Released File Shows J. Edgar Hoover Acknowledged Large Rear Head Wound

[Tom Graves]

"Aww ... never mind" is precisely the rational response to this forum in its entirety. When was the last discussion here that was actually worth having from either a CT or LN perspective? Post something that's moderately substantive and the regulars are struck dumb. I don't know how many threads I've started to respond to out of sheer boredom and then had precisely that response: Aww ... never mind. I actually miss Team Sock Puppet, ghastly as that thought is even to me. Ditto for the Ed Forum - it's barely worth lurking for three minutes a day. Perhaps the JFKA is simply dead? It's all just ... just ... aww, never mind (although B-O-R-I-N-G is certainly the term that springs to mind).

Dear Lance,

Do YOU think Knott Lab's simulation was accurate?

Comrade Storing sure does.

-- Tom

[Lance Payette]

I would further note that Hoover's testimony was in the context of expanding on his remark that the doctors at Parkland had originally thought the throat wound was a frontal wound. He wasn't purporting to discuss the head wound per se. I see absolutely no significance to the alteration of his testimony. As previously noted, deponents are always afforded an opportunity to make changes to the transcript. Given all the medical evidence regarding the head wound, I see absolutely no significance to a clarification from "the back of the skull" to the more accurate "portions of the skull." The notion that the change was made because "OH, MY GOD, THE DODDERING OLD DIRECTOR LET THE TRUTH SLIP!!!" is just conspiracy nonsense of the first magnitude.

Sibert and O'Neill were both clear that the "surgery to the head area" in their memorandum was simply reporting a remark Humes had made while examining the body. They both thought he might have made the remark because a large piece of skull was obviously missing. O'Neill was a firm WC/LN supporter. While Sibert seems to have been more CT-oriented, I just read both of their ARRB testimonies and didn't see anything that would have really startled the WC even though Horne was Rather Obvious - to put it mildly - in his effort to get Sibert to say what he wanted him to say.

This is all just all-too-typical CT grasping at straws. "OH, MY GOD, THEY ALTERED HOOVER'S TESTIMONY!!!" Big yawn.

[Lance Payette]

Dear Lance,

Do YOU think Knott Lab's simulation was accurate?

Comrade Storing sure does.

-- Tom

If the guy who commissioned the study says to ignore it, which he now does, I'll go with that. Supposedly he and Larry Schnapf will be publishing a new and improved analysis. There are just so many variables that can never be known with absolute precision that I view any purported analysis with a skeptical eye. Virtually every analysis, you will note, ends up being AWFULLY CLOSE to "Yeah, they all came from the sniper's nest." That was one of my problems with Cliff Varnell's analysis of the holes in the clothing and the throat wound - in his analysis, neither entry has an exit and the two supposed entries "just happen" to line up AWFULLY CLOSE.

[Royell Storing]

"Aww ... never mind" is precisely the rational response to this forum in its entirety. When was the last discussion here that was actually worth having from either a CT or LN perspective? Post something that's moderately substantive and the regulars are struck dumb. I don't know how many threads I've started to respond to out of sheer boredom and then had precisely that response: Aww ... never mind. I actually miss Team Sock Puppet, ghastly as that thought is even to me. Ditto for the Ed Forum - it's barely worth lurking for three minutes a day. Perhaps the JFKA is simply dead? It's all just ... just ... aww, never mind (although B-O-R-I-N-G is certainly the term that springs to mind).

   That 2 hr presentation that Doug Horne posted on You Tube about a month ago is anything but "boring". We Now have documented Images of that Navy Ambulance and the Pickup Truck that carried one of the JFK Honor Guards being together at the Morgue Dock. This validates Lifton's story of that Navy ambulance being chased by the pickup truck carrying the JFK Honor Guard. Why would Bethesda have a morgue dock access that is barely wider than a vehicle? Is it to keep everything out of sight when necessary? Like on 11/22/63.  SOMEBODY took those B/W photos of the morgue dock and that same Somebody saw a lot of what went on back there on 11/22/63. Ever ask yourself ?: (1) Why the Navy Ambulance carrying an alleged dead POTUS would just sit outside the Bethesda Hospital for roughly 10 minutes? Just sit there? and, (2) On the 2 B/W Photos posted by Horne, who/what are those 2 Navy Officers saluting? Nobody was allegedly inside the pictured Navy Ambulance and the Ambulance Hood was allegedly stone cold. It had been sitting there awhile. Are these Navy Officers saluting a coffin coming toward the Morgue Dock from another direction? Another alleyway? Another coffin?  ALL of this New Information/Bethesda Morgue Dock Images are anything but "boring".

