ROBERT HARRIS SAID:
>>> "You...have made a career out of calling witnesses and researchers
"liars"." <<<
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Bob, please point me to any post I have made in the past where I've
called any witnesses "liars" (other than Jean Hill and Roger Craig,
who I have, indeed, called liars, because they were).
>>> "Why is it that you...are so eager to accept this guy's uncorroborated
claim without a recorded interview or even a transcript of his alleged
conversation [referring to Ray Marcus' 7/25/66 telephone interview with
Darrell Tomlinson]?" <<<
For one very good reason -- Jean Davison -- which I alluded to at the top
of my original post regarding this matter at the Education Forum, when I
said this:
"And, yes, I certainly trust Ms. Davison and her research. In fact,
I'm more inclined to accept anything that Jean says as the absolute truth
regarding pretty much anything concerning the JFK murder case than I am to
accept any other researcher's information." -- DVP; 11/30/2011
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=18453&st=0&p=239689&#entry239689
Along these same lines, I talked to Gary Mack of the Sixth Floor
Museum via e-mail on December 1, 2011, and I said this to him:
"Have you seen the Marcus HSCA document that I've been
discussing at the Edu. Forum? [In a return e-mail, Gary told me that
he does not remember ever seeing the document in question.] I have not
seen it myself, but as I said in my Edu. post, I trust Jean Davison
immensely, and I am absolutely 100% confident that Jean would never
have said the things she said on the Internet about the contents of
that 1966 Marcus/Tomlinson interview if she had not confirmed them
beforehand. And that's why I was confident enough to start that Edu.
Forum discussion in the first place. I'm sure there are some people
who would say that I'm not being forthright regarding this matter--
i.e., I should have viewed the Marcus transcript MYSELF before
shooting off my mouth on the Internet. And normally, yes, I would
agree with such an opinion. But since I have a source to fall back on
whom I deem to be first-rate and honest and one of the best
researchers in the history of JFK research (Jean Davison), I almost
feel as if I have, indeed, read that transcript myself. That's how
much I respect Jean. Plus, of course, I wanted to drive Jim DiEugenio
a little nuts too. That's always worth doing (as you probably know)."
-- DVP; 12/1/2011
>>> "I thought you were a fan of Posner's edict that we must take the
earliest statements of a witness to be the most accurate. I guess that's
only true when you like the early statements better, eh David?" <<<
But, Robert, in the 1966 Marcus interview, it would certainly appear as if
Tomlinson WAS talking his earliest statement concerning CE399 looking the
same as the stretcher bullet. Jean Davison made that fairly clear in her
post of November 22nd, 2011, here:
"Tomlinson told researcher Ray Marcus that the FBI showed him the
bullet and that it looked like the one he found. Marcus provided a
transcript to the HSCA that can be ordered from the National Archives.
Marcus is a conspiracy theorist, not a 'WC defender'. Do you think he just
made that up?" -- Jean Davison
Jean also said this in her post of July 16, 2011:
"[Darrell] Tomlinson told WC critic Raymond Marcus that he and
[O.P.] Wright were shown the bullet by [Gordon] Shanklin and that it
looked like the same one to him. Whether it was really Shanklin or not, I
don't know, but you might want to order a transcript of his 7/25/66
interview from the Archives, because Tomlinson also told Marcus that he
believed the bullet came off the elevator stretcher. (IMO, Tomlinson never
was sure which stretcher it was, and he wavered back and forth.) The
transcript is HSCA document 180-10088-10206. I don't know the RIF but it
can be found with the NA's JFK search engine. It's not online anywhere
that I know of." -- Jean Davison
http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/search.html
Bob, do you think that Tomlinson was talking about some OTHER time that we
was shown CE399 by an "FBI agent" (other than June 12, 1964, that is,
which is the date we find for the FBI's visit to Parkland in CE2011)?
http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh24/html/WH_Vol24_0215b.htm
And even though Jean doesn't mention the specific date of the FBI agent's
visit to see Tomlinson, it's pretty clear that Tomlinson certainly DID
make a statement to Raymond Marcus on July 25th, 1966, that CE399 looked
the same as the bullet he found on a stretcher. And Tomlinson was talking
about what he had ALREADY TOLD the FBI at some earlier time (i.e., earlier
than the July 1966 interview with Marcus).
And the whole point of my bringing this issue up at the Education Forum
was to re-emphasize Jean Davison's earlier points about Tomlinson's
remarks. Because many CTers don't think ANY agent from the FBI visited
Tomlinson to show him CE399 at all in 1964. And the 1966 Marcus interview
verifies that that just is not correct.
Now, I'm not suggesting that Tomlinson didn't change his story over the
years. He most certainly did change his story about the stretchers. And I
have talked about his flip-flopping in my forum posts, such as in this
post from July of this year:
"Darrell Tomlinson has gone through various changes in his
story--from 1964 to 1988:
1964 --- He told the Warren Commission (no less than six
separate times) that he was "not sure" which of the two stretchers he
had taken off of the elevator.
