Cont: JFK Conspiracy Theories V: Five for Fighting

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MicahJava said:
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.
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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.
 
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MicahJava said:
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.
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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
 
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MicahJava said:
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.
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Fail again.
 
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.
 
MicahJava said:
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.
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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.


MicahJava said:
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."
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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.


MicahJava said:
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.
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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
 
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MicahJava said:
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.
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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.
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Now you do the count and tell me if most of the witness statements are in the vintage of 33 years after the fact.
 
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MicahJava said:
I also don't understand how the Barnum account, written just a week after the assassination, can be scrutinized by calling it hearsay.
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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.


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


MicahJava said:
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,
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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.


MicahJava said:
...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.
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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
 
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MicahJava said:
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.
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Your point was I hadn't read testimony and you had:
MicahJava said:
If you do not want to read John Stringer's testimony, here is a summary by Doug Horne...
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But I not only had read his testimony, I provided a link to his testimony and quoted his testimony here:
HSienzant said:
...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
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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
 
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MicahJava said:
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 :p
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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.
 
MicahJava said:
bknight, the HSCA's Sniper's Nest trajectory assumes that their interpretation of the open-cranium photographs are true.
Click to expand...

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?
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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.
 
MicahJava said:
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.
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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.
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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.
 
MicahJava said:
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.
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"some question" is not evidence. "arguably" is not evidence.

Why don't you ever have any evidence?


MicahJava said:
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."
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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]


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


MicahJava said:
4. There is evidence that the explanation behind the throat wound was considered malleable at least a few days after the autopsy.
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No, there's not.


MicahJava said:
The official autopsy report is the second or third draft, those drafts and the notes being burned.
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Asked and answered numerous times. Your problem is they revised a document to correct the grammar and such?


MicahJava said:
How many reports from credible news sources that the autopsy allegedly found that the throat wound was a fragment from the head shot?
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"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
 
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MicahJava said:
And apparently you enjoy straight-up lying about something that anybody who can read higher up on the page knows you're wrong about.
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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.
 
MicahJava said:
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.
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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?
 
HSienzant said:
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
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Man, you sank his battleship.
 
Axxman300 said:
Man, you sank his battleship.
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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
 
MicahJava said:
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):
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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.


MicahJava said:
1. George Barnum, personal written account 11/29/1963
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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).


MicahJava said:
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
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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.


MicahJava said:
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
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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.


MicahJava said:
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.
Click to expand...

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


MicahJava said:
5. Joe Hagan, The Death of a President by William Manchester (1967)
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So more hearsay from about four years after the fact.


MicahJava said:
6. Tom Robinson, HSCA 1/12/1977, ARRB 6/21/1996
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So recollections from 14 and 33 years after the event. Not impressive.


MicahJava said:
7. John Stringer, HSCA 8/17/1977, ARRB 7/16/1996
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More recollections from 14 and 33 years after the event. Not impressive.


MicahJava said:
8. Richard Lipsey, HSCA 1/18/1978
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More recollections from 15 years after the event.


MicahJava said:
9. John Ebersole, HSCA 3/10/1978, David Mantik 12/2/1992 (says that Ebersole told him the same thing in "previous conversations")
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So recollections from 15 years and 29 years after the fact.


MicahJava said:
10. Robert Knudsen (White House photographer), HSCA 8/11/1978
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So recollections from 15 years after the fact.


MicahJava said:
11. Dr. Paul Peters (Parkland Hospital), Ben Bradlee interview 5/1/1981
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So recollections from 18 years after the fact.


MicahJava said:
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
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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?


MicahJava said:
Note: Some have argued that Dr. Burkley (White House physician) almost certainly would have learned about the wound at Parkland Hospital.
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"Some have argued" is not evidence.

MicahJava said:
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.
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"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
 
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Axxman300 said:
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.
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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.
 
MicahJava said:
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.
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I know, it’s almost like they folded the scalp back in place for the photographs...
 
Besides your running away, I never thought that "near the center of the body and just above the right shoulder" could be a reference to the throat wound.
 
MicahJava said:
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):

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

8. Richard Lipsey, HSCA 1/18/1978

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

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

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

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

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

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.
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I wrote "Dr. Burkley" when I meant Dr. Boswell. Dr. Boswell is the one who changed his story.
 
MicahJava said:
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.
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Do you realize that every "question" you have about this end of the assassination can be reconciled by taking into account human frailty?

There are conflicting accounts. They all can't be correct. You then take into account who had the best access and the most knowledge, training and experience in the subject matter and work outwards from their accounts. Somebody that has hearsay evidence down the road ends up at the bottom of the ladder. and taking the established evidence as a whole you can then come to a reasonable conclusion based on the evidence.

