To say this story, now posted on Vimeo, is flimsy, would be unfair to Mr. Flim.
Days
Hours
Minutes
Technical assistance courtesy of the Mary Ferrell Foundation | Designed by iWebResults
To say this story, now posted on Vimeo, is flimsy, would be unfair to Mr. Flim.
Technical assistance courtesy of the Mary Ferrell Foundation | Designed by iWebResults
Someone was asking earlier when Oswald fired his first shot. James L Swanson made the following guess based largely on the Zapruder film. “Oswald held his fire as he watched the president’s limousine drive straight at him, until it reached the corner of Houston and Elm and slowed to make the hairpin left turn onto Elm.” Even as the limo was passing right below him and he had an easy shot, Oswald still restrained himself for fear of giving away his position. “He allowed the president’s car to make its turn undisturbed, followed by the Secret Service car.” It was after this that he fired his first shot and missed. Swanson also compared this first missed shot with Oswald missing his shot at General Walker.
Is it at all possible, worth thinking about at all, that the shooter in the sniper’s nest was not necessarily trying to get the easiest shot off or worried about giving away his position but instead trying to line up both Kennedy and Connally? If Oswald, it has been said that he had a problem with Connally due to trying to get his dishonorable discharge from the marine corp reversed.
So why did he bring the rifle to the TSBD and leave the .38
revolver at his rooming house?
Because he didn’t know what was about to go down?
It is being said here that the lone gunman advocates are the ones calling Oswald a “lone nut”. Yet it can also be said that numerous conspiracy theory buffs try to prove their points at Lee Harvey Oswald’s expense. Just saying the man is innocent and then portraying him as a weak willed man isn’t a compliment at all. Changing his beliefs and personality to support your theories isn’t a compliment either. It might be more respectful to look at what he said earlier in his life, to take him more serious before the tragedy happened. Being arrested for a murder and an assassination, whether he did this or not, can really muddle a person, cause one to struggle with oneself. He was in a fight for his life.
Oswald could very well have been part of a plot, and for that reason guilty for knowing something and not reporting it, or he could have been completely duped, but the likelihood of his acting alone is absolutely ludicrous. There is no solid evidence linking Oswald to the crime, just weakly gathered circumstantial evidence, tainted by bad police methods in Dallas, and further tainted by the acoustical evidence, which points to at least two directions for the shots.
Interesting to note Robert’s testimony flies in the face of the Marines who served with Oswald and friends who went hunting with him in Russia. What evidence is there that Oswald practiced extensively after returning to the U.S. in June 1962? According to Marina, there was none.
According to both Marina and George DeMohrenschildt, Oswald did go out shooting, did some target practicing. So if family members like Marina and his brother Robert said he did some shooting, why is their testimony not as good as your words here? Why should friends and family members be discredited? Why are the marines who said he was a poor shot, who go against the records, more important than those other marines who say he did pretty good? Why is their word more accurate than the records on file? Why are the opinions of experts like Major Eugene Anderson, Robert Frazier, and Mosk to be discredited? Why should I assume that they are all liars or not qualified when it says they are/were qualified?
Marina said he didn’t target practice? It was quoted somewhere earlier that she said he did go out shooting.
Sammy, are you able to provide links that substantiate your claims?
An FBI report of an interview with Marina Oswald on December 3rd 1963, states that “Marina said she had never seen Oswald practice with his rifle or any other firearm and he had never told her that he was going to practice” http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?absPageId=171593
A Secret Service report on December 4th of an interview with Marina states “that she never saw Lee going out or coming in to the house with a rifle and that he never mentioned to her doing any practice with a rifle.”
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?absPageId=143631
A Secret Service report on December 10th states “Marina Oswald was asked if she ever saw her husband doing any dry practice with the rifle either in their apartments or any place else, and she replied in the negative.”
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=1139&relPageId=434
In the Warren Commission Executive Session of January 27th 1964, Warren Commission council J. Lee Rankin discussed Oswald’s proficiency with a rifle, “there are a good many stories about his practicing with a gun, you know, around various rifle ranges and so forth. We have checked them out, and none of them stand up at all.” http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=1328&relPageId=83
As for testimony around Oswald’s shooting skills:
Nelson Delgado, a Marine in the same unit as Oswald, used to laugh at Oswald’s shooting prowess and testified that Oswald often got “Maggie’s drawers”; meaning a red flag that is waved from the rifle pits to indicate a complete miss of the target during qualification firing. http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=36&relPageId=243
Sherman Cooley, who served with Oswald in the Marines, said in an interview with former Rockefeller Foundation fellow Henry Hurt that “If I had to pick one man in the whole United States to shoot me, I’d pick Oswald. I saw the man shoot. There’s no way he could have ever learned to shoot well enough to do what they accused him of doing in Dallas.” Reasonable Doubt, New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1985, p. 99
Rockefeller Foundation fellow Henry Hurt interviewed over fifty former Marine colleagues of Oswald’s and reported that “On the subject of Oswald’s shooting ability, there was virtually no exception to Delgado’s opinion that it was laughable…” Reasonable Doubt, New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1985, p. 99
Oswald’s Ex-Captain Takes Aim at Single-Shooter Theory – latimes http://articles.latimes.com/1993-11-21/local/me-59498_1_oswald-s-marksmanship via @latimes
You seem to rely heavily on the Mary Ferrill site. There are other sources and opinions available. I see that Sammy didn’t name the sources for his/her quotes. I’m familiar with them. From the book, Beyond Reasonable Doubt, by Mel Ayton and David Von Pein; “Sergeant Zahn, one of Oswald’s trainers, has confirmed Oswald’s ability with a rifle and described him as an excellent shot. In December 1956 , at the end of his training, Oswald was tested and scored 212 – two points above the minimum for sharpshooter.” We also know, that when officially tested at another time, he scored 191 which was in the marksman range. Despite what Mr. Delgado may have said about Oswald and “Maggie’s bloomers”, when it comes down to facts, test scores count. In fact I think they would be on file as official. Someone should be able to post this here.
Also from the book, “Beyond Reasonable Doubt”; although Nelson Delgado thought Oswald’s shooting a big joke, “as a young recruit, however, he had done better. His rifle score book showed him making 48 and 49 points out of a possible 50 in rapid fire at 200 yards from a sitting position, without a telescopic sight.”
Oswald was tested twice in shooting while in the Marines, scoring 212 in December 1956 after a three-week long intensive course in rifles (slightly above the minimum for qualification as a sharpshooter – the intermediate category), but in May 1959 he scored only 191 (barely earning the lower designation of marksman – the lowest category of skilled shooter)
I wonder what his skill level was by 1963?
Lt. Col. Allison G. Folsom reviewed Oswald’s personnel files in front of the Warren Commission and assessed that at that point of his career Oswald was not a particularly outstanding shot. As an example, he mentioned a slow fire shooting test from a range of 200 yards in which “people should get a score of between 48 and 50” Oswald “got a score of 34 out of a possible 50” and a score of 38 out of 50 on the following day. http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh8/html/WC_Vol8_0160a.htm
Also, the tests were not conducted using a manual bolt-action weapon such as CE-139
That’s still a skilled shooter, David. As you said, “The lowest category of skilled shooter.”
Yes, even hitting “marksman” at 191 is still considered a skilled shooter.
Had a talk with my husband who served in the military. It would have been after Oswald served but would think it hadn’t changed that much. He said in general he hit the sharpshooter range but wasn’t consistent, that he would fall back into the “marksman” range. The guys serving with him did much the same. In fact they would joke among themselves about it. Little sarcastic put downs. He remembered a few who would hit the “expert” category. Some with a little luck but a few of them actually expert shots. Those were a small percentage. Then know a close family friend of my parents who was a captain in the Marine Corp. At least he retired as one. This man served in Viet Nam, having troops in his charge. A high percentage of men serving under him had the marksman, sharpshooter designation and were qualified to serve in Viet Nam. So I also am wondering why David is so quick to “short change” these men. If Oswald was in this same range, he would have qualified “to serve his country”. His rifle skills were good enough.
Compare what Major Eugene Anderson, assistant head of the Marksmanship Branch of the U. S. Marine Corps testified against the words of Lt. Col Allison G. Folsom. “He testified that the shots that struck Kennedy’s neck and head were not “particularly difficult,” especially given how slowly the president’s motorcade was moving.”
” An FBI firearms specialist, Robert Frazier, told the commission that Oswald would “not have any difficult hitting” his targets, especially since his rifle had been equipped with a telescopic sight.” If Folsom was allowed to give his opinion than I’m sure that applies also to the ones I mentioned here. Thank you.
Also have found the reference mentioning Robert Oswald’s testimony concerning his brother’s shooting ability and where the idea that he was a poor shot possibly originated; From the book, “Case Closed”, by Gerald Posner; “The KGB file reveals that his fellow workers considered Oswald a poor shot when he failed to shoot a rabbit during his one hunting excursion.” Perhaps this was just a group of guys flexing their ego muscles. And they judged Oswald by only one hunting excursion. Now to Robert Oswald from the same source; “After returning to the U.S., Oswald complained to his brother, Robert, that the firing pin on his rifle was defective.” Words from Robert Oswald; “I went hunting with Lee plenty of times,” says Robert. ‘He was a good shot who always got his game.”
Robert Oswald only has historical mention if his brother was the actual assassin of President Kennedy. Why else would he attempt to strengthen the case against his “beloved” brother if it wasn’t the attention and fame that it brought to himself?
According to military records Lee Harvey Oswald was a mediocre shot at best.
But wait! There’s more…
There is no legitimate chain of custody linking that rifle, nor the bullets to Oswald.
It is proven that he was on the first floor of the TBDB at the time the shots were fired.
It is proven forensically that the shots that hit Kennedy in the throat and the head came from the front.
All of this chatter about Oswald’s marksmanship is much ado about nothing.
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If you want to rely on the fiction of Posner’s work, that’s your prerogative. Lee and Robert’s hunting trips occurred in 1959 – 4 years before the assassination. His opinion does not jive with Oswald’s fellow Marines.
Lee Oswald and his brother Robert went on several hunting trips before Lee’s defection to the Soviet Union in 1959 (Warren Commission Hearings, vol.1, pp.325ff).http://22november1963.org.uk/lee-harvey-oswald-marksman-sharpshooter
And why isn’t Robert Oswald allowed his opinion? Why can’t family members join in on the debate with the host of strangers? Do you actually have proof that after he lost his brother he was only after fame and money? And much ado about nothing! Are you also saying here that the marines are mediocre at best? It’s made up of men who score in the marksmen and sharpshooter category and then go out and defend their country.
Robert Oswald testified as follows; “He believed Lee had the skills with a rifle to kill Kennedy, especially since the president’s motorcade passed slowly in front of the Texas School Book Depository. Like his brother, Robert had served in the Marine Corps, and he knew that Lee had been rated as a competent marksman by his military trainers. Both brothers liked to hunt , and Robert said that Lee had told him about bird hunting trips he had taken while living in Russia.” So, his own brother was aware that Lee used a rifle outside of the Marine Corps. They hunted together and were in communication.
‘Richard Mosk began making plans to leave the commission’s staff in mid-August; he had been called back to duty by the air national guard. Before departing, he completed a detailed study of Oswald’s marksmanship skills. He did not have trouble believing that Oswald had the ability to fire the shots that killed Kennedy and hit Connally. The Mannlicher Carcano rifle was “a very accurate weapon,”Mosk wrote.
‘Mosk reviewed the testimony taken from four expert marksmen, including that of Major Eugene Anderson, assistant head of the Marksmanship branch of the U. S. Marine Corps. He testified that the shots that struck Kennedy’s neck and head were not particularly difficult , especially given how slowly the president’s motorcade was moving. An FBI firearms specialist, Robert Frazier, told the commission that Oswald would “not have any difficult hitting” his targets, especially since his rifle had been equipped with a telescopic sight. A gunman would simply “put the crosshairs on the target” and pull the trigger.”
Found these quotes taken from the book by Philip Shenon, A Cruel And Shocking Act. Found them to be as quoted by Sammy so I won’t write them out myself.
David Regan wanted sources and they are here.
I came across this story for the first time recently. Perhaps it’s nothing, but yet another odd coincidence in this case of foreknowledge?
California caller whispered of JFK’s death minutes before shooting
http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/breaking/233025541.html?id=233025541
David, I can’t recall the names at the moment but I’ve read of a similar story though I don’t recall this detail’s you provided of the call.
The caller was the daughter of a Chicago newspaper columnist, Nationally read I think. His daughter died a suspicious death shortly afterward. Some suspected this was a message to him to not comment on the JFK Assassination.
Thanks Ronny, good to know. Makes you wonder when you take this into account with the stories of Rose Cheramie, Richard Case Nagell and Eugene Dinkins.
Karyn Kupcinet:
Thanks for sharing, Lysias. Would be interesting to find out what time she left for Palm Springs with her friends, given the call was traced to Oxnard. Quite intriguing it remains an unsolved homicide, as does Mary Pinchot Meyer.
Yes, thanks for sharing. Here’s another take on the subject.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Karyn_Kupcinet/Archive1
So the plot thickens. Thanks Ronnie, will do some digging on Mary Ferrell’s site on this. This is the first I have seen this subject mentioned here, but perhaps Jeff could post something and see if more details are forthcoming.
John R-the source for the information I gave, about the fact that Tom Tilson’s day off was covered by JD Tippit is from the revised edition of Jim Marrs’ CROSSFIRE. He discusses the Tilson story on pages 316-318.
Looking back in hindsight, his fellow marines probably remembered his mistakes. They probably remembered his poor performance during training. But it’s the actual tests “for the record’ that count in the end. And, David, if I had served with him or knew him in any way, wouldn’t mention it here. CT buffs would discredit me on the spot if I didn’t agree with “their experts”.
David Regan
Although Oswald had difficulty firing the M-1accurately during training, “on December 21st, when his company fired for the record, Lee not only qualified, but managed a a score of 212, two points above the threshold for a “sharpshooter”…..”
Oswald was tested twice in shooting while in the Marines, scoring 212 in December 1956 after a three-week long intensive course in rifles (slightly above the minimum for qualification as a sharpshooter – the intermediate category), but in May 1959 he scored only 191 (barely earning the lower designation of marksman – the lowest category of skilled shooter, but still above undesignated shooters).
The FBI documented their efforts to find anyone that could recall having seen Oswald practicing with his rifle. They focused on the area around the Trinity River because, although target shooting was forbidden by law in Dallas and Irving Texas, they were told that people did use that area. They were unable to find anyone that could identify Oswald and listed over 50 names of people questioned in that regard.
Marksman, 191, is still a good score, showing the shooter can hit a target. I’ve been told that hitting a target with a scope, like the one on the carcano, is not that difficult. And every shooter needs a little luck sometimes. Perhaps the shooter had a little luck that day. I learned to shoot a rifle at an early age and know you can’t always be consistent.
max,
My Brother-in-law is a real marksman, a champion shooter at game matches. it is consistency that makes a true marksman.
Anyone trying to pass Oswald off as a good rifleman is pulling your leg.
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let’s see….Oswald misses the General(Walker), yet scores on the right side of JFK’s head as the latter is in a driving car moving away from Oswald(albeit slowly by that time). Nahhhh, I don’t see it.
Willy
Oswald scored higher than your brother-in-law as a sharpshooter. Also read my comment about his scoring as a young recruit without a telescopic sight. Here I’m not saying he killed Kennedy, only that he had some integrity as a shooter. Why is it that some conspiracy buffs plead his innocence but make him look like a wimpy man as a result. He can’t seem to do anything without a handler, can’t think for himself, can’t make decisions. Anyone making Oswald look like such a loser is pulling your leg.
That’s exactly how Oswald was portrayed by the WC, Posner, Bugliosi, et al. (crazed loser and failure in life)
“Oswald scored higher than your brother-in-law as a sharpshooter.”~Sammy
Sorry, but I was not referring to the official military designations when I was speaking to my brother-in-law’s abilities as a marksman. As I said he was a match-shooter having the abilities of a sniper.
Pointing out that Oswald was a lousy shot, is not saying that he was a “wimpy man as a result. He can’t seem to do anything without a handler, can’t think for himself, can’t make decisions.”
Such assumptions on your part are non sequitur, and do not make rational sense as an argument.
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Willy
Hope I didn’t insult your brother-in-law. Certainly didn’t mean to. Sounds like he was quite an accomplished shooter.
