CHAPTER IV
THE AUTOPSY
"...some causes appear obvious before the autopsy e.g. gunshot wounds and stab wounds, but the autopsy must confirm that they...caused the death along with any other contributing factors identified..."
Dr. John E. Smialek, Chief Medical Examiner, State of Maryland (1995-2001)
Through The Looking-Glass
Our first question here is, "What is a medico-legal autopsy and how does it differ from a standard autopsy?"
A medico-legal autopsy is performed by a forensic pathologist. It differs from a standard autopsy in that it usually contains a greater documentation of injuries and it collects evidence, found on or in the body of the deceased. The first medico-legal autopsies were performed in London, in an effort to assist Scotland Yard in its attempts to capture Jack the Ripper. Thus, the science of forensic medicine was born.
Under Texas Law, the only law broken on November 22, 1963, a medico-legal autopsy must have taken place, in the jurisdiction (county) where the crime was committed, before any indictment for murder could have been filed. The moment that the body of JFK left Dallas County, no valid indictment against anyone, could have ever been filed. This fact would have raised eyebrows throughout Texas, or any other state, had the deceased been nameless, much less the President of the United States. To add insult to this, the "autopsy" that was performed would best be called a pathological examination of a cadaver, rather than a "medico-legal" autopsy.
The three military doctors assigned by the government to perform the autopsy, Drs James J. Humes and Thomas Boswell of the US Navy and Dr. Pierre Finck of the US Army, were woefully inexperienced in performing autopsies on gunshot victims. Only one of the doctors was actually a forensic pathologist and he was not the lead prosector, nor was he present from the start of the procedure.
The autopsy report came under fire almost immediately because its findings did not agree at all with the accounts of both the Dealey Plaza witnesses and the statements of the Parkland Hospital emergency room personnel who had treated JFK. Many news broadcasts and interviews with these witnesses aired over the first days after the assassination. The published statements from both of these groups asserted their beliefs that at least one hit had come from the front. Immediate efforts by the Secret Service to "encourage" the Parkland doctors to "revise" their statements were only partially successful. As time passed, some of those observations did indeed change. Many however, as evidenced by the 1990's depositions of these doctors by the ARRB, have remained the same.
Later on, through mainly the efforts of researcher David Lifton, serious questions were also raised and never adequately answered in regards to the autopsy findings and the possibility that the wounds had been altered sometime between Parkland Hospital and when the body reached Bethesda Naval Hospital.
During the Shaw trial, district attorney Garrison subpoenaed Col. Pierre Finck, the only forensic pathologist at the autopsy, and elicited sworn testimony from him that none of the pathologists performing the autopsy were actually in charge of the procedure. Dr. Finck testified that a large number of high-ranking military officers and unidentified civilians were present at the procedure and gave orders as to how the autopsy was to be performed. He also testified that the autopsy report's placement of the wounds was accurate.
(State of Louisiana v. Clay Shaw; 2/24 pg 192; 2/25 pg 23)
The HSCA review of the autopsy photographs and X-rays in 1977 however, found them to be in direct and significant conflict with the wound placements and descriptions in the autopsy report. Their findings were so blatantly different from the autopsy report that the panel had to have the X-rays they reviewed compared to earlier X-rays of the President by an outside source to authenticate them. Both sets of X-rays were concluded to match.
I have personally spoken to a number of Baltimore County Circuit Court Judges, with a combined 128 years on the bench or in private practice. They have presided over or been involved in literally hundreds of murder cases, each one of which included an autopsy report. Not one of them could so much as ever recall even hearing of a case anywhere or anytime where the autopsy photographs and X-rays were in significant conflict with the autopsy report itself. They also could not imagine any reason for such a conflict to exist. All stated that if they were presented with a case that had these "problems", they would have, immediately upon a defendant's request, had the body exhumed and re-autopsied. However, each remained quite adamant that such an event could not happen.
Here we see part of the basis on which a non-conspiracy scenario stood with the legal professionals on both the Warren Commission and the HSCA...they simply cannot, did not and will not believe that anything untoward could have taken place. They looked for, and accepted, only innocuous answers because it was unbelievable to them to think that any discrepancies could be anything else!
However, to me, clearly something very strange went on at Bethesda that night. The fact that all the military personnel involved were immediately required to sign an oath of silence, under penalty of courts-martial, cannot but help to make one feel even more uncomfortable with what went on there. As you will see, when we add the other unusual or contradictory factors we will explore, we begin to realize that perhaps all was not as it was originally reported. A sinister pattern appears to emerge.
Certain recent revisionists, still attempting to defend the WC conclusions and explain away the poor autopsy, have attempted to place the blame on the Kennedy family by saying that THEY, through RFK, would not allow a forensic autopsy to take place.
I'm sure that the Kennedy's did not choose the pathologists who performed the autopsy, one of whom was a forensic pathologist so, while they may have tried to keep the Addison's disease from the public and may have somewhat limited the autopsy, that is not a reasonable excuse for such a botched report...a report which the WC accepted at face value, without anyone other than Warren himself seeing any of the photographs and/or X-rays.
WHAT THE WARREN COMMISSION CONCLUDED
The autopsy papers (CE 391) filed by the 3 military pathologists assigned to the case were accepted at face value by the Commission, without any review of the autopsy photographs or X-rays, despite the admissions of irregular handling of those papers by the lead prosector, US Navy Commander, Dr James J. Humes.
In the supplemental autopsy report (A63-272), written sometime after the autopsy, the pathologists concluded:
The President was hit with 2 bullets. His death was caused by a single gunshot wound to the head. This wound was caused by a missile entering the back of Kennedy's head at about the hairline, to the right of and just below the external occipital protuberance (the "bump" on the back of the head). This missile shattered the skull and deflected upward and out of the head. Tiny fragments of the missile lacerated the brain from back to front. These fragments, described as "dust particles", so damaged the brain that Humes stated he was unable to accurately describe the wounds.
The job of a forensic pathologist is to accurately describe such wounds. The other bullet entered the President's neck and exited his throat. This wound was not considered to have been fatal, in and of itself. Based on the other evidence already reviewed, this wound was caused by CE 399, the magic bullet.
According to the autopsy report, no other wounds were found, and all the wounds were considered to be consistent with a gunman firing from above and behind the President. No ballistically identifiable bullet fragments were recovered. However a number of very tiny fragments, the largest being the size of a pencil point, were found in the brain. Several (2) of these were recovered and turned over to the FBI. There have since been statements by high ranking Naval personnel present at the procedure that at least one major fragment was recovered, and documents show the receipt for a "missile" recovered and given to the Secret Service that night. This fragment has never materialized nor been otherwise accounted for.
There have also been statements by others that a number (unknown or variable depending on the witness) of other fragments were recovered and turned over to "authorities". They too, never materialized and the statements are not supported by any known documentation.
WHAT THE HSCA REVIEW FOUND
The major discrepancies between the WCR and the HSCA findings were in this area. The differences in the findings will be noted for each wound reviewed. The problem of which was correct existed because the WC findings were based on the autopsy report filed by the 3 military pathologists who actually saw the body and performed the autopsy. Neither the pathologists nor the WC investigators saw the autopsy photographs and only the pathologists allegedly saw any X-rays. The HSCA findings, in contrast, were based on a review, by a distinguished panel of 5 forensic pathologists and 4 radiologists, of the autopsy X-rays and photographs only. They did not view the body. Their findings were so out of line with the actual autopsy report as to the locations of all the wounds to Kennedy that many people believed that the panel members were looking at forgeries. Several other experts were asked to verify the authenticity of the X-rays. The HSCA panel of experts concluded finally, that the original prosectors had made significant errors in their placement of the wounds to Kennedy. They examined those doctors in both closed and open sessions and concluded that the autopsy pathologist's HSCA testimony showed them finally admitting to these errors. The HSCA final conclusion found that, in spite of all these errors, all the wounds were still consistent with only one gunman, firing from above and behind the President. However, one member of the medical panel, Dr Cyril Wecht, a past president of the American Association of Forensic Pathologists, testified that he was not in agreement with certain parts of the panel’s findings, in particular its agreement with the Single Bullet Theory.
