Reply #9: Nothing Of The Sort Is Demonstrated, Sir, By These Further Accounts

[The Magistrate]

The accounts from a neighbor, and an anymous policeman, agree that the man was seriously injured in the bombing; indeed they say the took him out of the rubble. So no speculation the man was "planted" on the scene receives the slightest support from them.

One of the main points of early speculative disagreement with the official account was the claim the man could not have had so little apparent injury from the bombing. These new accounts hardlly support that view.

The only important addition from these new accounts is the claim contained in them that the man was beaten by soldiers arriving on the scene. Though unpleasant to cointemplate, that is within the bounds of possibility in the atmosphere of partisan war. But it establishes nothing relating to any grand design involving this man and the C.I.A. or any other U.S. agency. It is certainly somethimg U.S. officials would strive to hush up, but that is about as normal a thing as eggs for breakfast, and of no signifigance.

Nor are the accounts sufficient, even, to demonstrate that the man was killed by beating and not by his injuries sufered in the explosions. Pressure on the chest of a man already bleeding badly internally certainly would produce a flow of blood out of the mouth, but it would not be owing to injury from the blow. Internal bleeding kills many persons even in a hospital setting.