Pat Speer- I am confused (so what else is new?)...re: JFK head wound

[Ray Mitcham]

W.C. Dr McClelland.

Dr. McCLELLAND - " As I took the position at the head of the table that I have already described, to help out with the tracheotomy, I was in such a position that I could very closely examine the head wound, and I noted that the right posterior portion of the skull had been extremely blasted. It had been shattered, apparently, by the force of the shot so that the parietal bone was protruded up through the scalp and seemed to be fractured almost along its right posterior half, as well as some of the occipital bone being fractured in its lateral haft, and this sprung open the bones that I mentioned in such a way that you could actually look down into the skull cavity itself and see that probably a third or so, at least, of the brain tissue, posterior cerebral tissue and some of the cerebellar tissue had been blasted out. There was a large amount of bleeding which was occurring mainly from the large venous channels in the skull which had been blasted open."

Edited December 14, 2013 by Ray Mitcham

[Pat Speer]

Here's some more on Robert McClelland, Ray.

PARKLAND MEMORIAL HOSPITAL

ADMISSION NOTE

DATE AND HOUR Nov. 22, 1963 4:45 P.M. DOCTOR: Robert N. McClelland

Statement Regarding Assassination of President Kennedy

At approximately 12:45 PM on the above date I was called from the second floor of Parkland Hospital and went immediately to the Emergency Operating Room. When I arrived President Kennedy was being attended by Drs Malcolm Perry, Charles Baxter, James Carrico, and Ronald Jones. The President was at the time comatose from a massive gunshot wound of the head with a fragment wound of the trachea. An endotracheal tube and assisted respiration was started immediately by Dr. Carrico on Duty in the EOR when the President arrived. Drs. Perry, Baxter, and I then performed a tracheotomy for respiratory distress and tracheal injury and Dr. Jones and Paul Peters inserted bilateral anterior chest tubes for pneumothoracis secondary to the tracheomediastinal injury. Simultaneously Dr. Jones had started 3 cut-downs giving blood and fluids immediately, In spite of this, at 12:55 he was pronounced dead by Dr. Kemp Clark the neurosurgeon and professor of neurosurgery who arrived immediately after I did. The cause of death was due to massive head and brain injury from a gunshot wound of the left temple. He was pronounced dead after external cardiac message failed and ECG activity was gone.

Robert N. McClelland M.D.
Asst. Prof. of Surgery
Southwestern Med.
School of Univ of Tex.
Dallas, Texas

(Note: in this, his earliest statement on the assassination, Dr. McClelland reveals that he was easily confused and prone to speculation. First of all, he gets himself all turned around and mistakenly says there was a wound in the left temple. He says nothing of a wound on the back of the head or behind the ear. As but one head wound was noted at Parkland, and as no competent doctor would mention a wound he did not see while failing to mention the one he did, it seems probable McClelland meant to say this wound was of the right temple, not left. Second of all, he states, without offering any supporting evidence, that the throat wound was a fragment wound. This shows he was prone to speculation.

In light of the fact many conspiracy theorists cite McClelland as the most reliable of the Parkland witnesses, McClelland's next statements are even more intriguing. McClelland was the prime source for the 12-18-63 article by Richard Dudman published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, in which the Secret Service's visit to the Parkland doctors, and its attempt to get them to agree Kennedy's throat wound was an exit, was first revealed. And yet McClelland told Dudman that after being told of the wound on Kennedy's back "he and Dr. Perry fully accept the Navy Hospital’s explanation of the course of the bullets." And yet he told Dudman "I am fully satisfied that the two bullets that hit him were from behind." And yet he told Dudman "As far as I am concerned, there is no reason to suspect that any shots came from the front." Repeat...NO reason to suspect any shots came from the front... That's right...in the very article most conspiracy theorists believe first exposed the government's cover-up of Kennedy's wounds, Dr. McClelland, the man they consider the most credible of the Parkland witnesses, spelled out--and made CRYSTAL CLEAR--that he did not think the large head wound he observed was an exit wound on the far back of the head.

