Response
to Ken Rahn’s Critique of
Cover-up
by Stewart Galanor, author of Cover-up
I imagine any writer would find it difficult to learn that
errors were discovered in his book, especially when the errors are used in an
attempt to discredit his work. Kenneth Rahn has evidently gone over Cover-up
thoroughly and claims to have found ten factual errors. Five of them, however,
are not errors; three of them are frivolous errors; while the remaining two
errors when corrected do not diminish the evidence for a conspiracy and a
cover-up. The vast amount of evidence of a conspiracy and its cover-up has
withstood his painstaking review. Thus, I
wish to thank Rahn for verifying that the numerous misrepresentations of
evidence by the Warren Commission, as reported in my book, did in fact occur.
In the response that follows I will address the following
issues raised by Rahn in his review of Cover-up:
Selective Use of Evidence
Biased Presentation of Evidence
Factual Errors Rahn Uncovered in Cover-up
Principles of Evaluating Evidence
Selective Use of
Evidence
Rahn claims that I selectively use the evidence to discredit
the lone assassin theory. He uses the controversy surrounding the President’s
back wound as an example. He claims, that in showing that the back wound was
below the neck (a location inconsistent with a shot from the Book Depository), I
ignored “3 critical and irrefutable pieces of clear, simple evidence.” He is
wrong on this count, and amazingly, in his zeal to defend the Warren
Commission’s Report, Rahn ignores or dismisses 12 relevant and credible pieces
of evidence.
The 3 pieces of evidence Rahn claims I ignored are “(1) the
autopsy report’s road map to the entrance wound (14 cm from the tip of the
right acromium process and 14 cm from the tip of the right mastoid process); (2)
the fact that face [autopsy description] sheets…are schematic only; (3) the
clear statement in the autopsy report that the “back” wound was “just
above the upper border of the scapula.” Rahn then asks, “Can anything be
clearer? In the face of this evidence, to pretend that the back wound is
anything but high is completely untenable. The eyewitness reports, photographs,
and locations of holes in jacket and shirt that Galanor (and others) use while
ignoring this clearly superior evidence are clearly subservient to this ‘best
evidence’ from the autopsy.” Here Rahn elevates the reliability of written
descriptions in the autopsy report over an official government photograph taken
during the autopsy.
1.
Pathologist’s Road Map. I
failed to criticize, rather than ignored, the autopsy report’s location of the
neck (or back) wound presumably made at the autopsy. The HSCA medical panel
discussion of these measurements locating the back wound implied the
pathologists were incompetent. The HSCA reported that one of seven “measures
essential to a thorough medicolegal autopsy that the pathologists failed to take
was…recording precisely the locations of the wounds according to anatomical
landmarks routinely used in forensic pathology. The medical panel of the
committee stated that the reference points used to document the location of the
wound in the upper back—the mastoid process and the acromium—are movable
points and should not have been used.” (7HSCA17) And thus, the HSCA decided
that what Rahn terms a “critical and irrefutable piece of clear, simple
evidence” could not be relied on and placed the back wound below the level of
the neck. (See Cover-up, page 24.)
2.
Autopsy Description Sheet. The
marks representing the back and throat wounds on the autopsy description sheet
show the back wound lower than the throat wound. If the marks are accurate, then
the path of the bullet entering the President’s back and existing his throat
had to be rising, and thus, inconsistent with a shot from the Book Depository.
Rahn’s claim that I ignored the autopsy description sheet, because it is meant
to be schematic only, is muddled reasoning on his part. Obviously, I did not
ignore it; it is one of 46 documents printed in Cover-up
(Document 5). What Rahn is presumably claiming is that I exaggerated the
importance of this “clear, simple evidence” that the back wound was lower
than the throat wound.
3.
Autopsy Report. Although
I left out the statement in the autopsy report that the back wound was “just
above the upper border of the scapula,” I point out that the three Warren
Commission drawings of the President’s wounds, which were supposedly based on
the findings of the autopsy pathologists, placed the back wound at the neck
level. Placing the back wound at the neck level, however, is not supported by an
autopsy photograph which clearly shows the wound below the level of the neck.
