Dr. Malcolm Perry R.I.P. (1929-2009)

[Pat Speer]

Gary Mack's response:

Quite the contrary, Ray, for I've seen as many MILITARY bullet gunshot wounds as Perry had as of that date. Odd that you cannot see or accept that. My experience is just as extensive (not) as his was.

Gary cannot accept that he is not qualified as an expert witness on the nature of JFK's throat wound. Even the world's top battlefield surgeon couldn't tell us whether JFK's throat wound was an entry or exit WITHOUT EXAMINING THE WOUND ITSELF.

I posed the question to Gary (and anyone else) whether any qualified medical person --besides Malcolm Perry -- had ever examined the throat wound up close. Judging by the silence, I gather there is NO ONE in a position to contradict Perry's original diagnosis.

Ray, I'm actually with Gary on this one. Well, sorta. He is right that the majority of the doctors to see Kennedy's wounds from 63 onward had little experience with high-velocity FMJ bullets, and that the EXIT of such a bullet MIGHT appear more like an entrance to them as a result.

What he fails to acknowledge, however, is that, using his same reasoning, it's open season on the findings of the panels to subsequently investigate the case. You see, few if any of them had experience with high velocity FMJ wounds either.

As a result, they failed to realize that the supposed cowlick entrance--which gave the appearance of a low-velocity hand-gun wound of entrance--was absolutely positively 100% PURE MAJOR FACT NOT the entrance wound for high-velocity FMJ bullet that exploded on the skull.

Actually, I'm being generous there. Some of them, at least, DID realize it, but opted to hide this from everyone by PRETENDING the bullet did not break up upon impact, and instead shed lead as it tumbled through the skull. This put them in a tricky spot. They had to explain the fragment supposedly on the back of the skull. So Baden pulled straight from his rectum one of the biggest fattest lies ever told--that the fragment RUBBED OFF the base of the bullet upon entrance, and magically attached itself to the back of Kennedy's skull. Even Larry Sturdivan has called him out on that one.

As far as the three doctors at Parkland getting a good look at the throat wound, they all eventually let it be known that, while they couldn't be sure if the wound was an entrance or an exit, they felt fairly certain it was NOT the exit of a high velocity bullet.

From patspeer.com, chapter 11:

Should one think it unlikely that a layman as myself should recognize this problem with the single-bullet theory bullet's velocity, when so many supposed experts, including those on the HSCA's Forensic Pathology Panel, have looked the other way, one can take comfort that one of Kennedy's emergency room doctors, Dr. Ronald Jones, mentioned this problem long before I. When asked by Arlen Specter if the throat wound could have been an exit of an M/C rifle bullet, he told the Warren Commission: "If this were an exit wound, you would think that it exited at a very low velocity...to the point that you might think that this bullet barely made it through the soft tissues and just enough to drop out of the skin on the opposite side."

And should one assume that Jones was a bit of an oddball, and that his fellow physicians at Parkland Hospital couldn't possibly have shared his impression that the bullet creating Kennedy's throat wound was not traveling at a high-velocity, one should know that Operative Trauma Management: an Atlas, a medical text book published in 1998, instructs that with high velocity gunshot wounds to the neck, "damage may be remote from the missile tract as a result of blast injury, and the incidence of major associated injuries is high." As discussed, there was no such damage in Kennedy's neck. This makes clear, then, that the wound to Kennedy's throat did not give the appearance of a a high-velocity gunshot wound to those inspecting Kennedy's wounds. And guess what? The editor of Operative Trauma Management was none other than Dr. C. J. Carrico, the first doctor to examine Kennedy's throat wound. And guess what? The author of the cited passage was none other than Dr. Malcolm Perry, who performed a tracheotomy on Kennedy expecting to find damage to the underlying vessels, only to note no such damage beyond a small ragged wound to Kennedy's trachea.

And should that not be enough to convince one that this problem deserves our attention, one should also be aware that at least one of the HSCA Forensic Pathology Panel's members refused to let themselves believe that the damage to Kennedy's throat was as minor as reported, and presumed instead that Dr. Humes' and Dr. Perry's impressions were grossly in error. While the Panel kept no publicly-available notes on their discussions, Dr. Baden testified to this dispute, telling the HSCA committee, "The panel could not unanimously agree as to whether or not the gunshot wound through the back and neck would necessarily be fatal because of the failure to examine the bullet track at the time of the autopsy--dissect the track. As a result we do not know whether there was injury to the spine of the President or to major blood vessels." The fact that this was even questioned, after Dr. Humes and Dr. Perry testified before the Warren Commission that there was no damage to the spine or major blood vessels, indicates that there was at least one member of the panel who realized that it didn't make a lot of sense for a high-velocity bullet to create so little damage.

