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JFK Assassination Discussion & Debate / Re: William Bruce Pitzer: Not exactly a busted factoid
« Last post by Lance Payette on Yesterday at 04:10:19 PM »This is my ex-lawyer’s assessment of Dennis David’s credibility.
The knee-jerk LN response, of course, is that David had to be a flake; I tend to disagree. (Kent Heiner’s e-book that I linked deals with Bugliosi’s misinformed character assassination of David, based on VB’s inaccurate understanding of what David had actually claimed. Heiner pretty well nails VB to the wall at page 41.)
William Matson Law spent a great deal of time with David and clearly found him credible; he is the lead interview in the 2005 edition of Law’s book In the Eye of History. Allan Eaglesham, an editor by profession, apparently helped with the editing of Law’s book. I saw in the 2018 thread on this forum that I linked where Mitch Todd had said David went mysteriously silent when Eaglesham located a nurse at Bethesda who could have corroborated part of his story and that this caused at least a temporary rupture in their relationship; I couldn’t find anything about this, so perhaps Mitch can enlighten us. (Jerrol Custer, who placed Pitzer at the autopsy, had all sorts of personal problems and JFKA-related bitterness, and neither Eaglesham, Kent Heiner nor even David in his later years found him to be credible.)
1. David first came forward in 1974, after the Waukegan News-Sun had run an article about the JFKA. David found something in the article so inaccurate that he called to complain. The reporter asked what made David such an expert. “Because I was there,” David replied. This resulted in a follow-up article in 1975 with the theme of Pitzer perhaps being a JFKA mystery death. The article has numerous inaccuracies, some attributable to David and some to the reporter. You can read the article in its entirety at pages 37-38 of Heiner’s e-book that I linked.
The article twice referred to Pitzer as having filmed the autopsy, which David never claimed at any time. The reporter must have inferred this from something David said. The article does not specifically refer to the encounter in Pitzer’s office, saying only that David had seen slides indicating a shot from the front.
Regarding David’s credibility: He came forward only in a response to a small-time newspaper’s article that he believed contained gross inaccuracies. The reporter prompted him to tell his personal story. Very, very significantly, he insisted on anonymity. He made no exaggerated claims, and in fact what he told the reporter is the same as what he said the rest of his life.
2. David didn’t surface again until 1979, when David Lifton contacted him. Unfortunately, Penn Jones had seen the 1975 newspaper article and worked it into the 1976 edition of Forgive My Grief, expanding the story with absurd “details.” No one knows where (if anywhere) Jones got these “details,” which included Pitzer being subjected to a “horrifying” debriefing and repeatedly being warned by someone from the military to keep his mouth shut. Insofar as David is concerned, Jones simply quoted the newspaper article, did not identify David by name and clearly never interviewed David. Alas, Jones’ nonsense (and some further elaboration by Harrison Livingstone, including David claiming to actually have been at the autopsy) forever colored the supposed "Dennis David story.”
3. David Lifton somehow became aware of the newspaper article during the preparation of Best Evidence in 1979. He was intrigued by David’s low-key description of the arrival of the body. This is what David had said in the 1975 article: “We were scared to death. There had been rumors even then that a conspiracy was involved and no one was taking any chances. Kennedy’s body was brought in through a back door in an unmarked ambulance. An official motorcade from the airport contained only an empty casket.” This, of course, was a perfect fit for Lifton’s body-alteration theory. Oddly, Lifton really wasn’t interested in the Pitzer stuff, and there is question as to how much he and David discussed it, if at all.
Regarding David’s credibility: Lifton contacted him; he didn’t contact anyone. His story was remarkably low-key. He made no bombastic claims about having seen the body or being told anything remarkable. He didn’t even claim that he had been told JFK’s body was in the shipping casket. He said he was simply alerted “Your visitor has arrived” and assumed that meant JFK. Although he, after long association with Lifton and the body-alteration crowd, said he thought JFK’s body was in the shipping casket, he never claimed to know this. Indeed, I believe he was entirely truthful as to what he observed. For the reasons set forth in this thread started by me, I believe there was a black non-military hearse and a shipping casket: https://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index.php/topic,4435.0.html It just didn’t contain JFK’s body and had nothing to do with any alteration of his body. Far from casting doubt on David’s credibility, I believe his low-key, non-sensational account of this aspect of his story greatly enhances his credibility.
4. David’s story has three prongs: the shipping casket prong, the Pitzer prong, and this one, the "bullet fragments" prong. The night of the autopsy, an unnamed lieutenant asked him if he knew anyone with a security clearance who could type up a memo for an unnamed agent. David said he was cleared up to the level of Secret and could certainly type since that was his job. The three went to an office where the agent produced a small bottle with four bullet fragments and dictated the memo. After dictating the memo, he took it, all carbon copies, and the ribbon from the typewriter. He told David to forget he had been there and reminded him that this was all classified. He allowed David to pour the fragments into his hand; David said the four fragments were cumulatively too large for one bullet but too small for two.
