What the hell difference does it make when the autopsy team figured out there had been an exit wound in the throat. They eventually got there. I suspect it was a gradual process. At first they were confused because they had an entrance wound with no apparent exit and no bullet in the body. That fostered the preposterous hypothesis that the bullet had only gone a few inches into the back and then somehow worked its way out. It is completely absurd to think that a bullet would only penetrate a short distance into soft tissue, but they apparently were groping for an answer early on in the process. As they continued to examine the body, they discovered further tissue damage, the contusion of the pleura, the perforation of the strap muscles, and the damage to the rings of the trachea, there must have been a moment when the thought hit them that, "Holy crap, this leads us right to the tracheostomy incision". That discovery would naturally lead them to at least consider the possibility that the exit wound had been used to perform the tracheostomy. Naturally, they would want to confirm that with the ER team at Parkland. There were several phone calls from Bethesda to Dr. Perry that night and the next morning. Who knows during which conversation Perry confirmed to Humes that the tracheostomy had been performed over the exit wound. Again, what the hell difference does it make when that confirmation was given. The Bethesda team arrived at the correct answer.
It defies credulity that both the back wound and throat wound were entrance wounds in which a bullet penetrated only a short distance into soft tissue so that it could work its way out or be dug out of JFK's body. Only really silly people would believe such a thing was remotely possible.
No, what is "completely absurd" and "defies credulity" is that you are still pretending to know enough to talk about these issues, and that you still expect people to believe that you have the candor and objectivity to discuss these issues with any sincerity and credibility. People who read our previous exchanges will see that you keep ignoring a massive body of evidence that refutes your claims and that you repeatedly commit one blunder and gaffe after another because your research has been so deficient and one-sided.
Let me refresh your memory and give other readers some idea of the evidence I have presented to you on these issues and of how you have ducked this evidence:
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Two of the biggest things the autopsy doctors had to cover up were (1) that they had determined for an absolute fact, through prolonged and careful probing, that the back wound had no exit point; and (2) that they were aware of the throat wound before and during the autopsy. This is why the Sibert and O'Neill report on the autopsy, which revealed the back wound had no exit point, was not published with the Warren Commission (WC) volumes but was sealed (and keep in mind that it was supposed to stay sealed for 75 years -- it was not released until the 1990s when the ARRB released it).
The Back Wound Had No Exit PointTo his great credit, Dr. J. Thornton Boswell, one of the three autopsy pathologists, admitted to the ARRB that although they were initially unable to probe the back wound because the muscles had closed the path, they were able to probe the wound after they opened the chest, and that they then saw that the bullet "had not pierced through the lung cavity" but had caused bleeding "just outside the pleura," i.e., just outside the lining of the chest cavity:
We probed this hole . . . with all sorts of probes and everything, and it was such a small hole, basically, and the muscles were so big and strong and had closed the hole and you couldn't get a finger or a probe through it.
But when we opened the chest and we got at -- the lung extends up under the clavicle and high just beneath the neck here, and the bullet had not pierced through into the lung cavity but had caused hemorrhage just outside the pleura [chest cavity lining]. (ARRB interview: Dr. J. Thornton Boswell, 2/26/96, pp. 75-76)When Boswell said "opened the chest," he was referring to the fact that they removed the chest organs in order to be able to probe the back wound and to see where the probe was going.
We know this from the testimony of Dr. Robert Karnei. Dr. Karnei was a resident surgeon at Bethesda Naval Hospital in 1963 and witnessed the autopsy. In his 8/27/77 HSCA interview, Dr. Karnei told the HSCA that he saw "the chest cavity opened and watched the removal of the organs," and that after this he saw F-i-n-c-k "working with a probe and arranging for photographs" (HSCA interview: Dr. Robert Karnei, 8/27/77, p. 6). This is one of many references from the autopsy witnesses to the fact that photos were taken of the probing, but no such photos made it into the official record and have disappeared.
In a 1991 recorded interview, Dr. Karnei said the autopsy doctors positioned the body in multiple ways to facilitate the probing of the back wound, and that “the men” who saw the probing commented that they could see the end of the finger and then the end of the probe “from inside the empty chest”:
A: They did have the body--trying to sit it up and trying to get that probe to go. . . .
Q: Why didn't they turn the body over?
A: Well, they did. They tried every which way to go ahead, and try to move it around. . . .
Q: But this was after the Y incision?
A: Yes. The men described being able to see the end of the finger and the probe from inside the empty chest.
(Livingstone interview transcript, p. 10)James Jenkins confirmed this crucial fact in his HSCA interview nearly 20 years earlier and in his 1979 filmed interview. Jenkins, a medical technician who assisted Dr. Boswell during the autopsy, stated in his HSCA interview that Dr. James Humes, the chief autopsy pathologist, found that the bullet tract had not "penetrated into the chest" and that Humes had been able to "reach the end of the wound." Jenkins specified that the back wound "was very shallow" and that "it didn't enter the peritoneal cavity [the chest cavity]. He noted that there was quite a “controversy” because the doctors “couldn’t prove the bullet came into the chest cavity” even though they probed the back wound “extensively” (HSCA interview: James Jenkins, 8/29/77, pp. 5, 7, 10-11, 13).
