“The Limousine Redux” Reduced
Dr. David Mantik knows the JFK autopsy X-rays better than anyone else. If you have not yet studied his work on the autopsy X-rays and photographs, you really need to do so. He holds both a Ph.D. in physics and an M.D. with a practice in oncology radiology, so he knows of what he speaks when it comes to X-rays. That expertise, however, does not extend to all aspects of the Kennedy assassination, which is a broad and complex field of study, and while I grant him the authority of his knowledge of X-rays, I do not extend that authority to all aspects of the assassination. He has made some rather weak "leaps" in his logic unsupported by witness accounts or other evidence, and these leaps I will happily argue against--especially when he uses them to argue that my scenario must be wrong.
In Dr. Mantik’s new book (The JFK Assassination Decoded: Criminal Forgery in the Autopsy Photographs and X-Rays), he includes a chapter on the limousine’s windshield (and for the first time in his work, mentions me and my work by name! Finally!). In this chapter, entitled “The Limousine Redux,” Dr. Mantik apparently believes that my candidate location for the limousine’s windshield hole cannot be correct, because the photographic support for my premise does not show any “spiderweb cracks.” Mantik states:
…Steve Ellis and Nick Prencipe recalled a hole near the bottom of the windshield, while Joe Paolella described it as located “a couple of inches over the hood.” By citing these witnesses and displaying images…of such lower windshield damage, Denise Hazelwood has argued for such a lower site. However, none of her images show the least bit of a spider-like pattern, which really must accompany such a hole.
Dr. Mantik supports his claim that “a spider-like pattern…really must accompany such a hole” with the work of Richard Bradt.(“The Fractography and Crack Patterns of Broken Glass,” by Richard Bradt, Journal of Failure Analysis and Prevention (2011), Volume 11, pp. 79-96: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11668-011-9432-5). However, the Bradt work does not mention safety glass (used in automotive windshields) at all, mentioning only annealed and tempered glass (the difference related to the cooling process, which affects the glass strength). Automotive windshields consist of layers of annealed glass joined by layers of plastic, which gives the final product different characteristics than regular glass, thus making it safer for a vehicle’s occupants in case of an accident. In addition to being intended to shatter into pebble-sized pieces after a strong impact, there may be other differences in glass characteristics that might impact the “spider-webbing” that Dr. Mantik insists must be present when evaluating my scenario.
It must be noted that none of the witnesses to the original windshield hole described any sort of spiderwebbing or cracking, (as Dr. Mantik notes) but that fact in and of itself is probably insufficient to address the issue Mantik raises. There are plenty of additional arguments to be made that my scenario has not been disproven by Mantik, why my scenario still remans the likely explanation for what happened, and why Dr. Mantik’s argument against my scenario is rather weak. This includes my proposed location for the limousine hole.
It must also be recognized that my scenario does not involve a direct hit on the windshield from a driver positioned in front of the car and shooting directly toward the President, where no one actually saw any shooter, which is Mantik's scenario. In fact, my shooter was positioned behind the car, and wasn’t even aiming at the President at all! The hole, I contend, was caused by a ricochet that subsequently struck the windshield.
Mantik and I agree that the hole was caused by the bullet (a clean, bloodless, intact “slug”) that was recovered from the limousine and brought into the autopsy by two Navy corpsmen under the direction of Dr. James Humes, as I proposed to Dr. Mantik via email and related in one of my Micro-Studies books after Dr .Mantik first drew my attention to this "extra bullet"). That is where our agreement ends. Dr. Mantik agrees that the bullet itself did not directly hit the President, but that a glass shard (spall) from the windshield hole caused the throat wound, along with some small cheek perforations. He may be right about the cheek perforations (described in mortician Thomas Robinson’s ARRB interview at https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=711#relPageId=3 but not in Robinson’s HSCA interview at https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md63/html/Image00.htm). But as for Mantik’s conjecture about a shard causing the throat wound, he ignores Jerrol Custer’s ARRB deposition where Custer testifies about a now-missing neck X-ray showing metallic fragments at the C3/C4 level, even though he accepts the part of Custer’s deposition about a “king-size fragment” falling out of Kennedy’s back during the autopsy. (Custer's deposition may be found at https://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/arrb/medical_testimony/pdf/Custer_10-28-97.pdf ). This is called "cherry-picking" evidence, using what you like and ignoring what you don't like. Mantik also ignores Robinson’s ARRB deposition (the same one describing the cheek perforations) wherein Robinson thought the throat wound “represented an exit wound for a bullet.”
