Post by Rob Caprio on Sept 23, 2024 19:42:45 GMT -5
All portions are ©️ Robert Caprio 2006-2025
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In the mid-1990s the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) began their task of collecting as many documents as possible relating to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy (JFK). In addition to this large task, they also included interviews with people that had not been either interviewed or had given testimony before in this case, and this article will look at one of these people.
Dr. Robert Livingston was called as a witness on November 19, 1993, as a witness for Dr. Charles Crenshaw and researcher Gary Shaw. Crenshaw had released a book in 1992 called "JFK: Conspiracy of Silence" which drew much criticism at the time. This led to him being sued. Dr. Livingston would be a witness for him in this lawsuit and the ARRB would include his testimony in this case in their files.
Dr. Livingston had been a doctor for a very long time, and he had created the very first department of neurosciences at the University of California at San Diego. He knew JFK casually and said he had been invited to the White House several times as well as the British Embassy. Dr. Livingston was the Science Director for the National Institute of Health (NIH) at the time of the assassination.
He said he was on the Harvard campus when he heard the news of JFK being shot and made his way back to Washington, D.C., shortly after this. He said he continued to listen to the radio for updates during his trip. this brings us to the first important exchange during his testimony.
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historymatters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md24/pages/Image02.gif
historymatters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md24/pages/Image03.gif
Q. During the time that you were listening to and paying attention to news reports concerning the assassination of President Kennedy, did you learn of reports concerning a throat wound?
A. Yes. The throat wound was repeatedly mentioned, and it was said to be a small wound in his neck to the right of his trachea and a little bit below the larynx.
Q. Did you at that time have knowledge and experience with gunshot wounds?
A. ...I had studied the medical literature on ballistic wounding, so I knew very well that a small wound in the neck would need to be a wound of entrance. In soft tissue like neck tissue, a wound of exit will make a cruciate or a star-shaped splitting of the skin and often protrusion of subcutaneous out [of] the wound. And I had in Okinawa experienced (sic) with hundreds, several hundreds, of bullet and shrapnel wounds... I have seen wounds close at hand as they occurred and -- very fresh wounds, and I've sewn up lots of them, and I can tell an entry from an exit wound...
Q. ...Was the information in the reports that you listened to and received about the throat wound descriptive of an entrance wound?
A. Yes. And, in fact, several doctors were quoted, including Dr. Perry and Dr. Crenshaw and Dr. Clark, as indicating it was a wound of entry in their opinion, and they had a lot of experience at Parkland Hospital (PH) with gunshot wounds.
Q. Based upon the information that you received about the throat wound at the time, and based upon your knowledge of and experience with gunshot wounds, did you form an opinion and that time on November 22nd, 1963, as to whether the throat wound probably was and entrance wound?
A. Yes, I assumed it was an entrance wound, and that was in agreement with the testimony, both descriptive and categorical from Parkland Hospital.
Q. ...What was your opinion at that time as to whether or not the wound in President Kennedy's throat was a wound of entrance or a wound of exit?
A. My opinion was that it was a wound of entrance.
Q. And do you feel like, based upon your knowledge and experience, you can tell the difference between an entry wound and an exit wound?
A. Absolutely.
Q. Why do you think that the throat wound that President Kennedy received was a wound of entrance?
A. Well, unless their description of it as a small wound just a few millimeters long in soft tissue -- unless their description of it was incorrect, it had to be a wound of entrance.
Q. And that is based upon your knowledge and experience?
A. Correct.
Q. And that is the opinion that you formed based upon the information that you received and your knowledge and experience on November 22nd, 1963?
A. Correct.
Q. Based upon your experience and knowledge, do you still to this day think that the throat wound was an entrance wound?
A. Yes. (ARRB MD-24, pp. 17-21)
www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=605#relPageId=3
www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=605#relPageId=4
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This is pretty strong testimony from a doctor who had seen hundreds of gunshot wounds himself. We know from other evidence in this series, and my other series as well, that the wound to the throat of JFK most definitely came from the front of the limousine. He was in agreement with Dr. Crenshaw who had said the same thing about the wound in his book. Dr. Livingston stated this obvious in his testimony (Ibid., p. 22) and this is why this point has been fought so hard for decades.
The proof that this was an entrance wound is in the fact that the "autopsy" never proved that the back wound and the throat wound were connected. In other words, it never proved that the throat wound was one of exit and the burden was on the Warren Commission (WC) and not the detractors.
