Pat Speer

I would agree that she probably ID'ed him, but her behavior during her testimony and her inability to recognize Oswald in a photo really really hurts her credibility, to the point where she would probably be written off by a jury. Can we at least agree on that?

I agree. Perry clearly THOUGHT it was an entrance wound. And his recollections of its size strongly suggest it was either an entrance wound, or the exit wound of a slowly moving object. I just don't believe there was a concerted effort to get him to change his and others' opinion it looked like an entrance wound. And if there was, it failed. Because pretty much everyone at Parkland who saw the wound prior to the tracheotomy said it was small and appeared to be an entrance wound. I think what some miss here is the context. Emergency room doctors make their observations and put things together, but they are frequently wrong, and know it, and defer to the opinions of others, who ran additional tests or who are more expert in the field. So, knowing this, we have to accept that some if not many of the Parkland witnesses could believe both that the throat wound looked like an entrance wound, and that it was not. Perry is, I believe, among those. My own experience illuminates this situation. I was very weak and dizzy. I went to an urgent care facility. The doctor looked me over and said I had an upper respiratory infection and that I should take cold medicine, and that I ought to be fine within a few days. She seemed very sure of herself. A few days later, I felt worse, and contacted my personal doctor, who refused to meet me in person over Covid concerns. After roughly a half hour, he said I had a heart condition, and set me up with a cardiologist. He seemed very sure of himself. The cardiologist's office refused to give me an appointment right away. And said I would have to wait two weeks. The next day I felt worse, and asked if I could come in sooner. They told me the earliest would be 10 days. The next morning I felt worse, and could barely get out of bed. So my wife and I agreed I should go to the emergency room. This was the height of Covid, so they made me wait outside for two hours and undergo numerous tests in the parking lot before they would even let me in the building. When I finally met a doctor, well, she said she thought I had a leaky bowel, and ran a test that came up negative. They then took me to a private room, where another doctor came in and said all signs indicated I had a leak in my upper GI tract. He seemed very sure of himself. He told me not to eat or drink for the next 18 hours so he could go down my throat with a scope and find the leak. He found no leak. And was kinda pissed off. I could tell. He said they were gonna release me so they could bring me back in a few days for more tests. But before they could release me another doctor came in and said he was gonna have me sent to a cancer hospital because he thought I had leukemia. I was sent to the hospital. They took some bone marrow. And confirmed his diagnosis. So I had four doctors take a look at me and tell me what they thought was wrong, and all four were totally wrong. Also relevant, one day, after my stem cell transplant, I noticed that the doctor whose gut instinct proved correct had an office by my son's dentist office. So I went in while my son was at his appointment. to thank him. He was with a patient so I had some time to kill in the lobby, and ended up explaining to two of his nurses why I was there. They were very proud of him, as he had saved my life. But here's the weird part. When he came out and I reminded him who I was he denied sending me to the cancer hospital on his instinct, and insisted--in front of his nurses--that he would not have sent me to the cancer hospital without first receiving the results of a bone marrow biopsy. Well, this is of course was bull, as no such biopsy was performed at the original hospital. I then realized--he had called an audible--and had essentially rescued me from the GI doctor who was convinced I had a GI leak. And he didn't want his nurses to know because, well, that just isn't done... So think about Perry. He knows what he saw LOOKED like an entrance wound, but has been told by the authorities it was an exit wound. He doesn't want to be one of the four doctors who'd come to an incorrect conclusion regarding my situation, but he also doesn't want to be seen as someone who second-guesses those responsible for making the ultimate determination...because it just isn't done...

You know of course that your hero Robert McClelland said many times in many places that the throat wound in the photos was as he remembered it looking after the tracheotomy.

Ok. Thanks. My apologies to Dr. McClelland, who repeated something like this in JFK: What the Doctors Saw. It was originally someone else's aged recollection. But the fact remains that it wasn't true. 1. No one involved in the autopsy called Perry during the autopsy. They should have but they didn't. The official story is that Humes--by his lonesome--called Perry the next morning. And this makes the most sense. IF they had called Perry during the autopsy and told him he was to say the throat wound was an entrance, not exit, well, wouldn't they have told the FBI--the Federal Agency responsible--that there was a throat wound? That they believed was an exit? Of course they would. The doctors' failure to know about and properly study the throat wound was a colossal failing--and incredibly embarrassing to the military and the doctors personally. It's not something they would make up for no reason. 2. Humes was a military doctor and would not have any authority over Perry's medical license. Now, if the story was that someone like Burkley or Katzenbach or some LBJ hatchet-man like Valenti had threatened Perry it would be a heckuva lot more believable. 3. Perry and others continued claiming the throat wound appeared to be an entrance for not only days afterwards, but the rest of their lives. There was no cover-up of the throat wound, outside the one I mentioned earlier--where the transcript in which Perry mistakenly said it was a throat wound and not that it appeared to be a throat wound conveniently disappeared.

