CHAPTER FOUR

WHAT'S WRONG WITH ALL OF YOU? WHY CAN'T YOU SEE HOW SCHOLARLY I AM?

(When Is a Scholar a Scholar?)

"I have a great respect for, and love of scholarship and debate."
—David Lifton (1993)

    Jean Hill was one of the eyewitnesses who was standing closest to the presidential limousine during the fatal wounding sequence of the assassination. In Chapter One of Best Evidence, David Lifton very quickly glosses over his interview with Jean Hill on November 20, 1965. He says "she stuck by her story that shots came from across the street from where she was standing." But in his own contemporary memo of that interview, Mr. Lifton reports that Mrs. Hill specifically denied seeing anyone shoot the President. Mr. Lifton's book ascribes to her the statement, "She…characterized the Warren Report as a fraud and a hoax." In fact, it was Mr. Lifton who used those words, while Mrs. Hill offered him nothing more than epigrammatic statements to deflect his questioning. (Lifton, David. Phone Call Notes—Conversation with Jean Hill, November 20, 1965)
    In reconstructing his November 30, 1965, meeting with former Warren Commission Assistant Counsel Wesley Liebeler, Mr. Lifton indulges in some regrettable dramatization that departs from his contemporary memoir of the discussion both in substance and nuance. He thereby not only alters meaning but also appears to revise the chronology of what he represents as a true account of his experiences. For example, the possible causes of the backward snap of the President's head during the assassination were discussed during the meeting. In his book, Lifton reports:
    "Liebeler argued a bit about whether a neuromuscular reaction could have caused this, but he did not press the point."
    In his contemporaneous memo of the interview, however, Mr. Lifton reports the exchange this way:
    "I briefly discussed the possibility of the head [backward] reaction coming from a muscular reaction, and carefully explained why the neurosurgeon I spoke to ruled that out." (Lifton, David. "Interview with W.J.L.," November 30, 1965)
    This is more than a mere error in attribution. In his book, Mr. Lifton does not refer to any consultation he had with medical experts on the head snap until the time of his preparation for writing The Case For Three Assassins (his Ramparts article) and a meeting with Liebeler that occurred on October 10, 1966, nearly one year later. Apparently, in his book, Mr. Lifton has finessed some early medical research he performed, but that he cares not to disclose, or else has juxtaposed it with later events. His disturbing revision of this conversation implies, however, that he received a professional opinion either noncommittal or unfavorable to his viewpoint.
    Returning to the meeting of November 30, Mr. Liebeler was accompanied by a reportedly attractive young woman named "Willie." Mr. Lifton writes in his book: "Willie seemed quite impressed with the physics of the argument." But the self-congratulatory tone of this statement is strikingly at variance with his contemporary memo, which does not quote her as reacting to anything that Lifton said, but instead implies that the woman, who was of foreign extraction and spoke with a thick accent, had difficulty following the back-and-forth between Lifton and Liebeler.
    During the discussion, Mr. Lifton's book has Liebeler lighting his pipe, a gesture seemingly reported as though by a novelist to impart quality to his character, but Lifton's contemporary account reads: "Liebeler is now lighting his pipe or cigar (I was too preoccupied with the girl to notice which)."
    Was Mr. Lifton's memory of his conversation with Liebeler and the woman any better thirteen-to-fifteen years after the event? Mr. Lifton, after reviewing his files much sooner, seemed to say no in a letter to Sylvia Meagher dated June 24, 1969: "I'd forgotten many of those quotes he said to me, even the incidents themselves."
    Mr. Lifton's Best Evidence contains hundreds of citations to a public record that was and remains available to other researchers. In large measure, he also cites to his personal telephone or in-person interviews with witnesses, almost all of which in the years after 1965 he recorded on tape. These remain his personal property and he has not released them. There seems nothing wrong or unusual about that. Without meaning to offer any direct comparison, William Manchester did hundreds of hours of interviews in preparing his book, The Death of a President. These remain sequestered and subject to his exclusive control. Other authors and journalists also prefer to exercise dominion over their research materials, even long after their finished product has seen the public light.