Jenkins added that at around the time of the probing "they repeatedly took x-rays of the area” (p. 8 ). For obvious reasons, those x-rays never made it into the official collection of the autopsy materials and have disappeared.
In his 1979 filmed interview, Jenkins explained that he could see the end of the probe pushing up against the lining of the chest cavity:
Commander Humes put his finger in it, and, you know, said that ... he could probe the bottom of it with his finger. . . . I remember looking inside the chest cavity and I could see the probe . . . through the pleura. You could actually see where it was making an indentation. . . . It was pushing the skin up. . . . There was no entry into the chest cavity.Dr. John Ebersole, the radiologist at the autopsy, stated in his testimony to the HSCA’s medical panel that the autopsy doctors determined the back wound had no exit point:
Further probing determined that the distance traveled by this missile was a short distance inasmuch as the end of the opening could be felt with the finger, inasmuch as a complete bullet of any size could not be located in the brain area and likewise no bullet could be located in the back or any other areas. An inspection revealed there was no point of exit. ("Testimony of John H. Ebersole," HSCA, 3/11/78, p. 57)FBI agent James Sibert confirmed this in his ARRB interview, and added that the autopsy doctors -- "F-i-n-c-k, in particular" -- said during the autopsy, after probing the wound, that the back wound had no exit point, and that the pathologists also said they could feel the end of the back wound:
Q: Can you tell me, was the phone call made to Mr. Killion before or after the body was unloaded from the casket?
A: Oh, that was after the body was removed; it was on the autopsy table, and the autopsy was in progress. Because the reason I made that call was that the pathologists said, "There’s no exit to this back wound,” and probed it with rubber glove and a chrome probe. . . .
When they raised him up, then they found this back wound. And that’s when they started probing with the rubber glove and the finger, and also with the chrome probe.
And that’s just before, of course, I made this call, because they were at a loss to explain what had happened to this bullet. They couldn’t find any bullet.
And they said, "There's no exit.” xxxx, in particular, said, "There's no exit.” And they said that you could feel it with the end of the finger. I mean, the depth of this wound. (ARRB interview: James Sibert, 9/11/97, pp. 59, 111)FBI agent Francis O'Neill told the ARRB the same thing:
There was not the slightest doubt, not a scintilla of doubt whatsoever, that this is what occurred. . . .
Because I was closer to the President’s body than I am to you, and you’re only about a foot and a half away or two feet away. And viewing them with the surgical probe and with their fingers, there was absolutely no point of exit and they couldn’t go any further. And that presented a problem, one heck of a problem. . . .
Q: You previously made reference to attempts to probe that wound. Did you ever see any kind of metal object used to probe that wound?
A: Yes. They used a metal probe, in addition to their fingers. . . . In the back, they probed it to a point where they could not probe any further. In other words, it did not go any further. (ARRB interview: Francis O'Neill, 9/12/97, pp. 30-31)Let's read what Sibert and O'Neill said about this in their 11/26/63 report on the autopsy:
During the latter stages of this autopsy, Dr. Humes located an opening which appeared to be a bullet hole which was below the shoulders. . . . This opening was probed by Dr. Humes with the finger. . . . Further probing determined that the distance traveled by this missile was a short distance inasmuch as the end of the opening could be felt with the finger.[/i] ("Autopsy of Body of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy," 11/26/1963, p. 4)As many here know, we have known for years that the first two drafts of the autopsy report said nothing about the throat wound being an exit point for the back wound. One draft said the back wound had no exit point and said nothing about the throat wound, while the other draft said a fragment from the head shot exited the throat. In both drafts, the back wound had no exit point. This was first revealed with the release of the transcript of the 1/27/64 WC executive session.
The Autopsy Doctors Knew About the Throat Wound Before the Autopsy, and Humes Talked with Perry by No Later Than 10:30 During the AutopsyIt has become clear that the autopsy doctors were aware of the throat wound before and that Humes talked with Dr. Perry well before the autopsy ended. But, after Oswald was killed, everything changed and along came the lie that Humes had no idea there was a throat wound until the morning after the autopsy, that Humes did not talk with Perry until the morning after the autopsy, and that only then did Humes "realize" the back-wound bullet "must" have exited the throat, hence the phrase "
presumably of exit" to describe the throat wound in the final draft of the autopsy report.
