Parkland Press Conference Transcript-Kilduff-1327-B

[Pat Speer]

Although Dr. Jenkins in his later years apparently forgot pointing to Kennedy's left temple while discussing his wounds, he offered an explanation for McClelland's  statement to Dr. Lattimer in 1979.

A 2-9-79 letter from Dr. Marion Jenkins to Dr. John Lattimer fills in the rest of the story: "You will recall the big commotion stirred by Mr. Garrison, the District Attorney of New Orleans, who was trying to bring to trial conspirators whom he named. One of his statements which was repeatedly quoted was that bullets entering the President's body came from more than one direction. After much publicity was given to this thesis, I learned from a member of his staff that for indirect reasons he was expecting me to be the primary witness for the fact that the shots came from at least two directions. Apparently Mr. Garrison or members of his staff, in going over the many reports made to the Warren Commission or elsewhere, found that Dr. Robert N. McClelland, a member of the surgical staff who arrived in the trauma room after resuscitation efforts were well under way, asked me what were the President's injuries. Evidently, just as I answered, '...and a gunshot wound to his head,' I moved my left hand so as to place my left middle finger on the President's temporal artery in feeling for a pulse. Dr. McClelland tells me he thought I moved my hand there and with a finger indicated the site of a bullet entrance, and I believe he offered this in testimony at some point. After I recounted this to the representative from Mr. Garrison's office I was asked for no further testimony." 

 

Now, to be clear, I don't buy this. I think that Jenkins was trying to get McClelland off the hook for mistaking left for right. I mean, think of it. NONE of the Parkland doctors saw a small entrance anywhere on the head. They saw one big wound and thought this to be a wound of entrance and exit, or an exit connected to an entrance wound in the throat.  And yet McClelland said the wound was "of the left temple."

Now I know many would like to believe he was saying there was an entrance there, but why would he note a small entrance he never saw and not say ONE WORD in his report about the giant gaping hole he supposedly studied?

Now I know some would like to believe doctors list presumed wounds of entrance in their reports but I assure you this isn't true. Doctors are trained to report what they personally observed. And then there's the "of."  McClelland said the wound was "of the left temple." When I got sucked into this in '03-'05 I spent many a day at the UCLA Bio-Med Library studying forensics journals, and read hundreds if not thousands of wound descriptions. And not once in that time that I recall did I read a description of a small entrance wound in which it was described as "a wound of the forehead," "a wound of the right jaw," etc. They were described as entrance wounds "in" or "on" an anatomical location, not "of" a large general area.

Well, this "of" signifies to me that this wound was a large wound in a general area that McClelland couldn't specify.

And this leads me to believe he was describing the large head wound shown in the autopsy photos...and confused left with right. (In most circumstances, doctors look at their patients from the front, and have an inverse relationship with the patient. A wound by the doctors' left hand is a wound on the right side of the patient, etc. Well, the thought occurs that McClelland got used to remembering his patients' wounds in this way, but then forgot he didn't need to make an adjustment due to his standing at the head of the table, looking down on the president.)

 

Note: I reconsider this position in a subsequent post. 

Edited April 10, 2019 by Pat Speer

[Micah Mileto]

On 4/9/2019 at 7:23 PM, Pat Speer said:

 

I should quote this part from the 8/27/1998 ARRB interview of Charles Baxter, Ronald Coy Jones, Robert M. Mclelland, Malcom Perry, and Paul C. Peters:

DR. JONES: I was on his left side below the arm looking to my right I could easily see the neck wound I could not see in much detail the posterior wound, but did not see any flap of skull or anything laying out to the right side I saw relaxation of the facial tissues & perhaps of the hair, and I remained on the President's right side during the entire resuscitation attempt.

MR. GUNN: Did you ever go around and observe the left side?

DR. JONES: Left side. Excuse, I was on the left side.

MR. GUNN: Okay.

DR. JONES: Was I saying right side?

MR. GUNN: So all of your view was of the left side?

DR. JONES: All my view was from the President's left side.

MR. GUNN: Okay. Did you ever go around and observe the right side of the -

DR. JONES: I did not go around to the right side.

MR. GUNN: Could you observe any posterior wound on -- of the head from the left side where you were?

