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Author Topic: LNers Can't Explain the 6.5 mm Object on the JFK AP Skull X-Ray  (Read 3433 times)

Offline Jerry Organ

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Re: LNers Can't Explain the 6.5 mm Object on the JFK AP Skull X-Ray
« Reply #8 on: December 11, 2022, 11:26:20 PM »
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This quote perfectly describes people like you who still insist on believing the lone-gunman myth. When you're confronted with facts that refute your myth, you accuse anyone who doesn't agree with you of being paranoid. Rather than use the same common sense and logical analysis that any good police detective uses to solve a crime, you lamely and dogmatically insist that the veritable mountain of evidence that points to conspiracy is all just and mole hill of thousands of innocent amazing coincidences.

Surely you're not comparing what you do with good police work? LOL! You dispute every bit of the "first day evidence" and 48-hour-evidence found by the Dallas Police Department and the FBI.

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Let's just keep in mind that the last formal U.S. Government investigation into JFK's death, the House Select Committee on Assassinations, concluded that there were two gunmen, that four shots were fired,

The HSCA thought the Soviets, the Cuban government, anti-Castro Cuban groups, organized crime, the Secret Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Central Intelligence Agency were not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy. They hinted, without being specific ("the Committee is unable to identify the other gunman or the extent of the conspiracy"), that there was a "probable conspiracy" involving individuals of organized crime and anti-Castro Cuban groups. A majority of members added the "probable conspiracy" to the Final Report only after the last-minute "95% probability" acoustics testimony on Dec. 29, 1978. The HSCA Final Report's" December 13th draft read: "There is insufficient evidence to find that there was a conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy."

The Committee concluded Lee Harvey Oswald fired three shots at Kennedy, including the only bullets that struck the President. They concluded Oswald owned the assassination rifle, that he was present on the sixth floor and that his "other actions tend to support the conclusion that he killed President Kennedy". The "second gunman" finding (not accept by all of the Committee's members) was largely based on acoustical analysis (a science then in its early stages). The HSCA acoustics findings were overturned in 1982 by the National Research Council ( Link; see also: "Synchronization of the Acoustic Evidence in the Assassination of President Kennedy" 2005 Link ) and Dale K. Myers ( "Epipolar Geometric Analysis" Link, Link ). In science, a theory can be challenged by subsequent analysis.

The Justice Department in 1988 reviewed the HSCA findings, finding "reliable acoustic data do not support a conclusion that there was a second gunman" and "that no persuasive evidence can be identified to support the theory of a conspiracy in … the assassination of President Kennedy".

    "The acoustic evidence that was the sole objective,
     scientific support for the existence of a conspiracy
     in the HSCA investigation was debunked."
         -- Larry Sturdivan, 2005

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that Jack Ruby lied about how he entered the DPD HQ basement, that the "Oswald" who called the Soviet Consulate in Mexico City spoke in "terrible" and "hardly recognizable Russian" but that the real Oswald "spoke fluent Russian,"

The opposite is true. Oswald didn't speak fluent Russian.

    "Lessons took place in a second-floor room after work ...
     Shushkevich just worked on verbs, and occasionally tried
     to teach this American colloquial Russian....Their lessons
     proceeded without great enthusiasm, and Oswald found
     Russian difficult. He did get to a point where he could achieve
     understanding if Shushkevich spoke slowly, used gestures,
     wrote words on pieces of paper, and sometimes brought
     out a dictionary."
          -- Stanislav Shushkevich,
              engineer at the Minsk Factory
              (Norman Mailer, "Oswald’s Tale" 1995)

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that the autopsy photos do not match the camera-lens combination that was used for the autopsy (this finding was suppressed but was discovered by the ARRB among the sealed HSCA materials),

You mean where Blakey wrote to the Secretary of Defense: "Our photographic experts have determined that this camera, or at least the particular lens and shutter attached to it, could not have been used to take JFK's autopsy pictures."? That simply means that if the Graphic View camera provided by the DoD was the 1963 one, then the lens was different. Or there was a additional or different camera used in 1963 that the DoD was not aware of. This does nothing to undermine how the HSCA determined authenticity of the autopsy photographs.

The HSCA authenticated the Backyard Photographs using, in part, the actual camera that took the photos. Most critics didn't accept that either.

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that the eyewitness accounts of seeing puffs of smoke above the firing point identified on the grassy knoll are credible,

The HSCA (or rather, those on the Committee who bought into it) based the "credibility" on the strength of the acoustics analysis:

    "While recognizing that the Commission was correct in
     acknowledging the difficulty of accurate witness perception,
     the committee obtained independent acoustical evidence
     to support it. Consequently, it was in a position where it
     had to regard the witness testimony in a different light."

Among the witnesses the HSCA felt lent strength to the acoustics-knoll-gunman was William Eugene Newman.

    "Then we fell down on the grass as it seemed that we were
     in direct path of fire . . . I thought the shots had come from
     the garden directly behind me, that was on an elevation from
     where I was as I was right on the curb. I do not recall looking
     toward the Texas School Book Depository. I looked back in
     the vicinity of the garden."

In the 1984 TV production "On Trial: Lee Harvey Oswald," William Newman was asked about the "garden directly behind me" in his affidavit. Newman specified a bit of landscaped area that was between the Depository and Newman's position on November 22.