Mantik notes undue pressure being placed on Dr. Malcolm Perry by the autopsy doctors to disavow the throat wound as an “entrance” wound, presumably to discount Perry's later Warren Commission testimony. Mantik's source for this "pressure" is more hearsay than first-hand: A reporter named Rob Coutreau said that a reporter named Martin Steadman said that Dr. Malcolm Perry said that Dr. Humes was threatening to have Perry's medical license revoked if Perry didn't stop saying that the throat wound was an "entrance." Perhaps the "pressure" wasn't as nefarious as portrayed? Perhaps the autopsy doctors knew it was an exit wound and were merely trying to get Perry to realize that? Perhaps the reporters were trying to drum up a story? We don't have a first person account from Perry himself. At any rate, when Perry was under oath, Arlen Specter (in trying to get Perry to agree with his Single Bullet Theory) did get Perry to agree that the throat wound was “entirely compatible” with an exit (https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh6/pdf/WH6_Perry.pdf). Other Parkland doctors agreed that it could have been an exit. When asked, Perry's colleague Dr. Charles Carrico testified that the throat wound was "consistent" with an exit (https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh3/pdf/WH3_Carrico.pdf). So did Dr. Kemp Clark agree under oath that the throat wound "could" have been an exit (https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh6/pdf/WH6_Clark.pdf). Dr. Robert McClelland testified that the throat wound was consistent with either an entrance or an exit, and it would be "quite difficult to say--impossible" to determine which. (https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh6/pdf/WH6_McClelland.pdf ) Dr. McClelland has been very vocal in his public descriptions of a back of the head blow-out, which certainly conflicts with the picture the Warren Commission was trying to paint. It makes no sense that McClelland would agree that the throat wound could have been an exit (and never revise that statement) if he really thought it was an entrance. These were under oath testimonies, which carry more weight than hearsay. The only evidence for Dr. Mantik’s theory that the throat wound was the entrance wound for a glass shard entering at the throat and traveling towards the apex of the right lung, really, was a Dr. Clark's description of a “deviation of the trachea” and the “presence of blood in the strap muscle of the neck” next to the trachea per Dr. Kemp Clark’s Warren Commission testimony and a similar description by Dr. McClelland. There also was some slight damage in the area at the top of the lung. Navy Corpsman and autopsy witness James Jenkins (a witness Mantik quotes elsewhere) in his book At the Cold Shoulder of History describes this area as having been probed from the back wound, although the shallow back wound did not completely penetrate the pleural lining around the lung. The lung damage was from the back wound. Mantik assumes a path between the throat and the lung which simply did not exist. Moreover, there is Jerrol Custer's now-missing neck X-ray, showing metallic fragments in the C3/C4 region of the neck (above the level of the throat wound). It makes sense that the throat was caused by a bullet fragment traveling downward from the back of the skull and leaving bits of metal in the C3/C4 area as Custer described in his ARRB testimony (https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/medical_testimony/Custer_10-28-97/html/Custer_0001a.htm ). I believe Custer was honest, and his deposition was under oath. On top of that, mortician Thomas Robinson was "adamant" that he saw the throat wound probed from the back of the head. https://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/pdf/md180.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1iD0WImHay9OfifMa3p8Gc80txK3Du_ybVAn459lqA5VFICt-uu6Icjp0 In light of all this evidence, it seems clear that the throat wound was an exit for a fragment coming from the back of the head. The Parkland doctors only initially thought it was an entrance due to its small size. While I applaud Dr. Mantik's out-of-the-box thinking about the glass shards (which does give a potential explanation for the small cheek wounds), it really behooves Dr. Mantik to reconsider his scenario in regards to the throat wound.
