In their 1976 book Cover-Up: The Governmental Conspiracy to Conceal the Facts About the Public Execution of John Kennedy, Larry Harris and Gary Shaw did a good job of recounting the initial diagnosis of the throat wound as an entrance wound, pointing out that at first there was no doubt the wound was an entry wound, that the Parkland doctors had extensive experience with gunshot wounds (unlike Humes and Boswell), and that the Parkland doctors only began to change their stories about the wound after they were visited by Secret Service agents:
Initially, there was no question that Kennedy had received
a bullet in his throat. This wound was below the larynx (Adam’s
apple), and was described by all that saw it as an entrance wound.
Newspaper accounts that weekend and the weeks that followed
bear this out. The New York Times' Tom Wicker spoke with
doctors the day of the assassination:
“. . . Dr. Malcolm Perry, an attending surgeon, and Dr. Kemp Clark,
chief of neurosurgery at Parkland Hospital, gave more details. Mr.
Kennedy was hit by a bullet in the throat, just below the Adam's apple,
they said. This wound had the appearance of a bullet's entry.”
Four days later the same newspaper printed that,
“. . . Dr. Kemp Clark, who pronounced Mr. Kennedy dead, said one
(bullet) struck him about the necktie knot. ‘It ranged downward
in his chest and did not exit,’ the surgeon said.”
Clark's statement is corroborated by an interview on November 28,
published in the New York Herald-Tribune. Dr. Robert Shaw of
the Parkland Hospital staff told reporter Martin Steadman that the
bullet which entered the front of the President's throat and “coursed
downward into his lung. . . ."
Life magazine, an early accessory to the cover-up, tried to explain
how a wound in the front of the President could have been caused by
a lone assassin firing from the rear:
“But the 8mm film (Zapruder) shows the President turning his body
far around to the right as he waves to someone in the crowd. His throat
is exposed— toward the sniper's nest -—just before he clutches it.”
The editors of Life knew that was a lie, for the Zapruder film
clearly shows JFK facing forward and slightly to his right when he is
shot; at no time does he look to the rear.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch carried a story by columnist Richard
Dudman, who wrote:
“The strangest circumstance of the shooting, in this reporter’s
opinion, is the position of the throat wound, thought to have been
caused by the first of two shots that struck Mr. Kennedy. Surgeons
who attended him at Parkland Hospital described it as an entrance
wound. Dr. McClelland told the Post-Dispatch: ‘It certainly did look
like an entrance wound.’ He explained that a bullet from a low
velocity rifle like the one thought to have been used characteristically
makes a small entrance wound, sets up shock waves inside the body
and tears a big opening when it passes out the other side. Dr.
McClelland [said] . . . 'we are familiar with wounds. . . . We see them
every day—-sometimes several a day. This did appear to be an
entrance wound.’”
Kennedy’s clothing. Shirt and coat show bullet holes nearly “six inches
below" where the Commission said the bullet entered. Slits in tie and
collar were made by a scalpel and not by an exiting bullet. . . .
It is interesting to note that for some four weeks after the assassination,
the Parkland doctors continued to state publicly that they thought the
throat wound was one of entry. Then, after the official version of the
shooting (one gunman firing from the rear) had been decided, two
Secret Service agents visited those physicians who had attended Kennedy.
One by one, each doctor began to announce that upon reflection, he had
decided the wound was in fact one of exit. One might guess that like
Richard Randolph Carr, the Parkland doctors were told what they had
observed. (pp. 64-65)
Shaw and Harris also noted that even though the doctors had publicly reversed their position on the throat wound, when they testified before the WC, they made it a point to observe that the wound at least looked like an entry wound, and they explained the damage that Dr. Perry observed behind the wound that led him to conclude the bullet had ranged downward into the chest after entering the throat.
