The Head Wounds Revisited

[David Lifton]

[size=12]Lifton writes: Martin, the "facts" you prefer are filtered through a prism of intense personal animus towards me and my work, and it is you who are doing the "huffing and puffing"


Filtered "through an intense personal animus" by whom? Certainly not by me. I feel absolutely nothing about you one way or the other hence the reason why, when you sent me a personal message simply to insult me after I quit the Ed forum, I felt no compulsion to respond. Your daft theories, however, have done damage to to the truth, helped undo much of the good work done by early critics of the Warren Commission, and made it easy for critics of the official story to be lumped in with moon hoaxers and holocaust deniers. So I will continue to show how factually corrupt your work is, and how little basis your ludicrous hypotheses have in fact, in order to help set the record straight.


Lifton writes: "Roger Boyajian's security detail was requested to report to the morgue to handle the arrival of JFK's body. So who's coffin are you attempting to imply was delivered to Bethesda at 6:35 PM EST, and which was the subject of his reportthat ofMickey Mouse?"


I'm not implying anything, I'm merely stating the facts. You may have trouble separating theory from fact but I don't. Boyajian's report does NOT say that the casket he and his men picked up contained the body of President Kennedy. And he did NOT recall the arrival of Kennedy's casket. Those are the FACTS. Additionally, as Jim DiEugenio correctly pointed out, "Bethesda is also a morgue. It did not stop being so just because Kennedy was being transported there that day. Other military men died that day"


Lifton writes: "Dennis David repeatedly said to me that the coffin arrived "a good 20 minutes" before the naval ambulance so that is 6:35 PM (not 6:45 PM, Martin. Do the math, Martin. It will be good mental exercise: 6:55 PM 20 minutes = 6:35 PM."


From ARRB MD177, Call Report Summarizing 2/14/97 Telephonic Interview of Dennis David: "He then got his own duty sailors together, borrowed some more from the dental school, and assembled them outside the morgue at the loading dock by about 6:40 P.M. Five or six minutes later, at about 6:45, he said a black hearse drove up to the loading dock...the Navy sailors (approximately 7 or 8 people) working for him offloaded the casket which was in the hearse. He said it was a simple, gray shipping casket such as he frequently saw used later during the Vietnam war." Your problem is with David, not with me.


Lifton writes: "Paul O'Connor lifted a body out of the shipping casket that arrived at 6:35 PM. That's the preponderanceof the evidence."


According to you, NOT according to Paul O'Connor. Which one of you was there? And, of course, when you say "preponderance of the evidence" you mean Dennis David's story which, given that he had no personal knowledge of who was in the casket he saw, is not all that weighty and doesn't offer much support for your erroneous claim that Kennedy's body arrived when you wish it did.


Lifton writes: "Yes, Martinthe word "security measure"was in fact used."


No need for further comment.

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Martin Hay:

You're spreading mis-information and disinformation. Let's start with your opening line:

QUOTE:
Your daft theories, however, have done damage to to the truth, helped undo much of the good work done by early critics of the Warren Commission, and made it easy for critics of the official story to be lumped in with moon hoaxers and holocaust deniers. So I will continue to show how factually corrupt your work is, and how little basis your ludicrous hypotheses have in fact, in order to help set the record straight.

This is a give-away that demonstrates you're a follower of the garbage put out by the late Roger Feinmanthat my work, exposing the serious autopsy fraud in this case, somehow has functioned so as to "undo much of the good work done by early critics" . Gee Martin. . why don't you get specific, and tell us what "good work" you are referring to. My work was published in January, 1981, and contained the accounts of the body bag and shipping casket that Robert Blakey had consigned to the classified files, and--were it not for Best Evidence--might have remained there for 50 years. So what are you talking about?

But let's get to your other pots.

First of all: If there was anything "daft," let me assure you that the late Wesley Liebeler, the UCLA law professor and Warren Commission to whom I showed some of this evidence on October 24, 1966, wouldn't have gotten as excited as he did, and then drafted a 13 page memorandum to every member of the Warren Commission, and its legal staff, pointing out thatunbeknownst to themtheir own files contained evidence that the President's body had been altered prior to autopsy. (See Chapter 9 of Best Evidence, for a description of that meeting; and Chapter 10 of Best Evidence, for the story of the Liebeler Memorandum). And, although you may not be aware of it, a member of the White House legal staff --Lee White--then suggested that there be a limited reopening of the case, to investigate this particular matter, and LBJ nixed that option. (Perhaps LBJ contacted you, back then, and you assured him that these ideas were "without merit"? And were "daft"?)

