We Were There

by Allen Childs

  However, when I spoke recently to Dr. Jones, who is chief of surgery at Baylor Hospital, he told me he now believes the neck wound could well have been the result of a bone fragment of the exploding skull (at the time he told the Warren Commission he believed it to be an entry wound). He also points out the weakness in the front shot theory, this being the fact that there was no bullet track from the neck to the posterior skull. Jones was kind enough to send me his recollections as they appeared in the publication Baylor Reflections.

  Sixteen forensic pathologists had examined the evidence and all of them concluded the bullet that killed the president came from behind and above the motorcade. However, none of them had actually examined the body of the dead president.

  When the whole of the Kennedy assassination papers are released in 2017, there may be answers to some of these questions. One we would like explained is why the Justice Department continues to refuse to honor a Congressional resolution demanding an end to the secrecy surrounding the death of JFK. As Earl Rose observed in 1992 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, “Silence and concealment are the mother’s milk of conspiracy theories.”

  Ron Jones, MD

  (oral history courtesy of the Sixth Floor Museum)

  As I looked at the president, what I saw in just a few seconds was what I thought was a very small entrance wound in the midline of the neck just above the notch in the neck. And it never occurred to me that that was anything but an entrance wound at that time. [pointing to center of neck just above shirt collar] There was enough open here that I could see the wound, and it, as I recall, was just above the collar. I think subsequent photographs show that there perhaps was a nick in the top of the tie in the collar of the shirt. But I could see the wound the way it was . . . the way the president was positioned when I walked in the room. And I thought that it was about a quarter of an inch in diameter, ­relatively smooth edges. And my interpretation was, he’s been shot from the front. That’s all I saw at that time, and I knew there was some injury to the head because there was a lot of blood around.

  Robert McClelland, MD

  (excerpted from D Magazine, October 28, 2008)

  As their fingers moved in and out of the president’s body, and through that afternoon, the doctors debated where the bullet came in and went out. Perry said he assumed the smaller hole in Kennedy’s neck was an entrance wound. They knew nothing of the events downtown, where some witnesses claimed a gunman by the infamous grassy knoll fired a shot from in front of the moving president. Lee Harvey Oswald fired from behind Kennedy as the limousine moved away from the book depository. At the time, the doctors hypothesized that perhaps a bullet entered at the front of the throat, ricocheted off the bony spinal column, and moved upward out the back of Kennedy’s head. At that point, the doctors were unaware of the wound in Kennedy’s back. McClelland stared at the hole in the back of the president’s head. He looked at where the skull crumpled slightly around the edges. Knowing nothing else of the assassination at the time, he, too, assumed a bullet had come out of that opening.

  He wouldn’t feel confident in his initial assessment until eleven and half years later, when he and his wife watched an episode of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. As the couple got ready for bed, Carson introduced his guest, a young, ambitious television host named Geraldo Rivera. Rivera had with him footage of the assassination previously unseen by the public, footage known simply as “the Zapruder film.” Shot by Abraham Zapruder, an immigrant from the Ukraine, the 8-millimeter Kodachrome movie shows the motorcade through the duration of the assassination. As McClelland watched it for the first time, he saw the back of the president’s head blasted out. He saw the president swayed “back and to the left,” a phrase later repeated ad nauseum in Oliver Stone’s JFK. McClelland was convinced he had been standing over an exit wound.

  William Kenneth Horsley, MD

  (from a letter from Horsley’s wife, Donna)

  Dr. William Kenneth Horsley was a senior medical student on that day and had vivid memories of what took place there when President Kennedy was brought in. Although he never talked about it very much, he was convinced by the wound that he saw that the fatal shot had come from in front of the president.

  Joe D. Goldstrich, MD

  Kennedy wasn’t breathing. The appearance of the neck wound is burned into my memory. It was a perfectly round hole between nickel and quarter size, in the middle of the front of the neck, just below the Adam’s apple.

  Ron Jones, MD

  (from Baylor Reflections)

  President Lyndon Johnson established the Warren Commission on November 29, 1963. I was not contacted by the Warren Commission until the following spring—on Friday, March 20, 1964—although in the interim the Federal Bureau of Investigation did stop by at least once to interview me. My testimony for the Warren Commission was taken in Dallas by Counsel Arlen Specter, now a US senator. Questions were asked as to why I initially thought the neck wound was an entrance wound, whether I was a ballistics expert, and whether I had any notes other than those written the day following the assassination. It is interesting that I have seen my handwritten statement given to the ­commission stamped “top secret.” I stated for the Warren Commission that the neck injury was very small and relatively clean, as you would see from a bullet that is entering rather than exiting a patient. If this were an exit wound, you would think that it exited at a very low velocity to produce no more damage than this had done, and if it was a missile of high velocity, I would expect more of an explosive type of exit wound, with more tissue destruction than appeared on examination. I had stated that I thought such a small throat wound could have been caused by a whole bullet only if it was traveling at an extremely low velocity, to the point that you might think that this bullet hardly made it through soft tissues.

