David S. Lifton

David S. Lifton (born 1939) is a researcher and author on the topic of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. He is also the author of "Pig on a Leash," an essay about the Zapruder film.

Best Evidence

The culmination of over 15 years of research was his 1980 book "Best Evidence: Disguise and Deception in the Assassination of John F. Kennedy" [Carroll & Graf Publishers, NYC, 1988, softcover, ISBN 0-88184-438-1] 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 1980 Macmillan hard-cover edition described the book as:::...the most painstaking study ever written of the possible cover up of the JFK assassination. It contains facts, testimony, and statements by material witnesses never before disclosed. It leads us, inexorably, to the discovery of what really happened to America's most charismatic modern President. It is also the story of the author's courageous and lonely journey, an odyssey that slowly leads him to a final, terrible conclusion.::"Those in authority who conducted the investigation into what happened in Dallas on November 22, 1963, leaned heavily on what they considered the "best evidence," evidence they could find credible, rather than on the search for new information. But David Lifton's Dostoyevskian obsession with the unanswered questions led him deeper and deeper into uncharted territory. It led him at last to what was truly the "best evidence" — the body of the President—which became, in the hands of the conspirators, the means by which they deceived the American people and the world."

Biography

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.

Today, David Lifton lives in Los Angeles, and is working full time to complete a major work on Lee Harvey Oswald.

Criticism

Roger Bruce Feinman, J.D. (author of "Between the Signal and the Noise")

The most rigorous critique of Lifton's "Best Evidence" theory of body alteration in the assassination of President Kennedy was propounded by Roger Bruce Feinman, J.D. Lifton and Feinman had engaged in a public debate on the medical evidence at the Midwest Symposium on Assassination Politics in Chicago in early April 1993, They continued their contentious exchange of views shortly thereafter in online forums on CompuServe and Internet discussion groups, until the vituperativeness of Lifton's personal attacks against both Feinman and his late mentor, noted author and assassination researcher Sylvia Meagher, convinced Feinman to formalize his analysis of "Best Evidence" in an electronic book entitled "Between the Signal and the Noise"," which he made available to the online community as a public service and at no charge. By special arrangement with Carroll & Graf Publishers, the book was extensively excerpted in Harrison Edward Livingstone's "Killing The Truth" (1994)(ISBN-10: 0786701544). A work of literary criticism, "Between the Signal and the Noise" relies in large measure upon David Lifton's own writings, dating back to the earliest days of his involvement with the subject of JFK's assassination, to question the genesis of his conspiracy theories and refute their validity. These writings were collected by Meagher, who died in 1989.

After the advent of the World Wide Web, "Between the Signal and the Noise" was web-published by permission of its author. Its unofficial host site is here [http://karws.gso.uri.edu/JFK/the_critics/Feinman/Feinmanbio.html] . Lifton threatened the president of the University of Rhode Island to sue for publishing allegedly libelous and defamatory materials about him. The University then arranged with the proprietor of Meagher's collected private papers, Hood College of Frederick, MD, for a respected URI faculty member, Dr. Kenneth A. Rahn, to vet the contents of Feinman's book against her correspondence and memoranda of telephone conversations. After spending several days with Meagher's papers at Hood, Dr. Rahn reported back to URI that Feinman had indeed portrayed the letters and notes accurately, and that he could find no factual errors in Feinman's book.

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." ["Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK" ISBN 0-679-41825-3, pp.296-297]

Posner contends that the theory falls apart based on two failings.

;MedicalPosner 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." [ Ibid, p. 297]

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." [Ibid, p. 297]

;OpportunityPosner 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." [Ibid, p. 297]

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 "appartent" there was "surgery of the head area" and (b) the wounds--both head and neck--changed dramatically in size between Dallas and Bethesda.

About the supposed "earlier publication" of the post-mortem alteration idea by Newcomb and Adams. Lifton notes that Fred Newcomb was an associate of his, who he knew between 1968 and 1970; and it was from that relationship, and at that time, that Newcomb learned of Lifton's hypothesis. There is other work that Newcomb did on the JFK case which is uniquely his own, but the publication of his 1975 article--dealing with an idea that Lifton had been working with since 1966, is not one of them.

References