[Thomas H. Purvis]

After all, how much experience had he had with gunshots wounds caused by military bullets? I suspect none.

Gary

What difference does it make how much experience Dr. Perry had with wounds caused by military bullets? The fact remains that the ballistics tests performed for the Warren Commission at Edgewood Arsenal by Dr. Alfred Olivier proved that typical exit wounds created by "Oswald’s" rifle at a distance of 180 feet (approximately the distance from the TSBD to the Presidential limousine at Zapruder frame 224) were 10 to 15 mm; at least twice the size of the wound in Kennedy’s throat. (5H77, 17H846)

http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh6/html/WC_Vol6_0026b.htm

http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh6/html/WC_Vol6_0027a.htm

http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh6/html/WC_Vol6_0032b.htm

[Thomas H. Purvis]

After all, how much experience had he had with gunshots wounds caused by military bullets? I suspect none.

Gary

What difference does it make how much experience Dr. Perry had with wounds caused by military bullets? The fact remains that the ballistics tests performed for the Warren Commission at Edgewood Arsenal by Dr. Alfred Olivier proved that typical exit wounds created by "Oswald’s" rifle at a distance of 180 feet (approximately the distance from the TSBD to the Presidential limousine at Zapruder frame 224) were 10 to 15 mm; at least twice the size of the wound in Kennedy’s throat. (5H77, 17H846)

http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh6/html/WC_Vol6_0026b.htm

http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh6/html/WC_Vol6_0027a.htm

http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh6/html/WC_Vol6_0032b.htm

Might want to pay especially close attention to the last statement.

[John Dolva]

and to note that internal ballistics can be a very complex issue, just for example: it can do a complete tumble and leave a clean exit. What is claimed to be proven is only one scenario proven to be possible and, I doubt, can be claimed to be typical.

[Guest Robert Morrow]

Dr. McClelland in 2013 talking about the Secret Service pressure on Dr. Malcolm Perry to NOT say the throat wound was an entrance wound:

Web link:

http://m.scntx.com/articles/2012/01/28/mckinney_courier-gazette/news/9270.txt#.UdeHb656Qqs.facebook

"One glaring indicator, to which McClelland was uniquely close, was Kennedy's
neck wound. Dr. Malcolm Perry, the chief surgeon for Kennedy and Oswald, cut
an incision into Kennedy's neck to explore the wound.

Perry told reporters minutes later that it looked like an entrance wound
-- meaning the shot had come from somewhere other than the sixth floor of
the Depository. Referencing a recently published book about the
assassination, McClelland said Secret Service agents allegedly accosted
Perry after his statement and told him never to say it again.

"After the assassination, if you ever mentioned anything about it to Dr.
Perry, he would tell you, 'I don't want to talk about it,' and he would
really get angry if you pressed him about it," McClelland said. "We always
wondered why that was.""

Surgeon recounts JFK operation

Dr. Robert McClelland recounts to the Rotary Club of McKinney what happened
Nov. 22, 1963 in the Parkland Memorial Hospital operating room where former
President John F. Kennedy took his final breaths.
McClelland, who spoke to the Rotarians the past two Fridays, was on the
surgical team that operated on Kennedy and his alleged assassin, Lee Harvey
Oswald.

By Chris Beattie
Published: Saturday, January 28, 2012

Was Lee Harvey Oswald the real shooter? If so, was he the only one?
There is someone who knows the truth about what happened on that November
day in Dallas -- at least part of it.

"It was not just a single shooter," said Dr. Robert McClelland, one of the
surgeons who operated on Kennedy at Parkland Memorial Hospital. "It wasn't
just some crazy young man who wasn't connected to anything."

Such a conclusion, shared by millions across America, came to McClelland
long before Friday, when he recapped his experience to the Rotary Club of
McKinney. Though he admittedly "kept a distance from all of it,"
McClelland's personal connection to the event was hard for anyone else to
ignore.

Just moments after Kennedy slunk to his left, sending horror through
thousands of spectators, he was fighting for every breath inside a Parkland
operating room, his head inches away from McClelland.

"He was in terrible shape; the right side of his brain had been blown out,"
McClelland said. "We worked on him for only eight or 10 minutes, from the
time they made the incision to the time he lost all of his cardiac activity.

"There was no chance of saving him."

But memories of the futile operation, and the surrounding chaos, were never
lost. McClelland spoke to Rotarians the past two Fridays about his
recollections. His story dropped jaws and drew curious silence.

He reignited the wonder of any listeners who'd pushed the conspiracy
theories away, out of mind. That's what McClelland said he tried to do, but
the mysterious pieces always found him.

Some pieces seemingly fell from the gun -- or guns -- of Kennedy's killer.

