13. THE DOCTORS AND THE AUTOPSY

As the devil can quote the Scriptures, so one can quote the medical evidence to almost any end.

"Front entrance" was the dirtiest word in the Commission's medical lexicon. Front entrance describing a wound eliminated Oswald and definitely established conspiracy. Either of these eventualities would destroy the preconception of the Commission and ruin the Report which has, as its most basic conclusion, that Lee Harvey Oswald alone was the assassin. Had the President received a wound from the front after passing the window in which the Commission said Oswald was perched in a sniper's nest, then, obviously, Oswald could not have been alone.

The immediate reaction of the spectators and the sheriff's deputies, in the favorite phrase of the Report when it wants to state as fact something it cannot prove, was "consistent with" a shot from the front. The crowd ran to the area to the west of the building. The chief of police, in his first order, directed an investigation of this same area. Several witnesses already quoted saw puffs of smoke coinciding with the sound of a shot. Even the Zapruder movies show the President looking toward that area. This was clearly evident in the frames immediately before Zapruder's film got fuzzy, just before the Presidential car passed from his view behind the road sign.

To the initial reaction of the spectators at the scene was added the opinions of the doctors at Parkland Hospital. They considered the anterior neck wound one of entrance. Experienced nurses held the same opinion. Gunshot wounds seem to be quite common in Dallas, and these medical people had more than the average experience in tending gunshot victims.

Skillful newsmen from all over the country and the world were in Dallas, and they had the story of a lifetime. They knew how to follow it and did, milking every detail from the unwary doctors, who had never had to cope with such a situation. At least one doctor left town in an unsuccessful effort to evade the press. Initially, however, because the doctors believed the anterior neck wound had come from the front, they said so without reluctance. They were, of course, widely quoted and thoroughly recorded. The working press included large delegations of well equipped representatives of radio and television. The reporters knew their business, and they got the information they wanted.

For the doctors involved, it seems a safe assumption that the unhappiest days of their lives only began with their valiant but fruitless efforts to save the President. They tried, desperately, even though the testimony reveals not a single one who declared he ever thought there was a chance. That Governor Connally is alive today is a tribute to medical science. He had a total of three wounds, one of which went through his chest, another through his wrist. The doctors performed nobly as doctors. They deserved better than the hornet's nest they found themselves in when the government decided the anterior neck wound could not be one of entrance.

Perhaps this wound was not one of entrance. Perhaps the doctors were wrong because, as some of them and the Commission suggested, with the death of the President, they had no occasion to look further than the front of his neck and the top of his head.

Had there been an autopsy in Texas, as Texas law apparently demands, there might have been no questions. The Report makes no conclusions about the abuse of the Texas authorities who immediately protested the plan to remove the President's body. A number of witnesses expressed a sensitive and proper regard for the feelings of Mrs. Kennedy. But this, in the well used phrase, is a government of law, not of men. The law applies equally to the least and the mightiest. Or at least it is supposed to and should.

Quoting the testimony and citing the actions of those who forcibly removed the President's body would serve only to embarrass public servants whose dedication is above question and whose intentions should not be reproached. The record is clear. The removal was accomplished. The autopsy was conducted, beginning about 8 o'clock that night, at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, just across the geographic borders of Washington. The top pathological experts of the Army and Navy Medical Centers conducted it. They were also accredited experts in forensic medicine. Their scientific standing is quite high. They appeared before the Commission and explained their findings.

If anyone thought of making a gesture toward Texas by inviting a Texas official to observe or participate, the Report does not record it. It would have been at least a token of respect for the rights and laws of the state. But it is doubtful if the results would have differed. That autopsy will be analyzed in this chapter in a manner it has thus far publicly escaped.

As soon as the nightmare of the emergency had passed in Parkland Hospital, Charles Jack Price, the administrator, instructed all those who had in any way participated in the treatments to prepare statements of what they had seen and done. Appendix IX (R516-37) includes eight statements by doctors relating to efforts on behalf of the President, three on the Governor and one on Oswald.

There are, as might be expected, contradictions and conflicts in these statements as they relate to the non-medical aspects, such as time. The same conflicts exist, for example, in the reports of the Secret Service about the same quite important question. The medical and protective personnel each made reports placing the time of the President's arrival at the hospital at both 12:38 p.m. and four or five minutes later. Because of the high speed at which the motorcade proceeded to the Hospital, the later time might be construed as evidence it had left the assassination scene later. In turn, this would have meant the assassination occurred later, and Oswald would have left the Depository before the assassination. The earlier time appears accurate and without indication of guile, even though the very first document in this Appendix, a statement by Dr. Kemp Clark, in its very first sentence, declares "The President arrived in the Emergency Room at exactly 12:43 p.m. . . ." (R516).

The Commission attracted suspicion to itself with this first document because of the strange manner in which it was reproduced. In the facsimile, the first page appears to have had about half cut off. As it appears, it was addressed to no one and was signed by no one. The third page bears the typed number "2" at the top. The first page and the second and third pages appear to have been typed on different machines.

Dr. Charles J. Carrico, the first physician to see the president identified the anterior neck wound as a "small penetrating wound," or one of entrance (R519). This wound was soon enlarged in the performance of a tracheotomy, one of the procedures employed in the effort to save the President. Carrico's report was dated 4:30 p.m. November 22, 1963.

Cause of death was from the massive head injury. One different explanation was given by Dr. Robert N. McClelland (R526-7), whose report, dated 15 minutes later than Carrico's, declared "cause of death was due to massive head and brain injury from a gunshot wound of the left temple." It is perhaps significant that, in his subsequent appearance before the Commission, Doctor McClelland was not asked to retract this conclusion, and he reaffirmed his statement (6H30ff.).

One by one the doctors were called before the Commission's staff and subjected to great persuasion in an effort to get them either to retract their initial medical opinion that the anterior neck wound was one of entrance, to say that they never thought it was a wound of entrance, or to say it could have been either an entrance or an exit wound. One of the devices used by the Commission's questioners was to state a hypothetical question based in part, or seemingly based in part, on the unpublished autopsy report. With this hypothesis, the doctors were in a position to make the kind of response the Commission so desperately wanted. In formulating this question, however, the interrogators may have taken advantage of the doctors. One of the assumptions the doctors were asked to make had to do with the type of bullet, which was but a presumption. Another was that the projectile was of "high velocity." None of the doctors qualified himself as a ballistics expert, and some were careful to point out that they were not. The testimony of the FBI firearms expert Robert A. Frazier, previously quoted, was that the presumed bullet was not a high velocity bullet.

Special pressure was applied to Dr. Malcolm Perry. It was undignified and abusive. Putting him in the middle of nonsense about the unavailability of tape recordings of his interviews, promising to send him copies of his statements and getting him to promise he would reply in a letter, not under oath, was neither fair nor responsible. None of this or any of the related proceedings is reflected in the Report.

When the runaround began to annoy even members of the Commission, Congressman Ford had asked if all the news media had not made tape recordings of their interviews with the doctors, as, of course, radio and television had. In a largely incoherent manner, Doctor Perry replied, "This was one of the things I was mad about, Mr. Ford . . . I know there were recordings made, but who made them I don't know" (3H375). Later the subject was resumed with as much avoidance of the available clippings from the papers. The reason given for the unavailability of the tapes is that in four months, by the time of the doctor's appearance, the media had not catalogued them. However, Doctor Perry was not shown the newspaper accounts, either.

