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COSMIC REALITY - 2
THE KENNEDY CONNECTION

When the town's elementary school burned down double sessions at the other schools resulted in shorter school days in November 1963. I was home, changed and already at my neighbor's, a few houses down the street. It was just after 2:15 PM Eastern Standard and the radio was on in the kitchen which I had walked through after entering by the back door. I was through the dining room and in the living room when I felt I was walking through some kind of barrier. I stopped puzzled, asking aloud, "What's happening?"

My attention was drawn to the voice from the radio. "It is confirmed, President Kennedy is dead of gunshot wounds. He was shot down while riding in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas. We repeat, President John F. Kennedy has died of a gunshot wound...."

"What are they saying?" My mind was stumbling to make sense of whatever was happening. I felt lightheaded, as if my reality had somehow shifted. Nothing seemed right. And, Kennedy was dead. The man who had been from my state, the man whom I campaigned for, the man who represented every dream I had been taught to honor, the very embodiment of everything I had been taught to admire and desire - the war hero, the religious man, the good father and husband, the wealthy and charismatic President of the United States was dead. Someone had shot him. Someone had shot and killed the President.

My friend came down the stairs and said, "What's wrong?"

"They killed Kennedy. He's dead," was all I said before retracing my steps through the dinning room, past the radio in the kitchen, out the back door, across the vacant lot behind the houses, and back home.

Mom was in the kitchen when I walked in and she said, "I thought you went to see Lois?"

Again I relayed the news, "President Kennedy is dead. Someone shot him." I did not stay to watch the shock overtake my Mom. She followed me to the television. That day reality changed in one dramatic moment after another, as one after another the people of the nation and the world confronted the Assassination. Each of us had our realities shattered so dramatically that all of us remember where we were and what we were doing the day John Kennedy died.

Some of us wanted to get it all behind us and chose to accept the conclusion that Lee Oswald single handily killed Kennedy. Oswald happened to be some sort of egocentric looser who just happened to be working in a building providing the best vantage point for assassinating Kennedy in the motorcade. Some of us chose this official view of history.

Others of us believed this view was too simplistic and left all too much to chance. There was more to the story. Even others were sure that the rest of story was being actively covered up. A few became obsessed with uncovering the full truth behind the Assassination.

For me the Assassination was something less than an obsession and something more than a hobby. I immediately began compiling data concerning the murder. By the time I was a Sophomore at the University of Massachusetts, my file on the Kennedy killing and ensuing cover-up was an inch and a half thick. Much of the data was comprised of notations as to what subject was covered in which newspaper, magazine, or book.

During that sophomore year, a critic of Oswald alone theory came to speak at the University. The setting was informal and casual in a small dormitory lounge. The man, whom I will call James White, believed the official version of Kennedy's death was wrong.

The Warren Commission, which had been given the task of investigating the President's death, concluded Lee Harvey Oswald fired three shots from a Carcano rifle at the Presidential motorcade. One bullet passed through the President's coat and shirt 5 3/4 inches below the collar and exited through the throat just below the Adam's Apple. The apparent major difference in the clothing holes and bullet trajectory through the throat was explained as the clothing ridding up, as the President waved to the crowd. This single bullet went on to enter Texas Governor Connally under his right armpit. The bullet exited Connally's chest, below his right nipple and reentered his body, shattering his wrist and exiting again. The bullet's final wound was in the Governor's right thigh. A second bullet missed. The third entered the President's brain. There were no conspirators. Oswald planned and executed the killing alone.

Critic James White was discussing the numerous problems with the Warren Commission verdict when I asked what he thought about the third wound on Kennedy's body. White did not know what I was talking about. I produced my file and quickly located a notation concerning a newspaper account concerning statements of two FBI agents present at Kennedy's official autopsy.

FBI Agents Sibert and O'Neill stated that in addition to the neck and head wounds, a third apparent bullet wound was located in Kennedy's upper back. The FBI agents also claimed the autopsy surgeon Dr. James Humes thought the wound was an entrance wound and could not figure where the bullet had gone. Humes probed the wound, which was not very deep, thus more of a puncture.

