The back-of-the-head wound

[katisha]

Hi everyone, I'm a newby here. I've been reading the site for ages, but just joined a few days ago.I feel a bit daunted: you all know so much more about the assassination than I do, but I've been reading about it, online and in books, intensively over the last year or so, and now I feel ready to post my first question: apologies if this has already been covered.In my reading I've come across many references to the wound in the back of JFK's head. I've read that it proves the shot came from behind (entrance wound); I've read that it proves the shot came from the front (exit wound); I've seen the photos on here and elsewhere of the head with blood and brain matter dripping down the back (I have my own thoughts on that, which I might expound on later); I've also seen the photos on here and elsewhere where the remains of the scalp were dragged up and held tight, reportedly in order to indicate that there was no wound in the back of the head.The latest book I read, "The Zapruder Film" by David R. Wrone, says that there was no back-of-the-head wound because the fatal head shot was caused by an exploding bullet, so that the wound was both entrance and exit: it just blew apart as soon as it hit.Looking forward to hearing your opinions about this.Just this evening started reading Wim's book "Files on JFK", and have read enough to know it's going to be a fascinating read. No idea whether or not I'll agree with its conclusions. All I know for sure so far, with all me reading, is that Something was Rotten in the State of Texas on November 22 1963.

[AnthonyAthletic]

Hello Katisha,I too am a newbie to the site after lurking for about 10 months or so. Just a quick reply to ask if you also bought the DVD's with Wim's Book. When I bought the package from Wim a while ago, I found it really informative to watch the DVD's then read the book.Either way, they are packed with new revelations for people who are new to the James Files story (which I was about a year ago).As to the headshot/exploding bullet theory, well....once you read the book and esp the interview Re: Mercury tipped bullets then if the Files story is true and believed by you, you could very well have your answer. You will also read about a double impact a back and frontal shot within a split second of each other.I am currently re-reading On the trail of the Assassins by Garrisson and Ultimate Sacrifice by Waldron/Hartmann...both excellent reads from two different points.Tony

[katisha]

Hey AAYeah, I'm really looking forward to getting stuck in to "Files on JFK" (got the book only, not the DVDs)My reading on this subject has been fairly eclectic: as a know-nothing, I've just picked up every damn book about it I've seen in various shops, so I've read (apart from The Zapruder Film):"Brothers" by David Talbot. Definitely pro-conspiracy. A bit sloshy and sentimental, but lots of good detail."Four Days in November" by Vincent Bugliosi (a cut-down version of "Reclaiming History", so it says). Definitely anti-conspiracy, but a lot of nice background detail I haven't found anywhere else. He scrupulously cross-references the bits he includes in the book, but completely ignores anything that doesn't fit with his theory/point of view, which considerably debases the value of his work."Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye" by Kenneth O'Donnell and Dave Powers. Definitely pro-conspiracy, and very very sad and personal."The Kennedys" by Thomas Maier. Neither pro- nor anti-. A nice overview, unfortunately spoilt by shocking grammar "The Dark Side of Camelot" by Seymour Hersh. Slimily, pruriently anti-Kennedy and therefore anti-conspiracy. This book has one fantastic bit; the back cover photo of Kennedy as yer Handsome All-American Hero, with a most unfortunate reflection on the roof of the car he's getting into. When you turn the book upside-down the reflection looks like an evil devil. Very clever photographic device, but the book on the whole came across as being written by an angry, bitter, frustrated bloke, and was not at all convincing."The Betrayal of the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Presidency" by Edward I. Schwartz. Loony alert I've also bought, but haven't read yet, Gerald Posner's "Case Closed". Yeah, I know; that's the enemy, but I like to read all points of view

[ChristophMessner]

Welcome katisha! it sounds good that you inform yourself so thoroughly from all sides! Good attitude! My recommendation for the "Files on JFK" book is, that it is absolutely necessary to watch the confession DVD, too, to see the authenticity of James Files and the way, how he tells his story, too. To me the jfk-murder-case is not only about finding out, who (let) shot whom when for what, but to study the way, people's souls cope with that. And it was kind of big relief for me to see confirmed, that the world is not that black and white like JFK-is-only-good and the-killers-of-JFK-are-only-bad, and kind of additional burden to see confirmed, that the same contradictions which were at work on Dealey Plaza are in full operation still. That gives to think. Chris

