The Rev. Lance Moore joins James Douglass as a theologian who has thought long and hard about the JFK assassination. In a piece publised in Op-Ed News yesterday, Moore, an ordained Methodist minister, asks of JFK’s murder, “Why are they still lying to us?”
Good question.
In his book “JFK and the Unspeakable,” now out in paperback, Douglass argues that the truth is not known because of our reluctance to face the reality of evil in the world. Good answer.
The two men are of different faiths. Moore is an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church, while Douglass is an exponent of Catholic liberation theology. But both see the JFK story as relevant to our deepest spiritual beliefs.
While I’m an agnostic myself, I confess I find their views especially compelling because they have experience with the human struggle to explain morality and the workings of the world.
Moore explains:
“I am not a kook. Several parchments from prestigious institutions hang on my wall to assure me that I’m not crazy. I’m not a 911 ‘Truther’ or a ‘Man didn’t land on the moon’ conspiracy nut. Yet, when I began promoting my book about the JFK assassination, I observed some curious things. Major news outlets circled their wagons around the ‘official’ government story that Lee Harvey Oswald was a lone nut, nixing any dissenting opinions. Pro-Warren Commission, pro-lone-gunman pundits (a dying breed) were trotted out on CBS, ABC and even PBS. Credible experts who offer proof of government complicity were dis-invited.”
Moore’s new book is Killing JFK: 50 Years, 50 Lies–From the Warren Commission to Bill O’Reilly, A History of Deceit in the Kennedy Assassination.
Pat Speer wrote on April 17:
“…being a tangential wound of both entrance and exit. If true, this means the entrance observed by the EOP was a separate wound, and Kennedy had two head wounds.”
In his ARRB testimony, Humes testifies that there was a large defect in the right parietal bone; that with fragments from Dallas, the defect could not be completely closed; and that three to five (square) centimeters of scalp and bone remained missing at the end of the autopsy.
This squares with what you write. It also puts the lie to the photo showing JFK’s rear skull neatly intact.
Not really.Almost certainly bone and scalp tissue was destroyed by the original wound; it would not be unexpected to find that the remaining residual tissue would be incomplete.
Its not as Aguilar seems to beleive.
Gary did something no one had done. He went through all the declassified medical files of the HSCA.
He then proved with hidden testimony that the HSCA misrepresented the facts in their report.
When he confronted the suspects with this deception, namely that the Bethesda witnesses disagreed with the Parkland witness on this issue–which they did not–neither Baden, nor Purdy, nor Blakey would admit to knowing who wrote that misrepresentation.
Its not Gary’s job to explain how the photos were smudged or somehow misrepresented. Its his job to raise questions that are pertinent to the facts of the autopsy. Which he did.
And by the way, John McAdams always used that fallacious phrase in the report to say people like Groden were wrong. They were not. McAdams was wrong to take it at face value. Nothing should he taken at face value in this case.
“Nothing should he taken at face value in this case.”
Couldn’t agree more.
The incentives certain important players had for misrepresenting facts were powerful. The incentives certain unimportant individuals (James Files, Robert Buick, Judyth Baker, et al) had to misrepresent themselves and their actions have been powerful. There’s vastly more chaff than wheat in this case.
We al owe Dr. Aguilar a debt of gratitude for exposing what more and more appears top be a lie that Gerald Posner put forth regarding recordings he claimed he had of James Tague and Dr. Boswell. And he (Dr. Aguilar) did not allow the research community to forget that Posner promised the ARRB his documentation, only to stonewall them.
I contacted Posner last fall requesting to produce his evidence, only to receive cyber silence.
Dr. Aguilar also came forth with evidence further proving the single bullet theory even more deceptive by tracking down a valuable witness.
And he also brought forth the evidence very plain, clear, and precise – that was covered up for so many years that many witnesses at Bethesda testified to the same back of the head wound as in Parkland.
What I stated above just a mere fraction of what Dr. Aguilar has done to bring out the truth to the research community.
Note that if the back of the head was really blown out (as Aguilar seems to believe) then the autopsy photos and x-rays are faked or forged.
But Aguilar refuses to say whether they are faked or forged.
Perhaps not, but maybe it’s a case of a flap of scalp and bone stretched over.
Dr. Kemp Clark said there was a wound in the right occipito-parietal region.
Well, he certainly likes to claim that individuals in the ER who saw JFK for less than 20 minutes during a rushed resusitation event that many admitted involved only brief glimpses of a wound occluded by matted hair and blood
are more reliable that 3 pathologists who did the necropsy.
That just flies in the face of all medical evidence.
Photon, it’s a pain in the butt to witness your endless attempts here to shut down discussion of the medical record.
Who are you to say that a physician is or is not competent to make some medical judgment?
I gather you’re an EMT. Good for you. You’re like a paralegal. You’re trained to perform some useful services. You should stop posing as a medical expert. It doesn’t wash, and it’s annoying.
Actually I am a medical expert. Ask any medical question and I will give you a correct answer.You will be responsible for the co-pay, however.
Ok, Photon, just for fun, here are some questions:
1. What simple test does a neurologist perform to determine whether a tremor is caused by Parkinson’s on the one hand or, say, essential tremor on the other?
2. If you accidentally inhaled a small amount of barium nitrate, what would be a good step to take using a common household product? And why?