DR. JONES: At one point after we had completed the insertion of the test tubes, IV, and tracheotomy, I looked up over the top of the President's head and from that view was all that I saw. But with him flat on the table, I could not appreciate the size of that wound but did not see a lot of skull or brain tissue on the table, some maybe, but not just a tremendous amount and certainly did not see a flap turned on the right side.

MR GUNN: Were you yourself able to identify any cerebellum or cerebrum tissue on the table?

DR. JONES: If there was I thought -- from my vantage point, I thought that it was a very small amount.

MR. GUNN: And were you able to identify one form of brain tissue versus another?

DR. JONES: No -

MR GUNN: Okay.

DR JONES: - but I did see the very small wound which I thought was an entrance wound to the head. That was pretty clear.

 

[...]

 

DR. McCLELLAND: Let me just tell you that Paul brought it up.
Dr. Jenkins, when I came in the room, told me as I walked by to come up to the head of the table and he said , Bob, there's a wound in the left temple there. And so I went to the table and I thought, you know, knowing nothing else about any of the circumstances, that's like that (indicating).
 

MR. GUNN: Just for the record, you're pointing in with your -
 

DR. McCLELLAND: Yeah, the left temple -
 

MR. GUNN: -- finger at the left temple and now the back o the head.
 

DR. McCLELLAND: -- came out the back. And there was a lot of blood on the left temple. There was blood everywhere, but there was a lot of blood on the left temple, so I didn't question that. And in fact, in something else -- Pepper testified somewhere else, he denied that he said that to me in the Warren Commission. And I told him -- 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, but I didn't argue with him.
But the upshot of it is what that led to was Mr. Garrison's case in New Orleans, and he put together a scenario where he thought someone -- because of what I had said about the left temple bullet -- was in the storm sewer on the left side of the car and fired this bullet that killed the President, another gunman. He didn't say that Oswald was not there. He just said there was another gunman. And so he never contact -- Garrison never contacted me until it was essentially time to have the case in court.
 

DR. PETERS: Clay Shaw.
 

DR. McCLELLAND: Right. And so I got a call one morning and it was from his office -- one of the people in Garrison's office, and he wanted to know if I would come to New Orleans and testify. And I said, Well, you know, it's odd that none of you had talked to me before this. I've been hearing something about it on television and whatnot. And they said, Well, we assumed that you still believed that the course of the bullet was as you said in your written testimony right after, and I said no. And his voice went up about three octaves and he said, What? And I said no, and I explained to him that I had learned other things about the circumstances at the time and that Jenkins had told me I didn't see any wound here. I was just stating what I had been told and that I wrote that down in my written statement right after the assassination. And so that was -- kind of took the wind out of the sails in that particular prosecution.
 

DR. JONES: I have two comments relating to this, what's just been said and my comment. The afternoon of the assassination we were up in the OR and Lito Puerto -- I think it's L-i-t-o, Puerto, P-u-e-r-t-o -- was in the OR -
 

DR. PETERS: Neurosurgeon..
 

DR. JONES: -- and he said he was -- that he referred to the President -- because he had been down there and he said, I put my -- he was shot in the leg. I said, he was shot in the left temple. He said, I put my finger in the hole, and I think that was part of --
 

DR. McCLELLAND: I never heard that. That's news to me.
 

DR. JONES: And so -- in fact, I told Mr. Haron the other day -- I gave him Lito Puerto's name and his telephone number. I said you know if you're going to have the group down here, why don't you get Puerto down here to clarify that comment, if indeed that were the case or it's not the case But I think that was part of where some of that came from. The other comment that -- to clarify what I said regarding Arlen Specter, I'm saying [sic] that he pressured me because that was after the testimony that I had given. I think what he was implying was that -
 

DR. PERRY: Discretion.

 

[...]

 

DR. McCLELLAND: When did Lito say he did that?
 

DR. JONES: It was that afternoon.
 

DR. McCLELLAND: That afternoon.
 

DR. JONES: It was my -- it was that afternoon, and I believe we were upstairs, but he had mentioned that he had put his finger into the -- and he was sort of known as the guy that went down and put his fingers in missile -or bullet --
 

DR. PETERS: Brains.

DR. JONES: -- wounds, and that was his comment at the time.

DR. PETERS: where's he practicing now?

DR. BAXTER: Arlington.

DR. JONES: I believe he's in Arlington. I don't know if he's in active practice but he's listed -- still listed in the state medical association.

DR. BAXTER: He is. He's still in practice.

