There was no large wound in the right face. The president’s wounds were a small entrance wound in the pre-tracheal area, a large exit wound in the posterior inferior cranium and bullet entrance wound in the back at T3, 10 centimeters to the right of the spinal column.
A reader writes:
“I have a JFK assassination eye witness story that you’ll find interesting.
“In November of 2013 Dr. Don Curtis spoke at The Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum in Canyon, Texas about his assisting in the emergency room at Parkland when Kennedy was brought in. Dr. Curtis mentioned that he became convinced of a conspiracy years later after seeing that Kennedy’s wounds in autopsy photos did not match what he had seen in person.
“I found out that Dr. Curtis lives in the same city (Amarillo, Texas) as I do, obtained his address, and wrote him a letter asking how the wounds he saw at Parkland compare to the ones seen in the Zapruder film–specifically the large, gaping one in Kennedy’s right front temple. To avoid any confusion, I also sent an enlarged color printout of Z-frame 337.
Dr. Curtis wrote back the following:
There was no large wound in the right face. The president’s wounds were a small entrance wound in the pre-tracheal area, a large exit wound in the posterior inferior cranium and bullet entrance wound in the back at T3, 10 centimeters to the right of the spinal column.
(H/T Shawn)
The evidentiary record clearly contains contradictory statements from different and, on some occasions, the same people. For example, Finck testifys both that the family wanted the autopsy limited and that he was told by military person he was in charge. Thus, commentators are stuck with reviewing the record through their respective lenses/biases. I think we can all argue till we’re blue in the face but because of the record for this issue and many other aspects of this case, the abysmal record is subject to multiple interpretations. Had there been a trial, the jury would have had to evaluate the testimony based on the relative credibility of the various witnesses, how they appeared on the stand and their common experience.
Lawrence, I believe Finck waffles or hedges his answers, either to not offend a higher authority or the Kennedy Family, or protect himself.
If you’ve been following my posts, you know that this isn’t a contradiction.
Burkley was an Admiral, and thus outranked the autopsists. But he also claimed (sincerely and credibly) to be representing the wishes of “the family.”
Put those two things together and you have a rushed and incomplete autopsy.
“Burkley was an Admiral, and thus outranked the autopsists. But he also claimed (sincerely and credibly) to be representing the wishes of “the family.”
Put those two things together and you have a rushed and incomplete autopsy.”~John McAdams
The validity of this proposition hinges upon the unlikely assertion that Col Finck did not know who Admiral Burkley was.
Under the circumstances I find that very unlikely.
\\][//
During the Shaw trial, Finck testified that he was ordered not to dissect JFK’s back wound by a superior in the morgue whose name, like the “in-charge” general, just wouldn’t come to mind.
Gary Aguilar May 31
To not do a dissection of the wounds of a gunshot victim is that not against the law in the U S? Even at a Naval Hospital?
It defies believe that the President was dead and his wounds were not going to be dissected. We could never know definitivly how many shots and from which direction.
There was something very wrong at Bethseda.
These actions make the situation feel like a Coup.
And the Military were in charge at the JFK Autopsy according to Finck’s testimony.
The President had just been killed hours before and more crimes were continuing.
Did no one answer for not doing a dissection.
“A. That can happen, sure. In other words, if he was shot from above and the bullet came down from above at about a 45 degree angle, it’s possible that that hole could have been made that way. But putting the whole thing together, after I had seen the Zapruder film as well as what I had seen directly, it seemed clear to me that he was shot from the front, from the grassy knoll, because of the way his body was thrown backward and to the left; that was consistent with my view of the wound when I first saw it, that this was an exit rather than an entrance wound.”~McClelland
And you take this as proof that there was no conspiracy McAdams?
What?!?!?
\\][//
It contradicts the notion that the autopsy photos were faked.
The “great defect” in the “back” of the head he saw was the one seen in the autopsy photos.
Which blows Aguilar’s notions out of the water.
“The “great defect” in the “back” of the head he saw was the one seen in the autopsy photos.”~McAdams
Yes, an autopsy photo none of the rest of us have seen – one of the “flap” covering the exit wound in the rear of the head being lifted to reveal that wound.
Why haven’t these autopsy photos and X-rays been released to the public in all these years “professor”.
Aguilar has never stated he thought the photos or X-rays are faked. Neither have I, I have said the ones that we have seen do not represent the wound seen at Parkland.
Humes also mentioned in testimony to the ARRB that there were several ‘flaps’ that could be manipulated or pulled aside that showed large wound under them. There is also a large triangular flap at the right temple that that falls back when Kennedy is on his back, and “opens” when he is on his stomach.
The large exit wound in the right occipital-parietal is seen in some of the photos in the at the National Archives.
“Q. You have been quoted as saying that you have seen the president’s autopsy photos that show a great defect in the back of his head?
A. “Yes. I’ve seen them, and that’s what I saw.”~McClelland
\\][//
The HSCA FPP saw them all. So have numerous other doctors, including (early on) Wecht and Lattimer.
So did the Ramsay Clark Panel, and the Rockefeller Panel.
None of them saw any wound of the sort you want to exist.
Which means the wound he saw is the wound shown in the extant photos.
“Which means the wound he saw is the wound shown in the extant photos.”~McAdams
Horse snot “professor”, you know full well that these are photos and X-rays that are hidden from public view at the National Archives.
There was a massive exit wound in the rear of Kennedy’s head. This is verified over and again, but you won’t give up you rhetorical nonsense.
\\][//
The entire set has been examined by (now) dozens of medical people, including the Ramsay Clark Panel, the Rockefeller Panel, and the HSCA FPP.
Even Cyril Wecht (who saw them early on) admitted they showed no evidence of a shot from the front.
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/wecht.htm
The personal insults on this site have gotten out of hand.It is one thing to vehemently disagree with someone’s point of view and point out what are perceived as errors; it is entirely different to call posters names and insult them with derogatory titles. “Horse snot professor”? At least he graduated from college, which is more than can be said for Mr. Whitten.
This habit seems to be the refuge of people who are losing arguments. Perhaps the most disappointing in this regard are the comments of Dr. Aguilar, an intelligent and well educated man. Personal insults really have no place if you have facts.
Supporting links included in comments are also helpful and a courtesy to readers. In your several thousand submitted comments to discussion threads at Jfkfacts.org, can you present links to five of your prior comments in which you’ve included a link? How about in just three examples of your prior comments?
I think it is quite fair to say you’ve been extended every courtesy, extension of courtesy does not constitute a waiver.:
Thus, it is interesting to observe you calling out other commentors. Which are more disconcerting, several thousand submitted comments sans even payment of lip service to the requirement outlined above, many of those comments submitted with an air of authority yet no other actual support, or ….. the complaints you are making now, and the time I’ve used up responding to your issues?
Here is an example of an included, supporting link. Is that so difficult a requirement to justify your nearly complete unresponsiveness to repeated requests for your cooperation?:
“Even Cyril Wecht (who saw them early on) admitted they showed no evidence of a shot from the front.”~McAdams
“Interestingly, the Commission’s account of Wecht’s statements isn’t as anti-conspiracy as Wecht publicly claimed. He is quoted, for example, as holding out for the possibility of an exit wound in the back of Kennedy’s head.
When the Commission issued its report, Wecht went ballistic. He charged the Commission with misrepresenting him. For example, he told the New York Times that “if that transcript shows in any way I have withdrawn or revised my thoughts of the Warren Report, I’ll eat the . . . transcript on the steps of the White House” (“Doctor Says Rockefeller Panel Distorted His View on Kennedy,” June 11, 1975, pg. 3A). And further “Believe me, I hammered this point [of two gunman] and made it perfectly clear. . . It is utterly reprehensible and despicable but also a great compliment that they would consider my testimony that much of a threat” (ibid.).
Further, the Times wrote that “Dr. Wecht denies the statement by the report that he ‘testified that the available evidence all points to the President being struck by two bullets coming from the rear, and that no support can be found for theories which postulate gunmen to the front or right front of the Presidential car.’ Dr. Wecht said that was a ‘flagrant’ misrepresentation of what he told a commission attorney, Robert Olsen, in a five-hour interview on May 7” (ibid).
Similar fulminations appeared in the Dallas Morning News. An article in that paper quoted Wecht as saying that the “crux and primary thrust of my testimony . . . is that the Warren Commission’s single-bullet theory is wrong and that the available medical, physical and photographic evidence all point to the fact that the assassination was carried out by two gunmen” (“Distortions Charged,” June 13, 1975). Wecht further claimed that his statements were “grossly misrepresented and deliberately distorted” to give the appearance that he supported the Warren Commission conclusions (Ibid and quoted in Shaw, Cover-Up, 29). The article recorded one partial concession on Wecht’s part saying that “he may have testified that the available evidence does not support theories of a gunman to the right or right front of the president” (Ibid, emphasis added).
Wecht didn’t limit his attacks on the Commission to newspapers, but carried it into medical periodicals.
The official Rockefeller Commission report ignored that completely and took one sentence out of context to support their view that there were no shots fired from the front of the President. The fact that the Government is hiding evidence that could prove or disprove the contention that Kennedy was shot from the front as well as the rear does not prove that the wasn’t shot from the front. And it certainly doesn’t prove that there was only one assassin.”
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/wecht.htm
\\][//
That’s not true. Wecht clearly told the Rockefeller Commission:
Wecht got huffy about how the Rockefeller Commission quoted him, because he did believe in a conspiracy.
But what he said about a supposed shot from the right front is right there in the transcript.
I take it as proof that McClelland never examined the head wound as closely as he claimed in this interview-because it contradicts the statement he committed to writing on Nov 22, a statement which was a near verbatim description of what Jenkins ( mistakenly) told him.
For 11 and a half years he wasn’t sure about the head wound. Because despite all of the hoopla about this gentleman’s claims about the head wound there is no conceivable reason why he wrote what he did on Nov. 22, 1963 unless he NEVER EXAMINED THE HEAD. QED.
Take what as proof that McLelland never examined the head wound?
What do you mean he wasn’t sure about the head wound for 11.5 years?
He made a drawing for Tink in 1966 (a copy of which he certified later in 1994).
http://www.jfklancer.com/photos/medical/mcdrawing.GIF
Interesting he says he made that drawing, since Tink says McClelland did not make the drawing.
Rather it was made by a medical illustrator from McClelland’s verbal description. I don’t know what to make of that, since I don’t think McClelland is a liar.
No, but Gerry obviously is if his statement isn’t a simple mistake.
The 11 and a half year statement come directly from the November 2008 article quoted by Lawrence Schnapf above-apparently he didn’t read it before posting a referral to it.
Well, according to this certified drawing, he says he made it. Regardless, he also confirms it is an “exact copy” of the one he made for Tink.
http://www.jfklancer.com/photos/medical/mcdrawing.GIF
@ Photon,
Thank you for pointing out that article which I missed earlier.
Dr. McClelland wasn’t confident of his initial assessment probably because of the government’s position, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t know what he saw.
Watching the Z film affirmed his own observations and beliefs, contrary to the official version.
I think it is fair to say that he (like any other reasonable person) might have begun to question his recollection when the official findings came out but then became more certain of his initial recollection when he saw the Z-film. This would seem to be natural human reaction. Of course, a good prosecutor could try to use Dr. McClelland’s subsequent statement to undermine his credibility.
That’s because his Nov. 22, 1963 statement proves that he has none-at least in regard to the head wound.
I wonder if Tink Thompson and the rest of the CT acolytes of the veracity of Dr. McClelland were even aware of his written Nov. 22 statement. If they were aware it becomes a real question of integrity- did CT authors knowingly suppress information that could impeach a star witness simply to create a false narrative-and sell books?
Let’s face it, anybody who refers to McClelland’s “drawing” showing the phantom blowout of the back of the head had better come up with some explanation as to how a guy who was so unsure of what the head wound looked like that he had to accept the wrong version of somebody who actually had a look. They are going to have to come up with a reason why somebody who was so sure of his perception of the head wound that he helped generate a drawing posted extensively by CTers and yet admitted to a reporter in 2008 that he wasn’t sure about the specifics of the head wound until he saw the Zapruder film on TV-the same film that many CTers claim is faked.
And Dr. Aguilar is going to have to come up with an explanation as to why first impressions in the ER are infallible in the face of McClelland’s gross error -and his only mention of where the wound was in his written statement. Perhaps Dr Aguilar has an answer to his assumed near unanimity among the Parkland docs in regards to the head wound. Most if not all relied on the perceptions of a few and regurgitaed those impressions-just like McClelland did.
McClelland: Photos Genuine / Part III
A. It was bloody and there was a lot of hair, and also we didn’t get a chance to examine him closely. All we saw him was five minutes, and all I could see was the back of his head.
Q. What do you think happened for the rear wound to be covered up in the autopsy photos?
A. Well, I think it’s only that one picture. I discounted that picture because I thought someone was pulling the scalp over it, but someone told me they weren’t, but it sure looked like they were. I think they were, so I was not mystified by saying it doesn’t look like what I saw. The wounds that I saw when that flap is not coveting them were just the kind of same wounds that I had seen in Trauma Room One. That picture where they are pulling the flap up was the only one out of several photos, which didn’t jive with what I saw.
Q. Do you think they didn’t want people to see the wound in the back of the head?
A. No. I think whenever you make a series of autopsy photos, if they were trying to do that they wouldn’t have shown any of the open wounds that weren’t covered with the flap and it was apparent that he had a big hole in the back of his skull on the right side. I don’t think they were trying to cover it up or they wouldn’t have shown those other photos.
Q. You have been quoted as saying that you have seen the president’s autopsy photos that show a great defect in the back of his head?
A. Yes. I’ve seen them, and that’s what I saw.
Q. Is it possible that if JFK has been shot from behind and nowhere else, that he could have a wound like you saw in the back of his head?
A. That can happen, sure. In other words, if he was shot from above and the bullet came down from above at about a 45 degree angle, it’s possible that that hole could have been made that way. But putting the whole thing together, after I had seen the Zapruder film as well as what I had seen directly, it seemed clear to me that he was shot from the front, from the grassy knoll, because of the way his body was thrown backward and to the left; that was consistent with my view of the wound when I first saw it, that this was an exit rather than an entrance wound.
McClelland: Photos Genuine / Part II
Q. Do you believe, from what you originally saw at Parkland, in regards to the President’s wounds, that the autopsy photos have been tampered with, or do you think that they are pulling President Kennedy’s scalp up and it’s hiding the wound in the back of his head?
A. That’s what I thought (the latter option) because one of the pictures shows that the back part of his head was intact, and I had seen it blown out. But I discounted the significance of that when I first saw that, because when I looked at that picture it looked like the autopsy doctor had pulled a flap of scalp over that hole in his head. I can see his thumb and forefinger in the top of the picture pulling the scalp forward.
But then I was later told by some of the people who were at the autopsy, that no, that had not been a flap pulled up over the wound, but was the way it had been there showing the whole back of head intact.
Well, I knew that wasn’t right. I didn’t speculate that I may be wrong. No, I knew exactly what that wound looked like and the back of his head was gone on the right side, five or six inches in diameter. I didn’t get a complete idea of the wound until many years later when I saw the Zapruder film and I put that together with what I saw in Trauma Room One and it looks to me like he was hit from the front. His head explodes, literally, and he’s thrown violently back and to the left.
People always ask me if I saw a wound from the front; no, I did not because I didn’t get a chance to examine his body that carefully. All I got to see was that massive hole in the back of his head, so I’m making the assumption that there was probably a smaller hole somewhere near the hairline of the right side of his scalp and it blew out the right side of his skull.
Q. Is it possible for a bullet to hit someone in the right side of their head and blow out the same side?
A. It’s possible, but not probable.
Q. People argue that if President Kennedy was shot from the grassy knoll, the left side of his head would have been blown out, and not the right, because the entry of the bullet would have come from the right hand side where the knoll is located. “What do you make of that assessment?
A. No, people who say that really don’t have any conception of bullet wounds.
Q. Do you think you couldn’t see the entry wound because of the damage on his head?
McClelland: Photos Genuine / Part I
BEFORE HISTORY DIES: THE STORIES SURROUNDING THE JFK ASSASSINATION THAT STRIPPED AMERICA OF HER INNOCENCE, by Jacob Carter
Q. I have a question about the head wound you saw on President Kennedy. I want to ask you this question in detail, because some say that you’re mistaken in the way you just described the wound in the back of his head. Some claim because you didn’t turn the President around, you might be mistaken, because they claim there was never a wound in the back of President Kennedy’s head. Could you describe what you said in detail or tell us if you ever looked behind his head to confirm a wound in the back of his head?
A. Well, that’s not quite true. I was standing at the back of the head; I was standing about 18 inches above the back of his head, so I was looking directly down into a wound in the back of his head that was probably five or six inches in diameter. It included most of the right part of the back of his head and a little bit of the back part of the top of his head. It was a massive wound, and all of the brain of that part of his head had been blown out. So, I got a very long look at that directly over a period of five or six minutes while Dr. Perry and Dr. Baxter were exploring the neck and putting in a tracheotomy line.
I just stood there and looked down into that wound, so I wasn’t diverted from anything else. I just looked into that wound for around three or four minutes before he was pronounced dead, so I have a very vivid impression of what the wound looked like in the back of his head.
Q. So, you have no doubt in your mind that there was a wound in the right rear portion of President Kennedy’s head?
A. Oh gosh, no more so than the sun comes up every morning. I saw that directly as I said from a distance of maybe 18 inches above it, and stared at that wound for five or six minutes before he was pronounced dead.
Q. Did the other doctors see the same thing?
A. No. They weren’t in the position I was in. Dr. Perry and Dr. Baxter were working on the president’s neck, doing the tracheotomy. So, they turned all their attention towards that, not the wound at his head. And, people who were walking around the trauma room didn’t get anything but indirect glances at the head. I had the best and most direct view for the longest period.
Q. Now, I want to ask you about the autopsy photos of President Kennedy. If I am correct you have viewed those photos at the national archives?
A. Yes.
[End part 1]
How did Dr. Curtis determine a wound at T3 when he was at Parkland?
And, more basically, since we have multiple descriptions of the head wounds from Parkland, why not just rely on the autopsy photos and x-rays? It’s a simple question to ask, and, since many here have conspicuously avoided answering it, clearly a very hard one for CTers to answer.
[Tom S.:]
“Ramon, name some individuals you are convinced are interested only in the truth and I will present evidence to the contrary.”
=================
Okay, if you twist my arm, I will mention a few:
• Sylvia Meagher
• Vincent Salandria
• Harold Weisberg
• William Pitzer
Okay, let’s get started….
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=103865&relPageId=5&search=salandria
http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/C%20Disk/Core%20Jesse/Item%2012.pdf
Harold Weisberg befriends Jesse Core. I find no mention of David Baldwin in the Weisberg archives.
There are too many comments in the thread at the following link. Entire comment can be located via time, date stamp.:
Ramon, you’ll find no mention of what I presented above, on the Education Forum, JFK Debate, and, although I tried on deeppoliticsforum, DiEugenio certainly had no interest in discussing this. Please read my comments on the thread I linked to above my mention of Joan Mellen in the comment above, and if you have questions, I would be happy to attempt to answer them.
I vehemently believe “the community” must talk this to death in sincere attempts to come to grips with it, all of it, including that Nicholas B. Lemann could not seem a textbook CIA mockingbird to a greater degree, if he actually worked at it!
“that Nicholas B. Lemann could not seem a textbook CIA mockingbird to a greater degree, if he actually worked at it!”~Tom S.
So, just so I am clear on this, Nicholas B. Lemann is an obvious textbook CIA mockingbird. Which I certainly agree to.
But who is it that you see that DISAGREES with this proposition?
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Tom,
My post from May 31 is still awaiting moderation. I left a blank line between each person & question the Warren Commission could/should have asked – it appears long-winded but there are a number of posts under this topic that have more words than mine – let me know.
There are? Please provide a link to one of them. Your comment included 835 words.
http://www.wordcounttool.com/
The most irritating and demanding part of this assignment is maintaining this, at Jeff’s insistence.:
When I began volunteering on this site last October, I emailed each commentor who submitted in excess of 500 words. Doing that, combined with copying and pasting every longish comment into the wordcounttool box, and not ever taking a day’s respite (two days off in April) from Jfkfacts.org and posting constant reminders to submit comments of more than four words but less than 501, and no comments with links unaccompanied by a text introduction, has
influenced me to offer this reply.
Mr. Kiel, if you need the text of your comment I will email it to you.
“The most irritating and demanding part of this assignment is maintaining … 500 words or less”.
I like the limit. While there is no question detail is important conciseness to me is also. If a given poster can’t address a topic in 500 words or less they often digress. In addition a post can be continued in a second one, or more I guess. Last, over the course of days a poster may do so many times on a topic. But at least it’s broken up by other post’s and not so much of a diatribe or lecture.
[Tom S.:]
“Ramon, name some individuals you are convinced are interested only in the truth and I will present evidence to the contrary.”
=================
Tom, I will be the first to admit that while we CTs are not perfect, we are demonstrably better.
Allow me to create the two sets and assign characteristics to them:
(A) CTs. Their position is ultimately derived from the only valid source of truth. Affiliated with universities.
(B) LNs. Willing and able to commit murder.
Cleverly, I will reverse that burden of proof on you.
Find one on my side who has killed in order to prevent the truth of the JFK case and I will acknowledge that both sides are bad.
