of my book that deals with Louis Gurvich and his work for the CIA, he says I was writing about his brother, William. He then says my source was a JFK critic and he talked to Gurvich’s niece. (Litwin, p. 318) Again, these are both wrong. My source was a military veteran and he did not say he talked to Gurvich’s niece, and neither do I. (DiEugenio, p. 331) He then says there is no evidence that Gordon Novel was being used by Allen Dulles to spy on Garrison’s office. Anyone can read the sources I use for this in my book. One of them is Novel’s own deposition for his lawsuit against Playboy magazine. There he mentioned his many and long conversations with Allen Dulles. In that sworn deposition he also admitted he communicated by telegram with Richard Helms. (DiEugenio, p. 429) In my footnotes, I also source a police interview in which Gordon admitted he stole pieces of evidence from Garrison’s office.
Litwin also writes that the CIA did nothing to interfere with Garrison’s inquiry. (Litwin, p. 321) In my book I go into detail with declassified documents showing how the Agency planned and executed this interference. (DiEugenio, pp. 269–78)
Litwin has to do this because this massive interference-which came on the instructions of no less than Richard Helms-would suggest the Agency was worried about what Garrison would turn up to incriminate them. (DiEugenio, p. 270) I describe how the CIA then prevented subpoenas from being honored; they directed witnesses against Shaw be talked out of their stories; and how Bob Tanenbaum saw documents from Helms’ office that directed Garrison’s witnesses be surveilled and harassed. Which they were. (DiEugenio, pp. 271–98, 294)
Incredibly, Litwin tries to say that Shaw’s lawyers got no cooperation from either the CIA or the FBI. Perhaps Litwin did not know about the Angleton’s office “black tape” operation, revealed here for the first time. He he also leaves out the fact that Shaw’s lead lawyer, Irvin Dymond, met with the CIA station chief in New Orleans with approval from CIA HQ. (DiEugenio, p. 277) This was apparently done because in the fall of 1967 Ray Rocca, Jim Angleton’s point man on Garrison, predicted that Shaw would be convicted if all proceeded as it was. (DiEugenio, p. 270) After Dymond’s meeting, the CIA sent out memos about how they were now committed to this effort and task forces would be set up, including tasks to be done by the local New Orleans office. (DiEugenio, p. 277) The FBI joined in this by the aforementioned wiretapping of Garrison’s office. And on the eve of the Shaw trial they agreed to help the defense (DiEugenio, p.293) This covert aid is something that Shaw’s lawyers would not admit to. I know because Irvin Dymond lied to me about it in his office in 1994.
The way that Litwin frantically dodges this issue reminded of the old adage: if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, did it fall? Yes it did. And Litwin can deny it all he wants. But its right there for anyone with eyes and ears to witness.
At the end of this sorry book, if one knows what really happened in New Orleans, one has to ask: What kind of a mind and sensibility would go to such lengths to camouflage it all? Who today would trust people like Rosemary James or Shaw’s lawyers? What kind of a writer would go out of his way to use the political dog whistles of homophobia and anti-Semitism to the unprecedented extent Litwin does? When, in fact, Garrison never brought up the first, and there was no reason for him to bring up the second?
Those questions can only be answered by reviewing Litwin’s first book, which is about his political conversion. Looming in the background of that psychic transformation is the figure of David Horowitz. With the dropping of that name, I now understood that Litwin’s work is not meant to be data or research based. It is fundamentally political. Fred Litwin is a culture warrior.
Click here for Fred Litwin, On the Trail of Delusion – Part Two.
Click here for Fred Litwin: Culture Warrior.
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Fred Litwin, On the Trail of Delusion – Part Two
As noted at the end of Part 1, the excisions Litwin makes to whitewash David Ferrie from accusations of perjury and suspicion in the JFK case extends to key information that implicates the FBI in the JFK cover-up. In my view, what he does to exculpate Clay Shaw from any suspicion, and to eliminate his perjury, might be even worse.
To show Litwin’s plastic surgery, let us take his treatment of Shaw’s trial. One would think that if anyone were to write about that proceeding today, two things would have to be paramount in the discussion. One would be the testimony of Pierre Finck. The prosecution’s medical expert, Dr. John Nichols, had done a good job using the Zapruder film to indicate a crossfire in Dealey Plaza. In fact, this part of the case was so effective that the defense decided to call in one of the three pathologists––Dr. Finck––who performed the very questionable autopsy on President Kennedy. The author quotes Sylvia Meagher as saying that Garrison was inept and ineffective in challenging the Warren Report at Shaw’s trial. (Litwin, p. 129) Which shows how out to lunch Meagher was on the subject of anything dealing with Jim Garrison. The reason he can include that embarrassing statement by Meagher is simple: in his entire chapter on Shaw’s trial there is no mention of Finck’s testimony. I wish I was kidding. I’m not.
