A fair number of people here seem to take David Lifton seriously, so I thought it might be worthwhile to post the following messages from Bob Artwohl on the JFK Forum of Compuserve. They are reposted with permission of Artwohl. I previously posted them a few weeks ago, but I've gotten a request to post them again. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- #: 1103 S2/Books & Articles [JFK] 27-Aug-93 14:00:50 Sb: #BEST EVIDENCE CLAIMS #1 Fm: Bob Artwohl 71712,2151 To: David S. Lifton 72303,2702 As a physician, I have encountered numerous passages in BEST EVIDENCE that I consider to be errors of fact and interpretation of the medical evidence. It seems to me it is these errors is what led David Lifton to reach conclusions he has made in BEST EVIDENCE. Some of those opinions which I consider to be erroneous are posted below. I invite David and other readers to discuss these with me, and I urge all readers of these notes to take the claims made in BE to and my counter opinions to any medical authority for independent evaluation. Unless indicated otherwise, all quotes are from Best Evidence, by David Lifton, the Carroll and Graf paperback edition, twelfth printing 1992. (white cover, red letters, with picture of JFK pointing) Claim: The President's Skull Fractures were caused by post mortive blows to the head: Quotes from Best Evidence: "How could one account for the fact that while the skull contained a series of "enormous fractures radiating out in various directions, the overlying skull, aside from its four symmetrically [another error here] arranged tears, was described intact, with no bruising reported. . ."[page 453] "There seemed to be one way to explain all these facts. The fractures associated with the hole must be evidence of the mechanism employed to create it, of an act which must have occurred after the scalp was reflected, exposing the calvarium (the upper part) of the dead President. His skull must have then been violently crushed, like an egg." [page 454] My opinion: David's discussion about the skull fractures and how they related to the scalp laceration reveals a fundamental misunderstanding as to how the fractures were generated. The skull fractures were not generated by outside forces, but by the internal pressure cavity generated by the deceleration of the bullet as it passed through the cranial cavity. When David wrote Best Evidence he either had no understanding of how the head wound was generated or chose to ignore it. The dramatic head burst at Z313 was not created by a bullet IMPACT. In point of fact, by the time head exploded, the bullet had already left the body. As the bullet decelerated going through the head, it lost kinetic energy. This energy had to go somewhere, and it went into the formation of a temporary pressure cavity. This pressure cavity formed in the wake of the bullet's path, and in fact continued to expand after the bullet leaves the head, just as a wake continues to widen behind behind a boat. Since the skull is a rigid structure incapable of expansion, the only way the pressure can be be relieved is by a sudden burst. And this is seen in Z313. I would like to emphasize that this pressure cavity formation is not a theoretical argument. The importance of pressure in generating tissue damage has been recognized since the late 1800's. Theodor Kocher, a Swiss surgeon, actually measured the pressure formed in tissue fired upon by the Vetterli rifle and reported his results in 1875. Pressure cavity formation is why soft pointed bullets, like hollow-points, and like most hunting bullets are so destructive. The are designed to deform upon impact. This deformation causes them to decelerate rapidly inside the body, creating a large destructive pressure cavity. Most wounds thought by the lay public to be caused by "explosive bullets" are actually caused by high velocity bullets designed to rapidly decelerate after impact. This allows the shooter a higher liklihood of a kill. By now you have probably figured it out. The skull was not fractured from without, but burst from within. At the head burst, some of the pieces of scalp exploded outward,lacerating the scalp and creating the large scalp flaps seen in the autopsy photographs. The bruising of the brain on parts distant from the defect, were caused when the brain expanded and was pressed against the skull just before the head burst and contracted as the result of the pressure cavity, not by any blows to the brain itself. *************************** Claim: Tears "a. through d." described in the autopsy were symmetrical, thus they were intentional incisions. Quote from Best Evidence: "These tears were strikingly symmetrical. Two emerged form the left side of the hole and traveled forward and left, and backward and left respectively. The other two emerged from the right side, and they traveled forward and right, and backward and right. . .the symmetry