Tag: forensic evidence

Josiah Thompson on how to think about November 22

Josiah Thompson, known to friends as Tink, is the JFK researcher emeritus. As a philosophy graduate student in 1966, he was the first person (outside the CIA) to make a serious forensic analysis of Abraham Zapruder’s film of the assassination of President Kennedy. As a private investigator, he had a fascinating 30 year career.

Now Thompson is back with a new book, “Last Second in Dallas,” revising his findings in his classic “Six Seconds In Dallas.” I haven’t read the new book but this review is good and it highlights something I, and many other learned from him: how to think about the JFK story.

Janet Reno’s JFK legacy

When Janet Reno, the first women Attorney General passed away last week there was no mention of one historic thing she did — order the new testing of evidence in the assassination of President Kennedy.

Source: JFKcountercoup

The remarkable story of Skip Rydberg  

People regularly assure me that we already know the whole JFK story with the claim, “Somebody would have talked by now.”

“People did talk,” I like to reply. “People like Skip Rydberg. Ever heard of him?”

Most people don’t know his story but it is well worth telling. Harold “Skip” Rydberg had a minor but interesting role in the JFK story: he illustrated the medical evidence for the Warren Commission.

Questioning Dale Myer’s JFK animation

Myers Critiqued
Myerr’s re-creation (left) compared to a photo from a near simultaneous moment in Dealey Plaza.

In WhoWhatWhy, Russ Baker and Milicent Cranor call into question Myer’s animated recreation of the first gunshot to hit President Kennedy. Myer’s work was used by ABC News special that affirmed the unpopular lone gunman theory.

Fair criticism?

 

Study concludes Oswald backyard photo not faked

For more than forty-five years the the authenticity of a photo of Lee Harvey Oswald in his backyard has disputed. Oswald said it was fake. And JFK conspiracy theorists — who believe the assassination was part of a government plot — cite it as a key piece of evidence in their case”

Better make that “a few JFK conspiracy theorists,”  I don’t know of any working JFK journalist or published historian who says the Oswald backyard photos are “key” to understanding the case.  …

What’s the story with Governor Connally’s wound?

Milicent Cranor passed on the following note:

“On March 23, 2015, at 2:08 p.m. [in the JFK Facts Comment section], Jean Davison ended a message to someone named “Willy” with this comment: ‘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.’ ”

Where did the gunshot that killed JFK come from?

Grassy Knoll 11/22/63

This photograph, courtesy of Duncan MacDonald, taken several minutes after President Kennedy was shot to death, shows a crowd of people, including newsman Robert MacNeil (later host of MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour), rushing to look at the railroad tracks and parking lot overlooking the motorcade route on November 22, 1963.

There is no disputing that they rushed to that area, known as “the grassy knoll,” because they thought one of the gunshots had come from there. No gunman was ever found there.

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