From: cortez@milton.u.washington.edu (Tom Warner)
Subject: Re: TAOTW II
Organization: University of Washington
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 02:49:03 GMT

>, >>> Joel Grant
>> Me (Tom Warner)
>>>> Bruce Schuck

>>What's your point, Joel? That we can't prove why Lattimer chose not
>>to address an issue that, if he had addressed it, would have debunked his
>>own analysis? What do you want us to do, hunt him down and hook him up to
>>a seismograph?

>	A seismograph?  Was Lattimer a producer of earthquakes?
>	In either case, Dr. Lattimer is deceased.

Oops on both counts. You got my point.

>	My point in asking why Bruce Schuck chose the particular
>	word `deliberately' in discussing Lattimer's lack of
>	attention to the horizontal trajectory analysis of the
>	first shot to hit JFK was to determine whether or not
>	Bruce was trying to imply that Lattimer wrote something
>	he believed to be wrong.  I have gotten and expect 
>	no clarification.

No, you did get a clarification, I read it. You're dodging the real issue,
which is...

>>I think the issue is, what would the horizontal angle through Kennedy's
>>neck be assuming a back-to-front traversing, and when, if ever, would it be
>>possible for a shooter from the sixth floor TSBD to line up with that angle,
>>based on the Z-film?

>	This is a malleable angle, depending upon JFK's exact position
>	in the car, the car's exact position on the street and distance
>	from the window, and so on.  

Obviously. That's why you end up with a range of possibilities, that gets
broader as the range of times you are willing to accept a shot occuring
within broadens. 

>>Weren't you the one posting Lattimer's 20-degree vertical angle theory?
>>Trajectory analysis is only important to the point that it can establish
>>the range of possibilities. Without other evidence that range can be very
>>broad, and it is hard to disprove most hypotheses by trajectory analysis alone.
>>Unless, of course, the hypothesis has too many requirements, like the single
>>bullet theory, in which case it is possible.

>	I agree that trajectory analysis presents a range of
>	possibilities and that that range can be quite broad.
>	In fact, I have been trying to make that point.  And
>	we'll get to the SBT.

Yes, you'll have to, if you want to stick with the lone gunman with a
Mannlicher Carcano.

>>>       If Wecht's analysis is correct we're talking
>>>	about a difference of a couple of inches out of
>>>	150 or so feet.  This gets into "angels on the head
>>>	of a pin" territory.

>>I don't follow your math. Kennedy's neck is not 150 feet wide.

>	150 feet is a generous estimation of the distance from
>	the car to the 6th floor window at the time the second
>	bullet was fired.  I suspect it was closer to about
>	180-185 feet.

Kennedy's neck isn't 180-185 feet wide either. Again, it's the angle, not
the distance, that's at issue. It's a comparison of the angle from the
throat wound to the back wound, to the angle from the throat wound to the
6th floor TSBD. If you work out the geometry on paper, you'll see that your
"angel on the head of a pin" criticism is silly and wrong. You might even
ask yourself, how could anyone possibly suggest that a 2-dimensional
analysis is worth any more to your case than a pile of bat feces?

>>At least one bullet was found in Dealey plaza by Dallas police, retrieved by
>>a man thought to be FBI and then not placed in evidence. Neither CE399 or the
>>"limo fragments" are identifiable by their alleged finders as the items they
>>found, and the chain of possession is irretrievably lost. Thus, there is no
>>evidence connecting the bullet and fragments in evidence with Parkland
>>Hospital or the presidential limo, let alone Dealey Plaza 11/22/63 12:35 p.m.,
>>but there *is* evidence that at least one bullet was retrieved but not
>>placed in evidence. Add to this the pristine condition of CE399, which by
>>itself is strong evidence that it was not fired from the TSBD into the limo
>>at all, and you have strong evidence of both planted evidence and coverup.
>>Add to this the impossibility of all the shots fired coming from Oswald's
>>Mannlicher-Carcano and it becomes a certainty.

>	By "Dallas police" do you mean E. R. Walthers, who was a
>	deputy sheriff of Dallas County?  He has denied finding
>	any such bullet.  No photo exists of him or anyone else
>	finding a bullet in the grass, though there is a photo
>	of people *looking* for a bullet.  They just didn't
>	find one.

J. W. Foster, who guarded the bullet and watched the "agent" pick it up.
The photo and story, like I said, is in Marrs. The bullet isn't visible
in the photo, just Foster and another man standing in the background as
another man fingers the ground.

>	Should I ever get a law degree and decide to practice
>	criminal law, and should I get the definitive version of
>	the history of all the physical evidence in the JFK
>	assassination, I will be better able to judge what would
>	or would not be admissable due to a loose chain of
>	possession.  Interestingly, you reject the limo fragments
>	and CE399 because the chain of possession isn't tight
>	enough for you, but accept the existence of a bullet
>	that is apparently possessed by no one and which nobody
>	actually claims to have found.  Rather startlingly different
>	standards, what?

Not at all. First, we are talking about a murder case in which there
is a high probability of political motive. We also have Oswald, who
several suspicously obvious pieces of evidence point to but other
evidence proves could not have been in the suspiciously obvious
"assassins lair" at the time of the shooting, failed a paraffin test,
could not have fired all the shots with the supiciously obvious weapon,
and shortly after the assassination, was taken out by the mafia with
apparent cooperation from someone within the Dallas police.
Furthermore, CE399 is just too damn pristine to have caused *any* of
Connally's wounds, and the man who found the bullet just laying there on
a stretcher did not recognize it as the bullet he found, not to mention
that two witnesses claim to have seen Oswald's assassin at the hospital.
Is this not enough to make you think maybe, just maybe, someone
was planting evidence? Given all the circumstantial evidence of a frame-up
is the fact that the chain of possession is not only "not tight" but gaping
a mile wide of note? Puh-lease!

