PROBABLE CAUSE AUSTRALIA
A Continuing Inquiry into the JFK Assassination
Double Issue 3 & 4 - Nov. 1993
Probable Cause Australia is the only Australian magazine dedicated to the JFK assassination.
Editorial
Welcome to the big, bumper double issue 3 & 4 of Probable Cause!! Due to the fact that we got a bit behind in our printing schedule and that half of us are off to the U.S. for the big Assassination Symposium on J.F. Kennedy (ASK) in Dallas from November 18-22, we decided to merge issues 3 & 4 together to have double the pages and double the news, views and issues.
Well, by now, I'm sure most of you are aware that John Connally died and was buried with the fragments of the bullets from November 22, 1963 still embedded in him. Another great chance to solve this case goes missing. Also in the news is Richard Nixon, still trying to keep 400 hours of Watergate audio tapes under wraps and out of sight. He's gone to court to try and stop the latest round. I wonder what he said??
By now, all subscribers should have information on the ASK seminar. No news yet, at the time of writing this, as to who will appear when and on what panel, only that Norman Mailer is the keynote speaker. Mailer is currently working on another book on the assassination, this one dealing with Oswald.
We wanted this issue to make it to you before November 22 so you can spend time reading it over the few days that made the whole world sit up and take notice thirty years ago. Please remember, while it's thirty years since the death of a president, it's also thirty years since the murder of the patsy. November 24th is just as important as November 22!
We hope you have enjoyed the first four issues and will stay with us for many years to come. The centre survives on your support and we hope to bring you news and events next year that will dramatically improve the part you can play in KAIC. Please re-subscribe, we need you all.
I'm heading off to the States on November 13, stopping in LA and then going to Dallas for the ASK symposium from Nov. 18-22. Then I'm off to Arizona and then home on November 29. A short but sweet trip, and those of us who are going will bring you all the latest news, views, and events from the seminar. This double issue has been prepared whilst booking, arranging and packing has been going on. You should count yourself lucky if you received a copy of issue 3 & 4 of Probable Cause and not my socks or underwear.
This issue is certainly a meaty one. We re-print for the first time in Australia the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) report on the death of JFK and then follow it up with a letter by David Lifton to an American tv show that devoted a large chunk of its program to the JAMA report. Along with Lifton's rebuttal, Robert Groden puts an end to the misinformation as well as Dan Baldwin's reply to the editor of JAMA reprinted from Dateline: Dallas, the American KAIC centre newsletter.
Walt Brown serves us up another wonderful article that looks at the more farcical events of a weekend some thirty years ago. We look at Time/Life, have they improved after 30 years?, and also put to rest the growing (and frightening) theory of a Mr. William Cooper - it's wrong and it's all lies and you can stop believing it!!
The Nixon article, 'Prince of Thieves' continues in this issue and we have the usual reviews and news all awaiting your eager eyes. By the way, thank you to all those people who contacted us about issue 2 and said that they loved it. That's what we wanted to hear. Thank you for all your thoughts.
Well, it's off to the USA with me, and I'll see you all when I get back.
Steve Gerlach.
JFK Assassination Memoriam - 30 years of coverup
NOVEMBER 1963 - NOVEMBER 1993
30 YEARS OF MYSTERY
AND COVER-UP
AND
THE DEATH OF A PRESIDENT
IN 1963 IT BEGAN. . .
WITH GUNSHOTS IN DEALEY PLAZA
"The assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy on November 22, 1963, was a cruel and shocking act of violence directed against a man, a family, a nation and against all mankind. A young and vigorous leader whose years of public and private life stretched before him was the victim of the fourth Presidential assassination in the history of a country dedicated to the concepts of reasoned argument and peaceful political change. This Commission was created on November 29, 1963, in recognition of the right of people everywhere to full and truthful knowledge concerning these events. This report endeavours to fulfill that right and to appraise this tragedy by the light of reason and the standard of fairness. It has been prepared with a deep awareness of the Commission's responsibility to present the American people an objective report of the facts relating to the assassination."
- The first paragraph of Chapter 1, the Warren Commission report, September 1964.
AND TODAY...
THE CONTROVERSY CONTINUES
"You try to hit a moving target at 88 yards through heavy foliage with this cheap 13-dollar sucker, the world's worst shoulder weapon. No way. The FBI tried two sets of tests and not one of their sharpshooters could match Oswald's performance. Not one. And Oswald was at best a medium shot. The scope was defective on it, too. I mean this is the whole essence of the case to me. The guy couldn't do the shooting. Nobody could. And they sold this lemon to the American public."
- "JFK" the film 1991.
Lincoln, Kennedy, and the Autopsy. - The "infamous" JAMA article.
This article is re-printed for research purposes only.
From Washington to Dallas on the Union Line
The air was numbing cold.
The people listened with fists
shoved deep in pockets.
They heard their fellow American say,
"Ask not what your country can do for you
Ask what you can do for your country."
The words rang out
like a shot.
- Marc S. Micozzi, MD, PhD
Presidential assassinations leave a deep scar on our collective memory and consciousness as a nation. Somehow, the American public in 1992 seems more comfortable with its knowledge of the circumstances of the death of our first assassinated President, Abraham Lincoln, investigated in the mid-1860s, than it does with that of our most recent, John F. Kennedy, investigated in the mid-1960s.
When Lincoln was shot at Ford's Theater in Washington, DC, on the evening of Good Friday, April 14, 1865, no US President had been assassinated before, and, coupled with the simultaneous bloody attack on Secretary of State William Seward and his family at his home and the attempt on Vice President Andrew Johnson, no one knew quite what to do. Ambulance service did not then exist in Washington and cases like that of the wounded President were generally attended in the home and not the hospital. Instead, President Lincoln was carried across the street and placed in a bed in the Petersen Boarding House where he was attended by army physicians until he died early the next morning.
The only concentration of specialized medical capability in the federal government was at the Army Medical Museum (today's Armed Forces Institute of Pathology) founded barely 3 years before in Washington at the outbreak of the Civil War. Museum physicians were called on to perform the autopsy that then - as now - was done to clearly establish the cause and manner of death. These results were quickly made available to the public and quelled rampant rumors about Lincoln's death, allowing a stricken nation to begin to come to terms with its grief.
When President Kennedy was shot in Dallas in November 1963, during a trip to Texas to open the new US Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine in San Antonio, the federal government had at its command tremendous medical and other resources in a nation replete with the most advanced medical technology, services, and capabilities. Yet the subsequent autopsy at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md, and investigation of this death have not left the nation satisfied with the results.
How was the federal government able to accomplish in an 1865 presidential death investigation what was not repeated to the public's satisfaction in 1963? Part of the problem has been public access to correct information. To a trained medical examiner, it is necessary to obtain and study the medical facts of the autopsy and correlate them with the circumstances of the shooting to arrive at a reasonable conclusion.
My first opportunity personally to observe the relevant facts and correlations of the Kennedy assassination, presented as medical examiner evidence, came at the meeting of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences in New Orleans, La, on February 19, 1992. Forensic scientist Michael West, DDS, of Hattiesburg, Miss, gave a special presentation organized by Michael Baden, MD, of New York, NY, that correlated the Kennedy autopsy findings with the circumstances of the shooting as shown frame-by-frame on the Zapruder film. For the first time, I was able to rest, personally satisfied with the generally accepted autopsy results of the original death investigation and the Warren Commission report, for the simple reason that I was able to correlate the medical evidence with the observed circumstances.
We have relied on the media to communicate this critical information to the public at large. As conspiracy theories have spread, the public has not yet been satisfied with this information. Open access to the medical information had until recently been denied, leaving only speculation. Now we may finally reach an end to the era of speculation regarding the cause, manner, and circumstances surrounding the death of President John F. Kennedy.
On this April 15, exactly 127 years after Lincoln's death, we convened a second panel in Washington, DC, to carefully study the ethical and technical questions of access to medical information derived from original autopsy materials from 1865 (already on public display in Washington for some decades) regarding the possibility of Abraham Lincoln having had Marfan's syndrome. Certainly, the National Museum of Health and Medicine of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology has the unique capability in the case of President Kennedy, as well, not only to retain autopsy materials and roentgenograms for posterity, but also to make them available to forensic scientists and to accurately and tastefully present them to the public so all can see for themselves the evidence of what really happened in Dallas (and Bethesda) on that fateful day and night. If we are careful in our obligations toward the collection, care, keeping, and access to medical information and materials, we will be able to answer medical questions (when and if such answers are warranted) whether 30 or 130 years later.
Marc S. Micozzi, MD, PhD
JFK's death - the plain truth from the MDs who did the autopsy
There are two and only two physicians who know exactly what happened - and didn't happen - during their autopsy of President John F. Kennedy on the night of November 22, 1963, at the Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. The two, former US Navy pathologists James Joseph Humes, MD, and "J" Thornton Boswell, MD, convened last month in a Florida hotel for two days of extraordinary interviews with JAMA editor George D. Lundberg, MD, himself a former military pathologist, and this reporter about the events of that fateful night. It is the only time that Humes and Boswell have publicly discussed their famous case, and it was the result of seven years of efforts by Lundberg to persuade them to do so.
Bullets came from above and behind
The scientific evidence they documented during their autopsy provides irrefutable proof that President Kennedy was struck by only two bullets that came from above and behind from a high-velocity weapon that caused the fatal wounds. This autopsy proof, combined with the bullet and rifle evidence found at the scene of the crime, and the subsequent detailed documentation of a six-month investigation involving the enormous resources of the local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies, proves the 1964 Warren Commission conclusion that Kennedy was killed by a lone assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald.
Humes, who was in charge, calls it "probably the least secret autopsy in the history of the world." It was Humes and Boswell who opened the casket when the President's body was brought by ambulance from Andrews Air Force Base after the flight from Dallas. It was Humes and Boswell who lifted the former-President from his casket and placed him on the examining table to begin a four-hour autopsy. (They were joined later at the autopsy table by Army Lt Col Pierre Finck, MC, who participated as an expert consultant; Finck, who now lives in Switzerland, declined to come to Florida for the joint interview.) Humes says he is breaking his 29-year silence "because I am tired of being beaten upon by people who are supremely ignorant of the scientific facts of the President's death."
Coincidentally, on the second day of the interviews, Boswell told the group that a Fort Worth physician, Charles Crenshaw, MD, had appeared on TV that very morning to argue the claim in his recent book, JFK Conspiracy of Silence, that when he allegedly observed the dead President at Dallas' Parkland Hospital, he was positive that the bullets struck Kennedy from the front, not the back, "as the public has been led to believe." Crenshaw, who was a surgical resident in 1963, is not mentioned in the Warren Commission's 888-page summary report and his 203-page, generously spaced paperback was written with the aid of two assassination-conspiracy buffs. Crenshaw's book is only the latest in a long parade of conspiracy theories purporting to tell how Kennedy was really killed, including the 1991 release of Oliver Stone's film, JFK. Humes and Boswell had agreed to the JAMA interview without the slightest idea that Crenshaw's book had been published.
Now, his face incredulous with disbelief, Humes exploded with his summation. Pointing toward the window, the exasperated pathologist said, "If a bullet or a BB were fired through that window, it would leave a small hole where it entered and a beveled crater where it exited. That is what 'J' and I found when we examined the President's skull. There was a small elliptical entrance wound on the outside of the back of the skull, where the bullet entered, and a beveled larger wound on the inside of the back of the skull where the bullet tore through and exploded out the right side of the head. When we recovered the missing bone fragments and reconstructed this gaping wound where the bullet exited, we found this same pattern - a small wound where the bullet struck the inside of the skull and a beveled larger wound where it exited. This is always the pattern of a through-and-through wound of the cranium - the beveling or crater effect appears on the inside of the skull at the entrance wound and on the outside of the skull at the exit wound. The crater effect is produced when the bony tissue of the skull turns inside out where the bullet leaves."
'A foolproof finding'
He concludes, "In 1963, we proved at the autopsy table that President Kennedy was struck from above and behind by the fatal shot. The pattern of the entrance and exit wounds in the skull proves it, and if we stayed here until hell freezes over, nothing will change this proof. It happens 100 times out of 100, and I will defend it until I die. This is the essence of our autopsy, and it is supreme ignorance to argue any other scenario. This is a law of physics and it is foolproof - absolutely, unequivocally, and without question. The conspiracy buffs have totally ignored this central scientific fact, and everything else is hogwash. There was no interference with our autopsy, and there was no conspiracy to suppress the findings."