*Getting Mantik's source info for the "Coutreau report" was a rather convoluted process, "Coutreau's recent report" turns out to be "Rob Coutreau" who is mentioned in an article entitled "The Ordeal of Malcolm Perry" by James DiEugenio on the Kennedys and King website, but you have search throughout Mantik's book to get enough information to track that down, and then search the Kennedys and King website to finally get the URL, which is https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/the-ordeal-of-malcolm-perry This is not the only source or footnote that needs improvement in his book. For example, "Bing" is not a source without the rest of the URL.
My Scenario
I do have an explanation for the windshield hole without resorting to an assassin stationed in front of the limousine. In a nutshell, my scenario, as presented in Part 8 “The Five Shots” of my documentary is this: At about the same time as the Altgens 6 photo was taken (which shows open doors on the VP follow-up as well as the Warren Taylor “phantom revolver”), one of the Secret Service agents from Johnson’s follow-up car fired a warning shot to alert the slow-responding agents (many of them hung-over) in Kennedy’s follow-up car to the danger of the shooter in the TSBD. This warning shot was fired at the Stemmons sign as the safest target my Secret Service shooter could quickly find (accounting for Willam Reymond’s “poof” off the Stemmons sign in the “other” Zapruder Film). Unfortunately, this shot then ricocheted off the sign and headed back towards the President’s car, to cause the hole in the windshield. The bullet itself landed in the car and was the one described by Dr. James Young as being brought into the autopsy by two Navy corpsmen who had been sent to search the limousine (also described by Captain, later Admiral, David Osborne who initially recalled it as falling out of Kennedy’s “clothing” and later amended that it might have been brought into the morgue). Descriptions of the bullet differed slightly, but it was an intact bullet, not a fragmented one, and whether “brass” or “copper clad,” seemed to be fully encased (i.e., full metal jacket, or FMJ). You can watch a more complete explanation of this scenario in my documentary (but please watch the episodes leading up to Part 8 first).
The best of the photographic images I use to support my scenario are the weird anomaly in the area of Jackie’s gloved hand in Altgens 6 ...
Dr. David Mantik knows the JFK autopsy X-rays better than anyone else. If you have not yet studied his work on the autopsy X-rays and photographs, you really need to do so. He holds both a Ph.D. in physics and an M.D. with a practice in oncology radiology, so he knows of what he speaks when it comes to X-rays. That expertise, however, does not extend to all aspects of the Kennedy assassination, which is a broad and complex field of study, and while I grant him the authority of his knowledge of X-rays, I do not extend that authority to all aspects of the assassination. He has made some rather weak "leaps" in his logic unsupported by witness accounts or other evidence, and these leaps I will happily argue against--especially when he uses them to argue that my scenario must be wrong.
In Dr. Mantik’s new book (The JFK Assassination Decoded: Criminal Forgery in the Autopsy Photographs and X-Rays), he includes a chapter on the limousine’s windshield (and for the first time in his work, mentions me and my work by name! Finally!). In this chapter, entitled “The Limousine Redux,” Dr. Mantik apparently believes that my candidate location for the limousine’s windshield hole cannot be correct, because the photographic support for my premise does not show any “spiderweb cracks.” Mantik states:
…Steve Ellis and Nick Prencipe recalled a hole near the bottom of the windshield, while Joe Paolella described it as located “a couple of inches over the hood.” By citing these witnesses and displaying images…of such lower windshield damage, Denise Hazelwood has argued for such a lower site. However, none of her images show the least bit of a spider-like pattern, which really must accompany such a hole.
Dr. Mantik supports his claim that “a spider-like pattern…really must accompany such a hole” with the work of Richard Bradt.(“The Fractography and Crack Patterns of Broken Glass,” by Richard Bradt, Journal of Failure Analysis and Prevention (2011), Volume 11, pp. 79-96: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11668-011-9432-5). However, the Bradt work does not mention safety glass (used in automotive windshields) at all, mentioning only annealed and tempered glass (the difference related to the cooling process, which affects the glass strength). Automotive windshields consist of layers of annealed glass joined by layers of plastic, which gives the final product different characteristics than regular glass, thus making it safer for a vehicle’s occupants in case of an accident. In addition to being intended to shatter into pebble-sized pieces after a strong impact, there may be other differences in glass characteristics that might impact the “spider-webbing” that Dr. Mantik insists must be present when evaluating my scenario.