Finck’s testimony alone burst open the Warren Report. All one has to do to understand that is to read the reaction to his testimony in Washington. As Doug Horne and others on the ARRB revealed, Finck’s testimony was so devastating to the official story it rocked the Justice Department back on its heels. As revealed by the ARRB, the two men in the Justice Department who were supervising the disguise over Kennedy’s criminally bad autopsy were Carl Belcher and Carl Eardley. In 1966, under the direction of Attorney General Ramsey Clark, they were responding to requests by Warren Commission lawyers David Slawson and Wesley Liebeler. Those two Commission counsels requested aid in order to somehow, some way, do something to counter the mounting criticism of the Warren Report. (“How Five Investigations Got It Wrong”, Part 2) The Justice Department seemed amenable. For instance, in a photographic inventory review in that year, Belcher knew that certain autopsy pictures were missing. He got two of the pathologists and the official autopsy photographer to sign a document in which they knowingly lied about this fact. He then had his own role erased from the charade by taking his name off the document. (Horne, Inside the ARRB, Vol. 1, pp. 146-47)
Realizing what the game was, upon hearing what Finck was saying on the stand in New Orleans, Eardley hit the panic button. In the second edition of Destiny Betrayed, I spend four pages describing some of Finck’s shocking disclosures at the Shaw trial. (pp. 300-03) One of the most compelling is that the pathologists were prohibited from dissecting President Kennedy’s back wound, since they were told by one of the many military higher ups in attendance not to. Because of that failure, no one will never know if that wound transited the body, or be certain what its trajectory was through Kennedy.
According to Dr. Thornton Boswell, when Eardley heard that Finck was actually telling the truth about what happened the night of JFK’s autopsy, he was really agitated. He called another of Kennedy’s pathologists, Boswell, into his office and said, “Pierre is testifying and he’s really lousing everything up.” (DiEugenio, p. 304) The idea was to send Boswell to the Shaw trial and have him discredit Finck as “ a strange man.” Boswell actually did fly to New Orleans. When ARRB Chief Counsel Jeremy Gunn heard this testimony from Boswell, he asked: “What was the United States Department of Justice doing in relationship to a case between the district attorney of New Orleans and a resident of New Orleans?” Boswell replied that clearly, “the federal attorney was on the side of Clay Shaw against the district attorney.” (ibid) As the reader will understand by now, this crucial part of the story is missing from this book. In fact, as we shall later see, Litwin is buddies with a man, Harry Connick, who was part of the hidden political machinery that arranged it.
Connick was the US Attorney in New Orleans at the time. At Eardley’s request, Connick reserved a hotel room for Boswell. Boswell was then escorted to Connick’s office and shown Finck’s disastrous two days of testimony. The doctor spent the evening studying it, but ultimately was not called. As Gary Aguilar has said, that was probably because Finck was better qualified in forensic pathology than Boswell, and Garrison would have pointed that out with both men under oath. (DiEugenio, p. 304)
II
The other point that is extremely relevant about Shaw’s trial today is the provable perjuries that Shaw recited under oath. Many of these corresponded to things he said to the press in the lead up to his trial. One was that he did not use the alias of Clay or Clem Bertrand. What Litwin does to help Shaw escape from this lie would be funny if it were not painful to read.
As Bill Davy, Joan Mellen and I myself have enumerated, not only did Jim Garrison have witnesses to show Shaw was Bertrand; so did the FBI. When combined together, the number is in the teens. For Garrison, and others, the interest in this came through the issuance of the Warren Commission volumes and the testimony of New Orleans attorney Dean Andrews. Andrews said Oswald had been in his office with some gay mexicanos. The latter had been sent to him by a man named Clay Bertrand. (WC Vol. 11, p. 326) He was then called on 11/23/63 by Bertrand to go to Dallas to defend Oswald.
Hoover and the FBI used every trick in the book to make this phone call go away. Even though these have been discredited, on cue, Litwin rolls them back out. As Bill Davy showed with hospital records, Andrews was not drugged at the time of the call. (Davy, p. 52). The call was also not imaginary, since three witnesses who Andrews talked to corroborated that he had told them about it. These witnesses not only said that Andrews seemed familiar with Bertrand, but Oswald had been in his office also. (Davy, pp. 51-52) Further, Andrews could not have been so familiar about details concerning Lee and Marina Oswald unless someone had told him about them. (Sylvia Meagher, Accessories After the Fact, pp. 375-76) It is true that Andrews changed his story about his description of Bertrand, once saying he was married with four kids, but this was clearly because of the pressure the FBI had placed on him, plus the fact his life had been threatened. (Mellen, A Farewell to Justice, p. 197) Andrews relayed that threat to both Mark Lane and Anthony Summers, in addition to Garrison. (Bill Turner, “The Inquest,” Ramparts 6/67: 24; Summers, Conspiracy, p. 340; Garrison, On the Trail of the Assassins, p. 82). I don’t see how that repeated threat can be discounted. Because Andrews obviously did not.
