Reclaiming History (353 page)

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Much has been made in the assassination literature of the fact that the autopsy surgeons were wrong on the location of the entrance wound. But is there any real significance to the head entrance wound being 3 inches higher than the autopsy surgeons said it was other than as a reflection on the
alleged
incompetence of the surgeons? “No, not really,” Dr. Werner Spitz, the German-born member of the HSCA’s forensic pathology panel and the Rockefeller Commission, said. “It’s just a red herring. We know from the autopsy photos and X-rays that there was only one entrance wound to the back of the president’s head. The only significance this matter has is academic. If the bullet had entered where the autopsy surgeons said it did—and we know from the photos and X-rays they were wrong—it would have been an unusual deflection for the bullet to have exited where it did. This was a military-type bullet and it is unlikely that it would be deflected so sharply upwards” (Telephone interview of Dr. Werner Spitz by author on March 26, 2005).

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Ten centimeters, which is close to 4 inches, was bandied loosely about, including by the HSCA (7 HSCA107), ever since the Clark Panel said the wound was “100 millimeters” (10 centimeters) above the external occipital protuberance. But as indicated, the more precise measurement was 9 centimeters.

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The outwardly exploding bullet in the parietal area lifted “a large plate of [parietal] bone upward,” causing it to “protrude from the wound” (Sullivan, Faccio, Levy, and Grossman, “Assassination of President John F. Kennedy: A Neuroforensic Analysis—Part 1,” p.1023).

†Dr. Alfred G. Olivier, chief of the Wound Ballistics Branch at the U.S. Army’s Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland, supervised experiments in 1964 in which Western Cartridge 6.5-millimeter bullets were fired from Oswald’s Mannlicher-Carcano rifle (at the appropriate distance, simulating that from the sixth-floor window to the point on Elm Street where Kennedy was struck in the head) at reconstructed and inert human skulls filled with a 20 percent gelatin substance to see whether the president’s exit head wound could have been caused by the subject rifle and bullets. In one skull that was struck at a point closely approximating the wound of entry to the backside of Kennedy’s head, the bullet “blew out the right side of the reconstructed skull in a manner very similar to the head wound of the president.” (WR, p.87; CE 861–862, 17 H 854; 5 H 75–77, 87, 89, WCT Dr. Alfred G. Olivier)

‡As can be seen, the autopsy surgeons saw the X-rays they took of the president’s body. “We had to see those right then as part of our examination,” Dr. Humes said, and “the X-rays were developed in our X-ray department right on the spot.” However, the photos taken of the president during the autopsy were not seen by them that night or before the autopsy report was prepared. “They were turned over to the Secret Service in their cassettes unexposed [that night], and I have not seen any of them since,” Dr. Humes told the Warren Commission. (2 H 372, WCT Dr. James J. Humes; ARRB Transcript of Proceedings, Deposition of Dr. James Joseph Humes, February 13, 1996, pp.96–98) The first time Humes saw the autopsy photos was at the National Archives, and Boswell at the National Archives, on November 1, 1966 (ARRB Transcript of Proceedings, Deposition of Dr. James Joseph Humes, February 13, 1996, p.96; HSCA Record 180-10093-10429, HSCA interview of James Humes on August 17, 1977, p.7); HSCA Record 180-10097-10151, p.1, January 26, 1967). Dr. Pierre Finck didn’t see the photographs at the archives until January 20, 1967 (HSCA Record 180-10097-10151).

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Though Ernest Hemingway once opined that the only difference between the rich and the poor is that the rich have more money, it has been said that
old
wealth comes through, regardless of the raiments worn by their possessors; that there is a well-scrubbed aspect to those born to the manor; and that the wealth is even heard in their voices. But President Kennedy, a Brahmin by birth and rearing, though dressing in an understated fashion—as is the usual custom of the privileged class—was clothed in the finest of garments and accessories on November 22, 1963. Though the FBI didn’t note the make of Kennedy’s gray suit, it was well known that he bought his suits at Brooks Brothers, the oldest haberdashers in America dating back to 1818, and in 1963 a more exclusive store than it is today. His black leather belt, size 34, was made by Farnsworth-Reed. The blue-and-white striped shirt he wore was custom made by Charles Dillon shirtmakers at 444 Park Avenue, New York. His white shorts were made for Brooks Brothers by D. & G. Anderson, Scotland. His size 10½ shoes were black mocassin, no make given. He had a white linen handkerchief, and a tortoiseshell comb by Kent of London. (HSCA Record 180-10087-10096, Report of FBI agent Robert L. Bouck, November 23, 1963) He was wearing a gold Cartier wristwatch with a black leather band (HSCA Record 180-10087-10095, December 2, 1963). His blue silk tie was labeled “Monsieur” Christian Dior.