suggested the scalp might have been parted by human design." [page 437] My opinon: Humes has described a stellate laceration and the kind of wound one would expect to see from a burst injury caused by a high velocity rifle bullet. Lifton's illustration of the "symmetrical" tears is inaccurate: Tear a. "From the right inferior temporo-parietal margin to the right ear, slightly above the tragus." Lifton, in his schematic drawing, has this incorrectly extending backward. This is a description of the straight edged tear that runs from the the temporpartietal area anteroinferiorly towards the tragus of the ear. The temporal bone is a fan-shaped bone that is basically centered around the ear, but extends beyond it in all directions. The superior margin of the temporal bone meets the parietal bone at a point ABOVE the top of the ear. Lifton appears to have confused the temporal bone with we call the "temple." In fact what call the temple is primarily composed of frontal and sphenoid bone. Thus it is clear: The inferior margin of the scalp defect lies at a point OVER the top of the ear, where one finds the "temporoparietal margin." From there the tear extends inferioanteriorly. As it reaches a vertical level below the top of the ear it becomes "anterior to the right ear." Usually, when physicians indicate a spatial relation to an anatomic landmark it is because whatever they're describing is in close proximity to the landmark. From there, the defect/tear ends at "a point slightly above the tragus." This laceration is actually visible in the Z-film on the side of the President's head. It is the obvious straight edged laceration running down the right side of his head. When Humes refers to a "point slightly above the tragus," he is using the tragus as a nearby vertical reference point. b. "From the anterior parietal margin anteriorly on the FOREHEAD to approximately 4 cm above the right orbital ridge." Lifton's drawing depicts a curvilinear incision curving inferiorly and anteriorly. It is obvious that Humes is describing the laceration that extends in almost a straight line from the anterior margin of the wound, to the right forehead. This is best seen in the Groden photograph publshed in HT2 c. "From the left margin of the main defect across the midline anterolaterally for a distance of 8 cm. Humes is describing the anterior, almost coronal laceration that runs in a very slight anterolateral direction. d. "From the same starting point a c. 10 cm posterolaterally. This starts in the same place and extends rearward toward the left side. Lacerations "c." and "d." form the borders of the large triangular flap one sees reflected the left with its apex pointing toward the lower left corner of photos of the top of the head. The tears are not symmetrical, and the defect is not at the top center of the head as his drawing suggests, but situated in right parietotemporofrontal area. Perhaps David's problem was that he formulated his opinions on the incision before he had seen the autopsy photos. Perhaps now that he has seen them, he has revised his opinion on this issue. -- Robert Artwohl, MD There is 1 Reply. #: 740 S0/CompuServe Mail [MAIL] 01-Sep-93 11:33 CDT Sb: BE Claims. / Number 2 Fm: Bob Artwohl [71712,2151] As a physician, I have encountered numerous passages in BEST EVIDENCE that I consider to be errors of fact and interpretation of the medical evidence. It seems to me it is these errors is what led David Lifton to reach conclusions he has made in BEST EVIDENCE. Some of those opinions which I consider to be erroneous are posted below. I invite David and other readers to discuss these with me, and I urge all readers of these notes to take the claims made in BE to and my counter opinions to any medical authority for independent evaluation. Unless indicated otherwise, all quotes are from Best Evidence, by David Lifton, the Carroll and Graf paperback edition, twelfth printing 1992. (white cover, red letters, with picture of JFK pointing). Claim: The "Harper fragment" is from the occipital bone. "On Saturday afternoon, November 23, William Harper, a Dallas medical student, found a large bone fragment on the grass adjacent to the south side of Elm street (to Kennedy's left). Harper took the bone to Methodist Hospital, where it was examined by Dr. Cairns, the Chief Pathologist. According to an FBI interview, "Dr. Cairns stated the bone specimen looked like it came from the occipital region of the skull." [p. 316] "I was informed by in 1972 by Robert P Smith, an assassination researcher who had gone to Dallas, that a third physician, Dr. Noteboom, also saw the bone and held the same opinion." [footnote, p 504 My opinion: In 1992, I wrote to Dr. Noteboom and asked by what anatomic criteria was the Harper fragment judged to be occipital. This is his response dated August 10, 1992: Dear Dr. Artwohl: In reference to you questions, as to what criteria were used to