Dr. Livingston would even call Bethesda Naval Hospital (BNH) the afternoon of the assassination and talk with Commander James Humes hours before the start of the autopsy. He said it was probably around 3:30 or 4:00 p.m., and he told him about the news of an entry wound to the neck. Livington told him of the importance of dissecting the wound, to follow it completely and accurately, and to find any bullet or fragments of bullets that made the wound. Livingston impressed the importance of this type of wound in accordance with a shot from the front to Humes and he said Humes was cordial about what he was saying. (Ibid., pp. 23-25)
Then, Humes had to get off for a minute and when he came back on, he said he could not talk anymore because the FBI wouldn't let him. (Ibid., p. 25) Keep in mind, the FBI had NO jurisdiction for this crime, and they had no authority in a military hospital, and still they were controlling everything.
This shows that Humes knew before the "autopsy" that the wound in JFK's throat was one of entry, and yet, he would still claim it was an exit wound later on. The next point that set the defense lawyers off was the mention of cerebellar tissue seen in the emergency room at PH by Dr. Crenshaw and others. They tried to use objections to show that Dr. Livingston was not qualified to comment but he gave a long list of his experience on this issue.
The problem for the opposing lawyers was that cerebellar is found only in the BACK of the head and is distinctive from other head tissue. (Ibid., pp. 27-30)
historymatters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md24/pages/Image04.gif
The best the defense lawyers could come up with was that Dr. Livingston was speculating, but he stated that he had taught Neuroanatomy for over 40 years. Oops. (Ibid., p. 32) The defense lawyers would battle this point fiercely after saying this was not about showing that the WC was correct or that there was a cover-up. Sure. Then why were they trying to make a witness with the experience of Livingston sound like he didn't know what he was talking about. It sure seems like they were trying to cover up the fact that brain tissue ONLY seen in the BACK of the head was hanging out, which means there was a HOLE there.
He would say in his opinion the wound in the back of JFK's head was one of exit, but it could have been one of both entry and exit. (Ibid., p. 37) This matches what many researchers have posited over the decades that JFK was hit with a shot from the back and front simultaneously.
historymatters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md24/pages/Image06.gif
This lawsuit was filed because of articles that appeared in the Journal of American Medicine (JAMA) in 1992 that supported the WC's conclusion. I wrote about his topic about twenty years ago and here is an overview of it.
jfkconspiracyforum.freeforums.net/thread/1032/dr-george-lundberg
This one point makes the comment of one of the defense attorneys ridiculous. IF you are representing entities that published portions of these articles that support the WC's conclusion, how can you say you were not here to defend the WC's conclusion? Your client (in his case the Dallas Morning News) already did that and that is why there was a lawsuit.
The defense attorney was interested in all the conspiracy-minded researchers and authors that Dr. Livingston had communication with. As it turns out, Dr. Livingston was an old classmate of Richard Dudman (reporter for St. Louis Dispatch) who had seen the limousine at PH and wrote about a hole in the windshield. He would call Livingston soon after the assassination telling him about this. (Ibid., p. 51)
historymatters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md24/pages/Image08.gif
The defense attorney then attacks Livingston by asserting if what he had to say was so important why didn't he try and tell it to the WC, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) and the Clark Panel. Instead, he said, you wrote to conspiracy authors. He even had the gall to claim that the government bodies were "neutral fact finders!" (Ibid., p. 56) LOL. Please.
historymatters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md24/pages/Image09.gif
Dr. Livingston was incorrect in saying the cerebellar issue was not known as this came out in WC testimony. Ditto the wound to the throat. The defense attorney kept trying to get Livingston to call Humes a liar, but both he and the lawyer for the plaintiff wouldn't allow it no matter how many times he tried. Livingston kept saying he would be happy to speak with Humes to figure this out, but we all know Humes wouldn't do this.
Once the defense attorney took over there was a lot of chaos. Just like WC defenders try to make it about anything but the evidence this is how the lawyer operated. He kept calling both Livingston and the plaintiff lawyer's character into question. IF you represent the truth, you don't have to use tactics like this.
He was asked if he talked with Humes before he sent the letters to the "well-known JFK assassination conspiracy theorists" as if he owed him this. (Ibid., p. 62) Why were these people "conspiracy theorists" if he wasn't here to support the WC's conclusion as he said at the beginning of his cross? He didn't even seem to know the evidence so who was he to question anyone else?
