Kennedys and King Test host626

Tag: WARREN DEFENDERS

  • Admitted Plagiarist Gerald Posner Plans to Sue Miami Paper

    by Dylan Stableford, At: The Daily Beast

  • Von Pein/Colbert Replies, and the Comedy Continues?

    Predictably, since we advertised it on the Billboard, David Von Pein was waiting for my article about him to appear. And the very day it was posted, Von Pein made one of his patented silly replies. Then, when I went on Len Osanic’s Black Op Radio on April 15th to discuss the essay, Von Pein replied again. It is hard to determine which response is more silly, but since the second one brings up more issues, let us use that one.

    1. Von Pein starts out by criticizing me for mispronouncing his name. To which I reply: “Excuse me!” Like this really matters in what is under discussion. DVP then tries to deny the fact that any initial criticism he made of Reclaiming History was negligible. This is ridiculous. In his first press release he relegated the “errors” he found in the book to a special section of his multi-sectioned review. He excused them with two qualifications: 1.) In such a huge and heroic undertaking, anyone could have made them, and 2.) The ones he listed were so minor that they in no way impacted on the worthiness of the volume. And Von Pein’s list was minor. None of Bugliosi’s major errors of commission or omission noted by either Rodger Remington or myself are there. Von Pein has to deny all this today because after the numerous, comprehensive and compelling polemics that have leveled Bugliosi’s book, his first press release looks so biased that it has no credibility. Which, of course, it did not in the first place. It was nothing but PR.Von Pein’s next point may be a valid one. Which, for him, is a real achievement. (For DVP, 1 in 17 is a good batting average.) He says that he has only reviewed two of the Discovery Channel JFK cover-up specials. So, accordingly, I will change the wording here.As per his pointing out any errors in Inside the Target Car, see point two above. As with Reclaiming History, they were so negligible as to be worthless. In fact, he actually got angry at me for coming up with so many errors that my review ended up being three parts long. His other point, about the front shot exploding the head, is misguided. The ammunition used here was a different type of round than the others. And therefore with the “replica heads”, which were not replicas, the explosion was bound to happen. This is nothing but obfuscation by Von Pein. Which is why he never answers the question of why the program’s military jacketed bullets did not fragment. Yet in the JFK case, the bullets did.Unlike what DVP maintains, if one reads any of the scholarly literature on the history of the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, one will see that the 36 inch version was called a carbine, and the 40 inch version-which was a cut down of a longer rifle-was usually referred to as a short rifle. (See John Armstrong’s fine discussion in Harvey and Lee, p. 439) I don’t think a mail order sales ad calling both versions carbines qualifies as scholarly dissertation for anyone but Von Pein. In fact the use of the word “scholarly” in the same sentence with Von Pein is an oxymoron.The next point indicates the time warp that Von Pein is in. He actually scores me for not accepting all the old discredited Warren Commission evidence against Oswald. You know, like the palm print that did not arrive in Washington until a week later; the unbelievable CE 399; the dented shell that could not have been dented that day; the Walker bullet that somehow altered its caliber and color while in transit from the rifle; the shells from the bullets fired at Tippit that are missing the officer’s initials etc etc. These deceptions were all exposed decades ago by Harold Weisberg, Sylvia Meagher, Mark Lane, Josiah Thompson and others. Yet, with Von Pein, its like those books do not exist. Which shows his denial problem. Because they are the main reason that the public lost faith in the Warren Commission.He actually says that Victoria Adams and Sandra Styles could not have been on the stairs with Oswald after the shooting since they only descended a minute or two later. This is a perfect illustration of Von Pein’s denial problem. For Adams had to correct the transcript of her testimony because it lied about this specific point. She said she was on the stairs about 15 seconds after the shots. So if Oswald was descending, she would have had to have seen or heard him. She did not. (See Gerald McKnight, Breach of Trust, p. 399) Von Pein wants to revivify the lie.Von Pein tries to obfuscate his howler about Kennedy and John Connally reacting to the same shot at Z-224. So what does he do? He shows us frames Z-223, and then Z-224. You can see very little, if anything, of Kennedy in Z-223. Which is why I did not mention it. In Z-224 you can see a sliver of his hands going upward toward his neck in reaction to being hit. While Connally is sitting serenely in front, untouched. So Von Pein was wrong about both men reacting simultaneously and is now trying to cover up his error. The proof of that is this: Why didn’t he show us frames Z-224, 225 and 226?As per his celebrated departure from JFK Lancer, Von Pein tries to say that one person actually called him polite. But this was a purely relative statement. It was made in comparison to another troll named Nick Kendrick. To me, this is like differentiating between a flea and a louse.Von Pein tries to say that the quote I used by Gene Stump does not actually refer to his almost insane frequency of posts, which flooded the JFK Lancer Forum board. He says it refers to Nick Kendrick. Actually, in the copy I have of that, it is not clear if Stump is referring to Von Pein or Kendrick. But it’s irrelevant to the main point. Von Pein himself refers to the well over 2,000 posts he made at Lancer. And even a rather conservative Commission critic like Jerry Dealey noted about Von Pein that, “I did get tired of his responding to every single thread repeatedly, and always repeating the same things over and over.” (Post of 7/28/05, italics in original.) Von Pein was flooding the board to distract everyone.In his next nonsensical point, Von Pein shows his sensitivity and warm camaraderie with propagandist John McAdams. He tries to say that McAdams does not dominate alt.conspiracy.jfk and that someone like me would feel at home there. John McAdams posts at that site regularly, and it’s always to ridicule Commission critics. In fact, he is joined there by both Von Pein and Dave Reitzes. It is their home away from home-since all three have their own web sites that support the Commission and the Single Bullet Delusion. McAdams, Reitzes, and Von Pein have made that forum a flame pit since they have polarized the debate there because of their constant ridicule and invective against any kind of Commission critiques. In fact, in Lisa Pease’s appearance on Black Op Radio on May 13th, she discusses McAdams’ techniques in this endeavor. (She begins at the 41:20 mark.) I would never set foot there because of this point: there is no real debate, it is more like mud wrestling. Which is why I call it the Pigpen. And it’s why Von Pein is at home there.Von Pein tries to obfuscate the fact that one of the reasons he was booted from John Simkin’s Spartacus forum was his failure to produce a photo of himself. He says that this was not a foolproof way to keep trolls out anyway. Duh, no kidding Dave. But unless Simkin was going to run full background checks on applicants and then make them sign an oath in advance, there really is no foolproof way to become troll-proof. But the picture was one easy step in that direction. Von Pein then tries to say that he had no picture on his computer to upload. This is almost surely a lie. There IS a photo taken in 1991 of Von Pein selling chicken at what looks like Kentucky Fried Chicken. And it is on the web. Why couldn’t he have uploaded a cropped version of that photo?Von Pein tries to defend the London trial that Vincent Bugliosi participated in. I repeat what I said: it was nothing close to a real trial. You can make that judgment just on the fact that none of the three autopsy doctors were there. Secondly, the Assassination Records Review Board had not declassified the hidden records. Finally, because no actual exhibits were used, and the three pathologists were absent, the real rules of evidence could not be followed.Both Von Pein and Bugliosi ignore the 8 questions I posed at the end of my essay which prove that CE 399 was not found at Parkland Hospital. They can’t directly answer them since they pose compelling proof that the FBI lied about the provenance of the Magic Bullet. So Von Pein does what his master Bugliosi does in his book: 1.) He ignores this direct evidence and 2.)Blows smoke by countering with senseless comments and questions. Bugliosi has honed this technique to a science. In essence it asks the respondent to demonstrate exactly how the conspiracy actually worked in each and every detail. Which is ridiculous. Why? Because it shifts the burden of proof from the prosecution to the defense. In other words, it Is not enough to prove a conspiracy happened. The defense now has to demonstrate exactly how it was implemented. Which is a preposterous standard. And it implicitly shows that Bugliosi cannot uphold his own standard of proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Those 8 questions prove that Oswald was framed. Period. If they did not, then Bugliosi and DVP would either show that the facts I used are wrong or they would answer them. They do neither.Von Pein now really gets his dander up. He says that it is a dirty lie to state that he reviewed Rodger Remington’s book Biting the Elephant for amazon.com. This is more Von Peinian silliness. . And a diversion from the real point. While technically true, it ignores the fact that this is the only book by Remington that Von Pein has not reviewed at amazon.com. Rodger has written four books on the Warren Commission, Biting the Elephant is the most recent. Von Pein has reviewed the other three at Amazon. Incredibly, he either forgot this or does not think it’s important. But the real diversion is this: He reviews the books without reading them! Nothing in his reviews reveals any knowledge of the subject matter in the books. All they consist of is general boilerplate arguments against the Commission critics. But he then gives the books he has not read, and disagrees with, five star reviews! Evidently he hopes that people will then be more apt to read his propaganda. If that is not fraud, I don’t know what is.

      Von Pein says I was wrong to state that he has been promoting Reclaiming History since 2005. He says he has been doing it since 2003. In other words, promoting what was published in 2007 in 2005 isn’t good enough for DVP. He was promoting it back in 2003. He then says he is proud of that fact and that Reclaiming History will be the Bible on the JFK case for generations to come. Hmm. Sounds like Gerald Ford talking about the Warren Commission in 1964. But, alas, Reclaiming History did not even last that long.

    2. My last point here is one that absolutely typifies Von Pein and his almost embarrassing obeisance to Vincent Bugliosi. I have scored Bugliosi by saying that it appears he wrote Reclaiming History from his office. That is, he did all his interviews and investigation over the phone. Which is remarkable considering he had 21 years and a huge advance to spend. Von Pein tries to salvage this practice by saying that this does not matter since the same conversations would have taken place in person as over the phone. But if that is so, the question then becomes: Why do investigators go to crime scenes or interview witnesses and suspects face to face at all? For instance, if Bugliosi would have gone to Chicago and looked at the planned parade route there, he would not have written that the failure to fully investigate this assassination attempt had no impact on what happened in Dallas. The scenarios, as Jim Douglass found out by going there, were almost the exact same thing: an attempt by crossfire below, while a patsy above in a warehouse was elevated over the motorcade route. Incredibly, Bugliosi never went there to see that. Also, he evidently never went to the National Archives to see that, contrary to what he wrote, FBI agent Elmer Lee Todd’s initials are not on CE 399. But also, one can get a feel for a witness more readily in person than one can over the phone. For instance, when I talked to FBI agent Warren DeBrueys at his house north of New Orleans, he told me that he did not read any books on the JFK assassination. But in a break during the interview, I walked a bit around his house. Sitting on a shelf in his office were 15 books on the JFK assassination. That discovery could not have happened with a phone interview. So Von Pein is wrong.

    As is the sum total of Von Pein’s reply. But everyone should know that about Von Pein now. As Gil Jesus has noted, Von Pein is a lost and silly person. He likes to call Commission critics “kooks” and “nuts” to disguise his own imbalances. Namely, that he is in denial of the evidence. And of his own myopia and solipsistic personality. Therefore, he uses the psychological device of projection. That is, the cognitive failing is not actually his, the problem lies with the rest of the world.

    It’s not everyone else Dave. It’s you. Which is why you are the only one still relaying messages to Bugliosi’s secretary Rosemary Newton. And you will only get better once you admit that truth about yourself.

  • David Von Pein: Hosting Comedy Central Soon?

    Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert better be looking in their rearview mirrors. They have a rival approaching. And he is even better than Colbert at impersonating the dimwitted, obnoxious, incredibly biased host that has made him famous. Why? Because he’s not acting. His name is David Von Pein and he is now proceeding at warp speed in his attempt to go beyond even Colbert’s famous caricature.

    If the reader will recall, the last time we addressed Von Pein he was trying to patch up his beloved Reclaiming History. He has to. For he had ballyhooed Vincent Bugliosi’s giant tome in almost embarrassing accolades. Even before it was published.

    To digress, it should be noted that Von Pein also does this with almost any TV show supporting the Commission. Then after the show is broadcast, he issues what is essentially a press release within hours of the air date. He notes that the show was excellently done and that it just wrecked some central tenet of the Commission critics. He has done this with almost every other Discovery Channel debacle to come down the turnpike. Then, when more credible, honest, and serious observers begin to poke holes in the production, he gradually gives ground. Until finally, he will maintain perhaps one tenet of the program as valid. He did this with the horrendous Inside the Target Car. When every point he had accepted about that atrocity was effectively speared, he finally backed off to defending just one of them. This was the simulated shot from the front with the head exploding; which he maintained as showing the head shot could not have come from the grassy knoll. To do this, he ignored a central point made by Milicent Cranor and myself: that what this actually indicated was the “replica skulls” used by host Gary Mack were anything but. Associate producer Mack essentially admitted this in his online discussion of the show when he said that the bullets they used did not fragment. Therefore the “replicas” did not provide the proper resistance, since in the Kennedy case the bullets did fragment. Von Pein can’t admit this since it vitiates both the experiment and his upholding of it. (Click here for our critiques of that phony sideshow )

    The above pattern was paralleled with Reclaiming History. Before the book was published, Von Pein said it would lay out and silence the people he despises most in this world i.e. those who find serious fault with the Warren Commission. When the volume was issued, with great alacrity, he issued his usual press release. He praised all aspects of the work. He could find no real fault in the volume’s nearly 2,700 pages. When certain critiques began to point out the clear and myriad problems with the book – which he somehow had overlooked – he began to give ground. Until finally, today, he has been placed almost completely on the defensive.

    For example, Von Pein responded to the first part of my Reclaiming History series by questioning my analysis of whether or not Oswald could have ordered the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle that is in evidence today. I spent several paragraphs in part one of my critique showing that in view of all the evidence, it is highly unlikely that he could do so.  I also posed a serious question about the transaction: the mail order company sent him the wrong rifle. Both the length and the classification were wrong. Although Oswald ordered the 36-inch model classified as a carbine, the Commission says he received the 40-inch model classified as a short rifle. Further, the House Select Committee on Assassinations discovered that Klein’s only placed scopes on the 36-inch model. Yet the 40-inch model in evidence has a scope on it. (Click here for that discussion.)

    Von Pein said he would admit all this, but he then provided a link to the mail order allegedly sent in by Oswald. Which is classic Colbert/Von Pein. Because this technique ignores all the evidence I produced in Part One to show how hard it is to believe that Oswald sent in that money order. To name just a couple of points: 1.) It does not appear the money order was ever deposited, and 2.) Why would Oswald buy the money order at the post office, yet walk over a mile out of his way to mail the envelope? All the while being unaccountably absent from work.

    To understand Von Pein, one has to go back to his online, forum appearance on the JFK Lancer site back in 2003. Even though moderator Debra Conway warned of submitting “trolling threads” there, Von Pein couldn’t help himself. In July of that year, he proclaimed Oswald guilty through what he termed a “mountain of evidence.” He then asked, how much of this overwhelming tidal wave of proof would it take to convince a person out of the notion of conspiracy? Quite a thunderous build up eh?

    But as with Chaplin’s cannon, the explosion fired the shell about two feet away. For Von Pein’s “mountain of evidence” consisted of the mildewed litany of discredited Warren Commission data. Which, of course, is not a mountain. It’s more like the San Andreas Fault. He began with the above noted specious notion that Oswald owned the rifle; and he ended with the equally specious notion that Oswald could have run down from the sixth floor to the second in time to be seen by Marrion Baker and Roy Truly right after the assassination. Some of the gems in between were that Oswald definitely killed Officer Tippit and that he also attempted to kill General Edwin Walker. My favorite point was this: “the Single Bullet Theory has still not been proven to be an impossibility.” I guess he thinks that if it’s not impossible, that means it happened. (As we shall see later, with CE 399, it is impossible.) Von Pein even wrote that at Z frame 224, both Kennedy and John Connally were reacting to the same bullet. Which Milicent Cranor, in her previously posted article “Lies for the Eyes”, showed to be a howler. In reality Kennedy is reacting and Connally is not. With a straight face, at the end of this “mountainous” listing, Von Pein wrote, “For aren’t hard facts and evidence always more believable than wild speculation and conjecture?” (Posted 7/17/03)

    As one respondent noted to Von Pein, with the work of Josiah Thompson, Sylvia Meagher, and Mark Lane, his list had been pretty much demolished by 1967. Yet he was reviving it as if it were new. Further, while listing it, he did not note any of the serious problems that those writers had pointed out. Von Pein was, of course, starting a classic “troll thread”. One that is deliberately meant to provoke others. “Trolling” was defined by Tim Campbell in his 2001 article on the subject as such: “An Internet troll is a person who delights in sowing discord on the Internet. He … tries to start arguments and upset people … To them, other Internet users are not quite human but are a kind of digital abstraction … Trolls are utterly impervious to criticism … .You cannot negotiate with them … you cannot reason with them … For some reason, trolls do not feel they are bound by the rules of courtesy or social responsibility.” Conway duly posted this article, seemingly to warn Von Pein.

    But this did not even slow Von Pein down. For, as Campbell noted, trolls are non-negotiable and impervious to criticism. In his Colbert vein, Von Pein tried to say he was making arguments that were founded in common sense and logic. (Post of 7/21/05) A few days later, the uncontrollable urge to lash out at the billions who would not accept the Single Bullet Fantasy again possessed Von Pein. He submitted a truly Colbertian post. It pictured a gift basket of books for a Commission critic. It consisted of book covers entitled – among others – Paranoia, Face Your Fear, and A Paranoid’s Ultimate Survival Guide. No joke. (Post of 7/26/05) This points out the other side of Von Pein, which is also echoed in Reclaiming History: When you cannot win your argument on the facts, you resort to smearing your opponent. And Von Pein did this not just with the general comment above, but also to individuals. As Todd Teachout noted, Von Pein made comments to members like “You are disgusting!” and “The goofy gas must be getting to you … You’re talking more like a moron with every post.” As Todd ultimately noted, the obvious intent was “to not engage in a discussion of issues here, but to attempt to stifle a discussion of the issues.” (Post of 7/22/05)

    Which was undoubtedly true. And finally, a few days later, Conway announced that she was banning Von Pein from her forum. After his belated expulsion, there followed a two-day celebration. On a small scale, it was somewhat comparable to V-E Day. But before leaving the subject of Von Pein at Lancer, it must be noted that it was there that he began to manifest his almost incontinent devotion to Reclaiming History. In fact, he began to bandy it about as a way to counteract evidentiary points in the case i.e. the avulsive hole that so many witnesses saw in the back of Kennedy’s skull. What made this odd is that he was doing it in 2005. Reclaiming History would not be published until two years hence. Quite an omniscient feat. One person questioned Von Pein’s reasoning from a different angle. He said that it was not logical for Von Pein to build up Bugliosi’s book because the author would be working with the same database everyone else was. Von Pein replied that although this may be true, Bugliosi was somehow that much smarter than everyone else and that should make the critics quiver in fear. For Reclaiming History would spell the end of their cause. Pretty hefty expectations for a book yet to be published.

    As I said, Conway eventually did the right thing and ejected him from the forum. But Von Pein had to have understood that he was breaking the posted rules of the site. For it clearly stated that members were not to use abusive language. Another rule was not to spam or harass or exploit the other members. (The gift basket of “paranoid” titles would qualify as such in my book.) But the rule that Von Pein violated with reckless abandon was the one about doing mass posts and therefore flooding the board. As Gene Stump pointed out, Von Pein did 263 posts in his first 12 days! (Post of 7/28/05) As Teachout indicated, the game for Von Pein was to dominate the forum with his antique discredited “facts”, so that instead of doing constructive work, everyone would be debating things as silly as the Magic Bullet. When that didn’t work, Von Pein’s smears and insults would be used in hopes of dividing and polarizing the place so that no actual discussion on the evidence was possible. Because anyone who believed the Commission in error could be reduced to being something less than human: a sick and paranoid conspiracy buff. (In large part, Bugliosi adapted the last technique in his book.)

    Once ejected from Lancer, Von Pein migrated over to John Simkin’s Spartacus forum. Pretty much the same thing occurred there. He was eventually ejected because of his abusive language plus his failure to post a photo of himself. Simkin required the latter to prevent trolls from entering the forum under assumed names. Which, of course, raises some interesting questions about Von Pein’s failure to do so.

    After this second ejection, Von Pein came to his senses. He realized he could not comport normally with the great mass of the public who didn’t buy the fantasy of the Single Bullet Theory. He now made his way to the place where he belonged all along: the John McAdams dominated Google group, alt.conspiracy.jfk. Why is this important? Because historically speaking, McAdams was the first person on the Internet to exhibit critical thinking skills so stilted, comprehension skills so unbalanced, cognitive skills so impaired, all combined with a basic dishonesty about these failings, to the degree that he almost seemed the victim of a neurological disease. Any strong indication of conspiracy in the JFK case, no matter how compelling, could not permeate his brain waves or synapses. McAdams hates being an outcast or labeled as a propagandist – even though he is. So he constructed a sort of hospice for people like himself who normal thinking people could not tolerate. Actually two of them. One is on his own site and one is a Google Group.

    The important thing for Von Pein is that since McAdams controls the halfway houses, almost anything goes as long as it supports the Warren Commission. Here, Von Pein could now use his previously noted wild man tactics with impunity. Another place that Von Pein frequents is the IMDB forum on Oliver Stone’s film JFK. There, to those not familiar with the facts of the case, he tried to discredit the film as a work of “fiction”. Or those who have not read the accompanying volume to the movie entitled JFK: The Book of the Film.

    But it is from alt.conspiracy.jfk that Von Pein has continued what will probably be his lifetime goal: To protect and to serve Reclaiming History. After all, Von Pein bought into the book two years before it was published. He proclaimed to all that Bugliosi would grind the likes of Sylvia Meagher, Gary Aguilar, and Philip Melanson into hamburger. To put it kindly, Reclaiming History did no such thing. In fact, as Von Pein was advised, one of the most surprising things about the book is how little new is in it. For the most part, Bugliosi just recycled all the old Krazy Kid Oswald arguments and put them between two covers. In so doing he largely relied upon that same hoary and discredited cast of characters: Michael Baden, John Lattimer, Larry Sturdivan, David Slawson. He even trotted out Gerald Ford. As I noted, though Von Pein was warned about this probability, he thought Bugliosi would pull a rabbit out of the hat. He didn’t. Because there is none to pull.

    Reclaiming History was remaindered in about a year. And it has been effectively attacked by a slew of writers: Rodger Remington, Gary Aguilar, Milicent Cranor, Michael Green, Mark Lane, Josiah Thompson and myself among them. So Von Pein is placed in the position of any troll. He has to defend what he said by protecting his hero from the justified and effective attacks on his work. In this regard, he has gotten so desperate that he communicates with Bugliosi’s secretary on a regular basis. She even asked him to host a cable TV program and take on “any and all conspiracy nuts.” Apparently, Rosemary Newton is unaware that Len Osanic personally invited Von Pein to debate me on his Black Op Radio program. I also asked him to do so. He failed to take up the challenge at either opportunity. Understandably, he would rather wage his crusade from inside the friendly confines of McAdams’ hospice (which I have elsewhere nicknamed The Pigpen) This is not very brave but – as we shall see – it is probably smart on his part. As Gil Jesus has noted, it’s from there that Von Pein can issue some of his most bizarre proclamations, like “What does ‘back and to the left’ prove? Anything?” Or this other dandy: “Let’s assume for the sake of argument that there were/are several different Mannlicher Carcano rifles with the exact same serial number on them of C2766 … my next logical question (based on the totality of evidence in this Kennedy murder case) is this one: So what?” (Jesus post at Spartacus forum 9/13/08, quoting Von Pein) Only from The Pigpen could such wild nonsense be allowed.

