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Dr. Boswell’s 1/26/68 letter to Ramsey Clark: - Bernice Moore - 28-07-2011
Dr. Boswell's 1/26/68 letter to Ramsey Clark:
http://www.jfklancer...t&file_id=16580
(Thanks to Dave Curbow)
"As you are aware, the autopsy findings in the case of the late
President John F. Kennedy, including x-rays and photographs, have been
the subject of continuing controversy and speculation. Dr. Humes and
I, as the Pathologists concerned, have felt for some time that an
impartial board of experts including pathologists and radiologists
should examine the available material.
If such a board were to be nominated in an attempt to resolve many of
the allegations concerning the autopsy report, it might wish to
question the autopsy participants before more time elapses and memory
fades; therefore, it would be my hope that such a board would be
convened at an early date. Dr. Humes and I would make ourselves
available at the request of such a board.
I hope that this letter will not be considered presumptuous, but this
matter is of great concern to us, and I believe to the country as
well.
Your attention to this matter will be greatly appreciated."
Harold Weisberg. Post Mortem. Frederick, Maryland: 1975, p. 139.
(First printing Was in 1969. See p. 574 for a copy of Boswell's
letter.)
11 J. ARRB Testimony Thornton Boswell, College Park, Maryland, 2/26/96, p. 213.
Noted Warren skeptic Harold Weisberg saw the signs of Boswell's having
been nudged more than thirty years ago. Commenting on Boswell's
letter, which he reproduced in his 1969 book Post Mortem, Weisberg
wrote, "I am suggesting that Boswell's letter was both inspired and
prepared by the federal government." "Strangely for a man with an
office and a profession," Weisberg reasoned, "[the letter] is typed
and signed but on no letterhead, with no return address and, even more
intriguing, on government-size paper, which is a half-inch smaller
than standard."[165] [It appears that after this episode Boswell
became a Justice Department favorite. In JAMA, Boswell admitted that,
"the US Justice Department … summoned me to New Orleans to refute
Finck's testimony, if necessary. It turned out it wasn't
necessary."[166] Boswell's New Orleans adventure is further explored
below.] The man at Justice who was pulling Boswell's strings was
apparently no less than the Attorney General.
http://www.history-m...otItWrong_2.htm
Justice's calling Boswell, of all people, as a backstop would be
baffling were it not for the fact that Boswell had already
demonstrated his helpfulness to Carl Eardley the year before. On
January 26, 1968, Boswell had written the Justice Department to
request an independent reexamination of JFK's autopsy evidence.8
Prior to that moment, the only physicians who had ever reviewed JFK's
autopsy photographs and X-rays were the same military men who had done
the original autopsy. By 1968 reasonable doubts about the performance
of JFK's autopsy had been raised by authors Josiah Thompson, Edward J.
Epstein, Mark Lane and others. Boswell's letter set the wheels in
motion toward the only reasonable response: an independent review by
men outside the military. In answer, Ramsey Clark, the Attorney
General, convened a civilian panel, the so-called "Clark Panel." But
new information reveals that Boswell's effectual letter has a hidden
history: it wasn't his idea to write it.
Though his signature is affixed to the request, behind Boswell one can
(again) make out the Justice Department's shadow. Under oath to the
JFK Review Board, Boswell admitted, "I was asked by ... one of the
attorneys for the Justice Department that I write them a letter and
request a civilian group be appointed by the Justice Department, I
believe, or the President or somebody. And I did write a letter to
him, Carl Eardley."9
Noted Warren skeptic Harold Weisberg saw the signs of Boswell's having
been nudged way back in 1969. "I am suggesting that Boswell's letter
was both inspired and prepared by the federal government," Weisberg
wrote. "Strangely for a man with an office and a profession," Weisberg
reasoned, "[the letter] is typed and signed but on no letterhead, with
no return address and, even more intriguing, on government-size paper,
which is a half-inch smaller than standard."10 Boswell's help with the
Clark Panel and the Shaw trial suggests that Boswell had become a
Justice Department favorite. And there is new evidence to bolster that
impression.
When Martin Luther King was shot on April 4, 1968, Boswell testified
that he got yet another call from Carl Eardley. "J," Eardley pled, "we
got a problem down in Memphis ... Would you go down there and
supervise the autopsy?"11 Apparently the Justice Department was
looking for qualifications besides proper training and experience when
it asked the expert in natural death to lend a hand unraveling the
very unnatural death of the famed civil rights leader.
Gary Aguilar
Citations:
1 John Lattimer, MD has suggested that Drs. Humes and Boswell
requested, and were discouraged from, seeking local, non-military
experts. Lattimer does not identify who discouraged them. In Kennedy
and Lincoln, Lattimer writes, "Commanders Humes and Boswell inquired
as to whether or not any of their consultants from the medical
examiner's office in Washington or Baltimore should be summoned, but
this action was discouraged." In: John Lattimer. Kennedy and Lincoln.
New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980, p. 155.
2 Memo by Pierre Finck to Director, Air Force Institute of Pathology,
dated 3/11/69, regarding subject, "Shaw Trial, New Orleans."
3 Memo by Pierre Finck to Director, Air Force Institute of Pathology,
dated 3/11/69, regarding subject, "Shaw Trial, New Orleans."
4 ARRB testimony J. Thornton Boswell, College Park Maryland, 2/26/96,
p. 211.
5 ARRB testimony J. Thornton Boswell, College Park Maryland, 2/26/96,
p. 209.
6 Dennis Breo. "JFK's death - the plain truth from the MDs who did the
autopsy". JAMA, May 27, 1992, v. 267:2802.
7 ARRB testimony J. Thornton Boswell, College Park Maryland, 2/26/96,
p, 210.
8 Dr. Boswell's 1/26/68 letter to Ramsey Clark is reproduced in Harold
Weisberg's book, Post Mortem, p. 574.
9 Deposition of J. Thornton Boswell by ARRB, 2/26/96, p. 10. (Note,
Boswell also told this same story in the May 27, 1992 issue of JAMA.
Op. cit.)
10 Harold Weisberg. Post Mortem. Frederick, Maryland: 1975, p. 139.
(First printing was in 1969. See p. 574 for a copy of Boswell's
letter.)
11 ARRB testimony J. Thornton Boswell, College Park Maryland, 2/26/96,
p. 213.
Thanks to Ed LeDoux: