JFK and the Majestic Papers: The History of a Hoax by Seamus Coogan

First a Warning

If someone would like to take a good no nonsense look at the history of the MJ-12 documents I advise reading this overview from Phil Coppens. Bar his comments concerning the ‘real MJ-12’ being behind the false documents, it provides another important backdrop for what you shall read herein.

I’d like to point out before we go on that: no, CTKA is not turning into some Fortean organisation. I’m just going to speak a few home truths to some of the more imaginative types out there concerning something very sacred to ufologists. How, since 1947 the CIA rather than starving you from accessing them, have actually force fed you with it.

Like the vast majority of JFK researchers, I am not an ufologist. I don’t pretend to speak for anyone in this area either. Nevertheless, I don’t believe a fake UFO invasion will be used to unite the world under a one-world government. That fake invasion (that the likes of Alex Jones and other conspiracy magnets bleat on about) and that one world corporation have already happened. Because if the mainstream media is prepared to present balanced discussions about UFOs and whether God exists, then surely a balanced discussion covering cosmically irrelevant issues like the potential for a planned murder of a head of state, and a few others aspiring to benefit all humanity, wouldn’t even be a trifle, or even an afterthought at that.

I believe we went to the moon and I’m a believer in the Drake equation, not to mention an admirer of the likes of Greg Bishop, Mark Pilkington, Larry Hancock, Bill Kelly, Robert Hastings (despite his disagreements with Bishop) and (with particular regards to this essay) Phil Coppens. His work, though poorly referenced, does bear up to scrutiny and has been an excellent resource. This is why I’m puzzled that the terminally appalling Nexus Magazine never picked up on him, nor seemed to have learned anything from him, instead being mates with David Hatcher Childress. Thanks to the efforts of those above, I find myself in a comfortable place of 90 percent sceptic and 10 percent ‘open to anything’ as far as UFOs go… okay, maybe 12. I blame this on my discovery of Bob Hastings. Without Hastings’ work in outing the liars involved with the MJ-12 hoax some years ago this field would be all the poorer.

I also admire the above individuals for not falling for the perpetrators of the JFK-MJ-12 documents and their work in outing them. It appears that the Dulles cabal in the CIA created a powerful myth with UFOs that they have since used as a diversion both internally and externally for myriad purposes, not just the obfuscation of secret weapons and aircraft, but have nurtured a powerful social phenomenon. Both the Kennedy assassination and UFOs are massive cultural happenings that pervade practically everything in Western Civilisation. However, for all of this, the Kennedy assassination and UFOs are and will always be two different areas of study, bar sharing some of the same progenitors of UFO disinformation. Sadly, many people have made the mistake of conjoining the two in some mega plot utilising the MJ-12/Torbitt Document/Gemstone Files inspired nonsense.

The Layout of the Essay

Students of the JFK case, like my self have largely ignored the comings and goings on of those inhabiting Zeta Reticuli, and dare I say most of the time, with very good reason. But with regards to this ongoing JFK-MJ-12 mess we really shouldn’t have. This foreword serves to provide something of a backdrop to the madness herein. It’ll give a series of brief and not so brief looks into the current explosion of JFK-MJ-12 hype, the leaches that have fed off it, the origins of said documents, and a clarification of where I stand on the issue of UFOs. More specifically, I shall adress this topic in the following sections:

Preambles I and II seek to provide a backdrop to Scientist Leon Davidson, who made a number of alarming accusations against the CIA’s whipping up UFO mania. In turn, he created a powerful cultural phenomena--picked up by other agencies who know a good thing when they see it--that is to hide, subvert and confuse all manner of issues within and outside of the government. I would like to point out that I am well aware that there is much conjecture on the topics I bring up. I have tried as best I could to provide some antecedent or give a relevant example to any points made. I hope that the reader will appreciate my honesty in this regard as far too many individuals covering this ground mistake their own fantasies and musings for reality (I hope Richard Dolan and Joseph Farrell read this). All I aspire to is that in putting this out there to provide a template to work from or to debate.

Part I - Majestic Documents & Marilyn deals with how the current craze has started and who has cashed in on it. But primarily it deals with the Wood’s family’s Majestic Documents group, their use of the bogus documentation surrounding Marilyn Monroe, and their attempts to link her death to Kennedy and UFOs and vice versa.

Part II - Kennedy Killed Over UFOs (and Other Lies) deals with the recent assault on the senses concerning dubious evidence concerning Kennedy’s murder being enacted for sticking his nose in and around the UFO issue. In so doing, I rationally (a key word here) discuss what Kennedy’s interests in the phenomena likely was.

Part III - Lunacy, Loyalty and Failed Lie Detectors returns to the Woods, focussing on denials of Tim Cooper’s wrongdoing in the face of strong evidence to the contrary.

Part IV - Tweedle Dee Rob Meets Tweedle Dee Linda discusses Wood Sr. and his lack of knowledge concerning the basics of Cold War intelligence initiatives, with resident UFO/JFK ‘expert’ Linda Moulton Howe. What’s important about this section is that aside from giving the abdominal muscles a good work out from reading this clueless duo is that (depending on one’s prerogative) it also expands upon some issues pertaining to the MJ-12 stuff mentioned in parts II & III.

(Parts V and VI of this essay embark from a more solid and factual basis established in Parts I to IV, becoming more speculative due to the dodgy nature of the subject and the people involved.)

Part V - A Very Sad Attempt At Making a Rabbit Hole in effect discusses how people unprepared to confront the fact that just because someone is a ‘con’ and has a history of being one, doesn’t mean they aren’t intelligence agency material. In fact it often makes them prime candidates for being so and they are thus particularly effective in disinformation campaigns. There seems to be a total and utter failure in UFO circles to acknowledge that counter intelligence is in itself designed to mislead and misrepresent. Once one realizes that intelligence agencies like to ‘cut it both ways’ then looking over scraps from them loses its lustre. It's not a rabbit hole after all, the hole doesn’t even exist, but well you fell into it anyhow. Nevertheless, it discusses the extremely dubious company the originator of the documents has kept. Not too, mention how one well-known figure in the MJ-12 drama has absurdly escaped a great deal of scrutiny.

