Hit List: An In-Depth Investigation Into the Mysterious Deaths of Witnesses to the JFK Assassination

by Richard Belzer

  4 Ibid.

  5 Ibid.

  6 Ibid.

  That frontal wound made it obvious that at least one shot had been from the front. Combined with the known shots from the rear, that meant there had to be a conspiracy of multiple shooters. That conflicted with the official version of events and, hence, did not sit at all well with the Powers That Be.

  So, practically at gunpoint by some accounts, and in blatant violation of the law, the Secret Service “kidnapped” the President’s body from Texas authorities who actually had full legal jurisdiction and who vehemently protested the seizure and the countermanding of their legal authority in the case.

  The President’s body officially reappeared at Bethesda Naval Medical Center, where it was received for autopsy. However, the wounds to President Kennedy had been dramatically altered between the trip from Dallas to Bethesda.

  By the time that President Kennedy’s body reached Bethesda, it was demonstrably different. There were at least four ­dramatic irregularities in the state of the corpse between Dallas-to-Bethesda1:

  1. When the body of President Kennedy left Parkland Hospital in Dallas, there was what doctors described as an entry wound in the right forehead and a massive blowout exit wound at the rear. At Bethesda, pre-autopsy, the wound in the right forehead was massive, appearing more like an exit wound.

  2. Doctors said that fully two thirds of the President’s brain was intact and secure in the skull cavity when it left Parkland. At Bethesda, the President’s brain was almost completely absent and what was left of it oozed onto the table because it was not secure in the skull cavity (those present in the room at the time literally gasped in shock at the extent of the damage).

  3. At Parkland, doctors saw a neat and clearly delineated entry wound in the front throat, through which they made a standard emergency tracheotomy incision. By the time the body reached Bethesda, the incision in the throat was demonstrably larger.

  4. The President’s body was placed aboard Air Force One in a bronze ceremonial casket. It has been verified that the body arrived at the morgue in a plain shipping casket and that the bronze casket delivered separately was empty.2

  The documentation is incontrovertible and the testimonies are crystal-clear. And, of course, they were easily remembered because it was, after all, the President of the United States:

  Over twenty-five witnesses who observed the President’s wounds in Dallas remembered a wound approximately three inches in diameter

  1 Noel Twyman, Bloody Treason: On Solving History’s Greatest Murder Mystery, The Assassination of John F. Kennedy (Laurel: 1997); Heiner, Without Smoking Gun.

  2 Ibid.

  in the lower rear of the head. Not one of the Dallas doctors, nurses or hospital technicians has contended otherwise.1

  But when the body arrived and was unwrapped at Bethesda, that wound that had measured three inches in diameter was a gaping hole measuring five inches by seven inches.2

  Jerrol Custer says he was carrying X-rays of the dead President when he saw Mrs. Kennedy coming in through the front entrance. His account, combined with those of Dennis David and Donald Rebentisch, shows that the bronze ceremonial casket with which the Kennedys arrived did not contain the President’s body.3

  Dr. Humes, the surgeon in charge at the autopsy, is on-record admitting that the clandestine alteration took place. For the official record, at the beginning of the official autopsy, he described for the record what had already taken place on the body of the President as:

  surgery . . . to the top of the head.4

  Dr. Humes later attempted to withdraw that statement because the Powers That Be reportedly went berserk as soon as they learned of those words being uttered.5 Nonetheless, Special Agents Sibert and O’Neal were present in an official capacity and countered that they were absolutely certain that they’d heard Dr. Humes officially state precisely those words.6 And one would imagine that two FBI agents in their role of the Bureau’s official presence at the autopsy of the President of the United States are going to be very good at remembering exactly what took place.