    And only there could the following go by without being harpooned. In August of 2009, Von Pein queried Rosemary Newton again. He wanted her to ask Bugliosi if CE 399 – the Magic Bullet – would have been admitted into evidence at trial. He also wanted to ask if the judge at the 1986 simulated posthumous Oswald trial in London had done so. In the Introduction to Reclaiming History, Bugliosi tries to insinuate that the televised trial that he (unwisely) chose to participate in was very close to an actual trial. And that it followed the standard rules of evidence. The author sidestepped the crucial fact that since the trial was in London and the core evidence is at the National Archives, things like the alleged rifle, the shells, the autopsy evidence, and CE 399, were not there to be presented in court This would not be the case at a real trial. But not only that, even though all three autopsy doctors were alive in 1986, none of them were at the trial. Could one imagine all this happening in a real, contested, high-profile trial? I can’t. In actuality, the London production did not even approach a real trial. And since all the above was lacking, the rules of evidence – by necessity – could not be followed. To point out just one failing: Any defense lawyer worth his salt would have demanded CE 399 be presented in court for the jury to view. We shall see why shortly.

    In spite of the above, on August 22nd of 2009, Bugliosi replied to Von Pein’s query about the admittance of the Magic Bullet into evidence. Significantly, the prosecutor led off by saying that the purpose of the “chain of possession requirement is to insure that the item being offered into evidence by the prosecution, or the defense, is what they claim it to be.” (Keep in mind, Bugliosi himself said this.) He then answered the first question with, yes CE 399 would be admitted. And his answer to the second question was that the judge at the London trial had admitted the bullet into evidence without seeing it! Yep, that’s what happened. A question that Von Pein/Colbert didn’t ask was: “Vince, what kind of evidentiary hearing could you have if the actual bullet wasn’t there? That would mean that the jury could not examine it. It’s the shock of seeing that bullet and then listening to both the damage it inflicted and its flight path that has convinced tens of millions of Americans that Oswald didn’t do it.”

    In his reply, Bugliosi also referred to pages 814-815 of Reclaiming History as proof that CE 399 was not fired elsewhere and then planted at Parkland. If you look up those pages you will see why Von Pein is Von Pein. For on those pages, Bugliosi is referring to the Neutron Activation Analysis test. The one which the scientific world, the FBI, and the court system has now deemed as discredited. A test which, because of the work of Bill Tobin, Cliff Spiegelman, Eric Randich and Pat Grant, will likely never be used in court again. The test which even Robert Blakey has called “junk science”. (For why, click here and here). In other words, only in the world of John McAdams, Von Pein, and Reclaiming History, are we to still use this “junk science” for bullet-lead forensic purposes. After this, Bugliosi begged off and thanked Von Pein profusely. As he should.

    In Von Pein’s previous reply to my brief noting of his treatment of the rifle issue, he protested my terming him a “cheerleader” for Reclaiming History. He said he was actually a cheerleader for the truth. But if that was the case then why didn’t Von Pein/Colbert ask Bugliosi any of the following about CE 399?

    1. “Vince, in Six Seconds in Dallas – which you have read closely – the author makes a convincing case that CE 399 was not found on Kennedy’s stretcher or John Connally’s. Nor was it on the floor. It was on the stretcher of a little boy named Ronald Fuller. If so, how did it get there?” (See pgs. 163-64)”Vince, in that same book, the author interviewed O. P. Wright, the guy who turned over CE 399 to the Secret Service. He said that the bullet he discovered was not a copper coated, round nosed, military jacketed bullet like CE 399. But a lead colored, sharp-nosed, hunting round. How could that be? And by your own definition of the chain of custody test, i.e. insuring that the item is what it is claimed to be, in light of Wright’s testimony, how would CE 399 be admitted into evidence?” (ibid p. 175)”Josiah Thompson talked to Wright’s widow many years later. She was the head of nursing at Parkland. She said other nurses turned up other bullets that day. Did you talk to her? Why wasn’t this investigated by Arlen Specter and the Commission?” (See my review of Reclaiming History, part 1, Section 4.)”Why did the FBI lie in a memo about showing CE 399 to Wright? Gary Aguilar and Josiah Thompson found out that they did not do so. Does this have anything to do with Wright’s name not being in the Warren Report?” (ibid)”In your book, in the End Notes on p. 431, you write that Elmer Lee Todd’s initials are on CE 399. John Hunt checked on this at the National Archives. Todd’s initials are not on the bullet. So it appears the FBI lied again. Did you not check this fact?” (See my Reclaiming History review, part 7, Section 3.)”Todd wrote down the time he received the bullet as 8:50 PM. But Robert Frazier wrote down that he got the bullet at 7:30 PM. Yet the FBI says he got it from Todd. How could such a thing happen? Is that dichotomy in your book? I don’t recall it.” (Ibid)

      “Vince, were all these issues addressed at that London trial? I don’t recall them being brought up. In a real trial don’t you think they would have been?”

    2. “If you had been Oswald’s defense lawyer at trial, wouldn’t you have used this information to powerful effect to show that CE 399 was not the bullet found at Parkland, and the FBI knew it? Why would you not have? Its tremendously exculpatory stuff. I would have liked to have seen the DA’s face as you wrecked his case with it.”

    Von Pein asked the author none of these questions. So much for him being a cheerleader for the truth. You can’t do that unless you find the truth. To find the truth you have to ask the right questions and honestly follow the answers. (Which is probably why Von Pein has been known to disable comments on some of his You Tube channels.)

    Von Pein/Colbert would not pose the above questions for they would indicate that 1.) The London TV proceeding that Bugliosi participated in was nothing but a show trial, and 2.) Bugliosi ignored almost all these very important questions in his book. (And concerning question number five, it doesn’t appear that Bugliosi visited the National Archives to examine the key piece of evidence that he says was admitted, sight unseen, in London.) This kind of leaves Von Pein holding the bag. I mean he has been trying to sell Reclaiming History as the Holy Grail to the JFK case for about five years. To put it mildly, it hasn’t panned out as he claimed. He can’t admit that. Since because of his unwise advertising campaign, he now has egg all over his face. So he sends out an SOS to Bugliosi. And what does he get? More egg. Maybe he’ll get an omelet next time.

    Zealot that he is, he still shills for Reclaiming History. But only from his safe haven at the McAdams’ controlled comedy central forum. There he is largely protected from the spears and arrows of the real world. Jon and Stephen, with interviews like the one described above, Von Pein is in training. Don’t look now, but he’s gaining on you.

    See als Part 2.

     

  • Rodger Remington, Biting the Elephant

    Rodger Remington is a retired history professor. He taught for over thirty years at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Which, ironically, happens to be the home of former Warren Commissioner Gerald Ford. I say ironically because Remington is a relentless and acute critic of the Commission and their work.

    After Rodger retired from teaching, he began to copy large segments of the Warren Commission volumes at a library. He brought them home and studied them minutely. Shocked and surprised by what he studied, he then started to write a series of books on the Commission’s findings. They are titled, in order: The People v. the Warren Report, The Warren Report, and Fallings Chips. All three were published between 2002 and 2005. He published his latest work, Biting the Elephant, in 2009. This last largely consists of his attempted correspondence with three Commission supporters: Gerald Posner, Ken Rahn, and Vincent Bugliosi. In each case, the author tried to convince the Commission supporters to co-write a book with him that would consist of a point-counterpoint of specific issues in the JFK case. In each instance, the official supporter ultimately declined. In an amusing Roger and Me kind of narrative, the author closely chronicles his prolific but futile attempt to engage the “Warrenati” in his literary enterprise.

    Biting the Elephant also deals with a minute examination of some of the key witnesses the Commission used to place the shots from the upper floors of the Texas School Book Depository. These four are Howard Brennan, Amos Euins, Arnold Rowland, and James Worrell. His examination of the testimony of these four men is searching, nuanced, and thorough. This is important, of course, since the Commission and its supporters rely extensively on these four men – especially Brennan – to pin the murder of President Kennedy on Lee Harvey Oswald. Remington shows just how problematic their testimony is in that regard.

    I

    Remington begins his first chapter with the unwise words of Gerald Ford in Life magazine of 10/2/64. With a mixture of laughter and tears, the reader will recall that Ford described Howard Brennan like this: “The most important witness to appear before the Warren Commission in the 10 months we sat was a neat, Bible-reading steam fitter from Dallas. His name was H. L. Brennan, and he had seen Lee Harvey Oswald thrust a rifle from a sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository and shoot the President of the United States.” (Remington, p. 22)

    Immediately afterwards, the author shows just how biased Ford must have been to write this. For Brennan told assistant counsel David Belin, “Well, as it appeared to me he was standing up and resting against the left window sill, with gun shouldered to his right shoulder, holding the gun with his left hand and taking positive aim and fired his last shot.” (ibid)

    In his discussion of Vincent Bugliosi’s Reclaiming History, Remington points out that this is very hard to believe since it would necessitate a bullet going through a glass window. (Remington, p. 352; see also Mark Lane, Rush to Judgment, p. 83) Further, the author shows that, during his visit to Dallas for reconstruction purposes, Belin almost certainly falsified the positioning of Brennan in CE 477. Belin placed him on the wrong ledge of a retaining wall and facing the wrong street. As Rodger points out, the Zapruder frames featured on the cover of Reclaiming History show that Belin was wrong in this. Yet Bugliosi fails to point this out. (ibid, Remington)

    The author points out something else worth noting about this curious witness that Ford was so enamored with. Brennan admitted that he didn’t see the first shot. He actually thought it was a firecracker. But he also admitted that he did not see the rifle explode for the second and third shots either. (WC Vol. III, p. 154) The author deduces that if we are to take this seriously, then Brennan must have been jerking his head back and forth between Kennedy being killed and the shooter in the TSBD – and with miraculous speed and anticipation. In reality, Brennan is not to be taken seriously. As Rodger writes, given these qualifications, “…there is absolutely no factual basis for identifying Howard Brennan as an eyewitness to the shooting…” (pgs. 35-36) Amen.

    But I should add, there may be a reason that Brennan said what he did, in the way he did. As attorney Bob Tanenbaum has stated, if one goes with the Commission’s version of the so-called sniper’s nest, Brennan’s testimony is weird. He is supposed to be the source of the original description of the assassin’s height and weight. But as Tanenbaum notes: If Oswald was kneeling down behind that stack of boxes, how could Brennan have determined his clothing color, height and weight? (WC Vol. III p. 144) This may be why Brennan depicted him standing. But, if that was so, then why did he build the “sniper’s nest”? (It is true that Brennan also said he saw the man before the shooting, but then he said he was sitting on the sill. He later seemed to contradict himself by saying he did not see the window until after the first shot. WC Vol. III, pgs. 144, 154)

    Remington leaves out another dubious point about this strange witness. After the assassination, Brennan went home and said he watched television. During which he viewed Oswald’s face twice. (WC Vol. III, p. 148) Although the Warren Report is confusing on this issue, it seems to say that he then viewed a line-up the evening of the murder and failed to pick out Oswald. (Warren Report, p. 145) David Belin realized this was a problem for boss Gerald Ford’s star witness. So when Brennan testified before the Commission, an excuse was forthcoming. He failed to make the identification that night because he was afraid a communist plot would endanger his family. (ibid,) It was that fear which held him back from making the positive ID at police headquarters the night of the 22nd.

    In his book, No Case to Answer, Ian Griggs has made a detailed and valuable analysis of the Oswald line-ups (pgs. 81-91). In this regard, it is important to note some of the comments made by Brennan on the issue of the line-ups to the Commission. When asked by Belin if he recalled how many people were in the line-up, Brennan answered that he was not sure, possibly “seven more or less one.” (WC Vol. III, p. 147) Which would mean anywhere from 6-8. According to Griggs, there were never more than four men in any line-up. And in fact, there could not have been either 7 or 8. Why? Because the placement allotment allowed for only six people. (Griggs, p. 91) Belin then asked the “star witness” about the ethnic makeup of the line-up, “were they all white, or were there some Negroes in there, or what?” Brennan replied with, “I do not remember.” (ibid) Which is a startling answer. Why? This is 1963, at the height of King’s civil rights movement. The March on Washington occurred several months previous. The Klan was blowing up buildings and buses. Yet Brennan does not recall if there were any black men in the only line-up he ever saw in the most important murder ever in Dallas?

    In this regard, Mark Lane and Harold Weisberg made two brief but telling comments about Brennan’s alleged presence at an Oswald line-up. Harold Weisberg wrote in Whitewash, “It is true that Brennan ‘viewed’ the line-up, although he appears to be the one person of whose presence the police have no written record.” (p. 90) Mark Lane echoed this in Rush to Judgment: “The Dallas police submitted to the Commission a document which they said incorporated the name of every person who attended any of the four line-ups at which Oswald was shown to witnesses. Brennan’s name, however, does not appear therein.” (Lane, p. 91) Odd that the Commission’s star witness should be notable by his absence.

    Griggs thought all the above more than just odd. So the former British detective followed up on it. Griggs found out that although he could find particular times assigned to the four line-ups the police listed, there was no time that the Commission assigned to the one Brennan was allegedly at. (Griggs, p. 90) Griggs found a book – Judy Bonner’s Investigation of a Homicide – in which the author said that Brennan was at the same line-up as Barbara and Virginia Davis, who were witnesses to the Tippit murder. This line up took place on the 22nd at 7:55 PM. (Griggs, p. 88) Yet, when Griggs checked this out with Barbara Davis, she said she did not recall Brennan being there. (ibid, p. 92) Griggs also discovered that no other line-up witness mentioned seeing Brennan. (Griggs, p. 94)

    The detective also found the police notes used to make up the official reports on the four line-ups. Brennan’s name is not listed there either. (ibid, p. 93) Neither is his name in any of the affidavits or testimony of the police officers who supervised the line-ups. (ibid)

    I’ve saved the best for last. John McCloy asked Capt. Will Fritz if he was at the line-up attended by Brennan. Fritz said the following: “I don’t think I was present but I will tell you what, I helped Mr. Sorrels find the time that that man – we didn’t show that he was shown at all on our records, but Mr. Sorrels called me and said he did show him and wanted me to give him the time of the showup. I asked him to find out from his officers who were with Mr. Brennan the names of the people that we had there, and he gave me those two Davis sisters, and he said, when the told me that, of course, I could tell what showup it was and then I gave him the time.” (ibid, p. 94, italics added) This is the man directly supervising the police investigation. Yet he doesn’t know that 1.) Barbara Davis didn’t see Brennan, and 2.) He doesn’t care if Brennan is not listed by his own men as being at that line-up. If someone can find a piece of Commission testimony more openly indicating the cops cooperating with Washington in aid of a cover-up, I would like to see it.

    Like Mary Bledsoe, Wesley Frazier, and others, the weight of the evidence indicates that Brennan was one of the Commission’s manufactured witnesses. If Oswald had participated in a real trial – which the Warren Commission did not even resemble – a skilled and knowledgeable defense attorney would have dismantled Brennan piece by piece. Which is probably why Oswald was killed.

    One of the most interesting parts of Biting the Elephant is that Remington actually proffers a method as to how this happened. He writes of a little noted debate within the Commission over “preparation” of witnesses. This occurred in January of 1964. According to Remington the lawyers who were in favor of witness preparation were Arlen Specter, Joe Ball, and David Belin. They were opposed by assistant General Counsel Norman Redlich. Ultimately, Chief Counsel J. Lee Rankin stepped in and decided the dispute in favor of the three assistant counsels. (Remington, p. 53) The understanding arrived at was that “preparations would be summarized in memoranda to be submitted to Redlich. Apparently, somewhere along the way, the requirement for memoranda gave way to the demands of limited time and they were not always provided.” (ibid) I can attest that Remington is right on this. I have seen some of the memoranda at the Dallas Public Library. Before a witness testified the Commission had notes arranged like bullet points as to what the witness would say on specific evidentiary points. It would seem that this is why witnesses were pre-interviewed – sometimes repeatedly – by the FBI, the Secret Service, and sometimes both. One can argue that this preparation occurs at trials today all the time. But at an actual trial, the witness is also cross-examined by the opposing lawyer. No rigorous cross-examination on Oswald’s behalf ever happened during the Commission hearings.

    II

    The three other witnesses that Remington minutely examines are Amos Euins, Arnold Rowland, and James Worrell.

    Euins was a fifteen-year-old high school student in 1963. (p. 36) There are three serious problems his testimony contains for those who use him as a prosecution witness against Oswald. First, when one follows the course of his testimony from the day of the assassination, it is confusing as to whether or not he believes the man he saw in the Texas School Book Depository was white or black. (ibid, p. 39, p. 118) Second, Euins heard four shots. (p. 115) Third, the man he saw in the window had a bald spot in the back of his head – something hard to pin on Oswald. (pgs. 116, 118)

    On the first point, Remington digs deeper into the record and finds out why Arlen Specter treated Euins rather gently. It turns out that on the day of the assassination, Euins told news director James Underwood that the man he saw in the TSBD with a rifle was black. Underwood pressed him on this point by asking him if he was certain. Euins replied that he was. (p. 126) Later on that day, he told the Dallas County Sheriff’s office that them man he saw was a white man. (ibid) Still later, when he was informally questioned by Secret Service agent Forrest Sorrels, he said he was not sure if he was white or black. When he was asked if he could identify the man he saw if he viewed him again, Euins said, “No I couldn’t.” (ibid, p. 127)

    Euins was apparently “prepared” in advance for his Commission appearance. In addition to being handled rather gingerly by Specter, he had a rationale for his jumping back and forth. He now said that the sheriffs’ office had not transcribed what he said accurately. He said he did not tell them the man was white. Only that he had a white spot on his head. (p. 118) He now told Specter that he could not really tell if the man was black or white. (ibid) The problem with this is that, right after the assassination, he told Sgt. Harkness that the man was black. (p. 125) This, of course, would pose serious problems for the Commission since it would eliminate Oswald as the man Euins saw.

    But Remington goes further with Euins. He questions how Euins could have seen a “white spot” on top of the gunman’s head from his vantage point on the ground? (p. 127) The author thinks that Euins picked up this detail from another witness, perhaps James Worrell. For Remington, the capper in all this is an FBI report filed about a week after the shooting. The boy’s stepfather told the agent that the boy had told him what he saw but that “he was not sure whether Euins had seen the shooting or whether he had just imagined it.” (pgs. 126-27)

    Although a bit older than Euins, Arnold Rowland was also a high school student. But as Remington points out, Specter did not treat him nearly as gently as he did Euins. Why? Because Rowland’s testimony posed serious problems for the Commission, in more ways than one. First, he said he saw a person with a rifle in a window other than the designated Sniper’s Nest window. Second, he said he saw a person other than Oswald in the Sniper’s Nest window prior to the assassination.

    Star witness Brennan said he saw a man with a rifle in the southeast corner of the TSBD. Since this was the window on the sixth floor which also contained the peculiar box arrangement and in which the expended three shells were found, the Commission insisted that the assassin fired from there. But Rowland said that he saw a man with a rifle in the opposite window, the southwest one. Further, he said he saw a black man in the southeast corner window, the one the Commission and Brennan said Oswald was firing from. (pgs. 54-55) Consequently, the Commission decided to start an FBI inquiry into Rowland’s background in order to discredit him. To poke holes in his credibility, they first said that although Rowland pointed out the man in the opposite window to his wife, she said she did not see him. The actual reason for this was that she was near-sighted and did not have her glasses on (p. 63) Another way the Commission went after him was to say that he did not tell the police about the African-American man in the “Oswald” window. Yet, as Remington points out, Rowland did tell the FBI about him the next day. The FBI told him this detail was not important. (p. 74) In all, the FBI visited him seven times and he signed four different hand-written notes. (ibid) This included visiting him at work and at his mother-in-law’s house. (pgs. 75, 79) Specter even questioned Rowland about his grades and his IQ, obviously in hope of tripping him up.

    The point Remington is making in all this is the one made many years ago by Sylvia Meagher: the Commission had a clear double standard in their investigation. If a witness told them something helpful with their preconceived verdict, he was treated gently. If what he said was not helpful to them, he was treated roughly. And if that witness did not get the message from the constant visits of the FBI and Secret Service, then Arlen Specter gave him a prolonged third degree grilling. As he did with Rowland.

    James Worrell was more of a mixed bag for the Commission. Like Euins, Worrell said he heard four shots. (pgs. 101, 115) Like Euins, he said he heard them from the upper floors of the TSBD, either the fifth or sixth. (p. 111)

    But here begins the serious official problems with Worrell as a Commission witness. As Remington points out, in the Doubleday version of the Warren Report, there is a photo of Worrell in Washington walking to the Commission HQ to be questioned. He is with three other eyewitnesses: Robert Jackson, Euins, and Rowland. In the picture, Worrell is holding a pair of glasses in a position that suggests he took them off at the photographer’s request. (p. 112) What makes this incident even more fascinating is a fact the author notes next. During the hearings that day, when Worrell’s companions were questioned, each one was asked about the quality of their eyesight. Jackson replied his vision was a perfect 20/20. Rowland said his was better than 20/20. Euins said “I can see real good at a distance, but I can’t see at real close range.” (p. 112. This, of course, would be fine for the Commission’s purposes.) As the author notes, Worrell was not asked about the quality of his eyesight.

    The final problem with Worrell was contained in his affidavit executed on November 23rd. There he said that during the shooting, he “got scared and ran from the location. I ran from Elm Street to Pacific Street on Houston.” There, he stopped to catch his breath and looked back at the building: “I saw a w/m, 5’8″ to 5′ 10″, dark hair, average weight for height, dark shirt or jacket open down front, no hat, didn’t have anything in hands come out of the building and run in the opposite direction from me.” (p. 111) In other words, it appears that Worrell saw someone running out of the back of the Depository right after the shooting. Which would seem to suggest a conspiracy. As does his testimony about hearing four shots.

    So what is the net sum of these four witnesses? The answer is: very little, if anything. Only an inveterate Commission zealot could still believe in Howard Brennan today. As I said, he is a manufactured witness. Euins said he could not identify the man he saw if he saw him again, and did not even know if he was white or black. And his own stepfather doubted his word. Rowland’s testimony actually exonerates Oswald. Worrell’s testimony indicates a marksman in the fifth or sixth floor firing four shots. And then suggests either he, or an accomplice, escaped out the back of the building. Needless to say, at a real trial, in a true adversary proceeding, the defense would look forward to cross-examining these four witnesses.

    III

    The second part of the book is about the author’s interactions with three Magic Bullet fantasists: Gerald Posner, Ken Rahn, and Vincent Bugliosi. Remington outlines his attempts to get any of the three to co-write a book with him debating the merits of the evidence in the JFK case. In the case of Posner, the Case Closed author never wrote him back. He and Rahn had a rather interesting correspondence before the former college professor decided to back out.