Part VI - Gus Russo, Phone Home! is effectively a continuation of Part V and discusses how outcasts from the JFK scene like Gus Russo have made homes for themselves in a field all to willing to be taken in by the ‘next bright thing’. In many ways it’s also the most important chapter of this study as it examines why the JFK community ignored the MJ-12 palaver, but more importantly it explores why ‘truth seekers’ and ‘crank busters’ like Russo and others avoided the JFK-MJ-12 issue altogether and gives an outline of one of the potential targets of this disinformation.

Part VII - The Conclusion is a summary of all that has been covered, in the essay and essentially the bookend to this foreword.

Read the rest here: http://www.ctka.net/2011/MJ%2012%20intro_Alien%20Dulles.html

The Ten Worst Books on the JFK Assassination (Chronological)

1. The Warren Report (1964).

The first official whitewash, the Warren Report represents the U.S. government's first attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of the American people. On the weekend of the assassination the new President, Lyndon Johnson, had recieved reports from the CIA's Mexico City station claiming that Lee Harvey Oswald had been seen conspiring with communist agents two months previously. Johnson, fearfull of a nuclear war with the Soviets, ordered Earl Warren to chair the Commission and "prevent the deaths of 40 million Americans." In other words: make sure the buck stops with Oswald.

2. Marina and Lee by Priscilla Johnson McMillan (1977).

Lee Oswald's murdered body barely had time to cool before Priscilla Johnson McMillan jumped on the scene to "befriend" his widow, Marina, and begin work on her official biography. As the only American jounalist to whom Lee Oswald granted an interview shortly after his "defection" to the Soviet Union, McMillan had a curious ability to be in the right place at the right time. Curious, that is, until the release of official documents revealed that the CIA considered her a "witting collaborator". The result was a book that even Marina would later dismiss as "full of lies."

3. Case Closed by Gerald Posner (1993). 

Oliver Stone's 1991 movie JFK sparked renewed and massive debate about the assassination and gave many people their first insight into the lies of the Warren Commission and the implausibility of the lone gunman theory. And then along came former Wall Street lawer Gerald Posner to save the day! The fact that Case Closed was brimming over with factual inaccuracies and misrepresentations did not stop the mainstream media from heaping unprecedented praise on the book and lauding Posner for "exposing" the critics. But as Flava Flav warned us, don't believe the hype.

4. The Kennedy Contract by John H. Davis (1993).

Behind Lee Oswald and Fidel Castro, the Mafia has long been the third most popular scapegoat in the murder of John Kennedy. In fact, the theory seems quite unbelievably to have gained in popularity over recent years despite the fact that there is absolutely zero evidence that Oswald had any connections to organized crime. Conversely, as former U.S. Senator Richard Schweiker said, Oswald did have the "fingerprints of intelligence" all over him. Sadly, this matters little to John H. Davis who appears to be intent on absolving the U.S. government of any complicity in the assassination.

5. Killing the Truth by Harrison Edward Livingstone (1993).

One of the most over-the-top, paranoid conspiracy theorists out there (and I do mean "out there"), Livingstone's third JFK book is a long-winded, badly written attack on those in the critical community he claims are "killing the truth" about the assassination. And by "killing the truth" he means not buying into his wacky nonsense. Those to whom Livingstone directs his delusionary ranting include Harold Weisberg, Oliver Stone, Mark Lane and Robert Groden. Hell, even the legendary Mary Ferrell is not spared Livingstone's misplaced wrath. A pathetic waste of time, effort and paper.

6. Oswald's Tale by Norman Mailer (1995).

Norman Mailer claimed that he began writing his biography of Oswald with no fixed opinion about his guilt but to anyone with even half a brain cell this is obvious bullshit. Not only does he rely heavily on three anti-Oswald sources—the Warren Report, Case Closed and Marina & Lee—but he consistently interprets Oswald's actions in ways that conform to the official portrait and makes no attempt to deal with Oswald's obvious intelligence connections. As Harold Weisberg once said, this is not so much Oswald's tale as it is Mailer's.

7. False Witness by Patrica Lambert (1998).  

This one-sided, broadside attack on Jim Garrison is truly one of the worst pieces of garbage I've ever had the misfortune to read. Patricia Lambert cobbles together every bad thing ever said about Garrison with no regard for its veracity and in true tabloid fashion she even accuses him of being child molester and compares him to cult leader, David Koresh. This is not only one of the worst ever books dealing with events related to the Kennedy case it's probably one of the worst books ever written.

8. The Great Zapruder Film Hoax edited by Jim Fetzer (2003).

The authors of this silliness actually believe that the Zapruder film is a complete Mary Poppins-style fabrication! What more really needs to be said? It is this type of paranoid nonsense that makes it easy for Warren supporters to lump us critics in with UFO spotters and moon hoaxers. There can be no doubt that books like this do nothing but muddy the record, add to confusion about the case and hinder any progress we might otherwise be making.

9. Blood, Money & Power by Barr McClellan (2003).

Disbarred Texan lawyer, Barr McClellan, must have been in serious need of cash to write this dreadful piece of obvious fiction. The most sensational claim in Blood, Money & Power was that the fingerprint of convicted murderer and friend of Lyndon Johnson, Mac Wallace, was found on a book carton on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. But, as it turned out, this wasn't true.

