William Bruce Pitzer (April 13, 1917 - October 29, 1966) was an officer of the United States Navy whose death is speculated to have had some connection with the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
William Bruce Pitzer (April 13, 1917 - October 29, 1966) was an officer of the United States Navy whose death is speculated to have had some connection with the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Pitzer joined the Navy reserve in 1934 at the age of seventeen and trained as a Radiologic technologist. After discharge in 1939, he worked for three years as chief technologist at the Episcopal Ear, Eye and Nose Hospital. He re-enlisted in 1942 after the United States entered World War II. His obituaries listed him as "a consultant to the visual arts department of Montgomery Junior College". [1] [2]
At the time of the Kennedy assassination, Pitzer worked at the National Naval Medical Center (NNMC) where Kennedy's autopsy took place. Pitzer's alleged possession of autopsy-related film and photographs is briefly discussed in the television documentary The Men Who Killed Kennedy . [3] A fellow naval officer of Pitzer's named Dennis David says that he viewed such materials in Pitzer's office at the NNMC, and that they appeared to contradict the official findings of the autopsy. At the time of his death, Pitzer held the rank of Lieutenant Commander. He was found in the NNMC television studio next to his office with a single gunshot wound to the head. Pitzer's death occurred the same day that the Kennedy family agreed, through their attorney, to release to the National Archives several items related to the autopsy of the fallen president, including photographs and x-rays. [4] [5] The Naval investigation into Pitzer's death reported no evidence of foul play. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
Dennis David's recollections of the autopsy and of Pitzer's materials were first made public in an anonymous 1975 interview with the Waukegan, Illinois News Sun . [6] Since that time, Pitzer's name (often accompanied by misreported circumstances of his death) has appeared in many printed or televised lists of "suspicious deaths" having an alleged connection to the Kennedy assassination. [7] [8] [ page needed ] [9] [ page needed ] [10] [ page needed ] [11] [ page needed ] [12] Lt. Col. Dan Marvin (US Army, retired) claimed that when he saw such a list in 1993, it brought back to his memory an incident in the summer of 1965 in which he was asked by the Central Intelligence Agency to kill Pitzer. [3] [13] The author who Marvin engaged to co-write a book on the subject came to have serious doubts about Marvin's story. [14] Dennis David alleged that Pitzer was left-handed but the bullet entry wound was on the right side of his head, from which David inferred that Pitzer may have been murdered. Family members have stated that Pitzer was in fact right-handed. [15] Pitzer is also sometimes said to have been present at the Kennedy autopsy at the NNMC, [7] [8] [12] though he was not among those noted in official records.
Jack Leon Ruby was an American nightclub owner and alleged associate of the Chicago Outfit who murdered Lee Harvey Oswald on November 24, 1963, two days after Oswald was accused of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. A Dallas jury found Ruby guilty of murdering Oswald and sentenced him to death. Ruby's conviction was later appealed, and he was to be granted a new trial; however, he became ill in prison and died of a pulmonary embolism from lung cancer on January 3, 1967.
The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, known unofficially as the Warren Commission, was established by President Lyndon B. Johnson through Executive Order 11130 on November 29, 1963, to investigate the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy that had taken place on November 22, 1963.
John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated on Friday, November 22, 1963, at 12:30 p.m. CST in Dallas, Texas, while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza. Kennedy was in the vehicle with his wife, Jacqueline, Texas Governor John Connally, and Connally's wife, Nellie, when he was fatally shot from the nearby Texas School Book Depository by Lee Harvey Oswald, a former US Marine. The motorcade rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where Kennedy was pronounced dead about 30 minutes after the shooting; Connally was also wounded in the attack but recovered. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson assumed the presidency upon Kennedy's death.
The single-bullet theory, often derided by referring to it as the magic-bullet theory, was introduced by the Warren Commission in its investigation of the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy to explain what happened to the bullet that struck Kennedy in the back and exited through his throat. Given the lack of damage to the presidential limousine consistent with it having been struck by a high-velocity bullet, and the fact that Texas Governor John Connally was wounded and was seated on a jumper seat 1+1⁄2 feet in front of and slightly to the left of the president, the Commission concluded they were likely struck by the same bullet.
Leroy Fletcher Prouty served as Chief of Special Operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President John F. Kennedy. A colonel in the United States Air Force, he retired from military service to become a bank executive. He subsequently became a critic of U.S. foreign policy, particularly the covert activities of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which he believed was working on behalf of a secret world elite.
Underwater Demolition Teams (UDT), or frogmen, were amphibious units created by the United States Navy during World War II with specialized non-tactical missions. They were predecessors of the navy's current SEAL teams.