    The most interesting communications Remington had with the Magic Bullet crowd was with Bugliosi. Remington notes that in his bloated tome Reclaiming History, the former prosecutor complains that Warren Commission assistant counsel Arlen Specter never answered a letter he wrote to him. Remington then asks us to consider the following in light of that complaint. In February of 2008, after digesting Bugliosi’s giant volume, he penned a letter to the Single Bullet backer. He asked him to cooperate in his book venture. He also listed six pertinent questions they could debate. A couple of these were: 1.) Why was Dr. George Burkley never examined as a witness by the Warren Commission? And 2.) Why were the media records of the 11/22/63 Parkland Hospital press conference never entered into evidence by the Commission? Bugliosi never responded in writing. But he did call Remington on February 20th. (pgs. 304-05) He said he had no time to answer in writing. And during his twenty minutes on the phone, the former prosecutor never directly answered any of his queries. He tried to discount them with a classic lawyer’s brush off: He said they “didn’t go anywhere”.

    After this rather dismissive call, Remington wrote the attorney again on March 3rd. He got no reply. He then wrote him five more times in April and May. There was no reply to any of these. (ibid, p. 309) So, on the evidence of this record, the Single Bullet Fantasy crowd has severe reservations about confronting its critics on a level field.

    In relation to this, I must bring up a point that Remington uncovered about the ersatz London trial that Bugliosi unwisely chose to participate in. Unwise in two senses. First, because it did not in any way resemble a real trial. And secondly, because in spite of that fact, the author took it seriously. And that misjudgment started him down the path to Reclaiming History. Jerry Rose commented after seeing the program that the roster of witnesses was heavily loaded in favor of the prosecution. (The Third Decade, Vol. 3 No. 1 pgs. 16-24) The producers found room for people like Tom Tilson and Paul O’Connor, yet they could not find room for crucial people like Sylvia Odio and James Humes. Further, as Rose notes, the prosecution presented 14 witnesses, twice as many as the defense’s seven. But in spite of all that, Remington reveals that the jury’s first verdict was 7-5 for acquittal. And he got this right from the source, producer Mark Redhead. (p. 303)

    Having been in the jury room for more than one trial, I understand that when you have that kind of vote, it is very hard to overcome each and every juror and get a unanimous verdict. Which was reportedly done here. Clearly, someone in the jury room had to have been riding herd, or there may have been outside interference. (It is clear from all the above, plus what Bugliosi revealed in his book, that the show was slanted for the prosecution.) Remington reveals that the man riding herd may have been the foreman. Because when he interviewed him, he disagreed with the producer Redhead. He said the first vote was 10-2 in favor of conviction. (ibid)

    In fact, the highlight of this second part of the book is the careful but major surgery the author performs on Reclaiming History. Rodger’s approach is different from mine in my multi-part series on the same subject. Remington goes little further than the established record of the Warren Commission. He incorporates little or nothing that was discovered in later years. But even on that ground, he scores some heavy blows against Reclaiming History. One case in point is Bugliosi’s taking to task Mark Lane’s depiction of the famous Katzenbach memorandum. This was the document issued by the acting Attorney General on 11/25 which essentially said that Oswald was the sole killer and the official story must enunciate that clearly. This was before any official Washington inquiry was in process.

    Bugliosi scores Lane for not quoting the first part of the document. The prosecutor then says that this part of the memo states that: “It is important that all of the facts surrounding President Kennedy’s assassination be made public.” The implication being that the memo is not as one sided against Oswald as Lane makes it out to be. Remington notes that the italics are Bugliosi’s, not Katzenbach’s. (Remington p. 324) Bugliosi does not specifically note this, and therefore uses it to hammer home his point against Lane. But even worse, although it is true that the above words are the first in the memo, they are not the only words in the sentence. The full sentence reads as follows: “It is important that all of the facts surrounding President Kennedy’s assassination be made public in a way which will satisfy people in the United States and abroad that all the facts have been told and that a statement to this effect be made now.” The very next sentence is: “The public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin: that he did not have confederates who are still at large: and that the evidence was such hat he would have been convicted at trial.” The rest of the five paragraphs in the memo are in the same vein as statement two. (See page 326) Remington thus shows that Bugliosi has quoted selectively in order to make a manufactured point against the man he calls the “dean of distortion”. (p. 324) In any full reading of the memo, it can be fairly said that it was Bugliosi, not Lane, who was doing the distorting. And the tendency to selectively quote, as I have stated and shown elsewhere, is a very serious problem with Reclaiming History.

    Remington also brings out another absolutely puzzling point about Bugliosi’s rather weird attitude toward central evidence in the JFK case. Ever since Cyril Wecht revealed it, the fact that President Kennedy’s brain is missing from the National Archives has posed a real mystery as to this case. And on two levels. First, there is no real explanation as to how and why it is absent. Several authors have made educated guesses as to how this disappearance occurred. But no one has come close to proving their case. The other point that makes this so tantalizing is that, as Wecht has noted, the missing brain is absolutely central to solving the mystery as to what precisely happened to President Kennedy. In a real autopsy, the brain would have been properly sectioned and the path of any bullets through it could have been discerned. In other words, a skilled and experienced pathologist – like say Wecht or Milton Halpern of New York – could have done much to show us how many bullets hit Kennedy’s skull and from which direction(s). Because the brain is absent and because the autopsy was so deficient in this regard, this fundamental point is in hot dispute.

    But it’s even worse than that. As authors like David Mantik and Doug Horne have pointed out, it is hard to believe that the brain depicted by artist Ida Dox in the House Select Committee volumes is actually Kennedy’s brain. Why? Because her renditions depict a brain that is almost fully intact. Yet, many witnesses at the Bethesda autopsy testified to seeing a brain that was blasted away, and therefore did not in any way present an intact brain. Further, on the evening of the 22nd, the brain withdrawn from Kennedy’s skull was not weighed. Which is startling, since it is standard autopsy procedure to weigh the major organs after they are withdrawn. Yet, days later, when a weight was assigned to Kennedy’s brain, it weighed in at 1500 grams. This is also startling. Because the top end weight is about 1400 grams. Autopsy fantasists like Michael Baden try to explain this discrepancy by saying the fixing mixture the brain was soaked in could have added the weight. What he does not allow for is the fact that what was being soaked, by most accounts, was a partial brain. (For a good short treatment of this subject see David Mantik’s essay in Murder in Dealey Plaza, pgs. 261-64).

    Now in any serious, intelligent, and honest discussion of this matter, all these points would have to be enumerated to the reader. And, considering the nature of the evidence, one would have to seriously lament the absence of the brain and the serious failings of the pathologists in this regard. Finally, putting the best face on it, one would conclude that the evidentiary record is hard to decipher.

    How does Bugliosi handle this crucial matter? Like this: “One of the very biggest mysteries concerning missing evidence in the Kennedy assassination, one that continues to fascinate, and one that may never be solved, but fortunately, one that doesn’t’ need to be – since it has mostly academic value – is what happened to President Kennedy’s brain?” (p. 335, Bugliosi’s italics.)

    Is Bugliosi saying what I think he is saying here? That the opportunity to actually dissect bullet tracks through the brain, to photograph those tracks, to preserve tissue slides containing both tissue and lead etc. – that this was all an academic matter? Is he really saying that it had no forensic value in a murder case at all? Even though the murder was accomplished by gunfire and the fatal wound was in the head? How does one explain such a stance? Except that if this is what he is saying, no wonder he would not answer Rodger’s questions in writing.

    In the midst of his discussion of these two important matters – the Katzenbach memo, and the missing brain – Rodger digresses into an enlightening discussion of different modes of finding truth in a complex matter. (Which, if you can believe it, Bugliosi believes the Kennedy case is not. He says the case is simple. If you can reduce the importance of the missing brain to an academic matter, then one can say the case is simple.) Quoting modern philosopher Richard Rorty, the author delineates two ways of pursuing the truth. If we believe that such a thing is attainable, one must grant that the truth is something that must be found. Yet, what men do with this truth is then made by the words one assigns to it. As we have seen in these two instances with Reclaiming History, Bugliosi does a lot more in making the truth than in finding it.

    IV

    For me the high point of the section on Bugliosi, perhaps the peak of the entire book, was the author’s analysis and takedown of Bugliosi’s 53 evidentiary points with which he convicts Oswald. In my series on Reclaiming History, I ignored these since I thought many of them to be – as we will see – rather silly. But academic historian that he is, Remington actually had the discipline and patience to analyze them all.

    One of the things he immediately comes up with is rather startling. Bugliosi’s first nine evidentiary points rely upon the testimony of either Wesley Frazier, Marina Oswald, or Charles Givens. For instance, for his first point, Bugliosi says that prior to 11/21, Oswald had hitched a ride with Wesley Frazier to see his wife only on Fridays. Yet, on the 21st, he did it on Thursday. The prosecutor’s inevitable conclusion is that Oswald went to the Paines on Thursday to pick up the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle. As Rodger points out, the car-sharing idea did not originate with Oswald, but with Frazier inviting Oswald to join him. If that invitation had not been extended, the car rides may not have happened. (p. 341) And the total number of rides previous to the 21st was only four. Not a great sample to establish a defining pattern with. Third, Oswald had missed the previous weekend visit and then quarreled with his wife over the phone on Monday night. Therefore he may have been trying a surprise visit to patch things up with his wife. (ibid).

    Now, if you read Part 6 (especially sections 2 and 3) of my Reclaiming History review, you will see that Wesley Frazier and his brown paper package story has become highly questionable today. And its questionable just about every step of the way. And because of other information about how the Dallas Police searched his house, detained him, and then gave him a midnight polygraph that had him on the brink of hysteria, Frazier has now been exposed as a compromised witness. Which explains why he is guarded today by the likes of Hugh Aynseworth and his colleague in cover up Dave Perry. None of the myriad points I enumerated in that review matters a whit to Bugliosi. He uses Frazier’s coerced testimony and the dubious brown package story for six of his first nine points of indictment. When, in reality, any intelligent , objective observer would tell the prosecutor that if he presented Frazier, Marina, and Givens as his first three witnesses at a real trial, with a defense lawyer like Carol Hewett waiting for them, there would be three extremely long faces exiting the witness chair after she got done with them. Four if you counted Bugliosi’s.

    At point number ten, Bugliosi says that Oswald was play acting when he asked Junior Jarman on 11/22 why there was a crowd gathering below them. Here, the prosecutor is indulging himself in mind reading powers in order to transform something exculpatory into something culpable. Then it gets worse. For point number eleven is none other than Howard Brennan! Point thirteen is this: that Oswald was purchasing a Coke on the second floor when Officer Baker encountered him shows he descended from the sixth floor because he usually drank Dr. Pepper there! (Bugliosi, p.958. I looked this one up in Reclaiming History, since I had a hard time believing the prosecutor took it seriously. He actually does.)

    But further, Bugliosi here says that Oswald placed himself on the sixth floor at the time of the shooting. I didn’t recall anyone saying this before, although perhaps they did. So, like Rodger, I looked up Bugliosi’s source note. I then understood why no one else had used it. The prosecutor was using a summary of one of Oswald’s interrogations while in custody. So for Bugliosi to say that Oswald himself said this is s real stretch. For the simple reason that there is no stenographic record or tape in evidence for these sessions. What we have is Dallas Police, FBI or Secret Service agents’ renditions. But in this case, it’s worse. Harry Holmes was a postal inspector who doubled as an FBI informant. Which is why he was the only non-law enforcement officer there with Oswald. Holmes is the guy who did a lot of cover for the Commission as to how Oswald could have picked up his rifle without the proper papers being signed in order to receive a firearm under an alias. (See John Armstrong, Harvey and Lee, p. 452) Armstrong actually thinks it was Holmes who helped put together the phony money order for the rifle, a money order that is severely out of numerical order for the date it was allegedly purchased. (ibid, pgs. 463-64)

    Holmes’ Oswald interrogation summary was not submitted until December 17th, almost a month after the murder. Then, under oath, he said he heard Oswald say things that others did not hear him say. For when he was examined by the Commission, Holmes said Oswald had admitted he had gone to Mexico before returning to Dallas. (ibid, p. 480) Even David Belin was taken aback by this. He asked Holmes if this was something he picked up from reading the papers, or did Oswald say it himself. Holmes said Oswald stated it. The obvious question, which was not asked by Belin, then becomes: Why is that rather salient fact not in your report, especially since it was finalized on December 17th? And why did no one else hear Oswald say it when you said he did? Holmes also lied about Oswald discussing his postal money order that day. For neither Will Fritz nor two Secret Service agents in his presence on 11/24 recalled Oswald saying anything about a postal money order. (ibid) Yet, Holmes is the man that Bugliosi relies upon for Oswald’s allegedly self-incriminating statements. Without telling us that Holmes appears to have made up other self-incriminating statements.

    But it’s even worse than that. For one when turns to Holmes’ summary as printed in the Warren Report, it does not say Oswald was on the sixth floor. It specifically says he did not indicate the floor he was on at the time of the shooting. (WR, p. 636) And then comes the clincher. When one reads this section of the Holmes report, it becomes clear that the FBI informant is embroidering his story to jibe with the evolving tale of the infamous Charles Givens. For the whole thing about “You go on down and send the elevator back up…” is there in Holmes’ summary. This whole Givens flip-flopping charade was exposed by Sylvia Meagher back in 1971 in the Texas Observer. (8/13/71) On the day of the assassination, the TSBD worker said he had seen Oswald around 11:50 in the so-called domino room on the first floor. Ten days later, on December 2nd, he changed his story for the Secret Service. He now said he saw Oswald upstairs with a clipboard on the sixth floor at around 11:45. As Givens left, Oswald told him to send an elevator back up for him. After that, he never saw Oswald again. Both stories cannot be true. But clearly, Holmes heard about the second story through his FBI grapevine. And he is now trying to create posthumous corroboration by Oswald, which again, no one else heard. Yet Bugliosi uses this obvious concoction as evidence against Oswald.

    Remington summarizes the entire list as follows: of the 53, seven of them are of the “we know” variety. (Remington , p. 438) That is, things that Bugliosi assumes to be a fact, which actually are not e.g. like Oswald owning the rifle in evidence. Another 27 instances consist of the “he said she said” variety (including expert testimony that would have been challenged in court.) With the above general and specific sampling of the 53 points, so much for Bugliosi’s claim of Oswald’s guilt beyond all doubt. (Reclaiming History, p. 953)

    V

    Remington’s critiques of Rahn and Posner are not quite up to his discussion of Bugliosi, but they are still worthwhile. Posner’s pile of junk Case Closed, has been so riddled full of holes that it’s almost not worth the effort to attack anymore: it’s like making the rubble bounce. But still, Rodger makes some interesting and telling points. He notes that, in his defense of the single bullet theory, Posner spent much more time explaining away the timing problem i.e. getting off the three shots in the space of a few seconds, than he did on the ballistics and trajectory problems involved. In fact he spent more time on the former than the latter two combined. (Remington, p. 135) Rodger is also good with the alchemy Posner pulls off with the Willis sisters. If one will recall, Posner built part of his ridiculous theory about an early shot – one before the limousine disappeared behind the sign – around Rosemary Willis turning at the sound of a first shot. A shot that missed. Posner sourced this to an interview Rosemary Willis did in 1979 with one Marcia Smith-Durk. Yet no particular venue is given for this interview. (ibid p. 163) Another source given is from a newspaper that had gone out of business by the time Case Closed was published. But that interview was also from 1979. (ibid) Why nothing in 1963 or 1964? What Posner does not tell you is that Phil Willis had two daughters who were with him in Dealey Plaza that day. And it was Linda Kay Willis who testified in 1964 before the Commission. When she did so testify, she told Wesley Liebeler that it was the second shot that missed. Which effectively kills Posner’s theory, since Oswald could not have hit Kennedy before he went behind the sign since the branches of an oak tree interfered with his sight. Which is probably why Posner didn’t mention the 1964 Willis testimony.

    Finally, Remington points out a rather artful use of ellipsis by Posner. In his discussion of Howard Brennan, Posner consulted the posthumously published memoir by the Commission’s star witness. This was done with a co-author and was entitled Eyewitness to History. In describing a man Brennan saw by looking up at the sixth floor of the TSBD, Posner quotes the following: “His face was almost expressionless…He seemed preoccupied.” Ellipsis can be used and defended if there are only a few words left out of a quote, or even a couple of sentences. But Remington notes that, in this instance, Posner eliminated five paragraphs! But further, what he eliminated mildly suggests a conspiracy. For in what is left out, Brennan is describing a sealed off area of Dealey Plaza toward a side entrance of the TSBD. This side entrance is described as being off Houston Street, toward the rear of the building. The police had sealed the area off with saw horses and forced all cars to move out. Yet Brennan observed a car in that vicinity with a white male driver behind the wheel. As he looked, he wondered why that car was allowed to stay there. What made Brennan even more curious was that the front wheel of the car was pulled sharply away from the curb and the driver had his door partly open. Brennan wondered if this was so the car could make a quick U turn while departing. Brennan closes the five paragraphs cut by Posner with this: “As I was watching the man in the car, I saw a policeman who was on foot walk over towards the car and began talking to the man in a friendly, laughing manner. So far as I could see, there was no attempt to get the man to move his car, and after chatting for a minute or so, the policeman walked back to his post.” (ibid p. 173)

    Brennan closed out this segment by saying that he never saw any accounting of this “mystery car” anyplace. And thanks to Posner’s editing, the reader of Case Closed would not know about it either. Thanks to Rodger, we do.

    The discussion of Rahn is wryly funny. Rahn had by far the longest correspondence with Rodger about co-writing the book on the Warren Commission. They actually exchanged a number of written communications. But ultimately, Rahn backed out. (Remington, p. 211) Rahn, of course, is the man who has always advocated Oswald’s guilt through the now discredited Neutron Activation Analysis test. Rodger wants him to answer one simple question: “How can it be determined that the famous CE 399 was fired that day?” (ibid, p. 201) In all their communications, Rahn never directly answered this question. He tried to build a negative argument that it would have been difficult to plant another bullet. But he never directly answered Rodger’s question. So Rodger asked the question a different way: “How can NAA establish that the bullet in the Single Bullet Theory was actually fired at the time of the assassination?” (ibid, p. 209) This question was never directly answered either.

    From here, the author details the rather weird attempt by Rahn and his partner Larry Sturdivan to get an article about NAA published in an academic journal. They could not get one published in an American journal. Probably because the controversy over the issue was now heating up with the work of men like Pat Grant and Cliff Spiegelman. So they got their work published in a journal based in Budapest, Hungary. And they did it in 2004, the year before the FBI announced they were discontinuing the NAA test. (ibid p. 252)

    The main part of Remington’s discussion of Rahn, deals with his attempt to get a counter-article published in the same journal. Which he ultimately failed to do. He was only allowed to write a brief letter to the editor. And Rahn was allowed to answer it. Then, in 2006, Eric Randich and Pat Grant got their milestone essay published in the Journal of Forensic Sciences. This was followed in 2007 by the work of Cliff Spiegelman and Bill Tobin, for which Spiegelman won an award. (See here.) So in retrospect, the desperate attempt by Rahn and Sturdivan to get their paper published in Budapest, seems like a Hail Mary pass with time expired in the game. And as Rodger points out, the issue in which Sturdivan and Rahn were published in was a tribute to Vincent Guinn! The man who first used (actually misused) the test to convict Oswald for the House Select Committee on Assassinations.

    As to the quality of the scholarship within, Rodger gives us a taste of it through some quotes attributed to Sturdivan. These are some of his points:

    1. NAA eliminates all conspiracy theories that involved additional shooters.
    2. NAA proved the rifle was not planted
    3. NAA proved that the precise locations of JFK’s head wounds and back wounds were not needed to solve the case
    4. It supported the Single Bullet Theory
    5. It knit together the physical evidence into an airtight case against Oswald, thereby putting the matter to rest.

    Quite a series of claims in light of the fact that the alleged science of NAA was soon be negated by the two teams of researchers named above. To the point that the FBI and courts will not use it again. It is further rendered ridiculous by the work of John Hunt, Gary Aguilar, and Josiah Thompson, which proves that CE 399 was not fired that day, and the bullet found at Parkland Hospital was later switched. (See my review of Reclaiming History, part 7, Section 3) All this shows just how out of touch with the facts Rahn and Sturdivan really are.

    Rodger Remington’s work is not for everyone. He is a classic type of researcher in that he stays within the boundaries of the Warren Commission materials. There is no discussion of Kennedy and Vietnam, of Oswald and the CIA, of Ruby and the Mafia etc. There is no development of the revelations of the ARRB. But if you can allow for that, it’s a rewarding book. As for me, there is no amount of dirt that can cover the withering corpse of the Warren Commission. So any further burial is always welcome.

  • South Beach journalist Gerald Posner resigns from The Daily Beast

    by Sergio R. Bustos of The Miami Herald, At:  SunSentinel

  • JFK: Inside the Target Car, Part One: Or, How to Rig an Experiment

    See Additional Reviews of Inside the Target Car

    Whenever I hear of a new scientific approach to the John F. Kennedy case, my first reaction is to shudder and then run for cover. I don’t think it is hard to understand why I feel that way. Actually, it’s quite simple. Its because whenever someone says they are going to treat this case with scientific rigor, sooner or later, the rigor dissipates and the so-called natural laws of the universe somehow fail. So suddenly, as with President Kennedy’s violent rearward reaction, Newton’s laws of motion don’t apply anymore. Or as with the trajectory of the Single Bullet Theory through Kennedy’s body, gun shot projectiles don’t move through soft tissue in straight lines anymore.

    Further, alleged “authorities” suddenly get thoroughly confused and confounded by the evidence. As Pat Speer has shown, Dr. Michael Baden didn’t even know how to orient one of the most important autopsy photos. NASA scientist Tom Canning moved Kennedy’s back wound up to make the Single Bullet Theory (SBT) work, and then shrunk Kennedy’s head to make the head wound trajectory work. Dr. Vincent Guinn “proved” the SBT theory with his Bullet Lead analysis—which we now know, through the work of Pat Grant and Rick Randich, is nothing but “junk science”. Its so junky that the FBI will not use it in court anymore.

    At other times, we even get the spectacle of people who should not be approaching the case at all acting as if they were qualified in a certain field of scientific endeavor. Vincent Bugliosi used a chiropractor whose office offered massage therapy—Chad Zimmerman—as an authority in radiology. Robert Blakey hired statistician Larry Sturdivan to show films of goats being shot to illustrate the so-called neuromuscular reaction. (And then they both failed to tell us that Kennedy’s reaction does not match what happens in the goat films.) Urologist John Lattimer was the first “independent” doctor admitted to the National Archives to report on the extant autopsy materials there. He somehow missed the fact that the president’s brain was missing. Lattimer then gave us the Great Thorburn Hoax, which was thoroughly exposed by Milicent Cranor. And, of course, who can forget Dale Myers’ computer 3D simulation, which turned the SBT from theory to “fact”. A “fact” that was ripped to smithereens by Milicent Cranor, David Mantik, and Pat Speer.

    The point of this partial list is simply to show that when the scientific method encounters the Kennedy case, it somehow loses all semblances to what most of us expect about that rubric. So for people like me who have become jaded by the above hijinks, I was not excited about another heralded and pretentiously headlined story. Especially after what ABC said in advance about the “indisputability” of the Myers debacle back in 2003.

