Letter 1 – Doug Horne to Anna Luna – Subject: Final Determination Orders
Dear Congresswoman Luna,
This is Douglas Horne again, one of the witnesses who testified before your Task Force on May 20, 2025.
As a former senior staff member who worked for the ARRB, I am vitally concerned about the issues related to the mishandling of the ARRB's JFK assassination records by the National Archives from the time the ARRB shut down, in September 1998, until early this year.
Attorney Andrew Iler, perhaps the foremost living expert on the JFK Records Act, has detailed this year, in two long articles published by Jim DiEugenio at his website Kennedys and King, the apparent malfeasance of the Archivist of the United States with regard to the handling (or rather, mishandling) of the Review Board's FINAL DETERMINATION ORDERS regarding each assassination record we turned over to the Archives.
Approximately 27,000 of these forms were created by the ARRB, containing disposition instructions pertaining to periodic review requirements, and also specific instructions on when each document should have been released. It appears that in many, many cases the Archivist of the United States failed to perform the ministerial duties required of that incumbent with regard to mandatory periodic review and/or early release, prior to 2017.
Most of the 27,000 Final Determination Orders created by the ARRB cannot be located by NARA, or so they say. Many documents that were ordered released in 2006 or 2007, for example, were not fully declassified and released by NARA, as the ARRB ordered. Attorney Andrew Iler has documented these facts in his two long articles published this year.
Whether this malfeasance was due to incompetence and an uncaring attitude, or whether it can be attributed to NARA being a tool of the intelligence community that was continuing to resist release of these records, we do not yet know.
But the American people deserve to know why the Archivist of the United States failed to perform his ministerial duties over a period of approximately 16-17 years.
I sincerely hope that the Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets will hold a public hearing in which the Archives, as an institution, is "taken to task" for its failures in this regard---and in which detailed explanations are provided to the Task Force about how this came about, and why.
Andrew Iler spent years looking into this matter, and his findings have been well-documented, in writing. He is a man of impeccable integrity. He has communicated his findings in detail to Jake Greenberg, the Chief Counsel for Investigations for the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. As I mentioned earlier, his two long articles about these issues have been published at the Kennedys and King blogsite.
I am sure Andrew Iler (who is "copy to" on this email above) will readily answer any questions you may have about these issues.
Thank you for your attention to this matter, for it is well within the scope of what your Task Force has been empowered to look into, on behalf of the American people.
Sincerely,
Douglas Horne
Former Chief Analyst for Military Records, ARRB
Letter 2 – Doug Horne to Jake Greenberg – Subject: List of Missing Medical Evidence (for Task Force Report)
Dear Jake,
Jefferson Morley, who apparently is very close to Chairwoman Luna, asked me yesterday for a list of missing JFK medical evidence, and asked me if I had been in touch with her staff to "follow up." I responded to him by providing a summary of this information, but now, one day later, I have taken the hint he dropped on me, and have decided to provide such a list to you directly, unfiltered by anyone else.
Since I am currently the pre-eminent living expert on JFK's autopsy (no false modesty here), I thought you should receive such a list directly from me, without having any third party possibly filter it, misunderstand the facts here, or water it down.