Oh, no, Greg. They moved (re-interpreted) the wound location. The cowlick was not a separate wound--it was where they claimed the wound described in the autopsy report REALLY resided. The Clark Panel even gave the same measurements for this wound as the one described in the autopsy report (which I prove to be a lie on my website). While the HSCA did re-interpret the wound's measurements as well as its location, they still pretended the red spot in the cowlick was almost an inch from the midline of the skull (which I prove to be a lie on my website). Incredibly, moreover, in order to pull off this switcheroo, they had to claim the photo the doctors initially claimed showed the bullet entrance on the back of the head, really showed a bullet exit on the front of the head. It's a travesty, IMO. While a lot of people are drawn to this case because of the political intrigue, or the spy v spy stuff, it is the bald-faced brazen movement of the wound locations that sucked me down this rabbit hole. I just can't fathom how and why journalists and historians, let along members of the medical profession, let them get away with it. And still only pretend to give a crap...

It didn't happen, Robert. The only credible source for such a thing if I recall is a very aged McClelland, and he was probably confusing the subtle harassment of SS agent Elmer Moore in December--which at the time he welcomed. Yes, believe it or not, the Parkland doctors were grateful to be brought into the loop and shown the autopsy report by Moore. They were professionals, and didn't want to look like idiots, and knew full well that the recollections of emergency room doctors aren't worth spit when compared to the weight given pathologists--who have hours and days to inspect the body. In any event, no one scared Perry into silence after the press conference. He described the throat wound as one giving the appearance of an entrance wound to Kritzberg, and in the interview above, and actually said as much the rest of his life. He never once said the wound looked like an exit wound. Let's not forget that an entrance on the throat was propped up for days afterwards, to such an extent that White House sources were telling newsman JFK turned to look over his shoulder when first struck. And that the FBI had the throat wound as an exit for a bone fragment for at least a month after the shooting. The single-bullet theory was months off. And let's be clear, there was a medical cover-up of the throat wound, but it didn't begin for months afterwards. And it wasn't to make the wound an exit--that move was performed by Dr. Humes on the 23d. No, it appears that someone--Katzenbach?--thought it best the public be told Perry was misquoted by newsman when he described the wound as an entrance. Because it sure smells that no one could find a copy of the press conference transcript...for years and years... I also find it interesting that, according to Perry's own testimony, he was interviewed numerous times on Saturday the 23rd. We can suspect then that some transcripts and notes on these interviews are still to surface. From chapter 3 at patspeer.com: Time Out: A Quick Glimpse of the Warren Commission at Work. Elsewhere, on 3-30-64, Dr. Malcolm Perry testifies before the Warren Commission. Despite his stated objective of finding a transcript for Dr. Perry’s November 22nd press conference, Arlen Specter has failed to obtain one, and instead interviews Dr. Perry about his recollections of the press conference. Not surprisingly, Perry’s memory is that he made no solid statements about Kennedy’s wounds, and that the media misrepresented what he said. While it might sound overly-conspiratorial to suggest that Specter and the Warren Commission would deliberately mislead the public by using the flawed recollections of witnesses when concrete evidence was available, the fact is they have employed this technique before. On 3-16-64, when the autopsy doctors testified about Kennedy’s wounds, they were asked to do so without referring to the autopsy photos and x-rays taken for the express purpose of assisting them with their testimony.Even worse, Specter asked them to create drawings based purely upon their recollections of the President’s wounds, and then placed these drawings into evidence. Here, then, is Dr. Perry’s testimony about the press conference: Dr. Perry - Mr. Specter, I would preface this by saying that, as you know, I have been interviewed on numerous occasions subsequent to that time, and I cannot recall with accuracy the questions that were asked. They, in general, were similar to the questions that were asked here. The press were given essentially the same, but in no detail such as have been given here. I was asked, for example, what I felt caused the President's death, the nature of the wound, from whence they came, what measures were taken for resuscitation, who were the people in attendance, at what time was it determined that he was beyond our help. Mr. Specter - What responses did you give to questions relating to the source of the bullets, if such questions were asked? Dr. Perry - I could not. I pointed out that both Dr. Clark and I had no way of knowing from whence the bullets came. Mr. Specter - Were you asked how many bullets there were? Dr. Perry - We were, and our reply was it was impossible with the knowledge we had at hand to ascertain if there were 1 or 2 bullets, or more. We were given, similarly to the discussion here today, hypothetical situations. "Is it possible that such would have been the case, or such and such?" If it was possible that there was one bullet. To this, I replied in the affirmative, it was possible and conceivable that it was only one bullet, but I did not know. Mr. Specter - What would the trajectory, or conceivable course of one bullet have been, Dr. Perry, to account for the injuries which you observed in the President, as you stated it? Dr. Perry - Since I observed only two wounds in my cursory examination, it would have necessitated the missile striking probably a bony structure and being deviated in its course in order to account for these two wounds. Mr. Specter - What bony structure was it conceivably? Dr. Perry - It required striking the spine. Mr. Specter - Did you express a professional opinion that that did, in fact, happen or it was a matter of speculation that it could have happened? Dr. Perry - I expressed it as a matter of speculation that this was conceivable. But, again, Dr. Clark and I emphasize that we had no way of knowing. Mr. Specter - Have you now recounted as specifically as you can recollect what occurred at that first press conference or is it practical for you to give any further detail to the contents of that press conference? Dr. Perry - I do not recall any specific details any further than that-- Representative Ford - Mr. Specter was there ever a recording kept of the questions and answers at that interview, Dr. Perry? Dr. Perry - This was one of the things I was mad about, Mr. Ford. There were microphones, and cameras, and the whole bit, as you know, and during the course of it a lot of these hypothetical situations and questions that were asked to us would often be asked by someone on this side and recorded by some one on this, and I don't know who was recorded and whether they were broadcasting it directly. There were tape recorders there and there were television cameras with their microphones. I know there were recordings made but who made them I don't know and, of course, portions of it would be given to this group and questions answered here and, as a result, considerable questions were not answered in their entirety and even some of them that were asked, I am sure were misunderstood. It was bedlam. Representative Ford - I was thinking, was there an official recording either made by the hospital officials or by the White House people or by any government agency? Dr. Perry - Not to my knowledge. Representative Ford - A true recording of everything that was said, the questions asked, and the answers given? Dr. Perry - Not to my knowledge. Mr. Dulles - Was there any reasonably good account in any of the press of this interview? Dr. Perry - No, sir. Representative Ford - May I ask-- Dr. Perry - I have failed to see one that was asked. Representative Ford - In other words, you subsequently read or heard what was allegedly said by you and by Dr. Clark and Dr. Carrico. Were those reportings by the news media accurate or inaccurate as to what you and others said? Dr. Perry - In general, they were inaccurate. There were some that were fairly close, but I, as you will probably surmise, was pretty full after both Friday and Sunday, and after the interviews again, following the operation of which I was a member on Sunday, I left town, and I did not read a lot of them, but of those which I saw I found none that portrayed it exactly as it happened. Nor did I find any that reported our statements exactly as they were given. They were frequently taken out of context. They were frequently mixed up as to who said what or identification as to which person was who. Representative Ford - This interview took place on Sunday, the 24th, did you say? Dr. Perry - No, there were several interviews, Mr. Ford. We had one in the afternoon, Friday afternoon, and then I spent almost the entire day Saturday in the administrative suite at the hospital answering questions to people of the press, and some medical people of the American Medical Association. And then, of course, Sunday, following the operation on Oswald, I again attended the press conference since I was the first in attendance with him. And, subsequently, there was another conference on Monday conducted by the American Medical Association, and a couple of more interviews with some people whom I don't even recall. Representative Ford - Would you say that these errors that were reported were because of a lack of technical knowledge as to what you as a physician were saying, or others were saying? Dr. Perry - Certainly that could be it in part, but it was not all. Certainly a part of it was lack of attention. A question would be asked and you would incompletely answer it and another question would be asked and they had gotten what they wanted without really understanding, and they would go on and it would go out of context. For example, on the speculation on the ultimate source of bullets, I obviously knew less about it than most people because I was in the hospital at the time and didn't know the circumstances surrounding it until it was over. I was much too busy and yet I was quoted as saying that the bullet, there was probably one bullet, which struck and deviated upward which came from the front, and what I had replied was to a question, was it conceivable that this could have happened, and I said yes, it is conceivable. I have subsequently learned that to use a straight affirmative word like "yes" is not good relations; that one should say it is conceivable and not give a straight yes or no answer. "It is conceivable" was dropped and the "yes" was used, and this was happening over and over again. Of course, Shires, for example, who was the professor and chairman of the department was identified in one press release as chief resident. (NOTE: Dr. Perry’s insistence that his words were taken out of context at the press conference is self-serving and inaccurate. Nobody trapped him into saying anything that he didn’t suggest with his own statements. Many years later, a transcript to this press conference was located at the Johnson Library. This transcript was subsequently published as ARRB Medical Document 41. From this transcript: “DR. MALCOM PERRY…There are two wounds, as Dr. Clark noted, one of the neck and one of the head. Whether they are directly related or related to two bullets, I cannot say. QUESTION- Where