Conspiracy theorist James DiEugenio was once again a guest on
Len Osanic's "Black Op Radio" program on December 11, 2008, with
Jim regurgitating still more in a seemingly never-ending series of
complaints concerning author Vincent Bugliosi's 2007 book,
"Reclaiming History: The Assassination Of President John F. Kennedy".
But, as per the norm with people who have fallen in love with the idea
that JFK was killed as a result of some evil, ill-defined "plot" in
Dallas on 11/22/63, none of Mr. DiEugenio's anti-Bugliosi arguments
actually seem to GO anywhere.
By that I mean: Jim likes to pick apart virtually everything that has
been written in Vincent's 2,800-page "RH" mega-tome, but at the end of
the nit-picking sessions, we're still left with no firm proof of a
conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy in Dallas.
And, of course, as always, we're also left with zero pieces of hard,
PHYSICAL evidence to support the notion that JFK was shot by more than
just one gun or one assassin in Dealey Plaza.
What we're left with instead, via Jim's non-stop conspiracy-favoring
subjectivism, is a lengthy series of "I think THIS really means THAT"
type of analysis on the part of Mr. DiEugenio.
Jim repeats and keeps propping up the same worn-out theories that he
obviously thinks lead down "Conspiracy Avenue" (i.e., theories that
have been thoroughly explained in reasonable and logical non-
conspiratorial ways since 1963, and that are also explained in such
non-conspiratorial ways within Mr. Bugliosi's JFK book). Mr.
DiEugenio, however, has apparently decided to bypass all of those
reasonable non-conspiratorial explanations that reside inside
"Reclaiming History". Go figure.
~shrug~
===========================================
DR. HUMES:
A very good example of how DiEugenio decides to bypass a totally-
reasonable and non-conspiracy-oriented explanation about something
that Jim thinks is suspicious is the way DiEugenio treats the topic of
autopsy physician Dr. James J. Humes burning his original autopsy
notes and the first draft of the autopsy report.
Jim D. puts a neat little twist on the Humes' note-burning episode. Of
course, Jim hasn't a stitch of proof that anything like this actually
occurred, but Jim thinks it's very likely it transpired in this make-
believe "conspiratorial" fashion anyway.
James is of the opinion that Humes' "superiors" (including Admiral
Galloway of the Bethesda Medical Center) were the ones who actually
destroyed the original autopsy materials, and not Humes himself:
"Somebody else might have done it [burned the first draft of the
autopsy report and Humes' blood-stained notes]. .... Today, I think
that's what really happened. I think that that whole thing about
burning the notes...was just a cover story." -- James DiEugenio;
12/11/08
Translation -- Mr. DiEugenio, being a rabid conspiracy theorist who
evidently thinks that everybody on Planet Earth had a unified desire
to frame poor Lee Harvey Oswald as the lone assassin of John Kennedy,
has decided that he'll just make up some shit about how somebody ELSE
destroyed the autopsy papers, instead of the person who said he burned
them in his own fireplace (Humes).
And, per DiEugenio's craziness, Dr. Humes naturally just decided to go
along with this "cover story", without batting an eye or causing a
fuss, so he made the following comments in front of the Warren
Commission in 1964:
"In [the] privacy of my own home, early in the morning of
Sunday, November 24th, I made a draft of this report which I later
revised, and of which this represents the revision. That draft I
personally burned in the fireplace of my recreation room." -- Dr.
James Humes [2 H 373]
But back here in the world of reality, however, Humes' explanation
about why he burned those autopsy materials is a perfectly reasonable
one. But Jim DiEugenio just flat-out doesn't want to believe the
reasonable explanation supplied by Dr. Humes. So, voila!, a new theory
about Humes' "superiors" destroying the notes and first draft is born
out of whole cloth!
It's nice living in a world of total conspiracy, isn't it, Jim? You
get to make up stuff 24/7, and accuse people like Dr. Humes of lying
through their teeth while they were testifying under oath in front of
U.S. Government commissions, and all sorts of other imaginary things
too.
Incredible.
(And even more incredible is the fact that DiEugenio could actually
BELIEVE a lot of the wholly-speculative nonsense he spews about the
assassination of President Kennedy.)
===========================================
AUTOPSY RESTRICTIONS:
DiEugenio, as per usual, smells another rat in the Bethesda morgue
with respect to the topic of "autopsy restrictions".
There is, indeed, some confusion to be found in the various testimony
sessions of the three autopsy doctors as to whether any "restrictions"
or limitations of some kind were being placed on the autopsy of JFK at
Bethesda Naval Medical Center, and further confusion as to who it was
who might have been ordering any such restrictions.
