There's little or no doubt that the governments explanation for the assassination of JFK isn't close to the truth, assuming you read the facts behind it, instead of allowing media pundits dictate the conclusions to you. As I pointed out in an article originally posted eleven years ago, "JFK and the Unspeakable" by James Douglass the Warren report is probably the most important source to read on the JFK assassination, not because it's good, but because it's seriously flawed. This is enough to show that their investigation was seriously flawed, although much stronger evidence is needed to show who actually killed Kennedy and why. The Clay Shaw trial transcripts may be just as important, since Jim Garrison clearly seems to be trying to get to the truth, despite enormous efforts to smear him. This presents compelling evidence implicating the CIA or other people with extensive influence within the government in covering the assassination up; and it's hard to imagine why they would do that unless they were involved in the assassination.
As I said in my previous article, even though Jim Marrs book, "Crossfire" isn't the best on the subject, he did get one thing right at the beginning of the book when he started by writing, "Don't trust this book," and then went on to say we shouldn't trust any one source on the subject, since there's so much false information out there. However, even though I agree that anyone interested in the subject should do their own fact checking, the best source that I've heard of is almost certainly "JFK and the Unspeakable" by James Douglass, which I have no doubt will stand up to scrutiny, and also implicates the CIA benefiting from the research done by Jim Garrison and much more that he did himself.
As I said on Facebook a month or so ago I’m reading “House Select Committee on Assassinations,” which isn't much more credible than the Warren Commission; however, they came to the conclusion that there was a second gunman, shooting from the grassy knoll, based on acoustic evidence from a tape that picked up a recording of the events from a motorcycle cop who had his microphone accidentally stuck in the on position. There's an enormous amount of other evidence to support this conclusion, a lot of which is much more compelling; ironically, for one reason or another the Committee rejected almost all of it and didn't even discuss some of the most important evidence.
They based their recommendations on this, using the relatively weaker evidence from the acoustics, without the more compelling evidence from witnesses and other physical evidence and the Attorney General's office eventually responded with a Letter from William Weld, Assistant Attorney General, September 1988 which claimed their acoustic evidence was flawed and, for official purposes, restored the seriously flawed conclusions from the Warren Commission, that Lee Harvey Oswald was a lone gunman and there was no shooter from the grassy knoll. However, they had to ignore or misrepresent an enormous amount of evidence. Another study about fifteen years ago refutes William Weld's claim, Study: Shot Was Fired From 'Grassy Knoll.' 01/07/2006 This article goes one step further, and admits that the bullet from the grassy knoll was the one that killed JFK; however, like the Committee report, it doesn't use additional evidence to support their claims; and the media paid minimal attention to this study enabling skeptics to continue ridiculing people they label as conspiracy theorists, implying they're irrational even when they have much better evidence.
About half the witnesses said they heard shots from the grassy knoll, while the other half claimed they heard them from the book depository, with a small number claiming they heard them from both locations. At least one supporter of the official version has argued that eye witness testimony is unreliable, which is often true; however, when a large number of witnesses make similar claims, even if they're not exactly the same, then it's far more likely that it's true especially if there's additional evidence to support their claims. This is especially true when there's additional supporting evidence, like this case. He only makes this claim for those that oppose the official version of the truth, but to defend that, he needs to ignore or distort an enormous amount of evidence.
Aside from the witness testimony the strongest evidence showing JFK was shot from the front, in the direction of the grassy knoll, may be the Zapruder film, which shows his head going back and to the left, as Kevin Kostner said repeatedly in Oliver Stone's movie. This can be confirmed by looking at the film. There's been some talk about investigators from the Warren Commission switching frames to make it look otherwise; but even if it's true, it doesn't seem to have worked.
The Zapruder film also shows Jackie on the Trunk? (by Robert Harris) where she clearly climbs on the trunk to retrieve something, then sits back in her seat after she retrieves it. Robert Harris explains, "This is from Mrs. Connally's Warren Commission testimony, '..and then after the third shot she said, "they have killed my husband. I have his brains in my hand," and she repeated that several times, and that was all the conversation." (Warren Commission Hearings, Volume IV p.148) Robert Harris also cites Parkland hospital doctor, Marion Jenkins confirming this saying she was still holding "a large chunk of her husband's brain tissues." Robert Harris doesn't cite a source for this quote and it doesn't appear to be in his testimony to the Warren Commission; however, it was confirmed in this article from the Chicago Tribune, JFK: THE AUTOPSY. 05/24/1992
There's also evidence indicating that Kennedy's blood almost certainly splattered at least ten to twelve feet behind, and to the left of the limousine, and since the trunk is at least four to five feet long, that would be a total of fourteen to seventeen feet, based on The Clay Shaw trial testimony of Billy Joe Martin He testified that there were "red splotches" on his motorcycle windshield, bumper, helmet and uniform. The clear implication is that this was blood from President Kennedy; however, when he was asked to identify it as blood, it wasn't allowed. He was asked: "Q: As a police officer were you able to determine what these red splotches were? MR. Dymond: I object ...... Q: Officer, during the course of your police duties have you ever had occasion to come in contact and observe human blood?" The judge ruled that he couldn't identify what he saw. This was one of many rulings by this judge that was clearly against the prosecution and was also unreasonable, showing a strong bias, and adding to official efforts to cover up the truth.
Both the House Select Committee on Assassinations and the Warren report claimed that "Lee Harvey Oswald fired three shots at President John F. Kennedy; the second and third shots he fired struck the President; the third shot he fired killed the President." However, they both ignore an enormous amount of evidence, or in some cases they reported some things in their testimony, but neglected to mention them in their final reports, as if they're not important. One obvious flaw with their conclusions is the fact that the best shot a sniper is bound to have is the first one, where he has time to aim carefully, yet he missed. The second and third shots have to be rushed so they're much less likely to hit the target.
Another issue, as the JFK movie pointed out, is that, if Oswald was a lone gunman, his best shot at shooting Kennedy would have been before the limousine passed him and he could have shot from the front. However, if there was a plan to catch the president in a crossfire, as the evidence strongly suggests, then it would make sense to wait until the limousine was in the line of sight for both snipers, or perhaps all three as some claims go, although the location of a third one is at best inconclusive and he may never have existed.
There's also a chance that Lee Harvey Oswald might have a partial alibi making it unlikely that he was on the sixth floor at the time of the shooting. According to Accounts of Lee Harvey Oswald’s Alibi he supposedly claimed that he was on the first floor eating lunch before the shooting and he was still on the first or second floor after the shooting; however, there were no records of his interview, there may have been several versions, and he had no witnesses to confirm most of this. At that time, the police in that area wasn't accustomed to recording their interviews, even though they should have known it resulted in many wrongful convictions, which were eventually exposed. However, according to Warren Commission testimony, two credible sources, Roy Truly and Marrion Baker, claimed they saw him on the second floor near the coke machine no more than a couple of minutes after the shooting.
Oliver Stone's movie claims they saw him while he was getting a coke; however, neither the testimony of Officer Marrion Baker or Roy Truly, a supervisor at the depository, make this claim. But they do confirm he was at that location within a couple minutes of the shooting, which is the important thing. and when asked "about his appearance" Mr. TRULY said, "No, sir. No, sir; I didn't see him panting like he had been running or anything." If Oswald was the shooter on the sixth floor, he would have had to rush to hide his gun and run down four flights of stairs, making it highly unlikely that he wouldn't be out of breath, assuming this testimony was accurate, implying a strong possibility that he wasn't the shooter from the depository at all.
Furthermore, as the JFK movie claims there was a snipers nest created by stacking up lots of boxes of books to block the view of anyone that might enter the room. This is confirmed by the Warren Commission, which says there was a "Shield of cartons around sixth floor southeast corner window." If Oswald did that alone it would also have tired him out and put him at risk of exposure while doing it. The same would of course go for conspirators, but it would be easier with at least two or three people, perhaps with one covering for them watching for others coming. Another major issue is that, as a lone gun man, there's no way he would have known to go to work at the depository in the first place a month ahead of time; and he wouldn't have known it was on the path of the motorcade until a few days earlier. Insiders might have know about it earlier, and if Oswald was being set up, as many people theorized, then they could have encouraged him to apply and others to hire him.
The Clay Shaw trial testimony of Colonel Pierre A. Finck seems to have provided conflicting evidence; he claimed that Kennedy was shot from behind, but made numerous statements indicating that this might not be true, that a lot of evidence might have been missing, important parts of the autopsy may have been done before he arrived, and that people without medical expertise were calling the shots and that "when you are a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army you just follow orders," raising doubts about the credibility of the autopsy results as indicated in the following excerpts from his testimony:
A: I can't explain that. I know that Dr. Humes told me he called them. I cannot give an approximate time. I can give you the reason why he called. As I have stated before, having a wound of entry in the back of the neck, having seen no exit in the front of the neck, nothing from the radiologist who looked at the whole body X-ray films, I have requested as there was no whole bullet remaining in the cadaver of the President, that was a very strong reason for inquiring if there were not another wound in the approximate direction corresponding to that wound of entry in the back of the neck, because in the wound of the head with entry in the back of the head and exit on the right side of the head, I never had any doubt, any question that it was a through-and- through wound of the head with disintegration of the bullet. The difficulty was to have found an entry in the back of the neck and not to have seen an exit corresponding to that entry.
Q: This puzzled you at this time, is that right, Doctor?
A: Sorry, I don't understand you.
