http://www.olneydailymail.com/articles/2008/05/07/news/news01.txt
David speaks about JFK casket controversy
By Kevin Ryden
Dennis David remembers President John F. Kennedy=92s assassination in
Dallas, but for different reasons than most people.
David was stationed as a 1st Class petty officer in the Navy at
Bethesda Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland when he got a call at
around 5:30 p.m. Nov. 22, 1963, that Kennedy=92s body was being brought
to the hospital for an autopsy.
David spoke Monday afternoon at the John D. Stull Performing Arts
Center about what he saw and heard that day and the controversy that
surrounds it, specifically whether Kennedy=92s body arrived at the
hospital in a gray or bronze casket.
An hour after he received the call, David said a black hearse arrived
at the back of the hospital and a gray casket was brought inside. Less
than 30 minutes later, David was standing in a hallway in the hospital
and looked outside where he saw police and military lining the
driveway with thousands of other curious people.
=93You couldn=92t see a speck of grass there with all the people,=94 he
said.
Then he saw a gray ambulance pull around to the front of the hospital.
Jackie Kennedy rode in the ambulance and was wearing a pillbox hat and
a bloodied pink dress. Also entering the hospital was a bronze casket
that government officials claimed contained Kennedy=92s body.
Although he never saw the body himself, David said he was told by
other witnesses that the gray casket contained Kennedy.
In addition, David asked Dr. J. Thorton Bozwell, who was involved in
the autopsy, which casket contained Kennedy=92s body. David said Bozwell
told him, =93You should know, you were there.=94
=93I was there for one casket and that was a gray ****pping casket,=94
David said.
Later in the evening, David said he was making his rounds in the
hospital at around 11 p.m. and was in the hallway outside the morgue
when he heard two Secret Service agents talking.
=93Well, we don=92t have to seem like pimps anymore,=94 David alleged one
of=
them said.
He was also asked to type a memo while a Secret Service agent dictated
it. Part of the memo included four pieces of lead recovered from
Kennedy=92s head.
While he typed the memo, David said the agent placed a pillbox next to
him with the lead pieces inside. =93There was too much there to be one
bullet,=94 David said, adding that he later found that peculiar because
the Warren Commission re****t stated that no bullet fragments were
found during the autopsy.
The memo has never been found nor have the lead pieces.
The whereabouts of the gray casket are unknown. It has been stated
that the bronze casket was secretly dumped by the military in the
Atlantic Ocean in 1965.
According to a Wa****ngton Post article, Texas Rep. Earle Cabell
recommended the bronze casket be discarded so it could never become a
relic.
In 1991, David was in a meeting in Pittsburgh when he learned that the
director of radiology at Bethesda gave four pieces of scalp with four
pieces of lead taped to them to a hospital employee named Gerald
Custer. David said that when Custer questioned what he was given, he
was told by the director of radiology, =93You don=92t ask questions, you
do as you=92re told.=94
David said top pathologists should have been involved in the autopsy,
not administrators.
It was not until 1979 that David allowed his name to be associated
with the issue. He said there were many people associated with the
case who died under questionable cir***stances. More than 130 people
died of what some believe were mysterious causes when the case was re-
opened.
David joked that his late wife always told him to =93keep my mouth
shut.=94
After the autopsy, David=92s friend, William Bruce Pitzer, who was the
head of the audio/visual department at Bethesda, wanted to show David
a 16-millimeter film of the autopsy as well as some black and white
photographs of the procedure.
There were suggestions that Kennedy=92s body had been tampered with to
cover up evidence that he may have been shot from the front and not
the back.
Pitzer had told David in December 1965 that he had received lucrative
offers for work elsewhere. Pitzer was found dead in April 1966 and
supposedly committed suicide.
Pitzer=92s film is missing.
Choking back tears, David said there is no one left alive, except him,
who can remember what happened to Pitzer. =93But I remember it,=94 he
said. =93I remember it damn well.=94
OCC social-science instructor David Denton, who teaches a class on
political assassinations of the 1960s, said when there is manipulation
of power, =93individuals don=92t act on treasonous acts like this
alone.=94
He said he has studied the case extensively and believes something was
amiss. =93I have not seen anything that repudiates this story,=94 he said.
=93You have sinister things going on that haven=92t been explained yet,=94
he said.
An audience member asked David whether he believed the CIA had
something to do with Kennedy=92s assassination.
=93I don=92t have a doubt in my mind,=94 he said.
Kevin Ryden can be reached at kryden@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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