Conspiracy amongst the medical personnel concerning your imaginary invisible/silent projectile is not that reasonable conclusion.
 
MicahJava said:
I wrote "Dr. Burkley" when I meant Dr. Boswell. Dr. Boswell is the one who changed his story.
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A distinction without a difference. It's still bovine excrement.

And no matter how high you pile it, it's nothing more than a bigger pile of bovine excrement.

Here's the rebuttal once more.
MicahJava said:
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
HSienzant said:
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.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12068145&postcount=2698

I don't see how substituting "Dr. Boswell" for "Dr. Burkley" changes the rebuttal -- or the issue with your claim -- whatsoever.

And it turns out you don't have anything from Stringer whatsoever. All you have are some allegations from a conspiracy theorist who thinks the government altered the body of JFK.

Hank
 
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MicahJava said:
Besides your running away, I never thought that "near the center of the body and just above the right shoulder" could be a reference to the throat wound.
Click to expand...
Hilarious. What part of JFK died because of "MULTIPLE GUNSHOT WOUNDS OF THE HEAD AND NECK" did you not understand?

Pretend to not understand some more. 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?

That's exactly what the death certificate is referencing, and which you pretended it didn't mention when you claimed "... the Death Certificate signed by Theron Ward also fails to mention a throat wound".

Totally wrong.

And while you attempt to deal with just one point in that much larger post, you're simply ignoring all the other points I made. Par for the course for you.

Do you need a reminder of those other points?

Hank
 
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HSienzant said:
A distinction without a difference. It's still bovine excrement.

And no matter how high you pile it, it's nothing more than a bigger pile of bovine excrement.

Hank
Click to expand...

When the concern is simply propping up a delusion, the appearance of ******** in the discussion is a certainty.

MJ slings so much of it he may need to be registered with and licensed by the Department of Agriculture as a manufacturer of fertilizer.
 
BStrong said:
When the concern is simply propping up a delusion, the appearance of ******** in the discussion is a certainty.

MJ slings so much of it he may need to be registered with and licensed by the Department of Agriculture as a manufacturer of fertilizer.
Click to expand...

You mean he's NOT?

Hank
 
MicahJava said:
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.
Click to expand...

They sawed the skull open and removed the brain. This has been detailed repeatedly.

The scalp has been pulled back into place for reference.
 
HSienzant said:
Hilarious. What part of JFK died because of "MULTIPLE GUNSHOT WOUNDS OF THE HEAD AND NECK" did you not understand?

Pretend to not understand some more. 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?

That's exactly what the death certificate is referencing, and which you pretended it didn't mention when you claimed "... the Death Certificate signed by Theron Ward also fails to mention a throat wound".

Totally wrong.

And while you attempt to deal with just one point in that much larger post, you're simply ignoring all the other points I made. Par for the course for you.

Do you need a reminder of those other points?

Hank
Click to expand...

What does "1 inch to the right center of the back of the head" mean? Doesn't that mimic the small head wound, which was "2.5 centimeters to the right and slightly above the EOP". Did Parkland know about the small head wound?
 
MicahJava said:
What does "1 inch to the right center of the back of the head" mean? Doesn't that mimic the small head wound, which was "2.5 centimeters to the right and slightly above the EOP". Did Parkland know about the small head wound?
Click to expand...

No it doesn't mimic anything.

I doubt 6 ER doctors missed two holes in his skull.
 
MicahJava said:
What does "1 inch to the right center of the back of the head" mean? Doesn't that mimic the small head wound, which was "2.5 centimeters to the right and slightly above the EOP". Did Parkland know about the small head wound?
Click to expand...

It means that two different people used two different reference points from which to describe the location of the same wound.

It shows your interpretation of “slightly” is therefore off, thus you have not proven the “cowlick” “splotch” is too high to be the wound.

Thank you for further discrediting the notion a bullet entered the occipital protrubrance, and left the throat.
 
Axxman300 said:
They sawed the skull open and removed the brain. This has been detailed repeatedly.

The scalp has been pulled back into place for reference.
Click to expand...

The skull was found to be so shattered that virtually no sawing was needed to successfully remove the brain, unless you want to think Humes and Boswell are lying and the body actually arrived with the brain already removed.

The doctors also denied doing any sort of reconstruction for the open-cranium photos. They also described separating pieces of the skull from the scalp before trying to access the brain. This is the normal, proper way to remove a brain, slightly modified for the large damage to the skull. You're supposed to take the parts of the skull out and leave them on a dish for safekeeping.
 
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HSienzant said:
A distinction without a difference. It's still bovine excrement.

And no matter how high you pile it, it's nothing more than a bigger pile of bovine excrement.

Here's the rebuttal once more.


http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12068145&postcount=2698

I don't see how substituting "Dr. Boswell" for "Dr. Burkley" changes the rebuttal -- or the issue with your claim -- whatsoever.

