Word: lifton
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...Lifton has this triple entry of caskets (once by the gray casket and twice by the bronze) well documented, he admits to puzzlement at how the body got out of the morgue after its first entry, to rejoin the bronze coffin in which it had left Dallas. The report by the two FBI agents, which was never seen by the Warren Commission staff but had been sent directly to the National Archives, gave Lifton one clue. At one point, they wrote, "all personnel with the exception of medical officers needed in the taking of photographs and X rays were requested...
...Lifton has no hard evidence to support this method of reuniting body and bronze coffin. But O'Connor did tell him that there was talk at the hospital afterward of a casket being rushed through the halls. Also several witnesses reported that the bronze coffin appeared damaged, including a broken handle, when it was carried into the morgue by the honor guard...
...this happen in the rush to get it back aboard the ambulance? Lifton absolves the Navy doctors conducting the autopsy of any involvement. He implies that either their military superiors or a number of unidentified civilians present at the autopsy were directing the movements of the body...
...even if all that were true, what evidence was there that the body had been altered? Lifton cites a previously unnoticed line in the same Sibert-O'Neill FBI report. These agents saw the start of the autopsy and noted that "surgery of the head area, namely, in the top of the skull," had been performed...
Actually, no skull surgery had been done by the Dallas doctors who fought to save Kennedy's life. When he found the agents' reference, Lifton writes, "I was exhilarated, terrified ... I had stumbled into a house of horrors...