Here is the strongest basis for a conspiracy...and also the necessary "out" for government investigators. Under normal circumstances at any trial, the autopsy photographs and X-rays would be considered the "best evidence" in resolving any discrepancies between the testimonies of eyewitnesses. From the legal side, best evidence is defined, in layman's terms, as evidence that is the most reliable to what it is offered to prove. Therefore, to HSCA investigators, what the autopsy photographs and X-rays showed, is what was...plain and simple. Anything else, testimony of witnesses, autopsy reports etc. that did not agree with the photographs and X-rays was wrong.
Once the photographs and X-rays were validated, the HSCA accepted them alone as the deciding evidence as to what JFK's body looked like, regardless of how illogical all the evidence made them seem.
They used this to keep testimony by a number of Bethesda witnesses hidden until they were forced into the open by the ARRB. While this is not technically illegal in the "investigative" framework of the HSCA, it would have been illegal in a criminal trial, where the prosecutors are required to divulge to the defense, anything exculpatory. Exculpatory evidence is defined, in layman's terms, as "evidence which tends to show the innocence of a defendant."
Certainly evidence of a shot from the front would be exculpatory to the Lone Gunman conclusion. Once again we see investigators operating with blinders on, as if they could not, or would not, believe what they saw in front of them...conflicting evidence which, logically, could not be conflicting.
WHAT THE EVIDENCE AND TESTIMONY ACTUALLY SHOWED
I) The neck wound- originally the bullet which caused it was found to have not traveled through JFK's body, but this was subsequently changed after Dr. Humes talked to the Dallas (Parkland Hospital) doctors, specifically, according to Humes, Dr Malcolm Perry, on Saturday, November 23, 1963, and found that they had performed a tracheotomy over a small front throat wound. The original statements of the Dallas doctors voiced the overwhelming opinion that they considered the throat wound to be one of entrance and no more than 5mm in diameter, thus indicating an additional shooter to the front.
The autopsy instead concluded that it was the exit wound of the 6.5mm bullet (CE 399) that entered the back of the neck, thus maintaining the "single gunman" theory. No effort was made to explain the size differences.
One of the HSCA forensic pathologists, the well-known and respected Dr. Michael Baden, after reviewing the X-rays, noted that the non-fatal bullet appeared to have fractured the first thoracic vertebra in the neck.
No such injury was described in the original autopsy and this fracture was used by the HSCA to explain the "change of trajectory" in the bullet. They did not however, offer any explanation as to how CE 399 could have remained pristine after this additional bone impact, and deflection.
a) The location of the neck wound was originally placed too low, actually in the back, to have exited the throat. This location was noted on the autopsy face sheet, a body diagram used by pathologists, during an autopsy, to notate the approximate positions of wounds and scars. This face sheet was signed as "verified" by Dr. George Burkley, the White House physician.
b) The FBI report, filed by 2 agents assigned to the proceeding, stated that the wound was probed and was only as deep as the tip of a finger and that the doctors found no outlet for the bullet.
(FBI Report# 89-30-31)
c) The Navy Death Certificate, again signed by Dr. Burkley, echoed the original placement of the wound (noted as: "...at about the level of the third thoracic vertebra" T-3), in the back.
d) The bullet holes in JFK's jacket and shirt were consistent with the lower back wound depicted on the face sheet and described in Death Certificate.
e) Dr. Finck testified at the Shaw trial that his request to see the President's clothes, that night, was denied by non-medical military officers present who out-ranked him. He deemed this an uncommon occurrence.
Dr Humes did not see the President's clothes either, nor did he request to see them. He stated, in his ARRB deposition of February 13, 1996, when asked if he had requested the clothes:
No, I didn't. I should have, probably, but I didn't.
(Humes ARRB deposition, pg 37)
f) The final placement of the wound, by diagram, was in the neck, where it had to be, for the "front exit" to work.
However, the placement, noted by Dr. Humes in the autopsy report, was described as:
"14cm down from the right mastoid process."
(A63-272)
This description is highly unusual for the autopsy placement of a neck wound since the mastoid process, the bump found behind the ear, is a non-fixed point for any wound other than a head wound. Normal autopsy language is to state neck or back wound locations by measuring from distinct vertebra of the spinal column. If the head is pulled all the way back, the mastoid process is almost even with the top of the shoulder, and measuring 14cm down from there is about where the bullet holes are in the shirt and jacket and where the Death Certificate, autopsy face sheet, and several witnesses, including Secret Service Agent Clint Hill, famous for his run and leap on to the back of the limousine, placed the wound. While Humes was not a forensic pathologist, he did have ample experience performing autopsies. Why he placed the wound in this fashion is unknown.
g) The final placement, by the autopsy doctors, of this wound is also disputed by pictures of the FBI re-creations of the shooting. They clearly portray a back wound, which is in agreement with all other physical evidence and most of the testimony regarding this wound. Yet the drawings shown to the WC (CE 385, 386, 388) placed the wound in the neck, the only position where a front exit was possible. This was necessary, originally, to explain the front throat wound. It became even more important later, when the SBT was needed and created. While both the diagrams and re-creation photographs were available to the WC and are included in the 26 volumes, it appears that no one there questioned the discrepancy.
h) The FBI Summary Report, used to summarize the FBI's findings before January 1964, showed the following statement on December 9, 1963, in regards to the autopsy findings:
"Medical examination of the President's body revealed that one of the bullets had entered just below his shoulder to the right of the spinal column at an angle of 45 to 60 degrees downward, that there was NO point of exit, and that the bullet was NOT in the body."
(Commission Document 1 pg. 18)
i) On January 13, 1964, an FBI Supplemental Report stated, in part:
"Medical examination of the President's body had revealed that the bullet which entered his BACK had penetrated to a distance of less than a finger length."
(Commission Document 107 pg. 2)
It needs to be noted here that the date of this report is the same date as the Rankin memo to the WC staff stating that due to the ballistics and autopsy findings, the investigation would focus on LHO only.
j) Amazingly enough, the HSCA in 1977-78, had their panel review the X-rays and photographs allegedly taken at the autopsy. They found that the "neck/back" wound was 2" lower in the X-rays than described by Dr. Humes et. al., in the previously accepted and staunchly defended WC autopsy report, and that the X-rays showed that the President's 1st thoracic vertebra (T-1) was fractured, a wound not noted anywhere in the autopsy.
Incidentally, the Navy Death Certificate, discussed in (c) above, had this wound at T-3.
Yet, despite the split decision of the pathologists on the panel (3-2) as to the relative positions of the bullet wounds, the HSCA still concluded that the entrance wound was above the front throat wound. Thus, though a 3rd location for this entrance wound was now "created", the conclusion still remained exactly the same!
k) Autopsy photographs of the interior of JFK's chest, which might have shown the bullet's path or lack of same, have never been seen and are supposedly non-existent. No attempt to find them, or account for them has ever been undertaken, despite the testimony of Dr. Humes who stated:
" I distinctly recall going to great lengths to try and get the interior upper portion of the thorax illuminated. What happened to the film, I don't know."