"My supposition, and that of a lot of people, is that the first shot
probably was fired from the sixth floor of the [Texas School Book
Depository]...whether by Oswald or someone else, I don't know,"
McClelland told Rotarians. "The next shot apparently came from behind the
picket fence by the grassy knoll -- all kinds of things indicate that is
indeed what happened."

One glaring indicator, to which McClelland was uniquely close, was Kennedy's
neck wound. Dr. Malcolm Perry, the chief surgeon for Kennedy and Oswald, cut
an incision into Kennedy's neck to explore the wound.

Perry told reporters minutes later that it looked like an entrance wound
-- meaning the shot had come from somewhere other than the sixth floor of
the Depository. Referencing a recently published book about the
assassination, McClelland said Secret Service agents allegedly accosted
Perry after his statement and told him never to say it again.

"After the assassination, if you ever mentioned anything about it to Dr.
Perry, he would tell you, 'I don't want to talk about it,' and he would
really get angry if you pressed him about it," McClelland said. "We always
wondered why that was."

Perry took his reluctance to the grave, dying from lung cancer two years ago
in Tyler. McClelland, the only surviving member of the historic surgical
team, stayed clear of the chaos as long as he could. He and Perry were two
of four doctors who tried to save the president Nov. 22, 1963.

"People always ask if he was dead, and he wasn't," McClelland said. "He was
making attempts to breath. But we didn't stand around and ask questions, we
just started acting."

The team, which also included Drs. Charles J. Carrico and Charles Baxter,
afterward sat, dazed, in a nearby nurse's station. Secret Service agents
gave them note pads and asked each to write his impressions of the
president's wounds.

Their notes later became evidence in the Warren Commission's investigation
of the assassination. Perry eventually changed his initial story and said
the bullet hole near Kennedy's Adam's apple was an exit wound.

But the Warren Commission's report has since been directly refuted by
numerous eyewitness accounts, one of whom McClelland met a few years ago in
Dallas.

Ed Hoffman, who is deaf, had his daughter tell McClelland what he saw near
the grassy knoll, behind the picket fence, when Kennedy went down.

Hoffman, 27 at the time, had left work around the time of the president's
arrival in Dallas to get a toothache inspected at the dentist. The
presidential motorcade forced Hoffman to pull off on the edge of Stemmons
Freeway, about 700 feet away from the knoll, Hoffman told McClelland.

He said he saw one suited man pull out a rifle, place it on top of the fence
and fire at Kennedy, then toss the gun to another man dressed in work
clothes. That man dissembled the gun, put it in his tool bag and disappeared
into the crowd, Hoffman said.

Moments later, Hoffman saw a policeman question the suited man, then walk
into the crowd with him following a short glimpse of the man's
identification.

Two high school history teachers came to Dallas several years ago to study
Hoffman's story, and wrote, "From Behind the Picket Fence," a book that
McClelland said is "very well-detailed in establishing what Mr.
Hoffman saw."

Just as in Perry's case, though, Hoffman was quickly shut out, McClelland
said. Hoffman told his father and his uncle -- a Dallas police officer at
the time -- days after the shooting, and both told him he better keep his
mouth shut.

After recounting his conversation with Hoffman and his daughter, the
Rotarians focused on his every word, McClelland summarized other prominent
theories surrounding Kennedy's death. He answered questions about the "magic
bullet" and the assassination's potential connection to Kennedy's
involvement in the Cold War.

Dr. Jerry Sims, the Rotarian who invited McClelland to speak in McKinney,
was a young intern at Parkland on that day. He recalled how the First Lady
asked him outside the operating room if she could smoke a cigarette -- a
habit that few knew she had, Sims said.

McClelland, who still spends time in hospitals teaching young doctors,
packed up his notes to standing applause. One by one, Rotarians came to him
with more questions.

He was the closest most of them would ever come to knowing what happened the
day JFK was killed.

But, even for McClelland, the mystery remains.

"It was the most memorable thing of my life," he said. "Yet, we may never
know the exact truth."

Edited September 26, 2013 by Robert Morrow

[Guest Robert Morrow]

Doug Horne: on the importance of Dr. Malcolm Perry

Dr. Malcolm O. Perry, Key Parkland Hospital Witness to JFK's Wounds, Dies HYPERLINK "http://insidethearrb.livejournal.com/2370.html"

December 8th, 2009

Dr. Malcolm Perry's passing, at the age of 80, was just announced in Texas newspapers.

Dr. Perry attempted to save President Kennedy's life on November 22, 1 massage in Trauma Room One at Parkland hospital.

The tracheostomy he performed was a small, transverse incision 2.5 to 3 cm wide, which he made through a puncture in the President's throat---below the Adam's apple and just to the right of the midline---a puncture which he characterized as AN ENTRANCE WOUND three different times during the televised hospital press conference that afternoon following JFK's death.