Though the evidence is less well defined, Humes emphasizes that his autopsy found that the other bullet that struck Kennedy, the so-called "magic bullet" that was the first to hit Kennedy and that also hit Texas Gov John Connally, was also fired from above and behind. He says, "There was an 'abrasion collar' where this bullet entered at the base of the President's neck, and this scorching and splitting of the skin from the heat and scraping generated by the entering bullet is proof that it entered from behind. Unfortunately, at the time of the autopsy, the tracheostomy performed on the President at Dallas in an attempt to save his life obliterated the exit wound through the front of his neck near the Adam's apple. Soft-tissue wounds are much more iffy than bone wounds, but there is no doubt from whence cometh those bullets - from rear to front from a high-velocity rifle."
Still, the other scenarios continue to be painted. "Recently," Humes notes, "there were about 300 people at a convention in Dallas, each hawking a different conspiracy theory about how the President was killed. I think this kind of general idiocy is a tragedy - it almost defies belief - but I guess it is the price we pay for living in a free country. I can only question the motives of those who propound these ridiculous theories for a price and who have turned the President's death into a profit-making industry."
Humes and Boswell had a long, long day 29 years ago, and, in many ways, it has never ended. The 6-foot, 4-inch, physically energetic Humes is a commanding presence, and he says, "I was in charge of the autopsy - period. Nobody tried to interfere - make that perfectly clear." The 5-foot, 9-inch, pipe-puffing Boswell is precise and methodical, and he says, "We documented our findings in spades. It's all there in the records. And Jim is not the kind of guy anybody pushes around." Their comments on the record are essential because polls show, in the wake of the film JFK and the glut of conspiracy-theorist authors, that many, if not most Americans disbelieve the Warren Commission finding that Oswald, "acting alone and without assistance," killed Kennedy. To set the record straight, they agreed to relive for JAMA their actions of Friday, November 22, 1963.
*****
On the day the President was shot at 12:30 PM, while riding in an open motorcade through the sunny streets of Dallas, it was cold and gray in the Washington, DC, area. Commander Humes, then 39, was the director of labs of the Naval Medical School in Bethesda, Md. Commander Boswell, then 41, was chief of pathology at the naval hospital, which was part of the Bethesda National Naval Medical Center. Humes was Boswell's boss.
Humes had signed on with the US in 1943 to complete his under-graduate work at Villanova University, Villanova, Pa, as part of the Navy's V-12 program. After earning his medical degree at Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, in 1948, he completed his internship and residency in anatomic and clinical pathology at the Bethesda medical center; the US Naval Hospital in Philadelphia; and the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington, DC. He was certified by the American Board of Pathology in anatomic and clinical pathology in 1955. His postings included military hospitals in the Canal Zone, Hawaii, and San Diego. He was appointed chief of pathology at the Naval Medical School in 1960 and promoted to director of labs for the medical school in 1961. By 1963, he had performed several autopsies on military personnel killed by gunshot wounds and he had also spent seven years at the Bethesda facility, which he "knew like the back of my hand." Boswell, a graduate of the Ohio State University Medical School, received his certification in anatomic pathology in 1957 and clinical pathology in 1959. He, too, had previously autopsied several gunshot wounds, and most of his military experience was at the naval hospital in Bethesda.
Ironically, shortly before President Kennedy was shot and pronounced dead at 1 PM at Dallas' Parkland Hospital, Humes left the medical center to go home. He had promised to help his wife, Ann, prepare for a dinner party for 24 that evening, almost all of them military personnel. Five of the Humeses' seven children were in school, with the youngest two at home. The radio and TV were off, and the couple did not learn of the tragic news until their older children returned on the school bus. He recalls, "The kids told Ann, 'The President's been shot,' and she was telling them, 'That's a terrible thing to say,' when we turned on the TV and learned for ourselves. My wife and I were both very upset, and we decided that a dinner party on this evening was out of the question." Washington phone circuits were jammed, and while Ann Humes tried to get a line to call her guests to cancel, Commander Humes took his son out for a haircut; his first communion was scheduled for the next morning. When father and son returned, they found that Ann Humes had finally found an open phone line, only to have the operator interrupt with an emergency call from the Surgeon General of the Navy, Admiral Edward Kenney. It was 5:15 PM and Admiral Kenney said, "Jim, you better hurry over to the hospital."
By the time he arrived at the hospital, Humes was "beginning to get the message that the President's body was en route. There was great commotion and a cordon of Marines and military police." Once inside, he was told by Admiral Kenney, the ranking military officer, "'to be prepared to do an autopsy' on the late President."
'Find the cause of death'
"My orders were to find the cause of death and I was told to get anyone I thought necessary to help do the autopsy, but to limit it to only the help I needed. Hell, I could have called in people from Paris and Rome if I thought it necessary, but as it turned out, I didn't. About this time, I also received a phone call from Dr Bruce Smith, the deputy director of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology [AFIP], offering me whatever help I might need. Bruce was a friend and I thanked him, saying I would call later if I needed help."
While Humes had been preparing for his dinner party, Boswell had been at the hospital going over autopsy slides with pathology residents. He recalls, "Early in the afternoon, we received a call from Dr Bruce Smith from AFIP, saying, 'The President's body is on its way to Bethesda for an autopsy.' I argued, 'That's stupid. The autopsy should be done at AFIP [which was located five miles away at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center].' After all, the AFIP was the apex of military pathology and, perhaps, world pathology. I was told, 'That's the way it is. Admiral [George] Burkley [the President's personal physician] wants Bethesda.' Apparently, Admiral Burkley had called the AFIP from Air Force One en route from Dallas. Later, I was told that Jackie Kennedy selected Bethesda because her husband had been a Navy man."
Humes was in total charge
By 7:30 PM, Humes was in his scrubs in the hospital's new morgue, built only four months earlier. He had selected Dr Boswell as his assistant. The morgue was at the back of the hospital, and, as Dr Humes stepped outside the morgue onto the loading dock, he noticed a crowd milling about and an unknown man carrying a large, old-fashioned "Speed Graphic" camera. Still outside the morgue, the pathologist told the unknown cameraman, "Get out!" Then, Humes asked, "Who's in charge here?"
The answer was only 2 feet away, as a man in full military dress answered, "I am. Who wants to know?" Humes explains, "The man who said he was in charge outside the morgue was some general representing the military section of the District of Columbia. I told him what my assignment was and asked about the chap with the camera. Well, seconds later, this chap with the camera was sent away."
No generals in the morgue
As the general remained outside the morgue, Humes stepped back inside to prepare to receive the President's body. He emphasizes, "Nobody made any decision in the morgue except ME. Nobody distracted or influenced me in any shape, or form."
Jackie and Bobby Kennedy and a host of others accompanied the motorcade bringing the President's body from Andrews AFB to the Naval Medical Hospital morgue. While Jackie and Bobby and the other VIPs were met at the front of the hospital and escorted to upstairs rooms, the casket was brought to the morgue at the rear of the hospital by Admiral Burkley. The bronze casket had one broken handle, and Humes and Boswell opened it. Humes says, "We found the unclothed body of President John F. Kennedy, wrapped in sheets in a swaddling manner, the massive head wound wrapped around and around with gauze and bandages." Together, they lifted the body onto an examining table, and Humes emphasizes, "There was no body bag anywhere near the scene. I cannot imagine how this talk about the President's body being delivered in a body bag got started, but it is absolutely false."
Opening the casket was a "shocking experience" for Humes, who was a Kennedy supporter. He recalls, "His identifying facial features were all intact and there he was, the President of the United States, now dead at age 46 with a terrible wound of the head. He wasn't that much older than me, and other than the head wound, he looked perfectly normal. He was a remarkable human specimen and looked as if he could have lived forever. It was very, very distressing." After the initial shock, however, Humes and Boswell got down to business. Humes notes, "This is what we are trained to do, and we got down to the task at hand."
As Admiral Burkley, the President's personal physician, stood by their side, a team of 10 "locked in" and proceeded to start what would turn out to be a thorough four-hour autopsy. Humes emphasizes, "I was in charge from start to finish and there was no interference - zero. It was myself, 'J' [Boswell], [Dr] Finck, two Navy enlisted men who served as autopsy technicians, three radiologists, including chief Jack Ebersole, MD, and two photographers, including the medical school's chief of photography, John Stringer. We took 14 x-rays of the body from head to toe and we took 52 photos from every possible angle."
He dispels the myth that no photos were allowed. "The medical school's director of photography was a civilian, John Stringer, and, in my opinion, he was one of the best medical photographers in the world. He took 25 black-and-white photos and 27 color photos, all with large 4-by-5-inch negatives. No significant aspect of the autopsy was left unphotographed." He adds, "The wounds were so obvious that there was no need to shave the hair before photographs were taken."
Responding to published reports that photo negatives were seized by the FBI and that the FBI took its own photo-graphs, Humes is incredulous. He says, "Yes, there were FBI and Secret Service people milling about the room. And, at one point, there was an unauthorized Navy corpsman taking photos in the morgue and the FBI quite properly seized and destroyed that film, since the photographer did not have credentials. However, the official photos taken by John Stringer were never touched, and no one from the FBI even had a camera, let alone the intention to take autopsy photos. These reports are an incredible lie."
He dispels another myth - that the morgue was controlled by generals and other brass in uniform. "The President's military aides from the Air Force, Army, and Navy were all present," Humes says, "and they were all in dress uniforms, but they were not generals and their influence on the autopsy was zero. The only high-ranking officer was Admiral Burkley, and he left shortly after the autopsy began to join Jackie and Bobby Kennedy upstairs."
And a third myth - that he was not qualified to do a gunshot autopsy. "I'd done gunshot wounds before and this one was perfectly obvious - there was a huge hole on the right side of the President's head that only could have resulted from the exit of a high-velocity missile. Dr Bruce Smith [the deputy director of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology] had initially thought that we might want a neuropathologist as a consultant, but once we opened the casket and saw the devastating nature of the President's head wound, we knew that them was no need for the skills of a neuropathologist. I called Dr Smith back and told him what we had found, and he decided to make available Dr Pierre A. Finck, who was one of the AFIP's experts in ballistics. I had never before met Dr Finck, who arrived at about 9:15 PM."
Finck, a shy, retiring man who had been trained in Europe, was an Army colonel, and he had trouble getting by all the Marines and sailors who were providing security outside the Navy hospital. Once inside, he completed the autopsy team.
Humes emphasizes, "There was a lot of commotion, but we are trained to focus on
the task at hand, even under crowded conditions. Bethesda was a large teaching
hospital. The morgue room contained an amphitheater which sat 30 to 40 people, and we were used to seeing authorized medical personnel come and go to observe autopsies." Still, he says that the scene in the autopsy room was "somewhat like trying to do delicate neurosurgery in a three-ring circus." The crowd did not influence the autopsy results, Humes says.
Boswell adds, "Sure, there were FBI and Secret Service people observing the autopsy and talking on their radios to people outside the room, and we could hear a play-by-play of what we were doing and talking about, but nobody tried to interfere and we were able to focus on the matter at hand." He adds, "The FBI and Secret Service told us that two fragments of the President's skull had been recovered in Dallas and were being rushed to Bethesda and that bullet fragments had also been recovered in Dallas."
Humes provides a poignant remembrance of the scene. "The people around the President were totally devastated," he says. "They were still in a state of shock and the reality of what had happened had not yet sunk in. Unless you live in Washington, it's hard to imagine the mind-boggling aura that surrounds the President of the United States. These people thought they had let the President down, and now their hero was gone." Boswell adds, "The people who accompanied the President's body to the morgue were the most disturbed and distressed people I have ever seen."
Humes continues, "We were unfazed by all the commotion and concentrated on getting our x-rays, which we read right at the table, and our photographs, which we relied upon for future documentation. 'J' and I both took down autopsy notes and diagrams."
Fatal wound 'blatantly obvious'
The pathologists found two wounds from a high-velocity missile that would later be matched to the military-jacketed bullets fired from above and behind the President by Lee Harvey Oswald. The fatal shot entered the back of the President's skull and exploded away almost a 6-inch section on the right side of his head; the second bullet entered at the base of his neck, but its exit track was not immediately apparent.
"The fatal wound was blatantly obvious," Humes recalls. "The entrance wound was elliptical, 15 millimeters long and 6 millimeters wide, and located 2.5 centimeters to the right and slightly above the external occipital protuberance. The inside of the skull displayed the characteristic beveled appearance. The x-rays disclosed fine dustlike metallic fragments from back to front where the bullet traversed the head before creating an explosive exit wound on the right temporal-parietal area. These fragments were not grossly visible. Two small fragments of bullet were recovered from inside the skull - measuring 3 by 1 millimeters and 7 by 2 millimeters.