Historian William Manchester, in his famous book
The Death of a President, based on dozens of interviews with autopsy personnel and with others at the autopsy or in the hospital, acknowledged that the autopsy doctors heard about Dr. Malcolm Perry's comments about the throat wound that Perry made in the Parkland press conference several hours before the autopsy:
They had heard reports of Mac Perry’s medical briefing for the press, and to their dismay they had discovered that all evidence of what was being called an entrance wound in the throat had been removed by Perry’s tracheotomy. . . ." [Manchester, The Death of a President, pp. 432-433)Yes, of course the autopsy doctors heard about the throat wound before the autopsy. Perry's comments at the Parkland press conference were all over the news that afternoon and evening.
I should add that on 11/24/1966, Richard Levine of the
Baltimore Sun conducted an extensive interview with Dr. J. Thornton Boswell. In Levine's article on the interview published the next day, he noted that,
before the autopsy, the autopsy doctors were made aware of JFK's wounds and what the Dallas doctors had done:
The pathologists had already been told the probable extent of the injuries and what had been done by the physicians in Dallas ("Pathologist Who Made Examination Defends Commission's Version," Baltimore Sun, November 25, 1966, p. 3; see also Harold Weisberg, Post Mortem, Skyhorse Publishing, 2007, reprint of 1975 edition, p. 37; Never Again, Skyhorse Publishing, 2007, reprint of 1995 edition, p. 217).One of the many historic disclosures from the ARRB materials is Dr. Ebersole's statement to the HSCA FPP that by around 10:00 or 10:30, Humes knew about the throat wound from communications with Dallas. Ebersole said he recalled that "by ten or ten thirty . . . communication had been established with Dallas and it was learned" that "there had been a wound . . . in the lower neck" ("Testimony of John H. Ebersole," HSCA, 3/11/1978, pp. 4-5.)
Journalist Martin Steadman and two other journalists spoke with Dr. Perry about a week after the assassination. Steadman knew that Perry had identified the throat wound as an entrance wound at the 11/22 press conference. Steadman wrote that Dr. Perry said he thought the throat wound was an entrance wound because the hole was small, circular, and clean (not ragged). Perry added that he had treated hundreds of patients with gunshot wounds and knew the difference between an exit wound and entrance wound.
Steadman reported that Dr. Perry then told him that during the night of the assassination, he got several phone calls from the doctors at Bethesda. He said they were very upset about his statement that the neck wound was an entry wound. Steadman also reported that Perry said that the autopsy doctors asked him if he or another Parkland doctor had turned over the body to see the wound in Kennedy’s back. Perry said they had not. They then argued that he could not therefore be certain about the throat wound, that there was no evidence of a shot from the front, and that he should stop saying the throat wound was an entrance wound.
Moreover, Steadman said that Dr. Perry told him that when he insisted he could only say what he believed to be true, one or more of the autopsy doctors told him he would be brought before a medical board if he continued to insist on his story. Perry said they even threatened that he would lose his medical license. I quote from Steadman's article:
But [Dr. Malcolm Perry] told us that throughout that night, he received a series of phone calls to his home from irate doctors at the Bethesda Naval Hospital, where an autopsy was being conducted, and the doctors there were becoming increasingly frustrated with his belief that it was an entrance wound. He said they asked him if the doctors in Dallas had turned the President over and examined the wounds to his back; he said they had not. They told him he could not be certain of his conclusion if he had not examined the wounds in the President’s back. They said Bethesda had the President’s body and Dallas did not. They told Dr. Perry he must not continue to say he cut across what he believed to be an entrance wound when there was no evidence of shots fired from the front. When he said again he could only say what he believed to be true, one or more of the autopsy doctors told him they would take him before a Medical Board if he continued to insist on what they were certain was otherwise. They threatened his license to practice medicine, Dr. Perry said....(https://web.archive.org/web/20241006184009/http://evesmag.com/jfkassassination.htm; http://evesmag.com/jfkassassination.htm; https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/the-ordeal-of-malcolm-perry)Crucially, Parkland supervisory nurse Audrey Bell confirmed in her 1997 ARRB interview that Dr. Perry told her that he received several calls on the night of the assassination from Bethesda Naval Hospital pressuring him to change his story about the throat wound:
Saturday morning, when I got over there, Dr. Perry came up to the office. I said, "You look awful. Did you get any sleep last night?"
He said, "Well, not too much, between the calls from Bethesda that came in during the night." ["Bethesda" refers to Bethesda Naval Hospital, where the autopsy was performed.]
I said, "What about?"
He said, "Oh, whether that was an entrance wound or an exit wound in the throat."
He said, "They were wanting me to change my mind." (https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/medical_interviews/audio/ARRB_Bell.htm)Nurse Bell told the HSCA the same thing in 1977 (
http://www.stickam.com/member/viewMedia.do?mId=184850325&mediaowner=true).