Q: This puzzled you at the time, the wound in the back and you couldn't find an exit wound? You were wondering about where this bullet was or where the path was going, were you not?
A: Yes.
Q: Well, at that particular time, Doctor, why didn't you call the doctors at Parkland or attempt to ascertain what the doctors at Parkland may have done or may have seen while the President's body was still exposed to view on the autopsy table?
A: I will remind you that I was not in charge of this autopsy, that I was called --
Q: You were a co-author of the report though, weren't you, Doctor?
A: Wait. I was called as a consultant to look at these wounds; that doesn't mean I am running the show.
Q: Was Dr. Humes running the show?
A: Well, I heard Dr. Humes stating that -- he said, "Who is in charge here?" and I heard an Army General, I don't remember his name, stating, "I am." You must understand that in those circumstances, there were law enforcement officers, military people with various ranks, and you have to co-ordinate the operation according to directions.
Q: But you were one of the three qualified pathologists standing at that autopsy table, were you not, Doctor?
A: Yes, I am.
Q: Was this Army General a qualified pathologist?
A: No.
Q: Was he a doctor?
A: No, not to my knowledge.
Q: Can you give me his name, Colonel?
A: No, I can't. I don't remember.
Q: Do you happened to have the photographs and X-rays taken of President Kennedy's body at the time of the autopsy and shortly thereafter? Do you?
A: I do not have X-rays or photographs of President Kennedy with me.
Q: What time did you arrive at Bethesda Naval Hospital in regard to the autopsy? By that I mean was the autopsy already begun?
A: When I arrived, X-rays had been taken of the head. I had been told so over the phone by Dr. Humes when he called me at home, and I arrived, I would say, a short time after the beginning of the autopsy, I can't give you an exact time, it was approximately 8:00 o'clock at night.
Q: Had any work been done on President Kennedy's body in regard to the performing of the autopsy by the time you got there?
A: As I recall, the brain had been removed. Dr. Humes told me that to remove the brain he did not have to carry out the procedure you carry out when there is no wound in the skull. The wound was of such an extent, over five inches in diameter, that it was not of a great difficulty for him to remove this brain, and this is the best of my recollection. There were no removals of the wound of entry in the back of the eck, no removal of the wound of entry in the back of the head prior to my arrival, and I made a positive identification of both wounds of entry. At this time I might, for the sake of clarity, say that in the autopsy report we may have called the first wound the one in the head and the second wound the one in the neck, because we did not know the sequence of shots at that time. Again, the sequence of shots was determined by the Zapruder film, so what we did, we determined the entry of the bullet wound and stated that there were two bullet wounds, one in the back of the neck and the other in the back of the head, without giving a sequence.
Q: How many other military personnel were present at the autopsy in the autopsy room?
A: That autopsy room was quite crowded. It is a small autopsy room, and when you are called in circumstances like that to look at the wound of the President of the United States who is dead, you don't look around too much to ask people for their names and take notes on who they are and how many there are. I did not do so. The room was crowded with military and civilian personnel and federal agents, Secret Service agents, FBI agents, for part of the autopsy, but I cannot give you a precise breakdown as regards the attendance of the people in that autopsy room at Bethesda Naval Hospital.
Q: Colonel, did you feel that you had to take orders from this Army General that was there directing the autopsy?
A: No, because there were others, there were Admirals.
Q: There were Admirals?
A: Oh, yes, there were Admirals, and when you are a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army you just follow orders, and at the end of the autopsy we were specifically told -- as I recall it, it was by Admiral Kinney, the Surgeon General of the Navy -- this is subject to verification -- we were specifically told not to discuss the case.
Q: You were told not to discuss the case?
A: -- to discuss the case without coordination with the Attorney General.
Colonel Pierre A. Finck's testimony indicates that a large amount of the evidence was destroyed before he arrived, and that the decisions were being made by people without medical expertise. In addition to removing the presidents brain through the five inch hole created by the shooting, there was also a throat wound reported by the Parkland Doctors, before the body was transferred to Bethesda Maryland where Colonel Finck worked on it, that was also destroyed. There are numerous reports on this and not even those supporting the Warren Commission conclusions seem to think the evidence was preserved properly, although supporters of the official explanation try to avoid discussing these problems.
According to John F. Kennedy Autopsy The Medical Evidence the Warren Commission made at least four or five sketches or artistic drawings, including three showing the alleged trajectory of the bullet. They admit that the first one of them was flawed, but a close look at them along with consideration of the assumption that the shot came from the sixth floor strongly indicates the other two showing the trajectory are also seriously flawed, shown here:
All three of the trajectories, especially the first one, seem to indicate he was shot from someone at the same level or below Kennedy, shooting upwards, not a downward trajectory that would be expected if he was shot by someone six floors off the ground. Furthermore, it hardly seems likely that this trajectory would have created such a large hole and caused a large portion of his brains to go backwards, in the opposite direction of the shots, to land on the trunk where Jacqueline retrieved it.
Most sources including Entrance and Exit Wounds by Jack Claridge, which doesn't apply his conclusions directly to the JFK assassination, agree that exit wounds are typically larger than entrance wounds, sometimes much larger. in the first trajectory, shown above, the exit wound is clearly separate from the entrance wound, although they're still not far apart; however, in order to get that trajectory the gun man must be at the same level and Kennedy would have to be leaning forward, which the film doesn't show. They admitted this one was flawed; however, the other two seem to show both the exit and entrance wounds on opposite sides of the large hole bigger than five inches, which, even though I'm not a forensic pathologist, I'm skeptical that this trajectory would cause that big of a hole and send a large portion of brain tissue backwards onto the trunk.
Spartacus Educational: John F. Kennedy Autopsy provides an alternative that might be more credible. They say:
"At the press conference that followed the death of Kennedy, Dr. Malcolm Perry stated that he thought the throat hole looked like an entrance wound." .....
"Charles Crenshaw also treated Kennedy at Parkland Hospital. He later stated: 'Two wounds were visible. There was a small, round opening in the front of the midline of the throat. This became the site of Dr. Malcolm Perry's tracheostomy incision. In the occipito-parietal region at the right rear of the head, there was an avulsive wound nearly as large as a fist.... I considered the throat wound to be an entrance wound and the large head wound to be an exit wound. Along with many of my Parkland colleagues, I believed at the time that President Kennedy had been hit twice from the front.'"
Charles Crenshaw stuck with his story to the day he died, but apparently he wasn't called to testify, even though his story may make more sense than the official version, and it's consistent with fundamental principles of forensics, claiming exit wounds are larger then entrance wounds. If you accept the official version, then Lee Harvey Oswald fired three shots with the same gun, the first that missed completely, the second may have gone in the back and out the throat, which wouldn't have been compatible with a shot from the sixth floor and the third fatal wound went to the head, also inconsistent from a shot from the sixth floor, and creating a much bigger wound. Why would one bullet, the same size as the other, from the same gun create a massive wound to the skull, while the other one only made a small exit wound in the throat? Crenshaw's claims, which were initially compatible with Dr. Parry's claims make far more sense.
The article above admits that Dr. Malcolm Perry changed his story, which is partly true; however, if you look at his testimony before the Warren Commission, it's clear that he doesn't rule out the possibility that the throat wound is an entry wound, and he's basing his revised view on a series of alleged facts given to him by Arlen Specter in a leading series of questions, which may be as incriminating as if he hadn't changed his story, when you consider he was told to accept flawed claims, and his new conclusion essentially violates basic principles of forensics where they expect exit wounds to be larger than entrance wounds, as indicated in the following testimony, and more from the Complete transcript of his testimony:
Dr. PERRY - ..... In the lower part of the neck below the Adams apple was a small, roughly circular wound of perhaps 5 mm. in diameter from which blood was exuding slowly. ......
Dr. PERRY - As I mentioned previously in the record, I made only a cursory examination of the President's head. I noted a large avulsive wound of the right parietal occipital area, in which both scalp and portions of skull were absent, and there was severe laceration of underlying brain tissue. My examination did not go any further than that. .......
Mr. SPECTER - Would you now describe as particularly as possible the neck wound you observed?
Dr. PERRY - This was situated in the lower anterior one-third of the neck, approximately 5 mm. in diameter.
It was exuding blood slowly which partially obscured it. Its edges were neither ragged nor were they punched out, but rather clean.
Mr. SPECTER - Have you now described the neck wound as specifically as you can?
Dr. PERRY - I have.
Mr. SPECTER - Based on your observations of the neck wound alone, do you have a sufficient basis to form an opinion as to whether it was an entrance wound or an exit wound.
Dr. PERRY - No, sir. I was unable to determine that since I did not ascertain the exact trajectory of the missile. The operative procedure which I performed was restricted to securing an adequate airway and insuring there was no injury to the carotid artery or jugular vein at that level and at that point I made the procedure.
Mr. SPECTER - Based on the appearance of the neck wound alone, could it have been either an entrance or an exit wound?
Dr. PERRY - It could have been either.
Mr. SPECTER - Permit me to supply some additional facts, Dr. Perry, which I shall ask you to assume as being true for purposes of having you express an opinion.
