From Deb Galentine, a compelling video interview with Charles Crenshaw, one of the doctors who saw JFK’s body shortly after the shooting.
Days
Hours
Minutes
Technical assistance courtesy of the Mary Ferrell Foundation | Designed by iWebResults
Yet more evidence of a BOH wound is the conduct of the Parkland trauma team. Initially they focussed on the throat wound, because it appeared the priority issue. Dr Perry intended to open the chest to investigate further. Dr McClelland drew attention to the BOH wound, and no further surgery was deemed worthwhile. This conduct strongly negates the proposition of a large wound visible from the front.’from the front there was nothing’ (Jackie Kennedy)
It is heart warming to see the LN’s working so hard on this thread to contain those nasty CT’s and that horrible Dr. Crenshaw.
Your tax dollars at work! 🙂
12:41 Dispatcher What’s your location, 601? 295 (Ptrl. William Price) I believe the President’s head was practically blown off
http://www.celebritymorgue.com/jfk/kennedy-side.jpg
I have noticed on several forums that the amount of effort defenders of the Warren commission put in to posting has a strong correlation with weakness of the argument. The BOH wound makes the point par excellence.
1. The magic bullet theory is dubious, but just plausible.
2. The number of shots is not easily calculable with the possibility of the use of silencers/ Zapruder film alteration.
3. Oswald’s location at 12.30 is highly debatable, and relies on the veracity of multiple witness statements and evidential chain problems.
4. Oswald’s links to groups capable of conspiracy will likely be made, but hasn’t yet.
5. Oswald’s impersonation in Mexico stinks of CIA manipulation, but is only valuable when viewed with other complex connected facts.
The BOH wound testimony of so many actors, of medical expertise, is proof to me, beyond reasonable doubt that there was a large BOH wound. The delays in releasing the relevant testimony, including even the ARRB apparently trying to limit its impact (According to Doug Horne), the strangely inconclusive photo/xray evidence, and the suspicious conduct of those conducting the autopsy all indirecly reinforce the view that there was indeed a large BOH wound.
If you start from the belief there was a BOH wound then concluding the Zapruder film was altered is much easier, and some form of after-the-event conspiracy is demonstrated.
Sylvia Odio is also just automatically dismissed, as are any doctors who said they saw something different at Parkland. It’s all too air-tight and “convenient” in the same way O.J. Simpson’s weak defense was. I think the CT community gets some things wrong of course, but I also think the validity of their basic argument, that there was some kind of a conspiracy beyond Oswald, makes the most sense, given the things we do know. When you add the fact that CIA is still hiding files related to the case, it becomes almost tragically comical. Really, if you are innocent, you go to great lengths to show your innocence. CIA’s behavior is more like that of Bill Cosby’s or O.J. Simpson’s, and about as believable too.
“If you start from the belief there was a BOH wound then concluding the Zapruder film was altered is much easier, and some form of after-the-event conspiracy is demonstrated.”~Eddy
I will point out that if there was BOH wound it might be reasonable to SUSPECT that the Zapruder film was altered. But to conclude that it was altered is a non sequitur. First one must prove that the Z-film is altered.
This discussion has gone on at this site since Doug Horne introduced this hypothesis. I have addressed this with a counter argument at this link:
https://hybridrogue1.wordpress.com/2014/12/12/the-zapruder-film/
\\][//
Hi Willy
I have been wondering when you would raise this :). How do you explain the whole BoH testimony then?
Vanessa,
There is nothing to explain about the BOH testimony, the Z-film proves a shot from the front.
\\][//
Hi Willy
I completely agree that the zfilm proves a shot from the front (finally we can agree on something). 🙂
But what we are talking about here is the blow out at the back of the head that was a consequence of this frontal head shot. There are credible witnesses that say that JFK had a blow out to the back of his head. Robert Harris makes a good case that the blow out is visible in some frames of Zapruder and blacked out in others.
Have you seen any of Robert Harris’s videos on Youtube yet? I would be interested in your views if you have.
Ronnie, Great post. Your antagonist helpfully proved your point of “having too much time on his hands” as he efficiently hung himself by his own petard (and in what may be record time for a post & response on this site). Nothing like a big belly laugh to lift a spinster’s spirits. Thank you!
Giuliani made a roomful of us laugh like that during after dinner remarks while explaining John Gotti’s rubout of Paul Castellano in order to get the top spot in the Gambino family. Rudy set his anecdote up by referencing those who are fond of whining; “how could Kennedy have been shot in a big conspiracy without someone coming forward after aaaaalll these years?” Rudy pointed out that Gotti put an 18 triggerman task force on the street just to take out big Paulie and his driver as they pulled up to Sparks Steak House – And, as in the JFK hit, most of those 18 were dead or imprisoned/ incommunicado within a short time. The punchline is unprintable but the point was clear – and the laugh was similar to the one I had tonight!
Interesting. If I counted right 27 of 87, about a third, posts by JMac or photon. A lot of time on their hands. Between this, other active threads he posted on at the time, his own website, and teaching how did he have time to maintain a blog to chastise other professors graduate assistant’s on.
The head and throat wounds have been discussed repeatedly on multiple threads.
This is what Dr. Crenshaw said in Trauma Room one. Pages 62-63.
First observance standing at his waist, “Blood was seeping from the wound in his head onto the gurney, dripping into the kick bucket on the floor below”.
“Then I noticed a small opening in the midline of his throat. it was small, about the size of the tip of my little finger. It was a bullet entry wound. There was no doubt in my mind about that wound, as I had seen dozens of them in the emergency room. At that point I knew he had been shot at least twice”.
“When we saw blood frothing around the President’s neck wound, it became clear that the endotracheal tube had failed to increase the air volume in his lungs. Dr. perry decided to do a tracheostomy on the President’s throat, where the bullet had entered his neck, between the second and third tracheal cartilages”.
Ronnie, how many times do you have to hear this? Crenshaw was a resident. He followed his attending physician McClelland to the ER . McClelland has stated multiple times that when he got to the ER Perry had ALREADY begun the tracheostomy and obliterated the bullet wound.
Crenshaw could not have ” noticed a small opening in the midline of his throat” because by the time he got there with McClelland Perry had ALREADY made the large incision in the skin seen in the “stare of death” autopsy photo. The statement is simply not true – and proven by the statements of Dr. McClelland.
“When we saw blood frothing around the President’s neck wound” is another false statement-obviously concocted by his ghost writer who knew little about medicine. The only blood of concern in regards to the placement of a tracheostomy was the blood seen THROUGH the laryngoscope by the doctor who placed the ET tube. Crenshaw never touched the laryngoscope or saw the cords. Again,the comment attributed to Censhaw was false.
There was a reason why Perry wanted to sue Crenshaw.
There was a reason Crenshaw sued JAMA, and won.
He didn’t win. He sued for $35 million. JAMA’s lawyers wanted to go to trial, but it is always the defendant’s decision to settle. It would have cost JAMA thousands in legal fees if the case went to trial, no matter what the outcome, probably at least what they offered Crenshaw. He settled for less than a penny on the dollar. If he had a strong case he could have gone to trial.Since at least a third of the settlement went to his attorneys he got even less than the final amount. I doubt that his attorneys’ award covered the legal costs of bringing the suit.
photon, you are suggesting he sued for money rather than for the distinct purpose of establishing the facts within a legal setting for posterity? Do you know what doctors in Dallas were earning at the time?
What evidence is there that “JAMA’s lawyers wanted to go to trial?”
Which defendant made the decision to settle?
Pg. 168.
“in October of 1994 the parties to the litigation attended a COURT ORDERED mediation. …JAMA defendants ultimately agreed to pay Dr. Crenshaw and Gary Shaw a sum of money, plus reimburse a substantial portion of their court costs, plus publish a rebuttal article… the amount of the settlement money would not come close to full compensation for the damage caused to their reputations, bot Dr. Crenshaw amd Mr. Shaw placed considerable value on the publication of the rebuttal article, a remedy that no court or jury had the power to order.”
In the court of public opinion, and maybe in their own minds, through vindication, they won.
JAMA did not admit liability, made no apology, did not publish a retraction. They simply settled a ” nuisance suit”, probably for less than their legal fees would have been had they gone to trial.
