21 Fetzer, James H., Ph.D., Assassination Science: Experts Speak Out on the Death of JFK (Open Court, 1998). Also see: John Simkin, The Education Forum, “Dr. Malcolm Perry R.I.P. (1929–2009),” retrieved 14 April 2013: educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=15105
22 Ibid.
23 Belzer, Richard & Wayne, David, Dead Wrong (Skyhorse: 2013), 97–98.
24 Horne, Douglas P., Inside the Assassination Records Review Board: The U.S. Government’s Final Attempt to Reconcile the Conflicting Medical Evidence in the Assassination of JFK (Douglas P. Horne: 2009).
25 Fetzer, Ph.D., Assassination Science; Simkin, The Education Forum, “Dr. Malcolm Perry”: educationforum.ipbhost.com/index php?showtopic=15105
26 Aguilar, Gary L., M.D., “John F. Kennedy’s Fatal Wounds: The Witnesses and the Interpretations From 1963 to the Present,” August 1994, Electronic Assassinations Newsletter, assassinationweb.com/ag6.htm
27 Ibid.
28 Ibid.
29 Ibid.
30 Ibid.
31 Ibid.
32 Ibid.
33 Ibid.
34 “Warren Commission Testimony of Secret Service Agent Clint Hill,” March 9, 1964, JFK Lancer:jfklancer.com/CHill.html Also see: Douglas P. Horne, “SHAME ON BOTH OF YOU CLINT HILL AND CHRIS MATTHEWS,” at John Simkin, The Education Forum, retrieved 14 April 2013: educationforum.ipbhost.com/indexphp?showtopic=19068
35 History Matters Archive, “ARRB Bell Interview,” retrieved 11 Feb. 2012: historymatters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/medical_interviews/audio/ARRB_Bell.htm
36 Aguilar, M.D., “Fatal Wounds.”
37 Ibid.
38 Ibid.
39 “Warren Commission Testimony of Secret Service Agent Clint Hill,” JFK Lancer; and Horne, “SHAME ON BOTH OF YOU CLINT HILL AND CHRIS MATTHEWS”
40 Horne, Inside the ARRB, emphasis in original.
41 Gutierrez Fiester, Sherry, JFK Homicide: Forensic Reconstruction, Bloodspatter Analysis in the Kennedy Murder: Proving a Frontal Headshot (JFK Lancer: 2010, DVD). jfklancer.com/catalog/gutierrez/index.html Also see: Sherry P. Fiester, Enemy of the Truth: Myths, Forensics, and the Kennedy Assassination (JFK Lancer: 2012).
42 Hargis, Robert “Deposition of Robert Hargis,” 18 April, 1964
43 Fiester, Forensic Reconstruction
2
Zapruder Film
When there is a film of a crime, it’s a prime piece of evidence known as photographic testimony. In fact, in the case of the JFK assassination, the photographic testimony is what’s known as prima facie evidence, vividly testifying about what actually happened without ever uttering a word.
A film was taken of the assassination of President Kennedy as the shots were fired. It was a home movie made by a man named Abraham Zapruder and has since become known simply as the Zapruder Film. The footage graphically confirms the fatal head shot and the fact that this came from the front of the limousine.
In this video, you can see that President Kennedy’s entire body is driven sharply backward and to his left, as the result of taking a high-velocity round directly through his head. It appears to enter his head in direct conformity with the medical testimony in Dallas which recorded a small entry wound in the President’s upper right side of his forehead, near the hairline.
The footage is very graphic, but if you think you can handle it, it can and should be viewed. It’s currently available online at youtube.com/ watch?v=jWHdEeHNbXY. (Remember that you can also go to my website at facebook.com/OfficialJesseVentura to view all the videos from the book.) The clips seem to get taken down from the Internet every once in a while but then are put back up by other assassination researchers. So if that link is invalid when you go to check, just Google “Zapruder film enhanced” and you’ll find it. You’ll see President Kennedy first reacting with shock to the bullet that hits him in the throat, and then—just as his wife and First Lady Jackie Kennedy is looking directly at him to see what is wrong—the kill-shot hits him high in the right side of his forehead and rips off a large portion of his head, rapidly driving his entire body backward and to his left. But be forewarned, this is something you’ll never forget after you’ve seen it.