Notice how Mrs. Newman
is shielding her child from
the direction of the
Depository
 

No garden towards the knoll
 

Portion of landscaped area (camera-right) between Newmans and Depository

Words which the deceitful "JFK" movie put into Newman's mouth: "The bullets were coming over our heads -- from that fence back on the knoll."

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that the FBI and the CIA misled and withheld information from the Warren Commission, that military intelligence destroyed information about Oswald that should not have been destroyed,

    "the conclusions of the investigations were arrived at in good
     faith, but presented in a fashion that was too definitive"

    "What can be said in criticism of the Bureau must be placed in
     the context of the superior performance of the vast majority
     of the agents who worked long hours on the investigation ...
     Its investigation into the complicity of Lee Harvey Oswald prior
     to and after the assassination was thorough and professional."

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that Sylvia Odio's story is credible,

The Committee said they were "inclined" to believe Odio. Vincent Bugliosi and Jean Davison, for example, think the incident took place. So, a few weeks after Castro complained of CIA assassination attempts and two months before the JFK assassination, a "Leon Oswald" was with a group saying Kennedy should have been assassinated for the Bay of Pigs. Oswald would be their "hit man".

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and that the committee "established an association of an undetermined nature between Ferrie, Shaw, and Oswald less than 3 months before the assassination."

LNers have long acknowledged the Oswald connection to 544 Camp Street. But what Oswald-Shaw connection did the HSCA publish?



The CAP picnic photo was accepted by LNers. They didn't go around saying it was faked.

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And you people still refuse to come to grips with the hard scientific evidence that the autopsy skull x-rays have been altered. Your abject refusal to deal credibly with this evidence is on full display in the thread "Clear Evidence of Alteration in the JFK Autopsy Skull X-Rays."

No problem with "hard scientific evidence". Problem with non-peer-reviewed Mantik's "hard scientific evidence". You likewise push forward hardened over-dramatized conclusions rather than focus on a single element and "drill down". We've drilled-down on your claims many times here (ie: the Brehm boy in the Zfilm) and, rather than concede you were proven wrong, you posted more deflections in the form of cut-n-paste "conclusions".

Some of what Mantik believes:
  • The Zapruder film is faked ("Special Effects in the Zapruder Film: How the Film of the Century was Edited" 1998)
  • Witnesses say Kennedy was struck in the head by two separate shots
  • The limousine is stopped in the Moorman Photo
  • The autopsy x-rays taken at Bethesda is equal in quality and exposure level to modern x-rays
« Last Edit: December 12, 2022, 07:10:13 AM by Jerry Organ »

JFK Assassination Forum

Re: LNers Can't Explain the 6.5 mm Object on the JFK AP Skull X-Ray
« Reply #8 on: December 11, 2022, 11:26:20 PM »


Online Charles Collins

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Re: LNers Can't Explain the 6.5 mm Object on the JFK AP Skull X-Ray
« Reply #9 on: December 12, 2022, 12:32:29 AM »
But you didn't even address the OD measurements in your "explanation." What kind of "explanation" is that? Organ initially compared the known, established science of OD measurement to "seer stones." But, after I documented that OD measurement is a recognized science, he back-peddled and said he wasn't questioning the science, just Mantik's use of it. Okay, Mantik's measurements have been published for years now, yet no scientist has challenged their validity, and the only scientist who did his own OD measurements found that his measurements mirrored Mantik's.

Grasping for anything, WC apologists cite the fact that Dr. Fitzpatrick, the ARRB forensic radiologist, told Doug Horne that he disagreed with Dr. Mantik's research on the autopsy x-rays. Yet, Fitzpatrick failed to offer any explanation for the OD measurements, for the 6.5 mm object, for the white patch, and for the presence of emulsion under the T-shaped inscription on the left lateral x-ray, which is a physical impossibility unless this x-ray is a copy. When Dr. Mantik attempted to engage Fitzpatrick in a discussion on these matters, he declined.

Simply claiming that the 6.5 mm object is an innocent artifact does not explain the object. That is not an "explanation." That is merely a claim. HOW could an object that is perfectly round in 3/4 of its shape be formed on the AP skull x-ray during a presidential autopsy? HOW? Beyond this basic question, there is the glaring issue of the object's size and placement: it is perfectly positioned over the image of a smaller, genuine fragment, and it is exactly 6.5 mm in size, the precise diameter of the ammo that Oswald allegedly used. The least implausible of Sturdivan's three theories--that a stray metal disk somehow ended up on the table just before the AP x-ray was taken--is not only unprecedented (no one has yet identified another case where such a far-fetched scenario occurred), but it requires one to believe that the radiologist or his assistant spotted the disk before they took the lateral x-rays were taken but did not retake the AP x-ray after spotting the disk, a preposterous idea.

The conspiratorial explanation is a credible, scientifically supported explanation because it not only identifies the 6.5 mm object as an artifact that was created intentionally over the image of a smaller, genuine fragment, but it includes a proven method by which the object could have been placed there; it explains the OD measurements; and it provides a logical explanation for why the autopsy doctors failed to mention the object in their report and in their repeated testimonies. THAT is an explanation.



But you didn't even address the OD measurements in your "explanation.


There is no reason to address Mantik’s work. The answer was explained to you in an earlier post. Here is a repeat. I have underlined some of this for emphasis.


