Debunking the "Debunkers"
With some relatively small edits, this page is copied from a portion of my book The JFK Cut-N-Paste Assassination, available on Amazon.com .
Sections:
Sections:
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Introduction
Critics of the Donahue TheoryThere are a number of critics who believe that Donahue was mistaken about the accidental firing of the AR-15. Their arguments that it simply “didn’t happen” seem to stem from these main points:
The latter is especially interesting in terms of how events got misrepresented and twisted around.
And as we will see, none of these arguments really carries much weight.
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Footnotes:
[i] Peter Mucha, “Shooting holes in theory that a Secret Service agent killed President Kennedy,” Philly.com, last updated November 13, 2013, accessed September 30, 2015, http://www.philly.com/philly/news/Shooting_holes_in_theory_that_a_Secret_Service_agent_killed_President_Kennedy.html#523kg8p5jwsTEKSW.99
[ii] Mucha, “Shooting holes in theory”
[iii] Mucha, “Shooting holes in theory”
[iv] Dale K. Myers and Gus Russo, “Drums of Conspiracy,” accessed September 30, 2015, http://jfkfiles.blogspot.com/2013/08/drums-of-conspiracy.html
[v] Pat Speer, “The Smoking Gun That Lied: a Review of JFK: The Smoking Gun,” accessed September 30, 2015, http://www.patspeer.com/the-smoking-gun-that-lied
[vi] “Stupid JFK Conspiracy Theories Debunked: ‘Kennedy was killed by an accidental head shot by a Secret Service agent’," November 20, 2013, accessed November 12, 2015, http://saberpoint.blogspot.com/2013/11/stupid-jfk-conspiracy-theories-debunked.html
[vii] “Stupid JFK Conspiracy Theories Debunked”
[viii] “Reelz Channel to air discredited JFK theory,” November 3, 2013, accessed November 12, 2015, http://jfkfacts.org/assassination/news/reelz-channel-to-air-discredited-jfk-theory/
Critics of the Donahue TheoryThere are a number of critics who believe that Donahue was mistaken about the accidental firing of the AR-15. Their arguments that it simply “didn’t happen” seem to stem from these main points:
- “Accidents don’t get any freakier”[i];
- No one saw Hickey fire the explosive head shot (“no solid witnesses”)[ii];
- Questions regarding Donahue’s trajectory analysis;[iii]
- The film of bystander Charles Bronson shows “Hickey seated at the moment of the assassination,” and therefore “he couldn’t have fired the fatal head shot;” [iv], [v]
- The HSCA Neutron Activation Analysis “proves” Hickey didn’t do it; [vi] and
- The lawsuit filed by Hickey against St. Martin’s Press “proves” Hickey didn’t do it.[vii], [viii]
The latter is especially interesting in terms of how events got misrepresented and twisted around.
And as we will see, none of these arguments really carries much weight.
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Footnotes:
[i] Peter Mucha, “Shooting holes in theory that a Secret Service agent killed President Kennedy,” Philly.com, last updated November 13, 2013, accessed September 30, 2015, http://www.philly.com/philly/news/Shooting_holes_in_theory_that_a_Secret_Service_agent_killed_President_Kennedy.html#523kg8p5jwsTEKSW.99
[ii] Mucha, “Shooting holes in theory”
[iii] Mucha, “Shooting holes in theory”
[iv] Dale K. Myers and Gus Russo, “Drums of Conspiracy,” accessed September 30, 2015, http://jfkfiles.blogspot.com/2013/08/drums-of-conspiracy.html
[v] Pat Speer, “The Smoking Gun That Lied: a Review of JFK: The Smoking Gun,” accessed September 30, 2015, http://www.patspeer.com/the-smoking-gun-that-lied
[vi] “Stupid JFK Conspiracy Theories Debunked: ‘Kennedy was killed by an accidental head shot by a Secret Service agent’," November 20, 2013, accessed November 12, 2015, http://saberpoint.blogspot.com/2013/11/stupid-jfk-conspiracy-theories-debunked.html
[vii] “Stupid JFK Conspiracy Theories Debunked”
[viii] “Reelz Channel to air discredited JFK theory,” November 3, 2013, accessed November 12, 2015, http://jfkfacts.org/assassination/news/reelz-channel-to-air-discredited-jfk-theory/
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Freak Accidents
Some critics suggest that Donahue’s theory can’t be true because “accidents don’t get any freakier.”[i]
That there is even a term for “freak accidents” tells us something about the fact that they can and do occur. My own aunt was killed in a freak accident. However, let’s look at some of the freak accidents that have occurred in history:
A quick Internet search will yield many more examples of “freak accidents.” The argument that Kennedy couldn’t have been the victim of a freak accident is specious.
There may even be precedent for a political figure being accidentally killed by his own bodyguard in a freak accident. An episode of the Travel Channel series Monumental Mysteries introduced me to the possibility that former Louisiana Governor and U.S. Senator Huey Long was accidentally killed by his own bodyguards. The bodyguards did kill Carl Weiss, a young Baton Rouge doctor whom they claimed shot Long, although relatives of Weiss claim the doctor was framed.[ii] One author/investigator said of the Long case, “And so the shooting—cloaked in secrecy, never fully investigated, confused by conflicting details—continues to spawn a host of intriguing puzzles."[iii]
He could have been speaking of the Kennedy assassination instead of the Huey Long case.
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Footnotes:
[i] Mucha, “Shooting holes in theory”
[ii] “Superman, Montgomery March, Who Killed Huey Long,” Monumental Mysteries, The Travel Channel (original air date August 1, 2014)
[iii] Robert Travis, “The Enduring Mystery of Who Killed Huey Long,” accessed September 30, 2015, http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2010/09/the_enduring_mystery_of_who_ki.html
Some critics suggest that Donahue’s theory can’t be true because “accidents don’t get any freakier.”[i]
That there is even a term for “freak accidents” tells us something about the fact that they can and do occur. My own aunt was killed in a freak accident. However, let’s look at some of the freak accidents that have occurred in history:
- The 1912 sinking of the Titanic (especially when considered with the 1898 novella by Morgan Robertson Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan, about an ocean liner that sank in the North Atlantic after striking an iceburg).
- Jimi Heseiden, owner of Segway electric scooters, who was testing a new model, lost control, and went over a cliff into a river.
- Draco the Greek. In ancient Greece, it was a great honor to have someone throw his cloak over you, especially during a parade. Draco was so popular that too many cloaks were thrown over him, and he smothered to death.
- James Otis, Jr. Otis was famous American Revolutionary who predicted that he would be killed by lightning, and was.
- Nitaro Ito. Ito was a political hopeful for Japanese House of Representatives. He wanted sympathy votes, so he staged a knife attack on himself, and accidentally cut his thigh artery. He bled to death.
- Basil Brown. Brown was a health nut who touted the health benefits of carrot juice. He died of liver poisoning caused by too much vitamin A from drinking too much carrot juice.
- Brandon Lee (the son of martial arts legend Bruce Lee). While filming a scene for the movie The Crow, the actor playing the villain accidentally fired a dummy round (i.e., a drilled-out bullet containing no gunpowder) into Lee and killed him. The dummy round was left in the barrel of the gun from previous use, when it was reloaded with a blank charge for the filming.
- In 1998, during a soccer game in Congo, all 11 members of the Bassanga team were killed by a single lightning strike, while all the members of the home team were spared. It was thought that witchcraft may have been involved, since teams in that area had been known to hire witch doctors to put hexes on the opposing teams.
A quick Internet search will yield many more examples of “freak accidents.” The argument that Kennedy couldn’t have been the victim of a freak accident is specious.
There may even be precedent for a political figure being accidentally killed by his own bodyguard in a freak accident. An episode of the Travel Channel series Monumental Mysteries introduced me to the possibility that former Louisiana Governor and U.S. Senator Huey Long was accidentally killed by his own bodyguards. The bodyguards did kill Carl Weiss, a young Baton Rouge doctor whom they claimed shot Long, although relatives of Weiss claim the doctor was framed.[ii] One author/investigator said of the Long case, “And so the shooting—cloaked in secrecy, never fully investigated, confused by conflicting details—continues to spawn a host of intriguing puzzles."[iii]
He could have been speaking of the Kennedy assassination instead of the Huey Long case.
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Footnotes:
[i] Mucha, “Shooting holes in theory”
[ii] “Superman, Montgomery March, Who Killed Huey Long,” Monumental Mysteries, The Travel Channel (original air date August 1, 2014)
[iii] Robert Travis, “The Enduring Mystery of Who Killed Huey Long,” accessed September 30, 2015, http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2010/09/the_enduring_mystery_of_who_ki.html
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"No One Saw"
The argument that there were no witnesses, that “No one saw” Hickey shoot (“no solid witnesses”) falls short for several reasons. Critics of the Donahue theory who use that argument seem to think that people are going to see a bullet from a high-power rifle traveling through the air. Either that, or they think that someone should have seen Hickey take aim. Or if these critics are talking about the muzzle flash from the shooting, there’s a real reason why no one saw the flash.
The idea that “no one saw” is misleading. People did not see Hickey aim, because he didn’t. He fell over (there are witnesses to that), and the gun discharged accidentally. Moreover, Hickey was shielded from view by agents on the running boards of both sides of the follow-up car. People didn’t see the muzzle flash, because the AR-15 was equipped with a flash suppressor. And then there’s the fact that human beings are afflicted with an unfortunate condition known as “inattention blindness.”
The argument that there were no witnesses, that “No one saw” Hickey shoot (“no solid witnesses”) falls short for several reasons. Critics of the Donahue theory who use that argument seem to think that people are going to see a bullet from a high-power rifle traveling through the air. Either that, or they think that someone should have seen Hickey take aim. Or if these critics are talking about the muzzle flash from the shooting, there’s a real reason why no one saw the flash.
The idea that “no one saw” is misleading. People did not see Hickey aim, because he didn’t. He fell over (there are witnesses to that), and the gun discharged accidentally. Moreover, Hickey was shielded from view by agents on the running boards of both sides of the follow-up car. People didn’t see the muzzle flash, because the AR-15 was equipped with a flash suppressor. And then there’s the fact that human beings are afflicted with an unfortunate condition known as “inattention blindness.”
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At the time of the explosive head shot, two shots had already been fired from the Texas School Book Depository (as well as two Secret Service pistol shots that had also been fired). As a result, by the time of the explosive head shot, everyone’s eyes were most likely on either Kennedy or the Texas School Book Depository, or bystanders were worried for their own safety and were trying to get out of harm’s way. With their attention thus focused, no one was likely to have seen Hickey accidentally firing, even if there had been no flash suppressor.
“Inattention blindness” is the term used to describe the brain’s inability to take in everything in one’s environment. Instead, it “spotlights” certain information to the exclusion of other pieces of information. It’s the sort of mental focus demonstrated so clearly by various episodes of the television show Brain Games, in which audience attention is so drawn to one thing that they do not see something else that should appear obvious, for example, realize that a sales clerk becomes an entirely different person—perhaps even of a different race or of the opposite gender—in the middle of a transaction.
One of my favorite examples of inattention blindness is from Brain Games (“Brain Games Double Dutch” at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiEzf3J4iFk). This example takes place in a situation not nearly as stressful as that of Dealey Plaza during the assassination. Watch the video, and you will see what I’m talking about. And just for fun, do your own YouTube search for “inattention blindness.” Some of the results are quite entertaining.
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The Menninger book gives another explanation for why no one saw the AR-15 fire: it had a flash suppressor on the tip of the barrel, making a firing impossible to see unless at night or near-dark.[i] The assassination took place in broad daylight, almost at high noon, so the flash would have been invisible, or nearly so.
However, given that some witnesses did see a "flash of light," I wonder if a flash suppressor was actually in play.
One interesting idea, put forth by National American University's Henley-Putnam school of Strategic Studies doctoral student Tim Cochran (under doctoral program professor Dr. Harry Nimon), suggests that "tracer" bullets might have been used, thus accounting for the "flash of light." The advantage of tracer bullets would be to alert fellow agents to the location of the threat spied by the AR-15 handler.
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Footnote:
[i] Menninger, Mortal Error, 106
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Donahue pointed out that Hickey was surrounded by Secret Service agents on both sides of the running board, blocking him from view from many of the bystanders.[i] With everyone’s attention either on JFK or on the Texas School Book Depository, with the AR-15’s flash suppressor, and with the explosive head shot being accidentally fired rather than aimed, it’s easy to see why people would have missed seeing AR-15 fire.
People may not have seen the AR-15 fire, but there is plenty of evidence that it did. Witness accounts of smelling gun smoke and of Hickey “swinging the gun around wildly,” autopsy accounts of “a galaxy of stars” of radio-opaque material in JFK’s skull, the size of the 6.0 mm entrance wound, the acts of cover-up and their immediacy, switched and suppressed evidence—all of it points to Donahue being correct about the accidental firing of the AR-15.
[i] Reppert, “Kennedy Assassination: A Different View”
Donahue pointed out that Hickey was surrounded by Secret Service agents on both sides of the running board, blocking him from view from many of the bystanders.[i] With everyone’s attention either on JFK or on the Texas School Book Depository, with the AR-15’s flash suppressor, and with the explosive head shot being accidentally fired rather than aimed, it’s easy to see why people would have missed seeing AR-15 fire.
People may not have seen the AR-15 fire, but there is plenty of evidence that it did. Witness accounts of smelling gun smoke and of Hickey “swinging the gun around wildly,” autopsy accounts of “a galaxy of stars” of radio-opaque material in JFK’s skull, the size of the 6.0 mm entrance wound, the acts of cover-up and their immediacy, switched and suppressed evidence—all of it points to Donahue being correct about the accidental firing of the AR-15.
[i] Reppert, “Kennedy Assassination: A Different View”
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"Using a Gaping Hole to Calculate Trajectory"
The article by Peter Mucha, “Shooting Holes in theory that a Secret Service agent killed President Kennedy” states that, “It’s dubious to use a gaping hole to calculate trajectory.”[i]
Aside from the erroneous claim that, “If Donahue’s trajectory is wrong, his whole theory falls apart” (it does not), there may actually be some substance to an argument against Donahue’s trajectory. On the one hand, Donahue “rejected a specific outshoot.” On the other hand, he did calculate a trajectory based on the “gaping wound” and the entry wound location as the HSCA determined it, a trajectory that passed over Hickey’s position in the follow-up car.[ii] It seems contradictory.
[i] Mucha, “Shooting holes in theory”
[ii] Note that Donahue accepted the HSCA revised location of the back of the head entry wound rather than the original “EOP” (External Occipital Protuberance”) location described by the autopsists. I believe that there is more evidence that the original lower EOP entrance was the correct location, since the autopsy doctors refuted the HSCA revised location, and back of the head autopsy photographs—the only evidence for the higher HSCA entrance wound location—were likely fabricated (failing stereoscopic viewing, etc.) I think Donahue’s initial instinct to “reject a specific outshoot” was the correct assumption, and that the actual entry was the EOP site, as will be seen later in this section.
But one thing Donahue clearly did do was to demonstrate that the HSCA outshoot (the most forward defect in the skull, the only place where a trajectory could conceivably be traced back to the Texas School Book Depository) was wrong. It did not fit with the rotation of Kennedy’s head at Z-312 (the frame right before the explosive head shot). Nor did the fracture patterns fit with this location (all of the fractures above this “gaping hole” defect, and none below).
And since there was a gaping hole, Donahue used Kennedy’s body position at Z-312 and traced the middle of this hole back through the HSCA entry point, and continued backward, and found it to pass over Hickey’s position in the follow-up car.
Mucha is correct that there may be some issues with this trajectory…but not for the reasons he thinks.
Mucha questioned Donahue’s trajectory analysis of a Carcano round, based on the results of the ballistics gelatin block tests. But in fact, Mortal Error includes pictures of the ballistics gel blocks tests! Donahue certainly must have accounted for yawing and tumbling in his trajectory analyses. I’m not sure how the author could even use the gelatin block tests to impugn Donahue’s work. Donahue was the ballistics expert. I’m sure he knew more about the gelatin block trajectory than the author of this article does. Nor does the possible yawing of a Carcano round account for the “galaxy of stars” of small fragments seen in the autopsy X-rays.
But it's not the Carcano round gelatin block test that is actually the most interesting; it's the AR-15 round gelatin block test. Isn’t it funny that HSCA even had a gelatin block test done for an AR-15 .223 round (i.e., the “M-16” gelatin block test), and that the results from this test (No. 113 on the adjacent list of exhibits from the Committee’s ballistics hearings, Sept. 8, 1978) were omitted from the Committee’s final report (even though the gelatin block tests done for HSCA on other types of rounds besides Carcano and AR-15/M-16 were included).
That said, there are some genuine problems with Donahue’s trajectory analysis from the “gaping hole.”
First, as Mucha notes, there is evidence that the HSCA’s “revised entry wound location” was wrong, and that the original autopsy doctors reported it correctly (as this critic states). The pathologists, when shown pictures purported to be of the high entry wound in the skull, denied that a bullet entered there. Most stuck by their original (lower) location. Mucha is correct that the lower entry wound location as determined at autopsy may have been/probably was the actual entrance site. (Note that there was—officially—no bullet recovered from Kennedy’s head at autopsy, only small fragments, and Donahue naturally must have reasoned that the main body of the bullet must have exited, per the official story. I disagree, and believe that the bullet was recovered at Parkland Hospital, as we will see later.) Donahue trusted HSCA’s entry location more than the originally stated location because an outshoot (exit wound) at the lowest and most forward part of the skull wound (the exit most consistent with the official story) or anywhere within the “gaping wound” would have meant the shot would have had to come from the trunk of the car!
Additionally, as Dr. Mantik notes, the “trail of fragments” seen in the X-rays was too superior (high) for a bullet entry at the external occipital protuberance (EOP), where the autopsy report initially reported the entrance wound.[i]
However, Donahue was dubious of the HSCA outshoot as an actual exit point. Per Mortal Error:
The more he looked at the committee’s reasons for selecting this (exit) point, the more doubtful Donahue became. For one thing, Donahue had over the years reinforced his convictions that the designation of a single exit point was not just problematic but unjustifiable. The bullet, everyone agreed, had disintegrated and sprayed a multitude of fragments across the right side of the brain. In one of the appendices the committee said: “…the anterior-posterior and lateral X-rays of the skull indicate that the vast majority of missile fragments moved in a cylindrical, slightly coned, pathway, in the same direction as the bullet’s path prior to striking the skull.”
To Donahue, this description was inherently inconsistent with the stance that “the bullet” had a single exit point. Indeed, in another passage in the committee’s text, the medical panel openly acknowledged that the exit point might well be at any one of several such “defects” detectable in the X rays, or it could even be at some other point where the skull was so damaged that there were portions of it altogether missing, either blown out onto Dealey Plaza or pulverized entirely.”
Donahue looked still closer at the committee’s argument. The committee’s chosen exit location was at the extreme forward edge of the wound. This was untenable, he felt. If the bullet had exited there, why was the skull shattered for five inches above and behind that location, and why could metal fragments be seen embedded in the inner table of the top of the skull all across those five inches? It was hard to believe that “the bullet” would smash to pieces skull four and five inches above and behind its point of exit-impact and yet not extend the portal even a centimeter below and in front of it.[ii]
HSCA’s exit point was dependent on the higher entry point. Without their higher entry point, a trajectory back to the sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository failed. However, Donahue convincingly demonstrated that HSCA’s “exit point” made no sense, even with medical panel’s higher entry point.
