17-06-2013, 04:30 AM
Gordon Gray Wrote:Who placed the president's body back into the ceremonial casket and carried it back to the Navy ambulance, and why does no one recall this happening. It had to have happened if the honor guard carried the coffin back into the morgue at 8:00.
Lifton devotes a whole chapter to this issue ("The Clandestine Intermission Hypothesis") and then also does some modifications of that hypothesis in a later chapter. His idea, I believe, is that the original "audience" is asked to leave during the taking of X-rays or some other "inspection" of the body. Horne's take on this is a little different, but essentially the idea of keeping the FBI and original witnesses out while this happened is what is proposed. These are by nature reconstructions as there is no direct testimony for the return of the body to the coffin and then to the Navy ambulance, but it is putatively during that period that the bronze casket was damaged. I think that's a fair high-level summary of what the two authors have in mind.