And it turns out you don't have anything from Stringer whatsoever. All you have are some allegations from a conspiracy theorist who thinks the government altered the body of JFK.

Hank
Click to expand...

Without Boswell's Freudian slips, I wouldn't be so sure that him and Humes are lying about when they learned about the throat wound. Love the way you dismissed TWELVE WITNESSES (I forgot to add James Curtis Jenkins to my list), as if their memory could be wrong in the same way several times over.
 
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On Robert Knudsen's credibility, I already quote about it in the post you refuse to read:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11931229&postcount=956

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11931291&postcount=962

8/11/1978 Robert Knudsen HSCA testimony https://web.archive.org/web/20170623013551/http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/knudsen.htm , https://web.archive.org/web/20170623013708/http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/knudsen_transcript.txt , https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=666&relPageId=22

Mr. PURDY - You stated earlier at the Naval Photographic Center you had checked the prints for quality, but not for detail. Is that true?

Mr. KNUDSEN - Yes.

Mr. PURDY - Did you have a chance, subsequent to that examination, to look a little more closely at the prints?

Mr. KNUDSEN - I never saw the prints after we brought them back.

Mr. PURDY - Did you have a chance at any time to examine the prints closely enough that you now have a recollection of what they showed?

Mr. KNUDSEN - Oh, yes.

Mr. PURDY - When did you examine them that closely?

Mr. KNUDSEN - At the time that I was examining for technical quality, a lot of things were apparent.

Mr. PURDY - What things stick in your mind about those prints? What do you recall seeing?

Mr. KNUDSEN - Well, it was a close-up of a cavity in the head. Probes through the body --

Mr. PURDY - Where did the probes go through the body?

Mr. KNUDSEN - From the point where the projectile entered to the point where the projectile left.

Mr. PURDY - Where were those two points?

Mr. KNUDSEN - I did not say they were two points.

Mr. PURDY - You said the projectile.

Mr. KNUDSEN - From the entry to the exit.

Mr. PURDY - Where were the entry and exit points?

Mr. KNUDSEN - Here, again, I have a mental problem here that we were sworn not to disclose this to anybody. Being under oath, I cannot tell you I do not know, because I do know; but, at the same time, I do feel I have been sworn not to disclose this information and I would prefer very much that you get one of the sets of prints and view them. I am not trying to be hard to get along with. I was told not to disclose the area of the body, and I am at a loss right now as to whether -- which is right.

Mr. PURDY - Was it a Naval order that you were operating under that you would not disclose?

Mr. KNUDSEN - This was Secret Service. To the best of my knowledge, Dr. Berkley also emphasized that this not be discussed.

Mr. PURDY - Do you remember seeing rulers in the photographs or anything other than the body itself?

Mr. KNUDSEN - Yes.

Mr. PURDY - What other things besides the body did you see, other than the rulers?

Mr. KNUDSEN - What appeared to be stainless steel probes.

Mr. PURDY - About how long were they?

Mr. KNUDSEN - The probes?

Mr. PURDY - Yes.

Mr. KNUDSEN - I would estimate about two foot.

Mr. PURDY - Was there one probe that you saw through the body, or were there more than one?

Mr. KNUDSEN - More than one. Here again, we are getting into this grey area of what I was instructed not to discuss.

...

Mr. KNUDSEN - I probably would recall as good now as I could later. Like I say, it has been a long time.

Mr. PURDY - We have gone over quite a few of your recollec- tions, and we are going to show you, in a second, the color autopsy prints that we have and ask you whether the prints that you are shown are consistent with your recollections of them when you saw them. The primary points that we are going to cover are the number and locations of wounds and the other details in the photographs that you described generally, such as the presence of metal probes in the photographs and the presence of rules in the photographs, and what have you. Are you confident now that you saw metal probes in the photographs?

Mr. KNUDSEN - Yes.

Mr. PURDY - Are you confident that the metal probes were actually through the wounds when you saw them?

Mr. KNUDSEN - Yes, I am certain of that, because it showed the point of entry and exit with the probe.

Mr. PURDY - Were there ever photographs that you have seen, either before this incident or since that incident that you might be confusing with your recollection of these photographs?

Mr. KNUDSEN - To my knowledge, I have not seen anything regarding -- I have never seen any photographs of it other than the ones taken there.

Mr. PURDY - Have you seen photographs of any other autopsies?

Mr. KNUDSEN – No
.
Mr. PURDY - Have you seen photographs of any other dead bodies that may have probes in them?

Mr. KNUDSEN - Yes, I have. I am certain on the Kennedy there were the probes showing the point of entry and exit.

Mr. PURDY - How many probes were there that you saw in a given picture? What is the most probes that you saw in a given picture at one time?