In 1997, the ARRB discovered during its deposition of Jerrol Custer, a Bethesda Hospital X-ray technician who was on duty that night, that Dr. Ebersole had indeed seen Mantik’s alleged “6-millimeter object” during the autopsy - a “half circle that appears to be the lightest part of the film […] in the right orbital superior” - after Custer pointed it out to him as a possible bullet fragment. This suggests that the “6.5-millimeter object” already appeared on the X-ray before the body was dissected and was not added later, as Mantik suggests.76 Ebersole dismissed it offhand, telling Custer it was an artifact.77 If Custer is right, Ebersole would presumably have said the same thing to the pathologists if they inquired, which explains why no mention of it was made in the autopsy report and why it was easily forgotten until the HSCA’s Forensic Pathology Panel questioned them about it 15-years later. Like the “white spot” at the back of JFK’s head, the “6.5-millimeter object” is little more than a distraction caused by circular logic. What is missing here is not just a motive, but also the signature hypercompetence of the JFK buffs’ all-powerful enemy. Instead, Mantik offers us a one-time ad hoc explanation to suggest that, rather than being devilishly cunning, the men who killed Kennedy were in fact wildly incompetent.78 We can therefore safely conclude that the “object” on the X-ray is just what many experts said it was, an artifact, and that Mantik is seeing monsters in his bedroom closet.

An aside that I think demonstrates what I think about Mantik’s work:

True story:

In the mid seventies, a professor at a highly acclaimed and prestigious major engineering university, at the beginning of each new quarter, provided “mathematical proof” to the new students, using the Big Bang theory of the creation of the universe, that the exact center of the universe (where everything in existence began) was located at a specific location (which “just happened” to be a monument in the downtown area of the professor’s small home town. In all his years of teaching, no one ever disproved the professor’s theory. The professor used this demonstration to show that mathematics can be used to “prove” a lot of things.


I think of Mantik’s work with the same skepticism that I would think of the professor’s “proof” of the location of the center of the universe.

Michel Gagne has given a reasonable explanation that makes sense to me. I don’t expect that you will ever even entertain the thought that he could be correct. If you really want to find some answers to your unending questions, try considering that the standard historical model (aka: WC Report) could possibly be correct. And begin your research anew with an open mind to this possibility. You just might be surprised…
« Last Edit: December 12, 2022, 12:40:20 AM by Charles Collins »

Offline Michael T. Griffith

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Re: LNers Can't Explain the 6.5 mm Object on the JFK AP Skull X-Ray
« Reply #10 on: December 12, 2022, 05:12:01 PM »
I went back and checked Custer's 10/28/97 ARRB interview. It is not clear that Custer was referring to the 6.5 mm object when he discussed Ebersole's reference to an artifact. Custer's actual words suggest that he called Ebersole's attention to an "area" that contained fragments, i.e., the right frontal region, and that when he said that Ebersole "called it an artifact," the "it" was the area, not an individual fragment.

Importantly, Custer said the area was behind the superior right orbital ridge (i.e., just above the right socket), which is right next to the cloud of fragments. However, the extant AP skull x-ray shows the 6.5 mm object to be on the back of the skull, on the rear outer table. Custer was an experienced x-ray technician, and it seems unlikely that he would have mistaken an object behind the right orbital ridge for an object on the rear outer table of the skull.

Plus, Custer's comments later in the interview suggest that Custer was using the term "fragment" to refer to the cloud of fragments in the right frontal part of the skull, near the top of the skull; this cloud of fragments is the collection of metal flecks that constitutes most of the high fragment trail on the extant skull x-rays.

As many people sometimes do, Custer may have intermittently used a singular noun, in this case "fragment," as a collective noun to describe a collection of the same kinds of objects, in this case the cloud of tiny fragments in the right frontal region. If Ebersole identified the right-frontal cloud of fragments as an artifact, this would explain why the autopsy report says nothing about the high fragment trail, and why the autopsy doctors never mentioned the high fragment trail in their WC testimony, even though the high fragment trail, with its huge cloud of fragments in the right frontal region, is impossible to miss.

Later in the interview, Custer appears to return to Ebersole's artifact conclusion and seems to challenge it by stating his opinion that it was unlikely that the numerous metal flecks in the right frontal region were an artifact. The interviewer adds context by asking Custer what is holding those fragments if there's no brain in that area on the x-rays:

Quote
Q: Are you able to identify any metal fragments in the head?

A: Sure.

Q: And you're pointing toward the flecks?

A: Towards the black area. Towards the top of the skull. Here. That's the only way that can be, this fragment. There's no way an artifact will show up like that.

Q: Now, what is supporting those metal fragments, if there is no brain in the cranium? Where are they resting?

A: They have to be resting on the bone itelf somewhere. That's the only thing I can possibly think of, unless there's enough tissue there in that region to hold them. (p. 133)

Quote
Q: Let me draw your attention to what appear to be some flecks in what I would say is above the right eye socket.

A: Mm-hmm.

Q: -- and going towards the back. Are you able to identify whether those flecks arc artifacts or metal fragments?

