JFK Assassination Forum

What's especially interesting is that Rather was not the only one who saw the original film and who said it showed Kennedy being knocked forward, as I discuss in my article "Evidence of Alteration in the Zapruder Film."

Former FBI official and J. Edgar Hoover aide Cartha DeLoach recalled in his book Hoover's FBI that he watched the Zapruder film at FBI HQ the day after the shooting and that he saw Kennedy "pitching suddenly forward" in the film. Obviously, no such motion appears in the extant film.

Special Agent George Hickey, riding in the follow-up car, said the final shot made Kennedy "fall forward and to his left."

William Newman, who was standing on the Elm Street sidewalk right in front of the grassy knoll and who had one of the best views of the shooting, tried to tell New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison that JFK was knocked forward as if struck by a baseball bat, but Garrison would not believe him because the event was not in the film.

   Yeah, they swear by images and then disregard eyewitness testimony that conflicts with those same images. Personally, I am always astounded at the Missing Images that nobody asks about. Where are there any image(s) of SA Lem Johns jumping out of the LBJ SS Car and then running down Elm St. toward the JFK Limo? Where are there any image(s) of DPD Motorcycle Officer Hargis running across Elm St and then running up to "that wall", "little brick wall"? Those images are missing and nobody questions why we have this Gaping Black Hole. Interestingly, Officer Hargis's "little brick wall" is also where Gordon Arnold claimed he got kicked around by the "No Hat Cop". Images of Gordon Arnold are also nowhere to be found.

Rather was asked about his, let's be charitable, inaccurate description of what the film showed and said this (this is from Alexandra Zapruder's book on the film):

 
  Once inna great while I take a peep at the posts over there. Nothing outta the box. Nothing new. Extremely stuffy too. Makes me feel like I am walking through Khazad-Dum. ("Lord Of The Rings"). Lotta dead stuff.

Greg Doudna, one of the most careful and credible researchers around, posts there, and the stuff he posts is solid and sometimes actually very important. I wish he would post here too. He's done tremendous research on the Tippit shooting and has found evidence that points away from Oswald. He's posted links and summaries of this research in the forum.

  This is what they always do. When jammed up with conflicting JFK Assassination images, they claim there is a "perspective" issue. And then they accuse You of being Mr Magoo. Same old, same old.

Bumping this thread again because these two issues--the back-of-head fragments and the drastic conflict between the autopsy skull x-rays and the autopsy report--are a very big deal.

No FMJ bullet in the history of forensic science has deposited a single fragment on the outer table of the skull when entering the skull, much less two or more. OD measurements confirm there are two metal fragments (and several tiny metallic particles) on the outer table of the skull in the autopsy x-rays. Those fragments could only be ricochet fragments from the bullet that numerous witnesses saw strike the pavement behind the limousine.

As for the stark contradiction between the skull x-rays and the autopsy report, here is the crux of the problem:

-- The EOP-to-right-eye fragment trail described in the autopsy report is nowhere to be seen on the extant skull x-rays, and the high fragment trail seen on the x-rays is not mentioned in the autopsy report.

-- The high fragment trail seen on the skull x-rays is over 4 inches above the starting point of the autopsy report's low fragment trail, and the two trails have different angles in relation to the skull. Incredibly, the autopsy report says nothing about the high fragment trail, and no one can seriously believe that Humes, Boswell, Finck, and Ebersole mistook the high fragment trail for an EOP-to-right-eye fragment trail.

There are really only three possibilities:

1. The autopsy doctors committed the unfathomable, astounding blunder of confusing the high fragment trail for a fragment trail that started near the EOP and ranged upward to a point just above the right eye.

2. The autopsy doctors fabricated the low fragment trail. IOW, the low fragment trail never existed. The autopsy doctors fabricated it in order to explain the EOP entry wound.

3. The low fragment trail did exist but was made to disappear because it was a clearly separate trail from the high fragment trail, thus proving that two bullets hit JFK's head.

The only innocent explanation is #1, but it is so unbelievable as to be unthinkable and untenable. The high fragment trail is at least 2 inches above the starting point of the low fragment trail described in the autopsy report, and its angle the exact opposite of the angle described in the autopsy report.

The argument that some autopsy x-rays were destroyed, though valid, does not explain why the low fragment trail does not appear in any of the extant autopsy x-rays. We have two lateral views and an AP view, and none of them show a fragment trail anywhere near the location of the fragment trail described in the autopsy report.

Furthermore, the autopsy doctors were allowed to review the autopsy x-rays and photos in 1966 for five hours and wrote a report about their review in early 1967, and in that report they said the autopsy materials verified the autopsy report:

<<< The photographs and x-rays corroborate our visual observations during the autopsy and conclusively support our medical opinion as set forth in the summary of our autopsy report. (https://jfklancer.maryferrell.org/HumesBos.html) >>>

So, either (1) the x-rays that Humes-Boswell-Finck examined in 1966 showed the low fragment trail and not the high fragment trail, or (2) the x-rays they examined showed only the high fragment trail and the doctors lied about the trail's location in their report, or (3) the x-rays showed both the low fragment trail and the high fragment trail and the doctors failed to notice the high fragment trail, or (4) the x-rays showed both fragment trails and the doctors purposely failed to mention the high fragment trail in their report.

Moreover, the autopsy doctors' 1966 review of the autopsy materials makes the stark conflict between the x-rays and the autopsy report even more disturbing and problematic. Yes, "people make mistakes," but doctors don't make those kinds of staggering, astonishing, mind-boggling mistakes. They don't spend hours looking at autopsy x-rays and "miss" two clearly separate fragment trails that are at least 2 inches apart and have different angles, nor do they "miss" either of those trails but notice the other one, nor do they "mistake" a fragment trail near the top of the head with a back-high-front-low trajectory for a fragment trail that is at least 2 inches lower and that has a back-low-front-high trajectory. No way.