Mr. KNUDSEN - I know there were two.

Mr. PURDY - Two metal probes that were through wounds when you saw them?

Mr. KNUDSEN - Yes.

...

Mr. PURDY - Thank you. As I said previously, Mr. Goff is the General Counsel of the United States Secret Service. Now, before the break we were talkinq about the number of probes, and you had said the most you saw in any one picture was two. I believe that is what you stated, is that correct?

Mr. KNUDSEN - I said the minimum was two.

Mr. PURDY - What was the most?

Mr. KNUDSEN - Over this period of time, I am not certain. It seems to me that there were three in one picture, but this I will not state for sure.

Mr. PURDY - Of the proves that you recall, where did they enter and where did they exit?

Mr. KNUDSEN - One was right near the neck and out the back.

Mr. PURDY - The front of the neck and out the back of the neck?

Mr. KNUDSEN - The point of entry-exit.

Mr. PURDY - The metal probe extended from the front of the neck to the back of the neck?

Mr. KNUDSEN - Right. One was through the chest cavity.

Mr. PURDY - Did it go all the way through?

Mr. KNUDSEN - Yes. It seems to me that the entry point was a little bit lower in the back than -- well, the point in the back was a little bit lower than the point in the front. Put it that way. So the probe was going diagonally from top to bottom, front to back.

Mr. PURDY - Approximately, regarding both probes, how high -- you mentioned the one was from the front of the neck, the probe extended between points on the front of the neck and the back of the neck. How high on the back of the neck, and how high or low from the front of the neck would you say for that probe?

Mr. KNUDSEN - As I said, not studying them for technical purposes, it seemed to me that the point on the front was about this point, somewhere in this area here (Indicating).

Mr. PURDY - Could you articulate?

Mr. KNUDSEN - What bone is this?

Mr. PURDY - You are pointing to a point right around the top --

Mr. KNUDSEN - Right about where the neck-tie is. That would be somewhere in that vicinity.

Mr. PURDY - Approximately how much lower than that would you say the other probe, which went through the chest cavity?

Mr. KNUDSEN - I would put it six, seven inches.

Mr. PURDY - Was it opened or closed in the photograph?

Mr. KNUDSEN - It was a side view. I just glanced at it to make sure.

Mr. PURDY - From the side view, you saw both probes?

Mr. KNUDSEN - Right.

Mr. PURDY - Where would you place the points of the probes in the back? You say one was in the neck, one was in the back. Approximately how high up, or how low?

Mr. KNUDSEN - I would put in the back -- it would seem to me it is probably around ten inches. There, again, I do not recall the length of time. I cannot say.

Mr. PURDY - You were kind of pointing to the middle of your back, about midway down, you would say?

Mr. KNUDSEN - Midway between the neck and the waist.

Mr. PURDY - Where was the other probe?

Mr. KNUDSEN - This one --

Mr. PURDY - You just indicated where the probe came out, on the lower --

Mr. KNUDSEN - Somewhere around the middle of the back. It seemed to me it was right around midchest.

Mr. PURDY - The probe that you said you could see coming out of the neck, the front of the neck, where was it out of the back of the neck? How high up would you say that one was.

Mr. KNUDSEN - About the base of the neck. Was the body lying flat, or sitting up or lying on its front when you saw the probes through it?

Mr. KNUDSEN - It would have to be erected to put the probes through, because on the back there was no way.

...

Mr. PURDY - Is there anything that you saw that is not represented by these photographs?

Mr. KNUDSEN - I feel certain that there was the one with the two probes.

Mr. PURDY - One photograph with two probes through the body?

Mr. KNUDSEN - That is correct.

Mr. PURDY - I am referring again to Photograph No. 37 in the area that is on the right side of the photograph from your position, which is to the front of the President's body. There are some metal things vaguely in view, one which points towards the President.

Mr. KNUDSEN - That is not it. That is not what I had in mind.

Mr. PURDY - Could you, once again, go through the photographs looking carefully to see if there is anything in there that you might have taken to be a metal probe which was not on this examination? (Pause) Let the record show that the witness is beginning again at 26F. (Pause)

Mr. KNUDSEN - I do not see a photograph here that covers the chest area.

Mr. PURDY - It was your sense that it was from the side, though?

Mr. KNUDSEN - A side view.

Mr. PURDY - Referring to Photograph No. 40F, showing the front of the President, including the front neck region, do you see a point on the President which would correspond to one or more of the locations of the probe that you recall?

Mr. KNUDSEN - Right here (Indicating.)

Mr. PURDY - Could you articulate it?

Mr. KNUDSEN - Right here -- the neck -- where the necktie would be tied.

