Occam's Razor is not a principle or rule of criminal procedure in a trial.
The simplest solution is not necessarily the one that makes sense or is realistic.
Occam's Razor is used primarily for conducting experiments, between COMPETING hypotheses.
But how are the Jet Effect Theory and the Neuromuscular Reaction COMPETING hypotheses when they have been shown to be junk science. (In fact, Josiah Thompson has shown that the Dr. Alvarez fudged his tests to achieve the desired results for his Jet Effect theory for the government. Similarly, Dr. Donald B. Thomas has debunked the Neuromuscular Reaction as another excuse fur the backward head snap.
The SBT does not make sense (even its modified version), nor the condition of CE399.
(I'm in cottage country for Canada Day long weekend without my computer or wifi, otherwise I'd share some insight into Occsm's Razor by others. Hopefully later).
Competing with the Jet Effect is the hypothesis that “back and to the left” suggests a shot from in front.
Simplest = shot from the front.
Oswald said “I didn’t shoot anybody”.
High profile assassins don’t typically say that. Then why did he say it? Maybe he didn’t shoot anybody.
Why did he say “I’m just a patsy!”??
Maybe he thought he was being set up as a patsy.
He also said of the backyard rifle photos (paraphrased) “that’s my face superimposed on someone else’s body”. Why? Because that is his face superimposed on someone else’s body.
Why did Ruth Paine get Oswald the job at TSBD? She wanted Oswald to have a job at TSBD.
Why did Will Fritz fail to take notes at his interrogation of Oswald? Fritz didn’t want anyone to know what was said.
Why did Will Fritz allow Oswald to be shot in the basement of the DPD? He wanted Oswald dead.
The crazy thing is that in going after "Witt the umbrella guy" (and I am far from convinced that Thompson, who I greatly admire, is correct about him) we ignore the man next to him who is CLEARLY using a walkie talkie/radio of some sort (and who Larry Hancock has pointed out looked like Felipe Vidal, a major figure in the anti-Castro militia). And Witt lied about one thing, which immediately makes him suspect; he claimed that this guy said to him "they done shot those people," which is a stupidly stereotypical citation of a kind of black speech which nobody ever really used unless they were talking in a fake black minstrel dialect. Why did he invent this? I don't know, but it makes me wonder why he would lie about such a basic thing.
But once again look at the pictures, which even Rex Bradford has said show the man with Witt using a hand-held radio. This is more than significant.
You beat me to the punch regarding Dark Complected Man. If we were all to use Thompson's logic regarding Umbrella Man, no one would be discussing Johannides, or Angleton. Thomspson still remains a hero of mine, though. I may have spent a lot more time in the black community than you because I do not regard certain colloquialisms as "stereotypic.' We all speak a language that surrounded us in growing up years.
I also do not denigrate Helen Markham in the manner both prosecutors and defenders of Oswald did. I'm now having trouble explaining what I think and Helen Markham may well have had her thoughts in order but had trouble expressing them, too.
are you saying they use that kind of syntax? And also, Vidal, if it was him, was not black but Latino. But really I don't think any black person speaks like that and I have actually probably had more social/cultural interaction than you have, as a jazz musician - not that I think it makes much difference here. It's like the word "gwine," I wait and no one ever says things like that in real life.
Well done. Invoking Occam’s Razor to ignore facts is oversimplifying to the nth degree. It is an invitation to ignore evidence and to discourage examination. My money’s with Einstein.
For what it’s worth, Josiah Thompson totally dismantled Dr. Alvarez’ theory about the “Jet effect” movement of JFK’s head during the assassination. It just didn’t happen the way Alvarez tried to manufacture.
And here comes yet another Government scientist to prop up an indefensible theory yet again.
With all due respect Jeff, I’m more interested in understanding Nalli’s government connections, than his dismissive, simplified theories that lack sincere context regarding all the data during the assassination.
Alvarez was a fraud. His "jet effect" theory has NO scientific basis and has never been subject to peer review.
If you want to convince the "low information" people, just direct them to the famous footage of the ARVN general who summarily executed a Viet Cong fighter on the streets of Saigon on the day of the Tet Offensive. S&W .38 to the head. Streaming red detritus shooting from the wound. What direction does the victim's head move? Why, it is away from the source of the gunshot.
Maybe Occam is like the homophobe guy Eddie Murphy talked to about gay sex:
"You know what your problem is? You never been fucked up the ass!"
Bringing in academicians to sanctify that which common sense objects to continues on habitually as "economists" tell the tax paying public that 2% inflation is good for the economy. Look where we are now and, horrifyingly, where we will soon be as a result of listening to paid gun academics.
Thank you Jeff for the detailed evaluation of the ongoing soft pedaling and obfuscation. 158 days. That is how long we have waited to date since the Executive Order and the CIA has yet to release any new JFK documents resulting from internal searches. We are approaching 6 months. While President Trump and the nation has had an incredibly busy time filled with massively important events, this JFK stonewalling remains totally unacceptable. Jeff’s comments regarding the Joannides files stirs the emotions, reminds us what should be known, and raises further questions regarding the other critical documents and continued stonewalling. At some point the community needs to respectfully thank Luna for the recent progress but also demand completing the final exposures.
The assassination looks like it was executed with military precision because it was executed with military precision. The Umbrella Man and the guy next to him look like they are signaling the snipers because they are signaling the snipers.
Even as a school boy the story of Oswald pingponging around Oak Cliff, being identified on the bus by his former landlady, encountering Officer Tippit and then murdering him, winding up at the Texas Theater where he’s ratted out by Johnny Brewer, all of this sounded like a convoluted and creepy urban legend. It sounds like a lie because guess what, it *is* a lie.