Wouldn’t a “nuisance suit” by JAMA help to shut up the Dr.’s dissent? If I were at CIA and trying to cover up a case, or at best keep folks guessing, I would want to quietly pay off Dr. Crenshaw in order to keep a messy trial and possible media circus from happening. CIA, if involved in any way illegally with JFK’s assassination, the same way they were involved illegally in other activities such as spying on the US Senate, would seem to gain by shutting the doctor’s case down, in a sense, buying him off while at the same time sending out media disinformation to muddy the waters.
But JAMA DID publish his rebuttal, even if “limited and edited”. See the May 24/31 edition, 1995.
Photon, do you have any idea what JAMA paid to settle the case? Your comment is nothing but speculation. What is the factual basis for your claim that “JAMA’s lawyers wanted to go to trial.” Your statement that “it is always the defendant’s decision to settle” is nonsense. As a trial lawyer for 34 years I know that a settlement only occurs if both sides want to settle. If one party desires a settlement and the other doesn’t there is no settlement. And, sometimes the party wanting to settle is the plaintiff and sometimes it is the defendant. You state that if Crenshaw had a strong case “he could have gone to trial.” The same could be said for JAMA.
In the HSCA investigation the forensic pathology panel determined from the x-rays, photographs, and available evidence, that the entrance wounds were to the rear of JFK’s back and head. Unless this more recent assessment is completely wrong, and unless it can be established that JFK was hit by more than the two penetrating bullets accounted for, there could be no entry wounds to the front side of the head or front of the neck.
“Unless this more recent assessment is completely wrong, and unless it can be established that JFK was hit by more than the two penetrating bullets accounted for, there could be no entry wounds to the front side of the head or front of the neck.”~Mariano
I think Mariano, that the HSCA did get it wrong, and think this presentation proves it quite well:
A DEMONSTRABLE IMPOSSIBILITY:
The HSCA Forensic Pathology Panel’s Misrepresentation of the Kennedy Assassination Medical Evidence
by John Hunt
http://www.history-matters.com/essays/jfkmed/ADemonstrableImpossibility/ADemonstrableImpossibility.htm
\\][//
Pushing testimony like Crenshaw’s harms your credibility, Jeff.
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/crenshaw.htm
Worst part of his story: Initially, he claimed the LBJ call demanded that Oswald be killed, over-transfused with his own blood. Only when that would not sell did he change it.
In addition to the Gus Russo quote on that page, we have Harrison Edward Livingstone, Killing the Truth, p. 607 (Livingstone cites “discussions” with Crenshaw).
And we have Gary Mack reporting that Jane Rusconi, Oliver Stone’s research coordinator, confirmed the early version with LBJ wanting Oswald killed.
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=48686&relPageId=19
I take a lot more credence to what most of the doctors and medical staff at Parkland said immediately after the murder than anything said after or in testimony.
It was quite clear where they thought the entrance wound was from the front. Trying to discredit Crenshaw because he didn’t change his mind from what most of the medical staff said on the day of the shooting is laughable at best.
You’re absolutely right, Heather. What the doctors said “immediately after the murder”(your quotes), came out obviously before the coverup was set in motion. That’s why the immediate reactions of several witnesses were never put on record-because those witnesses believed that, in effect, Oswald wasn’t the only shooter.
“LBJ call demanded that Oswald be killed, over-transfused with his own blood.”
LBJ did call Parkland and asked that LHO have his last rites administered in the OR. I’ll take the credibility of Parkland Hospital ER Doctor Charles Crenshaw over Specter or Dulles or Waren.
Doctor Allen Child’s was a medical student at parkland when kennedy was brought in.
In the process of collecting stories from 44 doctors, Childs discovered Arlen Specter’s hear no evil, see no evil methods:
“Childs asked MacNeil and Lehrer if they knew the story of Dr. Ron Jones, who, according Childs, had been told by Warren Commission counsel Arlen Specter not to offer any testimony that would contradict the “single bullet theory.”
@55min http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfEwPBmTF5A#t=3501
https://jfkfacts.org/assassination/they-were-there-macneillehrer-on-nov-22-1963/
OOPs no last rites – just a deathBed confession to a spook:
@1min-Dr. Charles Crenshaw:
“LBJ:There is a man in the (OR) room.I would like for him to take a death the confession., and all the sudden the phone went off…I said the president called and wants that man to take a deathBed confession”
You simply haven’t addressed the fact that Crenshaw’s initial account had LBJ wanting Oswald killed.
All the ad hominem you spew against Specter is irrelevant to that.
I think I understand what is happening here:
Dr. Crenshaw stuck to his guns about what he saw on November 22, 1963 up until his death, in 2002. When he first went public about this in the early 1990’s he was skewered (smeared) by those who refuse to accept ANYTHING that challenges the Warren Commission’s political findings (chaired by Allen Dulles) that Oswald acted alone. Where there were perhaps some discrepancies were when J. Gary Shaw got involved as a co-author. Shaw may have elaborated or embellished a bit, but the basic facts of what Crenshaw says he saw remain fairly solid: a gunshot wound to the front temple of JFK which blew the back of Kennedy’s head out where it exited. A trach tube inserted after a bullet wound in Kennedy’s neck was enlarged only very slightly to make it fit. Dr. Baxter telling everyone at Parkland not to talk about what they saw to the media or to publish anything or he would make sure that their careers would be destroyed.
Dr. McClelland recently backed up with his observations what Dr. Crenshaw had said he saw and was pilloried also. This “smearing the bearer of contrary news” reminds me of the same kind of smearing that poor Al Gore got after he put out his movie about global warming, “An Inconvenient Truth.” Because there are powerful vested interests who don’t want to curtail fossil fuel use, and because these interests (the corporations and their lackeys like the Heartland Institute who service them) don’t want to accept the scientific evidence, they smear the spokespersons who deliver the “bad news”. This tactic incidentally was also done to those citing tobacco use as a strong cause of lung cancer.
I have read Dr. Crenshaw’s claims, and the counter-claims, and believe Crenshaw was telling the truth. He was trying to make sense of the contradictory Warren Report, trying to figure out why what he saw firsthand got twisted into something else, and why he had to keep his mouth shut about the truth for so long. Just as climate scientists have been trying to do with respect to the facts of global warming.
You haven’t bothered to address his changing story: at first he had LBJ demanding that Oswald be killed, and when that didn’t sell, it became LBJ demanding a confession.
You also fail to address the fact that Crenshaw could not have seen the unaltered throat wound he vividly described in his book.
All you have done is post ad hominem attacks on Crenshaw’s critics.
Wrong, John. Go back and read Crenshaw’s statement. He said that he assisted with Dr. Perry, saw the trach get put in, and that he personally put Kennedy’s body into the casket before it was removed from the hospital. Your calling Crenshaw a liar doesn’t change facts, any more than your denial of global warming changes those facts.
Look at the Warren Commission testimony. McClelland came in with Crenshaw after Perry was already into the throat with the tracheotomy.
You actually said “go back and read Crenshaw’s statement?”
So Crenshaw corroborates Crenshaw’s account?
JSA, this is a side question as my Crenshaw book is buried somewhere.
Did Crenshaw make any statement as to whether JFK’s body was clothed or naked when it left Parkland?
@John:
John, let’s give the late Dr. Crenshaw a chance to respond to your attacks on his credibility. Incidentally, your site makes NO mention of the JAMA lawsuit nor does it provide the update/reply which Crenshaw was able to give to critics of his first book, “JFK: Conspiracy of Silence.”
Here’s Dr. Crenshaw, in his own words:
“The book I originally wrote with Jen Hansen and J. Gary Shaw, JFK: Conspiracy of Silence, was published in April, 1992 and was well-received across the nation by the American public. I had broken the “edict of silence” thrust upon us, those who tried to save President John F. Kennedy, and, two days later, his accused assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. My observations contradicted the “official” version of the assassination, as reported in the Warren Report. I stated that President Kennedy was shot at least once, and I believe twice, from the front, and Oswald could not have been a “lone gunman.” I had anticipated criticism from some, but I never expected the vicious attack from my medical colleagues.
In May 1992, the editor and a writer for the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) called a press conference in New York to promote a JAMA article which attacked me both personally and professionally. They quoted some of my fellow physicians who had been in the Parkland Emergency room on that tragic day, with statements that varied significantly from the testimony that they had sworn to before the Warren Commission.
