Cont: JFK Conspiracy Theories V: Five for Fighting

[bknight]

Asked and answered over a dozen -- no exaggeration -- times.

You have ignored every attempt to set the record straight and merely reiterate your own faulty interpretation of the testimony.

Hank

 

[MicahJava]

Your comment is already answered by the one you were responding to. It's not very significant that the death certificate doesn't mention a bullet wound in the throat. It could have an innocent explanation, but I tend to think it was a "we'll figure out this thing later" mentality.

Addendum: The Ward Death Certificate also doesn't really mention the bullet that struck "1 inch to the right center of the back of the head" exited anywhere, either. By some reasoning, the writers of the Death Certificates may have only wanted to include the two basic entry wounds. The original Death Certificate also doesn't specifically mention the small head wound, just "struck in the head by an assassin's bullet... The wound was shattering in type causing a fragmentation of the skull and evulsion of three particles of the skull at the time of the impact, with resulting maceration of the right hemisphere of the brain."

Death Certificates are just vague, so I tend to think the authors would just assume it wasn't a big deal to leave out the throat wound, on both versions, because that was just a possible contender for an exit for the back shot or maybe a fragment from the head shot. Perhaps the fact that both Death Certificates did not mention any bullets discovered in the body was a good enough implication.

 

[HSienzant]

First decent point you've made in your whole entire JREF career.

The Death Certificate cannot be used as evidence that the Dr.'s were ignorant about the throat wound until a later Saturday phone call.

Wait, what? The death certificate is executed on Saturday, 11/23/63. You put the phone call as approaching midnight on the day of the assassination, 11/22/63.

Your pretense at an impenetrable edifice is crumbling.

Hank

 

[bknight]

bknight, the HSCA's Sniper's Nest trajectory assumes that their interpretation of the open-cranium photographs are true. Do you think a five-inch skull cavity is all you need to properly remove a brain? No? Well that just about debunks the HSCA's interpretation.

Fail again.

 

[MicahJava]

I also don't understand how the Barnum account, written just a week after the assassination, can be scrutinized by calling it hearsay. Dr. Burkley was talking to all of them personally, and they were paying attention. Barnum is specific and he didn't understand the implications of what he was writing at the time.

Some people like David Lifton himself might want to believe that the autopsy doctors want to stay honest under their conditions and so maybe Barnum was fudging his memory with news reports from the days leading up to 11/29/1963, but seriously this written account is so specific and fresh that it's quite obvious that it qualifies as one of the best reasons to doubt the autopsy doctors.

 

[HSienzant]

Addendum: The Ward Death Certificate also doesn't really mention the bullet that struck "1 inch to the right center of the back of the head" exited anywhere, either. By some reasoning, the writers of the Death Certificates may have only wanted to include the two basic entry wounds.

Untrue. Burkley's death certificate mentions the damage the exiting bullet caused to the head: "The wound was shattering in type causing fragmentation of the skull and evulsion of three particles of the skull at time of the impact with resulting maceration of the right hemisphere of the brain."

The only damage not noted in this document is the bullet wound in the throat. Gee, almost like Burkley didn't know about at the time of the execution of the death certificate.

The original Death Certificate also doesn't specifically mention the small head wound, just "struck in the head by an assassin's bullet... The wound was shattering in type causing a fragmentation of the skull and evulsion of three particles of the skull at the time of the impact, with resulting maceration of the right hemisphere of the brain."

Yes, that's the massive wound in the top right side of the skull that we can see in the autopsy photos, the autopsy x-rays, and the Zapruder film. The entry wound to the head is noted by the phrase "struck in the head by an assassin's bullet".

The autopsy contains the details. The death certificate is the overview.

Death Certificates are just vague, so I tend to think the authors wouldn't think it was a big deal to leave out the throat wound, on both versions, because that was just a possible contender for an exit for the back shot or maybe a fragment from the head shot.

Nobody cares what you think. What's the document mention?

An entry in the head, an exit from the head, and a back entry wound.

Period.

No throat wound. So the death certificate executed by Burkley on 11/23/63, is a legal document, is admissible in court, does mention three of the four wounds JFK suffered, and conflicts with Barnum's hearsay account purportedly put on paper on 11/29/63, which is not admissible in court and contains any number of unknown influences on his recollection.

Guess which one is legal evidence and which is not?

Guess which one you attempt to trash and which one you favor?

It is ever thus. You have no evidence.

Hank

 

[bknight]

Fixed.

And apparently you enjoy straight-up lying about something that anybody who can read higher up on the page knows you're wrong about.

