Preface

	Although this critique is written for other researchers and laypersons, the subject matter deals with the disciplines of acoustics and statistics. Therefore, I have had to compromise by sometimes using scientific wording unfamiliar to the layperson in order to strengthen or clarify a point addressed to the scientific community and yet other times oversimplify, draw analogies, or omit scientific notation. A thorough working knowledge of the basic facts of the assassination of President Kennedy and of the issue of the acoustical analysis done for the House Select Committee on Assassinations(HSCA) is a prerequisite for understanding this critique.

Summary

	A police escort motorcycle's radio, which was stuck in the transmit mode while accompanying President Kennedy's motorcade through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963, transmitted the sounds of the gunshots which killed JFK and wounded Gov. Connally to the Dallas Police Department where they were recorded on a Dictabelt. One of the shots originated from the grassy knoll. The Report of the National Academy of Sciences which refuted that fact is invalid due to bias, improper applications of method, careless errors, and deliberate misrepresentations of fact.

History

	Under contract by the HSCA, the firm of Bolt, Beranek, & Newman(BB&N) analyzed a tape recording of the JFK motorcade in Dealey Plaza and found 4 possible shots The most controversial was the shot from the grassy knoll, which would imply that a conspiracy was involved. Because BB&N could only state the probability for that shot was 50%, HSCA asked acoustics experts Weiss and Aschkenasy (W&A) to refine the data on that shot in order to reduce the uncertainty either way. W&A stated with a 95% confidence that the impulse on the DPD tape recording was a gunshot fired from the grassy knoll. The HSCA relied quite heavily on that conclusion in issuing its finding of a conspiracy.

	The U.S. Justice Department (DOJ), instead of then investigating the conspiracy, attempted to discredit the HSCA findings. Its first attempt using the FBI bugging experts failed due to the lack of competence in the necessary disciplines. DOJ then had to assign the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) the task of discrediting the HSCA's acoustical findings. To be sure of the outcome, only government connected scientists, most with ties to the intelligence community, were selected and they worked in total secrecy without any challenge from independent researchers. It was hoped that their prestige would end the debate and their mandate was only to discredit the acoustical analysis of the HSCA, not to find the truth. The budget they were given was so limited that they could not do the necessary tests beyond those needed to discredit the HSCA. The DOJ was highly successful. It's been over a year since the issuance of the NAS Report and not one scientist has dared challenge it. It's a national disgrace for a country Which prides itself on freedom of thought that the challenge has to come from an ordinary blue-collar worker, rather than the scientific community.

_reas of criticism

I. Secrecy II. Transcripts III. Timing IV. Voiceprints V. VI.
Unanalyzed sounds
Statistics


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