It must be noted that none of the witnesses to the original windshield hole described any sort of spiderwebbing or cracking, (as Dr. Mantik notes) but that fact in and of itself is probably insufficient to address the issue Mantik raises. There are plenty of additional arguments to be made that my scenario has not been disproven by Mantik, why my scenario still remans the likely explanation for what happened, and why Dr. Mantik’s argument against my scenario is rather weak. This includes my proposed location for the limousine hole.
It must also be recognized that my scenario does not involve a direct hit on the windshield from a driver positioned in front of the car and shooting directly toward the President, where no one actually saw any shooter, which is Mantik's scenario. In fact, my shooter was positioned behind the car, and wasn’t even aiming at the President at all! The hole, I contend, was caused by a ricochet that subsequently struck the windshield.
Mantik and I agree that the hole was caused by the bullet (a clean, bloodless, intact “slug”) that was recovered from the limousine and brought into the autopsy by two Navy corpsmen under the direction of Dr. James Humes, as I proposed to Dr. Mantik via email and related in one of my Micro-Studies books after Dr .Mantik first drew my attention to this "extra bullet"). That is where our agreement ends. Dr. Mantik agrees that the bullet itself did not directly hit the President, but that a glass shard (spall) from the windshield hole caused the throat wound, along with some small cheek perforations. He may be right about the cheek perforations (described in mortician Thomas Robinson’s ARRB interview at https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=711#relPageId=3 but not in Robinson’s HSCA interview at https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md63/html/Image00.htm). But as for Mantik’s conjecture about a shard causing the throat wound, he ignores Jerrol Custer’s ARRB deposition where Custer testifies about a now-missing neck X-ray showing metallic fragments at the C3/C4 level, even though he accepts the part of Custer’s deposition about a “king-size fragment” falling out of Kennedy’s back during the autopsy. (Custer's deposition may be found at https://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/arrb/medical_testimony/pdf/Custer_10-28-97.pdf ). This is called "cherry-picking" evidence, using what you like and ignoring what you don't like. Mantik also ignores Robinson’s ARRB deposition (the same one describing the cheek perforations) wherein Robinson thought the throat wound “represented an exit wound for a bullet.”
Mantik notes undue pressure being placed on Dr. Malcolm Perry by the autopsy doctors to disavow the throat wound as an “entrance” wound, presumably to discount Perry's later Warren Commission testimony. Mantik's source for this "pressure" is more hearsay than first-hand: A reporter named Rob Coutreau said that a reporter named Martin Steadman said that Dr. Malcolm Perry said that Dr. Humes was threatening to have Perry's medical license revoked if Perry didn't stop saying that the throat wound was an "entrance." Perhaps the "pressure" wasn't as nefarious as portrayed? Perhaps the autopsy doctors knew it was an exit wound and were merely trying to get Perry to realize that? Perhaps the reporters were trying to drum up a story? We don't have a first person account from Perry himself. At any rate, when Perry was under oath, Arlen Specter (in trying to get Perry to agree with his Single Bullet Theory) did get Perry to agree that the throat wound was “entirely compatible” with an exit (https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh6/pdf/WH6_Perry.pdf). Other Parkland doctors agreed that it could have been an exit. When asked, Perry's colleague Dr. Charles Carrico testified that the throat wound was "consistent" with an exit (https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh3/pdf/WH3_Carrico.pdf). So did Dr. Kemp Clark agree under oath that the throat wound "could" have been an exit (https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh6/pdf/WH6_Clark.pdf). Dr. Robert McClelland testified that the throat wound was consistent with either an entrance or an exit, and it would be "quite difficult to say--impossible" to determine which. (https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh6/pdf/WH6_McClelland.pdf ) Dr. McClelland has been very vocal in his public descriptions of a back of the head blow-out, which certainly conflicts with the picture the Warren Commission was trying to paint. It makes no sense that McClelland would agree that the throat wound could have been an exit (and never revise that statement) if he