was the entrance wound? DR. MALCOLM PERRY- There was an entrance wound in the neck. As regards the one on the head, I cannot say. QUESTION- Which way was the bullet coming on the neck wound? At him? DR. MALCOLM PERRY- It appeared to be coming at him...") Moments later, Arlen Specter returns to the topic of the November 22nd press conference: Mr. Specter - “we have been trying diligently to get the tape records of the television interviews, and we were unsuccessful. I discussed this with Dr. Perry in Dallas last Wednesday, and he expressed an interest in seeing them, and I told him we would make them available to him prior to his appearance, before deposition or before the Commission, except our efforts at CBS and NBC, ABC and everywhere including New York, Dallas and other cities were to no avail. The problem is they have not yet cataloged all of the footage which they have, and I have been advised by the Secret Service, by Agent John Howlett, that they have an excess of 200 hours of transcripts among all of the events and they just have not cataloged them and could not make them available. (NOTE: Specter was not telling the whole story. On 3-18-64, J. Lee Rankin, Specter's boss, wrote James J. Rowley, the head of the Secret Service, to ask for his help in acquiring a recording or transcript of Dr. Perry's press conference. On 3-25-64, Rowley wrote back telling Rankin that no video tape or transcript of Perry's comments could be located. This letter was published as CD 678. It seems possible, then, that Specter was only pretending that the problem was that the footage had not yet been catalogued, and that he was pretending this so Perry wouldn't be unnerved by the fact all the tapes of his press conference had miraculously vanished. There's also this. When eventually published by the ARRB as medical document 41, the transcript to the press conference had an interesting stamp on its final page. It read "Received U.S. Secret Service Office of the Chief" with the date of 11-26-63, 11:40 AM. Well, hell. This could mean a number of things. None of them good. Either Rowley was so incompetent that he failed to realize he had a transcript to the press conference when contacted by Rankin, or he was so forgetful that he failed to remember giving this transcript to Johnson for his Library, or he knew damn well he still had or used to have a copy of the transcript, and deliberately withheld this information from Rankin and the commission.) Mr. Dulles - Do you intend to catalog them? Mr. Specter - Yes, they do, Mr. Dulles. They intend to do that eventually in their normal process, and the Secret Service is trying to expedite the news media to give us those, and it was our thought as to the film clips, which would be the most direct or the recordings which would be the most direct, to make comparisons between the reports in the news media and what Dr. Perry said at that time, and the facts which we have from the doctors through our depositions and transcript today. Representative Ford - Can you give us any time estimate when this catalog and comparison might be made? Mr. Specter - Only that they are working on it right now, have been for sometime, but it may be a matter of a couple of weeks until they can turn it over. (NOTE: These last few exchanges are priceless. Dulles asks Specter if he plans on going through the transcripts and he responds by saying that the Secret Service is going to help him. He then estimates that it should only take a few weeks. As stated, Rowley had already told Rankin they'd looked but that no recording or transcript could be located. It seems possible then that Dulles and Specter were putting on a show. No one knows what became of the original recordings of the press conference. Certainly someone had a tape recorder running. But none has ever surfaced. It seems possible then that they were made to disappear.) (Discussion off the record.) (God only knows what they talked about.) Mr. McCloy - Mr. Chairman, I have some doubt as to the present propriety of making, of having the doctor make, comments in respect to a particular group of newspaper articles. There have been comments, as we all know, around the world, of great variety and great extent, and it would be practically impossible, I suppose, to check all of the accounts and in failing to check one would not wish to have it suggested that others, the accuracy of others was being endorsed. I would suggest that the staff make an examination of the files that we have of the comments, together with such tape recordings as may have been taken of the actual press conferences, and after that examination is made we can then determine, perhaps a little more effectively, what might be done to clarify this situation so that it would conform to the actual statements that the doctor has made. Mr. Dulles - Well, Mr. McCloy, it is quite satisfactory with me and I agree with you we cannot run down all of the rumors in all of the press and it is quite satisfactory with me to wait and see whether we have adequate information to deal with this situation when we get in the complete tapes of the various television, radio and other appearances, so that we have a pretty complete record of what these two witnesses and others have said on the points we have been discussing here today. So I quite agree we will await this presentation to the doctors until we have had a further chance to review this situation. What I wanted to be sure was that when we are through with this we do have in our files and records adequate information to deal with a great many of the false rumors that have been spread on the basis of false interpretation of these appearances before television, radio, and so forth and so on. And with that, Dr. Perry’s public and properly quoted description of Kennedy’s throat wound as an “entrance wound” is successfully disposed of as a “false rumor” spread by an over-zealous media...