With the autopsy doctors’ lower entry location, HSCA’s exit point made even less sense. That left the “gaping wound” for the exit point, if there was one. But Kennedy’s head would have had to be tilted extremely forward for any trajectory (except from the trunk of the car) to work with the original autopsy entry point and an exit point at either HSCA’s exit, or within the “gaping wound.” Such a forward tilt to Kennedy’s head was not seen in Z-312 (the frame immediately before the explosive head shot). A HSCA entry and the middle of the “gaping hole” exit, however, did line up—with Hickey’s position in the follow-up car. Otherwise, the “gaping hole” exit lined up with nothing, as did the HSCA exit.
However, there may not have even been a “gaping hole” in the right front part of Kennedy’s head—at least, not until the “pre-autopsy surgery of the head.” Former ARRB Analyst Douglas Horne points out that Parkland staff were consistent in describing a “back of the head blow-out,” yet none described a “gaping hole” on the right front part of Kennedy’s head.[iii] Horne corroborates David Lifton’s “pre-autopsy surgery of the head”[iv] with mortician Tom Robinson’s remarks for the ARRB in describing the damage to the front/right of Kennedy’s head, “That’s what the doctors did, to make it look like that’s what the bullet did.”[v]
Mucha is correct that Donahue’s acceptance of the higher entry wound location may have been wrong, but that acceptance was based on what made sense to Donahue, based on Donahue’s belief that HSCA’s revised entry point was correct, and that other evidence was unaltered. Donahue took it for granted that the “gaping wound” on the top right side of JFK’s skull was genuine.
Additionally, Donahue also took it for granted that the Zapruder film and autopsy images were genuine. He used Z-312 (the frame just before the explosive head shot) for his trajectory analysis in determining Kennedy’s body position at the time of the explosive head shot. Given the available evidence, Donahue proved that the explosive head shot could not have come from the sixth floor of the TSBD (and was more likely to have come from the AR-15).
So either the evidence Donahue trusted was correct, and the trajectory traced back over the follow-up car, or the evidence was forged and his trajectory was therefore erroneous. Since the integrity of the evidence upon which Donahue relied for his trajectory analysis is in question (as I will show later), his trajectory analysis based on that evidence could also be brought into question.
However, Mucha erroneously claims that, “If Donahue’s trajectory is wrong, his whole theory falls apart.” It does not! It wasn’t just a trajectory analysis that led Donahue to his theory. It was also the “galaxy of stars” (numerous bullet particles) in the X-Rays, witness statements, and many other clues that led Donahue to his theory. There is a lot of other evidence beyond just the trajectory analysis supporting his theory of the explosive head shot.
And, despite claims to the contrary, there is no real evidence to dispute that theory.
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Footnotes
[i] Dr. David Mantik, JFK’s Head Wounds (2015), Kindle edition
[ii] Menninger, Mortal Error, 167-168
[iii] “The Zapruder Film Mystery,” accessed September 30, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_QIuu6hsAc
[iv] David S. Lifton, Best Evidence, (New York, Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc., 1980), 171-172, 296-297, 301-305, 328
[v] “News from Doug Horne concerning JFK’s autopsy,” accessed September 30, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSV0FyWJa0c
The article by Peter Mucha, “Shooting Holes in theory that a Secret Service agent killed President Kennedy” states that, “It’s dubious to use a gaping hole to calculate trajectory.”[i]
Aside from the erroneous claim that, “If Donahue’s trajectory is wrong, his whole theory falls apart” (it does not), there may actually be some substance to an argument against Donahue’s trajectory. On the one hand, Donahue “rejected a specific outshoot.” On the other hand, he did calculate a trajectory based on the “gaping wound” and the entry wound location as the HSCA determined it, a trajectory that passed over Hickey’s position in the follow-up car.[ii] It seems contradictory.
[i] Mucha, “Shooting holes in theory”
[ii] Note that Donahue accepted the HSCA revised location of the back of the head entry wound rather than the original “EOP” (External Occipital Protuberance”) location described by the autopsists. I believe that there is more evidence that the original lower EOP entrance was the correct location, since the autopsy doctors refuted the HSCA revised location, and back of the head autopsy photographs—the only evidence for the higher HSCA entrance wound location—were likely fabricated (failing stereoscopic viewing, etc.) I think Donahue’s initial instinct to “reject a specific outshoot” was the correct assumption, and that the actual entry was the EOP site, as will be seen later in this section.
But one thing Donahue clearly did do was to demonstrate that the HSCA outshoot (the most forward defect in the skull, the only place where a trajectory could conceivably be traced back to the Texas School Book Depository) was wrong. It did not fit with the rotation of Kennedy’s head at Z-312 (the frame right before the explosive head shot). Nor did the fracture patterns fit with this location (all of the fractures above this “gaping hole” defect, and none below).
And since there was a gaping hole, Donahue used Kennedy’s body position at Z-312 and traced the middle of this hole back through the HSCA entry point, and continued backward, and found it to pass over Hickey’s position in the follow-up car.
Mucha is correct that there may be some issues with this trajectory…but not for the reasons he thinks.
Mucha questioned Donahue’s trajectory analysis of a Carcano round, based on the results of the ballistics gelatin block tests. But in fact, Mortal Error includes pictures of the ballistics gel blocks tests! Donahue certainly must have accounted for yawing and tumbling in his trajectory analyses. I’m not sure how the author could even use the gelatin block tests to impugn Donahue’s work. Donahue was the ballistics expert. I’m sure he knew more about the gelatin block trajectory than the author of this article does. Nor does the possible yawing of a Carcano round account for the “galaxy of stars” of small fragments seen in the autopsy X-rays.
But it's not the Carcano round gelatin block test that is actually the most interesting; it's the AR-15 round gelatin block test. Isn’t it funny that HSCA even had a gelatin block test done for an AR-15 .223 round (i.e., the “M-16” gelatin block test), and that the results from this test (No. 113 on the adjacent list of exhibits from the Committee’s ballistics hearings, Sept. 8, 1978) were omitted from the Committee’s final report (even though the gelatin block tests done for HSCA on other types of rounds besides Carcano and AR-15/M-16 were included).
That said, there are some genuine problems with Donahue’s trajectory analysis from the “gaping hole.”
First, as Mucha notes, there is evidence that the HSCA’s “revised entry wound location” was wrong, and that the original autopsy doctors reported it correctly (as this critic states). The pathologists, when shown pictures purported to be of the high entry wound in the skull, denied that a bullet entered there. Most stuck by their original (lower) location. Mucha is correct that the lower entry wound location as determined at autopsy may have been/probably was the actual entrance site. (Note that there was—officially—no bullet recovered from Kennedy’s head at autopsy, only small fragments, and Donahue naturally must have reasoned that the main body of the bullet must have exited, per the official story. I disagree, and believe that the bullet was recovered at Parkland Hospital, as we will see later.) Donahue trusted HSCA’s entry location more than the originally stated location because an outshoot (exit wound) at the lowest and most forward part of the skull wound (the exit most consistent with the official story) or anywhere within the “gaping wound” would have meant the shot would have had to come from the trunk of the car!
Additionally, as Dr. Mantik notes, the “trail of fragments” seen in the X-rays was too superior (high) for a bullet entry at the external occipital protuberance (EOP), where the autopsy report initially reported the entrance wound.[i]
However, Donahue was dubious of the HSCA outshoot as an actual exit point. Per Mortal Error:
The more he looked at the committee’s reasons for selecting this (exit) point, the more doubtful Donahue became. For one thing, Donahue had over the years reinforced his convictions that the designation of a single exit point was not just problematic but unjustifiable. The bullet, everyone agreed, had disintegrated and sprayed a multitude of fragments across the right side of the brain. In one of the appendices the committee said: “…the anterior-posterior and lateral X-rays of the skull indicate that the vast majority of missile fragments moved in a cylindrical, slightly coned, pathway, in the same direction as the bullet’s path prior to striking the skull.”
To Donahue, this description was inherently inconsistent with the stance that “the bullet” had a single exit point. Indeed, in another passage in the committee’s text, the medical panel openly acknowledged that the exit point might well be at any one of several such “defects” detectable in the X rays, or it could even be at some other point where the skull was so damaged that there were portions of it altogether missing, either blown out onto Dealey Plaza or pulverized entirely.”
Donahue looked still closer at the committee’s argument. The committee’s chosen exit location was at the extreme forward edge of the wound. This was untenable, he felt. If the bullet had exited there, why was the skull shattered for five inches above and behind that location, and why could metal fragments be seen embedded in the inner table of the top of the skull all across those five inches? It was hard to believe that “the bullet” would smash to pieces skull four and five inches above and behind its point of exit-impact and yet not extend the portal even a centimeter below and in front of it.[ii]
HSCA’s exit point was dependent on the higher entry point. Without their higher entry point, a trajectory back to the sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository failed. However, Donahue convincingly demonstrated that HSCA’s “exit point” made no sense, even with medical panel’s higher entry point.
With the autopsy doctors’ lower entry location, HSCA’s exit point made even less sense. That left the “gaping wound” for the exit point, if there was one. But Kennedy’s head would have had to be tilted extremely forward for any trajectory (except from the trunk of the car) to work with the original autopsy entry point and an exit point at either HSCA’s exit, or within the “gaping wound.” Such a forward tilt to Kennedy’s head was not seen in Z-312 (the frame immediately before the explosive head shot). A HSCA entry and the middle of the “gaping hole” exit, however, did line up—with Hickey’s position in the follow-up car. Otherwise, the “gaping hole” exit lined up with nothing, as did the HSCA exit.