"The head was so devastated by the exploding bullet and the gaping jagged stellate wound it created - it blew out 13 centimeters of skull bone and skin - that we did not even have to use a saw to remove the skullcap. We peeled the scalp back, and the calvarium crumbled in my hands from the fracture lines, which went off in all directions. We made an incision high in the spinal cord and removed the brain, which was preserved in formalin. Two thirds of the right cerebrum had been blown away.
"After the brain was removed, we looked more closely at the wound, and noted that the inside of the rear of the skull bone was absolutely intact and beveled and that there could be no question from whence cometh that bullet - from rear to front. When we received the two missing fragments of the President's skull and were able to piece together two thirds of the deficit at the right front of the head, we saw the same pattern on the outer table of the skull - a bullet that traveled from rear to front. Every theorist who says the bullet came from the front has ignored this critical irrefutable diagnostic fact. We did everything within the means of reasonable people to record with x-rays and photos what we saw."
The second bullet was more of a puzzle. "If we made a mistake," Humes says, "it was in not calling Dallas before we started the autopsy. Our information from Parkland Hospital in Dallas before we started the autopsy was zero. 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. In hindsight, we could have saved ourselves a lot of trouble if we had known that the doctors at Parkland performed a tracheostomy in an attempt to save the President's life and that this procedure obliterated the exit wound of the bullet that entered at the base of the neck."
'Time to quit speculating'
"The tracheostomy was a gaping wound, about 3 to 4 centimeters around, and we didn't think of it as an exit wound. We also noticed that the Dallas doctors had tried to place chest tubes in the front of the President's chest, but the tubes had not gone in and we found no increase of blood or fluid in the pleural cavity. There was a contusion of the extreme apical portion of the right upper lobe of the lung but no laceration.
We also noted damage to the neck muscles, trachea, and pleura, but there was no bullet. It was bothering me very greatly, like nothing you can imagine, that we could find neither the second bullet nor its exit track. 'J' and I both knew that bullets can do funny things in the body, and we thought it might have been deflected down to the extremities. We x-rayed the entire body, but did not find a bullet." The autopsy was also criticized because the pathologists did not dissect the President's neck to track the second bullet. Humes says bluntly, "Dissecting the neck was totally unnecessary and would have been criminal.
"By midnight, we decided it was time to quit speculating about the second bullet, and I am very comfortable with this decision. It is true that we were influenced by the fact that we knew Jackie Kennedy was waiting upstairs to accompany the body to the White House and that Admiral Burkley wanted us to hurry as much as possible. By midnight, our task was done - it was perfectly obvious what had killed the man. The second bullet was important, but not of overriding importance. We knew we would find the explanation sooner or later."
The explanation came sooner, the next morning at 7:30 when Humes called Dallas to talk to Dr Malcolm Perry, the surgeon who had performed the tracheostomy. "The light came on when I talked to Dr Perry," Humes says. "Of course, the bullet had exited through the neck." Referring to Dr Crenshaw's contention that the wound in the front of the neck was small and round after the tracheostomy was performed and at the time the President was placed in a casket, Dr Humes says, "We found a gaping wound in the front of the neck where the tracheostomy had been performed, and if Dr Crenshaw was correct, the only possible explanation is that the neck wound was intentionally enlarged while the body was en route from Dallas, and the insinuation of this scenario does not deserve a response."
Humes and Boswell had remained at the morgue until 5 that morning, helping to embalm the President's body. Humes says, "We were able to almost perfectly restore the President's appearance, and a local funeral home brought out a beautiful mahogany casket to replace the bronze one from Dallas. When Admiral Burkley and Bobby and Jackie Kennedy left to take the body to the White House, 'J' and I finally went home." Boswell says, "The mood in Washington was so apprehensive that the commanding officer of the US Naval Medical School, Capt J. H. 'Smokey' Stover, asked me to drive behind Jim to make sure that he got home safely."
Humes spent most of Saturday, November 23, drafting the autopsy report. In the process, he burned his autopsy notes, but not really. "This is the criticism I keep hearing over and over again," he says, "that I burned my notes and that this means there must have been a conspiracy. Well, it's true that I burned my original notes because they were stained with the President's blood, and I did not want them to become a collector's item, but I burned them after I had copied verbatim in my own handwriting the entire contents. I make no apology for this, but I will explain my reason:
"One of my assignments had been to escort foreign Navy officers around US bases. Along the way, we'd always try to show the foreign officers slices of Americana. On one of these trips, we saw an exhibit that purported to be the chair on which President Abraham Lincoln sat when he was shot at Ford's Theater. There were stains on the back of the chair that were reported to be from Lincoln's blood. I was appalled at this type of display, though I later learned that the stains were from macassar, a hair preparation of the day that inspired the antimacassar doily, and not from Lincoln's blood. In any event, when I saw that my own notes were stained with Kennedy's blood, I vowed that this type of revolting object would not fall into the wrong hands. I burned the notes that night in my fireplace."
Admiral Burkley wanted the autopsy report by midnight Sunday, November 24, and early Sunday morning Humes returned to the Naval medical school to go over his handwritten report with Drs Boswell and Finck. The three pathologists met in the office of Adm C. B. Galloway, the commanding officer of the National Naval Medical Center. While talking, they were called to watch a nearby TV set - Jack Ruby had just shot Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas. Returning to their report, the three experts had no trouble agreeing on the facts of their autopsy. The report, "A63-272," was the 272nd autopsy performed that year at the hospital. The admiral's secretary typed the handwritten report into six pages. Humes says, "Our conclusions have stood the test of time." The cause of death is given as "gunshot wound, head." The summary, as published in the 1964 Warren Commission report, reads as follows:
The original 1963 autopsy report
"It is our opinion that the deceased died as a result of two perforating gunshot wounds inflicted by high-velocity projectiles fired by a person or persons unknown. The projectiles were fired from a point behind and somewhat above the level of the deceased. The observations and available information do not permit a satisfactory estimate as to the sequence of the two wounds.
"The fatal missile entered the skull above and to the right of the external occipital protuberance. A portion of the projectile traversed the cranial cavity in a posterior-anterior direction (see lateral skull roentgenograms), depositing minute particles along its path. A portion of the projectile made its exit through the parietal bone on the right, carrying with it portions of cerebrum, skull, and scalp. The two wounds of the skull combined with the force of the missile produced extensive fragmentation of the skull, laceration of the superior sagittal sinus, and of the right cerebral hemisphere.
"The other missile entered the right superior posterior thorax above the scapula and traversed the soft tissues of the supra-scapular and supra-clavicular portions of the base of the right side of the neck. This missile produced contusions of the right apical parietal pleura and of the apical portion of the right upper lobe of the lung. The missile contused the strap muscles of the right side of the neck, damaged the trachea, and made its exit through the anterior surface of the neck. As far as can be ascertained, this missile struck no bony structures in its path through the body.
"In addition, it is our opinion that the wound of the skull produced such extensive damage to the brain as to preclude the possibility of the deceased surviving this injury.
"A supplementary report will be submitted following more detailed examinations of the brain and of microscopic sections. However, it is not anticipated that these examinations will materially alter the findings."
That night, Humes hand-delivered the autopsy report, signed by Humes, Boswell, and Finck, to Admiral Burkley at the White House. On December 6, 1963, Humes alone submitted to Burkley his supplementary report, writing in the final summary: "This supplementary report covers in more detail the extensive degree of cerebral trauma in this case. However, neither this portion of the examination nor the microscopic examinations alter the previously submitted report or add significant details to the cause of death."
Shortly afterward, Humes turned over everything from the autopsy to Admiral Burkley - bullet fragments, microscopic slides, paraffin blocks of tissue, undeveloped film, x-rays - and the preserved, unsectioned President's brain. "Burkley said he wanted everything," Humes says, "and he came out to Bethesda to get it. I gave it to him all in one package. What was left at Bethesda? Zero. I didn't make a copy of anything. Frankly, I was glad to be out from under the responsibility. Admiral Burkley gave me a receipt for the autopsy materials, including the brain. It was my understanding that all the autopsy materials, except the brain, would be placed in the National Archives. He told me that the family wanted to inter the brain with the President's body. I don't know what happened to the brain, but I do know that Admiral Burkley was an honorable man."
The medical autopsy of President John F. Kennedy was concluded. The conspiracy autopsies had yet to begin.
*****
Humes and Boswell concede that Kennedy's body was illegally moved from Dallas, in violation of Texas laws requiring that Texas homicides be autopsied in Texas, and that there would have been less confusion if the autopsy had been performed in Dallas, but Humes emphasizes:
'"There was a very, very good reason why this happened. Lyndon Johnson did not know what was going on in Dallas on this day, and for all he knew a cabal could have been in the works. He wanted to get back to his base and his base was Washington, DC. He would not leave without Jackie Kennedy, and she would not leave without her husband's body. Johnson had to get back to Washington, and, ergo, the body had to be brought back. That's that, and I cannot believe that any reasonable person would disagree with this course of action."
He adds, "Several days after the autopsy, I got a call from someone in Dallas demanding that we return the bronze casket that had carried the President's body from Parkland Hospital to Bethesda. I told him I had no idea what had happened to that casket, and I didn't - it wasn't my responsibility. He was very insistent, but so was I."
Autopsy confirmed four times
The autopsy findings have been confirmed many times since 1963, a fact that has been largely ignored in the current hoopla over the film JFK and over Dr Crenshaw's new book and media appearances. The first time was the publication of the Warren Commission report in 1964, and Humes has brought to the interview a copy of his own Warren Commission report signed by Chief Justice Earl Warren. It was only during their interviews with Warren Commission investigators that Humes and Boswell saw for the first time the clothing worn by President Kennedy.
Humes says, "Once we saw the holes in the back of the President's suit jacket and shirt and the nicks on his shirt collar and the knot of his necktie, the path of the second bullet was confirmed. That bullet was traveling very fast and it had to go somewhere. I believe in the single-bullet theory that it struck Governor Connally immediately after exiting the President's throat."
Boswell adds, "Having seen the clothing, I now know that I created a terrible problem with my own autopsy drawings. My drawings of the bullet holes on the night of the autopsy did not precisely match up with the actual holes in the clothing, because we were not aware that the President's suit jacket had humped up on his back while he waved at the spectators. These errors were later exploited by the conspiracy crowd to fit their premises and purposes." The clothing was kept in the National Archives, along with the rest of the autopsy materials.
Photos not published
Both Humes and Boswell agreed to the commission's stipulation that the autopsy photos were not to be viewed. Humes explains, "I agreed with the commission's decision not to make the photos part of the official report. I had stated in the autopsy, 'The complexity of these fractures and the fragments thus produced tax satisfactory verbal description and are better appreciated in photos and roentgenograms which are prepared,' and I meant it. The head wound was devastating, and if the photos were made part of the commission report they would have become public. I did not think that these photos should appear on the front pages of newspapers, and I did not trust the ability of the commission to keep them secret. So, 'J' and I worked with an artist to reconstruct drawings of the President's wounds, based upon our original measurements. These drawings are very accurate and met the purposes of the Warren Commission. In 1964, there were no crazy conspiracy theories about the death of the President."
It was not until November 1, 1966, that the two pathologists saw the autopsy photos - when they were summoned to the National Archives to help categorize all autopsy materials.
The second confirmation of their autopsy came in 1968, as the result of a request made by Drs Humes and Boswell themselves. In 1968, there were crazy conspiracy theories coming out of the woodwork. On January 26,1968, Boswell sent a letter to Ramsey Clark, then the US attorney general, in an attempt to put the issue to rest. The letter read:
"As you are aware, the autopsy findings in the case of the late President John F. Kennedy, including x-rays and photographs, have been the subject of continuing controversy and speculation. Dr Humes and I, as the pathologists concerned, have felt for some time that an impartial board of experts, including pathologists and radiologists, should examine the available material.
"If such a board were to be nominated in an attempt to resolve many of the allegations concerning the autopsy report, it might wish to question the autopsy participants before more time elapses and memory fades; therefore, it would be my hope that such a board would be convened at an early date. Dr Humes and I would make ourselves available at the request of such a board.
"I hope that this letter will not be considered presumptuous, but this matter is of great concern to us, and I believe to the country as well."
Four physicians were subsequently appointed to a blue-ribbon panel to evaluate the original autopsy. The four included:
- William H. Cames, MD, professor of pathology at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, and a member of Utah's Medical Examiner's Commission. He was nominated by J. E. Wallace Sterling, the president of Stanford University.
- Russell S. Fisher, MD, professor of forensic pathology at the University of Maryland and chief medical examiner of the state of Maryland. He was nominated by Dr Oscar B. Hunter, Jr, president of the College of American Pathologists.
