JFK Conspiracy Theories IV: The One With The Whales

[HSienzant]

It is a truth that the doctors initially speculated that a bullet hit the throat and exited out of the back of the head

Let's again stress that it was the PARKLAND doctors that speculated that on the afternoon of the assassination, in the absence of any information about how many shots struck the President and lacking any information about where the shooter was (or shooters were, if you prefer).

This has nothing to do with whatsoever with anything the Bethesda doctors concluded.

...you combine that with a lie that the autopsy doctors did not seriously consider that the throat wound could be an exit for a head shot.

It's not a lie. You've provided nothing attributable to any of the autopsy doctors that says that. You've in the past merely conjectured they considered that, then waited a week or so to state it was a fact.

Here's what you said originally: "Therefore, this is most likely information leaked to the media directly from the autopsy".

That was your conjecture. "Most likely" is simply your attempt to put the odds at this in your favor. In truth, the article you reference says the Parkland doctors were the source of the original conjecture, and it also says the autopsy hasn't happened yet. You ignore all that.

Despite the Boston Globe article's erroneous statement "More complete details are not expected until an autopsy is performed in Washington and this is considered likely to establish the criminality.",

"Erroneous" is, once again, simply your opinion. You're again demonstrating the ability to both accept and deny anything you like and don't like from the same source. Some would call that cherry-picking. So while the article clearly references the autopsy hasn't happened yet, and also says the source of the claim about the path of a bullet into the neck and out the head came from the Parkland doctors, you apparently wish to discount all that, and cite the image which was drawn by some newspaper staff person to illustrate Ian Menzie's reported speculation that the Parkland doctors got the path reversed.

...you would have to believe in a pretty big coincidence if you say this isn't information leaked from the autopsy, because the diagram shows the bullet entering at the exact location specified in the autopsy report

There's very few ways to draw that line from that illustration to make it come out the throat. In addition, look at the article - do the wounds described sound like the autopsy was the source?

The article says: "As it reached the throat, it pierced one or other of the two carotid arteries taking blood to and from the brain, or one or other of the two small jugular veins performing the same function, though with less pressure than in the main arteries. The bullet must also have shattered the windpipe which takes air into the lungs."

Where does the autopsy say anything like the above? It's not the source.

...and which Dr. Humes pointed out to everybody in the room.

Really? When and where?

...The article isn't specific, it just says "it is now believed".

Ian Menzies cites his source as a Boston neurosurgeon. He is unnamed:
"How did the President die? Probably either through fast loss of blood or damage to the nervous system in the brain which controls breathing, or both, said a Boston neurosurgeon piecing the details together."

This is a perfect illustration of what happens when people speculate from insufficient detail. The Parkland doctors knew of only two of the four wounds to the President that would be found at autopsy. They speculated the wounds were connected as a neck entry and head exit. People further removed from the scene knew there were two wounds, and that the President was shot from a tall building behind him. Each, working with incomplete information, drew conclusions that were entirely reasonable to them, and totally wrong.

Much like you do here every day, likewise speculating from incomplete information.

...The evidence for the autopsy doctors considering the throat wound an exit for a head shot was already discussed.

And demolished. Among other things, you referenced Parkland doctor McClelland's mention of a fragment wound of the throat, conjecturing (despite no evidence) that McClelland got that info from the autopsy doctors. I showed that the memo you referenced was prepared at a time when Air Force 1 was still in the air, on its way back to Washington. The body wasn't even in the hands of the autopsy surgeons yet when McClelland wrote his memorandum for the record, contrary to your conjecture / speculation / WAG that the autopsy doctors were the source. So they could not be the source. And I quoted above, more recently, McClelland's admission that it was simply the Parkland doctor's conjecture, from the info they had, that the two wounds were connected.

... I definitely don't feel like going back and reposing evidence I already pointed out.

Because it was already shot down previously and I can do it again.

...You can drop the act downplaying that, it's not like there are a lot of lurkers or anything.

