CHAPTER THREE
I DON'T PICK BRAINS, I EAT THEM
Mr. Lifton took umbrage at the following paragraphs in my informal critique of his work on Compuserve:
"If Lifton had originally set out to prove his Best Evidence scenario, why did he spend 14-15 years prying information and ideas out of other researchers, pretending all the while that he had some great secret which he would never agree to reveal? The reason is that he had nothing. This semi-mythical manuscript which he told people he was working on (the one he would not even show to a staff attorney on the HSCA, even though he could have been assured that its contents would not be disseminated) could not have contained anything more than a pedestrian rehashing of a well-covered area which, by the late-1970's, many found just plain boring."
"I believe Lifton reached a dead end until his agent persuaded him that he could sell a book cast in terms of a personal odyssey through the wilderness."
"If Lifton had this theory nailed down when he first found his agent, why did it take him nearly three years to rewrite his original manuscript? That manuscript would have been pure gold! It would not have required the addition of "the personal touch." If it needed work in matters of style or syntax, Macmillan would have rewritten the book for him and rushed it into print!"
The history of Mr. Lifton's manuscript was sketched in
Chapter One. There was a misstatement in the first paragraph quoted above: The
manuscript that Mr. Lifton's told people he was working on during the years
before 1975 was not "semi-mythical"; it was an outright, full-fledged
lie.
Aside from "the big secret," Mr. Lifton for years
maintained a pretense of being hard at work on a book manuscript when, in fact,
he was not.
"I have been working, day in and out, and making solid
progress generating typescript." (Lifton, David. Letter to Sylvia Meagher,
March 17, 1969)
Compare this, however, with what he told an interviewer as
the third edition of his book went public in November 1988: "It was still
in the form of file material, conclusions, memos, but not a manuscript."
("His J.F.K. Obsession: For David Lifton, The Assassination is a Labyrinth
Without End," Los Angeles Times, November 20, 1988, Magazine, p. 20)
Lifton told Meagher he was writing a section of his
manuscript that would "blast away at the performance of the WC staff."
(Lifton, David. Letter to Sylvia Meagher, March 27, 1969)
"It was still in the form of file material,
conclusions, memos, but not a manuscript." ("His J.F.K. Obsession: For
David Lifton, The Assassination is a Labyrinth Without End," Los Angeles
Times, November 20, 1988, Magazine, p. 20)
"My work is progressing very nicely. I am so excited
over portions of this manuscript that I sometimes have trouble getting a full
night's sleep." (Lifton, David. Letter to Sylvia Meagher, June 2, 1969)
"It was still in the form of file material,
conclusions, memos, but not a manuscript." ("His J.F.K. Obsession: For
David Lifton, The Assassination is a Labyrinth Without End," Los Angeles
Times, November 20, 1988, Magazine, p. 20)
"I have hundreds of pages behind me. . ."
(Lifton, David. Letter to Sylvia Meagher, June 2, 1969)
"It was still in the form of file material,
conclusions, memos, but not a manuscript." ("His J.F.K. Obsession: For
David Lifton, The Assassination is a Labyrinth Without End," Los Angeles
Times, November 20, 1988, Magazine, p. 20)
"The manuscript is based on evidence, much of it new,
but all of high pedigree and legitimacy [sic]. The inferences from evidence are
very carefully made. Now, as regards political matters: the political
superstructure that one places on an operational substructure is largely a
function of the evidence, and the facts." (Lifton, David. Letter to Sylvia
Meagher, August 7, 1969)
"I have told a few people that I am writing a
manuscript. No one who is on the grapevine, however, knows the specifics that I
told you in the telephone conversations we had back in January and
February." (Lifton, David. Letter to Sylvia Meagher, August 7, 1969)
"It was still in the form of file material,
conclusions, memos, but not a manuscript." ("His J.F.K. Obsession: For
David Lifton, The Assassination is a Labyrinth Without End," Los Angeles
Times, November 20, 1988, Magazine, p. 20)
It was Sylvia Meagher's understanding, based on previous
conversations and letters, that Mr. Lifton felt his basic case was
"coherent and conclusive." Yet she grew increasingly impatient with
his failure to produce a finished manuscript. Although she would not agree to
assist him in the writing of his work, she offered to help Lifton resolve any
uncertainties that might be plaguing him, were he to deal with her candidly.