Lt. Col. A.G. Folsom of the Marine Corp testified to the Warren Commission that Oswald’s score of 191 was just one point above the minimum for the “marksman” rating, the lowest of the three Marine Corp shooting proficiency classifications (marksman, sharpshooter, expert). Folsom testified that one scoring a low marksman rating was considered by the Marine Corp as a “rather poor shot.” WCR, p. 191.
Forgot to mention here that when tested he also scored 212 which qualified him as “sharpshooter”. Can’t just mention the 191.
‘As a young recruit, however, he had done better. His rifle score book showed him making 48 and 49 points out of a possible 50 in rapid fire at 200 yards from a sitting position, without a telescopic sight.”
‘Sergeant Zahn, one of Oswald’s trainers has confirmed Oswald’s ability with a rifle and described him as an excellent shot . In December 1956, at the end of his training, Oswald was tested and scored 212 …..”
Sammy, you are correct Oswald was tested twice in shooting while in the Marines, scoring 212 in December 1956 after a three-week long intensive course in rifles (slightly above the minimum for qualification as a sharpshooter – the intermediate category), but in May 1959 he scored only 191 (barely earning the lower designation of marksman – the lowest category of skilled shooter.
Rockefeller Foundation fellow Henry Hurt interviewed over fifty former Marine colleagues of Oswald’s and reported that “On the subject of Oswald’s shooting ability, there was virtually no exception to Delgado’s opinion that it was laughable…”
I did read in several sources that at least a few of his fellow marines thought he was a good shot or could be when he wanted to. I wonder why we never hear about this side of the story? Why are a group of fellow marines who downgrade his ability the only ones who count? Why are they more important than official records, family members and qualified experts on the subject?
David
Scoring officially as a marksman and sharpshooter is not laughable. The official records suggest that Oswald’s fellow marines, those laughing at his ability, may have been mistaken. There are too many officially designated “experts” in this field who gave their opinion on this matter. I prefer to trust them rather than a group of marines who may have been prejudice at the time they were interviewed.
Sammy, can you provide evidence of your “designated experts”. Regardless of what Oswald’s test scores were in 1956/1959, he wasn’t using a manual bolt-action weapon in the Marines.
Tests supervised by the Italian Army show Oswald ‘had no time to fire all Kennedy bullets’ | via @Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1556184/Oswald-had-no-time-to-fire-all-Kennedy-bullets.html
But you forgot to mention other tests, some fairly recent, that proved just the opposite, that the rifle was capable of firing those shots.
Max, the 191 score was achieved 4 years prior to the assassination. There is no conclusive evidence to suggest Oswald practiced regularly after 1959. http://22november1963.org.uk/lee-harvey-oswald-marksman-sharpshooter
Thanks, David for proving that you have never done any target shooting.
How many people have to re-learn how to ride a bicycle after 5 years?
Your implication that regular practice is required to maintain the rifle proficiency exhibited by Oswald at Dealey Plaza is completely bogus-and reflective of your ignorance of firearms and the ability to use them.
As an example, my father had not done any significant target shooting for 20 years before re-entering the Naval Reserves at age 64. Four months later at the first available qualifying round he was able to shoot accurately enough to get not only a Rifle Expert medal, but a Pistol Expert medal. The only practice he had was a few warm-up shots the same day.
When Oswald cared he was a crack shot. His Marine Corps firing records prove that conclusively . Only those ignorant of USMC rifle training hold a contrary view.
I’m not max but there is also no conclusive evidence that he didn’t practice after 1959. No conclusive evidence that he didn’t.
That’s great for your father, Photon, but hardly proves your point. Are you trying to say your theory applies across the board for all individuals? I suppose you think pro athletes acquire and maintain their skill level without regular practice?
As for your opinion on Oswald’s skill, it is not corroborated by virtually all of his fellow Marines. I suppose he had an off say on April 10th, 1963?
Right Sammy, but you don’t think if Oswald had lived to see trial the onus would not be on the prosecution to prove their case beyond reasonable doubt? The WC certainly failed at this, even though they had free reign to print hearsay evidence with Oswald dead and buried.
Why would it even be important to establish whether or not Lee Oswald was doing any practice shooting at this point in time? He probably had nothing planned and no reason to do any serious practicing. As a lone gunman, on his own, he had no idea that he would be working at the Book Depository in Dallas or that President Kennedy would definitely be coming through Dallas and past the Depository. It might have just been at the back of his mind that if he ever had the opportunity………. Just as years before he had mentioned to a good friend that he might like to shoot Eisenhower because he was exploiting the working people. Just an idea at this point, not anything concrete. If he was the lone gunman, it would have been more of a spur of the moment act, an opportunity that came almost unexpectedly. He wouldn’t have seriously thought to practice, not knowing what the future had in store. For him it was more of an emotional experience than something logical. On the other hand, if he was going to take part in a planned conspiracy, all the more reason to practice.
Go to YouTube to see the video” 6.5 mm Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, 6 shots in 5.1 seconds” and tell me why your quoted article is nothing but complete BS put out by a phony “expert”
This same “expert” published another article in the Telegraph claiming that George Patton was assassinated by the OSS.David, how can we trust the veracity of any of your claims when your sources can be so easily proven unreliable?
Photon:
Care to explain why this “crack” shot Oswald MISSED everything on the first and supposedly easiest shot of the three? I have been on the 6th floor of the TSBD and from where Oswald was reported to be and how he missed EVERYTHING—car, people, except Tague if you believe the “official” report—EVERYTHING—is a mystery that has yet to be explained. From where Oswald was reported to be, you could literally spit on JFK’s limousine as it approached and then rounded the corner.
DO NOT give me the BS about the sign or the tree deflecting the shot—UNLESS you can provide US with a picture from your beloved FBI or DPD that shows that happening. Because if Oswald is as skilled as you say, there is NO way that he would have missed that easy of a shot, or allowed a tree or sign to get in his way.
Do YOU have proof, Photon? Or just conjecture?
Never shot at a man, have you Steve? Please document any reputable study that proves every that marksman makes his first shot, without exception.
Why didn’t he hit his target with the second shot,too?
Photon:
How can we trust the veracity of ANY of your claims when all you do is recite the WC—the very same commission that two staffers, Slawson and Shaffner now state—on this website, is NOT accurate due to the fact that key pieces of evidence were withheld from them?
The reason your sources can not be so easily proven wrong is they are able to hide behind the guise of national security, the evidence needed in this case has been routinely destroyed, misplaced OR not collected in the first place. You have the advantage. People like David have to depend on filing lawsuits using the FOIA, even though the WC was not given the power to classify anything. As you have said many times, it is very hard to prove a negative. However, you ask the other side to do that ALL of the time.
Care to comment?
Photon,
No, never shot a man. NEVER going to shoot a man.
That WAS not my question and I am not going to let you off the hook. You said LHO was a “crack” marksman “when he cared.” I would assume that he CARED very much when he shot JFK out of the hatred that you believe he had. Well, how did he miss when he could have spit on him from that window? Don’t try and weasel out of the question. Unless you can provide this website some tangible proof that he hit a tree branch or the sign post, then maybe your ‘ignorant” comment to David should be rescinded.
I have been—4 times—to the TSBD and the first shot was, by far, the easiest. He was, according to you, a “crack shot.” How do those two together? A “crack” shot missing out on the easiest opportunity?
If you are going to try and smear other people and their views, then you are doing everyone on this site a disservice. If someone is wrong, you can give your point of view without being insulting.
No one—including YOU—knows all of the facts of this case. NO ONE. You read verbatim from the WC. As you know, the members of the WC don’t believe what they wrote. Two of them are on this website, Slawson and Shaffner. An open discussion is needed and necessary. We did NOT get that in 1963. Maybe we can in 2015.
The reason why my sources cannot be easily proven wrong is because they are correct.
Prove me wrong. I have had no trouble debunking myths and falsehoods on this site-because I have an advantage. It is called the truth -backed up by cold,dispassionate evidence that only be refuted by claiming that it is faked. When your theories are based on a predetermined conclusion not supported by any objective evidence you can’t prove that anything that you claim is true simply by claiming contrary evidence is not genuine.
Photon:
I have NEVER seen a source from you except the WC, from which you read verbatim. You never back up anything WITHOUT the use of the WC. You answer what you want to, and when you can’t, you hide for a little bit until you can pounce on someone using your so called “sources.” What a bunch of BS. You use Lattimer as an expert? Unless JFK had trouble with urination, I am not sure of his significance. The FBI? Oh yeah, rock solid! You have no explanation why LHO missed the first and easiest shot, but then said David was ignorant about firearms. You call out Jean Hill, but won’t address Richard Helms and his lying. You pick and choose when you want to use facts, and when you have to result to insults. You won’t even use your real name, but you assure us you have expertise in “several” areas. If that is truly the case, put out your credentials. Otherwise, you lack credibility. Anyone can read the WR verbatim. It takes a little more to discuss the parts of the case that your beloved WC refused to cover or did not delve into because of the bogus national security issue.
Care to answer some questions that are not in the WR? Because if it is truly and open and shut case, and it has really been solved, there are still a lot of issues and people who remain skeptical.
Steve, can you precisely tell us when Oswald took the first shot? How do you know it was easy? At the point in time that is most likely for the first shot Oswald faced a target at the most extreme downward angle with probably the most lateral translational movement during the entire shooting sequence. If he didn’t want to expose himself it was probably the most difficult shot, despite your perceptions. I agree that he could have hit JFK with a snowball at that distance- his best shot might have been down Houston directly into JFK’s face.But he would have been exposed.it is apparent to me that you have had little if any experience in rifle shooting-you make assumptions that are simply not justified, particularly from the sitting position that was Oswald’s best shooting position.
My comment about shooting a man reflects how difficult it can be to pull the trigger accurately at another person-particularly when one has time to think.Until you fire that first round you are not committed-even assassins can hesitate and let emotions affect accuracy. Look at Oswald’s history-he missed the first shot on Walker, missed the first shot on JFK, probably thought that he had missed the second shot as JFK was still sitting upright with no visible sign of being hit from Oswald’s perch. By the time he ran into Tippit he had crossed the Rubicon and had become a killer. Obviously he himself didn’t have confidence he would hit JFK with the first round-he loaded the entirety of his remaining 6.5 mm ammo into the Carcano on Nov. 22.
But let’s look at the first shot successes of other 20th century Presidential assassins. Was FDR hit by the first round when Mayor Cermak was killed? Was he hit by any rounds? Sara Jane Moore got off a round at Ford.Why did she miss? John Hinckley got off a bunch of rounds at Reagan-and never hit him ( Reagan was wounded by a ricochet off of a car door). Why should Oswald be any different?
Photon:
Let me ask YOU again, since you have chosen to throw stones at everyone that you find objectionable to the “official” report. How is Jean Hill’s changing story ANY different from Richard Helms’ changing story? Doesn’t Mr. Helms have the GREATER responsibility to tell the TRUTH? Ms. Hill WAS standing on the curb when the president was struck. Her story probably did change over the years, as she was recalling an event that took what, 3 or 4 seconds to occur?
Mr. Helms had what, 10 or 20 YEARS—let me repeat that, YEARS, to review evidence and photos and agent reports and 201′s etc. Yet, he LIED up to the day he died.
So, let me ask you AGAIN. Where is YOUR outrage at Helms when you consider ALL the facts? Or, is it easier to throw stones at Ms. Hill to avoid TRULY looking at the role of the CIA in this case?
Would you care to use the same standards for EVERYONE in this case?
Sorry, Steve but my answer has been censored. I thought that it was a pretty good reply but the moderators thought otherwise.
As it appears that my presence here will not be tolerated there is no point in continuing to post.
Photon, could you please point out which comment of yours has been censored? And, while we’re at it, would you be so good as to provide a working email address so we can contact you about such things? Thanks
Photon:
Let me answer YOUR questions directly. I have NO idea when the first shot occurred. It keeps changing, depending on which person you listen to and whether he/she believes in the WC or a second shooter. Do YOU know when the first shot occurred? Can you give me proof, so I can look for myself?
According to you, Oswald was a “crack” shot when he cared. I am PRETTY sure he cared when he was shooting at the president. The other people you mentioned—and I do not know this for a fact—were probably NOT in the Marine Corp and a “deadly marksman” as you have described LHO. I am pretty sure Ms. Moore never spent the time practicing as much as the WC would have us believe that LHO did. LHO also had the advantage of being 6 floors up, where his vantage point would be greatly improved. And, if the WR is to be believed, LHO had ample time to ready himself for that first shot. The fact that he was firing at another man was probably addressed during his stint in the MC. Again, I have never been in the MC, but I would believe that the training prepares you to fire at anything—living or non-living.
The LHO “nervous” scenario would make it harder for me to believe that when he was questioned 90 seconds after the shooting he appeared calm and relaxed, according to WC testimony, acting as if nothing had happened. Let me guess—shooting and killing the president and then walking down four flights of stairs had given him the time he needed to compose himself? Nervous and apprehensive before the shooting, then nerves of Clint Eastwood after the fact?
Now, would YOU care to answer MY question about your attack of Ms. Hill and YOUR refusal to issue the same condemnation of Mr. Helms?
According to you, Ms. Hill’s story changed through the years. So did Mr. Helms. The difference is????
Photon:
For what it is worth. I hope you will ALWAYS continue to post on this website. We disagree on several points, but the whole point of this is to have the debate that should have taken place in 1963. LBJ and the government screwed us once; we should not let that happen again. Mr. Morley has been kind enough to give us an opportunity and YOU must participate. YOU are a part of the process, and I think your input is CRUCIAL and NEEDED.
Free speech is VITAL to our rapidly declining democratic principles. I CERTAINLY hope you will change your mind about posting here.
My comments were not posted as rapidly as I thought they would be-my apologies to the moderator.
Oswald never shot anybody in the Marine Corps(except accidentally himself).He never shot at anybody in the Marine Corps. The one time that we believe he shot at another person he missed-probably because it was dark, he was shooting through a window and his target moved just as he shot. But he could have easily taken another shot if he was truly committed. For that reason alone we could see how the first shot might be affected be things outside of his marksmanship ability.
You think that the first shot would be the easiest , yet you admit that you do not know when that first shot was taken. How can you know how easy the shot was when you do not know when Oswald fired it?
Actually Moore practiced with her pistol more than Oswald is known to have practiced with his rifle. Probably the main reason she missed Ford was because she was not using the pistol that she normally practiced with. She was also much closer to Ford that Oswald was to JFK.
Photon,
I am GLAD you are back and posting. You are needed in this debate.
Let me ask you. When did Oswald fire the first shot? If it was when the limo was rounding the corner, then I find it EXTREMELY hard to believe that he missed EVERYTHING. That would indicate an extreme lack of accuracy. I think we can both agree that the first shot—whenever it was—was the easiest of the three. I have been down there and I KNOW how close the building is to the street.
Your turn: where is your outrage at CIA’s Helms lying as compared to your mentioning of Hill’s changing story?
Helms has nothing to do with the assassination of JFK.
Until you can prove any association with any aspect of the JFK assassination his false statements to Congress on matters not associated with this case are simply not relevant. If anything, his attempts to obfuscate the actions against Castro not only protected the confidentiality of a government program, but also the reputation of the author of that program-John Kennedy. Helms never acted without instructions from above.
Photon:
Your reply is the single BIGGEST stretching of the truth that you have ever posted on this website. THE SINGLE BIGGEST EVER!
There are so many falsehoods in what you have written, it would take me 1500 words to respond, and we are limited to 500.
1. Helms never did a thing without orders from above? Then explain why JFK wanted to splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces? And why did he fire Dulles? Are you kidding? The CIA has ALWAYS done what it wants, regardless of the president. Iran-Contra? If Reagan’s testimony is to be believed, much more was done without his knowledge that he EVER authorized. I could give you several more examples, but I have already given you book titles to add to your library in earlier posts.
2. If Helms is really covering for JFK, why not release proof of that being the case? Both men are dead. Why not show the world the proof?
3. You want ME to show you proof of Helms involvement? It is taking a LAWSUIT by the man who runs this WEBSITE through the FOIA to get those documents released. What would you like me to do? Plan and execute a sneak attack against Langley?
4. Have you read Mr. Morley’s article titled “What Jane Roman Said?” Have you read his book “Our Man in Mexico?” If you have, then you know what you have written about Helms non-involvement is disingenuous. Not only was he involved in JFK’s assassination, he was up to his eyeballs in the cover-up. You and I both know that to be true.
5. Helms, Fitzgerald, Angleton and Philips are guilty of perjury. You and I both know that to be true. The reason they escaped prosecution is because they served under two of the most corrupt presidents that were ever elected to office—LBJ and RMN.