The delicacy of this question is illustrated by the circumspection with which it was handled. Dulles suggested to the lawyers, "if you feel it is feasible, you send to the doctor the accounts of his press conference or conferences," and to the doctor, "if you are willing, sir, you could send us a letter . . . pointing out where you are inaccurately quoted . . . Is that feasible?"

Here we have a picture of vigorous pursuit of fact, Commission-style. At issue were two important things: Whether the wound was one of entrance, which would destroy the Commission's entire case, and the honesty of its more important witnesses. The passengers on the bus with Oswald on his Mexican trip were searched out all over the world. Oswald's pubic hairs were even subjected to scientific analysis. But the Commission, which already had at least a considerable if not a complete file of clippings, and had not been able to get the tape recordings, asked if as a voluntary matter the doctor would "send us a letter" -- not even under oath -- commenting on the media account of this, one of the most important questions before the Commission.

Specter offered a further explanation, saying, ". . . we have been trying diligently to get the tape records of the television interviews, and we were unsuccessful. I discussed this with Dr. Perry in Dallas last Wednesday, and he expressed an interest in seeing them, and I told him we would make them available to him prior to his appearance, before deposition or before the Commission, except our efforts at CBS, and NBC, ABC and everywhere including New York, Dallas and other cities were to no avail. . . . The problem is they have not yet catalogued all the footage which they have, and I have been advised by the Secret Service, by Agent John Howlett, that they have an excess of 200 hours of transcripts among all the events and they just have not catalogued them and could not make them available."

These will be catalogued "and the Secret Service is trying to expedite the news media to give us those, and it was our thought as to the film clips, which would be the most direct or the recordings which would be the most direct, to make comparisons between the reports in the news media and what Dr. Perry said at that time, and the facts which we have from the doctors through our depositions and transcript today" (3H377ff.).

It never happened. Whether or not the only too abundant quotations showing the doctors called the anterior neck wound one of entrance were ever collected and sent to Doctor Perry, and if they were, what or if he replied, is not in the Report. Yet this was a most fundamental conflict about the most fundamental question before the Commission. If the wound had been one of entrance, then it could not have come from a bullet fired from the sixth-floor window.

There is nothing in which this Commission could have had any proper interest that any responsible people in the country would have denied. Had they, and the Report indicates not a single instance in which this happened, the Commission had the power of subpoena, meaning the power to compel attendance and the production of evidence. It could also have initiated punishment against offenders.

As the record of Doctor Perry's appearance before the Commission stands, the media agencies failed to make available to the Commission the tapes of their interviews with him. This is a serious reflection on the cooperativeness, therefore, the patriotism and public spirit, of radio and television networks and stations. Unless this is true, such a record should not stand in history. Independent information is not available. However, the failure of the radio and television people to supply what the Commission's agents said they would just is not believable.

Most of the doctors and nurses, some of whom did not retreat from their initial medical opinions, were not called before the Commission itself. When Governor and Mrs, Connally appeared, they were accompanied by two of the doctors who operated on him. Conspicuously absent was Dr. George T. Shires. It was he who was responsible for the governor during his period of post-operative recovery and treatment. Possibly excerpts from his deposition will indicate a reason for this strange omission.

Doctor Shires' testimony was taken March 23, 1964. It appears in Volume 6, pages 104-13.

He attended Governor Connally "for the first several days . . . approximately every 2 to 4 hours for an hour or so each visit and many times for 6 and 8 hours at a stretch." As to whether or not Connally really recalls what happened, he "definitely remembers turning after hearing the first shot, before he was struck with a bullet." Asked if the effects of the Governor's wounds would have affected his memory "as to what happened before the wound?" his response was unequivocal: "No . . . I think his memory for events up until the time he recalls falling over in the car is probably accurate." Asked if the Governor could have been struck by two bullets, he twice said, "I'm sure it's possible."

Could the President's non-fatal and all the Governor's injuries have been caused by a single bullet? He does not think so, but "I assume that it would be possible." In this context, he reiterated his belief in the Governor's account of being hit by the second bullet.

He even said it was possible for what the Commission described as a "high velocity" bullet to have hit the Governor's thigh without first hitting something else, as long as it was on a tangent -- and he is the one who took care of the thigh wound.

He was not, however, asked the distance between the point of entrance of the thigh wound and the point at which the fragment lodged and is still embedded in the Governor's thigh bone. On this important evidence, the Report is still silent and empty. The staff did not seem anxious for the Commission to have its members hear this testimony and another brief excerpt that will be quoted below.

Doctors Charles F. Gregory and Robert Roeder Shaw were present with the Connallys and testified. This testimony was taken on Tuesday, April 21, 1963, and appears in Volume 4, pages 101 through 149.

Testimony is not completely voluntary. Witnesses may respond to questions but are not allowed to narrate what they believe or want to say. In this case, the doctors were responding to questions from the Commission. The Commission formulated the questions as it saw fit, asking only those it wanted asked. It sought to build its prosecution-like case. Not asked were the questions in which it had no interest. The questioning of these doctors was a magnificent performance, a work of interrogating art. Hypothetical questions were mixed in with specific inquiries. On casual reading, this made the answers to the hypothetical questions seem as though they were specific answers to questions relating to what happened. The Report, in fact, mis- construes or perverts some of the answers to achieve this end, as will be seen.

Furthermore, there were several other assumptions presented to the doctors and Commission members as facts. Whether or not they were facts, they were not proved to be. The bullet discussed is described as a full-jacketed or military bullet with a muzzle velocity of 2,000 feet per second. As earlier chapters have shown, nobody knows what type of bullet hit the Governor. It was presumed on the basis of the so-called "found" bullet about which no one really knows anything. It could, for example, have been planted in the hospital. No effort was made to detect bone, blood or tissue residues on it. An effort was made to clean it before any analysis was made.

Contrary to the already quoted testimony of Tomlinson, who discovered this bullet, during the testimony of Doctor Shaw, Assistant Counsel Specter said, ". . . for the record, that in the depositions which have been taken in Parkland Hospital, that we have ascertained, and those depositions are part of the overall records, that is the bullet which came from the stretcher of Governor Connally" (4H112).

The muzzle velocity is also presumed; it is that of a bullet of the "found" type. And the given velocity, according to the Commission's own expert, the FBI Agent Frazier, is not "high" velocity. These are some of the facts basic to an understanding of the medical and autopsy testimony and the meetings that may and may not be fairly and accurately drawn from it.

"The Governor's Wounds" are analyzed as the Commission wants them analyzed to justify the conclusions the Commission reached (R92-6). Although they try to cover themselves with cleverly evasive language, it is the Commission's belief that one bullet caused all the injuries except the fatal one in the President's head. In the pages that follow, excerpts from this section will be compared with the appropriate testimony. The reader will then be able to decide for himself whether the conclusions of the Report are consistent with the evidence.

On the angle of the Governor's chest wounds: ". . . the Commission watched Dr. Shaw measure with a caliper an angle of declination of 25 degrees from the point of entry on the back to the point of exit on the Governor's chest" (R93).

The angle as measured on the Governor does not necessarily have meaning. For it to represent the angle of the shot and indicate the possibility of the bullet inflicting further injury, the relationship of his chest to the rest of his body is critical. Doctor Gregory testified the angle could be very simply altered by the motion of a few degrees (6H102) .

