The Wounding of James Tague Refutes the Lone-Gunman Theory

[Jerry Organ]

"Finally, regarding JFK?s still-controversial skull wound, In formerly secret testimony taken 24 years ago, Dr. Finck described to the Select Committee how he had photographed the beveling in JFK?s skull bone to prove that the low wound in occipital bone was an entrance wound. In the following exchange, Dr. Finck was being asked  by the Select Committee?s forensic consultants whether the official images were those Dr. Finck had claimed were missing."
 
Charles Petty, MD: "If I understand you correctly, Dr. Finck, you wanted particularly to have a photograph made of the external aspect of the skull from the back to show that there was no cratering to the outside of the skull."
Finck: "Absolutely."
Petty: "Did you ever see such a photograph?"
Finck: "I don't think so and I brought with me memorandum referring to the examination of photographs in 1967... and as I can recall I never saw pictures of the outer aspect of the wound of entry in the back of the head and inner aspect in the skull in order to show a crater although I was there asking for these photographs. I don't remember seeing those photographs."

     Q: Did you request that the photographer take any particular photographs to
          assist you in your work? Dr. Finck, let me show you a portion of Exhibit 28,
          page 6. I am going to draw your attention to a sentence in the first paragraph,
          the sentence beginning with the word "I." Do you see that sentence, which I
          will read for the record:
               "I helped the Navy photographer to take photographs of the
                occipital wound, external and internal aspects as well as the
                wound in the back."

     A: Now that I read this, I remember. But when you asked me the question before,
          it's hard for me to answer. But now I see that I helped the Navy photographer to
          take photographs of the occipital wound. So that's what happened.

     Q: Do you now recall any suggestion that you made to the photographer in terms of
          placement or angle of the shot or any such thing?

     A: Angle of?

     Q: Let me withdraw, let me withdraw the question. What I am interested in now is
          whether you currently have a recollection of this event or whether you are just
          confirming what has been written here?

     A: I'm confirming what is written.

     Q: But you have no independent recollection yourself?

     A: That's too far back.

Petty: ?All right. Let me ask you one other question. In order to expose that area where the wound was present in the bone, did you have to or did someone have to dissect the scalp off of the bone in order to show this??
Finck: ?Yes.?
Petty: ?Was this a difficult dissection and did it go very low into the head so as to expose the external aspect of the posterior cranial fascia (sic - meant ?fossa?)??
Finck: ?I don?t remember the difficulty involved in separating the scalp from the skull but this was done in order to have a clear view of the outside and inside to show the crater from the inside ? the skull had to be separated from it in order to show in the back of the head the wound in the bone.?[156]

Finck prefers hands-on to photographs:

    "It is very difficult to do with preciseness in a photograph. I examined the wounds .
     themselves. To look at a photograph is not like the examination of the wound itself."

But here it's the opposite. Finck doesn't remember the hands-on ("I don't remember the difficulty involved") and promotes an imaginary photograph that supposedly shows the EOP bared, although no other doctor said there was such a photograph, there's no measurement between the supposedly-bared EOP and entry wound, and all three signed an inventory saying the autopsy photographs were complete and authentic.

--------------------

Here is the Attorney General, in a taped phone call, telling LBJ they don't have the photo of JFK's right lung.
The one Humes testified was taken.

http://www.jfklancer.com/Clark.LBJ.html

Date: 1-21-67 12:00 Noon

Time: 7 mins 25 secs at the end of a 8 mins 31 secs conversation

Phone Conversation between Acting Attorney General Ramsey Clark and President Lyndon Johnson
Re: Autopsy Photos

-snip-

"That is, there may be a photo missing. Dr. Humes, Commander and Naval doctor, testified before the Warren Commission that this one photo made of the highest portion of the right lung."

-snip-

"It could be contended that that photo could show the course and direction the bullet that entered the lower part of the neck and exited the front part."

-snip-

"We are left with one specific problem. Dr. Humes did testify before the Warren Commission there was such a photo [that]
we don't have."

-snip-

They attempted some shots inside the open chest cavity and the skull with a smaller handheld consumer camera but the pictures didn't turn out. These were probably the pictures that Finck was present for. He couldn't remember the shots taken with the larger professional camera of the head with the brain inside; they were taken before he arrived.

[John Tonkovich]

"Finally, regarding JFK?s still-controversial skull wound, In formerly secret testimony taken 24 years ago, Dr. Finck described to the Select Committee how he had photographed the beveling in JFK?s skull bone to prove that the low wound in occipital bone was an entrance wound. In the following exchange, Dr. Finck was being asked  by the Select Committee?s forensic consultants whether the official images were those Dr. Finck had claimed were missing."
 