Mr. PURDY - Let the record show that the witness is pointing to the tracheotomy incision at the front of the President's neck. Is it your recollection, also, that there was a probe lower than that area? Is that correct?

Mr. KNUDSEN - That is correct.

Mr. PURDY - Looking at this photograph, approximately how much lower? Was it at a point that would not be visible in this photograph?

Mr. KNUDSEN - I am beginning to wonder now. I do not see anything here. But it is in the back of my mind there was a probe through the body.

Mr. PURDY - Is it your present recollection that the body was not opened up in the chest area, or could you not tell whether it was opened up, or was it definitely not open in the picture that you recall but do not see here?

Mr. KNUDSEN - There again, I was looking quickly for quality. I did not study it. But I do not recall seeing any photograph of the chest being opened.

Mr. PURDY - Do you think it is something you would remember, if the President's chest was cut and opened up?

Mr. KNUDSEN - Yes.

Mr. PURDY - Does this approximately respond to the number of color prints you recall? Mr. Knusen. That is correct.

Mr. PURDY - It is just your recollection that there was one more, or at least one more, than is present in these? Mr.Knudsen. It seems to me that the one I saw with the probes was strictly a negative. I do not remember seeing a print of it. The first day, when we processed the film, we were just checking the negatives. I believe it was a black and white. I do not know. I believe it was the negative of the probe.

Mr. PURDY - You think it was black and white, or you think it might have been, or you are just not sure?

Mr. KNUDSEN - It was a negative. I do not recall ever having seen a print, but it seems to me that there was a negative, in checking the negatives.

Mr. PURDY - Let me show you from the same photo book at the beginning, photographs of the black and white prints. Do you see if perhaps one of these might correspond to your recollection of the black and white negative that you just referred to, beginning at Photograph No. 1F? Let the record show that the witness is looking through the photographs sequentially. (Pause)

Mr. KNUDSEN - Is this in the copy?

Mr. PURDY - Let the record show that the witness is refer- ring to 13F. It looks like a band of light across the lower portion of the photograph.

Mr. KNUDSEN - In looking at the negative, you have a band here. It has been so doggoned long. If that is in the original --

Mr. PURDY - I do not think it is in the original, because it looks like it is on something from the copies.

Mr. KNUDSEN - I see it over here now. I do not see it.

Mr. PURDY - You are saying you do not see it?

Mr. KNUDSEN - I do not see it here, but in the back of my mind, it still seemed that there was one photograph, the body erect with two probes through it.

Mr. PURDY - Let me ask you --

Mr. KNUDSEN - One negative.

...

Mr. PURDY - Was there anyone else that you know of that may have seen the negative that you are talking about that showed the probes, anyone else that we might suggest that we might talk to about that?

Mr. KNUDSEN - No. It is just in the back of my mind I am certain that there is the one shot of the body erect, two probes through it, and I processed the black and white. I hung it up. I just quickly went down it to make sure I had everything there. I then closed tne door. Jim and I stayed outside, had a cup of coffee or something while the film was drying. After it was dry, I put each negative in a four by five preserver, took it, took the color, which had also dried the same.

...

Mr. PURDY - Have you had any previous experience seeing metal probes such as this so that you would know what it would look like on a negative?

Mr. KNUDSEN - The only reason I say I thought it was a metal probe, in my recollection, it was a rod. Twenty-four inches long, probably; three-eighths of an inch diameter. It appeared to be aluminimum, stainless steel. There again, it was a negative this size, hanging like this to dry.

Mr. PURDY - You have had a lot of experience looking at negatives over the years?

Mr. KNUDSEN - Over the years.

Mr. PURDY - Could it have been some form of light shadow or a defect in the negative that you may have thought was a metal probe, or do you think there was actually an object, that there was a picture taken?

Mr. KNUDSEN - I thought that there had to be something in the negative that I do not believe could have been a defect, no.

Mr. PURDY - It did not look like an artifact of any kind?

Mr. KNUDSEN - It did not appear that way to me. Like I say, I did not take it down and study it over a view, or anything like that. I just glanced at it. The wall was approximately this color and the negatives were hanging like this (Indicating). I just flipped them around like this (Indicating).

Mr. PURDY - Let the record show that the witness held up some papers from the top, as though it was a negative hanging from a line, and just turned them and glanced at the papers. How certain are you that seven prints, seven sets of prints were made of the color negatives?

Mr. KNUDSEN - That is the number that sticks in the back of my mind. Why the number seven sticks there, I do not know.

...

Mr. PURDY - I should add that -- Mr. Knutsen. I will tell you one thing that would clarify it, if the negatives were available. The film pack is numbered right on the bottom at the factory, and you can go one through twelve.