Assume first of all that the President was struck by a 6.5 mm. copper-jacketed bullet fired from a gun having a muzzle velocity of approximately 2,000 feet per second, with the weapon being approximately 160 to 250 feet from the President, with the bullet striking him at an angle of declination of approximately 45 degrees, striking the President on the upper right posterior thorax just above the upper border of the scapula, being 14 cm. from the tip of the right acromion process and 14 cm. below the tip of the right mastoid process, passing through the President's body striking no bones, traversing the neck and sliding between the large muscles in the posterior portion of the President's body through a fascia channel without violating the pleural cavity but bruising the apex of the right pleural cavity, and bruising the most apical portion of the right lung inflicting a hematoma to the right side of the larynx, which you have just described, and striking the trachea causing the injury which you described, and then exiting from the hole that you have described in the midline of the neck.
Now, assuming those facts to be true, would the hole which you observed in the neck of the President be consistent with an exit wound under those circumstances?
Dr. PERRY - Certainly would be consistent with an exit wound.
Mr. SPECTER - Now, assuming one additional fact that there was no bullet found in the body of the President, and assuming the facts which I have just set forth to be true, do you have an opinion as to whether the wound which you observed in the President's neck was an entrance or an exit wound?
Dr. PERRY - A full jacketed bullet without deformation passing through skin would leave a similar wound for an exit and entrance wound and with the facts which you have made available and with these assumptions, I believe that it was an exit wound.
Mr. SPECTER - Do you have sufficient facts available to you to render an opinion as to the cause of the injury which you observed in the President's head?
Dr. PERRY - No, sir.
Mr. SPECTER - Have you had an opportunity to examine the autopsy report?
Dr. PERRY - I have.
Mr. SPECTER - And are the facts set forth in the autopsy report consistent with your observations and views or are they inconsistent in any way with your findings and opinions?
Dr. PERRY - They are quite consistent and I noted initially that they explained very nicely the circumstances as we observed them at the time.
Mr. SPECTER - Could you elaborate on that last answer, Dr. Perry?
Dr. PERRY - Yes There was some considerable speculation, as you will recall, as to whether there were one or two bullets and as to from whence they came. Dr. Clark and I were queried extensively in respect to this and in addition Dr. Carrico could not determine whether there were one or two bullets from our initial examination.
I say that because we did what was necessary in the emergency procedure, and abandoned any efforts of examination at the termination. I did not ascertain the trajectory of any of the missiles. As a result I did not know whether there was evidence for 1 or 2 or even 3 bullets entering and at the particular time it was of no importance.
Mr. SPECTER - But based on the additional factors provided in the autopsy report, do you have an opinion at this time as to the number of bullets there were?
Dr. PERRY - The wounds as described from the autopsy report and coupled with the wounds I have observed it would appear there were two missiles that struck the President.
Mr. SPECTER - And based on the additional factors which I have provided to you by way of hypothetical assumption, and the factors present in the autopsy report from your examination of that report, what does the source of the bullets seem to have been to you?
Dr. PERRY - That I could not say. I can only determine their pathway, on the basis of these reports within the President's body. As to their ultimate source not knowing any of the circumstances surrounding it, I would not have any speculation.
Mr. SPECTER - From what direction would the bullets have come based on all of those factors?
Dr. PERRY - The bullets would have come from behind the President based on these factors.
Mr. SPECTER - And from the level, from below or above the President?
Dr. PERRY - Not having examined any of the. wounds with the exception of the anterior neck wounds, I could not say. This wound, as I noted was about 5 mm., and roughly circular in shape. There is no way for me to determine.
Mr. SPECTER - Based upon a point of entrance in the body of the President which I described to you as being 14 cm. from the right acromion process and 14 cm. below the tip of the right mastoid process and coupling that with your observation of the neck wound, would that provide a sufficient basis for you to form an opinion as to the path of the bullet, as to whether it was level, up or down?
Dr. PERRY - Yes, it would.
In view of the fact there was an injury to the right lateral portion of the trachea and a wound in the neck if one were to extend a line roughly between these two, it would be going slightly superiorly, that is cephalad toward the head, from anterior to posterior, which would indicate that the missile entered from slightly above and behind.
Mr. SPECTER - Dr. Perry, have you been a part of or participated in any press conferences?
Dr. PERRY - Yes, sir; I have ......
.........
Mr. SPECTER - A French paper, La Expres. And I questioned the doctors quoted therein and developed for the record what was true and what was false on the statements attributed to them, so we have undertaken that in some circles but not as extensively as you suggest as to Dr. Perry, because we have been trying diligently to get the tape records of the television interviews, and we were unsuccessful. I discussed this with Dr. Perry in Dallas last Wednesday, and he expressed an interest in seeing them, and I told him we would make them available to him prior to his appearance, before deposition or before the Commission, except our efforts at CBS and NBC, ABC and everywhere including New York, Dallas and other cities were to no avail. The problem is they have not yet cataloged all of the footage which they have, and I have been advised by the Secret Service, by Agent John Howlett, that they have an excess of 200 hours of transcripts among all of the events and they just have not cataloged them and could not make them available. .......
........
Mr. SPECTER - On the second interview, did the man identify himself to you as a Secret Service agent who was conducting a further inquiry at the request of the President's Commission?
Dr. PERRY - Yes, sir; he said he was with the Warren Commission.
Mr. SPECTER - Did I discuss the facts within your knowledge or take your deposition in Dallas on Wednesday, March 25, 1964?
Dr. PERRY - Yes. .......
Mr. SPECTER - With respect to the condition of the neck wounds, was it ragged or pushed out in any manner?
Dr. PERRY - No, it was not. As I originally described it, the edges were neither cleancut, that is punched out, nor were they very ragged. I realize that is not a very specific description but it is in between those two areas. .....
Representative BOGGS - Just one question. I presume this question has been asked.
This neck wound, was there any indication that that wound had come from the front?
Dr. PERRY - There is no way to tell, sir, for sure. As you may recall, passage of a high velocity missile, the damage it does, is dependent on two factors, actually, one being deformation of the missile, increase in its relative caliber, and the other the expending of the energy of that missile in the object it strikes. For example, the energy used to carry the missile beyond the object that it struck is obviously not going to cause much of an injury. If there is a missile of relatively high velocity, although I consider this a medium velocity weapon, that the missile for entrance or exit had the bullet not been deformed would not be substantially different, had it not been deformed nor particularly slowed in its velocity. .....
First of all, when Arlen Specter starts with, "Permit me to supply some additional facts" he's essentially providing testimony, not asking for facts to draw conclusions, which in a trial would almost certainly raise objections from the defense, and the facts that he goes on to present would be challenged; however, since Lee Harvey Oswald was dead and this wasn't a traditional trial no one checked these facts, which almost certainly would not have stood up to scrutiny. There are several problems with this claim, the downward angle doesn't fit the facts, the alleged exit wound in the neck wasn't ragged and it was much smaller than you would expect exit wounds to be, including the one that created a hole more than five inches in the top of his head, and it's virtually out of the question that a shot from the rear would cause his head to go back to the rear with a large portion of his brains going out on the trunk where Jacqueline Kennedy retrieved it.
Following Arlen Specter's question, "have you been a part of or participated in any press conferences?" they went into extensive discussion about the reliability of press reports which can be read in the Complete transcript of his testimony, and he claimed there were many false reports, without specifying many specific claims. To summarize his statements, he claimed that there were numerous interviews and a lot of them were on camera but he didn't know how many films there were or who had them; he was asked if there were any by representative Ford if there was an official recording and he said no, Ford followed up by asking if there was a "true recording of everything that was said, the questions asked, and the answers given?" strongly implying that only an official recording could be trusted to be true.
Mr. McCloy asked if he identified any wounds as an exit wound to the press, on one occasion asking if he discussed with other doctors if it was either "exit wound or an entrance wound" and he denied this. He did not deny that he might have said to the press that the throat wound was an entrance wound and he did admit that there were unknown tapes available. Arlen Specter claimed they had many of them but they weren't organized so they couldn't way what was in all of them. The Sparticus Educational article, and several other sources only claimed that he said the throat wound was an entrance wound and that it was Charles Crenshaw that confirmed this identified the larger wound in the top right of the head as an exit wound. For one reason or another Dr. Perry doesn't even mention Charles Crenshaw in his testimony, even though he mentions many other doctors, nor do they appear to have asked him to testify. He made his views public at the time and eventually wrote a book confirming this.
There apparently was a record of his statements to the press and there are numerous copies of it on the internet including 22 November 1963.org: Parkland Hospital Press Conference excerpts:
Questioner :Doctor, is it the assumption that it went through the head?
Dr Perry: That would be on conjecture on my part. There are two wounds, as Dr Clark noted, one of the neck and one of the head. Whether they are directly related or related to two bullets, I cannot say.
Questioner: What was the entrance wound.
Dr Perry: There was an entrance wound in the neck. As regards the one in the head, I cannot say.
Questioner: Which way was the bullet coming on the neck wound? At him?
Dr Perry: It appeared to be coming at him.
Questioner: And the one behind?
Dr Perry: The nature of the wound defies the ability to describe whether it went through it from either side. I cannot tell you that. Can you, Dr Clark?
Dr Clark: The head wound could have been either the exit wound from the neck or it could have been a tangential wound, as it was simply a large, gaping loss of tissue.
Questioner: That was the immediate cause of death — the head wound?
Dr Clark: I assume so; yes. .......
Questioner: Can’t we clear this up just a little more? In your estimation, was there one or two wounds? Just give us something.
Dr Perry: I don’t know. From the injury, it is conceivable that it could have been caused by one wound, but there could have been two just as well if the second bullet struck the head in addition to striking the neck, and I cannot tell you that due to the nature of the wound. There is no way for me to tell.
Questioner: Doctor, describe the entrance wound. You think from the front in the throat?