You listed 12 individuals in your post
snipping all the text leaves you with
George Barnum, personal written account 11/29/1963
Dr. Malcolm Perry WC 3/25/1964, WC 3/30/1964, HSCA 1/11/1978
Dr. Burkley 11/25/1966, HSCA 8/17/1977
The CBS memo from 1/10/1967
Joe Hagan, The Death of a President by William Manchester (1967)
Tom Robinson, HSCA 1/12/1977, ARRB 6/21/1996
John Stringer, HSCA 8/17/1977, ARRB 7/16/1996
Richard Lipsey, HSCA 1/18/1978
John Ebersole, HSCA 3/10/1978, David Mantik 12/2/1992
Robert Knudsen (White House photographer), HSCA 8/11/1978
Dr. Paul Peters (Parkland Hospital), Ben Bradlee interview 5/1/1981
Dr. Robert Karnei,HSCA 8/23/1977, ARRB 3/10/1997 again 8/27/1991

And for the befit of you and everyone else here is my comment

Bolded statement makes no sense.
As for your witnesses most of the testimony is dated 33 years after the event and as we all have told you memory of an event however important or traumatic is not the best evidence to use.

Now you do the count and tell me if most of the witness statements are in the vintage of 33 years after the fact.

 

[HSienzant]

I also don't understand how the Barnum account, written just a week after the assassination, can be scrutinized by calling it hearsay.

Then you don't understand what hearsay is. And why it's not allowed in court trials.
https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/hearsay
In keeping with the three evidentiary requirements, the Hearsay Rule, as outlined in the Federal Rules of Evidence, prohibits most statements made outside a courtroom from being used as evidence in court. This is because statements made out of court normally are not made under oath, a judge or jury cannot personally observe the demeanor of someone who makes a statement outside the courtroom, and an opposing party cannot cross-examine such a declarant (the person making the statement). Out-of-court statements hinder the ability of the judge or jury to probe testimony for inaccuracies caused by Ambiguity, insincerity, faulty perception, or erroneous memory. Thus, statements made out of court are perceived as untrustworthy.

Do you understand it now? I doubt it, but I'll wager most other readers here do.

Dr. Burkley was talking to all of them personally, and they were paying attention. Barnum is specific and he didn't understand the implications of what he was writing at the time.

"They were paying attention"? Another assertion without a shred of proof offered to substantiate the claim. You yourself originally suggested Barnum made errors in what he attributed to Burkley and qualified the recollection of Barnum as containing a "garbled reference" and "incoherence":

This is based on a personal journal entry dated 11/29/1963. If the relevant text had stopped at "The first striking him in the lower neck and coming out near the throat", that would be too much sense. But then Barnum had to throw in "The second shot striking him above and to the rear of the right ear, this shot not coming out". "This shot not coming out"? That sounds like a garbledreference to the original theory on the back wound, a short shot with the bullet squeezing out of it's own entry wound. Could this be a garbled reference to the mythical EOP-throat connection as attested by Lipsey? Nobody can know. Despite the incoherence, this is some of the most credible evidence that the autopsy doctors knew about the throat wound earlier than claimed.

He wrote down from his recollection a week after the event what he recalled Burkley said. That's the very definition of hearsay.

Some people like David Lifton himself might want to believe that the autopsy doctors want to stay honest under their conditions and so maybe Barnum was fudging his memory with news reports from the days leading up to 11/29/1963,

It wasn't he was 'fudging his memories'.... it's his memory was being fudged by what he learned later. That's how memory works. It's a reconstruction based on what you know and what you recall, with your mind subconsciously filling in gaps with 'best guesses'. And it can be influenced by what you hear or see, or even how a question is phrased.

Elizabeth Loftus -- and this is maybe the fifth time I've mentioned this -- conducted a now famous experiment where human subjects were shown a short film of a car hitting a road sign. The experiment determined if the subject was questioned two weeks later with the verb in the question changed (from hit to struck to crashed into to smashed into) that would affect the subject's recollection of how fast the car was travelling in the film they saw.

You don't know what Barnum saw and read in the week preceding the date of his recollection, so you cannot vouch for the accuracy of that report.

But that's exactly what you're trying to do here.

...but seriously this written account is so specific and fresh that it's quite obvious that it qualifies as one of the best reasons to doubt the autopsy doctors.

So one of the best reasons to doubt the autopsy doctors -- whom you quote extensively when it suits your purposes -- is a recalled hearsay account written a week after the assassination that could have been influenced by other things Barnum had seen or read in the interim and that you yourself admitted contained errors of recollection. Got it.

No good reason to doubt the autopsy doctors then.