- Russell H. Morgan, MD, professor of radiology at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Md. He was nominated by Dr Lincoln Gordon, president of The Johns Hopkins University.
- Alan R. Moritz, MD, professor of pathology at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, and former professor of forensic medicine at Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. He was nominated by Dr John A. Hannah, president of Michigan State University.
None of the four had any previous connection with prior investigations or reports on the President's assassination. After an exhaustive study of all relevant materials, the four members of the panel signed and submitted a 16-page report to Attorney General Clark in April 1968, unanimously concluding:
"Examination of the clothing and of the photographs and x-rays taken at autopsy reveal that President Kennedy was struck by two bullets fired from above and behind him, one of which traversed the base of the neck on the right side without striking bone and the other of which entered the skull from behind and exploded its right side. The photographs and x-rays discussed herein support the above-quoted portions [the conclusion] of the original Autopsy Report and the above-quoted medical conclusions of the Warren Commission Report."
The panel's report noted, "The possibility that the path of the bullet through the neck might have been more satisfactorily explored by the insertion of a finger or probe was considered. Obviously, the cutaneous wound in the back was too small to permit the insertion of a finger. The insertion of a metal probe would have carried the risk of creating a false passage - in part because of the changed relationship of muscles at the time of autopsy and in part because of the existence of postmortem rigidity. Although the precise path of the bullet could undoubtedly have been demonstrated by complete dissection of the soft tissue between the two cutaneous wounds, there is no reason to believe that the information disclosed thereby would alter significantly the conclusions expressed in this report."
The Garrison prosecution
The next confirmation came in 1969 in New Orleans when Pierre Finck was subpoenaed to testify at the trial of Clay Shaw, as part of District Attorney Jim Garrison's conspiracy prosecution. Shaw, of course, was acquitted, and, until the publication of this interview, Finck's testimony was the only public airing of the expert medical opinions on the assassination.
Boswell says, "A careful reading of the entire transcript of Dr Finck's testimony shows that he held tightly to the facts of our autopsy and supported its conclusions. However, Pierre was a meek and mild man who had been trained abroad, not in the United States. He was very 'brass conscious,' and he thought that generals were out of this world. At Bethesda, Finck was out of his element - an Army colonel in a Navy hospital - and he apparently mistook the President's military aides and other military personnel for generals. During the trial, Garrison was able to exploit Pierre's misperceptions about the scene to give the impression that it was controlled by generals. Jim [Humes] and I state categorically that there was no interference with our autopsy. The patient was extraordinary, the autopsy was ordinary, or at least as ordinary as it could be under the circumstances."
Boswell knows because he, too, was in New Orleans in 1969 at the request of the US Justice Department. "The Justice Department was so convinced that Garrison was on a fishing expedition in his prosecution of Clay Shaw," Boswell says, "that it summoned me to New Orleans to refute Finck's testimony, if necessary. It turned out that it wasn't necessary." It now appears, Boswell adds, that filmmaker Oliver Stone may have taken Finck's mistaken perceptions about the alleged military presence in the morgue, as detailed in the transcript of the trial, and used it as the sole basis for the mistaken autopsy scenes in his movie JFK. Humes calls the movie scenes "absolutely false and ridiculous," but we are getting ahead of the story.
The next confirmation of the President's autopsy came from the 1977 House Select Committee on Assassinations. Congress appointed a panel of nine experts chaired by forensic pathologist Michael Baden, MD, to investigate the medical findings. In his 1989 book, Unnatural Death - Confessions of a Medical Examiner, Baden agrees with the findings of Humes-Boswell-Finck but still terms Kennedy's autopsy the "exemplar" of the "bungled autopsy." He writes, "Despite all these errors and for the wrong reasons, Humes came to the right conclusions - that Kennedy had been shot by two bullets from behind, one in the head and one in the back. They [the wounds] were poorly tracked, but he got the two most important things right."
Humes says he has not read Baden's book and does not intend to. Mindful that this is a rare attack upon an autopsy that was solidly endorsed by an expert panel in 1968, he reacts to this quoted passage by saying, "Imagine that - we got it right, AS DUMB AS WE ARE! What possible purpose can be served by this kind of attack?"
Apprised of Baden's comment, "[Commander Humes] had never done one like it before," Humes incredulously exclaims, "Who had?" As Baden's written criticisms are read to him, Humes indignantly explodes, "False... false... false. My God, where does this stuff come from?" To cite but one example, Baden writes, "He [Humes] also knew that religious Catholics tend to be opposed to autopsies. And he was not in a position to press the issue." Humes replies, "Come on, now. I am a devout Catholic and for 19 years I was director of laboratories at St John Hospital, in Detroit, Mich, which is a Catholic hospital with a very active autopsy service. This autopsy was requested by the Kennedy family, who are Catholics."
JFK, the film, termed a 'hoax'
Then, there is the film, JFK. Jack Valenti, a former aide to President Lyndon Johnson and the current president of the Motion Picture Association of America, recently described JFK as based on the '"hallucinatory bleatings of an author named Jim Garrison, a discredited former district attorney in New Orleans." He also calls it a "hoax," a "smear," and "pure fiction," rivaling the Nazi propaganda films of Leni Riefenstahl.
Syndicated columnist George Will says, "JFK is cartoon history by Stone, who is 45 going on 8. In his three-hour lie, Stone falsifies so much he may be an intellectual sociopath, indifferent to truth." New York Times columnist Anthony Stone says, "Oliver Stone used as his mouthpiece, Jim Garrison, the former New Orleans district attorney, who in real life bribed witnesses to prosecute an innocent man - and was laughed out of court. Stone alleges a conspiracy among the Army, the CIA, Lyndon Johnson, and countless others - without a shred of evidence." Stone has been quoted as saying his critics are motivated by a "fear of facts." Chicago Tribune reporter Paul Galloway responds, "Nope. They were angry with the way he disregarded the facts."
Humes does not disagree with these criticisms of Stone, which he finds mild. His son had recently persuaded him to see JFK, and now he tells his colleague, Boswell, "'J,' if you see this movie, believe me, you'll need heavy sedation. The autopsy scene bears no relation to
reality, the man they have playing me looks older than I am now, and the tri-angulated shooting scene is preposterously impossible."
Conspiracy fanciers, including Stone, have tried to make much of the fact that the privately owned Zapruder film of the assassination shows Kennedy's head lurching backward after being hit. Humes and Boswell have both seen the Zapruder film "30 to 40 times," and they
note that studies published two decades ago by surgeon John Lattimer demonstrated that an object struck in the rear by a high-velocity missile similar to the bullets that hit Kennedy always falls backward as a result of the jet-propulsion effect created by tissues exploding
out the front.
JAMA's Lundberg, a stickler for detail, poses some questions that remain official mysteries:
Who ordered the autopsy?
Who ordered the autopsy?
"It must have been Jackie Kennedy," says Humes. "She made the request through Admiral Burkley." Boswell says, "It must have been Robert Kennedy. He was acting on behalf of the family." Lundberg counters, "Well, we have a lot of 'must haves,' but no answer." Humes
says, "Well, George, I hope you're not saying that we shouldn't have done the autopsy! My orders came from Ed Kenney, the surgeon-general of the Navy. The President's personal physician, Admiral Burkley, was standing beside me at the autopsy table. Jackie Kennedy
was waiting upstairs for the body with Robert Kennedy, and what greater authority can you have than the Attorney General of the United States [Robert Kennedy]?" Lundberg concludes, "OK, there were verbal OKs all over the place." Boswell adds, "Captain Stover
[the medical center's commanding officer] was very thorough, and I'm sure he had someone complete the paperwork."
Who made the absolute identity?
Humes chuckles, ''Well, the President's face was not exactly unknown. And the body was accompanied by the FBI, the Secret Service, military aides, and Kennedy family members. We saw no need for dental x-rays."
What happened to the brain?
Boswell says, "I believe that it was buried with the body." Humes says, "I don't know, but I do know that I personally handed it over to Admiral Burkley and that he told me that the
family intended to bury it with the body. I believe Admiral Burkley."
What was the condition of Kennedy's adrenal glands?
Humes says, "I am not prepared to answer this question now, except to say that the President was not 'cushingoid' and did not have the appearance of a man with the odd fat deposits and facial puffiness associated with the cushingoid appearance. As his activities indicate, he was a very healthy and vigorous man. At some time in the near future, 'J' and
I will have to sit down and write for history our report of the condition of the President's adrenal glands."
Should the body be exhumed for another autopsy to remove all doubts?
Humes is appalled. "That suggestion is ridiculous on the face of it. There is nothing further to be learned." Boswell adds, "The family would never permit it, anyway."
Boswell concludes, "In hindsight, we might have called in a civilian pathologist like Russell Fisher, who was right next door in Baltimore. We didn't need him to confirm our findings, but it might have removed the doubts about military control." Humes says, "Russell was a friend
and we easily could have asked him to come in to help, but we had no problem in determining the cause of death."
'Irrefutable evidence'
Lundberg says, "I am extremely pleased that, finally, we are able to have published in the peer-reviewed literature the actual findings of what took place at the autopsy table on November 22, 1963. I completely believe that this information, as personally given by Jim
[Humes] and 'J' [Boswell], is scientifically sound and, in my judgment, provides irrefutable evidence that President Kennedy was killed by only two bullets that struck him from above and behind and that caused fatal high-velocity wounds."
Humes concludes, "I really have not had much ongoing interest in the autopsy. We did what we had to do in 1963, and we did it right. And, I can't say that the criticism has hurt my career." Indeed, Humes retired from the Navy in 1967 with the rank of captain; worked 19
years at Detroit's St John Hospital as vice president for medical affairs and director of laboratories; and served from 1986 through 1989 as a field inspector for the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. In 1980, he was awarded the Distinguished Service
Award presented jointly by the College of American Pathologists and the American Society of Clinical Pathologists (ASCP). He was president of ASCP from 1974 to 1975; president of the Michigan Society of Pathologists in 1974; the first president of the American Registry of
Pathology from 1976 through 1978; and a member of the AMA House of Delegates from 1978 through 1988. Now semiretired, he is a clinical professor of pathology at the University of Florida School of Medicine, Jacksonville, and lives in nearby Ponte Vedra, Fla, where
he has his choice of playing 105 golf holes, including the Tournament Players Championship course at Sawgrass. Boswell retired from the Navy in 1965, with the rank of commander, and worked in supervisory pathology positions at Suburban Hospital, Bethesda, Md, from 1965 through 1972; and with a large pathology group in Fairfax, Va, from 1972 to 1983. Now retired, he lives in Bethesda.
Humes stops the interview where he started. "The President was killed by a devastating gunshot wound to the head fired from above and behind by a high-velocity rifle. The second bullet that struck him in the back of the neck was also fired from above and behind. That's
it. Everything else is adventitious."
It is an apt description. The adventitia, of course, are the external coatings of the blood vessels, giving rise to the adjective, "adventitious," for "added from another source and not inherent or innate... arising or occurring sporadically or in other than the usual location."
It is the perfect description for the growing industry of conspiracy theories from people who are ignorant of the essential facts and yet purport to know how President Kennedy must have been killed, at least in their minds.
JFK's death, part II - Dallas MDs recall their memories
Only 90 minutes passed in Dallas from the time Lee Harvey Oswald raised his rifle at 12:30 PM until the slain body of President John F. Kennedy was escorted aboard Air Force One for the 1500-mile flight to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland and the autopsy at the US Naval Medical Center in Bethesda. The medical team at Dallas' Parkland Memorial Hospital spent only 25 frenzied minutes in their futile effort to resuscitate Kennedy, but that whirlwind of events and emotions produced indelible personal memories.
In truth, though, there were no examinations, measurements, or photographs performed in Parkland's Trauma Room 1 that in any way, shape, or form allowed any of the physicians attending the President to make any meaningful evaluation of the entry and exit gunshot wounds and the forensic circumstances of death. That assignment was left to the autopsy pathologists at the Naval Medical Center, and their comments in the preceding story stand as the definitive version that Kennedy was struck by only two bullets fired from behind and above from a high-velocity rifle.
This is the unanimous appraisal of four Dallas physicians who have broken their 29-year silence to speak with this reporter about their famous 1963 case. Malcolm Perry, MD, a surgeon, worked the hardest to try to save the patient and performed a tracheostomy in an attempt to create an airway for the dying Kennedy. Jim Carrico, MD, a first-year surgical resident, was the first physician to treat Kennedy, at 12:35 PM, and the first to notice the small bubbling wound in the front of the neck that necessitated the tracheostomy. M. T. "Pepper" Jenkins, MD, the hospital's long-time chief of anesthesiology, rushed to the scene to try to help ventilate the patient. Charles Baxter, MD, a surgeon, assisted in the resuscitation attempt. These were the four key players on the Parkland medical team of November 22, 1963.