Mr. PURDY - Also, there has not been previous evidence that there were either metal probes that were extended totally through the body, or that such probes were photographed through the body. So obviously, it would be significant if your recollection were correct, and it would be of evidentiary significance to us. I, in no way, mean to question your view, your recollection. I just want you to have it in historical perspective as to what some other say, and you may be absolutely, completely correct.

Mr. KNUDSEN - I do not know why that one sticks in my mind. A right profile of the body. It would seem to me that if it were, as I am sure that it was, that there would have been something in the autopsy report as to the probes, and I cannot conceive in my mind why I would feel that this negative did have it. Like I said a couple of times, I did not study these things over a viewing glass like this (Indicating). As you say, it was suspended from a clothespin on a wire, a hook on a wire, and I was just flipping them this way. I do not see any picture there that would confuse with the picture, the waist-up picture.

Mr. PURDY - If you should recall anything else, whether it is new things or elaboration or your opinions on anything change or someone should, someone's name should come to mind who might also be able to provide information, I hope you will feel free to contact us here.

Mr. KNUDSEN - You have talked to Jim Fox?

Mr. PURDY - Yes.

Mr. KNUDSEN - And he did not recall any black and white negative of that nature?

Mr. PURDY - I am not permitted to give out the substance of the investigation, but I think you can glean certain things from the nature of my questions.

Mr. KNUDSEN - Jim is the one who apparently printed the black and white. I know the black and white did not go into the Photo Center for printing, so I would assume that Jim did it. Why this sticks in my mind, that there was one with these two probes through the body that nobody else recalls, it puts a question in my mind, and yet but I could not imagine where I could get the idea from, if I had not seen it. And yet it is starting to bother me now that there is nothing in the autopsy about it. Certainly that would be in the autopsy, if it were true. At this point, I wish I had studied the negatives rather than glance at them. At this point, I am confused why it sticks in my mind so strongly that there was this photograph, yet nobody else recalls it, and it is apparently not in any report. If it is not in any report -- I cannot conceive why it would not be in the report. If it were there -- it is really bothering me as to why it does stick in my mind so much.

Mr. PURDY - As I said, if you, you know, desire to talk about it, or after you have thought about it some more or whatever, please feel free to give us a call and we will be glad to talk about it. We appreciate very much your taking the time and coming in, particularly since it took a lot longer than we thought it would.

Mr. KNUDSEN - That is okay. I am trying to rack my mind on why this should stick in my mind so strongly that there was this photograph, and yet no other signs of it. It bothers me, but I cannot think of any reason that it would stick in my mind if I hadn't seen it.

Mr. PURDY - This concludes the deposition. It is now 12:05. (Whereupon, at 12:05 p.m., the taking of the instant deposition ceased.)


White house photographer Robert Knudsen talked about briefly seeing one or two photographic negatives of probes going through Kennedy's body, including the general area of his throat wound. His credibility is hard to pinpoint. In the August 1977 issue of Popular Photography magazine, Knudsen is quoted as claiming that he alone photographed JFK's autopsy. His family was interviewed by the ARRB (see here and here), and they said that Knudsen told him that he photographed the autopsy. This is almost certainly a lie by Knudsen. But while under oath talking to the HSCA, Knudsen doesn't say anything of the sort. IMO his HSCA testimony is filled with too many details and nuances, including admitting when he doesn't remember certain parts, to be an intentional fabrication.

Here is a discussion of Knudsen's credibility in James DiEugenio's review of Doug Horne's five-volume work Inside the Assassination Review Board (2009):

I will conclude this review of Volume I by discussing what can only be called the enigma of Robert Knudsen. Knudsen has been discussed before by other writers, like David Mantik. But in light of the fact that Horne spends seven pages on him (pp.247-254), and he implies that he may have actually taken at least some of the autopsy photographs in existence today, I think it's necessary to write a bit about the unplumbed mystery of the man. Because, to me, he has been ignored for too long.

One way to begin to point out the strangeness of Robert Knudsen is with this fact: Although Stringer denied knowing who Knudsen was, Knudsen had Stringer's name and phone number in his appointments book. (p. 252) Which strongly implies that Knudsen did know Stringer. The question obviously becomes: How could Knudsen know Stringer if Stringer didn't know Knudsen? And in fact, if Stringer did know him, is he feigning that he did not? If so, why? Because as we will see, under the circumstances we will describe, it is hard to believe that Stringer completely forgot about the man.