Dr Perry: The wound appeared to be an entrance wound in the front of the throat; yes, that is correct. The exit wound, I don’t know. It could have been the head or there could have been a second wound of the head. There was not time to determine this at the particular instant.
Questioner: Would the bullet have had to travel up from the neck wound to exit through the back?
Dr Perry: Unless it was deviated from its course by striking bone or some other object.
This confirms the claim that Dr. Perry initially believed the throat wound was an entrance wound, and goes one step further, showing that even though he wasn't certain, he considered it a strong possibility that the wound to the top right of the head was an exit wound, and Dr. Clark clearly agreed with him. This also indicates that when Dr. Crenshaw said that "many of" his "Parkland colleagues" agreed with him he was telling the truth or very close to the truth. While Dr. Perry, and perhaps many other doctors changed their story so they would be compatible with Arlen Specter's single bullet theory, Dr. Crenshaw stuck with the original story, which makes much more sense, and is compatible with the evidence. Perhaps as a result they didn't call Dr. Crenshaw to testify and eventually even tried to smear him.
Several doctors from Parkland also confirmed this again in 1998 when they testified before the Assassination Records Review Board, and they also raised doubts about whether there was subtle intimidation by Arlen Specter to influence their testimony, the credibility of the Bethesda autopsy and clearly stated that the path of the bullet was never traced properly as indicated in the following excerpts, as well as their complete testimony before the Assassination Records Review Board:
MR. GUNN: From Page 51 of his Warren Commission testimony he says, "Because the wound with the exploded area of the scalp, as I interpreted it being exploded, I would interpret it being a wound of exit, and the appearance of the wound in the neck, and I also thought it was it a wound of exit." .......
MR. GUNN: Talk briefly about the neck wound, if we could. Dr. Perry do you think that you were the one who probably had the best view of the neck wound?
DR. PERRY: I'm the one that stuck my foot in my mouth, but actually it looked like an entrance wound and the bullet appeared to be coming at him and I based that mainly on the fact it was a small wound to the neck and without any other information. I prefaced those comments at the press conference both before and after by saying that neither Dr. Clark nor I knew how many bullets there were or where they came from. Unfortunately my comment said it's an entrance wound, and it was taken out of context of the others, but I did say that small wound. .......
DR. JONES: When Dr. Perry and I went back upstairs into the OR after this had happened, I think we both -- we were both talking in terms that this was an entrance wound, my impression when I saw it in the emergency room. It never crossed my mind it was anything but an entrance wound, without having any history to go by, I thought it was an entrance wound.
DR. PERRY: Had we known, things would have been different; incomplete information. You learn a great deal, and I learned a great deal in two days. One is never allow yourself to be thrown into speculation with the press, bad mistake. At 34 and naive, I thought the truth would suffice. That is not the case. Secondly do not speculate about anything public ever. I learned that after operating on Oswald on Sunday when I went down to repeat the press conference again, I went with a typed statement. I answered no questions, and I didn't get into a bit of trouble. I learned a great deal in two days.
DR. PETERS: Great advice. Put that in for the future guys to read. One thing could I say about that?
MR. GUNN Sure.
DR. PETERS: I think most of us thought at first that day in the first few minutes that, boy, it might have one in through the neck and out the back of the head, which would have been a big exit wound and a small entrance wound. .......
MR. GUNN: I can tell you part of the significance of this, and this has emerged - in the --in the depositions itself -- in the deposition of Dr. Humes he acknowledged that he wrote a draft of the autopsy report which he then burned. He also burned his notes from the autopsy which was not exactly what he had told to the Warren Commission. And one could put together that the original draft does not have any reference to the bullet wound in the neck and the subsequent draft does have that in it, but that can be a reason the timing was important. ........
Dr. Jones -- Mr. Specter had said, "Would it be consistent, then, with an exit wound but of low velocity, as you put it? And I said "Yes, of very low velocity to the point that you might think that this bullet just barely made it through the soft tissues and just enough to drop out of the skin in the opposite side." In other words, if this thing was coming out instead of in, there sure wasn't much blast effect as Dr. Baxter alluded to. And so I mentioned that it just maybe had dropped out.
Well, as you probably know, about two weeks ago in The Dallas Morning News there was an article concerning the Assassination Records Review Committee and that they had found a missile -- a bullet in the seat of a limousine, which just sparked some interest on my part reading that because, number one, I had not known until two weeks ago that there was a bullet in the seat of the limousine. So that was one thing. When I completed my testimony Arlen Specter followed me out in the hall and he said, I want to tell you something that I don't want you to say anything about. He said, We have people who will testify at the saw the President shot from the front. He said : You can always get people to testify about something.
But he said: We are pretty convinced that he was shot from the back. And that implied that although some of us thought that might initially have been an entrance wound, that, you know, that's the end of the discussion and we do have people who will testify to that.
I don't know whether you construe that as pressure or not, but certainly I was surprised that he said don't say about -- anything about that to anyone. A young resident 31 years old, you're not going to say about that episode to anybody because at that time I think we were all -- the whole country was - I mean, you didn't joke about anything , and there were jokes going around about what happened at the time of the assassination. But we were very serious about that. I thought that was a little unusual. ......
DR. JONES: And so -- in fact, I told Mr. Haron the other day -- I gave him Lito Puerto's name and his telephone number. I said you know if you're going to have the group down here, why don't you get Puerto down here to clarify that comment, if indeed that were the case or it's not the case But I think that was part of where some of that came from. The other comment that -- to clarify what I said regarding Arlen Specter, I'm saying [sic] that he pressured me because that was after the testimony that I had given. I think what he was implying was that -
DR. PERRY: Discretion.
DR. JONES: -- that you - you could get people to testify that the President had been shot from the front.
DR. PERRY: He was asking you to be discreet -
DR. JONES: I think that's right. ......
MR. GUNN: Have you-all seen the autopsy protocol that was drafted by Doctors Homes, Boswell, and Finck?
DR. JONES: I don't recall that I have. ...
DR. PETERS: I saw it at the National Archives, and I always wondered if it really was accurate because when it came to adrenals, (inaudible) because of being Addisonian.
Humes had written two or three words which were not legible at all, if that was his actual writing down as he went through the autopsy . I thought it was inaccurate for anyone else who had to transcribe it subsequently. And I asked about that at the time, and they said, well, didn't want to make too much reference to the adrenals because Robert Kennedy did not want them to say anything about the adrenals he was going to run for president and he didn't want people to think he had congenitally acquires Addisonian disease because his brother had had it. Probably President Kennedy had developed it from tuberculosis, I think, a common cause of bilateral destruction of the adrenals in those days.
But Humes -- the autopsy report they showed me was terribly done. I don't know what you saw, but it was -- the writing was illegible, just some scribbling as they came to each organ. When he came to adrenals, just a little scribble. It was not legible. So I don't -- that's -- they showed that to me as -- the autopsy report by Dr. Humes. And I said, well, we had a great guy in Dallas who should have done this autopsy, Earl Rose. He was a forensic pathologist trained but didn't have a chance. .....
MR. GUNN: The part I'm pointing now to what I'm understanding to be the occipital bone on --
DR. McCLELLAND: That's right.
MR. GUNN: -- on the skull, and that is part of what he has missing in his --
DR. McCLELLAND: Right.
MR. GUNN: -- in his drawing.
DR. McCLELLAND: I've seen that. It was blown out onto the street, I think, wasn't it, and picked up --
DR. PETERS: Yeah, a large fragment --
DR. McCLELLAND: -- the next day. .......
DR. McCLELLAND: Let me ask a question in regard to that. I'm -- I think my subsequent thoughts about the nature of the wound and the direction from which the bullet may have come were colored almost where you couldn't separate the two influences by what I saw of the head in the Trauma Room 1 and then by what I think I saw - well, know I saw but whether I interpreted it properly is another thing on the Zapruder film, putting those two things together, & I couldn't help but put them together.
And it looked to me clearly as if he were shot from the front on the film, and that is not inconsistent with what I saw as perhaps an exit wound on a bullet entering in the back of his head. And I remember I saw that one night. It was, I guess the first time they had showed it on that Geraldo Rivera program when I first saw that film & his head was thrown backward, it first looked like maybe that that was because the car sped up and therefore jerked his head backward, but they replayed the film in slow motion and then several times after that I've seen the same thing. And the car didn't start moving forward rapidly until several frames after his head had been thrown backward by what strikes me as could have been the force from a bullet coming from the front. That's just my impression. That's all it is, and that's not inconsistent with my view of that wound.
DR. PETERS: I think at the time, that day particularly I think is just as Dr. Perry described it. It could have been an entrance wound with a big exit wound at the back of the skull. We were to learn later he had a bullet that transversed through the back of his neck and out the front and that Malcolm would be best qualified to speak about that because he saw -- and I guess Charlie and maybe Ron, too -- the wound before anything was done to it.
But Dr. Lattimer, my friend, and the FBI fired 500 shots into skulls with various contents - liquid, plaster of Paris, so forth - and it showed that when an individual struck from behind with a high velocity missile the head is propelled towards the shooter. Of course, I didn't know that that day I hadn't seen the Zapruder film yet, and all we had was the President lying before us. But their evidence would tend to suggest that the President's head was propelled backwards because of the nature of the velocity of the bullet that struck the skull going from a harder outer cranium into a soft custard-like brain. And so that was -- that's the only evidence I know for the head going backwards. ...