really thought it was an entrance. These were under oath testimonies, which carry more weight than hearsay. The only evidence for Dr. Mantik’s theory that the throat wound was the entrance wound for a glass shard entering at the throat and traveling towards the apex of the right lung, really, was a Dr. Clark's description of a “deviation of the trachea” and the “presence of blood in the strap muscle of the neck” next to the trachea per Dr. Kemp Clark’s Warren Commission testimony and a similar description by Dr. McClelland. There also was some slight damage in the area at the top of the lung. Navy Corpsman and autopsy witness James Jenkins (a witness Mantik quotes elsewhere) in his book At the Cold Shoulder of History describes this area as having been probed from the back wound, although the shallow back wound did not completely penetrate the pleural lining around the lung. The lung damage was from the back wound. Mantik assumes a path between the throat and the lung which simply did not exist. Moreover, there is Jerrol Custer's now-missing neck X-ray, showing metallic fragments in the C3/C4 region of the neck (above the level of the throat wound). It makes sense that the throat was caused by a bullet fragment traveling downward from the back of the skull and leaving bits of metal in the C3/C4 area as Custer described in his ARRB testimony (https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/medical_testimony/Custer_10-28-97/html/Custer_0001a.htm ). I believe Custer was honest, and his deposition was under oath. On top of that, mortician Thomas Robinson was "adamant" that he saw the throat wound probed from the back of the head. https://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/pdf/md180.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1iD0WImHay9OfifMa3p8Gc80txK3Du_ybVAn459lqA5VFICt-uu6Icjp0 In light of all this evidence, it seems clear that the throat wound was an exit for a fragment coming from the back of the head. The Parkland doctors only initially thought it was an entrance due to its small size. While I applaud Dr. Mantik's out-of-the-box thinking about the glass shards (which does give a potential explanation for the small cheek wounds), it really behooves Dr. Mantik to reconsider his scenario in regards to the throat wound.
*Getting Mantik's source info for the "Coutreau report" was a rather convoluted process, "Coutreau's recent report" turns out to be "Rob Coutreau" who is mentioned in an article entitled "The Ordeal of Malcolm Perry" by James DiEugenio on the Kennedys and King website, but you have search throughout Mantik's book to get enough information to track that down, and then search the Kennedys and King website to finally get the URL, which is https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/the-ordeal-of-malcolm-perry This is not the only source or footnote that needs improvement in his book. For example, "Bing" is not a source without the rest of the URL.
My Scenario
I do have an explanation for the windshield hole without resorting to an assassin stationed in front of the limousine. In a nutshell, my scenario, as presented in Part 8 “The Five Shots” of my documentary is this: At about the same time as the Altgens 6 photo was taken (which shows open doors on the VP follow-up as well as the Warren Taylor “phantom revolver”), one of the Secret Service agents from Johnson’s follow-up car fired a warning shot to alert the slow-responding agents (many of them hung-over) in Kennedy’s follow-up car to the danger of the shooter in the TSBD. This warning shot was fired at the Stemmons sign as the safest target my Secret Service shooter could quickly find (accounting for Willam Reymond’s “poof” off the Stemmons sign in the “other” Zapruder Film). Unfortunately, this shot then ricocheted off the sign and headed back towards the President’s car, to cause the hole in the windshield. The bullet itself landed in the car and was the one described by Dr. James Young as being brought into the autopsy by two Navy corpsmen who had been sent to search the limousine (also described by Captain, later Admiral, David Osborne who initially recalled it as falling out of Kennedy’s “clothing” and later amended that it might have been brought into the morgue). Descriptions of the bullet differed slightly, but it was an intact bullet, not a fragmented one, and whether “brass” or “copper clad,” seemed to be fully encased (i.e., full metal jacket, or FMJ). You can watch a more complete explanation of this scenario in my documentary (but please watch the episodes leading up to Part 8 first).
The best of the photographic images I use to support my scenario are the weird anomaly in the area of Jackie’s gloved hand in Altgens 6 ...