Charles Petty, MD: "If I understand you correctly, Dr. Finck, you wanted particularly to have a photograph made of the external aspect of the skull from the back to show that there was no cratering to the outside of the skull."
Finck: "Absolutely."
Petty: "Did you ever see such a photograph?"
Finck: "I don't think so and I brought with me memorandum referring to the examination of photographs in 1967... and as I can recall I never saw pictures of the outer aspect of the wound of entry in the back of the head and inner aspect in the skull in order to show a crater although I was there asking for these photographs. I don't remember seeing those photographs."
Petty: ?All right. Let me ask you one other question. In order to expose that area where the wound was present in the bone, did you have to or did someone have to dissect the scalp off of the bone in order to show this??
Finck: ?Yes.?
Petty: ?Was this a difficult dissection and did it go very low into the head so as to expose the external aspect of the posterior cranial fascia (sic - meant ?fossa?)??
Finck: ?I don?t remember the difficulty involved in separating the scalp from the skull but this was done in order to have a clear view of the outside and inside to show the crater from the inside ? the skull had to be separated from it in order to show in the back of the head the wound in the bone.?[156]

~snip~

--------------------

Here is the Attorney General, in a taped phone call, telling LBJ they don't have the photo of JFK's right lung.
The one Humes testified was taken.

http://www.jfklancer.com/Clark.LBJ.html

Date: 1-21-67 12:00 Noon

Time: 7 mins 25 secs at the end of a 8 mins 31 secs conversation

Phone Conversation between Acting Attorney General Ramsey Clark and President Lyndon Johnson
Re: Autopsy Photos

-snip-

"That is, there may be a photo missing. Dr. Humes, Commander and Naval doctor, testified before the Warren Commission that this one photo made of the highest portion of the right lung."

-snip-

"It could be contended that that photo could show the course and direction the bullet that entered the lower part of the neck and exited the front part."

-snip-

"We are left with one specific problem. Dr. Humes did testify before the Warren Commission there was such a photo [that]
we don't have."

-snip-

-------------------------














----------------------



--------------------------

Thanks.
Interesting that photo(s) of the beveling of the occipital bone is missing.

Then again, maybe not, since this comes to mind:" It was in the hairline."

And then there's the coat. Odd that there are two holes.
( The FBI agent claims the hole in the collar is a "control area". You can believe him, if you wish, but the FBI had no need of a " control area".  No procedure required it.)

So, three empty shells.
One hole in the back. The back. Not the back of the neck. That's the second hole, the "back of the neck" thing, which is really the occipital bone/ you can find it easily on your own head. Right at your  yes, hairline.
But, the cowlick.
Then we have three holes.
 It's pretty simple.

[Gary Craig]

     Q: Did you request that the photographer take any particular photographs to
          assist you in your work? Dr. Finck, let me show you a portion of Exhibit 28,
          page 6. I am going to draw your attention to a sentence in the first paragraph,
          the sentence beginning with the word "I." Do you see that sentence, which I
          will read for the record:
               "I helped the Navy photographer to take photographs of the
                occipital wound, external and internal aspects as well as the
                wound in the back."

     A: Now that I read this, I remember. But when you asked me the question before,
          it's hard for me to answer. But now I see that I helped the Navy photographer to
          take photographs of the occipital wound. So that's what happened.

     Q: Do you now recall any suggestion that you made to the photographer in terms of
          placement or angle of the shot or any such thing?

     A: Angle of?

     Q: Let me withdraw, let me withdraw the question. What I am interested in now is
          whether you currently have a recollection of this event or whether you are just
          confirming what has been written here?

     A: I'm confirming what is written.

     Q: But you have no independent recollection yourself?

     A: That's too far back.

Finck prefers hands-on to photographs:

    "It is very difficult to do with preciseness in a photograph. I examined the wounds .
     themselves. To look at a photograph is not like the examination of the wound itself."

But here it's the opposite. Finck doesn't remember the hands-on ("I don't remember the difficulty involved") and promotes an imaginary photograph that supposedly shows the EOP bared, although no other doctor said there was such a photograph, there's no measurement between the supposedly-bared EOP and entry wound, and all three signed an inventory saying the autopsy photographs were complete and authentic.

They attempted some shots inside the open chest cavity and the skull with a smaller handheld consumer camera but the pictures didn't turn out. These were probably the pictures that Finck was present for. He couldn't remember the shots taken with the larger professional camera of the head with the brain inside; they were taken before he arrived.

That's your interpretation.