DR. McCLELLAND: Well, but what I'm saying Paul, that you can't say that an unattached skull as opposed to a skull that's attached to a heavy body, that it could propel the skull off a stool which weighs nothing but it couldn't propel that -- with that heavy body attached to it in that direction unless the bullet were fired from the front and it carried the head and the body backward, which I think is very likely what happened. But an unattached skull sitting on a stool, I mean, you can say that today -- ......
MR. GUNN: One of the things in the -- during the autopsy, they did not link the wound in the back to the neck. That did not come until after they spoke with Dr. Perry, so there was no tracing. There was an attempt to use the probe, and they found that the probe went in a short degree and then they could not find that it connected anywhere. ....
This adds more confirmation to Dr. Crenshaw's claim that his colleagues agreed that the throat wound was an entrance wound and either they thought the head wound on the top right was the exit wound or at least considered it a strong possibility; In addition to Dr. Perry and Dr. Clark saying this, it was also confirmed by Dr. Jones and Dr. Peters; and according to Dr. McClelland's Warren Commission testimony he also thought the throat wound was an entrance wound initially, bringing it to a total of at least six of the Parkland Doctors who thought the throat wound was an entrance wound.
Dr. Peters had major doubts about if the autopsy "really was accurate" and thought it was terribly done," and that large portions of it were illegible. Mr. Gunn indicated that there "was no tracing," and indicated that they didn't come to their conclusions until after they spoke to Dr. Perry, implying it was his claims that led them to believe the bullet from the throat was an exit wound; however, Dr. Perry's own testimony contradicts this, he didn't agree that the throat wound was an exit wound until Arlen Specter told him to accept his own theory as fact, and even then when Representative Boogs asked if there was evidence of the throat wound being an entrance, he still said it was inconclusive without tracing it.
The reason Dr. Parry was unwilling to say for certain that it was an exit wound, was partly because it was so small that it looked like an entrance wound, and because they didn't trace it. At that time they were more concerned with trying to save him, even though there doesn't seem to have been a chance at that; Dr. Peters claimed that they "had a great guy in Dallas who should have done this autopsy, Earl Rose. He was a forensic pathologist trained but didn't have a chance." He presumably would have traced it; but in the absence of tracing Arlen Specter, who had no medical experience, was able to present Dr. Perry with his theory and ask him to accept it as fact, which to the best of my knowledge is how the official theory was established, not by the experts.
Furthermore, Dr. Jones claims that Arlen Specter told him that he had some people that "people who will testify at the saw the President shot from the front," and that "You can always get people to testify about something." and he allegedly said "We are pretty convinced that he was shot from the back," and "don't say about -- anything about that to anyone." Dr. Jones also asked "I don't know whether you construe that as pressure or not," which I certainly would have considered this to be unjustifiable pressure, especially since this alleged conversation was made in private without witnesses, shortly after leaving the hearing room. I suspect most people would agree; however, most people at the ARRB hearing tried to justify it.
If this was the only pressure put on one of the doctors to support the claim the bullet came from the back, it's hard to imagine they would have testified to so incompetent a conclusion as a result of it. Although other witnesses, most notably Jean Hill, claimed to have been pressured or intimidated to change their testimony, I'm not aware of any hard evidence that the doctors were threatened. However, if they weren't pressured or threatened, it's hard to imagine why they would support such an incompetent conclusion. Furthermore, the fact that Arlen Specter offered testimony at Dr. Perry's Warren Commission hearing and that he allegedly said, "You can always get people to testify about something," raises major doubts about his credibility, and he seems to be the one that came up with the Single Bullet theory, not medical experts.
There was no effort to directly ask Dr. Perry, or to the best of my knowledge anyone else, whether they would expect a shot from the back would have caused his head to go backwards, as it did in the Zapruder film, so fast that it would cause a large portion of his brain to be thrown onto the trunk, where Jacqueline retrieved it, or cause blood to splatter at least ten to sixteen feet onto the motorcycles behind him. To the best of my knowledge the Warren Commission, and for the most part the House Select Committee pretended this evidence didn't even exist. However, they seem to have hinted at it in in the ARRB hearings. Mr. Gunn asks about "the occipital bone" "part of what he has missing," and Dr. McClellan says "It was blown out onto the street, I think, wasn't it, and picked up" after a comment from Dr. Peters he adds "the next day." Dr. McClellan wasn't actually there at the time, but this sounds like a large chunk of Kennedy's brain along with a portion of the skull, which wasn't blown out into the street, which could be any direction, but onto the trunk where Jacqueline Kennedy picked it up.
Shortly after that Dr. Peters refers to Dr. Lattimer shooting "500 shots into skulls with various contents" and "the head is propelled towards the shooter," which, frankly I find less credible than the experiments on live goats mentioned by the House Select Committee. People shoot targets every day at shooting ranges and they don't ricochet back to the shooter. Why would these skulls be any different? Were these skulls attached to bodies? Was there any discussion about the ethics of shooting bodies or the live goats? This may sound morbid, but in both cases what's available to the public is testimony of so-called experts, in a case where experts are constantly trying to tell us to believe things that make no sense!
Perhaps one of the hardest things to believe is how they located the almost "pristine" or "magic bullet," and the total path it allegedly took. The House Select Committee does say A. Lee Harvey Oswald fired three shots at President John F. Kennedy; the second and third shots he fired struck the President; the third shot he fired killed the President And they added, "Because this conclusion appears to be inconsistent with the backward motion of the President's head in the Zapruder film, the committee consulted a wound ballistics expert to determine what relationship, if any, exists between the direction from which a bullet strikes the head and subsequent head movement. (20) The expert concluded that nerve damage from a bullet entering the President's head could have caused his back muscles to tighten which, in turn, could have caused his head to move toward the rear.(21) He demonstrated the phenomenon in a filmed experiment which involved the shooting of goats. (22) Thus, the committee determined that the rearward movement of the President's head would not be fundamentally inconsistent with a bullet striking from the rear.(23)"
Even without considering the fact that a large portion of his brain was flung back onto the trunk and even more blood flew back at least ten to sixteen feet to the motorcycles behind him this seems highly unlikely. When you do consider these facts and additional evidence, including the unlikely possibility that the trajectory described by the official version could have come from above and behind, it should be virtually out of the question. This becomes even more far-fetched when considering what has been nicknamed the "pristine" or "magic bullet," and how it was found. First of all, claiming it's pristine is a slight exageration, since it was fired, and there was some damage, but not nearly as much as you would expect considering how much damage it did.
According to Chapter 3: The Shots from the Texas School Book Depository:
A nearly whole bullet was found on Governor Connally's stretcher at Parkland Hospital after the assassination. After his arrival at the hospital the Governor was brought into trauma room No. 2 on a stretcher, removed from the room on that stretcher a short time later, and taken on an elevator to the second-floor operating room.119 On the second floor he was transferred from the stretcher to an operating table which was then moved into the operating room, and a hospital attendant wheeled the empty stretcher into an elevator.120 Shortly afterward, Darrell C. Tomlinson, the hospital's senior engineer, removed this stretcher from the elevator and placed it in the corridor on the ground floor, alongside another stretcher wholly unconnected with the care of Governor Connally.121 A few minutes later, he bumped one of the stretchers against the wall and a bullet rolled out.122
Although Tomlinson was not certain whether the bullet came from the Connally stretcher or the adjacent one, the Commission has concluded that the bullet came from the Governor's stretcher. That conclusion is buttressed by evidence which eliminated President Kennedy's stretcher as a source of the bullet. President Kennedy remained on the stretcher on which he was carried into the hospital while the doctors tried to save his life.123 He was never removed from the stretcher from the time he was taken into the emergency room until his body was placed in a casket in that same room.124 After the President's body was removed from that stretcher, the linen was taken off and placed in a hamper and the stretcher was pushed into trauma room No. 2, a completely different location from the site where the nearly whole bullet was found.125
The bizarre circumstances led many people to think that this bullet might have been planted. Critics of this claim have said that it's extremely far-fetched, and not the best way to plant evidence, risking getting caught. This may be true; but having the bullet drop out of Connally's body unnoticed and being found in this manner is just as bizarre and hard to believe. Many people have claimed that the chain of evidence was broken and either this bullet should be disregarded, or major doubts should be raised when presenting it for legal conclusions. The courts or prosecutors have rejected evidence for far less reason, including in the JFK case or the assassination of his brother Robert F. Kennedy. It often seems as if evidence is rejected based on whether it suits the purposes of those prosecuting the case, in this case Arlen Specter, not the strength of the evidence.
Several sources have raised major doubts about this bullet and the way it was found including The Secret Service and CE 399 (the bullet found on the stretcher) by Vincent Michael Palamara and Was the CE 399 Magic Bullet Planted? both which raise way to many questions, indicating this bullet can't possibly have done the damage that Arlen Specter claimed it did; however, without this single bullet theory, there's no way the lone gunman theory will hold up, which many assume is the reason Arlen Specter and the establishment stuck with it.
Christopher Dodd also dissented with the House Committee conclusions, which hardly got any attention in the media or even in most conspiracy books on JFK as reported in the Views and Dissent of Members of the Committee at the end of the report. The reason for his dissent was that the acoustic evidence showed that Oswald allegedly missed his first shot and his second shot was only 1.66 after it. As I said before an assassins first shot can be expected to be his best, and Dodd clearly recognized this. Tests by their best sharp shooters showed they couldn't shoot a second shot and aim it properly in less than 2.25 seconds, although without properly aiming it it could be fired in 1.65 to 1.75 seconds. Dodd clearly thought that although Oswald may have been more familiar with that gun he wasn't as good a marksman as their experts and shouldn't have been able to do this; furthermore even though Dodd didn't mention this, if he was that good a marksman he almost certainly would have hit it with his first shot. Dodd thought that after missing, Oswald would have taken more time with his second shot to make sure he didn't miss again.