I started reading the Devils Chessboard by David Talbott I have just started READING but even the beginning shows how ruthless, immoral and sinister the Dulles Brothers were
The foundation of the Warren Commission is that one bullet caused 7 wounds in two people. That bullet was found on a stretcher without blood. The guy who found “it” wouldn’t confirm it was the bullet he ‘found’. This simple fiction was clearly a lie, 7 wounds in two people - Hollywood doesn’t do that ‘magic’. In cartoons. Watch the Kevin Costner clip at the trial in the JFK movie as he describes the path of the bullet accurately. The power of the media to lie to us for 60+ years. . . Just look and know that Oswald was just a patsy, innocent. Hard to believe but they pin the tail on the innocent. Rewriting history.
Wesley Liebler was a member of the Warren Commission and a law professor at UCLA He and David Lifton were friends Every year they would debate in front of Liebler's class Lifton said all the law student would take Liebler's point of view Liebler told Lifton it was because of the theory of best evidence, similar to Okkam's Razor but with a lawyerly touch
Interestingly Lifton got a raised eyebrow a couple times from Liebler when he pointed out something to Liebler
I continue to point out two out two things
Eight highly qualified doctors and others who saw the wound said it was a front entry
They have never been able to replicate the condition of the magic bullet after numerous tries
As the great Jewish sage, Rabbi Gamaliel, Would say everything else is commentary
The supporters of the Warren report have either done very little investigation or have contorted them themself into a pretzel
There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance—that principle is contempt prior to investigation Herbert Spencer
Thanks, Jeff, for this terrific piece! It calls for expanding on ole Occam and Nalli's (abs)use of him in the JFK case
Re Occam's venerable dictum, Nalli rightly explicates, "that although the simplest theory is often the most probable (or preferred), that theory must nevertheless explain all the data excluding noise ... ." ALL THE DATA.
Nalli argues that Oswald's shot satisfies Occam as an explanation for "the backward snap of Kennedy's head." It doesn't. "All the data" has to explain the fact that, by Nalli Lee's bullet blew out of the right front of Kennedy's skull, all of the recovered skull fragments were found to the JFK's left, not his right, including one found in a limousine well behind Kennedy's.
The "debris field" was to JFK's left rear, not his right: the motorcops to JFK's left rear were bespattered, as was the left elbow of the driver of the follow up limo. The motorcops to the right were NOT smeared. The left side of the trunk of Kennedy's limo was spattered, not the right.
Not only did the Newmans, who were mere feet from JFK at Z-312, believe the shot came from behind them, so did Zapruder in an early interview as did Emmett Hudson who stood on the grassy knoll steps (24H213). And, as you've pointed out, 21 cops, and several observers on the overpass, ran behind the "grassy knoll" because they thought a shot had come from there.
Moreover, Nalli's "jet effect" theory, which he said explained how a shot from behind blew out the right front of Kennedy's skull, propelling JFK backward, is also rubbish. Interested parties who check his Heliyon article will see that he determined, from his "physics calculations," that JFK's premortem brain weighed 2,100 grams.
When skeptics pointed this howler out to him (adult male brains weigh but 1,200 to 1,400 grams), he published a "Corrigendum," a correction. He admitted 2,100 grams was "well outside of the normal range ... for human males; this is not an error per se, but rather simply an oversight." Not an "error?" It's inarguably an error of fact, one that Nalli or his vaunted scientific "peer reviewers" could have corrected in the original article if any of them had spent 30 seconds googling human brain weights.
Hilariously, Nalli recalculated and doubled down. He suggested that, rather than JFK's brain weighing 2,100 grams before it was blasted across Dealey, it may have "only" weighed 1,800, 1,650, or even 1,500 grams. The first two weights are still well outside the normal, human range, and the last, 1,500 grams, is what JFK's brain weighed at autopsy. So Nalli would have us accept as possible that, despite Kennedy's blasted brain debris blowing out of his cranium and the limo, onto its occupants, the motor cops, etc., Kennedy's brain weighed the same after he was murdered than before.
As a final note, skeptics have given critics heat for highlighting Dr. McClelland's account of JFK's right-rearward skull injuries, most recently Robert Wagner in a recent book. Wagner, who's not a doctor and who wasn't there, says McClelland is wrong and Wagner's right: JFK's skull wound was on the top, not the back. But Warrenistas somehow never mention the most senior, best credentialed trauma surgeon who treated Kennedy, neurosurgery professor Kemp Clark, MD.
Here's Clark, from the record:
KEMP CLARK, MD: in an undated note apparently written contemporaneously at Parkland described the President's skull wound as, "...in the occipital region of the skull... Through the head wound, blood and brain were extruding... There was a large wound in the right occipitoparietal region, from which profuse bleeding was occurring... There was considerable loss of scalp and bone tissue. Both cerebral and cerebellar tissue were extruding from the wound." (WC--CE#392)
In a hand written note dated 11-22-63, Dr. Clark wrote, "a large 3 x 3 cm remnant of cerebral tissue present....there was a smaller amount of cerebellar tissue present also....There was a large wound beginning in the right occiput extending into the parietal region....Much of the skull appeared gone at the brief examination...." (Exhibit #392: WC V17:9-10)
In a typed summary submitted to Rear Admiral Burkley on 11-23-63, Clark described the head wound as, "a large wound in the right occipito-parietal region... Both cerebral and cerebellar tissue were extruding from the wound. (Warren Report, p.518, Warren Commission Exhibit #392, Lifton, D. Best Evidence, p. 322)
I can't wait for Warrenistas to counter that McClelland and Clark couldn't have seen the back of JFK's head because he was lying face up on a gurney. The Boston Globe's witnesses, and the other neurosurgery professor on hand, Robert Grossman, MD, reported that they at some point they, quite appropriately, lifted JFK's head and took a look.
Oh, but there's soooo much more!