Edited April 10, 2019 by Micah Mileto

[Tony Krome]

McClelland was told before he stood at the head of the table;

McClelland; Dr. Jenkins, when I came in the room, told me as I walked by to come up to the head of the table and he said , Bob, there's a wound in the left temple there.

Jenkins has the left temple in mind;

Dr. JENKINS to Specter; I asked you a little bit ago if there was a wound in the left temporal area, right above the zygomatic bone in the hairline because there was blood there and I thought there might have been a wound there (indicating).

So McClelland sees Jenkin's finger over the temporal area, which may be the left as mentioned above;

Dr. JENKINS to Dr. John Lattimer; Dr. Robert N. McClelland, a member of the surgical staff who arrived in the trauma room after resuscitation efforts were well under way, asked me what were the President's injuries. Evidently, just as I answered, '...and a gunshot wound to his head,' I moved my left hand so as to place my left middle finger on the President's temporal artery in feeling for a pulse. Dr. McClelland tells me he thought I moved my hand there and with a finger indicated the site of a bullet entrance

 

[Micah Mileto]

3 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

 

There is also this part of Jenkins' WC testimony - in which he described "feeling" the left temple, while also believing there "may have been" an entry wound there.

Mr. SPECTER - Did you observe any wounds immediately below the massive loss of skull which you have described?

Dr. JENKINS - On the right side?

Mr. SPECTER - Yes, sir.

Dr. JENKINS - No---I don't know whether this is right or not, but I thought there was a wound on the left temporal area, right in the hairline and right above the zygomatic process.

Mr. SPECTER - The autopsy report discloses no such development, Dr. Jenkins.

Dr. JENKINS - Well, I was feeling for---I was palpating here for a pulse to see whether the closed chest cardiac massage was effective or not and this probably was some blood that had come from the other point and so I thought there was a wound there also.

 

[...]

 

Mr. SPECTER - Have you ever changed any of your original opinions in connection with the wounds received by President Kennedy?

Dr. JENKINS - I guess so. The first day I had thought because of his pneumothorax, that his wound must have gone--that the one bullet must have traversed his pleura, must have gotten into his lung cavity, his chest cavity, I mean, and from what you say now, I know it did not go that way. I thought it did.

Mr. SPECTER - Aside from that opinion, now, have any of your other opinions about the nature of his wounds or the sources of the wounds been changed in any way?

Dr. JENKINS - No; one other. I asked you a little bit ago if there was a wound in the left temporal area, right above the zygomatic bone in the hairline because there was blood there and I thought there might have been a wound there (indicating).

Mr. SPECTER - Indicating the left temporal area?

Dr. JENKINS - Yes; the left temporal, which could have been a point of entrance and exit here (indicating), but you have answered that for me. This was my only other question about it.

Mr. SPECTER - So, that those two points are the only ones on which your opinions have been changed since the views you originally formulated?

Dr. JENKINS - Yes, I think so.

Mr. SPECTER - On the President's injuries?

Dr. JENKINS - Yes, I think so.

 

Edited April 10, 2019 by Micah Mileto

[Pat Speer]

Thanks, Micah, for the refresher. I'd forgot about Jenkins admitting he'd actually suspected there was a hole on the left temple. As a consequence, it appears that I was the one who was trying to help McClelland save face. 

To report a large gunshot wound widely observed on the right side of the head as a wound "of the left temple" simply because another doctor said he thought there was an entrance wound there is just mind-bogglingly incompetent. I can't over-stress how bad this was. 

Having more recently realized the mind-boggling incompetence of the Dallas Police, the FBI, the Secret Service, and the Warren Commission, however, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. 

P.S. Did Porto/Puerto ever give an interview or write a report in which all this stuff about him putting his finger in a left temple wound was documented? I looked at this some years ago, and looked at a bit more the other day, and don't recall there being evidence he was even in the room. Was he supposedly by Clark's side a la Grossman? And, if so, why didn't Clark or Grossman recall his sticking his finger in a bullet hole?

 

Edited April 10, 2019 by Pat Speer

[Ron Bulman]

From James Jenkins At The Cold Shoulder Of History.   "I am sure he was present in the morgue before the brain was removed because the brain was still in the cranium when he, Dr. Finck and Dr. Humes found the Right Temple Wound".  Pg. 129.