    I

    The latest installment in this sorry pseudo-scientific lineage took place at the 45th anniversary of Kennedy’s murder. That is on November 16, 2008 on the Discovery Channel. The show was called JFK: Inside the Target Car. One of the problems I had with the show was that it had contracted out with Adelaide T & E Systems to do much of the technical work for the show. This is a large engineering company with strong ties to the Australian Defense industry. In fact, over half of Australian defense companies are located in the Australian city of Adelaide. The city relies on billions of dollars a year in contracts to make its economy hum. And hum it does. Both the population and economy has grown significantly since the nineties. Another interesting thing about the city of Adelaide is this: Rupert Murdoch’s giant media conglomerate News Corporation was founded in, and until 2004, was incorporated in that city. In fact, Murdoch still considers Adelaide the spiritual home of News Corp. Adelaide sounds roughly like the Australian equivalent of Langley, Virginia—with the Washington Post and all. As we shall see, there are dubious aspects of the show to support this interpretation. (This information was garnered from the Wikipedia entry on the city.)

    Further, The Discovery Channel, which hosted this special, is fast becoming the new CBS. If one recalls the work of people like Jerry Policoff, CBS was probably the most rabid defender of the Warren Commission from 1963-1967, and even beyond. In 1964, they put together a special almost immediately after the Warren Report was published. In other words, it was almost impossible for them to have read, digested, and analyzed the 26 volumes in time for the broadcast. But that didn’t bother them at all. They went ahead and coronated that disgraceful document. In 1967, they actually used Warren Commissioner John McCloy as a consultant to their multi part series—without informing the audience of that fact! Both these programs are embarrassing to look at today. But both Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather had their marching orders from above. And like good corporate foot soldiers, they did what they were told.

    Today, the cable version of CBS on the JFK case has become Discovery Channel. In 2003, they did a show called The JFK Conspiracy Myths. In this program, the producers used the same sharpshooter that Inside the Target Car used: Michael Yardley. The aim was to show that Lee Harvey Oswald could do what the Warren Commission said he did: That is fire three shots in six seconds getting at least two direct hits. Except for Yardley the time span was magically and conveniently expanded to almost eight seconds. Further, his rifle was hooked up to a laser switch which, of course, eliminates rifle recoil, making it easier to shoot and re-aim. As Pat Speer noted, Yardley was later honest about his ersatz experiment. He told a British journalist that he did not think Oswald could have pulled off the feat of marksmanship attributed to him. End of story.

    In 2004, the Discovery Channel was at it again. They ran a new program called JFK: Beyond the Magic Bullet. This one tried to prove that the Magic Bullet was not really magical. In other words, it could have traversed the storied path through two bodies, two dense bones, three body parts, and still drive itself into John Connally’s thigh. And then reverse trajectory and plunk out. As Pat Speer notes in his review, this show was riddled with so many factual errors that it looked like it was being made up willy-nilly. For instance, the entry point on the president’s back was wrongly situated. The narrator said that the Magic Bullet hit Kennedy in the neck. Which is a lie made up by Gerald Ford. We know today through autopsy photos that the bullet entered in Kennedy’s back. Further, when they fired this bullet from an elevated platform, it emerged from the simulated torso of JFK at his chest. Not his throat. Another problem was that their bullet failed to explode the simulated wrist of John Connally as the Warren Commission said it did. And then when they found this bullet after a search in the brush, it was clearly deformed. Not in nearly pristine condition as in the Warren Commission version. I could go on and on, but for those interested in all the details, read Speer’s article at his website.

    The third aspect of JFK: Inside the Target Car that gave me pause was the participation of the Sixth Floor Museum through the presence of curator Gary Mack. The Sixth Floor Museum, since its inception, has been dedicated to preserving the Warren Commission deception about Oswald. For instance, when I visited there in 1991, their version of the Zapruder film was cut off before frame 313, when Kennedy’s body rockets backward off the rear seat. When I saw that piece of censorship to the Z film, I was reminded of the old joke about the Lincoln assassination, “Well Mrs. Lincoln, outside of your husband’s murder, how did you like the play?” (I am told this has been changed since. I hope so.) Further, they sell all kinds of pro-Warren Commission volumes, like the works of Richard Trask; but few, if any, Warren Commission critiques. Not even the works of Sylvia Meagher, Philip Melanson, or Gaeton Fonzi. Gary Mack—who I will discuss at length in part three of this review—makes up all kinds of weak excuses for this biased expurgation. But I have the real reason from a source in Dallas who asked someone on the board of the museum about this issue. The member answered that this was simply a set policy. Unlike Mack’s pronouncements it has nothing to do with timeliness or updated versions etc. They just don’t want people who go there to be exposed at any length or depth to the critical community that does not buy the Krazy Kid Oswald stuff.

    So the combination of Discovery Channel, Adelaide T ∓ E, the Sixth Floor Museum, and the dissimulating Mack did not look promising to me. In fact it was downright unappetizing. I actually felt lucky when Milicent Cranor and David Mantik reviewed the show for our site. When it comes to the medical and ballistics evidence, it does not get much better than those two. While reading their thorough and precise critiques, I began to watch the show repeatedly at my leisure. I have now seen it three times. It is clear to me that the show had an agenda from the beginning. And just about everything they did hewed to that agenda, thereby creating the preordained end result. But unlike in the other two Discovery Channel misfires, the producers learned from their previous amateur errors. This time around they were slicker. They tried to keep the trickster’s hand ahead of the viewer’s—read “the mark’s”—eyes. But to anyone familiar with the evidence in the case, the show collapses fairly easily. And therefore is exposed as another jerry-built propaganda piece for the pitiful Warren Commission. And like any apologia for that sorry panel, its self-contained, inherent shame transfers onto its defenders.

    II

    When one stops and analyzes this show one understands what it actually does. And that is this: it conflates, condenses, oversimplifies and therefore falsifies three complex areas of study in the Kennedy case. These are 1.) The medical evidence 2.)The ballistics, and 3.) The condition of the limousine after Kennedy is transported to Parkland Hospital. When I say “areas of study” I mean just that. A beginning student of the Kennedy case could take over a year to study the medical evidence. And even then he would not have mastered it. And it would not be his fault. The problem is not one of retention or reasoning. The problem lies quite clearly in the twists and turns of the evidentiary record. I mean, Michael Baden is a forensic pathologist. As I said earlier, he could not orient the back of the skull photo, the only one with Kennedy’s scalp refracted. Baden also embellished exhibits when he got desperate to prove his particular version of the evidence. He had his artist alter photos and drawings to create fractures that are not on the x-rays, and raised edges around wounds not on the former. One can understand his dilemma: How many gunshot murder cases have two different autopsies? How many have two wounds which dramatically move their locations in less than five years? How many have x-rays which change fragment patterns and in which large fragments not observable during autopsy x-rays, miraculously materialize on those same x-rays a few years later? But yet, on these new and changed x-rays, the fragment trail does not match up with either the alleged entry wound or alleged exit wound? All of these bizarre inconsistencies are documented in the JFK medical evidence. We can measure this show’s honesty with what it does with these provable facts.

    The ballistics evidence in the JFK case is almost as puzzling. For instance the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) determined that the wound in the back of President Kennedy had an abrasion collar on the bottom. This usually indicates a shot with an upward trajectory. Yet how could this be if Oswald was firing from six stories above? Were there two assassins? Was the photo touched up? Or is the scientific deduction faulty? As I wrote in Part Four of my review of Vincent Bugliosi’s Reclaiming History, the Warren Commission stated that the shot to Kennedy’s head came in low on the rear skull. But it exited above the right ear and forward of it on the right side. This created problems with both the horizontal and vertical trajectory of this bullet. For the angle from the so-called sniper’s nest of the Texas School Book Depository is right to left on the horizontal plane. So did the bullet alter direction inside the skull? And per the vertical, the bullet would seem to have exited too high for its entry point. Also, although the type of military jacketed bullets attributed to Oswald are tough to break apart, in this case, the bullet to the head did. For there were fragments found on the x-rays and in the automobile. The problem though is that the fragment evidence as attested to by the HSCA says that the middle of the bullet stayed on the outside of the skull, while the nose and the tail hurdled through the head and landed in the front seat. Yep, that is what they say. Somehow, the back of the bullet magically levitated at the precise nanosecond over the middle section and then scooted through the skull. As we shall see, this is a major problem for this show.

    Finally, of late, the condition of the president’s limousine has also become a controversial area of study in this case. Just what was the condition of the car when it arrived back in Washington DC? What happened to the car when it arrived at Parkland Hospital? Photos indicate that a Secret Service agent actually scrubbed down the inside of the car. But why would he do that? And what else did he do while he was inside the auto? When were photos taken of the inside of the car and were they in color or black and white? Was there a hole in the windshield indicating a shot from the front? And if there was, was that piece of evidence tampered with? Was the car then driven on a 500 mile mysterious, voyage westward after its stay in Washington? And if so, why was it driven and not flown?

    The above only scratch the surface of how difficult it is to fully comprehend any of the above complex areas of this case. So when writers like Vincent Bugliosi call the Kennedy case a simple one, I don’t know what they are referring to. And I never will. But my point in regards to this program is this: This special tries to conflate all three of these maddeningly complex areas of study into a sixty-minute program! That is the bottom line of this show. The reality is that you could spend one hour on just the condition of the limousine after the assassination until the point it was rebuilt. One hour would not do justice to the ballistics evidence in this case. As for the medical evidence: it’s safe to say that two hours would only give you an introduction to the material. Consequently, when you place them all together and rush through them in what amounts to—at best—speeded up motion, you have to leave out huge chunks of crucial information. And here’s a major problem with that: In the JFK case, a crucial aspect of the story is in how the details changed over time. In real life “simple” murder cases, this does not happen. And if it does, the court will entertain a motion to throw out the case on the basis of evidence tampering. This is one of the major aspects of the JFK case that the authors of this show do not reveal to the audience. Which is why its honesty should be questioned.

    Another serious problem is that of the Curtailed Alternatives. That is the experiment and the deductions are limited and controlled by the authors. This means that the variables seem arbitrarily chosen to produce a desired result. Cranor and Mantik have already shown this was so in the choice of firing points. But I should point out here, Gary Mack argued strongly for the so-called Badge Man location of the grassy knoll assassin for about twenty years. Yet that particular location was never even pointed out in this ersatz demonstration. Not even to critique it. Yet in his earlier incarnation as a fierce Warren Commission critic, Mack was at pains to show its validity for British documentary producer Nigel Turner. In fact, it was actually one of the highlights of the multi-part series The Men Who Killed Kennedy. (I will deal with the Mack metamorphosis in the third part of this essay.)

    This Curtailed Alternative method continued even after the show was (mercifully) over. Mack went online and answered some questions from viewers. His viewpoint on these answers was remarkably limited for someone who has been studying this case for over thirty years. I never considered Gary Mack a front rank, top of the line writer/researcher. But he was not a dumb or rigidly inflexible person. In fact, when he contributed to The Continuing Inquiry, he wrote a few good and valuable pieces. But today, he comes off about as mentally agile as, say, Robert Blakey. When someone asks him what happened to the bullets fired in the experiment, Mack admits they did not fragment like the ones attributed to Oswald did. Got that: Oswald’s did but Yardley’s did not. He then adds that he doesn’t know why that occurred and then drops the issue. But as Milicent Cranor points out, and I will discuss later, the matter should not be dropped at that point. Because this is where it gets really interesting. When someone later asks him if it was wise to use the alleged assassin’s rifle and ammo for a front shot, Mack’s reply is equally superficial. He says that if Oswald had been a “patsy” it seems likely “that another gunman would use the same ammunition. If a different weapon were used, investigators would find evidence and conclude there were two guns. A conspiracy to frame Oswald would want investigators to think there was only one gun.” Read that twice, and carefully: If the investigators found two guns, that would equal a conspiracy and the investigators would announce the frame up of Oswald.

    When I read that in my downloaded version of Mack’s online talk at the Discovery Channel web site I wrote in the margin, “Absolutely stupid.” Yet, I don’t think Gary Mack is stupid. But just to point out one problem with this response: It imposes on the reader the supposition that the investigators themselves were honest i.e. the only conspiracy that existed was the one that killed President Kennedy. The investigators actually tried to uncover the true circumstances of the assassination. Therefore if there was a conspiracy, they would have located it. Mack’s bottom line here is this: There was no cover up.

    Anyone who studies this case knows this view deserves the utmost scorn and derision. Here is how preposterous it is: even two members of the Warren Commission understood the fix was in early. They were Senator Richard Russell and Representative Hale Boggs. As author Dick Russell shows in On the Trail of the JFK Assassins, the senator so distrusted the investigators that he conducted his own investigation—at the time the Commission was ongoing! His private inquiry came to the conclusion that Oswald did not do it. (pgs. 126-127) Representative Boggs said that J. Edgar Hoover—chief investigator for the official inquiry—”lied his eyes out to the Commission—on Oswald, on Ruby, on their friends, the bullets, the gun, you name it.” (Texas Observer, 11/98) But more to Mack’s specific point about the two weapons: on November 23, 1963 Deputy Constable Seymour Weitzman executed an affidavit. He swore that on the previous day he discovered on the sixth floor of the Depository a 7.65 Mauser equipped with a 4/18 scope, and a thick leather brownish-black sling on it. (The actual affidavit is in Mark Lane’s Rush To Judgment, p. 409) This is not what the Commission later said was Oswald’s rifle. They said it was a 6.5 Mannlicher Carcano. But further, Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig was standing near Weitzman at the time of discovery. He said that Weitzman thought it was a Mauser at first. But then he looked at the rifle at close range and saw that it was stamped “7. 65 Mauser”. This is what confirmed the ID for the constable. (This testimony can be seen in the film Evidence of Revision on You Tube, Part IV.) So this directly contradicts Gary Mack’s assumption about the assassins using the same weapon and the investigators exposing that fact and therefore blowing up the conspiracy. The show’s main talking head is not telling the whole story. And the viewer should ask: Why not? I will get to the ‘why not” later and it goes to the very heart of the show’s credibility. (I should add here, Mack once published his own journal, which was called Cover Ups. But that’s all forgotten now. Today he says we can trust the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, Allen Dulles, Gerald Ford, and the Dallas Police. Yeah sure Gary.)

    III

    Very early, the show reveals an agenda. Gary Mack is hard at work to discredit the evidence of witnesses hearing shots from two directions. Sounding like Lawrence Schiller, he dredges up the old Dealey Plaza is an “echo chamber” argument. Therefore directionality was confused. But as Josiah Thompson has noted, if about the same amount say the shots originated from the Grassy Knoll as from the Texas School Book Depository, what does this argument really amount to? (Thompson, Six Seconds in Dallas, p. 25) He then says that some witnesses later altered their stories. Revealingly, he does not add that many witnesses were forced by the authorities to change their testimony to conform to the official line. Or actually had it changed without their knowledge. (This fits the show’s agenda: don’t reveal the cover up.)

    After this the show picks up one of its main threads: the condition of the car once it arrived at Parkland Hospital. The narrator intones that evidence that was wiped away there, plus some other evidentiary points, have given Warren Commission critics reason to doubt the official story and has therefore spawned a huge controversy. He is referring to the blood spatter pattern inside the car—and he greatly overstates the case. Very, very few people have had their curiosity piqued by this issue. And even less have used it to attack the Commission. But, again, it shows the program’s unwinding agenda.

    The producers next reveal the fact that a Secret Service agent actually wiped the interior of the car with what looks like a bucket and sponge. I say they have to because there are pictures that reveal this fact. Yet they ask few questions about this incredible incident. Making nothing of some obvious questions : Who told him to do this? Why? What else did he do besides wipe anything up? Was this a cover story to plant evidence? And how do they know it’s a Secret Service agent? If it was, did they try and track him down? They avoid almost all of this and then say they have two witnesses who saw the car before the bucket brigade arrived. Yet it is not revealed how they can be certain about this timing. And further, as limousine expert Pamela McElwain Brown has written, no one had a really good chance to look inside the limousine once it got to Parkland to make a measured assessment. Because the convertible top was raised quickly upon its arrival there. But the show considers this important, a keystone actually, so we will return to it later because the producers do the same. But I should note an apparent contradiction here: Mack had just been trying to discount direct testimony by eye and ear witnesses. He now reverses course on that issue.

    From here the show now goes to a second main thread: Searching Dealey Plaza for possible firing points to the front of the car. I thought this little walking tour quite interesting. The first point that Mack and Yardley visit is what they call the south Grassy Knoll, which would be in front of the car and to President Kennedy’s left. Yardley says it is a possible shot distance wise, but the angle would only give the assassin about three inches of Kennedy’s head to fire at. As Milicent Cranor has pointed out, Mack and Yardley never noticed that there is a rise about ten feet back which would probably eliminate that problem. Moving clockwise around Dealey Plaza, Yardley and Mack now go to what they call the south end of the triple underpass. They eliminate this firing point because Yardley says the shot would necessitate firing through the windshield of the car. The supposition here is that there was no hole in the windshield. Again, the producers are not telling the whole story here. Because this statement is questionable. There is evidence on both sides of this windshield bullet hole issue. Another authority on the limousine is Doug Weldon. Weldon wrote an interesting thirty page essay for the anthology Murder In Dealey Plaza (pgs 129-158) Weldon raises serious questions about what happened to the car afterwards. For instance, about that 500 mile trek to Dearborn, Michigan that James Rowley told the Warren commission happened on December 20, 1963. (See p. 133) But more to the point, Weldon produces six witnesses who saw a hole in the windshield at Parkland Hospital. (ibid pgs. 139-140) He also produces evidence that the windshield was then switched to conceal this hole. (ibid pgs 136-138) But none of this is mentioned, and this firing point is quickly dismissed.

    We then move to what is called the north end of the triple underpass. What happened here was notable. This point intersects with what is the end of the famous stockade fence atop the Grassy Knoll. When I visited the area in 1991, I went to the end of the picket fence where it corners and then juts out. I thought this was the best firing point along the knoll area because the car was coming at you at a distance where you could track it for several seconds before squeezing off your shot. In fact, Yardley says words to that effect in this show. Then, he and Mack walk away from this point because there is shrubbery there today, and go a few steps downward on the slope. (Since they had Dealey Plaza cordoned off, why didn’t they pay a gardener sixty bucks to trim the shrubbery?) How good is this shot? When they showed it from the shooter’s angle, they moved Jackie Kennedy into the line of fire to try and discredit it. (I will return to this “mistake” later.) Mack finally dismisses this site because witnesses in the area could see the assassin. Yet one could say this about almost any firing point in the Plaza. Because as Mack intoned earlier, there were hundreds of witnesses in the area. What a precision hit team would be banking on is that they would be distracted by the president’s car and looking in that direction at the time of the fusillade.

    The reader should note at this point: The show has been all too eager to dismiss these three alternative sites. And further, Yardley has not taken one shot from any of them. This should be kept in mind as the show progresses forward.

    Yardley and Mack now move to a position further down and behind the stockade fence. This particular point brings you closer to the car, but you have much less time to track the target from this venue. This is why when I visited Dealey Plaza, I thought the previous point would be a better venue than this one. Yardley notes the tracking problem, but Mack decides on this point. We will see why later.

    The scene now shifts down under to Australia. The narration states that previously there had been no technology which could simulate a human head. But today “an exact replica of the human head” is possible. Further, there was only one place which could produce such an exact replica. That place is, of course, in Rupert Murdoch’s spiritual home of Adelaide. And the company is Adelaide T & E Systems. When I listened to this segment I began to smell some snake oil cooking. Why? Because I just don’t think its possible to produce an “exact replica” of a human head. I mean maybe you could create a reasonable facsimile. But not an exact replica. It’s just too complicated of a phenomenon: the muscles, tendons, nervous system, blood circulatory system, hair and scalp etc. So I thought this was overstated in the extreme. You know, Dale Myers and ABC country. And as we shall see, it was.

    What is even more interesting of course is that Adelaide T & E Systems also builds replicas of the human torso. So it would have been easy to attach the head to a torso which fit Kennedy’s dimensions. But they did not. The excuse was that it would have added another variable. This rationale was kind of smelly. The real reason I suspect this was not done is that in the Zapruder film, upon the bullet’s impact, Kennedy’s body rockets backward in the car and bounces off the back seat. Yet this is supposed to be a shot from behind. The producers probably suspected that when they simulated the shot from the Depository, Oswald’s alleged firing point, no such reaction would follow. And Gary Mack didn’t want to have to explain this. That would mean getting into the Luis Alvarez/Larry Sturdivan mumbojumbo about “jet effect” and “neuromuscular reaction”. He had enough problems already.

    IV

    He immediately went about fixing one of them. As everyone knows, one of the largest, most insurmountable problems in the Warren Commission is that all the evidence says that Lee Harvey Oswald was a poor marksman. Yet Michael Yardley is not. He has won many sharpshooting competitions. By all accounts, the shot Oswald supposedly took from the Texas School Book Depository which killed Kennedy was very difficult. Now Michael Yardley is the opposite. He is a contest winning sharpshooter. Further, the weapon Oswald allegedly used had a cheap scope which was not properly mounted. But Yardley placed a modern telescopic site on the rifle and then sited it in i.e. he took practice shots to make sure it was perfectly aligned. How does any of this duplicate what the Warren Commission said happened? But clearly, the producers were not going to risk proving the critics correct. Namely, they were not going to risk a miss by Yardley.

    Not only were they not going to risk a miss, they were going to ensure it not happening. Because when the show moves up to Sylmar, California where a shooting range simulating the dimensions of Dealey Plaza is put together, Yardley is not shooting at a moving target. The car is stationary. Mack remembered what happened when many others tried to duplicate Oswald’s alleged feat of marksmanship. They couldn’t do it. Realizing that would jeopardize the show, he was removing all those troublesome “variables”. The problem is if you remove too many variables, what conditions are you actually duplicating? Ones that weren’t there?

    Yardley then took his first shot from the spot he and Mack decided on from behind the stockade fence. . This was with a soft nosed hunting round, which is not the kind of ammunition Oswald was supposed to be firing. He hit the target, but something weird happened. The entire skull literally exploded to the point where nothing was left on the platform. When I saw this, my antennae went up. Outside of some cheap Hollywood horror movie, I had never seen or heard of such a thing happening. And I remembered how the show had said so fervently stated that these were exact replicas of the human skull. I don’t think so. As Milicent Cranor wrote, they appeared too frangible. Why?

    Yardley then fired again from that spot behind the fence. This time with the type of ammo Oswald was allegedly using. This time he hit the target with a more controlled damage pattern. Mack then went to the car and observed this closely. He then said something that was quite startling at the same time that it was revealing. He said that this shot would have also hit Jackie Kennedy. I then thought back to what had happened when the show had lined up the other shot, from the better position further down the fence: they had the models lined up wrong then also. At that time they were not in Sylmar, but were in Dealey Plaza. No one noticed this mistake and corrected it? Very hard to believe, because what Mack said is easily exposed as false. All you have to do is look at the Zapruder film, which Mack has done hundreds of times. Jackie Kennedy in Z frame 312—right before the fatal shot—is clearly ahead of her husband,. So a shot coming from a mostly side angle—as this one was—would not have hit her. And this point gets very interesting. Mainly because it is so hard to believe that no one caught it. Which is what Mack wants the pubic to believe.