I repeatedly asked JAMA for a retraction and correction and received correspondence denying our request. My coauthor Gary Shaw and I were advised to sue JAMA, and on November 22, 1992, exactly 29 years since that fateful day in Dallas, we filed suit for “slander with malice.” In October, 1994, we agreed to court-ordered mediation and accepted a monetary settlement offered by JAMA. The litigation details and exposure of JAMA ‘s unethical publication are included in this book in the section written by our attorney, D. Bradley Kizzia.”
——-
to read more from Crenshaw, please visit this source:
http://www.paraview.com/crenshaw/crenshaw_excerpt.htm
@Gerry:
Gerry, I’m thinking JFK’s clothes had to have been removed, or cut open for access by the ER crew. Dr. Crenshaw stated that they were removed, folded at JFK’s feet and placed in the same casket.
I looked at Dr. Crenshaw’s book and here’s what I found [pg. 110 Conspiracy of Silence]:
“…a bronze casket was being wheeled toward Trauma Room 1 by two male employees from the O[‘]neal Funeral Home. I opened the door, allowing them to enter, then followed them in. I was the only doctor in the room. All of the tubes had been removed from the President, his body had been cleaned, and he had been wrapped in two white sheets. The casket was opened, and two nurses placed a plastic-mattress covering over the white-velvet lining to keep any blood that might still seep from the wounds from staining the material…Before I directed that the body be moved, I turned down the sheet and took one long, last look at President Kennedy’s head wound. I was the last doctor at Parkland Hospital to see it. After making my final examination, I lightly stroked his reddish-brown hair…Four of us lifted the President into the casket and placed his neatly folded clothes at his feet.”
His bitching about the JAMA has nothing to do with my “attacks on his credibility.”
You guys attack the JAMA, but can’t really defend Crenshaw.
According to WC testimony, he could not have seen the unaltered throat wound, which he describes as an entrance wound.
The first version of his book had LBJ wanting Oswald killed, rather then a confession.
And when LBJ would have had to have called the Parkland OR, LBJ could not have done that.
He is what Gary Mack explains:
@ JSA July 18, 2014 at 10:48 am
Okay thanks for confirming that. It is relevant for a different discussion involving a second casket observation at Bethesda.
@John:
Your attacks on Crenshaw have a LOT to do with the JAMA lawsuit, even though “not in any interest of fairness” do you NOT include this info on your website!
A Google Groups search yielded some interesting comments regarding your dismissal of Dr. Crenshaw’s statements:
On 5/26/92, the New York Times reported: “In the (JAMA) interviews, Dr. Charles Baxter, the emergency room chief, denied that such a call was received by any doctor. But the denial came from a surgeon who could not have known about the call because he was not present during Oswald’s surgery, Dr. Crenshaw said.
“Indeed, another doctor has confirmed such a call, although the details and who made it are not clear.
“The doctor, Phillip E. Williams, now a brain surgeon in Dallas, was an intern pumping blood into Oswald’s right let. In an interview, Dr. Williams said he had long remembered reports of two White House telephone calls to the operating room.
“I vividly remember someone said, and I can’t say who it was, the White House is calling and President Johnson wants to know what the status of Oswald is, Dr. Williams said, adding, “I heard the statement in the oparating room, and it was not Dr. Crenshaw’s book or anyone else who revived my thoughts about this because I have said this for years.”
Williams admitted he did not know for certain it was Johnson, or that Johnson wanted Oswald’s confession. But it is clear that the “White House” called, he was pumping blood into Oswald, and there is no one else who has come forward to claim to have taken that call. If not Crenshaw, who took that call Dr. Williams remembered?
Crenshaw, who JAMA falsely belittled for claiming LBJ called personally for him, said no such thing, of course. Rather, he said that he happened to be the one to pick up a ringing phone when a man who identified himself as LBJ, and who sounded like LBJ, called.
Then there is the letter of Phyllis Bartlett, the “chief telephone
operator” at Parkland. When news of amazing tale broke, and the Dallas Morning News’ Lawrence Sutherland sneered at Crenshaw’s LBJ claim, Bartlett wrote the DMN to chip in her memory of an amazingly similar event.
She wrote: ” … There are still people who have not come forward yet, that could have helped Mr. Sutherland get his facts strait had he bothered to check.
“There very definitely was a phone call from a man with a loud voice who identified himself as Lyndon Johnson, an he was connected to the operating room phone during Oswald’s surgery.”
FYI, John McAdams:
The Parkland switchboard operator went on the record that President Johnson had called the hospital as Dr. Crenshaw asserted. So now you have two “liars” to debunk? Oh my! You Warren Commission Buffs certainly have your hands full, don’t you?
Here is the clip link with Bartlett’s interview:
The problem is that the Sixth Floor Museum has the written reports of all the Parkland personnel, including Bartlett’s. There are descriptions of various calls, some crank calls of little significance, but nothing about a call from LBJ.
Source: Gary Mack at the Sixth Floor Museum.
LBJ was in the limo with the family headed out to the ceremonies of moving Kennedy’s body to the Capitol.
It’s possible that somebody from the White House called, and the account got mangled.
But note how you are grasping at straws.
You need not merely a call from LBJ, you need the call to be put through to the OR, and you need Crenshaw answering.
Further, you need LBJ demanding a confession from Oswald.
You are nowhere close to having any of that.
BTW, have you dealt with the fact that the first version of Crenshaw’s book had LBJ wanting Oswald killed? Seems Crenshaw changed his story, does it not?
“bitching about JAMA…crediblity…defend Crenshaw”. JAMA defamed Dr.Crenshaw. After repeated requests for a retraction he sued them in a curt of law and was vindicated, and, remunerated for his treatment, in addition to they’re payment of numerous lawyers.
“it’s possible someone from the White House called – and the account got mangled -?”
Are you grasping at straw’s here or just post so much you got confused?
JSA,
“…the basic facts of what Crenshaw says he saw remain fairly solid: a gunshot wound to the front temple of JFK which blew the back of Kennedy’s head out where it exited.”
Two head wounds?? That’s not what he told Douglas Hume of the ARRB:
“…only saw one head wound … behind right ear in the occipital parietal area…”
“There was a large blood clot high in the left forehead, above the left eye, but when the body was washed … there was no wound there.”
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=145280&relPageId=64
One gunshot wound, Jean. The back of JFK’s head was blown out. The ONE SHOT entered JFK’s temple from the front, and EXITED in back. One Shot.
This is what Drs. Crenshaw and McClelland said that they saw. Others said the same thing, until they got visited by either SS or FBI agents who told them they were “wrong.” Drs. Perry and others were asked to speak to the Warren Commission, and their stories began to dovetail with what the Warren Commission wanted them to say. There was no longer any testimony from Parkland doctors saying that Kennedy was shot from the front. Then Dr. Baxter told all of the staff at Parkland not to speak any longer in public about what they saw.
Two WOUNDS, not two shots. An entrance wound and exit wound caused by one bullet.
The Parkland doctors didn’t claim they saw an entrance wound in the temple. They described only one large exit wound.
Please read the link. Crenshaw said there was a blood clot on the left forehead but “when the body was washed … there was no wound there.” He also said “he regretted inaccuracies in his book” which “he described as embellishments” by a co-author.
There’s a ton of misinformation out there, JSA. IMO, it’s a good idea to read the original documents and testimony instead of relying on secondary sources.
Jean,
The only point of contention I can see in that 1997 AARB report is the detail about whether Dr. Crenshaw could see anything resembling a bullet entry in JFK’s temple (as Dr. Perry originally pointed to in the first Parkland press conference btw). So that detail needs to be more thoroughly checked out. You make one good point. Now, let’s revisit what Dr. Crenshaw actually said, and keep in mind that Crenshaw was also not happy with the extent of the attacks by JAMA, which only through a lawsuit was he able to address properly, as JAMA wouldn’t publish his retractions to their initial charges. He addressed them in his follow up book, Trauma Room 1, which you might want to read to get his side of the case.
Here’s Crenshaw, from page 86 of his book, “Conspiracy of Silence”:
“I walked to the President’s head to get a closer look. His entire right cerebral hemisphere appeared to be gone. It looked like a crater — an empty cavity. All I could see there was mangled, bloody tissue. From the damage I saw, there was no doubt in my mind that the bullet had entered his head through the front, and as it surgically passed through his cranium, the missile obliterated part of the temporal and part of the parietal and occipital lobes before it lacerated and exposed the cerebellum. The wound resembled a deep furrow in a freshly plowed field. Several years later when I viewed slow-motion films of the bullet striking the President, the physics of the head being thrown back provided final and complete confirmation of a frontal entry by the bullet to the cranium.”
