To me, the most interesting part of Vincent Bugliosi's 1600-page Reclaiming History isn't in the reams of text but in the EndNotes he has on the CD-ROM which accompanies the book. Some have said that this is where Bugliosi places the more difficult aspects of the Kennedy assassination in hope that the reader won't pay enough attention to go back there and look into what he has to say about it. Maybe so. I have a theory, and general feeling, that Bugliosi started out with the End Notes first and the rest of his book was fleshed out from them, or used as a guide for the various ghost writers he employed. Sometimes the End Notes offer additional information on a subject covered in the main text and in other places it's the same information with little elaboration. Or, even information that seems out of place such as the mini-bio on Che Guevara.
Nevertheless, Bugliosi's writing style is evident throughout the Endnotes, filled with sarcasm, straw man arguments, vicious personal attacks on conspiracy oriented researchers and the hypocrisy of accusing others of what he routinely does, which mainly, is omitting facts to make his arguments work.
What follows is a look into some of Bugliosi’s commentary and theory in the End Notes and what lengths (i.e., skating on thin ice) he goes to in his defense of the Warren Commission.
A So Very Comprehensive Investigation
(Endnotes, p.579, Note 1037)
"Because the Warren Commission’s investigation of the assassination was so very comprehensive, it even included a 'limited background investigation' of Officer J. D. Tippit and found nothing suspicious (CE 2985, 26 H 483–492)."
This of course is hilarious. The declarations that Bugliosi makes like this make wonder about the esteemed prosecutor's judgement. Or if he actually believes some of this nonsense he comes up with.
The fact of the matter is, what the Warren Commission did was hardly what one would call a legitimate investigation. After all, they had no independent investors on staff and instead had to rely mainly on Hoover's FBI for the facts in the case. They were supplied with only the evidence that verified the lone gunman theory as espoused by Hoover, the early author of the lone assassin story and the man behind the curtain pulling the levers. So what the Commission did was an evaluation of what they were provided and the FBI did not provide them everything. Meanwhile, the staff lawyers established six major areas of inquiry and four were on Lee Oswald. The actual investigation of JFK's death was conducted by the FBI, with narrow latitudes (no conspiracy) and totally overseen by J. Edgar Hoover.
There are many good books on the machinations of the Warren Commission and one of the best is Gerald McKnight’s Breach of Trust.
The Minox Camera
(Endnotes, p.394, Note 793)
Lots of controversy surrounds this piece of evidence. In a nutshell: Dallas police discover a Minox camera in Oswald's belongings. It’s a popular tool among intelligence operatives. The FBI gets wind of it and asks the Dallas police detective to change the description of it from a camera to a light meter. He refuses. Later, the FBI will rename it a light meter anyway in their evidence inventory. It will remain so for many years.
As Bugliosi notes, researcher John Armstrong made a trip to the National Archives to examine and photograph Oswald's Minox camera. There, he found the camera was sealed up so it couldn't be opened and that there was no way of observing the Dallas Police officer that initiated it or examine the camera's serial number. Armstrong rightly thought this suspicious and as usual, Bugliosi did not. And instead of figuring out why this camera had obviously been tampered with, Bugliosi resorts to his tried and true method of mockery against John Armstrong, who admits owning a Minox camera and asking him, "By the way, John, where were you at 12:30 p.m. on November 22, 1963? What did you say, John? Tulsa, Oklahoma? Can you prove it?"
At least John Armstrong actually made the effort to travel to the National Archives and examine the thing and report what he found. Something Bugliosi obviously didn't bother with as he practices research from the confines of the California state border.
Also, the serial number for the camera is listed as 27259 by the FBI. However, a Minox Corporation spokesman said that only six digit serial numbers were used for cameras sold in the United States. It is not a valid number as spokesman Kurt Lohn said. Once again, Bugliosi does not comment on this discrepancy or seek to resolve the issue.
Howard Brennan's Oswald Standing And Shooting
(Endnotes, p.531, Note 956)
Howard Brennan is one of those star witnesses that the lone nut crowd hang their hats on. Here is one of the few people that actually (or claimed to) see the rifle out the window. Brennan is not without controversy for not only his failure in being able to pick Oswald out of the line-up (claiming fears of personal safety) even after seeing him on TV, but one of his other claims is that he saw Oswald standing up while shooting. However, the window is so low to the floor that Oswald would have been shooting through the upper window glass if that were the case. This is, of course, ridiculous. Bugliosi solves this by having Brennan's position on the ground looking up to the sixth floor giving him an altered perspective for a mistaken impression of a shooter standing at the window. How convenient.