Regarding David’s credibility: He told exactly this story in the 1975 newspaper article and never expanded it. Again, it was told in a low-key, anonymous way. However, David’s recollections were conveniently vague. He later said he couldn’t recall the name of the lieutenant. The newspaper article says the agent was Secret Service, but David later said he thought it was Sibert or O’Neill (which it clearly wasn’t) but possibly a Secret Service agent and certainly a government agent of some sort; he didn’t think he could identify the agent even if shown a photo. This is why I described David’s credibility as “difficult to assess.” This all sounds extremely iffy, but it’s also an odd little incident to have invented out of whole cloth and was never described in a sensationalistic way that magnified David’s role or importance.
5. Then, of course, there is the Pitzer encounter.
Regarding David’s credibility: Pitzer being at the autopsy would have greatly enhanced David’s tale, yet he never claimed this. To the contrary, he specifically said he didn’t recall Pitzer at all. When the highly dubious Jerrol Custer placed Pitzer there, David was at first relieved to have his story “confirmed” (in a way, since this would explain Pitzer having the film and photos) but came to doubt that Custer was reliable. David clearly was close to Pitzer, who acted as his mentor and with whom he played cards on numerous occasions. So this was a real relationship; David didn’t insert himself into an encounter that would have been highly unlikely, and we also have to wonder if he would have invented a tale about someone who had been so close and helpful to him. I think it’s also significant that, like everything else, the encounter was always described in a low-key, non-sensational way. David didn’t have Pitzer making any bombshell statements or revelations or even explaining what the hell he was doing.
All in all, I lean toward David having some level of credibility. Despite considerable involvement with the CT community that surely colored his perceptions, he never changed or expanded his basic story. Whether his story helps explain Pitzer’s suicide, we’ll never know. Perhaps the other autopsy-related events on and immediately before October 29, 1966 were pure coincidence – but if so, what was the reason for Pitzer’s mysterious suicide?
(Almost 1,400 words, my intellectually-challenged non-readers!
I know, I know, it’s way more fun and entertaining to read “The first shot occurred at Z195, you ignorant CT dumbass” followed by “No, it didn’t, it was Z228, you posturing LN putz” for 148 threads and 3,012 posts, but I guess as an ex-lawyer I just have an incurable addiction to wordy substance. I learned early in my legal career that when I filed a pithy appellate brief saying "The trial judge was so stupid he should be removed from the bench, and the appellant's 65-page opening brief is such a piece of crap the attorneys should be disbarred" - well, I generally didn't have much success in convincing the appellate panel.)
The knee-jerk LN response, of course, is that David had to be a flake; I tend to disagree. (Kent Heiner’s e-book that I linked deals with Bugliosi’s misinformed character assassination of David, based on VB’s inaccurate understanding of what David had actually claimed. Heiner pretty well nails VB to the wall at page 41.)
William Matson Law spent a great deal of time with David and clearly found him credible; he is the lead interview in the 2005 edition of Law’s book In the Eye of History. Allan Eaglesham, an editor by profession, apparently helped with the editing of Law’s book. I saw in the 2018 thread on this forum that I linked where Mitch Todd had said David went mysteriously silent when Eaglesham located a nurse at Bethesda who could have corroborated part of his story and that this caused at least a temporary rupture in their relationship; I couldn’t find anything about this, so perhaps Mitch can enlighten us. (Jerrol Custer, who placed Pitzer at the autopsy, had all sorts of personal problems and JFKA-related bitterness, and neither Eaglesham, Kent Heiner nor even David in his later years found him to be credible.)
1. David first came forward in 1974, after the Waukegan News-Sun had run an article about the JFKA. David found something in the article so inaccurate that he called to complain. The reporter asked what made David such an expert. “Because I was there,” David replied. This resulted in a follow-up article in 1975 with the theme of Pitzer perhaps being a JFKA mystery death. The article has numerous inaccuracies, some attributable to David and some to the reporter. You can read the article in its entirety at pages 37-38 of Heiner’s e-book that I linked.
The article twice referred to Pitzer as having filmed the autopsy, which David never claimed at any time. The reporter must have inferred this from something David said. The article does not specifically refer to the encounter in Pitzer’s office, saying only that David had seen slides indicating a shot from the front.
Regarding David’s credibility: He came forward only in a response to a small-time newspaper’s article that he believed contained gross inaccuracies. The reporter prompted him to tell his personal story. Very, very significantly, he insisted on anonymity. He made no exaggerated claims, and in fact what he told the reporter is the same as what he said the rest of his life.
2. David didn’t surface again until 1979, when David Lifton contacted him. Unfortunately, Penn Jones had seen the 1975 newspaper article and worked it into the 1976 edition of Forgive My Grief, expanding the story with absurd “details.” No one knows where (if anywhere) Jones got these “details,” which included Pitzer being subjected to a “horrifying” debriefing and repeatedly being warned by someone from the military to keep his mouth shut. Insofar as David is concerned, Jones simply quoted the newspaper article, did not identify David by name and clearly never interviewed David. Alas, Jones’ nonsense (and some further elaboration by Harrison Livingstone, including David claiming to actually have been at the autopsy) forever colored the supposed "Dennis David story.”