[Tom Graves]

   That 2 hr presentation that Doug Horne posted on You Tube about a month ago is anything but "boring". We Now have documented Images of that Navy Ambulance and the Pickup Truck that carried one of the JFK Honor Guards being together at the Morgue Dock. This validates Lifton's story of that Navy ambulance being chased by the pickup truck carrying the JFK Honor Guard. Why would Bethesda have a morgue dock access that is barely wider than a vehicle? Is it to keep everything out of sight when necessary? Like on 11/22/63.  SOMEBODY took those B/W photos of the morgue dock and that same Somebody saw a lot of what went on back there on 11/22/63. Ever ask yourself ?: (1) Why the Navy Ambulance carrying an alleged dead POTUS would just sit outside the Bethesda Hospital for roughly 10 minutes? Just sit there? and, (2) On the 2 B/W Photos posted by Horne, who/what are those 2 Navy Officers saluting? Nobody was allegedly inside the pictured Navy Ambulance and the Ambulance Hood was allegedly stone cold. It had been sitting there awhile. Are these Navy Officers saluting a coffin coming toward the Morgue Dock from another direction? Another alleyway? Another coffin?  ALL of this New Information/Bethesda Morgue Dock Images are anything but "boring".

Comrade Storing,

Two questions:

1) How long have you been paranoiac?

2) How do your paranoic conspiracy theories tie in with your love for The Traitorous Orange Bird (rhymes with "Xxxx")?

[Michael T. Griffith]

I would further note that Hoover's testimony was in the context of expanding on his remark that the doctors at Parkland had originally thought the throat wound was a frontal wound. He wasn't purporting to discuss the head wound per se. I see absolutely no significance to the alteration of his testimony. As previously noted, deponents are always afforded an opportunity to make changes to the transcript. Given all the medical evidence regarding the head wound, I see absolutely no significance to a clarification from "the back of the skull" to the more accurate "portions of the skull." The notion that the change was made because "OH, MY GOD, THE DODDERING OLD DIRECTOR LET THE TRUTH SLIP!!!" is just conspiracy nonsense of the first magnitude.

I think this is further proof that you have no objectivity on the JFK assassination. "Portions of the skull" was not "the more accurate." It was the least accurate and was intentionally vague. Did you miss the news we now know that the JFK autopsy photos that Saundra Spencer developed showed a large wound in the back of the head? Did you miss the news we now know that JFK autopsy mortician Tom Robinson drew a diagram of the large head wound for the HSCA and put the wound in the back of the head? Did you miss the news that we now know that both Sibert and O'Neill told the HSCA about the large back-of-head wound, and that they even diagrammed it for the HSCA and drew it in the right-rear part of the skull?

Did you miss the news that the two other morticians, John Van Hoesen and Joe Hagen, also said there was a large wound in the back of the head? During the two hours when they saw and handled the body to prepare it for burial, couldn't those three morticians tell the difference between a wound above the right ear and a wound 3-4 inches farther back on the head, with the EOP, rear hairline, and the right ear as three obvious reference points? Really?

How about the Parkland nurses who cleaned JFK's head wound and packed it with cotton before the body was placed in the casket? Couldn't they distinguish between a wound above the right ear and a wound that included at least 1/4th of the right side of the occipital bone? They all said the wound was in the right occipital-parietal area. How about funeral worker Aubrey Rike, who helped put JFK's body in the casket and could feel the edges of the wound in the back of the head--could he just not tell the difference between the back of the head and the right ear?

How about SS agent Clint Hill, who saw the wound for several minutes from within a few feet on the way to Parkland and who then saw the wound again at Bethesda when he was sent there for the express purpose of viewing and recording JFK's wounds, and who said in his first report that the wound was in the right-rear part of the skull? And on and on we could go.

Sibert and O'Neill were both clear that the "surgery to the head area" in their memorandum was simply reporting a remark Humes had made while examining the body.