Under oath and to the Warren Commission's Arlen Specter, Clark described his findings upon arrival to the emergency room, "I then examined the wound in the back of the President's head. This was a large, gaping wound in the right posterior part, with cerebral and cerebellar tissue being damaged and exposed." (WC--V6:20) Specter, either inattentive to Dr. Clark's skull wound description or wishing to move the wound more anterior than the eyewitness, neurosurgery professor placed it, later asked Clark, "Now, you described the massive wound at the top of the of the President's head, with brain protruding..." (WC:6:25) Dr. Clark later located the skull wound to Mr. Specter again, "...in the right occipital region of the President's skull, from which considerable blood loss had occurred which stained the back of his head, neck and upper shoulders." (WC--V6:29)
I apologize if I was thought to have belittled your experience. I'm here in Baja with a great neighbor and he is from Mississippi. I have heard the word "done" probably more in the last month than I guess you have in your life. I did not consider it to be stereotypical of people from Mississippi but, if I had, I would not feel guilty.
I watched a video of Josiah Thompson with another Kennedy assassination book I had read Thompson's book in the late 60's/early 70's It appeared credible
Then I saw Thompson talk about all Kind of RFK Jr ridiculous conspiracies
With all due respect I go back to my comment about contempt prior to investigation
It's always interesting to me how non doctors who have never been in an operating room can even talk knowlegeably about this stuff
Yes, there are doctors who have supported the Warren Commission
I don't know hoe anyone in that trauma room could have missed the head shot It was massive Yes they weren't pathologists but i would suggest they had seen enough head shot wounds to say with over 90% accuracy that was a front entrance and they all agreed on that
Here is an excerpt from testimony before the ARRB by Dr. Peters: (emphasis added)
Jeremy Gunn: Now, I am approaching this as a layperson, which may be good or may be bad. I would have imagined myself if I had seen President Kennedy in Trauma Room 1 and this part of the skull — the part that's within Line 1 of Dr. Boswell — if this were missing, I would imagine it would be noticeable to me as a layperson that there is severe damage to the skull. Is — would that be a misperception on my part?
Dr. Peters: Depends on which angle you approached him.
Dr. McClelland: From the front you might not —
Dr. Peters: right.
Dr. McClelland: — think that.
Dr. Peters: That's right.
Jeremy Gunn: So none of you made observations that would — or maybe the question is: Did any of you see any appearance of damage by looking just at the scalp and just at the hair that would suggest that that much of the skull was missing, or were you even in the position to be able to —
Dr. Jones: Well I think you could see the top part of the head reasonably well. He had a very thick bushy head of hair —
Dr. Peters: Yeah.
Dr. Jones: — and it was difficult to see down through the hair.
Dr. Baxter: All —
Dr. Jones: I didn't see any indentation of the skull or anything like half of the top of the head was missing.
Dr. Baxter: All matted with blood. Unless you were up there and directly examining it, I don't think anybody could make a statement from what I saw. I mean it was just one mass of blood and hair.
Dr. Peters: I was amazed when I saw the first x-ray of the skull — the lateral skull of the extent of the fragmentation of the skull. I did not appreciate that I think because a lot of it was covered by scalp at the time we worked on him. We were doing a resuscitation, not a forensic autopsy.
Mr. Litwin, what possible motivation would the many Dallas doctors have, especially later in life with established reputations, to jump into this fire unless they felt compelled to say what they saw? Why would these level headed professionals take that risk for a "conspiracy theory"? For that matter, what possible motivation did LHO have to kill the president? Was it to become a "big man" of historical consequence for a few hours before flat out denying that he committed the deed?
Have you not read any of my posts? The Dallas doctors, as one would expect, were all over the map. As Dr. Peters told the ARRB, "we were doing a resuscitation, not a forensic autopsy." Dr. Fitzpatrick, a forensic radiologist, told the ARRB that he couldn't care less what the Dallas doctors thought. Have a look at my six part series on the Dallas doctors:
As for Oswald, have you not read "Oswald's Game" by Jean Davison. She gives a coherent reason why Oswald killed Kennedy.
Oswald denied killing Kennedy because he was in police custody and he had killed a policeman. Killing Kennedy could always be explained as a political act, but not killing a policeman. It would not have been smart to admit to those killings while in police custody.
Given the chaos of Trauma Room One during JFK's failed resuscitation, there was an astonishing agreement among the Dallas trauma surgeons that JFK had a large, right rearward defect.
Pro J. Edgar Hoover writers such as Posner and the Journal of the American Medical Association (I used to be a member) have long tried to discredit doctors who didn't sing in the Warren chorus. And sadly, some of the doctors, if you believe what Posner and the JAMA said they said, have dishonored themselves by flatly contradicting their original Parkland Hospital statements and sworn Warren Commission testimony.
But I know you don't have the courage, Fred, to engage on this fascinating issue, here or anywhere.
So I'll just send you and interested parties a link to my witness compilation drawn from official sources. I wrote it many years ago.
For fun just search under "Posner" and you'll find many examples of Posner ignoring the original, official record and trying to twist it http://assassinationweb.com/ag6.htm
Litwin obsesses over the minor differences in JFK's wound descriptions that McClelland has given over the years. But he has absolutely no problem with the progovernment flip flops of Warren disputants-turned-loyalists, especially when they impugn McClelland.
Let's take Marion Thomas "Pepper" Jenkins.
MARION THOMAS JENKINS, MD: In a contemporaneous note dated 11-22-63, Jenkins described "a great laceration on the right side of the head (temporal and occipital) (sic), causing a great defect in the skull plate so that there was herniation and laceration of great areas of the brain, even to the extent that the cerebellum had protruded from the wound." (WC--Exhibit #392) To the Warren Commission's Arlen Specter Dr. Jenkins said, "Part of the brain was herniated. I really think part of the cerebellum, as I recognized it, was herniated from the wound..." (WC--V6:48) Jenkins told Specter that the temporal and occipital wound was a wound of exit, "...the wound with the exploded area of the scalp, as I interpreted it being exploded, I would interpret it being a wound of exit..." (WC--V6:51.)