On the day President Kennedy was treated, all of the attending physicians who saw the bullet wound in the throat characterized it as a typical entrance wound. Their observations have always stood in stark opposition to the official U.S. government cover story that President Kennedy was killed by an assassin firing from above and behind, and that he was not shot from the front by anyone.

What most of the public does not know---and what is detailed in my book, "Inside the Assassination Records Review Board," is that late on the night of President Kennedy's autopsy at Bethesda Naval hospital, Federal officials located at Bethesda began harrassing Dr. Perry on the telephone in an attempt to get him to change his mind about having seen an entry wound in the President's throat earlier in the day. Nurse Audrey Bell told me in 1997 that Dr. Perry complained to her the next morning (on Saturday, November 23, 1963) that he had gotten almost no sleep the night before, because unnamed persons at Bethesda had been pressuring him on the telephone all night long to get him to change his opinion about the nature of the bullet wound in the throat, and to redescribe it as an exit, rather than an entrance.

In his 1981 book "Best Evidence," David Lifton documented that the Secret Service confiscated videotapes of the Parkland hospital press conference from at least one local television station, and that Secret Service Chief James Rowley had informed the Warren Commission in 1964 that no videotapes or transcripts of the press conference could be found. But as Lifton revealed, a White House verbatim transcript of the press conference (White House Transcript 1327-C) later surfaced. In my own book, "Inside the ARRB," I reveal that Chief Rowley lied to the Warren Commission when he said no transcripts could be found, for on the last page of transcript 1327-C, the document is stamped as received by Rowley's office on November 26, 1963. His statement to the Warren Commission was therefore false.

A graduate student, James Gochenaur, revealed to both the Church Committee and to the HSCA in the mid-1970s that Secret Service Agent Elmer Moore had confessed to him in 1970 that he had "leaned on Dr. Perry" shortly after the Bethesda autopsy to get him to stop describing the bullet wound in President Kennedy's throat as an entrance wound. (The Bethesda autopsy report concluded it was an exit wound.) According to Gochenaur, Moore also told him that the Secret Service had to investigate the assassination in an expected, predetermined way or they would "get their heads chopped off." Moore, unfortunately, also told Gochenaur that sometimes he thought President Kennedy was "a traitor" because he was "giving things away to the Russians."

[According to Arlen Specter, this same Elmer Moore was present when Chief Justice Warren, Gerald Ford, and he interviewed Jack Ruby in Dallas; and Arlen Specter also revealed in 2003 (at a conference in Pittsburgh) that Elmer Moore was the Secret Service Agent who showed him an undocumented photograph of President Kennedy's back wound during the May 1964 re-enactment of the Dallas motorcade conducted by the Warren Commission.]

Unfortunately, after Federal officials at Bethesda (on November 22-23, 1963) and Elmer Moore (between November 29-December 11, 1963) "leaned on" Dr. Perry, he spent the remainder of his life straddling the fence and saying that the bullet wound in JFK's throat "could have been either" an entrance or an exit wound.

But that is not what he said on the afternoon of the assassination, before there was an official explanation for the crime to fall in line with. White House Transcript 1327-C makes that very clear, as I reveal in my book, in Chapters 7 and 9.

Former Chief Operating Room nurse Audrey Bell related to me in 1997 that Dr. Perry was in a state of torment on November 23, 1963, after being pressured by Federal officials all night long to change his mind, because, as he put it, "my professional credibility is at stake." Sadly, he appears to have decided for the remainder of his life that discretion was the better part of valor.

The story does not end here. The chief prosector at the President's autopsy, Dr. James J. Humes, described the throat wound in the autopsy report as having "widely gaping, irregular edges," and in his Warren Commission testimony, Humes said the gaping wound in the throat was 7 to 8 cm wide. In contrast, Dr. Charles Crenshaw, a third year resident at Parkland in 1963, told ABC's "20/20" news magazine in 1992 that after the tracheostomy tube and flange were removed from the President's neck following his death, that the very small incision made by Dr. Perry closed of its own volition, and that the bullet wound had NOT been obliterated and was still clearly visible. When Dr. Crenshaw viewed the widely published bootleg autopsy photo (from Bethesda Naval hospital) showing the incision in JFK's neck, he expressed the opinion to ABC's "20/20" that the incision in that photograph was DOUBLE the width of the incision Dr. Perry originally made on the President's body.

The descriptions of the incision in the anterior neck, provided by Dr. Humes and Dr. Crenshaw, together constitute de facto evidence that JFK's throat wound was tampered with prior to the start of the Navy autopsy at Bethesda Naval hospital. President Kennedy's body was in the custody of the U.S. Secret Service while enroute Washington D.C. from Dallas, Texas. END