10. Reclaiming History by Vincent Bugliosi (2007).

Vincent Bugliosi's massive ego would never let him admit it, but Reclaiming History spectacularly fails to live up to its intention of settling the controversy. It fails because, despite Bugliosi's assurances that his only master and mistress "are the facts and objectivity," he commits the exact same sins of which he accuses the conspiracy theorists and adds a few more. He consistently fills his narrative with hypothetical instances in place of actual evidence and expects the reader to take his word for it. His book is practically brimming over with phrases such as "must have," "reason to believe," "most likely" and "probably." This over-use of the hypothetical may be standard practice in a court room, but it is not how history should be written. Far from sticking to the facts, Reclaiming History is far and away the most factually inept, theory driven and speculative book ever written on the Kennedy assassination.

Let There Be Sound!: The Acoustics Evidence in the JFK Assassination

[NOTE: This article is essentially an almagamation of material culled from my two recent CTKA book reviews, with minor changes and additions, compiled here as much as anything else for my own easy reference.]

On November 22, 1963, the day of President Kennedy's assassination, the microphone on a police motorcycle travelling in the Presidential motorcade had become stuck in the “on” position and the sounds had been recorded on a dictabelt machine at Dallas police headquarters. When the dictabelt was brought to the attention of the HSCA in 1978, it asked the top acoustics experts in the country to analyze the recording to see if it had captured the sounds of the assassination gunfire. James Barger and his colleagues at Bolt, Baranek & Newman (BBN) discovered six suspect impulses on the tape that occurred at approximately 12:30 p.m.—the time of the assassination—and reported that on-site testing needed to be conducted at Dealey Plaza. There, microphones were placed along the parade route on Houston and Elm Streets and test shots were fired from the two locations witnesses had reported hearing shots; the Texas School Book Depository and the grassy knoll. BBN found that five of the impulses on the dictabelt were found to acoustically match the echo patterns of test shots fired in Dealey Plaza. (8HSCA101) One of these, the fourth in sequence, matched to a shot fired from the grassy knoll. (8HSCA10) The fact that the suspect sounds had matched to some of the 423 test patterns is not, by itself, amazingly significant. However, the order and spacing of the matching microphone positions followed the same order as the sounds on the police tape.

If the sounds on the dictabelt were not truly the sounds of the assassination gunfire and instead represented some type of random static, a match would be as likely to occur at at the first microphone as the last and would most likely fall in some random order—there being, of course, 125 different ways to sequence five events. But far from being random, the matches fell in the exact same 1-2-3-4-5 topographic order as the impulses appear on the dictabelt recording.

• The first impulse matched to a test shot recorded on a microphone on Houston Street near the intersection with Elm.
• The second to a microphone 18 ft north on Houston.
• The third to a microphone at the intersection.
• The fourth to a microphone on Elm.
• And the fifth to the next microphone to the west.

Additionally, the distance from the first matching microphone to the last was 143 feet and the time between the first and last suspect impulse on the tape was 8.3 seconds. In order for the motorcycle with the stuck microphone to cover 143 feet in 8.3 seconds it would need to be travelling at a speed of approximately 11.7 mph which fits almost perfectly with the FBI's conclusion that the Presidential limousine was averaging 11.3 mph on Elm Street. (Warren Report, p. 49)

Finally, the gunshots on the dictabelt synchronize perfectly with the visual evidence of the other all-important record of the shooting, the Zapruder film. There are two visible reactions to gunshots on the Zapruder film. One of these occurs at Z-frame 313 with the blatantly obvious explosion of President Kennedy's head. The other occurs between frames 225 and 230 when the Stetson hat in Connally's hand flips up and down, most likely as a result of the missile passing through his wrist. When the fourth shot on the dictabelt, the grassy knoll shot, is aligned with Z-frame 313, the third shot falls at —yes, you guessed it—frame Z-225. This means that the exact same 4.8 second gap between shots is found on both the audio and visual evidence. These perfect correlations between the acoustics and all other known data provide the most convincing reasons to believe that the dictabelt is a genuine recording of the assassination gunfire. Unfortunately, this remarkable concordance was hidden from the public when HSCA chief counsel, Robert Blakey, in a “socially constructive” move, convinced the experts to label the third shot as a “false alarm.”

To understand Blakey's decision it is necessary to understand Blakey. Former HSCA staff investigator, Gaeton Fonzi, wrote in his brilliant book The Last Investigation, that, “Chief Counsel Blakey was an experienced Capitol Hill man. He had worked not only at Justice but on previous Congressional committees as well. So he knew exactly what the priorities of his job were by Washington standards, even before he stepped in.” (Fonzi, p. 8) Blakey, who later admitted that before he took the job he had found the idea of a conspiracy in the JFK case “highly unlikely,” (ibid. p. 259) was destined not to stray too far from the Warren Commission's conclusion that only three shots were fired and all were fired by Lee Harvey Oswald. As such, the acoustics evidence presented him with a big problem. As Dr. Donald Thomas puts it, “The acoustical evidence simply did not mesh well with the Warren Report...Blakey's problem was not just that a total of five putative gunshots were detected by BBN's test procedures, but that these shots came too close together.” (Hear No Evil, p. 584) In 1964, the FBI established that “Oswald's” rifle required 2.3 seconds between shots and, as Special Agent Robert Frazier testified, this was “firing [the] weapon as fast as the bolt could be operated.” (3H407) But the first three shots on the dictabelt had all come from the general vicinity of the book depository and came only 1.65 and 1.1 seconds apart. To “solve” the problem, Blakey acquired a Mannlicher Carcano similar to the one found on the sixth floor and, together with a group of Washington police officers, practised firing the rifle as fast as possible. Apparently, by “point aiming” - which means not really aiming at all - Blakey and HSCA counsel Gary Cornwell were able to squeeze off two rounds in 1.5 and 1.2 seconds respectively. (8HSCA185) This farcical display was enough to satisfy Blakey about the “probability” that Oswald fired the first two shots on the tape. He then told the acoustics experts that the third shot, coming only 1.1 seconds after the second, could not be what their analysis told them it was. And in another socially constructive move, the scientists played along.

