Pages5 THE ARG US Friday, January 25, 1985 Lifton discusses comouflage of the JFK killing By Sean Fetter Lifton proceeded to show the Lifton then presented a verit- small tracheotomy incision a plot involving body alteration, and Scott Murkin famous film of the assassination able catalogue of the evidence through a small bullet entry said Lifton, is "camouflage . Battling a raging fever and per- taken by eyewitness Abraham which he has uncovered over the wound in Kennedy's neck. Autop- the art of concealing the fact that sistent cough, author and investi- Zapruder. The Zapruder film course of twenty years - sy doctors reported a gaping you have concealed something." gator David Lifton spoke on the graphically shows Kennedy being evidence which can leave no throat wound. In this case the alteration of Ken- assassination of John F. Kennedy thrown violently backward by the doubt that Kennedy's body was *Dallas doctors observed a nedy's body served a triple func- last Wednesday evening, Jan. 16. impact of the bullet - a clear indeed altered prior to the time of wound in the right lower rear of tion: first, to reverse the ap- More than 300 people crowded the contradiction of the Warren Com- the official autopsy conducted in Kennedy's head, roughly 35 parent trajectory of the lethal Main Lounge to attend his mission's claim that the shots Washington on the night of the square centimeters in area. That bullets by enlarging existing presentation. came from behind the President. assassination. The majority of night at autopsy the hole encom- wounds and adding additional Lifton, whose 1980 volume Best Furthermore, subsequent inves- the documents which prompted passed much of the right side of punctures in order to create the Evidence became a national best- tigation revealed that the back- his investigation, including an Kennedy's head, and measured false impression that the Presi- seller, discussed a variety of is- ward movement of Kennedy's FBI autopsy report, were in the some 170 square centimeters in dent was shot from behind (thus sues relating to his discovery that head and body was not consistent public record - but Lifton was area - an increase in size of implicating a pre-arranged "pat- Kennedy's body was altered be- with motion resulting from either the first to attach significance to almost 500 per cent. sy," Lee Harvey Oswald); sec- tween the time of death and the a "neuromuscular reaction" or a their contents and to realize that *Kennedy's body left Dallas ond to remove ballistically iden- time of autopsy. sudden acceleration of the the "best evidence" in the case wrapped in sheets, inside an tificable bullet fragments which Lifton began by examining a limousine in which he was riding. was literally Kennedy's body elaborate bronze ceremonial would not match the "Oswald" ri- number of highly suspicious Another issue crucial to the itself. His use of time-line casket. It arrived at Bethesda in fle; and third, to hide the very events in Dealey Plaza, the scene Kennedy investigation is the mat- analysis and his meticulous com- a body bag, inside a cheap gray fact that such alteration had of the assassination in Dallas. He ter of the "magic bullet" - War- parison of seemingly contradic- shipping casket. taken place. noted the premature police radio ren Commission Exhibit 399 - tory medical data forced him to In this last regard, those in- transmission of an order to sur- which purportedly traversed the realize that it was the body, not volved were obviously not entire- round the Texas Schoolbook De- the documents, which had been ly successful; Lifton characteriz- pository Building (from which tampered with. Among his ed the crude, hastily-performed "In essence, it's alleged assassin Lee Harvey Os- "The body alteration says discoveries: post-mortem "surgery" as "a *Kennedy's body left Dallas really a very wald allegedly fired at the Lifton, amounted to butcher job." Presidential motorcade), despite still containing a brain. Upon in- simple plot" "In essence, it's really a very 'a butcher job' " the fact that the overwhelming itial arrival at Washington's simple plot," Lifton remarked. It majority of the eyewitnesses pre- Bethesda Naval Hospital, where was designed, he said, to make sent (including members of the the autopsy was performed, the the killing appear to be a Dallas constabulary) believed bodies of both Kennedy and cranium was empty - no brain *The bronze casket unloaded at "historical accident" - a "quirk that the shots had come from the Texas Governor John Connally, was present. Washington's Andrews Air Force of fate" perpetrated by a lone grassy knoll in front of Kennedy. who was riding in the same car. *FBI agents present at the Base was loaded into a gray Navy gunman. In fact, he pointed out, it He also presented numerous Bullet 399 is in virtually pristine autopsy reported that medical ambulance. The body, however, was a calculated undertaking in- slides of photographs taken by condition, as Lifton demonstra- personnel indicated that "sur- actually arrived at Bethesda in a volving the executive branch of Dealey Plaza witnesses, all of ted by comparing enlarged gery of the head area" had been shipping casket inside an un- the United States government. which indicate crowd reactions to photographs of it and other un- performed on the body. No mea- marked black hearse. The Secret Service, which con- shots emanating from the knoll. damaged bullets. In striking con- sures of any kind relating to Ken- *The bronze casket driven from trolled the body and other key The photographs also contradict trast, a bullet which was test- nedy's head had been undertaken Andrews to Bethesda, escorted evidence, played a pivotal role. the sworn statements of various fired through the wrist of a by the Dallas doctors. by Jacqueline Kennedy and Rob- According to Lifton, there are Secret Service officers, whose cadaver in order to simulate just *The official autopsy report ert F. Kennedy, was empty. The ex-government officials still liv- testimony as to the source of the bne of Connally's wounds was noted entry wounds in Kennedy's arrival of the Kennedy entourage ing, some now in their seventies, shots was given great weight by severely deformed by the impact. back and in the rear of his head. at the hospital was witnessed by who know precisely what happen- the Warren Commission, which A cursory comparison reveals None of the physicians in Dallas medical technicians who had ed but have refrained from was established by Lyndon John- the specious nature of the official observed any such injuries. already begun the examination of revealing it. In a forthcoming son to investigate the affair. claim. *Doctors in Dallas made a John Kennedy's body. book, he will explore the iden- *A military honor guard was di- tities of those involved. verted and prevented from es- In the meantime he is com- corting the casket. pleting a second book on the *Curious Bethesda personnel assassination, in which he will were told that the unusual pro- tackle such issues as the woun-

. cedures were instituted for ding of Governor Connally, the "security purposes." Kennedy's selection of the Dallas parade Air Force aide, General Godfrey route, additional details on the AND McHugh, was unaware that any mechanics of the plot, and such measures had been planned. previously unpublished findings on the role and identity of Lee Harvey Oswald. With the purchase of Though some observers have a small pizza you receive "If we cannot have justice, found Lifton's solidly-based con- clusions unpalatable, none have TWO FREE 16 oz. SODAS perhaps we can at least have the truth" refuted his findings. Instead, government officials and the media have maintained a 4 HOT LINE 556-3351 studious silence, refusing to re- *Autopsy doctors found it un- open the investigation of the One coupon per pizza necessary to expend much "crime of the century." Even Offer ends: energy to remove Kennedy's such famed journalists as the skullcap - it had apparently staff of CBS News' "60 Minutes" been done prior to the body's ar- have turned a blind eye to the rival at Bethesda. evidence he has presented. *During a 1966 telephone inter- Although he is disturbed by view, the chief autopsy doctor ex- such reticence, Lifton remains claimed that he would ". .. like to stoically resigned to others' indif- know who! By whom it was done! ference, and continues his detail- and when! And where!" ed research. "If we cannot have The inevitable question which justice," he maintains, "perhaps AND arises is, "Why?" The purpose of we can at least have the truth."

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