Parkland Press Conference Transcript-Kilduff-1327-B

[Denis Morissette]

As far as I know, this is the first time it is available online, incredibly. I've received it today under the recommendation of Reuel Smith. I uploaded it on my website.

Of special interest:

Q "Can you say where the bullet entered his head, Mac?

Mr Kilduff "It is my understanding it entered in the temple, the right temple."

http://jfkassassinationfiles.com/Parkland_Press_1327BTranscript.pdf

Edited April 4, 2019 by Denis Morissette
Addition

[David Von Pein]

Related Link:

The Kilduff press conference (audio)....

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0KFei3W7bGOQldDOGNGWXFpZW8/view

 

Edited April 4, 2019 by David Von Pein

[Denis Morissette]

Thanks, David. Gary Mack said that Bob WELSH filmed this conference with sound, but ran out of film right after he said, "... A bullet right through the head". 

Edited April 4, 2019 by Denis Morissette
Error

[Denis Morissette]

From Gary Mack:

While the absence of any recordings of the 2:18pm Perry-Clark press
conference is disappointing, there is information that explains why.

First, as David recalled, I learned there were NO live cameras in that
room. Here's why:

1)  KRLD's two remote cameras were still at the Trade Mart as late as
1:35pm, when technicians started the long process of packing it all up and
moving over to Parkland.  This would have taken at least an hour.  One
camera was put in place in time for Dr. Robert Shaw's conference, which
started around 3:30pm (that time is off the top of my head, but it was
quite some time AFTER Perry & Clark finished.)

2)  WFAA's cameras and remote truck were enroute back to the studio after
having been in place at Love Field for the 11:35am landing and live
broadcast.  Their plans were originally to provide live pool coverage of
JFK's return flight.  At some point, their truck was sent to Parkland and
had just arrived in time to catch the hearse with JFK leaving for Love
Field.  The other camera, I recall from some other source, was still being
unloaded to bring inside the hospital.  It would be virtually impossible
to have it set up and available until at least 2:30-2:45 or later.  They
may very well have been waiting for Clark-Perry to finish to get into the
room.

3)  WBAP's remote truck sat in east Fort Worth at the side of the turnpike
(now I-30) with a blown engine and no back up.  Eventually, it was towed
to Dallas City Hall and sat on Commerce Street the rest of the weekend.

4)  KTVT, which offered its remote truck to WBAP in exchange for
permission to carry NBC programming (the station was an independent in
those days and had only a small news department), headed to Parkland from
east Fort Worth, arriving just before 2pm.  Their only live camera was
poking up through the truck's roof and was turned on and recording as they
arrived. Just a few minutes later, the hearse left the hospital with JFK
and that scene was recorded.  Again, it would have taken 30-45 minutes or
more to get that camera moved out of the truck, into the hospital and set
up.

In short, none of the stations had video equipment in place to capture the
press conference.

As for tv new film cameras, there is a series of still photographs taken
by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram of the Perry-Clark conference.  The one in
Lifton's book was taken early in that sequence.  Many of the 30-40 images
were shot from the back of the room and show a large, relatively empty
classroom with only a few reporters present.  Not one microphone or news
film photographer are anywhere to be seen!

What this means is that, despite Dr. Malcolm Perry's later explanation to
the Warren Commission that there were microphones present, no recordings
were made and only a handful of reporters covered it.

This may not make sense to everyone, but tv news was equipment-challenged
in those days.  The best example is that of WBAP, then and now the NBC
affiliate (today known as KXAS), which was far and away the #1 station in
the entire Dallas-Fort Worth market in 1963.  TV sound film cameras were
cumbersome and generally not used for "spot" (breaking) news stories.  So
little use was made of sound in those days that the station only owned two
sound cameras - one was assigned to the Fort Worth office and one to
Dallas.

The Dallas camera that day was held by the station's Bob Welch, who filmed
the only sound record of Malcolm Kilduff's announcement of JFK's death at
1:30.  Bob then left the hospital and headed to downtown Dallas where
there was more important news to cover.

I do not know much about the other stations, other than WFAA had a silent
camera there, but it only caught a few seconds of Perry's entrance into
the room, suggesting that the photographer may have been sent by the
station to another location and was, therefore, absent when the pictures
were taken.

As for the radio stations, the photographs show no microphones or audio
tape machines in the room.  I have heard original and first-generation
copies of the radio station tapes, some of which have been in private
hands, and there was no live radio broadcast on either KLIF, WFAA, KRLD,
KBOX, WBAP, or any other major station, with the possible exception of
WRR.  Their tapes, or copies, are at the National Archives, but since
indexes exist and there's no mention of such a broadcast, perhaps WRR
wasn't there.  The station was, and remains, owned by the city of Dallas
(a highly unusual situation) and did not have much of a news department at
all.