But the HSCA testimony of Dr. Pierre Finck on March 11, 1978 (shown
below), clearly indicates that it was Finck's opinion that the
"family" of the late President Kennedy were the ones who were placing
pressure on the doctors to limit or "restrict" the nature of the
autopsy to some extent. Whether or not Dr. Finck is 100% correct here,
I cannot say (and I don't think anybody else can either), but these
words from Finck are in the HSCA record--like them or not:
DR. PIERRE FINCK -- "There were restrictions coming from the family
and we were told at the time of autopsy that the autopsy should be
limited to certain parts of the body. For example, autopsy limited to
the head and modest extension but there were restrictions."
DR. CHARLES PETTY -- "The autopsy was limited then at least to the
head as far as you begin with."
DR. FINCK -- "For example, from what I remember we did not remove the
organs of the neck because of the restrictions."
Mr. DiEugenio, naturally, disagrees with Finck's comments above. Jim
thinks that "the military" was "controlling" the autopsy, instead of
the Kennedy family being involved in any way when it came to any
possible restrictions that were placed upon the three autopsy
surgeons.
And, incredibly, DiEugenio also apparently thinks it is odd that
Robert F. Kennedy HIMSELF didn't make any handwritten notes concerning
these restrictions (had there actually been any) somewhere within the
written record of the autopsy materials. (Should Jackie Kennedy have
initialed Humes' autopsy notes, too?)
Here's what Jim D. said about this subject on the 12/11/08 BlackOp
program:
"The Kennedy family wasn't even in the [autopsy] room. .... And
another big problem with it, of course, is that on the completed
autopsy form, in the space marked 'restrictions', RFK did not mark
anything. In other words, in his own writing, he didn't mark any
restrictions on the autopsy."
I have only one thing to say when responding to the above quote:
LOL.
===========================================
PROBING THE BACK WOUND:
DiEugenio wants to think (naturally) that JFK's upper-back wound was
located physically lower on his body than the wound in the front of
his neck/throat, which is utter nonsense (despite what the HSCA
determined about this subject in 1978).
By merely examining (in tandem) the two autopsy photographs shown
below, it couldn't be more obvious that the back wound was located
ABOVE the throat wound:
And: Jim D. also wants to believe (naturally) that since the probes
wouldn't go through the upper-back wound to form a bullet "track"
through Kennedy's body during the attempted probing of the wound at
the autopsy, this must mean that the bullet that entered JFK's back
couldn't possibly have exited from the front of his neck.
But that notion, too, is nonsense. Two of JFK's autopsy doctors, in
1996, provided very reasonable explanations for why the probes failed
to go all the way through the President's body, and the official ARRB
testimony given by Dr. Boswell and Dr. Humes should have put this
"probing" issue to bed once and for all. But, of course, no amount of
logical and reasonable-sounding testimony is likely to convince a
person who desperately wants some kind of conspiracy to exist in this
case.
JFK's back muscles had tightened and "closed" (per Boswell), so that
no probing of the upper-back wound was possible, as fully indicated by
the testimony of the two doctors I'm going to cite below (although
both of the doctors, even in 1996, were still referring to the upper-
back wound as being located in the "neck" for some reason).
Dr. J. Thornton Boswell said this on February 26, 1996, during his
ARRB testimony:
"We probed this hole which was in his neck with all sorts of
probes and everything, and it was such a small hole, basically, and
the muscles were so big and strong and had closed the hole and you
couldn't get a finger or a probe through it."
And there is also this 2/13/96 ARRB testimony from the leading autopsy
surgeon, Dr. Humes:
QUESTION -- "Do you know what the standard autopsy protocol is for
gunshot wounds and autopsy of the neck?"
DR. HUMES -- "Well, no. I haven't seen that in--what you say,
standard, I mean, many times if you have a track of a missile, it's
helpful to take a long probe and put it in the position. It can tell
you a lot of things. If you know where the point of entrance and the
point of exit are, it's duck soup. But for me to start probing around
in this man's neck, all I would make was false passages. There
wouldn't be any track that I could put a probe through or anything of
that nature. It just doesn't work that way."
QUESTION -- "Was any probe used at all to track the path--?"
DR. HUMES -- "I don't recall that there was. There might have been
some abortive efforts superficially in the back of the neck, but no.
And if there's a standard protocol, I don't know where you'd find it,
to tell you the truth."
Naturally, given what DiEugenio had said about Humes' supposed lies
regarding the burning of the original autopsy papers, he (DiEugenio)
isn't likely to believe anything else uttered by Humes either.