There is NO difference between Hill and her changing story and Helms and his lying. As far as I know, Hill never testified under oath. Helms did. And he lied under oath. So, there is ONE major difference. Helms should have had the title of “prisoner” added to his book The Man who Kept the Secrets.
Photon:
Here is a CIA “nugget” for you to ponder:
“A similar maneuver occurred during the Warren Commission investigation, when the original CIA liaison to the Warren Commission, John Whitten, was replaced by James Angleton, the CIA’s counter-intelligence chief whose office handled (or mishandled) the original reporting about Oswald’s defection to the Soviet Union.
When reports came in about Oswald entering the American embassy in Moscow and asking to renounce his citizenship, the information went to the various intelligence repositories in Washington. The FBI issued a FLASH warning to be placed on Oswald if he tried to reenter the country under a false name. After all, the possibility existed that the KGB could have turned him into a spy.
However, at the CIA, the information about Oswald was not acted on immediately or with the normal protocol. A routine 201 form, which catalogues anyone of interest to the Agency, was not filled out on Oswald at that time. Nor did the information go to the Soviet Russia division. Instead, the Oswald notice was funneled to James Angleton’s super-secret, CI/SIG unit, a protective agency that was supposed to be on guard against penetration agents but has been connected to some of the CIA’s most convoluted deep-cover operations, sometimes called “the wilderness of mirrors.” (John Newman, Oswald and the CIA, p. 27)”
Exactly what does that have to do with Richard Helms planning and executing the assassination of JFK? You have stated( with zero proof) that Richard Helms was involved in the assassination of JFK. You have also alleged ( again with zero proof) that he participated in a felonious cover-up. If Helms were alive it hose comments could be libelous (although the discovery process would preclude a trial).
You don’t need 1500, 500 or even 50 words to point out any falsehoods that I have posted. When Kennedy said he was going to ” break the CIA into a thousand pieces” ( if he actually ever said it) he actually set up the process for Helms to be promoted. And exactly who in the CIA aside from Dulles actually were kicked out?
Care to comment on exactly how I am supposed to gain access to the records of Helms and his group? Care to comment on why Mr. Morley has filed a lawsuit against the CIA? Care to comment about Angleton and his actions?
You expect me to provide you with proof when Blakey and Slawson—two men with FAR more information in this case than you or I have said that the CIA consistently and continually lied and withheld relevant information? Would YOU like to help me coordinate and plan a middle of the night raid on Langley so we can settle this for good?
How exactly is stating that Helms lied open to a libelous lawsuit? That could be interesting. Mr. Morley, who has expressed similar views, Mr. Blakey, and Mr. Slawson and myself would certainly have to be given access to ALL relevant documents, which I am sure would make the CIA EXTREMELY nervous.
Photon:
Remind me, how did Allen Dulles, a man Kennedy had fired after Kennedy realized that he was set up to fail in the Bay of Pigs by Dulles and his friends, wind up on the WC? Do you really think a man who was just fired would/could be impartial in a case this crucial? If your boss had fired you, would you want him/her to have anything to do with any part of your life (or death)?
Steve, how can you possibly accuse Helms of being involved in the assassination of JFK when the only evidence you have is what ” might ” be in unreleased CIA files? You have let your negative views of the CIA take you to conclusions completely unsupported by any objective fact.
The only CIA involvement that I see in this case is the usual attempts at presenting in the best possible light an operational failure-inadequate monitoring of a returned defector that in hindsight should have been more extensive, although as he had never demonstrated violent tendencies their options were limited.The same goes for the FBI, particularly after Oswald warned them to stop talking to his wife.
The point I tried to make with the Ford comment was that the Kennedy family had no problems with him, despite being in a different party at the opposite end of the spectrum.How is that compatible with Ford not wanting to reach the truth concerning their family member.
For Photon: “Who else in the CIA was actually forced out?” Along with Allen Dulles, Richard Bissell and Charles Cabell were fired after the Bay of Pigs. How could YOU not know that?
JFK Assassination Quotes by Government Officials
https://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/JFK_Assassination_Quotes_by_Government_Officials
Photon, surely you are astute enough to be aware that along with Allen Dulles, JFK turfed out Deputy Director for Plans Richard Bissell and Deputy Director Charles Cabell in November 1961 after the scathing ‘Survey of the Cuban Operation’ Report. It’s worth nothing that Gen. Charles Cabell was brother of Earle Cabell; mayor of Dallas.
A rhetorical question . I believe that Bissell got a lateral transfer and Cabell didn’t get dumped until the following year. But the point was that aside from some deadwood at the top, the agency certainly wasn’t smashed into a thousand pieces, it wasn’t smashed at all-and came out of the BOP with increased budgets,increased responsibilities and increased size.
That certainly does not conform with the claim that JFK and the CIA were at odds. Because they weren’t-JFK always liked how clandestine warfare on the cheap was less messy and more economical than beefing up the military-even though he did that, too.
This coming from a man who thought it was “no big deal” JFK was seeking détente with the Soviets, a joint lunar mission, and nuclear disarmament. I’m sure the CIA got the warm fuzzies over all this, especially after the Bay of Pigs, plans to de-escalate Vietnam and secret rapprochement efforts with Castro.
Sorry Photon, but your YT video is a joke. Was the target moving and we don’t even see how accurate his shots were, nor was this person kneeling with the rifle on a windowsill shooting from above.
From Oswald’s vantage point his target wasn’t moving either-just getting smaller. Probably the reason why he took the shots he did-he didn’t have to move the rifle.
The score was 6 out of 6 at a 10 inch target at 120 yards-further away than any shot Oswald took.
It conclusively proves that the CT claims about the Carcano being an inaccurate weapon that could not be fired fast enough to accomplish the assassination are nothing but lies.
It wasn’t so easy for the expert marksmen in the CBS and Warren Commission reenactment tests.
I wonder if anyone has taken this into consideration. Kennedy had a bad back and was supposedly wearing a back brace when riding in the limo. I’m not sure this can be proven beyond a doubt despite someone saying he was. However, saw this again in the book, “The anatomy Of Motive”…..”Another was that the President was wearing a brace for his bad back. Had he not been, he might have been thrown forward by the first bullet and out of the critical line of fire.” The idea is that his wearing a back brace could have affected his movement after being hit.
Yes, that “back brace” into account. People seem to assume that this was some kind of metallic/plastic contraption that held him rigidly upright. It was actually just an elastic band that fit around his waist, very much like a larger version of those braces you put on your knee. It just fits a bit snugly and adds support to the muscles around the base of the spine. Hard to believe this could have had the effect Single Bullet Theory advocates insist it did.
Had forgotten about that back brace but knew he had a painful back problem. Noticed that he was sometimes a bit stiff in his movements. Can’t imagine making it such a light issue as Fearfaxer does here. Why wear it if it really wasn’t so much?? It was meant to support someone’s back, relieving some of the pain. It definitely makes a difference in someone’s body movements.
If that’s the case, then when Jackie wore a girdle, she’d have been unable to bend at the waist.
That brace would not have restricted Kennedy’s movements to the extent you Lone Nut Buff’s pretend. If he’d been hit by a bullet from behind, it would not have been capable of preventing him pitching forward.
Because it would.
The brace was anchored to his pelvis with intertwined ACE wrap elastic bandages to help restrict movement of the lower back-as mentioned in medical reports from the Parkland ER.
The same type of back brace was custom fitted to individual patients and was a common medical appliance in the 1960s.
I saw where Photon was questioning Dr. Joseph Dolce’s bona fides. Apparently, he/she didn’t realize that Eisenberg’s memos on the WC’s showing of the Zapruder film reflect that “Dr. Joseph Dolce, Consultant to the Biophysics Division at Edgewood Arsenal’ was in attendance and that “In a discussion after the conference, Drs. Light and Dolce expressed themselves as being very strongly of the opinion that Connally had been hit by two different bullets, principally on the ground that the bullet recovered from Connally’s stretcher could not have broken his radius without having suffered more distortion. Dr. Oliver withheld a conclusion until he has had the opportunity to make tests on animal tissue and bone with the actual rifle.”
This begs the question, if Dolce wasn’t an expert, why was he at this conference and why was he consulted afterwards? Jeez.
How accurate is that description? The only description of Dolce’s position in the official record is as head of the Biochemistry division Who is right?
The fact is that Dolce’s belief that a Carcano bullet could not do the damage it did without being more disrupted is simply not true-as has been experimentally proven several times since the Assassination. Apparently he could not understand that a round that had been significantly slowed down would not exhibit upon hitting bone the same physical effect.
“I saw where Photon was questioning Dr. Joseph Dolce’s bona fides. Apparently, he/she didn’t realize that Eisenberg’s memos on the WC’s showing of the Zapruder film reflect that “Dr. Joseph Dolce, Consultant to the Biophysics Division at Edgewood Arsenal’ was in attendance and that “In a discussion after the conference, Drs. Light and Dolce..”~pat speer
Photon does not address the point of Pat’s comment here, which is the fact that Dolce was involved with the WC showing of the Zapruder film as ‘Consultant to the Biophysics Division at Edgewood Arsenal’.
Rather Photon regurgitates the assertion “Apparently he could not understand that a round that had been significantly slowed down would not exhibit upon hitting bone the same physical effect.”
This is nothing more than Photon’s opinion that Dolce doesn’t understand something so elementary as the slowing down of the bullet after going through so many other flesh and bone barriers – which then leads to the critique of Fackler, who does NOT address these other flesh and bone barriers, but merely loads bullets lightly for his experiments, not accounting for the other work the actual magic bullet would have to have done.
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To throw a “photonism” back across the table, as far as relevance in expertise:
How does a specialist in urology give one credence in ballistics?
Lattimer was a professor and chairman of the urology department at Columbia University College for 25 years.
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When one is an expert on the historical aspects of Presidential assassinations, as Lattimer was-at least to the level that the Kennedy family selected him to be one of the first researchers to gain access to the autopsy records,photos and x-rays.
“an expert on the historical aspects of Presidential assassinations”~Photon
And that makes Lattimer an expert in ballistics in your view does it? grin
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For your pleasure Photon, some actual real analysis and facts…
http://www.history-matters.com/essays/jfkmed/BigLieSmallWound/BigLieSmallWound.htm
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Photon:
So, let me ask you a direct question. How is Hill, Craig, Crenshaw, etc. ANY different from Helms, Fitzgerald, Philips, Angleton?? Where is your condemnation of those jokers? I have never heard you utter a PEEP about their lies and “changing stories?”
Isn’t hypocrisy anywhere hypocrisy everywhere???
To assess this Magic Bullet theory completely, we must begin at Parkland Hospital and the first view of the throat wound. This was determined at the time to be a wound of entry because of its small diameter.
This small entry wound was then expanded by Dr Perry with a tracheotomy, and then further as he attempted to track the bullet and see if any tendons had been severed by the bullet.
If this throat injury was a wound of entry, the whole discussion on the Magic Bullet is a mute point.
The autopsy physicians did not even know this wound was a bullet injury until later that night when they spoke with Dr Perry on the phone (Audry Bell testified to the HSCA investigators Horne and Gunn, that she had heard this conversation from Perry’s end that night – not the next morning as the official WC version would have it)
Concurrently, the doctors at Parkland never discovered the wound in Kennedy’s back. Another wound of entry.
Now we have two wounds, neither of which was allowed to be tracked due to the intervention of general officers during the autopsy. This is the critical point. No one knows the terminal trajectory of the missiles that caused these wounds.
So the postulation for the Magic Bullet begins on an unknown, and everything from this point forward is conjecture.
Readers can review the argument of this thread themselves to determine what the internal ballistics to transition ballistics, to external ballistics can inform us of. But the terminal ballistics are an unknown and can only be surmised by other avenues of inquiry.
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Willy, it was never determined to be a wound of entry-even Perry said it could be a wound of entry or exit. He felt that his initial comments at the first press conference were misinterpreted by individuals ignorant of standard medical practices and descriptions; as such he was reluctant to discuss any further issues with the press. That is a matter of public record.
The Audry Bell claims are absolute BS, as anybody who has ever worked in an operating or recovery room knows-an OR nurse supervisor runs the schedule, not the case. It would be highly unlikely that any surgeon would discuss any aspect of a case with her-she was not involved and it would be a gross violation of patient confidentiality issues-issues that were of significant concern to Dr. Perry. Had the Parkland doctors turned JFK over and discovered the back wound the initial perception that the throat wound was one of entrance may never had been made-another unfortunate complication of an inadequate and incomplete exam in the ER.
To claim that bullet ballistics are determined during a rushed and incomplete 12 minute ER evaluation when the legal and medical standards for those determinations are and have always been based on post mortem examination is simply irrational -and wrong.
Photon:
However, what you fail to mention is that the three people who SHOULD have done a thorough and COMPLETE examination of the bullet holes and trajectories, etc DID NOT do even close to an adequate job. We have gone over this before—Finck said—I believe it was in the Shaw trial—that he was told NOT to dissect the throat wound but “could not remember who gave that order.”
Please don’t give me the usual “it’s not necessary to dissect bullet wounds’ BS. This was the POTUS and this was a MURDER of the POTUS. The very LEAST that was demanded was as thorough and complete examination as could be had by the three individuals.
I believe Willy is as close to correct as anyone when he mentions the word conjecture in regards to the “magic bullet.” The choice of Humes, Boswell, and Finck might be one of the worst decisions that has ever been made in this country—and that is saying a TON.
Photon:
If Ms. Hill did carry around business cards that indicated she was the closest witness to the assassination, shouldn’t Mr. Helms had business cards printed that indicated that he lied EVERY time he was called to give information about the assassination? Shouldn’t your outrage at Helms’ behavior match your incredulousness of Hill’s behavior?
Photon and others claim that the neck wound was never determined to be a wound of entry, but that is certainly how the Parkland doctors thought of it. While Drs. Carrico and Perry told the Warren Commission that the neck wound was compatible with either a wound of entry or exit, they never expressly stated that it was not a wound of entry. Indeed, Dr. Perry testified to the ARRB in 1998 that “actually it [the neck wound] looked like an entrance wound.” (ARRB Deposition, p. 53). Dr. Baxter testified to the Warren Commission that the neck wound was a very small spherical wound and that “judging from the caliber of the rifle that we later found or became acquainted with, this would more resemble a wound of entry.” 7 WCH 42. Dr. Jones’ initial medical report of 11/22/63 stated that the neck wound was “thought to be a bullet entrance wound.” Dr. Jones testified to the ARRB in 1998 that when he and Dr. Perry went back upstairs on 11/22/63 after JFK’s death, “we were both talking in terms that this [neck wound] was an entrance wound.” Indeed, Dr. Jones testified to the ARRB that “[i]t never crossed my mind that was anything but an entrance wound.” (Jones Deposition, pp., 54-55). When pressed by Specter during his Warren Commission testimony to back off of this conclusion, Dr. Jones testified that IF the neck wound were a wound of exit, the bullet producing that clean exit wound would had to have exited at a very low velocity to produce the minimum damage observed. For the neck wound to be an exit wound, Dr. Jones testified that the bullet would had to have “barely made it through the soft tissues and just enough to drop out on the opposite side.” 7 WCH 55. Such a bullet could not have continued on to smash into Connally, fracture (pulverize) his rib, fracture his radius bone and deposit into his thigh. Dr. Peters testified to the Warren Commission that “we [the Parkland doctors] all discussed” JFK’s wounds and “we saw the wound of entry in the throat and noted the large occipital wound” and, based upon these observations and their experience, came to the “honest impression” that the neck wound was a wound of entry, with the bullet or a fragment from it deflecting upward off the cervical spine and exiting from the right rear of JFK’s head, producing the large avulsive blow out exit wound of the right occipitoparietal area of the head. 7 WCH 71. This was their best explanation of the events if one bullet had produced all the wounds, and was compatible with their clear impression that the large, gaping, avulsive occipital head wound was a wound of exit. They did not see see the wound in JFK’s upper back, but this wound was superficial and did not extend in depth beyond the length of Humes’ finger as he probed the back wound during the autopsy, concluding verbally that there was no exit for the back wound, as reported by FBI agents Sibert and O’Neill.
On Jean’s comment on “Consensus” further up-thread:
“The SBT may seem to defy common sense but numerous experts have supported the SBT as the most probable solution. If there were a better explanation it seems to me there should be a consensus among the critics by now on an alternate shooting scenario, but there isn’t. That’s very telling, imo.”~Jean Davison
. . . . . .
There should be a “consensus”? This is false reasoning. It is precisely because the critics of the Warren Commission are individual investigators that they do not have an organized consensus that is put forward as dogma.