    Since the essential theories and conclusions of Best Evidence rest heavily upon Mr. Lifton's own interviews, however, he requires his readers to implicitly trust in the accuracy and selectivity with which he reproduces quotations from them, this notwithstanding his lack of formal journalistic credentials or any previous reputation as a nonfiction author. Like other readers of Best Evidence, I do not have access to his tapes. As if the Jean Hill and Wesley Liebeler examples were not reason enough, it accordingly seems fair and appropriate that we examine the degree of care and fidelity to the facts exercised by Mr. Lifton in the use of quotations that are otherwise verifiable, as such examination may bear upon the reliability and trustworthiness of his book.
    Mr. Lifton reports in his Compuserve essays that, before we appeared together in Chicago, he "didn't really care whether Feinman agreed with my body-tampering theory or not," but that he was merely curious about my beliefs. He has me stating a theory of the wounds that he implies was in accord with the official (i.e., Warren Commission) version. Then, according to him, Lifton just happened to call the Midwest Symposium organizer, and just happened to mention my alleged statements. He says that the organizer wanted to "yank" me from the debate, but that, "I defended Feinman's presence on the panel." In other words, Lifton asks his readers to accept that I was on the medical panel only at his sufferance.
    As will presently become obvious, Mr. Lifton, knowing that he was about to appear on a platform with a serious individual—not the kind of stage performer and media-hyped celebrity that he has become, but a trial lawyer who knows the evidence as well as or better than he does—was afraid of finally being exposed as a quack. So, he called and he taped, and when I told him what I thought about Best Evidence, he shivered and he shook. Then he went to the Symposium coordinator to insinuate that I ought to be removed from the panel.
    To successfully hunt prey, one must first learn its habits. Just as important, one must learn to wait. The prey may temporarily vacate its habitual feeding ground; it may hibernate; it may resort to camouflage; it may even decide to mount a preemptive attack. The hunter must prepare for either eventuality. Modern technology has neither improved upon nor vitiated these ancient truisms; it is merely harnessed to their service.
    Despite the winter, Sunday night, March 21, 1993, was the kind of night for which God and Howard Johnson invented the rich flavor of chocolate ice cream. That night, David Lifton, having exhausted my patience fourteen years earlier, and having given me a two-year respite since his last call, telephoned me to chat about our forthcoming appearance on April 3 at a panel debate in Chicago with representatives of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) over the medical evidence in the assassination of President Kennedy. I expected him to call, only I did not know when.
    This is the story of how David Lifton stuck his head in the noose I prepared for him.
    We had last seen each other at the ASK Symposium in Dallas in October 1992, and as a follow-up to our encounter I had sent him a recently released document and an analysis that I had written in September. The document was a February 1965 report by former Lt. Col. Pierre A. Finck, one of the three pathologists who performed the Kennedy autopsy, to his Commanding Officer at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Maj. Gen. William A. Blumberg. My analysis began by pointing to the suspicious circumstances surrounding the sequestration of this long-sought memorandum. More than one researcher, including this writer, had filed FOIA requests for the document with the AFIP shortly after its existence was revealed by the House Select Committee on Assassinations. The AFIP did not then have the Finck Memo because, it now seems, it was never part of any official AFIP file. Finck wrote his memo and sealed it in a manila envelope bearing the inscription, "To be opened only by General Blumberg." After Blumberg died in 1985, his widow transferred the private papers he kept at home to the AFIP. Sometime later, an archivist discovered the sealed envelope among Blumberg's other possessions.
    Here are some excerpts from my analysis of the Finck memo:
    "2. According to Finck, they didn't wait for him to begin the autopsy, so the real story could be what took place before his arrival. Finck's statement that by his arrival at 8:30 p.m. the chest cavity had been opened and the heart and lungs removed is in direct conflict with other witness statements that the Y-incision was done much later. Recall Lifton's interview with Ebersole in 1972 as mentioned in his book, and Art Smith's interview with Ebersole in 1978, as well as other witness statements interspersed in Best Evidence and High Treason 2 (notably Captain Karnei in the latter reference). Note his statement that X-rays of the chest had been taken, as well as the head. Given their alleged initial understanding of the wounds, they would have no reason to X-ray and open the chest cavity unless the back wound had already been noted or they were considering the possibility, advanced by the Parkland doctors, that a bullet coursed downward into the chest of Kennedy after entering his throat."
    "It may be this [head] photo was posed to mislead or just one segment in a series of photos that, if viewed in the entirety, would have conveyed a fuller appreciation of the situation. Likewise, the X-ray showing frontal bone removed…"
    "12. Photo of internal aspect of occipital wound. Where is it? It's my belief that this is what has become known as Fox #8, which . . . is habitually reprinted in books in portrait rather than landscape orientation, and I am willing to concede this point to Finck and the Warren Commission apologists."