The Altgens 6 windshield. I've annotated the area of interest. There is another interesting "white spot" that Jackie's gloved finger is pointing right towards, but that looks more like a reflection than a potential hole. The white spot directly under the center of the mirror is also interesting, but witnesses placed the hole more towards the driver's side.
... and the FBI limousine photo which I believe shows a pencil sticking through the hole.
An FBI photo of the Presidential limousine in the White House garage. I've annotated what I believe shows a pencil through the windshield hole to show the location. Stavis Elvis told researcher Doug Weldon that he had put a pencil through the hole, but I doubt it's the same pencil, more likely just a procedural investigative technique. The white spot to the bottom left of my annotation is also interesting, but may just be a reflection of the flash used for the picture. Note that the annotated area appears to be framed as the center of the photograph, with light concentrated on that area.
The Problems with these Photographs
Unfortunately, none of images I use to support my scenario is a close-up high resolution image. Trustworthy etailed high-resolution close-up images of the windshield taken on the same day as the assassination (or at least before the November 25 time-frame for the first replacement witnessed by Ford employee George Whitaker) simply do not exist. But these images do show an apparent anomaly in the same area. Do they definitively show a complete absence of spiderweb cracking? Not really. The resolution isn’t high enough to definitively show a complete lack of the spiderweb effect. Do they definitively show a hole? If they did, other researchers before me would probably have caught it. But these images certainly show something, and that something happens to be in the same location where witnesses described the hole. (And note that the FBI photo doesn’t show any clear windshield cracks by the mirror, either.)
Really, the most Mantik might be able to argue is that my supporting photographs aren’t clear enough to prove my scenario. That may be true. After all, as far as I know, I’m the first person in nearly 60 years to suggest that this are is the actual bullet hole. However, Mantik fails to disprove my scenario. And if the anomalies I indicate aren’t a bullet hole, then what the heck are they? Given that these anomalies match where the witnesses described a through-and-through bullet hole as being located, I think they’re the bullet hole.
A quick Google search of bullet windshield holes reveals that most images do show some form of spider-web cracking, or a white area of defect surrounding the hole. However, in my scenario, it is a ricocheted bullet that causes the hole, thus would have lost some of its muzzle-blast velocity. Searching for BB or pellet gun impacts in glass show that some of those impact sites (in windshield or otherwise) do not: show the sort of spiderweb cracking that Dr. Mantik seems to expect. Here are a couple of images I found online:
In fact, in windshield repair lingo, there is a type of crack that does not show spiderwebs, called a “bullseye”:
Image found online showing types of windshield cracks, including the "Bullseye" type of windshield damage shown at lower left.
As I see it, the characteristics of a projectile hole in glass (including the type, size, and number of spiderweb fractures caused by a single projectile impact) depend on a number of factors: the characteristics of the glass, the characteristics of the projectile, the speed with which the projectile hit, and the angle of impact.
Let’s look at some of these.
Characteristics of the Glass
The windshield of the Presidential limousine, X-100, was not made of bulletproof glass and was original to the 1961 Lincoln Continental. So the type of windshield that was original to the 1961 Lincoln Continental windshield is what we are looking for.
Modern windshields do not have the exact same characteristics as the 1961 cars. In fact, windshield safety glass did not become more standardized until 1966:
Beginning in 1966 cars came equipped with improved laminated windshields that could withstand nearly three times the impact of earlier versions. In the 60s and 70s Federal Motor Vehicle Safety standards were set for the strength and clarity of laminated windshields (FMVSS 205); windshield retention strength during accidents (FMVSS 212); roof rigidity in rollover accidents (FMVSS 216); and limits on windshield penetration (FMVSS 219). Nowadays windshields continue to grow in complexity and sophistication. Windshields are larger and often more raked. Some provide increased visibility with a windshield that extends up into the roof above the driver or one that wraps into the side of the car. Modern windshields can filter 95-99% of UV rays. Since the 90s a hybrid film with dye to absorb heat and metal to ban sun rays has provided significant reduction in infrared (IR) rays and consequent internal heat gain. (See https://www.windshieldexperts.com/blog/101-2/ )
Mantik quotes “JFK Presidential Limousine SS100X” (author etc. not given) as saying that the limousine had a “standard two-ply safety glass windshield,“ which matches what the Warren Commission through FBI expert Robert Frasier stated. The windshield was since replaced multiple times (at least two). Mantik notes that the windshield that was on the limousine at the time a more bulletproof (5 layer) safety glass was installed, had three layers of glass.
