Erasing the Past to Protect a Fairytale

398 Different set of JFK post mortem photographs


Related:
4. John F. Kennedy's brain
5. John F. Kennedy's second brain

In November, 1963, [Sandra K. Spencer] was petty officer in charge of the White House Laboratory
at the Naval Photographic Center in Anacostia, Washington, DC.


Sandra K. Spencer, 1939-2012

Within a day or two of the assassination, a Secret-Service agent arrived, carrying
films in four holders—exposures of President Kennedy's corpse.

Law: Did someone call and tell you he was coming?
Spencer: Yep. Chief [Robert L.] Knudsen had called saying that an agent would
have film negatives to be developed. We were not to pay too much attention to
what was on them.

Law: Did you look at the negatives?
Spencer: Yes, I had to. I had to get the color balance right.

Spencer said the agent's name was James K. Fox. He stayed with her while she
developed the films, even in the darkroom.

Spencer: They were basic shots of the president's head. He was on his back.
They weren't like autopsy pictures. They did not have the incisions, you know, or
the cutting of the head.

Law: Did the body have the classic Y-incision denoting the autopsy had been
performed?
Spencer: I didn't see any Y-incision. The chest wasn't showing. I don't know when
these pictures were taken. They could
have been shot in Dallas when [the Dallas doctors] started their work, or it could
have been after everything was finished. There is no way to tell. I was not informed.

Law: Can you describe the wounds on the body?
Spencer: The two that I remember were at the back of his head and at his throat.
The throat wound was small and slightly off to the right, about thumbnail size.


Naval Photographic Center in Anacostia promo

This was a startling revelation. If Spencer had developed a photograph showing
a thumbnail-sized throat wound, the picture had to have been taken before the
official autopsy at Bethesda. Those I had spoken to from the Bethesda autopsy
had confirmed that the throat wound was an open gash as seen in the "stare-of-death"
photograph. There is no record of photographs of the corpse taken in Dallas

Spencer: The wound in the back of the head was about two and a quarter [inches]
around, slightly off to the right.

Law: Was there massive damage to the head?
Spencer: No. Have you viewed the photos in the National Archives?

Law: Yes, I have.
Spencer: There was none of the massive head trauma that is shown in those
photos.

(…)

Law: From what angles where the photographs taken?
Spencer: Well, I remember a three-quarter length view of the body, a profile,
back of the head, and the throat. There was one of the brain next to him—

I almost screamed "WHAT?" in her ear, but somehow I maintained composure.

I tried to sound nonchalant: "Was the brain whole?"
Spencer: Yes—the more I think of it—it's almost like they reconstructed his
head for the photos so, if they had to show the public something, that's what they
would show.

Law: Did the brain have damage to it?
Spencer: No, which surprised me and I doubt that it was his because I didn't see
any cutting on [the head]. I didn't see how they could get it out.

Law: It was just beside him?
Spencer: Yes. It was next to the body. The head had no opening big
enough to take the brain out. This set of pictures differed from those that are in
the National Archives. This was a more respectful set of poses—almost like the
body was posed for these pictures. But like I said, after looking at the other (National
Archives) photos, I almost think these were shot in case some had to be
shown. So the family and everybody could see them. I know they closed the casket,
and I never could understand that from the pictures I'd seen.

She went on to say the president's body and hair were clean and free of blood. I
asked about the bullet wound in the president's back: none of the photographs
that she developed showed the rear of the torso.

She developed and dried the negatives and then ran some test prints; in all, it
took an hour or so. Agent Fox then gathered up the negatives and prints and the
papers that Spencer had signed, and told her to forget that he had been there.

The ARRB seemed disappointed that she could not identify the autopsy pictures in the
National Archives as the one she developed. In her opinion, they were
trying to obtain as much information as possible.

If she is not mistaken about what she saw in the photographs that she printed
on November 23 or 24, 1963, then Saundra Spencer is a witness to a previously
unknown part of the JFK assassination. "I processed the pictures, but nobody can
find them, so I don't know. They could be a figment of my imagination," she said,
laughing. Turning serious, she added, "I just wish they would surface. It would
end a lot of speculation about things."

(William Matson Law, In the eye of history, p. 310-312)

400 Eugene Rostow's anonymous party



    Now, I've got a party here, we've, I've been pursuing this policy,
        you know, that people need to come together at this time.


Eugene Rostow, Dean of the Yale Law School, called Bill Moyers at the White House on November
24, 1963, to suggest the possibility of a Presidential Commission which would include distinguished
citizens. It should be noted that Rostow told Moyers there was someone else in the room when he
called, but he did not say who it was. Rostow told Moyers that he had already spoken to
Katzenbach about three times, but he was speaking directly to Moyers because Katzenbach
“sounded too groggy so I thought I’d pass this thought along to you.” According to Gibson,
Katzenbach wrote his memo as a result of his conversations with Rostow.