    "14. Note the clear contradiction: At first he said that when he came in the chest had been opened. Here he says: "The President's family insisted to have only the head examined. Later the permission was extended to the chest." This is the real story, which lost its context in the HSCA excerpts. Either he's making this up as he goes along, or he's relating instructions conveyed to him that allegedly were given earlier than his arrival time. If this were so, the incident reported by Sibert and O'Neill in their investigative insert (which makes no mention of Finck) happened before Finck's arrival and they knew about the back wound before Finck was there, and Roy Kellerman lied to the Warren Commission…"
    "17. Harold Weisberg correctly points to a conflict between Finck's report and his Shaw testimony regarding the limitation of scope. He testified he was ordered not to dissect the neck. Harold would also agree, I gather, that Finck's testimony referred only to X-rays of the head that had been taken before his arrival, not to X-rays of the chest as well. The key here is that Finck's request to mark the protocol incomplete was entirely appropriate, and if the allegation that the Kennedys had restricted the scope of the autopsy were true, Galloway and Humes should have had no objection. Harold established previously that the authorization form contained no limitation. Absent any confirmatory statement from Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, now the only living witness, I conclude that this whole business of assigning responsibility to the family is a lie, and my feeling is that J. Edgar Hoover was of the same opinion."
    "24. Turning to Finck's single-spaced summary, which is dated seven days earlier than his transmittal memo to Blumberg. Note the following with respect to the upper back wound: "It was stated that this was an entrance." This is in the single-spaced version, but in the double-spaced version, "I stated that this was an entrance."
    "25. Further in neither the double-spaced draft (?) summary nor the report itself, does he remark upon any examination of the adrenals. "I was told that the Kennedy family first authorized the autopsy of the head only and then extended the permission to the chest." This clarifies and confirms my earlier impression. As Harold notes, he has no personal knowledge of the alleged restrictions."
    Among my conclusions were these:
    "4. There exists in the public record of this autopsy a serious anomaly between Sibert and O'Neill's main report and their investigative insert pertaining to Burkley's attempt to limit the autopsy, in that their main report alludes to Dr. Humes' locating the back wound only "during the latter stages, "a point with which the testimony of Kellerman is in agreement. The gravity of this anomaly is accentuated by Finck's allegation in his report that the chest had already been opened by the time of his arrival at Bethesda. The story just doesn't gel. Upon reflection, some of the most striking inconsistencies among interviewed witnesses to this event focus upon the examination of the chest cavity.
    [Note: The "investigative insert" to which I referred was a field office memorandum filed separately but concurrently with their main narrative report on the autopsy by FBI agents Sibert and O'Neill in the Baltimore Field Office (FBI #62-117290-878X, November 26, 1963). The memo summarized a conversation that occurred in the morgue before the start of the autopsy. In that memo, the agents reported that Admiral Burkley, the White House physician, "questioned any feasibility to do a complete autopsy to obtain the bullet which had entered the President's back." Secret Service agents Kellerman and Greer had testified to the Warren Commission that the back wound was not discovered until late in the autopsy, and the FBI agents' main narrative seemed on its face to corroborate that testimony. Here, for example, is what Kellerman told the Warren Commission:
    “Mr. Kellerman. Just for the record, I wish to have this down. While the President is in the morgue, he is lying flat. And with the part of the skull removed, and the hole in the throat, nobody was aware until they lifted him up that there was a hole in his shoulder. That was the first concrete evidence that they knew that the man was hit in the back first.
    Mr. Specter. When did they lift him up and first observe the hole in the shoulder?
