Reasonable Doubts?

[Steve M. Galbraith]

Zapruder film trivia:

February 14, 1969:  "In an evening news program, Los Angeles station KTLA aired a copy of the Zapruder film, narrated by anchor Hal Fishman. The broadcast included reports of the day’s testimony in the Clay Shaw trial in New Orleans." Also, about a year later a Chicago station (WSNS) showed the film on a leftwing/underground type program called "Underground News with Chuck Collins."

Both of these were local news stations.

I remember reading about the first (not the specific station) but not the second.

https://www.jfk.org/the-collections/abraham-zapruder-film/

[Benjamin Cole]

That has always been an interesting aspect of Gov. John Connally's wounds: His two surgeons thought the SBT did not hold water.

Dr. Robert Shaw and Dr. Charles Gregory were not activists or leftists, and Shaw had military experience of working on hundreds of wartime gunshot victims. Shaw, without dispute, is an authority on the topic.

My take is Shaw and Gregory gave their earnest opinions and had no axes to grind.

Gregory found that a projectile had entered JBC's wrist on the dorsal side...almost an anatomical impossibility for a slug that first entered JBC's chest from the rear.

Shaw thought it most likely JBC had been hit by a separate shot, that shot had not been impeded before hitting JBC.

The small round hole in the rear of JBC's assassination day shirt strongly suggests a direct shot, and not a slug that hit JBC "sideways" after tumbling.

There are a lot of reasons to have reasonable doubts about SBT, including that it was fabricated by Arlen Specter based on the premise that only two shots had struck JFK and JBC. Specter's job was to present the SBT-LNT narrative, not to investigate the truth. The WC concluded that one shot struck near Tague.

That CE-399 was not found in Trauma Room 2 adds another layer of perplexity. Even then hospital procedures were to retain bullets and report bullet wounds to police. JBC recalls the bullet fell from his leg on clicked on the floor of Trauma Room 2.

Yet somehow a slug is found in the Parkland hospital corridor, described as a "pointy-head" slug by OP Wright, hospital administrator and former police chief, and then that slug is purported to be CE-399.

I have reasonable doubts about the LNT-SBT.

[John Corbett]

I have reasonable doubts about the LNT-SBT.

If you have your mobile phone handy, call somebody who gives a shit.

[Zeon Mason]

Umm, Dr. Charles Gregory, the surgeon who operated on Connally's wrist, said that the shattering of the distal radius bone and the severing of part of the radial nerve would cause immediate and complete loss of function in the hand.---MTG

This is my recollection of what Gregory said also. Can you find reference to this in the WC?

I have reasonable doubts that Gov. JBC held onto his hat after being shot through the wrist.

Ergo, a reasonable deduction is JBC had not yet been shot by Z-275.

So this a curious dilemma if the SBT Z224 shot lines up with the right wrist and left thigh. How was JBC sitting on the jump seat such that the Z224 SBT shot goes thru his right wrist and then into his left thigh without going thru the hat. There’s only one position and it’s an odd one in which JBC is sitting half off the left side of the jump seat with both his legs rotated right about 45 degree just as his upper torso/ shoulder line appears to be. His right hand would have to be holding his hat upside down  with the well of the hat over the left side of his left leg.

Several problems:

1. His right arm would have to be diagonally across his chest to hold the hat over the left side of his left leg. That would be rather an uncomfortable position to maintain.

2. There does not appear to be any indication of JBC right arm upper arm being diagonally across his chest in the Z film at Z222-z225

3. Turning both his legs 45 degrees right makes sense enough but why would JBC shift his buttocks half way off the left side of the jump seat?

4. Holding  the expensive Stetson  hat upside down off the left side of the left leg would be smushing the hat between the leg and the back side of the front seat. This seems a disrespectful way to hold a prized iconic hat that JBC often wore in public.

A more comfortable position that has both legs together turned rightward and the buttocks remaining fully on the seat, would have JBC holding the hat right side up resting atop both his legs. His right arm would be as it’s seen in Z223 which is NOT diagonally across his chest but simply normally by the right side of his body. His right hand is turned resting palm upwards on his legs. In this way the hat is being more carefully / respectfully  held  to avoid any deformation of the hat.