The problem for Livingston is his letter to Harrison Livingstone was used in his book "Killing the Truth" and he basically said Humes lied (which he did), but this brought pushback from a number of sources and this lawsuit. A long discussion about free speech ensued and we get as far away as possible from the actual wounds seen on JFK's body. I am sure this was planned as by 1993 most people knew the truth.
He then talks about how some conspiracy people have had issues for speaking out. IF they were just theorists as claimed, why would this happen? He mentions how he went to get gas for his car and when he pulled out his card he was sprayed with gasoline, and he wondered if this was one of those incidents. (Ibid., p. 87)
historymatters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md24/pages/Image14.gif
The defense attorney would eventually get Dr. Livingston to say he did hear parts of the November 22, 1963, press conference discussing the wounds to JFK. He would say that there was no reference to a small wound in the neck of JFK.
historymatters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md24/pages/Image17.gif
He either was clueless about the evidence he was referring to or outright lying as I have covered this topic in this series. You will see it was mentioned by Dr. Malcolm Perry on page 5 of the transcript the lawyer was mentioning.
jfkconspiracyforum.freeforums.net/thread/1773/arrb-files-november-press-conference
When this was shown to be untrue, he then went to the "can you show it was to the right of the trachea" as you said nonsense. (Ibid., p. 106) This would go on for pages. This is the same tactic WC defenders use. They pick a word or a statement and dwell on that continually instead of dealing with the actual topic at hand. It is called distraction. Livingston made statements in a letter based on what he had heard contemporaneously, and an author published it without permission, and he had to be deposed for it. Seems a little suspect to me.
He never said this was from firsthand experience, so this endless deposition seems like a waste of time to me. Oh, it did make a lot of money for the lawyers, however. I won't go over the rest of this as it was just different lawyers for the defense (at least two others) questioning him on the same stuff. It would go on from page 20 to 42 with 6 pages on each one (132 pages) in trying to get Livingston to recant or admit that he lied about what Humes did with the "autopsy." A real waste of time.
Dr. Livingston gave his experienced opinion on what he thought the wounds were based on what he heard on November 22, 1963. If you know the medical evidence than you know he was correct, but that couldn't be allowed so he was berated by multiple lawyers forever to try and get him to change his opinion. This was from lawyers who said they weren't there to defend the WC's conclusion. Hilarious.
What do you think of Livingston's comments?
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spartacus-educational.com/JFKlivingstonR.jpg
i.ytimg.com/vi/xJuGGouHg5Y/maxresdefault.jpg
i.ytimg.com/vi/WyWfUOn6VmM/hqdefault.jpg
In the mid-1990s the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) began their task of collecting as many documents as possible relating to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy (JFK). In addition to this large task, they also included interviews with people that had not been either interviewed or had given testimony before in this case, and this article will look at one of these people.
Dr. Robert Livingston was called as a witness on November 19, 1993, as a witness for Dr. Charles Crenshaw and researcher Gary Shaw. Crenshaw had released a book in 1992 called "JFK: Conspiracy of Silence" which drew much criticism at the time. This led to him being sued. Dr. Livingston would be a witness for him in this lawsuit and the ARRB would include his testimony in this case in their files.
Dr. Livingston had been a doctor for a very long time, and he had created the very first department of neurosciences at the University of California at San Diego. He knew JFK casually and said he had been invited to the White House several times as well as the British Embassy. Dr. Livingston was the Science Director for the National Institute of Health (NIH) at the time of the assassination.
He said he was on the Harvard campus when he heard the news of JFK being shot and made his way back to Washington, D.C., shortly after this. He said he continued to listen to the radio for updates during his trip. this brings us to the first important exchange during his testimony.
Quote on
historymatters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md24/pages/Image02.gif
historymatters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md24/pages/Image03.gif
Q. During the time that you were listening to and paying attention to news reports concerning the assassination of President Kennedy, did you learn of reports concerning a throat wound?
A. Yes. The throat wound was repeatedly mentioned, and it was said to be a small wound in his neck to the right of his trachea and a little bit below the larynx.
Q. Did you at that time have knowledge and experience with gunshot wounds?
A. ...I had studied the medical literature on ballistic wounding, so I knew very well that a small wound in the neck would need to be a wound of entrance. In soft tissue like neck tissue, a wound of exit will make a cruciate or a star-shaped splitting of the skin and often protrusion of subcutaneous out [of] the wound. And I had in Okinawa experienced (sic) with hundreds, several hundreds, of bullet and shrapnel wounds... I have seen wounds close at hand as they occurred and -- very fresh wounds, and I've sewn up lots of them, and I can tell an entry from an exit wound...