So what does all this mean?  I have to think, with some first-hand
understanding of the business in those days, that only minimal coverage
was done.  Those kinds of stories are generally routine in nature and can
be covered by the newer reporters or the wire services.  The big story was
what was happening at the TSBD, in Oak Cliff and at the police station, so
that's where most reporters went.  Others went to Love Field and were
there from about 1:45 or 2pm until nearly 3pm.

With breaking stories happening in four different parts of the city,
Parkland was left virtually unattended.

--
Gary Mack
Archivist
The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza

[Denis Morissette]

Another from Mack:

"Since 1967 when that story appeared, the fate of the tapes has been learned, at least to my satisfaction. Despite Perry's testimony, there were no tapes. A Fort Worth Star-telegram photographer shot more than 25 pictures of the press conference and there were no microphones in the room. I haven't seen the pictures in a few years, but there was no tv camera present and very few reporters. None of them had microphones and there were none on the table behind which Perry and Clark stood.

Once I saw the pictures, everything made sense. The tv and radio reporters had spread out to Love Field, Dealey Plaza and the Dallas Police station leaving probably only print reporters behind. They, of course, did not use recorders in those days. In all likelihood, Clark remembered seeing a few cameras and assumed they had microphones. In fact, I know from first person interviews that there were very few 16mm sound cameras in use at the local tv stations in those days.

In addition, I have seen and heard all but one of the surviving television and radio station tape and no one carried the press conference live or recorded it for playback later that day or weekend.

The simple answer is that no tapes were ever made. The New York producer assumed tapes should exist and was puzzled when none turned up."

[B. A. Copeland]

This is a great find Denis. Thank you.

[Michael Clark]

”It is a simple matter, Tom, of a bullet, right to the head”; as he points to his right temple.

Note that this is a second take. A reporter asks him to “do it again” at the beginning. So we have Kilduff, twice, explaining that JFK was shot in the right temple.

Edited April 4, 2019 by Michael Clark

[Denis Morissette]

The “Right temple” is a bit further but Welsh had already run out of film.

[Denis Morissette]

That’s 1327B I learnt from another thread about 1327C. How many 1327s are there? And where the official transcripts are?

[Guest]

#1327 is the White House copy. I will post this soon.

Edited April 8, 2019 by Bart Kamp

[Ron Bulman]

James Jenkins mentions this in Cold Shoulder.  Says Humes and Finck started to examine a small (entrance?) wound in the temple hairline.   Humes was called to the gallery by JFK's personal Physician Navy Admiral Burke.  Humes returned to the table, they moved on elsewhere with the exam and never returned.

 

Edited April 9, 2019 by Ron Bulman

[Pat Speer]

No such wound was observed at Parkland, Ron. I've studied all the statements of all the Parkland doctors, and none of them said they saw a small entrance wound by the temple. 

FWIW, the newspaper accounts of the press conference in which a frontal entrance on the head was claimed were in error. Perry said the neck wound appeared to be an entrance wound and evidently this confused some of the journalists, who were taking notes with pencil and paper and were by no means experts on anatomy. 

There were a ton of these kind of mistakes in the early coverage. I discuss many of these in chapter 1 of my website. Here's a sample.

 

Although much about the assassination of John F. Kennedy is in dispute, or tinged with mystery, most everyone agrees he was shot in the head on a Dallas street about 12:30 PM CST, 11-22-63, and that he was pronounced dead at Parkland Hospital shortly before 1:00 PM CST. 

While this marked the end of history for Kennedy, his death marked the beginning of a bizarre new chapter in American history...that continues to this day.

At 2:16 PM CST, two of the doctors who'd tried to save Kennedy appeared before the media. This press conference was the beginning of a truly bizarre chain of events. During the Warren Commission investigation, the exact words of this press conference were debated. By the mid 1970's however a transcript was discovered at the LBJ Presidential Library in Texas. (While the transcript says the time of the press conference was 3:16 CST, it seems likely this was supposed to read 3:16 EST, and that it really took place at 2:16 CST. This is supported, to be clear, by the TV coverage of the assassination, in which Walter Cronkite discussed the impending swearing-in of President Johnson -- which took place at 3:38 EST--in the same segment he reported on the press conference.)

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." 

The reports on this press conference should have cleared up any confusion. Newspapers rushed out in the immediate aftermath of the shooting had contained only the sketchiest of details, much of which would later be proved 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 its 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." After the press conference began, less than ten minutes later, however, Walter Cronkite corrected this report for CBS' audience: "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. Indeed, in his own rushed report on the press conference, NBC's Robert MacNeil told its viewers: "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 "When asked to specify, Perry said the entrance wound was in the front of the head."