However, there may not have even been a “gaping hole” in the right front part of Kennedy’s head—at least, not until the “pre-autopsy surgery of the head.” Former ARRB Analyst Douglas Horne points out that Parkland staff were consistent in describing a “back of the head blow-out,” yet none described a “gaping hole” on the right front part of Kennedy’s head.[iii] Horne corroborates David Lifton’s “pre-autopsy surgery of the head”[iv] with mortician Tom Robinson’s remarks for the ARRB in describing the damage to the front/right of Kennedy’s head, “That’s what the doctors did, to make it look like that’s what the bullet did.”[v]
Mucha is correct that Donahue’s acceptance of the higher entry wound location may have been wrong, but that acceptance was based on what made sense to Donahue, based on Donahue’s belief that HSCA’s revised entry point was correct, and that other evidence was unaltered. Donahue took it for granted that the “gaping wound” on the top right side of JFK’s skull was genuine.
Additionally, Donahue also took it for granted that the Zapruder film and autopsy images were genuine. He used Z-312 (the frame just before the explosive head shot) for his trajectory analysis in determining Kennedy’s body position at the time of the explosive head shot. Given the available evidence, Donahue proved that the explosive head shot could not have come from the sixth floor of the TSBD (and was more likely to have come from the AR-15).
So either the evidence Donahue trusted was correct, and the trajectory traced back over the follow-up car, or the evidence was forged and his trajectory was therefore erroneous. Since the integrity of the evidence upon which Donahue relied for his trajectory analysis is in question (as I will show later), his trajectory analysis based on that evidence could also be brought into question.
However, Mucha erroneously claims that, “If Donahue’s trajectory is wrong, his whole theory falls apart.” It does not! It wasn’t just a trajectory analysis that led Donahue to his theory. It was also the “galaxy of stars” (numerous bullet particles) in the X-Rays, witness statements, and many other clues that led Donahue to his theory. There is a lot of other evidence beyond just the trajectory analysis supporting his theory of the explosive head shot.
And, despite claims to the contrary, there is no real evidence to dispute that theory.
-------
Footnotes
[i] Dr. David Mantik, JFK’s Head Wounds (2015), Kindle edition
[ii] Menninger, Mortal Error, 167-168
[iii] “The Zapruder Film Mystery,” accessed September 30, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_QIuu6hsAc
[iv] David S. Lifton, Best Evidence, (New York, Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc., 1980), 171-172, 296-297, 301-305, 328
[v] “News from Doug Horne concerning JFK’s autopsy,” accessed September 30, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSV0FyWJa0c
-----
The Bronson Film Showing "Hickey Seated at the Moment of the Assassination"?
This film is touted as “proving” Donahue’s theory wrong. This film was an amateur 8mm film shot by spectator Charles Bronson, who was some distance away from the President (across the plaza) at the time of the fatal headshot. The picture is distant and blurry. An exhaustive search of the Internet found only two sites with a single image of the film that purportedly shows that “Hickey did not do it.”[i], [ii]
Take a close look at the Bronson film image below. Looking at this image critically, we should ask ourselves several questions: 1) Is it really Agent Hickey that the arrow indicates? 2) Is this image really taken at the exact moment of the head shot? And 3) What is that weird black line (right at the tip of the arrow in the close-up view of the image below), anyway?
Footnotes
[i] Myers and Russo, “Drums of Conspiracy.”
[ii] Speer, “The Smoking Gun That Lied”
This film is touted as “proving” Donahue’s theory wrong. This film was an amateur 8mm film shot by spectator Charles Bronson, who was some distance away from the President (across the plaza) at the time of the fatal headshot. The picture is distant and blurry. An exhaustive search of the Internet found only two sites with a single image of the film that purportedly shows that “Hickey did not do it.”[i], [ii]
Take a close look at the Bronson film image below. Looking at this image critically, we should ask ourselves several questions: 1) Is it really Agent Hickey that the arrow indicates? 2) Is this image really taken at the exact moment of the head shot? And 3) What is that weird black line (right at the tip of the arrow in the close-up view of the image below), anyway?
Footnotes
[i] Myers and Russo, “Drums of Conspiracy.”
[ii] Speer, “The Smoking Gun That Lied”
Frame 254 of the Charles Bronson film, as it originally appeared, in medium zoom, and in close-up zoom. The blurry image supposedly shows “Hickey seated at the moment of the assassination.”
“Black stick” from above image annotated
To answer the first two questions (1- Is it really Agent Hickey that the arrow indicates? And 2- Is this image really taken at the exact moment of the head shot?), more than just this one frame is needed. We need to account for all the agents and the two Kennedy friends of the follow-up car. However, only this blurry single image is available online.
To say for certain that the blurry head indicated by the arrow belongs to Hickey is ludicrous. There should be seven agents, plus two Kennedy aides in the follow-up car. (The eighth Secret Service Agent, Clint Hill, is presumably blocked from view at this point by the motorcycles as he is running towards the back of the presidential limousine.) None of the agents are identifiable, except, perhaps, by position. We can see one agent dressed in black standing on the running board, who can be identified as Agent William McIntyre, who was stationed behind Clint Hill on the left rear running board. In the rear of the car, we would expect to see not only Agent George Hickey in the left rear seat, but also Agent Glen Bennett (another agent new to the follow-up car) in the right rear seat, and Agent Paul Landis on the right (rear) running board. This single image is too blurry to tell who’s who. Seeing additional frames close-up may help to more conclusively prove who’s who, or, if those frames are as blurry as this one, might not. But we have only this frame, and according to Bonar Menninger in a personal communication with me, the “black stick” also appears two frames before this one (with the intervening frame immediately before this one being too blurry to make out anything).
Another thing that the image does not show is whether this is truly the exact “moment of the assassination. It is certainly near the moment of the explosive head shot, but exactly at the moment of the headshot is debatable.
But the most interesting aspect of this Bronson film image is the appearance of the black line just at the tip of the arrow.
This black line (called a "black stick" by Bonar Menninger in my communications with him) looks like it could very well be the AR-15 rifle. Menninger, who has seen the Bronson film with a magnifier, notes that the “black stick” appears in more than one frame, making it extremely unlikely to be an artifact. Menninger also notes that the frame just before this one (i.e., B-253) is extremely blurry in the extant version of the Bronson film, but that the “black stick” is visible before the blurred frame (B-252) as well as after (B-254).
If that black line is the AR-15 rifle, as seems likely to me, then it is not being held by the person indicated as “Hickey” by the arrow. The angle would be extremely odd—behind the head and at a forward diagonal, and closer to the camera than the person whose head is indicated by the arrow. Hickey is probably blocked from view by SA McIntyre on the running board.
A crop of the Altgens 6 photograph showing Hickey looking back at the TSBD after Kennedy has been shot. I doubt that he would “sit down” on the seat after being so clearly aware of a threat.
The person in the Bronson film frame indicated by the yellow arrow is probably SA Glen Bennett, who was seated next to Hickey on the passenger side of the rear seat, and Hickey is hidden from view by SA William McIntyre on the running board.
There may even be “smoke” around the follow-up car in the Bronson film image, a fuzzy streak of light brown trailing behind the arrow, but the image is too blurry to say with any degree of certainty whether this brown “trail” is actually smoke or dry grass. Again, close-ups of frames before and after this one might help to clear up the streak of brown visible against the green grass above the follow-up car.
I’m also very curious as to the slanted black rectangles running through the agents, which look like marker streaks. I’m wondering if they weren’t inserted to hide the reactions of the agents. There is another rectangle slanted in the opposite direction that is also odd. At first I thought that this was the coat and sleeve of SA William McIntyre on the running board, but the “sleeve” part, at least, appears too thick. It appears to be a deliberate alteration that helps to hide Hickey from view:
Close-up crop of Bronson film frame with two “slash” marks annotated in red, possibly added to hide the reactions of the agents and Hickey’s fall. The “black stick” is also annotated in blue.
It is very telling that we are only offered this single frame as evidence that “Hickey didn’t do it.” As evidence that Hickey did not accidentally fire the AR-15, this Bronson film image is far from conclusive. It does not show Hickey seated at the moment of the explosive head shot. On the other hand, what this evidence does do is strongly suggest that the rifle actually was in Hickey’s hands at or very close to the moment of the explosive head shot.
In fact, there may be quite a bit of dissemblance taking place. The original assassination films may very well have shown “Hickey seated at the moment of the assassination.” But the assassination shot was not the explosive head shot, as this image implies.
In fact, there may be quite a bit of dissemblance taking place. The original assassination films may very well have shown “Hickey seated at the moment of the assassination.” But the assassination shot was not the explosive head shot, as this image implies.
-----
Hungover Hickey?
Some critics of the Donahue theory think that Donahue was accusing a “hung-over Secret Service agent” of shooting the President (e.g., “Did a hungover Secret Service agent accidentally shoot JFK?”)[i]
In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.
It is true that columnist Drew Pearson published an article reporting the drinking activities of the Secret Service agents in Fort Worth, including one agent who appeared to be inebriated. Pearson’s article reported six agents at The Press Club bar, three of whom then went on to an “all night beatnik rendezvous” called The Cellar, which had no liquor license. A letter from Secret Service Chief James J. Rowley to J. Lee Rankin (part of the Warren Commission documents)[ii] downplayed Pearson’s article by stating that no Secret Service agent consumed more than one or two drinks, and The Cellar had no liquor license to serve alcoholic drinks.
Dissemblance may have been at work here.