Q. ...Was the information in the reports that you listened to and received about the throat wound descriptive of an entrance wound?
A. Yes. And, in fact, several doctors were quoted, including Dr. Perry and Dr. Crenshaw and Dr. Clark, as indicating it was a wound of entry in their opinion, and they had a lot of experience at Parkland Hospital (PH) with gunshot wounds.
Q. Based upon the information that you received about the throat wound at the time, and based upon your knowledge of and experience with gunshot wounds, did you form an opinion and that time on November 22nd, 1963, as to whether the throat wound probably was and entrance wound?
A. Yes, I assumed it was an entrance wound, and that was in agreement with the testimony, both descriptive and categorical from Parkland Hospital.
Q. ...What was your opinion at that time as to whether or not the wound in President Kennedy's throat was a wound of entrance or a wound of exit?
A. My opinion was that it was a wound of entrance.
Q. And do you feel like, based upon your knowledge and experience, you can tell the difference between an entry wound and an exit wound?
A. Absolutely.
Q. Why do you think that the throat wound that President Kennedy received was a wound of entrance?
A. Well, unless their description of it as a small wound just a few millimeters long in soft tissue -- unless their description of it was incorrect, it had to be a wound of entrance.
Q. And that is based upon your knowledge and experience?
A. Correct.
Q. And that is the opinion that you formed based upon the information that you received and your knowledge and experience on November 22nd, 1963?
A. Correct.
Q. Based upon your experience and knowledge, do you still to this day think that the throat wound was an entrance wound?
A. Yes. (ARRB MD-24, pp. 17-21)
www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=605#relPageId=3
www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=605#relPageId=4
Quote off
This is pretty strong testimony from a doctor who had seen hundreds of gunshot wounds himself. We know from other evidence in this series, and my other series as well, that the wound to the throat of JFK most definitely came from the front of the limousine. He was in agreement with Dr. Crenshaw who had said the same thing about the wound in his book. Dr. Livingston stated this obvious in his testimony (Ibid., p. 22) and this is why this point has been fought so hard for decades.
The proof that this was an entrance wound is in the fact that the "autopsy" never proved that the back wound and the throat wound were connected. In other words, it never proved that the throat wound was one of exit and the burden was on the Warren Commission (WC) and not the detractors.
Dr. Livingston would even call Bethesda Naval Hospital (BNH) the afternoon of the assassination and talk with Commander James Humes hours before the start of the autopsy. He said it was probably around 3:30 or 4:00 p.m., and he told him about the news of an entry wound to the neck. Livington told him of the importance of dissecting the wound, to follow it completely and accurately, and to find any bullet or fragments of bullets that made the wound. Livingston impressed the importance of this type of wound in accordance with a shot from the front to Humes and he said Humes was cordial about what he was saying. (Ibid., pp. 23-25)
Then, Humes had to get off for a minute and when he came back on, he said he could not talk anymore because the FBI wouldn't let him. (Ibid., p. 25) Keep in mind, the FBI had NO jurisdiction for this crime, and they had no authority in a military hospital, and still they were controlling everything.
This shows that Humes knew before the "autopsy" that the wound in JFK's throat was one of entry, and yet, he would still claim it was an exit wound later on. The next point that set the defense lawyers off was the mention of cerebellar tissue seen in the emergency room at PH by Dr. Crenshaw and others. They tried to use objections to show that Dr. Livingston was not qualified to comment but he gave a long list of his experience on this issue.
The problem for the opposing lawyers was that cerebellar is found only in the BACK of the head and is distinctive from other head tissue. (Ibid., pp. 27-30)
historymatters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md24/pages/Image04.gif
The best the defense lawyers could come up with was that Dr. Livingston was speculating, but he stated that he had taught Neuroanatomy for over 40 years. Oops. (Ibid., p. 32) The defense lawyers would battle this point fiercely after saying this was not about showing that the WC was correct or that there was a cover-up. Sure. Then why were they trying to make a witness with the experience of Livingston sound like he didn't know what he was talking about. It sure seems like they were trying to cover up the fact that brain tissue ONLY seen in the BACK of the head was hanging out, which means there was a HOLE there.
