Tuesday, October 24, 2017

The CIA's JFK Assassination Records

Circumstantial Evidence in the JFK Assassination

by Jacob G. Hornberger

October 24, 2017 

Having recently discovered this Thursday’s legal deadline for the National Archives’s mandated release of JFK assassination records that the CIA, FBI, and other agencies have succeeded in keeping secret for more than 50 years, the mainstream media is repeatedly emphasizing that the records will contain no “smoking guns.” 

Well, duh! As I stated in my article yesterday, “I Predict Trump Will Continue the CIA’s JFK Assassination Cover-Up,” ever since the CIA began specializing in assassinations, one of its principal rules has been never to put any reference to a covert state-sponsored assassination into writing. Given such, it’s no big revelation that the records that are set to be released — assuming that President Trump doesn’t grant the CIA’s request to keep them secret — will not contain a videotaped confession, a memorandum detailing how the assassination was to be carried out and covered up, or any other such “smoking gun” type of evidence. 

However, it is a virtual certainty that the tens of thousands of records will contain bits of circumstantial evidence that further fill in the mosaic that the assassination of President Kennedy was one of the CIA’s regime-change operations, no different in principle from those carried out in the 1950s-1970s in such countries as Iran, Guatemala, Congo, Cuba, and Chile. 

The problem is that mainstream reporters and commentators, generally speaking, have no understanding of or appreciation for the importance and relevance of circumstantial evidence. To them, all that matters is direct evidence, such as a videotaped confession or a signed memorandum showing how the assassination was carried out. 

What is circumstantial evidence? The definition provided by Wikipedia is as good as any other: 
Circumstantial evidence is evidence that relies on an inference to connect it to a conclusion of fact — like a fingerprint at the scene of a crime. By contrast, direct evidence supports the truth of an assertion directly — i.e., without need for any additional evidence or inference. 
It is worth noting that courts consider circumstantial evidence to be of equal value to direct evidence. 

When the mainstream media refers to the term of Assassination Records Review Board in the 1990s, they always repeat the same mantra — that the ARRB found no “smoking guns.” They are, again, referring to direct evidence and not circumstantial evidence. 

An example of circumstantial evidence was the testimony of Saundra Spencer, who was the petty officer in charge of the White House Laboratory at the Naval Photographic Center in Washington, D.C. As such, she worked closely with the Kennedy White House, including on highly classified matters. 

It would be virtually impossible to find a more credible witness than Saundra Spencer. I think that everyone, including the Pentagon and the CIA, would attest to her integrity and veracity. 

Spencer gave sworn testimony before the ARRB. The mainstream media has never devoted any attention to her testimony. Why? Because her testimony did not constitute direct evidence. That is, since she didn’t testify that she saw who shot the president or some other type of direct “smoking gun” testimony, the mainstream media has ignored what she told the ARRB. 

Spencer testified under oath that on the weekend of the assassination, she was asked to develop JFK autopsy photographs, on a highly classified basis. 

The ARRB asked Spencer to identify the official autopsy photographs in the record. She examined the photographs and told the ARRB, in direct and unequivocal terms, that those were not the autopsy photographs she developed. The ones she developed showed a big exit-sized hole in the back of the president’s head. The official autopsy photographs in the record show the back of JFK’s head to be intact. 

Spencer’s sworn testimony before the ARRB leads to but one conclusion: The official autopsy photographs in the JFK assassination are fakes.

Read the rest of the article

No comments:

An early George Gershwin song from the musical "Miss 1917"

  Today, February 12,2024, marks the 100th anniversary of the debut of George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" in Aeolian Hall in...