(Meagher, Sylvia. Letter to David Lifton, August 12, 1969)
Lifton responded:
"[T]he basic case is coherent and complete. What still
remains to be done? Basically, what remains to be done is the writing of
sections of exposition which, for the most part, have already been
researched." (Lifton, David. Letter to Sylvia Meagher, August 31, 1969)
"It was still in the form of file material,
conclusions, memos, but not a manuscript." ("His J.F.K. Obsession: For
David Lifton, The Assassination is a Labyrinth Without End," Los Angeles
Times, November 20, 1988, Magazine, p. 20)
Either Lifton was telling Meagher the truth about his
manuscript in progress, or he was simply prevaricating, or he was being
duplicitous for some ulterior purpose. His representations of the subject areas
of his work certainly do not correlate in the main with the subject, substantive
contents, and major theme or theses of his book.
A Question of Legitimacy
In Best Evidence it is not only the chronology of
his philosophical musings about the Warren Commission's honesty and integrity
(or lack of it) that Mr. Lifton has reconstituted and woven into a fictitious
autobiographical construct; the same conclusion obtains regarding his analysis
of the substance of the evidence.
Mr. Lifton writes in Best Evidence about his
reaction upon reading the first critical appraisal of the Warren Report to
receive widespread media attention:
"I first read Inquest in June 1966. I thought Epstein
was wading in very deep waters when he extended his "political truth"
concept to the deliberate falsification of the Kennedy autopsy." (BE,
Chapter 4)
And later in the book, he ridicules the notion that the
autopsy pathologists' testimony could have been untruthful:
"To believe that Humes' testimony was false, one had
to believe that a navy commander would deliberately lie, risk criminal charges,
and bluff the Chief Justice of the United States." (BE, Chapter 6)
Compare, however, Lifton's diametrically opposed
contemporary view:
"I consider the entire Bethesda autopsy result to be
incorrect and fraudulent. It is unfortunate but true that those who argue
for a rearward hit in the President's head, although they concede the Bethesda
autopsy to be false in other areas (like the first shot exiting at the throat)
assume that in this one area, possibly, the doctors aren't lying 'that much',
and that possibly the exit wound on the head shown in the artist's drawing does
exist." (Lifton, David. Memorandum re: Head Snap Phenomenon and Zapruder
Film Frame Sequence, March 20, 1967) (Emphasis added)
"The double-head-hit theorists thus invoke Bethesda
autopsy descriptions of the head to find an exit wound for a rearward entering
bullet.
"I believe the Parkland Hospital description, only, on
this point. I do not accept the Bethesda autopsy." (Lifton, David.
Memorandum re: Head Snap Phenomenon and Zapruder Film Frame Sequence, March 20,
1967)
What Lifton wrote in March 1967 is completely at odds with
what his book alleges he was thinking at the time.
The Case for Three Assassins (The January 1967 Ramparts Article)
Three Assassins was an able synopsis of the Kennedy
assassination controversy as it stood in late 1966. It is not my purpose to
review the details of that controversy. Rather, I raise the subject of Lifton's
only previously published work on the assassination because it stands in
astonishing contrast to his later work, Best Evidence, where Lifton gives
an account of the progress of his research and theory that is grossly
inconsistent with the contemporary published work.
