Which JFK Assassination Conspiracy Theory Do You Prefer?

a reply to: CornShucker

Thanks for your kind words! Yeah, it is surprising when that happens, isn't it!

Regardless what the schmuck on the street thinks, I HATE the whole, "He's dead, let him rest in peace" crowd...as if a) what happened doesn't matter anymore b) we don't have the right to the truth!

a reply to: CoriSCapnSkip
I am not anywhere near finished reading Mr. Horne's book but since I've come across something you and I discussed briefly earlier in this thread I wanted to get this posted and hopefully keep the thread alive and a source for others to add their thoughts to as well.

Quite possibly casual readers may not be aware that the ARRB had a finite lisfespan. I'll address that again in a few minutes. What needs to be made clear is that my ability to share information has to be done within the limits of respecting Mr. Horne's copyright and I can't link directly to any transcripts of ARRB depositions. Judiciously short quotes and paraphrasing may keep me from crossing any lines as far as Mr. Horne is concerned, but I think the following should make it apparent as to why there's no point in asking me for links:

The Records of the Assassination Records Review Board

The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 created the Assassination Records Review Board as an independent agency to re-examine for release the assassination-related records that federal agencies still regarded as too sensitive to open to the public. The Board finished its work on September 30, 1998, issued a final report, and transferred all of its records to the National Archives and Records Administration.

The finding aids are folder-title lists describing the various series in Record Group 541, Records of the Assassination Records Review Board. All of the records described are open for viewing and reproduction, but ARE NOT AVAILABLE ON LINE.

To view the records at the National Archives at College Park, Maryland, or to order copies of the files, please contact the Special Access and FOIA Staff at the National Archives at College Park, Room 5500, 8601 Adelphi Road, College Park, MD 20740-6001, call at (301) 837-3190, or e-mail:

[email protected]

As Doug Horne saw the target date for the closure of the ARRB project approaching he became less and less confident that an agreement he'd made with general counsel for the Assassination Records Review Board, Jeremy Gunn, early on would ever come to pass. Imo, it should have been a given that the doctors who had treated the president at Parkland be deposed individually while being asked to view the official records of the Bethesda autopsy. The ARRB, after all, was supposed to finally remove the dark cloud of suspicion that has hung over the assassination for all these years.

I won't go through all the details. In short, Mr. Horne committed the act of submitting a written proposal to depose the Dallas doctors while there was still the opportunity to get them on the record. That put Mr. Gunn in an uncomfortable spot because now there was a request on the record...

There was more than a little drama involved as well as damaged friendship and, while it wasn't the deciding factor in the decision, Mr. Gunn eventually resigned from the ARRB.

From the beginning Mr. Horne has made it clear that the only ally he had was Mr. Gunn (In fact, Gunn had to advocate for him in order to be hired).

Like all organizations, people come and people go. By the time the depositions of the Parkland doctors were being arranged, Laura Denk had become Executive Director of the ARRB. One of the milestones for Mr. Horne on the road to becoming persona non grata was overhearing Ms. Denk make the remark, "We don't really give a d@mn where the hole in the President's head was!" Horne let his opinion be known and things continued to go downhill from there.

If only the Parkland doctors had come to Washington there'd have been no problem. In order to take the autopsy photos and x-rays to Dallas would have required that Burke Marshall, attorney for and friend of the Kennedy family, get permission from the family. After Jeremy Gunn was gone, Doug Horne was left surrounded by bureaucrats that were satisfied with the Warren Report and apparently looked at the ARRB as one more "paper pushing" project. As one more slap to the face, Horne was made aware that Steve Tilley, the archivist at the National Archives who oversaw the JFK Records Collection, had bragged of being the one that "turned off the transportation of those photos with Burke Marshall."

Jeremy Gunn was brought in as a consultant and a date was set to depose Dr. Robert N. McClelland, Dr. Paul C. Peters, Dr. Ronald Coy Jones, Dr. Malcolm O. Perry and Dr. Charles Baxter in Dallas.

The entire reason I've taken the time to write all this is that in spite of the fact that Mr. Gunn went to Dallas without any of the official autopsy pictures or x-rays, in spite of the fact that the Gunn-Horne team that accomplished so much was over (Horne wasn't a part of the trip) and in spite the fact that Ron Haron, the ARRB General Counsel at the time, had broken the cardinal rule set by Gunn and Horne from the very beginning by having all five doctors deposed in the same room at the same time, something NEW was discovered!!!