While true that The Cellar had no liquor license, the club’s owner Pat Kirkwood (a “close acquaintance of Jack Ruby”) had a reputation for “giving away drinks to lawyers, politicians, policemen—anyone the owner thought to be important or useful in a time of need.”[iii] Ten agents of Kennedy’s protection detail took advantage of The Cellar’s hospitality until about 3:30 a.m. Four of these agents would be in the follow-up car behind the President during the assassination.
The Secret Service position, as agent memos and Rowley’s letter indicate,[iv] was that the other agents who went to The Press Club and/or The Cellar, only drank moderate amounts. However, those amounts only apply to what was drunk at The Press Club and do not include anything drunk at The Cellar, only a statement that The Cellar did not have a liquor license, with the implication that the agents therefore could not have drunk anything there. This statement is misleading. No mention was made that The Cellar had a reputation for serving free alcohol to law enforcement officials despite its lack of a liquor license.
Chief Rowley listed the four agents in the follow-up car in his Warren Commission testimony: Landis, Hill, Ready, and Bennett.[v]
However, George Hickey was not among these agents. He wasn’t even in Fort Worth. He was already in Dallas, per his dubiously authored memo, having secured the presidential limousine, and then retiring to his hotel room.
Hickey was not hung-over. It may be that some of the other agents, however, were.
Glen Bennett, the agent who sat next to Hickey with the AR-15 between them, was one of agents who did go to the Press Club and then to the Cellar. Bennett admitted to having two beers at the Press Club and staying at the Cellar until 3:00 am.
Bennett’s admitted staying out late may have been what prompted ATSAIC Emory Roberts to assign Hickey, only four months as a member of the Secret Service and fairly new to motorcade duty, to man the AR-15. However, regardless of Hickey’s newbie status in the Service, he reacted earlier than the other agents in responding to the shots that were fired. He was alert, not hung-over.
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Footnotes
[i] “Did a hungover Secret Service agent accidentally shoot JFK?” accessed September 30, 2015, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/television/did-a-hungover-secret-service-agent-accidentally-shoot-jfk/article15198269/
[ii] Commission Exhibit 1019, Warren Commission Hearings and Exhibits, Volume XVIII, accessed October 1, 2015, http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh18/pdf/WH18_CE_1019.pdf
[iii] Charles Crenshaw, JFK Conspiracy of Silence, (New York, Signet/Penguin Books, 1992, 25
[iv] Commission Exhibit 1019
[v] “Testimony of James J. Rowley,” http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh5/pdf/wh5_rowley.pdf
Some critics of the Donahue theory think that Donahue was accusing a “hung-over Secret Service agent” of shooting the President (e.g., “Did a hungover Secret Service agent accidentally shoot JFK?”)[i]
In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.
It is true that columnist Drew Pearson published an article reporting the drinking activities of the Secret Service agents in Fort Worth, including one agent who appeared to be inebriated. Pearson’s article reported six agents at The Press Club bar, three of whom then went on to an “all night beatnik rendezvous” called The Cellar, which had no liquor license. A letter from Secret Service Chief James J. Rowley to J. Lee Rankin (part of the Warren Commission documents)[ii] downplayed Pearson’s article by stating that no Secret Service agent consumed more than one or two drinks, and The Cellar had no liquor license to serve alcoholic drinks.
Dissemblance may have been at work here.
While true that The Cellar had no liquor license, the club’s owner Pat Kirkwood (a “close acquaintance of Jack Ruby”) had a reputation for “giving away drinks to lawyers, politicians, policemen—anyone the owner thought to be important or useful in a time of need.”[iii] Ten agents of Kennedy’s protection detail took advantage of The Cellar’s hospitality until about 3:30 a.m. Four of these agents would be in the follow-up car behind the President during the assassination.
The Secret Service position, as agent memos and Rowley’s letter indicate,[iv] was that the other agents who went to The Press Club and/or The Cellar, only drank moderate amounts. However, those amounts only apply to what was drunk at The Press Club and do not include anything drunk at The Cellar, only a statement that The Cellar did not have a liquor license, with the implication that the agents therefore could not have drunk anything there. This statement is misleading. No mention was made that The Cellar had a reputation for serving free alcohol to law enforcement officials despite its lack of a liquor license.
Chief Rowley listed the four agents in the follow-up car in his Warren Commission testimony: Landis, Hill, Ready, and Bennett.[v]
However, George Hickey was not among these agents. He wasn’t even in Fort Worth. He was already in Dallas, per his dubiously authored memo, having secured the presidential limousine, and then retiring to his hotel room.
Hickey was not hung-over. It may be that some of the other agents, however, were.
Glen Bennett, the agent who sat next to Hickey with the AR-15 between them, was one of agents who did go to the Press Club and then to the Cellar. Bennett admitted to having two beers at the Press Club and staying at the Cellar until 3:00 am.
Bennett’s admitted staying out late may have been what prompted ATSAIC Emory Roberts to assign Hickey, only four months as a member of the Secret Service and fairly new to motorcade duty, to man the AR-15. However, regardless of Hickey’s newbie status in the Service, he reacted earlier than the other agents in responding to the shots that were fired. He was alert, not hung-over.
-------
Footnotes
[i] “Did a hungover Secret Service agent accidentally shoot JFK?” accessed September 30, 2015, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/television/did-a-hungover-secret-service-agent-accidentally-shoot-jfk/article15198269/
[ii] Commission Exhibit 1019, Warren Commission Hearings and Exhibits, Volume XVIII, accessed October 1, 2015, http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh18/pdf/WH18_CE_1019.pdf
[iii] Charles Crenshaw, JFK Conspiracy of Silence, (New York, Signet/Penguin Books, 1992, 25
[iv] Commission Exhibit 1019
[v] “Testimony of James J. Rowley,” http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh5/pdf/wh5_rowley.pdf
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Neutron Activation Analysis?
At least one critic claims that Donahue’s theory was wrong because “neutron activation analysis of the lead fragments in Kennedy's brain and wounds showed all of them came from the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle. There were no lead fragments from any other firearm.”[i]
A close examination of the Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA), performed by Dr. Vincent Guinn for HSCA, which Donahue/Menninger addressed in Mortal Error, shows that the study was seriously flawed. The NAA that was conducted by HSCA was performed only on bullet lead, not on bullet jacket fragments. Donahue knew that an analysis of lead content in bullets was not conclusive in determining ballistic matches. An analysis of jacket chemical make-up, however, would be very conclusive. The HSCA NAA analysis was done only on the lead content, not on jacket fragments.[ii]
Others have criticized the NAA tests, as well. The abstract for an article in the Journal of Forensic Sciences states:
…the 5–60 mg bullet samples analyzed for assassination intelligence effectively resulted in operational sampling error for the analyses. This deficiency was not considered in the original data interpretation and resulted in an invalid conclusion in favor of the single-bullet theory of the assassination.[iii]
An online article critiquing the NAA analysis entitled “Death of the NAA Verdict” by James DiEugenio states the following:
Since the time of the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), Oswald-did-it-advocates have trumpeted the neutron activation analysis test as the crown jewel of their case against the accused assassin. Former Chief Counsel of the HSCA, Robert Blakey leaked the results of the NAA testing to the press in advance of its actual presentation in the public hearings in a clear attempt to influence media coverage of his verdict against Oswald. Let me quote from The Assassinationsin this regard:
Guinn's findings were very important to Blakey. He leaked them to the press early in 1978 as the final nail in the HSCA's verdict against Oswald. It was the rigorous scientific analysis that he so much admired and enthroned. And it showed that the single bullet theory was not just possible but that it actually happened.
Yet today, after the peer reviewed and published work of Erik Randich and Patrick Grant (Journal of Forensic Science, July 2006), Blakey is singing a different tune. The work of these two men has been so destructive of both the HSCA analysis and their NAA interpretation that Blakey now has termed the whole exercise "junk science". Further, the FBI has made the decision they will not use the process in court again. To understand why this astonishing retreat has taken place in broad daylight, let's go back to the beginning.
According to the Warren Commission, the FBI had done what was called "spectrographic analysis" on some of the ballistics evidence in the JFK case. According to Henry Hurt's discussion of this in his book Reasonable Doubt, both the FBI and the Commission were maddeningly vague about the results of the analysis. According to Hurt, this issue was to be addressed by the last witness called by the Commission, who was involved in the spectrographic analysis. Yet, during his interview, the commissioners never asked him a question on the issue. The Warren Report then noted that there were similarities in the metal composition of some of the bullet fragments. With the actual analysis not present and these vague generic terms in play, most considered that what the FBI did was not of any forensic value.[iv]
The history of the NAA testing done in the JFK assassination is very telling. The FBI performed NAA tests for the Warren Commission, but those tests were suppressed in the publication of the WC documents (including the Hearings and Exhibits). In fact, no one even knew that the NAA tests had been done until a memo from J. Edgar Hoover was unearthed, a memo which mentioned the testing. Subsequently, the Commission’s FBI NAA results were eventually “released,” but the information was presented in a meaningless format.
The text of the J. Edgar Hoover memo to J. Lee Rankin, indicating that NAA tests were performed (results not included in Warren Commission documents) is below:
7/8/1964 Letter from Hoover to Rankin: "As previously reported to the Commission, certain small lead metal fragments uncovered in connection with this matter were analyzed spectrographically to determine whether they could be associated with one or more of the lead bullet fragments and no significant differences were found within the sensitivity of the spectrographic method. Because of the higher sensitivity of the neutron activation analysis, certain of the small lead fragments were then subjected to neutron activation analyses and comparisons with the larger bullet fragments. The items analyzed included the following: C1 - bullet from stretcher; C2 - fragment from front seat cushion; C4 and C5 - metal fragments from President Kennedy's head; C9 - metal fragment from the arm of Governor Connally; C16 - metal fragments from rear floor board carpet of the car. While minor variations in composition were found by this method, these were not considered sufficient to permit positively differentiating among the larger bullet fragments and thus positively determining from which of the larger bullet fragments any given small lead fragment may have come."[v]
As my source for the above memo text indicates, “This is all the WC got from the FBI on fragment tests; there was not even any attached documentation or data.”[vi]
The inconclusiveness of the NAA testing on bullet lead, however, is not the only reason to hold the NAA findings suspect.
