Doug Horne's review of Clint Hill's book+

Clint Hill Crosses the Line on National TV, Equating the Exit Wound He Saw in Dallas with an Entry Wound, May 5, 2012 By Douglas (Falls Church, VA, United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME) This review is from: Mrs. Kennedy and Me: An Intimate Memoir (Hardcover) SHAME ON BOTH OF YOU, CLINT HILL AND CHRIS MATTHEWS May 4th, 20:45 By Douglas P. Horne, author of "Inside the Assassination Records Review Board" I watched a very sorry display on Chris Matthews' MSNBC show "Hardball" tonight: Chris Matthews conducted a short, stage-managed, cream-puff interview with retired Secret Service Agent Clint Hill, and the game was rigged "from the get-go." That was obvious. But it was also completely unacceptable, and forever tarnishes the reputations of both of these men. The occasion was a brief discussion of Clint Hill's short new memoir, "Mrs. Kennedy and Me." I picked the book up in the store about three weeks ago and read the three or so pages that everyone naturally turns to: Clint Hill's description of what happened during the shots in Dallas, on Elm Street, on November 22, 1963, when he ran from the left running board of the Queen Mary (the Secret Service follow-up car that day), to President Kennedy's limousine, only to arrive at, and mount the limousine, after all of the shots had been fired. I was particularly interested to see whether Clint Hill's description of President Kennedy's head wound had changed from what he wrote in 1963, or from what he testified to in 1964 while under oath before the Warren Commission, or from the words attributed to him in the recent book "The Kennedy Detail." The words hadn't changed. In his new memoir, Clint Hill (again) described a large, gaping wound in the right rear of President Kennedy's head, and made explicitly clear that a large amount of debris had been blown to the rear after the fatal shot, and that Jacqueline Kennedy had emerged from her seat to retrieve a part of President Kennedy's skull that had gone to the rear, and lay on the trunk lid, after the fatal shot. He described all of that again today on television with Chris Matthews. Anyone familiar with his 1963 written report, and with his 1964 sworn testimony, also knows that in this 1964 testimony before Assistant Warren Commission Counsel Arlen Specter, he said that a large portion of the rear of President Kennedy's head was lying in the back seat of the car, and that the trunk lid was covered with bloody water and brain issue. All of this---the biological debris from her husband's head retrieved by Jacqueline Kennedy from the trunk lid; the large, gaping wound in the right rear of the head of the 35th President of the United States; and the blood and brain tissue sprayed over the trunk lid---all of this, of course, speaks graphically and plainly of a fatal shot from the front, or right front (not a fatal shot from the rear, where the Book Depository was). Clint Hill knows it, and Chris Matthews knows it. But they pretended otherwise, presumably for all the "low information voters" in the TV audience. The problem for these two guys is, there aren't that many low information (i.e., uneducated or stupid) voters watching this show. The show has a very highly educated audience. So what they did was not only grossly dishonest---it was blatantly offensive, as well as just plain dumb. Now, anyone who has read about the JFK assassination knows that every doctor who treated JFK at the the side of his gurney in Trauma Room One at Parkland Hospital, in Dallas, described the same head wound that Clint Hill did in 1963 and 1964: a wound that could only have been an EXIT WOUND, which meant that the fatal shot had to come from the front, or right front, not from behind. Not one doctor at Parkland who wrote a treatment report the day of the assassination mentioned anything in those reports but a wound in the right rear of the skull. (And no one mentioned any damage to the top of his head or the right side of his head above the ear.) If you don't believe me, read the treatment reports (they were published in the Warren Report, after all). The wound described by these Parkland treating physicians and nurses that day was an avulsed wound (exploded outward from within), and the right rear of JFK's head was devoid of scalp and skull, in an exploded area about the size of a baseball. The head wound observed at Parkland Hospital during the 40 minutes that President Kennedy was treated (that duration was given by Dr. Clark in a press conference that day) had none of the characteristics of an entry wound whatsoever. It had all of the classic characteristics of an exit wound. A large amount of cerebral brain tissue was missing---blown out---and part of the badly damaged cerebellum, the part of the brain very low in the rear of the skull, was extruding from the head wound onto the treatment