So I guess the above testimony coming from the lips of Humes wouldn't
impress Jim D. very much. But, those under-oath words of Dr. Humes are
in the official record nonetheless, whether Jim D. likes them or not.
===========================================
JFK'S THROAT WOUND:
"The anterior neck wound--the measurements on that wound--are
too small for the 6.5-millimeter Mannlicher-Carcano ammunition." --
James DiEugenio; 12/11/08
Huh??!!
Jim DiEugenio seems to think that JFK's throat wound was MEASURED in
some official way. Incredible.
Of course, as we all know, the wound in President Kennedy's throat was
never measured with any kind of measuring device, nor was it examined
in any kind of detailed manner whatsoever by the doctors at Parkland
Hospital in Dallas.
Dr. Malcolm Perry performed a tracheotomy directly through the bullet
wound in JFK's throat very shortly after Kennedy arrived at Parkland.
So, all we have are estimates from the Parkland doctors as to the size
and shape of that throat wound.
And this lack of specific detail regarding the exact size of the wound
even shows up in the official autopsy report, via the following words:
"When observed by Dr. Perry the wound measured "a few
millimeters in diameter", however it was extended as a tracheostomy
incision and thus its character is distorted at the time of autopsy."
I guess maybe Mr. DiEugenio was there at Parkland, holding a ruler up
to JFK's throat wound just before Dr. Perry sliced through it to
perform the tracheotomy. And maybe that's why James can say with such
confidence that "the measurements on that [throat] wound are too small
for the 6.5-millimeter Mannlicher-Carcano ammunition".
Right, Jim?
===========================================
AUTOPSY PICTURES:
Mr. DiEugenio, who sees "suspicious" crap everywhere he looks, thinks
that Pierre Finck and the other autopsy doctors would have needed to
look at the autopsy photographs before writing up (and signing) the
finished autopsy report.
My question here is: Why would the autopsists need to have the autopsy
pictures right in front of them in order to arrive at certain conclusions
about the President's wounds?
The doctors had the BODY of John Kennedy to look at during the autopsy
procedure itself, and the doctors were taking many detailed notes
about the President's wounds, etc. So why would they have needed to
rely on the pictures of the body before signing the autopsy report?
DiEugenio's "suspicious" gene was activated here because of some
discrepancy and inconsistency in Dr. Finck's testimony at the Clay
Shaw trial in 1969.
Apparently DiEugenio smells something fishy (yet again) here, simply
due to the fact that Finck waffled on whether or not he actually
physically saw the autopsy photos before he signed the completed
autopsy report.
Of course, WHERE exactly that kind of "suspicion" is taking Mr.
DiEugenio, I'm at a loss to say.
~shrug~
===========================================
THE SINGLE-BULLET THEORY:
"In 45 years, I have seen no credible evidence that connects that
back wound to the anterior neck wound." -- James DiEugenio; 12/11/08
Gee, a conspiracy theorist who doesn't believe in the Single-Bullet
Theory. Wow, that's really a major surprise, huh?
A good question for Jim, then, would be:
Where, Jim, did the TWO bullets go that you must think went into JFK's
body on 11/22/63 but never exited the other side of his body?
To believe in ANY kind of anti-SBT theory, one of the following two
virtually-impossible-to-believe scenarios must be accepted as the
truth. And based on the last quote I provided from Mr. DiEugenio, it's
highly doubtful that Jim D. would accept #2:
1.) Two separate bullets entered JFK's body (in his throat and upper
back), with neither one of these two bullets having enough energy to
go completely through the soft tissues of JFK's upper body. Which
means that both bullets SHOULD have still been inside JFK at his
autopsy. Instead, no bullets were found in his body at all. Plus, no
major BONY DAMAGE to the upper back and neck was sustained that would
indicate that two bullets could have merely stopped their forward
progress after striking the President in these two areas.
2.) A single bullet did go through JFK, with this bullet then
vanishing after it exited his throat, with nobody else being hit by
this missile, and with no damage being done to the limousine's
interior either.
Good luck with either one of those silly theories, Jim.
Single-Bullet-Theory.blogspot.com
===========================================
MORE SBT STUFF:
"They moved up the back wound, into the neck, sort of like Gerald Ford
is going to do." -- James DiEugenio; 12/11/08
Of course, DiEugenio must totally ignore one of the most important
exhibits to be found in the Warren Commission's 26 volumes -- CE903:
Commission Exhibit 903 perfectly illustrates the WC's "SBT" flight
path. And the location of the entry wound on the JFK stand-in in CE903
is not in the NECK at all. It's in the UPPER BACK, just exactly where
we find the wound in this autopsy photo.