They were not to be outdone, however. 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. 

But the nature of Kennedy's wounds was not the only part of the story muddled up by the press. 

CBS News, the only network news agency to accurately report the Parkland press conference, whose reporting on the shooting was to become the stuff of legend, reported so many falsehoods and half-truths in the first hour after the shooting that one might wonder why the entire news team wasn't fired. Within a few minutes of the shooting, the Associated Press reported that Kennedy had been transferred to an ambulance before being raced to Parkland Hospital. This non-fact was then repeated by such news legends as Walter Cronkite, on CBS television, Dan Rather, on CBS radio, and Chet Huntley on NBC television. 

The details of the shooting were especially muddled. Within a half-hour of the shooting, Walter Cronkite, once again repeating an inaccurate report from the news wire, solemnly told the nation: "Some of the Secret Service agents thought the gunfire, however, came from an automatic weapon fired to the right rear of the Chief Executive's car, possibly from a grassy knoll, and that's that knoll to which motorcycle policeman were seen racing and where the huddled figures of a man and a woman were seen on the ground with a crowd surrounding, which suggests of course that perhaps this is where the shots came from. This we do not know as yet, positively." Moments later, Eddie Barker, reporting from Dallas, compounded this mistake, declaring: "The report is that the attempted assassins--we now hear it was a man and a woman--were on the ledge of a building near the Houston Street underpass."Soon afterward, Cronkite told the nation: "Governor Connally was shot, apparently, twice in the chest."After this rush to speculation, however, Cronkite grew more cautious, and stressed that they had unconfirmed reports that Kennedy was dead and unconfirmed reports Connally was in surgery. He then reported that a Secret Service agent had been killed in the line of duty while trying to protect Kennedy, noting that "apparently, this is correct." (Apparently, it wasn't). 

But Cronkite's cavalcade of confusion was far from over. Moments later, after reading a report that Governor Connally had said he was hit from the back, Cronkite tried to correlate this information with the information previously received. He told his audience: "Governor Connally could very possibly have been shot in the back with the assassin's bullet still coming from the front of the car. He rode in a small jump seat in the center of the back of the specially-built presidential limousine." (Apparently, Cronkite thought the jump seats faced the back of the limousine.) The cavalcade continued. While looking at a photo of Kennedy in the motorcade, shortly after receiving word that a witness claimed to see a man fire at Kennedy from the Texas School Book Depository, Cronkite asserted: "The assassin took dead aim. He got the President, apparently, with the first shot in the head, and then Governor Connally with the next two shots." Cronkite failed to explain that CBS News now believed its earlier reports regarding multiple assassins and automatic weapons were inaccurate. He just changed the story as new information came along--whether or not this new information had been confirmed. As much as an hour after the shooting, Cronkite was still reporting that "a Secret Service man was also killed in the fusillade of shots that came apparently from a second floor window." Ironically, he reported this canard just before reporting, affirmatively, that Kennedy had passed. One can only wish he'd got the first part right but was wrong about the second. 

Should one wonder where CBS got this story that a Secret Service Agent had been killed, one should consider that around this same time an AP dispatch (found in the Racine Journal-Times) reported that "A Secret Service agent and a Dallas policeman were shot and killed today some distance from the area where President Kennedy was assassinated" and that ABC News reported that they'd received confirmation from the Dallas Sheriff's office both that a Secret Service agent had been killed and that four shots had been fired at the limousine. Even worse, when one considers the subsequent refusal of the American people to believe the findings of the Warren Commission, was the analysis of Don Goddard, V.P. of ABC News. After explaining that American assassins normally use pistols and make no attempt to escape, he pronounced that "This must have been a very carefully planned terrible tragedy and conspiracy." 

Still, it's hard to single out ABC for adding to the public's suspicion, when CBS News, supposedly the premiere news agency of the day, was making similar mistakes. Around 3:40 EST, at least two hours after the shooting, things were still so confusing that Dan Rather reported "There have been a number of suspects arrested by Dallas police, Dallas County Sheriff's Officers. One of the suspects was a 25-year old white youth. He was the first one arrested. He was in the vicinity of a multi-storied building, near the scene where President Kennedy and Texas Governor Connally were shot. On the fourth or fifth floor--it has never been completely determined on which floor of that building--four empty cartridges were found." This was, according to what the public would soon be told, the wrong number of cartridges...on the wrong floor. The arrested man, moreover, was quickly released.  