Doctor Jones had made it a point to tell Mr. Haron on the phone that he should try to get Dr. Lito Puerto (possibly spelled "Porto") to participate. Mr. Haron was given Puerto's contact information but apparently made no effort to get him there.

Now... Why is that a Big Deal?

It's a big deal because Dr. Puerto was a neurosurgeon that worked at Parkland. He and Dr. Jones were in the OR later that day and Jones said, "He was shot in the left temple. I put my finger in the hole."

You know how co-workers are that have worked together long enough to get to know each other. Everyone there was in agreement that, if somebody came into Parkland with a gunshot to the head, Jones was the guy that would stick his finger in it! What a missed opportunity... Because of how things were handled, that can be sluffed off by the naysayers as just hearsay.

I'd like to remind the reader that Father Oscar Huber (who administered last rites), Dr. Jones, Dr. Jenkins and Dr. McClelland all said they'd seen a left temporal entrance wound, as well. Dr. McClelland's handwritten treatment report the day of the assassination included it and Dr. Jenkins was the one who pointed it out to him.

This could possibly explain the internal FBI memo from Alan Belmont to Clyde Tolson of 11-22-1963 which includes the sentence:

I told SAC Shanklin that Secret Service had one of the bullets that struck President Kennedy and the other is lodged behind the President's ear and we are arranging to get both of these.

a reply to: CornShucker
Just goes to show the challenges of typing a long post and then proofreading it... Just like debugging computer code, going through a long post looking for mistakes the human brain has a tendency to see what it expects instead of what was typed!

Dr. Puerto was the neurosurgeon that physically stuck his finger into an entrance wound in the president's left temple.

My Bad...

a reply to: CornShucker

Your commitment to this subject is admirable!

a reply to: CoriSCapnSkip

It may be tilting at windmills, but my hope is that one man can still make a difference. The ARRB wasn't considered a threat to the official story because so many in Washington held the belief that the Warren Report was the end of the story and putting the record out there would quiet the doubters.

Gunn and Horne worked within the guidelines of the ARRB mission statement but felt it only right that the medical evidence be validated before release. I'm personally grateful because of my age. Much of what was found was to be suppressed 'til long after I am dead. If I'm only able to get a few curious, the truth may see the light of day at some point. The young podcasters (looked to be late 20s - early 30s) that made that crack last years about how all the old "conspiracy geezers" need to die off before the anniversary can be a peaceful day really ticked me off. Whether I'm still around or not, I want the truth to come out some day.

At the Dallas deposition, Dr. Jones wasn't going to let the moment pass regardless of the fact that Gunn had been hamstrung by the very panel he once represented. Dr. Jones made it clear that there was NO damage comparable to the photos he'd seen in books done to President Kennedy's right temple or the top of his head when he was treated in Dallas. None of his fellow doctors disagreed with that. It's pathetic that the conversation wasn't even recorded.

(When I have the time, I'll be posting a thought I've had about agents Sibert and O'Neil and their safety the night of the autopsy.)

I watched an interesting documentary that pointed towards George Hickey having an ND in the car behind and accidentally shooting him in the head.

originally posted by: sg1642
I watched an interesting documentary that pointed towards George Hickey having an ND in the car behind and accidentally shooting him in the head.

Apparently you are talking about JFK:Smoking Gun. There is an exchange between me and someone else farther back in the thread that will give you most of my impressions. Unfortunately, things started off with me being called a liar twice as well as a bullsh*tter. That is seldom the way to begin a good conversation...

If you are a subscriber to Netflix you can go to the 1 hour 20 minute mark and see what they show as the "magic" bullet's trajectory. They've got the entrance to the back about right (third thoracic vertebra) but are way low on the anterior wound. Makes no difference, it was NOT an exit wound.

FBI Agents Sibert & O'Neil observed the autopsy and took notes (O'Neil told the ARRB that he took ~10 - 15 pages, himself). They were there for the entire official autopsy. They were NOT there during the rushed pre-autopsy-autopsy which you may or may not have heard of or believe in. During that time they were sequestered outside the morgue "in the company of" armed Marine guards. After they had left, other activities took place that they would never have been allowed to witness such the illusion of an intact scalp and hair in the area of the president's occipital "blow-out" exit wound.

At No Time did either agent see the pathologists find evidence of a bullet that managed to transit the president's body. Both were loyal Hoover men and believed Oswald killed Kennedy.

It would be very hard to explain how the JFK:Smoking Gun theory could be fact when this is what the doctors at Parkland saw when looking straight on at Kennedy.


