JOHN CANAL SAID:
>>> "Do you think he [Vincent Bugliosi] would have simply ignored such information? I have an extremely hard time believing he would." <<<
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Upon doing some searching in Vince Bugliosi's book and CD-ROM, it appears that Vince has not addressed the Zimmerman/Sturdivan "trail of opacities low on the X-ray" topic. At least I cannot find any such reference in VB's hefty book (and CD).
However, I could have possibly missed a reference to it in the actual book itself, since the book is so immense (and there's no quick "Search" tool to scan the actual book, like there is for the PDF file on the CD).
Perhaps Vince didn't see anything in Sturdivan's book (starting at Page 193) that would be DEFINITIVE enough in VB's mind to indicate that the bullet that killed JFK positively entered at the much-lower location on the head (vs. the HSCA's cowlick area determination).
Then, too, perhaps my next comment (below John's next comment) explains things even better (from VB's point-of-view).....
>>> "Perhaps you don't think the conflict over the entry location mattered to him [Bugliosi]?" <<<
I think this passage from Vincent's book sums that up fairly well:
"Much has been made in the assassination literature of the fact that the autopsy surgeons were wrong on the location of the entrance wound. But is there any real significance to the head entrance wound being 3 inches higher than the autopsy surgeons said it was other than as a reflection of the ALLEGED incompetence of the surgeons? "No, not really," Dr. Werner Spitz...said. "It's just a red herring. We know from the autopsy photos and X-rays that there was only one entrance wound to the back of the president's head. The only significance this matter has is academic." (Telephone interview of Dr. Werner Spitz by author [VB] on March 26, 2005)." -- Pages 395-396 of "Reclaiming History" (Footnote)(c.2007)
>>> "Baden wrote that Humes was incompetent and that the autopsy was one of the worst ever. He went on to say that the four-inch miscalculation was the biggest mistake. So, if it turns out that it was Baden et. al. who were wrong about the entry, and not Humes, doesn't that restore at least a little credibility to the autopsy? That'd be pretty significant, IMHO...something that mattered." <<<
I can't fully explain why Humes wanted to originally depict the entry wound way too low on the head (when we can see that it was HIGH on the head from the autopsy photo). But the fact also remains that Humes DID reverse himself in 1978. He admitted he was wrong about the exact entry-wound location:
"Yes, I think that I do have a different opinion. .... The upper object is clearly in the location of where we said approximately where it was, above the external occipital protuberance; therefore, I believe that is the wound of entry." -- JAMES J. HUMES; HSCA TESTIMONY
>>> "And what about the credibility of Baden's panel? If they were grossly wrong about the entry location, what else were they wrong about?" <<<
Well, offhand, I can think of two major things that the HSCA got wrong:
1.) Their conclusion that President Kennedy was probably killed as the result of a conspiracy. [Debunked HERE.]
And:
2.) Their conclusion that the wound in JFK's throat was anatomically HIGHER than the wound in Kennedy's upper back. [Discussed HERE.]
The HSCA, however, probably wasn't wrong about the location of the entry wound on the back of President Kennedy's head.
You win some and you lose some, I guess. ~shrug~
I, myself, favor the Warren Commission's investigation over the one conducted by the HSCA (all things considered).
The HSCA was also wrong about the Single-Bullet Theory timeline too (I forgot to mention that one earlier). But the Warren Commission got it right by "bracketing" the SBT gunshot into Zapruder frames 210 to 225 (which is perfect, considering the fact that the actual SBT frame [Z224, IMO] does, indeed, rest within that bracketed range).
The HSCA's Z190 estimate for the SBT shot is ridiculously early, and even Vince Bugliosi thinks so too (although Vince did seem to endorse such an early Z190 SBT hit at the 1986 TV Docu-Trial in London).
I suspect that VB's further post-1986 research, however, set Vince straight on the SBT matter (or a little bit straighter anyway, as he seems to favor Z210 as the approximate time for the SBT bullet strike in his book).
Mr. Bugliosi, though, still misses (and totally ignores) the obvious initial involuntary reactions of Governor Connally that are easily seen in Z-Film frames 224 to 230:
(2).gif)
But at least Vince Bugliosi knows that the SBT is a rock-solid fact, regardless of the exact Z-Film frame. As do I.
>>> "I don't see how VB would have been able to get into his book any developments that weren't really available to him until, at the earliest, late 2005, considering the incredibly monumental task of working with the editors editing what had already been submitted." <<<
Oh, Vince references Sturdivan's 2005 book ("The JFK Myths") several times throughout "Reclaiming History" (on pages 810, 814, and 854, to name three instances within the physical book itself, plus many additional references to "JFK Myths" within the CD's Endnotes). So Vince, quite obviously, most certainly had read Sturdivan's book before his own book, "RH", went to press.