Mr. McAdams,
I have tried to contact since the first time I e-mailed you through your website a couple of weeks ago. Can you explain to me why Dr. McClelland—please look on YouTube for his three part interview—has a completely different version than what the WC says is official? He says he was 12-18 inches away from JFK’s head and he stared at the wounds for at least 12 minutes. Is he wrong? Also, what about FBI agent Sibert who composed the 302 file that was hidden from view until found by Paul Hoch. He says, and you can find this on the internet, that Arlen Specter is a “damn liar.” This is from a man who works for the VERY government that you so vigorously defend. Why is he not to be believed? How come YOUR witnesses are telling the truth, but anybody who disagrees needs to be “debunked” or discredited or subject to character assassination? Can you provide me some insight into why there appears to be a double standard? The truth is our government DOES lie and does cover-up. Please see the reason we went to Vietnam and the second Iraq war under Mr. Bush. Our government and our CIA has their own agenda and it rarely coincides with the democracy that this country is supposed to be about. Any insight you can give to me would be greatly appreciated.
all i know is their is way more too this case then Oswald an one shooter…too much has been hidden away facts locked up until 2035 common people POSNER is a joke paid big money to write what the government wants you too believe…hobos found in rail cars that look just like known CIA operatives an the most famous man on the face of planet earth at that minute just strolled out front of the public to be shot…yeah thats not strange…yeah Oswald acted alone…what a scam an many of you knot heads have fallen for it
Sadly, I have never heard so much hot air come from the lungs of the JFK tailgaters who are desperately attempting an exegesis of the indelible words of Dr. Crenshaw. To those attempting to pass on your unstained brilliance on these back pages without having published on the subject, your words are a testament to your mediocrity, also called cheap rhetoric and heresy. But such rancor toward Dr. Crenshaw is understandable from weak voices coming from the cheap seats. You should all go get a real life and leave the medicine evidence to the doctors who were Parkland surgeons in 1963. Or better yet, publish a book and educate us with your sagacity and brilliance on this subject, adding of course thereto, your professional medical observations when you were in Trauma Room 1 conducting a surgical procedure on President Kennedy. Short of that, save it for the lesser educated.
Surgeons like Clark,Perry,Baxter,Jenkins , and everybody else in the ER except McClelland and the 3rd year resident Crenshaw? They all agreed with the Warren Commision’s conclusions.
Everyone here is making this a lot more complicated then it has to be, I don’t care what examinations they made after the fact, I don’t need them. All you have to do is watch the Zapruder film, if you don’t know by the end that the coup de grace shot came from the front,then it doesn’t really matter, no amount of voodoo physics can change a directly observable fact.
Thanks to Dan Rather’s faulty observations of the Zfilm,college students would chant ‘forward…forward’ at antiwar demonstrations ,whenever they saw a CBS crew.
Bill Hicks talks about voodoo physics:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=11Fl9ZVJ7B8
When exactly did Perry say he had an entrance wound to the right temple?
He certainly never said that in the Nov. 22 press conference ; he actually did state that he did not closely examine the head wound. Clark in the same conference specifically stated that the path of the bullet that caused the head wound could NOT be determined in the ER. No physician at Parkland ever probed or even moved the head.
Exactly what statements were changed by the Parkland MDs? Perry himself stated that the neck wound could have been an entrance or exit wound and had no idea JFK had a back wound until told by the autopsy MDs. Without having even turned JFK over he knew that his rushed, initial perception that the neck wound was an entrance wound could have been mistaken.
Why don’t you review Clark’s comments about coming to conclusions about the head bullet’s trajectory during the Nov. 22 conference. He specifically stated that his statements were only general and should not imply that he knew the full nature of the wound. It is unfortunate that people with limited knowledge of ER medicine and forensic pathology continue to mistake an 18 minute incomplete physical exam on a DOA patient with a full 4 hour formal autopsy. There is a reason that autopsies are the final, formal and complete source for establishing the cause of death.
Yeah, especially an autopsy by two physicians who had never done an autopsy in their lives, who took instructions from nameless ‘authorities’ in the room as to what to examine and what to leave alone. Some autopsy. Oh, while I’m at it, who slashed JFK’s throat? The throat wound looks like it was done by Jack the Ripper. It is not a tracheostomy incision. Just ask Dr. Perry who wondered what had happened to his work.
And absolutely no mention of the head being moved from the supine position- because it wasn’t. Just as the back wound was never noted, the head was never completely examined.
Crenshaw never ” won for defamation” from the AMA- the case never even went to trial.
I stand corrected Photon. Actually, Crenshaw defended himself against JAMA in a letter, but I think you’re correct—he didn’t get a chance to take his case to court.
JSA – you’re wasting your time with the likes of Photon. However, just for the record, Crenshaw received approx. 225K from JAMA in a court ordered mediation. You can see the true “fabricators” exposed in the update of Crenshaw’s book in about 2 weeks. Their own words, while under oath, completely destroys the credibility of Crenshaw’s critics.
Thank you, Gary. I knew that Crenshaw redeemed himself with JAMA, but I didn’t realize he received compensatory payment. It would have been nice if Crenshaw had lived longer (he died in 2002) and could have posted on this blog. His testimony was like dynamite to the Warren Commission believers. People like McAdams had to scramble to try to first discredit him, then smear his record, even try to deny that he was even in Trauma Room 1! Incredible.
The bottom line is, I find Crenshaw’s testimony to be on the mark, accurate and honest. I find McAdams’ attempt to smear Crenshaw to be unconvincing — just as his attempts to deny global warming have been.
I am hoping that this is the same Gary Shaw that I met in Dallas some thirty years ago. My brother had just been hired by a company in Fort Worth, and Gary’s wife was a secretary in his division. My brother was kind enough to introduce me to Gary’s wife, who then introduced me to Gary. At that time, Gary had a JFK office in a Dallas—I believe it was close to the TSBD—and Gary was so generous and accommodating with his time and knowledge. Truly a wonderful experience for me, and I will be forever grateful to him for giving me so much of his time.
I never said that Kennedy’s head was “completely” examined in Dallas. But those medical professionals and assistants who handled him almost to a person noted that he had the back of his head blown out, and Dr. Perry and others said he had an entrance wound in the right front temple. Unlike the autopsy team, they didn’t have the military telling them what they could and couldn’t probe. The Dallas doctors had the Secret Service and Warren Commission telling them to change their original notes and statements to only reflect shots from behind. Some did so willingly, others reluctantly.
The best single witness to a blow out type wound in the rear of JFK’s head was Mortician Tom Robinson. Because as an embalmer this was his job. He was there at the Autopsy, and afterward for several hours. He said he put a rubber patch with plaster of paris to cover this wound as reported in High Treason 2 Livingstone, & Doug Horne’s Inside The ARRB series. How anybody could think their opinion is better than Robinson’s is beyond me.
So the embalmer who was presented a body after a multiple hour autopsy including incision and retraction of the scalp, the mechanical disruption of the skull making the circular skull saw cut unnecessary, after the brain had been removed- would be the best witness of what the wound looked like 3 or 4 hours previously? That defies logic.
Photon-in the HSCA medical Drawings released by the ARRB of the back of the head skull wound, and in the newer drawings by Crenshaw and Nurse Bell, they corroborate Robinson, as do both FBI Agents. This wound in the back of the head is not visible in the 2 extant photos available. In the most important murder of their lifetimes all these witnesses were somehow wrong? That does defy logic.
Wait a minute. The ARRB interview specifically states that Robinson was NOT involved in reconstruction of the head.
Mr. Photon—this is the fourth time that I have tried to get in touch with you to ask you and Mr. McAdams the same two questions. Maybe my fifth time will be the charm? I would like to hear your views of two witnesses that have not changed their stories since that fateful day in 63. Please check out Dr. McClelland’s 3 part interview on YouTube, and also listen closely to what he says. Also, check out FBI’s Sibert’s comments on the SBT theory and Mr. Arlen Specter in regards to his version of events. He said, and I quote “that there is not enough sugar in this world to make me take a bit of that” and Mr. Specter is a “damn liar.” These two witnesses both describe wounds that are completely opposite to the WC version. Also, can you please explain why the 302 report filed by Sibert and O’Neil was hidden from public view until found by researcher Paul Hoch?