Find one on my side who wants the full documentation locked up until 2039 and I will agree with you.
It is relevant to add one of my fundamental maxims:
(a) When it comes to the Truth, the only reference is our Universities.
(b) The better the University, the more Liberal
Q.E.D.
Here is link to an article from D-magazine where McClelland and Jenkins discuss the head wound. http://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/2008/november/the-day-kennedy-died
Lawrence, I can’t think of a better article that completely destroys McClellend’s credibility in regards to the head wound.The most comical aspect is how Jenkins and McClelland argued over the head wound and how Jenkins was only operating an anesthesia machine and never got a good look at the head wound while McClelland had a clear view and studied it. And yet despite this clear view McClelland’s only written description of the head wound on Nov. 22 is what Jenkins told him-and an incorrect description to boot! The cerebellum claims are also fascinating-I have no doubt that McClelland picked up his version of cerebellum on the drapes from Jenkins (just like his regurgitation of the left temple myth) but refused to admit that he could be mistaken as Jenkins did-because likely he never really identified it in the first place!
But the real gem: ” He wouldn’t feel confident in his initial assessment until 11 and a half years later…”
WHAT??!! After 40 years of CT dogma that McClelland is the most reliable and believable Parkland witness the subject himself admits that for the first decade after the assassination he WAS NOT SURE about his impressions of the head wound. But his powers of observation dramatically improved when he and his wife saw Geraldo Rivera on the Tonight show showing the Zapruder film. But those powers of observation were insufficient for him to know that Rivera NEVER SHOWED the Zapruder film on the Tonight Show!
To paraphrase Dr. Aguilar “You can’t make this sh_t up” As Dr. McClelland proves you most certainly can-and CTers have swallowed it hook,line and sinker for forty years
The fact that he thought he saw the Z-film on the Tonight Show instead of Geralda’s show does not really matter. I can certainly understand confusion over what one saw when one hears contrary information. This is one example why eyewitness testimony is so unreliable. Our memories are not like tape recorders but can be distorted by emotions and later events. That is why we we lawyers call “hard” evidence is the best evidence. Eyewitness testimony is most valuable as corroboration of hard evidence.
Larry
Great quote, Willy!
Poor Humes. He was in a real fix. He was given JFK’s body, told, as per the Wash Post, ‘three shots were heard and the President fell forward,’ and that the assassin had fired from above and behind. He knew what he had to conclude: that JFK’s wounds were consistent with the “known facts.”
So, simply, that’s what he/they concluded. Duh!
Alas, this wasn’t the first or only time Humes was misleading and untruthful. (See “How Five Investigations …” http://www.history-matters.com/essays/jfkmed/How5Investigations/How5InvestigationsGotItWrong.htm
Besides his ARRB admission conflicting with his 1964 testimony, it also contradicted two affidavits he had signed shortly after the assassination, a fact even the ARRB may not have been aware of. Two days after JFK’s death, Humes “certified” over his signature that he had “destroyed by burning certain preliminary draft notes relating to” JFK’s autopsy,”[24] but that otherwise, “all working papers associated with [JFK’s autopsy] have remained in my personal custody at all times. Autopsy notes and the holograph draft of the final report were handed to Commanding Officer, U.S. Naval Medical School, at 1700, 24 November 1963.”[25]
Thus, Humes admitted he’d destroyed “preliminary draft notes” that were written up while he worked at home drafting Kennedy’s autopsy report. But in his affidavit, the essence of which he repeated to the Warren Commission, he made no mention that he also had destroyed original working papers – autopsy notes. On the contrary. He left the impression he hadn’t. For he made a point in this same affidavit to distinguish between “autopsy notes” that he had “handed over,” and “preliminary draft notes,” which he incinerated. (Torching original autopsy notes, of course, would have been medico-legally frowned upon had it occurred in a civilian autopsy of even the most undistinguished murder victim.) Humes may have also destroyed the original, hand-written autopsy notes of his forensics-consulting expert, Pierre Finck MD.[26]
Yet Finck testified to the HSCA and to the ARRB that he had taken measurements and written notes himself, and that both his notes and measurements “were turned over to Dr. Humes.”[29] Those documents have vanished.
It’s always worth recalling what The Intercept has recently reminded us of: “Pentagon Official Once Told Morley Safer That Reporters Who Believe the Government Are ‘Stupid.'”
https://theintercept.com/2016/05/20/pentagon-official-once-told-morley-safer-that-reporters-who-believe-the-government-are-stupid/
Govt. officials, and their courtiers, very much want you to believe the govt. on JFK.
The answer I like to us is, “No thanks. I’m not as stoopid as I look.” ;~>
Gary
Ya can’t make this sh_t up!
Gary,
I have Von Pein on the line here, where I have just posted that testimony given by Humes to Mr. Cornwell at the ARRB deposition:
https://www.amazon.com/forum/history/ref=cm_cd_et_up_redir?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx33HXI3XVZDC8G&cdPage=1&cdSort=newest&cdThread=TxWDSFVL4TBHM9&newContentID=MxEV8BLFMWQINB&newContentNum=8539#Mx38KX75NBUIZJU
I would bet that Von Pein would be delighted to hear from you on that thread!
\\][//
http://jfkassassination.net/russ/testimony/humesa.htm
Pages 214 — 217:
Q. Was the frontal bone present on–was the
Page 215
frontal bone still intact on the President?
A. It was intact, yes. I can’t even make it out here, really.
Q. You can’t see it there, but it was present?
A. No. It was present, yes, sir.
Q. Could we look at the second X-ray, please? This will be a right lateral view of the skull, 5-B No. 2. Dr. Humes, can you identify 5-B No. 2 as being an autopsy X-ray taken on November 22, 1963?
A. I guess so. That’s really–it’s got some very–it’s a peculiar exposure. These are the spines of the vertebrae here, of course, and these are the bodies of the vertebrae. And these lines are some of the fractures that were present in the skull.
Q. You’re referring to the lines that are in the top of the parietal bone–
A. Right.
Q. –and into the occipital bone; would that be correct?
A. Right. Those were the fracture lines, and
Page 216
it’s difficult–I don’t know why this is so radio- opaque, this whole area.
Q. You’re referring to the right frontal area.
A. What seems to be the frontal portion of it. I don’t understand why that is. You’d have to have some radiologist tell me about that. I can’t make that out.”
….
This is the X-ray being discussed – NOTE the clearly missing frontal bone in this X-ray. That is why Humes couldn’t “make it out”.
It is clear that this X-ray does NOT portray what Humes himself saw at the autopsy. Why not?
https://i1.wp.com/mcadams.posc.mu.edu/xray/entrance/13cm.jpg
\\][//
No, it is not.
Buffs always show people the digitally enhanced x-rays from the HSCA. The process radically increases contrast, and causes the thinner bone of the temple to drop out.
“No, it is not.
Buffs always show people the digitally enhanced x-rays from the HSCA. The process radically increases contrast, and causes the thinner bone of the temple to drop out.”
Which X-ray was Humes looking at McAdams?
I have seen them both, and they both show that the frontal bone is missing down to the cheek bone.
Here is the unenhanced X-ray:
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/xray/entrance/pmlatovl.jpg
\\][//
No, it’s the enhanced x-ray.
Professor, are you saying that digitally-enhanced X-Ray photos disclose less detail?
They show certain details (fracture lines and fragments in the brain) better. But to interpret them you have to know what you are looking at.
Dr. McAdams, re: “McClelland: Photos Genuine ….” please split into segments of less than 501 words, each.:
http://www.wordcounttool.com/
So certain other details better, but thinner bone drops out?
Do we not have the original x-rays (unenhanced), and do they show the thinner bone?
Before EMR did you preserve every written piece of information that you generated in examining a patient and include it in the medical record, or did you discard preliminary notes that you may have created to aid in your examination or procedure?
I’m not responding for Dr. Aguilar but I think it’s fair to say that there’s a big difference between examining a living patient and performing an autopsy on a murder victim, with respect to record-keeping.
Regardless of what standard protocol there might have been for routine procedures, this was the president of the United States. Extraordinary procedures should have been followed. Negligence (malpractice) is measured by the circumstances.
Of course!
It’s been said before, I believe by Dr. Wecht, that the new government or the military could’ve summoned the top forensic pathologists of the nation, who were nearby, such as Dr. Milton Helpern, but they never suggested or advised it.
Seems too convenient if you ask me.
Second of Two:
…..
Q. So there were, then, two sorts of documents that were burned: one, the draft notes, and, two, a draft report?
A. Right.
Q. Is that correct?
A. That’s right. So that the only thing remaining was the one that you have.
Q. Why did you burn the draft report as opposed to the draft notes?
A. I don’t recall. I don’t know. There was no reason-see, we’re splitting hairs here, and I’ll tell you, it’s getting to me a little bit, as you may be able to detect. The only thing I wanted to finish to hand over to whomever, in this case Admiral Burkley, was my completed version. So I burned everything else. Now, why I didn’t burn the thing that J wrote, I have no way of knowing. But whether it was a draft or whether it was the notes or what, I don’t know. There was nothing left when I got finished with it, in any event, but the thing that you now have, period.
Q. Well, the concern, of course, is if there is a record related to the autopsy that is destroyed, we’re interested in finding out what the exact circumstances-
A. I’ve told you what the circumstances were. I used it only as an aide-memoire to do what I was doing and then destroyed it. Is that hard to understand?
Q. When I first asked the question, you explained that the reason that you had destroyed it was that it had the blood of the President on it.
A. Right.
Q. The draft report, of course, would not have had the blood of-
A. Well, it may have had errors in spelling or I don’t know what was the matter with it, or whether I even ever did that. I don’t know. I can’t recall. I absolutely can’t recall, and I apologize for that. But that’s the way the cookie crumbles. I didn’t want anything to remain that some squirrel would grab on and make whatever use that they might. Now, whether you felt that was reasonable or not, I don’t know. But it doesn’t make any difference because that was my decision and mine alone. Nobody else’s.
[…]
http://jfkassassination.net/russ/testimony/humesa.htm
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One of Two:
Here is Humes testimony in his own words:
The deposition of DR. JAMES JOSEPH HUMES BEFORE THE ASSASSINATION RECORDS REVIEW BOARD
Re: PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY
College Park, Maryland on Tuesday, February 13, 1996
. . .
The astute reader will note that Humes gets quite testy under cross examination by Mr. Cornwell, he bristles and is very defensive in his responses:
Q. Dr. Humes, let me show you part of your testimony to the HSCA. Question by Mr. Cornwell- I’ll read this into the record. It’s from page 330, and it is Exhibit 21 to this deposition.
“Mr. Cornwell: And you finally began to write the autopsy report at what time?”
“Dr. Humes: It was decided that three people couldn’t write the report simultaneously, so I assumed the responsibility for writing the report, which I began about 11 o’clock in the evening of Saturday November 23rd, having wrestled with it for four or five, six hours in the afternoon, and worked on it until 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning of Sunday, the 24th.”
“Mr. Cornwell: Did you have any notes or records at that point as to the exact location of the –
“Dr. Humes: I had the draft notes which we had prepared in the autopsy room, which I copied.”
Now, again, the question would be: Did you copy the notes so that you would have a version of the notes without the blood on them but still notes rather than a draft report?
A. Yes, precisely. Yes. And from that I made a first draft, and then I destroyed the first draft and the notes….
\\][//
Willy,
This I submit is just another Humes fairy tale. I explored this very issue years ago:
Part I:
On August 2, 1998, the Associated Press reported an important ARRB finding: “Under oath [before the ARRB], Dr. Humes, finally acknowledged under persistent questioning – in testimony that differs from what he told the Warren Commission – that he had destroyed both his notes taken at the autopsy and the first draft of the autopsy report.” The Review Board had finally extracted Humes’ admission of something long suspected: he had burned both a preliminary draft of the autopsy report, which he had admitted before, as well as original autopsy notes prepared on the night of the autopsy, an admission that contradicted his Warren Commission testimony.
Besides his ARRB admission conflicting with his 1964 testimony, it also contradicted two affidavits he had signed shortly after the assassination, a fact even the ARRB did not acknowledge. On November 24, 1963 Humes “certified” over his signature that he had “destroyed by burning certain preliminary draft notes relating to” JFK’s autopsy,” but that otherwise, “all working papers associated with [JFK’s autopsy] have remained in my personal custody at all times. Autopsy notes and the holograph draft of the final report were handed to Commanding Officer, U.S. Naval Medical School, at 1700, 24 November 1963.”
Thus Humes was admitting to destroying “draft notes” that were written up while he worked at home drafting his autopsy report. But this affidavit, the substance of which he repeated to the Warren Commission, does not mention the destruction of original autopsy notes from the night of the autopsy. (Such an act, of course, would have been medicolegally frowned upon had it occurred in a civilian autopsy of even the most undistinguished murder victim.) Humes’ affidavit, however, was not precisely true. All the “working papers” and “autopsy notes” had not remained with him until he turned them over to his superior. He destroyed some of them, including notes he took himself on the night of the autopsy, and perhaps also those of his consultant, Finck.
Willy,
This I submit is just another Humes fairy tale. I explored this very issue years ago:
Part II:
ARLAN SPECTOR’S SOLUTION
Former Commission counsel Senator Arlan Specter believes he recently solved the mystery. The cover of his book, Passion for Truth, published in 2000, announced that the book presented “the first public disclosure of why JFK’s autopsy surgeon burned his notes.” Specter produced a long quote from Humes in which the pathologist appeared to be coming clean. He said he had destroyed the bloodstained autopsy notes so they would never become objects of morbid curiosity the way the doilies on President Lincoln’s chair had become, stained as they were with the blood of John Wilkes Booth’s treason.
Alas, Specter’s passion for truth exceeds his passion for fact-checking. Humes had previously told this story to JAMA for the infamous May 27, 1992 issue. Neither Specter nor his fact-checkers noticed it apparently. But the story was even more stale than that. Humes had slipped this same improbable story to the HSCA in 1978, and to Lattimer in 1980. In fact, on page 196 of his book, Kennedy and Lincoln, Lattimer reproduced a photograph of Lincoln’s chair, adorned the stained doily, and captioned with Humes’ anecdote.
Humes’ touching tale, however, doesn’t ring true. Boswell’s “face sheet” autopsy notes, which Humes did not destroy, also bear the President’s bloodstains. That fact prompted an amusing exchange when ARRB counsel Jeremy Gunn asked Humes, “Do you see any inconsistency at all between destroying some handwritten notes that contained blood on them but preserving other handwritten notes that also had blood on them?” Lamely, Humes answered, “Well, only that the others (that he destroyed) were of my own making. I didn’t – wouldn’t have the habit of destroying something someone else prepared.”
Notes Finck prepared on the night of the autopsy happen also to be missing. So unless someone else in the military destroyed Finck’s notes, Humes, who, according to the records, took sole possession of all the notes, probably made an exception to his customary habit that night.
Mike Feinsalber, “JFK Autopsy Files Are Incomplete.” Associated Press, August 2, 1998, 11:48 a.m. EDT.
See “CERTIFICATE” signed by “J. J. Humes,” 11/24/63, and cosigned by George Burkley, MD. Reproduced in: Weisberg, Harold, Post Mortem. Frederick, Maryland, 1975, p. 524.
See “CERTIFICATE” signed by “J. J. Humes,” 11/24/63, and cosigned by George Burkley, MD,. Reproduced in: Weisberg, Harold, Post Mortem. Frederick, Maryland, 1975, p. 525
Arlen Specter. Passion for Truth. New York: William Morrow, 2000, p. 78 – 79.
HSCA, Vol. 7:257 – 258.
See JAMA, as well as: John Lattimer. Kennedy and Lincoln. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,1980, p. 194 – 196.
Doesn’t McClelland’s shirt with JFK’s blood that he displayed in a photograph on this site as a morbid trophy confirm EXACTLY Humes fears about the possibility of items with JFK’s blood becoming tawdry souvenirs of a tragedy?
How much will that shirt sell for ?
Not analogous.
JFK’s bloodied shirt is in the archives, and photographs have been published too.
(Nice try though).
McClelland’s shirt is not in any archives. It is in his personal possession .
Mr. Courage, er ‘Photon,’ did you miss this part?:
Humes’ touching tale, however, doesn’t ring true. Boswell’s “face sheet” autopsy notes, which Humes did not destroy, also bear the President’s bloodstains. That fact prompted an amusing exchange when ARRB counsel Jeremy Gunn asked Humes, “Do you see any inconsistency at all between destroying some handwritten notes that contained blood on them but preserving other handwritten notes that also had blood on them?” Lamely, Humes answered, “Well, only that the others (that he destroyed) were of my own making. I didn’t – wouldn’t have the habit of destroying something someone else prepared.”
Notes Finck prepared on the night of the autopsy happen also to be missing. So unless someone else in the military destroyed Finck’s notes, Humes, who, according to the records, took sole possession of all the notes, probably made an exception to his customary habit that night.
Photon said:
That’s different because the bloodied autopsy report and/or notes were never going to be in a lay person’s hands (like McClelland’s shirt)!
They were the property of the USN or government or Robert Kennedy. Why would Humes think otherwise? His certificate doesn’t even state the reason for said destruction.
Also, who gave Humes the authority to destroy such documents of enormous historical importance?
Somewhere in this thread (or was it another?), Humes says that he WRESTLED with the drafting of the autopsy report.
Sounds like he had a dilemma.
In fact he testified that the draft he burned was LATER REVISED.
What if his earlier draft contained a different conclusion or was inconclusive?
After also considering Doug Horne’s opinion about a pre-autopsy, I suspect Humes was following orders and lied.
Incidentally, for the 50th anniversary, Texas State archivists did display Connally’s bloodied shirt.
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/jfk50/explore/20131016-suit-worn-by-gov.-john-connally-wounded-by-jfk-gunman-gets-rare-public-display-in-austin.ece
The Patriotic Professor writes:
“Dr Finck testified to that question at the Clay Shaw trial, they did not dissect the neck because flag officers in the gallery of the morgue instructed Humes not to.”
>>>You are doing the buff thing again.<<>>You have ignored the fact that Finck said “the family” agreed to certain things and forbade certainly things.<<<
THE WITNESS: We didn’t remove the organs of the neck.
BY MR. OSER:
Q: Why not, Doctor?
A: For the reason that we were told to examine the head wounds and that the —
Q: Are you saying someone told you not to dissect the track?
THE COURT: Let him finish his answer.
THE WITNESS: I was told that the family wanted an examination of the head, as I recall, the head and chest, but the prosectors in this autopsy didn’t remove the organs of the neck, to my recollection."
////////
McA is doing the "patriot" thing here, again.
McA would prefer you forget that, since JFK had suffered no abdominal injuries, the Kennedy family understandably requested that the prosectors NOT open his abdomen. The "obedient" doctors ignored the Kennedy request and disembowled JFK anyway. So much for kowtowing to the Kennedys.
More importantly, as a non-pathologist, Burklely wouldn't have told the pathologists how to do an autopsy any more than he'd have told me how to do an orbital exenteration. Duh!
The interference came from the flag officers in the morgue. Here's the testimony of Pierre Finck during the Clay Shaw trial in New Orleans. Finck: “I will remind you that I was not in charge of this autopsy, that I was called –
Q “You were a co-author of the report though, weren’t you, Doctor?”
A “Wait. I was called as a consultant to look at these wounds; that doesn’t mean I am running the show.”
Q “Was Dr. Humes running the show?”
A “Well, I heard Dr. Humes stating that – he said, ‘Who is in charge here?’ and I heard an Army General, I don’t remember his name stating, ‘I am.’ You must understand that in those circumstances, there were law enforcement officials, military people with various ranks, and you have to co-ordinate the operation according to directions.”
Q “But you were one of the three qualified pathologists standing at that autopsy table, were you not, Doctor?”
A “Yes, I was.”
Q “Was this Army General a qualified pathologist?”
A “No.”
Q “Was he a doctor?”
A “No, not to my knowledge.”
Q “Can you give me his name, Colonel?”
A “No, I can’t. I don’t remember.”*
Burkley was an Admiral, not a general, which is something else McA would prefer you not recall.
*In: DiEugenio, James. Destiny Betrayed. New York: Sheridan Square Press, 1992, p. 291:
Professor, this adds more fuel to the fire. The HSCA report is full of double-talk.
So the Kennedy family merely stated that if they didn’t have to do a complete autopsy, then don’t.That doesn’t mean they restricted Humes.
The report later says Humes had complete authority to do a full autopsy.
It’s interesting to note the following reason why Finck ultimately was satisfied, despite asserting in a sworn statement that he believed the autopsy was incomplete :
but Dr. Humes then said that the autopsy had accomplished the purposes as stated-the number of wounds, the direction of the projectiles and the cause of death, and so I was satisfied..
Wow. Okay. Whatever. Almost sounds like they just had to fill in the blanks on a form.
Then Finck ultimately says, “There was an Army General in that room”.
But the HSCA concludes:
The committee determined that it was Dr. Humes and not any army general or other person who made the decision not to dissect the back entry wound.,
How in the heck can Finck confuse Humes with some Army General?!?
What a crock. Regardless if it was an Army General or not, there’s no way Finck would forget that it was Humes. He just doesn’t want to say.
While it may not be plausible that an Army General was present in a navy hospital, could it have been possible, if other branches of the military were there, such as General Curtis LeMay of the USAF, who supposedly was there watching from the gallery?
