Dr. Baden Refuted the Single-Bullet Theory

[Tim Nickerson]

The focus of this one-page article is Dr. Michael Baden's demonstration in the 1988 NOVA documentary Who Shot President Kennedy? of how far forward JFK would have had to be leaning to make the HSCA FPP's trajectory through the neck align with the sixth-floor window.

"Dr. Baden Refuted the Single-Bullet Theory"

Dr. Wecht mocked the FPP majority's assumption about JFK's forward lean with the joking remark that they were assuming that JFK was bent over tying his shoe laces when the bullet struck. This humorous exaggeration perfectly captures the demonstrably false nature of the FPP's assumption, which Dr. Baden was nice enough to demonstrate in front of TV cameras.

Of course, Baden had no idea he was driving a huge nail in the SBT's coffin with his demonstration.

Keep in mind that Dr. Humes's wound diagram for the WC (i.e., CE 385) puts the wound at C3 or C4. Humes put the wound noticeably above the throat wound, as we see in CE 385. Humes had to put the back wound above the throat wound because he and the WC claimed the bullet traveled a "downward path" through the neck, a piece of pure fiction that even the HSCA FPP rejected and debunked.

True to form, SBT believers shrug off this enormous conflict between the autopsy doctors and the HSCA FPP experts. No matter what, for them the SBT still works, never mind that Humes put the wound at least 2.5 inches higher in CE 385 than where the FPP located it. One WC apologist here, apparently clueless about basic geometry, has even claimed that it makes no difference whatsoever if Humes was wrong and the FPP was right about the wound's location! By golly, the SBT still works! Amazing!

Finally, surely no objective person can look at the autopsy photo of the back wound and conclude that it shows the wound where Humes placed it in CE 385. The HSCA FPP concluded the photo puts the wound at T1, which is at least 2.5 inches lower than where CE 385 places it. Indeed, the FPP said they placed the wound "in the back area" and "a few inches lower" than where Humes placed it in his drawing:

The panel also places the entrance perforation on the lower, in the back area, a few inches lower than illustrated in this drawing. (1 HSCA 256)

Baden was one of several members of the HSCA's FPP who believed that "when the body is repositioned in the anatomic position (not the position at the moment of shooting) the direction of the missile in the body on initial penetration was slightly upward". They were wrong. The majority of that 9 member panel disagreed with them. You have falsely claimed that "several members" equals a majority.

The FPP determined that the entry wound was superior to the ribs. T1 being the uppermost vertebra of the ribs.

Humes was not responsible for the drawings. His placement of the wound on the drawings was too high. However, his testimony that the wound was in the low neck was probably correct.

The Clark Panel measured the entry wound to be about 5.5 cm below a transverse fold in the skin on the back of the neck. The HSCA FPP measured it to be about 6 cm below the skin fold. The Clark Panel measured the wound in the throat to be about 9 cm below the skin fold. The entry wound was above the wound in the throat. It's obvious when viewing the posterior view and the left lateral view of the body that the entry wound was above the wound in the throat. CTs who refuse to admit it will not place a mark on the left lateral view at the level of where the entry wound was because they are incapable of admitting that they are wrong.

[John Corbett]

Baden was one of several members of the HSCA's FPP who believed that "when the body is repositioned in the anatomic position (not the position at the moment of shooting) the direction of the missile in the body on initial penetration was slightly upward". They were wrong. The majority of that 9 member panel disagreed with them. You have falsely claimed that "several members" equals a majority.

The FPP determined that the entry wound was superior to the ribs. T1 being the uppermost vertebra of the ribs.

Humes was not responsible for the drawings. His placement of the wound on the drawings was too high. However, his testimony that the wound was in the low neck was probably correct.

The Clark Panel measured the entry wound to be about 5.5 cm below a transverse fold in the skin on the back of the neck. The HSCA FPP measured it to be about 6 cm below the skin fold. The Clark Panel measured the wound in the throat to be about 9 cm below the skin fold. The entry wound was above the wound in the throat. It's obvious when viewing the posterior view and the left lateral view of the body that the entry wound was above the wound in the throat. CTs who refuse to admit it will not place a mark on the left lateral view at the level of where the entry wound was because they are incapable of admitting that they are wrong.