3. David Lifton somehow became aware of the newspaper article during the preparation of Best Evidence in 1979. He was intrigued by David’s low-key description of the arrival of the body. This is what David had said in the 1975 article: “We were scared to death. There had been rumors even then that a conspiracy was involved and no one was taking any chances. Kennedy’s body was brought in through a back door in an unmarked ambulance. An official motorcade from the airport contained only an empty casket.” This, of course, was a perfect fit for Lifton’s body-alteration theory. Oddly, Lifton really wasn’t interested in the Pitzer stuff, and there is question as to how much he and David discussed it, if at all.
Regarding David’s credibility: Lifton contacted him; he didn’t contact anyone. His story was remarkably low-key. He made no bombastic claims about having seen the body or being told anything remarkable. He didn’t even claim that he had been told JFK’s body was in the shipping casket. He said he was simply alerted “Your visitor has arrived” and assumed that meant JFK. Although he, after long association with Lifton and the body-alteration crowd, said he thought JFK’s body was in the shipping casket, he never claimed to know this. Indeed, I believe he was entirely truthful as to what he observed. For the reasons set forth in this thread started by me, I believe there was a black non-military hearse and a shipping casket: https://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index.php/topic,4435.0.html It just didn’t contain JFK’s body and had nothing to do with any alteration of his body. Far from casting doubt on David’s credibility, I believe his low-key, non-sensational account of this aspect of his story greatly enhances his credibility.
4. David’s story has three prongs: the shipping casket prong, the Pitzer prong, and this one, the "bullet fragments" prong. The night of the autopsy, an unnamed lieutenant asked him if he knew anyone with a security clearance who could type up a memo for an unnamed agent. David said he was cleared up to the level of Secret and could certainly type since that was his job. The three went to an office where the agent produced a small bottle with four bullet fragments and dictated the memo. After dictating the memo, he took it, all carbon copies, and the ribbon from the typewriter. He told David to forget he had been there and reminded him that this was all classified. He allowed David to pour the fragments into his hand; David said the four fragments were cumulatively too large for one bullet but too small for two.
Regarding David’s credibility: He told exactly this story in the 1975 newspaper article and never expanded it. Again, it was told in a low-key, anonymous way. However, David’s recollections were conveniently vague. He later said he couldn’t recall the name of the lieutenant. The newspaper article says the agent was Secret Service, but David later said he thought it was Sibert or O’Neill (which it clearly wasn’t) but possibly a Secret Service agent and certainly a government agent of some sort; he didn’t think he could identify the agent even if shown a photo. This is why I described David’s credibility as “difficult to assess.” This all sounds extremely iffy, but it’s also an odd little incident to have invented out of whole cloth and was never described in a sensationalistic way that magnified David’s role or importance.
5. Then, of course, there is the Pitzer encounter.
Regarding David’s credibility: Pitzer being at the autopsy would have greatly enhanced David’s tale, yet he never claimed this. To the contrary, he specifically said he didn’t recall Pitzer at all. When the highly dubious Jerrol Custer placed Pitzer there, David was at first relieved to have his story “confirmed” (in a way, since this would explain Pitzer having the film and photos) but came to doubt that Custer was reliable. David clearly was close to Pitzer, who acted as his mentor and with whom he played cards on numerous occasions. So this was a real relationship; David didn’t insert himself into an encounter that would have been highly unlikely, and we also have to wonder if he would have invented a tale about someone who had been so close and helpful to him. I think it’s also significant that, like everything else, the encounter was always described in a low-key, non-sensational way. David didn’t have Pitzer making any bombshell statements or revelations or even explaining what the hell he was doing.
All in all, I lean toward David having some level of credibility. Despite considerable involvement with the CT community that surely colored his perceptions, he never changed or expanded his basic story. Whether his story helps explain Pitzer’s suicide, we’ll never know. Perhaps the other autopsy-related events on and immediately before October 29, 1966 were pure coincidence – but if so, what was the reason for Pitzer’s mysterious suicide?
(Almost 1,400 words, my intellectually-challenged non-readers!
I know, I know, it’s way more fun and entertaining to read “The first shot occurred at Z195, you ignorant CT dumbass” followed by “No, it didn’t, it was Z228, you posturing LN putz” for 148 threads and 3,012 posts, but I guess as an ex-lawyer I just have an incurable addiction to wordy substance. I learned early in my legal career that when I filed a pithy appellate brief saying "The trial judge was so stupid he should be removed from the bench, and the appellant's 65-page opening brief is such a piece of crap the attorneys should be disbarred" - well, I generally didn't have much success in convincing the appellate panel.)
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