As late as mid-October 1966, Lifton could still say,
"I believe at least two men were shooting, and probably several more than
three from about three different locations." (Lifton, David. Letter to
Sylvia Meagher, October 13, 1966) In Three Assassins, Mr. Lifton argued
for a crossfire scenario in Dealey Plaza, and accepted as true that both the
President and Texas Governor John Connally had been struck by shots from the
rear, as well as from in front of the limousine. Yet, according to Best
Evidence, by the time Mr. Lifton wrote and published "Three
Assassins" in Ramparts, he was well on his way to developing the
"trajectory reversal" theory that is central to the body swipe and
alteration thesis of his book, not a hint of which is to be found in the Ramparts
article. The inconsistency is not completely lost upon Mr. Lifton, because he
does fumble over it for two or three pages in his book, finally conjuring up the
lame excuse that he did not regard the senior management of Ramparts (Warren
Hinckle and Robert Scheer) as smart enough for him to explain his theory to
them. Who among us is indeed worthy? The key question, however, is what did Mr.
Lifton find so good about the evidence upon which he relied in "Three
Assassins" that soured for him by the time he wrote Best Evidence?
It is this strange metamorphosis in either the evidence or himself that Mr.
Lifton declines to elaborate, even as he disparages other assassination critics
for holding views similar to those he originally expressed.
In Three Assassins, Lifton accepted that both
Kennedy and Connally sustained wounds to their backs during the shooting, and he
posited at least two gunmen firing from behind the presidential limousine, while
also arguing for shots to Kennedy's head and throat from at least one assassin
firing from in front, i.e., the grassy knoll. In Best Evidence, Lifton
ignored Connally's wounds and theorized that Kennedy was not shot in the back
after all, the wound was artificially inflicted by plotters.
In Three Assassins, Lifton cited and discussed the
testimony of Glenn Bennett, a Secret Service agent riding in the follow-up car
behind the President who saw the second shot hit him, in support of both the
existence and location of the President's back wound, never providing any
inkling that Bennett's testimony and written report could be doubted. (Lifton,
David and Welsh, David. The Case for Three Assassins, Ramparts,
January 1967, p. 82 [hereinafter, Three Assassins]) Furthermore, Lifton
pointed to the holes in the President's suit jacket and shirt as corroborative
of the back wound's location. (ibid.) In Best Evidence, Lifton branded
Bennett a liar and part of the conspiracy; he insinuated that Bennett's role in
the plot was to provide a false Secret Service cover story for the phony back
wound. Furthermore, the holes in the President's clothing he now deemed fake.
Examining the Warren Report's "single-bullet
theory", i.e., that one shot pierced both President Kennedy and Governor
Connally, Mr. Lifton discussed the bullet fragments embedded in Connally's wrist
and thigh. (Three Assassins, pp. 84-85) In Best Evidence this
evidence is ignored.
Mr. Lifton asserts that all the ammunition allegedly
recovered by investigators was planted.
The Ramparts piece cast suspicion on Dr. James Humes
for burning the original draft of his autopsy report. (Three Assassins,
pp. 81, 91) Best Evidence exonerates Dr. Humes as an honest guy.
In Ramparts, Mr. Lifton conceded, "The fact
that the Parkland doctors observed no entry wound there [on the rear of the
President's head] does not mean that it did not exist, and it is conceivable
that a hit from the rear occurred." (Three Assassins, p. 90) [And
notice the similar view Lifton expressed three months after the publication of
the article: "It is possible that the doctors at Parkland missed a rear
entrance wound on the head. This is generally conceded. For example, no Parkland
doctor testified to right temporal entrance wounds…" (Lifton, David.
Memorandum re: Head Snap Phenomenon and Zapruder Film Frame Sequence, March 20,
1967)] In Best Evidence, however, what was once conceivable became
impossible, and the impossible (creation of a false entrance wound after-the-
fact) became both conceivable and lucrative.
In 1967, Mr. Lifton pointed to the Warren Commission's
"consistent failure" to call witnesses who thought shots came from the
knoll. (Three Assassins, p. 93) From at least 1980 through the present,
however, the Warren Commission has been okay with him.