Jenkins described a wound in JFK's left temple to Specter.
Jenkins: ...I thought there was a wound on the left temporal area, right in the hairline and right above the zygomatic process." Specter: "The autopsy report discloses no such development, Dr. Jenkins." Jenkins: "Well, I was feeling for--I was palpating here for a pulse to see whether the closed chest cardiac massage was effective or not and this probably was some blood that had come from the other point and so I thought there was a wound there also." A few moments later Jenkins again pursued the possibility that there had been a wound in the left temple: "...I asked you a little bit ago if there was a wound in the left temporal area, right above the zygomatic bone in the hairline, because there was blood there and I thought there might have been a wound there (indicating) (sic). Specter: "Indicating the left temporal area?" Jenkins: "Yes; the left temporal, which could have been a point of entrance and exit here (indicating) (sic-presumably pointing to where he had identified the wound in prior testimony--the right rear of the skull), but you have answered that for me (that 'the autopsy report discloses no such development')." (WC-V6:51)
In an interview with the HSCA's Andy Purdy on 11-10-77 Marion Jenkins was said to have expressed that as an anesthesiologist he (Jenkins) "...was positioned at the head of the table so he had one of the closest views of the head wound...believes he was '...the only one who knew the extent of the head wound.') (sic)...Regarding the head wound, Dr. Jenkins said that only one segment of bone was blown out--it was a segment of occipital or temporal bone. He noted that a portion of the cerebellum (lower rear brain) (sic) was hanging out from a hole in the right--rear of the head." (Emphasis added) (HSCA-V7:286-287) In an interview with the American Medical News published on 11-24-78 Jenkins said, "...(Kennedy) had part of his head blown away and part of his cerebellum was hanging out.".
Amazingly, in an interview with author Gerald Posner on March 3, 1992, Jenkins' recollection had changed dramatically. "The description of the cerebellum was my fault," Jenkins insisted, "When I read my report over I realized there could not be any cerebellum. The autopsy photo, with the rear of the head intact and a protrusion in the parietal region, is the way I remember it. I never did say occipital." (Gerald Posner, Case Closed", p. 312) Jenkins has obviously forgotten that in his own note prepared, typed, and signed on the day of the assassination, Jenkins said, "a great laceration on the right side of the head (temporal and occipital) (sic)", and HSCA's Purdy reported that Jenkins said "occipital or temporal bone" was blown out.
When told by Posner that Robert McClelland, MD had claimed, "I saw a piece of cerebellum fall out on the stretcher." Jenkins responded, "Bob (McClelland) is an excellent surgeon. He knows anatomy. I hate to say Bob is mistaken, but that is clearly not right...". (Posner G. Case Closed. p. 313) Clearly, Jenkins had forgotten that he himself had claimed that "cerebellum was hanging out" (as had Ronald Coy Jones, MD).
Jenkins, however, was not through with discrediting McClelland. To Posner, Jenkins explained how McClelland had made an error, which McClelland later corrected, that there was a wound in JFK's left temple. "I'll tell you how that happened," Jenkins explained, "When Bob McClelland came into the room, he asked me, 'Where are his wounds?' And at that time I was operating a breathing bag with my right hand, and was trying to take the President's temporal pulse, and I had my finger on his left temple. Bob thought I pointed to the left temple as the wound." (Gerald Posner, Case Closed". p. 313) Ignoring the absurdity of such a supposition for the moment, Jenkins failed to reveal an important part of the story. Jenkins failed to tell Posner, who was apparently too uninformed to know, that it was Jenkins himself who had most strikingly claimed that there was an entrance wound in the left temple, as Jenkins' Commission testimony (cited above) proves.
As we will see, Dr. Jenkins' faulty, and possibly self-serving memory seems to have frequently plagued him. It is a testament to JAMA's and Posner's laxity in fact-checking that Jenkins' recollections are so unquestioningly reported. Both JAMA's Dennis Breo and Posner quickly attempted to discredit those who, like McClelland, did not share their biases, and ignored many stupendous inconsistencies of "allies," such as Jenkins (see next chapter). Nonetheless, Jenkins' earliest, "un-enhanced" recollections must be given greatest weight and considered the most likely to be reliable, as in any police investigation. Fortunately, they also agree with the earliest recollections of other Parkland witnesses, an important corroborative factor.
Litwin, of course, will never respond. Just watch.
Occam's Razor is not a principle or rule of criminal procedure in a trial.
The simplest solution is not necessarily the one that makes sense or is realistic.
Occam's Razor is used primarily for conducting experiments, between COMPETING hypotheses.
But how are the Jet Effect Theory and the Neuromuscular Reaction COMPETING hypotheses when they have been shown to be junk science. (In fact, Josiah Thompson has shown that the Dr. Alvarez fudged his tests to achieve the desired results for his Jet Effect theory for the government. Similarly, Dr. Donald B. Thomas has debunked the Neuromuscular Reaction as another excuse fur the backward head snap.
The SBT does not make sense (even its modified version), nor the condition of CE399.
(I'm in cottage country for Canada Day long weekend without my computer or wifi, otherwise I'd share some insight into Occsm's Razor by others. Hopefully later).
I’ll throw out a few more Occam’s Razor thoughts:
Competing with the Jet Effect is the hypothesis that “back and to the left” suggests a shot from in front.
Simplest = shot from the front.
Oswald said “I didn’t shoot anybody”.
High profile assassins don’t typically say that. Then why did he say it? Maybe he didn’t shoot anybody.
Why did he say “I’m just a patsy!”??
Maybe he thought he was being set up as a patsy.