Hank

 

[HSienzant]

Wowa. Like I said, I may have missed a word earlier. My point still stands. One of the biggest anomalies in the autopsy evidence and everybody should know about it.

Your point was I hadn't read testimony and you had:

If you do not want to read John Stringer's testimony, here is a summary by Doug Horne...

But I not only had read his testimony, I provided a link to his testimony and quoted his testimony here:

...Here's what Stringer actually testified to at one point (page 39):
[13] Q: In the area of 1963, did you ever use a
[14] medium-format camera at autopsies?
[15] A: No. At that time, we were in the process
[16] of changing from a four-by-five to 35 millimeter.
[17] And we were - the commanding officer wouldn't let
[18] us purchase any more four-by-five film, because we
[19] were in the midst of buying the 35 millimeter
[20] cameras and the films.

So we know Stringer used at least two different types of film stock according to his own testimony during his career.

And on page 134, he clearly said he used one type when he actually used another. And he corrected himself.

[10] Q: Under sub A on Exhibit 78, it refers to
[11] Ektachrome E3 film. Does that help refresh your
[12] recollection as the type of film -
[13] A: Yes, it does.
[14] Q: - that was used?
[15] A: Yes.
[16] Q: Earlier, if I recall correctly, you had
[17] said that you understood that it was Kodachrome.
[18] A: Yeah.
[19] Q: It was Ektachrome E3?
[20] A: I would say it was Ektachrome, yes.
[21] Q: And does Ektachrome E3 create color

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/stringer.htm

All you did in earlier posts was make references to what Stringer had purportedly said, and when pressed to cite for your claims by quoting his testimony and providing a link to his testimony complete with page numbers, all you could provide were assertions by a fellow conspiracy theorist, Doug Horne, with no link to Stringer's actual statements.

I posted excerpts from Stringer's testimony, disproving your contention that Stringer had used only one type of film his entire working life.

Face it, you're getting hammered here.

Hank

 

[Axxman300]

If you do not want to read John Stringer's testimony, here is a summary by Doug Horne in the book Murder In Dealey Plaza
Sorry if I missed a word or two

Wow, you post a passage from a CTist - who makes a CT interpretation of Stringer's deposition instead of posting a link to the actual deposition.

No wonder you fail.

Also, this is a violation of copyright laws.

 

[Axxman300]

bknight, the HSCA's Sniper's Nest trajectory assumes that their interpretation of the open-cranium photographs are true.

The trajectory is correct, the photographs are true.

Do you think a five-inch skull cavity is all you need to properly remove a brain?

No, in fact -NOBODY DOES. Just you and only you believe this. Everyone else knows they cut the skull open to remove the brain. The evidence of this is visible in some of the pictures you've posted without ever actually looking at.

 

[Axxman300]

Your comment is already answered by the one you were responding to. It's not very significant that the death certificate doesn't mention a bullet wound in the throat.

That's because it was a back wound. I know science is not your strong point, but medicine can be persnickety about detail.

It could have an innocent explanation, but I tend to think it was a "we'll figure out this thing later" mentality.

Big shock, you're a CTist. The problem here is if it was a conspiracy then they would have figured this out in advance. This was a capital offense.

 

[HSienzant]

1. There is already some question if Dr. Burkley failed to inform the autopsy doctors about the nature of the original throat wound he arguably may have seen or been told about from the Parkland doctors.

"some question" is not evidence. "arguably" is not evidence.

Why don't you ever have any evidence?

2. The December 6 1963 version of the Death Certificate signed by Theron Ward also fails to mention a throat wound. It just says Kennedy "came to his death as a result of two gunshot wounds (1) near the center of the body and just above the right shoulder, and (2) 1 inch to the right center of the back of the head."

Who is Theran [not Theron] Ward and when did he examine the body? Or is this just something he heard?

You have no clue.

https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md43/pages/Image0.gif <---- CLICK ON THE LINK TO SEE THERAN WARD'S DEATH CERTIFICATE YOU REFERENCE BUT PROBABLY HAVE NEVER SEEN

Let's note a few things. He was a Justice of the Peace in Dallas, Texas. His death certificate (executed in Dallas on December 6th, 1963, from what the doctors in Parkland told him as well as other sources) is a hearsay document. On the first page, it says the President died as a result of "MULTIPLE GUNSHOT WOUNDS OF THE HEAD AND NECK" only.

It mentions the throat wound when it mentions the neck wound. The Parkland doctors thought the shot in the throat (the front of the neck) was an entry wound, remember?

On the second page it contains the language you claim "two gunshot wounds (1) near the center of the body and just above the right shoulder, and (2) 1 inch to the right center of the back of the head".