In a survey for Ramparts of the eyewitnesses who
thought that one or more shots came from the grassy knoll, Mr. Lifton did pick
up the testimony of Paul Landis, Jr., another agent riding in the follow-up car
("I heard what sounded like the report of a high powered rifle from behind
me, over my right shoulder."), and presidential aide David Powers ("My
first impression was that the shots came from the right and overhead...) (Three
Assassins, p. 97), so it is clear that he studied the testimony of the
Dealey Plaza witnesses who heard shots from either direction, including those
who thought that all or some came from behind the presidential limousine.
Was Three Assassins replete with factual errors? Did
someone check the many citations to the official record in that article and find
them inaccurate or nonexistent? And, which of the above mentioned points from
the article are less valid today than they were twenty-six years ago? Upon what
grounds?
Mr. Lifton requests our confidence and belief in his
explanation that he really didn't mean it; while he was working on bringing Three
Assassins to publication, he was actually developing a completely different
theory of the case. I do not accept what I call his "split
personality" hypothesis.
He says in the Compuserve essays, "By the end of
December 1967, I not only had a case that the wounds were different in two areas
of the body, but I had the beginnings of a theory as to when and where the body
had been intercepted—on the east coast, at Bethesda, in connection with the
events surrounding the ambulance chase."
As we have seen, Mr. Lifton was thinking about many areas
concerning the assassination. We have also seen, to some extent, that the views
he held then were radically different from the views he says he held then
in his book. This point will be further developed later. There is no doubt that,
in late 1966, Lifton asked the FBI about the head surgery remark in the Sibert
and O'Neill report. The iron facts are, however, that the theory Lifton claims
is his own was first published by others, and that he did not find the witnesses
who were key to the version presented in his book until 1979.
The "Sources" listing at the end of his book,
revealing that many of his interviews are dated 1978 or later, implies that much
of his formulation of the Best Evidence theory is based on interviews
with witnesses who were either first identified by the HSCA or whose military
orders not to talk remained in effect until the HSCA investigation.
In the Compuserve essays, Mr. Lifton explains the progress
of his research according to what he terms "Areas A and B." While Mr.
Lifton sank deeper into the quagmire between "A" and "B",
trying to figure it all out, the body alteration theory was first published by
Fred Newcomb and Perry Adams in an article for the September/October 1975 issue
of Skeptic magazine, excerpted from their unpublished manuscript,
"Murder From Within", a fact that is nowhere acknowledged in Best
Evidence. The Newcomb/Adams thesis was precisely that advanced by David
Lifton in his book, i.e., the alteration of the wounds between Parkland and
Bethesda. Like Lifton, only sooner, Newcomb and Adams posited a high level plot
implemented by the Secret Service.
At the very least, one would have expected to see Mr.
Lifton report the impact that this Skeptic article had on his research,
any fault that he found with its evidence or logic, some evaluation of his
conversations with either Newcomb or Adams (surely he must have found the time
to call them before he completed his unpublishable first draft in August 1976).
After all, hadn't he felt "isolated" with his terrible secret all
those years? Didn't he want some company?
The subject of "changes in the size and shape of the
wounds" is not original to David Lifton. Previous authors wrote extensively
about the apparent discrepancies between the Parkland and Bethesda descriptions
of the wounds.
About "evidence" that the body was intercepted.
Lifton says he discovered the "ambulance chase" in 1967 and knew that,
"something happened at Bethesda." This is what he calls his "Area
A." He discovered nothing except a group of witnesses, dramatis personae
minor, whose stories (when they were able to remember anything at all)
contradicted each other so wildly that they made no sense.
