Bugliosi Vs. Lifton – A Critique of Bugliosi’s Critique of “Best Evidence”

[Time for change]

Perhaps the most crucial issue regarding the question of whether John F. Kennedy was shot by a lone assassin or by more than one gunman acting as part of a conspiracy is the accuracy of the medical evidence as testified to by the doctors and nurses who tried to save Kennedy’s life at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, vs. the accuracy of the autopsy report. The testimony of the Parkland doctors and nurses, which I described in my previous post, indicated that at least one bullet, and probably two came from the front. The autopsy report claimed that both bullets came from the back, in the direction of the Texas School Book Depository, where evidence placed Lee Harvey Oswald. Both sets of doctors testified to a very different appearance of the body as they saw it, especially the fatal head wound. There are two possible explanations for that. Either the Parkland doctors and nurses were grossly mistaken as to what they saw, or else the body was altered prior to autopsy. I think that the possibility of so many doctors and nurses being wrong about what they saw is very slim.

Most of the evidence for the body alteration comes from David Lifton’s 699 page book, “Best Evidence – Disguise and Deception in the Assassination of John F. Kennedy”. Vincent Bugliosi claims to debunk Lifton’s claims in his own 1600 page book, “Reclaiming History”. He devotes 14 pages to debunking Lifton’s claims, in a chapter called “David Lifton and the Alteration of the President’s Body”. This post examines the evidence for alteration of the body prior to autopsy, and Bugliosi’s attempted debunking of that evidence.

If the President’s body was altered prior to the autopsy by those conspiring in his assassination, the purpose of doing that would have been to make it appear at autopsy as if the President’s wounds had been caused by bullets coming from behind him, from the Texas School Book Depository, where evidence placed Lee Harvey Oswald. If that was done, the following steps would likely have been required:

1) Get control of the body prior to autopsy
The conspirators would have had to make sure that the body was not autopsied at Parkland Hospital, as required by Texas law. They would have had to gain control of the body before it was autopsied.

2) Transport the body to a site for body alteration, unseen by non-conspirators
They would have to transport the body to some place where they could make the necessary alterations, unseen by anyone outside of the conspiracy. One possibility would have been to make the alteration at Bethesda Naval Hospital itself, maybe even inside the autopsy room. But given all the public attention focused on that area, that plan might have been considered impossible to pull off in secrecy.

If making the alterations at Bethesda Naval Hospital was considered too risky, they probably would have had to switch the body into a different coffin prior to the autopsy, so that they could transport it, unseen by the public, to a place where they would have the opportunity to make the necessary alterations.

3) Alter the body
They would have had to make the necessary alterations in the body. That would have included the following:

Since the fatal head wound at the back of the head, as described by the Parkland doctors and explained in my previous post, clearly suggested a shot from the front as the most likely possibility, that wound would have to be altered. They couldn’t very well simply cover it up. So they would have had to expand it forward and laterally so that a shot from the back would at least be a plausible explanation for it.

The throat wound would present a major problem if a bullet from the front had entered the throat and then lodged somewhere in the area without exiting the body. The discovery of such a bullet at autopsy, along with the track of the bullet, would constitute clear evidence of where the bullet came from.

Lastly, if the throat wound and the fatal head wound were to be claimed as exit wounds, then the conspirators would have to create corresponding “entrance wounds” on the back of the body.

4) Maintain control of the original coffin from the plane to the autopsy room
If the body were switched to a different coffin on Air Force One, it would be necessary for the conspirators to maintain control of the original coffin (in addition to the coffin with the body in it) until it arrived at the autopsy room. One reason for that is because if anyone else was allowed to handle the original (empty) coffin it might have been obvious that there was no body in it, because it would have felt excessively light.

Then, after arrival at Bethesda with the empty coffin, they would have had to get the empty coffin into the hospital while evading those who normally would have obtained it, for a long enough time to obtain the altered body and load it back into the original coffin.

5) Intimidation of the autopsy physicians
They might also have had to intimidate the autopsy doctors. Despite all their efforts there was no way to know that they would be able to fool experienced pathologists. In case they didn’t, they would need some way of obtaining their cooperation.


With all that in mind, let’s consider the evidence:


Maintaining control of the body prior to autopsy

Lifton’s account
The first step was to make sure that the autopsy was not performed in Texas, as required by state law. In trying to do this, a vicious argument ensued between Secret Service Agent Roy Kellerman and Dr. Earl Rose, the Dallas County Medical Examiner. Rose tried to explain that state law required the body to be autopsied in Texas, and that removing the body to Washington would interrupt the chain of evidence. But to no avail.

Here is an account of the “argument”, from Lifton’s interview with Aubrey Rike, a Dallas official who was responsible for staying with the casket:

I was scared to death... I was scared all the time I was there... You know, we'd start pushing, and somebody would grab us, and push us back, and pull the casket back. You'd have to see it to believe it... it was the most unorganized, scary type situation I have ever been in my life. I'm a policeman now, and I've been up against all kinds of stuff.

Bugliosi’s rebuttal of Lifton’s account
Bugliosi mentions this incident, and in fact confirms Lifton’s account when he says “Almost physical force was used to prevent the autopsy from being done at Parkland”. But Bugliosi says that, not in support of Lifton’s theory, but against it. His point is that the autopsy could have been done at Parkland, and if that was the case, then the conspirators would have had to have had a team of plastic surgeons available to perform the necessary body alterations.

But Bugliosi’s belief that the autopsy could have been performed at Parkland Hospital seems unrealistic. The account of Rike and others makes it clear that the Secret Service would not have allowed it. It appears that they would have used whatever force was necessary to ensure that no autopsy was performed at Parkland Hospital.


Transport the body to a site for body alteration, unseen by non-conspirators

As noted above, if the body was transported somewhere to be surgically altered, it probably would have had to first been secretly transferred to another coffin, since the original coffin was bound to be carefully (and publicly, on national TV) watched on its way to the autopsy site.

Lifton’s account
Lifton describes his extensive interviews with four persons who noted that Kennedy’s body arrived in a casket that was very different than the one that he was placed in after he died at Parkland Hospital. The Parkland Hospital casket was a fancy bronze casket. The one that these four witnesses observed was a cheap, tin, gray or pinkish-gray casket. The witnesses were: Dennis David, former Navy Lt. Commander, and E6 Petty Officer on November 22, 1963; Paul O’Connor and James Jenkins, laboratory technologists who had the duty of preparing the body for autopsy on November 22nd; and, Floyd Reibe, who had photography duties that day. O’Connor and Reibe also remembered Kennedy being in a body bag when he arrived in that coffin. In addition, Captain John Stover noted Kennedy arriving in a body bag, but didn’t recall the type of coffin. The body bag is important because when Kennedy was placed into the fancy bronze coffin in Dallas he was placed with sheets over him, but definitely not in a body bag.

Lifton also describes what he considers to be a plausible scenario for being switched into a different coffin on the plane, transferred to a site for body alteration, and then transferred to Bethesda Naval Hospital for the autopsy. He devotes an 18 page chapter to how he developed this scenario. I’ll just summarize parts of the scenario here, along with some of the supporting evidence:

Lifton says that it appeared from the public record that the coffin was unattended on Air Force One from 2:18 to 2:32 p.m. He goes on to explain why he believes that, but I won’t discuss that here because I don’t feel that explanation was convincing.

Lifton estimates that the plane landed at Andrews AFB at about 5:58 p.m. He notes that Walter Reed Army Hospital was 13.3 miles away, so that a helicopter could have picked up the body and transported it there by 6:05. That would leave about 30 minutes for doing the body alterations, then putting it on a helicopter and arriving at Bethesda Naval Hospital by about 6:45, which was the time that Dennis David estimated that the unmarked black ambulance arrived at Bethesda Naval Hospital with the body in the gray-pink, tin coffin.