David William Ferrie was an American pilot who was alleged by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison to have been involved in a conspiracy to assassinate President John F. Kennedy. Garrison also alleged that Ferrie knew Lee Harvey Oswald. Ferrie denied any involvement in a conspiracy and said he never knew Oswald.
Lucien Sarti was a French drug trafficker.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, often referred to by his initials JFK, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the youngest person to assume the presidency by election and the youngest president at the end of his tenure. Kennedy served at the height of the Cold War, and the majority of his foreign policy concerned relations with the Soviet Union and Cuba. A Democrat, Kennedy represented Massachusetts in both houses of the U.S. Congress prior to his presidency.
Robert J. Groden is an American author who has written extensively about conspiracy theories regarding the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. His books include The Killing of a President: The Complete Photographic Record of the JFK Assassination, the Conspiracy, and the Cover-up; The Search for Lee Harvey Oswald: A Comprehensive Photographic Record; and JFK: The Case for Conspiracy. Groden is a photo-optics technician who served as a photographic consultant for the House Select Committee on Assassinations.
The autopsy of president John F. Kennedy was performed at the Bethesda Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. The autopsy began at about 8 p.m. EST November 22, 1963—the day of Kennedy's assassination—and ended in the early morning of November 23, 1963. The choice of autopsy hospital in the Washington, D.C. area was made by his widow, Jacqueline Kennedy, who chose the Bethesda as President Kennedy had been a naval officer during World War II.
David Samuel Lifton was an American author who wrote the 1981 bestseller Best Evidence: Disguise and Deception in the Assassination of John F. Kennedy, a work that puts forth evidence that there was a conspiracy to assassinate John F. Kennedy.
Mortal Error: The Shot That Killed JFK is a 1992 nonfiction book by Bonar Menninger outlining a theory by sharpshooter, gunsmith, and ballistics expert Howard Donahue that a Secret Service agent accidentally fired the shot that actually killed President John F. Kennedy. Mortal Error was published by St Martin's Press in hardback, paperback, and audiobook.
Charles Frederick Rogers was an American seismologist, pilot, and murder suspect who disappeared in June 1965 after police discovered the dismembered bodies of his elderly parents in the refrigerator of the Houston home all three shared, in what the media later dubbed "The Icebox Murders". Rogers has never been found and was declared dead in absentia in July 1975. He remains the only suspect in the murders, which are still considered unsolved.
The John F. Kennedy assassination and the subsequent conspiracy theories surrounding it have been discussed, referenced, or recreated in popular culture numerous times.
The CIA Kennedy assassination theory is a prominent John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theory. According to ABC News, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is represented in nearly every theory that involves American conspirators. The secretive nature of the CIA, and the conjecture surrounding high-profile political assassinations in the United States during the 1960s, has made the CIA a plausible suspect for some who believe in a conspiracy. Conspiracy theorists have ascribed various motives for CIA involvement in the assassination of President Kennedy, including Kennedy's firing of CIA director Allen Dulles, Kennedy's refusal to provide air support to the Bay of Pigs invasion, Kennedy's plan to cut the agency's budget by 20 percent, and the belief that the president was weak on communism.
The assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963 spawned numerous conspiracy theories. These theories allege the involvement of the CIA, the Mafia, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro, the KGB, or some combination of these individuals and entities. The original FBI investigation and Warren Commission report, as well as an alleged "benign CIA cover-up", have led to the claim that the federal government deliberately covered up crucial information in the aftermath of the assassination. Former Los Angeles District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi estimated that a total of 42 groups, 82 assassins, and 214 people had been accused at one time or another in various conspiracy scenarios.
Earl Forrest Rose was an American forensic pathologist, professor of medicine, and lecturer of law. Rose was the medical examiner for Dallas County, Texas, at the time of the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy and he performed autopsies on J. D. Tippit, Lee Harvey Oswald, and Jack Ruby. After being shoved by Kennedy's aides, he stepped aside and allowed Kennedy's body to be removed from Parkland Memorial Hospital without performing an autopsy.
The three tramps are three men photographed by several Dallas-area newspapers under police escort near the Texas School Book Depository shortly after the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Since the mid-1960s, various allegations have been made about the identities of the men and their involvement in a conspiracy to kill Kennedy.
Captain John Henry Ebersole, M.D., MC USN was a pioneer in submarine medicine and radiation oncology, selected by Admiral Hyman G. Rickover to serve as medical officer aboard the US Navy's first two nuclear powered submarines, the USS Nautilus and the USS Seawolf. He was the radiologist for NASA that screened the Mercury Seven astronauts for Project Mercury. Ebersole was the radiologist responsible for the x-rays taken during the autopsy of John F. Kennedy on 22 November 1963 at Bethesda Naval Medical Center.
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