It’s also interesting to note the following from the report:
The evidence indicates that (3) the remarks of OTHERS to expedite the autopsy were probably the reason for the decision to perform a less than complete autopsy.
And from Part III of the conclusions:
The autopsy was not complete, however, according to established medico-legal standards.
(Photon, are you reading this?)
A combination of strong Kennedy family desires to finish the autopsy quickly, a military environment that hindered independent
action, a lack of experience in forensic pathology among the prosectors, and a lack of established jurisdictional and procedural guidelines all contributed to the pathologists’failure to take certain measures essential to the completion of a thorough medico-legal autopsy and to competently perform the autopsy.
“A military environment that hindered independent action.”
Talk about sugar-coating!
And the piece de resistance:
5. Dissecting the wound that traversed the upper back of the President. The medical panel stated that probing a wound with a finger is hardly sufficient; to ascertain the actual track, the wound must be dissected.
(See Photon. You didn’t even have to research this yourself – thanks to the Professor).
Actually, it does.
The HSCA is insisting that if Humes had stood up to the pressure, and insisted on doing it right, he could have.
But the pressure was real.
Did you notice “Burkley” in the report?
No, it’s not. Keep that thought.
Finck probably just heard somebody who seemed to be in authority, and thought “General” (he was Army, after all).
Please don’t be so simple minded. While Humes had the ultimate responsibility, he was under huge pressure. Remember, Burkley was an Admiral, and outranked Humes.
Gerry, did you read that?
Nothing about some sinister conspiracy limiting the autopsy.
Rather, an unfortunate confluence of ordinary incompetence.
@John McAdams “Nothing about some sinister conspiracy limiting the autopsy.Rather, an unfortunate confluence of ordinary incompetence.”
Like I said elsewhere, the record is so replete with contradictions and inconsistencies that it is subject to interpretations that are influenced by the filter/bias of the observer. You see simple incompetence or confluence of events while others see a deliberate effort to limit the autopsy. Both views that be held in good faith.
But in this case, we have pretty fine grain evidence of what happened. We have the Kennedy entourage who talked to Manchester, we have the HSCA who talked a several of the people at the autopsy, Finck’s multiple statements about “the family,” and Burkley’s claim to have “supervised” the autopsy.
So that’s different from cases where we can see only the result, and not the process.
@John McAdams- but John, Finck also says that the senior military officers were in charge. So his testimony cuts both ways. That’s my point. You, Jean and Photon can point to testimony that the family was calling the shots while others can point to testimony (sometimes from the same person such as the case of Finck) that says generals were in charge. You can try to dismiss that testimony just like others can dismiss the statements that the family was in charge. At the end of the day, we have a record that can be used by both sides.
Interesting that you didn’t say “Army general.”
Is that because you understand how implausible it is that an Army general would be giving orders in a Naval facility?
Especially with flag rank naval officers present?
You have have been reading this discussion, you know who was giving the orders: Adm. Burkley.
So if you want to argue sinister “military interference,” you have to make Burkley a conspirator.
And to do that, you have to ignore not only his own testimony about how he was in constant communication with the people on the 17th floor, you have to ignore what people on the 17th floor told Manchester.
@John McAdams- No implication should be read from my not saying Army general. He thought a military superior was in charge. He may have mistakenly thought there was an army general was giving commands when it was Burkley. The point is that the record does not exclusively and solely support your view and you really should acknowledge that the record is susceptible to multiple interpretations to people of good will….as well as those with an agenda.
I’m not sure what “good will” and “ill will” mean in this context, but I think the record is quite clear that no shady, sinister “military control” of the autopsy took place.
Sometimes, the primary sources justify a conclusion.
Buffs endlessly quote Finck at the Shaw trial, but ignore the Blumberg Memo, his testimony to the HSCA, the HSCA interviews with people in the autopsy theater, Manchester, and Burkley’s own oral history interview.
As well as the fact that an army officer giving orders in a Naval facility with flag rank naval officers present is implausible.
To pound on one source to get your preferred conclusion, and ignore all the others, is the produce of wanting to come up with a particular conclusion.
That’s not a good way to do history.
John,
Would you like to know another way “not to do history?” Allow a government agency or agencies chocked full of liars to produce a “report” based on “evidence” that has either been suppressed (please see anything by the CIA) or tampered with (please see anything by the FBI) and hope for the best. I know from most of your posts that you believe the CIA is a fine and upstanding part of our government, but Mr. Morley, the man kind enough to allow everyone to post here, has a lawsuit that indicates he doesn’t quite share your belief system. Then there is Mr. Blakey, the man who was head of the HSCA that you proudly point to at every turn as “proof” that the WC did a wonderful job. A job for the ages!
“I now no longer believe anything the Agency told the committee any further than I can obtain substantial corroboration for it from outside the Agency for its veracity. We now know that the Agency withheld from the Warren Commission the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro. Had the commission known of the plots, it would have followed a different path in its investigation. The Agency unilaterally deprived the commission of a chance to obtain the full truth, which will now never be known.
Significantly, the Warren Commission’s conclusion that the agencies of the government co-operated with it is, in retrospect, not the truth.
We also now know that the Agency set up a process that could only have been designed to frustrate the ability of the committee in 1976-79 to obtain any information that might adversely affect the Agency.
Many have told me that the culture of the Agency is one of prevarication and dissimulation and that you cannot trust it or its people. Period. End of story.
I am now in that camp.”
John, did you read the sentence “deprived us of the full truth which will now NEVER be known?
Begin spin/smearing of Blakey NOW
John:
“To pound on one source to get your preferred conclusion, and ignore all the others, is the produce of wanting to come up with a particular conclusion.”
Uh, isn’t that what you do every day over on your site? You refuse to look at ANY of the sources surrounding the assassination, such as the incompetence of the DPD, the lying of the CIA, the destruction of evidence by the FBI (Hosty ring a bell?), and the sheer incompetence of Humes and the other losers at the autopsy. You reason it all away with “the government may have made mistakes, but they were mistakes of innocence.”
Maybe it is time for you to take a piece of your own advice?
Thank you Dr. Aguilar for pointing out the inconsistencies in Hume’s testimony*. If only they asked him about Finck’s notes.
*As you know, he later waffled on the location of an entry wound in the BOH (WC vs. HSCA).
What are the legal ramifications of one physician destroying another physician’s notes without that physician’s knowledge?
If Humes destroyed Finck’s notes he is bad.
If he didn’t destroy Boswell’s notes he is bad.
What was the standard of medical record keeping for autopsy worksheets in 1963?
What was the standard at Bethesda in 1963? In other words, was what Humes did actually unusual at that institution?
Why can’t you accept that Humes may have been uncomfortable destroying another physicians notes?
If the x-rays and the photographs allow 3rd party expert forensic pathologists to come to the same conclusion as the report of the prosectors what difference does it make if the preliminary worksheets are available or not? I am sure that Humes never thought that the autopsy photos would ever be in the public domain, but they eventually were. The only way to claim that the worksheets could have been significantly in conflict with the formal results is if the photos and x-rays were faked. But of course then the Zapruder film would have to have been faked.
@ Photon’s reply posted May 30, 2016 at 12:55 a.m.:
The legal ramifications of ANY destruction of autopsy records in connection with a murder case is obstruction of justice and evidentiary issues (IMHO).
Furthermore, if Humes had the authority to destroy an early draft of the autopsy report and notes, then presumably, as LEAD autopsist, he had the authority to destroy the other physicians’ supporting notes, based on the same excuse, but he did not do so. He made an exception. That inconsistency IS the problem.
Note that Humes did not state in his ‘CERTIFICATE’ that he burned those notes because they were blood-stained. He also explains in later testimony that he REVISED that earlier draft. When asked why, he tries to come up with a benign reason that doesn’t hold water.
(Photon, do we really have to spell it out for you?)
And the legal basis for your statements is what? iMHO? How often were preliminary autopsy worksheets included in the medical record or preserved in 1963? How many autopsies were conducted by multiple prosectors completing multiple worksheets ?
You and others in this situation are assuming that the preservation of preliminary autopsy worksheets was standard practice in 1963. But you have presented no evidence that that was actually the case. It is quite analogous to the CT claims about dissecting out bullet tracks and implying that that procedure was a common autopsy practice aside from recovering a missile. When I brought up that topic here months ago and stated that in reality it was an unusual and rare practice the only rebuttal was a single case report from India-not the dozens of reports that should have been in the literature if it was as common a practice as claimed by CT researchers.
Common sense and a rudimentary knowledge of criminal law or the law of evidence.
So despite your questions, it seems that you would rather have us all believe that it’s standard practice or not unusual for autopsy pathologists to burn their notes, even for VIPs. What a joke!
As for your other point, many medico-legal examiners have opined that Humes team should have dissected the wounds in order to establish with the certainty, the path of the bullets.
But they didn’t and aptly used the adjective “presumably” when describing the wound of entrance and the wound of exit.
What a disgrace!!!
But that’s okay with you isn’t it?
FORENSIC AUTOPSY PERFORMANCE STANDARDS
The National Association of Medical Examiners
Standard F22 Neck
The muscles, soft tissues, airways, and vascular structures of the anterior neck must be examined to identify signs of disease, injury, and therapy. A layer-by-layer dissection is necessary for proper evaluation of trauma to the anterior neck. Removal and ex situ dissection of the upper airway, pharynx, and upper esophagus is a necessary component of this evaluation. A dissection of the posterior neck is necessary when occult neck injury is suspected. The forensic pathologist shall:
F22.1 examine in situ muscles and soft tissues of the anterior neck.
F22.2 ensure proper removal of neck organs and airways.
F22.3 examine neck organs and airways.
F22.4 dissect the posterior neck in cases of suspected occult neck injury.
**F22.5 perform anterior neck dissection in neck trauma cases.**
Standard F23 Penetrating Injuries, Including Gunshot and Sharp Force Injuries
Documentation of penetrating injuries as listed below should include detail sufficient to provide meaningful information to users of the forensic autopsy report, and to permit another forensic pathologist to draw independent conclusions based on the documentation. The recovery and documentation of foreign bodies is important for evidentiary purposes. Internal wound pathway(s) shall be described according to organs and tissues and size of defects of these organs and tissues. The forensic pathologist shall:
F23.1 correlate internal injury to external injury
F23.2 describe and document the track of wound
F23.3 describe and document the direction of wound
F23.4 recover foreign bodies of evidentiary value
F23.5 describe and document recovered foreign body
Standard G30 Evidence Processing
Custodial maintenance and chain of custody are legally required elements for documenting the handling of
evidence. The forensic pathologist or representative shall:
G30.1 collect, package, label, and preserve all evidentiary items.
G30.2 document chain of custody of all evidentiary items
http://www.mtf.org/pdf/name_standards_2006.pdf
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Nowhere in that statement is there a requirement to dissect out bullet tracks. As a layman you assume that it is necessary to do that to establish a missile’s path; in reality it is rarely necessary to do so.
Gerry, why don’t you tell us what that big cube with a horizontal slit across it found in every medical record department in every hospital in the United States is colloquially called and what gets put into it.
You seem to be the expert on medical records-right?
You hit several bullseyes Willy! Thank you for your efforts.
Garry, Willy please read the first sentence of the preface to Forensic Autopsy Performance Standards and tell me how in anyway this report is germaine to the events in 1963.
“Nowhere in that statement is there a requirement to dissect out bullet tracks.”~Photon
F22.4 and F22.5 state that requirement specifically.
How can you deny what is right here on the page for anyone to read?
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Nowhere in that statement is there a requirement to dissect out bullet tracks.
Willy pointed this out.
As a layman you assume that it is necessary to do that to establish a missile’s path; in reality it is rarely necessary to do so.
We aren’t assuming. It’s learned from reliable sources.
I guess it’s not necessary if you qualify your autopsy conclusions with the adjective “presumably” (cough, cough).
It should have, and we know why he didn’t.
In the first place, Jackie chose to have the autopsy done at Bethesda because Jack was a Navy man. Thus neither Humes nor Boswell was a qualified forensic pathologist.
Secondly, people on the 17th floor were continually calling down asking “when is it going to be over.”
The family wanted the people from the funeral home to get in and start fixing up JFK for what they thought would be an open casket funeral.
Read Manchester.
Read the HSCA:
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/autopsy3.txt
Dr. McAdams, from your perspective, Jackie called the shots, she made “the choices”? Interesting, but a rather narrow perspective, seems a reasonable reaction to your declaration. It is settled, it was all done at the behest of the distraught widow, a woman who had just lost everything, including her own rather esteemed position, still splattered with the dried blood and brain tissue. Remind me, what was your point, again?
Garry, Willy please read the first sentence of the preface to Forensic Autopsy Performance Standards and tell me how in anyway this report is germaine to the events in 1963. – Photon
Photon, the American Academy of Forensic Sciences was founded in 1948. This document quoted by Willy belongs to the National Association of Medical Examiners. I’m sure there were textbooks, like Milton Hepburn’s definitive work,Legal Medicine, Pathology and Toxicology (1954), and other standards of practice that preceded said document.
Also, if it may not be necessary to track a wound in ALL cases when the evidence is clear and unambiguous, it certainly is a technique that would be required in order to make a definitive determination as to the direction and source of bullet wounds.
That the less-than-adequate autopsy was not the fault of some evil conspiratorial cabal.
It was the result of the fact that the Kennedy entourage had the power to take the body from Dallas, have it autopsied at Bethesda, and indeed had the power to rush the autopsy, as calls from the 17th floor (probably to Burkley) resulted in a rushed procedure.
“It should have, and we know why he didn’t.
In the first place, Jackie chose to have the autopsy done at Bethesda because Jack was a Navy man. Thus neither Humes nor Boswell was a qualified forensic pathologist.”~McAdams
Yes we do know why he didn’t. Dr Finck testified to that question at the Clay Shaw trial, they did not dissect the neck because flag officers in the gallery of the morgue instructed Humes not to.
This is testimony given under oath in a court of law “professor”.
Everyone here has seen the citations to this testimony by now.
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Well, there seems some ambiguity….ten years after the grand jury testimony…
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=611&relPageId=6&search=family
….and again, a page or two later….
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=611&search=family#relPageId=8&tab=page
Tom,
Finck tried that same song and dance about “the family” during the Shaw trial. He finally relented because the judge forced him to answer the question about orders from flag officers.
As far as I’m concerned, any ambiguity ten years after that trial is due to Finck being comfortable in purposely injecting such ambiguity into his later testimony we read on the pages you proffer.
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McA writes:
“That the less-than-adequate autopsy was not the fault of some evil conspiratorial cabal.
“It was the result of the fact that the Kennedy entourage had the power to take the body from Dallas, have it autopsied at Bethesda, and indeed had the power to rush the autopsy, as calls from the 17th floor (probably to Burkley) resulted in a rushed procedure ”
Yet another fairy tale from the banished-from-Marquette professor.
I explored this at length elsewhere:
Part I:
JFK’S INCOMPLETE AUTOPSY
Dated November 22, 1963, the Navy “Clinical Record Authorization for Post Mortem Examination, U.S. Naval Hospital, Bethesda, Md.” gave Humes the following directive: “You are hereby authorized to perform a complete post mortem examination on the remains of John F. Kennedy … This authority shall be limited only by the conditions expressly stated below.” No restrictions were indicated on the form, which had been signed by JFK’s brother, Robert Kennedy, and the President’s personal physician, George Burkley, who, as already discussed, swore in an affidavit there were no restrictions placed on JFK’s autopsy. It is likely that Jackie had also authorized a complete autopsy because her name was typed at the bottom of the form. The HSCA found that, though a complete autopsy had been authorized, JFK got an incomplete one instead.
At least one of the reasons Humes did not perform one may have been revealed in a memorandum from, of all places, CBS. In November 1993, a once-confidential, internal memo written in 1967 by a CBS executive (Bob Richter) was published by a committee chaired by Representative John Conyers. The memo described a conversation that Humes had had in 1967 with a personal friend, another CBS executive, Jim Snyder. In the memo Richter described Snyder’s conversation with the pathologist, saying, “Humes also said he had orders from someone he refused to disclose – other than stating it was not Robert Kennedy – to not do a complete autopsy.” [This accords with Admiral Galloway’s report that “no orders were being sent in from outside the autopsy room either by phone or by person.”] So if not Robert Kennedy, who then, besides a higher-ranking officer than Humes, could have stalled the surgeon’s scalpel? Though the memo was given to Rep. Conyers by an attorney, Roger Feinman, George Lundberg may nonetheless be responsible for it’s reaching the public. For Feinman sent the memo to Conyers after he publicly debated Lundberg about JFK in Chicago in April, 1993.
Besides Finck’s report that an Army General claimed he was in charge during Kennedy’s autopsy, and Humes confidential admission that someone outside the family limited the exam, Finck and Humes also gave additional, persuasive reasons to suspect there was high-level meddling.
HSCA, Vol. 8:181.
HSCA, Vol. 8:192.
You are doing the buff thing again.
You have ignored the fact that Finck said “the family” agreed to certain things and forbade certainly things.
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/finckshaw.htm
This was probably Burkley.
But Burkley was a loyal Kennedy person, who was in contact with the people on the 17th floor by phone.
Do you think Manchester was one of those evil “patriots” trying to cover up a conspiracy.
I don’t reject the notion that Jackie preferred Bethesda or that the Kennedy family was tired and perhaps impatient, but I don’t think they would’ve forced him to end the autopsy prematurely.
Apart from inexperience, these were military men that followed orders, and Finck’s testimony at the Garrison trial adds to the suspicion that they couldn’t pursue other leads or possibilities.
Professor, putting aside what Humes said, it might help if we look to Finck who said to the HSCA:
“And I still don’t remember his name. I read my notes and I found in my notes an Army General and I don’t know who it was.”
Surely Finck would know the difference between a Rear Admiral in the Navy (Burke) and an Army General now, wouldn’t he?
Link courtesy of Tom S. (IIRC):
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=611&search=family#relPageId=8&tab=page
McA writes:
Quoting you: “As for your other point, many medico-legal examiners have opined that Humes team should have dissected the wounds in order to establish with the certainty, the path of the bullets.”
McA answers:
“It should have, and we know why he didn’t.
“In the first place, Jackie chose to have the autopsy done at Bethesda because Jack was a Navy man. Thus neither Humes nor Boswell was a qualified forensic pathologist.
“Secondly, people on the 17th floor were continually calling down asking “when is it going to be over.”
“The family wanted the people from the funeral home to get in and start fixing up JFK for what they thought would be an open casket funeral.”
There’s so much bullshit in this response one scarcely knows where to begin.
Part I
In 1993 in JAMA, Finck recalled that, “The Kennedy family did not want us to examine the abdominal cavity, but the abdominal cavity was examined.” And indeed it was. Kennedy was completely disemboweled. So while there’s no indisputable proof, perhaps the family did request that JFK’s abdominal cavity, which houses the adrenals, be left alone, especially since JFK suffered no abdominal injuries. If Finck was right, so much for the military’s cutting corners to kowtow to the Kennedys’ need for speed.
Dennis Breo. JFK’s death, part III – Dr. Finck speaks out: ‘two bullets, from the rear.’ JAMA Vol. 268(13):1752, October 7, 1992.
Without citation, this episode was also cited by Gus Russo in: Live by the Sword. Baltimore. Bancroft Press, 1998, p. 325.
Breo, Dennis. JFK’s death – the plain truth from the MDs who did the autopsy. JAMA, May 27, 1992, vol. 267:2794, ff.
Second, what on earth would dissecting the back wound have to do with an open casket funeral? Any throat/back wound dissection would not have been visible on JFK’s dressed corpse.
It would have taken time, and delayed the end of the autopsy.
Remember, the people on the 17th floor were asking “when will this be over?”
IIRC, they never said “don’t do this, don’t do that.” But they clearly conveyed that they were impatient.
Again, see Manchester.
Excellent, Tom.
Finck says the restrictions came from “the family.”
Of course, I don’t think Bobby was on the phone to the autopsists saying “don’t do that, don’t to this.” They were most likely on the phone to Burkley, and he was representing himself as the representative of “the family” (not unfairly or implausibly) and trying to hurry things up.
You need to check this document:
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/autopsy3.txt
Do a control-f search for “Burkley” and you’ll see the testimony the HSCA got.
Add to that the fact that an Army General is not plausible giving orders in a naval facility with flag rank naval officers present.
“Burkley claimed he “supervised” the autopsy.”
McAdams
This clearly does not dismiss Dr Finck’s testimony at the Clay Shaw trial.
Finck knew who Burkley was. But he could not identify who gave the orders not to dissect the back and neck.
. . .
This is the most fascinating answer Burkley gave in that session in my opinion:
McHUGH: I see. Do your conclusions differ at all with the Warren Report of the
circumstances or cause of death?
BURKLEY: My conclusion in regard to the cause
of death was the bullet wound which
involved the skull. The discussion as to whether a previous bullet also
enters into it, but as far as the cause of death the immediate cause was
unquestionably the bullet which shattered the brain and the calvarium.
McHUGH: I see. The brain and the what?
BURKLEY: And the skull, calvarium.
McHUGH: I see. Do you agree with the Warren Report on the number of bullets that entered the President’s body?
BURKLEY: I would not care to be quoted on that.
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This still doesn’t explain Finck’s testimony at the Garrison trial, where he admitted that some general ordered the autopsists not to section the neck and back.