cart, as the Parkland physicians treated President Kennedy and tried to save his life. Even Chris Matthews knows that bullets make small holes when entering the body, and large holes when exiting the body. (Especially head wounds.) And yet Chris Matthews asked Clint Hill today if he had come to any conclusions about the shooting, and Clint Hill, obviously prepared for the question, said, "Sure: one shooter, three shots, from behind," or words almost identical to that. Now, Clint Hill knows that cannot be true. He always has. In fact, he knows it is such utter bull, and so contrary to the wound he has described since 1963, that he didn't say that in his new book---he merely described the wound he observed (an obvious exit wound), without commenting on where the shots came from or who did the shooting. I knew what game Clint Hill was playing when he described JFK's head wound in "The Kennedy Detail" and in "Mrs. Kennedy and Me"---the game was: I will describe exactly what I saw and will not lie about it, but neither will I openly challenge the Warren Commission's or the HSCA's "government line" that Lee Harvey Oswald killed President Kennedy all on his own. The rules of the game Clint Hill was obviously engaging in when these two books were published were, "I will tell the truth about what I saw, but I will not comment on what it means." In playing by those unwritten rules, Hill managed to sit on the fence, and tell the truth about the head wound, and at the same time avoided directly refuting the Warren Commission and HSCA conclusions that Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK from the Texas School Book Depository, firing from above and behind. But today Clint Hill crossed the line, and said JFK was killed by a Communist sympathizer, Lee Harvey Oswald, firing all the shots from behind. Shame on you, Clint Hill. You crossed a line today that you did not cross in either of the two recent books that quote you. What you did was unforgivable. And then Chris Matthews (who served in the Peace Corps, not in the military), gave us all his best benefit as a "firearms expert" by saying that when he stood on Elm Street in Dallas in the 1990s ("when I was down there with CBS," he said), he had concluded that killing JFK from the TSBD was "an easy shot." Gee, thank you, Chris, for this profound wisdom based on all your years as a trained marksman in the Peace Corps. Of course, Chris Matthews never mentioned today that the scope on the rifle was a cheap piece of crap that was misaligned; that the rifle found in the Depository was an unreliable piece of junk; or that it had a defective firing pin which the FBI had to replace before even test firing it. And Chris Matthews never discussed the last marksmanship test score noted in Oswald's USMC Service Record before being discharged from the Marine Corps, which was only one point above failure. (Oswald received average marksmanship scores in boot camp, achieving the middle of three shooter designations, but obviously received a "pass" in 1959---when he most likely failed his test that year. It is obvious to me that after his skills had atrophied through disuse, he was given the official score that was only one point above failure, as a gift. As fellow Marine Nelson Delgado explained to Mark Lane in 1966 (in the film "Rush to Judgment"), Oswald was such a poor shot he was always getting flagged with "Maggie's Drawers" at the El Toro shooting range; his poor marksmanship was a standing joke in his own unit.) Chris Matthews will not discuss evidence, because he knows he will lose the argument---he only wants to discuss the politically correct conclusions endorsed by the National Security State. Chris Matthews has much to be ashamed of here. He used to be the principal aide to Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill. It was Tip O'Neill who published in his own memoir, "Man of the House," on page 211 (paperback edition, St. Martin's Press, 1987), that the two aides closest to President Kennedy on a personal basis---Kenneth O'Donnell, and Dave Powers---told him at dinner in 1968, five years after JFK's assassination, that at least two shots came from behind the fence on the grassy knoll, to the right front of the limousine. O'Donnell also told Tip O'Neill at that dinner meeting that he had lied to the Warren Commission about the origin of the shots, at the request of the FBI. Surely Chris, you cannot pretend to be unfamiliar with this recollection of Tip O'Neill's??? If he did not tell you himself over a beer one night, surely you read it in his memoirs? Don't tell me you have not read the memoirs of your former boss, Chris...that won't fly. Clint Hill crossed the line tonight from telling just part of the truth, to telling a lie that I am sure he does not believe in, and that cannot be true. And he knows it. Historical truth matters, and the deliberate