There is a much more serious flaw in the HSCA NAA findings: the fragments were switched before Dr. Guinn conducted his study, a fact which Donahue noted.[vii]
Dr. Guinn, specifically stated in his HSCA testimony that the fragments he tested were not the same fragments that the FBI tested in 1964.
The relevant portion of Guinn’s HSCA testimony is below:
Mr. Fithian. You have said this whole process that you go through does not destroy the material, is that correct?
Dr. Guinn. That is correct.
Mr. Fithian. Now, then; did you test exactly the same particles that the FBI tested in 1964?
Dr. Guinn. Well, it turns out I did not, for reasons I don’t know, because as they did the analysis, they did not destroy the samples either.
Mr. Fithian. So?
Dr. Guinn. The particular little pieces that he analyzed, I could just as well have analyzed over again, but the pieces that were brought out from the Archives—which reportedly, according to Mr. Gear, were the only bullet-lead fragments from this case still present in the Archives—did not include any of the specific little pieces that the FBI had analyzed.
Presumably those are in existence somewhere, I am sure nobody threw them out, but where they are, I have no idea.
Mr. Fithian. And the 1964 equipment wouldn’t have consumed them either?
Dr. Guinn. No.[viii]
The fragments were switched before Dr. Guinn conducted his NAA tests for HSCA. Furthermore, later scientists determined that the NAA tests performed by Dr. Guinn were inconclusive and invalid. The argument that Donahue’s theory of the explosive head shot could not be correct because of the NAA tests, hold no water.
Different from the NAA tests was the spectrographic tests performed for the Warren Commission, whose results were deemed “inconclusive.” Harold Weisburg recounts the difficulty of obtaining the results of the Warren Commission’s spectography tests—a far less sensitive analysis than NAA tests—per one of his two “Freedom of Information” suits described in Whitewash IV.[ix]The amount of resistance he encountered to obtain these “inconclusive” results makes for very interesting reading.
---------
Footnotes
[i] “Stupid JFK Conspiracy Theories Debunked”
[ii] Menninger, Mortal Error, 164-165
[iii] Erik Randich Ph.D. and Patrick M. Grant Ph.D., “Proper Assessment of the JFK Assassination Bullet Lead Evidence from Metallurgical and Statistical Perspectives,” Journal of Forensic Sciences, (July, 2006), accessed October 1, 2015, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1556-4029.2006.00165.x/abstract
[iv] James DiEugenio, “Death of the NAA Verdict,” accessed October 1, 2015, http://www.ctka.net/death_of_naa.html
[v] J. Edgar Hoover memo to J. Lee Rankin, 7/8/1964, indicating that NAA tests (results not included in Warren Commission documents) were performed, accessed October 1, 2015, https://deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/showthread.php?13233-Deep-Politics-Timeline/page7#.VLVwDyj0Ab0 (sourced as Post Mortem, 607, and noted that “Weisberg uncovered this memo in 1974)
[vi] Deep Politics forum, accessed October 1, 2015, https://deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/showthread.php?13233-Deep-Politics-Timeline/page7#.VLVwDyj0Ab0
[vii] Menninger, Mortal Error, 164-165
[viii] “Testimony of Dr. Vincent P. Guinn,” HSCA, Volume 1, accessed October 1, 2015, http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol1/pdf/HSCA_Vol1_0908_8_Guinn.pdf
[ix] Harold Weisberg, Whitewash IV: Top Secret JFK Assassination Transcript, (Harold Weisberg, Publisher, 1974)
At least one critic claims that Donahue’s theory was wrong because “neutron activation analysis of the lead fragments in Kennedy's brain and wounds showed all of them came from the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle. There were no lead fragments from any other firearm.”[i]
A close examination of the Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA), performed by Dr. Vincent Guinn for HSCA, which Donahue/Menninger addressed in Mortal Error, shows that the study was seriously flawed. The NAA that was conducted by HSCA was performed only on bullet lead, not on bullet jacket fragments. Donahue knew that an analysis of lead content in bullets was not conclusive in determining ballistic matches. An analysis of jacket chemical make-up, however, would be very conclusive. The HSCA NAA analysis was done only on the lead content, not on jacket fragments.[ii]
Others have criticized the NAA tests, as well. The abstract for an article in the Journal of Forensic Sciences states:
…the 5–60 mg bullet samples analyzed for assassination intelligence effectively resulted in operational sampling error for the analyses. This deficiency was not considered in the original data interpretation and resulted in an invalid conclusion in favor of the single-bullet theory of the assassination.[iii]
An online article critiquing the NAA analysis entitled “Death of the NAA Verdict” by James DiEugenio states the following:
Since the time of the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), Oswald-did-it-advocates have trumpeted the neutron activation analysis test as the crown jewel of their case against the accused assassin. Former Chief Counsel of the HSCA, Robert Blakey leaked the results of the NAA testing to the press in advance of its actual presentation in the public hearings in a clear attempt to influence media coverage of his verdict against Oswald. Let me quote from The Assassinationsin this regard:
Guinn's findings were very important to Blakey. He leaked them to the press early in 1978 as the final nail in the HSCA's verdict against Oswald. It was the rigorous scientific analysis that he so much admired and enthroned. And it showed that the single bullet theory was not just possible but that it actually happened.
Yet today, after the peer reviewed and published work of Erik Randich and Patrick Grant (Journal of Forensic Science, July 2006), Blakey is singing a different tune. The work of these two men has been so destructive of both the HSCA analysis and their NAA interpretation that Blakey now has termed the whole exercise "junk science". Further, the FBI has made the decision they will not use the process in court again. To understand why this astonishing retreat has taken place in broad daylight, let's go back to the beginning.
According to the Warren Commission, the FBI had done what was called "spectrographic analysis" on some of the ballistics evidence in the JFK case. According to Henry Hurt's discussion of this in his book Reasonable Doubt, both the FBI and the Commission were maddeningly vague about the results of the analysis. According to Hurt, this issue was to be addressed by the last witness called by the Commission, who was involved in the spectrographic analysis. Yet, during his interview, the commissioners never asked him a question on the issue. The Warren Report then noted that there were similarities in the metal composition of some of the bullet fragments. With the actual analysis not present and these vague generic terms in play, most considered that what the FBI did was not of any forensic value.[iv]
The history of the NAA testing done in the JFK assassination is very telling. The FBI performed NAA tests for the Warren Commission, but those tests were suppressed in the publication of the WC documents (including the Hearings and Exhibits). In fact, no one even knew that the NAA tests had been done until a memo from J. Edgar Hoover was unearthed, a memo which mentioned the testing. Subsequently, the Commission’s FBI NAA results were eventually “released,” but the information was presented in a meaningless format.
The text of the J. Edgar Hoover memo to J. Lee Rankin, indicating that NAA tests were performed (results not included in Warren Commission documents) is below:
7/8/1964 Letter from Hoover to Rankin: "As previously reported to the Commission, certain small lead metal fragments uncovered in connection with this matter were analyzed spectrographically to determine whether they could be associated with one or more of the lead bullet fragments and no significant differences were found within the sensitivity of the spectrographic method. Because of the higher sensitivity of the neutron activation analysis, certain of the small lead fragments were then subjected to neutron activation analyses and comparisons with the larger bullet fragments. The items analyzed included the following: C1 - bullet from stretcher; C2 - fragment from front seat cushion; C4 and C5 - metal fragments from President Kennedy's head; C9 - metal fragment from the arm of Governor Connally; C16 - metal fragments from rear floor board carpet of the car. While minor variations in composition were found by this method, these were not considered sufficient to permit positively differentiating among the larger bullet fragments and thus positively determining from which of the larger bullet fragments any given small lead fragment may have come."[v]
As my source for the above memo text indicates, “This is all the WC got from the FBI on fragment tests; there was not even any attached documentation or data.”[vi]
The inconclusiveness of the NAA testing on bullet lead, however, is not the only reason to hold the NAA findings suspect.
There is a much more serious flaw in the HSCA NAA findings: the fragments were switched before Dr. Guinn conducted his study, a fact which Donahue noted.[vii]
Dr. Guinn, specifically stated in his HSCA testimony that the fragments he tested were not the same fragments that the FBI tested in 1964.
The relevant portion of Guinn’s HSCA testimony is below:
Mr. Fithian. You have said this whole process that you go through does not destroy the material, is that correct?
Dr. Guinn. That is correct.
Mr. Fithian. Now, then; did you test exactly the same particles that the FBI tested in 1964?
Dr. Guinn. Well, it turns out I did not, for reasons I don’t know, because as they did the analysis, they did not destroy the samples either.
Mr. Fithian. So?
Dr. Guinn. The particular little pieces that he analyzed, I could just as well have analyzed over again, but the pieces that were brought out from the Archives—which reportedly, according to Mr. Gear, were the only bullet-lead fragments from this case still present in the Archives—did not include any of the specific little pieces that the FBI had analyzed.
Presumably those are in existence somewhere, I am sure nobody threw them out, but where they are, I have no idea.
Mr. Fithian. And the 1964 equipment wouldn’t have consumed them either?
Dr. Guinn. No.[viii]
The fragments were switched before Dr. Guinn conducted his NAA tests for HSCA. Furthermore, later scientists determined that the NAA tests performed by Dr. Guinn were inconclusive and invalid. The argument that Donahue’s theory of the explosive head shot could not be correct because of the NAA tests, hold no water.