Previously, the four have kept their memories private, but they agreed to be interviewed by JAMA in the wake of a new book written by one of their former Parkland Hospital colleagues, Charles Crenshaw, MD, that has bolstered conspiracy theorists because of Crenshaw's incredible 1992 claim that the bullets "struck Kennedy from the front" and that the autopsy photos must have been altered, proving "there was something rotten in America in 1963." Crenshaw attributes these statements and others to his alleged intense eyewitness observations of the dying President.
Although the other four Parkland physicians have some doubt about whether Dr Crenshaw wrote most of the sensationalistic book or deferred to his two co-authors, both of whom are conspiracy theorists, and although they are reluctant to publicly condemn Crenshaw's claims, they emphasize that they believe Crenshaw is wrong.
Since it is hard to prove a negative, no one can say with certainty what some suspect - that Crenshaw was not even in the trauma room; none of the four recalls ever seeing him at the scene.
'Dreams of notoriety'
Dr Perry says, "In 1963, Chuck Crenshaw was a junior resident and he absolutely did not participate in a meaningful way in the attempt to resuscitate the President and in the medical decision making. I do not remember even seeing him in the room." Dr Jenkins says, "He may have been in the room, but he was not among the inner circle attending to the patient." Dr Carrico says, "Charles has extended his conclusions far beyond his direct examinations. Everyone in that room was trying to save a life, not figure out forensics." Baxter adds, "Jim [Carrico] has just made a very astute observation."
Why, then, would Crenshaw make such claims and write a book representing himself as being in the forefront of the resuscitation effort?
Baxter says, "Charles and I grew up in Paris, Texas, and I've known him since he was three years old. His claims are ridiculous. The only motive I can see is a desire for personal recognition and monetary gain."
Thumbing rapidly through Crenshaw's slender paperback book, Carrico stops at page 15 and quotes Crenshaw's words, "'Many of us have dreamed that history's grand scheme will involve us in some far-reaching role or experience thrusting us into notoriety and dramatically changing our lives. '"Carrico concludes, "There's your answer, in Charles's own words. I don't have those kind of dreams."
Jenkins says simply, "Crenshaw's conclusions are dead wrong."
Perry concludes, "When I first heard about Crenshaw's claims, I was considering a lawsuit, but after I saw Charles on TV one day all my anger melted. It was so pathetic to see him on TV saying this bogus stuff to reach out for his day in the sun that I ended up feeling sorry for him." He adds, "Crenshaw says that the rest of us are part of a conspiracy of silence and that he withheld his information for 29 years because of a fear his career would be ruined. Well, if he really felt he had valuable information and kept it secret for all those years, I find that despicable."
Crenshaw's book insinuates that the Bethesda autopsy pathologists altered Kennedy's wounds and it specifically charges that "the incision Perry had made in his [Kennedy's] throat at Parkland for the tracheostomy had been enlarged and mangled, as if someone had conducted another procedure. It looked to be the work of a butcher. No doubt, someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to show a different story than we had seen at Parkland."
Well, the physician who did that work at Parkland - Dr Perry - and three physicians who observed the tracheostomy - Drs Baxter, Carrico. and Jenkins - all say that the autopsy photos of the throat wound are "very compatible" with what they saw in Parkland Trauma Room 1. Dr Baxter says. "I was right there and the tracheostomy I observed and the autopsy photos look the same - very compatible." Dr Carrico says, "I've seen the autopsy photos and they are very compatible to the actual tracheostomy." Dr Jenkins adds, "They're the same." Dr Perry concludes, "Of course, tissues sag and stretch after death, but any suggestion that this wound was intentionally enlarged is wrong. When I talked to Commander Humes the morning after the assassination and told him we had done a tracheostomy, he said, 'That explains it - the bullet exited through the throat.'"
Drs Baxter, Carrico, Jenkins, and Perry emphasize that their experiences in the trauma room do not qualify them to reach conclusions about the direction from which the fatal missiles were fired. In fact, Dr Jenkins doubts if any of the Parkland physicians even had a good look at the President's head, explaining, "I was standing at the head of the table in the position the anesthesiologist most often assumes closest to the patient's head. My presence there and the President's great shock of hair and the location of the head wound were such that it was not visible to those standing down each side of the gurney where they were carrying out their resuscitative maneuvers." However, all four agree, in Carrico's words, that, "Nothing we observed contradicts the autopsy finding that the bullets were fired from above and behind by a high-velocity rifle."
As a result of Crenshaw's media allegations, the four other Dallas physicians have been besieged with calls from other members of the Parkland medical team that was on the scene on November 22,1963. Baxter says, "I can assure you that these calls are uniformly in disagreement with Crenshaw's claims. Most of those who know the facts express disgust at Crenshaw's actions and question if he was involved in the care of the President at all. There has not been one call supporting his position."
Crenshaw also claims in his book to have received a telephone call from President Lyndon B. Johnson, asking him to extract a confession from the dying Lee Harvey Oswald. Baxter responds, "Did that happen? Heavens no ... imagine that, the President of the United States personally calls for Chuck Crenshaw." Another Crenshaw claim is that he was the last to view President Kennedy's body as he closed the casket and that it was at this point that he observed the head wound. Dr Jenkins responds, "It is highly unlikely that any physician would have closed that casket."
Carrico emphasizes, "We were trying to save a life, not worrying about entry and exit wounds." Perry says, "The President's pupils were widely dilated, his face was a deep blue, and he was in agonal respiration, with his chin jerking. Jim [Carrico] was having trouble inserting the endotracheal tube because of the wound to the trachea and I didn't even wipe off the blood before doing the 'trach.' I grabbed a knife and made a quick and large incision; it only took two or three minutes." He adds, "So many people have theories about the assassination, but I have yet to meet one who has read the entire 26 volumes of the Warren Commission report."
The continuing controversy over the assassination and the refusal to believe the 26-volume, elephantinely documented Warren Commission report obscure the real human tragedy of the event. Pepper Jenkins recalls one poignant anecdote:
"The President was a bigger man than I recalled from seeing him on TV. He must have had really severe back pain, judging by the size of the back brace we cut off. He was tightly laced into this brace with wide Ace bandages making figure-of-eight loops around his trunk and around his thighs. His feet were sticking off one end of the gurney and his head was at the other end, cradled in my arms. I was standing with the front of my jacket against his head wound, an alignment that put me in the best position to carry out artificial ventilation. I was getting gushes of blood down my jacket and onto my shoes.
"Jacqueline Kennedy was circling the room, walking behind my back. The Secret Service could not keep her out of the room. She looked shell-shocked. As she circled and circled, I noticed that her hands were cupped in front of her, as if she were cradling something. As
she passed by, she nudged me with an elbow and handed me what she had been nursing in her hands - a large chunk of her husband's brain tissues. I quickly handed it to a nurse."
'It's too late, Mac'
It was Dr William Kemp Clark, a Parkland Hospital neurosurgeon, who most closely observed Kennedy's massive head wound. He told Dr Perry, "It's too late, Mac. There's nothing more to be done." It was Dr Clark who pronounced the President dead at 1 PM, only 25 minutes after he was wheeled into the emergency room.
By this time, the Secret Service had allowed a Catholic priest to enter the room to administer the last rites. Jenkins recalls, "All of the medical staff seemed to disappear, dissolve, fade from the room, except, I believe, for me and Dr Baxter. I was busy disconnecting the electrocardiographic leads, removing the IVs, and extracting the endotracheal tube. However, before I could finish these duties, Mrs Kennedy returned to the President's side and I retreated to a corner of the room. She kissed the President on the foot, on the leg, on the thigh, on the abdomen, on the chest, and then on the face. She still looked drawn, pale, shocked, and remote. I doubt if she remembers any part of this. Then the priest began the last rites in deliberate, resonant, and slow tones, and then it was over."
Jenkins recalls that Secret Service agents then "grabbed the President's gurney on each side and wheeled it out of the room, all but running over Dr Earl Rose, the Dallas medical examiner [whose office was right across the hall from the emergency room]."
Dr Rose, who is now retired in Iowa City, also gave JAMA a rare interview to pick up the narrative. "I was in their way," Rose recalls. "I was face to face with Secret Service Agent Roy H. Kellerman, and I was trying to explain to him that Texas law applied in the instant case of the death of the President and that the law required an autopsy to be performed in Texas.
"Agent Kellerman had experienced a tragedy on his watch and, although he had no legal authority, he believed that his primary responsibility was to transport the body back to Washington, DC. He was very distressed, apparently taking the death as a personal affront, and he and I were not communicating. It was not a hostile discussion, but he and I were expressing differing views on what was appropriate."
A standoff over removing the body
Theron Ward, a Dallas Justice of the Peace, was at the hospital to assert the applicable Texas law, but, in Rose's words, "he did nothing... he was frozen with fear. In effect, no one was in charge of the situation. Agent Kellerman tried three tactics to have his way - he asserted his identity as representing the Secret Service; he appealed for sympathy to Mrs Kennedy; and he used body language to attempt to bully, or, should I say, intimidate. I don't recall the exact words, but he and I exchanged firm and emotionally charged words. At no time did I feel I was in physical danger because he and the others were armed. I was not looking at Agent Kellerman's gun, I was looking at his eyes, and they were very intense. His eyes said that he meant to get the President's body back to Washington."
In 1963, Rose was 6-feet, 2-inches tall and solidly built. He was not the kind to back down from a fight if he believed he was right. "I was raised in western South Dakota," he said, "and I carried that baggage with me. People raised in western South Dakota may lose a fight, but
they don't get bullied or intimidated." The standoff, however, was soon over. Rose says, "Finally, without saying any more, I simply stood aside. I felt that it was unwise to do anything more to accelerate or exacerbate the tension. There was nothing more I could do to keep the
body in Dallas. I had no minions, no armies to enforce the will of the medical examiner."
Later that day, Rose autopsied patrolman J. D. Tippit, who was killed by Oswald; two days later, he autopsied Oswald himself, who was killed by Jack Ruby; a few years later, he autopsied Ruby.
It is 29 years later and Rose, who has a law degree as well as a medical degree, still feels strongly that the Kennedy autopsy should have been performed in Dallas. "The law was broken," Rose says, "and it is very disquieting to me to sacrifice the law as it exists for
any individual, including the President. Having one set of rules for the rich and famous and another for the poor is antithetical to justice. There have been many arguments to try to justify the removal of the body, but to me they all seem like retrospective and serf-serving theories. People are governed by rules and in a time of crisis it is even more important to uphold the rules, as this case amply demonstrates."
Rose believes that a Dallas autopsy, which he would have performed, "would have been free of any perceptions of outside influences to compromise the results. After all, if Oswald had lived, his trial would have been held in Texas and a Texas autopsy would have assured a
tight chain of custody on all the evidence. In Dallas, we had access to the President's clothing and to the medical team who had treated him, and these are very important considerations."
Further, Rose believes that the removal of the body was the first step in creating disbelief about what had happened. "Silence and concealment are the mother's milk of conspiracy theories," he says. "If we have learned anything in the 29 years since the President was
shot, it is that silence and concealment breed theories of conspiracy and the only answer is to open up the records, without self-serving rules of secrecy, and let the American people judge for themselves."
Rose, who is a board-certified forensic pathologist and who has personally examined Kennedy's autopsy materials and records, next turned his attention to the claims made by Dr Crenshaw, who is a surgeon. "I believe that Dr Crenshaw believes what he is saying when he argues that the shots came from the front," Rose says, "but he is mistaken." Pressed on his degree of confidence in this statement, Rose finally says, "I am absolutely sure that he is in
error."
Rose was a member of the 1977 House Select Committee on Assassinations that had access to the entire autopsy file of President Kennedy and that supported the autopsy conclusions. Though he thinks the Bethesda autopsy was "less than optimal," Rose has no argument with the central fact, saying, "I agree that the two wounds to the neck and head came from behind and above and that there is no room for doubt on this finding. The physical evidence corroborates this without question." He concludes, "Do not attribute to conspiracy what can be explained by distrust, inexperience, or ineptitude." Offering his own appraisal of who killed Kennedy, Rose says, "Oswald is the prime suspect and there is no credible evidence for any other suspect. However, there will always be reservations until all the evidence is disclosed. 0nly this morning the US Justice Department again opposed on the grounds of national security a Congressional resolution to open the Kennedy files."
