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The Warren Report?
by Vincent J. Salandria
Originally published in Liberation, X, No. 1 (March 1965), 14-33.
Contents
I. The President's Back and Neck Wounds
o The Neck Wound
o The Back Wound
o A Lapse of Liaison
o A Clash of Exhibits
o Summary
II. The Wounds of Governor Connally
o The Busy Bullet
o "It Is Not Conceivable"
o A Logical Fallacy
o Commission vs. Mssrs. Zapruder and Newton
o Commission Exhibit 399 -- The Bullet
o Summary
III. The Head Wounds of President Kennedy
o Eyewitness Testimony of Right Side Entry?
o A Left-Temporal Wound?
o The Left-Temporal Wound -- A Parkland Hospital Illusion?
o A Small Hole in the Back of the President's Head?
o The Large Head Wound on the Right Side
o Summary
Notes
I. The President's Back and Neck Wounds
In this article we will analyze the Warren Commission's following
crucial conclusion:
President Kennedy was first struck by a bullet which entered at
the back of his neck and exited through the lower front portion of
his neck . . . [1]
Such is the conclusion of the Commission. It is our purpose to analyze
the evidence which the governmental inquiry used to support this conclusion.
We will delve into the source or sources of the shot or shots which
inflicted the first wounds on the President. By examining these wounds we
hope to shed light on the direction or directions from which the shots came.
Such an exploration will, needless to say, provide valuable information on
the question of the number of shots fired into the President. Our study will
also help us decide the vantage point or points of the assassin or assassins
on November 22nd, 1963.
First let us attend most carefully to the source or sources of the shot
or shots which caused the wounds in question, i.e. the back and neck wounds
of the President. The reader will recall that the Commission concluded three
shots were fired. It decided that all the shots were fired from "above and
behind the Presidential limousine" (W-18). Our task can be simply defined as
an analysis of the evidence offered by the Commission to determine whether
such evidence supports the Commission's conclusions relative to the back and
neck wounds of the President. All of the evidence discussed herein is
derived from the Warren Report and its supporting notes of testimony and
exhibits. Not a scrap of it comes from any outside source.
The first evidence of a back wound came from Secret Service Agent Glen
A. Bennett, stationed at the time in the right rear seat of the President's
followup car,
who heard a sound like a firecracker as the motorcade proceeded
down Elm Street. At that moment, Agent Bennett stated: ". . . I
looked at the back of the President. I heard another firecracker
noise and saw that shot hit the President about four inches down
from the right shoulder. A second shot followed immediately and
hit the right rear of the President's head." (W-111)
According to Bennett, the second shot hit "about four inches down from
the right shoulder." His testimony indicated that the first bullet did one
of two things: either missed, or hit the President at a point which Bennett
did not or could not see from his position in the followup car.
His testimony gives rise to the following question: Could the President
have been hit in the front of the neck by the first shot, directed from a
rifle positioned in the front of the President, and then immediately
thereafter struck in the back by a different missile, aimed from a weapon of
an assassin posted in the Book Depository Building? Is there credible
evidence to support an early hit on the President from the front? With the
purpose of answering this inquiry, we must examine the wound in the
President's neck.
The Neck Wound
The autopsy report was prepared at Bethesda Naval Hospital. It
indicates a wound "in the low anterior cervical region" (W-541). This, in
layman's terms, describes a wound in the front of the neck at the necktie
knot. The Report concludes "that the bullet exited from the front portion of
the President's neck that had been cut away by the tracheotomy" (W-88).
Since we have adopted a view of healthy skepticism, there is no need for us
to join in the Commission's conclusion that this wound was an "exit" wound.
Rather, we will sift the evidence, and arrive at whatever independent
conclusion the evidence directs us to.
The tracheotomy was prepared by Dr. Malcolm O. Perry of Parkland
Hospital.[2] Dr. Perry described the neck wound as "a small wound in the
lower anterior third in the midline of the neck, from which blood was
exuding very slowly" (VI, H-9). Dr. Perry testified that he didn't know
whether this wound was an entrance wound or an exit wound (VI, H-15). Dr.
Charles James Carrico likewise described the President's throat wound as
"fairly round, had no jagged edges" (III, H-362).
Dr. Charles Rufus Baxter of Parkland Hospital saw this neck wound and
described it as follows:
4 to 5 mm. in widest diameter and was a spherical wound. (VI,
H-42)
Well, the wound was, I think, compatible with a gunshot wound. It
did not appear to be a jagged wound such as one would expect with
a very high velocity rifle bullet. We could not determine, or did
not determine at that time whether this represented an entry or an
exit wound. Judging from the caliber of the rifle that we later
found or became acquainted with, this would more resemble a wound
of entry. However, due to the density of the tissue of the neck
and depending upon what a bullet of such calibre would pass
through on the way to the neck, I think that the wound could well
represent either exit or entry wound. (VI, H-42)
Although Dr. Baxter stated that the wound "would more resemble a wound
of entry," he was willing to say it "could well represent either exit or
entry wound." Then Arlen Specter, assistant counsel to the Commission, put a
lengthy hypothetical question to Dr. Baxter. This question was designed to
elicit from the doctor information as to whether a wound through the back of
the President which exited from the President's neck could have made a wound
such as was found in the neck.
Dr. Baxter's answer did little to help support the Commission's
ultimate conclusion that the neck wound was a wound of exit and not of
entry:
Dr. Baxter. Although it would be unusual for a high velocity
missile of this type to cause a wound as you have described, the
passage through tissue planes as you have described, the passage
through tissue planes of this density could, have well resulted in
the sequence which you outline; namely, that the anterior wound
does represent a wound of exit. (VI, H-42)
But Mr. Specter knows too well that history is reluctant to regard as
verity that which is "unusual." So Mr. Specter's anxiety about the judgment
of history shows when he asks:
Mr. Specter. What would be the considerations which, in your mind,
would make it, as you characterized it, unlikely?
Dr. Baxter. It would be unlikely because the damage that the
bullet would create would be -- first its speed would create a
shock wave which would damage a larger number of tissues, as in
its path, it would tend to strike, or usually would strike,
tissues of greater density than this particular missile did and
would then begin to tumble and would create larger jagged -- the
further it went, the more jagged would be the damage that it
created; so that ordinarily there would have been a rather large
wound of exit. (VI, H-42)
Mr. Specter had even more severe problems with Dr. Ronald Coy Jones of
Parkland Hospital, whom he asked about the neck wounds:
Mr. Specter. In this report, Dr. Jones, you state the following,
"Previously described severe skull and brain injury was noted as
well as a small hole in the anterior midline of the neck thought
to be a bullet entrance wound." What led you to the thought that
it was a bullet entrance wound, sir?
Dr. Jones. The hole was very small and relatively clean cut, as
you would see in a bullet that is entering rather than exiting
from a patient. If this were an exit wound, you would think that
it exited at a very low velocity to produce no more damage than
this had done, and if this were a missile of high velocity, you
would expect more of an explosive type of exit wound, with more
tissue destruction than this appeared to have on superficial
examination. (VI, H-55)
Even Mr. Specter could not find in this account much opportunity for
turning this neck wound into an exit wound. So, in good prosecutor-like
fashion, he prodded for the thin slant of Commission daylight in Dr. Jones's
otherwise dark view of the Commission's suggestions:
Mr. Specter. Would it be consistent, then, with an exit wound, but
of low velocity, as you put it?
Dr. Jones. Yes, of very low velocity to the point that you might
think that this bullet barely made it through the soft tissues and
just enough to drop out of the skin on the opposite side. (VI,
H-55)
But the effort to get more government light into Dr. Jones's testimony
only resulted in blowing the fuse and pitched the government case into
darkness. For the kind of "low velocity" described by Dr. Jones would not
support the Commission's estimate that the entrance velocity of the bullet
that emerged from the President's neck was 1,776 feet per second. (W-95)
This is the same bullet which allegedly pierced the President's throat and
also caused Governor Connally's wounds.
Dr. Jones's testimony, despite all Specter's efforts, supports the
inference that this wound in the President's neck was an entrance and not an
exit wound. If the Commission is going to call this an exit wound, then Dr.
Jones caused a short circuit on that aspect of the government case which
requires us to believe that the same bullet coursed through Governor
Connally, hitting the 5th rib, fracturing his right wrist and finally
entering his left knee area. He reduced the velocity of the bullet emerging
from President Kennedy nearly to zero, thus rendering it incapable of
further harm.
The Commission sorely needed rifle ammunition. If it surrendered its
contention that the same bullet which first hit the President also hit
Governor Connally, it would have added one bullet to the case, and therefore
would have destroyed the three-bullet-one-assassin theory. The reader will
recall that one bullet or fragment was involved in the striking of a man,
James T. Tague, 270 feet from where the President was finally hit in the
head (W-116).
Dr. Jones's testimony punctured the government's case badly. In
describing the wound as either an entry wound or the exit wound of a spent
bullet, Dr. Jones has incapacitated the Commission's precious projectile. He
rendered it impotent to perform the very heavy workload the Commission had
designated for it, i.e., infliction of all wounds on Governor Connally in
addition to the wounds in the back and neck of President Kennedy. Dr. Jones
used up invaluable ammunition with his testimony, ammunition which the
Commission had to economize if it was to retain any tenuous connection with
reality.
With Parkland Hospital nurse, Margaret M. Henchliffe, Mr. Specter had
no better luck:
Mr. Specter. Did you see any wound on any other part of his body?
Miss Henchliffe. Yes, in the neck.
Mr. Specter. Will you describe it, please?
Miss Henchliffe. It was just a little hole in the middle of his
neck.
Mr. Specter. About how big a hole was it?
Miss Henchliffe. About as big around as the end of my little
finger.
Mr. Specter. Have you ever had any experience with bullet holes?
Miss Henchliffe. Yes.
Mr. Specter. And what did that appear to you to be?
Miss Henchliffe. An entrance bullet hole -- it looked to me like.
Mr. Specter. Could it have been an exit bullet hole?