A: They are metal fragments. Artifacts do not come in an irregular form like this. Not in that - in that traveling projection like that. It just doesn’t. Not that many in that one area. (p. 135)

With these statements in mind, let's go back and read Custer's comment about Ebersole's artifact conclusion in its full context:

Quote
Q: Can you identify in the X-ray any brain shadow?

A: No.There’s no brain shadow that I can see. Maybe portions - very small. But this is all empty. Anything -

Q: Do you know where the bullet fragment was located on the body?

A: Right orbital ridge, superior.

Q: How do you know it was in the right orbital ridge, rather than at the back of the skull?

A: Because of the protruding eyeball.

Q: Did you see the fragment removed?

A: No, I did not. Can I inject something here? This area, I pointed out to Dr. Ebersole as a fragment. And he called it an artifact. I said, "How about these fragments up here?" This is when he told me to mind my own business. (p. 115)

One can easily read "this area . . . a fragment" and "these fragments up here" as referring to the same thing: the cloud of metal flecks in the right frontal region near the top of the skull.

When Custer was specifically asked about the location of the "semi-circular" large "metal fragment," he said he could not identify its location on the x-ray he was being shown (p. 133). This suggests that he may not have been referring to this object when he mentioned Ebersole's artifact conclusion, since he was clear that that the area he pointed out to Ebersole was behind the right orbital ridge.

As mentioned, if this interpretation is correct, it clears up a number of issues. It explains why the autopsy report says nothing about the high fragment trail. It explains why the autopsy doctors said nothing about the high fragment trail in their WC testimony. If Ebersole told them that the right-frontal cloud of fragments was an artifact, their failure to say anything about it makes sense.

Humes mentioned that he saw 30-40 tiny fragments on the skull x-rays, but he said those fragments ran from the EOP to a point just above the right eye, several inches lower than the cloud of fragments on the extant x-rays. Finck reported, in writing, to General Blumberg that he saw the same low fragment trail. However, no such fragment trail appears on the extant x-rays.

I should add that Dr. Mantik and Custer met several times to discuss the autopsy and the autopsy x-rays, and during all those discussions, never once did Custer claim that Ebersole identified the 6.5 mm object as an artifact during the autopsy.

Finally, allow me to address Jerry Organ's erroneous claim that Oswald did not speak Russian well. Organ is making this bogus claim because the "Oswald" who called the Soviet Consulate in Mexico City spoke "terrible" Russian, "hardly recognizable" Russian.

Mrs. Natalie Ray, a native of Stalingrad, Russia, met Oswald after his return from the Soviet Union. She told the WC that Oswald's conversational Russian was "just perfect." She complimented Oswald while speaking in her own broken English: "I said, 'How come you speak so good Russian? I been here so long and still don't speak very well English." When WC attorney Liebeler ask her, "You thought he spoke Russian better than you would expect a person to be able to speak Russian after only living...there only 3 years?", she replied, "Yes; I really did."

George de Mohrenschildt, another native Russian speaker, praised Oswald's skills in the Russian language. He told the WC that Oswald "had remarkable fluency in Russian.... he preferred to speak Russian than English any time. He always would switch from English to Russian."

Peter Gregory, a native of Chita, Siberia, told the WC that "I thought that Lee Oswald spoke [Russian] with a Polish accent, that is why I asked him if he was of Polish descent. . . . It would be rather unusual . . . for a person who lived in the Soviet Union for 17 months that he would speak so well that a native Russian would not be sure whether he was born in that country or not."

Gregory's son, Peter Paul Gregory, was a graduate student in Russian language and literature at the University of Oklahoma in the early 1960s. He conversed with Oswald and later told the WC that Oswald "was completely fluent. He understood more than I did and he could express any idea . . . that he wanted to in Russian."

Other witnesses spoke of Oswald's good command of Russian, including George Bouhe, Mrs. Teofil Meller, Elena Hall, and Mrs. Dymitruk.

So the "Oswald" who called the Soviet Consulate in MC clearly was not the real Oswald.
« Last Edit: December 12, 2022, 05:42:25 PM by Michael T. Griffith »

JFK Assassination Forum

Re: LNers Can't Explain the 6.5 mm Object on the JFK AP Skull X-Ray
« Reply #10 on: December 12, 2022, 05:12:01 PM »


Online Charles Collins

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Re: LNers Can't Explain the 6.5 mm Object on the JFK AP Skull X-Ray
« Reply #11 on: December 12, 2022, 05:48:38 PM »
I went back and checked Custer's 10/28/97 ARRB interview. It is not clear that Custer was referring to the 6.5 mm object when he discussed Ebersole's reference to an artifact. Custer's actual words suggest that he called Ebersole's attention to an "area" that contained fragments, i.e., the right frontal region, and that when he said that Ebersole "called it an artifact," the "it" was the area, not an individual fragment.

Importantly, Custer said the area was behind the superior right orbital ridge (i.e., just above the right socket), which is right next to the cloud of fragments. However, the extant AP skull x-ray shows the 6.5 mm object to be on the back of the skull, on the rear outer table. Custer was an experienced x-ray technician, and it seems unlikely that he would have mistaken an object behind the right orbital ridge for an object on the rear outer table of the skull.

Plus, Custer's comments later in the interview suggest that Custer was using the term "fragment" to refer to the cloud of fragments in the right frontal part of the skull, near the top of the skull; this cloud of fragments is the collection of metal flecks that constitutes most of the high fragment trail on the extant skull x-rays.