This is confirmed yet again by the first article on the wounds published in a medical journal. Three Patients at Parkland, published in the January 1964 Texas State Journal of Medicine, was based upon the Parkland doctors' 11-22 reports, and repeated their descriptions of Kennedy's wounds and treatment word for word. Well, almost. In one of its few deviations, it changed Dr. McClelland's initial claim Kennedy was pronounced dead "at 12:55" to his being "pronounced dead at 1:00." This was an obvious correction of an innocent mistake. In what one can only assume was another correction of an innocent mistake, moreover, it re-routed Dr. McClelland's initial claim "The cause of death was due to massive head and brain injury from a gunshot wound of the left temple" to the more acceptable "The cause of death, according to Dr. McClelland was the massive head and brain injury from a gunshot wound of the right side of the head." Right side of the head. Not back of the head. While some might wish to believe the writer and/or editor of this article took it upon himself to make this change without consulting Dr. McClelland, and that he'd changed it to fit the "official" story, the fact of the matter is there was NO official story on the head wounds at this point, beyond the descriptions of the wound in the reports of McClelland's colleagues published elsewhere in the article. And these, in sum, described a wound on the back of the head. It seems likely, then, that McClelland himself was responsible for this change.

In any event, on March 21, 1964, Dr. McClelland testified before the Warren Commission. In contrast to his earlier statements, he now claimed: “As I took the position at the head of the table that l have already described, to help out with the tracheotomy, I was in such a position that I could very closely examine the head wound, and I noted that the right posterior portion of the skull had been extremely blasted. It had been shattered ... the parietal bone was protruded up through the scalp and seemed to be fractured almost along its right posterior half, as well as some of the occipital bone being fractured in its lateral half, and this sprung open the bones that I mentioned in such a way that you could actually look down into the skull cavity itself and see that probably a third or so, at least, of the brain tissue, posterior cerebral tissue and some of the cerebellar tissue had been blasted out.”

Since Kennedy was by all reports lying on his back, it is impossible to understand how McClelland could look down into a wound on the back of Kennedy’s head. It seems likely then that McClelland, as Clark, was confused by the rotation of Kennedy’s skull.

And it seems just as likely McClelland is not the man many if not most conspiracy theorists assume him to be. Notes on a 12-1-71 interview of McClelland by researcher Harold Weisberg reveal that McClelland "volunteered at some length about Garrison's men, describing Garrison as a psychopath, and seemed proud that he had talked them out of calling him as a witness...McC was quite bitter about Garrison and Lane, but he was without complaint about Specter and the Warren Commission..."

So there it is. Dr. Robert McClelland--whom many conspiracy theorists believe an unshakeable truth-teller--was a supporter of the Warren Commission's for years and years after the assassination--to such an extent even that he refused to cooperate with Jim Garrison's attempts to re-open the case. Well, is it any wonder then that McClelland, while continuing to insist he saw a wound on the back of Kennedy's head, repeatedly defended the legitimacy of the autopsy photos? And that he told the producers of the television show Nova in 1988 that "I find no discrepancy between the wounds as they're shown very vividly in these photographs and what I remember very vividly?" And is it any wonder then that in both his Nova appearance and ARRB testimony McClelland ventured that the back of the head photo depicts sagging scalp pulled over a large occipito-parietal wound? I mean, the man clearly has problems separating fact from fiction. Scalp overlying explosive wounds to the skull does not stretch and sag, it tears. No such tears were noted on the back of Kennedy's head at autopsy, and none are shown in the autopsy photos whose legitimacy McClelland defends.

I mean, McClelland just isn't credible. Where he once assured journalists suspecting shots came from the front that "there is no reason to suspect that any shots came from the front," and later told researchers he'd created a drawing depicting Kennedy's wound in which a singular hole on the back of Kennedy's head behind his ear was presented, he now tells crowds --such as that at the 2013 Wecht conference--that 1) "the whole right side of his skull was gone;" 2) the large size of this wound suggested it was was an exit wound; 3) this in turn suggested there had been a second gunman firing from in front of the president...and 4) he'd never been pressured into lying about Kennedy's wounds! The man's perceptions have clearly changed over time.)

Edited December 14, 2013 by Pat Speer

[Robert Prudhomme]

Walks like an LN, talks like an LN.....wonder what it is?

[Pat Speer]

Walks like an LN, talks like an LN.....wonder what it is?

Are you talking about McClelland? Who told Dudman there was no reason to suspect shots came from the front, and who later told Weisberg Garrison was a psychopath, and that he preferred Arlen Specter and the Warren Commission?

[John Crites]

Below - youtube address of a November 21 , interview with Dr. McClelland from PRS Journal.

Around the 6 minute mark he discusses the back of the head wound.

HE looks good, sounds like he did back in the 80's

[Robert Prudhomme]

He does look good, John, and he does not seem to have any trouble separating "fact from fiction".

