Paul Rigby Wrote:Witnesses with no conceivable ulterior motive described, and, in some instances, sought to interest the WC in, shots from within the presidential limo.

Paul Rigby Wrote:[Jackie and the Connellys] did [know], Peter[.] Among them were some of the closest eyewitnesses.

Paul Rigby Wrote:Particularly after the Secret Service washed the presidential limo out...

Paul Rigby Wrote:The majority view among the Parkland doctors was, for the head wound, a left temple entrance/right rear exit --

Paul Rigby Wrote:-- exactly as one would expect from a hand gun fired from the driver's seat!

Peter Lemkin Wrote:Besides, you just don't run a covert op with the main event in plain sight anyway.

Paul Rigby Wrote:The assassination of RFK? MLK? Malcolm X? In fact, Pete, the contrary is true.

Paul Rigby Wrote:Moreover, the American tradition is close range assassination by hand-gun. There is no precedent within that tradition for assassination by rifle from distance.

Paul Rigby Wrote:At the heart of John Fitzgerald Kennedy's murder was a brute simplicity: I urge you to think again!

Paul Rigby Wrote:[quote=Mark Stapleton]How could Greer have shot JFK without Nellie Connally or Jackie seeing it?

Paul Rigby Wrote:The first shot would naturally have come as a complete surprise, as none of the occupants would have had the slightest inkling of the SS detail's intentions. Thereafter, I have no doubt the two wives understood perfectly well what had happened.

Paul Rigby Wrote:Do we know what was said in private at Parkland, or on the plane back to Washington? No. Do we have an unexpurgated transcript of Jackie's actual testimony to the WC*? No.

Paul Rigby Wrote:In a footnote to chapter 3, Execution, of Murder From Within (Probe, 1974), Newcomb and Adams write as follows:

Quote:Mrs. Kennedy unsuccessfully tested David F. Powers on this area. Powers was in the follow-up car immediately behind the limousine. Apparently he failed to see the driver. “On the Thanksgiving weekend after the President’s funeral, when Dave was visiting Jackie and her children at Hyannis Port, he showed her the color pictures of herself on the back of the car taken at the scene by Abraham Zapruder’s movie camera and published in that week’s Life…’Dave, what do you think I was trying to do?’ she asked. Dave could only suggest that maybe she was searching for the President’s doctor…” (Kenneth P. O’Donnell and Dave F. Powers with Joe McCarthy, Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye, p. 29.)

In her brief testimony before the Warren Commission (about ten minutes), she said she didn’t “…recall climbing out on the back of the car.” (v. 5, p. 181.) In this way, she avoided answering the obvious question of why she did climb out on the trunk.

On the day Mrs. Kennedy testified, June 5, 1964, leaks from the Warren Commission to the press were sufficient to indicate that the investigation was complete. She told the Commission, “…I read the other day that it was the same shot that hit them both.” (v. 5, p. 180). As with most important witnesses, she had read about the “lone assassin” as the official version. In effect, this curtailed spontaneous testimony.

The Warren Commission deleted her reference to wounds (v. 5, p. 180). The General Counsel for the Commission, in a letter of Dec. 10, 1964, explained the removal “…as a matter of good taste and because it could contribute nothing to the inquiry.”

Paul Rigby Wrote:During a Commission meeting of Dec. 16, 1963, Commissioner John McCloy suggested that the Commission ought to question Mrs. Kennedy before her memory faded. He said, “She’s got it very definitely in mind now, and I’m told she’s physically in a position where she can do it, but I don’t have that at first hand. She may not be the chief witness as to who did the job. She’s the chief witness as to how those bullets hit her husband.” Chief Justice Warren replied, “I wonder if the report we get from the Secret Service wouldn’t pretty much clear that up. If it doesn’t, Good Lord, what can they report to us on, that will help us. They were there, right at the car, and know exactly what happened.” (Document Addendum, op. cit., p. 55.) As Epstein noted, “On June 5 Mrs. John F. Kennedy testified before the Chief Justice at home. She was the last witness to testify on the assassination itself.” (Inquest, p. 25.)