The POTUS is assassinated by gunfire. You can bet they took detailed photographs of every wound.

The ones of the chest cavity and the through and through bullet hole at the EOP are not in the Archive.

The location of the wounds they depicted were altered after the autopsy.

Those alterations supported the official narrative.

[Michael T. Griffith]

Sylvia Meagher’s treatment of the Tague wounding in her classic work Accessories After the Fact is worth reading:

Shortly after the shooting it was known that a bystander, James Tague, had been struck on the face by an apparent bullet fragment, and that a fresh bullet mark was found on the curb near the place where Tague had been standing. The Tague incident was reported to a deputy sheriff and his superior (7H 546-547), to Dallas Police Officer Haygood (WR 116) and the Dallas police at City Hall (7H 556). Although Tague went to City Hall and reported his experience, the police report on the assassination (CE 2003) does not include any affidavit from or any reference to Tague. . . .

It is indisputable that in a methodical, impartial investigation Tague would have been interviewed and the mark on the curb would have been examined at an early stage—certainly before conclusions were formulated about the number and the source of the shots. The evidence was known immediately to the Dallas police and sheriff's officers and almost certainly to the FBI as well, from the interview with Dillard if not from local police officers.

Yet the first overt indication of FBI interest in the curb came only on June 11, 1964, and the records do not specify what provoked action at that time. It may have been the communication from Martha Jo Stroud; that too has been withheld from the Exhibits and the date is not known. Whatever that date, it is perfectly clear from the documents that it was her communication that led the Commission on July 7, 1964, to request an FBI investigation of the curb, and it is entirely legitimate to wonder if the public would have learned anything whatever about this or the Tague matter in the absence of such an external stimulus.

The omission from the Exhibits of the FBI reports on interviews with Underwood and Dillard and the letter from Mrs. Stroud betrays a lack of candor on the Commission's part and perhaps an attempt to conceal its persistent inattention, and the FBI's, to vital evidence—evidence which irresistibly creates uncertainty about the actual number of shots.

If the Commission now concedes that the mark on the curb was made by a bullet, or a bullet fragment, it does so on the same undeviating assumption that the shots came exclusively from the Book Depository. To assume a priori that the mark was produced by a missile from that source, as both the Commission and the FBI did without even considering any other possibility, betrays the commitment to a hypothesis with which this evidence has little compatibility. Straining to force the evidence into harmony with preconceived conclusions, the Commission suggests two rather frail possibilities.

It suggests that a fragment from the bullet that hit the President's head might have produced the mark on the curb, ignoring the fact that two large fragments (equivalent respectively to one-fourth and one-eighth of the mass of the whole bullet) had dropped into the car without even penetrating the windshield or the relatively soft surfaces on which they were found. (WR 76-77, 557; 5H 66-74) If those fragments suffered such a dramatic loss of velocity upon impact and fragmentation, how could a different piece of the bullet retain sufficient momentum to travel "about 260 feet" farther, and to cut Tague's face and/or mark the curb? (Accessories After the Fact, pp. 5, 7, available online at https://archive.org/details/AccessoriesAfterTheFact)

Something hit Tague in the face and hit his face hard enough to cause a bleeding cut. Tague was 260 feet from the limousine when the headshot occurred, and bullet fragments from the headshot stayed in the limo (where they were later found), so the idea that a fragment from the headshot magically cleared the roll bar and the windshield and then dived down and made it to Tague with enough velocity to cause Tague’s wound is absurd. Plus, Tague was hit before the headshot because he heard another shot after he was hit in the face.

WC apologists dismiss or ignore Tague’s recollection of hearing another shot after he was hit, and they markedly disagree among themselves about how to get a bullet fragment to Tague and/or the curb. Why? Because they are bound by the lone-gunman theory’s assumption that only three shots were fired, even though we have abundant evidence that more than three shots were fired.

Extra Bullets and Missed Shots in Dealey Plaza
https://miketgriffith.com/files/extrabullets.htm

[Jerry Organ]

Sylvia Meagher’s treatment of the Tague wounding in her classic work Accessories After the Fact is worth reading:

It suggests that a fragment from the bullet that hit the President's head might have produced the mark on the curb, ignoring the fact that two large fragments (equivalent respectively to one-fourth and one-eighth of the mass of the whole bullet) had dropped into the car without even penetrating the windshield or the relatively soft surfaces on which they were found. (WR 76-77, 557; 5H 66-74) If those fragments suffered such a dramatic loss of velocity upon impact and fragmentation, how could a different piece of the bullet retain sufficient momentum to travel "about 260 feet" farther, and to cut Tague's face and/or mark the curb?

