"What Happened to JFK--and Why it Matters Today"

[James H. Fetzer]

Jim, my latest thoughts in Christmas GREEN.

Jim,

I've addressed eight selected points from your illuminating response. Each begins with an excerpt from my original post. Next come your reactions, which appear in italics. Finally I offer my latest thoughts in RED.

1. I certainly know that Custer died at Little Bighorn. Please define "certainty."

That's a fairly astonishing claim, given your skepticism about even being able to identify those who were photographed in Dealey Plaza. Actually, you not only do not know with certainty that Custer died at Little Big Horn but that you are the biological offspring of your own parents.

How about this: I know that George Washington is dead.

The problem is that you only know indirectly that there was a "George Washington" who served as our first president. If his existence was a legend created by historians for our own national inspiration, then not only did Washington never live but, unsurprisingly, he never died. So while I'm in agreement in believing that he lived and died, it is a matter of high probability (or likelihood), not certainty, which is impossible about the occurrence of everts in history. For a more recent example, think of the alleged 19 Islamic fundamentalists who hijacked nineteen planes!

How does personal observation impact the ability to be certain about events? The woman who I am told was my mother died in my arms. The physician in attendance pronounced her dead in my presence (at our home). Her corpse remained in its bed for two hours before morticians arrived to transport it to the funeral home. During that time and on numerous occasions I sat by the cooling remains, which were moribund and otherwise fit every known criteria for the remains of a deceased homo sapien female. I understand that there are "false death" states, so I suppose that she may have been in one.

If I had accompanied the corpse to the mortician's workroom and watched as it was embalmed -- a big "if" in our discussion -- and otherwise had made certain that the chain of custody had not been broken, would I then be able to state to the degree of metaphysical certitude that that female homo sapien had died?

Descartes addressed this kind of appeal by observing that we might be mistaking particularly vivid dreams or have been deceived about what we thought we were observing by an "evil demon". The point is not that this is what was happening but that it is a possibility that undermines complete confidence in any of our experiences, no matter how "personal". I agree that you almost certainly had these experiences but, in the nature of the matter, the "almost" cannot be eliminated in favor of certainty. Even the most convincing experience could have an alternative explanation, if we were under the influence of LSD, for example. There is no reason to fight it. All of our knowledge about ourselves and the world around us is uncertain--not in a simple subjective sense but in a strict objective one. There are always alternative possible explanations, no matter how improbable. Which is why not even our personal experiences can strictly qualify as "certain".

2. This paragraph makes no sense.

Your remark is what makes no sense, given what you have said about their identification in the other post. There you were giving credence to the theory that they might have been in disguises -- even though there is no good reason to think so -- and that, if they were good disguises, we would not be able to detect them! That's a pretty skeptical position that leaves us in a complete state of uncertainty about their identity. So why are you now adopting the position that your own position -- that their identities cannot be known with certainty -- makes no sense?

I’ll withdraw the “no sense” assessment. But I’ll maintain that, for reasons having to do with operational security and discipline – not to mention personal security – the hypothesis that highly trained, disciplined intelligence officers presumably with no operational responsibilities would be willing to expose themselves at a crime scene of their making simply to gloat defies what we know about how these characters operate.

Yeah, the “no operational responsibilities” is a leap on my part. But it is no greater a leap than the one you make when you reason that they keenly desired to witness the destruction of JFK, so they violated all rules, abandoned reason, and showed up for the kill.

Well, lots of odd things happen during these ops that might appear to be unreasonable on their face. Planting a medium to low-velocity weapon on the alleged assassin, which cannot have fired the bullets that killed JFK, for example, is an nice illustration. The resemblances in this case are so striking and the number so imposing that their presence is all but assured.

I am the least bit puzzled at your resistance to these identifications, which are, after all, as I have explained several times now, both tentative (subject to revision with the acquisition of new evidence and new alternatives) and fallible (even when they are well supported by the evidence, they could still be false). The major objection to your stance is they seem to have been there!

Tentative and subject to revision ... AGREED! My point exactly! My main objection is to what I respectfully describe as your rush to judgement. That's all. Because I do not agree that ALL of the resemblances are "striking" and "imposing" in terms of numbers. Your ID of Morales is less striking to me than my ID of "Major Lopez."