Paul Rigby Wrote:Around January 1965, Mrs. Kennedy told Mary Gallagher to “be careful” about transportation in cars. She said, “You should get yourselves a good driver so that nothing ever happens to you.” (Mary B. Gallagher, My Life with Jacqueline Kennedy, p. 351.) A caption in Ms. Gallagher’s book of group photograph at the White House mess refers to “…Roy H. Killerman [sic]…” (Ibid., photo section, unpaginated.]

Paul Rigby Wrote:Mrs. Kennedy later sent William R. Greer, the driver of the Presidential limousine, a handwritten note. It said, “For Bill Greer, whom the President loved, and who was with him until the very end. Thank you.” (New York Times, July 2, 1966, p. 10.)

Paul Rigby Wrote:Lyndon Johnson also believed that a good driver was important and readily indicated the matter was both urgent and of great significance.

Paul Rigby Wrote:And we do know that the Secret Service was very active at Parkland in attempting to ascertain what Nellie et al had taken in; and in urging reticence.

Paul Rigby Wrote:As for Connally, it's worth taking a look at who provided his bodyguard during his 1980 run for the presidency. It sure as heck wasn't the SS, for, as a relative of his explained on a Houston radio station at the time, he didn't trust them!

Paul Rigby Wrote:** [Father] Huber told at least one pressman as he left the hospital that there was a wound above Kennedy's left eye. He thus shared the verdict of most of the Parkland doctors who treated or had occasion to observe the President: the head entrance wound was in the left temple.

Charles Drago Wrote:

Paul Rigby Wrote:[quote=Mark Stapleton]How could Greer have shot JFK without Nellie Connally or Jackie seeing it?

Paul Rigby Wrote:The first shot would naturally have come as a complete surprise, as none of the occupants would have had the slightest inkling of the SS detail's intentions. Thereafter, I have no doubt the two wives understood perfectly well what had happened.

Your absence of doubt has zero probative value. What you've shown us so far would make a nice treatment for a novel. But you may be a few decades too late: Charles McCarry's The Tears of Autumn offers more "evidence" for a Ngo-family sponsored retaliatory hit than you provide for the Greer fiction. What else you got?



So it follows that they must have discussed Greer's act both privately and for the record? Whatever you're smoking, I'll take a carton.





Again none of this -- none of it -- supports any particular conclusion regarding the origin(s) of the shot(s). All we can say for certain is that the WC was bending over backwards to obscure those origins. What else you got?



As above.



For reasons that remain unclear, the SS agents in the car failed to protect JFK. Your wholly illogical leap to interpreting Mrs. Kennedy's words to be an indictment of Greer as the killer is as typical for you as it is patently unwarranted.



Uh-oh ... Maybe you have a point after all. Tell me if I'm wrong: Mrs. Kennedy wrote the note to impose upon Greer the supreme punishment:

IRONY!



As we say in the hood, "No shit, Sherlock!" This offers zero probative value in terms of your crumbled hypothesis. What else you got?



Which tells us nothing other than the SS was upholding its investigative and, in certain instances, conspiratorial responsibilities. But using your "logic," I claim that they were attempting to determine if any of the limo occupants had seen the mini-Martians who took out the president by firing a phaser from an air conditioning vent.

Paul Rigby Wrote:As for Connally, it's worth taking a look at who provided his bodyguard during his 1980 run for the presidency. It sure as heck wasn't the SS, for, as a relative of his explained on a Houston radio station at the time, he didn't trust them!

And why should he, given their performance in Dallas? He likely was aware that certain SS agents were complicit in the assassination. That being said, once again there is zero probative value here for your hypothesis. What else you got?

Paul Rigby Wrote:** [Father] Huber told at least one pressman as he left the hospital that there was a wound above Kennedy's left eye. He thus shared the verdict of most of the Parkland doctors who treated or had occasion to observe the President: the head entrance wound was in the left temple.