The most fascinating part of Burkley’s testimony for me is this:
McHUGH: I see. Do your conclusions differ at all with the Warren Report of the
circumstances or cause of death?
BURKLEY: My conclusion in regard to the cause of death was the bullet wound which
involved the skull. The discussion as to whether a previous bullet also
enters into it, but as far as the cause of death the immediate cause was
unquestionably the bullet which shattered the brain and the calvarium.
McHUGH: I see. The brain and the what?
BURKLEY: And the skull, calvarium.
McHUGH: I see. Do you agree with the Warren
Report on the number of bullets that
entered the President’s body?
BURKLEY: *I would not care to be quoted on that.*
\\][//
McA writes:
“That the less-than-adequate autopsy was not the fault of some evil conspiratorial cabal.
“It was the result of the fact that the Kennedy entourage had the power to take the body from Dallas, have it autopsied at Bethesda, and indeed had the power to rush the autopsy, as calls from the 17th floor (probably to Burkley) resulted in a rushed procedure ”
Codswollop, as usual:
Part II:
RUDIMENTARY EXAMINATIONS LEFT UNDONE
During the Shaw trial, Finck testified that he was ordered not to dissect JFK’s back wound by a superior in the morgue whose name, like the “in-charge” general, just wouldn’t come to mind. Defending his failure to perform this key exam, Finck testified, “Because we were told to examine the head and the chest cavity, and that [the dissection of the neck wound] doesn’t include the removal of the organs of the neck.” Finck’s version was corroborated by Lattimer who, after an interview with Humes, reported that, “[Commander Humes’s and Boswell’s] request for permission to dissect out this bullet hole, which led into the upper back and possibly into the neck, was denied.” No further information was provided to answer the obvious next question, “By whom?” The CBS memo suggests it wasn’t RFK.
And then there is the fascinating 1965 memo Finck sent to his superior, General Joe Blumberg, the man who ordered Finck to report to JFK’s autopsy team. Conveniently absent in JAMA’s glowing account, in this memo Finck informed Blumberg that, “I was denied the opportunity to examine the clothing of Kennedy. One officer who out-ranked me told me that my request was only of academic interest.” It is impossible to imagine that any physician would have ever denied a forensic expert’s request to examine JFK’s clothes on the grounds they were “only of academic interest.”
Both the dissection of Kennedy’s back wound and the inspection of his clothes would have been aspects of the most rudimentary search for clues to the trajectory of the shots. Humes’ being denied permission for these exams, as well as being directed to do an incomplete autopsy, suggests control of the autopsy did not rest with the physicians. Had Humes really been in charge, it is impossible to imagine that he, of all people, would have refused his own consultant’s access to JFK’s back wound. Nor Finck’s access to JFK’s clothes, especially since in JAMA, Humes lamented that, “If only we had seen the President’s clothes, tracking the second bullet would have been a piece of cake, but we didn’t have the clothes.” (Though outside the scope of this discussion, it would have been of considerable interest if the autopsists had examined JFK’s clothes, because matching holes in JFK’s shirt and coat were found well below where they appear in autopsy photographs of JFK’s back.)
Excellent commentary Gary, I have only one point;
I think that the ONLY autopsy photo of JFK’s back DOES in fact show the bullet hole in JFK’s back further down.
It is the odd angle of the shot that makes it difficult to see this. But to my trained artists eyes, that hole is at T-3 in that photo as well.
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Those burdened by a sense of false patriotism such as McA have to rely on the child-like belief that the Kennedy family having power violently wrestled from them still had the ability to control the scope of the autopsy. This is part of the myth that a conspiracy could not possibly occur in America because that would make us no different than the Europeans. Pages 986-88 of Bugliolsi book expose what is at the core of those who maintain the assassination was the act of a single, deranged individual. It is not about the truth but about what this means for American exceptionalism.
Part III:
Both the dissection of Kennedy’s back wound and the inspection of his clothes would have been aspects of the most rudimentary search for clues to the trajectory of the shots. Humes’ being denied permission for these exams, as well as being directed to do an incomplete autopsy, suggests control of the autopsy did not rest with the physicians. Had Humes really been in charge, it is impossible to imagine that he, of all people, would have refused his own consultant’s access to JFK’s back wound. Nor Finck’s access to JFK’s clothes, especially since in JAMA, Humes lamented that, “If only we had seen the President’s clothes, tracking the second bullet would have been a piece of cake, but we didn’t have the clothes.” (Though outside the scope of this discussion, it would have been of considerable interest if the autopsists had examined JFK’s clothes, because matching holes in JFK’s shirt and coat were found well below where they appear in autopsy photographs of JFK’s back.)
Ironically, the clothes were probably already in the morgue, or at least no further away than Air Force One. Secret Service agent William Greer, the driver of JFK’s limousine who then accompanied the President’s corpse on Air Force One, was present in the morgue during the entire autopsy. He testified that at Parkland Hospital he took sole possession of JFK’s clothes, and he said that, “I had this, his clothing, I kept it in my hand at all times, all the time.”
Recapping, in New Orleans Finck testified an Army General said he was in charge of the autopsy, while Humes apparently confided that he was ordered to not do a complete autopsy by someone other than Robert Kennedy. Finck, Boswell and Humes claimed permission to dissect JFK’s back wound was denied. And in his 1965 Blumberg memo, Finck said he was denied JFK’s clothes. Finck’s statements during the Shaw trial, it should be emphasized, carry considerable weight given that Finck’s reluctant, yet sworn, admissions were, in essence, an admission ‘against the interest’ of his employer, the military.
Breo, Dennis. “JFK’s death – the plain truth from the MDs who did the autopsy.” JAMA, May 27, 1992, vol. 267:2798.
Testimony of Secret Service agent William Robert Greer, Warren Commission, Vol. II:125.
Testimony of Secret Service agent William Robert Greer, Warren Commission, Vol. II:126.
Do you actually care what the historical record shows?
Read Manchester.
Check out the HSCA investigation of the issue:
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/autopsy3.txt
Nice of you to ignore a key point of Finck’s testimony. He said “the family” was approving or disapproving various things.
Finck said:
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/weberman/finck1.htm
@Prof McAdams- just because one or more people at the autopsy told Dr. Humes that the family did not want certain things done does not mean that the family was actually saying those things or were in control. Those statements could have easily been manufactured. Again, its naive to believe the family was in charge.
When all is said and done can you name one forensic pathologist familiar with the case except Wecht who disagrees with the autopsy conclusions?
@Prof. McAdams- Manchester simply wrote what he was told. he was not a fact witness as to actually what happened in the autopsy room. That said, I dont believe he was part of any conspiracy.
Yes, it always comes to this. When faced with inconvenient testimony, all the witnesses were lying.
Why does Gary quote Finck and the Blumburg Memo when it serves his purpose, as gospel, and then it’s a big huge lie when it’s pointed out that Finck says “family?”
Burkley was an Admiral, and a trusted retainer of the Kennedys. Whether he was “in control” is not the actual issue, but rather whether his relaying the wishes of the people on the 17th floor (which included the Secretary of Defense) would have rushed the autopsy.
It obviously did.
But Manchester had access to the people on the 17th floor, all the loyal Kennedy people. But I suppose those folks were liars too.
Yes, told by people in the the Kennedy entourage on the 17th floor.
The HSCA largely looked at it from the perspective of the autopsy theater.
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/autopsy3.txt
You understand this argument works both ways, right?
The people who don’t like America are naturally drawn to conspiracy theories.
That’s an ad hominem argument, but so was yours.
You must have forgotten that from Freshman Logic.
McA writes:
Quoting me: ‘Recapping, in New Orleans Finck testified an Army General said he was in charge of the autopsy, while Humes apparently confided that he was ordered to not do a complete autopsy by someone other than Robert Kennedy. Finck, Boswell and Humes claimed permission to dissect JFK’s back wound was denied. And in his 1965 Blumberg memo, Finck said he was denied JFK’s clothes.’
And McA answers:
“Nice of you to ignore a key point of Finck’s testimony. He said “the family” was approving or disapproving various things.
“Finck said:
“THE ORGANS OF THE NECK WERE NOT REMOVED: THE PRESIDENT’S FAMILY INSISTED TO HAVE ONLY THE HEAD EXAMINED Later, the permission was extended to the CHEST.”
This is just the sort of “Patriotic” selection and elimination of fact and evidence for which McA is justly infamous.
Since “the assoc professor” won’t give Finck’s full testimony, which completely eviscerates the Patriotic Spin he puts on it, I will.
Part I:
Only the verbatim transcript reveals Finck’s disgraceful evasiveness. He indirectly used the Kennedy family as only one of many stratagems to avoid answering why he had not dissected the track of the back wound. Such a dissection would have been a rudimentary procedure in any murder case. It was especially important here, where that information would have been important evidence in the expected trial of the then living, alleged assassin, Oswald.
The uninterrupted transcript from the Shaw trial on the matter of the dissection of the neck wound reads:
Mr. Oser: “Colonel [Finck], did you feel that you had to take orders from this Army general (the one Finck claimed had answered Humes’ question , “Who’s in charge here?” with “I am.”) that was there directing the autopsy?”
Finck: “No, because there were others, there were admirals.”
Mr. Oser: “There were admirals?”
Dr. Finck: “Oh, yes, there were admirals, and when you are a lieutenant colonel in the Army you just follow orders, and at the end of the autopsy we were specifically told–as I recall it, it was by Admiral Kenney, the Surgeon (General)of he Navy–this is subject to verification–we were specifically told not to discuss the case.”
Oser: “Did you have occasion to dissect the track of that particular bullet in the victim as it lay on the autopsy table?”
Dr. Finck: “I did not dissect the track in the neck.”
Mr. Oser: “Why?”
Dr. Finck: “This leads us into the disclosure of medical records.” (Note: not the fact that the family had opposed the dissection, which was not a portion of the medical records.)
McA writes:
Quoting me: ‘Recapping, in New Orleans Finck testified an Army General said he was in charge of the autopsy, while Humes apparently confided that he was ordered to not do a complete autopsy by someone other than Robert Kennedy. Finck, Boswell and Humes claimed permission to dissect JFK’s back wound was denied. And in his 1965 Blumberg memo, Finck said he was denied JFK’s clothes.’
And McA answers:
“Nice of you to ignore a key point of Finck’s testimony. He said “the family” was approving or disapproving various things.
“Finck said:
“THE ORGANS OF THE NECK WERE NOT REMOVED: THE PRESIDENT’S FAMILY INSISTED TO HAVE ONLY THE HEAD EXAMINED Later, the permission was extended to the CHEST.”
This is just the sort of “Patriotic” selection and elimination of fact and evidence for which McA is justly infamous.
Since “the assoc professor” won’t give Finck’s full testimony, which completely eviscerates the Patriotic Spin he puts on it, I will.
Part II:
Oser: “Did you have occasion to dissect the track of that particular bullet in the victim as it lay on the autopsy table?”
Dr. Finck: “I did not dissect the track in the neck.”
Mr. Oser: “Why?”
Dr. Finck: “This leads us into the disclosure of medical records.” (Note: not the fact that the family had opposed the dissection, which was not a portion of the medical records.)
Mr. Oser: “Your Honor, I would like an answer from the colonel and I wound ask the Court to direct.”
The Court: “That is correct, you should answer, Doctor.”
Dr. Finck: “We didn’t remove the organs of the neck.”
Mr. Oser: “Why not, doctor?’
Mr. Finck: “For the reason we were told to examine the head wounds and the–”
Mr. Oser: “Are you saying someone told you not to dissect the track?”
The Court: “Let him finish his answer.”
Dr. Finck: “I was told that the family wanted an examination of the head, as I recall, the head and chest, but prosectors in this autopsy didn’t remove the organs of the neck, to my recollection.”
Mr. Oser: “You have said they did not. I want to know why didn’t you as an autopsy pathologist attempt to ascertain the track through the body which you had on the autopsy table in trying to ascertain the cause or causes of death? Why?’
Dr. Finck: I had the cause of death.”
Mr. Oser: “Why did you not trace the track of the wound?”
Dr. Finck: “As I recall I didn’t remove these organs from the neck.”
Mr. Oser: “I didn’t hear you.”
Dr. Finck: I examined the wounds but I didn’t remove the organs of the neck.”Clay Shaw.
Reproduced in: DiEugenio, J. Destiny Betrayed. New York, Sheridan Square Press. 1992, p. 301-302.)
Photon, Milton Helpern called it a botched autopsy and didn’t agree with the WC’s single bullet theory.
Wecht though is correct to say that few reputable forensic pathologists would admit that “the Emperor has no clothes” and face the consequences of the government that most certainly employs them.
Maybe today, there are more.
Helpers never saw the x-rays, photos or any specific evidence from the autopsy and simply was not familiar with the evidence. Helpern was unaware of the actual positions of JFK and Connolly and his opinion of the implausiblity of the single bullet theory reflects that ignorance.
He did suggest that a group of the most distinguished forensic pathologists in the country be given access to all of the autopsy records including photos and x-rays. This was done with the HSCA investigation that took place after Helpern passed from the seen. That group unanimously ( excepting Wecht) agreed with the findings of Humes and his associates that JFK was struck by only two rounds fired from above and from behind.
Two other government panels with prominent forensic pathologists also reviewed the data and came to the same conclusion.
Your side has nothing but the ramblings of Cyril Wecht.
@Photon- My recollection is that the majority of the forensic team that participated in the HSCA were the same experts who participated in the 1967 Ramsey panel. I might suspect this was to achieve the same conclusion since they would not likely have discredit their own prior work. Just saying…..
Very few forensic pathologists are employed by the federal government. Most are employed by other units of government.
The part you quoted shows “the family” determining what could be done.
The Blumberg Memo shows the same thing.
So does Finck’s testimony to the HSCA.
You can try to spin it was hard as you want, but Finck said “the family” was calling the shots.
An additional source you should look at:
http://archive1.jfklibrary.org/JFKOH/Burkley,%20George%20G/JFKOH-GGB-01/JFKOH-GGB-01-TR.pdf#page=17
Burkley claimed he “supervised” the autopsy.
Of course, he had no business doing any such thing, and should have kept out of the pathologists’ way (even though they were not qualified forensic pathologists).
But he was a loyal Kennedy person, and was reflecting what “the family” wanted.
Helpern didn’t have to see the x-rays to discount the SBT simply on the basis that the weight of CE399 was too much for it to have caused all the damage attributed to it.
There are numerous problems with the X-Rays. You should read this:
http://michaelgriffith1.tripod.com/autopsy.htm
Plus, as Wecht said when asked* how could the FPP be wrong except for him, he replied “the FPP wouldn’t say that the Emperor wears no clothes”, or words to that effect.
*Not his ramblings, but his response to Vincent Bugliosi in the mock trial.
Yes, but weren’t those on the FPP hired by the Feds?
(Not to mention that the Federal government has influence in other jurisdictions, and the power to affect one’s reputation).
McA writes:
>>Since “the assoc professor” won’t give Finck’s full testimony, which completely eviscerates the Patriotic Spin he puts on it, I will.
The part you quoted shows “the family” determining what could be done.
The Blumberg Memo shows the same thing.
So does Finck’s testimony to the HSCA.
You can try to spin it was hard as you want, but Finck said “the family” was calling the shots.<<
The family didn’t, for example, select the sub par autopsists; military authorities did. Realizing how over their heads they were, JFK’s pathologists told Lattimer that they (wisely) requested to have nonmilitary forensic consultants called in. Permission was denied.
The HSCA explored the question of the family’s role in considerable detail in 1978, concluding that, other than (reasonably) requesting the exam be done as expeditiously as possible, the Kennedys did not interfere in the autopsy.
Moreover, in an important legal matter, RFK left blank the space marked “restrictions” in the permit he signed for his brother’s autopsy.
While a compelling case for family interference is difficult to sustain, a case can be made that there was at least some interference in JFK’s autopsy. The most glaring errors – the selection of inexperienced pathologists and the exclusion of available, experienced ones, the failure to dissect JFK’s back wound, and the failure to obtain his clothing – had nothing to do with camouflaging JFK’s secret disease, or even with significantly speeding the examination. (Dissecting the back wound would have taken not much more than one hour. JFK was in the morgue more than eight.) Nor is it at all likely the Kennedys would have imposed those specific restrictions, in the off chance they had even thought of them. Instead, these peculiar decisions are more likely to have come from the military, NOT the Kennedys.
But spin away, McA; it’s all the Kennedy’s fault. Right!
McA totally ignores the military meddling in JFK’s autopsy and the reporting about it.
For example, ARRB disclosures suggest high-level, military complicity in the destruction of, and dissimulation about, primary autopsy evidence.
In addition, the extant autopsy evidence itself is under a cloud since the release of non-sensitive, yet suppressed, HSCA interviews dating to the late 1970s, and since the ARRB released interviews it conducted in the 1990s.
On August 2, 1998, the Associated Press reported an important ARRB finding: “Under oath [before the ARRB], Dr. Humes, finally acknowledged under persistent questioning – in testimony that differs from what he told the Warren Commission – that he had destroyed both his notes taken at the autopsy and the first draft of the autopsy report.”
The Review Board had finally extracted Humes’ admission of something long suspected: he had burned both a preliminary draft of the autopsy report, which he had admitted before, as well as original autopsy notes prepared on the night of the autopsy, an admission that contradicted his Warren Commission testimony.
Besides his ARRB admission conflicting with his 1964 testimony, it also contradicted two affidavits he had signed shortly after the assassination, a fact even the ARRB did not acknowledge. On November 24, 1963 Humes “certified” over his signature that he had “destroyed by burning certain preliminary draft notes relating to” JFK’s autopsy,” but that otherwise, “all working papers associated with [JFK’s autopsy] have remained in my personal custody at all times. Autopsy notes and the holograph draft of the final report were handed to Commanding Officer, U.S. Naval Medical School, at 1700, 24 November 1963.”
Thus Humes was admitting to destroying “draft notes” that were written up while he worked at home drafting his autopsy report. But this affidavit, the substance of which he repeated to the Warren Commission, does not mention the destruction of original autopsy notes from the night of the autopsy. (Such an act, of course, would have been medicolegally frowned upon had it occurred in a civilian autopsy of even the most undistinguished murder victim.) Humes’ affidavit, however, was not precisely true. All the “working papers” and “autopsy notes” had not remained with him until he turned them over to his superior. He destroyed some of them, including notes he took himself on the night of the autopsy, and perhaps also those of his consultant, Finck.
8:09, 6/3, Dr. Aguilar, thank you again sir.
Humes destroying his notes is not “military meddling.” It’s just something that Humes did.
I suppose you could claim that the notes had something in them that implied conspiracy. But to do that, you have to admit that Humes was not “read in” on any conspiratorial plot at the time of the autopsy.
Jackie, under prodding from Burkley, selected Bethesda. Bad call, but not a conspiracy.
By the way: why would using sub par autopsists be conspiratorial? You have made it clear that you think the top forensic pathologists in the country are corrupt. Why not use top forensic pathologists to produce a highly professional-looking autopsy?
“Other than!!??”
Their constantly asking “when will it be over” and making it clear they wanted it completed as quickly as possible is the entire point.
Bobby was not a medical person, and would not have imposed any specific limitations. It was Burkley, sensitive to the desires of the family, who would have imposed specific restrictions.
This is nonsense. Each of those things would have delayed the completion of the autopsy if done.
Gary, we know who “interfered” with the autopsy. It was Burkley.
Do you think he was an evil conspirator?
Do you think he knew there was a conspiracy and was trying to cover it up?
Thank you Gary,
The further commentary you make about Humes is exactly the point I was leading to.
\\][//
Any ideas on how the FAPS in effect in 1963 might have been different?
There weren’t any-ergo the preface mentioning the move to establish the standards in the 1970s-which makes this whole claim about standards in 1963 pointless.
But I do think that a correction is needed. Willy’s claim that F22.4 and F22.5 mandate a dissection of bullet wound tracks is not true-it doesn’t even mention dissection of bullet tracks. Dissection is rarely if ever necessary to establish a bullet’s track or its origin. As laymen you are unaware of imaging techniques that usually give that information, including evaluation of radiographs.
“As laymen you are unaware”~Dr Photon
Here we go again with this BS that WE are “laymen” while this anonymous entity calling itself “Photon” is a medical expert, a ballistics expert, an anatomy expert, a photo expert; in fact claims of expertise in every field discussed on these threads.
The autopsy at Bethesda was botched. Anyone who knows the record is aware of this fact.
Humes was a liar, proven by contradictory evidence UNDER OATH from several hearings.
Fincks testimony proves that the military brass were running the JFK autopsy not the general pathologist who we are told did by the official narrative.
a medical cover-up was certain as soon as JFK’s corpse was taken out of Parkland Hospital. It was a forced removal by the Secret Service. Blaming this on “Jackie Kennedy’s wishes” is more BS. The perpetrators HAD to get control of that body, it was best evidence of shots from multiple directions.
\\][//
@Photon- thanks. would any imaging techniques available in 1963 been able to assess bullet or wound track? There seems to be alot of chatter that the only way to have evaluated the wound path was dissection.
Photon, pay attention.
That document that alludes to standardization beginning in the 70s belongs to the National Association of Medical Examiners (NAME), not the American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS), the latter of which Helpern and Wecht were national Presidents.