As if this somehow explains the remark. Yes, of course he made the comment while examining the body. Nobody has said otherwise. What about the fact that Boswell made a similar remark? 

They both thought he might have made the remark because a large piece of skull was obviously missing.

You're omitting the fact that Robinson saw Humes sawing the skull before the autopsy began, and that the body covertly arrived at least 40 minutes before the start of the official autopsy.

O'Neill was a firm WC/LN supporter. While Sibert seems to have been more CT-oriented, I just read both of their ARRB testimonies and didn't see anything that would have really startled the WC even though Horne was Rather Obvious - to put it mildly - in his effort to get Sibert to say what he wanted him to say.

When you wrote this, did you just forget that O'Neill and Sibert both flatly rejected the SBT and insisted the back wound was several inches below the throat wound? Did you forget that O'Neill and Sibert both reported the fact that the autopsy doctors positively determined that the back wound had no exit point, a fact confirmed by ARRB releases? Did you forget that O'Neill told the HSCA that "there was no doubt in anyone's mind" that the back-wound bullet had no exit point and must have fallen out in Dallas, and that he was "positive" the back wound had no exit point? Did you forget that O'Neill and Sibert said the back-of-head autopsy photos definitely did not look like JFK's head during the autopsy, and that O'Neill even said the photo had been "doctored"?

And yet you claim that you can't see any reason the WC would not have wanted them to testify about these things! I honestly wonder if you actually read Sibert and O'Neill's ARRB depositions. If you did, how did you miss their statements about the back wound and the head wound?

This is all just all-too-typical CT grasping at straws. "OH, MY GOD, THEY ALTERED HOOVER'S TESTIMONY!!!" Big yawn.

No, it is just your usual grasping, reaching, and straining to explain away, of just ignore, evidence that destroys your version of the shooting.

[Lance Payette]

I think this is further proof that you have no objectivity on the JFK assassination. "Portions of the skull" was not "the more accurate." It was the least accurate and was intentionally vague. Did you miss the news we now know that the JFK autopsy photos that Saundra Spencer developed showed a large wound in the back of the head? Did you miss the news we now know that JFK autopsy mortician Tom Robinson drew a diagram of the large head wound for the HSCA and put the wound in the back of the head? Did you miss the news that we now know that both Sibert and O'Neill told the HSCA about the large back-of-head wound, and that they even diagrammed it for the HSCA and drew it in the right-rear part of the skull?

Did you miss the news that the two other morticians, John Van Hoesen and Joe Hagen, also said there was a large wound in the back of the head? During the two hours when they saw and handled the body to prepare it for burial, couldn't those three morticians tell the difference between a wound above the right ear and a wound 3-4 inches farther back on the head, with the EOP, rear hairline, and the right ear as three obvious reference points? Really?

How about the Parkland nurses who cleaned JFK's head wound and packed it with cotton before the body was placed in the casket? Couldn't they distinguish between a wound above the right ear and a wound that included at least 1/4th of the right side of the occipital bone? They all said the wound was in the right occipital-parietal area. How about funeral worker Aubrey Rike, who helped put JFK's body in the casket and could feel the edges of the wound in the back of the head--could he just not tell the difference between the back of the head and the right ear?

How about SS agent Clint Hill, who saw the wound for several minutes from within a few feet on the way to Parkland and who then saw the wound again at Bethesda when he was sent there for the express purpose of viewing and recording JFK's wounds, and who said in his first report that the wound was in the right-rear part of the skull? And on and on we could go.

As if this somehow explains the remark. Yes, of course he made the comment while examining the body. Nobody has said otherwise. What about the fact that Boswell made a similar remark? 

You're omitting the fact that Robinson saw Humes sawing the skull before the autopsy began, and that the body covertly arrived at least 40 minutes before the start of the official autopsy.

When you wrote this, did you just forget that O'Neill and Sibert both flatly rejected the SBT and insisted the back wound was several inches below the throat wound? Did you forget that O'Neill and Sibert both reported the fact that the autopsy doctors positively determined that the back wound had no exit point, a fact confirmed by ARRB releases? Did you forget that O'Neill told the HSCA that "there was no doubt in anyone's mind" that the back-wound bullet had no exit point and must have fallen out in Dallas, and that he was "positive" the back wound had no exit point? Did you forget that O'Neill and Sibert said the back-of-head autopsy photos definitely did not look like JFK's head during the autopsy, and that O'Neill even said the photo had been "doctored"?