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MG:
To his great credit, Dr. J. Thornton Boswell, one of the three autopsy pathologists, admitted to the ARRB that although they were initially unable to probe the back wound because the muscles had closed the path, they were able to probe the wound after they opened the chest, and that they then saw that the bullet "had not pierced through the lung cavity" but had caused bleeding "just outside the pleura," i.e., just outside the lining of the chest cavity:[/size]
We probed this hole . . . with all sorts of probes and everything, and it was such a small hole, basically, and the muscles were so big and strong and had closed the hole and you couldn't get a finger or a probe through it.
But when we opened the chest and we got at -- the lung extends up under the clavicle and high just beneath the neck here, and the bullet had not pierced through into the lung cavity but had caused hemorrhage just outside the pleura [chest cavity lining]. (ARRB interview: Dr. J. Thornton Boswell, 2/26/96, pp. 75-76)
When Boswell said "opened the chest," he was referring to the fact that they removed the chest organs in order to be able to probe the back wound and to see where the probe was going.[/size]
JC: Yes, a perfectly logical approach which explains why the dismissed their initial impression. For some strange reason, MTG wants to cling to that erroneous first impression.
Can you read? You have totally misread what Boswell said. He said nothing about his "initial impression" or "first impression." He said that initially they were unable to probe the back wound because the muscles blocked the wound path, but that after they opened the chest, they were able to probe the wound and determine that the bullet did not enter the lung cavity but merely caused bruising outside the pleura.
As I documented, Dr. Karnei explained that after they removed the chest organs and resumed the probing, the men around the autopsy table could see the end of the probe pushing up against the lining of the chest cavity. Dr. Ebersole said that "further probing" and "inspection" revealed "there was no point of exit." It was this point, explained Sibert and O'Neill, that the autopsy doctors, particularly F-i-n-c-k, announced that the back wound had no exit point.
People are going to easily see through your dishonest, phony argument that this was just a "first impression." No, this was the final, definitive, visually confirmed finding by the end of the autopsy. That's why Sibert and O'Neill, the two FBI agents at the autopsy, included the "no exit" finding in their report on the autopsy. That's why they told the ARRB that at the end of the autopsy, there was no doubt whatsoever that the back wound had no exit point.
He won't allow the autopsy team to abandon that early belief once they gathered more and better information.
LOL! I again ask, can you read? Do you understand English beyond a grade-school level? How can you make this argument with a straight face?
In a previous reply, you repeated the long-debunked lone-gunman lie that Humes did not know about the throat wound until the morning after the autopsy. I just proved to you that this is false, that Humes talked to Perry at least 90 minutes before the autopsy ended. So there was no "more and better information" to be gathered.
At the end of the autopsy, at least 90 minutes after Humes had talked to Perry about the throat wound, the autopsy doctors were absolutely certain that the back wound had no exit point -- they knew this because they had been able to probe the wound to its end after they removed the chest organs and had seen with their own eyes that the wound path did not enter the lining of the chest cavity.
That's why Dr. Karnei explained that after the doctors opened the chest, removed the chest organs, and resumed the probing, the men around the autopsy table could see the end of the probe pushing up against the lining of the chest cavity. That's why Dr. Ebersole said that "further probing" and "inspection" revealed "there was no point of exit." That's why Navy medical technician James Jenkins, serving as Dr. Boswell's assistant during the autopsy, observed that he and others around the autopsy table could see the probe pushing up against the lining of the chest cavity and that "there was no entry into the chest cavity." That's why Dr. Boswell himself told the ARRB that the bullet "had not pierced through into the lung cavity." That's why Sibert and O'Neill observed in their 11/26/63 report on the autopsy that "further probing determined that the distance traveled by this missile was a short distance." That's why Sibert and O'Neill confirmed this fact in the plainest possible English to the ARRB, stressing that the autopsy doctors had no doubt whatsoever about this.
It was only after Oswald was murdered that the no-exit finding was suppressed and replaced by the fiction that the back-wound bullet exited the throat. In order to make that tale even theoretically possible, Humes had to relocate the back wound some 2 inches upward so as to put it above the throat wound and to enable a downward trajectory through the neck, a falsehood that the HSCA FPP corrected, to their credit.
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Do you really need to be told that was Boswell's initial impression.
Do you need to be reminded that Boswell stated that initially they were unable to probe the back wound but that they were later able to probe it after they opened the chest and saw that it did not go into the lung cavity? Do you need to be reminded that not a single person who gave an account of the probing said the doctors had any doubt whatsoever about the no-exit finding? Do you need to be reminded that the no-exit finding came toward the end of the autopsy, after Humes had talked to Perry, and was the final finding on the subject, which is why it was documented in Sibert and O'Neill's report on the autopsy, and which is why it was stated in the first two drafts of the autopsy report, which Humes wrote hours
after the autopsy?
I find it hard to believe that you are so uneducated and incompetent that you simply cannot grasp the evidence here, but this is exactly how you are acting.
That impression was made early in the process and is at odds with the final conclusion which all three members of the autopsy team signed.