    Mr. Kellerman. They had been working on him for quite some time, Mr. Specter—through the photos and other things they do through an autopsy. And I believe it was this Colonel Finck who raised him and there was a clean hole.” (2H 103)]
    "5. In further comparison with Sibert and O'Neill, Finck's report reveals nothing on the formulation of any conclusions, no matter how tentative, as to trajectories at the time of autopsy. Finck doesn't say at any point that a path leading to the throat wound was considered, or that any explanation—even a tentative one—was advanced for what happened to the bullet that entered the President's back. He doesn't say what they made at the time of the autopsy of a bruise at the top of the lung or the hemorrhaging he noticed in or about the pleural space, although Humes and Boswell told Specter in their preparatory interview before testifying that they attributed this at the time to the tracheotomy. He makes no mention of bruising in the strap muscles (or the alleged lack of contusions at the sites of the chest drainage tubes and intravenous incisions). This report would have us believe that the question of what happened to the bullet was simply left hanging. Even in the face of their assumed inability to find either a missile or a path for the missile that entered the back, their senior officers refused to permit a complete autopsy, including dissection of the neck, while Lee Harvey Oswald was living to stand trial. This is very damning. Even more disturbing. Col. Finck does not seek any dispensation for signing a false report despite his clear and unequivocal knowledge that the autopsy was incomplete, and despite the denial of his request to see the clothes. Aside from the tepid resistance he claims to have offered, he does not imply that anyone twisted his arm, threatened him, or so much as merely ordered him to sign the report against his will."
    "11. What Finck's various omissions tell us, and what I think he is perhaps relating here, is that he will not personally vouch or be held responsible for whatever he wants us to think may have transpired before his arrival. His alleged understanding is that X-rays and photos had been taken; the brain had been removed; the chest cavity had been opened, and the heart and lungs also removed. Allegedly, they haven't found a bullet, and they require his assistance in assessing the situation, but they won't permit him to perform a full examination to that end. It would be interesting to gauge his response to the question why he believes his presence was required at all, and what his role actually consisted of?…"
    In early January 1993, I learned that I would be a member of a panel representing the government's critics in the Chicago debate, and that David Lifton would also appear. I immediately suggested to all my co-panelists that we confer on a coordinated strategy. The only one to respond affirmatively to this idea was Dr. Cyril Wecht. The discussions in which I participated among and between the co-panelists did not begin until March. Privately, I had some misgivings about Lifton's participation. I discussed these with other interested parties, who appeared to have independently arrived at the same opinion, i.e., that Lifton's Best Evidence theory would offer a vulnerable target against which the JAMA participants could focus their attack on the critics. (As it turned out, none of us had much to worry about; the JAMA panel seemed to have a limited grasp of the facts.) I did not disclose my views to the organizer of the Midwest Symposium, Douglas Carlson, since it was clear to me that he had already extended a commitment to Lifton.
    In early March, I called my colleague and co-panelist, Wallace Milam (also a longtime friend and associate of Lifton and a closet-adherent of the Best Evidence theory), to ask about his presentation. Wallace was in the process of putting the finishing touches on a marvelous video he planned to present in rebuttal to one that was being sold by Dr. Michael West, a JAMA panelist. He indicated that Lifton wanted to play a tape of his 1966 interview with Dr. James Humes. He told me that he wished to speak first on our panel, and that David Lifton wanted to follow him. Wallace said, "Everyone is wondering what Roger Feinman is going to talk about." I feigned indifference to the order of speakers, though I was secretly pleased—amused that few people alive knew my views (therefore making it difficult for the other side to prepare to debate me, as Dr. John K. Lattimer graciously confirmed in the moments before the debate got underway), and pleased that David wanted to go before me. All that I was willing to say for the record was that, in general, I planned to speak about the credibility of the autopsy pathologists. I did not want any additional details to get back to Lifton until I heard from him directly, as I was sure I would. Besides, whatever Lifton planned to present at the Symposium, I would be able to instantly adjust my remarks to avoid any repetition of his points.
    In view of our impending joint appearance, some personal contact between Lifton and me was clearly necessary. In May and October 1992, JAMA had published interviews with the Kennedy autopsy pathologists that seriously damaged the thesis of Lifton's book, Best Evidence, to wit, that they told the truth about what they saw and did that night, either acquiescing in or oblivious to the fact that they had been deceived by the clandestine infliction and surgical alteration of Kennedy's wounds between the time the body left Parkland and the time it arrived at Bethesda, and by the extraction of bullets from his body before autopsy. The pathologists not only repudiated the theory, but also made statements seriously contradicting their own previous public and private pronouncements about the autopsy. I half-expected Lifton to tell me that he was prepared to abandon the central theories of Best Evidence and to admit that the conduct of the pathologists themselves—not some unknown plotters of a conspiracy external to the morgue—merited the closest scrutiny. I was interested in knowing how Lifton proposed to reconcile his theories with the obvious import of these interviews. I was fairly confident that he could not.