(7 HSCA 12)
It should be noted here that several people have since stated that they saw a number of photographs and X-rays burned at Bethesda by a high-ranking Secret Service official in December 1963. Since this testimony was not given under oath nor backed by any physical evidence, the names of the individuals involved are purposely left out and you should take this as an uncorroborated statement, nothing else.
However, it now appears, based on documents released by the ARRB, that a number of those would participated in the early handling of the X-rays and photographs have given sworn statements that at least some of the photographs and/or X-rays they saw and/or handled, are missing from the collection housed at the National Archives. Included amongst the depositions is the statement of Navy technician Floyd Reibe, who was being trained in the proper methods of autopsy photography while stationed at Bethesda, and assisted in the actions that night. Reibe stated that he couldn’t explain, nor account for, the published autopsy photos or the 5 rolls of 35mm film he exposed that night that are receipted for, but not found in the National Archives inventory. So, Reibe's testimony appears to show that a number of the photographs shown are not from Kennedy's autopsy, while a great number of shots he took at the autopsy are indeed missing. Since the National Archives has a receipt for them, it cannot be stated that Reibe is simply "incorrect".
Others in this group of depositions/statements will be discussed later in this chapter.
What we see therefore is that we have mutually corroborating statements that a number of photographs are missing without adequate, and in most cases any, explanation. Here again, we have a controversial area that is further obfuscated by mysteriously missing evidence...of such combinations are conspiracy theories born.
l) None of the assorted methods to accurately place the location of the non-fatal wound are in agreement. The autopsy report, death certificate, photographs and X-rays all place the wound in different spots. However, more of the documentation, physical evidence and eyewitness testimony seem to place the wound between and slightly below the center of the shoulder blades than place it elsewhere. If the wound was between the shoulder blades, it could not have exited from the throat on a downward trajectory.
m) Documents declassified by the ARRB show that WC member Gerald R. Ford was responsible for changing the wording of the final WCR conclusion about this bullet. Originally the report was to place this wound "in the back"; Ford had it changed to read "...the base of the neck...” He states that this change was only made to clarify the location.
n) The HSCA testimony of the Navy photographers (John T Stringer and his assistant, Floyd Reibe) who took the autopsy photographs included the fact that at least one roll of film was immediately ruined, purposely, by some of those present at the autopsy because it showed who was in the room. Why that was necessary is still unknown.
It is not known what else was on that roll.
o) Dr. Humes testified that he had destroyed "certain preliminary draft notes" and "burned the original autopsy report" on November 24, 1963, the day LHO was shot and killed. Such an action is an obstruction of justice since the investigation was still on going, despite Oswald's death.
It is also highly convenient.
(2 WCH 373)
There was even more confusion caused by the head wounds.
II) The head wounds- Originally, the entrance wound was found to be to the right of and slightly below the external occipital protuberance, with the exit wound directly above it and described as:
"a large irregular wound in the scalp and skull, on the right side, chiefly parietal but extending somewhat into the temporal and occipital areas."
(A63-272)
Layman's description- the right side of the head, extending towards the top, forward towards the right ear and into the rear of the head. The wound was estimated to be a maximum of 13cm (about 5") in size.
a) CE 386 - a Navy drawing, supervised by Humes, depicting what the autopsy report described: a small wound of entry below a large wound, presumably of exit. The large wound is clearly depicted to begin in the back of the head and the small wound is near the hairline, also in the back of the head. In addition to this, Dr. Humes' testimony before the Warren Commission about the trajectory of the bullet that caused this damage is both revealing and highly confusing:
"Scientifically sir, it is impossible for it to have been fired from other than behind, or to have exited from other than behind."
(2 WCH 360)
If this conclusion is to be believed, then the bullet entered the skull and made a u-turn. Yet, no one from the Warren Commission questioned this incredible statement. The drawing also depicts the wound in a different condition than it actually appeared on arrival at Bethesda. Dr. J. Thornton Boswell testified before the HSCA:
"...there was a hole there only ½ of which was present in the bone that was intact. This small piece fit in there."
(7 HSCA 246)
Boswell is testifying that the rear "entrance wound," the small hole, was only established after certain fragments arrived at Bethesda, which he later testified took place after midnight. They were reinserted into the skull and only then did the "entrance" wound appear. The drawing is therefore not representative of the actual appearance of Kennedy's head on the body's arrival at Bethesda and is very misleading as to the size and location of the wound itself. No known accounting of where these "fragments" came from has ever been undertaken.
b) While it is typical for wounds of exit to be far larger than wounds of entrance, the autopsy doctors believed that the entrance wound and exit wound were in the same general area of the skull and could only be differentiated by the location of the type of "beveling" of the skull usually associated with each type of wound. The edges of entrance wounds usually show inward beveling while exit wounds show the outward type.
c) A military review of the autopsy (January 20, 1967) by Drs. Humes, Boswell and Finck stated that the large, rear wound showed:
"...the margins of an exit wound and the beveling characteristic of an exit wound."
The autopsy doctors at this time supposedly saw, for the first time, a number of autopsy X-rays...they did not see the photographs.
d) A piece of human skull was found on Saturday November 23, 1963, in the grassy triangle area of Dealey Plaza, between Main and Elm Streets. This physical evidence, known as the "Harper Fragment", was shown to several pathologists in Dallas, including Dr. A. B. Cairns, Chief Pathologist at Methodist Hospital. Those in Dallas, concurred that the fragment was occipital in nature. The occipital area of the skull is in the back of the head. Those on the WC and HSCA would not confirm that it came from that location. They remained unsure of its nature. This fragment was found to the left of Elm St., meaning that it traveled from right to left after leaving the skull.
e) The testimony of all the Parkland Hospital personnel who treated or watched the treatment of Kennedy was consistent in regards to the location of the largest head wound. Each witness placed that wound at the right rear, or occipital area of the head.
(6 WCH 6; 6 WCH 54; 3 WCH 361; 17 WCH 6; 6 WCH 65; 6 WCH 136; 21 WCH 216)
In fact, in his bestseller High Treason, researcher Livingstone displays 1979 correspondence with Dr. Paul Peters, one of the Parkland Hospital doctors who spent significant time with Kennedy, in which Livingstone asked Peters whether the official picture of the back of Kennedy's head or the drawing used in Lifton's book best showed what he saw. He chose Lifton's drawing...the large exit wound in the back of the head.
f) The WC testimony of Secret Service Agent Clint Hill, who spent the entire ride to Parkland Memorial Hospital spread-eagled across the trunk of the limousine and who later helped put JFK onto a stretcher also placed the largest wound in the back of the head.
(18 WCH 742; 2 WCH 141)
g) HSCA photographic experts, using the X-rays and photographs only, stated that the head wounds were:
"...entry-1.8cm to the right of the midplane of his skull...exited at the right coronal suture at a point 11cm forward of the entry wound and 5.5cm to the right of the midplane..."
This description of the exit wound places it above and in front of the right ear. These descriptions of the wounds also appear to describe two clearly distinct wounds.
One autopsy photo shows a clean round entrance wound in the cowlick area, about 4" from where it was described in the autopsy. This same picture shows no damage to the back of the head.
h) No clear, defined picture of the exit wound is available other than Autopsy Photo #7 which will be discussed in detail later. In fact, there are NO photographs of the skull which show it containing the brain, meaning that there are no photographs depicting the skull before the autopsy allegedly began.
In addition, I have reviewed those photographs that are in the public domain with Mr. Jim Stamos, who for 30+ years has been an illustrator and photographer in the biology department at the University of Buffalo and who comes from a family of photographers. Mr. Stamos has graciously agreed to allow me to use his comments and observations on this website.