This can't be from the Parkland doctors as they didn't examine the President's back and it can't be from his own examination, because by the time Ward executed this document, the President was already buried in Arlington.

The Parkland doctors were unaware of the existence of a wound in the back because they never turned JFK over. And Ward's Dallas, Texas death certificate says the body was removed to Washington, so this was executed after the President's body was gone. So did he ever examine the body? And where does the language about the wounds you claim come from?

It must be second-hand information from other sources. And was obviously an afterthought, as no one got around to completing a proper death certificate at the time JFK's body was removed to Washington.

How can you be so wrong so often?

Oh, [headslap] that's right, you're a conspiracy theorist! [/headslap]

3. The 11/23/1963 death certificate fails to specifically mention the small head wound.

It notes an assassin's bullet struck the president in the head. While imprecise, that could only be referencing the small entry wound in the back of the head.

4. There is evidence that the explanation behind the throat wound was considered malleable at least a few days after the autopsy.

No, there's not.

The official autopsy report is the second or third draft, those drafts and the notes being burned.

Asked and answered numerous times. Your problem is they revised a document to correct the grammar and such?

How many reports from credible news sources that the autopsy allegedly found that the throat wound was a fragment from the head shot?

"Credible news sources" were determined how? You mean the mass media like the New York Times and such? Wouldn't the credibility of the Times source be the credibility that's necessary to examine? You don't get to assume that all sources are equally credible, and you don't get to assume they are passing along anything other than hearsay. How many of those 'credible news sources' quote the autopsy report word-for-word?

Hank

 

[Axxman300]

And apparently you enjoy straight-up lying about something that anybody who can read higher up on the page knows you're wrong about.

He's not wrong. Your sources all come from CT-oriented material and are automatically suspect.

More important is that what time Humes called Parkland is unimportant. In the end he DID call Parkland, and made the corrections. This didn't change the final results. They had x-ray'd the entire body and found no other bullets anywhere else.

In the end you are arguing another non-issue to blow smoke.

 

[Axxman300]

Wowa. Like I said, I may have missed a word earlier. My point still stands. One of the biggest anomalies in the autopsy evidence and everybody should know about it.

And yet the three doctors who reviewed the photographs say they're legit.

All you've done is confirm copies of the original autopsy were made, and the originals are with the Kennedy family lawyers.

See how circular logic works against you?

 

[Axxman300]

Who is Theron Ward and when did he examine the body? Or is this just something he heard?

You have no clue.

https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md43/pages/Image0.gif <---- CLICK ON THE LINK TO SEE THERON WARD'S DEATH CERTIFICATE YOU REFERENCE BUT PROBABLY HAVE NEVER SEEN

Let's note a few things. He was a Justice of the Peace in Dallas, Texas. His death certificate (executed in Dallas on December 6th, 1963, from what the doctors in Parkland told him) says the President died as a result of "GUNSHOT WOUNDS OF THE HEAD AND NECK" only. It doesn't contain, that I can see, any of the language you claim "two gunshot wounds (1) near the center of the body and just above the right shoulder, and (2) 1 inch to the right center of the back of the head".

Perhaps I have an altered copy?

The Parkland doctors were unaware of the existence of a wound in the back because they never turned JFK over. And Ward's Dallas, Texas death certificate mentions nothing about a back wound and says the body was removed to Parkland, so this was executed after the President's body was gone. So did he ever examine the body? And where does the language about the wounds you claim come from?

How can you be so wrong so often?

Hank

Man, you sank his battleship.

 

[HSienzant]

Man, you sank his battleship.

Edited my post. The language he claims is on the second page, but it sinks his battleship nonetheless. The 12/6/63 date of the death certificate, plus the language of the back wound the Parkland doctors could not have known, establishes much of this is from second-hand sources.

Hank

 

[HSienzant]

Let's review a list of witnesses that provide evidence that Humes, Boswell, and Finck lied about how early they discovered that Kennedy's tracheotomy incision was created over a bullet wound (I may have missed a couple, idk):

Conflicts do not establish lying or an intent to deceive, especially among people questioned 15 or 33 years after the fact. They establish faulty memory on the part of one or more people.

1. George Barnum, personal written account 11/29/1963

We've already examined this hearsay account in great detail. You yourself argued he might have gotten stuff wrong originally ('garbled recollections' and 'incoherence'). Suffice it to say it conflicts with what official document Dr. Burkley signed on 11/23/63, the day after the autopsy (JFK's death certificate).