Those cameras shoot over a hundred frames per second, so when viewed frame by frame you are seeing a progression of 1/100 of a second (probably less). The Dealey Plaza films were all 24 frames per second or less...and filmed on tiny frames...so there's no real chance we we will ever see anything on them that we can't already see. The thought occurs, however, that some kind of analysis could be performed someday someway that could be of help. Say, for example, a computer were fed 10,000 images from blood spatter simulations--with the locations of the bullet's impact and direction of fire noted. With AI, if I am understanding it correctly, the computer could then spit out the likely appearance of blood spatter from a bullet fired from the sixth floor, the grassy knoll etc, and even come to a conclusions as to which location is the likely location for the bullet killing Kennedy. As it stands right now we rely upon "experts" who are often blinded by bias. AI could help clarify things.

Thanks, David. They closed the case without following up on any of the HSCA's leads regarding the mafia and anti-Castro Cubans. It should be noted, moreover, that this was the Reagan Administration--which had close ties to the anti-Castro Cuban community, and that Ronnie himself was courting the teamsters in hopes of gaining their political support. IOW, the political play for the Reagan Justice Dept. was to do as little as possible--which they did, and this even though Reagan himself had questioned the single-assassin solution and had once picked a conspiracy theorist as his VP.

Is that what they said? I thought they just looked into the dictabelt, and thought that unworthy for re-opening the case. I am not aware of them performing any additional eyewitness interviews, or consulting with any medical experts, or anything like that. IOW, they didn't find any evidence for a conspiracy because they didn't re-investigate anything, even though, congress, who pays their bills, had declared their previous investigations to have been flawed. Is that right, Bill? Or is there a series of reports circa 1984 I should be looking at, that is, beyond the Ramsey report on the dictabelt?

Alright. Let's see if we can find some common ground. You took umbrage at my linking the non-JFK-related theories of James Fetzer with his JFK-related theories. Fair enough. Can we agree then that he has proved a total embarrassment to the JFK research community? Because part of my distrust of you comes from my knowledge--which is probably not common knowledge--that he is trying to use the continued acceptance of Horne and Mantik's theories by men such as yourself as steps upon which he can climb back into a leadership role within the JFK community. Can we at least agree that that would be a disaster?

Nonsense. You're trying to lawyer your way out of this. I never said Newman or anyone else was a definitive witness. What I have said is that Newman and numerous other witnesses said the wound they saw was on the top or the side of the head, and that the most prominent Parkland doctors admitted they thought the autopsy photos were accurate when asked. And that this should give someone reasonable doubt that, gee, maybe the wound was not on the back of the head, where numerous "theorists" have claimed it to have been. It's pretty much like this. A bunch of people witnessing a rock concert, say Woodstock, are asked if they remember what Jimi Hendrix was wearing when he played the Star-Spangled Banner, and offer a variety of answers. And then someone years later notes that those in a particular section said he was wearing a blue shirt, when the film of the concert shows it was really white. And writes a best-selling book purporting that something nefarious occurred--perhaps that Hendrix performed in a blue shirt, but that someone who wasn't supposed to be there--let's say JFK, who was supposed to be dead--was caught in the footage at the side of the stage. And that this led the CIA to insert footage from another concert in the film. Or some such thing. In any event, the point is that the group of people originally asked about his clothes are eventually asked by journalists if they think the footage was faked, and say "of course not, I was simply mistaken when I said it was a blue shirt," or laugh the whole thing off, except for one, who says "Well, I think he was wearing a blue shirt but that the film-makers made it look white," or some such thing. After which, the devotees of the best-selling author hail this man as a brave truth-teller and the other witnesses as sniveling cowards. And then, over time, a few others come forward--some presenting no evidence whatsoever they were actually at the concert--claiming "Yeah, I saw it. The shirt was blue." And are similarly hailed as heroes. it's a ginormous hoax. Kind of like the "Paul is dead" hoax of the late sixties and seventies. And yes, that allows us to segue back to the JFK assassination. Because, as it turns out, the chief cheerleader/ringleader of the everything has been altered by the CIA crowd was none other than James Fetzer, a one-time college professor, whose credibility dropped to the moon-is-cheese level after he embraced every loopy theory that came his way for years and years, including that yes, Paul is dead, and, yes, that the murdered children of school shootings never existed and their grieving parents were actors hired by the Deep State/CIA. P.S. There isn't a jury in history that would embrace the erratic statements of a few Parkland witnesses and ignore the statements of the Newmans, Zapruder, and numerous autopsy witnesses, especially as these witnesses are backed up by the assassination films, autopsy photos, and x-rays. Or so one should hope.