Miss Henchliffe. I have never seen an exit bullet hole -- I don't
remember seeing one that looked like that. (VI, H-141)
The reader will recall that a tracheotomy (creation of an artificial
breathing hole) was performed on the President by Dr. Perry of Parkland
Hospital. For purposes of performing this tracheotomy, Dr. Perry employed
the neck wound as an opening for the tracheotomy tube (VI, H-10). Therefore,
by the time the Bethesda doctors saw the President's body and examined this
neck wound, the wound had already been altered by the tracheotomy. Under the
circumstances, it was necessary for the Bethesda doctors to rely largely on
the statements of the Parkland Hospital physicians concerning the nature and
source of the neck wound of the President.
A fair reading of the Bethesda Hospital physicians' testimony relating
to the throat wound would not dictate any definite conclusion concerning
whether the throat wound was one of entry or exit. We suggest, however, that
none of the Parkland Hospital witnesses had any difficulty seeing the wound
in the front of the President's neck as an entry wound. If there was a
preference expressed by the Parkland Hospital people, it was that the neck
wound in the front of the President more resembled a wound of entrance.
Recapitulating, Dr. Rufus Baxter said that the neck wound was
"unlikely" to be a wound of exit and "would more resemble a wound of entry"
(VI, H-42). Dr. Jones stated: "The hole was very small and relatively clean
cut, as you would see in a bullet that is entering rather than exiting from
a patient" (VI, E-55). Nurse Henchliffe insisted: "An entrance bullet hole
-- it looked to me like. I have never seen an exit bullet hole -- I don't
remember seeing one that looked like that" (VI, H-141).
In addition, Secret Service Agent Glen A. Bennett, who had been
stationed in the Presidential follow-up car, "heard a sound like a
firecracker," then heard another shot and saw it hit the President's back
and then saw a "hit on the right rear of the President's head" (W-111).
Thus, his testimony is likewise compatible with the first shot entering the
President's throat and a second and separate shot hitting him in the back.
Bennett's failure to see the President react after the first shot is
consistent with the President having been hit in the soft tissue in the
front of the neck which impact would not have been visible to Bennett.
Despite the utter failure of the above testimony to support the
Commission's conclusion that the strike in the President's neck was an exit
wound, the Commission concluded that it was:
President Kennedy was first struck by a bullet which entered at
the back of his neck and exited through the lower front portion of
his neck . . . (W-19)
Clearly, on the basis of the testimony of Special Agent Glen A. Bennett
and the Parkland Hospital group, the Commission was not justified in drawing
such an inference.
The Back Wound
Here we must shift our attention backward. We will examine the
Commission's inference concerning a bullet which allegedly entered the back
of his neck and exited through the lower front portion of his neck. We urge
the reader to keep his mind open on the question of whether the back hit we
are about to discuss has an exit on the front of the neck or whether it has
an exit at all. Nothing we have examined so far would prove the Commission's
conclusion that this shot in the back of the President exited from the
front.
At this point in the exposition, each reader will have in mind
Bennett's oft-repeated testimony that he observed a missile "hit the
President about four inches down from the right shoulder" (W-111). Special
Agent Clinton L. Hill saw the President's body being worked on at the morgue
in Bethesda during the course of the autopsy. He stated to the Commission
that just before the body was placed into a casket "I saw an opening in the
back, about six inches below the neckline to the right-hand side of the
spinal column" (II, H-143).
Special Agent Roy H. Kellerman testified about his experience at
Bethesda during the autopsy studies there.
There were three gentlemen who were performing this autopsy. A
Colonel Finck -- during the examination of the President, from the
hole that was in his shoulder, and with a probe, and we -- were
standing right alongside of him, he is probing inside the shoulder
with his instrument and I said, "Colonel, where did it go?" He
said, "There are no lanes for an outlet of this entry in this
man's shoulder." (II, H-93)
If Colonel Finck was correct, if there were indeed no lanes of exit
from such a wound, then that is the end of the Commission's theory that one
assassin fired all the shots at the assassination site. Such a finding of no
outlet would make the back wound a separate hit. It would make the front
neck wound a separate hit. It would place one gunman in front of the
President. It would add one bullet to the three shells found in the
Depository Building, thereby making four, and thereby requiring another
gunman to accomplish all the shooting in the maximum allowable time. But
while Colonel Finck at the autopsy in Bethesda was making this judgment on
the dreadful night of November 22nd, 1963, the United States Government was
proclaiming to the world that one man and one man alone had performed all
the gory work in Dealey Plaza. This conclusion, in the light of the opinions
of the autopsy experts, was utterly out of joint with the facts apparent at
that time. At best, it was premature.
All the above testimony of Special Agents Bennett, Hill, and Kellerman
indicates a hit in the back of the President roughly four to six inches
below the inferior neckline. Material supporting evidence was found in the
clothing of the President. FBI Agent Robert A. Frazier testified about the
President's clothing as follows:
I found on the back of the shirt a hole, 5 3/4 inches below the
top of the collar, and as you look at the back of the shirt 1 1/8
inch to the right of the mid-line of the shirt, which is this hole
I am indicating . . . [T]he coat hole is 5 3/8 inches below the
top of the collar. The shirt hole is 5 3/4 inches, which could be
accounted for by a portion of the collar sticking up above the
coat about a half inch. (V, H-60)
The bullet which made these holes would have only originated from
behind the President, who was sitting erect, facing front, in the
Presidential limousine. Both the Commission and the writer are in perfect
agreement here. It would seem, also, that there is no room for disagreement
with respect to where the missile which impacted on the President's back
entered. But, alas, on this score, the disagreement between the writer and
the Commission is sharp and goes to the core of the case.
The writer concludes from the evidence of Special Agents Bennett,
Kellerman, and Hill that there was a wound in the President's back some 4 to
6 inches down from the neck line. The writer feels that the missile hole 5
3/4 inches below the top of the shirt collar and 1 1/8 inches to the right
of the midline of the shirt, dramatically supports the testimony of these
Special Agents. The missile hole in the President's coat: 5 3/4 inches below
the top of the collar corroborates their testimony in a solid and impressive
way. The Commission, however, concluded otherwise. Despite all the above
evidence, the Warren Commission found that the hit in the back of the
President was above the wound at the necktie knot. "The autopsy disclosed
that the bullet which entered the back of the President's neck hit no bony
structure and proceeded in a slightly downward angle" (W-91). We submit that
the Commission was in grievous and obvious error.
The Warren Commission had to recognize that a bullet in the back 5 3/4
inches below the top of the shirt which did not exit, would end the lone
assassin theory. For, if this bullet did not exit, the front neck wound
constitutes a separate entry from the front. To add one bullet is to add one
gunman, who cannot have fired from the Texas Book Depository Building. One
gunman cannot be in more than one place at the one time.
An attempt was made to refute the evidence of the three Special Agents
who stuck to the truth as they had seen it. The Warren Commission, trying to
rebut this impressive evidence, hit rocks which caused its integrity to
founder forever on the shoals of self-contradictory exhibits and finally
fabrication and withholding evidence. Having made these charges, we will
proceed to prove each of them.
A Lapse of Liaison
The Warren Report on the question has the following to say about the
back and neck wounds:
In the early stages of the autopsy, the surgeons were unable to
find a path into any large muscle in the back of the neck. At that
time they did not know that there had been a bullet hole in the
front of the President's neck when he arrived at Parkland Hospital
because the tracheotomy incision had completely eliminated that
evidence. While the autopsy was being performed, surgeons learned
that a whole bullet had been found at Parkland Hospital on a
stretcher which, at that time, was thought to be the stretcher
occupied by the President. This led to speculation that the bullet
might have penetrated a short distance into the back of the neck
and then dropped out onto the stretcher as a result of the
external heart massage.
Further exploration during the autopsy disproved that theory. The
surgeons determined that the bullet had passed between two large
strap muscles and bruised them without leaving any channel, since
the bullet merely passed between them. Commander Humes, who
believed that a tracheotomy had been performed from his
observations at the autopsy, talked by telephone with Dr. Perry
early on the morning of November 23, and learned that his
assumption was correct and that Dr. Perry had used the missile
wound in the neck as the point to make the incision. This
confirmed the Bethesda surgeons' conclusions that the bullet had
exited from the front part of the neck. (W, 88-89)
In the above dissertation, the Warren Report asks of the reader that he
swallow the idea that the tracheotomy incision had "completely eliminated"
the evidence of a bullet hole in the front of his neck. The Report begs the
reader to believe that Commander Humes did not know what the Parkland
Hospital doctors were telling all the world on the 22nd of November, i.e.
that President Kennedy had suffered a wound in the front of the neck through
which a tracheotomy was performed. They ask us to believe that the
government pathologists at Bethesda undertook an autopsy on the evening of
November 22nd, 1963 on the President without consulting with any doctor at
Parkland Hospital in Dallas. We are asked to believe that Commander Humes
talked with Dr. Perry of Parkland Hospital for the first time on November
23rd, 1963. Such an idea seems to fly in the face of common sense. Let us
see whether it also flies in the face of the evidence.
Observe how Dr. Malcolm O. Perry of Parkland Hospital recollects the
conversation he had with Commander Humes concerning the tracheotomy in
question:
Mr. Specter. Dr. Perry, did you have occasion to discuss your
observations with Cmdr. James J. Humes of the Bethesda Naval
Hospital?
Dr. Perry. Yes, sir; I did.
Mr. Specter. When did that conversation occur?
Dr. Perry. My knowledge as to the exact accuracy of it is
obviously in doubt. I was under the initial impression that I
talked to him on Friday, but I understand it was on Saturday. I
don't recall exactly when.
Mr. Specter. Do you have an independent recollection at this
moment as to whether it was on Friday or Saturday?
Dr. Perry. No, sir; I have thought about it again and again and
the events surrounding that weekend were very kaleidoscopic, and I
talked with Dr. Humes on two occasions, separated by a very short
interval of, I think it was, 30 minutes or an hour or so, it could
have been a little longer.
Mr. Specter. What was the medium of your conversation?
Dr. Perry. Over the telephone.
Mr. Specter. Did he identify himself to you as Dr. Humes of
Bethesda?
Dr. Perry. He did.
Mr. Specter. Would you state as specifically as you can recollect
the conversation that you first had with him?