His highly accurate assessment of Oswald’s height at 5’10” is another matter.
Bugliosi ponders: “I don’t believe Brennan was asked this question but we can assume that he estimated Oswald’s height by extrapolation from what he could see of Oswald’s upper body.”
The subject of an early description of Oswald’s height is an ongoing controversy as the source of this information is confusing. Bugliosi is saying that Brennan could accurately judge Oswald's height by seeing him from the waist up–only. I don't see how this is even remotely possible or how Bugliosi could make such a claim and expect it to be taken seriously. If Oswald is leaning on the box at the window shooting, he’s not even going to be seen from the waist up–more like the shoulder up. So it’s impossible to make such a determination from Brennan’s viewing angle.
Typical of Bugliosi to give Brennan a pass. If he were a witness contradicting the official story, Bugliosi would tear him or her to shreds for getting off script, such as he did to Acquilla Clemons who he calls a "kook" twice, with no citation, once in main text and again in the End Notes (p.52, Note 78). (Clemons claimed to have seen two men involved in the Tippet slaying, where most witnesses see only one suspect.)
So here is a witness who said he saw Oswald shooting from the six floor of the TSBD, saw no flash or recoil, couldn’t ID Oswald from the police line-up then later changed his mind and said it really was Oswald when under oath to the Warren Commission. It’s funny to read Bugliosi’s explanations for witnesses as weak as Howard Brennan and what lengths he has flay about to work out the kinks.
Mr. Bugliosi, you make a fine contortionist if you ever took up the trade.
Judyth Vary Baker Character Assassination
(Endnotes, p.539, Note 978)
Bugliosi saves some of his best (or worst) drive-by character assassination for Judyth Vary Baker. Baker's story of being Lee Oswald's lover in the summer of 1963 is not without controversy. She is one of those figures in JFK research that polarizes the community into camps of true believers and true disbelievers. I have given her a book Me and Lee, a good review here, as she does seem to have a good grasp of the JFK case, and seems to fill in a lot of holes in the story of Oswald’s life in the summer of 1963. But even I have my doubts about some elements of her story. She claims to be involved with important events yet nobody documents her being there. One such event is the Oswald scuffle with anti Castro Cubans when he was handing out FPFC pamphlets. She claims to have been there on the street as a witness but nobody else reports this and the TV film footage does not reveal her. Her story is a long and convoluted tale that goes off into all kinds of tangents and Bugliosi does give a good accounting of the various winding threads.
The basic story is, Judyth, a whiz-kid science geek and Lee become star-crossed lovers and along the way Judyth becomes aware that Lee is an undercover agent (CIA and FBI) and gets wrapped up in a plot to assassinate the president. His goal according to Judyth is not to back out but to stay in and hopefully defeat the plot. He obviously fails and is framed as the patsy.
Her accounting of Lee Oswald makes him appear as a heroic figure, one seldom seen in the annals of JFK assassination research. Though it seems strange for this unsung hero to enter a movie theater with a loaded .38, resist arrest, assault a police officer, and attempt to shoot said police officer in the face.
Bugliosi can't help himself with her. He saves some of his best/worst invectives for driving his nails into her coffin. He starts out calling her, "Judyth Vary (as in very silly) Baker. " He further states, "Judyth’s story is so absurd that it is not worthy of citations to sources..." So unworthy he then proceeds to ramble on for 21 paragraphs about her.
I think it is well established that she and Oswald both worked at the same time at William B. Reily and Company, Inc., a coffee company. But not for Bugliosi who doubts she worked there and says in this Note that she never establishes this face, and gives as proof, no check stubs with her name on it. However, in her latest book, Me and Lee, she does feature a Reily coffee company W2 form with her name on it. So she is there as an employee the same time Oswald is.
Bugliosi can't just disagree with somebody with a story to tell, and in this case, an off-script story from the one the Warren Report relates. No, he has to be as ugly as possible about it. In this Note, he ridicules Judyth Baker with the same relish a twisted mind does when pulling the wings off a fly.