(See Cover-up, Documents 9-12.)
Again, this is an instance of failing to criticize the autopsy report rather
than ignoring evidence and in the next edition the autopsy report will be
severely criticized.
Rahn’s Dilemma.
Rahn contends that the measurements locating the back wound at the level
of the neck (the measurements that the HSCA medical panel said “should not
have been used” to locate the back wound) is “clearly superior evidence”
over the photographs presumably made at the autopsy. Clearly, any reasonable
person would accept an authentic autopsy photograph as better evidence than the
word of the pathologist, especially in this case, where the pathologist admitted
to burning his autopsy notes and the first draft of the autopsy report and then
lied about why he did it. (ARRB Deposition of Dr. James Humes, February 13,
1996, pages 128-138).
Rahn, however, ignores that he is confronted with a classic dilemma. If he
accepts the autopsy photo as the better evidence, then it is authentic and the
back wound is lower than the throat wound, hence conspiracy, cover-up. If he
accepts the autopsy report as the best evidence, then the autopsy photo must not
be authentic, hence conspiracy, cover-up.
Fibers.
Rahn also points out that the fibers in Kennedy’s jacket and shirt are
pushed forward which is evidence of a shot from the back. This evidence is
extremely weak since fibers can be easily pushed backward by a finger within a
second. In fact, Douglas Horne examined the jacket and shirt when he was a
senior analyst for the ARRB and noticed that the fibers were pushed both forward
and backward. So much for fiber evidence.
Commission’s
Hypothesis. Rahn claims that I
failed to mention “the Parkland doctors’ admissions that the anterior neck
[throat] wound could have been either entrance or exit.” What I failed to do
was criticize the Commission’s questioning of the Parkland doctors. In
essence, the Parkland doctors were asked: if we assume that the shots came from
behind, could the wound be an exit wound? The question is not designed to probe
for the truth anymore than the question “If we assume the shot came from the
front, could the wound be an entrance wound?” What is relevant is that the
doctors held their ground when they testified that the wound they observed in
the President’s throat was round and within 3 to 6 mm in diameter. Dr. Perry
testified the wound was “between 3 and 5 mm.” (6H15) Dr. Baxter observed the
wound was “4 to 5 mm in widest diameter.” (6H42) Dr. Carrico said it was
“probably a 4 to 7 mm wound.” (6H3) Dr. Jones testified “The hole was very
small and relatively clean cut as you would see in a bullet that is entering
rather than exiting.” (6H55)
Speculation.
Rahn claims that I place myself “in the borderline-dishonest position
of proposing an impossible scenario (bullet entering through the front of the
neck, not exiting, but not being found in the body) without acknowledging any
problems with it.” But this is not my position, nor is anything like it
presented in Cover-up. Even the HSCA
found the Warren Commission’s location of the back wound at the level of the
neck inconsistent with the evidence and claimed, instead, the wound was in the
back below the neck. Furthermore, in the process of covering up, evidence was
destroyed, altered, misrepresented and ignored to such an extent (see Cover-up
for over fifty instances) that it is impossible to explain exactly what happened
without speculating, which I refuse to do.
Evidence that the Back Wound was Below an Entrance Wound in
the Throat
The evidence that follows (most of which is ignored by Rahn)
far outweighs his deceptive and meager case that the back wound is at the level
of the neck.
1. Parkland
doctors testified that they observed a wound in the President’s throat the
shape and size of an entrance wound. (6H3, 6H15, 6H42, 6H54)
2. The
result of the Warren Commission’s goatskin test is consistent with the
conclusion that the wound in the President’s throat was an entrance wound and
inconsistent with the Commission’s conclusion it was an exit wound. (See
Cover-up, page 20, Document 3)
3.
An autopsy photograph clearly contradicts the autopsy report that the
back wound was “just above the upper border of the scapula.” (See Cover-up,
Document 12)
4.