An angle of 45 degrees was postulated by the Commission itself (4H127). However, the Commission's own belief that one bullet caused all non-fatal injuries cannot support a 45-degree angle of declination. The autopsy report (R538-46), where the exact angle of the path of the bullet through the President's body could have been measured, fails to mention it (R541-2, 543). The angle of the shot is given at 20 degrees or a little more by the FBI (106f.).

"The bullet which caused the Governor's thigh injury and then fell out of the wound had a 'very low velocity' . . ." (R95).

". . . indicated a tangential wound or the penetration of a larger missile entering at low velocity and stopping after entering the skin. X-ray examination disclosed a tiny metallic fragment imbedded in the Governor's leg . . . the wound was not caused by the small fragment but resulted from the impact of a larger missile" (R93).

This bullet did not "stop after entering the skin." The fragment was not only in the leg; it was and still is "imbedded in the body of the femur," the bone (R535). The wound was not caused by the impact, which suggests mere contact. It was caused by a bullet going about three inches inside the leg. The Report is careful not to indicate this distance

The hospital report on treatment of Governor Connally's thigh injury (R535), listing three doctors as assistants to Doctor Shires alone, reads, "Following this the missile wound was excised and the bullet tract was explored. The missile wound was seen to course through the subcutaneous fat and into the vastus medialus. The necrotic fat and muscle were debrided down to the region of the femur . . ."

"All the evidence indicated that the bullet found on the Governor s stretcher could have caused all his wounds" (R95). "Found on the Governor's stretcher," as we have seen, is not consistent with the testimony of the man who discovered it.

"Ballistic experiments and medical findings established that the missile which passed through the Governor's wrist and penetrated his thigh had first traversed his chest" (R94) .

Translated into simpler and more direct language, the Report here is stating a number of things. One is that by firing bullets of the presumed character into mockups involving dead animals in experiments, the Commission obtained proof of what did happen to the Governor. Indications, perhaps, but these experiments could have "established" nothing but possibility. There are no "findings" in the medical reports other than the nature of the injuries.

"In their testimony, the three doctors who attended the Governor at Parkland Hospital expressed independently their opinion that a single bullet had passed through his chest- tumbled through his wrist and with very little exit velocity, leaving small metallic fragments from the rear portion of the bullet; punctured his left thigh after the bullet had virtually lost all of its velocity; and had fallen out of the thigh wound" (R95).

Before the testimony is quoted, it should be pointed out that either more or less than three doctors "tended" the Governor at the hospital. After the surgery, Doctor Shires attended him. During the operations, there were a number of other doctors assisting. Doctor Shires alone had three assistants.

The Report refers to no fragments elsewhere. Doctor Shires says there is still one in the chest.

Replacing "had" with "could have" would be closer to the speculations elicited from the doctors.

Although the Report is, as usual, careful to be evasive about identifying this bullet, the reference to fragments from the rear portion limits this to the specific so-called "found" bullet, Exhibit 399. This is the bullet the Report describes as "unmutilated"; therefore, any fragments had to come only from the trailing surface, otherwise, the bullet would have shown mutilation.

Doctor Gregory was careful in this exchange to specify he was addressing himself to

Specter's hypothesis:

"Mr. Specter. . . . If that missile were a 6.5 millimeter bullet that fired from a weapon having a muzzle velocity of approximately 2,000 feet per second and at approximately 160 to 250 feet, if you assumed a trajectory with an angle of decline approximately 45 degrees?

Dr. Gregory. I believe that the three wounds could have occurred from a single missile under those specifications.

Mr. Specter. Assume, if you will, another set of hypothetical circumstances; that the 6.5 millimeter bullet traveled at the same muzzle velocity, to wit, 2,000 feet per second, at approximately 165 feet between the weapon and the victim, struck the President in the back of the neck passing through the large strap muscles, going through a fascia channel, missing the pleural cavity, striking no bones and emerging from the lower anterior third of the neck, after striking the trachea. Could such a projectile have then passed into the Governor's back and inflicted all three or all of the wounds which have been described here today?

Dr. Gregory. I believe one would have to concede the possibility, but I believe firmly that the probability is much diminished.

Mr. Specter. Why do you say that, sir?

Dr. Gregory. I think that to pass through the soft tissues of the President would certainly have de celerated the missile to some extent. Having then struck the Governor and shattered a rib, it is further decelerated, yet it has presumably retained sufficient energy to smash a radius (wrist). Moreover, it escaped the forearm to penetrate at least the skin and fascia of the thigh, and I am not persuaded that this is very probable. I would have to yield to possibility. I am sure that those who deal with ballistics can do better for you than I can in this regard.

Mr. Specter. What would your assessment of the likelihood be for a bullet under those hypothetical circumstances to have passed through the neck of the President and to have passed through only the chest of the Governor without having gone through either the wrist or into the thigh?

Dr. Gregory. I think that is a much more plausible possibility or probability." (4H127)

Indicating what happened to part of the Governor's chest, Doctor Gregory said, the "fifth rib was literally shattered by the missile (6H101), . . . Also, the rib had because of being broken and losing some of its substance has taken a rather inward position in relation to the fourth and the sixth ribs on either side" (4H106). They also subsequently learned the rib had been fractured "due to the rib being struck and bent." (4H106)

When asked to speculate on whether the weight of the fragments made the single bullet theory possible, Doctor Gregory replied, ". . . as far as I could tell, . . . it could be virtually intact, insofar as mass is concerned, but probably distorted" (6H99).

On the same theorizing, Doctor Gregory said of the wrist wound if caused by that bullet, "The only way this missile could have produced this wound in my view, was to have entered the wrist backwards" (4H121).

When shown the "found" bullet and asked if it could have inflicted all the Governor's wounds if it had not first hit the President, Doctor Shaw declared, "As far as the wounds of the chest are concerned, I feel that the 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 that make it difficult to believe that the same missile could have caused those two wounds. There seem to be more than three grains of metal missing as far as -- I mean in the wrist" (4H113).

There were other fragments, unmentioned in the Report (R93). The following exchange

occurred in a deposition-taking, not before the Commission members:

"Mr. Specter. Do you have any knowledge as to what fragments there were in the chest, bullet fragments, if any?

Dr. Shires. No, again except from postoperative X-rays, there is a small fragment remaining, but the initial fragments I think Dr. Shaw saw before I arrived." (6H111)

Doctor Gregory said, ". . . but these are some of the reasons why I would believe that the missile in the Governor behaved as though it had never struck anything but him" (6H103).

The testimony of autopsy surgeon Humes was much stronger. He found it "most unlikely" that the "found" bullet could have caused Governor Connally's wounds (2H374). It was "extremely unlikely" that it could have been the bullet "to lodge in the Governor's thigh," in the unproven language of the question (2H376). "I cannot conceive" of the fragment coming from that bullet.

Asked, "Do you have any opinion as to what, in fact, did happen?" Doctor Shaw replied, "Yes, from the pictures, from conversation with the Governor and Mrs. Connally, it seems that the first bullet hit the President in the shoulder and perforated the neck, but this was not the bullet that Governor Connally feels hit him; and in the sequence of films I think it is hard to say that the first bullet hit both of these men almost simultaneously." He was "influenced a great deal by what Governor Connally knew about his movements in the car at this particular time" (4H114). The doctor's belief was that this part of the Zapruder film was frame 236, "give or take one or two frames" (4H115).

Still not saying only a single bullet was involved, Doctor Gregory gave a similar opinion of the location in the Zapruder film the Governor could have been hit: ". . . It seems to me in frames marked 234, 235, and 236, Governor Connally was in a position such that a single missile entered his back, could have passed through his chest, through his right forearm, and struck his thigh. That is a possibility" (4H128).