He also said of the backyard rifle photos (paraphrased) “that’s my face superimposed on someone else’s body”. Why? Because that is his face superimposed on someone else’s body.
Why did Ruth Paine get Oswald the job at TSBD? She wanted Oswald to have a job at TSBD.
Why did Will Fritz fail to take notes at his interrogation of Oswald? Fritz didn’t want anyone to know what was said.
Why did Will Fritz allow Oswald to be shot in the basement of the DPD? He wanted Oswald dead.
The crazy thing is that in going after "Witt the umbrella guy" (and I am far from convinced that Thompson, who I greatly admire, is correct about him) we ignore the man next to him who is CLEARLY using a walkie talkie/radio of some sort (and who Larry Hancock has pointed out looked like Felipe Vidal, a major figure in the anti-Castro militia). And Witt lied about one thing, which immediately makes him suspect; he claimed that this guy said to him "they done shot those people," which is a stupidly stereotypical citation of a kind of black speech which nobody ever really used unless they were talking in a fake black minstrel dialect. Why did he invent this? I don't know, but it makes me wonder why he would lie about such a basic thing.
But once again look at the pictures, which even Rex Bradford has said show the man with Witt using a hand-held radio. This is more than significant.
You beat me to the punch regarding Dark Complected Man. If we were all to use Thompson's logic regarding Umbrella Man, no one would be discussing Johannides, or Angleton. Thomspson still remains a hero of mine, though. I may have spent a lot more time in the black community than you because I do not regard certain colloquialisms as "stereotypic.' We all speak a language that surrounded us in growing up years.
I also do not denigrate Helen Markham in the manner both prosecutors and defenders of Oswald did. I'm now having trouble explaining what I think and Helen Markham may well have had her thoughts in order but had trouble expressing them, too.
are you saying they use that kind of syntax? And also, Vidal, if it was him, was not black but Latino. But really I don't think any black person speaks like that and I have actually probably had more social/cultural interaction than you have, as a jazz musician - not that I think it makes much difference here. It's like the word "gwine," I wait and no one ever says things like that in real life.
That’s a really great observation about the dialect.
Well done. Invoking Occam’s Razor to ignore facts is oversimplifying to the nth degree. It is an invitation to ignore evidence and to discourage examination. My money’s with Einstein.
For what it’s worth, Josiah Thompson totally dismantled Dr. Alvarez’ theory about the “Jet effect” movement of JFK’s head during the assassination. It just didn’t happen the way Alvarez tried to manufacture.
And here comes yet another Government scientist to prop up an indefensible theory yet again.
With all due respect Jeff, I’m more interested in understanding Nalli’s government connections, than his dismissive, simplified theories that lack sincere context regarding all the data during the assassination.
With all due respect, Jim, I have absolutely no interest in anything Nalli but a lot of interest in everything McCarthy.
Alvarez was a fraud. His "jet effect" theory has NO scientific basis and has never been subject to peer review.
If you want to convince the "low information" people, just direct them to the famous footage of the ARVN general who summarily executed a Viet Cong fighter on the streets of Saigon on the day of the Tet Offensive. S&W .38 to the head. Streaming red detritus shooting from the wound. What direction does the victim's head move? Why, it is away from the source of the gunshot.
Maybe Occam is like the homophobe guy Eddie Murphy talked to about gay sex:
"You know what your problem is? You never been fucked up the ass!"
Bringing in academicians to sanctify that which common sense objects to continues on habitually as "economists" tell the tax paying public that 2% inflation is good for the economy. Look where we are now and, horrifyingly, where we will soon be as a result of listening to paid gun academics.
Thank you Jeff for the detailed evaluation of the ongoing soft pedaling and obfuscation. 158 days. That is how long we have waited to date since the Executive Order and the CIA has yet to release any new JFK documents resulting from internal searches. We are approaching 6 months. While President Trump and the nation has had an incredibly busy time filled with massively important events, this JFK stonewalling remains totally unacceptable. Jeff’s comments regarding the Joannides files stirs the emotions, reminds us what should be known, and raises further questions regarding the other critical documents and continued stonewalling. At some point the community needs to respectfully thank Luna for the recent progress but also demand completing the final exposures.
“Simple” does not mean “less people”.
The assassination looks like it was executed with military precision because it was executed with military precision. The Umbrella Man and the guy next to him look like they are signaling the snipers because they are signaling the snipers.
Even as a school boy the story of Oswald pingponging around Oak Cliff, being identified on the bus by his former landlady, encountering Officer Tippit and then murdering him, winding up at the Texas Theater where he’s ratted out by Johnny Brewer, all of this sounded like a convoluted and creepy urban legend. It sounds like a lie because guess what, it *is* a lie.
I started reading the Devils Chessboard by David Talbott I have just started READING but even the beginning shows how ruthless, immoral and sinister the Dulles Brothers were
Nice guys finish last.
Leo Durocher
You have a lot of confidence that the Joannides file will be forthcoming. Hope you're right, but would think not. Why so optimistic?
Is the Joannides file actually forthcoming? I don’t vvrecall seeing anything about it (JFKFacts or anywhere else…)
The foundation of the Warren Commission is that one bullet caused 7 wounds in two people. That bullet was found on a stretcher without blood. The guy who found “it” wouldn’t confirm it was the bullet he ‘found’. This simple fiction was clearly a lie, 7 wounds in two people - Hollywood doesn’t do that ‘magic’. In cartoons. Watch the Kevin Costner clip at the trial in the JFK movie as he describes the path of the bullet accurately. The power of the media to lie to us for 60+ years. . . Just look and know that Oswald was just a patsy, innocent. Hard to believe but they pin the tail on the innocent. Rewriting history.
Thank God the media has stopped lying to us.
Great post, Jeff.
Two things especially caught my attention:
“…forthcoming portions of the personnel file of George Joannides.”