Different from the NAA tests was the spectrographic tests performed for the Warren Commission, whose results were deemed “inconclusive.” Harold Weisburg recounts the difficulty of obtaining the results of the Warren Commission’s spectography tests—a far less sensitive analysis than NAA tests—per one of his two “Freedom of Information” suits described in Whitewash IV.[ix]The amount of resistance he encountered to obtain these “inconclusive” results makes for very interesting reading.
---------
Footnotes
[i] “Stupid JFK Conspiracy Theories Debunked”
[ii] Menninger, Mortal Error, 164-165
[iii] Erik Randich Ph.D. and Patrick M. Grant Ph.D., “Proper Assessment of the JFK Assassination Bullet Lead Evidence from Metallurgical and Statistical Perspectives,” Journal of Forensic Sciences, (July, 2006), accessed October 1, 2015, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1556-4029.2006.00165.x/abstract
[iv] James DiEugenio, “Death of the NAA Verdict,” accessed October 1, 2015, http://www.ctka.net/death_of_naa.html
[v] J. Edgar Hoover memo to J. Lee Rankin, 7/8/1964, indicating that NAA tests (results not included in Warren Commission documents) were performed, accessed October 1, 2015, https://deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/showthread.php?13233-Deep-Politics-Timeline/page7#.VLVwDyj0Ab0 (sourced as Post Mortem, 607, and noted that “Weisberg uncovered this memo in 1974)
[vi] Deep Politics forum, accessed October 1, 2015, https://deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/showthread.php?13233-Deep-Politics-Timeline/page7#.VLVwDyj0Ab0
[vii] Menninger, Mortal Error, 164-165
[viii] “Testimony of Dr. Vincent P. Guinn,” HSCA, Volume 1, accessed October 1, 2015, http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol1/pdf/HSCA_Vol1_0908_8_Guinn.pdf
[ix] Harold Weisberg, Whitewash IV: Top Secret JFK Assassination Transcript, (Harold Weisberg, Publisher, 1974)
The (Performative) Law Suit?
Some critics of the Donahue theory say that the theory must be bogus because Hickey sued St. Martin’s Press for libel in its publishing of Mortal Error. But given all the evidence of cover-up (much of which will be discussed later in this work), isn’t that exactly what his Secret Service “handlers” would want him to do in order to cover up the true circumstances of the shooting?
The original suit was thrown out, due to having been filed after the statute of limitations had expired.
The legal details of the suit can be found online.[i] The NBC News site gives a more understandable summary:
Hickey, who died in 2011, filed a libel suit against Menninger, Donahue and St. Martin's Press, the publisher of Menninger's book, in 1995. But a judge ruled that the statute of limitations had run out, and the case was dismissed.
St. Martin's Press later settled with Hickey to preclude an appeal of the dismissal, according to Menninger.[ii]
Law suits are often settled for what is convenient, rather than what is true or morally correct, and this suit may have ultimately been settled for that reason. According to the chief attorney for St. Martins, "The case is utterly without merit."[iii] The amount of the settlement paid by St. Martins Press was undisclosed as part of the settlement agreement. It may not have been a “huge amount” as some Donahue critics say it was.[iv] Since the amount was undisclosed, it could have been as little as one dollar. The point of the suit may not have been to actually recover monetary damages for a victim who was “wronged,” but to provide an argument that—on the surface, at least—seems to rebut the Donahue theory.
The settlement also seemed to require an apology from Donahue (who was not named as a defendant—see below). But Donahue never wavered in his belief of his theory. Look at his “apology” to Hickey. He didn’t “recant” his theory—he “recounted” it. Apparently the actual “apology” was the last line below.
Donahue -- who was not named as a defendant in the suit—says the entrance wound in Kennedy's head was slanted from left to right, precluding a shot from the Texas School Book Depository where Oswald took aim. He says the wound was a quarter-inch wide, an indication that the bullet expanded upon impact, as would the high-velocity, thin-jacketed projectile fired by an AR-15.
Donahue's theory has been questioned many times before.
Last year, Donahue settled a lawsuit filed by Hickey in Baltimore County after he recounted his theory on a public television show of which then-Congressman Kweisi Mfume was the host. Donahue declined to disclose the details of the settlement, but he said yesterday that he admires Hickey's heroism.
"He showed a great deal of courage and nerve to stand up during an ambush and try to return fire," Donahue said.[v]
Consider the “evidence” used in the lawsuit to “disprove” Donahue’s theory—i.e., the Bronson film, which we’ve already seen to be inconclusive. Also consider how actual events got twisted around. Note especially item 15 below (emphasis mine, “the film” referring to the Bronson film):
13. Upon information and belief, in or about April, 1992, Thomas McCormack ("McCormack"), the Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and Trade Division Editorial Director of St. Martins and SMP, was telephonically contacted by Gary Mack ("Mack"), an archivist for the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas, Texas, who notified him of the existence of a film taken of the assassination by Charles Bronson. The "Bronson film", the prior existence of which was known to Donahue, contains images of the assassination, including the head shot of President Kennedy and Hickey's movements at the time. St .Martins and SMP were specifically informed by Mack that the film absolutely disproves Donahue's theory.
14. Upon information and belief, as a result of Mack's telephone call, an attorney for St. Martins and SMP traveled to Dallas to view the film. Following this visit, the said attorney, McCormack, Menninger and Donahue, all personally traveled to Dallas to view the film together in or about April, 1992.
15. Upon information and belief, immediately following a viewing of the film McCormack was witnessed as being verbally abusive and upset towards Donahue and Menninger.
16. Upon information and belief, after having viewed the images on the film, SMP, through St. Martins, nevertheless, and with malice, published the paperback version of Mortal Error in or about October, 1992.[vi]
Through e-mail, I asked Bonar Menninger, author of Mortal Error, about McCormack’s becoming “verbally abusive and upset towards Donahue and Menninger.” Menninger’s reply was very clear that that was not what happened:
The claim that McCormack was verbally abusive and upset towards Donahue and myself is completely and unequivocally untrue. McCormack was upset, but with Mack, who had asserted that the Bronson film ‘absolutely’ disproved Donahue's theory when, in fact, it did nothing of the sort.[vii]
I was able to obtain contact information for Mr. McCormack, the one who was supposedly “verbally abusive and upset towards Donahue and Menninger,” and sent him an e-mail asking for his version of this event. In his reply, he first stated “My current recollections of events of twenty-five years ago are spotty—some elements sharp, some elements fuzzy indeed.” But then he went on:
But I do have a fairly clear recall of fragments of my visit to Dallas to see the “Bronson film”. I have denied before, and I deny again, that I had harsh words for Donahue and Menninger that day. (In fact, I have no recall of Donahue’s having been there.) I did express my exasperation to the Dallas TV man who had insisted the Bronson film conclusively refuted the Donahue-Menninger theory. I felt it didn’t come close to doing that, and I bridled at having to spend time on a 1,400 mile trip to consider so weightless a piece of evidence. I’ve always assumed the report of my having harsh words for my colleagues originated with the TV man.
I had already studied Donahue’s theory at great length to decide if that theory deserved promulgation — and this included an extended search for info that would disqualify his book. I didn’t want to publish another shamefully defective account of the shooting. I’d found nothing that refuted anything Donahue said, and his theory did have the singular virtue of accounting for evidential details that no previous theory could explain. Given a continuing national preoccupation with the puzzles (and wild theories) about the assassination, I decided Donahue’s theory deserved a place in the ongoing discussions.[viii]
Despite McCormack’s “fuzzy memory,” there was no discrepancy between what Menninger and McCormack reported, other than that McCormack didn’t remember Donahue’s presence. Both remembered that McCormack was upset not with Donahue, but with Gary Mack, the curator of the Sixth Floor Museum, whom they visited at a TV station in Fort Worth, and who was the only one present besides the three of them (Menninger, Donahue, and McCormack). Both Menninger and McCormack are quite clear that McCormack was upset because McCormack had wasted time and money for “so weightless a piece of evidence,” and not because McCormack thought the film disproved Donahue's theory.
This sort of twisting events around, as we shall see, is typical of the JFK case.
I might also add that Hickey’s attorney for this lawsuit, Mr. Mark Zaid, possesses “Secret” level security clearance, and is apparently one Hell of a lawyer. Per his biography:
(Zaid) was named as a Washington, D.C. Super Lawyer in 2009 (profiled), 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013, as well as a "Best Lawyer" by Washingtonian Magazine in 2009, 2011 and 2013 (issued bi-annually), for his national security work. As the National Law Journal once wrote, “if Agent Mulder ever needed a lawyer, Zaid would be his man.”
…
In connection with his legal practice on international and national security matters, Mr. Zaid has testified before, or provided testimony to, a variety of governmental bodies including the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, the House Judiciary Committee, the House Government Operations Committee, the Department of Energy, the Public Interest Declassification Board and the Assassination Records Review Board.[ix]
So Hickey’s lawyer for this suit was a “Super Lawyer” who specialized in National Security. “National Security” seemed to be the catch-all phrase that was used to force autopsy participant Jerrol Custer and others to sign “gag orders.” “Reasons of Security” was also the phrase Secret Service Chief Rowley used when he faltered on Warren Commission questions on the AR-15.