As many people sometimes do, Custer may have intermittently used a singular noun, in this case "fragment," as a collective noun to describe a collection of the same kinds of objects, in this case the cloud of tiny fragments in the right frontal region. If Ebersole identified the right-frontal cloud of fragments as an artifact, this would explain why the autopsy report says nothing about the high fragment trail, and why the autopsy doctors never mentioned the high fragment trail in their WC testimony, even though the high fragment trail, with its huge cloud of fragments in the right frontal region, is impossible to miss.

Later in the interview, Custer appears to return to Ebersole's artifact conclusion and seems to challenge it by stating his opinion that it was unlikely that the numerous metal flecks in the right frontal region were an artifact. The interviewer adds context by asking Custer what is holding those fragments if there's no brain in that area on the x-rays:

With these statements in mind, let's go back and read Custer's comment about Ebersole's artifact conclusion in its full context:

One can easily read "this area . . . a fragment" and "these fragments up here" as referring to the same thing: the cloud of metal flecks in the right frontal region near the top of the skull.

When Custer was specifically asked about the location of the "semi-circular" large "metal fragment," he said he could not identify its location on the x-ray he was being shown (p. 133). This suggests that he may not have been referring to this object when he mentioned Ebersole's artifact conclusion, since he was clear that that the area he pointed out to Ebersole was behind the right orbital ridge.

As mentioned, if this interpretation is correct, it clears up a number of issues. It explains why the autopsy report says nothing about the high fragment trail. It explains why the autopsy doctors said nothing about the high fragment trail in their WC testimony. If Ebersole told them that the right-frontal cloud of fragments was an artifact, their failure to say anything about it makes sense.

Humes mentioned that he saw 30-40 tiny fragments on the skull x-rays, but he said those fragments ran from the EOP to a point just above the right eye, several inches lower than the cloud of fragments on the extant x-rays. Finck reported, in writing, to General Blumberg that he saw the same low fragment trail. However, no such fragment trail appears on the extant x-rays.

I should add that Dr. Mantik and Custer met several times to discuss the autopsy and the autopsy x-rays, and during all those discussions, never once did Custer claim that Ebersole identified the 6.5 mm object as an artifact during the autopsy.


Has if occurred to you that Custer didn’t look at the X-ray and say that the “6.5-millimeter object” wasn’t there during the autopsy?

Again, the title of your thread is blatantly wrong.  There is no need for anyone to try to put words into Custer’s mouth if we believe that the artifact was indeed on the X-ray during the autopsy.l

Online Steve M. Galbraith

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Re: LNers Can't Explain the 6.5 mm Object on the JFK AP Skull X-Ray
« Reply #12 on: December 12, 2022, 09:32:50 PM »
One of the three KGB agents/Soviet Embassy officials who say they met Oswald in Mexico City, Oleg Nechiporenko, explained in his book "Passport to Assassination" that Oswald "switched [from speaking English] over to broken Russian, in which the rest of the conversation was conducted, except in a few instances when Oswald experienced difficulty in expressing certain thoughts in Russian and inserted English words."

And: "Our meeting had been conducted primarily in Russian but Oswald, possibly from the strain of being overly excited, often experienced difficulties in finding the proper Russian word and would switch to English. His pronunciation was bad, and he really mangled the grammar....."

It seems that Oswald, for whatever reason, was having problems speaking Russian while in Mexico City. Thus the explanation for the "broken Russian" that the CIA translator Tarasoff heard. And all three men were emphatic in saying the man they met was Oswald not an impostor.

JFK Assassination Forum

Re: LNers Can't Explain the 6.5 mm Object on the JFK AP Skull X-Ray
« Reply #12 on: December 12, 2022, 09:32:50 PM »


Offline Michael T. Griffith

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Re: LNers Can't Explain the 6.5 mm Object on the JFK AP Skull X-Ray
« Reply #13 on: December 12, 2022, 10:51:27 PM »
But you didn't even address the OD measurements in your "explanation."

There is no reason to address Mantik’s work. The answer was explained to you in an earlier post. Here is a repeat. I have underlined some of this for emphasis. [RIDICULOUS "ANSWER" SNIPPED]

And I already proved that that "answer" makes no sense and raises even more questions than Sturdivan's acid-drop and stray-metal-disk theories, questions that you ducked by complaining that they were "unanswerable."

Furthermore, this supposed "answer" does not even mention Dr. Mantik's and Dr. Chesser's mutually corroborating sets of dozens of OD measurements. You guys are so blinded by your lone-gunman dogma that you can't see the forest for the trees. You constantly paste haughty, pretentious "answers" that are riddled with errors and comical illogic.

Let's look at another gem of silliness and error in Gagne's pseudo-academic answer:

Quote
We can therefore safely conclude that the “object” on the X-ray is just what many experts said it was, an artifact, and that Mantik is seeing monsters in his bedroom closet.

What?! For your and Gagne's information, until Larry Sturdivan came out with his 2005 book, not a single lone-gunman theorist claimed that the 6.5 mm object was an artifact but adamantly declared that it was a bullet fragment. I recall many debates with WC apologists in online forums, before Sturdivan's book was published, where lone-gunman theorists insisted over and over again that "of course" the object was a bullet fragment because, gee, all the experts on the Clark Panel, on the Rockefeller Commission's medical panel, and on the HSCA's medical panel said it was.