You know this is false. One, it was not an "impression." It was a visible fact that was observed by everyone around the autopsy table, as Dr. Karnei confirmed. Two, this happened very late in the autopsy, only after the doctors decided to open the chest and remove the chest organs. Sibert and O'Neill emphatically confirmed that at the end of the autopsy, the pathologists had no doubt whatsoever that the back-wound bullet had no exit point. I've quoted some of their statements that prove this. But, you just keep ignoring them and repeating your fictional version of events.
Two, the final autopsy report only emerged after Oswald was killed. There was not a shred of "new information" that supported the changed finding regarding the throat wound. By the end of the autopsy, Humes et al were certain that the back wound had no exit point because they had seen with their own eyes the probe pushing up against the lining of the chest cavity. The no-exit finding was confirmed by Dr. Ebersole, Dr. Karnei, Jenkins, O'Neill, and Sibert, and by the first two drafts of the autopsy report (as proved by the transcript of the 1/27/64 WC executive session).
Unlike you, Boswell understood the earlier impression that the bullet had no exit was an erroneous one as they discovered there was a clear bullet path leading from the back entrance to the throat exit.
What??!! Well, this is historic news!!
What "clear bullet path leading from the back entrance to the throat exit"?! Where do you get that?! If they discovered a clear path from the back wound to the throat wound,
why did Humes say the throat wound was only "presumably" an exit wound? Huh?Please cite a single source that documents that this alleged clear path was supposedly discovered and described. Let's see it. You will make history, because no one has ever claimed that the autopsy doctors observed "a clear path" from the back wound to the throat wound. They could have only seen such a path if they had dissected the throat wound.
BTW, are you aware that we know from the ARRB materials that the throat wound was probed? Why didn't Humes ever mention this? Obviously, because it would have exposed his lie that he knew nothing about the throat wound until the morning after the autopsy.
How do you suppose they were able to document the bruised pleura. . . . Do you think they just made that up after the autopsy was over? They discovered the bruised pleura,
LOL! They detected the bruised pleura after they removed the chest organs and were able to probe to the end of the back wound, as I've already documented for you! Sheesh, again, is there just no end to your blundering?
. . . the perforated strap muscles, the damaged trachea rings? . . . the perforation of the strap muscles, the grazing of the rings of the trachea, which led them to the tracheostomy.
LOL!
This is the damage that Dr. Perry identified in Dallas! Good gravy, man! Again, you have no business pretending to know anything about the JFK case. You constantly grasp at any item of information that you erroneously believe supports your view, only to find out that you've blundered yet again.
If you want to educate yourself on the damage that Perry identified, I document it in my article
"Research Notes on the Shored-Wound Theory to Explain JFK’s Throat Wound,", which I linked earlier in this very thread.
You see, the problem is that you didn't know enough to realize how badly you were blundering in citing that damage as evidence of a back-to-throat wound path.
If you read the descriptions that Dr. Perry and Dr. Kemp gave of that damage, you'll discover that it was
below and to the right (viewer's left) of the throat wound, which does not fit with any back-to-throat trajectory from the back wound. If your alleged magic bullet supposedly exited the throat after traveling downward and leftward through the neck, the damage would have been above or parallel with/to the left of the resulting throat wound, not below and to the right of the wound.
And, again, you are once more ignoring the fact that the throat wound was
punched inward and was only about 5 mm in diameter. You're also ignoring the fact that we've known for years now that there was no hole through the tie and no nick on either edge of the tie knot, proving that no bullet exited the throat because we have ample photographic evidence that the tie knot was neatly centered in the middle of the collar band and directly over the shirt slits.
We don't know at one point in the process they began to suspect the tracheostomy had been performed over the exit wound but they were able to confirm that suspicion when Humes talked to Perry.
Umm, yes, we do know this -- and you know it, but won't admit it. I've documented for you that Manchester and Levine found that the autopsy doctors were aware of the throat wound before the autopsy, and that Dr. Ebersole revealed to the HSCA that Humes was in contact with Dallas and talked about the throat wound with Dallas by no later than 10:30 PM, at least 90 minutes before the autopsy ended. Let me refresh your memory:
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Another key fact that Humes withheld in his WC and HSCA testimony was that there were multiple drafts of the autopsy report. Humes claimed he burned the “rough first draft” because it had blood on it, but he said there was no substantive difference between the first draft and the final draft. This lie was exposed with the release of the transcript of the 1/27/64 WC executive session, which reveals that Rankin discussed two early drafts of the autopsy report, both of which said the back wound had no exit point.
For a detailed discussion on the drafts of the autopsy report, I would refer interested readers to Doug Horne’s 64-minute video presentation
The Evolving JFK Autopsy Report..
As mentioned, the autopsy doctors were careful to conceal the fact that after the chest organs were removed, they were able to probe the back wound to its end point and could see that the wound path did not enter the chest cavity. Their later cover story was that the contracted back muscles prevented them from probing the back wound.