Dr. Perry. He advised me that he could not discuss with me the
findings of necropsy, that he had a few questions he would like to
clarify. The initial phone call was in relation to my doing a
tracheotomy. Since I had made the incision directly through the
wound in the neck, it made it difficult for them to ascertain the
exact nature of this wound. Of course, that did not occur to me at
the time. I did what appeared to me to be medically expedient. And
when I informed him that there was a wound there and I suspected
an underlying wound of the trachea and even perhaps of the great
vessels. He advised me that he thought this action was correct and
he said he could not relate to me any of the other findings. (III,
H-380)
It is fairly clear that Commander Humes wasn't saying much during the
course of the conversation with Dr. Perry. "He advised me that he could not
discuss with me the findings of necropsy, . . . he could not relate to me
any of the other findings." Commander Humes apparently construed his primary
job as something other than full and open communication aimed at reaching
the immediate truth with respect to the wounds. For if he had seen his task
as ascertaining the truth directly, he must have recognized the need for
interchange of information between himself and Dr. Perry, who had seen the
President and supervised the treatment prior in time to Commander Humes.
Again, in a later deposition taken by the Commission's assistant
counsel, Arlen Specter, Dr. Perry hardly confirmed the Commission's finding
that the phone calls between Dr. Perry and Commander Humes occurred on
Saturday, November 23rd and not on Friday, November 22nd:
Mr. Specter. And will you relate the circumstances of the calls
indicating first the time when they occurred.
Dr. Perry. Dr. Humes called me twice on Friday afternoon,
separated by about 30-minute intervals, as I recall. The first
one, I, somehow think I recall the first one must have been around
1500 hours, but I'm not real sure about that; I'm not positive of
that at all, actually.
Mr. Specter. Could it have been Saturday morning?
Dr. Perry. Saturday morning -- was it. It's possible. I remember
talking with him twice. I was thinking it was shortly thereafter.
Mr. Specter. Well, the record will show.
Dr. Perry. Oh sure, it was Saturday morning -- yes.
Mr. Specter. What made you change your view of that?
Dr. Perry. You mean Friday?
Mr. Specter. Did some specific recollection occur to you which
changed your view from Friday to Saturday?
Dr. Perry. No, I was trying to place where I was at that time --
Friday afternoon, and at that particular time when I thought that
he called initially. I seem to remember it being Friday, for some
reason. (VI, H-16)
Dr. W.K. Clark says that Dr. Perry, discussing a Saturday morning press
conference, told him of having "talked to the Bethesda Naval Hospital on two
occasions that morning and that he knew what the autopsy findings had shown"
(VI, H-23). On two scores Dr. Clark therefore contradicts Dr. Perry: on the
date of the calls and on whether Dr. Perry was told what the results of the
autopsy were.
Well, the Commission concluded that the conversations between Commander
Humes and Dr. Perry occurred on Saturday, November 23rd, 1963. If the
Commission had decided otherwise, we would be left only with Commander
Humes's initial consideration that the bullet in the back may have dropped
out of the President:
Commander Humes. I did not at that point have the information from
Doctor Perry about the wound in the anterior neck, and while that
was a possible explanation for the point of exit, we also had to
consider the possibility that the missile in some rather
inexplicable fashion had been stopped in its path through the
President's body and, in fact, then had fallen from the body onto
the stretcher. (II, H-367)
You will recall that Special Agents Kellerman and Hill described the
autopsy while it was in progress. Colonel Finck told Roy H. Kellerman:
"There are no lanes for an outlet of this entry in this man's shoulder" (II,
E-93). Clinton L. Hill "saw an opening in the back, about 6 inches below the
neckline to the right-hand side of the spinal column" (II, H-143). No small
wonder it was that the idea did not immediately occur to the pathologists
that this hit down in the President's back emerged high up in the front
portion of his neck. Such unusual insights germinate in the human mind only
after considerable time is devoted to the consideration of the possible
existence of more plausible alternatives. In this case, apparently, there
were no other alternatives available. That accursed shortage of ammunition
which restricted the Commission to but three shots interposed itself again.
A Clash of Exhibits
The face sheet of the autopsy report which was prepared by Commander
Humes is marked Commission Exhibit 397 (XVII, H-45). On this sheet there are
two diagrams representing schematic drawings of a front view and a back view
of the autopsy subject, identical in height, and in juxtaposition. Each
figure extends the same distance up (heads being 3 3/4 inches from the top
of the page) and the same distance down (feet extending 2 1/4 inches from
the bottom of the page). In the front view, on the left, one sees the mark
designating the hole in the front of the neck caused by the bullet wound and
the tracheotomy. In the back view, on the right, one sees the back wound
slightly to the right of the middle of the President's back and considerably
below his collar. The back wound, as drawn, is 3/8 of an inch from the lower
level of the collar line. The neck wound, in the front, as drawn, is 1/6 of
an inch from the lower level of the collar. Therefore, the back wound is
definitely drawn lower than the front neck wound.
[CE 397]
Commission Exhibit 397
Now, let us turn to Commission Exhibits 385 and 386 (XVI, H-977). These
two exhibits represent drawings of the upper portion of the President's
body. Commission Exhibit 385 shows a side view of the President. The hit in
the back is now placed high up on the neck. This back entry point is drawn
above the exit point in the front of the President's neck. On the rear view
of Commission Exhibit 386, the back hit is again seen high up on the neck
and now almost to the extreme right of the President's body.
[CE 385] [CE 386]
Commission Exhibit 385 Commission Exhibit 386
These drawings are extraordinary in light of the following testimony
relating to the President's suit coat:
Mr. Specter. Would it be accurate to state that the hole which you
have identified as being the point of entry is approximately 6
inches below the top of the collar, and 2 inches to the right of
the middle seam of the coat?
Commander Humes. That is approximately correct sir . . . (II,
H-365)
But how did the President's suit coat get pierced 6 inches below the
collar, when the bullet is supposed to have entered high up on the collar
region so as to be above the necktie knot from which this bullet was
supposed to have emerged? The explanation out of the context of an
assassination would constitute "high" comedy. The bullet hole in the back of
the President is simply lifted high and to the right on the President by the
force of sheer nonsense. Here is the explanation:
Mr. Specter. As to the muscular status of the President, what was
it?
Commander Humes. The President was extremely well-developed, an
extremely well-developed, muscular young man with a very
well-developed set of muscles in his thoraco and shoulder girdle.
Mr. Specter. What effect would that have on the positioning of the
shirt and coat with respect to the position of the neck in and
above the seam?
Commander Humes. I believe this would have a tendency to push the
portions of the coat which show the defects here somewhat higher
on the back of the President than on a man of less muscular
development.
Mr. Specter. Mr. Chief Justice, may it please the Commission, I
would like to mark for identification Exhibit 396, which later
proof will show is a picture of President Kennedy shortly before
the first bullet struck him, and ask the doctor to take a look at
that. Will you describe, Doctor Humes, the position of President
Kennedy's right hand in that picture?
Commander Humes. Yes. This exhibit, Commission Exhibit No. 396,
allegedly taken just prior to the wounding of the late President,
shows him with his hand raised, his elbow bent, apparently in
saluting the crowd. I believe that this action --
Mr. Specter. Which hand was that?
Commander Humes. This was his right hand, sir. I believe that this
action would further accentuate the elevation of the coat and the
shirt with respect to the back of the President. (II, H-366)
Exhibit 396 shows President Kennedy gesturing to the crowd by lifting
his right hand, no higher than his forehead, with elbow bent. I defy the
most muscle-bound man in the world to cause the center part of his shirt to
lift roughly six inches, and then climb up his neck. I defy him to do so,
not by such a simple gesture, but rather I would instruct him to lift both
hands high over his head and gesticulate wildly. Such gesticulation may
perhaps displace the shirt and coat as much as an inch, but the Warren
Commission syndrome, I urge, is utterly incapable of duplication. The shirt
and coat of President Kennedy could not have been so displaced by such a
simple gesture such as bending his right arm at the elbow and lifting his
hand to forehead height. If you entertain any doubts with respect to this,
the President's tailor should be consulted. He would be outraged by the
suggestion.
Commission Exhibits 385 and 386 conform to nothing that we know from
the testimony of the Special Agents who were present at the autopsy. These
curious exhibits contradict the evidence found in the holes in the
President's clothing. These strange works of an artist seem to erase a back
wound six inches from the neck line and to give birth to a wound high up on
the neck line. How were they arrived at, these strange twin children of the
Commission?
Commander Humes. When appraised of the necessity for our
appearance before this Commission, we did not know whether or not
the photographs which we had made would be available to the
Commission. So to assist in making our testimony more
understandable to the Commission members, we decided to have made
drawings, schematic drawings of the situation as we saw it, as we
recorded it and as we recall it. These drawings were made under my
supervision and that of Dr. Boswell by Mr. Rydberg, whose initials
are H.A. He is a hospital corpsman, second class, and a medical
illustrator in our command at Naval Medical School.
Mr. Specter. Did you provide him with the basic information from
which those drawings were made?
Commander Humes. Yes, sir.
Mr. Specter. Distances, that sort of thing?
Commander Humes. Yes, sir. We had made certain physical
measurements of the wounds, and of their position on the body of
the late President, and we provided those and supervised directly
Mr. Rydberg in making these drawings.
Mr. Specter. Have you checked the drawings subsequent to their
preparation to verify their accuracy?
Commander Humes. Yes, sir.
Mr. Specter. And proportion?
Commander Humes. I must state those drawings are in part
schematic. The artist had but a brief period of some two days to
prepare these. He had no photographs from which to work, and had
to work under description, verbal description, of what we had
observed.
Mr. Specter. Would it be helpful to the artist in redefining the
drawings, if that should become necessary, to have available to
him the photographs or X-rays of the President?
Commander Humes. If it were necessary to have them absolutely true
to scale. I think it would be virtually impossible for him to do
this without the photographs. (II, H-349-50)
So, therefore, Commander Humes, by his own admission, concedes that
those two drawings of the artist are not "absolutely true to scale." He and
the Commission concluded that it was not necessary to have them absolutely
true to scale. But I trust that the United States Government will recognize
at this time that it is indeed necessary to have them true to scale. This
matter of where the bullet entered the back of the President is of essence
to the case. The Commission's evidence on this point is hopelessly
self-contradictory.