He claims that by February 1971, as he was "soliciting
Dr. [Cyril] Wecht's help in connection with my work", he already had
formulated "a series of lengthy memoranda" which, as it turned out,
"correspond [sic] exactly to what is in Best Evidence" chapter
by chapter in "many key areas." It is noteworthy that he points to
material he prepared after his dealings with Sylvia Meagher ended in 1970. The
record of those dealings varies dramatically from what he alleges in his book
and strongly implies that, if he did have "the beginnings of a
theory", it did not take any concrete form until after that period. He
claims that these memos to Dr. Wecht dealt with:
Alteration of the neck wound (Chapter 11);
The statement in the Sibert and O'Neill report mentioning surgery
(Chapter 12);
Alteration of the head wound (Chapter 13);
Trajectory reversal (Chapter 14);
The theory of the pre-autopsy autopsy (Chapter 18)
Mr. Lifton interviewed a number of Parkland Hospital
personnel in 1966. It bears mention that, with only three exceptions, he did not
interview any participant in the autopsy until 1978 or later. The three
exceptions were the chief autopsy pathologist, Dr. Humes (1966); the
photographer, John Stringer (1972); and the radiologist, Dr. John Ebersole
(1972). Mr. Lifton discusses these three interviews in his book. They make no
reference to any observations of the neck wound. Mr. Lifton's theory of
alteration to that wound relies chiefly on another researcher's interview of
Ebersole in 1978. Therefore, before the time of the HSCA investigation, Mr.
Lifton had nothing except possibly an analysis of official and other published
resources, including the confirmation by the Parkland doctors of their Warren
Commission testimony.
Chapter 18, dealing with the theory of "the
pre-autopsy autopsy", dwells on Lifton's vain search of medical texts for
support of his "head surgery" theory. It relies heavily on the HSCA's
published interview with two of the autopsy pathologists (published in 1979), as
well as Lifton's consultations with Drs. Michael Baden and Charles Wilber during
the late Seventies. In substance, the chapter contains nothing that was
unavailable in published sources before 1979. It is simply Lifton's own highly
conjectural analysis of the Warren Commission testimony, material contained in
other assassination books, and his reading of medical textbooks. By cleaving the
post-1978 material from the rest of the chapter, what remains is clearly a
rudimentary and inconclusive hypothesis that the parietal wound in Kennedy's
head was surgically enlarged to gain access to a brain that Mr. Lifton did not
have reason to think was absent from the cranium until he spoke to Paul O'Connor
in 1979.
Most noteworthy in Chapter 18 of Best Evidence is
Mr. Lifton's passing reference to the fact that, "an earlier version of his
manuscript [presumably the one that he completed in 1976 but could not sell] was
submitted for review by a prestigious pathologist." The doctor refused to
buy Lifton's theory. Indeed, Best Evidence does not name a single
physician who says that a surgically removed and re implanted brain could have
escaped the attention of a pathologist at autopsy. Living in denial, Lifton
turns this fatal shortcoming into another theory: Humes speaks in riddles that
only Lifton can understand, i.e., when describing gunshot damage, Humes really
means surgery. Lifton does not ignore, but pretends to harness in support of his
theory, Boswell's statement to the HSCA's forensic pathology panel that,
"the dura was completely—as you can see here—completely destroyed,
practically." (7 HSCA 247)
Mr. Lifton did not complete any kind of manuscript until
August 1976, before "Area B" sprang to mind. According to Mr. Lifton's
own chronology, none of the chapters to which he refers were written until after
he received his book contract at the end of 1978.
Mr. Lifton leaps forward to his set of "1979
discoveries", after the HSCA investigation, and well after he received his
book contract. He "discovered" that something happened in Dallas
before takeoff. This is what he calls his "Area B." Again, he
discovered nothing that he did not make happen himself, and his interpretation
of events has been hotly contested.
Lifton asserts that Dennis David's account of the arrival
of one casket at Bethesda before the arrival of another meant that, "the
Dallas casket was empty." Assuming arguendo David's recollections were
accurate, he did not know what those caskets contained. That is Lifton's
assumption. On that, and O'Connor's recollections—which Mr. O'Connor has since
modified in part, but which also have been contradicted by other witnesses
involved in the autopsy—Mr. Lifton leaps to the conclusion that the body was
placed in a different casket before Air Force One took off from Love Field in
Dallas. This is his self-proclaimed "Air Force One Insight."