This is consistent with the testimony of the Connallys and FBI photographic expert Shaneyfelt, previously quoted. It is not consistent with the conclusion of the Commission, which was anxious not to have to account for an additional bullet. Of course, the Commission was not consistent with itself, for it declined to apply to President Kennedy's reaction or lack of reaction the reasoning it employed in refusing to believe that Governor Connally insisted did happen. It said of the Governor, "There was, conceivably, a delayed reaction between the time the bullet struck him and the time he realized that he was hit, despite the fact that the bullet struck a glancing blow to a rib and penetrated his wrist bone" (R112).

The Report reaches this conclusion in contradiction of its experts.

Doctor Shaw informed the Commission that "in the case of a wound which strikes a bony substance such as a rib, usually the reaction is quite prompt" (4H116). After he gave this opinion, Mr. McCloy asked him if perhaps "the actual bullet could not have hit the rib at all but it might have been the expanding flesh that would cause the wound or the proper contusion, I guess you would call it on the rib itself?" Doctor Shaw's polite reply was, "I think we would have to postulate that the bullet hit the rib itself . . ." (4H116).

This rib had been, by the various medical descriptions, shattered, splintered, pushed out of place, and fractured. By flesh? Perhaps McCloy was expressing the desperation of the Commission for any solution requiring no more than three bullets. On the other hand, the President's first injury, according to the Commission, struck no bone. The President had reacted, visibly.

Doctor Shaw was not alone, however. Doctor Humes was asked, "Could that missile have traversed Governor Connally's chest without having him know it immediately and instantaneously?" He replied, ". . . I am sure he would be aware something happened to him . . ." (2H376). This was on March 16, 1964, one of the Commission's earliest hearings. Their knowledge on this came early. Humes's testimony was endorsed by the two other autopsy surgeons who were present.

Commissioner McCloy's desperation was quite reasonable. Whether or not President Kennedy could have had or did have a delayed reaction, he had reacted strongly before frame 225 of the Zapruder film. Governor Connally, when he was not obscured from the camera by the large road sign, could not have been hit until after the President had reacted to his first injury. Prior to the point in the film where his body was in a position for one bullet to have inflicted all of the Governor's wounds, about frame 235, the Governor showed no reaction. At this point in the films, he did react visibly. It was his consistent belief, supported as already indicated, that it was at this point that he had, in fact, been injured -- subsequent to the President's injury, as his highly credible, expressive testimony showed.

When the Commission found its theory, that the Governor was not conscious and therefore could not have known what was happening, destroyed by the doctors, it had a choice between a "delayed reaction" theory and another bullet. The Governor could not have been hit at about frame 235 by a bullet that had hit the President before frame 225, for there is more than a half-second of time separating these frames. The Commission said the bullet traveled at a speed of 2,000 feet per second, and there was only about four feet between the two men.

Even worse, from the Commission's point of view, with the Governor hit at frame 235, the President had to have been struck before frame 210. The Governor could not have been in a position, as Frazier's testimony proved, to have allowed a single bullet to cause all his injuries. The absolute minimum of time between shots, if they all came from the same Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, was 2.3 seconds. With Zapruder's camera running at a speed of 18.3 frames per second, the President, therefore, would have been first injured at a point earlier than represented by frame 197. This is exactly what Zapruder's film and testimony showed, as detailed previously in the analysis of his film. Had the President not been struck before the sign hid him from Zapruder's camera, Zapruder could not have seen him injured in the manner he had so graphically described.

But until frame 210, the President could not have been hit from that alleged sixth-floor sniper's nest, according to the FBI's expert testimony. Therefore, the Commission had these alternatives: a) The Governor was hit by more than one bullet and did not know when he was first hit; if so, who fired this bullet? b) The Governor was hit by the same bullet that first struck the President during the interval the car was obscured behind the sign and had a "delayed reaction." c) There was more than one assassin.

The first and third alternatives demolish the Report. The Commission cannot prove that only three bullets were fired by its own reconstruction, even with the President and the Governor both hit by one of these three bullets. If it acknowledged there was more than one assassin, it acknowledged the entire Report is a fake.

When confronted with the statement by the experts that Governor Connally would not have had a delayed reaction to a bullet that hit his rib, McCloy saw the entire house of cards of one assassin, no conspiracy, about to be blown down.

The doctors were more than accommodating to the Commission. But asking them to say for the record that "expanding flesh" could have "shattered," "cracked" and "splintered" a rib and moved it out of place, leaving a fragment of the bullet in the chest, was asking too much.

It was, however, a measure of the Commission's early desperation.

During further theorizing, when asked if a bullet, not the "found" one, could have inflicted all the Governor's wounds, Doctor Shaw said it could have. Asked if a bullet, not the "found" one, could have inflicted the President's non-fatal injuries and all of the Governor's, Doctor Shaw

again agreed.

"Mr. Specter. When you started to comment about it not being possible, was that in reference to the existing mass and shape of the bullet 399?

Dr. Shaw. I thought you were referring directly to the bullet shown as Exhibit 399.

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 399 without causing more in the way of loss of substance to the bullet or deformation of the bullet." (4H114)

Earlier, after seeing the "found" bullet, Doctor Shaw was questioned by Allen Dulles:

"Dr. Shaw. . . . and we still do not know which bullet actually inflicted the wound on Governor Connally.

Mr. Dulles. Or whether it was one or two wounds?

Dr. Shaw. Yes.

Mr. Dulles. Or two bullets?

Dr. Shaw. Yes; or three.

. . .

Mr. McCloy. You have no firm opinion that all these three wounds were caused by one bullet?

Dr. Shaw. I have no firm opinion." (4H109)

These quotations from the doctors do not say what the Commission said in the language quoted from the Report. The doctors went further; with circumspection and exquisite politeness, they left a record for history on the conduct of federal agents. In discussing the puzzle faced by Governor Connally's doctors, Doctor Gregory told the Commission, "Here was our patient with three discernible wounds, and no missile within him of sufficient magnitude to account for them, and we suggested that someone ought to search his belongings and other areas where he had been to see if it could be identified or found, rather" (4H125) .

If this, the most obvious step, was ever taken by any federal agents, there is no reference to it in the Report. Nor is there any reflection of any effort by the Commission to find out why. Instead, the Governor's clothing was laundered and dry-cleaned, destroying any evidence it may have disclosed; again, without a question or an answer in the Report.

During their appearance with the Connallys, the doctors were shown several charts, the antecedents of which the Commission managed to avoid giving. These are Exhibits 679, 680 and 689. They do not appear in the Report but are in Volume 17, which almost no one has seen, on pages 336, 337 and 346. The charts are described as "body diagrams." They purport to show the locations of the Governor's injuries and the points of entry and exit. With the lack of clarity, if not absolute confusion, existing in the Report about the Governor's wounds, illumination by charts of this sort would seem a desirable addition.

Both doctors "corrected" these charts before the Commission. The front chest wound was placed too low and the back chest wound was placed too high. The points of entry and exist (sic) on the forearm had been reversed (4H100, 105, 112, 126). These "errors" represented a much steeper angle of declination than the Governor's chest wounds showed. On Exhibits 679 and 680, they came closer to the 45-degree angle the Commission postulated in the testimony quoted above. On Exhibit 689 the angle depicted measures 45 degrees. On this chart, the effect is to mis- locate the Governor's thigh wound by about a third of his entire thigh, placing it much too close to his torso.