The NAME was founded in 1966 whereas the AAFS was founded in 1948.
Furthermore, this doesn’t mean that standards began in the early 70s!!!!
Lastly, the imaging techniques (i.e., CT or MIR) you cite that may not necessitate invasive procedures to discover and evaluate forensic evidence in a deceased person, DID NOT EXIST IN 1963!
Gerry, perhaps you should pay attention.
V.J.DiMaio’s Gushot Wounds: Practical Aspects of Firearms, Ballistics, and Forensic Techniques, SECOND EDITION. Chapter 11 is devoted to the use of plain radiography and how it usually is able to establish bullet tracks in soft tissue obviating the need for “tedious dissection”.
It does not even mention CT, ultrasound or MRI. Of course a layman like yourself does not know why a CT is often useless in evaluating bullet wounds.
Gerry, I understand that they don’t have a lot of MRI machines in Ontario, but you should educate yourself before claiming that MIR ( MRI) would be a preferred imaging technique. Can you explain why it might be CONTRAINDICATED in evaluating bullet tracks?
Grand juries consist of lay persons Photon.
So what does that book have anything to do with my reply?
Are you saying that the plain x-rays in the JFK case prove the trajectory of the back/throat wound, without the need for dissection?
I know that the lateral plain x-ray of JFK’s head shows a metallic cloud whose direction suggests a shot from the front.
Please enlighten us since you speak with an air of authority on this subject.
Grand juries don’t even exist in Canada and you are supposed to be an expert? Since when do Grand Juries evaluate autopsy procedures?
Where did you do your Radiology residency that makes you an expert on what a radiograph actually shows? Where did you do your forensic Radiology fellowship that allows you to make a conclusion based on your interpretation of how a cloud of metallic particles seen on a skull x-Ray proves that a shot came from the front, a conclusion that has escaped board-verified forensic radiologists for 50 years. And you don’t even know the reasons for the limitations concerning the uses of CT and MRI in evaluating bullet wounds and trajectories.
If you don’t know a subject don’t make it obvious by revealing your ignorance.
In reply to Photon’s post of June 1, 2016 at 6:23 p.m.:
What’s with the spurious arguments?
It’s got nothing to do with Canada, Photon.
You discount lay persons when ironically, they would be the arbiters of the evidence including that from experts, whether in a Grand Jury or regular criminal trial (which was my point but you didn’t get that).
Your online handle’s lack of verifiable credentials does not justify your condescending tone.
You cite radiography as a non-invasive method to determine bullet tracks, yet you don’t answer my question or Lawrence’s on how that relates to JFK’s autopsy.
Then you mention “imaging techniques” in your post of May 31st at 8:43 pm as alternatives to dissection, so I list a variety of them which did not exist in 1963, to which you counter with silly questions on the latter (yes, CT and MRIs can be used as per the link below – go ahead and read the back cover or buy the book):
https://www.amazon.ca/Virtopsy-Approach-Radiological-Scanning-Reconstruction/dp/0849381789
Furthermore, I don’t need to be a forensic pathologist to debate you. If you want a citation, kindly ask for one if you can’t do the research. Google is your friend.
Or is this your way to evade reasoned debate?
Photon,
Where did you do your Radiology residency that makes you an expert on what an X-ray actually shows?
\\][//
I didn’t claim to be an expert in x-Ray interpretation. Gerry did. As he had no answers to my CT and MRI questions he obviously knows very little about reading radiographs.
Gerry, can you give me a quote from “Virtopsy Approach” that supports your claims about the value of CT and MRI in post-mitten gunshot wounds? Of course you do realize that this reference comes out of Bern, Switzerland-a hotbed of firearms injuries. Please quote from your reference one case study.
Or did you just Google the topic and threw up the first reference that you could find, expecting that nobody would shell out $400 to check your claims as to what it actually states? Because you certainly never cracked it open!
– Photon
How can I be an expert when you previously referred to us as “laymen”?
As for those modern imaging techniques you allude to, they have nothing to do with the JFK autopsy unless perhaps they exhume President Kennedy’s body.
Now getting back to radiographs, why don’t you answer the question that Lawrence and I posed to you earlier (i.e., how radiographs might have confirmed a wound track through Kennedy’s torso, back in November 1963), as a result of this statement in your post of May 31st at 8:43 pm?
Dissection is rarely if ever necessary to establish a bullet’s track or its origin. As laymen you are unaware of imaging techniques that usually give that information, including evaluation of radiographs.
No, but you can buy the book and look it up yourself. I don’t want to waste more time answering your irrelevant posts.
“I didn’t claim to be an expert in x-Ray interpretation. Gerry did.”~Photon
Then how can you claim he is wrong when you yourself don’t know what you are talking about?
\\][//
No forensic pathologist has interpreted it that way. In addition to the Ramsay Clark Panel, the Rockefeller Panel and the HSCA FPP, even Wecht admitted the autopsy materials provide no evidence of a shot from the front.
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/wecht.htm
Gerry, how can you post a reference that you claims supports your point of view without even knowing what the reference says?
And you most certainly claimed to be an expert when you claimed that the metal cloud pattern allowed you to conclude that it was formed from a shot from the front-a conclusion not supported by a single board certified radiologist. Mantik is not a radiologist.
There is simply no denying that there was a consensus of the Parkland witnesses, both doctors and nurses that Kennedy had a large gaping head wound in the right occipital-parietal.
There is simply no doubt that the back wound was a T-3. This issue has been debated in too many circles here, and those who claim it was higher have no ground to stand on.
Now the same body arrived at Bethesda. So what is the story there? Why the dispute between the Parkland doctors and the autopsy doctors?
Why did Humes destroy not only the bloodstained autopsy notes, but the first draft of his autopsy report? What was in that report that needed to be hidden?
\\][//
[Mr. Whitten wrote:]
“Now the same body arrived at Bethesda. So what is the story there? Why the dispute between the Parkland doctors and the autopsy doctors?”
==============
Willy, after all has been said and done about the two medical teams and other eye witnesses, the following remarkable difference remains unexplained:
(a) Parkland doctors, nurses and embalming personnel.
Always available for interviews, articles, conferences, pictures, fan clubs, poster signings, moonwalkings, twerking, etc. No fear here. If there was any, they defeated it.
(b) Bethesda doctors.
Reclusive. Publish ONE article, safely protected. Escape to discrete anonymity in Switzerland (Fink). They become sweaty and agitated during depositions. Fear is distinct and undeniable.
I meant “coffin personnel” above.
The embalming personnel, who worked in DC after the autopsy, are also in unanimity:
“[embalmer Tom Robinson] described a large, open head wound in the back of the President’s head centrally located right between the ears where the bone was gone.”
http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=711#relPageId=3&tab=page
In short: everybody who was not a military whose livelihood and well-being depended on their superiors agree on the back hole.
Ramon,
Let’s not forget that there was remarkable agreement between the Parkland doctors and the witnesses at Bethesda, as I’ve shown from the record for more than 20 years: http://assassinationweb.com/ag6.htm
by Jimmy Breslin, published 24 November, 1963:
Cropped image:
Link to entire page with date and newspaper visible at top of image.: (file size 508 kb)
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Lpu4P_QE_54/V0tw2adVChI/AAAAAAAAEP8/vFd1daCmF4sU__LLX0qTK5QK5gsZptZLgCCo/s512/PerryBackOfHeadBreslinNov24.jpg
Tom,
Great find!
But watch out: McA will soon turn on Breslin and dismiss him as a conspiracy crackpot.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
I’m surprised McA hasn’t turned on Perry yet, as a conspiracy crackpot, since here’s Perry:
MALCOLM PERRY, MD: In a note written at Parkland Hospital and dated, 11-22-63 Dr., Perry described the head wound as, “A large wound of the right posterior cranium…” (WC–V17:6–CE#392) Describing Kennedy’s appearance to the Warren Commission’s Arlen Specter Dr. Perry stated, “Yes, there was a large avulsive wound on the right posterior cranium….” (WC- V3:368) Later to Specter: “…I noted a large avulsive wound of the right parietal occipital area, in which both scalp and portions of skull were absent, and there was severe laceration of underlying brain tissue…” (WC–V3:372) In an interview with the HSCA’s Andy Purdy in 1-11-78 Mr. Purdy reported that “Dr. Perry… believed the head wound was located on the “occipital parietal” (sic) region of the skull and that the right posterior aspect of the skull was missing…” (HSCA- V7:292-293) Perry told Mr. Purdy: “I looked at the head wound briefly by leaning over the table and noticed that the parietal occipital head wound was largely avulsive and there was visible brain tissue in the macard and some cerebellum seen…” (HSCA-V7:302-interview with Purdy 1-11-78.
But predictably, Posner the Patriot got a different story from Perry. Perry told Posner (on April 2, 1992), “I did not see any cerebellum.” (Gerald Posner, “Case Closed”, p. 312) When told that Robert McClelland, MD had claimed “I saw cerebellum fall out on the stretcher”, Posner claimed Perry responded, “I am astonished that Bob would say that… It shows such poor judgment, and usually he has such good judgment.”
When witnesses support them, Patriots like Posner are never impolite enough to challenge malleable witnesses like Perry on their inconsistencies and hypocrisies. Wouldn’t show love of country.
Well since you claimed for twenty years that one of your witnesses at Bethesda was a Pathology Graduate student when in actuality he was a mere high school graduate Any rational person should be skeptical of your claims. Like the BS about the US selling Sarin gas to Saddam-based on a story that never mentioned Sarin gas but claimed that the U.S. was selling VS gas to Saddam decades after its manufacture in the U.S. was banned.
Disgraceful.
Photon,
Do you know what else is disgraceful? Hypocrisy.
And you are the KING of the hypocrites.
You blather on and on about your supposed “credentials,” when in fact you have NONE> You criticize Mr. Talbot’s book because he put Allen Dulles in the wrong place.
However, you refuse to answer any of the questions put forth by people who know far more than you do about the assassination. People who ACTUALLY looked at the entirety of the “evidence.”
Some examples for you:
On the great and “honest” Gerald Ford:
Washington, DC, February 29, 2016 – The Gerald Ford White House significantly altered the final report of the supposedly independent 1975 Rockefeller Commission investigating CIA domestic activities, over the objections of senior Commission staff, according to internal White House and Commission documents posted today by the National Security Archive at The George Washington University (www.nsarchive.org). The changes included removal of an entire 86-page section on CIA assassination plots and numerous edits to the report by then-deputy White House Chief of Staff Richard Cheney.
Oh, I know, Photon. You are going to say that this happened after JFK, blah, blah, blah. But there is this funny thing called the TRUTH. Once you are proven to be a liar, then everything that you say or have said has little or no merit. In, other words, Photon, Ford will forever be known as a LIAR. So his “work” on the WC is a JOKE.
Where is your outrage at Ford and his deception as the LEADER of this country? Oh, I know. He didn’t write a book to profit off of the murder. Oops, yes he did. Well, hell. Oh, I know. He didn’t lie like Talbot did when he said Dulles wasn’t at Dunkin Donuts. Oops, Ford is clearly a liar as well. (Please see above reference.) Well, hell.
Disgraceful.
Photon,
Ready for a little more disgrace?
On 11th September, 1997, Sibert provided a deposition to the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB). He was also interviewed by William Matson Law for his book, In the Eye of History: Disclosures in the JFK Assassination Medical Evidence (2005). Sibert rejected the account given by Arlen Specter about the single-bullet theory: “What a liar. I feel he got his orders from above – how far above I don’t know.”
You remember, James Sibert, Photon? The man standing two feet away from JFK during the autopsy? The man who was ACTUALLY in the same room as JFK’s body, unlike you who sits on his couch and spouts the WR as gospel.
He is calling your “passion for truth” buddy a liar.
Disgraceful.
Photon:
You know what else is disgraceful? Your CIA. Have some of this:
For these reasons, I no longer believe that we were able to conduct an appropriate investigation of the Agency and its relationship to Oswald. Anything that the Agency told us that incriminated, in some fashion, the Agency may well be reliable as far as it goes, but the truth could well be that it materially understates the matter.
What the Agency did not give us none but those involved in the Agency can know for sure. I do not believe any denial offered by the Agency on any point. The law has long followed the rule that if a person lies to you on one point, you may reject all of his testimony.
I now no longer believe anything the Agency told the committee any further than I can obtain substantial corroboration for it from outside the Agency for its veracity. We now know that the Agency withheld from the Warren Commission the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro. Had the commission known of the plots, it would have followed a different path in its investigation. The Agency unilaterally deprived the commission of a chance to obtain the full truth, which will now never be known.”
G. Robert Blakey. You remember him, right? From the HSCA—the same HSCA that you always spout about and the greatness of the government’s experts?
Disgraceful.
Photon:
More from Mr. Gunn:
For the Warren Commission, transparency had its own difficulties. “There are serious problems with the forensics evidence, with the ballistics evidence, with the autopsy evidence,” Gunn says. “And, in my opinion, if they had said that openly, it would have not put the issue to rest.”
Dr. T. Jeremy Gunn served as executive director of the Assassination Records Review Board.
Dr. T. Jeremy Gunn served as executive director of the Assassination Records Review Board.
Courtesy of T. Jeremy Gunn
Faced with that, the Warren Commission went with what it believed.
Gunn says that wasn’t enough. It’s not that he thinks all the loose ends needed to be tied up. “It wouldn’t be unusual if Oswald had done the crime — or not done the crime — to have evidence that’s inconsistent,” he says.
It’s the big mysteries that cause him the most trouble.
“If the president had been killed as part of a conspiracy, that needed to be known,” he says.
“The institution that had the opportunity to best get to the bottom of this, as much as it was possible, was the Warren Commission, and they didn’t do it,” he says. “Now it’s too late to do what should have been done originally.”
Oops, the Warren Commission failed the American people.
Disgraceful.
And how would he know one way or the other?
As Paul Hoch once cautioned: “Watch out for principals who have become buffs.”
The “surgery to the head area” fellow?
http://maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=625#relPageId=4&tab=page
The fellow who said the bullet traveled “only a short distance?
http://maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=625#relPageId=5&tab=page
Johnny Mac,
How nice to hear from you!
Since the Hardaway thread is now on this site, I figured you would go into hiding!
Nice to see you have commented on that particular thread. Oh wait. You haven’t? Hmmm….
As far as Mr. Sibert. He was there. You were not. Neither was Specter. Don’t you always give credit to witnesses that were closer to the action? Oh, wait. Not in this instance? Hmmmm.
Why I have your attention, John, I notice you didn’t respond to any other of my disgraceful posts. Hmmmm.
Hope to see you on the Hardaway thread. You know, the CIA and the obstruction of the investigation.
FYI—you said that Humes burning his notes was something Humes did. That is also odd John as in most murder cases destroying evidence is a felony. Lucky for us Humes was soooo incompetent, eh John?
Steve, I recall you making a strong issue of other commentors addressing you by anything other than the name associated with your comments. To what do we owe this contradiction?
Tom S.
Fair question. I guess it is John’s use of buff and huff and puff and hatred. I would guess if those terms would disappear, I will do better.
“The president’s wounds were a small entrance wound in the pre-tracheal area, a large exit wound in the posterior inferior cranium and bullet entrance wound in the back at T3, 10 centimeters to the right of the spinal column.”
Dr. Curtis may be quite sincere, but what he described can only be his current opinion not his actual memory, since it’s well-documented in the record and in his own testimony that he didn’t see the throat or back wound.
Curtis didn’t arrive until after the trach tube had been inserted, obliterating the appearance of the throat wound. He testified in 1964 that the only wound he saw was the large head wound. That’s consistent with the testimony of the other doctors there. His later “memory” isn’t.
Forgot the links to his testimony:
http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=35&search=curtis_AND+parkland#relPageId=68&tab=page
http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=35&search=curtis_AND+parkland#relPageId=70&tab=page
So you agree that the Parkland docs were complete whackadoodles, right?
I mean, imagine an examining professor of neurosurgery, Kemp Clark, MD, contemporaneously describing JFK’s anterolateral skull wound as, as per The Warren Report, P. 518:
“There was a large wound in the right occipito-parietal region … There was considerable loss of scakp and bone tissue. Both cerebral and cerebrellar tissue was extruding from the wound.” Undated, typed noted.
And, again as per the Truthy Warren Report, p. 524-525: In a hand-written hospital note: “a large 3 x3 cm remnant of cerebral tissue present….there was a smaller amount of cerebellar tissue present also….There was a large wound beginning in the right occiput extending into the parietal region …. Much of the skull appeared gone at the brief examination….” 11.22.63, 16:15 hrs. Kemp Clark, MD
I guess the best explanation for whoppers like these is that these were Texas doctors, not good doctors, not Hopkins, Harvard, Stanford or UCLA doctors, or even Poly Sci associate professors, all of whom would never, could never pull boners like them Good ole boys did.
Why do you believe pro-Warren patriots are soooo reluctant to admit the obvious incompetence of these Texas yahoos, Jean?
Than you Dr. Aguilar for your Professional conscience analysis.
How do you explain McClellend’s note written on Nov. 22, 1963?
I guess he doesn’t . It pretty much destroys his ” ER docs are infallible ” claim. The only wound described in writing on Nov. 22, 1963 by the CTers favorite Parkland doc didn’t ‘t even exist.
[Gary Aguilar:]
“Why do you believe pro-Warren patriots are soooo reluctant to admit the obvious incompetence of these Texas yahoos, Jean?”
===========================
Doctor Aguilar, please count me among your loyal admirers. However, despite such admiration -or rather, because of my loyalty- I write the following criticism: in your most disappointing speech you answered your own question above:
They were all mistaken. All of them. You attributed the glaring inconsistency to human frailty.
Not a direct quote, but that is the essence of your speech.
Shall we track it down and post the URL?
Ramon,
Error tends to be random, sometimes mistakes go one way, sometimes the others.
Patriots expect us to believe is that virtually all the medical witnesses at both Parkland Hospital and at the autopsy at Bethesda were mistaken. And we’re also asked to agree that they all made the same mistake: they mistook anterior-parietal for occipital, mistook cerebrum for cerebellum (including a neurosurgeon). Given the randomness of error, how likely is it that they all somehow made the same mistake? (As I explore in my 5 part essay, “How Five Investigations into JFK’s Medical/Autopsy Evidence Got It Wrong,” govt-employees and govt-paid consultants made myriad errors, but virtually all the errors were in an anti-conspiracy direction, but the direction preferred by their paymaster. It ain’t rocket science, Ramon.)
If the patriots are right that, for example, the Parkland neurosurgery professor, and the other examining professors, mistook anterior parietal for occipital, then they’ve got no choice but to agree that these are perhaps the biggest bunch of medical incompetents imaginable.
Isn’t it amusing to see dotJohn McA and Jean Davison go mum when you point out the inescapable conclusion one must draw if one throws in one’s lot with the govt?
Let’s not forget the immortal words of Arthur Sylvester, the assistant secretary of defense for public affairs — i.e., the head of all the U.S. military’s PR during the Vietnam War.
Here’s the account from The Intercept: https://theintercept.com/2016/05/20/pentagon-official-once-told-morley-safer-that-reporters-who-believe-the-government-are-stupid/
“Sylvester had arranged to speak with reporters for U.S. outlets, including Safer. Here’s how Safer described it:
“There had been some annoying moments in previous weeks that had directly involved Sylvester’s own office. In the first B-52 raids, Pentagon releases were in direct contradiction to what had actually happened on the ground in Viet Nam.
“There was general opening banter, which Sylvester quickly brushed aside. He seemed anxious to take a stand — to say something that would jar us. He said:
“’I can’t understand how you fellows can write what you do while American boys are dying out here,’ he began. Then he went on to the effect that American correspondents had a patriotic duty to disseminate only information that made the United States look good.
“A network television correspondent said, ‘Surely, Arthur, you don’t expect the American press to be the handmaidens of government.’
“’That’s exactly what I expect,’ came the reply.
An agency man raised the problem that had preoccupied Ambassador Maxwell Taylor and [U.S. spokesman] Barry Zorthian — about the credibility of American officials. Responded the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs:
“’Look, if you think any American official is going to tell you the truth, then you’re stupid. Did you hear that? — stupid.'”
Ramon, you’ve proven you don’t have to play stupid. So just let the other guys play stupid, you know, the “patriots.”
[Dr. Aguilar:] “Ramon, you’ve proven you don’t have to play stupid. So just let the other guys play stupid, you know, the “patriots.””
=========
One of my motivations was to show that our side (people interested in the truth, the whole and nothing but) by necessity have self-criticism.
There is an interesting maxim:
“The truth is found when there is disagreement between friends”.
Every time that approach was attempted or even mentioned in the McAdams newsgroup, he promptly blocked it.
Oh, speaking of “patriots”:
“Some people claim that Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. I claim that it is the first.”
-Moi
Ramon, name some individuals you are convinced are interested only in the truth and I will present evidence to the contrary. I deeply regret having to write this response to you, and I write it only because I’ve learned that individual agendas and an inability to admit mistakes winnows away at all “sides”.
No, the problem is that you are very selectively quoting and spinning their testimony.
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/head.htm#aguilar
Of course, the best evidence is the photos and x-rays are the best evidence.
But you, Gary, lack the courage to say whether you think them faked, forged or tampered with.
“Of course, the best evidence is the photos and x-rays are the best evidence.”~McAdams
Not in the face of almost 2 dozen witnesses describing a blowout at the Occipital-Parietal.