Jim told me that he was quite dismayed at the quality of the autopsy photographs, having taken many, many photographs using similar techniques and equipment as is used in autopsy photography as a normal part of his varied job functions over the past 29 years. The objectives of his photography are the same as that from any autopsy..."to provide specific and concise visual information." He stated that he, and autopsy photographers that he has known, would have been, "...ashamed to have produced results such as I have seen. However, if the basic intention was to obfuscate then they succeeded."
Interestingly enough, the main photographer at the autopsy, John T. Stringer, who was 45 at the time, later trained Earl McDonald, now ironically, an employee at the National Archives, on autopsy photography. Stringer was also called "...one of the best medical photographers in the world..." in a 1992 article to the Journal of the American Medical Association, by Dr. Humes. Certainly the man in charge of photography knew the correct way to take the autopsy pictures. It is also standard procedure for the photographer at an autopsy to develop, and in the case of a medico-legal autopsy, authenticate the photographs as part of the legal requirements.
Yet, Stringer was not allowed to develop the films taken by his assistant, Reibe, or himself...in fact they weren't even developed at Bethesda Naval Hospital! Instead, they were taken, by the Secret Service, to the barbed wire enclosed Navy Lab at the Anacostia Naval Station for development.
That completely out-of-the-normal step seriously damaged their legal standing as evidence in any trial, since the individuals who took them could no longer categorically vouch for the films, much less the developed photographs...and remember, when this was allegedly done, Oswald was alive and the probability of a trial, and the need for legally admissible evidence to convict him, should have been paramount...obviously it wasn't.
Stringer's own recollections of the wounds themselves have oddly flip-flopped a number of times:
1) he was interviewed on tape, by David Lifton in 1972. That tape has him referring to the large wound as being in the occipital area of the head, in the back of the head. This is the same description related by his assistant, Floyd Reibe, and autopsy technician Paul O'Connor;
2) Stringer related this same recollection when contacted and interviewed by phone by current ABC Prime Time Live associate producer Jacqueline Hall-Kallas in preparation for the 1988 KRON-TV documentary.
3) However, when Hall-Kallas dispatched a crew to Florida to videotape Stringer for that documentary, he had changed his story to be in agreement with the autopsy photographs.
Stringer now claims to have had that opinion all along, and when confronted with a copy of his taped interview with Lifton by Vero Beach, Florida Press Journal newspaper reporter Craig Colgan in 1993, Stringer, while admitting that it was his voice on the tape, said:
"I'm very surprised. I have no explanation for this. It's just wrong."
(Press Journal November 14, 1993)
Ironically again, National Archives employee McDonald told the ARRB in an interview on March 21, 1996 that he remembers that Stringer had an "...almost photographic memory."
McDonald also gave his observations of the autopsy photographs and what he considered to be discrepancies between what is on record and what he would have expected to see if he had taken them, based on Stringer's training:
(ARRB--March 21, 1996 Meeting Report by Douglas Horne)
When asked to grade the collection* , he termed it poor, just as Jim Stamos has done.
(*note: McDonald viewed the entire collection, including those that are not in the public domain as yet)
Yet, in an article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in March, 1993 , pro-WC researcher and urologist, Dr. John K. Lattimer, whose "tests" of the viability of a rearward head snap with a shot from behind, are so grossly inaccurate and misleading, was at it again.
In the article Lattimer, who never appears to lack in hyperbole, writes:
"The photographs by chief navy photographer John T. Stringer also are of the highest quality."
(JAMA Vol 269, No 12, page 1544)
Did he see the same photographs that McDonald and Stamos commented on?
How many autopsy photographs would you think a urologist would have ever viewed?
Who appears more qualified to comment?
(Many thanks to fellow researcher and friend Milicent Cranor, who is an absolute warehouse-like source of information on the medical evidence, for furnishing me with a copy of Lattimer's article and the ARRB interview of McDonald).
In line with the questions about the validity of the autopsy photographs is the ARRB deposition of former Navy enlisted person Saundra K Spencer in which she states that she and 2 other Navy enlisted personnel developed the color shots of the autopsy. This deposition can be said to be another "smoking gun" if only for the following:
Q: By the way, approximately when did you leave the NPC for the first time?
A: Let's see. It was within 2 or 3 months after the assassination.
Q: Did you ever see any other photographic materials related to the autopsy in addition to what you have already described?
A: Just, you know, when they came out with some books and stuff later that showed autopsy pictures and stuff, and I assumed they were done in---you know, down in Dallas or something because they were not the ones that I had worked on. (my emphasis)
(Spencer ARRB deposition June 5, 1997, page 33)
i) The lateral and anterior/posterior X-rays (F-56, F-53), appear to show the loss of all skull bone in the right, front area of the head, including a great deal of the forehead around the right eye. This implied an exit wound in the forehead or temporal area.
J) Autopsy Photo #3- Right frontal- showed no apparent damage to the forehead or around the eye, nor did it show any indentation that might be due to bone missing behind the skin. This picture is clearly in conflict with the autopsy X-rays F-53 and F-56.
Since the President's body had laid on its back for over six hours, had any skull bone been missing in the forehead area, logic would dictate that the skin would have drooped into the gap and stayed that way as rigor-mortis set in. This indentation should have been visible in this photograph, IF the X-rays were correct.
k) The testimony of Dr. Humes and Dr. Boswell before the HSCA in closed session had them maintaining their belief on where the fatal entrance wound was: near the external occipital protuberance.
(7 HSCA 246-256)
l) During his HSCA closed session testimony, Dr. Humes flatly refused to budge on his placement of the fatal entrance wound, actually marking on a plaster skull where he saw the wound and then initialing the skull. Those initials were consistent with his other testimony.
(7 HSCA 261)
m) The testimony of Dr. Humes before the open session of the HSCA when asked about the wound discrepancies was:
"Yes, I do think that I have a different opinion...I go back further to the original autopsy report which we rendered in the absence of any photos, of course. 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 (my emphasis)."
(1 HSCA 324-327)
Humes later testified, when asked about the 4" error in his placement of the head entrance wound:
"Well, I have a little trouble with that (placement), 10cm is significant...4". I go back to the fact that there was only one, period."
(1 HSCA 329)
Is this the testimony of someone admitting to an error or is it someone hinting at the truth?
n) Autopsy Photo #7- described by the HSCA as "anterior/superior view of inside of cranium, brain removed". Layman's terms- front to back view from above of inside of skull, without the brain. This one is, to me, the key picture in determining what actually happened because I believe that it is a real picture of JFK's skull.
However, it CANNOT BE AS DESCRIBED!!!
Based on the descriptions of the locations of the entrance and exit wounds given by the HSCA experts who used the X-rays, for this to be a front to back picture, some part of JFK's face would be showing since, to line up with the placement of the wounds, this photo would be at the 15-30deg angle, going clockwise, on a level plane, from a starting point directly between the eyes. No facial structures show; even lacking are the appropriate bone structures inside the cranium. Additionally, the skull curvature shows that the bulk of the undamaged skull is to the left of the defect. For this to be as described, the large defect, the exit wound, should be to the left since it is supposed to be on the right front of JFK's head. It is clearly not there, it is on the right side of the picture. Also showing in the back of the picture, almost in its middle, is what appears to be a smaller, circular wound in the scalp. It shows the similarities of an entrance wound.
If the HSCA photographs are true, this would have to be the cowlick area. Immediately below and slightly to the left of that wound and in the front of the photo is a "beveled" notch in the skull, showing all the characteristics of an exit wound, which, if the HSCA's X-rays are accurate would have to be on the right coronal suture, just above the right ear. Yet, the bulk of the skull curvature is to the left of the large wound and no facial or ear structures show anywhere in the picture.