To sum it up, comparing Arlen Specter's Single bullet theory to Charles Crenshaw's partial theory about one bullet, according to Specter's theory, the first shot from Oswald, which should have been the best missed and hit the curb causing a granite chip to hit someone. The second shot from Oswald went down 45 degrees from the book depository, 1.66 seconds later, assuming the acoustic evidence was accurate, perhaps a little later if it wasn't, hit Kennedy in the upper back, turned upwards slightly to come out in his throat, which is impossible to explain. According to some sources, including Oliver Stones JFK movie, it magically turned to the right then to the left to hit John Connally in the back; supporters of the Warren report address this by claiming Kennedy was sitting to the far right and Connally further to the left, making this a straight line as pointed out in Wikipedia: Single-bullet theory, which I can't completely rule out, although this still doesn't explain the first change in direction from a 45 degree angle going down to going slightly higher after hitting Kennedy's back. Then after coming out of Connally's chest it went through his wrist, logged itself in his thigh, then worked its way out on to the stretcher without anyone noticing it, even though he was being attended by numerous doctors and nurses, and it was found later after he was removed from the stretcher, by chance in an extremely unlikely manner.
Then the third shot, which was also aimed much quicker than the first shot which missed, hit Kennedy in the back of the head, once again, switching from a 45 degree angle, to a level or slightly upward angle as shown in the sketch shown above, creating a hole bigger than five inches. In order to explain the change in trajectory, as Warren Commission supporters did explains the lack of a right and left turn before hitting Connally they would have to argue that Kennedy was hunched way to the front bent over, which isn't supported by the video or any pictures. Then after this shot to the head, instead of propelling Kennedy's head forward, as would be expected with a shot from the rear, his head goes back and to the left, with a large portion of his brains blown out to the trunk where Jacqueline retrieved it and a large amount of his blood blown all the way back to two motorcycles ten to sixteen feet behind Kennedy.
This is beyond belief.
Charles Crenshaw's theory, which was partially supported by at least five Parkland Doctors before they discussed it with Arlen Specter or other investigators, was much simpler, with one shot coming from the front, entering the throat, and most likely exiting in the upper right portion of the head, which could conceivably caused a large portion of his skull and brains to be blown out to the trunk. Charles Crenshaw didn't try to explain all the bullets for both victims, but, of course he never had time to do a thorough investigation, nor did the other Parkland Doctors, since Kennedy's body was transferred to Bethesda Military Hospital where they did the autopsy without tracing the bullet holes and provided a report which Dr. Peters considered "inaccurate" and "not legible at all." In the absence of an accurate autopsy report that traced the bullet wounds, Arlen Specter was able to introduce his Single Bullet Theory and ask the experts to confirm it based on a series of facts that he presented, which weren't scrutinized properly.
Furthermore, there was more evidence of the destruction of evidence. Dr. Humes, who lead the autopsy, admitted that he burnt the first draft of the autopsy and notes related to it, a note from Oswald to the FBI was destroyed, Army intelligence records on Oswald were destroyed along with other records, some that may not have been reported; and according to several sources including Assassination of John F. Kennedy "Several pieces of evidence and documentation are described to have been lost, cleaned, or missing from the original chain of evidence (e.g., limousine cleaned out on November 24,[128] Connally's clothing cleaned and pressed,[129] Oswald's military intelligence file destroyed in 1973,[130] Connally's Stetson hat and shirt sleeve gold cufflink missing)."
The story about cleaning the limousine and Connally's suit and shirt have been told by many sources, some more reliable than others. According to this source, the limousine "was photographed, and a metal detector was used to find bullet fragments," before it was cleaned. I vaguely recall some sources that seemed credible saying evidence may have been destroyed when cleaning the limousine, however the most credible sources I found after a brief search indicates this might not be true; however the evidence is stronger for the cleaning of the suit and shirt.
This was clearly reported in Warren Commission Hearings, Volume V p.63 and p.64. If you search the internet, you'll find numerous sources that claim that it was Governor Connally's wife that had them dry cleaned. I'm not ruling out the possibility that she didn't know better, but this still seems like an incredibly lame excuse for allowing possible destruction of evidence; even if his wife didn't know better, the investigators and doctors surly must have and they could easily have advised her that this was needed for investigative purposes, especially since he wouldn't be wearing a suit with bullet holes in them again anyway.
This is just a fraction of the evidence raising doubts about the official evidence, including some of the simplest irrefutable evidence, which most researchers into the JFK assassination are already familiar with even if the majority of the public has forgotten it, assuming they heard it at all. It also includes some obscure testimony and evidence that most people, including many JFK researchers, have never heard of. There should be little doubt that the fatal shot came from the grassy knoll, or that general direction, not the book depository. It's also clear that the government was involved in a major cover-up. The only other explanation is that they're incredibly incompetent, which is probably partly true, but a large portion of this clearly indicates a cover-up, although it wasn't always competent; but they were able to get the traditional media to bury the truth and use massive amounts of propaganda to ridicule those doing their own research.
There must be well over ten thousand pages of testimony or other documents from the Warren Commission Hearings as well and thousands of pages from the hearings for the House Select Committee, Assassinations Records Review Board or other sources; I only covered a small fraction of that, mostly because I knew what to look for for one reason or another. But there's probably more relevant evidence buried there, but it's mixed up with an enormous amount of trivial testimony for researchers to sort through. If other researchers didn't cover Dr. Perry's testimony as well as they could have there's probably more they overlooked. There's also additional declassified documents which most people haven't heard about, including one cited in the following excerpt from A Lie Too Big to Fail: The Real History of the Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy 2018 by Lisa Pease p.96
What about the FBI? Wouldn't it have been an impartial party? Not necessarily. For example, when the FBI traced the ammunition used in the assassination of President Kennedy to a batch ordered by the U.S. Marine Corps for weapons that the Marines did not possess, an FBI memo said that fact gave rise to the "obvious speculation that it is a contract placed by the CIA with Western under a USMC cover for concealment purposes." 175
This document is available in the web at FBI 105-82555 Oswald HQ File, Section 2 175 FBI memo from (FBI lab employee Roy) H. Jevons to (FBI Lab head Ivan) Conrad, December 2, 1963, www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult&absPageId=692546
There are still many more questions, like who carried it out and why. The evidence from this article isn't adequate to explain that; however numerous books, including "JFK and the Unspeakable" by James Douglass, a couple by Jim Garrison and a few more listed below, help explain a lot of it, although they don't have all the facts either. Some of the research shown here, and much more shown by Douglass and others, clearly shows that the cover up must come from well connected people within our government, and since it began so fast after the assassination, it's hard to imagine any other motive besides covering up their own crime; although one theory that has been expressed is that the mob killed Kennedy, and the government reluctantly covered it up, because the mob could disclose some of their participation in other activities with the CIA or other government organizations. A close look at all the research raises major doubts about whether the mafia could have carried out the assassination, especially since a lot of evidence implicates the CIA or other parts of the government even before the assassination; furthermore, it's highly unlikely that the mafia could have carried this out alone, although they may have helped the CIA. Jim Garrison came to this conclusion as well and reported this in two books, including A Heritage of Stone 1970 which is available free online; most government reports are also available free online.
Douglass also demonstrates that there were major changes in foreign policy that took place almost immediately after the assassination, especially regarding the Vietnam War, but not limited to that. One of the most compelling pieces of evidence he shows is National Security Action Memorandum No. 263 which shows he was planning a withdrawal from Vietnam seven weeks before his assassination; other evidence shows he may have planned this as early as April 1963, and that this planned withdrawal was reversed within a week after his assassination. Additional evidence shows he was planning major changes in South and Central America, discouraging them from becoming Communist by reforming policies to help the working class and opposing oppression from tyrannical land owners who had ties to large American corporations. If Kennedy had lived, there's good reason to believe that not only would the Vietnam War have ended before the worst atrocities were committed, saving millions of Vietnamese lives and almost 60,000 American troops killed in the war, but there's a good chance that coups supported by the CIA in Indonesia in 1964 and Brazil in 1965 might never have happened, saving hundreds of thousands if not well over a million more lives.
Furthermore, there are at least a dozen more conspiracy theories about other assassinations or attempted assassinations, including Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, John Lennon, attempted assassinations of Pope John Paul II and Ronald Reagan. I would be skeptical of most of these conspiracy theories at least until I checked up on them, assuming there's credible evidence raising doubts about the official stories. However, after reading at least one good book about RFK and part of a more recent one plus a few more articles including some about Robert F Kennedy Jr., it's becoming clear that there's no chance that Sirhan Sirhan acted alone, and that RFK was shot from behind and no witnesses put Sirhan Sirhan behind Kennedy, meaning he couldn't possibly have killed him. At least a couple good authors, William Turner, John Christian and Lisa Pease have confirmed this and provided additional evidence showing that it was almost certainly Thane Eugene Cesar who shot Kennedy from behind. The shots were fired up close at a sharp upward angle, and there was evidence of powder burns. No one else could have been that close standing behind him.