Again, the source Mantik gives for claiming that the limousine bullet hole would necessarily have had the spiderweb characteristics did not use laminated, layered automotive safety glass, and present day Internet images sowing bullet holes with the spiderweb cracks do not have the 1961 Lincoln Continental windshield.
Altgens 6 “Without the Bullet Hole?”
Very interestingly, Mantik shows a version of the Altgens 6 picture that Doug Weldon had, reportedly, published on November 23, 1966 (the day after the assassination) showing “the bullet hole erased.” Mantik can’t source the newspaper. The “crack” up by the mirror isn’t in the image, and the “spiral nebula” doesn’t seem to be there, either, although the weird area underneath Jackie’s glove is still there. Mantik posits that “the bullet hole has been erased.” However, he really should consider an alternative hypothesis, which is that the “spiral nebula” or “bullet hole” was added later, and that this image is more authentic than the other version. (Problematically, the “spiral nebula” seems to be the extant negative, but given the prevalence of image alteration in Kennedy assassination evidence, I’m not sure that means anything.)
This photo/image is different from other versions is evident elsewhere, as well. In the version that Mantik publishes, note the “white space” above JFK’s head, and how his head appears to be much smaller than in other versions, with no facial features at all visible.. If this one is more original than other versions, it could be that Kennedy’s head was drooped forward (rather than upright) at the point when this picture was taken. Or this version of Altgens 6 was altered by the newspaper itself, or there were multiple transmissions over the AP wire, with different versions of Altgens 6. I did find another “AP wire” version that differs from the one Mantik posts at the National Gallery of Art’s website at https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.200787.html This one conforms more to the standard version than the one Mantik shows. The fact is that this version of Altgens 6 is different from other versions, which leaves open the question of which one/s were altered, who did the altering, to what extent was each version altered, and how much can we trust any of the images?
Image alteration is a huge problem when it comes to studying the Kennedy assassination.
Does It Even Matter?
The location of the windshield hole matters to Dr. Mantik, but not so much to me, because even if the windshield hole was actually in Mantik’s higher “mirror” location, it doesn’t change my scenario. It does, however, change Mantik’s, because his shooter was aiming for Kennedy, and if the hole was at the lower location, the shooter was a clearly not aiming for Kennedy.
We both agree that the bullet causing the hole did not hit Kennedy. We both agree that the intact, bloodless bullet found in the car (described by Dr. Young and Captain/Admiral Osborne) was the one that made the windshield hole. Mantik contends that it was a small glass shard ("spall") that flew out from the windshield hole to cause the throat wound. He completely ignores Jerrol Custer’s description of a now missing neck X-ray showing metallic fragments in the C3/C4 area, while accepting Custer’s account of a king-size fragment falling out of Kennedy’s back during the autopsy. Mantik contends that this glass shard worked its way down and to the right, to the apex of the right lung—which completely ignores James Jenkins’ account which shows the shallow back wound being probed to that area of the lung. Mantik contends that the bullet causing the windshield hole was aimed at Kennedy would only have been deflected “downward, but not by much.” That would mean that this bullet would still have entered into Kennedy (somewhere in his chest?) rather than ending up “bloodless” on the floor. Yet it didn’t.
The location of the hole in the windshield makes a difference to Mantik, because if the hole location really was near the bottom of the windshield, then he’s wrong about the shot being aimed towards Kennedy. If he’s right and the hole was higher, it really doesn’t change my scenario other than the place where the bullet actually struck the windshield was higher than my witnesses recalled.