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Dr. Finck reported that the
tie
worn by Kennedy showed “a tear of the cloth to the left side of the knot and
corresponding to the two anterior holes in the shirt
. The tie knot was not perforated but glanced by the bullet, which is indicated by the fact that the white padding of the tie is visible and…the blue cloth on the internal aspect of the knot is intact, which indicates a tangential path of the left side in relation to the knot.” (AFIP Record 205-10001-10002, Memorandum, Finck to Blumberg, p.7; also ARRB MD 28) The tear to the tie was described by the FBI laboratory as a “small elongated nick” on the “left side of the knot of the tie” (CD 205, p.154; 5 H 62, WCT Robert A. Frazier; 7 HSCA 89). An FBI examination found no metallic residue on this nick in the tie, and unlike the shirt, the FBI could not find any characteristic disturbance in the fabric around the tie hole that “would permit any conclusion” as to the direction of the missile (5 H 62, WCT Robert A. Frazier; 7 HSCA 89–90; FBI Record 124-10024-10173; Gallagher Exhibit No. 1, 20 H 2).

†Warren Commission critics have pointed out that Dr. Perry told Dr. Humes that the wound in the throat was 3 to 5 millimeters in size (CE 397, 17 H 29), and a 6.5-millimeter bullet that did not fragment (as we know Commission Exhibit No. 399, as opposed to the later bullet that struck the president in the head, did not) could not exit through a hole “between 3 and 5 millimeters in diameter” (Thompson,
Six Seconds in Dallas
, p.51). But clearly, Perry had to be wrong in his estimate of the size of the wound, since there is no evidence the bullet that entered the president’s back exited anywhere else, and no bullet was found inside the president’s body. Moreover, Perry, who later told the Warren Commission that the wound was “perhaps 5 millimeters in diameter,” admitted that he “did not examine [the wound] minutely,” giving it and the head exit wound a “cursory examination” (6 H 15, 3 H 368, 375). The critics never mention, naturally, that Dr. James Carrico, the first Parkland doctor to see the president, estimated the throat wound to be “5 to 8 millimeters in size” (3 H 361), which would be consistent with the exit wound of a 6.5-millimeter bullet.

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For years, one of the very biggest allegations among conspiracy theorists is that every one or virtually all of the Parkland doctors said the exit wound was to the rear or right rear of the president’s head, which would be in direct contradiction of the autopsy findings. An example: “
All
the doctors and nurses at Parkland Hospital who saw the body described a large exit wound in the
back
of the President’s head” (Groden and Livingstone,
High Treason
, p.26). But this is simply not true. A significant minority of Parkland doctors saw the exit wound essentially, or close to, where the autopsy and X-rays clearly showed it to be. Dr. Charles Baxter testified that the head exit wound was in the “temporal and parietal” area (6 H 44), as all the later scientific and medical evidence proved. Dr. Robert Grossman, the neurosurgeon who accompanied Dr. William Kemp Clark, the chief neurosurgeon at Parkland Hospital, into Trauma Room One, said that the large defect he saw was “in the parietal area above the right ear” (Ben Bradlee, “Dispute on JFK Assassination Evidence Persists,”
Boston Globe
, June 21, 1981, p.A23), although Grossman’s credibility on this matter may be questioned (see endnote). Dr. Adolph Giesecke Jr. testified the exit wound extended “from the brow line [ridge above eye] to the occiput on the left [
sic
] hand side of the head” (6 H 74). Dr. Marion T. Jenkins, the Parkland anesthesiologist, said he saw “a great laceration on the right side of the head (temporal and occipital)” (CE 392, 17 H 15). Dr. Kenneth Salyer told the Warren Commission that the exit wound was in the “right temporal region” (6 H 81). And Dr. Donald Seldin, chairman of the Department of Medicine at Parkland, said that “the entire frontal, parietal and temporal bones were shattered…I believe that the official story is accurate in all details” (Letter from Dr. Donald Seldin to Vince Palamara dated August 27, 1998).

