David Mantik's Definitive look at the Harper Fragment

[Jim Hargrove]

I thought the main point Dr. Mantik was making was that the large piece of skull introduced into evidence by the Harpers was of rear, or "occipital," origin, suggesting a shot from the front, or at least not from the rear, as a TSBD shot would have been. My (very limited) understanding is that the earliest eyewitness observations by medical and other personnel in general strongly supported evidence of a large "blow-out" type wound to the rear of the president's skull, and that subsequent investigations, from the HSCA to arguments by researchers such as Gerald Posner and John McAdams, have attempted to alter these perceptions and, in effect, move the exit wound forward, helping to support the Warren Commission's conclusion that all shots originated behind JFK's car.

It is this rather simple point that I thought Dr. Mantik was using his considerable skills to examine in this article, and less the questions of where the fragment was found and/or where the shot(s) originated. Dr. Mantik's multi-part article at CTKA resembles the type of research we often see at medical/scientific, peer-reviewed periodicals: it is highly structured, dense, long, and difficult for laymen to appreciate. In other areas of research, this is a common problem.

And the solution has been around for a long time. There is a whole class of writers who specialize in taking complex scientific articles written in peer-reviewed journals and shortening and simplifying them for the popular market. The best of these writers often do a remarkable job making the salient points of significant research more accessible to the general public. This sort of popularization of Dr. Mantik's research is sorely needed now.