    Although I had not given any thought to David Lifton or his book for many years, based on previous personal contacts and the oral reminiscences of other critics, I had the impression that Lifton, for whatever reason, tended to solicit ideas from others before stating his own. I also knew that he tapes at least some of his phone calls. Finally, I knew that Lifton practiced what I call "the doctrine of preemption," one of whose corollaries is to tell the other guy's story and knock it down before the other guy can even open his mouth to speak (I shall presently explore another corollary of the same doctrine). He also jealously guards his flank. With events threatening to overtake Lifton and his book, I knew that his call would come, so I waited while attending to my own affairs.
    Despite my confidence, when Mr. Lifton did call on March 21, I was slightly taken aback by the change I sensed in him. I recalled that, years earlier, he had seemed better able to express himself fluently; now he seemed to have difficulty speaking in whole sentences and forming coherent questions, certainly more distracted. He stumbled over words, and frequently seemed to lose his train of thought. We began by comparing notes on JAMA's most recent article on the Kennedy assassination, and our understanding of the format of the debate. I found myself having to repeat myself to him several times to get a point across.
    Then Lifton changed the subject to our substantive remarks at the debate: "Okay, well, look, um, one of the things I thought I wanted to open up for discussion, which—uh, I was kinda—I'm trying to construct my talk, and I was wondering, um, I was wondering if we could just s-swap notes a little bit. I—I know what Wallace is doing, and I have no idea what you're doing, and I have no idea what Cyril's doing, and I know that I definitely want to come after Wallace's video, and I was curious what, y'know what your take on all this—"
    I got the idea. "What I want to focus on is the personal credibility of the autopsy pathologists, and just that aspect," I said.
    "Wha—what do you mean by personal credibility of the autopsy pathologists?"
    I explained, "The contradictions in the statements they've made over the years and their testimony. There are a number of different issues. Why? Does that conflict with what you want to do?"
    "Oh, no. Not necessarily…I—uh—ah-I asked because, um—who told me? Uh, Wallace said to me or who is it? Aguilar said to me that you were surfacing something brand new, um, that you had from years ago, and, I was, you know, curious what area you were gonna bring in, and then I was going to tell you what I was going to do."
    I said, "Yeah."
    "Are you surfacing anything brand new that—?
    "It depends…"
    As I expected, Mr. Lifton told me that he wished to focus on what was said in the conversation at the outset of the autopsy that had been reported by Sibert and O'Neill in that brief field memo they filed separately from their main narrative report. But there was more, as I already had learned from Wallace Milam. "I'm going to deal with a conversation that I had with Humes in 1966," he said, "which was a better cross-examination than Andy Purdy ever did."
    As I listened to the same voice that had become naggingly familiar during the late-1970's, I thought, "Does David have anything left upstairs? Andy Purdy never examined or cross-examined Humes!"
    Although Mr. Lifton has since implied that I "sandbagged" him at the debate, I made it crystal clear to him that I disagreed with his book. I said, "Of course, we can disagree on conclusions, and it's just as well that we're going to have some diverse viewpoints. You've made a case in Best Evidence that I don't think anybody can either prove or disprove. I mean, it's a hypothesis ... I don't subscribe to it…"
    "Well, I'm curious," Lifton said, "What do you subscribe to?"
    I told him, "I think that the autopsy is crooked…"
    "What I'm getting at is, you think the autopsy was crooked; as the body lied there [sic] before them, what do you think the body had on it? Did it show the President as he was seen in Parkland, or does it show the President—I mean, now, which database does it reflect?"
    Objection! Leading the witness. Nevertheless, I overruled my own objection and replied, "It may very well have reflected the database that we see in the photographs, but that's an incomplete database, and it's an inconclusive database. I—”
    "No, no," Lifton interrupted, "When you mean the photographs, do mean that you believe that when the body was lying there that the back of the head was as pretty and as intact as the rear photograph of the back of the head?"
    I had never heard anyone besides Lifton describe the bloodied head of the murdered President as "pretty." But I was too deeply into the conversation to back out gracefully. "No, I think what they probably did was to take the piece of skull with hair on it that Clint Hill described as laying on the back seat of the limousine, and they recuperated that wound for the purpose of that photograph." [Note: Clint Hill's written report on this point is found at 18H 742, and his testimony is found at 2H 141.]