One thing that has occurred to me recently that I should have figured out a long time ago is that the FPP, made up of some of the finest forensic medical examiners in the country, were working out of their element. Normally, these guys would be working with a corpse to determine the cause of death. In this case, they were working with two dimensional photos which in some cases would have made it difficult to get precise measurements. X-rays would have looked the same, but it would have been challenging working with photos as opposed to an actual body. This would have been especially difficult given the skull was shattered and needed to be pieced back together as best they could from the photos. They did concur with the original autopsy finding that JFK was struck twice, and only twice, by shots fired from above and behind him. That is the important issue in helping determine who fired the shots.

[Michael T. Griffith]

Here you go.

Yes, here you go proving once again that you are immune to facts and reason. I would note that you still have said nothing, absolutely nothing, about Dr. Baden's demonstration of the supposed magic bullet's alleged trajectory through the neck, and about his demonstration of how far forward JFK would have had to be leaning to make the trajectory align with a shot fired from the sixth-floor window.

Instead, you've launched into diversionary nonsense about the downward angle through Connally's chest, and in doing so you have, as usual, assumed as a given the myth that the bullet that supposedly exited JFK's throat was the bullet that hit Connally in the back.

Anyway, let's continue.

(Volume VII, Medical and Firearms Evidence, Addendum G — Baden’s 9/6/78 memorandum). This is the only place where the HSCA publishes the actual numeric angles:

“Positioning the Governor while erect in the anatomic posture shows the missile track to proceed from back to front, downward at approximately a 45° angle to the horizontal and slightly medially at approximately a 10° angle for a distance of 12½ inches through the body.” 
— HSCA Volume VII, Addendum G, Report of the Physical Examination of Governor John Connally, Memorandum by Michael I. Baden, M.D., 9/6/78

You're doubling down on absurdity. The HSCA FPP's report corrects this blunder. Let's read from the FPP's report -- again:

Dr. Baden's report comments on the angle of the trajectory:

Positioning the Governor while erect in the anatomic posture shows the missile track to proceed from back to front downwards at approximately a 10-degree angle for a distance of 12 1/2 inches through the body. (7 HSCA 150)

Again, have you looked at a diagram of Connally's torso wounds? There is no way the bullet's downward angle was 45 degrees. Did you flunk high-school geometry?

I notice you said nothing about the fact that the WC said the downward angle through Connally's torso was 25 degrees, not your impossible fantasy of 45 degrees. Let's read what the Warren Report says about this -- again:

When Governor Connally testified before the Commission 5 months after the assassination, on April 21, 1964, the Commission observed the Governor's chest wounds, as well as the injuries to his wrist and thigh and watched Dr. Shaw measure with a caliper an angle of declination of 25 degrees from the point of entry on the back to the point of exit on the front of the Governor's chest. (p. 93)

And why are you talking about Connally's wounds anyway?

See this is the problem.

No, the problem is that you refuse to process and explain contrary facts. You still have said nothing about the fact that in order to get the HSCA FPP's SBT trajectory to align with the sixth-floor window, you have to assume, as Dr. Baden demonstrated, that JFK was leaning far forward when the bullet hit, but no photo or footage shows JFK leaning that far forward during the timeframe of the alleged SBT strike.

You also keep ignoring the fact that the HSCA FPP destroyed the WC's erroneous assumption that the back wound was above the throat wound and that the supposed magic bullet traveled at a downward angle through the neck. 

You cannot explain Gov Connally's wounds if the bullet does not first pass through JFK. You know SBT?

LOL! This is the problem! Your answer to every fact that clearly refutes the SBT is to reject those facts because they refute the SBT! You judge fact by theory instead of judging theory by fact.

Now, as for your repetition of your bogus circular argument that there is no explanation for Connally's wounds without the SBT, I have refuted this nonsense several times in previous discussions with you, but you just keep repeating it.

So, I will note yet again that I and many other scholars have pointed out that a bullet fired from any number of other locations to the rear of the limo, such as a lower floor of the Dal-Tex Building or the County Records Building, could have missed JFK and hit Connally in the back.

