From john.mcadams@marquette.edu Tue Dec 23 18:51:26 2003 Newsgroups: alt.assassination.jfk Subject: Aguilar's "Back of the Head" Witnesses - 9 (Revised) From: john.mcadams@marquette.edu (John McAdams) Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2003 00:51:26 GMT Gary Aguilar claims to have examined the testimony of 46 witnesses to Kennedy's head wound, at both Parkland and Bethesda, and found that 44 of the 46 described the head wound as contradicting the photos and x-rays of the autopsy as they exist in the National Archives. So does Gary have 44 "back of the head" witnesses? And are his 46 witnesses selected so as to avoid witnesses who placed the wound at the top of the head, or the side of the head? Let's take one example: The following quotes from Aguilar are taken from: http://www.assassinationweb.com/ag6.htm ------------------------------- 10) CHARLES RUFUS BAXTER, MD, a resident physician at Parkland in a hand written note prepared on 11-22-63 and published in the Warren Report (p. 523) Baxter wrote, "...the right temporal and occipital bones were missing (emphasis added) and the brain was lying on the table..." (WR:523). Very oddly, as Wallace Milam pointed out to one of the authors (Aguilar), when asked to read his own hand written report into the record before the Warren Commission's Arlen Specter the words are recorded exactly as he wrote them, except for the above sentence. That sentence was recorded by the Warren Commission and reads "...the right temporal and parietal bones were missing. (emphasis added)...". (WC-V6:44) It is reasonable to assume that Baxter's original description of a more rearward wound is more reliable than his later testimony before Arlen Specter, who on more than one occasion tried to move the skull wound away from the rear. --------------------------------------- Or Baxter has simply decided that "occipital" was wrong. ------------------------------- Baxter then described the head wound saying, "...literally the right side of his head had been blown off. With this and the observation that the cerebellum was present...." (WC-V6:41) --------------------------------------- Thus, his observations were very much like Jenkins, who said "cerebellum," and also said the "right side." So what Gary must do to make him a "back of the head" witness is to latch onto "cerebellum" and ignore "right side." ------------------------------- Thus the wound he saw was more likely to have been "temporo-occipital" than "temporo-parietal", because he also recalled, "cerebellum was present". (WC-V6:41) Shortly later in the same interview he also said, "...the temporal and parietal bones were missing and the ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ brain was lying on the table...." (WC-V6:44) The authors are unaware of any explanation for the discrepancies, and can only speculate that ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ either Baxter was misquoted twice or he adjusted his testimony to conform with what he might have felt was wanted of him. --------------------------------------- Note what Aguilar is doing. He is "speculating" that Baxter was misquoted, or changed his testimony. It's really not kosher to simply *assume* that inconvenient testimony was "misquoted" or "adjusted" in the absence of any evidence that this happened. Aguilar has concealed one element of Baxter's testimony from his readers. He told Arlen Specter: Dr. BAXTER. . . . This wound was in temporal parietal plate of bone laid outward to the side and there was a large area, oh, I would say 6 by 8 or 10 cm. of lacerated brain oozing from this wound, part of which was on the table and made a rather massive blood loss mixed with it and around it. 6H41-42 Aguilar wants to change Baxter from a "side of the head" witness to a "back of the head" witness by discounting Warren Commission statements. If readers knew how consistently he told the Warren Commission that the wound was temporal and parietal, they might conclude that he really means temporal and parietal. What we have from Baxter is somewhat conflicting testimony, but with more "side of the head" and "temporal" and "parietal" statements than "occipital" or "back of the head" statements. ------------------------------- The mystery was confounded when author Livingstone reported that Baxter described the skull wound as "...a large gaping wound in the occipital area." Livingstone also reported that "(Baxter) could not have been more clear when he rejected the official picture (showing the rear scalp intact)."(Groden and Livingston, High Treason, p.45) Baxter's reliability has also been called into question for a comment attributed to him by Dennis Breo, staff writer for JAMA, and Gerald Posner. Baxter apparently supported Breo's suggestion that Charles Crenshaw, MD, author of the recent book, "Conspiracy of Silence", (Crenshaw, CA, Hansen, J, Shaw, G. "Conspiracy of Silence". 1992, New York, Signet) was not in JFK's trauma room. JAMA wrote, "Most of those who know the facts express disgust at Crenshaw's actions and question if he was involved in the care of the President at all...None of the four (interviewed by Breo) recalls ever seeing him at the scene." (Breo DL. JAMA 267:2804-2805). This claim was used by JAMA to support the Warren Commission's reconstruction of the event, and call into question Crenshaw's recollections of JFK's wounds published in his book--recollections that flatly contradicted the Commission's findings. In an interview with author Gerald Posner in 1992, Baxter said, "I don't either (remember that Crenshaw was present in JFK's trauma room)." (Posner, G. "Case Closed". p.312, paper version). Embarrassingly, before the Warren Commission's Arlen Specter, however, Baxter, under oath, listed the physicians present with him in the emergency room with JFK. The first physician he named was Charles Crenshaw". (WC- V6:40) --------------------------------------- In the face of Baxter's inconvenient testimony, Aguilar turns to the attack. He "questions" Baxter's reliability. This is a regular tactic of Aguilar. The key problem is that, even if he can prove a witness is unreliable, being unreliable doesn't make the witness a "back of the head" witness. It merely makes him of little use. It's interesting that Aguilar treats Baxter as some sort of lying scum for not remembering that Crenshaw was in the ER. It might seem sensible that, after 30 years, one would *not* remember every person -- and certainly not a bit player like Crenshaw. ------------------------------- As if Baxter's credibility had not suffered enough, he reported to author Posner on March 12, 1992, "I never even saw the back of (JFK's) head. The wound was on the right side, not the back." (Posner G. "Case Closed". p.312) Baxter would do well to read his own hand-written note, prepared on the day of the assassination, and reproduced legibly in the Warren Report, and read the transcripts of interviews he's given authors before allowing further interviews. This fact will be explored again in the following chapter. In any case it seems that Baxter is either terribly unreliable or is often misquoted, as seem to be all of Breo's and Posner's 'allies'. McClelland, disparaged by the other Parkland witnesses used by Breo and Posner, is the only one of these witnesses whose opinion has not seemed to change with the wind. --------------------------------------- So to make Baxter a "back of the head" witness, Aguilar must latch onto a few statements of his ("cerebellum" and "occipital" in the Nov. 22 note), and ignore many others, including most of his testimony to the Warren Commission. He dismisses that by "speculating" that Baxter was misquoted, or "adjusted" his testimony. In the face of recent testimony from Baxter that's inconvenient, Aguilar turns to the attack and says that Baxter's opinion has "changed with the wind." The problem for Aguilar is that, even if he can prove Baxter to be lying scum, that does not make him a "back of the head" witness. It's also worth noting that, as Aguilar admits in his essay in MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA, Baxter told the ARRB that "None of us at that time, I don't think, were in any positon to view the head injury. And, in fact, I never saw anything above the scalpline, forehead line that I could comment on." (p. 192) Like many other witnesses, Baxter could not have seen a wound in the location where Aguilar wants it to be. .John The Kennedy Assassination Home Page http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/home.htm