The Entrance Wound in the Throat, the Front Shirt Slits, and Tie Knot Nick

[Lance Payette]

   I believe the shallow back wound bullet is supposed to be the bullet that SA Paul Landis claimed he found inside the JFK Limo. Landis also claimed to have placed that same bullet on a hospital gurney.

Yes, it's too bad Landis didn't reveal his bombshell at the time. I will grant that the autopsy doctors' inability to trace the path of the bullet that caused the back wound is puzzling. I will grant Cliff Varnell's point that the alignment of the holes in the clothing with the throat wound is problematical (yes, I know all about the "bunching" argument regarding the clothes). Add in the condition of CE 399 for all the damage it is supposed to have done, together with Connally's insistence he was hit by a different shot, and the SBT is somewhat (or considerably more than somewhat) difficult to swallow. On the other hand, it's quite difficult to accept the back wound being a Carcano dud that found its target 80+ yards away and penetrated two layers of clothing and an inch or two of skin. In my past experience with reloading, in which I managed to create a fair number of duds, that isn't realistic dud performance.

I tend to think the SBT, with all its problems, is the most likely solution. There are so many variables as to EXACTLY how the rifle was positioned, EXACTLY what the particular cartridge was like, EXACTLY how the car was positioned and moving, EXACTLY how JFK's clothing was positioned (including the possible effect of his back brace), EXACTLY how JFK and Connally were positioned, and EXACTLY what the bullet did upon impact, transit and second and third impacts, for me to place much stock in forensic reconstructions supposedly showing the SBT is impossible. I do like to play around with alternative scenarios and am not convinced the SBT is absolutely essential to the LN narrative.

[Tom Graves]

Yes, it's too bad Landis didn't reveal his bombshell at the time. I will grant that the autopsy doctors' inability to trace the path of the bullet that caused the back wound is puzzling. I will grant Cliff Varnell's point that the alignment of the holes in the clothing with the throat wound is problematical (yes, I know all about the "bunching" argument regarding the clothes). Add in the condition of CE 399 for all the damage it is supposed to have done, together with Connally's insistence he was hit by a different shot, and the SBT is somewhat (or considerably more than somewhat) difficult to swallow. On the other hand, it's quite difficult to accept the back wound being a Carcano dud that found its target 80+ yards away and penetrated two layers of clothing and an inch or two of skin. In my past experience with reloading, in which I managed to create a fair number of duds, that isn't realistic dud performance.

I tend to think the SBT, with all its problems, is the most likely solution. There are so many variables as to EXACTLY how the rifle was positioned, EXACTLY what the particular cartridge was like, EXACTLY how the car was positioned and moving, EXACTLY how JFK's clothing was positioned (including the possible effect of his back brace), EXACTLY how JFK and Connally were positioned, and EXACTLY what the bullet did upon impact, transit and second and third impacts, for me to place much stock in forensic reconstructions supposedly showing the SBT is impossible. I do like to play around with alternative scenarios and am not convinced the SBT is absolutely essential to the LN narrative.

The inability of the autopsy doctors to trace the path of the bullet through JFK's upper torso was probably due to the fact that rigor mortis had set in on JFK's corpse.

IIRC, the path was deduced by their physical examination of JFK's lung, etc, and is verified by hints of it in the X-rays.

[Lance Payette]

The inability of the autopsy doctors to trace the path of the bullet through JFK's upper torso is probably due to the fact that rigor mortis had set in on JFK's corpse.

IIRC, the path was deduced by their physical examination of JFK's lung, etc, and is verified by hints of it in the X-rays.

That may well be (rigor mortis can affect the determination of a bullet path) but the doctors were puzzled and the fact that they didn't nail down the issue by dissecting the path is likewise puzzling. One might think "a back wound that goes nowhere" would have been puzzling enough to cause them to dissect the wound path (Finck later testified that some general ordered them not to). Gary Aguilar's oft-cited article, "HOW FIVE INVESTIGATIONS INTO JFK’S MEDICAL/AUTOPSY EVIDENCE GOT IT WRONG," contains a good discussion right up front about the issues with the back wound and throat wound at the autopsy: https://www.history-matters.com/essays/jfkmed/How5Investigations/How5InvestigationsGotItWrong_1a.htm. In any event, it's all kind of a mess and doesn't inspire confidence in the SBT even if the SBT is, in fact, correct.