This is a misreporting of what Perry said at the press conference. From chapter 1: Dr. Malcolm Perry, who had performed a tracheostomy on the President in an effort to save his life: "Upon reaching his side, I noted that he was in critical condition from a wound of the neck and of the head...Immediate resuscitative measures were undertaken, and Dr. Kemp Clark, Professor of Neurosurgery, was summoned, along with several other members of the surgical and medical staff. They arrived immediately, but at this point the President's condition did not allow complete resuscitation...The neck wound, as visible on the patient, revealed a bullet hole almost in the mid line... In the lower portion of the neck, in front ...Below the Adam's apple." (When asked if a bullet had passed through Kennedy's head) "That would be conjecture on my part. There are two wounds, as Dr. Clark noted, one of the neck and one of the head. Whether they are directly related or related to two bullets, I cannot say...There was an entrance wound in the neck. As regards the one on the head, I cannot say." (When asked the direction of the bullet creating the neck wound) "It appeared to be coming at him." (When asked the direction of the bullet creating the head wound) "The nature of the wound defies the ability to describe whether it went through it from either side. I cannot tell you that." (When asked again if there was one or two wounds) "I don't know. From the injury, it is conceivable that it could have been caused by one wound, but there could have been two just as well if the second bullet struck the head in addition to striking the neck, and I cannot tell you that due to the nature of the wound. There is no way for me to tell...The wound appeared to be an entrance wound in the front of the throat; yes, that is correct. The exit wound, I don't know. It could have been the head or there could have been a second wound of the head. There was not time to determine this at the particular instant." Dr. William Kemp Clark, who had examined the President's head wound and pronounced him dead: "I was called by Dr. Perry because the President... had sustained a brain wound. On my arrival, the resuscitative efforts, the tracheostomy, the administration of chest tubes to relieve any...possibility of air being in the pleural space, the electrocardiogram had been hooked up, blood and fluids were being administered by Dr. Perry and Dr. Baxter. It was apparent that the President had sustained a lethal wound. A missile had gone in or out of the back of his head, causing extensive lacerations and loss of brain tissue. Shortly after I arrived, the patient, the President, lost his heart action by the electrocardiogram, his heart action had stopped. We attempted resuscitative measures of his heart, including closed chest cardiac massage, but to no avail." (When asked to describe the course of the bullet through the head) "We were too busy to be absolutely sure of the track, but the back of his head...Principally on his right side, towards the right side...The head wound could have been either the exit wound from the neck or it could have been a tangential wound, as it was simply a large, gaping loss of tissue." Now, to be fair, the newspapers rushed out in the immediate aftermath of the shooting had contained only the sketchiest of details, much of which was inaccurate. The Boston Globe's first attempt at telling the story, in its 11-22-63 Evening Edition, for example, contained two dueling inaccuracies on its front page. The UPI article on the right side of this page began "A single shot through the right temple took the life of the 46-year old chief executive." And the Dallas-datelined AP article on the left side of its page began "A Secret Service agent and a Dallas policeman were shot and killed today some distance from the area where President Kennedy was assassinated." (The story that emerged would be that Kennedy was shot at least twice from behind, and that no Secret Service agent was shot and killed, or even shot, or even involved in a shooting, beyond helplessly watching Kennedy get shot.) And TV was no better. But a few minutes before the press conference, Dan Rather had told his CBS audience that "we've been told" that the fatal bullet "entered at the base of the throat and came out at the base of the neck on the back side." And so this press conference served a purpose--an all-important purpose--to get the facts out there so the media would stop badly mis-informing the public. It was not without success. Shortly after the press conference began, less than ten minutes after Rather had made out that a bullet had entered Kennedy's throat and had exited from the back of his neck, Walter Cronkite corrected this canard for CBS' audience. He reported: "We have word from Dr. Malcolm Perry, the surgeon at Parkland Hospital who attended President Kennedy. He says that when he arrived at the Emergency Room, he noticed the President was in critical condition with a wound of the neck and head. When asked if the wounds could have possibly been made by two bullets, he said he did not know." Cronkite then described some of the care Kennedy received while at Parkland, including that he'd received a tracheotomy. But the other networks and news agencies weren't so precise, or accurate. It seems clear, moreover, that many of these mistakes were spurred not by these reporters understanding too little, but by their knowing too much. FOUR sources (five if you count Chaney) had told the nation prior to the Parkland press conference that the President had received a bloody wound on the front of his head. And yet no such wound was mentioned by the doctors who'd inspected Kennedy's wounds...in a press conference designed to clear up confusion! There's also this to consider... Prior to the press conference, three sources--United Press International, the