I could give you my personal alternative shooting scenario, but it may vary with what other individuals might find more compelling.
Consensus is a false paradigm, it is always temporary, changing as new information enters the arena. As that new information is assessed by individuals, there will be agreements and disagreements as to how it fits into a general shared point of view. That is the real dynamic of human intellectual intercourse. It is only the dogmatic and regimented mind that seeks some permanent consensus despite the movement through time space and knowledge thereof.
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Now what has happened is that “forensic” experts have reproduced a planted bullet, likely recreated using similar methods used to create the original planted prop.
So we now have this phony CE#399 and all its phony step children on display receiving hosannas and praise by the true believers in the WC Report.
It is Kafkaesque, but never mind that, their bible tells them so.
See: http://www.ctka.net/2010/journeyCE399.html
THE IMPOSSIBLE ONE DAY JOURNEY OF CE 399
By Jim DiEugenio (with help by J. Edgar Hoover)
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Simple question – Would any prosecutor put this man on the stand in a trial of LHO, DAP, or any alleged conspirator? I doubt it.
The defense would have a field day with him. He’d be laughed out of the courtroom and the judge would call for a mistrial.
Can we stick to the facts and ignore those speaking from the gravel pits of the world? People like this do a massive disservice to serious and creditable JFK researchers.
Maybe, if there had been a trial.
Having watched this video and thinking it over for the past day, and reading the other commentary here; I don’t see what is so outrageous about his story. And I don’t see how it could possibly be interpreted as helping the arguments of those who back the Warren Commission Report.
I don’t think he “forgot” I think he suppressed making any mention of this meeting all these years. Considering the fate of others having such knowledge, a very wise decision on his part.
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A city bus would drop you in front of the (then) downtown library at Commerce and Harwood; a good way for young teens to get downtown in ’63. The Southland Life Bldg was a pretty straight shot north on Harwood. Intentionally forgetting running into the accused assassin of JFK? And a Dallasite to boot? Hard for this Dallasite to swallow.
After watching this again and reading comments I’ve some second thoughts. I still have doubt and questions. I also think of the witnesses not called by the WC. Those who were who were “led”, intimidated, had their testimony changed and those who were murdered or died unusual deaths. Vickie Adams who had to be hunted down by a researcher after what 40 years of silence. Jeane Hill intimidated into silence for 25 years then laughed at over the little white dog which was ultimately confirmed. Dr. Charles Crenshaw coming out with Trauma Room One after 25 years then had to sue JAMA for defamation of character. The Tippit witness shot in the head who then ID’d Oswald. The off duty cop who saw a man run down the west bank of the railroad overpass, throw something in a car and take off, chased the car down Stemmons, turned in a license plate # and was ignored. They didn’t want such info from their own much less the public. Roger Craig. So many more.
I don’t know what to think. It’s an incredible story at this point in time and corroboration would be great if at all possible.
By the same token I can’t totally dismiss it.
Ronnie,
This is important. There really WAS a white dog or stuffed animal between Jack and Jackie?!!? Jean Hill always had such amazing powers of perception. I have always figured that was one of those cloud shapes that different people see different shapes in. I figured it was the flash and smoke of a pistol, the service weapon of Bill Greer, held down low, so the sound would be muffled by the car’s interior.
I would love to know your source(s) for the little white dog.
The 25 years later is mentioned somewhere in her book, which is not noted or sourced, thus difficult to pinpoint. I thumbed through it but will have to look deeper. It’s also mentioned in her obituary on Lancer, see the 4th paragraph.
http://www.jfklancer.com/programs/guests/jhillobit.html
The dog has also been identified as Nellie Connally’s yellow roses and Jackie’s white gloves. The thing is she saw something, possibly misidentified it and was ridiculed, the rest of her testimony discredited by some because of it.
Hi Ronnie
Jackie was defintely handed some small white stuffed toy thing at Love Field which I’ve seen identified as the dog in question. You can see it in the films of Love Field. It gets handed to her by someone in the crowd through the fence. Although I have to say in some of the pictures it looks like another small bunch of flowers to me.
Sorry, I’ll post a link if I get the time.
It’s seems most likely to me that it was flowers she mistook for a toy dog. Whatever it was, she only saw it for a split second. Given what else was taking place at the same time, I think she can be forgiven for not focusing on the white object.
Thanks JohnR
Here is a picture (sourced by our very own Jean Davison :)).
It does look like Jackie is holding another bunch of flowers along with her red roses. Supposedly these are chrysanthemums.
I’ve seen other pictures where it looks more dog-like.
Oops – forgot to insert the link.
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=15477
Let me know if it doesn’t work.
Vanessa, I’ve never really understood why Jean Hill needed to be discredited. What did she say that’s so injurious to the “Lone Nut”
theory?
Hi JohnR
I can see why the WC weren’t happy with her testimony – she says:
1. She heard the first shot and JFK slumped to his left toward Jackie.
2. After the 3rd shot she saw JFK’s hair ripple up.
3. Connally was hit by a separate shot to JFK.
4. the limo stopped during the assassination.
5. She saw a gunman walking away from the Knoll who looked like Jack Ruby.
6. She thought there were 4 shots or more and they came from the front and that there was more than one shooter.
7. She had been interviewed by Mark Lane before her WC testimony.
Obviously this is just pure speculation on my part. My first question is why interview her about Mary Moorman’s photo but not Mary Moorman who actually took the photo?
If the WC had taken testimony from both women it would have confirmed that they both heard the first shot and saw JFK slump to the left towards Jackie. Then the 3rd shot hit him in the head and part of his scalp flew up. Then Connally was hit by a separate shot and all the shots came from the front. All these things would have contradicted the SBT and implied a second shooter, at least.
Jean Hill gave interviews on the day of the assassination and with Mark Lane where she repeated some of the above. Mary Moorman didn’t.
So my cynical response is that as part of the WC’s brief to quash speculation about a conspiracy JH had to be interviewed by the WC and shown to be confused (she saw a dog!) and contradictory. JH doesn’t come across that well in her testimony to me.
And on an even more cynical note I’ll say that Mary Moorman wasn’t interviewed by the WC at all because she wasn’t confused and she wasn’t contradictory.
Just speculating though. What do you think?
For Vanessa: Take out the dog part, and I think she did fine. I don’t think it remarkable in any way that one eyewitness contradicts another. We’re all human, after all. I find it more interesting that the WC didn’t interview Moorman. What investigative textbook instructs someone to interview a person about a picture taken by another?
Your right that this is important. We digress from the new witness to the closest witness. The Lady in Red who saw the dog in the limo and Jack Ruby rushing to the Grassy Knoll and ran up it herself. Discredited and intimidated by no less than Arlen Specter (see Magic Pristine Bullet). Then there was the FBI’s 15 month stakeout of her home, to protect her. And the wreck. With other witnesses dying she decided to shut up for 25 years.
I’d like to think Specter was afraid she was right in all she saw.
Ronnie Wayne: ” …off duty cop who saw a man…, etc.” I’ve never seen this before. Could you please provide a reference?
Crossfire (revised edition), Jim Marrs, pgs. 316-318.
Officer Tom Tilson, off that day, and his daughter were heading into Dealy Plaza to pick up another daughter who watched the parade. He heard on a scanner in his car JFK had been shot. As they turned east on Commerce off Industrial he noticed a car parked on the west side of the triple underpass, saw a man run down the embankment, throw something in the back seat and take off hurriedly. He thought this odd, took a left on Houston, a left on Main and got behind the guy at the stoplight where he was taking a left on Industrial. He had his daughter write down the license number. Tilson called this in to homicide and told Dallas reporters of it. He said if the guy wasn’t Jack Ruby it was his twin brother. The DPD or any other agency never questioned Tilson about this so he later threw the piece of paper with the license number on it away.
Just a story from a Dallas Cop that was ignored. And would have meant conspiracy.
BTW, I believe Tilson’s daughter still verified these events many years later.
Or made them up.Like this guy.
The DP Homicide, the CIA, the FBI, and the Warren Commission failed to call Tom to provide evidence or testimony. Tilson kept the paper for about 3.5 years before disposing of it (he should have kept it given the DP failed to genuinely investigate this).
Tilson also testified decades later that he witnessed Jack Ruby and three well dressed men taking target practice with rifles at Dallas-Fort Worth firing range approximately 5-7 days before JFK’s assassination.
There is a discernible pattern of the Warren Commission and other investigative organisations ignoring or misrepresenting eye witness accounts that placed Jack Ruby and or LHO in circumstances and or locations that could relate to the assassination.
Cite Roger Craig; Jean Hill; Julia Ann Mercer; and Tom Tilson – the WC did not want the world to hear what they definatively had to say about their observations.
When did he first go public with his story?
When did his daughter confirm his story?
Interesting fact regarding Tilson’s account: The Dallas Police officer covering for Tilson(on his day off)was a man by the name of J.D. Tippit.
You gotta be kidding me. Could you provide a source?
There are several eye witness accounts of mysterious activity in Dealey Plaza leading up to and following the last shot that defy the simplistic description of events that the Warren Commission Report depicts.
It is not possible for so much deliberate obfuscation to have taken place without this being an elaborate cover up.
On November 22nd 1963, Sergeant Tom Tilson telephones Dallas Homicide with a description of a person (he considers to be Jack Ruby) acting suspiciously immediately after the assassination; along with details of the vehicle and a registration license plate number. No action is taken; no further questioning is initiated by any investigative body with Tom Tilson; no further information transpires out of this potentially vital information passed on about the assassination?
In Dallas,August 26th 1978, Tilson was interviewed by HSCA committee investigators, confirming his eyewitness account.
In 1986 Tom appeared in a Television Documentary Trial filmed in England for the showtime cable network ( a mock trial of LHO that featured real lawyers, including some actual witnesses of 1963). The episode featuring Tom Tilson as a witness, provides some insight of the location and circumstances in which he claims to have encountered Jack Ruby immediately after the assassination.
Jeanne Hill intimidated into silence? A woman who used to give out business cards describing her as the closest witness to JFK’s assassination? How come nobody knocked her off? Who or what has ever confirmed the little white dog? Exactly how many versions of her story did she claim?
Still pushing the Crenshaw nonsense,I see. Funny how you conveniently forget that he admitted to having only a minor role in the ER and that his ghostwriter embellished his role for the book. His lawsuit was based on a claim in JAMA that he wasn’t in the ER -nothing else, specifically nothing about the veracity of his story-which was impeached by his attending surgeon.
Even Mary Ferrell doubted Roger Craig’s credibility-why you folks keep propping him up as a serious witness is beyond me.
Photon:
How come you keep “propping” up the CIA and the FBI mistakes as mistakes instead of the lies they actually were? Try to explain this one:
Slawson’s most startling conclusion: He now believes that other people probably knew about Oswald’s plans to kill the president and encouraged him, raising the possibility that there was a conspiracy in Kennedy’s death—at least according to the common legal definition of the word conspiracy, which requires simply that at least two people plot to do wrongdoing. “I now know that Oswald was almost certainly not a lone wolf,” Slawson says.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/02/warren-commission-jfk-investigators-114812.html#ixzz3VK86JEjf
Before you can tell me, Slawson believes that Oswald was the lone shooter. However, he no longer believes he was a “lone wolf.” That kind of destroys the government’s “official” version that LHO was a “deranged loner.”
And then there is this little nugget from Mr. Slawson:
He has also come to believe—again, only recently—that the CIA knew about these meetings but hid the evidence of them from the Warren Commission.
What has changed Slawson’s mind so dramatically on questions that he thought were settled half a century ago? I interviewed him repeatedly, over several years, for my 2013 book on the Kennedy assassination, and Slawson says that our conversations, as well as material that I had gathered from declassified government archives and from other researchers, shook his confidence. “It never occurred to me until you interviewed me and I read your book that the commission’s investigation had been blocked like this.” It never occurred to him, he said, that the CIA and other agencies “tried to sabotage us like this.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/02/warren-commission-jfk-investigators-114812.html#ixzz3VK9CeJxb
Photon:
What does it say to YOU when the ONLY investigative body the American people were given DOES NOT believe what it has written due to the lies it was told by the VERY people they TRUSTED to tell the truth?
Do YOU still have eternal faith in YOUR government? I don’t. This is only my OPINION, but the WC report is not worth the paper it is written on. What a bunch of lying scumbags!
Photon:
So, let me ask you a direct question. How is Hill, Craig, Crenshaw, etc. ANY different from Helms, Fitzgerald, Philips, Angleton?? Where is your condemnation of those jokers? I have never heard you utter a PEEP about their lies and “changing stories?”
Isn’t hypocrisy anywhere hypocrisy everywhere???
If Craig isn’t a serious witness, Photon, why does he suffer so many injuries later and eventually die in 1975, and why does Decker fire him for not being quiet about what he saw?
“On September 9, the NO Tomes-Picayune reported on a September 7 interview Castro gave to an AP reporter in Havana. The headline on the article was ‘Castro Blasts Raids on Cuba; Says U.S leaders Imperiled by Aid to Rebels, Havana (AP).”
“US leaders’ would be in danger if they helped on any attempt to do away with leaders of Cuba. Bitterly denouncing what he called US – prompted raids on Cuban territory…”
– p. 745 Reclaiming History – Vincent Bugliosi
Thanks for that one Vince
BK
I would like to add to my above comment that I think Lee Bowers knew more but was killed before he could testify. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcXJJsZs7LE
MERCHANTS OF DOUBT and JFK ASSASSINATION
By the early 1990’s, the consensus for a conspiracy to kill JFK seemed to be building, just as the consensus for climate change being caused by man’s activities was building in the early 1990’s.
I think that just as Big Tobacco and Big Oil used paid journalists and paid scientists in a conspiracy to confuse the public, discussed in the new film, “Merchants of Doubt,” the CIA (Big Intelligence) must have used Gerald Posner to write his book, “Case Closed” which threw a monkey wrench into the public’s perceptions and leanings from the HSCA findings up through new revelations such as Parkland Doctor Crenshaw, etc. that there was a conspiracy to kill Kennedy. All Posner had to do was write a book with distortions and counter-claims that looked to be “well researched” to throw debate on the flames of popular opinion. It seems to have worked at least for a decade or two. Gerald Posner is a ‘Merchant of Doubt operative’. He got paid to lie, just as the Phillip Morris tobacco lobbyists had been doing.
Reading Posner’s book, I came away thinking he wasn’t 100% sure Oswald was the lone shooter. Yes, he wanted to try to puncture CT’s, but someone killed JFK, and I was left thinking he felt it wasn’t a conspiracy, NOR was it Oswald.
Paul
I have Posner’s book in my hand at this moment.
‘Since Case Closed was published in 1993, there have been several developments regarding the assassination.Long sealed government records have been made public and more books charging a conspiracy have been published. None of the new material during the decade, however, has changed my original conclusion that Oswald, alone, killed JFK.”
Sammy,
I have read Posner’s book too. It’s got MAJOR weaknesses in it, which you can read about here: http://jfkassassination.net/parnell/cc1.htm
And here: http://www.assassinationweb.com/ecc.htm
And here: http://www.assassinationscience.com/wrone.html
His original book, CASE CLOSED, has become sort of a joke in the field of research today. I suggest you go back and study that book, which I have also read, and then look at the well documented rebuttals. Even John McAdams, who also denies that climate change is manmade (!!), cannot convincingly answer the well founded academic attacks on Posner’s 1993 book.
Case Closed: Stampede of the Apologists
http://www.assassinationresearch.com/v3n2/v3n2holt.pdf
Sorry, I just don’t agree. We come away with different points of view after studying this book. I just found too many other researchers in agreement so Posner is far from being alone in the evidence he presented and in his conclusions. Your sources would discredit him and mine would agree with him. It’s just looking at this from a differing view point.
I just found too many other researchers in agreement so Posner is far from being alone in the evidence he presented and in his conclusions.
Sammy, Could you name these sources please?
One reason I sometimes think twice about posting here. Please look on page 471 of Gerald Posner’s book, Case Closed, the Afterward. He clearly states he believes Oswald to be the lone gunman, even after a decade of new evidence. Why I hesitate to even post this…….a conspiracy believer will surely come back and say……..of course Posner said that. After all he was paid. Part of the cover-up. Perhaps I will get verbally assassinated as the lone “nut” buff but I’m really undecided at the time.
Max, he may indeed have written that on p 471, but by the time I got to the 400’s, I was annoyed with Posner’s arguments. Like Mondale asked Hart in the debate, “Where’s the Beef”?