The Autopsy Description [Face] Sheet depicts the back wound lower than
the throat wound. (See Cover-up, Document 5)
5.
The Death Certificate made out by Dr. George Burkley, the White House
physician, placed the back wound “at about the level of the third thoracic
vertebra,” which is below the shoulder. (See Cover-up,
Documents 8 and 13)
6.
Secret Service agent Clint Hill testified that after the autopsy he
observed in the President’s back a wound “about 6 inches below the neck
line.” (2H143)
7.
The President’s jacket and shirt each had a hole about six inches below
the top of the collar. (2H365)
8.
At a top secret executive session of the Warren Commission on January 27,
1964, J. Lee Rankin told the Commission that “it seems quite apparent now
since we have the picture of where the bullet entered in the back, that the
bullet entered below the shoulder blade to the right of the backbone which is
below the place where the picture shows the bullet came out in the neckband of
the shirt in front.” (Transcript of January 27, 1964, Warren Commission’s
Executive Session, page 193, National Archives) Rankin clearly understood the
problem and told the Commission, “We will have to probably get help from the
doctors about it, and find out. We have asked for the original notes of the
autopsy on that question.” (page 194) Evidently, Rankin was unaware that the
chief pathologist had already destroyed the original notes.
9.
The May, 1964 FBI reenactment placed the back wound below the shoulder.
(See Cover-up, Document 4.)
10.
The HSCA publicly admitted that the back wound was below the throat
wound. For the wounds to remain consistent with a shot from above, the HSCA
falsely claimed the President was leaning forward when he was shot. (1HSCA231,
377)
11.
The size of the bullet holes in the President’s clothes and the size of
the wounds in his neck are inconsistent with a bullet traveling from back to
front. A bullet striking the President from behind would not produce bullet
holes that decrease in size from 15 mm (jacket) to 10 mm (shirt) to 7 mm (back
wound) to 5 mm (throat wound). (See Cover-up,
pages 25, 26.)
12.
Dr. David Mantik, radiation oncologist at the Eisenhower Memorial
Hospital and physicist, has shown that if the back wound is at the level of the
neck, then the President’s spine would have been shattered. (See Cover-up,
Document 45) The autopsy X-rays confirm that the President’s spine had
suffered no major trauma. Thus, the back wound had to be below the neck. This
means the back wound was below the throat wound, and thus, a bullet did not
strike the President in the back and exit his throat.
Serious challenges to the authenticity of the autopsy X-rays
and photographs have been made. Dr. Mantik’s optical densitometry tests
indicate the right lateral X-ray was altered. (See Cover-up, pages 108-109.) Saundra Kay Spenser, who worked at the
Naval Photographic Center in Anacostia (called the “White House Lab”)
testified before the ARRB (Assassination Records Review Board) that within two
days of the assassination a Secret Service agent named Fox delivered film for
her to develop. She was positive that the photographs she developed were not the
ones in the National Archives. Even the photographic paper was different. (ARRB
Deposition of Saundra Kay Spencer, June 5, 1997) The HSCA failed to match the
autopsy photographs with the camera the Defense Department claimed was the
camera used during the autopsy. (Doug Horne, Memorandum for ARRB, August 27,
1998, page 4) The questions on the authenticity of the autopsy X-rays and
photographs are completely ignored by Rahn.
So let’s imagine we are members of a jury called upon to
weigh the evidence.
What would determine our verdict: the “best evidence”
autopsy report and the three Warren Commission drawings which place the back
wound at the level of the neck, or the 12 pieces of “selective evidence”
that the back wound was below the neck?
Biased Presentation of Evidence
Rahn claims “[Cover-up]
is clearly biased. Given the book’s lack of rigor, lack of proof for its main
tenets, and its selective use of evidence, I can reach no other conclusion than
that its answer was assumed from the beginning. This is bias pure and simple.”
