In early February, JVR telephoned Dennis David�chief of the day at the Bethesda Naval Medical School on 11/22/63�and in the course of their conversation, Dennis shared the surprising information that, a couple of weeks before, he had met a man who claimed to be an ex-officer in the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) who also claimed that he had been involved in an intra-mural investigation of the Kennedy assassination in the late 1960s. This man�who wanted to be known as �Dave��told Dennis that he had seen a movie film of the Kennedy autopsy, the same film shown to Dennis by then-Lieutenant William Pitzer within a few days of the assassination [2], and that Pitzer death (by a gunshot wound to the head on October 29, 1966 [3]) was a homicide. Dave stated that the wounds to the president body had been altered prior to the autopsy at the Bethesda Naval Hospital [4], and that this was achieved by transferring the body to Air Force Two in Dallas and making a stopover in Kansas City on the flight back to Washington, DC.

Immediately, JVR was suspicious. Based on the times of departure of AF-2 from Dallas Love Field and arrival at Andrews Air Force Base, he knew that a stopover in Kansas City or anywhere else was highly unlikely [5].

Nevertheless, AE�having studied the death of Lieutenant Commander Pitzer over several years [3]�contacted Dennis David for further information. He described a mid-January 2009 visit to Chicago as a guest of JFK researcher Phil Singer. Dennis met Dave over breakfast, hosted by Singer, in the company of author Robert Groden and entertainment executive Christopher Andersen. Although rather uncommunicative, responding to most questions with one-word answers, Dave indicated that he was familiar with the Pitzer subtext of the Kennedy assassination [3] and stated that he had seen a movie film of the autopsy on President Kennedy body; he stated also that LCDR Pitzer had been murdered.

AE contacted Phil Singer by email on February 22. Obtaining no response, another email was sent a week or so later. Singer called AE and a brief, but constructive, conversation ensued. Singer said that he would forward questions to Dave and get back to AE with his responses. On March 2, AE emailed ten questions [6]. Nothing was heard from Singer until he called on March 27 (although, in the meantime, AE received from him in the mail, unsolicited, a copy of a DVD documentary titled Frame 313: The JFK Assassination Theories). Immediately after the telephone conversation, AE made the following notes:

• Phil has long experience within the JFK-research community. He worked with Mark Lane at one time.
  
• Dave has seen �the film that Pitzer took.�
  
• Dave is �99% certain� that Pitzer did not commit suicide. The murder was orchestrated by the CIA.
  
• In the late 1960s, Dave was involved in an extensive investigation of the JFK assassination, in the course of which he saw documents, films and photographs not available to the public and he interviewed people in the know [my phrase].
  
• Phil believes that Dave is the real thing, but has seen no documentary evidence for Dave having served in the capacity now claimed.
  
• Phil has met with Dave six times, a total of approximately 24 hours. They met for over 9 hours the previous Saturday (March 21) in the presence of a prominent researcher.
  
• Dave wants to share his information before he dies, but does not want his name to be revealed.
  
• Phil will meet again soon with Dave, ask him my questions and get back to me with his responses.

Alert readers will have noted that Singer had sat on AE questions for nearly a month without raising them with Dave, despite being in his company recently for a period of 9 hours. Despite his promise to raise AE questions with Dave, nothing more was heard from Singer.

We came to the conclusion that a key component in this tangled tale was probably the presence, at the breakfast meeting, of Christopher Andersen, who produced the documentary Frame 313. More on this in due course.

* * * * *

Fast forward to December 2009, and the self-publication by Douglas Horne of his 2,000-page masterwork, Inside the Assassinations Record Review Board (IARRB). On page 1777 is a nineteen-page chapter, Epilogue: The Education of JFK Researcher, in which Horne provides the following account (here described in brief).

In October of 2008, Horne was contacted by someone who suggested that he (DH) be interviewed by an �assassination researcher whose name and previous books are well known within the research community.� At first reluctant to consider the invitation, Horne then entered discussions with the author via email; however, when conditions set by Horne were not met, he decided not to grant the interview. In early January 2009, the middle man (christened the �cut-out� by Horne) began dropping hints that there was someone else whom he really wanted to introduce to Horne. This mystery witness�who had claimed he once worked for ONI�wanted to get his story out, but was protective of his identity. Partly because the cut-out had been an activist for Mark Lane Citizen Commission of Inquiry, Horne decided to trust him and agreed to a meeting.

Horne flights to and from the rendez-vous and hotel expenses were paid by the cut-out. On March 21, 2009, after first meeting the cut-out and the mystery witness (dubbed �Deep Throat� by Horne) at a restaurant�along with entertainment executive Christopher Andersen [7]�Horne spent 10 hours in the living room of the cut-out, listening to the mystery witness and sharing information and perspectives. He took notes, but was forbidden from audiotaping the exchange. Deep Throat claims included the following:

• As a 24-year-old navy lieutenant, recently graduated with a law degree, he was detailed by ONI to the chief White House counsel to President Nixon, Charles Colson, for a special assignment: investigations of the JFK, RFK and MLK assassinations.
  
• At the conclusion of a 4-year effort, he produced a 764-page report for Colson.
  
• He interviewed numerous key individuals involved in the JFK assassination and cover-up, including Dulles, LeMay, Mrs. Kennedy, Greer, Kellerman, Stover, Humes, Boswell and Finck.
  
• William Pitzer was murdered inside Bethesda Naval Hospital, in a manner that made it appear to be suicide.
  
• He saw six �Pitzer photographs� depicting the president wounds at the autopsy, including a small wound of entry above the right eye near the hairline.
  