Associated Press, and eyewitness Bill Newman--had suggested or reported that shots had been fired from in front of Kennedy... And now Dr. Perry had joined their ranks--by describing Kennedy's neck wound as an entrance... So, yeah, in retrospect, it's not at all surprising that much of the reporting on this press conference was wrong, or at the very least, confusing... In his own rushed report on the press conference, NBC's Robert MacNeil summarized: "A bullet struck him in front as he faced the assailant." As NBC had previously reported that Kennedy had been struck in the head, its viewers would undoubtedly have taken from this that Kennedy had been struck in the head from the front. And other news reports supported this belief. An AP dispatch on the press conference quoted on WOR radio at 2:43 CST claimed that Dr. Perry said "the entrance wound was on the front of the head." This dispatch, moreover, was quoted far and wide. The Albuquerque Tribune, on the stands within hours of the press conference, related: "Dr. Malcolm Perry, attendant surgeon at Parkland Hospital who attended President Kennedy, said when he arrived at the emergency room 'I noticed the President was in critical condition with a wound of the neck and head.' When asked if possibly the wounds could have been made by two bullets, he said he did not know." The article concluded, however, that "When asked to specify, Perry said the entrance wound was in the front of the head." They were not to be outdone, for that matter. The 11-23 San Francisco Chronicle, building upon the inaccurate reports of the AP and UPI, put its own spin on the press conference, reporting "At Parkland Hospital, Dr. Malcolm Perry said Mr. Kennedy suffered a neck wound--a bullet hole in the lower part of the neck--and a second wound in the forehead." Even the great ones got it wrong. An 11-23 New York Times article on the press conference reported: "Mr. Kennedy was hit by a bullet in the throat, just below the Adam's Apple... This wound had the appearance of a bullet's entry. Mr. Kennedy also had a massive gaping wound in the back and one on the right side of the head. However, the doctors said it was impossible to determine immediately whether the wounds had been caused by one bullet or two." The doctors, of course, had never mentioned a gaping wound on Kennedy's back. At 3:30 PM CST, Dr.s Perry and Kemp once again spoke to the press, this time on the phone to local reporters unable to attend the official press conference. Connie Kritzberg of The Dallas Times-Herald was one of these reporters. Her article on the President's wounds was published on 11-23. Neck Wounds Bring Death Wounds in the lower front portion of the neck and the right rear side of the head ended the life of President John F. Kennedy, say doctors at Parkland Hospital. Whether there were one or two wounds was not decided. The front neck hole was described as an entrance wound. The wound at the back of the head, while the principal one, was either an exit or tangential entrance wound. A doctor admitted that it was possible there was only one wound. Kemp Clark, 38, chief of neurosurgery, and Dr. Malcolm Perry, 34, described the President's wounds. Dr. Clark, asked how long the President lived in the hospital, replied, "I would guess 40 minutes but I was too busy to look at my watch." Dr. Clark said the President's principal wound was on the right rear side of his head. "As to the exact time of death we elected to make it - we pronounced it at 1300. I was busy with the head wound." Dr. Perry was busy with the wound in the President's neck. "It was a midline in the lower portion of his neck in front." Asked if it was just below the Adam's apple, he said, "Yes. Below the Adam's apple.' "There were two wounds. Whether they were directly related I do not know. It was an entrance wound in the neck." The doctors were asked whether one bullet could have made both wounds or whether there were two bullets. Dr. Clark replied. "The head wound could have been either an exit or a tangential entrance wound." The neurosurgeon described the back of the head wound as: "A large gaping wound with considerable loss of tissue." Dr. Perry added, "It is conceivable it was one wound, but there was no way for me to tell. It did however appear to be the entrance wound at the front of the throat." "There was considerable bleeding. The services of the blood bank were sent for and obtained. Blood was used." The last rites were performed in "Emergency Operating Room No. 1." There were at least eight or 10 physicians in attendance at the time the President succumbed. Dr. Clark said there was no possibility of saving the President's life. The press pool man said that when he saw Mrs. Kennedy she still had on her pink suit and that the hose of her left leg was saturated with blood. In the emergency room, Mrs. Kennedy, Vice President Johnson and Mrs. Johnson grasped hands in deep emotion. In attempting to clear up confusion, Clark and Perry had only stirred the pot. And Perry wasn't done. In an interview with ABC performed later that evening (which apparently no one knew about until Alex Harris put it up on YouTube in 2024), Dr. Perry repeated his and Clark's problematic descriptions of Kennedy's wounds. He said "It was my impression there were two distinct wounds--one of the neck, and one of the head." Of the head wound he said it was "a quite massive wound...a quite large one that could have been either an exit wound or a tangential wound of the skull." And of the throat wound, he said it was a "small penetrating wound that appeared to be the entrance wound." (Note that Perry's nervousness is apparent. He said he didn't believe the wounds were related but nevertheless said the throat wound appeared to be "the entrance wound." Well, he clearly meant to say "an entrance wound", and not "the entrance wound." I think.)