If you are not going to locate this separate shooter you are claiming for JBC then what are you going on about?

First off, it's called logic and critical thinking. It is utter diversionary hokum to assume that the Connally back-wound bullet exited JFK's throat when numerous facts self-evidently refute this fantasy, such as

(1) the fact that no bullet fired from the sixth-floor window could have hit JFK's back and transited his neck at an upward angle (since JFK was never leaning far enough forward to make such a trajectory possible),

(2) the fact that JFK's back wound was far too low to have exited the throat (since the holes in the back of JFK's shirt and coat were 5 inches below the collar),

(3) the fact that no bullet exited JFK's throat (since there was no bullet hole through the tie and no nick on either edge of the tie knot, and since the throat wound was small and punched inward and the damage behind the throat wound was larger than the wound itself, all of which are textbook traits of an entry wound, not an exit wound),

and (4) the fact that JFK's back wound had no exit point (as we now know from the 11/26/63 FBI report on the autopsy, from the transcript of the WC's 1/27/64 executive session, and from numerous ARRB and related disclosures based on recorded interviews with autopsy witnesses).

Moreover, as mentioned, several plausible alternative shooting positions behind JFK have been discussed that could have fired a bullet that missed JFK and hit Connally in the back.
 

No bullet, no trajectory, no medical explanations, just your opinion is all that is presented here.

Objective people who read this thread and my other SBT threads are going to wonder how you can say this poppycock with a straight face.

Maybe your statement was a Freudian slip and you were actually talking about the SBT.

You have no bullet, since every single SBT wound-ballistics test has proved that no bullet could have emerged in CE 399's virtually pristine condition after doing all that damage, and since there were more fragments deposited in Connally's wrist and thigh than could have come from CE 399 (the thigh fragment alone, as shown on one of the x-rays, was 3.5 mm by 1.3 mm).

You have no trajectory, as demonstrated by the 2023 Knott Lab SBT trajectory analysis, the most sophisticated and data-intensive analysis ever done.

You have no medical explanations. Indeed, no bullet in the history of forensic science has done all the damage claimed by the SBT and emerged with less than 4 grains of its substance missing, with its lands and grooves intact, and with only a slight deformation at its base.

And perhaps this is a good time to mention the fact that the man who experienced the SBT's second set of wounds, Gov. Connally himself, adamantly rejected the SBT fantasy that he was hit before Z229.

Even the doctor you quote does not support this ridiculous claim.

Huh? Dr. Shaw and Dr. Wecht, the only doctors I've "quoted" in this thread, scoffed at the SBT as pure nonsense.

Are you talking about Dr. Baden?! Uh, he's the one who proved my "ridiculous claim," even though he adhered to the FPP's impossible SBT trajectory through the neck. You see, it sometimes happens that experts will inadvertently disprove a theory they are trying to defend by providing facts that refute the theory because they don't realize that the facts they're presenting actually discredit their theory. In logic, this is called "self-refutation" or the "fallacy of irrelevant reason" (or non sequitur).

Are you going to explain any of this nonsense or is it like the head wound and all your other posts?

You're the only one talking nonsense, and you haven't laid a finger on the facts I've presented about the head wound.

[Jack Nessan]

Yes, here you go proving once again that you are immune to facts and reason. I would note that you still have said nothing, absolutely nothing, about Dr. Baden's demonstration of the supposed magic bullet's alleged trajectory through the neck, and about his demonstration of how far forward JFK would have had to be leaning to make the trajectory align with a shot fired from the sixth-floor window.

Instead, you've launched into diversionary nonsense about the downward angle through Connally's chest, and in doing so you have, as usual, assumed as a given the myth that the bullet that supposedly exited JFK's throat was the bullet that hit Connally in the back.

Anyway, let's continue.

You're doubling down on absurdity. The HSCA FPP's report corrects this blunder. Let's read from the FPP's report -- again:

Dr. Baden's report comments on the angle of the trajectory:

Positioning the Governor while erect in the anatomic posture shows the missile track to proceed from back to front downwards at approximately a 10-degree angle for a distance of 12 1/2 inches through the body. (7 HSCA 150)

Again, have you looked at a diagram of Connally's torso wounds? There is no way the bullet's downward angle was 45 degrees. Did you flunk high-school geometry?