In support of the idea that a helicopter picked up the body quickly, Lifton describes the CBS coverage of the landing, in which the announcement of the event was being drowned out by “the turning rotor of a helicopter (1), and an NBC log that indicated that “The Presidential jet is seen arriving, along with an Army helicopter (2).

In support of the idea that the body was taken specifically to Walter Reed, among other evidence, Lifton explains that one of the autopsy doctors, Commander Thornton Boswell, in response to Lifton asking him how he learned that the body was coming to Bethesda Naval Hospital, responded with a description of a telephone call he received that day:

The President’s physician was on the airplane, and he radioed to Washington, and the information either came directly to Walter Reed, or indirectly through some other communication means, to Walter Reed… And he notified me that they were coming…

Bugliosi’s rebuttal of Lifton’s account
Bugliosi saves most of his rebuttal for this particular part of Lifton’s book. He says, “Setting aside Lifton’s delirious ‘everybody had their eyes closed and never saw anything’ theory for a moment…” But then he fails to even mention the most important part of Lifton’s reason for believing that the body was switched into another casket prior to arrival at Bethesda – the four eye-witnesses that Lifton quotes to that effect that the body arrived in a gray or gray-pink, cheap metal casket.

Bugliosi begins his attack on the idea of a coffin switch on the plane by saying “a sine qua non to Lifton’s entire premise is that at various points along the way, no one, literally no one, was paying any attention to the president’s casket, it being left unattended”.

He then goes on to cite a few people offering the opinion that the coffin with the body in it was under constant watch throughout the trip. The biggest devastation to Lifton’s scenario of the switch on the plane comes from a quote by Dave Powers, who says:

The coffin was never unattended. Lifton’s story is the biggest pack of malarkey I ever heard in my life. I never had my hands or eyes off of it during that period he says it was unattended…

Though Bugliosi criticizes Lifton’s estimation of the time that the plane landed, he notes himself that flight records had the plane landing at 5:59, one minute off of Lifton’s estimate. He confirms Lifton’s account of a helicopter being present at the time of the plane’s landing.

Bugliosi then goes on to say, “Finally, as if this isn’t enough, Lifton’s fantasy couldn’t have happened because the conspirators would have needed at least three separate teams of plastic surgeons waiting in hiding, one at each of the three hospitals (Parkland, Walter Reed, and Bethesda Naval Hospital).

My interpretation
Bugliosis’ initial assertion is not quite true. Lifton’s premise does not require that at “various points along the way… literally no one was paying any attention to the president’s casket…” First of all, it requires only one point along the way – perhaps for 2-5 minutes. And on a plane that may have had several co-conspirators flying on it, it wouldn’t require that “literally no one” was paying attention – only that those not involved in the conspiracy weren’t paying attention.

Bugliosi’s assertion that three teams of plastic surgeons would have been required is likewise not true. They wouldn’t have needed anyone at Parkland, since they made sure that the autopsy wasn’t performed there. Nor would they have required one at Bethesda Naval Hospital if they planned to do the alterations at Walter Reed. Bugliosi points out that Jacqueline Kennedy didn’t decide that the autopsy would be done at Bethesda until the last minute. So what? If she had decided to have it done at Walter Reed, that probably would have made it easier for the conspirators, since that’s where the alterations were done. And furthermore, plastic surgeons weren’t needed for the job that was done.

The biggest obstacle to Lifton’s scenario is Dave Powers’ statement, noted above. It doesn’t seem at all likely that Powers was in on the conspiracy. So his statement carries a lot of weight.

But weighing against that statement is a need to explain how the description of the wound given by the Parkland doctors differed so markedly from the description given by the autopsy doctors, and why four witnesses noticed the body arrive at Bethesda Naval Hospital in a different coffin. Those things demand an explanation.

Maybe Powers’ memory on this isn’t 100% correct. Didn’t he even take a bathroom break during this long flight? Maybe he was away from the coffin for a short time but considered it “attended” because it was being watched by someone he trusted, but who was in on the conspiracy. Support for a scenario of that nature comes from a book written by Powers and O’Donnell themselves, “Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye”, in their description of Lyndon Johnson taking the Presidential oath, as related by Ron Ecker:

Finally Judge Hughes appeared, and Johnson asked all of us who were in the back of the plane with President Kennedy’s casket to come up to the front to attend his oath-taking ceremony. I (O’Donnell) found everybody standing around and waiting again, although the judge was ready with President Kennedy’s Bible in her hand. I asked Johnson why he was still delaying. He said he was waiting for Mrs. Kennedy, which bothered me because I felt that attending the swearing-in might be upsetting for her. ‘She said she wants to be here when I take the oath,’ Johnson said. ‘Why don’t you see what’s keeping her?’”

Ecker continues:

O’Donnell went and got Jackie, after which the book clearly leaves it understood that no one was left in the rear of the aircraft until after LBJ was sworn in. This was time and opportunity enough for the body to be snatched.

Alteration of the body

Lifton’s account

The fatal head wound
In my last post I discussed in detail the vast differences between the description of the fatal head wound by the doctors and nurses at Parkland Hospital, compared to the autopsy doctors. This, plus other evidence of striking differences between what the Parkland doctors said they saw vs. what the autopsy doctors saw, constitutes the primary evidence for Lifton’s assertion that the body was altered prior to autopsy. Here is Lifton’s summary, from my last post, of the different descriptions of the fatal head wound. He begins with the autopsy doctors’ description:

There was a huge hole about six inches across in the top of the head. The hole extended all the way from the rear of the skull, in the occipital area, nearly six inches toward the front, and was completely uncovered. Dr. Humes said its largest dimension was “approximately 13 cm” (3)…. At the autopsy, Commander Boswell made a drawing of the skull which depicted the wound as a roughly rectangular area with measurement of 10 by 17 cm. Inside that area, Boswell had written “missing.” (4) At the rear of the head, just beneath the large hole, one inch to the right of the centerline, Commander Humes reported the existence of a small rectangular entry wound – 15 by 6 mm in size…

That is not the way the President’s head appeared earlier that afternoon, at Parkland Memorial Hospital. None of the Dallas doctors saw the small “entry” wound subsequently reported by Commander Humes. More important, the only major wound noted by the Parkland doctors (5) – approximately 5 to 7 cm. in diameter – was located in the right rear portion of the head. The bones were sprung outward, and a flap of scalp was associated with the wound. The top of the President’s head was in place – it was not “missing.”

Additional support for the Parkland doctors’ description of the fatal head wound comes from Lifton’s interview with laboratory technician James Jenkins, who viewed the initial entry of Kennedy’s body into Bethesda Naval Hospital:

When I told Jenkins that the autopsy photographs showed that the back of the head was essentially intact, except for a small bullet entry wound at the top, he was incredulous. “That’s not possible. That is totally – you know, there’s no possible way. Okay? It’s not possible…

Jenkins account suggests that President Kennedy’s body, even though altered, was not altered sufficiently to create the unambiguous appearance of a shot from the rear.

The throat wound
The bullet wound in the throat, which the Parkland doctors referred to as an entrance wound (meaning that the bullet came from the front), was obliterated during their attempt to save the President’s life, when Dr. Carrico made a tracheotomy incision. Dr. Perry had described the tracheotomy incision as measuring 2-3 cm, compared to Dr. James Humes, the autopsy physician, who testified before the Warren Commission that the incision was 7-8 cm (6), and whose notes described it as “a 6.5 cm long transverse wound with widely gaping irregular edges.” (7) That sentence depicted two important differences with the incision as seen at Parkland: The length of the incision and the “gaping irregular edges”, which were said to have been smooth at Parkland. When Lifton asked Perry whether the incision could have been as large as 4.5 cm, Perry said that he doubted it was that large.

