Mary Woodward said there were 3 shots and the 1st shot missed everything

[John Corbett]

I will have to confess to finding my Mary Woodward factoid-hunt way more fun than I perhaps should.

1. As a journalism major who worked in that field for seven years before law school, I find it fascinating in the extreme that a 23-year-old reporter for a major newspaper would so blatantly fill her article with whoppers on a story of the magnitude of the JFKA. I am amazed that (1) Mary was able to continue to work in the field and (2) she was allowed for 54 years to get away with attributing the most insignificant of her whoppers to a "hearing problem" with NO ONE pointing out, "Uh, Mary, that doesn't begin to account for the whoppers in your article." You have to admit, claiming that she had thought "The Men Who Killed Kennedy" would be a serious BBC documentary is also "just a bit" out there. Maybe I'm morphing into Milicent Cranor (would that be good?), but there is something disturbing about all this that I can't quite put my finger on.

2. Exposing someone like Mary just always sort of makes my day. It's what we factoid-busters live for, like finding a previously unknown butterfly or something. Sorry that Mary was a seemingly pleasant and likeable dingbat, but she was indeed a dingbat.

3. Exponentially adding to the mirth is when someone such as TG digs in his heels and tries to preserve a character like Mary as supportive of his JFKA views. This is one of the most comical aspects of the JFKA - the inability of virtually everyone, CTer and LNer alike, to simply say "Oops, got that wrong, never mind." NO, WE CAN NEVER ADMIT WE HAVE MADE FOOLS OF OURSELVES on even the most insignificant issue because ... because ... well, I'm not sure why, but we can't. Early on at the Ed Forum, I made two rather large and comical mistakes, and a longtime CTer who became one of my biggest supporters congratulated me for having the honesty to say "Oops, got that wrong, never mind." Try it sometime.

4. And, of course, even more exponentially ratcheting up the mirth is when the heel-digger is TG, who inevitably ends up throwing a name-calling hissy fit and reveals who really is - i.e., fundamentally nuttier than almost anyone here. Indeed, fundamentally nuttier than almost anyone I've ever encountered on any internet forum. Indeed, fundamentally nuttier than ... oh, well, let's not overdo it.

RIP, dingbat Mary. You were a hoot, as are TG's efforts to prop you up. (Speaking of propping up, how many people know that English philosopher Jeremy Bentham specified in his will that his corpse would be preserved, appropriately clad, and occasionally wheeled out to preside at university meetings - and it was! Just one of those little tidbits of weirdness that fill approximately 2/3 of my brain.)

I hope you didn't break your arm patting yourself on the back.

When I first saw the conversation she had at the Sixth Floor Museum, I was pleasantly surprised to discover she had a fairly accurate account of the JFKA. Thanks to Andrew Mason, I had been led to believe that her account was that JFK had been hit by the first shot. Then I come to find out that she clearly remembered hearing a shot that hadn't hit anybody (with the possible exception of Tague who she was unaware of at the time). She did have the false impression that the shots had come from behind her which she acknowledged did not happen. She is absolutely correct in her belief that Oswald was the assassin. On that point, there should be no doubt although CTs have spent over six decades trying to manufacturer doubt.

As for TG, he and I differ by about 1.3 seconds as to when the first shot was fired and we have had serious disagreements on political matters having nothing to do with the JFKA, but he is essentially correct about how the shooting went down. One miss, followed by a single bullet striking JFK and JBC followed 4.9 seconds later by the fatal headshot.

[Lance Payette]

I hope you didn't break your arm patting yourself on the back.

No, but I did sprain my right wrist again.

The problem with her Sixth Floor Museum interview, which I did find entertaining, is that she'd had 52 years of practice trying to get her story straight. I just don't see how anyone can give any evidential weight to anything she said.

The Mystery of Mary, just in case anyone missed the big picture, is: Immediately after the JFKA, she wrote an article that was 100% frontal-shot CT-friendly. One thus can understand why CTers find it suspicious that the article was withdrawn from later editions of the newspaper and Mary spent the next 5+ decades tap-dancing away from what she'd written - but, thanks to an exceedingly friendly media, never really having to confront the biggest of her CT-friendly claims. And yet, her article cannot legitimately be viewed as genuinely CT-friendly because what she wrote was completely false - she wasn't anywhere near where she said she was, as an FBI interview two weeks later, the Z film and everything she said for the next 54 years makes clear. If that doesn't have you scratching your weenie noggin, I don't know what will.