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That’s simply untrue. I don’t remember ever rejecting a post of yours (although if you insulted somebody, I might have rejected that post).
Anybody can come over alt.assassination.jfk and see all kinds of opinions about the head wound posted.
Including a bunch from “Mainframe” who is a Hornite.
Or the best explanation is that JFK was not examined as closely as you and other CTers assume that he was during a rushed 16-17 minute resusitation event.
Or that 10-12 medical personnel crammed into a small trauma room probably never had the views of JFK that CTers assumed that they had.
Or that during that rushed period of time the incomplete nature of the examination was proven by the fact that EVERY physician at Parkland missed a potentially fatal wound in the back.
Or that perhaps the fact that they were dealing with a DOA and non-salvageable patient that happened to be the President prompted actions and assumptions that never would have taken place had the patient been any other DOA patient-leading to understandable errors. Consistant with that was the review of the National Archives autopsy pictures by several Parkland doctors for the PBS 25th anniversary NOVA program. Despite how they may have described the wounds previously, EVERY ONE of the physicians that viewed the photos stated that they accurately represented what they saw in the ER-even McClelland.
It should also be apparent that the descriptions of the head wounds by the Parkland doctors are not all independent private observations, but reflective of the discussion the treating doctors held immediately after leaving the trauma room. Obviously several of the doctors present got their perceptions of the wounds not from what they personally saw but from the observations of others. The most notorious of these second- hand wound descriptions is reflected in McClelland’s written note of Nov. 22, when he regurgitated not what he personally observed, but what Jenkins told him-that JFK had a wound in the left temple. Jenkins apparently believed that he saw a left temple wound ( unobserved by anybody else) up until he was interviewed by the Warren Commission, when he realized that he was mistaken. Now if McClelland had REALLY examined JFK’s head as closely as he later claimed, why did he base his statement on what he wa told by someone who had a better view- BUT WAS WRONG? The only logical conclusion is that he never actually examined the head wound.
That’s touchingly patriotic of you, Mr. Courage, er ‘Photon.’
I’ve exploded this sweet myth elsewhere:
Because the autopsy photographs show no wound in the rear of JFK’s skull, an explanation has been sought for how it was that so many Parkland physicians, including neurosurgeons, said they saw such a wound. The Boston Globe raised the issue, reporting that, “some [Parkland] doctors doubted the extent to which a wound to the rear of the head would have been visible since the President was lying supine with the back of his head on a hospital cart.”
The Globe immediately refuted that speculation: “But others, like [Dr. Richard] Dulaney and [neurosurgeon Dr. Robert] Grossman, said the head at some point was lifted up, thereby exposing the rear wound.” Similarly, author David Lifton reported that Parkland emergency nurse Audrey Bell, who couldn’t see JFK’s head wound though she was standing on the right side, asked Dr. Perry, “‘Where was the wound?’ Perry pointed to the back of the President’s head and moved the head slightly in order to show her the wound.” During sworn interviews with the JFK Review Board in 1998, Dr. Paul Peters reported, “[anesthesiologist Dr. Marion T.] Jenkins said, ‘Boys, before you think about opening the chest, you’d better step up here and look at this brain.’ And so at that point I did step around Dr. Baxter and looked in the President’s head … .” (Figure 8) The ARRB’s Gunn interviewed neurosurgeon Robert Grossman, MD on March 21, 1997, reporting, “[Grossman] and Kemp Clark [Chairman of Neurosurgery at Parkland] [sic] together lifted President Kennedy’s head so as to be able to observe the damage to the President’s head.”
Thus it seems reasonable to suppose that not only did they have plenty of time to get a good look at Kennedy’s skull injuries, the Dallas doctors took responsible and appropriate steps to examine the skull wound before pronouncing the President dead. However, their early descriptions don’t square well with the autopsy photographs.
Refs:
Bradlee, Ben. “Dispute on JFK assassination evidence persists.” Boston Globe, 6/21/81, p. A-23.
Lifton, David. Best Evidence. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1988, p.704.
ARRB depositions of Parkland witnesses, p. 30.
ARRB MD #185. ARRB interview with Dr. Robert G. Grossman, 3/21/97.
Interesting that you cite this, Gary, since the article found the doctors pretty evenly split between saying the autopsy photo they were shown (not the complete set but just the Back of the Head photo) and the “McClelland drawing” corresponded with what they saw.
Of course, when NOVA showed four Dallas doctors the complete set of photos, they said they corresponded with what they had seen in the ER:
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/novadocs.htm
Grossman put the large defect above the ear in parietal bone!
Why are you citing him?
Oh, I know, you are citing him on something convenient and ignoring the rest of his testimony.
http://www.jfklancer.com/pub/md/MD185-3.JPG
http://www.jfklancer.com/pub/md/MD185-2.JPG
McA writes:
“Bradlee, Ben. “Dispute on JFK assassination evidence persists.” Boston Globe, 6/21/81, p. A-23.
“Interesting that you cite this, Gary, since the article found the doctors pretty evenly split between saying the autopsy photo they were shown (not the complete set but just the Back of the Head photo) and the “McClelland drawing” corresponded with what they saw.”
Interesting you dispute this, McA, since it was taken from my pointing out multiple sources who admitted JFK’s head was lifted and the wound examined.
And so So you agree that the Parkland docs were complete whackadoodles, right?
“No,” you protest, “but most were not examining the head wound … .” Yes, but, according to the Boston Globe, Professors Perry, Baxter, Peters, Grossman and Kemp Clark looked at the wound after the head was lifted.
Here’s what they said:
Warren Report:
P. 518: Kemp Clark, MD: “There was a large wound in the right occipito-parietal region … There was considerable loss of scakp and bone tissue. Both cerebral and cerebrellar tissue was extruding from the wound.” Undated, typed noted.
p. 524-525: In a hand-written hospital note: “a large 3 x3 cm remnant of cerebral tissue present….there was a smaller amount of cerebellar tissue present also….There was a large wound beginning in the right occiput extending into the parietal region …. Much of the skull appeared gone at the brief examination….” 11.22.63, 16:15 hrs. Kemp Clark, MD
p. 521: “A large wound of the right posterior cranium was noted … . ” Malcolm. O. Perry, MD, 16:30, 11.22.63.
p. 523: ” … the temporal and occipital bones were missing and the brain was lying on the table.” Charles Baxter, MD, 11.22.63.
P. 529 – 30: “There was a great laceration on the right side of the head (temporal and occipital), causing a great defect in the skull plate so that there was herniation and laceration of great areas of the brain, even to the extent that the cerebellum had protruded from the wound.” M. T. Jenkins, MD, 11.22.63, 16:30. http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/appendix8.html
So have some courage and admit that these guys, who looked at JFK’s skull when it was lifted up mistook an anterolateral skull wound for an occipital wound, including a neurosurgery professor. If they weren’t medical yahoos and whackadoodles, what were they, McA?
Is your lack of courage that explains why you can’t just admit what “must” be true: that these doofuses didn’t know enough anatomy to know the difference between occiput and anterior parietal? That these professors didn’t know as much anatomy as a banished-for-cause Marquette poly”sci” professor does?
Gary, you evaded my point.
To the Boston Globe, the doctors were split as to whether the Back of the Head Photo or the “McClelland drawing” represented the wound as they remembered it.
But you ignore that and cite only the part that you find convenient.
In other cases, where the doctors were shown the entire set of autopsy photos, they said those photos showed the wound as they remembered it.
No, but most were not examining the head wound, and you have a habit of misrepresenting their testimony to make it fit your theory.
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/head.htm#aguilar
Note how the never-promoted, now banished associate prof continues to claim, without a shred of evidence, that I’ve misrepresented the testimony of Parkland docs.
$200.oo says I haven’t, dotJohn. Do you have courage to take the bet or, as usual, are you just blowing smoke? ; ~ >
Here’s the example you showcase in your book of my misrepresenting testimony, and it’s clear it’s you who are misrepresenting.
From http://ctka.net/reviews/McAdams_Aguilar.html (click for footnotes)
Part I (of II):
(In his silly book), the professor writes,
“The tour de force of selectively using testimony to reach a particular conclusion can be found in an essay by Gary Aguilar, who claims to have examined the testimony of forty-six witnesses to Kennedy’s wounds at Parkland Hospital and Bethesda Naval Hospital. Aguilar claims that forty-four of them saw a wound to the ‘back of the head,’ contradicting the autopsy photos and X-rays and suggesting a shot from the grassy knoll … To reach this number, however, Aguilar has to be massively selective in the testimony he uses and quite tendentious in how he interprets it.” (p. 28)
McAdams showcases the statements of Clint Hill as his first example of my tendentiously abusing evidence. He writes, “Clint Hill was the Secret Service agent who ran to the presidential limo after the shooting started and huddled over John and Jackie Kennedy on the wild ride to Parkland. Aguilar quotes him (correctly) as telling the Warren Commission that he saw a “large gaping wound in the right rear portion of the [president’s] (sic) head.” Aguilar interprets this statement as supporting his position (that JFK had a rearward skull wound) despite its vagueness. But Hill told National Geographic, in a TV special titled Inside the U.S. Secret Service, that there was a ‘gaping hole above the right ear about the size of my palm.’ (p. 29) ‘Above his right ear’ implies parietal bone and is consistent with the autopsy photos and X-rays.”
McAdams never mentions that I prefaced my witness compilation with, “It was not the author’s intent to list every comment ever made by every witness, but rather to gather the earliest, presumably most reliable, accounts for consideration and comparison.”
That aside, apparently McAdams considers me massively selective and quite tendentious because I failed to include in my 1994 essay statements that Hill (may have) made to National Geographic in 2004. (I’ve not been able to get a copy of the video to verify McAdams’ assertions. For what it’s worth, in his new book, Mrs. Kennedy and Me, Hill has again described JFK’s skull damage as involving the upper right rear of the head.[xxxvi])
Part II:
But McAdams is correct that I offered Hill as a witness who said JFK’s skull damage was rearward. I did so because Hill’s meaning seemed clear enough in the full quote I cited, from which the professor took only a snippet. Here’s what I originally wrote, a longer Hill quote:
“The right rear portion of his head was missing. It was lying in the rear seat of the car. His brain was exposed …There was so much blood you could not tell if there had been any other wound or not, except for the one large gaping wound in the right rear portion of the head.” (WC–V2:141)
Though McAdams doesn’t tell, I quoted more than just that. In the same essay, I also quoted Hill’s own 11/30/63 statement, in which he said that he “observed another wound (in addition to the throat wound) on the right rear portion of the skull. (WC–CE#1024, V18:744)” Perhaps there are readers who could read all that I wrote and yet agree with McAdams that I was wrong to believe that by “right rear,” Hill actually meant right rear. Nevertheless, by omitting much of what I wrote, McAdams has placed himself squarely among “advocates (who) selectively present information that serves their purposes.”
The professor can’t sustain an honest, factual argument, so he selectively quotes me and the testimony, then slams me for being selective! Ya can’t make this sh_t up! It’s just blatant, if “patriotic,” dishonesty. But don’t take my word for it, go to my compilation and see for yourself. http://www.assassinationweb.com/ag6.htm
In the 6th paragraph of this 1994 piece, I wrote:
“In compiling the witnesses’ accounts of the wounds, every effort was made to locate and present the first account given by each witness. In many cases these were to be found either in notes prepared on the day of the assassination, in Warren Commission testimony a few months later, or in press interviews in the mid 1960’s. Some of the witnesses’ opinions, however, never appeared until years later, some as late as the 1990’s. It was not the author’s intent to list every comment ever made by every witnesses, but rather to gather the earliest, and presumably most reliable, accounts for inspection. However, when witnesses gave later, contradictory accounts, an attempt was made to present, explore and interpret the various versions. It is likely that some witnesses’ descriptions have been unintentionally overlooked. (The author welcomes any contributions that might make this compilation more complete.)”
I know you’ve got hefty legal bills trying to get yourself back into Marquette after being banned for abusing students, McA, but surely a measly $200.oo is a drop in the bucket. So if you’re not a coward, take my bet. If you decline, if you sashay, I’ll “understand.” ;~}
No, Gary, you were happy to use later accounts if you found them convenient.
In the case of Clint Hill you took his very vague statement and interpreted it to mean what you wanted it to mean.
That was a blunder on your part, reflecting you bias.
John,
Should you REALLY be the one to imply that someone is trying to make what someone has said fit a theory? Seems rather hypocritical of you.
You were given the direct quote from David Slawson that appeared on this site a while back where he said that “he no longer believes LHO was the lone wolf that the WO thought he was.” You replied that I should not misrepresent what Mr. Slawson had said. How does one misrepresent a direct quote?
Are you really the one to be the “moral gauge” of JFK’s assassination and the “facts?”
You had done the usual buff thing and taken Slawson out of context.
The context was Mexico City, and Shenon has apparently convinced Slawson that Oswald was with some Mexicans there. At a “twist party,” for example.
That’s not the same as saying that Oswald was innocent, or even that he was part of a conspiracy.
DotJohn writes:
Quoting me:
“Patriots expect us to believe is that virtually all the medical witnesses at both Parkland Hospital and at the autopsy at Bethesda were mistaken.”
McA answers:
“No, the problem is that you are very selectively quoting and spinning their testimony.
“http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/head.htm#aguilar
“Of course, the best evidence is the photos and x-rays are the best evidence. …”
Complete codswollop, as usual, though thoroughly patriotic.
McA fails to admit that he falsely, hilariously, slammed me in his silly book for selectively citing Clint Hill in my 1994 witness compilation, which he cites. I did no such thing, of course. And I hereby offer a wager of $200.oo if McA can prove otherwise.
McAdams never mentions that I prefaced my witness compilation with, “It was not the author’s intent to list every comment ever made by every witness, but rather to gather the earliest, presumably most reliable, accounts for consideration and comparison.”
That aside, apparently McAdams considers me massively selective and quite tendentious because I failed to include in my 1994 essay statements that Clint Hill (may have) made to National Geographic in 2004. (I’ve not been able to get a copy of the video to verify McAdams’ assertions. For what it’s worth, in his new book, Mrs. Kennedy and Me, Hill has again described JFK’s skull damage as involving the upper right rear of the head.[xxxvi]) (see my review of his fact-challenged book, here: http://ctka.net/reviews/McAdams_Aguilar.html)
So let’s get it on, Mr. never-promoted-for cause, associate professor: Let’s review the accounts I’ve gathered of ‘the earliest, presumably most reliable, wound witness accounts for consideration and comparison,’ and let’s see who’s blowing smoke.
While you’re doing that (I don’t need to, my compilation is accurate; your critique faults me for not including stuff they said years after the fact, when their memories weren’t fresh and so, according to Posner (Case Closed, p. 235) unreliable.
In fact, I doubt you have any faith in your own patriotic view that, as you put it: “Of course, the best evidence is the photos and x-rays are the best evidence.”
Why? Here’s the Warren Report:
P. 518: Kemp Clark, MD: “There was a large wound in the right occipito-parietal region … There was considerable loss of scakp and bone tissue. Both cerebral and cerebrellar tissue was extruding from the wound.” Undated, typed noted.
p. 524-525: “a large 3 x3 cm remnant of cerebral tissue present….there was a smaller amount of cerebellar tissue present also….There was a large wound beginning in the right occiput extending into the parietal region …. Much of the skull appeared gone at the brief examination….” 11.22.63, 16:15 hrs. Kemp Clark, MD
(See above for the rest of the 11/22/63 descriptions.)
If the X-rays and photos are the gold standard, why won’t you admit Parkland docs are whackadoodles and incompetents, dotJohh? As if the answer weren’t obvious to EVERYONE who follows you/this.
So you believe the photos and x-rays were faked?
Have some courage!
Step up and say you believe that!
If you don’t have the courage to say that, it will be obvious you are intentionally citing witness testimony in a way you know to be misleading.
Dr Aguilar,
In the video posted by Mr Herrera, you say you will provide the sources for the debunking of the Neutron Activation analysis.
Can you post those sources here please?
Thanks, Willy
\\][//
Can you give us a quote where Dr. Dulaney stated that the head was moved? The only notation claiming that is a single unreferenced sentence in known CTer Bradlee’s article linking him with Grossman.
Grossman is the only Parkland doctor who claimed to have moved the head. Dulaney’s Warren interview doesn’t even mention Grossman being in the room.
And how involved was Grossman in reality? Why do you leave out that he supported the autopsy version of the wounds?
Still selectively reporting the evidence, still relying on a single source.
Where is the evidence that the US sold
Sarin gas to Saddam Hussein? The Worid Waits.
I found the sources Mr Aguilar spoke to in the video Mr Herrerra posted, that is the sources for the debunking of the Neutron Activation analysis.
Here is a link to that article:
https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-_Is_Vincent_Bugliosi_Right_that_Neutron_Activation_Analysis_Proves_Oswalds_Guilt.html
\\][//
http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=35&search=curtis_AND+parkland#relPageId=70&tab=page
Mr Specter: And what did you observe there?
Dr Curtis: Oh – fragments of bone and a gross injury to the cranial contents.
. . .
\\][//
“Dr Curtis: Oh – fragments of bone and a gross injury to the cranial contents.”
So? That’s accurate, isn’t it? But I wasn’t talking about the head wound. Curtis testified that he did not see either the throat wound or the back wound. He arrived too late to see the former and no one in the ER looked at JFK’s back.
So naturally you avoid the issue I raised, which is that he’s expressing an opinion he evidently got from what he’s read or heard since then, not from what he saw on 11/22. The head wound he saw, not the other two.
“So naturally you avoid the issue I raised, which is that he’s expressing an opinion he evidently got from what he’s read or heard since then, not from what he saw on 11/22. The head wound he saw, not the other two.”~Jean Davison
I am avoiding nothing Jean. Sure Dr Curtis understands the issues of the other wounds by now from other doctors that were there and the freely available information on the web.
Do you think Curtis walks around in a vacuum, stuck in time like the Warren Report apologists?
\\][//
Jean,
You don’t like it when others “avoid the issue.” I understand.
So surely you won’t avoid the issue I raised, right?
So you agree that the Parkland docs were complete whackadoodles, right?
I mean, imagine an examining professor of neurosurgery, Kemp Clark, MD, contemporaneously describing JFK’s anterolateral skull wound as, as per The Warren Report, P. 518:
“There was a large wound in the right occipito-parietal region … There was considerable loss of scakp and bone tissue. Both cerebral and cerebrellar tissue was extruding from the wound.” Undated, typed noted.
And, again as per the Truthy Warren Report, p. 524-525: In a hand-written hospital note: “a large 3 x3 cm remnant of cerebral tissue present….there was a smaller amount of cerebellar tissue present also….There was a large wound beginning in the right occiput extending into the parietal region …. Much of the skull appeared gone at the brief examination….” 11.22.63, 16:15 hrs. Kemp Clark, MD
I guess the best explanation for whoppers like these is that these were Texas doctors, not good doctors, not Hopkins, Harvard, Stanford or UCLA doctors, or even Poly Sci associate professors, all of whom would never, could never pull boners like them Good ole boys did.
Why do you believe pro-Warren patriots are soooo reluctant to admit the obvious incompetence of these Texas yahoos, Jean?
It’s not ‘accurate’ insofar as a forensic examination, but he was only asked a general question. Specter didn’t proceed further.
But his ‘weak’ testimony doesn’t impugn the account of other Parkland doctors.
And yes, you’re right. He said he didn’t see wounds other than the head wound, however, he could’ve talked to Carrico and other doctors who saw all wounds in greater detail.
“Sure Dr Curtis understands the issues of the other wounds by now from other doctors that were there and the freely available information [sic] on the web.”
Exactly my point! His statement was introduced here under the title “Memories of a Parkland Hospital doctor,” but what he said about the throat and back wounds can only be an opinion that he picked up somewhere, not a memory of what he saw.
There is “information on the web.” There are also tons of misinformation and BS on the web.
Point well taken Jean, but his recollection is more valuable since he rubbed shoulders with those Parkland MDs who saw more.
“… but his recollection is more valuable since he rubbed shoulders with those Parkland MDs who saw more”
No one in the ER saw the back wound (the body wasn’t turned over) and very few saw the throat wound before the trach incision was made.
Imagine if the body had been turned over. Suddenly there are TWO apparent “entry” wounds with no exits. Hmmm, maybe one of the two is an exit wound, after all?
Jean, what “transcript,” in 1967, could Conkreit possibly have been referring to? Are you at all curious about this reference on a national broadcast, or
of Rowley’s assertion in a letter to the WC that no trancsript could be located by the Secret Service, despite the evidence later presented by the ARRB that
Rowley’s designated copy was dated stamped 26 November, 1963? Maybe it is my impression, but I can’t help notice you seem to work at reminding readers of what the government and other establishment authority literally “took pains” to inform us of. Cronkeit looks sleazy, but Rowley appears an obstructionist of the WC investigation and a liar. In contrast, two hours after the shots were fired, Drs. Perry and Kemp made informed, first person comments that sure seem to have been supressed, at great pains.
http://maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=11077&relPageId=2
http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md41/html/Image0.htm
http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md41/html/Image9.htm
http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/staff_memos/pdf/DH_ProtocolCC2.pdf
……
https://jfkfacts.org/22057/#comment-866260
Tom S. March 30, 2016
Uhhh….this discussion can be an opportunity…. to do what?