White was confused for a major reason: nowhere in the Warren Commission Report were the FBI agents mentioned as attending the autopsy, and their official report had not been available to the Warren Commission. White's first exposure to this FBI connection was my notation concerning the newspaper account. He copied down the information.

Within days, I realized my Kennedy file was missing. In my naiveté I thought it had been misplaced. Ten years later I discovered James White had died in a bar room brawl two weeks after our encounter. I believe the protectors of the Assassination's secrets had killed White and stolen my file - assuming a college sophomore would give up the search rather quickly.

These unknown protectors had stopped White and myself from pursuing the truth. They did not stop David S. Lifton years later when he uncovered the key to the Assassination puzzle and the third undiscussed wound. As soon as I saw the book BEST EVIDENCE on the bookstore shelf I had to have it, and am glad I did not wait to purchase this extraordinary book. The copy I have is the only one I have ever seen anywhere. It is a seven-hundred-page, heavily documented book which I am about to summarize to just the basics. My apologies to Mr. Lifton for the intense simplification of his work.

BEST EVIDENCE by David Lifton

Someone had a motive for killing the President of the United States compelling enough to plan assassination. Obviously, the planners realized the resulting murder investigation would be as comprehensive as ever conducted. However, the likelihood of a clue turning up would be diminished if the authorities were able to apprehend an assassin as soon as possible. The longer the investigation went on, the more danger it presented for the Assassination's planners. It would be advantageous to have someone around to take the blame - someone like Lee Oswald.

If you wished to have someone specific blamed for the killing, you would want him captured as soon as possible. It appears the Assassination planners provided authorities with data immediately implicating Oswald:

The bullets hit the President at 12:30 P.M. and by 12:38 police radio transmissions to the dispatcher pinpointed the sixth floor sniper nest at the Texas Book Depository. This information came from police radio calls by officers at the scene claiming the information was from an unidentified witness. Within fifteen minutes of the Assassination, the dispatcher was giving the height, age, and weight of Lee Oswald, provided by another Dallas Sheriff on the scene, who also received his information from an unidentified source. Yet, when the dispatcher rebroadcast the information the words "slender build" had been added to Oswald's physical description.

The question asked by David Lifton was - how did the dispatcher know the suspect had a "slender build"? Lifton also noted that while each policeman was ordered by the dispatcher to get all relevant information regarding informants' identities, none of the officers did. In each case, valuable witnesses never came forward and remain unidentified.

At the time of Kennedy's trip to Dallas, Oswald was working at the Texas School Book Depository where a sniper's nest was found. Discovered there was a rifle supposedly traced back to a mail-order request signed by Oswald who had been using an alias. Oswald's palm print was detected on the rifle, along with fibers from his shirt. The two recovered bullet fragments and an intact bullet were ballistically determined to have been fired from the Carcano rifle. The only other piece of evidence required to provide an ironclad case against Lee Oswald was President Kennedy's body. To convict Oswald, Kennedy would have to have been shot by a bullet entering from the rear.

This problem of showing a rear shot created a problem from the beginning. The following graphic shows the motorcade route. The Presidential limousine made a drastic 90 degree turn onto Houston Street and proceeded directly toward the Texas Book Depository. As the motorcade approached Elm Street and an even more drastic turn, the cars slowed down to a crawl.

The best shot would have been at that point on Houston Street (0), just before the turn down Elm Street. By the time the first rear shot was available (1), the limousine was on Elm Street and moving away. The fatal shot (3) was the third bullet fired. Both of the following photos were taken from the Sixth Floor Window where the Sniper's Nest was found. But shooting down Houston would create a frontal wound.