  James Carrico, MD

  (oral history courtesy of the Sixth Floor Museum)

  We were in our Saturday morning conference when the phone rang, and it was the pathologist in Bethesda, trying to get a hold of Dr. Malcolm Perry to get some medical information. And that was the first time, I think, that the pathologist in Bethesda knew that there was a wound here [pointing to center of neck] because all they saw apparently was a hole here [pointing to back right shoulder], a little hole here [pointing to back center of head], big hole here [right side of head], and a tracheotomy wound, and since they didn’t have any medical records, they couldn’t figure out how in the world three holes connected. So, they called Malcolm, and that’s when they told him that these other two wounds were there, and that’s when it kind of began to make sense that the bullet went in here [pointing to back of neck], came out here [pointing to center of neck], nicked his trachea, maybe hurt his spinal cord, but didn’t kill him. The second bullet went in here [pointing to upper back portion of head], hit the bones inside his head, came out here [holding right side of head] and blew that big hole out. So, that was the first time we could really put things together in a way that made sense.

  Charles Baxter, MD

  (excerpted from his testimony at the Warren Commission Hearings)

  Mr. SPECTER. Will you describe with as much particularity as you can the wound which you noticed on the president’s neck?

  Dr. BAXTER. The wound on the neck was approximately an inch and a half above the manubrium of the sternum, the sternal notch. This wound was in my estimation, 4 to 5 mm. in widest ­diameter and was a spherical wound. The edges of it—the size of the wound is measured by the hole plus the damaged skin around the area, so that it was a very small wound. And, it was directly in the midline. Now, this wound was excised in the performance of the ­tracheotomy and on the entery [sic] into the deeper tissues of the neck, there was considerable contusion of the muscles of the ­anterior neck and a moderate amount of bleeding around the trachea. The trachea was deviated slightly, I believe, to the left.

  Our tracheotomy incision was made in the second tracheal ring which was immediately above the area of damage�
��where we thought the damaged area of the trachea was, which we did not dissect out, but once the endotracheal tube was placed, the ­tracheotomy tube was placed into the trachea, it was below this tear in the trachea, and gave us good control or perfect control of respiration.

  Mr. SPECTER. Were the characteristics of the wound on the neck sufficient to enable you to form an opinion with reasonable medical certainty as to what was the cause of the hole?

  Dr. BAXTER. Well, the wound was, I think, compatible with a gunshot wound. It did not appear to be a jagged wound such as one would expect with a very high velocity rifle bullet. We could not determine, or did not determine at that time whether this represented an entry or an exit wound. Judging from the caliber of the rifle that we later found or become acquainted with, this would more resemble a wound of entry. However, due to the density of the tissues of the neck and depending upon what a bullet of such caliber would pass through, the tissues that it would pass through on the way to the neck, I think that the wound could well represent either exit or entry wound.

  Mr. SPECTER. Assuming some factors in addition to those which you personally observed, Dr. Baxter, what would your opinion be if these additional facts were present: First, the President had a bullet wound of entry on the right posterior thorax just above the upper border of the scapula with the wound measuring 7 by 4 mm. in oval shape, being 14 cm. from the tip of the right acromion process and 14 cm. below the tip of the right mastoid process—assume this is the set of facts, that the wound just described was caused by a 6.5 mm. bullet shot from approximately 160 to 250 feet away from the President, from a weapon having a muzzle velocity of approximately 2,000 feet per second, assuming as a third factor that the bullet passed through the President’s body, going in between the strap muscles of the shoulder without violating the pleura space and exited at a point in the midline of the neck, would the hole which you saw on the President’s throat be consistent with an exit point, assuming the factors which I have just given to you?

  Dr. BAXTER. Although it would be unusual for a high velocity missile of this type to cause a wound as you have described, the passage through tissue planes of this density could have well resulted in the sequence which you outline; namely, that the anterior wound does represent a wound of exit.

  Mr. SPECTER. What would be the considerations which, in your mind, would make it, as you characterized it, unlikely?

  Dr. BAXTER. It would be unlikely because the damage that the bullet would create would be—first its speed would create a shock wave which would damage a larger number of tissues, as in its path, it would tend to strike, or usually would strike, tissues of greater density than this particular missile did and would then begin to tumble and would create larger jagged—the further it went, the more jagged would be the damage that it created; so that ordinarily there would have been a rather large wound of exit.

  Mr. SPECTER. But relating the situation as I hypothesized it for you?

  Dr. BAXTER. Then it is perfectly understandable that this wound of exit was not of any greater magnitude than it was.

  Mr. SPECTER. Dr. Baxter, is there a channel through which the bullet could have passed in the general direction which I have described to you where there would be very few tissues and virtually no tissues of great density?

  Dr. BAXTER Yes; passing through the fascial plane which you have described, it could well not have these things happen to it, so that it would pass directly through—almost as if passing through a sheet of paper and the wound of exit would be no larger than the wound we saw.