The idea that the throat was altered was given additional credence by Dr. John Ebersole, who noted that the throat wound was sutured (8), which was clearly not the case when the body left Parkland Hospital.

The back wound
The alleged back wound was concluded by the autopsy physicians and the Warren report to be the point of entry for the bullet that caused the throat wound. This wound was not noted by the Parkland doctors, though it is possible that they could have missed it, since Kennedy was lying on his back when they tried to save his life.

However, a major problem with the back wound is the observations of laboratory technician James Jenkins, who observed the autopsy. From Lifton’s interview with Jenkins:

He remembered very clearly Humes’ probing the back wound with his little finger. “What sticks out in my mind,” Jenkins told me, “is the fact that Commander Humes put his little finger in it, and, you know, said that… he could probe the bottom of it with his finger, which would mean to me it was very shallow… it would have been no way that that (bullet) could have exited in the front.

Bugliosi’s rebuttal
Of all Bugliosi’s rebuttals, his rebuttal (or non-rebuttal would be a better term) to the heart of Lifton’s argument shows more than anything else that Bugliosi had very little understanding of Lifton’s book.

Bugliosi says that “The centerpiece of his (Lifton’s) fantasy was found in a … FBI document… written by FBI special agents Francis O’Neill Jr. and James W. Sibert… (which noted) surgery of the head area, namely in the top of the skull”.

That was not at all the “centerpiece” of Lifton’s “fantasy”. The centerpiece of his book was the vast differences in the body, as viewed by the Parkland doctors vs. the autopsy doctors.

Secondly, Bugliosi says that Lifton claimed the head wound noted by the Parkland doctors to be an entry wound, when in fact Lifton devoted vast portions of his book to documenting that it was an exit wound.

Bugliosi barely mentions the vastly different descriptions, by the two sets of doctors, of the head wound, to which Lifton devotes large sections of his book. He does quote from the autopsy report that “There is a large irregular defect of the scalp and skull on the right involving chiefly the parietal bone but extending somewhat into the temporal and occipital regions. In this region there is an actual absence of scalp and bone producing a defect which measures 13 cm in greatest diameter”. In doing that, Bugliosi (perhaps inadvertently) confirms Lifton’s description of the autopsy report. But Bugliosi adds a footnote to that statement, stating that “Dr. Michael Baden told me… the photographs and X-rays taken at the time of the autopsy clearly show that no additional incisions were made anywhere on his body after it left Parkland and prior to the autopsy at Bethesda.”

That is just absurd. Either Bugliosi quoted Baden incorrectly, or else Dr. Baden’s statement is absurd. The wound description to which the footnote concerning Dr. Baden’s statement is attached is nothing like what the Parkland doctors described. It is far larger and extends much farther forward and to the top of the skull (See Lifton’s account, above, or for a much more detailed account, my previous post on the medical evidence as reported by the Parkland doctors.)

Bugliosi dismisses the enlargement of the throat wound by saying “Lifton says the plotters enlarged the wound in the throat (ignoring the fact that the tracheotomy at Parkland had already done that)”. How much of Lifton’s book did Bugliosi read?! Lifton doesn’t ignore the tracheotomy at all. To the contrary, he describes interviews he had with several of the Parkland doctors regarding the size of the tracheotomy incision, which as noted above was much smaller than what Humes noted in his autopsy report.

And finally, Bugliosi doesn’t even mention James Jenkins’ characterization of the shallowness of the back wound, which casts serious doubt on that wound (or body alteration as the case may be) representing an entry for a bullet that exited the throat.


Maintaining control of the original coffin from the plane to the autopsy room

In order to provide cover for their alterations of the body, the conspirators would need to make a public show of transporting the original coffin from the plane to Bethesda Naval Hospital, then load the altered body into the original casket while attracting as little attention as possible, and then have the body in the original casket brought into the autopsy room. Lifton presents dozens of pages of several interviews with eye-witnesses that led him to the conclusion that that is exactly what happened. In addition to describing the eye-witness accounts of the arrival of the gray metal casket with the body in a body bag, described above, here is some evidence of how the conspirators maintained control of the original coffin long enough to carry out their plan:

Lifton’s account
The Army provided a “casket team” of six soldiers who were supposed to obtain the casket for transportation to Bethesda Naval Hospital as it was unloaded off of Air Force One After landing at Andrews AFB. When the casket team tried to obtain the casket (which unbeknownst to them did not contain the body), however, they were pushed out of the way by Secret Service agents (9), who loaded the casket into an ambulance, which then proceeded by motorcade to Bethesda Naval Hospital. The Army casket team then proceeded by helicopter to Bethesda to await the body.

The motorcade with the original but now empty coffin (supposedly containing the body) arrived at Bethesda Naval Hospital at 6:55 p.m. (AFTER the arrival of the plain grey casket which contained the body). But the Army casket team was still not allowed to obtain the casket. There are a number of similar accounts by members of the casket team as to how this happened, but here is a portion of the one that I find the most revealing – a taped interview of Army casket team member Hubert Clark, by Lifton:

“I think there was a decoy, supposedly to get the people away from the hospital... And we went around to the back I remember driving some distance ... before we actually came in contact with the real casket ..."

Lifton asked if he remembered losing the ambulance. Clark responded:

“I ... we lost it ... We were saying, 'Now where the hell is he?... Why is he speeding?' And we were trying to figure out, 'Well, why is he going so fast? We're going to lose him.' ... and we were saying to each other ... 'What, is he trying to lose us?'..."

Clark said that he thought the ride lasted 10-15 minutes and that the truck got up to speeds of 45 or 50:

”We followed the ambulance until we lost it .. And then it was ... another fifteen minutes trying to find ... to get back to where we started from.”

Bugliosi’s rebuttal of Lifton’s account
Bugliosi gives the following account of this part of Lifton’s book:

In Lifton’s psychotic (and psychedelic) scenario… “the body was transported into the Dallas casket” (the expensive bronze one) and taken outside and put into the “correct” ambulance. The casket was then removed from the ambulance by the District of Washington casket team and brought back into the morgue for the commencement of the autopsy at 8 p.m.

Thus he rebuts the whole thing by referring to Lifton’s account as psychotic. He does not mention how the Secret Service denied the casket to the Army casket team at Andrews Air Force Base, for the trip to Bethesda. Nor does he mention the description of the ambulance chase around Bethesda Hospital required to further deny the Army casket team access to the casket prior to loading the body into it, which Lifton recorded in a taped interview. Nor does he mention that Lifton developed the above scenario through dozens of pages of interviews with numerous on-the-scene witnesses, some who observed the body in the gray-pink metal casket, and others who observed it (later) in the bronze casket.

Additional note
It is also important to note, as Lifton describes, and Bugliosi confirms, that a verbal order went out from the Surgeon General Edward Kenney to all witnesses to events surrounding the autopsy, on November 22, confirmed four days later (page 72) in writing that “You are reminded that you are under verbal orders of the Surgeon General, United States Navy, to discuss with no one events connected with your official duties on the evening of 22 November – 23 November 1963. This letter constitutes official notification… You are warned that infraction of these orders makes you liable to Court Martial proceedings under…” That order was lifted in 1978, so that the House Select Committee on Assassinations would be able to interview witnesses.

It should be evident that such an order would tend to prevent the embarrassing release of information to the effect that different witnesses saw Kennedy’s body arrive in different coffins.


Intimidation of the autopsy physicians

Lifton (and others) have described a great deal of evidence that the autopsy physicians were intimidated. I’ll describe a small bit of it here:

First, Lifton notes that from the beginning, Humes was forbidden to discuss the autopsy with anyone (10).