When a bullet enters a human body, the entrance wound corresponds to the dimension of the bullet. In exiting the body, however, the bullet blows open a wound many times larger than the entrance. Thus the size of a given wound can indicate entrance and exit paths. Supposing someone wished to frame Oswald, Kennedy's body had to show a rear entrance wound and an exit hole in the frontal portion of the body.

To set Oswald up, it was imperative no bullets or wounds be discovered from any direction other than the sixth floor sniper nest where Oswald's Carcano rifle was planted. The real assassins had to fire from positions in front of Kennedy while using exploding ammunition referred to as "dumdum" bullets. This type ammunition creates a small entrance wound while mushrooming out and disintegrating before transversing the body. There is seldom an exit wound.

In Lifton's scenario, one or more assassins fired from in front of the Presidential limousine aiming at Kennedy, while someone else (Oswald - maybe) fired from the rear of the motorcade at Governor Connally using the Carcano rifle. Bullets previously fired from the rifle were planted at the scene with one in good enough condition to leave no doubt in the minds of ballistic experts as to what weapon fired it.

As bizarre as it seems, to create the required illusion, the Assassination planners had to gain control over Kennedy's body to surgically alter the physical evidence! Entrance holes in the front of the body would be enlarged to mimic exit wounds. The remains of the spent bullets still inside the body would be extracted through these enlarged openings. Small holes opposite the surgically altered wounds would be added to correspond to entrance wounds. To a surgeon ignorant in forensic medicine, an illusion of a bullet's trajectory trough the body would then exist. The man who conducted the Kennedy autopsy - James Humes - was not qualified in Forensic Pathology and had never autopsied a gun shot case, nor had any of the other autopsy pathologists present.

Yet no matter how well conceived, the plans of men all to often fall prey to the unexpected. Abraham Zapruder's film was one such event: no one planning the murder could have foretold that Zapruder would capture the entire assassination on film. Theoretically, with no perceived reason to limit the number of bullets fired, shooting Connally from the rear would have strengthened the case against Oswald. With the Zapruder film's chronicle of the exact timing between Kennedy being shot through the neck to the fatal head shot, the wounding of Connally confused the situation.

The Zapruder film's introduction of time limiting the number of bullets was only one unplanned element. Two more difficult problems dealt with the actual impact points on the President's body - namely the throat and head.

John Kennedy was alive although not breathing when brought to Parkland Medical Center minutes away from Dealey Plaza and the Texas Book Depository. In attempting to resuscitate the President, the attending physicians needed to do a procedure called a tracheotomy which clears a passageway to the lungs by making a small hole in the throat area. As the President's tie and shirt were removed, the doctors found a small bullet hole in his throat - perfectly positioned as an incision point for the tracheotomy. Five Dallas attending physicians believed the bullet which had pierced the throat was lodged somewhere in the lungs, because Kennedy's respiratory system continued to be erratic even after the successful tracheotomy.

While the throat wound was not fatal, the head shot was lethal. President Kennedy died before the Dallas doctors could ascertain for certain the path the throat wounding bullet had taken. The path of the bullet hitting Kennedy in the head did not appear to be a mystery to the Dallas doctors during their nationally televised news conference later that afternoon. I clearly remember Dr. Malcolm Perry pointing to his own right temple demonstrating the point to entrance.

This most important event was carried on the three major networks, yet Lifton could not locate any piece of film concerning that press conference. So, although still photos exist with Perry pointing to his right temple, the film record has apparently disappeared from the libraries of the three networks.

The Dallas doctors believed a bullet entering the front right temple traveled through Kennedy's brain and obviously exited at the point where the skull had been blown open in the lower right rear area. The soft brain tissue had failed to stop the mushrooming dumdum bullet which blew open a telltale exit wound in the right rear skull. The bullet entering the neck was believed to have traveled downward to effect the respiratory system.

It would appear the conspiracy to frame Oswald as the sole killer had failed. The tracheotomy incision made by the Dallas Doctors could be surgically enlarged to look like an exit wound. But to reverse the picture presented by the President's broken skull would, if possible, require a massive amount of surgery. Certainly such surgery would be apparent to any autopsying physician.