It is my firm opinion that, since no matter how I turn the angle of this photo it is inconsistent with any other view, this is a back to front picture of JFK's head from the 180deg mark from the starting point between the eyes.
This being so, we can see the small front entrance wound, at approximately mid-way between the right eye and right ear, and the rear exit wound, beveled out, with the massive skull loss to its right, as described by the Parkland medical personnel.
Let's go back over Dr. Boswell's description of the rear entrance wound as he described it in volume 7 HSCA pg 246:
"There was this hole there only ½ of which was present in the bone that was intact. This small piece fit in there."
This is a remarkably accurate description of the wound in the exposed skull showing in autopsy photo #7, the "notch". The only thing that Boswell got wrong was that it’s an exit wound, not an entrance wound. Careful examination of this notch appears to show the outward beveling associated with an exit wound. The HSCA described this wound as such; they just somehow got their anteriors mixed up with their posteriors. Was it another mistake, or was it planned?
o) The observations of the HSCA panel stated:
" The panel continued to be concerned about the persistent disparity between its findings and those of the autopsy pathologists and the rigid tenacity with which the prosectors maintained that the entrance wound was at or near the external occipital protuberance."
(7 HSCA 115)
p) An agent of the CIA, Regis Blahut, was arrested during the HSCA hearings for breaking into a safe and handling the autopsy photographs stored there. No explanation for why he did it has ever been offered.
q) The autopsy X-rays revealed a previously unseen, and unaccounted for bullet fragment, lodged under JFK's scalp in the back of his head. It was large enough to have been determined to have come from a 6.5mm bullet. The repercussions of this are usually overlooked by both sides.
If this fragment is real, it must be accounted for in the "3 shots-2 hits" scenario used by both the WCR and the HSCA.
Remember, they can't have it both ways.
Its position must also be accounted for--"...embedded in the outer table of the skull close to the lower edge of the (entrance) hole..." .We must therefore assume that the bullet from which this fragment came shattered on contact with Kennedy's skull and yet CE 399 caused all the wounds attributed to it and did not shatter. We must then also "rework" the scenario to include this fragment along with the other two already discussed and still find a way to wound Tague. To date, no one has ever addressed this problem, to the best of my knowledge.
In fact, thanks to the keen observations of researcher Jeff Bumpus, this is now a major area of concern!!
We know that the Clark Panel, in 1968, first viewed the autopsy photographs and X-rays. They "discovered" the large fragment, viewable only in the anterior/posterior X-ray (F-56 * Note: The fragment is shown about halfway up the X-ray, directly over the word "ENHANCED"). They also stated that it was 6.5mm in diameter.
After visiting this website and reading my previous version about this point, Jeff contacted me with his observation that, since the two front floor fragments are both verified as being copper from a bullet jacket(s) and are assumed by WC defenders to be from the kill shot, the X-ray fragment must therefore be made up of only the lead core...except that, and I've verified these figures through both my brother-in-law, who is a master gunsmith, and retired US Army master sergeant John Ritchson, a fellow researcher who is also a hands-on expert in the field of military weapons and ammunition, the lead core on a Western 6.5mm jacketed slug is only approximately 5.5mm, not 6.5mm! The other millimeter (The measurements of the diameters of bullets do vary slightly. However these variances are not sufficient to account for the difference) is the combined width of the copper jacket.
Therefore, either the 2 front seat fragments hit nothing and are from the miss that hit Tague, or the X-ray fragment is either faked or from a 6.5mm non-jacketed (lead only) slug or from a 7mm or greater jacketed bullet...and a 6.5mm lead slug can be ruled out because it would be far too deformed to show up as exactly 6.5mm on an X-ray, especially after a skull penetration. That would also hold true if what shows in the X-ray is part of the core from the bullet which originally contained either of the either CE 567 or CE 569.
Certainly it is not reasonable to believe that the lead core could have been accidentally deformed in such a way as to be exactly 6.5mm in diameter...
It’s also unreasonable to now believe that the front seat fragments are from the missed shot, since the much ballyhooed (by the press) recent tests on them (CE 567, 569) stated that one of them contained traces of human skin and tissue. The limousine isn't humanoid.
So the problem is, since we all know there were only 3 shots: 1) CE 399 ; 2) the Tague miss; and 3) the head shot...
from what shot did that X-ray fragment possibly come?
Since this point was revised on this website, I have had numerous debates with WC supporters on this. Their "opinions" vary from
1) it was "created by crazies" (with no explanation of who the crazies were)
2) "its a fragment from the miss that wounded Tague"
3) "it’s a fragment from a miss and Tague was wounded by the head shot" (yep...that's what a prominent defender said).
All agreed it meant nothing...you decide.
In addition, at his ARRB deposition, the late Dr. Humes stated that the X-ray now at the National Archives appeared to be quite different than the one he viewed after performing the autopsy. He again reiterated that he saw no such fragment, neither in the X-rays he viewed, nor during his examination.
(Humes
ARRB Deposition, February 13, 1996)
Researcher Michael T. Griffith has recently written an article about the wound ballistics of full metal-jacketed (FMJ) rounds that is very well researched. It is available on his website or you can click here.
r) The FBI report (89-30-31; Commission Document 7) compiled by Special Agents Sibert and O'Neill, who were present during the autopsy states that the autopsy doctors' initial observations:
"...determined that a tracheotomy had been performed, as well as surgery of the head area, namely to the top of the skull."
In a supplemental memorandum (62-109060-4244) about this statement, SA Sibert wrote:
" This statement is based on information orally reported at the time by the autopsy physician (Dr. Humes)."
No surgery to the head was performed at Parkland Hospital and supposedly no one else touched the body before it arrived at Bethesda Naval Hospital for the autopsy. In fact, Dr. Humes inquired about the procedures performed at Parkland. On November 23, 1963, he telephoned the Parkland emergency room doctors and asked about both the tracheotomy and whether or not they had done any cutting on JFK's head. He was informed that the staff at Parkland had been trying to save Kennedy, not kill him. They had performed the tracheotomy, but had done no "...surgery of the head area, namely to the top of the skull."
s) Testimony before the HSCA by Dr. Boswell about the damage to the scalp tells of wounds that looked very similar to the incisions made by pathologists, during an autopsy, to expose the skull so that the skullcap or "top" may be removed:
BOSWELL: "...the scalp was so torn and lacerated that we never had to do any dissection there. The scalp just laid over, just laid down having done no dissection or anything."
(7 HSCA 245)
Later both he and Dr. Humes testified that the bullet lacerations had caused 4 "flaps" of scalp to be seen as the procedure began.
(7 HSCA 250, 264)
t) The autopsy report (A63-272) states:
"...four tears in the scalp forming flaps..."
It should be noted that the dissection of the scalp during an autopsy is into 4 flaps.
(Medicolegal Investigation of Death-Spitz, ed.)
u) In testifying before the WC about the damage to the skull, one of the autopsy doctors stated that little work was done to remove the skullcap:
HUMES: We had virtually no work with a saw to remove those portions of the skull, they came apart in our hands very easily...as we moved the scalp about, fragments of various sizes would fall on the table."
(2 WCH 354)
This type of damage is not depicted in the autopsy X-rays. Usually the removal of the skullcap, during autopsy, requires a great deal of prying to get it loose.
v) In the autopsy report, the weight of JFK's brain, fixed in formalin, is given as "1500 grams". This is the high end weight of a brain that has not been damaged by gunshot and left significant amounts of tissue in both the limousine and on the floor at Parkland Hospital.
w) The autopsy report describes the location and condition of the tissue samples taken from the brain:
"...all sections are essentially similar and show extensive disruption of brain tissue with associated hemorrhage."