But after Sturdivan, to his great credit, explained why it was a physical impossibility for the 6.5 mm object to be a bullet fragment (using the same argument that skeptics had been making for years, by the way), WC apologists slowly began to adopt his position. WC critics have long argued that the object had to be an artifact, and now, because of Sturdivan, LNers agree. The only difference is that we say the artifact was added to the AP x-ray after the autopsy, whereas you say that somehow, some way, by a means you can't explain, the artifact was accidentally, and thus innocently, added to the AP x-ray.

No one is putting words in Custer's mouth. His own words clearly suggest that he was using "fragment" as a collective noun to refer to the cloud of tiny fragments near the right orbit and that he was associating Ebersole's artifact conclusion with that fragment cloud. Even David Von Pein, of all people, says, "I'm not 100% sure Jerrol Custer was referring to the now-famous 6.5 mm object." When one read Custer's words, one sees that it is entirely possible that Custer was not referring to the 6.5 mm object and that "artifact" referred to the area of the fragment cloud that Custer pointed out to Ebersole.

As I mentioned, this would explain why the autopsy doctors, incredibly, said nothing about the fragment cloud/high fragment trail in the autopsy report or in their WC testimony. It would also explain why Ebersole said nothing about the 6.5 mm object to the HSCA and why he refused to discuss it with Dr. Mantik.

And I repeat that in all the numerous times that Dr. Mantik spoke with Custer about the autopsy and the x-rays, Custer never once claimed that Ebersole identified a single circular/6.5 mm object as an artifact during the autopsy.

Here's another example of pitiful blindness and bias, this one from Steve Galbraith in his most recent reply:

Quote
Steve Galbraith: And: "Our meeting had been conducted primarily in Russian but Oswald, possibly from the strain of being overly excited, often experienced difficulties in finding the proper Russian word and would switch to English. His pronunciation was bad, and he really mangled the grammar....."

It seems that Oswald, for whatever reason, was having problems speaking Russian while in Mexico City.

OR, the man spoke such horrible Russian because he was not the real Lee Harvey Oswald! But, no, the same Oswald who was cool, calm, and collected when challenged by a gun-toting police officer less than 2 minutes after supposedly just having shot the president of the U.S.--according to you, this same Oswald was so "overly excited" while talking on the phone to get a visa that he temporarily lost his fluency in Russian and spoke in such bad Russian that he couldn't even pronounce his words correctly and "mangled" the grammar.

Quote
Thus the explanation for the "broken Russian" that the CIA translator Tarasoff heard. And all three men were emphatic in saying the man they met was Oswald not an impostor.

UH-HUH. Well, all the CIA had to do was produce the surveillance photo of the man who entered the Cuban Consulate. And the FBI agents who viewed the photos and heard the recording of the supposed Oswald said the man was not Oswald, as Hoover informed LBJ:

Quote
Special Agents of this Bureau, who have conversed with Oswald in Dallas, Texas, have observed photographs of the individual referred to above, and have listened to a recording of his voice. These special agents are of the opinion that the above-referred-to individual was not Lee Harvey Oswald.
« Last Edit: December 12, 2022, 11:03:34 PM by Michael T. Griffith »

Online Charles Collins

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Re: LNers Can't Explain the 6.5 mm Object on the JFK AP Skull X-Ray
« Reply #14 on: December 12, 2022, 11:54:48 PM »
And I already proved that that "answer" makes no sense and raises even more questions than Sturdivan's acid-drop and stray-metal-disk theories, questions that you ducked by complaining that they were "unanswerable."

Furthermore, this supposed "answer" does not even mention Dr. Mantik's and Dr. Chesser's mutually corroborating sets of dozens of OD measurements. You guys are so blinded by your lone-gunman dogma that you can't see the forest for the trees. You constantly paste haughty, pretentious "answers" that are riddled with errors and comical illogic.

Let's look at another gem of silliness and error in Gagne's pseudo-academic answer:

What?! For your and Gagne's information, until Larry Sturdivan came out with his 2005 book, not a single lone-gunman theorist claimed that the 6.5 mm object was an artifact but adamantly declared that it was a bullet fragment. I recall many debates with WC apologists in online forums, before Sturdivan's book was published, where lone-gunman theorists insisted over and over again that "of course" the object was a bullet fragment because, gee, all the experts on the Clark Panel, on the Rockefeller Commission's medical panel, and on the HSCA's medical panel said it was.

But after Sturdivan, to his great credit, explained why it was a physical impossibility for the 6.5 mm object to be a bullet fragment (using the same argument that skeptics had been making for years, by the way), WC apologists slowly began to adopt his position. WC critics have long argued that the object had to be an artifact, and now, because of Sturdivan, LNers agree. The only difference is that we say the artifact was added to the AP x-ray after the autopsy, whereas you say that somehow, some way, by a means you can't explain, the artifact was accidentally, and thus innocently, added to the AP x-ray.

