For Christmas this year, 2009, I received four more JFK books as gifts. One of them is the coffee-table book "THE TORCH IS PASSED... THE ASSOCIATED PRESS STORY OF THE DEATH OF A PRESIDENT", published in 1964. It's the story of JFK's assassination as told through AP photographers and writers.

This book grew out of the work of many Associated Press men and women both on our staff and on our members' staffs who were on the streets of Dallas and Washington to report the four days in November which numbed a nation and a world.... The story required the best from The Associated Press writers, photographers and membership around the world to tell and show this incredible drama which combined murder and majesty. The effort was not confined to newsmen in Dallas and Washington but spread to Paris, Moscow, Saigon and Tokyo and a hundred other spots which reported the reaction of a stunned world. We are proud to present a story of this cooperative effort for historians of the future.... In the interest of easy reading it was put together into one cohesive story by a special team of writers who are listsed below....

One of the AP photographers was James Altgens. He took one of the most famous photos of the assassination (almost as famous as Zapruder's film). It captures JFK reacting to a shot from the front* (JFK can be seen grabbing his throat) and it also shows a person identical to Oswald standing in the doorway of the Texas School Book Depository building:

AP Photographer James Altgens took the historic photograph just seconds after an assassin fired the shots that killed President Kennedy. The President's left arm has just jerked up convulsively. Mrs Kennedy's gloved hand reaches out in support. Behind the tree stands the white face of The Texas Book Depository Building where the shots were fired from a sixth floor window. The Lyndon Johnsons are riding in the third car....

Notice, in the AP caption, that the writer mis-states the evidence, saying the photo was taken AFTER fatal shots were fired from BEHIND (belied by the fact that JFK is alive and reacting to something hitting him from the front).

I've scanned other versions of the Altgens' photo in previous articles on the website (PHOTOS PROVE OSWALD INNOCENT & OSWALD IN DOORWAY NOT LOVELADY) but this photo from the AP book also encompasses the Dal-Tex building (on the right) where another sniper has been seen crouching behind a section of the outside staircase.

I'm motivated to post the photo now because a reader wrote in recently bringing up the subject. He said the Altgens' photo is "the only definitive aspect of the JFK murder". He says he has new info supporting Oswald being in the doorway - not the sixth floor window - but won't share it unless I deny my good opinion of Sarah Palin (which I won't do). See SARAH PALIN FANS NOT FOOLS.

The Altgens' photo also ties in with another recent email, this one from a reader who wrote a book about the doctors who tried to save JFK's life at the Dallas Parkland hospital. One of them, Dr Malcolm Perry, described the hole in JFK's throat as an entrance wound:

JFK DALLAS DOCTOR DIES (...Dr Malcolm Perry's early account of the president's injuries were that the small wound near Kennedy's Adam's apple could have been an entrance wound, suggesting a shot from the grassy knoll instead of the sniper's nest on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository....)

In a much older essay on the website, I discuss a theory that alleges that the wound in JFK's throat came from an arrow fired from the umbrella of a man standing beside the Stemmons Freeway sign.

*THE JFK UMBRELLA MAN (...An umbrella was used to shoot President Kennedy. The flechette struck JFK in the throat, causing a small entrance wound, but leaving no other trace. The missile was about 5 millimeters in diameter, and the wound was 4 millimeters. The size of the wound as compared to the size of the flechette is consistent with other findings of this nature. This particular wound, officially called an exit wound by the Warren Commission, puzzled medical examiners and critics of the Warren Commission alike. The critics charged that had the throat wound been an exit wound, it could not have been so small. JFK was paralyzed by poison contained in the flechette in less than two seconds -- so paralyzed that the first rifle bullet that hit him did not knock him down, but left him in a nearly upright position. A second volley of shots fired at JFK a few seconds later struck a stationary, visible target. The paralyzing flechette shot was fired by a man holding the umbrella launcher. He was in close proximity to an accomplice. Using a radio transmitter, the accomplice signaled the riflemen through each of their respective radiomen in the Dal Tex building, the western end of the Texas School Book Depository building, and on the grassy knoll. An exquisitely timed intelligence murder was performed. The paralytic poison allowed two volleys of rifle shots to be fired into JFK. He had become a sitting duck....)

These are just a few of the issues (and some are yet to be discussed) raised by this particular James Altgens' photo. ~ Jackie Jura

JFK OSWALD DEALEY DISCOVERIES

JFK ASSASSINATION PUZZLE PIECES