I notice you said nothing about the fact that the WC said the downward angle through Connally's torso was 25 degrees, not your impossible fantasy of 45 degrees. Let's read what the Warren Report says about this -- again:

When Governor Connally testified before the Commission 5 months after the assassination, on April 21, 1964, the Commission observed the Governor's chest wounds, as well as the injuries to his wrist and thigh and watched Dr. Shaw measure with a caliper an angle of declination of 25 degrees from the point of entry on the back to the point of exit on the front of the Governor's chest. (p. 93)

No, the problem is that you refuse to process and explain contrary facts. You still have said nothing about the fact that in order to get the HSCA FPP's SBT trajectory to align with the sixth-floor window, you have to assume, as Dr. Baden demonstrated, that JFK was leaning far forward when the bullet hit, but no photo or footage shows JFK leaning that far forward during the timeframe of the alleged SBT strike.

You also keep ignoring the fact that the HSCA FPP destroyed the WC's erroneous assumption that the back wound was above the throat wound and that the supposed magic bullet traveled at a downward angle through the neck. 

LOL! This is the problem! Your answer to every fact that clearly refutes the SBT is to reject those facts because they refute the SBT! You judge fact by theory instead of judging theory by fact.

Now, as for your repetition of your bogus circular argument that there is no explanation for Connally's wounds without the SBT, I have refuted this nonsense several times in previous discussions with you, but you just keep repeating it.

So, I will note yet again that I and many other scholars have pointed out that a bullet fired from any number of other locations to the rear of the limo, such as a lower floor of the Dal-Tex Building or the County Records Building, could have missed JFK and hit Connally in the back.

First off, it's called logic and critical thinking. It is utter diversionary hokum to assume that the Connally back-wound bullet exited JFK's throat when numerous facts self-evidently refute this fantasy, such as

(1) the fact that no bullet fired from the sixth-floor window could have hit JFK's back and transited his neck at an upward angle (since JFK was never leaning far enough forward to make such a trajectory possible),

(2) the fact that JFK's back wound was far too low to have exited the throat (since the holes in the back of JFK's shirt and coat were 5 inches below the collar),

(3) the fact that no bullet exited JFK's throat (since there was no bullet hole through the tie and no nick on either edge of the tie knot, and since the throat wound was small and punched inward and the damage behind the throat wound was larger than the wound itself, all of which are textbook traits of an entry wound, not an exit wound),

and (4) the fact that JFK's back wound had no exit point (as we now know from the 11/26/63 FBI report on the autopsy, from the transcript of the WC's 1/27/64 executive session, and from numerous ARRB and related disclosures based on recorded interviews with autopsy witnesses).

Moreover, as mentioned, several plausible alternative shooting positions behind JFK have been discussed that could have fired a bullet that missed JFK and hit Connally in the back.
 
Objective people who read this thread and my other SBT threads are going to wonder how you can say this poppycock with a straight face.

Maybe your statement was a Freudian slip and you were actually talking about the SBT.

You have no bullet, since every single SBT wound-ballistics test has proved that no bullet could have emerged in CE 399's virtually pristine condition after doing all that damage, and since there were more fragments deposited in Connally's wrist and thigh than could have come from CE 399 (the thigh fragment alone, as shown on one of the x-rays, was 3.5 mm by 1.3 mm).

You have no trajectory, as demonstrated by the 2023 Knott Lab SBT trajectory analysis, the most sophisticated and data-intensive analysis ever done.

You have no medical explanations. Indeed, no bullet in the history of forensic science has done all the damage claimed by the SBT and emerged with less than 4 grains of its substance missing, with its lands and grooves intact, and with only a slight deformation at its base.

And perhaps this is a good time to mention the fact that the man who experienced the SBT's second set of wounds, Gov. Connally himself, adamantly rejected the SBT fantasy that he was hit before Z229.

Huh? Dr. Shaw and Dr. Wecht, the only doctors I've "quoted" in this thread, scoffed at the SBT as pure nonsense.