I'm not playing to any crowd. I'm simply pointing out your errors. Let's rely on the facts to reach a conclusion instead of reaching a conclusion and relying on speculation and conjecture to justify the conclusion.

...And you're probably not impressing anybody by downplaying the autopsy witnesses by comparing them to the Tippit shooting witnesses.

Witnesses are witnesses. Until dogs and cats learn to speak, humans are going to be all we have as witnesses, and humans are fallible. You need to learn to live with that.

Regarding the varying jacket descriptions, you never did choose one.

Why? - For the same reason Mark Lane chose not to go any further in his analysis of the witnesses jacket descriptions. It establishes witnesses are fallible, and they should not be relied on for fine details. That's true whether the witnesses are recalling the murder of a policeman scant hours after his murder, or the autopsy of a President decades after his murder.

And it's true whether you or Mark Lane like it or not.

And witnesses being fallible is something you don't want to admit or accept, because witness statements taken out of context and justified after the fact by speculation is really all you have.

Hank

 

[HSienzant]

The jacket was blue and gold.

You missed the point.

Spectacularly, I'll admit (Blue and Gold!) but you missed it nonetheless.

I'm asking MicahJava to choose the most reasonable way the witnesses recollections can be reconciled, or if they can't, to admit they can't.

I'm not asking him to choose a color or colors.

Hank

 

[HSienzant]

A quick history lesson:

JFK was from Massachusetts, most of his personal advisers, as well as those of RFK, were also from Massachusetts. Boston is in Massachusetts. The source for the story was likely a Kennedy insider who was talking out of his butt. Probably from RFK's staff because nobody on JFK's staff would risk upsetting Jackie by spouting BS to a reporter.

I could be wrong, but I think RFK was present at his brother's autopsy, my guess is that the source - a lay person - was too.

The story says the autopsy hadn't happened yet. And it was a story in the Boston Globe, so my conjecture is the Boston Globe writer reached out to a local doctor he knew, or the editor of the paper knew, and asked for his opinion, given these 'facts':

• The shooter was behind and above the President.
• The President had a head wound and a throat wound.
• One bullet caused both wounds.

The Globe article also early on referenced M.G.H. (Massachusetts General Hospital) and lauded it as a teaching hospital 'staffed by the most able men', and later on says the source of the conjecture was a Boston neurosurgeon, so my guess is they reached out to someone at M.G.H. and asked that person about the wounds. And in return, gave a small plug to the hospital by lauding its staff.

But the bottom line is that the newspaper article is just hearsay, repeating conjectures from incomplete information as fact. We both recognize it's not a good source of information, MicahJava isn't convinced that hearsay newspaper articles aren't a good source, and rejecting the facts, expands upon their conjectures with additional conjectures of his own.

Hank

 

[HSienzant]

HSienzant's posts have impressed me as being factual, using direct quotes from the time. Yours have impressed me as using speculation, impressions, and interpretations of things said up to thirty years later. Maybe he is making an impression.

Thanks for noticing.

Feedback is good.

Positive feedback is even better.

Hank

 

[MicahJava]

The newspaper was published on the afternoon of the 23rd, so obviously the autopsy had been performed. No specific source is given for the head-entry-throat-exit concept, but we must at least strongly consider the possibility that this was leaked from the autopsy because it shows the entry into the head at the exact location it was in real life. The Boston neurosurgeon isn't mentioned until later. It is your speculation that it was drawn that way to demonstrate a straight angle down to the throat. It is your speculation that several autopsy witnesses were hallucinating (or "having fallible recollections" to make it sound more palatable to the average person who identifies as a skeptic).

 

[Tomtomkent]

When was the article written?
Does it state if the autopsy had been completed at time of writing?
Does the article offer conclusions that mirror the autopsy report?
If the article differs from the autopsy report,why would we assume it knows better than the report as written?


This is going beyond silly.