That footage by Abraham Zapruder so clearly depicted what happened that it was “shielded” from the public’s view for many years. Media mogul C. D. Jackson, the power behind Time-Life, Inc., purchased the rights to that film for a large sum of money and basically kept it under wraps. It was finally shown to an American television audience by author Robert Groden in 1975; and the audience literally gasps at the dramatic evidence of a head shot from the front. You can watch that one online, too, and you will undoubtedly share the shock of that audience: youtube.com/watch?v=4DwKK4rkeEM.
So the government had some explaining to do and they knew it. They came up with an elaborate medical explanation about a bullet having severed the neck vertebrae of the President and because he was held upright by a brace he wore to support his back, it created a “jet force” that blew the matter from his head backwards, even though he was shot from the rear. Nice try. But that dog can’t hunt, people. Military veteran and former combat sniper, Craig Roberts, exhaustively researched the issue and determined that the government version was just what it sounds like—a bunch of bunk.
With his extensive combat experience, Roberts is scathing about the mysterious ‘jet force’ that supposedly blows Kennedy’s head backwards, towards Oswald, in the famous Zapruder home movie of the assassination. ‘In that film,’ says Roberts, ‘we see Kennedy take a shot from the front.’44
Roberts further determined that the shot also had to be from an exploding bullet—what’s known as a “frangible” round—due to the technical behavior of the impact. So now, instead of the crap from the Warren Commission, listen to somebody who actually knows what he’s talking about:
Some of the supporters of the Warren Commission . . . stated that the bullet came from the rear because the eruption of brain matter and blood came out of the front of the president’s skull.
I saw something else. In a head shot, the exit wound, due to the buildup of hydrostatic pressure, explodes in a conical formation in the down-range direction of the bullet. Yet in the Zapruder film, I could plainly see that the eruption was not a conical shape to the front of the limo, but instead was an explosion that cast fragments both up and down in a vertical plane, and side to side in a horizontal plane. There was only one explanation for this: an exploding or ‘frangible’ bullet. Such a round explodes on impact—in exactly the manner depicted in the film.45
44 Badrich, Steve “Postcards from the Labyrinth: Thirty Years After, J.F.K. Researchers Gather in Dallas,” (NameBase Newsline, No. 4, Jan.—Mar. 1994), the-puzzle-palace.com/files/NEWSLINE.194
45 Roberts, Craig, Kill Zone: A Sniper Looks at Dealey Plaza (Consolidated Press, 1994), 89–90.
3
U.S. Secret Service Agents
It may come as a shock to learn that many of the Secret Service special agents who were right at the scene of the shooting felt certain that shots which hit President Kennedy came from the front. What’s even more shocking is that it has been so little publicized that most people are completely unaware of their conclusions. But that’s actually what they thought—in fact, they stated this with certainty. But don’t take my word for it. Let’s look at exactly who they were and exactly what they said.
Forrest Sorrels was the Special-Agent-in-Charge of the Dallas district for the Secret Service. Special Agent Sorrels was one of the higher ranking Secret Service agents in Dallas that day and was riding in the lead car of the President’s motorcade, just a bit ahead of the limousine carrying President Kennedy. SAIC Sorrels was in the back seat of the lead car on the right side. At the time of the gunshots, he was looking out the right rear passenger window. Here’s what he said about it:
I looked towards the top of the terrace to my right as the sound of the shots seemed to come from that direction.46
That sounds pretty clear to me, don’t you a
gree? By the way, that terrace area that Special Agent Sorrels is describing as where the shots had come from is precisely the area that the government and their stooges mockingly refer to as the grassy knoll, as in “grassy knoll conspiracy kooks.” Funny, it doesn’t sound so kooky when it’s an experienced high-ranking Secret Service agent who was right on top of the murder scene telling us where he thought the shots came from. Notice that he doesn’t say that they came from behind him, where Oswald was located; he says that the shots—plural—came from the right side, and he was ahead of the President’s car at that moment.