But, beyond that, it appears the FBI was looking for Bertrand before their interview with Andrews. (Davy, p. 194) Further, in declassified FBI documents, the FBI has admitted that Shaw’s name came up in their original Kennedy inquiry back in December of 1963. That memo, written by Cartha DeLoach, said that several parties had furnished them information about Shaw at that time. (FBI Memorandum of March 2, 1967) Ricardo Davis, active in the Cuban exile community in New Orleans, told Harold Weisberg that the FBI had shown him a picture of Shaw the day after the assassination. (DiEugenio, p. 265) In a March 2, 1967 memo, the FBI admits that on February 24th, they had gotten information from two sources that Shaw is identical with Bertrand. Larry Schiller, an FBI informant on Mark Lane, told the Bureau that he had gay sources in two cities––San Francisco and New Orleans––who said that Shaw used aliases, one of them being Bertrand. (FBI memo of March 22, 1967)
Harold Weisberg wrote an unpublished book in which he stated that Andrews told him that Shaw was Bertrand. But, consistent with the death threats, he swore him to secrecy about it. This is contained in the manuscript “Mailer’s Tales of the JFK Assassination.” (see Chapter 5, p. 13, available at the Hood College Weisberg archives) What Litwin does with this information is, even for him, bracing. He writes that Joan Mellen once wrote to Weisberg and the critic did not say this nearly as clearly as he wrote in his unpublished book. (Litwin, p. 313) What Litwin does not reveal is that one sentence later, Weisberg does make it clear. (Mellen, A Farewell to Justice, p. 197; see p. 551 for the separate references) Did Litwin stop reading before that one sentence? Mellen sources this to an interview she did with Weisberg on July 27, 2000, which Litwin ignores. I have not seen this kind of Rafael Nadal topspin since the days of Gerald Posner.
But in the Kennedy case, things are always worse than you think they are. And thanks to Malcolm Blunt, we now know the depths of dreadfulness that Shaw’s legal team was steeped in. There has long been available an FBI memo of March 2, 1967, referred to above, issued the day after Shaw was arrested. But it had only been released in redacted form. The memo was from William Branigan to Bill Sullivan. It contained a brief biography of Shaw and said the Bureau had information in their files about Shaw’s sexual tendencies, including sadism and masochism. What had been redacted was the following information: Aaron Kohn knew that Shaw was Bertrand! In fact, in this unredacted version of the memo the FBI handprinted below the first paragraph that Shaw was also known as Clay Bertrand.
This is startling in more than one way. First, as mentioned previously, the memo reveals that Kohn, along with another source, had told them Shaw was Bertrand on February 24, 1967. Did Kohn know that Shaw was going to be arrested? Secondly, this reveals that Shaw’s team had to know their client was lying. Because, as anyone who knows that case understands, Kohn was an integral part of that defense. It simply is not credible that he would not inform Shaw’s attorneys, the Wegmanns and Irvin Dymond, of this key fact. Third, this shows that, as I long suspected, Kohn created the whole Clem Sehrt mythology: that a lawyer Marguerite Oswald knew was known as Bertrand. He did this in consultation with the HSCA in order to detract from the fact that he himself knew Shaw was Bertrand. (see HSCA Vol. IX, pp. 99-101)
In other words, today it is a fact that Shaw was Bertrand. The problem with the classification of the information, the lying about it, and the threats to Andrews was that Garrison could not ask Shaw the key question: Why did you call Andrews and ask him to defend Oswald? Because of this new revelation I have a question for Litwin: Did he think he was going to find this crucial information in Aaron Kohn’s files?
III
I am not going to go through all the perjury that Shaw committed under oath. But I want to point out another instance of the HSCA trying to conceal key information about Shaw in order to bring Garrison into question. In the HSCA Final Report, the authors vouch for the Clinton/Jackson witnesses––that is, the people who saw Oswald with Ferrie and Shaw in those two villages in the late summer of 1963 about 115 miles northwest of New Orleans. Oswald first visited two persons in the area, Edwin McGehee and Reeves Morgan. He then was seen by numerous people in line to register to vote. He was then witnessed by at least four people inside the hospital at Jackson applying for a job there. This has all been established beyond a shadow of a doubt by Garrison’s inquiry, the HSCA’s further investigation, and by private interviews done by Bill Davy, Joan Mellen and myself.