The Warren Commission was loaded with attorneys. Each one of them knew
that no criminal court in the land would have admitted those drawings as
evidence without having first required the production of the autopsy X-rays
with the colored and black and white photographs of the body. These drawings
are, by admission of Commander Humes, inaccurate fabrications. Why did the
Commission not exclude them and insist on the presentation of the X-rays and
the photographs taken at Bethesda?
The following is testimony relating to the absence of these crucial
exhibits:
Commander Humes. I do not believe, sir, that the availability of
the X-rays would materially assist the Commission.
Mr. Specter. How about the same question as to pictures?
Commander Humes. The pictures would show more accurately and in
more detail the character of the wounds as depicted particularly
in 385 and 386 and in 388-A. They would also perhaps give the
Commissioners a bett -- better is not the best term, but a more
graphic picture of the massive defect in 388.
Mr. Specter. Going back for a moment, Doctor Humes.
The Chairman. Before we get off that, may I ask you this,
Commander: If we had the pictures here and you could look them
over again and restate your opinion, would it cause you to change
any of the testimony you have given here?
Commander Humes. To the best of my recollection, Mr. Chief
Justice, it would not. (II, H-371-72)
On November 24, 1963, Commander Humes signed the following certificate:
I, James J. Humes, certify that I have destroyed by burning
certain preliminary draft notes relating to Naval Medical School
Autopsy Report A63-272 and have officially transmitted all other
papers related to this report to higher authority. (XVII, H-48)
The destruction of these historically crucial notes is a tragedy. But
fortunately, the reasons which prompted Commander Humes to destroy these
original autopsy notes, and therefore deprived posterity of the freshest
notes on the wounds, did not also prompt him to destroy the X-rays and
photographs prepared at Bethesda. He turned them over to the Secret Service
(II, H-372). He and the Commission did not see why these X-rays and
photographs should be produced at the hearing. They happen to constitute the
best extant evidence of the wounds. If the United States Government will not
produce this vital data, we must conclude that their omission from the
Warren Commission Hearing was purposeful.
They must now be produced for the scrutiny of non-governmentally
connected scholars. Not to do so would be to place the Warren Commission
under the dark cloud of failure in its obligation to the American public. We
have a right to know. Justice Warren has frequently supported such a right
in his judicial opinions. Produce the X-rays and photographs.
Summary
To summarize, we maintain that the evidence gathered by the Warren
Commission certainly indicates the existence of one entry wound in the front
of the President's neck and a separate wound in his back. To avoid this
obvious conclusion the Warren Commission appears to have involved itself
wittingly or unwittingly in fabrication and withholding of vital evidence.
II. The Wounds of Governor Connally
We dedicate this article to Governor John B. Connally, Jr.,
who possesses a hard core of fundamental honesty.
Our task here is to analyze the propositions set forth by the
Commission as follows:
Governor Connally was struck by a bullet which entered on the
right side of his back and traveled downward through the right
side of his chest, exiting below his right nipple. This bullet
then passed through his right wrist and entered his left thigh
where it caused a superficial wound. (W-19)
Although it is not necessary to any essential findings of the
Commission to determine just which shot hit Governor Connally,
there is very persuasive evidence from the experts to indicate
that the same bullet which pierced the President's throat also
caused Governor Connally's wounds. However, Governor Connally's
testimony and certain other facts have given rise to some
difference of opinion as to this probability . . . (W-19)
We learn immediately that "Governor Connally's testimony and certain
other facts have given rise to some difference of opinion as to this
probability." Let us then try to pick up the trail of these "certain others
facts."
The Busy Bullet
Since the Commission found that one bullet emerging from President
Kennedy struck the governor, let us follow this bullet on the second half of
its journey. The Commission decided that the tiny wound in the front of the
President's neck was a wound of exit. They also proposed that this bullet
entered the President's back, 5 3/4 inches below the top of the shirt collar
and emerged in front from the left side of his necktie knot (V, H-60). Such
a bullet was, therefore, headed upward, entering at a lower point than its
exit.
We remind the reader that the Commission's ammunition supply totals
three bullets. This limitation was self-imposed by virtue of the dogma that
the murder was the act of a single assassin who was unable to fire more than
three shots from a single bolt-action rifle in the given time. By turning
the bullet downward in mid-air and thus having it strike the Governor, the
Commission conserved ammunition. If the missile had not made this mid-air
turn and struck the Governor, the Commission would not have had enough
bullets to explain all the hits at the assassination site.
In addition this same missile by performing the down and up movement in
the President, explained away the suspected entry wound in the front of the
President's neck. It also protected the Commission from the problem of a
bullet in Kennedy's back which the autopsy experts initially thought had no
channel of exit.
But in addition to the "V" trajectory, this missile's path is described
as plummeting downward while in flight, slicing through several diverse
parts of Governor Connally. If Connally's wounds could not be explained by
the same missile, the Commission would have been caught in impossible
arithmetic. So, the Commission finally described the bullet as weaving
downward, inward and upward in the President and then turning in mid-air,
coursing downward and leftward in the Governor.
If this bullet did not cause all the Governor's wounds, a minimum of
two bullets would have been required to explain the back and front neck
wounds of President Kennedy and all the wounds of Governor Connally. Such an
expenditure would have left but one more bullet to impact on President
Kennedy's head. At which juncture the Commission would have been out of
ammunition to explain the other bullet hits in Dealey Plaza on that day.
The Commission, if it had not conserved ammunition, by finding that the
first bullet to hit the President accounted for all the wounds on the
Governor, would be left without missiles to explain the impacts on the
windshield and chrome in the front of the Presidential limousine and a hit
on James T. Tague some 270 feet away. These extra bullet strikes are
inexplicable if all three bullets are used in the smiting of the limousine's
occupants.
"It Is Not Conceivable"
Let us now leave the realm of Commission speculation and examine the
evidence about the double hit. Governor Connally testified as follows:
. . . we turned on Elm Street. We had just made the turn, well,
when I heard what I thought was a shot. I heard this noise which I
immediately took to be a rifle shot. I instinctively turned to my
right because the sound appeared to come from over my right
shoulder, so I turned to look back over my right shoulder, and I
saw nothing unusual except just people in the crowd, but I did not
catch the President in the corner of my eye, and I was interested
because once I heard the shot in my own mind I identified it as a
rifle shot, and I immediately -- the only thought that crossed my
mind was that this is an assassination attempt.
So I looked, failing to see him, I was turning to look back over
my left shoulder into the back seat, but I never got that far in
my turn. I got about in the position I am in now, facing, looking
a little bit to the left of center, and then I felt like someone
had hit me in the back.
. . . Mrs. Connally pulled me over to her lap. I reclined with my
head in her lap, conscious all the time, and with my eyes open;
and the, of course, the third shot sounded, and I heard the shot
very clearly. I heard it hit him. (IV, H-132-33)
. . . after I heard that shot, I had the time to turn to my right,
and start to my left before I felt anything. It is not conceivable
to me that I could have been hit by the first bullet . . . (IV,
H-136)
So, Governor Connally believes that the Commission's conclusion is not
only mistaken but "not conceivable."
Mrs. John B. Connally, Jr. offered testimony as follows:
I heard a noise, and not being an expert rifleman, I was not aware
that it was a rifle. I turned over my right shoulder and looked
back, and saw the President as he had both hands at his neck.
. . . Then very soon there was the second shot that hit John. As
the first shot was hit, and I turned to look at the same time, I
recall John saying, "Oh, no, no, no." Then there was a second
shot, and it hit John, and as he recoiled to the right, just
crumpled like a wounded animal to the right, he said, "My God,
they are going to kill us all." (IV, H-147)
Mrs. Connally's statement conforms exactly to her husband's
description. It signified havoc for the Commission on the question of a
single bullet hitting the two statesmen. The testimony of the Governor and
Mrs. Connally was corroborated by every eyewitness. No witness suggested
that Kennedy and Connally were wounded by the same bullet.
A Logical Fallacy
Tracing back the basis on which the Commission came to its
unsubstantiated conclusion, we find that this was the reasoning employed:
The bullet that hit President Kennedy in the back and exited
through his throat most likely could not have missed both the
automobile and its occupants. Since it did not hit the automobile,
Frazier testified that it probably struck Governor Connally. The
relative positions of President Kennedy and Governor Connally at
the same time when the President was struck in the neck confirm
that the same bullet probably passed through both men. (W-105)
Once stripped of the sad support provided by begging the question, the
inference collapses under the weight of eyewitness, photographic,
ballistics, and anatomical evidence.
To justify the Commission's conclusion concerning a dual hit, we also
have to assume that which the Commission's evidence did not prove, i.e., the
absence of any other gunman at any other post. As a matter of fact, Harold
Feldman has come across 51 eyewitnesses who indicated to the Commission that
the shots came from the north side of Elm Street, to wit, the grassy knoll
area. A shot from the knoll, hitting the President in the front of the neck,
in a slightly downward but flatter trajectory than that of a shot fired from
the Book Depository Building, could well have accounted for a bullet hitting
the President and "not hitting the automobile." The Commission chose to
ignore the mass of witnesses who heard shots from the knoll, smelled
gunpowder, and saw smoke in the locale.
Without viewing the autopsy X-rays and photographs, we cannot share the
conclusion that the bullet in Kennedy's back exited from his necktie knot.
All the evidence of the Commission, except for the artist's creations
(Exhibits 385, 386), is against this proposition. Therefore, we reject the
conclusion that the Governor's mere presence in front of the President
proves that he was hit by the same bullet. Nor was the Commission justified
in so concluding without examining the photographic and X-ray evidence of
the autopsy.