Then there is the trial of Clay Shaw, at which Dr. Pierre Finck, one of the autopsy physicians, was cross-examined by Alvin Oser. This was described by Jim Garrison, a Louisiana District Attorney, in his book, “On the Trail of the Assassins”. Oser asked Finck seven times why he didn’t “dissect the track of that particular bullet (the one that caused the throat wound) in the victim”, and each time Oser dodged the question (A finding that the track didn’t extend to the other side of the body would have proven that the throat wound was an entrance wound). Finally, Oser says:

Oser: Your Honor, I would ask Your Honor to direct the witness to answer my question. I will ask you the question one more time: WHY did you not dissect the track of the bullet wound that you have described today and you saw at the time of the autopsy at the time you examined the body? WHY?

Finck: As I recall I was told not to, but I don’t remember by whom.

Then there was Lifton’s interview with J.S. Layton Ledbetter, who was Chief of the Day of the Medical Center command on November 22, 1963. Ledbetter told Lifton:

These three gentlemen walked up to me and they said: “Are you Chief Ledbetter?... We’re Secret Service men receiving the body of President Kennedy back here, and … there’s already 26 of us here on the compound. They identified themselves.” They made clear that from that point forward, it was a Secret Service operation. The Secret Service men seen by Ledbetter at 4:20 p.m. are as unknown to the official records of the investigation as…

And, from the interview that Lifton had with James Jenkins, who observed the autopsy and some of its aftermath, Jenkins told Lifton:

“There were no conclusions that night… There were some… discussions between the three physicians, with a couple of other people – I don’t know who they were. They seemed to be in charge, or seemed to be some type of authority… It had made a vivid impression. There was temperament, anger, and rumblings… The people running around in civilian clothes… had a preconcluded idea, and … because it was not panning out, you know, they were very – there were a lot of animosities, to be quite frank with you… there were very short tempers…This would be found, and somebody would say, ‘No, that’s not right; can’t be, that type of thing. That’s not possible.’ I even felt like – and this was my opinion, I don’t know how they felt about it – that… someone was chastising them…. The civilians who seemed to be in charge seemed to be trying to get Humes to conclude that a bullet passed from back to front through the body.” Jenkins had a clear recollection that that wasn’t possible.

Bugliosi’s rebuttal of Lifton’s account
Bugliosi doesn’t even mention any of this. All he has to say on the subject is “He (Lifton) doesn’t even say how the three autopsy surgeons and every other pathologist, including the nine forensic pathologists on the HSCA medical panel, all concluded that the two wounds to the back side of the president were caused by bullets.”


Conclusion

So it is that Bugliosi demonstrated only the shallowest of an understanding of Lifton’s book and consequently ignored his most important arguments or grossly mischaracterized them. Perhaps that shouldn’t be surprising, given Bugliosi’s attitude towards Lifton’s book. Bugliosi says near the beginning of his chapter on Lifton:

One theory that perhaps “takes the cake” is set forth by conspiracy author David Lifton in his book Best Evidence. The theory is so unhinged that it really doesn’t deserve one word in any serious treatment of the assassination. The only problem is that it comes wrapped in a hefty 747-page book, which was published in 1980 by a prominent publisher, was treated seriously by many people who should know better, got excellent reviews in several major newspapers, was a Book of the Month Club selection, and was on the New York Times best-seller list for three months, rising as high as number four. Therefore, I am forced to devote some time to talking about nonsense of the most exquisite nature.

To Bugliosi’s credit, he does give Lifton some much deserved credit:

In addition to praise for his thorough research, Lifton does deserve one other compliment. Unlike the overwhelming majority of conspiracy theorists, he does not deliberately twist, warp, and lie about the official record. Such honesty, together with his being an indefatigable and resourceful investigator, would make him a worthy adversary if he had common sense on his side.

But David Lifton, a graduate of Cornell University School of Engineering Physics and a computer engineer in the Apollo space program, makes plenty of sense. Bugliosi’s words to the contrary notwithstanding (I believe that Bugliosi would admit this if asked to think about it), Lifton did not conduct his investigation with the intent of proving any preconceived idea, but rather it was a several year struggle to find the truth. Lifton describes almost every clue he came across in chronological sequence and in great detail, revising his theory numerous times along the way, as scientists do in their attempts to find scientific truths. The final two paragraphs of Lifton’s book explain why he devoted so many years to his effort – and to a lesser extent, why I have posted as many times as I have on this subject:

This position… represents a cynical view of our society. It presumes the gullibility and timidity of the electorate, and the absolute sanctity of vested authority. It is a view that I do not want to accept. Yet I must concede that even if there is a new investigation, it is unlikely that the architects of this plot can be identified or brought to justice. But that is not the point. The disguise they erected must be torn down, and it must be done officially. That would be the most important outcome of a new investigation. If we cannot have justice, perhaps we can at least have the truth. At present, the disguise erected by the plotters not only conceals their identity, but some fundamental truths about our country. It hides the fact that some time during Kennedy’s thousand days, a secret veto was cast on his presidency and his life.

Unlinked references

1) Author’s transcript of CBS network broadcast, 11-22-63
2) NBC-TV broadcast at 6:00 p.m., as recorded in “There was a President”, pp. 21-22
3) Bethesda Autopsy Report, page 3
4) Warren Commission Exhibit 397
5) Warren Commission Hearings, Volume 6, page 6
6) Warren Commission Hearings, Volume 2, page 361
7) Bethesda Autopsy Report, page 3
8) Philadelphia Enquirer, “Celebrity in their Midst”, 3-10-78
9) Military District of Washington, D.C. – Bird Report, 12-10-63
10) New York Times – 12-6-63

[havocmom]

1. consider motives

Not the killers' but the two authors.

Bugliosi is not the most reliable judge and always seeks limelight. Always seemed Lifton just wanted to find out what the hell happened.

[Time for change]

13. I've never read a book like Lifton's

It would be very difficult to read his book and think that he had a preconceived idea about what he intended to find. Here is what Lifton said at the beginning of his book:

The notion that a presidential assassination plot had escaped official detection seemed so absurd that I wanted to attend Mark Lane’s lecture simply as entertainment… I did not arrive at the conclusion (of a conspiracy) lightly. I had always believed what my government said, and will not easily forget the day in mid-April 1961 when I … vigorously argued with a man who was … making the preposterous claim that the Cuban invasion then in the headlines was sponsored by the United States government – specifically the CIA. Like many others at the time, I thought that the charge was outrageous and that people who made such claims were kooks.

[KatyMan]

2. K&R

Nice work, Time for Change, that's a lot of effort and is much appreciated.

[Time for change]

12. Thank you

I wanted to get this on record.

[AzDar]

3. Bugliosi's book is bullshit. After reading it, for the life of me, I couldn't understand

why he wrote it...

[Time for change]

10. I'll say this

I was planning on reading the whole book. But after seeing how grossly he mischaracterized Lifton's book, how can anyone have any confidence in anything he says on this subject? I see no point in continuing further with it, except to save it for reference with respect to anyone who wants to use it to support the lone gunman theory.

[Bolo Boffin]

14. I'll go get my million dollars right now.

I knew you would find some copout for having to deal with Bugliosi's book. LOL!

Maybe McHugh smuggled the shoekeeper's elves in and they altered the body inside the casket. Prove it's wrong. I dare you.

[noise]

15. What was Oswald's motive?

What was Ruby's motive for killing Oswald? Patriotism? Was Ruby a huge Kennedy supporter?

[Bolo Boffin]

17. Who gives a fuck?

Motive is basically useless in determining guilt. This is not Perry Mason or Agatha Christie.

Guilt is determined by evidence. It answers the question, did such a one do such a thing? Motive -- why did such a one do such a thing -- is a different question.