Second: if there was anything "daft", let me assure you that my publisher wouldn't have spent the money they did vetting the book, and then putting up the funds to commission a documentary film, in order to get the key witness accounts (about the body bag and the shipping casket) on film, prior to publication.

The truly "daft" idea is in your post post, and is the absurd notionwhich comes from the fevered imagination of Harrison Livingstonethat there was "another" body at Bethesda.

THE FALSE NOTION OF THE "OTHER BODY" -- LIVINGSTONE'S WAY OF AVOIDING MULTIPLE COFFIN ENTRIES

Here's the bottom line, which I have little doubt you will ever accept, because it would mean capitulating to the essential validity of my work, but here it is anyway: Yes, there was one more than one coffin entry at Bethesda that night (i.e., the shipping casket at 6:35 PM, and then the Dallas coffin entering once (empty) at 7:17 PM, and then a second time at 8PM )with JFK's body)but there was no second body.

Let me repeat that: multiple coffin entries, because of a clumsy attempt to hide the prior intercept; but no "second body." The first proposition (multiple coffin entries) is backed up by the evidence; the second ("second body") is a straw man erected by Harrison Livingstone, who you are now blindly following in an attempt to discredit my work.

You ought to understand that point and stop nit picking and making tendentious arguments attempting to introduce "another body." If you want to believe that, then I suggest you purchase an airline ticket and come visit Livingstone on some fruit farm in northern California, and the to of you can meet in the woods, and fry marshmellows and can commune on that notion.

No on to your next point:

QUOTE:

Boyajian's report does NOT say that the casket he and his men picked up contained the body of President Kennedy. And he did NOT recall the arrival of Kennedy's casket. Those are the FACTS. Additionally, as Jim DiEugenio correctly pointed out, "Bethesda is also a morgue. It did not stop being so just because Kennedy was being transported there that day. Other military men died that day" UNQUOTE

DSL RESPONSE: You're dead wrongand you're playing "lawyers games" again. Boyajian and his men were specifically sent to Bethesda to provide security in connection with the arrival of the President's body. (You can even read about this in Manchester's Death of a President, although he doesn't mention Boyajian by name. But he talks about how Admiral Galloway needed Marines for security, and called over to Fort Myer to get a group). Anyway, that's what Sgt. Boyajian was there for, and that's the subject of the after-action report he wrote on November 26, 1963. There was no other body that arrived at Bethesda that night---and there was no other morgue at Bethesda.." Those are simply facts. As for DiEugenio's unfounded conjecture, "Other military men died that day"would you mind supplying a name? Because if there was such a death, that person's body was certainly not brought to Bethesda on the night of November 22, 1963. Your attempt to fuzz up this issue is outrageous, and againgoes to your motives to be even making such an absurd and dishonest argument.

Next Point: I said that Dennis David told me that the black hearse with the shipping casket arrived "a good 20 minutes" before the naval ambulance carrying Jacqueline Kennedy, which arrived at the front of Bethesda at 6:55 PM EST. Your response: to cite the time of "6:45 PM" 10 minutes later--which was provided by Dennis David when interviewed over the phone by Doug Horne of the ARRB.

Listen up, Mr. Hay: I interviewed Dennis David on July 2, 1979, by phone; and then on camera in October, 1980: I reported accurately what he said. Right there, in his home, in Hoopston, Illinois, and on camera and you can see that in the home video documentary we released in 1989: that President Kennedy's body arrived, in the black hearse "a good 20 minutes before" the naval ambulance. Are you seriously contending that what Dennis David said to Doug Horne in 1997seventeen years after I interviewed him on camerasomehow undercuts what he told me in 1980? Oh pleez. . .get real.

You can huff and puff all you want Martin Hay. We're now coming up on 50 years after the event. So glad that you have become interested in pursuing the matter. No doubt it offers you some escape from your day job. Unfortunately, you cannot undo a historical record that was established by the Boyajian Report in 1963 and by the journalistic work I did in 1979, and on camera in 1980.

But keep trying. . as I'm sure you will.

DSL
6/21/13, 3 AM PDT
Los Angeles, California