Commission vs. Mssrs. Zapruder and Newton
Better evidence is provided by the Abraham Zapruder motion picture
taken of the assassination. This film, as published (XVIII, H 11-80),
consists of 160 frames which ran through the Zapruder camera at a rate of
18.3 frames per second (W-97). Therefore: "the timing of certain events
could be calculated by allowing 1/18.3 seconds for the action depicted from
one frame to the next" (W-97). It was the Zapruder film which compressed the
Commission tightly into the time span of 4.8 to 5.6 seconds within which all
the hits on the occupants of the Presidential limousine were scored. "From
the timing evidenced by the Zapruder film, there was an interval of from 4.8
to 5.6 seconds between the shot which struck President Kennedy's neck
(between frames 210 to 225) and the shot which struck his head at frame 313"
(W-115).
Let us examine the film to determine if it supports the testimony of
the Governor, Mrs. Connally, and all the eye-witnesses, that the Governor
was pierced by a separate shot or shots. The Commission found that the
Zapruder film showed the President's body first reacting to a bullet-imposed
force at frame 225.
Governor Connally continued to sit erect and face forward from Zapruder
frame 225 through 235. At frame 235 he began to turn right, just as he
maintained in his testimony. The reader recalls that at frame 225 or before,
the Commission found that a bullet had pierced Connally's back, shattered
his fifth rib, caused compound fractures of his wrist, and hit him in the
left knee area (W-93). Despite the fact that a great deal of tissue and bone
was struck, the Governor's body is supposed to have registered no reaction
to the bullet which allegedly struck him by frame 225 or before. Rather the
Governor is seen beginning his turn to the right at frame 235. On the other
hand, President Kennedy's body immediately reacted to this bullet which,
according to the Commission, struck no bone.
The Commission well knew from the film that Connally's body evidenced
no reaction at the time that President Kennedy's body did. The Commission's
explanation of the Governor's failure to react is a headlong retreat from
objective data to subjective guessing. "There was conceivably a delayed
reaction between the time the bullet struck him and the time he realized
that he was hit" (W-112). But the Zapruder films recorded reality and not
the Commission's speculations of what is conceivable.
Newton's third law of motion cannot be so glibly bypassed. This law
states that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, the forces
occurring in pairs. The force on Connally, the Commission urges, was at
first a single force which resulted in a delayed reaction. Back pierced, rib
shattered, wrist fractured, thigh punctured -- and no immediate reaction.
This is not possible. In short, Messrs. Zapruder and Newton worked great
damage on the Commission's fiat that the same first bullet to hit the
President caused all the wounds on the Governor.
Commission Exhibit 399 -- The Bullet
The most concrete evidence on this subject is the exhibit bullet
itself. With one categorical assertion the Commission tried to eliminate any
doubts about this bullet. "All the evidence indicated that the bullet found
on the Governor's stretcher could have caused all his wounds" (W-95).
This bullet weighed 158.6 grains (W-557). A whole bullet of this type
weighs 160 to 161 grains (W-77). Except for a minute extrusion of metal from
the rear, the bullet designated Commission Exhibit 399 (XVII, H-399) was
intact.
The Commission decided that all the evidence indicated this bullet
caused all the wounds on Connally. In so concluding, they evidently no
longer recognize the testimony of Commander Humes. This is the same Dr.
Humes on whom they relied so heavily for the drawings that took the place of
the photographs and X-rays.
Mr. Specter. Dr. Humes, under your opinion which you have just
given us, what effect, if any would that have on whether this
bullet, 399, could have been the one to lodge in Governor
Connally's thigh?
Commander Humes. I think that extremely unlikely. The reports,
again Exhibit 392 from Parkland, tell of an entrance wound on the
lower midthigh of the Governor, and X-rays taken there are
described as showing metallic fragments in the bone, which
apparently by this report were not removed and are still present
in Governor Connally's thigh. [For those interested, Exhibit 392
is 22 pages and requires access to an original reproduction of
Volume 17 in order to identify the precise page being referred
to here.] I can't conceive of where they came from this missile.
(II, H-376)
It would have been understandable had the Commission repudiated
Commander Humes's testimony about the autopsy. His burning of initial
autopsy notes, his failure to produce X-rays and photographs, his
introduction of contradictory exhibits -- these certainly impeached him as a
witness.
However, in this instance, Commander Humes reasoned competently.
Whereas the Commission accepted his autopsy meanderings as verity, they
acted as if he had never expressed himself on the subject of the bullet. For
if they had taken cognizance of his testimony, they could not have concluded
that "all the evidence indicated that the bullet found on the Governor's
stretcher could have caused all his wounds."
On this score Humes had wide support. Dr. Robert Roeder Shaw of
Parkland Hospital said:
Mr. Specter. What is your opinion as to whether bullet 399 could
have inflicted all of the wounds on the Governor, then, without
respect at this point to the wound of the President's neck?
Dr. Shaw. I feel that there would be some difficulty in explaining
all of the wounds as being inflicted by bullet Exhibit 399 without
causing more in the way of loss of substance to the bullet or
deformation of the bullet. (IV, H-114)
Dr. Shaw. All right. As far as the wounds of the chest are
concerned, I feel that this bullet could have inflicted those
wounds. But the examination of the wrist both by X-ray and at the
time of surgery showed some fragments of metal that make it
difficult to believe that the same missile could have caused these
two wounds. There seems to be more than three grains of metal
missing as far as the -- I mean in the wrist. (IV, H-113)
Dr. Charles F. Gregory of Parkland Hospital concluded as follows:
Dr. Gregory. The wound of entrance is characteristic in my view of
an irregular missile in this case, an irregular missile which has
tipped itself off as being irregular by the nature of itself.
Mr. Dulles. What do you mean by irregular?
Dr. Gregory. I mean one that had been distorted. It is in some way
angular, it has edges or sharp edges or something of this sort. It
is not rounded or pointed in the fashion of an ordinary missile.
(IV, H-124)
Commission Exhibit 399 was "rounded" and "pointed." Except for a slight
irregularity caused when the bullet core extruded through the back, it was
in all respects an intact, unmutilated bullet. It does not conform to the
missile which Dr. Gregory stated would have caused the Governor's wrist
wound. This is further proof that all the evidence did not show that
Commission Exhibit 399 caused all the wounds on Governor Connally.
In further testimony, Dr. Gregory strikes another blow at the
weaving-bullet theory.
Dr. Gregory. I would believe that the missile in the Governor
behaved as though it had never struck anything except him.
Mr. Specter. Well, wouldn't you think it possible, bearing in mind
that my last question only went as to whether the same bullet
could have gone through President Kennedy and inflicted the wound
on Governor Connally's chest, would you think it possible that the
same missile could have gone through President Kennedy in the way
I described and have inflicted all three of the wounds, that is,
the entry and exit on the chest, the entry and exit on the wrist,
and the entry into the thigh which you described.
Dr. Gregory. I suspect it's possible, but I would say it would
have to be a remarkably powerful missile to have done so. (VI,
H-103)
So, Dr. Gregory thought that a separate shot hit Connally. Dr. George
T. Shires of Parkland Hospital also thought so:
Mr. Specter. Do you think it is possible that Governor Connally
could have been struck by two bullets, one entering his back and
emerging from his chest and the second going into his wrist?
Dr. Shires. I'm sure it is possible, because missile sites are so
variable, depending upon the size of the bullet, the speed at
which it travels, whether it was tumbling or not. We have seen all
kinds of combinations of entrance and exit wounds and it's just
impossible to state with any certainty, looking at a given wound,
what the missile was, so I am sure it is possible. (VI, H-110)
Mr. Specter then asked if it was possible for a bullet to slice through
the President and then cause all the Governor's wounds.
Dr. Shires. I assume that it would be possible. The main thing
that would make me think that this was not the case is that he
remembers so distinctly hearing a shot and having turned prior to
the time he was hit, and in the position he must have been,
particularly here in Figure 5, I think it's obvious that he did
turn rather sharply to the right and this would make me think that
it was a second shot, but this is purely conjecture, of course.
(VI, H-110)
Dr. Shires was too modest. His conclusion was not "purely conjecture."
Conjecture is guessing from incomplete or uncertain evidence. All the
eyewitness evidence (including that of the victim), the Zapruder film, the
intact bullet, the testimony of Bethesda's Dr. Humes, and Parkland's Drs.
Shaw, Gregory and Shires solidly support the view that a separate bullet or
bullets struck Governor Connally. It was the Commission that conjectured to
draw a conclusion that one bullet struck Kennedy and Connally. This
inference is contradicted by overwhelming evidence. Analysis of the
Commission's evidence compels us to conclude that it was wrong in finding:
"All the evidence indicated that the bullet found on the Governor's
stretcher could have caused all his wounds" (W-95).
An alert reader must by now be curious as to how one bullet could have
coursed through the President from the rear, and pierced Governor Connally,
who was sitting erect, through the back, right nipple, right wrist and left
knee area. The only logical explanation for this extreme right to left and
35 degrees back to front, downward and across bullet trajectory (V, H-172)
would be a hit delivered from the right, from the north side of Elm Street,
i.e., the grassy knoll area. No single bullet fired from the back into the
Governor, who was sitting erect, would be likely to have accomplished those
wounds in different geometric planes.
Governor Connally described his being hit while "looking a little bit
to the left of center, and then I felt someone had hit me in the back" (IV,
H-133). If we assume a direction from the right side of Connally, while he
is turning a little left of center, it is possible to place all his hits
through the back, out the right nipple, through the right wrist, and into
the left femur, in one geometric plane. For the Commission to have concluded
that the Connally shot was delivered from the right, would have corroborated
the 51 witnesses who thought that shots were fired from the grassy knoll,
but such a finding would have abolished the lone-assassin concept.
Summary
The heavy weight of evidence requires us to conclude that the
Commission was mistaken in its determination that Governor Connally was
struck by the same first bullet or bullets which wounded the President. This
evidence consists of the Governor's testimony, his wife's, that of all the
eyewitnesses to the assassination, the Zapruder films, the ballistics
evidence with respect to Commission Exhibit 399, and the anatomical findings
indicating an irregular missile had punctured Governor Connally's wrist.
