My Take on Landis

 My Take on Landis 

People want to know what my take on the recent revelations by 88 year old, retired Secret Service agent Paul Landis that is creating something of a media-storm. 

Landis now says that in the immediate aftermath of the assassination he found a full, intact bullet on the back seat of the limo where the President had been sitting. 

He picked it up, put it in his pocket and then walked into the Emergency Room and left the bullet on President Kennedy's stretcher. 

For some of those knowledgeable about the case this is just another link in the broken chain of custody of CE399, the nearly perfect bullet found on an Emergency Room gurney ostensibly used by Texas Governor John Connally. The true provenance of this piece of evidence has always been a matter of speculation and debate - and the subject of many essays - a good one by Dr. Gary Aguilar and Josiah Thompson [ The Magic Bullet: Even More Magical than We Knew  ] .

Though the Single-Bullet-Theory (SBT) has been the subject of much debate, it is one of a number of linchpins that Warren Commission adherents must cling to for their only suspect to have killed the President alone for not apparent reason. 

The alleged convoluted path of CE399 goes from the rifle found in the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) into the back of the president, exits his throat, enters John Connally, breaks a few ribs, exits Connally, passes through his wrist, breaking more bones and leaving fragments, then lodges in his thigh. 

Though the SBT is attributed to Warren Commission attorney and later Senator Arlen Specter, it was really put forth to him by another WC attorney Joe Ball, but Specter made it famous and almost convincing. 

While the SBT was accepted by the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) forensic panel, there was one dissent - Dr. Cyril Wecht, the distinguished president of the American Association of Forensic Pathologists, who challenged his colleagues to come up with one other case study of a gunshot wound bullet doing as much damage yet remain in nearly pristine condition. None of them could, and still can't.

And ironically, Wecht and Specter were always and remained good friends, something most disagreeing people just can't do. 

From what I understand Landis will make a presentation at the Wecht conference in Pittsburgh this November. 

For my part, the case for conspiracy doesn't rely on disproving the SBT. After all it didn't kill the President, that was accomplished by the bullet that hit JFK in the head, blowing his scull apart, and shattering into many pieces. 

Secret Service Agent Clint Hill, the closest witness, says this is the entrance wound, though he himself describes it as a "grapefruit size" hole in the right rear of the head, an obvious blowout exit wound, as Forensic Pathology 101 says that entrance wounds are small - the diameter of the bullet, while the exit wound is large, as Hill and the Parkland doctors saw it. 

So the whole SBT charade is a floating l- straw man argument, sit it up, blow it down, it really only matters to those who insist on the deranged lone gunman theory, as it is a mandatory requirement of it, but it really doesn't make any difference when it comes to understanding what really occurred. 

What's most interesting about the whole still developing Landis saga, are the responses of the officials and media, and ho-hum reactions of those most knowledgeable about the case. 

For them, the most knowledgeable, there are many outstanding questions - why did he put it on Kennedy's stretcher and not turn it over to a attending doctor or a nearby superior? 

Do you believe Landis or not? 

Many don't, not only for Landis not to have followed basic trained procedures for handling evidence, but some conspiracy buffs point out that Landis was one of the Secret Service agents who stayed up most of the night at The Cellar in Fort Worth, where they serve 190#poof Everclear in their mixed drink cocktails. Though he claimed not to have been drinking, some speculate he did and that influenced his judgement, as it certainly did for most of the Presidential Protection detail. 

If you don't believe Landis why bother taking this any further than the Vanity Fair article? 

If you do, is the bullet he found what we have in evidence as CE399, or was it a different bullet that's not in-evidence? 

For the Warren Commission adherents it must be CE399, as Gerald Posner is promoting it, saying that he now knows how the bullet got on the gurney, so it reaffirms his close minded position, but that's the route he's taking. 

But then where did it come from - Connally's thigh, or JFK's back, that was not known to the Parkland doctors or probed by the Bethesda pathologists, but Dr. Fink, the only one of the three autopsy doctors with any gunshot experience, said the back wound only knuckle deep. 

If it came from JFK's back wound then the SBT is once again out the window. 

So the bullet ballistics don't take us very far without degenerating into the same old arguments. 

While I haven't seen a formal Secret Service response yet, they did parade SS Agent Hill out to talk on NBC News on September 10th, that I haven't seen yet but know that he will denounce Landis, much like they did to Chicago SS agent Abraham Bolden. 

Bolden and Landis are not the only SS agents to come forward with evidence of conspiracy, or at least their beliefs that it was a conspiracy. 

And the media fascination with the Landis story is totally out-of-wack with their failure to pay attention to Jim diEugenio's recent article in his blog Kennedys and King that discusses SS Agent James Mastrovito , who acknowledged to the Assassinations Records Review Board (ARRB)that he was ordered to "cull" JFK assassination documents in his custody, and he believed that meant to destroy them. 

  [ The Mystery of Kennedy’s Brain Deepens ]

In addition, and possibly even more significant, Mastrovito had a vial labeled "JFK's brain matter - Armed Forces Institute of Pathology" - that he flushed into a food processor. 

Now how come nobody in the mainstream media aren't interested in that fascinating fact that I first reported in 2014?  [ JFKcountercoup: JFK's Brain at Armed Forces Institute of Pathology ]  

Or that Mastrovito was head of the Protective Services Department that kept track of all the threats to the president, one of their most closely guarded files, but one that was finally released in one of the last batches, but went pretty much unnoticed. 

And where were the mainstream media when we heard from Rolf Molf Larrson, or from Felix Rodriguez, Gene Wheaton and Carl Jenkins, three primary witnesses and suspects in the assassination, though people don't even know their names? 

As Jefferson Morley over at JFKFacts put it, maybe this whole Landis thing is a sort of limited hangout for the mainstream media and officials to adopt, even though its pretty late in the game. 

Since this is a still developing story, I'll put off writing any more about it until we see how this plays out. 

Billkelly3@gmail.com