How and why are they finally “forthcoming” and why only “portions?”
Also this:
“It is more simple than possible.”
Sums up the reason for my obsession with the case all these years.
Wesley Liebler was a member of the Warren Commission and a law professor at UCLA He and David Lifton were friends Every year they would debate in front of Liebler's class Lifton said all the law student would take Liebler's point of view Liebler told Lifton it was because of the theory of best evidence, similar to Okkam's Razor but with a lawyerly touch
Interestingly Lifton got a raised eyebrow a couple times from Liebler when he pointed out something to Liebler
I continue to point out two out two things
Eight highly qualified doctors and others who saw the wound said it was a front entry
They have never been able to replicate the condition of the magic bullet after numerous tries
As the great Jewish sage, Rabbi Gamaliel, Would say everything else is commentary
The supporters of the Warren report have either done very little investigation or have contorted them themself into a pretzel
There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance—that principle is contempt prior to investigation Herbert Spencer
I remember reading Best Evidence and how Lifton interacted with Wesley Liebeler. But didn't even Liebeler question the WC's case internally?
Thanks, Jeff, for this terrific piece! It calls for expanding on ole Occam and Nalli's (abs)use of him in the JFK case
Re Occam's venerable dictum, Nalli rightly explicates, "that although the simplest theory is often the most probable (or preferred), that theory must nevertheless explain all the data excluding noise ... ." ALL THE DATA.
Nalli argues that Oswald's shot satisfies Occam as an explanation for "the backward snap of Kennedy's head." It doesn't. "All the data" has to explain the fact that, by Nalli Lee's bullet blew out of the right front of Kennedy's skull, all of the recovered skull fragments were found to the JFK's left, not his right, including one found in a limousine well behind Kennedy's.
The "debris field" was to JFK's left rear, not his right: the motorcops to JFK's left rear were bespattered, as was the left elbow of the driver of the follow up limo. The motorcops to the right were NOT smeared. The left side of the trunk of Kennedy's limo was spattered, not the right.
Not only did the Newmans, who were mere feet from JFK at Z-312, believe the shot came from behind them, so did Zapruder in an early interview as did Emmett Hudson who stood on the grassy knoll steps (24H213). And, as you've pointed out, 21 cops, and several observers on the overpass, ran behind the "grassy knoll" because they thought a shot had come from there.
Moreover, Nalli's "jet effect" theory, which he said explained how a shot from behind blew out the right front of Kennedy's skull, propelling JFK backward, is also rubbish. Interested parties who check his Heliyon article will see that he determined, from his "physics calculations," that JFK's premortem brain weighed 2,100 grams.
When skeptics pointed this howler out to him (adult male brains weigh but 1,200 to 1,400 grams), he published a "Corrigendum," a correction. He admitted 2,100 grams was "well outside of the normal range ... for human males; this is not an error per se, but rather simply an oversight." Not an "error?" It's inarguably an error of fact, one that Nalli or his vaunted scientific "peer reviewers" could have corrected in the original article if any of them had spent 30 seconds googling human brain weights.
Hilariously, Nalli recalculated and doubled down. He suggested that, rather than JFK's brain weighing 2,100 grams before it was blasted across Dealey, it may have "only" weighed 1,800, 1,650, or even 1,500 grams. The first two weights are still well outside the normal, human range, and the last, 1,500 grams, is what JFK's brain weighed at autopsy. So Nalli would have us accept as possible that, despite Kennedy's blasted brain debris blowing out of his cranium and the limo, onto its occupants, the motor cops, etc., Kennedy's brain weighed the same after he was murdered than before.
To abide such a fringe idea as this, and many others as I've elsewhere written, places Nalli squarely among the less credible, if eloquent, 'full blown anticonspiracy theorists.' https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/nicholas-nalli-and-the-jfk-case-part-2
As a final note, skeptics have given critics heat for highlighting Dr. McClelland's account of JFK's right-rearward skull injuries, most recently Robert Wagner in a recent book. Wagner, who's not a doctor and who wasn't there, says McClelland is wrong and Wagner's right: JFK's skull wound was on the top, not the back. But Warrenistas somehow never mention the most senior, best credentialed trauma surgeon who treated Kennedy, neurosurgery professor Kemp Clark, MD.
Here's Clark, from the record:
KEMP CLARK, MD: in an undated note apparently written contemporaneously at Parkland described the President's skull wound as, "...in the occipital region of the skull... Through the head wound, blood and brain were extruding... There was a large wound in the right occipitoparietal region, from which profuse bleeding was occurring... There was considerable loss of scalp and bone tissue. Both cerebral and cerebellar tissue were extruding from the wound." (WC--CE#392)
In a hand written note dated 11-22-63, Dr. Clark wrote, "a large 3 x 3 cm remnant of cerebral tissue present....there was a smaller amount of cerebellar tissue present also....There was a large wound beginning in the right occiput extending into the parietal region....Much of the skull appeared gone at the brief examination...." (Exhibit #392: WC V17:9-10)
In a typed summary submitted to Rear Admiral Burkley on 11-23-63, Clark described the head wound as, "a large wound in the right occipito-parietal region... Both cerebral and cerebellar tissue were extruding from the wound. (Warren Report, p.518, Warren Commission Exhibit #392, Lifton, D. Best Evidence, p. 322)
I can't wait for Warrenistas to counter that McClelland and Clark couldn't have seen the back of JFK's head because he was lying face up on a gurney. The Boston Globe's witnesses, and the other neurosurgery professor on hand, Robert Grossman, MD, reported that they at some point they, quite appropriately, lifted JFK's head and took a look.
Oh, but there's soooo much more!