  The brain was almost entirely gone. Paul O’Connor noted that the skull was nearly devoid of brain tissue and thought that the damage was remarkably severe for a bullet wound. “In most cases, we remove the brain for gross anatomy,” he said. “But he didn’t have any brains left . . . there wasn’t anything to remove.”7

  Note, of course, that by all medical eyewitness accounts, at least two-thirds of the brain was secure in the skull at the moment that the body left Dallas, as doctors watched it being placed in the bronze casket. It was then loaded onto Air Force One bound for Bethesda.

  Whether the brain had been removed by the time the body arrived at Bethesda (as stated by O’Connor and Custer), or whether it was first removed at the Bethesda autopsy, we can be certain that it had been

  1 Heiner, Without Smoking Gun

  2 Lifton, Best Evidence; Twyman, Bloody Treason.

  3 Heiner, Without Smoking Gun, emphasis in original.

  4 Horne, Inside the Assassination Records Review Board

  5 Ibid.

  6 Ibid.

  7 Heiner, Without Smoking Gun

  subjected to surgery between its departure from Dallas and its arrival in Bethesda. The brain was present in Dallas and no small amount of gunfire could completely free the brain from its moorings in the skull. Several nerves and blood vessels hold the brain in place. These would have to be severed before the brain could be removed. At some point, Humes and Boswell must have realized that no bullet could have accomplished this feat, as evidenced by Humes’ question regarding whether surgery had been performed at Parkland Hospital. Other indications of prior surgery are found in Humes’ notes.1

  The level of senior military control of the autopsy is well established. People were clearly “subordinated,” to use the military term.

  After the completion of the autopsy report, Admiral Burkley, the late President’s personal physician, requested written confirmation from Dr. Humes that he had burned his original notes. All Naval hospital staff who had been involved in the autopsy were called into the commanding officer’s office several days after and required to sign orders acknowledging their obligation to remain silent about what they had seen and heard, under penalty of court-martial.2

  Elements of our government, in order to conceal evidence of a crossfire that would have exposed a conspiracy to kill JFK, contrived an elaborate, if improvised, cover-up. The autopsists and other medical personnel were cowed by their military superiors into cooperating with the plot by fraudulent appeals to their patriotism (i.e., failure to go along would lead to World War III). The president’s body was tampered with after being removed from the Dallas casket and spirited onto Air Force Two.3

  Therefore, the “shell game” with the caskets was for a reason:

  Meanwhile, the president’s widow (and the rest of the nation) was being deceived by a brazen display with an empty coffin that was loaded onto Air Force One, flown to D.C., and taken in an elaborate motorcade to Bethesda Naval Hospital. The body was transported in haste . . . in a shipping casket to the Bethesda morgue and brought into the morgue by a group of sailors. Witnesses saw the body removed from such a casket.4

  Then it gets even uglier:

  At this point, Dr. Humes performed clandestine surgery on the head to enlarge the head wound to create “evidence” of a temporal/parietal exit and an incision was made to remove evidence of a right forehead entry. The scalp and skull were manipulated to conceal the size and

  1 Ibid.

  2 Ibid.

  3 Rooney, “Burying The Truth—book review of Doug Horne’s epic effort”

  4 Ibid.

  CIA veteran John Stockwell’s investigation also confirmed Lifton’s original claims of wound alteration upon the corpse of President Kennedy:

  The evidence was extensively tampered with. The President’s body was altered; the photographs of the autopsy were altered; and over 100 witnesses were kil
led or died mysterious and violent deaths.1

  Learning exactly why that alteration took place is a matter of obvious importance—Lieutenant Commander Pitzer was at the heart of that issue, and the manner of his death is front-and-center in that drama.

  1 John Stockwell, The Praetorian Guard: The U.S. Role in the New World Order (South End Press: 1999).

  location of the occipital “blowout” and a “wound” was created to simulate a small entrance wound on the back of the head.1

  Note that all of the above occurred prior to the autopsy.