Pg. 16.  "Dr. Finck and Humes started examining the head wounds.  They found a small wound on the Right side of the head in the Temporal area Just Forward and Slightly Above the Right Ear.  The small hole was rounded and about the size of the tip of one's little finger." …  "During the examination of the temple wound, Dr. Humes was called to the gallery to talk to one of the people the people who had come into the morgue with him and who seemed to be directing the autopsy. I later was told this was Dr. George C. Burley (Admiral), the President's persona physician.  Dr. Humes returned to the table and immediately Dr. Finck away from the small wound in the temple to the large posterior head wound."

On page 154 the well credentialed and respected, even esteemed among many colleagues, Dr. Michael Chesser explains in the chapter he wrote on examining the s-rays in the National Archives his perspective of this.  Which I believe supports the little I've read of Doug Horne.  Tiny bits of metal emanating from this point to larger pieces in a wider spectrum encompassing the outer portions of the large exit wound in the rear.  Just my understanding of what I think they are saying.  

Then there was the mortician, Tom Robinson filling it with wax.  As I've read elsewhere, in this thread, though I've not searched for the source yet tonight.

 

[Pat Speer]

16 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

From James Jenkins At The Cold Shoulder Of History.   "I am sure he was present in the morgue before the brain was removed because the brain was still in the cranium when he, Dr. Finck and Dr. Humes found the Right Temple Wound".  Pg. 129.

Pg. 16.  "Dr. Finck and Humes started examining the head wounds.  They found a small wound on the Right side of the head in the Temporal area Just Forward and Slightly Above the Right Ear.  The small hole was rounded and about the size of the tip of one's little finger." …  "During the examination of the temple wound, Dr. Humes was called to the gallery to talk to one of the people the people who had come into the morgue with him and who seemed to be directing the autopsy. I later was told this was Dr. George C. Burley (Admiral), the President's persona physician.  Dr. Humes returned to the table and immediately Dr. Finck away from the small wound in the temple to the large posterior head wound."

On page 154 the well credentialed and respected, even esteemed among many colleagues, Dr. Michael Chesser explains in the chapter he wrote on examining the s-rays in the National Archives his perspective of this.  Which I believe supports the little I've read of Doug Horne.  Tiny bits of metal emanating from this point to larger pieces in a wider spectrum encompassing the outer portions of the large exit wound in the rear.  Just my understanding of what I think they are saying.  

Then there was the mortician, Tom Robinson filling it with wax.  As I've read elsewhere, in this thread, though I've not searched for the source yet tonight.

 

Chesser's proposed entrance location is on the forehead, inches away from the tiny wound observed by Robinson--who had seen plenty of bullet holes and who repeatedly stressed that this wasn't a bullet hole--and even further away from where Jenkins believes he saw a wound. 

[Tony Krome]

I just watched the very first interview with witness Bill Newman, and he points to his left temple

"hit the President in the side of his temple"

Edited April 13, 2019 by Tony Krome

[Ray Mitcham]

Probably, because he was safely holding his toddler son with his right hand, and the interviewer was holding the microphone close to his right arm, Tony.

Edited April 12, 2019 by Ray Mitcham

[Tony Krome]

5 minutes ago, Ray Mitcham said:

Probably, because he was safely holding his toddler son with his right hand, Tony.

Maybe, but still he said temple. If you read this whole thread, there is a couple of doctors and one priest that mention the left temple.

[Micah Mileto]

Was McClelland's hospital report public knowledge on 11/30/1963? If not, this news report may be based on exclusive information:

 

11/30/1963 St. Louis Post-Dispatch - UNCERTAINTIES REMAIN DESPITE POLICE VIEW OF KENNEDY DEATH – Did Assailant Have an Accomplice? By Richard Dudman, A Washington Correspondent of the Post-Dispatch

 

Hole in Windshield

 

Another unexplained circumstance is a small hole in the windshield of the presidential limousine. This correspondent and one other man saw the hole, which resembled a bullet hole, as the automobile stood at the hospital emergency entrance while the President was being treated inside the building.

 

The Secret Service kept possession of the automobile and flew it back to Washington. A spokesman for the agency rejected a request to inspect the vehicle here. He declined to discuss any hole there might be in the windshield.

 

There have been two other reports of injury to the President’s head. One of the physicians who attended him in Dallas said afterward that he had noticed a small entry wound in the left temple. Another person, who saw the President’s body a ‘few minutes after he died,’ told the Post-Dispatch he thought he had observed a wound in the President’s forehead. He asked that his name not be used. Reports of the temple and forehead wounds could have referred to the same injury.