McClelland admitted that he never moved the head. As it was lying on the EOP the wound that he claimed to have seen was IMPOSSIBLE for him to have seen.
End of story.
Sibert was simply wrong. He was never that close to the corpse; it is not clear that he had ever seen an autopsy prior to Nov. 22, 1963.
Photon,
I have to ask: Why would two doctors (Crenshaw and McClelland) lie about their experiences with President Kennedy in the ER?
What would they stand to gain by waiting all this time and then telling what they saw the way they each did? That seems to run against logic and common sense.
“Sibert was simply wrong. He was never that close to the corpse; it is not clear that he had ever seen an autopsy prior to Nov. 22, 1963″~Poton
Perhaps Sibert had never seen an autopsy before, and assumption on your part. However if so, it is a shame that the first one he ever attended was conducted by unqualified doctors who botched the whole thing.
Neither Humes nor Boswell were Forensic Pathologists.
\\][//
ARRB(MD 185), 03/21/1997. Jeremy Gunn, Doug Horne interviewing Dr. Robert Grossman.
“He said he (Grossman) and Kemp Clark (chairman of Neurosurgery at Parkland) together lifted President Kennedy’s head so as to be able to observe the damage to the President’s head.”
Even without the citation, it isn’t remotely conceivable that Parkland’s highly qualified trauma personnel would have regarded Kennedy’s head as some kind of sacrosanct object that couldn’t be touched, lifted, tilted, turned or moved. Nor is it conceivable that the doctors would have purposely ignored the source of profuse bleeding.
Thank you Bill for that notation. What Photon is doing is recycling almost verbatim what John McAdams has on his site, where JM tries to refute Crenshaw and McClelland, among others, who said they noticed JFK’s head blasted out in the rear, and an entrance bullet wound in his right temple, meaning a shot hit him from the front of the motorcade. To read what McAdams says, which I think can be refuted with contrary facts of what we now know, for what it’s worth, go here:
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/faceup.htm
When you read this page, note how closely Photon follows McAdams’ wording and arguments.
Exactly who puts Robert Grossman in the Parkland ER i on Nov 22? Nobody but Grossman!
There is no record of him being there, let alone touching the body . Kemp Clark never mentioned him in any testimony, despite his claim of assisting him. Even David Lifton called him out as never being in the ER in the first place.
Second hand testimony about claims of a person who wasn’t even in the ER is bogus.
Give us some real testimony from any of the principal attending physicians that the head was moved in any way. The fact that you had to come up with such a statement reportedly from someone who wasn’t even there should convince you that there isn’t any.
Photon, perhaps the doctors were satisfied enough by what they saw that they didn’t need to examine the back wound.
Dr. McClelland also reported that he was standing next to the JFK’s head in trauma room one. He stated that he had very little responsibility during the approximate fifteen minute period he was there. He said he spent much of that time looking at and analyzing the head wound of Kennedy which he describes in the occipital-parietal area. This of course is consistent with a shot from in front of the President.
Except that the back of the head was never examined. JFK was supine on his stretcher, his head was resting on the external occipital protuberance in a pool of blood. The head was never moved from that position until two nurses wrapped it up in 4 sheets. That position was the same as that seen in the “stare of death” autopsy photo.
That position obscures the posterior part of the head. None of the principle doctors present have stated that the head was ever moved from the supine position, or even moved at all.
NONSENSE.
Dr. Carrico was the first Doctor on the scene, in Trauma Room 1. Here’s what he said under oath:
“I saw a large gaping wound located in the right occipitoparietal area.” He told HSCA there was a “fairly large wound in the right side of the head, in the parietal, occipital area…That wound be above and posterior to the ear.”
I have more doctor’s assertions about the head wound if you would care to have me post them : D.
Post any comment that the head was moved by any physician. It would have been impossible to see the posterior part of the head to see the wound as described by the drawing purporting to represent McCleeland’s view.
For the record Carrico stated thay the published autopsy photos corresponded to what he saw in the ER.
You keep focusing on how Kennedy’s head was in a supine position as if no medical personnel could have seen the back of his head blasted out when it wasn’t necessary to lift the President’s head. The entrance wound in the right temple was visible, as was the blood and brains coming out the back, lying down or not.
Dr. Crenshaw challenged JAMA and won for defamation. Here’s an excerpt of what he stated for the record about JFK’s head wound in a typed response to JAMA:
Crenshaw:
These are the statements, nearly all of them official, of the four Dallas doctors, formerly colleagues, who ridiculed me and my claims in JAMA. Let’s total the scorecard:
I saw a wound in the back of the head—occipital and parietal. So did Jenkins, Carrico, Baxter and Perry. Some say occipital and parietal, others say occipital and temporal. The occipital bone in the rear of the head is mentioned by all of us. The size and nature of the wound is very similar in all our descriptions.
I saw cerebellar tissue hanging out of the large head wound. So did Jenkins, Carrico, Baxter and Perry. I saw a small entrance wound in the front of the throat. Perry called it an entrance wound; Carrico called it a “penetrating wound.’ Baxter still says it could have been an entrance wound.
OTHER DALLAS DOCTORS
Many other Parkland doctors were present in Trauma Room 1 and they, too, wrote CE 392’s and
testified before the Warren Commission. Their statements further bolster my claims:
HEAD WOUND
Dr. Kemp Clark •CE 392–“two external wounds…the other in the occipital area of the skull…a large wound of the occipitoparietal area.”
WC testimony–“l examined the wound in the back of the President’s head.”
Noted…”presence of the much larger wound in the right occipital region.”65 Dr. Paul Peters
WC testimony ‘l noted that there was a large defect in the occiput.”66 Dr. Ronald Jones
WC testimony–“There was a large defect in the back of the head.”67 Dr. Gene Akin
• WC testimony–“…in the back of the right occipitoparietal part of the skull was shattered.”68 Dr. Robert McClelland •WC testimony–“1 noted that the right posterior portion of the skull had been extremely blasted…some of the occipital bone was fractured in its lateral half.”
CEREBELLAR TISSUE
Dr. Kemp Clark CE 392–“Both cerebral and cerebellar tissue were extruding from the wound.”
• WC testimony—’…cerebral and cerebellar tissue being damaged and exposed.”71…”theloss of cerebellar tissue…”
Crenshaw continues:
Evidence has surfaced to indicate that since the publication of the JAMA article, some of the Parkland doctors apparently have tried to stake out a kind of compromise position which would allow them to stand by their previous statements about the head wound and still endorse the autopsy photographs as being legitimate. Within weeks of the publication of the JAMA article, a forum about the assassination was held in Dallas. Dr. John K. Lattimer was the principal speaker. Also in attendance, and forming a panel, were several Parkland doctors, including Carrico, Baxter, and Jenkins. I asked to be allowed equal time to speak, but this was denied. So was my second request, to be permitted just 10 minutes in which to show a videotape presenting my view on the medical evidence. At this forum, several of the Dallas doctors said they would reconsider their sworn testimony about cerebellar tissue being damaged and visible in Dallas. This in spite of the fact that some of them had sworn to its presence as late as 14 years after the fact.84 It was in trying to explain the obvious discrepancies between autopsy photographs of the back of Kennedy’s head (where no damage is seen at all), and their Warren Commission and HSCA descriptions of a large wound and missing bone, scalp and hair, that Drs. Carrico and Jenkins came up with a new “reconciliation*: they apparently believe that the head wound they saw is really there in the photographs after all — it is simply under the hair. In their current explanation, the scalp has been reflected by the pathologists and is being held in place. Thus, underneath the hair, shielded from the camera’s lens, is actually the occipitoparietal wound we all saw!
In my opinion, this is a completely untenable theory. The reasons for such an opinion are several:
1.The photographs which depict the back of the head are said to have been taken before dissection began. No incisions are visible on the head, no flaps are seen anywhere, and no Y-incision is seen.
2. A second set of photographs showing the back of the head intact, have no hands holding the head, so that it would be an impossibility that reflected flaps of scalp are being held in place.
3. X-rays, said to show the skull, show no massive wound in the back of the head underneath the scalp and hair.
4. The photographs show a large defect with a flap of scalp hanging from the skull in front of the right ear. I did not see this, and by their own admission, the other doctors did not see it.
Here is how Carrico drew the wound for the Boston Globe, circa 1981.
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/images/carrico_skull.GIF
Drawing is from the JFK Library.