ETA: I mean, seriously. If Oswald's motive is determined by you to be unworthy of the death of JFK, well, does that overthrow Oswald's purchasing the murder weapon? Does that impeach his out of character behavior both before and after the assassination? Does that change his having shot Officer Tippet? Does that obviate in any way the eyewitnesses who watched him shoot JFK through the sixth floor window?

Even Jackie was appalled that a "silly little Communist" shot him, and that he didn't die for civil rights or something noble. That doesn't alter the facts of Oswald's guilt.

[noise]

18. Motive helps one understand the crime

It may not be necessary to determine guilt in a courtroom but even Bugliosi admits it sure helps a jury when they have a motive.

Did Oswald not like Kennedy's accent? Is that why he killed him?

[Bolo Boffin]

19. "Understand" the crime all you like.

Motive has nothing to do with establishing guilt.

[noise]

20. Ruby made sure the case didn't go to court

Just a coincidence for sure. And Ruby stuck to his patriotic motive right? He never suggested something else motivated him?

[Bolo Boffin]

21. "A Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, serial number C2766, was found on the sixth floor...

The Physical Evidence

33. A Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, serial number C2766, was found on the sixth floor of the Book Depository Building shortly after the shooting in Dealey Plaza. Handwriting experts determined that the writing on the purchase order and money order for the rifle was Oswald's. And the seller shipped the rifle to Oswald's post office box in Dallas. So Oswald owned the Carcano. Also, photographs taken by Oswald's wife, Marina, in April of 1963 show Oswald holding the CArcano, and Oswald's right palm print was found on the underside of the rifle following the assassination. So we know that Oswald not only owned but possessed the subject rifle.

In the same vein, a tuft of several fresh, dark blue, gray-black, and orange-yellow cotton fibers was found in a crevice between the butt plate of the Carcano and the wooden stock. The FBI laboratory found that the colors, and even the twist of the fibers, perfectly matched those on the shirt Oswald was wearing at the time of his arrest. Though such fibers could have come from another identical shirt, the prohibitive probability is that they came from Oswald's shirt.

Bugliosi's Reclaiming History, p. 963.

Motive your way out of that.

[noise]

22. The Warren Commission on motive

Many factors were undoubtedly involved in Oswald's motivation for the assassination, and the Commission does not believe that it can ascribe to him any one motive or group of motives. It is apparent, however, that Oswald was moved by an overriding hostility to his environment. He does not appear to have been able to establish meaningful relationships with other people. He was perpetually discontented with the world around him. Long before the assassination he expressed his hatred for American society and acted in protest against it. Oswald's search for what he conceived to be the perfect society was doomed from the start. He sought for himself a place in history--a role as the "great man" who would be recognized as having been in advance of his times. His commitment to Marxism and communism appears to have been another important factor in his motivation.

From the Warren Commission report

Yet he didn't take credit for killing the President? Wow. That's odd. Why would Oswald kill Kennedy and then pretend he didn't?

Have you read Russ Baker's book Family of Secrets? Baker adds some much needed context to the scene in Dallas during that time.

[Bolo Boffin]

23. "Firearms identification experts from the Warren Commission and the HSCA...

34. Firearms identification experts from the Warren Commission and the HSCA concluded that two large bullet fragments found in the presidential limousine were parts of a bullet fired from Oswald's Carcano rifle to the exclusion of all other weapons. Likewise, the firearms experts found that the whole bullet recovered from a stretcher at Parkland Hospital, believed to be the stretcher Governor Connally was on, was fired from Oswald's rifle to the exclusion of all others.

35. Firearms experts determined that the three expended cartridge shells found on the floor beneath the southeasternmost window on the sixth floor of the Book Depository Building were fired in and ejected from Oswald's Mannlicher-Carcano rifle to the exclusion of all other weapons.

So we know, not just beyond a reasonable doubt, but beyond all doubt, that Oswald's rifle was the murder weapon, the weapon that fired the bullets that struck down the thirty-fifth president of the United States. If there were no other evidence against Oswald, the fact that the murder weapon belonged to him, and that there was no evidence or even likelihood that anyone else had come into possession of the weapon, would be devastating evidence of his guilt.

Bugliosi, p. 963.

[ControlledDemolition]

4. There were probably three shots from the front. The windscreen of JFK's limo was replaced...

... to cover up a troublesome 'indentation'!

(Edit: Fix typo.)

[noise]

5. A possible explanation for all the confusion

Vince Salandria:

I'm afraid we were misled. All the critics, myself included, were misled very early. I see that now. We spent too much time and effort microanalyzing the details of the assassination when all the time it was obvious, it was blatantly obvious that it was a conspiracy. Don't you think that the men who killed Kennedy had the means to do it in the most sophisticated and subtle way? They chose not to. Instead, they picked the shooting gallery that was Dealey Plaza and did it in the most barbarous and openly arrogant manner. The cover story was transparent and designed not to hold, to fall apart at the slightest scrutiny. The forces that killed Kennedy wanted the message clear: 'We are in control and no one - not the President, nor Congress, nor any elected official - no one can do anything about it.' It was a message to the people that their Government was powerless. And the people eventually got the message. Consider what has happened since the Kennedy assassination. People see government today as unresponsive to their needs, yet the budget and power of the military and intelligence establishment have increased tremendously.

Salandria speaking to Gaeton Fonzi

Naomi Wolf:

I have a section in the book about how lies in a fascist shift serve a different purpose than they do in a democracy. In a democracy, people lie to deceive. In a fascist shift, lies serve to disorient. Lies in the service of a fascist shift make it hard for citizens to trust their own judgment about what's real and what's not. Once citizens don't know what's real and what's not real, they are profoundly disempowered. The Bush administration seems to have learned that lesson, and they regularly name things the opposite. And there's a long historical precedent for making people feel that there is no such thing as truth.

Buzzflash interview with Naomi Wolf

Salandria popularized (he gives credit to a colleague for the idea) the concept of the transparent conspiracy. This MO seems designed to make it obvious that the named perp could not have been solely responsible for committing the crime. OTOH, the cover up seems intended to withhold evidence leading to other perps (i.e. CIA). One obvious question--why would the MO call for transparency if that meant the political/media establishment would have to work so hard to cover up the truth? Why not just make it look like a lone nut did it by himself? After all, isn't it beneficial for the perps to fool the public into believing all is well in their democratic state? For whatever reason it seems the objectives of the transparent MO are more important than any complications related to the cover up.

Possible objectives of the transparent MO: Intimidate, demoralize and confuse anyone who questioned the findings of the Warren Commission (i.e. the lone assassin theory).

[Time for change]

9. Very interesting theory

I've heard that before, but I'm not sure that I agree. They seem to have gone to a lot of trouble to hide what they did -- which is not exactly inconsistent with this theory, but still it seems to me to cast doubt on it. I just don't know.

[dbonds]

6. Good post and comparison.

[dflprincess]

7. Interesting quote from Tip O'Neil's book "Man of the House"

(the Dave Powers' quote in the OP made me think of it)

I was never one of the use people who had doubts or suspicions about the Warren Commission's report on the president's death. But five years after Jack died, I was having dinner with Kenny O'Donnell and a few other people at Jimmy's Harborside Restaurant in Boston, and we got to talking about the assassination. I was surprised to hear O'Donnell say that he was sure he had heard two shots that came from behind the fence.
"That's not what you told the Warren Commission," I said.

"You're right," he replied. "I told the FBI what I had heard, but they said it couldn't have happened that way and that I must have been imagining things. So I testified the way they wanted me to. I just didn't want to stir up any more pain and trouble for the family."

"I can't believe it," I said. "I wouldn't have done that in a million years. I would have told the truth."

