A Reminder - Read Nick Nalli's Important Review of Josiah Thompson's book, Last Second In Dallas

I spent the weekend reading Nick Nalli's brilliant review of Josiah Thompson's new book, Last Second In Dallas. I know Nick, and I know how smart he is, but I was blown away by his article. And so, it's worthy of a second blog post.

Here is his review of Last Second in Dallas: The Ghost of the Grassy Knoll Gunman

and the Futile Search for Signal in Noise

Please take the time read Nick's important contribution.

Important takeaways:

1. The acoustics evidence cannot be resurrected. Nalli's rejoinder to Thompson on the acoustics is persuasive.

2. JFK's head does move forward about 2 inches between frame 312-313, indicative of a shot from behind.

3. Thompson's supposed forward lurch starting at frame 327 is just a continuation of forward movement that started earlier. "JFK's motion during these frames is not due to a near-instantaneous interaction of his head with a high-speed projectile, but rather the interaction of his lifeless body with the backseat, Mrs. Kennedy, and the force of gravity."

Here's an important part of Nick's paper:

“Barger and Mullen offered Thompson one additional argument against the validity of HOLD: The presence of multiple hum frequencies on the Channel 1 recording suggested that the HOLD crosstalk was somehow overdubbed during the creation of a multigenerational copy. However, they based this on the Ramsey Panel copy, which was already known to be a multigenerational copy, so there was nothing surprising about the presence of these hums. The only way Barger could solve the timing problem was to conclude that there was overdubbing, and the only alleged direct evidence of overdubbing is the extra hums.”

“If a mysterious overdubbing were the origin of the HOLD crosstalk, then this hypothesis can be tested against earlier copies: Not only should earlier copies not only not contain the hums, but also, they should not include the HOLD crosstalk. And O’Dell, once again, has convincingly demonstrated that this is not the case. Verify for yourself that the HOLD crosstalk is present on all three known versions of the recordings (the Ramsey Panel’s, the FBI’s, and BBN’s); therefore, HOLD is not a dubbing artifact: Dictabelt Hums and the "hold everything secure" Crosstalk.”

Nick has also written an amazing paper on the head shot to JFK.

And read Nick's paper: Sniper Target Tracking Analysis of John F. Kennedy Assassination

If you are ever at the Sixth Floor Museum, check out Nick's Oral History contribution.

Nick worked on his review of Thompson's book with other brilliant people including Paul Hoch, Michael O’Dell, Max Holland, Francis Corbett, Roland Zavada, Martin J. Kelly, and Louis Girdler.

Note that Nick's review is hosted by Dale Myers at his excellent blog: Secrets of a Homicide.