  The official autopsy then began. . . . The autopsists were continually interrupted and directed by the military brass in attendance. Photographs and X rays were taken by the “official” Bethesda personnel, and pictures that apparently did not conform to the cover-up plan were later “deemed” missing. The paper trail on these items was falsified as necessary.2

  This was obviously big stuff! To accomplish those ends, records concerning the true nature of the autopsy had to be controlled:

  There are many contradictions in the publicly available autopsy images. Some of the photographs which were finally released to the public are inconsistent with the X-rays, and neither the photos nor the X-rays agree with what eyewitnesses (who were doctors and law enforcement professionals) described in Dallas or Bethesda. Some of the X-rays and photos have been identified as forgeries by experts.3

  The book Without Smoking Gun by Kent Heiner, is an excellent biography that concisely details the alteration of President Kennedy’s body, the death of Lieutenant Commander Pitzer, and the testimony of U.S. Army Special Forces Lieutenant Colonel Dan Marvin, who was asked to assassinate Pitzer by the CIA for the stated purpose of National Security.4

  1 Ibid.

  2 Ibid.

  3 Heiner, Without Smoking Gun.

  4 Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Marvin, US Army Special Forces (Retired), “The Unconventional Warrior Archives: Part Three—Orders to Kill,” August 23, 2002,: http://www.expendableelite.com/UW_archives/UW_archive.0003b.html

  If retrospect can reflect the true measure of a man, one could do no better than how a close friend summed up Bill Pitzer:

  He was the finest man I ever met.1

  The above quote summarizes the sentiment of those who were lucky enough to know Lieutenant Commander Bill Pitzer. He was, by all accounts, a man whose integrity beamed like a beacon; liked, admired and respected by most everyone in his circles.

  Pitzer, who was an X-ray technician that filmed the Kennedy autopsy, told friends that after the autopsy, he was “debriefed” by persons unknown from the intelligence community, who basically threatened and intimidated him to remain silent about what he witnessed. He told friends that this experience was “horrifying,” and stated that he was visited periodically by military personnel who reminded him repeatedly never to reveal—for reasons of National Security—what he saw while taking pictures.2

  1 Heiner, Without Smoking Gun.

  2 Roberts & Armstrong, The Dead Witnesses, 35.

  Evidentiary Inconsistencies in the National Security Assassination of Lieutenant Commander William Pitzer

  1. Paraffin-tested negative for gunshot residue (GSR), strongly indicating that he had not fired a weapon. If he had committed suicide, then GSR would have been all over him, especially on the firing hand. Both Pitzer’s right palm and the back of his right hand tested negative, the absence of nitrate indicating no exposure to gunpowder.

  2. The government withheld the release of the autopsy report to the Pitzer family for many years, until they were finally forced to divulge its contents. After reviewing it, it’s easy to see why they were so recalcitrant:

  The paraffin tests of Pitzer’s right palm and back of hand were negative, indicating the absence of nitrate, therefore no exposure to gunpowder. While false positives are not uncommon with this test due to contact with tobacco, cosmetics, certain foodstuffs etc., a negative result (as on Pitzer) is usually accepted as evidence of no recent contact with a discharged firearm.1

  1 Allan R.J. Eaglesham & R. Robin Palmer, “The Untimely Death of Lieutenant Commander William B. Pitzer: The Physical Evidence,” January 1998, emphasis added: http://www.manuscriptservice.com/Pitzer/Article-1.html

  1. Paraffin tests conducted by the FBI also revealed that the revolver was held at a distance of over 3 feet away from victim. GSR testing showed that obvious gunshot residue (powder burns) would otherwise be present on right temple. This is a strong indication of a murder because a suicide quite obviously would not be at such a distance.

  2. FBI files (not released until 1997, via a request under the Freedom of Information Act) revealed strong indications that Pitzer was murdered.

  3. The autopsy of Pitzer’s body revealed three wounds: an entry wound, an exit wound and an additional wound not related to the gunshot to his head.

  4. The FBI was unable to locate any record of Pitzer acquiring live ammunition for the revolver that was signed out from the security office in his name.