Each of the samples was taken from an area that was thought to be damaged by the fragments. Sample "e" is described as coming from:
"... the lines of transection of the spinal column..."
(CE 391)
Putting these two statements together seems to imply that the brain was already separated from the spinal column before Humes' procedure began, a condition that a bullet could not have created, but one that would be a standard routine during an autopsy.
This belief is further supported by an interview given to researcher Josiah Thompson on January 11, 1967 by Dr. Boswell. Thompson quotes Boswell as saying:
"The brain was quite easily removed without recourse to surgery."
This interview was completed some time before Lifton's book, Best Evidence, with its wound alteration theory, was written.
Does "without recourse to surgery" and "the lines of transection of the spinal column", mean that the brain had been severed from the spinal cord before the documented autopsy began?
x) Humes also testified that they did not section the brain. Sectioning is a normal medico-legal autopsy procedure and is necessary to establish the direction of any bullet\fragment tracks that might have ripped through the brain, so as to determine the angle of entry. He further testified that he was told not to by one of the higher ranking, non-medical military personnel in the room, in order to "preserve the specimen". This "specimen", the brain, has been missing for over 30 years.
Recently released documents from the ARRB have cast significant doubts about the validity of the brain examination. Perhaps that is why the actual specimen is missing.
y) Lifton's book claims that the brain lacerations described by Humes were remarkably similar to the "cuts" made when sectioning, according to pathologists Lifton contacted. Humes instead attributed them to the "dust like" particles found to transit the brain, yet he could find almost none of the fragments (only 2) that allegedly caused them...and missed one that, according to the anterior/posterior X-ray was a quarter of an inch in diameter!!
While it has been my goal to avoid lengthy, technical data, I feel that a full reprint of the damage to the brain is in order. Humes' actual descriptions are:
"The right cerebral hemisphere is found markedly disrupted. There is a longitudinal laceration of the right hemisphere which is para-sagittal in position approximately 2.5cm. to the right of the midline which extends from the tip of the occipital lobe posteriorly to the tip of the frontal lobe anteriorly. The base of the laceration is situated approximately 4.5cm below the vertex in the white matter. There is considerable loss of cortical substance above the base of the laceration, particularly in the parietal lobe. The margins of this laceration are at all points jagged and irregular, with additional lacerations extending in varying directions and for varying distances from the main laceration. In addition, there is a laceration of the corpus callosum extending from the genu to the tail. Exposed in this latter laceration are the interiors of the right lateral and third ventricles.
"When viewed from the vertex the left cerebral hemisphere is intact. There is a marked engorgement of meningeal blood vessels of the left temporal and frontal regions with considerable associated sub-arachnoid hemorrhage. The gyri and sulci over the left hemisphere are of essentially normal size and distribution. Those on the right are too fragmented and distorted for satisfactory description.
"When viewed from the basilar aspect the disruption of the right cortex is again obvious. There is a longitudinal laceration of the mid-brain through the floor of the third ventricle just behind the optic chiasm and the mammillary bodies. This laceration partially communicates with an oblique 1.5cm tear through the left cerebral peduncle. There are irregular superficial lacerations over the basilar aspects of the left temporal and frontal lobes."
This description has been said to depict a brain that was "hit by an axe" or "cut up with an egg beater" by some pathologists who have seen the report (I have personally spoken to several members of the medical community. All stated to me that one bullet, entering from the occipital area could not have caused all this damage, unless it was at least .50 cal [12.7mm] and fragmented severely. Military ammunition, as CE399 is, does not usually fragment.) Could all of this have been caused by "dust like" particles, only two of which were recovered? And how could the brain described in this report have possibly weighed 1500 grams?
z) The possibility of determining whether or not there had been surgery performed on JFK's head sometime between Parkland and Bethesda might have been accomplished by reviewing the tissue samples taken at the autopsy. However they, and the brain itself, are listed as "missing" from the National Archives. This supposedly happened sometime after the Archives had acknowledged receipt of them.
aa) The receipts for both the X-rays and photographs taken at the autopsy were changed, retyped and resigned by people other than those who actually took them that night. In addition, the numbers of exposures from that night on the original receipt are less than the number on the revised receipt, which, in turn, is less than the number of exposures noted in the FBI report. Finally, the number seen by the HSCA panel agrees with no other total!! The total number of X-rays taken was originally receipted as 11. This is in agreement with the FBI report (CD 7). However, the changed report has 14 X-rays noted and this is the number reviewed by the HSCA panel.
In a 9/11/77 letter to HSCA investigator Andy Purdy, photographer John Stringer, who took the photographs, but was not allowed to develop them, and did not see them until 1966, stated that he could not account for the differences and corrections. Supposedly part of those differences were caused by 5 exposures from the "film holders" used having not been exposed.
Without going into a long-winded explanation of the equipment used, I am assured by University of Buffalo biology department photographer Jim Stamos, that not exposing both sides of a "film holder" is a mistake not even a raw photographer would ever make.
In addition, the testimonies of those involved in the processing and development of the films is so contradictory, as to make one feel that more than one set of autopsy photographs were taken.
Next, the ARRB tracked down and deposed Carl Belcher, who in 1966 was the Department of Justice representative at the first "review" and authentication of the photographs by Humes, Boswell, Stringer and Dr. John Ebersole, the chief radiologist at Bethesda who allegedly took all the X-rays. Belcher was initially extremely uncooperative and had to be subpoenaed to appear and testify.
His testimony shows why he was so reluctant. A "memorandum for the file", over Belcher's signature, which outlined his efforts in obtaining the authentication signatures by the 4 from Bethesda is a key piece in establishing the chain of possession.
Belcher completely denied ever writing it, or ever visiting Bethesda to get Humes signature as the memo states.
(Belcher ARRB deposition 10/22/1996)
Another large legal hole and possible obstruction of justice in the evidence handling manifested itself.
bb) During an interview on San Francisco's KRON-TV in 1988, former Bethesda Naval Hospital technician Jerrol Custer, the man who took the X-rays, stated that the X-rays reviewed by the HSCA were NOT the X-rays he took of JFK on the night of 11/22/63. His recollections were that the back of JFK's head was missing. Custer's observations are consistent with all of the Parkland Hospital assertions and the testimony of Clint Hill.
In a deposition before the ARRB, Custer was shown the X-rays stored at the National Archives (you and I may not see them without the permission of the Kennedy family, despite the fact that taxpayer dollars paid for them and the procedure which created them, and taxpayer dollars pay for their storage). He then stated that they now appeared accurate.
I'll let you draw your own conclusions.
Also, as a sidelight is the very odd fact that the X-rays stored at the National Archives contain no posterior skull X-ray. It seems very odd that during the autopsy, no X-ray of the back the head, showing the entrance wound, would have been taken. Normal forensic autopsy protocol call for just such X-rays, yet, in this case, once again, none exist.
cc) According to journalist, author and HSCA investigator Gaeton Fonzi, WC counsel Arlen Specter stated that he very much wanted to see the X-rays and photographs before the WCR came out, but that the Commissioners themselves decided against it. During an interview with Fonzi in 1966, Specter said:
"The President of the United States (LBJ) did not want Arlen Specter to do the investigation of the assassination of President Kennedy. The President appointed the Warren Commission to do that job."
dd) Historian Jacob Cohen tried to locate and view the X-rays and photographs in 1966. He searched the National Archives and sent letters of inquiry to the White House, Secret Service, Dr. Humes and even Robert F. Kennedy. The items were nowhere to be found.
