One of the most fascinating aspects of the Kennedy assassination has been “anti-conspiracy theorists,” especially within the mainstream press. People are so scared of being labeled a “conspiracy theorist” that they will do everything they can to avoid making a careful examination of the circumstantial evidence pointing toward a national-security regime-change operation in Dallas on November 22, 1963.
Consider, for example, Saundra Spencer, who I discuss both in my book The Kennedy Autopsy and in my current, ongoing video-podcast series on the JFK assassination.
Spencer was a U.S. Navy petty officer who was serving in the U.S. Navy’s photography lab in Washington D.C., in November 1963. She had a top-secret security clearance. Her job included the development of classified photographs. She worked closely with the White House. It would be virtually impossible to find a more credible and competent witness than Saundra Spencer. No one has ever questioned her veracity, integrity, and competence.
As most everyone knows, when someone in the military acquires what is known as “classified information,” he is required to keep it secret for the rest of his life, even if he leaves the military. Every member of the U.S. military — indeed, every employee of the U.S. national-security establishment — knows that if he ever breaches the secrecy principle, he is subject to severe punishment.
In the 1990s, Spencer was summoned to testify before the Assassination Records Review Board, the commission charged with enforcing the JFK Records Act, which forced the U.S. national-security establishment to disclose its records relating to the JFK assassination to the public.
Spencer related an astounding story, one that she had kept secret for some 30 years owing to its classified nature. After the ARRB released her from her obligation of secrecy, Spencer stated that on the weekend of the assassination, she had been asked to develop, on a top-secret basis, the photographs of the autopsy that the U.S. military had performed on President Kennedy’s body on the evening of the assassination.
The ARRB’s general counsel showed Spencer the official autopsy photographs, which she carefully examined. She stated directly, firmly, and unequivocally that those autopsy photographs were not the autopsy photographs that she developed on the weekend of the assassination. The ones she developed, she said, showed a large, exit-sized wound in the back of President Kennedy’s head. The official autopsy photographs showed the back of Kennedy’s head to be intact, that is, without a large exit-sized wound.
What are we to make of this? Well, according to anti-conspiracy theorists, nothing. We are not supposed to go down that road. We are not supposed to ask any questions, for to do so would mean that we have entered the dreaded realm of “conspiracy theory.”
Even the fact that the treating physicians at Dallas’s Parkland Hospital, who described the large, exit-sized wound in the lower back of the president’s head, from which, they said, was leaking cerebellum, which is the lower back part of the brain, is not supposed to cause us to wonder what is going on here. That could lead down the dangerous road to being called a “conspiracy theorist.”
As shown in Dallas businessman Abraham Zupruder’s famous film of the assassination, immediately after the president was shot Secret Service agent Clint Hill grabbed onto the back of the presidential limousine, pushed Jacqueline Kennedy back into her seat, and put his body on that of President Kennedy, in an attempt to shield the president from any more shots. For the 6-8 minutes that it took to get to Parkland Hospital, Hill said he was staring at the large, exit-sized wound in the back of the president’s head.
But we can’t go there either. That might make us a “conspiracy theorist.”
Parkland nurse Diana Bowrun was one of the hospital personnel helping to get the president out of the car and into the hospital. When she put her hand behind the president’s head, she felt the large, exit-sized wound in the back of Kennedy’s head.
Nurse Audrey Bell was helping the treating physicians inside the hospital. She later emphasized the large, exit-sized wound in the back of JFK’s head.
Don’t even think about what Bowrun and Bell said. It could make you a “conspiracy theorist.”
Charles Brehm was a bystander who was situated to the left rear of the presidential limousine when the president was shot. He saw (for lack of a better term) exit debris from the wound in the back of President Kennedy’s head landing in the grass near him. A woman named Marilyn Willis, who was also behind the limousine said that she saw exit debris coming out of the back of Kennedy’s head. Her daughter said she saw the back side of the president’s head blow out. A motorcycle cop named Jimmy Hargis, who was situated to the left rear of the vehicle, got splattered with exit debris.
Don’t go down that road! Remember: Conspiracy theory!
FBI agents Francis O’Neil and James Sibert were at the autopsy that the U.S. military conducted on President Kennedy’s body. When the ARRB showed them the official autopsy photographs, they said that the autopsy photographs were incorrect because they failed to show the massive damage on the back of the president’s head. One of them used the term “doctored” to describe the photographs.
Just forget their testimony. It could lead you to being considered a “conspiracy theorist.”
In 1966, the official autopsy photographer, John Stringer, was summoned to a meeting to confirm an inventory of the official autopsy photographs, which were still being kept secret from the American people. After reviewing the inventory, Stringer said that it wasn’t accurate because it did not include all of the autopsy photographs he had taken. He was ordered to sign it anyway, which he did. When the ARRB asked him in the 1990s why he had signed the inventory knowing that it was false, he said he did so because he was ordered to do so. When the ARRB general counsel pointed out that some people in the military say no to such things, Stringer responded that such people don’t last long in the military.
But you’re not supposed to wonder about all this. You’re not supposed to question it. After all, why take the risk of being called a “conspiracy theorist”? Isn’t it much safer to just remain an “anti-conspiracy theorist,” even if that necessarily means that you believe that all of those people must have gotten together to concoct, for some unknown reason, the wound in the back of President Kennedy’s head?