Well, this "Major Lopez" business is new to me, so it qualifies as a new alternative hypothesis. I don't regard any of my judgments as "rushed" in these matters--and certainly not with regard to the Holt/Hunt matter, where I organized and moderated a symposium at Lancer to address it, where Jerry Rose was sufficiently impressed to change his opinion from Hunt to Holt!

4. I'm assuming that eight points of similarity is the universally accepted standard used to identify fingerprints. Are there similarly governing standards used to identify facial characteristics? If so, have you used them in a manner consistent with the scientific method to identify Mainman?

Actually, I made an educated guess, which we can pursue.

Let’s leave fingerprint analysis for another campfire. To your knowledge, is there an established scientific methodology for the comparison of photographic images of faces that can be applied to Dealey Plaza and control images?

I will ask Jack and see what we come up with. That is a useful suggestion.

Onward!

5.In citing Prouty you may be commiting the fallacy of argument from false authority. I am not all that quick to accept Prouty at his word.

No. You commit a blunder in logic.

You are correct; my choice of terminology was, shall we say, less than artful. Or, if you prefer, just plain wrong.

UNLESS you accept that the “authority” I meant to reference is that of an expert who can be trusted not to disinform.

Well, by either standard, Fletcher Prouty is an appropriate "authority" to ID Conein and, in relation to another photo, Lansdale, an identification, we know, that was confirmed by Victor Krulak, former Commandant of the Marine Corps.

Is Prouty an "authority" of truthfulness?

In matters of personal identification, because he knew these men up close and personal, he is an authority in relation to their identification in photos. He possesses appropriate kinds of specialized knowlege, which is also true of Brad Ayers and Wayne Smith, but is not true of David Talbot or his running mate.

6.Agreed. I simply ask, in relation to the quest to identify Mainman, if all avenues of scientific comparison have been exhausted? Have they? Or is what you're claiming nothing more or less than, "It sure looks like him to me"?

Well, it's more than that.

Again and for the record, we agree that Mainman and Adams are not the same person. Obvious and otherwise inexplicable dissimilarities convince us of this to a significant degree.

BUT regarding the noted similarities between Mainman and Conein, I pose yet again the simple question: Can the similarities be scientifically evaluated?

The gross features that Jack identified--the shape of the face, the length of the chin, the ear shapes and the supranasal ridge differences do not appear to require quantification. They are more than sufficient to disqualify Adams as Mainman. We can look for more confirmations that Mainman is Conein, but the resemblance is striking--with no obvious alternative candidates.

"Striking" is hardly a scientific evaluation. "Major Lopez" bears a "striking" resemblance to Lamp Post Man -- in my opinion.

Well, maybe there is an "obvious alternative candidate", after all. Is there any reason to think he might have been in Dealey Plaza with the others?

7.Your presentation of baseline principles of logic is, I would concede, without flaw and typically eloquent in its detail and nuance.

Well, do we agree up to this point? I believe that Lamppostman is David Sanchez Morales, but I am willing to postpone that discussion for another time. Would you now agree with my reasoning about Mainman as I have presented it here?

I wholeheartedly disagree with you in re the Morales identification. Let’s not postpone the discussion much longer. Nonetheless it is safe to say we are making progress: I agree with your Mainman reasoning in terms of the low probability of an Adams match. Mainman likely is not Adams.

That being stated, I would not hesitate to conduct a scientific Mainman/Adams comparison if such methodology exists. And of course I wish to do the same for the Mainman/Conein hypothesis.

I reiterate: My simple bottom line is this: I slowly moved toward the "Major Lopez" discussion/illustration with the hope that a former defender of the Lamp Post man as DSM hypothesis would change his/her mind. Our dear friend Jack has done just that. So in your opinion who does Lamp Post Man more closely resemble: “Major Lopez” or DSM?

I will have to learn more about "Major Lopez". Was there some reason to think he might have been there? The fact that Morales worked with Robertson and Lansdale, for example, offers corroborating circumstantial support for his identification, where the similarity looks very strong to me.

I'll be back to you soon on "Major Lopez."

8. Let's see how you do on the exam!

Schrödinger's cat ate my homework.

That was just the mid-term. When your wavepacket collapses, I'll grade it!

I'll have you know that my wavepacket remains quite firm without the benefit of pharmaceutical enhancements, and I'll thank you to exclude it from this discussion. Further, I advise you to seek medical help for wavepacket debate that lasts longer than four hours

I seem to have heard something about that possibility on television.