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On Thursday, June 14, 2007, author and former Los Angeles prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi engaged in a live radio debate against well-known JFK assassination conspiracist and forensic pathologist Dr. Cyril H. Wecht on "The Doug Hoerth Show", via news/talk radio station WPTT-AM in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The 50-minute program was rebroadcast over WPTT on the 44th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's assassination (Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, November 22, 2007).
Featured below is the original 6/14/07 debate, with Bugliosi and Wecht going head-to-head over the assassination of President Kennedy. The debate centered primarily on the controversial Single-Bullet Theory.
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A FEW COMMENTS ABOUT
THE BUGLIOSI/WECHT DEBATE:
Why in the world Mr. Bugliosi didn't mention the fact that the test bullets fired for the Warren Commission at Edgewood Arsenal were NOT FIRED THROUGH TWO BODIES OR ANIMALS (to properly simulate the "SBT" flight path) is somewhat of a large oversight on Vincent's part.
Plus: When speaking on the topic of "The Single-Bullet Theory Has Never Been Duplicated" -- Vince, in my opinion, should have also mentioned the 2004 Discovery Channel documentary "JFK: Beyond The Magic Bullet", which did, indeed, properly simulate the shooting by firing a Mannlicher-Carcano/Western Cartridge bullet THROUGH TWO BODIES, with the results being similar in character to the SBT, including the test bullet emerging in a COMPLETELY-UNFRAGMENTED CONDITION. Here is what that test bullet looked like after the SBT simulation:
I don't know why Bugliosi didn't mention these important factors after Wecht started talking about how the Warren Commission test bullets were "mushroomed" and more flattened, etc.; but Vince should have talked about those things I mentioned to bolster his pro-SBT argument substantially.
Here are some related SBT comments (taken from my review of Bugliosi's 2007 book, "Reclaiming History: The Assassination Of President John F. Kennedy"):
CHAPTER 4 (63 PAGES) -- "THE MOST FAMOUS HOME MOVIE EVER,
THE 'MAGIC BULLET', AND THE SINGLE-BULLET THEORY":
Vincent Bugliosi's Single-Bullet Theory timeline has me puzzled a little bit. I, myself, believe beyond all reasonable doubt that the specific "SBT" point-of-impact Zapruder Film frame can be established....and that frame is almost certainly Z224 (and not "somewhere between Z frames 210 and 222", as Mr. Bugliosi says in his book on page 463).
Although, VB says in an endnote on the CD-ROM (on page 25 of the notes) that the SBT shot occurs "at Z223-Z224"; so I'm not quite sure which exact Z-Film frame Vince totally endorses, if any.
Plus, on pages 325 to 327 of the CD's endnotes, Bugliosi acknowledges the very real possibility (via Dr. John Lattimer's 1994 "lapel bulge" tests) that a single bullet could have passed through both Kennedy and Connally at Z224.
Vince actually mentions a three-frame range of Zapruder frames in this "lapel" regard, which seems a little strange to me....but at least VB admits the possibility of the bullet striking at the correct frame (IMO) of Z224, when he says this on endnote page #325: "A bulging of the right lapel of the governor's suit coat may pinpoint the moment Governor Connally is hit to be at Z222-224".
Another oddity is that even though Vince supports a "Z223-Z224" and/or a "Z222-Z224" SBT hit at various stages in the book's endnotes, in other portions of the main text he also seems to be endorsing the notion that Governor Connally was reacting to already having been hit by a gunshot as early as Z222, which I totally disagree with.
I can't detect any such Connally "reaction" at Z222 at all. The first firm "reaction" on Connally's behalf comes later, at Z225, just after having been struck at Z224....again, that's in my own personal opinion on the matter.
However, there's another indication in the book that VB advocates the exact same frame for the SBT that I, too, endorse (Z224). That occurs on page 40, when Vince says the second shot (the SBT shot) occurs "3.5 seconds" after the first shot which missed the limousine, a first shot which, elsewhere in the book, VB says comes at Z-Film frame #160.*
And the only frame that is precisely "3.5" seconds after Z160 is Z224 (given the "round-off" mathematics that VB is utilizing on pages 40 and 41 and Mr. Zapruder's camera speed of 18.3 frames-per-second).
* = A First-Shot Footnote: I completely agree with VB's "Z160 first shot" timing. However, I disagree with him on the exact scenario of how bystander James Tague was wounded by this first bullet fired by Lee Oswald on November 22.
Vince thinks the probability is high that the Z160 missed shot hit the concrete on Elm Street and then the bullet (or a portion thereof) went on to strike yet another hunk of street pavement over on Main Street, which resulted in a bullet fragment or concrete fragment slightly injuring Tague's cheek. (See page 471.)