Knudsen was one of two White House photographers in 1963. The other was Cecil Stoughton. (p. 249) As he revealed in his HSCA interview, Knudsen began his career as a Navy photographer who was then detailed to the White House in 1958. (8/11/78 HSCA transcript, p. 4) Generally speaking, Knudsen covered President Kennedy on state trips, and Stoughton covered the First Lady. (p. 250) In fact, Knudsen was scheduled to cover the Dallas trip. But he injured himself the week before. Therefore he did not accompany President Kennedy to Texas, Stoughton did. (ibid) At around 3:00 PM on the afternoon of the murder, Knudsen received a phone call. He was ordered to go to Andrews Air Force Base to meet Air Force One and to accompany the body of President Kennedy to Bethesda. And thus begins a fascinating puzzle. For, as Horne writes, there is no documented evidence that Knudsen was ever interviewed by the Warren Commission. (If this is true, the fact that the Commission never talked to either Knudsen or Stringer tells us plenty about Specter's investigation of the autopsy.) The first, and only, on the record interview with Knudsen about this subject came with Andy Purdy of the HSCA. And that transcript was classified by Robert Blakey and Michael Baden. The ARRB declassified it in 1993. And on the version of the audiotape at the History Matters site, Knudsen's voice is not audible on the actual recording. It sounds like a woman who is phrasing the transcript for copying purposes is repeating his words. (See for yourself.)

How did the HSCA find out about Knudsen and the autopsy? In 1977, Knudsen gave an interview to a trade magazine in which he said that he was the only photographer to record Kennedy's autopsy. (Horne, p. 250) What makes this odd is not just that Knudsen was not on the Bethesda staff, but that Stringer and his assistant Floyd Riebe have always maintained that they were the only photographers in the morgue that night. There were no civilian photographers taking pictures. Obviously, Knudsen did not have to say what he did to a magazine. But since the HSCA had been convened in 1976, after the electrifying viewing of the Zapruder film on ABC in 1975, Knudsen may have felt compelled to reveal what he knew.

Unfortunately for Gunn and Horne, Knudsen had passed away before the ARRB was formed. But the Board got in contact with the survivors of his family, his widow and two children. What they told the ARRB about the aftermath of Knudsen at Bethesda makes the story even more tantalizing. They told the Board that Knudsen disappeared for three days after he was called to report the day of the murder. (ibid) He didn't return home until after Kennedy's funeral on the 25th. Knudsen told his son Robert that he had been present at the beginning of the autopsy. (ibid) Further, he told his family that he had photographed probes going into he back of President Kennedy. Which, as noted before, do not exist today. In a statement that is hard to reconcile with the record, Knudsen told them that he was the only one with a camera in the morgue. (Horne, p. 251) He also told his son that he did not recognize 4 or 5 of the photos shown to him by the HSCA. And at least one had been altered. Hair had been drawn in on it to conceal the missing portion of the top-back of Kennedy's head. (ibid) In keeping with many other witnesses, Knudsen told his wife that much of Kennedy's brain was blown away. (ibid) When Knudsen tried to get a copy of his HSCA transcript, he was told that "there was no record of him or his testimony." (ibid)

I have saved for last what is probably the most fascinating piece of information that the ARRB garnered from Knudsen's survivors. All three of them said "Knudsen appeared before an official government body again some time in 1988, about six months before he died in January of 1989." They all agreed "Knudsen came away from this experience very disturbed, saying that four photographs were missing, and that one was badly altered." Gloria Knudsen continued by saying that Knudsen felt "that the wounds he saw in the photos shown to him in 1988 did not represent what he saw or took." (p. 252) One reason he was disturbed by the experience was that "as soon as he would answer a question consistent with what he remembered, he would immediately be challenged and contradicted by people whom he felt already had their minds made up." (ibid) Knudsen told his wife that he knew who had possession of the autopsy photographs he took. That based on that, he could then find out who had made some of them disappear and who had altered the back of the head picture. But he was not going to stick his neck out on something this huge because he had a family to protect. (p. 253)

Andy Purdy's HSCA interview with Knudsen is a disappointment. As Horne notes, Purdy concentrates almost completely on the photo negatives that were sent to the Navy Photographic Center at Anacostia. Knudsen notes that this was done because of the color facilities there. And Navy officer Saundra Spencer handled the color operation there. (HSCA transcript, p. 47) Secret Service photographer Jim Fox accompanied Knudsen there. According to Knudsen they were ordered to do this by George Burkley on the morning after the autopsy. (ibid, p. 5) Knudsen told Purdy that afterwards, Burkley ordered seven prints made. (ibid, p. 8) Which, as Purdy later noted, was an unusually high number that no one else recalled. Knudsen noted that after he turned in the work product to the White House, he never saw the photos again until Purdy showed them to him that day. (ibid, p. 16) When asked, he distinctly recalled photos of a large cavity in the back of Kennedy's head and a side view with probes going through the body. (ibid, p.22) Unlike others, the views he saw showed the probes extending all the way through the body. Again, Purdy reminded him that no one else recalled such a photo. There was another photo of the chest cavity which Knudsen recalled that today is not in existence. (ibid, p. 39)

Now, Knudsen said that it took about two hours for him to develop the color photos at Anacostia. But yet he told Purdy that the four-day period of the assassination and its aftermath were like a fog to him. He recalled working continuously through it. (ibid, pp. 9-12) This period roughly coincides with how long his family said he was gone from home. Incredibly, Purdy never asked the obvious question: "Mr. Knudsen, if the processing took two hours, but you worked for 3-4 days, what did you do the rest of the time?" And as Horne notes, even though Knudsen told the trade magazine the previous year that he actually took photos of the autopsy, Purdy never asked him any direct questions on this point. Like, how many pictures did he take, what kind of camera did he use, when did he take the shots, and did he give his photos to Stringer or Riebe?

