The JFK 100
"26 Trained Medical Personnel at Parkland Hospital"
I. D. Brickman as Dr. Paul Peters
I. D. Brickman as Dr. Paul Peters
Twenty-six trained medical personnel at Parkland Hospital saw with their own eyes the back of the President's head blasted out.(1)Longtime researcher Gus Russo writes:
When these statements [of the Parkland personnel] are read in toto, however, one sees that the Dallas doctors often prefaced their statements with phrases like "I really didn't get a good look at it, but . . ." or "I could be wrong, because we never lifted the head . . ." or "I was at the other end of the table, but I glimpsed out of the corner of my eye . . ." Critics never include these qualifications in their accounts of the Dallas statements. One of the attending physicians, Dr. Charles James Carrico, recalls, "Everyone in the room was trying to save a life, not figure out forensics . . . We were trying to save a life, not worrying about entry and exit wounds." Dr. Pepper Jenkins told the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in 1992:In interviews with author Gerald Posner, the Parkland doctors were nearly unanimous in their agreement with the autopsy findings at Bethesda Naval Hospital. Dr. Carrico points out, "We did [originally] say there was a parietal-occipital wound . . . and I think we were mistaken. The reason I say that is that the President was lying on his back and shoulders, and you could see the hole, with scalp and brain tissue hanging back down his head, and it covered most of the occipital [rear] portion of his head. We saw a large hole on the right side of his head. I don't believe we saw any occipital bone. It was not there. It was parietal bone. And if we said otherwise, we were mistaken."(3)
I was standing at the head of the table in the position the anesthesiologist most often assumes -- closest to the President's head. My presence there and the President's great shock of hair were such that it was not visible to those standing down each side of the gurney where they were carrying out their resuscitative maneuvers.The bottom line is that the overwhelming majority of those in the crowded trauma room agree with the Besthesda autopsy findings of a rear-entering shot.(2)
Dr. Adolph Giesecke agrees. "I guess I have to say I was wrong in my Warren Commission testimony on the wound and in some of my pronouncements since then. I just never got that good of a look at it. . . . The truth is there was a massive head wound, with brain tissue and blood around it. And with that type of wound you could not get accurate information unless you feel around inside the hole and look into it in detail, and I certainly didn't do that, nor did I see anyone else do that."(4)
Dr. Paul Peters, portrayed in JFK by I. D. Brickman (see photo above), also concedes his initial impression was inaccurate: ". . . I now believe the head wound is more forward than I first placed it. More to the side than the rear." Dr. Pepper Jenkins states, "The autopsy photo, with the rear of the head intact and a protrusion in the parietal [side] region, is the way I remember it. I never did say occipital."(5)
"I don't think any of us got a good look at the head wound," says Dr. Malcolm Perry.(6) "I did not look at it that closely. . . . But like everyone else, I saw it back there. It was in the occipital/parietal area. The occipital and parietal bone join each other, so we are only talking a centimeter or so in difference. And you must remember the President had a lot of hair, and it was bloody and matted, and it was difficult to tell where the wound started or finished."(7)
Dr. Charles Baxter concurs: "He had such a bushy head of hair, and blood and all in it, you couldn't tell what was the wound versus dried blood or dangling tissue. I have been misquoted enough on this, some saying I claimed the whole back of his head was blown away. That's just wrong. I never even saw the back of his head. The wound was on the right side, not the back."(8)
Dr. Ronald Jones confirms his colleagues' observations, adding he did not even realize for several minutes that there was a head wound. He finally noticed there was a "large side wound, with blood and tissue that extended toward the rear, from what you could tell of the mess that was there."(9)
Kevin Costner's monologue continues:
Not one of the civilian doctors who examined the President at Parkland Hospital regarded his throat wound as anything but a wound of entry.(10)Dr. Malcolm Perry was one of five doctors who saw the President's throat wound before it was obliterated by a tracheotomy incision; it was Dr. Perry who performed the tracheotomy, and who later stated at a press conference that the wound "appeared to be an entrance wound."(11)
Dr. Perry has this to say:
As the press is wont to do, they took my statement at the press conference out of context. I did say it looked like an entrance wound since it was small, but I qualified it by saying that I did not know where the bullets came from. I wish now that I had not speculated. Everyone ignored my qualification. It was a small wound, slightly ragged at the edges, and could have been an exit or entrance. By Sunday, after working on Oswald, I had learned my lesson, and I handed out a written statement to the press and took no questions. I had got a lot smarter in two days.(12)Dr. Ronald Jones, one of Parkland's senior resident surgeons, also saw the throat wound. He says, "The neck wound could have been either an entrance or an exit. I only called it an entrance wound because I did not know about the back wound." (See below.) Dr. Charles James Carrico and Dr. Charles Baxter likewise said the wound could have been an entrance or exit wound.(13)
