JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
I have come to believe today that the choices of Humes, Boswell and Finck were planned. It might have been short range, but they wanted three guys who they could control and who were not at all at the top of their game.
If they really wanted a good autopsy they could have gotten a practicing pathologist from AFIP.
If they wanted a great autopsy, they could have flown in Milton Helpern from NYC on a MATS shuttle flight. Helpern was the gold standard at that time in private autopsies. (See Tommy Thompson's non fiction classic Blood and Money.)
Why didn't they do either?
And, of course, if you read the WC and its files, it does not seem that anyone was curious about this point. And, of course, Mr. Cover-up Arlen Specter never asked why so many of the standard autopsy protocols were violated, something like 90 of them, as Charles Wilber noted in his book.
So, if you ask me, stuff like that does not happen by accident. The military guys there wanted a horrendous autopsy. (And, as Finck revealed at the Shaw trial, they actual interfered to make it so.)
One so bad, that to this day, no one can say for certain what really happened to President Kennedy. That is about as bad as it gets.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
More pure B.S. from DiEugenio.
The reason why Humes and Boswell did the autopsy is merely because they were the doctors who were available at that time at Bethesda Naval Hospital, a location that was selected (primarily) by Jackie Kennedy during the flight from Dallas to Washington. (Do you really think Jackie was going about the task of choosing which doctors she wanted to perform the autopsy on her husband, Jim?)
And it was Dr. Humes himself who requested the services of Dr. Finck at the autopsy. I suppose conspiracy theorists must think that Humes was merely reading from a script when he told the Warren Commission the following in 1964, eh Jim?....
DR. JAMES J. HUMES -- "When I ascertained the nature of the President's wounds, having had the facilities of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology offered to me by General Blumberg, the commanding officer of that institution, I felt it advisable and would be of help to me to have the services of an expert in the field of wound ballistics and for that reason I requested Colonel Finck to appear."
I can, however, certainly understand the awkward predicament that conspiracy clowns like James DiEugenio are in concerning President Kennedy's autopsy. Since the Bethesda autopsy conducted by Drs. Humes, Boswell, and Finck doesn't even come close to confirming or supporting the multi-gun conspiracy that CTers like DiEugenio have placed their faith in (with the autopsy pretty much doing just the opposite--i.e., confirming that JFK was hit with just two bullets, both fired from above and behind the President's car, which is perfectly consistent with a scenario of Lee Harvey Oswald being the lone assassin), it means that those conspiracists have no choice but to attack the autopsy findings, as well as the men who performed the autopsy, and even attack the manner in which the autopsy was arranged.
But even though President Kennedy's autopsy doctors can definitely be criticized for making some mistakes during the course of the autopsy (and I have criticized them for some things too), the most important fact (by far) that was reached by the three autopsists at Bethesda on November 22, 1963, is the one that is revealed in the paragraph below. And not a single one of the autopsy physicians, as far as I know, has ever maintained that the information contained in this paragraph of their final autopsy report is flawed, inaccurate, or otherwise subject to any doubt whatsoever:
"It is our opinion that the deceased died as a result of two perforating gunshot wounds. .... The projectiles were fired from a point behind and somewhat above the level of the deceased." -- Page 6 of JFK's Autopsy Report [Warren Report; Page 543]
JON G. TIDD SAID:
C'mon. The President of the United States, the leader of the Free World, the most powerful individual on planet Earth has just been shot to pieces, and the U.S. Government can't do better than Humes and Boswell?
As for Jackie "primarily" selecting Betheda, the best extant AF-1 tape reveals clearly just how hard McGeorge Bundy pushed for Bethesda. The idea Jackie pushed for Bethesda because Jack was a navy veteran always has been bunk; Jackie was clearly, according to all accounts, in a state of shock and was hardly capable of making any argument.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Good job, Jon. Let's blame McGeorge Bundy now. And let's add him as "Plotter #199" in the cover-up scheme.
The CTers of the Internet are so EAGER and so amazingly WILLING to blame almost ANYONE they can blame in order to advance the notion of the make-believe conspiracy in the JFK case. No proof required. Let's just point SOME kind of finger of guilt or blame at McGeorge Bundy. (And let's not even ask ourselves WHY Bundy would want to engage in such a charade regarding the autopsy of the President.)
And with respect to WHO made the decision to have the autopsy done at Bethesda, I guess Jon Tidd wants to totally ignore the Warren Commission testimony of Ken O'Donnell [at 7 H 454-455; emphasis is DVP's]....
