From: grant_jo@ripple.enet.dec.com (Joel Grant)
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy.jfk
Subject: PBS Special
Date: 18 Nov 92 22:38:25 GMT
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation


In article <17504@pitt.UUCP> Gordon Banks writes:

|Cyril Wecht spoke here yesterday on the medical evidence.
|Nothing new for me really, just more reinforcement on how
|totally impossible the single bullet theory is.

	I have lately read most everything Dr. Wecht has written
	about the medical evidence, including his HSCA testimony,
	and it is interesting to note that he does not fully base
	his opposition to the SBT on his professional expertise.
	His thesis is that *anyone* can see how "impossible" it
	is for a bullet designed to pass through flesh to pass
	through flesh and hit the guy sitting in front of him.

	Dr. Wecht does not believe that CE399 could be so 
	relatively undeformed, or could have lost so little
	weight, and he believes the trajectories do not line
	up.  Interestingly, he presents an above-the-limo-diagram
	that does not conform to reality.  Both Kennedy
	and Connally are pretty much facing straight ahead.  Wecht's
	analysis is the same old same old.

	In fact, JFK was turned significantly to the right.  See,
	for instance, the photo on the cover of _The Day Kennedy
	Was Shot_.  It was taken from above the limo though I am
	not sure just when the photo was taken.  But it is the
	same men in the same seats in the same limo in positions
	very much like they were in when CE399 went through both
	of them.

	You will note that JFK is seated in the way most natural
	for someone who expects to be facing to his right for an
	extended period, namely, he is sitting at an angle.  His
	knees are close to, or touching, the side of the limo, but
	the rest of his lower body is not.  The rest of his
	lower body ranges obliquely away from the side of the
	car - just like anyone would sit if they had to spend
	40 minutes or so waving out the side of an open car.

	See also frames from the Darrouzet film. (e.g., in the
	November, 1983 "Life" magazine.)  It is an excellent 
	close-up, street level view of JFK and Connally in the
	limo.  JFK's shoulder is raised considerably as it rests
	upon the side of the car.  His trunk is twisted to the
	right, he is leaning forward slightly, and the left side
	of the knot of his tie, where CE399 exited, is right in
	line with the right side of Connally's back.

	In short, trying to establish JFK's and Connally's *exact*
	postions vis a vis the limo and vis a vis each other is a
	very difficult task.  But Wecht provides scant support for his
	view that they were essentially sitting there like statues
	in the typical distorted caricature of the SBT.  A caricature
	encouraged unfortunately by the WC's own careless diagrams.

	I would recommend that folks buy the taped presentation by
	Dr. Michael West and journalist Johann Rush.   They haven't
	convinced me of the exact timing of the shot though they
	make a very good case for that.  Their analysis, in a
	nutshell:

	1. First shot about frame 160.  Connally is seen to turn
	to his right beginning at frame 169.  Linda Kay Willis
	(the little girl visible on the south side of Elm, near
	Houston) is seen to stop running after the limo, stop,
	and look backward towards the general direction of the
	TSBD.  Interestingly, in her WC testimony she does not
	mention this movement, though it shows up very clearly
	on the z-film.

	2. Second shot frame 225. (!)  This is the one I have
	trouble with, though they note that JFK's right hand
	is not moving upwards between 224 and 225, it is moving
	downwards.  However, I believe this movement is consistent
	with his right elbow moving upwards. (try it; place your
	elbow/arm as if waving, and then move your arm/elbow
	upwards)  They also show there is a drastic change in
	JFK's position between 225-226. (see, for instance,
	"Life" magazine, 11/25/66)

	Connally, who is turned slightly to his right in 225
	is reacting already by 226.  His hat starts to come up
	in reaction to the wound to his arm.  This "hat flip"
	reaction lasts only a fraction of a second; they say the
	hat is knocked out of Connally's hand by around frame
	234-236.  This I did not believe, having always thought
	that Connally's hat stayed in his hand well past the time
	that anyone postulates him being hit, except for those who
	think his wrist was hit separately, but that's another 
	story.

	And yet I found later, going over the film and color
	stills, that he really does seem to have the hat knocked
	out of his hand, as claimed by West and Rush.  For instance,
	frame 242 - it looks like the hat is still in his hand, but
	what looks like his hat is actually his left shirt cuff.
	If he *is* holding the hat it is out of sight, since his
	right arm is at this point too low to be seen.  A couple
	of seconds later, when Nellie pulls Connally over, I cannot
	see the hat in Connally's hand, but I do see, again, his
	left shirt cuff.  Perhaps someone with clearer Zapruder
	stills than I have can clear this up.  

	In either case, West and Rush show very decisively that
	by approximately z-232/233 Connally's right arm is
	hanging limp, and it is hinged about two inches or so
	*above* the wrist - just where the bullet smashed his
	radial bone.  You can't hinge your arm at that point 
	unless the bone is smashed; and, clear as a bell, 	
	Connally's arm is sagging from that point.  They are
	using highly enhanced z-film views, enlarged frames
	from the Groden enhancement I think.  Later, selected
	views are ultra-ultra enlarged and enhanced, including
	the head shot.

3. Speaking of the head shot, the video then shows some poor
newsman getting shot in the back of the head with a military rifle.
The "neuromuscular reaction" is clearly visible.  It is horrifying;
just before the trigger is pulled the guy tries to cover his head
with his arm.

In the sequence, the newsman is lying face down on the ground.  Several
sodiers can be seen.  One of them, carrying a rifle, is standing to
the newsman's right.  As the newsman tries to cover his head with
his right arm, the soldier moves backward a few steps and, from
behind and to the right from a range of around 20 feet, blasts the
man in the back of the head.  His legs jerk upward spastically and
the left side of his body contracts, causing the man to jerk backwards
and to the left.

Of course the angle isn't exactly the same as in z-313, but it is a
shot through and through the cranium with a military rifle/ammo,
the gunman is quite visible so there is no question about the direction
in which the bullet traveled: from the right and from back to front.
And there is no question that this causes the victim's body to almost
instantly jerk spastically to the left.  Gruesome confirmation of
the neuromuscular reaction.

There is more in the presentation, of course.  This is just an
outline of their thesis.

Lattimer despisers need not apply, since they use a couple of 
illustrations from his book and explain Thorburn's Position.
Otherwise, I highly recommend this presentation.  It is exceedingly
impressive (West is a forensic scientist and some sort of assisstant
ME in Mississippi) and challenging.  I still find it hard to
believe that JFK was hit that late, but their case is very good.

It is much better than Dr. Wecht's - he who had JFK and Connally
sitting straight ahead in the limo, and who simply asserts that CE399
couldn't do what it is alleged to have done and yet lose so little
mass and deform so little.  

Joel Grant (speaking on his own behalf)
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy.jfk