From: grant_jo@ripple.enet.dec.com (Joel Grant)
Subject: Warner, Fighting Duck
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Date: 14 SEP 92 14:39:38 PDT


re: 3252  (Tom Warner)

>>	As I have previously stated, Lattimer reproduces a
>>	portion of a letter from Earl Warren stating:

>>	a. It was my decision.
>>	b. Here was why I made that decision.

>I was responding to a claim about why the autopsy materials were seized
>by the Secret Service the night of the autopsy. I was being satirical;
>obviously Warren did not make that decision.

>The other issue is: why were the autopsy photos and x-rays withheld
>from the Warren report? This is a very ancillary issue to the question
>of who did it and even how it was covered up, but I expect Warren withheld
>them primarily for the reasons he stated.

	How nice you grant that Warren didn't lie about everything!

>Well, to be honest, I don't consider it worthwhile to commit every detail
>of this case to memory. Nor do I find it particularly helpful to my self-
>esteem to be able to lord things over people that have memorized less than
>I have. If you want to know where I'm getting something, I'll give it to
>you; if it's an unusual source or something I don't necessarily put a lot
>of stock in, I give it up front.

	I doubt it is possible to commit "every detail" of this case
	to memory.  But since you don't like the autopsy report, I
	don't think it is unreasonable to expect you to be familiar
	with that report.

>Anyway, what was your point? I know who took the photos and x-rays. You were
>I thought trying to say something about why.

	You weren't even sure who the Treasury Department agents
	might have been.  If you are now clear about who took
	the photos and clothes and x-rays away, fine.

>>	Please show me the evidence you have indicating that
>>	Lattimer was allowed access because he was "obviously
>>	a loyalist."

>I'll have to get back to you on this, but it's my understanding that
>Lattimer had already published his original "jet-effect" silliness
>before 1972, when he was allowed to see the x-rays.

	The original jet propulsion effect tests were done by
	Dr. Luis Alvarez, another noted pseudoscientist, and
	he did them well prior to 1972.

>>       Please tell me what specific authors
>>	Lattimer mentions in his book (that you haven't
>>	read all the way through) that he then sets up
>>	as being targets for debunking.

>I don't care who he mentions or doesn't mention by name.

	Well, then do you care about making charges against
	Lattimer that are supportable by his text?

>>>>	Lattimer did not say, nor did I represent him as saying,
>>>>	that Humes planned a "more extensive" report.  What 
>>>>	Lattimer and Humes have both said is that they had
>>>>	planned to use the X-rays and photographs to make a
>>>>	more accurate report.  Lattimer undoubtedly "got the
>>>>	idea" for this by noting the technical inaccuracies
>>>>	of the report and comparing them to the X-rays and
>>>>	photos (which he examined on three occasions) and
>>>>	adding the sum two plus two.

>>>I should hope Lattimer got the idea from something Humes said. Do
>>>you have a citation for such a quote?

>>	I don't have Hume's WC testimony or HSCA testimony
>>	in front of me but I wouldn't be surprised to find
>>	some mention of this matter somewhere in this testimony.
>>	It is hardly surprising that pathologists would want
>>	to rely upon photo and X-rays of the deceased when
>>	making their final report.

>>	If it is confirmation from Humes's mouth you want,
>>	look at the "JAMA" article of 5/27/92.

>That he intended to use the x-rays? I don't recall that ever being
>an issue. Unless you have some point to make about why the the
>Secret Service really had to seize the photos and x-rays and just
>couldn't let those doctors have them even one more day, I think
>we're beating dead horses.

	I hate to resort to quadruple >>>>'s, but read your
	own words above.

>There were also many tissue slides in the original material, all
>missing in '66.

	I think you are right on this.  Do you think this would
	have changed the determination on the source of the
	shots?  Given that tissue samples were not used to make
	that determination?

>>	As for your characterizations of Lattimer and his
>>	research you have yet to present anything even
>>	remotely resembling evidence to support such 
>>	statements.  And you accuse Lattimer of excessive
>>	a priorism?

>Bruce Schuck made the point that Lattimer did a 2-dimensional trajectory
>analysis, which just begs the question, why leave out the other dimension?
>My favorite Lattimer-science is the jet-effect, whereby a bullet can
>actually (supposedly) cause a skull to recoil toward the bullet by forcing
>a greater amount of mass-energy to be expelled from the front of the
>skull than the bullet impacted with, thereby throwing the head back
>with the counter-force. This he hoped to demonstrate by shooting at
>melons on sticks, which did sometimes fall backwards, probably when
>he hit them below their center of gravity, which would cause a fall-back
>for a different reason altogether.
>The point is, no reputable scientist has ever done anything but laugh at
>this theory, and Lattimer presumably knew melons on sticks behave very
>differently from heads on necks attached to bodies. And knew he could make
>a dramatic effect for TV "news" that had no relevance to human beings.

	Presumably, Alvarez, who won the Nobel Prize in physics,
	was not a reputable scientist?  What reputable scientist
	has demonstrated an opposite effect via tests?  As far as
	I know, none.  But we'll look more closely at these tests
	later.

Joel Grant (speaking on his own behalf)