Are you talking about Dr. Baden?! Uh, he's the one who proved my "ridiculous claim," even though he adhered to the FPP's impossible SBT trajectory through the neck. You see, it sometimes happens that experts will inadvertently disprove a theory they are trying to defend by providing facts that refute the theory because they don't realize that the facts they're presenting actually discredit their theory. In logic, this is called "self-refutation" or the "fallacy of irrelevant reason" (or non sequitur).

You're the only one talking nonsense, and you haven't laid a finger on the facts I've presented about the head wound.

Is that you whole show, making crap up. It seems to be the commonality of your theories.

This is the hard cold reality of a separate shot through JBC:

(Volume VII, Medical and Firearms Evidence, Addendum G — Baden’s 9/6/78 memorandum). This is the only place where the HSCA publishes the actual numeric angles:

“Positioning the Governor while erect in the anatomic posture shows the missile track to proceed from back to front, downward at approximately a 45° angle to the horizontal and slightly medially at approximately a 10° angle for a distance of 12½ inches through the body.”
— HSCA Volume VII, Addendum G, Report of the Physical Examination of Governor John Connally, Memorandum by Michael I. Baden, M.D., 9/6/78

This gives you a shooter positioned above the roofline of the TSBD and depending on the rotation of JBC father west. You cannot see the problem with that? A shooter sitting in the air.

Once again with Knotts Lab. Is there a third grader nearby who can help explain what the animation depicts. Even the dumbest of people can clearly see the problems.

----------------------------

You cannot figure this out?

10 degrees is the Medial angle through JBC not the 45 degree Horizontal angle of the bullet. You deliberately are deceitful about this? It was clearly spelled out in the HSCA document.

Dr Shaw never measures the angle of the bullet through JBC let alone on page 93.  That was completely made up.


25 Degrees was the average rotation of JBC's body while sitting in the car, nothing else.

Are all of your theories this desperate?  The only way that the trajectory of the bullet and the analysis of the medical wounds can be explained is if the bullet first passes through JFK. There are not any alternatives. SBT is the only answer possible. Like all of your theories, the rest of this ridiculous nonsense is pointless.

[Tim Nickerson]

One thing that has occurred to me recently that I should have figured out a long time ago is that the FPP, made up of some of the finest forensic medical examiners in the country, were working out of their element. Normally, these guys would be working with a corpse to determine the cause of death. In this case, they were working with two dimensional photos which in some cases would have made it difficult to get precise measurements. X-rays would have looked the same, but it would have been challenging working with photos as opposed to an actual body. This would have been especially difficult given the skull was shattered and needed to be pieced back together as best they could from the photos. They did concur with the original autopsy finding that JFK was struck twice, and only twice, by shots fired from above and behind him. That is the important issue in helping determine who fired the shots.

The HSCA panel of photographic analysis experts were split on what the Zapruder film shows. Two dimensional imagery. The belief of the several members of the HSCA FPP was based on interpretation of the abrasion margin of the wound. I recall that there are two different descriptions of the abrasion margins found in the HSCA volumes. I could be wrong though.

[John Corbett]

The HSCA panel of photographic analysis experts were split on what the Zapruder film shows. Two dimensional imagery. The belief of the several members of the HSCA FPP was based on interpretation of the abrasion margin of the wound. I recall that there are two different descriptions of the abrasion margins found in the HSCA volumes. I could be wrong though.

The Zapruder film is another example of the FPP operating outside their element. I wonder if any member of it had a film of a murder on which they rendered a professional judgement. It's not something they would have much if any experience. As film analysts, they were all amateurs.

[Zeon Mason]

The CT will suggest that CE 399 is questionable  due to Wrights description of the bullet being grey colored and pointed and the slight deformation of CE 399 improbable, and that the trajectory thru JFK to JC has not been proved by shooting experiment and that Myers computer model is flawed , therefore the SBT must be wrong.

So if not the SBT then where did all the bullets that were fired into JFK and JC  (preceding the Z313)go?

If the Doctors were not colluding, then none of them saw or removed any whole  intact bullets from JFKs back or throat or from any part of JCs body.

How do you explain no bullets found in JFKs upper torso and his neck if there is no exit for a frontal shot To the throat and no exit point for a bullet that hit JFK in his back?