While reading the Warren Report and the 26 Volumes of
evidence in 1964 and 1965, I reached the conclusion that there was a cover-up of
a conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy. The purpose of Cover-up
is to clearly and concisely present the evidence of a cover-up of a conspiracy.
The title of the book after all is Cover-up.
When Galileo wrote down the evidence that the sun is the center of the solar
system (circumstantial evidence by the way) was he predisposed toward that view?
By the time he wrote it all down he had long since made up his mind, even though
his solution to the puzzle was partially wrong (he thought the orbits of the
planets were circles).
Ten Factual Errors Found by Rahn
Kenneth Rahn claims to have found ten factual errors in Cover-up.
Five are not errors at all. Three are minor errors and when corrected do not
change the substance of the argument. The remaining two errors are significant,
but correcting them in no way lessens the evidence for a conspiracy and a
cover-up. My comments and corrections of the ten errors follow:
1. Marksmanship
(Minor Error and Rahn Error)
Rahn’s Claim.
(Re: Cover-up, page 45) Oswald
was not “classified as a ‘rather poor shot’ in the Marines.” That was
Lt. Col. Folsom’s characterization of Oswald’s scores in one of his two
marksmanship tests. The other score, Folsom said, indicated that he was “a
fairly good shot.” (WR191) Different days, different scores, one of which
Galanor omitted. And it was an officer’s opinion, not a “classification.”
Response.
I did not fail to mention Oswald’s first marksmanship test as Rahn
claims. On page 47 of Cover-up I wrote, “When Oswald entered the Marines, he received
training in the use of the M-1 rifle. After three weeks he scored low in the
sharpshooter category, which was average for that amount of practice.”
Rahn is technically correct when he
criticizes the phrase “Oswald was classified
as a ‘rather poor shot’ in the Marines.” However, Oswald’s final
qualification score was 191 which was one point above the minimum which means he
was a rather poor shot when he left the Marines. The next edition of Cover-up
will read as follows: “Oswald was characterized
as a rather poor shot.” But whether it’s “classified” or
“characterized,” the point remains that the Warren Commission did not
conduct a legitimate marksmanship test when they used Master marksmen instead of
using Marines with low qualifying scores in the 190s, a point that does not seem
to concern Rahn whatsoever.
2. Marksmanship
Test (Rahn Error)
Rahn Claim.
(Re: Cover-up, page 46) “Here
Galanor assumes that the WC claimed that Oswald fired three shots in six seconds
or less. It didn’t. Instead, it said there were at most 5.6 seconds between
the two shots that hit Kennedy, with another shot that missed occurring before,
after, or between those two. The total time span mentioned was 4.8 to “in
excess of 7 seconds.” (WR117) Galanor should reread his cited source, WR193.
His claim that two of the WC’s riflemen couldn't fire ‘as quickly as Oswald
allegedly did’ is based on a false premise.”
Response.
I made no such assumption or false premise. The Warren Commission
concluded that their marksmanship test showed that “Oswald had the capability
to fire three shots, with two hits, within 4.8 to 5.6 seconds.” (WR195) This
conclusion is false. The test showed that 1 of the 3 master riflemen was capable
of 2 hits out of 3 shots [at stationary targets] within 5.6 seconds. The other
two marksmen took from 6.45 to 8.25 seconds. Rahn, evidently confused by the
Commission’s razzle-dazzle, attributed their deceit to me.
On page 51 of Cover-up you will
find the following passage that Rahn seems to have missed: “Does the extended
firing time of 8.4 seconds allow enough time for an average shooter to aim and
fire three shots accurately? Even expert marksmen struggle at this speed. One of
the Master riflemen firing at three stationary targets in the Warren
Commission’s rifle test took 8.25 seconds and hit only two of the three
stationary targets. On his second attempt he took 7 seconds but hit only one of
the three targets.” (3H446) What Rahn fails to understand is that shooting at
a moving target (or at stationary targets the Commission used) with the
Mannlicher-Carcano is a difficult task even for experts. To reach the top of any
profession requires years of commitment. Oswald never came close to putting in
the required time and was nowhere near as proficient with a rifle as a master
marksman.