Mistakes and conspiracies
One might think that all this demonstration of facts and expression of expert medical opinion would end the controversy over the President's autopsy, but one would probably be wrong. Even in that Parkland Hospital trauma room there was one other physician who still disbelieves the President's autopsy report. Robert McClelland, MD, is a respected surgeon who assisted in the last steps of the tracheostomy on President Kennedy. Interviewed in Dallas, he told this reporter that he maintains a "strong opinion" that the fatal head wound came from the front. Pressed on his reasons, he says, "After I saw the Zapruder film in 1969, I became convinced that the backward lurch of the head had to have come from a shot from the front. Unlike Crenshaw, I do not believe that one can tell the direction from which the bullet came simply by looking at the head wound, as I did, but the wound I observed did appear consistent with a shot from the front. That observation is secondary to my viewing of the Zapruder film, which convinced me that the shots were from the front." Reminded that at
least 16 pathologists have also studied the Zapruder film and also examined the autopsy clothing, notes, photos, and x-rays and have concluded the opposite, McClelland remains unshaken. "I can't speak for them," he says, "and although I am not an expert in ballistics, pathology, or physics, I still have a strong opinion that the head shot came from the front."
So it goes. McClelland had originally mistakenly written in his hospital chart that the wound to Kennedy's head struck the left temple. This error, as published in the Warren report, later prompted a call from the office of New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, who wanted to bring him to New Orleans in 1969 to testify in the conspiracy trial of Clay Shaw. McClelland recalls, "Well, when I told the investigator that I had made a mistake in 1963, there was a sudden silence at the other end of the line."
Mistakes do happen and contribute to conspiracy theories. Similarly, Dr Jenkins wrote in a 1963 report that Kennedy's "cerebellum" had been blown out, when he meant "cerebrum." Dr Perry appeared at a riotous press conference on the day of the assassination and said that the fatal shot "might have come" from the front. All have become grist for the rumor mill.
Jenkins was a technical consultant to the making of the film JFK, advising on the layout and equipment of the Parkland Hospital trauma room. Assured of director Oliver Stone's passion for authenticity, Jenkins was able to help re-create the 1963 room right down to the last detail and also to re-create the original Parkland emergency room entrance, which in subsequent decades has been engulfed by the complex of new buildings constructed at the parent University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas. When Jenkins showed up at the set for a day of shooting, he noticed that the actors representing the medical team were all being issued blood-soaked scrub suits. Advising Stone that only he and Mrs Kennedy were splattered with blood, Jenkins was told by the director, "Oh, doc, people expect to see blood!"
Jenkins notes, "So much for authenticity." Jenkins himself made a cameo appearance in the film, but says, "I was so bored with the film that I fell asleep and missed my two seconds on camera!"
People expect to read about conspiracy theories and this probably will not change. Earl Rose concludes, "The defamers of the truth can only be confronted and defeated by the truth." This special report is our attempt to confront the defamers of the truth.
Slama JAMA - In Reply to the JAMA article
David S. Lifton, Robert Groden, & Dan Baldwin
David S. Lifton - a letter to the MacNeil-Lehrer program.
RE: The JFK/JAMA affair (appearance of Dr. Lundberg, Tuesday, 5/19/92)
Dear Mr. MacNeil:
The MacNeil-Lehrer report is one of my favorites; but I watched your show a week ago last Tuesday with considerable distress.
I am the author of BEST EVIDENCE, on the Kennedy assassination, a book that
was a New York Times best-seller for 3 months when it was first published in
January 1981, was nominated for a Pulitzer in history, and is now in its
fourteenth printing with its third publisher - and is soon to be brought out,
again, in mass paperback, by a fourth publisher. Although it was never my
original intention, I have spent some 25 years on the Kennedy assassination, so I
feel well qualified to comment on certain issues - particularly in the medical
area - and I get upset when I see the media misled and manipulated.
This, I fear, is what has happened concerning the JAMA articles on the Kennedy
assassination. I am writing this letter to bring to your attention the cross-examination which I believe should have taken place on your show but which,
understandably, did not. I say 'understandably" because I can just imagine the
position you are in: every issue you deal with probably is filled with details and
complications. How can you keep track of it all?
This letter is an attempt to appraise and comment upon what was broadcast.
BEST EVIDENCE sets forth the theory that the wounds on President Kennedy's
body may have been altered between the Dallas shooting and the Bethesda
autopsy. In a nutshell, BEST EVIDENCE offers a logical explanation as to why,
on November 22,1963, two groups of doctors (at Dallas, and at Bethesda) arrived
at different conclusions as to the number and direction of the shots.
The sources upon which I relied - and do so again in this letter - are carefully
described, and verifiable. Consider now what happened both in JAMA, and on
MacNeil-Lehrer.
THROAT WOUND
BEST EVIDENCE sets forth the case (see chapter 3) that the Dallas doctors
originally said the wound was an entry; moreover, that there is a major conflict
between what was observed at Dallas and at Bethesda regarding the throat
wound - one which suggests that the size of the tracheotomy incision was
enlarged - considerably - between Dallas and Bethesda.
In Dallas, the wound was some 1/4" across, through which Dallas doctor Perry
made a small transverse incision. In October and November 1966, I questioned
each and every Dallas doctor who saw the wound. My first phone call was to Dr.
Malcolm Perry, who had performed the tracheotomy. Dr. Perry told me in no
uncertain terms, that the incision he made was "2-3 cm". The small size of this
incision was corroborated in interviews with other Dallas doctors. In chapter 11,
I compared this with the Bethesda autopsy report: in that report, the length was
given as 6.5 cm; and, more important, when Commander Humes was under oath
before the Warren Commission, he testified its length was 7-8 cm.
Now, 28 years later, in the JAMA article, the doctors are changing their stories.
Let's start with Bethesda. At Bethesda, Dr. Humes now tells us the tracheotomy
wound was "about 3-4cm".6 (What happened to 7-8cm?)
Let's turn to Dallas. Dr. Perry now tells JAMA he "made a ...large incision".
(That's not what he told me, in 1966; "2-3" cm. was the size he said then.)
One other related fact: whereas the Dallas doctors said the incision had "smooth"
edges (it was, after all, made with a scalpel), the official autopsy report states it
had "widely gaping irregular edges."
Moreover, whereas Dr. Humes testified it was "no longer at all obvious as a
missile wound" (and the Warren Report explained this by stating Perry's
incision had "completely eliminated that evidence", that the original wound
had been "cut away by the tracheotomy"), the late Dr. Milton Helpern, often
called the father of forensic medicine, could not understand why Perry's
tracheotomy incision should have this consequence. "That bullet wound was
not 'eliminated' or 'obliterated' at all" wrote Helpern. "What Dr. Perry did was
to take his scalpel and cut a clean slit...". Dr. Helpern criticized the doctors for
not pushing the wound edges back together so the original wound outline could be
in effect reconstructed. "It should have been studied, and photographed", he
wrote, clearly annoyed that this simple procedure had not been followed. Dr. Helpern, of course, assumed that Humes received the body in the same condition;
as Perry left it. Yet Dr. Humes testimony suggested otherwise. Humes
confirmed there wasn't "any evidence left of the exit aperture", and Dr. Pierre
Finck, the forensic pathologist of the trio, testified: "I examined this surgical
wound...a very close gross examination...and I did not see the small wound
described by the Dallas surgeons along that surgical incision...I don't know why
it is not there."
In 1979 Dr. Perry saw for the first time a copy of the Bethesda autopsy
photograph showing the large wound at the front of the throat. He responded
by shaking his head from side to side, expressing great-surprise, and stating that
this was not his tracheotomy incision, this was not the way he left the wound.
The wound depicted in the picture was "larger, expanded"; his incision was
"neater." Then, in a single word, Dr. Perry said a mouthful: Dr. Perry said he
had left the wound "inviolate". (Dr. Perry used the word 'inviolate' on at least
one previous occasion and in a similar context: in 1963, within days of the
assassination. In a conversation with fellow Parkland doctor David Stewart.
Perry expressed puzzlement that the tracheotomy he performed should have
caused any confusion at the Bethesda end of the line. He told Dr. Stewart: "I left
the wound inviolate".)
Now, however, in 1992 in JAMA, Dr. Perry says that the autopsy photographs
show the throat wound "very compatible" with the way he left it.
In evaluating eyewitness evidence in this whole affair, it is important to focus on
what is repeatedly stressed in law school: the relationship between the value of a
witness' statement and the time at which it was made. Observations recorded
immediately, or statements made within a relatively short period of time, usually
have greater value than those made decades later. Some of the participants in
these events now appear in two roles - that of original witness to a fact, and then
later, as citizens who, for whatever reason, may not be particularly sympathetic
to the notion of a conspiracy. A good example of this is to be found in the case of
the doctors - both at Dallas and Bethesda - and the changing stories about what
they claim to have observed about the wounds 28 years ago (or about their initial
reaction to being shown photographs, about ten or twelve years ago). These
changed stories are now published in JAMA in 1992, 28 years after the
assassination and 12 years after the publication of BEST EVIDENCE, a book
which discussed in detail the serious conflicts between the Dallas and Bethesda.
Based on the JAMA article, the Dallas incision at the front of the neck is now represented as being larger than originally reported; similarly, the Bethesda
"tracheotomy wound" is now reported as being 50% smaller. Presto - the evidence of wound alteration vanishes! These facts - the changing stories of the
key witnesses and the evolutionary quality of their accounts - must be made
public; it is a crucial part of the overall story, yet it goes unmentioned.
THE HEAD WOUND
Dr. James Carrico testified to the Warren Commission that the wound observed
in Dallas was at the back of the head, a 35 sq cm (2-3/4") wound, and through
that wound, according to the report of Dr. Marion Jenkins, the cerebellum
"protruded". The cerebellum is a small ovoid structure at the bottom of the
back of the brain. Cerebellar tissue is distinctly different from cerebral tissue -
which comprises the upper lobes of the brain. In my chapter 13, I explained that
the protrusion of the cerebellum - and cerebellar tissue was reported by some
half dozen doctors in their testimony - demonstrated that the wound was at the
back of the head.
At Bethesda, according to the autopsy diagram prepared by Commander
Boswell, the wound was 170 sq. cm. - 500% bigger than the dimensions specified by the doctors at Dallas; and, according to the autopsy report, the
"major portion of the right cerebral hemisphere" was "clearly visible" through
this large hole. (See my Chapter 13, especially the section "What Was Visible
Through the Skull?'). Based on anatomic description, size, and the part of the
brain that was visible, the Bethesda wound was dearly larger - much larger.
JAMA makes no mention of this glaring discrepancy. But in the Dallas article
accompanying it, the writer of the JAMA article blithely asserts, without
providing any detail or even a direct quote: "Dr. Jenkins wrote in a 1963 report
that Kennedy's "cerebellum" had been blown out, when he meant "cerebrum."
This statement is rather amazing. Some half dozen doctors, including the
attending neurosurgeon, Dr. Kemp Clark, spoke of the cerebellar tissue. Yet
Dr. Jenkins - who wrote "cerebellum" in his 11/22/63 report; testified to that
same effect under oath four months later, repeated the same thing to the House
Assassinations Committee in 1977 - now, in 1992, apparently informs JAMA
that he made a mistake, and Dr. George Lundberg publishes this and calls it
honest science!
THE AUTOPSY FINDING OF A BACK TO FRONT NECK TRAJECTORY
Exactly when did Commander Humes conclude that a bullet had gone back to
front through the President's neck? In his 1964 Warren Commission testimony,
Dr. Humes testified that his analysis centered around the following facts
ascertained on Friday night, while the President's body lay before him at the
autopsy table: a puncture wound on the back of the shoulder, a bruise at the top
of the right lung; and a large horizontal hole at the front of the throat - a wound
which no longer contained any evidence of being a bullet wound. On Saturday
morning Humes called Perry, and learned first hand (and possibly for the first
time) that the tracheotomy had been done over a bullet wound. The Warren
Report stated that this information "confirmed the Bethesda surgeons"
conclusion that the bullet had exited from the front part of the neck."
Humes provided sworn testimony that supported this version. He testified that
during the autopsy he was "able to ascertain with absolute certainty that the
bullet had passed by the apical portion of the right lung", and that, on Friday
night, he considered its exit at the front of the throat "a possible explanation."
The validity of this testimony is crucial, because the FBI report of agents Sibert
and O'Neill painted an entirely different picture. The two agents reported that Humes found a hole on the back, that the doctor stuck his finger in it, determined
it went nowhere, and concluded that the bullet that entered there had fallen out
the back.