The truth is that all three matches were as valid as each other and what the acoustics evidence actually showed was that there may have been a second rearward assassin and a triangulation of crossfire—just as critics like Josiah Thompson had been saying since 1967. But a Washington man like Blakey was not about to admit that the “buffs” had been right all along. In a conversation with Thomas in 1999, “Blakey confided that he knew he would take a lot of heat for the grassy knoll shot and he didn't want to dilute his case with the weak evidence for a fifth shot.” (Thomas, p. 590) By putting political considerations before the evidence, Robert Blakey did history a huge disservice and helped obscure the truth about the assassination. By cutting out the crucial third shot, he had essentially hidden the perfect synchronization between the dictabelt and the Zapruder film and it was for this very reason that many JFK researchers rejected the validity of the acoustics evidence. One can only wonder what reception the Dallas police dictabelt would have received had Blakey had the courage to stand up for the truth.

Predictably, the conclusions of the HSCA scientists have been attacked by numerous individuals and organizations seeking to uphold the conclusions of the Warren Report; usually on non-ballistic acoustic grounds. For example, a National Research Council panel commissioned by the Justice Department claimed that an instance of “cross-talk” on the dictabelt recording placed the suspect impulses a full minute after the assassination. What the panel chose not to report is that there are five instances of cross-talk on the dictabelt, none of which even synchronize with one another. Therefore, it is not possible using cross-talk alone to prove that the gunshots on the tape are not synchronous with the assassination. A more recent challenge came from Dale Myers (the Walt Disney of JFK research) who claimed that his analysis of the available assassination films and photographs “proved” that police officer H.B. McClain's motorcycle was not where it needed to be. This despite the fact that there is no film or photograph currently known to exist that shows the acoustically required position at the time the shots were fired.

In his recent book, Head Shot: The Science Behind the JFK Assassination, Dr. G. Paul Chambers, an experimental physicist for the US Navy and a contractor with the NASA Goddard Optics Branch, has calculated the odds against the impulses on the dictabelt being caused by random static. As mentioned above, the order in the data is by itself hugely compelling. The last in the sequence of test shot matches occurred at a microphone 143 feet from the first, and the time between the first and last suspected shots on the dictabelt was 8.3 seconds. In order for the Police motorcycle officer whose stuck microphone was suspected of recording the gunfire to travel 143 feet in 8.3 seconds he would need to be traveling at approximately 11 mph—almost the exact speed at which the FBI estimated the Presidential limousine was moving on Elm street. As Chambers asks, “What are the odds of that happening randomly?...One could certainly insert a big number for the total number of possibilities, leaving a very small probability that this would happen randomly. But it isn't necessary.” (Chambers, p. 142) On top of this, we have the fact that the timing of the shots fits so perfectly with the reactions seen on the Zapruder film. “Syncing the final head shot from the grassy knoll to frame 312...” Chambers explains, “the probability of finding the shot that hit Connally to within five frames...is about one in a hundred...Matching up the first shot to the frames before Kennedy reaches the Stemmons Freeway sign and the second shot to a strike of Kennedy behind the sign is another one chance in a hundred times one chance in a hundred for a one-in-ten-thousand chance for an accidental match.” Multiplying all this by the probability of all shot origins falling in the correct order is another one chance in sixteen, “yielding a one-in-sixteen-million chance that the acoustic analysis could match up the timing and shot sequence in the Zapruder film by chance.” Multiplying the probability of both the order in the data and the synchronization of the audio film being random together, “it is readily established that there is only one chance in eleven billion that both correlations could occur as the result of random noise.” (ibid pgs. 142-143)

Is Chambers math correct? I'll leave that to those better qualified than me to test. What I do know is that Dr. Don Thomas, who is a widely published expert statistician, has calculated the odds of a random impulse having the acoustic fingerprint of a rifle shot from the grassy knoll as 100,000 to one against. (Thomas, p. 632) And anyone with an even vaguely scientific mind can see that this calculation alone is enough to establish the validity of the acoustics evidence beyond any real reasonable doubt.

The Top 10 Books on the JFK Assassination (In chronological order)

1. Rush to Judgement by Mark Lane (1966).

New York lawyer Mark Lane was asked by Lee Harvey Oswald's mother to represent him before the Warren Commission but the Commission denied the request. Instead, Lane wrote what is essentially a defense brief for Oswald based largely on the evidence published in the Commission's 26 volumes of hearings and exhibits. Of all the early critiques of the Warren report, Rush to Judgement is far and away the most readable and accessible and Lane himself remains the critic that Warren apologists love to hate. Gerald Posner, Jim Moore and Vincent Bugliosi have all dedicated large sections of their respective books to shooting Lane down but in their rantings and ravings none have managed to point out any factual errors in his work. Which speaks volumes really.

2. Six Seconds in Dallas by Josiah Thompson (1967).

Described as "A micro-study of the assassination" Six Seconds in Dallas was the first book to postulate that President Kennedy was felled by a triangulation of gunfire. A graduate of Yale and, at the time, a professor of philosophy, Josiah Thompson was given unique and unprecedented access to the Zapruder film that the Time-Life Corporation had thus far kept safely locked away from public view. The result was a brilliant, meticulously documented book that exposed the fallacies and contradictions in the Warren Com-mission's reconstruction of the crime and introduced readers to the likelihood that the fatal head shot came from the direction of the grassy knoll.

3. Conspiracy (retitled Not in Your Lifetime) by Anthony Summers (1980).

British journalist Anthony Summers' book came hot on the heels of the House Select Committee on Assassinations' verdict of a "probable" conspiracy in the murder of JFK but did a much better job of fingering the likely forces behind it. Surprisingly objective and always informative, Conspiracy adds many valuable pieces to a complex puzzle.