The question remains, what was Dave Lifton doing during all
those years that he was bluffing people with his non-existent manuscript about a
non-existent secret? As Mr. Lifton's Compuserve essays and the later chapters of
this study make clear, he was canvassing the research community for information,
ideas, or theories to incorporate in his work. He would tell people that, while
he could not disclose to them what he was working on, if they would share their
information with him, he would put it in his book.
In all, it appears that Mr. Lifton, either on his own or
with the help of others, amassed a number of ideas and theories that he could
not tie together, let alone prove, until he obtained a commitment from a
publisher. During the ensuing year or more that he spent writing the book, he
struggled to make it all work for him.
The flimsiness of Lifton's support for the Best Evidence
scenario, the careful juxtaposition of interview excerpts to make them seem more
persuasive than they actually are, his near total dependency on HSCA-developed
sources, and the obvious haste with which the later chapters of the book are
formulated, compared with the earlier portion of the book, all tend to the
conclusion that Lifton urgently needed cash.
David Lifton says in the Compuserve essays, "Best
Evidence presents a radical approach to the evidence in the Kennedy
assassination…one which, if there was a special prosecutor, could provide a
valuable roadmap [sic] for a new investigation." We shall come to
understand that, by "radical approach to the evidence," what he really
means is, "I ignore what I don't like."
Of more immediate interest, however, is why didn't he give
his road map to the old investigation, i.e., the House Select Committee on
Assassinations? He seems to say in his book that, just as with Ramparts,
it's because they weren't smart enough. Judging from the recollections of one
former HSCA staff member, however, Mr. Lifton may have withheld his alleged
secrets and his unpublished manuscript in pursuit of his own very different
agenda.
During the planning stages of the HSCA investigation,
senior staff attorneys became interested in conducting a limited dialogue with
the Warren Commission critics. In early 1977, Kevin Walsh was a staff researcher
whose responsibilities included advising his colleagues on the critics' work.
Because he was previously familiar with the case, Walsh was asked to submit the
names of discreet individuals who would best be able to give the attorneys
useful in-person briefings. The plan was to invite them to the Committee's
offices for "discussions of the evidence with an eye toward planning our
course of investigation." Walsh saw this as "a critical opportunity to
assist a duly authorized congressional investigation in benefiting from the
years of prior scholarship and unofficial investigations."
He says that David Lifton, who stationed himself in
Washington during much of the Committee's activities, was "lobbying
intensely for an introduction to the staff." Walsh did not know Lifton well
and had only met him for the first time in 1976. On the recommendation of a
well-respected West Coast researcher, however, Lifton got the first opportunity
to brief the HSCA staff. Walsh now recalls it as "the worst mistake I ever
made." He describes what happened:
"The entire J.F.K. Task Force was assembled and also a
number of senior counsel from the M.L.K. Task Force…[Lifton] took the stage
and launched into his college circuit lecture talking down to some of the best
qualified and most experienced detectives and prosecutors Congress had ever
employed. He spoke to the staff as though they were children and would have to
prove themselves before he would reveal any sensitive information. He flat-out
declared he had explosive evidence that he was saving for his upcoming book and
would only discuss the outline of it when the Committee evidenced that they were
serious and knew their basics. Staff members were furious, and when Mr. Lifton
declined to answer several of the first questions, senior staff counsel canceled
the meeting and I was strongly criticized for having brought the man in."
(Walsh, Kevin. Memorandum, June 3, 1993)
Walsh attributes the Committee's decision to scrub their
planned series of briefings by the critics to Lifton's performance, which he
calls an "embarrassing disaster."