Only Boswell eventually abandoned this story, but he did not do so until his ARRB interview in 1996, when he said that initially the muscles prevented them from probing the back wound but that after they opened the chest, they were able to “get at” it and see that the bullet did not pierce the “lung cavity” but merely caused bleeding “outside the pleura” (the lining of the chest cavity).
In his HSCA interview, Boswell said that he and the other doctors thought the tracheotomy “was a wound.” The interviewer, Andy Purdy, added that Boswell “meant to convey the impression that that the doctors thought it was a bullet wound” (HSCA interview: J. Thornton Boswell, 8/17/77, p. 3).
Later in the interview, Boswell said he remembered “seeing part of the perimeter of a bullet wound in the anterior neck” (p. 8 ).
This brings up the crucial point that the bottom half of a round small bullet hole can be seen fairly easily in the bottom of the throat wound in autopsy photo F1. So, it is not a bit surprising that Boswell spotted this during the autopsy.
But, still later in the interview, perhaps realizing he had said too much, Boswell began to vacillate about knowledge of the throat wound during the autopsy and about when the autopsy doctors concluded that a bullet had fallen out of the back wound (which Boswell usually referred to as a “neck" wound). Toward the very end of the interview, Boswell said that “in the later courses of the autopsy” the doctors thought the tracheotomy “may have included the exit wound of a bullet” (p. 12).
Yet, we know that the first two drafts of the autopsy report said nothing about the throat wound being an exit point for a bullet. The second draft said the throat wound was an exit point for a
fragment from the head shot. Both drafts said the back wound had no exit point.
In a very revealing comment, Boswell said the doctors got themselves into trouble (“in dutch”) with the Secret Service over the "neck" (back) and throat wounds:
We had gotten ourselves in dutch with the neck and throat wounds with regard to the Secret Service” (p. 4).For some reason, the interviewer did not ask Boswell to expand on this statement, and Boswell did not volunteer why they were in trouble with the Secret Service agents over the “neck” and throat wounds.
Boswell added that one of the Secret Service agents was “on the phone most of the time” during the autopsy (p. 4).
Boswell noted that during the autopsy, Dr. Robert Karnei “served in effect as the chief assistant of the autopsy doctors” and that Dr. Karnei assisted with the post-autopsy brain exam (pp. 5, 11).
In his ARRB interview, Boswell said the doctors concluded
during the autopsy that the throat wound was the exit point for the back wound! He said their first impression of the throat wound was that it was just a tracheostomy but that after they found the back wound and after they opened the chest and saw blood outside the pleura “we had a track” (i.e., they
inferred a track, not that they actually saw it):
Q. When you referred to the wound in the anterior neck, what was your first impression as to what that wound was?
A. I'm not sure what our first impression -- oh, we thought that they had done a tracheostomy, and whether or not that was a bullet wound, we weren't sure, initially. It was after we found an entrance wound and then the blood external to the pleura that we had a track, and that proved to be the exit wound; but it was so distorted by the incision, initially we just assumed it to be a tracheostomy.
Q. Did you reach the conclusion that there had been a transit wound through the neck during the course of the autopsy itself?
A. Oh, yes. (ARRB interview: J. Thornton Boswell, 2/26/96, p. 34)In other words, Boswell claimed that the autopsy doctors deduced/inferred a back-to-throat track
during the autopsy based on the bleeding outside the pleura.
At no point did he ever claim they actually saw this alleged track. The only way they could have actually seen such a track would have been to dissect the wound, but they did no dissection because an Army general refused to let F-i-n-c-k dissect the wound, as F-i-n-c-k reluctantly admitted under cross-examination at the Clay Shaw trial.
So we see that on two occasions Boswell contradicted Humes’s tale that they were unaware of the throat wound until the following morning.
A major problem with Boswell’s statements about the back-to-throat conclusion being reached during the autopsy is that they are contradicted by the first two drafts of the autopsy report, by Dr. Karnei’s statements, by Dr. Ebersole’s statements, by med-tech Jenkins’ statements, by FBI agent O’Neill’s statements, by FBI agent Sibert’s statements, and by the Sibert and O’Neill report on the autopsy, not to mention by Humes’s WC and HSCA testimony.