Now, Jim, tell us all again how the Warren Commission was desperate to
"move" the wound in JFK's back up into his neck in order to support
their single-bullet hypothesis.
Jim can't do that, of course, because it just simply is not true.
Moving the wound up to the "neck" wouldn't help the WC's SBT
trajectory. It would completely destroy it.
And CE903, all by itself, proves that if the wound were moved up to
the neck, the bullet would have exited higher than the area of JFK's
tie knot, thereby destroying the trajectory of the Single-Bullet
Theory.
===========================================
ADAMS & STYLES ON THE STAIRS:
Jim DiEugenio, like all true-blue conspiracists, likes to bring up the
fact that Book Depository employees Victoria Adams and Sandra Styles
didn't see assassin Lee Harvey Oswald on the back stairs when Adams
and Styles descended those stairs from the fourth floor of the
building shortly after the assassination.
But what I'd like to ask Jim is this -- Since you believe that Adams
and Styles positively were present on those stairs less than one
minute after the last gunshot was fired in Dealey Plaza....and since
you also believe that Lee Oswald positively was not on those stairs at
about that very same time....then I want to know why those two ladies
failed to see (or hear) the REAL KILLER(S) as those assassin(s) made
their way out of the building?
After all, everybody knows that SOMEBODY was firing a gun at JFK from
the sixth floor of the Depository that day. Even most CTers don't deny
that obvious fact, even if those conspiracy theorists want to pretend
that it wasn't Oswald firing a gun from the sixth floor.
And that "somebody" certainly would have had no choice but to exit the
sixth floor by way of the staircase located at the northwest corner of
the building.
And it's unlikely that anyone vacating that floor could have used
either of the two freight elevators as their means of escape, because
the testimony of other witnesses, including Victoria Adams, indicates
that both of the elevators were hung up on about the fifth floor of
the building (i.e., they weren't moving) just after the assassination.
So even if a CTer wants to argue that the sixth-floor shooter was not
Lee Oswald, the real shooter or shooters MUST have vacated that sixth
floor pretty quickly, and they most certainly would have had to use
the same stairs that Adams and Styles used that day.
Or do some conspiracists think that the real assassins decided to hang
around up on the sixth floor for several minutes after the shots were
fired at the President, running the risk of having the police catch
them on the Floor Of Death?
Or: maybe the real killers were Batman and Robin, and after the
shooting they elected to jump out of one of the TSBD windows and
shinny down the side of the building using their handy "Bat Ropes",
instead of taking the back stairs.
Plus: Via the "CTer" scenario which has Adams and Styles on the back
stairs within about a minute or so of the shooting, how on Earth did
the two women fail to see or hear Officer Marrion Baker and TSBD
Superintendent Roy Truly as those two men were climbing those very
same stairs from the first floor within one to two minutes after the
last shot was fired?
As it is, Adams and Styles heard nobody on the stairs, and they saw
nobody on the stairs. And that is obviously due to the fact that those
two women were on those stairs only AFTER the stairs had been used by
all three of those previously-mentioned individuals (Oswald, Baker,
and Truly). That is the only explanation that makes any sense
whatsoever, regardless of Miss Adams' time estimates given to the
Warren Commission.
And it's really the only explanation that makes any sense from a
conspiracy theorist's point-of-view as well (unless some CTers want to
believe that Baker and Truly somehow cloaked themselves, in order to
make the two men invisible to all other people using the stairs within
a minute or two of the shooting).
An excerpt from Vickie Adams' 4/7/64 Warren Commission testimony:
DAVID BELIN -- "As I understand your testimony previously, you saw
neither Roy Truly nor any motorcycle police officer at any time?"
VICTORIA ADAMS -- "That's correct."
MR. BELIN -- "You heard no one else running down the stairs?"
MISS ADAMS -- "Correct."
===========================================
THE ENTRY WOUND IN JFK'S HEAD:
Here's a common-sense question for Jim (and everyone else):
What is the MAIN THING being focused on and CENTERED ON in the
following autopsy picture of John F. Kennedy's head?:
If photographer John Stringer WASN'T primarily focusing on and
CENTERING ON the red spot located near the cowlick area in the upper
part of JFK's head, then what the heck WAS he primarily focusing on
when he took the above photograph?
Stringer certainly wasn't CENTERING his camera lens on the white piece
of brain tissue near the President's hairline at the bottom of the
picture.