Lifton omitted all mention of this briefing session from Best
Evidence, while attempting in Chapter 24 to convey a completely
contradictory impression of his attitude toward the HSCA:
"I had decided to keep my distance from the Committee
because I suspected their motives and methods. . . . I felt I might be used, and
didn't want my material discredited . . . But I felt some guilt about the course
I was following . . ."
In fact, however, the HSCA did not seek Lifton's advice; he
was aggressive in seeking access to them. It was Lifton, according to Walsh, who
was "most persistent" and "immediately available" to receive
an audience with the staff. It might therefore be supposed that Lifton, who had
confided his great secret in former Warren Commission attorneys years earlier,
would be bursting to tell it to the HSCA. Lifton, who had spent all those years
since 1966 hunting, diagnosing, and assimilating the work of various other
researchers, might have been expected to be eager to share his vast store of
knowledge with what some people fear was the last official investigation. Yet,
it appears that, when they finally gave him the crucial opportunity, Lifton
instead stonewalled them, insulted them, and humiliated his sponsor. In
discussing his relations with staff counsel (see BE p. 554), he also conceals a
fact that he related to me in a contemporary conversation, that he refused their
request to make his manuscript available. Walsh says the incident had
"long-lasting implications for the critics' opportunities" to achieve
meaningful input into the HSCA investigation. Indeed, although I could only look
at the situation from the outside, it seemed as though the critics generally
were left out in the cold.
In August 1977, Sylvia Meagher called me and insisted I
hold our conversation in the strictest confidence. She had been invited to
submit a memorandum to Professor G. Robert Blakey, the new Chief Counsel to the
HSCA who was hired in June, and to attend a weekend colloquium of several
prominent critics with Blakey and members of his staff that September. She asked
me to assist in preparing the memo, but I was to tell no one because Blakey
insisted that she sign a secrecy oath as a pre-condition to her participation.
Sylvia had serious misgivings about both the colloquium and the oath itself, but
she acquiesced because she did not want to be criticized for withholding her
support from an investigation that the critics had worked so hard to achieve.
Although the memorandum was heavily weighted toward
problems with the medical evidence, other areas were discussed. We tacked on a
list of 25 questions that I prepared to be submitted to Dr. George Burkley, the
former White House physician. Sylvia sent the memo to Blakey and went down to
Washington to attend the September colloquium.
That same month, the House Select Committee's forensic
pathology panel convened for the first time, and six members of the panel,
accompanied by HSCA staff counsel, met with Drs. Humes and Boswell. Considering
the fundamental significance of the medical evidence to the case as a whole, one
might assume that the HSCA staff would have absorbed the critics' insights and
suggestions long before then, had they regarded the critics as serious and
credible. (Sylvia was not the only critic to submit concrete proposals for
investigating the medical evidence.) Walsh, on the other hand, believes that the
purpose of the September 1977 colloquium was to get the participants to sign
non-disclosure agreements. (Walsh, Kevin. Memorandum, June 3, 1993)
To the best of my knowledge and recollection, Sylvia never
heard from Blakey or the staff again (at least, not on an official basis).
Immediately upon the conclusion of the HSCA investigation, Blakey released the
verbatim transcript of the September 1977 colloquium, obviously to make the
point that he had given the critics their say.
Several years later, at my behest, Sylvia inquired of one
of her former HSCA contacts, Donald "Andy" Purdy, who was chiefly
responsible for developing the medical evidence, what had become of our memo and
the list of questions for Burkley. Purdy told her that he never saw the
memorandum—a document solicited from and prepared by one of the most respected
Warren Report critics. This episode, and the already obvious propensity of the
HSCA to promote and ridicule some of the more tenuous conspiracy theories,
indicated that, whatever Kevin Walsh and others of similar sympathies and goals
might otherwise have achieved, after Lifton, the HSCA did not take the critics
in a serious vein.
Dr. Burkley consistently refused to grant private
interviews to writers and researchers regarding the President's wounds and the
conduct of the autopsy. He died in early January 1991.
Ahead to Chapter Four
Back to Chapter Two
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