But wait, there’s more! Here’s another Secret Service agent who was in a different position from which to gauge the shots. Lem Johns was Shift Leader of the Secret Service Vice Presidential Detail. He was in the car with Vice-President Johnson which was two cars behind Kennedy. What Lem Johns remembered was in accord with Special Agent Sorrels:
The first two [shots] sounded like they were on the side of me towards the grassy knoll.47
Here’s another one. Special Agent Paul Landis, part of the White House Detail, was riding right in the Secret Service Follow-Up car which was immediately behind President Kennedy. So remember that he was immediately behind President Kennedy—the agents in the Follow-Up car had a bird’s eye view of President Kennedy in the backseat of the car right in front of them and are trained to be alert to any possible danger arising around them. Here’s what he said:
My reaction at this time was that the shot came from somewhere towards the front.48
Well, gee whiz folks, none of that lines up with the official version, does it? I thought our government told us that the shots came from the rear? But here are three Secret Service agents who were right there in the best locations, and they’re telling us something completely different. What’s the deal? Who are we supposed to trust, highly professional Secret Service agents expertly trained in gunfire, or a bunch of Washington lawyers in white shirts who write long books in legalese? I think I’ll go with the Secret Service agents on that one.
That’s a matter of great importance. The first focus of those Secret Service agents was on the area that had been in front of the limousine because—in their professional opinions—that’s where they thought the shots came from.49 And it wasn’t just the Secret Service who thought that either, as the next fact proves.
46 Sorrells, Forrest, “Secret Service Report of Special Agent-In-Charge Forrest V. Sorrells,” 28 November, 1963.
47 House Select Committee on Assassinations, “Interview of Special Agent Thomas L. Johns,” 8 August, 1978.
48 Landis, Paul “Statement of United States Secret Service Special Agent Paul E. Landis,” 27 November, 1963.
49 Palamara, Vincent Michael, Survivor’s Guilt: The Secret Service and the Failure to Protect the President (TrineDay: 2013).
4
Grassy Knoll
The upper area from the road on Dealey Plaza known as the grassy knoll in particular was the area that a great majority of witnesses to the shooting were immediately fixated on. Dozens of them went rushing up the hill because they thought that was the location that was the source of the gunfire.50 The Warren Commission tried to minimize that fact by focusing the majority of testimony they placed on the historical record on select witnesses who did not think shots came from that location. So—although it was very misleading—the Warren Commission did not conclude that the grassy knoll was the beehive of activity that it actually was.51
But as the testimony of one Dallas police officer vividly illustrates, the grassy knoll actually was the area that everyone immediately ran toward. Motorcycle Officer Clyde Haygood was riding one of the motorcycles flanking President Kennedy’s car. He was riding right-flank, just slightly to the rear of the President, on the right side of the limousine. And his testimony is illuminating; the railroad yard that Officer Haygood refers to was located up the hill of the grassy knoll:
QUESTION: What did you do after you heard the sounds?
OFFICER HAYGOOD: I made the shift down to lower gear and went on to the scene of the shooting.
QUESTION: What do you mean by ‘the scene of the shooting?’
OFFICER HAYGOOD: . . . I could see all these people laying on the ground there on Elm. Some of them were pointing back up to the railroad yard, and a couple of people were headed back up that way, and I immediately tried to jump the north curb there in the 400 block, which was too high for me to get over.
QUESTION: You mean with your motorcycle?
OFFICER HAYGOOD: . . . And I left my motor on the street and ran to the railroad yard.
QUESTION: . . . Did you see any people running away from there?
OFFICER HAYGOOD: No. They was [sic] all going to it.52
Officer Bobby Hargis, the one who had his windshield splattered after the shots, also parked his motorcycle unit and ran up the grassy knoll.53 The Dallas Chief of Police, Jesse Curry, personally believed that a gunman did indeed fire from the grassy knoll.54 Chief Curry was riding in the lead car of the motorcade, immediately ahead of President Kennedy. What the Warren Commission should have done was to look at what law enforcement officials on the scene actually did. As soon as the shots rang out, Chief Curry grabbed the police radio and said the following:
Get a man on top of that Triple Underpass and see what happened up there.55
It should be noted that the triple underpass was the area that was in front of the motorcade at the time of the gunshots and was connected to the railroad yard next to the grassy knoll.