Now, as is his usual tendency, Horne makes an extreme assumption: There were actually two sets of photographs made and Knudsen shot pictures of the intact back of the head. And he did it at the request of Humes, Boswell and Finck. (Horne, p. 247) Or as he puts it, it was an "intentional creation by higher authority of a fraudulent photographic record designed to replace the real photos taken by Stringer and Riebe of a huge occipital defect in the head ..."(ibid) Which ignores the fact that, as I noted, Knudsen saw just such a photo. Horne even uses the testimony of a friend of Knudsen's, USIA photographer Joe O'Donnell to make his case. Yet this is a man who, as his own family has noted, was likely suffering from dementia brought on by his failing health at the time the ARRB interviewed him. After all, he had two rods in his back, suffered three strokes, had two heart attacks, incurred skin cancer and had part of his colon taken out. Not the best witness. (NY Times, 9/15/2007) Further, O'Donnell had been known to testify falsely about photographic records before. (ibid)

To me, the incomplete evidentiary record does not conclusively lead to Horne's bold conspiratorial denouement. The case of Robert Knudsen, as I said before, is and remains a mystery. What it actually reveals about the JFK case is that there has never been anywhere near a first-class criminal inquiry into what really happened. In any professional inquiry, with say someone like Patrick Fitzgerald in charge, Knudsen would have been called in under oath with an attorney. He would have been warned in advance that he was expected to answer all questions under penalty of perjury. If he refused to answer he would be charged with contempt. He would have been asked to bring in any corroborative witnesses and exhibits. He would have been asked specifically, "Did you take any autopsy pictures at any time in 1963?" If he said yes, he would have been asked specific questions about when and where he took them and with whom. He would have been specifically asked if he worked with anyone else in making them. Stringer would have been asked the question, "Do you recall anyone else taking pictures at the autopsy?", and also, "If you did not know Knudsen then how did he get your name and phone number?" And this inquiry would have been followed to its ultimate destination: to find out if Knudsen took or did not take any photos. To me that is where the status is of the evidence concerning Knudsen. I believe Horne goes too far in making his assumptions about the man.

But to give Horne his due, at least he brings these matters to the attention of the reader. That is to his credit, since very few others have done it. And no one else has done so in such a complete way.
 
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MicahJava said:
This is the normal, proper way to remove a brain, slightly modified for the large damage to the skull. You're supposed to take the parts of the skull out and leave them on a dish for safekeeping.
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You've got a cite for that, right? It's not just your opinion of how you think a brain should be removed on the basis of imagining that that's how you'd do it yourself?

Dave
 
BStrong said:
He's enthusiastic, but his output is dwarfed by some of his sources.

He's stuck in the imitative stage of CT monger character development.
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bknight said:
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



Now you do the count and tell me if most of the witness statements are in the vintage of 33 years after the fact.
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Literally none of them? Most are from ~15 years after. It doesn't somehow help your case if they reported the same thing ~33 years later.
 
Dave Rogers said:
You've got a cite for that, right? It's not just your opinion of how you think a brain should be removed on the basis of imagining that that's how you'd do it yourself?

Dave
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The autopsy doctors. Have many times have I quoted Humes and Boswell for how the brain was removed?
 
MicahJava said:
Literally none of them? Most are from ~15 years after. It doesn't somehow help your case if they reported the same thing ~33 years later.
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I don't have a case to present as that set of events is well documented in the official record, one shooter(LHO) from the sixth floor TSBD sixth, three shots one miss, one hit in the back exiting the throat, look at the pictures of the tie he was wearing for reference, and lastly one bullet entering the back of the head causing extreme damage to the skull and brain. No mystery no conspiracy no additional shots.
And now the reason I posted that comment, you called me a liar and I do resent that, but I did not report it to the moderators, however, don't let that slip again.
I don't lie plain and simple.

Additionally without comparing comments made during passage of years points made by all the individuals likely would change from occurrence to last version, nothing sinister about the loss/change of memory and no they aren't lying in those instances either, just telling the narrative whenever they have been questioned.
 
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