From: grant_jo@ripple.enet.dec.com (Joel Grant)
Subject: Lifton's Credibility
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Date: 14 APR 92 08:42:38 PDT


In article 860 David Wright writes:

||First - re: 833 (Marty) and 839 (David Condon)
||
||The body wrapping, for instance.  Manchester details the 
||way the body was wrapped in eight different layers of
||rubber and - guess what? - green plastic.  And the whole
||thing no doubt resembled a green body bag.

|First of all, witnesses testify the body was wrapped in sheets. When the casket
|was opened, witnesses testified or spoke to Lifton that the body was
|in white sheets. The ones that saw the body bag, at least some remember
|them unzipping the bag. 

Lifton says that some people saw a body bag, some people
saw sheets.  If we have a body wrapped in plastic and rubber, in
such a way that it resembles a body bag, different perceptions/memories
are quite understandable.  The body bag was cut open and no doubt
this action could easily resemble the opening of a zipper.

In either case Lifton, having relied upon Manchester, should in
fairness note the detailed description of the body wrapping and
say why he feels it was wrong.  Instead, Lifton ignored it.

Manchester's description:

[p. 294]

  "The door had been closed again.  Within, Vernon Oneal was
plying his craft. [he was the man who owned the funeral home
from which the President's coffin had been purchased.]  He
was concerned about the Brittania's pale satin upholstery;
it was immaculate now, but could easily be stained.  Motioning
to Orderly David Sanders, Oneal directed him to line the inside
of the coffin with a sheet of plastic.  Nurse Doris Nelson and
Diana Bowron swooped around, wrapping the body in a second
plastic sheet.  Then the undertaker asked Doris to bring him
a huge rubber sheath and a batch of rubber bags.  Placing the
sheath over Sanders' plastic lining, he carefully cut the
bags to size enveloping the President's head in them one by
one until he had made certain that there would be seven protective
layers of rubber and two of plastic between the damaged scalp
and the green satin."

||The Parkland work on the throat for another.  Two throat
||procedures were done.  A tracheotomy by Dr. Carrico and
||*then* a tracheostomy by Dr. Perry.  A tracheostomy,
||known informally as placing a "mouth in the throat",
||does in fact make a wound about the size observed
||in the "stare of death" autopsy photos.

|This is interesting. Where did you get information on the tracheostomy? And
|what is it? It is not in Lattimer. If it was in the Medical report, I am sure
|Lifton read it and ran across it. There are other problems with the
|wound, however. First, it was too low, and second it was too ragged. (i.e.,
|between descriptions from Parkland to Bethesda/Photos.)

Both Manchester and Lattimer mention the tracheostomy.  Note, in
Lattimer, the Parkland doctors' reports from the "Texas State
Journal of Medicine" article.  And I agree, I am sure Lifton read
it and ran across it.  And failed to mention it.  The tracheostomy,
as represented by the autopsy photos, was just where it should have
been, and not inconsistent, in raggedness, with what one would 
suspect.  Again, Lifton (even if only in Manchester) could not
have helped but seen this.  And again he ignores it.

A tracheostomy involves the insertion of an actual cuff into
the larynx.  The hole must be relatively large to accomodate
this device.

||...- it is very, very clear that the President's
||coffin was never without at least one person standing
||guard. 

|After thinking about this a bit I think Lifton was trying to argue what people
|were *not* involoved, perhaps implicating the Secret Service. After all, if the
|body was switched it would have to be switched by *someone*. The SS seems the
|most likely of candidates, according to Lifton.

The problem is still the same: the body was never unguarded.  It was
a very specific point of honor to ensure that the coffin of the
slain Commander In Chief was never left alone.  This was a conscious
decision, consciously acted upon, and made explicit and clear in
Manchester.  Again, Lifton relies upon Manchester, seems to respect
his account, and yet is highly selective in what he reproduces from
that account.  

As another example, Lifton states that Manchester says the coffin
was damaged while loading it onto Air Force One.  But that isn't
what Manchester says.  Manchester says it happened while they
were trying to remove the coffin from the special table it
was on.  There was a release mechanism they didn't know about,
so they just muscled it off.  Lifton's attention to detail
leaves much to be desired.  Oswald's rifle was a 1940 MC,
not a 1938 MC.  The coffin didn't weigh 400 pounds; it weighed
800 pounds.  And so on.

||...  And I mention
||this only as an example of how amazingly wrong eyewitness
||testimony can be. 

|There is no argument from that what so ever. No one on this side says that they
|know when the body was switched, who did it, or even who shot JFK. However, the
|independent corroborative testimony and explanations point to serious
|differences in wounds, trajectories, and scenarios. What we are arguing here is
|is it *possible* that the body was switched. I think it was.

If you mean "possible" in the sense that we're not talking about
violating conservation of energy, yes, it was possible.  

But I would suggest to you that you take the same critical eye
you use against the WC and apply it to Lifton.  I have no
problem with people nit-picking the WCR.  I have been doing
it myself for years.  But you will find that the same approach
to Lifton reveals his argument to be a sham.

A final example: in my copy of _Best Evidence_ he shows a photo,
taken from the right rear, of JFK's head.  He notes that the
entrance wound, seen clearly from another angle, cannot be seen
in this photo, and wonders why.  In fact, though it is faint
from (I shall charitably assume) an overexposure on the left
side of the photo, the wound is actually visible.

If you check Lifton against his sources you will find he
doesn't hold up to scrutiny.  And ask yourself why his
entire discussion of the Tippit killing is limited to
about two or three sentences.  (?)   Lifton's discussion of
the size of the Connally entrance wound, and what that says
about the bullet's mid-air history is limited, from what
I can see, to exactly zero.  And yet this is a demonstrable
and repeatable phenomenon.  Lifton does not address it.

Come to think of it, the edition I have has an `afterword'
written two years after the publication of Lattimer's book.
Lifton refers to Lattimer, and favorably, commenting on several
of Lattimer's preliminary papers.  But not a word about the
book, two years after its publication.

As I say, we should be as skeptical and critical of the
WC critics as we are of the WC.  My experience has been that
when you start checking footnotes and so forth, their credibility
gets ambushed at that famous gap...

Joel Grant


(speaking on my own behalf, as always)


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