Fake news (or history) from the Smithsonian

[Joseph McBride]

As a glaring example of how we get fake news (or in this case fake history) from our government and media, here is what the Smithsonian Magazine, the official organ of the Smithsonian Institution, has to tell us about Jacqueline Kennedy and the film JACKIE: "In spite of the obvious cause of the president's death, by law, an autopsy had to be performed. In the film, a weary and desperate Jackie could not prevent the cutting open of the body and the examination of it" (Kate C. Lemay, Dec. 27, 2016). The official autopsy was one of the most botched in history and one of the most controversial. Books have been written about the coverup involving the autopsy and the unofficial pre-autopsy surgery to fake the wounds in the president's body. David Lifton and Douglas Horne have written important books exposing what happened at the autopsy and pre-autopsy, and David Mantik has contributed definitive studies of the fabrication of the X-rays. I've written about this coverup in my book INTO THE NIGHTMARE: MY SEARCH FOR THE KILLERS OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY AND OFFICER J. D. TIPPIT and called attention to the November 22, 1963, memo from the FBI's Alan Belmont about a bullet lodged behind the president's ear that the FBI was in the process of obtaining that night; that bullet was never admitted into evidence, and the Belmont memo alone disproves the Warren Report. It's hard to know if the Smithsonian is being willfully ignorant or deliberately disingenuous and misleading. The effect is the same. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonia...180961550/

[Jim DiEugenio]

This is the kind of crap Bugliosi tried to sell.

First, as I consulted with Palamara for my review of this film, the idea--as the film depicts-- that Jackie tried to walk into the Bethesda morgue is not accurate.

Secondly, its true that Jackie was in a state of shock and was unresponsive about the autopsy that Kennedy should have. But its also clear that Bobby Kennedy took this procedure over and he signed off on a full autopsy. Gary Aguilar often quotes this document which carries Bobby's signature. (See Trauma Room One, p. 182)

Pat Speer, myself and Von Pein had a debate about this and how Bugliosi the Distorter tried to twist this point around. RFK authorized a full autopsy, which President Kennedy did not get. To give two examples: there was no dissection of the back wound, and there was no sectioning of the brain. Since Kennedy was killed by a bullet wound to the head, and seriously wounded by a bullet in the back, this is unfathomable. Because without those two procedures how does one know the path of the bullet, or bullets, through the head, or if the back wound was a through and through wound?

What is worse is this: Arlen Specter never asked any of the autopsy doctors why these procedures were not performed! It is simply not credible that Specter was not aware just what a lapse in autopsy procedure the failure to dissect the tracks of these wounds were. And this is a point where I disagree with Lifton's ideas. He tries to say that somehow the WC was deceived and dumbfounded by the results of the autopsy. IMO, this does not hold water anymore. With the declassifications of the ARRB, and the interviews done by authors like William Law in his fine book, it is obvious today that Specter understood he simply could not ask those questions--or question Burkley, or interview Sibert or O'Neill. My God, he did not even interview Stringer! When Finck was questioned about this procedural failure at the trial of Clay Shaw by Jim Garrison, we then understood why Specter did what he did. Because Finck revealed that Humes was limited by the military brass not to proceed as he should have. (ibid, p. 183) Specter made sure that subject was not touched in the WC cover up.

Arlen had a job to do. And he understood that. He left the worst autopsy in history unquestioned. And he then spent the rest of his life lying his head off about it.

[Joseph McBride]

It's choice that the Smithsonian claims, ""In spite of the obvious cause of the president's death, by law, an autopsy had to be performed."

It's amazing how much untruth can be packed into
one sentence by a U.S. government organ in an article by a so-called historian.
(I did some checking and could not find out whether "Kate Lemay" is related
to Curtis LeMay. He had one daughter, but not this one.)

The cause of death was not obvious. The autopsy surgeons only pretended to know
the cause of death after the faked autopsy and the pre-autopsy surgery were performed. But
the record indicates there was some confusion in the room,
both feigned and real depending on the party involved, about what had actually happened.

And it was clear to the Parkland doctors and nurses that Kennedy was hit from the front and behind, but
this is not what the Smithsonian means. They buy the notion that the autopsy started backward,
i.e., with the cause of death figured out and the lone shooter and his position identified. Any proper
autopsy of a gunshot death has to determine the paths and angles of the bullets and recover
the bullets, which the official autopsy did not do -- although the Belmont memo indicated at least
one bullet was recovered, and Dr. Humes may have recovered it and other bullets or fragments
during the "surgery" before the autopsy.

Then the Smithsonian notes that "by law, an autopsy
had to be performed," without realizing (?) that the law prescribed that the autopsy had to take place
in Texas. The state law, as we know, was violated at gunpoint at Parkland by O'Donnell, Kellerman, et al.,
in kidnapping the coffin -- which may or may not have contained the body at that point; I think
it may have been an empty coffin, and it was worth a gun battle in front of Mrs. Kennedy
to prevent the coffin from being opened by Dr. Rose, which would have blown the whole conspiracy. I go
into that theory in INTO THE NIGHTMARE.

[Albert Doyle]

There was clearly a substitute brain swapped-in for JFK's at the brain autopsy. Richard Lipsey also witnessed a different autopsy than the officially recorded one. Finally, Dennis David saw filmed wounds that were surgically altered at Lifton's pre-autopsy.

[Jim DiEugenio]

That is rich, the cause of death was obvious?

That is why we are still arguing over it today, right?

Did the back wound transit all the way through the body? If it did not, then the Single Bullet Theory is kaput.

And if you go with the doctor's placement of the rear entrance wound on the head, then there is no particle trail through the skull to match up with.

BTW, I have to say, even Dan Rather admitted in 1975 on CBS TV that the autopsy was botched. But he tried to say it was due to Bobby Kennedy.

Want to know just how bad Rather and CBS were in their JFK specials? Through a go-between, Humes admitted to CBS that he was limited in his procedures that night--but he added it was not by Bobby Kennedy! I suspect that Rather was advised he had to lie abut this by medical consultant John Lattimer. And Danny Boy went ahead and told a whopper. (Trauma Room One, p. 182)

[Joseph McBride]

One of the tipoffs I had that Mary Ferrell was
fishy was when she tried to push the John Lattimer
book KENNEDY AND LINCOLN: MEDICAL & BALLISTIC
COMPARISONS OF THEIR ASSASSINATIONS on me as a major work on the case. The urologist charlatan
supports the Warren Commission in that one.

[Jim DiEugenio]

I didn't know that.

OMG, John Lattimer was a disinfo artist on the JFK autopsy for decades.

[Joseph McBride]

Yeah, and this was in the '80s that
she tried to sell me on him. I saw
through her. She ran the Dallas
disinfo clearing house to keep tabs
on researchers and try to mislead them. I am amazed many people
still idolize her.

[Tracy Riddle]

Obvious cause of death - lead poisoning! I've always been amazed at how little attention Thomas Noguchi's autopsy of RFK has received from the mainstream press and historians. An otherwise highly respected coroner, who wrote books and was often featured on TV, and yet the implications of his autopsy on RFK are glossed over and ignored.

[Magda Hassan]

Obvious cause of death - lead poisoning! I've always been amazed at how little attention Thomas Noguchi's autopsy of RFK has received from the mainstream press and historians. An otherwise highly respected coroner, who wrote books and was often featured on TV, and yet the implications of his autopsy on RFK are glossed over and ignored.

Yes, often though this too.