4. The Last Investigation by Gaeton Fonzi (1993).

Award-winning journalist Gaeton Fonzi tells the story of his time as staff investigator for the HSCA with the responsibility of following leads that pointed to the involvement of anti-Casto Cuban exiles and their CIA handlers. The Last Investigation presents a remarkable first-hand account of the inner-workings of the HSCA, explores numerous links between Lee Oswald and US intelligence, and exposes the Cuban exile/CIA/mafia figures that may have had a hand in the assassination.

5. Let Justice Be Done by William Davy (1999).

Far and away the best book dealing with Jim Garrison's investigation and failed prosecution of Clay Shaw, Let Justice Be Done is a remarkable account of how the government purposely obstructed justice in the Kennedy case. Utilizing thousands of newly declassified documents, Bill Davy lays out the proof that the very minute his probe hit the headlines, Garrison entered into battle with a federal government determined to uphold the conclusions of the Warren Commission by any means necessary.

6. Breach of Trust by Gerald D. McKnight (2005).

Subtitled "How the Warren Commission Failed the Nation and Why" this book does exactly what it says on the tin. It explores the inner-workings and motivations of the Commission and explains why it arrived at the conclusions it did. Gerald McKnight uses his skills as professor of history to place the assassination and its cover-up in its proper historical context and in the process crafts the most authoritative Commission critique to date.

7. Prasie from a Future Generation by John Kelin (2007).

John Kelin tells the fascinating and almost-forgotten tale of a how a small handfull of private citizens managed to cut through the bullshit and bring the facts of the assassination to the attention of the world. A poultry farmer, a housewife and the publisher of a small Midlothian newspaper were among the first-generation critics to whom we all owe a debt of gratitude.

8. Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years by David Talbot (2007).

A pioneer of online journalism, David Talbot shows us President Kennedy's assassination through the eyes of his brother, Robert. He shows that not only did the Attorney General immediately suspect conspiracy, he knew in which direction to look. Brothers is the tale of how Robert Kennedy's commitment to solving his brother's assassination would ultimately end with his own shocking murder.

9. JFK and the Unspeakable by James W. Douglass (2008).

A masterpiece; JFK and the unspeakable tells us why John Kennedy died and why it matters. Kennedy was killed because he learned from the mistakes of the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban missile crisis and became a threat to the cold war establishment. He came to see that the inevitable loss of innocent life that would follow a nuclear war was unacceptable and that despite the differences between the American and Russian ways of life, they all must breathe the same air. Kennedy had negotiated a nuclear test ban treaty and began to look at the possibility of total disarmament. He had organised secret back channels for communication with both Castro and Khrushchev because he wanted to end the cold war. And, just as Oliver Stone claimed, President Kennedy was pulling American military advisors out of Vietnam. Kennedy was becoming a man for peace and to the CIA and the Pentagon, whose very livelihood was dependant on prolonging the cold war, this was wholly unacceptable.

10. Hear No Evil by Donald Byron Thomas (2010)

Six Seconds in Dallas author Josiah Thompson said recently, "In my opinion, Don Thomas has produced the best book on the Kennedy assassination published within the last thirty years. Unfailingly fair-minded, Thomas lays out with devastating clarity the way science has bent itself to support an unsupportable official truth. More than this, his discussion of the evidence is a model of sober clarity. In a field crowded with sensation mongers and conspiracy wackos, Thomas’ voice is that of the sober scholar-scientist. His book sets the table for all future discussions of what happened in Dealey Plaza."

'Nuff said.

Head Shot Review

My somewhat less than enthusiastic review of G. Paul Chambers' recent book Head shot: The Science Behind the JFK Assassination is now on the CTKA website:

http://www.ctka.net/reviews/hay_headshot.html

The Single Bullet Theory Pt. 1

As much as the Warren Commission tried to hide the fact, the “Single Bullet Theory (SBT)”¾usually referred to by its critics as the “Magic Bullet Theory”¾is the keystone of its central conclusion that Oswald acted alone. As Commission lawyer Norman Redlich candidly admitted to author Edward Epstein, “To say that they [President Kennedy and Governor Connally] were hit by separate bullets, is synonymous with saying that there were two assassins.” (Inquest, p. 38) Indeed, as critics and researchers have maintained ever since the publication of the Warren Report, without the SBT there could not have been a single gunman whether it was Oswald or anybody else. In order to fully understand and appreciate this concept, it is important to explore the origins of the commission’s most controversial conclusion.

When it began its work the Commission believed that, as far as the facts of the shooting were concerned, the FBI had handed it a simple case. The Bureau’s report, Commission Document [CD] 1, concluded with little elaboration that there had been one shooter (Oswald), three bullets and three hits; Kennedy had been struck by the first and third bullets fired and Connally by the second. The Commission members proceeded under this assumption until June of 1964 when they had originally hoped to wrap up their investigation. But when the Bureau’s director J. Edgar Hoover elected to leak the contents of CD 1 to the press he unintentionally forced the Commission to confront the evidence of a missed shot in Dealey Plaza.

Soon after the details of the FBI’s report appeared in the papers, United States attorney for northern Texas Harold Barefoot Sanders contacted the Commission to inform them of facts he had learned from Dallas Morning News photographer, Tom Dillard. Dillard had publicly confronted Sanders with information that proved the Bureau’s conclusions were wrong¾or at least incomplete. He explained that on the day of the assassination Deputy Sheriff Buddy Walthers had directed his attention to a spot on the south side of Main Street where a bullet had apparently struck the curb and wounded bystander James Tague. Dillard had taken a photograph of the chip in the concrete that had appeared in the following day’s edition of the newspaper with the caption “Concrete Scar.” Walthers filed a report with the Sheriff’s Department and told Tague that he should report his minor injury to the Homicide Branch of the Dallas Police Department. But despite his experience being common knowledge, the FBI did not contact Tague and did not bother to interview him until December 14, 1963, after he contacted their Dallas office. Even then the Bureau did not see fit to examine the curbstone until July 1964 when it was directed to do so by the Commission. Apparently still preferring to pretend that the Tague shot did not exist, and attempting to hoodwink the Commission, the Dallas field office quickly reported back that “The area on the curb…was carefully checked and it was ascertained that there was no nick in the curb in the checked area, nor was any mark observed.” (21H474) It concluded its report with the implausible claim that “since this mark was observed on November 23, 1963, there have been numerous rains, which could have possibly washed away such a mark and also that the area is cleaned by a street cleaning machine about once a week, which would also wash away any such mark.” (Ibid) In the end, FBI Supervisor Lyndal Shaneyfelt was dispatched to Dallas to locate the damaged area of curbstone which was promptly dug up and transported back to Washington for spectrographic analysis. According to the FBI this analysis “disclosed metal smears” which were “spectrographically determined to be essentially lead with a trace of antimony.” (R116)