Under oath and to the Warren Commission's Arlen Specter, Clark described his findings upon arrival to the emergency room, "I then examined the wound in the back of the President's head. This was a large, gaping wound in the right posterior part, with cerebral and cerebellar tissue being damaged and exposed." (WC--V6:20) Specter, either inattentive to Dr. Clark's skull wound description or wishing to move the wound more anterior than the eyewitness, neurosurgery professor placed it, later asked Clark, "Now, you described the massive wound at the top of the of the President's head, with brain protruding..." (WC:6:25) Dr. Clark later located the skull wound to Mr. Specter again, "...in the right occipital region of the President's skull, from which considerable blood loss had occurred which stained the back of his head, neck and upper shoulders." (WC--V6:29)
I don’t think he did but
he did indicate to Lifton he was open
I apologize if I was thought to have belittled your experience. I'm here in Baja with a great neighbor and he is from Mississippi. I have heard the word "done" probably more in the last month than I guess you have in your life. I did not consider it to be stereotypical of people from Mississippi but, if I had, I would not feel guilty.
I watched a video of Josiah Thompson with another Kennedy assassination book I had read Thompson's book in the late 60's/early 70's It appeared credible
Then I saw Thompson talk about all Kind of RFK Jr ridiculous conspiracies
Here is the truth about Dr. McClelland. His story has continually changed over the years.
https://www.onthetrailofdelusion.com/post/the-parkland-doctors-part-six
Mr Litwin,
With all due respect I go back to my comment about contempt prior to investigation
It's always interesting to me how non doctors who have never been in an operating room can even talk knowlegeably about this stuff
Yes, there are doctors who have supported the Warren Commission
I don't know hoe anyone in that trauma room could have missed the head shot It was massive Yes they weren't pathologists but i would suggest they had seen enough head shot wounds to say with over 90% accuracy that was a front entrance and they all agreed on that
They did not all agree. Total nonsense:
https://www.onthetrailofdelusion.com/post/the-parkland-doctors-part-two
https://www.onthetrailofdelusion.com/post/the-parkland-doctors-part-two
How about this testimony before the ARRB:
Here is an excerpt from testimony before the ARRB by Dr. Peters: (emphasis added)
Jeremy Gunn: Now, I am approaching this as a layperson, which may be good or may be bad. I would have imagined myself if I had seen President Kennedy in Trauma Room 1 and this part of the skull — the part that's within Line 1 of Dr. Boswell — if this were missing, I would imagine it would be noticeable to me as a layperson that there is severe damage to the skull. Is — would that be a misperception on my part?
Dr. Peters: Depends on which angle you approached him.
Dr. McClelland: From the front you might not —
Dr. Peters: right.
Dr. McClelland: — think that.
Dr. Peters: That's right.
Jeremy Gunn: So none of you made observations that would — or maybe the question is: Did any of you see any appearance of damage by looking just at the scalp and just at the hair that would suggest that that much of the skull was missing, or were you even in the position to be able to —
Dr. Jones: Well I think you could see the top part of the head reasonably well. He had a very thick bushy head of hair —
Dr. Peters: Yeah.
Dr. Jones: — and it was difficult to see down through the hair.
Dr. Baxter: All —
Dr. Jones: I didn't see any indentation of the skull or anything like half of the top of the head was missing.
Dr. Baxter: All matted with blood. Unless you were up there and directly examining it, I don't think anybody could make a statement from what I saw. I mean it was just one mass of blood and hair.
Dr. Peters: I was amazed when I saw the first x-ray of the skull — the lateral skull of the extent of the fragmentation of the skull. I did not appreciate that I think because a lot of it was covered by scalp at the time we worked on him. We were doing a resuscitation, not a forensic autopsy.
Mr. Litwin, what possible motivation would the many Dallas doctors have, especially later in life with established reputations, to jump into this fire unless they felt compelled to say what they saw? Why would these level headed professionals take that risk for a "conspiracy theory"? For that matter, what possible motivation did LHO have to kill the president? Was it to become a "big man" of historical consequence for a few hours before flat out denying that he committed the deed?
Have you not read any of my posts? The Dallas doctors, as one would expect, were all over the map. As Dr. Peters told the ARRB, "we were doing a resuscitation, not a forensic autopsy." Dr. Fitzpatrick, a forensic radiologist, told the ARRB that he couldn't care less what the Dallas doctors thought. Have a look at my six part series on the Dallas doctors:
https://www.onthetrailofdelusion.com/post/the-parkland-doctors-part-one
Attending physicians often make mistakes in determining the nature of gunshot wounds. Should we care what the Parkland doctors think?
https://www.onthetrailofdelusion.com/post/the-parkland-doctors-part-two
A look at what the Parkland doctors wrote and what they said.
https://www.onthetrailofdelusion.com/post/the-parkland-doctors-part-three
The Boston Globe interviewed some of the Parkland doctors in 1981.
https://www.onthetrailofdelusion.com/post/the-parkland-doctors-part-four
A 1992 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association has some interesting comments from a few of the Parkland doctors.
https://www.onthetrailofdelusion.com/post/the-parkland-doctors-part-five
An interesting interview with Dr. Robert McClelland.
https://www.onthetrailofdelusion.com/post/the-parkland-doctors-part-six
More interesting comments from Dr. McClelland.
As for Oswald, have you not read "Oswald's Game" by Jean Davison. She gives a coherent reason why Oswald killed Kennedy.
Oswald denied killing Kennedy because he was in police custody and he had killed a policeman. Killing Kennedy could always be explained as a political act, but not killing a policeman. It would not have been smart to admit to those killings while in police custody.
Given the chaos of Trauma Room One during JFK's failed resuscitation, there was an astonishing agreement among the Dallas trauma surgeons that JFK had a large, right rearward defect.
Pro J. Edgar Hoover writers such as Posner and the Journal of the American Medical Association (I used to be a member) have long tried to discredit doctors who didn't sing in the Warren chorus. And sadly, some of the doctors, if you believe what Posner and the JAMA said they said, have dishonored themselves by flatly contradicting their original Parkland Hospital statements and sworn Warren Commission testimony.