That's Father Huber, not Doctor Huber. But fine; as I asked on another post, please go into detail on your "most of the Parkland doctors ... " bit. Name names, specialties, and positions of observation of those making the claim ... and those testifying to a right temple entrance wound.

And while you're at it, explain how a left temple entrance wound, absent additional data relative to proximity, automatically indicates, to the exclusion of all other scenarios, an in-car firing position.

What else you got?

Quote:Left temple entry:

1) Elm St eyewitness:

Norman Similas: “I could see a hole in the President's left temple...,” Jack Bell, “10 Feet from the President,” NYT, 23 November 1963, p.5, citing Toronto Star.

2) Parkland medical staff:

a) Dr. Robert McClelland: "The cause of death was due to a massive head and brain injury from a gunshot wound of the left temple," Commission Exhibit 392. [‘Admission Note,’ written 22 Nov 1963 at 4.45 pm, reproduced in WCR572, & 17WCH11-12: cited in Lifton’s Best Evidence, p.55; and Meagher’s Accessories After the Fact, pp.159-160.]

b) Dr. Marion Jenkins: "I don't know whether this is right or not, but I thought there was a wound on the left temporal area, right in the hairline and right above the zygomatic process," 6WH48. [Cited by Sylvia Meagher, Accessories After The Fact: The Warren Commission, The Authorities, & The Report (New York: Vintage Books, 1992 reprint), p. 40.]

c) Dr. Robert Shaw: "The third bullet struck the President on the left side of the head in the region of the left temporal region and made a large wound of exit on the right side of the head," Letter from Dr. Shaw to Larry Ross, "Did Two Gunmen Cut Down Kennedy?", Today (British magazine), 15 February 1964, p.4.

d) Dr. David Stewart: “This was the finding of all the physicians who were in attendance. There was a small wound in the left front of the President’s head and there was a quite massive wound of exit at the right back side of the head, and it was felt by all the physicians at the time to be a wound of entry which went in the front,” The Joe Dolan (Radio) Show, KNEW (Oakland, California), at 08:15hrs on 10 April 1967. (Cited by Harold Weisberg. Selections from Whitewash (NY: Carroll & Graf/Richard Gallen, 1994), pp.331-2.)

3) Parkland non-medical staff:

Father Oscar Huber: “terrible wound” over Kennedy's left eye [AP despatch, Philadelphia Sunday Bulletin, 24 November 1963]*

4) Bethesda: Drs. Humes & Boswell:

“The autopsy documents also provide some cryptic indications of damage to the left side of the head. The notorious face-sheet on which Dr. J. Thornton Boswell committed his unfortunate 'diagram error' consists of front and back outlines of a male figure. On the front figure, the autopsy surgeons entered the tracheotomy incision (6.5 cm), the four cut-downs made in the Parkland emergency room for administration of infusions (2 cms. Each), and a small circle at the right eye, with the marginal notation '0.8 cm,' apparently representing damage produced by the two bullet fragments that lodged there. Dr. Humes testified that the fragments measured 7 by 2 mm and 3 by 1 mm respectively (2H354). Although he said nothing about the damage at the left eye, the diagram shows a small dot at that site, labeled '0.4 cm' (CE 397, Vol XVII, p.45). Neither Arlen Specter, who conducted the questioning of the autopsy surgeons, nor the Commission members and lawyers present asked any questions about this indication on the diagram of damage at the left eye.

Turning back to the male outline of the figure – the one Dr. Boswell did not realize would become a public document even though it had to be assumed at the time of the autopsy that findings would become evidence at the trial of the accused assassin – we find a small circle at the back of the head about equidistant from the ears and level with the top of the ears. Apparently this represents the small entrance wound which the autopsy surgeons and the Warren Commission say entered the back of the head and exploded out through the right side, carrying large large segments of the skull. but an arrow at the wound on the diagram points to the front and leftand not to the front and right.

A forensic pathologist who was asked to interpret this feature said that it signified that a missile had entered the back of the head traveling to the left and front. As if in confirmation, an autopsy diagram of the skull (CE 397, Vol XVII, p.46) shows a large rectangle marked '3 cm' at the site of the left eye, with a ragged lateral margin, seemingly to indicate fracture or missing bone.

