Two major advances in our knowledge about the JFK assassination occurred when the ARRB, from 1996 to 1998, released thousands of sealed documents, interviewed numerous witnesses, and hired medical experts to examine the JFK autopsy materials. Another major step forward occurred with the release of more assassination-related documents in 2017.
The new information from the ARRB-released documents and interviews would require hundreds of pages to examine, and that information has already been discussed in many post-1998 books, articles, and videos (mostly in pro-conspiracy books, since WC apologists have virtually ignored this mass of new information).
So let us review some of the findings of the ARRB medical experts. The ARRB hired three medical experts to examine the autopsy materials. The experts were:
Dr. John Fitzpatrick, forensic radiologist, Cook County Hospital, Chicago
Dr. Robert Kirschner, forensic pathologist, Physicians for Human Rights
Dr. Douglas Ubelaker, forensic anthropologist, Smithsonian Institution
Below are most of those experts’ key findings that contradict or refute the lone-gunman theory. Doug Horne, the former chief analyst of military records for the ARRB, has compiled all of this information, and much more, in his massive, five-volume study Inside the ARRB. All of the information below can be found in Horne's study, which includes the relevant original transcripts and documents.
* The AP skull x-ray shows substantial frontal bone missing. (Dr. Fitzpatrick, Dr. Ubelaker)
[Comment: Dr. McDonnel and Dr. Angel told the HSCA the same thing, but Baden ignored their findings. See also below.]
* The amount of missing frontal bone in the AP skull x-ray is inconsistent with the appearance of the forehead in the autopsy photos. (Dr. Ubelaker)
[Comment: Since they were only asked to study the x-rays, McDonnel and Angel apparently did not realize that the autopsy photos show no indication of any frontal-bone damage. But, of course, Baden knew this, and that's why he ensured that the medical panel's report falsely claimed that the x-rays showed the frontal bone was intact.]
* On the AP x-ray, the orbit of the right eye appears to be “cracked and displaced.” (Dr. Fitzpatrick, Dr. Ubelaker)
[Comment: Of course, no such damage appears in the autopsy photos that show the face. Dr. Kirschner went even further regarding right-orbit damage, saying that “the rear of the right orbit was observed to be missing.”]
* No part of the lambdoid suture is visible on the lateral skull x-rays. (Dr. Ubelaker)
[Comment: This is critical information. The lambdoid suture is the fibrous connective tissue joint that joins the parietal bones to the occipital bone. It is located only in the back of the head. Dr. Mantik notes that the absence of the right part of the lambdoid suture clearly requires that occipital bone and rear parietal bone are missing. Dr. Mantik notes that part of the right lambdoid suture is also missing on the AP x-ray.]
* The single-bullet theory is "very dubious." (Dr. Kirschner)
[Comment: Dr. Kirschner gave two reasons for this conclusion: “Lack of deformation of the nose of the bullet was incompatible . . . with a medium-high velocity rifle projectile inflicting the bone damage known to have been inflicted on Governor Connally.” In order for CE 399 to emerge as it now looks after “performing the described bone damage to Connally, its velocity would have to have been slowed considerably prior to striking Governor Connally.” But this slowing “would have ensured a massive cavity and very large wound track” and also would have caused “an unmistakable large gaping exit wound” in JFK’s throat.]
* There is no fragment in the back of the skull on the lateral skull x-rays that corresponds to the 6.5 mm object on the AP x-ray. (Dr. Fitzpatrick, Dr. Ubelaker, Dr. Kirschner)
[Comment: As some will realize, this is monumental. It confirms the OD measurements and magnified viewing of the 6.5 mm object done by three medical doctors with expertise in radiology, including Dr. Mantik, who is also a physicist. A forger ghosted the image of the 6.5 mm object onto the AP x-ray over the image of a small fragment in the back of the head. Dr. Mantik has been able to duplicate how it was done.
The 6.5 mm object is in the front of the head, near the right eye. Both the Clark Panel and the HSCA FPP blunderingly said the object was in the back of the head. Did they really misread the x-rays so badly that they did not discern that the object is near the right eye and not in the rear outer table of the skull? Or, did they misrepresent the object's location (1) to try to strengthen the case for the cowlick entry site, and (2) to avoid having to explain why there is no corresponding object on the lateral x-rays? The fact that there is no 6.5 mm object in the back of the head on the lateral x-rays proves the object is fake.]
* The damage pattern in the scalp and bone suggests a front-to-rear shot, with a shot coming from the front or right front. (Dr. Ubelaker)
[Comment: Perhaps his exact words should be quoted:
“The damage pattern (displacement of scalp and bone) evident when viewing the photos showing the right side of the head and right shoulder (#s 5 6 26 27 and 28) and the photos showing the superior view of the head (#s 7 8 9 10 32 33 34 35 36 and 37) is suggestive of a head wound resulting from a bullet traversing from front-to-rear from the front or right front.”]