But to show what the HSCA was up to, in that same report, a couple of pages later, out of the blue, they try and question whether it was really Shaw that was seen there. (HSCA Final Report, p. 145) That report was co-authored by Dick Billings, a man Litwin trusts and freely uses in his book. Originally, the HSCA secret files were classified until 2029. The furor around Oliver Stone’s film JFK opened them in the mid-nineties. What the HSCA report does not reveal is that the identification of Shaw was quite solid. And it is hard to comprehend how the authors of the report didn’t know it. This is due to a fact that, like other important evidentiary points, the HSCA decided to classify at the time. There was an HSCA executive session interview held with one of the key witnesses to the voter registration. Sheriff John Manchester testified that he approached the driver of the car and asked him to identify himself. The driver gave Manchester his license and told him he worked for the International Trade Mart. The license corresponded to the name the driver gave Manchester, which was Clay Shaw. (HSCA Executive Session of 3/14/78)
Litwin’s pal, Hugh Aynesworth––who worked for Shaw’s lawyers for two years––understood just how credible these witnesses were. Through his plants in Garrison’s office, he had a copy of Manchester’s statement to the DA. Hugh drove up to Clinton with his partner, FBI informant Jim Phelan. (DiEugenio, pp. 244-45; Mellen, A Farewell to Justice, p. 235). They located Manchester. Litwin’s “great reporter” Mr. Aynesworth attempted to bribe the sheriff. He offered him a job as a CIA handler in Mexico for $38,000 per year, quite a ducal sum back then. That offer suggests who the “great reporter” was connected to. Manchester replied negatively in a rather terse and direct manner: “I advise you to leave the area. Otherwise I’ll cut you a new asshole.” (Mellen, p. 235)
Because the HSCA found the Clinton/Jackson incident so credible, Litwin tries to say such was not the case. Like Lambert, he has to find a way to question the picture Garrison investigator Anne Dischler found. This depicted a car in proximity to the voter registration office with the New Orleans crew in it. Like Lambert, he says it could have been used as a “powerful brainwashing tool.” (Litwin, p. 121) This is ridiculous. First, that picture had to have been taken by one of the bystanders at the time of the voter registration. Under those circumstances, how could it be termed a brainwashing tool? Second, the Clinton/Jackson witnesses did not surface for Jim Garrison. They talked about the incident previously for congressman John Rarick and publisher Ned Touchstone of The Councilor. (Mellen, A Farewell to Justice, p. 227; Davy, p. 115) Reeves Morgan who, along with his two children, was the second witness to meet Oswald, called the FBI and informed them about it right after the assassination. The reply was that the Bureau was already aware of this incident. (Davy, pp. 102-03) There was clearly an agreement from the top down in the Bureau that they would deny the episode in order not to bolster Garrison and continue to hide their own negligence. But today there is little doubt that this guilty Bureau knowledge is how Oswald’s application at the hospital rather quickly disappeared. And we have this now from people in the FBI. (Mellen, A Farewell to Justice, pp. 232-34). No less than four people saw Oswald inside the hospital, directed him to the personnel office, saw him inside the office, and actually saw the employment application he filled out. (DiEugenio, p. 93)
But for me, the capper that certifies this strange but powerful episode is this: Oswald knew the names of at least one, and more likely two, of the doctors who worked at the Jackson State Hospital. And again, the HSCA secret files proved such was the case. When Oswald was questioned by registrar of voters Henry Palmer, Palmer asked him if he had any associates or living quarters in the area. As a result of the JFK Act, amid all the documentation released on the incident, we know that Oswald replied with two names: Malcolm Pierson and Frank Silva. When the HSCA retrieved the 1963 roster of treating physicians at the hospital, both those names were on the list. (Davy, p. 107) How could Oswald have known this? One way would have been through Shaw’s well established relationship with CIA asset Dr. Alton Ochsner, who had a connection to the Jackson hospital. (Davy, p. 112)
IV
As I said above, I am not going to go through the entire litany of lies that Shaw uttered in order to mislead the public prior to his trial, and the jury in his testimony under oath. If the reader is interested in that aspect, he will not find the discussion in Litwin’s book. But you will be able to find it here.
Please note that the majority of material used in that presentation was made available by the ARRB. In other words, the FBI and CIA were concealing much information which would have been valuable to Garrison. In fact, in the case of the FBI, they literally verified what Garrison was saying about both Ferrie and especially Shaw. So here is my question to Litwin: if the FBI confirmed what Garrison was investigating, then how could Garrison have been “deluded”? Was the FBI also “deluded”? Was the CIA also “deluded”? In fact, the CIA was so desperate to conceal their relationship with Shaw that they altered and destroyed much of his file. (Davy, p. 200; ARRB memo of 11/14/96 from Manuel Legaspi to Jeremy Gunn) Question: Did Litwin think he was going to find that kind of information in the files of Dick Billings or George Lardner? I think the readers can make up their own mind on that score.
But let me pose the question in a more concrete manner. As we can see from above, Jeremy Gunn was surprised by the fact the Department of Justice was interfering with a local trial conducted by a DA. The reason being that such is usually not the case. Usually, when asked, the federal authorities will do what they can to aid a local investigation. Because of the cover-up instituted by the FBI and the CIA in the Kennedy case, that did not happen here. As the reader can see from that linked PowerPoint presentation, that cover-up applied to Shaw directly.