III. The Head Wounds of President Kennedy
The complexity of these fractures and the fragments thus produced
tax satisfactory verbal description and are better appreciated in
photographs and roetgenograms which are prepared. (Autopsy Report,
W-541)
This is perhaps the most significant statement concerning the wounds in
the President's head. Commander James J. Humes, Director of Laboratories of
the Naval Medical School at Bethesda, who supervised the autopsy, made the
following comment in his testimony before the Commission:
Commander Humes. I have noted in my report that a detailed
description of the lines of these fractures and of the types of
fragments that were thus made were very difficult of verbal
description, and it was precisely for this reason that the
photographs were made so one might appreciate more clearly how
much damage had been done to the skull.
Mr. Specter. Were the photographs made available then, Dr. Humes,
when Exhibit 388 was prepared?
Commander Humes. No, sir.
Mr. Specter. All right. (II, H-351)
Still later in his testimony Commander Humes contradicts the autopsy
report and his former testimony as follows:
Commander Humes. I do not believe, sir, that the availability of
the X-rays would materially assist the Commission. (II, H-371)
Whereas in the autopsy report Commander Humes confessed the wounds of
the head "tax satisfactory description," he later admits that the artist who
portrayed the wounds of the head in Exhibit 388 was only given verbal
description to aid in the preparation of his drawings. He no longer believes
that "the X-rays would materially assist the Commission."
It was the Commission's job, inter alia, to ascertain the nature of the
head wounds. Commander Humes had the obligation to provide the X-rays and
photographs of these wounds which "tax satisfactory description." Drawings
based on verbal description were inadequate for the Commission's purpose.
Mr. Specter and his Commission fellow lawyers are too experienced in law to
accept the secondary evidence of the drawings in lieu of the best available
evidence, to wit, the X-rays and photographs.
To discuss the head wounds of the President without the X-rays and
photographs is to undertake this crucial work without the essential tools.
Therefore, our comments relating to these wounds, must be considered
tentative since the Commission's data are incomplete. If I do not mistake
the quality of our people, their pressure on the United States Government in
the exercise of their right and desire to know will ultimately compel the
production of this evidence. The Government in turn must recognize that the
production of this evidence is the sine qua non of credibility in this case.
Working under this handicap, we will be compelled to depart from the
official case record to include three newspaper comments in our evidence.
First, we will state the official version of the President's head wound:
The detailed autopsy of President Kennedy performed on the night
of November 22 at the Bethesda Naval Hospital led the three
examining pathologists to conclude that the smaller hole in the
rear of the President's skull was the point of entry and the large
opening on the right side of his head was the wound of exit. . . .
(W-86)
Colonel Finck testified: "President Kennedy was, in my opinion,
shot from the rear. The bullet entered in the back of the head and
went out on the right side of his skull . . . he was shot from
above and behind." (W-86)
Eyewitness Testimony of Right Side Entry?
Certainly one of the closest eyewitnesses was Mrs. John F. Kennedy.
Since President Kennedy's head was pitched into her by the force of the
bullet impact, and she held him for a while, it is probable that she saw her
husband's head wounds. Unfortunately we cannot know what she testified to
with respect to them. For in the midst of her testimony appears the cryptic
note: "Reference to wounds deleted" (V, H-180).
Why these references were deleted is a mystery. J. Lee Rankin, the
Commission's counsel, assured us that only classified material involving
national security was withheld from the transcript volumes (The Philadelphia
Inquirer, Nov. 20, 1964). As we have previously asked, what possible
connection can the wounds inflicted on President Kennedy by a lone assassin
have with national security? Only wounds indicative of a trajectory pointing
to an assassin other than the "lone assassin" would have any possible
significance for the most bloated concept of national security. Commission
censorship compels us to turn from Mrs. Kennedy to other eyewitnesses for
help concerning the President's head wounds.
Here again the Special Agents assigned to the protection of the
President offer their trained observations. Special Agent Samuel A. Kinney
was "the driver of the follow-up car" (XVIII, H-730). He reported the head
strike as follows:
I saw one shot strike the President in the right side of the head.
The President then fell to the seat to the left toward Mrs.
Kennedy. (XVIII, H-731)
Special Agent Kinney observed a hit on the right. He describes the
President as falling leftward after being hit on the right side of the head.
This conforms to what is shown by the Zapruder films which follow frame 313
(head impact picture) (XVIII, H-70-80).
Seated in the left rear of the Presidential follow-up car was Special
Agent George W. Hickey, who observed the following:
I heard what appeared to be two shots and it seemed as if the
right side of his head was hit and his hair flew forward. (XVIII,
H-765)
These agents thought they saw a hit on the right side of the
President's head. The evidence of the Zapruder film, which shows President
Kennedy's body being driven to the left, provides an indication of the
direction from which this death-dealing shot came. A body being propelled to
the left by a shot is indicative that the shot was fired from the right. A
hit from the right side (grassy knoll area), which is supported by the
statements of 51 eyewitnesses in the Commission's compilation of the
evidence, would satisfactorily account for the President being pushed over
to the left.
At Parkland Hospital, Texas State Trooper Hurchel Jacks saw the
President's body. He said about the head wound: "it appeared that the bullet
had struck above the right ear or near the temple" (XVIII, H-801). If there
was a hit on the right side, delivered from the right, then the left side of
the head would be the logical place to look for some exit point of the
missile or any part of it.
A Left Temporal Wound?
We must examine the eyewitness testimony to determine if there is
evidence of any outlet channel on the left portion of the President's head.
The New York Times of November 23, 1963 (page 5, columns 7 and 8)
carried a story entitled "10 Feet from President." This story refers to
Norman Similas, 34 years of age, from Willowdale, Toronto, Canada, who was
10 feet from the President when a bullet struck his head. He saw the
following:
I could see a hole in the President's left temple and his head and
hair were bathed in blood.
A.P. Photographer, James P. Altgens, who took the famous picture of
President Kennedy registering his first hit or hits, was on the south side
of Elm Street, to the left of the President. He said:
There was flesh particles that flew out of the side of his head in
my direction from where I was standing, so much that it indicated
to me that the shot came out of the left side of his head. (VII,
H-518)
The fact that the head hit caused particles to fly southward indicates
force having been applied from the north. This is evidence of a shot from
the grassy knoll through the right parietal and out the left temporal
region.
Altgens' testimony to the effect that flesh was blown out the left side
of the President's head is supported by two Dallas motorcycle policemen who
were riding to the left rear of the Presidential limousine.
Officer B.J. Martin in a deposition for the Commission, testified as
follows:
Mr. Martin. I was assigned to ride on the left-hand rear side of
President Kennedy.
Mr. Ball. And were you riding alone there, or was another officer
riding with you?
Mr. Martin. There was another officer riding with me, B.W. Hargis.
Mr. Ball. He was parallel to you on another motorcycle?
Mr. Martin. Yes, sir, we were.
Mr. Ball. Two motorcycles abreast?
Mr. Martin. Yes . . .
Mr. Ball. Was there any breeze that day?
Mr. Martin. Yes, there was.
Mr. Ball. From what direction?
Mr. Martin. I believe it was blowing out of the south-west at that
particular location. It seemed like we were going to turn into the
wind as we turned off of Houston onto Elm.
Mr. Ball. The wind was in your face?
Mr. Martin. Yes; the best I can recall. (VI, H-289-291)
Officer Martin then told of hearing the shots, going to Parkland
Hospital, and directing traffic there. While working traffic, Officer Martin
made a gory discovery:
Mr. Ball. You had a white helmet on?
Mr. Martin. Yes.
Mr. Ball. Did you notice any stains on your helmet?
Mr. Martin. Yes, sir; during the process of working traffic there,
I noticed that there were blood stains on the windshield on my
motor and then I pulled off my helmet and I noticed there were
blood stains on the left side of my helmet.
Mr. Ball. To give a more accurate description of the left side,
could you tell us about where it started with reference to the
forehead?
Mr. Martin. It was just to the left of what would be the center of
my forehead -- approximately halfway, about a quarter of the
helmet had spots of blood on it.
Mr. Ball. And were there any other spots of any other material on
the helmet there besides blood?
Mr. Martin. Yes, sir; there was other matter that looked like
pieces of flesh.
Mr. Ball. What about your uniform?
Mr. Martin. There was blood and matter on my left shoulder of my
uniform.
Mr. Ball. You pointed to a place in front of your shoulder, about
the clavicle region?
Mr. Martin. Yes, sir.
Mr. Ball. On the front of your uniform and not on the side?
Mr. Martin. No, sir.
Mr. Ball. That would be left, was it?
Mr. Martin. Yes, on the left side.
Mr. Ball. And just below the level of the shoulder?
Mr. Martin. Yes, sir.
Mr. Ball. And what spots were there?
Mr. Martin. They were blood spots and other matter.
Mr. Ball. And what did you notice on your windshield?
Mr. Martin. There was blood and other matter on my windshield and
also on the motor. (VI, H-292)
Officer Martin, therefore, while riding his motorcycle to the left rear
of the President was splattered with blood and material from the President's
head while riding into a wind. This also supports a shot from the right of
the President, through the right side and out the left side of the skull. We
will now focus on the testimony of the other policeman, Bobby W. Hargis, who
was riding his motorcycle abreast of Officer Martin.
Mr. Hargis. I was at the left-hand side of the Presidential
limousine.
Mr. Stern. At what part of the President's car?
Mr. Hargis. Well --
Mr. Stern. Front, or rear?
Mr. Hargis. Oh. Rear.
Mr. Stern. Riding next to Mrs. Kennedy?
Mr. Hargis. Right.
Mr. Hargis told of hearing two shots.
Mr. Stern. Did something happen to you personally in connection
with the shot you have just described?
Mr. Hargis. You mean about the blood hitting me?
Mr. Stern. Yes.
Mr. Hargis. Yes, when President Kennedy straightened back up in
the car the bullet hit him in the head, the one that killed him
and it seemed like his head exploded, and I was splattered with
blood and brain, and kind of a bloody water. It wasn't really
blood . . . (VI, H-294)
So Officers Martin and Hargis, riding on the left rear of the
Presidential limousine, had themselves and their vehicles splattered by
blood, brains, and fluids flying from the head of the fatally struck
President. It would be surprising indeed if a bullet fired from the rear,
impacting on the right rear of the President's head and exiting from the
right side of his read, had propelled material to the left and rear of the
limousine. Not being familiar with the Dealey Plaza physics applicable to
this unique Commission frame of reference, we imagine, for the time being,
that a bullet striking from the rear on the right side would have sent flesh
and blood flying out right front and not left rear.
The Left-Temporal Wound -- A Parkland Hospital Illusion?
Once the Presidential limousine arrived at Parkland Hospital, a related
mystery began to take shape immediately. On November 24th, 1963, The
Philadelphia Sunday Bulletin carried on page 3 an article describing how
Father Oscar L. Huber, pastor of the Holy Trinity Catholic Church of Dallas,
administered the last rites to the President. The article reports that
Father Huber:
wet his right thumb with holy oil and anointed a Cross over the
President's forehead, noticing as he did, a "terrible wound" over
his left eye.
The report of Dr. Robert N. McClelland of Parkland Hospital, who
attended the President, dated November 22nd, 1963 at 4:45 P.M., corresponds
exactly to what Father Huber had seen:
The cause of death was due to massive head and brain injury from a
gunshot wound of the left temple. (W-526, 527)
Father Huber was not called as a witness. Nor was Dr. McClelland asked
for an explanation of his designation of a wound in the left temple as the
cause of death. Apparently the Commission was not concerned with how
posterity would regard these two men for seeing a left temporal wound of a
"terrible" or "massive" nature when no such wound was supposed to be
present.
But, these two men were in good company. You will recall the Canadian,
Norman Similas, had seen: "a hole in the President's left temple." A.P.
photographer Altgens thought: "the shot came out of the left side of his
head."
Still others join Father Huber, Dr. McClelland, and Messrs. Altgens and
Similas in suffering from this curious visual disorder. Dr. Adolph Hartung
Giesecke, Jr. of Parkland Hospital was no less subject to illusion on this
score:
Mr. Specter. What did you observe specifically as to the nature of
the cranial wound?
Dr. Giesecke. It seemed that from the vertex to the left ear, and
from the browline to the occiput on the left-hand side of the head
the cranium was entirely missing.
Mr. Specter. Was that the left-hand side of the head, or the
right-hand side of the head?
Dr. Giesecke. I would say the left, but this is just my memory of
it. (VI, H-74)
This is strange. Still stranger is the fact that Dr. Marion Jenkins of
Parkland Hospital also made the identical report of a left-temporal wound:
Dr. Jenkins. I don't know whether this is right or not, but I
thought there was a wound on the left temporal area, right in the
hairline and right above the zygomatic process.
Mr. Specter. The autopsy report discloses no such development, Dr.
Jenkins.
Dr. Jenkins. Well, I was feeling for -- I was palpating here for a
pulse to see whether the closed chest cardiac massage was
effective or not and this probably was some blood that had come
from the other point and so I thought there was a wound there
also. (VI, H-48)
In summary, on the question of the possible existence of a
left-temporal wound, Dr. Jenkins "thought there was a wound there also."
Six people in all thought there was a wound in the left temporal area
of the skull. If these six people were mistaken, the Government can prove
them in error by producing the X-rays and photographs taken at the autopsy.
These six witnesses are backed up by the evidence of the splattering of
Officers Martin and Hargis who were to the left and rear of the Presidential
limousine. All of the above points directly to a hit from the right and not
from the rear of the President. The evidence against the Government theory
that the bullet which struck President Kennedy in the head was delivered
from the rear is considerable.
Let us now examine the evidence which the Commission offered to support
its hypothesis.
A Small Hole in the Back of the President's Head?
The Report states the following: "the smaller hole in the rear of the
President's skull was the point of entry" (W-86).
To prove the existence of such a small hole in the back of the
President's head was essential to the lone-assassin theory. For the
eyewitnesses at the scene testified to a hit on the right side of the skull
of the President, while he was facing forward. Such a hit is most consistent
with a bullet delivered from the north side of Elm Street, which position
was not that of the alleged assassin.
All the Government's proof of this small wound in the back of the
President's head amounts to the statements of the doctors who conducted the
autopsy, Drs. Boswell, Finck and Humes, whose report described a "small
occipital wound" (W-541). In addition, Special Agent Roy H. Kellerman
testified to the existence of a large wound on the right side of the head
and another wound in diameter equal to his little finger near the end of the
hairline.
Exactly where this wound was, according to Mr. Kellerman's testimony,
we will never know because of Mr. Specter's confusing designation of the
wound as follows:
Mr. Kellerman. Entry into this man's head was right below that
wound.
Mr. Specter. Indicating the bottom of the hairline immediately to
the right of the ear about the lower third of the ear?
To the right of the right ear represents a point off the head.
Therefore, Mr. Specter has obliterated any possible support Mr. Kellerman
was providing for the Government's contention that there was a small wound
in the occipital region.
Only the three autopsy doctors mention this wound. Many are asked about
it. No one else confirms its existence. Let us review the parade of
witnesses among whom Mr. Specter fished for some support for the existence
of this small wound. The fishing was poor, to say the least.
Dr. Ronald Coy Jones told Mr. Specter that he saw "what appeared to be
an exit wound in the posterior portion of the skull" (VI, H-56). Dr. Jones
was of no help. He saw an exit wound where the Commission wanted an entry
wound.
Dr. Marion Thomas Jenkins told Mr. Specter plenty about a massive wound
in the left temporal region, but he could cast little light on the wound
which Mr. Specter sought to establish in the back of the skull:
Mr. Specter. Did you observe any wounds immediately below the
massive loss of skull which you have described?
Dr. Jenkins. On the right side?
Mr. Specter. Yes, sir.
Dr. Jenkins. No . . . (VI, H-48)
Dr. Gene Colman Akin, a Parkland physician, was able to advise Mr.
Specter about damage in the right occipital-parietal portion of the skull.
But what he told did not conform to the tiny, neat, little hole which the
Government needed to support a hit from the rear. Said Dr. Akin:
The back of the right occipital parietal portion of his head was
shattered, with brain substance protruding.
So, off to Dr. Paul Conrad Peters went the hapless Mr. Specter:
Dr. Peters. I noticed that there was a large defect in the
occiput. It seemed to me that in the right occipital-parietal area
that there was a large defect. There appeared to be bone loss and
brain loss in the area.
Mr. Specter. Did you notice any holes below the occiput, say, in
this area below here?
Dr. Peters. No. (VI, H-71)
Dr. Peters was willing to discuss a large hole in the
occipital-parietal area with Mr. Specter. But small holes no.
Dr. Adolph Hartung Giesecke, Jr. was the next doctor to have his memory
conjured by the pertinacious Mr. Specter. He told of a "very large cranial
wound" on "the left-hand side of the head." This was absolutely of no help
to Mr. Specter. who tried again:
Mr. Specter. Did you observe any other wound or bullet hole below
the large area of missing skull?
Dr. Giesecke. No . . . (VI, H-74)
Dr. Jackie Hansen Hunt, the anesthesiologist, did not see the wounds.
Nor more useful to the government theory was Dr. Kenneth Everett Salyer:
Mr. Specter. What did you observe with respect to the head wound?
Dr. Salyer. I came in on the left side of him and noticed that his
major wound seemed to be in his right temporal area, at least from
the point of view that I could see him, and other than that --
nothing other than he did have a gaping scalp wound -- cranial
wound.
Registered Nurse Diana Hamilton Bowron also failed Mr. Specter:
Mr. Specter. You saw the condition of his what?
Miss Bowron. The back of his head.
Mr. Specter. And what was that condition?
Miss Bowron. Well, it was very bad -- you know.
Mr. Specter. How many holes did you see?
Miss Bowron. I just saw one large hole.
Mr. Specter. Did you see a small bullet hole beneath that one
large hole?
Miss Bowron. No, sir. (VI, H-136)
Dr. Malcolm Oliver Perry can't help Mr. Specter either:
Mr. Specter. What did you observe as to the President's head,
specifically?
Dr. Perry. I saw no injuries other than the one which I noted to
you, which was a large avulsive injury to the right
occipitoparietal area, but I did not do a minute examination of
his head.
Mr. Specter. Did you notice a bullet hole below the large avulsed
area?
Dr. Perry. No; I did not. (VI, H-11)
Can Dr. William Kemp Clark come to the aid of Mr. Specter? Here is his
testimony:
Dr. Clark. I then examined the wound in the back of the
President's head. This was a large, gaping wound in the right
posterior part, with cerebral and cerebellar tissue being damaged
and exposed. (VI, H-21)
Mr. Specter. Now, you described the massive wound at the top of
the President's head, with the brain protruding; did you observe
any other hole or wound on the President's head?
Dr. Clark. No, sir; I did not. (VI, H-25)
Dr. Clark did say, however, that the wound "could have easily been hidden in
the blood and hair" (VI, H-25).
Mr. Specter went on to Dr. Robert Nelson McClelland. Dr. McClelland was
free in his discussion of a large wound in the skull:
Dr. McClelland. As I took the position at the head of the table .
. . I could very closely examine the head wound, and I noted that
the right posterior portion of the skull had been extremely
blasted. It had been shattered, apparently, by the force of the
shot so that the parietal bone was protruded up through the scalp
and seemed to be fractured almost along its right posterior half,
as well as some of the occipital bone being fractured in its
lateral half, and this sprung open the bones that I mentioned in
such a way that you could actually look down into the skull cavity
itself and see that some of the cerebellar tissue had been blasted
out. (VI, H-33)
Well, Mr. Specter was looking for just a little hole in the occiput,
and this is what he got:
Mr. Specter. Did you observe any other wound on the back of the
head?
Dr. McClelland. No. (VI, H-33)
Dr. Charles Rufus Baxter represented another chance for Mr. Specter:
Dr. Baxter. The only wound that I actually saw -- Dr. Clark
examined this above the manubrium of the sternum, the sternal
notch. This wound was in temporal parietal plate of bone laid
outward to the side and there was a large area, oh, I would say 6
by 8 or 10 cm. of lacerated brain oozing from this wound, part of
which was on the table and made a rather massive blood loss mixed
with it and around it.
Mr. Specter. Did you notice any bullet hole below the large
opening at the top of the head?