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It clearly appears that Dr. McClelland is telling the truth on his accusation. In author Gerald Posner’s book,
Case Closed
, he writes that Dr. Jenkins told him what happened. “When Bob McClelland came into the room, he asked me, ‘Where are his wounds?’ And at that time I was operating a breathing bag with my right hand, and was trying to take the President’s temporal pulse, and I had my finger on his left temple. Bob thought I pointed to the left temple as the wound” (Posner,
Cased Closed
, p.313 footnote). It’s rather amazing that Jenkins would say this when close to thirty years earlier, when he testified on the record before the Warren Commission, he said, “I don’t know whether this is right or not, but I thought there was a wound on the
left
temporal area” (6 H 48).

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I sought the advice of Dr. Baden on many of the medical issues in this case because of his background and qualifications. A board-certified forensic pathologist who is presently the codirector of the New York State Police Medicolegal Investigative Unit, he has an impressive curriculum vitae. Among many other things, he has been the chief medical examiner for New York City; been the president of the Society of Medical Jurisprudence; held professional appointments at several institutions of higher learning, including New York Law School and the Albert Einstein Medical School; and served as an expert in forensic pathology on numerous prominent cases, among them the examination of the remains of Czar Nicholas of Russia and his family, the reexamination of the Lindbergh kidnapping and murder, autopsies of the victims of TWA Flight 800, and the O. J. Simpson and Claus von Bulow murder trials. He has written a number of articles in medicolegal professional publications and coauthored the book
Unnatural Death: Confessions of a Medical Examiner
. Most importantly, of course, I sought him out because he was the chairman of the nine-member forensic pathology panel of the HSCA’s investigation into the deaths of President Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a chairmanship that shows the very high esteem he has in his profession.

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Baden said that Kennedy’s head wasn’t even shaved of its hair at the time of the autopsy, and hence, any observations by onlookers of the autopsy (as opposed, he said, to the autopsy surgeons themselves, who were working directly with the president’s head) would also likely have been skewed.

†In an assertion by the HSCA forensic pathology panel that is so incorrect it can only be categorized as strange, someone (no one, thus far, has admitted authorship) wrote, “In disagreement with the observations of the Parkland doctors are the 26 people present at the autopsy.
All
of those interviewed who attended the autopsy corroborated the general location of the wounds as depicted in the [autopsy] photographs; none had differing accounts” (7 HSCA 37). However, though they clearly were wrong, several autopsy witnesses thought the exit wound was to the right rear or rear of the president’s head.

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Sibert’s 1977 drawings for the HSCA place the head wound square in the back of the head. Shown the drawings in his appearance before the ARRB in 1997, Sibert, who didn’t recall making them, said, “I would have moved [the wound on the back of the head] over a little bit to the right on the back of his head here, rather than dead center” (ARRB Transcript of Proceedings, Deposition of James W. Sibert, September 11, 1997, p.70). O’Neill’s 1997 drawing for the AARB shows the exit wound encompassing the right-rear quadrant of the head (ARRB MD 86, Interview Report of Francis X. O’Neill, January 10, 1978, pp.10–11). In an October 24, 1978, affidavit to the HSCA, Sibert said there was “a large head wound in the upper back of the head.” But in a November 8, 1978, affidavit to the HSCA, he said “the massive head wound pointed towards the right side of the head.” It is instructive to note that there was an increased likelihood for Agents Sibert and O’Neill to make an error in the placement of the wound because as Sibert testified before the ARRB—and he told me in a telephone interview—he and O’Neill were standing next to each other at the head of the autopsy table, looking at the top of the president’s head (as he lay on the autopsy table) rather than the side of his head. (Telephone interview of James Sibert by author on July 21, 2000; ARRB Transcript of Proceedings, Deposition of James W. Sibert, September 11, 1997, p.123) Dr. Boswell said in 1994 that the “FBI people…were never out of the morgue. They stayed there the entire time and…stayed on the telephone [in a May 7, 1992,
JAMA
interview, Boswell said the agents were “talking on their radios to people outside the room”] all the time…They were causing an awful lot of distraction” (Transcript of taped telephone interview of Dr. J. Thornton Boswell by Dr. Gary Aguilar on March 8, 1994, p.7). And while causing a distraction they were obviously distracted themselves—hardly reliable, percipient witnesses to the precise location of the president’s wounds.