Now, with all that in the record––which the author could not find in the papers of Irvin Dymond––here is my question to Fred: What if the circumstances had been normal? That is, what if Washington had been helping the DA instead of obstructing him? For example, consider Shaw saying he never used the alias of Bertrand. If Garrison had the FBI document referred to above and showed it to Shaw on the stand, can one imagine the reaction? Can one imagine the follow-up questions? “Mr. Shaw, would you say that Mr. Kohn has been aiding your defense?” And the follow up to that would be: “And he did so knowing you were lying?” The culminating question would have been: “Now that we know you are lying: Why did you call Andrews and tell him to go to Dallas to defend Oswald?” In this author’s measured and informed opinion, under those normal circumstances, Shaw would have been convicted. The problem with the JFK case is that the political circumstances around it make it so radioactive that it clouds the standard rules of evidence and procedure. In fact, as far as the normal rules of investigation and evidence go, the JFK case is the equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle.
My interview with Phil Dyer certifies the defendant’s knowing perjury even further. After Shaw was safe, that is after the judge had thrown out Garrison’s subsequent perjury case against Shaw––which Garrison would have likely won––Shaw met up with an interior designer he knew early one Sunday afternoon in late 1972. Dyer went along with his designer pal to meet Shaw and a female friend. Phil knew a bit about the JFK case and recalled the Shaw trial. Realizing he was out of the woods, Shaw felt free to admit what had really happened. When Phil asked him if he knew Oswald, Shaw replied yes he knew him fairly well, and he was kind of quiet around him. When asked about Oswald’s culpability, and if he could have gotten those shots off as the Warren Commission said he did, Shaw replied that Oswald was just a patsy, and also a double agent. This alone demolishes Shaw’s entire defense at his trial. And Litwin’s book along with it.
But the worst part of all of this Litwinian/Wegmann/Dymond mystification is that people in New Orleans understood it was such at the time. For example, Carlos Bringuier knew that Garrison was on to something big, and that high persons were involved in the assassination. He also knew something else. That Shaw felt confident because “he knew that these high persons would have to defend him.” (DiEugenio, p. 286) Which, as I have proven above, the FBI and CIA did. Here is the unfunny irony: Litwin uses Bringuier as a witness against Garrison in his book. (see Chapter 11: “A Tale of Three Cubans”)
This is one reason why I fail to see the point of Litwin using early Commission critics like Paul Hoch, David Lifton and Sylvia Meagher to knock Garrison (one could add Josiah Thompson to this list). To my knowledge, at that time, none of them had access to Garrison’s files, none of them had visited New Orleans to do any field investigation, and none of them could have possibly had access to the secret FBI and CIA files that were valuable to Garrison’s case. To top it off, to my knowledge none of them later used the Freedom of Information Act to try and attain them. With those qualifications, their comments amount to sheer bombast. Therefore, what was or is the forensic value of Litwin using them in his book? Very early, actually in grade school, students learn the basic axioms of arithmetic. One of them is that since zero has no value, it does not matter how many of them you add to each other: The sum at the end of the addition is still zero. Adding Hoch to Meagher to Lifton, one still comes up with the forensic value of nothing.
But in some ways, the use of these early critics is worse than that, because they not only bought into the MSM line on New Orleans, but with Meagher and Lifton, they contributed to it.
V
Which brings us to Litwin’s writings on Kerry Thornley. Litwin’s chapter on Thornley is one of the worst chapters I have read in recent years. And I don’t just mean about Thornley. It’s the worst about any subject in the recent JFK literature that I have read. The majority of his references here come from the writings of Thornley’s friend David Lifton, Adam Gorightly’s pathetic apologia for Thornley, Caught in the Crossfire, and the writings of Thornley himself. Again, what did Litwin think he was going to get from these sources? When you add in the author’s own massive bias, it makes it all the worse. For instance, Litwin tries to explain away Thornley’s extreme rightwing political views by calling him a libertarian. (p. 179) Calling Thornley a libertarian would be like calling Marjorie Taylor Greene a Republican. Thornley was so far right that an acquaintance of his in New Orleans, Bernard Goldsmith, refused to discuss politics with him. (Joe Biles, In History’s Shadow, p. 57)
Litwin also does a neat job of downplaying Thornley’s testimony before the Commission. He doesn’t quote any of it. That’s a good way to make something of important evidentiary value disappear. No one who knew Oswald in the service supplied anywhere near the psychological/pathological/political disposition for Oswald to kill Kennedy as Thornley did––no one was even close. Thornley’s deposition in Volume 11 was 33 pages long and it was separated from the affidavits of those who knew Oswald in the service, both in Japan and at Santa Ana, California. In fact, Thornley’s highly pejorative testimony was grouped with that of New Orleans radio host Bill Stuckey, who––as we have seen––helped bushwhack Oswald in a radio debate; an affidavit by Ruth Paine, whose home produced so much incriminating evidence against Oswald; and another by Howard Brennan, the man the Commission used to place Oswald in the sixth story window of the Texas School Book Depository. That should tell the reader just how the Commission viewed Thornley––what with his depiction that Oswald wanted to die knowing he was a somebody, and Oswald wanted to go down in history books so people would know who he was 10,000 years from now. (Vol. 11, pp. 97, 98)