Here is what Carrico actually SAID, which you might find interesting:
http://michaelgriffith1.tripod.com/largewound.htm
I know what he said. But what did he mean?
I think you folks interpret “occipital region” to always mean occipital bone was blown out.
But “occipital region” is much more than merely occipital bone.
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/occipital.htm
Drawings are so pesky. They don’t leave much room to interpret any way you like.
Note, all of the Parkland doctors said specifically “occipitoparietal” – this is a large portion of the skull. They did NOT say the wound was at the “occipital-protuberance,” a specific point at the left and right of the skull at the very bottom. They did not mention the occipital-protuberance because Kennedy was laying on his back on the gurney the whole procedure and his head was never lifted during the procedure.
I have to say that I agree with McAdams on this one particular point of fact. The use of vague language such as “the back of the head” is not conductive of understanding.
From William Matson Law’s IN THE EYE OF HISTORY:
Palamara: But I’ve heard that you did say that the back of the head appeared to
be gone, there was no scalp there…
Custer: Here’s where a lot of researchers screw up. Not the back of the head.
Here’s the back of the head (indicating the area of the head in contact with the
head-holder, photo 2). The occipital region. The defect was in the frontal-temporal region. Now, when you have the body lying like that, everybody points to it and says, “That’s the back of the head.” No! That’s not the back of the head (poining to the top of Kennedy’s head in photo 2)! That’s the top of the head!
Law: Now, explain to me: there’s been a lot of controversy, and this is why some
researchers point to forgery, that the back of the head was blown out. If the back
of his head was blown out, how can the head rest on that [head-holder]?
Custer: Because the back of the head wasn’t blown out. This was still intact (pointing to the lower portion of the back of the head in photo 2). It may not have been perfectly intact, there were fractures in there of course with all the destruction. If the back of the head was gone, there would be nothing there to hold the head up.
Law: But there was a…
Custer: This [head-holder] would have been all inside.
. . . . . . . .
\\][//
Dr. McClelland saw enough of the back of the head to see that it was badly damaged.
How could McClelland and Crenshaw identify an entrance wound in the throat when that wound had already been surgically altered before they had even entered the Trauma Room?
Great to see this out in at least some form of the main stream media. It’s been a whle since I read Trauma Room One. If I remember correctly he entered the room with Dr. Robert McClelland (who later authored the ER drawing of the backside blowout)as Dr. Malcom Perry was starting the tracheostomy. Dr. Perry stated 3 times that afternoon in press conferences the throat wound was an entry wound. This I have personally verified with Dr. McClelland. First reaction of experienced trauma doctors in one of the top 10 busiest ER’s in the country. Statement made before anyone quetioned or influenced their word. They would have taken the tube out befor putting JFK in the casket, Crenshaw would have seen the hole in the throat then. He did at least get some vindication by winning his defamation suit agains the AMA.
You’re right, Dr. Crenshaw wasn’t the only doctor who spoke up. Some people live in a nice and tidy black and white world and they’re entitled to it if that’s what they wish.
http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md41/html/Image4.htm
Such a coincidence that the neck wound was never fully examined at Bethesda. Such a coincidence that the autopsy release from the Kennedy family never specified any prohibitions on what the doctors could examine. Such a coincidence that the alleged gunman sat around on a low floor when the motorcase was scheduled to go by in minutes (it was late). Such a coincidence that witnesses see people with guns on high floors at this time. Such a coincidence that the Parkland docs think it’s an entrance wound when sure enough witnesses report seeing smoke from in front of the president during the ambush. Such a coincidence that the Warren Commission came to different conclusions from the Secret Service and FBI regarding the sequence of bullet wounds.
This is a fraction of coincidences as recounted from the memory of a novice student to this case. 50 years now. Will somebody seriously investigate this thing finally? Please? (insert favorite expletive here)
The ARRB only interviewed 5 physicians from Parkland. Where did you get the 16 number? Better list them or your claim cannot be verified.
List your 5, Photon.
Didn’t NOVA on PBS put out a program that showed that the principle Parkland physicians were given copies of the autopsy photos and every one confirmed that the photos accurately reflected what they saw?
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/novadocs.htm
Something’s fishy here.
In other interview, Peters points to the BOH and explains that the pulled a flap of scalp to cover the hole:
http://spot.acorn.net/jfkplace/09/fp.back_issues/16th_issue/peters.html
I still see an avulsion to the BOH in Z-335:
http://tinypic.com/r/358pbpk/8
There are also others not mentioned in this PBS link that said otherwise.
This is very interesting. If I recall correctly, 16 out of 16 Parkland staff interviewed by the ARRB confirmed that the back of Kennedy’s head was blown out. There is so much confirmation of this head wound that to assert otherwise is to spread disinformation which is something that some people do, of course.
Well Eric, let me assist you with a citation or two, to help dispel some of the disinformation.
(Robert B. Livingston depostion [testimony] in Crenshaw vs. Sutherland)
“Mr. Kizzia (to R.Livingston):
—Q. Dr. Livingston, I’ll ask you questions and give you an opportunity to fully explain that. You were describing your experience with gunshot wounds. Was the information in the reports that you listened to and received about the throat wound descriptive of an entrance wound?
—A. Yes, and in fact several Doctors were quoted, including Dr. Perry, Dr. Crenshaw and Dr. Clark, as indicating it was a wound of entry in their opinion, and they had a lot of experience at Parkland Hospital with gunshot wounds.
—Q. Based upon your knowledge and experience, do you still to this day think that the throat wound was an entrance wound?
—A. Yes.
—Q. Dr. Crenshaw has said in his book, JFK: Conspiracy of Silence, that the wound in President Kennedy’s throat that he saw at Parkland Hospital on November 22, 1963, appeared to be a wound of entrance, Do you think that Dr. Crenshaw was right?
—A. Yes.
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=605&relPageId=4
Testimony of Dr. McClelland—
“Mr. SPECTER – And what action, if any, did you take following that notification?
Dr. McCLELLAND – Immediately upon hearing that, I accompanied the Resident, Dr. Crenshaw, who brought this news to me, to the emergency room, and down to the trauma room 1 where President Kennedy had been taken immediately upon arrival.
…
Dr. McCLELLAND – Yes; as I say, all I did was simply assist Dr. Perry and Dr. Baxter in doing the tracheotomy. All three of us worked together in making an incision in the neck, tracting the neck muscles out of the way, and making a small opening into the trachea near the spot where the trachea had already been blasted or torn open by the fragment of the bullet, and inserting a large metal tracheotomy tube into this hole, and after this the breathing apparatus was attached to this instead of the previous tube which had been placed here.”
http://jfkassassination.net/russ/testimony/mcclella.htm
I think it would be wiser choice to think that experienced Doctors might know a tad more about wounds and hospital procedures than disinformationists.
A few problems with this testimony.
At the time that Livingstone claimed to talk to Hughes nobody even knew who Crenshaw was, let alone what his perception of the wound was. He wasn’t at the Press conference and his views were made public much later. Of course the fact that he arrived after the tracheostomy incision was made makes his claim of seeing an entrance wound impossible. So much for Livingstone’s perception of Crenshaw’s credibility.
He also claimed that Clark said that the throat wound was an entry wound. Is there any evidence that Clark made such a statement during the press conference? The fact that Clark arrived long after the tracheostomy was done makes such a statement invalid- even if he made I such a statement. He was the neurosurgeon.
If Livingstone’s belief that the throat wound was an entrance wound was based on Crenshaw’s book one has to wonder about his diagnostic skills. At the time of the press conference the throat wound description was very limited- and that was the only information available to Livingstone. How could he even know what the throat wound represented when at that time nobody in the world( except possibly Oswald) even knew that JFK had a back wound?
Photon, the problem with your post.
1).”Hughs” has nothing to do with the previous post, this is called “misdirection”.
2) A straight line incision doesn’t obliterate an oval puncture wound of a far greater thickness, and that is on the surface of the skin / wound. You could skin the entire body and the bullet puncture wound would still be clearly visible, especially so when do a trach since they were inserting the tube very close to the same location.
3) Livingstons depostion was made after a lengthy examination of all available evidence, including the notes and comments of the various staff involved, as you try to pretend your not aware of.
Once again as you attempt to spread deliberate misinformation and deception, which you do quite intentionally, let’s not pretend otherwise.
I will still take their skill sets, observations and experience over yours, sorry.