[i] “HICKEY v. ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC. CIVIL NO. H-96-2530.” By LEAGLE, accessed October 1, 2015, http://leagle.com/decision/19971208978FSupp230_11189.xml/HICKEY%20v.%20ST.%20MARTIN'S%20PRESS,%20INC
[ii] Daniel Arkin, “Accidental assassin: JFK theory alleges Secret Service agent fumbled gun,” NBC News, November 21, 2013, accessed October 1, 2015, http://www.nbcnews.com/news/other/accidental-assassin-jfk-theory-alleges-secret-service-agent-fumbled-gun-f2D11634276
[iii] Scott Higham, “Libel suit filed over JFK shooting theory Former agent assails book’s claim that he fired the fatal shot,” Baltimore Sun, August 22, 1996, accessed October 1, 2015, http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1996-08-22/news/1996235048_1_hickey-mortal-error-dealey-plaza
[iv] “Stupid JFK Conspiracy Theories Debunked”
[v] Higham, “Libel suit filed”
[vi] “Hickey Suit Against St. Martins,” United States District Court for the District of Maryland document posted by John McAdams, accessed October 1, 2015, http://spot.acorn.net/jfkplace/00/hickey.lawsuit
[vii] E-mail from Bonar Menninger, dated January 5, 2015
[viii] E-mail from Tom McCormack, dated January 9, 2015
[ix] “Mark S. Zaid, Esq.,” accessed October 1, 2015, http://www.markzaid.com/biography.php?id=1:
Some critics of the Donahue theory say that the theory must be bogus because Hickey sued St. Martin’s Press for libel in its publishing of Mortal Error. But given all the evidence of cover-up (much of which will be discussed later in this work), isn’t that exactly what his Secret Service “handlers” would want him to do in order to cover up the true circumstances of the shooting?
The original suit was thrown out, due to having been filed after the statute of limitations had expired.
The legal details of the suit can be found online.[i] The NBC News site gives a more understandable summary:
Hickey, who died in 2011, filed a libel suit against Menninger, Donahue and St. Martin's Press, the publisher of Menninger's book, in 1995. But a judge ruled that the statute of limitations had run out, and the case was dismissed.
St. Martin's Press later settled with Hickey to preclude an appeal of the dismissal, according to Menninger.[ii]
Law suits are often settled for what is convenient, rather than what is true or morally correct, and this suit may have ultimately been settled for that reason. According to the chief attorney for St. Martins, "The case is utterly without merit."[iii] The amount of the settlement paid by St. Martins Press was undisclosed as part of the settlement agreement. It may not have been a “huge amount” as some Donahue critics say it was.[iv] Since the amount was undisclosed, it could have been as little as one dollar. The point of the suit may not have been to actually recover monetary damages for a victim who was “wronged,” but to provide an argument that—on the surface, at least—seems to rebut the Donahue theory.
The settlement also seemed to require an apology from Donahue (who was not named as a defendant—see below). But Donahue never wavered in his belief of his theory. Look at his “apology” to Hickey. He didn’t “recant” his theory—he “recounted” it. Apparently the actual “apology” was the last line below.
Donahue -- who was not named as a defendant in the suit—says the entrance wound in Kennedy's head was slanted from left to right, precluding a shot from the Texas School Book Depository where Oswald took aim. He says the wound was a quarter-inch wide, an indication that the bullet expanded upon impact, as would the high-velocity, thin-jacketed projectile fired by an AR-15.
Donahue's theory has been questioned many times before.
Last year, Donahue settled a lawsuit filed by Hickey in Baltimore County after he recounted his theory on a public television show of which then-Congressman Kweisi Mfume was the host. Donahue declined to disclose the details of the settlement, but he said yesterday that he admires Hickey's heroism.
"He showed a great deal of courage and nerve to stand up during an ambush and try to return fire," Donahue said.[v]
Consider the “evidence” used in the lawsuit to “disprove” Donahue’s theory—i.e., the Bronson film, which we’ve already seen to be inconclusive. Also consider how actual events got twisted around. Note especially item 15 below (emphasis mine, “the film” referring to the Bronson film):
13. Upon information and belief, in or about April, 1992, Thomas McCormack ("McCormack"), the Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and Trade Division Editorial Director of St. Martins and SMP, was telephonically contacted by Gary Mack ("Mack"), an archivist for the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas, Texas, who notified him of the existence of a film taken of the assassination by Charles Bronson. The "Bronson film", the prior existence of which was known to Donahue, contains images of the assassination, including the head shot of President Kennedy and Hickey's movements at the time. St .Martins and SMP were specifically informed by Mack that the film absolutely disproves Donahue's theory.
14. Upon information and belief, as a result of Mack's telephone call, an attorney for St. Martins and SMP traveled to Dallas to view the film. Following this visit, the said attorney, McCormack, Menninger and Donahue, all personally traveled to Dallas to view the film together in or about April, 1992.
15. Upon information and belief, immediately following a viewing of the film McCormack was witnessed as being verbally abusive and upset towards Donahue and Menninger.
16. Upon information and belief, after having viewed the images on the film, SMP, through St. Martins, nevertheless, and with malice, published the paperback version of Mortal Error in or about October, 1992.[vi]
Through e-mail, I asked Bonar Menninger, author of Mortal Error, about McCormack’s becoming “verbally abusive and upset towards Donahue and Menninger.” Menninger’s reply was very clear that that was not what happened:
The claim that McCormack was verbally abusive and upset towards Donahue and myself is completely and unequivocally untrue. McCormack was upset, but with Mack, who had asserted that the Bronson film ‘absolutely’ disproved Donahue's theory when, in fact, it did nothing of the sort.[vii]
I was able to obtain contact information for Mr. McCormack, the one who was supposedly “verbally abusive and upset towards Donahue and Menninger,” and sent him an e-mail asking for his version of this event. In his reply, he first stated “My current recollections of events of twenty-five years ago are spotty—some elements sharp, some elements fuzzy indeed.” But then he went on:
But I do have a fairly clear recall of fragments of my visit to Dallas to see the “Bronson film”. I have denied before, and I deny again, that I had harsh words for Donahue and Menninger that day. (In fact, I have no recall of Donahue’s having been there.) I did express my exasperation to the Dallas TV man who had insisted the Bronson film conclusively refuted the Donahue-Menninger theory. I felt it didn’t come close to doing that, and I bridled at having to spend time on a 1,400 mile trip to consider so weightless a piece of evidence. I’ve always assumed the report of my having harsh words for my colleagues originated with the TV man.
I had already studied Donahue’s theory at great length to decide if that theory deserved promulgation — and this included an extended search for info that would disqualify his book. I didn’t want to publish another shamefully defective account of the shooting. I’d found nothing that refuted anything Donahue said, and his theory did have the singular virtue of accounting for evidential details that no previous theory could explain. Given a continuing national preoccupation with the puzzles (and wild theories) about the assassination, I decided Donahue’s theory deserved a place in the ongoing discussions.[viii]
Despite McCormack’s “fuzzy memory,” there was no discrepancy between what Menninger and McCormack reported, other than that McCormack didn’t remember Donahue’s presence. Both remembered that McCormack was upset not with Donahue, but with Gary Mack, the curator of the Sixth Floor Museum, whom they visited at a TV station in Fort Worth, and who was the only one present besides the three of them (Menninger, Donahue, and McCormack). Both Menninger and McCormack are quite clear that McCormack was upset because McCormack had wasted time and money for “so weightless a piece of evidence,” and not because McCormack thought the film disproved Donahue's theory.
This sort of twisting events around, as we shall see, is typical of the JFK case.
I might also add that Hickey’s attorney for this lawsuit, Mr. Mark Zaid, possesses “Secret” level security clearance, and is apparently one Hell of a lawyer. Per his biography:
(Zaid) was named as a Washington, D.C. Super Lawyer in 2009 (profiled), 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013, as well as a "Best Lawyer" by Washingtonian Magazine in 2009, 2011 and 2013 (issued bi-annually), for his national security work. As the National Law Journal once wrote, “if Agent Mulder ever needed a lawyer, Zaid would be his man.”
…
In connection with his legal practice on international and national security matters, Mr. Zaid has testified before, or provided testimony to, a variety of governmental bodies including the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, the House Judiciary Committee, the House Government Operations Committee, the Department of Energy, the Public Interest Declassification Board and the Assassination Records Review Board.[ix]
So Hickey’s lawyer for this suit was a “Super Lawyer” who specialized in National Security. “National Security” seemed to be the catch-all phrase that was used to force autopsy participant Jerrol Custer and others to sign “gag orders.” “Reasons of Security” was also the phrase Secret Service Chief Rowley used when he faltered on Warren Commission questions on the AR-15.
[i] “HICKEY v. ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC. CIVIL NO. H-96-2530.” By LEAGLE, accessed October 1, 2015, http://leagle.com/decision/19971208978FSupp230_11189.xml/HICKEY%20v.%20ST.%20MARTIN'S%20PRESS,%20INC
[ii] Daniel Arkin, “Accidental assassin: JFK theory alleges Secret Service agent fumbled gun,” NBC News, November 21, 2013, accessed October 1, 2015, http://www.nbcnews.com/news/other/accidental-assassin-jfk-theory-alleges-secret-service-agent-fumbled-gun-f2D11634276
[iii] Scott Higham, “Libel suit filed over JFK shooting theory Former agent assails book’s claim that he fired the fatal shot,” Baltimore Sun, August 22, 1996, accessed October 1, 2015, http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1996-08-22/news/1996235048_1_hickey-mortal-error-dealey-plaza
[iv] “Stupid JFK Conspiracy Theories Debunked”
[v] Higham, “Libel suit filed”
[vi] “Hickey Suit Against St. Martins,” United States District Court for the District of Maryland document posted by John McAdams, accessed October 1, 2015, http://spot.acorn.net/jfkplace/00/hickey.lawsuit
[vii] E-mail from Bonar Menninger, dated January 5, 2015
[viii] E-mail from Tom McCormack, dated January 9, 2015
[ix] “Mark S. Zaid, Esq.,” accessed October 1, 2015, http://www.markzaid.com/biography.php?id=1: