The Parkland Doctors, Part Six

[Steve M. Galbraith]

Actually, I'm afraid it is not, as much as I respect Fred's great work on other historical issues. Have you read anything from the other side on this issue?

Well, let's read what other Parkland doctors wrote about the large head wound on 11/22, while their memories were still quite fresh (note that "right occipital-parietal" equals "right-rear part of the head"):

Dr. Kemp Clark, neurosurgeon:

Dr. Marion T. Jenkins:

Dr. Charles Carrico:

Dr. Charles Baxter:

Now let's read what other Parkland doctors, and also two of the nurses, told the WC a few months later:

Dr. Ronald Jones:

Dr. Gene Akin:

Dr. Paul Peters:

Nurse Patricia Hutton:

Nurse Diana Bowron, who helped treat Kennedy, who packed gauze squares into his head wound, and who wrapped his head in a sheet to prepare the body for the casket:

And two of the morticians who reassembled JFK's skull after the autopsy likewise described seeing a sizable hole in the back of the head, as you should know. One of them even drew two diagrams of the defect, placing it clearly in the back of the head and nowhere near the area above the right ear.

Let's consider two more key witnesses on the right-rear head wound: Secret Service agent Clint Hill and mortician Tom Robinson. Hill saw the wound in Dallas and at Bethesda. He saw it in Dallas for several minutes from just 2-3 feet away as he rode on the trunk of the limo on the way to Parkland. Robinson witnessed the autopsy and took part in the reconstruction of JFK's skull after the autopsy, so he naturally got a prolonged, up-close look at the wound.

Let's start with Agent Hill. The following comes from Hill's 11/30/1963 report, in which he described what he saw at very close range for several minutes as he rode on top of the limousine’s back seat on the way to Parkland Hospital:

From Agent Hill's WC testimony:

As for mortician Tom Robinson, he told the HSCA and the ARRB there was a large wound in the back of the head. He told the HSCA that the wound was "the size of a small orange ... circular ... ragged ...directly behind the back of the head pretty much between them [the ears]" (HSCA interview transcript, 1/12/77).

Robinson diagrammed the large head wound for the HSCA, which you can see here: https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/jfk-what-the-doctors-saw-an-important-addition-and-a-missed-opportunity.

Robinson said the same thing to the ARRB:

Robinson noted that they used a piece of rubber to cover the back-of-head wound and that the wound was nearly the size of a large orange:

Robinson also noted that the back-of-head wound was not visible when JFK’s body was lying in repose—i.e., with the back of the head resting on the pillow:

When Robinson was shown the autopsy back-of-head photo, it did not make him change his mind about the wound; rather, he said the hole was where he drew it but that it just did not show up in the photo:

BTW, both Hill and Robinson said a large amount of brain matter was missing. When interviewed by CBS News in 2013, Agent Hill said the following:

Robinson also said the amount of brain missing in the back of the head was about the size of a closed fist. A closed fist would be equal in size to at least one third of an average male brain. (The male brain is typically about 5.5 inches wide, 6.5 inches long, and 3.6 inches high.) From the ARRB meeting report on the interview with Robinson:

Needless to say Hill's and Robinson's accounts of a large amount of missing brain prove the autopsy brain photos are fraudulent.

I present all of this material and more in A Comforting Lie: The Myth that a Lone Gunman Killed President Kennedy.

Fred's response to all of these 11/22 and early-1964 descriptions of a right-rear/right-occipital-parietal wound is to claim they do not address anything in his article on McClelland's allegedly changing accounts.

This seems like a dodge. How do you explain the fact that McClelland's WC description of the head wound matches the 11/22 descriptions given by Clark, Jenkins, Carrico, and Baxter, and the WC descriptions given by Jones, Akin, Peters, Hutton, and Bowron? In any other case, such consistency among 10 witnesses would be considered powerful, convincing evidence.

Then, add to this remarkable agreement of accounts the fact that those 10 descriptions match Nurse Doris Nelson's and newsman Roy Stamp's descriptions of the head wound and also closely agree with the descriptions of the head wound given by numerous autopsy witnesses, including Ed Reed, Tom Robinson, Godfrey McHugh, Joe O'Donnell, Joe Hagen, and Robert Karnei.

Dr. Fitzpatrick's dismissal of the value of the Parkland descriptions of the head wound is downright ridiculous and shows how biased he is. Among other things, he ignores the fact that after JFK was pronounced dead, the Parkland doctors had several minutes to observe JFK's head wound while the last rites were being given and then while the nurses were cleaning the head and body, packing the head wound with gauze squares, and wrapping the head wound to prepare the body for placement in the coffin. He also ignores the fact that the three nurses who prepared the body for burial got an up-close, hands-on look at the head wound, and all three--Nelson, Hutton, and Bowron--said the wound was in the back of the head.

Dr. Fitzpatrick would also have us believe that the Parkland doctors who said they saw extruding and damaged cerebellar tissue, including the neurosurgeon, somehow mistook parietal-temporal brain tissue for cerebellar brain tissue, even though cerebellar tissue looks very different from any other part of the brain.

One must ask, If McClelland blundered or fabricated when he told the WC the large wound was in the right-rear part of the head, how do we explain the fact that his description closely agrees with the descriptions given on 11/22 by Clark, Jenkins, Carrico, and Baxter, and with the WC descriptions given by Jones, Akin, Peters, Hutton, and Bowron? Just a stunning, whopping coincidence? Did all those doctors and nurses amazingly make the same "mistake"? And is it also a whopping coincidence that newsman Roy Stamps and SS Agent Clint Hill likewise said the wound was in the back of the head?

The focus here, as shown in Fred's link, is on Dr. Robert McClelland's recollections since Jefferson Morley is citing him, as many conspiracists have, as a credible witness to the location of the head wounds. So is he really credible? What did he say?

Fred cites McClelland's earliest accounts where he said the wound was on the *side* of JFK's head. Side. Left and then right. Nothing about the back or rear. Should we ignore those accounts and only accept his later ones? Isn't the consensus that earlier recollections are more reliable than later ones? So what do we do with these early accounts? Just wave them away?

Do you think he blundered in those early accounts but his later ones were correct? Why are the later ones right but the earliest wrong? Again, this is about McClelland and not the other witnesses. If you think he blundered and was wrong then he's simply not credible. Period. Not dishonest but not believable. He can't suddenly become credible on this question because he later says something that you like. Apparently, like the Zapruder film you think something can be both reliable and then unreliable, totally credible and not credible depending on whether it supports your frankly incoherent and contradictory conspiracy views or not.

Back to the link: McClelland said this (December 18, 1963) about what he saw: "He [JFK] was lying on his back on the stretcher," the surgeon said. "It was not necessary or possible to examine him in the back. My first impression was the purest kind of supposition."

He also added: "As far as I am concerned, there is no reason to suspect that any shots came from the front."

So we have McClelland admitting his impression was the "purest kind of supposition" (it appears to be about the back wound but it's unclear) and also giving completely contradictory accounts of the head wound location. Left side, right side, then in his WC testimony, and elsewhere back, of the head. But he even moved his back of the head claims. He told Bugliosi that the head wound was more forward than on that drawing. Left, right, low, high, back, forward.

Then we have him saying that for him "there is no reason to suspect any shots came from the front." If he thought the wound was in the back of the head wouldn't that be an obvious reason to suspect a frontal shot? But he never mentioned one in his early accounts.

Furthermore, nowhere does he mention any entrance wound or bullet hole. Why didn't he see an entrance hole? He doesn't mention one. What happened to it? Was a supposed "frangible bullet" used? But those bullets, from what I've read (I know nothing about ballistics but don't pretend to), disintegrate on impact. How could a bullet that disintegrated when hitting the front head cause a blowout in the back of the head? Again, who saw a bullet entrance in the front of the head? 

After all of this how can anyone consider him a credible witness on the head wounds? You can't. By any non-conspiracy standard Dr. McClelland has no credibility on the question. But you think he does? That is when he says things you like but not when he says things you don't? Sorry, that's not how it works. 

[Steve M. Galbraith]

Here is the late Dr. McClelland telling Bugliosi that the sketch he said he made for Thompson placed the wound in the wrong place. It was actually "a bit more forward". So he's again confused as to what he thought he saw. And just to note, Thompson had that sketch made by a police artist friend. McClelland didn't draw it even though he told people he did.