I am always curious about what prompts commenters who ardently manifest no (anti ?) curiousity, to be
drawn here at all, even to read, let alone to comment.
Even Mr. Von Pein indicates curiousity of a reasonable person.:
Part I of II, cont.
Part Ii of II
http://maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=97695&relPageId=11&search=transcript_and%20parkland
CBS News Inquiry: The Warren Report, Part II
06/26/1967
Radio TV Reports, Inc.:
Thanks Tom, I’ve never seen some of this stuff. While you loose me at times with cemeteries, weddings, and such this is good.
Not to digress, but to remind others… Two of the three military pathologists were not Forensic pathologists. The one who was was not a practicing one. He got there late and he was ignored.
“Jean, what “transcript,” in 1967, could Conkreit possibly have been referring to?”
We discussed all this last spring, Tom:
https://jfkfacts.org/22057/
CBS got the transcript from the White House, which had it because the WH press secretary had organized the doctors’ news conference and a WH steno took down what was said. There was no other recording because by that time the TV cameras and most reporters had moved on to the jail. The steno made the only verbatim record, but other reporters who were there got the story out about the throat wound being described as an “entrance” and this was widely reported by the media.
Do you think there were two entrance wounds in JFK’s upper torso and no exits, and no bullets seen in the x-rays? I don’t give a rat’s behind what “the government and other establishment authority” say. I’m always looking for the most plausible explanation. How about you?
Jean, there was a conspiracy to keep the existence of the transcript from the press and the public. Your replies have all avoided that undeniable fact.
You reinforce my point each time I bring it up. You don’t want to “go” there. You insert speculation to distract from fact.:
It is certainly your perogative to present what you choose, but when you avoid, even when it is put in front of you, that Cronkite referred to,
…Stating that the WC “got it right,” CBS News, featuring the
“most trusted man in America,” (Cronkite) quoting from a deliberately suppressed, news conference transcript, you convince me you would never identify a
pitchfork moment (see https://www.google.com/search?q=%22pitchfork+moment%22&oq=%22pitchfork+moment%22&gs_l=serp.12…8133.10312.0.11864.2.2.0.0.0.0.291.345.1j0j1.2.0….0…1c.1.64.serp..0.1.290…0i22i30.I4GwA9H83ZQ ) if one landed in your lap.
A portion of your reply to the evidence I presented that the transcript was deliberately suppressed, hidden, disappeared, was:
Jean, I don’t understand what your explanation means or why you volunteer it. I don’t want to believe it is a defense of a crime that did happen, obstruction of the investigation of the JFK Assassination. The obstruction was intended to eliminate an official record of the first statements of
the most authoritative physicians who attended to our dying President. Cronkite’s quoting from it in such a manner and venue was obscenity.
The Warren Commission did not “investigate”, CBS did not “report”. Both concealed deliberately and disseminated propaganda.:
Cronkite’s name appears at the bottom of the image above.
Page 44, bottom:
Jean, do you think CBS’s Stephen White would have written the description in the image above in that manner if CBS had had the integrity to describe fully and include the text of transcript 1327-c in its 1967 broadcasts or in Stephen White’s book documenting those broadcasts for CBS?
“Suddenly there are TWO apparent “entry” wounds with no exits. Hmmm, maybe one of the two is an exit wound, after all?”Jean Davison
“Maybe” is the operative word to many or your trite “solutions”…Now adding to the supposition you pose — which wound is the “obvious” entry and which is the “obvious” exit? And how did bias play a part in the part of the Kennedy case?
\\][//
“Do you think there were two entrance wounds in JFK’s upper torso and no exits, and no bullets seen in the x-rays? I don’t give a rat’s behind what “the government and other establishment authority” say. I’m always looking for the most plausible explanation. How about you?”~Jean Davison
So how many clear X-rays are actually available from the “autopsy” Ms Davison?
Why are the bulk of these X-Rays held by the National Archives to this very day, and none but a paltry few have been published?
Have you ever seen a clear X-ray of the throat and chest area, of the abdominal area?
The question which has arisen time and again, why the botched autopsy? Why were the back wound and the throat wound not dissected to track the path of the missile or missiles?
Dr. Finck gave the answer to that question at the Garrison trial – because general officers in the gallery told them not to. This is in the official record Jean.
This means it can only be by conjecture to conclude the back wound and throat wound were connected.
Now another question that you are loath to consider is this; is it not pure bias to assume that if one of the wounds IS an exit wound it MUST be the throat wound?
You KNOW that Perry said that the throat wound looked like an entry wound to him when he was fresh from seeing it on November 22nd, you know he repeated it three times.
And you should also know that saying that the reporters were “badgering” Perry is pure hyperbole. It is simply in the nature of such press conferences that reporters vie for answers to their own questions.
And Jean, the insinuation of your closing remark is none too subtle:
“I’m always looking for the most plausible explanation. How about you?”
\\][//
Jean,
You’ve been outed for patriotically dodging that, since they didn’t buttress JFK’s autopsy photos and X’rays, the Parkland docs are incompetent yahoos. But since you’ve expressed you don’t give a rat’s behind about anything but truth, how about the truth of how the Truthy Warren Commission badgered Malcolm Perry into submission about his 11/22 press comments?
As I wrote elsewhere: http://www.history-matters.com/essays/jfkmed/How5Investigations/How5InvestigationsGotItWrong_1b.htm
Part I:
Challenging Press Accounts
Early press reports from the emergency doctors in Dallas said that JFK had suffered an entrance wound in the throat, and a massive wound in the head.[63] The Commission of course concluded that JFK’s throat wound was not an entrance wound, but one of exit: it was the site through which the bullet that had hit JFK in the back exited his body on its way toward John Connally. What concerns us is not the interesting question of whether it was in fact an entrance wound, but how the Commission handled the early reports that said it was an entrance wound.
The Commission wrote, “Considerable confusion has arisen because of comments attributed to Dr. Perry concerning the nature of the neck wound. Immediately after the assassination, many people reached erroneous conclusions about the source of the shots because of Dr. Perry’s observation to the press … Commenting on his answers at the press conference, Dr. Perry testified before the Commission: ‘I expressed it [his answers] as a matter of speculation that this was conceivable…’. Dr. Perry’s recollection of his comments [having been misrepresented by the press] is corroborated by some of the news stories after the press conference. The New York Herald Tribune on November 23, 1963, reported as follows: ‘Dr. Malcolm Perry … said he saw two wounds – one below the Adam’s apple, the other at the back of the head.’ He said he did not know if two bullets were involved. It is possible, he said, that the neck wound was the entrance and the other the exit.”[64]
In essence, the Commission was saying that the controversy only arose because the media was sloppy. However, Dr. Perry’s verbatim statements paint a different picture, one of the sloppiness on the parts of the New York Herald Tribune and the Commission.
Dr. Perry took over the care of JFK’s labored breathing from an associate, Charles Carrico, MD.[65] To help, he surgically enlarged the throat wound through a tracheotomy incision to insert a breathing tube. If only out of professional interest, if not in the interest of accurately assessing the wounded site he intended to further violate with a potentially dangerous incision on a living President, it makes sense to suppose that Perry probably took a reasonable peek at the President’s throat wound before plunging his knife. On 11-22-63, at 3:16 PM CST, barely two hours after JFK was pronounced dead, Perry appeared with Kemp Clark, MD, the professor of neurosurgery who had pronounced JFK dead.
See Part II
Part II:
A newsman asked Perry: “Where was the entrance wound?”
Perry: “There was an entrance wound in the neck…”
Question: Which way was the bullet coming on the neck wound? At him?”
Perry: “It appeared to be coming at him.”…
Question: “Doctor, describe the entrance wound. You think from the front in the throat?”
Perry: “The wound appeared to be an entrance wound in the front of the throat; yes, that is correct. The exit wound, I don’t know. It could have been the head or there could have been a second wound of the head. There was not time to determine this at the particular instant.”[66] (emphasis added)
Transcript of Nov. 22 afternoon press conference given by Parkland Hospital physicians Dr. Malcolm Perry and Dr. Kemp Clark. Dr. Perry’s actual statements contradict the Warren Commission’s allegations that he was misreported.
(see ARRB MD #41)
On 11/22/63 UPI reported that Perry had said, “There was an entrance wound below the Adam’s apple.”[67] The New York Times reported, “… Dr. Malcolm Perry … [said] Mr. Kennedy was hit by a bullet in the throat, just below the Adam’s apple … This wound had the appearance of a bullet’s entry … .”[68] On 11/23/63, the Dallas Morning News reported, “The front neck hole was described as an entrance wound,” and it quoted Perry to say, “It did however appear to be the entrance wound at the front of the throat.” These press accounts, and others like them, accurately reflect the fact that at no time during the press conference did Perry allow for any other possibility than that the throat wound was an entrance wound.
How did the Warren Report describe Perry’s press conference statements? It reported, “Dr. Perry… stated to the press that a variety of possibilities could account for the President’s wounds.”[69] (Emphasis added) Whereas numerous press reports had accurately described Perry’s belief the wound was one of entrance, the Warren Report cited only the New York Herald Tribune’s vague and less accurate version. Ironically, Perry wasn’t easily dislodged from his original position.
The day after the murder Boston Globe medical reporter, Herbert Black, asked Perry how the throat wound could have been an entrance wound if the gunman was behind the President. Perry answered, “It may have been that the President was looking sideways with his head thrown back when the bullet or bullets struck him.”[70] [It is of interest that, after discussing what was visible in the Zapruder film, Life Magazine offered this same explanation on December 18th for JFK’s throat wound – that JFK had turned toward the sniper’s nest just before being shot.[71] The Zapruder film, however, discloses no such turn. Neither the Warren Commission, nor Life Magazine, nor the government, ever corrected Life’s error. This mischaracterization became but one of many exhibits cited by skeptics in criticizing the media’s handling of JFK murder.[72] [73]]
See Part III
Part III:
The Warren Commission’s Arlen Specter was concerned about published reports from Perry’s press conference. Presuming Oswald’s guilt, Specter had proposed a theory that would defend that assumption, the so-called “Single Bullet Theory.” This theory explained how it was that both JFK and Connally could be seen in the Zapruder film to have been wounded in too short a time for Oswald to have fired twice. The answer? Lucky Oswald hit both with one shot, the single bullet causing all seven of the nonfatal wounds sustained by both victims.
In fact, although Specter himself has admitted that his supervisor, Commission counsel Norman Redlich, had banned pretestimony interviews,[74] Specter nevertheless interviewed Perry before he testified to the Warren Commission. He indicated that he would obtain recordings of Perry’s public comments for Perry to review “prior to his appearance, before deposition or before the Commission,” which, Specter acknowledged, he had been unable to do.[75] Under oath, Perry repeatedly answered apologetically, and inaccurately, about how the press had misreported his explanation of JFK’s throat wound. After the Commission suggested Perry be furnished the suspect press reports, so that Perry could correct the errors,[76] Specter asked Perry for the second time during his appearance for clarification.
“Was it (the throat wound) ragged or pushed out in any manner?” Perry astutely replied, “the edges were neither cleancut, that is punched out, nor were they very ragged … I did not examine it very closely.” [77] (emphasis added) No Commissioner was impolite enough to ask Perry why he would have made an incision on a President’s bleeding throat without taking a careful look at it. Nor did they remind the doctor that only a few minutes earlier, before Specter had made his preferences so plain, Perry had admitted that the throat wound’s “edges were neither ragged nor were they punched out, but rather clean.”[78] The Commission apparently either never examined the verbatim transcript of Perry’s press conference, or it neglected to discuss what Perry actually said, in either case settling instead for Perry’s Specter-abetted finger pointing. The libel against the press thus went unchallenged.
*******************************************
Again, let’s regard this as just another example what little regard the government has for truth or the press:
https://theintercept.com/2016/05/20/pentagon-official-once-told-morley-safer-that-reporters-who-believe-the-government-are-stupid/?comments=1#comments
“Jean, there was a conspiracy to keep the existence of the transcript from the press and the public. Your replies have all avoided that undeniable fact.”
It seems undeniable to you, but I see it as based on your suspicion and interpretations rather than the evidence itself.
I don’t think you can safely assume that Rowley knew all along that there was a copy of the transcript in his files and deliberately hid it. But you do seem to assume that.
Few people apparently realized there was no media transcript because, according to the letter you posted, Rankin asked Rowley for “the *video tape* and transcript.” Rowley asked the networks and local stations for it, and of course they didn’t have it. Rankin didn’t ask Rowley to search his own files (why would the Secret Service have a transcript if the TV stations didn’t??) Do you think Rowley was aware of and remembered every document that came into his office following 11/22?
Ever heard of Murphy’s Law? It has apparently been repealed in the CT world along with human error, or so it often seems.
Do you believe that Perry’s calling it an entrance wound means that it *was* an entrance wound? If yes, what are the implications of that? Do you think the back wound was an exit or another entrance? You don’t seem to want to “go there,” Tom. But this is the unavoidable baggage that comes with believing Perry was right.
Jean, I believe considerable risk was taken and a great deal of effort was expended to obscure, spin, blame the press, and generally discredit what Drs. Perry and Kemp were actually transcribed as communicating to the press at Parkland Hospital less than two hours after President Kennedy was pronounced dead. I believe this description is irrefutable fact. People with the influence to disappear transcript 1327-c from November 22, 1963 until it came into the possession of the CBS employees or contractors involved in making the 1967 prime time broadcast, and to “influence” CBS “reporting” and in Stephen White’s CBS commissioned book about the 1967 broadcasts, to refer to it (transcript 1327c) only briefly as absolutely necessary to accomplish the intended misleading purpose must have had strong motivation to keep the public document and the information it contained….from the public and from the WC inquiry and the WCR.
http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/A%20Disk/Autopsy%20JFK%20Parkland%20Hospital%20Press%20Conference/Item%2001.pdf
So, Harold Weisberg attempted to find a source of a copy of transcript 1327-c (9 years after the 1967 CBS broadcast) that he could publish without bringing the wrath of CBS down on Roger Feinman.:
http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/A%20Disk/Autopsy%20JFK%20Notes%20Press%20Clippings/Item%20087.pdf
Jean, I am an not informed enough to respond reasonably to your challenge. Whose fault would you say my inability to be informed enough to answer your question is? I have two questions, Jean. What is it in this discussion you think you are defending, and, is this the sort of country you want to live in, want your heirs to live in…. a country in which some in government and media colluded to cover up sensitive details related to President Kennedy’s bullet wounds and then, together, attempted to blame the press for what was alleged to have been said by Drs. Perry and Kemp in the very official transcript those same obstructionists and propagandists worked to conceal and to distort the contents, context, and meaning of?
“It seems undeniable to you, but I see it as based on your suspicion and interpretations rather than the evidence itself.”~Jean Davison
Jean, You have the slippery habit of sauntering on chattering out of your hat, never acknowledging the real points that others have brought up. You follow an agenda, like the talking points and tactics of a seasoned propagandist; clever rhetoric, convenient dismissal of reasoned arguments in opposition to your position, etc…
Now I have asked you a very simple question several times. The only difficulty I see in your capability to answer is that it would throw light on your own ingrained biases.
That question is this: If both the wound to the throat, and the wound to the back can be characterized as having the known features of an ENTRANCE WOUND, why do you Jean Davison, insist it must have been the throat wound that was the exit wound to a bullet entering Kennedy’s back?
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Sashay(tm)!
You didn’t answer Jean’s question.
Are you even aware that ER doctors are very poor at distinguishing entrance and exit wounds?
The following is from the JAMA, April 28, 1993, page 2058.
Jean Davison said:
or maybe those two wounds did not have exits?
Curtis probably knew later that they didn’t dissect those wounds at the autopsy.
At the end of the day, November 22, 1963 probably had an impact on Curtis’ life, and after many years, he probably studied it, talked about it with his colleagues at Parkland, and had an informed opinion.
“The following is from the JAMA, April 28, 1993, page 2058.”~McAdams
You and Photon have offered this tepid paragraph countless times, claiming ER doctors cannot distinguish entrance wounds from exit wounds.
It is bullfudge. Dr Perry had attended between 150 to 200 gunshot wounds in his career at the point he worked on JFK.
He certainly knew more about gunshot wounds than your inexperienced general pathologist who botch the autopsy on the President of the United States.
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So you prefer your supposition to a study that was later published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.
It doesn’t matter how many wounds Perry had seen. It was never his job to figure out entry and exit.
The concern in the ER is always “ABC.” Airway, breathing, circulation.
This aside from the fact the vast majority of wounds he would have seen were from handguns, and not high powered rifles.
“Jean, I am not informed enough to respond reasonably to your challenge.”
Of course you are, Tom. I asked,
“Do you believe that Perry’s calling it an entrance wound means that it *was* an entrance wound? If yes, what are the implications of that [in your opinion]?”
You don’t need more information to answer that.
Perry’s statements at the press conference were never covered up. Immediately afterward UPI quoted him saying “there was an entrance wound below the Adam’s apple.” That direct quote was widely carried by the media and reached an immense audience, according to Lifton.
You think the transcript was deliberately covered up. I don’t agree. In any event, a copy has been available for a very long time.
Do you guys want to keep slamming the original investigation for another half century or will WC critics finally try to figure out the most plausible explanation for the evidence and present a coherent alternative? Maybe I should ask, do you lack the curiosity to try to do that?
Tom poses perhaps the most interesting question of all:
I am always curious about what prompts commenters who ardently manifest no (anti ?) curiousity, to be
drawn here at all, even to read, let alone to comment.
You think Nellie shot JFK from the front?
And somehow, the fibers of the shirt were displaced outward in Nellie’s direction?
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/collar.jpg
“You think Nellie shot JFK from the front?” ~McAdams
No I think an unknown sniper shot JFK from the front. And I don’t think your photo of the shirt is definite proof of anything. Those fiber may have been disturbed with JFK’s tie was removed.
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Do you know where the bullet hole is located on the back of the shirt John?
About 5.5 inches.
Why don’t you highlight that John?
Distance downward from shirt collar to hole:
FBI: 14.7cm.
CP: 14cm.
HSCA: 14cm.
. . . . .
This photograph, taken by Phil Willis at the same time as frame 202 of the Zapruder film, shows that the jacket was in its normal position less than half a second before Kennedy came into view from the sixth–floor window.
https://i0.wp.com/cdn1.22november1963.org.uk/willis202_01th.jpg
Testimony of Michael Baden, Head of the Medical Panel
Mr. KLEIN: Whose clothing is that and where did it come from?
Dr. BADEN: This is the clothing worn by President Kennedy at the time of the assassination and does show various perforations in the fabric that were of importance for the medical panel to evaluate. Present on the mannequin is the jacket and shirt and tie. The jacket and the clothing had been torn at Parkland Hospital by the examining physicians in the course of providing emergency care to the President .
Mr. KLEIN: And with respect to the wounds to the President’s back, what did the panel learn from that clothing?
Dr. BADEN: In the jacket and the underlying shirt there is a perforation of the fabric that corresponds directly with the location of the perforation of the skin of the right upper back that, the panel concluded, was an entrance gunshot perforation that entered the back of the President.
This is correspondingly seen in the shirt beneath.
[1 HSCA 196: http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol1/pdf/HSCA_Vol1_0907_5_Baden.pdf%5D
The hole in the jacket was 5.5 inches below the upper margin of the jacket collar, and the hole in the shirt, 5 3/4 below the upper margin of the shirt collar [7 HSCA 83] about where witnesses said the back wound was – well below the base of the neck.
https://i0.wp.com/www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/HWNAU/SRexhibit59.jpg
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No it doesn’t, since the resolution is not nearly good enough.
And 202 is more than a second from 223, when the single bullet hit.
“or maybe those two wounds did not have exits?”
Fine, Gerry, now please explain where the two bullets went. There were no bullets on the x-rays. Here are the only CT explanations I can recall:
1. Ice bullets.
2. The two collided and were smashed into smithereens (problem: a cloud of metal fragments would be visible on an x-ray and there is none)
3. Somebody intercepted the body and fished both bullets out of the wounds.
4. Fake x-rays (No one has shown that faking a JFK x-ray would even be possible, let alone that it happened)
Or is there some other explanation you’d like to offer?
“At the end of the day, November 22, 1963 probably had an impact on Curtis’ life, and after many years, he probably studied it, talked about it with his colleagues at Parkland, and had an informed.”
None of his colleagues in the ER could have an informed opinion about the back wound since nobody saw it, and ER opinions about bullet wounds are no more accurate than a coin toss, according to this study:
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=405624
“There were no bullets on the x-rays…” ~Jean Davison
HOw can you so confidently claim that there were no bullets on the x-rays, when the published X-rays are of such poor quality that nothing is clear in them, they are like 4th generation Xerox copies.
Why are the many X-rays still unpublished of both the skull and the chest, the lower abdomen? Why only special access to the autopsy photos? It has been fifty plus fracking years Jean?
It’s the same problem as all the files being kept secret for all these years.
WHAT ARE THEY HIDING?
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They didn’t track the wounds so there are other possibilities when one considers other evidence.
The back wound could’ve been shallow, and a bullet may have fallen out or removed at Bethesda as suggested by various other witness accounts.
The tracheostomy did not obliterate the throat wound but was merely extended. The doctor who performed it said he only made small cuts to the wound. What we see at Bethesda looks like someone gouged out a bullet. In light of that, and the various accounts of Bethesda witnesses who suggest that the President’s body could’ve arrived sooner, and Horne’s description of a pre-autopsy from his careful analysis, it doesn’t sound so far-fetched.