• He saw a 40-page ONI report on the navy role in the JFK autopsy cover-up, key aspects of which included:
        -The bronze ornamental casket was empty when it arrived at Andrews Air Force Base, the body having been transferred to Air Force Two at Dallas Love Field.
        -Air Force Two made a brief stop at an air force base near Kansas City, during which time an intact rifle bullet was removed from high in the chest, access being achieved by expansion of the tracheotomy.
        -Nothing was done to the head wound during the stop near Kansas City.
        -The body was transferred from Andrews AFB by helicopter to the grounds of Bethesda Naval Hospital, and delivered to the morgue in a grey shipping casket via a hearse driven by Joe Hagan and Tom Robinson (Gawler Funeral Home staff).

After his return home, Horne urged the cut-out to provide him with copies of Deep Throat ONI credentials, and he mailed forty-one urgent follow-up questions. A long list of excuses then was offered for why the cut-out could not meet with Deep Throat to pass along the follow-up questions. After a delay of about six weeks, the questions were finally transferred. However, as of a year later, no answers have been provided, nor have Deep Throat bona fides been revealed [7]. Furthermore, as a result of careful calculations, Horne concluded�in agreement with JVR�that the time-distance equation made a diversion of Air Force Two to Kansas City a virtual impossibility. To cap it all, a private detective reported that no one using the name provided by Deep Throat ever attended the Naval Academy and no officer serving in the navy from 1969 to 1973 went by the name provided by Deep Throat.

Clearly, everything claimed by Deep Throat has to be viewed with skepticism, to say the least.

* * * * *

The reader may connect the dots between the dramatis personae described by Dennis David and those described by Douglas Horne [8]. In our opinion, a potentially key factor is the presence of media man Christopher Andersen at the restaurant meetings. Andersen documentary, Frame 313: The JFK Assassination Theories, sent to AE by Singer, is a well produced coverage of theories often espoused as underpinning the assassination of President Kennedy. Featured prominently are interviews of author John Hughes, Robert Groden, James Fetzer and Phil Singer. Hughes provides an unconditional endorsement of the claims of James Files, and Singer provides the same, albeit briefly, for Judyth Vary Baker. Also, at the top of the credits for provision of �additional footage� for Frame 313 is the name Wim Dankbaar.

James Fetzer has recently been embroiled in controversy on JFK discussion forums [9] as a result of his support for Ms. Baker and Ed Haslam [10], using input from a purported psy-ops expert to bolster his arguments.

Douglas Horne believes that Deep Throat objective was to influence the final preparation of IARRB with spurious information, and thus undermine his credibility and compromise IARRB as a whole [11]. He provides persuasive evidence for this, and he may well be right. But we suspect a mundane explanation�a commercial enterprise�as part of the scenario. It noteworthy that the issue of the death of William Pitzer came up in the discussions with both Dennis David and Doug Horne. Given the huge range of issues potentially on the table during the 10-hour discussion with Horne, it surprising that Pitzer became a focus. We speculate that, as part of the commercial enterprise�a new documentary movie produced under the aegis of Christopher Andersen company, Sundown Entertainmentome way will be found to circumvent Horne destruction of Deep Throat credentials: an �important� new witness will be featured prominently, in deep shadow, his voice distorted so as to be unrecognizable, giving the �inside scoop� on the murder of William Pitzer [12] and on the claims of Jimmy Files, Judy Baker, Eddie Haslam, and Uncle Tom Cobley and all, interspersed with wise commentary from the usual luminaries.

Notes
[1] Rinnovatore, J.V. (2009) JFK 11/22/63: Body/Casket Chicanery at the Bethesda Morgue. https://manuscriptservice.com/BNH-chicanery.
[2] Eaglesham, A. (2007) The Putative Pitzer Movie: A Discussion. https://manuscriptservice.com/WBPmovie/.
[3] Eaglesham, A. (2005) The Untimely Death of William Bruce Pitzer, US Navy. https://manuscriptservice.com/Pitzer/.
[4] Consistent with the thesis proposed by David S. Lifton in his book Best Evidence: Disguise and Deception in the Assassination of John F. Kennedy (New York: Macmillan, 1980).
[5] Commission Exhibit 1024 in Volume 18 of the Warren Commission Hearings. The reports of SS Agents Roy Kellerman and Emory Roberts state that Air Force Two took off from Dallas Love Field and landed at Andrews Air Force Base one-half hour after Air Force One. Therefore, there was insufficient time for diversion of Air Force Two to Kansas City.
[6] The questions: When did you join the US Navy and when did you join the ONI? What was your rank in 1966? Where were you stationed October/November 1966? What role did ONI play in the investigation of LCDR Pitzer death? Why was ONI interested in this event? Were you directly involved? If so, in what capacity? If not, how did you hear about it? What did you hear? What aspects of the case led you/investigators to conclude that LCDR Pitzer did not commit suicide?
[7] Email communication from Douglas Horne, 4/19/10.
[8] In January 2010, a copy of Douglas Horne Epilogue was emailed to Phil Singer and his comment invited. No response was received.
[9] The Education Forum http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?s=3ab204412f78b2f7d63123772499bdc0&showtopic=15559; The Deep Politics Forum .
[10] Haslam is the author of Dr. Mary Monkey. Waterville, OR: Trine Day, 2007.
[11] Horne, D.P. (2009) Inside the Assassination Records Review Board, Volume V, pp. 1795�1796. Self-published.
[12] Despite the fact that forensic experts have examined the Pitzer autopsy photographs and judged them to indicate suicide. https://manuscriptservice.com/WBP-Resolution.




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Note added May 9, 2010

On May 7, in response to publication of this article, David Lifton posted a comprehensive message on the Education Forum providing evidence that Christopher Andersen is a con man and convicted felon: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=15873.