And, btw, I was correct when I said this in an earlier post:
"VB's book wasn't put to bed with the Norton publishers until mid to late November 2006 (and published 05/15/07). VB was still able to add insertions into the manuscript up until that time in November '06." -- DVP; 03/27/08
I dug up these passages from the CD's Endnotes for VB's "Reclaiming History", confirming what I just said above:
"...I told him that I would be calling him close to the time the book was going to press for a number up to that point, which turned out to be in late November 2006. In a telephone conversation with Sawa on November 26, 2006, he told me that as of that date..."
"Right near the time of my submission of final proofs for this book to my publisher in November 2006, I called Steve Tilley to get a wrap-up to date on some facts and figures."
So, as can be seen, references to phone calls that were made in November of 2006 found their way into the final published first edition of "Reclaiming History".
There are many, many other "2006" source references listed in "RH" as well. Here's just one more example (from Endnotes page #146):
"Telephone interview of Judge John Tunheim by author [VB] on November 3, 2006."
BTW, here's a direct reference to Chad Zimmerman and Larry Sturdivan (concerning the 6.5mm object/opacity) made by VB in a footnote on the CD-ROM (with another reference to Sturdivan's 2005 book as well, indicating once again that Vince had indeed read that book before finishing his own):
"Warren Commission and HSCA ballistic expert Larry Sturdivan and assassination researcher Dr. Chad R. Zimmerman have in later years analyzed the object seen in the X-rays. Sturdivan concluded it was not a bullet fragment but Zimmerman is not sure.
"However, both concluded it was not a forgery but an artifact of unknown origin. (Sturdivan: E-mail to Stuart Wexler, March 9, 1998, in Mantik, "Paradoxes of the JFK Assassination: The Medical Evidence Decoded," in Fetzer, Murder in Dealey Plaza, p.266; Zimmerman: Letter from Chad Zimmerman to author dated April 30, 2005).
"In his 2005 book, 'The JFK Myths', Sturdivan writes that it is "probably a bone chip spalled off the outside of the skull as it crashed at that location in the explosion of Kennedy's head" nearby (Sturdivan, JFK Myths, p.194).
"In a 2006 letter to me, Dr. Zimmerman wrote that "Larry and I both believe that the 6.5 mm fragment on the frontal x-ray is real and was not added later, as Mantik posits. Basically, [neither] Larry nor I know what it is because it wasn't...retrieved. Larry does not believe that it is a bullet fragment. However, it is metal. Personally, I think it may actually have been a bullet fragment that was stuck in the hair or on the skin and later fell off...I feel that it is real because of the lack of film grid lines in the surrounding area, which, in my opinion, are an absolute must...in order for it to be a post-autopsy forgery. Since it is not seen on the lateral x-rays, it is by definition an artifact. An artifact may be a real object or a defect in film processing...The term does not mean that it is an artificial object" (Letter from Dr. Zimmerman to author dated March 15, 2006)." -- Pages 221-222 of "Reclaiming History" (Endnotes)
ANOTHER STURDIVAN ADDENDUM:
While searching for "Sturdivan" via the PDF file's search tool on the "RH" CD-ROM disc, I found the following passage, which is interesting too--in a purely "common sense" kind of fashion (and there are hundreds and hundreds of such commonsense-filled passages in "RH", btw). Of course, those who vigorously oppose Dr. Guinn's NAA conclusions will deem the following quotes pure trash. But, so be it:
"Eighteen years later, Larry M. Sturdivan and K. A. Rahn made essentially the same point and extended it by pointing out that therefore (and assuming, of course, that NAA evidence is conclusive, which it is not) the hotly disputed issue of the "location of the rear head wound is irrelevant."
"The reasoning, they note, "is very simple. Since NAA ties the tiny fragments from JFK's brain...to the large fragment found in the front seat, and since ballistics shows that the front-seat fragment came from Oswald's rifle (in the depository behind Kennedy), the front-seat fragment originated in the depository, passed through the head from rear to front and deposited tiny fragments along the way, and came to rest in the front seat. Since we know where it started, where it ended, and that it passed through the head along the way, the details of its entrance and exit in the head are not needed to determine the source of the shots." (Sturdivan and Rahn, "Neutron Activation and the JFK Assassination, Part II," p.220)" -- Page 434 of "Reclaiming History" (Endnotes)(Footnote)
David Von Pein
March 28, 2008