In truth, even before Sanders had his assistant write the Commission, it was already fully aware that a shot had likely missed the Presidential limousine and its occupants¾it had been quietly noted in a December 23, 1963 report from the FBI’s Dallas field office and the Commission itself had taken testimony from witnesses like Virginia Baker who remembered seeing “a shot or something hit the pavement.” (7H508) Nonetheless, for as long as they were able, the Commission fully intended to ignore the Tague shot and stick with a three-shot, three-hit scenario. However, with a United States attorney and a newspaper reporter publicly drawing attention to the evidence, the Commission could no longer play dumb. Accepting that a shot had missed placed the Commission in quite a quandary. The time constraints imposed by the Zapruder film and the mechanical firing time of Oswald’s rifle left little possibility for a fourth shot without necessitating a second gunman. This, of course, was unacceptable because it would prove a conspiracy the Commission was not looking to find. It was now forced to rely upon an already controversial theory being proposed by Commission lawyer and future senator Arlen Specter.

It had been established in early 1964 through frame-by-frame analysis of the Zapruder film and physical re-enactments conducted by the FBI and Secret Service in Dealey Plaza that the shots had all been fired in less than six seconds. The FBI re-enactment disclosed that an assassin on the sixth floor of the TSBD would have had his view blocked by the foliage of an oak tree between frames 166 and 210 of the Zapruder film. (R98) In a rare display of logic, the Commission concluded that the first shot was probably not fired before frame 210 “since it is unlikely that the assassin would deliberately have shot at him [the President] with a view obstructed by the oak tree when he was about to have a clear opportunity.” (Ibid) The final shot¾the shot which exploded President Kennedy’s head¾struck at Zapruder frame 312. Since the film was found to run at 18.3 frames per second (Ibid 97) this established a time frame for the shooting of 5.6 seconds. FBI examination of Oswald’s rifle found that the time required to fire a shot, work the bolt, and squeeze off another round was a minimum of 2.3 seconds or the equivalent of 42 Zapruder frames. (3H407) As the lawyer responsible for “the basic facts of the assassination” this was a cause of serious concern for Arlen Specter because the Zapruder film showed Kennedy and Connally reacting to being hit at different times but well within the 42 frames necessary for a lone gunman.

When Kennedy reappears from behind the Stemmons Freeway sign at frame 224 he is already reacting to the impact of a shot fired somewhere between frames 210 and 223 but Connally is showing no sign of being hit at all. The precise moment of impact on the Governor is unclear but Connally’s doctors testified that he was probably struck around frame 236 (5H114, 128) and it was decided that he was no longer in a position to receive a shot from the “sniper’s nest” after frame 240. (5H170) The Zapruder film, therefore, established that Connally was hit after Kennedy but within 30 frames, which was much too soon for Oswald to have recycled the bolt on his antique Mannlicher Carcano rifle. With this major discrepancy in mind, a lawyer working on an honest, “let the chips fall where they may” investigation would have likely conceded the probability of a second gun. But for Specter, who was committed to maintaining the Commission’s preordained conclusion that Oswald acted alone, this was simply not an option, regardless of what the evidence showed. Luckily for the Commission, the cunning and resourceful Specter found a way to shoehorn the evidence into a hypothesis that facilitated the inevitable outcome of its inquiry. Specter proposed that if there was not enough time for Oswald to have fired two shots then Kennedy and Connally must have been hit by the same bullet. Connally, he claimed, had simply suffered a “delayed reaction.” The seven members of the Warren Commission were not in unanimous agreement about the validity of Specter’s theory but they had to accept it. Because if one bullet had missed the limousine and one had shattered the President’s skull, without admitting to a second assassin, they only had one round left to account for the seven non-fatal wounds.

The SBT as advanced by the Warren Commission has a bullet, dubbed Commission Exhibit (CE) 399, enter the back of JFK’s neck heading downwards and leftwards. Hitting no bony structures it exits his throat just below the Adam’s apple and strikes Connally in the back of his right armpit. The bullet sails along Connally’s fifth rib, smashing four inches of it before exiting his chest below the right nipple, and then pulverises the radius of his right wrist¾one of the densest bones in the human body. It then enters his left thigh just above the knee, depositing a fragment on the femur, before miraculously popping back out to be found in near-pristine condition on an unattended stretcher in Parkland Hospital. The problems with the SBT are myriad and they start near the very beginning of CE399’s alleged journey.