 

[SpitfireIX]

Doctor McClelland testified to the same thing:

Mr. SPECTER - Have you had discussions with the other doctors who attended President Kennedy as to the possible nature of the wound which was inflicted on him?
Dr. McCLELLAND - Yes.
Mr. SPECTER - And what facts did you have available either to you or to the other doctors whom you talked this over with, with respect to the nature of the wound, source of the wounds, and that sort of thing?
Dr. McCLELLAND - Immediately we had essentially no facts. We knew nothing of the number of bullets that had supposedly been fired. We knew nothing of the site from which the bullet had been fired, essentially none of the circumstances in the first few minutes, say, 20 or 30 minutes after the President was brought in, so that our initial impressions were based upon extremely incomplete information.
Mr. SPECTER - What were your initial impressions?
Dr. McCLELLAND - The initial impression that we had was that perhaps the wound in the neck, the anterior part of the neck, was an entrance wound and that it had perhaps taken a trajectory off the anterior vertebral body and again into the skull itself, exiting out the back, to produce the massive injury in the head.

You should have included the next line of McClelland's testimony:

However, this required some straining of the imagination to imagine that this would happen, and it was much easier to explain the apparent trajectory by means of two bullets, which we later found out apparently had been fired, than by just one then, on which basis we were originally taking to explain it.[bolding mine]

 

[Wolrab]

You missed the point.

Spectacularly, I'll admit (Blue and Gold!) but you missed it nonetheless.

I'm asking MicahJava to choose the most reasonable way the witnesses recollections can be reconciled, or if they can't, to admit they can't.

I'm not asking him to choose a color or colors.

Hank

Using absurdity, I was demonstrating perceptions differ.

 

[Hans]

Still running from my question huh MJ? You are looking rather foolish running from basic questions but of course it is your choice to be an intellectually ineffectual.

It will be repeated until answered

Here you go 4th time

Would you agree that there are conflicting autopsy accounts?

Okay so how do you know which ones are correct and which ones are wrong?

Boy those sure are HARD questions aren't they? lol

 

[MicahJava]

Boy those sure are HARD questions aren't they? lol

Corroboration of witness statements is a good way to know which ones are credible.

 

[MicahJava]

You should have included the next line of McClelland's testimony:

Yeah, a few(?) doctors thought that perhaps a bullet entered the throat and exited the back of the head. Nobody, except I think a nurse, saw the back wound.

Dr. Mcclelland speculated early on the throat wound was a fragment from a head shot. We have this memo apparently written before the autopsy, and we also have this bit from a 12/18/1963 Washington Post article: "One of the surgeons (Mcclelland?) explained over television that he was shot only once, and that a fragment from the bullet that hit his head coursed downward and emerged from the front of the throat."

So we a Parkland witness as well who thought that this could be the case.

 

[Hans]

Corroboration of witness statements is a good way to know which ones are credible.

Questions avoided so they are repeated:

5th time

Would you agree that there are conflicting autopsy accounts?

Okay so how do you know which ones are correct and which ones are wrong?

maybe you need to ask someone to help you find an answer? Chuckle

 

[Axxman300]

Yeah, a few(?) doctors thought that perhaps a bullet entered the throat and exited the back of the head. Nobody, except I think a nurse, saw the back wound.

Dr. Mcclelland speculated early on the throat wound was a fragment from a head shot. We have this memo apparently written before the autopsy, and we also have this bit from a 12/18/1963 Washington Post article: "One of the surgeons (Mcclelland?) explained over television that he was shot only once, and that a fragment from the bullet that hit his head coursed downward and emerged from the front of the throat."

So we a Parkland witness as well who thought that this could be the case.

The Parkland Witness is crap.

I have posted the link of the two surviving Parkland doctors who worked on JFK. They thought the throat wound was an entrance wound, NOBODY thought the throat wound was caused by the head shot.

The doctors also walk everyone through the process of transitioning from resuscitation efforts to calling time of death, and then they talk about how hard it is to judge gunshot wounds in the context of ER operation, and how the coroner is always the last word on the subject.

 

[HSienzant]

Using absurdity, I was demonstrating perceptions differ.