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Historian William Manchester, in his famous book
The Death of a President, based on dozens of interviews with autopsy personnel and with others at the autopsy or in the hospital, acknowledged that the autopsy doctors heard about Dr. Malcolm Perry's comments about the throat wound that Perry made in the Parkland press conference several hours before the autopsy:
They had heard reports of Mac Perry’s medical briefing for the press, and to their dismay they had discovered that all evidence of what was being called an entrance wound in the throat had been removed by Perry’s tracheotomy. . . ." [Manchester, The Death of a President, pp. 432-433)I should add that on 11/24/1966, Richard Levine of the
Baltimore Sun conducted an extensive interview with Dr. J. Thornton Boswell. In Levine's article on the interview published the next day, he noted that,
before the autopsy, the autopsy doctors were made aware of JFK's wounds and what the Dallas doctors had done:
The pathologists had already been told the probable extent of the injuries and what had been done by the physicians in Dallas ("Pathologist Who Made Examination Defends Commission's Version," Baltimore Sun, November 25, 1966, p. 3; see also Harold Weisberg, Post Mortem, Skyhorse Publishing, 2007, reprint of 1975 edition, p. 37; Never Again, Skyhorse Publishing, 2007, reprint of 1995 edition, p. 217).One of the many historic disclosures from the ARRB materials is Dr. Ebersole's statement to the HSCA FPP that by around 10:00 or 10:30, Humes knew about the throat wound from communications with Dallas. Ebersole said he recalled that "by ten or ten thirty . . . communication had been established with Dallas and it was learned" that "there had been a wound . . . in the lower neck" ("Testimony of John H. Ebersole," HSCA, 3/11/1978, pp. 4-5.)
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Why don't you stop lying about this and at least admit that Humes positively knew about the throat wound at least 90 minutes before the autopsy ended? Answer: Because this admission alone would destroy your farcical version of events.
You, being a silly CT, think the autopsy team should have stuck with that first erroneous impression that there was no exit for the back wound no matter what they learned later in the fact finding process. Somebody on the autopsy teams said early on there was "no exit" and by God, they were stuck with that no matter what they learned afterwards.
This false talking point is why you keep lying about when Humes learned of the throat wound. The SBT tale says that Humes didn't know the throat wound existed until the following morning, that he only learned of the wound during his phone call with Dr. Perry that morning, and that he didn't talk with Dr. Perry until after he'd written the first two drafts of the autopsy report. The ARRB disclosures alone destroy this tale.
They thought there was no exit until they discovered the trail of tissue damage leading to the tracheostomy in the throat. Then they understood why there was no bullet in the body. It had exited from JFK's throat.
You can repeat this lie until the Sun burns out, as I'm sure you will, but that won't make it come true. Part of me is almost glad that you are oblivious to how bad and unserious you make yourself look by ignoring Dr. Karnei's statements, Dr. Ebersole's statements, med-tech Jenkins' statements, the Sibert and O'Neill report on the autopsy, and Sibert and O'Neill's ARRB testimony.
This is a good point to discuss Sibert and O'Neill's HSCA interviews, which I haven't yet mentioned.
Sibert said "they probed the wound with a finger and Dr. F-i-n-c-k probed it with a metal probe" and that "the doctors concluded it only went so far" (HSCA interview: James W. Sibert, 8/25/77, p. 3). Sibert added that "nothing was ever mentioned about the anterior neck wound being a possible bullet exit wound" and that "xxxx and Humes agreed there was no exit wound of the bullet through the back" (pp. 4, 6).
Furthermore, as part of his HSCA interview, Sibert was asked to do wound diagrams on two face sheets with generic male figures printed on them. On both sheets/both diagrams, Sibert put the back wound about 5 inches below the collar band and clearly below the throat wound, almost exactly where the rear clothing holes place the wound (pp. 8-9).
In O'Neill's HSCA affidavit, O'Neill said, "I do not see how the bullet that entered below the shoulder in the back could have come out the front of the throat" (O'Neill Affidavit for HSCA, 11/8/78, p. 5). He also said this:
"I know for a fact that when the autopsy was complete, there was no doubt in anyone's mind in attendance at the autopsy that the bullet found on the stretcher in Dallas came out of JFK's body" (p. 3).
Why? Because "Humes and Boswell couldn't locate an outlet for the bullet that entered the back" (p. 3).
And notice that O'Neill said the certainty about the back wound was
"when the autopsy was complete."To put it simply, by the end of the autopsy, the doctors were certain that the bullet that was found on a stretcher in Dallas must have been the bullet that made the shallow back wound. This was
after Agent Killion had heard from Dallas about the stretcher bullet, and at least 90 minutes
after Humes had learned of the throat wound from Dr. Perry[/i], as Dr. Ebersole revealed to the HSCA.
O'Neill explained this in more detail in his ARRB interview:
There was not the slightest doubt when we left there that the bullet found on the stretcher in Dallas was the bullet which worked its way out through external cardiac massage. And the doctor said, since the body had not been turned over in Dallas, “External cardiac massage was conducted on the president, and the bullet worked its way out."
There was not the slightest doubt, not a scintilla of doubt whatsoever, that this is what occurred. . . .
Because I was closer to the President’s body than I am to you, and you’re only about a foot and a half away or two feet away. And viewing them with the surgical probe and with their fingers, there was absolutely no point of exit and they couldn’t go any further. (ARRB interview: Francis O'Neill, 9/12/97, pp. 30-31)
You are a damn liar. You get no respect because you deserve no respect. Moronic. Cite the bystanders instead of the people actually conducting the autopsy.