No one is putting words in Custer's mouth. His own words clearly suggest that he was using "fragment" as a collective noun to refer to the cloud of tiny fragments near the right orbit and that he was associating Ebersole's artifact conclusion with that fragment cloud. Even David Von Pein, of all people, says, "I'm not 100% sure Jerrol Custer was referring to the now-famous 6.5 mm object." When one read Custer's words, one sees that it is entirely possible that Custer was not referring to the 6.5 mm object and that "artifact" referred to the area of the fragment cloud that Custer pointed out to Ebersole.

As I mentioned, this would explain why the autopsy doctors, incredibly, said nothing about the fragment cloud/high fragment trail in the autopsy report or in their WC testimony. It would also explain why Ebersole said nothing about the 6.5 mm object to the HSCA and why he refused to discuss it with Dr. Mantik.

And I repeat that in all the numerous times that Dr. Mantik spoke with Custer about the autopsy and the x-rays, Custer never once claimed that Ebersole identified a single circular/6.5 mm object as an artifact during the autopsy.

Here's another example of pitiful blindness and bias, this one from Steve Galbraith in his most recent reply:

OR, the man spoke such horrible Russian because he was not the real Lee Harvey Oswald! But, no, the same Oswald who was cool, calm, and collected when challenged by a gun-toting police officer less than 2 minutes after supposedly just having shot the president of the U.S.--according to you, this same Oswald was so "overly excited" while talking on the phone to get a visa that he temporarily lost his fluency in Russian and spoke in such bad Russian that he couldn't even pronounce his words correctly and "mangled" the grammar.

UH-HUH. Well, all the CIA had to do was produce the surveillance photo of the man who entered the Cuban Consulate. And the FBI agents who viewed the photos and heard the recording of the supposed Oswald said the man was not Oswald, as Hoover informed LBJ:


And you ignore what I said about Custer. He didn’t look at the X-ray (after all those years) and see the “6.5-millimeter object” and say: Hey, wait a minute, that wasn’t on the X-ray back on 11/22/63. So, it seems to me that it must have been on the X-ray during the autopsy. Just like Gagne showed us.

When one considers the above, it really doesn’t matter how much one believes Mantik’s work is accurate. It is just as unbelievable as the center of the universe being in the professor’s home town…

JFK Assassination Forum

Re: LNers Can't Explain the 6.5 mm Object on the JFK AP Skull X-Ray
« Reply #14 on: December 12, 2022, 11:54:48 PM »


Offline Jerry Organ

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Re: LNers Can't Explain the 6.5 mm Object on the JFK AP Skull X-Ray
« Reply #15 on: December 13, 2022, 06:01:07 AM »
Finally, allow me to address Jerry Organ's erroneous claim that Oswald did not speak Russian well. Organ is making this bogus claim because the "Oswald" who called the Soviet Consulate in Mexico City spoke "terrible" Russian, "hardly recognizable" Russian.

Mrs. Natalie Ray, a native of Stalingrad, Russia, met Oswald after his return from the Soviet Union. She told the WC that Oswald's conversational Russian was "just perfect." She complimented Oswald while speaking in her own broken English: "I said, 'How come you speak so good Russian? I been here so long and still don't speak very well English." When WC attorney Liebeler ask her, "You thought he spoke Russian better than you would expect a person to be able to speak Russian after only living...there only 3 years?", she replied, "Yes; I really did."

She met Oswald only once (at a house party) and said he said very few words and only about where he had lived in Russia.

    "Three year. I said "You speak good Russian." I asked him, I said
     "Do you like" no; I asked "How you like Russia?" He said "Oh,
     it's all right." But he don't have much to say, you know, but he
     always staying close to Marina and every time you asking
     something he seems to be one to answer it. If someone say
     where you from, he tell you. Maybe he just plain wanted let you
     know he speak Russian or something. I don't know reason but
     seems to me that he all time interfere. "

    "This Oswald don't say much and you introduce and that's as
     far as go but he always constantly staying very close to his wife,
     you know."

    "I know she said he working on factory, some factory and we don't
     get any details."

Mrs. Ray didn't hear Oswald on the phone speaking Russian in an agitated manner, as the caller to the Soviet Consulate was.

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George de Mohrenschildt, another native Russian speaker, praised Oswald's skills in the Russian language. He told the WC that Oswald "had remarkable fluency in Russian.... he preferred to speak Russian than English any time. He always would switch from English to Russian."

     Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. Well, he spoke fluent Russian, but with
          a foreign accent, and made mistakes, grammatical mistakes,
          but had remarkable fluency in Russian.
     Mr. JENNER. It was remarkable?
     Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. Remarkable -- for a fellow of his back-
          ground and education, it is remarkable how fast he learned it.
          But he loved the language. He loved to speak it. He preferred to
          speak Russian than English any time. He always would switch
          from English to Russian.

What de Mohrenschildt mean by Oswald's "background and education":

     Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. Well, he was not sophisticated, you see.
          He was a semieducated hillbilly. And you cannot take such a
          person seriously. All his opinions were crude, you see. But I
          thought at the time he was rather sincere.
     Mr. JENNER. Opinion sincerely held, but crude?
     Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.
     Mr. JENNER. He was relatively uneducated.
     Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. Oh, yes.