3. Describe a common way a relatively young person might acquire a calcified section of leg tendon.
4. A bonus question: In the Zapruder film Greer’s head turns to face JFK and then turns back forward. It’s been determined his head swings are faster than humanly possible. How can this be?
1. Repeated movements of one hand or leg will cause a Parkinson’s patient to reveal the stereotypical tremor in the opposite extremity.
Of course, another way is to give a small amount of alcohol to the patient; that will usually eliminate an essential tremor. I am not getting into the micrographia issue.
2. Beats me, but I certainly wouldn’t give something orally like Epsom salts to anybody with an aspiration until examined by a physician.
3. Repeated trauma is usually the cause of tendon calcification.
4. Who ever “determined” that is on error.Or your interpretation of that claim is in error .
Do you believe in Zapruder film alteration?
Reply to John McAdams:
Yes. For a number of reasons. I’ll mention a few.
1. The extant Z-film contains a number of obvious anomalies, such as bodies in the limo being thrown forward for no apparent reason.
2. The extant Z-film does not square with Clint Hill’s statements as to his movements in D.P. nor does it square with the Nix film recordation of those movements.
3. The extant Z-film is at odds with both Mary Moorman’s claim of being in the street when she snapped her famous photo and the Nix film’s depiction of her standing on the street.
4. The extant Z-film fails to show the dramatic slowing of the limo, which the Nix film reveals and as to which many credible witnesses affirmed.
5. The extant Z-film is at odds with Altgens 6 as to the position of DPD officer James Chaney.
6. Others including Dan Rather have reported seeing quite a different version of the Z-film,
7. Doug Horne and Peter Janney have established there were two separate NPIC events in which briefing boards were prepared on successive nights from two different versions of the Z-film. One version came straight from Dallas. One version came straight from Hawkeye works.
You asked if I believe the Z-film was altered. I do. I’ve given here a few of the reasons I so believe.
If I were charged with proving film alteration in a trial court, I’d of course call expert witnesses; persons such John Costella, who could testify as to the technicalities of the extant film and the camera Zapruder used.
Reply to Photon:
You get a failing grade.
Quesution (1): A sharp, unexpected finger tap on the forehead between the eyes reveals the difference between Parkinsons and essential tremor in terms of eye movement.
Question (2): Good idea to see a physician. You’ve been badly poisoned by barium nitrate. You mention epsom salts (magnesium sulfate). What’s wrong, and WHY if at all, with taking magnesium sulfate after absorbing barium nitrate?
Question (3): How would a relatively young person inflict repeated trauma to a leg tendon?
Come on Photon. You screwed up the answer to bonus question #4. I can give you more questions.
1. Got a reference? Actually making the diagnosis of essential tremor vs Parkinson’s tremor is not so simple that one test can deferentiate between the two; there is considerable overlap. My examples are genuine ( except using alcohol, which still is accurate), yours is not. Apparently you do not know that essential tremor is not marked by abnormal eye movements; the eye issues with Parkinson’s are not with stereotypical eye movements but instead with alteration of saccades, not visible on standard exams. This leads to decreased blinking and eye irritation. Head tapping has nothing to do with that.
2.Aspiration of Barium nitrate would not have issues related to the systemic absorption of the compound, so solubility issues would not be a concern.The possible chemical damage to the lung might be- along with the possibility of aspiration pneumonia.
3. Calcific Tendonitis is caused by repeated use of the muscle associated with the tendon, causing repeated episodes of micro trauma associated with irritation and presumed injury and inflammatory response.Repeated episodes will lead to tissue calcification. If this is not a satisfactory answer, please give your explanation. Remember, when you hear hoof beats don’t think of zebras.
Give me more questions. But answer me this- do you think that vaccinations for childhood diseases cause autism?
What you say is misleading. In “Murder in Dealey Plaza”, Aguilar does a meticulous job of comparing Humes’s and Boswell’s ARRB testimony to the extant autopsy photographic record. What emerges is amazing.
Humes and Boswell, separately, provide a picture of the autopsy room, in which they are fitting pieces of skull flown up from Dallas into the back of JFK’s head and determining from beveling on one piece of skull fragment that a bullet had entered JFK’s head at the EOP.
Aguilar makes crystal clear that Humes’s and Boswell’s testimonies to the ARRB squarely conflict with the photos and drawings showing an intact rear skull.
Just finished reading Moore’s book. Honestly, I wasn’t impressed. Seems to me to be a collection of a lot of hearsay and points that have been dismissed or discredited before. The Douglass book, in spite of a few flaws, is far better, IMO.
I suspect “Randy Owens” is a debunker as his “critique” rings hollow. My book is supported by over 200 footnotes, many from the government records themselves, not “hearsay.” And in any section where I quote a witness, there is always corroborating testimony from others to the same fact. My book is still rated 4.1 stars on Amazon despite a concerted effort by debunkers (like S.V. Anderson… a false name) to try to discredit it by giving it one star.
Randy Owen was actively involved in the JFK Lancer conferences, and is well- known within the research community. if he didn’t like your book, Dr. Moore, it’s because he didn’t like your book. it doesn’t mean he’s right. But we have no reason to doubt his sincerity.
Thanks, Mr. Morley, for the good “plug” for my recent article in OpEdNews. I’ve been a fan of your work for a long time myself. Gratefully, Lance
http://www.c-span.org/video/?198378-1/book-discussion-jfk-assassination-debates\
Michael L. Kurtz is an American historian. A Southeastern Louisiana University professor emeritus of history, he is known for his research into the assassination of John F. Kennedy
It appears there are three levels of consciousness brought to bear upon the JFK assassination: those ignorant, those inclined toward plot, and those opposed to a plot. I’m not convinced Americans can not accept that there is evil in the world. Such a position is similar to Warren Commissioner Allen Dulles stating Americans will never read the Warren Report, or that the CIA does the ‘dirty work’ Americans are unwilling to acknowledge, or accept, as a price for Democracy/Capitalism. So, our Federal government does its dark/evil deeds in foreign countries, yet chickens always come home to roost. 911 was a direct result of US foreign entanglements and those chickens coming home to roost. Many think 911 was allowed to happen to usher in the repressive planks of the US Code pertaining to infringement upon civil liberties in the so-called “war against terrorism”. Such changes seem never to be repealed; besides, the US has generously spread the seeds of terrorism by propping up right-wing dictatorships and puppet governments around the world for at least 100 years. Malcolm X commented on the JFK assassination: “It’s a simple case of the chickens coming home to roost.” Americans really do accept is that their government is one of the biggest murderers and terrorist in the world today – and has been for over 60 years! Are people willing to face how America got this way? JFK’s assassination is a snap shot of those dark forces in America in 1963 – the darkness is now more dense because the Federal Government’s military hardware is so much more brutally efficient.
I would argue that Malcolm’s X comment about chickens coming home to roost WRT the Kennedy Assassination presumed that it was executed at the hands of foreign interests as opposed to domestic foes.
However, Jim Garrison aptly said:
Unfortunately, this sort of thinking is an invitation to take whatever position one finds aesthetically pleasing, and then fashion a position around that.
Dougless is a complete mess in his use of evidence.
http://www.washingtondecoded.com/site/2009/12/unspeakably-awful.html
“Unfortunately, this sort of thinking is an invitation to take whatever position one finds aesthetically pleasing, and then fashion a position around that.”
You mean like someone who decides to ignore the overwhelming scientific evidence that man is warming the earth’s climate?
As opposed to someone who ignores the fact that the earth has not warmed for 17 years?
And that all the models of global warming promulgated in the 1990s are failed badly?
The mainstream scientific community are a bunch of liars? Sounds like “conspiracist” thinking to me, John.
Not lying, but you have:
1. Vested interests in the theory
2. Careerism
3. Groupthink
Remember, a century ago, eugenics was mainstream science.
But John, this is the same scientific/academic community that lone-nutters (and government investigations) rely on so much for “expert opinion” about the ballistics and medical evidence.
And this the same scientific community that you folks reject when their opinions on the assassination are inconvenient.
I have to point out:
1. Climate scientists have a huge vested interest in global warming. Forensic pathologists and related disciplines have no vested interest in the Kennedy assassination. People can believe in a conspiracy or not and they keep their jobs and their incomes.
2. Climate science is a much newer discipline than forensic pathology, ballistics, handwriting and fingerprint analysis, etc. The climate system is extremely complex.
Thus climate models promulgated in the 1990s have failed badly.
We have had no global warming for 17 years now. That ought to engender just a little skepticism.
I’m sure you are aware that entire disciplines have gone off the rails. Think of Piltdown Man (an outright hoax that fooled a lot of scientists) and eugenics (not a hoax, but badly misguided).
So John, What is your conclusion after 50 years. Was there a conspiracy with more than Oswald involved or did the Warren Commission get it right that only the “lone nut” knew anything. You spend a lot of time putting down information but i have yet to hear you say what really happened. Can you tell us now after 5O years?
Oswald shot JFK. It’s extremely unlikely that there was any conspiracy.
If you believe that John, then how do you reconcile the national security agencies missing a guy like Oswald when:
o He was the first Marine to ever defect to a communist country, admitted he would give up US military secrets, and then doesn’t get a CIA 201 file long after his defection and is never interrogated or prosecuted upon his return?
o A guy who sought out and deliberately provokes the leader of a CIA-sponsored group in NO, gets TV, radio and newspaper coverage a pro-Castro Marxist, requests an interview with the FBI plus has a press release written about him calling for a Congressional investigation into his antics?
o A guy who makes highly provocative engagements with both the Cuban and Russian embassies in Mexico City?
o A guy who writes a highly inflammatory letter to the Russian embassy in DC that is opened by the FBI two weeks prior to the assassination?
How many guys like Oswald were walking around in 1963? If he’s a lone assassin, do you believe the security agencies have ever fully explained how they missed his presence on the motorcade route? Did anyone lose their job or get in trouble over this incredible oversight?
A fair number. There were plenty of left-wing nuts around, and most of them (like Oswald) did not seem to present any threat of violence.
You have to be careful about thinking that Oswald looked to be very special or unusual. We how view him that way. But that’s not the issue.
When Oswald did something provocative (defect, get in a brawl on Canal Street, visit the embassies in Mexico City) that created a paper trail.
But nothing in that paper trial suggested he might shoot somebody.
o You didn’t really address the main point how Oswald “walked between the raindrops” when he had done so much aggressively subversive actions against the US(defection to USSR, giving up “secrets”, the letter to the Russian embassy in DC)
o There’s a lot of paper trail that we’ve never seen, including Oswald’s note that Hosty was told to thrown down the toilet, Oswald’s interview with FBI in NO, etc.
o So you feel that the US national security agencies were fully upfront about their dealings with Oswald and fully investigated for taking him off the security watch list just prior to the assassination?
o Oswald has never been identified being in the company of any US-based communist. He did, however, seem to behave like a communist that the right-wing imagined existed and they believed was a threat to the US. In other words, I have a difficult time seeing him as a true left-leaning person. And what leftist shoots a liberal president?
Look . . . if one is steeped in conspiracy literature, everything seems suspicious. But only on November 22 did Oswald seem to be so “special.”
Check the HSCA Defector Study. There had been perhaps 20 other defectors at least broadly similar to Oswald. They were mentally unstable, and virtually all of them changed their mind and wanted to return.
This framed the way officials (State, particularly) viewed Oswald.
All of which are the result of Oswald’s own schemes to become some important activist.
The encounter with Bringuier was described by Oswald himself as an “infiltration” of the anti-Castro forces.
And that created quite a paper trail with the CIA and the FBI. But nothing there would have suggested Oswald was violent.
Read John Whitten’s testimony. All sorts of unstable and unbalanced people went into embassies with this or that request or threat.
And it was “inflammatory” how? It made it clear he wanted to get a visa, and thought he had been maltreated by the embassy in Mexico City.
Thank you from me John McAdams for your provocative post.
You throw up against the wall a bunch of what would be called circumstantial evidence.
Welcome to the party.
I ask an impartial jury of twelve persons here, after pro and con lawyers argue according to the rules of evidence, to weigh in on what you say. That’s all.
My opinion, which matters not. Your view goes down the drain. Simply because assertions do not replace facts.
OK, one last question:
If the national security agencies are innocent of any gross negligence or wrongdoing in the Kennedy case, why did the CIA hide the fact they funded the DRE from the WC and HSCA? And then illegally placing the DRE’s handler as the Congressional liaison during the HSCA.
As Bugliosi likes to say, it sounds like knowledge of guilt of some kind to me.
OT: I don’t know about 17 years but I’ve read that there’s been a ‘pause’.
This is an example of the pot calling the kettle black.
John McAdams is a complete mess in HIS use of evidenced.
http://www.ctka.net/reviews/McAdams_Aguilar.html
http://www.patspeer.com/the-gospel-according-to-john-mcadams
http://www.ctka.net/reviews/mcadams_Cassano.html
http://www.ctka.net/reviews/McAdams_Mantik.html
I’m afraid you are citing only hard core conspiracists who can be expected to reject and attack any book that doesn’t espouse a conspiracy.
And I note you could not defend Douglass.
Let’s forget about the labels for those at opposite ends of the spectrum but can you defend yourself from those critics/critiques listed by Mr. Aguilar?
Come on, John, you know I am not a “hard core conspiracist.” I assume you mean by that that I will automatically side with conspiracy theorists against single-assassin theorists. in the review you seek to dismiss, I admitted that there were some good parts to your book, and that I agreed with many of your conclusions. You know this, for that matter, because we discussed it in Pittsburgh.
Actually, I didn’t notice your review buried among CTKA stuff.
So yes, you are not a hard-core conspiracist.
Maybe just a soft-core one. 🙂
Dr. Aguilar , you seem to imply that multiple board-certified pathologists got it wrong, but an Opthalmologist like you with no real training in forensic pathology knows more than recognized world experts. You are an educated man.Do you really think that Johms Hopkins is not one of the premier, if not THE premier medical institutions of this country? And yet, you imply that experts from that institution can’t be trusted . You know better. Obviously you are an expert in something like a Marcus-Gunn lid repair. But are you really an expert in post-mortem skull X-Rays? Are you really an expert in wound pathology? Frankly, how long has it been since you did a physical examination ?
Photon,
You’re all wrong about expertise. Expertise is not simply the product of education and training. History is replete with examples.
— Errol Garner, the great jazz pianist and composer of “Misty” was self-taught, as have been many famous musicians.
— Albert Einstein was a mere patent clerk when, using Gedanken (thought experiments) he devised the Special Theory of Relativity.
— Paul Gaugin took up painting seriously in mid-life with no formal training.
To suggest Dr. Aguilar, a splendid physician, is incompetent to weigh in on the medical aspects of the JFK is a gross insult. You should apologize.
So being an artist or musician is the same as being a forensic pathologist? You can be a self-taught forensic pathologist without five years of formal training AFTER medical school? Are you serious?
By the way, Einstein was well known as a physicist who had published when he took the patent office job because he couldn’t get a teaching job.He completed his formal PhD to teach at the University level in 1905.
By the way photon it didn’t take a forensic pathologist to botch the JFK autopsy; to burn autopsy notes and initial autopsy draft; to create a fog concerning JFK’s wounds. No, Humes and Boswell did just fine.
Also by the way photon I suspect many here don’t like being preached to about medical matters by one who is not a physician. I certainly don’t tolerate being preached to about the law by a non-lawyer.
Politics and questionable autopsy x-rays and photos influenced the FPP that didn’t want to go against the grain.
The original autopsy surgeons saw differently (and they had their own influences).
According to ballistics expert Howard Donohue, if we are to accept the FPP’s determinations, their fatal headshot would not have come from the TSBD.
Even to a lay person, the cowlick spot looks more like a blood stain than an entry hole (that’s why Humes and company never concluded it was a bullet hole).
Yes, they got it wrong.
Photon wears out this talking point:
“you seem to imply that multiple board-certified pathologists got it wrong”
As you know, Photon, the x-rays and photos are controversial. For example, there’s a 6.5mm ‘object’ clearly visible in one of the x-rays. No one at the autopsy noticed this sizable object that ‘coincidentally’ fits the caliber of the alleged murder weapon. That’s simply not believable . . . and suggests post autopsy tampering. [Yes, it’s true, some of us think there was a cover-up!]
And the ‘expert’ opinions were based on the x-ray/photo images of an incomplete, severely fractured skull. The HSCA tried to get an accurate placement of the skull fragments, but that’s a contentious topic as well.
Furthermore no one has persuasively explained why the three blind prosectors, examining the skull in real time, located the head wound four inches lower than the esteemed experts whose interpretations followed.
All of this has been thoroughly researched, and there’s a lot more. I’m done.
No matter how many times you parrot the WC fundamentalists’ talking point, it won’t explain or reconcile the serious inconsistencies in the record.
They are controversial only to individuals with no understanding of forensic pathology and medical facts. Even Dr. Wecht admits that they are genuine.
I wish you had the courage most of us do to use your real name, ‘Photon,’ but if you’ll read what I’ve written on the subject of the “experts” you’ll soon see that you neither need an advanced degree, nor even the MD I have, to grasp that the “experts” you embrace regularly bent the evidence in an anti-conspiracy direction.
And for reasons not unlike those that Russell Fisher, MD explained in a published article:
Skeptic Milicent Cranor has pointed out[167] that shortly after Justice had quietly completed reinvestigating and reaffirming JFK’s original autopsy findings in 1966 and 1967, Clark was still so fretful that he orchestrated yet another autopsy-related project in anticipation of what he feared was about to be published. Clark’s continuing concern was revealed by one of the individuals who Clark selected to sit on what later came to be called the “Clark Panel”: Russell Fisher, MD, the Chief Medical Examiner of the State of Maryland.
In a March 1977 Maryland State Medical Journal interview, Fisher reported that Ramsey Clark, “became concerned about some statements he’d seen in the proofs of” the not yet published book by Josiah Thompson, Six Seconds in Dallas. “[Clark] decided to get a panel of people together to look at [the autopsy evidence], independently of all other investigations … The result of this panel review was that we found some minor errors in [JFK’s autopsy] protocol, such as the site of the entrance wound as being just above the external occipital protuberance … .”[168] The Clark Panel Report was released “partly to refute some of the junk that was in [Thompson’s] book,” Fisher said.[169]
http://www.history-matters.com/essays/jfkmed/How5Investigations/How5InvestigationsGotItWrong_2.htm
Unless you think yourself so stoopid that you can’t evaluate simple, med/autopsy evidence yourself, and so should accept the “experts'” ‘argument from authority,’ read my multipart essay in detail and get back to me. Oh, and be sure to check my citations, too.
What is your real name, ‘Photon?’
I did indeed inform Dr. Aguilar of Russell Fisher’s remarks about the Thompson book. But, back in the early 1990’s, I gave Dr. Aguilar other information which, in my opinion, was a more likely reason for the creation of the Clark Panel—and the rather drastic revision it contained on the location of the entrance wound into the back of JFK’s head:
Dr. Aguilar was about to be interviewed on radio about that new location (which he had been publicizing): four inches above the original location. He told me he could not understand why the Clark Panel (and, later, doctors consulted by the HSCA) would make such an unbelievable revision. I offered the opinion that it had to do with the results of Army experiments on skulls, performed after the autopsy.
Those experiments seemed to challenge the official trajectory. When they fired bullets into skulls in the area described by the autopsy—the bullets exited from the face, near the right eye. (But JFK’s face was intact.)
Those results may have created the need to claim the bullet entered at a higher location, one that, presumably, would result in its exiting where it was supposed to, from the top of the skull, not the face.
But, back to the experiments… it is really strange that they were actually designed to create exits from the face. Dr. Alfred Olivier who supervised the experiments, testified to Arlen Specter that the Army duplicated the wounds as described in the autopsy report:
“We were aiming, as described in the autopsy report… the point 2 centimeters to the right of the external occipital protuberance and slightly above it. We placed a mark on the skull at that point, according to the autopsy the bullet emerged through the superorbital process (sic), so we drew a line to give us the line of flight…” (Warren Commission Hearings, Vol. 5, p. 89) (Emphasis added.)
Really? According to the autopsy the bullet emerged through the superorbital process? (I believe he means “supraorbital.”) That is the boney ridge just above the eye. What autopsy report was that? Certainly not the one that was published. Arlen Specter quickly changed the subject.
Could there have been an earlier plan to revise the location of the exit, instead of the entrance? Seems unlikely, but stranger things have happened in this case.
After publicizing this curiosity in 1993, I received a phone call from someone claiming to be a colonel in the Army. He practically ordered me to “stop spreading misinformation on the skull experiments.” When I told him everything I said was documented in the Hearings, he seemed taken aback and mumbled something about mistakes being made.
Paul May.
https://jfkfacts.org/assassination/what-did-dr-mcclelland-think-about-jfks-wounds/#comments
Paul and Photon posting simultaneously or might there be two Paul Mays interested in the assassination?
Re: Photon being Paul May. This comes as no surprise. You sure like to stir things up, Paul.
Re: The Clark Panel’s reasons for moving the entrance wound. Rarely noted but implicit in the Clark Panel and HSCA FPP reports is that both panels believed the damage to the brain inconsistent with the trajectory suggested by the autopsy. This suggests that, in their expert opinion, an EOP entrance was inconsistent with a single-assassin scenario.
This was the subject of my October presentation at the Wecht Conference. The large defect gives every sign of being a tangential wound of both entrance and exit. If true, this means the entrance observed by the EOP was a separate wound, and Kennedy had two head wounds.
No government panel will admit as much. They’d rather claim the bullet magically traversed the brain without leaving a trail (a la the autopsy doctors) or that the bullet entered at the top of the head where no one but no one at the autopsy saw an entrance (a la the Clark Panel and HSCA Pathology Panel).
But the times they are a changin’.
Milicent Craynor, I’ve read some of your work which is so beyond my skill set that I can only scratch a surface of understanding. What I do recognize is your completely objective approach.
you say, “After publicizing this curiosity in 1993, I received a phone call from someone claiming to be a colonel in the Army. He practically ordered me to “stop spreading misinformation on the skull experiments.” When I told him everything I said was documented in the Hearings, he seemed taken aback and mumbled something about mistakes being made.”
Fair dues to every researcher and expert with the courage to stare down intimidation.
I stated Paul May simply to see the reaction from posters convinced that there has to be some sinister plot behind anybody who is skeptical of the conspiracy viewpoint.Of course I am not Paul May- I don’t post anywhere on this topic except on this site. I have no idea who that gentleman is, but he seems to carry the disdain of many here ala Goldstein in “1984”.
I don’t need anybody to feed me information- the vast majority of the information that I post is easily obtained on the web. Those few kernels that I drop here and there are merely products of professional experience. I will admit that I live in the Washington,D.C. area and have contacts with members of the FBI, Secret Service and yes, the dreaded CIA. The fact that nobody on this blog has any idea that none of these organizations is the REAL largest and most important intelligence gathering entity is telling.
“The fact that nobody on this blog has any idea that none of these organizations is the REAL largest and most important intelligence gathering entity is telling.”
NOBODY?
I know. Dana Priest knows. James Bamford knows. We now have a disgustingly bloated, Intelligence-Industrial Complex that is providing jobs but is expensive overkill in response to 9/11 attacks that killed a statistically small number of people. We need security, but I don’t think we need the priciest model that government can buy.
CIA has to work hard to try to justify their existence, as you say, they aren’t the biggest intelligence gathering agency. Personally, I think we could save money by stripping CIA of most of their cloak and dagger role, and while we’re at it, force them to open up moss-gathering JFK files to the taxpayers who paid for it. Hell, even someone as “radical leftist” as Harry Truman called for stripping down CIA to mostly intelligence gathering, so this is hardly a hippie protester idea.
Thanks to Dr. Aguilar for his incisive demonstration of McAdams’ ironic cherry-picking of his “evidence”. It does seem that the Professor doth protest too much, defending with absolute patriotic zeal even those aspects of the WC and HSCA reports which their own members, and many other prominent establishment figures, had serious reservations about. So we are forced to ask, why would a history professor seek to posit such a one-sided and entirely uncritical analysis of the “official” government story?
Why would a history professor (McAdams) “seek to posit such a one-sided and entirely uncritical analysis of the ‘official govt. story?'” For one, McAdams isn’t a history professor, as a fair reading of his tendentious “Assassination Logic” makes crystal clear. (You’ll note that, unlike all the university-published books that exist, which are uniformly pro-conspiracy, McAdams’ book isn’t published by a university publishing house.)
McAdams is your garden variety conservative ideologue who, among other things, embraces the work of second-rate scientists who deny human agency in global warming to “refute” the vastly better credentialed, overwhelming majority of scientists who say human agency is important, if not central, in global warming.
For example, let’s first give the devil her due. Let’s acknowledge the fact that not all scientists agree that human activity is related to climate change; that not all scientists, in other words, subscribe to “anthropogenic climate change (ACC),” as some in the scientific community refer to it. John McAdams is devoted to those guys.
So, what proportion of credible scientists agree with ACC? And what are the credentials of the skeptics McAdams endorses – better or worse than those who favor “ACC?”
Here’s a quote on point from a peer-reviewed article from the “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,” entitled,”Expert credibility in climate change.” It’s written by
• William R. L. Anderegga,1,
• James W. Prallb,
• Jacob Haroldc, and
• Stephen H. Schneidera,d,1
“Here, we use an extensive dataset of 1,372 climate researchers and their publication and citation data to show that (i) 97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field surveyed here support the tenets of ACC outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and (ii) the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC are substantially below that of the convinced researchers … .”
http://www.pnas.org/content/107/27/12107.abstract
McAdams says he has great faith in science. But apparently not when it conflicts with his conservative ideology.
This is how he goes about his JFK work: if it’s consonant with the Warren Commission’s conclusions, he’s down with it. If not, he’s not.
So you can challenge McAdams on the med/autopsy “experts” he and “Photon” embrace that support the Commission. But you won’t ever get them to spar on specific facts the “experts” present in support of the Warren Commission, since so many of them are simply flat out wrong. http://www.history-matters.com/essays/jfkmed/How5Investigations/How5InvestigationsGotItWrong.htm
This is the Gary Aguilar who won’t say whether the autopsy photos and x-rays are faked, forged or tampered with.
He clearly wants people to believe they are, but won’t say he believes that.
And this is the Gary Aguilar who dogmatically invoked climate scientists about global warming, but then attacks and demeans forensic scientists who say that Kennedy’s wounds are consistent with a single shooter.
Gary has great faith in “science” that he finds consistent with his leftist ideology, but not in well-established forensic science that supports the lone gunman theory.
Reply to John McAdams:
Screw ideology. And Right-Left politics.
Here are facts: Oswald was nailed as the assassin of J.D. Tippit by 2:00 p.m. Dallas time. Or earlier.
What facts do you produce showing Oswald killed Tippet? Or JFK?
Facts, John.
Dr. Aguilar, I really respect what I’ve read of your work on the JFK Assassination. Your post regarding Associate Professor McAdams views on Global Warming is quite informative. This subject comes up often on this website. It seems to serve as a distraction from the implied and stated intent of the website. I.E who really killed JFK and why. If Jeff and Rex agree, I’d like to ask that we ignore his views on the subject on this website, as important as the subject is to all of us and our children and focus on FREEIGTHEFILES.
Dr. Aguilar, why in your McAdams_Aguilar reference do you call Malcolm Perry a resident physician?
Your question leads to an interesting point. When Perry returned to Parkland Hospital in September 1963, he was a newly board-certified vascular surgeon. He testified to Arlen Specter, incidentally, that he had seen or worked with 150-200 gunshot wounds as a resident and in med school. So as he approached JFK’s throat scalpel in hand, he was a true expert in dealing with what he observed.
It is therefore absurd to believe the trach incision he made is the gaping, horrible gash onme sees in JFK’s throat in the autopsy photos.
Agreed. The size of the small and neat incision is documented somewhere IIRC.
The gaping hole looks like the aftermath of someone gouging out a bullet (in Orlando Martin’s book, Analysis of a Shooting, he surmises that a low velocity bullet was removed before the autopsy).
Thank you’ Jonathan, for giving me the opportunity to disprove this notion of McAdams’ that I am a “hard core conspiracist.”
The tracheotomy incision performed on Kennedy was not a typical incision, nor should we expect it to have been. The incision served a dual purpose. It was both an opening through which Perry could inspect the organs of the neck, and a hole for a tube. Thus,it was horizontal, and wider than normal.
So you believe in the Lifton body alteration theory?
What many don’t believe is that it was an exit wound. I.E. that Perry had enough expertise and experience that his initial, repeated statement was true. Not his changed story after the San Francisco SSA persuaded him to do so.
Reply to John McAdams:
Here’s what’s on the record.
Sibert/O’Neill wrote that Humes kicks off the autopsy noting surgery to the top of the head.
What does that mean if not body alteration prior to the autopsy?
@ Pat Speer:
I’ve just touched on your article postulating that the neck wound was a bullet or fragment from a shot through the EOP, which I won’t rule out, but also can’t rule out the possibility of a frontal shot and removal of a bullet*.
*(geez, the problem here from a conspiratorial perspective is one bullet from the GK area is low velocity that lodges in the neck, and another is a high-velocity frangible bullet that shatters the cranium)
I had to dig up an article by a gent named James Rinnovatore wherein he quotes Lifton’s interview with Dr. Perry on the size of his tracheotomy incision, which is at odds with the size of the neck wound/incision at Bethesda:
Furthermore, in Orlando Martin’s book, he doubts that a FMJ bullet like the WCC at a fairly high velocity would fragment upon entry of the skull.
It means that one of the autopsy doctors, just looking at the head (but not yet having done any examination) thought there was surgery to the head area.
And the FBI guys dutifully took that down.
No. Sibert and O’Neill (neither one of whom had any medical training) claimed that there had been surgery to the head. They simply had never seen a head wound similar to JFK’s. They had never seen surgery- how could they possibly recognize an open surgical wound?
Lol. It wasn’t Sibert and O’Neil’s wrongful interpretation. They wrote what they heard in that autopsy room practically verbatim.
Pat Speer, It appears that you have read:
“The Magic Throat” by Milicent Cranor on the likely reason JFK’s throat incision was so wide. She makes it clear that, rather than comparing JFK’s incision to one done just for a tracheotomy–the relevant comparison is with the kind of incision done when there is trauma to the throat:
“What was the standard emergency response to a penetrating injury of the throat – whether or not the trachea (windpipe) was injured, and whether or not there is another life-threatening wound? In the presence of a deeply penetrating neck, it was (and is) standard to create a wide incision – with or without a tracheotomy… This is in preparation for what is known as “limited exploratory surgery.” According to the 1971 issue of the American Journal of Surgery, the performance of an “exploratory” in these circumstances had been standard since World War II: ‘The general surgical principle of mandatory exploration of all penetrating wounds has become established during the past three decades.’”
http://spot.acorn.net/jfkplace/09/fp.back_issues/33rd_Issue/throat.html
While I have read a lot of Milicent’s articles, Leslie, and have undoubtedly been influenced by her research, I don’t recall reading the article you mention in which she discussed the trach incision. I look forward to doing so. Thanks for the link.
My impression that the trach incision should have been wide came from reading the JFK-relevant sections of dozens of books and hundreds of articles on emergency medicine, trauma, and gunshot wounds. I read this stuff for an hour or more a day for a couple of years, and continue to do so for a few hours a week.
Please provide a specific, checkable quote, “Photon.”
Say, what’s your real name and location, “Photon,” or are you one of those paranoid Jonnies?
Gary:
Photon is Paul May.
If you do not know who he is and why he uses an alias, its easy.
He posts all over the web and his view of the case makes David Von Pein look rather reasonable. In other words, he is an overexposed known quantity.
Reply to James DiEugenio:
I believe Photon has denied on this forum being Paul May.
Photon claimed last year to have worked for the “Company.”
Photon knows the JFK case well in my estimation, in fact too well to be someone other than a professional JFK researcher like you and Gary. I’ve come to believe therefore someone or some group is feeding information to Photon to support Photon’s efforts here. That’s not paranoia or CT; just plain deduction based on close observation.
I checked the history of comments on this particular site and at one point I believe “Paul May” and “Photon” were “both” posting. It is too time consuming to attempt to verify, but I remember being struck by the fact. Their writing style is somewhat the same, but Paul May did not appear to have the depth of facts at his fingertips as does Photon. And I might add, Photon’s comments have evolved … initially there was not as significant amount of technical detail as there appears these days in his comments, which leads one to wonder if he might be a vehicle for several “experts.” This is of course is not to suggest there is a conspiracy at work.
“Unfortunately, this sort of thinking is an invitation to take whatever position one finds aesthetically pleasing, and then fashion a position around that”.
Quoted from a man who starts his website that Jackie believed Oswald was the sole assassin because she received lone nut disinformation – the cover up already being manufactured- the evening of the assassination. Then being the extreme right wing neocon that he is, uses the word leftist to further his political agenda as well as his own depiction of the facts. He obviously wants the viewers to enter his website thinking that Jackie always believed that Oswald was the sole assassin, and that she never said or opinioned anything to the contrary. And he wants to lead viewers on that only leftists are the lone gunmen type.
What’s that tell us? If this Factoid header appears to be placed there for the purpose of misleading, and to base a political agenda, seems obvious what we will find within.
CTKA will tell you more about this man.
John,
You and your allies have won and continue to win all the battles that count. On the 50th Anniversary, there was not one peep out of the MSM contrary to the official story.
I cannot congratulate you. Your arguments IMO are often contrary to logic, fact, science, and law. But you are clearly on the winning side.
Gary Aguilar has many admirers but not nearly the power you display here, on your own website, and elsewhere. By power I mean the ability to dominate and control the direction of a discussion.
Photon, one of your supporters, has trashed Gary Aguilar as being an opthalmologist, not a forensic pathologist. Photon’s simple credential assault is probably more effective here than all the criticisms ever leveled against you based on your method of presentation and reasoning.
I welcome your presence here. It reveals a lot to me.
Oh, my! Sounds like you don’t think that people show up on discussion boards merely because they have opinions and want to express them.
Not everything is a conspiracy.
John,
Entre nous, my statement, “It reveals a lot to me.” was made with the thought your presence here tells me a lot about how the world (apart from you) works. That’s all.
What it actually may reveal is that, JFKfacts.org, is becoming a popular website that is gaining momentum in its efforts towards uncovering the full story or truth about the JFK Assassination, and which is disconcerting to those that religiously cling to the official version.
Good point Gerry. As I’ve watched and participated in the growth of activity of the site since late last summer it has been an education in terms of both information and tactics. Sometime back I adopted the term conspiracy realist from Lisa Pease in her intro to Reclaiming Parkland. I think most of the posters here are on the fence at a minimum if not realists. This is important as those who come here just to read get information they will get nowhere else. The LN/WC defenders put forth disinformation, distractions and more. That is to be expected I guess. The rebuttals to their assertions have become stronger as more and more knowledgeable commenters and researchers post more often. For this I am personally grateful.
Given this level of increased activity I like to think that even if the MSM still won’t touch the subject that maybe there is a “buzz” in certain circles.
I’ll get off my soap box now.
Keep rocking the boat people.
FREETHEFILES
Michael T Griffith is another religion academic who has written extensively on the JFK assassination
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKgriffithM.htm
Brilliant gentleman and excellent researcher/writer.
Rev. Moore is late to the party but appears to bring an intriguing gift, his new book.
It’s hard for me to believe the government lied and cover up about the JFK assassination and then called it quits. The assassinations of MLK and RFK reek of government corruption and cover-up. So why are legitimate questions about 9-11 and the moon landings in the realm of kook-dom?
I stopped trusting my government in the wake of 11-22-63. I’ve never once been given a reason to change my mind.
Even Vincent Bugliosi (as others too) said that the lack of trust in the U.S. government all started after the Kennedy Assassination or Warren Report.
The reason, Jonathan, is that there is a line drawn in the sand (so to speak) that’s not going to be crossed, at least not at this forum.
You’ll note in the past the aversion to people like George Bush. And Dick Cheney.
OMG, Moore’s quote that you posted fits me to a ‘T’!
I’m not really into most “conspiracy theories” and still have this naive belief in an FDR-Keynesian style fix to most of our problems. I’m currently reading establishment author Hedrick Smith’s latest excellent book about the decline of the American middle class. The JFK assassination I DO think was a conspiracy, and an ugly scar on our country that the a lot of oldsters don’t want to acknowledge or think about. I think it’s too painful for them, like Vietnam—which despite the many brave soldiers who we should respect for service there—was a national foreign policy failure.
I’ll have to check out what Moore has to say beyond that quote. Thanks for the link.