No bullet, CE399 or any other, could have entered the back of Kennedy’s neck and ranged downward out of his throat¾because there was no bullet wound anywhere in the back of his neck. The President’s rearward entrance wound was in the upper back, below the shoulders and, most importantly, below the wound in the throat. In its desperation to legitimize the SBT the Commission simply moved the wound up to the neck! And in an attempt to ensure they got away with it, the Commissioners suppressed the autopsy photos and published an inaccurate drawing prepared by a navy artist who did not have access to the pictures. (CE385) In his mammoth re-writing of the Warren Report, anti-conspiracy buff Vincent Bugliosi tried to explain away the Commission’s dishonesty by claiming it was all a “mistake” made because the Commission “did not have access to the autopsy photos and X-rays.” (Reclaiming History, p. 425) Bugliosi’s assertion is pure, unadulterated nonsense as this passage from the Commission’s January 27, 1964, executive session clearly shows:

RANKIN: Then there is a great range of material in regard to the wounds, and the autopsy and this point of exit or entrance of the bullet in the front of the neck...We have an explanation there in the autopsy that probably a fragment came out the front of the neck, but with the elevation the shot must have come from, the angle, it seems quite apparent now, since we have the picture of where the bullet entered in the back, that the bullet entered below the shoulder blade, to the right of the backbone, which is below the place where the picture shows the bullet came out in the neckband of the shirt in front, and the bullet, according to the autopsy didn’t strike any bone at all, that particular bullet, and go through. So how it could turn--

BOGGS: I thought I read that bullet just went in a finger’s length.

RANKIN: That is what they first said. [Author‘s emphasis]

It is a fact to be lamented that the official autopsy report failed to record the precise location of Kennedy’s back wound according to the fixed anatomical landmarks routinely used in forensic pathology. As a result, there remains to this day considerable confusion about its exact location. The President’s death certificate signed by his personal physician, Admiral George Burkley, on November 23, 1963, places the bullet hole at “the level of the third thoracic vertebra” which is several inches below the neck. This original placement is supported by the bullet holes in the jacket and shirt worn by the President at the time of his assassination¾both found approximately 5 and ¾ inches below the top of the collar (7HSCA81-3)¾and by the autopsy face sheet prepared by Dr. Boswell at the autopsy. (CE397) The Warren Commission, or course, moved this wound up to “the base of the back of President Kennedy’s neck.” (R87) This location has absolutely no evidentiary support whatsoever. A third location was proposed by the Forensic Pathology Panel (FPP) for the House Select Committee On Assassinations (HSCA) in 1979. The nine-member FPP, made up of some of the United States’ most distinguished medical experts, made careful measurements from the autopsy photos and X-rays and placed the back wound at the level of the first thoracic vertebra (7HSCA175), approximately 5 cm below the shoulder (Ibid 85), and roughly 1 cm below the wound in the throat (Ibid 92). Because they did not have access to the actual body, the conclusions of the HSCA cannot be considered definitive. Therefore, the best that can be said is that President Kennedy’s back wound was somewhere between the first and third thoracic vertebra. What we can say with a certainty, what is obvious from even a cursory glance at the autopsy photos, is that the back wound was below the throat wound.

So, what does this mean for the SBT? The FBI re-enactment established that the angle from the sixth floor of the TSBD to the President’s back between frames 210 and 225 of the Zapruder film was 20-21 degrees below the horizontal plane. (18H89-90) Any bullet hitting Kennedy at the level of the first thoracic vertebra (or lower) and continuing on a 20 degree downward trajectory would have exited his chest and could not possibly have exited his throat just below the Adam’s apple. It is possible that a bullet could have entered the back heading downward, been deflected, and ranged upward out of the neck. However, after leaving the throat headed on an upward trajectory it could not have then changed direction in midair to course back down into Connally’s right armpit.

The FPP concluded that the SBT was possible providing Kennedy was leaning forward far enough to raise the back wound several inches above the one in the throat, and the HSCA published a diagram to illustrate the amount of forward lean necessary. (7HSCA100) But what the FPP ignored is that all available films and photos, the Zapruder film especially, show that the President was sitting perfectly upright when he was struck. Nothing like the amount of lean portrayed in the panel’s illustration is seen in the Zapruder film. When Dr. Cyril Wecht, the only member of the FPP to dissent from its findings, raised this issue with his colleagues he was told, “ah, but we cannot know what happened when they were behind the Stemmons Freeway sign.” (1HSCA339) As Dr. Wecht dryly opined, “what presumably they are asking us to speculate upon is that in that 0.9 second interval, the President bent down to tie his shoelace or fix his sock, he was then shot and then sat back up.” (Ibid) Of course, such a supposition is absurd. There is no getting around the evidence as the HSCA tried to do; the back wound was below the throat wound and Kennedy was sitting upright when first struck. These simple facts essentially destroy the SBT all by themselves. 

But we’re not done with the back wound yet.

The Truth About JFK's Head Wound

Upon viewing the Zapruder film, the majority of people are struck by the apparent disparity between the official pronouncement that all shots were fired from behind and the obvious fact that the President was propelled backwards and leftwards by the impact of the projectile that struck him in the head. But over the last four and a half decades, we have been assured by numerous experts working on behalf of the US government that the medical evidence supports only the official fairytale. The President's reaction, they told us, was meaningless. But in actual fact, nothing could be further from the truth. The official autopsy X-rays completely contradict the “lone nut solution” and demonstrate that the fatal shot was most likely delivered by a gunman on the infamous “grassy knoll.”

Dr. Humes' Big Lie...

JFK's chief autopsy surgeon, Dr. James J. Humes, claimed that upon examining the President's head the doctors found a defect in the scalp (see picture above) “2.5 centimeters to the right, and slightly above the external occiptal protuberance” (the small, boney bump on the back of the skull). He further claimed that upon reflecting the scalp they found a “through-and-through” hole in the skull corresponding with the scalp defect. (2H351-352) Thus, the autopsy surgeons reported that the bullet entered through this small hole and exited through a large 13 cm defect on the right side of the head. To illustrate the head wound, the Warren Commission decided not to publish the autopsy photos and X-rays and instead Dr. Humes had a Navy artist make drawings based entirely on his verbal descriptions.