I was hoping that was the case. From what I've seen though, sometimes absurdities are actually taken seriously. I forget whose law that is.

Hank

 

[HSienzant]

When was the article written?
Does it state if the autopsy had been completed at time of writing?
Does the article offer conclusions that mirror the autopsy report?
If the article differs from the autopsy report,why would we assume it knows better than the report as written?


This is going beyond silly.

Beyond silly is apparently all he has at this point.

Let's ignore what the article says where convenient, and assume anything we need to that the article doesn't say also when convenient appears to be the mantra here.

Hank

 

[HSienzant]

Yeah, a few(?) doctors thought that perhaps a bullet entered the throat and exited the back of the head. Nobody, except I think a nurse, saw the back wound.

When did this nurse first say this?

Dr. Mcclelland speculated early on the throat wound was a fragment from a head shot. We have this memo apparently written before the autopsy...

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow down. A week or two ago, you were claiming that McClelland got his info from the autopsy doctors (attempting to show the autopsy changed) - until I showed his memo was written before the plane even landed in Washington, D.C. Remember?

Now you're attempting to turn it around, and apparently claim McClelland's mention means the autopsy that was published was false. Or something. McClelland advanced a guess. He did NOT dissect the wound. He took no tissue samples. He did not probe the wound either. Your arguments utilizing McClelland for anything is a non-starter, especially since McClelland explained all that (and I quoted it back to you above).

...and we also have this bit from a 12/18/1963 Washington Post article: "One of the surgeons (Mcclelland?) explained over television that he was shot only once, and that a fragment from the bullet that hit his head coursed downward and emerged from the front of the throat."

I'm not aware of McClelland being on TV being interviewed at any time in the first month. Perhaps you can document that? Or post a link to the actual article so we can assure ourselves you're not taking it out of context?

This is a hearsay report, and doesn't do justice to what Dr. Perry and Dr. Clark said in the initial press conference whatsoever.

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

Perry and Clark actually conjectured the opposite path, but only after being pressed for conjecture. Even then, they said they couldn't speak with certainty whatsoever.

DR. MALCOM PERRY- I noted he was in critical condition from the wound in the neck and the head.
QUESTION- Could that be done by one shot?
DR. MALCOM PERRY- I cannot conjecture. I don’t know.
...
DR. KEMP CLARK- We were too busy to be absolutely sure of the track, but the back of his head.
QUESTION- And through the neck?
DR. KEMP CLARK- Principally on his right side, towards the right side.
...
QUESTION- Doctor, is it the assumption that it [the neck bullet - Hank] went through the head?
DR. MALCOM PERRY- That would be on conjecture on my part. There are two wounds, as Dr. Clark noted, one of the neck and one of the head. Whether they are directly related or related to two bullets, I cannot say.
...
QUESTION- Which way was the bullet coming on the neck wound? At him?
DR. MALCOM PERRY- It appeared to be coming at him.
QUESTION- And the one behind?
DR. MALCOM PERRY- The nature of the wound defies the ability to describe whether it went through it from either side. I cannot tell you that. Can you, Dr. Clark?
DR. KEMP CLARK- The head wound could have been either the exit wound from the neck or it could have been a tangential wound, as it was simply a large, gaping loss of tissue.
...
QUESTION- Can’t we clear this up just a little more? In your estimation, was there one or two wounds? Just give us something.
DR. MALCOM PERRY- I don’t know. From the injury, it is conceivable that it could have been caused by one wound, but there could have been two just as well if the second bullet struck the head in addition to striking the neck, and I cannot tell you that due to the nature of the wound. There is no way for me to tell.
QUESTION- Doctor, describe the entrance wound. You think from the front in the throat?
DR. MALCOM PERRY- The wound appeared to be an entrance wound in the front of the throat; yes, that is correct. The exit wound, I don’t know. It could have been the head or there could have been a second wound of the head. There was not time to determine this at the particular instant.
QUESTION- Would the bullet have to travel up from the neck wound to exit through the back?
DR. MALCOM PERRY- Unless it was deviated from its course by striking bone or some other object.