In fact, the official autopsy doctor James Humes testified to the Warren Commission that Kennedy's brain had been surgically autopsied before the official autopsy began! However, Humes had related this information in such technical data that no one understood what he was really saying. Humes graphically and technically related what he had seen before beginning the autopsy. Unfortunately, there were no neurosurgeons on the Warren Commission, nor was there one among the critics of the commission's verdict. It was not until an interested David Lifton requested a neurosurgeon friend to provide a layman's explanation of what Humes had said that the truth became known.

The Dallas doctors described Kennedy's head wound as in the lower right rear of the skull, egg shaped, about 2 inches by 2 3/4 inches in size. What Humes found at Bethesda where the autopsy was conducted was a massive head wound, 5 1/8 inches across extending from the lower right rear upward for six inches. Between Dallas and Bethesda, the wound described by numerous doctors in both locations had been expanded by twice its size.

Moreover, at Bethesda the wound was completely devoid of scalp and some 70% of the right brain was missing - observations the Dallas doctors had somehow failed to perceive. Furthermore, when Humes removed the blood-saturated head wrapping - wrapping that had not been applied to the President's head in Dallas - skull fragments had fallen on the Bethesda autopsy table.

And what of the throat wound? Instead of a cleanly cut incision extending the small bullet hole for an inch and a half, Humes found a widely gaping wound with irregular edges about three inches long. Regardless of the apparently sloppy technique, Humes realized a tracheotomy had been conducted and Humes did not immediately interpret the tracheotomy as an exit hole. Humes did not know about the bullet wound until the following morning when he spoke by telephone to Dr. Perry in Dallas.

Humes changed the official results of the autopsy to include the conclusion the tracheotomy had been made at a point where a bullet had exited the throat. The official version was not released until November 24, two days after the autopsy. In this way, Humes was able to explain away the strange, apparently shallow puncture wound found in Kennedy's back during the autopsy reported by the two FBI agents. In the official autopsy results, Humes raised the wound so it would correspond to an entrance wound for a bullet supposedly exiting in the front throat area later used as the point of the tracheotomy.

Yet the Dallas doctors believed the neck wound was an entrance point for a bullet that became lodged in the upper respiratory system. Humes contributes additional confirming data concerning the Dallas observation by noting the right lung was bruised near the top. Humes ordered photographs taken of this area - shots which were not included in the official set of autopsy photographs.

But when and where could all this have taken place? The body was wrapped in a sheet and placed in a bronze casket, put aboard Air Force One and flown to Washington where the casket was taken to Bethesda for the autopsy. The only possible way for the body to have been surgically altered, in the allotted time frame, would be for the bronze casket to have been empty.

Lifton located witnesses in Bethesda who saw the President's remains in a body bag as he lay in a plain, gray shipping casket. Somewhere in route the body had been removed from the bronze coffin, brought to a facility capable of taking x-rays and surgically altered. In a crazy episode reminiscent of a Keystone Cops routine, the President's body was returned to the bronze coffin and brought into the autopsy room in time to be officially autopsied by Humes.

Lifton's evidence was impressive and well presented in his BEST EVIDENCE. But, I would have still had a hard time swallowing this far-fetched scenario had it not been for one little piece of my history. I remember being fifteen years old and watching televised views of Bethesda during the time the President's body was arriving where they showed the second coffin being taken off an ambulance and brought into the rear of the building where the autopsy was to take place. I remember the commentators wondering what it all meant.

Was it just luck that had the television tuned into the network with a camera in position to see the second coffin? Granted, David Lifton was able to answer innumerable questions voiced by myself and others. And, he certainly provides a vast treasure of documented evidence to support his claims. But, it was my memory of the second coffin that forced me to accept Lifton's strange theory as the most probable manner in which the President was executed and how that execution was made to look like the work of one crazy person named Oswald.

COSMIC REALITY - 2- CONTINUED
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