Monday, January 17, 2011

So, I'm finally reading Inside the ARRB Volume 1 and I find...

what appear to me to be odd discrepancies in the text that are perhaps inadvertent but are confusing to the reader.  I found two relating to time, as in when some events occurred, and I think the deletion of the word "not," which changes the meaning of a sentence.

      Okay, on page 146.  Doug Horne is writing about a discrepency in the number of photographs taken during the autopsy.  But, he has a date wrong.  “In fact, these oddities troubled Carl Belcher so much that he visited Dr. Humes at Bethesda NNMC on November 4, 1963 and asked him to explain what written notes he had been referring to on Novemebr 1, 1966 during the inventory.” 

  Obviously, November 4, 1963 is wrong.  It should be November 4, 1966.

     And again on page 152, “Sometimes serendipty plays a large role in human events.  This proved to be the case when, in March 1966, Executive Director David Marwell and the five ARRB Board members walked down to the old National Archives building on the National Mall to have their formal portrait photographs made.”

  That should be 1996.

     Page 228 - Floyd Reibe drops a bombshell

  The following sentence as written does not make sense to me. It appears to me that the word “not” is missing here.

  “The aspect of the Reibe deposition that shook my faith in my ability to predict what a given witness would say at a deposition was Reibe’s reversal of his publicly stated position, on both a KRON-TV documentary that aired in San Francisco in 1988 and in a two hour long David Lifton videotaped interview in 1989, that the autopsy photographs of the intact back-of-the-head could not be authentic, because they did correspond at all with what he recalled seeing at the autopsy." 
  
  Doesn’t it seem like the word “not” is missing right after the word "did" in that italicized section, especially with those two words “at all” being there? As written it does not make sense to me. Riebe is comparing two things, the autopsy photos of the back of the head to his memory of what he saw at the autopsy.  Let’s call the autopsy photos A and his memory B.  Is A like B? If you say yes, then you wouldn’t have an “at all” in there.  The “at all,” is there for emphasis, negative emphasis, as in A is not like B at all.  

Okay, so previous to his ARRB deposition Floyd Riebe said what? Going by the partially italicized sentence we don't know. Riebe said that the autopsy photographs of the intact back-of-the-head either are or are not authentic because they do or do not correspond with what he saw at the autopsy.  I’m confused.  

I think Riebe previously stated that the autopsy photographs of the back of the head ARE NOT authentic because they DO NOT correspond with what he saw at the autopsy.

Then in his ARRB deposition he said the back of the head photos showing the back of JFK’s head to be intact do correspond to his memory of the autopsy, which is a reversal of what he previously said.  

Okay, so I think I have it right if I got the above two sentences right.  

        On page 230 Gunn asks Riebe, “As best you understand now, that you would believe it is fair to say that the photographs accurately portray what you observed on the night of November 22nd? Riebe answers, “Yes, I would.”

     So, the sentence should have been:

     “The aspect of the Reibe deposition that shook my faith in my ability to predict what a given witness would say at a deposition was Reibe’s reversal of his publicly stated position, on both a KRON-TV documentary that aired in San Francisco in 1988 and in a two hour long David Lifton videotaped interview in 1989, that the autopsy photographs of the intact back-of-the-head could not be authentic, because they did not correspond at all with what he recalled seeing at the autopsy." 

     In fact, the above sentence would have been better if what Riebe was now saying to the ARRB was italicized instead of what his previous position was.  

     “The aspect of the Reibe deposition that shook my faith in my ability to predict what a given witness would say at a deposition was Reibe’s reversal of his publicly stated position, on both a KRON-TV documentary that aired in San Francisco in 1988 and in a two hour long David Lifton videotaped interview in 1989, that the autopsy photographs of the intact back-of-the-head could not be authentic, because they did not correspond at all with what he recalled seeing at the autopsy.  But, now to the ARRB he was saying that the intact back-of-the-head autopsy photos are authentic because they do match his memory of what he saw at the autopsy.  

     See?  The meaning is clearer now.  

     Anyone else catch this? Or, has anyone else caught other things like this? Let me know.

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