This chart represents a sitting man with his body turned somewhat to the right and his arm to his chest. His forearm is at about right angles to his body, with the palm of his hand at about the midline. The palm is turned toward the chest.

A reading of the testimony of these doctors before the Commission leaves the impression that these are hospital charts. Exhibits 679 and 680 probably are printed or mimeographed hospital chart forms. The implication is that these filled-in charts are the hospital's representation of the location of the Governor's wounds.

Now at no time did any question exist about the exact points on the Governor's body where he had injuries. Had such doubts existed, the Governor was always available and his scars are clearly visible. They are as large as two inches in diameter. Nor was there ever any doubt of which were the wounds of entrance and exit. They are explicitly set forth in the hospital records on this surgery (R531-5). With the wrist wound, Doctor Gregory even described the material of which the Governor's suit was made from fibers deposited in the wound of entry by the missile (R533).

Tactfully, Doctors Gregory and Shaw placed no blame for the gross errors in these exhibits, errors that can hardly be regarded as inadvertent. The doctors seemed willing to allow the blame to fall on their shoulders, for these were the surgeons who operated on the chest and wrist and would have been expected to have done the diagraming.

Perhaps Doctor Shires, who devoted a large part of his time to the Governor's post-operative care and who tended the thigh wound during the emergency, would have been unwilling to assume responsibility even by implication for such a flagrant misrepresentation of fact. In any event, he did not appear before the Commission with the Connallys, a conspicuous omission, for he was the doctor in charge of the case.

A brief deposition had been taken from him in Dallas. At that time, not as a necessary part of his response to a question asking which federal agents had previously interviewed him, he

solved the riddle of the phony charts.

"It was two individuals from the Secret Service . . . They were given copies of our operative reports, statements . . . and subsequently one of these same two men from Secret Service returned and charted the entrance and exit wounds . . ." (6H112).

These artistic misrepresentations about the most material kind of evidence were not by the doctors. They were, in fact, in spite of the doctors. The doctors could and should have prepared the charts. There is only one reasonable explanation for this inexcusable deception. It was part of the government's effort not to reconstruct and solve the crime, not to develop evidence that would fit the crime, but to make the crime fit the "evidence."

The full measure of the extremes to which the "artist" went can be appreciated by the reader if he tries to duplicate the representation of Exhibit 689. In order to make it seem possible that one bullet could have caused all the Governor's wounds, this exhibit brazenly misrepresents both the position of the Governor's arm and the point at which the projectile entered the wrist. The entry was on the top of the wrist. For the arm to have been in the diagramed position, with the wound of entry in the upper part of the wrist, the Governor would have had to distort himself into an impossible position. Try it. With your forearm approximately parallel with the ground, try and put the back of your hand flat against the lower part of your chest, with the back of your hand at about the mid-line of your ribs. This is the position in which the Secret Service chart says the Governor was sitting, the position in which the happy politician was facing his constituents.

Unfortunately, these are not the only artistic misrepresentations of the wounds inflicted by the assassination. They exist in the autopsy.

The Autopsy

For reasons never explained, if the question was ever asked, the autopsy report was not released by the government until it appeared in the Report. This was more than ten months after the assassination. At that time it was smothered, as was almost everybody and everything, in the tremendous mass of the Report. The autopsy is not mentioned in the first chapter, entitled "Summary and Conclusions," which also served as a press release. It is barely mentioned in the chapter on the assassination, the shortest chapter, and is itself one of the shortest chapter sections in the entire Report. About a page is devoted to it (R59-60), including information not related to the autopsy itself. Not included, however, are the identifications and eminent qualifications of the autopsy surgeons.

Commander Humes was Director of Laboratories at the Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, Maryland, where the autopsy was performed. In addition to "responsibility of the overall . . . laboratory operations," he had two other broad areas of responsibility, anatomic and clinical pathology. He was trained by the armed forces in forensic pathology. Commander J. Thornton Boswell was his assistant at the autopsy and at the Medical Center, where he is also Chief of Pathology of the Naval Medical School. The third expert, Lieutenant-Colonel Pierre A. Finck, for the preceding three years had been Chief of the Wounds Ballistics Branch of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. He also had been certified by the American Board of Pathology in both pathology anatomy and forensic pathology.

All were widely and finely trained, both here and abroad. Their scientific credentials were the best. It is surprising that the Report did not see fit to note early the high caliber of the experts who performed the disagreeable function only if it is surprising that their work had been withheld from the public for ten months. Their testimony appears in Volume 2, pages 348-84.

When the President's body reached Bethesda at 7:35 p.m. the night of the assassination, all was in readiness. X-rays and photographs were taken immediately. Pathological examination was begun at about 8 p.m. It was concluded about 11 p.m. The autopsy disclosed two wounds in the President's head. One, presumed of entrance, was one-fourth by five-eighths of an inch in size. According to the Report, it was about an inch to the right and slightly above the bony protrusion at the center of the lower part of the back of the skull. The other, presumed of exit, was about five inches in diameter. It was difficult to measure accurately because of the multiple crisscross fractures radiating from it. Some of the missing pieces of the skull were returned from Dallas during the autopsy. They accounted for about three-quarters of the missing skull. Thirty to 40 "dust-like fragments of metal" were revealed by the X-rays of the head, "with a sizeable metal fragment lying just above the right eye." The FBI was given "two small, irregularly shaped fragments" that were recovered.

The section of the Report on "The Autopsy" fails to locate this, the fatal wound, with precision. It is described in the printed version of the autopsy in the Appendix (R538-46) in highly technical language. Colonel Finck prepared a chart illustrating it, part of Exhibit 397 (17H64), which also does not appear in the Report. The closest thing to a location (R86) is in a quotation from Commander Humes in the discussion of "The President's Head Wounds" (R86). The words there used are "a large defect in the upper right side of the skull" (R86). This section is described in "The Autopsy" as the place where the wounds are discussed fully. They are not.

There are photographs of Exhibits 385 and 386 in the Appendix of this book. Both are "artist's conceptions" prepared at the Naval Medical Center. Exhibit 385 is a view of the right side of the President's head. It shows no head wound; Exhibit 386, which portrays the President as hairless, is a rear view and represents only that portion of this fatal injury. These two exhibits (16H977) are also excluded from the Report, as is Exhibit 388 (16H984), another "artist's conception," which does show the right side of the President's head. Unlike Exhibits 385 and 386, which depict the head erect, this one portrays it bent forward, almost on the chest. It shows a hairline and the wound the Report says was of entrance. This wound is several inches above the hairline. Secret Service Agent Kellerman, present at the autopsy, located this wound as "in the hairline" (2H81).

Throughout the Report are references to the President's "neck" wound, also in rare unguarded moments referred to as a "back" wound. In this section the Report employs language more representative of the artist's conception, a wound "near the base of the back of President Kennedy's neck, slightly to the right of his spine." At the referred-to "full discussion" (R87-92), the same language is used, with the addition of technical language, "approximately 5½ inches (14 centimeters) from the tip of the right shoulder joint and approximately the same distance below the tip of the right mastoid process . . ." This would not exactly locate the bullet hole unless all the President's dimensions, especially the length of his neck, were known.

"The doctors traced the course of the bullet through the body and, as information was received from Parkland Hospital, concluded that the bullet had emerged from the front portion of the President's neck that had been cut away by the tracheotomy at Parkland."