Again, at best, these are conjectures only. None of the Parkland doctors performed any visual inspection of the wounds with an eye toward determining how many bullets struck the President and where they went. They were only aware of two of the four wounds on the president's body for his brief stay at Parkland. The doctors all said - rather uniformly - that nobody hung around the operating room doing any analysis once the President was declared dead.

Nobody cares - or rather, nobody cares except apparently for you - what the initial erroneous impressions of the Parkland doctors were. We conduct autopsies for a reason. Can you tell us what reason?

So we a Parkland witness as well who thought that this could be the case.

Only if you credit hearsay newspaper reports, assume they are reporting accurately, and accept conjectures by doctors who previously said any answer they gave would be a conjecture only.

Hank

 

[HSienzant]

The newspaper was published on the afternoon of the 23rd, so obviously the autopsy had been performed.

Is the Boston Globe a morning or evening paper?

The Boston Globe is a morning paper, according to Wikipedia. There was a sister paper called the Boston Evening Globe, that was published in the afternoon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boston_Globe

The Boston Globe was founded in 1872 by six Boston businessmen, including Charles H. Taylor and Eben Jordan, who jointly invested $150,000 (worth $2,967,917 today). The first issue was published on March 4, 1872, and cost four cents. Originally a morning daily, it began a Sunday edition in 1877, which absorbed the rival Boston Weekly Globe in 1892.[5] In 1878, The Boston Globe started an afternoon edition called The Boston Evening Globe, which ceased publication in 1979. By the 1890s, The Boston Globe had become a stronghold, with an editorial staff dominated by Irish Catholics.[6]

The article in question was published in the Boston Globe, was it not? Look in the upper right hand corner of this link:
http://www.the-puzzle-palace.com/Globe11-23-63.jpg
What do you see? See the word EVENING anyplace? I don't.

It was therefore published on the morning of 11/23/63, and it was reporting what the Parkland doctors said here in their press conference (conjecture about the bullet path) and then conjecturing the doctors had the path reversed, because, as they noted in the article, the shooter was behind the President.

No specific source is given for the head-entry-throat-exit concept, but we must at least strongly consider the possibility that this was leaked from the autopsy because it shows the entry into the head at the exact location it was in real life.

It says it's conjecture, based on the fact the shooter was behind the President. I covered this all in detail in post 2221. http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11596500&postcount=2221
Here's an excerpt:
The story accompanying the picture you cited even says "more complete details are not expected until the autopsy is performed..."; clearly, the story was written on 11/22/63 and published early the next day.
The story also says: "The rather meager medical details attributed to Dr. Malcolm Perry, the attending surgeon, described the bullet as entering just below the Adam's Apple and leaving by the back of the head. Since that statement Friday afternoon, it is believed from determining the site of the firing that the bullet entered the back of the head first and came out just under the Adam's Apple." Clearly, this is a speculation of someone at the newspaper based on the speculation of Dr. Perry...
The speculation about a connection between the head and anterior neck wounds came originally from Dr. Perry, and it's important to note those are the only two wounds the Parkland doctors were aware of on 11/22/63 - the large wound in the head, and the small wound in the throat. So Perry speculated one bullet could do all the damage, by entering the throat, hitting the spine, and deflecting up and out the large head wound. He was wrong about that.

The Boston neurosurgeon isn't mentioned until later.

Ian Menzies (identified as the Globe's science editor) cites his source as a Boston neurosurgeon. He is unnamed:
"How did the President die? Probably either through fast loss of blood or damage to the nervous system in the brain which controls breathing, or both, said a Boston neurosurgeon piecing the details together."

It says this neurosurgeon 'pieced the details together'. Which means he's the one responsible for the conjecture about the bullet path. Not any autopsy doctors.

It is your speculation that it was drawn that way to demonstrate a straight angle down to the throat.

