Dear Mr. Posner,

As you well know, great controversy exists over your 11/17/93 sworn testimony to the Chairman of the Legislation and National Security Subcommittee Committee on Government Operations, House of Representatives, the Honorable John Conyers. This of course concerns your astounding statement to Rep. Conyer's committee that you had interviewed John F. Kennedy's pathologists, James Humes, M.D. and J. Thornton Boswell, M.D., and that they admitted to you that JFK's fatal wound was not where they have repeatedly described it: (1) in their autopsy report, (2) to the Warren Commission, (3) to the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) in 1978, (4) to The Journal of the American Medical Association on May 27, 1992, and (5) where they, again, admitted to me it was in a recorded conversation on 3/30/94. In all the interviews I've listed above, JFK's pathologists have claimed JFK's fatal wound was low in his head, a location which, if accurate, exculpates Oswald according to all authorities on BOTH sides of the conspiracy controversy.

But to Conyers you claimed that BOTH Humes and Boswell told you they had changed their minds and now believed the wound was high in JFK's skull, a location that might have been consistent with a shot fired from the alleged assassin, Oswald's, position. You recall you stated you'd interviewed Drs. Humes and Boswell and that "they have confirmed their change of testimony that they gave before the HSCA, and that the entrance would was correctly placed 4 inches higher" in parietal bone. Dr. Boswell told me that no such "change of testimony" ever occurred before the HSCA, and he told me that as of that date, 3/30/94, he'd never ever spoken with you! But if you are right that Humes and Boswell told you one thing at nearly the same time they told the JAMA another on so important a point as JFK's fatal wound, the implications are enormous. (I am not claiming you falsified the phone records.)

Because of the importance of this question, I submitted a copy of my recording to the Assassinations Records Review Board, and I, again, respectfully request you do so as well. I believe you have admitted having such a tape recording, for in an e-mail message to a M. Kilbourne on 1/17/96 you wrote:

"Dear M. Kilbourne: ...As for the charges of misquotation and falsification, I have heard them and must admit that they are bothersome because they go to the very heart of credible journalism, i.e. the veracity and trustworthiness of the writer. What is most frustrating in this matter is that the charges are completely baseless but they seem to have a life of their own. When people questioned whether I had interviewed two people in my book (both of whom said they could not remember talking to me!), I provided copies of my phone records (with all the numbers redacted except for those calls to those people). I thought that would end the bogus issue. It did not. I have, of course, as with all my interviews, tape recordings. My eventual answer to these bogus charges will happen when I deposit my research materials at a university or research foundation (I am now studying several to determine the appropriate time for such a gift)."

Surely you must appreciate the fact that it is far less important to the Kennedy case whether you called Boswell than what he may have said. Producing phone records alone will never answer the important question of Humes' and Boswell's location of JFK's wound. Continuing to stonewall the release of the recordings will encourage your detractors, don't you agree?

That doubt exists about the veracity of your attributions to Humes and Boswell is not solely due to their denials. At least one other person you allegedly interviewed has rejected your claims. Assassination witness, James Tague, not only denied your attributions to him in your book, Case Closed, he, like Boswell, also denied he had ever been interviewed by you. He has not only advised me of that fact, he has advised several others, including noted authority, Harold Weisberg.

The Assassinations Records Review Board has recently announced it has conducted sworn interviews with Drs. Humes and Boswell, which will eventually be made available to the public. Those physicians will have, one expects, directly addressed your allegations concerning their opinions of JFK's wounds. Inasmuch as you claim to have kept recordings which confirm your controversial claims, and you have pledged to release them publicly 'sometime', why don't you at least give the ARRB a copy of your Boswell and Humes recordings now?

Your continuing to stonewall these records will little enhance your credibility I'm afraid.

In our common interest in the truth I remain

Sincerely yours,

Gary L. Aguilar, M.D.

Chairman, Department of Surgery, St. Francis Memorial Hospital, San Francisco
Member, Board of Directors, San Francisco County Medical Society
Member, AMA, CMA, ASOPRS, ASCRS, etc.