determine which part of the skull it represents, I haven't the foggiest idea, since I have not kept up with all the theories and speculation. I only saw the skull fragment long enough to take some pictures. The only thing I remember is an area of greyish discoloration on the inner table, probably a bulletmark. the rather sharp curvature of the fragment does suggest occipital bone. Sorry I can't be of much help. Sincerely, There is nothing, however, about the curvature (or the thickness, for that matter) of that bone to suggest it is occipital, anymore than there is curvature to suggest that it is parietal of frontal. Furthermore, there is not one landmark that identifies the Harper fragment as occipital, even though the occipital bone is one of the most landmark-laden bones of the skull. The Harper fragment, by virtue of its size would HAVE to contain one of the very distinctive features of the occipital bone if it were occipital bone. That the Harper fragment does not have ONE occipital landmark on it to prove that it is not occipital bone. "The Harper bone fragment photographs show it as a roughly trapezoidal piece, 7 centimeters by 5.5 centimeters in size, coming mainly from the upper middle third of the right parietal bone. Near its short upper edge vascular foramina [small holes] on the inside and a faint irregular line on the outside indicate sagittal suture [the line running down the middle of the skull between the right and left parietal bones]." (HSCA VII, p 123) I took color photos of the Harper fragment, which were sent to me by Dr. Noteboom, to an anatomist at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. I did not tell her where they were from, and I asked her to identify them. She studied them for a while and told she thought they were most likely parietal, perhaps frontal. Then I ask her if she thought they might be occipital and her response was no. --Robert R. Artwohl, MD Distribution: To: John McAdams [WPUSERS] > [71333,2114] #: 1105 S2/Books & Articles [JFK] 27-Aug-93 14:01:05 Sb: #BEST EVIDENCE CLAIMS #3 Fm: Bob Artwohl 71712,2151 To: David S. Lifton 72303,2702 As a physician, I have encountered numerous passages in BEST EVIDENCE that I consider to be errors of fact and interpretation of the medical evidence. It seems to me it is these errors is what led David Lifton to reach conclusions he has made in BEST EVIDENCE. Some of those opinions which I consider to be erroneous are posted below. I invite David and other readers to discuss these with me, and I urge all readers of these notes to take the claims made in BE to and my counter opinions to any medical authority for independent evaluation. Unless indicated otherwise, all quotes are from Best Evidence, by David Lifton, the Carroll and Graf paperback edition, twelfth printing 1992. (white cover, red letters, with picture of JFK pointing) Claim: There is evidence that the lacerations in the brain were cause by a post mortem dissection. This claim stared out with an opinion from Lifton's girlfriend, Judy, at the time a premedical student at UCLA: Humes testimony seemed peculiar. He appeared to conceal nothing, and carefully defined each technical term used. That "parasagittal laceration," said Humes, ran "from the tip of the occipital lobe. . ." "Where's the occipital lobe?" I asked. Judy pointed to the lower area of the back of her head. I put my left index finger at the back of my head, just right of center, where Humes seemed to describe the "tip of the occipital lobe." That laceration "extended. . .to the "tip of the occipital lobe." "Where's the tip of the frontal lobe?" I asked. Judy pointed to her forehead above the eyes. I put my right index finger on the front of my forehead. Poised this way, I tried to imagine a laceration almost three inches deep that went clear across the brain. Could this be the "surgery"? "David," Judy exclaimed, "that sound like an exploratory incision." [p. 191] Thus Lifton's theory was started by a premedical student's belief that a jagged irregular laceration in the brain that ran for the occipital lobe to the frontal lobe, exposing the corpus collosum sounded like a like an exploratory incision. "I then read Humes' testimony regarding the 'parasagittal laceration.' The doctor replied that he could see why I was puzzled, because I was not describing a gunshot injury; my confusion probably stemmed, he said, from the fact that I was reading from a description of the brain after it was sectioned. His exact words were: 'That brain's been sectioned.' . ." ". .then he asked, 'You're telling me that something entered at the the skull at the rear, and then exited somewhere on the right-hand side. And none of it stayed inside the head. How could a missile which travels a path so that it exits on the right-hand side still create the practically straight-line damage you're describing to me, which goes all the way to the front of the head.'" ". . .Humes said there was a tear through the left cerebral peduncle. 