(So if bullets were removed prior to the x-rays, you’re not going to see them. Orlando Martin has a more outlandish explanation but I won’t get into it now.)
Milton Helpern didn’t believe that CE399 caused all of the wounds.
Dr. Joseph Dolce didn’t believe it either (but the WC didn’t take his opinion seriously even though he was a senior scientist at Edgewood Arsenal).
Connally was hit by a different bullet just from looking at the Z film.
The dent in the chrome was not from a fragment (that frame was made from steel but was chrome plated, and it’s not a mere dent but a puncture-like mark from a whole bullet it seems).
I’ll also never believe that the middle of a 6.5 mm fragment somehow sheered off and stuck in JFK’s head as conveniently shown in that x-ray. So yes, I don’t trust the x-rays or the photos which vary from what others say.
As for the back wound, even if Curtis or his colleagues didn’t see it, they apparently don’t believe in the official version from studying all the available records. Common sense if you ask me.
You haven’t seen the x-rays, Willy. Those who have seen the x-rays, including WC critics like Drs. Mantik, Wecht, and Robertson (a radiologist) have reported on what they saw and it certainly didn’t include a bullet or bullets in the neck.
Access to the JFK x-rays and photos has long been under the control of the Kennedy family. I’m not sure if that’s still true or not, but I think it is.
Gerry,
“The back wound could’ve been shallow, and a bullet may have fallen out or removed at Bethesda…. and Horne’s description of a pre-autopsy….it doesn’t sound so far-fetched.”
I disagree, Gerry, because as usual in conspiracy scenarios the plotters show up wherever they’re needed to tamper with the evidence and yet they do incredibly stupid things. “They” shoot JFK from opposite directions yet both weapons are too puny to pass through his body. What kind of hit team is that? They plant a different weapon and bullets to frame Oswald, so now they have to get rid of the ammo actually used and plant substitutes. Imagine the conversation at *that* planning session.
If ever there was a need for Occham’s razor, imo, this is it.
Dolce evidently wasn’t the expert CTs think he was, as discussed in this old thread. Just read his alternate shooting scenario, e.g.:
https://jfkfacts.org/who-was-the-only-man-to-ever-face-legal-charges-in-jfks-assassination/
I contend that by far the simplest and best explanation is that Perry was wrong about the throat wound. Yes, it looked like an entrance wound, but it wasn’t an entrance wound. This fits the evidence much better than any alternative, imo. It didn’t take the WC staff long to figure this out. Conspiracy books not so much.
Jean,
Occam’s Razor is used by scientists in choosing competing hypotheses with the fewest assumptions, to make testing easier.
It’s merely a heuristic guide, but has been bastardized in its application to finding solutions.
It’s neither a substitute for evidence nor a proof.
So it is not a maxim or tool used in a criminal trial to dismiss circumstantial evidence.
We don’t have a grand conspiracy but a murder conspiracy and a cover-up.
In short, there are too many loose ends and implausibilities in this case.
Okay, let’s forget the term Occam’s razor. That’s fine. All I’m suggesting is that in my opinion your implied scenario is too complex to be plausible.
I mean, take a look. You’ve got two weak bullets fired from opposite directions that both disappear. Conspirators that stage a “pre-autopsy,” presumably plant an unused rifle and shells in the TSBD, and more besides. Sounds like a pretty grand conspiracy to me.
“Connally was hit by a different bullet just from looking at the Z film.”
It sure doesn’t look that way to me. Right hands fly up at the same time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HesB3lzbV0E
I agree the dent in the chrome resembles the rounded end of bullet, but as I understand it, an M-C or similar rifle bullet that hit the frame directly would’ve gone straight through it. A fragment that included the front end of a bullet was found in the front seat area.
I don’t think any “official” investigation claimed there was a 6.5mm fragment that “sheared off,” or argued that this was in any way evidence of the caliber of the bullet. I’m not sure that the 6.5 measurement is even correct, since as I understand it, it’s not easy to judge sizes in an x-ray. Of course, I could be wrong.
The x-rays were authenticated by the HSCA in various ways as being genuine x-rays of JFK.
If Curtis’s opinion was based on studying the evidence or on what other people said, that opinion carries no more weight than anyone else’s, since it’s not based on what he personally observed.
“Sounds like a pretty grand conspiracy to me.”
~Jean Davison
It sounds like a pretty sloppy conspiracy to me.
One that any competent gum shoe sleuth could figure out without much digging.
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He said that just because there was a tube inserted that it didn’t mean there wasn’t a hole there (i.e., in the throat). It’s also a myth that the throat wound was “obliterated” like we see in the autopsy photos based on what another or the treating doctor described (no need to gouge out the neck to insert a tube in the trachea).
In the testimony you provided, he is asked initially what he could see at the time he got to Trauma Room 1, which he couldn’t because he focused on assisting with a breathing apparatus, but he was later asked again and said that he went around to the right side of the patient and saw,
fragments of bone and a gross injury to the cranial contents with copious amounts of hemorrhage.
When someone cites a Parkland doc’s claiming there was a substantial wound in the right rear of JFK’s skull, patriots like John McA and “Mr. Courage,’ aka Photon, normally rush out to denounce them as not credible, unreliable, as commenting years after the fact when they were goofy-headed, etc.
But said patriots are never willing to admit that these latter day accounts, including Dr. Curtis’s, are/were/have been eerily similar to the accounts given on the day of the assassination by the treating professor-physicians at Parkland. Since the patriotic view is that they were all wrong, the only conclusion patriots should draw is that the professor-physicians were perhaps the biggest pack of medical incompetents in history.
Here’s what they wrote on the day they treated Kennedy:
Warren Report:
P. 518: Kemp Clark, MD: “There was a large wound in the right occipito-parietal region … There was considerable loss of scakp and bone tissue. Both cerebral and cerebrellar tissue was extruding from the wound.” Undated, typed noted.
p. 520: “The other wound had avulsed the calvarium and brain tissue prseent with diffuse oozing … attempt to control slow oozing from cerebral and cerebellar tissue via packs instituted.” – 11.22.63, 16:20, Charles J. Carrico, MD
p. 521: “A large wound of the right posterior cranium was noted … . ” Malcolm. O. Perry, MD, 16:30, 11.22.63.
p. 523: ” … the temporal and occipital bones were missing and the brain was lying on the table.” Charles Baxter, MD, Assistant Prof of Surgery, 11.22.63.
p. 524-525: In a hand-written hospital note: “a large 3 x3 cm remnant of cerebral tissue present….there was a smaller amount of cerebellar tissue present also….There was a large wound beginning in the right occiput extending into the parietal region …. Much of the skull appeared gone at the brief examination….” 11.22.63, 16:15 hrs. Kemp Clark, MD
P. 529 – 30: “There was a great laceration on the right side of the head (temporal and occipital), causing a great defect in the skull plate so that there was herniation and laceration of great areas of the brain, even to the extent that the cerebellum had protruded from the wound.” M. T. Jenkins, MD, 11.22.63, 16:30.
So you believe the autopsy photos and x-rays are forged, right?
Surely you believe your buddy Mantik, right?
Be honest now! Tell us what you believe.
Rather than repeat the answers I’ve given .John before, I’ll just repost:
.John asks, for the umpteenth time: “Do you or do you not believe the autopsy photos and x-rays are faked?”
Here’s the answer I’ve repeatedly given: “I DON’T KNOW.” But that’s not the answer .John wants, so you can bet he’ll ask it again, and again and again. And he’ll forget, again and again and again, my answer.
.John asks, “Where do you get anterolateral?”
From you, .John: you said JFK’s skull wound “was parietal, involving right parietal bone from the cowlick area to the coronal suture.” And you also embrace the autopsy photos and X-rays that show some bone loss into the frontal bone and a scalp defect that extends IN FRONT OF THE HAIRLINE onto the forehead, here:https://www.google.com/search?q=JFK%27s+skull+wound+and+frontal+bone&rlz=1C1AVNE_enUS661US661&espv=2&biw=1366&bih=667&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiS4YKc_8rLAhVH02MKHXkoAMYQ_AUIBigB#imgrc=wvZv1EuQSX-uzM%3A
So your view is that the Parkland docs who overwhelmingly described a rearward defect were goofy and you’re right, it was anterolateral, involving the right parietal bone, but NOT occipital, and the rear portion of the right frontal bone, well in front of the ear, and with an injury that extended onto JFK’s right forehead.
Wouldn’t such a wound, your wound, be fairly described by political scientists as “anterolateral,” assistant professor?
So come clean, asst. professor: the Parkland docs were all goofy, right, using the term “occipital,” etc.? Admit it, .John, you’re right and the Parkland docs were quacks.
The failure of the century at Parkland Hospital was that they didn’t have a Poly Sci asst professor on hand when JFK came in to help them understand the President’s injuries.
So admit it, .John: the Parkland docs were quacks who couldn’t tell the occiput from the anterolateral skull.
[Dr. Aguilar:]
“The failure of the century at Parkland Hospital was that they didn’t have a Poly Sci asst professor on hand”
===================
Historically, poll after poll produce the following results:
Question: “When the word ‘politician’ is mentioned, what comes to mind?”
The most common reply is “liar”.
I don’t mean to imply a direct relationship, but isn’t our esteemed professor a teacher of politicians? That is how he makes a living, isn’t it?
So you don’t think the witness testimony shows the autopsy photos and x-rays to be faked?
Then why do you keep quoting how it supposedly contradicts the photos and x-rays.
And what about your buddy Mantik?
I take it you are not convinced by his “analysis” of the x-rays?
I know that you’re not asking me Professor, but as a past juror, if I was presented with both sides of this case, I could not fully rely on the autopsy photos and x-rays.
Gerry: The radiology and photography personnel declared to the ARRB that there were multiple X-rays taken during the autopsy. However, the government has only released two, one frontal, one lateral:
https://goo.gl/cZ7Axr
The first order of business is to ascertain whether those 2 views really correspond to each other. Recently developed science/technology allow to take a crack at that problem and solve it. If the pair indeed matches, the next step is to project the 2 isometric images unto a 3D model.
See some experiments inside the “3D Models” folders. Needless to say, Warrenistas are paralyzed, terrified of any investigation in this direction.
Thank you kindly for the study links and the homework 🙂
Exactly. The testimony of fifteen to sixteen expert witnesses–close-up, to the President of the United States, who has just been shot–vs. a set of photographs? I would go with the fifteen to sixteen expert witnesses every single time, and any reasonable jury would, too. It’s far easier to believe something is wrong with the photos and x-rays, especially given the motives for such, than that all the eyewitnesses got something that wrong, in their field of expertise, in the moment important moment of their lives, from a few inches or, in some cases, feet away. Anyone who can’t see this doesn’t want to see this.
But did ” fifteen or sixteen expert witnesses” actually examine the patient?
The problem is that you have been given a biased and selective account of those witnesses.
Also, you need to read the HSCA authentication of the autopsy photos and x-rays.
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/autopsy2.txt
Even Aguilar, who wants you to believe they are faked, won’t step up and say that.
Photon,
How much examination is required to notice a hole in the back of the head the size of an orange?
I have been given no “biased” version of these events. In the OR, some of the personnel were closer to JFK than others, but as noted, it doesn’t take micro-analysis to see where the gaping hole in a head is. And the chances of all these people being wrong–consistently so–is beyond remote. There is none so blind as those who will not see.
They weren’t all wrong.
But what you have read from the conspiracists is a highly selected and tendentiously interpreted set of witness testimony.
You really need to check out the following:
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/head.htm#aguilar
McA writes:
Quoting you: “And the chances of all these people being wrong–consistently so–is beyond remote.”
And he answers:
“They weren’t all wrong.
“But what you have read from the conspiracists is a highly selected and tendentiously interpreted set of witness testimony.”
Complete patriotic piffle, as usual.
If McA could actually produce, here and now, a single contemporaneous account from a Parkland, either from 11/22/63 or from Warren Commission testimony in ’64 that accurately describes the anterolateral wound we see in the autopsy X-rays and photos, he’d do it in a heartbeat. But he won’t; he can’t; no one can.
Instead, what he wants lurkers to do is go up to his fog chamber, where he’ll regale you with what the witnesses said years later, after they had their memories massaged by patriots like Posner.
Since McA has undiminished faith in the govt’s evidence, you’d think he’d have the courage to admit that the Parkland docs’ description from the day of the assassination prove they’re total incompetents. But he has no courage, which is one of the reasons (among others) that Marquette has been trying to fire him for so long. (You’d think he could take the hint ; ~ >)
None of the testimony “accurately describes” the wound you believe in.
It’s very general and imprecise.
But you just arbitrarily declare it to contradict the autopsy photos and x-rays.
Oh!!
So you think the testimony contradicts the autopsy photos and x-rays!
So you think the photos and x-rays are faked, right?
Aguilar has slipped up!
He won’t admit he believes the autopsy photos and x-rays are faked.
But he keeps citing doctors’ testimony to that effect!
So he either believes the photos and x-rays are faked, but he is being intentionally misleading in quoting the doctors testimony.
Which is it, Gary?
I have the courage to say the autopsy photos and x-rays are genuine.
You don’t have the courage to say either way.
You just evade.
You quote doctors as though they contradict the photos, and then you lack to courage to say you believe the statements you quote.
The contribution of Douglas Horne has been of monumental proportions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWpmN7ZEaRA
Sadly, they say that he has quit this endeavor, in frustration.
He’s done enough for now, but I doubt that means he’s out, so to speak.
I think the very first part of this talk by Horne is accurate.
When he drifts into the part asserting the different caskets and the stealing of JFK’s body – essentially Lifton story, he falls into wonderland and the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party.
It is my opinion that this is as much BS as his lame assertions dealing with the Zapruder film.
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His version is different. No pre-autopsy on a helicopter or AF1 (or AF2) but approximately 1 hour or less before the arrival of the ceremonial casket with Jackie Kennedy.
The description of two caskets presumably carrying the President is undeniable and unreconciled.
It is plausible for a switch to have happened for national security reasons.
As for the Z film being altered, I think certain elements may have, however imperfect (I see a limo slowdown in Nix’s film but not in the Z film). For the most part, the Z film can still be relied upon as circumstantial evidence of a conspiracy.
“The description of two caskets presumably carrying the President is undeniable and unreconciled.”~Gerry Simone
No it is not, Burkley is unequivocal that he was with the Bronze casket from Parkland to Bethesda and that it never left his sight.
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Willy,
Burkley didn’t like to be quoted on what he really thought about the assassination, and changed his mind about talking to certain reporters or authors. He took some secrets to his grave. He was an Admiral. Maybe he didn’t want to jeopardize his pension? Maybe he didn’t know about a switch?
In any event, we have credible Bethesda witnesses who thought they saw JFK arriving in a different casket and who had already started working on their VIP assignment when they noticed Jackie and her entourage arrive.
[1 of 2]
AFFIDAVIT
I, VICE ADMIRAL GEORGE G. BURKLEY (M.C.) (Ret.) living in Los Angeles, California, being duly sworn make oath as follows: I was interviewed in January, 1978 by T. Mark Flanagan, Jr. and Donald A. Purdy, Jr. of the staff of the Select Committee on Assassinations. During the interview I set forth the substance of the information which follows. At this time I reaffirm that this information is accurate and truthful to the best of my knowledge. This statement is made freely, voluntarily, and with out threats, promises, assurance, or remuneration from any source.
I was Personal Physician to President John F. Kennedy in November 1963 and accompanied President Kennedy on the Texas trip. I was at Parkland Hospital and later at Bethesda Naval Hospital on the evening of November 22, 1963. I saw President Kennedy’s wounds at Parkland Hospital and during the autopsy at the Bethesda Naval Hospital. There was no difference in the nature of the wounds I saw at Parkland Hospital and those I observed at the autopsy at Bethesda Naval Hospital.
1. I was with President Kennedy in Dallas. I arrived at the Parkland Hospital within five minutes of the President’s arrival. I checked the Presidents physical condition, gave the doctors working with the President the blood type and some adrenal medication (Sol U Cortef) to place in the intravenous blood and fluids which were being administered. My findings clearly indicated that death was certain and imminent.
2. One of the doctors reported to me vital signs of life no longer could be elicited. I rechecked the vital signs of President Kennedy and there was no sign of life. I reported to Mrs. Kennedy who was nearby in the treatment room that President Kennedy was dead.
3. I remained with the President’s body in the treatment room until the body was placed in the coffin and I saw it closed. There was no movement or manipulation of the body other than removal of the intravenous equipment during that time.
4. In Dallas I traveled from the hospital to the Air Force One in the ambulance with the President’s body in the casket and also on the plane; the casket was neither opened or disturbed in any way.
5. I had ordered the United States Naval Hospital to be prepared for performing an autopsy on the body of John F. Kennedy, President of the United States, the permission having been granted by Mrs. Kennedy while enroute. It was to be a complete autopsy with no limitations and no curtailment in time necessary for completion.
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6. I traveled from Andrew’s Air Force Base in the ambulance with the President’s body to the Bethesda Naval Hospital and accompanied the coffin to the autopsy laboratory and saw the body removed from the coffin and placed on the autopsy table.
7. I directed the autopsy surgeon to do a complete autopsy and take the time necessary for completion. I supervised the autopsy and directed the fixation and retention of the brain for future study of the course of the bullet or bullets.
8. The autopsy material was retained in a secure area and subsequently turned over by Captain Stover USN to me and a member of the Secret Service. We took this material immediately to the EOB Building where it was placed in a locked file cabinet by the Secret Service.
9. Senator Robert Kennedy, representing Mrs. Kennedy and the Kennedy family, directed that the autopsy material be transferred to the National Archives. This was done on April 26, 1965. See attached letter of transmittal with listing of individual items. The notation under Item #9, one stainless steel container, 7″ in diameter x 8″, containing gross material, represents the container of the brain. This material was accepted and signed for by Mrs. Evelyn Lincoln and witnessed by three people. Signed copies of these affidavits are attached.
I understand that this affidavit may be introduced and received into evidence by the Select Committee on Assassinations of the United States House of Representatives, and may lead them to make various findings of fact, and the statutes applicable to Congressional investigations, including but not limited to those concerning false statements, obstruction, or misleading, would subject me to criminal penalties for not telling the whole and complete truth in this affidavit.
GEORGE G. BURKLEY SIGNATURE
Vice Admiral George G. Burkley (M.C.) USN (Ret.)
Personal Physician to President John F. Kennedy
STATE OF CALIFORNIA COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES
Signed and sworn to before me this 28th day of November, 1978
RUTH F. LAWLESS SIGNATURE
NOTARY PUBLIC
My Commission Expires April 20, 1980
http://www.jfklancer.com/burkleyhsca.html
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From https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.assassination.jfk/vPIVOeRjX4g
Peter Fokes
26/12/2009
From Dr. Burkley’s oral interview at the JFK Library:
McHugh: Do you agree with the Warren Report on the number of bullets
that entered the President’s body?
Burkley: I would not care to be quoted on that.
Note how Burkley ignores the following question from McHugh:
McHugh: Did you view the X-rays that were made of the President or
autopsy photos?
Burkley: We might mention something about the assassination here
which will clear the record, I think, to a great degree. … When we
arrived in Dallas the President got off ONE END of the plane. Mrs.
Lincoln and I got off THE OTHER END OF THE PLANE .and when we got to
the bottom of the stairs, the notorcade was already in motion and I
complained to the Secret Servie that I should be in the follow-up car
or the lead car …
When asked whether he saw the autopsy photos, Burkley discussed the
two exits on the plane and complained about the SS.
By the way, Burkley never answers McHugh’s question. He does say he
supervised the autopsy, and “directed that the X-rays be taken for
future reference, and had a complete knowledge of everything that was
done.”
Regards,
Peter Fokes,
Toronto
Gerry, it seemed to me the history was that Dr. Burkley functioned as a Naval intelligence asset during his time at the White House. Dr. Travell “blocked” his access to adequately monitor JFK’s physical condition in real time, and….
Burkley and nurse Chapowicki remained at the White House from 1961 until 1968. The nurse’s sister was Bill Harvey’s secretary, and their other sister’s husband was….(You can’t make “this stuff” up!)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_O._Giuffrida
For heaven’s sake Tom S. the White House physician is almost always a military doctor and the office of the White House physician is staffed with military medical personnel. Travell ( as JFK’s personal doctor) didn’t like the standard arrangement of Presidential medical care interfering with ” her” patient.
To claim that Burkley was a Naval Intelligence asset is simply ludicrous.in point of fact he was a Kennedy loyalist as much as any career military man could be and did would he could to help Mrs. Kennedy on that horrible day, to the point of attending to her medically( she was his patient, too.) From a practical standpoint he was kept out of the loop in regards to some of the most secret aspects of JFK’s complex medical conditions; he had to be kept in the dark about what drugs the quack Jacobson was using.
I find it revealing of the CT mindset that even a physician well regarded who treated 3 Presidents could be an agent of Naval Intelligence. Why would you even consider it?
was this the doctor who realized when he went home the night of the assassination that he had a skull bone fragment in his pocket and then buried it in his backyard?
turns out it was Dr. Carrico who found the bone fragment in his lab pocket. he told Dr. Foster that he buried the bone in his backyard.