KENNETH O'DONNELL -- "We arrived at Andrews and meanwhile the Attorney General had been notified, the decision had been made that he would go to Bethesda."
ARLEN SPECTER -- "Who made that decision, by the way?"
MR. O'DONNELL -- "Mrs. Kennedy."
MR. SPECTER -- "That the autopsy should be performed?"
MR. O'DONNELL -- "I don't think she knew anything about an autopsy. The question is where the body went. We didn't tell her there was to be an autopsy. And the choice was Walter Reed or Bethesda. He being a Navy man, she picked Bethesda."
MR. SPECTER -- "She chose Bethesda, as between Bethesda and Walter Reed?"
MR. O'DONNELL -- "She did."
MR. SPECTER -- "Who made the decision there would be an autopsy, if you know?"
MR. O'DONNELL -- "I don't know who made the decision. I just think we all agreed--we arrived at Bethesda. The Attorney General was there. I think it was just our assumption that this was a necessary part."
JON G. TIDD SAID:
DVP,
Didn't O'Donnell admit to Tip O'Neill that he dissembled before the W.C.?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
So Ken O'Donnell, one of JFK's best friends, is part of the plot and/or cover-up now? Is that what you're suggesting, Jon?
JON G. TIDD SAID:
DVP,
Thanks, but you appear to ignore the importance of authority in late 1963.
Today, internet commenters are critical.
In late 1963, few were critical of the government. Authority ruled. You know this, certainly.
The W.C. played on this faith in authority.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
What has that got to do with Kenny O'Donnell's testimony and the fact that O'Donnell said that Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy herself was the person who chose Bethesda Naval Hospital as the location for JFK's autopsy?
Do you think O'Donnell was lying here?....
ARLEN SPECTER -- "Who made that decision [to take JFK's body to Bethesda], by the way?"
KEN O'DONNELL -- "Mrs. Kennedy."
DAVID VON PEIN ALSO SAID:
Let me just take this opportunity to add the following quote from Vincent Bugliosi's JFK book (dealing with the idea of "conspiracy", in general, in JFK's assassination)....
[Quote On:]
"Perhaps the most powerful single piece of evidence that there was no conspiracy in the murder of President Kennedy is simply the fact that after all these years there is no credible evidence, direct or circumstantial, that any of the persons or groups suspected by conspiracy theorists (e.g., organized crime, CIA, KGB, FBI, military-industrial complex, Castro, LBJ, etc.) or anyone else conspired with Oswald to kill Kennedy.
And when there is no evidence of something, although not conclusive, this itself is very, very persuasive evidence that the alleged "something" does not exist. Particularly here where the search for the "something" (conspiracy) has been the greatest and most comprehensive search for anything in American, perhaps world history.
I mean, way back in 1965, before over forty additional years of microscopic investigation of the case by governmental groups and thousands of researchers, Dwight Macdonald wrote, “I can't believe that among the many hundreds of detectives, Federal Bureau of Investigation and Secret Service agents, and [counsel] for the Warren Commission . . . not one would be bright or lucky enough to discover or stumble across some clue [of a conspiracy] if there were any there.”
But not one clue of a conspiracy has ever surfaced. And this is so despite the fact that the two people the conspirators would have had to rely on the most not to leave a clue, Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby, were notoriously unreliable.
A conspiracy is nothing more than a criminal partnership. And although conspiracies obviously aren't proved by the transcript of a stenographer who typed up a conversation between the partners agreeing to commit the crime, there has to be some substantive evidence of the conspiracy or partnership's existence.
And in the conspiracy prosecutions I have conducted, I have always been able to present direct evidence of the co-conspirators acting in concert before, during, or after the crime, and/or circumstantial evidence from which a reasonable inference of concert or meeting of the minds could be made.
In the Oswald case, if, for instance, Oswald had disappeared for a few days before the assassination without adequate explanation, or within these few days he was seen in the company of a stranger, or there was evidence he had come into some serious money, or he had made any statement to anyone, such as Marina, suggesting, even vaguely, a conspiratorial relationship, or someone had called him at the Paine residence and he left the room and took the call in another room, or he was seen getting in a car after the shooting in Dealey Plaza, or any of a hundred other possible events or circumstances had occurred, that would be one thing. But here, there is nothing, nothing. Just completely foundationless speculation and conjecture."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 1439 of "Reclaiming History"
David Von Pein
October 12, 2015