distortions of historical truth engaged in by Clint Hill and Chris Matthews yesterday on national TV are harming this country. Severely harming it. America will remain a nation of adolescents if it continues to treat the JFK, RFK, and MLK assassinations as "taboo subjects" that cannot be spoken about truthfully. Propaganda should never replace truth. Apparently that is what the mainstream TV and print news media would like to see happen next year on the 50th anniversary of JFK's assassination. Chris Matthews, an otherwise intelligent person, repeatedly promotes the falsehood of the Lone Assassin Myth as if it were certified fact, when it cannot be true. And he knows he is promoting a Big Lie. Is this the price for keeping your job with the Mainstream Corporate Media, Chris? Or do you really believe that by lying about JFK's assassination, and pretending there was NOT a coup in this country in 1963, that you are somehow "protecting America's institutions?" I hope not, because there is nothing more corrosive to a democracy than lies perpetuated by big media and the government. How do you sleep with yourself at night, Chris? How do you look at yourself in the mirror when you shave every day? This is the last night I will ever watch Chris Matthews or "Hardball" again. I am boycotting that show, and any show he appears on, as long as he remains alive on this mortal coil, for Chris Matthews has proven himself---once again---to be a man without honor whenever he discusses the assassination of the man he professes to be his greatest hero, Jack Kennedy. The Intelligence Community (read: CIA) has a stranglehold on the national TV media and the national print media, when it comes to the JFK assassination. You are not allowed to speak about it anymore, unless you support the Warren Commission, or unless you disparage JFK's character and misrepresent the historical record of his presidency. The major executives of these outlets and their producers are in the government's pocket, when it comes to the taboo subject of the Kennedy assassination. The truth gets out on local and regional radio stations, and the government has not quite yet figured out how to shut down free speech on the internet, but Cass Sunstein, President Obama's Information Czar, would like to---he said so in a prestigious law school paper just about 4 years ago. Google his name, and you can read the outrageous paper, yourself. Sunstein actually advocated fining people on the internet who engage in "conspiracy" speech that he defines as irresponsible (including about JFK's death), and also advocated infiltrating such groups, and combating their messages, with government-sponsored third party surrogates. And this man was appointed America's Information Chief by President Obama. Unsettling, isn't it? The response to this stranglehold on the mainstream media by the American people (80% of whom have consistently concluded over the decades that JFK was killed by a conspiracy, and that there was a massive coverup) should be to openly and vociferously protest the Big Lie whenever it is trotted out as it was tonight, and to aggressively boycott those shows that promote the Big Lie. President Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy that involved many in the National Security Establishment at the time, as well as former members of the National Security Establishment; and a massive medical coverup was implemented immediately after his death in an attempt to hide all evidence that he was shot from the front (as well as from behind). That coverup has now failed. If you are not familiar with how it was carried out, you can read my five volume book, "Inside the Assassination Records Review Board." The ten depositions taken by the ARRB General Counsel and me, of JFK autopsy witnesses, in 1996 and 1997, undeniably prove that a medical coverup occurred. Anyone not afraid of the truth, and of evaluating facts and what they really mean, should read my book. It will take you to a place where you are less secure, less proud, and less confident about your own country, but if you are someone who believes that truth can be cleansing, and have a powerful, positive, and redemptive force, than my book may just be the perfect antidote to the propaganda about the JFK assassination that will rule the mainstream media airwaves and the national print media between now and the 50th anniversary of JFK's assassination. Meanwhile, boycott MSNBC's "Hardball." If you truly believe that JFK was killed by a conspiracy and that the U.S. government covered it up, then turn off the tube every time Chris Matthews' face appears on the air. Chris used to only talk like this every November 22nd, on the anniversary of JFK's assassination; now he is going out of his way to do it as often as possible. Make MSNBC pay a price for promoting the Big Lie in America. We all deserve better journalism than that. END