"Tip, you have to understand. The family-everybody wanted this thing behind them."

Dave Powers was with us at dinner that night, and his recollection of the shots was the same as O'Donnell's. Kenny O'Donnell is no longer alive, but during the writing of this book I checked with Dave Powers. As they say in the news business, he stands by his story.

And so there will always be some skepticism in my mind about the cause of Jack's death. I used to think that the only people who doubted the conclusions of the Warren Commission were crackpots. Now, however, I'm not so sure.

So two of the men closest to JFK admitted to Tip O'Neil that they let the FBI tell them what they saw and heard (who should they have believed, the FBI or their own lying eyes and ears?) it makes it a little easier to understand how other people who were merely witnesses caved in.

It also makes me doubt Powers' recollection that the casket was never out of his sight. Wasn't everyone on the plane in the forward area when Johnson took the oath?

[Time for change]

8. Very interesting

This throws into serious question the only part of Bugliosi's criticism of Lifton's book that has any validity at all. It also reminds me of the Milgram experiments:

In his book “The Authoritarians”, Bob Altemeyer describes the obedience experiments of Stanley Milgram. In the most famous of these experiments, men were recruited for the experiment through newspaper ads. They were told that they were participating in a “memory” experiment, in which they would play the role of “Teacher”. Their job was to deliver electric shocks to a “Learner” whenever the Learner gave the wrong answer to the memory test. The Learner’s role was to purposely give wrong answers, thereby necessitating that the Teacher deliver progressively higher voltage “electrical shocks” to the Learner with every wrong answer. Unknown to the Teacher, who was actually the subject of the experiment, the Learner was part of the research team, and the “electrical shocks” were fake, as were the Learner’s reactions to the “electrical shocks”.

At 75 volts, the Learner gives a grunt, simulating pain. By 120 volts, the Learner shouts “Hey, this really hurts”. By 150 volts, the Learner shouts “Experimenter! Get me out of here. I won’t be in the experiment any more. I refuse to go on”. By 270 volts the Learner is hysterical, screaming “Let me out of here. Let me out of here. Let me out of here. Do you hear? Let me out of here.” At 345 volts the Learner fakes unconsciousness or death, but the experiment continues. After 450 volts is used three times, the experiment ends.

If the “Teacher” at any time during the experiment turns to the Experimenter (who is the authority for the experiment) and suggests that the experiment stop, the Experimenter explains in no uncertain terms that the experiment must continue. The purpose of the experiment is to see how far the “Teacher” will go before he puts the welfare of the “Learner” above obedience to the Experimenter and refuses to go any further.

http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/psychology/milgram_obedi...

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Bolo Boffin]

16. Lifton's hypothesis (and by extension, your OP) is only a God of the Gaps argument

Why is this issue the "most crucial" one? Because you say so? Whatever.

What this issue does come down to is the Parkland doctors vs. the autopsy doctors. Do the Parkland doctors have to be "grossly mistaken"? No, just plain old mistaken. The circumstances under which they conducted their attempts to save JFK's life were very different from the autopsy room. Nobody at Parkland stopped what they were doing to grab a measuring tape or a ruler. Nobody took (wasted) any time carefully examining his body for evidence of how the assassination occured.

On the contrary, the autopsy doctors minutely documented the body before them, such that forensic pathologists have been able to verify both their records and their findings and even castigate them for their mistakes. But on the main, they agree: two gunshot wounds from the rear. Nothing else. No surgical alterations. No other wounds anywhere else.

And "the possibility of so many doctors and nurses being wrong (at Parkland) is slim"? No, it's about 50/50. Bugliosi produced the scientific paper, Time. Trauma doctors simply don't have the time or necessity to get things like that right. And the doctors and nurses at Parkland show the confusion of the time by their own conflicting reports of the wounds! None of them agree 100% on where the wounds were, if they were entrance or exit (well, I'll grant you the head injury - everyone considered that an exit), whether or not there was a wound in the left temple (there wasn't)...

Their own confusing and confused accounts are not their fault in any way. It wasn't their job to get things like that accurate. It was their job to try to save Kennedy's life or pronounce him dead. No one at Parkland did anything else but that.


But for you, the conflicting accounts of the people at Parkland stand in equal weight to the autopsy accounts. And so, rather than see that that confusion and haste of the E.R. accounts adequately for the discrepancies in the Parkland accounts with each other and the autopsy reports, you claim that the body was surgically altered between Parkland and Bethesda.

And for this, you offer not a single shred of evidence. No, I'm not counting the "discrepancies" between the Parkland accounts and the autopsy reports. You present a fabulously inventive series of events to show how the body might possibly have been loose long enough for someone to alter the wounds so thoroughly that even today trained pathologists cannot identify the alterations in the autopsy records. And this entire process you present without a shred of evidence that it occurred. Indeed, the evidence is actually stacked against such a conclusion from a variety of sources.

You gripe about Bugliosi spending only 14 of his 1615 page (plus CD with source and end notes) book on Lifton's hypothesis, yet as it stands, Bugliosi need only disprove a single element of that chain of events to completely confound the whole. And that element is the inability of anyone to have snatched the body. It just could not have happened.

Bugliosi offers several accounts showing this to be impossible. Brigadier General Godfrey McHugh (p. 1064):

From the moment we wheeled the casket out of Parkland Hospital in Dallas and pushed it into the ambulance, I, who was an Air Force aide to the President, never left the coffin except for a few minutes. I did so only to talk to the pilot of Air Force One, and this was at Mrs. Kennedy's request. She wanted to expedite our departure. During this time, Mrs. Kennedy, along with Larry O'Brien and Dave Powers, remained at the side of the casket. To suggest that anyone could have taken the body of the President out of the coffin with Mrs. Kennedy and two of his closest and most loyal friends a few feet away is illogical. Aboard Air Force One it would have been impossible. Further, the statement that the ambulance sent to Andrews Air Force Base by the Bethesda Naval Hospital was left unattended at the front entrance is false. I remained with the ambulance at all times. After a short while, I entered the ambulance. It was then driven to the emergency entrance, and the casket was immediately wheeled into the operating room.

Richard Johnson of the White House detail, "specifically assigned to watch over the casket":

On the drive from (Parkland) Hospital to AF#1 I rode the follow up car. Upon our arrival at AF#1 I assisted in placing the casket upon USAF#2600. While waiting for the departure of AF#1 I was instructed by STSAIC Stout to ride in the rear of the plane with the casket. This had been a request of President Johnson.

Dr. Burkley said that Mrs. Kennedy sat in the vicinity of the casket the entire trip. O'Donnell said that he, O'Brien, and Powers stayed with Jackie the entire trip. Two FBI agents Francis O'Neill and James Sibert met AF#1 when the casket was being unloaded and never let the ambulance out of their sight until it reached Bethesda (with no stopovers at Walter Reed on the way). O'Neill helped take the casket from the ambulance to the operating room.

You quote Dave Powers, but you don't mention that Bugliosi got this quote from two other conspiracy theorists who argue against Lifton. It was in their book High Treason, and here's the fuller quote that you managed to not give us the benefit of reading here at DU:

The coffin was never unattended. Lifton's story is the biggest pack of malarkey I ever heard in my life. I never had my eyes or hands off of it during that period he says it was unattended, and when Jackie got up to go to her stateroom where Lyndon Johnson was, Kenny O'Donnell went with her, but we stayed with the coffin and never let go of it. In fact, several of us were with it through the whole trip, all the way to Bethesda Naval Hospital. It couldn't have happened the way that fellow said. Not even thirty seconds. I never left it. There was a general watch. We organized it.

Now if you can point out Dave Powers in any of the pictures of the swearing in, go for it. I've looked at three, and I don't see him up in this area.