  Ron Jones, MD

  (Oral history courtesy Sixth Floor Museum)

  Editor’s note: What follows is the most remarkable revelation I came upon in researching this book. It appears that readily accessible accounts of the shooting were being ignored.

  So, you don’t always know, and you’re a little cautious as to who interviews you over the phone. If it’s somebody who’s really interested [smiling] and a civilian, or is it somebody that’s trying to be somewhat sensational? I’ve had calls to participate in movies and BBC and so forth, but I was also directed as to what I was to say and describe the injuries in a little different fashion, such as maybe the president was shot in the temple instead of in the back of the head. And I refused to do that, and when I did, they had no more use for me. Now, Arlen Specter talked to me after the deposition outside the room in Parkland Hospital in the administrator’s office, and he said . . . that was a fairly intense query that he did with me, and . . . but afterwards, he said in the hall—and this is in March of 1964—he said, “We have people who would testify that they saw somebody shoot the president from the front.” From either . . . off the bridge, as I recall. I think there was a rail bridge in front of that street. “But we don’t want to interview them, and I don’t want you saying anything about that either. But we do have those people.” And so, for years, I didn’t say anything about that, and in retrospect, I think now it’s pretty well known that there are people [smiling] who would testify to almost anything or that they saw this or saw that. But we were concerned about what we said and who would pick up on it at the—or at least, I was concerned about what I said—and who would pick up on it at the governmental level [nodding]. And maybe call you about that and inquire based on what you had testified and yet on what you might have said, but he said that right after the deposition.

  Kemp Clark, MD

  (excerpted from his testimony at the Warren Commission Hearings)

  Mr. SPECTER. What did Dr. Perry say at that time, during the course of that press conference, when the cameras were operating?

  Dr. CLARK. As I recall, Dr. Perry stated that there was a small wound in the president’s throat, that he made the incision for the tracheotomy through this wound. He discovered that the trachea was deviated so he felt that the missile had entered the president’s chest. He asked for chest tubes then to be placed in the pleural cavities. He was asked if this wound in the throat was an entrance wound or an exit wound. He said it was small and clean so it could have been an entrance wound.

  AFTERWORD

  That’s how we remember it, even if we all don’t remember it the same way. I feel honored to have received the memories of forty-three doctors who have survived to tell the tale, and to have found the recorded recollections of those who have not. Their words seem to echo in the corridors of time. We were young when we bore witness to this tragedy, and, as in Longfellow’s poem, “the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”

  The final entry I received was from the still awesome Donald Seldin, who, at ninety-two, continues into his seventh decade of teaching at Southwestern. He was at his desk at the school when I called. So was his successor as Chairman of Medicine, the dear man Dan Foster. He’s eighty-three and still teaching, as is Robert McClelland at age eighty-four. Are these guys going to outlive all of their students? Precious creatures, these.

  Compressed into that hour on November 22 are memories as vivid as when our parents heard on the radio that Pearl Harbor had been reduced to a flaming inferno. The tragic moments we witnessed seemed to stop the world, and then leave it greatly changed thereafter.

  It is said that the mastery of traumatic memory follows a course in which the trauma keeps intruding into consciousness until it is processed into less painful, less jagged, recollection. Curiously, highly pleasurable experiences keep intruding in the same way. By now we hope we have mastered the raw emotion of the time, but when am I going to stop tearing up when I see the images of those hours?

  When we were kids, junior high school age, Walter Cronkite narrated a black and white TV series (black and white was all there was!) entitled You Are There. The great moments of history were dramatized, from the death of Socrates to the Salem witch trials. Episodes would end with the marvelous resonance of Cronkite’s voice intoning, “What sort of day was it? A day like all days, filled with those events that alter and illuminate our times . . . and you were there.” And indeed on such a day, Walter Cr
onkite told the world through a veil of tears that our president had died at Parkland Hospital.

  What is history? On the surface, it’s a simple enough question, but we must heed the warning of Carl Sagan that there is much in the nature of history we do not understand.

  I started this project believing that there was one history of these events, only to find many, each observed and remembered reality different from the rest. They shared, however, the lightning bolt of grief felt ’round the world. Maybe that is the only accurate history of that heart-breaking time.

  INDEX

  A

  Ace bandage, around Kennedy’s abdomen, 76, 85

  Addison’s disease,26, 75

  Aikin, Gene,58

  Air Force One

  arriving at Love Field, 12, 14

  Jackie Kennedy at door of, 13p

  Johnson sworn in aboard, xvi, 39

  white hearse under wing of,122p

  Atkins, Jim,114

  Autopsy, xvii, 105, 108, 109, 148

  B

  Back wound,150, 153

  Barnett, Stephen,43, 111, 121

  Barton, Fritz,3

  Bashour, Fouad,38, 91

  Baxter, Charles

  being paged to emergency room,28

  operating on Kennedy,xii, 25, 65

  in Trauma Room,1, 68, 74, 75–76, 79, 83, 88, 89–90

  Warren Commission testimony by,70–72, 153–156

  Baylor Hospital,33

  Baylor Reflections, xii, 31–32, 78–85, 149, 152