3.
FBI Recreation Photo (Rahn Error)
Rahn Claim.
(Re: Cover-up, pages 80-81)
Galanor says that the FBI photographed an agent holding the rifle to try to
duplicate the nose shadow in the backyard pictures, but then cut out the head in
the demonstration photo. He says, “If the FBI had been able to duplicate the
shadows of the backyard photograph, would it have removed the head?” He
references WR pages 125 and 127, but there we find a different story. The
purpose of the FBI’s photo was not to recreate the shadows but to determine
whether the rifle in the photo was the same as the one found on the sixth floor.
He misquotes the WC badly on this.
Response.
The FBI photo was also taken to resolve the lighting disparity indicated
by the shadow of the body and the shadow of the nose. I did not “misquote the
WC” as Rahn claims. On page 80 of Cover-up
is the following sentence which appears on page 125 of the Warren Report: “A
photography expert with the FBI photographed [an FBI agent with] the rifle used
in the assassination attempting to duplicate the position of the rifle and the
lighting in Exhibit No. 133-A.” (133-A is the backyard photograph.).
Recreating the lighting recreates the shadows. Is it unreasonable to ask, “If
the FBI had been able to duplicate the shadows of the backyard photograph, would
it have removed the head?”
4.
White Silhouette Photo (Rahn Error):
Rahn Claim.
(Re: Cover-up, page 83)
The DPD photo with the white silhouette was obviously taken at a later date than
the backyard photo, and so could not have been used to fake them. Notice the
difference in the foliage of the bush in the background and the presence of a
new bush to the right front of the silhouette. (Compare his Documents 30
and 36.)
Response.
The photograph with the white silhouette matting was obviously not used
to fake the backyard photograph. Who ever said it was? It is obviously a
poor cut out and does not even match Oswald’s pose. But it is evidence
of an attempt to make a composite photograph of Oswald. And to what end would
that be? To frame him or to have a photograph of Oswald to hang in your living
room?
5.
Post Office Application Forms (Factual Error)
Rahn Claim.
(Re: Cover-up, page 90)
“Oswald had recently opened a P.O. Box and the "part of the application
authorizing people to receive mail was mysteriously missing.” Incorrect. The
FPCC and ACLU were listed, and the form survived. (WR312)
Response.
Rahn is right. The part of the application authorizing people to receive
mail was not missing for the post office box Oswald opened on November 1, 1963.
However, for the post office box that the Mannlicher-Carcano was allegedly sent
to in March of 1963, that part of the application authorizing people to receive
mail, as well as the receipt for the rifle, were both mysteriously missing. (See
Cover-up, page 89.)
6.
Baker and Oswald Encounter. (Factual Error)
Rahn Claim.
(Re: Cover-up, page 97)
“Officer Baker wrote, ‘I saw a man [Oswald] standing in the lunchroom
drinking a Coke.’” Baker didn't write this statement. It was in the FBI
agent’s handwriting.
Response.
Rahn has correctly observed that a FBI agent wrote Baker’s statement,
not Baker as I claimed. This is significant since Baker’s cross-out of
“drinking a coke” is a correction of an FBI statement and thus does not
support the view that Baker once claimed he encountered Oswald drinking a coke.
However, the question still remains, “Did Oswald have enough time to get to
the lunchroom just before Baker?” For the time lines of Oswald and Officer
Baker to intersect, Oswald would have had to walk the entire East side of the
sixth floor, walk the entire North side of the building, hide the rifle between
boxes, descend the stairs to the second floor, and enter the lunchroom within 90
seconds? Was this possible? Perhaps.
7.
Atsugi Naval Air Station (Minor Error)
Rahn Claim.
(Re: Cover-up, page 103) “Why
was an avowed communist in the Marines sent to a secret air base where
super-secret U-2 plans were launched?” To my knowledge, there is no record
that anyone in the Marines knew LHO’s politics until he returned to the U.S.
from Japan and was about to get out of the service. (Atsugi was not a secret
base, although the U-2 program there was. The HSCA found that Oswald and fellow
Marines had a very low security clearance.)
Response.
Rahn is right that Atsugi was not a secret base; it was a “closed”
base. In his book Legend, Edward Jay
Epstein relates that “about 400 yards from the Marine hangars, was a complex
of about twenty buildings, identified innocuously on several signs as the
‘Joint Technical Advisory Group.’ It contained one of the CIA’s main
operational bases in Asia. For these reasons, Atsugi remained a ‘closed’
base, which meant that personnel on the base had to have cards showing their
security clearance.” (page 355) In the Marines there were only three levels of
security clearance: Confidential, Secret, Top Secret. Oswald had Confidential
security clearance, the lowest level.
Someone in the Marines professed to know Oswald’s
politics before he went to Atsugi. Allen Felde, who shared a tent with Oswald at
Camp Pendleton, California, “remembers that even while Oswald was learning
combat techniques, he was attacking American foreign policy. He railed against
the American intervention in Korea, which he said resulted in ‘one million’
useless deaths. (He blamed President Eisenhower.) He also persisted in depicting
himself as champion of the ‘cause of the workingman.’” (page 353)
Nonetheless, there is no evidence that the Marine
bureaucracy knew Oswald was professing he was a communist when he was sent to
Atsugi. In the next edition of Cover-up
the offending sentence will be replaced by “How was Oswald, who was professing
communist doctrine, able to escape censure during his last year in the Marine
Corps?” (WR686)
8.
Not in Our Lifetime (Minor Error)
Rahn Claim.
(Re: Cover-up, page 115) I
believe that Galanor or his source is slightly misquoting Earl Warren, who said
that all the testimony might not be released in our lifetime, not all the facts.
(As quoted in Rush to Judgment and Best
Evidence.)
Response.
“Testimony” will replace “facts” in the next edition of Cover-up
so that the sentence will read as follows: Earl Warren disclosed that some of
the testimony “may not be released in your lifetime.”
9.
Documents Ordered Suppressed (Rahn Error)
Rahn Claim.
(Re: Cover-up, page 177) The WC
documents were not “ordered suppressed.” It was (and is) customary for
records of such commissions to be sealed for a number of years after the
commission expires. LBJ actually signed an order releasing some of the WC files
early.
Response.
Many of the Warren Commission Documents were ordered suppressed. That
Johnson ordered the release of some of the Warren Commission files early
indicates that there was an order to suppress documents until a certain date.
The files that were not released early by Johnson remained suppressed.
Commission Document 347, a CIA memo about Oswald in Mexico City, was still
suppressed in 1986.
10.
Anonymous Purchase of Rifle (Rahn Error)
Rahn Claim.
(Re: Cover-up, page 89) What is
the source for the idea that Oswald could have bought a gun “anonymously”
from “any number of gun shops in Dallas”? This idea has been repeated many
times, but without a source. One gunshop owner testified to the WC that he kept
records of whoever bought guns and ammo from him. The DPD often checked with him
and had brought him to the police station to take a look at the M-C. (Testimony
of Alfred Douglas Hodge, 15H494)
Response.
One source is the very gun shop owner cited by Rahn. The owner, Alfred
Hodge, did not testify to the Warren Commission that he ever asked for or
required identification from his customers. In 1963 you could purchase a rifle
in gunshops in Texas and many other states throughout the country without having
to supply identification.
Principles of Evaluating Evidence
In his review of Cover-up,
Rahn complains that the book lacks an explanation of the different types of
evidence or the “principles of using evidence.” Presumably Rahn means
“principles of evaluating evidence.”
It is telling that Rahn, who touts the important of knowing
the difference between direct and indirect evidence and between falsifiable and
unfalsifiable evidence, never seems to use these concepts in evaluating
evidence. Furthermore, he neglects the equally important concept of verifiable
evidence.