They were "found" at the National Archives, later.
ee) Another major problem is that there are no known autopsy photographs showing the skull with the brain inside. Normally, photographs and X-rays are the first processes done at an autopsy. Any photographs taken at that time should have shown the brain inside the skull! Why are there none?
It is also alarming to note that Autopsy Photo #6, allegedly showing the top of the President's head, does not appear to show the "Y" incision that is normally the first surgical procedure performed. This implies that the photo was taken on arrival, yet it clearly shows the brain missing from the skull.
In addition, Bethesda Naval Hospital technician Paul O'Connor has stated that he placed the President's body on the examining table when it arrived at the hospital. He also has said that the JFK's skull did not contain the brain.
(The Men Who Killed Kennedy-CIT Documentary, 1988)
ff) According to the late Dr. John Smialek, until his death Chief Medical Examiner for the State of Maryland, a standard medico-legal autopsy has its procedures completed in the following sequence, regardless of who the decedent is or what the assumed cause of death is:
1-Photographs
2-X-rays
3-Y-incision
In his HSCA testimony Dr. Humes was asked by the HSCA to explain, "in what order or sequence did you conduct the autopsy?"
HUMES: Well, the first thing we did was make many photographs which we knew would obviously be required for a wide variety of purposes, took basically the whole body X- rays and then proceeded with the examination of the two wounds.....
(1 HSCA 327-328)
Based on this testimony that he followed normal procedures, some of the autopsy photographs should have shown the skull with the brain inside and/or the top of the skull intact. The fact that there are no such pictures does tend to cast doubts about the validity of those photographs entered into evidence. The HSCA panel of pathologists presumably knew the correct sequence of autopsy procedures and should have seen the discrepancy. Yet, they did not ask Dr. Humes why there are no photographs of the skull with the brain inside.
gg) Several of the more damning pieces of evidence to be released by the ARRB were the HSCA interviews and depositions of a number of those associated with the photographs and X-rays. One is the August, 1977 interview of Navy technician James Curtis Jenkins by HSCA investigators Jim Kelly and Andy Purdy. This document remained out of the public's eye for over 20 years. In the memo submitted by Kelly and Purdy, they state that Jenkins "...said the wound to the head entered the top right quadrant from the front side..." (my emphasis). The interview also stated that Jenkins and the autopsy doctors all saw and noted the same thing. Jenkins also placed the "neck" wound far too low in the back to allow for it to have exited JFK's throat and he classified it as "...very shallow...". Jenkins interview was done as a deposition and under oath.
Also released was the HSCA deposition of White House photographer Robert Knudsen. In it, Knudsen stated that he developed the black and white photographs and, among other things, that he saw at least one of those negatives showing JFK's body with metal probes in it. The probes would have been used to determine the angles of the wounds.
Humes and Boswell both denied using any probes at the autopsy. Perhaps Knudsen was mistaken.
However, when I reviewed this point with University of Buffalo photographer Jim Stamos, he told me that Knudsen could not have mistaken them for anything else because they stick out in a black and white negative like a "beacon" and can be seen at a glance.
Knudsen and Humes cannot both be correct.
hh) Finally, on November 10, 1998 the National Archives released a 32 page Memorandum for the File written by ARRB military documents expert Douglas Horne. In it, Horne, the ARRB's chief researcher into the autopsy and medical evidence, reviews and documents the many contradictions found surrounding the Warren Commission and HSCA witness statements, documents and ARRB depositions relating to the supplemental brain examination performed by Dr.Humes and others some time after the autopsy. Horne's conclusion, corroborated by a review of the alleged photographs of the brain by FBI SA O'Neill, present during the autopsy, is myth-shattering:
The photographs housed at the National Archives are not those of President Kennedy's brain, but of another one which was substituted and passed off as his! In fact, Horne concludes, with a 90-95% certainty, that 2 separate brain examinations were done, several days apart, on two completely different specimens, in order to hide the true nature of the president's wounds!
This is a momentous document, since it is the first one published from an official source that challenges the veracity of the physical evidence and points right to the heart of a conspiracy which had to include members of the government. The autopsy doctors lied and perpetuated a fraud on the American people. There is neither logical reason nor motive for them to have done that unless they were ordered to do so.
Horne based his conclusions on the contradictory descriptions of the wounds and the brain given by numerous witnesses. While they tended to agree with each other, they were in major disagreement with the autopsy report and the observations, testimony and depositions of Drs Humes and Boswell. Even Dr Finck's recollections differed from Humes and Boswell.
Horne, knowing full well that, logically, there cannot be a major contradiction in this regard, reasoned that the only plausible explanation was that the autopsy doctors based their published findings on a specimen other than that belonging to Kennedy. A great number of depositions, drawings and previous documents, most hidden in HSCA sequestered files (and therefore NOT subject to Freedom of Information Act requests), show what was undoubtedly, a conscious effort to keep the truth from the American people.
CONCLUSION: We have three choices here:
1) all of the Parkland Hospital personnel were correct in their observations;
2) the 3 Bethesda pathologists are correct about their placements of the wounds or
3) the X-rays and photos are correct.
There is no other plausible explanation, since all 3 are at odds with each other. If either #1 or #2 are correct, then we have a conspiracy. If #3 is correct, then the quality of physician allowed to practice and teach in our country, along with the caliber of medical technician who assist them, is unbelievably poor.
Based on the total evidence, including Doug Horne's memorandum, the conclusion here is obvious. At least some of the X-rays and photographs are either phony, have been altered or misidentified. Rather than believing that the 3 autopsy pathologists, with the body in front of them, could incorrectly place where every wound was, it is more logical to believe that what the HSCA panel saw was forged, especially when the Horne revelations and hidden documents are also factored in. No other conclusion makes sense, especially with the receipt problems, lack of a solid chain of possession and the Parkland personnel testimony which, while it does not totally agree with the autopsy findings, is a much closer match to them than it is to the HSCA findings, in regards to the external wound appearances and locations. But, by controlling the "best evidence", the photographs and X-rays, the conspirators gave the investigators an "out"...they need not find a conspiracy because the evidence showed no signs of one.
Medico-legal autopsies are performed in a standard manner, regardless of where they take place, whether civilian or military, or who is doing them. Besides, identifying, describing and measuring the locations of wounds is a standard autopsy procedure. All pathologists have performed autopsies and most have some understanding of forensic medicine. The three pathologists at Bethesda that night were not that far in over their collective heads: Dr. Humes was the Chief of Pathology at Bethesda; Dr. Boswell was the Head of the Pathology Department at the Naval Medical School there and Dr. Finck was a credentialed forensic pathologist. All had performed perhaps hundreds of autopsies. Most government conclusion supporters now want us to believe that they were incompetent so that the differences can be explained. Many of those who made the loudest noises, in 1978, about how incompetent they were and how botched the autopsy was, were the same people who steadfastly defended the autopsy against the initial criticism spawned by the Warren Commission Report! Had the hidden depositions and drawings been released at that time, the Warren Commission's house of cards would have collapsed.
It seems that the repercussions against the HSCA X-ray/photographs review's findings were far too much to also have allowed the depositions to be made public. It is a pity that a civilian autopsy wasn't originally performed, say, in Dallas, or a civilian pathologist called in from the world-renowned National Institutes of Health, which just happen to be located directly across Wisconsin Avenue from the Bethesda facility. Why only military? National security or just control?
Remember, Dallas County Coroner Earl F. Rose did try to perform an autopsy, as required by Texas law, but he was overwhelmed by the Secret Service present. We are assured that there was nothing sinister about it, despite the fact that as soon as they did it, they prevented anyone from ever being convicted of the crime. How convenient that the accused murderer was then also assassinated, thus removing the need for a trial.