This is what Kerry was there to do, and Commission lawyer Albert Jenner admitted it with Thornley right in front of him. (Vol. 11, p. 102) Jenner said he wanted Thornley to give them a motivation for Oswald. Which Kerry supplied in excelsis. To excise this is another example of Litwin’s plastic surgery. But in addition to milking Thornley to smear Oswald, the Commission also covered up areas that they should have investigated about the witness. This included topics like: did Thornley communicate with Oswald after they left each other in the service; did Thornley tell Oswald about Albert Schweitzer College in Europe, a place where Oswald was supposed to have applied to, but never attended; did Oswald meet with Thornley in New Orleans; and why did Thornley suggest that Oswald was about five inches shorter than he was when, in fact, they were approximately the same height? You will not find any of these key evidentiary points in Litwin’s chapter. But they help explain why Thornley was tracked down by both the FBI and Secret Service within about 36 hours of the assassination. Thornley himself said that the agencies had just cause to suspect he was involved in the assassination, though that line of inquiry was quickly dropped. But incriminating Oswald so thoroughly before the Commission gave him the opportunity to urinate on Kennedy’s grave at nearby Arlington Cemetery. (Garrison, On the Trail of the Assassins, p. 78)
Litwin is so incontinent to smear Garrison that he recites the whole mildewed rigamarole about the DA suspecting that somehow John Rene Heindel––who talked to Oswald once at Atsugi air base in Japan––was lying to him and the DA was laying a perjury trap for the man through Thornley. (Litwin p. 177) This idea was furthered by Gorightly. If one reads the grand jury transcript of Heindel, it is exposed as pure bunk. What was really happening is that Thornley was so off in what he was saying about Heindel that it caused Garrison to suspect that Thornley was part of the cover-up––which he was. And Thornley did not just do his act before the Commission. In one of his many perjuries before Jenner, Thornley said that he had seen the Butler/Bringuier debate tape with Oswald while he just happened to be standing in a TV studio in New Orleans. (Volume 11, p. 100)
Wisely, Jenner did not pursue that statement. Because it turned out to be a lie. Through the testimony of radio program director Cliff Hall, Garrison discovered that Thornley was not just loitering around WDSU TV in the wake of the assassination. He was doing the same thing his pals Bringuier and Butler were doing in the immediate aftermath of Kennedy’s murder. He was smearing Oswald as a communist in a TV interview at the station. Around this opportune time, Thornley made similar pejorative statements to the New Orleans States Item newspaper. He said Oswald was made a killer by the Marines and the accused assassin was also schizophrenic and a “little psychotic.” (New Orleans States Item, 11/27/63) This is months before his appearance before the Commission.
But Cliff Hall said something that is probably even more relevant to the subject at hand, and it exposes Litwin’s avoidance even further. He said that he and Thornley went out for a drink after that TV interview. Before the Commission, Kerry told Jenner he had not seen Oswald in New Orleans in the summer of 1963. (WC Vol. 11, p. 109) He confessed to Hall that this was another lie. He had seen Oswald in New Orleans that summer. When Hall asked if he knew Oswald well, Thornley––like Clay Shaw––replied that he did. (Hall interview with Richard Burness, January 10, 1968)
But in the Kennedy case, just when you think they can’t, things always get worse. And it reveals another perjury by Thornley. As I have indicated above, Thornley’s raison d’être for testifying before the Commission was to dutifully produce his portrait of Oswald as the dedicated Marxist. He came through in spades. Yet Thornley knew that this was also false. He told two witnesses that Oswald was not a communist. (see Biles, pp. 58, 59)
As per the idea that Thornley could have been the model used in the infamous backyard photographs, no one will ever really know the truth about that aspect. But the idea that it could be Thornley was not just Garrison’s. Many years ago, in Las Vegas, it was told to a reporter for Probe magazine, Dave Manning. The information was supplied by none other than Jack Ruby’s acquaintance Breck Wall. Ruby called Wall––the local head of the American Guild of Variety Artists––four times in November of 1963. (Michael Benson, Who’s Who in the JFK Assassination, p. 469) As Bill Davy writes, “Ruby’s last long distance phone call during a weekend of frenzied phone call activity was to Breck Wall in Galveston.” (Davy, p. 46) Wall had arrived in Galveston just a few minutes after David Ferrie.
The above points out one of the worst aspects of this book. To anyone who knows New Orleans, Litwin’s portraits of important personages are simply not realistic. They are in fact cheap caricatures. This is acceptable for someone like the late Steve Ditko, who drew Marvel comic books. It is not acceptable for someone who is passing his book off as a work in the non-fiction crime genre. This caricaturing also underlines that, as others have alerted me, Litwin likes to troll on certain forums. One message he left is that Garrison did not give his files to any archives since it would have exposed them as being empty. This is a doubly false statement. Garrison gave many of his files to Bud Fensterwald at the Assassination Archives and Research Center (AARC). Secondly, the materials used above to impeach Thornley came from Garrison’s files. Besides Hall, there are four other witnesses who saw Oswald with Thornley that summer in New Orleans. (For a further demolition of this chapter, with more of Garrison’s files, see this article)
Thornley was lying about his association with Oswald. He was also lying about his association with those in the network around Oswald that summer in New Orleans. What is important from what I have demonstrated so far about Ferrie, Shaw and Thornley is this: When someone is lying under oath in order to exculpate themselves, those statements are not supposed to be set aside or ignored. Leaving the chimerical world of Litwin/Hoch behind, let us quote a real life colloquy from two experienced professionals on the subject:
Q: False exculpatory statements are used for what?