He accepts the Warren Commission claim that since a master
rifleman could fire three shots and hit two out of three stationary targets
within 5.6 seconds, it follows that Oswald could do the same. Putting aside for
the moment the foolishness of this claim, the fact that it is neither verifiable
nor falsifiable doesn’t seem to concern Rahn. He seems to lack the sense in
answering two more important questions. Is the evidence relevant? Is it
credible?
Nor does knowing types of evidence enable Rahn to recognize
contradictions or inconsistencies in the evidence. He ignores the fact that the
HSCA placed the entrance wound to the President’s head four inches higher than
where the autopsy pathologists placed it according to the Warren Commission.
Both investigative bodies cannot be right. At least one of them engaged in
misrepresenting evidence.
Inexplicably, Rahn appears unconcerned that evidence has been
concealed, misrepresented, ignored or destroyed. He frequently ignores and
dismisses relevant, verifiable evidence of a conspiracy and a cover-up, such as
1.
The Warren Commission misrepresented the results of its own
“goatskin” test when it claimed the test showed “entry and exit wounds are
very similar in appearance.” (WR91)
2.
The Warren Commission did not enter into evidence the autopsy X-rays.
3.
The Warren Commission did not disclose that the fatal shot propelled
President Kennedy backward to the left rear of the limousine.
4.
The Warren Commission had a scientist at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds
shoot ten skulls with the Mannlicher-Carcano. All ten skulls moved away from the
rifle and moved in the direction of the bullet. The results of this test were
suppressed and were not revealed until fifteen years later during the HSCA
investigation. (1HSCA404)
5.
The Warren Commission drawing of the President’s head wounds
contradicts the Zapruder film. The drawing has Kennedy in the wrong position so
the path of the bullet through the head wounds descends from back to front. When
the drawing is turned so Kennedy is in the position seen in frame 312 of the
Zapruder film, the path of the bullet rises from back to front, which is
inconsistent with a shot fired from the Book Depository. (See Cover-up,
Document 18)
6.
The Warren Commission suppressed evidence that Jack Ruby had ties to the
Mafia and was an informant for the FBI as early as 1959. (See Cover-up,
pages 106 and 107)
7.
At least seven witnesses claimed to have seen a puff of smoke on the
grassy knoll during the assassination. The FBI interviews of 4 of these
witnesses do not report that they saw smoke. (See Cover-up,
pages 58-62,
70)
8.
Parkland doctors saw a large exit wound in the right rear of the
President’s head, while the autopsy pathologists reported a small entrance
wound.
9.
Two of the autopsy pathologists contradicted each other on the nature of
the entrance wound to the President’s head in their testimony to the ARRB. Dr.
Humes said the entrance wound was distinct. Dr. Boswell said there was no
distinct hole; only when a fragment of the skull was joined to the back of the
head was a small hole in the skull formed. (ARRB Depositions of Dr. Humes,
February 13, 1996, page 110 and Dr. Boswell, February 26, 1996, page 85)
I will address the Neutron Activation Analysis controversy at
another time. Since 1996 I have on several occasions asked Rahn for his
calculations which he claims supported Vincent Guinn’s NAA work for the HSCA.
Rahn has yet to provide them. At the Providence Conference held last April, Rahn
presented a paper which claimed he had performed calculations based on a certain
hypothesis of his which showed that the probability that Kennedy was struck by
two bullets fired from above and behind is .9999. Again I asked him for his
calculations, and again he has yet to provide them. Must Rahn be reminded that
the scientific method does not presume that experiments are always performed
honestly or competently? Without his calculations, his work cannot be reproduced
or tested, it is not falsifiable, that principle he claims is so critical in
evaluating evidence.
The search for truth requires an ability to analyze evidence
and a willingness to evaluate its relevance and credibility objectively. That a
scientist at a state university has chosen to ignore outrageous
misrepresentations of evidence by our government is saddening and shameful and
does a disservice to the pursuit of truth.