"Bystanders"?! Umm, Dr. Ebersole was the autopsy radiologist. Dr. Karnei was a resident surgeon at Bethesda and helped supervise security for the autopsy before it began, and then watched much of the autopsy from close range. James Jenkins assisted with the autopsy; indeed, he was Boswell's assistant during the autopsy. Sibert and O'Neill were the FBI's official observers at the autopsy; their job was to observe the autopsy and then submit a report on it.
You lie about these witnesses because you know their accounts destroy your farcical version of events.
You have never shown any evidence anyone on the autopsy team knew that. You have shown that Perry said it. There is no evidence any of them saw Perry's presser.
You know this is false. I've documented for you that historian William Manchester and journalist Richard Levine found that the autopsy doctors knew about the throat wound before the autopsy. Manchester interviewed dozens of autopsy witnesses and others at the hospital in researching his famous book -- that's when he learned that the autopsy pathologists heard reports about the throat wound before the autopsy. Boswell indicated the same thing to Levine.
But, you just ignore all this and keep falsely pretending there's no evidence the doctors knew about the throat wound before the autopsy.
MG: At the end of the autopsy, at least 90 minutes after Humes had talked to Perry about the throat wound, the autopsy doctors were absolutely certain that the back wound had no exit point.
JC: More lies. Have you no shame?
Let me refresh your memory, yet again:
One of the many historic disclosures from the ARRB materials is Dr. Ebersole's statement to the HSCA FPP that by around 10:00 or 10:30, Humes knew about the throat wound from communications with Dallas. Ebersole said he recalled that "by ten or ten thirty . . . communication had been established with Dallas and it was learned" that "there had been a wound . . . in the lower neck" ("Testimony of John H. Ebersole," HSCA, 3/11/1978, pp. 4-5.)
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Even the WC acknowledged that the tie knot was positioned directly over the shirt slits. So, if a bullet exited the shirt slits, as claimed by the SBT, it would have had to tear through the tie knot. This is why the FBI produced an evidence photo of the tie knot that gave the false impression that there was a hole in the knot.
If this bullet did not tear through the tie knot, then it would have had to at least nick the knot's left edge, which is what the WC claimed, but (1) the nick was not on the knot's left edge, and (2) the knot was centered squarely in the middle of the shirt's collar band before and during the motorcade, as we know from numerous photos.
I've documented all of these facts in "JFK's Clothing Proves the Single-Bullet Theory Is Impossible":
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MAgWA0frOLVeWY6ok9nzdrgpRN4Wv1AL/view?usp=sharingIt's interesting: You claim that the WC gave us "the definitive account" of the assassination, but you contradict what the WC said on this issue because you've done so little reading on the JFK case.[/font]
Also, it cannot be emphasized enough that the SBT collapsed the moment we learned that the tie had no hole through it, not through the knot and not through any other part of the tie. The FBI doggedly resisted allowing researchers to view or obtain high-quality images of the tie.
As mentioned, at one point the FBI produced a misleading evidence photo that showed the knot twisted in such a way as to make it appear that the nick was in the middle of the knot in order to lead the viewer to think that a bullet had gone through the knot and had exited in the middle of it.
As my above-linked article proves, abundant photographic evidence shows that Kennedy's tie knot was squarely centered in the middle of the collar band before and during the motorcade. Thus, any bullet that exited the shirt slits could not have avoided tearing through the middle part of the knot.
The SBT also collapsed when it was established that the nick on the tie knot was
not on the edge of the knot but was visibly inward from the knot's left edge. This makes perfect sense because we have known for years that the nick was made by one of the Parkland ER nurses while the nurses hurriedly cut away JFK's clothing. Dr. Carrico noted that he saw no nick in the tie or slits in the shirt below the collar band when the nurses began to cut away Kennedy's clothing.
Of course, the fact that no bullet could have exited the shirt slits without tearing a hole through the tie also makes perfect sense in light of the ARRB and other disclosures that reveal that the autopsy doctors determined for an absolute fact that the back wound had no exit point and that men around the autopsy table could see the back-wound probe pushing up against the lining of the chest cavity.
Dr. F-i-n-c-k, a board-certified forensic pathologist, did the probing. The idea that he ram-rodded the probe so hard and so ineptly that he tore a false passage to the lining of the chest cavity, as one WC apologist has speculated, is beyond absurd. The probe had a blunt end, a rounded end. It was not sharp at all. Even if F-i-n-c-k had blunderingly pushed the probe with all of his strength, it is doubtful he could have torn such a passage, even if he had been trying to do so. Moreover, as James Jenkins noted, the probe was pushing up against the chest-cavity lining at a point well
below the throat wound.
Topic: JFK's Throat Wound Was an Entrance Wound: Refuting the Shored-Wound Theory (Read 30530 times)