But I know you don't have the courage, Fred, to engage on this fascinating issue, here or anywhere.
So I'll just send you and interested parties a link to my witness compilation drawn from official sources. I wrote it many years ago.
For fun just search under "Posner" and you'll find many examples of Posner ignoring the original, official record and trying to twist it http://assassinationweb.com/ag6.htm
Litwin obsesses over the minor differences in JFK's wound descriptions that McClelland has given over the years. But he has absolutely no problem with the progovernment flip flops of Warren disputants-turned-loyalists, especially when they impugn McClelland.
Let's take Marion Thomas "Pepper" Jenkins.
MARION THOMAS JENKINS, MD: In a contemporaneous note dated 11-22-63, Jenkins described "a great laceration on the right side of the head (temporal and occipital) (sic), causing a great defect in the skull plate so that there was herniation and laceration of great areas of the brain, even to the extent that the cerebellum had protruded from the wound." (WC--Exhibit #392) To the Warren Commission's Arlen Specter Dr. Jenkins said, "Part of the brain was herniated. I really think part of the cerebellum, as I recognized it, was herniated from the wound..." (WC--V6:48) Jenkins told Specter that the temporal and occipital wound was a wound of exit, "...the wound with the exploded area of the scalp, as I interpreted it being exploded, I would interpret it being a wound of exit..." (WC--V6:51.)
Jenkins described a wound in JFK's left temple to Specter.
Jenkins: ...I thought there was a wound on the left temporal area, right in the hairline and right above the zygomatic process." Specter: "The autopsy report discloses no such development, Dr. Jenkins." Jenkins: "Well, I was feeling for--I was palpating here for a pulse to see whether the closed chest cardiac massage was effective or not and this probably was some blood that had come from the other point and so I thought there was a wound there also." A few moments later Jenkins again pursued the possibility that there had been a wound in the left temple: "...I asked you a little bit ago if there was a wound in the left temporal area, right above the zygomatic bone in the hairline, because there was blood there and I thought there might have been a wound there (indicating) (sic). Specter: "Indicating the left temporal area?" Jenkins: "Yes; the left temporal, which could have been a point of entrance and exit here (indicating) (sic-presumably pointing to where he had identified the wound in prior testimony--the right rear of the skull), but you have answered that for me (that 'the autopsy report discloses no such development')." (WC-V6:51)
In an interview with the HSCA's Andy Purdy on 11-10-77 Marion Jenkins was said to have expressed that as an anesthesiologist he (Jenkins) "...was positioned at the head of the table so he had one of the closest views of the head wound...believes he was '...the only one who knew the extent of the head wound.') (sic)...Regarding the head wound, Dr. Jenkins said that only one segment of bone was blown out--it was a segment of occipital or temporal bone. He noted that a portion of the cerebellum (lower rear brain) (sic) was hanging out from a hole in the right--rear of the head." (Emphasis added) (HSCA-V7:286-287) In an interview with the American Medical News published on 11-24-78 Jenkins said, "...(Kennedy) had part of his head blown away and part of his cerebellum was hanging out.".
Amazingly, in an interview with author Gerald Posner on March 3, 1992, Jenkins' recollection had changed dramatically. "The description of the cerebellum was my fault," Jenkins insisted, "When I read my report over I realized there could not be any cerebellum. The autopsy photo, with the rear of the head intact and a protrusion in the parietal region, is the way I remember it. I never did say occipital." (Gerald Posner, Case Closed", p. 312) Jenkins has obviously forgotten that in his own note prepared, typed, and signed on the day of the assassination, Jenkins said, "a great laceration on the right side of the head (temporal and occipital) (sic)", and HSCA's Purdy reported that Jenkins said "occipital or temporal bone" was blown out.
When told by Posner that Robert McClelland, MD had claimed, "I saw a piece of cerebellum fall out on the stretcher." Jenkins responded, "Bob (McClelland) is an excellent surgeon. He knows anatomy. I hate to say Bob is mistaken, but that is clearly not right...". (Posner G. Case Closed. p. 313) Clearly, Jenkins had forgotten that he himself had claimed that "cerebellum was hanging out" (as had Ronald Coy Jones, MD).
Jenkins, however, was not through with discrediting McClelland. To Posner, Jenkins explained how McClelland had made an error, which McClelland later corrected, that there was a wound in JFK's left temple. "I'll tell you how that happened," Jenkins explained, "When Bob McClelland came into the room, he asked me, 'Where are his wounds?' And at that time I was operating a breathing bag with my right hand, and was trying to take the President's temporal pulse, and I had my finger on his left temple. Bob thought I pointed to the left temple as the wound." (Gerald Posner, Case Closed". p. 313) Ignoring the absurdity of such a supposition for the moment, Jenkins failed to reveal an important part of the story. Jenkins failed to tell Posner, who was apparently too uninformed to know, that it was Jenkins himself who had most strikingly claimed that there was an entrance wound in the left temple, as Jenkins' Commission testimony (cited above) proves.
As we will see, Dr. Jenkins' faulty, and possibly self-serving memory seems to have frequently plagued him. It is a testament to JAMA's and Posner's laxity in fact-checking that Jenkins' recollections are so unquestioningly reported. Both JAMA's Dennis Breo and Posner quickly attempted to discredit those who, like McClelland, did not share their biases, and ignored many stupendous inconsistencies of "allies," such as Jenkins (see next chapter). Nonetheless, Jenkins' earliest, "un-enhanced" recollections must be given greatest weight and considered the most likely to be reliable, as in any police investigation. Fortunately, they also agree with the earliest recollections of other Parkland witnesses, an important corroborative factor.
Litwin, of course, will never respond. Just watch.