All of these doctors said the same thing in their Warren Commission depositions: that the throat wound could have been either one of entrance or one of exit.(14)
Of the five doctors who saw the wound, Dr. Pepper Jenkins had the most experience with gunshot wounds of anyone at Parkland. Jenkins says, "Even at that time, I was convinced it was a wound of exit because it was bigger than an entrance wound should be. Entrance wounds, as you look at them, are small and round, and may have a halo around them, black, from the bullet. But it makes a clean wound. When a bullet goes through the body, tissue moves in front of it and bursts."(15)
As researcher Fred Litwin notes at the Kennedy Assassination Home Page,
The emergency room doctors at Parkland Hospital initially described the wound in Kennedy's throat as an entrance wound. However, they never examined his back. A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that "the odds that a trauma specialist will correctly interpret certain fatal gunshot wounds are no better than the flip of a coin." The study looked at 46 cases and found there were 16 errors in differentiating between entrance and exit wounds. See "Clinicians' Forensic Interpretations of Fatal Gunshot Wounds Often Miss the Mark," (JAMA, 28 April, 1994, pp. 2058-2061.) This is one of the reasons why forensic pathologists conduct autopsies.Returning to Kevin Costner's monologue:
The doctors found no wounds of entry in the back of the head.(16)As noted above, the President's body was never turned over at Parkland; his head wounds were never inspected there. The Parkland staff engaged in one activity only at that time: to try to save the President's life.(17)
Kevin Costner in JFK:
But the body was then illegally moved to Washington for the autopsy. . . . Because when a coup d'etat has occurred there's a big difference between an autopsy performed by civilian doctors and one by military doctors working for the government.(18)Finally Oliver Stone scores a point, even if he is only half right. While there is certainly no evidence that the autopsy would have been even the slightest bit different in Dallas, it is true that Texas state law requires the autopsy to be performed in Texas.
The problem with theorizing that sinister conspiratorial forces were behind this move is hinted at in the brief scene with which JFK illustrates this episode:
Presidential aide Kenny O'Donnell, of course, was one of John F. Kennedy's dearest friends in the world; another of JFK's closest friends, Dave Powers, was by O'Donnell's side as O'Donnell argued with the medical examiner, Dr. Earl Rose. This should give the reader a clue that it was not a nefarious conspiracy, but the slain President's own entourage that insisted his body be removed immediately.(20)MEDICAL EXAMINER Texas Law, sir, requires the autopsy be done here. You're not taking him with you!
KENNY O'DONNELL Sonofabitch, you're not telling me what to do! Get the hell outta the way!(19)
Why? One simple reason: Jacqueline Kennedy refused to leave without it. And the presidential party wanted her out of harm's way immediately. (See William Manchester's The Death of a President for a detailed discussion of this episode.)(21)
As badly as Oliver Stone muddies the waters, the facts shine through clearly in the end. The predictably confused and often contradictory eyewitness testimony cannot impeach the hard evidence of the President's autopsy.
You may wish to see . . .
The JFK 100: The Single Bullet Theory
The JFK 100: The President's Autopsy
NOTES:1. Oliver Stone and Zachary Sklar, JFK: The Book of the Film (New York: Applause, 1992), p. 155. All quotations are from the shooting script and may vary slightly from the finished motion picture.
2. Gus Russo, Live by the Sword (Baltimore: Bancroft, 1998), p. 301.
3. Gerald Posner, Case Closed (New York: Random House, 1993), p. 311.
4. Gerald Posner, Case Closed (New York: Random House, 1993), p. 311.
5. Gerald Posner, Case Closed (New York: Random House, 1993), p. 311.
6. Gerald Posner, Case Closed (New York: Random House, 1993), p. 309.
7. Gerald Posner, Case Closed (New York: Random House, 1993), p. 312.
8. Gerald Posner, Case Closed (New York: Random House, 1993), p. 312.
9. Gerald Posner, Case Closed (New York: Random House, 1993), p. 312.
10. Oliver Stone and Zachary Sklar, JFK: The Book of the Film (New York: Applause, 1992), p. 156. All quotations are from the shooting script and may vary slightly from the finished motion picture.
11. Gerald Posner, Case Closed (New York: Random House, 1993), p. 305.
12. Gerald Posner, Case Closed (New York: Random House, 1993), p. 305.
13. Gerald Posner, Case Closed (New York: Random House, 1993), p. 305.
14. Gerald Posner, Case Closed (New York: Random House, 1993), p. 306.
15. Warren Commission Report, pp. 89-91.
16. Gerald Posner, Case Closed (New York: Random House, 1993), p. 306.
17. Oliver Stone and Zachary Sklar, JFK: The Book of the Film (New York: Applause, 1992), p. 156. All quotations are from the shooting script and may vary slightly from the finished motion picture.
18. Gerald Posner, Case Closed (New York: Random House, 1993), p. 305.
19. Oliver Stone and Zachary Sklar, JFK: The Book of the Film (New York: Applause, 1992), p. 156. All quotations are from the shooting script and may vary slightly from the finished motion picture.
20. Oliver Stone and Zachary Sklar, JFK: The Book of the Film (New York: Applause, 1992), p. 156. All quotations are from the shooting script and may vary slightly from the finished motion picture.
21. William Manchester, The Death of a President (New York: Harper & Row, 1988), pp. 296-304.
The JFK 100: The Single Bullet Theory
The JFK 100: The President's Autopsy