This language is worthy of comment because it is typical of the skill with words utilized throughout the Report to give an impression of things the Commission cannot state as fact. The path of this bullet was not followed; it was projected. Humes testified, "Attempts to probe in the vicinity of this wound were unsuccessful without fear of making a false passage" (2H361). According to Secret Service Agent Kellerman, Finck did the probing (2H93) ". . . from the hole that was in his shoulder, and with a probe, and we were standing right along side 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 the entry in this man's shoulder.' " "Tracing," therefore, would hardly seem the most appropriate word. It was "concluded" that the bullet exited from the front of the neck. It was neither traced there nor proved.

Information was not received from Parkland Hospital, in the sense implied here, of the voluntary passage of information from Dallas. It was sought, and not until the next day, after the examination was completed.

The "portion of the President's neck that had been cut away by the tracheotomy at Parkland" is described in the autopsy report as a "tracheotomy incision" (R541).

It is unfortunate that, in a Report on such a major event in United States history, language has to be used to distort and misrepresent and even to state untruths. A number of instances have been cited. It is no more justifiable than the willingness of the Commission to accept incontrovertibly false sworn statements or its capacity to avoid asking the right questions.

A possibly major conflict in testimony about the most material kind of fact relates to the autopsy itself. Doctor Humes testified (2H361-2) that he "had the impression" when he saw the anterior neck wound that a tracheotomy had been performed.

"To ascertain that point, I called on the telephone Dr. Malcolm Perry and discussed with him the situation of the President's neck when he first examined the President and asked him had he in fact done a tracheotomy which was somewhat redundant because I was somewhat certain he had." Perry confirmed that he had made the incision at the point of the wound. When asked by Assistant Counsel Specter when the conversation occurred, Humes replied, "I had that conversation Saturday morning, sir," the day after the assassination and the autopsy. Although Specter knew of two phone calls to Perry from Humes, later in the hearing he asked, "And at the time of your conversation with Dr. Perry did you tell Dr. Perry anything about your observations or conclusions?" Humes's reply was, "No, sir; I did not." The next words in the transcript are, "(a short recess was taken)" (2H371).

"That conversation," according to Doctor Perry, was two conversations, with Humes initiating both. His account of the first conversation is substantially in accord with Humes's. Of the second he said, "He subsequently called back -- at that time he told me, of course, that he could not talk to me about any of it and asked that I keep it in confidence, which I did . . ." (6H16). By the time Doctor Perry got before a second Commission hearing, in Washington, he said he could not remember the times of the conversations but gave the same account of them. His words in describing Humes's caution on this occasion were, "He advised me that he could not discuss with me the findings of necropsy," or autopsy, post-mortem examination (3H380).

Contradictory testimony, also under oath, was given by Doctor Kemp Clark, who reported a request from Doctor Perry following the phone conversations with Bethesda.

"Dr. Perry stated that he had talked to the Bethesda Naval Hospital on two occasions that morning and that he knew what the autopsy findings had shown and that he did not wish to be questioned by the press, as he had been asked by Bethesda to confine his remarks to what he knew from having examined the President, and suggested that the major part of this press conference be conducted by me." Doctor Clark thought two others, whom he named, were witnesses to this conversation (6H23).

Both the questioning and the answering during Doctor Perry's appearance in Washington were characterized by an indirection and evasiveness that was not short of professional. Exactly what he told the news media, a major part of the testimony, was never made clear. The circumlocutions were elaborate. He spoke of news stories the contents of which were never revealed. He was not confronted with this conflict on such a vital aspect of the autopsy, and the subject of his testimony. This raises not only the question of false swearing; it might even suggest Perry had received what amounted to orders from Washington. None of the others were asked about this conflict. The record should not be allowed to remain beclouded. If any punishable offense was committed by anybody, it should not be allowed to go unpunished.

There is no reference to the existence of this contradiction in the Report.

Of no interest to the authors of the Report or to the questioners is what must be regarded as a strange event in the course of this autopsy. The surgeons could not probe the so-called posterior neck wound. Humes had no doubt that the anterior incision was from a tracheotomy. With no missile, from the very beginning of the autopsy the experts were baffled. Yet at no time during the examination of no less a person than the President of the United States was the telephone call made. It was not made at the comparatively early hour of 11 p.m. when the post-mortem study had been completed. It was not made until the next day, and then it was repeated.

In the phone conversation, Humes learned that before the tracheotomy the wound was about a fifth of an inch in diameter. His note (17H29) reads, "size, 3-5 mm." His autopsy report gives the dimensions of the "exit" wound as "a 7x4 millimeter oval wound . . . 14 cm. (or 5½ inches) from the tip of the right acromion process and 14 cm. below the tip of the right mastoid process" (R540). The entrance wound, then, was larger than the exit wound in a gunshot injury in which no bones were struck. All the testimony indicates this would be quite an abnormal reversal of the usual relationship. After this bullet exited the front of the President's neck, it made a much larger hole in the Governor's back if, as the Report wants believed, it did strike the Governor. Connally's entrance wound was more than twice the diameter of the presumed exit wound. The President was only about four feet behind the Governor.

There are too many questions about the autopsy, the autopsy report and the manner in which both were handled by the Commission and in the Report itself. None should exist. This was not a Bowery bum; this was the President of the United States. Similarly, the Report should not be vague on the precise location of the President's wounds, especially with what it almost always termed his "neck" wound, but sometimes referred to as a back wound or one near the base of the back of the neck. The latter description is accurate, but without meaning. Was it above or below the base of the neck? The difference is vital in the Commission's reconstruction of the crime. The unvarying evasiveness is in itself highly suspicious.

The President's entire body was X-rayed and a number of photographs were taken before the examination began. During the examination, additional X-rays and photographs were made (2H349). All were given immediately to the Secret Service. The pictures were not available for use during the examination. Neither the pictures nor the X-rays were available for subsequent use in the preparation of the artist's representations.

With this elaborate photographic record, why should there ever have been any question about the exact location of each wound? These pictures were not offered for the Commission's record. Why? When the entire "solution" of the crime hinged upon reconstructions in which the number of shots and the location of wounds were vital and the angle of declination was important, why should testimony have depended upon recollections and second-hand sketches based on recollections? Even the autopsy surgeons testified without benefit of any of this unquestionable data. For unexplained reasons, they even anticipated this!

"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. (H. A.) Rydberg . . . a medical illustrator in our command at Naval Medical School" (2H349-50).

Why should Humes have believed the pictures would not be available to the Commission? Was this Commission not to have access to everything? It could have, for it had the power of subpoena to overcome recalcitrance. He was, for some reason, so certain the Naval Medical authorities went to some trouble to prepare these mock-ups.

Throughout his testimony, Humes repeatedly referred to the greater desirability of the pictures. For example, ". . . the photographs would be more accurate as to the precise location . . ." (2H369); ". . . photographs are far superior to my humble verbal description . . ." (2H371); "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...." The Chairman asked him, ". . . if we had the pictures here . . . would it cause you to change any of the testimony you have given?" (2H372). What was Humes to say except that his testimony was correct? That is what he did, but he qualified it, saying, "To the best of my recollection, Mr. Chief Justice, it would not."