(Vasilios Vazakas, Jim DiEugenio, Creating the Oswald Legend – Part 4)


(Rostow-Moyers phonecall, 11-24-63)

Moyers: It is good to talk to you.

Dean Rostow: Thank you, boy, and if I can help in any way, I am calling with a suggestion. I just talked to Nick Katzenbach and the poor fellow. he has so much of a burden on him. I talked to him about three times today and he just sounded so groggy so I thought I’d pass this thought along to you. And, of course. I realize how tough it must be now for the President. In this situation, with the bastard dead, my suggestion is that a Presidential Commission be appointed of very distinguished citizens in the very near future. Bipartisan and above politics - no Supreme Court justices but people like Tom Dewey and Bill Story from Texas and so on. A commission of seven or nine people, maybe Nixon, I don’t know, to look into the whole affair of the murder of the President because world opinion and American opinion is just now so shaken by the behavior of the Dallas Police that they’re won't believing anything.

Moyers: I can understand that. . . .

Rostow: Now, I've got a party here, we've, I've been pursuing this policy, you know, that people need to come together at this time.



During the Kennedy Administration, Moyers was first appointed as associate director of public affairs for the
newly created Peace Corps in 1961. He served as Deputy Director from 1962 to 1963. When Lyndon B. Johnson
took office after the Kennedy assassination, Moyers became a special assistant to Johnson, serving from 1963
to 1967. Moyers and Pamela Turnure are the last surviving people identifiable in the photograph taken of
Johnson's swearing in [top right with glasses, AH]. He played a key role in organizing and supervising the 1964 
Great Society legislative task forces and was a principal architect of Johnson's 1964 presidential campaign.
(Wikipedia, retrieved 8-25-20)

On November 25 1963, the day of the Kennedy funeral, Assistant Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach sent a memo to Bill Moyers of the new Johnson White House. He had begun writing it the day earlier, within hours after Oswald's death at the hands of Jack Ruby.

The second paragraph stated: "The public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin; that he did not have confederates who are still at large; and that evidence was such that he would have been convicted at trial."

Given that the authorities could not possibly by November 25 know these things to be true, and Katzenbach later admitted he knew very little at this stage, the memo is clearly advocating a political course irrespective of the truth of the assassination.

The motivation for this political course may be glimpsed in the succeeding paragraph: "Speculation about Oswald's motivation ought to be cut off, and we should have some basis for rebutting thought that this was a Communist conspiracy or (as the Iron Curtain press is saying) a right-wing conspiracy to blame it on the Communists. Unfortunately the facts on Oswald seem about too pat--too obvious (Marxist, Cuba, Russian wife, etc.). The Dallas police have put out statements on the Communist conspiracy theory, and it was they who were in charge when he was shot and thus silenced."

Katzenbach's memo advocated a public FBI report to satisfy this "objective," though he noted the possible need for "the appointment of a Presidential Commission of unimpeachable personnel to review and examine the evidence and announce its conclusions." He ended by advocating a quick public announcement to "head off speculation or Congressional hearings of the wrong sort."

To many observers, the Katzenbach memo provides the blueprint for the cover-up which followed.

(Mary Ferrell Foundation)

402 Memphis & Birmingham FBI files on Clarence Smelley


Compare:
264  Report of interview of Louis Kutner during week of November 24, 1963
270  Robert Russell's JFK autopsy materials

Clarence Daniel Smelley was a member of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in Birmingham, Alabama, who alleged in 1964 that he had information in his possession that Teamster President Jimmy Hoffa had conspired to and carried out the assassination of President Kennedy. The Review Board requested access to the FBI Headquarters file titled “James Riddle Hoffa; Clarence Daniel Smelley; Unknown Subjects,” as well as the corresponding Memphis and Birmingham field office files. The Review Board designated the entire Headquarters file for processing under the JFK Act. This file documented the Bureau’s investigation of Smelley and his allegations. The FBI reports that it destroyed corresponding Memphis and Birmingham field office files in the 1970s.

(ARRB Final Report, p. 112)

404 Posner's notes


Related:
5   John F. Kennedy's second brain
40 The original autopsy notes by Commander James J. Humes

Gerald Posner, author of the book Case Closed, testified before Congress during debate over the JFK Act that he had interviewed both Navy autopsy prosectors, Drs. Humes and Boswell. When asked if he would donate his notes of those interviews to the JFK Collection and if he had any audiotapes of those interviews, Posner responded, “I would be happy, Mr. Chairman, to ask Drs.Humes and Boswell if they would agree for their notes to be released to the National Archives.” The Review Board’s initial contact with Posner produced no results. The Review Board never received a response to a second letter of request for the notes.



(ARRB Final Report, p. 134)