 

Another unexplained circumstance is a small hole in the windshield of the presidential limousine. This correspondent and one other man saw the hole, which resembled a bullet hole, as the automobile stood at the hospital emergency entrance while the President was being treated inside the building. The Secret Service kept possession of the automobile and flew it back to Washington. A spokesman for the agency rejected a request to inspect the vehicle here. He declined to discuss any hole there might be in the windshield.

[Pat Speer]

10 hours ago, Micah Mileto said:

Was McClelland's hospital report public knowledge on 11/30/1963? If not, this news report may be based on exclusive information:

 

11/30/1963 St. Louis Post-Dispatch - UNCERTAINTIES REMAIN DESPITE POLICE VIEW OF KENNEDY DEATH – Did Assailant Have an Accomplice? By Richard Dudman, A Washington Correspondent of the Post-Dispatch

 

Hole in Windshield

 

Another unexplained circumstance is a small hole in the windshield of the presidential limousine. This correspondent and one other man saw the hole, which resembled a bullet hole, as the automobile stood at the hospital emergency entrance while the President was being treated inside the building.

 

The Secret Service kept possession of the automobile and flew it back to Washington. A spokesman for the agency rejected a request to inspect the vehicle here. He declined to discuss any hole there might be in the windshield.

 

There have been two other reports of injury to the President’s head. One of the physicians who attended him in Dallas said afterward that he had noticed a small entry wound in the left temple. Another person, who saw the President’s body a ‘few minutes after he died,’ told the Post-Dispatch he thought he had observed a wound in the President’s forehead. He asked that his name not be used. Reports of the temple and forehead wounds could have referred to the same injury.

 

Another unexplained circumstance is a small hole in the windshield of the presidential limousine. This correspondent and one other man saw the hole, which resembled a bullet hole, as the automobile stood at the hospital emergency entrance while the President was being treated inside the building. The Secret Service kept possession of the automobile and flew it back to Washington. A spokesman for the agency rejected a request to inspect the vehicle here. He declined to discuss any hole there might be in the windshield.

Dudman, of course, followed up on this and talked to McClelland, and McClelland told him there was nothing on the body to indicate a shot had come from anywhere other than behind.

P.S. The witness thinking he saw a wound on the forehead was almost certainly Father Oscar Huber.

Edited April 13, 2019 by Pat Speer

[Tony Krome]

There was this published on the 23rd, the next day;

"I could see a hole in the President’s left temple"

Supposedly stated by witness Norman Similas, but dismissed by many as possibly not in Dealey Plaza

The thing with this statement is that if its concocted, he chose to describe the "left temple" as a possible point of entry over any other possible areas of the head. So maybe he heard something about the left temple between the time of the assassination and the time of publication the following day

Edited April 13, 2019 by Tony Krome

[Ray Mitcham]

18 hours ago, Tony Krome said:

Maybe, but still he said temple. If you read this whole thread, there is a couple of doctors and one priest that mention the left temple.

Agreed, Tony, but as he was describing it, he said the President was directly along side them when the shot from behind hit the President in the temple. JFK would have had to have been turning almost full circle rearwards to his right, for it to have hit him in the left temple. However, I don't dispute that there may have been wound in JFK's left temple.

[John Butler]

8 hours ago, Tony Krome said:

There was this published on the 23rd, the next day;

"I could see a hole in the President’s left temple"

Supposedly stated by witness Norman Similas, but dismissed by many as possibly not in Dealey Plaza

The thing with this statement is that if its concocted, he chose to describe the "left temple" as a possible point of entry over any other possible areas of the head. So maybe he heard something about the left temple between the time of the assassination and the time of publication the following day

Let's see.  President Kennedy was shot in the head how many times?

1.  Shot in the left temple

2.  Shot in the right temple

3.  Shot in the right forehead near the hairline

4.  Shot from the back with blows out the side and top of his skull

5.  Shot from the front which blows out the rear of his skull

Isn't this a bit ridiculous?  If this is true then would there be any skull left?

Can you see the artwork?  Where is most of JFK's head?

 

It's just my opinion which has about as much weight as anyone's opinion is that No. 3 and No. 5 are the head wounds. 

Edited April 13, 2019 by John Butler