[Pat Speer]

He does look good, John, and he does not seem to have any trouble separating "fact from fiction".

That's the problem, Robert. People always want to trust octogenarians who tell them what they want to believe, when the the truth is their memories are usually shot to pieces. In McClelland's case the problem existed way before his memory started to fade.

1. His first report said that the wound was on the left side of Kennedy's head. When asked about this later he said that Pepper Jenkins pointed at the left side. SO? McClelland supposedly got a good look at this wound from a few inches away. Why was he reporting what Jenkins supposedly insinuated, instead of what he actually saw?

2. A few weeks later, before anyone knew the autopsy photos depicted a wound at the top of the head, and before the Parkland doctors had even been shown the autopsy report, McClelland told reporter Richard Dudman (who thought shots came from the front) that there was no reason to suspect a shot came from the front. Well, geez, so much for McClelland being a credible witness for a blow-out wound on the back of the head.

3. He testified before the Warren Commission in accordance with Dr.s Carrico and Clark, i.e., there was a wound on the back of the head, from which cerebellum flowed.

4. Josiah Thompson had a drawing made based upon his testimony.

5. McClelland told Weisberg that he supported Arlen Specter and the Warren Commission.

6. McClelland saw the Zapruder film on TV, and became convinced the head shot had been fired from the front.

7. McClelland became a darling of the research community, who, based upon the drawing in Thompson's book, believed him to be a credible and consistent witness for a wound on the back of Kennedy's head.

8. After being shown the autopsy photos in the Archives, McClelland told NOVA and Walter Cronkite that the autopsy photos were consistent with what he remembered. Except for this one thing--he thought the scalp in the back of the head photo was stretched over a large hole. Well, that's as weak as it gets. He told NOVA what they wanted to hear, but hedged his bets a little so he wouldn't lose face with the research community. There was a problem, however. His claim scalp sagged on the back of the head and was pulled up over a large hole was LUDICROUS.The scalp overlying blow-out wounds doesn't sag, it tears.

9. McClelland signed copies of the drawing in Thompson's book, while telling people he'd created the drawing. According to Thompson, McClelland had nothing to do with the drawing.

10. McClelland testifed before the ARRB, and told them the drawing he'd long told people he'd created, was inaccurate, and failed to show the other half of the wound at the top of the head.

11. McClelland continues to say things that are totally at odds with his prior statements and testimony, including that the wound was really on the whole right side of Kennedy's head. In the new video posted above, for example, he said Kennedy had "good cardiac activity" upon arrival at the hospital. This is nonsense. Read the reports. He also said the wound on the back of the head was 5 inches in diameter--yikes, that's pretty much the entire back of the head. Try to square that with the recollections of the other doctors. He also told a little story about the "bagman" sneaking into Trauma Room One. I'm pretty sure that's nonsense as well.

SO...when people cite McClelland as proof the back of Kennedy's head was blown out, I just have to shake my head.

P.S. I met McClelland briefly at the 2009 Lancer Conference. I just smiled and asked if I could shake his hand. I mean, what do you say to someone whose story has changed so much, but who is so clearly well-intentioned?

Edited December 17, 2013 by Pat Speer

[Ray Mitcham]

Many people have changed their minds over the years, Pat, including you ("Like many of us, my position has evolved."-Pat Speer.)

His statements about the head wound being in the parietal/occipital region of the head, corresponds to the views of the other doctors and nursing personnel present in Parkland.

See what Dr Crenshaw had to say in the following interview.

Edited December 15, 2013 by Ray Mitcham

[Bjørn Gjerde]

Dr. McClelland was fairly accurate in estimating the size of the wound in the back of President Kennedy's head to be about 5 inches in diameter. The piece of skull brought into the autopsy room during the autopsy measured 10 x 6.5 cm.

'Also during the latter stages of the autopsy, a piece of the

skull measuring 10 x 6.5 centimeters was brought to Dr. Humes

who was instructed that this had been removed from the Presldent's

skull.'

http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/pdf/md44.pdf

Bjørn Gjerde

[Robert Prudhomme]

"9. When Charles Crenshaw's book came out, and claimed the Parkland doctors knew the wound was on the back of Kennedy's head, but were hushed into silence, McClelland sided with the other doctors and denounced Crenshaw."

Can you show us an interview or something giving us McClelland's exact words he used to denounce Crenshaw, Pat?