[Note: Currently Judyth Vary Baker has her own page and forum on Facebook. It’s basically queen Judyth holding court with her loving followers doting on her every word. I hate to say it but there is a preponderance of ignorance expressed by many of the posters there as well as lack of maturity. Poor Martin Shackelford is trying to set the record straight and is being told, literally, to blow it “out of his ass.” It’s an uphill battle against an army of cultists and I don’t how he keeps it up. It’s like trying to herd cats. To his credit, he remains very civil. Keep up the good fight Martin!]
The Attack on Saundra Spencer's Credibility
(Endnotes, pp. 264-268)
As Bugliosi states on p.268:
"We know she’s wrong when she says the photographs she saw show a 'blown-out chunk' in the center of the back of the president’s head. Why? Because apart from the observations of all three autopsy surgeons, the official autopsy photographs and X-rays conclusively, and without question, depict the body of President Kennedy at the time of the autopsy and show none of what Spencer described."
A strange response. Navy Photographic technician Saundra Spencer was responsible for processing the autopsy films. She said she saw a massive blow-out at the back of Kennedy's head in one of the processed images. However, the important point here is that she is not the only witness to see this wound. In fact, it's one of the biggest, ongoing controversies in the annals of the JFK assassination. Just about everybody that has close contact with John Kennedy's body saw the large rear head wound from all of the Parkland doctors and nurses, to the two FBI Special Agents, Sibert and O'Neil observing and taking notes, the two autopsy techs, Jenner and O'Conner, the many Dealey Plaza witnesses, to even the mortician who prepared Kennedy's body. And this is just a partial list of witnesses.
It comes down to this–the people with the responsibility to document the massive head wound, the three pathologists, Drs Humes, Boswell and Finck did not. This evokes a central mystery of the case. They were all military, so were they pressured to conform to the lone gunman theory early on? Some people think so. Basically, we are left with two camps of eminently qualified experts that don't agree. And frankly, there are more expert witnesses that saw the large wound to the back of Kennedy’s head than did not.
As far as autopsy photographs go, there is a lot of monkey business going on there. Photographer John Stringer, when examining his photographs in the National Archives noted numerous problems. For example, he says the negatives he saw were not of the same brand-name film he used–which was Kodak. The film in the Archives is Ansco. Apparently, the negatives he was looking at are copies of the originals. And who would do that? My guess is the Kennedy family. After the autopsy they got their hands on all autopsy materials such as all film and tissue samples–yes the brain too. After negotiations, they returned back the films to the government as a deed gift but were allowed to keep the tissue samples. I think they are the people who made the copies and have the originals locked away.
And on top of that, Stringer says there are photographs he took that are missing. Also, there are other photographs he says he didn't take, such as the bottom of the brain. Who was the other photographer? At any rate, Stringer's experiences are just the beginning of the tampering of the photographic evidence in the case. Dr. David Mantik has a very good essay, "20 Conclusions After 9 Visits" where he uncovers the tampering of the X-ray films in the National Archives. Bugliosi has read it and knows what the implications are and does nothing about it.
Saundra Spencer is a highly credible witness to there being a large blow-out to the right rear of Kennedy's head. Bugliosi attempts to discredit her are weak and speaks of the desperate path he walks in defending the sloppy job that the Warren Commission did. Does he really believe what he writes?
Che Guevara Biography
(Endnotes, p.998, Note 1345)
And what did the romantic communist revolutionary have to do with the JFK assassination? Answer: Absolutely nothing! This note is entitled "CIA’s attempt to murder Castro," though there is little written on that. Instead it ends up being a mini-biography of Che Guevara. This Bugliosi intellect works in mysterious ways that mere mortals can not begin to fathom.
For Now...
There are places where he doesn't expand on any new information and repeats what is in the main text. Also, Bugliosi appears to have left the hard to suss out issues for the End Notes. Such as the controversy regarding Oswald's two wallets where he struggles with the issue and then concludes it was all a confusing mistake and the second wallet actually belonged to policeman Tippit. Or the lack of documentation for the bullet, the famous CE-399. Bugliosi thinks Special Agent Barnwell Odom simply forgot (a contention he denied to researchers when asked).