Please take the time to watch this part of Douglas Horne's presentation. I've edited it down to just discussing the right front forehead entrance wound and the way the exit wound in the back has been falsely portrayed. Keep in mind that the exit wound in the back left is shown with the scalp pulled back. With the way the HSCA chose to mislabel that photo it's easy to see how someone could believe the "orange blob blowout" of the right front temple. That NEVER happened. "You can't believe everything you see in the movies..."



If you were curious about the Mr. Pitzer mentioned, here's the story of his "suicide".

JFK Assassination The Death Of Navy Medical Technician Lieutenant Commander William Bruce Pitzer.

originally posted by: CornShucker
Please take the time to watch this part of Douglas Horne's presentation. I've edited it down to just discussing the right front forehead entrance wound and the way the exit wound in the back has been falsely portrayed. Keep in mind that the exit wound in the back left is shown with the scalp pulled back. With the way the HSCA chose to mislabel that photo it's easy to see how someone could believe the "orange blob blowout" of the right front temple. That NEVER happened. "You can't believe everything you see in the movies..."

If you were curious about the Mr. Pitzer mentioned, here's the story of his "suicide".

JFK Assassination The Death Of Navy Medical Technician Lieutenant Commander William Bruce Pitzer.

What exit wound in the back left? I'm not disputing whether he was shot from the front or the back, but the film and all the reports clearly show a large wound to the right side or back of the head and nothing in the back of the head on the left side.

For me the final nail in the coffin was when a secret service operative revealed (literally on his death bed) that it was indeed a hit perpetrated by ___ whoever you want to call them - our secret gov't. He said the name of the operation was "The Big Event". It was in a documentary aired on the Science channel or something like that, probably Discovery networks.

a reply to: CornShucker

I'm not saying the documentary is in fact right I just found it to be quite interesting. I'm certainly not going to call someone a bulls**ter or liar because they happen to have a diffirent opinion it's not what this forum is about.

originally posted by: CoriSCapnSkip

What exit wound in the back left? I'm not disputing whether he was shot from the front or the back, but the film and all the reports clearly show a large wound to the right side or back of the head and nothing in the back of the head on the left side.

As Mr. Horne said, the president had a healthy head of hair. The blowout was so obvious and they were so focused on trying to save his life that that exit wound probably went unnoticed because it hadn't blown out skull and scalp. Remember, he said the damage to the skull was only apparent once the scalp was pulled back. By claiming the picture was of the right front, "they" made the skull flap by the right ear shown in the autopsy photos seem more believable.

We need to remember that there is no sound in the Z film (though it can't be trusted, anyway). Many of the witnesses counted five shots but a retired CIA agent said he counted eleven.

My personal guess is that the president was hit with at least two simultaneous shots. Dig back in the thread and you'll be able to find the vid I put up of the expert at the gov't film processor/analyst who worked on the Z film the weekend of the assassination. The look on his face describing the Halo of blood and gore around the president's head. He had impressive credentials, his job was to develop and interpret stuff like the U-2 spy plane photos.

Re:SSA Hickey, that day was such a mess that almost anything is hypothetically possible. I've never argued the fact that he was there and had the weapon in question. That has been established as fact. I've spent some time thinking about it and IF, in fact his gun did accidentally discharge, there are two possibilities:

#!. This is the one I hope applies. I don't know if he is still alive, but if he is finding this out would take that off his conscience. Having his attention focused on the building behind him, he could have looked back forward as the president was hit and not realized that his shot(s) went harmlessly high.

#2. During the autopsy, skull fragments kept being brought into the morgue that had been "discovered". Some apparently had actually been sent up from Dallas but a lot of it almost certainly was from the pre-autopsy-autopsy. We have company at the moment so I'm saying this without double checking, but I think it was Dr. Boswell that remarked with excitement that one of the fragment fit in perfectly to complete the small entry wound to the lower right of the occipital blowout.

That shot would have been from a relatively flat trajectory. If it were from Hickey and had hit simultaneously with the shot that caused the blowout, THAT may have been the shell that lost momentum and became lodged behind the president's right ear. (The one mentioned in an internal FBI memo I posted about earlier)

Like so much regarding that day, I can only try to make a semi-educated guess.

originally posted by: sg1642
a reply to: CornShucker

I'm not saying the documentary is in fact right I just found it to be quite interesting. I'm certainly not going to call someone a bulls**ter or liar because they happen to have a diffirent opinion it's not what this forum is about.