    In fact in the aforementioned online discussion, Gary Mack admitted that he, and the show, were wrong about this. He then added this: “We didn’t catch it at the time.” But yet, according to Robert Groden, this is a lie. He was in Dealey Plaza at the time the show was filming the limousine simulations with models in it. He said that he pointed out to the show’s director and Gary Mack that the “positions and locations of both the actors portraying President and Jackie Kennedy were completely wrong.” Then Groden added something that is really important in understanding the program’s genesis and ultimate purpose. In that regard, it actually sounds like something J. Lee Rankin would write to his assistant counsel about the true position of the bullet that entered into Kennedy’s back. Groden posted that both Mack and the director replied that “the positions and locations were not important to the points they were trying to show.” But if this were so then why did Mack misrepresent that specific point to the public on the air! He actually said that the shot would have hit Jackie. I have an idea as to why. Because that was an easy visual way to discredit a shot from that angle. Almost like the show did focus groups, they understood this would easily register with the public. I know this because a colleague from work said this to me the day after the show aired. Knowing my interest in the JFK case, he came up to me at lunch and said, “Jim, the shot couldn’t have come from the front. It would have hit Jackie.” And we all know it did not. So the evidence Groden produces from behind the scenes, says that the producers knew they were wrong and went ahead anyway for propaganda purposes. And Mack then tried to conceal this when he said they didn’t catch it in time. Further, the quote by Groden that I am using was posted on February 5, 2009. Way after the show’s initial broadcast. He said he was reposting it at this time. Why? Because his initial post of the information had been removed!

    If I was Gary Mack in his present incarnation, when Mack said he didn’t catch the error in time, I would have posted something like this: “Gary, you’re a damned liar!” I will explain that quote in part three of this review.

  • The JFK 10-Point Program

    The JFK 10-Point Program

    This essay was inspired by a conversation with Robert Mezzone, who provided invaluable feedback in its construction.

    – J.E.G.

    During the Coalition on Political Assassinations (COPA) conference in Dallas in 2007, an after-hours conversation concerning Lee Harvey Oswald became a heated discussion. I decided to play peacemaker. “Look,” I said, “At least there’s one thing we can all agree on. Lee Harvey Oswald didn’t fire any of the shots at the President.”

    The fellow next to me pipes up, “Actually, I disagree with that, I think he was one of the shooters. Now, you see, this is what happened … “

    Of course. There’s always one.

    I had another conversation recently that led me to start thinking the following: What are the basic things that 99% of Kennedy researchers can agree upon? Suppose we, as Kennedy researchers, were going to present a 10-point program the way the Black Panthers did. What sort of things would be on that?

    This is not a trivial point. It goes toward our survival in the system. It behooves us to be more organized in our presentations to the public, and to learn to master the ability to deliver succinct points which are universally recognized to be true. We have to deal with the world as it is in terms of realpolitik, and that means being able to effectively communicate our principles to the outside world.

    The downside to not coming up with some sort of organizational structure is that opposing forces are strengthened and even galvanized. It is perhaps constructive to look at another debate to see the possible outcomes.

    Zetetics

    By way of demonstrating that virtually any position can draw followers, let’s for a moment take a look at the Flat-Earth Society. They claim to practice zetetics, which in normal terms simply means “looking at things in a different way.” The concept of the flat Earth is frequently invoked in discussions about ideological dementia, but it may serve us well to remember that there really is a Flat-Earth Society, that there are people who subscribe to its tenets, and that they generate long, complex chains of reasoning that purport to debunk the theory of a Round Earth. Indeed, Alfred Russell Wallace, a contemporary of Charles Darwin, seriously studied and promoted the idea of a flat Earth. And even to this day, you can find people who seriously put forth the idea that the Earth is a flat disc, unmoving, in the center of the universe, while the other objects in the sky revolve around it in an ether rather than the vacuum of space.

    http://theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php

    Take a look at the forums, if you dare. There are some truly astonishing exchanges lurking there, as posters argue back and forth in continuous strings of escalating lunacy.

    Now superficially there are concepts in the JFK community that may look, from the outside, like this sort of craziness. For example, if one puts forth the theory that the President’s brain was substituted by conspirators, without going into the evidence, it probably sounds crazy to the average person. The difference between the ‘second brain’ thesis and the Flat Earth Society is that in the former example, researchers are driven toward the conclusion by the facts. Flat-Earthers, on the other hand, have to concoct elaborate theories because their fundamental premise is totally at odds with the known facts. No honest researcher into the JFK assassination begins from a standpoint of creating some bizarre theory; it isn’t the fault of researchers that so many facts turn out to have bizarre implications.

    The JFK Assassination

    Because any science allows for honest disagreement, dissension can be found in the ranks of the JFK community. And whereas Round-Earth scientists are in privileged position – they have the facts, the media, world opinion, and establishment behind them, we do not. We have the facts and arguably world opinion, but we are beset on all sides by a self-congratulating media and professional disinformationalists. And the establishment is most definitely not with us.

    There is thus a central paradox with respect to the JFK situation. The establishment thoroughly promotes the Flat-Earth idea and is forced to come up with elaborate theories (such as the Magic Bullet thesis) to overrule the known facts. Meanwhile, for those who have studied the matter, the conspiracy at the heart of the JFK assassination is as obvious and well-supported as the Round Earth.

    Bitter disagreements crop up. This was true almost from the very beginning, as John Kelin wonderfully documents in Praise from a Future Generation, which shows how the Garrison investigation drove a wedge between the earliest researchers that ended friendships and associations. From a scientific perspective, this comes as no surprise and is consistent with JFK research being a relatively “young” science. However, this chaotic state of affairs has some detrimental effects. From the standpoint of an outsider’s perspective, it can look as though nothing is agreed upon and that the JFK case is simply a haven for kooks hatching their private fantasies on one another.

    In other words, it’s a problem of public relations.

    So much valuable and astonishing research has been done, and it has been done by non-professionals as often as not over the years. What sometimes gets lost, I think, is the plot. You and I might disagree about the relative involvement of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Kennedy assassination, or whether James Jesus Angleton was the prime mover or Lyndon Johnson, but in any such analysis there will be large areas of agreement between us. What I have tried to do is take those large areas of agreement and put them down as ten principles. These principles should underlie any discussion of the case. These represent areas of strength for the JFK community and should be promoted to the general public.

    I would suggest that it should be these elements which should be used in public pronouncements and to inform our organizational capacity. The “hard science” of the assassination can then be done within our own structures such as COPA or CTKA or the like. For the general public, however, these are easy-to-understand and simple areas in the investigation where the facts are overwhelmingly with us.

    So I present my 10-point program:

     

    1. It is both legitimate and important to question the government’s investigation of the Kennedy assassination.

    I think this is the most important statement in many ways. The media continually represents that our questions are at best unimportant and at worst ridiculous. As public citizens, we have the right to ask questions of our government and doing so makes us defenders of the Constitution, not “conspiracy buffs.” For the Posners and Bugliosis of the world who would say otherwise, we need only present the following statements for their perusal:

    “I never believed that Oswald acted alone, although I can accept that he pulled the trigger.” – Lyndon Johnson 1

    (Johnson also told Senator Richard Russell that he did not believe in the single-bullet theory either.)

    “It was the greatest hoax that has ever been perpetuated.” – Richard Nixon, speaking of the Warren Commission 2

    “Hoover lied his eyes out to the [Warren] Commission – on Oswald, on Ruby, on their friends, the bullets, the gun, you name it.” – Congressman Hale Boggs, one of the seven Warren Commission members 3

    “If I told you what I really know, it would be very dangerous to this country. Our whole political system could be disrupted.” – J. Edgar Hoover, in response to the question “Do you think Oswald did it?” 4

    “Goddamn it, Georgi … doesn’t Premier Krushchev realize the President’s position? Every step he takes to meet Premier Krushchev halfway costs my brother a lot of effort … In a gust of blind hate, his enemies may go to any length, including killing him.” – Bobby Kennedy to Soviet envoy Georgi Bolshakov 5

    (Bobby later enlisted Walter Sheridan to conduct a private investigation into the assassination, and planned to reopen the case if elected President.)

    “[I] never believed that Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated President Kennedy without at least some encouragement from others … I think someone else worked with him in the planning.” – Senator Richard Russell, one of the seven Warren Commission members 6

    “One of my greatest shames as a journalist is that I still don’t know who killed Jack Kennedy.” – Hunter S. Thompson 7

    “We really blew it on the Kennedy assassination.” – Dan Rather 8

    Now the point is not that all these people make it a fact that Kennedy was assassinated in a conspiracy. But how can it be impertinent to ask questions, if all these people – who presumably have far more access than we will ever have – don’t believe fundamental conclusions of the Warren Report? The matter is not settled, and we must keep asking.

     

    2. The medical and photographic record of the assassination does not support the government’s position.

    What is most readily understandable about the medical evidence is that eighteen witnesses at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, most of them doctors, all describe a blowout head wound at the back of the head. The autopsy photos entered into evidence do not show this wound.

    The medical evidence is the Pandora’s Box of conspiracy research, as Cyril Wecht, Gary Aguilar, and David Mantik, among others, have shown: The X-rays don’t match the eyewitness statements. The government somehow lost Kennedy’s brain. Dr. Humes testified to the House Select Committee on Assassinations that he burned not just his autopsy notes, but the first draft of his autopsy report. In 1968, a medical panel appointed by Ramsey Clark noted a 6.5mm fragment at the upper part of the rear skull in the x-rays that no one saw the night of the autopsy. Even though x-rays were taken that night. However, regardless of what one thinks of the various theories that have come about to explain the problems proposed by the medical evidence, we can all agree on the testimony of the Parkland doctors and what the “official” autopsy photos show and their manifest disagreement.

     

    3. The Zapruder film fails to support the government’s designation of a lone shooter.

    A tremendous controversy rests at the heart of the analysis of the Zapruder film. On one side are those who believe that the Z-film is the final record of the assassination; while on the other, there are those who believe that it has been altered beyond recognition. We might characterize this as the Robert Groden school v. the Jim Fetzer (or Jack White) school on this issue.

    More important than this discrepancy, however, is that however one looks at the film, neither interpretation supports Lee Harvey Oswald as the lone assassin.

    The Z-film, as everyone knows, shows the President moving violently backward upon the last shot striking his head. This movement supports the idea that the fatal headshot came from the front – specifically, the area around the grassy knoll. Now Groden himself has some amazing further revelations in his study of the Z-film, which he is going to publish soon, but I will say nothing of that here.

    Fetzer and Jack White believe they can prove that the film, rather than showing the actual assassination, has been altered into a kind of cartoon. I don’t wish to go into the reasons for that here, as they can do a much better job of explicating themselves than I can. However, if the Z-film has been altered, then obviously Oswald – at minimum – had at least one accomplice, presumably a capable film technician.

    Whether the Z-film has been altered or not, it contradicts the Warren Report‘s conclusions. (Like the other topics, there are further avenues; for example, Life Magazine published Z-film stills out of order in an apparent effort to fool the public, and the film itself was largely suppressed until Groden got his new rotoscoped version on Geraldo Rivera’s television program. However, the simple premise stands.)

     

    4. The initial tests performed by the Dallas Police and the FBI exculpate Lee Harvey Oswald.

    This one is also very simple. The FBI performed a nitrate test on Oswald to determine whether he fired a weapon. It was positive for his hands, and negative for his face, meaning that he had not fired a rifle that day but may have fired a pistol. However, since he worked with newsprint at his job, and nitrates can be contracted from newsprint, this is not definitive. In addition, no fingerprints were found on the alleged murder weapon, the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle. The Dallas Police found a palm print on it after Oswald was already dead, and after one of the finest fingerprint analysts in America, the FBI’s Sebastian LaTona, dusted the entire rifle and found nothing of value.

     

    5. The ‘magic’ bullet is precisely that.

    399

    This is the bullet which must have created seven separate wounds in both Kennedy and John Connally in order for Arlen Specter’s ‘magic bullet’ theory to be correct. If this bullet did not create all those wounds, then there are more than three shots and more than one shooter.

    When this bullet was found on a stretcher in Parkland Hospital, it had no blood on it. In fact, the bullet that struck Connally left some lead permanently in his wrist, while this bullet appears to be undamaged. Dr. Cyril Wecht, former President of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and consultant to the House Select Committee on the Assassinations (HSCA), declared that this state of affairs is simply impossible, and he should know.

     

    6. The photograph of the man in Mexico whom the government says is Lee Harvey Oswald cannot possibly be Lee Harvey Oswald.

    oswald other
    Left: Lee Harvey Oswald.
    Right: The guy the Warren Commission claims is Oswald in Mexico City.

    Seriously.

     

    7. Lee Harvey Oswald was an FBI informant known to J. Edgar Hoover, and therefore cannot be declared to be an “unknown loser.”

    One of the anti-conspiracy advocates’ favorite tricks is to paint Oswald as a loser. The poor slob was just a lonely guy who wanted to be famous, and he could have been shooting at anyone. This was Norman Mailer’s premise in writing Oswald’s Tale. It underlies the idea that Oswald shot at General Edwin Walker, who was a right-winger.

    For a poor lonely slob, however, Oswald sure got around. He went to Russia claiming to be a defector, married the niece of a Russian Colonel, and then came back. Despite being a Marine and former radar operator who threatened to give away secrets to the Soviets, he was never charged with anything, and the CIA has always unconvincingly denied debriefing him upon his return. He was paid both by the Russians, the American military, and given money by the State Department. Then he was allowed to bring his Soviet wife Marina back to the U.S. with him. All this took place during the height of the Cold War. Unusual, to say the least.

    During the Warren Commission hearings, reports were discussed that Oswald was an agent of both the FBI and CIA. For instance, Texas Attorney General Waggoner Carr and District Attorney Henry Wade told the Warren Commission that Oswald was an FBI informant, made $200 a month, and provided his informant number of 179. 9

    Dallas DA Wade told Carr that his source told him Oswald had a CIA employment number. In addition to that, a June 3, 1960 FBI memo features J. Edgar Hoover complaining that someone was using Oswald’s identity and he was requesting information on Oswald from the State Department to clarify the situation. Hoover began: “There is a possibility that an imposter is using Oswald’s birth certificate…” This is three years before the assassination. FBI employee William Walter later confirmed that, in 1963, he saw an informant file with Oswald’s name on it. Hoover would later point out to Lyndon Johnson that the person in Mexico City neither looked nor sounded liked Oswald. 10

     

    8. Gerald Ford has admitted to moving Kennedy’s back wound, an act that cannot be objectively reconciled with an attitude of pursuing the truth.

    On July 2, 1997, the Associated Press ran a story in which Gerald Ford admitted that he raised the back wound several inches in the Warren Commission to better convict Lee Harvey Oswald as the lone assassin. Ford stated that he was only attempting to be “more precise” and that his change had “nothing to do with conspiracy theories.” Ford thus admits to falsifying the Warren Report. 11

     

    9. Whatever Jim Garrison’s motivations or the eventual failure of his trial, he was right about Clay Shaw, who did turn out to be a contract agent of the CIA, and did correctly identify the link between Lee Harvey Oswald and Guy Banister.

    Whatever one thinks of Jim Garrison, and he remains a polarizing figure to this day, there are two things on which he was indisputably right:

    The first is that Clay Shaw was definitely a contract agent with the CIA. Richard Helms testified in court (very reluctantly) that Shaw had this “domestic” relationship with the agency, as Mark Lane documents in regard to the civil trial of E. Howard Hunt v. Liberty Lobby. 12

    The second is that he discovered that 531 Lafayette Street and 544 Camp Street led to the same building, which meant that the supposedly Marxist Oswald was sharing an office with rabid right-wing reactionary Guy Banister. Banister’s connections (to the Bay of Pigs invasion, among other things) blow up any notion that Oswald was either a leftist or a lone nut. 13

     

    10. The Mob didn’t do it. (At least, not by themselves.)

    “I don’t doubt their involvement, Bill, but at a lower level. Could the Mob change the parade route, Bill? Or eliminate the protection for the President? Could the Mob send Oswald to Russia and get him back? Could the Mob get the FBI, the CIA, and the Dallas Police to make a mess of the investigation? Could the Mob get the Warren Commission appointed to cover it up? Could the Mob wreck the autopsy? Could the Mob influence the national media to go to sleep…This was a military-style ambush from start to finish … a coup d’Ètat with Lyndon Johnson waiting in the wings …” 14

    – Kevin Costner as Jim Garrison in the film JFK

    Lamar Waldron’s fantasies aside, these questions remain just as good now as they were in 1991.

    The Mob-did-it theories have been such a fertile area for the government (cf. Robert Blakey for just one example) that I think that we, as researchers, have to put some limits on the idea. Anyone who proposes that the Mob did it on their own or that the Cuban invasion somehow backfired on JFK, barring some new and stunning evidence, is simply not one of us. The Mob position is too damaging and the evidence too scant.

    That may sound dogmatic, but let’s go back to my Flat-Earth example for a moment, with a little twist. As researchers, we’ve compiled a large assortment of facts. And when we look at the total facts involved, in order to say the Mob is the prime mover in the assassination, we are forced to ignore the larger context of the Cuban invasion, Operation Northwoods, the Vietnam War, the reduction of the oil depletion allowance, and the sheer vastness of the operation required to kill the President and cover up the piles of evidence contradicting the official story. In other words, we have to do a series of logical backflips in order to leap over all the contrary evidence, rather than accepting what is staring at us right in the face. Mob-did-it is, now and forever barring some astounding, paradigm-changing evidence, in the Flat-Earth category. Did the Mob have some level of involvement? Sure. Probably, even. Were they running the show? Absolutely not.

    The investigative process is a scientific one at its best, and that means weeding out the ideas that don’t work as well as promoting the ones that do. As Karl Popper noted, knowledge proceeds by falsification. By falsifying certain notions and promoting those where the evidence is irrefutable, we present a more unified front to the world and help to streamline and organize our public relations. It may not be to everyone’s taste, but it has to be done, if we are to ultimately win over the generations to come.

    End Notes

    1. This quote comes from the telephone recordings of the Johnson White House and was publicized in The Atlantic Monthly in 2004 by, of all people, Max Holland! http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200406/holland

    2. This quote comes from the Nixon tapes and was first reported by the BBC. John McAdams, who operates the “Kennedy Assassination Home Page,” disputes Nixon’s meaning in this comment. The interesting thing about his discussion of the context is that I believe the additional commentary further implicates Nixon rather than absolves him, but that is a discussion for another day. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1848157.stm

    3. This quote can be found in many places, but one interesting discussion – because it occurs in a mainstream magazine – is from the November 1998 issue of Texas Monthly. http://www.texasmonthly.com/preview/1998-11-01/feature23

    4. Once again, this quote can be found many places, but one book that contains many such quotes is Larry Hancock’s Someone Would Have Talked (JFK Lancer Productions & Publications: 2006).

    5. David Talbot, Brothers (Free Press: New York 2007), 32.

    6. Gerald McKnight, Breach of Trust (University Press of Kansas: 2005), 297.

    7. Maureen Farrell, “JFK, 9/11 and Conspiracy Theories,” http://www.buzzflash.com/farrell/03/11/far03002.html

    8. David Talbot, “The Mother of All Coverups,” http://archive.salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/15/warren/

    9. Jim Garrison discussed this information in an October 1967 interview with Playboy Magazine. It was ironically first reported in Gerald Ford’s book Portrait of the Assassin.

    10. For a great discussion of the “Mexico City stuff,” see John Newman, Oswald and the CIA (Sky Horse Publishing: New York 2008), 352-391.

    11. “Gerald Ford forced to admit the Warren Report fictionalized,” Associated Press, 2 July 1997.

    12. Mark Lane, Plausible Denial (Thunder’s Mouth Press: New York 1991), 218-225.

    13. For an excellent discussion of Garrison’s New Orleans discoveries, see James DiEugenio, Destiny Betrayed (Sheridan Square Press: New York 1992), 130-146.

    14. The screenplay for JFK was written by Zachary Sklar and Oliver Stone, based on the books On the Trail of the Assassins by Jim Garrison and Crossfire by Jim Marrs.

  • Gus Russo Marches On: Or, Rust Never Sleeps

    The current issue of American Heritage (Winter 2009) contains an article that is actually featured on the cover. It is called “Did Castro OK JFK’s Assassination?” It is by Gus Russo and Stephen Molton, and it is meant as a combination summary/excerpt from their new book Brothers in Arms. After having read Russo’s first book on the JFK case Live By the Sword, and then suffered through both the TV specials he worked on – for PBS in 1993, and ABC in 2003 – I admit I didn’t have the stomach to read the whole book. But I felt it necessary to at least comment on the book via the article. I thought that would spare me a lot of unnecessary work and mental anguish. I was right.

    Anybody who understands the game that Russo learned to play can quickly guess what the book is going to be like from the title. The work will generally concentrate on the USA/Cuba policy from about 1959-1963 to the near absence of anything else in the Kennedy presidency. It will then use many questionable sources from both the CIA and Cuba to cast the Kennedy brothers in the worst light. It will also try and take advantage of the reader’s lack of knowledge of the JFK case in order to distort certain subjects and episodes. The overall aim is twofold: 1.) To slightly modify but support the Warren Commission, and 2.) To trash the Kennedy brothers. These two aims are inextricably linked in the Russo/Molton scheme. That’s because the design is the oldest one in the CIA playbook on the JFK case: Blame the assassination on Oswald, the Cuban sympathizer out to avenge the plots against Fidel Castro by killing the US head of state. This, of course, is what David Phillips thought of doing by bribing an Antonio Veciana relative working for Cuban intelligence in 1964. (See Gaeton Fonzi’s The Last Investigation, p. 143). But Phillips tried to work this same deception even earlier, on 11/25/63, right after Oswald was killed by Jack Ruby. At that time he was using another asset of his from Nicaragua, Gilberto Alvarado. On that day, Alvarado walked into the American Embassy in Mexico City. He told the authorities there that in September, he had seen Oswald with two Cubans at the Cuban consulate. They passed money to Oswald while talking about a murder plot. (See Anthony Summers, Conspiracy, pgs 415-419) In the former case, Phillips called off the effort, perhaps because the earlier Alvarado effort had fallen flat. Alvarado first failed a polygraph and then confessed to manufacturing the story. On the subject of Phillips’ propaganda about the JFK case, in part three of my review of Reclaiming History, I note that Ed Lopez and Dan Hardway of the House Select Committee on Assassinations came to an interesting conclusion about all these “Oswald killed JFK for Castro” stories which surfaced in the wake of the JFK murder. Namely, that every story in this regard was linked to a David Phillips asset. The CIA/Phillips ploy had at least three goals. First, to conceal the actual perpetrators of the plot. Second, to take advantage of Oswald’s undercover intelligence status. Third, to attempt to provoke a full invasion of Cuba in retaliation for the murder of the American president. This last is something that the CIA and Pentagon wanted Kennedy to do for three years. Yet he refused.

    Russo reactivated this tall tale in his previous book, and he and Molton try and dress it up and rerun it again here. Predictably, they begin the article by apologizing for the Warren Commission. They write that the Warren Report was “in hindsight, as accurate as possible.” (p. 20) So clearly they are headed for the concept that certain intelligence operations Oswald crossed over had to remain hidden by the US government. Then the authors pull something that seemed to me to be really dishonest. To impress upon the reader the idea that upper echelon leaders understood that the Commission could not tell the whole truth for national security reasons, they relate the famous conversation of September 18, 1964 between President Johnson and Warren Commissioner Richard Russell. In a taped call of that day, they both said that they did not believe the main conclusion of the Warren Report. In fact, Russell said, “I don’t believe it” and LBJ replied with “I don’t either.” (Ibid) The authors try and present this as both men not believing in the element of a conspiracy involving Oswald as the sole assassin. In other words, they understood Oswald was being egged and urged on by shadowy Cuban intelligence (G-2) cohorts. Yet, as Gerald McKnight makes clear in his fine study of the Commission, this is not what the two were discussing. Russell was talking to Johnson about his resistance to the single bullet theory that was being rammed down his throat by Chief Counsel J. Lee Rankin. (Breach of Trust, pgs 283-284) So the proper contextual grounding of this phone call cannot be a conspiracy with just Oswald as the lone gunman. What the two men are objecting to, the SBT, is the basis of Oswald as the lone assassin. Without it, there is more than one assassin. By not fully informing the reader of the context, Russo and Molton distort its meaning.

    Russo and Molton follow this up with another distortion in aid of their “Oswald as Castro agent” agenda. They try to say that Johnson and Robert Kennedy controlled the Warren Commission investigation. In their terms, they “directed its focus.” (Russo and Molton p. 20) See, LBJ and RFK suspected the whole Oswald retaliation story and wanted to keep it from the public. This is more malarkey. The Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) has now declassified every transcript of the Warren Commission executive sessions. In addition, the working papers of the Commission, as held by Rankin, were also turned over. McKnight based his definitive volume about the Commission largely on these ARRB materials. There is no trace in them of any direct influence by Johnson or RFK. The Warren Commission needed no such help in centering on Oswald alone as the killer. In reading the transcripts of the executive sessions and the testimony in the Commission volumes, it seems clear that the most influential commissioners were Allen Dulles, Gerald Ford, and John McCloy. And these three had their minds made up virtually from the beginning. In fact, in a famous anecdote, Dulles passed out a book at an early meeting that described previous presidential assassinations as the work of disturbed misfits. (McKnight, p. 92) Further, Rankin was a longtime crony of J. Edgar Hoover, and the Commission was overwhelmingly reliant on the FBI for its information. The FBI had closed the case against Oswald in early December. And on December 12, 1963 Hoover told Rankin that a.) Oswald was a skilled marksman, and b.) The bullet on Connally’s stretcher had come from Oswald’s rifle. (McKnight, p. 94) These were both false statements. Today, the former is universally agreed upon as false by everyone except Russo. The latter would be proved false by a later interview of Parkland Hospital employee O. P. Wright, one of the two men who first discovered the bullet. (Josiah Thompson, Six Seconds in Dallas, pgs. 175-176) And that Hoover lied about this key fact, and that Rankin accepted the lie tells you all you need to know about the report being, in the authors’ words, “as accurate as possible.” It also tells you why both LBJ and RFK were essentially irrelevant to the proceedings of the Commission. Once the FBI verdict was submitted, Hoover was not going to let the Commission stray from its essential findings. And with McCloy, Dulles, and Ford involved, he didn’t meet much resistance. (I will touch on Johnson’s actual influence later.)

    But in spite of all the errors, distortions, and misrepresentations on just the first page of the excerpt, Russo and Molton insist they actually have the truth. And they add that they will now piece together and “tell the real story for the first time.” (Op. cit. p. 20)

    They begin by saying that Kennedy was in the grip of a Cold War paradigm that was especially true for Cuban relations. They say that President Eisenhower and Vice-President Richard Nixon had been plotting a coup in Cuba. Further, that assassination was part of it. Thus the historical backdrop is dubious at the start. It is true that Eisenhower did OK a plan to overthrow the Castro government. But he was urged on in this by CIA Director Allen Dulles. It was Dulles who first proposed the trade embargo on Cuba and urged Eisenhower to try and spread it to all American allies in order to isolate the island. Many commentators, including Harry Truman, have said it was this move which almost guaranteed that Castro would be thrown into the arms of the Russians. Which may have been the crusty old Director’s aim all along. (I have always respected Dulles’ brains as much as I didn’t the uses to which he put them.) In fact, in this whole preliminary Cuban/American discussion, there is no mention of Dulles or the CIA! Which is incredible. Because it is Dulles and the Agency which will continue with the overthrow plot and push it on the new president after Eisenhower leaves office. This resulted in the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion. And its utter failure caused President Kennedy to fire its main architects, Dulles, Deputy Director Charles Cabell, and Director of Plans Dick Bissell. If you can believe it, in this article, the authors never mention this crucial information.

    Instead, they jump immediately to November of 1961 and Operation Mongoose. And then they distort that also. They say that RFK was closely involved with Mongoose but they leave out the main reason: after they were deceived on the Bay of Pigs, the Kennedys did not trust the CIA anymore. If you leave out the Bay of Pigs debacle, you can shove that crucial fact under the rug. And because this is Gus Russo, the essay tries to state that the Kennedys were part of the CIA’s attempts to assassinate Castro. The problem here is that both the CIA Inspector General Report on the plots to kill Castro, and the records of Mongoose have both been declassified by the ARRB. No reasonable person can state today that those records reveal what Russo says they do. In fact, Russo still uses the notorious liar Sam Halpern to try and insinuate the opposite. Halpern has been exposed many times by, among others, David Talbot and myself as being a fabricator on this issue. Russo and Molton then write that the Missile Crisis was precipitated over Mongoose. Yet in what is probably the best book on the Missile Crisis, The Kennedy Tapes, the authors disagree. In a long and detailed analysis based on declassified Soviet records, they note that Khrushchev first surfaced the idea of shipping nuclear missiles to Cuba in April of 1962. Why? This is one month after the US had completed its installation of Jupiter missiles in Turkey. (Ernest May and Philip Zelikow, The Kennedy Tapes, p. 674) That same month, the US resumed nuclear tests in the Pacific. The combination of these two events – both in April of 1962 – coincide with Khrushchev’s first private discussions of the matter with friend and Politburo member Anastas Mikoyan and then with defense minister Rodion Malinovsky. (Ibid p. 675) Further, when Castro was first approached about the installation, he was reluctant to accept it. He felt – correctly – that Cuba was being used to change the global balance of power. (Ibid p. 676) Castro felt that the deployment of the nuclear missiles would itself create an intense crisis. By ignoring all this new, relevant and documented information, the authors can then distort the causes of the Missile Crisis.

    When Russo and Molton go outside of Cuba, they have the same monomaniacal agenda. They actually can write that after Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic and Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam were killed, “Fidel became even more certain that he was the next hit on the Kennedys’ list.” (p. 24) This is ridiculous. In the case of Diem, Jim Douglass’ fine book JFK and the Unspeakable shows in exquisite detail that the responsible parties for the murder of Diem were Henry Cabot Lodge and Lucien Conein. (See especially pages 202-209) Not only did Kennedy not know what the two were up to, he was so distraught by what had happened he decided to fire Lodge. As for Trujillo, he had become such a brutal dictator, even his Latin American neighbors urged the US to get rid of him somehow. Yet, there is no evidence that Kennedy ever knew of, let alone approved of a plot. The actual assassination of the man was more or less a spur of the moment outburst. (See William Blum, The CIA: A Forgotten History pgs. 196-197)

    Around this point in the excerpt, Russo and Molton go into high gear and begin to describe their plot to kill President Kennedy. To say it is flimsy is to give it too much credibility. Predictably, they trot out the mildewed and disputed Daniel Harker AP story from September of 1963. Every writer in this vein – Jean Davison for example – uses this reportage and none of them seem to note that Castro disputes the story as written. (HSCA interview of Castro 4/3/78) And they also fail to note that there are two stories from this Castro encounter at the Brazilian Embassy in Havana. The second one, reported by the UPI and printed in the NY Times of 9/9/63 does not say the same thing as the Harker AP story. The latter quotes Castro as saying “If US leaders are aiding terrorist plans to eliminate Cuban leaders, they themselves will not be safe. Let Kennedy and his brother Robert take care of themselves, since they too can be the victims of an attempt which will cause their death.” (p. 25) The UPI fourteen-paragraph story had none of this in it. As the authors note, the Harker story appeared in the New Orleans Times Picayune. The unproven assumption is that Oswald read it and this helped ignite his homicidal tendency to kill Kennedy. So Russo and Molton give us a disputed newspaper story that was assumed to be read by Oswald as key evidence in motivation.

    What is the rest of the plot? Well, essentially it is a rerun of the script Gus Russo wrote for German film director Wilfried Huismann. The film he made out of Russo’s work was called Rendezvous with Death and was shown on German television in January of 2006. This documentary was so full of holes, and used so many dubious witnesses that Russo apparently decided to clean it up the second time around. For instance, it actually relied on the David Phillips inspired and aforementioned Gilberto Alvarado story as its keystone. Even though that fable has been discredited for decades. Yet Huismann and Russo did not tell the audience this. Nor did they tell them about Phillips’ association with Alvarado or how this paralleled other efforts by Phillips. I should also add here that in the original telling, Alvarado said he saw Oswald and the two G-2 agents in Mexico City on September 18th. Yet Oswald was not supposed to be in Mexico at that time.

    Russo and Huismann then built on this phony foundation with people like Pedro Gutierrez. In the Gutierrez instance, Phillips found someone who got the date right. This guy said he saw Oswald in Mexico City on September 30th. But he says he saw a payoff to Oswald right in front of the Cuban Embassy! That G-2 would arrange the murder of JFK right in front of CIA cameras is ludicrous.

    Russo also got his Witness for All Seasons, Martin Underwood, a posthumous gig. Why, I don’t know. Maybe the Germans didn’t know about his poor track record. But it seems whenever Russo needs someone to bolster some unbelievable point of his, he trots this guy out. Underwood was an employee of Mayor Richard Daley who Daley loaned to Kennedy as an advance man for his 1960 campaign. Russo originally tracked him down for Sy Hersh and ABC to bolster one of the many fallacious tales spouted by the late Judith Exner. For the shameless Hersh, Underwood said he saw Exner leaving a train with a bag of money in Chicago when she met Sam Giancana. Well, when Underwood was called to testify before the ARRB about this incident the Hersh/Russo/Exner fabrication collapsed. Underwood “denied that he followed Judith Campbell Exner on a train and that he had no knowledge about her alleged role as a courier. ” (ARRB Final Report, p. 136)

    For the German TV special, Underwood – who later worked for LBJ – passed on a secret report, which he only wanted revealed after his death. The secret report alleged that Winston Scott, CIA Mexico City station chief, told Underwood that one of Castro’s top G-2 agents, Fabian Escalante, was in Dallas on the day of Kennedy’s murder. And the CIA missed that fact. The implication being that the Agency’s miscue caused JFK’s murder.

    One problem with this is that, contrary to the claim above, Underwood told this story while he was alive. And a further problem with it is that he could produce no “report” when the ARRB asked him for it. Russo had given the ARRB notes, but Underwood said he wrote those notes for use in Hersh’s book. That is, they were written in the nineties, not in the sixties when Russo and Huismann say the “Underwood Report” originated. Yet Underwood insisted Scott had told him this. But when he did send the ARRB his notes from Mexico, they only briefly mentioned Scott, and there was no mention at all of the JFK assassination. When the ARRB asked him to testify under oath, Underwood wisely and understandably declined. (ARRB Final Report, p. 135) One last problem with the fabled “Underwood Report”. Scott’s biographer, Jefferson Morley, spent years researching the man’s life. In 2008, he published his book on Scott, entitled Our Man in Mexico. There is no mention of either Underwood or the Escalante story in the volume. Did Scott only tell the Escalante story to Underwood? Why?

    Realizing this was all thin gruel for anyone familiar with the JFK case, Russo and Huismann came up with a new witness. This is a guy named Oscar Marino – which is a pseudonym. Marino said that Oswald volunteered to kill JFK. And Russo and Molton repeat this claim for this article. What is this based upon? Well, when Vincent Bugliosi called Russo, Russo said it was based upon Alvarado’s allegation! (Reclaiming History, End Notes, p. 736) With that, we know what to think of Marino. He has all the credibility of Underwood. But that didn’t matter to Russo and Molton. As I said, they repeat the quote here. (p. 29)

    In American Heritage, Russo and Molton say that Oswald’s shooting at Gen. Walker in April of 1963 was supposed to be an audition for G-2. Further, the authors say that Oswald ordered the rifle used in that shooting, the Mannlicher Carcano. Here is the problem with that. If this is so, then the bullet changed both color and caliber from April to December. Because as Gerald McKnight notes, the original bullet was silver in color and not of the 6.5 caliber used in the Carcano. (Breach of Trust, pgs 48-49) The FBI and Warren Commission altered its color and dimension to incriminate Oswald. Somehow, Russo and Molton leave out that pertinent fact.

    From here, the authors transition to Oswald’s trip to Mexico City. They say that Oswald was declined for a visa to Cuba at the Cuban Embassy because of his erratic behavior. Not accurate. Whoever was at the Cuban Embassy – Oswald or an imposter – was declined because he wanted an in-transit visa to Cuba. The ultimate destination was Russia. Oswald could not get a visa at the Russian Embassy. This is why the Cubans turned him down. They then relate how Oswald went to a local university to get some student leftists to vouch for him in his pursuit of a visa. They say that when Oscar Contreras, the leader of the group, called the Cuban Embassy he was told to forget it since Oswald was unstable. Again, not accurate. Eusebio Azcue told Contreras that he should forget Oswald – or whoever impersonated him – because he was probably an agent provocateur. In other words, he was a CIA operative. This is why Contreras did not help. (Gaeton Fonzi, The Last Investigation, p. 290) This undermines their whole thesis. So the authors leave it out.

    The excerpt/summary ends in a crescendo of unintended satire. The authors write that because of the assassination, LBJ ended the secret war against Cuba. But the assassination almost forced a nuclear war against Russia based upon Oswald’s activities in Mexico City. (Russo and Molton, p. 29) What the authors leave out is that Johnson now eliminated the back channel Kennedy had been working on to create dÈtente with Castro. And that move caused the freeze out in relations between the two nations to persevere for 45 years. They also leave out the fact that the fear of atomic war with Russia was largely created by the phony Mexico City tapes the CIA sent to Dallas and Washington the night of the assassination. The ones that contained an imposter’s voice, not Oswald’s. And the whole idea that Oswald was meeting with a KGB agent in Mexico City to plan the murder of Kennedy was a fiction set up before the fact by James Angleton and David Phillips. (See John Newman, Oswald and the CIA, Chapters 18 and 19.) It was this false pretense which threatened atomic war that frightened Johnson. (James Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable, p. 231) This fear was used to coax Earl Warren into helming the Warren Commission and conducting it in such a shameful manner. This also undermines their phony thesis.

    That’s pretty important information to keep from the reader. But its par for the course for Russo and Molton. American Heritage should be ashamed of itself for putting such a worthless piece of tripe in its magazine. Let alone on its cover. Shame on you.

  • Vincent Bugliosi, Reclaiming History: A Crime Scene Between Two Hard Covers

    Vincent Bugliosi, Reclaiming History: A Crime Scene Between Two Hard Covers

    Part One

    If you ever want to witness a crime with your own eyes, you need only look at certain pages of the official record on the murder of John F. Kennedy. The crime is perjury. But unless you know a great deal about the case, you may not recognize it. There is, however, another crime scene you can visit that is easier to evaluate. Here, the crime is fraud, six pounds of it: Reclaiming History, by Vincent Bugliosi.

    This book is infested with fraud from cover to cover, but you might never know it unless you were to compare (a) the actual record with (b) what Bugliosi says is on record. You would also need to know (a) what else is on record that is relevant and significant, and (b) whether Bugliosi included this information.

    This essay contains just a few examples — picked at random — of Bugliosi’s highly selective, and sometimes outright false reporting on the medical-ballistics in this case. (All of the quotes from the book are introduced as numbered “specimens” and are in smaller type. Quotes from other sources are regular size, and in italics.)

    If this is how Bugliosi reports simple, physical information, imagine what he does with more complex issues.

    The Throat Wound

    Misrepresenting Parkland

    Was the wound in Kennedy’s throat an entrance or an exit? The wound itself can no longer tell us. No samples of the perimeter of the wound in the skin were preserved on slides. The only known photos of the wound were taken from too far away and are of poor quality. Words describing the wound have been preserved, but often they can be used to fit either situation.

    All of the doctors at Parkland Hospital agreed the wound was relatively small. Four of six doctors who saw the wound said the edges were not ragged. Two other doctors and one nurse said the opposite. (See below for actual quotes and references.) All of these words are suggestive but not definitive. The problem:

    Exit wounds can be small.

    Entrance wounds can be slightly ragged, or show “tattering” (Journal of Trauma 1963 (March) 3(2):120-128.) But words describing the little irregularities along the border of a round wound should not be confused with words indicating a jagged or star-shaped (stellate) wound – i.e., a typical exit wound.

    You will never learn of these ambiguities in Vincent Bugliosi’s book. Bugliosi wants you to believe that (a) the wound was “ragged,” and (b) this proves it was an exit.

    You will not learn from Bugliosi that the majority of Parkland doctors said the wound was not ragged. What is more seriously deceptive is that Bugliosi put these words — “ragged edges” — into the mouths of doctors who in fact said the opposite.

    Specimen 1:

    The light flashes on for Humes when Dr. Perry tells him that he performed his surgery on an existing wound there, a small, round perforation with ragged edges. “Of course,” Humes realizes, “that explains it.” 1069 (Bugliosi, p.207)

    Reference 1069 only documents Humes’s questionable claim that, from Malcolm O. Perry, he learned for the first time JFK had a bullet wound in his throat. But Perry never told Humes or anyone else that the wound had “ragged edges.”

    Significant omission: Perry implied the wound was definitely not ragged:

    “I indicated that the neck wound appeared like an entrance wound. And I based this mainly on its size and the fact that exit wounds in general tend to be somewhat ragged…” (ARRB MD 58, page 15)

    Elsewhere, Perry told the WC that the edges were “neither ragged nor were they punched out, but rather clean.” (3 WCH 372). To the HSCA, he said he did not inspect the wound closely, that he did not clean the blood off of it. Yet, he also told the HSCA the wound was “neither ragged nor clean cut… roughly round, the edges were bruised and a little blurred.” (ARRB MD 58, page 5)

    Specimen 2:

    Although Carrico was unable to determine whether the throat wound was an entrance or exit wound, he did observe that the wound was “ragged,”202 virtually a sure sign of an exit wound as opposed to an entrance wound, which is usually round and devoid of ragged edges.” (Bugliosi, p.413)

    Bugliosi’s reference for the above is page 517 of the Warren Report where Charles J. Carrico described a “ragged wound of the trachea,” (emphasis mine). Yet, in the above context, Bugliosi seems to want the reader to assume “the wound” refers to the one in the skin — the only kind that counts in the context of entrance versus exit. (Almost any wound in a trachea would be ragged because of the stiffness of cartilage.) Elsewhere, in a different context, Bugliosi mentions Carrico’s description of the raggedness of the trachea (Bugliosi, p.60), and so it is unlikely that he has confused this with the wound in the skin.

    Significant omission: Carrico testified in at least two places the wound was “rather round and there were no jagged edges or stellate lacerations.” (6 WCH 3); “fairly round, had no jagged edges.” (3 WCH 362)

    Specimen 3:

    We … did not determine at that time whether this represented an entry or an exit wound. Judging from the caliber of the rifle that [was] later found … this would more resemble a wound of entry. However … depending upon what a bullet of such caliber would pass through, the tissues it would pass through on the way to the [throat], I think that the wound could well represent either an exit or an entry wound. 212 (Bugliosi, p. 414)

    Significant omission: The statement, by Charles R. Baxter, that came immediately before the above selection: “It did not appear to be a jagged wound such as one would expect with a very high velocity rifle bullet.” (Emphasis mine.) (6 WCH 42)

    Specimen 4:

    [The] small hole in anterior midline of neck [was] thought to be a bullet entrance wound.215 (Bugliosi, p.414)

    Significant omission: The reason given by Ronald C. Jones, quoted above, for believing it to be an entrance wound: “relatively smooth edges.” (6 WCH 54) After discrediting the ability of these doctors to determine whether the wound was an entrance, it does no good to provide their opinions without the reasons underlying those opinions.

    When it came to reporting physical details of the wound, Bugliosi omitted what the majority — four of six doctors — had to say, the same four whose words could not be used to suggest the wound was an exit.

    On the other hand, he did report physical details if they fit Bugliosi’s ignorant idea of an exit wound: from one doctor who only saw the wound after it had been deformed by the tracheotomy, Gene C. Akin, who said its edges were “slightly ragged” (6 WCH 65), and from another doctor, the late Marion T. Jenkins, a well-known confabulator who has said just about everything he could to promote the findings of the Warren Commission, and stopped just short of claiming to have seen Oswald fire the shots. (For details, please see my essay, The Wandering Wounds, (http://www.assassinationweb.com/cranrev.htm). Jenkins said the throat wound was “not … clearly demarcated, round [or] punctate.” (6 WCH 48) Malcolm Perry, who seemed to doubt Jenkins had arrived early enough to see the wound untouched, even went so far as to say, “I know he did not examine the wound per se.” (3 WCH 381) [Bugliosi did not mention Margaret M. Henchcliffe, a nurse who said the wound was “jagged a little bit.” (6 WCH 141)]

    The only definitive way to determine the nature of an ambiguous wound is to examine it under magnification. Bullet holes in the skin, as in the skull, have a pattern of “cratering” that reveals their nature; the dermis and epidermis tell the same tales as the inner and outer tables of the skull. (Jones, Nancy L. Atlas of Forensic Pathology, New York: Igaku-Shoin, 1966, p.77) And there are other microscopic signs. The pathologists who performed JFK’s autopsy claimed they were unaware of a wound in the throat until the next day, after the body was taken away. Consequently, as far as we know, they never looked at this wound under magnification.

    Bugliosi has, however, put the word “ragged” under great magnification and declares it “a sure sign of an exit.”

    Divining the Truth from Bad Photographs

    The Clark Panel and HSCA claimed they could determine — from poor quality photographs taken at a distance — the nature of Kennedy’s throat wound.

    Specimen 5:

    Looking at black-and-white photographs of the wound to the throat (which were sharper and clearer than similar color photographs), the nine-member panel of forensic pathologists for the HSCA noticed “a semicircular missile defect near the center of the lower margin of the tracheotomy incision.” The committee said it was an “exit defect.”188 Dr. Baden, who headed up the HSCA panel, said, “The semicircular defect was caused by the exiting bullet. I saw it right away in the photographs, even though they weren’t of the best quality.” 189 The four-member Clark Panel of physicians and pathologists also saw a portion of the exit wound that was not obliterated by the tracheotomy.190 (Bugliosi, p.411)

    Although Bugliosi is a layman, one would think he would notice an absolutely stunning omission from the reports of both of these investigations: reasons for their conclusion that this small wound, so typical of an entrance even to the naked eye, was an exit. Those reasons would necessarily have to be subtle.

    Where is the requisite list of details that distinguished this “exit” wound from an entrance? Not one of the specialists on either medical panel followed the principles as stated by the most prominent member of the Clark Panel, Alan R. Moritz, M.D. From his article, “Classical Mistakes in Forensic Pathology,” American Journal of Clinical Pathology 1956; vol.26, p.1383.

    “Although it would seem to be obvious that the location, dimensions, shape, depth, and special features of every wound should be described, such information is frequently inadequately recorded on protocols that are prepared by pathologists who perform only occasional medicolegal autopsies.”