So if there is no time at all for anyone to have snatched the body, then Lifton's hypothesis is invalidated and there's no point in talking further about it. No chance to snatch the body = no alteration of the body. Done.

Some of your other points - yes, there was an scene about where the autopsy was going to be held, but you neglect to mention that there is a full and sufficient reason for this altercation. The Secret Service and Johnson had determined that the safest place for Johnson was Washington, but Johnson was not leaving without Jackie Kennedy, and Jackie was not leaving without Jack.

As far as Kennedy's body being switched out during the swearing in:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3X8xf-qyJLI

That's a tourist video of the SAM 26000. Right around the 2:00 mark, as the kid carrying the camera is focusing on his mother, someone in the party is saying that this is the area where Johnson was sworn in. They mean this one:



The rectangle on the right is where the swearing in took place. The red circle is where the tourist party is when the statement is made. Further in, they show where the plane was "cut open" to get the casket inside. I've marked the row of seats where I believe the casket lay.

As you watch the video, as you look at the layout, as you look at the pictures of the swearing in, you will realize that there is no way in hell that anyone could be getting JFK's body out of his casket without somebody in the swearing in party noticing. I mean, Jesus Christ.

No opportunity to snatch the body means no chance to alter the body. There, I've debunked Lifton in 13 words. I'm sorry if it hurt your feelings.

[Time for change]

24. I notice that you deal with only a single point of the many mischaracterizations I point out from

Bugliosi's critique of Lifton.

It was the one point of his critique that I acknowledged had some validity to it. I did not "complain" about the fact that Bugliosi devoted only 14 pages to his critique of Lifton. My complain was with his numerous mis-statements.

As far as my statement that the Parkland doctors would have had to have been grossly mistaken about what they observed if the autopsy account is correct, the most salient point is their missing a huge hole on the top of the head. That is not possible, and if you think it is, then I don't know what else I can say on the subject.

[Bolo Boffin]

27. I deal with a few, and one major one

One that completely invalidates Lifton's and your entire hypothesis.

If the Parkland doctors missed "a huge hole in the top of his head" why are there pictures of them pointing on their own heads to the area of the autopsy head wound as the place where they saw the wound?

[Time for change]

35. They universally described the head wound in the back of the head, not the top

Where are these bullshit pictures you're talking about?

Bugliosi can't prove what didn't happen on the plane. As far as Powers is concerned, did you read post # 7? The plane was filled with conspirators. Of course they're not going to truth about it. To believe that they would you'd have to be naive beyond belief.

Bugliosi doesn't even mention the 4 witnesses who saw the body come in to Bethesda in a different coffin. He's supposedly critiquing Lifton, and he doesn't even acknowledge one of the most important points -- or several others either. He doesn't even know what Lifton's book was about -- he says that the Parkland doctors called the head wound an entrance wound, and he shows no recognition whatsoever regarding the different descriptions to the wounds by the two sets of doctors.

What a waste.

[SDuderstadt]

37. "The plane was filled with conspirators"

This is probably one of the dumbest posts/threads I've ever read about the JFK assassination. I read your missives with amazement and wonder if you ever think of how impossibly complicated your goofy claims are. Do you really expect us to believe that the JFK assassination was carried out by some nefarious shadow government group who honestly thought, "Well, if we're going to carry this off, we'll have to steal JFK's body on AF1, perform surgery on his head to cover-up the crime and somehow get his body back into the coffin before the autopsy, wherever it's going to be performed"?

Do you realize how absolutely goofy all this sounds? Does it surprise you that most people reject your bizarre claims? Fucking unbelieveable.

[Time for change]

38. You got me there

My argument is goofy. Coup d'etats never happen. I forgot. Thanks for the reminder.

[SDuderstadt]

39. The fact that coup-d'etats happen...

hardly proves that JFK's assassination was one. I see you can't address the issue of the impossibly complicated plot you describe. Maybe Rube Goldberg was in on it.

On a more serious note, it's coming up on 46 years since the assassination of one of my heroes. Do you honestly think the case would not have been broken during that time? And, yes, your argument IS goofy. Sorry, dude.

[Time for change]

50. I addressed all of Bugliosi's worthless debunking in my OP

Your only reaction is to call me goofy. I can't argue against intelligence like that.

[SDuderstadt]

54. Why, dude... how utterly dishonest of you...

Your only reaction is to call me goofy. I can't argue against intelligence like that.

Please show me where I ever called YOU goofy. I'll save you the trouble. I didn't. I said your ARGUMENT is goofy.

And, yes, your argument IS goofy

Do you understand the distinction? I find it remarkable that you have to mischaracterize what I said to try to make me look bad.

It's also a gross mischaracterization to claim my "only reaction was to call (you) goofy" when I clearly pointed out how impossibly complicated your claim is.

Do you really expect us to believe that the JFK assassination was carried out by some nefarious shadow government group who honestly thought, "Well, if we're going to carry this off, we'll have to steal JFK's body on AF1, perform surgery on his head to cover-up the crime and somehow get his body back into the coffin before the autopsy, wherever it's going to be performed"?

This is why many people here don't take you seriously.

[Bolo Boffin]

41. It makes you wonder

If the plane was filled with conspirators, why didn't they just alter the body on the plane and be done with it?

If they were going to lean on the autopsy doctors anyway, why bother with altering the body at all? All they had to do was alter the photos and make sure the reports were written correctly. The MIC's Photoshop was in its 5.02 version at that point, right?

And I don't think we can discount McHugh smuggling in the shoemaker's elves yet either. Prove there aren't any shoemaker's elves, that's what I'd like for someone to do.

Body alteration -- the "no planes" argument of JFK CT's.

[Bolo Boffin]

40. The back of the head is where the autopsy pictures and x-rays put it

Not in the rear of the head, something that no one there at Parkland lifted up JFK's head to see. The back of the head, as opposed to the front of the head.

I'll have to go looking for the link. It was a CT site that reproduced all the pictures of people from Parkland pointing on their own head to where the wound was. I was struck by it when I was mapping out the autopsy wound on my own head -- I was putting my hand directly where the Parkland people were. I'll find it. You might want to ease off on all the posturing on this point to avoid embarrassment later on.

Wasn't one of the 4 witnesses who saw the body come in a different coffin the O'Connor guy?

ETA: Oh, someone at McAdam's hideously partisan right wing website made a point (actually a quote from a book) that I thought didn't seem very partisan. Not to put too fine a point on it, JFK's body was dripping with blood. Removing the body from the casket and getting it into a body bag and then mopping up the gore, all while the swearing in ceremony was going on?

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/wrone.htm

No. No. And again I say to you -- No.

[SDuderstadt]

45. Umm, Bolo....

did it ever occur to you that Wrone and the witnesses he cites are "all in on it, too"?

I am assuming that the sarcasm/satire symbol is not needed.

[Time for change]

49. Do you know how to read?

In my last post I quoted in detail the description that the Parkland doctors gave of the head wounds. But you'd rather rely on a picture of them pointing at their heads. You can claim that they didn't see what they said they saw all you want. Because you were there and you know that they didn't see it.

Yeah, one of the 4 witnesses was the O'Connor's guy. The one that Bugliosi claims to have debunked on the basis that O'Connor later was afraid to come forward and tell his story -- even though he repeated what he told to Lifton to Bugliosi at his mock trial.

You can say NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO all you want.

[Bolo Boffin]

51. Why, yes, I can.

The Parkland doctors' testimony is conflicting among themselves, as I would expect the testimony of trauma doctors to be under the circumstances. They generally indicated the area where the wound actually was, and when four (including McClelland) were given the opportunity by NOVA to see the autopsy records, they all agreed that the autopsy had it right with what they remembered.