I'm not resting the whole case on Foster's statements, the way you are resting
your entire case on the authenticity of CE399 and the fragments. I was just
responding to something inaccurate (as best is known, I have no reason to
doubt Foster -- especially since such vital evidence as the "babushka lady"s
film has definitely disappeared) that you posted.

Also, I'm not interested in the issue of whether or not Oswald would have
been convicted, or could be now. I'd guess a yes and a no, but who cares?
The issue is, who done it?

>	As for the impossibility of Oswald slipping off three
>	shots in the approximately eight seconds of the firing
>	sequence, I suggest this is a feat that can and has
>	been easily duplicated.

You'll first have to show that your figure of eight seconds is plausible,
and that the gaps in between the 1st and 2nd and 2nd and 3rd shots were
long enough, and that there were no more than 3 shots. Good luck.

Only if you get past those three tests will I discuss Oswald's firing
skill, which I consider an irrelevant point.

>>I have no opinion on the subject of the "rear shooters in other buildings"
>>except that it is a possibility that could not be discounted even if the
>>assertions you make were true. Why would someone involved in an assassination
>>of the president leave something behind that might be traceable? 
>>You're assuming that a conspiracy would have to be as stupid as you have been
>>led to believe Oswald was, or to be more direct, that the real evidence would
>>be as obvious and easy to locate as the planted evidence. This is a very
>>weird assumption.

>	Why would Charles Guiteau walk up and, in plain sight of
>	everyone, pull the trigger?  Why do any crimes leave
>	evidence?

You don't get it. If Oswald didn't do it, which the evidence proves he didn't,
then there had to be a sophisticated frame up. Such conspirators would not
have left their rifles laying around in the Dal-Tex building.

>>>>Since the bullet also travelled in an upwards track -- according to
>>>>the HSCA committee -- it is also clear that it was fired from a very
>>>>low floor of the Dal-Tex or the County Records Building.

>>This assumes a back-to-front traversal of the neck, which is unlikely.

>	Why are you extracting Bruce Schuck's statements and 
>	shoving them at me?  Take it up with Bruce.

Gee, I thought this was a public forum.
I was taking it up with Bruce, and everybody. I just think its important
to keep in mind that most of the evidence points to a non-traversing
back wound, which would allow for a sixth floor TSBD shooter to have
hit Kennedy at the point that the Z film appears to show him first
taking a hit.

>	The limo fragments were positively identified as having
>	been fired from LHO's rifle, and no other rifle.

Wrong. The fragments are too small to rule out all other rifles. To the
extent that they show anything, they do show a match to Oswald's rifle.
I think most likely they were shot from Oswald's MC, but the possibility
they were shot from a nearly identical MC is still a possibility.

>       Apparently,
>	Conspiracy Central did a good job in planting them in the
>	limo, but a poor job in establishing (to your satisfaction)
>	chain of custody.

I'm not accusing the handlers of the bullets of being part of the conspiacy.
They did, however, completely fail to document the chain of possession.
Any step of the way, the fragments could have been switched. Or perhaps they
are the real thing. The point is, planted evidence is all over this case and
there's no way of knowing where those fragments actually came from for certain.

>>>       because six witnesses saw a rifle and/or
>>>	a man firing a rifle from the 6th floor, SE corner,
>>>	TSBD,

>>What about the witnesses that saw a man with a rifle on the other side of the
>>building?

>	No witnesses on that day came forward with any stories of
>	anyone else with a rifle.  All such stories have been
>	uncovered well after the fact.

First, who said "anyone else"? Other than who? I'm talking about the Rowlands,
who told the FBI that day they saw a man with a rifle on the other side of the
building. They also claim to have told the FBI about a Black man being with
this man, but this is not in the records.

It may be true that no record of someone claiming on 1//22/63 to have seen
a rifle in a location in a different area altogether, I don't know. However,
the number of witnesses who, like the Rowlands, claim to have told more to
the FBI than is reflected in the records opens up some doubt.

>>>       there was no reason for him to do any independent
>>>	testing on this matter.

>>Lattimer was the one doing the trajectory analysis; that he left out a vital
>>component of trajectory analysis debunks his own efforts. Now you want to
>>argue that the whole thing was unnecessary in the first place, because a
>>a bullet and two fragments (probably planted) match a gun (also
>>probably planted) owned by Oswald and because the only place where anyone with
>>a gun was being visible was in the location that the (probably planted) gun
>>and (too few to account for all the shots) shells were found.

>>:P 

>>Weak, weak, weak, even by pro-WC standards.

>	Ah, you set up a strawman and complain it catches fire
>	easily.  Even little Dorothy wouldn't do something like
>	that, now would she?

You set up the strawman. Those were the reasons you gave for a 3-dimensional
trajectory analysis being unnecessary. Are you asking me to respond to
something other than what you wrote? 

Not to mention the patent absurdity of it all when *you* were the one touting
the value of the 2-dimensional analysis.

>Joel Grant  (speaking on his own behalf)

Tom Warner
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy.jfk,alt.conspiracy,sci.skeptic