    "Well, that's reconstruction of it prior to autopsy photography—"
    Lifton was reaching to find a common ground, so I had to cut him off: "Wait a minute! We don't know when that photograph was taken." He made no response to this.
    "But I mean—so, um—I guess I was curious what you thought the body looked like when it was lying there, and I was going to ask you wound-by-wound—"
    I had no patience for this. "Well, let me explain. I've got a problem with the X-rays. My problem is from the standpoint of technical authentication, I don't think that the House Committee succeeded in authenticating these materials. The photographs are a different matter. I'm willing to accept the photographs as genuine only because as a lawyer—and I know this is going to grate on you based upon what you wrote about in the book—but I can take the evidence they give us and still argue a case against them. In other words, I don't have to rely upon a theory that these photographs are fake. If they are, that would be a phenomenal find, and certainly it would blow the case wide open, but I can take the evidence that they give me and still argue a case against the autopsy."
    I sensed some confusion on Lifton's part. "I don't know which case is 'a case', in other words, if you take the photographs that they give you—just in a nutshell, because I don't mean to split hairs with you here, but in a nutshell, take the photographs—what do you think those photographs show about which way he was hit in the head?"
    "They don't! I mean, not conclusively. For example, they show us a photograph of the anterior-posterior view of the skull, with that semi-circular notch above the forehead, but they don't show us a view from the posterior-anterior. What's inside that semi-circular notch? Is there coning or beveling inside? What does that notch mean? Also, we don't know how much skull was removed at autopsy before that photograph was taken. The massive damage to the head, combined with the extensive fragmentation of the bullet, could indicate that, even if the shot came from behind, it was not the kind of ammunition that Oswald was using, so there's an argument right there.”
    "You can give me that argument, but what do you think happened to Kennedy in Dealey Plaza, based on—"
    Finally! A direct question. "Oh, my own personal belief is that he was shot from both directions, from both behind and in front, and I think it was exactly as some of the witnesses said: He was shot in the temple; I think that he was shot first from behind, and then another bullet hit him tangentially from the right front and shot the top of his head off."
    "You think he was shot twice in the head?"
    "Yeah."
    "And from the rear, where was that entry wound?
    "Exactly where Humes placed it."
    "Oh, in other words, you buy it that Humes—you believe in the Humes entry wound in his testimony, his original testimony?"
    "Yeah."
    "And how come that Humes entry wound wasn't seen in Dallas?"
    For an instant, I considered rebutting this oft-repeated inaccuracy, but I didn't want to prolong the conversation. "There could be a number of reasons for that. It could have been covered with hair or with blood—any number of reasons for that."
    "And where was the exit for that?"
    Another leading question, which I decided to deflect: "It may not have exited. According to Sibert and O'Neill, their original theory was that the extensive fragmentation of the head was caused by the impact of the bullet from behind, and that there was no exit, and that makes very good sense to me based upon the fragmentation of the bullet. How could any bullet [fragment] have created that massive damage to the right of the skull?"
    We continued fencing, but it was clear that I was not going to convince him and he was not going to convince me of anything. As the conversation dragged on, Lifton repeated his view that the back wound was artificial. I could not agree. We also spoke about the photograph of the rear of the President's head. I argued that they were posed rather than faked. I was surprised to hear Mr. Lifton agree with me, since he has argued in public that these photographs are forgeries.
    Then, Lifton told me how he planned to revitalize the Best Evidence theory in a sequel. In his next book on the medical evidence, he explained, he plans to augment his theory with a new angle that two of the Parkland Hospital doctors were involved in the plot to alter Kennedy's wounds, and that some of the alteration occurred at Parkland. Although he named the doctors, I will not repeat his assertions; to do so would only dignify the ludicrous. Another "clandestine interval?" As our conversation ended, I tried to persuade Mr. Lifton to stick to the evidentiary issues during our debate and avoid the discussion of theories. To emphasize the point, I followed up our conversation with an electronic mail message. Nevertheless, I had the distinct feeling of deja vu.
    Warren Hinckle of Ramparts had no better luck with Lifton twenty-six years ago: Hinckle tried to explain to him that, "it is necessary to break the ice before you can go swimming in winter." (Hinckle, Warren. If You Have a Lemon, Make Lemonade, G.P. Putnam's Sons; New York: 1974, p. 227) It made no difference.