Commission Member McCloy wanted to know if any pictures of the President had been taken in Dallas. None were. Congressman Ford wanted to know what kind of pictures. Humes told him both black and white and color, never examined by personnel at Bethesda. Specter-affirmed the undeveloped negatives had been given to the Secret Service. Humes stated "the photographs were taken for the record and for other purposes." And at that point discussion of the pictures ended. If they were taken "for the record and for other purposes," these hearings certainly met both descriptions. At no point is there any indication why they were not used. The absence of the best available evidence was regarded by the Commission as a perfectly natural thing (2H372). How good Humes's "best" recollection may have been will soon be apparent.

In describing the manner in which the illustrator worked (he told the illustrator "to a certain extent from memory and to a certain extent from the written record" (2H370), Humes

expressed satisfaction with their accuracy. Asked, "And proportion?" he replied:

"Commander Humes. I must state these drawings are in part schematic. The artist had but a brief period of some 2 days to prepare these. He had no photographs from which to work, and had to work under our 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 to for him to do this without the photographs.

Mr. Specter. And what is the reason for the necessity for having the photographs?

Commander Humes. I think that it would be most difficult to transmit into physical measurements the -- by word the -- exact situation as it was seen to the naked eye. The photographs were -- there is no problem of scale there because the wounds, if they are changed in size or changed in size and proportion to the structures of the body and so forth, when we attempt to give a description of these findings, it is the bony prominences, I cannot, which we used as points of references, I cannot transmit completely to the illustrator where they were situated.

Mr. Specter. Is the taking of photographs and X-rays routine or is this something out of the ordinary?

Commander Humes. No, sir; this is quite routine in cases of this sort of violent death in our training. In the field of forensic pathology we have found that the photographs and X-rays are of most value, the X-rays particularly in finding missiles which have a way of going in different directions sometimes, and particularly as documentary evidence these are considered invaluable in the field of forensic pathology." (2H350)

Is it conceivable that what is routine in the field of forensic pathology was too good for the President of the United States or for the Commission that was to have and give the final word on his assassination?

After Humes divested himself of this burden, the Commission turned to the autopsy report. Humes said it "was prepared by myself, Dr. Boswell, and Dr. Finck, and completed within approximately 48 hours after the assassination..." (2H350).

It was not. It was prepared by Humes and then shown to the others. He did at least part of it at home, revised it, burned an earlier draft, and presumably had classified papers in his home while he was working on it (2H371).

He was shown Exhibit 397 and asked to identify it. "These are various notes in long-hand, or copies, rather, of various notes in long-hand made by myself, in part, during the performance of the examination of the late President, and in part after the examination when I was preparing to have a typewritten report made." (2H372) This was not the case, and Humes finally conceded it. There was but a single page containing 25 words of notes of his conversation with Dr. Perry, 15 pages of a rough draft of the autopsy report, two charts not in Hume's handwriting, and two certifications (17H29-48). Both certifications are dated November 24, 1963.

The first certification is by Humes and countersigned by the Commanding Officer of the Naval Medical School. It states that "all working papers associated with" the autopsy "have remained in my personal custody at all times" and were turned over to his superior with the hand- written draft. The second certified that he had "burned certain preliminary draft notes" relating to the autopsy.

If the Commission had any questions about the burning of any kind of historic papers, especially un-described "preliminary draft notes," the transcript does not reveal it (2H373).

The two charts Humes described as "notes actually made in the room in which the examination was taking place. I notice now that the handwriting in some instances is not my own, and it is either that of Commander Boswell or Colonel Finck." He was asked if he reviewed "all the markings on those papers and (noted) them to be present when you completed the autopsy report?" He replied, "yes, sir," adding that all the papers had at all times been "in my personal custody."

Specter asked Humes about a change on page 14 of the handwritten draft and he explained it as intended for clarification. There were no further questions about these changes (2H373). There certainly should have been.

One change Humes did not see fit to make was the part of his autopsy report on the President of the United States based upon a Washington Post newspaper story of November 23, 1963. It said, "Three shots were heard" and quoted a Dallas photographer as having seen "a rifle barrel disappearing into a window on an upper floor of the Depository.

Compared with this report about the rifle in the "upper floor" and the "three shots," the clarification becomes interesting. The rough draft stated the projectiles were fired from "a point behind and somewhat (illegible word) above a horizontal line to the vertical junction of the body at the moment of impact." As altered, the last part reads, "a point behind and somewhat above the level of the deceased." The final version, clearly, allowed placing the source of the shots at a more "upper floor" than the original.

There is considerable percentage of information about which the autopsy surgeons could have had no personal knowledge. The speed of the car was changed from "approximately 20 miles an hour" to "a slow rate of speed." The incorrect statement that the President "fell face downward to the floor of the vehicle" was replaced by the word "forward."

Doctor Perry's description of the anterior neck wound, that very critical question of exit or entrance, was described as a "puncture wound" in the handwritten draft. The final copy reads "much smaller wound." This is a change of fact and is not subject to the hocus-pocus about the news media not providing their tapes. It is the bugaboo the Commission avoided so obviously in the Perry interrogation. It is what Humes said Perry told him over the phone.

The posterior wound, which the Commission said was of entrance, was described on page 4 with the word "puncture," meaning the same thing, in the handwritten draft, from which the word "puncture" was then stricken. Is it possible the autopsy surgeons had doubts? But on page 2, where Doctor Humes did no editing, the information Doctor Perry conveyed to him is "Dr. Perry noted the massive wound of the head and a second, puncture wound of the low anterior neck in approximately the midline . . ."

On the seventh handwritten page, the last 10 lines contain six changes in the description of the head wound. These include the alteration of the President's lower or "entrance" wound as described from "puncture" in the draft to "lacerated" in the final copy. In the description of its location, the words "tangential to the scalp" were deleted. "In the underlying bone is a corresponding puncture wound . . ." is in the original, but the word "puncture" was deleted in the final copy. On the eighth handwritten page, the word "puncture" relating to this same head wound was again deleted. This is what the Report describes as the entrance wound of the fatal bullet. Humes eliminated these descriptions of the wound as of that character in the final version.

Of the massive wound the Commission said was of exit, Humes did also in the draft in referring to one of the pieces of retrieved skull. But in the final copy he made it read "presumably" a "wound of exit." On the ninth handwritten page, he again altered the description of the smaller head wound by deleting the word "puncture." Here he also weakened his description of the President's rear "neck" wound, adding "presumably" before "of entry." The anterior neck wound which he had described as "of exit" got the same addition, "presumably," in front of it.

Such major substantive changes between the second draft and the final form of the autopsy cannot be regarded as editing. They changed the content. What might there not have been in the version Humes burned? There remains the question that was of no interest to the Commission: Why? Could the first draft not have been turned over with the "notes?" Should they not have been? Had Humes authority or right to destroy any records of any kind?

The two charts appended to the draft of the autopsy report and authenticated as "notes made in the room where the examination was taking place" were not included in the autopsy report printed in the Report. The first of these contains form drawings similar to those made up by the Secret Service on Governor Connally's wounds. It also shows other points of orientation, such as both the top and the bottom of the collar. This chart appears in the Appendix to this book.

The "artist's conception," prepared partly by Humes's representation of his recollection to an artist and without benefit of pictures places the President's rear non-fatal wound in the curve of the neck as it tapers into the shoulder, in a vertical line with the straight right edge of the neck as it is viewed from the rear.

The original autopsy, notes this chart, locates it in the back. Not just barely in the back, touching the neck, but well down into the back. It is in the same vertical line as the artist's conception. With no scale, it is not possible to say how far down in the back. Measuring the distance from the top of the collar, it is about three times as far down from the collar as the collar itself measures from top to bottom.