I just finished up that last post. Wanted to let you know that I HAD spent time considering the documentary.

a reply to: CornShucker

I know its slightly off topic but I just watched a documentary called everything is a rich man's trick that you might be interested in. Its three and a half hours long so its a long watch but the majority of it revolves around JFK.

originally posted by: nOraKat
For me the final nail in the coffin was when a secret service operative revealed (literally on his death bed) that it was indeed a hit perpetrated by ___ whoever you want to call them - our secret gov't. He said the name of the operation was "The Big Event". It was in a documentary aired on the Science channel or something like that, probably Discovery networks.

Yeah, I recently saw someone use the term 'assassination by consensus' in relation to Kennedy. I have always felt that our country turned a corner that day and not toward a better direction.

Trying to answer the OP is almost impossible. Trying to make sense of what happened when we had operators at the highest levels in our country fabricating and distorting evidence to cause confusion has made the JFK assassination the ultimate murder mystery. My biggest frustration is dealing with being called gullible by someone born long after the event who only has a vague idea of what the official story is!

There was a message sent to the USA that day, "If we can do THIS to a president, how much do you think we care about what you think."

Either the official version of events is correct and circumstances have lead to the appearance of a possible conspiracy (which there was, either way somebody conspired) or any one of the other theories is correct. It's much the same as 9/11 in that respect. And if one of those other theories is correct (and there is every possibility one is) then we can argue till we are blue in the face. It won't make a diffirence. Because whoever did commit and organise such a horrendous act would clearly be too powerful and far reaching to ever be held accountable. They would be the kind of people who could ultimately change the entire world if they so chose to. Time has passed and the tracks will have been covered.

a reply to: sg1642

Well said. I've been thinking lately of how much this reminds me of the old-fashioned hall of mirrors maze. Don't know if they still travel around during the summer any more or not.

The maddening thing about a hall of mirrors is the seemingly simple challenge. Buy your ticket, go in the entrance and then find your way to the exit. The classics from my childhood could keep you in there for an hour or more. Every path you choose has multiple dead ends that give the illusion of easy progress at first. There were some of the sleazier fairs that had mirror mazes with cheat points that could be manipulated by the operator in order to mess with your head. The really good ones didn't need that.

I'd never considered the term 'til I took on this project of working my way through Mr. Horne's books, but I guess I have been a student of the assassination since about the time I first read Lifton's "Best Evidence". Your observation is very astute, there will likely never be a resolution for me. The assassination is a real world gordian knot and the only solution is to just accept that the rope has to be cut...

originally posted by: sg1642
a reply to: CornShucker

I know its slightly off topic but I just watched a documentary called everything is a rich man's trick that you might be interested in. Its three and a half hours long so its a long watch but the majority of it revolves around JFK.

Will check it out.

originally posted by: CornShucker
a reply to: sg1642

Well said. I've been thinking lately of how much this reminds me of the old-fashioned hall of mirrors maze. Don't know if they still travel around during the summer any more or not.

The maddening thing about a hall of mirrors is the seemingly simple challenge. Buy your ticket, go in the entrance and then find your way to the exit. The classics from my childhood could keep you in there for an hour or more. Every path you choose has multiple dead ends that give the illusion of easy progress at first. There were some of the sleazier fairs that had mirror mazes with cheat points that could be manipulated by the operator in order to mess with your head. The really good ones didn't need that.

I'd never considered the term 'til I took on this project of working my way through Mr. Horne's books, but I guess I have been a student of the assassination since about the time I first read Lifton's "Best Evidence". Your observation is very astute, there will likely never be a resolution for me. The assassination is a real world gordian knot and the only solution is to just accept that the rope has to be cut...

I have no doubt in time things will come to light that do finally prove those theories are correct. But it will be long after justice can be served. Those responsible will be long gone. People have spent their entire lives investigating and trying to spread the word. Just to be ignored, ridiculed and worse. This is done out of curiosity. It's done out of the need to seek justice, the need to understand. But ultimately it's a futile endeavour. Knowing is not enough. You have to prove it. And you can't do that because the evidence isn't quite there and what is there just isn't quite enough. If you're capable of orchestrating crimes that change the world you're also capable of making sure you never see the inside of a cell. Even now if one of those theories was proven correct, nothing we could do would change the effects the crime had on the world. That window of opportunity is a small one that wizzes past our eyes so fast we never even knew it was there. The real figures of power see to that through the power and influence they command. How would the world be today had it not happened? We will never know. It most probably would be the same but I'd like to think somewhere down the line the greed and deciet at the upper ends of society will come tumbling down around the powerful elite and drag them all the way down at the same time. I don't think the average person could even comprehend the implications it would have if these crimes were found to be the result of inside conspirators. I often wonder if the average person even cares. I am not trying to imply I am anything but average when I say that. The only difference between me, you, a lot of others and the majority of people out there is whether we choose to believe the lies or seek the truth. But like I said, knowing just isn't enough. Before the idiots and criminals in charge drag our countries and others down we as a whole need to wake up and stand up. We owe it to our children and future generations to end the cycle of history repeating itself.