If this is true about Posner, it really paints a sad bad picture about people, at what lengths they will go to. Intelligence, the big CIA, must have also paid off writers like, Steven Gillon, Peter Savodnik, James P Hosty, Jr., Diane Holloway, PH. D., Bugliosi, Mel Ayton, David Von Pein, Jean Davison and the program Nova. It’s hard to believe but possible because there are more than listed here who were pretty much in agreement.
Sammy, CIA is merely protecting its bureaucratic collective interests here. If all the momentum that had begun to build in the late seventies drawing question to the legitimacy of a conspiracy involving the Agency had continued unabated, or unchecked, this “rabble” of a democracy might insist upon corrective measures to check some of CIA’s power. They might even demand that it be broken up, have its covert powers stripped away. If you can buy a few authors (Posner for one) to peddle a reinforcement of the original Warren Commission version, it’s money well spent. Problem averted, or at least the “buffs” now have to argue with an establishment supported author, instead of build on the momentum to look into CIA abuse of power.
The only “sad bad picture” is that some people got suckered into believing Posner’s book, which was poorly written and which could be refuted by many good scholars of the assassination. Sad for democracy and rule of law, yes. But very happy for those at CIA, who don’t want the public to know all of the facts. They continue to stonewall the release of the remaining JFK-related files to this day. As we have seen with the tobacco and fossil fuel industries, unpleasant truths can be squelched amid the fog of bought scientists and clever media campaigns. But not forever. Eventually the truth will seep completely out, and no amount of Photons will be able to shove it back into the box.
Besmirching History:
Vincent Bugliosi Assassinates Kennedy Again
The Military and Warren Commission Cover-up http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/Essay_-_Besmirching_History
“Lies come out big and bold. The truth comes out in dribs and drabs.”~Barrie Zwicker
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David,
How do you know that this author is right and Bugliosi is wrong?
The only way this guy can be in any way believable is if he can come up with some corroboration of some kind. You can’t plot a line with just one point.
There are enough good witnesses anyway who Mark Lane interviewed, who had credible things to say, such as Lee Bowers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdpLDG60InQ
Anyone who still thinks there was no conspiracy to kill JFK at this point is in my opinion in extreme denial, like those denying climate change or those who deny that tobacco smoke is harmful to a person’s health. http://www.vox.com/2015/3/21/8267049/merchants-of-doubt
I agree about denial and for some people (mainstream media, etc) it’s like a case of child abuse. A family tries to deny it, prefers to sweep it under the rug. Confronting the truth is too painful and disorienting.
-He had ‘forgotten’ the incident for 40 years
-The former girlfriend does not remember the incident at all (did he show her the pix of the peeps involved?) and even after telling her mom, who took precautions in keeping it quiet. And this was never discussed by them ever again so it was forgotten? Right….
-Veciana and the girlfriend never met again although Veciana does remember some sort of an encounter that day (Sept 7th?) with a teenage girl, since she does not remember a thing the two do not connect at all, for now.
Unless there is more evidence presented this cannot be taken seriously.
I know we all want it to be true and hang DAP on the rafters, but this is not good enough.
Why flimsy? It is what it is, a recollection, painstakingly explained. Why wait 50 years? Again, painstakingly explained. What does the witness stand to gain? Nothing that I can think of. Not all the answers in this case are going to come from boxes in the National Archives.
It’s pretty neat that now-elderly Wynne Johnson, though a new (10yr) student of the assass, put a lot of stuff together. Over 50 years after the fact, he figured out the date he saw LHO, and the identities of the two older men he was with, A Veciana and DA “maurice bishop” Phillips.
The still-nameless, smart, Chinese_American girl, 15 at the time, that W J was sweet on at the time, figured, soon after the assassination!, that they had seen LHO that Saturday 9/7/63. And both those high school kids’ mothers made sure their children kept their mouths shut.
The utter FEAR. Larry Crafard and George Senator hitchhiking out of town as fast and far as they could with the clothes on their back. Etc. Etc.
My main takeaway from the video, a question for the LNs out there: Why were so many folks in Dallas and New Orleans scared to death about going to the law with what they knew? If it was such a simple, open and shut case, what’s the danger?
When John Lennon was gunned down, everyone who had said hello to Chapman, every waitress who had poured him a cup of coffee, came forward immediately; now, whether person(s) unknown put a bug in holy-moly, Southern, military-related Chapman’s ear, or some drug or hypnotism in his brain is another matter. But no one was afraid to come forward.
The end of Wynne Johnson’s video is poignant: “I believe that students of the assassination have given too little attention to the effect of the events on the common people of Dallas.” This humble student has always figured–if the denizens of homicidal Dallas in the lynchin’ state of Texas were terrorized, it must have been an exceptionally nasty, massive plot.
An old Chinese proverb goes, approximately– Assassinate one, and terrorize a million. Are most of us still scared?
Wow. I’m convinced. He must be genuine. Obviously a serious witness with perfect recall of events that every 15 year old will remember clearly.Unfortunately this Canadian gentleman ( yes, he is a Canadian) forgot to research the little things- the things that often give away these phony stories once the confirmation bias wears off.
I wonder who wrote the script?
I he is too dumb to get beyond racial stereotypes how can you take him seriously? Come on- ” The Sand Pebbles” is his basis for knowledge of the U.S. Navy?
Amazing how those who weren’t there can so easily judge those who were. I contacted him with a question, and he promptly replied. Whilst questioning his racial stereotyping you think nothing of calling him dumb. Nice. I can see you’ve not a trace of confirmation bias, hence the perfect and lofty pedestal you choose to judge him on.
Velma on YouTube as a source? Are you serious? An unidentified source calling an unidentified radio station rambling about an old,gray , single seat Plymouth and a man coming out of the TSBD with a ” high powered rifle” that definitely wasn’t bolt-action? What high powered rifle in use in 1963 WASN’T bolt-action? A double barrel Elephant gun? What single seat model did Plymouth make?Tippit running around the TSBD at the time of the assassination? How can you possibly take seriously anybody who would use such nonsense as a reputable source?
Did this guy attend Jesuit HS in Dallas? I’ve stayed at the Sheraton- it is a bit of a haul from where the library was and from the important sites in Downtown. It is a long walk from the TSBD. And a heck of a long distance from Jesuit HS.
This guy claimed that Oswald was well known in Dallas and had been on the Radio and TV before the assassination. He must have had good reception- the Oswald interviews were on New Orleans media-a distance of over 500 miles. His claim of course is not credible.
His claim about a Chinese girlfriend was made not knowing what the racial makeup of the vast majority of Stewards and Messmen in the U.S. Navy in WWII. He didn’t get that part of his story right-and apparently used the movie “The Sand Pebbles” as a source. How many kilos did she weigh?
Jean;
here is a quote I asked you about on a different thread. I am hopeful you can respond to this one. This quote comes from T. Jeremy Gunn of the ARRB. Can you tell me what he is trying to tell us?
“The institution that had the opportunity to best get to the bottom of this, as much as it was possible, was the Warren Commission, and they didn’t do it,” he says. “Now it’s too late to do what should have been done originally.”
Why would he think the WC “didn’t do it?” Our friend Photon says it is because Mr. Gunn is “dense.” I am hoping you have a better explanation!
Steve,
Jeremy Gunn has a right to his opinion, whatever it is. You’d have to ask him what he meant.
Jean:
Is it just me or does the LN side choose which witness or investigator to put absolute faith in and which one to marginalize? It appears to me that anyone that dares to disagree with the “official” version is found to lack “credibility.” Is this true, or is there another explanation that I am missing? You will quote anyone and everyone to Leslie that comes from the WC, but I ask you about the head of the ARRB and his beliefs and you have no response except “he has a right to his opinion?”
For what its worth, I would LOVE to have a chance to talk to anyone that had anything to do with the original investigation. However, one of the best decisions that our fine leader LBJ made after the conclusion of the sham committee was to make sure NO ONE would be made available to answer any discrepancy. For our most corrupt president, it was a planned stroke of genius.
Steve,
Sorry I overlooked this…
“Is it just me or does the LN side choose which witness or investigator to put absolute faith in and which one to marginalize?”
On the contrary, I’ve learned not to “put faith” in anyone. The first JFK book I ever read, Rush to Judgment, had me thoroughly convinced that there was a conspiracy and that the WR was a sham — until I checked Mark Lane’s footnotes and was shocked to realize I’d been deceived. That taught me the lesson I try to get across here: Don’t believe anything you read until you’ve seen the evidence for yourself. No matter how many footnotes a book has, no matter how much you agree that it “sounds right,” if you rely on a secondary source without seeing the evidence it’s based on, you may very well be “learning” things that are untrue. JFK books and articles are full of myths and misinformation.
“You will quote anyone and everyone to Leslie that comes from the WC, but I ask you about the head of the ARRB and his beliefs and you have no response except “he has a right to his opinion?””
You asked me, “Why would he think the WC ‘didn’t do it?'” How should I know his thoughts? And so far as I know, I’ve never quoted anyone’s *opinion* about the WC investigation I think the only opinions I’ve quoted were from experts in technical subjects like ballistics.
“For what its worth, I would LOVE to have a chance to talk to anyone that had anything to do with the original investigation. However, one of the best decisions that our fine leader LBJ made after the conclusion of the sham committee was to make sure NO ONE would be made available to answer any discrepancy.”
I don’t know what you’re referring to there. Many people involved with the original investigation have been interviewed time and again.
Photon:
I am glad to see you back! I have been on spring break—and, of course, Missouri being Missouri, today is beautiful!!!!
Just checking to ask of your thoughts on Jeff’s new thread—the one about Politico and the CIA and lying in Mexico City.
You have been awful quiet so far…
Well you know Steve, with sequestration those checks from the CIA are mightily slow in coming. I don’t work for free.
CIA’s budget isn’t subject to the same cuts. Talk to anyone at OMB. Nice try, Phonton.
The CIA Just Declassified the Document That Supposedly Justified the Iraq Invasion http://shar.es/1fUWnJ via @grtvnews
C.I.A. Cash Ended Up in Coffers of Al Qaeda http://nyti.ms/1BET4MC
Glad to see you’re in such a confessional mood, Photon. Perhaps now you can enlighten us as to your qualifications and expertise.
And I have to say whatever CIA is paying you I don’t think it is enough for a man of your intelligence to defend a Report that has an analysis by ballistics EXPERTS attached to it which directly contradicts the ballistics findings of that Report.
How do you justify that to yourself?
Well Vanessa, when we have people up and down this blog claiming that Dr. Dolce was a ballistic expert at Edgewood when in fact he was head of the Biochemistry department it is pretty easy. When these same folks claim that his credentials are confirmed by a personal letter he wrote and no other independently verifiable source it is even more easy.And when the real ballistic experts with documented positions and published articles agree with my position on the ballistics of the case it is easier still. I’m sure that if Hans Krebs had been implicated in the case Dr. Dolce would have been your go-to man, but I don’t see how glycolysis was playing a role here.
The point is this-when CTers post “experts” they invariably are not experts in the field that they are claimed to be, they are peripheral to the case, or their perceptions are based on false information or fundamental errors of interpretation of the evidence, often from sources that have nothing to do with their personal involvement with the case. So you have Dolce making a fundamental error in regards to Connolly’s wrist wound ( which in actuality he knew little about) and a fundamental error in assuming that the round that hit Connolly’s wrist had not been slowed down considerably with consequent loss of kinetic energy prior to striking bone.
As long as you continue to believe that the Edgewood cadaver wrist shots have any relation to the actual ballistic evidence in this case you cannot understand what really happened in this case.
A clue for you Photon as to Dr Dolce’s further expertise:
Joseph R. Dolce, MD, FACS
The letters F.A.C.S. (Fellow, American College of Surgeons) after a surgeon’s name mean that the surgeon’s education and training, professional qualifications,surgical competence, and ethical conduct have passed a rigorous evaluation, and have been found to be consistent with the high standards established and demanded by the College.
The American College of Surgeons (ACS) is a scientific and educational association of surgeons that was founded in 1913.
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As long as WC apologists refuse to acknowledge there are no serious problems with the forensics evidence, the ballistics evidence or the autopsy evidence, they will never understand the preconceived conclusion reached by the Commission before hearings even started.
Vanessa,
“…a Report that has an analysis by ballistics EXPERTS attached to it which directly contradicts the ballistics findings of that Report.”
But it doesn’t contradict the WC findings. For instance, Olivier & Dziemian’s report says the evidence indicated that Connally’s wrist was “struck by a tumbling bullet traveling at a reduced velocity.”
bottom of this page:
https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=62296&relPageId=6
pPart 2.
Consider briefly the material already explored which contradicts the 399 theory. Dr. Shaw of Parkland ruled out 399 as the cause of all the damage in the Governor by asserting flatly that more than three grains of metal were deposited in the Governor’s wrist. Dr. Shaw’s observations were made first hand from X-ray examination and surgery. Dr. Gregory dwelt extensively on the fragments which the X-rays tell us were spewn through the Governor. FBI Agent Frazier spoke of the metallic deposits on the President’s coat. Yet the overwhelming weight of the evidence indicating more than 2.9 grains of additional bullet weight did not deter the Commission from its ultimate conclusion. It ignored all the evidence that indicated that the 399 bullet could not have accomplished the tremendous amount of tissue destruction and fragment shedding–and still look and weigh like 399.
In contrast to the halting support of Drs. Olivier, Light and Dzieman, compare the solidly committed language of the opposing experts who, after having considered the relevant evidence, flatly and emphatically rejected the 399 theory.
Commander James J. Humes said about 399′s possible involvement in the Connally wounding:
I think that extremely unlikely…X-rays taken…described metallic fragments in the bone. I can’t conceive of where they came from this missile. (II, H-376)
Lt. Col. Pierre A. Finck said:
No; for the reason that there are too many fragments described in that wrist. (II, H-38)
Dr. Gregory treated the wounds in the wrist of the Governor. What he said about the irregular shape of the missile which struck Connally’s wrist clearly distinguishes it from the regular shaped 399:
Dr. Gregory. The wound of entrance is characteristic in my view of an irregular missile in this case, an irregular missile which has tipped itself off as being irregular by the nature of itself…I mean one that has been distorted. It is in some way angular, it has edges or sharp edges or something of this sort. It is not rounded or pointed in the fashion of an ordinary missile.
Dr. Gregory also stated:
…I would believe that the missile in the Governor behaved as though it had the examination of the wrist both by the X-ray and at the time of surgery showed some fragments of metal that make it difficult to believe that the same missile could have caused these two wounds. There seems to be more than three grains of metal missing as far as the–I mean in the wrist. (IV, H-113)
I feel that there would be some difficulty in explaining all of the wounds as being inflicted by bullet Exhibit 399 without causing more in the way of loss of substance to the bullet or deformation of the bullet. (IV, H-114)
http://www.kenrahn.com/JFK/The_critics/Salandria/Impossible_tasks–Kelin_format.html
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Lovely to start the morning with a first class bit of Photon two-step.
But that’s okay because, as you know, that is not what I asked you about at all. Remember, the WCR and the FBI Report attached to it? Please tell me how you can promote that load of codswallop. Specifically, once Arlen Specter realized that the FBI had made a ‘mistake’ (your word) in its 3 shots, 3 hits scenario why didn’t he go back to the FBI and get them to fix their mistakes so that they fitted his conclusions. Why didn’t that happen?
Now Photon, you are aware that when it comes to experts and expertise there is a big, black Damoclean-like question mark hanging over your head. Until you’ve cleared up this question I really don’t think you have the right to question anyone’s expertise do you. And I meant that as a statement.
How are you going with Jeff’s book by the way? Enjoying all those fact-thingys? I’m still looking forward to receiving my copy.
…and welcome back btw….
Hi Jean
Perhaps we’re talking about two different things here?? I’m talking about the FBI Report concluding that there were 3 shots, 3 hits. The WCR didn’t (and couldn’t) conclude that there were 3 hits because it gave them timing problems which meant Oswald couldn’t have done it. Why was that FBI Report issued with the WCR when it contradicts its findings?
“Why was that FBI Report issued with the WCR when it contradicts its findings?”
Sorry I misunderstood you, Vanessa. If the WC hadn’t published the FBI report, wouldn’t the argument be that they “covered it up”?
That’s okay Jean. 🙂 I am just following up with Photon about his lack of answers to a number of previous questions.
What I’m questioning about the FBI’s report is why the FBI didn’t conduct further tests to ensure that Specter’s findings were supported? And thus prevent the ‘anomaly’ of the WC’s conclusions not being supported by its own evidence.
Vanessa,
The WC didn’t base its SB finding on the FBI’s report but rather on the trajectory measured in Dallas, the Z film/photos, medical testimony about the wounds, the ballistic tests by Olivier/Dziemian and other factors as the WC explained starting in this section of the WR:
https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=946&relPageId=129
Nurse Bell described Kennedy’s head wound as occipital, in the right posterior portion of the head. She did not see his throat wound. She recalled receiving “three to five fragments, perhaps four” from the body of Governor Connally, more than are currently in evidence. She viewed the Warren Commission photograph of these fragments and said that they were too small. According to ARRB staff member Doug Horne, Nurse Bell drew pictures of the fragments as she remembered them, but ARRB Chief Counsel Jeremy Gunn refused to take her drawing into evidence.
http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/medical_interviews/audio/ARRB_Bell.htm
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Thanks Jean, I appreciate that the WC had to find other ways to make the shots scenario work so that Oswald could be the shooter.
What I’m really asking about the FBI report is, what is the politics of this or the optics, if you like?
Why wasn’t the FBI asked to simply present another report which wasn’t a ‘mistake’?
“Dr. Dolce was a ballistic expert at Edgewood when in fact he was head of the Biochemistry department..”
~Photon
A citation for this please. What other expertise and training did Dr. Dolce have aside from Biochemistry?
“I am the Chief Consultant for the US Army in wound ballistics at the Edgewood Arsenal and Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. I have been dealing with high velocity missles for the Army for the past twenty–five years and I feel that there are no forensic pathologists in this country who have had the experience I have had with this type of missile. The forensic pathologist in civilian life, deals primarily with homicides caused by slow velocity missiles.” ~Dr Dolce
You had best have documentation on this issue before you assert that Dr. Dolce is lying in the above statement.
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Since when does being a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons make one an expert in ballistics, Willy?
Currently there are about 58,000 fellows in the U.S. alone-and they are all ballistic experts?
How can I prove a negative,Willy? More to the point, have you found any evidence to confirm Dr Dolce’s claim as reported in his letter? Nobody else apparently has. Every reference to Dr. Dolce’s qualifications start and end with his letter.Why?
Every reference to any of these 1963 doctors;
Dr. Dzieman, Dr. Olivier, or Dr. Dolce have any references to be found on the web other than the ones involving the JFK assassination.
An expert in gunshot wounds necessarily involves forensic ballistics. Dolce was a surgeon for high powered gun wounds as a large part of his career.
You can’t prove a negative Proton, why even try? You cannot even prove a positive!
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But was he? Where is the evidence beyond his personal claim?
“The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself… Almost inevitably, he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, and intolerable.”
~H.L. Mencken, American journalist
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Jean:
So we are going on “who’s memory is fresher” in determining the evidence in this case? Hmmmm, that is curious. Because if I remember correctly, a large number of Parkland doctors and nurses and agent Hill described a gaping BOH wound that the later “evidence” says is not there. Which do we use, eyewitness account or “evidence” collected by “experts” which have shown themselves time after time to be quite shaky with their methods?
And, using the same standards that you pose to the CT, have YOU weighed these fragments to see if their weight matches what the government tells us it weighs?
And the cup of coffee comment? You mean, kind of like Dr. Humes did when he burned his original draft notes on the autopsy the morning after the assassination? Is that what you mean?
Part 1.
All the Evidence?
None of the three doctors attached to the government who agreed with the double-hit theory mentioned viewing the Zapruder films, nor did they mention the position of Connally’s right wrist during the supposed joint hit. None dwelt on the number and weight of the fragments remaining in the Governor which were too many and too heavy to have flaked off from 399. None mentioned the problem of the irregularity of the missile which pierced the Governor, nor the regularity of 399. They noted nothing of the evidence provided by the Connally X-rays which cast light on the path of the bullet. None dared employ emphatic language, and not having examined, or having ignored, the crucial evidence, they were wise to avoid employing assertive language. And so they mustered up: “Yes, I believe it was. That is my feeling.” (V, H-90); “…I would say I don’t feel justified in drawing a conclusion one way or the other on that basis alone.” (V, H-97); “I am saying that the probability is high that it was so.” (V, H-92)
This halting language is the sum total of support that the Commission had for its 399 theory. On the basis of this the Commission asserted:
All the evidence indicated that the bullet found on the Governor’s stretcher could have caused all his wounds. (W-95)
No twisting of logic and evidence will support this unwarranted assessment of the record. If “all the evidence” supported the 399 theory, then what shall we call all the following material which the Commission marshaled and ignored? Let history render an objective judgment on whether the following does not constitute “evidence”–conclusive evidence–that 399 did not accomplish a double hit on the President and the Governor.
Consider briefly the material already explored which contradicts the 399 theory. Dr. Shaw of Parkland ruled out 399 as the cause of all the damage in the Governor by asserting flatly that more than three grains of metal were deposited in the Governor’s wrist. Dr. Shaw’s observations were made first hand from X-ray examination and surgery. Dr. Gregory dwelt extensively on the fragments which the X-rays tell us were spewn through the Governor. FBI Agent Frazier spoke of the metallic deposits on the President’s coat. Yet the overwhelming weight of the evidence indicating more than 2.9 grains of additional bullet weight did not deter the Commission from its ultimate conclusion. It ignored all the evidence that indicated that the 399 bullet could not have accomplished the tremendous amount of tissue destruction and fragment shedding–and still look and weigh like 399.
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Good analysis, especially of the fragments in Gov. Connolly. As he himself said, he had more fragments in his own arm than could have been taken from bullet #399. Don’t expect Photon to address this, because he can’t.
Fackler’s theory behind these experiments is flawed.
This hardly is representative the actual Magic Bullet. Simply reducing the speed and firing the bullet through a cadaver wrist, does not represent all the other chores the actual Magic Bullet went through to reduce the speed.
It was the events that slowed the Magic Bullet down that are important, not just the speed of the bullet when it hit the wrist.
The Magic Bullet had allegedly gone through the skin, tendons, and muscles of Kennedy’s neck, then (dismissing the feature of extended time and bizarre trajectory) that bullet allegedly went through Connally’s back – clothing, skin, muscle, hit and broke a rib and exited before finally allegedly hitting his wrist.
None of this work is accounted for in Fackler’s ‘experiments’.
. . . . .
The Magic Fragments and Other Stories by Millicent Cranor
Disputing Fackler’s experiment to reproduce “the Magic Bullet”
http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/C%20Disk/Cranor%20Millicent/Item%2006.pdf
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Willy, and does this not factor in with the failure to establish a credible chain of custody of a magic bullet?
I have repeatedly asked Jean Davison to weigh in on the problems with the custody; she has stated (paraphrasing here, Jean) that in spite of the discrepancies – the FBI report that named Agent Bardwell Odum as having handled the bullet for instance – the statement of SS Agent Johnsen suffices to hold the hole thing together. She has yet to explain why Odum was never called as a witness before the WC, and has not explained why Arlen Specter avoided the issue of custody as best he could but was successful enough that a vast number of Americans bought the lie. Where were our nation’s best and brightest reporters and journalists when this lie was being promulgated? A magic bullet, a magic trick, sleight of hand in every sense of the term.
The wrist fragments didn’t weigh 3 grains, they probably didn’t weigh more than a grain. Connolly would have no idea what was in his wrist; Shaw stated that they were postage stamp weight. Shaw formed his basis for questioning # 399 as the single bullet solely on its appearance; he was ignorant of the ballistic stability of the Carcano 6.5 mm bullet-which despite the inaccurate claims of Willy has been demonstrated time after time to be able to withstand significant force and maintain its integrity. Lattimer took about 2 grains from a Carcano 6.5 mm round and was able to create over 40 pieces radiographically comparable to those seen on the Connolly wrist x-rays. He only needed five.
Willy,
“Dr. Shaw of Parkland ruled out 399 as the cause of all the damage in the Governor by asserting flatly that more than three grains of metal were deposited in the Governor’s wrist. Dr. Shaw’s observations were made first hand from X-ray examination and surgery. Dr. Gregory dwelt extensively on the fragments which the X-rays tell us were spewn through the Governor.”
You’re quoting a well-known JFK conspiracy writer whose article is online. Did he tell you that Dr. Shaw’s “first hand” surgery was on Connally’s chest, and that Shaw testified:
“My examination of the wrist was a very cursory one. I could tell that there was a compound comminuted fracture because there was motion present, and there was a ragged wound just over the radius above the wrist joint. But that was the extent of my examination of the wrist.”
Did he tell you that Connally’s wrist surgeon Dr. Gregory described the fragments he personally saw as tiny?
QUOTE:
Dr. GREGORY – I would identify these fragments as varying from five-tenths of a millimeter in diameter to approximately 2 millimeters in diameter, and each fragment is no more than a half millimeter in thickness. They would represent in lay terms flakes, flakes of metal.
Mr. SPECTER – What would your estimate be as to their weight in total?
Dr. GREGORY – I would estimate that they would be weighed in micrograms which is very small amount of weight. I don’t know how to reduce it to ordinary equivalents for you.
It is the kind of weighing that requires a micro-adjustable scale, which means that it is something less than the weight of a postage stamp.
UNQUOTE
That’s quite a different story, isn’t it?
This is what you get when you rely on secondary sources instead of reading the original testimony and documents: a distorted version spun through someone else’s head.
“Dr. Gregory dwelt extensively on the fragments which the X-rays tell us were spewn through the Governor. FBI Agent Frazier spoke of the metallic deposits on the President’s coat. Yet the overwhelming weight of the evidence indicating more than 2.9 grains of additional bullet weight”
Photon, take it up with these experts.
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Photon:
I have given you a couple of days to rest and enjoy the beautiful weather of this country. However, there is the nagging question of the CIA and the FBI and credibility. How can you—or anyone else for that matter—claim the “evidence” gathered during the investigation has ANY value at all? I hope you have noticed that I do not get into the “he said she said” parts of this case as that leads people into a vicious circle. I DO concentrate on the collection of the evidence, because that hits at the heart of ANY crime investigation. If one cannot believe in the people doing the investigating and collecting, how can one come to any type of rational outcome? Please read the following quote from Mr. Morley from this website:
— 286 pages about the operations of CIA officer Anne Goodpasture, also based in Mexico City in 1963, who also knew about Oswald’s visit when it happened. In 1997 Goodpasture admitted under oath to the Assassination Records Review Board, that she did not tell JFK investigators that station chief Win Scott had a tape of a caller to the Soviet Embassy who identified himself as Oswald. The CIA has never produced that tape.
You have said the CIA made a mistake. That is demonstrably FALSE. So, when you quote someone like Lattimer, how can you be so SURE of what he or any other government investigator has told the public? How do you know where to give your credence and where to say, “uh-oh, this is a load of BS?” Put another way, have YOU personally weighed these grains, or even been able to look at them? How do you know that nurse Audrey Bell—I believe it was Nurse Bell—-is not accurate when she said she gave four or five large fragments to someone in the government, which would seem to indicate that CE 399 is an issue that has yet to be resolved?
“Willy, and does this not factor in with the failure to establish a credible chain of custody of a magic bullet?”~Leslie
That is right, there is no credible chain of custody. The Magic bullet appeared by magic as well as presumably being being capable of magic acts.
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Photon:
Since you did not respond to this inquiry over on “the only man charged in the case” thread, I thought I would give you another shot. Again, the central question: how do you know if the FBI and/or the CIA is to be believed in ANYTHING about this case?
Let us take one small and seemingly insignificant case where the FBI was at its best. You certainly have heard of James Tague and that he was hit by a chip of concrete from one of LHO’s bullets? And you have certainly heard that the curb that the bullet struck entered into the picture as a piece of evidence? Can you explain the following quote, please?
“The F.B.I. did everything possible to ignore the mark on the curb and when they couldn’t ignore it any longer, they patched it. It was in that condition when the F.B.I. cut out the chunk of curb and “tested” it. When Harold Weisberg filled a FOIA for the Spectrographic Analysis test results, he was told the test results had been thrown out. It really didn’t matter as the testing was done on the patch so any results showing metallic smears is pure BS. The F.B.I. knew this from the get go.”
1. Why did Mr. Weisberg have to file a FOIA to get these results? Based on what you have said earlier about the CIA and the FOIA requests, did this chunk of concrete have secrets it had to keep until a much later date?
2. How did the FBI “lose” the results of the testing? Did Humes have Ryberg draw it to scale until the photographs became available to “clarify” the results (sarcasm)?
3. Why was this curb patched and who patched it?
You see, even in a TINY piece of evidence that should have been a routine examination and disclosure, your beloved FBI had to LIE. And yet, you continue to tell everyone on this site that both the FBI and the CIA—the “producers” of the “evidence” are to be believed and given credence?
Unfortunately, the American public in 1963 had no other course but to take this kind of crap from the government. That is no longer the case. We now know that both the CIA and the FBI are not to be believed UNLESS what they tell us can be verified by an outside source. It is too bad that the internet and the forums such as this one didn’t exist in 1963. If it had, the WC BS may have never made it into public record.
Even if the mannlicher carcano was not in pristine condition it could still maintain it’s integrity. Photon is absolutely right. As long as it was capable of firing, it would do a lot of damage. I noted a ballistics expert saying, that the slightly bent site might have even helped Oswald. They tested, fired that rifle over and over again. And Oswald would have been aware of the scope and made the adjustment when firing. He was a Marine……hope everyone agrees on that??…….and had qualified as both marksman and sharpshooter at one time. Although hindsight may have rusted out, changed people’s memories. But he was sharp when it came to rifles
Photon,
If you want to discuss Lattimer, you had better read this first:
http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/C%20Disk/Cranor%20Millicent/Item%2006.pdf
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Photon, Jean, why don’t you want to discuss this?
Fackler’s theory behind these experiments is flawed.
It is simple, all he did was reduce the charge of the bullets fired into the cadaver wrists. He does not account for all the other material, flesh, bone, and clothing that actually caused the slowing down of the bullets.
His study is worthless because of those matters.
You want to grill us on your terms. No dice, you answer our questions as well.
The most important of these is that there simply is no admissible chain of evidence for your magic bullet.
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“Dr. Shaw of Parkland ruled out 399 as the cause of all the damage in the Governor by asserting flatly that more than three grains of metal were deposited in the Governor’s wrist. Dr. Shaw’s observations were made first hand from X-ray examination and surgery.”
Dr Shaw’s estimate is not reliant on the visual of the wound while working on it. It is from his examination of the X-ray.
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Leslie,
What exactly do you think was required to preserve a chain of custody in 1963? Can you supply a reference (and I don’t mean a conspiracy book)?
CTs seem to take for granted that it was mandatory that everyone who handled a bullet or shell must put his mark on it. That’s certainly not true today, when the FBI Lab and many others specifically advise crime scene investigators to NOT mark these items:
https://www.google.com/#q=FBI+laboratory+bullet+%22do+not+mark%22
Instead of marking, each person who receives a bullet/cartridge is supposed to put it in an evidence envelope that he signs, or to keep some other record showing where he got it and who he gave it to. That record establishes the chain of custody.
Lt. Day put two of the Depository hulls in an evidence envelope and didn’t mark them at the time. I don’t think that broke the chain, certainly not by today’s standards. There is also a very clear record of who handled CE 399, from one person to another up the chain. Johnsen’s note is part of that.
Can you establish that scratching a mark on a bullet or positively ID-ing it was legally required in 1963?
Jean:
Please read the quote below:
“Audrey Bell, the operating nurse, stated that there were four or five fragments “anywhere from three to four millimeters in length and a couple of millimeters wide ” These fragments disappeared at the autopsy.”
Has Ms. Bell been misquoted, or were her words taken out of context?
Cook, did you serve with Oswald? Your opinion doesn’t jive with those who did.
Oswald’s Ex-Captain Takes Aim at Single-Shooter Theory – latimes http://articles.latimes.com/1993-11-21/local/me-59498_1_oswald-s-marksmanship via @latimes
Sherman Cooley, who served with Oswald in the Marines, said in an interview with former Rockefeller Foundation fellow Henry Hurt that “If I had to pick one man in the whole United States to shoot me, I’d pick Oswald. I saw the man shoot. There’s no way he could have ever learned to shoot well enough to do what they accused him of doing in Dallas.”
Reasonable Doubt, New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1985, p. 99
Rockefeller Foundation fellow Henry Hurt interviewed over fifty former Marine colleagues of Oswald’s and reported that “On the subject of Oswald’s shooting ability, there was virtually no exception to Delgado’s opinion that it was laughable…”
Jean,
Commission Exhibit 2011 ( 24 H 412 ) shows the break in the chain of custody of bullet 399.
“Darrell C. Tomlinson…cannot positively identify the bullet as the one he found and showed to Mr. O. P. Wright.”