  5. A heel print obtained near Pitzer’s corpse was not from the shoes that Pitzer was wearing, an indication that someone else was in the room with him when he was shot.

  6. Even those who are sometimes skeptical about conclusions of assassination have examined the evidence of this case and reached the dramatic, yet inescapable conclusion that:

  The physical evidence is inconsistent with suicide and indicates homicide.1

  7. “According to his wife, William Pitzer was an inveterate note-maker, and this was evident when his body was discovered. Sheets of paper were scattered around, bearing the names of colleagues (even these are redacted from the FOIA-released photocopies) to whom messages were to be conveyed, written with a blue-crayon pencil found on a chair near the body. Therefore, if he took his own life, we must deduce that in his final hours and minutes he jotted down work-related items lest he forget them, but did not take a few seconds to explain his final act.”2

  8. Pitzer left a note in his office to remind himself to return the revolver that had been signed out from the security office. The note was found on an assistant’s desk and it read:

  Remind me to return gun to the sec. office.3

  A person who was planning to shoot himself would obviously not

  be capable of returning the revolver, nor would it be necessary to return it.

  1 Eaglesham & Palmer, “The Untimely Death of Lieutenant Commander William B. Pitzer

  2 Ibid.

  3 Heiner, Without Smoking Gun

  1. Lieutenant Commander Pitzer had been warned repeatedly by some extremely serious military personnel that he was never to reveal what he had witnessed during the autopsy of President Kennedy, for reasons of National Security.1

  2. After his death, Lieutenant Commander Pitzer’s wife was threatened with losing her benefits if she did not cooperate with the “official version” of events.2 She “was instructed to keep her mouth shut.”3

  3. In addition to withholding the autopsy report from the family (and everyone else), the government would not even give Mrs. Pitzer her husband’s wedding ring, and even lied about the reason, making up a story that his left hand had been too mangled from the shooting:4

  When Mrs. Pitzer requested the return of her husband’s wedding band, she was informed that his left hand was so mutilated that removal of the ring was impossible. She never did receive it. Yet, the autopsy report states that there were no wounds on the body other than those to the head. . . . Why did the US Navy apparently lie to a grieving widow and deny her most reasonable request?5

  4. It is unclear whether Pitzer had an actual film he had made of the JFK autopsy, or had copies of professional photographs he had taken of the autopsy; Pitzer is gone and the testimony of others varies. But what is clear is that he possessed solid documentation of the altered JFK evidence, that he knew how to interpret that evidence, and that he apparently planned on divulging it in documentary form after his upcoming retirement.6

  5. Special Forces Lieu
tenant Colonel Daniel Marvin, a decorated war hero, has testified and written extensively about how he was requested by the CIA to assassinate Lieutenant Commander Pitzer. Lieutenant Colonel Marvin had nothing to gain (and a lot to lose) by clarifying the historical record. A man of high character and loyalty, no one has been able to refute his account.

  6. Friends were all in accordance that Pitzer had a tough, “can-do” personality, that he was the type to weather any storm and meet life’s challenges head on, who would never opt for the easy way out by committing suicide.

  1 Heiner, Without Smoking Gun; Roberts & Armstrong, The Dead Witnesses, 35.

  2 Heiner, Without Smoking Gun

  3 Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Marvin, US Army Special Forces (Retired), in: Heiner, Without Smoking Gun.

  4 Heiner, Without Smoking Gun

  5 Eaglesham & Palmer, “The Untimely Death of Lieutenant Commander William B. Pitzer

  6 Heiner, Without Smoking Gun

  Conclusions Based On Evidentiary Indications

  National Security Assassination: Specifically linked to JFK assassination.

  In one of the clearest cases of national security assassination in history, Lieutenant Commander William B. Pitzer was clearly murdered and his assassination was clearly the result of his special knowledge about the JFK autopsy materials.