If the FBI version was correct, then Humes changed an autopsy conclusion well
after he no longer had access to the body; and since this particular conclusion
(that the bullet passed all the way through) was crucial to the Warren
Commission's single bullet theory (i.e., it had to transit Kennedy in order to hit
Governor Connally), the question of whether such a change had occurred has
been of major interest to students of the assassination.
Now, in the 1992 JAMA version: the story changes once again. Humes doesn't
address the FBI report, which said he drew a firm conclusion that the bullet fell
out the back; nor does he support what the Warren Report version either. Now,
Humes paints a picture of almost total confusion at the time of autopsy. With
regard to the neck trajectory, he couldn't figure it out. "By midnight, we decided
to quit speculating... We knew we would find the explanation sooner or later."
The next morning, Saturday, at 7:30 a.m., he called Dr. Perry; and, for the first
time, learned that the tracheotomy had been made over a bullet wound; and
then, also for the first time, realized the bullet must have exited from the front of
the neck. "The light came on when I talked to Dr. Perry", Humes now says.
"Of course, the bullet had exited through the [front of the] neck." To Dr. Humes,
one must pose this question: which version is correct - the 1964 Warren
Commission version, (in which you deduced the correct trajectory on Friday
night, and received confirmation when you called Dallas) or the 1992 JAMA
version (in which you hadn't the faintest idea where the bullet had gone, and
didn't arrive at the answer until you called Dallas)? And to Dr. Lundberg, who
apparently shepherded this article to publication: Were you ignorant of the
earlier version, supported in part by Dr. Humes' sworn testimony? Why does
JAMA publish all this as "sound science", and an answer to "the defamers of the truth?"
To recap: the issue here is not just whether a bullet did or did not pass back-to-
front through Kennedy's neck. The issue is: what did Humes know, and when
did he know it? More precisely, in JAMA, he is now making statements which
contradict what he said previously; and, even more important, if this latest
version is true, how does he explain the previous version, sworn to under oath?
One other point: the handwritten draft of the autopsy shows that after his
conversation with Dr. Perry on Saturday, Dr. Humes characterized the wound at
the front of the throat as a "puncture wound" - the word "puncture" being
deleted in the final typewritten report, which became the official evidence. Dr.
Humes ought to be asked: it after you talked to Dr. Perry "the light came on" (as
you explained to JAMA) and you then concluded a bullet had exited at the front
of the throat, then why - in the handwritten draft of the autopsy - did you
describe that wound as a "puncture wound"? "Puncture" suggests entry, no?
(He should also be asked to explain how the modifier "puncture" was changed to
"much smaller" in the typewritten version, thereby transforming the entire
meaning of the sentence, as originally drafted?)
THE PHOTOGRAPHS
In JAMA, the doctors tells us that their findings are documented "in spades".
The picture is painted of a complete photo record. Yet a serious question
remains: why is it that these pictures show no large wound at the back of the
head - where the Dallas doctors saw an egg sized exit hole, and even the
Bethesda autopsy reported that the massive head wound extended "into the
temporal and occipital regions". I have interviewed the Bethesda autopsy
technicians: all report a huge hole at the back of the President's head. Moreover,
one of the FBI agents present at the autopsy has told me, with great certainty,
that the back of the President's head was blown out. Addressing this issue, the
House Assassinations Committee relied on the autopsy photographs which
showed no such hole and concluded that all the human observers - both at
Dallas and at Bethesda - were simply wrong.
Clearly the integrity of this collection of photographs is important. Let me
address that issue - a bit indirectly. Anyone would agree that an important part
of the autopsy was photographing the bruise at the top of the tight lung - the
internally braised area which Commander Humes described in detail in his
autopsy report, and spent several pages describing during the March 1964
Warren Commission testimony. If Commander Humes is correct, this area
marked the location where something went back to front through the body. If
the Dallas doctors are correct (that a bullet entered from the front and lodged at
the top of the right lung), then this could be the location where a bullet may have
been removed through the enlarged orifice at the front of the neck. Obviously,
this bruised area is important. And Dr. Humes testified to the Warren
Commission that "Kodachrome photographs were made of this area in the
interior of the President's chest" Autopsy photographer John Stringer, in my
1972 interview, confirmed this at length.
Guess what? There are no such pictures in the collection, yet the collection
numbers out correctly!
What happened to the pictures? And what do the doctors have to say about this
situation? Why isn't this matter addressed in the JAMA article? Is Dr. Lundberg
even aware of this issue?
In chapter 22 of BEST EVIDENCE, "Changed Receipts", I set forth in detail the
peculiar changes that appear on the receipts for the X-rays and photos. Is there a
relationship between the matter of the "changed receipts" and the disappearance
of these crucial photographs?
THE BODY BAG
In my book, I report that Bethesda medical technician Paul O'Connor, the
technician who assisted in opening the coffin when it arrived at Bethesda,
told the House Assassinations Committee that the body was inside, in a body
bag. This statement was corroborated by others who were present - including
Commander (and doctor) Stover, who was Commanding Officer of Bethesda
Naval Medical School.
Dr. Humes - who has said nothing about this matter since BEST EVIDENCE was
published in 1961 - now denies the presence of a body bag? Yet the delivery of
the President's body in a body bag was reported as fact by the House Select
Committee on Assassinations; and Dr. Stover, in his interview with me in April
1980, agreed that a November 22,1963 Secret Service receipt for "shroud"
probably was a receipt for the body bag. Now, in 1992, Dr. Humes states that
something reported as fact in 1979, and which I personally corroborated through
other interviews, did not occur.
Another point. On November 22, the Chief of the Day at Bethesda was Navy
enlisted man Dennis David. As I reported in BEST EVIDENCE, Dennis David
witnessed the arrival at the morgue loading dock of a black hearse. Several civilians and two men in operating room smocks emerged from the hearse and
Dennis David's men assisted them in the unloading a shipping casket, which was
brought to the morgue. Dennis David did not go inside - he did not see that
casket opened - but Paul O'Connor was inside the room, and he reports that the
casket in which the body was delivered was a shipping casket. A short while
later, Dennis David was at the front of the hospital and saw the arrival (from
Andrews Air Force Base) of the gray Navy ambulance containing Jacqueline
Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and the large ceremonial Dallas coffin. As I reported
in BEST EVIDENCE, Dr. Boswell told Dennis David later that night (with regard
to the multiple caskets that stayed at the autopsy room ) that the President's
body was in "the first one"; and that any other was a "decoy"; ie., "security" was
the explanation for more than one casket. In his March 1964 Warren
Commission testimony, Dr. Humes noted almost offhandedly that his main
interest was in the medical examination of the President "and not of the security
measures of the other people who were present." (What "security" measures?
What "other people"?)
I personally believe Dennis David and Paul O'Connor. I am not saying their
accounts constitute proof. But both sides ought to be presented on a program
such as MacNeil-Lehrer; they were not.
THE MILITARY INFLUENCE AT THE AUTOPSY
In JAMA, we are told (and this was repeatedly stated on MacNeil-Lehrer) that
the Navy doctors were not influenced in any way. Yet one of the most dramatic
aspects of my interviews with the autopsy personnel (which I conducted back in
1979) concerned the ambiance in the autopsy room - and the way the doctors
were intimidated by either high level military personnel present, or unidentified
civilians. Although this pits the 1979 recollections of technicians against the 1992
statements of the autopsy doctors (and again, I stress that both sides ought to be
heard), the star witness in this affair is a Navy document dated November 26,
1963: the actual "order not to talk". It states that if the signatory talked about the
Kennedy autopsy, he would be subject to court martial. In BEST EVIDENCE, I
describes how each technician at the autopsy was called to the Commanding Officer's office, and required to sign this document. Please note that one copy of
this document was signed by Dr. Humes and another by Dr. Boswell.
THE FBI REPORT ABOUT SURGERY
Two FBI agents present at the autopsy (Sibert & O'Neill) reported on November
26,1963 that when the President's body was unwrapped, it was "apparent" that
there had been "surgery of the head area, namely in the top of the skull."
In 1966, I called FBI agent Sibert, who told me "the report stands"; and as a result
of my phone call, Assistant FBI Director Alex Rosen got involved, and his
memorandum to Assistant Director Cartha DeLoach, (which I obtained years
later under FOIA), explicitly states that the FBI agents reported surgery based on
what the doctors said.
Recently, in a telephone interview, Agent Sibert told me: "I would swear on a
stack of bibles the doctor said there was surgery; that's why I wrote it down."
He added that he didn't know what it meant.
This FBI statement reporting head surgery was not dealt with in JAMA. Is Dr.
Lundberg even aware of it?
In 1966, Dr. Humes told me, when I questioned him about the FBI statement: "I'm not responsible for their reports." His attitude hasn't changed much. In the
JAMA article, Humes responds to the possibility that the throat wound was
"intentionally enlarged while the body was en route from Dallas" by stating that
"the insinuation of this scenario does not deserve a response."
Since when, in scientific debate, does evidence of this character "not deserve a
response"?
Honest science, Dr. Lundberg?
In Chapter 18 of BEST EVIDENCED ("The Pre-Autopsy Autopsy") I discussed the
remarkable correlation between the way Humes found the head and the
standard autopsy procedure for removing the brain. The autopsy report
described in detail four scalp tears which radiated from a huge hole at the top of
the head. These four tears suggested four flaps in the scalp - but I noted that
Humes never used the word "flaps" in the 1963 autopsy report or in the Warren
Commission testimony. In 1979, when the House Assassinations Committee
published its report, it became clear that in a closed door session with the
Committee two years earlier, both Humes and Boswell had indeed used the
word "flaps" in describing this scalp damage. As I noted in BEST EVIDENCE,
the bullet did not go to medical school If the scalp was "flapped" prior to
autopsy, that suggests human intervention: i.e., deliberate cutting. This evidence
not only might tell us something about the way the body looked at the time of
autopsy, but indirectly bears on the question: "what did the doctors know, and
when did they know it?"
In a 1966 telephone call which I taped and have preserved to this day, I carefully
questioned Humes about the FBI statement about surgery which I had just
discovered. He sounded tense and frightened on the phone. Trying to defuse
the situation, I said: "Well, if something happened to the body before it reached
you, that doesn't mean there's anything sinister about it, but it certainly didn't
come to the attention of the Warren Commission, and it ought to have."
Humes responded: "I certainly think it ought to have." Quite startled, I said:
"What's that?" He said: "I certainly think it ought to have come to their
attention. [I'd] like to know who, by whom it was done: and when, and where!"
I discuss this conversation in BEST EVIDENCE and I still have the tape.
THE "IRREFUTABLE" EVIDENCE OF ENTRY AND EXIT
To discuss this evidence, one must understand the concept of beveling; or, more
accurately, the beveled edge. When a bullet strikes any surface of the skull,
either when entering or exiting, it creates a small hole on the side of impact, and
a larger, beveled out, hole as it emerges from that surface. Since the bullet in this
case supposedly transited the head, there should be two such instances of
beveling - the first, at the rear of the skull in connection with the entry wound;
and the second in connection with the large exit hole.
Did such evidence exist in this case? Both in JAMA and on MacNeil-Lehrer, Dr.
Lundberg was at pains to tell us that it most assuredly did - that irrefutable
scientific evidence on the skull of the President Kennedy established, without
question, that he was struck once in the head from behind. A closer look at that
scientific evidence raises some questions.
In BEST EVIDENCE, chapter 22, in the section titled "The Incomplete Bone
Hole", I point out that as originally received, the body contained only one large
hole in the top of the head, with a 'notch" at the rear periphery - not two distinct
holes (entry and exit). I based this statement on Dr. Humes' original handwritten
draft of the autopsy, on Dr. Boswell's statements to the House Assassinations
Committee, and on the autopsy notes of Dr. Pierre Finck. How did one large
hole become two separate holes? Dr. Boswell told the House Assassinations
Committee that after midnight additional bone fragments arrived; and it was
then, via a process of reconstruction, and fitting things together, that the doctors
were able to make two complete and separate holes.
What is the problem with this procedure? Plenty: first, rather than finding the
evidence of beveling on the head at the time of the body's arrival in the autopsy
room, the procedure suggests it was found as a result of a reconstruction
involving bone pieces brought to the morgue well after the autopsy began. But
even more important is what this implies about the autopsy photographs and
X-rays: those documents very clearly show two separate and distinct holes - one,
entry; the other exit. But how can that be? These photographs were supposedly
made at the outset of the autopsy, i.e., at about 8 pm, when it is very clear, from
Dr. Boswell's own statement to the Committee and from Dr. Finck's autopsy
notes that two separate and distinct holes were not observed, did not exist, until
after midnight. Why do the autopsy photographs and X-Rays clearly show
information which, by all accounts, did not exist until after midnight?