Yes, that's correct. And even though the autopsy doctors are uniform that they didn't reach any conclusions about the bullet path until they talked to Parkland on Saturday morning (which would have been AFTER this paper went to press), it's your speculation that somehow the autopsy conclusions which hadn't been reached yet was leaked to the Boston Globe. I think my speculation is far more reasonable than yours.

It is your speculation that several autopsy witnesses were hallucinating...

No, I never said that. Try to avoid logical fallacies like straw man arguments.

... (or "having fallible recollections" to make it sound more palatable to the average person who identifies as a skeptic).

Yes, better. As noted, the witnesses to the Tippit shooting and the immediate aftermath couldn't even remember the color of the killer's jacket correctly, within a few hours of the murder. They were certainly "having fallible recollections", were they not? Why do you think autopsy witnesses, from 33 or 34 years after the assassination would be somehow immune to "having fallible recollections"?

Serious question. Can you answer it?

Hank

 

[MicahJava]

You may be right! If the evening edition is always called The Boston Evening Globe on the pages, then this must be the morning edition. I thought I remembered finding a source where you could read the entire 11/23/63 morning edition, and couldn't find the article with the diagram, but you may be right. That does seem pretty early for autopsy information to be leaked, but I'm still not convinced that it could only be a coincidence that it shows entry into the precise location. The only other explanation for that is that is happened to work with the 45 degree angle illustration. The neurosurgeon, i don't know, but it's getting pretty boring just arguing about this one article. I know it means a lot to you, but it doesn't to me.

Same thing with Dr. McClelland. His early explanation of the throat wound as a fragment from a head shot was probably from his own mind, and not leaked information from the autopsy. IMO it only adds credibility.

Now, let's move on to the historical value of two more items.

First, the 1/4/1964 JAMA article. There were a lot of newspapers reporting that the throat wound was a fragment from a head shot, however the JAMA article specifically said that the autopsy doctors at one point pushed this conclusion.

"Kennedy Shot Twice in Back. - President Kennedy was shot twice from the rear by the assassin who struck him down in Dallas. This unofficial finding by a team of pathologists who performed an autopsy on the President's body cleared up confusion over whether Kennedy was shot once or twice and whether both bullets came from the same direction. The autopsy was performed at Bathesda Naval Hospital on the night of Nov 22 after Kennedy's body was brought back to Washington from Dallas.

The first bullet reportedly hit Kennedy in the upper part of the right back shoulder. The bullet did not go through his body and was recovered during the autopsy. The second bullet hit Texas Gov. John B. Connally who was riding in the President's car. The third bullet hit Kennedy in the back of the right side of the head. A small fragment of this bullet also angled down and passed out through Kennedy's throat. Kennedy might have survived the first bullet, which may have ricocheted off the limousine before striking him, according to reports."

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/1161559

Now, I tend to think the Journal of the American Medical Association is pretty credible about stuff like this, and the fine people there can differentiate between emergency room speculations and autopsy findings. Do you just think the part about the "team of pathologists who performed the autopsy" is just a bit of nonsense printed without much thought?

Second, this quote from Chief Counsel Lee Rankin at a 1/27/1964 Warren Commission meeting:

"Then there is a great range of material in regards to the wounds, and the autopsy and this point of exit or entrance of the bullet in front of the neck, and that all has to be developed much more than we have at the present time. 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, and the angle, it seems quite appare 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."

http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcexec/pdf/WcEx0127.pdf

Consider that this guy is in charge of getting the official story straight. Are you going to say this is a casual flub based on something he read in the paper?

 

[Tomtomkent]

It only adds to the credibility that the description was speculation by a man who did not perform an autopsy? Or take notes or measurements?

 

[MicahJava]

It only adds to the credibility that the description was speculation by a man who did not perform an autopsy? Or take notes or measurements?

Apparently there's a question of whether Dr. McClelland saw the throat wound before the incision in the neck, I guess I lean towards him not seeing it, but the point is that he considered it logical at the time. Even all the way up into the autopsy when they got to see the back wound, nobody considered it logical that the back wound exited the throat, for several reasons, even though we know that the autopsy doctors investigated the throat wound as a bullet hole.