And NBC was no better... NBC anchorman Frank McGee, after showing his viewers a photo of a sniper rifle being removed from the book depository, reported "The best we can make out now the President's motorcade had really traveled perhaps a few yards beyond this point and that the fatal shots that were fired were fired from behind and struck him in the back of the head." He then added "and then incongruously some way another bullet struck him in the front of the neck." Incongruously, the possibility there was more than one shooter was not to be discussed.   

Meanwhile, America's newspapers only added to the confusion. An 11-22-63 UPI article by Merriman Smith, who would win the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting, claimed Governor "Connally was hit in the head and back," at the same time CBS was telling its viewers Connally had multiple chest wounds. Neither report was accurate, of course. An 11-22 article rushed out for the Dallas Times Herald, moreover, reported both that "Bullets apparently came from a high-powered rifle in a building at Houston and Elm" and that a witness said: "the motorcade had just turned onto Houston Street from Main Street when a shot rang out. Pigeons flew up from the street. Then, two more shots rang out and Mr. Kennedy fell to the floor of the car. The shots seemed to come from the extension of Elm Street from just beyond the Texas School Book Depository Building..." Hmmm... Someone reading this article would quite possibly have concluded the President was shot by more than one assassin while riding on Houston Street. 

On the other side of the world, The Christchurch Star reported "Three bursts of gunfire, apparently from automatic weapons, were heard."

Closer to home, as Air Force One soared back to Washington, Mrs. Kennedy was offered the choice of having her husband's autopsy performed at Walter Reed Army Hospital or Bethesda Naval Hospital. She chose Bethesda as the place where the questions would be answered. This proved to be a mistake. The hospital at Bethesda proved as inadequate at performing forensic autopsies as America's newspapers proved at reporting accurate information regarding the President's wounds. 

And let's not forget the magazines... The Contents section of U.S. News and World Report in 1963 claimed that each issue reached the streets the Monday before its street date, after having gone to press the Friday before that. Its first articles on the assassination were in its 12-2-63 issue. This, then, suggests that these articles were written on the 22nd, just after the shooting and just as the magazine was going to press. 

And they show it... U.S. News' initial article on the shooting was seriously short on facts, or at least the facts as most have come to know them. It declared "The assassin killed President Kennedy with a single shot from a powerful .30 caliber rifle. The bullet struck in the neck and emerged from the back of the head." Yes, this is what one of the top magazines in the country was telling its readers as long as 10 days after the shooting. And yet, confused as these early accounts were, they were consistent on one thing--there was only one shooter. Not only did this article declare there was but one "assassin" before the writers of the article could possibly know anything about Lee Harvey Oswald (soon to be the sole suspect, who was never even mentioned in the magazine), but a companion piece on the motorcade announced in its title "A Thousand Well-Wishers--And One Assassin." 

 

[Ron Bulman]

2 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

James Jenkins mentions this in Cold Shoulder.  Says Humes and Finck started to examine a small (entrance?) wound in the temple hairline.   Humes was called to the gallery by JFK's personal Physician Navy Admiral Burke.  Humes returned to the table, they moved on elsewhere with the exam and never returned.

 

Wonder if Burke conferred with or was advised by the cigar smoking Airforce General and JFK hater Lemay also identified as present?

[Tony Krome]

1 hour ago, Pat Speer said:

No such wound was observed at Parkland, Ron. I've studied all the statements of all the Parkland doctors, and none of them said they saw a small entrance wound by the temple. 

My notes from years back;

Dr. Robert McClelland told the ARRB that Dr. Marion Thomas "Pepper" Jenkins told him; "Bob, there's a wound in the left temple"

McClelland reported a gunshot wound to the left temple;

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=946#relPageId=551&tab=page

McClelland then recounts a later conversation with "Pepper" Jenkins;

I said Pepper, don't you remember?

No, I never said that, Bob, and I never said the cerebellum fell out.

Well, yes, you did, too

Also;

Dr. Ronald Coy Jones told the ARRB that Neurosurgeon Lito Puerto told him in reference to a shot in the left temple "I put my finger in the hole"

[Paul Jolliffe]

Tony,

While it is certainly possible there was an entrance wound in the left temple, I can't help but wonder if it is at least possible that in the confusion of the moment, with the president lying on the table face up, some observers may have mistaken a wound on the right side of the head for a wound on the left side. After all, when someone is facing us, their right side is to our left.

Now this doesn't seem very likely with trained, competent medical professionals, but it might explain the observations of the priest, Oscar Huber, who, after performing the last rites on the president, then later stated that the president had a terrible wound of the left temple. 

If Puerto really put his finger in a hole in the president's left temple, then that wound has remained remarkably hidden in all of the official records. I find that awfully unlikely. 

(But not impossible.)