'The left cerebral peduncle was torn?' said the doctor, his voice again tinged with incredulity. 'Yeah the left cerebral peduncle,' I replied. My doctor friend said emphatically that the damage sounded like it had been made with a knife." [p. 199-200] Apparently David did not understand the pathophysiology or the anatomy of the wounds he is talking about, and went on to statements based on what I believe to be incomplete or erroneous information. First of all the autopsy supplement report describes a parasaggital laceration with "margins that are at all points jagged and irregular, with additional lacerations extending in varying directions and for varying distances from the main laceration." This injury in no way REMOTELY describes a section performed at autopsy, unless it was performed by an epileptic autopsist who was in the grips of a seizure while doing the section. Secondly, one must not presume that every laceration, or even the extent of the main parasagittal laceration was necessarily created by a bullet fragment. The pressure cavity that caused the brain to literally rip apart could have generated or EXTENDED several lacerations. Thirdly, there were some lacerations and contusions on the left side and undersurface of the brain. Again, this is TYPICAL of a high velocity rifle wound to the head. As various parts of the brain were rapidly compressed and decompressed against the cranial vault, they became lacerated and contused. This, unfortunately, is a central characteristic of Best Evidence--erroneous speculations based incomplete information and incomplete knowledge. --Robert R. Artwohl, MD There is 1 Reply. #: 1106 S2/Books & Articles [JFK] 27-Aug-93 14:01:16 Sb: #BEST EVIDENCE CLAIMS #4 Fm: Bob Artwohl 71712,2151 To: David S. Lifton 72303,2702 As a physician, I have encountered numerous passages in BEST EVIDENCE that I consider to be errors of fact and interpretation of the medical evidence. It seems to me it is these errors is what led David Lifton to reach conclusions he has made in BEST EVIDENCE. Some of those opinions which I consider to be erroneous are posted below. I invite David and other readers to discuss these with me, and I urge all readers of these notes to take the claims made in BE to and my counter opinions to any medical authority for independent evaluation. Unless indicated otherwise, all quotes are from Best Evidence, by David Lifton, the Carroll and Graf paperback edition, twelfth printing 1992. (white cover, red letters, with picture of JFK pointing) Claim: President Kennedy's body was removed a shipping casket and it was enclosed in if a body bag in the Bethesda autopsy room. It was not placed in a shipping casket or a body bag in Dallas, thus, the body was handled between Dallas and Bethesda. This body bag was not mentioned in the Sibert and O'Neill report, the same report that David uses to make his claims about the "surgery" to the head area. The agents clearly state that the body was found wrapped in a plastic sheet: "The president's body was removed from the casket in which it had been transported and was placed on the autopsy table, at which time the complete body was wrapped in a sheet and the head area contained an additional wrapping which was saturated with blood." David makes this claim based primarily on the recollections of Paul David O'Connor, who at the time was a technician: "Okay, now, you say 'shipping casket.' What do you mean by 'shipping casket'?" I asked. "Well, I used to work in a funeral home as a kid," explained O'Connor, "and a shipping casket is nothing but a cheap casket. It was a kind of pinkish gray, and it's used, for example, say a person dies in California and he wants to be buried in New York. They just bring him in a casket like this, and they ship him to New York, and they bury him. It's nothing fancy. It's just a tin box. . ." I asked O'Connor for more detail about he casket's color. "It was kind of a slate-type gray, and a kind of light pinkish color on the edges," he said. "I see. I see," I replied. "And when you opened it up, how was he wrapped?" "He was in a body bag," replied O'Connor. "Now when you say 'body bag,' what do you mean by 'body-bag'?" I asked. "Okay, A body bag is nothing but a rubber bag that bodies are put into, say in a disaster, or something like that, where a lot of people are killed. They bring these bags in. An air crash disaster. It's a heavy rubber bag with a zipper on it. They zip up the body. . .it's a standard body bag used in disasters." Is that he kind of body bag they talked about in Vietnam, when they brought soldiers back?" I asked. "It was the same." "Was it absolutely the same?" I asked. "Just about. Yeah, I'd say--they're just about all the same. They're used for just the one purpose, and it. . .it's a rubber bag. . .just a regular zippered bag. . ." "In other words, it