He would say in his opinion the wound in the back of JFK's head was one of exit, but it could have been one of both entry and exit. (Ibid., p. 37) This matches what many researchers have posited over the decades that JFK was hit with a shot from the back and front simultaneously.
historymatters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md24/pages/Image06.gif
This lawsuit was filed because of articles that appeared in the Journal of American Medicine (JAMA) in 1992 that supported the WC's conclusion. I wrote about his topic about twenty years ago and here is an overview of it.
jfkconspiracyforum.freeforums.net/thread/1032/dr-george-lundberg
This one point makes the comment of one of the defense attorneys ridiculous. IF you are representing entities that published portions of these articles that support the WC's conclusion, how can you say you were not here to defend the WC's conclusion? Your client (in his case the Dallas Morning News) already did that and that is why there was a lawsuit.
The defense attorney was interested in all the conspiracy-minded researchers and authors that Dr. Livingston had communication with. As it turns out, Dr. Livingston was an old classmate of Richard Dudman (reporter for St. Louis Dispatch) who had seen the limousine at PH and wrote about a hole in the windshield. He would call Livingston soon after the assassination telling him about this. (Ibid., p. 51)
historymatters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md24/pages/Image08.gif
The defense attorney then attacks Livingston by asserting if what he had to say was so important why didn't he try and tell it to the WC, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) and the Clark Panel. Instead, he said, you wrote to conspiracy authors. He even had the gall to claim that the government bodies were "neutral fact finders!" (Ibid., p. 56) LOL. Please.
historymatters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md24/pages/Image09.gif
Dr. Livingston was incorrect in saying the cerebellar issue was not known as this came out in WC testimony. Ditto the wound to the throat. The defense attorney kept trying to get Livingston to call Humes a liar, but both he and the lawyer for the plaintiff wouldn't allow it no matter how many times he tried. Livingston kept saying he would be happy to speak with Humes to figure this out, but we all know Humes wouldn't do this.
Once the defense attorney took over there was a lot of chaos. Just like WC defenders try to make it about anything but the evidence this is how the lawyer operated. He kept calling both Livingston and the plaintiff lawyer's character into question. IF you represent the truth, you don't have to use tactics like this.
He was asked if he talked with Humes before he sent the letters to the "well-known JFK assassination conspiracy theorists" as if he owed him this. (Ibid., p. 62) Why were these people "conspiracy theorists" if he wasn't here to support the WC's conclusion as he said at the beginning of his cross? He didn't even seem to know the evidence so who was he to question anyone else?
The problem for Livingston is his letter to Harrison Livingstone was used in his book "Killing the Truth" and he basically said Humes lied (which he did), but this brought pushback from a number of sources and this lawsuit. A long discussion about free speech ensued and we get as far away as possible from the actual wounds seen on JFK's body. I am sure this was planned as by 1993 most people knew the truth.
He then talks about how some conspiracy people have had issues for speaking out. IF they were just theorists as claimed, why would this happen? He mentions how he went to get gas for his car and when he pulled out his card he was sprayed with gasoline, and he wondered if this was one of those incidents. (Ibid., p. 87)
historymatters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md24/pages/Image14.gif
The defense attorney would eventually get Dr. Livingston to say he did hear parts of the November 22, 1963, press conference discussing the wounds to JFK. He would say that there was no reference to a small wound in the neck of JFK.
historymatters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md24/pages/Image17.gif
He either was clueless about the evidence he was referring to or outright lying as I have covered this topic in this series. You will see it was mentioned by Dr. Malcolm Perry on page 5 of the transcript the lawyer was mentioning.
jfkconspiracyforum.freeforums.net/thread/1773/arrb-files-november-press-conference
When this was shown to be untrue, he then went to the "can you show it was to the right of the trachea" as you said nonsense. (Ibid., p. 106) This would go on for pages. This is the same tactic WC defenders use. They pick a word or a statement and dwell on that continually instead of dealing with the actual topic at hand. It is called distraction. Livingston made statements in a letter based on what he had heard contemporaneously, and an author published it without permission, and he had to be deposed for it. Seems a little suspect to me.
He never said this was from firsthand experience, so this endless deposition seems like a waste of time to me. Oh, it did make a lot of money for the lawyers, however. I won't go over the rest of this as it was just different lawyers for the defense (at least two others) questioning him on the same stuff. It would go on from page 20 to 42 with 6 pages on each one (132 pages) in trying to get Livingston to recant or admit that he lied about what Humes did with the "autopsy." A real waste of time.
Dr. Livingston gave his experienced opinion on what he thought the wounds were based on what he heard on November 22, 1963. If you know the medical evidence than you know he was correct, but that couldn't be allowed so he was berated by multiple lawyers forever to try and get him to change his opinion. This was from lawyers who said they weren't there to defend the WC's conclusion. Hilarious.
What do you think of Livingston's comments?