Let’s look at our windshield hole witnesses. Mantik really only has one witness who puts the hole “beside the mirror”: the transcribed (by Doug Weldon) account of George Whitaker, who saw the hole at the Ford Motor Company on November 25. Unfortunately, we don’t have Whitaker’s original handwritten account to look at, just this transcription. How clear was Whitaker’s handwriting? Could the word actually have been “below” instead of “beside”? We can't check. Doug Weldon’s files were never made public after he died, and no one in the research community knows where they are. Perhaps they were thrown out or destroyed by someone in the family who didn’t recognize their value. Which is a damn shame.
Mantik notes the misspelled “Receipt for Missle” memo with its “removed/received” problem. He states: “…Denise Hazelwood has (reasonably) proposed that this misconceived typewritten word may actually be ‘received.’” In the original memo, the word looks like “recoved” which isn’t really a word at all. So is it “removed” or “recovered” or “received”? Whoever typed it was either a bad speller (“missle” for “missile” and “recoved”) or a bad typist, or both. (Or alternatively, it was a deliberate “error” designed to create obfuscation.)
Could there be some sort of similar confusion in interpreting Whitaker’s handwriting, that he actually wrote “below” and somehow it got interpreted as “beside”? Without the original account in Whitaker’s own handwriting, it can’t be verified.
On the other hand, I give Joe Paolella describing the hole location in his own words as “3 or 4 inches above the hood of the car” and Doug Weldon in his own voice saying that Stavis Ellis said, “As I recall, it (the hole) was lower than that (the mirror location).” So there’s that.
It is, to say the least, unfortunate that so very few witnesses actually described the location of the hole in the windshield. However, there were enough witnesses to its being there to assure us that it actually existed. And these witnesses only described “one” hole in the windshield, not “two,” so Mantik and I agree that there was only one hole location. Wherever it was.
Again, the exact location of the hole makes very little difference to my scenario. I could concede the higher location to Mantik without much of a problem. Mantik, on the other hand, must have the higher location in order to put his shooter on the “South Knoll,” or his whole scenario falls apart. Mantik does agree that the bullet itself did not enter Kennedy, but only a small piece of glass. Mantik’s throat wound projectile has to be a glass shard, because metal at the lung apex did not show up on the X-ray (unless, of course, the chest X-ray was altered to hide this occurrence, which Mantik has not proposed, given a lack of such witness reporting). Mantik says, “The anatomic evidence of a left frontal projectile in the throat (terminating at the right lung apex) is overwhelming.” But again, that statement ignores Jerrol Custer’s statements to the ARRB about metallic fragments in the C3/C4 region of the neck and Thomas Robinson’s assertion that the throat wound was probed from the back of the head, not to mention James Jenkins assertion that the back wound was probed to the lung area, but without penetrating the pleural lining. (See At the Cold Shoulder of History by James Jenkins.)
On the other hand, I give Joe Paolella describing the hole location in his own words as “3 or 4 inches above the hood of the car” and Doug Weldon in his own voice saying that Stavis Ellis said, “As I recall, it (the hole) was lower than that (the mirror location).” So there’s that.
It is, to say the least, unfortunate that so very few witnesses actually described the location of the hole in the windshield. However, there were enough witnesses to its being there to assure us that it actually existed. And these witnesses only described “one” hole in the windshield, not “two,” so Mantik and I agree that there was only one hole location. Wherever it was.
Again, the exact location of the hole makes very little difference to my scenario. I could concede the higher location to Mantik without much of a problem. Mantik, on the other hand, must have the higher location in order to put his shooter on the “South Knoll,” or his whole scenario falls apart. Mantik does agree that the bullet itself did not enter Kennedy, but only a small piece of glass. Mantik’s throat wound projectile has to be a glass shard, because metal at the lung apex did not show up on the X-ray (unless, of course, the chest X-ray was altered to hide this occurrence, which Mantik has not proposed, given a lack of such witness reporting). Mantik says, “The anatomic evidence of a left frontal projectile in the throat (terminating at the right lung apex) is overwhelming.” But again, that statement ignores Jerrol Custer’s statements to the ARRB about metallic fragments in the C3/C4 region of the neck and Thomas Robinson’s assertion that the throat wound was probed from the back of the head, not to mention James Jenkins assertion that the back wound was probed to the lung area, but without penetrating the pleural lining. (See At the Cold Shoulder of History by James Jenkins.)