I haven't looked quite as close at the murder of Martin Luther King Jr., but his family clearly thinks it wasn't done by James Earl Ray, and the closer I look the more credible their claims seems and the less credible the government's claim seem. William F. Pepper wrote "Orders to Kill" 1995/2015 which allegedly shows there's little or no chance James Earl Ray could have done it and allegedly implicates the FBI or the CIA, although I've only read a few excerpts of it at this time. If the evidence for this is a strong as William Pepper and the King family think, then we have a pattern of behavior, meaning other theories might be close to the truth as well; although, I would still recommend skepticism until checking the evidence to see how credible it is in each specific case, since it's virtually guaranteed that many of them don't fit the same pattern.
However, regardless of how common or uncommon government assassinations are, there's no doubt that we fight one war after another based on lies; we have a rigged economy designed to benefit the wealthy at the expense of the majority; there are numerous ways that corporations and governments endanger much larger portions of the public without intentionally trying to kill them, including depriving them of health care with our corrupt for profit system, polluting many of the poorest communities, especially minorities, and other was that ut people at risk, including withholding educational material teaching how to reduce violence and more. This isn't a conspiracy theory, it's a rational conclusion based on research that is available in libraries, academic journals, alternative media, but mostly absent from mainstream media or the political discussion from candidates the media is willing to cover. There's also public evidence showing the media rigs elections, with the help of the two established political parties, by simply refusing to cover candidates that serve the public interests instead of corporations. This can also be proven from public sources which the media ignore, so it's a rational conclusion, not a conspiracy theory.
Mary Ferrell Foundation: "I think the [Warren] report, to those who have studied it closely, has collapsed like a house of cards, and I think the people who read it in the long-run future will see that. I frankly believe that we have shown that the John F. Kennedy assassination was snuffed out before it even began, and that the fatal mistake the Warren Commission made was not to use its own investigators, but instead to rely on the CIA and FBI personnel, which played directly into the hands of senior intelligence officials who directed the cover-up." — Richard Schweiker, Senator and former Church Committee member, speaking on Face the Nation in 1976.
The following are some additional research sources, including a few available free online:
"James Douglass JFK and the Unspeakable" 2008
Joan Mellen "A Farewell to Justice" 2005 The release in the 1990s of thousands of documents, most from the CIA and FBI, has established the truth of Garrison's lone cry in the wilderness. To the moment of his death in 1992, Garrison was persuaded that the CIA, the same team that had overthrown President Arbenz of Guatemala in 1954, among them Lawrence Hon, Richard Helms and David Atlee Phillips, had planned the assassination, and then, with the assistance of the FBI, attempted to cover its tracks, not always successfully. Kerry Thornley, the Marine Corps buddy of Lee Harvey Oswald, who told the Warren Commission that Oswald was a Marxist, turned out himself to have been a CIA employee trained, according to a CIA document, in Washington, D.C., in chemical and biological warfare. Additional excerpts at Third World Traveler
Jim Garrison On the Trail of the Assassins 1988
A Heritage of Stone, Jim Garrison, 1970
John Newman "Oswald And The CIA" 1995
"Plausible Denial: Was the CIA Involved in the Assassination of JFK?" Mark Lane · 2011
"Last Word: My Indictment of the CIA in the Murder of JFK" Mark Lane · 2011
"Rush to Judgment: A Critique of the Warren Commission's Inquiry Into the Murder of President John F. Kennedy" Mark Lane · 1993
"Rush to Judgment: A Critique of the Warren Commission's Inquiry Into the Murder of President John F. Kennedy" Mark Lane · 1993 https://archive.org/details/rushtojudgment00lane/page/20/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/rushtojudgment00lane/page/32/mode/2up
Charles A. Crenshaw JFK: A Conspiracy of Silence 1992
Jim Marrs Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy 1989
George de Mohrenschildt "I am a patsy! I am a Patsy!"
William Turner, John Christian "The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy" 1978/2006
Lisa Pease "A Lie Too Big To Fail: The Real History of the Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy" 2018
Who Killed Bobby?: The Unsolved Murder of Robert F. Kennedy Shane O'Sullivan · 2008
William F. Pepper Orders to Kill: The Truth Behind the Murder of Martin Luther King 1995/2015
Warren Commission Report: Table of Contents
House Select Committee On Assassinations Report
Final Report of the Assassination Records Review Board September 1998
The Trial of Clay L. Shaw Transcripts
Warren Commission Hearings and Exhibits
Index of Warren Commission Witnesses.
Alphabetical list of witnesses and testimony in HTML from various investigations
Assassination Records Review Board 1998
Document:Fifty Years of the Deep State
The following are additional sources, articles or book excerpts:
A Lie Too Big to Fail: The Real History of the Assassination of Robert F Kennedy By Lisa Pease 2018
The autopsy of President John F. Kennedy had been one of the most poorly documented autopsies ever conducted. Dr. Thomas Noguchi, the coroner for Los Angeles County, was determined that Robert Kennedy's autopsy, in contrast, be completely professional. ........Murder in Dealey Plaza: What We Know that We Didn't Know Then about the Death of JFK By James H. Fetzer Ph.D. 2013
"Take care of the examination right there in Los Angeles. Fight off any pressure to remove the body to Washington. No Dallas this time," Eckert told Noguchi. After President Kennedy's assassination in Dallas, the President's body had been forcibly removed from the medical professionals at Parkland Hospital at gunpoint and transported back to Bethesda, Maryland, where a team of inexperienced pathologists had conducted the autopsies under the command of, among others, the CIA-connected Rear Admiral Calvin B. Galloway.138 Neither Eckert nor Noguchi wanted to see that happen again. ......
138 Admiral Calvin Galloway was a point of contact for anti-Castro Cubans wishing to join the CIA's anti-Castro effort, according to Felix Rodriguez in his book Shadow Warrior p.46-8
After a heated argument between Dallas officials and Secret Service men, the body of JFK is removed from Parkland Hospital almost at gun point. By law, it should have remained in Texas for autopsy. Dr. Earl Rose warns the Secret Service agents that they are breaking the chain of evidence. Roy Kellerman suggests that Rose might like to come along to Washington, watching the casket all the way to make certain that the chain of evidence was not broken. Rose replies: ”There’s nothing that would allow me to do it under our law. The autopsy will be performed here. Kellerman counters: ”The family doesn’t have to go through this. We will take care of the matter when we get back to Washington.” A Dallas policeman, wearing a helmet and a revolver, now stands at Dr. Rose’s side. ”These people say you can’t go,” the policeman says. Larry O’brian snaps: ”One side!” Kenny O’Donnell says: ”We’re leaving.” Dr. George Burkley raises his voice: ”We are removing it! This is the President of the United States; you can waive your local laws.” Moments later, Judge Theron Ward is stunned to hear District Attorney Wade state, over the phone, that he has no objection whatever to the removal of the President’s body. None at all. The casket is wheeled through the hospital doors.Warren Commission Report Chapter 3
On the sixth floor of the Depository Building, the Dallas police found three spent cartridges and a rifle. A nearly whole bullet was discovered on the stretcher used to carry Governor Connally at Parkland Hospital. As described in the preceding section, five bullet fragments were found in the President's limousine. The cartridge cases, the nearly whole bullet and the bullet fragments were all subjected to firearms identification analysis by qualified experts. It was the unanimous opinion of the experts that the nearly whole bullet, the two largest. bullet fragments. and the three cartridge cases were definitely fired in the rifle found on the sixth floor of the Depository Building to the exclusion of all other weapons. ........Multiple Shots from Many Directions Killed JFK 11/18/2013
...... At that time they did not know that there had been a bullet hole in the front of the President's neck when he arrived at Parkland Hospital because the tracheotomy incision had completely eliminated that evidence.169 .......
...... Dr. Charles S. Carrico, a resident surgeon at Parkland, noted a small wound approximately one-fourth of an inch in diameter (5 to 8 millimeters) in the lower third of the neck below the Adam's apple.173 .......
Did Someone Alter the Medical Evidence? September/October 1975
Wikipedia: John F. Kennedy autopsy
Lee Harvey Oswald ordered to kill JFK by Soviets, ex-CIA chief claims 02/22/2021
Woolsey is not the first CIA man to reject the Warren Commission 02/26/2021
Deep Politics II: Oswald, Mexico, And Cuba (Part Two) 10/08/2013
AMLASH: Rolando Cubela Secades, a Cuban doctor and official who was recruited in 1963 for an assassination attempt on Castro. Suspicion remains that Cubela may have been acting as a dangle to the CIA by Castro, due to his lenient treatment after his conviction for treason. Reported to be an informant to the Cuban government in 1980.
Spartacus Educational: Jack Ruby
Why Vincent Bugliosi Is So Sure Oswald Alone Killed JFK (Interview) 07/25/2007 Bugliosi: I was so immersed in trying one murder case after another that I had no opinion. I made the assumption that they were decent, honorable men, and they certainly were.
'Case Closed' doesn't close the Oswald file 09/22/1993
Michael Shermer on JFK
My Day in Dealey Plaza: Why JFK Was Killed by a Lone Assassin 12/14/2010 Both from the street level looking up and from the window looking down (there is a museum on the sixth floor from which you can gain the perspective of the assassin), it seems clear that Oswald could hardly have missed. Given the fact that he was designated a sharpshooter by the Marines during his time in the service, and the fact that Kennedy’s car was traveling less than 10 miles per hour after making the sharp left turn onto Elm street, one is left whispering under one’s breath, “Kennedy was a sitting duck.”