Humes further claimed that the "through-and-through" hole exhibited external "beveling" and, in an interview with the Journal of the American Medical Association, claimed that this was absolute "proof" that the bullet passed from back to front: “It happens 100 times out of 100, and I will defend it until I die. This is the essence of our autopsy...This is a law of physics and it is foolproof – absolutely, unequivocally, and without question.” (JAMA, May 27, 1992) Finally, Dr. Humes claimed that the bullet that passed through the head left a track of  "multiple minute metallic fragments along a line" beginning at the alleged small hole and extending to the large defect on the right side. (CE387)

Note: "Beveling" of skull bone is essentially the same as what occurs when a BB hits a pane of glass -  a small hole on the impact side and a larger, cone-shaped defect on the other side.

...Revealed!

When the Clark panel and the HSCA pathology panel reviewed the autopsy materials - in 1968 and 1978 respectively - they found that there was no small entry hole where Humes claimed there was one. Still determined to uphold the official story, both panels moved the wound four inches up the head (!) to the approximate location of a large round fragment that it was later claimed was a cross-section of the bullet that had shaved off on impact. But both panels were blowing smoke out of their asses. During its tenure between 1992 and 1998, the Assassinations Records Review Board asked three independent forensic specialists to review the photographs and X-rays and all three were in unanimous agreement that the skull X-rays show no entry hole of any kind at any point on the back of the head. (Doug Horne, Inside the ARRB, pgs. 584-586) And, in fact, both of Hume's colleagues at the autopsy had already admitted as much.

In 1978, Dr. J. Thornton Boswell admitted to the HSCA pathology panel that what they had actually discovered after reflecting the scalp was not a through-and-through hole but a semicircular, beveled notch on the margin of the large defect, (7HSCA246, 260) a fact confirmed by Dr. Pierre Finck in his appearance before the Warren Commission when he explained that a “portion of [a] crater” had been used to identify the point of entrance. (2H379) So the conclusion that a bullet had entered the back of the head at this point was based on an inference and not on observation as Humes had claimed. And the alleged beveling of this notch was not the "foolproof" indicator he claimed it was. When a through-and-through hole is present, beveling is usually a valid indicator. But even then, as Dr. Donald Thomas writes in his brilliant book, Hear No Evil:

“There are important exceptions...even through-and-through perforations, are not infrequently beveled on the impact side...collateral information (evidence from the scalp wound, bone chips, fracture patterns, angle of trajectory, bullet fragments) must all be taken into consideration rather than reliance on external beveling alone...a common exception to the beveling rule are tangential entrance wounds, which may be beveled on either or both sides. The fact is, however, when dealing with fragments or margins of bone, and not through-and-through holes, all bets are off. [emphasis mine] This is because the laminate nature of the cranial bone lends itself to chipping that can easily be confused with beveling.” (pgs. 272-273)

One cannot help thinking that Dr. Humes was fully cognizant of the problems with relying solely on beveling which is why he lied and said that he had found a through-and-through hole. The fact is, as observers of the autopsy have confirmed, the autopsy doctors were confused by the evidence in front of them and, in reaching their conclusions, relied on reports coming in from Dallas that a lone assassin had fired on the President from above and behind.

So What's the Truth?

The true path of the bullet is established by the track of "missile dust" thorugh the brain - as seen on the autopsy X-ray. Although Humes claimed in his report that this fragment trail began at the entry hole he located in the back of the head, it actually begins at the right temple and extends to a point in the back of the head far above both his proposed entrance and the "revised" location offered by the Clark and HSCA panels.

When a bullet disintergrates on striking a skull, the smaller, dust-like fragments are found closer to the entry point and the larger particles are found closer to the exit. This is because the larger fragments, having greater mass, have greater momentum and are carried further away from the point of entry. This is precisely what is seen in the X-ray above, with the smaller particles located at the right temple and the larger ones towards the top back part of the skull.

The bullet dust aligns with semi-circular notch in the right temple seen in the above photo (showing the front of the skull with the scalp reflected over the eyes) and the lesion in the hairline seen in the photo below.

These pictures are consistent and show the true entrance of the bullet in the right temple.

Lone-nut-believers and Warren apologists with no understanding of terminal ballistics usually argue that a rifle bullet entering the right temple would have to exit the left side of the head. This is pure, unadulterated, ignorant nonsense. A bullet will follow a straight-line trajectory up until the point it intercepts a hard suface at which point it will usually deflect, taking the path of least resistance. As Warren Commission Exhibit 844 shows, even bullets fired into soft ballistic gelatin can easily deflect.

In the JFK case, we have a tangential strike from the grassy knoll deflecting upwards and leftwards - perfectly consistent with the expected effects of momentum, penetration and yaw on deflection. (for more on this, see the aforementioned book by Dr. Thomas)

But What About the Wound in the Scalp?

The autopsy doctors described the "ragged, slanting" defect in the back of the scalp as "a laceration and tunnel, with the actual penetration of the skin obscured by the top of the tunnel." (ARRB MD14) The HSCA panel noted an "abrasion collar" in the "inferior margin" (7HSCA104) which is indicative of an upward trajectory. Obviously, then, the missile that caused this wound came from below and not above.

The anterior X-ray shows a large round fragment attached to the outer table of the back of the skull, aligning with the scalp laceration.

The official explanation is that this fragment represents a cross-section from the center of the bullet that attached itself to the back of the skull whilst the nose and tail carried on out the right side of the head. This is a physical impossibility with no support in the forensic literature and has been rightly dismissed by forensic and ballistics experts. Dr. Russell Fisher, who headed the Clark Panel's review, confided to ballistics expert, Howard Donahue, that the panel had come to the conclusion that it must have been "a ricochet fragment" from the shot that hit the street behind the Presidential limousine. (Bonar Menninger, Mortal Error, p. 65) Despite this being the most reasonable explanation for the presence of this large round fragment on the back of the skull, the Clark panel did not include this information in its report. Why? Because it would have been plainly obvious that it was this ricochet fragment that created the upward tunneling wound in the scalp. And once we realize that the only wound in the scalp was caused by shrapnel from the shot that struck the pavement, all evidence of a rear-entering shot flies right out the window.