Unless the Commission is prepared to prove that this original working paper of the autopsy is wrong -- not just a little wrong but grossly and inexcusably wrong -- wrong in a manner that can never be expected from such eminent experts in both pathology and forensic medicine, its entire Report is a monstrous fake! The location of this wound is so completely at variance with any of the vague contradictory descriptions used in the Report that it raises the most serious questions of the highest possible importance. They demand an answer, and they must be answered honestly and without evasion or propaganda.

This is not just a haphazard sketch. The dimensions are indicated in millimeters. It was prepared by one of three of the most outstanding experts the government could provide for what was undoubtedly the most important autopsy in the history of the country. The other two experts were in constant consultation and participation. Humes had it constantly in his possession and study for 48 hours as he worked out the final statement of the autopsy, which all went over before it was typed. He described it as "the actual notes made in the room in which the examination was taking place."

It cannot be brushed off, as so many of the few criticisms of the Report have been.

Nor is it without substantiation, good, solid substantiation.

Kellerman, the Secret Service agent in charge, was with the President's body, except for a few brief instances, from the Dallas hospital until it left the Bethesda Naval Hospital. In his testimony, not quoted in the Report, he repeatedly described this as a "shoulder" wound, just below the "large muscle between the shoulder and the neck." In questioning him, Specter did not refer to this as a "neck" wound but as a "shoulder" wound (2H81).

Kellerman called Secret Service Agent Clint Hill into the autopsy room to make formal observation of the President's wounds. This also is not quoted in the Report, but in his statement (18H740-5 ) Hill declared, "I observed a wound about six inches down from the neckline on the back just to the right of the spinal column," precisely what the suppressed autopsy note shows.

Secret Service Agent Glen A. Bennett was looking at the President when the bullet "hit the President about four inches down from the right shoulder" (R111).

In questioning Humes (2H371), Specter referred to "the wound in the President's back," in a context that imparts a different significance to the questions asked of all the Parkland medical people, had they raised or turned the President over.

Humes was given the President's coat and shirt to examine (2H365). He saw the bullet holes and located them "approximately 6 inches below the top of the collar, and 2 inches to the right of the middle seam . . ." A number of others gave approximately this representation of the location of the bullet holes in the President's garments. The location of this bullet hole, according to Humes, "corresponds essentially with the point of entrance" of that missile. Six inches down from the collar. Not in the neck.

What can now be said of all the painful and expensive reconstructions, made without reference to the existence of real evidence that rendered them unnecessary and destroyed their validity? Reconstructions built upon a police base known to be false. Reconstructions in which the Secret Service made its own medical evidence, also and very obviously false. Reconstructions in which the tricky and critical angles of the shots were wrong -- far wrong. Reconstructions in which the best ballistics evidence of the FBI was both ignored and suppressed. Medical reconstructions made in defiance of the best and most competent scientific testimony, from the forensic medical experts, all of whom swore that the "found" bullet, misrepresented to begin with, could not have inflicted all the non-fatal injuries and remained un-mutilated. Medical reconstructions in which the best possible evidence of the President's wounds -- the photographs and X-rays -- was suppressed, replaced by artist's conceptions!

The autopsy chart suppressed from the Report -- no other word will do, for it is in the record is authenticated in the testimony and is neither disproved nor even questioned in the Report which fails totally even to indicate its existence -- provides beyond question that all the speculations retailed as fact, all the tedious pretenses about the misrepresented "neck" wound, are false. It was a back wound! If of entrance, the bullet that made it could not possibly have deflected itself upward -- remember, it hit no bone -- and exited the President's anterior neck. Nor could it have then, magically, deflected itself again, this time downward -- there was nothing but air for it to strike between the two bodies -- and inflicted all the wounds on Governor Connally. And all this also without being in any way deformed! Whether or not it entered from the back, that bullet could not possibly have come from the sixth-floor window.

This authenticated chart that is ignored in the Commission's deliberations and conclusions and suppressed from its Report had to be ignored and suppressed. It and the ample supporting evidence utterly and completely destroy the preconception with which the Commission began, as well as its massive but futile effort to sustain that preconception. It invalidates the Report. Totally. There is no question.

More, it lays the most serious questions at the door of the Commission itself.

The Report also failed to include the Oswald autopsy charts. It dared not print them! Had it, the comparison between the Oswald autopsy and that of the President would, in itself, have been a major scandal. The Oswald autopsy was within an hour of his death. It was ordered by Justice of the Peace Pierce McBride, "requested by" the police, "promised" by Doctor Tom Shires. Copies were in advance ordered delivered to the Justice of the Peace, the county health officer, District Attorney Wade, Sheriff Decker and Captain Fritz. The President's autopsy, released ten months later, was buried -- smothered in the 900-page mass and sensation of the Report, in the Appendix of which it appears.

The Oswald charts are clear, unequivocal and numerous. They contain precise measurements, oriented to obvious and unmistakable points of his anatomy. One, labeled "Gunshot Wound Chart," calls for the exact location, orientation, size and direction of the wound and contains appropriate boxes for the data. All are property filled in. Measurements are exact to within a sixteenth of an inch.

The "Body Diagram" of the head shows and exactly describes and locates the injuries Oswald sustained at the hands of the police. These ranged in size from the lip abrasion, 1/16 of an inch, to the "black eye," l¼ by 1¾ inches.

"Surgical Wounds" are handled with equal care and are isolated on a separate chart, labeled "Surgical wounds only."

The bullet wound is precisely located: 3⅜ inches to the left of the midline of the front of the body and exactly 23 inches from the top of the head, with a "contusion ring" having a diameter of ⅜ inch. There is a blank body chart of the back showing there was no bullet wound there. And there are separate side-view body diagrams, adding further exactness.

There is even a chart of "Cross Section Through Upper Abdomen," with "path of bullet" drawn in. This shows the kidneys, vertebrae, spleen, liver and aorta and the path taken by Ruby's bullet through them as it tore away Oswald's vital organs and caused his irreversibly certain death, forever silencing him.

There are no questions with the Oswald autopsy, no mystery about the location, nature, size, direction or anything else. The hocus-pocus was reserved for the President of the United States! Is it not shameful that the accused assassin, killed in history's most public murder, is accorded the autopsy the President should have had but did not, while the President is treated with less care than the accused assassin should have received?

What an epitaph for the fallen President!

Of course, it is not surprising the Report has no autopsy or autopsy charts for Officer Tippit. Again, the Commission did not dare. The Report lacks even the official certification that Tippit died!

This, then, is the untold story of the autopsy. These are some of the things the Commission saw fit to suppress from its Report in which it failed even to locate precisely the fatal wound. There are many other questions about it, about the suppression of the evidence, especially the pictures and this chart prepared on the autopsy bench and authenticated by the experts and observers. There is, for example, the avoided left temple entrance of the fatal head wound as described in Doctor McClelland's original hand-written report at the time of the assassination, reaffirmed by him in his appearance before the Commission and about which the Commission avoided asking him any questions whatsoever.

No questions should ever have existed.

They must all be answered -- those about the autopsy and all the others.

U.S. NAVAL MEDICAL SCHOOL

NATIONAL NAVAL MEDICAL CENTER

BETHESDA, MARYLAND 30014

24 November 1963

C-E-R-T-I-F-C-A-T-E

I, James J. Humes, certify that I 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.

/s/

J. J. Humes

CDR, MC, USN

Commission Exhibit 397 -- Continued