David S. Lifton (born 1939) is a researcher and author on the topic of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. He is also the writer/producer of the documentary, "BEST EVIDENCE: The Research Video." He is also the author of "Pig on a Leash," an essay about the Zapruder film.
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David S. Lifton is a native New Yorker who moved to Los Angeles in 1962, after graduating from Cornell University's School of Engineering Physics. In Los Angeles, he worked as a computer engineer on Project Apollo, JFK's project to land a man on the moon, while also attending UCLA for an advanced degree (he eventually earned his Masters from Cornell University). In the fall of 1964, around the time the Warren Report was published, he became interested in the JFK case, and in the Spring of 1965, bought a set of the 26 Volumes of the Warren Commission. He was one of the "first generation" of researchers on the Kennedy case.
In June 1966, Lifton lived and worked in San Francisco, where he was employed by Ramparts Magazine, on their Kennedy project. The result was a 30,000 word article, The Case For Three Assassins (published as a cover story in the January, 1967 issue), which laid out the case that more than one assassin was firing at Kennedy, based on anomalies in the medical evidence. "The Case for Three Assassins" was the first time a major piece of writing had been done on the backward snap of JFK's head so clearly visible in the Zapruder film. Physicists were interviewed, and one in particular—Dr. James Riddle, of the UCLA Department of Physics—went on record with his opinion that the backward headsnap was impossible if JFK had been struck from behind. Lifton, meanwhile, had struck up an acquaintanceship with UCLA Law professor Wesley Liebeler, and had many hours of discussions, with Liebeler, about the contradictions in the medical evidence, and particularly the integrity of the autopsy report, which was based on an examination of JFK's body at the autopsy, on the night of the assassination. At that time, no entry wounds were found on the front of the body, even though, in Dallas, the doctors thought the President was struck from the front. Similarly, at Dallas, the doctors found an exit wound at the rear of the head, but no rear exit was on the body at Bethesda. Were the Bethesda doctors simply lying? It was a consequence of this dialectic--with Lifton believing (originally) that the autopsy doctors were lying, and Liebeler defending the position that they must have testified truthfully--that Lifton made an amazing discovery. On October 23, 1966, he found an FBI report written by two agents at the autopsy that stated that, when the body was examined at Bethesda, it was "apparent" that there had been "surgery of the head area, namely, in the top of the skull." Lifton brought this information to Liebeler's attention the very next day, and he was astounded. As a consequence, he wrote a 13 page memorandum on the autopsy, suggesting a limited reopening of the investigation in this area, and calling attention to Lifton's discovery. The memo was sent to Chief Justice Warren, every member of the Commission (and its staff), President Johnson, the Justice Department, and Robert Kennedy.
Nothing was done, and that is when Lifton made the decision to pursue the matter as an individual, and write a book. He vastly underestimated the amount of time it would take, and the project--which he thought would last about a year--mushroomed into a full 14 years of full time work--and it resulted in Best Evidence, which was published in January, 1981, was a Book of the Month Club Selection, was nominated for a Pulitzer, was Number one on many best seller lists, and was on the New York Times best-seller list for just under four months, rising to position number 4.
When Lifton's book was published, Time magazine afforded it two full pages--as a news story in the National Affairs section.
Realizing the importance of some of the accounts of the witnesses he interviewed, Lifton arranged to have them filmed in October, 1980, just prior to the publication of the book. There was no "home video" at that time; but when technology advanced and home video recorders were in most homes, Lifton --sponsored by Rhino--used the footage and created BEST EVIDENCE: The Research Video. This video--which earned very positive reviews, and sold around 50,000 copies--permits viewers to meet the core witnesses in his book: Aubrey Rike, the Dallas funeral attendant, who put Kennedy's body into a ceremonial casket, and key witnesses from Bethesda (Paul O'Connor, Dennis David, and Jerrol Custer) who were aware that it arrived at Bethesda in a body bag.
Some of these witnesses were called to give testimony before the Assassination Records and Review Board. In fact, David Lifton worked very closely with the staff of the ARRB, both in the area of the medical evidence, and the Zapruder film. In April, 1995, he was one of those who was called to Washington for the "Expert's Conference," advising the ARRB as to what lines of investigation ought to be pursued. He testified before the Board in 1996, at that time donating a very rare 35 mm copy of the Zapruder film, that he made, on an optical printer, from one of the "1967 original copies" made by Life Magazine.
In an updated 1988 edition of Best Evidence, Lifton was responsible for the first publication of a series of autopsy photographs taken of President Kennedy at Bethesda Naval Medical Center. Lifton had acquired these photos after the initial publication of Best Evidence from a former Secret Service employee, who had made private copies with the permission of Agent Roy Kellerman. Lifton also used the photos during his appearance on the October 1988 PBS Nova episode Who Shot President Kennedy?, which marked the first time they were shown on television. Lifton argues that the actual photographs are consistent with his thesis of body alteration.
David Lifton believes Lee Harvey Oswald was legally innocent of JFK's assassination, and should properly be viewed as "the man who didn't do it." In 1992, Lifton, as a paid advisor, worked closely with screenwriter Steve Bello and producer Robert Dornheim in producing the Wolper film "The Marina Oswald Story," which has since been re-titled as "Fatal Deception" and is shown on the History Channel.