Just a thought. But as it currently stands, researchers are forced to reach out to historians, experts in the sciences, and the media, in hopes of finding a sympathetic ear, entirely on their own. Well, the thought occurs that AI could be used to assess which historians, scientists and journalists would be sympathetic to any new discovery or new theory, and that a respected gatekeeper (e.g. the Mary Ferrell Foundation) could then be tasked with contacting those most likely to be interested. Because, as it is, it's chaos, with the loudest voiced and often sloppiest researchers sucking all the air out of the room. The thought occurs that AI might help us change that.

Yikes. Believe it or not there are ACTUAL witnesses to the back of the head being missing. So why do you keep pretending Bill Newman was one of them? He saw ONE wound on Kennedy's head by the ear. And it wasn't a splash of blood with the a gigantic explosion of skull and bone coming out the other side. It was an explosion on the right side of the head. These are actual quotes from Newman. We didn't realize what happened until we seen the side of his head, when the bullet hit him. we seen him get shot in the side of the head. I was looking directly at him when he was hit in the side of the head. At that time he heard the bullet strike the president and saw flesh fly from the President’s head. (When asked about a drawing in which he depicted the fatal bullet's striking Kennedy by his ear) "That's what I saw. The way he was hit, it looked like he had just been hit with a baseball pitch, just like a block of wood fell over his... (When it was pointed out to him that he was moving his head backwards and to the left, and his drawing had depicted a wound by the ear) "In my opinion the ear went." (When asked again if his impression was that the bullet entered the side of the head) "Right. Right. My thoughts were that the shot entered there and apparently the thoughts of the Warren Commission were that the shot came out that side.” that is when the third shot was fired and it hit him in the side of the head right above the ear and his ear come off… I observed his ear flying off, and he turned just real white and then blood red, just as the President's car got directly in front of me, the President was probably fifteen feet away, Boom, and the side of his ear flew off, and justa, bits and pieces flew off. I can remember seeing just a white flash, and then the red, and the President fell across the car I can remember seeing the side of the President’s ear and head come off. I remember a flash of white and red and just bits and pieces of flesh exploding from the President’s head. he got nearer to us, and, bam, a shot took the right side of his head off. His ear flew off. I remember seeing the side of his head come off. I could see the white and then all of a sudden the red... (When asked if it hit him in the temple) "It appeared yes right in this area here (as he motions to his right temple) on the side of his head" I can remember seeing the side of President Kennedy's head blow off. There was black matter and then grayish It appeared to me that it hit him on the side of the head, as the side of his head came off. I thought the shot came from directly behind us in the grassy knoll area. The only basis I had for that was what I visually saw: the President going across the car and seeing the side of his head come off. I can remember seeing the side of President Kennedy's head come off, and I thought his ear came off. I was kinda dumbfounded to hear these people saying that, when just minutes earlier I'd seen the side of his head come off." It was the visual impact that it had on me more so than the noise--seeing the side of the President's head blow off I knew most definitely that was a gunshot and the side of his head blew off, you could see the white matter and the red and he fell across the seat I can recall seeing the side of President Kennedy's head blow off. I could see a mass of white and then the blood and fragments. I can recall seeing the side of President Kennedy's head fly off, Ten, 12 feet in front of us, the third shot rang out, and that's when the side of his head flew off Seeing the side of the President's head blow off, seeing the president go across the car seat into Mrs. Kennedy's lap, in her direction, it gave me the sensation that the shots were coming from directly behind me the third shot rang out, and the side of President Kennedy's head blew off (as he says this he reaches for his temple). We seen the brain matter and the blood fly off.

1. A large bone fragment was blasted off the skull and lay dangling on the side of the head, and was witnessed by a number of Parkland witnesses. Were they hallucinating? And, if not, was Horne correct to claim there was no parietal wounds at the top or side of the head prior to Humes' creating such a wound? 2. And if your answer is yes--that Horne is correct--can you explain how this surgery was conducted without being observed by Jenkins--who has claimed since forever that no such surgery occurred at Bethesda? P.S. You have 1 of 3 doctors claiming something, and claiming it for the first time 14 years after the fact, and you take from this that ALL the doctors claimed this, when one said it wasn't so, and the third said he had no recollection of such a thing. That's not exactly rock solid, now is it? And when you add in that the FBI and others and Boswell himself (initially) said it was the exit defect that was matched up at the autopsy, well, it's clear your emperor has no clothes.