The disappearance of the photographers' vehicle

[Gordon Gray]

For the record this is what David said Boswell told him:"I happen to run into Commander Boswell and he asked me something else and we were talking and I said, "Let me ask you, which casket was the body in?" He said, "You should know, you were there." That's not exactly an unequivocal statement that Kennedy's body was in the shipping casket. Better evidence that is was is Reed's testimony.

Thank you Gordon for the David quote. From where I sit, Boswell is telling Dennis David the body was indeed in the casket he carried in ("you were there") which would make no sense if Kennedy was not in the casket. Dennis David may have told others a slightly different version. From Best Evidence: "At my (Lifton's) request, David repeated his story. As he did, I noticed that he said the casket that actually held the body 'had come through the back gate...which was located over there by the Officers' Club.' He assured me that when this ambulance--this 'first' one--arrived, all the senior officers were present: 'Dr. Boswell, who was the Officer of the Day, and Dr. Humes, plus the chief of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery was there, and the Chief of the Army and the Chief of the Air Force Medical Departments were already there, at the morgue.' Dennis David repeated quite matter-of-factly that there were two caskets, that the second one was empty. 'I was told by the doctor that the body was in the first casket.' 'Oh, I see,' trying to be mellow.'Which doctor said that to you?' 'Dr. Boswell.' "Boswell said the body was in the first casket?' 'Yep.' 'In other words, Boswell knew there were two caskets?' 'Right.' 'He told you this then?' 'Well, he told me...that the body came in the casket, the one when I was down there, which was the one that came in the back gate.' " Best Evidence, pp 572-3.

No doubt Kennedy's body was in the shipping casket as per Reed. But Boswell's statement is an equivocation, not a direct answer which David, you and others want to interpret as a positive affirmation. If he had nothing to conceal from David, why didn't he simply answer directly, "It was in the coffin you delivered Dennis"? I accept Reed testimony over David's interpretation of what Boswell said, because he not only saw the coffin outside the autopsy room, he saw it carried inside, the body removed from it, and saw others present who corroborate that.