    NOTE: Many of the doctors on the Clark and HSCA panels, including the head of the latter, Michael Baden, are not among the pathologists who perform “only occasional medicolegal autopsies.” And while these doctors did not perform Kennedy’s autopsy itself, the principles described are conspicuously relevant to a review of autopsy materials: give reasons for making conclusions. Continuing with Dr. Moritz’s cogent remarks:

    ” In the protocol of a medicolegal autopsy, it is better to describe 10 findings that prove to be of no significance than to omit one that might be critical …

    “The purpose of a protocol is twofold. One is to record a sufficiently detailed, factual, and noninterpretive description of the observed conditions, in order that a competent reader may form his own opinions in regard to the significance of the changes described. (Emphasis mine.) Thus, a region of dark blue discoloration in the … may or may not be a bruise. To refer to it as a contusion in the descriptive part of the protocol is to substitute an interpretation for a description, and this is as unwarranted as it may be misleading … (Emphasis mine.)

    And this is exactly what the Clark Panel and HSCA did with respect to the throat wound: “substituted an interpretation for a description.”

    Ah, but when it comes to the interpretation of the throat wound, it is enough that Michael Baden “saw it right away.” (Further below, you can watch Michael Baden stretch a lie.)

    Bullet Hole in Connally’s Lapel

    Specimen 6:

    Lattimer knew from his previous experiments that the test bullet would almost certainly ‘tumble” after passing through the simulated neck (just as the bullet did during the assassination) and strike the mock-up of the governor’s “back” … The flying fragments of rib and soft tissue, which were blown out by the tumbling bullet, ripped a large ragged hole in both the shirt and the jacket, just as Oswald’s bullet had done in Dealey Plaza.” (Bugliosi, Endnotes, p.326) (Emphases mine.)

    In fact, the hole in the lapel of Governor John Connally’s jacket was small (3/8ths of an inch in diameter) and “circular.” (5 WCH 63)

    The hole in the front of the governor’s shirt was large, no doubt due to exiting rib fragments, but the hole in the front of the jacket was created only by the bullet, and the small size of this hole indicates the bullet exited straight on, i.e., not sideways, and thus it was not tumbling.

    Why would Bugliosi lie about the hole in Connally’s jacket? Why would he want it to appear as though the bullet had exited tumbling?

    1. The alleged tumbling is allegedly caused by the bullet’s alleged journey through JFK.
    2. The alleged tumbling is allegedly associated with the outward movement of Connally’s jacket lapel.

    On the Zapruder film, at a moment when lone assassin theorists claim Kennedy and Connally both are being struck by the same bullet, Connally’s lapel appears to bulge outward. (Never mind the correlation between the lapel bulge and the movement of Connally’s right arm, and never mind Connally reaction to a bullet several seconds after JFK’s.)

    According to the questionable experiments described below (and referenced in the Bugliosi quote above), only a tumbling bullet can push out rib fragments to the extent that they cause the lapel to flare outward.

    Background. The false evidence concerning the actual size of the hole in Connally’s jacket was manufactured by the late John K. Lattimer, M.D., a well known urologist with powerful connections who wrote several articles, all hard sell and soft science – informercials, really — that promoted the many aspects of the lone assassin theory. Lattimer’s disinformation on the ballistics of the single bullet theory was based on experiments using mock-ups of Kennedy and Connally (reference #4 below). Lattimer presumably shot Carcano bullets through these mock-ups, then presented various bits of data from the experiments, including the size of the mock torso’s back wound, and the experiment’s jacket lapel — both used to prove the bullet was tumbling.

    Lattimer then falsely claimed that the bullet holes in the experiments matched those in the actual case. The similarity of these lies is interesting, expressed here in millimeters for easy comparison:

    table 1

    Lattimer put together crudely deceptive exhibits designed to sell the public on the size of Connally’s back wound. Please see my illustrated essay “Big Lie About a Small Wound” at www.historymatters.com. You will not find this particular lie in Reclaiming History. Bugliosi and I have a mutual acquaintance who quietly implied that people working for him have seen the article and, for that reason, stayed away from this more obvious fraud. I have no way of verifying this behind-the-scenes story.

    Getting back to the fraud concerning the hole in the lapel, Bugliosi carefully avoided repeating Lattimer’s lie that the hole in the experiment’s lapel was 30mm – the exact length of the Carcano bullet. Instead he was vague, calling it “large,” and, apparently in an effort to nail it down as an exit, even though this is not in dispute, he add the word “ragged” to its description. (See Specimen #5.)

    Bugliosi was also very careful in the way he reported a second set of experiments performed by Lattimer to complement the first. When Lattimer fired directly at the simulated torso alone, with no intervening target representing Kennedy’s neck, the mock-up ribs did not push out the lapel, the bullet did not exit tumbling – it came out straight, and the hole in the experimental jacket lapel was small. In Lattimer’s own words, “The jacket did not bulge out and the lapel did not turn over…With the bullet going straight ahead, wounds to the rib, shirt and jacket were punctate … “ But look how Bugliosi avoids the significant details of this experiment:

    Specimen 6:

    Of particular importance is the fact that subsequent test rounds that were fired directly into the mock-up of the governor without first passing through the mock-up of Kennedy’s neck produced no bulge of the jacket. Without the tumble caused by the bullet’s passage through the simulated neck, there was no billowing of the jacket. (Bugliosi, Endnotes, p. 327)

    Significant omission: Not one word from Bugliosi on the size of the hole in the front of the jacket used in the experiment.

    Another table, though redundant, may make all this easier to digest:

    table 2

    Readers of Reclaiming History would have to do a lot of digging into primary source material to discover Bugliosi lies, revisions, and omissions. It’s interesting that the facts that Bugliosi tried to hide could actually be used to show that Connally was shot by a separate bullet, but there is glaring evidence the experiments were rigged: How could Lattimer’s mock-up of a “neck” cause a bullet to tumble, while the thicker “torso,” complete with ribs (one of which was hit by the bullet) did not interfere with the bullet’s flight at all?

    Michael Baden – Another Unsanitary Source

    Michael M. Baden, M.D., at the time, Chief Medical Examiner, New York City, and Chairman of the HSCA Medical Panel, was one of Bugliosi’s main sources of interpretation of the medical evidence, mentioned in the book no fewer than 92 times, including references — and is himself a specimen.

    Before you take what he says seriously, no matter how authoritative it sounds, you should take a good look at what he is capable of. You have heard the expression “stretching the truth,” but here is an instance of stretching a lie. In this case, the lie he stretches came from John Lattimer. (See above section, and, for more details, see “Big Lie about a Small Wound” at www.historymatters.com.

    As mentioned earlier, Lattimer doubled the length of the back wound (from 15 to 30mm) so that it matched the length of a Carcano bullet. Baden, knowing that the wound’s scar had to be larger than the wound itself, revised what he reported earlier – and doubled the size of the scar!

    Baden’s report to the HSCA:

    On removing his shirt, it was readily apparent that at the site of gunshot perforation of the upper right back there is now a 1 1/8-inch long horizontal pale well healed … “ (7 HSCA 143-144; 240) (Emphasis added.)

    Baden’s report to the Public:

    According to Connally’s medical records, the bullet struck him nose first in the back and left a vertical scar. I thought the records were wrong. If it was the same magic bullet, it would have gone in sideways … I needed to examine Connally …

    “He removed his shirt. There it was – a two-inch long sideways entrance scar in the back. He had not been shot by a second shooter but by the same flattened bullet that went through Kennedy. (Unnatural Death: Confessions of a Medical Examiner, Random House 1989, p.20) (Emphasis added.)

    Two inches versus one and one-eighth. Quite a contribution to the single bullet theory. How could Bugliosi trust anything Michael Baden says about anything?

    Part Two

    The Head Wounds

    Background

    The damage to John Kennedy’s head remains as mysterious as the dark side of the moon. Too many revisions in the evidence, and too many pseudoscientific explanations for these revisions, make it impossible to know what, or whom, to believe.

    The word “discrepancy” is inadequate to explain the extreme contrast among some of the different versions of the wounds.

    First, it was Parkland (large defect representing an exit wound in the rear of the skull) versus Bethesda (entrance wound in the rear); then it was Bethesda (entrance low) versus the Clark Panel and HSCA (entrance four inches higher); then it was Parkland 1963 (large defect in the rear) versus Parkland 1990’s (didn’t see any defect; misunderstood what they saw), and so on.

    The Parkland doctors in Dallas, including the Chief of the Division of Neurosurgery, William Kemp Clark, described a large defect in the bone at the right rear of the head, evidence of an exit wound they thought — from a bullet fired from the front.

    Dr. Clark and others defined the types of bone along the perimeter of the hole and noted that some of the bone was “avulsed,” that is, thrust outward. Inside and out, they saw both cerebrum and cerebellum (brain tissue with distinctly different texture that lies below the cerebrum). Cerebellum (unlike ubiquitous cerebrum) exuding from the defect was considered strongly suggestive of an exit in the rear.

    Dr. Clark did not record his observations for merely academic reasons. He had to look carefully into the defect to assess what was left of the brain in order to make a decision on whether to stop resuscitation efforts. He did not try to assess the full extent of the defect.

    Late in the evening of the autopsy, three skull fragments, found in the limousine, were delivered. One of those fragments presumably fit into the defect in the rear of the head. It had a semicircular notch on its edge, said to be part of a hole created by an entering bullet.

    The alleged entrance wound was defined by a notch on the edge of the skull, put together with a notch on the edge of the bone fragment. The two semicircular notches together made one full circle — oval in shape — representing a bullet hole. (For the sake of brevity, I’m omitting all the contradictory testimony on this issue.)

    Now consider the location of the completed bullet hole: the pathologists said it was “just above” the EOP (external occipital protuberance) a landmark bump — low in the rear of the head. This necessarily means that the defect – and the fragment that filled it — also had to begin low in the rear of the head.

    Gary L. Aguilar, M.D. has proven, with great elegance, that what Bethesda reported was not so different from what Parkland reported: a large defect in the rear of the head. Please see How Five Investigations Got it Wrong at www.history-matters.com He was the first to report the significance of the pathologists’ measurements of the defect and the fragments — what these figures meant with respect to the damage in the rear, and what Parkland had reported.

    The language used by the pathologists was vague. They said the defect was “somewhat” into the occiput while emphasizing the damage in the front of the head. And their diagrams suggested the bullet hole was much lower than the lowest edge of the defect. (They explained that the diagrams only showed the hole in the scalp as opposed to the bone underneath.) The main Parkland-Bethesda controversy then is not whether there was a defect in the rear – there was — but whether a bullet entered, or exited, from that area.

    Getting back to Dallas, in the 1990’s, some of the Parkland doctors said they never saw any defect; they said the back of the head was hidden by a curtain of gore-drenched hair that misled them into thinking a wound was under it. They also revised what they said about the brain: what they thought was cerebellum was just damaged cerebrum.

    There is a big problem with this explanation: these doctors also reported seeing damaged cerebrum, tissue which they did not mistake for cerebellum. Obviously they made a distinction between the two. And some of the exposed cerebellum was sufficiently intact to exhibit grossly visible, definable characteristics. Dr. Clark, a distinguished neurosurgeon and the most qualified of all the physicians who saw the head damage, never changed his story.

    Michael Baden, to whom Bugliosi often turned for advice, has also made good use of the hair-curtain explanation. He used it to explain how on-lookers at the autopsy could be so “wrong” about the greater defect in the skull. He even used it to explain why the pathologists were “wrong” about where the skull entrance wound was. Baden gives new meaning to the expression “pulling the wool over one’s eyes.”

    Few medical professionals would be fooled by such an explanation. Anyone who has dealt with trauma knows that even the least serious little wound in the highly vascularized scalp can cause a great blood bath. Even brain injuries can look worse than they are. Doctors and nurses always look under the mess for its source.

    Another source of the controversy: an object on the skull X-ray (frontal view), presumed to be a bullet fragment. The pathologists, the acting radiologist, and other autopsy witnesses described the largest fragment as just a sliver, shaped like a matchstick, located in the front of the head, right behind the right eye. They confirmed its location in the brain, and extracted it.

    The frontal X-ray shows something quite different: a shiny round object with the same diameter as the Carcano bullet, imbedded in the rear of the head. It shows through the eye socket, as obvious as a candle in a pumpkin. And all skull X-rays show the new location of the entrance, four inches higher. (Army experiments on skulls performed in 1964, after the autopsy report was written, showed that the lower entrance resulted in an exit that was also too low. A reason to relocate the entrance?)

    Below you will find a few specimens that reflect Bugliosi’s attempts to deal with these controversies. There are many more that I have not reported for lack of time.

    Autopsy Protocol

    Cerebellum

    Specimen 8:

    But although the autopsy report notes that “the major portion” of the right cerebrum was “exuding” from the large defect on the right side of the president’s head, there isn’t one word in the report indicating that any part of the cerebellum was missing or even lacerated. 148 (Bugliosi, p. 404)

    Specimen 9:

    It bears repeating that the autopsy report only mentioned damage to the cerebrum, not the cerebellum. (Bugliosi, p. 405)

    Specimen 10:

    Dr. Boswell, in response to Parkland doctor Kemp Clark’s claiming to have seen “exposedä cerebellar tissue,” told Dr. Gary Aguilar, “He was wrong.† The right side of the cerebrum was so fragmented.† I think what he saw and misinterpreted as cerebellum was that.” (Bugliosi, p. 405)

    Significant omission: What Bugliosi does not report is that there is not one word, one way or the other, on the appearance of the cerebellum in the main Autopsy Report or in the Supplemental Autopsy Report, where a description of the organ belonged, under the heading “Gross Description of the Brain.” (A significant omission from the autopsy protocol itself, and from Bugliosi’s description of it.)

    Another significant omission: Bugliosi does not report that in the section on the Microscopic specimens, the cerebellum (item “f. From the right cerebellar cortex”) is indeed mentioned as having “significant abnormalities … directly related to the recent trauma.” The entire quote:

    “Multiple sections from representative sections are essentially similar and show extensive disruption of brain tissue with associated hemorrhage. In none of the sections examined are there significant abnormalities other than those directly related to the recent trauma.” (CE 391, page 2, ARRB MD4)

    It is not likely the typist mistook “cerebrum” for “cerebellum.” Individual parts of the cerebrum were listed: the right parietal lobe, the right frontal lobe, the left fronto-parietal cortex — all parts of the cerebrum. The pathologists clearly described both types of brain tissue.

    It is standard to mention all normal parts of an organ adjacent to the abnormal parts, and the exclusion of the cerebellum from the Gross Description of the Brain, and its inclusion in the Microscopic Examination, is intriguing indeed.

    Occiput

    Specimen 11:

    Cerebellum certainly wouldn’t likely have been expelled from any defect in the right front of the president’s head, where the Warren Commission and the autopsy surgeons concluded the exit wound was. (Bugliosi, p.405)

    Specimen 12:

    Baden: “But, clearly from the autopsy X-rays and photographs and the observations of the autopsy surgeons, the exit wound and defect was not in the occipital area. There was no defect or wound to the rear of Kennedy’s head other than the entrance wound in the upper right part of his head.” (Bugliosi, p.408)

    As a matter of fact, the autopsy surgeons said the great defect was chiefly in the parietal area but “extended somewhat into the temporal and occipital regions.” (Autopsy Protocol, p.3) (Emphasis mine.) (And do not confuse the location of the defect with that of the exit.)

    Cerebellum “Mistaken” for Cerebrum

    Specimen 13:

    Dr. Jenkins wrote that “the cerebellum had protruded from the [head] wound … ” However, Jenkins changed his mind after seeing autopsy photographs in 1988, telling author Gerald Posner that “the photos showed the President’s brain was crenelated from the trauma, and it resembled cerebellum, but it was not cerebellar tissue.” (Bugliosi, p.405)

    Specimen 14:

    [Quoting Dr. Carrico] “Looking at the shredded pieces of brain on the gurney, it looked like some of it had the characteristics of cerebellum, which kind of has a wavy surface. But because these brain pieces were shredded, this could easily have led to confusion as to whether it was all cerebrum – which has broader bands across the surface – or some cerebellum.” (Bugliosi, p. 405)

    As Bugliosi reports, several other Parkland doctors revised their statements, but I repeat: there is a big problem with this explanation. These doctors also reported seeing damaged cerebrum, tissue which they did not mistake for cerebellum. Obviously they made a distinction between the two. Some of the exposed cerebellum was sufficiently intact to exhibit grossly visible, definable characteristics. (And it is strange that Bugliosi gives credence to anything said by Marion T. Jenkins, considering this doctor’s ability to confabulate. For details, please see my essay, “The Wandering Wounds,” at http://www.assassinationweb.com/cranrev.htm.

    The Great Hair Curtain

    Hair Hides Wound from Parkland?

    Specimen 15:

    [W]hat is the explanation for several of the other Parkland doctors erroneously thinking that the large exit wound was to the right rear of the President’s head as opposed to the right frontal region, where all the medical and scientific evidence proved it to be? Dr. Michael Baden … has what I believe to be the answer …”The head exit wound was not in the parietal-occipital area, as the Parkland doctors said. They were wrong … That’s why we have autopsies, photographs, and X-rays to determine things like this. Since the thick growth of hair on Kennedy’s head hadn’t been shaved at Parkland, there’s no way for the doctors to have seen the margins of the wound in the skin of the scalp. All they saw was blood and brain tissue adhering to the hair. And that may have been mostly in the occipital area because he was lying on his back and gravity would push his hair, blood, and brain tissue backward … (Bugliosi, pp 407-408) (Emphases his.)

    Bugliosi quotes several Parkland doctors who now say the wound was obscured by hair, “confirming” Baden’s explanation. But how could Bugliosi accept this without question even though he has shown he is familiar with testimony that contradicts it – that these doctors looked beneath the hair, and saw a defect in bone? Doctors and nurses always look under the mess for its source. Among the following quotes, notice all the references to bone:

    “[A] large wound beginning in the right occiput extending into the parietal region. Much of the skull appeared gone.” (17 WCH 10) “This was a large, gaping wound in the right posterior part, with cerebral and cerebellar tissue being damaged and exposed.” (6 WCH 20) “The loss the right occipital and probably part of the right parietal lobes would have been of specific importance. (6 WCH 26). William Kemp Clark

    “The wound … was a large gaping wound, located in the right occipitoparietal area. . . . about 5 to 7 cm. in size, more or less circular, with avulsions of the calvarium and scalp tissue.” (6 WCH 6) Carrico

    “It seemed to me that in the right occipitalparietal area that there was a large defect. There appeared to be bone loss and brain loss in this area.” (6 WCH 71) Peters

    “There was a great laceration on the right side of the head (temporal and occipital), causing a great defect.” (17 WCH, CE 392) “I really think part of the cerebellum, as I recognized it, was herniated from the wound.” (6 WCH 48) Jenkins

    “I noted a large avulsive wound of the right parietal occipital area, in which both scalp and portions of skull were absent, and there was severe laceration of underlying brain tissue.” (3 WCH 371) Perry

    “[T]he parietal bone was protruded up through the scalp and seemed to be fractured almost along its right posterior half, as well as some of the occipital bone being fractured in its lateral half, and this sprung open the bones that I mentioned in such a way that you could actually look down into the skull cavity itself and see that probably a third or so, at least, of the brain tissue, posterior cerebral tissue and some of the cerebellar tissue had been blasted out. (6 WCH 33) McClelland

    Hair Hides Wound from Autopsy Onlookers?

    Specimen 16:

    Baden said that Kennedy’s head wasn’t even shaved of its hair at the time of the autopsy, and hence, any observations by onlookers of the autopsy, as opposed, he said, to the autopsy surgeons themselves, who were working directly with the president’s head) would likely have been skewed. (Bugliosi, p.408)

    A small hole revealed by shaving the scalp is probably the one thing observers at a distance would not be able to appreciate. But these onlookers observed the scalp being reflected back to show the damage in the actual bone. Some described the brain being removed, and made other very specific observations that were based on a view of naked bone. (These witness statements have been reported so extensively by so many researchers I shall not repeat them here.) Baden apparently wishes to imply these observers saw not much more than what shows in the gory, messy photos taken before the autopsy began. Ridiculous as the comment in Specimen 15 is, Baden has topped it! See next section.

    Hair Hides Wound from Prosectors who Performed Autopsy?

    Significant omission. Bugliosi knew better than to repeat what Baden said about the four-inch discrepancy in the location of the entrance wound. In Specimen 15, Baden at least admitted that the autopsy surgeons working directly with Kennedy’s head had a better view. But you would never know it from this comment which appears in a book Baden wrote for the public:

    “Perhaps the most egregious error was the four-inch miscalculation. The head is only five inches long from crown to neck, but Humes was confused by a little piece of brain tissue that had adhered to the scalp. He placed the head wound four inches lower than it actually was, near the neck instead of the cowlick.” (Unnatural Death: Confessions of a Medical Examiner, Random House, 1989, p. 16)

    As Baden knew very well, the pathologists folded back the scalp to observe the skull directly and, they said, they looked at what was left of the hole from the inside of the skull.

    Bugliosi Blames Baden’s Co-Author

    Bugliosi admitted there were “errors” in Baden’s book, and he mentioned a few, giving the greatest space to the one concerning Pierre Finck’s background. Baden had said, falsely, that Finck had never performed an autopsy on a victim of a gunshot wound before. But Bugliosi never mentioned the two outrageous assertions from Baden’s book that I have quoted in this essay. And the excuses he makes for Baden are just not credible.

    Specimen 17:

    Baden, one of the top forensic pathologists in the nation, is an extremely busy man, and if I were to wager, he coauthored this book on the run, leaving much of the detail to his coauthor [Judith Adler Hennessee], who is not a doctor. (Bugliosi, Endnote #5, p.219)

    “Detail.” The “errors” that are the most embarrassing – the ones Bugliosi does not mention — do not concern “detail.” They are assertions concerning facts and logic treated as linchpins in proving the lone assassin theory.

    “An extremely busy man.” The chapter on the Kennedy assassination was quite small — just a few pages long — in a small book. Baden was too busy to review statements made in his name on the Crime of the Century? (Maybe he had hair in his eyes and couldn’t see the print?) “If I were to wager.” As if he had to guess. As if Baden were not available to ask directly. Considering all the direct personal contact Bugliosi had had with Baden as documented extensively in this book, you would think Bugliosi would have asked Baden himself about all of these strange statements. But, then, maybe they both were too busy.

    No Co-Author to Blame for This One

    When it came to explaining the four-inch discrepancy to Congress, Michael Baden told a different story:

    “[P]reparing the autopsy report 24 hours after the autopsy was completed and after the body had been removed, may have contributed to the more significant mistake of placing the gunshot wound of entrance 4 inches lower than it actually was. The description of the size and shape of the entry wound is correct, but the location is incorrect perhaps due to reliance on memory.” (Emphasis mine.) (1 HSCA 306)

    The location was incorrect “perhaps due to reliance on memory?” None of the congressmen questioned this. Apparently they were unaware of the notes and diagrams made during the autopsy and used in the preparation of the autopsy report. The wound, as depicted in the drawing on the autopsy descriptive sheet (ARRB MD #1), looks to be precisely at the EOP (external occipital protuberance) – low, far below another memorable landmark, the cowlick. (This interview took place before the growth of the Hair Curtain.)

    Authenticating the Skull X-rays

    Many of us are skeptical about the authenticity of the skull X-rays because what they show is just too different from what was described by the closest and most qualified witnesses. We are especially skeptical of the shiny new fragment – the perfect slice of a 6.5 Carcano bullet – that no one reported in 1964.