However if JBC holds the hat right side up atop both his legs, thus having his right hand palm side up, then it’s IMPOSSIBLE that a Z224 bullet could enter his wrist from the top and exit from the palm of his hand. Likewise, the bullet could not have bypassed the upright part of the hat if continuing on into the  inner thigh of the left leg.

The only other position that has  been proposed for JBC is by Andrew Mason. At Z190 JBC has both his legs spread wide apart with his left leg hanging out leftwards while JC attempts to twist himself rightward even MORE than 45 degrees rightward. At Z190 he is only hit in the thigh. The bullet disappears. The wrist wound is cause by some fragment. This theory is rejected by most if not all the LNs on this forum.

Thus is why I put out the question about the probability of  a fragment causing the wrist wound because neither the conventional LN SBT position for JBC nor Andrew’s alternative LN position(s) seem to work for CE 399 having caused the wrist wound.

If not a fragment and not CE 399, then the wrist wound remains a dilemma.

[Andrew Mason]

So this a curious dilemma if the SBT Z224 shot lines up with the right wrist and left thigh. How was JBC sitting on the jump seat such that the Z224 SBT shot goes thru his right wrist and then into his left thigh without going thru the hat. There’s only one position and it’s an odd one in which JBC is sitting half off the left side of the jump seat with both his legs rotated right about 45 degree just as his upper torso/ shoulder line appears to be. His right hand would have to be holding his hat upside down  with the well of the hat over the left side of his left leg.

Several problems:

1. His right arm would have to be diagonally across his chest to hold the hat over the left side of his left leg. That would be rather an uncomfortable position to maintain.

2. There does not appear to be any indication of JBC right arm upper arm being diagonally across his chest in the Z film at Z222-z225

3. Turning both his legs 45 degrees right makes sense enough but why would JBC shift his buttocks half way off the left side of the jump seat?

4. Holding  the expensive Stetson  hat upside down off the left side of the left leg would be smushing the hat between the leg and the back side of the front seat. This seems a disrespectful way to hold a prized iconic hat that JBC often wore in public.

There is also the problem of explaining how the bullet goes from the left side of JFK’s tie knot on a right to left path and strikes JBC in the right armpit but misses JFK’s hands:

A more comfortable position that has both legs together turned rightward and the buttocks remaining fully on the seat, would have JBC holding the hat right side up resting atop both his legs.

Have you actually tried putting a cushion and sitting on it with your feet on the floor and keeping your legs together?  Try it.  You will see why it is highly unlikely for JBC to have assumed such a position.

The only other position that has  been proposed for JBC is by Andrew Mason. At Z190 JBC has both his legs spread wide apart with his left leg hanging out leftwards while JC attempts to twist himself rightward even MORE than 45 degrees rightward. At Z190 he is only hit in the thigh. The bullet disappears. The wrist wound is caused by some fragment.

I have never suggested that the wrist wound is caused by a fragment.  It was caused by the bullet that exited from the chest.  The bullet fragmented on striking the wrist and fragments deflected away from the point of contact with the radius bone.

All the evidence indicates that the second shot occurred much closer to the third shot, which puts it while JBC is turned around to the right. This gives the general idea of the trajectory:

[John Corbett]

Because JBC's lower body can't be seen in the Z-film, we can only speculate how his right wrist and left thigh were aligned at Z222. Because the bullet had been slowed considerably before hitting the wrist, there is also a strong possibility the bullet had a significant deflection sending it into his left thigh. There will always be some things about the JFKA that we will likely never know. That's no reason to ignore the things we can know, primarily that Oswald fired three shots at JFK, striking in in the bac and the head with the last two causing his death.

[John Corbett]

There are so many things wrong with this sketch it is hard to know where to begin. For starters you make the same mistake CTs have by putting JBC's seat directly in front of JFK. The jump seat was offset to toward the left by about a half a body width. You have JFK too far to the left. He was up against the right side of the car with his elbow resting on the side. The diagonal of the shot is wrong. JBC was not turned that far when he was struck You show the bullet entering JBC's side instead of his back and then miraculously making a near 90 degree turn to the right in order to exit from below JBC's right nipple.

You need to take this one back to the drawing board, Andrew. Better yet, you ought to just drop this ridiculous scenario you've been trying to peddle for about two decades. Nobody, LN or CT, is buying it. The fact that you have to make so many exaggerations to make your theory seem plausible should tell you that it isn't.