[Tom Graves]

"[T]he fact that [the autopsy doctors] didn't nail down the issue by dissecting the path is likewise puzzling."

1) Going from memory, here, but didn't Admiral Burkley communicate to them that Jackie and Bobby, waiting upstairs, were getting impatient for them to finish? Or was it because he (or they) didn't want anyone to know that JFK had a serious problem with his adrenal glands?

2) When did they finally realize that there was a bullet wound in JFK's throat? The next day?

3) These are two examples of how the JFKA was "anomaly-replete," IMHO, readymade for the world-class humanitarian organization known as the KGB* to take advantage of via the likes of Joachim Joesten, Thomas G. Buchanan, Mark Lane, Jim Garrison, and Comrade Oliver Stone, et al. ad nauseum, so that someone like The Traitorous Orange Bird (rhymes with Xxxx) could eventually be "elected" as our "President."

*Today's SVR and FSB

[Tim Nickerson]

I do like to play around with alternative scenarios and am not convinced the SBT is absolutely essential to the LN narrative.

The Warren Commission said the same thing.

Although it is not necessary to any essential findings of the Commission to determine just which shot hit Governor Connally, there is very persuasive evidence from the experts to indicate that the same bullet which pierced the President's throat also caused Governor Connally's wounds.

They were wrong and so are you. IMHO.

Without the SBT there had to be more than one shooter.

I guess that I am what you have referred to as an SBT zealot.

[Tom Graves]

The Warren Commission said the same thing.

Although it is not necessary to any essential findings of the Commission to determine just which shot hit Governor Connally, there is very persuasive evidence from the experts to indicate that the same bullet which pierced the President's throat also caused Governor Connally's wounds.

They were wrong and so are you. IMHO.

Without the SBT there had to be more than one shooter.

I guess that I am what you have referred to as an SBT zealot.

Spot on.

Equivocating Fancy Pants Lance (who said, "I'm not convinced the SBT is absolutely essential to the LN narrative") needs to learn to be more logical.

Unless, of course, he thinks it's plausible that CE-399 wasn't fired during the assassination, that only two shots were fired, that the dented shell found on the Sniper's Nest floor was one Oswald used for dry-firing purposes and/or to "protect" the chamber from moisture, and that the majority of witnesses who heard three shots were WRONG WRONG WRONG because one of those three loud sounds was either a motorcycle backfire, a tire blow-out, or a firecracker that was thrown by some rascal.

[John Mytton]

   Hey John - So are we to believe we are looking at the very same Adam's Apple in both photos? These 2 images of the throat area do Not even look similar.

Royell,

In one photo, JFK is standing upright with full control of his muscles and very much alive, whereas in the other photo JFK is lying horizontally with no control of his muscles, a catastrophic headwound and a bullet which entered from behind and exited his lower neck. 



JohnM

[Lance Payette]

Spot on.

Equivocating Fancy Pants Lance (who said, "I'm not convinced the SBT is absolutely essential to the LN narrative") needs to learn to be more logical.

Unless, of course, he thinks it's plausible that CE-399 wasn't fired during the assassination, that only two shots were fired, that the dented shell found on the Sniper's Nest floor was one Oswald used for dry-firing purposes and/or to "protect" the chamber from moisture, and that the majority of witnesses who heard three shots were WRONG WRONG WRONG because one of those three loud sounds was either a motorcycle backfire, a tire blow-out, or a firecracker that was thrown by some rascal.

Something like your alternative scenario is no less implausible than the SBT. Because the JFKA is not my religion, I really don't care apart from the historical question of what actually happened. At least one respected LNer, the name escapes me, rejects the SBT.

Were you in Miss Adams third-grade class at Lineweaver Elementary in Tucson? That was the last time I recall anyone thinking names like Fancy Pants Lance were clever. There was little fat kid we used to call Paranoid Tommy, the Wee McCarthyite - could that have been you?