    Mr. Lifton states in his Compuserve essays that I hid my beliefs from him, and that I somehow implied that I wanted to win a position on some future JFK investigation. The reader can judge whether or not Lifton has been truthful. Comparing me to Arlen Specter, however, is the unkindest cut of all.
    After our conversation, Lifton called the convener of the Midwest Symposium, Douglas Carlson, in an apparent attempt to have me removed from the panel. Lifton complained to Carlson that, "I don't really know where Feinman stands." Carlson says that Lifton's written account of their conversation lost the flavor of the original: "He expressed some concerns. He indicated he thought you might take issue with some of his findings, and that your views might be contrary to his and there wouldn't be uniformity. I never expected that anyway." Mr. Carlson did not recall Mr. Lifton defending my presence on the panel. (Author's interview with Douglas Carlson, May 13, 1993)
    As those who were present remember, and the taped record of the event will reveal, Mr. Lifton was prepared with copies of our electronic mail exchanges to protect his work in the only manner he knows how: the false personal attack.
    Avoiding a substantive response to the questions and criticisms that I have directed toward his book and its theory of the assassination, Mr. Lifton in his essays persistently seeks to construct an argument that I hit him below the belt in Chicago, and that I have a personal vendetta against him, assumedly based upon some element of jealousy that he has published a book. This ad hominem approach should have a familiar ring to students both of rhetoric and the history of Germany in the Twentieth Century alike. Mr. Lifton bases his allegation that I hate him and have attacked him personally on his versions of certain quotations from the Compuserve Politics Forum's message board. For example, he quotes me as saying:
    "It is correct to say that I do not like David Lifton…I do not like his methods. I do not trust his motives. I do not believe he is objective. I do not believe he is sincere. I do not trust him...And, although it might have turned out otherwise, I do not believe that Best Evidence can be taken seriously as a work of scholarship, history, journalism, criticism, or other form of non-fiction."
    Mr. Lifton's use of ellipses significantly changed the meaning, color and tone of the full quote, which was as follows:
    "It is correct to say that I do not like David Lifton. However, since I only know him through his work on the case or through my personal dealings with him in connection with the case, and not socially, it is the functional equivalent of saying that I do not like his work. I do not like his methods. I do not trust his motives. I do not believe he is objective. I do not believe he is sincere. I do not trust him. I do not believe he has helped us (quite the contrary, I believe he has hurt us). And, although, it might have turned out otherwise, I do not believe that BEST EVIDENCE can be taken seriously as a work of scholarship, history, journalism, criticism, or other form of non-fiction." (Emphases supplied to accentuate Mr. Lifton's deletions)
    The clear thrust of this passage was this writer's opinion of Mr. Lifton's book and his role in the assassination controversy.
    In another example of Mr. Lifton's mangled use of brackets and ellipses to slice and dice a quotation, he completely eviscerated the central point of another of my statements:
    "I sincerely believe that Best Evidence is one of the greatest publishing hoaxes since Clifford Irving's book on Howard Hughes. The theory of body snatching and body alteration has no merit whatsoever. I do not believe that [Best Evidence]…could have [been] written...in good faith."
    The unexpurgated passage, however, read as follows:
    "I sincerely believe that BEST EVIDENCE is one of the greatest publishing hoaxes since Clifford Irving's book on Howard Hughes. The theory of body snatching and body alteration has no merit whatsoever. I do not believe that the same man who co-authored The Case for Three Assassins in Ramparts could have written BEST EVIDENCE in good faith. I do not believe that Macmillan exercised responsible judgment in publishing this book without critical analysis and fact-checking venturing beyond its exposure to a libel suit." (Emphasis supplied to accentuate Mr. Lifton's deletions)
    Part of the basis for my belief that Mr. Lifton has been pulling our legs, i.e., the dramatic variance between his theory in Three Assassins and the one he presents in Best Evidence was completely omitted by Mr. Lifton in his misuse of the quote, and he has failed to satisfactorily reconcile his earlier work with the semi-autobiographical account of his research in Best Evidence.
    In this chapter, I have confined my examination to only those quotations or facts alleged by Mr. Lifton in connection with conversations or events that actually occurred, but were completely misreported by a writer who presents himself and his book to the public under the rubric of scholarship. Regrettably, Mr. Lifton also sees fit to engage in the invention of quotations that were never uttered and events that never occurred. These will be mentioned in passing during the ensuing portions of this study.

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