This matter, spelled out in such detail in BEST EVIDENCE was never addressed
by Dr. Lundberg in the JAMA articles.
THE FOUR INCH ERROR
When the House Assassinations Committee first addressed the autopsy
photographs at their hearings in 1978, it became clear that the configuration of
the head wounds depicted in the rear view (the view that showed no large
wound at the back of the head, where everyone else apparently saw such a
wound) was quite different from that stated in the autopsy report. Whereas the
autopsy report stated (and Dr. Humes testified to the Warren Commission) that
the entry in the head was at the bottom of the back of the head, in the hairline,
the Bethesda autopsy photograph (rear view) showed the entry much higher -
indeed, 4 inches higher - in the cowlick area. Correspondingly, the large exit
wound, reported as being at the top, and extending to the rear, had now moved
towards the front of the head. This led to Dr. Humes nationally televised
testimony before the Committee on September 7,1978, in which the Committee
counsel tried to get Humes to admit that he had made a four inch error.
I will never forget that day, because I was the "color person" commenting on
Humes testimony for TV station WETA, in Washington, which was being
broadcast nationally by PBS. Humes appearance is discussed in detail in BEST
EVIDENCE. He balked at admitting to a four inch error: "Well, I have a little
trouble with that - 10 cm. is a significant - 4 inches." Then he added: "I go back
to the fact that there was only one (entry), period."
Incredibly, this matter of the four inch discrepancy between two official
representations of the Bethesda findings - the Bethesda autopsy report and the
photo/X-Ray record of that same autopsy - is still another matter not addressed
in Dr. Lundberg's article.
Is this honest science?
Immediately after Humes testimony, I went from the WETA booth down to the
audience and sat beside Commander Humes. On national television, Humes
had just endured the Committee's strenuous efforts to get him to admit publicly
to a major error at the autopsy. His hands were trembling. Sympathetic to
Humes' position, I asked: "Dr. Humes, why don't you have a lawyer?" "I don't
need a lawyer" he replied. "I have nothing to hide."
It has always been my position that Humes, by and large, told the truth as he saw
it - when he was under oath. Just minutes earlier, Humes testified: "We made
certain physical observations and measurements of these wounds. I state now
those measurements we recorded then were accurate to the best of our ability to
discern what we had before our eyes."
Another point regarding the large wound in the head: Dr. Humes had testified to
the Warren Commission that until well after midnight, he could find no evidence
of exit anywhere along the entire periphery of the hole. Then, after midnight,
when bone fragments were delivered to the autopsy room, he was presented
with one which did contain evidence of exit. Reporting on this event, the two FBI
agents stated that "Dr. Humes was instructed that this had been removed from
the President's skull."
Just consider what this may mean: the President's body arrived at the morgue
with a huge hole which contained no evidence of exit. At the outset, Dr. Humes
made a statement there had been "surgery of the head area", and Dr. Boswell
drew a diagram that said "10 x 17 (cm.) missing". The two doctors, according to
the evidence, were confused. True, they knew the President had died of a
gunshot wound, but they could not sensibly relate the wounds to one another.
Indeed, according to the FBI report, the doctors were "at a loss to explain why
they could find no bullets." Then after midnight, bone fragments were brought
to the room, some reconstruction and theorizing began, and, with regard to the
head wound at least, the doctors arrived at a conclusion. Finally, at some point in
time, photographs and X-rays were created that depicted two separate and
distinct head wounds - even though the autopsy doctors' own accounts clearly
state such separate wounds did not exist at the outset of autopsy.
Is Dr. Lundberg aware of this case against the so-called irrefutable "facts"?
THE WORD "PRESUMABLY"
In the autopsy report drafted on November 24,1963, the word "presumably" is
used quite liberally. The autopsy report refers to the puncture on the back of the
neck as a wound "presumably" of entry. The tracheotomy wound at the front
of the throat - the exit point for the back-to-front neck trajectory - is referred to
as "presumably of exit". With regard to the head wounds: Dr. Finck's own
autopsy notes initially characterized the rear head wound as "possibly of
entrance," and the autopsy report refers to the evidence of exit on the late
arriving bone fragment as specifying a wound "presumably of exit".
Why this uncertainty? Why all these "presumably's"? And why, when Dr.
Humes called Dr. Perry on Saturday morning, did Humes ask Perry (according
to his sworn Warren Commission testimony) whether he (Perry) "had made any
wounds in the back"?
CONCLUSION
The Bethesda autopsy is perhaps the most important evidence in this case. It is
tantamount to a diagram of the shooting; it determines the basic architecture of
the case. If that autopsy is valid, then it is highly likely that Oswald assassinated
the President; if it is in error, then it is conceivable there was a "second shooter"
in the Kennedy assassination - possibly of no political significance. If the
autopsy was deliberately falsified, then there is major fraud in the evidence - and
in that instance, the case against Oswald is quite likely invalid, and, far more
important, there is probably a conspiracy in this case that is politically significant.
The matters I have raised in this letter deal with body alteration and autopsy
forgery; they ought to be investigated by a Special Prosecutor. The three autopsy
doctors should be questioned under oath. After all, it's not a felony to make
misstatements of fact to a television journalist; or to attempt to put matters to
rest, once and for all, with a well meaning editor of JAMA. But if these matters
are going to be discussed at length in a public forum such as MacNeil-Lehrer,
then both sides should be presented.
If I can be of any help in this matter, please contact me.
Sincerely,
David S. Lifton
Author, BEST EVIDENCE
DIS/MISINFORMATION RUNS RAMPANT - by Robert J. Groden
The Warren Commission ignored it, The Rockefeller Commission and the
House Select Committee on Assassinations misused it, but the Abraham Zapruder film remains, along with the Orville Nix's movie, the only true complete record of the assassination and the single most important piece of evidence proving the conspiracy to murder John Kennedy.
In 1975, I released the Zapruder film to the nation on ABC-TV's Good-night America thanks to the courage and determination of Geraldo Rivera and Dick Gregory who made the showing possible.
Some researchers try to convince his readers that the piece of skull, attached to the scalp and hanging in front of President Kennedy's right ear, as seen in the Zapruder film, has been retouched or painted into the film along with other portions of the President's head. This
conclusion is simply a groundless fantasy. The original Zapruder film still exists. I have examined the original several times through the years. Except for 2 splices, there has been no tampering with the film, certainly no retouching.
This analysis of the autopsy photographs and x-rays is grossly inaccurate. He makes several accusations including the charge that the color autopsy pictures have been hand colored or "colorized", that have no basis in fact.
This analysis was also presented at the ASK conference in Dallas in October of 1992, by another. of these "researchers", in a workshop on the Zapruder film stated error after error for
over an hour. He had a lot to say, little of which was accurate. Among his errors, he referred to the process of liquid gating film as "watergating".
It was grossly unfair to subject the audience to such mis-information.
For those who have charged me with profit as a motive for spending the
last twenty eight years researching the Kennedy assassination, I can proudly
state that I gave the film to Geraldo and to the American people for free. I refused to accept money for the film. After all, it belonged to everyone.
I am very proud of my work in the books JFK: The Case For Conspiracy with F. Peter Model and the original High Treason (1). But I must emphatically state for the record, that I have absolutely nothing to do with a tome entitled, High Treason 2.
In their book "Mortal Error", Bonar Menninger and Howard Donahue claim that Secret Service Agent George Hickey in the Cadillac behind the President, slipped and accidentally shot and killed the President with an AR-15 automatic rifle.
Menninger and Donahue apparently didn't bother to research the films that were shot at the time of the assassination that show the follow-up car during the shooting, including the head shot sequence. One such film was taken by a bystander, Charles Bronson (no, not the
actor). The Bronson film shows that neither Agent Hickey nor anyone else fired any shots from the follow-up car!
Another bizarre and groundless theory is being promoted by Milton "Bill" Cooper. Cooper is on a crusade to convince the world that the Secret Service driver, Bill Greer, turned around in the front seat and shot the President with "nickel plated electronic automatic
pistol".
Bill Greer appears very clearly in the Zapruder film. At the moment of the head shot, he is indeed looking directly at the President, but both of his hands are on the steering wheel. A
shape which Cooper calls "a nickel plated automatic" is in reality the reflection of sunlight off the forehead and slicked down hair of Roy Kellerman, the Secret Service guard sitting in the front seat next to Greer.
As "proof" of his accusations against Greer, Cooper shows a degraded copy of the Zapruder film which is out of focus, has had the color removed, and is overly contrasty, eliminating the gray tones. This increases the density separation of the reflection and makes it appear as a gun. The reflection is definitely not a gun!
There is a genuine need for responsibility in the investigation of the murder of the President. Our strongest ally has been the photographic record. The either misguided or intentional misuse of the films and photographs, is an injustice against every legitimate researcher and all concerned Americans who search for the truth.
In May of 1992, The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published an article by Dr. George Lundberg supporting the findings of the military autopsy performed on President Kennedy. In the article Lundberg ignores the disparity of the Dallas and Bethesda medical witness and backs the three autopsists who botched the autopsy in the first place.
Lundberg totally backs Dr. Humes' statements (originally sworn to before the Warren Commission and repeated in the JAMA article), that there was an entrance wound in the rear of the President's head just above the hairline.
Lundberg chooses to ignore the fact that Humes also swore under oath before the House Select Committee on Assassinations that the same wound was actually four inches higher, in the cowlick area.
At least one version, if not both, cannot be true! Humes has sworn under oath to two different versions of the same head wound.
Both versions are strongly challenged by more than twenty witnesses to the wounds on President Kennedy's head, back and neck.
With the old party line continuously being spewed forth by the likes of George Lundberg, John Lattimer, Dan Rather, David Belin, Arlen Specter, and Gerald Ford, the research community deserves better than it has gotten lately from those claiming to be legitimate
researchers.
In 1964, United Press International released a film of the assassination taken by Orville Nix, Sr. The film had never been formally analyzed.
In 1977, the film was lent to the House Select Committee on Assassinations. The Committee did nothing with it, refused my request to let me work on it for them, and returned the film to U.P.I.
UPI was sold to World Television News. Somewhere along the line, the Nix film was "lost". A few years ago, ownership of the Nix film reverted to the Nix family, but the irreplaceable
original has not yet resurfaced.
The best existing copies are optically enhanced copies that I was able to make in 1973, six years before it was sent to the Assassinations committee. The Nix film camera original is of vital importance to the investigation. It must be found.
Within the next few months, I will be releasing the first in a projected series of video tapes. The working title is "The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy: You Are There." The tape will contain the best available copies of all of the films and photographs of the assassination including the Zapruder and Nix optical enhancements and will set the
record straight on the subject of the films and photographic evidence.
I've been working on this tape for the last 24 years. It was due for release last November 22nd, but production delays have held up it's release.
Those who have already ordered the tape will be the first to receive their copies. I deeply apologize for the delay, and hope you will agree that the new photographic elements were well worth the wait.
The tape will run approximately an hour and a half, and will be available for $27.95 including postage and handling by check or money order from: New Frontier Productions, P.O. Box 2164, Boothwyn, PA 19061
Letter To The Editor:
Journal of the American Medical Association
Dan M. Baldwin
Dear Mr. Lundberg,
I am writing to take strong exception to your May 27 story about Dr. James Joseph Humes and Dr. J. Thornton Boswell and their execution of the autopsy performed on President John F. Kennedy. I would like to note and document four significant errors in the article.
1. Humes was in charge. He was not.
2. Humes and Boswell were competent to perform an autopsy. They were not.
3. The autopsy was complete. It was not.
4. There is no cover-up involved with the medical evidence. Your article proves otherwise.
I want also to note that from the massive publicity generated a week prior to the article's release, I expected a scientific article about the autopsy. Unfortunately the article is merely a story about an interview. In sifting through numerous past issues of The Journal of the American Medical Association I note that most articles are illustrated with charts and graphs, medical illustrations, X-rays, etc. The autopsy story, however was illustrated with photos of: Humes, Boswell and Finck posing in 1963; Humes and Boswell sitting in chairs; Humes in a chair, Boswell in a chair, Humes, Lundberg and Boswell standing in a garden. I really expected more than a puff piece.
That personal note aside, let's examine the claims in your story versus the evidence.
WAS HUMES IN CHARGE?
Humes states in the article that "Nobody made any decision in the morgue except ME." Not everyone remembers it that way. It is most unfortunate that Col. Pierre Finck, who was called in as a consultant during the autopsy, refused to return to the United States and participate in the story. However, we 