A: Well, either substantive prosecution or evidence of intent in a criminal prosecution.
Q: Exactly. Intent and consciousness of guilt, right?
A: That is right. (CNBC story by Arriana McLymore, 7/7/2016)
That piece of dialogue was between two veteran prosecutors: the questioner was Trey Gowdy, the respondent was James Comey. Comey was a federal prosecutor for about 18 years and then Director of the FBI. Gowdy was a federal and state prosecutor for a combined 16 years. Through their provable lies, the consciousness of guilt was there in the cases of Thornley, Shaw and Ferrie. I don’t see how it gets worse than looking for evidence that places you with Oswald, or your own defense team covering up the truth about your alias. The point was that Garrison never got to show what the intent of the lies were. But that exchange reminds us all of what proper legal procedure is, and how it has been utterly lost in the JFK case. It was distorted beyond recognition by people with political agendas. And it began with J. Edgar Hoover and those on the Commission, like Thornley’s pal Mr. Jenner.
After suffering through Litwin’s phantasmagoria with Thornley, I was ready to walk the book out to the trash bin behind my apartment. Instead, I decided to take a few days off. I had to in order to recover my damaged sensibilities. I gutted it up and got a second wind. I then managed to finish the book. I hope the reader appreciates that sacrificial effort.
VI
In the second part of the book, besides Thornley, the author deals with Carlos Bringuier, Sergio Arcacha Smith, Carlos Quiroga, Clyde Johnson, Edgar Eugene Bradley, Thomas Beckham and Robert Perrin.
All one needs to know about the first three is this: I could detect no mention of Rose Cherami in the book. Why is that important? Because Arcacha Smith was later identified as being one of the two men in the car who disposed of Cherami near Eunice, Louisiana on the way to Dallas right before Kennedy was killed. As everyone knows, including Litwin, Cherami predicted the JFK assassination before it happened. That uncanny prognostication was based upon what Smith and his cohort, fellow Cuban exile Emilio Santana, were discussing in the car. (DiEugenio, p. 182) What made this even more fascinating was that the HSCA learned that the Dallas Police had found diagrams of the sewer system under Dealey Plaza in Arcacha Smith’s apartment after the assassination. (The Assassinations, edited by James DiEugenio and Lisa Pease, p. 237) In a 1998 Coalition on Political Assassinations conference, John Judge revealed that Penn Jones actually did crawl through that sewer system in the sixties. One should then add in the evidence that Ferrie had a map of Dealey Plaza in his desk drawer at work. (DiEugenio, p. 216) To most people, right there you have more evidence of a conspiracy. All of it made possible by Garrison’s investigation. Which leads to the question one has to ponder: Who the heck is deluded here? As we shall see, it’s not Garrison.
Quiroga and Bringuier were associated with Oswald through the famous Canal Street confrontation between Oswald and Bringuier. The latter was the head of the DRE in New Orleans and Quiroga was his aide-de-camp. In early August, Oswald met Bringuier at his retail clothing store, insinuating he could help his anti-Castro organization. (John Newman, Oswald and the CIA, pp. 323-24) Later, when Bringuier heard Oswald was leafleting pro-Castro literature on Canal Street, he rode over and violently confronted him about this alleged betrayal. Oswald and Bringuier were arrested. Even though it was Bringuier who accosted Oswald, he posted bail, pleaded innocent and eventually walked. Oswald pleaded guilty, was booked and jailed, and was later fined in court. One of the flyers Oswald passed out on Canal was stamped with the address 544 Camp Street, Guy Banister’s office. Further, the DRE was conceived, created and funded by the CIA under the code name AMPSPELL. (Newman, pp. 325, 333)
As indicated above, the episode is much more interesting, much more multi-layered, than what Litwin presents it as. First off, Oswald wrote about it on August 4th, five days before it happened. (Tony Summers, Conspiracy, p. 303) Second, Bringuier maintained that he had sent Quiroga over to Oswald’s apartment to return a couple of dropped leaflets and to infiltrate his group. Both Quiroga and Bringuier screwed up the timing of this mission to the Warren Commission. They said this event occurred after Oswald’s next street leafleting episode, on August 16th in front of the International Trade Mart. It happened before that. (Ray and Mary LaFontaine, Oswald Talked, p. 162) This is made more interesting by another misrepresentation. Oswald’s landlady said that when Quiroga arrived, he did not just have one or two leaflets. She described what he had as a stack perhaps 5 or 6 inches high. (LaFontaine, p. 162)
As noted previously, things always get worse in the JFK case. When Richard Case Nagell, who tried to stop the assassination from happening, was first interviewed by Garrison’s office, he made a rather compelling revelation. He told Garrison’s representative, William Martin, that he had an audiotape of four men in New Orleans talking about an assassination plot against Kennedy. He named one of them as Arcacha; he would only describe another of the men as “Q”. Which would strongly denote Quiroga. (NODA Memo of 4/16/67 from William Martin to Garrison)