Gotta soak that wrist in Epsom salts. Patting myself on the back with my left wrist is a challenge since it's been broken three times (really - the last time the surgeon said "This time I can fix it but I can't make it pretty. Break it again and I can't fix it.").

[John Corbett]

No, but I did sprain my right wrist again.

The problem with her Sixth Floor Museum interview, which I did find entertaining, is that she'd had 52 years of practice trying to get her story straight. I just don't see how anyone can give any evidential weight to anything she said.

By itself, no. What she told us is perfectly compatible with the Z-film and all the other forensic evidence. That's my litmus test for whether a witness is credible or not.

The Mystery of Mary, just in case anyone missed the big picture, is: Immediately after the JFKA, she wrote an article that was 100% frontal-shot CT-friendly. One thus can understand why CTers find it suspicious that the article was withdrawn from later editions of the newspaper and Mary spent the next 5+ decades tap-dancing away from what she'd written - but, thanks to an exceedingly friendly media, never really having to confront the biggest of her CT-friendly claims. And yet, her article cannot legitimately be viewed as genuinely CT-friendly because what she wrote was completely false - she wasn't anywhere near where she said she was, as an FBI interview two weeks later, the Z film and everything she said for the next 54 years makes clear. If that doesn't have you scratching your weenie noggin, I don't know what will.

I haven't seen the article she wrote. The only thing in her interview that would indicate a frontal shot was her impression the shot MIGHT have come from the bridge. I'd be interested if she said anything else in her article that is at odds with the WC findings.

[Andrew Mason]

I hope you didn't break your arm patting yourself on the back.

When I first saw the conversation she had at the Sixth Floor Museum, I was pleasantly surprised to discover she had a fairly accurate account of the JFKA. Thanks to Andrew Mason, I had been led to believe that her account was that JFK had been hit by the first shot. Then I come to find out that she clearly remembered hearing a shot that hadn't hit anybody (with the possible exception of Tague who she was unaware of at the time).

I never said that she recalled that JFK was hit by the first shot.  You seem to have a reading comprehension problem.

Anyone who read her DMN story knows that she said "Things are a little hazy from this point" (ie. after the first shot) but she did not think the first shot hit anyone. 

My point is that the location of JFK at the time of the first shot (after the president passed by where she was standing ie after he passed the lamp post, which he passed at z190) together with the last two shots being close together MEANS that JFK was struck by the first shot.  So her recollections of specific facts demonstrate that her hazy impression from what she did not see that led her to conclude that no one was struck by the first shot was incorrect and her specific recollections of what she did see together with the zfilm (which shows JFK reacting just after he passed by where she was standing and more than 5 seconds before the last shot) provide evidence that is inconsistent with a first missed shot.

[Steve M. Galbraith]

A little late in the day but here's the Woodward article:

[Royell Storing]

She was a very flighty lady from what I had seen of her in interviews. I don't understand the deal with her on TMWKK, it was nothing she hadn't said before.

   I agree with you. Woodward is ditzy. Sitzman was too. Woodward acts like she was flim-flamed by TMWKK, but by 1988, she was around 47 yrs old. By 47 she should know "how the cow eats the cabbage". I don't care if she has a college degree, speaks Spanish, etc. She's a Dingbat.

[Lance Payette]

For those who don't know, "how the cow eats the cabbage" (a/k/a "how the cow ate the cabbage") is a common saying among rural folk. My late wife, who grew up on a remote Arizona ranch, used to say it all the time. It usually seemed to be used in the sense of "I'm gonna have to set that fool straight on how the cow ate the cabbage" or "good grief, you'd think by now the idiot would know how the cow eats the cabbage." See, you learned something today!

Here's a similar tidbit you may not know: Many people attempted to invest the REM song "Losing My Religion" with deep meaning. Michael Stipe explained that "losing my religion" is just a Southern expression like "well, shut my mouth." As in, "When I saw Shirley's new hairdo, I dang near lost my religion." You're welcome.