Meagher doesn't address the damage caused by fragments, particularly the dent in the stainless steel windshield frame. Some critics contended it was a bullet hole through the frame's surface.



Instead, Meagher pretends the fragments "dropped" by gravity onto "soft surfaces" and that one was weak by means of its failure to pass through the windshield. I would be reluctant to dismiss the head shot fragment theory as the cause of the Tague wounding based on Meagher's reasoning. Meaghers is far from being the only critic who peddles in absolutes and exaggeration/

Something hit Tague in the face and hit his face hard enough to cause a bleeding cut. Tague was 260 feet from the limousine when the headshot occurred, and bullet fragments from the headshot stayed in the limo (where they were later found), so the idea that a fragment from the headshot magically cleared the roll bar and the windshield and then dived down and made it to Tague with enough velocity to cause Tague’s wound is absurd.

The fragment didn't have to "magically clear the roll bar", Donald. That reduced the angle at which it left the car. Gravity made it arc downward. The theory is possible but I can't say it happened that way.

Plus, Tague was hit before the headshot because he heard another shot after he was hit in the face.

Disn't Tague have an existing cut on his face that could have stung if he moved his head suddenly?

WC apologists dismiss or ignore Tague’s recollection of hearing another shot after he was hit, and they markedly disagree among themselves about how to get a bullet fragment to Tague and/or the curb. Why? Because they are bound by the lone-gunman theory’s assumption that only three shots were fired, even though we have abundant evidence that more than three shots were fired.

Extra Bullets and Missed Shots in Dealey Plaza
https://miketgriffith.com/files/extrabullets.htm

LNers don't swallow Meagher's lamebrain restrictions or believe "magic" is required to make a fragment clear the car. Rather that concluding something out of thin air, most LNers would call for some professional and verifiable testing on fragmentation and downrange arcing.

[Michael T. Griffith]

Below is a surprisingly good 2013 local NBC news segment on the Tague wounding. It includes an interview with Tague done a few days before the segment aired.

As for the WC's nonsensical theory that a bullet fragment from the headshot caused Tague's wounding, even Gerald Posner and Jim Moore have enough sense to see how ludicrous that idea is. Unfortunately, Moore's theory is even worse, while Posner's requires a staggering first-shot miss and a bullet that fragments after hitting a tree limb and then makes its way through the other tree limbs and goes streaking toward Tague's location.

[Jerry Organ]

Below is a surprisingly good 2013 local NBC news segment on the Tague wounding. It includes an interview with Tague done a few days before the segment aired.

As for the WC's nonsensical theory that a bullet fragment from the headshot caused Tague's wounding, even Gerald Posner and Jim Moore have enough sense to see how ludicrous that idea is. Unfortunately, Moore's theory is even worse, while Posner's requires a staggering first-shot miss and a bullet that fragments after hitting a tree limb and then makes its way through the other tree limbs and goes streaking toward Tague's location.

"Moore's theory is even worse"

 
Michael Griffith: "JFK's reaction right after Z188 was probably in response to being stung on the back of the head"

Jim Moore: "Doutless the bullet hitting the concrete only a few feet from the President showered President Kennedy
          with bits of concrete and possibly metal fragments. .. Oswald, then, missed hid first shot, fired at about frame 186,
          using the Zapruder film as our clock."

[Joe Elliott]

As for the WC's nonsensical theory that a bullet fragment from the headshot caused Tague's wounding, even Gerald Posner and Jim Moore have enough sense to see how ludicrous that idea is. Unfortunately, Moore's theory is even worse, while Posner's requires a staggering first-shot miss and a bullet that fragments after hitting a tree limb and then makes its way through the other tree limbs and goes streaking toward Tague's location.

For Mr. Griffith to find a hypothesis to be “nonsensical”, it does not require the relevant experts, ballistic experts, to find it nonsensical. Only himself. Based on his own armchair reasoning, not supported by real-world tests.

Gerald Posner and Jim Moore opinions on the Tague wounding are over 25 years old. Worse, neither were ballistic experts. In the past 25 years, LNers opinion has swung over to accepting the high probability of the Tague wound being caused by a fragment from the head wound. While laymen may find this hypothesis unlikely, ballistic experts, like Larry Sturdivan, Luke Haag and Michael Haag, who do real world experiments with rifles, find this hypothesis to be quite possible and the most likely explanation. Since the 1990’s, the opinion of these experts has persuaded most LNers that this hypothesis is true.

Forcing Mr. Griffith to reach back over 25 years to find prominent LNers, who were not ballistic experts, to make it appear that LNers opinion on this is sharply divided. It isn’t.