[Pasquale DiFabrizio]

katisha wrote:Hey AAYeah, I'm really looking forward to getting stuck in to "Files on JFK" (got the book only, not the DVDs)My reading on this subject has been fairly eclectic: as a know-nothing, I've just picked up every damn book about it I've seen in various shops, so I've read (apart from The Zapruder Film):"Brothers" by David Talbot. Definitely pro-conspiracy. A bit sloshy and sentimental, but lots of good detail."Four Days in November" by Vincent Bugliosi (a cut-down version of "Reclaiming History", so it says). Definitely anti-conspiracy, but a lot of nice background detail I haven't found anywhere else. He scrupulously cross-references the bits he includes in the book, but completely ignores anything that doesn't fit with his theory/point of view, which considerably debases the value of his work."Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye" by Kenneth O'Donnell and Dave Powers. Definitely pro-conspiracy, and very very sad and personal."The Kennedys" by Thomas Maier. Neither pro- nor anti-. A nice overview, unfortunately spoilt by shocking grammar "The Dark Side of Camelot" by Seymour Hersh. Slimily, pruriently anti-Kennedy and therefore anti-conspiracy. This book has one fantastic bit; the back cover photo of Kennedy as yer Handsome All-American Hero, with a most unfortunate reflection on the roof of the car he's getting into. When you turn the book upside-down the reflection looks like an evil devil. Very clever photographic device, but the book on the whole came across as being written by an angry, bitter, frustrated bloke, and was not at all convincing."The Betrayal of the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Presidency" by Edward I. Schwartz. Loony alert I've also bought, but haven't read yet, Gerald Posner's "Case Closed". Yeah, I know; that's the enemy, but I like to read all points of view Welcome to the forum! I very much encourage you to look at some of our posts about Posner on here. In my opinion and others here, he is almost a pure disinformation author on the JFK assassination subject. He tends to make statements that are technically true but taken out of context. He also tends to ignore crucial information to reach his conclusions. That is pure deception in my opinion.I'll put it more plainly for you. He says that Oswald did it and did it alone. That couldn't possibly be the case. Oswald could have only gotten off three shots according to even the Warren Commission. There's an audio recording of the assassination where you can hear at least six shots. The House Select Committee on Assassinations in the 1970s came to the conclusion (after analyzing the recording and doing acoustic tests in the plaza) that one of those shots came from the right front (the grassy knoll). They weren't allowed to acoustically test for the remainder of the shots because, I believe, the committee came to an end. So, back to Posner's Oswald-did-it-alone garbage: You have an audio recording with way more shots than Oswald could have possibly fired. Then you have acoustic tests done by the U.S. Government (The House Select Committee On Assassinations) that verified that one of the shots came from the grassy knoll. You also have the Zapruder film that establishes a time line from the first to the last shot, indicating that Oswald could have only gotten off three shots at the most. You also have in the Zapruder film showing JFK's head being thrown back and to the left (indicating a shot from the front). You have scores of witnesses who said a shot came from the knoll area too. Then you have all of the doctors who examined JFK saying that he had an EXIT wound in the back of his head the size of a fist. Then you have the cover-up...like the "magic bullet" theory that is the official Warren Commission version of ONE bullet hitting JFK's back, then moving upwards to exit his throat (without striking a bone), then it goes onto Governer Conally's back under his right arm pit and exiting his chest, then the same bullet going THROUGH Conally's right wrist, then into his left thigh. Then, according to the Warren Commission, the bullet fell out of his leg and was found on a stretcher in the hallway of Parkland Hospital in almost pristine condition. In fact, more fragments were removed from Conally's wrist alone than are missing from the bullet! The bullet is also in such pristine condition that it could almost be fired through a rifle again. So, that bullet, the "Magic Bullet," also has another nickname called the "pristine bullet." Gee, might that bullet they found been planted? Hmmmmm.... Can Posner reasonably conclude that Oswald did it and did it alone? Nope! Does Posner address these points truthfully? Nope! He can't. If you step back and use your common sense, you'll get to the point where you can recognize people like Posner right away just based on their conclusions sometimes. Some very GOOD authors to read on JFK are books by Groden, Marrs, and Mark Lane. Rush to Judgement and Plausible Denial by Mark Lane are VERY good particularly for beginners. Actually, Groden has some very good video documentaries that you can find on Amazon. Another very good documentary is "JFK Assassination: The Jim Garrison Tapes." You can find it on Amazon too but only in VHS as far as I can tell. About the "exploding bullet" question, an "exploding" bullet is not an accurate way to call those types of bullets. They're called a "frangible" bullets and they don't explode. Bullets like the ones that Files used (mercury tipped) and other similar types of bullets (such as Glazer Safety Slugs that you can buy in gun shops) are designed to break apart into hundreds of pieces upon impact, but they still produce an entrance and exit wound. When a bullet, any bullet, goes through or into a target, the actual wound produces an effect called "coning." That's how they can determine the trajectory of a bullet. Think of a cone with the smaller end being the entrance wound and the larger end being the exit wound. (It's this coning effect that coroners use to determine the trajectory of a bullet in a victim.) As the bullet, particularly a frangible bullet, makes its way through a target, the wound becomes larger and larger because the bullet starts to fragment and break apart causing a larger and larger wound, and that is why exit wounds are larger than entrance wounds. In the case of a frangible bullet, such as a mercury-tipped bullet, the effect is just more exaggerated. In the case of JFK, you can clearly see the right side of his head open up. That would not have happened with a normal bullet. In fact, there's a theory that the throat wound was caused by one of the fragments of the mercury-tipped head-shot bullet, but I'm on the fence on that theory. If you have any doubt as to the direction of the headshot, at least of the FINAL headshot (because according to Files, there were TWO headshots with his being the final one), just refer to basic high school physics and transfer of momentum. What direction does JFK's head get thrown when the headshot occurs? BACK AND TO THE LEFT. That means that the shot came from the right front. It's simple transfer of energy or momentum. As for the wound in the back of the head, all of the doctors who saw JFK's head said that he had a hole the size of a fist in back of his head. Check out "JFK The case for Conspiracy" which is a documentary by Robert Groden. I believe he interviews all of the doctors about the head wounds. Also, be careful about just picking up any book on the JFK assassination. At least if you do, be skeptical and verify the information presented or omitted. Actually, if you read Posner's stuff, take a look at this link when you do. It's an analysis of Posner's book, Case Closed. http://karws.gso.uri.edu/JFK/the_critic ... .html"Case closed" eh? He wishes the case was closed! LOL Any one of us could just pick up any newspaper, like, um, the National Enquirer! Hey, it's a newspaper, right? Is what they're printing necessarily true? Would you trust the Enquirer to be a reliable source of information? Anyway, I hope this helps for now. Please ask any questions that come to mind. If I don't answer, someone else here will.