    David Mantik, M.D., Ph.D., a radiologist and physicist, has provided highly technical reasons for believing the X-rays are counterfeit. Bugliosi cannot deal with these concepts, and turns to wound ballistics expert Larry M. Sturdivan (BS in Physics, MS in statistics) and Dr. Chad Zimmerman for help in rebutting Mantik’s theories. What Zimmerman said about the fragment itself contradicts the opinion of the HSCA’s expert radiologist.

    Specimen 18:

    [Quoting Zimmerman] Personally, I think it may actually have been a bullet fragment that was stuck in the hair or on the skin and later fell off … I feel it is real because of the lack of film grid lines in the surrounding area, which, in my opinion, are an absolute must … in order for it to be a post-autopsy forgery. (Bugliosi, Endnotes, p.222)

    According to Gerald McDonnel, the HSCA expert radiologist, the metal fragment was imbedded on the inside of the scalp (7 HSCA 133). If McDonnel is right, it could not have been “stuck in the hair or on the skin” as Zimmerman muses.

    In any case, this does not explain why no one, including the acting radiologist at the autopsy, saw this obvious fragment on the X-ray.

    As for his opinion on what makes a forgery, what are his qualifications? Chad Zimmerman has provided Bugliosi and others with his opinions on several aspects of this case – ballistics, acoustics, neurology, radiology and photography, all promoting the lone assassin theory. He does not provide references from scholarly sources for his opinions; does this mean that he himself is a recognized scholarly source?

    With all due respect, who is Chad Zimmerman to disagree with Gerald McDonnel? He is a Doctor of Chiropractic. (Bugliosi, Endnotes, p. 327) According to his advertisements, he offers massage therapy. This case has had quite enough massage therapy.

    They Will Say Anything

    One thing is clear, if nothing else: there are people who will say anything to promote the lone assassin theory.

    It would be nice if you could just cast aside all the words and look at the images, the X-rays for instance. But here, again, you need words – the words of the people who authenticated them. Would McDonnel et al have the sophistication the spot the signs of a sophisticated forgery? Who is qualified to do that? The very people who have the expertise may be the least credible, considering their close association with the government. The relationship between Kodak and the often deceptive CIA is well established.

    Would they, too, say anything, true or not?

    How would you know?

  • Dale Myers Gets Perturbed!

    A longer response than Dave Von Pein’s to part one of my review of Reclaiming History was by, well, what shall we call him? Co-author? Writing assistant? Ghostwriter? Whatever term you prefer, it was, predictably, by Dale Myers.

    Apparently, Myers didn’t like me expounding on a) His past beliefs that the JFK case was a conspiracy, and b) David Lifton’s inside knowledge about his ghostwriting of Reclaiming History, and his falling out with Vincent Bugliosi and his subsequent settlement that limited his talking about that ghostwriting. (Although considering how bad the book is, Myers got a good deal. He made some money but his name is off what turned out to be a book that should have never been published.)

    Concerning the first, Myers actually tries to say that his former anti-Warren Commission beliefs are quite open and available. That’s kind of funny. They are not at all available in the two books he has authored and co-authored, namely With Malice and Reclaiming History. And he had a lot of room to level with the reader in those two volumes. Well over three thousand pages. Or the equivalent of about eight or nine normal sized books: one-third of the Warren Commission. In fact, if John Kelin had not surfaced the tape recording of the interview he did with Myers from many years ago, I would never have known about his St. Paul type conversion.

    This is an important point I believe. If an author is not equivocal, but absolute in his beliefs on an important historical event that has generated decades of controversy, he owes it to his readers to tell them he believed precisely the opposite before. Because, as I said in my review, the evidence in the JFK case has not changed. By any fair and objective standard, the releases of the Assassination Records Review Board have been quite brutal to the Warren Commission. And I used a lot of these new discoveries to illustrate the many, many shortcomings of Reclaiming History. (And I will use many more in future installments.) If an author is not forthcoming about his 180 degree pirouette, then the reader, quite naturally, has a right to suspect the worst. In previous cases, e.g. Norman Podhoretz, or David Horowitz, the authors understood this obligation. And they carried it out. In fact, both of these men wrote at least one, and a good part of a second book, trying to show how the transformation took place. Whether or not the attempts at psychological elucidation are convincing is a different story. But they made it. But surprisingly, Myers never felt any compunction at all in that direction. By not doing so, he invites the reader to wonder about the cause of the flip-flop. Which I will do later.

    The second complaint, about further exposing his unbilled role in Reclaiming History, is unconsciously humorous. Last year, when Reclaiming History came out, Myers began to praise the book on his web site. And he and Todd Vaughn also began to attack writers who criticized it. Yet, I could find no instance at this time period when Myers admitted he had been a direct and paid participant in that literary exercise. And in fact, he still terms Lifton’s important information on this point as speculation and rumor. In my view, this comes close to what people on the web term as “sock puppetry” . This means for example, in an e-mail forum you praise a work you are responsible for, but you do not reveal in your e-mail identity that you are the writer, or in this case, co-writer.

    This weird and unbecoming behavior reached its apogee after David Lifton appeared on Black Op Radio in the summer of 2007. At that time, with host Len Osanic, Lifton revealed that Vincent Bugliosi was not the sole author of Reclaiming History He named Fred Haines as one of the co-authors of the inflated volume. He then erred and named Patricia Lambert as another. Myers used this mistake to jump all over Lifton using Bugliosi’s secretary Rosemary Newton as his bullhorn. This is utterly fascinating of course. Why? Because up until this point, Lifton had been kind to Myers about the issue by not naming him as a ghostwriter. Even though he knew about his role. But the ungracious and ungrateful Myers was still concealing it. And at the same time he was trying to belittle Lifton by implying that he didn’t know what he was talking about! (Consider all that for a moment.)

    Well, understandably, that was it for Lifton. He then wrote a rewrite of his previous article on the issue. And this time he named Myers. In his response to me, Myers says that Lifton “discovered” these details by reading the acknowledgments section of Reclaiming History. It’s writing stuff like that which really makes me wonder about Myers. The details divulged by Lifton about the contracts Haines and Myers signed are nowhere — and I mean nowhere — to be found in Reclaiming History. And it’s this specificity, which could only be known by an insider, that impressed me enough to write about it since I think it is an important issue in any serious critical discussion about that volume.

    Now, one of the things Lifton has stated is that when Myers signed his first contract to contribute to the tome, he was taken aback by how bad Reclaiming History was. Considering the condition of the book when it was later published, that must have been pretty awful. (Although in Myers’ upside down world, you never know.) I really wish Myers would talk about the state of the book when he got it. And which specific parts — with page numbers — he wrote or seriously contributed to. Also, if all those vicious, insulting and puerile pejoratives which litter the book were his or Bugliosi’s. Or, in that category, if he encouraged the prosecutor to go down that vituperative road or if he tried to soften that cheap approach. (From the stuff Myers’ spews today I seriously doubt it was the latter. On the JFK case, he’s our equivalent to Bill O’Reilly.) If he can’t answer these questions, then we know Lifton is right about the second contract. Which provided for the terms of their literary divorce. Which I suspected was the case since last year.

    Myers also objected to my pointing out to the reader, and actually linking to, intelligent and reputable sources who slice and dice his pseudo-simulation called Secrets of a Homicide. This is his 3D recreation of JFK’s assassination which first premiered way back in November of 1994 in a magazine called The Video Toaster User. This illustrated article consisted of frames from his simulation plus his commentary of what he had done, how he had done it, and what it now showed. David Mantik and Milicent Cranor wrote highly critical articles at that time critiquing the methods he discussed in his articles and his description of what he said it showed. They did not go any further than that. And believe me, there was plenty of material in that sorrowful article to go after.

    Mantik’s article I thought was effective in a narrow but sharp way. (Probe Vol. 2 No. 3, p. 2) David has a Ph. D. in Physics and is also an M.D. He is a scientist and academic and he approached Myers’ article as if he would be peer reviewing it for an academic journal. In the first three parts of his critique, he described what Myers was trying to do in a fair and complete way. He then focused his actual review on what he was most familiar with, anatomy and trajectory.

    Mantik first scored him on his rather bold and perplexing claim of being able to see both men jump in the air simultaneously when they disappear behind the Stemmons Freeway sign. Mantik said that Myers’ data source for this was “totally unexplained”. (ibid, p. 3) He then exclaimed, “If it does not appear in the original Z film (that would appear to be impossible since both men were hidden behind the sign) then where did Myers find it? This startling assertion is not addressed in his paper.” (ibid) (Mantik didn’t fully understand what Myers was up to here. I will explain what I think the point of this was when I discuss Milicent Cranor’s critique of this article.)

    Mantik then went on to question Myers’ use of points in his trajectory analysis. That is the anterior neck wound in JFK and what Myers called a point “…near the shoulder line” in Kennedy’s back. (ibid, p. 3) Medical expert Mantik seriously questioned the positioning of both points, especially the latter. He wrote in “precise anatomic terms, this statement fails completely to identify the exit site-either vertically or horizontally.” (ibid) (Note: Myers was working backward from Gov. Connally to fulfill a trajectory line. This is why Mantik uses the word “exit” in regards to the shoulder.) From here, Mantik went on to score the Myers’ assumption that the trajectory was undeflected through both men. Mantik wrote that since the bullet shattered Connally’s fifth rib this “straight line assumption might well be questioned.” (ibid)

    Mantik then got to the heart of the problem. Myers said that he started with Connally and worked backwards because the governor’s wounds were marked precisely at Parkland Hospital. Mantik explained that this is not really true. He then went through the work by both Dr. Robert Shaw and Michael Baden in the HSCA volumes and showed why it was not true. And he also pointed out that part of the problem is actually addressed in the Warren Report (p. 107). There they say that the precise angle could not be concluded since the “large wound on the front of the chest precluded an exact determination of the point of exit.” Mantik then worked out a margin of error factor for this uncertainty and added another for the rotation of Connally’s body on a vertical axis. With just those two factors Mantik computed an error radius of 28 feet. He then went on to add that when you factor in the actual orientation of Connally at frame Z-223-“with right shoulder and torso visibly rotated to the rear… Such a rearward rotation immediately shifts the location of the error cone towards the Dal Tex building.” (ibid) Mantik concluded that the underlying problem with any such enterprise was the placement of Connally’s wounds on his body in regards to the midline. He said the information was simply not precise enough from the data we have. (ibid) He then concluded that “Without such precise knowledge it is not possible to locate the error cone in space. How Myers resolves this most difficult challenge is nowhere to be discussed in his paper.” (ibid pgs 3-4)

    I found Myers’ response to Mantik’s trenchant critique quite precious. He never once debated the anatomic arguments Mantik made. Not once. What he did is he actually tried to say he was right about being able to see through the Stemmons Freeway sign! You know, the whole “jumping in unison” thing. And this is central to what Myers enterprise is all about. And it gets to Milicent Cranor’s May 1995 critique in The Fourth Decade. Milicent began her review by quoting a crucial segment of Myer’s commentary. Myers wrote that he superimposed “selected frames from the Zapruder film over a matching view of the 3D computer world. Key frames were then created …” ( p. 22, emphasis added) The obvious question, which Cranor quickly posed, was: Why leave anything out? Why not animate the whole film? Or entire crucial sequences? Myers wrote that he inserted key frames every 20 frames, “though extreme motion areas required key frames at three to five frame intervals … ” (ibid p. 23) Cranor asked, “Why substitute guesswork … when you have actual photographic evidence.” (ibid) She, of course, was referring to the actual Zapruder film.

    What Cranor proved in her article and in her photo essay is that Myers was actually trying to do two things with his so-called simulation. First, he wanted to minimize the evidence that Kennedy was hit before he went behind the freeway sign. Why? Because if JFK is hit before he disappears behind the sign it likely is not by Oswald since the branches of an oak tree were camouflaging the view from the so-called sniper’s nest at this time. Second, if you alter frame Z-224, you can preserve the single bullet theory. Cranor illustrates this beautifully by comparing frames from the actual Z film with Myers’ pastiche. This devastating comparison gives away the whole purpose of the simulation. Because without Myers’ “interpolating” frames not in the Zapruder film, the actual frame Z-224 singlehandedly vitiates the single bullet theory. As Milicent notes: “This one frame destroys the single bullet theory: it shows JFK already reacting at a time when John Connally is not.” So Myers has to alchemize that frame into something it is not. And she shows how: Myers changes Kennedy’s facial expression and also alters the position of his hands to transform his demeanor from one of grimacing pain to relative serenity. Therefore preserving the single bullet theory. So we now have a new type of cinematic technique. Let’s call it Myers Motion. Which, by the way, also turns President Kennedy into a hunchback similar to Richard III (thereby raising the back wound on the jacket). Myers Motion also elongates Kennedy’s neck which, as Cranor points out, “in effect lowers the throat wound.” Dale is one determined animator. Come hell or high water, he is going to make that stubborn SBT stick.

    I could go on and on in this regard. But the longest and most detailed destruction of Myers Motion is by Pat Speer. He adds that Myers Motion is not even consistent within itself. In other words, things that should be constant throughout, are not. Further, that to keep the single bullet trajectory he actually shrinks Connally in size to where he is smaller than JFK when, in fact, he was taller and heavier than JFK. At times Myers even shrinks the size of Connally’s jump seat and more than doubles the distance of that seat from the side of the car. And the points made so far are not points of Vince Bugliosi style argument. They are points that are proven beyond doubt by just cutting out frames from Myers contraption or comparing that contraption to the Zapruder film. But don’t believe me, just read the fascinating photo exposes by Speer and Cranor. And, by the way, Speer actually allows Myers to defend himself and even gives him the last word.

    After going through all the obvious faults in Myers’ ersatz simulation, it is possible to discern a motive in it. The idea was to replace the Zapruder film. The impact of the Zapruder film upon first viewing is quite powerful as to an assassin from the grassy knoll area. And, as indicated above, when you study the film, it gives you other indications of more than one gunman. By eliminating many frames, and by “interpolating” things not in the film, what you get is the Zapruder film as redone by the Warren Commission on an optical printer. With someone like David Belin supervising the effects to be added. Today Belin=Myers.

    Myers tries to defend this sorry joke by saying that it actually passed inspection. See, he was grilled about Myers Motion in front of eight world-class producers for seven hours at ABC. Geez Dale, did any of them have college degrees? Didn’t they compare your phony pastiche with the real thing — the Z film — frame by frame? Like say, Milicent Cranor did? Did they bring in a medical expert on the JFK case like Dave Mantik or Gary Aguilar to trace certain anatomical points? Of course not. That would have been actual peer review and journalistic responsibility. And Myers Motion would not have survived it. Under those circumstances, it actually would have been either booed or laughed out of the room. With what we know today about what goes on with the major networks-Dan Rather adjusting his coat collar for twenty minutes, which you can see on You Tube-nothing of any real substance was discussed. Except maybe the quality of the beer and pizza they ordered.

    Myers must think that the whole world is stupid. Dale, here’s another question for you: Were these the same producers who Ok’d that other ABC docudrama, The Path to 9-11 in 2006? You know, the show that tried to pin the 9-11 terrorist attacks on the Clinton administration? Or maybe they were the same ABC guys who produced and ran that horrific excuse for a debate in Philadelphia between Obama and Hillary Clinton. After which ABC was bombarded with 24, 000 complaining e mails. (See here for the powerful reaction to that shocking spectacle.) As we show on this web site, ABC has not been the same since it was taken over by Cap Cities. (Click here for the background details of that takeover.) In my view, it is hard to take them seriously anymore as a news network. And the 2003 JFK special was symptomatic of this downward spiral. After all, the lead consultant for that show was Myers’ friend and colleague in the Gang of Three, Gus Russo. We have this information from his own lips. So who does Myers think he’s kidding? Between Peter Jennings and Russo, the fix was in. That is the way it is done in the MSM. And that is why Jennings picked Russo to lead it: he knew he would get what he wanted from him. Russo was well paid, he flew around first class, and he delivered the proper Warren Commission certifying goods. Including the Myers Motion induced SBT. Nothing about Standards and Practices was ever mentioned. Nothing about journalistic balance ever came up. Should we hear the other side of the story? Hell no! And the proof is this: David Wrone had just written a book on the Zapruder film at the time. Someone from the ABC show called him. Obviously this person did not know that Wrone was a Warren Commission critic. When Wrone was asked a question about the case against Oswald, he disagreed with the premise. He said to the caller, “Hold on, I want to get something about that issue.” By the time he got back with the contesting source, the junior reporter understood who Wrone was. He didn’t fit into the Warren Commission slant outlined by Jennings and Russo. So Wrone returned to a dial tone. Russo or someone else told the unknowing reporter to hang up.

    In his response, Myers mentions my essay entitled “Who is Gus Russo?” (Probe, Vol. 6 No. 2). As usual he gets certain important details wrong. He says the essay is included in The Assassinations, edited by Lisa Pease and myself. It is not. He then says the essay pops up in edited form on search engines today. I have never touched that essay since the time it was published. But since I am proud of it, and since Myers brought it up, you can read the piece here. Rereading it, and also the replies by Russo and Myers, I stand by the original essay. Russo threw a hissy fit when it came out. So much so, that it impacted his ability to count. He says I did eight interviews for my first book, Destiny Betrayed. False. As anyone can see by consulting the end notes. Russo would have been more pleased if I had consulted with one of his favorite journalists: FBI informant on the Garrison case, and CIA applicant Hugh Aynesworth. Russo actually put this guy on his 2003 ABC debacle. Without telling the viewer of his FBI and CIA ties. But alas, he did the same thing with CIA asset Priscilla Johnson. In the PBS special he was involved in back in 1993, he featured James Angleton’s buddy Edward Epstein. Again, without telling the viewer of that relationship. That’s good ethics in journalism. Or how about another guy Russo trusts implicitly, CIA and State Department associate Sergio Arcacha Smith. Russo interviewed him for his book Live By the Sword. (Which comes to the rather goofy conclusion that Castro killed Kennedy.) When Jim Garrison wanted to talk to Smith during his JFK inquiry, Smith was guarded from Garrison’s investigators by, among others, Mr. Aynesworth. Sorry guys, I’m just not that kind of investigator. I leave stuff like making friends with Aynesworth to the other side. But alas, Myers and Russo are the other side.

    Myers accuses me of being paranoid in my original essay about Russo. I wasn’t. Today I actually believe I was being naÔve. In that article I wrote about a man who approached me during the Dallas ASK conference back in 1993. During my closing night speech, I talked about the PBS special Russo worked on and I also mentioned a weird letter attorney Mark Zaid had sent me. The man had listened to my address and he told me that, from his past SDS experience, Russo and Zaid fit the profiles of infiltrators. I included it in my essay, but I did not agree with him at the time. Today, after many years more experience with Russo, Myers, Vaughn, and even Zaid, plus the net worth of both the 1993 PBS special and the 2003 ABC special that both Myers and Russo worked on, I think he was right. Its the only way to explain why the Gang of Three kept on going to conferences way past the time they had flip-flopped on the issue of Oswald’s guilt. A great example of this would be Vaughn’s relationship with Harrison Livingstone. After the organization Coalition on Political Assassinations was formed, Livingstone tried to create a rival group. On the flyer Livingstone sent out for his group, Vaughn was listed as a member. Why? To tell the members during meetings that they were all wrong? Oswald did it. They should disband. It makes no sense. On the surface.

    But if your agenda was different than the members, it does make sense. By staying inside the group you could makes speeches attacking their research and goals, thereby creating dissension and disturbances. (I detail specific instances where Russo did this in my article.) Secondly, you could monitor the newest developments and then try to think up ways to counter them in your journeys to the other side. And the other side would be receptive to this since the MSM has always been wedded to the Warren Commission. This is what Russo and Myers did with PBS and ABC. If the producers wanted someone to make the case for Oswald’s guilt in the Tippit murder, hey, Myers will do it. (Forget about the 3 Oswald wallets, no Oswald fingerprints on the car, and mismatching shells and bullets.) If Russo needs someone to get off three shots in six seconds for his book, Vaughn can do that. (It doesn’t matter if he isn’t firing at moving targets or if the gun isn’t loaded.) To counter the film JFK, Vaughn can write that for Oswald to have fired his rifle with Kennedy’s limo below him, rather than further down on Elm Street, he would have been hanging out the Texas School Book Depository window. ( I was there in 1991, he wouldn’t have been.) Does Dan Rather need someone to declare on TV that contrary to what the critics say, the CIA did get a photo of Oswald in Mexico City? Russo will get on camera and say they did. (Just don’t ask any follow-ups about why it didn’t go to the Warren Commission and where is it today.)

    The final product of all this of course was Myers Motion: a way for the mainstream media to finally counter the shocking evidentiary impact of the Zapruder film. Which had always been a thorn in their side.

    Like I said, today I actually believe I was naÔve about the whole thing. Clearly, in retrospect, it was a classic counter-intelligence operation. Why did they do what they did? Who knows. Jim Marrs thinks that money was a prime reason. I’m not sure. But there is little doubt that Russo and Myers bank accounts grew more on this case after they flipped than before.

    Myers, in his usual puerile, radio commentator way (which he used to be), says that I am jealous of him because he got on national TV and I did not. Dale, as I detail above, we all know how you got on. And I know I will never get on the national MSM. At least not on this subject. Simply because I have no intention of flip-flopping on the JFK case. But I do get plenty of attention by telling the truth. To use one example: I have been interviewed for five documentaries in the last three years. Three of them from abroad. Personally, I don’t care about getting on the MSM concerning the JFK case. I was never in this to make money, to start a career, or get a name. If I ever met Dan Rather, I would leave the room. After making an obscene gesture at him. Rather made his name, fame and fortune with a lie.

    The curious thing about this point is that today, a lot of people feel this way about the MSM. Even the people who work on the inside. After the Florida 2000 election heist, which the MSM made no attempt to investigate or expose; after the fraudulent premises for the disastrous Iraq war, which the MSM made no attempt to investigate and expose; after helping the worst president in history, George Bush Jr. get into office with absolutely no vetting in advance; after all that , which has resulted in so much horror for the American people, the rest of the citizenry has finally come around on the uselessness of the MSM. In fact, a former CBS producer has told me that her former colleagues are just biding their time. They see the handwriting on the wall. They will soon be beside the point. But if you study the JFK case, you already knew that. Today, everyone else is catching up to that understanding. That is why the creation of an alternative media has become so successful i.e. the blogosphere. And eventually, this will expand into TV and radio.

    Myers’ pretentious and gassy pronouncements are so full of holes in data and logic that I wonder if he takes them seriously as he writes them. Or maybe he thinks that someone has to protect Myers Motion from the facts. He can’t let the whole thing come crumbling down. Pat Speer called the contraption a deliberate deception devised by the Wizard of OZ (wald). And we know what happened to him. But ultimately, his spiels are so vapid that he reminds me of the Black Knight from the comedy film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The Black Knight portentously intones that no one shall pass the bridge he is guarding. Then after the opponents cut off his left arm, his right arm, and then his legs, he still shouts at them as they pass by with words to the effect: Get back here, I’ll massacre ya this time.

    Yeah, sure Dale. Sorry, this isn’t ABC. Good Bye.

     

    Addendum: For those interested in reading Milicent Cranor’s critique of Myers’ original article in The Video Toaster User, click here.