Instead of the above, what does the author give us? More sludge from writers like Gus Russo, Shaw’s lawyers and Aaron Kohn. This includes nonsense like the claim Gordon Novel was hired by Walter Sheridan to introduce the TV producer to people in the city, and smears of Garrison’s inquiry by FBI informant Merriman Smith, who Litwin does not reveal is working with the Bureau against Garrison. (see the letter by Smith to Cartha DeLoach of 3/6/67) Or bizarre material about Garrison’s attempt to interview Arcacha Smith in Dallas, which leaves out the prime role of Aynesworth in protecting the suspect. (see LaFontaine, pp. 341-45) The capper to it all is that Litwin writes that Ferrie’s anti-Castro activities ended in 1961, when, in fact, Ferrie admitted he was involved with Operation Mongoose, which began in 1962. (NODA Interview with Herbert Wagner 12/6/67)
As far as Clyde Johnson’s meeting with Shaw under the alias of Alton Bernard in Baton Rouge, Litwin relies on––I am not joking––Aynesworth to say Ruby was not in the city at the proper time. His other source for this, and again I am serious, is Ruby’s sister Eva Grant. (Litwin, p. 196) He also adds that there is no proper source for Johnson being beaten to a pulp on the eve of his taking the stand at the Shaw trial. In fact, the source for this is an unpublished manuscript by a former Garrison volunteer named Jim Brown. His manuscript, titled Central Intelligence Assassination, was full of inside information on the workings of Garrison’s office, including the fact that Garrison was so worried about Johnson being attacked before his appearance that he hid him outside the city at a college dormitory.
The surveillance on Garrison’s office was so thorough that, even under those conditions, the witness was located and beaten. This may have been due to either the previously noted FBI wiretapping, or the CIA’s ultra-secret ‘black tape’ operation. This was a project originating from the office of counter-intelligence chief James Angleton. It began in September of 1967 and continued until March of 1969, at the trial’s completion. According to Malcolm Blunt, the heading ‘black tape’ indicates that it was very closely held at CIA HQ––on a need-to-know basis––and there was no field office access. The folders originally stated they would not be moved from counter-intelligence (CI) and, incredibly, not released to the public until 2017––and then only with CI approval. Which means, they were most likely deep-sixed. This is a sorry part of the story that Litwin avoids at all costs: namely the surveillance and assaults on Garrison’s witnesses before, during and immediately after the trial. This included Johnson, Nagell, police officer Aloysius Habighorst, two of the Clinton/Jackson witnesses and Dealey Plaza witness, Richard Randolph Carr. (DiEugenio, p. 294; Alex P. Serritella, Johnson Did It, p. 279)
The cases of Perrin and Bradley were faux pas that were largely the result of another facet of the infiltration which permitted the harassment just described, and which again Litwin discounts. This would be the horrendous influence on Garrison by CIA infiltrator William Wood aka Bill Boxley. In fact, one can pretty much say that without Boxley those two episodes would not have occurred. There is little doubt today that Boxley was an agent. And in my review of his role in my book, where I included the Perrin and Bradley cases––along with other areas––I proffered substantial evidence that such was the case. (DiEugenio, pp. 278-85)
As per Thomas Beckham and his cohort Fred Crisman, no one will ever know the truth about them. Larry Haapanen, who––surprisingly––wrote a blurb for Litwin, was not the only investigator of the duo. Former CIA pilot Jim Rose also did work on them, especially Crisman. The problem with this subject area is a common theme with the Garrison inquiry––those files, like many others, have largely disappeared. Garrison said that Boxley had taken them. (Litwin, p. 216). The DA also referred to this in the fine John Barbour documentary The Garrison Tapes. But the late JFK photo analyst Richard Sprague told this reviewer that this was not the end of their exit from the record. Sprague said that in the cache of documents the DA donated to Bud Fensterwald and the AARC, the Crisman records also managed to walk away. (1993 personal interview with Sprague in Virginia)
I must add that I did get to see some of the late Jim Rose’s documents about Crisman and Beckham when Lisa Pease and I interviewed him in San Luis Obispo in 1996. To say the least, Crisman appeared to be an interesting character. I saw no indication in Litwin’s text describing Crisman, or in his related notes, that he ever saw these documents. Which means, to put it kindly, his analysis and conclusions in the area are incomplete. As we have seen, for Litwin, that is actually an improvement.
Click here for Fred Litwin, On the Trail of Delusion – Part One.
Click here for Fred Litwin, On the Trail of Delusion – Part Three.