Can you provide us with an executive summary or an overview, please?Below is full sworn testimony from Douglas Horne to the House Committee. My highlights are in bold.
https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Horne-Written-Testimony.pdf 1. Chairwoman Luna, Ranking Member Garcia, and Members of the Committee, thank you for the invitation to appear and testify today.
2. I served on the staff of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Review Board for the final 3 years of its 4-year lifespan, from August of 1995 through September of 1998. I was hired as a Senior Analyst on the Military Records Team, and was promoted early in 1997 to head the Military Records Team, serving as “Chief Analyst for Military Records” until the ARRB shut down on September 30, 1998.
3. During my time on the staff, in addition to securing the declassification and public release of military records related to Cuba and Vietnam policy, I was privileged to work extensively in the medical evidence arena, and to serve as the ARRB’s point man on issues related to the Zapruder film of President Kennedy’s assassination.
4. Although the ARRB was not empowered to reinvestigate the assassination or generate conclusions, or findings of fact, the Board did choose to attempt to “clarify the record” of certain aspects of the assassination by taking the depositions of 10 persons who participated in, or were present at, the autopsy on President John F. Kennedy, and by later taking one additional joint deposition of 5 of the Dallas treating physicians. I served as the principal research assistant to the ARRB’s General Counsel, Jeremy Gunn, in preparing for, and conducting, our 10 depositions of the participants and witnesses to JFK’s autopsy, and was present at all 10 of those depositions. The sworn testimony of our 10 deponents, as well as numerous written interview reports of additional “unsworn” medical witnesses, were all deposited in the National Archives, in the JFK Records Collection, without comment or endorsement.
5. In subsequent years, I wrote a five volume memoir about my own personal conclusions regarding the medical evidence, and explained the substantial ways in which the work of the ARRB staff significantly enhanced the totality of the medical evidence and our understanding of how President Kennedy was killed. Some outstanding questions were resolved, but many other questions were raised by the information we gathered---questions that remain unresolved today.
6. Many Americans remain troubled today by the many conflicts within the JFK medical evidence, and what they might mean, and remain unsatisfied with the official conclusions offered up by both the Warren Commission in 1964, and the HSCA in 1979. Based on my work as an analyst at the ARRB and as an independent researcher, I have concluded that there are ample reasons for the disquiet of so many of the American people, to wit:
a.
Eight different sets of photographs known with confidence to have been taken during the autopsy on JFK are not in the official collection today, and never have been. b.
Some autopsy photos in the official collection at the National Archives are in gross disagreement with the head and neck wounds universally observed on November 22, 1963 by the treating physicians at Parkland Hospital, and recorded in precise detail in their treatment notes that day, and in their subsequent 1964 testimony.
c.
At least two, and possibly three , JFK skull x-rays exposed at Bethesda Naval Hospital are missing today, and have never been in the official collection.
d.
The science of optical densitometry reveals that all three surviving skull x-rays are not originals, but rather, are altered copy films .
e. Two highly qualified and respected M.D.s who were granted repeated access by the Kennedy family to the autopsy photographs and x-rays in the deed-of-gift collection at the Archives
BOTH AGREE that the extant JFK skull x-rays reveal unambiguous and clear evidence of two head shots fired FROM IN FRONT of the President , contrary to the findings of the Warren Commission and the HSCA. The JFK skull x-rays actually reveal a total of three head shots: one from behind, and two from the front.
f.
The so-called “Harper Fragment” of skull bone, a crucial item of evidence signed for by the Presidents’ Military Physician, and photographed by the FBI, has been missing since late in 1963.
g.
Bullet fragments known to have been removed from President Kennedy’s body at Bethesda Naval Hospital were never placed into the official record, and are missing today.
h. The remains of President Kennedy’s brain following its examination were placed in a stainless steel container in 1963, but
the brain is missing today. That stainless steel container, and an original, signed autopsy report, were among materials transferred from the Secret Service to Senator Robert F. Kennedy in April of 1965; those materials, and others, were not among the materials returned to the U.S. government by RFK on October 31, 1966, via a deed-of-gift to the National Archives. The Kennedy family attorney, Burke Marshall, told the HSCA that Robert F. Kennedy had made those materials permanently inaccessible, without providing details.
i.
The fourteen (14) brain photographs in the National Archives today cannot be, and are not, photos of John F. Kennedy’s brain. They have been impugned by the official photographer at the brain examination, and by one of the FBI agents present at JFK’s autopsy.
j. The chain-of-custody of President Kennedy’s body prior to the start of the autopsy shortly after 8:00 PM on November 22, 1963 clearly appears to have been broken, casting even more doubt upon the reliability of the official autopsy report.
k. Navy pathologists arrived at four (4) sets of differing conclusions about President Kennedy’s wounds and how he died within the two weeks after his death.