Is it still probable that the wound evidence does point to a single assassin from behind? NO...unless you believe that all of the Parkland emergency room medical personnel had a mass hallucination and were treating JFK for a wound that wasn't where they thought it was...no wonder he died. If the original wounds HAD pointed to a single shot from behind, why were the photographs, X-rays and autopsy report all changed and forged? What it appears we have here is an ad-hoc scenario having to be created, much like the "SBT", as the "problems" were being found. First at Bethesda, over that fateful weekend, next revised some months later to account for the Tague wounds, then later still when the photographs and X-rays finally had to become "viewable". All these steps were deemed necessary to compensate for the inconsistencies of each cover story versus the emergence of some of the true facts or the valid questions of the critics. And the ability to create all these "changes" speaks volumes of the power behind the conspiracy...imagine switching brains and getting away with it! Fortunately, it seems that the conspirators couldn't quite match up the wound descriptions in the autopsy with the faked photographic and X-ray evidence. So, the autopsy had to be branded as incompetent. Imagine what the interview of Dr. Humes would have been like at the Warren Commission Hearings, if he had been confronted with the photographs and X-rays then, or if the WC had called the Bethesda technicians or the mortician who prepared Kennedy for burial. The body would have had to have been exhumed, and then the entire conspiracy would have blown sky high. That's why they were "missing" for so long, and never shown to, nor asked for, by the Commission.
It is quite compatible with all this evidence to feel strongly that Dr. Humes was under orders to produce an autopsy report that was consistent with a single gunman firing from above and behind, only. This is also consistent with his own admission that he had burned the original autopsy notes, after Oswald's death. Speculating, it does seem reasonable, based on all the evidence, that he:
1) corrected his initial
observation about the back wound so that it could exit the throat then,
2) revised its position again so that it could possibly hit Connally and,
3) compensated for any initial observations inconsistent with the LHO did it alone scenario.
Unfortunately, some of those present heard those observations, and two FBI agents made note of them in an official report. It also appears, as shown in his WCH testimony that Humes drew the line at endorsing the SBT. When the conspirators were reviewing the "problems" that they might have to face, it appears that someone, wary of the results of a future review of the autopsy photos and X-rays, substituted others, probably composites, for some of those originally taken, and also added others. This could have happened anytime after the autopsy since the Secret Service, in violation, again, of standard legal evidence handling procedures, would not allow the X-ray technicians nor the photographer to review and initial the original work done that night. This act was needed to establish the legal "chain of possession". According to these technicians, the Secret Service told them that, in the interests of national security, the FBI would handle it. Who could have ordered around both the FBI and Secret Service?
Soon thereafter they, and all the other military medical personnel involved in the procedure, were forced to sign an oath of complete silence regarding all aspects of the autopsy, under penalty of general court-martial. Again, who possessed the power to control these federal agencies also?
Another logical conclusion is that, based on all the evidence, the wounds found in JFK were altered prior to the body's arrival at Bethesda, and all of the ballistically identifiable fragments removed. Those tiny fragments that were overlooked due to time constraints, and were recovered and given to the FBI, could not be matched via exceptionally precise spectrographic comparison nor neutron activation analysis to any of the other ballistically identifiable missiles, meaning that they did not come from any bullets matched to CE 139. And the original FBI report, over Hoover's signature, was worded so ambiguously ("...no significant differences..."), that its true meaning, that the fragments did not match any of the recovered bullets, was hidden. Where then did they come from?
What were supposedly these same fragments were again tested by the HSCA experts in 1978 and found to match up with CE 399, 567 and 569!
(But as the linked article here shows, the methodology used, and the conclusions reached were faulty)
However, the fragments used by the HSCA, in 1977, did not weigh nor look the same as those identified, examined and photographed by the FBI in 1963-1964, leaving plenty of doubt about their true identity. While I could go along with these fragments weighing less due to the testing done on them, I can think of no benign reason for them to weigh more.
It is also logical to reason that Drs. Humes, Boswell and Finck either misinterpreted both the head entrance wound and the throat wound or, more likely, adjusted their initial findings, under orders, to fit the "lone nut" scenario. Military personnel, even doctors, are trained to follow orders. As Horne's analysis implies, substitute specimens were used to depict the type of damage consistent with a single wound from the rear. Surely Humes and Boswell were competent enough to KNOW this was happening and yet intimidated enough to not let on (never in Humes' case since, he passed away in 1999)about it for over 35 years. Perhaps at the time, and this is sheer speculation on my part, their orders to do this were justified by a senior officer telling them that it was in the best interests of "national security" for the autopsy conclusions to appear this way, because the killer was possibly a part of a communist conspiracy that, if it came to light, might trigger World War III and, besides, Oswald was already dead. Such an explanation, during the early going, may have duped many into actions or statements that were basically untrue and detrimental to the innocence of LHO, whom I'm certain they portrayed as a communist agent. They could hardly have later recanted their own findings, especially in front of the Warren Commission, who probably would have ignored them anyway. Let's also remember that the press was hardly receptive to any "conspiracy" theories either, thus taking away another avenue for the doctors. Speculating again, it is also possible that the same type of argument was used on Jackie Kennedy, while she was still in shock, to allow someone to transport JFK's body from Air Force One to some place other than Bethesda for a "preliminary examination" that was actually one of the steps in the cover-up. How the body could have been tampered with before it got to Bethesda has always been a stumbling point to any "wound alteration" theory. This is my explanation of how it could have been accomplished.
It is additionally possible to see in the testimony where Humes initially left clues for those, on first the Warren Commission and later the HSCA, who cared to see them, about the true location and nature of the wounds and the validity of the testimony about them. The two government investigations just didn't care to see them, and the press didn't choose to question them, so they remained a riddle, seen only by the critics. They can only be seen in their true light, when taken in conjunction with the total evidence. Humes' testimony is not the only such ambiguous testimony. Many of the "experts" in other areas also made statements about crucial data which appear to show that they too, were uncomfortable with some parts of the evidence and what each was required to say about it. Humes testimony however, seems to be the most blatant.
Just a few examples:
"Scientifically sir, it is impossible for it (the bullet) to have been fired from other than behind or to have exited from other than behind.
(2 WCH 360)
"...(the neck wound) 14cm down from the right mastoid process ..."
(CE 397)
"...Surgery of the head area, namely in the top of the skull..."
(FBI Report 89-30-31)
"(tissue sample taken) ...from the lines of transection of the spinal column..."
(CE 397)
"... after some preliminary examinations, the autopsy began...."
(1 HSCA 328)
Regardless of exactly how it was all done, it does appear to point to an attempt, mostly successful, to show evidence that only reflected the probable guilt of LHO and the effort that hid or destroyed most evidence that could have pointed to the truth and exposed the cover-up. Maybe those whose job it was to review all this "evidence" found this effort too incredible to possibly be true and therefore did not, or would not, look into it deeply enough. Or, maybe they did and did not like where it pointed, or know what to do about it.
The entire situation in regards to the autopsy is so bizarre, so completely without parallel, that it requires absolute blind faith, at this point, to not feel that something quite sinister was afoot.
When we add to that all the evidence from the bullets and rifle, and the multitude of situations that give us pause with their validity, even blind faith is taxed to the limit. If, as Horne's memorandum posits, another brain was substituted for Kennedy's at the supplemental autopsy, then all other implications and/or appearances of tampering gain strong credibility.
Is it possible that the WC conclusions are still correct? Well, let's try a reverse look before we try to decide.
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