It's fairly obvious that Stringer was centering on the one and only
bullet entry wound on the back of JFK's head, which is the red spot
near the cowlick.
If, as Dr. Humes and the other autopsy doctors have previously
testified, the entry wound was really the white object located near
the hairline of JFK, then does anyone actually think that photographer
John Stringer would have centered his autopsy picture on the red spot
near the cowlick?
So, which of the following two things should be believed here?:
1.) John Stringer was confused about what to "center" on when he
snapped that picture.
Or:
2.) The red spot in the cowlick area is the entry wound.
I think I'll choose number 2.
To give credit where full credit is due, I applaud Dr. Michael Baden
of the HSCA's Forensic Pathology Panel for pointing out the common-
sense observation about photographer Stringer seemingly "centering" on
the red spot in the autopsy picture.
Baden's comments along those lines can be heard HERE, which is part of
an HSCA tape-recorded interview with Dr. Pierre Finck on March 12, 1978.
===========================================
EVEN SOME OF THE CONSPIRACY-HAPPY "BLACK OP"
LISTENERS ARE GETTING SICK OF DiEUGENIO'S CONSTANT
ANTI-BUGLIOSI RAMBLINGS:
The following three comments (posted at the normally-deserted
"Black Op Radio Forum") had me chuckling quite a bit:
"Good God! Enough of DiEugenio. This unending critique of
Bugliosi's book is the ultimate beating of a dead horse. .... How on
earth can he [host Len Osanic] let this Bugliosi critique go on for
twenty shows? It feels like it started at the end of the First World
War, and is going to finish sometime around the end of the next Ice
Age.
"I'm a big fan of the show...but I can say that listening to
DiEugenio go on for countless, interminable minutes interrupted just
by squeals of his high-pitched laughter is just getting to be too
much. There's no new information being offered by his critique. Is it
supposed to be offered as some tour-de-force?
"If I wrote a ten-thousand page book just trying to out-do
Bugliosi and said the Warren Commission was right, would we have to
listen to a whole year of DiEugenio critique? If Bugliosi had some
novel argument as to why the Warren Commission was supposedly right, I
could see going into this. It'd be like debating a new discovery. But
just debating already discredited notions, preaching to the choir, is
a total waste of good interview time." -- A "Black Op" listener;
12/6/08
~~~~~~~~~
"I tuned in last night mid-show and the first thing I heard was
DiEugenio squealing again, tickled to death at another Bugliosi
blunder. Then I tuned out: approximate time 10 seconds." -- A "Black
Op" listener; 12/12/08
~~~~~~~~~
"I just had to stop listening to tonite's [sic] show (12/11)
because I couldn't bear to hear Jim say "OK?" again at the end of each
sentence. He sounds like he's ON something. The few sentences he
doesn't end with "OK?", he ends with "alright?"." -- A "Black Op"
listener; 12/11/08
Oh, how true that last comment is. I noticed it many weeks ago, when
Mr. DiEugenio began his never-ending anti-Bugliosi "review" on Black
Op Radio.
It's quite obvious, though, that Jim has no real awareness that he's
saying "okay?" constantly. Because why would anyone want to be THAT
annoying if it could be avoided?
It's very similar to the extremely annoying habit that many, many
people have of saying "you know" every ten or fifteen seconds when
they're talking, without really being aware that they are doing it.
Because if they were truly aware that they were doing it every few
seconds, and aware of just how incredibly irritating it is to
everybody who is listening to them talk, they obviously wouldn't be
doing it in the first place.
===========================================
IN CONCLUSION:
James DiEugenio will no doubt be making future Black Op Radio
appearances, in order to make additional mountains out of anthills,
and in order to add still more incoherence to the record of a murder
case that was solved the very weekend it occurred in 1963.
And James will probably continue to sling as much mud as he possibly
can on the best book ever written about the murder of John F. Kennedy
-- Vince Bugliosi's "Reclaiming History".
But, then too, what else could be expected from a person who has
apparently devoted a sizable portion of his adult life toward
fulfilling the impossible goal of proving that the death of the 35th
U.S. President was the result of a vast, multi-gun conspiracy?
David Von Pein
December 2008
===========================================
"It's my very firm belief...that no reasonable, rational person
can possibly read this book ["Reclaiming History"] without being
satisfied beyond all reasonable doubt that Oswald killed Kennedy and
acted alone." -- VINCENT T. BUGLIOSI; APRIL 30, 2007
===========================================
"Reason does not always appeal to unreasonable men." -- JOHN
FITZGERALD KENNEDY; NOVEMBER 16, 1961
===========================================