“Mr. O.P. Wright could not positively identify C1 ( CE 399 ) as the bullet that was found on November 22, 1963.”
“Special Agent Richard E. Johnson, United States Secret Service, could not identify this bullet as the one he obtained from O.P. Wright, Parkland Hospital, Dallas Texas, and gave to James Rowley, Chief, United States Secret Service, Washington, D.C. on November 22, 1963.”
“James Rowley, Chief, United States Secret Service, advised that he could not identify this bullet as the one he received from Special Agent Richard E. Johnson and gave to Special Agent Todd on November 22, 1963.”
All four of the people who handled the “stretcher bullet” before it came into the possession of the FBI could not identify CE 399 as being that bullet.
And it’s not just CE399. Not a single piece of evidence reliably and convincingly (beyond reasonable doubt) ties LHO to the deed.
Clearly Jean, or perhaps only clear to me, I was not referencing the marks made or not made on any bullet. I tend to think you know that was not my point but rather have chosen to deflet the conversation. I am speaking for instance to the confusion of who was said to have handled the bullet vs. who actually handled it regardless of who made marks or did not make marks. But even more pertinent is why someone whose own agency documented his having held the bullet was never called to verify yet Tomlinson and Wright were. I continue to contend it was precisely because the FBI report was either in error or needed to be buried as ultimately it could reflect badly on JEdgar Hoover so Bardwell Odum was never called to testify. I suspect Specter understood the implications. I also think that in addition to the concern about the official FBI report, some were loathe to talk to Odum. He had covered an amazing amount of territory in the first 48 hours, he was known as “Bob” to Ruth and “Mike” Paine (that testimony alone should have begged a few questions by the WC staff), he interviewed Sylvia Odio in December after the assassination and made a brief but probably noticeable appearance during her testimony before the WC – yet he was NEVER called to testify. This is not about marks on a bullet, Jean.
Steve,
You asked me to respond to this quote:
“Audrey Bell, the operating nurse, stated that there were four or five fragments “anywhere from three to four millimeters in length and a couple of millimeters wide ” These fragments disappeared at the autopsy.”
UNQUOTE
Bell gave this description in 1977, I believe, and it’s slightly larger than Gregory’s description in 1964. Why should I think her memory is better than his?
CE 842 shows four small fragments with the evidence envelope. (top of page)
https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?absPageId=139667
Bell didn’t say “These fragments disappeared at autopsy.” That was evidently added by an online CT who hadn’t had his morning coffee. Think about it.
“CTs seem to take for granted that it was mandatory that everyone who handled a bullet or shell must put his mark on it. That’s certainly not true today, when the FBI Lab and many others specifically advise crime scene investigators to NOT mark these items”~Jean
Jean is apparently speaking to new rules later than the 1980s. It appears that before that time it was common, especially with bullets and hulls for the chain of custody officers to mark such items:
“Police Markings
Second, an object that is inscribed with the initials or markings of a police officer or other person may be readily identifiable. In such cases, the person converts a nonunique
object into a readily identifiable one by placing distinctive markings on it. This practice is recommended in crime scene and evidence collection manuals. See
Federal Bureau of Investigation, Handbook of Forensic Science 100 (rev. ed. 1984); C. O’Hara, Fundamentals of Criminal Investigation 79-84 (5th ed. 1980).”
http://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1308&context=faculty_publications
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Willy,
“Photon, Jean, why don’t you want to discuss this?
Fackler’s theory behind these experiments is flawed.”
So you say, but why should I believe you and not an established expert in wound ballistics? Here are some of Fackler’s publications:
http://www.amazon.com/Martin-L.-Fackler/e/B00JCUBLWA
http://www.annemergmed.com/article/S0196-0644(96)70062-8/abstract
Others besides Fackler have performed tests resulting in a bullet resembling CE 399, but it’s never enough to satisfy CTs who don’t seem to understand that NO shooting of this nature can ever be reproduced exactly — it’s simply not possible. As the HSCA noted, any reconstruction can only result in probabilities, not certainties.
BTW, Dziemian was lead author on this 1961 paper:
http://journals.lww.com/jtrauma/Citation/1961/07000/COMPARISON_OF_THE_WOUNDING_CHARACTERISTICS_OF_SOME.2.aspx
Steve, thank you for admitting that you believe none of the evidence.
At least that obviates the need to explain the evidence and physical facts-no point in discussing anything as nothing to you is real or genuine.
How can you eat a hamburger or drink a glass of water-how do you know that either is safe? How can you be sure that the medicine you pick up at the drugstore is real and not tainted? How can you be sure that any trial in the US can be fair or come to an accurate conclusion? It is always easy to believe outlandish theories if you throw out the simple facts that refute them.
I am still trying to understand your obsession with the Mexico City trip. Even if we accept your conclusion that the CIA purposely and dastardly planted a story about an imposter supposedly Oswald, why did they release a picture that was instantly recognized as not being Oswald? Who were they trying to fool? Wasn’t it obvious within days of the release that the Agency had misidentified the individual? Is there any real evidence that a picture of Oswald was taken by the Agency in Mexico City? What did the release of the picture of the non-Oswald actually do to the investigation? Anything? What benefit was it to the Agency?
“Fackler’s theory behind these experiments is flawed.”
So you say, but why should I believe you and not an established expert in wound ballistics? Here are some of Fackler’s publications:” ~Jean Davison
I am not asking anyone to believe me Jean, I am asking for people to use their own minds and figure things out for themselves.
I contend that Fackler’s approach is flawed, and gave my reasons.
Appeals to authority such as this do not impress me.
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“Lt. Day put two of the Depository hulls in an evidence envelope and didn’t mark them at the time. I don’t think that broke the chain, certainly not by today’s standards. There is also a very clear record of who handled CE 399, from one person to another up the chain. Johnsen’s note is part of that.
Can you establish that scratching a mark on a bullet or positively ID-ing it was legally required in 1963?”~Jean Davison
I did reply to this Jean in my comment of
March 23, 2015 at 7:04 pm
It was standard practice and mandated by FBI protocol in 1963 (up until the 1980s) to mark a shell or hull with a unique mark for chains of custody.
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It is my opinion that anyone familiar with ballistics and the analysis of impact damage on missiles that have struck flesh and bone, would be automatically suspicious of the Magic Bullet.
This is why it was immediately a controversy, and one that the authorities desperately attempted to quell.
Keeping in mind the agenda of the Warren Commission to find Oswald guilty come hell or highwater, all of these so called studies must be seen in that light.
I am sure the Obsfuscati will be up in arms about this assertion. But I find their apologia for the official narrative naive and biased in the extreme.
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Photon:
Photon, Photon, Photon! Someday, you will HAVE to read what I really write, and then respond to MY actual questions! This nice spring weather MUST have you distracted!
1. First of all, the only obsession I REALLY have is a tall blackberry concrete at Culver’s. Ever had one? If you have, you know exactly what I mean!
2. What I have tried to show YOU during our exchanges is the VERY government that you defend so vigorously is FULL of liars! I asked YOU how do YOU decide which evidence to believe, and which to ignore? I was always taught that once a liar, ALWAYS a liar. You?
3. Mexico City is not only of interest to me, but also to the man that runs THIS website, Mr. Morley. As a matter of fact, he has used the word PERJURY when describing the actions of the CIA in Mexico City. Help me, my dear friend, but doesn’t PERJURY mean lying?
4. If you ask me, MC is the KEY to the assassination. We do not know what transpired down there because your friends from the CIA lied. How do you have an accurate investigation when a LARGE portion of the investigators are LIARS? It is kind of impossible, isn’t it?
Here is ANOTHER quote from a member of your BELOVED WC. Perhaps you can answer his concerns to me without running around the barn???
PS: As you’d expect, I think it’s very significant that David Slawson has come to believe that the commission was denied such basic information, especially about Oswald’s long-mysterious Mexico City trip, and how that could rewrite the history of the assassination. David was the central conspiracy hunter on the commission’s staff, and he’s a very thoughtful, credible guy who has risked plenty of grief by stepping forward publicly like this.
David Slawson
David Slawson
In the course of researching and writing my book, David and I went on an interesting journey together, as I brought him more and more evidence from declassified government files — some of it first revealed in your remarkable book and in reporting by a handful of other fine researchers and writers — that suggested that Oswald was not this “lone wolf” portrayed by the commission.
Care to comment about what Mr. Slawson NOW believes?
Photon:
Before I forget, can YOU answer why people like Weisberg and Morley have to file FOIA to obtain results from—and I am using the government’s claim as well as all the other WC re-writers—an open and shut case? What does the government have to hide if Oswald is the lone nut and deranged loner they claim? Why is the information from EVERY aspect of this investigation readily available to all Americans WITHOUT the need of a lawsuit?
Care to answer ONE of my questions DIRECTLY? Could this be my LUCKY day?
Photon:
Oh, one more thing. Has your beloved CIA ever apologized to the American people for releasing a picture of Oswald that was NOT Oswald, and have they ever apologized for erasing the tape of Oswald’s voice that was not Oswald’s voice? I would like a direct citation from you if that has ever been done. You ask Willy and Vanessa for a direct citation all the time. It’s your turn.
Jean:
Here is a quote I asked you about on a different thread. I am hopeful you can respond to this one. This quote comes from T. Jeremy Gunn of the ARRB. Can you tell me what he is trying to tell us?
“The institution that had the opportunity to best get to the bottom of this, as much as it was possible, was the Warren Commission, and they didn’t do it,” he says. “Now it’s too late to do what should have been done originally.”
Why would he think the WC “didn’t do it?” Our friend Photon says it is because Mr. Gunn is “dense.” I am hoping you have a better explanation!
Jean:
So we are going on “who’s memory is fresher” in determining the evidence in this case? Hmmmm, that is curious. Because if I remember correctly, a large number of Parkland doctors and nurses and agent Hill described a gaping BOH wound that the later “evidence” says is not there. Which do we use, eyewitness account or “evidence” collected by “experts” which have shown themselves time after time to be quite shaky with their methods?
And, using the same standards that you pose to the CT, have YOU weighed these fragments to see if their weight matches what the government tells us it weighs?
And the cup of coffee comment? You mean, kind of like Dr. Humes did when he burned his original draft notes on the autopsy the morning after the assassination? Is that what you mean?
Jean:
Speaking of Dr. Humes, can you help me understand this exchange with Mr. Gunn?
“Dr. Humes admitted that the supposedly original handwritten version of the autopsy that is in the National Archives is in fact not the original version,” Gunn says. He says Humes had never said that publicly before, even to the Warren Commission.
In the deposition, Humes explained that when he took the material home after the autopsy was completed, he began thinking about how he had once seen the bloodstained chair Abraham Lincoln had been sitting in when he was shot.
“I thought this was the most macabre thing I ever saw in my life,” Humes said. “It just made a terrible impression on me. And when I noticed that these bloodstains were on this document that I had prepared, I said nobody’s ever going to get these documents. So I copied them … and burned the original notes in the fireplace.”
Exhibit 1, from Kennedy’s autopsy report, is the bloodstained document Dr. James Joseph Humes did not destroy.i
Exhibit 1, from Kennedy’s autopsy report, is the bloodstained document Dr. James Joseph Humes did not destroy.
Apic/Getty Images
When Gunn asked him whether there was anything in the original document that was not in the copy, Humes replied, “I don’t think so.”
Then Gunn showed Humes another document from the autopsy, a two-page document Gunn had marked as Exhibit No. 1. It, too, had blood stains, but Humes had not destroyed it. Why? Humes said it was because the document had been prepared by another doctor at the autopsy.
“I didn’t — wouldn’t — have the habit of destroying something someone else prepared,” Humes told Gunn during questioning.
I don’t get it. I get the part about the blood stained being gruesome, but the quote “I don’t think so’ when asked about leaving out any info from his original draft? This is is the POTUS. This is the CRIME of the CENTURY. Wouldn’t you be absolutely certain that EVERYTHING was in the second copy?
Also, wouldn’t you ask whomever submitted the bloodstained copy to also re-write that copy, citing your objections to the the blood?
We notice Jean, that you have not actually addressed my issues concerning Fackler’s experiments. You have simply reiterated his expertise, you have offered links to his other work to buttress such expertise.
This is an appeal to authority clearly and simply. Dr. Fackler’s credentials are not disputed. It is this particular paper on the Magic Bullet that is the issue.
You still refuse to address these issues, by simply continuing to point to the authority of Fackler’s credentials.
I therefore repeat, Fackler’s paper is junk because he does not address HOW the bullet lost velocity. He does not address the other work, of going through flesh and bone as the actual cause of loss of velocity.
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As Cranor has pointed out, a “blue ribbon” panel of expert physicians falsely claimed that nicotine was not habit-forming, and they knew at the time this was false. This fraud was finally exposed. It is well known that experts can be (a) bought, (b) intimidated in certain circumstances, and (c) conned into lying because of concerns for national security. And, finally, it should be pointed out that experts often disagree. To see experts telling blatant lies about the SBT, including the falsification of the size of Connally’s back wound, go here: http://www.history-matters.com/essays/jfkmed/BigLieSmallWound/BigLieSmallWound.htm
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Jean:
You say “NO shooting of this kind can be reproduced exactly.” Did I read that correctly? So we are to believe that LHO created the ONLY shot in the history of guns and ammunition that cannot be replicated on any type of scale OR with any type of similarity? Man, he REALLY was a “lone nut” and a “deranged loner.”
Using that information, how are we to believe that LHO CREATED the very shot that became the SBT? Oh, wait, I know this one! Arlen Specter and the “magic bullet!” Problem solved!
Humes only destroyed the original autopsy notes after Oswald was murdered, the same day I believe.
Because there would be no trial and no need to dance around whatever those notes would show.
You know what’s a more horrible sight than blood and does a much larger disservice to your country? Destroying evidence in the assassination of the POTUS.
Willy,
“We notice Jean, that you have not actually addressed my issues concerning Fackler’s experiments. You have simply reiterated his expertise, you have offered links to his other work to buttress such expertise.
This is an appeal to authority clearly and simply….”
Not at all. Quoting expert opinion on technical subjects isn’t an “appeal to authority” fallacy. Do you interpret your own x-rays or do you consult a radiologist? Experts can be wrong, so maybe you’ll want to get a second opinion or a third. The other experts I know about agree with Fackler, not Dolce.
“I therefore repeat, Fackler’s paper is junk because he does not address HOW the bullet lost velocity. He does not address the other work, of going through flesh and bone as the actual cause of loss of velocity.”
The bullet lost velocity by going through flesh without striking bone. It exited JFK’s neck at the calculated velocity Fackler used in his experiment. Other studies have shown that fully jacketed M-C bullets don’t deform under those circumstances. They can go through several feet of pine without deforming. Other experiments using simulated “necks” (or in Lattimer’s case, cadavers) also produced bullets resembling CE 399.
“I am not asking anyone to believe me Jean, I am asking for people to use their own minds and figure things out for themselves.”
That’s the problem with “JFK research” — people making up their minds on these technical issues based on “that’s how it looks to me.” Sure, people can decide for themselves that the Z film is faked, but they would be wrong, wouldn’t they? I believe you’ve said that you have experience in that area and faking the Z film would’ve been impossible. Since other film experts say the same thing, I agree with you about that.
As Duncan Macpherson has said, “The major frustrating feature of the Kennedy assassination phenomenon is the willingness of people to pretend to talk authoritatively on subjects they know absolutely nothing about, especially things related to firearms.”
“The bullet lost velocity by going through flesh without striking bone.”~Jean
That only pertains to Kennedy’s neck. The bullet that hit Connally did indeed strike rib bone.
Again; Fackler’s analysis is flawed for the reasons I already listed.
Your bringing up other studies that show certain results cannot save Fackler’s results from the faulty reasoning behind them.
If you do want to cite some other study, do so specifically.
Remember as well the point that this magic bullet hasn’t the characteristics of a missile that is proposed to have done all the damage to two victims, is not the only point sitting in a vacuum by itself.
There are also problems of trajectory, the issue of spastic time/space physics; that is pausing in flight and changing trajectory mid-flight before allegedly striking Connally.
There is also the chain of custody of this bullet that clearly is broken, which eliminates it from consideration on legal and rational grounds.
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Jean, the problem with 399 (the magic bullet), is that, assuming it entered the president’s thoracic spine and exited his neck around the knot of his necktie, it would HAVE to strike some bony portion of the cervical spine; at least the transverse process. The autopsy report and the x-rays show no injury to the cervical spine.
The path of this bullet cannot be explained without a bony injury to the cervical spine, and there was no such injury documented.