Dr. Baxter. No; I personally did not. (VI, H-41-42)
With respect to his interrogation of the Parkland Hospital staff on the
small posterior head wound, Mr. Specter scored zero. Drs. Jones, Jenkins,
Akin, Peters, Giesecke, Hunt, Perry, Clark, McClelland, and Baxter said they
saw no small wound in the back of the President's head. Registered Nurse
Diana Bowron said no. None of the Parkland Hospital staff observed that
alleged hole.
Special Agent William Robert Greer also rejected Specter's suggestion.
He described a wound in the skull which was in the "upper right side" where
"The skull was completely . . . gone":
Mr. Specter. Did you observe any other opening or hole of any sort
in the head itself?
Mr. Greer. No, sir; I didn't. No other one. (II, H-128)
Special Agent Clinton J. Hill spoke of the following wound in the back
of the head:
Mr. Hill. The right rear portion of his head was missing. It was
lying in the rear seat of the car. His brain was exposed. There
was blood and bits of brain all over the entire rear portion of
the car. Mrs. Kennedy was completely covered with blood. There was
so much blood you could not tell if there had been any other wound
or not, except for the one large gaping wound in the right rear
portion of the head. (II, H-141)
So the Commission concluded, as it had to, in order to retain its
single-assassin-in-the-rear theory, that there was a small wound of entry in
the occiput of the President's skull. It is easy to accept the existence of
such a wound. All one requires for such is the willingness to place absolute
faith in the Bethesda autopsy doctors, whose testimony offered by Commander
Humes is so patently self-contradictory on other points that it would have
been self-impeaching in any criminal or civil trial where the Court sought
to have evidence weighed impartially.
Without the X-rays and photographs, in the face of such tremendous
evidence against the existence of such a small hole in the back, the Warren
Commission lost all semblance of fact-finding when it argued the existence
of a small rear head wound. The evidence which was offered to it clearly
weighed overwhelmingly in the direction of a large and not a small wound in
the occipital-parietal area of the skull.
The Large Head Wound on the Right Side
The Warren Commission accepted as fact that: "the large opening in the
right side of his head was the wound of exit" (W-86). We can agree with the
Commission that there was a large wound in the "right side of his head." I
think that the reader, after reading the above, will agree with the autopsy
report with respect to this wound:
The complexity of these fractures and the fractures thus produced
tax satisfactory verbal description and are better appreciated in
photographs and roetgenograms which are prepared. (W-541)
We await the X-rays and photographs for fuller discussion of this
wound. But, presently, we will undertake to explore in a tentative fashion
the question of whether this wound was an entry or exit wound. Special
Agents Kinney and Hickey thought that this right parietal wound was the
point at which the President was struck, i.e., "in the right side of the
head."
Bethesda's doctors provided the Commission with testimony to the effect
that this large wound had a smaller hole below it and "the smaller hole in
the rear of the President's skull was the point of entry" (W-86). This
smaller wound was not described by any of the people who scrutinized the
President's head at Parkland. On the contrary, this "smaller" wound of
"entry" in the back of the President's head was described by the Parkland
people as follows: "an exit wound," "back . . . of his head was shattered .
. . ," "large defect in the occiput," "one large hole," "large avulsive
injury," and "a large, gaping wound."
Without a small entry wound, the Commission would have had to come up
with another entry for the wound of the "right side of his skull." For the
Commission to have concluded that the wound on the right side was a wound of
entry would have been to destroy the lone assassin theory on two scores.
Such an entry would have placed the assassin on the right side of the
President and not behind him. Such an entry, which created a massive wound
on entry, would have required bullets different from the copper jacketed
military-style bullets alleged to have been used by the supposed assassin.
Such a bullet has a very firm head and a high degree of stability.
The Government witnesses, by concluding that there was a small entry
wound below the large wound, decided that a soft-nose bullet could not have
caused this wound. Here is how Commander Humes reasoned:
Mr. Specter. Do you have an opinion, Dr. Humes, as to whether
there were dumdum bullets used specifically on this wound which
struck point "A" of the head, on 388?
Commander Humes. I believe these were not dumdum bullets, Mr.
Specter. A dumdum bullet is a term that has been used to describe
various missiles which have a common characteristic of fragmenting
extensively upon striking.
Mr. Specter. Would you characterize the resultant effect on this
bullet as not extensive fragmenting?
Commander Humes. Yes. Had this wound on point "A" on Exhibit 388
been inflicted by a dumdum bullet, I would anticipate that it
would not have anything near the regular contour and outline it
had. I also would anticipate that the skull would have been more
extensively disrupted and not have, as was evident in this case, a
defect which quite closely corresponded to the overlying skin
defect because that type of a missile would fragment on contact
and be much more disruptive at this point. (II, H-356)
Dr. Humes is able to argue that the bullet on the skull did not
"fragment on contact," because he uses the "smaller hole" in the back of the
head which no one at Parkland saw as the entry wound. If the Secret Service
Agent Kinney and Jacks were correct in their conclusion that the right
parietal region had been the point of entry, then the bullet did in fact
"fragment on contact."
Commander Humes thought that a dumdum bullet would have been much more
"disruptive." The reaction of Army Wound Ballistics Branch Chief Dr. Alfred
G. Olivier, was opposite to Dr. Humes. He thought that the wounds of the
skull were not consistent with what his prior 17 years of experience had
told him about stable bullets.
It [the test result] disclosed that the type of head wounds that
the President received could be done by this type of bullet. This
surprised me very much, because this type of stable bullet I
didn't think would cause a massive head wound, I thought it would
go though making a small entrance and exit. (W-87)
Lt. Col. Pierre A. Finck, Physician, U.S. Army, is something less than
candid on the question of the type of bullet likely to have inflicted the
head wounds:
Representative Ford. From your numerous case studies, is it
typical for a bullet, for a missile in this circumstance as shown
in 386 to fragment to the degree that this one apparently did?
Colonel Finck. Yes, it is quite common to find a wound of exit
much larger than the wound of entrance for weapons commonly used.
Representative Ford. But is it typical for the missile to fragment
to the degree that this one did as shown in Exhibit 388?
Colonel Finck. Yes; it is.
Representative Ford. Is it typical to find only a limited number
of fragments as you apparently did in this case?
Colonel Finck. This depends to a great degree on the type of
ammunition used. There are many types of bullets, jacketed,
nonjacketed, pointed, hollow-noses, hollow-points, flatnose,
roundnose, all these different shapes will have a different
influence on the pattern of the wound and the degree of
fragmentation.
Representative Ford. That is all. (II, H-384)
With respect to the amount of fragmentation of the missile, Secret
Service Agent Roy H. Kellerman, who viewed the X-rays of the skull at
Bethesda on November 22, 1963, has the following to say:
Mr. Specter. Now, did you observe during the course of the
autopsy, bullet fragments which you might describe as little
stars?
Mr. Kellerman. Yes, of the numerous X-rays that were taken mainly
of the skull, the head. The reason for it was that through all the
probing which these gentlemen were trying to pick up little pieces
of evidence in the form of shell fragments, they were unable to
locate any. From the X-rays when you placed the X-rays upon the
light the whole head looked like a little mass of stars, there
must have been 30, 40 lights where these pieces were so minute
that they couldn't be reached. However, all through this series of
X-rays this was the one that they found, through X-rays that was
above the right eye, and they removed that.
Mr. Specter. How big a piece was that above the right eye, would
you say?
Mr. Kellerman. The tip of a matchhead, a little larger. (II,
H-100)
Mr. Kellerman's testimony indicated that the bullet which entered
President Kennedy's head splintered into dust-like fragments. This is hardly
what one would have expected from a copperjacketed, stable bullet. The
Government experts, saved by the small hole in the occipital region, were
able to argue that the entry wound of the bullet was regular and small. If
it were not for this unconfirmed wound, invisible to all the Parkland
Hospital personnel, the large wound of the right parietal area of the skull
would have been quite consistent with a frangible, soft-nose bullet,
smashing on impact and thereby maximizing the area of damage on entry.
Summary
The Commission's findings have to be considered in themselves
inconclusive, as based on insufficient and secondary evidence. There is some
credible evidence of a right side entry in the President's head. Six people
asserted there was a left-temporal wound, among whom were three doctors who
had examined the President at Parkland. The existence or non-existence of
the left temporal wound can only be settled by the Bethesda photographs.
Testimony of the Bethesda doctors concerning the existence of a small entry
wound in the back of the President's head can hardly be considered
conclusive in light of the numerous medical experts of Parkland who
uniformly deny seeing such a wound.
We cannot rule out the possible role of a dumdum bullet as having
caused the wounds on President Kennedy's head. Whether such a bullet did
inflict the fatal wounds on Kennedy is dependent upon whether the small hole
in the occiput of the President did in fact exist and whether it was in fact
a wound of entry. If the right-parietal wound was the wound of entry, this
would indicate that the fatal bullet was fired from the right of the
President and not the rear, and was a dumdum bullet, not a copperjacketed
military bullet of the type allegedly employed by a gunman stationed in the
Texas School Book Depository Building. Definite conclusions concerning the
head wounds must await the issuance of the crucial X-rays and negatives made
at Bethesda.
Notes
-------------------------
1. Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President
Kennedy, p. 19. United States Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1964.
References to this Report are designated by "W" followed by page
number.
[The above title is also known as The Warren Report. See a complete
online copy of The Warren Report at History Matters.]
2. Hearings Before the President's Commission on the Assassination of
President Kennedy, Vol. VI, p. 10. United States Printing Office,
Washington, D.C., 1964. References to the Hearing Notes Report and the
Commission Exhibits are designated by the volume number, then an "H"
followed by page number.
[See a complete online copy of The Warren Commission Hearing and
Exhibits at History Matters. The Warren Commission published 26 volumes
of hearings and exhibits within a few months after issuing its Report.
Volumes 1-5 are hearings conducted by the Commission members in
Washington DC. Volumes 6-15 are hearings conducted by staff attorneys
on location in Dallas, New Orleans, and other locations. Volume 15 also
contains an index to names and exhibits. Volumes 16-26 contain
photographed Commission Exhibits, usually abbreviated to CE (i.e., CE
399).]
http://ratical.org/ratville/JFK/HWNAU/