The autopsy surgeons were not questioned about any of the three diagram indications of bullet damage at the left eye or left temple. Nevertheless, when Dr. Jenkins testified that he thought there was a wound in the left temporal area, Arlen Specter replied, 'The autopsy report disclosed no such developments,'” Sylvia Meagher. Accessories After the Fact: The Warren Commission, The Authorities & The Report (NY, Vintage Books, 1992 reprint), pp.161-2.

Paul Rigby Wrote:Wow, a big, angry post - and decidedly uncharacteristic. You've proved my earlier point, CD, about what this subject does to the otherwise poised and rational.

Paul Rigby Wrote:Part of the problem, I suspect, lies in an unvoiced and unexamined assumption among even the best of the critics - that the plot's core was as sophisticated and nuanced as both their own personalities, and the cover up. (The latter was all that and more.)[emphasis added]

Paul Rigby Wrote:We have been steered, deliberately and with consumate skill, down a series of miserably narrow and predetermined channels - let's break out of these ruts, and look again at where we're going, and how.

Mark Stapleton Wrote:It's not credible, Paul.

The Z film could be altered and most of the SS corrupt but there would have been so many people who would have seen Greer firing that it would have rendered the coverup unviable. The motorcycle cops, the guys watching from the overpass, the witnesses on the grass, not to mention Jackie and Nellie.

Quote:1.Bobby Hargis (Police motorcycle outrider, left rear of limousine):
Mr. Stern: Do you recall your impression at the time regarding the shots?
Hargis: “Well, at the time it sounded like the shots were right next to me,” 6WCH294.

2. Austin Miller (railroad worker, on triple overpass):
Mr. Belin: “Where did the shots sound like they came from?”
Miller: “Well, the way it sounded like, it came from the, I would say right there in the car,” 6WCH225.

3. Charles Brehm (carpet salesman, south curb of Elm St.): “Drehm seemed to think the shots came from in front or beside the President. He explained the President did not slump forward as if [sic] he would have after being shot from the rear,” “President Dead, Connally Shot,” The Dallas Times Herald, 22 November 1963, p.2 [cited by Joachim Joesten. Oswald: Assassin or Fall Guy? (London: Merlin Press, 1964), p.176.]

4. Officer E. L. Boone (policeman, corner of Main and Houston Streets):" I heard three shots coming from the vicinity of where the President's car was,” 19WCH508.

5. Jack Franzen: “He said he heard the sound of an explosion which appeared to him to come from the President's car and ...small fragments flying inside the vehicle and immediately assumed someone had tossed a firecracker inside the automobile,” 22WCH840.

6. Mrs. Jack Franzen: “Shortly after the President’s automobile passed by…she heard a noise which sounded as if someone had thrown a firecracker into the President’s automobile…at approximately the same time she noticed dust or small pieces of debris flying from the President’s automobile,” 24WCH525.

7. James Altgens: “The last shot sounded like it came from the left side of the car, if it was close range because, if it were a pistol it would have to be fired at close range for any degree of accuracy," 7WCH518.

8. Hugh Betzner, Jr.: “I cannot remember exactly where I was when I saw the following: I heard at least two shots fired and I saw what looked like a firecracker going off in the president's car. My assumption for this was because I saw fragments going up in the air,” 19WCH467

Charles Drago Wrote:And speaking of motive, please tell us why Greer would have done the deed. Just give me a minute while I brace for more suppositions-as-facts.

Quote: “Even before Dallas, Bobby Kennedy seemed to be losing confidence in the ability [more accurately, the will – PR] of the Secret Service to protect his brother…At the time of the assassination, Kennedy was backing a bill, H.R. 4158, which would have given the attorney general the authority to appoint the agents who protected the president, instead of the Secret Service. Rowley, the agency’s chief, acknowledged in his testimony before the Warren Commission that he was adamantly opposed to the bill, asserting that the transfer of authority to RFK’s office would ‘confuse and be a conflict in jurisdiction.’”