a reply to: sg1642

Thanks not only for another thoughtful reply, but also for the realization that I can actually answer the OP! My wish would be that it had never happened, but you know what they say about wishes. If I need to choose a conspiracy theory, you've just laid out a very logical and straightforward case for choosing the medical coverup conspiracy. There is precious little chance of learning much more about the who and why of the assassination, the ARRB (thanks to J. Gunn and D. Horne) has already answered many of the hard questions about the medical coverup. It's a shame that they are filed away and the average citizen has several hoops to jump through to get at any of it (short of buying Mr. Horne's five volume "book". It is initially disorienting to read some of his references until you realize that he considers volumes I - V to be ONE book.)

Some quick examples:

The multi-coffin & broken chain of custody is now a matter of record, it is no longer the stuff of "conspiracy nuts".

The official photographer as well as FBI agent F. O'Neil have disowned the official brain photos.

Gawler funeral home employees were in the gallery during the pre-autopsy-autopsy and saw Commander Humes perform the modified craniotomy.

I'll stop there, as I'm sure I've already said something that I'll get challenged on.


Your observation about personal curiosity and futility is spot on. The ARRB did all that work, but if you read their Final Report you'd never get the feeling anything new had been discovered. Just a few more needles in the haystack...

I don't think I'd have lived as long as I have if it weren't for Humor and Irony...

In the Grand Scheme of Things it might not make much difference how much I eventually am able to learn about the JFK assassination, but satisfied curiosity is not without some worth and maybe an occasional laugh or two at someone else's expense. Like reading the article linked earlier in this thread:
JFK Conspiracy Theories at 50: How the Skeptics Got It Wrong and Why It Matters

I admit that I'm paraphrasing in the extreme Mr. David Reitzes' words but I have to smile when I see a man so confidently make pronouncements to the effect of "After careful and sober analysis of the evidence, in spite of the doubts of many (Mr. Reitzes being the dapper fellow he is), affirms that the Emperor's taste in attire is equal to and possibly even slightly more refined than mine."

His comments on those who are skeptics when it comes to the Warren Commission remind me of an incident with the wife of one of my band-mates many years ago. She'd already spent considerable time wagging her finger in my face and telling me what a scumbag I was, but then she made the mistake of saying this, "I'll have you know MY husband tells ME Everything!!!" Now, I wasn't about to make things worse by saying anything but I couldn't help thinking that she didn't have a clue how foolish she sounded because, if he didn't, She had absolutely no way of knowing!

Most of the authors or celebrities that I see express so much disdain for anyone that doesn't buy the JFK fairytale remind me of her. It's like telling the guy that drove all the way home in very wet jeans, "I can't tell you what saw that was hovering over your car, but I can tell you what you DIDN'T see!" and they're doing it in broad daylight over the phone from the safety of their office. Bah, humbug!


As far as having any hope for change (for some reason those words ring SO hollow, these days), that all went away for me a year or so ago when I watched Jon Ronson's Ted Talk about The Psychopath Test, which led to me buying and reading his book "The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry".

Upon learning that a certain percentage of the population will always be born physiologically psychopaths because of a dysfunctional amygdala, I immediately thought back to when I first read about the Peter Principle.

The Peter Principle is a concept in management theory in which the selection of a candidate for a position is based on the candidate's performance in their current role rather than on abilities relevant to the intended role. Thus, employees only stop being promoted once they can no longer perform effectively, and "managers rise to the level of their incompetence."

The principle is named after Laurence J. Peter who co-authored with Raymond Hull the humorous 1969 book The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong.

Since psychopaths are drawn to positions of power, self-gratification and control, the people at the very top the ones who run everything can logically be expected to be the psychopaths who most effectively outmaneuvered all the other psychopaths...

a reply to: CornShucker



Power and greed. Makes the world spin. It'll have it spinning in its grave one day. After they put it there.