If, between Parkland and Bethesda, it had been only a small percentage of witnesses describing a back-of-head wound, we could dismiss the whole thing as witness error. Also, the size and location of the wound would vary greatly, as well. How do you explain the majority of witnesses, both at Parkland and Bethesda, describing a large gaping wound in the right rear of JFK's head?

[John Crites]

Len Osanic's 50 Reasons # 25 with Robert Groden is a short precise summary of the back of the head

witnesses. and thank you Len for continuing to remind us that no one with the HSCA will admit to

falsifying the testimony of the Bethesda witnesses. That's a cover up don't ya think????

(if the link doesn't come through, sorry - youtube 50 Reasons for 50 years #25 or go to Black Op Radio

archives). And, Thank you again Len

http://video.search.yahoo.com/play;_ylt=A2KLqIQZ1K1SOz0AhOz7w8QF;_ylu=X3oDMTByZWc0dGJtBHNlYwNzcgRzbGsDdmlkBHZ0aWQDBGdwb3MDMQ--?p=50+reasons+for+50+years+25&vid=75e745b43e7235823abd52573fa95e3b&l=3%3A57&turl=http%3A%2F%2Fts4.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DV.4505593729255359%26pid%3D15.1&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DROP74vQtjsw&tit=50+Reasons+For+50+Years+-+Episode+25&c=0&sigr=11a7d8i5t&sigt=114jbvcl1&pstcat=animals&age=0&&tt=b

[David Josephs]

Where he once assured journalists suspecting shots came from the front that "there is no reason to suspect that any shots came from the front,"

Pat... how about we take a second and look at the construction of this statement...

1 "there is no reason"

2 "to suspect"

3 "that any shots came from the front"

Is this the same as saying "THERE WERE NO SHOTS FROM THE FRONT" of course not... he is discussing REASONS to SUSPECT... and covering his ass...

according to the FBI/SS "reason" and "Suspicion" were not to be considered that afternoon...

Pat - this doesn't scream "play along to get along" to you?

Continues to blow me away that anyone would use the frightened, coerced testimony over their own common sense in order to prove something...

McC and Huber put a nasty wound over the left eye.. two of the FOX photos put one over the right.

SO...when people cite McClelland as proof the back of Kennedy's head was blown out, I just have to shake my head.

and when I look at this drawing and hear people claim McClelland was ANYTHING BUT a "blow-out to the rear" witness.. I too have to shake my head...

That you present this Pat as if there was no fear in these men's hearts... that they were so incredibly stupid as to not read the writing on the walls... as soon as the body was TAKEN

I suppose you also think that whatever was happening to the Parkland staff was not discussed among them... That Todd's work on Perry was on an island.

Pat - do you not see the "save my ass" changes to McClelland's story as just that? How do you view this drawing and still claim McC was NOT a BOH witness, regardless of what he needed to say afterward...

This sounds more and more like a McAdams exhibit each time I read a new post of yours.... you going with the revised FORD PLACEMENT of the backwound too, since he MUST be right and everyone else wrong... just like this drawing - which matches the descrption of the wound by most everyone in DALLAS..

???

[Robert Prudhomme]

Walks like an LN, talks like an LN......wonder what it is?

[David G. Healy]

Old Pat isn't doing so well re this thread... you'd of been better off Pat, biding your time, simply expanding your ever increasing in size gargantuan website.

Now, Pat has become become a topic of discussion, his motives questioned just like David Von Pein, Dave Reitzes, Dave Stager, etal., way-back when, when they were CT's...

Exposure is good!

[Pat Speer]

Old Pat isn't doing so well re this thread... you'd of been better off Pat, biding your time, simply expanding your ever increasing in size gargantuan website.

Now, Pat has become become a topic of discussion, his motives questioned just like David Von Pein, Dave Reitzes, Dave Stager, etal., way-back when, when they were CT's...

Exposure is good!

Actually, David, this thread has totally reinforced my position. Not one of the members arguing that the Parkland doctors are all in agreement, etc, has dealt with the issue I presented them with, namely, how do we account for 1) the Dealey Plaza witnesses saying the large head wound was on the top of the head, or by the temple, 2) the Parkland witnesses not actually being consistent as claimed, 3) Dr. McClelland, in particular, not only not being consistent, but being incredibly erratic.

I run through all this in chapters 18c and 18d of my webpage. It's solid as a rock.

As far as my motives being questioned, this is not the first time nor the last. I realize that I'm the town atheist in an Amish community, but I am willing to undergo a bit of scorn, in order to spread a bit of sunshine. LOL.