[Pasquale DiFabrizio]

Check out this link on Gerald Posner's book "Case Closed."It's called.THE POSNER REPORT: A Study In Propaganda: One Hundred Errors in Gerald Posner's Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK http://karws.gso.uri.edu/Marsh/Jfk-conspiracy/ecc.htm

[katisha]

Thank you for your comprehensive reply, Pasquale. Some great information in there - especially the explanation about the bullets. I know absolutely nothing about firearms and ballistics, so I've been really confused by everything I've read. In the thread on another forum (not a JFK site - actually a Jack the Ripper site, called 'Casebook' - there was just one JFK thread way down the bottom in an 'Other Mysteries' type section) that first got me interested in the assasination, I found it really annoying that people from both 'sides' as it were: people that believed in a conspiracy and people that believed in the lone nutter: would each cite the same 'fact', allegation or incident as proof of their point of view, without explaining why the last person's use of the same fact to prove THEIR, opposite, point of view was wrong Groden, Marrs and Lane are all on my list of JFK books I want to read, but I've found books on the subject hard to get so far. I also really want to read, among others, Gaeton Fonzi's "The Last Investigation", David Lifton's "Best Evidence", David Kaiser's "The Road to Dallas" and heaps more - it will take me some time to track them all down!I'm also reading all I can about it on-line: this and Mary Ferrell are the best websites on the subject I've found.Don't worry, Pasquale, I am very sceptical (not an error - that's just the way we spell it in British, or Australian in my case, English. It's like the tire/tyre thing ) about the official version and its supporters. I haven't started Posner yet; when I do I'll do it in conjunction with the thread you linked to. Thanks very much for that.

[katisha]

Hi again All. I'm going through the site re-reading the info, and before long I come across this apparent discrepancy:Look at this right here, from this very website (the second diagram down): http://www.jfkmurdersolved.com/dpmap63.htmThe shot from Files is number 9, yeah? How could that shot possibly have caused a blowout in the BACK of the head? Look at the trajectory: an exit wound from a shot at that angle would have been on the left side of the head, not the back, wouldn't it? I'm not having a go at anyone; I just want to understand what happened, and if this diagram is correct, I can't see how the back-of-the-head wound was caused by Files' bullet.

[Pasquale DiFabrizio]

katisha wrote:Hi again All. I'm going through the site re-reading the info, and before long I come across this apparent discrepancy:Look at this right here, from this very website (the second diagram down): http://www.jfkmurdersolved.com/dpmap63.htmThe shot from Files is number 9, yeah? How could that shot possibly have caused a blowout in the BACK of the head? Look at the trajectory: an exit wound from a shot at that angle would have been on the left side of the head, not the back, wouldn't it? I'm not having a go at anyone; I just want to understand what happened, and if this diagram is correct, I can't see how the back-of-the-head wound was caused by Files' bullet.It still looks like the front right to me, but I could be wrong too. We're certain that the back of the head was blown out. All of the doctors and witnesses there said so. If the #9 shot did it, could the shooter of the #9 shot be in the wrong place? Good question!

[ChristophMessner]

katisha wrote:The shot from Files is number 9, yeah? How could that shot possibly have caused a blowout in the BACK of the head? Look at the trajectory: an exit wound from a shot at that angle would have been on the left side of the head, not the back, wouldn't it? katisha, just hold your straight right middle finger to your right temple and come from about 65 degrees. Then you see, that the trajectory still leads to the right rear of the head, because the temple is already pretty far behind. Also fancy that any hit onto skullbone from that angle might have caused a bit of a deflection to the left from the shooters perspective. Chris