Jean:
Perhaps you can tell Mr. Macpherson there are SEVERAL MAJOR frustrating features with the Kennedy assassination.
1. The people charged with investigating the case had their own agendas which did NOT include determining the truth about what happened in Dallas.
2. The people in charge of the collection of evidence—the FBI and the CIA—have been shown, thanks to the relentless efforts of people like Morley and others, to be a rather large group of LIARS.
3. The witnesses that should have been called by the original WC were not, due to reasons that have YET to be explained.
4. The witnesses that were called have changed their stories so many times over the years that it is hard to know what to believe.
5. The WC was NOT, nor was EVER intended to be, a true investigative body. It was designed to be a “political, reassure the public because we are honorable men” committee. Correct me if I am wrong, but the actual committee members attended only 8% of the scheduled sessions. That number could be wrong, but it is in McKnight’s book “Breach of Trust.”
6. The ballistics evidence is only ONE of the major areas of misunderstanding about this case. Most of us on this thread do not have the opportunity nor the resources to adequately research this case. My hat is off to Mr. Morley for suing the CIA to release documents that should be readily available to any American that wants to look at them.
Maybe Mr. Macpherson could help the efforts by joining Mr. Morley and Mr. Shenon’s call to release ALL of the information the government has collected?
Would you agree that would be a GREAT starting point?
“As Duncan Macpherson has said, “The major frustrating feature of the Kennedy assassination phenomenon is the willingness of people to pretend to talk authoritatively on subjects they know absolutely nothing about, especially things related to firearms.”~Jean
I also want to address this as well as the last comment I made in response to Jean.
Ballistics is hardly an arcane art. It is based in physics. I have a very good grasp of physics, especially in the area of Momentum, Acceleration, Trajectory, Velocity, Collision, Kinetics and Crash Physics.
So to put me in the category of “people [who] pretend to talk authoritatively on subjects they know absolutely nothing about,” is not a valid point to be made to me specifically. I reject such characterization, as I feel I am fully qualified personally to speak to such issues – “accredited” or “licensed” or not.
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“Do you interpret your own x-rays or do you consult a radiologist? – Jean Davison”
If that radiologist had a vested interest in lying to me, or was being threatened, bribed, coerced in to telling me lies, then, naturally, I’d much prefer going to a trustworthy vet than to the radiologist who’s fudging science to achieve a desired result.
In any case, “science” is not an answer in and of itself, but a methodology to determine the answers, has to adhere to very strict data collection methods, and above all, needs to be peer reviewed. Jean, would you be able to provide names of any “peers” that actually reviewed his experiment, critiqued the methodology and questioned the results, let alone agreeing with its results?
And, since you admit to not knowing much about ballistics, what kind of criteria do you think makes you “choose” which expert to believe?
What’s next? Are you going to tell us that the earth is warming, and the universe “started” with a big bang just because “experts” who are paid to think so tell us so?
“If the best you have is simply believing what the government tells you, then you haven’t got anything”~Craig McKee
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The fact is we don’t know the path of the bullet in the president’s back because the pathologists never tracked the bullet’s path — standard procedure in any autopsy of a gunshot victim.
I’ve never heard any believable explanation as to why this didn’t happen. Reason enough to throw out the lone gunman theory, IMHO.
I agree Steve – let Photon provide some links to support his statements for once.
Although, Steve, just quietly, I don’t think Photon is that fond of facts after all. I mean he hasn’t even read our host’s book (how rude is that!) which is full of facts.
Willy,
QUOTE:
“The bullet lost velocity by going through flesh without striking bone.”~Jean
That only pertains to Kennedy’s neck. The bullet that hit Connally did indeed strike rib bone.
UNQUOTE
No, you misunderstood me. Fackler downloaded to the estimated velocity at which CE 399 exited JFK’s neck, *before* it hit Connally.
“If you do want to cite some other study, do so specifically.”
Dr. Lattimer wrote about his shooting experiments in medical journals and a book on Kennedy and Lincoln. The Discovery Channel’s reconstruction is online. No reconstruction can be perfect, but their bullets looked very much like CE 399.
Can you cite any similar study showing that CE 399 is impossible, or even improbable?
The bullet certainly didn’t change its trajectory in mid-flight. That’s a myth popularized by Oliver Stone.
Let’s stick to the condition of CE 399 for now instead of veering off into other issues, okay?
“If the best you have is simply believing what the government tells you, then you haven’t got anything”~Craig McKee
Hope you’re not referring to me, Willy, because I’ve been quoting ballistics experts not the gov’ment.
“No, you misunderstood me. Fackler downloaded to the estimated velocity at which CE 399 exited JFK’s neck, *before* it hit Connally.”~Jean
No, you misunderstand me Jean, no matter the cause of loss of velocity, Fackler still does not account for the missile striking the rib bone. This missile “AFTER leaving Kennedy’s neck” (which is only conjecture) did in fact strike another bone, aside from the flesh, skin and clothing it went through.
“Dr. Lattimer wrote about his shooting experiments in medical journals and a book on Kennedy and Lincoln. The Discovery Channel’s reconstruction is online. No reconstruction can be perfect, but their bullets looked very much like CE 399.”~Jean
Dr. Lattimer is a urologist, and a historian, he is not a ballistics expert and it shows in his shoddy understanding of, and trickery used in presenting his work on the subject. I will cite Milicent Cranor:
http://www.history-matters.com/essays/jfkmed/BigLieSmallWound/BigLieSmallWound.htm
“The bullet certainly didn’t change its trajectory in mid-flight. That’s a myth popularized by Oliver Stone.”~Jean
Yes it did indeed, the alignment of Kennedy to Connally demands that this bullet must have changed trajectory if it had actually exited Kennedy’s throat. But further is the ‘pause that refreshes’, where the missile does not strike Connally until several seconds after Kennedy was hit.
Both of these points are proven by the Zapruder film.
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Ed,
“… the problem with 399 (the magic bullet), is that, assuming it entered the president’s thoracic spine and exited his neck around the knot of his necktie, it would HAVE to strike some bony portion of the cervical spine…”
And how do you know that? I’m aware of one CT physician who says so, but most doctors who’ve examined JFK’s x-rays (there must be dozens by now) haven’t agreed with that.
See this discussion by the HSCA medical panel on “the course of the missile through the body”:
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=82&relPageId=106
“Hope you’re not referring to me, Willy, because I’ve been quoting ballistics experts not the gov’ment.”~Jean
Yes of course I am referring to you Jean, and all apologists for the Warren Report. Because the “experts” you cite are all speaking under the auspices of the “gov’ment”, a government that continues to this day to cover up the true nature of the Kennedy assassination.
I also contend that Lattimer is a fraud. You would not agree to this, but only frauds become darlings of mainstream media.
NOVA is infamous for it’s spurious presentations of pseudoscience on all things that pertain to official government narratives.
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Vanessa:
I am afraid that our dear friend Photon and his friends do not like to veer far from the WC and its bevy of government appointed “experts” to discuss this case. Photon loves to sit back and throw stones at people like Hill, Crenshaw, and Craig and point out how they have, in his opinion, changed their stories through the years. However, my friend refuses to explain to me how Hill and Crenshaw are any different from the CIA posse of Helms, Angleton, Fitzgerald, and Philips. They have been lying since 1963. Mr. Morley, on this site, believes as do most rational Americans, that they are guilty of perjury. But good ol’ Photon will not broach that subject. He has yet to explain how one group of people lying and changing their story about the JFK assassination is any different from another group of people lying and changing their story about JFK’s death. I do know this: had the investigators like Slawson and Belin been willing to dig a little deeper and ask the tough questions in ’63, we would not be hearing today in 2015 how they feel like they were duped by an agency that HAS always been known as masters of deceit. Really, Slawson, you had NO idea the CIA might withhold information from the WC?
Maybe one day Photon will step up to the plate and stop throwing rocks at people like Hill and Crenshaw long enough to explain how Helms and his horde avoided going to jail. Because only when ALL of the facts related to this case are made public, without the need for lawsuits through the FOIA, will we really know what happened in Dallas. But to do that, Photon will not be able to read from the WC, and he will have to look at facts not written by Ford, Specter, and the other “distinguished” members of the LBJ disinformation committee.
Willy,
“Dr. Lattimer is a urologist, and a historian, he is not a ballistics expert and it shows in his shoddy understanding of, and trickery used in presenting his work on the subject. I will cite Milicent Cranor:…”
According to his NYTimes obituary, Lattimer was both a “a prominent urologist” AND a “ballistics expert.” He published peer-reviewed articles on the subject in JAMA and other medical journals:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=jk+lattimer+AND+kennedy&btnG=&as_sdt=1%2C44&as_sdtp=
Martin Fackler also had peer-reviewed articles on JFK ballistics. The experts I’ve mentioned weren’t speaking “under the auspices” of the government but on their own. If I’m wrong about that, show me the evidence.
How do you know that Ms. Cranor’s criticism of Lattimer is correct?
I should have explained that Fackler didn’t attempt to recreate the entire shooting sequence. His test was designed to refute the idea that CE399 couldn’t have broken Connally’s radius without suffering more distortion (as Dolce and others have claimed). Fackler pointed out that CE 399 actually showed that it “had to be traveling considerably slower than if it would have been a direct shot” like the Edgewood test bullets, which were fired directly into bone and were more deformed. He explained this on his first page:
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/pdf/fackler.pdf
What CT “ballistic expert,” if there are any, has published in a peer-reviewed journal? Can’t think of any offhand, but maybe you can remind me.
Jean, thank you for the reference to the radiology report. They note “small radiopaque densities appearing in one film (#8), but not in #9.
They are described as less than 0.1 cm, near C-7 and T-1 (what about C-8?), and a larger shadow near the right transverse process of C-7.
As you probably know, small artifacts are common in x-rays and modern MRI’s. God knows what the state of imaging was in 1963.
But for a full metal jacket missile, traveling at 2,000 f/p/s, causing seven separate orthopedic injuries, one would expect a clear fracture of the spine before it ever hit Connally. The most convincing evidence, other than Connally himself testifying, is the Zapruder film.
I have fractured a bone; the same one as Connally. I felt it immediately. My daughter fell out of a shopping cart and fractured the same bone. She felt it immediately.
President Kennedy was hit by the first bullet. He reacted immediately.
Look at the film. Connally does not react for several seconds, while JFK is in clear distress.
When everything else fails, rely on common sense. (I tell juries that).
Ed,
“Look at the film. Connally does not react for several seconds, while JFK is in clear distress.”
I once thought so too, but look at this slow motion clip from the Z film:
http://s217.photobucket.com/user/David_Von_Pein/media/MISCELLANEOUS%20JFK-RELATED%20PHOTOS/Z-FilmClipSBTInMotion.gif.html
David Von Pein has other illustrations of the two men’s reactions here (scroll down):
http://simple-act-of-murder.blogspot.com/
“When everything else fails, rely on common sense. (I tell juries that).”
The SBT may seem to defy common sense but numerous experts have supported the SBT as the most probable solution. If there were a better explanation it seems to me there should be a consensus among the critics by now on an alternate shooting scenario, but there isn’t. That’s very telling, imo.
ed connor, yours is a refreshing and sorely needed reminder in this investigation.
We citizens were sold a bill of goods with that bullet. Even Jean argues that unless a better answer can be agreed upon, she goes along with the magic qualities of the bullet. That suggests to me a flawed reasoning process, not that one particular elephant couldn’t under the perfect circumstances hang for a mili-second from a 50 story building, but that there simply is no evidence – and in fact there is contradictory evidence – the bullet did what was posited in the WCR.
An aspect of the assassination and the cover up was to erode our confidence in ourselves. You remind us to reclaim common sense and that as jurists we would be directed to incorporate that into deliberations. thank you.
“I once thought so too, but look at this slow motion clip from the Z film:”~Jean
You think that is when Connally got hit Jean? And he is still able to hold on to his white had after that bullet broke his wrist…BS
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The sneak-trick is in using that looped sequence as they come from behind the sign – if you watch what happens as the film goes on, Connally turns back around , still sitting up and THEN reacts to a shot just before the fatal head shot to Kennedy.
Connally cannot have kept a’hold of his hat, and turned back around still sitting up if he was hit when Jean and David VonP claim.
Watch the full sequence here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqzJQE8LYrQ
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TESTIMONY FROM HOLLYWOOD EXPERTS?
I’d like to see some testimony from those film experts in Hollywood who say that the Zapruder film has been altered or tampered with (for ex. blacking out in crude fashion the back of JFK’s head in the fatal head shot sequence of frames). Supposedly there are top notch experts who can verify that this film has been tampered with.
Anyone know where we can find their testimony online?
Exactly Willy. Jean, how do you explain Connally sitting straight up and staring JFK in the face after he has been shot?
His own testimony is that he ‘crumpled’ immediately on being shot and believed himself to be seriously injured due to the amount of blood.
“TESTIMONY FROM HOLLYWOOD EXPERTS?
Anyone know where we can find their testimony online?”~Sam
Horne still has them hid in his closet far as I can tell.
His ‘Big Bang’ Coup In Camelot seems to have fizzled in the back lot.
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Willy,
“That looped sequence” you call a “sneak-trick” is still there showing Connally’s movements. How would you explain them? Muscle spasms? Bee sting?
http://simple-act-of-murder.blogspot.com/
“Connally cannot have kept a’hold of his hat, and turned back around still sitting up if he was hit when Jean and David VonP claim.”
You know this how? Here’s Dr. Baden’s comment starting line 324 here:
https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult&absPageId=45725
““That looped sequence” you call a “sneak-trick” is still there showing Connally’s movements. How would you explain them? Muscle spasms? Bee sting?”~Jean Davison
I would explain Connally’s movements and expressions; as those of panic upon seeing Kennedy obviously hit after turning towards what he recognized as a rifle shot. Connally is yelling, “my god they’re going to kill us all!”
One thing about this controversy that you MUST add to your conjectures is that Connally himself says he was not shot until he had begun to turn back to his left. Don’t attempt to slip past this testimony.
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Willy,
“I would explain Connally’s movements and expressions; as those of panic upon seeing Kennedy obviously hit after turning towards what he recognized as a rifle shot….”
Not possible, since his movements start around frame 225 when his right hand flies up just as JFK also begins to react. The Z film shows he’s not turned far enough to see JFK behind him.
He was turned further to his right earlier in the Z film and had started turning left before he was hit but hadn’t gotten far in his turn.
Not possible, since his movements start around frame 225 when his right hand flies up just as JFK also begins to react. The Z film shows he’s not turned far enough to see JFK behind him.”`Jean Davison
Not possible? How do you know when JFK begins to react, he was hit in the throat while the limo was behind the sign.
Connally’s right hand never “flies up”.
Connally is turned around facing Kennedy squarely before he begins turning back toward the front.
Most importantly Connally never drops his white hat.
And yes I read that Commission Report dialog, where they decide regardless of Connally’s own testimony to the contrary that they decide in their “infinite wisdom” to dismiss it and go with a single bullet.
And then the way the lead the testimony of the doctor about the wrist wound, until he goes along. The same sham techniques one will read time and again in that half baked farce.
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1 Why would SA Hosty on September 10, 1963 generate a report on LHO as NO was FBI office of origin
http://www.whatsnextreport.com/uploads/2/6/6/9/26693570/nodulex22-october_1963_to_november_22_1963.pdf
2 https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=40391&relPageId=78t
Sept 6 LHO cashed his UI cheque in NO but FBI can’t authenticate the signature
Sept 9 LHO cashed his UI cheque in NO FBI authenticate his signature
He makes an excellent point about people in Dallas being intimidated about saying anything controversial once they saw Oswald shot on national television. If I had seen or heard something that contradicted the party line I don’t think I would have come forward either.
Sad – very sad. This is just another piece of red meat for the WC advocates.
The gravel pit background looks like an ISIS video studio. How does one totally forget about seeing LHO for 50 years and then (now) suddenly remember?
so if I understand correctly, he claims Phillips asked him for the location of a coffee shop for a building he supposedly visited frequently?
and what red-blooded american man born in 1948 uses the term “meters” instead of feet?
The need to continually refer to his notes suggests to me he is not describing a memory but a fictionalized account. For a former member of the speech team, not a very good public speaker
My BS antennae went on high alert.
I watched this via a link on CTKA yesterday. They provided no comment. While it seemed like a sincere old guy clearing his conscience, why did he wait till now? Why did he do it in a gravel pit or whatever, just him and the camera?
Just wondering if Jeff or CTKA tried to contact this Wynne Johnson at the e-mail address provided?