The Sheriff of Dallas County, Bill Decker, was also in that lead car. What did he do, responsible people might ask? He immediately grabbed his police radio and stated the following:
Have my office move all available men out of my office into the railroad yard to try to determine what happened in there and hold everything secure until Homicide and other investigators should get there.56
Funny, huh? If you read the report of the illustrious Warren Commission, they make it sound like it was the Texas School Book Depository building that was the immediate focus of attention. But it wasn’t.
In fact, in the moments right after the gunshots, most of the attention of law enforcement personnel was focused on the area that had been in front of the motorcade at the shooting: the triple overpass, the railroad yard near it, and the grassy knoll area which had been to the right and front of President Kennedy as the shots rang out.
The Book Depository building, home of the famed “sniper’s nest” on its sixth floor, only became a focus of major attention later. Eyewitness to the assassination, James Tague, made the following very cogent observation:
If you go back to Dealey Plaza at 12:30 and get the photographs and police tapes, there was really no action taken on the School
Book Depository for seven minutes. True, there were a couple of policemen who said they rushed in, which looks good on a sergeant’s report, but it didn’t happen that way. In those seven minutes, I think Oswald may have assisted in letting people into the building by saying they worked there or whatever. During that time, they could have moved an army in and out of the Texas School Book Depository.57
50Groden, Robert The Search for Lee Harvey Oswald: A Comprehensive Photographic Record (Penguin: 1995).
51Brown, Walt, Ph.D., The Warren Omission: A Micro-study of the Methods and Failures of the Warren Commission (Delmax: 1996).
52Haygood, Clyde, “Testimony of Clyde A. Haygood to the President’s Commission (Warren Commission),” 9 April, 1964: jfkassassination.net/russ/testimony/haygood.htm
53Curry, Jesse E., Retired Dallas Police Chief, Jesse Curry, reveals his personal JFK Assassination File (self-published: 1969).
54Palamara, Vincent Michael, “Important early book by a principal in the case,” January 9, 2006: amazon.com/Retired-Dallas-reveals-personal-assassination/dp/B0006CZR8M
55Galanor, Stewart, “The Art and Science of Misrepresenting Evidence: How the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations manipul
ated evidence to dismiss witness accounts of the assassination,” retrieved 14 April 2013: historymatters.com/ analysis/Witness/artScience.htm
56Ibid.
57James Tague, “Eyewitness Statement of James Tague,” retrieved 14 April 2013: karws.gso. uri.edu/jfk/History/The_deed/Sneed/Tague.html
5
Previous Plots against President Kennedy
President Kennedy was being stalked. Contrary to the general notion of great shock at the President’s assassination manifested in the Report of the Warren Commission, it was a known fact that in 1963, Kennedy’s life was in danger from serious threat levels that had been positively identified by the United States Secret Service.58
The conspiracy plot against President Kennedy in Chicago was very real,59 and the Secret Service was acutely aware of it.60 Former Secret Service Agent Abraham Bolden wrote an entire book about that plot and its implications.61
The conspiracy plot against President Kennedy in Tampa, Florida, was also very real.62 The Secret Service was also aware of that plot.63
Those facts have been documented substantially in several books including Ultimate Sacrifice, a good place to begin if you wish to research those points in great detail. In both of those cases—Chicago and Tampa—the conspiracy plot was virtually identical to the conspiracy plot that finally killed JFK in Dallas, a short time after those first two attempts. It was a set-up, with plans for multiple shots from a high-powered rifle, complete with a patsy who was framed to take the blame by being set up as a “lone nut” who was a disenchanted soldier with a strange background; and the patsy was tied to the crime by falsely manufactured evidence, just like Oswald was a few weeks later.64
They Killed Our President Page 3