was nothing makeshift or ad hoc?" I asked, exploring the possibility that the sheet of plastic used to line the Dallas casket might be confused with a body bag. "No, he replied. . . [p. 599-600] Now here's an excerpt from an interview O'Connor gave for High Treason II: O'Connor speaking: "They came in from the loading dock and they had to come through the cool room. And they came in and they brought it right straight down the side. There was an amphitheater, they brought it right alongside the amphitheater and set it down." "Inside the morgue?" "Yeah. We opened it up, unzipped the body bag. Which is another thing everybody is going crazy about. The body bag. SEEMS LIKE I'M THE ONLY ONE WHO REMEMBERS THAT. They brought him in and opened his body bag. He was nude except for a bed sheet wrapped around his head. Which was just totally soaked with blood." [CAPS added] O'Connor states that JFK was nude inside the body bag, except for a sheet wrapped around this head. However, the FBI report, which was submitted only three days after the autopsy, clearly states that JFK's body was wrapped in a SHEET, and that the head was additionally wrapped in more sheets. Could O'Connor be confused on this? Again from High Treason II: [Livingstone]: I asked him, "In Dallas, they had used gurney covers--like those greenish-gray body bags. It seems to me possible that in Dallas that's what they used to line that coffin to protect it. Could that have simply been wrapped around the body and not necessarily had him zipped in it?" [O'Connor]: "You know something, it could because I thought I remembered him being it in and having him zipped in it, but sure--to my mind--it was. BUT IT HAS BEEN SO MANY YEARS AND SO MUCH HAS HAPPENED, I KIND OF DOUBT MY OWN ABILITY TO REMEMBER FINE DETAILS." Fine details? This is the one of the keystones for Lifton's entire theory. O'Connor's memory seems to be interviewer dependent. Nurses Diana Bowron, Pat Hutton, and Doris Nelson, and orderly David Sanders of Parkland Hospital all reported that a plastic mattress cover had been used to line the coffin. In The Day Kennedy Was Shot, Jim Bishop describes the scene (and the plastic sheet) when the body was removed from the coffin: Commander Boswell signaled to the enlisted personnel to open the casket. The locks were unsnapped. The lid was raised. The men looked in. They saw a bloody mummy. The President was wrapped in plastic, in addition to a sheet. The awkward handling of the heavy casket had jogged the body inside. The enlisted men gathered around the casket, and tenderly lifted the rigid form within the sheet. It was placed face up on the table. . . The doctors began to peel the sheet and plastic away. It stuck against the throat and the back of the skull, and tenderly they lifted the body again and yanked the loose material away. . ." All of these accounts were made YEARS before O'Connor came along with his body bag story. So why does O'Connor remember a body bag? Well, David himself may provide a clue: "A body bag? How many times had I watched newscasts of the Vietnam War, where the dead were removed from the battlefield in body bags." As memory experts have documented, as time goes on, our memory of one events merge with other events. No doubt, over the years, O'Connor, who no doubt, saw the same sorts of newscasts as Lifton, and who, more than likely, handled a few body bags (as well as shipping caskets) during his stint at Bethesda Naval Hospital merged his memory of the plastic sheet with those of his experiences and viewings of body bags. To be fair, Lifton report two other persons who "remember" a body bag. One was Humes' supervisor. Here's how Lifton reports it: "On a number of points, Captain Stover's memory was very fuzzy. . .But on one point he gave me a positive answer: 'I think there was body bag,' he said. "I remember seeing a body bag. . .I think I remember seeing a body bag peeled off." (p. 630) Heavy rubberized body bags, do not *peel off*. No doubt Stover was remembering the plastic sheet that became adherent to JFK's body during transport. And I would love to hear how Lifton put the question to Captain Stover. The other person who remembers a body bag is Floyd Reibe: "Lifton: ...was he in any kind of bag or anything, or in a sheet?" Reibe: I think he was in a body bag. Lifton: A body bag. Reibe: Yes, a rubberized bag..."(p 637) Reibe appears to remember this only AFTER Lifton asks him a leading question, suggesting to him that there may have been a body bag. To believe the body bag hypothesis, one has to believe that only only 3 would remember such a striking scene. One has to believe that all these accounts, the earliest one that came over 15 years after the event are MORE reliable than all the contemporaneous accounts in which a plastic sheet was described, and documented in the inventory at the time of the autopsy. Robert R. Artwohl, MD. There are 2 Replies.