     Mr. JENNER. That he had not had the opportunity for a study under
          scholars who would criticize, so that he himself could form some
          views on the subject?
     Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. Exactly. His mind was of a man with
          exceedingly poor background, who read rather advanced books,
          and did not understand even the words in them. He read compli-
          cated economical treatises and just picked up difficult words out
          of what he has read, and loved to display them. He loved to use
          the difficult words, because it was to impress one.
     Mr. JENNER. Did you think he understood it?
     Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. He did not understand the words -- he just
          used them. So how can you take seriously a person like that? You
          just laugh at him. But there was always an element of pity I had,
          and my wife had, for him. We realized that he was sort of a forlorn
          individual, groping for something.

     Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. He said, "I don't want her to study English
          because I want to speak Russian to her, I will forget my Russian if
          I do not practice it every day." These are the words which I remem-
          ber distinctly. And how many times I told him, "You have to let your
          wife learn English. This is a very egotistical attitude on your part."
     Mr. JENNER. Very selfish.

I guess the de Mohrenschildts also didn't hear Oswald on the phone speaking Russian in an agitated manner, as the caller to the Soviet Consulate was. However, the de Mohrenschildts spoke of Marina as Oswald's punching bag.

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Peter Gregory, a native of Chita, Siberia, told the WC that "I thought that Lee Oswald spoke [Russian] with a Polish accent, that is why I asked him if he was of Polish descent. . . . It would be rather unusual . . . for a person who lived in the Soviet Union for 17 months that he would speak so well that a native Russian would not be sure whether he was born in that country or not."

Meaning Oswald's Russian wasn't up to that of a native Russian.

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Gregory's son, Peter Paul Gregory, was a graduate student in Russian language and literature at the University of Oklahoma in the early 1960s. He conversed with Oswald and later told the WC that Oswald "was completely fluent. He understood more than I did and he could express any idea . . . that he wanted to in Russian."

The son is Paul Roderick Gregory.

     Mr. LIEBELER. What about Oswald's proficiency in Russian?
     Mr. GREGORY. He spoke a very ungrammatical Russian with a very
          strong accent.
     Mr. LIEBELER. What kind of accent?
     Mr. GREGORY. Well, I can't tell you, because I am not that much of
          a judge. You would have to ask an expert about that. It was this
          poorly spoken Russian, but he was completely fluent. He under-
          stood more than I did and he could express any idea, I believe,
          that he wanted to in Russian. But it was heavily pronounced and
          he made all kinds of grammatical errors, and Marina would correct
          him, and he would get peered at her for doing this. She would say
          you are supposed to say like this, and he would wave his hand
          and say, "Don't bother me.""

More recent quote from Gregory:

    "If Lee Harvey Oswald [had grown up] today, he would have probably
     become a school shooter. He might have ... gone after a public figure,
     someone whose death would get him into the news."

Quote
Other witnesses spoke of Oswald's good command of Russian, including George Bouhe,

     Mr. LIEBELER - Did you form an impression as to his command of
          that language?
     Mr. BOUHE - Yes.
     Mr. LIEBELER - What was that impression?
     Mr. BOUHE - A very strange assortment of words. Grammatically not
          perfect, but an apparent ease to express himself in that language.

     Mr. LIEBELER - You think he had a good command of the language,
          considering the amount of time he had spent in Russia?
     Mr. BOUHE - Sir, for everyday conversations, yes. But I think that if
          I would have asked him to write, I would think he would have difficulty.
     Mr. LIEBELER - When did you get the impression that he received
          any special training in the Russian language while he was in the
          Soviet Union?
     Mr. BOUHE - Never heard of it.
     Mr. LIEBELER - You did not get that impression?
     Mr. BOUHE - I did not get it, but back in the old country, in the good
          old days in St. Petersburg, which was cosmopolitan, everybody
          spoke French--well, some from in school and some from govern-
          esses and some from trips to Paris, and that is supposed to be
          the best way to learn the language, so I would say from my
          estimate of the caliber of his language is that he picked it up by
          ear from Marina, other girls, or from factory workers.
     Mr. LIEBELER - You also conversed with Marina in Russian, did
          you not?
     Mr. BOUHE - Oh, yes; she is very good, I must say, to my great
          amazement.
     Mr. LIEBELER - Much better than Oswald? Was Marina's command
          of the Russian language better than what you would have expected,
          based on her education?
     Mr. BOUHE - Yes.

Quote
Mrs. Teofil Meller, Elena Hall, and Mrs. Dymitruk.

So the "Oswald" who called the Soviet Consulate in MC clearly was not the real Oswald.

    "He [Oswald] said he had been studying Russian. And, again, I had
     the impression -- I don't recall -- I may have spoken some Russian
     to him -- but I at least formed the impression that he did not know
     very much Russian. I don't think he could have gotten along on
     his own in Russian society. I don't think he could have done more
     than buy a piece of bread, maybe."
          -- Richard Snyder, Foreign Service Officer, Embassy Counsel

    "I can get along in restaurants but my Russian is very bad."
          -- Oswald to Aline Mosby, Journalist

    "[Oswald's Russian was] rather inadequate, only several hundred
     words, really nothing."
          -- Ernst Titovets, Friend of Oswald in Minsk

Half the time Oswald spent in the Soviet Union, he was trying to leave. So improving his Russian had no long-term payoff.


 

    "My wife says the note that LHO supposedly left for Marina on the night
     of the Walker shooting is terrible - she could barely understand it and
     did indeed laugh out loud."
          -- Forum posting

Might be interesting to have other Russian-speakers look at the letter.