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Good Defense of Doug Horne's Documentary "The Three Bethesda Casket Entries"

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Michael T. Griffith:
Jacob Hornberger (B.A., J.D.), a former professor law and economics at the University of Dallas and now the president of the Future of Freedom Foundation, has written a spirited defense of Doug Horne's recent documentary The Three Bethesda Casket Entries:

https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/dominick-armentanos-fallacious-disagreement-with-doug-hornes-new-jfk-documentary/

-------------EXCERPT-----------------

In response to JFK assassination researcher Doug Horne’s remarkable achievement with his new JFK documentary “The Three Bethesda Casket Entries,” longtime author Dominick Armentano has written an article stating that notwithstanding Horne’s excellent documentary, he still doesn’t believe that President Kennedy’s body was brought into the Bethesda military morgue in the first casket entry detailed in Horne’s documentary. Given that Armentano has in previous articles expressed a high degree of skepticism regarding the three casket entries detailed in Horne’s documentary, Armentano’s recent article provides a good opportunity to revisit this topic in considerable detail.

It’s worth emphasizing another powerful point about Horne’s documentary—that there were definitely three separate groups of people who were involved in the three casket entries into the morgue. . . .

To be sure, in his recent article Armentano does recognize the high quality of Horne’s documentary. He wrote, “Doug Horne has recently produced a fascinating documentary about multiple casket entries into the Bethesda morgue on the evening of November 22, 1963. It is well done and I urge everyone to watch it on YouTube.” But he concluded his piece with his skepticism regarding the first casket entry, writing, “In short, while Horne is to be applauded for producing a thoroughly engaging video (his cinematic skills are substantial) his major proposition – that JFK’s corpse arrived in a shipping casket at 6:35 – has NOT (in my judgment) been substantiated by any “best evidence.” (His capitalization.)

Before addressing the points that Armentano made in his article, I believe it’s important to put the controversy into an overall context. Doing that will, I believe, help us to better understand Armentano’s points and why his points are faulty and fallacious. . . .

The following were the three casket entries and the time for each casket entry:

First casket entry: 6:35 p.m. This involved a cheap, lightweight shipping casket containing JFK’s body, which was inside a body bag (rather than wrapped in the two white sheets from Parkland Hospital — one around his body and one around his head). The casket was carried into the morgue anteroom by a team of Navy sailors. Humes and Boswell then conducted clandestine pre-autopsy surgery to remove evidence of shots having been fired from the front. This was followed by x-rays that were taken of the skull. (Thus, the skull x-rays in the record today are invalid as evidence because they do not accurately record the condition of President Kennedy’s body after he was assassinated.)

Second casket entry: 7:17 p.m. The heavy, ornate Dallas casket, which was empty, was carried into the morgue so that JFK’s body could be put back into it. The casket was carried into the morgue by four federal agents — Secret Service agents Roy Kellerman and William Greer and FBI agents Francis O’Neill and James Sibert. The time of this casket entry was established by an FBI report known as the Rosen Report, which recounted an interview that Warren Commission attorney Arlen Specter had conducted of FBI agents Francis O’Neill and James Sibert, as follows:

Question: What was the time of the preparation for the autopsy at the hospital?

Answer: Approximately 7:17 p.m.

Question: What time did the autopsy begin?

Answer: Approximately 8:15 p.m.

The Dallas casket, with Kennedy’s body now reintroduced into it, was then carried out to a Navy vehicle and placed into the vehicle. The vehicle was then driven to the front of the Bethesda Hospital, where it was united with the Joint Service Casket Team or Honor Guard. The JSCT consisted of a 6-man military team of representatives from the four branches of the armed forces, plus one member of the Coast Guard. The team was headed by Army Lt. Sam https://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index.php/topic,2006.0.html The vehicle, followed by a truck containing the JSCT, drove to the morgue, which was located in the back of the hospital.

Lance Payette:
I have read lots of Hornberger's stuff. His defense of Horne is the equivalent of the UFO True Believer who thinks the bug-eyed aliens are from Zeta Reticuli coming to the defense of a fellow UFO True Believer who thinks the bug-eyed aliens are from inside the Hollow Earth.

Let's take just one of Hornberger's nuggets of conspiracy gospel:

Gawler’s Funeral Home

Gawler’s Funeral Home was the most prestigious funeral home in Washington, D.C. The U.S. Army chose Gawler’s to do the embalming of the president’s body and then handle the funeral.

The ARRB discovered a Gawler’s working memorandum that was prepared during the autopsy that stated, “Body removed from metal shipping casket at USNH at Bethesda.” There is no doubt that that Gawler’s memorandum is referring to the body of President Kennedy.

And then we have Little Old Lance's clarification of the same bombshell from two months ago on the thread I started about Horne's documentary:

I will close here by asking folks to look at Horne's discussion of the Gawler's Funeral Home "First Call Sheet" beginning at roughly 18:20 of the video. Horne notes the "metal shipping casket" statement on the Call Sheet and explains that Hagan confirmed this term meant a cheap, basic transit casket. WOW!

Horne DOESN'T tell us that Hagan, in two separate interviews, told Horne that he had never seen the casket, had only been told JFK arrived in a "metal" casket, had merely assumed it was a transit casket, and had no idea JFK had actually arrived in a "ceremonial" bronze casket costing $3000 ($31,546 today).

In short, the "First Call Sheet" is irrelevant to the shipping casket issue and Horne is a fundamentally dishonest con artist.

Hornberger is likewise a fundamentally dishonest con artist, at least insofar as this issue is concerned. Birds of a feather, as the saying goes. For God's sake, Hagan's clarification is part of the same ARRB package as the Call Sheet. I guess Horne just "conveniently forgot" about it and Hornberger foolishly trusted Horne - because that's how it works in Conspiracy Factoid World.

Do you folks EVER get tired of being conned? (BTW, the bug-eyed aliens are, in fact, coming from inside the Hollow Earth.)

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