House Select Committee on Assassinations
Why Martin Luther King’s Family Believes James Earl Ray Was Not His Killer 04/04/2018
Officials suspect Illinois robbery bankrolled Ray 03/31/2008 "He was living on a dollar to two dollars a day," said current prosecutor John Campbell. "He was even darning his own socks to be able to save money."
Who Ordered the Killing of Malcolm X?: New Evidence May Implicate the New York Police Dept., the District Attorney, the FBI, and Even (Unthinkably) … 07/02/2021
SMEDLEY BUTLER & THE “BUSINESS PLOT,” PART I 11/20/1934
The Conspiracy to Kill Martin Luther King 03/01/1990
Interview with rep. William Stokes
The Magic Bullet: Even More Magical Than We Knew? Gary Aguilar and Josiah Thompson
The Secret Service and CE 399 (the bullet found on the stretcher) by Vincent Michael Palamara The following is a compendium of all the anomolies pertaining to what I like to refer to as the "legitimacy" of CE399, including the Secret Service's handling of it: ...... Why would they even need Rowley's call to "alert" them to the bullet found at Parkland and given to the FBI (two agents -- Sibert and O'Neil -- were in attendance with Greer and Kellerman at the autopsy)? Why would Rowley "order" Kellerman to tell the autopsy doctors about something he already knew about? It gets better (or worse, depending on which way you see it)...
Was the CE 399 Magic Bullet Planted? Summary The Parkland Hospital stretcher on which a bullet was found probably had nothing to do with the assassination. Commission Exhibit 399 had sustained far too little damage to have wounded Connally, and its chain of possession was faulty.
A. Lee Harvey Oswald fired three shots at President John F. Kennedy; the second and third shots he fired struck the President; the third shot he fired killed the President The bullet alleged to have caused the injuries to the Governor and the President was found on a stretcher at Parkland Hospital.(34) Numerous critics have alleged that this bullet, labeled "pristine" because it appeared to have been only slightly damaged, could not have caused the injuries to both the Governor (particularly his shattered wrist) and the President. Some have even suggested the possibility that the bullet wounded neither Connally nor Kennedy, that it was planted on the stretcher. (35) Neutron activation analysis, however, established that it was highly likely that the injuries to the Governor's wrist were caused by the bullet found on the stretcher in Parkland Hospital. (36) Further, the committee's wound ballistics expert concluded that the bullet found on the stretcher--Warren Commission exhibit 399 (CE 399)--is of a type that could have caused the wounds to President Kennedy and Governor Connally without showing any more deformity than it does.(37)
The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy By William W. Turner, Jonn Christian · 2006
Chapter 3: The Shots from the Texas School Book Depository A nearly whole bullet was found on Governor Connally's stretcher at Parkland Hospital after the assassination. After his arrival at the hospital the Governor was brought into trauma room No. 2 on a stretcher, removed from the room on that stretcher a short time later, and taken on an elevator to the second-floor operating room.119 On the second floor he was transferred from the stretcher to an operating table which was then moved into the operating room, and a hospital attendant wheeled the empty stretcher into an elevator.120 Shortly afterward, Darrell C. Tomlinson, the hospital's senior engineer, removed this stretcher from the elevator and placed it in the corridor on the ground floor, alongside another stretcher wholly unconnected with the care of Governor Connally.121 A few minutes later, he bumped one of the stretchers against the wall and a bullet rolled out.122 Although Tomlinson was not certain whether the bullet came from the Connally stretcher or the adjacent one, the Commission has concluded that the bullet came from the Governor's stretcher. That conclusion is buttressed by evidence which eliminated President Kennedy's stretcher as a source of the bullet. President Kennedy remained on the stretcher on which he was carried into the hospital while the doctors tried to save his life.123 He was never removed from the stretcher from the time he was taken into the emergency room until his body was placed in a casket in that same room.124 After the President's body was removed from that stretcher, the linen was taken off and placed in a hamper and the stretcher was pushed into trauma room No. 2, a completely different location from the site where the nearly whole bullet was found.125 ....... While the autopsy was being performed, surgeons learned that a whole bullet had been found at Parkland Hospital on a stretcher which, at that time, was thought to be the stretcher occupied by the President. This led to speculation that the bullet might have penetrated a short distance into the back of the neck and then dropped out onto the stretcher as a result of the external heart massage.170
Warren Commission Report and Hearings 05/23/2016
Warren Commission Hearings and Exhibits
Grassy Knoll in Dealey Plaza
Study: Shot Was Fired From 'Grassy Knoll' 01/07/2006
Jackie on the Trunk? by Robert Harris This is from Mrs. Connally's Warren Commission testimony, "..and then after the third shot she said, 'they have killed my husband. I have his brains in my hand,' and she repeated that several times, and that was all the conversation."
Grassy Knoll Witnesses
Eyewitness Testimony Attempt to discredit those claiming shots came from the grassy knoll but not those saying they came from the book depository.
The Clay Shaw trial testimony of Colonel Pierre A. Finck A: Well, I heard Dr. Humes stating that -- he said, "Who is in charge here?" and I heard an Army General, I don't remember his name, stating, I am." You must understand that in those circumstances, there were law enforcement officers, military people with various ranks, and you have to co-ordinate the operation according to directions.
The Clay Shaw trial testimony of Billy Joe Martin Q: As a police officer were you able to determine what these red splotches were? MR. DYMOND: I object ...... Q: Officer, during the course of your police duties have you ever had occasion to come in contact and observe human blood?
Spartacus Educational: Primary Sources: Autopsy Later in the afternoon, Dr. Malcolm Perry, an attending surgeon, and Dr. Kemp Clark, chief of neurosurgery at Parkland Hospital, gave more details. Mr. Kennedy was hit by a bullet in the throat, just below the Adam's apple, they said. This wound had the appearance of a bullet's entry. Mr. Kennedy also had a massive, gaping wound in the back and one on the right side of the head. However, the doctors said it was impossible to determine immediately whether the wounds had been caused by one bullet or two.
The Assassinations of Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy in the Light of the Fourth Gospel JAMES W. DOUGLASS Sewanee Theological Review, 1998/2018? After King was assassinated on April 4, Sam Giancana gave Myron Billett $30,000 and told him to start running: they both knew too much and were going to be killed. Giancana was in fact murdered in his Chicago home in June 1975, just before he was scheduled to testily before the Church Committee concerning assassination plots
The Truth of The Children of Vietnam: A Way of Liberation 11/30/2017
The Children of Vietnam by William Pepper Ramparts January 1967, pp. 45-68. reposted in 2017
Mcadams: Testimony of Jim Marrs Mcadams has extensive testimony including at least a few from the Warren Commission hearings in html, but the index is incomplete or hard to naviagate.
Mcadams: Testimony of Peter Dale Scott
Mcadams: Warren Commission Testimony Of Dr. Marion Thomas Jenkins
Mcadams: Warren Commission Testimony Of MRS. JOHN BOWDEN CONNALLY, JR.
A. Lee Harvey Oswald fired three shots at President John F. Kennedy; the second and third shots he fired struck the President; the third shot he fired killed the President Because this conclusion appears to be inconsistent with the backward motion of the President's head in the Zapruder film, the committee consulted a wound ballistics expert to determine what relationship, if any, exists between the direction from which a bullet strikes the head and subsequent head movement. (20) The expert concluded that nerve damage from a bullet entering the President's head could have caused his back muscles to tighten which, in turn, could have caused his head to move toward the rear.(21) He demonstrated the phenomenon in a filmed experiment which involved the shooting of goats. (22) Thus, the committee determined that the rearward movement of the President's head would not be fundamentally inconsistent with a bullet striking from the rear.(23)
Top U.S. General Said Trump Preached ‘Gospel of the Führer’ 07/14/2021 Seven days later, Milley got a call from “an old friend” with an explicit warning that Trump and his allies were trying to “overturn the government.” Milley was confident that any attempts by Trump to hold on to power would be thwarted, because the military wouldn’t go along. “They may try, but they’re not going to fucking succeed,” he told aides. “You can’t do this without the military. You can’t do this without the CIA and the FBI. We’re the guys with guns.”
Spartacus Educational: Charles Crenshaw
Charles Crenshaw: The Long Suppressed Truth? Or a Bunch of Fibs?
JFK doctor dies Charles A. Crenshaw believed that Oswald wasn't lone gunman 11/19/2001
Let's Set The Record Straight Dr. Charles Andrew Crenshaw
Evidence Suppressed and Destroyed
What happened to the Presidential Limousine that carried President Kennedy on the day he was assassinated? 03/10/2019
Robert F Kennedy was assassinated by Thane Eugene Cesar, declares RFK Jr, who says it was the security guard who fatally shot his father from behind after planning the murder with Sirhan Sirhan 09/12/2019 'The LAPD unit that investigated my dad’s assassination was run by active CIA operatives. They destroyed thousands of pieces of evidence,' claimed RFK Jr
JFK: From Parkland to Bethesda: The Ultimate Kennedy Assassination Compendium By Vincent Palamara Dr. Malcolm Perry “There was an entrance wound in the neck. … It appeared to be coming at him … The wound appeared to be an entrance wound on the front of the throat; yes that is correct. The exit wound, I don’t know. It could have been a second wound of the head.”
Destruction of Records
Missing radio tapes, an alleged cleanup: JFK limousine part of assassination conspiracy lore 05/07/2013