The official autopsy report that is now in the National Archives represents only the fourth, and final, set of conclusions . This fact, perhaps more than any of the others above, is patently unacceptable in the nation that prides itself as the world’s greatest democracy.
7. The existing “deed-of-gift” dated October 29, 1966 that set severe restrictions upon who can view the JFK autopsy materials, and how they can be used, needs to be re-examined, and lifted. It has resulted in de facto suppression of these materials. Only by having free and unlimited access to the autopsy photographs and skull x-rays can troubling and persistent questions about their authenticity be definitively and finally resolved by qualified experts.
8. Finally, I wish to make a short statement about the Zapruder film of the assassination. Studies in Hollywood of the individual film frames---that is, state of-the-art digital scans of extremely high resolution---appear to show the use of visual effects---that is, animation, or artwork---to crudely and blatantly alter the image content in key frames. To state the problem simply,
the digitized Zapruder film studied by professionals in Hollywood does not show the massive exit wound in the rear of the head seen at Parkland Hospital, and by many witnesses at Bethesda during the autopsy, because it has been “blacked out;” and yet it does appear to show head wounds NOT SEEN at Parkland Hospital. We now know that rather than spending the entire weekend following the assassination in Chicago at the LIFE printing plant, as was originally claimed, the Zapruder film actually spent most of the weekend in the custody of the CIA in Washington D.C. and at Kodak’s main research and development laboratory in Rochester, N.Y. The attitude of one National Archives official, expressed in writing circa 2009, was that they “do not ever intend to take the film out of the freezer again.” This decision should be overturned, and the so-called, purported “original film” should be made available for appropriate inspection by qualified film professionals from the motion picture industry and academia (i.e., film schools), so that questions of authenticity can be definitively resolved.
END OF ORAL STATEMENT. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
1. My five-volume memoir, self-published in 2009, is titled Inside the Assassination Records Review Board, and is primarily about the conflicts in the JFK medical evidence, and the ARRB’s attempts to resolve some of these issues with its depositions and interviews of witnesses. The fifth and final volume is about Dallas motorcade planning and the cold war politics of JFK’s administration---namely, his serious conflicts with his own national security establishment.
2. The eight sets of autopsy photos known to be missing are:
a. An overhead, wide-shot of JFK’s body taken from a stepladder;
b. Large bruise atop the right lung, taken inside the interior of the chest, after the lungs were removed;
c. Entrance wound in the lower right of the skull, with scalp reflected, taken from the outside of the skull;
d. Entrance wound in the lower right of the skull, taken from inside the cranium, after the brain was removed;
e. Condition of the back of the head, after embalming and reconstruction was completed, still showing an exit defect that could not be closed;
f. Negatives from a B&W film pack showing metal probes in JFK’s body;
g. B&W prints showing a large exit defect in the rear of JFK’s head;
h. B&W prints (and at least one color positive transparency) showing a small entry wound high in the forehead above the corner of JFK’s right eye.
3. My YouTube channel, titled “Douglas Horne With More on the JFK Assassination,” [@DouglasHorneJFKAssassination], contains several detailed presentations about many of the conclusions I have come to regarding the JFK medical evidence, and how President Kennedy was killed, and why. The most important presentations on my YouTube channel are:
a. The JFK Skull X-Rays, 1963 and 1979: A Trail of Deceit
b. The Two Brain Exams Following the Autopsy on JFK’s Body
c. The Evolving JFK Autopsy Report
4. The two highly qualified doctors who both agree that the JFK skull x-rays clearly show evidence of two shots from the front are David W. Mantik, M.D., PhD; and Michael Chesser, M.D. Dr. Chesser actually located the two frontal entry wounds on the lateral skull x-rays in the Archives. Dr. Mantik, in his 9 visits to the National Archives, uncovered clear evidence of alteration of the extant skull x-rays, using an optical densitometer. The principal alteration consists of hiding the blowout in the right rear of the skull seen at Parkland Hospital with a “white patch” on the lateral x-rays, which was a photographic alteration of the original lateral x-rays, made on the copy films, in a darkroom. He discovered a second alteration that consisted of an apparent (but “fake”) bullet fragment photographically imposed upon the copy film of the anterior-posterior (A-P) skull x-ray; this so-called “bullet fragment” on the A-P skull film is not only impossibly dense, and does not appear on the lateral skull x-rays, but it was not seen on the original skull x rays in the morgue, at the autopsy by two of the three autopsy pathologists; and furthermore, no fragment of that size (6.5 mm in diameter) was removed from anywhere on JFK’s skull, according to all three autopsy pathologists in their sworn testimony before the ARRB.
