Dr. Wecht's Letter to the Editor NY Times

From: Cyril Wecht
Sent: Monday, February 09, 2015 12:07 PM
To: 'letters@nytimes.com'
Subject: Who dunit? In Obsessed Nation, Question Becomes Who Didn't

                                                                                                                                                    
February 9, 2015

Letters to the Editor

The New York Times

229 West 43rd Street

New York,  N.Y.  10036

RE:  “Whodunit? In Obsessed Nation, Question Becomes Who Didn’t

February 8, 2015

To the Editor:

                This fascinating “Memo From Argentina” about the mysterious fatal shooting of Alberto Nisman refers to exhumations of prominent political figures whose deaths remained the subjects of continuing significant controversy in their respective countries – President Salvador Allende and Nobel Prize-winning poet in Chili (1973); President Joao Goulart in Brazil (1964); Simon Bolivar in Venezuela (1830).  Two other exhumations of prominent leaders should be referred to in this context – President Zachary Taylor in the USA (1850), and PLO President Yasir Arafat in France (2004).

                While all these deaths involved varying puzzling features, none of them entailed as much hard-core forensic scientific controversy as the assassination of President John F. Kennedy; nor were the official governmental rulings as to who was responsible for those deaths rejected by such a large majority of their respective country’s population as that which exists in the United States after more than half a century.

                Would it not be beneficial to our nation to have the President’s body exhumed so that modern day forensic scientific technology and fresh eyes could be utilized to determine with indisputable finality whether the Warren Commission was correct?

Sincerely,

Cyril H. Wecht, M.D., J.D.

Forensic Pathologist

Past President, American Academy of Forensic Sciences

Past President, American College of Legal Medicine

Clinical Professor of Pathology University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

Adjunct Professor, Duquesne University School of Law

Distinguished Professor of Pathology, Carlow University