So here is my definitive list of missing JFK medical evidence:
1. Eight sets of autopsy photographs are known to be missing, based on credible eyewitness testimony and recollections, and were never placed into the official record; most "sets" of autopsy photos known today consist of two black and white negatives, and two-to-four color positive transparencies, 4 x 5 inches in size, of the same view. Autopsy photographs that I am confident are missing include:
a. an overhead, wide-shot of JFK’s body taken from a stepladder;
b. large bruise atop the right lung, taken inside the interior of the chest, after the lungs were removed;
c. entrance wound in the lower right of the skull, with scalp reflected, taken from the outside of the skull;
d. entrance wound in the lower right of the skull, taken from inside the
cranium, after the brain was removed;
e. condition of the back of the head, after embalming and reconstruction was completed, still showing an exit defect that could not be closed; [witness Saundra Spencer recalled in sworn testimony to the ARRB that this, and similar images, were recorded on color negatives, not color positive transparencies and B&W negatives, as were the remainder of the autopsy photos in the National Archives]
f. negatives from a B&W film pack showing metal probes in JFK’s body; [these images were developed and seen by White House photographer Robert Knudsen, but were never placed in the National Archives]
g. B&W prints showing a large exit defect in the rear of JFK’s head; [shown to USIA White House photographer by White House photographer and Navy Chief, Robert Knudsen]
h. B&W prints (and at least one color positive transparency) showing a small entry wound high in the forehead above the corner of JFK’s right eye. [there are five credible witnesses who have seen such images]
2. Two JFK skull x-rays known to have been taken---both oblique views of the exit wound in the right rear of his head---have never been placed into the official record. [witness: Jerrol Custer, Navy x-ray technician, to the ARRB]
3. Furthermore, since all three extant JFK skull x-rays in the National Archives are known to be copy films, and are not originals, the three originals of those x-rays are missing as well. [specifically, one left lateral skull film, one right lateral skull film, and one A-P, or "anterior-posterior" skull film]
4. The "Harper Fragment" of cranial bone from the occipital region of JFK's skull, found in Dealey Plaza on November 23, 1963, has been missing since December of 1963. It was last signed for by the President's Military Physician, Rear Admiral George Burkley. Its dimensions were approximately 2.75 inches in width and 2.5 inches high. Photographs exist in the public record: it was photographed by the 3 pathologists who examined it at Methodist Hospital in Dallas, and also by the FBI, after it was sent to Washington. D.C.
5. Missing bullet fragments retrieved from JFK's body at Bethesda Naval Hospital prior to the commencement of the "autopsy of record" at approximately 8:15 PM on November 22, 1963 include:
a. one vial containing about the ten tiny fragments removed from JFK's brain; [witness: mortician Tom Robinson of Gawler's Funeral Home, to both the HSCA and the ARRB]
b. one bullet fragment removed from JFK's back (from the intercostal tissue, between his ribs); [witnesses: Tom Robinson of Gawler's to the HSCA; Navy corpsman Paul O'Connor to the HSCA; and Navy x-ray technician Jerrol Custer to the ARRB]
c. and finally, the four "large" bullet fragments for which Navy corpsman Dennis David typed a receipt (for a Federal Agent) the night of the autopsy. [Witness: Navy corpsman Dennis David to the ARRB; he not only typed the receipt, but he also saw the fragments, and was also allowed by the Federal Agent to handle the fragments]
All of those fragments, seen by credible witnesses, remain missing today, and were never introduced into the official record.
END OF LIST
Jake, I would greatly appreciate it if you would acknowledge receipt of this important summary of missing JFK medical evidence, and if you would also forward it to Chairwoman LUNA and her staff.
I am assuming that you may find such a list useful when the Task Force Report is written.
Sincerely,
Douglas P. Horne
Former Chief Analyst for Military Records, ARRB
Letter 3 – Doug Horne to Anna Luna – Subject: List of Missing Medical Evidence (for Task Force Report)
Dear Congresswoman Luna,
I am Douglas Horne, the ARRB medical evidence witness who testified before your Task Force on May 20, 2025.
I wanted to take this opportunity to forward, directly to you, a comprehensive list of missing JFK autopsy medical evidence which we definitely know today once existed, but which is now missing.
I sent this list to Jake Greenberg some time ago (back on July 18th), in the hopes that it would find its way into the report your task Force will issue on the JFK records issues, but I never received an acknowledgment from him.
Therefore, I am forwarding it directly to you and your chief of staff, in the hopes that it will be useful to you in writing your report (and in explaining why we should have no confidence in the Warren Report's conclusions about a lone assassin).
If a lone nut had killed the president in 1963, and it was a "simple murder" as some have claimed, there would have been no need to destroy and/or alter so any medical records related to the autopsy, or to dispose of bullet fragments from JFK's body and a crucial bone fragment from his skull.
I know from the news stories I am aware of that you are very busy this year, but I hope that you will find this list of missing medical evidence useful when writing the Task Force Report.
Sincerely,
Douglas Horne
Former Chief Analyst for Military Records, ARRB