2. Dr. Malcolm Perry (Parkland Hospital) initially remembered that he made contact with Humes on late Friday night 11/22/1963, and only conceded that it could have been 11/23/1963 morning. He was not asked to specify if it could have been as late as 10:30 AM - 11:00 AM as Dr. Humes has indicated. He also specified that he had two separate phone calls with Dr. Humes, first one was discussing the throat wound, second one discussing other matters. Dr. Humes has always said that he recalls one phone call with Dr. Perry, not two. WC 3/25/1964, WC 3/30/1964, HSCA 1/11/1978

Humes recollections come from 1978 and 1993? A conflict in precisely how many phone calls were made and what time they were made hardly rises to the level of lying.

3. Dr. Burkley has twice flubbed while being interviewed and said something that indicates they knew about the original tiny throat during the autopsy. In his HSCA interview, he actually changed his mind in the middle of being interviewed and went back to saying they never knew about it. Baltimore Sun 11/25/1966, HSCA 8/17/1977

In other words, Burkley's testimony was inconsistent because his memory was inconsistent, and from this you somehow count this as evidence of the doctors lying.

4. The CBS memo from 1/10/1967 reporting that Dr. Humes personally knew Jim Snyder (of CBS) and told him that he took an X-ray at the autopsy of a probe going from Kennedy's back wound, curving, then emerging from the throat wound.

It's a hearsay document from another man entirely (Rob Richter). How come you never have any evidence?

5. Joe Hagan, The Death of a President by William Manchester (1967)

So more hearsay from about four years after the fact.

6. Tom Robinson, HSCA 1/12/1977, ARRB 6/21/1996

So recollections from 14 and 33 years after the event. Not impressive.

7. John Stringer, HSCA 8/17/1977, ARRB 7/16/1996

More recollections from 14 and 33 years after the event. Not impressive.

8. Richard Lipsey, HSCA 1/18/1978

More recollections from 15 years after the event.

9. John Ebersole, HSCA 3/10/1978, David Mantik 12/2/1992 (says that Ebersole told him the same thing in "previous conversations")

So recollections from 15 years and 29 years after the fact.

10. Robert Knudsen (White House photographer), HSCA 8/11/1978

So recollections from 15 years after the fact.

11. Dr. Paul Peters (Parkland Hospital), Ben Bradlee interview 5/1/1981

So recollections from 18 years after the fact.

Half-witness: Dr. Robert Karnei, told Harrison Livingstone on 8/27/1991 that he thought the throat wound was discovered by the doctors "around midnight", but contradicted himself when he denied knowing about the original throat wound during the autopsy to HSCA 8/23/1977, ARRB 3/10/1997

So recollections from 14, 28, and 34 years after the fact. And ... Karnei's testimony was inconsistent because his memory was inconsistent, and from this you somehow count this as evidence of the doctors lying. It looks like you credit the Livingstone unsworn statement of 1991 over the two sworn statements to a Congressional Committee in 1977 and the Assassination Records Review Board in 1997. Can you explain your thinking here?

Note: Some have argued that Dr. Burkley (White House physician) almost certainly would have learned about the wound at Parkland Hospital.

"Some have argued" is not evidence.

Note 2: Some have argued that the autopsy participants should have been informed about the throat wound from media reports being broadcast on the radio starting with Dr. Perry's news conference.

"Some have argued" is not evidence.

I'm not going to attempt to rebut your Gish Gallop of recollections in any greater detail (because you cite nothing to rebut, but merely assert these people establish the autopsy doctors lied).

But it's worth noting that some of these witnesses have been exposed as giving absolutely worthless testimony or statements that has no bearing on anything that actually occurred.

See, for example, the recollections of Robert Knudsen about the autopsy (which he wasn't even at), and what he told numerous people (including his family) about his participation as the sole photographer of the autopsy.

Article about memory relative to the JFK assassination:
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/memory.htm

Knudsen family's testimony to the ARRB:
http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md230/html/md230_0004a.htm

None of this is mentioned by you, and you cite him as [presumably] a credible witness. Why?

Hank

 

[MicahJava]

The trajectory is correct, the photographs are true.




No, in fact -NOBODY DOES. Just you and only you believe this. Everyone else knows they cut the skull open to remove the brain. The evidence of this is visible in some of the pictures you've posted without ever actually looking at.

Do you realize that the open-cranium photographs are supposed to have been taken after the brain had already been removed? You can't fit a whole brain through a five-inch skull cavity with internal and external beveling on the margins to show on photographs.

 

[Tomtomkent]

Do you realize that the open-cranium photographs are supposed to have been taken after the brain had already been removed? You can't fit a whole brain through a five-inch skull cavity with internal and external beveling on the margins to show on photographs.

I know, it’s almost like they folded the scalp back in place for the photographs...