And yet you claim that you can't see any reason the WC would not have wanted them to testify about these things! I honestly wonder if you actually read Sibert and O'Neill's ARRB depositions. If you did, how did you miss their statements about the back wound and the head wound?

No, it is just your usual grasping, reaching, and straining to explain away, of just ignore, evidence that destroys your version of the shooting.

Michael, I am discovering what others have discovered: it is simply impossible to have a rational discussion with someone such as you. You have amassed such a constellation of dubious "facts" and "what about this, what about that" arguments that it's just an endless game of Whack-a-Mole.

Let's start with this: Why were your bombshell witnesses, Sibert and O'Neill, NEVER EVEN CONTACTED BY GARRISON? Sibert specifically told the ARRB he'd had "no contact whatsoever" with the Garrison team, and I can find no evidence that O'Neill had any contact whatsoever. For better or worse, Arlen Specter did interview both of them with a stenographer present, and the HSCA and ARRB interviewed both. But Garrison, hot to prove the WR was a sham did not. Hmmmm ... how does that factor into your Conspiracy Logic?

Is it just possible Sibert and O'Neill are considerably less "bombshell" than you believe them to be?

They are two FBI agents who observed the autopsy, that and nothing more. Their 302 was, I am sure, quite accurate. Sibert, the more conspiratorial of the two, told the ARRB he understood why the WC might have thought it was "inadvisable" to call them. Their report reflected confusion about the back and throat wounds that was not cleared up until Humes' call to Parkland and the autopsy report was revised to reflect what he had learned. Why would the WC want to rehash all that with two mere FBI agents?

Both reported that Humes' statement about "surgery to the head area" was made either while the body was still in the casket or immediately upon being placed on the autopsy table, in the same sentence in which he noted the tracheotomy incision. Both said they merely reported Humes' words. Sibert speculated the statement was made because pieces of skull were obviously missing. Neither suggested this was any big deal or that they had actually observed such surgery - EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE, in fact. If Humes had surreptitiously sawed the skull open, why would he have noted this in the presence of two FBI agents and others? Duh.

Both rejected or at least questioned the SBT - OK, so what? Lots of people, including me, have doubts about it. Sibert and O'Neill have no more expertise in this area than I do. They are, or were, just two more voices in the debate.

Lastly, both said some of the autopsy photos they were shown appeared to show the head wound and hair considerably cleaned up versus what they had observed. Yes, this is obvious to everyone in those photos and drawings (the ones with the ruler). Again, so what? Boswell explained what was done for those photos. Sibert seemed to place the wound higher up and more centrally located than is the case, but he also said the wound was so bloody and matted with hair that it was difficult to discern the outlines. He also described Boswell's autopsy drawing as "fairly accurate." Again, the location and nature of the wounds is established by photos, x-rays and the testimony of observers with medical expertise. Who cares what two FBI agents think they saw?

You are doing what CTers always do: You assemble your constellation of dubious "facts" by cherry-picking statements without regard to their context, without regard to whether the persons making those statements were really qualified to make them, and without regard to whether (or how many) persons who actually were better qualified made conflicting statements. Evidence that can't be refuted, such as photos and x-rays, is all "altered," "faked," or doesn't actually show what those with medical expertise say it shows.

This is precisely what criminal defense attorneys do. They don't have to care whether what they say is plausible or even makes any sense. They just throw in the kitchen sink and hope the jury finds reasonable doubt "somewhere in there." This is not how historical truth is arrived at, or even how a rational debate is conducted, and I'm not going to play an endless and tedious game of Whack-a-Mole with a one-dimensional conspiracy fanatic.

[Tom Graves]

[...]

Dear Comrade Griffith,

Please freshen my memory:

How many bad guys do you figure were involved, altogether, in the planning, the "patsy-ing," the shooting, the planting of false evidence, the getting-away, the altering of the photos, films and x-rays, and the all-important (and continuing!!!) cover up?

"Just" 20 to 30?

Really?

LOL!

-- Tom