1967 --- He told CBS News that he was absolutely positive that
the stretcher on which he found the bullet was the stretcher that had
come off of the elevator.
1988 --- Tomlinson now completely contradicts his 1967 statement by
telling PBS-TV that he is certain that the bullet he found came off of a
stretcher that definitely HAD NOT been taken by him off of the elevator.
IMO, Tomlinson's first (1964) statements are the best and carry
the most weight. In other words, he simply was "not sure" at all which
of those two stretchers had come off of that elevator on Nov. 22." --
DVP; July 19, 2011
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.assassination.jfk/msg/fe48e9e5812ead12
===================
But the main point, again, isn't Tomlinson's flip-flopping (and nobody can
possibly deny that Tomlinson changed his story about the stretchers more
than once; we have his 1967 and 1988 television appearances to verify his
flip-flopping), but the main point is that Tomlinson DID tell the FBI
prior to 1966 that he took the bullet off of the ELEVATOR stretcher. And
most CTers around these parts just don't want to believe that Tomlinson
told the FBI anything concerning the bullet. But the Marcus interview
shatters that belief, and also destroys the theory that the FBI lied
through their teeth in CE2011.
>>> "David's tactic is to look at an article with a large quantity of
solid evidence and testimony and seek out something which he thinks gives
the appearance of uncertainty or doubt, and then dwell on only that
issue." <<<
No, but you've just described the tactics of conspiracy theorists to a
tee.
The CTers of the world never concentrate on the "whole" or the "sum
total". Take Robert Harris' "Z285" theory for example. The "sum total" of
the evidence (when taking into account the varied witness statements AND
the ballistics evidence in the case and WHERE that evidence was located)
indicates that only THREE shots were fired at JFK's limousine, with those
three shots all coming from the SE corner of the TSBD's 6th floor.
But if a person (like Robert Harris) wanted to isolate only certain
"bunched shots" witnesses, then he, of course, can build himself a pretty
nice-looking theory around those witnesses. Who couldn't?
But I will then counter with a few witnesses who disagree with Bob Harris'
theory about "bunched up" shots. Am I then engaging in "witness
selectivity"? Well, yes, of course I am. But it's to illustrate that there
ARE other witnesses who don't think that some of the shots were "bunched"
together. Here's that list (and there are probably a few more I could add
to this list of witnesses who thought that the gunshots were evenly
spaced):
James Romack:
Mr. BELIN. How many did you hear?
Mr. ROMACK. Three.
Mr. BELIN. How close did the shots sound like they came together?
Mr. ROMACK. Oh, they happened pretty fast. I would say maybe 3 or 4
seconds apart.
Mr. BELIN. Were they equally spaced, or did one sound like it was
closer than another one in time?
Mr. ROMACK. It sounded like to me that they were evenly spaced. They
rang out pretty fast.
-------------------
Officer Marrion L. Baker:
Mr. BAKER - Yes, sir; I heard--now before I revved up this motorcycle,
I heard the, you know, the two extra shots, the three shots.
Mr. BELIN - Do you have any time estimate as to the spacing of any of
these shots?
Mr. BAKER - It seemed to me like they just went bang, bang, bang; they
were pretty well even to me.
Mr. BELIN - They were pretty well even.
-------------------
Tom Dillard:
Mr. BALL - How many explosions did you hear?
Mr. DILLARD - I heard three - the three approximately equally spaced.
-------------------
Mal Couch:
Mr. BELIN - And what's your best recollection now as to the amount of
time between shots?
Mr. COUCH - Well, I would say the longest time would be 5 seconds, but
it could be from 3 to 5.
Mr. BELIN - And would this be true between the first and the second shots
as well as between the second and the third - or would there have been a
difference?
Mr. COUCH - As I recall, the time sequence between the three were
relatively the same.
-------------------
Pierce Allman (via WFAA-Radio interview, linked below):
"I heard three well-spaced reverberating shots."
http://dvp-potpourri.blogspot.com/2011/05/pierce-allman.html
------------------
Nellie Connally:
Mr. DULLES. I just have one question. Mrs. Connally, on one point your
testimony differs from a good many others as to the timing of the
shots. I think you said that there seemed to be more time between the
second and third than between the first and the second; is that your
recollection?
Mrs. CONNALLY. Yes.
Mr. DULLES. That is, the space between the first and the second was
less than between the second and the third? You realize I just wanted
to get whether I had heard you correctly on that.
Mrs. CONNALLY. You did.
-------------------
Emmett Hudson:
Mr. LIEBELER - How many shots did you here altogether?
Mr. HUDSON - Three.
Mr. LIEBELER - Did the shots seem evenly spaced or were some of them
closer together?
Mr. HUDSON - They seemed pretty well evenly spaced.
Mr. LIEBELER - Evenly spaced; is that it?
Mr. HUDSON - Yes, sir.
-------------------
Harold Norman:
"Boom...(click-click)...Boom...(click-click)...Boom."
Norman always "re-created" his "booms" and "clicks" in a perfectly
even distribution of the gunshots.
http://JFK-Archives.blogspot.com