Yes, I can read. I can read you when you say this:

Bugliosi doesn't even mention the 4 witnesses who saw the body come in to Bethesda in a different coffin.

And I can read you when you say this:

Yeah, one of the 4 witnesses was the O'Connor's guy.

And I can comprehend that your first statement is a factual inaccuracy. One wonders why you even said such a factual inaccuracy when you supposedly read the Bugliosi section and know that Bugliosi actually spent some time on O'Connor and his story. How could you say that he doesn't even mention the 4 witnesses, when you know damn well that he did? How could you do that?

I can read. Can you tell the truth?

[eomer]

25. Closed doors?

Are you saying there were no closed doors that separated the swearing ceremony from the casket? What's your basis for saying that?

[Bolo Boffin]

28. The doors weren't closed

As you can see, the door to the back compartment is open. That's where JFK's coffin was. No way anyone was removing his body from his casket while this was going on. Lifton and Time for change are completely debunked in this one picture.

[eomer]

30. How many doors? And how do you know they didn't block the view some other way?

The first door aft is obviously open.

It appears there is a next door aft that is probably open.

Beyond that is not clear but if I had to make my best guess I would say there is a third door further aft and that it is closed.

Besides, the view was blocked by bulkheads so that only someone pretty far aft would have any view of the casket. All they had to do was position a couple of men to crowd up one or more doorways down the center aisle and make sure no one walked aft. No one could have seen anything. This is obvious from your photo and diagram.

[Bolo Boffin]

31. Two doors were all that was between this picture and the president's casket

That is what is obvious from my photo and diagram.

Both of them are open.

You seem to imagine that opening an airtight casket, removing the body inside, replacing it with a weight comparable to the body, and shutting the airtight casket again is something that can be done quietly. No. No. And again I say to you, No.

Where was Dave Power? Can you find him in the pictures here? I can't. To me, that means at the very least he is one cabin aft, in the darkness, and in all likelihood, based on what he and others have said, he is in the far aft cabin visible through that open door.

Nobody took JFK out of his casket during the swearing in. The only place I can find people willing to believe this are sites that believe LBJ was the living heart of darkness when he was alive. Such a site is what Time for change linked to when he quoted the Ecker fellow.

ETA: What you are calling a door back there is actually the wall on our left side of the plane, behind which is the aft kitchen. That's on the diagram. The other side is open.

[eomer]

32. Let's stipulate two doors (and I actually agree that's probably how many were there).

The second bulkhead, together with two or more men congregating in the doorway, would be more than enough to completely block the view. You can see in your photo that the view is completely blocked.

Are expensive caskets noisy things to open and close? Seems to me they would make them quiet (for funerals and all). The plane's engines likely would have been running. It seems unlikely anyone could have heard an expensive casket being opened and closed by someone doing it as quietly as possible. Even if it was heard, other causes would have come to mind first, like a cargo door or an exterior door being closed, so anyone hearing it likely would have taken no notice.

I'm not sure they would have needed to put any weight in the casket. It was pretty heavy by itself wasn't it? I imagine it would be difficult to tell the difference with a bunch of men sharing the load.

There are accounts that place Dave Powers next to Jackie and Ken O'Donnell during the swearing in. A Time Magazine article in the Feb. 24, 1967 issue says he was there and that there are photos proving it:

All of the photographer's take — the full existing photographic record of what happened that day on Air Force One — are printed on the following two pages. Most of the pictures have never been published before. The full set shows that while Larry O'Brien may well have withdrawn, Ken O'Donnell, Dave Powers and Assistant Press Secretary Mac Kilduff were certainly present.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,899410...

The article in the Time archive unfortunately does not include the photos.

[Bolo Boffin]

33. Point taken about Powers

He must be out of the camera's frame to the right in the pictures we do have. I'll head to the Main Library next chance I get (which may be a couple of weeks!) to check out that edition of Time.

Friday, Feb. 24, 1967 - just so I can grab the date from here.

However, you still have O'Brien out of pocket. He could still be back there and probably is, along with McHugh and the others I mentioned.

At funeral homes, coffins are opened and closed on nice, high pedestals with plenty of space all around. JFK's casket was shoved into the space where two rows of seats had been. Could the lid simply be opened? Would the casket not have to be moved out? Yes, weight would have to be added so that the people who put the casket on the plane didn't notice the weight difference taking the casket off the plane. And all of this done in the area of two rows of seats and the aisle, moving the body and the weight around, getting the body into the body bag, all of this done while the swearing in ceremony was going on, with everybody on the plane right there?

No. No. And again I say to you - No.

[JackRiddler]

26. Good vs. bad Bugliosi threads.

Why is a long thoughtful thread with extensive citation like this one (whether you agree or not) banished to the dungeon while other threads on Bugliosi's JFK work are allowed to remain in GD? Is this an oversight?

[Bolo Boffin]

29. The Internet is that way.

If you don't like the way this website is run, why do you persist in posting messages against the rules?

Leave, already.

[noise]

34. The press coverage will be interesting

I remember the press coverage when Stone's movie came out in 1991. People like George Will went nuts.

One would hope Hanks and Paxton do not truly believe that it is patriotic to be cheeleaders for the government. That sort of authoritarian attitude has led to the acceptance of torture.

[Time for change]

36. Thank you. I don't understand it

This is the second one in a row -- possibly done by the same moderator. But there was no explanation. Maybe it had to do with the fact that there were a lot of complaints.

[Bolo Boffin]

42. Maybe, after seven years or so, your inability to understand DU policies is the point

Has anything changed in the seven years I've been here?

No.

Is anything likely to change in the next seven?

No.

Why do you and Jack not get it? The policies of DU seem clear enough to me.

[noise]

43. Still waiting on your criteria

You're losing your touch, reprehensor. Maybe you should cozy up to Time for change the next time you spam GD with your conspiracy theory stuff.

The Wreck of Patrick Fitzgerald

As I replied to your post:

Views that run counter to political/media establishment consensus should be considered "conspiracy theory stuff?" IMO that is authoritarian. Look at what issues the OP raised--Ali Mohamed (so called triple agent) and a government report based in part on confessions by way of torture. Such a lofty standard of conduct for government officials! Impressive! Why should they account for any of their actions? After all, the only people who have a problem with their conduct are unpatriotic conspiracy theorists.

A popular tactic of debunkers is to conflate highly speculative conspiracy theories (i.e. Bigfoot) with more credible but uncomfortable status quo challenging views (i.e. Ali Mohamed, the use of torture to compile the 9/11 narrative, skepticism of the Warren Commission report).

Here is the actual rule. It appears one would need to contact an administrator for clarification.

Do not quote or link to "conspiracy theory" websites, except in our September 11 forum, which is the only forum on Democratic Underground where we permit members to debate highly speculative conspiracy theories. A reasonable person should be able to identify a conspiracy theory website without much difficulty.

Members are permitted to link to highly partisan conservative websites, provided that they are doing so in the proper context.

If you would like to know if a particular website is restricted, please contact an administrator.

DU Rules

[Bolo Boffin]

44. Well, as it turns out

Time's losing his touch as well. This one only got six votes before wham, bam, no thanks for spam.

[SDuderstadt]

46. Did you recently learn the word "authoritarian"...

or something?

[Bolo Boffin]

48. Wait just a little longer. n/t

[JackRiddler]

47. In the past JFK threads were not sent to the 9/11 forum.

"Has anything changed in the last seven years of Democratic Underground?"

Yes.

"Is anything likely to change in the next seven?"

Of course.

[omega minimo]

53. Maybe

it's a conspiracy

[omega minimo]

52. Hey TFC, whatcha doin' in the 9-11geon?

Ya know what usedta be a CT? "Corporations are taking over our nation and government and it sucks and it's gonna get worse if we don't stop it.........."