5. A timeline analysis performed by me while at the ARRB---requested by my supervisor, General Counsel T. Jeremy Gunn---revealed that rather than just one supplementary brain exam following the autopsy on JFK’s body (as is normally the case), there were actually two brain exams , of different brains, one week apart: JFK’s brain was examined on Monday morning, Nov 25, 1963; and a substitute “medical school” brain one week later, on December 2, 1963. Both exams were supervised by Drs. Humes and Boswell, the two Navy pathologists in charge of JFK’s autopsy. The photographs of JFK’s brain from Nov 25th never made it into the official record; and the photographs of “a brain” in the JFK medical evidence file today are clearly of the substitute brain examined on Dec 2nd. They have been disowned by the official photographer at the Monday, Nov 25th event, and by FBI agent Francis X. O’Neill---based on their sworn testimony before the ARRB. The photos of the substitute brain exhibit too much mass, according to FBI agent O’Neill, and are on the wrong type of film, according to photographer John Stringer. Furthermore, the extreme damage seen to the right cerebellum at Parkland Hospital is not present in the brain photographs in the Archives; the Archives photos show no damage whatsoever to the right or left cerebellum.
6. According to Navy x-ray technician Jerrol Custer, the two skull x-rays known to be missing were purportedly “oblique views” of the back of the head shot at an angle, so that the large exit defect in the right-rear of the head (seen at Parkland and recalled by most Bethesda witnesses) would have been clearly imaged in those skull x-rays. Dr. Ebersole, the radiologist at JFK’s autopsy, confirmed to Dr. David Mantik in a tape-recorded interview that there were actually six (6) skull x-rays taken. In most interviews, Navy x-ray technician Jerrol Custer said he took five (5); in one early interview with researchers Custer said he took six (6). Only 3 skull x-rays are in the Archives today.
7. The Hollywood research I referenced into the probable alteration of the Zapruder film has been conducted by Thom Whitehead and his spouse, Sydney Wilkinson, of Los Angeles. Of approximately 75 film industry professionals who have viewed their high resolution digital scans of the Zapruder film since the year 2008, 72 of them have expressed the opinion that the film has been altered. If true, then the 8 mm film in the freezer at the National Archives, stored at 25 degrees F for its preservation, is not the true out-of-camera original. For decades the Zapruder film---suppressed as a motion picture for 12 years by Time-LIFE---was viewed by JFK researchers as the closest thing to “ground truth” in the Kennedy assassination. Instead, it now appears that the altered Zapruder film may be the final, indisputable proof of a cover-up.
8. The re-examined chain of custody of the Zapruder film the weekend of JFK’s assassination now reveals that after the film was viewed by Dick Stolley of LIFE magazine and purchased on Saturday morning, November 23, 1963, that it was flown from Dallas to Chicago that afternoon by courier, destined for the LIFE printing plant. It was then re-routed by air to Washington, D.C. Saturday night, Nov 23rd, and the CIA’s NPIC (National Photographic Interpretation Center) made two sets of briefing boards of the film Saturday night and well into Sunday morning, finishing the briefing boards by 8:00 AM. Prior to the completion of the Saturday night briefing boards, Secret Service agents left with the film about 3:00 AM on Sunday and took it to Hawkeyeworks, the R&D facility at Kodak Headquarters in Rochester, N.Y., where it remained on Sunday, Nov 24th throughout the daylight hours. Late at night on Sunday, Nov 24th the film was returned to the CIA’s NPIC in the Navy Yard in Washington, and a new set of briefing boards was made, by an entirely different work crew (Homer McMahon and Ben Hunter) than on Saturday night (when Dino Brugioni supervised entirely different personnel that did not include any of the Sunday night technicians). The Zapruder film delivered Sunday night to NPIC was a sanitized, altered film masquerading as an out-of-camera original. The two sets of original briefing boards made beginning on Saturday night by Dino Brugioni of NPIC were constructed from blowup frames of the unaltered, camera-original film ; they have now disappeared. Only one of the three sets of briefing boards made Sunday night at NPIC (of the sanitized film ) survives today, and is now in the National Archives, thanks to the JFK Records Act. In the film he worked on Saturday night and early Sunday at NPIC, Mr. Brugioni saw a head explosion very different from the head explosion seen in the Zapruder film today: it was much higher in the air , and was white, not red or orange in color. Furthermore, the film we know today only shows the “head explosion” in one frame (frame 313), whereas Mr. Brugioni told me in a recorded video interview in 2011 that there have to be frames missing from today’s Zapruder film---because he remembered seeing and studying multiple frames of the so called “headshot,” and that the duration of the headshot lasted longer in the film he worked with beginning Saturday night. A film documentary titled “The Zapruder Film Mystery” can be seen on YouTube, in which I study the film’s true chain-of-custody the weekend of the assassination, and interview Dino Brugioni of the CIA’s NPIC extensively about the briefing boards he made Saturday night, and ask him to compare the memory of what he made Saturday, with the Sunday briefing boards that survive today in the Archives. He definitively states in the video interview that the briefing boards that survive today are NOT the briefing boards he made Saturday night. The other comments Dino made to me about how the film he worked with looked different from today’s Zapruder film can be seen on YouTube in the French documentary titled: “L’Image 313” [or “Image 313” in English].