I just cannot quite believe such a scenario myself. I think it's much more likely that Oswald's first shot struck a portion of the nearby oak tree, with the bullet then probably fragmenting (at least partially), sending the majority of the lead portion of the bullet out to Main Street, resulting in Tague's wounding, while the metal jacket of the missile possibly struck the pavement on Elm near JFK's car, resulting in the "sparks" that a few witnesses reported observing.
But, of course, realistically, the only thing that can be done with respect to any "missed" shot is to simply guess about what happened, since no physical bullet was recovered with regard to the shot that missed the limousine's victims.
Another possibility concerning Tague's injury is that he was struck by a fragment of the bullet that hit JFK in the head (shot #3 from Oswald's rifle). I, however, don't like that theory much either, since that bullet would have probably been pretty much spent and out of gas by the time it travelled the many additional yards from the President's car to Main Street to meet Tague.
Back to the subject of the SBT:
Many things begin to happen to Governor Connally beginning at Zapruder frame #224 -- TOO many things, in my opinion, to believe that the SBT bullet passed through both Connally and JFK at any other time.
Obviously, Vince is simply placing on the table ALL potential "SBT" possibilities throughout his immense publication. I, however, would have preferred more consistency in this book with regard to the timing of the SBT bullet strike.
But Bugliosi evidently feels that the precise "impact" frame cannot be definitively established on the Zapruder Film for the SBT shot. But I believe it can be established on the film, via John Connally's sudden "right shoulder drop" at exactly Z224:
But even with a bit of ambiguity in his SBT timeline, at least Mr. Bugliosi knows (as do I) that a "Single-Bullet Theory" Z-Film frame DOES exist somewhere within Mr. Zapruder's 26-second home movie.
The exact moment when the controversial "SBT" shot struck John Kennedy and John Connally has been debated for many, many years, of course. Even the two major U.S. Government inquiries into the assassination had differing views on this important matter, with the 1964 Warren Commission offering up a 15-frame range of Zapruder Film frames when they said the single bullet struck JFK and Connally (Z210 to Z225).
But the House Select Committee in 1977-1978 placed the SBT strike at approximately Z190, which, by the way, is the timing that was seemingly endorsed by Bugliosi at the TV Docu-Trial in which he served as prosecutor in 1986; although I strongly suspect that the reason for such a VB endorsement in '86 was due to the fact that Bugliosi's main "SBT" witness/expert at the London mock trial (Cecil Kirk) was a member of the HSCA panel, which itself endorsed the absurdly-early Z190 SBT timeline.
So, as we can see from the pages of "Reclaiming History", Vincent T. Bugliosi, in the intervening years, has gotten closer to the Z224 SBT hit.
It turns out that I disagree (for the most part) with Vince with respect to the exact timing of the Single-Bullet Theory, but certainly not by very much; so I'm not inclined to call a "2-frame" difference of opinion a major or all-important disagreement.
And, as I mentioned, there are references in this book that seem to indicate VB's possible belief in a "Z223-Z224-Z225" SBT hit too (which will no doubt have conspiracists attacking Bugliosi's credibility and lack of consistency throughout the book on this "SBT timing" point, which, indeed, appears to be warranted criticism when you read the whole tome, plus the endnotes).
However, in my opinion, as stated previously, the most important point is the fact that Vince Bugliosi supports the SBT, regardless of exactly when on the Z-Film the SBT is occurring. And this SBT support is due in large part to plain ol' common sense....because the sum total of all the evidence in this case makes the Single-Bullet Theory a virtual certainty.
Or, to use Vincent's own words (from page 482 of ["Reclaiming History"]) -- "The overwhelming evidence is that whenever Kennedy and Connally were hit, or first reacted to being hit, they were both struck by the same bullet." -- V. Bugliosi
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"When you can establish the single-bullet theory by reference to evidence other than the [Zapruder] film, you necessarily know that the film itself cannot, by definition, show something else. .... Since we KNOW Kennedy and Connally were not hit by separate bullets, we know, before we even look at the film, that it CANNOT show otherwise." -- VB; Pages 457-458 of "Reclaiming History"
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"With respect to the second shot fired in Dealey Plaza, the "single-bullet THEORY" is an obvious misnomer. Though in its incipient stages it was but a theory, the indisputable evidence is that it is now a proven FACT, a wholly supported conclusion. .... And no sensible mind that is also informed can plausibly make the case that the bullet that struck President Kennedy in the upper right part of his back did not go on to hit Governor Connally." -- VB; Pages 489-490 of "Reclaiming History"
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