1. Livingstone claimed to talk to Cmdr. Hughes prior to the autopsy.He based his decision to talk to him on the basis of reports in the media from Crenshaw,Perry and Clark that the neck wound was an entrance wound. As only one of those individuals claimed it to be an entrance wound and one individual was never even mentioned in the reports on Nov. 22 Dr. Livingstone’s claim would seem to be in error. As you use him as a source that is an issue with his credibility.
2. A straight surgical incision across any wound most certainly does obliterate that wound,particularly if the incision is bigger than the original wound. Dr. McClelland arrived in time to hold a retractor during the procedure, implying that the incision was deep enough to accommodate a centimeter wide instrument. That incision was obviously deep enough to disrupt the surrounding tissues-as was evident in the autopsy photos.
It would appear that you have never seen a tracheostomy, let alone assisted in the procedure.
Humes,not Hughes. I stand corrected.
Photon, you would be wise to think before you open mouth and insert foot.
“It would appear that you have never seen a tracheostomy, let alone assisted in the procedure.”
As a former firefighter and emergency service provider for many, many years I have seen and participated in a good deal more than you could begin to imagine. Not to mention logging quite a lot of time in Hospital ER’s. Which is why I don’t buy into your disinformation prospects. I have participated in treating a lot more medical emergencies than I ever cared to.
Seems you have left this out, which makes clear that the tracheotomy had already obscured the throat wound when McClelland (with Crenshaw) arrived:
I’m sorry. You do not recall correctly.
The pressure was on John E. (J. Edgar)Hoover to do just that-spread the misinformation that was the coverup.
I don’t think Dr. Crenshaw’s 1991 interview clip is “noise”. It’s a fact that he saw JFK in Trauma Room 1, and that he assisted with putting the President into the casket prior to that casket being taken from Parkland to Air Force One. Incidentally, Dr. McClelland also backs up what Dr. Crenshaw said, and Dr. Perry pointed to his right temple in the press conference that day to indicate where one of the bullets struck Kennedy.
Where Photon and McAdams differ is that they rely on the testimony of Dr. Jenkins. Despite Photon’s claims in this blog that Drs. Crenshaw and McClelland cannot be relied upon to give accurate accounts of the head wound, because they were either distracted, not present to see, or had poor vantage points (or that they made up what they saw!), Photon DOES rely on Dr. Jenkins’ memory and ER witness testimony. He then backs up the ‘shot from behind’ with the Warren Report and the autopsy, which were politically guided to cover up what the Parkland doctors initially saw and reported upon.
You have to ask yourself: WHY would Dr. Crenshaw have come forward to say all of this? Was he just out for “JFK assassination gold” i.e. selling books? It sounds like a rather flimsy smear attack. I think his conscience bothered him over the years, and what he said about Dr. Baxter telling everyone to not say a word or their careers would be destroyed holds true. After all, if by stating what you really saw (telling the truth) could either get you bumped off or your career ruined, or your family threatened, as many other witnesses had happen to them, it makes sense that someone in a powerful position (CIA and/or others like LBJ and Hoover) could follow through with their threats to keep quiet. Today just about everyone is dead, so it seems to me that its only the CIA that still cares about keeping the lid on this “AssassinationGate” of 1963. People have tried to tell the truth over the years. Crenshaw’s testimony, late in his career, when he no longer had to worry about that medical career, lines up. If in the process of telling his story in print, working with another writer, that writer tried to elaborate and stray into fiction, that could also be true. In this charge, I believe Photo and McAdams are correct; there are some fabrications added to Crenshaw’s story in his book, I think added by the other co-writer. But his testimony (in the clip above) rings true for me. People just don’t make up things like this —- it makes no sense to do that. Crenshaw was telling the truth.
And what was done with JFK’s head before it was placed in the casket?
Before Dr. Crenshaw’s ability to closely” look into the skull” as the body was placed in the casket? Which would have made it impossible for Dr. Crenshaw to see what he claimed to have seen?
Here’s what Dr. Crenshaw said about Kennedy’s head wound:
“I walked to the President’s head to get a closer look. His entire right cerebral hemisphere appeared to be gone. It looked like a crater–an empty cavity. All I could see there was mangled, bloody tissue. From the damage I saw, there was no doubt in my mind that the bullet had entered his head through the front, and as it surgically passed through his cranium, the missile obliterated part of the temporal and all the parietal and occipital lobes before it lacerated the cerebellum.” ( JFK: Conspiracy of Silence, p. 86)
Incidentally, Dr. Malcolm Perry, his superior, said after watching the televised interview with Dr. Crenshaw:
“”I feel sorry for him. I had thought of suing him, but when I saw him on television [promoting his book], (sic) my anger melted. He has to know that what he said is false, and he knows the rest of us know that. You have to pity him. What a way to end his career. His story is filled with half-truths and insinuations, and those of us who know him know he is desperate… He is a pitiful sight.”
But if you look at the film clips of Dr. Perry on the day of the assassination, and at what he said prior to Secret Service agents visiting him, he said that Kennedy had an entrance wound in his neck and an entrance wound in the front at his right temple. Perry later testified the opposite to the Warren Commission, in which he denied under oath his earlier statements made on Nov. 22. He either perjured himself or had a very bad case of amnesia. I think he adjusted his professional recollections to suit lawyer Arlen Specter, whose client was McCloy and the new Lyndon Johnson government.
Another interesting point which you might not appreciate but any of the open-minded out there reading this reply might. Whereas Dr. Crenshaw was not interviewed by Arlen Specter or by the Warren Commission, Dr. Kenneth Sayler, an intern was. He mentioned Dr. Crenshaw to Arlen Specter, who brought up his name. The conversation went as follows:
Specter to Salyer:”To what extent did Dr. Crenshaw participate?”
Salyer answers: “Dr. Crenshaw participated about the extent that I did. We were occupied in making sure an I. V. was going and hanging up a bottle of blood.” Specter: “Is the–is Dr. Crenshaw a resident?”
Salyer: “yes, he is a third-year resident. That’s the reason I remember him specifically because we were sort of working there together on that.”
(Warren Commission, V6:81)
I have records of what the Doctors who attended to the President saw and said on November 22, and can contrast those statements with how they responded months later to the Warren Commission, and under cross-examination pressure from lawyer Arlen Specter. It’s not a pretty picture. Many of them, such as Dr. Malcolm Perry, caved under government pressure, and changed their recollections and opinions of what happened while under severe scrutiny by legal professionals, what the right wing today likes to call “trial lawyers.” And just as lawyers skilled in getting facts twisted and warped got OJ Simpson free in the murder trial of his wife, I think people like Arlen Specter worked quite skillfully to bend the facts out of these doctors to change the story to fit the lone assassin version.
In reality, this subject of debate really isn’t even necessary.
Viewing the best copy of the Zapruder film, which is also slowed down somewhat. Two things are very noticeable.
JFK disappears behind the street sign on the grassy knoll.
Then, the instant he reappears, his hands and arms are already in motion, the arms are being raised up. If you watch closely, approximately 2 seconds later, JFK lurches forward, his head bounces back and then forward again. Now, why would these too motions occur?
Slap anyone on the back firmly and unexpectedly and you will see almost an identical reaction in body and head movement as to JFK’s lurch forward. Something hit, or pushed him from behind, (please don’t try to claim it was the vehicle breaking. I can tell you exactly when the breaking took place, and it was after the head shot).
Again, this movement occurred after JFK’s arms came up. So what cause his arms to come up before he was hit from behind? The answer is fairly obvious. Also, when his arms came up, his body didn’t lurch forward, it just sort of hunched and stiffened. Of course his back was pressed to the back of the seat, so a frontal throat shot wouldn’t have pushed him back without resistance.
Unconvincing argument. He had a back brace on, which held his body somewhat rigid, and was the reason why his body didn’t snap back quite as far with a neck hit from the front. His head, not held by a back brace, DID snap backward, which the film clearly shows.
This has NOTHING to do with what the doctors at Parkland, including Dr. Crenshaw, reported: JFK had a massive EXIT wound in the rear of his head. He also came in with a small entrance wound in his throat which Dr. Perry opened just a tiny bit more to insert a trach device to pump oxygen into Kennedy’s lungs. Oh, and JFK also had an entrance wound in his back, which means he was hit from both the back and the front.
JSA, read again my previous statement, you seem to have misunderstood.