* The Clark Panel/HSCA cowlick entry wound does not appear on the skull x-rays. There is no radiographic evidence of a wound in that location. (Dr. Fitzpatrick, Dr. Ubelaker, Dr. Kirschner)
[Comment: This leaves the EOP entry site as the only viable rear-head entry site, but the EOP site presents impossible trajectory problems for the lone-gunman theory. There is no way that the alleged lone gunman could have fired that shot, unless we assume JFK was leaning forward by about 60 degrees when the shot occurred. That's one of the reasons the people doing the cover-up decided to try to move the entry wound up by a whopping 4 inches, from the EOP up to the cowlick. The Clark Panel and the HSCA FPP obediently rubber-stamped the cowlick entry site. This says a lot about their reliability and/or their integrity.
Two of the HSCA FPP's consultants did raise questions about the cowlick site, but their observations were ignored.]
* The photos of the back of the head support the EOP entry site, not the cowlick site. (Dr. Ubelaker)
[Comment: Dr. Ubelaker was “surprised that the HSCA had determined the red spot in the back of the head photos was the entry wound on President Kennedy’s head.” He added,
“The red spot in the upper part of the photo near the end of the ruler does not really look like a wound. The red spot looks like a spot of blood--it could be a wound but probably isn't. The white spot which is much lower in the picture near the hairline could be a flesh wound and is much more likely to be a flesh wound than the red spot higher in the photograph.”
Interestingly, this is exactly what the three autopsy doctors argued when several of the HSCA FPP members tried to pressure them to repudiate the EOP site and endorse the cowlick entry site.]
* Autopsy photo F8 shows fatty tissue in the upper-left corner. (Dr. Kirschner)
[Comment: This is crucial because F8 could not show that fatty tissue unless it had been taken from the back of the head. We now know that the autopsy doctors, the autopsy radiologist, and the medical photographer who took the picture said it was a back-of-head photo. This, in turn, is crucial because it means this photo shows a large wound in the occiput.]
* Some of the dark areas on the skull x-rays are unusually dark, much darker than the dark areas on normal x-rays. (Dr. Ubelaker)
[Comment: Dr. Mantik had made this same observation a few years earlier, unknown to Dr. Ubelaker.]
* The right transverse process at T-2 could be broken. (Dr. Fitzpatrick)
[Comment: Dr. Kirschner said the following about damage at T-2:
“On X-Ray #8 no metal was seen anywhere near the neck but some dark areas were noted on the x-ray near T-1/T-2. These small dark areas near T-1 and T-2 were felt to be air due to some disruption.”]
Now let us look at just a few of the important disclosures that we have learned from the documents released in 2017:
* Orest Pena, an FBI informant who owned a bar in New Orleans in 1963, told the HSCA that Lee Harvey Oswald was an FBI informant. Pena said he knew this because he himself was an FBI informant. Pena said that his FBI handler, FBI agent Warren du Brueys, warned him not to reveal this and other information. Pena also told the HSCA that Oswald met with du Brueys and other federal agents several times in a restaurant in New Orleans.
* Earle Cabell, the mayor of Dallas in 1963, was a CIA asset. One of the documents reveals that Cebell became a CIA asset in late 1956. The CIA had withheld the information on grounds that it was not considered relevant. No related documents have been released, but even alone it is important. Cabell’s brother Charles was deputy director of the CIA until he was fired by Kennedy in January 1962 over the CIA’s misleading Kennedy about the Bay of Pigs invasion.
* A courier for Mafia boss Sam Giancana who went by the alias Richard Cain met in Mexico City with CIA personnel. This tidbit is interesting because a 1992 biography written by Giancana’s family said Giancana told his younger brother that Cain and Nicoletti, not Oswald, were on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository building during the assassination. Interestingly, several eyewitnesses in Dealey Plaza reported that they saw two men on the sixth floor just before the shooting.
* One of the 2017-released documents shows that the CIA was trying to determine what David Atlee Phillips (Maurice Bishop) knew about Oswald and when he learned certain things about Oswald’s strange September 1963 trip to Mexico City.
Researchers have long been interested in Phillips because Antonio Veciana, a former CIA-backed anti-Castro leader in Miami, told the HSCA that Oswald was a CIA informant handled by a CIA officer named Maurice Bishop. Years later, Veciana revealed that Phillips was in fact Bishop, saying, on video, “I have no doubt that the man I knew as Maurice Bishop was David Atlee Phillips. He was the same man I saw with Oswald.”
Another document sheds light on an ultra-conservative former secret agent named George Gaudet. By cosmic coincidence, or more likely design, Gaudet was issued a Mexican travel permit whose number was the next one after Oswald’s Mexican travel permit number. Clearly, Gaudet was tailing Oswald.