Today, David Lifton lives in Los Angeles, and is working full time to complete a major work on Lee Harvey Oswald.
The culmination of over 15 years of research was his 1981 book Best Evidence: Disguise and Deception in the Assassination of John F. Kennedy[1] which has now been reprinted (both hard-cover & soft-cover) several times and still is in print. It was on the best-seller list for months, and was an "featured alternate" of the Book-of-the-Month Club. The jacket of the 1981 Macmillan hard-cover edition described the book as:
Public Endorsement by ARRB Staff Member Douglas Horne
DougIas Horne was Chief Analysis for Military Records for the ARRB, a small federal agency created by the 1992 JFK Records Act. In that capacity, Horne spent some three years investigating the medical evidence. He supervised the calling of witnesses, in the medical area, before the ARRB, and--besides General Counsel Jeremy Gunn--is one of the few people who has actually attended testimony given by all three of the JFK autopsy doctors. Horne's job--in accordance with the mandate of the ARRB, was to “clarify the record.” Horne, who is currently completing his own book on the medical evidence, issued the following statement in 2004 (and it can be found on the Spartacus website, run by Professor John Simkin, in London):
"David Lifton's thesis in his 1981 book "Best Evidence" has been validated by the work of the ARRB staff. Our unsworn interviews and depositions of Dallas (Parkland Hospital) medical personnel and Bethesda autopsy participants confirm that the President's body arrived at Bethesda Naval Hospital in a markedly different condition than it was in when seen at Parkland for life-saving treatment. My conclusion is that wounds were indeed altered and bullets were indeed removed prior to the autopsy at Bethesda Naval Hospital. This procedure altered the autopsy conclusions and presented a false picture of how the shooting took place. In most essential details, David Lifton "got it right" in his 1981 bestseller. (He has modified his views since his book was published on the "when" and "where," and I concur with his changes, which he will publish at a later date.)"
Gerald A. Posner (author of "Case Closed")
Author and lawyer Gerald Posner has described Lifton's book as "one of the most unusual conspiracy theories" that "relies on an elaborate shell game involving rapid exchanges of coffins, a decoy ambulance, and a switched body shroud. He contends that once the body (of President Kennedy) was stolen from Air Force One, a covert team of surgeons surgically altered the corpse before the autopsy later that day...purportedly...so the autopsy physicians would determine the bullets that hit the President were fired from the rear...thereby sealing the case against Oswald."[2]
Posner contends that the theory falls apart based on two failings.
Medical
Posner cites Dr. Michael Baden, chief forensic pathologist for the House Select Committee on Assassinations, who says "Lifton just doesn't know what he is talking about. It's a fantasy of his. He thinks he sees signs of surgery in some of the autopsy photos, but he doesn't know how to read those pictures. It's laughable. He's not a doctor and it's clear by his work that he doesn't understand what really happened. He doesn't even take into account rigor mortis, which starts two hours after death."[3]
Posner also cites Dr. Cyril Wecht, a vocal critic of the Warren Commission conclusions, who says "Lifton gets away with crap, and no one challenges him. I could assemble a whole team of the best surgeons in the country and still not be able to accomplish in a day what Lifton says was done in a few hours. I have never bought his stuff. It can't be done."[4]
Opportunity
Posner notes secondly that Lifton's body alteration theory fails because his "entire scenario rests upon the President's casket being unattended on Air Force One for a few minutes, so that the body could be stolen. In a seven-hundred page book, Lifton spends only two pages on this essential issue. Yet the casket was never unattended."[5]
Lifton has responded that this is false. First of all, the coffin was always "attended" by agents of the White House Detail. The issue is whether some of them were instructed to remove the body from the casket, and place it elsewhere on the plane (e.g., in luggage). Notably, there is a three or four minute period when the entire Presidential party was down on the tarmac, while the coffin was being placed aboard Air Force One, by Secret Service agents of the White House Detail. Lifton maintains that the notion that the body was never "unattended" is a canard.
In response to Dr. Baden, Lifton notes that Baden had no idea that the documents he examined for the House Select Committee showed no weight for the brain--further circumstantial evidence that the brain had been removed prior to the time the body arrived--until Baden was confronted by that most unpleasant fact on national TV (Hardcopy, 1990). Furthermore, rigor mortis has little to do with the issues raised in his book.
Regarding the head wound, the central issue is that the Dallas wound was 35sq cm (about 2-3/4") according to the sworn testimony of the late Dr. Carrico, whereas it was 400% larger (170 sq cm) according to the diagram created at autopsy by Dr. Boswell, who used a ruler to measure the defect. As to Wecht, he is entitled to his opinion as to what he thinks is possible, and not possible, but the fact remains that (a) the doctors said it was "apparent" there was "surgery of the head area" and (b) the wounds--both head and neck--changed dramatically in size between Dallas and Bethesda. When, during the ARRB's re-investigation, Dr. Boswell was asked to draw on a medical skull the size of the wound, the huge wound he drew was clearly larger, by some 400%, than what was observed in the Emergency Room in Dallas.
^ Carroll & Graf Publishers, NYC, 1988, softcover, ISBN 0-88184-438-1 ^ Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK ISBN 0-679-41825-3, pp.296-297 ^ Ibid, p. 297 ^ Ibid, p. 297 ^ Ibid, p. 297