What I was implying is this…..the hands came up first, because of the frontal shot to the throat.
JFK’s body is then suddenly pushed forward, which causes his head to snap backwards and forwards, from the shot to his back, (the body moved forward from impact from shot to the back which the neck muscles were not ready for. The head had to move forward to catch up to the body, with a slightly delayed action).
I wasn’t referring to the head shot, as I said, the head shot had not yet been taken.
You mentioned the throat wound in your previous statement and Photon had made previous posts in attempts to argue against a frontal throat wound.
Also, JFK’s head snapped backwards from the back shot, BUT….his body lurched forward at the same time.
I wasn’t arguing your point, I was clarifying it.
JFK was hit twice from in front (head and throat), and at least once from behind (back).
But let me suggest it has a good deal to do with the head shot, at least the difference in motions does. In the head shot, it was the head that was hit and not the body, so it was the head which snapped back which the much heavier body resisted, causing the head to snap forward again. The entire motion losing force slightly through it’s progression. Action and reaction, cause and effect.
So you are correct, JFK was shot from front and back.
CT’s that claim the throat wound was an entrance wound never seem to address or be able to factually answer this one fundamental question – if it was a entrance wound due to a shot from the front, where is the exit wound?
you are correct. when the hands go up, the bullet had already hit. a reaction. the film and the sign, are an issue. missing pieces, are true and a possible exit wound, is also wondered, as a ricochete is filmed. two or more shots. and – a puff of smoke. late films got emhanced and changed. several wimdows have boxes…
JSA: I’ve researched Dr. Baxter to some extent. Can you elaborate on this?
“I think his conscience bothered him over the years, and what he said about Dr. Baxter telling everyone to not say a word or their careers would be destroyed holds true.”
Tks.
Leslie,
I think Dr. Baxter saw the same thing that Drs. Crenshaw, Perry, Carrico, and the others saw on November 22: an entrance wound from a bullet in Kennedy’s right temple, blasted out brain and skull in the back of the head, and an entrance wound in Kennedy’s neck, just above where his necktie knot had been. I also think there was a bullet wound left unprobed in the back, which didn’t exit the body, and which military officials told the forensics staff NOT to probe during the autopsy. My guess is that this shot came from behind, most likely from a shooter in the Dal-Tex building, due to the low trajectory angle of that entrance. The Parkland doctors didn’t get a chance to examine the back entrance wound it should be noted.
Here’s what Gary Aguilar has to say about Dr. Baxter, who I think changed his testimony (as did Dr. Perry) to fit the political pressure exerted on them by the Secret Service, and indirectly by Allen Dulles, Arlen Specter of the Warren Commission:
CHARLES RUFUS BAXTER, MD: a resident physician at Parkland in a hand written note prepared on 11-22-63 and published in the Warren Report (p. 523) Baxter wrote, “…the right temporal and occipital bones were missing (emphasis added) and the brain was lying on the table…” (WR:523). Very oddly, as Wallace Milam pointed out to one of the authors (Aguilar), when asked to read his own hand written report into the record before the Warren Commission’s Arlen Specter the words are recorded exactly as he wrote them, except for the above sentence. That sentence was recorded by the Warren Commission and reads “…the right temporal and parietal bones were missing. (emphasis added)…”. (WC-V6:44) It is reasonable to assume that Baxter’s original description of a more rearward wound is more reliable than his later testimony before Arlen Specter, who on more than one occasion tried to move the skull wound away from the rear. Baxter then described the head wound saying, “…literally the right side of his head had been blown off. With this and the observation that the cerebellum was present….” (WC-V6:41) Thus the wound he saw was more likely to have been “temporo-occipital” than “temporo-parietal”, because he also recalled, “cerebellum was present”. (WC-V6:41) Shortly later in the same interview he also said, “…the temporal and parietal bones were missing and the brain was lying on the table….” (WC-V6:44) The authors are unaware of any explanation for the discrepancies, and can only speculate that either Baxter was misquoted twice or he adjusted his testimony to conform with what he might have felt was wanted of him. The mystery was confounded when author Livingstone reported that Baxter described the skull wound as “…a large gaping wound in the occipital area.” Livingstone also reported that “(Baxter) could not have been more clear when he rejected the official picture (showing the rear scalp intact).”(Groden & Livingstone, High Treason, 1989, New York, Berkley Books, p. 45)
Baxter’s reliability has also been called into question for a comment attributed to him by Dennis Breo, staff writer for JAMA, and Gerald Posner. Baxter apparently supported Breo’s suggestion that Charles Crenshaw, MD, author of the recent book, “Conspiracy of Silence”, (Crenshaw, CA, Hansen, J, Shaw, G. JFK: Conspiracy of Silence. 1992, New York, Signet) was not in JFK’s trauma room. JAMA wrote, “Most of those who know the facts express disgust at Crenshaw’s actions and question if he was involved in the care of the President at all… None of the four (interviewed by Breo) recalls ever seeing him at the scene.” (Breo, D. L., JAMA, 267:2804-2805). This claim was used by JAMA to support the Warren Commission’s reconstruction of the event, and call into question Crenshaw’s recollections of JFK’s wounds published in his book–recollections that flatly contradicted the Commission’s findings. In an interview with author Gerald Posner in 1992, Baxter said, “I don’t either (remember that Crenshaw was present in JFK’s trauma room).” (Posner, G. Case Closed, p. 312, paper version). Embarrassingly, before the Warren Commission’s Arlen Specter, however, Baxter, under oath, listed the physicians present with him in the emergency room with JFK. The first physician he named was Charles Crenshaw. (WC- V6:40)
source: http://www.assassinationweb.com/ag6.htm
As if Baxter’s credibility had not suffered enough, he reported to author Posner on March 12, 1992, “I never even saw the back of (JFK’s) head. The wound was on the right side, not the back.” (Posner, Case Closed, p. 312) Baxter would do well to read his own hand-written note, prepared on the day of the assassination, and reproduced legibly in the Warren Report, and read the transcripts of interviews he’s given authors before allowing further interviews.
JSA, thank you very much for that thoughtful elaboration.
The months and (to a limited degree) years following the assassination reveal almost as much as those preceding. Following the axiom “who benefited?” it’s interesting to identify specific and direct advancement in careers. (I noted on another recent thread that John Tilton’s son Glen(n) – John being George Joannides’ supervisor according to Jeff Morley – was hired directly out of university by Texaco when Arleigh Burke sat on the board, and ended up CEO several decades later). Several years after the assassination, Dr. Baxter received a major award from (ironically) Baxter Travenol that most assuredly positioned him in great favor among peers and commercial/medical communities. Was there a direct correlation? This may seem trivial, but understood in a broader context I think it’s worth mentioning. What pressures were applied to those in close proximity to the aftermath of the assassination, and who applied them? Was the pressure subtle or overt? Would everyone have been as successful regardless of their cooperation in the cover up? Does it matter?
Dr. Crenshaw was a good man who told the truth.
I’m sorry, Photon, I don’t know who you are. But you DO — and, more importantly, you know WHAT you are.
Dr. Crenshaw has more than adequately addressed his detractors and exposed the true “fabricators” in this case for all the world to see.
We’ll do it again in a few weeks. That pesky record will again stand for all to see.
Thanks for your vindication of Dr. Crenshaw.
Noise. Crenshaw admitted that he was not directly involved -he was only a resident in a room filled with attending physicians. He published claims about the neck wound when it is well documented that he didn’t even get to the ER before the tracheostomy was started and therefore it was impossible for him to have seen the unaltered wound.
Again, I refer to well documented published studies about the accuracy of ER physicians interpretations of wounds.
According to WC fundamentalists, surgeons aren’t qualified to describe anatomy.
Apparently the fundies believe that multiple doctors (and nurses and everyone else) looked at a tiny, clean wound as depicted by Ida Dox’s official drawing, and then described it as a large avulsive wound – as large as a fist – in the occipito-parietal region. According to Crenshaw and McClelland, bone, scalp, and hair were missing in the region, and brain tissue, including much of the cerebellum, was hanging from the opening. Were the doctors insane or merely incompetent?
Bill, your points may be valid, but using terms like “WC fundamentalists” and “fundies” detracts from the merits of your position and weakens the debate.
Not really.
‘WC fundamentalists’ believe in their position with *religious fervor* despite valid critical points made over the years.
My question is this. Why was the Warren commission show no photos of the head shot only drawings and diagrams?